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1.
“let’s all pick which our favorite picture is and show it to engenes!” jungwon proposes cheerfully.
beside him, sunoo exclaims in agreement and passes the ipad to him as a staff member offers it.
“shall we start with jungwon?”
jungwon sighs long, taking the ipad hesitantly. he had equal love for all of his hyungs and his dongsaeng, and sometimes it was hard to evenly distribute it to them when he had so much to give all at once. jungwon almost wanted to just say he liked everyone’s photo, to be fair, since he knew once he came home heeseung and jay would pout that he didn’t pick either of them.
(jungwon would always blatantly choose jay, but perhaps the bleach and hair dye was getting to the older and affecting his brain because he never seemed to notice).
but alas, he would ultimately have to make a decision, and so he safely goes with sunoo.
the older is delighted, laughing loudly once hearing sunghoon’s teasing disagreement. the ipad is passed onto him next.
jungwon giggles when the older smiles cheekily at him and shows off his picture to the camera. he resists the urge to pinch his hyung’s pillowy cheek and settles for snuggling into his side instead to show his gratitude.
then the ipad is handed over to jake, and jungwon leans forward in anticipation. he had a hunch, and even though he and jake were almost like brothers in their closeness, jake was sometimes unpredictable. nevertheless, jungwon’s gut has never failed him.
grinning brightly, he dutifully claps when jake settles on sunghoon’s close-up picture.
“i seriously like this one. sunghoon is really great at posing for the camera!” the australian says, looking beside him at the blushing raven-head. (sadly his raven hair was yet to be revealed and was currently obstructed with a bright yellow beanie given to him by none other than jake himself).
“hyung is a face genius!” jungwon comments kindly, sunoo nodding beside him. and as he glances over to the comments, his heart warms at the way the fans agrees with him as well. he felt happiest when his members were getting the recognition they deserve.
“okay, lets move on!” sunoo chirps.
when the ipad is finally passed onto sunghoon, jungwon leans forward further, almost putting all of his weight onto sunoo who smiles at him curiously and pets his arm.
“hm,” the tallest hums. jungwon muffles a giggle.
sunghoon had already made his pick way before jungwon had shared his, this the younger knew. but he would let his hyung pretend for the sake of letting him keep his pride.
“honestly,” sunghoon starts. “i really really like this one.”
jungwon looks fondly over at jake who falls back in a fit of giggles, bashful. the picture sunghoon had chosen was one of him, and jungwon purses his lips in an attempt to stop from rolling his eyes.
this did not come as a surprise to anyone, and especially not to sunoo who tuts playfully beside him.
“but these two always pick each other!” the older says. he and jungwon make eye contact knowingly.
jake continues giggling and sunghoon laughs loudly. “what do you mean!” he says, his right cheek dimpled and voice honey sweet.
jungwon pretends not to see sunghoon’s arm coming to wrap around the width of jakes waist, hidden from the camera but blatant on both boy’s glowing faces.
later into the live, they fill up each other’s profile boards.
“what are jake hyung’s likes?” sunoo wonders out loud. sunghoon quickly goes to mention jake’s beloved puppy layla.
“oh, that’s right! layla, put layla.” jungwon instructs sunoo, and the older writes it down diligently, the tangy smell of the marker ink invading jungwon’s nose. he crinkles it, then perks up.
“and then write down sunghoon hyung,” he says next.
he looks up and smiles playfully at the aforementioned hyung and sunghoon shuts his eyes, his soft grin containing exasperation with poorly concealed embarrassment.
sunoo writes it down snickering quietly to himself.
2.
“oh right!”
jungwon perks up, looking away from the comments and whipping around to smile at jake. “hyung, they want to know if you really ended up buying sunghoon hyung the shoes you promised him.”
“oh, i forgot about that!” jake says, and he and sunghoon lock eyes. the taller of the two looks down shyly. jake giggles and sunghoon answers for him, “yes, he bought them for me.”
“wahhhh,” everyone collectively exclaims.
“they were expensive too!” jay says, and jungwon quirks a brow at the knowing smile playing at his lips. he makes a mental note to go bother him about it later.
“so cool!” jungwon claps. then he turns abruptly to stare into sunghoon’s eyes, soft and still hyper focused on the australian member’s giggly pink face.
“what did you think about the shoes, hyung?” jungwon asks, smiling brightly as sunghoon’s face falls in the realization that he was live and in front of a million people watching.
“uh,” says the taller.
“they were so cool, right?” heeseung rushes to intervene, flitting his eyes back and forth from the managers and the camera, then to sunghoon and jake.
