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Yeonjun is used to chaos.

He’s raising four beagles, after all—or three beagles and a cat—and there’s never a true moment of peace in their dorm. Yeonjun walks into the living room and scoffs seeing Kai and Beomgyu chase each other around, or Taehyun and Soobin bickering. Chaos is normal for them. Loudness is comforting, in a sense, because it means everybody is happy.

Which is why when Yeonjun returns home from his solo practice to find all four of the other members sitting solemnly at the kitchen table, in complete silence, his heart drops to the pit of his stomach. Silence is weird. Seriousness, involving the whole group at once, is weird. These types of tense discussions normally only happen in private, one on one.

Whatever is going on must be grave, because not even Kai says hello to him when he walks in and drops his jacket by the door. “Um…”

“Take a seat, hyung,” Soobin says, ominously, and Yeonjun feels as if he has no choice but to listen. He sits down next to Beomgyu, who immediately gets up thereafter, and Yeonjun winces. Ouch. Evidently, something is up, so he tries not to take Beomgyu’s avoidance of him personally.

“What’s—”

“Soobin hyung has some news for us.” Taehyun crosses his arms. “But he insisted on waiting until you got home.”

“Oh.” So they haven’t even discussed anything yet. “You all look like someone died,” Yeonjun jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood, then regrets it when nobody else laughs along with him.

“It’s not that,” Kai huffs. He drums his fingers on the countertop, glancing at Soobin. “It’s those two.” He points two fingers at Soobin and Beomgyu; Beomgyu’s made his way over to Soobin’s side, brows furrowed. “They’re acting weird.”

“Not me!” Beomgyu protests. “He’s the one acting weird.” He slaps Soobin on the shoulder.

“It’s big news, okay? I might be a little nervous,” Soobin grumbles. Yeonjun’s ears perk up. News involving all of them? Or only Beomgyu and Soobin? Since Beomgyu seems to be in on the joke, or whatever it is that’s happening.

“If you aren’t going to spit it out, then—” Beomgyu begins.

“No, just. Ugh.” Soobin rakes his fingers down his face, groaning. “How do I put this?”

“Just tell them normally,” Beomgyu says.

“I don’t want to make things awkward—” Soobin protests.

“You’re making it awkward right now—”

“Guys,” Yeonjun says, nearing desperation out of sheer anxiety. Beomgyu’s cheeks flush and his eyes go wide when Yeonjun raises his voice, and Yeonjun distantly thinks oh, he’s so cute, but he probably shouldn’t be focusing on that right now.

“Right. Okay. Well.” Soobin takes a deep breath, massaging his temples. “The news is that Beomgyu and I are dating. That’s all. Carry on with your lives now please—”

“WHAT?” Kai screeches.

Yeonjun definitely shouldn’t be focusing on how cute Beomgyu is right now.

Ah, fuck.

If anyone were to ask if Yeonjun saw the signs in hindsight, he would lie through his teeth and say yes. He would joke about how obvious Soobin and Beomgyu were and how he gave them both ‘the talk’ on if they hurt one another. A good hyung is observant, after all.

It’s a load of bullshit and truthfully, Yeonjun feels like the single worst friend alive currently to have missed it. Like, he didn’t see it coming at all. In fact, he would’ve bet a hefty amount of money that those two were the last ones who would ever possibly end up together. Taehyun and Beomgyu—weird, but weird is normal for them, so maybe it could work. Kai and Beomgyu—their fondness for each other is palpable, so it wouldn’t be that surprising.

But Soobin? Soobin and Beomgyu’s relationship is painfully normal. What the hell does Soobin have that he doesn’t? Isn’t Yeonjun the objectively more exciting hyung to be around?

Then he feels even worse for thinking such, because Soobin doesn’t deserve the shit talking no matter how jealous Yeonjun is, and a cycle of self-loathing begins.

Soobin explains that their company found out about them being together, and subsequently wants to reveal their relationship to the entire world—much to both Soobin and Beomgyu’s apparent misery—and so they mutually agreed to inform the members before plans went into place.

“How long?” Taehyun asks in awe, as Beomgyu and Soobin both avoid meeting anyone’s gazes.

“One year,” Soobin answers at the same time Beomgyu says, “six months.”

The silence which comes after is defeaning.

“… Six months,” Soobin corrects, coughing into his fist.

“It might only be six months if you guys can’t even agree on an anniversary date,” Taehyun jokes.

“Maybe the next announcement will be their break up.” Yeonjun is only half-joking there. The other half is praying.

“You guys are mean,” Soobin grumbles. “Okay, that was all, no more. Let’s go back to normal now.”

Easier said than done, Yeonjun thinks, as Beomgyu chuckles hysterically.

“Normal,” Beomgyu mutters, then stretches out. “Right.”

It seems like all the members, Yeonjun included (especially Yeonjun), have taken to trying to give the two some space. Because who wants to see their best friend make out with their other best friend who is also their crush? Yeonjun doesn’t. So he does his best to avoid them when they’re together.

The problem is that Soobin and Beomgyu seem to be going out of their way to not be alone, dragging all of the members into what would be a date... if they were alone, which they refuse to be. Beomgyu squeezes in between Yeonjun and Soobin on the couch, wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets, while Soobin flips through the movie catalogue.

“Why am I here again?” Yeonjun wonders out loud. Beomgyu shifts beside him, trying to reach for the popcorn Yeonjun has on his lap and failing. Yeonjun pours some into his open palm without thinking.

“Because.” Beomgyu eats each one of the popcorn kernels individually. He’s annoyingly endearing like that. “We know you’d be lonely in your room, hyung.”

“Trust me, I’d be fine with sitting this one out,” Yeonjun says dryly.

“Too bad!”

Soobin decides on Knives Out, which he doesn’t seem that into, but Beomgyu gets heavily engrossed in. Yeonjun would also normally be into a movie like this, except he’s too busy having a crisis over Beomgyu’s hand on his thigh to pay attention to the TV.

Soobin pauses the movie every five minutes because he can’t follow the plot (Yeonjun can’t either, but he’s not going to admit it out loud), much to Beomgyu’s exasperation.

What a good boyfriend Soobin is. Watching a movie he doesn’t care about for Beomgyu’s sake. Yeonjun can do that too, he thinks bitterly. He is doing that.

Beomgyu is more interested in the movie than either of them though, so Yeonjun doesn’t feel like he’s third wheeling. If anything, they’re third wheeling Beomgyu and Chris Evans. Yeonjun continues to feed Beomgyu popcorn, to which Beomgyu robotically chews and swallows in turn, eyes fixated on the screen.

By the time the movie is over, Soobin is half-asleep, Beomgyu is more awake than ever, and Yeonjun has spent more time staring at Beomgyu’s profile than at the movie.

“Hyung…” Beomgyu whines when he sees Soobin slumped against the back of the couch, glasses falling off his nose. He flicks him and Yeonjun forces a chuckle as Soobin jumps, jolted out of his sleep.

“Wh—”

“You’re the worst. That was a really good movie! Right, Yeonjunnie hyung?”

Yeonjun, having digested approximately five percent of the movie, stammers, “Uh, yeah.”

Soobin snorts, unconvinced, and Beomgyu huffs.

“Fine, we can watch your pick next time,” Beomgyu says.

“Me?” Yeonjun points to himself.

“Sure.”

“What about—” your boyfriend, Yeonjun wants to say, but Soobin is already getting up, yawning and mumbling something about going to sleep. Beomgyu waves him off wordlessly, and Yeonjun blinks between him and Soobin’s retreating back.

“What about what? Soobin hyung?” Beomgyu finishes for him, tilting his head. With his new, fluffier brown hair, it makes him look more like a puppy than ever. “I don’t think he likes watching movies with me very much. He hates when I talk over the movie, but I hate it when we pause in the middle, so—it’s not a good combination.”

“Huh,” is all Yeonjun says. And yet, despite Beomgyu’s words, he let Soobin pause the movie at least a dozen times.

What a good boyfriend, Yeonjun thinks for the second time that night, and falls further into despair.

“I like watching movies with you more,” Beomgyu continues cheekily. He tries to stand, but his legs are entangled in his blankets and he has to wrestle himself out of them. Yeonjun helps him, pulling back one for him. “Hyung?”

“Huh?” Yeonjun says again, unintelligently, as Beomgyu gets off the couch. He was already sitting when Yeonjun entered the living room, so Yeonjun had no idea what he was wearing underneath the blanket. Spoiler: he’s wearing shorts.

Beomgyu raises his brows at him and slowly follows Yeonjun’s gaze to his legs. Yeonjun hastily attempts to cover up his staring by pretending to reach for the remote instead, but he’s pretty sure Beomgyu sees right through him.

“I said—I like watching movies with you more,” Beomgyu snorts. “But only if you actually pay attention to the movie. I’m not the most exciting thing in the room.”

Mortified, Yeonjun can only gape as Beomgyu walks off, humming to himself, the obnoxiously little short shorts he’s wearing riding up the backs of his thighs and taking at least ten years off Yeonjun’s life with them.

