Chapter Text
Lee Sungyeol is a simple man, with simple needs, who takes pleasure in the simple joys of life. Sipping on his Americano early in the morning—though not early enough for him to call it ass o’clock and being subjected to the daunting task of waking up his roommate. Lounging in bed and marathoning the dramas on his to-watch list—and cussing out his roommate when he pokes fun at him for it. Spending his days back home helping with chores, teasing his younger brother and spoiling Aga with love and affection. Finishing up one of his long-time projects after countless hours and sleepless nights of slaving away at his desks —and, as a bonus, receiving positive feedback on it.
Among those, Sungyeol has a deep appreciation (and, in his humble opinion, pure skill) for practical jokes.
“Oh, there’s Sunggyu-hyung.”
There are five of them sitting down for lunch. Opposite of him, Woohyun— whom Sungyeol had known since before he’d started university and who was responsible for claiming the table as theirs—is trying to sneak a couple fries off of Hoya’s plate, having already finished his own; Hoya smacks his hand away without even looking up from his phone. To his left, his roommate and best friend Myungsoo is preoccupied with the only thing that takes precedence over food, his camera, pressing buttons that Sungyeol hasn’t got the first clue about. Next to Hoya, Dongwoo is handing a dejected Woohyun some of his own fries with one hand and energetically waving to someone with the other.
“Hyung!” he calls out to the approaching figure of Kim Sunggyu, who waves half-heartedly in return.
Snorting, Sungyeol elbows Myungsoo in the side, getting a glare in return before the other man turns back to his camera. He tries again.
“What?” Myungsoo hisses, without looking at him.
He nods in the direction of their new arrival—with another jab aimed at Myungsoo’s ribs when he notices he still isn’t paying attention. Finally, Myungsoo lifts his head to look at the other end of the table and, though his face remains impassive thanks to years of practice, he hears him choke back a laugh. ‘Really?’ he mouths, eyes twinkling with mirth, and Sungyeol only shrugs in response.
Kim Sunggyu sits down on his usual chair, his tray packed with the exact same dishes as the day before (and the day before that, and all the way to the day when they’d met him), and greets them in the same faux disinterested manner he does every day. The only thing amiss is that the mussed up mop of light brown on his head has turned a vivid shade of red overnight, in great contrast to the green sweater he’s sporting.
“Nice look,” Sungyeol decides to comment with feigned innocence. “But Christmas isn’t for another two months.”
Instead of getting flustered or giving one of his signature glares, Sunggyu keeps his eyes on the sandwich he’d picked out and says, sounding vaguely dead inside: “Well, I figured I could prepare in advance.”
“Didn’t you have anything else to wear today?” asks Hoya, who finally deemed the commotion at the table worthy of abandoning his phone.
The eldest shakes his head. “Laundry day. I didn’t want to risk freezing my ass off if I’d gone for a short sleeve.”
“Ah.”
It’s only a manner of minutes until Myungsoo cracks in a flurry of snorted laughter that makes his entire body shake. “Sorry—I just—Hyung, you look like an overripe tomato.” Sungyeol, the one responsible for the existence of said overripe tomato, stifles his giggles behind the palm of his hand.
“Thanks, Myungsoo,” he deadpans. “It sure means a lot coming from you.”
“It’s not that bad,” Woohyun hums, reaching out to brush his hand through the newly-dyed hair. “’Sides, my Gyu-Gyu looks handsome no matter what.”
Almost like someone’s flipped a switch, Hoya cringes and turns to glare at him. “Don’t.”
“Please don’t,” Sunggyu seconds, face colouring to match the hue of his hair and sounding like an odd mixture of disgusted and disgustingly fond (Sungyeol, and the rest of his friends sans maybe Dongwoo, can relate to the former). “It’s too early for grease.”
“Sure, keep pretending you hate it. You’re fooling no one,” his boyfriend rolls his eyes and, leaning over Hoya with a pout on his face: “Dongwoo, can I have more of your fries? These two hurt my feelings.”
“Don’t use us as an excuse to exploit Dongwoo-hyung’s kindness,” Hoya says, gently pushing him back into his seat, at the same time Sunggyu scrunches his nose up with a grumbled: “You know I don’t like being called that in public.”
Dongwoo’s rich, genuine laughter echoes through the cafeteria and, despite Hoya’s continuous protests and furrowed eyebrows, he nudges a couple more fries onto Woohyun’s tray.
