Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Wooje wakes up, he thinks he might be in one of those dreams.

You know, those dreams that are kind of like real life, until they’re not. Like that one morning he got all the way through brunch and the trip to the practice room before he realized they were going to be scrimming NewJeans. And then he got Flame Horizoned by Danielle. Playing top Lux.

Minseok still doesn’t understand his sudden and firm switch to Le Sserafim (and he never will)!!

Wooje wakes up half naked (normal) and in the arms of another man (abnormal). At first, he thinks it’s Minseok, because he’d snuck in the last time they played Phasmophobia and he was mad at Minhyung. Unfortunately, he shouldn’t be able to feel Minseok’s forehead against the top of his head and ankles against the tips of his toes simultaneously.

This narrows it down to approximately two men. Confused hope blooming in his chest, Wooje rolls over, and suddenly is unable to breathe.

“Morning,” Minhyung mumbles sleepily, and kisses him.

Wooje screams.

*

Wooje is immensely lucky that Kanghee isn’t in the vicinity, and Jaehyeon is out reminding his girlfriend that he exists, and only one person comes thundering into the room at his scream.

Unluckily, that person is him.

“Get up!” Wooje finds himself being manhandled to his feet by himself, looking uncharacteristically murderous.

Minhyung, bless his soul, is still half-awake and also half-dressed, trying to calm the both of them down. When Wooje almost falls flat on his face, he finds himself half carried to stand by a pair of steady hands. “Wooje – Wooje-yah, what the fuck is going on?”

“Wooje? What are you talking about, Lee Minhyung, who is that?” Wooje snaps, pointing at Wooje, and Wooje, putting the pieces together, turns around to look at the mirror on the wall, and finds himself having to tiptoe to get the same angle he used to.

He almost screams again.

He doesn’t have to, because Fake-Wooje turns to look at the mirror a second after he does.

Then he starts screaming.

*

Wooje is Minseok. Minseok is Wooje.

This is by far not the worst thing that could’ve happened. It is, however, the worst time that it could’ve happened.

“Hey,” Minhyung says, relatively unperturbed, when they’re all three gathered in the cramped living room later. “It could’ve been worse.”

“How?” Wooje demands, legs crossed and leaning against the empty TV cabinet. “How, exactly, could it have been worse, hyung? And can we focus here?”

Minhyung gives him a pitying look, as if apologising to Doongi for stepping on his tail. Wooje – I mean, Minseok, is sitting beside him on the couch, hair sticking up in 300 different directions like he’s just been struck by lightning. “I’m so sorry I dragged you out of the bed like that Wooje-yah. I mean – I just heard a scream, ran in, and there was some twink in bed with my boyfriend-…”

A second passes where Wooje looks straight at Minhyung like he’s on an episode of The Office.

“Yah, Lee Minhyung, I still can’t believe you kissed him.”

“I thought he was you!” Minhyung protests.

“You pervert, you.”

“Can we please get back to the topic at hand?” Wooje begs. “Like how we just randomly woke up in each other’s bodies?”

“You weren’t calling me that last night,” Minhyung shrugs at Minseok, starting to grin. “You weren’t very good with words after the first half hour in.”

“Oh my fuck, please shut up, please shut up right now,” Wooje drags his hands down his face.

“Yeah! Don’t change the topic!” Minseok says, with a flush that’d look very cute on his own face, not Wooje’s. Minhyung doesn’t seem to mind, though. “You violated Wooje!”

“How was I supposed to know you’d spontaneously swapped bodies?” Minhyung argues.

“Yes, that!” Wooje interjects quickly. “How does this just happen?”

Minhyung and Wooje – I mean, Minseok, are still looking at each other, shooting huffy psychic messages back and forth in silence. Wooje might as well have been a houseplant.

“And his first kiss, too!” Minseok suddenly puffs his cheeks out, like a disappointed mom.

“What?” Wooje’s face burns red.

“He was probably saving it for someone special, you know he’s secretly super sentimental like that-…”

“Of course that wasn’t my first kiss – anyway why would I even-…,” Wooje lies uselessly, once more relegated to houseplant status. Oh fuck, he thinks quietly in horror. I lost my first kiss to Lee fucking Gumayusi Minhyung.

“It’s not my fault he chose to be a nun in middle school-…”

“Don’t say it out loud! You’re so insensitive, Lee Minhyung-…”

“I’m right here,” Wooje says weakly.

“Anyway it wasn’t even on the lips,” Minhyung says dismissively.

“It wasn’t?” Wooje blurts out. The PTSD is kind of blocking that part of it out.

Minhyung and Minseok share a look. See, secretly super sentimental.

“Yeah, don’t worry, your kiss virginity or whatever is safe, Wooje-yah,” Minhyung continues with all the cocky confidence of a Draven main. “It was off the side, you know-…”

“Where?” Minseok demands, suddenly upset.

“Yah, hyung,” Wooje says, exasperated with the lovebirds. “He didn’t actually mean to kiss me-…” but Minhyung’s already leaning in, grinning.

“Just over here,” he cradles the side of Minseok’s (in Wooje’s body!!) face, kissing him on the edge of the lips, and Minseok is giggling, trying to push him away. Wooje really thinks he’s about to die. “And here. And one more-…”

Minseok is loud. However, there’s a scale of loudness, and most of the time, he just manages to be uncomfortably loud. Nothing A&E worthy.

Wooje learns this morning that there is a louder loud, the kind of loud that rings in the deafening silence after it’s over like a cannon.

“YAH!”

Wooje almost slides off the TV cabinet onto the floor. He’s bad with loud noises.

Moon Hyunjoon, in nothing but a damp flimsy tank and basketball shorts, wet hair sticking to his forehead and glasses, walks in through the door beside Wooje. Minhyung lets go of Minseok immediately, but Minseok is still confused, holding onto his boyfriend.

“How could you – how could you fucking do this-…” Hyunjoon is barely coherent. Wooje’s never seen him this angry before.

