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1.
It’s always the subtle things, Beomgyu thinks. Their group has never been one for outwardly expressive declarations of love, or anything like that, always tending to take the route of unspoken gifts and little acts of service that were never really... talked about. Beomgyu appreciates it. He appreciates them , mostly, and all the little things that make them a team.
Subtle, when he wakes up to a bowl of lukewarm soup outside his room during a bout of sickness, without a word.
Subtle, when someone links their pinkie with his own behind both of their backs before a big award speech.
Subtle. Gentle. Soft. Reminders of how much he’s loved.
It’s how it’s always been, and how it always will be, Beomgyu supposes. It’s why he doesn’t bat an eye when he watches Soobin get dragged away by the sleeve of his jacket when they arrive back home after an awards show, trophy shining atop the kitchen table in the dim light.
Taehyun and Kai disappear soon, too, probably off to sleep after a long day of smiling and waving at cameras and fans. Beomgyu moves to follow, but as he yawns and stumbles his way down the hallway towards his cozy bed, something catches his eye.
Light under a door, that's all it is. Nothing out of the usual, but for some reason, it is. Beomgyu has always been the curious type.
The door is cracked open a little, like whoever had entered the room had tried to shut it behind them too gently and failed to notice that it didn’t click. It’s not much for him to work with, the sound muffled and only a sliver of the room visible through the crack, but Beomgyu is nothing if not nosy and determined.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” comes a voice, familiar in the setting of their dorm.
“Hyung,” there’s a sigh, exasperated. Beomgyu has been on the receiving end of that sigh all too much. He can just see the outline of clothes and bleach-blond hair sitting on the corner of the bed from his place in the hallway. Soobin tries to continue his sentence, but he’s stopped again.
"Soobin-ah ,” comes Yeonjun’s voice. His words are everything and nothing all at once; the air in the room is still. A name, an interruption. Beomgyu knows it well.
He knows the pattern, always after a long day. A name, an interruption, an irritated tone to make him cast his eyes downward in apology and back off with his jokes.
He doesn’t know this, whatever it is, the syllables that carry across the room and through the wood of the door with piercing clarity. Yeonjun cradles the name as if afraid it will crack and shatter on his tongue.
(Subtle.)
“None of this would have been possible without you, Soobin,” Yeonjun continues, voice unwaveringly soft. Beomgyu can practically hear the resounding eyeroll from his place in the hallway, and he can’t help but pull a face, too.
“Yeonjun-hyung—”
“Stop trying to argue, brat, let me compliment you,” Yeonjun says. It should be exasperated, fond in a way that borders on annoyed. That’s how it always is, with Beomgyu, but there is none of that now. “Thank you for everything. We couldn’t have made it so far without our leader by our side,” Yeonjun continues. " I couldn’t have made it, not without you.”
It’s quiet for a moment, quieter than even before, and Beomgyu is struck by the feeling that he is an outsider to this strange moment. Four years of friendship have trained his ears to scolding and criticism, contagious laughter that forces tears from the corners of his eyes, but has never prepared him for this.
There’s a rustling of clothes and a shadow that falls across the gap of light from the room, shrouding the hallway in black. Beomgyu knows an exit when he sees one.
Subtle, quiet words beyond (mostly) closed doors. It feels like a new beginning.
2.
Team movie night was a bad idea on so many levels.
Beomgyu knew exactly where it was going when Soobin had suggested they spend some “quality time” together after comeback season ended. He knew exactly the way Kai would jump around in excitement as he chose a horror film, and he knew that despite everyone else’s grumbling, they’d all give in anyways, because it’s Kai.
Beomgyu, personally, doesn’t mind horror; he’s perfectly able to sit through this random C-list paranormal film without batting an eye. For Beomgyu, the problem isn’t the jumpscares or the spooky atmosphere, it’s actually just a fact of how terrible the movie is.
