Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chan woke in a cold sweat, clinging onto his sheets like he was chained down to his own bed. He gasped for air and looked around the room, forcing his eyes to focus. The dream he woke from made his whole body throb, and it would have probably been a welcome experience if it weren’t for the person he’d been dreaming about.

Seungwoo was his best friend and his roommate, but Chan did not think of him like that— at least he was sure he didn’t.

He cringed as fragments of what he could remember flashed before his eyes. The searing touch of a tongue on his neck, the smell of sweat and something forbidden, the taste of the wrong mouth… he shivered all over.

“I think the fuck not, dude,” he said to himself.

Seungwoo had been in a suit, black and clean and neatly pressed. He cornered him in a dark room, maybe a coat closet, and pressed his thing against him. Chan covered his eyes as he remembered. No, anything but that! Not Seungwoo! Not his thing! Not on me!

The Seungwoo in his dream pulled off his blazer and tossed it to the side, revealing a white button up shirt so tight and sheer that Chan could see his erect nipples through the fabric. He grimaced and shook his head, his hair matting up against his bedsheets as he tried to push the horrifying image out of his head. 

He yanked off his tie and slung it around Chan’s neck to pull him closer for a hot, wet, sloppy kiss that made his knees buckle. An awake and suffering Chan heaved.

How could he have done that to himself? How could his own mind have created such a horrifying visage? Unprompted, no less!

Chan rolled over onto his stomach, his lips and body still tingling. As long as he could make himself forget, everything was going to be okay. He pulled his pillow to him and pressed it against his body for comfort, but after he started to feel a little too comfortable, he realized what he was doing.

“Oh god,” he cried out in agony. He couldn’t do that! Not at a time like this! Chan jumped up out of bed and ran across the hall to their shared bathroom before Seungwoo could see anything he wasn’t supposed to. He locked the door behind him and even stuffed a towel underneath the gap between the door and the floor just in case Seungwoo got down to look inside at him. Chan scrunched his face up. “Seungwoo wouldn’t do that, what’s wrong with me?”

He turned on the shower, using only the cold water nozzle, and peeled off his sweat drenched clothes that clung to him like the disgusting gremlin he was. He gasped as he stepped in, the icy droplets like tiny knives running him through, and his poor rigid muscles crumpled together until he gave in and hunched over pathetically like he was being beaten and punished for his sins.

Slowly he began to forget the images from his dream, or at least they became less vivid, and he was able to wash away the invisible filth that clung to him. He couldn’t believe he had one of those dreams about his friend, but it was over. He was sure he would forget it completely soon and continue to live the rest of his life without wondering what it would be like to kiss Seungwoo.

Wait.

Chan swallowed, his head hung over with his soaking black hair slung down in front of his face. His eyes were wide and stung as tiny droplets of water splashed into them, but he couldn’t shut them or even blink. He stared off into nothing in the shower, no longer feeling the painful icy chill of the water against his back, and gulped. What if he did wonder what it would be like to kiss Seungwoo?

That, he thought as he turned off the water with a sharp screech, was ridiculous. He chuckled to himself. That wasn’t a thought he had. He wasn’t that kind of person. Maybe Sejun or Seungsik, but not him. Chan had never once had a thought about the shape of Seungwoo’s mouth or the strong grip of his large hands around his thighs in his life. Chan swallowed again, staring at the fool in the mirror. He hadn’t.

Chan dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist, having forgotten to grab anything when he sprinted in, and with a grimace, he decided that it would be best to not put his night clothes back on. He bent over and pinched the waistband of his shorts between two unsure fingers and dropped them in the dirty clothes hamper to be dealt with later. Gross.

Ready to start his day purified, he stepped out of the bathroom and turned down the hall to find the kitchen. He needed a hot cup or something-or-other to bring his frozen body back to life, but then he saw Seungwoo in the living room standing in front of the tv with his shoulders hunched, staring at it blankly, and he froze.

Just look at him standing there like a sexy caveman.

Chan gawked in horror at himself, spun around on his heel, and ran to his room, slamming the door behind him once he was back inside. He slid his back against the wooden door, but that turned out to be too difficult with bare, damp skin so he awkwardly pushed himself back up and flopped down on his bed face first. With a groan, he decided it was best that he didn’t leave his room again that week. To cope.

