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Yeonjun had never intended for ‘jagi’ to become a thing, he’d just run with it because he thought the reactions to it by MOA were hilarious and cute. He definitely hadn’t intended to have a sit down with Soobin, one of their managers and a PR person he’d never seen before in his life where they shook him down for details about his relationship with Wooyoung.
“Friends! We’re friends!” Yeonjun said, exasperated. “We’ve been friends for years!”
Even Soobin looked doubtful. Soobin! He’d never felt more betrayed.
Somewhere deep down there was fear too. There really wasn’t anything but friendship that waxed and waned according to how busy they were, but that didn’t mean Yeonjun didn't wish it could be more. It was just a wish though. A silly thought he played around with sometimes when he was alone in his room, thinking up what ifs and maybes. Imagining what his life could have been. He’d never even tried to make it a reality. When they were trainees, he hadn’t known what he wanted, and later, everything had become too complicated. He had too much to lose.
“Come on,” he continued, rolling his eyes. “I’ve called all of you darling at one point or another. Well, not you,” he added to the PR lady who inclined her head. “I just thought the reactions were funny and I wanted to see how long I could keep it going. It’s really not that serious.”
“Okay, but hyung,” Soobin looked earnestly at him. “You’d tell me if there was something I needed to know, right? I can’t protect you if I don’t know what I’m protecting you from.”
“Oh my god. Are you listening to me at all? I’m telling you--”
“Not just if it’s Wooyoung hyung,” Soobin interrupted.
“There isn’t anything for me to tell you about,” Yeonjun said firmly and tried hard to believe it. He wasn’t sure if his interrogation committee believed him, but at least they released him from their clutches with a firm admonishment from both manager and PR lady to tell them the moment he started dating anyone. Anyone at all.
He told Wooyoung about it later over a video call, exaggerating everything of course, making it funny. Wooyoung’s peels of laughter were very gratifying, even if what he was laughing at was the idea that he could possibly be dating Yeonjun. Yeonjun knew it was a ridiculous idea. He didn’t need it rubbed in, thanks. He played up his offence, knowing Wooyoung was expecting it. “Hey! You should be so lucky!”
“Me?” Wooyoung gasped, hand on his chest. “Me? Don’t you mean you?”
“I’m a catch and we both know it,” Yeonjun said serenely and smiled when Wooyoung giggled again. “Anyway, how are you doing? Really?”
“Climbing the walls, but otherwise fine. Seriously, I am so bored, you have no idea.”
Talking to Wooyoung was always fun, and right now it was reassuring too. At least Yeonjun was too busy to have the time to worry as much as he normally would have with his best friend in quarantine.
Time passed, Wooyoung got out of quarantine, they both filmed their Artist of the Month segments, and were encouraged to refer to each other for the publicity. It wasn’t a hardship, but it was a little weird. Still, it seemed to work. Yeonjun could admit that he’d been a little worried about it. You could never really be sure how that kind of thing would land, but he’d been getting thumbs up from marketing and protocol, so it seemed to have gone well.
Yeonjun stubbornly kept his game going with MOA. It was a point of pride now.
“What’ll they have to say to make you say it back?” Taehyun asked, curious. He was hanging over the side of the couch, quickly scrolling through Weverse while waiting for the shower.
Yeonjun shrugged. He didn’t really know. He hadn’t decided on anything yet. He put the remote down with a sigh as he gave up on finding a movie to watch.
“They’re trying really hard,” Taehyun said. He laughed and tilted his screen so Yeonjun could see it. “This is funny.”
It was a word play question again, where the solution was Yeonjun writing jagiya. It was pretty funny, but not the most inventive one he’d seen so far. Yeonjun was sure MOA could do better than this.
He was startled the first time a MOA shyly asked if she could call him jagiya. Did he mind? No, no, of course he didn’t! He made sure to make that absolutely clear before the fan call ended. He was waiting to be asked to reciprocate and maybe he would have, but she seemed to be very careful not to ask, so he didn’t.
