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The first time it happens he laughs it off as a joke, ignoring the sudden butterflies that appear on his gut and hoping the make up is good enough to cover his flushed cheeks.
Gyuvin is one to put on silly nicknames for people anyways, Yujin is baby, or Yujin-jwe, or any other diminutive Gyuvin can think at the time; Hanbin is Sung Hanbitna which is very inconvenient according to him since nicknames are supposed to be cute and short, not an elongation of his existing name. Matthew is baby, almost always said in english, and Ricky is Kim Ricky, which totally doesn’t make him jealous at all, of course it doesn’t, why would it make him jealous?
He used to be Gunwookeu, he still is he supposes, being called another thing one single time doesn’t automatically change the nickname given by his best friend since they met at the start of the show.
“Jagiya, would you get me my phone?” Gyuvin calls from the make up chair.
Gunwook looks up confused from where he is sitting, and he finds Gyuvin’s eyes on his on the mirror. The rest of the boys are scattered around, the cameras are turned off so they are passing the time until they are called to get their hair and makeup done, or until it’s finally time to go on stage.
The woman working on Gyuvin’s face looks at him for a second, a smile threatening to come out before she controls her expressions again and plasters Gyuvin’s big red pimple on his nose with a concealer that looks a few shades too light to work correctly.
Gunwook looks around a few seconds, almost waiting for someone to get up and fulfill Gyuvin’s request, even though the guy is staring directly at him. Gyuvin raises an eyebrow when Gunwook doesn’t move from his place, and the woman touches it with her pointer finger, urging him not to make too expressive faces until she can set his makeup.
Gunwook silently eyes Ricky who is sitting besides him, phone in hand, texting someone something cannot understand because he still can’t read chinese.
“He is talking to you.” Ricky says when he feels he is being watched, his eyes fixed on the screen.
Gunwook looks at the table then, sitting in front of him is Gyuvin’s phone, the case is now black unlike those times months ago where they shared a light blue shim-chan one, it makes him feel a little bad for a second (which is dumb because he had stopped using his long before Gyuvin did). He grabs it and stands up, walking silently towards the table full of makeup products lined up.
“Thank you.” Gyuvin says with a smile as his phone unlocks automatically when it recognizes his face.
Gunwook goes back to his place on the couch, ignoring the fact that Gyuvin’s home screen looked a lot like a picture of him half sleep on his Snorlax pajama. He laughs to himself when he finally feels his face going back to a normal temperature, and Ricky side eyes him without muttering a word.
Gyuvin is a silly guy who likes to use silly nicknames, yes, that is probably it. It’s not something reserved for him and he will probably hear it often directed at any member now that the word has found it’s way into his best friend’s vocabulary, so he better gets used to it.
He doesn’t get upset at the thought of Gyuvin calling the other boys like that or anything, of course he doesn’t, why would he? That would be dumb and immature and not a proper response for someone who is totally not in love with his best friend.
So he may be in love with his best friend.
Unlike the movies he has seen on screen and past crushes that kept him giggling through the night, he doesn’t have a big realization about his feelings.
It’s gradual, and he can’t quite pinpoint the minute he started to like him, or even when did he realize he actually saw him as something more than a friend. It appears out of nowhere but the crush has always been there in a way, because his actions towards him do not change, and none of the members bat an eye at their interactions (except for the usual Hao’s nag for them to get out of his and Gunwook’s shared room if they are going to be so nosy because ‘there are people trying to sleep here’).
It’s actually pretty good, he can hide it well, at least he thinks so. Gyuvin begs for cuddles as he always does and throws him in his bed like a big teddy bear, and they nap like that most days, with Gyuvin forcing him to be the little spoon every time. It helps to get that need for his best friend slash crush attention fulfilled, so he lets him be, his cheeks would’ve turned red even before he realized he had fallen for him so it’s not a big deal. The only thing that throws him off is him using that fucking word.
Especially because he keeps using that fucking word.
The second time it happens is also in front of some members, but they are in the kitchen instead of the green room of a music show.
