Chapter Text
It’s not the first, the second, nor the third thing Park Sungho will ever tell you, but it is one of the things he will say if you talk to him for long enough. Park Sungho and Han Dongmin have a very Normal relationship, and…
And. Excuse Sungho for a moment, he has to go and have very polite discussion with Myung Jaehyun, his leader, who is currently in their room, laughing hysterically at the DOORJANCHI photos Sungho and Dongmin took. Excuse him for a moment.
Anyways.
As Sungho was saying, he and Han Dongmin have a very Normal relationship, and within that relationship involves a very Normal friendship where they do very Normal friend things. Like talk about music, listen to music, write music - though that mainly consists of Sungho watching Dongmin do his thing, and hold hands. Very Normal Friendly things and if Jaehyun were to laugh at it, all Sungho has to do is send him the extensive collection of Donghyun being bridal carried on stage with the caption ‘?’. Realistically, all Jaehyun’s going to do is laugh at the fact that Sungho and Dongmin had made the compilation together.
Like he was saying. Sungho has a rather standard friendship with his group mate named Han Dongmin, 182 cm tall, born August 10th, 2004, INTJ, with a penchant for songwriting, working out, and customizing clothes. A perfectly normal relationship that includes talking about music, listening to music, writing music, holding hands, and, because good friendships are always evolving in order to to keep up with the change humans go through - maturation, it’s called, a real term in psychology - the most recent addition in their Very Normal friendship things is writing songs about each other. Maybe just on Dongmin’s end, because Sungho doesn’t really write songs all that much but he sure does like watching movies and distinctly remembers the time he begged Dongmin to watch ‘About Time’ with him to which, afterwards, Dongmin had proceeded to leave in the evening, stay out for three hours, and come back to the dorm in the breathless daze he’s always in after he finishes writing a song he’s happy with.
When they’d practiced the song together, Sungho, Donghyun, and Dongmin, they’d done it in a rushed manner because they’d received the last minute notice three days before that they could show off original songs at their fanmeet instead of covers. Snapping Woonhak, Jaehyun, and Dongmin out of that realization and awe they could show off songs they’d written themselves without input from the producers, songs that were just irrevocably them took Donghyun, Sanghyeok, and Sungho another half-day, leaving them all with two and a half days to practice.
They’d beguin with the chorus, first and foremost. Afterwards, Dongmin had them all singing their own individual parts, coaching them on how he’d envisioned it. Then they’d figured out some simple choreo, if you want to call it that, before they did a few test-runs and decided that they were fine for the fanmeeting.
It doesn’t hit until later, much later, after both days of the fanmeet, when they’re all at home exhausted. Sungho’s chosen method of destressing, tried and true, is playing Fifa for hours on end until his self-mandated bedtime that always changes depending on their schedule. His rule of thumb is to just never be the last one to fall asleep and to play enough to win a match and feel good about it before he goes to sleep. It’s going well right now, because Woonhak had come down to join him claiming that the lower floor game was better, and Sungho has spent one too many nights in a row playing against the AI that he immediately shifts and hands their youngest the other controller. The two of them get so caught up in the game that by the time they stop, it’s technically morning. Sungho, like the good hyung he is, decides to accompany Woonhak back for the 15 second walk to the elevator and the 30 second ride.
And Sungho, like the good hyung he is, has dongsaengs who love him. One such dongsaeng is Han Dongmin, who perks up when he sees Woonhak enter and then stands when Sungho follows right behind. Woonhak yawns, sweater paws reaching up to cover his mouth, and Sungho wants to coo over how cute he is, instead choosing to usher him into his room, smiling when Woonhak flops down onto the bed, flashing a peace sign back at Sungho and Dongmin letting them know he’s okay.
“Let me walk you back, hyung,” Dongmin says as Sungho slides back into his slippers and prepares to step out the door.
“It’s like. Two minutes at most to my room,” Sungho snorts, shaking his head. “Go to sleep, Dongmin-ah.”
“You walked Woonhak back.”
“He’s our youngest.”
“And you’re our oldest.”
“That doesn’t even make sense?” Sungho stares awkwardly at Dongmin who stares back, challenging. “If I’m the oldest, doesn’t that mean that out of everyone, it’s best for me to go alone?”
Jaehyun, who also can’t fall asleep, listens to Sungho retell the short story of Dongmin’s weird behavior and bursts into high-pitched laughter, much to the distress of the storyteller. Sungho just lays there, in his own bed, counting down the days until they can switch roommates again as he waits for Jaehyun to collect himself. When his leader finally does, the first words out of his mouth are, “Did you hear his verse in ‘Violin’?”
