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“So… I have a problem.”
Yuta hears Doyoung’s voice before he sees him — he tries to look at him, but his cheek is firmly squished against his mattress as one of his hands struggle to reach for a tube of concealer that he’d dropped in the tiny space between his bed and the wall (….long story).
“God.”
That’s Doyoung’s voice again, although softer this time, like he just muttered it to himself. Yuta finally sits up, wincing when his arm gets caught for a bit against the bed frame.
Doyoung is at his side in an instant, gentle hands taking his elbow, serious eyes inspecting for any cuts in his skin. “Be careful, hyung. What were you doing anyway?”
Yuta feels his cheeks heat up at the contact but he doesn’t withdraw from Doyoung’s touch. It’s just the way they are — Doyoung loves to fuss over him, over the smallest things, and Yuta lets himself be taken care of. Symbiosis or something.
“I was—” Yuta gestures vaguely, starting to explain, but then he shakes his head, remembering what Doyoung said when he first came in. “Never mind, what’s your problem?”
“Oh,” Doyoung lightly drops his arm and moves back. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just robotically nonchalantly turns to Taeil’s side of the room and takes a random book out of his mini shelf. “It’s, uh. Kind of our problem, actually.”
“Our as in Ilichil, or…?”
“Our as in you and me. Or— yours and mine, whatever.”
Yuta raises an eyebrow. Doyoung’s back is still turned to him, but Yuta can see enough of his profile to watch him try to casually flip through the pages of Taeil’s book. He’s nervous.
“Out with it, Dons.”
Doyoung slowly turns to him. He’s got a knit in his brow that Yuta aches to straighten out. (He sits on his hand to resist the urge.) Doyoung looks at him for a long moment before taking a deep breath and blurting out—
“SomepeoplekindathinkI’mdatingyou.”
Huh?
Yuta blinks.
Tilts his head to the side.
Tries to process the words.
Huh??
“I said—” Doyoung starts, but Yuta shakes his head and cuts him off.
“No, I heard it.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“Some people?”
Some people can be anyone, from Lee Sooman to the Pope, and Yuta knows for a fact that there are indeed some people who think they’re dating, but they’ve never been bothered by shippers before, so… some people??
Doyoung takes another deep breath. “Yeah. Uh, Changmin-hyung?”
The name makes Yuta jump out from his bed lightning-fast, landing with a thud just in front of a startled Doyoung. He imagines he must look a little crazed, because Doyoung actually takes a step back from him, mirroring his wide eyes. “I probably shouldn’t have led with him, huh,” he says with a nervous chuckle.
“Led with…” Yuta echoes absent-mindedly, eyes growing wider when he realizes what Doyoung meant. “Who else?”
Doyoung winces. “Kyuhyun-hyung…? Minho-hyung…?” He says each name like a question, and like each syllable is a pain to get out of his throat.
“Wh.” Yuta opens and closes his mouth a few times like a fish, trying to make sense of what Doyoung’s telling him. After a few seconds, though, his brain is still struggling to compute, so he finally asks the million dollar question hovering in the air above them. “Why?”
“Why what?” Doyoung asks with innocent eyes.
Yuta crosses his arms, unamused. “Why do our seniors think we’re dating, Doyoung?”
“Oh, ha,” Doyoung lets out a soft chuckle, one hand coming up to the back of his neck. The gesture would be cute if Yuta’s head isn’t currently spinning. “It’s actually a funny story, uhm. See… haha , they think we’re dating because… I, uh. Kinda told them?”
It’s a stupid idea, but then again it came from Doyoung, so Yuta’s kind of recalibrating his sense of what stupid ideas mean at the moment. They’re in the backseat of their manager’s car, on the way to some restaurant in Hongdae. His palms feel so clammy; he’s been half-absentmindedly rubbing them against his thighs for the past fifteen minutes since they left the dorm, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he looks down and sees his jeans with wet marks from it— fuck! What if his jeans have wet marks from his sweaty hands oh my god he’s meeting Changmin and the other hyungs he can’t show up looking like he fucking pissed himself—
“Hey.”
Yuta looks down to inspect his jeans just in time to see Doyoung’s hand cover his own. He looks up at him — Doyoung looks way too calm, but there’s a telltale (subtle, but telltale to someone who knows him enough) look in his eyes that tells Yuta he’s a little bit nervous, too. Strangely, that fact calms him a little. Doyoung gives his hand a light squeeze before turning back to his window.
