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Kim Yugyeom still has chubby cheeks when he comes to try out for the empty slot in that Younghyun left when he left for college. Brian had gushed about this kid he was in jazz band with that had “mad skills” that would be a good replacement for him in their relatively shitty alt-pop-punk garage band. But Jinyoung had definitely not been expecting a tall second-year with a sweet, dopey smile on full blast.
It disappears within seconds of seeing Jinyoung's sneer and crossed arms. Good.
Jaebum elbows him hard, right under his ribs, and Jinyoung huffs, haughty when he sees Yugyeom bite down on a smile, fingers tightening and loosening reflexively around the neck of his guitar. It's a pretty blue-green Fender PJ. Jinyoung wonders how much his parents spoil him if they'll buy him a bass like that within, what, probably a year of pretentious lessons and fucking around playing Panic! at the Disco covers in his room.
Mark is barely paying attention, twirling a drumstick between the fingers of his left hand and texting with his right, tapping his foot, blowing bright pink bubbles of Hubba Bubba. Jaebum keeps sending him distracted glances, but with Yugyeom standing there in front of them waiting, he has a responsibility. Jaebum loves those. "Okay, so what shit do you normally like playing?"
"Ah," Yugyeom says, cherubic cheeks filling with flush. "I really like, um, pop-punk and emo? Old Fall Out Boy and Jimmy Eat World and stuff like that. And like alternative, Manchester Orchestra-type stuff?"
Jaebum nods, smiles a little encouraging smile that makes Yugyeom's face light up.
Jinyoung rolls his eyes. Great. Another sad boy for him to deal with. God only knows what would happen if they join forces. But that will only happen if Yugyeom is actually part of the band. "Did you come with some songs in mind to play?" he injects, interrupting the bonding moment. "Since this is an audition and all."
Mark snorts. "Barely, Jinyoungie." His ears burn at the nickname, dropping his gaze at the dressing-down. God, how embarrassing. "Brian wouldn't have recommended him if he wasn't any good."
As always, Jaebum takes Mark's side. "Yeah, it's no pressure, Yugyeom. But if you wanted to play something for us...?"
Yugyeom nods, and Jinyoung's surprised to see something steely in his gaze. The flickering halogen bulbs in Jaebum's garage show a determination that doesn't fade in the least when he catches Jinyoung's eye.
He actually cocks his eyebrow at Jinyoung, like a challenge, and what the fuck is this kid's deal?
He cracks his neck, and plays. The tune is unfamiliar to start, something fluid and grooving, until Jaebum chuckles in recognition. Jinyoung's so busy watching his fingers digging and moving across the frets, the careful, speedy pluck of his fingers to realize it's a Chili Peppers song. He's playing Flea as a fucking audition song.
Yugyeom plays bass like it's a natural goddamn extension of his body. Jinyoung is astounded that the babyfaced boy before them is the one pulling all of those sounds out of the metal and wood; that he can stand in front of three of his seniors he barely knows at the grand old age of 16 and groove like he’s never been more comfortable. He looks like he was born doing it, like his long fingers and the swing of his hips is more than natural, like he learned it before he knew how to walk.
Jinyoung has been playing guitar since he turned ten years old and he’s never felt the comfort performing in front of people he sees flaunted before him. It’s infuriating in a way he hasn’t felt since he was 14 and going through his most dramatic teenage phase. It’s frustrating in a way that doesn’t even make sense; he knows it’s pretty silly to hold a grudge against a kid he doesn’t know for being talented.
But here he is, burning with it.
Yugyeom bumps to a stop after the bridge, beaming a wide, creasing smile when Mark and Jaebum whoop and clap for him. Jinyoung tries his hardest not to frown as Jaebum nods, grins, swings his arm around Yugyeom’s neck.
It’s official. He’s in.
-
“Hyung!” Jinyoung hears in the corridor outside of the cafeteria on Monday. It’s high-pitched and irritatingly familiar. “Hey, wait up!”