“Uh, yeah.” Odd question. Obviously Sungho had heard Dongmin’s verse in the song considering they had, you know, performed it together. He can’t recall anything about the lyrics, was probably too caught up in performing, but he’s sure that if there was anything actually notable in them, he would have noticed. “What about it?”
“Sungho. Sungho, Sungho, Sungho,” Jaehyun sighs, sitting up and shaking his head. Except the lights in their room are off, so all Sungho really sees is a long shadow moving around. “Did you even read the lyrics?”
“I’m pretty sure I did,” Sungho scoffs. “Because. You know. I had to memorize them to perform the song.” He indulges Jaehyun and also sits up in his bed, except the other boy is now uncharacteristically silent. Sungho wonders what sort of twisted expression he has on his face right now, trying to envision it.
“Yah, Park Sungho, I’m disappointed in you.” Ah, that explains it. Wait, no it doesn’t, because what has Sungho done in the past two minutes to get Jaehyun to be disappointed in him? If anything, it should be the other way around because Sungho is sure that he’s smelling the acidic scent of dish soap right now, in their room, and that when he wakes up he’s going to accidentally step on the sponge missing from their kitchen sink. “ You said you like ‘About Time’ so I’ve been reciting the lines for no reason. Ring a bell in your head?”
“That’s my line though?” If you knocked on Sungho’s head, you wouldn’t hear any sort of knocking or dinging sound because he has a brain. And his brain is telling him that whatever Jaehyun is saying isn’t relevant at all. “What does that even have to do with this?”
Jaehyun is uncharacteristically silent except this time his silence speaks loud enough for him. Sungho sighs and reaches for the light first, and then his phone.
“It’s just a cute love song though?” He stares at the lyrics sheet Dongmin had sent him and Donghyun. “Isn’t it cute? ‘About Time’ was a cute movie.”
“Wow, is your head empty?” Sungho can actually see the look of disappointment on Jaehyun’s face now. And the sponge on the floor. He looks down at it and then back at Jaehyun, raising an eyebrow to which the other’s face turns sheepish. “Just watch his last voice live,” he grumbles, before sighing as he gets out of bed, picks up the sponge, and leaves to put it back in the kitchen. He comes back, flopping down onto his bed, pulling the blankets over his head, and immediately beginning to obnoxiously snore in the way that is so obviously fake. Except Jaehyun does this until he falls asleep and begins snoring for real so Sungho just sighs, turning the light off and also tries to sleep.
He watches the live. Listens to it as he cooks breakfast, hearing Dongmin ramble about songwriting, the fanmeet, all his hard work over the past few years. It’s nothing special, really, but it’s cute. Dongmin is cute, talking about everything. Sungho smiles.
“ ‘About Time’ was recommended to me by Sungho-hyung,” Dongmin shares. Sungho nodes, because, well, it’s true. “I don’t usually watch romantic movies, so I asked him for a recommendation.”
Sungho remembers the moment. They’d been on set for Coming Home Next, waiting for the filming to start. Sungho was tapping away on his phone, watching trailers for upcoming movies with tooth-rotting sweet moments that made him grin stupidly. “I want this,” he sighs, showing his phone to Dongmin, on it a video showing a couple embracing each other, the man looking down at his wife with a smile, eyes crinkled, focused only on her. “They’re so cute,” Sungho groans, imagining himself in that position. Someone staring back him like he’s the entire universe, the full force of love from someone’s entire being, laid bare for Sungho. He doesn’t think he’ll get to experience that, not anywhere in the near future, because idol life comes with its downs, one of which include no dating.
“What show is it?” Dongmin’s hand wraps around Sungho’s, bringing the screen closer to him. The size difference is noticeable - pale fingers encompassing Sungho’s own, more red ones, long fingers easily circling around his wrist.
“This is for a movie being release next year.” Sungho gently takes his phone back, feeling the way Dongmin’s fingers seem to cling before he lets go. “I’m gonna add it to my watchlist though. It looks so cute.”
“Oh yeah. About that.” When Sungho turns to look over at Dongmin, the younger boy is fidgeting with his hands, looking down. A little strange because they’d both grown out of the awkward with each other phase years ago, as one does after living together with someone. Dongmin shouldn’t be nervous around Sungho, yet here he is, red and stuttering. Sungho waits for him to speak. “Do you have any romance movies you recommend?”
“Romance?” Sungho blinks to make sure he’s filming with the right members and that Donghyun hadn’t all of a sudden been given the black cat motif. “You want to watch a romance now?” Sungho asks, just to make sure, when he slaps himself and still sees Dongmin standing before him.
