Chapter Text
[December 2020 - Gwanak-gu, Enhypen Dorm]
Heeseung wakes up to Jungwon’s screaming.
Now, this is a normal occurrence, considering he lives in a dorm with 6 other boys with limited adult supervision. (Technically, he’s the only adult among them, but Heeseung tries not to think too much about that fact) But it’s 6 o-clock in the morning and Jungwon has been screaming about 2 minutes longer than he usually does.
Heeseung rolls out of his bottom bunk, groaning as his joints pop, and stumbles over to Jungwon, who is desperately shaking Jongseong awake. Jongseong's head rolls from one side to the other, but his eyes remain closed, and his face peaceful. They need to leave for school soon.
Jungwon notices Heeseung approaching him and looks at him like this whole situation was his fault. “Heeseung-hyung… will you forgive me if I murder the love of your life?” Jungwon complains.
Heeseung shakes his head, still sleep-deprived so he ignores Jungwon's last comment. “I might have to murder him first if you guys keep waking me up like this.”
Heeseung promptly reaches down to Jongseong’s head and pops the earplugs out of his ear canals. Jungwon looks like he’s about to cry at the revelation that Jongseong was actually physically unable to hear him.
“JAY-HYUNG!” Jungwon bellows, and that’s enough to get Jongseong to open his eyes.
“Wuhh..?” Jongseong mumbles sleepily. His blonde hair falls messily over his eyes, and Heeseung still finds him adorable, even after all this time.
Heeseung and Jungwon each take an arm and drag him out of bed. Jungwon herds him through the door, Jongseong following blindly without his glasses. Heeseung takes this as an opportunity to crawl into Jongseong’s bed and resume his sleep there. He still has Jongseong’s earplugs in his hand, so he stuffs it into the pocket of his pajama pants.
He really doesn’t miss school. Waking up at 6 in the morning. Could not be him.
Jongseong looks really good in the Hanlim uniform though , Heeseung thinks absentmindedly. It's a perk to this early morning. A few minutes later, Jongseong goes back into their bedroom in said uniform to retrieve his cellphone and bag. He crouches down to his bunk, where Heeseung was laying, and he runs his hand through his hyung’s hair.
“I’ll be going now, hyung...” Jongseong whispers. And he places a chaste kiss on Heeseung’s cheek. Heeseung wraps his arms around Jongseong, breathing in his scent. On Jongseong’s neck, Heeseung taps his finger to his birthmark three times before letting him go.
I. Adore. You.
They’re quiet and careful, lest Sunoo, Jungwon and the others find out. They still haven’t told the others they were together.
Together, not dating . Heeseung remembers as Jongseong, Jungwon, and Sunoo leave. To be dating, you’d actually have to go out on dates. And they haven’t done that yet.
Not for lack of trying though, but their schedules have been so jam-packed with Given-Taken promotions that neither have had the time. Any free hours were usually spent passed-out on any soft surface they could find. And when they were conscious, they were just chilling in the dorms. They both preferred the comforts of the indoors, so most of their time together was spent just sitting in each other’s company, Heeseung gaming on their dining room table, or Jongseong cooking something in the kitchen. It’s nice. It’s horribly domestic of them. He feels giddy thinking about it, like they’re some old-married couple.
But still, it’s been 2-ish months since they’ve told each other of their feelings. Shouldn’t they be doing something about it by now ? Heeseung wonders nervously. He’s scared that if they don’t do something vaguely relationship-like, Jongseong will grow bored of him and things will end even before they get started.
It isn’t easy, though. They can’t be too loud about it, because they didn’t want the younger members to know. They’ve all had so much to deal with lately. And Jongseong was a horribly romantic and sentimental person, Heeseung felt like their outings couldn’t just be any old walk at Han River.
It needed to be special . Heeseung groans as he rolls over in Jongseong’s bed. He sucks at this, how can he pull off a perfect first date?
He buries his face in Jongseong’s pillow. It smells just like him, like sea salt and rain. He curls up in it and falls into a dreamless sleep.
[The day before - Enhypen dorm]
“Alright! The 30th weekly meeting of the HeeJay suffering club will now commence!” Sunghoon bangs a gavel onto their wooden dining table. Jungwon winces at the sound. He should not have let Sunghoon buy that. This table looked expensive.
He, Sunghoon, Sunoo, Jake, and Ni-ki were sitting around the table. Heeseung and Jay were out recording something for their upcoming mini-album, so they had around 2 hours for this so-called meeting.
Behind them, a small whiteboard hung on the wall, the only decoration hanging in their still-sparsely decorated dorm. There were some words written on it hastily:
HeeJay Meeting Agenda
- Sunoo’s title ~~ <3
- Betting pool standings
- ??? Help I can’t take this anymore
Jungwon wrote that third point.
“Ok first up, We all need to vote on Sunoo’s official position in the club. We’ve already discussed this in our last meetings, so let’s keep this brief.” Sunghoon says. Since Sunoo was the one who suggested his title, he wasn’t allowed to vote and the votes amongst the members kept getting split 2-2.
“I would like to iterate again why I think I deserve the title: Supreme Overlord...” Sunoo starts. “...I’ve literally walked into Heeseung and Jay having sex.”
“We’ve already established that it was just a massage…” Sunghoon sighs, pinching his nose bridge.
“What if they were just saying that!” Sunoo argues. “I’m sorry, but it’s a little hard to believe two people would look and sound like that willingly without it having some kind of hidden agenda.”