Jackson stops mid-ramble to look over his shoulder toward the sound. “Do you know that kid?”
“He’s my new bass player,” Jinyoung confirms with an affected sigh. The sound of Yugyeom’s leggy strides picks up speed in the crowded hall when Jinyoung glances over his shoulder.
He’s ruffled and weighed down with textbooks but he looks well-rested like Jinyoung can only fondly remember for himself, in the days before university admissions applications and placement tests. Now in his third year, the dark circles under his eyes have their own dark circles. “Hyung, I was — ” Yugyeom sees Jinyoung’s jealous stare and wriggles under the scrutiny. “Ah, sorry, I didn’t ask at practice. Can I call you hyung?”
Next to him, Jackson, a nearly eighteen-year-old man, practically squeals. “You’re so adorable! Jinyoungie, can I keep him?”
Yugyeom giggles as Jackson beams up at him, and it’s painfully cute. Of course, Jackson would be swayed by Yugyeom as soon as he saw him — he’s always had a soft spot for cute things.
Especially Jinyoung. That’s why he’s always overly affectionate at school and usually halfway into Jinyoung’s pants during their study sessions, pressing him down into his mom’s favorite couch with sloppy kisses. Now he’s looking at Yugyeom like a shiny new toy. Jinyoung grits his teeth. “What do you want?” he blurts, sounding harsh even to his own ears.
“I — ” Yugyeom says, smile sliding down. “I was just gonna see if you were going to lunch.”
“Yes! Come sit with us, Gyeommie.” Jackson clamps one of his strong hands around Yugyeom’s arm and sweeps him into the cafeteria, throwing a “you coming?” over his shoulder at Jinyoung.
Jinyoung valiantly fights the urge to roll his eyes and follows.
-
“You need to get your shit together.”
Jinyoung snorts at Jaebum’s comment and the scowl on his face. “That’s rich, coming from you.” He presses down too hard on his pencil perched in his chemistry lab book and the lead shatters.
His oldest friend, the guy he started a dumb band with, his hyung, pinches the side of his neck brutally hard. “Ow! What the fuck?”
“I heard you were being a dick to Yugyeom at lunch the other day. What is your fucking problem?”
Jinyoung rubs absently at the sore spot, frown matching Jaebum’s now. “You shouldn’t bully your dongsaeng, you know that right?”
“Yeah,” Jaebum says, laced with sarcasm. “Do you?”
Something clenches in Jinyoung’s chest. “I wasn’t trying to bully him,” he mumbles, rubbing his thumb anxiously against his pencil eraser remembering the way Yugyeom’s face fell at his rudeness. “He just. Caught me off guard. I’m not used to him yet, hyung.” The sunshiney-ness of his personality, or his optimism, or his talent, or the way that he seems to win over all the people in Jinyoung’s life that he likes to think of as his people. He’s overwhelmed by all of it. Sitting next to Jackson as he chattered on and on with Yugyeom and basically ignored Jinyoung the entire time left a sour taste in his mouth and gave him an attitude. Which he might have used to snap unnecessarily at Yugyeom in turn.
“Is that it, or are you just mad you’re not the baby anymore?”
“I — fuck you, hyung, I’m not a baby.”
“Sure, Jirongie. Just try to be a little nicer?”
Jinyoung pouts.
-
It does get easier from there. Getting together to practice a couple of times a week for their standing Saturday night gig at the grungy hole-in-the-wall bar downtown means that Jinyoung gets exposure therapy to Yugyeom — a lot of it. They try to gather at least on Tuesdays and Thursdays, between cram school for Jinyoung the rest of the week and Mark and Jaebum’s seemingly never-ending afterschool college advising sessions.