“Yes,” Dongmin huffs, turning even redder. “Can you give me a rec?” He looks away, like he’s trying to maintain some semblance of the cool, chic guy he markets himself as. Except, for Sungho who lived with the guy for over a year before debut, that image had faded away within the first month they’d known each other. Instead, every time he hears murmurs down the halls about people swooning over Han Taesan, he tries not to giggle because really, he’s not as cold and unapproachable as they all think he is.
“You should watch ‘About Time’,” Sungho recommends and Dongmin nods, like he’s actually going to remember and watch it instead of just playing the first action or horror flick he sees on the streaming site when he gets home.
Except, turns out he’d actually watched it. Huh. Maybe he’s turned a new leaf or something. He doesn’t watch romance movies, they all know that, so the sudden interest is interesting. But surely there’s a logical explanation to it. ‘About Time’ is a popular movie! I’s not just Sungho who liked it, Donghyun did as well, and probably a lot of other people in Dongmin’s life.
There’s a familiar warmth around Sungho’s shoulders and he doesn’t even need to turn around to discern who it is. “Why’d you come down here?” he asks, fingers moving to wrap around the younger’s wrist hanging beside him. Sungho has to remind himself not to freak out when his fingers don’t touch, pulling Dongmin closer, close enough that his front presses slightly against Sungho’s back.
“Hyung,” Dongmin murmurs, voice raspy from sleep. Sungho shivers at it, face turning red. He doesn’t need to see the small smirk on Dongmin’s face as the younger whispers in his ear. “Let’s eat.”
Sungho pauses the voice live. Dongmin giggles, backing off, taking a seat at the table and looking pointedly at the one across from him.
To be fair. Myung Jaehyun had called it out within his first week at KOZ.
In the eyes of everyone else who’d made a silent pact to just go along with whatever, it was a brave action. In Sungho’s eyes, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted for a hole to open up beneath him or Jaehyun and swallow them whole. He’d been leaning more towards himself - change the course of Myung Jaehyun’s life forever by falling into a pit and never coming back and all that - when he catches sight of Dongmin, who had first seemed to be frozen to the spot before he shakes his head, running a hand through his hair, easygoing smirk on his face as he catches the older’s eye. Yeah, even if a hole opened up underneath Jaehyun, Sungho would be diving into it as well. Dying together wasn’t a bad option.
“You two got like a thing going on, or something?” Jaehyun stares at the two of them curiously. It’s only his third day of being a trainee here. “Because you two are like. Awkward but also very, very familiar with each other.” He pats Sungho’s shoulder, and Sungho tries to ignore the way Dongmin seems to be glaring daggers at the spot, at Jaehyun, in a way that really wasn’t helping their case at the moment. “I don’t discriminate.”
He walks with a sort of swagger like he knows he’s just broken an unofficial rule among all of them, which is to never ask about Dongmin and Sungho. Sanghyeok tells Sungho that he walks like that because he’s from YG.
Back then, Sungho had wanted to die, had wanted to die when Woonhak whipped his head to stare at Dongmin and then at him, when Donghyun and Sanghyeok shared a secret smile that could have meant anything from finally someone called it out to it’s date night tonight let’s go out, when Dongmin refuses to break eye contact and Sungho has to lose their little staring game for the 52nd time because he can feel himself progressively getting more and more red with each passing millisecond. He’d been on a winning streak too up until that point.
That’s how it had been back then, back before debut and the unwritten rule that everyone gets at least ten times more attractive after it. Sungho is proud to say that the myth is, indeed, true because they’d all gotten more handsome. Under that bracket falls Dongmin too, fortunately or unfortunately depending how he looks at it. Fortunately because, well, good for him for getting all pretty and handsome and everything because wow is he good looking, Sungho could stare at him all day, especially now with his fluffy dark hair charmingly mussed up. Unfortunately, Sungho could stare at him all day and now it’s a thousand times worse because A, Dongmin is just so handsome, B, he’s been hitting the gym as much as Sungho has, maybe even more, and it shows, especially in his arms and legs, and C, they’re in a group called BOYNEXTDOOR. Most notably with a member that happens to be their leader with the name of Myung Jaehyun who thinks he knows everything.
Well, Sungho grumbles in his head as he eats the rice Dongmin had prepared. He’d been right about this. Unfortunately. Because Sungho does, unfortunately, have a…thing…for Dongmin, if that’s what people want him to call it. Hold on.