Matthew is whisking more eggs that he can count on a deep plate, and Jiwoong is scolding him because the smell of eggs will linger on the ceramic for a while, even after being washed. Hanbin is defending Matthew, a hand lingering on his lower back as he promises Jiwoong he will do the dishes later and Taerae is looking at them bickering, sitting on the kitchen island and waiting for the food to be served.
He is standing besides Taerae, with his back towards the hall when it happens.
“Jagiya~” Gyuvin calls sweetly from behind him, wrapping an arm around his chest and bringing him close against his own. “What is going on here?”
Gunwook feels the blood rushing to his head then and he chokes on his own saliva as the quick breath in he took out of surprise fails to find its way into his lungs. He steps away from Gyuvin, coughing and heaving while holding the cold marble of the island, trying to keep his balance.
Gyuvin looks worriedly at him, patting his back a couple of times, and Taerae stands up, running to get him a glass of cold water he downs as soon as it touches his hand. Taerae takes the empty glass from him and goes back to looking at the three older members that kept arguing without spearing a glance.
“Are you okay?” Gyuvin asks, drawing circles on his back with the palm of his hand. Gunwook ignores the way his brain all but shuts down at the sweet tone directed at him, it’s just a friend worried for a friend, he reminds himself, nothing more.
“Yeah, I breathed wrong.” His voice sounds raspy and his throat is still burning up, but he forces a tight smile on his face that he hopes is enough for Gyuvin. “Matthew hyung is making egg rolls, and the others are arguing about the smell of food or something.”
“Hey, what do you mean the others? We are older than you.” Jiwoong turns to them with a frown on his face.
“Leave him alone, he nearly choked to death.” Hanbin says with a smile, passing the butter to Matthew who had moved to be in front of the kitchen stove.
He stands up straight and clears his throat, about to say sorry for not using formal language mere seconds after almost seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but when he turns to them again Jiwoong is already looking at Matthew with his arms crossed on his chest, while Matthew starts pouring the mixture on the frying pan and Hanbin steps back carefully, eyes on the grease left by the melted butter. He turns to Gyuvin instead, eyes traveling from his eyes to the floor in embarrassment about the situation.
“I was gonna ask if you wanted to grab dinner with me.” Gyuvin says, picking on his cuticle with his pointer finger. “But never mind, I rather eat here for today, after all this.” He moves his hand to signal the entire kitchen, referring to whatever the hell happened in the last minute.
He thinks he is about to grab his hand, hell, he probably was before Gunwook stepped back slowly. Stupid Gunwook with his stupid reflexes that caused a stupid sad expression to falter on Gyuvin’s face. Instead of touching him again, Gyuvin smiles and looks behind him, walking next to Jiwoong with a ‘Masyusyak~’ coming out with a little melody attached to it.
It happens again and again. By the third time it doesn’t really surprise him anymore, by the fourth the heat on his face disappears quicker than before, by the tenth he simply hums in response, waiting to hear whatever Gyuvin had called him for.
It was a nickname reserved for him, he realized after a while because Gyuvin did not call any of the members like that. At the time it did make him feel a little bit special, like he maybe had a chance with the cute boy he was (hopefully) secretly fawning over. But Gyuvin didn’t treat him differently, and the boys didn’t react to the word with questions or weird looks, so the thought of it being something special died after a while. They were friends, that was it, and that was enough.
This time (Gunwook had long ago lost count of how many times was the nickname used on him) they were alone on Gyuvin’s bedroom, pressed together because the beds were uncomfortably tiny for two young men with their body type, but they made it work because that’s just how they were.
He was on his phone, chatting on bubble after washing all the sweat from practice in the shower. His back is against the mattress, and Gyuvin has half of his body on top of him, cuddling unilaterally, hiding his face on the curve of his neck because ‘your new body wash smells so good’ and it was comfortable. Past Gunwook would’ve stop breathing the second Gyuvin wrapped himself around his body, present Gunwook enjoyed in silence the platonic touches his clingy best friend had to offer. His neck and ears still got warm, he wasn’t a robot or something, but once he got used to it he learned to enjoy whatever he could get instead of being on high alert at all times because his crush was touching him.