Jinyoung has to admit, Yugyeom is damn near close to a perfect fit for them. He’s sharp and quick to pick up on the original songs Jaebum and Jinyoung have already composed; he’s got a natural rhythm and a knack for unusual beats and cadence that overjoys Mark; and he is unfailingly, unerringly polite to Jinyoung’s mother when the two of them have their first awkward meeting outside of band practice to run over some of the bass lines Jinyoung imagines for a song he wrote.
Yugyeom perches delicately on the edge of Jinyoung’s rumpled bed, unplugged bass balanced on his knee. The low light trickling through Jinyoung’s bedroom window from the setting sun makes his round edges seem even softer. He’s plucking restlessly against the fat E string with the side of his thumb, sending a quiet, low rumble through the room while Jinyoung scribbles out notes for him. “So, like, average 4/4 stuff. I think it would sound good with a chunky bass, in the beginning.”
Yugyeom looks at the scales slid in front of him, head ducked, and meekly says “Really?”
Jinyoung bites on the inside of his cheek. “Yeah. For like the intro. You riff a little, then hyung and I will come in.” His breath gets a little caught in his throat when he looks at Yugyeom again and the younger boy is staring right at him, eyes wide and happy.
That’s obviously the moment Jinyoung’s mom pops her head in like an apparition, jolting Jinyoung out of staring back. “Honey, will your little friend be staying for dinner? Yugyeom, you’re more than welcome to eat with us. There’s plenty of food to go around.”
Yugyeom’s glance flits between Jinyoung and his expectant mom nervously. Jinyoung feels the tips of his ears burning when he nods.
He stays for dinner and spares no sweet charm for Jinyoung’s parents. Yugyeom even insists on doing the cleaning up, helping Jinyoung dry dishes at the sink.
“Your parents are really nice,” the boy says, toweling off the stock pot. “I wonder why you’re such a jerk, then.”
Jinyoung is elbow deep in suds, but that doesn’t stop him from turning around with his jaw on the floor. Yugyeom looks ready to burst with laughter, sly smile growing and cracking at the edges.
Jinyoung flicks water at him. The shocked yelp that it startles out of Yugyeom makes Jinyoung double over with laughter. Yugyeom looks bewildered for another half-second before he starts laughing too. Jinyoung’s dad comes downstairs to find them laying on the floor, stomachs sore.
Maybe they’re friends, now. As Yugyeom grows more and more comfortable in the band, he doesn’t shy away from teasing Jinyoung back as often as he receives it, and something about that makes the jealous knot in his chest unravel. Jinyoung knows now that Yugyeom can share space with him, that his presence in the tight-knit group around him isn’t actually pushing Jinyoung out but molding in alongside them, filling in the little cracks and crevasses old friendships have with new life.
The more familiar they get, the more willing Yugyeom is to pick on his hyungs, especially Jinyoung. Sometimes Jinyoung catches the challenging glint in Yugyeom’s eye right as he’s falling into another round of bickering about song choices or practice times or something as dumb as his height compared to Yugyeom’s (lower, irrefutably lower, but that doesn’t mean he should point it out); in those moments it feels different. It doesn’t feel like dumb shitty fighting.
It feels like a game, and by playing along with Yugyeom, they’re both somehow winning.
-
They play together at the same bar where their friend Youngjae sings open mic. They’re actually pretty decent. Saturdays mean the place is already packed with people trying to wash away the stress of another school and work week, so the sample size of people clapping and nodding along to their covers and self-written songs is pretty large.
Sometimes a few brave souls will even dance along, or spend more of their time listening to them play than not, which always makes Jinyoung want to burst with pride. Almost nothing feels as good as seeing people enjoy the music he helped create.
Playing makes him feel good all on its own, too. He spends so much of his weeks anxious about schoolwork and college pretests and fretting over his senior friends as they prepare to graduate. When he gets up on stage, he can forget about all of it and just zero in on singing and playing his guitar.
Yugyeom is becoming a slight distraction, though. His comfort onstage is both inspiring and annoying to Jinyoung, who constantly has to tear his eyes away from Yugyeom's grooving, shimmying form while they're up there.