The fifth or sixth time it happened, he had to go take a break to be overwhelmed with fondness and blink away tears. Huening came by to check on him and when he understood what was happening, he patted his shoulder gently while cackling. “Oh noona. The things you do to yourself.”
Yeonjun smacked him, but there was no force behind the smack. “Shush.”
Somehow Wooyoung and Yeonjun both got permission and were even encouraged to lean hard on their friendship after that. For all that Soobin proclaimed his innocence, Yeonjun suspected that he’d lobbied for it. Soobin was always braver acting for others than for himself. Wooyoung had never been shy about mentioning any of his friends, so Yeonjun imagined that there had been very little to discuss for him. Maybe someone somewhere had sighed a bit before nodding. But both their fans were amused by it, so what the hell. Why not do something he wanted to do anyway?
They kept the momentum going even to end of year stages. Yeonjun was a little overwhelmed by it. Happy, yes, but it had been a tough year. He felt like he’d barely had a break. So he was looking forward to seeing Wooyoung in person more.
The friendly kissing was more of a Wooyoung thing than a Yeonjun thing. Yeonjun favoured courtly hand kisses. But he didn’t exactly mind it when Wooyoung decided that apparently they were on cheek kissing terms now. He obediently tilted his head down so Wooyoung could reach, ignoring the cackling from various members in the background.
Wooyoung beamed up at him, satisfied. “Hello, jagiya. This is going to be fun.”
These collaboration stages were always difficult to get practice times for. But now the schedules had been hammered out, and barring any unforeseen events, a collaboration would happen.
Yeonjun always forgot just how easy Wooyoung was to be around. It was the best and the worst part about him. Yeonjun lowered every defence he had without even realising he’d done it and ended up staring like a fool at Wooyoung dancing, hearts visibly in his eyes. Beomgyu kicked him and Yeonjun remembered where he was. “I was, um,” Yeonjun said, searching desperately for something to say, “thinking. About my part. About the feelings I should embody. And stuff.”
Beomgyu raised his eyebrows. “Right.”
So, yeah, he’d probably never convince his group that he didn’t have a thing with Wooyoung, but as long as Wooyoung never had a conversation with any of them, that’d be fine, probably.
It was a plan which unfortunately hinged on both his group and Wooyoung losing their contact lists, but Yeonjun was an optimist. They were super busy! No time to chit chat!
“You should kiss me,” Wooyoung said. He put his beer down on the table and leaned back, leaving himself open for a ravishing, probably. They were hanging out in Yeonjun’s room, wanting some privacy, and not wanting to risk the outdoors just yet.
Yeonjun stared at him. “No,” he said. He wasn’t sure what Wooyoung was up to, but he was reasonably certain kissing was a bad idea, never mind anything else. “Kiss you? No.”
Wooyoung frowned. “Why not? I’m a great kisser. Actually, I’m great with my mouth in general. Want me to prove it to you?” He straightened up a little, reaching out, and Yeonjun scrambled back out of reach.
“No!” He blushed. This was his biggest flaw - he got flustered too easily.
Wooyoung pouted at him.
It wasn’t that Yeonjun didn’t want to. He would happily kiss Wooyoung if he thought it had any chance of ending well.
It was just that Wooyoung wore his heart on his sleeve and he loved easily, and if Wooyoung loved him like that, like something more than a friend, Yeonjun would know. Wooyoung would never shut up about it. So yes, Yeonjun wanted to say yes, but… he couldn’t.
Wooyoung kept asking for kisses every time they met, sometimes in front of their various members, none of whom reacted in any way. They were all too used to Wooyoung and his kisses. A peck on the cheek was definitely not what he was asking for though. Yeonjun had given him permission for those.
Wooyoung didn’t always wait for a yes, nor did he always ask, when it came to casual affection. In fact, he frequently ambushed his friends with a kiss, a hug or some friendly gnawing on their shoulders.
But actual kisses, mouths touching, deliberately, at length, all of that, was different. Even to someone as free with his affections as Wooyoung. Yeonjun was grateful for that.
“Is it childish of me?” Yeonjun wondered. He was going through the steps, just marking them for now, while Taehyun was ready with the camera to record for later monitoring.
