Archive of Our Own

The thing about Chan is that he's never really been quite good at keeping secrets.

This is probably a well-documented fact, if he reflects upon it himself for a moment, as all seven of the other members have catalogued this and weaponised it over the years. He's not quite sure when this had become known, or how it had developed. If he was really going to get down to it, something probably about growing up in a foreign environment and then having to take care of several kids probably had something to do with it, but. He never claimed to want to be psychoanalysed, so. Whatever.

All he knows is that he's pretty sure Jisung can get anything out of him within thirty seconds of his little pout. Seungmin, he thinks, darkly, doesn't even have to try — he just looks at him with that particular tilt of his head, and Chan is confessing to things he wasn't even made aware he was guilty of.

So when Chan decides, with the full force of his stubborn, loving heart, to surprise each of his members with a gift this year to celebrate eight years together that says I love you in a way that he sometimes can't find the words to express, he is aware that the universe is working against him.

He doesn't realise just how hard it would be.

1. Minho

The old stand mixer in his and Jisung's shared kitchen had been dying a slow, pathetic death for approximately four months.

Chan traces its decline to the exact moment Han Jisung, in a fit of protein-powder-inspired culinary ambition that he has once every few months (when his ambition to hit the gym once again overrules his current fixations), decided to make "high-protein, low-carb, muscle-building brownies" at two in the fucking morning. The mixer, according to Minho, who has a slightly haunted look on his face when he'd relayed this fact over morning practice, made a sound that he could only describe as existential despair, seized up, and to this day, has never quite recovered. It now whines like a wounded animal whenever it's asked to do something more strenuous than cream butter, poor thing.

Minho has been making do. Minho always makes do. He's the type of person who will silently work around a problem for weeks before anyone even notices there was a problem to begin with. Chan has watched him personally coax the dying mixer through three batches of cookies, two loaves of bread, and one very ambitious chiffon cake, his jaw set, his movement patient and precise.

It makes something in Chan's chest tighten every time. With laughter. But also in slight apprehension.

So he finds a replacement. And he starts planning. He was originally going to gift this to Minho the day of the anniversary, but after watching yet another day of Minho fighting his current stand mixer, he figures an early gift is better than Minho standing off against an inanimate object. It's a top-of-the-line, professional-grade? (Is this even a thing? He knows it's good, the guy had told him so in the store) stand mixer, the kind Minho would never buy for himself because he'd rather spend the money on ingredients for everyone (read: Jisung) else. Chan gets it in sleek silver; it matches the kitchen aesthetic Minho had carefully curated a couple of months back, with that same attention he brings to everything he cares about.

He thought about having it delivered to his dorm during a window where he knew Jeongin and any stragglers would be out, because Jeongin's lips might be looser than his own.

But the problem with that is everyone is never all out, not really, not for long. The dorms, his in particular, are a revolving door of schedules and practices and the particular chaos of eight codependent people sharing four adjacent apartments. Chan's apartment, the one he shares with Jeongin, has a big kitchen; Chan himself is a good cook too, which means it's a thoroughfare at all hours. There's always someone there.

His solution was to deliver it to the studio. And then bring it over personally. At two in the fucking morning.

He's halfway back home when he realises this is probably the stupidest idea he's ever had. The box is heavy, his back hurts, his grip is slipping. He wants to die slightly. But then he thinks about Minho's stupid smile when he finally won't have to deal with that mixer again, and it's like the world rights itself once more, as he treks on, more determined than ever.

By the time he finally reaches Jisung and Minho's apartment, the dorm is completely silent. He has a copy of their apartment's keys; all the members have keys for all the dorms for ease of access, so he has no problem waltzing in. Still, even with the keys, he kind of feels like a creep, walking in without permission.

Still, he braves on, slipping off his shoes quietly and padding to the kitchen.

He's careful. He's quiet. He's using his stupid phone as a light; the flashlight dimmed to the lowest possible setting, casting pathetic rays from where it sits, half on the counter, half suspended in the air so the light can shine onto the box below it. The new mixer comes so wrapped up in tape that Chan debates setting the whole thing on fire for several minutes as he tries to find scissors, before he finally pries it open.

Chan is crouched on the floor, surrounded by packing peanuts, wrestling with a particularly squeaky piece of foam moulding that has absolutely no intention of releasing its grip on the mixing bowl, when he hears the creak.

He knows that damn creak. It's that one floorboard in the hallway, everyone and their mom knows about it, and Chan's pretty sure it's about as subtle as a fucking foghorn.

He knows it's over even before he grabs his phone on the counter, tilting the light towards the hallway.

Minho is standing there, leaning against the frame, arms crossed. His hair is mussed from sleep, his shirt hanging off one shoulder, and he's wearing an expression so particularly flat and unimpressed that Chan wants to laugh. His eyes scan across the floor, at Chan, at the stupid packing peanuts scattered all around him. As he walks up, a packing peanut, seemingly sensing his presence, rolls towards him, stopping at his bare feet.

Minho stares at it. Then he looks back up.

Chan briefly reflects on this moment: the universe had presented him with a scenario so absurd that he genuinely doesn't know what to do with it.

"Are you planning to run off with my stand mixer," he says flatly, voice low and rough with sleep, "or is there a more pathetic reason you're on my floor surrounded by packing peanuts at this hour?"

Chan opens his mouth. Closes it. The mixing bowl is still trapped in foam. There's a packing peanut stuck to his forearm. He's in sweats and an oversized t-shirt with a hole in the collar, and he's been caught, once again, being too soft for his own good.

"The old is dying," he says, which is not the eloquent explanation he'd rehearsed in his head. "It's— it's a safety hazard, actually. The motor's been overheating, and the attachment lock is loose, so I just thought—"

Minho pushes off the wall. He walks forward slowly, bare feet silent on the linoleum, and Chan finds himself shrinking back against the cabinets. Minho steps over a scattering of packing peanuts, reaches for the mixer, which Chan lets him take, before smoothly sliding off the foam packaging in one go and plugging the new mixer into the outlet on the counter.

Then he pulls open a drawer, retrieves a bag of flour, and sets it down next to the mixer.

"If you're going to make all that noise and keep us awake," he says, and despite the words, Chan's heart jumps in delight at the tone in Minho's voice, because it's lilted, and Minho sounds pleased, "we're doing it properly."

Minho doesn't say anything more after that. He simply opens the cabinet for the sugar, the chocolate chips, and the butter, and sets everything out; Chan recognises this recipe, he's made it hundreds of times before.

Chan watches for a moment, still crouched on the floor. "What about Jisung? Is he awake?"

"No." Minho's lips quirk. "He can sleep through anything. Plus, I think he's still got his headphones in from that movie he was watching."

Ah.

"You're not going to ask—"

"Do you want cookies or not?"

Chan shuts up. He extracts himself from the mess on the ground and begins cleaning up all the packaging before standing next to Minho as he measures the flour, cracks the eggs, and creams the butter and sugar together. The new mixer, that stupid little thing, fucking purrs, like, actually purrs; it's a smooth, satisfying hum that makes Minho's eyebrows lift just slightly, and Chan's pretty sure that'll be the closest thing he gets to open approval from Minho. Which is fine, because Chan can read Minho like an open book, at this point.

As long as he's happy, Chan's happy.

They work in silence. Chan passes ingredients, opens bags, and retrieves the baking sheets from the cabinet above the stove. Minho's movements are precise and practised, and he doesn't even comment when Chan accidentally spills sugar across the counter, just nudges him towards the broom with his foot.

At three-thirty in the morning, they're both covered in flour. Chan's pretty sure he has a streak of chocolate on his cheek, and Minho's hair has somehow aquired a dusting of powdered sugar. The cookies are cooling on a rack, they're golden and misshapen (Chan's fault, not Minho's) and perfect, and they're eating them while they're still warm, the chocolate molten, the edges crisp.

"Leave some for Jisungie."

Chan nods, before biting into one and making a sound that's embarrassingly close to a moan. "These are incredible."

Minho hums. It's a quiet, contented sound, the one he makes when he's truly happy. He's holding his cookie in both hands, taking small, deliberate bites, and his shoulders are relaxed in a way Chan rarely sees them.

"You didn't have to do this," Minho mumbles eventually, deliberately not looking at him. "The mixer."

"I know."

"I would have managed with the old one."

"I know." Chan takes another bite, chews, and swallows. "But you shouldn't have to manage. You should have things that work. You should—" He stops, because he's going to say something embarrassing, something about how Minho works so hard for all of them, how he makes sure everyone is always fed and cared for and never asks for anything in return, even when they're not in his dorm now, even when they're not eight kids squeezed into one space, how the least Chan can do is make sure his tools don't sound like they're actively dying every time he wants to use them, and—

Minho doesn't let him finish. He just reaches out, flicks a crumb off Chan's shirt. "Next time, just put the box on the counter. You don't have to do all this about a new mixer, hyung."

"Where's the fun in that?"

Minho's lips twitch. He takes another cookie from the rack, inspects it, and holds it out to Chan. "Eat another one. You look like you haven't slept in a week."

Chan takes it. Their fingers brush.

Minho doesn't pull away immediately.

(Chan will take all the small wins he can get today.)

He eats the cookie, then another, then another. Minho slips half the cookies into a container, slipping it into the fridge as Chan chews mindlessly. When the latter turns, there's a glass of milk on the counter. He doesn't even know when it got there. Minho's eyes twinkle as he putters around the kitchen, before he, too, grabs another cookie off the tray.

They finish the leftovers between them, standing in the dim kitchen light, and when Chan finally stumbles home at nearly four in the morning, his heart feels full.

The next day, he's awoken to Jeongin's bright laughs. As he stumbles into the kitchen, he's met with an array of different breakfast dishes. Jeongin is busy chattering away with Minho while stuffing food into his mouth, and Minho only lightly tells him to eat more slowly.

Minho doesn't say anything about last night. He doesn't have to.

2. Changbin

See, Chan had begun this entire Seo Changbin Weighted Blanket Mission with the best of intentions, thorough research, and even a whole fucking spreadsheet.

It'd all started when Changbin had randomly whined about not getting coddled enough by the members and fans alike.

"Hyung, you don't understand," Changbin's whiny voice rings through his left ear and partially out the other, because even though Chan wants to stop listening, he's pretty sure he's physically incapable when it comes to the members. "It's not fair that just because I'm all muscles that I can't get coddled too, you know. How come Jisung and Felix get all the hugs?"

"I'll hug you, Changbin." Jisung's voice rang out from the opposite side, voice mischievous, "Come here—"

"Yah!"

And… well. Chan does not do things by halves.

So after hearing that, he decides the best course of action is to, well, coddle him, and after some thorough research, comes to the conclusion of commissioning a custom weighted blanket for Changbin. He spends three days reading reviews, comparing fabric weights, and calculating the optimal percentage of body weight for therapeutic benefits. He calls the company directly to ask about custom embroidery. The fabric is charcoal grey, cool to the touch, and breathable. He even sends them the SpearB logo — the one Changbin designed himself, the one that appears on all his production credits, the one Chan knows he's quietly proud of — and asks if they can stitch it into the corner, small and subtle, just a detail for Changbin to discover.

The delivery is tricky because the kids all share one apartment complex, and they're always grabbing each other's packages when they're delivered, all with the best of intentions, of course, but it's fine. He's scheduled it for Thursday afternoon, a window during which Chan knows Changbin will be at the studio with Hyunjin.

He has it all planned out: Chan just has to slip across the hallway, grab the package before Changbin gets home, or anyone notices, stash it in his own dorm across the hall, in the closet of his room. Then, when the time is right (which he will figure out, later), he'll present it to Changbin, smile, say something very appropriately casual, and let the rest work itself out, right?

The universe, as always, has other plans.

The delivery arrives a day early. Chan is in the shower. He hears the doorbell through the rush of water, and freezes for a moment, holding his breath, but it's such a faint, muffled sound, he swore it must've been for the other dorm, and dismisses it. After all, Seungmin's always ordering books, and Felix's getting so many brand deals he's pretty sure the delivery person has a personal vendetta against him. Even across the hall, Hyunjin's always online buying random knick-knacks, and he's pretty sure there's approximately four packages a week being delivered there, so. Besides, the blanket isn't even supposed to arrive until tomorrow, so it's fine. Chan has time.

With that, Chan relaxes and continues washing his hair, working the shampoo through his curls, letting the hot water beat against his shoulders. It's the most relaxed he's been in days.

Chan's heart plummets to his stomach.

Oh. Well.

He stares at the message, his wet hair dripping onto his phone screen. Across the hall, across the damn hall, Changbin is currently holding a box that weighs approximately fifteen kilograms, ripping open the stupid packaging to find the stupid note Chan's left for him inside the box, which he had added when he clicked the stupid gift option, and, and…

To Seo Changbin,

I hope you enjoy this. :) I hope it feels like a hug from me to you.

— Chan.

He should respond. He should say something like, super casual, something that doesn't reveal the extent of his failed operation. Instead, he stands in the middle of his and Jeongin's shared living room, dripping onto the floor, and types:

Chan considers his option: He could lie. He could say nothing, just some equipment for the studio, a mistake. He could—

His phone buzzes again:

Chan throws on a shirt, it's probably inside out, he doesn't care, and crosses the hallway in bare feet, his hair still wet, his heart pounding.

The door to Changbin and Hyunjin's apartment is unlocked. Chan pushes it open.

The large, heavy box sits in the middle of their living room floor, already slit open along the top with neat precision. Beside it, plastic litters the ground, ripped open, and the blanket sits next to it. Changbin is crouched beside the blanket, his phone in one hand, his other hand resting on the fucking note. He looks up when Chan enters, his eyebrows raised.

"Hyung," he states, staring up at Chan, then letting his eyes trail down to the floor, where droplets of water are trickling down Chan's sopping wet curls, "Your hair is dripping on our floor."

Chan ignores this. "You opened it."

"We open everything for everyone. You know this. First-come, first-served."

Right. He does.

Chan leans against the doorframe, defeated. He can feel water trickling down his neck, soaking into the collar of his inside-out shirt. "It's a blanket."

Changbin nods slowly, before his eyes drift over to the note and freeze. His hand goes still on the fabric.

"A blanket," he repeats.

"A weighted blanket. You said you wanted a hug, so… it's supposed to help with—" Chan waves a vague hand. "You know. Everything."

Changbin pulls the blanket out of the box. It unfolds in a cascade of charcoal grey, pooling across the living room floor, and Changbin's breath catches as he sees the corner — the small, silver embroidery, the SpearB logo stitched into the fabric with precision.

"This…" Changbin's voice is rough. He clears his throat. "This is for me?"

Chan wants to say something casual. Something like I saw it and thought of you, or it's not a big deal, or you can return it if you don't like it. But Changbin is holding the blanket in both hands, staring at the logo like he's never seen anything like it, and Chan's throat is too tight for deflection.

"Of course it's for you," he says, and his voice comes out softer than he intended. "I got your logo on it."

Changbin looks up. His eyes are a little wide, a little wet, and there's a small, shy smile breaking across his face — the kind of smile Chan has seen maybe a handful of times in all the years he's known him.

"You got my logo," Changbin says, and it's not a question.

Chan shrugs, because he has to do something with his hands, because standing here in his inside-out shirt with his hair dripping is starting to feel vulnerable in a way that has nothing to do with his appearance. "Well, yeah."