He's not blind. Over months of practicing and playing together and being friends that were occasionally enemies he's noticed exactly how good looking their sweet youngest bandmate is. It's damn near impossible on nights like tonight, where they're clad in all black, when his leather jacket is showing the breadth of his shoulders and the cinch of his waist.
“Bambam loaned it to me!” Yugyeom chirped earlier about the new Thai student in his class. “He’s so small, I don’t know how I fit into it.” He turned on his heel to show Mark and Jaebum, and Jinyoung had swallowed hard around the sudden, heavy, hot feeling in his stomach.
“It definitely suits you.”
Mark and Jaebum wander toward the bar when their set is over, but Yugyeom snags Jinyoung’s sleeve and drags him toward the dance floor, eyes bright and slightly tipsy and full of mischief. The frayed holes in his tight black jeans show skin that’s somehow still tan from the summer, and the light touch of makeup lining his eyes makes the wink he throws Jinyoung look infinitely more sultry than he could have imagined.
“You look like you’re gonna get us in trouble tonight, maknae,” Jinyoung says, shouting over the music. His eyes land on the sway of Yugyeom’s hips as he walks backward into the middle of the crowd, the curve of his lips when he hears Jinyoung’s accusation. Goosebumps spring up over the back of his arm when Yugyeom grins wide and tangles their fingers together, yanking Jinyoung closer.
“So what? Maybe you need a little trouble, hyung.” Yugyeom punctuates this with a flash of silver, dropping Jinyoung’s hand from his own to grab at the front of his shirt and pull him closer. Jinyoung starts, confused, flushed before he realizes that the blur of silver in his friend’s hand is a flask he’s trying — and failing — to hide between their bodies.
He snorts hard and pushes closer into Yugyeom’s space, pushing his hand up under his jacket to close the little space between them. “Where did you even get this anyway?” he asks, guiding Yugyeom around with the hand at his sweaty lower back so the bartender and the bouncer at the front door can’t see their stash. “You amateur.” He snatches the flask, unscrews the cap and takes a long swig, lemon rum burning a searing path down his throat. “Ugh.”
Jinyoung can hear Yugyeom’s pout over the din. “I thought I was doing a good job hiding it. Jackson told me to do it like this.”
Jinyoung barks out a laugh, head thrown back, curling his fingers in Yugyeom’s shirt so he doesn’t lose his balance. “I love Jackson, but he’s an idiot. Never listen to him.”
Yugyeom wraps a long arm around Jinyoung’s shoulders, enveloping him in heat. “Then you should show me. How should I do it?”
“I’m not the foremost expert,” Jinyoung admits, “but it does help to have a human shield.” He slips the flask into his back pocket.
The tall boy laughs, loud and loose from the sips he snuck earlier. “Too bad you’re too short for that!”
The shivery, flirty feeling in Jinyoung’s stomach goes prickly and sharp, but it doesn’t leave entirely. The sensation just ratchets up, twisting toward something. It feels the way one of their fights does, in the moments right before where Jinyoung knows he can decide to relax or lash out. This time, with Yugyeom breathing on his neck, smirking in his face, warm against his front, it feels like it could turn into a fight or...something else. “Hmm. Well, see if I try to help you now, you ungrateful little — ”
“Nooo, hyung, you know I didn’t mean it,” Yugyeom giggles, and his face is so, so close to Jinyoung’s, close enough that he can see the tiny mole under his eye and the sharp edge of his canine when he smiles. “You’re the perfect height! You fit right under my arm like this,” he continues, nuzzling Jinyoung’s cheek.
Laughter bubbles out of Jinyoung before he can stop it, and he turns toward Yugyeom to nudge him away with his nose.
It doesn’t work. What it does do is sideswipe the flesh of Yugyeom’s perfect, lipstick-kiss-shape of a mouth against Jinyoung’s, startling himself breathless.