“Are you sure about this, Dons?”
“Are you sure about this?” Doyoung throws the question back to him, not ungently. “You don’t have to do this, hyung.”
Yuta sighs and briefly looks out his own window and the passing city lights. Well, he’s kind of on the way to doing this now, isn’t he? “Remind me why we have to do this again?”
Doyoung looks at him, an unspoken Come on, really? in his eyes, but he dutifully repeats his words from back in the dorm anyway, from when he first told Yuta about this dinner. “I told you, they keep on hounding me about being single, I just need to get them off my backs for a minute. Plus, they keep on setting me up with Park Sooyoung, of all people! Ugh.” Doyoung fakes a shudder, and Yuta chuckles at Joy’s full name out of his lips, which wasn’t said without a hint of fondness.
“Joy is pretty,” Yuta says matter-of-factly, figuring it’s as safe a reply as any.
“Pretty scary, you mean,” Doyoung jokes, then looks at him. “You’re pretty, too. That’s why I’m bringing you. I don’t exactly choose my fake boyfriends for the goodness of their hearts.”
“Okay, I don’t know if I just got complimented or insulted,” Yuta huffs, then nudges Doyoung’s shoulder.
“And you know what I meant! The hyungs only have good intentions. They must be getting tired of watching you look so bitchless all the time.”
“Hey!” Doyoung nudges him back harder, which makes their manager laugh out front.
“Seriously, though,” Yuta says after a moment, shifting so he’s resting his head against the seat, looking intently at Doyoung. Doyoung meets his gaze, an amused quirk on his lips as he mirrors Yuta’s position against the backrest. “You and Joy have always been close, Doie. Would it be so bad, falling in love with a friend?”
The small smile disappears from Doyoung’s lips and he looks away, straightening in his seat. “I guess it wouldn’t,” he says quietly and, Yuta thinks, a little sadly.
The car slows, and he sits up properly too to see that they’re now pulling up in front of the restaurant, leaving him no time to wonder just what Doyoung meant by that.
Pretending to be Doyoung’s boyfriend isn’t so bad and, Yuta is surprised to find out, isn’t so hard.
In hindsight, it really shouldn’t have been such a surprise. There’s the fact that Doyoung is one of the most amazing people he’s ever known in his life, so slipping into the role of a person who supposedly loves and adores him is like nothing at all to Yuta. He already loves and adores Doyoung — just, you know. Platonically. They’ve always been touchy with each other, too, so that’s another thing that makes it so easy to keep up the facade. And if Yuta’s hands linger around Doyoung’s waist longer than usual, and if Doyoung’s lips venture to Yuta’s ear and neck and jaw closer than they had ever been? They’d both make good actors, is the only key takeaway from that.
“Okay, okay,” Kyuhyun says, putting a hand up to get everyone else’s attention. “I got a question for the happy couple.” His words come out a little slurred, having had a few drinks already. The others are equally as tipsy, letting out hoots and hollers at the mention of “happy couple”, making Yuta thank the fact that they had reserved this restaurant all to themselves for the night. Even Doyoung is loudly cheering along with them.
Yuta shakes his head, amused at his fake boyfriend’s increasingly reddening cheeks. He himself has only had two drinks so far, despite the hyungs practically shoving different shot glasses to his face when he and Doyoung first came in. He immediately turned them down, although it was particularly hard to say no to Changmin (the man could tell him to jump off a cliff and Yuta’s scared that he might actually do it). “I gotta take care of this one at the end of the night,” he’d explained, nodding his head to Doyoung beside him. That earned the first round of (many, many) teasing from his seniors. Yuta had chuckled, delighted at how ridiculously easy this whole pretend-thing was already shaping up to be. That wasn’t even something he made up for the lie, it was just something he always did whenever he and Doyoung would drink together outside (or at least, at somewhere they’re not staying the night in.)
Kyuhyun pointed at him, taking him away from his thoughts. “Shh,” he put a finger on his lips with his other hand, looking at each of them in turn. “Okay, here’s what I wanna know,” he says when he’s satisfied that everyone else has fallen silent. “Who fell first, and who fell harder?”
