Chapter Text
Yonghoon isn't surprised when he walks into the other bedroom to wake the maknae's and finds that they've acquired one extra. Dongmyeong is star-fished in the top bunk, one hand stuck through the railing and Dongju sprawled fully across him. Yonghoon isn't quite sure how Dongmyeong manages to breathe when they're laying like that, but he's seen it so often over the years he figures its just kind of luck. Or some sort of twin magic. Giwook is curled on his side on the bottom bunk, hugging the twins' matching stuffed toys to his chest. Even though its not a new sight, Yonghoon can't contain his 'aww' at the cuteness.
The noise makes Dongju stir. Yonghoon steps up to the bunk, reaching over to run a hand through the younger twin's hair.
"Morning, Doongie." He says brightly. The younger turns bleary eyes at him before sighing, annoyed and turning to bury his face back in his twin's shoulder. Yonghoon bites his lip to keep from cooing. "Nope, come on. Dongmyeong needs to get up and you probably need to get to your dorm." He ruffles the other's hair, hoping it will help him wake up. "Actually, do your members even know where you are?"
He doesn't get an answer, but he doesn't really need one. He already knows its a 'no'. He sighs, imagining the chaos currently going on upstairs. Both groups have the same start time today, needing to get ready to record their pre-debut show and Youngjo and Geonhak, at least, are bound to be awake. And probably panicking, the minute they realise they've lost their maknae.
Deciding he'll deal with it later, Yonghoon wriggles his hand under Dongju to shake Dongmyeong's shoulder. The older twin groans, moving like he wants to roll over. He's stopped by Dongju's weight on top of him and he opens his eyes in confusion.
"Rise and shine, sunshine." Yonghoon singsongs, roughly ruffling Dongmyeong's hair. Satisfied that the annoyed glare means the older twin, at least, is awake, Yonghoon crouches down to shake Giwook awake. The youngest immediately rolls over, bringing the blanket up over his head. That means he's awake though, so Yonghoon cheerfully yanks the blanket down.
"Time to get up. We're due at the salon in an hour." He announces cheerfully. He gets three simultanious groans, which he grins at. "Come on, Harin's making breakfast." That gets some interested murmuring.
"Why's hyung cooking?" Giwook flops over to look at him curiously.
"Cause its the first day of filming, of course. Gotta have lots of energy." Yonghoon says brightly, raising a fist.
"I think you've got enough energy for all of us." Dongju mutters.
"You can never have too much energy!" He claims before bouncing out the door. They're all awake - his job as leader is done. They're all professional enough to get up themselves. Besides, he should really be a good hyung and contact Dongju's group about their maknae's whereabouts. He doesn't get the chance.
He's still looking for his phone from wherever he left it last night when someone knocks on the door. Yonghoon looks over suspiciously, sharing a glance with Harin. Hyungu is in the shower. He can hear voices and muffled bangs from the maknae's room as they get ready.
"Who's that?" Harin voices.
"I don't -" He cuts himself off. "Ah, wait, Dongju's here."
Harin makes a noise of realisation.
"You should probably let them in before they break the door down, then." He says dryly.
Yonghoon rolls his eyes in agreement and goes to open the door. Hwanwoong and Geonhak are stood there, dressed but ruffled.
"You weren't answering your phone." Hwanwoong says immediately.
"Yeah, I don't know where it is." Yonghoon shrugs his shoulders. It'll turn up eventually.
"Hyung." Hwanwoong rolls his eyes judgementally. "This is urgent. Dongju's missing."
Geonhak shuffles worriedly from behind him. Yonghoon's pretty sure that he's soon going to start wringing his hands together. However, before he can reassure them on the location of their maknae, a door opens.
Yonghoon blinks, looking over his shoulder as the maknae's spill out of their bedroom. Giwook is squished between the affectionate twins, although he doesn't look unhappy about it. Dongju has his teddy in one arm and is wearing clothes that are very obviously not his. The jeans are the right length but too baggy. The hoodie is very large and Yonghoon's actually pretty sure it's one of his, although how it ended up in the maknae's room he'll never know.