It takes him a while to muster up the energy to follow suit and return to his own room, because his brain is stuck in a perpetual loop of imagining Beomgyu’s smile and laugh as he talks over the movie. God, Yeonjun hates himself sometimes.

Yeonjun doesn’t want to brag, but he thinks he and Beomgyu are pretty compatible. More compatible than Soobin and Beomgyu, anyways—sure, they have the advantage of both enjoying video games, but Yeonjun has the upper hand in everything else. At least he’d like to think so.

This is proved by the fact nothing changes between him and Beomgyu; Yeonjun continues to flirt, and neither Beomgyu nor Soobin seem irritated by it. It’s just something they do. It’s how they fit together, and always have. Which is why, factually, it makes more sense for him and Beomgyu to get together than Beomgyu and Soobin, right? Soobin rarely flirts with Beomgyu, if ever. So Yeonjun has always had, and continues to have, more of a claim on Beomgyu’s heart in that respect.

It’s only strange because Beomgyu is now taken and his boyfriend is right there, all the time, completely unbothered by Beomgyu flirting with someone else right in front of him. And this isn’t even the ‘weird is the new normal’ for them. It’s just weird. There’s no other way of framing it.

Yeonjun can deal with crashing Beomgyu and Soobin’s dates, because they all live in the same apartment and it would be impossible for the two to ever get any real alone time. But having to deal with the guilt of continuing his relationship with Beomgyu like everything’s normal might be too much even for him.

He just doesn’t get it. If he were Soobin, he would be seething at the sight of Beomgyu coming onto someone else. Fuck, he’s almost offended on Soobin’s behalf—and Beomgyu’s. Soobin has Yeonjun’s hopes and dreams in his hands and he’s barely doing anything with it!

Case in point: they’re waiting backstage at a music show, their second week of promotions in. It’s been a solid month since Soobin and Beomgyu announced their relationship and nothing has happened. No announcement, no shift in their group dynamics, nothing. The only sign they haven’t broken up is the fact they’re always holding hands nowadays, though not right now.

Not right now, because currently Beomgyu has fallen asleep with his head on Yeonjun’s shoulder, drool smearing his lip gloss down his chin. Yeonjun stays as stiff as a board, terrified any moment that Soobin will stalk over and ask why Yeonjun is allowing his boyfriend to cuddle up with him.

But Soobin takes one look at them, blinks as if he’s staring at literally anything else, and then turns around and goes back to chatting with Kai.

Like, what?

Yeonjun isn’t going to bite the hand that feeds him. If Beomgyu wants to keep flirting with him, keep teasing him, keep clinging to him and letting Yeonjun cling to him in return, well—that’s his prerogative. But that sure as hell isn’t going to Yeonjun from sweating over it and overthinking everything.

His phone buzzes and he fishes it out of his pocket to read a text from Soobin: we’re going on in ten. You should wake Beomgyu up.

Yeonjun types back rapidly: why me? Just come over here and shake him awake. He’s your boyfriend.

Soobin responds: I don’t think he wants me to be the first one he sees when he wakes up.

Which makes Yeonjun think he and Beomgyu fought. When Beomgyu wakes, he yawns cutely, stretching out like a cat, his eyes puffy from sleep. He expects to see Soobin awkwardly ignore him as he walks up, but Beomgyu’s hand slips naturally into Soobin’s own as he talks to the staff and gets harassed by their makeup artist for having fallen asleep right before the show.

And Yeonjun thinks, eloquently: what the fuck. Because seriously, these mixed signals from both of them are not fun.

Unfortunately, Yeonjun’s panic does not lend itself well to him being able to ignore them, and he ends up waging an intense and bloody internal battle with himself in an attempt to keep his eyes on the cameras as they perform and not on Beomgyu in his silk white shirt.

He wins most of the time, but loses the rest, and he wakes up the next morning to his feed full of images and videos of him blatantly checking Beomgyu out. One of the videos goes viral on theqoo, racking up over one hundred thousand views in just a few hours, and Yeonjun actually considers quitting his job.

And yet, Soobin doesn’t approach him about it, and neither does Beomgyu for that matter, so life carries it on as it always has, much to Yeonjun’s horror.

Yeonjun has a secret he’s been keeping for a year now, and it wasn’t a big deal up until Soobin and Beomgyu started dating. Now it’s all he can think about when he lies awake at night, counting the little coloured dots and strings floating in his vision from sleep deprivation as he desperately tries to think about anything but it.

Yeonjun’s deepest, darkest secret first formed on a late, humid summer evening in the middle of their 0X1=LOVESONG promotions. Beomgyu grew out his hair, and Yeonjun was still spiralling over it months later (and would continue to do so until he cut it); this cumulated into Yeonjun avoiding Beomgyu and Beomgyu cornering Yeonjun into hanging out with him out of some misplaced feeling of spite.

In Beomgyu’s own words: “You avoiding me just makes me more curious as to why you’re acting so weird, hyung. It’s almost like you want me to chase after you.”

“I really, really don’t,” Yeonjun said in a deadpan, and Beomgyu giggled, holding onto Yeonjun’s arm.

Still, if there’s one thing Yeonjun is weak for, it’s Beomgyu’s happiness, and so when Beomgyu asked him if he wants to drink in his room, Yeonjun could only agree. They dragged a heavy pack of beer into the space under Beomgyu’s bed and popped open two cans.

Less than an hour later, Yeonjun had Beomgyu pushed down onto the bed, his fingers tangled in Beomgyu’s hair. Beomgyu was moaning softly into Yeonjun’s mouth, lips parted and ripe for the taking, and Yeonjun’s head spun realising how inexperienced Beomgyu was, at how he was waiting for Yeonjun to guide him through each one of their kisses.

But the longer they made out, the more the alcohol seeped out of Yeonjun’s bloodstream, and by the time Beomgyu was attempting to get Yeonjun’s belt off, he snapped out of it and jumped off the bed. The Beomgyu left on the bed, with his shirt hiked up and his lips kiss-swollen, continues to haunt both his dreams and nightmares to this day.

Yeonjun made up some excuse about needing to send an email—at one in the morning, on a Sunday—and ran out of the room before Beomgyu could say anything. Heart racing, sweat pooling at his temples, he crawled into his own bed and promptly passed out.

The next morning, he procrastinated leaving his room until Soobin started banging on his door for him to eat breakfast. He slapped himself in the face a few times to gather his courage and then dragged himself out.

Beomgyu, sitting on the couch by himself with his phone on his lap, smiled at him when he walked in, looking as unbothered as ever. “Morning, hyung,” he greeted.

“Um, good morning,” Yeonjun said back, dazed, and watched the back of Beomgyu’s head as he poured himself cereal. He sat down beside him on the couch and waited for a while before speaking up, “About last night…”

“Mm?” Beomgyu hummed, not looking up.

“I don’t remember much, so… sorry if I threw up on your carpet or something,” Yeonjun laughed, doing his best to project the nervousness of someone who was worried about anything other than making out with their crush.

Beomgyu’s head snapped up, and then he chuckled as well. “I thought you were going to say we did something embarrassing, hyung,” he said, nudging Yeonjun in the shoulder.

“Ah, no, no.” Yeonjun waved his hands. “Don’t worry.” And Beomgyu didn’t worry, so Yeonjun tried not to either, except he only lasted a grand total of five minutes before panicking and retreating back to his room to freak out over how Beomgyu was one second away from touching his dick the previous night.

So, Yeonjun’s secret—he’s felt Beomgyu’s lips against his before, tasted the sweetness on his tongue, drunk in the sound of his moans. And it becomes exponentially harder to ignore these facts when he finds out Soobin and Beomgyu are dating, because all he can think suddenly is Soobin’s felt Beomgyu’s lips too, Soobin’s tasted Beomgyu too, Soobin’s heard Beomgyu’s moans too.

“Whoa, hyung,” Beomgyu says, stopping in his tracks and backing up. Yeonjun blinks. He swore he shut his door. “What did that paper do to you?”

“Huh? Uh…” Yeonjun looks down at his hands, where he was absently scribbling in his notebook, and at the crumpled paper beside him. And then the other dozen balls of scrap paper he threw out before. He didn’t even notice he was tearing the sheets off. “I’m trying to write lyrics.”

“Oh!” Beomgyu bounds into Yeonjun’s room, uninvited, and sits down beside him. Yeonjun just barely manages to kick aside the paper that he scribbled little cartoon bears on before Beomgyu can see it. “Can I see?”

“Well…”

Beomgyu’s smile fades slightly, and he says slowly, “I mean—if you don’t want to show anybody, of course, I understand, but if you’re having trouble, maybe I could—”

“No, it’s not that,” Yeonjun quickly reassures him. “I just don’t… really have anything?”

Beomgyu tilts his head. “Nothing?”

“Are you asking me or rubbing it in?”

Grinning, Beomgyu covers his mouth with his hand. “I’ll get my guitar, maybe having a tune will help,” he says.