“Chan,” Seungwoo said on the other side of his closed door with a knock. “You okay?”

“I’m fine!” Chan said, his voice an octave too high. He cleared his throat and lowered it an octave too low. “I mean, I’m fine.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he called out normally. “I’ve just got a really bad hangover! Don’t come in!”

“Oh, okay,” Seungwoo said, somewhat disappointed, and Chan breathed a sigh of relief once it seemed like he had left him alone to suffer in peace before Seungwoo spoke again. “Wait, we didn’t drink last night.”

“Uhhh, I was having a little me time,” he said, trying to come up with a decent enough excuse. “Sorry, I should have told you!”

“No, that’s okay,” Seungwoo laughed. “You can get drunk on your own. Alright, well, feel better I guess. Text me if you need a bucket or something.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Chan said, and then he was gone for real. The guilt in his stomach grew quickly and all at once. He hated lying. If there was one thing Chan wasn’t was a liar. Any time he ever did anything moderately deceitful it was always for the sake of a good laugh, but who was laughing then? God maybe. The evil 12 year old dropping his sim into a pool without a ladder perhaps. But not him. But pretending that he had a hangover (and that he had had himself a little party without him the night before) was better than the alternative.

Hey, haha, you’ll never guess what I dreamed about last night. Top me, king.

Chan heaved again. This was the worst thing his brain had ever done to him, second only to forgetting how math worked when he filled out his college entrance exams. I bet Pythagoras never had dirty dreams about his roommate.

Guilty and disturbed, all he could do was fold himself up into a little ball on his bed and scroll through twitter and youtube until the day was over. So what if he couldn’t eat or use the bathroom until Seungwoo went to bed? This was called fasting. He was practicing asceticism. He was not avoiding his roommate.

At some point he fell asleep, but fortunately all he dreamed about was riding a train through a tunnel which he was sure had no ulterior meaning whatsoever. It was a light nap that was interrupted maybe an hour or two later by another knock at his door.

Before he registered what was going on, his nose caught a whiff of something that smelled like a different kind of hot and spicy. This wasn’t something that made him want to throw himself onto the floor and beg for forgiveness, but it was homey and thoughtful, and he wasn’t sure how it related to trains at all.

“Chanie,” Seungwoo said softly, knocking again. “Dude, you still in there?”

Chan gulped. What was he doing there? What did he want? Didn’t he know that Chan was suffering enough as it was?

“Yeah,” he said, wary.

“I made you some hangover soup,” he said. “Come eat before it gets too thick.”

“Hangover soup?” Chan mumbled to himself. “But I didn’t drink last night.”

Oh! 

He smacked himself on the forehead for forgetting his own lie so easily. This was already too complicated, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to keep it up all day or for however long he would need to. But could he get out of this without hurting his feelings? He had never expected Seungwoo to do more than just leave him alone to wallow in his own thick headed misery. Why did he have to go and take care of him? Why did he have to be a good friend at a time like this?

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said.

“I know, but that’s what friends are for,” Seungwoo said, all too kindly. Nooooo…

“Alright, let me get dressed, and I’ll be right out,” Chan said, kicking himself. All he had to do was throw some soup in a bowl over a little rice and sneak back into his room. He could use the nutrients to hold him off for the rest of the day while he hid so it wasn’t so bad.

“Okay!”

He rolled out of bed with a soft whine. This was not going according to plan, but what plan did he think he had? It wasn’t like he went to bed knowing that this was going to happen. It wasn’t like he had ever once had a thought like this before. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

He threw on some sweat pants and a t-shirt and shuffled out of his room gingerly, afraid of making too much noise. He didn’t want to give Seungwoo an excuse to go check on him, but when he made it into the main part of the apartment, he found Seungwoo placing little plastic side dish containers around a big pot of soup that had already been placed on a wooden pot holder in the center of their dining table. 

“What’s this?”

