Chapter Text
As the president of the student council, Sangyeon takes pride in organising events for the school, no matter how big or small. Every year, before school starts, there is a mandatory open house for prospective students to visit and see if they’d like to enrol. This year, Sangyeon and his committee have been tasked to run the event, from searching for student ambassadors to lead school tours to packing the goodie bags that hopefully will give just the littlest of nudges to someone who’s thinking about joining their school.
Being in charge of such an important event is stressful, Sangyeon admits to himself. However, his committee of fellow student councillors are always of great help and they all end up enjoying themselves in the planning process and during the actual event anyway. Any time that Sangyeon feels overwhelmed by his responsibilities, he trusts that the other councillors have his back. He knows that he would do the same for any and all of them as well.
Since there’s only eight of them, they have been working extra hard to prepare for this open house. They started preparations as soon as finals were over and with only one day left to the open house, they are only left with packing the goodie bags. Unfortunately, they had many to pack.
"Alright boys! I know we have many bags to get through but don’t force yourselves, alright? If you need a break, feel free to take a break. We can always ask for more help before the actual open house tomorrow. With that being said, let’s start!” Sangyeon finishes with a clap, looking around at his fellow councillors who shout out a chorus of agreements before immediately starting.
Chanhee and Changmin are side by side, hands moving as quickly as their mouths. The only times they spend not packing are when one of them raises their hand to hit the other playfully. Occasionally, they become a little too loud, but everyone is used to it.
Juyeon and Younghoon are also talking, but they are much quieter (and calmer) than Chanhee and Changmin. Juyeon sometimes grabs an unbelievably huge amount of snacks in one hand and shows it to Younghoon, who is always fascinated and laughs.
Jacob and Kevin are probably the quietest out of all of them. They are sharing an earpiece and sometimes quietly sing along to whatever song they are listening to at the moment. Whenever they do converse, they talk in english. They don’t explicitly talk about it, but everyone is happy that the two canadian boys have each other despite being in a foreign country.
Sangyeon finally looks at Hyunjae, the vice-president.
Sometimes, Sangyeon cannot believe that he gets to work with Hyunjae. Hyunjae, who is good at almost everything (if Sangyeon had to name a flaw of Hyunjae’s, it would be that Hyunjae tends to get a little loud when he’s excited. Even then, Sangyeon doesn’t mind. He’s only saying it because he sometimes (at least once a day) sees Changmin yelling at Hyunjae to keep it down.) Hyunjae, who is always cracking jokes, especially towards the end of a long day, just to give everyone that final burst of energy to pull through. Hyunjae, who is also very serious and responsible when it comes down to it, often helping to relieve Sangyeon of his duties. Hyunjae, who Sangyeon would not be able to survive student council without.
Hyunjae, who is arguably the most beautiful person Sangyeon has ever seen.
Sangyeon remembers seeing Hyunjae on the first day of school. Sangyeon almost tripped on air when he first looked at Hyunjae’s face because wow, how can someone this good-looking be breathing the same air as him? Thankfully, Sangyeon didn’t actually trip. He looked around to see if anyone saw him slightly floundering before his eyes caught onto the bulletin board beside him, more specifically the sheet of paper asking for student council sign-ups. Interested, Sangyeon left his contact details.
In the waiting room while waiting for the student council interviews to start, Sangyeon looked at the door right as someone familiar walked in. Hyunjae scanned around the room and made eye contact with Sangyeon before looking away and entering the room, sitting in a seat a distance away from Sangyeon. Sangyeon was pleasantly surprised by Hyunjae’s appearance and secretly hoped that both of them would manage to get in.
(At the student council investiture, Hyunjae was standing right beside Sangyeon when they first received their student council badges.)
As if noticing Sangyeon’s gaze, Hyunjae turns to look at Sangyeon, smiling. He motions for Sangyeon to join him. Sangyeon’s heart skips a bit as he sits down beside Hyunjae.
"Are you secretly trying to slack off? Why are you just staring at us?” Hyunjae asks, sending a teasing smirk over to Sangyeon to let him know that he’s just joking around. Sangyeon sputters, which causes Hyunjae to laugh, his eyes crinkling prettily into crescents, his pearly white teeth showing. Sangyeon spends a little too long watching Hyunjae laugh before he realises what he’s doing and turns to start packing a bag too.