“That’s okay—”

Of course, Beomgyu is gone before Yeonjun can finish speaking.

When he returns, guitar in hand, he sits a respectable distance away from Yeonjun on the other side of the bed and begins to check the strings. “What kind of song is it? Or do you not know yet?”

“A love song? I guess.” Yeonjun shrugs. “I’ve never written one of those before, so…”

Beomgyu glances up from where he’s fiddling with his guitar—and like this, with his fringe falling over his eyes and the setting sun coming through the window, he looks like an angel. Yeonjun struggles to breathe for a moment and forces himself to even out the rise and fall of his chest, before he suffocates.

Lips quirking upwards, Beomgyu says, “I think I can help with that.”

They end up knocking out the entire song in one evening, possessed by some demonic overlord of lyric-writing, and it only hits Yeonjun how fucked up it all is when he looks over the finished product.

“This sure is…” Yeonjun trails off, eyes roaming over every word. One of the parts Beomgyu penned is definitely the worst: you got that kiss of fire, the way you put your lips on mine. Is that what Beomgyu thinks when he kisses Soobin? “… Romantic.”

Beomgyu preens beside him, coming to rest his chin on Yeonjun’s shoulder so he can read as well. “It’s good. I think they’ll accept it.”

“Well, it’s just lyrics by itself. Not exactly groundbreaking,” Yeonjun says hastily, because he cannot let this be published. As their hyung, he can’t let a love song about Soobin get released for the world to see—what if they break up? Not that he thinks they’ll break up, but like, what if?

“Aw, don’t be modest, hyung. We did a good job.” And then Yeonjun almost tears the paper in half on instinct right there, because Beomgyu winks at him. “It’s from experience, right?”

“Um.” The paper flutters onto Yeonjun’s lap. “Haha, right. Experience. I did date quite a few girls when I was a trainee. Well, I need to shower now, so.” He’s never heard himself sound more dead inside.

Beomgyu pauses, smile dropping, and he begins to ask, “Is something—”

“Sorry, I’m just really sweaty,” Yeonjun babbles, and gently shoves Beomgyu off his bed, handing him his guitar. “Thanks for the help, I’ll refine it some more later and send it to you.”

“Oh, okay.” Beomgyu tilts his head at him. “We can look over it together after, if—”

“Sorry, really sweaty, need to shower,” Yeonjun repeats, and once Beomgyu is safely outside the perimeter of his room, he shuts the door on his face. His beautiful, hopelessly oblivious face, that will probably go and suck Soobin’s face now.

Yeonjun picks the lyrics they wrote back up and sets it by his laptop to deal with later. That’s a future Yeonjun problem. For now, he needs to go have a mental breakdown in the shower, because he actually is really fucking sweaty. (It turns out writing love songs with your crush will do that to you.)

“So, what are you going to get Beomgyu for his birthday?” Soobin asks a few weeks later, while they wash the dishes together. The plate in Yeonjun’s hands slips out of his grasp and he barely manages to catch it before it breaks.

“I don’t know yet,” Yeonjun answers, catching his breath and returning to furiously wiping off the dishes as fast as he can so he can leave this conversation as fast as he can. “Why?”

Soobin shrugs. “Just curious. I don’t know what to get him. I was wondering if you had any spare ideas.”

Yeonjun fixes him with a side-eye. Sure, Beomgyu can be difficult to shop for, but Soobin is his boyfriend. Surely Soobin knows him well enough to purchase one single gift for him. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell them to you. I have to save them for future birthdays,” he says haughtily.

Laughing, Soobin sets aside the bowl he’s cleaning and picks up another. “That’s what I thought you’d say. Well, I guess the gifts we’d get him wouldn’t really be the same anyways…” he muses.

Rub it in, Soobin. Rub it in. “Right.”

“If you really don’t know, you could get him like, rings or something, I guess.”

“We already have matching rings.”

“Didn’t you guys get those last year? Or was it the year before now?” Soobin hums. “It seems like it’s time for an upgrade.”

Yeonjun squints at him, attempting to pick out the trap in Soobin’s words, because there’s no way Soobin is seriously suggesting Yeonjun gives his boyfriend a ring, right? Or does he feel… threatened by his and Beomgyu’s matching rings?

He’s never pegged Soobin as the jealous type—he’s never seen him get jealous even once over Beomgyu in the entire month and a half they’ve been dating—but Soobin is also a fairly lowkey person. If he is going to be jealous, he’d likely express it in a backhanded way. Like right now.

“They’re just friendship rings,” Yeonjun says carefully.

Soobin rolls his eyes at him. “Yeah, I know. Don’t worry.”

“I promise.”

“… Right. Anyways.” Soobin squares his shoulders. “Pass me that last dish so I can go back to my room. I’m about to go into a food coma.”

Yeonjun looks at Soobin out of the corner of his eyes the entire time they finish up the dishes, but Soobin either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Yeonjun truly cannot tell if he’s posturing or not. When they finish, he unties his apron and waves at Yeonjun, picking up an orange from the fridge and then returning to his room.

Yeonjun drags himself back to his own room and flicks on the lights to find someone sitting on his bed. “What the fuck—” he curses, heart racing, and the figure turns over to reveal Beomgyu, bleary-eyed.

“Why did you turn on the light?”

“This— this is my room?” Yeonjun says. He doesn’t know why it came out as a question. “This is my room,” he repeats, more firmly.

“I like your bed more than mine,” Beomgyu mumbles, seeming barely awake, and rolls back onto his side, facing away from Yeonjun. “Let me sleep.”

“Beomgyu, you can’t…” Yeonjun sighs. The part of his brain that adores taking care of Beomgyu wants to leave him, because god knows Beomgyu doesn’t get enough sleep—but the part of his brain that still carries a semblance of survival instinct is screaming at him to not let the prettiest boy he’s ever met and the object of his affections fall asleep in his bed. “You can’t sleep in my bed, c’mon.”

Beomgyu whines, trying to shake Yeonjun’s hand off as he pulls him by the shoulder. He’s jostled onto his back, and with his arms over his head and his hair all messy from his nap, he looks like—

Yeonjun swallows down the lump in his throat.

“Please?” Beomgyu begs, eyes half-lidded and his lips curled into a pout. Yeonjun recoils like he’s been burnt, taking a step back.

“O—Okay,” he stammers, berating himself for being so weak. But also, he can’t bring himself to force Beomgyu out, not when he just brought back every feeling of adoration Yeonjun has ever had for him all at once with that one word. “I’ll be in the living room, then,” he says feebly.

Beomgyu yawns and snuggles into Yeonjun’s pillow, under Yeonjun’s sheets, in Yeonjun’s bed, looking perfectly like he belongs.

Yeonjun makes a mad dash back to the living room, where Taehyun has hooked up his laptop to the TV. He takes one look at Yeonjun and pauses to ask, “What the fuck happened to you?”

“Nothing,” Yeonjun says, sitting down on the other end of the couch. He realises belatedly that his phone is in his room, but there’s no way in hell he’s going back in there until Beomgyu leaves. “What are you doing? My room was getting stuffy.”

“I was about to watch this movie about Princess Diana,” Taehyun says, which is a very Taehyun thing to say. “… I’m guessing you want to join me?”

“Yes, please.”

“Alright, but you’re getting the snacks.”

Yeonjun just made himself comfortable, but grabbing food from the pantry is a small price to pay to ignore his problems, so he obeys. Unfortunately, not even the highs and lows of the British royal family are enough to distract him from the real princess he knows—the sleeping beauty still curled up in his bed—and Yeonjun continues to consider how to write his resignation email to Hybe.

Two days before Beomgyu’s birthday, Soobin once again asks Yeonjun what he’s getting Beomgyu, and Yeonjun subsequently freaks out realising he’s been so knee-deep in denial that he forgot to get Beomgyu a gift. The moment they get out of practice, he races back to the dorm, picks up his wallet and all his credit cards, then takes the bus to COEX.

He realises what a bad idea this is the moment he steps foot onto the second floor and a group of girls gasp his name and whip out their phones to take a video of him… walking around the mall, like a normal person. He tips his hat downwards to hide his face and pulls back his mask tighter; while he normally wouldn’t mind the attention, he’s on a mission today.

The primary mission is, of course, figuring out what to actually get Beomgyu. He could get him something simple, like a cute bear plush, or yet another pair of sneakers. But then he thinks about what Soobin is likely to get Beomgyu and he’s fired up with a competitive spirit that he should reign back but doesn’t, because he’s petty and he wants to be the one to make Beomgyu smile the most.

That thought is what leads him to entering the most expensive jewellery store in the mall. Every step he takes fills him with more and more dread, but he catches sight of a pair of sleek, understated rings in the display case and he just knows.

“Hi, excuse me,” Yeonjun greets, tapping his finger against the glass. “How much are these?”

“Six million,” the man answers. He’s in a well-fitted suit, and has been absently polishing off the same bracelet since Yeonjun walked in. “Are you interested?”

