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Chapter Text

Mark’s house is the biggest out of their friends’, but Renjun’s personal favorite apartment, that isn’t his of course, is Chenle’s. It’s one of those places that looks straight out of a magazine, with giant windows and all white furniture and an honest to god chandelier above the overzealous living room couch. If he remembers correctly, Renjun’s fairly certain said chandelier was more expensive than Renjun’s first apartment, but that only makes him like it more.

Renjun’s heard the stories and seen the pictures of the Olsen twins’ abandoned West Village apartment, and in his opinion Chenle’s apartment is like the slightly smaller, less ostentatious version of that. Which is saying something, considering Chenle’s typical grandeur stylistic choices.

The six of them are hanging out in Chenle’s apartment, waiting for Jisung to get back from his date so the seven of them can go drinking together. Jaemin had made sure to warn them that Jisung might not show up, choosing to stay out all night with his date instead.

It’s been a week and a half since Mark’s wine party, and Jisung has gone on two more dates with Derek. Tonight marks their fourth ever date. Renjun has been trying not to think about it.

As he promised, Renjun has helped with two out of four of Jisung’s date outfits. Donghyuck thinks he’s a glutton for punishment. Renjun maintains that he’s just being a good friend.

Regardless of what’s going on with Jisung and Derek, tonight marks the beginning of a three day weekend for Renjun, which means he’s planning on getting fucked up. Or as fucked up as he’s willing to get in public being an easily recognizable public figure, while being out with six other easily recognizable public figures.

“Jisung is six minutes away,” Jaemin announces loudly, phone in one hand and a shot glass in the other. “Oh wait, actually it says sixty minutes away. We don’t think he got kidnapped, do we?”

“Stop trying to track his phone,” Donghyuck sighs loudly, coming from the kitchen to harshly slump into the couch next to Renjun, “if he wanted you to know where he was, he would have shared his location with you. But he didn’t, because you’re a weirdo.”

“I have a right to ensure my friend’s safety,” Jaemin shouts, pointing an angry finger at Donghyuck. He’s possibly drunker than the rest of them, since he started drinking about an hour before anyone else.

“Which is why he gave his location to me,” Donghyuck shoots back, pressing a shot glass into Renjun’s hand. “Here, take that. Maybe it’ll wipe that look off your face.”

Renjun takes the shot, tossing the glass onto the ottoman carelessly. Jisung was actually going to share his location with Renjun for the night, but Donghyuck found out before he could and forced Jisung to share it with him instead. Then, when Jisung left for the night Donghyuck pinched Renjun’s cheek so hard he thought it was going to bruise. It hasn’t yet, but the area is still tender to the touch.

“There’s no look on my face,” Renjun grumbles, accepting the cup of coke Donghyuck shares with him as a chaser, “I can hardly move it tonight.”

“If you don’t stop looking miserable I’m going to kiss you on the mouth.” Donghyuck threatens. Renjun rolls his eyes, immediately leaning forward and pressing their lips together.

“Wow,” He deadpans, “now I really am miserable.”

Donghyuck gasps, hitting Renjun in the leg. “You’re so mean to me.”

“You’re looking too far into things for no reason.” Renjun ignores his complaining, going for honesty instead of sarcasm for once.

“I’m worried about you,” Donghyuck admits, turning on his hip and leaning closer into Renjun’s space. His warm breath hits Renjun’s face, fanning onto his cheeks. Mostly all he can smell is tequila, which makes him realize that maybe Jaemin’s not the only drunk one after all. “You stopped talking to me.”

“We talk every day.”

“You know what I mean,” Donghyuck stares deeply into Renjun’s eyes. It makes Renjun’s insides squirm, like Donghyuck’s peeled back his skull and is looking directly in his brain. “You haven’t even told me what you and Jisung talked about at Mark’s.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Renjun insists, “I told you, I’m over it. You badgering me isn’t going to change my mind, it’s just going to annoy me until I really do stop talking to you.”

Donghyuck tips impossibly closer, pressing their foreheads together. Renjun allows it for a second, but Donghyuck’s so close Renjun can’t really focus on any part of him and it’s giving him a headache. When he tries to wiggle out of his grasp, Donghyuck doesn’t let him. “I just want you to be okay. Because I love you.”

“I love you, too, Hyuck-ah.” Renjun presses his forehead back, trying to get Donghyuck to back up by giving in. It doesn’t work. “You know I do.”

The door behind them pops open. Donghyuck’s holding him in place so well that Renjun can’t even check who it is.

“Um, hi,” Jisung’s hesitant voice carries over to them. Renjun shoves Donghyuck harder than he normally would, ignoring him rolling off the couch in favor of whipping around to face Jisung. Jisung is giving them a weird look, but Renjun doesn’t notice. All of his attention is stolen, focused to the left of Jisung instead. “We’re back.”

Jaemin makes a victorious noise. “Ha! It’s been exactly six minutes.”

“This is Derek,” Jisung continues, “I thought he could come with us tonight.”

Renjun feels like he just got punched in the solar plexus. Knowing Jisung’s been going out with some vague man named Derek living somewhere in the greater New York area is one thing, but seeing him in person, pressed together with Jisung, is another. Derek is taller than Jisung by at least two inches, has black shoulder length wavy hair, dark skin, and a tattoo that pokes out of his shirt sleeve. He’s built like he goes to the gym three times a day, and his smile makes Renjun fall a little in love with him. Jisung and Derek aren’t holding hands, but they gravitate towards each other in the way only two people who are sleeping together do. Renjun’s stomach turns.

Luckily for Renjun, he’s given a moment to gather his thoughts when Jaemin gets up and goes to introduce himself. Donghyuck sits up from where he’s laying on the floor, looking at Renjun with wide eyes when Renjun finally turns his back on the front door. Derek? He mouths. Renjun nods tersely, then gets up to go say hi.

“Cute shirt,” Renjun chirps at Jisung, spreading a grin across his face. The shirt is Renjun’s, because he takes the first place trophy for best friend every time. “Derek, right? I’m Renjun,” Donghyuck comes and presses his shoulder against Renjun’s in what Renjun is sure is supposed to be a show of support, “this is Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck nods at him quickly, then pulls Renjun away to allow Jisung and Derek to make their way to the kitchen to say hi to everyone else. “Dude,” He hisses low in Renjun’s ear, fitting his thumbs between the belt loops on Renjun’s jeans and using his hold to shove Renjun down the hallway, “did you know about this?”

“If I did I probably wouldn’t have come,” Renjun admits, looking over his shoulder at Donghyuck, who makes a sad face at him. Rolling his eyes, Renjun adds, “you know I don’t like meeting new people.”

“And that’s the only reason?” Donghyuck makes a face. Renjun opens Chenle’s bedroom doors when Donghyuck stops in front of them, and they both go tumbling in.

“Of course it is,” Renjun agrees, dislodging himself from Donghyuck’s hold and going about fixing his clothes, “what other reason could there possibly be?”

Donghyuck scoffs, folding his arms across his chest. “I wonder.”

“Why did you drag me in here?” Renjun ignores Donghyuck’s attitude gracefully. These are the skills that growing up with cousins much younger than you develop.

“If we’re going out to party you can’t go looking like that.” Renjun is actually extremely offended at the look Donghyuck gives his clothes.

“What’s wrong with my outfit?” Renjun frowns down at himself. He’s wearing an old and slightly too big Nasa shirt, his favorite baggy jeans that have a rip right under the front right pocket, a cardigan he always gets complimented on, and his favorite cat socks. At the door are his Birkenstock clogs that he’s recently broken in and has taken to wearing everywhere.

“You look like a teacher,” Donghyuck says plainly, “or a youth pastor.”

“What do you have against teachers?” Renjun demands.

“Nothing. But even teachers don’t dress like that when they’re going to the club.”

Renjun sighs. “Okay, whatever. Do what you want.”

Donghyuck grins maniacally, immediately turning and diving into Chenle’s closet.

Getting Renjun ready takes so long that by the time they’re finished, the pre-game is done and everyone’s putting on their shoes to start walking to the club. If Renjun really thinks about it, he’s pretty sure that was Donghyuck’s plan the whole time.

There’s a split second where it looks like Derek is going to introduce himself to Renjun again, then stops himself when he realizes he’s not actually a new person. This interaction makes Renjun feel many things.

On one hand, Derek making a move to introduce himself to everyone in the house, even some random person that just suddenly appears, is a giant green check in favor of him being a good guy. On the other hand, Renjun takes it as Derek affirming Donghyuck’s earlier words, and there’s nothing Renjun hates more than Donghyuck being right. It’s not enough to raise a red flag, but Renjun makes a mental note to keep it in mind as the night goes on.

Getting to the club is met with little fanfare, but actually getting in is another story. Jeno set everything up, which means it should be an early entry, but the direction Chenle takes them has them walk past the line of people waiting to get in. This in and of itself isn’t that big of a deal, but they can’t make it to the door before someone snags Mark by the back of the shirt and stops them all in their tracks.

The someone grabbing at Mark like a runaway puppy is the leader of a gaggle of women. Through a truly miniscule amount of prodding, Mark finds out that the leader’s name is Mandy and it’s her bachelorette party. She stopped Mark because she watched the first ever movie he appeared in (when he was, like, six months old Renjun is pretty sure) the day before and couldn’t believe he was passing by her. The group of women scream when Mark congratulates Mandy on her engagement, then again when Renjun makes his way over to steal Mark back so they can get moving.

“I’ve loved you since I was sixteen,” One of the women from the back shouts at Renjun.

“I love you back!” Renjun calls, lacing his fingers with Mark’s and tugging him out of Mandy’s hold, “Our friends are waiting so we have to go, but you ladies have a wonderful night! Congrats on the wedding.” Renjun smiles brightly at Mandy, hoping it distracts her from the fact that he’s dragging Mark away from her. It seems to work, since all that follows them once they turn their backs is the flashing of phone camera lights and a chorus of thanks.

“Thanks,” Mark breathes, fiddling with the collar of his shirt to try and get it to lay right again, “I never know how to get out of that.”

“You’ve been famous since you were born,” Renjun huffs incredulously, “how have you not figured it out yet?”

“She’s getting married!” Mark shouts quietly. “How do you tell someone whose about to get married to fuck off? You can’t.”

“Did I say to tell her to fuck off? You can politely and gracefully bow out, you know.” They’ve reached their friends at this point, but haven’t completely joined the group yet in favor of arguing.

“Mark Lee gracefully doing anything?” Chenle snorts, shoving his ginormous head into their conversation. “Do you really believe he can do that? Or is it more like one of those things you just say but don’t mean.”

“I was a figure skater for two years!” Mark defends himself, outraged.

“You were in figure skating lessons for two years. And your mom pulled you out after you sprained your ankle for the tenth time.” Donghyuck dodges Mark’s hand when he swipes at him, dancing backwards and starting a chase between them.

“Does this happen a lot?” Derek leans in to ask Jisung.

“The fighting?” Jisung muses. “Once in a while.”

“Or every single time.” Renjun mutters under his breath. Jisung looks back at him in surprise, like he didn’t notice Renjun had ended up right next to them, and doesn’t that sting.

“I meant the girls,” Derek juts his chin towards the line of people. Renjun wrinkles his nose at the women being called girls.

“Literally everyone knows Mark from at least one role,” Jisung explains, wringing his fingers together as he watches Mark get ahold of Donghyuck and start twisting his ear. Their group unanimously and silently agree to ignore Donghyuck’s screaming. “He’s always getting called out for autographs and pictures.”

“And what about you?” Derek gives Jisung an appraising look. “You don’t get many people recognizing you?”

“Unless you’re a Hadid sister, no one usually cares enough.” Jisung tells him honestly.

“You’re prettier than a Hadid sister.” Derek tells Jisung. The worst part is that he sounds completely earnest.

Trying not to throw up in his mouth, Renjun starts making his way around them, desperately ignoring Jisung’s pleased little giggle and the way he completely slumps into Derek’s side. No matter how fast he makes his way to Jeno at the front of the huddle they’ve made, none of them miss Derek turning Jisung into him, wrapping an arm around his waist possessively.

Or maybe it’s only Renjun who can’t avoid noticing every move the two of them make. No one else seems to.

Maybe they just don’t care.

“Let’s go in without them,” Jeno decides, sneering over at where Mark has Donghyuck backed up against a light pole. Donghyuck is running his hands through Mark’s hair, most likely trying to talk his way out of any punishment Mark might give him.

“Will they be able to get in?” Derek pipes up, staring concernedly over at the two of them.

“It’s Mark and Donghyuck Lee,” Chenle scrunches up his face, “even if we leave them behind with explicit notice that they’re not with us, the two of them are never not getting into a club.”

After that, there are no more complaints. The six of them walk to the door, no longer trying to gain Mark and Donghyuck’s attention. Before Renjun can even think of turning around to check on them one last time, they’re let in the doors and lead to the back where the roped off VIP section is set up.

Renjun goes to sit down, but Jaemin grabs him by the wrist before he makes it up the steps, keeping Renjun to the side with him while everyone else passes them by. “Renjun wants a shot,” Jaemin makes up on the spot when Jeno motions for them to join, “we’ll be back in a minute.” Then he’s carting Renjun off to the bar, shoving his way to through the crowd and batting his eyelashes until the bartender comes and takes their order. A lemon drop shot for Renjun, and straight tequila for Jaemin. They get them within two minutes, and Renjun is left staring in horror when Jaemin immediately takes his without so much as a wince.

“So,” Jaemin starts loudly, tugging Renjun closer to him by the arm, “you doing okay?”

Renjun takes his shot, placing his empty cup next to Jaemin’s. “I’m great. Why, do I look that awful?”

Jaemin stares at him seriously for a moment, then pastes on the smile he has when he’s pretending he doesn’t already know what he’s trying to get you to confess. “You’re as beautiful as you’ve ever been, my love. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t check in on you, hm? You never call. You never text. I don’t know what’s going on with you anymore.”

Renjun shifts uncomfortably. Jaemin is lying, obviously making a joke to try and get Renjun to loosen up, but it has been harder to talk to Jaemin lately. He’s the only other one besides Donghyuck who knows the full story of what’s been happening, but he’s Jisung’s unwavering support. Renjun has been, admittedly, very confused about where that leaves them. “We talked for two hours yesterday.”

“I talked for two hours yesterday,” Jaemin gives him a look, “you berated me and my feelings.”

Jaemin had booked another shoot with two cast members from Dune, one of those people being Javier Bardem. Renjun had been home for maybe twenty minutes before he got a call from Jaemin. He’d ignored it at first, letting it ring through as he dug desperately through his cabinet for something nutritious to eat that he didn’t have to cook. Shortly after, he was forced to answer when Jaemin called him three more times in quick succession. Worried that Jaemin was stranded somewhere, he answered on the first ring the next time his phone let up, only to be stuck in an hours-long info dump about every interaction Jaemin and Javier have had.

“I still stand by the fact that naming your fish after him and then replacing it an hour after it died is too far.” Renjun shrugs, stepping away from the bar to lead their way back to their friends.

“The fish is a representation of our love,” Jaemin insists, “you just don’t get it.”

“He’s happily married with children, Jaemin.”

“Have you never heard of polyamory?” Jaemin demands, pinching the back of Renjun’s shoulder. Renjun cringes away, rubbing at the sore spot and refusing to respond in protest.

Jaemin’s obsession with Javier started when Dune was wrapping up editing and preparing for their theatrical release. As the main photographer for vogue, he was selected to do a series of shoots with the cast. Javier was one of the people on set, and apparently was more charming than Jaemin could handle. A slight obsession was formed, one that ran so deep Jaemin couldn’t seem to stop talking about the man. Even two years later.

Renjun is fairly certain Jaemin is joking most of the time, but even Renjun isn’t dumb enough to downplay Jaemin’s devotion.

Apparently Javier Bardem is even more handsome and kind and all encompassing in person than he is in interviews. Jaemin had come out of the shoot a changed man, and hasn’t stopped talking about it since. Some days, Renjun is genuinely concerned Jaemin’s going to quit his job and become one of Javier Bardem’s personal assistants, just to be near him consistently.

They get back to the VIP area, the rope immediately pulled back for them without question. All of their friends (plus Derek) are seated, which means that the only spots left open are one between Jisung and Jeno, and one on the end next to Chenle. Renjun always sits himself in the middle of the group. It’s a habit of his because he hates feeling left out and likes hearing all the conversations happening so he can pick which one he wants to join.

Regardless of his well established habit, Renjun would rather strip his clothes here and now and be gawked at by every patron in this club than sit next to Jisung and his little boyfriend when he has no idea how to interact with either of them together. As soon as they get up the stairs Renjun launches himself into the spot next to Chenle, smiling beautifically when both Donghyuck and Jaemin side eye him.

For his part, Chenle takes it in stride, wrapping an arm around Renjun’s shoulder and smacking a kiss to the side of his head while the other side of the table shifts around to let Jaemin in. “You beautiful man,” Chenle breathes into Renjun’s ear, breath warm and sticky. “You look so hot tonight, and for what?”

“Donghyuck put me in this, that’s what,” Renjun digs the heel of his palm into Chenle’s thigh, trying to get some space between them. It doesn’t work. Instead Chenle grabs Renjun’s hand with his free one, rubbing circles into Renjun’s palm with his thumb.

“Well you look sinful,” Chenle compliments him. Horrifically, Renjun can feel the blush blooming on his cheeks, “Jaemin said he was going to talk to the talking heads and see if he could get you on next month's cover in this outfit.”

Even though Renjun knows it’s not true, his outfit really is more suited for a club than one of the top fashion magazines in the world, he still can’t help but melt a little. Chenle’s eyes twinkle when he does, pulling him further onto the both so half of his butt is no longer hanging off the edge. The move has the probably intended effect of moving Renjun half into Chenle’s lap, but neither of them acknowledge it, both tuning into Mark and Donghyuck’s conversation happening just to the right of them.

They seem to have made up, with both of them turned into each other and Mark’s arm resting on the booth behind Donghyuck’s shoulders.

“When did you even get in?” Renjun leans in to ask.

“Like five seconds after you. Mark pinched my ass so hard I can barely stand to sit right now, and then he let me go.”

“It was not that hard,” Mark scoffs, “and even if it was, you deserved it.”

“Violence is never the answer. I thought you were a pacifist.” Chenle chastises him.

