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It started as a joke, Chanhee on one of his politeness rants— “Your hands aren’t over your belly button, Sunwoo, do it properly.”— so Sunwoo decides, what can be more polite than a goodnight kiss?
He leans over and plants a wet one right on Chanhee’s forehead. Chanhee freezes mid-sentence.
“Did you just—” he stops. Blinks three times like that would make things make more sense. “Did you just kiss me?”
“It’s a goodnight kiss, hyung,” Sunwoo says demurely.
Before Chanhee can recover, Sunwoo is flouncing out of the room, snickering to himself.
Changmin looks up from his phone as Sunwoo pulls back his duvet, a single eyebrow raised. “You kissed Chanhee goodnight?”
“Yup,” he grins. “Why? You want one too?”
And before Changmin can even begin to protest, Sunwoo pecks Changmin on the cheek.
Changmin let out a shriek, leaping off his bed. Sunwoo hurriedly throws his duvet over himself as a shield, but Changmin only starts hitting him through the blanket.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” Sunwoo cries, choking from laughter.
When Changmin tires himself out, he starfishes on top of Sunwoo, hot breath fanning into Sunwoo’s cheek. Sunwoo squirms to the side, squishing himself against the wall, and tugs Changmin under the duvet with him.
They fall asleep like that, and if Sunwoo realises the next morning it’s the best night’s sleep he’s had in months, no one has to know.
It doesn’t happen again until a few weeks later, because it was just a joke, right? Just Sunwoo being Sunwoo?
Until the group comes back one night—or morning? No one knows the difference anymore—from a particularly gruelling practice, where no one really got the dance just yet and everything was out of sync and Chanhee blamed himself for still not being able to dance properly and Changmin was coming undone at the seams because how could he be the main dancer if he can’t even lead his team through this?
Changmin dismisses them the whole group without even looking their way, already going to restart the song. Sunwoo opens his mouth to say something, but the hard line of Changmin’s back reads like a warning. He closes his mouth, trails after the rest of the members.
The minute they get to the dorm, Chanhee wordlessly makes a beeline for his room and shuts the door.
Eric sighs. “Guess I’m taking a shower first.”
He leaves, and Sunwoo is left staring at the door, wondering if his presence would help.
He decides, fuck it , and pushes the door open. “Hyung.”
Chanhee is sitting on the floor with his legs sprawled out, back against the wardrobe. He’s swiping a cotton pad against his face while staring blankly at the wall across him.
“I’m really not in the mood, Sunwoo,” he says without even looking.
Sunwoo swallows and slips inside, shutting the door behind him. He tries not to feel like he’s locking himself in the lion’s cage.
He crosses the room and sits against the far end, so that his legs are perpendicular to Chanhee’s. Like this, their toes almost touch.
He knows Chanhee craves the quiet, is often desperate for some time by himself, but Sunwoo had seen his hyung’s face all too clearly in the mirror, had seen how he had gotten more and more drawn every time he missed a beat or didn’t get a hand motion right.
Sunwoo doesn’t always understand Chanhee, but he can guess what’s going on inside his head right now.
He stays quiet, lets Chanhee get used to his presence like an obstinate housecat. They breathe together, and Sunwoo feels a little more calm, a little more settled.
“You did good today, hyung,” he says just as Chanhee is crushing the cotton pad into a ball.
Chanhee snorts darkly. “Please, all I did today was fuck up.”
“Still. You did good.”
Chanhee’s eyes finally flicker to him, and Sunwoo holds his gaze.
He isn’t sure if he’s doing this right; he isn’t usually the one people look to for reassurance or comfort.
But he tries anyway, tries to tell Chanhee all the things he can’t say out loud. You’re trying your best and that’s what matters. We’re all making a mess of things so you can’t blame yourself. I love you so much it almost hurts.
Something must come through, because some of the darkness in Chanhee’s face seems to melt away. He doesn’t smile, his expression never changes, but the quiet between them is different now. Less heavy.
“Thanks, Sunwoo. You too.”
Something in Sunwoo’s brain, probably the primal defence mechanism that told prehistoric humans not to wake a sleeping bear, switched off then. He crawls forward on all fours, Chanhee watching him warily.
“Sunwoo, what—”
Chanhee breaks off when Sunwoo presses a kiss to Chanhee’s temple.
Sunwoo pulls back, and just. Waits.
Waits for the inevitable yelling, or complaining, or hitting. He doesn’t regret it—probably can’t regret it—but he knows how his hyung usually reacts to these things.
Except none of it comes.
There’s no yelling, no complaining, no hitting.
Chanhee just sits there, wide-eyed, staring at Sunwoo like a revelation. Sunwoo isn’t sure he’s breathing.
Suddenly there’s a knock on the door, and the moment is broken. “Hyung, can I come in now?”
Their heads snap to the door, before looking back at each other.
Sunwoo moves first, getting to his feet while Chanhee busies himself with fiddling with the strings on his sweatpants.
“Goodnight, hyung,” Sunwoo says quietly, putting both hands over his belly button and bowing. “Sleep well.”
He doesn’t wait for Chanhee to respond, just opens the door—“Sunwoo? What?” Eric says, bewildered—and makes his way to the bathroom.
