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I just don’t see this going very well, is all. Can’t we just stay in, watch a movie, just the three of us?
Hyojin’s words play out again in his head as Seungjoon checks his appearance in their bathroom mirror. He’d expected trepidation, and so had Minkyun, but even now he’s not entirely certain they made the right decision. Should they just have listened? Caved in and stayed at home?
He’s not sure. But Minkyun had been so excited, and Hyojin hadn’t really argued with them, not in the way Seungjoon knows he’s capable of, and so they’d made the reservation all the same. Nowhere fancy, because Seungjoon doesn’t feel himself anywhere bougie enough for wine tasting or hor d’oeuvres, just a restaurant Hyojin likes, that he’d taken them to a few times already, slightly nicer than the places they usually go. Minkyun had called to make a reservation as soon as Hyojin had reluctantly agreed, and now it’s Valentine’s day, an hour before their date, and Seungjoon realises this is just another one of those times where he falls directly in the middle of Hyojin’s fierce, protective worry and Minkyun’s starry-eyed optimism. Because he wants to go, and he’s excited, and now he thinks back there were definitely moments when he pictured a Valentine’s day with Hyojin when they were still just friends ( idiot ), but now he can’t stop thinking about everything Hyojin has said about the date and wondering whether he was right.
“I know you look good,” a voice behind him says, “but you’ve been staring at your reflection without blinking for a while now, and I’m starting to wonder whether you’re alright.”
Seungjoon jumps, brought out of his thoughts by a pair of arms wrapping around his middle, and looks up to see Minkyun’s reflection in the mirror, where the taller boy stands behind him. He laughs a little at himself, and gives Minkyun a reassuring smile.
“I’m fine.”
Minkyun laughs too, eyes a little wide as they travel over Seungjoon’s reflection. “You’re not nervous?” he asks, incredulous, and Seungjoon glares up at the ceiling, only making him giggle more. “That’s not like you.”
Seungjoon scoffs, shaking his head. It’s still strange to him, how they see him. Cool and detached , Hyojin had said, all those months ago, as if Seungjoon isn’t the weakest of the three of them, the one with his heart always on his sleeve. As if he hadn’t been the first to finally give in, that night in Minkyun’s room, as the other two hesitated and he’d decided he couldn’t take another moment caught in the stupid wager they’d made, couldn’t stand being torn in half any longer. Though he’d been so slow to realise what was going on, he’d been the first to break. It’s been months since then, a half-year almost, and he still feels like the one caught in the middle, the easiest for Hyojin to provoke, the easiest for Minkyun to win over. He guesses that’s not so bad.
“I’m not nervous,” he says, as he turns around and Minkyun releases him. It’s almost the truth. He steps back into the bedroom. “I just want this to go well.”
Minkyun trails after him, beaming. “It will.”
Hyojin steps through the bedroom door just as Minkyun’s out of the bathroom, squinting down at his phone, and then stops, spotting them. His narrowed eyes narrow more as he glances between Minkyun’s wide, sunny grin and Seungjoon’s shaky smile. “What are you two doing?”
“Nothing,” Minkyun says, only succeeding in making them look more suspicious than they need to be. Seungjoon pokes him in the side without looking away from Hyojin.
“What’s up?” he asks.
Hyojin takes the bait, holding the phone he’d been frowning at in the air for them both to see. “Your friend’s harassing me again,” he says, to Minkyun.
Minkyun huffs irritably and snatches the phone. Hyojin watches him, smiling a little, as he punches in a number and storms toward the door. Changyoon accepts the call quickly- assuming it’s from Hyojin, no doubt- so they can hear Minkyun’s angry muttering into the phone as he walks to the living room.
“For the last time, Yoon, I told you-”
Hyojin giggles, cutting off whatever else Minkyun says before he’s out of earshot, and Seungjoon smiles and steps closer.
“What was he saying?”
Hyojin rolls his eyes, remembering the texts that had been flooding his phone before Minkyun had snatched it. “His date’s not going very well, apparently.”
Seungjoon scoffs, crossing his arms, pretending to be annoyed, ignoring the very small but very real part of him that is annoyed. “He’s trying to steal you away from us again?”
Shaking his head, Hyojin steps toward the closet. “He doesn’t mean it,” he sighs, grabbing his jacket. “I don’t know if he’s really doing it to tease me anymore, of if he’s just trying to annoy you two.”
“It must be nice to have all the boys chasing you.”
Hyojin scuffs him on the back of his head, and Seungjoon yelps, feeling the sting of metal as Hyojin’s ring scrapes his scalp. The older boy curses, and grabs him.
“Shit, I didn’t-”
“Get off,” Seungjoon groans, prodding at Hyojin’s stomach as the older boy tilts his head this way and that, assessing the damage. Hyojin only tightens his grip, and Seungjoon pushes him away harder, if only to better resist the urge to melt into a puddle of goo. When Hyojin still looks as him with concern, he sniffs haughtily and crosses his arms. “Let me be mad at you.”