“Oh,” Seungwoo said, startled. “I had to go to the store to get meat and vegetables and stuff for the soup, but while I was in the back where all the cold stuff is, I saw they had a bunch of different side dishes piled up with these little containers to fill so I bought a few. You like marinated green onions right? I couldn’t remember for sure, but I also got two kinds of kimchi, and oh they had these sticky peach things I’ve never seen before but the lady at the store said they’re better than candy.”

“You did all this for me?” Chan asked, his eyes shaking. He was so touched that he was almost speechless. He was so touched in fact that he almost forgot for a moment that he had even had a dream about him in the first place, that was, until Seungwoo stretched across the table to place down a utensil set next to an empty bowl and the veins in his arms bulged out like he had been at the gym all day. Chan shook himself. Not now.

“Yeah, I kind of got carried away, didn’t I,” he said, scratching his head. 

“You concerned yourself so hard you became your parents,” he teased, not wanting him to feel silly for doing something nice. No one should ever feel silly for doing something nice, especially not for a friend. He took his seat at the end of the table and tucked his napkin into his collar to show how excited he was to feast. Seungwoo raised an eyebrow, but sat down across from him without saying a word.

Seungwoo made him eat first because he was “sick” so Chan ladled out a bowl for himself, and he could see then what Seungwoo meant by it thickening up fast. It was more of a stew already, but he didn’t actually care about how liquidy his food was. 

“How is it,” he asked, hopeful.

“It’s good,” Chan said. “I already feel better.”

“Good! It’s my dad’s recipe, but I used more meat than he does,” he said.

“It’s really good,” he said. “Thank you.”

Seungwoo smiled, pleased, and focused on his own food. The two of them ate quietly, the sounds of metal clanking against ceramic bowls mixing with smacking lips and the occasional crunch, but while Chan’s guard was down from his swelling belly, he accidentally glanced up at Seungwoo who patted the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

His plump, perfect mouth…

Just one kiss wouldn’t hurt. Like, just a tiny kiss.

Seungwoo’s tongue slipped out and caught a tiny bead of broth in the center of his bottom lip idly, and Chan almost fell out of his chair onto the floor.

Maybe not just a tiny kiss.

He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply remembering the way that tongue felt when it–.

“What,” Seungwoo said, his spoon paused midair.

“What?”

“Your eyes just rolled back into your head. It’s kinda creepy.”

“It’s because this food is so delicious, I am having a hard time coping,” Chan practically grunted with too much emphasis on every word.

“Okay,” Seungwoo nodded, but Chan wasn’t sure that that was the end of the questions. 

He looked down at his own food and concentrated on the large chunks of potatoes that had soaked up all the broth. It was hearty and greasy and spicy enough that it would have made him sweat out any liquor remaining in his bloodstream, if he had had any in there in the first place, but it was good, and it was something he could think about that wasn’t Seungwoo’s hands on his ass.

“You feeling okay?” Seungwoo asked.

“Just hungover,” he said quietly.

He hummed. “You don’t seem hungover.”

“How would you know the difference,” Chan challenged him.

“Five years of living together, for starters, but if you say you’re hungover, then you’re hungover.”

“I am,” he insisted, putting his foot down on his own lie. 

They had lived together for five years. He met Seungwoo at university when the dorms were overcrowded and infested with roaches. It was normal for students to pack into apartments and small houses, living off of each other’s ramen or whatever their allowances and part time jobs could afford. 

Chan worked at a chicken restaurant so they always had chicken. They always had chicken. In fact, they hadn’t had chicken since he quit and got a job in an office, and they were both so terribly grateful. Back then, Seungwoo was on the soccer team so he was rarely ever home between classes and his practices, except during the off season where he worked at a cafe off campus. They crossed paths a few times and a mutual friend had suggested that they be roommates, and when Seungwoo graduated, they continued to be roommates. And when Chan graduated, they continued to be roommates. And when Seungwoo got a job at a law firm and started making enough money to live on his own, they continued to be roommates. 

So why was he so damn afraid that a little dream was powerful enough to stop them from being roommates?

He was fed up with himself almost to the point of smacking himself in the cheek with the back of his spoon. The dream didn’t mean anything, and he wasn’t about to let it ruin a good thing. And by a good thing he meant a strong friendship, a guaranteed place to live, and a roommate who knew all of his worst habits and didn’t mind any of them.