Changbin laughs, sudden and bright, and pulls the blanket around his shoulders. It's too big for him, draping over his frame like a cape, and he burrows into it with a sound of pure contentment that makes Chan's chest ache.

"This is so heavy," Changbin says, delighted. "I love it. Why is it so heavy?"

"It's supposed to be heavy. It's a weighted blanket. That's the whole concept."

"But it's so heavy." Changbin is grinning now, the full force of it, his earlier vulnerability tucked away behind the familiar brightness. "I could use this as a workout. I could just wear this around the dorm. Build muscle while I sleep."

Chan finds himself smiling. "That's not how it works."

"Don't tell me how to live my life." Changbin wraps the blanket tighter, cocooning himself in it, and walks over to Chan. He stops in front of him, close enough that Chan can see the individual stitches on the logo, the way the silver thread catches the light. "Thank you, hyung."

"It's just a blanket."

"It's not just a blanket." Changbin's voice is quiet now, serious. "You got my logo. You—" He stops, shakes his head. "You're a good hyung. Stupid, but good."

Chan reaches out, running his hands through the blanket. "Thanks. I think."

Changbin grins, then nudges Chan toward the door. "Go dry your hair. You're getting water everywhere."

Chan lets himself be pushed, stepping back into the hallway. He's halfway to his own door when Changbin calls after him.

"Hyung."

Chan turns.

Changbin is standing in their doorway, the blanket still wrapped around him, his face is teasing, "Be faster, next time."

"You can stop gloating now. You already got the damn gift."

Changbin's smile widens. "Fair enough."

He closes the door, and Chan goes back to his apartment to find a towel, his chest lighter than it's been in weeks.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Later that night, Chan is in the kitchen, making tea, when he hears the door outside, across the hallway, open and close. He doesn't think much of it — Hyunjin is probably coming back from the studio, or Changbin is getting water — but then he hears a knock on his own dorm door, soft but insistent.

He opens it to find Changbin, still wrapped in the blanket, now with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his hair. The blanket is tucked around him like a nest, only his face visible, and he's holding a container of the cookies Minho made the other night.

"You're awake," Changbin says.

"You're at my door."

"Fair point." Changbin holds up the cookies. "Wanted to test the blanket properly." Like that explains anything.

Chan steps aside and lets him in anyway. They settle on the couch, Chan with his tea, Changbin with the cookies and the blanket, and for a while they don't talk. Chan scrolls through his phone; Changbin watches whatever drama is playing on the TV, volume low, the sound of voices a soft background hum.

Chan glances over at one point and finds Changbin's eyes closed, his breathing slow, his body relaxed in a way Chan rarely sees. The blanket is pulled up to his chin, the hood still up, and there's a peaceful, tiny smile on his face. He looks so cute wrapped around his blanket, and Chan can't help but begin to slowly tuck him in on the sides, trying not to wake him. He pulls the throw blanket from the back of the couch, drapes it over Changbin's feet where the weighted blanket doesn't reach, and turns the TV volume down further.

Chan doesn't wake him. He doesn't move. He just sits there, drinking his tea, watching the drama play out in silence, and thinks about the logo stitched into the corner of the blanket, about the way Changbin's face looked when he saw it.

When Chan finally goes to bed, hours later, he leaves Changbin on the couch, still wrapped in the blanket, still smiling in his sleep.

He leaves a glass of water on the coffee table, just in case.

3. Hyunjin

Hyunjin's gift was, objectively, supposed to be the easiest one.

Hyunjing has been lamenting his current supplies for months. His brushes are fraying. His oil paints are the same student-grade set he'd bought when he'd first started taking painting seriously, and with all their schedules and touring and comebacks, he hadn't found the time to replace them with something better. Which means he'd been just suffering through the inefficiencies of pigments that don't blend properly and binders that separate on the canvas as he'd gotten better and better. He's mentioned once, in passing, a brand of brushees he'd love to try, "—but we're going on tour soon, I'm never going to use them, and they're so expensive hyung, like you gotta get them all the way from Japan, it's ridiculous—" and Chan had filed it away in the mental folder has has for all the kids on things he needs to make happen in the near future.

So he orders them as soon as he hits the ground after tour, because he remembers Hyunjin saying the shipping takes forever, so. And they do. Apparently, they're hand fucking crafted with hair from wherever-the-hell from buttfuck nowhere, because they take months before finally, one day, there's a small set of brushes in a discreet piece of packaging (Chan has learned his lesson after the disastrous Changbin incident) that arrives at his door, that Chan picks up immediately. Alongside that, he's gotten professional-grade oil paints, a nice, sizeable easel that'll work inside the dorm, and even some nice sketching pencils ranging from 6H to 6B. As Chan watches the order confirmations, then shipping emails, then arrival emails, appear in his inbox, he feels a sense of satisfaction so complete it's bordering on smug.

This one is going to go perfectly.

The rest of the boxes arrive when Hyunjin is at dance practice; he'd specifically made sure to get them all delivered on the same day, at the same time. Chan hides them under his bed and congratulates himself on a job well done. He'll present them on the anniversary, maybe with a card, maybe with something else appropriately sentimental that he'll attempt to undercut with a dumb joke (here, now you have no excuses for not painting me something nice) and Hyunjin will roll his eyes and call him an idiot and they'll both pretend that Chan's voice didn't waver at the edges. He'll figure it out.

Then he gets a text from their producer.

Chan looks under his bed. The boxes are hidden. Hyunjin is at practice for another two hours, and when he gets back, he'll go straight to his own room, which he shares with Changbin, and Changbin is still at the studio. The rest of the kids are either out for fun or at some event, with Jeongin himself being at a vocal lesson. There's no reason for anyone to go into Chan's room.

Satisfied, he sends a quick confirmation text, grabs his jacket, closes the door to his room, and leaves.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Chan's meeting runs long. Five hours long. By the time he gets back to the dorm, it's dark, his brain is fried from discussing track arrangements and mixes, and he's running on several cups of caffeine and the desperate hope that someone remembered to order dinner.

He walks into the dorm, already heading for his bed to check on the gifts—

The door to his room is slightly ajar.

It's not even that noticeable; his door was open just a hair. It could be explained away by the fucking wind, the fucking draft or whatever or the building settling or something, but Chan finds his heart stuttering anyway, because he closed that door. He remembers closing it. He remembers the particular feeling of pulling the door to his room closed behind him until the latch caught.

He quickly pushes the door open before checking under the bed.

The boxes are gone.

Well, fuck.

At least that narrows it down. There's only one person who would see all this and take it, anyway.

Chan grabs his keys and leaves the room. He walks down the hallway, past the kitchen, past the living room, and stops in front of Hyunjin and Changbin's dorm.

He pushes the keys inside the lock and turns it, and the door swings open with a warm invitation. As he steps inside, gently closing the door behind him, he hesitates. His hand hovers over the cool, metal door handle still. He should've knocked, he really should've, even though they would probably find it weird because they don't really knock on each other's dorms all that often. But it feels right in this instance. He should probably apologise for leaving the gifts unguarded, for not hiding them better. He should—

He really needs to figure out how to salvage this. Hopefully, tomorrow, when he's not exhausted. He needs space, needs to think.

As he goes to turn around, something catches his eye. His head turns towards it instinctively, and…

In the living room, on the coffee table, nearly blocked off by the wall, is a painting. It's too far away to make out exactly what, but Chan's pretty sure he's never seen this painting before.

Chan's curiosity gets the better of him.

He takes off his shoes and sets them on the rack, and walks over to the living room. The painting is small — smaller than Hyunjin's usual work, intimate. Chan can imagine Hyunjin hunched over himself, the canvas in his lap, while he works. The oils are still wet, catching the lamplight in slick, luminous ridges, the colours fresh and vivid and alive. Chan steps closer, his breath catching in his throat, because he recognises what he's looking at before his brain has fully processed it.

It's him.

It's a portrait of Chan, painted from memory. Well, at least he thinks it is, because it is imperfect. But, as Chan walks closer, examining it, its every rough edge, every pore, it feels so much more than that. Feels deeper than memory, feels like Hyunjin's soul leaking all over the canvas, the accumulation of a thousand small observations, a thousand moments Hyunjin had stored away throughout the years that could only be obtained from studying a person for years upon years, from far, meters away, from up close, inches away from their skin, all without Chan ever noticing.

There's such a humanlike quality to it that Chan tears up. Hyunjin has captured something Chan has never seen in a mirror, something so intimate and raw Chan wants to cradle this painting in his palms and hide it away from the rest of the world. The skin tones are warm, dimensional, and built from layers of pigment that glow from within. The eyes are the colour of a warm, cosy fall day, that particular shade of amber that Chan hardly recognises when he stares into his own reflection, yet Hyunjin had got it exactly right. The brushwork is confident, sure, even though Chan knows this is Hyunjin's first time playing with these paints, with these brushes. A small, selfish part of him hopes it's because Hyunjin has studied Chan so intensely that his knowledge of him overpowered any hesitancy that came with using new materials.

At the bottom of the painting, in Hyunjin's careful handwriting, the letters formed with the same brush that painted the portrait, is a single line:

Thank you, Chan-hyung.

Chan stares at it. The oils are so fresh they haven't begun to even skin over, the colours are still pliant, the brushstrokes still soft at the edges. This was painted tonight in the hours since Chan left. With the brushes Chan bought, the paints Chan selected, on canvas stretched and primed by hands that have been waiting for tools worthy of them.

He hears footsteps behind him. He doesn't turn.

"I used them."

Hyunjin's voice is quiet, but not hesitant. There's no guilt, Chan notes, but there is something in the inflexion that he can't quite name.

"I came in to borrow a charger," Hyunjin continues. "I saw the boxes. I opened one. I know I shouldn't have." A pause. "But I saw the brushes; I've been eyeing them for years. And the paints—" His voice catches, just slightly. "You remembered everything."

Chan turns.

Hyunjin is standing in the entryway to the living room, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. He's wearing an old t-shirt stained with paint. The new paints, Chan realises, with cadmium and ultramarine ash smeared across the cuff of his sleeve. His hair is pulled back from his face, a few strands escaping to fall across his forehead, and there's a smear of vermilion on his cheekbone that he hadn't noticed.

He's staring at Chan, gauging his reaction.

"I couldn't wait." Hyunjin's voice is slow and soothing, but there are nerves that Chan could sense in his timbre. "I know I probably should have. I know it was supposed to be a surprise, and I ruined it, and you probably wanted to see my face when I opened them, and I took that from you. I'm sorry for that. I am." He takes a step forward, his eyes drifting to the painting on the coffee table. "But I looked at them, hyung. Everything. And I couldn't resist. I thought—" He stops. Swallows. "I thought, you know. I need to make something for Channie-hyung to show I care for him. Because I do, a lot. And I needed a way to express that, now, before you came home."

Chan looks at the painting. He looks at his own face, rendered in oils that would've cost more than his debut weekly grocery budget, painted by hands that have been aching for this for years.

"You made this," is all Chan manages to stutter out. "With the supplies I got you."

"I made it with the supplies you got me," Hyunjin confirms, moving closer, his eyes on the painting now, the same way Chan has been looking at it, studying it, studying every feature, every crevice. "I wanted to see what I could do. With proper tools." He lets out a soft breath, almost a laugh. "I wanted to see if I was as good as you think I am."

Chan's throat tightens. "And?"

Hyunjin looks at him. His eyes are bright, glistening, but not with tears. He looks alight, like the glittering on the surface of the waves of an ocean, or the sun catching on the edge of a blade.

"I'm better," is what he replies simply. Chan doesn't know what to think. "There are improvements to be made, but. I was working with cheap tools, and I made it look okay." Finally, Hyunjin lets out a small smile, and it's like the gentlest hug Chan has ever felt in his life. "It is good, though. I didn't know what I could do until I had something worth doing it with."

He gestures at the painting. "This is the first thing I've painted in a long time that looks the way I wanted it to look. That actually captures what I was trying to capture." His hand drops. His voice goes softer. "Thank you, hyung."

Chan looks at the painting again. At the brushwork, confident, fluid, nothing like the hesitant strokes he'd watched Hyunjin lay down just a couple of years ago. And he's hit with the realisation that Hyunjin had grown, had grown so much, even in these last couple of years. They all had. And they will continue to do so. And Hyunjin, who, at times, was like a seed stuck in the cracks of the sidewalk, struggling to set its roots, had bloomed, blossomed into a beautiful flower, into something tangible and real and more than Chan could ever have imagined.

"The first painting with your new paints, why did you decide to paint me?" Chan mumbles out. The word comes out strange. He's not sure what he means by them.

Hyunjin tilts his head, considering. "I wanted to paint the person who gave it to me." A pause. "It seemed right. You gave me the tools I'd been wanting; you've been listening to all the comments I've been making offhandedly for a long time. I wanted to show you what I could do with the gifts you got me. What you made possible, I guess."

He reaches out, touches the edge of the canvas with one finger, careful not to smudge the wet paint. "It's not dry. It'll take weeks. Oil takes forever to cure — you know that, right? I can't give it to you yet. It'll smear if you try to move it. It needs to sit and breathe and settle into itself." He's rambling, but he's looking at Chan, and there's a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "But it's yours. When it's ready. It's yours."

Chan stares at him. At the boy, no, man, in front of him. An image of eighteen-year-old Hyunjin flashes inside his head for a moment.

He's changed so much. And yet he's still the exact same.

"You could have waited," he says wryly instead, "You could have pretended you didn't find them. Let me give them to you properly."

Hyunjin's smile widens. "And miss the look on your face right now? Absolutely not."

Chan laughs. It comes out wetter than he intended, but Hyunjin doesn't comment. He just watches Chan with those knowing eyes, the ones he used to memorise every part of Chan that he doesn't even notice, the ones that'd managed to take those images and turn them into this gorgeous piece of art, the one who'd managed to draw Chan so perfectly.

"I still can't believe you painted me," Chan says again, because he can't seem to get past it.

"I paint a lot of things."

"It's just— sorry." Chan turns back to the painting and leans in to study it up close. It's even more vibrant and detail-oriented inches away, and he can see every individual brushstroke of paint Hyunjin had laid down. "And you didn't use a reference? You just painted from your head? How?"

"You're an easy person to paint, I guess." Hyunjin laughs. "I don't know. Some people are easier to paint from memory than others. You're one of them."

"Wow," is all Chan manages to say, "And why'd you leave it on the coffee table? Were you trying to have me find it?"

"You were going to find it eventually. I wanted it to be tonight." Hyunjin shrugs, the movement easy, unhurried. "When I found everything, I knew I only had a couple of hours to surprise you, and I made the most of it."

"I was going to give them to you on the anniversary," Chan says. A part of him feels stupid. An even greater part of him just feels dumbfounded and very, very awe-filled. He loves Hyunjin so much. "With a card. Something stupid, probably. I was gonna write like 'now you have no excuses for not painting me something nice.' I dunno."

Hyunjin's laugh is bright, startled. "That's what you were going to say? Really?"

"Shut up. I don't know how to be more sincere."

"You're being sincere right now."

Chan stares at his face. There's still paint on his cheek. He grabs a tissue from the box that's sitting on the table, and leans in, swiping the leftover paint off Hyunjin, who makes a soft noise in surprise: "I didn't even notice the paint."

"There," Chan murmurs, satisfied. Then: "And thanks. I'll wait. For the painting to dry, I mean."

Hyunjin nods once. "Good."