“Jagiya, let’s go on a date.” Gyuvin says against his skin.
Gunwook’s hands freeze on his phone, he must’ve heard wrong.
“I’m sorry?”
Gyuvin separates himself from his body and forces him to turn to him, laying face to face. Gunwook moves his head a little away from him, just in case he got the poor guy uncomfortable.
“Let’s go on a date.” Gyuvin repeats, the apples of his cheeks getting rosy under the nightlight. “Don’t you want to?”
Gunwook blinks, staring silently. He must be imagining the way Gyuvin’s eyes look down to his lips for a moment, that must surely be the case, and that’s why he made the right call pulling his face away from him when he did.
Lord knows he would’ve leaned in and ruin everything.
“There’s this grill place Jiwoong hyung talked about.” Gyuvin explains in a low tone, eyes slightly shining. “They opened recently so there’s this ‘two servings at the price of one’ kind of promo.”
So that was it, he needed a companion for a cheaper price on a good meal, now that made more sense than the actual date that crossed Gunwook’s mind for a moment. It’s okay, it’s not like he is disappointed, of course Gyuvin didn’t mean it like that, that was just the way he used his words.
“Ah, so a bro date?” Gunwook asks just to clear his suspicions.
“Bro date?” Gyuvin asks back, frown appearing on his face.
“Yeah, you know.” He fake smiles at the older boy. “Just bros sharing a good meal for a good price.”
What the hell was he even saying, Gunwook couldn’t even hide the sweat appearing on his forehead, embarrassed as hell about his choice of words.
Gyuvin masks a sad expression as well as we can and sits up on the bed, turning away so his legs fall on the side of the bed and he doesn’t have to look at him.
“Yeah, I guess it could be like a bro date.”
“What did you do to Gyuvin?” Matthew asks, arms crossed on his chest. Gunwook looks at him confused.
He was fairly quiet while on the restaurant besides insisting on feeding him meat wraps, making silly jokes and giving polite smiles to the auntie that kept serving them food because they were ‘handsome enough to attract more clients’ and ‘should stay here for a long time’. He got a bit better as they were walking home, because he reached for his hand and Gunwook did not pull back, but instead interlocked their fingers as he rushed them to the dorm, in fear of somebody seeing them even if they had a cap, a hoodie on, a face mask and glasses that reflected the moonlight and covered their eyes slightly.
And then, when they arrived to the dorms and he insisted on waiting for Gunwook to go into his room first, things took a south turn immediately. Gyuvin leaned in towards him, and Gunwook panicked because ‘what the hell was going on’ and he will be damned if he misinterprets a hug or whatever other possible things the action was supposed to end up as for a kiss, if he kisses his best friend the he loses him forever to te awkwardness of the knowledge there was an unresolved one sided crush somewhere in the relationship. So he had hugged Gyuvin, bided him good night and thrown himself into the heat of his bed that almost seemed to make fun of him with Gyuvin’s sweet and more expensive than it looked cologne impregnated all over the fabric.
It’s been two days since that disastrous bro date (as he forced himself to call it) went down, and Gyuvin has been moping around the dorms ever since.
“I didn’t do anything.” Gunwook responds and Matthew raises an eyebrow at him.
He is leaning on the open doorframe of his room, waiting for a concrete answer Gunwook is not so sure he can give. Usually his wide back and trained body fail him to look a certain way because of his sweet voice and smily eyes, but now that he is looking at him with a far too cold expression painted on his face Gunwook can admit it’s the first time he is actually intimidated by Matthew.
He sighs when Gunwook doesn’t add anything more to his words.
“Did you say or do anything weird on your date the other day?” Matthew inquiries, forcing him to think back to that day. Gunwook ignores the fact that it was not an actual date, opting for not correcting his already upset friend.
He goes over the details, but he can’t find anything that would put Gyuvin into an uncomfortable situation, he was painfully aware of his words and all his movements throughout the night so they wouldn’t betray him and show off his stupid adoration. Did he looked a little stiff thanks to that? Sure! But Gyuvin made him laugh and then held his hand on the way home, so it wasn’t his fault, at least it probably wasn’t something he did two days ago.