"Dongju!" Hwanwoong exclaims, moving into the dorm. Geonhak follows and they both head straight for their maknae. Their maknae who is blinking at them in confusion. "Where have you been? We woke up this morning and you weren't there, you almost gave hyungs a heart attack!" The shortest boy says, not quite scolding. He's quick to pull Dongju into a hug, squishing the teddy between them. Dongmyeong and Giwook blink sleepily at the display.
"Were you here all night?" Geonhak asks lowly, pulling Dongju into his arms when Hwanwoong lets go.
"Yeah." Dongju replies like its obvious. To him it is. To Yonghoon and Harin and all of Onewe, it is. Dongju wouldn't go anywhere else, especially not on his own. Yonghoon would only panic if all three maknae's were missing.
"God." He can't help but mutter to himself. He gets five curious looks.
"Hyung?" Hwanwoong asks curiously.
"Ah, just remembering the time that the twins and Giwook disappeared." He winces thinking about it.
"Ahh, hyung, it wasn't that bad." Dongmyeong chuckles nervously.
"You only need to worry if all three of them are missing." He tells the idol members seriously.
"What happened?" Geonhak asks, although he looks like he's not sure if he wants to know.
The wide eyed looks on the maknae's faces convinces him to tell the story.
"We went to the coast to do some busking. It was summer, so Dongju came with us and I'd promised their parents I'd look after them all, since they were only sixteen." He sends a glare at the three troublemakers. "God, I don't even know how they snuck away but I'd gone to get some drinks and when I got back Harin and Hyungu were hysterical because they'd lost the teenagers. They turned up at the hotel we were staying in at about eleven that night, soaking wet and refusing to say where they'd been. It gave me my first grey hair." He sniffed.
Geonhak and Hwanwoong are looking at him with wide eyes. Dongju has slumped to rest his head in the crook of Geonhak's shoulder, closing his eyes tiredly. Obviously wanting to avoid yet another interrogation on the topic, his maknae's have made their way over to Harin, pestering him for bits of food. Yonghoon sighs at the sight, abandoning the three idol members.
"Stop pestering Harin! Go and pack your bags for the day, come on." He shoos them away from the kitchen, not bothered by their grumbling. They do eventually listen to him and slump off to rescue Giwook's bass where its hidden under their coats from last night.
"We've got to let the others know we've found Dongju, hyung." Hwanwoong calls to him as Geonhak slowly walks Dongju to the door. "We'll see you at the company."
Yonghoon waves them off, too busy trying to snatch a piece of kimchi from the frying pan. He never claimed not to be a hypocrite.
Hwanwoong calls one last goodbye to them, shutting the door behind them. Geonhak has given up in getting their maknae to move under his own power and has scooped him up into a princess hold. It takes a bit of manoeuvring to fit Dongju through the doors of the lift, but they lived three floors up and it was too far to carry him. Hwanwoong cooed at the maknae, even though the lingering worry and frustration he felt made him think he should be scolding his only dongsaeng.
When Dongju turned a sleepy pout in his direction, Hwanwoong decided that he could coddle the maknae and leave the scolding to his oldest hyungs. Not that Hwanwoong would bet any money that it would be a particularly harsh scolding. In fact, Hwanwoong reckons it'll be a small telling-off followed by a lot of coddling.
When they get back to their dorms, Hwanwoong's prediction becomes largely true. They enter the door to a cacophony of noise, Youngjo talking concernedly into the phone. Keonhee and Seoho seemed to be holding a war council over the coffee table, both their phones pinging as messages come through. They hadn't wanted to all split up with no idea where to go, so Hwanwoong and Geonhak had been sent down to Onewe's dorm to see if they'd heard from him, whilst Youngjo called their calmest manager and the other two asked any mutual friends. They hadn't wanted to cause a mass panic, or get Dongju into trouble if he'd just sneaked off to the shop for something different for breakfast, but they'd all majorly panicked when they'd woken up and Dongju hadn't been in his bed. Or someone else's bed. Or anywhere else in the dorm. There hadn't been a note or anything either, and his phone had been under his pillow, although Doongdoongie was missing. That had left them confused more than anything, although Hwanwoong now completely understood it all.