“Probably,” Taehyun said. “You are, sometimes. It would help if I knew what you were talking about though,” he added.
“Wooyoung.”
“Ah.”
“What do you mean ‘Ah’?” Yeonjun paused in order to frown properly in Taehyun’s direction.
Taehyun did not look cowed. He looked up from whatever he was doing with the camera to shrug mildly in return. “I don’t mean anything, I just acknowledged that you are once again thinking about Wooyoung hyung when you should be focused on something else.”
“I’m not always thinking about him!” Yeonjun protested.
“No, but you do when you want to talk to him about something and you’re avoiding it. And, I mean, Wooyoung hyung is great and all, but I wouldn’t exactly call him the most mature person for his age we know, so whatever childish thing you want to do, I doubt he’d judge you for it.”
“I know. It’s not that.”
Taehyun frowned at him.
Yeonjun sighed. “He keeps asking if he can kiss me. I keep turning him down.”
Taehyun blinked. “Okay? You don’t want to kiss in public, I don’t think that’s--”
“No, you don’t understand. We haven’t kissed at all! Anywhere!”
Taehyun blinked again, slower this time. “But you’re --”
“We’re really not dating!”
“But--”
“I would know!”
“Huh.” Taehyun frowned. “So we had to sit through Soobin hyung’s talk for nothing? Beomgyu hyung made a little powerpoint presentation with all his photos of you and hyung to go with it. He added special effects and everything. I think Huening still hasn’t fully recovered from that experience. Hyung got very enthusiastic about it.”
“What talk?” Yeonjun asked, bewildered.
“They wanted to make sure we understood about you and Wooyoung hyung, and I thought we did, but apparently, we did not.”
“That’s sweet,” Yeonjun said. He thought about it. “I think.”
“We support you, hyung. We already did, and we will still do that no matter what you decide to do from now on. Whether it involves kissing or not.” Taehyun was so earnest about it, Yeonjun felt tears stinging in his eyes. He blamed it on exhaustion.
“Can I kiss you this time?” Wooyoung asked. He swooped in to drop a kiss on Yeonjun’s cheek and was about to move on when Yeonjun grabbed his wrist.
“Yes. If you want… Yes.”
Wooyoung didn’t jump him immediately. Yeonjun was a little disappointed by that. He’d sort of been looking forward to it. “You’re letting me kiss you? You’re sure?”
“Yes. I said so, didn't I?” The surprise on Wooyoung’s face made him feel uncertain. Had he misunderstood? Had this just been a fun game that Yeonjun had taken much too seriously? “If you don’t want to, that’s--”
“No! No, I do, I definitely do!”
“Well, then.” Yeonjun gave him an expectant look, but Wooyoung still hesitated.
“This means something to you, right?”
Yeonjun paused. Of course it meant something. “It doesn’t to you?”
“No, it does! I keep asking because-- because I want to kiss you! I mean, you in particular. I’m not going around asking all my friends if I can kiss them. That’d be kind of weird even for me. I mean, I have kissed friends before, I’ve got hot friends, I’m not claiming I’ve never -- but I want to kiss you. I’m asking because I want to kiss you.”
Yeonjun had got his hopes up a little and deflated again. Of course Wooyoung kissed his friends. “So you think I’m hot, huh?” he tried, teasingly.
“You’re the hottest friend I have,” Wooyoung agreed. He narrowed his eyes. “I better be the hottest friend you’ve got.”
It wasn’t really a surprise to Yeonjun that once he’d kissed Wooyoung, all he could think about was when he could kiss him again.
Wooyoung kissed like he did everything else - enthusiastically and with his whole body behind it. There was a surprising lack of teeth, until Yeonjun nipped at his lower lip pointedly, and Wooyoung was still for a moment, pulling back to catch his eyes. Then he grinned and bit Yeonjun’s lower lip hard. Yeonjun whined and Wooyoung laughed, delighted.
It wasn’t all like that though.
Yeonjun liked it, but he liked it gentler too. Softer. He liked taking his time, learning what the other person liked, and he’d wanted to know what Wooyoung liked for so long. He wasn’t sure where to start, what to try. How to kiss him best.