“What can I say,” Mark smiles sleazily, “Donghyuck brings out the worst in me.”

Donghyuck gasps, pinching Mark in the side. “Don’t even joke.”

Mark laughs, batting Donghyuck’s fingers away from him. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean it, of course.”

Renjun can’t help but smile at the two of them, settling down more into the couch. His friends were weird about each other, but he loved them. And maybe he was a little weird about them too.

Both times he helped Jisung with his date outfits were with Jaemin there, and at least one other person circling around in the back. First time was Mark and Chenle, second time was Donghyuck when he weaseled where Renjun was going out of him. Who knows if anything more happened once Jisung went to his date and Renjun went back to his house, but both times Renjun couldn’t turn around without being subjected to Jaemin’s mating ritual happening right behind him.

And it’s not just Jaemin. Renjun knows that most of his friends have hooked up. He’s even part of that list, having slept with Donghyuck. In a weird way, he kind of thinks it’s what has made them so close.

Still, Renjun doesn’t typically sleep with his friends. The thing with Donghyuck was years ago, and nothing has happened since then other than a few drunken pecks. With Jisung’s confession still lingering in Renjun’s mind, he’s not planning on hooking up with anyone anytime soon, friend or not. Even if he really likes the way Chenle hangs all over him for the night.

In Renjun’s expert opinion, Chenle’s most definitely not looking to push things further either. Sure he plants a hand firmly on the inside of Renjun’s thigh, and yeah he kisses Renjun’s cheek and neck quite a few times, and maybe he doesn’t separate from Renjun’s side for the better part of the night, but it doesn’t have to mean anything. Since he’s known him, Chenle has been the most touchy person Renjun has ever met, doubled when he’s drunk. Which he is. Has been since before Jisung got back to the apartment.

If he was really looking for sex, he would have gone to Jaemin. Renjun firmly believes that, since the two of them have been sleeping together for months now. What’s actually happening is that Mark and Donghyuck had each other, which left Chenle with Renjun to latch onto.

Knowing this doesn’t make the attention feel any different, though. There’s still that excited thrill in the pit of Renjun’s stomach, and he can feel his cheeks getting redder as the night goes on. The only reprieve comes in that it’s dark enough that his blush should be covered, and none of their friends are paying enough attention to them to note how close they’ve gotten.

It’s not until they all make their way to go dance that the night starts to get a little dicey. Renjun’s pressed between Mark and Chenle, Jeno behind Mark and shouting in his ear. Jaemin and Donghyuck ducked away to go get drinks and Jisung and Derek ducked away to go make out in a dark corner. Probably. Renjun didn’t actually listen to where they were going when they said it.

Chenle continues to be all over Renjun, singing loudly in his face to the songs he knows and incoherently shouting over the ones he doesn’t. Renjun allows it to go one for much longer than he usually tolerates, finding it almost endearing how badly Chenle handles his alcohol.

There’s a moment where Chenle trips over his own feet, landing harshly into Renjun’s chest and forcing Renjun to stumble into Mark. After everyone catches their footing once again, Mark leans over Renjun’s shoulder to speak to Chenle directly.

“What stick wormed its way up Jisung’s ass?” Mark shouts over the music.

Chenle shrugs, using his hold on Renjun to move him slightly to the side so he and Mark can talk better. “I dunno. We were fine earlier, I don’t know why he keeps glaring at me. Maybe it’s puberty.”

Mark laughs like he does everytime Chenle makes that same joke, but all at once it’s like a bucket of ice water was dumped over Renjun’s head as he realizes what’s actually going on with Jisung. His whole body goes cold and stiff, and he feels more sober than he’s felt since five that night when Jeno showed up with jello shots. They were just as disgusting as Renjun remembered from college, but he still took three of them, holding a hand over his mouth each time to keep himself from spitting them out.

“What are you talking about?” Renjun asks, turning his head to force himself into their conversation.

“Jisung’s been giving some serious pissed off vibes tonight,” Chenle tells him, “I think he’s jealous.”

Renjun tries not to jerk in Chenle’s hold. “What would he have to be jealous about?” He only notices how aggressive his question came out when Chenle gives him a weird look.

“Because you took the seat next to me instead of the one next to him. You know Jisung gets touchy about stuff like that.” Renjun breathes out slowly, feeling his shoulders relax. He doesn’t even know when they got so tense. Chenle gives him a considerate look. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Renjun forces a laugh out, “I think I need some water. Give me a sec.”

“I’ll go with,” Chenle offers.

“No need,” Renjun detaches himself from Chenle’s hold, straightening out his clothes. “Be back soon!”

He takes off, bypassing the bar completely and locking himself in the bathroom. Approaching the sink basin, Renjun splashes his face with water, dragging his wet hand across the back of his neck in hopes to cool himself down.

There’s no universe in which Jisung doesn’t think Renjun and Chenle are going to fuck tonight.

It’s not as though it’s a bizarre assumption to make. If Jaemin were in Renjun’s place, Renjun would definitely assume he and Chenle were hooking up that night. Granted, Chenle and Jaemin have already been hooking up, but that’s not really the point. The point is that Renjun pseudo-rejected Jisung, and is now acting as though he’s going home with Chenle right in front of him. Which is objectively an asshole thing to do.

And on the night Jisung finally introduces them to Derek. Fuck.

It’s not as if Renjun can just go back out there and correct his wrong doing. Suddenly declining Chenle’s advances would most likely be taken with grace, but would be suspicious as fuck. If he’s not asked about it tonight, Renjun will definitely be asked about his sudden mood change in the morning, and who knows if he’ll have a believable excuse by then.

For a brief moment, all Renjun wants to do is go home. As it always goes, being in the bathroom makes him realize how drunk he really is, and it makes him want to cry. Why cry, he’s not sure. Probably something to do with the sky feeling as though it’s falling and not knowing how to stop chipping at it anyways.

But running away and hiding isn’t going to solve his problem. It would actually probably worsen the issue and how he feels.

Instead, Renjun decides to tough it out. Whatever that looks like.

After wetting his hands once more and pressing them to his cheeks, Renjun exits the bathroom and heads back to his friends. Pushing through the throng of people separating the dance floor from the rest of the building, Renjun sees his friends and immediately exhales a sigh of relief.

In the five minutes since he went to the bathroom, Donghyuck and Jaemin have returned. With Jaemin back and Renjun gone, Chenle has seemingly turned his attention onto more fruitful pastures. The two of them are wrapped around each other, fronts completely pressed together and being ignored by the rest of their friends.

Now that Chenle’s as distracted as he is, Renjun doesn’t have to think of a good enough excuse as to why he’s suddenly no longer interested in being as wrapped up in Chenle as he just was. Thank god.

When Renjun reinserts himself into the group, Donghyuck wraps around his back and hands him a drink that’s half empty. “Sorry,” Donghyuck yells into his ear, “I spilled most of it. But I got this for you.” Renjun thanks him, takes a sip of the drink, then tries not to hurl as he forcibly hands it back to Donghyuck.

“Did you just make me drink actual gasoline?” Renjun demands. Donghyuck’s laughing so hard that Renjun’s holding up most of his weight.

“It’s tequila.” Donghyuck informs him cheerily, still giggling at Renjun’s misfortune as he downs the rest of the drink.

“I hate you.” Renjun tells him honestly, dodging him when Donghyuck tries to kiss him. “No, I’m serious this time. I hate you.”

“How could you say that to me?” Donghyuck scowls at him, holding Renjun’s head in place with a hand so he can suck a kiss into his cheek. “You’re so mean. That would really hurt my feelings if I didn’t know how obsessed with me you are.”

Renjun refrains from rolling his eyes, shoving Donghyuck off him so they can be face to face. “Sure.” He shrugs.

“Are you done trying to fuck Chenle?” Donghyuck yells, wrapping his arms around Renjun’s waist to drag him closer.

“I’m not trying to fuck Chenle,” Renjun yells back, “I resent that.”

“Just saying,” Donghyuck gives him a disapproving look. “Jisung looked like steam was coming out of his ears.”

“I’ve heard.” Renjun frowns back. “I haven’t even seen Jisung since we left the booth. I didn’t realize he was paying attention to anyone but Derek.”

“Despite Derek’s best efforts, Jisung is still paying the most attention to you. As always.”

“Don’t say that,” Renjun groans, pressing his forehead to Donghyuck’s shoulder. “You’re trying to make me feel worse than I already do.”

“Never,” Donghyuck promises, “let’s get you drunk so you can forget your misgivings. I’ll even buy you another drink.”

“You’re very caring.” Renjun grunts, allowing Donghyuck to drag him back out of the crowd. “Where’s Jisung now? Should I go explain myself and apologize?”

“Derek took him to the other side of the room to try and revive his mood.” Donghyuck shrugs, waving down the bartender and ordering them both shots, and Renjun a cosmopolitan. “I think the only thing worse than hanging off another guy's neck all night is going to him and apologizing about it after. We’re all having a good time and getting drunk, he’ll get over it. Besides, he knows Chenle is just like that. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

“You don’t think I’m a bad person?” Renjun asks, maybe a tad too openly in the middle of this club with Donghyuck as drunk as he already is. He knows he’s dragging down their moods with his mess, but he can’t help it. He needs reassurance right now.

“I don’t think you could be a bad person even if you tried,” Donghyuck replies, pressing a shot glass into Renjun’s hand.

Renjun takes it, then presses his own sloppy kiss to Donghyuck’s cheek. “I don’t hate you. In all honesty, I love you a lot.”

Donghyuck stares him down cooly. “If you say something like that to me again I’m going to kiss you on the mouth.”

Renjun laughs, and Donghyuck cracks a grin. “I love you!” Renjun shouts at him.

Donghyuck grabs his cheeks, slapping his hand over Renjun’s mouth before kissing the back of it. “I love you more. Now come on, no more moping. We’re having fun tonight.”

Following Donghyuck is always the option Renjun is going to choose, so he does. Donghyuck pulls him along back into the foray of everything, putting Renjun between him and Jeno and forcing him to dance with them.

The rest of the night is a blur. Renjun remembers Derek and Jisung showing back up, and Donghyuck continuing to pour drinks down his throat, but not much other than that. There was definitely a moment where someone, probably Donghyuck, had to practically carry him to the bathroom because he thought he was going to throw up, and he vaguely remembers they all got kicked out because the promoter found Jaemin and Chenle in one of the stalls

together, but he can’t figure out if that was a dream or not.

He does vividly remember one thing, though. Jisung and Derek showed back up fairly soon after Donghyuck forced Renjun to have a good time. Nothing happened at first, but after ten minutes, when Donghyuck convinced Derek to join their dance circle and Jisung was all alone, he found his way to Renjun. All he asked was where Chenle went.

“He’s somewhere with Jaemin.” Renjun had rushed out, hoping Jisung could read between the lines. “I haven’t seen them in a while.”

“He left you alone?” Jisung furrowed his eyebrows.

“I left him alone first.” Renjun promised him. Before Jisung could respond, Derek dragged him into the middle of the circle and the moment was broken. Renjun remembers maybe ten more minutes, and then all the alcohol hit and he barely remembers anything.

The next thing he knows he’s waking up on the floor of Jaemin’s bedroom.

Jaemin’s blackout curtains are keeping them hidden from the world, but even the idea of sunlight makes Renjun’s eyes feel like they’re going to fall out of his head. The shoulder he’s laying on hurts like it’s barely a second from popping out of place, his mouth tastes like he drank from a sewer before knocking out for the night, and there’s a persistent feeling in the back of his throat like he’s going to throw up. Hoping to mitigate that a bit, Renjun sits up as slowly as he can, barely peeking his eyes open to figure out where exactly he is.

There’s a body in the corner of the room near the door that Renjun immediately thinks is a dead body. After some intense staring and blinking the blurriness out of his eyes, it becomes clear that the body is Donghyuck. Renjun is immediately assuaged.

Even if he still looks dead, Donghyuck and Renjun promised not to die before they hit their eighties, so he can’t be.

The sheets on the bed are rumpled like someone slept there, but they must’ve gotten up and left at some point. Chenle’s shoes also made it all the way next to the bed, so Renjun has a pretty good idea of who got priority for the bed last night.

It takes everything in him to actually stand up and venture out of the room to the bathroom, but he eventually manages it. Pushing through his shaky legs and nausea, Renjun washes his hands and splashes his face with water after he’s done doing his business. It doesn’t make him feel like he’s going to vomit any less, but it does take away the gross grimy feeling clinging to his cheeks.

Making his way to the kitchen through the living room, Renjun takes stock of everyone he can see still sleeping. Jeno’s on the couch, tucked into the bend of it like someone was sleeping with him earlier and has since moved. Mark is sleeping directly in front of the couch, nose only a hair from touching the hand Jeno has dangling down.

Ever the gracious host, Jaemin pulled out his cot for them. The cot has no body lying in it, but it does have a blanket crumpled in the middle and slumping off one side, and exactly three and a half water bottles lining the side.

Once he makes it into the kitchen, Renjun finds the missing characters.

Jaemin is making breakfast over his stove, quietly cracking eggs into a pan. Jisung and Chenle are both slumped over the table cradling their heads and staring despondently in opposite directions.

The sight of them makes a grin curl across Renjun’s lips. It’s a familiar position to find the two of them in after a night out, ever since they were first in college and went a little too hard more often than not.

Chenle catches sight of him first. “I think I’m dying.” He whispers harshly, closing his eyes and whimpering when Renjun can’t help but bark out a laugh. In all fairness the loud noise also reverberates through Renjun’s brain and makes his urge to expel everything in his stomach a more pressing matter, so he doesn’t feel too bad about it.

Jisung turns to him then. “Hyung,” he breathes, staring up at Renjun with wide sad eyes, “I need an ambulance.”

Renjun rolls his eyes, moving to the refrigerator and getting two water bottles out. “Here you crybabies. Drink these, you’ll feel better afterwards.”

“You know how I feel about single use plastics,” Chenle grunts, turning his face away.

“More or less favorable than dying from being poisoned through the tap water?” Jaemin responds, as easy as breathing. The argument is old and wilted, but still kicking it apparently.

“Buy a Brita like an adult,” Chenle scoffs. Renjun places the water bottle by his elbow anyways, knowing if he doesn’t he’ll have to deal with Chenle’s complaining about being thirsty next.

“I can’t trust big corporations with my health. You know that.”

“Oh, right, because,” Chenle turns his head to read the label on the bottle next to him, “Aquafina has your back, I’m sure.”

“Can we please not do this so early in the morning?” Jisung croaks out, already halfway finished with his own water.

“It’s noon.”

“It’s basically eight a.m.”

“Thanks for letting me shower first.” Renjun turns to find who had come up behind him, only to see Derek with a sheepish smile scrubbing at his wet hair with a towel. Jaemin only shrugs in response, motioning for Derek to take a seat at the table. Derek steals the seat next to Jisung, nudging his lifeless form with an elbow as he lowers himself into the chair. “Maybe you should take one next, Ji. It’ll make you feel better.”

Jisung grunts but leans into the hand Derek lays on his back. Renjun steadfastly turns away, rushing to the counter to offer his help to Jaemin.

“If you’re insisting, start plating,” Jaemin gestures to the food already sitting on the counter, “I don’t want it to start going cold.”

“Hyung, do we have oranges?” Jisung groans, rolling his forehead on his arm so he can look to the side at Renjun and Jaemin through his squinted shut eyes.

“I’ll look in a second,” Renjun glances over in simple acknowledgement. Derek’s hand has fallen off of Jisung’s back and is now resting on the back of Jisung’s chair as Derek swipes through his phone with his other hand.

“I need vitamins,” Jisung whines.

“Your hyung just said he would check,” Jaemin chides, “be patient or do it yourself.”

“Sorry, hyung,” Jisung mumbles, frowning at the floor.

“You shouldn’t be apologizing to me, you should be apologizing to Renjun.” Renjun looks over his shoulder at Jaemin, rolling his eyes when he catches him smirking to himself.

“But I was!” Jisung protests.

Chenle and Jaemin burst into laughter at the same time, with Chenle being quieter and wincing at the noise. “You’re such a loser,” Chenle snorts.

“You’re a loser,” Jisung scowls.

“Okay, enough,” Renjun interrupts them, giving Chenle, then Jisung their plates, “eat and shut up, my head is killing me.” It takes Jaemin looking from Derek to Renjun pointedly for Renjun to remember he has more people to serve, but once Derek’s plate is in front of him and Renjun’s is in front of an empty chair, he goes to dig around the fridge for oranges.

There’s a pack of three on the side of the door, so Renjun grabs two to cut up while saving one for the others to eat when they wake up.

He cuts them quickly, placing the plate in the middle of the table before turning around to grab himself water. Maybe a shot. Renjun would swear on his life that he read an article once about hangover cures and one of them was taking a shot once you woke up. The idea of more alcohol in his mouth kind of makes him want to die, but it’s an option. Especially if he’s going to be helping Jaemin deal with everyone until they decide to leave.

Before he can walk away, Chenle wraps his hand around Renjun’s wrist, tugging on his arm until Renjun falls into the chair next to him. “Sit and eat. Why are you serving us like you’re some kind of waiter? Last time I checked you were an actor.”

“If I didn’t do it Jaemin would be cooking and serving you two brats. I’m just doing my part to help.”

Chenle squints at him, pursing his lips around his spoon. “You’re being weird. Why are you being weird?”

“You’re being weird,” Renjun retorts, “what’s your excuse?”

“What’s my excuse?” Chenle demands, dropping his spoon so it clangs loudly against his plate. “I feel like my head is about to explode and even the appeal of eating Jaemin’s food isn’t enough to dissuade my stomach from emptying itself at any second. You can’t even try to understand.”

Renjun’s pretty sure he completely understands, actually. Luckily, before he can say that and piss Chenle off, his brain catches up with his mouth and he instead lays a hand on the back of Chenle’s neck, thinking of how cute it is when he sinks into the warmth of Renjun’s touch. “You gonna make it?” He asks as sympathetically as he’s able to force out.

Chenle lets out a whine, tilting himself half off his chair to lean his head against Renjun’s shoulder. “Ge, it hurts,” he whimpers. Renjun rolls his lips together, trying valiantly not to laugh at Chenle using Jisung’s tactics.

