Work Text:
“Isn’t that way too much fried rice?”
“Uh... No, it’s alright! I actually wanted some for tomorrow’s lunch too..”
Eric sighs as he never truly believes Juyeon’s clumsy attempts to save his ego. In a hurry to distract himself from his hyung’s endearingly naive charm, Eric scoops the fresh, steaming fried rice into two bowls while Juyeon packs the leftovers in the fridge.
“Broo if that’s still hot then at least store it in the highest compartment of the fridge” A mellow but urgent voice hurriedly exclaims from across the room.
Basically appearing out of thin air, Kevin enters the kitchen with small droplets of water occasionally escaping his towel as he ruffles his long, black bangs out of his eyes. He’s challenged to find the correct way to explain convection currents in Korean and begins ‘nerding out’ . . . completely forgetting that the thing he was meant to do instead was go put on a shirt…
A small increase in heart rate is suppressed as Juyeon flinches to hastily refocus his gaze from Kevin’s body to his eyes. He gulps and pastes a small guilty smile on his face, hoping that Kevin didn't notice. Eric chokes on his rice, completely baffled with how easily Juyeon got distracted by the sight of perfectly melonpan carved abdominal muscles. However, neither Kevin or Juyeon notice as they're both too dumbfounded by the fact that Juyeon didn’t actually hear anything Kevin said…
“Alright. Listen up Juyeon.”
The small white towel that's damp with the water from Kevin's hair is whipped around the back of Juyeon's neck. The sudden provoking motion of the towel makes Juyeon instinctively taken aback - but simultaneously, Kevin's grip on each end of the towel tugs at Juyeon very slightly to ensure he’s got his full attention. Right in front of Eric and his half-eaten bowl of fried rice is what he could only think of as a dreamy fairytale romance scene from one of the many movies he’s cried to. This however wasn’t too obscure of a scene for Eric, and he casually resumes eating, but at a significantly slower pace this time to ensure he doesn’t finish before Juyeon’s finally able to join him. Nearly a decade of living together had made Juyeon and Kevin very comfortable with each other’s physical touch. It’s enough to make Eric swear that they’ve explored each other’s bodies before.. but he just can’t prove it yet.. After a few yawns from Juyeon whilst hearing Kevin talk directly into his face about fridge science - and the sound of Eric’s chopsticks softly tapping against a bowl as the byproduct of impatience, the towel loosens from Juyeon’s neck and Kevin takes a step back, sighs, and throws a spiteful frown at Juyeon before accepting defeat.
Juyeon awkwardly rubs the back of his neck and tries to laugh it off, instinctively glancing at Kevin’s abs again, but this time only for a split millisecond. Although Juyeon knows that his shy, sweet eye smile will always work on Kevin - he goes the extra mile by also grabbing and reaching out his leftovers towards Kevin. For a second, Kevin almost falls way too deep for Juyeon’s slight lowering of his head and eyebrow raise that he did to entice Kevin to join his meal with Eric. They’d spent each breathing hour with each other for their idol schedules, and after such a long day Kevin usually prefers to recharge alone in his room… but this time in particular, a weird feeling possesses him to accept Juyeon’s offer. He can’t tell if it’s a spontaneous gut feeling or something deeper in his heart, but regardless, Kevin goes to take a seat next to Eric whilst Juyeon nicely plates up his bowl of fried rice.
“Aish, do you really have to eat with us while you’re shirtless?”
“You’re just jealous Eric, you wish Juyeon looked at your abs the way he just did to mine.”
Completely baffled by Kevin’s boldness (and unprovoked truth), Eric’s milliseconds of speechless silence gives Juyeon enough time to cheekily poke fun at his energetic puppy boy. Kevin luckily escapes the unserious scolding and friendly banter as he flees to his room and wears his spare white t-shirt that’s embossed with big bold black text saying “THE BOYZ” in the left corner of it. His other teammates always question why Kevin would wear their cherished group t-shirt as pjs, even if it’s their spare copy. But to Kevin, it’s a small gesture of holding his love for his job close to his heart. Especially during times of rest and comfort, it’s a way to remind him of how lucky he feels to have the best fans and team members to help him live out his dreams every single day. He returns to the warm, golden fried rice and the rest of the night is filled with cozy, comforting company before they each return to their own rooms and recuperate for another long day of work tomorrow.