“Not that I can remember.” He is starting to get annoyed, why would Matthew blame him for Gyuvin’s sadness in the first place? He was as upset as everyone about the silence placed on the usually loud dorms.
Matthew stares at him, as if looking for any indication he is lying about it. Eventually he gives up and the cold face directed at him disappears in favor of the warm eyes he is used to.
“Maybe you should go talk to him.”
“Why me?” Gunwook asks, eyes wide open. It’s not like he doesn’t want to, but every time he tried to speak to Gyuvin these past days the guy whined and didn’t respond, either hitting his head on the table or some other member he was latching to at the time.
“You are the closest to him.” Matthew states and Gunwook recognizes that as an ‘I’m not the one who should be dealing with this’. He runs a hand through his hair before continuing. “Also he said your name when I asked why was he so upset.”
Matthew lingers on the door a few more seconds before getting out of his sight. Gunwook falls face first into the bed, hoping the pillow muffles the uncomfortable sounds coming out of his throat. Thank god Zhang Hao isn’t here today.
He knocks five times on the closed door, which is awkward enough knowing three days ago he would’ve just opened the door and let himself in. He waits for a couple of seconds, soft noises coming from the inside he can guess are words being shared but can’t figure out what do they mean.
Ricky opens the door, pushing past him with his phone in hand and earphones on, and gives him a pat on the back before making his way to the living room. Gunwook breathes in deeply before walking into the room.
Gyuvin is on his bed, covered with big grey blankets and sniffing softly, hiding himself from the world. The curtains are closed but there’s still a bit of light entering the room, mostly from Ricky’s side, and he can guide himself to Gyuvin’s bed anyways, it’s not a long walk.
He sits besides him, careful of not crushing any limbs when he does so, but he stays silent for a few minutes while looking for the proper words to let out.
“Are you mad at me?”
Okay, it was a stupid way to start, he’s had enough practice in speaking and socializing to figure that out. To him, the thing about having his best friend as a crush was that his brain kind of stopped working sometimes. If they were with others? Yeah, he could probably be one of the smartest in the room, but alone with him? His tongue still got tied the first one or two minutes of conversation until he went back to normal. Thankfully Gyuvin was pretty good on carrying a conversation, the socially extroverted man that he was, but now that he needed to have a serious chat and he wasn’t really speaking it made it difficult to Gunwook to break the silence.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this.” Gyuvin mumbles from under the blankets.
“Ready for what?” He asks softly, not wanting to ruin the moment now that Gyuvin is finally going to speak his mind.
Gyuvin buries his head on the pillow and says something Gunwook can’t quite understand, but he doesn’t push, just in case it wasn’t something he was meant to hear. Gyuvin pulls back and sits up, back against his bedpost.
He looks like he was crying, with his hair pointing in at least three different directions, puffy eyes and red nose that shines even in the dark. As Gyuvin finds a comfortable position while sniffing, Gunwook realizes this is probably the reason Matthew had come to find him to fix whatever is wrong between them. It’s sad to see a friend cry, but Gyuvin looks like a kicked puppy left alone under the rain, and the sight is absolutely devastating.
Gyuvin reaches out for him, and Gunwook takes a hand into his.
“Jagiya, do you not like me anymore?”
What?
“What?” He must’ve heard wrong, or understand him wrong, because sometimes Gyuvin—
“I mean is that why you won’t kiss me?”
WHAT?
“What the fuck are you talking about?” It comes out of his mouth before he can even stop it. Gyuvin lets go of his hand to cover his face and curl into himself and Gunwook regrets the words immediately. “I—I’m not mad, I just—“
“Are you going to break up with me?”
Okay, he definitely didn’t hear wrong this time. He looks at Gyuvin, hiding behind his hands and trying to make himself small in his not so comfortable bed. His mouth falls open and has whole body freezes as he takes in the entire situation.
