Work Text:
The five members of MARS were spread across the living room of their house, a tangle of limbs and smiles. Pepper had tried to keep the room tidy, but messy bags and empty bottles littered the floor and table; every time he tried to contain the mess, it seemed to double in amount.
The members were deep into a truth or dare game proposed by Nano, which had started off as a silly ten-minute game, but they were having a little too much fun, so they had kept going.
Jun was leading the chaos, he always did when he was drunk. The alcohol amplified every characteristic. His laugh became louder, and his flirting got stronger. His focus had been lasered in on Dylan for the better part of an hour now. He had been poking at him all night, trying to get a rise out of him in any way that he could.
Dylan had somehow managed to remain indifferent to this, so far. He occupied his corner of the couch, sipping at his drink, meeting each tease with a stare or a slow blink, trying to portray his boredom. The only sign he was ever even listening was a subtle eye roll. A reaction that only spurred Jun on.
Nano was having the time of his life during this game. He LOVED gossip and secrets, and fun. And all those things came when playing truth or dare; it was his own personal heaven. He took every opportunity to push boundaries and reveal what ‘needed’ to be revealed.
“My turn!” Nano beamed around at the members. He scanned the circle, his eyes full of mischief, before they landed squarely on Jun. “Jun. Truth or dare?”
Jun didn’t even hesitate. He leaned back on the couch, spreading his arms wide along the back in confidence. The ice in his glass clinked as he raised it. “Hit me with a truth. I’ve got nothing to hide.” His voice was loud but slurred, a telltale sign of the many drinks he’d put away.
Nano’s grin widened. He’d been waiting for this. “Okay! If you were in a romance drama with each of us, what would the trope be?”
The room erupted with laughter. Pepper groaned, but he hid a smile behind his hand. He could tell Nano definitely had a hidden motivation for this. Dylan’s mouth quirked before he quickly covered it up by drinking again.
Jun smirked when he heard Nano’s truth. He loved this. He sat up straighter, ready to play up to his audience. “Oh, this is good. This is very good.”
Jun pointed a finger at Thame, who was already grinning in anticipation. “Okay, you first, Thame. Obviously, childhood best friends to lovers.”
“Picture it. It’s pouring. The kind of rain that soaks you to the bone. I’m standing there, looking tragic and beautiful and obviously without an umbrella because I’m a disaster. And who pulls up? Thame. Because he just knew I’d forget. He’s got that extra umbrella he always carries, just in case.”
“He’d be completely oblivious!” Jun said. “The viewers would be screaming at their screens. ‘You love him, you fool! Why don’t you realise?’ But he’d just think he was being a nice person and he didn’t want me to get soaked.” A cushion that appeared to have come from Thame’s direction landed on Jun’s face.
Pepper snorted into his hand, his shoulders shaking. “That’s so accurate.”
Thame protested, but his laughter was making his words breathless. “Hey! I am not that oblivious. I can be romantic!”
“And how long did it take you to realise you even liked Po?” Jun questioned.
Thame opened his mouth, but he didn’t answer, he just blushed and turned his head away.
“See?” Jun said triumphantly. “Oblivious. Adorably, reliably oblivious.” He threw the cushion Thame had tossed earlier back at him, hitting him square in the chest. Thame caught it, still laughing, and hugged it to himself, defeated but amused.
Jun shifted his focus onto his next trope victim. Pepper. “Pepper’s easy,” Jun said, and it was meant as the highest compliment. “It would be a healing romance. One hundred percent. I’d be the gorgeous, chaotic mess. I’d have a heart of gold, obviously, but it’s buried under, like, six layers of emotional damage and bad decisions.”
He then nodded toward Pepper, his expression turning mock-solemn. “And he’d be the calm one. The warm one. The guy who owns a bookstore or a small café with really good pastries.”
Jun put a hand to his own chest, feigning a swoon. “He’d fix me. With soup, and quiet talks, and those little disappointed-but-not-angry lectures that make you want to be a better person just to earn his approval. We’d be the slow-burn couple everyone watches just to feel something, and the comment sections would be full of people saying ‘I want a Pepper in my life’.”
Pepper didn’t even try to hide his smile this time. He placed a hand over his heart and gave a bow from his seated position. “I accept my award. I do make a great chicken soup. And my lectures are top-tier.”
“The best,” Jun agreed with a wink. Then he moved on to Nano, who was so excited it looked like he was going to bounce off the couch. He had been waiting for his turn. Jun’s voice took on a lighter, playful quality.
“Nano?” Jun said, and a genuine smile broke through. “Nano is the easiest of all. High school puppy romance. No question.”
Nano’s eyes went comically wide. “What? No way!”