They stand there for a moment, the painting between them, the wet oil catching the light. Chan wants to touch it, to run his finger along the edge of the canvas, to feel the texture of the brushstrokes that made him. But he doesn't. He waits.

Hyunjin seemed to see what Chan was thinking. He had the terrifying ability to do that, sometimes. As do all the members; they've all gotten scarily good at reading Chan recently, a far cry from their early, predebut days.

"The texture affects how someone would look at a painting. Thicker paints give shadows and a different look than areas with less paint. More textured paintings also have a different feel than smoother ones. I wanted to test out a more textured style, more impasto, but I didn't have enough time, so I went a lot smoother. It'll still take forever to dry, but, oh well. It'll look cool."

Chan leans closer, looking at the places Hyunjin is indicating. He can see it now, the different brushstrokes. It's smooth, he's right. There are not really globs of paint that he'd often imagined oil paintings to be.

"I hadn't really thought about that, wow."

"I couldn't really do super detailed texture work before." Hyunjin's voice is soft. "I've been wanting to for a while… so thank you. Again." Hyunjin bites at his lip for a bit, eyes drifting off. Chan watches as he thinks and waits.

Eventually, Hyunjin's gaze trails back to Chan, and he continues.

"It's also not varnished. So. You're probably not getting that back for at least a month."

"That's so long." Chan pouts. "And I've already planned out where I want to hang it up."

"You're… hanging it up?"

"Yeah, of course."

"In your room?"

"Yes? Why?"

"Oh." Hyunjin breathes, his voice pleased. "Nothing."

"Yeah, I'll hang it right next to our debut photo."

"Gross." Hyunjin wrinkles his nose in disgust. "I looked weird in that picture. My hair was weird."

Chan shakes his head, hand going up to ruffle Hyunjin's long hair, earning him a Yah! in response. "You looked happy. You always look the best when you're happy and laughing."

Hyunjin is quiet for a moment. Then he says, very softly. "I'm happy now."

Everything feels perfect. Everything is perfect.

"Good. That's good."

Hyunjin's smile is small and real and warm. He reaches out, touches Chan's wrist once, quickly, and then moves toward the couch. "Sit with me. I want to show you something else."

They scroll through Hyunjin's phone as Hyunjin shows him sketches of the entire process. Apparently, he'd been very excited about the new paints and had taken a picture of the sketching, the initial base layer, the renderings, everything. It's nice, Chan realises, listening to Hyunjin ramble on excitedly about art. He seems so carefree.

"You're gonna be using your supplies all the time, right?" Chan asks at one point, while Hyunjin's still swiping through the photos. "Don't save them for special projects. You should use them for everything if they're that different from your regular paints. I'll get you more."

Hyunjin beams, an amused flash crossing over his face. "Don't worry, hyung, I wasn't planning to." He looks a bit sheepish as he continues. "I've… already started two new paintings while I waited for you. Changbin's going to kill me. I opened the windows but… our dorm is definitely going to smell like turpentine for weeks."

Chan laughs. "Sorry, Changbin."

"You're not that sorry, are you?"

"I'm a little sorry."

"Well. I'm not."

Chan grins. Hyunjin grins back. The painting sits between them.

"What are you going to paint next?" Chan asks tiredly. The meeting is catching up to him, but he's comfortable like this, next to one of the people he treasures most, basking in the hearth.

Hyunjin pauses and considers the question. He looks at the painting, then at Chan, then out the window at the Seoul skyline, the light of the city scattered like stars, splattered like a rogue paintbrush dipped in white paint before being flicked onto a black painted sky.

"I don't know yet. I reckon I'll figure it out."

Chan pulls Hyunjin into an embrace, and Hyunjin lets himself be pulled. As Chan hugs him, he tries to find the disappointment at another failed attempt at gift-giving, but he finds that all he feels is the summery, ever-present feeling of contentment that Hyunjin is happy.

4. Jisung

Chan's nervous.

The guitar is a limited-edition vintage electric, the kind that Jisung has been obsessing over for months. Chan has watched him pull up photos of it on his phone during breaks, scrolling through listings with a pathetic longing and pouting that Chan feels his resolve weakening by the minute. Jisung has, lately, taken to describing the guitar in hushed, reverent terms ("it plays sooo nice, hyung, it's sooo good—"), and he's seen the way Jisung's hands move when he talks about it, fingers curling around an imaginary neck, palm cupping an invisible body, unconsciously shaping chord shapes in the air.

Moreover, he's realised that if he doesn't buy it soon, Minho is going to crack and buy it for him, so. He's gotta move fast.

Tracking one down took weeks. Chan calls seventeen different music shops, scours online marketplaces, and talks to three collectors who, upon realising he knows fuck all about guitars, treat him like a time-wasting amateur. Fuck. If only he could bring Jisung, this would all be a lot easier, but Chan's determined to do this right and surprise him, even when all his previous attempts had failed.

Finally, he finds it: a shop in Busan that had one in storage for years, waiting for the right buyer. The wood grain is visible, and the finish is a faded sunburst, a pretty amber deepening to an umber brown. The pickups are original, and the neck is smooth from decades of someone else's hands. It's perfect. Chan knows, he knows, that when Jisung touches it for the first time, something in him will click into place.

Best of all, Minho hasn't found it yet.

So Chan pays far more than he should, more than he would ever spend on himself, and arranges for delivery to his dorm.

He plans it meticulously. The delivery is scheduled for a rare date and time when Jisung will be at the studio with Changbin without Chan, working on a track. Chan will intercept the package, hide it in his room, somewhere not under the bed, and present it on the anniversary privately to Jisung, the way he should have done with all of them.

And it arrives, thank god. He wasn't scammed, everything went smoothly, the delivery driver was on time, Chan gingerly picked up the case, and, with the patience of a saint, slowly carried the case into his room with as much care as he could muster in his body. He hides it in the back of his closet, behind the winter coats no one will touch until November, and spends the rest of the day vibrating with the effort of keeping his face neutral every time Jisung walks past.

And it works. For a while.

Until the universe, and Jisung, apparently, have other plans. Because of fucking course.

It has been literally two weeks since the package was delivered. It is the longest amount of time he's made it without the surprise spoiling so far. Everyone was out of the dorms, except Jisung and Chan. Even Jeongin had gone with Felix and Hyunjin to grab something to eat, but Chan and Jisung had declined in favour of staying in to casually bounce ideas off each other as they worked on a track in the studio. Eventually, they'd gotten bored, and somehow, between one hour and the next, had wandered back to Chan's dorm in the dark, where they're now just sitting on the couch, scrolling through their phones together in comfortable silence as Howl's Moving Castle plays softly in the background.

Chan had gone to the bathroom. His phone is on silent because he forgot to turn the ringer back on after a producer meeting. He's in there for maybe ten minutes, dealing with the aftermath of the spicy ramen Felix insisted on making for lunch earlier that day, and after, when he emerges, he hears it.

A sound.

A sound he knows.

It's the sound of a guitar case opening. The particular click of latches, the sigh of the long-worn-out hinges, followed by the soft thud of a lid falling back.

Fuck.

He really should've predicted this would happen. Jisung's inherent nosiness plus his current streak of just bad luck had made this combination almost fate. Fuck.

He walks to his room.

Jisung is sitting on the floor, cross-legged, the guitar case open in front of him. Chan's closet door is ajar behind him, the winter coats pushed aside, the box Chan thought was hidden now empty on the floor beside him. The guitar, the one Chan spent weeks tracking down, the one that cost more than his laptop, is nestled in plush lining, untouched. Jisung hasn't even lifted it out of the case. He's just sitting there, staring at it, his face a mask of complete, utter disbelief. His hands are flat on his thighs, pressed down like he's physically restraining himself from reaching out.

"No way," Jisung whispers. His voice is hoarse, scraped raw. "No way. No fucking way."

Chan stands in the doorway. He doesn't even know how this happened— or, well. That's a lie; he knows how. He probably came into Chan's room to borrow something, probably raid his closet for a hoodie, when he saw it. Fuck. In hindsight, the closet was probably not a great idea. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Jisung found it. Of course, he had found it.

"Jisung—"

Jisung's head snaps up. His eyes are wide, wet, and when he sees Chan standing there, something in his expression cracks open.

"Chan." His voice breaks on the syllable. "Chan, this is— this is the—"

"I know."

"There's only fifty of these." Jisung's hand lifts from his thigh, hovers in the air between them, trembling. "Fifty. In the entire world."

"I know."

"How did you—" Jisung's fingers curl inward, press against his palm, like he's trying to hold onto something solid. "I've been looking at photos of this guitar for six months. Six months, Chan. I couldn't stop looking at it, and I knew I'd never have one, and I'd look at it and imagine what it would feel like under my fingers, what do you mean you've had one all this time and never told me? Why—"

He stops. His voice has run out. His hand is still hovering, still trembling.

Chan sits down across from him. The floor is cold against his bare legs, but Jisung is radiating heat from his disbelief.

"Jisung-ah," Chan can't help but laugh at the hurt expression on Jisung's face. He's truly got it all wrong. Chan can't wait for his reaction to what he's about to say. "It's because I was planning to gift it to you as a surprise."

"…What?"

"It's yours, Sungie."

Jisung looks at him. His face does something complicated; Chan isn't quite sure if he could even describe it in words. Jisung hasn't blinked in a freakishly long amount of time, and he's rapidly switching between staring at Chan and the guitar.

"You bought me a guitar," he finally says slowly, and blinks, thank fuck. "You bought me the guitar. The one super rare limited-edition one I've been having wet dreams about—

"Please don't say that. Ew, Jisung—"

"—I literally think I've written actual songs about her—"

"—Please, stop, you sound weird— wait, you've written songs about her? The guitar?"

"—Channie hyung, I will love you forever. Oh, you've outdone Minho-hyung with this one—"

"—Do not let him hear you say that, oh my god we are both dead—"

"—I will literally kiss your feet right now."

"… Please don't, Jisung. Please don't."

Jisung doesn't respond with any more… interesting statements, thankfully; instead, he finally reaches out, lifting the guitar from the case carefully. His fingers find the neck, sliding up to the headstock, tracing the shape of the faded logo. His palm cups the body, fingers spreading across the sunburst finish, and Chan watches the moment the wood meets Jisung's skin, watches his breath catch, his shoulders drop, his whole body exhale.

He doesn't play. Not yet. He just holds it, cradles it against his chest, lets the weight settle into his lap. His thumb finds the edge of the pickguard, traces the curve. His fingers find the tuning pegs and test their resistance. He's memorising it, Chan realises. He's mapping every inch of it with his hands, committing it to the part of his memory that holds the things that matter most.

Chan watches. He doesn't speak. There's nothing to say.

Then something occurs to him. "Wait."

Jisung looks up, his fingers still on the strings.

Chan frowns. "Why were you in my closet?"

Jisung's face goes through a rapid series of expressions: confusion, realisation, sheepishness, and then something that looks remarkably like guilt. His ears go pink. Cute. "I wasn't— I wasn't in your closet."

Chan stares at him.

Jisung squirms.

"Jisung-ah, the door was literally open. The coats were pushed aside. The box the case was in is empty on the floor." Chan gestures at the evidence. "You were in my closet."

"Jisung's blush deepens, creeping down his neck. "I came to borrow a hoodie."

Ah. Well, at least he was right.

"You have your own hoodies."

"I wanted one of yours."

"My hoodies."

"Your grey one. The oversized one from the tour. It's comfortable." Jisung's voice has gone defensive, high-pitched. "It smells like you. It's— it's a comfort thing. Don't make it weird."

Chan's mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. He isn't quite sure what to make of this confession. "My hoodies are literally on the other side of the closet to the coats, Jisung."

Jisung sputters. "I'm not lying!"

"Okay then, why—"

"I wanted your hoodie! The one that smells like you! Because I couldn't sleep last night and your hoodie helps, and I didn't want to admit it because it's embarrassing, but now I've found the guitar, and I'm sitting here in your room in your hoodie—" He stops, looks down at himself. He's wearing a grey hoodie. Chan's grey hoodie. The oversized one from the tour.

Chan hadn't noticed. He's not sure how he missed it — Jisung swimming in the familiar fabric, the sleeves pulled over his hands, the hem falling past his hips. He's been wearing it the whole time.

"You're already wearing my hoodie," Chan says.

Jisung's face goes red. "I put it on before I found the guitar. I came in, I took the hoodie, I was going to leave, and then I saw the box, and I—" He buries his face in the guitar's body, hiding. "This is so embarrassing. You're going to tell everyone. You're going to tell Minho, and he's going to make fun of me forever."

Chan's lungs are deflating, and he's pretty sure he looks like a drowning fish. He looks at Jisung — at his face pressed against the sunburst finish, at the grey hoodie swallowing him whole, at the guitar he's holding like it's the most precious thing he's ever touched.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," Chan says.

Jisung peeks out from behind the guitar. "You're not?"

"No." Chan leans back against his bed and looks at the ceiling. "I hid a ridiculously expensive guitar in my closet and restructured my entire life for two weeks, and you found it in two seconds because you wanted to steal my hoodie. I think we're even."

Jisung makes a sound that might be a laugh. "I wasn't stealing."

"You were stealing."

"Borrowing."

"You were never going to give it back."

Jisung is quiet for a moment. Then, very small: "No. Probably not."

Chan laughs. It comes out garbled, which is annoying. He's not sure when he started laughing, or when his eyes got hot, but Jisung is looking at him with something soft in his expression, and the guitar is still in his lap, and Chan's hoodie is swallowing him whole, and everything is too much and not enough all at once.

Jisung sets the guitar down gently, carefully, back in its plush case. He crawls across the floor, knees on the hardwood, and wraps his arms around Chan's waist, pressing his face into his stomach. His shoulders shake. He's not crying— he's not— but his breath comes in uneven gasps, like his lungs are still trying to catch up to his heart.

Jisung's always been an emotional crier. Anytime he's overwhelmed or overexcited, he cries. Chan lets him cry it out, playing with his hair.

"I'm gonna write you the best song anyone's ever written," Jisung mumbles into Chan's shirt. "I'm gonna write you a hundred songs. I'm gonna write you so many songs you'll get sick of me."

Chan's hand comes up, fingers threading through Jisung's damp hair. "You already write songs. And annoy me."

Jisung looks up, his face red, his eyes wet, his expression indignant. "The songs I write for albums don't count. That was for everyone." He jabs a finger into Chan's stomach for emphasis, then seems to realise Chan is still sitting on the floor and he's sitting on Chan, and his face goes an even deeper shade of red. "I was going to say I'll write all the love songs I can about you— Ew, I'm crying on you. Over a gift you got me. This is so embarrassing."

"You've done worse. And I look forward to your song."

"Shut up. How'd even know I found it?"

"I heard the hinges creak. I figured you'd found my guitar."

"You're a freak." Jisung presses his face back into Chan's stomach, hiding. "And it's my guitar, not your guitar."

"Sure, Jisung, sure."

Jisung stares at him for a moment, then pulls back, wiping his face with his sleeve. He looks at the guitar case, then back at Chan. "I want to play it. For real. I want to hear what it sounds like."

Chan nods. "Play it."

Jisung reaches for the guitar again. This time, his movements are slower, more deliberate. He settles it in his lap, finds the familiar shape of chords, and looks up at Chan with something that's almost shy.

"I've been working on something," he says. "It's not finished. It's not — it's not ready. But I want to hear what it sounds like on this guitar."

Chan nods encouragingly.

Jisung closes his eyes. His fingers find the strings, and he begins to play.

