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Sungyeol dabbed at his lip, wincing a little at the bite of the bruise and frowning at his reflection in the bathroom’s mirror. His heart was racing a little – he didn’t know how the hell to explain this to the rest when they came back, much less the managers.
There it was – the slam of the door, louder than it really needed to be. Myungsoo was back.
Sungyeol tensed, caught paralysed by uncertainty. Did he go outside to meet Myungsoo or stay here, or –
Myungsoo answered that question for him, suddenly opening the bathroom door only to stop in his tracks, staring at Sungyeol for a moment before doing a sharp about-turn and leaving. Sungyeol left it up to his instincts. Things seemed to go better – well, if not better then at least easier – when he didn’t think.
In a few strides he had caught up to Myungsoo and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him outside to the kitchen. Myungsoo struggled, predictably, trying to wrench his arm out of Sungyeol’s grasp while angrily protesting up a storm so that the short journey to their dorm’s tiny kitchen took a sight more effort than it usually did.
“Stop it,” Sungyeol told him, voice strained a little, pushing him up against the kitchen counter and reaching for the gauze and antiseptic he’d used on himself earlier. Myungsoo was still wearing his face mask he’d snatched up on the way out of the house in a temper earlier and Sungyeol took it off for him none-too-gently.
“You didn’t even wash off the blood,” he muttered, annoyed. “What if you had to take off the mask and everyone had seen you?”
There wasn’t any reason Sungyeol could think of that Myungsoo would have had to take his mask off for, but Sungyeol was still angry and it was leaking out of him any way it could. Myungsoo batted his hands away from his face, taking back the mask away from him and making as if to turn away.
“No,” Sungyeol insisted, and Myungsoo slumped back against the counter, jaw set stubbornly and refusing to meet Sungyeol’s eyes.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because,” Sungyeol snapped, and it’s a good an answer as any. He cleaned off the corner of Myungsoo’s mouth with a piece of gauze soaked with water first, getting the dried blood off, and then uncapped the tube of antiseptic. They said nothing while Sungyeol worked, Myungsoo still not meeting Sungyeol’s gaze, and that suited Sungyeol just fine. The last time they were this close Sungyeol had hauled off and punched Myungsoo, the first time in his life he’d felt anger that keen at Myungsoo and when Myungsoo had followed with a fist of his own that had completely floored the both of them.
Sungyeol supposed that in other stories, other lives, or in dramas, that was where two people with this much tension between them would kiss. But they weren’t actors in a drama; they were just them, and they were a mess enough.
“I can’t believe you hit me,” Sungyeol muttered after a long while, forcing himself to be gentle with the antiseptic because Myungsoo had flinched at the first application. He was sorry, he really was, and not just because he was going to get an earful from the managers for messing up the visual’s pretty face. Myungsoo was his friend, his closest friend in Infinite, and if there was a tangle of emotions more complicated than friendship between them then Sungyeol was helpless before it. He hadn’t meant to hit Myungsoo, until he had, but for fuck’s sake he hadn’t expected Myungsoo to hit back.
“You hit me first,” Myungsoo protested. “And harder than I hit you.”
Sungyeol pursed his lips, remembering too late his own bruised mouth, and winced.
“Stupid,” Myungsoo snorted, Sungyeol sending him a warning look. He moved back, Myungsoo’s lip seen to, and then there descended an awkwardness so bone-crushing Sungyeol wanted nothing but to run back into his bedroom and avoid Myungsoo forever.
Sungyeol replayed over and over the moment where he had hauled off and punched Myungsoo straight in the mouth, Myungsoo reeling back from the impact. Myungsoo had grabbed him almost without a pause, one hand fisted in his shirt and gave back as good as he got, not letting go of Sungyeol even when his head snapped back from the punch. The moment of the punch was white-blank in Sungyeol’s mind, both from the pain and the speed at which things had happened, and the only thing he remembered after was the feel of Myungsoo’s upper arms he was gripping too tightly and both their angry breathing, Myungsoo’s face far too close and the small trickle of blood starting to drip from the side of his mouth.
Myungsoo had let him go after a few seconds, both their arms dropping uselessly to their sides and Sungyeol’s heart thumping as they stared at each other. Then Myungsoo had left the house like he was being chased out, leaving Sungyeol alone and breathing way, way too fast.
This wasn’t how Sunggyu and Woohyun hyungs fought – there was a lot of shouting and then sometimes some shoving, but their anger seemed to need the physical confrontation to allow itself to evaporate into nothing, the two of them usually going out to drink or eat something by the Han river after to talk about it. Given how often they fought Sungyeol supposed that it was good that they had figured out a way to work out their anger and frustration by now, so that they ended up closer and not destroyed after like the way he was feeling about Myungsoo. Destroyed, shattered, broken –
Myungsoo broke into Sungyeol’s dramatic mental litany with a sigh. “We should tell the others the truth when they ask,” he said. “Or go ask Sunggyu hyung for – advice.”
“Advice about what?” Sungyeol asked, scornful. Myungsoo really was Sunggyu’s pet, sometimes to the point Sungyeol wanted to hurl. “You know he’d just tell us to work it out on our own.”
“Should we go eat chicken by the river, then?” Myungsoo said, with a hint at a dry smile that couldn’t help escaping.
Sungyeol stole looks at him – Myungsoo seemed softer, not all hard edges leaning tense against the kitchen counter, muscles so tight he felt more stone than human as Sungyeol was cleaning the blood off him just now. And that smile was still playing about his lips; it had become more rueful than amused, but it was a smile nonetheless.