About five hundred things happen at once. Minhyung stands, making big X’s with his hands and gesturing wildly to Minseok (in Wooje’s body) and Wooje (in Minseok’s body). Minseok jumps to his feet, horrified, having suddenly realized something, and starts speaking so fast his words all glue together, the way he usually does when he’s excited, so Wooje can’t catch anything other than the occasional no and Wooje.

“Fuck you, I told you-…” Hyunjoon spits at Minhyung, reaching over for Minseok, and for a moment it looks like a fight is actually about to break out, so Wooje does the only thing he knows, and starts flaming his jungler.

“Hyunjoon hyung!” he shouts, fists clenched. Hyunjoon turns around and startles – for a top class #1 LCK jungler, he really has such shit spatial awareness.

“W-what – you’re, you’re okay with this?” he splutters. Poor, poor Moon Hyunjoon and his small, poor brain, Wooje thinks.

“It’s me, Wooje!” Wooje points to himself. “Minhyung’s not cheating, Minseok-hyung and I switched bodies, so stop overreacting! Aish, seriously, this pabo hyung…”

The insult seems to snap Hyunjoon out of a trance. He looks at Wooje properly now, as if he’s completely forgotten where he is. It’s a look that steals over his face every now and then – when they’re playing games in his streaming room or sneaking out to the convenience store downstairs to ruin Hyunjoon’s diet. Wooje feels a little dizzy, getting caught in this gaze in broad daylight. Maybe he’s just half-starved (he’s a growing boy!).

“Hey, asshole, can you let go of Minseok?” Minhyung snaps, clearly not very happy about the way Hyunjoon’s reacting to all this. Though, Wooje thinks, it’s not really Hyunjoon’s fault at all. If he’d walked in to see Minhyung cheating on Minseok with some other guy, he’d be pissed as all hell too.

Hyunjoon lets go of Minseok (in Wooje’s body), turning to face the two of them. Wooje can practically see the steam rising off his head as he tries to process what’s happening. “What do you mean they swapped bodies?”

This is the moment Sanghyeok chooses to glide into the room, watching them as a child would with a relatively entertaining Saturday morning programme.

“Ah. It’s finally happened.”

*

“So this curse just…happens? To progamers?” Minseok says incredulously. “Baby, you knew about this?”

“I’ve heard of the curse,” Minhyung shrugs. “It happened to some of the first team members a couple years back.”

“Oh yeah, I was wondering why you wouldn’t have seen it,” Sanghyeok says leisurely. “You weren’t on the first team.”

Minhyung fixes Sanghyeok with a Look. “Thank you for that, hyung.”

“You’re always welcome, Mindongie. Anyway, no one knows who it’ll happen to. But it’s always fun when it does,” Sanghyeok says. He has a book in his hand, like at any moment he’ll metaphorically up and leave the chat when the conversation gets a little too boring for his liking. “We get lots of variations. Sometimes they turn into animals, girls, babies-…”

“Girls?” Hyunjoon sounds blown away. Wooje doesn’t know why the thought of it annoys him. He knows Hyunjoon’s always been popular with girls, has been even before he got on the first team, but still.

Hyunjoon is the pinnacle of everything Wooje’d long decided he scorned, he thinks. Handsome, talented, funny…Lee Sin kick accuracy rate like a god and the body to match it…

So annoying, he thinks, watching as Hyunjoon reaches absently to scratch over his shoulder, and the swell of his bicep bounces, bounces.

“Wooje.”

Wooje snaps to attention, swallowing the saliva pooling under his tongue. “What?”

“Sanghyeok-hyung says it takes a while for the effects to go away,” Minhyung says patiently. He’s being a lot kinder with Wooje this morning. Possibly because he feels guilty about the kiss, or because he looks like Minseok. Either way, Wooje intends to milk it 200%. He also intends to ignore the way Minseok’s stuffing his knuckles into his face to stop laughing right now. “We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, let’s keep it between us and the coaches.”

“Okay. Got it. So,” Wooje stands, rubbing his hands on the seat of his pants. “Great meeting. I’m going back to sleep, in a place that isn’t Minhyung-hyung’s bed.”

This gets another round of reactions, the cherry on top being Sanghyeok’s demon cackle as everyone starts yelling again, and Wooje retreats to his bed.

Face hot, he collapses under the covers, and stupidly wishes the curse could’ve turned him into a girl instead.

*

Minhyung and Hyunjoon are not talking to each other.

Wooje learns this when he power-washes himself sufficiently to go for lunch, trying not to look at his newfound body, and finds himself standing in the corridor alone with Hyunjoon.

“Minseok’s not joining us either?” he asks, though he should be used to Minhyung and Minseok coming as a buy 1 get 1 free deal at this point. He just thought the whole shared trauma of bodyswapping this morning should be bonding them a little, instead of breaking them up.

“No,” Hyunjoon grumbles. “They’re eating at the T1 café.”

“Oh,” Wooje says eloquently. Minseok hates the T1 café just slightly less than he hates ZB1 for snubbing NewJeans at some daesang award this year. Minhyung must be really mad.

“So what do you want to eat?” Hyunjoon asks brusquely, and Wooje sighs.

“Hyung,” he says flatly, as they leave the building. “I didn’t ask for this swap to happen, so I’d appreciate it if you'd please stop taking it out on me.”

Hyunjoon looks embarrassed, but only momentarily. Stupid, egotistic handsome jungler. “Sorry. It just…took me by surprise,” he looks at Wooje. It’s so weird, having to look up this much to see Hyunjoon. It makes Wooje feel like bees are buzzing up a storm in his tummy. “Ah, it’s so weird, looking at Minseok and having to remember that it’s you.”

“Why? I kind of like it,” Wooje lies, shrugging. “Maybe I’ll use my cutie privilege to get us some free food.”

Hyunjoon snorts. “Yeah, you do that, Wooje-yah.”

They settle for a diner around the corner, with a halmoni that’s memorised their orders. She gives Wooje a funny look when he requests for the bibimbap instead of Minseok’s usual sundubu jjigae.

