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1.
Gunwook didn’t know how he ended up here. Well, actually, he did. Gunwook became friends with Keonhee during Kill This Love, who then introduced him to Junhyeon and Minseoung and Woojin in the midst of the first mission, who then introduced him to Taerae and Park Hanbin because he just had to meet them and now he was stuck with the two of them. Without any of the Redstart trainees in sight. Or anyone, actually.
“Taerae your hands are so big,” Hanbin said for the fiftieth time today. “Wanna compare?”
And Taerae would just nod. And Gunwook just held his head in his hands as they blushed like two high school kids. (He’d know, he has a list of kids pining over each other from school and apparently these two were going to make it onto it.)
Minseoung popped open the door, with Junhyeon slightly behind him.
“Hey, Taerae-hyung, Jiwoong-hyung wants to go over Back Door again,” Minseoung said before immediately running off, Junhyeon left to wait for Taerae alone.
Gunwook sighed in relief, the two trainees saving him from anymore misery.
Taerae clasped Hanbin’s hand in between both of his, “Talk after practice?”
Hanbin nodded like an otter about to get the fish of his dreams, “Bye, Taerae.”
Junhyeon shot Gunwook a knowing look, with a little smug sparkle in his eyes as if to say sorry-not-sorry we left you with these two. Gunwook rolled his eyes in response. Taerae bounced off, Hanbin’s eyes following Taerae until the door closed behind him.
“Do you think he likes me?” Hanbin immediately asked as soon as the sound of footsteps trailed off.
“Well, what do you think?”
Hanbin whined in response, shifting closer to Gunwook and throwing his head into his lap, “I don’t think so.”
Gunwook raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
“I mean, he’s so cute and his dimple is so cute and his smile is so wide and pretty and his laugh is so contagious and it’s so nice to listen to. And like he returns my skinship but like he does that with everyone.”
“Okay, but what about his whole Wanna practice kissing thing? Not suspicious at all?”
“He just wants to practise for his crush who I’m so jealous of because he sounds so cool because if Taerae likes him then he must be cool. I think it’s Junhyeon by the way. Have you seen how Taerae’s eyes turn to doe eyes, or how often he laughs around that man?”
Gunwook scoffs. And then internally cries. The amount of times he’s heard Taerae and Hanbin individually pine over each other was driving him insane - his only solace hearing his friends all complain about them too.
Woojin and Hyunbeen loved to talk about how when Hanbin wasn’t driving them to the ground physically he was driving them to the ground mentally as he talked about Taerae all the time during their breaks. And how Ollie managed to get involved and save them a little from Hanbin’s terror a little as he distracted the leader with his apparent charms.
And Junhyeon and Minseoung somehow managed to calm down Taerae and shut down his constant pining, the two being perfect distractions and entertainers with humour and tricks. Which also managed to get the rest of the Back Door team to both be grateful but also simultaneously dying every time Junhyeon says he’s five years old.
“Hanbin-hyung, I think you should tell him.”
“What? No fucking way. There’s no way he likes me back. And what if he hates me? What if he never wants to talk to me ever again?”
“Hanbin-hyung. He won’t hate you. And also he definitely likes you back.”
“How would you know?”
Gunwook stares the lovesick man dead in the eyes. He’s too tired to keep the secret any longer.
“Because I’ve heard.”
“Oh yeah, from who?”
“Literally everyone. Including Taerae.”
Hanbin looks back at him with suspicion in his eyes, as if he was thinking that Gunwook was fucking with him.
“Whatever. I’m going to get everyone to practise again.”
2.
What was even going on with Ricky and Jingxiang, anyways?
Whatever it was, Gunwook was tired of their shit. He adored Takuto and was getting sick of the actual trauma that the pair was causing this literal child .
“Hey, Takuto-ah, wanna talk to Junhyeon for a bit? I might go talk to Ricky-hyung about this.”
Takuto nodded, holding onto Gunwook’s hand the entire time they walked down the corridor to Junhyeon’s room. The boy had come into Gunwook’s room for some comfort, which he gladly gave, but he was also now just pissed and needed to confront at least one of them.