How he felt had to be bleeding through, Yeonjun couldn’t have suppressed the desperate fondness he felt if he’d tried. Wooyoung didn’t seem to mind it. Sometimes it even felt like Wooyoung was feeling the same, like it wasn’t just Yeonjun falling deeper for each kiss, each touch.
He’d thought maybe Wooyoung would want to take the lead on this, he’d been so insistent on getting to kiss Yeonjun, it seemed to make sense. He’d underestimated how spoiled Wooyoung liked to be, if he could get away with it and had someone who indulged him. Yeonjun didn’t really consider it a hardship. There was a balance to it, they traded off. They were equals in this, the way they were in everything else.
It got pretty heated at times, but neither of them tried to take it beyond heavy making out. It got heated enough that Yeonjun tentatively started thinking they would eventually go further, but he was fine lingering on the kissing stage. He liked kissing. He liked kissing Wooyoung in particular. It was fun and it was hot and Yeonjun wanted to do a lot of it.
Yeonjun had always wanted to touch Wooyoung, and now he had more or less free leave to touch as much as he wanted. He was punch drunk with it. In public he tried to keep it to the same casual skinship they’d always had, but he wasn’t sure if he completely succeeded. Don’t Kiss Wooyoung On The Lips In Public was a reasonably easy rule to follow, especially since everyone was masked up anyway, but Keep The Touching Friendly was harder. Wooyoung was no help. Wooyoung batted his eyes to the cameras and claimed Yeonjun as his darling, easy as anything.
It made him burn. He loved it. Wooyoung was playing it up, of course, carrying on the fanservice that somehow was working for them beyond expectations, but he was still saying it. Yeonjun wanted to be claimed, he wanted to be Wooyoung’s.
Somehow the game he played with MOA had turned jagi into a precious word. He still used it, but it had slowly gained a weight that hadn’t been there before. He wasn’t sure what he thought about that. He just knew that he’d absently called Taehyun jagi while they were recording and had been struck by it, by how it had stopped being a casual word. Taehyun hadn’t noticed the way he’d hesitated after.
It still felt right with the members though.
It felt more right with Wooyoung.
Kissing Wooyoung felt right too. It felt natural.
It was also fun.
Most things with Wooyoung were fun. It wasn’t that Wooyoung was incapable of being serious, or that he didn’t get lost in his own head at least as often as Yeonjun did, it was just that he made Yeonjun’s life brighter by his presence. He hoped the reverse was true as well.
“Hey babe,” Wooyoung said and the kiss was automatic now. Yeonjun still revelled in it. They weren’t quite shameless enough to kiss in public -- well, maybe shameless was the wrong word. Yeonjun absolutely would, if he could. But he was too aware of the repercussions, and Wooyoung was as well.
“Not that it’s not nice to see you, but why are you here?”
“Can’t I just be here to see you?”
“You can,” Yeonjun allowed. “Are you?”
Wooyoung beamed. “In fact I am!”
Yeonjun wasn’t good at keeping his hands to himself even with the friends he wasn’t currently kissing. With Wooyoung it was impossible. If Wooyoung was nearby, Yeonjun had to touch. At least Wooyoung was just as bad.
It would be so easy to read into it.
But Wooyoung was always like this, Yeonjun reminded himself. It didn’t necessarily mean anything at all.
Calling Wooyoung darling or honey or baby wasn’t anything new, nor was being called the same in return. Wooyoung could yell “jagiya!” across a crowded room and just by the tone of his voice, Yeonjun could tell when he was jagi in question. Yeonjun would turn towards the sound of Wooyoung’s voice regardless though. He’d always want to be where Wooyoung was.
They’d always been flirting with each other too. Yeonjun could sort of see where Soobin had been coming from with his suspicions. But it had always been understood that it was just for fun, nothing serious. It was just how they were with each other. How they were with most of their friends, really. Yeonjun had been as obvious as he felt comfortable being, but it was difficult to figure out which lines were even left for him to cross. They were still there. But things had always been blurry between them and ever since they’d started kissing, they’d blurred even more.