Conversation continues to be carried out without another mention of the fact that Sunggyu‘s hair is probably visible from outer space, without the owner of the hair accusingly pointing at him and Myungsoo and demanding to know who was responsible for this atrocity then threatening to kill both of them regardless, without any further teasing comments and barely suppressed laughter. Even Myungsoo stopped chuckling, choosing instead to give Sungyeol a questioning look that he returns with the same amount of confusion.
He clears his throat. “Okay, is nobody going to ask? I mean,” he gestures in Sunggyu’s direction, trying to keep the smirking to a minimum. “What’s brought this on?”
“Don’t play dumb, Lee Sungyeol,” is the answer he receives, complete with a frown. “I knew you were up to something when you dropped by since you were ‘in the area’ and ‘suddenly’ had to use the toilet,” Sunggyu lazily lifts his hands up for air quotes. “Unfortunately, I have things to do like studying and an actual job, so I couldn’t pull apart the entire bathroom and see what you did but I kinda saw this coming.”
He purses his lips, tugging at a strand of hair. “Though I guess I pictured another colour.”
Sungyeol’s mouth snaps shut in something he can only describe as disappointment combined with a smidge of disbelief because Sunggyu looks ridiculous with bright red hair and he’s threatened to dismember him for less—like the time he honest to God accidentally spilled coffee on his favourite but very ugly button-up, though he’d very much done a favour to the world. Seeing Sunggyu calmly accept this hideous new development is almost surreal.
(In his dumbfounded state, he also misses the way Woohyun mutters “At least it wasn’t hair removal cream” and is quickly silenced by a pinch to his side and Hoya’s pointed ‘Don’t give him ideas, idiot’ look.)
“Okay, then, where are the death threats?” he finally manages to ask, a little petulant. “And what’s with the lack of reaction? I mean, come on, if you gave him some eyeliner he could pass as that guy from Naruto.”
(“Gaara,” pipes up Myungsoo, official anime connoisseur and the sole reason why Sungyeol is even familiar enough with the show to make that comparison. He is politely ignored.)
A couple girls pass by their table with poorly concealed giggles and, whether that is because of the eyesore that is Sunggyu’s hair or Sungyeol’s comment just now, he thinks it’s enough to prove his point.
“See?”
“Okay, look,” Sunggyu puts down his sandwich, heaving a sigh. “Sungyeol, I’ve got like fifty pages to read by tomorrow and three papers to write by Friday and my boss’s been giving me the crappiest shifts all week. Do I like the hair?” he glares, tugging at a strand of his fringe. “No, it looks like the biggest mistake of my life. But right now I’ve got better things to worry about.”
“Also, this is the fifth time you dyed someone’s hair as a prank—second time you did it to me,” another sigh. “Don’t you have better things to do?”
“I—“ Sungyeol’s mouth opens and closes, and though there was no argument to speak of, he kind of feels like he’s just lost one.
His one and only supporter, Myungsoo, has conveniently went back to tweaking with his photo camera (Sungyeol knows he can see the dirty look he’s giving him, but he doesn’t acknowledge it; the traitor). Sunggyu, obnoxiously red hair and all, has also started eating again and Hoya’s attention is back to his phone; the remaining two have randomly engaged in a discussion about bears for whatever reasons that he’s not going to ask about. Then it dawns on him.
“Where’s our freshman? I bet Sungjongie would get a kick out of this.”
“He’s not having lunch with us today,” Woohyun responds, popping another fry into his mouth. “Said he’s got a lot of work to do and he doesn’t have time to slack off like ‘some other people he knows’” he scoffs. “He’s getting cheeky with us. I told you we’re cutting him too much slack.”
Dongwoo frowns. “How is eating lunch considered slacking?”
“Hell if I know, ask Sungjong.”
Feeling more than a little bit wronged, Sungyeol glares at a bread roll on his tray until Myungsoo pokes his head in his field of vision and says: “Stop sulking—and if you don’t plan on eating that, you might as well give it to me.”
Sungyeol pops the entire thing in his mouth and, once he’s swallowed, blows him a raspberry for good measure.
That evening, back in their dorm room, Myungsoo sits through exactly seven of Sungyeol’s exaggerated ‘Ask me what’s wrong’ sighs before he gives in.
“What’s up, Yeol?” he asks, turning around in his spinning chair to face his best friend.
About half an hour prior to this, Sungyeol had sat down in the middle of their shared room and surrounded himself with sketches and floor plans that look just as complete as the first time Myungsoo had seen them. The half-hearted way in which the other is twirling a pencil around in his hand is just an indicator of the fact he wasn’t even trying to get any work done.