Yugyeom makes a small noise of surprise, a sound that drills straight into the depths of Jinyoung, turns his brain to a chorus of gogogo with no other direction except to make Yugyeom gasp like that again. So, stupidly, he follows it; he tilts up into Yugyeom, presses his lips against the slack corner of his younger friend’s.
Yugyeom shudders, arm tightening around Jinyoung’s neck, and kisses him back. He has less than zero finesse but his mouth is warm and sweet and tastes like citrus as Jinyoung slips his tongue inside.
That action alone is enough to make Yugyeom moan against Jinyoung’s mouth. Jinyoung’s hand clenches, fists into the silky material of Yugyeom’s shirt on instinct, and he uses it to pull him closer.
They stand together kissing and kissing in the middle of the dance floor for what feels like hours. Jinyoung feels drunk just off the slide of Yugyeom's lips against his and the way his nervous, talented hand flutters across Jinyoung's shoulders, down his side and falls into his lower back.
All of him pressed against Jinyoung’s front is so, so warm, radiating into Jinyoung’s skin, sinking down into the deepest parts of him. When Jinyoung dips his head down to mouth at the exposed slice of collarbone Yugyeom’s shirt reveals, his friend tangles his hair in his hand and pins him there.
“Jinyoung-ah,” Yugyeom breathes. He sounds so overwhelmed and Jinyoung did that to him. “Hyung.”
Someone bumps into Jinyoung from behind, sending him further into Yugyeom’s space, knocking the wind out of him. Whoever it is giggles drunkenly, loudly whispers something about interrupting.
All of a sudden, the weight of the moment falls on his head. He jerks away, tearing his hands away from Yugyeom feeling like they’re suddenly burning, like the lines where their bodies intersect scald against him.
Yugyeom looks at him, big, young eyes wide, lips swollen, confused. “Hyung?” It doubles up on the pain in his chest, feels like a slap.
Jinyoung is the elder, he’s the responsible one, he’s supposed to be taking care of Yugyeom, not taking advantage of him; he’s fucked up irrefutably this time, and Jaebum is never gonna forgive him, and Mark and Jackson will sneer, and and and — Yugyeom is already looking disappointed, fuck, and —
He runs.
--
Sunday comes with a hangover and a sick feeling that Jinyoung knows won’t fade with it.
He had left last night without telling anyone; he didn’t want to have to see the looks on Mark and Jaebum’s faces when they saw the panic in his eyes. The angry texts from Jaebum about how he had left them with all the cleaning up to do post-show eventually faded into worry, and resignation.
He left the bar with no destination in mind and his feet brought him to Jackson’s. “Usually when you’re throwing rocks at my window, it’s a little sexier,” his friend had said, swaddling him in as many blankets as he could find when he recognized the faraway anxious look in Jinyoung’s eyes. “But this is okay, I guess.” He tucked Jinyoung under his arm as if it was more than okay; as if he wasn’t a burden in the least.
Jinyoung pressed his face into Jackson’s chest and cried until he fell asleep.
--
Their next band practice doesn’t go so well, to put it mildly.
Yugyeom is frigid. He outright refuses to speak to Jinyoung and Mark and Jaebum keep glancing over at him questioningly, wondering what the fuck it is he’s done. The rare times Yugyeom does look at him when he’s talking between songs, his face is schooled into an emotionless slate, scrubbed absolutely clean of any feeling.
That somehow feels worse than it would if he was just angry.
Then about halfway through the afternoon, someone knocks on the side door to Jaebum’s garage. Yugyeom leaps into action, eyes lighting up. “I hope you don’t mind hyung, I invited Bambam to come hang out while we play.”
Jinyoung’s mouth twists into a frown. The ‘hyung’ isn’t directed at him; it’s at Jaebum, who shrugs and agrees.