“i wasn’t even serious when i said i wanted them, but he really got them for me.” sunghoon says, quiet smile on his face slowly blooming into a grin as jake laughs and tries to divert the attention onto something else, shy.
at home a few hours later, jungwon startles realizing that the dorm was suspiciously quiet.
getting up from his place on jay’s lap, he smiles automatically at the older’s whine. “where are you going, wonie?”
“i’m gonna go check on everybody. i’ll be back, hyung.” he says, patting the older’s blond head. jay looks up at him with pouty lips and wide eyes beneath his glasses.
he giggles, pressing a kiss onto his cheek. “ten minutes, and then i’m done. i promise,”
jay huffs but jungwon doesn’t miss the pink of his ears and the reddening of his face. “fine, but i’m not pausing the show as punishment for leaving me here to watch it alone.”
rolling his eyes fondly, jungwon pats jay’s head before he walks away and towards the kitchen.
as he gets nearer, hushed whispers of two different voices start to get more decipherable and he furrows his brows in confusion. once he steps foot into the kitchen the whispers stop and he stares at the two people crouched on the floor, looking up at him with wide, nervous eyes.
“ni-ki? heeseung-hyung?” he says incredulously, eyes darting to what his members were fussing over and he gasps. “what happened to sunghoon-hyung’s shoes?”
ni-ki shushes him furiously, head moving to look behind him to see if anyone was there.
“be quiet, jungwon-hyung! he could be awake!” he hisses.
jungwon blinks at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish before he looks to the eldest and silently asks him to explain.
heeseung smiles sheepishly, picking the shoes up to reveal a large stain on the front of the left shoe.
feeling his temples start to ache, jungwon sighs heavily.
“please tell me you can fix that.” he says, exasperated.
“we can, and we will.” the eldest assures, grinning widely and with way too much confidence for someone who would meet his demise under sunghoon’s wrath in the morning. “because you’re gonna help us.”
snorting, jungwon starts to shake his head vehemently. “yeah, no, i’m not getting involved in this. sunghoon-hyung will literally murder you. those shoes were from jake-hyung! i’m not gonna be there to see his reaction when he sees the shoes that came from someone he......” he pauses.
“wait a minute.” he says, eyes narrowing.
heeseung looks at him, confused, and ni-ki pipes up. “what’s wrong, jungwon-hyung?”
jungwon claps his hands, smiling brightly down at the confused pair. “this is perfect! i am so getting involved in this!”
“but, you just said-,” heeseung starts, and is promptly ignored as jungwon skips away and back into the living room.
the eldest and youngest stare blankly at his disappearing silhouette before slowly facing each other.
“hyung, do you think he’s gonna snitch on us?”
“nah, he wouldn’t.”
after a few seconds, the two look back down at the shoes again. heeseung chuckles nervously, “right...?”
heeseung was not right.
“this is a really dark stain, hyung!”
the eldest and youngest wince simultaneously at the anger in sunghoon’s voice.
“we’re sorry! we didn’t notice they were right under the table, we didn’t mean to spill coffee all over them!” ni-ki whines.
sighing, sunghoon runs a hand through his hair and the pair is struck by the look on his face. even when angry, the former skater was still so strikingly handsome. but more than that, he seemed to be way more upset about something else.
“ni-ki, i know it was an accident. i’m sorry for yelling. i can get them cleaned anyway. its just that,” he says, cutting himself off with a deep intake of breath.
“its nothing, nevermind. i’m sorry for being dramatic about a pair of shoes,” he trails off at the end. “just a pair of shoes really.” he whispers.
heeseung sits beside him, grabbing his hand. the youngest sits on the other side of him and hugs his waist before burrowing into his shoulder. “we’re sorry, hyung,” ni-ki mumbles, nuzzling his cheek apologetically.
“hoonie, we’ll get them cleaned for you. its the least we could do,” the eldest says.
“thank you, hyung.” sunghoon smiles at him, and the three snuggle on the couch for a while before heeseung speaks up again.
“sunghoon-ah, you love jaeyun a lot, don’t you.”
the younger stutters. “ah hyung, what kinda question is that so suddenly?”
“please, everybody knows. you and jake-hyung are the only ones that don’t!” ni-ki snickers, pouts after getting hit gently on the head by the eldest.
“sunghoon-ah.” heeseung continues. “why were you so upset that the shoes got dirty?”
the younger bites his lip. heeseung could tell he knew why, but sunghoon was the type to shy away from these kinds of feelings and especially because they were directed towards his closest friend. this was surely not the easiest predicament to handle, and so heeseung was determined to help the younger.
