Work Text:
The group is filming solo content and are answering TMI questions about each other.
Jungwon is sitting in front of the camera and is forcing his eyes open against the bright studio lights pointed at him, while the other members are lounging behind the camera, waiting for their turn.
Jay is sitting with a direct view of their leader and is watching him rather intently.
Memorizing how Jungwon’s eyes are so large and round. His cheeks naturally pink and tracking the dimple that pops out every time he talks. The dimple that Jay always has an urge to poke or kiss. And how the younger is cutely humming to himself when trying to think of answers to the questions given to him.
As the older is lost within his thoughts about how cute the younger looks with the soft sweater that the stylist dressed him in today, he gets out of his head when he hears his name called.
“Jay hyung?” questions Jungwon. “What’s a common habit of his?”
He hums in thought, thinking of what is something that his hyung does a lot.
“Oh!” Jungwon suddenly explains, eyes twinkling with mischief and he quickly writes his answer on the white board.
Jay becomes wary over what the younger could possible write. Maybe about his habit of his eyebrows moving up and down when he eats. Or how he fidgets with his double-jointed fingers when he gets nervous, pushing them into positions that should not be humanely possible. Or maybe how he always utters out an 'uh' when he is talking, interrupting his speech.
But it's none of that.
Jungwon turns the whiteboard around towards the camera to show what he has written.
Pouting.
“Jay hyung pouts a lot. When he talks or is concentrating, he pouts. It’s really funny.” Jungwon chuckles over the memory of when Jay was pouting cutely while he was cutting up the steak he had made for the members earlier that week.
The older is baffled.
He does not pout. And why would he pout? Pouting is weird and he does not pout.
As Jungwon continues to answer the other questions given to him, Jay turns around to the members.
“Do I pout?”
Some of the members look up from their phones confused, not having paid attention to the answers Jungwon was giving.
“Jungwon just said that I have a habit of pouting. That isn’t true. I don’t pout!” explains Jay, voice going a little high pitched at the end, distressed over what the younger had just declared.
Ni-ki, bewildered that his hyung, who has lived for more than two decades does not know that he does indeed pout, quite literally all the time.
“You’re kidding hyung?”
“No I’m not kidding Ni-ki-ah. Do I pout?”, his tone becoming stern, trying to get a serious answer from their maknae.
Sunoo answers the question directed towards Ni-ki. “Hyung. You kind of do pout”, he explains sheepishly.
Heeseung also pipes in to confirm Sunoo’s answer. “Jongseong-ah, you’ve been pouting since I met you.”
Jay opens his mouth to reply, but all that comes out is a pained whine and closes it promptly. He just can’t believe that he pouts.
Just as he is going to continue denying the truth, Heeseung suddenly points out that he is pouting.
“Look! You’re pouting right now.”
Jay quickly brings his hands up to his face and uses his fingers to touch his lips, and behold he is pouting. Both his upper and lower lips jutted out slightly.
What in the world. He pouts. Jay actually pouts.
There isn’t anything wrong with pouting but Jay doesn’t like it. It’s childish, which doesn’t match his manly and cool idol image that he has carefully crafted for the world.
As Jay is having an internal existential crisis over his habit of pouting, Ni-ki adds fuel to the fire.
“You even pout when you talk hyung” teases Ni-ki, giggling over his hyung’s reaction.
“Yah!”
After the shoot, when Jay is comfortable in his bed, he goes on his phone and does some research and what he finds just upsets him even more.
He searches up on Twitter ‘Enhypen Jay pouting’ and thousands upon thousands of results come up.
Pictures and videos and edits of him pouting.
He can’t believe that even the fans discovered his habit of pursing his lips before him. It’s ridiculous.
He never realised how much he pouted. When he is dancing or talking or doing absolutely nothing, his lips form a permanent pout and he doesn’t like it one bit.
He can gauge from the numerous tweets that the fans love his habit and find it cute, but he is not cute.
He is cool and handsome.
And cool and handsome does not go in the same sentence as pouting.
Jay embarrassed over this habit of his decides that it is time to do something about it. To stop it.
Jay thinks of a plan.
Step One: Become aware of when he his pouting.
Jay begins to constantly touch his lips with his fingers, trying to determine when he is pursing his lips.
Step Two: Stop pouting.
Jay knows that just by being aware of the position of his lips is not enough. He needs to take it a step further and condition himself to stop pouting.
Biting.
Jay decides that it will be smart to bite his lips, to elicit pain every time he is pouting in order to stop the habit.