“Ah, I’m just—I’m just looking, but, yeah,” he says. “Can I see them closer?”

The man nods and crouches down to pull the box holding the two rings out of the case. “For a small fee, we can engrave names on the inside of the band,” he says, and slides the box over to Yeonjun.

“How much would that be?”

“An extra two hundred and fifty thousand.”

Fuck, this place is about to rob him. He’s going to have to put this shit on three different credit cards, and probably overdraft his chequing account in the process. He picks up one of the rings, twirling it around in between his fingers. The light catches on it and it reflects a clear, light blue.

Six million won. Times two. Plus an extra five hundred thousand for the engraving. Yeonjun hasn’t spent that much on all of the gifts he’s bought for all the members combined in the five or six years he’s known them.

The fact he’s considering it at all means he’s lost the battle though, so mourning his next few paycheques, he nods to the man.

The man, to his credit, manages to keep his face steely despite the fact he likely just made his entire month’s commission off of just Yeonjun. “Would you like the engraving as well?”

“Can you do it right now?” Yeonjun places the ring back into the box.

“It’ll take a few hours.” The man pauses. “I have a backlog to get through. If you come back tomorrow—”

Tomorrow is the only day of the week they’re booked full on. “What if I pay extra?”

The man smiles at him, “I think we can work something out.”

Yeonjun is so terrified about losing the rings in the forty-eight hours in between when he buys them and when he has the chance to give them to Beomgyu that he leaves them under his pillow. The evening of, before Beomgyu does his birthday VLive, they throw Beomgyu a little party in their dorm, and Yeonjun watches as one by one, the members give Beomgyu their gifts.

Kai gets him a personalised varsity jacket and a letter that makes Beomgyu tear up; Taehyun gets him a lifetime access license to one of the programs he uses to make music; and Soobin gets him—

“A mug?” Yeonjun asks, baffled.

“It’s not just a mug.” Soobin flips it around. It says World’s Worst Boyfriend on it. Yeonjun’s head spins. “See?”

“Ha-ha-ha,” Beomgyu laughs robotically, swiping it from Soobin’s hands. “You’re so funny, hyung.”

“Oh, and I got you this.” Soobin pulls a little cartridge out of his pocket. “I figured we could play together.”

A game they can play together. Fuck. Not only is it something Beomgyu explicitly likes, it’s also a destressor and something they can do together. Yeonjun bites back a frown as Beomgyu’s face lights up and he giggles.

“I was going to kill you if all you got me was a mug,” he says, and hugs Soobin tightly. “Thanks, hyung. We can play tomorrow.”

“Mm.” Soobin pats Beomgyu’s back and hugs him back tightly. Yeonjun looks at his feet. This has to be one of the first times he’s felt legitimately out of place beside them.

Taehyun must feel the same way, because he whistles loudly to get them to break apart.

“Sorry,” Soobin says sheepishly. “What about you, hyung?”

It takes Yeonjun a moment to realise Soobin is talking to him. “What about me?”

“… Your gift?” Soobin prompts.

“Oh.” Yeah. His gift. “I’ll, uh, give it to you later.” He smiles at Beomgyu. Beomgyu blinks at him, wide-eyed, but smiles back tentatively.

“Sure,” he says easily.

“Gross,” Soobin mutters, and Beomgyu whacks him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to steal your boyfriend,” Yeonjun says dryly, for good measure and also so Soobin doesn’t get the wrong idea.

“That’s even more gross.” Soobin shoves Beomgyu away.

“Can we please eat the cake now?” Taehyun asks.

Yeonjun volunteers to cut the cake just so he doesn’t have to stand around and watch Soobin and Beomgyu make eyes at each other any longer. Flirting is his and Beomgyu’s thing. Except not really, because he’s not the one Beomgyu is dating, so no matter how much more Beomgyu flirts with him, he’s not the one Beomgyu is playing video games with or cuddling in his room or making out with or any number of things Yeonjun wishes he was doing in Soobin’s place.

The rest of the evening passes by uneventfully. Yeonjun laughs when appropriate, contributes his own embarrassing story of Beomgyu from their trainee days while they finish their cake, and makes his obligatory appearance on Beomgyu’s VLive later. After the night calms down and Yeonjun is back in his room clicking through random shit on his laptop, there’s a knock on his door and he yells “come in” without thinking.

“Hi.” Beomgyu smiles at him, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I thought maybe you fell asleep, since you didn’t come to get me after I finished my live, but I guess you just lost track of time.”

“Oh, I…” The time on Yeonjun’s laptop reads midnight. “Shit, sorry. I got distracted.”

“It’s okay.” Beomgyu goes straight for Yeonjun’s bed, crossing his legs. “I was just curious what you got me.”

There is a devil on Yeonjun’s shoulder telling him to pick up a random item from around his room and claim that’s Beomgyu’s gift instead, but he’s near-desperate to see Beomgyu’s pretty finger wrapped in the new ring Yeonjun got him, so despite his anxiety, his legs carry him to sit down beside Beomgyu.

Beomgyu makes room for him while Yeonjun reaches under his pillow for the little velvet box.

“Here,” Yeonjun mumbles, shoving it towards him. God, that sounded pathetic. He clears his throat and waits for Beomgyu to flick the clasp on the box, opening it. “They’re matching, so…”

“Oh,” Beomgyu says softly. “So this is why you were acting so weird earlier.”

“I wasn’t acting weird,” Yeonjun defends feebly, and Beomgyu shakes his head, laughing. He picks up one of the rings—the one meant for Yeonjun—and gasps when the light reflects off of it. “That one is mine. Um… Here, this one is yours,” Yeonjun says, and swaps the ring Beomgyu is holding for the proper one. “If you look on the inside…”

“Yeonjun, 2022,” Beomgyu reads. Yeonjun’s face goes up in flames, and he has to reach deep inside himself to find the energy to nod along to Beomgyu’s words. “Does that mean yours says—” Yeonjun holds the ring up for him so Beomgyu can squint and read it, “Beomgyu, 2022.”

“What, did you think it was going to say someone else’s name?” Yeonjun huffs.

“Don’t even joke about that,” Beomgyu says, half-pouting, half-laughing. “I would have cried, and not in a good way.”

He holds his breath as Beomgyu slips it onto his middle finger, the same place where he wears the rings Yeonjun got for them last year. Yeonjun pretends he’s rubbing an eyelash away as he withholds—something. Something heavy and painful and bursting with affection sitting in his chest. He takes a deep breath and reigns his tears back in, watching as Beomgyu breaks out into a small, warm smile.

To his surprise, Beomgyu’s eyes are equally as glassy as his are. “Thanks, hyung. It’s really pretty. And, um… this must have cost a fortune, so…”

“The price doesn’t matter,” Yeonjun says quickly. “Don’t worry about it.”

Beomgyu nibbles on his lower lip, his eyes landing on Yeonjun’s again. Beomgyu has the prettiest eyes Yeonjun has ever seen period, deep and dark, but there’s something about them when they’re threatening to spill with tears because of Yeonjun that makes him feel like he’s been punched in the gut.

“I guess I’ll just have to get you something even better for your birthday this year,” Beomgyu chuckles. “Though I don’t know what could top this.” His fingers on his other hand glide over the ring, back and forth, like he’s in awe. “Put yours on too, hyung.”

Yeonjun completely forgot in the midst of admiring Beomgyu’s beauty that he has the matching one. He slides it onto the same finger as Beomgyu’s.

“Sorry, I know it’s not as practical as the others’ gifts, but…”

“Are you kidding me?” Beomgyu gasps. “You’re insane. Shut up. It’s—it’s perfect,” he says, and Yeonjun isn’t oblivious to the way his voice wavers. Beomgyu shoves the box in between them aside and shuffles in closer and closer until he can wrap his arms around Yeonjun. “Thank you, hyung. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Yeonjun rasps, and holds Beomgyu by the waist. Beomgyu squeezes him tighter and Yeonjun buries his face into Beomgyu’s hair, breathing in the scent of his shampoo, clean and neat, just like him.

He almost thinks Beomgyu has fallen asleep in his arms until the other boy sits back on his heels and speaks gently, “Hyung, can I ask, is this—this is what I think it is, right? Not…”

Yeonjun watches in fascination as Beomgyu’s cheeks get steadily more and more red, and he swallows. He’s sure that if Beomgyu didn’t know about his feelings before, he does now, but he’s too nice to say anything, too overwhelmed by Yeonjun’s gift and the precarious status of their friendship to speak up. “Yeah,” he says. “Don’t worry.”

He wishes Beomgyu would worry, so, so badly. Even half as much as Yeonjun does. But Beomgyu only gives a little sigh, and his shoulders slump in relief.

“Okay,” he says, seemingly to himself; and then louder, to Yeonjun, “I’m happy, hyung.”

“Me too,” Yeonjun says, and he’s telling the truth, as he looks over Beomgyu—his warm cheeks, his small smile, his fingers fidgeting with the ring on his finger. Because he doesn’t have to think about the world outside his room, or how he just lied through his teeth about what these rings meant, or the fact Beomgyu isn’t his.