“This is really good,” he said again. 

After they finished, Chan helped Seungwoo clean up by putting all the containers away into their fridge, and he poured all the extra soup (or stew) into its own new container. Seungwoo washed out anything they had dirtied quickly in the sink, and everything was going smoothly, that was, until Seungwoo accidentally splashed himself with a wave of dishwater.

“Damn it!” 

“What,” Chan asked, turning around startled.

“I got a free bath,” Seungwoo sighed, pointing down to the front of his shirt that, now soaked, clung to muscles Chan didn’t need to know that Seungwoo had. “I’ll be right back.”

Before Chan could say anything, Seungwoo left while pulling his shirt over his head and wadding it up annoyed. He was chiseled like a god, and the sight of Seungwoo’s sharp lower back dimples made Chan’s knees wobble. Holy shit.

He squatted down to the floor to catch his breath. His roommate was a fucking Calvin Klein model, and all he could do was scream. You know, my legs are strong enough to crush a watermelon. He’s not the only one in shape around here. Who does he think he is? Sexy and covered in suds like that. Try harder next time, why don’t you.

“Where’d you go?”

Chan stood up quickly, popping up like a little distressed and horny jack-in-the-box. “Here I am.”

“Were you hiding,” he laughed.

“I thought there was a frog,” Chan said. Another lie. He’s making me a liar. He’s a demon. A sexy man demon. 

Seungwoo blinked like he could read his mind, and Chan paled. 

“There wasn’t a frog,” Chan said flatly. “It was a leaf.”

Another lie.

“A leaf,” Seungwoo said.

“Yes.”

The two of them stared at each other for a moment without saying anything, but then Seungwoo shrugged and returned to the dishes. “Alright, whatever.”

“Mmm.”

Desperate to get back to his room, Chan finished putting everything away as fast as he could and took off. He made sure not to slam the door that time, but he crawled back in his bed where it was safe just as he had done before. Overall, he thought he was doing a pretty good job of keeping it together in his opinion.

Now all he had to do was chill for a day and then whatever was happening with his brain would stop.

But of course, Seungwoo wasn’t going to let him cope in peace. He knocked again, and Chan almost jumped out of his skin.

“What do you want! I mean, what’s up,” he asked.

Seungwoo cracked the door open just enough to get his nose in. “I wanna play FIFA.”

“Really,” Chan laughed.

“It’s our day off, and I’m bored,” he said, a slight endearing whine to his voice.

“You can’t play by yourself?”

“No,” he whined slightly more.

“What about Overwatch? Subin’s probably bored…”

Seungwoo let out a long sigh. “Alright, we don’t have to.”

He closed the door gently, sending a sharp pain directly into Chan’s stomach. It wasn’t fair to punish Seungwoo like this! He didn’t do anything wrong! He even made him a huge get-well-soon-from-your-hangover meal! How could Chan do this to him! He jumped up quickly and ran to the door. “Wait!”

He hurried out to the hall after him, but Seungwoo was already in the living room moping.

“I was kidding, let's play,” Chan said cheerfully.

Seungwoo looked at him and frowned, and it wasn’t a look that Chan could get used to. In fact, he was pretty sure it was a look he hated. “What’s wrong with you today?”

“Nothing!” 

“Really? You ran from me this morning. You pretended to have a hangover. You made me feel like we were two divorcees sharing a meal so that the kids feel like things are normal, and then you kinda blew me off… like I can be told no, but there’s a lot happening at once, and I don’t know if I like it very much,” Seungwoo said, frustrated.

“I wasn’t lying!” Chan insisted. “Really!”

“I can tell when you’re lying,” he said. “We’ve lived together for five years. You giggle like a hyena when you lie.”

“Do I?” He feigned ignorance, but his own shrill laughter from the entire day echoed in the back of his mind.

“I was willing to ignore it, but now I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “If you’re moving out or something just let me know. Don’t ghost me in my own apartment.”

“No! Oh god, it’s nothing like that, I promise! Really!”