As the sun reaches its peak shine, the smell of 11 hard working mens’ sweat envelops the dance practice rooms in a musky demeanor. Before they resume their 3rd out of 6 hours of dancing, the energetic puppy boy lays on the floor giggling and kicking his feet while he posts his Pepero Day annual tradition. Eric meticulously selects his pictures, overanalysing which lighting will be the easiest for his fans to read his handwritten letter from, and which angle features his couple rings and pepero boxes the most aesthetically. After he sees the post has been sent, he immediately jolts up and gathers everyone’s attention.
“I have an idea guys! Since today is Pepero Day and I have two boxes of pepero that I probably shouldn’t eat all by myself - why don’t we play a game and have pepero kisses as our punishment!!”
The musky sweat that fogged the practice room thins out in an instant as shocked dolphin-pitched screams, a swarm of chatter, and a full spectrum of judgement to excitement floods the room. The few members that are keen about Eric’s idea successfully convince the rest of the group to play, and Juyeon is left with an odd nervous feeling he can’t quite figure out..
The rules of the game were simple:
- One person holds onto the pepero
- Everyone takes a card from a standard deck of cards
- The cards are revealed, and whoever has the exact same number/letter AND colour as the person with the Pepero Box, they have to do a pepero kiss together!
Kevin’s idea of adding cards and probability into the game stirs the room into chaos once again. He scans his friends’ reactions as they gather in a circle on the floor. Chanhee is slightly relieved that there’s a chance he might not match his card with anyone, whilst Sunwoo is giddy at the fact that multiple people might match his card at the same time. Since this was initially Eric’s idea, he starts with the pepero and distributes the cards for everyone. The 2 of diamonds is held up next to the box of pepero and everyone starts unsurely revealing their own cards. A sigh of relief escapes Juyeon’s mouth as he curiously checks that his ‘semi-crushes’ over the past few years, Changmin and Hyunjae, didn’t match with Eric’s. Strangely enough, he also takes note of Kevin’s card as he watches him hi-five with Jacob over the mutual joy of not having to kiss their fellow English-speaking member. Eric’s eyes scan his members and with every non-matched card he sees, the tension and suspense festers within him more. The tidal wave of excitement and anticipation comes crashing down abruptly into a pale, blushing face as he locks eyes with Sunwoo, who’s staring at him with big mischievous boba eyes - and a matching 2 of hearts card.
“ehhng, this is no fun if it’s with someone you already lik-”
Haknyeon elbow nudges Younghoon’s arm so suddenly that the last syllable gets lost in Younghoon’s throat. Like a confused puppy, Younghoon turns to Haknyeon who’s found frowning intensely at him whilst also placing a possessive hand on Sunwoo’s lap. Sunwoo’s eyes are now darting back and forth between Haknyeon and Eric like a kid who just got handed the choice of two of their favourite candies. With Sunwoo’s hands bashfully covering his mouth, Eric suddenly smirks at his resemblance to a cute little shy raccoon and takes the initiative to approach Sunwoo first. The two share a strawberry pepero and approach each other with giggles in between each bite. Eric’s hands cupped Sunwoo’s round cheeks while Sunwoo’s tugs at the fabric of Eric’s white tank top that wrapped around his waist tightly. The mole under Eric's left eye sparkles like a gem at Sunwoo, reflecting back into his big round black eyes like they now hold the whole universe in them. Sunwoo’s smiling cheeks become stiffly fixated as the short breaths from Eric’s laughter feel closer and closer to him. This intimate physical touch was enough for both of them to completely block out all of the screaming and commotion from the people surrounding them. Finally, Sunwoo’s glossy and plump lips nibbled at Eric’s, making them immediately pull away from each other, rolling all over the floor (and all over Haknyeon) in a giddy, flustered mess.