“Me too,” Yeonjun repeats to himself later, once Beomgyu has gone back to bed and Yeonjun has started spiralling, just like he expected. “I’m happy too. I am,” he tells himself, over and over, as he stares at his ceiling once again and thinks about the same thing he always does: Beomgyu’s lips, his taste, his moans.

If Beomgyu is happy, he’s happy. That’s how love works. He’s happy when the person he loves is happy, he thinks, and screams into his pillow until his throat hurts and he passes out.

Yeonjun watches Beomgyu like a hawk for the next few days, waiting for Beomgyu to do something shifty like take the ring off around Soobin—or anything to symbolise that he’s uncomfortable with Yeonjun’s gesture. But Beomgyu, like Soobin, is unaffected, and even wears the ring out to a solo schedule. Yeonjun, much to his own embarrassment, saves every picture he can find on the internet showing Beomgyu with the ring.

For the first time in awhile, he thinks he might be able to be happy for real. If he can’t have Beomgyu’s heart in the way he wants, that’s okay. He’s still someone special to Beomgyu, and someone has to be a loser in this situation. They’re his best friends. He can deal with it as long as he’s able to stay by Beomgyu’s side.

He still has to swallow back an unnamed emotion whenever he sees Soobin and Beomgyu huddled together, but it’s okay. There are worse things he could be in life than pining.

At least this is what he thinks until Beomgyu barges into his room at some ungodly hour, waking Yeonjun up with how loudly he pulls open the door.

“What the fuck,” Yeonjun groans. “Gyu?”

Beomgyu slams the door shut with a bang and flops down on Yeonjun’s bed beside him, curling into a little ball with his arm over Yeonjun’s chest. “I want to sleep here,” Beomgyu mumbles, voice muffled by Yeonjun’s shoulder.

“Um.” As much as Yeonjun’s hindbrain would love that, he can’t let this slide without speaking first. He shakes Beomgyu off and sits up, turning on the lamp beside his bed and wincing as the light stings his eyes. “What—what happened? Did you have a nightmare?”

“I wish,” Beomgyu says, and holds onto Yeonjun’s hips instead of his chest, now that he can no longer do so comfortably.

“Okay, and…?” Yeonjun prompts. His jaw drops when his vision refocuses and he sees the state Beomgyu is in. Hair wild and frazzled, his eyes bloodshot, his shoulders shaking slightly. “Gyu?” he prods, more urgently, concerned.

“I’m—me and Soobin hyung got into a fight,” Beomgyu bites out. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, Beomgyu.” Yeonjun sighs and places his palm on Beomgyu’s head, smoothing down his untamed hair. “Was it… bad?”

“Mm.”

Yeonjun takes a deep, shuddering breath, and closes his eyes momentarily to gather his bearings. He can’t allow himself to freak out when Beomgyu obviously needs him.

“How bad?”

“… I don’t know how this is going to work out,” Beomgyu mumbles, voice barely above a whisper. “I—I don’t want to let anybody down, I know this is my job, I know I signed up for this, but I—”

“Hey, hey, slow down,” Yeonjun soothes, brushing Beomgyu’s fringe back. Beomgyu whines and tries to hide his face, but Yeonjun doesn’t let him. “I have no idea what you’re saying, Gyu.”

Beomgyu sniffles, kicking his feet under the sheets, and then relaxes into Yeonjun’s palm like a cat. “I don’t want to do it anymore,” he says.

“Do what?” Yeonjun asks tentatively, thinking about Beomgyu’s words, his mind immediately racing towards every worst-case scenario about Beomgyu quitting his job, or leaving their group, or—

“Date him,” Beomgyu says, which is somehow even worse than what Yeonjun was imagining. “Soobin hyung. I want to break up. But… you know, everyone is relying on us, and…”

Yeonjun’s mouth is open wide, and he stares down at Beomgyu for what must be so long that Beomgyu begins to get antsy and opens one eye to look up at him. The tears in his eyes jump start Yeonjun’s mental facilities again, and he rushes to speak, “If you guys just fought, maybe don’t—don’t make any rash decisions until you wake up.”

“No,” Beomgyu huffs. “I know what I want. I’ve wanted it for a while, he just—he’s so stubborn!” Beomgyu’s hands ball into fists by Yeonjun’s thigh. “And he keeps talking about how the company will hate us if we break up, and the other members are going to be uncomfortable, and—”

“That’s not a good reason not to break up,” Yeonjun interrupts. And he’s not just saying that. “The validation of other people… I mean, maybe it’ll make things awkward, and maybe our company will hate you guys for a bit, if they’ve already prepared some grand reveal. But you shouldn’t stay or not stay together because of it.”

He had no idea Soobin and Beomgyu were so rocky lately. To his view as an outsider, they’ve been as painfully normal as ever. To think that they were both bottling this up this entire time… Yeonjun sighs, brushing his fingers through Beomgyu’s hair. He’ll have to talk to Soobin as well, or at least tell one of the others to talk to him. Yeonjun’s not sure he would be a good source of objective advice.

“I know, hyung. I just…” Beomgyu’s face twists uncharacteristically. “I don’t want to deal with it anymore.”

Yeonjun peels off the skin on his lower lip. “I’m not sure I should—I mean, Soobinnie is my friend, I don’t want to…” He struggles to find the right words, “I think you should sleep on it, instead of talking about him right now and saying something you’ll regret.”

The silence between them lasts for what feels like forever, the erratic thumping of Yeonjun’s heart being the only noise he hears until Beomgyu says, “Yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put you in a difficult position, I—I wasn’t thinking, and after I left his room I meant to go back to mine, but I ended up here instead.”

“It’s okay.” Yeonjun brushes his thumb over Beomgyu’s forehead, feeling the dampness of his skin, and then pulls back.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” Beomgyu asks.

Yeonjun should say no. He really, really should say no—he can’t let Beomgyu sleeping in his bed become a habit, especially not when he’s overemotional like this and not thinking straight. But he doesn’t think there’s a single person on earth who could resist the wet bat of Beomgyu’s eyelashes and the way he clings to Yeonjun’s nightshirt, so.

“Okay,” Yeonjun breathes out, against his better judgement. “Just for tonight.”

Beomgyu makes a low noise of affirmation and holds onto Yeonjun tighter. Stiffly, Yeonjun reaches over to turn off his lamp, bringing them back into darkness. Lying back down, Yeonjun turns onto his side, mindful of not shifting Beomgyu around so much, and hugs him.

“Goodnight,” Yeonjun murmurs. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll work out.”

“’Night,” Beomgyu slurs, and it doesn’t take long for sleep to bring them both under.

The next morning, Yeonjun wakes to an empty bed. The fact he expected it doesn’t make it hurt any less. He drags himself out of bed before Soobin can come and yell at him, and peers around the corner into the kitchen to make sure he isn’t walking into some sort of war zone.

Soobin and Taehyun are making breakfast—Taehyun instructing and Soobin awkwardly shuffling around in his haste to listen—while Beomgyu and Kai chat on the couch. All seems to be well.

“Hyung!” Kai shouts when he sees Yeonjun. Yeonjun winces and shrinks back, running his hands through his hair a few times, as if that’ll help with how terrible he looks. “We were wondering when you’d be up.”

“Hey.” Yeonjun’s eyes meet Beomgyu’s and Beomgyu gives him a thumbs up. Yeonjun smiles tightly, the grip on his heart constricting so tightly it feels like it’s about to burst. He’s glad they worked things out. Seeing Beomgyu cry was heartbreaking, and while this is heartbreaking in another way, at least Beomgyu is back to being chipper.

“So, we have the day off today,” Soobin says from the kitchen. Yeonjun forces himself onto one of the stools, the one that’s stuck at the lowest hinge and too short for all of them. “I’m going to take Kai and Taehyunnie to the movies.”

Huh. Yeonjun looks at Beomgyu, but he doesn’t appear to be distraught nor bothered in any way. Maybe they agreed to… spend some time apart? Maybe Soobin scheduled this night with Kai and Taehyun a while back and couldn’t cancel. Yeonjun can’t imagine going on a rollercoaster of emotions with Beomgyu like Soobin apparently did and not want to spend the next twenty-four hours by his side.

“Cool,” Yeonjun says, purposely vague.

“We won’t be back until… after midnight, for sure,” Soobin continues. “So…”

Yeonjun’s head whips towards him, but all he can see is Soobin’s obnoxiously large back, his expression masked by his hair and the angle he’s standing at.

“Cool,” Yeonjun repeats, the rusty cogs in his brain trying and failing to comprehend whatever implications Soobin is attempting to lay out for him.

When Soobin and Taehyun lay down their plates for breakfast, Soobin leans in and whispers into his ear, “Don’t worry, we worked things out. So just relax today.”

“Um.” Those words do the opposite of make him want to relax. “I was going to relax anyways.”

“Good!” Soobin says happily, and Yeonjun is starting suspect that one or both of them has lost their minds.