Gyuvin holding his hand more than usual, Gyuvin calling dibs to sit with him on the car instead of Yujin or Ricky like he used to, Gyuvin kicking Ricky out of their shared room whenever he came to hang out, Gyuvin stealing his clothes, Gyuvin feeding him, Gyuvin inviting him on a date, Gyuvin definitely trying to kiss him.
Gyuvin who got sad when he pulled away.
Gyuvin who definitely thought that—
“If you are then just—“
“This whole time, you thought we were dating?” Gunwook interrupts him.
Gyuvin looks up, blinking a couple of seconds. His eyes are watery again, and Gunwook wants nothing more than to hold him close and make the tears go away, but he needs to clear this mess right now, before he loses the opportunity for good.
“Aren’t we? Or weren’t we? I—“ Gyuvin hurries. “You said yes when I asked!”
Ah, Gunwook is definitely going to end up with gray hair by the age of twenty.
“When did you even ask me?”
“Two months—Well, two months and two days ago, or three, I don’t know what time it is.” Gyuvin says, looking to his side in search of his phone that is missing from his bedside table. “We were here, I stayed with you because the others had gone out for drinks and—Did you thought we weren’t dating?”
Gunwook simply stares, because he can’t even recall the moment Gyuvin is talking about.
“Oh my god.” Gyuvin’s face turns a deep shade of pink and he grabs his hair with a shocked expression. “But you were acting different after that and—Oh my god—And this is so fucking embarrassing.”
“Gyuvin.” Gunwook says when Gyuvin finally stops talking, a subtle pink shade making its way into his cheeks as well. “I guess I didn’t think you were serious when you asked, but you’re right, and I’ve been acting differently.” He says, gulping sound coming out of his throat before continuing. Gunwook looks at him with eyes shiny with embarrassment, hope and fear. “I’ve been acting differently because around the time I apparently accepted to go out with you I realized I like you.” Gyuvin gasps, but Gunwook doesn’t let him speak again. “I like you, I like you so much that it scared me to even think about confessing and you turning me down, and I told myself I rather keep it to myself and get to stay by you as a friend than making things awkward and not have you anymore but—“
This is not what he imagined confessing would be like, not the few times he allowed himself to daydream about it. He thought about Gyuvin rejecting him mostly, the reasons varying between not liking him back and not wanting to risk a career for him. Sometimes he would get mad and stop talking to him at all, others he would pretend nothing happened and stop hanging out with him eventually, only showing up when the camera was on. On the worst ones he told someone who got him kicked out of the group, completely blacklisted from the industry for something he couldn’t quite control.
In reality, Gyuvin grabs his cheeks and presses his lips against Gunwook’s.
Gunwook opens his eyes at the impact, but closes them immediately after realizing what was going on. It was innocent and sweet, and it was hardly his first kiss but it sends electricity through his whole body anyways.
Chills run down his spine as Gyuvin’s breath tickles his face, and he lets himself relax into the action, letting his friend taste him with a smile threatening to show up on his lips. Gyuvin tastes like chocopie and beeswax lip balm, and smells like their shared body wash and the shampoo they stole from Taerae about a week ago, and it’s so incredibly familiar that he wonders for a second if he had ever kissed him before, even if he knows he hadn’t, or he would remember the way Gyuvin sucked his bottom lip into his mouth before finally letting go.
Gyuvin pulls away first, but he stays with his hands on his face, warm breath hitting his mouth as Gyuvin pants in search of air. His eyes are closed when Gunwook opens his, so he breathes deeply before leaning in again, kissing him back for all the times he didn’t, too scared of the reaction.
Gyuvin lets him be this time, one hand traveling to the back of his neck, caressing his hair with his bitten nails as he opens his mouth slightly, allowing him to do as he pleases. Gunwook places a hand on his forearm, close to his wrist, looking for something to ground himself and looking to keep him there for a few more seconds, even if he has the feeling Gyuvin wouldn’t pull away this time.
He hums into his mouth when he feels his bottom lip being lined up by Gyuvin’s warm tongue, but doesn’t allow him to go in, not mentally prepared for something like that when his brain could barely handle the thought of being kissed back right now. Gyuvin understands the message, but does it one more time like the annoying tease he is, and Gunwook can’t blame him because that’s exactly why he fell for him in the first place.