He’s guessed the ending after the first 40 minutes, and instead of wasting his energy paying attention to the rest of the plot, his eyes drift around the darkness of their living room. Someone (read: Kai) had claimed that the only proper way to watch horror movies was in pitch darkness with the surround sound at a volume that would shake the walls of their dorm and was sure to get a noise complaint from their neighbors. It leaves Beomgyu squinting past the light emanating from the TV, bathing the room in a vague greenish night-vision color.
First, his gaze lands on a shadowy lump curled up in the corner of the couch. After more observation, he determines it to be both Kai and Taehyun, clinging so closely to each other that they’ve more or less morphed into a shapeless blob. Beomgyu suppresses a laugh as there’s a sudden loud noise and Taehyun makes a squeaky noise, both boys jumping in their seats.
“Yah,” Yeonjun groans at the jumpscare. Beomgyu’s eyes snap in the direction that the word came from, but Kai is faster.
“Shh, shh,” he urges, flapping a hand in Beomgyu’s peripheral vision. Beomgyu can’t see much in the low light, but he can feel Yeonjun’s eye roll from across the room. It seems he isn’t the only one not enjoying the movie. Oh well. Bonding experience, or whatever.
Even when the members fall silent again, Beomgyu keeps his eyes on the oldest. Soobin, who’s sitting beside him, has the audacity to close his eyes and rest his head on Yeonjun’s shoulder despite being the one to plan this entire thing.
It’s such an injustice, in fact, that he’s just about to face the consequences of speaking in order to call him out on it — but he stalls with his mouth open when Yeonjun turns to the side just slightly in order to press a kiss to the top of Soobin’s head.
Beomgyu blinks to clear his vision, but when he looks again, Yeonjun’s eyes are focused entirely on the TV as if nothing had ever happened, as if he didn’t just make the highlight of Beomgyu’s night. God, the amount of blackmailing he could do, if only he had had his phone!
But still, something nags at the back of his mind.
It wasn’t as if Soobin was particularly scared . Sure, he’s never been great with horror, but right now, it seems like he’s too tired to even process the jumpscares that happen on screen. So really, Beomgyu thinks he wasn’t in need of comfort or anything like that; the kiss was unprompted, on Yeonjun’s part. But still, Soobin had just stayed leaning into his side as if this was a totally normal occurrence.
Beomgyu’s brain feels like it’s twisting around inside his skull trying to make sense of it all, so he gives up. This can be a dilemma for the morning, when he doesn’t have to deal with the maknaes’ fearful screams at regular intervals.
As he turns his attention back to the movie, he shoves the incident to the back of his mind. Maybe he’ll ask about it tomorrow.
3.
It’s only a few days later when it happens again. Beomgyu has all but forgotten about the first incident, too focused on songwriting and dancing to really make anything out of it.
Unfortunately, spending all his time doing these activities and preparing for an album means that he’s awake at ungodly hours of the night. The bright glare of his phone screen taunts him in the darkness of his room, and he rolls over yet again after another unsuccessful attempt at lyrics. His only other option, then, is to drag himself out of bed and wander around.
First stop is the bathroom, because who knows how long he’s been laying in his room without getting up.
Then, Beomgyu pads his way down the hallway towards the general living room area of their dorm. It’s strange, how different it is when no one else is awake: the places which are typically filled with laughter and yelling silent, now, in the shadows of the night. Beomgyu enjoys it nonetheless. Idol life as it be, it isn’t often that he gets a moment to himself.
He slows when he sees soft light coming from around the corner. Someone else is awake, after all. He peeks around, expecting to see maybe Taehyun scrolling on his phone or Soobin with a glass of water.
Beomgyu’s eyes widen as he takes in the scene of decidedly neither of those two options. Instead, it’s two people. He can only see Yeonjun’s face, but he would recognize that head of bleach-blond anywhere, even as Soobin leans against the countertop of the island with his back to where Beomgyu is standing.
Yeonjun has that look in his eyes, the one that’s reserved for especially late nights when he’s feeling especially sappy, despite the teasing that he knows will ensue because of it. Beomgyu can’t tell what Soobin’s face looks like, but he’s relaxed where he stands and makes no move to joke around about Yeonjun’s emotions, so Beomgyu assumes it’s the same. They all get caught up in those moments, now and then.