Yeonjun has an out-of-body experience during breakfast, watching the other four debate with each other. Soobin and Beomgyu talk casually, like they didn’t fight last night and Soobin didn’t just— do whatever it was he did to Yeonjun just now. Threaten him? Reassure him? He quite literally has no idea.

He barely touches his breakfast and has to fend off the others’ glares and worried looks. “I’ll heat something up for myself later,” he says. “I’m just a bit tired still. I’ll probably go back to bed.”

Beomgyu’s head snaps up at his words and he calls, “Hyung…” But Yeonjun is already racing back to his room like a coward.

Yeonjun spends the rest of the day thinking through Soobin’s words, and Beomgyu’s words from last night, but nothing his brain comes up with makes sense as to why either of them would act like… how they’re acting. He wouldn’t be so worried if Soobin hadn’t walked directly up to him and told him to relax. Soobin can be oblivious, but he’s not that oblivious; he has to know that telling Yeonjun to relax will do the exact opposite. So why would he say that?

He tugs on his hair and rolls around in bed for a while, restless, before forcing himself to be productive. He works on the song he and Beomgyu wrote months ago now, and he barely notices time passing until he hears a knock on his door and then Kai’s loud voice, “We’re going now!”

“Bye,” Yeonjun says, dropping his headphones on his desk. He waits until he hears the front door open, then sneaks around the corner to watch the three exit the dorm, leaving him and Beomgyu, inexplicably, alone.

He’s had to go to the bathroom all fucking day, but held it in because he didn’t want to run into anybody in the hallway. Now that it’s just him and Beomgyu, though, and Beomgyu is likely playing video games at this time, he can finally piss.

Once that’s done, he feels slightly less miserable. Only slightly, but still. He turns off the light in the bathroom and immediately walks into something solid. He doesn’t remember there being a wall directly outside the bathroom.

“Ow,” Beomgyu whines, stumbling backwards. “Did you just walk into me? Hello? Earth to Yeonjunnie?”

Yeonjun blinks a few times. “Why were you just standing outside the bathroom? There’s literally another one down the hall.”

“I was waiting for you!” Beomgyu shouts. He holds something up in his right hand. “Let’s drink together.” He shakes the beer can.

“Uh…” Yeonjun catches sight of the ring on Beomgyu’s finger, pulse racing. He can’t remember if Beomgyu had it on this morning, or if he only put it on now, now that Soobin has left. He doesn’t know what either of those possibilities would mean, but.

“Come on, hyung. You may have successfully avoided everyone else today, but you don’t get to avoid me.”

If Beomgyu is finally catching onto how much power he holds over Yeonjun, then Yeonjun is fucked. He sighs deeply and gets on his feet, defeated.

“Just for a bit,” he concedes, because he knows Beomgyu will only continue to pester him all night if he doesn’t give in. And he just can’t say no to Beomgyu, as they’ve long established. He’ll have one or two drinks then make up some excuse about not having been able to nap all day so he can retreat to his room like he’s been doing every evening for the past few weeks.

Beomgyu cheers and races off to the living room, yelling, “Wait on the couch, I’ll get the drinks!”

Ten minutes later, Yeonjun has downed half a bottle of beer already, and Beomgyu admits, belatedly, that he already had one can before he even asked Yeonjun to drink with him. Rubbing his temples, Yeonjun counts his days, because Beomgyu is undoubtedly going to be the death of him.

Beomgyu seems unbothered by the silence as he flicks through his phone, occasionally speaking up, but Yeonjun isn’t. And since he’s probably going to die soon anyways, he might as well ask, “So, how did things go?” When Beomgyu only stares at him with zero recognition at his words, Yeonjun clarifies, “With Soobin.”

Beomgyu takes a long sip of his beer, tongue poking out to catch a droplet which falls from his lips. “We worked things out.” He smiles, cheeks as round and red as an apple.

“That’s exactly what he told me earlier,” Yeonjun says, mostly to himself.

“Oh, you spoke to him? Good, good.” Beomgyu claps. “I don’t feel like talking about him right now.”

Yeonjun wants to protest, because those words explain exactly nothing about the context of which Soobin and Beomgyu spoke about, but he’s cut off by Beomgyu moving closer and closer, until he’s sitting half on Yeonjun’s lap.

“Ah.” Yeonjun breathes in sharply. “Beomgyu, you’re…”

“What, drunk? No, I’m not.” Beomgyu pouts. “You’ve had the same amount to drink as I have.”

Yeonjun’s tongue swirls along the inside of his mouth. All he can taste is the shitty beer they’re drinking. “Okay,” he says, for lack of anything better. “Do you want to watch something?”

Beomgyu shrugs, which Yeonjun takes as a yes. The only problem is that Beomgyu seems incredibly resistant to getting off him, looping his arms around Yeonjun’s neck and yelling every time Yeonjun tries to push him off, so Yeonjun has to make do with the only remote within reach.

“You’re such a menace,” Yeonjun grumbles.

“You’re such a menace,” Beomgyu mocks, and Yeonjun rolls his eyes. The only channels playing movies right now are all domestic ones, so they end up on some sketchy cable channel Yeonjun has only watched once or twice in his whole life. By the time Yeonjun picks up his third beer, he’s pretty sure neither of them are focused on the movie.

“Hyung.” Beomgyu sits on Yeonjun properly, blocking his view of the screen. “Yeonjunnie hyung.”

“Gyu.” Yeonjun gently nudges at him, but Beomgyu doesn’t budge. “You’re heavy.”

Beomgyu scowls. “Stop changing the subject.”

“How can I—” Frustrated, Yeonjun flicks Beomgyu on the nose. “We weren’t even talking, how can I change the subject?”

“You’ve been acting weird lately,” Beomgyu accuses. He’s pouting, all kicked puppy-like, but Yeonjun can pick out the genuine hurt in his voice. “Not just this past week, but…”

Yeonjun cups his mouth with his hand, tasting the burn on the inside of his lips as he sets down his beer. “Yeah, I know,” he says quietly. “I’ve just been… distracted.”

“Distracted,” Beomgyu echoes. The liquid in his own beer sloshes around as he gestures with his hand, and Yeonjun plucks it from his grasp and sets it aside for his own good. “Distracted by—by what? Or who?”

“Who?” Yeonjun’s eyes widen. Is Beomgyu asking because he knows or because he thinks Yeonjun has been distracted by… what, someone else? As if Yeonjun’s ever looked at anyone else.

The way Beomgyu visibly struggles to control his expression digs a knife into Yeonjun’s heart. “I don’t know, I’m—I thought things were fine, because of, you know,” Beomgyu plays with the ring on his finger, “but then today you were acting weird again, and—”

“I—” Yeonjun stammers, unsure of what to say, unsure of what Beomgyu is saying. “I’ve had a lot on my mind, Gyu. It’s not you, trust me.”

Beomgyu’s brows furrow and his shoulders cage in, his hands coming to clutch at Yeonjun’s sweater. “It feels like it’s me.”

“It’s not,” Yeonjun reassures him. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that way, I—things have been difficult, you know,” he says feebly. Beomgyu nods. “And we haven’t been able to spend that much time together because of obvious reasons, but that’s not your fault.”

“You’ve…” Beomgyu trails off, voice soft and steady. “Have you been jealous of Soobin hyung?”

Yeonjun’s throat goes dry. His hands fall to his lap, limp at his sides. “Beomgyu—”

“You shouldn’t be,” Beomgyu cuts him off, more urgently. “It doesn’t matter what Soobin hyung and I say, or do, when—” Beomgyu tightens his grip on Yeonjun’s sweater, dragging him forward slightly, “I know things are difficult and weird, because of—of how uncertain everything is, but you don’t need to be jealous, hyung.”

One of Beomgyu’s hands finds Yeonjun’s and drags it upwards, until they can both look between them, at the matching rings on their fingers.

“You gave me this ring, not him,” Beomgyu adds. He slots their fingers together. “So don’t worry.”

Yeonjun can get absentminded around Beomgyu, but he’s not nearly stupid enough to miss the underlying meaning to Beomgyu’s words. “Gyu…”

Beomgyu stares at the space between their fingers, the brush of their matching rings beside each other, until he shudders and sits up higher on Yeonjun’s lap. With Yeonjun slumped against the back of the couch, Beomgyu obscures Yeonjun’s view of anything but him.

His expression is a mixture of terrified and determined—lip wobbling, but eyes hardened, and Yeonjun’s breath is knocked right out of his chest at the sight. God, he’s so beautiful, Yeonjun can barely stand to look at him sometimes.

“Hyung,” Beomgyu whispers, and leans in.

Beomgyu’s mouth is bitter like the beer they’ve had, and so, so hot; he wastes no time in prying Yeonjun’s lips apart, and Yeonjun gasps, too stunned to do anything but sit there and struggle to catch up to the present. The hand on Yeonjun’s sweater moves to his hair instead, and tugs lightly until Yeonjun kisses back on instinct.

