Chapter Text
Epilogue
Jaehyun leaned against the trolley, pushing it towards the baggage carousel at Incheon. Riwoo stood sleepily rubbing his eyes, clearly not ready to face the world so early in the morning.
Jaehyun gestured at the benches. "Baby, go sit. I'll get the bags."
"'M no!" He said, clinging to Jaehyun's arm. Riwoo didn't want to leave Jaehyun. His sleep-deprived brain somehow mandated the presence of his boyfriend.
"And I thought I was the clingy boy…" Jaehyun trailed off, as he spotted Riwoo's suitcase on the carousel. "Riwoo-ya, let go, or your bag's going back to Chiang Mai."
Riwoo huffed, and let go of his hand. He watched as Jaehyun swiftly picked up his suitcase and dumped it onto the trolley. Within a few moments, Jaehyun's own suitcase arrived on the carousel, and he dumped it next to Riwoo's.
"Riwoo-ya, come on," Jaehyun muttered, taking his hand. His boyfriend clearly wasn't made for overnight flights.
They stepped out of the baggage reclaim area, past the taxi and transport booths. And standing against the railing were their friends. They didn't have to be there. But Sungho had insisted, and he'd brought everyone, for reasons soon-to-be-revealed.
Woonhak looked no better than Riwoo, sleepy and tired. The others seemed somewhat fine, but Jaehyun knew his friends well; they were just as tired as him.
They hadn't seen each other in 2 weeks, but too much had happened in that span of time. Riwoo noticed Leehan casually standing with his head on Taesan's shoulder, their pinkies intertwined.
"The lovebirds have arrived." Sungho dramatically announced.
"Hyung, I've missed you," Woonhak said weakly.
"No, you didn't," Jaehyun shot back at his brother, before cracking a smile and hugging him.
"Hyung, you can stop now…" Woonhak said, breaking out of the hug. "Riwoo hyung is scaring me…"
Jaehyun turned to see Riwoo, who was smiling brightly at him. "Riwoo smiling… is scaring you?"
"What? Bu—Just now he—he was glaring at me!" Woonhak stammered.
"Right…" Sungho rolled his eyes. "Anyway, guys, we need to find a place to sit… There's… Uh—Stuff to be discussed."
They seated themselves on some nearby benches, Riwoo and Jaehyun on one side, the rest opposite to them. If there had been a table, it would've looked more like a police interrogation than a discussion of events.
"So…" Jaehyun looked around at his friends nervously. "Who goes first?"
"You, of course," Taesan smirked. "I think there's a certain hickey on one Lee Riwoo that needs to be talked about."
Riwoo's hand shot up to his neck, to the spot where Jaehyun had bit him. "There was a… a bug?"
"A bug named Myung Jaehyun?" Sungho raised an eyebrow, and Riwoo rolled his eyes. He should've seen that coming, because he knew someone would say that.
Jaehyun took in a deep breath, steadying himself, trying to frame coherent sentences.
"We're… dating." He said, for a lack of better words.
Looks were exchanged between the four who had ditched. Riwoo and Jaehyun just sat in silence, like their fate was to be judged.
Taesan nodded at Sungho, and he sighed. "Look… guys. We'd like to come clean."
He looked up at Jaehyun and Riwoo. "We orchestrated the trip."
Jaehyun's eyes went wide, his jaw clenching. "I knew it!" He yelled, standing up from his seat. He pointed at all four of them accusingly. "You… You trapped us in a foreign country on purpose?"
Riwoo pulled him down because the people around them were giving them looks. "Jaehyun-ah! We're still at the airport!"
Taesan held up his arm in front of his brother defensively. "In our defence, we didn't really trap you guys. And it was getting too painful to watch you two."
Riwoo raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Come on, hyung…" Leehan said. "Both of you, constantly orbiting around each other, neither of you making a move."
"Setting you guys on a collision course was all we wanted." Taesan added, nodding slightly.
"It started with me." Woonhak softly admitted. "I couldn't watch Jaehyun hyung being lovesick everyday."
Jaehyun didn't know if he wanted to hug Woonhak or whack him. He just leaned back in his seat, waiting for further explanations.
"So I talked to Sungho hyung, because I was sure you would've told him." Woonhak went on.
"To be fair, I hated seeing you hurting so much, Jaehyun-ah." Sungho said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Four years is a long time..."
"So we colluded, in a sense…" Taesan continued. "Leehannie was in charge of… Uh—Figuring out if Riwoo hyung liked Jaehyun hyung."
He turned to kiss the side of Leehan's head. "And he did a wonderful job at it." Leehan beamed, his eyes turning into inverted crescent moons.
"Leehannie?" Jaehyun asked.