“Yes way,” Jun insisted. “You’d be the adorable, hyperactive underclassman. You’d follow me around campus with those big, wide eyes and a backpack that’s basically a portable convenience store, just full of snacks. You’d always be showing up at my locker with some ridiculous excuse.”
“You’d beg me to notice you,” Jun continued. “You’d try out for all the clubs I was in. You’d practice your dancing in the hallway where you knew I’d walk by. 12 episodes of pure clinginess.”
“I WOULD NOT!” Nano shrieked, his face flushing a bright shade of crimson as he buried it in his hands, his shoulders shaking with embarrassed laughter. The image Jun painted was so accurate it was mortifying.
“Yes, you would!” Thame yelled, pointing at him.
“Absolutely you would!” Pepper agreed.
Jun sat back against the couch, pleased with himself. The entertainer had successfully pleased the crowd, and he had been met with smiles and laughter. But then the laughter subsided into shared quiet looks. The focus of the group collectively turned to the one person left. The person who had been the recipient of Jun’s energy and charm all night. The one who hadn’t been assigned a trope yet.
Dylan was sat perfectly still at the end of the couch. His face gave away nothing, but his eyes were locked on Jun with a focused intensity. He was waiting.
Jun looked up, his eyes finding Dylan’s, and he smirked. “And Dylan…” He paused, the playful lilt to his voice was gone. “Enemies to lovers. Obviously.”
The reaction that followed was immediate. Nano shot up, pointing directly at Jun’s face. “SEE! I KNEW IT! I CALLED IT WEEKS AGO!”
Dylan’s eyes remained steady on Jun’s face. No reaction to be seen. Yet.
Jun wasn’t finished. The group’s reaction seemed to give him a strange kind of permission to continue. He tried to keep the joking facade in his tone, but the alcohol hazing his mind, let something else bleed through the cracks.
“Because he’d glare at me in every episode,” Jun said. “And I’d tease him. I’d push. Every single button he has, I’d find it. Just to see that reaction. Everyone watching would be convinced we genuinely hated each other.”
He stopped momentarily to check Dylan, who remained motionless, a statue absorbing every word he said.
“The chemistry would be toxic,” Jun continued, “but compelling. And secretly, I would be falling for him every time he rolled his eyes. Every time he told me to shut up.”
He looked into his glass, as if suddenly fascinated by the melting ice (more so he didn’t have to look anyone else in the eye). “And by the finale…” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, as if he didn’t completely want to say it, “he’d be the one who stays.”
Silence followed Jun’s speech. Everyone was in shock. The trope itself was a classic, but the way Jun had delivered it had been a little too specific. It felt less like a joke about the trope and more like a window into a real situation.
Pepper’s eyes cut to Thame. Thame’s own easy smile was gone, replaced by a look of deep concern. Nano’s excited grin had completely dissolved. His mouth was slightly open, his eyes wide as he stared at Jun, then at Dylan, then back at Jun. The penny had dropped for him. The concept was no longer a funny idea but an actual, plausible explanation for years of bickering and tension.
Jun didn’t look up, keeping his attention on his drink, on the slow drip of condensation that slid down the side of the glass.
Dylan hadn’t moved a muscle throughout the entire speech. He was still watching Jun with a blank expression forced onto his face, but his entire body had gone stiff. That in its own was a kind of reaction.
Deciding that he couldn’t take the silence and tension anymore, Thame clapped his hands to get the attention of the room. “Okay!” he announced. He beamed around at everyone. “That’s enough truth or dare for one night, I think. Group photo time. Everyone, get in here.”
And the moment shattered, broken by Thame’s well-meaning. The other members jumped into motion, scrambled to get up off the floor and couch and arrange themselves for the photo.
“Come on, come on, huddle up!” Thame directed, shepherding Nano into the frame.
Thame continued to talk, filling the space with instructions about angles and who should stand where. But the tension between Jun and Dylan remained.
Jun avoided looking at anyone. He found a spot on the end, opposite Pepper. He had put his mask back on, easy smile and playful glint back in place, ready for the camera.
Dylan had finally moved. He’d stopped looking at Jun now, and the usual deadpan look on his face had disappeared. In its place was deep conflict. He was staring at a point on the wall in front of him, not paying attention to anything that was being said. He repeated Jun’s words over and over in his mind, trying to work out any hidden meaning behind them.
Jun had made a trope for everyone, why would his feel any different? But for some reason, when Jun was talking about him, it felt much more honest and much less like a joke. He had felt the shift that had just happened.
Enemies to lovers? Enemies, definitely. Jun was eternally annoying and never left him in peace. But lovers? He wanted to immediately deny it, but something in his stomach gnawed at him. Something about completely refusing that felt wrong. And now, as he was forced to take part in the group photo, plaster a smile on his face, he was alone with the echoes of what Jun had said, and he had no idea what to do with it.