The two of them work comfortably side by side, occasionally starting a conversation but it’s mostly comfortable silence between them. Sangyeon appreciates times like this because although Sangyeon is usually also joking around, he thinks that Hyunjae understands that he sometimes appreciates company without talking (and no talking also means that Sangyeon has a lower chance of saying something embarrassing).
After a few hours of packing, Sangyeon is summoned by the principal. Sangyeon runs over the details of the open house with the principal again, just to make sure that everything goes smoothly. That takes an unexpectedly long time and when Sangyeon steps out of the principal’s office, the sky is dark. Sangyeon returns to the council room and is surprised to see only Hyunjae there, still packing. "Where’s everyone else?” Sangyeon asks, confused.
Hyunjae turns around. "Oh! I sent them back because we are mostly done and they looked really tired. I was waiting for you to be done to inform you so I decided to continue packing,” he explains.
Sangyeon tries to control the butterflies in his stomach that started soaring when he heard that Hyunjae was waiting for him, blatantly ignoring the latter part of the sentence. "So… what are you going to do now that I’m here?” Sangyeon barely gets the words out.
“I think I’ll just finish packing, there’s not a lot left,” Hyunjae says, sending Sangyeon a look that is almost… expectant?
“I’ll stay too. I can’t possibly leave you alone here,” Sangyeon decides, mentally patting himself on the back when Hyunjae shoots him a blinding smile. He clearly made the right decision then. "Do you want to get some food delivered? I don’t think we’ll be done before dinner.”
They decide on ordering chicken, which makes Hyunjae so excited he does a little dance (that is also the main reason Sangyeon decided on chicken as well). Sangyeon mentally coos. Hyunjae does joke around a lot with the younger councillors, but when he’s with Sangyeon, it’s like he lets go even more and becomes an easily excitable kid.
The chicken is delivered quickly and they set aside the packing to dive into the boxes of chicken. The happy noises Hyunjae makes as he munches on a piece of chicken makes Sangyeon want to melt into a puddle of goo. Sangyeon belatedly realises that he has just been holding onto a piece of chicken while staring at Hyunjae eat for an inappropriately long amount of time. He flushes, glad that Hyunjae is too focused on his chicken at the moment to notice him.
"No, hyung! You can’t eat it like that!” Hyunjae suddenly exclaims, causing Sangyeon to almost choke. He looks at Hyunjae, who huffs at him. "You’re wasting precious meat! I’ve always noticed you eating like that but now I finally have the chance to teach you how to eat the right way.” Hyunjae puffs out his chest and motions for Sangyeon to copy what he’s doing. Sangyeon’s gaze zooms in on the subtle pout on Hyunjae’s lips as he concentrates on removing the bone in a piece of chicken wing.
The two boys finish up their chicken and even the packing of all the goodie bags quickly after that.
(They actually took three hours, but Sangyeon thinks even that is too short of a time to spend together with Hyunjae.)
Hyunjae insists on walking Sangyeon home, even though his own house is rather out of the way for him to do that, because "You stayed! The least I can do for you is accompany you on your way back home!” and who is Sangyeon to say no to Hyunjae?
The boys begin their journey to Sangyeon’s house, chatting all the way. As Sangyeon looks at Hyunjae, he feels his breath hitch because Hyunjae somehow still manages to look stunning while bathing in the harsh orange lights from the streetlamps. Hyunjae doesn’t notice Sangyeon staring at him, engrossed in his storytelling, occasionally touching Sangyeon’s arm or shoulder. Hyunjae has always been a very tactile person, and Sangyeon hasn’t managed to make up his mind on whether that is a good thing or not.
(Who is he trying to kid? Everything about Hyunjae is good. Sangyeon’s heart just needs to learn to not try and jump out of his chest every time Hyunjae touches him.)
Sangyeon thinks that they arrived at his house way too quickly. After saying goodbye, Hyunjae wraps his arms around Sangyeon in a hug, which makes Sangyeon’s face heat up so quickly he thinks steam might be escaping from his pores. (Also, how does Hyunjae still manage to smell good after such a long day?) Hyunjae pulls away and shoots Sangyeon a bright smile and a soft "See you tomorrow, hyung.”