Yeonjun had to be guided to the right studio, but he was abandoned in front of the door with a cheerful wave. He pushed the door open.
Wooyoung turned to give him a quick smile, then turned back to Hongjoong who he was apparently giving a “you’re awesome and you should feel awesome” talk to. Yeonjun would’ve felt like he was intruding, but Wooyoung was also making grasping motions with his hand until Yeonjun came close enough that Wooyoung could pull him in by the waist. Hongjoong seemed to be too busy frowning at his computer to care or notice.
“It’s not accidental that you’ve been included on the album, okay, and it’s not accidental that it keeps happening. You’ve got to believe in yourself some more, hyung,” Wooyoung said sternly.
“I know, I know, you keep saying,” Hongjoong muttered, hunching over the keyboard. Yeonjun could still see the blush high on his cheekbones. Cute.
But not as cute as Wooyoung when he turned his face up to Yeonjun with a bright smile. “Hi honey.”
“Hey baby, how are you?”
“So much better now.” Wooyoung beamed and gave Yeonjun’s closest hand a quick kiss. “How long can you stay?”
Yeonjun hesitated and Wooyoung’s face fell. “Only about an hour,” he said apologetically. “I have a dance lesson later, I really can’t miss it. I’m sorry.”
“Ah it’s fine,” Wooyoung said. He was clearly disappointed though. He turned towards Hongjoong again. “Hyung, can I go make out with Yeonjun and then--”
Hongjoong let out a little screech that reminded Yeonjun of Beomgyu. “Yes! Please go away! And stop telling me about it every time you kiss him! I never asked!”
Wooyoung giggled as he nudged Yeonjun a little away so he could get up from the chair. “I’m only sharing to inspire you, hyung!” He grabbed Yeonjun’s hand and started pulling him towards the door. “You should be grateful!”
“Go away!”
Yeonjun was pretty sure that an empty bottle hit the door just as it closed. Wooyoung was still giggling and Yeonjun was grinning too. It was hard not to.
Wooyoung didn’t let go of his hand until they’d found an empty office to make out in.
Their lips met and Yeonjun forgot about everything else.
“Okay, I believe you now,” Soobin said abruptly. Huening burst into a startled laugh next to him and dropped his controller. The screen remained paused on a character selection graphic.
Yeonjun gave them both a baffled look.
“If this is what you’re like when you’ve kissed Wooyoung, there’s no way you’ve been secretly hooking up all these years. Sorry for doubting you or whatever.”
“Thank you. But also. What do you mean?”
“Hyung, you’re kind of…” Huening trailed off, clearly looking for the nicest way to put it. “Distracted.”
“Totally spacey,” Soobin supplied.
“That, yeah.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said for the last five minutes, have you.” It wasn’t even a question. Yeonjun tried to desperately recall what they’d been talking about.
“I got nothing,” he admitted.
Huening gave him a gentle pat on the knee. “I think it’s cute. You’re in love!” he beamed.
“Ugh,” Soobin said reflexively. “Love is fake.” Ever since he broke up with his latest girlfriend, he’d been moping around like he was the first person who ever got his heart broken by a pretty girl. Soobin had always been in a relationship with someone as long as Yeonjun had known him, but this was maybe the first time Soobin had been more invested than the girl. He’d probably get over it, but right now he was wallowing. At least Beomgyu was always up for a good wallow and had promised that he was on top of the situation.
Huening frowned at him.
Soobin shrugged back at him. “It’s true.”
Huening rolled his eyes.
“Is it obvious? That I’m… How I feel about Wooyoung?” Yeonjun asked urgently. “Like, can everyone tell?”
“Yeah, you’re not subtle, hyung.”
“You’re practically screaming it, sorry, noona.” Huening gave him another knee pat. Yeonjun gave in and hauled Huening in for a hug. He needed full body contact. It briefly turned into a wrestling match, and then Yeonjun let him go with a sigh. He rubbed his hands over his face.
“But why are you so upset about it?” Soobin asked suddenly. “Shouldn’t you be delirious with joy right now?”
