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"Jun-ah, can you please –" Wonwoo started, almost halfway out of his seat before remembering that his friend was on that end of the table.
Jun elbowed Seungkwan and shoved the container of green onions into his hand. "Pass it on," he said through a mouthful of cold beef.
Seungkwan wrinkled his nose in disgust, "close your mouth, hyung." He looked down at the box in his hand and looked up. He wasn't the only one who was lost, 11 other faces were expressing confusion in different degrees.
Wonwoo made an impatient noise and Seungkwan passed the green onions to him through Joshua, Seokmin and Seungcheol.
"How," Hansol swallowed his bite, "how did you know he was asking for green onions?"
Jun pushed his bowl of instant rice towards Jihoon, "huh?"
"Wonwoo hyung. How did you know he wanted –"
"He always has them with beef stew," Jun explained slowly like he was talking to kids.
Like it was common for them to know what side dish one member ate with a specific food. In general, sure, but one specific type of broth or stew? It was hard to keep track of one's own preference for side dishes with main courses at times, so this raised a few brows.
"Right…" Jeonghan had that look on his face, which showed that he was thinking of something else simultaneously no matter how much he was listening to the conversation.
Soonyoung probed nonetheless, "why – no, how do you know that?"
Wonwoo raised an unimpressed brow, "are you telling me that you don't know that about me?"
"Yes," he made an exasperated sound. "How would I?!"
"Dear diary," Wonwoo draped an arm across his forehead, "today I lost a dear friend."
For all his poised behaviour, he could be quite dramatic when the situation arose.
"Oh, shut up."
"Sometimes, I hear his annoying voice –"
"You're a dead man, Jeon Wonwoo."
And like that the conversation was sidetracked. But not forgotten.
****
After that one dinner, Jeonghan was trying to pry the news out of their mouths, but nothing gave. With their tight schedules and behaviour no different than usual, he knew he had to do something about all those shy glances and furtive grins when they thought they were being reticent. He only got his opportunity almost 3 weeks after that group dinner.
“Family meeting!” Jeonghan announced when they were relieved of the pair, who had lost in that day’s game of cleaning the practice room and unfortunately for them they were thus nominated to go grocery shopping as well.
“What’s wrong?” Seungcheol sat up, wide-awake, abandoning his phone.
“We need to do something,” Jeonghan stressed, “about Wonu and Junnie.”
“Did they fight?” He furrowed his brow, trying to recall if there was any hostility between them, but all he could remember was Jun hanging off of Wonwoo’s shoulders, who made no move to remove the koala from his body.
“No,” Jisoo interjected, through a mouthful of yoghurt, “it’s rather the lack thereof.”
The family meeting alert got everyone out into the living room, interest piqued at the sudden call, that too without complete attendance.
“Well?” Seungkwan prompted, “what gives?”
But before Jeonghan could open his mouth, he was interrupted.
“Junnie just called, what’s empty in the pantry?” Soonyoung hollered from the bathroom while washing his face.
“Ask him to get 3 family packs of that new ramen, I’ve heard it's good. Oh and! Ask him to buy popsicles, I’ve been dying for one,” Mingyu said excitedly, he could burn the calories off at the gym later.
“I want those tea cakes. Tell him it’s the gluten-free one!” Minghao added.
“That’s all?”
“Mhm.”
Jeonghan clasped his hands. “I’m sure I’m not the only one noticing Wonwoo and Junnie.”
“They are our teammates, it’d be weird not to,” Hansol muttered, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He had stayed up all night improvising lyrics and now he was hearing ridiculous things about noticing his members – whom he had lived with for so many years.
Jeonghan gave him a side-eye. “I mean the weird air between them.”
Everyone pondered for a minute; they had all come in between something with the pair, never something major (god forbid and prevent) but usually small domestic situations that just made your heart tender.
They all begrudgingly muttered a yes. Yoon Jeonghan was almost always right, it was kind of creepy.
“So we try to get it out of them,” he sat back against the sofa, “not harshly of course, just try to coax answers out of them.”
“They’ll tell us when they want to, hyung,” Seokmin tried, diplomatically.
