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“Are we friends?” Chan speaks around a mouthful of peach, the juice sticky on his bottom lip. He is vaguely aware of Mingyu’s gentle distain, reaches for one of the wipes that their manager left out before she hurries away to deal with a minor incident in another room.
Mingyu tilts his head. “Sure,” he says. “I mean, I see you more than any of my actual friends. We’ve been through a lot together.” He shrugs, belches quietly, blows the air in Chan’s direction and laughs when Chan squirms away. “Sure, we’re friends.”
Chan swats the air in front of him, pushing his back into the couch. He’s laughing, the sound sweet on his tongue, but his stomach feels heavy. The peach sits in his hand, mulchy and soft. He digs his fingers into flesh that’ll never have a chance to bruise.
“You’re like a brother to me, you know.” Wonwoo is somber drunk, the way he gets when he’s half a bottle of wine deep and has nothing else to do other than bother Chan as he tries to sleep. “If you ever need anything, tell me and I’ll do it.”
Chan appreciates the sentiment, he supposes. And he knows that it’s true. But it sits uneasy on his shoulders, the skin under Wonwoo’s hand prickling. “You don’t need to anything for me, hyung,” he mumbles. Sleep is still clinging to the corners of his mind, making him heavy, slow. “Just go to sleep.”
“I just need you to know.” Wonwoo’s face is pressed into the pillow behind Chan’s head, his sour breath washing over the back of Chan’s neck. “I’d do anything for you.”
“Okay, hyung.” Chan shifts away, gives Wonwoo more space on the bed. “I know.”
“He’s always treating me like this.” Angry tears sting at his eyes. He swipes them away, frustrated. “He’s not my fucking dad.” He kicks out at the base of the couch, the contact reverberating up his shin and making him swear.
Seungkwan frowns at him, lower lip pressing out the way it does when he’s thinking about saying something he knows Chan doesn’t want to hear. “He means well,” he offers, picking up a plastic bottle from where it toppled off the table when Chan nudged past the low table. “You know he gets like this when we’ve got a comeback coming.”
Chan does know, knows better than anyone. And he resents it, resents the infantilisation, the powerlessness. But he can’t say that, not now, when they’re supposed to be a team more than anything else. He sighs, deflating somewhat, feels the anger crumble to something like ash in his lungs. “Can you just tell him to back off a bit? I pull my weight same as anyone else around here.” More, sometimes, he thinks.
“I’ll try,” Seungkwan says softly. He’s watching Chan out of the corner of his eye, watchful in the way he gets when one of the members gets quiet. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Are we friends?” Chan’s voice is smothered by the skin of Jeonghan’s shoulder, the words whispered into the dip of his collarbone.
Jeonghan frowns, legs loosening around Chan’s waist. He looks faintly put out, irritated by this digression. “Is that what you’re thinking about right now?” His hand claws into Chan’s hair, tugging him up for some air, leaving him hovering above Jeonghan. “Are you being serious right now?”
“Never mind.” Chan feels his cheekbones warm, shame blooming in his gut. He tries to duck his head back into the space by Jeonghan’s jawbone, shifting his hips so that Jeonghan grunts. “Stupid question.”
“It’s not —“ Jeonghan gasps. “It’s not a stupid question.” His hand is still tangled in Chan’s hair, gentler now. “It’s just a strange time to ask.”
Chan wishes he’d never opened his mouth. He tastes the salt on Jeonghan’s skin, sucks a bruise into his chest, just shy of where will be visible in their shirts for tomorrow. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “Just forget it.”