“Minseok should be thanking you,” Hyunjoon asserts later when they’re seated. “He never eats this much vegetables.”

“Minseokie-hyung never eats much,” Wooje corrects, as they get their food. The table feels closer to his face than usual, and it’s messing with him. “I’m going to accidentally gain him 5kg in this body.”

“He’ll just look cuter then.”

Again, another spike of annoyance. “Tch, so you think Minseok looks cuter when he gains weight but not me?”

Hyunjoon is looking very intently at his annoyingly healthy food. “I never said that.”

Wooje spends about five minutes of their lunch sulking, grumpily eating his rice and picking at the cucumbers. But it’s difficult for him to be in a permanently bad mood around Hyunjoon, as always.

“You’re making a mess, Choi Wooje. Do you want us to get scolded by the halmoni?”

“You try eating with these tiny hands!” Wooje complains, lifting his hands to his face. “How does Minseok even hit ctrl-alt-delete with these? The chopsticks feel all weird and funny.”

Hyunjoon laughs. This fucker. “It’s funny seeing you being this dramatic, it’s like you’re absorbing Minseok’s personality too.”

Wooje pales. “Wait. Do you think I might be?”

“No,” Hyunjoon scoffs, then pauses. “No,” he repeats, cautiously. “But we can double check with Sanghyeok-hyung when we’re back.”

“This sucks,” Wooje says into his hands, picking up his chopsticks again. He almost drops them when Hyunjoon grabs his other hand.

“Relax. They’re not that small,” the jungler measures their hands against each other, warm skin pressed up against Wooje’s palm. He’s lying, Minseok’s hands are so fucking tiny. He feels so tiny next to Hyunjoon right now, he can’t imagine how Minseok must feel next to Minhyung. “Okay, they are pretty small. How big are your actual hands?”

“I don’t know,” Wooje says mutinously. They’re still holding hands. “We’ve never held hands before.”

Stop saying it like that, stop saying it like that!!

“Well we can compare when you get your body back,” Hyunjoon chuckles. “But I think…” he closes his hand, threads their fingers through, and Wooje’s heart shoots up into his throat. “Maybe they’d reach up to about here,” he says thoughtfully, tapping his knuckle, just a little longer than where Wooje’s fingers currently reach.

“Wow,” Wooje croaks, when Hyunjoon finally lets go. “You’ve really thought about this, huh.”

Hyunjoon laughs, almost choking on his rice. What a loser. “About holding your hand?”

Shut up, shut up! “No, about holding Minseok-hyung’s hand,” Wooje says defensively. “Is that why you and Minhyung are so mad at each other, huh hyung?”

Hyunjoon goes quiet. This is worrying, because when Minhyung and Hyunjoon argue, Hyunjoon usually cools off by ranting about it to Wooje. Dumb stubborn arrogant Draven main AD carry. After which, they’d probably go for a meal together once they’ve cooled off, and things would be fine.

Hyunjoon not talking to Wooje about his fight with Minhyung is worrying.

“I get why you’re upset, hyung,” Wooje says, and Hyunjoon freezes. Just barely, but Wooje notices. Wooje notices a lot of things (not necessarily about Hyunjoon). “I would be too, if it were me.”

“You,” the older man stutters. “You would?”

“Yeah,” Wooje nods slowly. Is it that hard to believe I’d be pissed off on Minseok’s behalf if I caught Minhyung cheating? “And after everything we’ve been through all together? It’d suck that Minhyung would do something like that.”

“Right,” Hyunjoon says slowly. He’s entering the steam processing mode again. “Wait, so – so you knew? All this time? About how I feel?”

Wooje blinks. “Yeah. Like I said, I would’ve been pissed off too.”

Hyunjoon opens his mouth, and closes it. Despite the goldfish mimicry, he still manages to look cute. “Right. Yeah. Okay, well, actually, I didn’t envision this when I thought of how we’d-…”

“I would’ve told Minseok straight away.”

Again, the jungler looks confused. “What?”

Wooje frowns. “What, you mean you would’ve covered for Minhyung? If you caught him kissing some other guy?”

“No, can we please stop talking about Min-…just what are you talking about, Choi Wooje?”

“That I’d be just as pissed as you if I caught Lee Minhyung, one of our closest friends, cheating on Ryu Minseok, his boyfriend, and also one of our closest friends,” Wooje spells out as clearly as he can without accidentally outing T1’s main (only, he meant to say only) couple to the public. He puffs out his cheeks, going back to his food. “Pabo hyung…”

He’s one spoonful in, when he feels a rough thwap against his forehead, and squeaks, covering the sensitive skin. “Hyung!”

There’s that look on Hyunjoon’s face again, the murky, bubbling emotion, now soured with irritation. “You’re the idiot, Choi Wooje.”

“Okay, sorry,” Wooje rubs his forehead, watching warily for the offending finger flick. In retrospect, riling Hyunjoon up right after a fight with Minhyung probably isn’t the best idea. He checks the other man’s expression, making sure he didn’t go too far. “I said I was sorry!”

“That face isn’t going to work on me this time,” Hyunjoon retorts. “You forget, you’re not in your own body anymore.”

Wooje hadn’t even been aware he was making a face. He cups his cheeks in his hands, feeling the soft skin experimentally. “What face was I making?”

When no reply is forthcoming, he looks up, Hyunjoon blinks, looking back at his food. “I don’t know,” he says brusquely, stirring around his stew. “You expect me to memorise every face you make?”

“Alright, sheesh,” Wooje mumbles, going back to his rice. He’s not that hungry anymore.

The halmoni clears their trays once they’re done, and Wooje is juggling difficult texts from Jaehyeon about their afternoon scrim when Hyunjoon clears his throat.

“It was a cute face.”

“Huh?”

“Just now,” Hyunjoon waits for Wooje to get up, looking away. “You asked what face you made, didn’t you?”

Wooje pauses, frowning. “I thought you said Minseok was the cute one, hyung.”

“Why?” Hyunjoon smirks. “Jealous?”