Before now, Jinyoung has only seen Bambam in the hallways at school and heard of him through the excitement of their youngest member over having a new friend. He’s tall and thin and fashionable, but still has baby fat in his cheeks just like Yugyeom, and he absolutely beams at being let into the garage by the bass player. They giggle together about something in the doorway and it makes Jinyoung’s stomach go sour.
“Thanks for letting me in, hyungs!” Bambam greets, bowing vaguely at the three of them. Jaebum offers to get him a chair from inside but Bambam waves him off, insisting he can sit on the dusty leather chair that’s already in the garage.
Yugyeom is vastly more smiley as he gets back to his spot in front of his amp. On the one hand, Jinyoung is happy to see that his friend can get out of the slump; on the other hand, he’s irrefutably, insanely jealous at the way his eyes keep wandering over to his new, pretty best friend.
He plays in silence, feeling the weight of his frown deepening with every time a throwaway comment or funny face from Bambam makes Yugyeom laugh and lose focus.
Jinyoung catches Bambam’s eye after one of their exchanges, and the smile that was on his face slides instantly away. He stares unflinchingly back at Jinyoung, defiant.
He knows.
That makes Jinyoung slip up, chords and strings suddenly mixed up underneath his fingers. Jaebum makes them run the song again, and they do fine until Yugyeom snickers at something Bambam does or says or motions to him.
This is where Jinyoung snaps. “Jesus, just shut up!”
Four sets of eyes turn to him. “What?” Yugyeom says, and the single word is covered in ice.
Jinyoung doubles down. “Maybe if you didn’t bring a groupie to private practices, we would actually get some fucking work done, Kim.” He ignores Jaebum’s heavy sigh and Mark’s muffled giggles, too busy curling his lip at the daggers Yugyeom is shooting at him with his eyes.
“Kim. What is this, a fucking sports drama?” Bambam scoffs. He unfolds himself from his perch on the disgusting leather recliner and stands up, legs miles long. When he adjusts the jacket over his shoulders with a regal sniff, the bracelets on his delicate wrists clink. “I’ll show myself out. Don’t want to interrupt the important work you’re doing here.”
“Bambam — ” Yugyeom starts, but he’s gone, out the side door to the garage leaving only a whiff of Tom Ford cologne and Jinyoung with the distinct feeling that he’d overreacted, again. Yugyeom is already glaring through big brown eyes, mouth turned down. “Hyung, why are you so mean? What did he ever do to you?”
Jinyoung huffs. “He’s a distraction, Yugyeom. If we don’t want to make fools of ourselves this weekend then we need to concentrate.”
“You mean you need to concentrate! You spend all your time fucking around with the hyungs and studying, and then you barge in here telling me I need to practice?” Yugyeom shakes his hand around the neck of his bass, as if the vigor of his frustration will somehow be amplified even without the sound on. “I’ve played all the songs on your picky setlist one thousand times in the past three weeks, hyung. But every time we try to set this up your shit gets in the way — ”
“Gyeom-ah,” Mark says, warning, but Yugyeom steamrolls right over him as if deaf to it.
“It wasn’t me who ignored the band groupchat to go fuck around with Jackson and Hyunwoo in the same week,” Yugyeom snips, bitter, cruel in the way only someone who knows you deeply can be.
Jinyoung clenches a fist. Maybe he deserves it. He has been slacking off on music lately. He has been going out more to try and think even a little bit less about soft pink smiles and ever-widening shoulders and warm hands. He has been cramming for the PSAT and practicing for AP exams and trying as hard as humanly possible to stave off the thought of change on the horizon. The churn in his stomach grows.
“Yugyeom, that’s enough.” Jaebum’s word is as final as it ever was. He shakes his head and Jinyoung’s guilt solidifies. “Why don’t we just…. Just take a couple minutes to cool off.”
The youngest storms out the way that Bambam left, not even bothering to take his unplugged bass off of his shoulder. He leaves the door slightly open, and a chilly breeze sweeps in.