“Then what is it?!” Seungwoo looked genuinely distressed which made Chan feel like a heaping pile of dog shit. Like, he was, in that moment, the worst friend in the whole world, and he was either going to sacrifice a piece of their friendship by keeping his mouth shut or a different piece of it by saying something.

“I can’t say,” he said, tight lipped.

“Whatever then,” he sighed. “At least you know.”

“Wait! Don’t be mad,” Chan pleaded. “Okay, I’ll tell you,  but you have to promise me you won’t be mad or judge me.”

“What did you do…”

“Nothing! Nothing,” he said, waving his hands. “Okay, listen.”

“I’m listening…”

Chan swallowed. It was now or nothing, and if it were up to him, it would have been a big fat nothing with an extra side of fries. “So I had a dream last night.”

“What, like a nightmare?” 

This feels like the nightmare. 

Chan couldn’t say what kind of dream it was because it was one of those dreams, but maybe if he just left out a few minor details, everything would be fine.

"This might sound really weird, but I had a dream last night that you kissed me,” Chan started, and Seungwoo’s eyes widened in shock, but he didn’t scream or throw up so maybe it was a good time to shoot his shot? “And now I really want to try it. Not to be weird or anything… just once... please… if that’s okay.”

WHAT KIND OF SHOT DO I THINK I’M SHOOTING, AND WHO DO I THINK I’M SHOOTING IT WITH?!

Seungwoo blinked. “You had a what now?”

“Just a little kiss,” he mumbled. 

Don’t mention he railed you, don’t mention he railed you, don’t mention he railed you.

“Anything else?” Seungwoo asked, baffled.

“Nope! That’s all!”

Seungwoo put his hands on his hips, and Chan was sure he was about to kick him out.

Listen, bro, it could be a lot worse. Trust me.

“That’s not so bad,” he said.

“What?” Chan almost choked.

“Yeah, dude, I thought you were mad at me,” Seungwoo laughed. “You want a little kiss, I can do that?”

“A-are y-you sure?”

“Yeah, totally,” he waved him off. “What are friends for?”

“Dude,” Chan said, his eyes watering, touched again. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course,” he said proudly like he was receiving his best friend of the year award.

“Okay,” he said, taking a determined breath.

Seungwoo looked off and nodded to himself while Chan waited for him to say something. He noticed him staring and jumped. “Oh, you meant right now!”

“Yeah…”

“Oh yeah we can do that,” Seungwoo said with a little bounce. “Easy.”

“Are you nervous,” Chan laughed, pushing back the urge he had to make fun of him.

“Wouldn’t you be nervous if you had to live up to some huge expectation of yourself,” he reminded him. “What if I suck?!”

“You won’t suck, let me see,” he said, puckering up.

Seungwoo stepped back, surprised and blinking quickly. Chan stepped back too, curling his lips back into his own mouth, ashamed. 

“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting it! Okay, let’s see,” he said.

The two of them shuffled towards each other, both wincing slightly. Chan had to step up on his tippy toes to reach Seungwoo’s mouth which was something he was not used to and something he wasn’t sure he liked very much. Seungwoo, doing everything he could to keep from laughing, craned his neck down and kissed him carefully on the mouth.

It was quick. It was plain. And it was just not right.

“How’s that?”

“Not what I had in mind,” Chan said. “Needs a little more oomph to it, you know? Gotta sweep a man off his feet a little.”

Seungwoo nodded, understanding. “Okay, I can do better.”

“I mean it’s okay if you can’t,” he said. “It’s not a big dea–.”

“No, I gotta make it better!” Seungwoo shouted before clearing his throat. “I have a reputation to uphold.”

Chan exhaled sharply. His roommate was out of his mind. 

“So how did it go again,” he continued as he prepped his lips by smacking them together like a boxer bouncing around before jumping into the ring.

“It was...,” Chan swallowed, not wanting to say too much. “Intense.”

Seungwoo hummed, nodding slowly as he thought about what he should do. “Okay, I can do intense.”

“You sure?”

“Pffft, yeah totally,” he said, waving him off with confidence. “I’m a pro.”

Suddenly Chan found himself uneasy with nerves, but who was he to keep Seungwoo from challenging himself? “Alright, let’s go!”