Damn it. “I know I’m cute,” Wooje declares, pushing past Hyunjoon, ignoring the way his heart is pounding in his chest. “Anyway, you should kiss and make up with Minhyung-hyung before our scrim later this afternoon. As much as I like the thought of you making Top priority, I don’t think Jaehyeon-hyung would appreciate you refusing to gank Bot.”

*

Wooje is a self-certified League of Legends prodigy. PhD in natural aegyo. Best Aatrox player in the world, and in the universe, once he figures out how to challenge God to a game of ARAM.

Nobody listens to Wooje.

Wooje_Houseplant_ver.png stands in the hallway, listening to the sound of World War III raging in Minhyung’s room, approximately 6 minutes after he’d casually seen Hyunjoon off, confident that feeding both boys would set the foundation for a civil discussion.

He’d emerged from the bathroom when he’d heard the first yells, barely coherent through the door that he once thought was soundproof.

“…you think I’d do that? Why the FUCK…” come the strains of Minhyung’s operatic sonnet. “…fucking STUPID? Is that it, Hyunjoon…”

“Fuck…supposed to think?” Hyunjoon duets, matching the decibel and intensity of Minhyung’s verse artfully. “…TOLD you, and I walk in…”

Wooje wishes he were a houseplant. This way, he wouldn’t have to bite his nails and wonder if he’d accidentally set this off by asking Hyunjoon to talk things out.

There’s a silence for a while, during which Wooje wonders if he should check if they’re still alive.

“Know…WHY you’re so angry at me? Because you’ve got…angry at HIM, because you haven’t told…SHIT,” Minhyung suddenly snaps. His voice gets louder, and Wooje quickly backs towards the bathroom, as the door swings open. “Talk to me when you’re ready to apologise.”

He locks eyes with Minhyung, whose whole face suddenly softens, boiling-hot fury replaced by a tired sort of misery, and he reaches out, before he seems to remember in an instant about the swap this morning, and stops.

“That’s Wooje!” Hyunjoon blasts out from Minhyung’s doorway, and the fury returns immediately.

“Shut up, I know!” Minhyung snaps back, before stomping off, leaving Wooje standing blankly in the middle of the corridor.

He turns to Hyunjoon, who looks more bitter than explosively angry like Minhyung, pacing the short length of the doorway.

“Hyung,” Wooje starts. “What happened to talking-…”

“How much did you hear?” Hyunjoon demands, and Wooje’s hands go up in an automatic surrender.

“Not much,” he says truthfully. “I heard him calling you stupid. No, hyung-…” he winces, as Hyunjoon starts to storm off in the same direction. “I really don’t think you should go after him-…”

“I’m not. We have scrims,” the jungler says shortly, before disappearing around the corner, starting to violently throw his things together into a bag.

Wooje runs his hands through his hair, and sighs.

*

It speaks of his years of experience and professionalism, that Jaehyeon is less concerned about the fact that his support and toplaner have switched bodies, and more dismayed by jungle and bot’s refusal to speak to each other.

“I leave you guys for one morning,” Jaehyeon says, thin and tight, as they sit and stare at their monitors. He’s a chill guy. Wooje likes him. The only thing he fears more than confrontation is public speaking, but he does both of those still anyway, because he’s their coach, and that’s what coaches are supposed to do. “What happened?”

Wooje is too much of a coward to speak. Minhyung and Hyunjoon are pretending the other doesn’t exist. Sanghyeok is practicing nirvana in the centre of it all, serenely rearranging his runes and masteries.

Minseok sighs in Wooje’s voice, and tries to smile appeasingly. It’s unfair that even in Wooje’s inferior body, he manages to have an Effect. “There was a misunderstanding this morning. We’ll work on clearing it up, hyung.”

“What does the two of you swapping bodies have to do with the two of you?” Jaehyeon asks, narrowing his eyes at the two on Sanghyeok’s either side. All the way on Wooje’s right, he sees Minhyung tensing up, jaw set. Letting Sanghyeok know about their relationship had already been a major step on its own – but letting it slip to Jaehyeon would be a separate ball game entirely.

“Nothing,” Hyunjoon lies brusquely from beside him, doing his best at a civil tone. “It was about something else. Sorry coach.”

“Really? You and Minhyung just so happened to fight about something on the same morning that Minseok and Wooje switch bodies, and it’s got nothing to do with each other?”

“Yes hyung,” Hyunjoon turns to look at Jaehyeon. He’s usually a bad liar, but there’s some semblance of reluctant truth in his voice when he says: “We’re being stupid. I’m just stupid. Sorry.”

Trying his best not to let Jaehyeon see, Wooje sneaks a glance at Minhyung, who’s staring straight at his screen, expression unchanging.

Jaehyeon must sense that this is the best they’re going to get, because he sighs.

“Whatever it is, the scrim is now, and that’s where our focus needs to be,” Jaehyeon says firmly, checking his phone. “Right, load on now. Wooje and Minseok, just play your roles as per normal. I’ll remember your seating positions have swapped. Let’s practice the rotations we discussed during our last session.”

Their lobby is awful silent, but the atmosphere lightens when they’re in, and Minseok and Wooje spam happy bee emotes until they get scolded.

“You’re giving me a leash?” Hyunjoon asks, when Wooje follows his pathing into the jungle. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“I don’t know,” Wooje shrugs. “You’re not really stupid, I guess.”

He doesn’t know what possesses him then, but he reaches over with his keyboard hand, lightly squeezing Hyunjoon’s wrist. It must shock Hyunjoon, because he accidentally levels up his E instead of his Q.

“I take it back. You’re kinda stupid, hyung.”

“Shut up, punk,” Hyunjoon growls, but he’s smiling.

*

The next morning, Wooje almost leaps out of bed, going straight for the mirror he’d left beside his bed for this very purpose.

He’s still Minseok.

“How are we going to stream today?” he asks, after double-checking their schedule. Yep, streams for all of them scheduled for this afternoon.