A simple Pavlov classic conditioning experiment.
He knows that it will worsen the already poor condition of his lips, but he doesn’t care.
Even as his lips bleed and burn he continues on.
The make-up nonna even question him if he began to use a plumping lip gloss, lips seeming more plumper than usual.
No one in the group realises Jay’s new habit of constantly touching his lips randomly throughout the day and biting it so hard that it becomes pale from the pressure and bleeds when he lets go.
But someone does. Someone who is always paying close attention.
Yang Jungwon. He is the leader of Enhypen so it makes sense that he is perceptive of the members and their habits. He has deliberately spent time learning their quirks to know how they are feeling.
When Heeseung is upset, he becomes noticeably louder, trying to mask his mood, thinking that as the hyung, he cannot be troubled.
Jake licks his lips when he is nervous, which is common when they are doing interviews. Especially during English interviews become he becomes the spokesperson of the group.
He knows that when Sunghoon has overworked himself and is tired from his extra schedules, his shoulders droop.
When Sunoo is in a good mood, he has an extra bounce to his step and his eyes twinkle even more if possible.
He is also aware that when Ni-ki is feeling homesick, he becomes even clinger, hanging off his hyungs shoulders, hoping that physical contact will soothe the missing of home.
So it makes sense in theory that Jungwon notices.
But does it?
Because Jungwon became aware of these habits at the beginning of their debut, when he was training to be a leader.
Now that they are almost two years into their careers, there is possibly no time or a need for Jungwon to keep an eye on everything the members do.
But when it comes to Park Jongseong, it is possible.
Many have noticed the unique relationship between the second oldest and second youngest of the group.
It may seem that it is the older one of the two that is clingy, but Jungwon is the same in a much more low key way. He is always watching the older when no one is paying attention.
And with this, he becomes aware of how instead of contributing to conversations, the older becomes quieter and has a new fixation on touching and biting his lips.
Jungwon doesn’t understand what has caused this new change in his hyung but he vows to find out.
When the group finally has some free time, they quickly go do their own thing. Some chilling in their rooms and others going outside to hang out with family and friends.
Jungwon finds himself sitting on the sofa with Jay, watching a random show, which no one is paying attention to.
Jay is looking at images uploaded by fan sites from a recent event, in awe of how they turn out even better than the company’s or the media’s photos. But as he is looking, he sees another picture of him pursing his lips.
Dammit. Jay thought that he had gotten much better at not pouting, that his classic conditioning would have helped with this stupid habit, but it hadn’t.
Angry with himself, he draws his bottom lip in and clamps it with his teeth, adding more pressure than usual to feel pain. Pain that will help stop his habit.
But with the weather colder, his bottom lip has gotten chapped again, right in the middle.
He let’s go of his lip and winces out loud when he realises that he accidentally cracked it open, causing it to slowly bleed.
As he brings his tongue out to stop the bleeding, Jungwon turns to him.
The younger had heard his hyung wince out loud and alarmed with him being in pain, he looks and sees that his hyung has once again bitten his lip and so hard that it is bleeding.
Jungwon thinks that it is a no better time than now to find some answers about this new habit of his, especially considering the fact that none of the members are loitering around to prevent truthful answers from his hyung.
He scoots closer and brings his knees under him, sitting sideways on the sofa to face Jay.
“Hyung. You’re bleeding” Jungwon begins tentatively, not wanting to scare his hyung away.
“Yeah. I just bit my lip too hard. Don’t worry Won-ah”, Jay answers the younger tenderly.
“I’ve noticed that.”
“Noticed what?” questions Jay, turning his face to look at the younger, moving his head slightly back when noticing how close the younger is.
When did Jungwon move so close? And why is he looking so cute with his round eyes and the oversized hoodie he is wearing. Wait, isn’t that the hoodie he had just worn earlier.
Before the older can confirm his suspicions about Jungwon stealing his clothes once again, the younger interrupts him. Not that Jay minds Jungwon wearing his clothes, rather he finds it cute when the younger blushes a pretty pink when the older teases him about the thievery.
“I just noticed that you’ve been biting your lips” Jungwon answers nonchalantly. “And that you touch them with your fingers too.”
Disbelief splashes across Jay’s face. He didn’t know that someone was paying close enough attention to him to realise such small changes in his mannerisms.
He brings his hand to the back of his neck and rubs it sheepishly, “You’ve noticed huh? I didn’t think anyone would to be honest.”
Jungwon narrows his eyes. He knows that the older is trying to deflect the situation, but the younger won’t let him do that.