“Yeah! Let’s go!” 

They both let out a few manly yeahs and woos to hype themselves up before trying again. This time, Seungwoo cupped Chan’s face in his hands like they were lovers and kissed him deeply.

They pulled away, and Chan tilted his head in thought.

“How was that?”

“Still not right…,” he considered, trying his best to remember what made their kiss in his dream so special.

Seungwoo wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and huffed, a little frustrated. “Okay, then what?”

“You gotta, like,” Chan said, gesturing with his arms. “Dip me a little.”

“You want me to dip you,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Really.”

“You gotta put your back into it,” Chan said, gesturing some more like someone sprinkling out fertilizer on a row of crops.

“Okay,” he shrugged. He put one of his hands on Chan’s lower back and his other arm around his shoulder to support him. “Hold on.”

Chan wrapped his arms around his neck, but the second he felt himself fall backwards, he knew he had made a mistake.

“Okay,” Chan strained. “Hurry.”

Seungwoo leaned down to kiss him, but he couldn’t quite reach him. “I can’t do it, you’re too heavy.”

“I’m not that heavy,” he insisted.

“You’re like a sack of bricks, dude.”

“I! Just! Ate!”

“You want me to kiss you or not?!”

“Not!” Chan shouted, and then he hit the ground with a loud thud. He suddenly found himself flat on his back, stunned, with his ass and the back of his head throbbing and a full view of the ceiling and Seungwoo looming curiously over him. “Ow!”

“Oops.”

“You dropped me!”

“You let go of me,” Seungwoo shouted down at him. “I told you you were heavy!”

“I can’t believe this!” Chan cried out. He sat up and rubbed his head, pouting. “I trusted you.”

Seungwoo sat down next to him and frowned. “I’m sorry. Don’t let go next time.”

“There won’t be a next time,” he grumbled.

“Don’t give up! What about one more try,” Seungwoo suggested. “Just trust me, I think I know what to do for real this time.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah just sit still,” he insisted. He scooted over towards Chan so close that he could smell the dish soap from earlier clinging to his skin. He swallowed hard making his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. Chan watched him carefully, observing. Was this the Seungwoo from his dream? The one who threw him down and used him? Or was this the Seungwoo who gets hiccups when he’s drunk and forgets to close the bathroom door sometimes when he poops?

He supposed he was about to find out.

He kissed him softly, taking his bottom lip in between his and tugging slightly. His head tilted as they pressed their lips together slowly, and Chan felt his own mouth part slightly, following the motions and deepening the kiss like he thought he was supposed to. He reached out and grabbed Seungwoo’s shirt to pull him closer as their breaths became shorter and more frantic, chasing what air they could between each kiss. Maybe this was what he wanted? 

But the numbness wasn’t there. The heat that coursed through his body was gone, and the trembling want that had surrendered him helpless had been replaced by determination. For what? To prove a point? 

And Seungwoo didn’t kiss him like he wanted to. He kissed him like he was proving himself, and having had enough, Chan was ready to break away and rinse his mouth out with soap for even thinking this was a good idea when he heard a shriek.

He panic bit Seungwoo’s lip who tore away bruised and bloodied. 

“Ow!” Seungwoo cried out.

“What the fuck are you guys doing!” Sejun shouted, his face a bright shade of green. They hadn’t heard him come in, and Chan didn’t even know he was coming over. 

“It’s not what you think!” Chan and Seungwoo shouted. 

“Fuck, dude,” Seungwoo said, blood all over his hands.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Chan shrieked. “Don’t just stand there! Get him some paper towels!”

“What’s going on?!” Sejun shouted before he ran to the kitchen and back with the paper towels. Seungwoo tore off a sheet and held it to his mouth. “Why were you kissing him! Why would you do that!”

“Sejun, this is really not the time,” Chan said with his hands on his hips. “Can’t you see that he’s hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Seungwoo said, dabbing at his mouth until it finally stopped bleeding. “I think I’m gonna need a tetanus shot.”

Chan frowned, sorry.

“Or rabies,” Seungwoo mumbled.

“Hey!” 