Sangyeon goes to bed that night feeling phantom limbs around his torso. He snuggles his bolster extra hard, ignoring the part of his brain that whispers: "No matter how hard you hug it, it won’t feel like Hyunjae~”
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"Everyone, let’s welcome our new student councillors: Haknyeon, Hyunjun, Sunwoo and Eric!”
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It’s Hyunjae’s birthday.
It’s Hyunjae’s birthday and Sangyeon is tasked with keeping Hyunjae company until the others are done with whatever they have to do.
(Sangyeon has tried telling them to start studying earlier, the pain of cramming everything at the last minute is not worth it. He can still remember Eric just waving his hands, dismissing him. “YOLO, am I right?” Eric laughs. Sangyeon also remembers Eric clutching his hair and screaming in the middle of their latest group study session, and almost slamming his head into his textbook, if not for Jacob, who somehow sensed what Eric was going to do and held him back. Well, Sangyeon is glad that he has learned that lesson already 4 final seasons ago.)
Sangyeon is on the way to meet Hyunjae at his favourite chicken shop. He spots Hyunjae standing outside the shop, using his phone. Sangyeon moves the little paper bag he is holding towards his back as he nears Hyunjae. Luckily for him, Hyunjae seems to be very engrossed in whatever is on his phone so he doesn’t spot Sangyeon, who slowly reaches into the bag.
"Happy birthday!” Sangyeon smiles as Hyunjae flinches. A wide grin blooms on Hyunjae’s face when he spots the small cake on Sangyeon’s hand. Sangyeon almost drops the cake because he is so distracted by Hyunjae’s smile.
"Thank you, hyung,” Hyunjae says quietly, smile never leaving his face. He gently takes the cake from Sangyeon’s hands (Sangyeon pretends he is not affected when their fingers brush against each other) and puts it back into the paper bag. "Let’s eat it later! For now, I want chicken.”
Hyunjae holds the paper bag in one hand and grabs Sangyeon’s wrist with the other hand. Sangyeon tries not to physically combust as Hyunjae pulls him into the shop, happily greeting all the staff whom he is already very familiar with, since he pays a visit almost every other day. Everyone chirps back a cheery welcome and directs the duo to Hyunjae’s favourite seat. Sangyeon cannot help but feel a little empty when Hyunjae drops his hand to settle down.
"The usual?” the waiter, Chan, hops over to their table and asks. Chan spots the cake in the paper bag and gets even more excited. “Ooh! I see cake! What’s the occasion?” he asks.
Hyunjae laughs, slightly embarrassed. "It’s his birthday!” Sangyeon answers for Hyunjae.
He grins as Hyunjae covers his face and groans when Chan screeches and proceeds to announce it to the whole shop. Thankfully, the other customers there left just as Hyunjae and Sangyeon entered, so it’s only them and the staff in the restaurant. There’s a chorus of oohs and aahs as everyone moves and crowds around the table.
Sangyeon watches contentedly as Hyunjae basks in all of the staff’s attention. When Chan rounds everyone up to sing happy birthday, the blush that blooms on Hyunjae’s face is the prettiest thing he has ever seen, in Sangyeon’s very humble opinion.
Right as they finish singing (screaming?) the last bit of the happy birthday song, another customer walks into the store. Hyunjae and Sangyeon dissolve into giggles watching seven of them run back to their posts, minus Chan who acts like he has been waiting to take their orders all along. They finally order, and Chan scurries away to attend to the other customer.
Hyunjae and Sangyeon engage in light conversation as they finish the tons and tons of chicken, courtesy of Minho, the chef. When their food first came out, Sangyeon burst into laughter when he saw all of the staff holding a gigantic plate of chicken loosely arranged to resemble a cake of sorts. They even stuck a few candles into the pile. After carefully making their way across the restaurant to deliver it to their table, as if like clockwork, they all let out a loud "happy birthday Hyunjae!” before running away, cackling. Hyunjae just looks excited to have even more chicken to devour.
They end up having to pack up some of the chicken to bring back to Hyunjae’s home. When Hyunjae and Sangyeon try to pay, Changbin, the cashier, just waves them away and pushes them out of the restaurant when they persisted. "Happy birthday again!” Changbin waves. Hyunjae just sighs fondly as he thanks Changbin, wrapping his arm around Sangyeon as they make their way back to Hyunjae’s house.
