Work Text:
Euijoo is drawn to Nicholas’ room almost against his will.
There’s no particular reason to be there in the first place. The other occupants of the room are out and about, Yuma exploring the wonders of Tokyo’s newest shopping streets and food trucks while Harua is out at Maki’s house for the next few days, so it’s not like Euijoo has any business to go over with them. And Nicholas had just seen Euijoo less than an hour ago, so there was no need to impose on him again.
But Nicholas wouldn’t mind. A voice that sounds frustratingly like K pipes up from the back of his mind, whispering the name of his best friend through the maze of his head as if it were a secret meant to be kept close to his heart. Then again, fictitious K isn’t exactly wrong about that. Nicholas would want you there.
What’s worse is that Euijoo finds himself agreeing with said disembodied voice, and somehow he finds himself face to face with Nicholas’ door with a hand hovering in the air, frozen right before clamping down on the metal handle. He supposes that he’s lucky to have caught himself before barging in, taking a step back just in case Nicholas feels his presence there like he always manages to do.
A wave of cold air washes over him from the air conditioning, and only then does his mind process what exactly he was about to do. God, Euijoo laments, looking down at his hand. When had he even gotten out of bed? Was that whole walk across the dorm filled with him fantasizing about Nicholas welcoming him in with open arms? What was he, some type of loser?
He decides to head back to his room. Or perhaps he’ll sit out in the living room for a bit and enjoy the air conditioning for a little longer. His and Fuma’s room was never known for its good air circulation, so it was both a blessing and a curse to have their room temperature permanently set to match the outside air; always too cold when it’s winter, but by the time summer rolls around, their room is hotter than a sweet potato encased in aluminum foil.
But of course, Byun Euijoo has never been known for his luck.
There’s no warning as to why the door before him opens with a loud squeak of unoiled hinges, and the first thing that hits him is the light. Nicholas almost never turns on the overhead light when left to his own devices, always content with turning on the massive array of lamps littered around every corner instead of flicking the switch closest to the door, but for some reason Euijoo can’t parse, the light is on, and it’s bright.
The next thing is, of course, Nicholas himself. He stands at the other side of the door frame, one hand holding the door’s handle while the other hovers in the air awkwardly. They lock eyes inevitably—Euijoo is standing right in front of Nicholas’ door after all—and Euijoo cracks his knuckles, if only to fill the silence.
“Oh, Euijoo?” Nicholas says his name as if it were a question, tilting his head. He’s just tall enough to block the offensive soft white light bulb, resulting in an almost halo-like effect around his newly dyed jet black hair. “What are you doing?”
That is a leading question, Euijoo’s brain supplies. By definition, it was a question that lead Euijoo to recite a certain answer, but Euijoo is doing nothing out of the ordinary; at least, not when compared to the other eight boys who prance around the dorm doing god knows what.
But that’s not what Euijoo ends up noticing. The last thing that hits him, aside from Nicholas’ shadowy silhouette against the blinding white fluorescence, is the smell. The remaining whiffs of alcohol—not the drinking kind, but rather, the kind that Euijoo is privy to find stashed away in the back of his mom’s bathroom cabinets with all of her nail supplies—stings his nose, getting increasingly stronger with every second that Euijoo stands frozen, his face scrunching up at the almost offensive smell.
“What is that smell?” Euijoo asks, taking a step back. He brings up a sleeved hand to cover his nose, using the thin cotton to filter out as much of it as possible.
Nicholas has the decency to look a little embarrassed by it, bringing up a hand to scratch at the base of his neck. The habit is a little endearing, bringing Euijoo back to when the two of them were just strangers, trying to practice to the same music, the same eight count, with not a single familiar word between them to communicate.
He remembers trying to speak via body language; pointing at signs, mimicking gestures to emphasize unspoken points, sending a thumbs up across the practice room to convey more than just a good day’s work. He also remembers Nicholas never once understanding Euijoo’s attempts at speaking in unfamiliar vowels and tones, the awkward smile and scratch at his neck haven’t changed; Euijoo suspects that it never will.