“It hurts so much you’re calling me ge?” Renjun frowns faux-seriously, rubbing a hand up and down Chenle’s spine. He’s fairly certain Chenle can’t tell the difference in his current state. “How horrible, the baby is in pain.”

“Hyung,” Jisung breaks them out of their bubble sharply, brows furrowed, “are these all of the oranges?”

Renjun looks at the nearly full plate of oranges, then over at Jisung, still running his hand along Chenle’s back. “I left one for the other three. Did you want your own?”

“Uh, yeah.” Jisung nods, putting the orange slice he was about to eat back on the plate, “can you go grab it for me?”

“Seriously?” Renjun blurts out before he can stop himself.

“Not seriously,” Jaemin appears behind the chair between Chenle and Jisung with his own plate, “he’ll be fine sharing.” Jisung looks down at his plate, properly chastised.

“Here,” Derek pipes up, swiping the oranges he grabbed from his plate to Jisung’s, “you can have mine, too.”

Jisung smiles at him shyly, maybe a little guilty for stealing his oranges. Renjun smiles tightly at Derek when their eyes meet across the table, gently redirecting Chenle so he’s splayed along Jaemin instead. “I’m grabbing myself water, anyone else need anything?”

The rest of breakfast is fairly normal, even if Renjun kind of feels like he’s going to throw up until the bread settles in his stomach. Donghyuck wakes up before Mark and Jeno and shuffles into the kitchen, making Jaemin get up to cook his portion of breakfast. They all sit at the table as he eats, talking quietly and waiting for the last two to wake up so they can move to the living room.

It takes almost an hour and a half, but Jeno and Mark do manage to once again join the land of the living.

When they appear, Jeno looking like he can barely stand while Mark looks vaguely ill, Jaemin goes to make their food, sending Renjun to get them water and peel their orange for them. Renjun does what he’s told, then goes to get the extra folding chairs Jaemin has in his closet.

Everything is normal when he leaves. Jisung and Donghyuck are harassing Jeno, periodically slamming something onto the table to watch him cringe and then laughing in his face. Chenle’s up and behind Jaemin, wrapped around him completely while Jaemin tries to cook, and Mark is carrying a conversation with Derek, talking about god knows what.

By the time he gets back, everyone is screaming.

Renjun’s not completely clear on the details, having to parse through three different people yelling what happened at him while also dealing with the pounding of his head, but essentially it comes down to this; Chenle had alluded to him and Jaemin hooking up last night, Donghyuck made a joke about doing it with him in the room, neither Chenle nor Jaemin had dispelled that, and thus everyone had gone up in an uproar about how shameless the two of them could be.

“You two hooked up with Hyuck and I in the room?” Renjun looks at them in confusion. His brain can’t compute this information in the state it's in. “Are you sick in the head?”

Jaemin rolls his eyes, handing Mark and Jeno’s plates to them harshly with Chenle still attached to him like a barnacle. “You’re all so dramatic. Would I ever do something like that?”

“Yes.” Everyone but Derek responds at the same time.

“I made you all breakfast, stop being mean to me.” Jaemin demands, shaking out of Chenle’s grasp to sit back in his chair. Chenle pouts before moving his own chair as close to Jaemin as possible.

“Too far,” Renjun shakes his head, “way too far, man.”

“We didn’t do anything naked, so get over it.”

“Don’t be jealous, Renjunnie,” Chenle waggles his eyebrows over at him, “I’ll hook up with you with Jaemin in the room next, if it makes you feel better.”

“Now that I can get behind,” Jaemin winks at Chenle, leaning over to kiss him with a smarmy grin.

Renjun stares at both of them in pure disgust. “You two really do deserve each other.”

“Is that a yes?”

“I think I’d rather burn my skin off first,” Renjun replies after pretending to think about it for a second.

“Renjun’s obvious first pick is Jeno,” Mark chimes in, eating his toast happily, “he has that whole size kink, you know?”

Renjun gasps loudly. “I do not, Mark Lee. Now shut your mouth.”

“You totally do! And look at Jeno, he’s been working out since he was born, practically.” Jeno’s chest puffs out as he looks down at his own arms, checking himself out. It’s pathetic.

“We all know Renjun doesn’t hook up with his friends.” Donghyuck interrupts them.

“He hooked up with you.” Jaemin points out.

“Can we all please stop bringing that up?” Renjun pleads. “It’s been years.”

“And you still think about it,” Donghyuck smirks over at him.

“I can promise you I do not.”

“I still think about it.”

“I think the proper term is cringe about it,” Renjun retorts, “you want me to tell everyone what happened after?”

Donghyuck turns a satisfying pink color. “No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“Are you talking about how Donghyuck had to get his-”

“Jisung!” Renjun yelps, glancing at Donghyuck with wide eyes. “Yes, I’m talking about that.”

“You sick motherfucker.” Donghyuck looks at Renjun like he doesn’t even recognize him. “You swore you’d never tell anybody.”

Renjun winces. He had sworn to never tell anyone about how Donghyuck’s mom had to pick him up after his and Renjun’s ill-fated tryst and had somehow known and dragged Donghyuck back to Renjun’s apartment to have the STD talk with both of them, then forced them to both get tested, but that was at a point in his life where swearing to never tell anyone excluded telling Jisung. It’s Donghyuck’s fault for not realizing that, really. “We have guests, should we really be talking about this right now?”

The seven of them all swivel their attention to Derek, who’s sitting in his seat quietly and nursing his coffee. He jolts a little under the scrutiny of their attention, but shrugs lightly. “Don’t mind me. I’m not even here.”

Thankfully, they all break into smaller groups and start up their own conversations and things calm down. Renjun waits until he can cut into Jisung and Derek’s conversation, nudging Jisung’s foot with his own under the table. “What the hell, dude?”

“Sorry,” Jisung frowns down at his plate, using his fork to push the remnants of his oranges around on his plate.

Renjun groans silently, wishing things weren’t as weird as they are and they could just have a regular conversation with each other. “Nevermind,” he sighs, turning to join Chenle and Jaemin’s conversation instead, then swiftly regretting it. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that they’re talking about things that should never be discussed at the breakfast table with guests, but it still makes Renjun’s ears turn red. Rather than torturing himself trying to sit through that, Renjun gets up and starts clearing the table, bringing everything to the sink so he can get started on the dishes. It’s always been the rule that whoever cooks doesn’t do the dishes, and Renjun could use the alone time anyway.

At first the running water drowns out enough of his friends’ voices that he’s able to get lost in his thoughts, then once he turns it off he’s so distracted he doesn’t register the sound at all. It makes for a great time for self reflection.

Honestly, Renjun wishes he had just left Jisung alone and let him ignore him until it all got out of his system. Then the confession never would have happened, Renjun wouldn’t have reacted like the biggest dummy on their side of New York, and their relationship wouldn’t be so strained right now. Maybe he would have even been happy when Jisung felt comfortable enough to introduce the guy he’s been seeing to their friend group, without thinking desperately the whole time but what about me?

Embarrassingly, Renjun feels like he’s been thinking that a lot lately. Maybe that’s his problem. Maybe he’s just been so self absorbed that it’s making the situation worse, because he can’t look beyond his own hurt feelings to consider how Jisung’s doing. Maybe things are so up and down between them because Renjun is only allowing himself to care about Jisung half of the time. Maybe he’s the problem.

Or maybe he’s just miserable and hungover and blowing things out of proportion. It’s impossible to know in his current state.

The screeching of chair legs against wood flooring knocks Renjun out of his daze. He looks over to see Jeno and Donghyuck heading for the couch, probably to game. Both Jaemin and Chenle slip into the bathroom, which Renjun tries not to think too deeply about, and Mark slumps his way to Jaemin’s bedroom. Renjun assumes he’s going back to sleep on an actual bed, but he can’t understand why he would want to after their revelation at breakfast.

The only people he doesn’t notice at first are Jisung and Derek, and when he looks around for them he sees them both at the door, with only Derek putting his shoes on. Renjun looks away when Jisung grabs Derek’s hand, wanting them to have their privacy as they say goodbye. He’s surprised Jisung’s not going with him, but spending this much time together might warrant a break for a relationship as new as theirs. Renjun’s not the person to ask about these things.

Though he’s trying desperately not to eavesdrop, it’s basically impossible in such a small space not to notice when Derek has left and Jisung is stuck staring at the door. Renjun’s not sure what’s expected of him next. He can’t really tell if Jisung is sad, or relieved, or just tired and hungover, and for the first time since they were kids he doesn’t really know what to do about any of those possibilities.

Of course, the decision making is taken from him when Jisung fills in the spot to Renjun’s right, offering to dry the dishes.

Renjun accepts, because he’d be a fool not to, and they begin to work in silence. It’s when Renjun has finally switched from the plates to the pots and pans that he speaks up. “It was nice to meet Derek.”

Jisung twitches, but doesn’t stop what he’s doing. Alluding to a confidence Renjun knows he doesn’t have about the situation. “It was a fun night,” he says, “I think Derek liked meeting everyone.”

“He didn’t say?”

Giving him a look, Jisung shakes his head. “We’re in an apartment with everyone we would talk about. We didn’t really have the chance to go into full detail.”

Renjun sits on that for a minute. It’s the perfect excuse, but Renjun wants to know everything Derek said that even slightly alluded to their group so bad his body itches with it.

Jisung glances at him from the corner of his eye and sighs. “He seemed like he had fun, if that helps.”

Renjun smiles helplessly, shrugging a little and going back to his dishes. “I’m glad,” he decides, “tell him he has an open invite.”

Jisung places the plate he was drying in its cupboard, then turns to stare at the side of Renjun’s face. “If that’s what you want, then sure.”

Furrowing his eyebrows, Renjun meets Jisung’s eyes, “what does that mean?”

“Hyung,” Jisung huffs, stopping himself from continuing and letting his eyes slip shut, frustration painted in the crease between his eyebrows. “Nevermind. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Nodding slowly, Renjun looks around them quickly, a little bewildered. He’s not sure exactly where he went wrong in trying to extend an olive branch, only that he did. Which leaves him lost on how to continue on as if nothing happened.

He might have pressed the issue if the anger in Jisung’s eyebrows dissipated at all, but doesn’t and Renjun has too much self preservation to ask again.

“Let’s get this done,” Jisung decides, scrubbing a cup viciously with the rag, “I have to go to my agency today.”

“Oh?” Renjun lilts, handing off a freshly rinsed bowl and trying not to flinch at how aggressively Jisung rips it from his hands. “What for?”

“They want to send me to Paris Fashion Week,” he mumbles, frowning at a spot left on the bowl and handing it off to Renjun so he can wash it again.

“That’s amazing!” Renjun tells him honestly. Jisung’s been to all of the fashion weeks, as has Renjun as both a brand ambassador and as support for his friend. It’s not all that surprising that Jisung was asked again, but in Renjun’s opinion it’s still major. Especially for such a young model. “Which show?”

“I’m not going,” Jisung spins on his heel, reaching to the top shelf only he can reach and sliding the fully clean bowl onto it.

The bowl in Renjun’s hands slips back down into the water, bubbling until it softly clatters against the hard steel at the bottom. “What? Why wouldn’t you?”

“It intersects with the beginning date of Donghyuck’s opening night for his tour.”

Immediately Renjun feels like a horrible friend. Being so absorbed in his own problems has made him completely forget that Donghyuck is about to embark on a three month tour.

Jisung squints at another spot on a piece of silverware that’s been waiting for his attention. “Hyung, are you even washing these for real? Just let me do it.”

Renjun waves him away, focusing on the prongs of the fork before handing it back over. “You can’t possibly be considering actually skipping out on Paris.”

“Some things are more important than work.” The look Jisung sends him makes Renjun feel as though there’s more meaning behind his words.

“Look, I just don’t think you’re at a point in your career that you can say no to Paris Fashion Week without there being repercussions.”

Jisung scoffs. “I’m an adult that can make my own decisions, but thanks.”

Renjun takes a deep breath, forcing down the need to chastise Jisung for being rude. “I went to college for one single semester and then immediately became a full time actor and I was advised to take as many roles as I could for the first three years of my career because it’s not a good look, Sung. You only graduated last year and you’re still making a name for yourself. Maybe you should think about this more.”

“Our parents are some of the richest people in Korea,” Jisung shoots him an impatient look, “I don’t think anyone’s going to tell me to go fuck myself for saying no one time.”

“You think having rich parents all the way in Korea makes you a Kardashian?” Renjun snaps. “It doesn’t. It gets your foot in the door and it gets you connections but it doesn’t make the world revolve around you. Get real.”

“Hyung,” Jisung frowns at him, “you don’t get it.”

Releasing a breath, Renjun nods his acknowledgment. “Then explain it to me, please.”

“Things have,” Jisung hesitates, glancing around them and then at the doorway that leads down the hall where they can hear the voices of all of their friends and takes a step closer. “Things have changed, after-” he can’t say it, but Renjun immediately knows what he’s talking about. “After. At least for me, I don’t know, but I don’t want to miss something so major. It feels like, somehow like that’s it. That’s when things really start to fall apart.”

Renjun sighs, feeling his chest ache for his best friend. “Jisungie, that’s not going to happen.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jisung shakes his head, mind made up, “if I have to choose, the decision is made.”

“What if,” Renjun pauses, tries to think if this is a good idea and doesn’t fully come to a conclusion before he blurts out the rest of his idea. Between Jisung and good ideas, Jisung has always won out. “What if when you come back you and I can go see another one of Donghyuck’s shows. Wherever you want to go.”

Jisung stops his drying, slowly looking at Renjun and gauging his expression. “Really?”

“Really,” Renjun promises, “we can bring everyone else if you want, or at least whoever’s available. Then you can do both.”

Jisung considers him. “Okay.” He agrees. Renjun feels some of the tension in his shoulders release. “But let's go just the two of us.” He blushes, looking away and focusing all of his attention on his task again. “I mean, we haven’t traveled together in a while. Could be fun, I don’t know.”

Renjun’s heart pinches together and pulses painfully. He loves his sweet friend so much it can be cloying, overpowering. Terrifying. “It’ll definitely be fun.” Renjun replies, smiling brightly when Jisung’s able to look at his face once again, “I mean, it’s us. We’re always fun.”

Jisung nods, grinning back just as brightly.

It’s as though Renjun is watching the sunrise, feeling the warm sun rays hit his skin through the windows for the first time after a long, cold and dark night. When he checks the clock, it blinks back at him twice before the numbers register in his head.

Early afternoon. When he looks through the windows, he sees the overcast clouds covering the city skyline as far as the eye can see.

The warmth doesn’t leave his skin until he says goodbye to his friends, leaving the apartment with Jisung before going their own ways once they reach the sidewalk. It’s only when he’s getting into his manager’s car that he notices how the chill lingering in the air has left goosebumps lining his arms.

–

Almost a week later, Renjun gets the call.

He’s just leaving the set for the day, ducking into the van after a quick wave to the small crowd of fans at the edge of the parking lot, when his phone starts buzzing with a call from Donghyuck. When he answers, Donghyuck’s panting down the line.

“Jisung and Derek broke up,” Donghyuck rushes out after Renjun’s greeting.

Renjun pauses. “You’re lying.”

“Why would I lie about something like that?”

Renjun gapes at his phone, lowering his voice so his driver and manager can’t hear their conversation as well. “When?”

Donghyuck quickly details the phone call he just got off of with Jeno, who told Donghyuck that Jaemin told him that Jisung was pouting at his house for the day because Derek called it quits. Before they went on the date they had planned for the next day.

“Asshole.” Renjun curses.

“Apparently they’re going to be friends, but the whole break up seems shady,” there are sounds over the line then, like Donghyuck’s gulping down a drink before he starts speaking again. “They went out yesterday or something and Jeno said everything was fine and then Derek went and randomly dumped him.”

“What an ass,” Renjun scoffs, pressing his phone closer to his ear when other voices start to drift into the call. “Where are you?”

“Practice studio,” Donghyuck answers, quickly adding, “I’m alone, don’t worry. There’s a group in the hall, everyone else went out to lunch.”

“Why aren’t you eating lunch?” Renjun asks forcefully.

“Calm down,” Renjun can practically hear Donghyuck’s eye roll, “I was leaving with them and then Jeno called and I had to run back up here to call you. I already ordered delivery, it’s not a big deal.”

“Are you practicing for your tour?”

“Oh!” Donghyuck crows, laughing in Renjun’s ear. “He finally remembered. Why yes, I am practicing for my tour. That’s what I’ve been doing every time you called this month, actually.”

“I’m sorry,” Renjun whines, letting his head fall against his seat, “I’m awful, I know.”

“And self absorbed and a little bit of an asshole,” Donghyuck adds, “but because I’m such an amazing friend, I’m choosing to forgive you. Consider it forgotten.”

Renjun mouths a swear. There’s not a chance in hell Donghyuck is ever going to let this go. “I’ll be at your first show, I promise.”

“If you didn’t show up I would have had my team kidnap you from your apartment and drag you to the venue. I wasn’t too worried about the possibility.”

With a wince, Renjun slumps further into his seat, “well, no need for kidnapping,” he giggles nervously.

“It was going to be scary,” Donghyuck promises, “it’ll be even scarier now that you promised to show.”

“Right,” Renjun clears his throat, “has Jisung talked to you about Paris?”

Donghyuck snorts into the phone, “he called me that night crying about how he would turn it down if I wanted him to. The kid is too damn good for you.”

As if Renjun doesn’t already know that.

Swallowing around the new found lump in his throat, Renjun continues. “We were thinking we’d go see you again in Boston, maybe?”

“I’ll save you tickets,” Donghyuck agrees, “is it just going to be you two?”

“I think so, yeah.” Renjun says, even though he fully knows it will be. Donghyuck hums, then goes silent. “What?”

“I just think you’re both handling this very poorly,” Donghyuck admits, “and I’m worried about you.”

Donghyuck is not a serious person. He’s also not an emotional person, instead showing his concern and love and anything else he deems cringe in silent ways he can deny if you bring it up. Donghyuck telling Renjun straight up I’m worried about this when he’s not already sloshed is enough for Renjun’s butt cheeks to immediately clench.

“What do you mean?” He asks cautiously.

“You’re both pushing the other away one second and then becoming stage five clingers the next. I don’t think either of you are actually dealing with this as much as you’re ignoring it completely. Which is not the best option, in my humble opinion.”