“But what if they aren’t together,” Chan pointed out, “then we’ll just make things awkward.”
An agreeable silence fell on them, they didn’t want to make things go sour. They only wanted to help.
“We don’t insinuate that they’re together. We just observe,” Jihoon looked like he was mulling on that thought. “Maybe if you catch them, you know, just… ask nicely. Pretend to be surprised, be gentle.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Seungcheol grinned. Soonyoung’s eyes disappeared into his thin slits, overjoyed at the prospect of getting to tease his fellow 96z.
“This is so cute,” Mingyu cooed, “it’s also going to be fun. Something to look forward to when we get up at 6 tomorrow.” At that reminder, their faces wilted - it was a tiring schedule no matter how long it had been.
“What are you saying? You only ever get up 30 minutes after we’re supposed to,” Seungkwan retorted.
And they dissolved into banter.
“Are they… lost?” Seokmin looked up from the vocal notes that he was memorizing. Soonyoung continued to monitor a performance for inspiration for their comeback. “Hyung? It’s almost past an hour and a half.”
“Oh?” he peered at the clock, “I don’t know which convenience store –”
The lock turned and the door opened, Junhui toed the door open with his foot, hands weighed by three bags.
"I'm home~"
"Where's Wonu?" Soonyoung looked up from the screen.
"He went back to the office, left a few papers there I think."
They frowned. Junhui wouldn’t let someone be for a second, much less Wonwoo – considering the new revelation they had formed. “Alone?”
“My legs were paining, so he told me to carry on,” Junhui removed his shoes haphazardly.
Jisoo came out of the shower, towelling his hair. "Oh hey, what took so long?"
"We stopped by that Chinese store too, to buy the spiciest bamboo shoots they have. It's usually almost always sold out, so we dropped by just to check," Jun moved to place the bags on the countertop, heading to the washroom to shower. He felt icky after practice and then cleaning-duty and then chores as well.
Joshua and Seokmin just shrugged.
"That took so long?" Soonyoung winked at them. Trust me, he mouthed. "It's almost been 2 hours since you went grocery shopping. I'm sure the Chinese store isn't all that far from the mart."
"Ate on the way back," Jun clarified. “He was getting cranky,” a silent snicker.
Aha. They all shared a smirk.
“What just the two of you? Like a date?” Joshua wiggled his fingers, disguising his cunning question to sound teasing, the clever man. Jeonghan was really rubbing off on him. He'd be proud.
But Junhui just laughed. His loud, adorable laugh was the only reply they got.
And now they were perplexed.
****
The next time this happened was on a day off.
Minghao was making tea for Wonwoo, in exchange for a little bit of help on his average Japanese.
The kitchen was noisy. The otherwise clamouring of Mingyu was replaced by three chattering voices. Minghao quickly sought Chan, Vernon and Jun busying themselves in the kitchen.
"Ow!" Jun's clumsiness came in various ways. Sometimes he'd zone out and fumble on his words in interviews, sometimes he'd trip ungracefully on flat land. This time it was a simple punctuation of pain, indicating no major event.
Wonwoo looked up from the sentence he was translating, "he must've cut himself with that butcher knife he always insists on using."
Minghao clambered to grasp the threads but made sure to remain subtle. "What butcher knife?"
"Another one of his recent purchases," he elaborated. "Uses it all the time now to prove that it isn't useless."
"How did you –"
Chan came running into the living room, "Jun hyung cut himself with that big knife. It's so sharp! I think he hasn't had it for long..."
Minghao sat back, surprised. He had taken it for a possibility, not a prediction.
"Where's the first aid kit when you need it?" The youngest kept rummaging through the drawer, searching for the white box that was a staple necessity in their household with Mingyu and Junhui’s combined clumsiness.
Wonwoo pushed himself up from the ground, carefully placing Minghao's precious teacup on the coffee table. "It's in the other cabinet."
And in that frozen moment of shock and bewilderment, Wonwoo pulled out the first aid kit, barely looking through said cabinet and slid into the kitchen.
Minghao and Chan followed wordlessly, entering the open kitchenette where Junhui was running his finger under cold water, hissing when the water hit the sliced finger causing it to sting, and Vernon was watching over some sort of soup.