When his tongue glides along Beomgyu’s lower lip, Beomgyu whimpers, the same sound that’s haunted Yeonjun’s mind for the past year, and Yeonjun suddenly grows frantic.

“Hyung,” Beomgyu says again, as Yeonjun grabs onto his hips and hikes him further up his lap, until Beomgyu is forced to spread his legs to sit on Yeonjun’s thighs. “Hyung, ah—”

Yeonjun jolts as Beomgyu’s teeth graze over his lip, past the sensitive skin he chewed through over the course of the evening. “Fuck,” he curses, panting already, and parts once his vision begins to blur from lack of air. He blinks the haze out of his eyes and gasps, slack-jawed, when he sees what Beomgyu looks like.

Perfect, his mind supplies, and Yeonjun has to agree. Beomgyu licks his lips lazily, and with his hair all messy and his breathing hard and fast, he looks delirious.

He probably is delirious. They’re drunk—or tipsy, at least, and Yeonjun recoils, choking.

“Wait,” he says, fending off Beomgyu’s attempt to kiss him again. Beomgyu makes a noise of complaint and confusion, pushed away. “Wait, Gyu—”

“What?” Beomgyu asks, breathless.

“Soobin—”

“Are you seriously thinking about Soobin right now?” Beomgyu snaps, so harshly that Yeonjun freezes in shock. “Why are you so hung up on him?”

“Because you guys are—”

“How can you think about him when I’m right here?” Beomgyu continues, digging his nails into Yeonjun’s bare shoulder, the side exposed by his sweater falling off his arm. “Do you need me to call him right now and ask for his blessing?”

Talking to Soobin is the one of the last things Yeonjun wants to do right now. “No, but—”

“Then what? What is your problem?” Beomgyu’s grip on him goes slack. “Do… do you even want this?”

“Yes!” Yeonjun answers so quickly it causes him to choke. Fuck, he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more in his life. Yeonjun is used to getting what he wants when he puts his mind to it, but Beomgyu was always something that felt just out of reach, just far enough to slip past Yeonjun’s fingers.

After the first time they kissed and Beomgyu didn’t remember anything, he chalked it up to a fluke. But a second time? Would the universe really be so cruel as to dangle the thing he wants most in the world in front of him like this, even closer than before?

“Then…” Beomgyu guides Yeonjun’s hand to his cheek. Yeonjun’s thumb brushes over the soft spot underneath Beomgyu’s eye, and he feels helpless as Beomgyu’s eyes fall closed and he relaxes against his touch. “Stop worrying about Soobin. We’re going to end things. We already talked about it. So, just…” Yeonjun doesn’t understand, and he wants to say as much, but then Beomgyu whines, “Please, hyung.” And Yeonjun is a goner.

This time, when their lips touch, Yeonjun keeps Beomgyu’s head still by a hand on his jaw, and Beomgyu seems happy to melt against him. Every time their tongues glide across each other’s, Beomgyu gives a low, choked-off moan; every noise sinks the claws Beomgyu has firmly planted in Yeonjun’s heart deeper into his chest, cornering him until he loses awareness of anything but Beomgyu. There’s no backing out now.

Yeonjun kisses him until Beomgyu begins to shift, rocking against Yeonjun’s thigh. Yeonjun presses their foreheads together, steadying his breathing, and then stands up, catching Beomgyu when he inevitably topples off his lap.

“My room,” he murmurs against Beomgyu’s lips, and they somehow manage to stumble to Yeonjun’s room together without falling over or knocking into too many walls.

Yeonjun unwraps his gift carefully, stripping Beomgyu of his layers until he’s bare underneath him; Beomgyu whines until Yeonjun does the same, and he shivers when the cool air hits his bare skin.

He pauses before diving back in, committing the image before him to memory: Beomgyu draped in the moonlight filtering through the window, his hands splayed over his head on the pillow, his mouth open, begging to be kissed. His strong arms, broad shoulders, narrow waist. Everything Yeonjun has dreamt about for so long, and even more that he hasn’t allowed himself to think about before in fear of falling too deep.

Yeonjun loves him so much it hurts. His hands creep up Beomgyu’s sides, fingers drumming an uneven pattern along his skin, until he can cup his face and kiss him again. Beomgyu meets him halfway, and in less than an hour, Yeonjun has memorised every spot in Beomgyu’s mouth that gets him squirming—then his neck, then down his stomach, then his thighs.

Does Soobin do this to you too, Yeonjun wants to ask, tongue swirling along the curve of Beomgyu’s inner thigh. His nails scrape thin red lines across Beomgyu’s hips as he holds him down. Did you let Soobin see you like this too?

His question is answered when Beomgyu grabs Yeonjun’s wrist before he can reach for the lube. “It’s my first time,” he says, biting his lip. Yeonjun has to plant his feet firmly on the bed to stay grounded, or else he’s terrified he’s going to float away from the unspeakable emotion tugging at his heart.

“Okay,” Yeonjun whispers, brushing Beomgyu’s hair back to kiss his forehead. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” Beomgyu says, smiling, and for the next hour Yeonjun spends taking Beomgyu apart piece by piece, neither is he.

The headache Yeonjun has the next morning is almost unbearable, and he groans when he comes to consciousness, begging his brain to let him fall back asleep. But the heat plastered to his back and the throbbing in his skill do little to help, and he ends up forcing his eyes open by sheer willpower.

And then, the realisation of what they did last night.

Gasping, he sits up, dislodging Beomgyu’s arms from around him. Beomgyu sleeps soundly beside him, and as if Yeonjun’s memories weren’t clear enough, the red marks blossoming all over Beomgyu’s skin paint a vivid story of what happened last night. Yeonjun climbs over Beomgyu’s body, finds his boxers somewhere on the floor, and races to the bathroom, to the mirror. His fingers trace over the matching bruises on his own neck, and he buries his face in his hands and moans.

Did he just help Beomgyu cheat on Soobin? He knows that Soobin and Beomgyu couldn’t have broken up, at least not properly, else Beomgyu would’ve given him a straight answer last night. So then—what the fuck did they do last night? Because that only leaves one option.

He feels sick to his stomach, and he crouches over the toilet so he can throw up, until his throat is sore and his eyes water.

Fuck. “Fuck,” he says to himself, and resists smashing the mirror and his stupid, exhausted face staring back at him. After brushing his teeth and downing a painkiller for his headache with a handful of tap water, he slips on the first pieces of clothing he spots in his room and goes to Soobin’s door.

It takes him a few minutes to muster up the courage to actually knock on it.

“Mn,” Soobin’s voice comes, hoarse and clearly not very awake. The door opens soon after, and Soobin blinks at him. “What?”

“Can I come in?” Yeonjun asks.

“You look like shit,” Soobin observes. His eyes roam from Yeonjun’s face to the bit of his neck peeking out from his hoodie. “I guess, since you already woke me up.”

He opens the door further for Yeonjun to step into, and Yeonjun follows silently. He hasn’t been in Soobin’s room properly for a while; the only times he’s been here recently is to either check on or look for Odi. Soobin’s dear pet hedgehog is sleeping in the corner of his cage, and Soobin steps in front of him, hands on his hips.

“I take it you didn’t wake me up at five in the morning to look at Odi,” Soobin drawls. “So spit it out.”

“I…” Yeonjun breathes in deeply. In, out. Forcing the air to pass through his lungs so he doesn’t forget how to. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“… What?” Soobin rubs his eyes. “God, hyung, I’m too tired for this, just tell me what happened.”

“I know—I know you and Beomgyu have been having troubles, but I—” Once Yeonjun begins to talk, he can’t stop, “I also know it hasn’t even been a day since you guys broke up, or whatever it is you guys decided on, and if you end up deciding that you want to stay together, I just fucked everything up for you guys, and—”

“What,” Soobin says again, more alert now. “What the fuck are you talking about? Slow down.”

Yeonjun ignores him and continues, all in one breath, “I should’ve waited until I knew what was going on with you guys before I did anything, but I—I’m just fucking stupid, honestly, and once we started I completely forgot about the rest of the world, and—”

Soobin slaps his hand over Yeonjun’s mouth.

“Mmmmf,” Yeonjun says.

“Okay.” Soobin narrows his eyes at him. “You’re talking about—what, Beomgyu? You and Beomgyu fucked last night or something?”

“Mmmmfffmfmmmf.” You don’t need to put it so crudely. Yeonjun nods.

Soobin stares at him for a long time, then says slowly, “I’m going to release you, because my arm hurts, but you can’t speak until I say so. Okay?”

Miserably, Yeonjun nods again, and Soobin drops his hand.

“Right. So…” Soobin tugs at his own hair. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding here.”

Yeonjun tilts his head. Did Beomgyu already speak to Soobin? Did—did Yeonjun not fuck everything up? Is he allowed to be so hopeful, after what he’s possibly done? His mouth goes dry as he waits for Soobin to continue.

“Me and Beomgyu? Are not dating,” Soobin says, and then waves his hand towards Yeonjun. “I thought you and him were dating.”