“Just thinking.” Though silence follows, Myungsoo is already making himself comfortable, folding his hands on top of the chair’s back and propping his chin up on them. Naturally, Sungyeol continues: “I talked to Dongwoo-hyung today, after lunch.”
“Okay…?”
“He said my pranks were becoming routine,” Sungyeol slams the pencil down onto a piece of paper. “Routine.”
He groans, throwing his head back until it hits the edge of his bed. “Myung, if even Dongwoo-hyung is getting bored of my pranks, then this is it. I’m done for.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean—“
“No, but, what if they’re right?” there’s a drop in Sungyeol’s tone. He rubs both hands over his face. “Maybe I’m supposed to grow out of this and actually focus on school. I’ve got a project due next week that’s nowhere near finished and instead of working on that, I’m dicking around with hair dye and trying to make my friends look like idiots.”
“Hey, you shouldn’t give up something you enjoy just because you flopped once,” says Myungsoo, climbing out of his chair so he could take a seat on the floor next to his best friend. “Everyone’s gotta have some misses here and there.”
Sungyeol groans, long and drawn out. “Myungsoo, that’s great life advice, but it only proves that I should probably sober up and focus on my actual work. I mean, I’m in my twenties, in college, and I’m moping over what? The fact that my jokes aren’t funny anymore?
“I always do this—take stupid things seriously and end up ditching my actual responsibilities. I almost refused to go to college for that acting gig that ended up being a scam, and now instead of finishing this floor design, I’m whining over kiddy shit.”
A moment of silence. “I think you’re making it deeper than it is,” Myungsoo offers, cautiously.
“Maybe,” he shrugs. His eyes are burning holes into the unfinished floor plan. “Or maybe I’m hopeless and I should grow the fuck up.”
There was one other time when Myungsoo had seen that look on his face. It was their first year of university, back when Sungyeol hadn’t carved his place as The Best Friend into his heart and was just the nice, but vaguely childish and overdramatic roommate Myungsoo had ended up being stuck with. An aspiring actor and drama enthusiast, Sungyeol had somehow ended up taking interior design in college because, as he put it, it was the only practical option that appealed to him. Until then, Myungsoo had never met another person who was more enthusiastic about proper lamp placement or sketching plans that, to him at least, looked more like abstract art than the layout of a building.
Until he got his first bit of negative feedback.
To this day, Myungsoo has no idea what the entire thing was about—the explanation had one too many technical terms for him, a mere mortal—and only remembers the part where a dejected Sungyeol stormed inside the room and ungracefully landed face-down on his bed, laying there motionless until Myungsoo went over to get the story out of him.
“Maybe I’m just not cut out for this,” Sungyeol mumbled, voice slurred by the beer the younger had pushed into his hands as a meager peace offering. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for anything. I’m just gonna fail at life until, I don’t know—someone finds me dead in a ditch or something. Fell in there tripping over my own incompetence.”
“Probably, yeah,” Myungsoo had agreed, prompting the other to look at him in confusion. “If you keep up that attitude, that is.”
“And what do you think I should do, genius?”
So they talked. Sungyeol told him about his failed acting stint while Myungsoo shared the thrilling, drama-worthy tale of how much his parents had protested to him wanting to become a photographer (“My mom called my grandparents and tried to get them to guilt-trip me. It got ugly”). Then they talked about their families, about some shared interests they’d found, about the body part they could probably live without and other things drunk students talk about at hours when they should both be asleep.
The outcome of that had been that: the next day, a hungover Myungsoo successfully managed to cheer his friend up by sneaking fake bugs into Woohyun’s lunch and letting him scream to his hearts’ content, and a week after that, Sungyeol received full marks on the assignment he redid from scratch.
So, Myungsoo lets his head drop onto Sungyeol’s shoulder and says: “What if I swipe Hoya’s phone and we change all his contacts to, dunno, plant names?”
Sungyeol gives him a look. “Did you even listen to what I just said?”
“Yeah, and I think you need a pick me up,” he explains, nodding at the papers strewn about the room. “It’s not like you’re gonna make any progress by moping around. So, Sunggyu-hyung calling you predictable bothers you? Let’s do something to show him up.”
“Sometimes I really wonder if you’re my best friend or if you’re only trying to get me killed so you can have the room for yourself,” Sungyeol mutters, but the hint of a smile plays at his lips.