“We haven’t exactly talked about feelings,” Yeonjun admitted.
“Hyung,” Huening said reproachfully.
“The kissing is really nice!”
“Feelings are important,” Huening said. He ignored Soobin’s quiet little ‘ugh’. “You should always make sure you’re on the same page before you kiss someone and make sure you can trust them if you have sex with them.”
Yeonjun flopped down on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. Taehyun had proposed decorating the ceiling with glowing stars in accurate constellations once, but he’d never actually gotten around to doing it. Yeonjun wished he’d done it. At least then he’d have something to look at. “It’s nice to know that you’re really listening to all those lectures, Huening. But it’s not really applicable for this situation.”
“You should probably talk to him anyway,” Soobin said.
“I know I should.” It had just been so much easier not to.
If he was so obvious, then what did that mean? Were they just going to continue while pretending Yeonjun’s crush wasn’t intensely obvious? Yeonjun couldn’t. If they were on the same level, it was one thing, but if the balance was shifted so much, if he had nothing, he just couldn’t. Surely Wooyoung would understand, but Yeonjun still had to somehow find a way to say it.
Wooyoung had called him up, asked if he could come over for a visit. Yeonjun had agreed without thinking about it, and now he was stuck thinking too much.
He jumped and raced to the door when he heard the beeps signalling that the key lock was being punched.
“What are you--” Taehyun looked startled from where he was chopping vegetables on the counter.
“Jagiya!” Wooyoung said happily. Yeonjun pulled him into a hug instantly, feeling the tension and the mess in his head drain away as Wooyoung embraced him back.
“Oh, it’s Wooyoung hyung. Hi, hyung, are you having dinner here too?” Taehyun looked back down, clearly calculating if he’d have enough.
“Maybe,” Wooyoung said. He gave Yeonjun a quick look. “I gotta talk to Yeonjun first though.”
“I have been told,” Wooyoung started grumpily, once they were in Yeonjun’s room and had closed the door, “that in order to have a relationship, the two people in it have to talk about the relationship and agree that they’re in a relationship. Apparently kissing is not enough.”
“Uh, what?” Yeonjun said, thrown out of the panicked mental flailing he’d immediately fallen back into as soon as Wooyoung said they needed to talk.
Wooyoung heaved a great big sigh. He looked very put upon. “Some people have informed me that even though I chased you down -- against all my principles, I might add -- you might still not know how I feel about you. Even though it should be obvious!”
“How you feel about me?” Yeonjun parroted.
“Yeah! Ridiculous, right? I’ve been calling you darling so often it’s like I’ve forgotten your actual name. Obviously you know!” Wooyoung’s laughter died down as he caught sight of Yeonjun's stunned expression. “Jagiya, tell me you know.”
“I… I’m not… How do you feel about me?” Yeonjun asked in a tiny voice.
Wooyoung closed his eyes and shook his head. “God, Yunho is going to be completely unbearable. I can’t believe he was right. I guess experience does count for something after all.”
Yeonjun blinked. What did Yunho have to do with anything?
“I love you,” Wooyoung said. He opened his eyes again and met Yeonjun’s eyes, radiating sincerity. His voice softened. “You’re my darling, my sweetheart, my Yeonjun. I’ve always loved you. I’ve tried to show you, to tell you, but I guess I haven’t been clear enough.”
Yeonjun burst into tears. He couldn’t help it. He never could, but especially not now. “I love you too,” he said or tried to say through quivering lips.
Wooyoung pulled him into a hug, then wiped the tears off his face, kissed his nose, his cheeks and finally his mouth. A sweet, gentle, brief kiss that warmed Yeonjun to the core. Wooyoung smiled as he leaned back. “I know, silly.”
Wooyoung’s touch wasn’t ever light. Yeonjun felt grounded in his arms, always. He didn’t want to leave, but he reluctantly did when Taehyun yelled that the food was done. They held hands when they entered the kitchen.
“Everything okay?” Taehyun asked, feigning nonchalance.
“Everything’s perfect,” Yeonjun beamed. Wooyoung kissed him and beamed too.