Renjun can feel heat stirring in his belly. Deep down, he knows Donghyuck’s trying to be a good friend in a situation he’s been dragged into, but surface level? He wants to rip Donghyuck’s face off for butting into a delicate situation he’s not actually a part of. “Yeah.” Is all he replies with, trying to calm himself down before he says something he’s not proud of to the person who’s been helping him for weeks now.

“Did I just piss you off?” Donghyuck asks. Renjun rolls his eyes. “Look, I get it. You’ve known each other your whole lives and this is majorly screwing with your symbiotic relationship, but you need to deal with it in a healthy way. Going on a trip together does not seem like dealing with it in a healthy way.”

“What am I supposed to do, Donghyuck? Tell him oh nevermind, I can’t be around you alone, let’s bring all our friends who know nothing of what’s going on along with us so they can make it worse and we can’t actually talk about anything because we’ll just be dancing around this major secret for days? I can’t do that.”

“I’m saying instead of promising him the moon you should think before you act. What do you think inviting him on a romantic getaway is doing to his head?”

“It’s not going to be romantic.”

“Do you actually think it matters?”

“So now I’m an asshole?”

“You’re being one right now,” Donghyuck deadpans, sighing roughly. Renjun glares out the window. “I’m not trying to upset you, I’m only trying to help.”

Renjun sighs back at him. “I know you are. It’s just that, with Jisung it’s different, you know? Like yeah, we’re dealing with a major rift with our relationship, but those moments where we’re back in a good place make everything seem irrelevant. Like we can deal with it later, because it doesn’t mean anything at the moment.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re obsessed with each other.”

“Donghyuck.”

“You totally are. Yeah, I guess we’re all a little obsessed with each other, but you and Jisung are in your own league. Why don’t you love me like that?”

“Because you try to talk sense into me,” Renjun replies, smiling when Donghyuck laughs.

“Don’t be mad at me for too long. You still have to take me out before the tour officially starts. I demand you buy all my drinks this time.”

Renjun groans but agrees. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know yet, I have to do some research on the most expensive bars in New York.” Renjun swears at him. “Kidding! I actually don’t know, though, I put Mark in charge of figuring out location and travel.”

Renjun pauses. “Mark?”

“Jaemin’s supervising,” Donghyuck amends, “don’t worry, I would never leave Mark solely in charge of my big night out. He was just annoying me about it the other day so I told him if he wanted to know details so badly he could be the one to figure it out.”

“And he agreed to that?”

“No, but when I told him he wasn’t invited if he didn’t he said he’d get on it.”

“You’re a tyrant,” Renjun scoffs.

“You all knew what I could be like before you became my friends, so it's not my fault that you now have to deal with me.”

“And we love you for it,” Renjun promises.

Donghyuck giggles into the phone before the sound of a door opening reaches Renjun and he starts speaking to someone else. “Okay, my food is here now so I’m hanging up on you.”

“You don’t want someone to talk to while you eat?” Renjun frowns.

“Nah, I’ve been waiting to watch the new Jaefriends episode all day. Now is my chance.”

Rolling his eyes, Renjun says bye and hangs up, holding his phone in his hand and staring at it afterwards. He’s tempted to call Jisung and ask if Renjun’s been an asshole by suggesting this trip, but he knows Jisung would lie if he was and he doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable.

Once again, Renjun laments just how fucked up the situation is. The most frustrating part is that it’s no one's fault. Maybe it could be his, but he’s not even sure about that.

As soon as he puts his phone down after officially deciding not to call, it buzzes against his leg.

jisungie

hyung what r u doin
jaem hyung & i officially invite you over

just got done w filming
invitng me where

to hyungs apt
were making cookies and watching bake off
jaem hyung said it was boring stuff uwoulf like

He doesn’t even have to think about it.

omw

–

“I thought we were making cookies,” Renjun huffs, turning his head to the left to try and get some air.

Sitting on the couch as soon as he walked into Jisung’s apartment has proven itself to be a horrible idea. Renjun is currently trapped against the left armrest, Jaemin laying half on top of him and Jisung laying half on top of Jaemin. It’s sweltering.

Jaemin’s apartment is already too warm for Renjun’s taste. Add to that the body heat of two fully grown men and Renjun is fairly certain he’s going to die of heat stroke.

“Isn’t this more fun though?” Jaemin asks, wriggling deeper into Renjun’s waist.

“I don’t know,” Renjun says, trying not to make it too obvious that he’s gasping for breath, “I was kind of looking forward to cookies.”

“We’ll still make them, hyung,” Jisung promises, “let’s finish this episode first.”

There’s no arguing with the two of them, so Renjun sends up a prayer and finally decides to lean in. “You know this show puts me to sleep,” he warns them.

“We’ll wake you up after,” Jaemin nudges him until Renjun moves his arm along the back of the couch.

He does fall asleep, because The Great British Bake Off is a part of his night time routine already. Jaemin sticks to his promise and shakes him awake while Jisung turns off the TV and starts playing music on his speaker. “What cookies are we making?” Renjun asks, still rubbing the blurriness out of his eyes.

“Twenty four hour chocolate chip cookies,” Jisung announces, pulling ingredients down from his cabinets and handing them to Jaemin to set on the counter. Renjun gives him an incredulous look, which makes Jisung snort, “don’t worry, we’re just starting on the dough tonight and Jaemin hyung is going to finish them tomorrow.”

“We don’t even get to eat the cookies?” Renjun pouts, picking some fuzz off the blanket Jaemin had draped over him before finally getting up to join them in the kitchen.

“We’re making them for Donghyuck night.” Renjun makes a face, imagining eating a stack of cookies and then going out drinking and already wanting to vomit. “They’re a gift, dummy,” Jaemin rolls his eyes, “I’ll save you some if you beg.”

Renjun ignores him, moving to Jisung’s other side so he can peer down at the recipe. “Browned butter? We have to chill this shit for a whole day? When did you both become patissiers?”

Jaemin makes a face. “Patissiers? That sounds elitist.”

“You’re making cookies for two days because you have nothing else to do,” Renjun reminds him flatly, “I’m not the elitist.” Jisung snorts, trying to cover it by digging his head back into Jaemin’s baking cabinet. Renjun pinches his hip, smiling at Jisung’s yelp. “And what about you? You don’t have anything better to do for two days either?”

“Jisung spends all his free time here lately,” Jaemin acts like he’s complaining, but the grin on his face gives him away, “I have to put him to work somehow.”

“Jaem hyung,” Jisung whines, frowning at Jaemin over the counter. Renjun wants to gather him up in his arms and squeeze him until he pops.

“Well it’s true,” Jaemin shrugs, “and it works out for all of us, since we’re all going to get extremely complex and slightly obnoxious cookies out of it.”

“Donghyuck will love it, if nothing else,” Renjun offers.

Jaemin points at him enthusiastically, “exactly! Now get a pan, I’m making you brown the butter.”

Somehow, by no fault of his own, Renjun burns the butter. Jaemin finds it so hysterical he facetimes Chenle to show him the aftermath, explaining that now Jisung is browning the butter and he’s forcing Renjun to measure out the rest of the ingredients.

He gets a little side tracked, going into the living room to continue his conversation instead of actually helping Renjun and Jisung with the cookies he wanted to make.

Renjun doesn’t actually mind, though. Him and Jisung fall into an easy silence like they usually do, close enough at the counter and stove top respectively that Renjun can lean the slightest bit to the left and rest his shoulder against Jisung’s.

“So,” Renjun says eventually, breaking their bubble of quiet, “will we be seeing you for Donghyuck night?”

Jisung hums, gently stirring the sticks of butter around the pan, “I’m not sure yet. We’re trying to figure it out.”

“We?”

“Jaemin and I,” Jisung looks behind himself at Renjun briefly. Renjun tries to hide the way he immediately frowns. “There’s a lot of logistics to figure out, and I don’t want to fly to Paris in economy. You know what that does to my knees.”

Renjun nods his agreement absentmindedly. He's been trying to be less selfish lately, but all he can think about is how he wishes Jisung had asked for his help with the “logistics”. He’s definitely failing in his efforts.

“But I want to be there for at least a little bit,” Jisung shrugs, turning the heat to the stove off and bringing the butter to pour into the bowl Renjun has ready for him. Renjun adds the sugar, stirring it in mechanically.

“Donghyuck will love that,” Renjun tells him, nudging him gently when Jisung grins at him, “be prepared for him to love you.”

Jisung makes a face, adding the rest of the wet ingredients to the bowl. “Do you think Jaemin would tell him for me?”

Renjun laughs, handing over his bowl of dry ingredients when Jisung motions for them. Donghyuck tended to be more affectionate than the rest of their friends, a fact that Jisung still had a hard time dealing with. “Probably not.” Jisung clicks his tongue, sighing loudly as he tips the dry ingredients to meet the wet.

Jaemin comes back then, phone no longer in hand. “You two done yet?”

Renjun squints at him. “Did you seriously hide in the living room so Jisung and I would do all the work?”

“Of course not,” Jaemin scoffs, “I was distracted by a very handsome man in a robe.” Jisung mimes throwing up into the bowl. “Not funny. But you’re done, right?”

Jisung rolls his eyes so hard Renjun flashes back to his teenage angst years. “Yes, lazy ass. We’re done.”

Jaemin claps, “perfect! You two are life savers, seriously.”

Renjun snorts, watching Jisung wrap the dough in a perfect circle in some saran wrap. “Did you want a ride home?”

Jisung glances at Jaemin, then nods at Renjun. “Uh, yeah. Just let me grab my stuff and we can take off.”

“Already?” Jaemin whines, pouting at the both of them.

“Hyung, I’ve been here all day.” Jisung reasons.

“Renjun just got here.”

“I’ve been working all day,” Renjun shrugs, “I’m not gonna be fun for much longer.”

“Was this you being fun?”

“Hyung you should have rested,” Jisung grimaces, “I didn’t know.”

Renjun shakes his head, “I wanted to see my favorite pers-,” he clears his throat harshly, “people. I would have gone home if I couldn’t handle it, I promise.” Jisung looks at him worriedly but darts out of the room to start gathering his things. Renjun’s sure they’re scattered all over, so he goes to steal a piece of cookie dough while he waits. He glances up at Jaemin as he picks off a piece, startling when he finds Jaemin lightly scowling at him. “Did you want some?” He asks, offering up his piece of dough.

Jaemin takes it, popping it into his mouth unhappily. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

Renjun stares at him. “Sorry?”

Jeamin sighs through his nose heavily. “You know I love you, don’t you?” Renjun nods. “I love Jisung too, okay? So just. Be careful.”

Renjun fiddles with the loose saran wrap nervously. “What do you mean?”

Jaemin darts a glance at the entryway, noting how far Jisung is before lowering his voice. “He was going to stay here tonight.”

“What?” Renjun blinks.

“Done,” Jisung declares, lugging his duffle bag onto the counter to zip it up, “is the car downstairs?”

“Um,” Renjun flinches, tries to hide it by pulling out his phone and texting his driver to pull up front, “Robert should be outside, yeah.”

Jisung looks at him weirdly, shouldering the duffle bag and hugging Jaemin goodbye. Renjun avoids eye contact when Jaemin pulls him into a hug of his own.

Robert is right next to the curb when they make it down the stairs, like he always is. Jisung throws his bag in the backseat while Robert clarifies that he’s taking Jisung to his own house instead of Renjun’s. Renjun sends a thank you to the gods for helping him find Robert, who asks no questions and never complains.

The ride to Jisung’s is uneventful, with Jisung himself mostly messing around on his phone and occasionally turning it to show Renjun a funny tweet. Renjun staunchly does not think about what Jaemin said. He’s not even sure if he heard him right, so why would he worry about it? He won’t. He isn’t.

When they get to Jisung’s building Jisung pauses before getting out of the car, turning to ask Renjun if he wants to come up for a bit. Have a drink or two.

Renjun hesitates, meeting Robert's eyes in the mirror. Robert nods at him, turning the car off and pulling a book off of the passenger seat.

Renjun agrees then, following Jisung past the doorman and into the elevator. Jisung gets them each a beer when they get to his apartment, and they settle on the couch. After flicking through the channels, they agree to turn on a rerun of one of the Real Housewives franchises. Renjun doesn’t know which one, because he’s barely paying attention to the screen. He would feel bad, but Jisung doesn’t seem to be paying any attention either.

They’re facing each other, knees knocking if they shift. Renjun considers Jisung and Jisung considers him. It’s closer than they’ve been since before.

“I’m glad you came to Jaemin hyung’s,” Jisung confesses quietly.

Renjun smiles a small smile that feels huge in their current state. “Me too. Are you feeling better about fashion week?”

Jisung sighs good naturedly, taking a long drag of his beer. “I guess maybe you did help me feel a bit lighter.” Renjun huffs out a laugh. “Just barely, though.”

“I’m happy to be of service,” Renjun clinks their bottles together, following Jisung’s lead and taking a long, drawn out gulp of his own beer.

“You’re not allowed to have too much fun without me at the concert.” Jisung pouts.

“Never.” Renjun promises. Jisung laughs, presses his knee into Renjun’s, and Renjun feels warm. “We’ll have our fun later.”

Jisung agrees readily, shifting in his spot happily. It’s easy between them in a way it hasn’t been. Jisung gossips about his fellow models, and Renjun gossips about what he’s heard on set, and they laugh and Renjun drinks another beer and a piece of him never wants to leave this space they’ve created. Friendship like this has been hard between them for a while now, and Renjun is happy they’ve carved out a space for it here. No matter how brief it may be.

Renjun knows when he starts drooping that he needs to head home. His dream scenario would be sleeping at Jisung’s but they’re not there yet. He has no idea when they will be, and that makes him sad, but the beer has loosened him up and he doesn’t want to ruin that. Instead he banishes the thought and finishes off his third beer, setting it down carefully in Jisung’s glass coffee table. “Well,” He says.

Jisung groans, tossing his head back against the couch. “Don’t make me get up and walk you to the door right now. I’m so comfortable.”

Renjun slaps Jisung’s thigh, using it as leverage to push himself up to standing. “I think I can find my way.”

Jisung gets up anyway, waving Renjun off when he repeats that he doesn’t have to. “Hold on,” Jisung tells him, disappearing into his kitchen. Renjun doesn’t have to wait long for Jisung to reappear with two cookies in a ziploc bag. “I tested the recipe before sending it to Jaemin,” Jisung shrugs casually, but Renjun can see the red overtaking his ears. “Now you can try them.”

Renjun accepts the bag, holding it tightly to his chest. There are butterflies taking over his entire body, and he’s forced to consider he’s drunk too much. “Thank you.”

Jisung doesn’t respond, leading them down the hall and to his door. Renjun stays silent as well, unable to focus on anything at the moment other than the fact that Jisung is giving him something he spent days making, and only him. Even Jaemin hadn’t mentioned being gifted cookies, which Renjun knows he wouldn’t have been able to shut up about if he had. Probably would have sent it in the group chat immediately

“I’m glad we did this.” Jisung tells him, opening the door for him.

“Me too,” Renjun agrees. He almost leans in for a hug, but decides at the last second to leave it at an affectionate bump of their shoulders.

And then, because Renjun is the biggest idiot he knows, he opens his big mouth and ruins it. “So we’re good?” He asks, and immediately regrets it.

Jisung frowns down at the floor, shuffling his feet uncomfortably. Renjun wants to take the words and shove them back down his throat, but it’s too late. The damage has been done. “Totally, hyung,” Jisung forces out a laugh. Without waiting for a response, Jisung says goodbye and closes the door.

Renjun roughly scrubs his hand over his face. Idiot.

He tries not to feel sorry for himself on the ride home and fails miserably.

—

Miraculously, Donghyuck’s bar crawl does end up happening.

According to Jaemin, he gave Mark a list of all the sketchiest dive bars in the city he could find, convinced Mark those were Donghyuck’s favorite spots, and Mark immediately decided they were going to all of them in order from farthest to closest to his apartment.

When Mark sent them all the map with an address of where to meet, Renjun thought Donghyuck was going to kill both Mark and Jaemin then and there. Graciously he decided to only argue with Mark over the phone for ten minutes before agreeing to the original plan, with the hope that he would be able to hold it over Mark’s head that he ruined his beginning-of-tour-bar-crawl, but night of, Renjun doesn’t think that’s going to happen.

From Renjun’s perspective, Donghyuck’s having the time of his life. Jaemin also had the bright idea to buy Donghyuck a veil and a sash that reads Bride Pride in glittering rainbow letters, which makes the bartender at the first bar they stop at give him an extra strong drink. Which means Donghyuck is tipsy at best before they leave their first bar.

When they do end up leaving, after Chenle beats two men twice his size at pool and Jaemin almost causes a fight by loudly booing them every time they shoot, Jisung offers to be the one half carrying Donghyuck down the sidewalk.

Donghyuck’s been all over him for days, ever since Jisung scheduled his flight so he could still join the beginning of the crawl before having to rush to JFK to take off in the early hours in the morning. Renjun originally thought when Jisung told him Donghyuck was going to immediately latch onto him and refuse to let him go, but apparently Jisung already thought of that since he told him while Donghyuck was peeing with the door open, and then left to get coffee. By the time he got back Donghyuck was mostly calmed down and only forced Jisung to snuggle with him for an hour before he released him.

Now Donghyuck lets Jisung drag him along to the second bar, loudly chattering in his ear and laughing every time Jisung has to bodily move him so he doesn’t ram into a stranger. Renjun’s trailing behind them with Jeno at his side explaining that he asked specifically to not be sent to Paris.

“I would rather die than step foot in Paris ever again,” he scowls, “last time some asshole stole my wallet. They can go fuck themselves.”

Renjun tilts his head consideringly. “Weren’t you mugged at knife point last year by your old apartment?”

“Yeah, that’s why I moved.” Renjun stares at him until he gets the point. “Okay, well I live and work here so that’s completely different.”

It’s definitely not what Renjun would advise, but once Jeno got something in his head it could only be extracted with a lobotomy. Besides, he doesn’t know if it’s really his place to say something.

Maybe Donghyuck’s right when he says Renjun hasn’t been thinking before he acts. Maybe that’s part of his problem and he’s just been burying himself in a deeper and deeper hole without even realizing it.

“Besides,” Jeno continues on, not noticing Renjun’s plight, “New York Fashion Week almost killed me for real. Jisung had to push me to the car because I couldn’t walk anymore.”

