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Jaemin’s head pounds as he blearily stares at the TV and listens to Donghyuck shout a string of swears. His consciousness dissolves into a pile of mashed potatoes. The analogy doesn’t even make sense, but fuck, how is Donghyuck’s head not exploding at the sound of his own voice? Jaemin kicks at him with his foot. “Donghyuck, you’re too loud.”
Donghyuck doesn’t even bother to pause his game, his fingers still moving rapidly across his game controller as he seems to contemplate if it’s worth it to acknowledge Jaemin. He looks at Jaemin for half of a second, trying to assess the threat level and psychoanalyze him in that thin slice of time. Donghyuck wrinkles his nose in that way that he always does when he’s not committed enough to frown but he’s still bothered enough to make his distaste known. “The living room is public property.”
Jaemin doesn’t respond, but Donghyuck takes his silence as a challenge. Donghyuck takes many things like a challenge and it has resulted in many sticky situations. Donghyuck continues droning on, cussing out the “12-year-old sack of prepubescent shit” who tries to kill him with a grenade but fails, and complaining to whoever he’s playing video games with—Johnny based off of the laughter coming from his headset—that Jaemin woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. He did, actually, because after they came home from the party last night, someone, this someone being Donghyuck, immediately dozed off in Jaemin’s bed. And although they have the same school-provided mattress, Donghyuck’s bed is like a slab of concrete in comparison to Jaemin’s, so forgive him for waking up with a scowl on his face.
Quickly realizing that Donghyuck isn’t going to shut up any time soon, Jaemin’s patience starts to thin and he sighs, kicking the blanket off of him and thinking over his options.
Here’s the thing: Donghyuck is usually very easy to hang out with. Sure, he comes off as energetic and loud at first, the life of the party and all, but Jaemin has known him long enough that he has seen all of the sides of Donghyuck’s personality. Sometimes he just falls into one of those moods, you know? Everyone has one of those moods. One of those moods where he just doesn’t really want to listen to anyone. Donghyuck just wants to talk sometimes, and not necessarily about anything of, like, actual importance, which is fine, okay? Jaemin acknowledges the primal instinct to match white noise and fill the void or whatever. It’s fine most of the time. Now, however, is not most of the time .
The hangover he’s trying to sleep through paired with Donghyuck’s apparent lack of a hangover is not a milkshake that Jaemin particularly likes. As a matter of fact, he hates milkshakes. Fuck milkshakes. Fuck analogies. And fuck Donghyuck. Jaemin shoots lasers at the side of Donghyuck’s head, hoping Donghyuck notices the major fuck you vibes coming from him. (He doesn’t, laughing at something Johnny says, but his smile is cute enough to make Jaemin soften up.)
It’s a little difficult to win an argument against Donghyuck, especially without the hyung card that the likes of Doyoung and Mark at least have the ability to use. He’s quick witted and has an impossibly sharp tongue, so it doesn’t really matter if he’s right or wrong, he’ll take parts of a point and spin it into a five paragraph essay with an introduction and a conclusion. And Jaemin? Jaemin has talents of his own and they include, but are certainly not limited to, talking so quickly and insistently that Donghyuck doesn’t have the time to come up with a counterargument.
And so a Cold War is born.
On the bright side, Donghyuck has always responded to more physical confrontations. Now that’s not to say that Jaemin likes fighting with him because he doesn’t, but sometimes a good old fist fight is the simplest way to work things out. A little punch here, a little punch there, and “woah, not the face, man, come on” and it’s all good. That’s always how Donghyuck and Jaemin made up after all of the Cold Wars they’ve had over the years. (That’s a lot of fist fights, but no one’s really counting, right?) (Five, Chenle says. They’ve gotten into five fist fights. He’s got all of them backed up to his Cloud.)
Still Jaemin isn’t really in the mood to pick a fight, and Donghyuck hasn’t done anything that would actually justify him throwing hands, so he thinks of a more sustainable solution. He’s all about energy conservation, you know? Jaemin sits up and fists the front of Donghyuck’s hoodie. “Is this okay?” He asks, close enough that he can hear Johnny cussing on the other side of the line. Donghyuck nods, taking off his headset, and Jaemin chases his mouth.
Making out with Donghyuck might actually be a good hangover cure.
“Oh.” Renjun says as he strides into the room. “So that’s a thing now.”
Jaemin immediately draws back, his head spinning for a completely different reason.
Chenle follows after Renjun with a wide smile on his face and Jisung stands frozen in place at the door, blood draining from his face as he points lifelessly from Donghyuck to Jaemin.
Jaemin makes a noncommittal noise and lays back down. “Donghyuck talks too much.”
Donghyuck sits completely still, his lips parted and head still angled in the way Jaemin moved it.
For the record, and for the page in Jaemin’s notebook concerning Cold War tactics, kissing Donghyuck doesn’t actually silence or immobilize him for very long. Thirty seconds at most. Once Donghyuck comes back to himself and blinks the faraway look out of his eyes, he immediately looks back at the TV and screams bloody murder at the GAME OVER that flashes across the screen.
Jaemin draws Donghyuck in again and presses another kiss to his mouth to drown out his complaints about Jaemin destroying his life.