Unabashedly and feeling like his heart is at least ten times lighter, Myungsoo grins back. “Don’t be stupid. They’d just give me another roommate and I’d have to get rid of that one, too. Too much hassle.”
“Lazy ass,” he shrugs his shoulder so Myungsoo’s head falls off, but at least he’s full on smiling. Then, “But that’s not a good idea. Hoya’s practically glued to his phone lately so he’d notice if it was missing—also you’d have to pry it from his cold, dead hands.”
But Myungsoo’s brain is already going a mile an hour. “Glued, huh? Do you think we could find a way to say, handcuff two of them together and give them a treasure hunt for the key?”
Though the smile was reassuring enough, he absolutely revels in the way Sungyeol guffaws, mouth open wide enough that his gums are showing, eyes no longer empty but filled with mirth and a hint of mischief. If Myungsoo didn’t think the moment was inappropriate, he would whip out his camera and capture this for posterity.
“Kim Myungsoo, you are trying to get us killed.”
“Not exactly trying but yeah, might be a side effect.”
“Who would we even handcuff together?” chuckling, Sungyeol leans more comfortably against the bed.
“Well, Sungjong with anyone could be funny but also a safe ticket to being smothered in our sleep,” he muses, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he runs through the possibilities. “I don’t hate Dongwoo-hyung enough for this and you don’t either.”
“Yeah. Also anyone but Woohyun and Sunggyu-hyung,” Sungyeol makes a face so profoundly disturbed that it actually makes him choke on air. “For all we know, they’d probably get off on it.”
“You just had to go and say that,” he mutters, face contorting into a cringe of his own. “But yeah, the last thing those two need is handcuffs. Hey, remember when they got together?”
“Which part? I kind of tried to forget the entire thing, actually.”
“The part where they were all ‘Nothing’s going to change, guys’ and then we had to sit through them being attached to the hip, Woohyun’s ass-grabs and the horrible nicknames,” he pauses, just to shake off the mental image. “I mean I’m as happy for them as any of us but they’re so obnoxiously married sometimes that I wish they could see them….”
The rest of the sentence trails off because Sungyeol is clearly not listening anymore; he’s staring off into the distance with that look on his face. Half-scrunched eyebrows, tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth and stare so vacant Myungsoo can actually imagine the gears turning inside his head. He nudges his arm.
“You have an idea, don’t you?”
Sungyeol turns to him, toothy grin in place. “Yeah. No handcuffs involved though, so it might save us a lot of trouble.”
“Wanna share? I don’t care how much people like to joke about it—I can’t actually read your mind, Sungyeol.”
“Okay, okay. Here’s what we could do…”
Nam Woohyun blinks. Once. A couple more times. An additional few, just to make sure that he’s actually seeing this right:
Sungyeol and Myungsoo are both sprawled on the former’s bed; or rather, Sungyeol is lying down on it while Myungsoo is on top of him, hands placed on either side of his head and body pressed against the other man’s. Their faces, close together and previously obscured by Myungsoo’s hair, come into view when they around to face Woohyun, still standing frozen in the doorway. The first to react is Sungyeol who, sputtering, pushes Myungsoo off him so the other hits the floor with an ‘oomph’. In spite of this, the younger continues to gape at Woohyun—eyes wide, cheeks flushed, lips swollen and hair messed up like he’s ran through a windstorm. Upon further inspection, Woohyun notices that all the buttons of his shirt are undone and—to his horror—his jeans unfastened. Upon even further inspection and horror, he comes to the conclusion that Sungyeol’s shirt is non-existent and the look on his face is one of dread.
He also hears Myungsoo, currently working on doing up his shirt, hiss “I thought you said we have time until he shows up” before a red-faced Sungyeol shushes him and hurriedly pulls on a t-shirt.
“What… the fresh hell is going on here?” he finally chokes out, tightening his grip on the DVD he’s supposed to return to Sungyeol, sole reason why he was even in the dorm room in the first place.
Myungsoo bites his lip. “This isn’t—“
“Myung, don’t,” it’s Sungyeol that interrupts him, sighing heavily as he sits upright on his bed. “I think it’s time to explain.”
“But…”
They share some sort of meaningful look that Woohyun is sure he shouldn’t be witness to; but he is, and he is incredibly confused. “Please do. Explain,” he says, making the other two break eye contact. “I’m waiting here.”
A few minutes, some explanations and a bunch of awkward silences later, he’s still trying to make sense of the situation.