“You could both call in sick,” Minhyung suggests with a shrug, at breakfast. He and Minseok (in Wooje’s body) are sitting together, but something’s slightly off about them, besides the obvious. “There’s been a flu bug going around.”

We could, Wooje thinks, biting his nails. But how long can we keep that up? Is it really that hard to pretend to be each other for one night?

“Stop biting my nails,” Minseok complains, grabbing Wooje’s wrist and pulling it down. “They’re going to be ruined by the time I get my body back.”

“Well you keep pulling my hair, hyung!” Wooje says defensively. “I’m going to be bald!”

“It’s not my fault they keep getting in your glasses!” Minseok tries to shake his hair out of his face, and Wooje’s spectacles almost end up in his porridge. “Why is your eyesight so bad, Wooje-yah?”

“Don’t you two start arguing too,” Sanghyeok sails in, and they fall silent.

Wooje kind of wishes he hadn’t said that, because they’d been tiptoeing around the elephant in the room thus far rather successfully. Minhyung had even passed Hyunjoon a pair of chopsticks with a non-committal grunt this morning.

Then Minseok suddenly slams his chopsticks down, standing up straight with a look of fiery determination on Wooje’s face, head narrowly missing the hanging light over the dining table.

“This is ridiculous. We’re supposed to be having fun with this. I was talking with Hyukkyu-hyung about this. And Kwanghee,” he adds, when Minhyung visibly loses about 300HP at that statement. On Minhyung’s scale of betrayal, casual conversation with Player D without his knowledge probably ranked higher than if Minseok were to kiss Coach Kanghee in the middle of a scrim.

“He told me that when Smeb turned into a girl on Valentine’s during their KT days, it was fucking hilarious. They took turns going to restaurants for free food and starting rumours amongst the fans on Inven,” Minseok declares. “We should be having a blast with this too.”

He looks demandingly at Wooje, who’s trying to become the same colour as the chair he’s sitting on. “Sure,” he agrees hoarsely.

“We should have dinner together tonight. All 5 of us,” Minseok says stubbornly. It’s unlike him to insist on having things his way like this – he’s usually quite the expert at keeping his hands clean when the world burns. “Like barbeque, or something. Play a few drinking games before coming back for practice.”

“Meat sounds good,” Sanghyeok says amiably. Wooje’s surprised – he usually doesn’t go for dinner with them, unless it’s mandated by the company.

“Sure, let’s go,” Hyunjoon shrugs, returning to his breakfast.

“Okay,” Minhyung says, but he’s not touching his food anymore, arms folded on the table.

Then Wooje realises what’s weird between them – Minhyung and Minseok haven’t touched each other once this entire meal. Not that they’re actively gross normally, but when they’re alone, there’d be the occasional hand-holding under the table, undercover smiles at an inside joke, or leaning onto each other, especially when they’re sleepy in the morning.

This morning, they’re sitting like strangers, stiff and separate.

Just as Wooje starts worrying if they had an argument too, Minseok glances over at Minhyung, lightning quick and worried, and leans over, probably to do his thing whenever his boyfriend’s upset, where he’d press his lips against Minhyung’s shoulder and blink up at him with his big eyes.

With a Gumayusi-level reaction speed, though, Minhyung blocks him with a hand, quickly looking over at Wooje and Hyunjoon.

And then Wooje realises, with an uncomfortable twist – they're deliberately not touching while Minseok’s in Wooje’s body.

Which – while appreciated, sure, they’re still his friends, and Wooje would rather they be gross and happy in his body than stiff and distant like this. Should he? Is this just him lowkey being the doormat his friends always say he is? It’s not like there’s a Pann article he can look up on this. Hey, should I find it weird if my friend kisses his boyfriend while he’s in my body?

This thought process takes place over a split second. Then Wooje thinks, what the heck. They’re my friends. They’ve got my back. I’ve gotta have theirs.

Also, the last time Minhyung and Minseok had a fight, they lost like 4 scrims straight. Explaining that one away to Jaehyeon had been a wild ride.

“I don’t mind if you guys, like, kiss or whatever, while we’re like this,” Wooje says, fanning awkwardly in an attempt to explain what he means. When no one at the table says anything, he plows on bravely. “I know you don’t mean any harm. Whatever you guys do now is between Minhyung and Minseok, not me,” he shrugs, trying to adjust his glasses out of nerves, and almost poking his eyes out because he doesn’t have glasses.

Minhyung and Minseok are still looking over pensively, and Wooje wonders just how much he’s going to have to say to convince them when he hears a sigh from beside him.

“Yeah. It’s okay,” Hyunjoon grunts, shrugging.

Then Wooje frowns, turning to face him. “What’s this got to do with you, hyung?”

No one at the table says anything for a second, as Hyunjoon’s face turns a lovely shade of scarlet, and Wooje’s stuck once more trying to figure out what the hell is going through his hyung’s mind when Minseok clears his throat loudly.

“Well, I’m going to practice,” he announces, shooting up, and hitting his head on the overhanging light.

*

Miraculously, they manage to get through the morning and afternoon’s scrims without any further injuries. They ponder over a late lunch before the streams start, until Kanghee offers to order in Mom’s Touch, which cheers them all up considerably.

Wooje escapes the rest of them though, stretching out on a couch in the waiting area of their broadcasting room before the food arrives, monitoring his latest video on the T1 channel alone.

That is, blissfully alone, until someone troops past at the corner of his eye, and settles on the couch, clambering up onto Wooje.

Wooje moves the phone, and gets jumpscared by himself.

“Minseok-hyung,” he grumbles, letting himself get blanketed regardless. It’s a little funny, how brave, tough Busan man Ryu Minseok is the cutest and cuddliest friend Wooje has – never in front of the cameras, though, as if afraid for his non-existent street rep. “I thought you were on a self-imposed touching ban?”

“Technically, if we touch each other, regardless of how this works, we’re still touching each other,” Minseok says, voice muffled in Wooje’s sweater. He lifts his head, turning back to frown at his feet, hanging off the side of the couch. “I’m hungry, I hit my head on the light this morning, and now I can’t fit on this couch anymore. Let me have this.”