Changmin and Minho are already hollering before Kyuhyun has even finished the question. Yuta laughs nervously, trying to catch Doyoung’s eyes. They didn’t exactly make up a whole backstory for their supposed “relationship”; they’re just here to have dinner with the hyungs and make them believe he and Doyoung are a couple so they’d stop pestering him about his lovelife like well-meaning Asian Aunties all the time. And it’s not like Changmin, Minho, and Kyuhyun don’t already know Yuta, so they didn’t really think there’d be an interrogation.
Or at least, Yuta thought. It seems like Doyoung has come prepared (because of course he is) and is already blurting out an answer before Yuta knows it.
“Of course Yuta-hyung fell first.”
Yuta scoffs, an almost automatic response. Okayyy? Not only was he not briefed about this, now he’s apparently the first one to fall between the two of them? That seems unfair. Doyoung smirks at his reaction, eyes narrowed as he gets right up to Yuta’s face. “Yeah you did, hyung. Don’t even try to deny it. You fell first, you’re just so, so, sooo slow on the uptake.”
Their seniors burst into a collective laughter, and Yuta pouts, not liking the spotlight shining on him like this.
“Well now you have to tell us the story, Doie,” Minho says, cheekily pouring Doyoung another glass. Doyoung gulps it down in one go and wipes the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. He missed a tiny dribble, though, and Yuta unthinkingly reaches out to wipe it off with his thumb. Doyoung takes his hand before he can withdraw it, a sly smirk on his face.
“It was the first time we went to Japan as a group,” he starts the story, still clutching Yuta’s hand but he’s now brought it down to his lap, absentmindedly stroking the back of it with his thumb. Yuta feels paralyzed, like he’s entered some invisible bubble and he’s now afraid to make any sudden movement that can pierce through it. He tells himself it’s curiosity about Doyoung’s story that holds him unmoving and rooted to his seat.
“The moment we landed, it’s like… it’s like, how do I describe this? Yuta-hyung looked like he caught a breath of fresh air for the first time in a long time. His whole face was smiling and like, I always knew he was handsome—” Doyoung pauses to pinch Yuta’s cheek with his other hand, much to Yuta’s embarrassment and their hyungs’ amusement. “But that day? I don’t know, he was… glowing. And then two weeks later when we had to go back to Seoul again he was back to his normal self. He was still smiling, but his smile lost some of its shine. I knew he was sad about having to leave Japan again and seeing him like that, I just couldn’t accept it, you know? I already saw what he looked like when he was truly, completely happy and at home and I wouldn’t accept anything less. I asked him if he was okay and he said, he said… ‘I’m just gonna miss hearing the people around me speak in Japanese, is all.’ He sounded like he was trying not to sound so sad, so I said to him, ‘You know what, hyung? I’m gonna learn Japanese for you! I’m gonna study it so hard and I’ll speak like a native so that as long as you’re with me, you won’t have to feel homesick.’ And that’s.. that was stupid, right? Having me speak Japanese won’t make up for the fact that he’s not actually in Japan and honestly I kind of just expected him to tell me to fuck off,” Doyoung pauses to laugh, but none of them are laughing along with him. The three hyungs are just intently listening, all wearing similar looks of fondness for their junior and Yuta— Yuta doesn’t know what to feel.
“He didn’t,” Doyoung continues. “He didn’t tell me to fuck off, instead he just… he just looked at me for a long, long moment that I felt so awkward for saying all those things. I thought, ‘Maybe that was too cheesy?’ but then he blinked and, I couldn’t explain it… there was something that went on in his eyes. He looked like he was having some epiphany. I’m pretty sure that was the moment he fell in love with me.”
The group goes quiet for a moment, not one of them knowing what to say to… that. Yuta doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s looking at Doyoung, simultaneously wanting him to look back and scared of what he’ll see in his eyes if he does.
In the end, it’s Changmin who breaks the silence. “Wow, that’s…” he trails off into quiet again though, and Yuta can only agree with the sentiment. That’s… yeah.
He remembers the moment Doyoung has just retold so clearly. When Doyoung first started talking, Yuta thought he was going to make up some cliche story or maybe borrow one from a drama. He didn’t expect him to talk about something that actually happened, something that actually holds a core spot in his own memories. He remembers being completely taken aback back then, at the sheer kindness in Doyoung’s words and the genuine sentiment behind them. It was… staggering, to be offered something like that. Learning an entirely new language is no small thing; Yuta had to know.
Why had Doyoung chosen that, of all shared memories between them?