It's not a song Chan recognises. He's pretty sure it's something new, something Jisung has been working on in the quiet hours, the time off, something that's been living in his chest for a while. The melody is simple, sweet, maybe a little sad, and the guitar gives it depth and warmth. It sounds like a nostalgic sort of longing, if Chan had to describe it. Jisung's eyes are still closed. His fingers move across the fretboard with a certainty Chan doesn't see in him often off stage. It is beautiful.

The last note fades. Jisung opens his eyes.

"What do you think?" he asks, and his voice is small, uncertain.

Chan looks at him, looks at the boy he's been raising since he was twenty, at the child he met when the child had been no older than a feisty fifteen-year-old.

"I think," Chan says, and although the man before him is twenty-five, all he can see is the small teenager Jisung when he's talking, a teenager Jisung holding his first guitar. "I think it sounds beautiful. You've really found your voice and your sound."

Jisung's smile is slow, warm, like honey. Like sitting by a fire in a cabin somewhere. The world is small and safe, and the only thing that exists is this moment, this room, this guitar.

"Yeah," Jisung murmurs, "I think I did."

He looks down at the guitar in his hands, runs his thumb along the edge of the body, feeling the grain against his skin. Then, he looks up. "Thank you, hyung. Thank you."

Chan's soul is aching. What a blessing it is to know Jisung, truly. "You're welcome."

Jisung's eyes are shiny as his gaze drops to the guitar, and his expression shifts — from wonder to something more focused, more hungry. "I think I want to hear it through an amp."

Chan raises an eyebrow. "We just got back from the studio."

"I know." Jisung's fingers are already moving, checking the tuning, adjusting the strap. "But I want to hear it now. I want to hear what it can do."

Chan looks at the clock on his nightstand. It's getting late, and he knows Jisung will be fiddling for hours. They have an early schedule tomorrow. He should say no. He should tell Jisung to wait, to be patient, to let the guitar settle before they drag it back to the studio. Or at least, not to get him involved in this, because Chan barely sleeps as it is, and it's his one night off, and—

Jisung's lip starts to jut out, and he's leaning in, like a plant looking for the sun, and Chan finds himself sighing, standing up. "Let me grab my keys."

"Really?" Jisung's head snaps up.

"You're going to keep playing it in my room if I say no, and Minho will come over to complain about the noise, and then we'll have to explain why there's a fifty-million won guitar on my bed, and then he'll want to hear it, because he loves you, and then we'll end up at the studio anyway."

Jisung is already on his feet, guitar case in hand, his face split open with a grin. "You're the best hyung in the whole world."

"I know." Chan grabs his jacket and his keys, checks that he has his wallet. "But you're carrying the guitar."

"Obviously." Jisung hugs the case to his chest. "I'm not letting you touch it. You might hide it again."

"I wouldn't—"

"I'm never letting this guitar out of my sight. I'm sleeping with it. I'm eating with it. I'm—" Jisung is already heading for the door, his voice echoing down the hallway.

"You're going to drop it if you don't watch where you're going."

Jisung stops at the front door, waiting for Chan to unlock it, the guitar case clutched to his chest like a shield. His face is still red from earlier, his eyes still a little wet, but his smile is incandescent.

Chan unlocks the door and holds it open. "After you."

Jisung steps out into the hallway, then pauses. He looks back at Chan, and something in his expression softens. "Thank you again, Chan. For real."

Chan locks the door behind them. "I know."

They walk down the hallway together, Jisung cradling the guitar case, Chan's stolen hoodie still hanging off his frame. The dorm is quiet; most of the members are either out still (it really is getting late, Chan should call them when he gets to the studio) or tucked away in their rooms. They pass Minho and Jisung's apartment — the door closed, the lights off — and Chan can imagine Minho inside, probably still awake, probably wondering why Jisung isn't back yet.

Chan will explain later. Or he won't. Because Jisung and Minho are already as telepathically linked as the human species can get right now, naturally and organically. Maybe he'll have Jisung explain it if he still doesn't get it, let him put the whole fiasco into his own words.

They take the stairs down, Jisung's footsteps echoing in the stairwell, his voice bouncing off the walls. "I'm going to need new strings. These are old. They sound good, but I want fresh ones. And I need to adjust the action. It's a little high for my style. And I want to try different picks, see what brings out the best tone—"

"You just got the guitar," Chan chastises, but he's already creating a checklist in his head for all the items Jisung had just asked for. "Maybe play it for more than five minutes before you start modifying it."

"I need the best for her, she's my baby—" Jisung pushes open the door to the parking garage, holding it for Chan.

"You're going to be insufferable about this, aren't you?"

Jisung's grin is wide and unrepentant. "Absolutely."

"What have I done?"

Jisung beams with the power of a thousand suns.

They get to Chan's car. Jisung slides into the passenger seat with the guitar case somehow fitted in with him at the front, refusing to put it in the back. Chan doesn't argue. He starts the engine, pulls out of the garage, and they drive through the quiet Seoul streets toward the studio.

The ride there is quiet. Jisung seems lost in thought, and Chan doesn't push. Ten years (has it really been ten years?) has morphed the initial excitement of their friendship down to a dull, constant flame, and Chan enjoys basking in the hearth. It's nice not having to overly engage all the time.

Eventually, Chan pulls into the studio parking lot, finds a spot, and cuts the engine. He turns to look at Jisung.

"When I opened the case," Jisung murmurs, as he unbuckles his seatbelt, "I thought I was still dreaming. I thought I'd fallen asleep in your room or something, and I was going to wake up any second, and the guitar would be gone, and I'd have to go back to looking at photos."

"Well, I'm happy to tell you that it's not a dream."

Jisung looks at him, and his smile is small and real and a little wobbly. "I know. I touched it. I heard it. It's—" He shakes his head. "It's better than the dreams."

Chan's throat is tight. He reaches out, flicks the drawstring of Jisung's hoodie — his hoodie — watches it swing. "Come on. Let's go hear what it sounds like through an amp."

They take the stairs up to the studio, Jisung's footsteps lighter now, his energy shifting from wonder to anticipation. He unlocks the door with the keycode Chan has to remind him of — he always forgets, always has to ask — and pushes open the door.

The studio is dark, the equipment quiet, the mixing board dormant. Jisung crosses to the amp in the corner, sets the guitar case down, and opens it. He lifts the guitar out with the same reverence he did before, but there's something different now, a familiarity, a certainty. He's held it once. It already feels like his.

He plugs it in, checks the volume, and settles onto the stool. Chan leans against the mixing board, arms crossed, and watches.

Jisung plays a chord. The sound fills the room — warm, sustained, the low end rumbling, the highs singing. He plays another, then another, finding the shape of something, testing the range. His face shifts with each note, cataloguing, learning, and discovering.

Chan watches his fingers move across the fretboard, the way they know exactly where to go, even on an instrument he's never touched before. He watches Jisung's shoulders drop, his body relax into the sound, the guitar becoming an extension of him rather than something separate.

"It's got this warmth in the low end that doesn't muddy the mids," Jisung says, half to himself, half to Chan. "And the highs, listen to the highs, they're clear but not sharp. They sing without cutting. It's—" He plays a run up the neck, the notes cascading, each one distinct and beautiful. "It's perfect. It's exactly what I wanted."

Chan's chest is full. "I know."

He plays another chord, lets it ring, and the sound settles around them.

"I want to write something on this," Jisung says. "Something that uses all of it. The warmth and the clarity and the—" He gestures vaguely, unable to find the words. "The rightness of it."

Chan pushes off from the mixing board. "Then write it."

Jisung's eyebrows lift. "Now?"

"Why not? You have the guitar. You have the studio. You have—" Chan checks his phone. "Seven hours before we have to be back here for practice. Might as well pull an all-nighter."

Jisung stares at him. "You're serious."

Chan settles onto the couch against the wall and kicks his feet up. "I'm not doing anything else. Might as well watch you fall in love with your new guitar."

"You're just going to sit there? For seven hours?"

"I have my phone. I have my laptop. I have—" Chan waves a hand. "I'm fine. Play."

Jisung looks at the guitar in his hands, then at Chan on the couch, then back at the guitar. His smile is slow and saccharine like syrup.

"Okay," he says. "Okay."

He closes his eyes, finds his place on the fretboard, and begins to play.

It's not the song from before. It's something new, something tentative, something more rock-like that builds and falls and builds again. Jisung's fingers move across the strings with an ease that Chan almost envies. The guitar responds to every touch, every nuance, every shift in pressure and intention.

Chan watches him work. Watches his brow furrow, smooth, furrow again. Watches his mouth move silently, testing lyrics, discarding them, finding new ones. Watches his hands learn the geography of the neck, watches as he familiarises himself with the uncharted territory until they become familiar.

The hours pass. Chan doesn't check his phone. He doesn't answer emails. He sits on the couch and watches Jisung create something from nothing, watches him find the sound he's been chasing for months, and watches him become the person he's been trying to be.

At some point, Jisung opens his eyes and looks at Chan. "I think I have something."

Chan sits up. "Play it."

Jisung takes a breath. His fingers find the opening notes, and he plays.

It's different from the fragments he was working on before. It's whole, complete, a song that exists fully formed in the space between them. The melody is warm, the chords rich, the lyrics, when Jisung starts singing, his voice rough and uncertain at first, then stronger, are so powerful, so strong, that Chan wants to tear up. Because Jisung has come so far, come so far from the starry-eyed boy he'd met ten years ago.

Chan recognises Jisung in the lyrics. Hell, he recognises himself in the lyrics. He recognises the guitar. He recognises the hours they've spent in studios like this one, the nights they've worked until their hands cramped and their voices gave out, the quiet, hard work of him, Jisung, and Changbin, all together, pouring years of their lives into an industry that was just now, finally, paying off.

The last note fades. The room is silent.

Jisung looks at Chan, his face open, vulnerable, waiting.

Chan doesn't know what to say. He doesn't have words for what he just heard, for what it felt like to watch Jisung find his voice on an instrument that was waiting for him. Jisung has always been such a talented songwriter; it only seems amplified now, with his new instrument paired alongside it.

"That's the one," Chan says finally. "That's the song."

Jisung's smile is bright, relieved, and real. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Jisung looks down at the guitar, runs his hand along the body. "I want to play it for everyone. When it's ready. When it's finished." He looks up at Chan. "But you heard it first. Like I promised."

Chan nods. "I heard it first."

Jisung's smile softens. He sets the guitar down carefully, stretches his arms above his head, and cracks his neck. "I'm starving. We've been here for—" He checks the clock on the wall. "Three hours. We've been here for three hours."

"I know."

"You just sat there. For three hours. Watching me play."

Chan shrugs. "It was a good show."

Jisung laughs, bright and surprised. He stands up, crosses the room, and drops onto the couch next to Chan. The sleeves of his hoodie (Chan's hoodie) are pulled over his hands, the fabric soft and worn. He leans his head against Chan's shoulder, and Chan lets him.

"I'm going to play that song for you again," Jisung says. "When it's finished. When it's perfect."

"It's already perfect."

"It's not perfect. It needs work. The bridge is weak, and the second verse doesn't hit hard enough, and I need to—"

"It's perfect," Chan says again. "It's you. That's all it needs to be."

Jisung is quiet for a moment. Then he says, very softly, "You're going to make me cry."

"Don't. You'll get snot on my hoodie."

"It's my hoodie now. You said so."

"I said you could borrow it."

"Hyuuuung."

Chan shakes his head, but he's smiling. He doesn't deny him, even though he's wrong. He finds that he doesn't want to.

They sit there for a while, the guitar resting in its open case across the room, the amp still humming softly, the silence comfortable and full.

Jisung's phone buzzes. He pulls it out of his pocket — Chan's hoodie pocket, technically — and squints at the screen. "It's Minho."

Chan glances at the time. It's well past midnight. "What does he want?"

Jisung reads the message, and his face does something complicated. He turns the phone so Chan can see.

Jisung grins. "He thinks we're doing something stupid."

"Well, we did come back to the studio at night and stayed past midnight to play with a guitar you just got. I'd consider that pretty stupid."

"That's not stupid, plus you agreed to drive me." Jisung types a response, his thumbs moving fast. "I'm telling him about the guitar."

Chan watches Jisung's face as he types, the way his smile grows, the way his whole body relaxes. His phone buzzes again.

Jisung's eyebrows go up. "How does he know about the finish?"

"He lives with you, and he's Minho. He knows everything about you," Chan replies drily. "Also, you probably have talked about it in your sleep."

"I do not talk in my sleep."

"You definitely talk in your sleep. You've been talking about this guitar for months. He probably knows more about it than you do at this point."

Jisung's face goes pink. He types something else, and Minho's response comes quickly.

Jisung laughs out loud, the sound bright in the quiet studio. He shows Chan the phone, and Chan feels something warm spread through his chest.

"Tell him I'm sorry," Chan says.

"You're not sorry."

"…Yeah. I'm not. At all."

Chan takes the phone from Jisung's hand and types a response.

He hands the phone back. Jisung reads the message, and his face does something soft, something that makes Chan's chest ache in the best way.

"He's not actually mad," Jisung clarifies.

"I know."

"He's happy for me. He just doesn't know how to say it without being threatening about it."

Chan smiles. "Jisung, I know."

Jisung looks at the guitar, still in its open case across the room, the sunburst finish catching the light. "I should put it away. We should go back. I need to eat something, and you need to sleep, and Minho's going to be insufferable tomorrow if I wake him up when we come in."

Chan stands and offers Jisung a hand. Jisung takes it, lets Chan pull him up.

"You should play that song for everyone," Chan says. "When it's ready."

Jisung nods. "When it's ready."

He crosses to the guitar case, kneels, and lifts the guitar cautiously like he's had all night. He runs his hand along the body one more time, feels the grain, the weight, the warmth of it.

"This is the best thing anyone's ever given me," Jisung says, not looking up. "I don't know how to… I don't know how to say thank you better."

Chan watches him close the case, latch it, and pick it up. "You already did. You played it. As long as you use it and like it, that's enough."

Jisung looks at him, and his smile is small and real and a little wobbly around the edges. "I'm going to play it for you again. Tomorrow. And the day after. And every day until you get sick of hearing it."

"I won't get sick of it."

"Every day, Chan. I'm going to come to your room at weird hours and play you unfinished songs and make you listen to the same chord progression seventeen times."

Chan opens the studio door and holds it for Jisung. "I'm looking forward to it."

Jisung steps out into the hallway, the guitar case in one hand, Chan's hoodie hanging off his frame. He looks back at Chan, and his face is open, grateful, loved.

They walk back to the car in comfortable silence. Chan drives them home through the quiet streets, the city lights sliding across Jisung's face, the guitar case safe in the back seat.

When they get back to the dorm, Chan makes ramen — the good kind, with the egg, the way Jisung likes it — and Jisung sits at the kitchen counter and watches him cook, his feet swinging, his hands wrapped around a mug of tea.

"I can't cook," Jisung says, apropos of nothing.

Chan looks at him. "I know."

"I think I would burn it. I would burn the water."

"You can't burn water, Jisung."

"I would find a way." Jisung's voice is so sleepy, slurring at the edges, but content. "I would burn the water and the noodles would be sad and the egg would be rubbery and you would eat it anyway because you're nice, and you would pretend it was good, and I would know you were lying."

Chan sets the bowl in front of him. "Eat."

Jisung picks up his chopsticks, takes a bite, makes a sound of satisfaction. "This is good. This is really good."

