Work Text:
When Juhoon opens his eyes that morning, the first thing he notices is that his hair was in his face.
Hm. He’s had long-ish hair for a while but never quite this long?
Interesting. He’s probably dreaming. His body feels too weird. He stirs on his bed and feels something tickling his bare back. He reaches back aimlessly to remove the obstacle – and his eyes snap open.
No.
This was a curtain.
A silky, far-too-long, impossibly shiny curtain of hair that brushed against his cheeks and pooled onto the pillow.
Juhoon blinks.
Then blinks again.
Then sits up, the hair spilling forward.
“What the—” his voice cracks. Except it wasn’t his voice. It was… higher. Softer. Definitely not the deep rasp he had grown acclimated to since the past few years.
“Oh, hell no.”
He vaguely hears thuds of footsteps coming towards his room but that’s the least of his worries at the moment. He rubs his forehead, feeling a migraine hitting him already. The footsteps stop and then he hears a crash near his door. He looks up to see Seonghyeon gawking at him.
But Seonghyeon’s not looking at him, no. His eyes are drifting down, so Juhoon follows his own gaze to realise that he – no longer has a flat chest.
Oh fuck.
He panics and quickly scrambles for his blanket, pulling it up as if that’ll make the situation any better. Seonghyeon's gaze does not waver.
“Quit looking at them, you freak!” he exclaims.
“H-Hyu-Juhoon...hyung?”
“Of course it’s me, dumbass. Who else would I be?”
“I,” Seonghyeon scratches his head as he finally lowers his gaze to the ground. He looks like he’s ready to pass out any minute. “I gotta go.” And then he speed walks away.
“Oh, hell no.”
He scrambles out of bed, trips over his own feet as he hastily pulls over his sweatshirt (which suddenly feels way too big) to protect his own eyes and dignity, and staggers to the mirror on the closet door.
And there she is.
Big eyes, long lashes, pouty lips, soft features that look suspiciously like his own but tilts more toward feminine. Juhoon’s jaw drops.
He lifts a hand. The girl in the mirror lifts her hand.
He pokes his own cheek.
So did she.
“Oh, hell no,” he repeats, louder this time.
-
The dorm erupts in chaos five minutes later.
James is the first to enter after Juhoon’s panicked screams. He kicks open the door with a mug of coffee in hand.
“Such a blessing it is, to enjoy my lovely coffee early in the morning and then hearing you scream so loud I spill it all over m—” He freezes, blinking at the sight before him. “—y shirt.”
There’s a pause. A very long pause.Then James slowly sets his mug down on the desk, folds his arms, and smirks.
“Well. Either Juhoon has a secret twin sister he’s been hiding, or…” His grin widens. “…this is going to be fun.”
“James,” Juhoon hisses, clutching his pillow to his chest like a shield. “Don’t. Say. A word.”
James already has his phone out.
“Oh, I’m saying several words.”
-
Two minutes later, Martin barges in, hair still messy from sleep, socks mismatched.
“James, I am going to burn your entire beanie collection for this stupid ass frank, I swear—” He stops dead, eyes widening. “…holy shit.”
“Language,” James says primly, already typing furiously. “We have a lady present.”
Martin’s grin spreads so fast it’s almost frightening. “Oh my god, Juhoon. You’re— You’re—” He bursts out laughing, doubling over. “You’re a girl! You’re actually a girl! And you’re cuter in this.. form?,”
Juhoon throws the pillow at him. Martin ducks and laughs harder.
“This is not funny!” Juhoon snaps, the words somehow less threatening in his new soft voice. “Something is wrong with me!”
“Wrong?” James tilts his head, smug. “Looks like a blessing to me. We can finally target our male audience now.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Oh, I’m daring. I have dared.”
Martin leans against the doorframe, smirking. “Juhoon—no, wait, what do we call you now? Jju, I think you have taken the Princess Juhoon jokes a little far now.”
“Shut up!”
By the time Seonghyeon wanders in, rubbing his eyes and clearly not ready for life, James and Martin are circling Juhoon like hyenas.
“Do a twirl for us,” Martin teases.
“Say something aegyo-y,” James adds.
“Maybe sing ‘Gee’ real quick?”