“Jinyoungie,” Mark says, voice soft. “Why don’t you go get something to drink? I think I left hot cocoa mix in the kitchen last time I was here.”
Jinyoung starts, realizing he’s been staring at the swaying of the door. “Ah, yeah. Okay. That sounds good.”
“Do you want me to make it for you?”
“No, I got it,” Jinyoung assures him as he unslings the guitar from his back, looking at his two hyungs. Jaebum is frowning, as he always does when Jinyoung and Yugyeom fight, but Mark’s got a thoughtful, perceptive look on that makes Jinyoung nervous. He escapes into the house before Mark can analyze him further.
Jinyoung takes longer than he thought humanly possible to make the cocoa just to give his brain time to wind down. Waiting for the water to boil on Jaebum’s mother’s ancient electric kettle; methodically stirring the powder, and then a little bit of water, and then powder, and then more water so that the drink doesn’t get grainy. He tries and fails not to think of Yugyeom ditching practice and going to his new best friend — Yugyeom and Bambam doing whatever it is they do together. He tries and fails not to think of the way Yugyeom smiled into their kiss and whined “ah, hyung, hyung,” when Jinyoung bit at the delicate skin of his neck.
When he’s finally ready, having compartmentalized as much as he could in five minutes, he trudges back toward the garage.
Jaebum’s voice is coming out of the cracked door. “ — just don’t know what to do, hyung.”
Mark hums. “You can’t solve everyone’s problems for them, Jaebummie.” When Jinyoung shifts, he can see Jaebum sitting on Mark’s drum stool, chin in his hand. Mark’s arm appears, fingers pushing Jaebum’s hair out of his face with a telling softness. “As much as you want to.”
Jinyoung’s heart thumps when Jaebum looks up at Mark, eyes big and conflicted. “I don’t know how to stay out of it. What are they going to do when we graduate?”
“If they need to bitch and moan, they can call us,” Mark reassures him. “We can always be there for them, and they’ll always be there for us.” He brushes his thumb across Jaebum’s cheekbone. “And I’m always here for you.”
“I know,” Jaebum says, certain, wrapping a hand around Mark’s wrist. And then, with the familiarity of saying it a thousand times: “I love you.”
There’s a sudden sting in Jinyoung’s eyes. It doesn’t hurt, per se, to see his hyungs care for one another; it’s the best worst-kept secret in their friend group that they’re stupidly in love. But it does come as a shock, dizzying after Bambam and Yugyeom and the rush of unkind possessiveness that overwhelmed him. It punches in his chest, sore and achy seeing the way they definitely, genuinely, tenderly love each other, something childish and terrified in him suddenly positive that he will never know what the feeling is like.
“I love you too. And I bet they’ll just fuck and stop fighting all the time sooner or later.”
Jinyoung’s jaw drops. “Excuse me?” he sputters, forgetting that he was in the middle of eavesdropping.
Mark pulls the door open with a smirk already slapped on his face like he knew he was there the whole time and Jinyoung’s ears go hot. “Aw, come on. Am I wrong?”
Jinyoung hopes that his sputtering makes for a more emphatic “yes, hyung, what the fuck? He’s a child.”
“So are you.”
Every cell in his seventeen year old body simmers with rage. “No, I’m not!”
“Whatever, man. I just know you’re definitely getting too old to keep pulling pigtails,” says Mark. “So if you like him like I think you do, fucking do something about it.”
Jinyoung stews angrily for another second, and Yugyeom chooses that moment to come back into the garage. His eyes flit between the three of them: Jaebum’s exhaustion, Mark’s smug smirk and Jinyoung’s face, which must look like a pissed-off deer caught in headlights.
He sighs and rubs at his temple like he’s the one in charge. “Let’s just get this over with.”
--
Jinyoung stares at the popcorn ceiling of his bedroom rather than sleeping.
It stares back, giving nothing away.
