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The shirt Changmin is wearing is large, white with some sort of abstract graphic printed on the front of it, draping off of his frame in a way that swallows his upper body and makes him look almost formless. It flows loosely on him as he moves through the choreography they’re practicing and billows like a freshly washed sheet. Juyeon only pays close attention to it because he’s pretty sure that’s his shirt that Changmin is wearing. It’s not uncommon for all of them to share clothes – they do their laundry essentially at the same time, and items get mixed up more often than not. People just usually ask first before borrowing things.
Juyeon vaguely remembers that shirt, which is why he isn’t really sure it belongs to him; it must’ve been a while since he last wore it. A barely there flash of memory jumps to the forefront of his brain – him shedding the article of clothing one night before collapsing into bed with Changmin – but it goes as quickly as it comes when Changmin calls out to the group that their break is over, and he blinks to clear his mind. It only slightly works. They all fall into formation again, the music starting and thrumming through his veins as his feet move seemingly on their own accord. They’ve been practicing for four straight hours now and the steps are practically burned into his brain. The rest of the members are all great dancers, professional performers, which is why they all work so well as a group. But Juyeon has always been amazed at how Changmin keeps the memory of all those steps in his head, the closest thing to perfection and able to point out any mistakes the rest of them might be making. He’s already a whirlwind to deal with outside of their idol activities, but dance instructor Changmin is a force to be reckoned with – sharp steps and even sharper eyes, the aura of a leader surrounding him so strongly it’s enough to rival the title that Sangyeon carries.
He’s being kind of lenient today, Juyeon is noticing. He let them take two more breaks than usual and get water twice in the span of an hour, which is generous. He guesses that it’s because even Changmin has had a long day, as they all have; filming in the morning with a short break for lunch before their rehearsals. They run through the number a few more times before calling it quits, a few members slumping down onto the floor and taking residence there.
Eric sidles up to his side and rests his head on Juyeon’s shoulder, the younger going practically boneless against him.
“He’s being nice today,” Eric says, low so that only the two of them can hear. “What did you do?”
Juyeon doesn’t get it. Why is Eric asking him? “Huh?”
“What did you say to Changmin hyung before we started practicing? He’s like, in a really good mood.” Juyeon doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary about his friend when he looks over to where Changmin and Chanhee are sitting – he’s smiling, as always, tired but no less bright, his bangs plastered to his forehead with sweat and dimples creasing on his shiny face when he laughs at something Chanhee says. He tips his head back to take a swig of water and Juyeon’s eyes follow the long line of his neck, throat bobbing when he swallows– “Juyeon hyung.”
“Huh?” Maybe Juyeon needs to start reading before bed again, just to expand his vocabulary a little bit.
Eric follows his line of vision and looks back at Juyeon again, slightly rolling his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Oh I see.”
But before Juyeon can ask any more about it Eric slinks away, latching onto Sunwoo’s back, the two of them making lots of unnecessary noise. He can’t recall anything special that happened before they all clamored into the practice room after lunch – he sat next to Changmin while they ate, the two of them talking and laughing quietly to themselves, but that happened often enough. He did share his slice of strawberry cake afterward with Changmin though, his round cheeks stuffed full of the spongy dessert and he looked so cute Juyeon couldn’t help but to reach out and pinch. Changmin had batted him away playfully with his eyes shining, shoving a strawberry covered with whipped cream onto Juyeon’s cheek in retaliation. He gazes over at Changmin now, who looks up at the right time and meets eyes with him – giving Juyeon a tilt of the head and a lopsided smile, which unbeknownst to anyone else, is Juyeon’s favorite. Under the practice room lights his eyes are shining like they did earlier, twinkling with something almost akin to a secret, like he knows something Juyeon doesn’t. The taller boy smiles back a little, just a quirk of his mouth, but it makes Changmin beam in response.
Yeah, Juyeon thinks, his heart fluttering. It was probably the cake.
-
Juyeon is waiting for his turn to shower when he sees Changmin again. They all piled into the van, tired and sufficiently worked after their dance practice, everyone rushing toward the bathroom at once when they got back to the dorm. As if they don’t usually have an order for doing these things. Shower time always goes according to who takes the least amount of time, and Sangyeon automatically always gets the hot water first. Luckily, Juyeon’s position in line is almost always near the front.
He scrolls on his phone aimlessly in the living room, bouncing his knee up and down and listening to the soft sounds of idle chatter and the water running in the bathroom. He doesn’t notice Changmin sitting next to him at first until he feels the couch dip next to him, the smell of a familiar body wash filling his senses.