“because i was gonna wear them tomorrow.” sunghoon mutters.
heeseung smiles at him and pets his head tenderly before saying, “that’s not true. you’re matching with jongseong tomorrow which means you’ll wear a black pair, and those shoes were white. come on, you can be honest with us.”
the younger whines, pulling away from him and instead going to hide in ni-ki’s neck, the youngest more than happy to wrap his hyung in his arms with a smile. “yeah hyungie! we aren’t snitches like wonie-hyung.”
this sends the three into a fit of giggles before sunghoon says, “i’m telling him you said that.” to which the younger cries out as he brings them both down onto the floor, and heeseung watches them with a soft smile.
sunghoon would talk to them when he was ready. and maybe after that he would finally talk to jake, too. so heeseung would step back for now.
and maybe go find jungwon to pinch his tiny ear for telling on them.
3.
“jake hyung was really scary last night.”
sunghoon’s head whips up from his phone.
“oh? what happened?” from across the table, jay tilts his head in question. jungwon places his half eaten sandwich on his plate.
“it was so creepy. he was asleep, and then he sat up all of a sudden. it scared me so much i just stared at him until he eventually laid back down, and i was so creeped out.”
“what?” two voices simultaneously ask, one incredulously and the other in concern. jake and sunghoon look at each other and giggle at their synchronization before looking back over to the younger.
“are you serious, wonie? don’t lie!” jake exclaims, hands flying to his head as his eyes and mouth go round.
“no, it really happened! i’m not lying hyung! were you dreaming or something? i could hear you mumbling but i couldn’t make out the words. it was seriously so weird,” jungwon says, laughing loudly and jake joins him.
“what the hell! i can’t believe i’m doing it again! you should’ve filmed me or something!”
jay cackles, looking at the pair still giggling to each other. he turns to the other person in the room and lifts his brows curiously when he sees sunghoon is dead silent with a serious look on his face.
“hoon, whats up?” he asks, hand going to nudge the taller’s thigh. sunghoon sighs and proceeds to place a piece of meat onto jake’s plate.
“it’s happening again?” he asks in a low voice, brows furrowed and jake looks over at him, shrugging.
the older smiles sheepishly at him. “i guess it is. think its because comeback is coming, no big deal,” he chirps.
“jaeyunie,” sunghoon tsks, face and voice turning stern but oddly enough still so soft, eyes never leaving jake’s face. “why didn’t you tell me?”
“i’m okay, sunghoon-ah! i’ve been taking care of you guys haven’t i?” the older says, laughing cheerfully.
sunghoon gives him a tender smile. “you have to take care of yourself too. what’s gonna happen to us if you get sick, hm?” he reaches a hand across the table to pat jake’s head, and the older playfully rolls his eyes at him.
“that won’t ever happen, because i have you to nag at me like this all the time.”
sunghoon pinches his cheek. “naughty. i’m sleeping with you tonight.”
jungwon and jay sit and stare as the two then continue to talk about each of their days, looking to each other in exasperation before shaking their heads.
jungwon giggles behind his hand.
the young leader strains his ear for any kind of sound in the room later that night.
about an hour ago he had heard sunghoon get up quietly from his bed and crawl down to jake’s, so he had quickly abandoned his phone to pay attention to the two instead.
he wondered if it would finally happen, if his efforts wouldn’t go to waste one more time.
so far it had been just quiet murmuring coming from the pair. jungwon had been trying to decipher what they were saying but the two boys were talking in such soft voices that everthing just sounded like humming from all the way in his bed.
sighing dejectedly, the younger decides to close his eyes and let the two have their privacy. he would bother them with questions tomorrow.
just when he felt he was about to slip into a deep sleep, he hears the voices stop with a gasp and sheets being rustled, a quiet mumble then finally frantic footsteps climbing up the stairs to the upper bunks.
eyes shooting wide open, jungwon bites his hand to stop any involuntary noises from escaping his mouth.
had his hyungs just kissed?
4.
“sunoo-hyung, have you seen and jake and sunghoonie-hyung?”
sunoo looks up from his phone, taking his earbuds out. “did you say something?”
jungwon heaves a breath. “have you seen jake and hoon-hyung?” he repeats, chest moving up and down. “please, its really important that i know where they are,”
the older’s eyes widen and he stutters, hand motioning behind him. “s-sorry, they went out an hour ago to get lunch together. is something wrong?”
cursing, jungwon drops down onto the lounge’s sofa. “ughhhhhhh,”
mildly amused, sunoo sits down beside him and pats his head.
“wonie, yun-hyung and sunghoon-hyung have been kinda weird lately. do you know anything about that?” the older asks, voice lilting.
“ughhhhhhhhhhhh!” jungwon groans. he sits up and slouches, mouth pushing into a pout and eyebrows furrowing. “i’m so sick of them. why won’t they just-,”
sunoo quirks a brow, urging him to continue. jungwon then promptly explodes.