Renjun’s eyebrows furrow. “What are they doing to you? Should I be concerned?”

“Nah, I was just totally wasted. Jisung said he found me sleeping in the coat closet and dragged me out because it was Ferragamo’s after party and they would lose their shit if I got found like that. I guess they were already looking for me since Paul Andrew wanted a picture before he left. Jisung got me together before I went out, thank god. Isn’t he the best?”

Renjun stares at the way Jisung’s back moves under his shirt as he rearranges Donghyuck, wincing but not pulling away when Donghyuck smacks a wet kiss against his neck. The shirt was actually Renjun’s once upon a time, but when he had it for six months and had leant it out to Jisung five times he figured it was okay to rehome it. It was a good decision. “The best.”

“It’s too bad about Derek,” Jeno frowns, “I think Jisung really liked him. Fucker.”

“Definitely a fucker.” Renjun nods his agreement. Jisung still hadn’t talked to him about the split, but Renjun figured that made sense. They both needed their space around their dating lives now, and he could respect that boundary. “What happened?”

Jeno heaves a grand sigh, rolling his eyes to the back of his head like it annoyed him to even think of it. “He said something about Jisung not being ready for a relationship, I don’t know what exactly. It pissed Jaemin off, though. Said it was a fucked up thing to say and Derek was a dick, but Jisung defended him over it. That’s why I think he really liked him. He was really riding for Derek still being perfect even though he’d just gotten dumped.”

Renjun doesn’t respond. If he thinks about it too much, he’s going to start spiraling about how Derek must have clocked what’s actually been going on between him and Jisung and their friends are all talking shit on him when he was right, and he can’t deal with that right now. Not when they have six more bars to go.

The second bar is fuller than the first one was. Right when they walk in, a group of twenty-somethings recognize Donghyuck in his rainbow sash and he spends the first thirty minutes there taking pictures and then drinking and chatting with them.

The rest of them spread out, with Jaemin and Chenle finding another pool table to flirt over and Jeno and Jisung hunkering down at the bar to chat. Renjun finds himself backed into a corner with Mark, who has a hat his mom bought him on her last trip to the Bahamas low across his forehead. When they had first met up Jeno had told Mark that looking like he was trying not to be recognized was definitely going to get him recognized, but Mark had persisted and so far he’s been flying under the radar. Renjun’s under the opinion that Mark hadn’t wanted to remove the hat because his hair looked awful, which he’s also pretty sure is the real reason he wore the hat in the first place, but Mark shuts him down when he brings it up.

“Remember what happened last time?” He scoffs, adjusting his hat and glancing around them suspiciously, “I had to be rescued. Donghyuck would never let me live it down if that happened on his big night.”

Renjun gracefully does not mention that the only reason he had to be saved is because he refuses to say no or set boundaries in any way, only because he’s not in the mood to argue. Even though he knows he’s right.

Proven only ten minutes later when two college aged girls come over to Renjun and Mark and start talking about how they watched Mark growing up. After the fan fare over Mark, one of them turns to Renjun to let him know they’re also a fan of his and asks for a picture.

“It’s just crazy to meet someone that you watched on TV when they were a baby, you know?” She leans in to tell him, a sparkle in her eyes when she watches her friend laugh and lean closer to Mark to put a hand on his arm for a brief second.

Renjun does know. He’s been told many times.

The hat doesn’t work. Donghyuck wraps up his conversation far earlier than Mark can wrap up his, and meets them with his eyes bright in false positivity. He greets the girls kindly, then pulls Renjun away to the bar.

Mark tries to stop him from leaving, but Renjun’s not going to end up on Donghyuck’s shit list to save Mark from having to shimmy out of a conversation. Someone will go help him eventually. Hopefully.

Donghyuck squeezes them into the space between Jisung and Jeno’s chairs, ordering four shots and forcing them to take them all together. Jisung does so and then orders himself a water to suck down right after. “What happened to Mark?” He coughs out in between gulps.

Renjun motions to the wall, where the girls have left and been replaced with what appears to be a middle aged couple. Mark’s signing a napkin with a strained smile on his face, glancing anxiously between the people in front of him and the four of them at the bar.

“Should someone get him?” Jeno cringes, looking morosely back at Mark. As a model, most of Jeno’s run ins with fans are much more casual and short lived, thus he’s never had to gently and politely shoo someone away and refuses to start for anyone that’s not himself.

“He’ll learn,” Donghyuck huffs, ordering himself an actual drink and taking a sip from Jisung’s water when he asks him to, “I’m not doing it on my celebration night and I’m not losing my other celebrants to it either.”

“Other celebrants?” Jisung mutters under his breath, “he must really be pissed if he’s getting that real about it.”

Dangerously close to snorting out a laugh and annoying Donghyuck even more, Renjun takes a large sip of his drink, smiling away from Donghyuck’s line of sight and bumping his hip into Jisung’s knee. Jisung grins back, nudging Renjun’s calf with his foot in response and then leaning across the bar, directly in Renjun’s personal space, to jump into Donghyuck and Jeno’s conversation.

Ignoring the fluttering in his stomach, Renjun lets himself float in his slightly tipsy state, tilting until he’s resting between Jisung’s back and his chair, hardly following along with what the three of them are saying. At some point Jaemin joins them five minutes before Chenle joins them, which is suspect enough that Renjun immediately puts it out of his mind completely. He remembers also checking on Mark once more and finding him surrounded by five or six people, talking and signing and nervously laughing. Jaemin makes like he’s going to go help, but Chenle rests a hand on his thigh so he can lean in and talk directly in his ear, and Jaemin stops trying to move altogether.

Donghyuck decides they should leave a short thirty minutes later, loudly stating the fact that a real bar crawl moves quickly and he’s not going to waste time for Mark Lee of all people.

Completely ignoring that Mark is the organizer of said bar crawl.

Jisung’s the brave soul that decides to bring up this little factoid, and receives a glare so intense Renjun takes a step back to get out of the crossfire. “Said organizer promised only forty-five minutes at each bar. We’ve been here for over an hour because he’s a chicken shit.”

“He’s a people pleaser, you know that!”

“Then he should please me.” Donghyuck rebuttals. Jisung’s mouth clicks shut.

“I’ll get him, then we can go,” Renjun offers, pressing down the smile that tries to pop up at Jisung’s annoyed face. He’s made the exact same face since he was ten years old, and it never fails to make Renjun laugh. Which is admittedly incredibly unhelpful when they’re in an argument with one another.

Donghyuck waves him off, letting him know he doesn’t care what Renjun does but he’s not playing babysitter anymore, and leaves with the rest of their friends trailing after him.

Getting Mark is easy, like it usually is. All it takes is a little cajoling, exactly four pictures from people who didn’t notice there were other celebrities in the bar until Renjun showed up right in front of them, and then they’re heading out the door.

“How pissed is he?” Mark asks, slipping in between two chairs and then having to apologize when his butt gets caught and he moves one of them with someone in it.

“Category five,” Renjun lets him know, grimacing at the curse Mark lets out.

“It’s not my fault! Donghyuck gets stopped all the time and I never complain about it.”

“You’re also not the bad guy every single time and haven’t had articles written about how you're a controlling, evil friend and a worse person for not letting him talk to fans.” Renjun points out. Mark frowns at him but says nothing else until they get outside.

All it takes is a three minute walk down the sidewalk and around a corner to run into their group. Renjun knew Donghyuck wouldn’t actually leave them behind, but he also knew he was going to make a point by making it look like he did.

In Renjun’s professional opinion, the bar crawl is going to shit and needs a serious revival. And he knows just the man for the job.

When he approaches Jaemin with the offer, he expects a little bit of push back at least. Instead, Jaemin accepts without a second thought, shooing Renjun away so he and Chenle can plan the rest of the two minutes until they reach the bar.

Donghyuck is marching ahead the rest of them, holding hands with Jisung on one side and Jeno on the other. When exactly he made up with Jisung, Renjun has no idea, but he’s glad Donghyuck’s not annoyed with all of them.

The third bar is the diviest of the ones they’ve been to that night. Honestly if there's a shadier bar on the list Renjun is going to seriously consider Mark’s sanity. They’re the only seven people in the bar not covered in either tattoos nor scars, and Renjun is genuinely surprised no one looks put out that they’re there.

He considers calling off the plan, then realizes this is probably the only setting Jaemin’s not going to end up on TikTok in, and decides to keep it going. If Jaemin foresees any problems he can always say no, and if they get chased out of here it’ll make for a good story one day. Probably.

Jaemin sneaks off to talk to someone, Renjun doesn’t even know who you go to for things like these, so Renjun takes it upon himself to supply Donghyuck with more alcohol.

“It’s just bullshit,” Donghyuck complains loudly. Renjun can see Mark, who’s sitting only one seat away from them, tense up. “He needs to grow up. He’s almost thirty. Thirty! And I have to do his dirty work for him? No way.”

Renjun cringes, hoping Mark is able to let this conversation slide off him. “You know why he’s like that, though. Think about how fucked it would be to be famous before you even know what the word means. Doesn’t he deserve a little bit of grace?”

“I’m all graced out,” Donghyuck declares, slamming his cup on the bar top a little harder than necessary. “Let’s dance.”

Following after him onto the dance floor, Renjun glances around them trying to see if he can spot exactly where Jaemin is on finalizing the show, but can’t find him. Which is fine, even if Donghyuck grabs him and pulls Renjun into his space with his nails biting into Renjun’s hips just a bit too much.

Dancing is fun, made even more fun after Jeno finds them and they all take another shot together, which Renjun has to seal his mouth shut after to stop it from coming back up. Donghyuck really lets go after that, and it’s all Renjun and Jeno can do to stand back and try to avoid his flailing limbs.

Bar three and they’ve officially reached fun drunk Donghyuck.

And look, maybe Donghyuck is a little dramatic. Maybe he’s a touch too sensitive when things are important to him, and maybe he needs to have some form of attention on him at all times, but all of that only makes Renjun and the rest of their friends love him more.

Once Donghyuck really gets going, he’s nearly impossible to stop. When Jaemin finally shows back up on the edge of the dance floor, Renjun has to shout about needing water for Donghyuck to finish his dancing and follow him back over to the bar.

“You need to sober up?” Donghyuck asks, panting hard pressed against Renjun’s arm.

“I think Jaemin has a surprise for you,” Renjun responds.

“What?” Donghyuck squints at him, “Where’s Jisung and Mark?”

“Having fun somewhere, now look,” Renjun spins him around to where Jaemin is standing behind a chair.

“What’s going on?” Renjun shoves him forward until Donghyuck gets the hint and makes his way over by himself.

“Hey there big boy,” Jaemin purrs. Donghyuck snorts so loud Renjun can hear it from where he’s standing, “heard you wanted a dance.”

“A dance?” Donghyuck raises an eyebrow.

Jaemin smirks at him, rounding the chair and grabbing Donghyuck by the shoulders, forcing him to sit. “A dance.”

Realization dawns on Donghyuck’s face. As the music starts he starts laughing, looking up at Jaemin with stars in his eyes.

Chenle’s to their right with his phone out, recording the two of them. Renjun looks around until he finds Jeno and Mark huddled together in a booth, both watching Jaemin and also cringing away from the scene. He’s about to start worrying about where Jisung is when he sidles up to him at the bar, leaning against the counter and taking a sip of his water.

Luckily for them, the rest of the people at the bar are less than interested in the lap dance happening next to them, which hopefully means they’re not going to wake up to a video of the whole thing going viral in the middle of the night.

“Why?” Jisung asks.

Renjun glances at him through the corner of his eye. “It fixed his mood didn’t it?”

Jisung wrinkles his nose, hiding his flushed cheeks behind his cup, “I guess, but it’s weird.”

Renjun laughs heartily, leaning over to nudge their shoulders together. “Don’t kill cringe, kill the cringe inside of you, Jisungie.”

Jisung rolls his eyes, putting his cup on the bar. “I have a lot of shame built up inside, sue me.”

Renjun knows he’s joking. Still, he feels his heart soften against a weak but painful twinge and can’t help but to move closer into Jisung’s space. “What’s there to be ashamed of when you're the most handsome, most successful model on this side of the world?”

The red of Jisung’s cheeks deepen, and he grabs his water, turning away and gulping it down once again. Renjun wishes he could press a hand against his cheek, feel the heat of Jisung’s embarrassment burn into his palm to carry around with him and warm him up on this chilly night.

He can’t, though, and that’s probably a weird thought to have about your friend anyway, so Renjun uses herculean effort to force it to the back of his mind and focuses back on Jisung pretending he hadn’t said anything at all.

“Only this side of the world?” Jisung eventually asks, still looking over at the other side of the room.

Renjun grins to himself, feels the fluttering in his stomach and leaves it be instead of squashing it down. “Well, I thought I should be pragmatic.”

Jisung whips his head around to furrow his eyebrows over at Renjun. “Pragmatic? What are you, a scholar?”

Offended, Renjun defends himself. “Excuse me, I’m very smart. I have a wide vocabulary, I just don’t use it often. In case you don’t understand, obviously.”

Jisung snorts in that gross way he does, and Renjun’s heart grows two sizes. “Which one of us finished college, hyung?”

Smiling to himself, Renjun finally leans his weight against the solid sturdy line of Jisung’s side. He had, admittedly, dropped out of college three quarters into his first semester.

Well, at least he’d wanted to. His parents had forced him to at least finish the semester and collect the credits in case he ever wanted to go back, but he hadn’t. Knew as soon as he made the decision to leave he never would.

Jisung, though, had made it through all four years of college, and had even considered going to grad school before his career started picking up and he got too busy to actually go. He’d always been the better of the two of them. Renjun remembers spending freshman year in near tears either in the campus library or Jisung’s room, constantly lamenting his parents strictness and his fear of disappointing them working in tandem to force him into college. It was a rough few months, all of which he did his best to forget.

Jisung however, had thrived in college. While he was shy and timid back in Korea, he was confident and put together at NYU. Renjun always attributed that to the intense societal expectations they’d both faced as children of chaebol’s finally melting off the tense, straight line of Jisung’s shoulders. In America they’d both been able to start off on the same foot as the random, privileged kids in their courses.

While Renjun was crying into his laptop and trying to hide it, Jisung had a horde of friends surrounding him at all times, people vying for his attention. It had made him uncomfortable at first, Renjun knows, but he’d also loved it. Loved having things to do on the weekends and people to talk to about what he was learning and friends to talk about to his parents when they called to check up on him.

Renjun was all of those things for Jisung at one point. It was hard to learn to share Jisung’s attention, but he’d learned. And they’d both gained Jaemin out of it.

Jaemin and Jisung met in Jisung’s second semester of his freshman year. They’d both gone to some Korean-American club thing and Jaemin took Jisung under his wing right away.

When Renjun dropped out of school and began focusing on his career, Jisung had explored New York with Jaemin, doing all of the touristy things, going to all the parties and bars that didn’t ID, had the time of his life.

Maybe Renjun was slightly jealous, but he liked Jaemin well enough at the time. And eventually he made his own friend in Donghyuck, and then Donghyuck and Jaemin met and hit it off, and one day Jeno showed up to their hangout with Jaemin, and the next time Mark showed up with Donghyuck, and about a month after that Chenle was found by Mark and dragged into their group, and they just never separated after that.

Renjun never regretted leaving college, and Jisung never regretted staying, except for a brief stint his junior year in which it took the combined efforts of both Renjun and Jaemin to convince him not to drop out over one failed grade. Sitting in the crowd and watching Jisung graduate with honors was one of Renjun proudest moments, and a favorite memory of his.

“The smart one.” Renjun finally responds. Jisung frowns at him in the way he always does when he feels as though Renjun is disparaging himself, but before he can say anything about it Jaemin, Donghyuck, and Chenle find them, all giggling and shoving each other around as they approach.

“Renjun.” Donghyuck admonishes before wrapping around him and smacking a kiss to the side of his neck. Renjun only cringes away a little bit once goose eggs erupt from the spot, and it makes Donghyuck laugh gleefully before he does it again on the other side. “I love you, you know that?”

“Obviously,” Renjun agrees easily. He loves Donghyuck just as much, but he’s not going to admit it here and now.

“Next spot?” Jisung guesses, keeping his eyes firmly trained on Donghyuck and Renjun instead of Jaemin and Chenle pawing at each other to the side of them.

“One sec, then we’ll leave.” Donghyuck promises, slipping away from them and gliding his way over to Mark and Jeno at their table.

“Why does Jaemin giving him a lap dance that you planned make him want Mark?” Jisung questions, watching Donghyuck and Mark until Donghyuck climbs into Mark’s lap and Jeno nearly knocks his chair over trying to give them some privacy.

“Jaemin’s flat ass and huge tits made him remember that no matter how annoying his friends are, he loves us.” Renjun shrugs. He could do the same thing, but with Donghyuck it was more common. Sometimes he couldn’t stop being mad, even if he wanted to or if he never actually cared that much in the first place. Sometimes he ended up so far in his own head he had to be shocked out of it.

“My huge tits accept your thanks,” Jaemin leans over to tell them, with Chenle still attached to his neck like some kind of overgrown leech.

“We never said thanks,” Jisung responds snarkily, grimacing and the pair of them, “are you heading home early?”

Chenle pops off of Jaemin’s skin, showing off the gnarliest hickey Renjun has ever been faced with. “Why would we?”

Jisung looks at the two of them and how they’re still wrapped completely around each other before simply turning around to avoid having to watch their spectacle any longer. Laughing to himself, Renjun follows his lead, stepping into Jisung’s side until he can feel the way his chest expands when he breathes.

Jeno finally meets them, loudly explaining that Donghyuck had sincerely apologized for being the world's worst friend, to which Mark sincerely refuted and told him he was the world’s best friend for stepping into the places Mark failed every time and then Donghyuck climbed on top of him and now they’re doing that weird thing where they mush their faces together and whisper about how much the other person means to them.

Renjun lets it all wash over him, the explanation and Jisung bemoaning the fact that none of his friends can be normal even in public and then Jaemin and Chenle starting an argument about how they are normal and actually Jisung isn’t normal and Jisung starts to argue back, but Renjun loses track of who’s saying what and what everyone’s stances are.