“Hey.”
Juyeon pockets his phone and turns towards Changmin, taking in his freshly washed hair and flushed cheeks from the heat. Absently he registers that Changmin already had his turn, so Juyeon should be up next. “Hi.”
“Are you going out with the others?” Changmin’s eyes have always been so big and round, sparkling and brimming with glitter, captivating. Juyeon couldn’t look away even if he wanted to – and he’s not sure that he really does. “Hyunjae hyung said they’re gonna go pick up dinner.”
Juyeon purses his lips. “Probably not. I’m kinda tired.”
Apparently, that’s the answer Changmin is looking for. He perks up. “Wanna watch a movie?” The last time Juyeon agreed to a movie they’d watched The Exorcist, at Changmin’s request of course. The younger senses Juyeon’s apprehension, moving closer and putting his chin on Juyeon’s shoulder. “Come on. I’ll even let you pick what we watch.” It’s not doing Juyeon any favors having Changmin this close to him. From here he can see how his eyelashes fan out, the beauty mark below his lip, the way his dimples threaten to crease even when his face is still.
He makes the mistake of letting his gaze drop, paying attention to the fullness of Changmin’s bottom lip and how pink his mouth is, stretching over his teeth slightly into a smile. “Or we could do something else, if that’s what you want.”
Juyeon blinks, cheeks flushing hot. “What? No, I was just—“
“Juyeon-ah, your turn!” Younghoon calls from the end of the hall and he practically springs up to get out from under Changmin’s gaze. He clutches his towel and clothes tightly in his hand and shuts the bathroom door behind him. He realizes belatedly that he never answered about the movie, which in Changmin language, means that he accepted.
After taking his time in the shower (an extra two minutes) he barely makes it out before Chanhee is knocking at the door, telling him to hurry up and get out. He pads down the hall to Changmin’s room, opening the door to see the other setting up his laptop on the desk beside his bed. He looks slightly surprised to see Juyeon standing there as if he didn’t think he was really going to show up.
“Did you think about what you wanted to watch?” Changmin inquires while fiddling with a cable on the side of his computer. And Juyeon knows him so well, knows that he’s trying to act so nonchalant about the whole thing, but he knows that Changmin really wants him there.
“It doesn’t matter,” Juyeon says and ducks low to get underneath the top of the bunk bed, settling onto Changmin’s mattress and laying on his front. “Whatever you want to watch is good.”
Changmin snorts. “You’re only saying that because you know you’re gonna fall asleep on me.”
“Not true!”
The movie starts to play and Changmin adjusts the volume before taking his place next to Juyeon, the two of them side by side propped up on their forearms as the film plays. Juyeon vaguely registers the noise of the others heading out to grab dinner, Hyunjae and Eric’s laughter carrying through the hallway before fading out to quiet as they exit. He knows Chanhee decided not to go, probably to spend more time with Younghoon – not that he’d ever admit to that – and Sunwoo stuck behind to finish up some schoolwork. So they’re not completely alone, but alone enough.
Enough for Changmin to wait at least five minutes to make sure everyone is actually gone and that no one is going to walk in on them before he rolls onto his side, grabbing Juyeon’s chin with his hand and pulling him close to join their mouths. Juyeon emits a pleased little sound of surprise, trying to keep up with Changmin’s insistent kisses as they come. His mouth is plush and warm, tongue sliding to lick into Juyeon’s mouth as he kisses him hot and open.
Juyeon wasn’t really sure how this night was gonna go — truthfully he never is, when it comes to Changmin — but he can’t say he’s complaining.
“You know,” he starts, sliding a big hand up the back of Changmin’s t-shirt onto his warm skin, making him shiver, “if you wanted to fuck, you could’ve just said that.”
Changmin huffs a laugh into Juyeon’s neck, biting down a little in retaliation and making Juyeon gasp. Changmin is a biter by nature anyway, always sinking his teeth into the nearest shoulder or arm of whomever is standing closest to him, but in this context it always makes Juyeon’s blood rush white hot.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Juyeon’s eyelids flutter when he feels Changmin’s tongue tracing the outer shell of his ear. “But if you want to–“
“We can’t. There’s – we’re not –“ he’s trying to say that they’re not completely by themselves, the risk of someone barging in is too high, and that the others will be back with food soon enough. He can’t get it out though because he’s too focused on the way Changmin’s slender fingers run all over him, tugging at the waistband of his shorts before dipping in just slightly.