“Euijoo?” Nicholas calls out, waving a hand in Euijoo’s face to elicit some type of reaction from him. There’s a frown on his face now, and Euijoo doesn’t fail to notice the way Nicholas is trying to shut the door to his bedroom, moving the door inch by inch until the halo of light above him disappears entirely. “Is the smell that bad? I was using the acetone to clean off my nails—forgot to open the door to let the smell out until it was too late.”
“It’s all good.” Euijoo grits his teeth, bringing his sleeve down from his nose. And it was true! After a few more minutes of exposure, Euijoo is guaranteed to be used to the smell, as Nicholas already seemingly was.
He chances a glance over Nicholas’ shoulder, his eyes catching on the few small bottles of polish at the corner of Nicholas’ desk. Various shades of red, orange and pink contrast against the bland white, drawing Euijoo in with a force stronger than gravity itself. “Were you going to paint your nails too? Harua told me that you bought some polish with him the other day.”
Nicholas looks back over his shoulder, presumably following Euijoo’s gaze until it locks on the same objects in the distance. He ends up walking into the room, abandoning Euijoo at the door to hold up a bottle that was previously out of sight behind one of Harua’s figurines. “The colors are Harua’s. I was going to use the black polish.”
“What was the point of buying the others then?” Euijoo laughs, easily crossing the threshold and making his way to the edge of Nicholas’ bed. There’s several jackets and other articles of clothing scattered across the mattress; Euijoo pushes them aside with a practiced ease, sitting himself down while Nicholas takes the chair directly in front of him.
He watches on as Nicholas sits down, shrugging. The denim jacket on his shoulders eventually gets slung over the back of his desk chair, leaving Nicholas in a black tank top that has Euijoo forcing his eyes away. Because, you know, Euijoo might be one of the most level headed, but he isn’t immune to things like this. Especially not when he could reach out and just—
“Just because.” Is Nicholas’ response to Euijoo’s question, his voice breaking through Euijoo’s trance.
“Huh?”
“I bought the other colors just because.” Nicholas points to the bottles of polish, the black one in his hands being the exception. The cap is already open, and the brush is dangerously close to dripping the tar black liquid all over his hands. It takes all of Euijoo’s willpower to not pull the brush away from his hands.
Euijoo hums in lieu of a response, unable to think of any other words. It’s nice to watch Nicholas take it in stride, probably already used to the way Euijoo functions after a whole four years of knowing and getting to know him. The silence that falls upon them is comfortable, with Euijoo leaning forward, balancing his elbows on his knees, to watch Nicholas carefully paint each of his nails a midnight black.
Each brush stroke is careful, yet precise. Euijoo’s not quite familiar with nail painting, always content to leave his nails bare while a few other of his members paint their nails every color under the sun, but it seems that Nicholas is experienced, at least with his own nails. His left hand is done in a flash, each nail only taking three wide brush strokes to complete one coat, and now Euijoo is watching him shakily exchange the nail polish brush between his hands, letting his significantly shakier left hand begin to coat his right.
He attempts to paint his thumb, shakily executing the middle line before accidentally covering most of the skin around his nails in a thin coat of opaque black polish in his attempts to get the barren sides. Nicholas is quick to wipe the color off of his skin, using his other thumb to scrape off the offending overflow, but then it happens again when he tries to paint his pointer finger; the shaky, unconfident swipe of the brush leads to an overflow of black onto Nicholas’ finger, this time coating to the very end of his fingertip.
Euijoo watches on as Nicholas sighs, wiping off the excess paint once again with his other nails. He’s leaning quite close to the edge of the bed now, having shifted in such a way to allow for the light to better hit his nails rather than create a shadow above them. Actually, he’s close enough to accidentally knock his knees into Euijoo’s as he pivots toward the light, jostling the hand that was once again trying to paint an even coat of lacquer onto his nails.