"It's ramen. It's the same ramen you've eaten a hundred times."

"It's better tonight." Jisung looks up at Chan, and his eyes are bright. "Everything's better tonight."

Chan sits across from him with his own bowl, and they eat in comfortable silence, the guitar case visible through the open door of Chan's room, the sunburst finish catching the hallway light.

When they're done, Chan washes the dishes. Jisung hovers nearby, not helping, just present. Chan doesn't mind.

"I should go back," Jisung says finally. "Minho's waiting. He'll pretend he wasn't, but he was. He always waits up when I'm out late."

Chan dries his hands, turns to look at Jisung. "Go. I'll see you tomorrow."

Jisung nods. He picks up the guitar case from Chan's room, hugs it to his chest. He's almost to the door when he stops.

"Chan."

"Yeah?"

Jisung doesn't turn around. "I meant it. About the song. About playing it for you first. About—" His voice catches. "About everything."

Chan leans against the kitchen counter, watches Jisung's back, the grey hoodie pooling around his shoulders. "I know."

Jisung nods once, then opens the door and disappears into the hallway.

Chan stands there for a moment, then walks to his room, closes the door. He checks his phone.

A message from Minho.

Chan smiles. He types back.

Chan sets his phone down, lies back on his bed, and stares at the ceiling. He can hear, faintly, through the wall, the sound of a guitar being played softly. A melody he recognises. The one Jisung wrote tonight.

Chan closes his eyes, listens to the song drift through the walls, and thinks that maybe, after everything, he's the one who's been blessed with a gift instead of Jisung.

5. Felix

Chan is particularly excited about Felix's gift.

Felix has been getting into mechanical keyboards, and Chan has watched as that passion has grown with an amused fondness. He's been saving up for a custom build, but he's also been saving for other things, and it's been low on his priority list.

So Chan, with all the bravery he could muster, ventures into the keyboarding world and learns enough to buy the parts he knows Felix wants. It's a custom keyboard kit, one that Felix has been eyeing. He buys the correct switches (the creamiest set, his mind supplies, unhelpfully), and a nice keycap set.

He's going to build it himself, and then he's going to present it fully assembled, ready to use, and Felix is going to lose his mind.

The problem is that Chan has never built a keyboard before.

He has the parts spread across the kitchen table. It's late, well past midnight, and he's following a YouTube tutorial on his laptop, pausing every thirty seconds to squint at the screen and then back at the circuit board. He's just finished lubing the switches (why the hell do switches even need to be lubed), a process that took two hours and left his fingers coated in grease, and the tutorial had started talking about some tape modification that Chan is already tuning out, when he hears footsteps.

Chan freezes, his hand hovering over the keyboard parts, looking for all the world like a kid sticking his fingers in the cookie jar.

He doesn't even know when Felix had gotten here, but he had, and he's now walking into the kitchen, with his outside clothes still on. He's wearing one of Changbin's hoodies, which means it's enormous on him, the sleeves hanging past his fingers. There's still a mask under his chin, his hair is a mess that's partially obscured by the hat he has on, and he's still holding his bag, and he's already heading for the refrigerator. It's clear he'd just come back from a practice room or something.

"Chris," Felix murmurs blearily as he floats across the room with a delicate elegance. He sounds so tired, "Your dorm was the closest, sorry. I just want a snack."

Then he sees the table.

Felix stops. His eyes widen. His brain, still sluggish with exhaustion, takes a moment to process what he's looking at: the keyboard kit, the switches, and the dumb keycaps that Chan had spread across the table.

"Oh my god," Felix's voice, which had started low and rough and impending sleep, had suddenly raised several octaves in excitement. "Are those Gateron Milky Yellows. Hyung, that's a GMK set, and those are so expensive—"

He stops. His eyes dart from the keyboard parts to Chan's face, to whatever expression Chan's absolutely failing to hide.

"Are you…" Felix's voice goes soft. "Are you building this for me?"

Chan opens his mouth to deny it, but he's not even sure what he'd say. Like, he can't just go no, this is for me, I've suddenly developed an interest in keyboards at one in the morning, obviously, but before he could even come up with ane xcuse, Felix is already sliding into the chair next to him, his snack run forgotten, his eyes shining so bright it physically pains Chan to even try to deny him.

"I've wanted to learn how to build one for ages," Felix says, and his voice is doing that thing it does when he's genuinely excited, where it goes up and down in rapid intervals, getting rougher around the edges. He's also switched to rapid English. "Can we do it together?"

Chan looks at the keyboard parts, his fingers rubbing together in a grease-stained mess as the shitty YouTube video glares back at him.

He sighs.

"Okay," he finally admits, sliding the keyboard to the middle so Felix can grabby-hands his way to them. "But at least let me delude myself into thinking I did something by myself."

Felix grins, and it's one of the most beautiful and precious things Chan could cherish. His whole face just lights up, and it feels like the gentle sun brushing against his skin. He's buzzing with energy, his hands already abandoning the keyboard in front of him in favour of a switch opener, before grabbing a yellow switch and holding it up to the glowing light, examining it reverently.

"You lubed them already?" his voice is incredulous as he pops a switch open with the switch opener, uncaring for the grease as he twirls the pieces in his finger, "You did like, the worst part, hyung. You did the worst part for me."

"I didn't know it was the worst part until I was two switches in and my fingers were covered in grease."

Felix laughs, bright and warm, and slides the keyboard kit closer to him. "Okay. Okay, you still gotta finish lubing the stabilisers. And maybe we'll add foam to the base. Oh, thank god we don't have to solder. And when we put the switches in, you have to make sure they're aligned properly, otherwise they'll wobble—"

As Felix continues to ramble off in excitement, Chan feels his chest grow tight with fondness.

They build the keyboard together. Felix narrates every step in his low, excited voice, explaining the purpose of each component, the reason certain switches the way they do, and the difference between plate-mounted and PCB-mounted stabilisers. Chan mostly listens, handing over parts when asked, watching Felix's face as he clicks a switch into place and the sound rings through the kitchen.

"Okay, so, like this is really weird, but like switches have different sounds, obviously. They have like thocky sounds, and creamy sounds, and clacky sounds, and clicky sounds," Felix is waving his hands around, and Chan genuinely has no idea what he is saying. He sounds like he's speaking gibberish. "I like the creamy sounds."

Chan sighs. "Of course you do."

"What's that even supposed to mean?"

Chan sighs again.

They finish the build an hour later, in all its lubed-up, taped-up, foamed-up glory. Felix snaps the last keycap into place, the backspace, and sits back to admire their work.

"Let's go plug it in."

That's how they end up in Felix's dorm down the hall. Chan frets over a snack in the kitchen (he'd remembered that Felix hadn't gotten anything to eat after the abandoned snack run in his own dorm), while Felix is up in his room fiddling with his computer. He'd taken a survey of the kitchen when they first came in; the space Felix had (disasterously, Chan may add, an absolute oversight) shared with Seungmin has always smelled faintly of cinnamon and whatever experimental baking project he'd been fiddling around with for the week, and now he's returning to it with a purpose.

The kitchen is small but immaculate, which is entirely Seungmin's influence. Felix's influence manifests in other ways, like the jar of cookie cutters shaped like little animals in the corner or the collection of exotic sprinkles all stacked neatly on a rack, and the handwritten recipes they have on the fridge, which is strange. Because Felix and Seungmin both seem to work so well individually and yet… whatever. At least he and Seungmin aren't baking together anymore, thank fuck.

Chan starts with the cabinets, pulling open doors. The first cabinet reveals Felix's baking section, which Chan doesn't care for, so he moves on. The second cabinet is spices, which are just as useless as the first.

He turns to the fridge.

The top shelf yields a small container of strawberries, perfectly ripe, and some kind of cheese. There's also cold brew concentrate in a carafe, which Chan knows is for him, because Felix always makes some for Chan when he stops over in the middle of the night — it's sweet of him, really. Chan grabs it, then a carton of oat milk from the shelf below.

He's about to close the fridge when something catches his eye on the bottom shelf.

Oh.

Right.

He pulls open the bottom shelves of the cabinet.

The entire bottom shelf of the fridge is filled with baked goods. Not just one thing, either. Dozens of things. Chan crouches down, pulls the fridge door open wider, and just stares.

There are brownies, cut into neat squares, stacked in a container with a little note taped to the lid that reads for Seungminnie in Felix's loopy handwriting. Next to them, a plate of madeleines dusted with powdered sugar, delicate and golden, the edges crisp. A loaf of banana bread wrapped in beeswax paper, the top caramelised and glossy. A jar of shortbread cookies shaped like little stars, each one stamped with a tiny heart in the centre. A small cake — chocolate, Chan realises, when he pulls it out — iced simply with ganache and decorated with fresh raspberries.

There's a container of what looks like homemade granola clusters, clusters the size of Chan's palm, studded with dried cherries and coconut flakes. Beside it, a tin of financiers, those little almond cakes Chan has seen Felix make exactly once, when he was stressed about a comeback and needed to focus his hands on something.

Chan stares at the cabinet. He thinks about Felix, in this kitchen, late at night, baking brownies for Seungmin. Making madeleines because he felt like it. Shaping shortbread into stars because stars are pretty, because Felix has always been the type of person who makes things beautiful just because he can.

He thinks about Felix, in his kitchen, earlier tonight, sliding into the chair next to Chan with his eyes shining, saying can we do it together?

Ah.

Chan's heart does something very complicated inside his ribs. Okay, okay. Whatever.

He starts assembling. A plate for Felix, a plate for himself (though he suspects they'll be sharing). He arranges the brownies in a neat stack, adds a cluster of strawberries on the side, and tucks a few madeleins next to them. He adds a star shortbread, then another, because Felix deserves two. A slice of banana bread, thick and generous. A handful of granola clusters, because Chan had seen him eat them by the handful, standing over the counter, humming to himself.

He finds the cold brew in the fridge, pours two glasses over ice, and adds a splash of oat milk to Felix's because that's how he likes it.

He carries everything upstairs, balancing the plate and the glasses, navigating the narrow hallway that connects to the kitchen to the bedrooms. Seungmin's door is closed, casting a sliver of light under the door — he's probably reading, or working on something; Chan can hear the quiet hum of something inside.

Felix's door is open.

As Chan approaches it, he sees Felix at his desk, bent over his computer, his fingers hovering over the keyboard — their keyboard, the one they built together. The screen glows blue in the dim room, casting light across Felix's face, his freckles standing out against the pale light. His hair is falling into his eyes, and he's focused, eyes intent.

Chan pauses at the doorway.

"I think I got it," he catches Felix muttering to himself. He's typing something, but Chan can't see what, and then he's quiet, waiting, watching the screen.

Chan steps into the room and sets the plates down by the small table by the bed. The clink of glass against wood makes Felix look up, but only for a second, his attention already snapping back to the screen.

"Hang on, hang on, it's loading—"

Chan waits. He settles onto the edge of Felix's bed, watches the back of Felix's head, the way his shoulders are tense with anticipation.

And then—

"Yes!"

Felix spins in his chair, arms raised in victory, his face split open with a grin. "It works. It works, hyung, I set it up, and it works, and it sounds so good, you have to come hear it, it sounds exactly like—"

He stops.

He's looking at the plates. At the plate, Chan has arranged, with the brownies and the madeleines and the star shortbread and the strawberries, and the cold brews.

"Oh, wow," is all Felix utters at first.

Then, he laughs, but it's a bit incredulous, almost. "I really thought you were just gonna grab some of the chips we had." He skips over to the plates and pops a strawberry in his mouth. "But of course you'd make a whole snack plate, what was I even thinking. This is such a you thing to do."

Chan shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. "You didn't eat. When you came over to my place, you were going to get a snack, and then you saw the keyboard parts, and you forgot, and I just—" He gestures vaguely at the plate. "I know it's not the most nutritious or whatever, but I just found the stuff in your kitchen. You made a lot of things."

Felix stares at the plate. Chan doesn't know what he thinks. He knows it's a bit silly, but he still feels like he's being interrogated, slightly.

"You even found the star shortbread."

"You made a lot of star shortbread."

"I made them last week. I was thinking about—" He stops, shakes his head. "It doesn't matter."

Chan wants to ask. He wants to know what Felix was thinking about when he cut the dough into stars, when he pressed the little heart into the centre of each one. But Felix is already moving, crossing the room in three long strides, and then he's sitting on the bed next to Chan, close enough that their shoulders brush, and he's picking up a madeleine with careful fingers.

"Thank you, Chris."

"No problem," Chan replies easily, "Now type something. I wanna hear why you love mechanical keyboards so much."

Felix's fingers find the home row. He types slowly at first, testing the feel, then faster, his fingers finding rhythm. The sound fills the kitchen, each keypress a satisfying, solid note.

Damn. Felix was right. It does sound really good.

He goes to look at Felix, but as he lifts his head, his eyes catch a glimpse of the screen.

bang chan is the best hyung in the whole world

Chan's face immediately heats up. "Okay, you don't need to say all that—"

Felix leans his head on Chan's shoulder. His hair smells like coconut, the shampoo he uses, and his weight is warm and solid against Chan's side.

"You know, I'm glad we built it together," Felix's voice says softly. "This is way better than if you'd just given it to me finished."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Felix's voice is sleepy now, the excitement fading into something more content and quiet. "It's kind of like our baby now. I'll treasure her forever."

"Wow. This sounds serious."

"I'm literally typing myself to sleep right now. I love her."

"You're so weird, Lix."

"Nuh-uh." Felix picks up the keyboard and stares at it, before he whips his head to look at Chan, a roguish smirk already starting to form on his lips. Oh no. "You know, she could also use a matching cable. A coiled one, in the same colour as the keycaps. I saw one online, we should order it—"

"We?"

"We. Ours, remember?"

"Am I just a wallet to you—"

"We built her together, Channie. She's our baby, I just told you—"

Chan shakes his head, but he's smiling. "Fine. Send me the link."

Felix beams, reaches for his phone, and as Chan watches him scroll through his keyboard websites at two in the morning, his face lit up by the screen, he thinks that maybe this was exactly how it was supposed to go.

6. Seungmin

To be honest, Chan's been kind of dreading Seungmin's gift.

Not because he doesn't know what Seungmin wants; he does, exactly, with the same clarity he brings to all of them. Seungmin's cheap portable record player has been a source of quiet frustration for months. Chan knows that those suitcase ones or whatever aren't great for the records; he read up on them when he'd been doing late-night deep dives on record players as he was deciding what to buy for Seungmin.

The problem is that Seungmin has always been observant; Chan knows he notices everything, and it's a miracle he hasn't discovered this ploy yet. And although he teases, although he makes fun of him, he's also the one who notices when Chan hasn't slept, who leaves tea on his desk without being asked, who appears with a snack exactly when Chan's stomach grumbles.

Keeping a secret from Seungmin is nearly impossible.

And Chan has already failed. Spectacularly. Multiple times. The others have been talking, he knows they have, 'cause he sees the way Hyunjin's been smirking at him. Also, Jisung quite literally asked if he had planned "any more surprises" with that dumb glint in his eye, so. He's pretty sure Seungmin knows his turn is up soon. Which means he'll be checking everything.

And it's not like he could hide shit in his own apartment either. His own apartment, well, the one he shares with Jeongin, has long been proven to be either cursed or extremely compromised. Apparently, everyone just treats that place like a thoroughfare. He swears it didn't use to be this busy or filled with random strays (haha, stray, his mind supplies uselessly), but it feels like God himself has been laughing at him and sending every single member to pass by his dorm at some point during the day.