He’s about to take his chance to waltz into the room and ruin the mood with a perfectly timed joke when he’s stopped in his tracks. He’s helpless to do anything else but watch as Yeonjun flashes that soft smile at Soobin and then leans toward him in a way that could only imply one thing.
Beomgyu has to slap his hand over his mouth to avoid letting out a gasp as he whips his head back around the corner and into darkness again.
Suddenly, everything clicks into place.
He books it back to his bedroom as the gears start turning in his head. From all the (frankly, excessive) physical touch to soft words overheard, he gets it now.
All in all, it doesn’t seem too foreign a concept that Yeonjun and Soobin are together. Beomgyu just wonders how he’s never caught on before.
4.
It’s a Herculean feat for Beomgyu to keep this new information to himself, but he decides to be the bigger person, for once. This isn’t his secret to tell.
That doesn’t stop him from silently theorizing, though. Beomgyu starts to overthink every single one of their interactions, and notices new ones, too. Every time Yeonjun clings to Soobin’s side, even more than usual, he wonders: how long has this been going on? When Soobin laughs at a joke that one of the maknaes had made, but his eyes drift over to Yeonjun; the way Soobin’s gazes always linger just a little longer than the rest. Beomgyu notices it all, and yet, he remains silent.
Of course, it’s nothing out of the ordinary, and that’s what really gets him. Kai and Taehyun don’t bat an eye at their interactions, only reminding Beomgyu that this is their normal, this is how it’s been for who knows how long.
It’s kind of reassuring, in a way. Despite everything, his hyungs are still the same ones he’s always had, Beomgyu just knows a little bit more than before.
It’s really hard not to say anything, though, when Yeonjun drags Soobin away by the arm after one of their stages at yet another award show with the excuse of not wanting to get lost on the way to the bathroom.
A week ago, Beomgyu would have nodded his head and accepted that without question, but now, as he takes on the impatient look on Yeonjun’s face and the way Soobin looks around as he’s tugged, he just crinkles his nose in disgust. How many other times have they gone missing for a few minutes to go make out somewhere? Beomgyu shakes his head to clear his thoughts. He doesn’t even want to think about that.
Taehyun laughs at him upon noticing the look on his face, asking what he saw. Beomgyu just shakes his head in a way that says you don’t want to know before heading over to get his makeup fixed.
And when the stylists ask him a few minutes later if he’s seen where his hyungs ran off to, Beomgyu just shrugs in response. He should get an award for being such a good friend.
5.
It would be funny how obvious Yeonjun and Soobin are, if not for the fact that now that Beomgyu’s in on it, he finds himself covering for them almost unconsciously. When they arrive home and Soobin immediately announces he’s going to watch a drama in his room with Yeonjun, Beomgyu has to ask Kai to play games with him so he doesn’t find a way to tag along. He offers to buy ice cream for Taehyun instead when the younger invites himself along on Yeonjun and Soobin’s coffee date.
All things considered, Beomgyu thinks he’s handling things excellently, but this time is a little different. He’s done his best to drag the maknaes away to give a little bit of privacy to the couple out of the goodness of his own heart, but this, he can totally and honestly say, is Soobin’s fault.
(Ignoring the fact that Beomgyu has barged into Soobin’s room uninvited while he’s not there to defend himself, of course, because that’s just what five years of friendship does to you.)
Beomgyu is just looking for the charger to his wireless headphones that Soobin had never returned when he’d used it a few days ago, so he has a search warrant and a mission. After some unsuccessful searching at both of the electric outlets in his room and the table beside his bed, Beomgyu turns his attention to Soobin’s desk.
He sighs. It’s covered in loose-leaf papers with scribbled handwriting, empty water bottles, and basically everything that Yeonjun would chew the rest of them out for leaving around their space. Beomgyu rolls his eyes. Boyfriend privileges, he supposes.