“Fuck, sorry. Usually I’m better at this.” Nicholas sounds sincere in his apology, if not a little frustrated. Euijoo thinks he can understand. It’s not everyday that someone decides to watch you do something that you would usually do one your own time, in your own space.
So, he decides to compromise. Nicholas doesn’t seem like the type of person to mind a simple offer, and Euijoo is more than willing to offer a helping hand. He is the one who’s intruding, after all. “Do you want me to paint that hand for you?”
“Hm? Are you sure?” Nicholas counters, his face all teasing smiles and honey coated eyes. His words are unsure, but the way he says them just eggs Euijoo on.
It doesn’t help that Nicholas is practically in Euijoo’s personal space now, having not moved an inch after he’d so politely smacked into Euijoo’s kneecaps. His face is close enough for Euijoo to feel the ghost of his breath on his cheek. “Do you know how to paint nails, Juju?”
“Is that a challenge? If it is then I’m so going to prove you wrong.” Euijoo smiles, already reaching for the bottle and brush sitting on the desk. He dips the brush back into the bottle with all the confidence of a man who’s lived, breathed, and worked with nails for decades; eliciting a sugary sweet laugh from his intended target.
And, to his credit, Euijoo does make good work of the remaining three nails on Nicholas’ right hand. Sure, the brush left streaks behind when Euijoo didn’t dip back into the bottle when he was meant to, and yeah, the layer of polish on Nicholas’ ring finger may be significantly thicker than the other two; but Euijoo did his best.
He’s actually quite impressed with himself. And when he voices this to Nicholas, he’s surprised to see that Nicholas is also quite impressed at Euijoo’s skills. He keeps turning his right hand back and forth, scrutinizing every brush stroke until he was satisfied with what he’d seen.
“I didn’t think you’d be so good at this.” Nicholas mutters, just loud enough for Euijoo to hear in the echoing silence.
He’s looking at his nails again, this time up close, nitpicking every little piece of fiber stuck at the tips of the nail and the little bits that pooled at his cuticles. It isn’t very pretty in comparison to how Nicholas’ left hand looks, but it’s presentable, in Euijoo’s humble opinion. More presentable than Euijoo’s own beat up nails, at least. Maybe he would ask Harua later for one of his spare tinted polishes, if only to add a little color so his hands didn’t look so lifeless.
Nicholas looks up after a while, holding his hands in the air to keep the polish from smudging onto his clothes, or worse, the bedsheets. He waggles his eyebrows when they lock eyes, and suddenly, Euijoo gets the feeling that he’s not leaving Nicholas’ room any time soon. “This is good, Juju! Were you secretly watching nail tutorials before coming here to impress me?”
The unmistakable feeling of being praised surges through Euijoo’s veins, presenting itself outwardly as an unrestrained smile. To preserve a bit of his pride, however, Euijoo ends up saying something along the lines of: “As if I could hide something like that from you.”
“Right.” If Nicholas is shocked at Euijoo’ sudden honesty, he does a good job at hiding it because Euijoo can’t see anything past the goofy smile that’s made its way onto Nicholas’ face. And maybe that’s a good thing, since it also stops him from seeing the scheme building up in Nicholas’ mind—he’s left to fend for himself without any defense against the power of Nicholas’ genuine joy, and that is always a losing battle.
“Did you want to paint your nails too?” Nicholas offers, his hand already reaching for the bottles of orange and pink polish. A quick glance at the boy in front of him, all focused eyes and careful attention, and he finds himself agreeing without another thought. Nothing wrong with a little more color in his life—especially if Nicholas was the one coloring in his blank spaces.
Plus, he wouldn’t mind having Nicholas hold his hand for a bit longer, but that’s a thought for another timeline.