“Um.” Yeonjun’s brain processes each word individually: I thought you and him were dating. You and him, Soobin said.

Him and Beomgyu? Him, Choi Yeonjun, and Beomgyu?

“But,” Yeonjun stammers. “You guys literally told us you were dating!”

“And you and Beomgyu have been all over each other for months, so I figured he told you the truth!” Soobin groans, slapping his palm against his forehead.

“The truth?”

“It’s not real, it’s just—just a PR relationship, for fuck’s sake.” Yeonjun’s mouth rounds into an o. “Of course, if we were really dating, I wouldn’t just let you walk around eyefucking my supposed boyfriend.”

Yeonjun bristles, “I don’t—”

“Hyung.” Soobin gestures at Yeonjun’s neck, and Yeonjun pulls up his shirt, self-conscious. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“You’re telling me that—what, Beomgyu thinks we’re dating?” Yeonjun says, voice rising in panic, because that cannot be true. It can’t be. He refuses to allow these words to be true, because it would mean a) he’s an idiot, and b) he left his apparent-boyfriend in bed alone after taking his virginity. Wait, shit, he took Beomgyu’s virginity. Beomgyu is the most sentimental person he knows. He’s exactly the type to put weight on a social construct like that. Which means that Beomgyu thought it meant something, which means that—“Oh my god,” he whispers.

“You guys make me feel so smart,” Soobin mutters. “We aren’t dating, hyung. It’s fake, we’re trying to get out of it, blah blah blah. Now please let me go back to sleep.”

Yeonjun doesn’t have a chance to speak before Soobin shoves him out of the room and shuts the door in his face. He stands there for a solid sixty seconds before he remembers he left Beomgyu alone, and he races back, praying Beomgyu didn’t wake up in the time he was gone—

Of course he did, and when Yeonjun reaches his room, he’s met with the sight of Beomgyu sitting cross-legged on his bed, brushing through his hair with one hand and wiping his face with the other.

The door creaks as he opens it, and Beomgyu’s head shoots up. “Hyung,” he says, sitting straight, fingers digging into the sheets. “I woke up and…”

Yeonjun kicks the door shut and then practically tackles Beomgyu to the bed. Beomgyu falls with a small oof, and squirms until Yeonjun gets off him.

Yeonjun pins him down by the wrist, breathing hard, staring into Beomgyu’s eyes and thinking holy shit, does he think we’ve been dating this entire time?

“Are we dating?” Yeonjun blurts out ineloquently.

“Um…” Beomgyu frowns. “Y—Yes? Why are you—why do you look so confused?”

Confused isn’t the right word. More like shocked, he thinks, and drops his head to Beomgyu’s shoulder. “Oh my fucking god.”

“What?” Beomgyu asks, smoothing his hand up Yeonjun’s back. “Wait, are you saying that—did you not know? How do you not know you’re dating someone?!”

“You never told me!” Yeonjun accuses.

“You literally asked me out!”

“No, I didn’t?” Yeonjun says, but the certainty at which Beomgyu speaks makes him reconsider his own thought. Did he?

Beomgyu shakes their hands, pointedly bringing Yeonjun’s attention to their matching rings.

Shit. He did.

“I thought you were just being subtle because,” Beomgyu swallows, his hand falling back onto the bed, “because of me and Soobin hyung being stuck in that stupid fake relationship, and you were scared of our company finding out and us getting in trouble, not because…”

Yeonjun hides his face against Beomgyu’s chest. He has to be the biggest idiot on the planet. Beomgyu is the second biggest idiot on the planet, obviously.

“You never said it was fake,” Yeonjun hisses. “That seems like a pretty important detail to leave out.”

“We went on dates, you gave me a ring worth six million won with your name engraved in it, you let me sleep in your bed—” Beomgyu lists off.

“Okay, but I did all that under the pretense that—that you and Soobin were dating, I didn’t know those were dates!” Yeonjun yells, too embarrassed to lift his head and see Beomgyu’s expression.

Until he hears the shake in Beomgyu’s voice as he asks, “Are you saying if you’d known, you wouldn’t have…”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Yeonjun releases Beomgyu’s hand so he can hold his face. Beomgyu avoids his gaze, chewing on his lower lip, digging into the little cut Yeonjun bit into it last night. “If I’d known it was fake, I would’ve asked you months ago.”

He sees Beomgyu’s cheeks cave as he struggles not to smile. “Really?”

“Beomgyu,” Yeonjun says, and runs his hands all over Beomgyu’s face—his rounded cheeks and sweat-slicked forehead and the corners of his mouth. “You know I love you. I’m in love with you. Right?”

He’s proud of himself for managing to speak those words without his chest caving in.

Beomgyu waits a while, then mumbles, “Yeah.”

“… Then you should know the answer,” Yeonjun finishes, and kisses Beomgyu’s forehead. Beomgyu whines, grabbing the pillow behind him and slapping Yeonjun’s face with it.

“I can’t believe you thought you were some kind of rebound,” Beomgyu shouts. “Stupid hyung.” He smacks Yeonjun with the pillow again, hard enough this time to topple Yeonjun onto his side.

“I think this is more your fault for—” Smack, “—not explaining to me properly what was happening between you and—” Smack, “Soobin, and also not telling—”

“Stop talking about Soobin!” Beomgyu yells, and changes strategies, dropping the pillow and opting to straddle Yeonjun so he can kiss him quiet instead. “Stupid, stupid, stupid…” he mumbles, capturing Yeonjun’s lips, and all of Yeonjun’s worries dissipate in the face of Beomgyu’s mouth chasing his.

Much later, Yeonjun finds himself sitting on the couch with Beomgyu curled up by his side, a small bundle under their shared blanket. He’s playing some game on his phone while Yeonjun answers fan comments, and they must sit there for at least one or two hours before someone finally walks in and finds them cuddling.

“Good morning,” Taehyun greets tiredly, trudging over to the fridge.

“Morning,” Yeonjun greets.

“Hey, Taehyunnie,” Beomgyu calls. Taehyun hums and pours himself a glass of milk. “Did you know Yeonjun hyung didn’t know we were dating?”

Taehyun spits out his milk.

“Wait, you knew?” Yeonjun gapes. “Wait, did everyone know but me?”

Taehyun smacks his fist against the counter, choking, and waves with his other hand rapidly until he can breathe again and gasp out, “Please don’t tell me you thought Soobin hyung and Beomgyu hyung were actually dating.”

Yeonjun’s response of, “Well…” must say it all, because Taehyun’s choking morphs into laughter, like he wasn’t dying two seconds ago.

“Oh my fucking god,” Taehyun says, practically in hysterics.

“Why would you tell them and not me?” Yeonjun questions Beomgyu. Beomgyu taps away on his phone, ignoring him. Yeonjun grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him until he gets fed up and swats Yeonjun away.

“I didn’t tell them, Soobin hyung did,” Beomgyu huffs, returning to his spot by Yeonjun’s side. “And I didn’t tell you because I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

“I’m smarter than you!” Yeonjun says.

“Debatable,” Taehyun comments. “As the only person in this dorm who didn’t know you were dating—”

“Okay, yes, hyung, you’re so smart, not realising how you gifting me a set of matching rings worth half of my entire paycheque last year would seem,” Beomgyu drawls. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“You are such a brat,” Yeonjun growls, and attacks Beomgyu’s sides with tickles. Beomgyu shrieks, hopping off the couch and taking the blanket with him, phone dropping onto the cushion behind him.

Through their combined power of peer pressure, and a compelling presentation they make together with Soobin explaining why revealing an actual couple would be better than a fake one, they manage to convince their company to scrap the whole Beomgyu and Soobin are going out scandal in favour of the objectively better Beomgyu and Yeonjun are going out scandal.

“Why did they even pick Soobin,” Yeonjun grumbles, doodling on his notepad as he procrastinates doing actual work. “What does he have that I don’t?”

“Well, he’s taller, he has a lot of fans in the general public, he has more industry connections, he…” Beomgyu counts off his fingers until Yeonjun glares at him. Laughing, Beomgyu squishes Yeonjun’s cheeks, “But he doesn’t have me, so! That’s what you have and he doesn’t.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Yeonjun pries himself out of Beomgyu’s grasp so he can sulk. “Thanks.” He draws a sad little sun on his paper.

Beomgyu’s head pops into his vision a moment later, pouting. “Do you need a reminder?”

“Of what?”

“Of what you have and he doesn’t,” Beomgyu says, grabbing the notepad from him and tossing it aside. “Because if so…”

Beomgyu’s hand draws from his shoulder to his hip, then to the front of his pants, and pauses. Yeonjun holds his breath, waiting, but Beomgyu only gives him a devilish grin.

“Fine.” Yeonjun sighs dramatically. “I guess you can show me.”

Beomgyu licks his lips and drops onto his knees in front of the bed. “Lucky me,” he says sarcastically, and then gets to work on reminding Yeonjun of what he has that Soobin doesn’t—which he thinks is worth a lot more than any fans or industry connections ever could.