As he begins to dig his way through the mess, though, he uncovers something that’s different from all the notes and trash.
It’s a 4-cut strip from a photobooth, one of those overpriced ones that you can find at any tourist stop or shopping mall. In each picture is Soobin and Yeonjun, looking varying degrees of in love.
The first picture is relatively normal, with the two smiling brightly and making V signs at the camera. Second, Soobin is making his trademark “sexy” pose with a hand over his face as Yeonjun wrinkles his eyebrows at the display.
The next photo, though, is what really starts to catch his attention. It’s a little blurry from motion, and Soobin is leaning just a little bit out of frame. Both of them are laughing, not even looking at the camera any more, as if they’d forgotten that there was a countdown timer for the next picture to be taken. Beomgyu lets a smile slip onto his face. They look happy.
Lastly, Soobin has his arms wrapped around Yeonjun’s shoulders as the older presses a kiss to his cheek. Even with his face turned into Soobin, Beomgyu can tell that Yeonjun is smiling, a mirror image of the way Soobin’s eyes crinkle up toward the camera.
The photo strip isn’t even flipped upside down, and it’s only half-buried amongst the rest of everything. It’s like Soobin isn’t even trying to hide anything. Beomgyu takes one last glance at it before turning the pictures face down and sliding it back underneath a pile of paper.
Finding his charger is quick work after that, and Beomgyu slips out of the room without leaving a trace.
+1.
“Why did none of you wake me up?” comes a shout from somewhere down the hallway, and then a door slams. Taehyun giggles.
“It’s almost 1 pm, hyung,” Kai calls back. “Why aren’t you already up?”
There’s no response to that one, and Beomgyu isn’t sure if it’s because Yeonjun didn’t hear or if he’s just electing to preserve his dignity.
The four of them are sitting around the kitchen table eating lunch because no one has a schedule until dance practice later that afternoon. No one except Yeonjun, that is, who has a last-minute recording session in — Beomgyu checks the time on his phone — a little over 30 minutes.
They resume their conversation, Beomgyu telling them all about something that one of the makeup stylists had told him yesterday, to the underscore of some moderately concerning banging around that comes from Yeonjun’s direction. No one pays him any attention until he rushes into the living room dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants, pulling a baseball cap over his head as he does.
“Yeonjun-hyung!” Soobin calls, interrupting Beomgyu’s story to gesture vaguely. “Don’t leave without eating something, here.” He stands and rummages through their sparse pantry and grabs a granola bar, holding it out to Yeonjun.
“Thanks, babe,” Yeonjun says breathlessly, taking the proffered snack and dropping a quick kiss on Soobin’s lips without thinking.
Three jaws drop simultaneously, and Yeonjun freezes. It’s silent for a few moments before Taehyun breaks the silence.
“What,” he says eloquently, at the same time Kai exclaims, “Oh my god!”
“Um,” Soobin responds, ears turning pinker by the second as Yeonjun tries to find the words to explain himself. His mouth opens and closes as he stutters, and Beomgyu decides to put him out of his misery.
“Finally,” he says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Four pairs of eyes snap to him.
“You knew?” Soobin exclaims. His voice is tinged with embarrassment, and he covers his face.
"You knew?” Kai cries, sounding like he’s been betrayed.
Beomgyu turns up his nose and sniffs. “It’s about time. I was getting tired of having to cover for you.”
“Cover for what ?” Soobin says, but it looks like he doesn’t even want to know the answer.
Yeonjun finally gets his wits about him and interrupts. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry that this is happening right now but I really am going to be late. We’ll talk as soon as I get back, I’m sorry!” He makes a little prayer with his hands and bows as he backs up. The last apology is directed at Soobin, who just stares helplessly after him.
“Hyung!” Kai shrieks, but it’s more performative than anything else.
As the front door shuts behind Yeonjun, Beomgyu and Soobin share a glance. The maknaes turn to them with expectant looks in their wide eyes.
Beside him, Soobin sighs. Beomgyu grins. It’s going to be a long day.