Wonwoo slipped behind Junhui, turning the man by his shoulders and frowning at the cut. He hadn't expected it to be deep when he said 'cut', but here they were. Junhui stepped away from the sink and placed his left palm into Wonwoo's not yet outstretched left hand, though his right was pulling the sticky bandage from the paper.
Chan and Minghao exchanged amused looks at Wonwoo bandaging Junhui's finger like it was a practised routine. Sure they both stayed at home more often than most and thus were the most likely to stick together, but this looked like a dance. One person was sure of the other's movements long enough to know which arm goes where before the event happened.
"Here, let me just." He stuck it onto the clean wound carefully, precisely.
"Thanks," Junhui smiled quietly.
They had to look away, even though there was nothing special about the scene. Chan and Minghao couldn't explain why they felt like an intrusion. Vernon was just glad the food didn't have any blood in it, he was starving.
***
The next time they all sat together was after filming an episode of Going Seventeen. They had come a long way since the show first aired, Jihoon mused. The thirteen of them gathered under the large rented Hanok after the shooting had commenced. They sat there, each doing their own thing.
Jihoon reclined against the wooden beams, watching over his members.
Soonyoung and Jeonghan were taking selfies in the middle of the courtyard to maximise the view of the traditional house in the picture. The leader was sprawled on his back, enjoying the crisp zephyr that had started to lift the leaves off of the ground. Seokmin and Joshua were doing something, laughing. Minghao was taking pictures of Mingyu. Hansol had his earphones plugged in and Seungkwan was bickering with Chan. Everyone was decompressing in their own way after the exciting shoot that had just heralded.
That’s when he remembered, I’m in a 13 member group.
His eyes wandered around before landing on the pair he had missed earlier. They were seated a little farther than the rest, under the shade of the inner yard.
Jihoon was unable to put a finger on what it was, but it felt right to see them in their separate bubble. They were both operating in their own spaces. Junhui was likely to be reading something on his phone (he preferred reading online to paperback because ‘books are bulky!’) while chewing on some kind of gummy confectionery and Wonwoo was playing some game, given his intense expression. They were each doing their own thing, a little away from the rest, but Jihoon thought that it would have been weird if it wasn’t them functioning as a set. Sure they weren’t always attached at the hip, but they always wound up together in the end.
It was eerie.
Jihoon continued to keep a muted look on them, not faltering when Soonyoung bounded up to him about his newest discovery – “Tiger cubs are born blind, Jihoon, isn’t that so sad!”, not wavering his careful gaze when Mingyu sulked about something to him. Not even when he took selfies with Seungkwan and Seokmin.
His eyes were drawn back to them.
They still hadn’t shifted from their peaceful environment – which Jihoon envied (there was only so much he could indulge in about tiger cubs. Honestly, Soonyoung!) – but they were leaning into each other now.
Wonwoo had assumed a fetal pose in Jun’s lap, head facing his torso. Jihoon tried to rationalize it – the sun would glare into his phone if he was turned the other way, making it impossible to play his game conveniently, especially with his already weak vision. But the more romantic part of him, the one he drew his musical inspiration from, wondered if Wonwoo was just looking for more bodily contact with Junhui’s warm body.
But some part of him felt light, watching them in their unassuming habitat.
It felt right.
***
Under no perceptive eye were they able to induce the two cat-like boys to share. They were their usual selves, with no reaction betraying their apparent relationship.
But it all winded down to the one fateful night when Junhui and Minghao were scheduled for some promo in China.
Despite their best efforts previously, the boys didn't notice Wonwoo's sad pout watching Junhui leave. They had their backs turned when Junhui pressed a silent kiss to his mouth. The two of them weren't even being discreet about it.
The schedule lasted for a week and though everyone saw Wonwoo act normal, much to their disappointment – they had expected maybe a little bit whining or lethargy, he was still the slightest bit mopey. And while they could guess why – they had no idea how to get him to admit that it was because of Jun's absence.