Hyojin smiles. “Why would I do that?” He has to stand on tiptoes to plant a kiss in Seungjoon’s hair, but he manages, turning around and walking out of the room almost immediately afterwards. Seungjoon sighs, shakes his head, and follows.
They walk into the living room to see Minkyun bearing flowers (for Hyojin) and chocolates (for Seungjoon, though they’ll probably all be eaten by Hyojin) with a ridiculously sappy grin on his face, and he chatters happily in the car without stopping to take a breath, so that when they’re finally walking into the restaurant, even Hyojin is in a good mood, letting Minkyun cling to one of his arms, a small smile on his face. Seungjoon feels lighter, a weight off of his shoulders, as he holds the door open for them, and sees Minkyun smile at a waitress that steps forward to greet them.
“Table for four?”
Seungjoon tries not to wince, but Minkyun takes it in his stride, his smile only widening. “Just the three of us, actually- we have a reservation?”
The waitress is all professional politeness as she leads them to their table and leaves the menus with them without another slip up, but Seungjoon, sitting in the middle of their booth, can’t bring himself to check Hyojin’s expression to see if it’d affected him.
Minkyun is doing a very good job of keeping up his usual brightness (though Seungjoon knows him well enough by now to know he must be thinking the same thing.) “Since we’re celebrating,” he says, as soon as the three of them are alone, “do I get to order whatever I want?”
“If this is your way of asking if you can get waffles and ice cream for dinner,” Hyojin says immediately, “then I’m sure you already know the answer.”
“But-”
“Get dessert after,” Seungjoon says, forever the pacifier. “Then it lasts longer.”
Minkyun makes an impressed noise in the back of his throat and relents. The usual joke- Hyojin’s protectiveness, Minkyun’s childlike abandon- had only been a distraction, surely, but it has eased the tension slightly, and when a waiter returns to take their drinks order, Seungjoon feels himself holding his breath, waiting for it to heighten again.
Inevitably, the question arrives, “Are you waiting for someone else?”
Seungjoon glances around the restaurant. There are couples everywhere, a family or two, but no groups of four. It isn’t a double date kind of place. Maybe they should have gone somewhere they usually go, where the staff know them, where they could just be comfortable.
“No,” Minkyun beams, “no one else.”
The waiter nods and scurries away. Seungjoon sneaks an askance look and sees Hyojin fiddling with the cutlery, eyes lowered.
Minkyun tries to catch his expression too, though the older boy is clearly trying to avoid his eye. He can feel his own good mood start to slip out of his grasp. Maybe he should have just listened, gave in to Hyojin’s worrying for once, taken them to the jazz bar, maybe rescued Changyoon from his terrible date. He’d only been trying to give Hyojin what he wanted, and he knows this restaurant is his favourite, but maybe he hadn’t seriously thought about the consequences, that they might be ruining a little bit of the peace Hyojin usually finds here. Hyojin’s so often the worrier, bickering constantly, opposing their ideas, but really he’s the softest. Even when Seungjoon and Minkyun brush things off, Hyojin remembers them- which Minkyun had learned the hard way, when he’d let slip a harmless anecdote about one of his more arrogant classmates and then spotted the thundery glare Hyojin sent him whenever they happened to cross paths. Having to correct a few thoughtless questions and ignoring a few quizzical stares doesn’t bother Minkyun in the least, but there’ll be no telling Hyojin that, and-
“Stop glowering,” Seungjoon says, “you’re scary.”
Hyojin flops back into the plush leather of the booth. “I’m not glowering.”
Minkyun grimaces. “Jin…”
“What? I’m not!”
“You look like you’re ready to start a fight.”
“I’m not going to start a fight, Seungjoon.”
“Really? You should tell your face that.”
“ I’m -”
The return of the waiter with their drinks cuts off the bickering, and they place their orders and surrender their menus before they’re left alone again. Minkyun sits in the silence for a second, and then can’t hold his laughter any longer.
“What?”
Minkyun giggles again, and twists his expression into a mockery of Hyojin’s dark glare, brows furrowing ridiculously, frowning so severely he looks more like a villainous cartoon character than the boy he’s trying to impersonate.
“I don’t look like that!” Hyojin cries, as Seungjoon erupts into giggles.
“You were making that face!” Minkyun laughs. “You’re scary!”
Hyojin glares, as Seungjoon hits him as he laughs, but he can’t quite fight off a smile, either, and he laughs at himself, relaxing further into Seungjoon’s side.
“I still can’t believe you thought Seungjoon would be the intimidating one,” Minkyun says, shaking his head, when the two of them have finally managed to calm their laughter.