When they reached Junheyon’s room, he gladly took Takuto in.
“Oh my god. Good fucking luck.”
“Thanks, I think I’m going to need it.”
Gunwook rolled up his sleeves subconsciously, closing the door before heading to Ricky’s room.
He burst in, not even bothering to knock. Sungmin was sitting with a crying Jingxiang in his arms, stroking his back.
“Um, we’re having a little moment here?” Sungmin whispered, a little shocked.
Gunwook pursed his lips, “Sorry, but I’m looking for Ricky-hyung. I need to talk to him about…”
Jingxiang shot up at the mention of Ricky’s name.
“Don’t tell him I was crying.”
“I… won’t?”
Sungmin stood up, walking to Gunwook at the door frame to whisper in his ear.
“Jingxiang-ah is… crushing on Ricky and has no idea how to handle his emotions. This is his ‘first love’, as he puts it.”
Gunwook nodded slowly, barely processing the words that just flew into his ears.
“Ricky-ah is with Gyuvin-ah right now, I think. They should be hiding under the stairs with some snacks.”
Gunwook shot a thumbs up.
“It’ll be okay Jingxiang-hyung,” he said, peeking over Sungmin’s shoulder. “And good luck to our leader.”
Sungmin smiled softly in response before returning to Jingxiang’s side, quickly waving Gunwook goodbye.
When he found Ricky and Gyuvin, the blonde boy was also crying and inhaling the snacks that Gunwook recognised came out of Gyuvin’s suitcase.
“Oh, Gunwook-ah, hi!”
Ricky peered over at Gunwook, weakly waving before returning to his bag of chips.
“Come here,” Gyuvin said, motioning for him to sit on the opposite side of Ricky.
Gunwook joined the two, sitting in silence which was only broken by sniffling and soft sobs.
“I think I like Jingxiang,” Ricky managed to croak out after a while. “And it’s just so infuriating because his beautiful face would rather want me dead.”
“Woah, not my wheelhouse. Peace out Gunwook-ah, good luck,” Gyuvin said. And before Gunwook could protest, his lanky limbs had already left his sight.
“You don’t hate each other?” Gunwook said to Ricky. Sungmin’s words had just clicked in his brain as Ricky’s words slid in, and he just internally groaned.
Ricky only shook his head.
“I thought I did but it’s just because all these emotions were so overwhelming the easy way was to just hate him but it obviously didn’t fucking work.”
“Have you considered that he might feel the same?”
“Are you fucking nuts? That man would rather push me off this building than consider even dating me.”
“Why do you say that?”
Ricky looked at him like he was stupid.
“Because he starts fights with me.”
“And you don’t?”
“That’s different. That’s because I like him.”
“But what if he’s also doing it because he likes you?”
“That would be fucking stupid.”
Gunwook agrees for once, for different reasons, but at least he’s not tearing his hair out. Well, he is, but he likes to pretend he’s not for the sake of his sanity.
3.
Gunwook was just trying to sleep. Trying is the key word here because Hao decided to have Sung Hanbin give him a massage now of all times. With Gunwook in the room.
He’d understand if Hao was trying to console Hanbin, with the classic tears and classic comforting words, but no they decided to have a fucking massage. And honestly, with some of the noises coming out of Hao’s mouth, Gunwook would have thought they were just having sex if it weren’t for the cameras in their room. Especially with some of Hanbin’s soft whispers that Gunwook chose to block out for ‘no reason.’
He was so glad when they finally stopped, again choosing to block out anything they could be saying in the aftermath.
“Gunwook-ah! I’m so sorry I didn’t-” Hanbin exclaimed.
“It’s fine,” he groaned, muffled by the pillow he’d shoved his face in. “It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”
The two men kind of shuffled awkwardly before apologising again.
4.
“Hey, Gunwook-ah, want to hang?” Gyuvin called out as he passed Gunwook in the corridor.
He wondered why Gyuvin looked a little distraught, and why he looked relieved to see him. But he didn’t think too much about it.
“Sure!”