“Where’s Minhyung?”

“Mm, with Hyunjoon I think, they’re getting drinks for our Mom’s Touch order.”

Wooje actually puts his phone down, looking at Minseok. “Should we be worried?”

“Nah. I think they’re figuring things out,” Minseok says, settling comfortably between Wooje and the backrest, like a cat. “You know they won’t talk if either of us are around.”

“Yeah, it’s just that the last time I told Hyunjoon to talk to Minhyung, it ended with the greatest screaming match of the century, hyung.”

“Mm. What did you hear from that, Wooje-yah?”

Wooje stiffens, suddenly not sure of how much he should say. This is Minseok, though, probably the only one on this team he’d tell anything to, other than Hyunjoon.

“Hyunjoon was angry because he thought Minhyung was cheating on you with me,” Wooje mumbles, mood slowly growing sour once more.

Minseok makes a tch sort of sound. “And you think they blew up over that?”

“I don’t know,” Wooje says, trying to get up and away from this conversation, but Minseok has him locked down securely. Being smaller is having more negatives than positives. “Hyunjoon didn’t want to admit he assumed wrong and Minhyung probably got pissed off at that or something, I guess. Can I go, hyung?”

“No,” Minseok says firmly, and Wooje blinks. “Not until we clear this up. Wooje-yah, you’re right, Minhyung was mad at Hyunjoon for blowing up and thinking that he was kissing you. But Hyunjoon didn’t blow up because of some righteous anger on my behalf.”

“Oh, and he told you this?” Wooje says, annoyed. Was Hyunjoon just telling these things to everyone except him?

“No, he told Minhyung,” Minseok says confidently. “The night before our body swap.”

Wooje stares at an indistinct spot on the ceiling. “What?”

“You remember? Minhyung and Hyunjoon went out to drink alone, because I came back from the dermatologist and you were playing with your brother?”

The younger man nods slowly. He remembers that, yes, Hyunjoon coming to his desktop and asking if he wanted to go for drinks, and Wooje letting him say hi to his brother through the headset mic.

“So he told Minhyung something that night, that pissed him off in the morning when he woke up and thought Minhyung was kissing me,” Wooje says slowly. None of this is making any sense, in the way that it’s supposed to. “And you’re not going to tell me what this is?”

“Nope,” Minseok pops the ‘p’. “Because I don’t know what it is either. Hyunjoon does, though,” he says, eyes wide and innocent. On Wooje’s face, it just looks infuriating and gross. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Then he gets up, freeing Wooje from his couch prison, and saunters away.

*

The thing is, feigned ignorance aside, Wooje thinks he knows what Minseok is getting at.

And he doesn’t know what to think of it.

Moon Hyunjoon is supposed to be a high school crush. The kind of guy 14-year-old Wooje would have a poster of folded up under his pillow, to pull out at night and fantasise over when nobody could see him. The kind of senior at school Wooje would actively scurry away from, just to hide in a classroom and watch through a window as he won the annual track meet, or something.

The thought of Hyunjoon in any way reciprocating the forbidden, longing feelings Wooje had for him was a dangerous one, setting him up for nothing but humiliation and heartbreak. He didn’t know why Minseok was encouraging this. Maybe because his relationship with Minhyung worked out so well, he thought the same applied to everyone else.

Wooje’s head is muddled throughout the stream later, and he almost forgets on numerous occasions that he’s supposed to be playing as Minseok. Support should be a breeze, he thinks, even if Minseok doesn’t often play Support all that much when he’s trying to rank up.

Keyword is, Wooje thinks.

He gets flamed by his carry in one game as Nami, ints in the next as Ashe, somehow manages to get Bot in the next game and gets reported for intentional trolling as Kalista. His annoyance slowly devolves into a low-grade panic, aware that he’s driving Minseok’s reputation into the dirt in front of all his fans, watching the view counter slowly start to drop.

Wooje is on the verge of giving up and pretending to rage quit to save himself this slow torture, when he gets a message on the client.

“Wanna duo?”

Unfairly, unconsciously, Wooje finds himself breathing out, and smiling.

Sure, Hyunjoon does things that make Wooje feel happy, like take him out to eat, play Bunny Man at his insistence, send him funny Instagram reels with messages like “saw this and thought of u haha :)”. He also asks to duo with him on stream to save him from absolutely failing at every support champion he touches.

But this doesn’t mean that Hyunjoon likes him.

They get on Discord, play the newest game that the fans request for, duo and coast through on the coattails of Aiming and Kingen, then Showmaker, and memorably Minseok, notably doing a marginally better job in the toplane than Wooje is in bot. Hyunjoon talks and Wooje laughs and they argue and before he knows it, the stream that’d made him break out in a cold sweat for the first hour is over.

It doesn’t mean that Hyunjoon likes Wooje.

But as Wooje shuts the client down, sits in the cheery, whirring silence of the broadcasting room, he admits quietly to himself.

It does mean Wooje likes Hyunjoon. Likes him so much that all Hyunjoon would have to do to break him as a person, as a professional, would be to never speak to him again.

The thought of it terrifies Wooje.

The door opens. Hyunjoon stands there grinning, phone in one hand and jacket slung over his shoulders, leaning against the door frame in a way that has Wooje’s heart trilling like a teenage girl going to prom.

“Dinner? Minseok’s already downstairs,” He waves his phone, then pauses at the look on Wooje’s face. As if even in Minseok’s body, he knows something’s wrong. “You okay, Wooje-ah?”

“Fine,” Wooje stands, sweat accumulating on his palms. He grabs his phone and wallet. The attentiveness, the way Hyunjoon knows how he’s feeling and what he’s thinking and just how to make him feel better, means nothing, because Wooje can’t think it means something and then be wrong. He just can’t. “Let’s go.”