He’s toweling his hair dry when he hears someone keying in the passcode to the front door. A few seconds later, the door to Sunwoo’s room opens and Changmin stumbles inside. His eyes are rimmed red; his face is pale.
“Hyung,” Sunwoo says softly. It isn’t a question, isn’t even really calling for Changmin. Just a word to hang in the air.
Changmin doesn’t even look at him, just crosses the room to grab his pajamas and heads out again.
Sunwoo forces himself to stay awake despite the late hour, terribly playing a one-player game on his phone until he hears the bathroom door open and soft footsteps pad towards the room.
This time when Changmin comes in, he pauses at the door when he sees Sunwoo is still awake, then seems to decide it doesn’t matter and his attention is gone again. He lowers himself under his covers and—deliberately, decisively—turns his back on Sunwoo.
“Hyung,” Sunwoo tries again. Nothing.
The wise thing would be to sleep, to let Changmin clear out whatever’s happening in his head on his own time—except Sunwoo has never claimed to be wise, and he’s already feeling reckless from his moment with Chanhee.
So he climbs out of his own bed and into Changmin’s, slipping an arm around his waist. Changmin stiffens at the touch.
“What are you doing?” he hisses.
Sunwoo doesn’t know. He hasn’t known what he’s doing since he followed a moody Chanhee into his private space and kissed him. But he doesn’t know how to say all of this to Changmin, so he just presses his forehead against the back of Changmin’s head and exhales.
“Just sleep, hyung. Let’s just sleep.”
In fractions, Changmin’s body relaxes; first the legs, then the shoulders, and finally the soft juncture where his skull meets neck. Sunwoo breathes a sigh of relief, and sleepily presses a soft kiss against a knob of his spine.
“Goodnight, hyung,” he murmurs.
He doesn’t stay awake long enough to hear a response.
It becomes something of a ritual by accident.
Practice goes a little better the next day, more and more sections of the dance falling into place, the members finding their rhythm again.
They come home a little more lively than the night before, and Eric convinces Sunwoo, Changmin, and Juyeon to make ramyeon together. They put on some late night drama that no one really pays attention to and it’s just nice.
He’s halfway through his second serving when Chanhee pads out of the room.
“Sunwoo, could you come with me for a sec?”
“Why?”
Chanhee shuffles his feet awkwardly. “Just come, please.”
Sunwoo groans but does as he’s asked, following Chanhee to his room. “I swear if you’re just making me throw your trash out for you—”
“Could you do that thing again?” Chanhee asks once they’re inside, whirling around to face Sunwoo. The words come tripping one after another, like he had been holding them just behind his teeth for a long time.
Sunwoo frowns. “Do what?”
Chanhee blushes furiously, not making eye contact. “That— Thing. That you did last night. Here.”
Understanding dawns on Sunwoo like a sunrise. “Hyung,” he says in awe.
It must have come across wrong, because Chanhee’s expression quickly sours. Sunwoo can practically see the walls slam back up.
“Never mind,” Chanhee spits, moving to climb up the bed. “Just go.”
“Wait, no—” Sunwoo lurches forward, hand finding the back of Chanhee’s ankle. “Let me-- do the thing.” He feels his own face heat at the words.
Chanhee hesitates before lowering himself back to the ground, eyes wary. “Are you making fun of your hyung?”
He thinks this is probably a good time to make a joke. Maybe if it were daytime. Maybe without the palpable tension in the room, in the line of Chanhee’s shoulders.
As it is, Sunwoo wordlessly shakes his head. He moves forward, places a kiss on Chanhee’s forehead, lingering for a beat too long.
“Goodnight, Chanhee hyung,” he murmurs against the soft skin there, lips barely grazing the skin. He’s so close he can feel the shiver that goes through Chanhee at his words.
When he moves back, Chanhee’s eyes are shut, and the tense line of his shoulder is gone. He looks slightly dazed as he opens his eyes, looking at Sunwoo and past him all at once.
Shaking his head slightly, Chanhee turns and makes his way up to his bed, and Sunwoo knows it’s time to go.
Just as he’s about to close the door behind him, he hears a quiet, “Goodnight, Sunwoo,” from the top bunk. He smiles and shuts the door.
Later, Eric and Juyeon make Changmin and Sunwoo wash up the dishes, claiming cooks’ rights, and Changmin feels good enough to laugh when Sunwoo flicks soap at him and Sunwoo decides it’s a Good night. If yesterday was a Bad night, Changmin’s smile as he flicks soap right back makes tonight a Good one.
They change into their sleep clothes in silence, careful not to wake Kevin, who had fallen asleep early for once. They stand side by side in front of the bathroom sink as they brush their teeth, hips gently nudging against one another. When they finally go to bed, Sunwoo doesn’t even make a show of going into his own first, both of them slipping under Changmin’s covers.
Sunwoo wraps his arm around Changmin’s waist once again, sending up a silent thank you to forces he doesn’t truly believe exist for allowing him to be the big spoon despite his age, and presses a kiss to the nape of his hyung’s neck.
“Goodnight, Sunwoo,” Changmin says sleepily, and oh, that’s the first time either of them had said it first.
“Night, hyung.”
There’s nothing left to be said after that, and sleep comes easily to both.