“Sorry, what? Were you saying something?”
“Fuck you,”
Changmin giggles, high and sweet. “You just said we couldn’t.”
Juyeon groans. “You’re so annoying.”
“You love me.”
And that’s — that’s true, Juyeon knows, but Changmin doesn’t. It’s not something they’ve talked about aloud, nothing Juyeon has ever even dared to voice into the open air. It’s hard enough holding it in on a daily basis whenever Changmin does something as mundane as smiling or dancing or just breathing. It’s hard enough even like this, tangled together with Changmin’s lips resting against his collarbone — holding each other and having his hands all over Changmin but it doesn’t really mean anything to him. They’ve been doing this – this thing that Juyeon doesn’t even know how it came about, sneaking into each other’s rooms some nights, sneaking touches and kisses in between breaks at rehearsals and practices and recording sessions. He doesn’t really know when it started meaning so much to him. So Juyeon doesn’t respond, just presses a kiss to the corner of Changmin’s mouth, his chin, his cheek where his dimple lives.
“I’m too tired to do anything, anyway,” Changmin relents. The dark circles under his eyes are less prevalent during the day under makeup, but Juyeon knows how exhausted he is. They all are. He runs his thumb gently over the delicate skin under Changmin’s bottom lash line and rests his hand there, holding his face. Changmin brings a small palm to cover Juyeon’s big one and leans into the touch.
Juyeon is half asleep by the time the other members get back, Changmin already fallen to slumber with his head pillowed on Juyeon’s chest and the credits of the movie start to roll. He’ll get them up in a minute — but for now he just keeps his hand the small of Changmin’s back, drawing circles with his fingers under the soft material of his shirt — and Juyeon notices again that it’s another one of his.
He breathes in the clean and sharp scent of Changmin’s hair, and realizes that he’s been using Juyeon’s body wash too. The commotion in the hallway announcing that it’s time to eat rouses them both, and Juyeon hopes that Changmin can’t feel his heart beating a touch faster as he fully wakes.
-
It doesn’t stop with the shirts, though.
Juyeon notices in the weeks that have recently passed he’s gotten the borrowed items back, but more have gone missing. A blue pullover that he likes to wear during downtime at the dorm, a couple of hoodies he’s been gravitating towards recently, another one of his black t shirts – all vanish right under his nose.
“Have you seen my sweatshirt?” Juyeon calls to Younghoon while he’s rummaging through his drawer, a bit frantically because they’re all trying to get going for their schedule for the day. “The orange one. I had it on the other day.”
“I don’t think so,” the older responds, shouldering his bag. “Youngjae did laundry last night, maybe he knows. You can ask him.” Juyeon grabs his own bag and prepares to seek out Eric, opening the door to their room and immediately almost barreling into Changmin.
“Whoa. You okay?”
Juyeon takes in Changmin’s form slowly, starting at his worn sneakers that he always takes to dance practice, his slightly baggy jeans, and his orange sweatshirt. Juyeon’s orange sweatshirt.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He is not fine. Changmin won’t stop wearing his clothes, and it’s putting weird ideas in Juyeon’s brain — ideas of the two of them being more than they are, of Changmin wanting to wear Juyeon’s clothes because he wants to be closer to him, because he likes him back. He pushes it to the back of his mind hoping to stuff all of his feelings down, but it lingers, hanging over him like a menacing cloud threatening at any point to start pouring down rain.
He lets it go until they have a lull in the day for a few hours and they all decide to get lunch, sitting side by side crammed at a restaurant table that is most definitely not big enough for eleven people. He ends up sandwiched with Changmin on his left and Sunwoo on his right, the younger talking to Eric on his other side and Juyeon turns.
“That’s mine,” he blurts stupidly. That’s not what he wanted to say. Changmin raises a brow, slightly hidden behind the faux frames he has on. Juyeon tries again. “The sweater, I mean.”
“Oh,” Changmin looks down at it, as if he didn’t remember what he was wearing. “Yeah, it is. Is that...do you want it back?”
“No,” Juyeon says quickly. “No, I was just – I was just saying. You can keep it, if you want.”