*

Dinner helps Wooje relax. They order Wooje’s favourite meat (don’t say it), Sanghyeok sponsors a couple of bottles of the disgustingly sweet soju that Minseok likes, and best of all, Minhyung and Hyunjoon are laughing again, the events of yesterday morning far behind them.

Minseok’s words about whatever Hyunjoon had told Minhyung two nights ago that led to the fight are still on the forefront of Wooje’s mind, but he refuses to let that spoil his night.

(It’s difficult, though, when Hyunjoon makes a ssam wrap for him and casually brings it to Wooje’s lips, all the while telling Minseok about the new game they were playing this afternoon that he might have to carry on once things are back to normal. Wooje eats it of course, face burning red, pretending he doesn’t see the look that Minseok gives him.)

This is nice. It’s nice seeing Hyunjoon confident and happy and willing to lean into Wooje’s side, warm and casual. It’s nice (ironically enough) being able to be himself with the four of them: three of the best friends he’s ever met, and the boy he likes more than he can bear to think about.

In the barbecue smoke and alcohol haze of tonight, the laughter of the rest of the customers crowding the restaurant, Wooje can pretend.

He almost regrets it when it’s time to head back to the office for their scheduled practice, and stands near the door reluctantly, scuffing his shoes against the doormat.

Oddly enough, he sees Minhyung grin and lean over to say something to Hyunjoon, Minseok nodding along with his back to Wooje, and the next thing he knows, Hyunjoon is by his side, opening the door for them.

“Minhyung is getting something at Family Mart with Minseok and Sanghyeok,” Hyunjoon explains, disgruntled, as they start walking. “They told us to head back first.”

It’s weird, because they hadn’t even asked Wooje what he wanted, but he gets the sense that this was deliberate as they start walking back together.

The streets are dark and relatively empty at this hour, and glistening from the rain just now. Wooje breathes out, disappointed when he doesn’t see it fog up, and Hyunjoon laughs at him.

“Today was fun,” Wooje says. Then, telling himself that it’s for operant conditioning purposes and rewarding good behaviour for his pet monkey, he tells Hyunjoon: “Thanks for saving me in the stream today. I was really going to die there.”

“It’s fine, the three of us always stream together anyway,” Hyunjoon shrugs. Something about him looks restless, though, under the moon and streetlight. “More than we do with Minhyung, anyway.”

“You and Minhyung seem to have kissed and made up, though,” Wooje points out, not sure why he’s bringing this up again. Maybe because Wooje was always the first person Hyunjoon went to when he was arguing with someone, and he doesn’t want that to change.

“Oh, yeah,” Hyunjoon again looks sheepish, but he doesn’t go silent like he had the first time. “I bought him choco banana Dippin Dots, you know he’s high-maintenance like that. And we talked, I guess.”

“Haha,” Wooje would laugh, except there’s a cold feeling in his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?” he blurts out, feeling like a kid. “You usually tell me,” he mumbles.

“Like I said,” Hyunjoon says, sounding oddly distant. “I was being stupid.”

“Stupid about what, hyung?”

There’s a pause, as they go under a bridge, and Wooje ducks rather pointlessly. Being Minseok’s height means low-lying structures don’t pose as much of a threat as they used to, but he’s more focused on what the man beside him has to say.

“Nothing,” Hyunjoon says after a moment, rolling his shoulders, and Wooje’s heart sinks.

Stop it, he tells himself sternly. See? This is what I meant. Setting yourself up for heartbreak and humiliation.

But Wooje knows, with a sinking certainty, that he’s already there. Already cut open wide, heart exposed and beating desperately under the blade of the guillotine suspended in Hyunjoon’s hands. All he’d have to do would be to walk away, and Wooje would be broken beyond repair.

“Oh,” he forces out instead, stuffing his hands into his pockets. For a while, both of them just walk like that.

Wooje curses himself for making this awkward, for wanting more than he should. He should be happy, just being able to walk by Hyunjoon’s side alone, being able to eat with him and work with him.

Everything that’s happened these past 2 days, the awkward conversations and fights and struggles, have all been because of this stupid body swap. Wooje wishes sorely they could just go back to how they used to be, where he could pine comfortably in solitude.

“I really-…”

“Actually I-…”

They both stop, Wooje embarrassed, as Hyunjoon gestures for him to go first.

“I was going to say,” Wooje sighs. “I really can’t wait for things to go back to normal. I wish this stupid curse never happened.”

Hyunjoon stops walking. “You do?”

The younger boy half-shrugs, half-shakes his head, turning to look at Hyunjoon. “Don’t you, hyung?”

Again, he’s mutely stunned by the same murky, bubbling emotion in Hyunjoon’s eyes, dragging him in like a trance. Wooje barely realises they’re both just standing and staring at each other now, illuminated by streetlamps and moonlight.

“Don’t you, hyung?” Wooje echoes, throat dry.

“Wooje,” Hyunjoon says, except the name sounds like a summer lightning storm bursting through, current lancing through the air between them. “I lied. I wasn’t being stupid about nothing.”

What?

“I was being stupid about you.”

Wooje feels like he’s been plunged into an ice bath, then a lava pit. “What do you mean?” he manages.

“Listen,” the jungler says slowly, and it’s clear he’s speaking as he goes, thoughts going straight from his brain to his mouth, like they usually do. “I was mad at Minhyung because I thought he was kissing you. Not for the reason you thought I was.”

“So why were you mad, hyung?” Wooje asks, feeling like he’s walking into a Caitlyn trap. Like at any one point in time, the rest might appear out of the fog of war with a hidden camera and party poppers.

For a moment, they’re just looking at each other, through that swirling fog in Hyunjoon’s eyes, the same as yesterday. He takes a step closer, so Wooje can almost smell the sweet alcohol on his breath. “Like I said, Wooje-yah,” he says, low and rough. “I was angry at him for kissing you. Is that not reason enough?”

Wooje’s face feels like it’ll burst into flames. He needs Hyunjoon to say it. Needs to know that when he lays his heart between them, the blade in Hyunjoon’s hands isn’t going to come down.