(Of all the touching Hyunjae does, Sangyeon thinks that this, Hyunjae’s arm around Sangyeon’s shoulders, is the worst, because Sangyeon feels like he fits so perfectly under Hyunjae’s arm. He always has to stop himself from inching even closer to Hyunjae. In this position, Sangyeon is also constantly reminded of how good Hyunjae smells. All in all, it’s always a very trying period for Sangyeon.)
They enter Hyunjae’s house and Sangyeon is immediately greeted by Darong, Hyunjae’s pet dog. Sangyeon bends down and pets darong as Hyunjae yells out greetings, and receives muffled screams from the kitchen in response. Hyunjae’s mother walks out and engulfs Sangyeon in a hug, welcoming him. "Did you have fun?” she asks.
Hyunjae tells her all about what happened at the chicken shop while Sangyeon plays with Darong. Hyunjae’s mum laughs as Hyunjae narrates the story and leaves the boys to their own devices after he is done. They end up in Hyunjae’s room, on Hyunjae’s bed, with Hyunjae’s laptop propped on their knees, ready to watch whatever interests them at the moment.
Halfway through the movie (that Sangyeon isn’t even paying attention to because he’s so, so close to Hyunjae that he physically cannot concentrate on anything except the boy beside him. He keeps his eyes on the laptop though, because blatantly staring at Hyunjae is kind of inappropriate, even though Sangyeon thinks that he will enjoy it very much, and definitely more than the movie), Sangyeon feels a light weight pressing down on his shoulder. He carefully turns his head and tries not to scream because Hyunjae fell asleep. On his shoulder.
Sangyeon stares at the way Hyunjae’s impossibly long eyelashes rest lightly on his cheeks, looks at the way his chest rises and falls slowly with each breath he takes, marvels at how he still looks like the most beautiful person Sangyeon has ever seen.
Sangyeon slowly reaches forward to shut the laptop, careful to not wake up the boy sleeping on his shoulder. He then pulls up the blanket pooling around their waists and covers Hyunjae, who’s slightly shivering. At the discovery of newfound warmth, Hyunjae lets out a pleased sigh as he snuggles into the blanket and even closer to Sangyeon, even wrapping his arms around Sangyeon’s waist as he leeches off the older’s body heat. At this point, it is a miracle that he’s still asleep because Sangyeon’s heart is beating so quickly that it feels like he is shaking.
Even though Sangyeon initially thought that he will be kept up the whole time because hello, Hyunjae is cuddling him, sleep eventually overtakes him. Sangyeon falls into a deep slumber surrounded by all things Hyunjae.
He hears many hushed voices. There’s also a few camera shutter sounds. Sangyeon peels his eyes open to see the rest of the student council gathered in Hyunjae’s room, giggling and looking way too excited. He then remembers what position they are in and shoots up, but Hyunjae is too strong and he barely moves an inch before his grip tightens and Sangyeon falls back onto the headboard with a loud thud. That wakes Hyunjae up. He looks around the room, confused. Everyone except Sangyeon bursts into laughter.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” Eric screams. They somehow whip out a cake from thin air and there’s a brief struggle trying to light the candles up before they launch into the most disharmonious rendition of the birthday song ever. Hyunjae just laughs brightly as he slightly tightens his grip on Sangyeon’s waist. Sangyeon hasn’t even noticed that his hand is still there. He can feel his face start to burn even hotter than the candle. He’s glad everyone’s too busy trying to outsing one another to pay attention to him.
When the song finally ends, Hyunjae moves towards the cake as everyone sings "Tell me your wish!” (Sangyeon isn’t sure why that’s a student council tradition, but he thinks it’s pretty cute. He also mourns the loss of Hyunjae’s touch.) Sangyeon internally coos as Hyunjae eagerly clasps his hands together and closes his eyes for a few seconds before reopening them and blowing the candles out. Everyone starts talking at the same time.
"Happy birthday hyung!”
“I’m sorry we came so late!”
“Haknyeon, why are you apologising? Hyunjae clearly enjoyed his time with Sangyeon!”
"How was your nap? I bet that that was the best nap you have ever taken!”