Instead he presses against Jisung as much as he can without Jisung noticing he has another person’s entire body weight up against him, reveling in the heat that overcomes him when Jisung casually wraps an arm around his waist and rests his hand on Renjun’s hip. He thinks maybe he has such a visceral reaction to the feeling of Jisung’s breath against his neck because he’s missed him so much these past few weeks, but the thought floats away from him. All he can really focus on is Jisung’s rib cage methodically nudging against his, the way their breaths sink up, the way Jisung’s thumb is pulling the waistband of Renjun’s pants millimeters away from Renjun’s body, and how it’s nothing but feels so insane anyways. Like, Jisung could fit his whole hand in there and Renjun wouldn’t notice. Or, he would but only because he wants it so bad that finally getting it would be a relief. The skin of Jisung’s palm pressed like a brand into the skin of Renjun’s hip bone, seering into him so that even when Jisung’s away, at a show or hanging out with someone else, or just in the space between when they see each other next, Renjun can pick at the sore puckered skin and remember that they fit together. Have some tangible proof that they belong to each other in some way, chose to belong together forever. What way that is, Renjun can’t see through the fog clouding his thoughts.

It’s not until his friends start to move to leave that he comes back to himself, and wow. He must be way more plastered than he thought he was at this point to retreat that far into himself in a group of people.

“Falling asleep?” Jisung teases, making sure Renjun’s upright before taking his hands away completely.

Renjun shivers at the loss, feeling the phantom heat against his hip and craving the real thing. “Yeah.” He says, then can’t say anything else. He’s being crazy, he can tell. Even if he couldn’t, he feels certifiably insane with the thoughts racing through his head. Gets even worse when Jisung tugs him towards the exit and all he can focus on is Jisung’s shirt sleeve catching against his.

Jisung’s shirt, that he’s wearing right now, but was actually Renjun’s first. When he had finally shoved it at Jisung and forced him to take it officially, he had thought of it as nothing more than saving closet space from a piece that so obviously belonged on someone else. Now, he sees it as Jisung wearing something he gave him. Like maybe Jisung put it on today knowing that it was Renjun’s, and maybe he wanted Renjun to remember that. Maybe he wanted to drive Renjun up a wall knowing that if anyone asked where it was from Jisung wouldn’t know the answer, because Renjun had bought it and then gifted it to him and now the fabric was shifting against his skin and Renjun had done that; put the shirt that made Jisung look so tall and lean, that he always got looked at in and had admitted before that he liked the feel of, on him.

The walk to the next spot is used on Renjun’s part to get his head back on straight. He’s stuck between Jeno and Jisung, both walls in different ways but sturdy enough for Renjun to be able to relax and focus. Focus on normal thoughts, because the cold fresh air is whipping against his face in a way that is making him realize just how absolutely bonkers he is being.

For a second he’s worried about how apparently he’s lost his mind, but in the next he remembers he doesn’t have the time to lose it right at this second so he pushes the thought to the back of his mind. With all of his other thoughts from the night, actually, taped off in a big box with caution tape wrapped around it and big red letters that say DO NOT OPEN, NEVER EVER OPEN, on top of the flaps. And then he forces himself to be normal, and to him right now, normal is moving half a step closer to Jeno and pretending that he doesn’t notice Jisung notice the extra half an inch between them.

“So,” Renjun forces out, his voice extra shrill between the deep baritone notes of Jisung’s and the calming flow of Jeno’s. He clears his throat quickly and tries again. “Are you leaving after this next stop?”

Jisung looks over at him, eyebrows pinched in the middle. Renjun wants to bite at the skin in that puckers between his eyebrows, except for no, he doesn’t, because he’s being normal. He clears his throat again, for good measure. “No,” Jisung responds slowly, and Renjun abruptly realizes he and Jeno must have been talking about this already. “I’m walking y’all there, then meeting my manager around the corner.”

“Right,” Renjun laughs a little maniacally. He really wishes he hadn’t fixed Donghyuck’s mood because he could really do with Donghyuck swooping in and putting him out of misery. Instead Donghyuck is leading their group with Mark, holding hands and swinging them in between themselves like they’re school aged children. You’d never be able to tell they were fighting only ten minutes ago and that’s Renjun’s fault. A cross he’ll have to bear while he humiliates himself five steps behind them. “Totally.”

“Totally what?” Jeno asks, starting to look progressively more confused. Renjun steps on his own foot, hoping the twinge of pain knocks whatever loose parts of his brain that’s screwing him over back to where they need to be.

“This,” Mark announces loudly, drawing all of their attention to him, “is our next stop.”

Renjun feels his body relax, praising God and all things holy. Jisung is leaving, and that sucks but is also probably good, because at some point between drink five and six Renjun has lost all sense and could actually use some space from his friend while he gains it back.

Except for then they’re all heading to the door, hugging Jisung goodbye, and Renjun is seconds away from offering to walk him to his manager’s car because he actually is a great friend most of the time, thanks so much, when Jisung tenses up so fully Renjun starts to worry that he’s somehow gotten hurt.

Until a voice from behind him loudly asks, “Renjun?” and it all starts to make sense in his head.

Renjun turns away, though not fully because Jisung grabs onto the front of Renjun’s shirt and stops him from doing so. Behind him is Hyunsuk Yoon, ginormous and still somehow shy, looking at all of Renjun’s friends look up at him before finding Renjun again. “What are you doing here?” He asks.

Without looking, Renjun removes Jisung’s fingers from where they’re wrinkling his shirt, using his hold on Jisung’s hand to drag him next to Renjun instead of behind him, and faces Hyunsuk head on. “We’re celebrating Donghyuck’s tour starting.”

Hyunsuk looks at Donghyuck, then immediately whips his head away like he’s trying to hide the fact he knows who he is without being introduced. If nothing else, it is incredibly endearing. “Oh, wow. Sick.”

“What are you doing here?” Jisung asks, looking Hyunsuk up and down suspiciously. Renjun tugs on Jisung’s hand he’s still holding, trying to get him to ease up. It doesn’t work.

Hyunsuk flounders before seemingly deciding to answer honestly. “I live up the road. Today was a little rough so I thought I’d get a drink before I went back to moping at home.”

“Everything okay?” Renjun frowns. There are five pairs of eyes trained on him, Jisung, and Hyunsuk, switching between them as each of them speaks but Renjun is valiantly trying to ignore them.

“Oh, yeah, just you know. Modeling industry is cutthroat and all that.” He laughs like it pains him to do so, morosely digging the toe of his shoe into the concrete.

“You could join us,” Donghyuck offers, ignoring the affronted sound Jisung makes, “but we might cut into your moping.”

A smile starts to bloom on Hyunsuk’s face. “You wouldn’t mind? I promise not to mope too hard, but it would probably do me some good to not be alone.”

“Of course not! It’ll be fun.” Donghyuck smiles at him. Hyunsuk visibly brightens.

“But I’m leaving,” Jisung complains harshly. Renjun winces, tensing up and unable to look anyone in the eye when they all turn to the two of them.

“Jisung,” Jaemin says sharply. Jisung’s eyes cut over to him while Jaemin shakes his head at him. Jisung wilts.

A black hole of nausea opens in Renjun’s stomach. He cares about Hyunsuk on a human level, and honestly maybe slightly more than that considering Hyunsuk made what was admittedly a pretty hard night for Renjun a little better, but he cares about Jisung on a friendship level. In a way that Hyunsuk doesn’t even come close to, and he knows he can’t turn Hyunsuk away, knows that would be horribly rude and probably plastered all over social media come morning, but he also knows that it’s going to upset Jisung that he’s here. And there’s nothing he can do to ease Jisung’s worry because it all revolves around him.

“Should we head in?” Mark ends up breaking up the stare off they’ve all found themselves in.

Renjun waits until their friends plus Hyunsuk are all inside before he turns to Jisung. “Want me to walk you to your car?”

Jisung frowns at him so hard Renjun’s heart skips a beat. Maybe the situation they’ve found themselves in is no one's fault, but when Jisung looks at him like that Renjun is sure he knows who he puts the blame on. “He’s not here.”

“What?”

“Austin. He’s stuck in traffic, he’s not here yet.” Jisung repeats firmly. He hasn’t checked his phone since they left the last bar.

“Jisung,” Renjun tries.

“I’ll just wait inside for him.” Jisung decides, heading to the door.

“Jisung,” Renjun tries again, but Jisung ignores him once more, holding the door open for him silently. Renjun gives up, mostly because he has no idea what to say without bringing up the obvious, which he doesn’t think either of them can really handle currently. So he follows Jisung in, and goes along when Jisung tugs him to the bar, and presses his front close along Jisung’s side. Focuses on their ribs touching methodically as their breaths sync up and hopes it eases Jisung’s nerves the same way it eases his.

It takes fifteen minutes for Jisung to break.

When he and Renjun make it to the bar, Jisung orders himself two tequila shots and downs them both nearly at the same time. Renjun orders himself a cosmopolitan, and gets Jisung a water to chase down the alcohol he’s not supposed to be drinking so close to leaving for the airport. The nausea doesn’t alleviate, and Renjun sips on his cosmopolitan morosely while Jisung glares at Hyunsuk talking to their friends, then tries to stop when he remembers he shouldn’t, then goes really silent while he tries to reconcile what’s happening.

Renjun tries to talk to him. Tries to remind him that international flights are the worst flights to miss, and the JFK airport is notoriously horrible, and that missing a work flight really is that bad. When Jisung holds staunchly onto his lie about Austin, Renjun gives up. Instead he prods at him about Paris, asking what he’s going to see while there and begging him to bring him back a croissant.

“Just come with me and get your own croissant,” Jisung replies, begging Renjun with his eyes. If Renjun could ditch all of his responsibility and flee, he would agree. He wishes he could.

“You know I can’t,” Renjun nudges Jisung, smiling against his own heartbreak when Jisung pouts down at his water, “but we’re hanging out when you get back. Don’t forget you promised to go on a trip with me.”

Jisung brightens a little at that, and after it’s easy for Donghyuck to come over and hang all over Jisung, pressing kisses into his hair and whining about Jisung leaving. Renjun stays pressed against Jisung the whole time, focusing on his breathing and reminding himself it’s not always going to be this hard. One day they won’t be dancing around the topic to the point they’re both miserable, unable to say what they’re really feeling in fear of how the other is going to take it. One day they’ll laugh back at these memories of how dramatic they were and cringe at the stupid shit they did and said and they’ll be able to be honest again. But not today.

Today, Renjun doesn’t leave Jisung’s side. Laughs when Jisung laughs, curls closer when Jisung droops, wraps an arm around Jisung while time passes and they get closer and closer to Jisung’s departure time. And finally, when Jisung stops ignoring the constant buzzing of his phone and Renjun can stop pretending he doesn’t notice, he walks Jisung to his car like he was already planning to do.

“Do you have something more comfortable to wear?” Renjun asks while they approach the car.

“I have a shirt waiting,” Jisung nods, opening the door and motioning for Renjun to hop in. Renjun does without hesitating, melting into the plush chairs. Jisung hops in after him, greeting his manager who’s glaring at the both of them. “Let me change, then we can go.” Austin snorts angrily, but turns back to glaring out the window.

Jisung pulls a black shirt out of the back of the seat and dumps it on the floor, working on the buttons of his shirt. “You’re friends with that Hyunsuk guy, huh?”

“We know each other.” Renjun offers.

“Right,” Jisung scoffs, swiping the heel of his hand against his right cheek when it twitches. “Anyway, he’s a model, right? He’s not going to Paris?”

Renjun hadn’t even considered this. “Uh, I guess not? I don’t know what he’s planning.”

“I think that’s what he meant when he said modeling was cut throat,” Jisung grunts when one of the buttons gets stuck, leaving the last few and pulling the shirt over his head. “Sucks. Especially when he went last season. Maybe you should get him drunk to help him feel better. And have someone else dump him at his house. So he’s safe, you know.” He tacks on at the end, shrugging while he grabs his new shirt from the floor.

Renjun squints at him, trying to figure out how they went from Jisung so obviously pouting at Hyunsuk being anywhere near them to Jisung telling him to make him feel better. Before he can ask, he gets distracted by Jisung’s shirt.

“I’m not a total asshole, you know.” Jisung protests when he sees Renjun’s disbelieving stare. “It does suck. Even with rich affluent parents I wasn’t invited to fashion week for a full year. To get dropped after that would’ve killed me.”

“Is that my shirt?” Renjun asks, feeling the vibrating start in his fingertips.

“What?” Jisung looks down at what he’s wearing, “oh, I guess it is. What does it matter? You’re probably the one that left it at my apartment.”

“I wear it every night. I’ve been looking for it everywhere.”

“Do you want it back?” Jisung asks incredulously.

Renjun fades out staring at it, feeling a little psychotic. His shirt. His sleep shirt, that Jisung will be wearing for over eight hours to get to Paris. He’s pretty certain he’s worn it so much it still smells like him. Briefly he wonders if Jisung can still feel the warmth of Renjun’s body stitched into it after years of sleeping in it. Wonders if that’s why Jisung likes it so much and doesn’t even notice. If Renjun had known he’d be taking it, he would have focused more on pushing all of his care and love into the seams in hopes Jisung could carry it with him all the time. “No,” Renjun shakes himself out of it eventually, “no keep it, sorry. I was just surprised.”

“Jisung,” His manager warns from the driver's seat.

Jisung rolls his eyes, hopping out of the car and helping Renjun out as well. Once they’re both on solid ground, Renjun hugs him hard enough he hopes the force of his affection bruises into Jisung’s skin, his bones, so he doesn’t fly to Paris as a sad sack pretending not to be one. “I’ll see you soon. Have fun and be safe.”

Jisung sighs into Renjun’s hair, squeezing Renjun tighter. Renjun falls into it, wishes this was just another day and didn’t feel like a bandaid over a crack in their foundation. “I love you.”

Renjun’s breath hitches. He doesn’t know if Jisung means it in a friendship way or the other way. Before, they would tell each other they loved each other all the time. When they left their houses, on the phone before they hung up, when one of them made the other laugh so hard they cried. When one of them was leaving the country.

They haven’t said it after, though, and Renjun isn’t sure what to do, where the parameters of too much are.

Jisung pulls away without Renjun saying anything, sitting back in his chair and leaning out of the door. “I love you,” he says seriously, and Renjun knows what he means, “I’ll see you when I get back.” Then he slides the door shut and the car takes off down the road.

Renjun stands there, feeling like his shoes have melted into the asphalt and are stopping him from moving.

But they haven’t and they aren’t, and Renjun is only now realizing he can’t keep pretending they have.

So he walks back to the bar, greets his friends and lets them all know Jisung’s going to make it, privately lets Jaemin know that no, Jisung’s not mad at him, and keeps moving.

—

The next morning, Renjun is glad he crashed out so hard he stopped drinking early.

Jeno, Mark, and Donghyuck are the worst off, with Donghyuck going hard since it was his special night and Mark and Jeno getting dragged into a drinking game with him at their last bar.

After Jisung left they still had three more spots they were supposed to hit. The next had been fine, with the six of them deciding to play pool all together and fighting the entire time, but after that it had slightly, maybe fallen apart.

It started with Jaemin and Chenle getting them all kicked out of their second to last bar. There was brief consideration to go home then, but Donghyuck wanted to make it all the way through so they rallied and made their way to the last bar of the night.

Renjun doesn’t remember much of it, but that’s due to him being delirious rather than drunk. What he can remember is Donghyuck complaining that they were all boring, with Renjun and Jeno both nodding off at the table and Chenle and Jaemin shoved into their own booth once they were told off by Mark for making out right next to him, and Mark nursing the same beer since they got there. He complained for so long and so efficiently that eventually he successfully pulled both Mark and Jeno into a drinking game so evil, Renjun was impressed.

Which leads them all to where they are now.

“You’re a horrible friend,” Donghyuck groans, glaring at Mark from his end of the couch.

They each have their heads on one of the armrests with their legs tangled up along the length of the couch. Donghyuck keeps digging the tips of his toenails into Mark’s shin as punishment for the atrocities he feels Mark has committed, which makes Mark yelp everytime, which in turn gets them both hit in the face with a pillow by Jeno, who is laying on the floor in front of them.

“You had me plan you a night of drinking and fun, which I successfully did. And I had my PR firm shut down the rumors about you getting married before they even spread. You’re welcome, you giant dick.”

“I take you thinking I have a giant dick as a compliment.” Donghyuck sniffs.

“I never said you had a giant dick, I said you are a giant dick. Two different things.”

“He does have a giant dick though,” Jaemin muses from in front of the TV. Him and Chenle are playing Mario Kart, even though the movement and lights keep making Donghyuck gag.

Donghyuck preens at the compliment until Mark kicks at him, and then the two of them go at it for a while as Jeno army crawls over to Renjun’s seat. “I have to go. The next time one of them yells I’m going to kill the both of them,” he admits, leaning his temple against the bend of Renjun’s knee.

Renjun laughs quietly, reaching down and running his fingers through Jeno’s hair. “I’ll take you with me, how about that?”

Jeno nods, letting his eyes flutter closed and trying to go back to sleep until they leave. Renjun feels bad, but only a little.

“Are you even going to recover in time for rehearsal?” Mark catches Donghyuck’s leg in the air before he can dig his heel in Mark’s hip for a second time.

“I canceled it,” Donghyuck grunts, wiggling his leg free but ending his attack, “no way am I going like this.”

“Your show is in two days,” Mark protests.

“And who’s the one to drag me to all those bars, hm? Mark Lee?” Mark gapes at him until Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “Would you relax? I have it all figured out. I’m detoxing today and resting my voice, and then I’ll go to rehearsal early tomorrow and leave late and it will all be fine. You’re not my mom.”

“Sorry for caring.”

“I forgive you.”

“Donghyuck, get out of my house.” Mark demands.

“No.”

“Please,” Jeno groans, “someone separate them.”

“Are we being picked up again that night or should I plan for Robert to take me?” Renjun changes the subject.

“Paul will pick you up,” Donghyuck waves his hand, “he’s getting you, Jeno, and Hyunsuk since you all live the closest together. Then Randy is getting Jaemin and Chenle.”

“What about me?” Mark glares.

“You don’t deserve it,” Donghyuck sticks his tongue out at him.

“Wait,” Renjun interrupts them from picking their fight back up, “Hyunsuk?”

“I invited him last night,” Donghyuck shrugs.