"We'll get there!" Taesan snapped, leaning into Leehan.
"That was one phase of the plan," Sungho went on. "Our biggest headache was making sure Jaehyun didn't find out about Woonhak's tournie until the right moment."
"Wait… You knew?" Jaehyun glared at his younger brother.
"Now, now," Sungho stepped in, which was something new that Jaehyun noticed. Sungho wasn't the type to defend anyone like that. Unless…
"The dates weren't still finalised," Woonhak confessed, looking down in shame. "But we'd been given a rough start and end date."
"And Leehan's conference?" Riwoo asked, turning towards Taesan and Leehan. "Was that known well in advance too?"
"That was sheer dumb luck," Taesan chuckled. "A very conveniently-timed glimmer of help from the Universe. Or else he was going to bail with me and hyung at the very last minute."
"What's your alibi?" Jaehyun glared at Sungho—his best friend, his confidante, his brother from another mother.
"We… don't have one…" Sungho admitted softly. "We just needed to bail, that's all. There was nothing booked for the four of us. No hotel rooms. Not even flights."
"No wonder all the hotel bookings were under Jaehyun's name…" Riwoo mused. "And that too just one room… Hmm."
"To be honest, I wasn't supposed to book them under his name," Taesan said, running his hand through his hair. "I made the Bangkok booking under his name, and then decided to do the other too for the sake of consistency."
"Is that why you started individually sending the details for our daily itineraries later on?" Jaehyun asked, finally recognising patterns as the puzzle pieces fell into place. Taesan nodded in agreement.
"All this aside," Leehan spoke up, nudging Sungho lightly. "We just wanted to let you guys know… that we had the best intentions in mind."
Sungho agreed. "Look, Jaehyun-ah… Riwoo-ya… We didn't really mean to cause you any harm. We wanted you guys to figure it out by yourself, and Seoul just wasn't the right place for it."
"The whole reason we kept asking for updates daily on the group was to make sure you guys were doing okay," Taesan added. "We thought everything went downhill when the updates stopped after Phuket—"
Riwoo winced, and everybody turned to look at him. "We did… kinda sorta hit a rough patch there… We'll explain later."
"But when Jaehyun hyung started spamming pictures again," Leehan continued. "We started hoping things were alright."
"Point is, it worked out—"
"But what if it hadn't, Sungho-ya?" Jaehyun cut him off, his voice rising in anger. Riwoo put his hand on his shoulder, hoping it'd calm him down. Jaehyun closed his eyes, swallowing hard.
"It's just…" He continued in a softer tone. "You knew so much was at stake, and yet you went ahead with it… The day we left… I was scared the group would splinter, if things went wrong..."
Sungho put his head down in shame. "I'm sorry, Jaehyun-ah. For a lot of things. For nearly breaking the group. For scheming behind your back. For breaking your trust—"
Jaehyun closed the gap, embracing his best friend, the anger melting away. Sungho's eyes went wide with surprise, before he chuckled, rubbing Jaehyun's back.
"I'm sorry for lashing out…" Jaehyun mumbled.
"Hey, it's okay," Sungho comforted him. "Life is cool."
"Thank you…" Jaehyun whispered softly as he pulled away. Sungho gave him a soft smile.
"Hey, hyung, don't we deserve hugs too?" Taesan asked. Jaehyun just glared at him. They stood up one by one, getting ready to head to the parking.
"Oh no, you don't." Riwoo stood up, shaking his head in disapproval. "You booked the wrong kind of room in Bangkok. Two. Singles." He held up two fingers to emphasise. "Do you know how hard it was to sleep without Jaehyunnie?"
"Not to mention the tour with Maki—Ow!" Jaehyun yelped as Riwoo slapped his arm. "Yeah, okay. I don't blame you for that."
"Who's Maki?" Leehan asked, pure innocence in his tone.
"Here's a deal," Riwoo pressed his hands together. "You tell us your love story, and we'll tell us ours."
"Can't we do this later?" Woonhak rubbed his eyes, yawning. "I wanna go back home and sleep."
"I second that." Jaehyun said, Woonhak's contagious yawn catching up to him.
"Okay, sleepyhead," Riwoo stood onto his toes to kiss Jaehyun's cheek.
"You can sleep at my place…" Jaehyun said, looking down at his watch. "My parents must've gone out for work."
"Aww, but hyung, what about me?" Woonhak whined.
"The couch." Jaehyun deadpanned.
"Hyung!" Woonhak wailed. Jaehyun just laughed.
"Okay then…" Sungho looked at everyone. "Tonight, at my place, we discuss love stories. Yes?"
"Yes!" A cheer went up from the group, as they walked off towards the car park.