“Is anyone gonna tell me what the hell is going on here,” Sejun wailed. “My eyes are still burning.”

“Chan has a two day crush we were taking care of,” Seungwoo said.

“A what?” Chan and Sejun both asked, their eyes wide.

“It’s when you have a sex dream about one of your best friends, and you end up liking them for two days, but it doesn’t mean anything,” he explained. “It happens.”

“You knew?!” 

“Mhm,” he said. “I figured it out when you were trying to explain your dream, but it’s no big deal.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“Because you were being weird about it, and I knew you wouldn’t have admitted it if I asked,” he said.

“Then why did you let me kiss you?!”

“Because I wanted to play FIFA,” Seungwoo said simply.

“So you two aren’t like…” Sejun said, wary.

“Nooooo,” Chan and Seungwoo shouted, equally as disgusted by the idea.

After a moment, the excitement died down. Chan’s crush was gone, Seungwoo’s lip was split, and Sejun had finally stopped screaming. The three of them, finally close to normal again, decided to set up for an afternoon of gaming and being as lazy as possible without any more mentions of the incident. He was happy that his feelings were gone already, but there was still one thing bothering him.

“I can’t believe you did this to me,” Chan said quietly.

“Do you still think you like me?”

“No,” he said, pensive.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I’m just shocked right now! If you knew what was happening, why did you kiss me like that?! What if it made it worse!”

“Because you acted like I was a bad kisser, and I think I deserve a little more credit than that,” Seungwoo pouted.

“You weren’t bad, it’s just that my expectations were too high.”

“How is that better,” Seungwoo asked, offended. He winced at the pain in his lip from opening his mouth too wide and decided to go apply some ointment to make it feel better. 

While he was in the bathroom, Sejun leaned towards Chan and whispered. “Was he that bad?”

“No,” he laughed. “I just don’t like him like that. I’d give him a solid eight and a half.”

Sejun hummed, thinking.

“What?”

“When’s the last time you kissed someone, you know, to have someone to compare it to?”

“Other than in the dream? I don’t know, a while.”

“I don’t mind you testing it out on me to see if Seungwoo really is a bad kisser or not,” Sejun considered. “Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Yeah, kiss Sejun,” Seungwoo said once he returned. “You’ll see my kissing is normal. Better than normal, even.”

“But I don’t wanna kiss Sejun,” Chan said, flustered. 

“Why not?” Sejun pouted like he was hurt.

“Yeah, why not,” Seungwoo said. “I kissed you like three times, you can at least kiss Sejun once for all of us.”

“Wh-,” Chan started, but they had ganged up on him, and there was no use arguing. It was either kiss Sejun or hurt his feelings, and it wasn’t that Sejun wasn’t perfectly kissable, but he had kissed enough of his bros for a lifetime and didn’t want to try it anymore, but as the great philosopher Socrates once said: fuck it. “Fine, I’ll kiss Sejun.”

“Yes,” Sejun said as he made a cheering motion with both arms. He turned towards him and smacked his lips the way he did when he had icing smeared over them after eating a huge slice of cake. Chan tried to keep a straight face. He wasn’t sure how Seungwoo was able to do this while he was having his own crisis a few moments ago because right then seeing Sejun like that and knowing he had to kiss him made him want to laugh until he cried.

Chan leaned forward and gave Sejun a quick peck on the lips, but as soon as their lips touched, his heart clenched in his chest so tight that he almost didn’t have the strength to pull away. He felt Sejun smile and kiss him back softly and warmly, and a final, damning jolt struck through his body all the way into his toes. He pulled back, his own cheeks burning a fiery red as his vision blurred at the sight of how truly breathtaking his friend was with soft pink lips and deep set dimples.

He reached up and touched his own mouth with his fingertips and blinked.

Uh oh.

He turned towards Seungwoo horrified who looked back at him in shock like he couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed with his own two eyes.

“Two day crush?” Chan asked like a prayer, waiting for his diagnosis. Seungwoo shook his head.

“Dude, I don’t think so.”

“What, should we try again?” Sejun asked.

Chan looked back at Sejun who still looked like an angel to him and thought, what the hell, one more won’t hurt.