Gyuvin lit up and grabbed Gunwook’s hand, running towards their room.
“Um- I need to show you- basically- Seowon-hyung,” Gyuvin stumbled over his words as usual. “He has this cool thing-”
And when they reached the Love Killa room, Gyuvin pushed Gunwook in without any warning.
“Have fun!” he exclaimed after closing the door. Well, closing is a bit of an understatement, it sounded like Gyuvin slammed his whole body into the door.
Gunwook just stood there like a deer in headlights, noticing how both Matthew and Seowon were staring at Jiwoong who was just blushing.
“Gunwook, who do you think looks better with Jiwoong-hyung? Seowon-hyung or me?” Matthew asked.
“What?”
“He asked who looks better with Jiwoong-hyung,” Seowon answered.
Gunwook realised he’d been duped. By Kim-fucking-Gyuvin of all people. He didn’t want to hang, he just needed somebody to deal with this mess.
“Well,” Gunwook said after a while. “Jiwoong-hyung, who do you think?”
The man shrugged, putting his hands up to his incredibly red face.
“I can’t choose,” he swooned.
Gunwook pondered for a bit, “Is there any chance of polygamy?”
“Sorry, but I can’t see Matthew-ah like that.”
“Yeah, no shot.”
Gunwook threw his head in his hands. How was this a completely different problem to Taerae-Hanbin who were still mutually pining or Ricky-Jingxiang who were still in their enemies phase of enemies-to-lovers? How many love tropes could even happen in Boys Planet? They already had the rivals-but-soulmates ticked off too.
“Maybe Gunwook-ah needs an image of us to choose,” Seowon proposed.
“No- no I don’t need to see-”
“You’re so right, Seowon-hyung. You can go first.”
Seowon held out his hand to Jiwoong, dragging the older man to his feet before hanging off of him and posing with him.
“I don’t really see how this will help,” Gunwook mumbled.
“Okay, well, let me try and maybe you’ll see,” Matthew said.
Seowon let Matthew take the stage, managing to have completely different poses to the other pairing yet somehow having the same vibe. The vibe being insufferably in love.
“So, who looks better?”
Gunwook was stuck in the Love Killa room for the rest of the night.
5.
Gunwook loved Jelly Pop. Literally the best song ever, in his opinion. He would have loved to hear it being on whatever the debut album was, but performing it was better , especially with Junhyeon.
He loved how the resident couples/not-yet couples were absolutely not together. No offence to any of them, but he hadn’t had a moment to breathe as he was every third (fourth?) wheel possible.
Problem is, he underestimated his ability to be the third wheel because now he was stuck in a room with Jay and Kamden and no one else. How he ended up here? He had no clue.
Usually Matthew would be here with them, or Hao, or Keita, or anyone else to be honest. Again, he had no clue how he ended up with Jelly Pop’s resident couple.
Good thing, they didn’t like PDA very much (self-claimed), and they definitely weren’t pining (save his heart).
Bad thing, their definition of PDA is very… different to Gunwook’s. As in, they were snuggling and playing with each other’s cheeks and teasing each other a lot. And not in the friendly skinship way, in the way they were cooing and squishing each other’s faces and literally head locking each other all the time and their faces two centimetres away from each other whenever possible (but never kissing because “that’s too much PDA.”)
Oh and the constant “I love you’s.”
Gunwook took the quietest, longest breath he could. This was not the thing that was going to make him break.
+1
Junhyeon.
Gunwook fucking loved Junhyeon. In the friend way.
They’d do everything together. They were best fucking friends.
They visited Gunwook’s ad together, running away from fans in true Naruto style. Knocking over Jiwoong together was one of their biggest achievements. Doing En Garde and Jelly Pop together in rapid succession? One of the best times in Gunwook’s life despite how hellish everything had been, because Junhyeon was there to be a little spunky all the time.
And he was also always there to laugh with, to complain about life with, to be sad yet to be happy at the same time. Gunwook never had to worry, well not never. Of course the Star Masters would absolutely grill him, but his life was significantly better with Junhyeon in it.
Best friends. They were never separated. Not if they could help it.