So Chan needs new territory. Neutral ground. Somewhere, Seungmin won't think to look.

He considers his options.

Minho and Jisung's apartment is out. Jisung, first of all, won't keep his mouth shut and is a terrible liar if Seungmin were to interrogate him. Minho is just… a wildcard. Chan's not sure if he'd keep the gift a secret or just say something for the love of the game. And with someone like Seungmin, who can read them all like a fucking book, he's not going to risk it.

Hyunjin and Changbin's apartment is also out. Hyunjin, like Jisung, cannot keep a secret to save his life, and… well. He's not sure Hyunjin would even try if Seungmin prances over and asks him nicely. Changbin would try to help, but somehow make everything worse, because Seungmin is a little minx and somehow weasels information out of everybody, but especially those two.

But that leaves—

Chan texts Felix.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Chan arrives at Felix and Seungmin's apartment with a record player, a speaker setup, a couple bags of chips, and the desperate hope that this time, finally, nothing will go wrong.

Felix lets him in, already mid-sentence. "—and I cleaned like, a little bit, but I didn't wanna clean too much because then he'd know someone was in here, you know? So it's still kinda—"

Chan steps inside.

He'd kind of ignored all of this the day when he'd been practically falling asleep standing up while trying to set up Felix's keyboard with him, a fact that becomes abundantly clear as he looks around. After years of living together, then moving into dorms of four, then two, Chan had kind of forgotten Felix's living habits, especially since they'd been in separate dorms for longer than they'd shared one.

But walking inside Felix's room, it's abundantly clear that he's made the right choice.

Felix's room is definitely the safest hiding spot in the entire complex.

It's not that Felix's room is dirty or super messy in a sense. But it's definitely lived in, in what Chan would describe as probably organised chaos, though it's more chaos than it is organised. There are clothes draped over his gaming chair, blankets messily flung over each other on the bed. His desk has cables everywhere, charging cables, gaming cables, cables that connect and extend to more cables, cables that don't seem to connect to anything. Empty bubble tea cups line up on the windowsill. A hoodie is… hanging from the ceiling fan..? Of course it is.

And the smell. Not bad, just very Felix. It smells like his shampoo and some of his candles.

But yeah. Chaos. Beautiful, comfortable, impenetrable chaos.

"Seungmin, like, never comes in here," Felix confirms as if he'd read Chan's mind. "He hates the mess. Says it gives him hives."

Chan slowly looks up at the hoodie on the ceiling fan. "Even though he shares an apartment with you?"

"Yeah, but we have an agreement. He stays out of my room, I stay out of his. It's worked for like, almost two years." Felix grins. "Also, I think he's a bit scared of me."

Chan blinks. "Of you?"

Felix's grin widens, and something shifts in his expression; suddenly, Chan doesn't see Felix anymore but rather a conglomerate of both him as a person and him as an idol. He looks every bit the person who screams into the microphones at their concerts. It's a strange sight.

"Seungmin heard me lose a ranked match once," Felix replies cheerfully. "He hasn't looked at me the same since."

Well. Chan does remember that. Faintly. He's heard of Felix's gaming escapades.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, there was a time at four in the morning when he'd been at the studio and had realised he'd forgotten his laptop charger, so he'd walked back to grab it and heard a sound coming from their dorm he could only describe as something very guttural. Probably a little demonic. He'd walked faster then.

"Ooookay." Chan scans the room again. Wow. Every time he passes his eyes around, he swears more details are loading in. "Fair. Now, where should I put this?"

They end up clearing a space on Felix's desk — which involves moving a mechanical keyboard (the one, Chan thinks happily, they'd built together), three fidget toys, a half-eaten protein bar, and what looks like a small collection of shiny figurines. Chan sets up the record player and speakers while Felix guards the door, his ear pressed against the wood, listening for any sign of Seungmin's return.

"Why are you even setting it up right now?" Felix whispers as he glances at the manual.

"I wanna make sure I know how it works so I can help Seungmin when I gift it to him."

"I'm pretty sure Seungmin knows more about this than you do."

Chan shushes him. "Just hold the manual steady. And keep listening for Seungmin."

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

For twenty glorious minutes, everything goes perfectly.

Chan connects the cables. He lines up all the wires and the bits and bobs and manages to even set up the speakers correctly, too. Felix reads instructions in his low voice, occasionally adding some calming commentary about nothing in particular, while munching on a bag of chips Chan had brought over.

They're just finishing up when Felix picks up his phone.

His face goes pale.

"Hyung," his voice is slow with trepidation. "Vocal practice ended early."

Chan's blood turns to ice. "How early?"

"Ten minutes ago early."

Seungmin's commute is nine minutes.

"Oh fuck."

They look at each other. Chan looks at the record player, fully assembled, sitting on Felix's desk in plain view. He looks at the door. He looks at the window; they're on the fourth floor, so that's really not an option. He looks around Felix's room for somewhere, anywhere to hide.

The closet is the obvious choice, but as Chan goes to open it, clothes start spilling out. What the fuck. He turns to look at Felix, who just stares at him, half in panic, half in guilt.

"…I did say I cleaned a little."

Chan doesn't even know what to respond with to that.

His eyes land on the bed instead.

There's like a mountain of blankets on there, plus a duvet, and pillows, and plushies—

And suddenly, Chan has an idea. A terrible, beautiful, absolutely unhinged idea.

"The bed," Chan says.

Felix follows his gaze. His eyes widen. "Hyung, no."

"Felix, yes."

"You can't hide in my bed. That's so obvious."

"It won't be. You said Seungmin doesn't go into your room anyway—"

"Yeah, but I usually have the door open, and he's definitely going to see a human-shaped lump with a fat ass sticking up in my blankets, and he's going to know—"

"He won't notice if you just tuck me in and fluff the blankets up—"

Felix looks at the bed. Looks at Chan. Looks at the bed again. Chan's pretty sure that with all this arguing, he could've run back to his dorm by now, but alas. It's too late.

"There are snacks in there," Felix ends up saying weakly. "I eat in bed sometimes. There might be… crumbs. And things."

"I literally don't care, right now."

"There's a sock. I lost a sock last week. I think it's in there somewhere."

"Felix. It's a sock. I don't care about your sock."

"You don't understand, hyung, that sock has been through things—"

The front door opens.

Chan moves.

He dives into Felix's bed with an impressive amount of speed and desperation. The blankets swallow him whole, and he kicks at them so they fluff up as much as possible before burrowing down, pulling blankets over his head, over his shoulders, over every visible part of his body.

It's dark. It's warm. It smells like Felix.

It's also, he's now realising, full of things.

("That sock has been through things—")

Chan really doesn't want to think about what that means right now.

Something crinkles under his elbow. A chip bag, maybe. A distinct lump beneath his hip that might be a book or might be a box of something digs in. His face is pressed against a pillow that has… definitely seen better days. There's a corner of something sharp, a phone charger, probably, stabbing into his thigh.

But he's hidden, completely, utterly hidden. Totally.

He hears Felix scramble, hears the rustle of fabric as Felix throws something over the record player, and then the footsteps are approaching, and Chan holds his breath.

"Why," Seungmin's voice carries through the door, "is your door closed?"

Chan, from the blanket nest, can barely hear anything, the blankets muffling the sound. But he can feel Felix's tension in the stuffy air. He feels the bed shift — Felix must be standing near it, probably gesturing wildly at nothing.

"I was—" Felix's voice cracks. "I was changing!"

A pause.

"Changing," Seungmin repeats.

"Yeah. Changing my clothes. I'll be out in a minute."

Another pause. Longer this time.

"Felix," Seungmin's voice lilts. Fuck. "You're wearing the clothes you've been wearing all day. I saw you an hour ago. Why would you be changing now?"

Chan shifts, and his foot touches something soft and wet. Oh my god.

He closes his eyes. This is it. This is how he dies. Not from overwork or sleep deprivation or the cumulative stress of managing six other disasters, but from hiding in Felix's bed with probably a suspicious-liquid-filled sock while trying to give Seungmin a gift he doesn't even know he wants. Nothing is worth this.

"Because I—" Felix's voice pitches up. "I spilt something on myself. Just now. While you were gone."

"What did you spill?"

"… Bubble tea."

"You don't have bubble tea."

"I do now. I got bubble tea. While you were at practice. GongCha ambassador or whatever, you know how it is, free bubble tea for life, ha. And I spilt it. On myself. So now I am changing, and you should stop interrogating me."

Felix might be even worse than Hyunjin or Jisung at lying.

Seungmin is silent. Chan can almost picture his face on the other side of the door.

"Okay," Seungmin says finally.

Okay?

Chan exhales.

Is this salvation?

"Then I'll wait."

Chan's exhale turns into a choke.

"I'll just wait right here," Seungmin continues, and CHan hears him settle against the wall, hears the soft thump of his back sliding down to the floor. "Take your time, Yongbok. I'm not going anywhere.

Chan, from inside the blanket nest, feels Felix sit down on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips. Something rolls toward Chan's shoulder — a pen, maybe. His feet brush against the warm, wet mass again. Oh my god.

"He knows," Felix whispers. Chan can barely hear it through the blankets.

"He doesn't, I think," Chan whispers back, as quietly as he can. "He just suspects it."

"There's a difference?"

Chan doesn't know the answer to that.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

They wait.

One minute passes. Two. Five. Chan is starting to overheat. There are approximately seven thousand blankets on top of him, and his body heat has nowhere to go. Sweat is forming on his forehead. His breathing is becoming laboured. The thing digging into his thigh, definitely a phone charger, has migrated to a new position that's somehow even more uncomfortable.

Something crinkles under his back. He shifts slightly, trying to get comfortable, but it only crinkles louder.

"Felix," Seungmin singsongs from the hallway, dragging out the 'e'. "What's crinkling inside there?"

Chan freezes.

"There's nothing crinkling," Felix answers.

"I literally just heard it."

Chan is definitely going to die.

On the other side of the door, Seungmin starts humming.

He's humming, the little fucker. The audacity, the absolute, unmitigated audacity. He sounds so smug. Chan has never wanted to strangle someone more in his entire life.

"Yongbok," Seungmin calls. "I'm getting bored. Are you almost done?"

"Almost!" Felix's voice is too high. Too bright. "Just— almost—"

"You know, if you're hiding something in there, I'm going to find out eventually."

Chan thinks he's been praying to all the deities for the last couple of minutes. Anything to get out of this situation. He doesn't even know who he's pissed off to be deserving of this. He just wants his foot to stop touching that suspicious liquid. Please.

"I'm not hiding anything." Felix bites back.

"Mm." Seungmin's hum is noncommittal. "Then you won't mind if I come in, right?"

"No! I mean— no, I would mind, because I'm— I'm not wearing pants."

Chan stares at the inside of Felix's blanket nest.

Screw that. Chan wants to strangle Felix, too. Maybe Minho would've been the better option, instead of whatever the hell this is. He should've just kept it in his own room, Jeongin be damned. At least Jeongin could've shut the hell up.

"I'm not wearing pants," Felix repeats, louder, committing to the lie.

A very long pause.

Chan hopes that with all the random things that he's encountered under these blankets, maybe one of them will have been here so long it'll have mutated and develop the ability to dissolve him whole, so he can escape this mess.

"Why," Seungmin's voice drips with something akin to sarcasm, "Are your pants off? I thought you were changing your shirt."

"Because—" Felix's brain seems to be short-circuiting. Chan can practically see the gears grinding, the smoke rising from Felix's ears. "Because the bubble tea— it got on my pants. So I took them off. First. Before I got new pants. And now I'm looking for new pants."

"Well, you've been looking for new pants and a new shirt for seven minutes."

"Clothes are hard!"

Chan presses his face into the pillow. The pillow smells like coconut. It also smells slightly of sweat, which is fair, because Chan is currently sweating through approximately seven thousand blankets.

Another minute passes. Chan's pretty sure he's going to pass out within the next thirty seconds.

Then, miraculously, he hears it.

Seungmin's phone chimes. There's a rustle, and then—

"Oh no," Seungmin says from the hallway. "I forgot my charger. I have to go grab it from my room. I'll be right back."

His footsteps retreat. Another door opens. Closes.

"He's gone," Felix whispers. "I think. Hyung, I think he's actually gone. I heard the door."

Chan stays under the blankets for another thirty seconds, just to be sure. Then he starts to extract himself.

It's harder than he expected.

The blankets have settled. They've formed some kind of cocoon around him, and every time he pushes one off, two more take its place. He's flailing, his arms tangled in fleece, his legs caught in what feels like a weighted blanket that has decided to eat him.

"Felix," Chan gasps, finally pushing the top layer off his head. "Help me out, I'm stuck—"

Finally, with Felix's help, he emerges like a creature from the deep — sweaty and dishevelled. He has crumbs in his hair. There's a tissue clinging to his shoulder that he quickly wipes off. His face is red from the heat, and there's a line across his forehead from where a blanket seam pressed into his skin.

It's in that moment that the door opens.

Seungmin is standing in the doorway.

He's not holding a charger. His phone isn't even in his hand. He's just standing there, arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe with an expression of pure, unadulterated satisfaction.

Oh.

"You—" Chan's voice comes out strangled. "You said you forgot your charger." The words sound lame, even to his own years.

"I can't believe you fell for that." Seungmin giggles triumphantly. "Sorry, hyung, I lied."

Felix makes a sound akin to a dying animal as his eyes ping-pong between the two of them.

"I wanted to see what you'd do." Seungmin continues. "To be honest, I'd actually heard you guys when I walked in. You guys suck at staying quiet."

He pushes off from the doorframe and walks into the room. He doesn't go to the record player — not yet. Instead, he circles the bed, taking in the scene.

"Now," Seungmin turns to Chan, smiling all too sweetly. "Where's the gift? I know you have one here. Jisung hasn't shut up about the guitar."

Felix makes another sound, this one somehow more pained, as Chan opens his mouth, no words coming out.

Seungmin's smile widens. "Am I wrong?"

"No," Chan admits.

"I didn't think so."

Seungmin turns to Felix's desk, and as Chan's eyes follow his gaze—

Oh, wow.

Felix had grabbed a hoodie, well, the hoodie he'd had hanging from the ceiling and draped it messily over the turntable. The speakers didn't even fully get covered.

This is such a mess.

Seungmin barks out a laugh. "I cannot believe you guys did this."

"Don't laugh at me," Chan bites back defensively, as Felix scratches the back of his head, "You left class so early! We were unprepared."

"You quite literally thought hiding under the sheets was a good idea, hyung."

And, well. He's not wrong. Ugh.

Seungmin huffs amusedly, before turning away from Chan and walking to the desk. He looks at the record player, examining it, letting his fingers run over the edge of the turntable.

"You set this up yourself?"

"Yeah."

Seungmin hums approvingly. "Gimme a sec." He dashes out of the room.

Chan turns to Felix, who's still staring at the bizarre scene before him.

"Well, we tried."

Felix winks. Then shrugs helplessly. "Sorry, hyung. I guess you really do just have bad luck with gifts."

"I guess so."

Seungmin returns, this time with a record. Chan doesn't recognise it; it's none of the distinct or colourful ones in his collection. "Let's see if this works."

Chan doesn't really know what he expected. Maybe jazz; Seungmin's been known to collect those, and Chan knows he plays those a lot. That or some Japanese city pop.