“You invited Hyunsuk to the first show of your tour? Why would you do that?” Renjun chances a glance over at Jaemin only to find that he’s paused the game and is turned around watching them worriedly.

“He seemed sad. And we actually got along really well, I figured it could be the start to a beautiful friendship.”

“Donghyuck,” Renjun trails off. This cannot be happening.

Sure, Hyunsuk is cool and Renjun actually would be interested in being friends, but things are tense right now. Between him and Jisung, at least, and Renjun knows Jisung feels some type of way about Hyunsuk and Donghyuck knows as well so he really doesn’t understand why he’s doing this.

Donghyuck huffs, rolling off the couch and onto his feet. “I’m going to the bathroom,” He declares, staring pointedly at Renjun.

Renjun follows after him a beat later, closing the door behind them and locking it. “I can’t believe you. Jisung is going to freak.”

“Jisung doesn’t tell me who I can and can’t be friends with like he does you. He’ll get over it.”

“He doesn’t tell me who I can and can’t be friends with.”

“Right,” Donghyuck says mockingly. Renjun wants to strangle him. “So then why did you dodge Hyunsuk all night? Hm? Why do you think I was with him all night? Because the only person he knew wouldn’t talk to him!”

“You saw what happened outside the bar. Jisung almost missed his flight he was so upset!”

“That’s his problem to deal with.” Donghyuck points out. He must realize the look on Renjun’s face is complete and utter betrayal, because he sighs loudly before continuing. “Look, I know things are weird with Jisung. And after hearing about what went down at the Saint Laurent after party, I understand that he’s not Hyunsuk’s biggest fan. But he’s not the deciding factor in what I do with my life, and you have to get used to that. I mean, are you never going to date again so you don’t upset him? Get real.” Renjun doesn’t say anything, which might be more incriminating than he planned for. “Renjun, no.”

“Obviously not.” Renjun lies.

Donghyuck shakes his head. “I can’t deal with you. I invited Hyunsuk and I’m not uninviting him. Jisung’s a big boy, he’ll deal. Maybe this is what he needs to start getting over you.”

Renjun shifts uncomfortably. “Hyunsuk and I aren’t dating, you realize that?”

“Ten bucks he asks you out at the concert.”

“I am not betting on that, what the fuck?”

“Just saying,” Donghyuck shrugs, “it’ll be fine, okay? You can’t protect him from every bad feeling.”

“I wish I could,” Renjun whines.

“Then marry him.” Donghyuck deadpans.

Renjun heats up from the inside out. Within ten seconds, he’s sure his face is the reddest it’s ever been in his life from the visual that brings up.

Jisung has always looked good in a suit.

“Jesus,” Donghyuck crinkles his nose, “calm down, it was a joke. Ever heard of one of those?”

“Piss off,” Renjun grinds out, “I’m leaving.” And he does. Storms out of the bathroom and back into the living room, where unfortunately Jaemin still has the game paused and is typing on his phone and chewing on his lip.

He’d woken up to a message from Jisung letting him know he’d landed safely, to which Renjun had responded with a simple have fun!. Have fun, exclamation point. Like he was his fucking grandmother.

Despite the cringe that overcame him from looking at his lame response, Renjun had spent the morning checking every ten minutes if Jisung had messaged him back.

He hadn’t, at least the last time Renjun checked, but Renjun is still fairly certain that’s who Jaemin is texting currently.

Renjun can only assume what Jisung is thinking about this. Or even worse, what Jaemin is thinking. If he doesn’t kill both him and Donghyuck in the next twenty four hours, Renjun will be genuinely shocked.

Or maybe Jaemin will just kill Renjun. He is the sole problem in all of this, afterall.

Jeno is still sadly slumped half over the seat of Renjun’s abandoned chair, half on the floor, which makes it easy for Renjun to take the out.

He tells Jeno they’re leaving, graciously asking anyone else if they’d like a ride, and then hurriedly shuffling Jeno out when they all say no. Technically the car is still five minutes away, but that’s how long it’s going to take to get Jeno down the driveway anyway, so off they go.

Once Renjun settles in the car, with Jeno pulling the privacy curtain shut tight, he sighs a breath of relief. It was starting to feel like a pressure cooker in Mark’s house, with him annoyed at Donghyuck and Donghyuck annoyed at him and Jaemin seemingly annoyed at both of them. He had to get out of there, or he was going to start developing stress hives again.

But maybe his relief at getting away from their friends was too obvious, since as soon as Renjun feels a tiny bit better, Jeno ruins it.

“What’s going on with you and Jisung?” He asks, and Renjun’s heart falls right out of his ass.

“What do you mean?” He chuckles nervously. It comes out weird, like aha hhh ah instead of hahaha and Renjun knows that’s an admission of guilt immediately.

Jeno raises an eyebrow. “Last night was bizarre. First you weren’t really talking, then you were basically asleep on him, then you couldn’t get close enough to him, and then Hyunsuk showed up and you both got weird. Like, really weird. Like that time Jaemin and I slept with the same guy and I found them on a date a week later.”

Renjun cringes. He wasn’t there when Jeno found them at the pizzeria, but he bore witness to the crash out that came after. When Jeno and Jaemin couldn’t talk to each other, or wouldn’t, Renjun’s still not sure which, and for weeks he could only hang out with one or the other at a time. Never together, or they both started being weird.

That was the only way to explain it. Weird.

According to Jisung, who was the one who had invited Jeno to the pizzeria with him to spy on Jaemin (not having realized Jaemin’s Jonathan was the same Jonathan Jeno had been obsessing over for a full week), neither of them knew what to say to each other for a full twenty four hours. They’d try to talk and both devolve in long streams of thought that made no sense. “Like two people who just barely learned about language and had no idea how conversation worked,” Jisung had said. He still laughed occasionally at the bizarre shit they’d said that first day.

“We’re fine,” Renjun tries.

“Right,” Jeno makes a face, like he can’t believe Renjun’s trying to lie to him right now.

“Okay,” Renjun gives in only a little, “we’re working through some things, but I can’t really explain it. I don’t think Jisung wants me talking about it a bunch.”

“But Donghyuck knows.” Renjun nods his confirmation. “And so does Jaemin.” Renjun agrees again. “So it’s about Jisung being in love with you. Right?”

Renjun tries not to react. He really, really does, because he’s a good friend who doesn’t want to give away something Jisung trusted only him with and also because if Jeno knows he’s most definitely going to tell everybody else.

But Renjun is only a man. A dumb, idiot man, and the only response he can come up with is to stare at Jeno with wide eyed horror.

“I mean it’s pretty obvious,” Jeno shrugs, “Chenle said something about seeing you with a ‘tall handsome piece of meat’ before Jisung dragged you away. Then Hyunsuk shows up and Jisung goes all squirmy, and you get all weird and guilty, and I saw you. When he left and you stood there and stared after him like you were going to wait for him to come back to you right there.” Renjun blinks hard. He hadn’t looked like that. “Plus you two have always been so obsessed with each other.”

“We’re not,” Renjun rasps out. He’s not totally sure what he’s refuting.

“Oh, you are,” Jeno rolls his eyes, “obsessed, completely. It’d be weird if I didn’t know you.” Renjun tries to find something to say, but Jeno stops him again. “You rejected him right?” Renjun cringes away from the words, like they’re less true if no one speaks them out loud. “I mean if you had confessed he would have jumped you, I’m sure. But he’s sad, and you’re droopy, which means there was no happy ending.”

“Are you constantly psychoanalyzing all of your friends?” Renjun shoots back.

“No one tells me anything,” Jeno defends himself, “I have to figure it out for myself.”

“Maybe because you have a historically large mouth.” Renjun shoots him a pointed look, “I’m not kidding when I say if you tell anyone, or bring it up even slightly to Jisung, I will kill you with my bare hands. This is between you and me, seriously.”

Jeno nods his agreement eagerly, leaning in when Renjun sighs loudly. “Look, there may be some miniscule truths in what you’re saying.” Jeno grins sagely, like he knew there was no way he could be wrong. Now Renjun’s annoyed again. “But it’s complicated, and we’re trying to work through it. Last night was a fluke.”

“And now Hyunsuk is coming to Donghyuck’s opening night,” Jeno points out. Renjun blows out an annoyed breath at the reminder. “Where he’s more than likely going to spend all night trying to get in your pants, with all of Jisung’s friends on a major night when Jisung can’t be. Because you convinced him to go to France.”

“Are you trying to make me feel worse?” Renjun exclaims.

“This is quite the predicament,” Jeno frowns. “You’re totally screwed.”

“You are being so unhelpful right now.”

“I’m just saying! You should call Jisung. Explain what he should expect.”

Renjun shakes his head immediately. “I’m not going to stress him out before fashion week. He’s already stressed enough, and upset about the concert. I’m just hoping either Jaemin can calm him down, or he never finds out.”

“You’re never going to tell him that his competition is sneaking into his spot while he’s gone?” Jeno repeats. He sounds like Renjun just told him the sky was purple and he looked up to see it was true. “How’s that going to go down when you get together?”

Renjun jolts in his seat like he touched the exposed end of a live wire. “What are you talking about?”

“You know,” Jeno gives him a look like he’s completely crazy, “when you get over whatever hang ups you have and you confess to him in some romantic way and love each other forever. You can’t start a relationship actively lying about something so major.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Renjun breathes out. He has no idea why Jeno is looking at him like he’s insane when Jeno is the one pulling these ideas out of his ass.

“Come on,” Jeno groans, “you’re telling me you’re not being a repressed asshole right now? You didn’t say no because you think he’s too good for you, or you’re not in the right place to support him, or because you don’t know how you feel about him yet? Seriously?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Renjun asks, trying and failing to hide the gasping breaths he’s taking when Jeno says exactly what he’s feeling.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jeno retorts, “He’s right there. You’re just going to let him go?”

“We’re here,” Robert announces, pulling in front of Jeno’s building with a pointed look through the rearview mirror.

Jeno huffs, cutting a glance Renjun’s way as he opens the door, “I’ll see you later.”

Renjun doesn’t respond. Can’t respond, actually, so instead he waves helplessly out the window, trying not to look like the world is falling apart around him until they’re around the corner.

Jeno sucks, he decides.

How dare he do this to Renjun. How dare he act as though he knows everything there is to know about him, as if he knows how Renjun and Jisung’s relationship is going to play out before they do. How dare he make Renjun feel, once again, as if the floor’s fallen out from beneath his feet.

If he allows himself to think about it, he’s just going to get upset. So Renjun pushes the whole conversation to the back of his mind.

Except, how would Jeno know that? That Renjun can’t figure out what it is that he feels or thinks? How could he guess that out of nowhere?

And why does he think it’s inevitable that they end up together? That’s not going to happen! Jisung is going to move on to someone who has their shit together and have a happy relationship and Renjun’s going to be cheering him on from the side.

He staunchly ignores the hurt that courses through him at that thought.

But Jeno is wrong, and he needs to butt out. Of course Renjun isn’t letting him go. Jisung is his best friend. Always will be. Even if one day he gets married to someone else and has kids and builds this amazing perfect life he’s always wanted with some nameless faceless guy. They’ll always be friends, and Renjun will support him and be happy for him and be the best uncle he can be to Jisung’s kids and that’s going to be enough.

His chest aches thinking about it.

Well, if it does it’s only because the future is uncertain and scary and it freaks him out to think about them getting old.

Unless they're together. Renjun has always looked forward to being old and retired and moving somewhere boring like Rochester, or Aurora, sitting on their porch swing together in the mornings, drinking coffee while relaxing together.

Like friends do, obviously.

Anyways, Jeno is wrong. And Renjun is not going to freak out about this.

—

Two days later, at Donghyuck’s concert, Renjun is avoiding Jeno.

Not because of what they talked about. Not really.

Mostly because he keeps looking at Renjun like he can see right through him.

Admittedly, Renjun has spent the last few days freaking out about what they talked about, but only a little bit. A minor freakout session everyday is good for the soul anyways, or something. There’s a really good excuse in him somewhere but the creepy crawlies he keeps getting from Jeno staring holes into him is keeping him from solidifying it.

Renjun’s also seventy percent sure Jeno’s doing it on purpose. Like if he stares long enough Renjun’s going to spill his guts to him and Jeno will get the glory of helping him and Jisung through their rough patch in a way even Donghyuck and Jaemin couldn’t.

Jokes on him, though. Renjun has nothing to spill, no matter what Jeno seems to be telling himself.

Besides, there are people literally everywhere. Donghyuck set aside a suite for them to all watch from, but if he looks up Renjun can almost always find a phone camera pointed at them. If he did have something to spill, which he doesn’t, he would die before he did it here for someone to catch on camera.

Jeno can’t seem to understand what Renjun’s silence means, so he continues to stare. It’s aggravating.

Also, Hyunsuk is there. Which is still stressing Renjun out, even if he’s hiding it spectacularly well.

It’s just that according to Donghyuck, Jaemin never actually told Jisung that Hyunsuk would be there. Presumably for the same reasons Renjun didn’t tell him. Donghyuck had offered to do it himself, but he wasn’t in the most empathetic or apologetic mood so Renjun talked him out of it.

The only reason he’d answered Donghyuck’s call after what he’d done is because he didn’t want to upset or stress him out before his tour. Even if, in Renjun’s opinion, he deserved it. Why would any of them upset or stress Jisung out during fashion week?

Hyunsuk being there is going to be fine. Sure, he’s sticking pretty close to Renjun, but he also knows him the most of his friends. And sure, Jisung would probably be losing his shit when Hyunsuk pulls his chair closer to Renjun’s when they sit down, but he’s not there so he doesn’t need to find out. Hopefully will never find out.

Renjun is banking on it. He’s also banking on Jeno’s eyes falling out of his head so he stops looking back at Renjun and Hyunsuk talking like he knows something, but that seems less likely.

Everything is going to be fine, he thinks.

Then the show starts and Renjun can’t find it in him to worry any longer. All of his attention is taken by his friend, who walks out to the loudest cheers Renjun has heard in his life.

The show is incredible. Watching it fills Renjun with a pride that is so large it’s embarrassing, honestly.

Donghyuck has always been amazing, but knowing all these people see it too? Renjun couldn’t be happier for him. He can’t imagine the rush Donghyuck must get from these shows. Can’t imagine what it’s like for him to go across the country, across the world, and perform for all these people that love him. It makes Renjun’s heart grow two sizes, knowing his friend gets to see all the love people have for him. Absorb all the love he deserves.

After, when they’re all picking at the food laid out for them or getting fresh drinks after Donghyuck has disappeared into the curtains and the fans are chanting for an encore, Hyunsuk leans into Renjun’s space, not for the first time that night, while they’re both at the bar waiting for their drinks to be made. “How would you feel if I asked you to dinner?”

Renjun freezes, then tries to laugh it off. “Uh, I don’t know. You’d have to ask, I guess.”

Hyunsuk smiles, as if the non-answer doesn’t bother him in the slightest. Maybe it doesn’t. “Okay, then. Would you get dinner with me this week?”

Renjun’s face feels frozen over. He’s not even totally sure what expression he’s making. “Like, dinner? Or like dinner?”

For the first time, Hyunsuk’s easy grin wavers. “I’m not totally sure what the difference is, but the second one, I think?”

Renjun should say no. He’s going to, actually, because he literally has no cognitive space to deal with going on a date while it still feels like his life is on the cusp of falling apart around him. Also, he’s not going to hurt Jisung like that. Never ever.

But then he looks around, like an idiot, and there Jeno is. Two feet away and watching them through the corner of his eye. When he notices Renjun noticing him, he raises his eyebrow knowingly. Renjun still wants to kill him, but even more than that he wants to prove him wrong.

Even if he can’t, fully. He’s still not going to do that to Jisung.

“Look,” Renjun starts, bringing his gaze back to meet Hyunsuk’s head on, “I have a lot going on right now and I don’t think I’m emotionally available enough to agree to a date. I mean, maybe we can go as friends? And if one day down the road we fall madly in love, we’ll deal with it then. But right now all I can offer you is friendship.”

Hyunsuk nods congenially. Renjun wonders if he’s ever actually been rejected in his life. “Friends sounds good. And if you need someone to talk to, I’ve been told I’m a great listener.”

Renjun laughs, nudging Hyunsuk’s arm with his shoulder. The guy is a giant. “I’ve been told I’m a great friend. You have a lot to look forward to.” Hyunsuk’s grin widens as he nudges Renjun back, but they’re interrupted from continuing their conversation when Donghyuck comes back out. Renjun grabs his drink before beelining for the railing.

The concert had started off with Donghyuck’s slower songs, his honey smooth voice drooning over the crowd as they sang along with him. Their group had to endure Jaemin and Chenle wrapped around each other and singing the lyrics quietly between them, but Renjun had enjoyed the natural crescendo the concert took. Now, his last two songs were his most popular, upbeat pop songs. Renjun could see the entire crowd on their feet, jumping along and screaming the lyrics back at Donghyuck. Their group included.

Renjun jumped along to the beat, grabbing Chenle’s hand when he holds it out to him and singing as loud as he could and not stopping until the concert has officially ended and they’re waiting for security to take them backstage.

The next morning when he’s talking to Donghyuck over the phone as he makes himself coffee, he tells him it was the best part of the night. The five of them (plus Hyunsuk) in their own little space, having fun and not worrying about anyone filming them or thinking they were weird. It was like what Renjun had imagined his life to be when he was a kid, and he had loved living in that fantasy land for just under eight minutes.

It’s also the part of the night that gets them caught.

Renjun had been able to let go and have fun because all of the attention was on Donghyuck. He wasn’t worried about fans sneaking pictures or videos and he wasn’t worried about looking like an idiot in front of a million people.

Turns out he should have been.

Because Mark Lee had taken a video. And posted it on his very public Instagram story.

It started out as just the crowd, bopping up and down in sync and having the time of their lives. Then, the camera panned to their line of friends, and there he was. Hyunsuk Yoon, stood so close to Renjun they bumped into each other occasionally as they bounced around.

Renjun knew Jisung had to have seen it. He wanted to call Mark up and curse at him for ruining his life, but he knew it wasn’t fair.

He was the one who refused to let Jisung know beforehand. It burned to admit it, but Jeno was right. Renjun should have talked to him about it days ago.