Jungwon nods. He voted for Sunoo to have the title last meeting because he saw what Sunoo walked into (or at least the aftermath of it) and it was scarring. But right now, he can’t help but feel this discussion was becoming pointless as neither Sunghoon nor Sunoo would budge on their stances.
“You can’t have a title higher than mine!” Sunghoon complains. “I literally made this club what it is. In fact, I should have two votes in this discussion and I vote to keep Sunoo’s title as just Kim Sunoo. ”
They bicker for a while on the logistics of that, as if this club was an actual legal entity that followed the rules of democracy. But Jungwon knows for a fact that Sunghoon’s club was anarchy in its truest form. He feels a headache already starting to form so he turns to Jake, the only mildly-neutral member of this party.
“Jake-hyung, if you switch your vote and end this stupid debate I’ll buy you ramen out of my allowance.” Jungwon whispers. Jake’s eyebrow raises as that.
“How much ramyeon are we talking about here?” Jake whispers back excitedly.
“3 packs a week.” Jungwon replies.
“Throw in 2 cans of spam and you got yourself a deal.” Jake grins. He voted for Sunoo not because he wanted him to get a title, but mostly because he found his other members cute when they were arguing. Sunghoon’s face got all red and he gestures wildly with his arms.
That was enough for Jungwon. “Ok! Let’s vote now please.” He claps his hands to grab everyone’s attention.
They end up all voting against Sunoo and that’s the end of that. Sunoo pouts.
“Ok next on the agenda…” Jake scans the whiteboard. “The betting pool!”
Jungwon pulls out his old backpack, the large, boxy one he used to bring to idol training. He stopped using it largely because the older members made fun of him for looking like a turtle while wearing it, but also because…
… it was filled to the brim with their betting pool money. Jungwon may have let things get out of hand.
“There were some new additions to the pool... '' Jungwon sifts through the wads of cash in the bag, tidily bound in rubber bands and labelled with post-its thanks to Sunoo, “Beomgyu-hyung bet 30,000 won on New Year’s Eve, Taehyun-hyung pitched in 45,000 won for Christmas, Sungdeuk-nim also bet on next year…” Jungwon prattles on.
“Wait. Did you say Sungdeuk-nim, as in our choreographer?” Sunoo asks in disbelief.
“Believe me, Sunoo-hyung, I wish it wasn’t true.” Jungwon holds the frankly, concerning amount of money Sungdeuk-nim bet on Heeseung and Jay’s getting-together date in his hands. Jungwon only hopes that one of their members would be the one to win the pool so he would at least know where all their hard-earned money went.
Jake had also finally bet on a date. A whopping 80,000 won had been added to the bag a few weeks ago, after he had to lay witness to Heeseung and Jay’s antics during their filming for Studio Choom, set to Jay’s next birthday.
“Guys… this bag is about to give up.” Jungwon warns the other members, when he struggles to zip the bag shut again from how full it is.
“I think we need to do something about this, fast. ” Jungwon adds.
“Agreed.” Ni-ki groans from where he had been laying his head on the table. “Did you guys see our member profile live? It’s like I wasn’t even there...” He whines. “And that was a month ago.”
Sunoo taps his finger to his chin. He’s smiling that all-knowing smile they’ve been privy to the past few months, like Kim Sunoo has got it all figured out.
“Let’s stage an intervention then. “Parent Trap” our team parents! “ Sunoo suggests cheerfully.
“The Parent Trap? Like Lindsay Lohan?” Jake asks. He’s watched that as a kid, and remembers being shocked that the actress was in fact, not a twin. It was mind-boggling.
“Are you suggesting we lock Heeseung-hyung and Jay in a room until they confess their feelings?” Sunghoon asks, grinning too. “Because I like that idea.”
Park Sunghoon is a menace, but they all knew that.
‘No, no… it needs to be more subtle. Let’s put them in a situation so romantic they have no choice but to confess to each other!” Sunoo exclaims.
“How are we going to do that?” Jungwon asks, very curious as to what Kim Sunoo’s fevered brain has cooked up this time.
Sunoo walks over to their whiteboard and wipes all the writing off in one swipe. In its place he writes:
THE PARENT TRAP - ENHA VERSION
“Step 1: Separate the Parents”
“Step 2: Make-over!!!”
“Step 3: Set the scene <3 ~~ ;)”
“Step 4: Reunite the parents at the date area”
“Step 5: ????”
“Step 6: REAP THE REWARDS”
Jungwon just blinks at the writing. Ni-ki raises his hand, like he was in a classroom.
“Yes, Ni-ki!” Sunoo gestures to him, calling him for recitation.
“I would like to know what happens in step 5.” Ni-ki asks.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen.” Sunoo answers sagely. “But this plan is fool-proof so my guess is that they’ll have a love confession in the pouring rain so beautiful that they end up screaming at each other from how in love they are.”
“...That sounds incredibly unrealistic.” Sunghoon deadpans
“Just trust me. This will work!” Sunoo insists.
Jungwon doesn’t have a better idea, to be honest. And he’s pretty sure he’s lost his bet anyway so getting Heeseung and Jay together as soon as possible would work wonders for his peace of mind.
If all else fails, he and Sunghoon could always lock them in a room until they confessed to one another.
“I vote that we do it.” Jungwon raises his hand.
“Me too.” Jake says next.
“Me three!” Ni-ki;s hand shoots up eagerly again. “I want to help set-up the date area!!”
Sunghoon sighs. “...Parent-Trap, Enhypen-version it is.”
Jungwon confiscates the gavel before he can bang it on their lovely kitchen table again.