“Get out of my room!” Juhoon shrieks, his pitch climbing higher than ever.
Seonghyeon blinks at the scene. His gaze lands on Juhoon. He freezes like a deer in headlights. “…Oh. So that wasn’t a dream before.” his ears turn bright red. Then, without a word, he pivots on his heel and walks straight back out the door.
“…Was it something I said?” James muses.
“Nah,” Martin says, snorting. “Baby doesn’t know how to talk to girls. Now he has to live with one.”
It’s Keonho’s reaction, though, that Juhoon dreads the most.
The youngest appears fifteen minutes later, still in his pajamas, hair messy. He yawns, shuffles in, and then stops short as his eyes widen. “Hyung?”
Juhoon braces himself. The laughter. The teasing. The inevitable wave of jokes. But instead… Keonho just stares. His ears flush red. He looks down, looks up again, and then looks away.
Juhoon narrows his eyes. “…What?”“N-nothing.”
Okay. Definitely not suspicious at all.
James, of course, is quick to notice. His grin turns positively evil. “Oh. Interesting. Very interesting.”
“Shut it,” Juhoon snaps.
“You look,”Keonho coughs, fiddles with the hem of his shirt, and mumbles, “You look… nice.”
Juhoon freezes.
Martin practically chokes, while James howls with laughter.
“Oh, this is golden,” James says, clutching his stomach. “Keonho has the cooties for girl-Juhoon. Is that not cute?”
Keonho goes scarlet. “I— shut up, hyung.” He moves to turn around and go to the kitchen instead.
Juhoon buries his face in his hands. “This is the weirdest day of my life.”
-
And the rest of the day is nothing short of torture.
James and Martin follow Juhoon everywhere like paparazzi, throwing out cheesy nicknames which Juhoon would like to forget and refusing to let him live in peace.
“Have you tried peeing yet? Can you try doing it while standing and let me know if it really can’t aim like us?”
“I am not looking down there ever! It feels wrong!”
“That is ridiculous. It’s your own body.”
“Still doesn’t make it any less weird.” Juhoon sighs. Now he can really feel the signs of an early migraine.
Seonghyeon avoids eye contact at all costs, to the point where he physically rotates his chair 180 degrees at breakfast so he doesn’t have to look at Juhoon across the table.
“Seonghyeon-ah, this is getting a bit ridiculous.”
And Keonho… Keonho keeps staring. Not openly. But Juhoon catches him glancing then quickly looking away. Over and over.
The worst part? Keonho is blushing every single time.
By evening, Juhoon is ready to scream.
“This can’t be permanent,” he mutters, pacing the living room as the others lounge around. “There has to be a way to fix this. I can’t just—just be like this!”
James leans back on the couch. “Honestly? I think it’s an improvement.”
“Seconded,” Martin says. “You’re way less scary looking and intimidating now.”
Juhoon glares at them. “Do you want me to kill you? Is that what you want?”
James flips him off. “With those dainty girly hands? Please.”
Juhoon’s eye simply twitches in response.
Seonghyeon makes a strangled sound and buries his face in a pillow with a groan. It must be paining him to not speak with Juhoon. For a whole day at this point. In Juhoon’s defence, this is Seonghyeon making his own life harder.
“Okay, you know what?” Juhoon snaps. “I’m locking myself in my room until I wake up normal again. None of you are allowed near me.”
“You know you will have to eventually pee with that thing, right?”
“You haven’t even looked down. How do you even know you don’t have a dick anymore?”
“Because I don’t feel something hanging off of my fucking balls! I can’t feel my balls either! They’re gone, and I feel ten times lighter!” He brushes his hand through his hair only to get more frustrated when his long hair just won’t stop going through his fingers. “Is this how my career ends? I lose my balls?”
James simply pats his shoulder.
-
At practice, the choreographer takes one look at him and raises an eyebrow. The members had put him in a cap and a mask but his sudden feminine feature could not be mistaken if you look for too long.
“…Juhoon-ssi, did you… do something to your face?”
Juhoon wants the ground to swallow him whole. James and Martin are tryng not to cackle in the corner, disguising their laughter as coughs. Seonghyeon is staring resolutely at the floor. Keonho—well, Keonho keeps glancing at him with that same weird mix of embarrassment and awe.