“So, let me get this straight. You two,” he gestures between the two of them. “Have been dating behind our backs for how much time now?”
“We started in the summer so… July?” Sungyeol looks at his boyfriend for confirmation; he nods. “July.”
“You’ve been dating for nearly four months and you didn’t tell me,” he mumbles, tapping a finger against his thigh. “You didn’t tell any of us.”
The happy couple sitting across for him winces; Woohyun doesn’t feel guilty in the slightest. In fact, he continues, even more incredulously:
“Why the hell didn’t you tell any of us? You didn’t seriously think we’d have a problem with it because then I have news for you—“
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what?’
He throws his arms up in the air—dramatically, some people would say, but Woohyun thinks it’s more than called for. And combined with the frustration in his tone, it has the desired effect. His friends have gone from worried and slightly awkward to downright guilty, and maybe it’s a little sick for Woohyun to delight in that, but he’s just found out he’s been lied to for months, so he thinks they’re even. Myungsoo isn’t even looking at him, decidedly keeping his head down and his face hidden by bangs.
“We just wanted to make sure we’re doing the right thing and it’s not just a summer fling—spur of the moment and all that, you know,” says Sungyeol, and from the corner of his eye, he sees him reach out to squeeze one of Myungsoo’s hands. If Woohyun wasn’t furious with them, he’d think it’s cute. “If things went south, we would’ve put a stop to it before it affected everyone else. I mean, it’s the least we could do considering we gave you and hyung such a hard time about that when you got together…”
He trails off with an apologetic look, and it almost makes Woohyun let the entire thing go, there and then. Almost.
“Sungyeol, we’ve been friends since middle school,” he whines instead, complete with a pout, because he doesn’t have an actual comeback—just slightly hurt feelings.
(And a bit of leftover shock from walking in on two of his best friends half naked and about to climb each other, but that’s reasonable.)
“I know, and we planned on telling you. You were the first person we would’ve told—right, Myungsoo?”
When the answer doesn’t come instantaneously, they both turn to stare at him. Myungsoo scratches the back of his head. “Honestly? I’d tell Dongwoo first, but I’m sure Yeol would’ve picked you instead.”
Then Sungyeol goes: “Come on, don’t be like this. I’ll treat you to dinner as an apology—and it won’t be McDonald’s this time.”
Silence settles between them as Woohyun considers his options. He points at Sungyeol. “I’ll hold you to that. There’s a new sushi place I want to check out.”
Shifting to a more comfortable sitting position on his friend’s bed, he gives the two of them an once-over. “So now that I know, are you guys gonna be like… official?”
Sungyeol looks a little overwhelmed as he says: “I guess? I mean, it would be stupid to hide it from everyone else now.”
“Let them all know he’s off-limits,” Myungsoo says with a disturbingly straight face, draping himself over Sungyeol; the other half-heartedly attempts to shove him off, smiling the entire time.
Woohyun finds that simultaneously endearing and annoying.
With a grunt, he pushes himself onto his feet. “Okay, just—don’t forget that you guys owe me my weight in sushi for all the emotional damage I’ve suffered,” his statement is welcomed with two identical eye rolls. “And here’s your DVD.”
He throws it rather unceremoniously in Sungyeol’s direction, grinning when the other flails around yet somehow manages to catch it before it hit him square in the forehead; he glares.
“I already said sorry, offered you dinner, and you still try to kill me. What happened to,” his voice takes on a ridiculous falsetto, “’We’ve been friends since middle school, Sungyeollie’, huh?”
Half-way to the door, Woohyun rolls his eyes. “Don’t be a baby, that would’ve barely bruised at most,” he waves a hand. “I’ll get going now, I told Kibum I won’t be staying long. Have fun and don’t fill me in with the details.”
“See ya,” Sungyeol says like he’s one minute away from outright telling him to get out.
Seconds later, he pokes his head back through the door.
“Don’t forget to use pro—“
This time it’s Myungsoo who calmly responds with “Fuck off” and, with a feigned noise of indignation, Woohyun finally takes his leave.
Being a patient person with manners and a working common sense, he waits until he’s a good couple feet away from his friends’ dorm room before, grinning from ear to ear, he pulls his phone out.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Oh, you know,” Woohyun presses his phone closer as he walks down the hall. “The weather outside’s great. Also I just found out Myungsoo and Sungyeol are exclusively screwing each other—“
”What?”
“—and it’s not after Halloween yet so Lee Howon, fork up the cash.”