“Why do you do it?” he asks straightforwardly, no longer beating around the bush and getting to the point.
Jay doesn’t want to answer, too embarrassed over his habit of pouting and even more embarrassed if someone becomes aware of the fact that he is trying to stop it.
“It doesn’t matter Jungwon-ah” answers Jay gently, trying to reassure the younger that it is nothing that the leader has to worry over and quickly starts to get up from the sofa.
But before Jay can even fully get up, Jungwon grabs his wrist and pulls him back down, the wind knocked out of him and his arm almost pulled out of his socket with the strength that the younger used.
Jay sometimes forgets that the younger is trained in taekwondo, his small stature misleading him often.
“Hyung” whines out Jungwon. “Please tell me” he asks cutely, rounding his already wide eyes and smiling so his dimple pops out, the dimple that he knows the older is quite fond of.
Sometimes Jay hates that everyone, including Jungwon, knows how much his aegyo affects him and sags his shoulder with defeat, knowing that he can never deny the younger.
“Fine” he says in exasperation. “Just don’t tell anyone please” pleads Jay, already worried about the teasing he’ll get from the younger and doesn’t need more from the rest of the members.
“I won’t hyungie. I promise.”
Jay brings his face a bit closer and whispers under his breath, “It’s because I pout.”
Jungwon tilts his head is confusion and says rather loudly, “Pout?”
The older quickly brings a finger against the younger’s mouth and shushes him, not needing anyone else to become aware of how much he hates his habit of pouting.
“I don’t like that I pout so I’m trying to stop it by conditioning myself with pain.” he explains in a hurried tone.
Jungwon knows that the older has a common habit of pursing his lips but he doesn’t understand why he wants to stop it though.
“Why do you want to stop it?” he questions, his soft lips moving against Jay’s finger that is still against his mouth from before.
It sends tingles down Jay’s hands and he removes it and casually rubs it against his leg, trying to get rid of the weird feeling.
“It’s embarrassing Jungwon-ah” he answers truthfully.
“Oh.”
“Yeah oh.”
Jungwon cannot even begin to imagine why Jay finds it embarrassing.
He rather likes the habit. It may bring his attention to the soft pink lips of his hyung more often that what should be considered friendly, but he likes it nonetheless.
Likes the way that sometimes his upper lips protrudes more than his bottom ones, resembling the beak of a duck. The way his lips pout when he is talking about a topic he is passionate about or jut out when he is concentrating on something.
He thinks it makes his hyung look even more attractive. He isn’t fond of the fact that Jay is self-conscious about it and doesn’t want him to stop his habit. Plus, he doesn't like knowing that the older is going to such extreme lengths to stop it, which is causing him pain.
Jungwon just wants his hyung to be confident in the way he is.
The younger straightens his back and squares his broad shoulders, readying himself to convince his hyung that he doesn’t have to change his habit of pouting.
“Hyung. First of all, your pouting is something you don’t have to be embarrassed about. It is a unique habit of yours and you should take pride in it. Second, your fans adore it. Third, if the members or my teasing made you upset, I apologize. Don’t stop because of our stupidity. And lastly, hyung, I love your pouting. I find it cute.”
As Jungwon speaks, Jay’s eyes become rounder and his mouth opens wider, hanging open as he finishes.
Jay is in shock. Shock over how much passion the younger has filled his speech with and how much he despises him stopping a little of habit of his. He is also bashful over someone caring so much about him.
Trying to ease the tension, the older makes a joke.
“Okay Jungwon-ah. I didn’t know you liked my pouting that much.”
Thinking that his hyung isn’t taking him seriously, Jungwon’s eyebrows furrow with annoyance and whines.
“Hyung. I’m being serious.”
“Okay okay” trying to placid the younger before he gets really upset.
“I didn’t know stopping my habit was such a big deal, but I’ll stop okay?”
Even though Jay still finds his habit of pouting embarrassing, he doesn’t like seeing the younger so aggravated and will rather deal with this small habit and see him happy.
He stares at the younger adoringly as his face brightens and eyes twinkle with his agreeance to not stop his pouting.
“I really do adore your pouting.” Jungwon reiterates again to reassure his hyung and to bring his words into action, he leans in and quickly presses his lips against Jay’s that are currently in a pout and runs away, leaving the older dazed.
Jay brings his fingers to his mouth, not to see if he is pouting, but because of the tingles that are left from the younger's kiss and the soft feeling of the lips that were against his just a few moments ago.
Maybe his habit of pouting isn’t so bad.