Yuta is startled out of his thoughts when he feels Doyoung’s head drop heavily on his shoulder. Even with the mix of alcohol and the samgyeopsal on the table, he can still smell Doyoung’s musky floral scent. For a moment, he thinks Doyoung has fallen asleep, but then he starts talking again, so quiet that if it had been earlier, no one would have heard him. But the mood has gotten quite somber since his whole spiel, and everyone — not least Yuta — was tuned in.
“I fell harder, though,” Doyoung murmurs quietly.
The words send a shock through Yuta, every single one like electricity zipping through his veins. He feels weightless all of a sudden, like he’s a balloon cut off from its string and he could rise up in the air at any minute if it wasn’t for Doyoung’s head on his shoulder, grounding him to Earth.
“When I first said those words to him, I really just meant it all as a friend. But then, I don’t know, somewhere along the way… fuck, who even knows why they fall in love, right?” Doyoung sits up suddenly and throws up his hands. “All I know is that ever since that day it’s become my personal mission to make Yuta-hyung feel at home, even when he’s not in Japan. All I know is I want to make him smile, but I don’t know… suddenly one day my goal has become me being the reason for his smile. Me being the reason he feels at home… Me taking care of him, me… loving him the way he deserves to be loved. And then when we came back to Osaka he kissed me on the cheek in front of his parents and like, thousands of our fans and then I thought… ahh, shit.”
God, Yuta thinks. Who knew Doyoung could weave stories like that, huh?
He doesn’t realize he’s been looking at Doyoung so intently all this while until Kyuhyun’s calling his name. Yuta blinks and turns to him, catching a glimpse of his reflection from the glass window behind his senior — he looks like a deer caught in headlights.
“Yuta,” Kyuhyun says his name again. “You better take care of Doyoungie, huh?”
“Hyung!” Doyoung whines, suddenly shy despite everything.
“No, no he’s right,” Minho butts in. “I swear, if you break our Doyoung’s heart—”
“Yah!” Changmin rolls his eyes. “Don’t scare the poor kid. He’s clearly head over heels over Doyoung,” he laughs a little, shaking his head with a knowing look at Yuta. “See how he looks at him? I know that look. That’s the look of a man who can’t hurt his love without cutting himself in the process, too. I don’t think there’s any reason for us to get worried.
His love. Yuta turns to look at Doyoung again and tries to reconcile the words Changmin so carelessly uttered with the sight of Doyoung beside him. It’s not as jarring as he expected.
Doyoung turns, too, and catches him looking. Yuta thinks he’ll look away, but Doyoung just smiles at him — a soft smile, unlike the arrogant smirk he had when he was making up the story of who fell first between the two of them. “You’re so slow, Yuta-hyung,” Doyoung slurs out, one hand coming up to cup Yuta’s cheek. Yuta sits just motionless and lets Doyoung hold him.
“Before we got together,” Doyoung says, removing his hand from Yuta’s face and turning back to their three hyungs again. Yuta blinks— it feels like it’s all he’s been doing this entire conversation. We’re still pretending, he has to remind himself. “I’d look at him all… hopeless.” Doyoung glances at him briefly before looking away. “I’m pretty sure everyone can tell how I have this huge fat crush on him but he’d just look at me and tease me. God I’ve never met someone so clueless. You know at one point, he was kinda on board with the idea of me and Park Sooyoung too?”
Yuta was just starting to smile at Doyoung’s rambling, but this makes him stop short.
Kyuhyun laughs, makes some joke that Changmin and Minho then laugh at, but Yuta doesn’t quite hear it with the sudden ringing in his ears.
“I kid you not, hyung,” Doyoung says. “He was even like, ‘Would it be so bad? Falling in love with a friend?’ Dumbass. You’re the friend I’ve fallen in love with.” He turns to Yuta again, his hand finding its way back to his cheek but this time his touch is not as soft as earlier. “Sooo slow, so clueless, so oblivious,” Doyoung says, every phrase punctuated with a pinch on Yuta’s cheek. Definitely not gentle pinches, but frustrated ones, and Yuta… Yuta finally gets it. He doesn’t swat Doyoung’s hand away because honestly? He thinks he kind of deserves it.
It’s past midnight when they part ways, Changmin staying back to pat Yuta on the back and ask him if he’s okay. “You’ve been looking so weird ever since Doyoung started drunk-rambling.”
“Have I?” Yuta replies absentmindedly, still half-lost in his thoughts.
“You look like you’re divining the mysteries of the universe or whatever.”