He doesn’t even bother holding in his gleeful laughter at the choked off sound coming from the speaker; the guy walking past gives him an odd look.
“Bullshit,” Hoya finally scoffs, but Woohyun hears the trace of uncertainty in his voice. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
It’s only after he shrugs that (to his embarrassment) he realises the other can’t actually see him. “Fair enough. Ask them to confirm it next time you meet but I’m just giving you practical advice here, you should get the money ready.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why do you always assume I’m lying?” he grumbles, genuinely irritated. “Do you really have that little faith in me?”
“Honestly? Yeah.”
Woohyun sputters. “Is this about your last birthday party?” There’s silence on the end of the line. “Oh my God, it was one time!”
“Is he gone?”
Opening the door just a crack, Sungyeol peeks out of it and is greeted by the deserted hallway. “Yep, all clear.”
Turning to face his best friend, he can’t hold back the grin that breaks out on his face; Myungsoo seems to be in the same predicament, his poker face slowly crumbling and giving way to a dimpled smile.
“Did we just—“
“Yep,” Sungyeol pops the ‘p’ at the end, throwing himself back on his bed.
Myungsoo joins him a moment later and they sit side by side, close enough that their arms are brushing, and barely containing their laughter.
“So, how long until everyone else finds out?” his friend asks after a while, head titled to face Sungyeol.
“Well, knowing Woohyun, I’d say a full minute until he tells someone, and probably twenty max until it reaches all of them.”
And sure enough, his phone lights up with a notification.
Kim Sunggyu
5:47 PM
Woohyun told me about you and Myungsoo.
????
Don’t ignore me!
With a hasty promise that he will explain everything later and several emojis just for the sake of being obnoxious, Sungyeol switches off his phone and lets out a quiet chuckle. It’s not a genius plan (though, if asked, he would definitely call it that), but so far it had worked smoothly enough. A small part of him feels bad about lying to Woohyun and relying on his inability to keep his mouth shut to move it along. But a larger part of him, still suffering from a bruised ego, remembers being called childish and predictable, and being owed around 6000 won that Woohyun keeps conveniently forgetting about, so he thinks they’re even.
Only…
“Hey,” he gets Myungsoo’s attention once again. “Things aren’t gonna be weird between us because of… y’know, earlier. Right?”
For a few terrifying seconds, his face stays completely blank, and Sungyeol can’t help the surge of internal panic that runs through him. Then things take their normal course and Myungsoo laughs, loud and unabashed.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” to emphasise, he smacks his arm a bit harder than necessary. Sungyeol gives him a half-hearted glare. “Yeol, we’ve accidentally seen each other naked more than five times and we danced half-naked for a dare once. So, how’s pretending to make out any worse?”
He snorts at the memory. “Good point.”
“You were great back there, by the way.” The face he pulls must be dumbfounded enough to carry the message across, because Myungsoo decides to continue. “With Woohyun. Honestly, it’s kind of tragic that you didn’t stick to acting because I almost believed you and I knew you were lying.”
Acting, as every person who’s ever met Sungyeol could tell, is still a pretty sore subject for him, but he’s a little too high on the success of their plan to sulk over it. Instead, he says: “You weren’t bad, either. I mean, except that part where you almost laughed and blew our cover.”
He leans forward, eyebrows raised. “But you could easily go for acting. You have the face for it.”
“Thanks, but I like it better on the other end of the camera,” the other man replies, dryly. “Might want to save that sweet talk for tomorrow when we meet up with the others, though.”
“Ah, yeah. Our first day out as a couple. Are you excited?”
A snort. “Obviously. There’s nothing better than pretending to feel each other up and watching our friends get increasingly disturbed,” his entire face scrunches up in laughter. “Just think of Sungjong’s reaction.”
Sungyeol does, and promptly joins his friend in a laughing fit at the mental image.
Eventually, the two of them get back to their business. Now on his own bed, Myungsoo is clicking away at his laptop, occasionally fiddling with the camera connected to it. Sungyeol is on the floor again, looking over his sketches in resignation, well aware that turning any of them in would result in a passable mark at most. He’s already pulled out a fresh piece of paper and started sketching the general layout when his stomach growls—for the third time in the past hour—and he decides to call it quits.
“Hey, do you wanna get pizza for dinner or something?” he turns to Myungsoo who’s already got his phone pressed to his ear and a typical half-smile on his face.
“Way ahead of you.”
While he starts rattling off toppings and sizes, Sungyeol looks at him and thinks he couldn’t have asked for a better best friend.