Even knowing that, he was still too chicken shit to reach out first. Instead, he spent the morning stressing out about it, and the afternoon stressing out trying not to think about it, until Jisung finally texts him at three p.m.

jisungie

have a good time at the concert?

it was amazing
im excited to go w u

looked fun on marks story
me too

the encore was cool right?
hyuck was happy we all made it
but he missed u

i miss himt oo

he invited hyunsuk too
ig they made friends on donghyuck night

right

Renjun spooks. Jisung’s not usually so dry with him, which means he’s definitely annoyed.

i think hyunsuk told him he was a fan
you know how donghyuck likes having his ego stroked

sure hyung
i have to go paris is busy

Renjun frowns down at his phone, trying not to let his feelings get hurt at Jisung ditching the conversation. He probably is really busy.

sure
have fun be safe

And then, in a moment of psychosis,

love u

It’s then that Renjun knows for sure. He’s lost his mind.

It takes ten minutes before Jisung responds.

i love you too hyung

Renjun puts his phone face down on his kitchen counter and goes to lay face down on his couch.

He’s the worst friend ever. This confirms it.

He knows he’s hurting Jisung, knows he shouldn’t be telling him he loves him when it means so much more to Jisung than it does Renjun, and he goes and does it anyway. He doesn’t know why he would do that.

The forgiving part of him thinks maybe it’s because as much as it’s the wrong thing to say, it’ll still make Jisung happy to hear. Or see, whatever.

The unforgiving part of him thinks it’s because he’s a horrible person.

Renjun himself is somewhere in the middle of those two trains of thought. Leaning a bit more to the unforgiving side, if he’s being honest.

He needs to get it together, he knows, but it’s hard with Jisung so far away. When they’re together it’s easier to pretend that everything is okay. Almost like they’re performing for each other, as well as their friends. When they’re apart, Renjun starts to obsess.

Kind of like now. On his couch and contemplating going into hiding and starting therapy three times a week.

Instead of doing that, he grabs his phone and calls Jeno.

Then promptly hangs up, because he hates Jeno right now.

Unfortunately, Jeno is a good friend and calls him right back, and Renjun’s not actually mad enough to ignore him so he answers.

And spills, just like Jeno wanted.

Not everything, only what he feels is his to tell.

He tells him about how he had no idea what to say when Jisung finally admitted he was in love with him, that he felt sick to his stomach every second they didn’t talk, that he was going to tell Jisung they should try, to give Renjun some time but he thought he could do it that night he told them about Derek. That everytime he helped pick out a new date outfit he laid in bed after in silence, wondering if they could both really move past this.

He tells him about Hyunsuk, and how he’d been a little bit in awe of Renjun and his friends, and Renjun had spent time with him because he felt good that someone still saw him and found something good, instead of the ugly feelings that had been gnashing against ribs for weeks.

He only alludes to Jisung trying to kiss him, refusing to elaborate when Jeno asks, and then moves on to his dislike of Derek. How he’s pretty sure Derek broke up with Jisung because of Renjun, but how Renjun didn’t think he was right for Jisung anyways. Didn’t think they fit well together, didn’t think they filled each other's spaces like Renjun and Jisung always have.

Finally he confesses his most recent transgressions. That on Donghyuck night he felt like he wanted to crack Jisung’s ribs open so he could crawl inside and lay against his beating heart. That being near him had made Renjun feel like he was floating and the only thing keeping him tethered to the Earth was Jisung next to him, that he didn’t know if that was the alcohol or something else.

Then he tells him about Jisung leaving and Renjun feeling like he was going to shake apart, and then agreeing to dinner with Hyunsuk, and then waking up that morning feeling like he was hit by a bus when he saw the video evidence of them together on Mark’s story. Tells him about how bad he felt knowing it was going to upset Jisung, and Jisung texting him and not being his usual self, and how Renjun had ended it by telling him he loved him. And then Jisung had responded that he loved him too, and Renjun immediately felt like shit, knowing he meant it in a completely different way than Renjun had.

Jeno lets him ramble on, only interrupting to ask questions or ask Renjun if he’s okay when he starts to trail off. Until the last part of his story, at least.

“Renjun, come on. What the fuck?”

Renjun groans into his couch cushions, “I know, I know. I don’t know why I said that.”

“You have no idea? Really?”

“I do love him!” Renjun protests, “I’ve always told him I love him! It’s just habit, I don’t know.”

“This has all been going on right under our noses?”

Renjun breathes deeply, feeling his anxiety settle tucked under his ribs like an old friend. “Yeah.”

“Wow,” Jeno responds simply, then starts to go through his thoughts on what Renjun’s just told him by bullet point.

Jeno tells him that he still saw the good in Renjun, even if he felt like he was out of control and destroying everything in his path, that wasn’t what everyone else felt from him. He tells him that telling Jisung he would try to love him would have been the wrong move, but sympathizes with him about the Derek reveal. He still seems to be a Derek hater, even if he now realizes why exactly Derek thought it best to end his and Jisung’s relationship.

Then he tells Renjun that he’s completely insane for wanting to cut Jisung open just to be closer to him, but that he got it, and Jisung was also completely insane for him so he thought it was okay. And that as much as he feels for what Jisung is feeling, Renjun is actually allowed to be friends with someone and stand next to them. Even if he still thinks it’s super fucked up that Donghyuck invited Hyunsuk in the first place.

“I feel like everything I do ends up hurting him,” Renjun whines, curling into a tighter ball on his couch.

“About that,” Jeno starts, then launches into a tirade about how Renjun needs to make a decision.

He says that it’s okay not to know how to respond when you're surprised by something, but if Renjun didn’t know what he wanted then, he should by now. Tells him that two months is too long to pretend he hasn’t made a decision, and if he really hasn’t then he needs to. Then Jeno yells at him for never actually answering Jisung, and promises that if Renjun decides he’s in love he has some serious groveling to do before Jeno can allow him to date Jisung.

“I’m not going to date Jisung.” Renjun tells him.

Jeno scoffs. “Get real.”

Renjun grinds his teeth silently. He’s a little sick of everyone treating him like he’s a giant idiot, especially when he already feels like one. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“I don’t think you did,” Jeno soothes, “but he is hurt, and now you need to be gentle with him. Maybe Jisung isn’t usually fragile, but this definitely stripped him of some of his defenses.” Renjun sighs sadly. “Do you think your need to live inside of Jisung is normal?”

“Certainly not.”

“Me neither,” Jeno agrees. “I’ve never felt like that at least. You know who I bet has?”

“Who?”

“Jisung. About you.”

“Jeno.”

“Just saying,” Jeno whistles low under his breath, “I wish I could see what his thoughts look like. I bet you they’re insane. Like, psychopathic levels of insane. About you at least.”

Renjun wills the red in his cheeks down to the best of his ability. “That’s not making me feel better.”

“Think about it. The way he reacted to Hyunsuk on Donghyuck night? What a man.” Jeno sighs dreamily.

“Why don’t you date him then?” Renjun grumbles.

Jeno snorts. “Like I’m going to be the one to interrupt this century's greatest love story. Did you really agree to a date with Jisung’s current biggest op? That’s going to set us back a few paces.”

“It’s not a date, it’s dinner as friends. That’s it, and yes I made sure Hyunsuk knew that.”

Jeno sighs long and hard on the other end of the line. He’s not particularly helping Renjun feel better in this exact moment, but at least he doesn’t have to sit alone in his own thoughts. “Okay, that’s fine. I just think, you know, that maybe it’s a bad idea. In the current state of the world we’re living in, you know?”

Renjun agrees, actually, but he can’t exactly go back on his word now. “What am I supposed to do Jeno? Call him up and say, “oh, hey, sorry but my best friend is actually in love with me and he thinks I’m totally into you even though we’ve only spoken three times now and it’s making him completely freak out so I have to cancel”? No friggin way.”

“Maybe you should have said no when he first asked.”

“It’s too late for that. Now I need a solution.” Renjun demands. There’s complete silence on both their ends, until Renjun gets an idea. “Why don’t you come with me?”

Jeno scoffs. “No.”

Renjun holds back a scream. “What do you mean no? It’s our best option.”

“I’m not going to third wheel you and Hyunsuk. It’s weird.” Jeno complains. “Take Donghyuck.”

“Donghyuck is leaving the state in four hours,” Renjun reminds him with not an ounce of patience.

“Jaemin.”

“Really?”

“Oof. Chenle?”

“Chenle is an extension of Jaemin at this point. No.”

“You could always bring Mark.”

“Are you joking? It’s Mark Lee, we’ll be harassed all night!”

“Well. Looks like you’re going alone.”

“You suck.”

“Look, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Jisung is definitely going to pitch himself over a bridge in France if he finds out about your date. What’s that famous one with the locks?”

“Pont Des Arts?” Renjun offers.

“Sure, that one.”

“And no he’s not.”

“Yes he most definitely is. My point is that you need to get ahead of it.”

“He’s already pissed. If I call and tell him I’m going out with Hyunsuk he’ll probably block my number.”

“We’re way past that,” Jeno huffs, impatient. “You can’t hide this. Like, at all.”

“What should I do then?” Renjun huffs back, equally as impatient for Jeno to get to the point.

“You have to make it obvious. Like so obvious Jisung can’t suspect something else is going on, because no one in their right mind would go Instagram official after one date.”

Renjun furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“Look,” Jeno says, impatience clearly lining his voice, “this is what you’re going to do.”

—

Renjun does exactly as Jeno says.

Hyunsuk messaged him that same day, oblivious to his plight, and asked if they could get dinner the night after. Renjun agreed, asked if they could do lunch instead, and then agreed to dinner when Hyunsuk let him know he was busy during the day.

Jeno said lunch was better than dinner, more casual, and Renjun agreed; but even he couldn’t fix schedule conflicts. Instead he offers an earlier time than usual for dinner, and they both agree to meet there.

The next night he meets Hyunsuk at the restaurant they agreed on. It’s in the West Village, so neither of them have to travel far, and Hyunsuk swears by it. He’d sold it to Renjun by telling him it was the best Thai food he’s had since he moved to New York.

There’s a sense of relief Renjun feels when the restaurant turns out to be a fairly casual dining experience. The lights are dim when he walks in, which is a little more date-like than he’s comfortable with at this moment in time, but he swallows down his discomfort. When the hostess points him to their table, he’s happy to find they’re right next to a bright neon sign, casting light harshly on their table.

Hyunsuk rises from his seat to hug Renjun hello, which he accepts before taking his jacket off and laying it across the back of his chair.

“How have you been?” Hyunsuk asks once they’ve both settled in their chairs.

Renjun smiles over at him, telling him he’s been fine. They chat for a few minutes about what their upcoming weeks look like before their server comes and takes their drink orders.

“You know,” Hyunsuk starts once she’s left, “I wasn’t sure if you were still agreeable to meeting up.”

Renjun furrows his eyebrows but doesn’t let his smile fall. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Hyunsuk hums, picking at the corner of his menu before he responds. “You seemed, I don’t know. Maybe a little off? When you agreed, I mean. I thought maybe I made you uncomfortable.”

Renjun feels a little bad that his discomfort was so obvious. “No, no, I wasn’t uncomfortable! Like I said, there’s just some stuff going on, so.” He trails off, not really sure how to explain himself without fully confessing what is going on, which he doesn’t want to do. Not with Hyunsuk, at least.

“Yeah, I kinda got that too,” Hyunsuk laughs lowly, before they’re interrupted again when the server comes with their drinks, takes their orders, and disappears again.

It doesn’t take more than three minutes, but Renjun doesn’t stop thinking about what Hyunsuk meant by that. As soon as their server turns her back to them, he asks.

“You know,” Hyunsuk squints, like he doesn’t know how to explain it. Or maybe he’s worried about pissing Renjun off. “I was pretty down in the dumps when I ran into you and your friends outside of the bar.”

“The fish one.”

“Right,” Hyunsuk shrugs, “I go there sometimes if I’m bored to watch the games, you know?” Renjun doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know what games Hyunsuk is talking about, but he agrees anyways. “I mean I never really foresaw you or your friends hanging around there, no offense, so I was surprised to see you but a little happy, too. It’s hard to live in New York when you don’t know that many people, and I was upset about not being invited to Paris Fashion Week, and I kinda needed to see a familiar face, I guess? And there you were, and it was nice because even if we don’t actually know each other that well you were nice to me at the Saint Laurent party and I figured, even if we don’t hang out tonight this is, like, a sign. That being left behind wasn’t the end of the world, and, I don’t know, something cheesy about how you’re never really alone, right?”

Renjun nods. He was never truly alone in New York, he always had Jisung, but there were nights after he dropped out of college when Jisung was out dicking around with his friends and Renjun wondered if Jisung missed him as much as he missed Jisung. He was fairly certain the answer was no, since Jisung was out having fun and he was the one moping around, and that always sucked. He couldn’t imagine feeling that sense of loneliness all the time.

“I was really upset that night, and at first I thought I was reading into things because of that, but I thought about it and, um. Jisung really doesn’t like me, does he?”

Renjun does not gape at him. Renjun does not gape in public because it’s embarrassing and he was taught from a very young age how to be proper, but it’s a very near thing. “Excuse me?” He squeaks, then laughs to cover it up. Then takes a giant gulp of his water when he barely manages that.

Hyunsuk gives him a look. “Come on. I remember what happened at the Saint Laurent party, and then the other night he looked like he was gonna kill me. That’s what you’re dealing with, right? That your best friend hates me, and that puts you in an awkward position.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Renjun promises. His face is flushed red and he’s pretty sure soon there’s going to be a sweat spot on the back of his shirt. “He was, um, worried about you. That night. He said he thought you were upset about Fashion Week and that we should, you know. Take care of you.” Renjun’s not sure if it’s the right thing to say, if Jisung would want Hyunsuk to think he hates him rather than he cared at all, but he also can’t let Hyunsuk think Jisung has some kind of attitude problem when he doesn’t.

He has a Renjun problem, and they’re going to work through that. Eventually.

Hyunsuk looks unmoved. “And that translated to him avoiding me until he suddenly left?”

“He had a flight to catch,” Renjun defends him, “he waited until he couldn’t anymore so he could participate in Donghyuck night.”

“It’s not a big deal. I understand jealousy, even in friendship. I haven’t always been the best about that either.” Hyunsuk shrugs, looking down, “I feel bad I’m making him uncomfortable, though. And I figured that’s what you’ve been worried about too.”

Renjun oscillates between what he’s supposed to say. On one hand, Hyunsuk believing a half truth is better than him knowing what’s actually causing Jisung’s jealousy, but on the other Renjun doesn’t know if they can keep up the lie. Maybe he’ll just have to dodge Hyunsuk until he and Jisung get back to normal. “He’s fine. You know, it’s, uh, hard to, you know.” Renjun doesn’t even think he knows at this point.

“Have your friend make a friend?” Hyunsuk guesses. Renjun nods eagerly, latching onto his assumptions.

“Right. But, you know, don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal to him, he just has a flair for the dramatics.”

Hyunsuk squints in consideration. “Really? Jisung always seemed so put together and grounded when we worked together.”

Renjun breathes air through his nose in a gross imitation of a laugh, gulping his water down. “Work is so different though, right?”

Hyunsuk shrugs, letting it go easily, and Renjun is saved from having to continue the conversation when their food arrives.

They’re both distracted by starting their meals for a few minutes, a reprieve that Renjun is grateful for.

He’s in uncharted territory here. Jisung has never been jealous when Renjun makes a new friend, or at least he hid it very well. Renjun feels bad that he’s making Jisung out to be a jilted friend instead of someone who has very real hurt feelings, but he doesn’t think there’s another answer.

He also would rather not talk about Jisung in any kind of negative way without him here to defend himself. That’s not something they do, and usually Renjun would defend Jisung about anything, but in the current ecosystem he wants Jisung there to do it for himself.

Rather to continue on what feels like a steady path to destruction, Renjun asks Hyunsuk about the shoot with Mugler he mentioned working on. The rest of their dinner is free of talk of Jisung, to Renjun’s relief.

Overall, it’s nice to have dinner with a new friend.

Making actual long lasting friends that you still talk to after your set wraps isn’t easy in their industry, but Renjun can see him and Hyunsuk continuing to hang out for a long time. He’s sure even Jisung will like him one day in the far future.

Before they leave, Renjun has to enact Jeno’s plan. Hyunsuk’s funny and nice and that makes becoming Instagram official after one dinner that much easier.

As friends, of course. That’s the whole point of Jeno’s plan; to announce to the world (Renjun’s following list) that he and Hyunsuk are friends so that there can be no confusion about if it could be more than that. Especially not from Jisung, who is the only person the Instagram story is actually for.

So, Renjun takes a picture of his and Hyunsuk’s half finished plates in the middle of dinner, then asks Hyunsuk if it’s okay to tag him. Hyunsuk agrees, and Renjun types out his caption, placing it carefully over his glass of wine.

It reads: making new friends in ny. With the emoji that’s just a man standing there, and Hyunsuk’s handle. Hyunsuk gets the notification from the tag immediately, and reposts it onto his own story with the added caption: friends & thai, a perfect friday night.

(Renjun likes it when he sees it later that night, majorly appreciating the friend reiteration.)

At the end of the night, Hyunsuk offers drinks. Renjun thinks about it, but ultimately declines. He does like Hyunsuk, but continuing the night at another bar feels like alluding to something Renjun isn’t interested in.

Hyunsuk seems to understand, taking on Renjun’s apologetic rejection with an easy smile. “We make good friends, huh?” Renjun nods, smiling genuinely at Hyunsuk’s casual acceptance. “We should stay friends then. Maybe next time we get dinner you can bring Jisung? I have a friend I think you’ll like as well, actually.”

Renjun gives his ascent, though he knows there’s no friggin way that’s happening anytime soon. Maybe he can bring Donghyuck once he’s back from tour, or Jeno if they end up meeting up before that.

In Renjun’s opinion, it’s a successful night. He had an amazing dinner with a blossoming friendship, while doing his part to make it clear to all parties (really just Hyunsuk and Jisung) that it’s platonic friendship between them and would stay that way indefinitely. Jeno even texts him a good job after he’s home and showered.

Later, when Jisung is back on New York soil and barely responding to Renjun’s texts while he runs all over the city with some french guy Renjun hates on principle, he understands that he probably should have done a better job.

Tonight, though, he sends Jisung a text to check on him, doesn’t think much when he doesn’t respond right away, and drifts peacefully off to sleep.