When he feels he cannot breathe properly anymore he finally separates them, a single wet string breaking in between his lips as they pull back. Gunwook clears his throat and Gyuvin wets his (already wet) lips with his tongue, his mouth shiny all around. They chuckle at the sight anyways, and Gunwook wonders if his hair is as messy as Gyuvin’s is right now.
“So…” Gyuvin starts, looking at him with a grin on his face.
“So…” Gunwook repeats, biting his lip for a few seconds. “I guess you like me back.”
“I literally asked you to be my boyfriend.” Gyuvin scoffs, letting go of his face and letting his hand find its way into his, interlocking their fingers when he finally reaches his destination. “And thought we were dating this entire time.”
Gunwook squeezes his hand, embarrassed when he remembers why he was even in the room in the first place. “I’m sorry.”
“And you called our second monthversary date—which I paid for—a bro date.”
Gunwook then stands up, pulling Gyuvin with him by their joined hands, and forces him out of the room (not before brushing his hair with his hand so it’s not so messy anymore). “Would you like to have convenient store ramen with me then? My treat.”
Gyuvin’s toothy grin shows up, walking behind him through the hallway and trying to lower his voice as to not wake up the early sleepers in the dorm.
“Will it be a bro date or a boyfriend date?” He jokes, poking Gunwook’s back with his free pointer finger. It makes Gunwook roll his eyes, but he smiles at the thought of having this Gyuvin back, the one who jokes around and makes him laugh, the one he fell for. His embarrassment comes up one more time for a second, but he brushes away, too preoccupied on making the boy happy.
“Well, we are boyfriends, aren’t we?”
They were laying side by side, shoulders pressed together on Gyuvin’s bed. Yujin had gone back to his house for the night, trying to find a place to study in silence for his exams, and the older ones had gone out for a drink. They promised Gunwook they would pay for his room service when they went back to Japan in the following week, and he was happy to stay by himself, but Gyuvin insisted on staying with him, justifying himself by saying he didn’t really like to drink anyways.
They talked about lots of things as they always do, and eventually the topic of school crushes and dating came around. Gunwook deflected the questions as good as he could, and Gyuvin liked to talk anyways, so the topic ended up around him.
“I liked lots of girls, and some boys,” Gyuvin explained, looking up as if reminiscing the times, as if he could see their faces on the ceiling. Gunwook had ignored the fact that it bothered him for some reason. “but I only ever had one official girlfriend before, you know, kisses and couple rings and stuff.”
“Really?” He asked sincerely, because Gyuvin is really pretty and really cool, and it’s something weird to believe that statement coming out from him.
“Yeah.” Gyuvin answered, turning to look at him. “I asked two girls out, and one boy, and they all said no.” He added, a little tsk coming out with an air of self-deprecation. “They didn’t want to date me I guess.”
And he means it, Gunwook realizes, that’s the worst part, because as good as Gyuvin looks, as nice as he is to everyone, and as talented as he shows up on stage there’s always that bit of self doubt that follows him everywhere, and leached to his every thought. And that’s why whenever he listens to him speaking like that he feels the need to do something about it, to let him know that in his eyes he would never look like the image of himself that consumes him when he is alone.
“That’s stupid, anyone would want you as a boyfriend.” It escaped his lips without even realizing. At the time he didn’t even know he liked Gyuvin, not consciously at least, he just wanted to make the cute guy on his bed he called best friend feel a bit better about himself.
“Would you date me then?” Gyuvin had asked, face coming closer to Gunwook’s, shaded pink and burning hot.
“Heck yeah I would.” He said, looking at him through his embarrassment, trying to let him know he means it. Gyuvin smiles big at him.
“Oh my Gunwookeu~” He sang happily, throwing one leg over his middle and hugging his shoulders, hiding his face on the pillow next to his face. “Thank you, you know how to make me happy.”
Gunwook hugged him back, arms around his waist, closing his eyes to better enjoy the contact.