“I don’t think I have much of a choice in the matter, do I?” Euijoo laughs, trying to minimize the shaking of his shoulders when Nicholas tries to hold his hand impeccably still. A bit of the orange polish gets onto his cuticles, perhaps as an act of retaliation from Nicholas, but Euijoo doesn’t think about it too hard.
“Nope, already doing it.” Nicholas’ hands are significantly rougher than Euijoo’s, a side effect of the other never carrying any time of lotion on his despite the increasingly cold weather descending on them, but he holds Euijoo’s left hand with the same gentleness that he would a multi-million dollar art piece. He twists Euijoo’s fingers with the utmost care, and the brush does its work quickly; three swipes covers Euijoo’s whole nail without the need for a dip into the bottle balancing precariously on Nicholas’ knee.
When in Nicholas’ experienced hands, the polish goes on smooth over Euijoo’s nails, swiftly coating his thumb, pointer and ring in a deep orange, reminiscent of the pale sunsets Euijoo remembers watching at the side of the Han River all those years ago. And as if the orange wasn’t enough, the next color to coat Euijoo’s middle finger and pinky is a vibrant reddish pink, most likely Harua’s color of choice, turning Euijoo’s nails into his favorite time of day.
“Pretty.” Nicholas mutters, backing away from Euijoo’s left hand and sending a wave of red up to the very tips of Euijoo’s ears. He gestures for Euijoo to take a look at his handiwork, capping the bottle of pink polish and exchanging it for the same orange from earlier. The desk chair creaks dangerously beneath his weight when Nicholas leans back, but he doesn’t seem to mind it all too much, most of his attention is focused on Euijoo, actually, and it’s beginning to get a little much. “What do you think? Will you let me do your other hand too or no?”
Euijoo brings his right hand to his chin, as if he were actually thinking hard about whether or not to let Nicholas finish the job, and uses it as an excuse to scoot a little further back from where Nicholas was sitting before. The space between them grows, but it doesn’t fill immediately, thank god. Euijoo could not guarantee what would happen next if Nicholas got any closer.
“Hm, I think it’s okay.” Euijoo drags out the last word, as if he were a teenaged girl judging her friend’s new boyfriend. He takes a glance at Nicholas, at the bewildered confusion that his face has settled on, and can’t hold back the laughter climbing up his throat. “What–was that too much, Nicho? Can’t handle a little judgment?”
Nicholas huffs, good naturedly of course, and turns his head back toward the polish. “Give me your other hand, Euijoo.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Euijoo’s right hand takes even less time than his left. Nicholas seems to have let go of most of his worries, content with simply matching the colors with the way he’d first painted them onto Euijoo’s left hand. He looks back and forth between the two like a student referencing their notebook on an exam, pausing every second or so to presumably make sure he didn’t mix up which color went on what finger.
One thing to note, however, is that Nicholas somehow manages to climb up onto the bed with Euijoo as he does this, pressing their legs together in an attempt to get as close to Euijoo as possible. His head is practically level with Euijoo’s own, with both of them hunched over like geese over crumbs of bread at the water's edge to better see Euijoo’s nails. They collide more than once, dissolving the silence with quiet laughter, playful barbed words and further questionable discussions about how exactly Euijoo knew how to properly paint nails.
Euijoo relishes in the warmth, both the physical aspect of Nicholas being practically on top of him and the mental aspect of getting to spend an unrestricted amount of time with him. They don’t get that many days off these days; between flying back and forth between Japan and Korea as if it were a measly five minute walk down the road and never ending recording sessions upon dance practices upon Japanese lessons for the two of them specifically, Euijoo doesn’t think he would be able to tell the last time they simply existed in each other’s space, let alone had time to fuck around and spontaneously paint each other’s nails.
“Nicho.” Euijoo calls out, not expecting much of an answer as Nicholas draws the final brush stroke over his ring finger. He’s proven wrong when Nicolas instinctively looks up to meet his eyes, their heads colliding with the force of a stone breaking the surface tension of a lake. He can feel the metaphorical ripples of water in his brain, crashing over every crack and crevice and coating it all in a final wave of Nicholas tinted warmth.