Changmin cracks a smile at Juyeon’s haste backtrack, amusement sparkling all over his face. “I’ll just keep borrowing it from you.” he says decisively. He doesn’t say much else, just turns away to his other side once their food arrives, plates being passed around and food being served between them all. Juyeon feels his cheeks prickle ever so slightly with heat and he hopes the restaurant lighting is bad enough that no one can see him turning pink. He looks up and meets eyes with Chanhee across the table, the blonde giving him a look while he tries to hold back a smile – and he guesses the lighting isn’t doing him any favors. He just doesn’t know why Changmin insists so much on borrowing his clothes – if all he wanted was the oversized look he could easily just take things from Younghoon’s closet, and Juyeon knows he doesn’t dress particularly badly but if Changmin cared about wearing things that were more on the stylish side he could just share with Chanhee.
After lunch they don’t have much break time left, just a little over an hour, so the majority of the group heads back to the company building to laze around before their schedule drags them all back to work. Juyeon hangs behind to grab ice cream before going back and Changmin tags along with him. They nibble at their scoops and walk in silence back to their building in comfortable silence.
His eyes pull towards Changmin again, to the way the sleeves of the sweatshirt bunch at his wrists because it’s a bit too much fabric for him towards the end, how the neckline slides down slightly exposing more of his neck and a little bit of his shoulder – and maybe Juyeon doesn’t know why Changmin is taking such a liking to his clothes, but he certainly is taking a liking to seeing Changmin in them.
(In them, and out of them – Juyeon convinces Younghoon to stay with Chanhee in his room that night so he can have Changmin all to himself, holding tightly onto his slender waist where Changmin sits on his lap, hot and heavy and pressing kisses onto his skin. Changmin sits back from where he’s making a mark onto the base of Juyeon’s neck and goes to pull the sweatshirt over his head, but Juyeon stops him, silently telling him that he wants Changmin to keep it on. And he does for the entire time they roll around all over Juyeon’s sheets, his skin flushed and warm under the material where Juyeon’s fingertips are digging hard enough to bruise. Changmin breathes out Juyeon’s name in gentle tones and Juyeon’s ears fill with the sound of his delicate voice, his head echoing thoughts of mine mine mine.)
-
“Can I borrow that?”
Changmin’s voice lilts in from the doorway and Juyeon turns from where he’s pulling his shirt over his head. He blinks. “The shirt?”
“Yeah.”
“The shirt that I am literally halfway to putting on right now,” Juyeon says, pulling it the rest of the way down, running a hand through his hair. Changmin looks at him appraisingly, eyes twinkling.
“When you’re done with it,” he steps closer to Juyeon, eyes trained on his figure. “I want to borrow it.” This shirt isn’t anything special, plain gray and pretty fitted on Juyeon so he can’t imagine it’ll look that much different on Changmin.
He wants to make a joke of some sort – try to lighten the feeling of his heart beating loud and semi-frantic in his chest as it does whenever Changmin gets this close – but instead he says, “why do you always take my clothes?” Again, not what he meant to say. But it’s already out there now, so he keeps going. “It doesn’t bother me, or anything. I’m just curious.”
Changmin shrugs but he’s not looking directly at Juyeon anymore, more focused on the wall off to his left, digging the toe of his sock into the carpet which Juyeon recognizes as a nervous habit. “I dunno. They’re just comfortable.”
There’s a lot that he’s not saying, Juyeon knows. Despite being the more emotionally attuned one of the two of them, Changmin has most often always been closed off from others and won’t share anything unless he really wants to. But Juyeon is a little tired of not knowing, and admittedly he’s getting a bit desperate, so he helps Changmin out.
“I like it when you do,” he takes Changmin into his arms by the waist. He takes pleasure in seeing the reddening of Changmin’s ears a little bit, the phantom sensation of his heart beating a little bit faster behind his ribcage. “I like you.”
And Changmin melts into Juyeon’s front with a sigh, a pleased little sound that makes the taller man smile. “I like wearing them for you,” he murmurs shyly, and the words make something in Juyeon’s body flare up, sinking in and clutching tight. “I like wearing them because they’re yours.” It’s such a Changmin way of going about the whole thing, Juyeon couldn’t have expected anything different, but he also couldn’t be more satisfied with the answer.
Juyeon hears Sangyeon calling for everyone from down the hallway, but he’s too busy riding the high of feeling elated, like a balloon that’s escaped its bunch and floated away in the wind. He takes Changmin’s face in one of his hands to meet his, sealing their lips together chastely before Changmin deepens it, draping his wrists over Juyeon’s shoulders. He pulls away to nuzzle his face in the side of Juyeon’s neck, fitting perfectly as if he belongs there. Changmin leans up to whisper along the shell of Juyeon’s ear, soft and sweet.
“I like you, too.”