"We've found him!" He announced loudly, going through the door first. Three heads snapped in his direction and by the time Geonhak had cleared the doorway, somehow managed to avoid banging Dongju's legs, they were all making their way towards them.
"Maknae-yah!" Seoho scolded immediately.
Dongju groaned, turning to hide his face for a second before wriggling until Geonhak let his legs drop and he stood on his own two feet, although he stayed leaning against Geonhak, who wrapped his arms around the maknae's waist comfortably.
"Where have you been?" Keonhee cried out, reaching out to grab Dongju's hands.
"He was in Onewe's dorm." Hwanwoong answered before Dongju could.
"What?" Youngjo crowded close, wrapping an arm around the main dancer's shoulders. "Why were you there?" He asked, confused.
"I couldn't sleep." There was a slight whine to the maknae's voice. "So I went downstairs and slept with Dongmyeong." It was said like it was the most obvious solution.
"Why didn't you come in with one of us?" Youngjo asked.
Dongju just shrugged. Hwanwoong sighed - their maknae did what he wanted, they all knew.
"Yonghoon-hyung wasn't even surprised that he was there." Hwanwoong revealed. He'd been surprised at how Yonghoon acted like it was a normal occurrence. The older hadn't really said anything, but he'd known that Dongju was there before their maknae had appeared. "Have you done this before?" He asked.
Dongju shrugged.
"A few times. I did it a lot when I first moved in." He explained quietly.
Something clicked. Hwanwoong remembered the many mornings of waking up to Dongju gone - presumably at individual lessons - his bed neatly made and none of the hyungs having seen him. They hadn't worried back then - when they were an established debut-group but still involved largely in individual schedules and practices. It hadn't been unusual for one or more of them to be missing all day or even all night. It was different now - they rarely had schedules without at least one other member and on the rare occasion that they did, at least one other person knew about it.
"That's actually really cute." Someone whispered. It was almost too quite to make out who it was, but Hwanwoong would bet it was Youngjo.
"It doesn't matter how cute it is." He rolled his eyes. "He needs to tell us or leave a note or something if he's leaving the dorm in the middle of the night." He told the older members. Someone needed to tell the maknae off. He wasn't even going to try
Seoho and Youngjo exchanged looks, before Youngjo sighed and stepped up to pull Dongju away from Geonhak and into his own arms. Dongju huffed at the movement and made to pull away immediately but Youngjo just held on tighter.
"Yah, maknae." He starts, in the softest voice possible. They all roll their eyes at that - this was not going to be scolding in the least. "Its ok if you want to see your twin but I almost had a heart attack when I couldn't find you this morning. We all did. So, just - " He'd started swaying as he talked, rocking Dongju side-to-side like he was actually a baby. "Just make sure to leave a note or text one of us before you leave. And please try and remember to take your phone." He finished with a sigh.
Dongju peered up at him with judgemental eyes, which the oldest wilfully ignored, but didn't say anything. After a moment, he nodded.
"What I want to know," Keonhee piped up, pushing closer to the pair and wrapping an arm around Youngjo's shoulders. "Is how you even got into the other dorm? Were the others still awake, it must have been late..."
"I know the password." Dongju turned his judgemental eyes on to Keonhee, who just beamed back at him.
"Ah, the love between brothers." Seoho sighed sentimentally, trying half-heartedly to shrug off Geonhak's arm, who had pulled him and Hwanwoong into his sides. "Wait, does this mean he knows the password to our dorm too?" He asked with sudden realisation.
"Yep." Dongju nodded. They all shared a look, although eventually sighed and gave it up. They weren't supposed to give their password out to anyone, but it was too late now and at least it was just Dongmyeong.
"Alright." Youngjo sighed. "Come on, we need to get ready. The car will be here soon." He looks at Dongju as the younger pulls away and raises an eyebrow at what he's wearing.
Dongju obviously notices the look, becuase he raises his chin confidently.
"I'm just going to get some shoes." He declares, scuttling away from their huddle.
Youngjo can't help but sigh despairingly. These people have obviously never heard of fashion.