Yuta looks up at him and laughs lightly. Does he? “Hyung,” he says, not able to keep the dazed feeling slip out along with his words. “I think Doyoung’s really in love with me.”
Changmin blinks at him, and then ends up laughing after a moment too. “You think? He better be in love with you, considering you’re together now.” He shakes his head in a very kids-these-days manner. Yuta just smiles.
Yeah, he thinks, Doyoung better be.
It’s Doyoung who has his cheek squished against his mattress when Yuta barges into his room this time.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead~” Yuta singsongs as he unceremoniously plops down on Doyoung’s bed, laptop in hand. He’s been awake for an hour now… researching, and he figures 9AM is already late enough for Doyoung, even after a night of drinking.
“Go away,” Doyoung whines as he wiggles to bury his face on his pillow.
Cute.
“Come on, Dons. We’re heading to the US in a week, we got lots of stuff to prep for,” Yuta leans forward to shake Doyoung’s shoulders.
Doyoung just groans again. “Goddd, how are you this perky after last night, hyu—” he stops short, and Yuta almost drops his laptop at Doyoung suddenly sitting up and shaking the bed. “Last night, oh my god.”
Yuta stares at him, wondering how much of the night he remembers. What if Doyoung has forgotten everything? Well, it doesn’t matter either way. Yuta will make sure he remembers.
“I— uh,” Doyoung starts tentatively, looking down and fiddling with the edge of his blanket. “Thanks for last night, hyung. I’m sorry for making you do that, but thanks for playing along.”
Yuta smiles, but it’s a half-sad one — staring at Doyoung’s face, and seeing so clearly what he’s missed all these years.
“No biggie, Dons,” he says in a chirpy tone, then turns his laptop so Doyoung can see the screen. “I’ve been looking up things to do in the US, trying to build an itinerary for the free time that we’ll have between schedules.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I kinda want to explore Ktown in LA. What do you think?”
“Kto-? Koreatown? Haven’t you had enough of Korea… uh, I don’t know, here in Korea?”
Yuta laughs and reaches out to ruffle Doyoung’s hair. He can’t help it. Cute.
“I might feel homesick when we’re there, so.” Yuta shrugs. Doyoung narrows his eyes but doesn’t say anything. Yuta nudges his knee with his own. “I’d love some company.”
“Oh,” Doyoung says again, then bites his lip. “I’m sure Jungwoo or Mark would love to go with you.”
God. It’s really so obvious, huh? It’s hiding in plain sight, but it’s so clear now, now that Yuta knows what to look for. The repressed longing behind every knit in Doyoung’s brow, the unspoken words he has to bite his lip for.
God.
Yuta really is so slow.
So clueless.
So oblivious.
“Well, I’m not in their rooms, am I?” Yuta says. “I’m asking you, Dons. Let’s go together.”
“Me?” Doyoung asks, not without a hint of incredulity.
“Yes, you. Are you still half-asleep, or?” Yuta grins at him. He can’t believe he’s missed the signs all this time, but he thinks what he can’t believe more is Doyoung calling him slow, clueless, and oblivious, when he’s clearly just as guilty of the same three crimes. “I looked up the showings in the theaters nearby, too. Didn’t you say you wanted to see Frozen 2 when it comes out? There’s a showing with Korean subtitles the same night we’re free. I checked our schedule.”
“Oh,” Doyoung says for the third time. “Thanks. I’ll check it out if I’m not tired.”
Yuta reaches over his laptop and slaps his arm.
“Hey!”
“What do you mean you’ll check it out? I looked up the schedule for you and you won’t even take me with you?”
“But— hyung?” Doyoung looks confused. “You’ve never even seen Frozen 1?”
Yuta shrugs as if to say, So? “I wanna watch it with you, anyway.”
For the first time since this conversation started, Doyoung finally cracks a smile. Yuta thinks about all those years ago, with Doyoung in front of him like he is right now, except they’re in a busy airport and not in Doyoung’s bedroom. His smile, though — it never changed. “You know what, hyung? I’m gonna learn Japanese for you.”
Yuta can’t believe he’s been so so stupid to not see it all this time.
“The two of us, then? In LA?”
Doyoung nods, smile growing wider.
“It’s a date,” Yuta says, grinning back.
So slow, so clueless, so oblivious. Now Yuta’s got the rest of his life to make up to Doyoung for all of it.