But, as Seungmin places it on the turntable and lowers the needle onto it, the first notes that fill the room are strings, warm and swelling. It's classical music. Ah.

"You know, you probably could've just given this to me." He sits on the edge of Felix's bed, looking at Chan. "I would have said thank you; actually, I would've even let you watch me open it and act all surprised." He turns to stare at Felix. "And your old, neat freak heart wouldn't be giving out over the state of his room right now."

"Hey!" Felix sputters.

Chan's probably sure there's crumbs in his hair from the state of Felix's bed. He doesn't even care. He's just glad Seungmin likes the gift. "I wanted it to be a surprise."

"It was a surprise." Seungmin's lips twitch. "I'm surprised you fit under all those blankets, honestly. Felix has a lot of blankets… but you've also got. Well. You know."

"I'm very flexible."

"That is not the word I would use."

Felix snorts next to him. He's finally lifted his head from his hands. "Maybe we should've just left it in my room and been casual in the living room or something."

"Probably."

"You guys were so bad at hiding it." Seungmin cuts in. "If Channie-hyung had just said he was passing through, I would've gone to my room— actually, no, I wouldn't. 'Cause I know he's been trying to gift people stuff." He fiddles with one of the dials. "It was a lose-lose situation."

Chan sighs ruefully. "At least you like the gift, right?"

Seungmin ignores his statement, but Chan doesn't mind. He's looking at the record player, at the walnut casing, at the careful setup that Chan spent weeks planning and ten minutes ruining. His expression is unreadable, but his shoulders are relaxed, and there's something soft around his eyes that Chan has learned to recognise as approval.

"Sit down," Seungmin says, gesturing to the floor next to him. "Both of you. You look pathetic standing there. And pass the chips."

Chan looks at Felix. Felix looks at Chan. Felix gracefully grabs the chips and passes them to Seungmin before lowering himself to the floor, leaning against the frame. Chan stays where he is, but also sits, his legs stretched out in front of him.

The mess of Felix's room surrounds them, but it's kind of comforting, if Chan doesn't think about it too much.

"You have something in your hair," Seungmin says to Chan as he pops a chip into his mouth. "I think it's a crumb."

"Oh, I'm aware." Chan muses. He shakes his head rapidly, trying to get rid of whatever's gotten up there. "I think I also found your sock at the end of his bed, Felix."

Felix makes a horrified sound.

"Ew," Seungmin's nose wrinkles. "Please don't tell me stuff like that."

"I'm choosing not to think about it."

"Ugh, I hate both of you." Felix steals a chip off Seungmin before standing. "I gotta run. Feel free to stay in here with my gross sock then, since you like talking about it so much."

Both Chan and Seungmin groan before yelling out their goodbyes as Felix leaves the room.

Chan turns to Seungmin. "I hate you."

"Nah, you don't." Seungmin's voice is certain. "You bought me a record player."

"I have literally bought everyone something."

"You haven't gotten something for Jeongin yet." Seungmin replies gleefully over the music, "So you at least hate me less than Jeongin. Plus, you got me a whole record player, so."

Chan looks at Seungmin. He's still sitting on the edge of the bed holding one of Felix's pillows, and there's something in his expression that Chan has only seen a few times, something open, something grateful.

"Yeah," Chan says. "I did."

They listen to the whole album. Then another. By the time Chan finally checks his phone, almost four hours have passed, and he has seventeen missed messages from the group chat, most of them asking where he disappeared off to.

He types back quickly.

Chan looks around the room. Seungmin is still sitting on the edge of the bed, and when he catches Chan looking, he raises an eyebrow.

"They want to know why I'm here," Chan says.

Seungmin laughs, before pulling out his own phone.

The responses flood in immediately, and he gets a separate message from Jeongin.

Chan puts his phone down. "How does he know about the crumbs?"

Seungmin's expression doesn't change. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Later, much later, after lots of teasing and a string of very angry messages from Felix, and then even more angry in real-life curses from Felix when he'd gotten home, Seungmin walks him to the door.

They stand in the hallway of the apartment, the door half-open, as the sound of Felix trash-talking on League filters in from his room.

Seungmin's lip twitch. He flicks Chan's forehead like it's the most natural thing in the world, but it's a gentle, careful gesture. And maybe it is a natural habit now— They've been orbiting around each other for years. "Thank you, hyung. For real."

Chan's throat tightens. He has to focus on letting the words fall from his lips. "It's nothing, Seungmin."

"Nah. The gifts are really nice, really." Seungmin looks away, almost bashful. "They're really thoughtful, actually."

"Aw." Chan's stomach erupts in a million butterflies of absolute glee as he leans forward and pinches Seungmin's cheek. "You love me."

"Fuck off." Seungmin brushes Chan's hand away, but he's smiling. "Now I sound so sentimental and dumb."

"You love me, admit it."

"You smell like Felix and feet, old man. Please go take a shower."

"You smell like Felix all the time. You literally live with him."

"I don't, actually. Because I don't spend my time hiding under his blankets with his very questionable sock."

And Chan has no comeback for that, because, well, ew. He steps through the door and turns back. Seungmin is still standing there, half in shadow, his face soft in the dim light.

"Goodnight, hyung."

"Goodnight, Seungmin."

The door closes. Chan stands in the hallway for a moment, looking at the wood grain, listening to the silence. He's still picking crumbs out of his hair. His back still hurts. There's something in his sleeve that he's afraid to investigate.

He's also smiling. He can't seem to stop.

He walks home, and he doesn't stop smiling the whole way.

7. Jeongin

Welp, there's just Jeongin left, and with everything else going up in flames, Jeongin is the last one, and Chan is determined to get it right.

After the failed disaster that was Seunmgin's gift, Chan decides that, once again, nobody except himself should be trusted. He's done trying to hide them or make complicated plans, and he's done trying to keep secrets to himself because, well, he's finding that the longer he keeps something a secret, the more it blows up in his face.

Anyways.

The shoes are perfect. Limited-edition designer sneakers, the ones Jeongin admired in a magazine months ago. Chan had watched him dog-ear the page, watched him stare at the photo with a particular longing that made Chan feel sick inside.

He secured the last pair in the country. He's pretty sure they cost more than his debts, but he doesn't care.

He has a plan. A simple plan, because all his other, more elaborate plans have… failed to pan out, so to speak. So. He's going to wait until Jeongin is in the shower, place the shoebox on his desk with a note, and be gone before Jeongin gets out. No elaborate setups, there's literally nothing that can go wrong.

Right?

Chan waits until he hears the shower turn on. He counts to sixty, then to one hundred twenty, then does it again, before carrying the shoebox into Jeongin's room. It's a simple operation, really: walk in, place the box, run out. He can do this.

Well, it was supposed to be simple.

He places the box on Jeongin's desk. He's reaching for a piece of paper to write the note when he hears it.

The shower turns off.

Chan's heart stops. He looks at the door, then at the shoebox, then at the closet.

The closet.

He grabs the shoebox and dives inside, pulling the door mostly shut behind him. It's dark and smells comfortingly like Jeongin, which is both heartwarming and extremely anxiety-inducing. Chan presses himself against a rack of hoodies, trying to make himself small and breathe quietly. His foot lands on something that crunches suspiciously, and his subconscious groans at the prospect of whatever the hell Jeongin has hidden in here.

Who the hell even showers for just five minutes?

Apparently Jeongin.

And of course, Chan, the neat freak, is wedged in the black hole of the discarded clothes and forgotten belongings of the most famously disastrous closet of all fucking time. With a shitty shoebox in his hands, shoulders pressed against a stack of whatever-the-hell behind him that is wobbling precariously. Of fucking course.

His heart is pounding. He can hear it in his ears, loud enough that surely Jeongin will hear it too, will come investigate, will find Chan buried in the chaos of this fucking mess, holding luxury shoes that Jeongin knows he doesn't own.

He hears the latter enter the room. There's a pause, a suspiciously long pause. Chan wants to gulp nervously, but that's even too loud. He's pretty sure it's over.

"Why," Jeongin speaks to nobody in particular, though it's dry and painfully slow, "is my closet door open?"

Chan closes his eyes. He considers his options. He could stay here, silent, wait for Jeongin to go to bed, and sneak out later. He could—

The closet door swings open.

Chan is illuminated by the light from Jeongin's room, and he's plagued for a second by the absurdity of this situation. He's pretty sure his face is screaming guilt and stupidity, and as he turns, the full extent of Jeongin's organisational negligence is on display now, thanks to the light. There's clothes spilling off the hangers, and boxes stacked in towers all the way up to the ceiling. There's even his own hoodie, which he thought he'd lost three months back, in here.

Why the fuck is he even in here?

Jeongin is standing in the doorway, a towel around his waist, his hair dripping water onto his bare shoulders. He stares at Chan for a long, silent moment.

"Chan hyung," Jeongin's eyes survey the scene before him, voice carefully, dangerously calm. "What are you doing in my closet?"

Chan shoves the shoebox at him. "Happy eighth anniversary. Here's your gift."

Jeongin stares at the box. Neither of them moves.

"Look." Chan laughs nervously. "I was trying to be cool about it."

Jeongin squints at him suspiciously, before taking the box out of his hand, eyes never leaving Chan's face. He opens it, still standing there in his towel, with water still dripping down his chest, and looks inside.

It's then that Jeongin makes a sound. It's glorious; Chan can't quite identify it, but it's somewhere between a gasp and a laugh, something caught in the back of his throat, something that sounds like delight and disbelief all at once.

"These are the ones from—" He looks up at Chan, then back at the shoes. "How did you even—"

He doesn't even finish the sentence; instead, he whips around and, forgetting about his wet hair, forgetting about the towel, forgetting about everything except the shoes, plops down on the bed. Chan's trailing uselessly after him half out of the closet when he sees Jeongin pulling the shoes out of the box, turning them over in his hands, examining the stitching, the leather.

Then he puts them on.

He flexes his feet, admiring them from every angle. He stands up, walks to the mirror, and turns to see the profile. His face is lit up in a way Chan only sometimes gets to see; it's a pure, unfiltered joy that makes Chan want to cry a little. He loves Jeongin.

"Hyung." Jeongin's voice is a little breathless. "These are insane. These are so insane."

Chan sits on the floor, leaning against the bed. He's still half inside the closet, technically, the door now fully open behind him, and he's watching Jeongin admire himself in the mirror, turning his feet this way and that, grinning at his own reflection.

"You really hid in my closet." Jeongin looks down at Chan, still grinning. "In the dark. For like five minutes."

Chan groans. "I know."

"Clutching the damn box too," Jeongin's grin widens. "You hid in my closet while I was in the shower. Why were you even doing that—"

"Okay, that's enough—"

"And you were clutching the freaking shoes against your chest. Like this." Jeongin mimes it, clutching an invisible box to his chest, his face going wide and scared. "You looked like you just killed someone when I found you."

"May I remind you that you're basically naked, right now?"

"You're, like, naked all the time." Jeongin waves him off, his laughter filling the room, bright and young, and Chan finds himself laughing too, because he is ridiculous, because this is all too funny, and because this is exactly what he wanted: Jeongin, happy, laughing, wearing the shoes Chan had bought him.

Jeongin's laughter softens a little. He looks down at Chan, still sitting on the floor, and his expression shifts to something mischievous. Then his eyes flick to the scene behind Chan, and a different kind of smile tugs at his mouth.

"You know," Jeongin begins chastely, in the most faux casual, light tone Chan has ever heard. "Is there something you want to tell us, hyung?"

Chan blinks. He follows Jeongin's gaze to the absolute disaster zone where Chan had basically fallen into.

He's been sitting here this whole time, in Jeongin's mess of a closet, with the door wide open behind him.

He's come out of the closet.

"Oh my god, I hate you."

Jeongin's face is the picture of innocence, which means he knows exactly what he is saying. Chan hates him. "What? I'm just saying. If you wanted to have a moment, you could have picked a better time. I just got out of the shower. My hair is still wet."

"That's not— I wasn't—" Chan sputters, gesturing wildly, which only makes Jeongin laugh more. "I actually hate you so bad. I was hiding your gift. In your closet. That's all."

"Mhm." Jeongin's voice is syrupy sweet. "And you chose to hide in the closet specifically."

"It was the only hiding place! Oh my god."

Jeongin's eyebrows rise. "You're still sitting half inside it, you know."

Chan makes a sound of pure frustration, shoving a fallen shoe to the back of the closet. It hits a stack of boxes, which, after wobbling dangerously, begins to fall. Chan, in a panic, lunges to catch them before they topple, but he ends up with several boxes to the face anyway, and a laughing Jeongin in the background.

"You know what," is all Chan musters out from the cardboard that's half inside his mouth. "I'm taking the shoes back."

"You can't take them back. You already gave them to me."

Chan knocks several boxes off his face before sitting up straight. "I'm taking them back."

"I'm wearing them." Jeongin lifts on foot, wiggles it, the new sneaker catching the light. "They're literally on my feet. They're mine. That's stealing, you know."

"You stole my surprise, technically."

"I didn't steal anything. You hid in like, the worst place ever." Jeongin's grin softens. "Also, that was, I think, the weakest comeback I have ever heard, hyung."

Chan extricates himself from the boxes, finally, and looks up at Jeongin. There's something in the youngest's face that Chan has come to recognise. Even when Jeongin jokes around with him like this, that look of awe and appreciation doesn't go unnoticed.

"Whatever. I wanted it to be special," Chan admits.

Jeongin crouches down, bringing himself to Chan's level. He's still in his town, his hair still dripping, the new shoes absurdly out of place with his bare legs, bare ankles, and bare chest. He's looking at Chan with something that Chan would almost dare to name as fond, though, with Jeongin, he's sometimes not quite sure.

"It is special." He reaches out, flicking a piece of lint off Chan's shoulder. "You hid in my closet. For me. That's probably the most special thing anyone's ever done."

Chan groans. "Can you stop with the closet thing. And that's a pretty sad fact, Innie."

"It's kinda romantic."

Chan chokes. "What?"

Jeongin's face splits into a massive fucking grin. Chan wants to die. "I said it's dramatic, hyung. What did you think I said?"

Chan narrows his eyes. "You said romantic."

"I said dramatic. You need to clean your ears, hyung. All that time in the recording studio is destroying your hearing." Jeongin stands up, smooth and easy, and offers Chan a hand. "Or maybe you do need to self-reflect some more on what I told you earlier."

Then Jeongin, the fucker, winks at him.

What the hell.

"What?"

"Don't worry about it." Jeongin's hand is still extended, and Chan isn't sure if he wants to strangle him or hug him tight. "Now get out of my closet. You're messing up my system."

Chan takes his hand and lets Jeongin pull him to his feet. "You have a system."

Jeongin looks around at the disorganised mess around him. "I knew where everything was before you knocked half the boxes over."

Chan's voice is deadpan when he speaks. "You're going to make me fix this, aren't you?"

Jeongin pats his shoulder, condescending and sweet. "You made a mess, hyung. You clean it up. I'm going to put on pants."

He brushes past Chan and disappears into the closet for a moment before reemerging with sweats. He smiles at Chan once more, before disappearing into the bathroom, leaving Chan standing in front of the closet, surrounded by shoeboxes and designer suits and the general wreckage of his failed mission.

Whatever. Chan loves Jeongin too much to argue.