But his whole life, through these two days especially, he’s been a coward. Playing with this team had been the first time he ever thought he could be more than that.

They made him brave. Hyunjoon made him brave. And now, he’d just have to be brave outside of the game, too.

“I like you hyung,” he says quietly, hands starting to shake when he sees the surprise in Hyunjoon’s eyes. “I always have. And sometimes – most of the time, I feel like I’m not good enough. But T1 makes me feel like I can do anything, and you make me feel like I’d be happy doing it. And I want to do it all, I want to do everything with you, hyung. For as long as we want.”

There. Wooje feels lighter, and free, and scared. So fucking scared. But he’d done the one thing he’d been wanting to do for forever, and he’d done it with everything he had.

He looks up at Hyunjoon, heart jumping in his chest as he tries to read his face. The best he could do now was let Wooje down gently. Thank him for telling him that, apologise for not feeling the same way. Ask if they’ll still be friends.

Tears are starting to crowd at the corner of Wooje’s eyes, stupidly. He steps back, trying to rub them away, and is dragged forward, almost off his feet.

He’s wrapped up in the arms he’s only ever dreamed of, inhaling the mixed scents of barbecue and mint shampoo and Hyunjoon’s own unique musk, familiar and alluring. He’s so stunned he freezes up, from his head down to his toes, hand wound in the fabric of Hyunjoon’s jacket.

“I thought you were telling me no,” Hyunjoon whispers. “All this time, I thought there was no way you wouldn’t have known-…”

“I knew,” Wooje mumbles, realisation falling like shards of glass back into a frame. “I just couldn’t believe it.”

“Because what?” Hyunjoon straightens, holding his hands. “Because you thought you weren’t good enough?” he makes an irritated sound, at the back of his throat. “You know you’re kind of stupid for a genius.”

Wooje can’t stop this floaty feeling in his chest, the feeling of being able to hold Hyunjoon’s hands, know he feels the same. “I guess that makes two of us.”

Hyunjoon is fixing him with a fierce, tender sort of look, that has Wooje’s insides tying itself in loops. “I’ve never wanted anyone like this before. It’s just you. Only you, get it?”

“Since when?” Wooje can barely believe what he’s hearing.

“When?” Hyunjoon makes a disbelieving sound. “Put it this way, Wooje-yah. The moment this curse is lifted, if I don’t kiss you, I’m going to fucking die.”

*

(“So what was your argument with Minhyung about, anyway?” Wooje asks, once they’re back in the dorms, and Hyunjoon is on the bed next to him.

The older boy makes a tch sound, before sighing, embarrassed. “I got drunk the night before and spilled my guts to him about you, and he told me to go for it. Then I woke up, and saw him all over you, and – stop laughing! And then he got all butthurt over the fact that I’d think he’d do something like that to me, blah blah. I said stop laughing, Wooje-ah.”

“Or what?” Wooje leans onto him, in the darkness. “Going to hold me down? Punish me?”

Hyunjoon says nothing for a moment. Then he says, in a much lower growl than before: “You’d better get your body back real soon, Choi Wooje.”)

*

Wooje wakes up the next morning in the arms of another man (normal).

He turns over, about to snuggle in deeper, and realises that it’s not the man he went to bed with last night.

“Oh,” he shoots up into a sitting position, untangling himself from bedsheets and pillows and Lee Minhyung, and scrambles over to the mirror in the closet.

He’s back.

I can do unholy things with Moon Hyunjoon, is his first euphoric thought. And compete in the spring season, I guess.

Minhyung sits up, thankfully more clothed than two mornings ago, and rubs his eyes. “Wooje?”

“I’m back!” The door flies open then, and Minseok leaps in, all smiles and sunshine and giggles. “Baby, I’m back!” he climbs onto the bed, tangling himself in bedsheets and pillows and Lee Minhyung, cupping his boyfriend’s face and kissing him.

It’s very cute for about half a second, until they both fall back into the sheets and it becomes clear that kissing isn’t all they’re about to do.

Wooje_Houseplant_ver.png sidles rapidly out of the room, just as Minhyung rasps at him to close the door and tell Jaehyeon they’ll be late for practice, and bumps into a solid chest.

“Morning,” Hyunjoon is standing there like a Greek god, hair mussed and warm skin bare, grinning like a tiger. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from that.”

“It’s okay,” Wooje says, not really sure what words are coming out of his mouth. “The doors are soundproof.”

They both stand and look at each other for a moment, as Minseok lets out a sound that demonstrates just how non-soundproof these doors actually are.

“I think we should get some breakfast,” Wooje says, trying his best not to die. “Do you want-…”

Hyunjoon’s lips are on his, warm and rough and plush like they always are when Wooje sneaks in a longing stare in the morning. All too soon, they’re gone, and Wooje feels hot – like the sun is inside him, warming him up from his lips down to his toes.

“I told you I’d die if I didn’t get to kiss you,” Hyunjoon breathes, low and satisfied, thumb running down the side of Wooje’s face, stopping at his lips.

“Still gonna stop at one?” Wooje dares, sun-baked wind whirling through him at the look on Hyunjoon’s face – that misty, tender look he’s starting to recognise.

The older boy curls a knuckle under his jaw, tilting his face up, a fond, disbelieving smirk starting to tug at his lips.

“Who says I’m stopping here?”

*

Jaehyeon walks past the practice room, on his way to fight a war with management, and halts.

He looks in.

“Sanghyeok-ah,” he says. “Where is everyone?”

He waits patiently for Sanghyeok to scale two more steps in Jump King, then fall pathetically six levels down.

“Ah, they said they’d be late for practice,” Sanghyeok replies, miffed. I just got past those hexagons, too.

“All four of them?” Jaehyeon asks slowly. “All at the same time?”

“Yes.”

 Jaehyeon looks down the corridor, then back into the room. Maybe he should’ve just gone to China. “Should we be worried?”

“You know hyung, if I were you,” the eldest member replies breezily, restarting the slow climb upwards. “I wouldn’t worry about a thing.”