Seungkwan, Jeonghan and Soonyoung tried to tease an answer out of him. Seungcheol, Jisoo and Hansol were more attentive and tried to get him to open up gently. Seokmin, Chan and Mingyu were trying the 'share and then get him to talk' type of approach. Jihoon just sat back and watched the exchange, trusting the cat (or cats) to be let out of the bag (or closet) in its own time.
It was movie night when it finally happened. Wonwoo was entrusted with the responsibility of making the popcorn (“Don’t let Hoshi hyung near the microwave, he’ll burn it to a crisp. Again!” Mingyu had pleaded) and returned to the living room with four massive bags of the staple movie night necessity.
Just as he walked into the room, everyone already seated comfortably – waiting for him before they started the comedy movie that they had picked out, the phone in his back pocket started ringing. The loud ringtone shifted their attention to the rapper.
He turned helplessly to Jihoon, who rolled his eyes and accepted the call, immediately putting it on speaker when he saw 'Junnie' as the caller ID. He waved his hands at the rest of them from behind Wonwoo.
They got the signal pretty quick, elbows being rammed into each other's stomachs was an effective method of communicating, and all eyes concentrated on the phone in the vocal-unit leader's hand.
"Hello?" Wonwoo was distributing the popcorn and Jihoon trailed behind him.
"Hey, babe!" Junhui's cheerful voice piped from the other end.
Jihoon almost dropped the phone.
While he did presume them to be together, he had suspected something akin to a small inkling of a flower bud, a still unravelling relationship. He had, for all his astuteness, not expected a blossom with unfurled petals, big and beautiful and alive. Roots already in the foundation, deep and spreading wide.
His comically large eyes were mirrored in every other member's face. Babe?!
On the other end, they heard a loud crash followed by an indignant squawk. Minghao was firing questions rapidly at Junhui in Mandarin, his demure voice abandoned for a more assertive tone of interrogation.
"Close your mouth, Minghao,” Jun said pleasantly, sounding absolutely undeterred for someone who'd just dropped the biggest bomb. “Anyways, I just wanted to know if you want Mahua, those twisty doughnuts, from here. You always steal my share," it wasn't even accusatory. If anything, he sounded fond. Really, how had they not noticed before.
The boys still hadn’t recovered from the previous blow. They were drilling their eyes at the back of Wonwoo's head – who didn't bat an eye or turn around to gauge their reactions.
"That would be absolutely amazing," Wonwoo nodded eagerly, still tipping popcorn into the 4th bowl.
Minghao's voice provided a slight buffer for them to collect themselves, Junhui pausing to tell the younger Chinese male to kindly shut up, because "Jesus Minghao, give me a second with my boyfriend, damn".
And there they went spiralling down again.
Junhui's voice came back through the speaker, the background din stopping with a loud huff, "Alright, I'll get it for you."
"Have a safe flight, love."
It was sappy, there was no doubt about that, but they felt somewhat proud of witnessing the exchange. Their wide-open jaws hadn't lifted from the ground yet – however happy they were for the two boys, there was no shortage of complete astonishment and muteness in the room.
"Mhm," Junhui's smile was audible even in that silent hum. "Bye! Tell the others I said hi."
As soon as he said that, they heard Minghao's barely suppressed yell, after his short-lived probation, “Wen Junhui, what the hell!” The last thing they heard was Junhui's loud snort.
Jihoon cut the call, still dazed.
Jeonghan and Soonyoung looked extremely affronted, "Boyfriend?!"
Every other person in the room quickly jumped in, adding their exclamations of being betrayed and taking full offence to the secrecy.
"How could you hide it from me!" Mingyu gasped, holding his chest.
Seungkwan pretended to faint on Seokmin, "were you together all this while?!"
Seungcheol and Jisoo could only form shocked but satisfied grins and a thumbs up of approval. As did the others, they were grinning in an almost manic way.
The tirade of questions only ceased when Wonwoo finally finished his task, painstakingly slowly in their opinion, and looked up, dark eyes glinting with mischief and mirth. He had hidden his biggest secret in plain sight – and Wen Junhui was a big man. But honestly, they weren't even hiding it.
"When?" Jihoon managed weakly.
But Wonwoo only laughed, his silent laugh where his nose scrunched and his glasses rode up his nose.
That was the only reply they got.