“why won’t they just quit dancing around each other and get it over with! every day that i have to spend trying to make the odds go as good as they can for both of them a strand of my hair becomes white!” his hands turn into fists by his sides as he yells up into the air.
blinking, sunoo stares at him with wide dumfounded eyes. “jungwon-ah!”
“sunny-hyung, i’m tired of it...” the younger cries. sunoo is quick to pull him into his arms and coo at him consolingly.
“oh no, baby. i thought you were used to it by now. those two idiots are never gonna get their shit together!”
sniffling, jungwon buries his face into sunoo’s shoulder and muffles a scream into the cashmere of his pink sweater. (it was ni-ki’s).
“i hate it! why are they so annoying and dumb! just love each other already!”
“don’t stress yourself too much over this, wonie! you already have so much on your plate. the idiots can handle this just fine, even if it is taking them ages...” sunoo grumbles, then he pulls back from the embrace but keeps his hands on the younger’s shoulders.
“they’re probably just eating somewhere in the building. for now, lets rest here while we wait to call everyone back up for practice, okay?” he says. jungwon pouts before sighing heavily and nodding.
“.....jake, come on, let’s talk about this.”
back straightening, jungwon peers over to the hallway and sees the two subjects of his despair walking briskly towards them.
sunoo winces. “oops. or not?”
“jake.” sunghoon calls, but the older stays quiet and walks over to where his bag sat on the couch. he picks it up and rummages inside, sunghoon following closely behind him with a pinched face.
“please, jake. let’s not ignore this any longer,” he pleads, and jake purses his lips before moving to brush past him. before he can do so, he’s pulled back into sunghoon’s chest, forcing him to look up at the taller with a sigh.
“can i just-,” he starts, voice trembling.
“i- can we please just not do this today? we have so much to do, i-i don’t- i can’t.” he mutters, eyes shutting close and head falling.
sunoo and jungwon stare at them wide wide eyes, holding their breaths as sunghoon reaches a hand up to jake’s cheek and brings his face back up, wanting the older’s eyes to look into his again.
“there’s still a few fours before practice. i just don’t want-.... i want you to understand. please,” the taller begs, earnest, desperate eyes gazing deep into jake’s misty ones.
they maintain eye contact for a few short seconds that felt like years to the two onlookers before jake releases a breath and nods meekly.
sunghoon smiles in relief. “thank you.”
he kisses his thumb and presses it into the older’s cheek. this brings a tiny smile onto jake’s face before he puts his bag back down and they both walk out of the lounge hand-in-hand.
sunoo and jungwon sit in silence for a while, and then the older speaks.
“huh..... i think it finally worked this time, jungwon-ah.”
they look at each other. jungwon topples sunoo over with a hug and a shrill screech.
+ 1
“we’re sorry we bothered you guys... i promise we’ll be better.” jake mutters.
jungwon claps happily, pulling his hyungs into a messy hug.
“its okay, hyungs! i’m just happy you both sorted everything out. it doesn’t matter that i lost 10 years of my lifespan trying to get you two together!” he says, all bright eyes and big smiles.
sunghoon chuckles at him as he ruffles his hair, pinching his cheek and then wrapping his arms around both him and jake. “thank you, wonie! hyungs appreciate your hard work. but now you can rest, okay?” he says, before leaning down to whisper into his ear.
“now it’s time to work on your own boy problems.”
the younger pulls back, affronted. jake giggles at him and he joins in as he makes a face at sunghoon, sticking his tongue out. “whatever. go kiss jake-hyung’s face. everyone knows how long you’ve been wanting to do so.”
the taller smirks, pulling his smaller boyfriend in close by his waist. “who says i haven’t already?”
“sunghoon-ah, please.” jake says, covering his red face.
sunoo cackles happily, heeseung and ni-ki joining in beside him.
“oh god, they’re even worse than before!” jay cries, and jungwon walks over to him, giggling.
“let them be, they’ve been holding back this whole time. there’ll be more of that in future!”
the blond groans, side-hugging jungwon and burying his face into his neck.
jake smiles at him knowingly. “oh, me and hoon are actually going out! date and all. we’ll let you know when we’ll be back, wonie!” he says, already pulling sunghoon towards the door by his arm and the taller flashes jungwon an exaggerated wink before they step out.
sunoo whistles, each of his hands grabbing one of the eldest’s and the youngest’s. “me, riki and seungie-hyung have to go get groceries! see you later wonie, jay-hyung. have fun! please don’t be like the other two and get to it quickly - alright, riki, jeez! - okay bye love you both!”
and they’re out the door.
jay picks his head up, sighing. jungwon hears the smile in his voice.
“that totally didn’t feel planned.”
“it was,” jungwon says, looking over to the older with a cheeky smile. “i planned it.”