When Jeongin returns, now wearing sweatpants, the new shoes still on his feet, Chan is crouched in front of the closet, attempting to untangle a hanger that has somehow managed to wrap itself around five different articles of clothing.

"You know," Jeongin muses, "I'm definitely telling everyone about this."

"You wouldn't."

"I absolutely would." Jeongin grabs his phone out of his pocket and tosses it at Chan. As Chan unlocks it, he strolls inside to grab what Chan presumes is a shirt, though Chan is a bit too preoccupied by the messages flying by from the rest of the kids laughing at him to notice.

"I hate you."

"No, you don't." Jeongin singsongs. His face is so blissfully happy.

"No, I don't," Chan echoes softly. "Obviously."

He continues to clean. He doesn't even care that Jeongin is barely helping out, because as long as Jeongin is safe, healthy and happy, it's all that matters. And, well, judging from the way he's twirling around staring at his new shoes in excitement right in front of him, Chan's pretty sure he's pretty pleased with the outcome today, despite all the mishaps.

So he keeps cleaning. And before long, the closet is spotless, the shelves actually have shit on them that makes sense, the clothes have been either neatly folded or hung up, and he's organised the shoeboxes properly, with even an extra space for Jeongin to put in his new pair.

Jeongin has a shirt on now. It's a simple white tee, which makes the water dripping down his neck onto the shirt even more apparent.

"Go dry your hair."

"In a minute."

Chan sighs.

"At least put your shoes away properly," Chan says, pointing at the empty spot in the corner. "I organised everything. I even left a spot for you."

Jeongin glances over curiously, before finally taking the shoes off, putting them gently in the box, and carrying them over. He slots them in the empty spot and turns around to glance at Chan. Chan nods approvingly.

"Please don't mess it up again."

Jeongin scratches the back of his head. At least he has the decency to look slightly ashamed. "You know it's going to happen."

"At least try."

"Out of sight, out of mind, hyung. Just don't go into random people's closets and you'll be fine."

"You're literally so impossible."

"And yet, you love me."

Chan shakes his head, but he's smiling. "Go dry your hair, Innie."

Jeongin grins, finally moving towards the bathroom, but he pauses in the doorway. "Hey, hyung."

"Yeah?"

"Next time you want to come out of the closet, maybe give me a heads up. I would have put on better pants."

And Chan doesn't even really care about the mess anymore. He throws a pillow at him, then two, as Jeongin ducks, laughing, running into the bathroom and slamming the door, leaving Chan to stand in the middle of his room, surrounded by the evidence of his fantastic failures, his heart full.

+1. Chan

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Chan doesn't realise the members have been talking to each other until it's too late.

They were supposed to record together, today. He's in the recording studio, finishing up on a guide vocal for the new track, when he notices Minho and Jisung out the window, huddled over a phone in the corner, whispering. He doesn't think much of it at first — they're always whispering about something, usually something that involves snacks or plotting against Hyunjin. But then, the aforementioned Hyunjin walks in, and instead of waving hi to Chan he goes straight to the corner, and suddenly, there are three of them, heads together, voices low.

Chan tries to focus on his vocal take. He really does. But he can see them through the glass, and Felix has just joined them, and now all four of them are staring at a phone screen with expressions Chan can't quite read.

He finishes the task, setting down his headphones before heading out to them. "What are you guys doing?"

Four heads snap up. The four of them have the gall to look innocent, despite whispering right in front of him.

"Nothing!" Felix beams, which is immediately suspicious because Chan had, very quickly, after the Seungmin incident, learned that Felix is a terrible liar.

"Just schedule stuff," Minho says, which is technically true but also reveals nothing.

"About what?"

"Stuff," Jisung adds helpfully.

Chan arrows his eyes. "What kind of stuff?"

Hyunjin's phone buzzes. He glances at it, then shoves it in his pocket so fast Chan almost misses the movement. "Nothing important. Just— plans. For later. You know how it is. Ambassadorships and all that."

Well… no. Because Chan wasn't made aware that they had any ambassador trips coming up at all.

He looks at them. They look back at him. Across the control room, he can see Changbin leaning over the soundboard, pretending not to watch, and Seungmin in the corner, also pretending not to watch, and Jeongin—

Well.

Jeongin's not pretending. He's staring directly at Chan with an expression that's screaming I know something you don't know, and when Chan catches his eye, he fucking grins and looks away.

It's then that Chan's suspicion solidifies into certainty. They're planning something. They've been planning something for weeks, actually, now that he thinks about it. He's noticed the way the conversations have stopped when he enters the room, the way phones have started getting turned over. He's been too tired to investigate. Comeback season is brutal, and Chan is running on caffeine, determination and the concept of sleep right now. He's been at the studio until four in the morning on most nights, then back at eight for meetings, dance practice, then more meetings, then more studio time. The bags under his eyes have bags. He's pretty sure he fell asleep standing up in the elevator yesterday.

So he doesn't push. He doesn't have the energy to push. He just watches his members exchange glances and hide their phones and whisper in corners, and he tells himself it's probably nothing. As long as nobody gets hurt, he's not too worried. Besides, he knows from experience that holding onto any hope is a slippery slope, so. It's probably nothing. Probably a surprise for someone else. Probably not for him.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

The anniversary arrives. Chan has been so deep in comeback preparations that he almost forgets, almost, until he walks into the dorm after a twelve-hour day in the studio and finds the lights dim, the table set, and all seven of his members standing in the living room.

"What's this?" Chan asks, already suspicious.

"Anniversary dinner," Minho blinks at him. "Sit down."

"We have practice tomorrow—"

"Sit down," Minho repeats, and Chan sits.

The dinner is good. Really good — Minho cooked, which means the food is excellent, and someone (probably Felix) has decorated the table with fairy lights and little flowers in tiny vases. They eat and talk and laugh, and Chan feels something in his chest loosen, just a little. He's been so focused on the comeback, on the music, on making sure everything is perfect, that he forgot what it feels like to just be with them. To sit at a table and eat food that someone else prepared and listen to Jisung tell a story with his hands, watch Hyunjin steal food off Changbin's plate, and feel Seungmin's shoulder pressed warm against his.

After dinner, they clear the table together, a chaotic, inefficient mess that involves three people trying to wash the same dish and Jeongin dropping a glass that miraculously doesn't break, and then they settle into the living room.

Chan is on the couch, exhausted but so, so happy, when he notices that everyone has gone quiet. They're looking at each other, exchanging those glances again. They look like they're all trying to say something.

"What's going on?"

No one answers him. Then Jeongin stands up, walks over to Chan, and hands him an envelope.

Chan takes it. It's plain white, unmarked, sealed with a sticker that looks like something Jisung had owned when he'd gotten into scrapbooking for a brief couple of weeks: it's a little star, unremarkable, but the intrigue and strangeness of it all make it shimmer.

"What is this?"

"Open it," Jeongin says.

Chan opens it.

Inside is a piece of paper, folded neatly. Chan unfolds it and reads.

It's an itinerary. A travel itinerary. Flights, dates, and accommodation. He scans it once, not understanding. Scans it again. His brain is slow, exhausted, refusing to process what he's seeing.

Seoul to Sydney. Departure: June 15. Return: June 25.

There's a whole list of activities, planned out in such detail that the little neat-freak part of his heart jumps with joy. Chan stares at the paper. He looks up at his members. They're all watching him, seven pairs of eyes, seven expressions of barely contained anticipation.

"I don't—" Chan starts. Stops. Starts again. His eyes are welling up traitorously, because in the depths of his soul, he knows. "What is this?"

"It's a trip," Changbin says, like it's obvious.

"To Australia," Felix adds with excitement.

"For after comeback," Seungmin finishes. "When everything's done."

Chan looks back at the itinerary. Sydney. Ten days. His parents live near Sydney. His sister, his brother. His dog. He hasn't been home in so long.

"We talked to management," Minho continues quietly. "Cleared the schedule. There's nothing booked for those dates. No promotions, no recordings, nothing."

"And you're gonna have a break," Hyunjin says. "A real break. Not a 'stay in the dorm and work on music' break. An actual break."

Chan's hands are shaking. He doesn't know why his hands are shaking. "You— you planned a trip to Australia. For me."

"For us," Minho corrects. He's leaning against the wall, arms crossed, but his voice is softer than usual. "We're all going. You're not the only one who needs a break."

Chan looks at the itinerary again. His vision is blurring. He blinks, hard, but it doesn't help.

"We've been planning it for weeks," Jisung blurts out, and his hand reaches out to squeeze Chan's own before pulling away. "That's why we've been so secretive. We didn't want you to find out."

"We had to coordinate with your family," Seungmin adds. "Your mum helped with the house rental. She said to tell you she's making your favourite for when we arrive."

Chan's throat closes. His mum. His mum knows. His mum is in on it. His whole family is in on it.

Fuck, fuck.

"You did all this," Chan's voice is thick. "For me?"

And oh, his face is wet. He's crying, he realises, actually crying, in front of all of them, and he can't stop. He covers his face with his hands, tries to pull himself together, but his shoulders are shaking, and his breath is coming in uneven gasps, and he can't—

Someone's suddenly crashing into Chan, crushing him in a hug, he doesn't even know who— Jisung, maybe, or Felix, but someone warm and solid. Then someone else's arms wrap around him. Then more arms, more bodies, until he's surrounded by all seven of them, pressed together on the couch, and they're not even saying anything, just holding him, just being there.

Chan cries into someone's shoulder — Changbin's, he thinks, from the muscles he feels — and lets them hold him up.

"You're so stupid," he hears someone say. Hyunjin, probably. "You're so stupid and you take care of all of us and then you cry when we take care of you."

"Shut up," Chan manages. His voice is muffled, wet.

"Never," Hyunjin says, but his voice is thick too, and Chan can feel him shaking.

They stay like that for a long time. Chan's tears slow, his breathing evens out, and slowly, one by one, the arms around him loosen. But no one leaves. Felix stays tucked against his side. Jisung is on the floor, his head resting on Chan's knee. Hyunjin is sitting on the arm of the couch, his hand on Chan's shoulder. Changbin is on the other side, solid and warm. Seungmin is perched on the coffee table, watching with something soft in his eyes. Minho is still leaning against the wall, but he's closer now, and Jeongin—

Jeongin is sitting on the floor directly in front of Chan, his chin resting on Chan's knee, looking up at him with an expression that's almost smug.

"You're going to Australia," Jeongin says.

"I'm going to Australia," Chan repeats.

"With us."

"With you."

"And you're not going to work. Not even a little bit."

Chan thinks about his laptop, about the tracks he's been working on, about the lyrics he's been trying to finish. "I don't know if I can—"

"We're taking your laptop."

"You're not—"

"We are," Minho says. "You'll get them back when we land in Seoul after the trip. Not before."

Chan looks at them, at their determined faces. He thinks about the ocean, about his mum's cooking, about Berry's tail wagging so hard her whole body shakes, and he can't even find it within himself to argue. And maybe that's growth. Maybe he's gotten old enough that the soft, bubbly feeling of hope that's welling up everywhere inside him is a good thing. Maybe he can chase after it. Maybe.

"Okay," Chan breathes out slowly. It feels like the first breath of fresh air he's had in a long time. "Okay."

Felix's face lights up. "Okay? Really?"

"Really." Chan looks down at the itinerary still clutched in his hand. "I'm too tired to fight you anyway."

"You're always too tired," Changbin says, and his voice is gentle, not accusatory. "But that's okay. That's why we're here."

Chan doesn't have a response to that. He's too tired to have a response to that.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Later, after the others have drifted off to their respective apartments, Chan sits alone in his room. The itinerary is on his nightstand. He's read it so many times he has it memorised.

There's a knock on his door. It opens before he can answer.

Minho.

He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, looking at Chan with an expression that's hard to read.

"You know," Minho says, "I was going to get you something for the anniversary. Something nice. A new keyboard for the studio, maybe. Or maybe something in Genshin since you're such a freak about that game."

Chan doesn't even have the energy to protest right now, because he's right. So he just waits for Minho to continue.

"And then Jisung suggested we should all get you something together. So I thought of Australia. And then Felix found the house and talked to your parents. And Seungmin talked to management. And suddenly my whole Genshin idea seemed stupid."

"It's not stupid—"

"You outdid me." Minho's voice is flat, but there's something underneath it— something that might be fondness, might be exasperation, might be both. "You gave everyone these perfect gifts. Things they didn't even know they wanted. And then we had to figure out how to give something back to you, and you don't want anything, Chan. You don't let yourself want anything."

Chan opens his mouth. Closes it.

"I'm glad we figured it out, though." Minho continues. "What you needed, I mean. I hope you liked what we gave you." He pauses. "You needed to stop being the leader for ten days, I think."

Chan doesn't even have the words to express how much Minho has underestimated the love he has for this gift. He's going to cherish it forever. His vision is blurry again. "Minho—"

"Don't." Minho holds up a hand. "Don't say anything. Don't thank me. Don't cry again. I'm not good with crying."

"I'm not going to cry."

"You're already crying, hyung."

The tears keep rolling down his face. Whatever.

Minho sighs, pushes off from the doorframe, and crosses the room. He sits on the edge of Chan's bed, close enough that their shoulders almost touch.

"This was all Jisung's idea," Minho chuckles. "When I suggested Australia after he brought up the group gift, he literally ran into my room at nine PM to tell me how good of an idea it was. He was so excited he couldn't sleep. He'd been thinking about this moment for weeks."

Chan thinks about Jisung, his first kid, who'd been tossing and turning, running around excitedly for weeks, trying to hide this from him. "I'm surprised he didn't crack and end up saying something."

"I'm surprised too but," Minho looks at Chan, and his expression softens, just a little, "I think he was determined not to ruin the surprise. None of us wanted to." He pauses, licking his lips. "You deserved this, you've been deserving of this for a long time."

Chan looks at Minho, at the careful neutrality of his expression, the way his hand is resting on the bed between them, close enough to touch.

"Thank you," is all he manages to utter.

Minho sighs fondly. "I told you not to thank me." But his voice is bashful, and he's looking away from Chan. "You've been taking care of us for years, hyung. Let us take care of you. Just this once."

"Okay."

Minho nods. He stands up, walks to the door, and pauses. "Also, Felix wants you to know he's in charge of trip planning. Being Australian or whatever. He says he knows 'all the spots.'" Minho rolls his eyes as his fingers do the air quotes.

Chan laughs. It comes out wet. "He'll do great."

Minho's lip twitches. "We'll see. Get some rest for this comeback, please. I want you to still be alive for the flight in two months." He closes the door behind him.

Chan lies back on his bed and stares at the ceiling. The itinerary is on his nightstand. Somewhere in the building, his members are sleeping — or not sleeping, probably texting each other in a group chat he's not part of, making plans, taking care of things he didn't even know needed taking care of.

He loves them so much.

They're worth every inconvenience Chan's experienced over the last few weeks, trying to gift those dumb gifts to them, every inconvenience. He'd do it all tenfold, then do it again and more for them. They're everything, everything he'd dreamed of and more.

He doesn't know where he'd be without them.

His phone buzzes quietly, and he picks it up. There's a new message in the group chat, the main one, the one he's in.

Chan laughs as the chat grows silent. He sets his phone down and closes his eyes. He thinks about the ocean. He thinks about his mum's cooking. He thinks about Berry's tail wagging and his sister's laugh and his brother's exasperation and the hot summer air and the sound of the waves outside his window.

He thinks about the seven people who will be there with him.

And for the first time in perhaps months, Chan sleeps through the night.