When he looks up again, Nicholas is cradling the back of his own head as if he weren’t the cause of the collision. The slight frown on his face is almost comical, cartoonish on Nicholas’ sharp features. “You said something? Sorry, wasn’t really paying attention to where exactly my head was before looking up.”
“All good.” Euijoo replies, ignoring the stubborn throbbing in his nose. He doesn’t do a good job of it, if the suspicious look Nicholas is giving him is enough indication of his vain efforts, but it’s not like he could do much to avoid getting hit. Collisions are a normal thing in a shared dorm of nine, and Euijoo has run into another member too often for it to be considered anything other than normal at this point. The ache will go away eventually.
So, he distracts. He holds up his hands to the light, withdrawing from Nicholas’ shadow to reveal the glossy pink and orange from the overcast gray. And he tilts his hand back and forth, not unlike the way Nicholas was inspecting Euijoo’s handiwork just a few minutes before, his ears catching on the joyful laughs that spill from Nicholas’ mouth when the mimicry clicks.
“Your hands are pretty.” Nicholas says, and Euijoo whips his head around because that is not the most normal thing to say to your group mate after spending at least ten minutes painting said hands. It takes everything in him to not respond back with a cheeky “you’re prettier,” as silly as it may sound.
Euijoo jabs a finger in response, being careful to not actually strike true. He gets the feeling tha Nicholas would actually murder him if he dared to even attempt to smear the polish onto anything of his. “Were they not pretty before?”
“Oh shut up, you know what I mean. And be careful, for fuck’s sake, polish stains, Juju.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Euijoo smiles, pulling both of his hands back into his personal bubble. “I won’t smear them, I promise.”
He lays them flat over his knees as best as he can, admiring the pretty colors from a safe distance away. Nicholas had truly done a good job. Each nail is smooth and opaque, easily painted in three strokes of the brush as opposed to Euijoo’s six on Nicholas’ nails, and when he turns his fingers to the side, Euijoo swears that he can spot some glitter sitting in the sea of pink, hiding away until the light hits it at the perfect angle to reflect back.
“Nicho?” Euijoo calls out once more, and this time he’s ready for Nicholas’ knee jerk reaction.
Nicholas blinks at him; once, twice, and then breaks it to look at Euijoo’s hands. His eyes are wide, probably even a little shocked at Euijoo breaking the short lived silence, but that doesn’t hide the underlying current of warmth in his gaze. Nor does it obscure the smile on his face. “Yeah?”
Euijoo opens his mouth, only to close it again. There’s words sitting at the very tip of his tongue, tied down to his vocal chords, but he can’t say them. He thinks that Nicholas is warm–warmth personified in the way he acts, the way he loves–but how does one say that to another’s face? It gets locked up in Euijoo’s throat, the words he wants to say never once escaping the caverns of his mouth.
Instead, he opts for a smile. One as warm and soft as the boy across from him. It doesn’t matter that his nails are still tacky with long-to-dry nail polish, nor does it matter that they would have to take it off before their next public appearance, filmed or live. Euijoo is happy, content with the space he’s built for himself in Nicholas’ walls, the lingering presence embedded into the boy’s soul.
“Thank you for this.” His voice is nothing but a whisper. Orange and pink. Mandarins and strawberries; it’s their brand, their colors. Nicholas is to Euijoo as Euijoo is to Nicholas, an analogy that returns and repeats until the day the sun burns out above them.
“You’re welcome.” Nicholas smiles back, his smiles reminding Euijoo of orange and pink tinted sunsets from practice room windows, and Euijoo considers that his first win. One day, that smile will be his alone, the warmth will overflow from the inside out, and Euijoo would be at the very center of it all.
For now though, he’s content to sit back and look at his nails. Orange and pink, side by side, just as it was always meant to be.