“Did you cook all this?” he asks, swallowing down the food in his mouth. Dongmin all of a sudden begins to act bashful, turning away, red blooming on his cheeks.
“Fine, fine. Woonhak helped,” Dongmin eventually confesses and Sungho nods like that makes sense, because it does. To some extent. Woonhak can make fried rice and probably helped with the beef, the kimchi from one of their parents, and Dongmin as the messenger. The food makes sense, just not why it’s down here, in the lower-floor kitchen when Dongmin lives on the upper floor.
Sungho narrows his eyes as he takes another bite. “I guess you really wanted to eat down here, huh,” he says, nodding to himself.
“Yeah,” Dongmin agrees after a second too long. He looks a little faint. “I guess I did. Want to eat down here.” There’s a weird tint to his voice that Sungho can’t unpack. “You know, stuffy upper-floor air and all that.”
Sometimes Sungho isn’t sure if things are as obvious as everyone else makes them out to be or if he’s just stupid. But he gets the distinct feeling he’s missing something and that Dongmin wouldn't answer what if he asked.
The younger comes back down, asking if Sungho is ready and Sungho is about to respond with No because he feels horribly underdressed when he catches sight of the younger’s outfit. Remind Sungho to never go out with Dongmin again because their styles are just too contrasting - Sungho is in a V-neck sweater tucked into his light wash jeans while Dongmin has a beanie, a leather jacket over a white tank top, and ripped jeans. The cherry on top are the glasses resting crookedly on his face, adding to the boyish charm he’s always had.
“You look good,” Sungho murmurs, poking Dongmin in the stomach and getting a high-pitched giggle in return. He self-consciously tugs at the sleeves of his own outfit, the contrast between them a little ridiculous. “We look a little silly together like this,” he jokes as they look in the elevator mirror. “Since our styles are so different.”
Dongmin sidles up to his side, their height difference getting all the more obvious. “He was a punk, she did ballet, what more can I say?” he sings, eyes meeting Sungho’s in the mirror. It’s lyrics to a song in English that Sungho doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand them or their implications, but the Jaehyun inside his head is fake-gagging right now, so. Probably nothing special because the Jaehyun inside Sungho’s head is not to be listened to. Neither is real life Jaehyun for matters outside of work and music, except he’s a lot harder to ignore since they’re roommates.
Jaehyun is not to be listened to outside of work related matters, Sungho chants that to himself, an internal mantra as he follows Dongmin out. He actually doesn’t know where they’re supposed to be going, but Dongmin had asked him a few days ago if he wanted to go out and Sungho, with nothing better to do, had agreed.
Oooh, the Jaehyun inside Sungho’s head drawls. He wants to go out with you.
Shut up, Sungho tells the Jaehyun inside his head. Dongmin is holding my hand right now. No distractions, shush.
Dongmin is, in fact, holding his hand. Sungho hadn’t registered when they’d gotten out of the elevator and started waiting at the bus stop, instead he’d blindly followed the force in front of him, Dongmin, as they traversed the building exit and pedestrians on the sidewalk. “Where are we going?” Sungho sees their presumed bus at the red light right before their stop.
“The movies,” Dongmin answers like that’s a normal thing for them to do.
It isn’t. Dongmin and Sungho never go to the movies, not together. Actually, they all rarely go see a film on the big screen, especially since they’ve actually debuted and aren’t trainees anymore, but on the occasions one of them actually decides to go out and watch a movie, it definitely isn’t Sungho and Dongmin going together. It’s mainly Sungho and Donghyun, if anyone, with their shared taste for sweet, romantic flicks, but Jaehyun and Woonhak will also sometimes hijack the film under the guise of ‘inspiration’. But Dongmin goes alone. Alone because none of them are all that great at watching horror movies while their resident black cat seems to live off the thrill of them and cheap action that’s all loud noises and violence with no plot.
Sungho thinks he might have to go back home. Is he dreaming right now? “What are we watching?”
“ ‘My Name is Loh Kiwan’.”
“Ah?” Sungho turns to look curiously at Dongmin. He must seriously be dreaming. “Since when were you into romance movies?”
“I’m not,” the younger boy huffs, looking away. The tips of his ears are red.
“But you’re watching one today,” Sungho points out, unwilling to let the topic go because whoever got Han Dongmin to willingly watch a romance is a god. He’s like the most unromantic romantic out there. “So you must like them, at least a little bit.”
“I guess you could call it something like that.” Dongmin turns to look at Sungho, eyes oddly intense. “I like them more than just a little bit though.”
Sungho tilts his head, wondering if he’s missed some message. “Ah?”