“Fuck,” he replies, rubbing his eyes, getting out of bed for what feels like the hundredth time. His acoustic guitar is sitting in the corner as it has been for weeks, gathering dust. His fingers twitch, itching to do something, anything besides this. Cycling through all of the bad thoughts over and over; remembering his fuckups. Remembering making Yugyeom laugh and sigh and bicker and look at him like Jinyoung had stuck a dagger in his chest.
The low light from the streetlamp outside Jinyoung’s window catches on a scrap of paper on Jinyoung’s desk. It’s the notes he made for Yugyeom the first time he came over. He remembers Yugyeom’s bright eyes, the hopefulness in his shy glance.
He stares down at the scale, the notes bleeding together in the low light, and hears Mark’s voice in his head, clear as crystal.
He picks up his guitar.
--
On Saturday, Jinyoung gets to the bar early with Jaebum and gets all of their stuff set up.
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” he says to his hyung, nervously tuning his already-tuned acoustic, eyes flitting to the door every few seconds, wondering when exactly it’ll open up and a tall, sweet figure will walk through. “This is really dumb, isn’t it?”
“Being in love is dumb sometimes, Jinyoungie.” He squeezes the back of Jinyoung’s neck, a reassuring warm hand. “But it’s worth it.”
The worn old front door creaks and Mark ambles in, followed by Bambam and Yugyeom. Mark’s smile goes wide when he sees the pair on the shoddy corner stage but the younger boys behind him both eye Jinyoung warily.
His entire face goes hot. Bambam raises an expectant, well-groomed eyebrow before clamping a hand around Yugyeom’s arm. They stare at him together, Yugyeom’s eyes wary and sad, and Bambam’s defiant. Well, it seems to say, do something, then.
Jinyoung sets his jaw, clears his throat, introduces himself to the slowly growing crowd. “My name is Jinyoung, and I wrote this song about someone who brought light into my life. When they did, I didn’t think I could handle it. But I know now that it’s not up to me. He—they will shine whenever and however they want to. And I’m just lucky to be able to see it.”
And then, he sings.
He wishes he could just collapse into the song the way he usually does, that he could get out of his head long enough for the song to fly by, but it feels longer every second he sings. The hook suddenly feels absolutely stupid, never mind the fact that he wrote and composed the song in 48 hours. The whole thing is probably stupid.
But there’s movement out of his periphery; people are swaying to the mellow beat, and Jaebum has his arm around his boyfriend, pressing little kisses against Mark’s temple in a rare show of PDA. And — Bambam is nudging Yugyeom away from him in a shove, pushing him closer to the stage. He senses Jinyoung’s eyes on him and shoots him a grin and a roguish wink.
Then, his gaze falls to Yugyeom. The hard edges of his scowl are gone, replaced by a thoughtful frown. He looks up at Jinyoung and his eyes are all melted down from hard anger to soft confusion.
Jinyoung sings to him and watches light dawn on his face, rush through his cheeks. “Cause you’re like a firework,” he croons, letting the last chord ring out.
The patrons clap and cheer. Jinyoung puts his guitar down and clambers offstage, stomach in his throat with nerves. He comes to a stop right in front of Yugyeom; he happened to stand exactly where they had been when they kissed. Jinyoung wonders if that was intentional.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m a huge asshole and I’m sorry.”
Yugyeom’s lips turn up into a wry smile. “You didn’t have to write a whole song to tell me that.”
“No, I didn’t. But,” he sighs, “I had to apologize and I had to write you a song.”
“Apology accepted.” The younger boy’s smile just keeps growing, and Jinyoung feels lighter and lighter. “You’re bad at this, aren’t you?”
“The worst. Maybe the worst ever.”
Yugyeom traces a calloused thumb under Jinyoung’s eye, touch softer than a feather. “Probably not the worst,” he says playfully. “You’d have to try harder.”
“I will,” Jinyoung says, heart pounding in his throat, promising. “I will try harder.”
“I know you will,” Yugyeom says, certain, and kisses him.