Hyojin rolls his eyes. “It’s not my fault the two of you are cowards.”
But Seungjoon is laughing again, a spark in his dark eyes, and he jostles Hyojin’s shoulder with his own, smirking. “Come on, just admit it, you think I’m cool.”
“I don't-”
“You do .”
“I do not," Hyojin insists.
“You couldn’t stop talking about cool I was-”
“Ok, now you’re just being ridiculous.”
Minkyun, who'd heard the way both of them talk about the other all those months ago, when they were supposed to be competing, just smiles, and Seungjoon nods sarcastically. “Keep telling yourself that, Jin.”
Hyojin turns to him properly, brow raised, but Seungjoon is mercifully saved by the arrival of their food, and whatever cutting thing had been on Hyojin’s tongue is swallowed before it can be let loose.
“Enjoy your meal,” the waitress tells them, the same one that’d greeted them at the door, and Minkyun thanks her with a smile, and Seungjoon politely nods, and Hyojin tries very hard not to glower. It’s not his fault that she decides to stick around and be nosy, though.
“It’s nice to see friends celebrating together,” she says, and Hyojin sees the other two exchange a confused glance.
Would it be too much to correct her? Minkyun seems to be asking, and Seungjoon’s answering shake of the head seems to say Just leave it, this time .
The waitress laughs, catching their awkwardness and misinterpreting it with a giggle, lightly tapping her lips as if reprimanding herself. “Or maybe one of you is third wheeling?”
It sounds like a joke, but Seungjoon winces.
Hyojin calmly picks up his fork. “No,” he says, only slightly louder than necessary. “Nothing like that.”
Either the waitress has enough sense this time to understand, or Seungjoon’s prayers that she’ll drop the subject are heard, because she just smiles and leaves them.
Hyojin looks up from twirling his pasta around his fork, glancing at each of them in turn as if waiting for a reproach. The only answer he gets is Minkyun making the same stupid glowering face, and he scoffs and hits him, and they go back to their meal without mentioning it again.
It’s not as if it hasn’t happened before. There have been plenty of times when the three of them had been out together, at meals or cinema dates or events, that they’d noticed the glances, or someone had been bold enough to make similar jokes. They’d made a game out of it once, tallying up the times they were each thought of as the third wheel- Seungjoon, normally, the most laid back, and almost never Hyojin, who everyone always seems to think is part of the couple, even if they can't quite figure out with who- until there had been a few too many times of people thinking Minkyun was just tagging along, and Hyojin had put his foot down. People misunderstand and flirt or make jokes, or the few that do seem to pick up on the signals get too nosy, but it’s all happened before.
Dessert arrives and is taken away, with no new comments or jokes to correct. Seungjoon thinks they’ve all gotten over it, but can’t fight the urge to make the night a little better anyway, if he can, and can’t help but feel a little pleased with himself that the gifts he’d secretly picked are so relevant to right now.
“I was wondering whether maybe I should just give you these at home,” he starts slowly, trying not to mumble, trying not to be embarrassed as they both turn to him, their eyes following the motion of his arm as he rummages around in his jacket and pulls out two boxes. “But now seems like a good time.”
Hyojin holds up a lecturing finger, not picking up the box Seungjoon sets before him. “We said no gifts.”
“I know,” Seungjoon shrugs, “but we both knew Minkyun would break the rule anyway, so.”
Hyojin shakes his head, but Minkyun has already snatched the box up, and he gasps happily as he plucks out the contents inside, a thin silver band stamped with a typewriter-letter S on the front. He pulls it onto his wrist immediately, the metal shining in the dim lights of the restaurant, and Seungjoon glances at Hyojin’s glowering face and chuckles.
“Open yours.”
Hyojin frowns, but obeys, studying the little white cardboard box he’d been given before carefully opening the lid. His bracelet is much the same, though it's bronze instead of silver, and the letter stamped onto the front an M , this time. When he turns it over, he can see a matching S on the inside.
“I’ve got one too,” Seungjoon says, smiling as he sees Hyojin’s frown fading, and he brings out a gold band of his own from his pocket, with a H on the outside, and an M within. “See?” he slides it on, and holds his wrist up for Hyojin to see. “We match.” Then, more quietly, in a whisper, he adds, “No need to get jealous.”
For a moment, it looks like Hyojin’s going to argue, but then he just chuckles, and slides on the bracelet.
“Like it?”
Hyojin’s smile is almost shy, one of Seungjoon’s favourite smiles, and he doesn’t look up as he nods. “I love it.”
Seungjoon smiles, feeling Minkyun scoot closer to his side. Then he says, “Good. Now when the waiter comes with the bill, both of you kiss me on the cheek at the same time, his face is gonna be hilarious.”
Hyojin rolls his eyes, and Minkyun giggles. Seungjoon relaxes back into the booth, and sighs with contentment.