“I still have Hyoan hyung’s card,” Sungyeol said, and watched as the smile on Myungsoo’s face grew infinitesimally wider. Sungyeol sighed again internally and forced himself to do it.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hit you like that.”
“Me too,” Myungsoo replied, and it all felt so primary school, both stuttering out their apologies as if their mothers were standing behind them and making them say it. Sungyeol couldn’t help but feel suspicious that Myungsoo didn’t mean what he was saying. Maybe he wasn’t sorry he had hit Sungyeol, maybe he wasn’t interested in mending things. Maybe Sungyeol had completely ruined things by what he had done and the things he had said, and Myungsoo was just saying what he felt he had to say in order to get Sungyeol to leave him alone and this was effectively the last night of their friendship.
But then Myungsoo hugged him, and if it was a little less tight and close as his hugs usually were then Sungyeol didn’t register it. Myungsoo had always been just the perfect height for Sungyeol to hug, as if they’d been growing exactly in tandem since they were both trainees.
They were on their way out, of course, when Sunggyu and Dongwoo came home, and Sungyeol felt stupid for naively hoping they’d get away with it at least for that night. They didn’t have their masks on yet and the moment Sunggyu saw them his eyes widened almost comically.
“What did you do?” Dongwoo exclaimed, first taking Sungyeol’s and then Myungsoo’s faces in his hands to examine. “Did you get in a fight? Who was it?”
“We – no, the laundry dryer fell on us as, as we were sleeping just now,” Sungyeol blurted out, his mouth going faster than his brain as usual. Myungsoo gave it all away by the incredulous face he turned on Sungyeol – stupid Myungsoo – and Sunggyu gave them both an unimpressed look.
“Where are you going?”
“To the Han river. To eat chicken. We’ll be back soon, hyung,” Sungyeol said, hurrying Myungsoo out the door before Sunggyu had the chance to stop them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sunggyu about to do just that before Dongwoo snagged him by the arm with a quick shake of his head.
“Dongwoo hyung thought we got into a fight with someone else, did you notice that?” Myungsoo asked once they were settled in a quiet nook looking out on one of the river’s bridges, box of chicken balancing on his lap. “Who would we be fighting? The neighbourhood high school gang?”
“Maybe they were trying to hit you up for lunch money and I had to defend you,” Sungyeol said with a straight face, knowing full-well the absurdity of that statement.
“More like I would have to save you,” Myungsoo scoffed, picking out a drumstick. Sungyeol eyed him and quickly grabbed the other one before Myungsoo ate them both.
“I think it’s just that unbelievable to them that we would have hit each other like this,” Sungyeol said around his mouthful of chicken.
“Chicken promise we won’t do it again,” Myungsoo said, holding out his half-eaten drumstick, both their faces absolutely serious as Sungyeol bumped his drumstick against Myungsoo’s as if they were making a toast. “I mean it. Never again. If we get mad at each other we have to talk it out. No hitting.”
Sungyeol made a ready sound of assent, mouth full, and when he spoke it came out muffled. “Where did you go just now?”
“Mm? Oh. I just walked around, actually. Cursing you.”
“I hope no one saw you, strange person walking around talking to himself.”
“If they think I’m crazy it’s your fault. You drive me crazy,” Myungsoo said, looking out over the water, and Sungyeol thought of all the times they’d sat together next to the river like this, him looking out and watching the waves and people cycling past and feeling Myungsoo’s eyes on him, watching him as he watched the world. Now it’s him watching Myungsoo, eyes trailing his face as Myungsoo munched and stared out at the water lapping against the supports of the bridge. It felt sometimes like they were always going to be stuck in this dance around each other, pushing and pulling and coming together and hating it when they were apart, but soon feeling like it was too much when they were together.
“You drive me crazy too,” Sungyeol echoed, and held out the last piece of chicken to Myungsoo.
Sungyeol thought of the picture the two of them must make, two newly-debuted idols with matching bruised mouths demolishing a box of chicken together beside the Han river as the sun went down; leaving Sungyeol feeling like there was a joke in there somewhere but he’d be damned if he could find it.
“Did the chicken work? Are we okay again?” Myungsoo asked after a while, and Sungyeol gave a small frown.
“Is the chicken magic? Is it magic chicken, Myungsoo? We’re the ones who have to make things okay again, stupid,” Sungyeol nagged, Myungsoo pretending not to hear him.
“I think ice cream would help,” Myungsoo continued, pretend-innocent kitten smile making his dimple appear and melting Sungyeol a little.
“Magic ice cream?” Sungyeol asked mockingly, but followed Myungsoo as he stood up in search of the nearest convenience store anyway.
They found one quickly and Myungsoo bought their ice cream for them, not needing to ask what kind Sungyeol wanted while Sungyeol waited outside feeling slightly dangerous with his bruised mouth like he was wearing some kind of proud battle scar. The sun had gone down by the time they managed to find another quiet place to sit down and eat, and Sungyeol had to admit the ice cream had to be a little bit magic because he’d started to feel a lot more calm, a lot more peaceful inside.
“Okay?” Myungsoo asked once he was done, and Sungyeol wasn’t used to Myungsoo being quiet for such long periods of time. Usually it was hard enough to get him to shut up.
“Okay, Myungsoo.”
“Good.” Myungsoo smiled to himself before turning his smile on Sungyeol, and really, there isn’t anything else he could be but okay with Myungsoo smiling at him like that.
“Onwards and homewards?” Myungsoo asked, standing and holding out a hand to Sungyeol. He took it and let Myungsoo lead him towards the carpark, already fishing in his pocket for his phone to call one of the managers to come get them.
Onwards and homewards.
*