“Nothing,” Juhoon mutters, tugging his hoodie tighter around himself. “Absolutely nothing, hyung.”
“Shouldn’t he be calling him oppa?”
Juhoon elbows Martin in the ribs.
-
Later, when the others are distracted with snacks, Juhoon corners Keonho in the dorm’s balcony. The night air is cool, the streetlights painting the city in gold.
“You’ve been staring at me all day,” Juhoon says flatly, leaning on the railing.
Keonho nearly chokes his water. “I—I wasn’t.”
Juhoon arches a brow. “Keonho. You were.”
Keonho flushes crimson, fumbling for words. “It’s just—you look different, and—uh—you’re still you, but also… not you, and—” He babbles away. Juhoon can’t help it. He laughs. Not the mocking kind James hyung would use, but soft, genuine laughter. “You’re really cute when you’re flustered, you know that?”
Keonho pouts. “Whatever.”
Juhoon smirks, stepping closer. “Yeah. Adorable, actually.” And before Keonho can combust entirely, Juhoon leans down and plants a quick kiss on his forehead.
Keonho goes absolutely still. Then, slowly, his ears turn the deepest shade of red Juhoon has ever seen.
“Don’t overthink it,” Juhoon rolls his eyes, patting his shoulder. “You’re just my cute little maknae.”
And then he walks away, leaving Keonho standing there, looking like someone just short-circuited his entire brain.
-
The chaos continues for two more days. Juhoon tries to avoid mirrors. James and Martin never let him live in peace. Seonghyeon continues his strategy of pretending Juhoon doesn’t exist whenever she’s—he’s—around. And Keonho is surprisingly back to normal now as if he has accepted that he now has a noona.
By the third morning, Juhoon is done.
“I refuse to live like this,” he declares, slamming a book on the kitchen counter.
“Not Bunny Girl Senpai!” Martin exclaims. Juhoon doesn’t even care. Honestly, it’s payback considering Martin’s constant jokes. He shrugs, “It was the closest book I could find.”
But Juhoon is not a complete asshole so he picks up another book to be his next victim.
James peers at the title. “‘Magical Korean Home Remedies.’ …Why do we even have this?”
“Because,” Juhoon growls, flipping through it, “if the universe is going to mess with me, the universe is going to fix me. Aha!” He jabs at a page. “See? It says here that strange transformations can be reversed with symbolic acts under the new moon. Guess what tonight is.”
Seonghyeon blinks. “…You’re really trusting a cookbook?”
“Yes.”
“Weird strategy, but okay.” Martin throws his hands up.
“Do I look like I have any other options?”
That night, the boys gather on the rooftop like they’re about to film some kind of cult initiation. James has brought candles. Martin has brought snacks. Seonghyeon looks vaguely traumatized. Keonho clutches a blanket like a security shield.
Juhoon stands in the middle, holding the book. The moon hangs above them, thin and silver.
“Okay,” Juhoon mutters. “It says I just… symbolically let go of the change.”
James frowns. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“I don’t know, wait. Let me concentrate.”
Juhoon closes his eyes, takes a breath, and says firmly: “I am Juhoon. Not noona. Not princess. Kim fucking Juhoon.”
The candles flicker. A breeze sweeps across the rooftop.
And then—just like that—he feels it. The weight of the long hair vanishes. His hoodie suddenly feels tighter across his shoulders. When he opens his eyes and glances at the window’s reflection, his familiar face stares back at him.
“Holy crap,” Martin whispers. “It actually worked.”
James whistles. “Korean home remedies magic. Who knew?”
Seonghyeon exhales in visible relief. “Finally.”
Keonho just stares. “…Welcome back, hyung.”
Juhoon sighs, running a hand through his short hair. “Thank god.”
“How do you feel?”
“Were my balls always this heavy? I feel like someone’s filled stones in my underwear. I feel amazing though, good to be back ”
“You know what else feels magical? Forehead kisses.” James smirks as he looks at Keonho. Juhoon groans.
“I hate all of you,” he mutters.
But there’s a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his lips.