Sangyeon wants to crawl into a hole and never come out. He can feel many pairs of eyes on him as he moves around on the bed, tidying things up, avoiding all eye contact. He can only hear Hyunjae laugh in response to the questions.
"Let’s go! We prepared a party!” someone, probably Chanhee, manages to yell over the cacophony in the room. They shuffle out of the room quickly and Sangyeon is pleased to see the living room looking well decorated with balloons and banners. He makes a mental note to thank Kevin for most probably being the one to direct the whole decoration process. He then moves his eyes over to Hyunjae, whose eyes are practically sparkling as they take in the whole living room.
For the whole night, Sangyeon constantly finds himself looking for Hyunjae, heart rate picking up whenever he spots him laughing happily or even sometimes making eye contact before Sangyeon manages to look away. Hyunjae’s eyes will always light up whenever their eyes meet, posing a real danger to Sangyeon’s whole put-together outer self since all he wants to do is hug a pillow and cry himself to sleep thinking about Hyunjae’s beautiful smile.
The time for Hyunjae to open up presents finally arrives and everyone huddles around the birthday boy, excited to see what presents the others have gotten for him. The youngest four have pooled together their money to get Hyunjae a pair of Calvin Klein underwear, to which Hyunjae cackles at before thanking the boys, promising them that he will definitely wear it often. Changmin and Chanhee got Hyunjae an oversized hoodie, and the moment he lifts it out of the box, he gasps before rubbing his face against the hoodie, marveling at how soft it is. He thanks the duo before immediately tugging it over his head, wearing it over his t-shirt.
(Sangyeon really didn't mean to look, but when Hyunjae lifted his arms, his shirt rode up, greeting Sangyeon with an expanse of milky white skin. He slaps himself on the cheek to try and get rid of that image, and receives Haknyeon’s confused look in response.)
He opens up the other gifts: a beautifully designed notebook from Kevin, who proudly announces that he came up with the cover design; a beanie from Hyunjae’s favourite line of beanies, courtesy of Juyeon; a Darong griptok that matches with Younghoon’s own Bori griptok and a gaming mouse from Jacob, since Hyunjae has been complaining about his old one not working well to anyone who would listen, and it’s usually either Jacob (because he’s an angel) and Sangyeon (because he’s whipped).
Hyunjae looks at the huge box left warily before looking at Sangyeon questioningly. Sangyeon smiles and shrugs, trying to seem nonchalant. However, he is so nervous that he can feel his hands shaking. He watches with bated breath as Hyunjae removes the wrapping paper and opens up the box.
Hyunjae screams. Sangyeon barely registers what has happened before a ball of energy rushes towards him, hugging him tightly.
"Thank you thank you thank you! I’ve always wanted an Iron Man suit but my mum refused to let me buy one! Oh no, was it really expensive?” Hyunjae worries.
"It wasn’t! I managed to find a really good deal. I’m glad you love it,” Sangyeon replies weakly, still out of breath from Hyunjae slamming right into him.
(It actually was really expensive. Sangyeon took on multiple tutoring sessions that tired him to the bone to be able to afford that. Looking at the pure excitement on Hyunjae’s face as he turns the suit left and right, showing it to the others, though, makes Sangyeon think that he would gladly go through all of that again, if it meant being able to make Hyunjae this happy.)
Before long, it gets late and everyone cleans up Hyunjae’s living room before they all wish Hyunjae happy birthday again before leaving one by one. Sangyeon is the last to leave, watching Hyunjae bask in all the well wishes. He wishes Hyunjae happy birthday as well and turns to leave, but a hand grabs onto his wrist. Sangyeon looks back at Hyunjae, who then engulfs him in another hug.
"Thank you for everything today. The boys told me how much effort you put in to plan all these. I really appreciate everything that you have done. I appreciate you,” Hyunjae whispers, chin hooked over Sangyeon’s left shoulder.
Sangyeon wills his heart to please slow the fuck down, Hyunjae is gonna be able to feel how fast my heart is beating, to no avail.
“I appreciate you too,” Sangyeon whisper-replies. “I’m really glad you enjoyed yourself.”
Hyunjae pulls away from the hug with a bright smile and Sangyeon immediately misses his warmth.
"Have a good rest tonight! See you at school tomorrow!”
Hyunjae waves as Sangyeon finally takes his leave, footsteps light on the path home.
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