Haknyeon lets his two fellow maknaes have a little fun before calling everyone to collect themselves so he can hand out new cards to everyone. Naturally, Eric passes the pepero to the person next to him, Juyeon. After being distracted by the turbulent 1st round of this game, a re-ignited churn in Juyeon’s stomach pinches at him in anxiety of the unknown… he feels wary of… something he can't quite spell out clearly. Although his brain is sending emotions to his body, and his eyes kept glancing over at Kevin to try to read his body language, his heart was keeping the reason for his nerves a secret.
“Alright. This time, you guys don't have to hold up your cards. If you match with my 8 of Spades, just come and sit right in front of me” Juyeon says as he leans back, legs crossed with his body weight supported by his arms that are fixing him to the floor.
“Ooouuhhhhh so direct and bold huh Juyeon? You're cool.” Sangyeon stirs the tension in the room and watches his members’ reactions as if he's a dad fooling around with his kids.
For a short moment, the room goes silent as everyone’s anticipating for someone to sit in front of Juyeon…… but no one moves. Juyeon fixes his posture and clears his throat, scratching his head to try and play off the fact that he unadmittedly was secretly hoping he'd match with Changmin.. or Hyunjae.. or maybe even Kevi-
“No way, is someone lying?” Eric exclaims in disbelief.
A few people boo at the anti-climatic result and start to re-gather the cards whilst Kevin slowly and quietly gets up on his own and approaches Juyeon.
“OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH~~~” The crowd goes wild!! Did Kevin not want to kiss Juyeon?? Was he shy??? Is he just teasing Juyeon???? All of these thoughts loitered around the dance practice room as faint chatter behind the sound of Kevin's heartbeat thumping in and out of his chest.
“Hi Juyeon.” Kevin says as he sits directly in front of Juyeon.
“Keep your cool Lee Juyeon.” is what he's telling himself in his head - but the big smile on his face and lack of breathing says otherwise.. He would've definitely felt more disappointed in the fact that Kevin was about to cheat the game and avoid the punishment, but right now, there's a whole group of people waiting for him to kiss the man with the perfect abs he was checking out yesterday…
“Sorry, I was worried this would be awkward for you… like… we'd have to go home together after this and you were checking me out a little yesterday too- I mean…. i'm probably too in my own head again yk” It feels good to Kevin that he owned up to his own feelings, and that Juyeon is comfortable and understanding enough to allow for that.
Even though it may be silly and just straight up overthinking, Juyeon always appreciates these extra layers of consideration that Kevin has for others. He reassures Kevin that “it's chill” and "just a game anyways”, and holds up a pepero stick at him with the same cheeky and beckoning expression that made Kevin lose all reasoning last night. After what Kevin just implied, everyone is silent to give the two space for themselves. Juyeon puts the pepero in his mouth and Kevin hesitantly holds onto the other end with his teeth. Kevin looks into Juyeon's eyes and his stomach turns into butterflies when noticing Juyeon is only staring at his lips. Juyeon lets out a small chuckle at how thin Kevin's lips are - it's oddly really attractive to him right now. He reckons he could eat them in one bite.
Kevin starts inching forward slowly and shyly while Juyeon shows off eagerness and leans in dangerously closer with each bite. Juyeon naturally grasps onto Kevin’s thigh and the back of his neck, making Kevin giggle at the large width of Juyeon’s hand slightly tickling his inner thigh. This enticing tease accumulates a jittering in Kevin’s heart that provokes him to cup the sides of Juyeon’s face and start biting the pepero at a noticeably faster and more confident rate. His eyes flutter in between being open and closed as each bite brings them closer, and as Juyeon’s embrace becomes tighter. They’re a little less than 4cm apart from each other when Kevin abruptly takes his last bite and pulls away, leaving Juyeon bemused and frozen in his intimate grip on him, mid bite from the unexpectedly long remainder of pepero. All the muscles in Kevin’s body give up as he collapses to the floor and hides his face in his arms. His burning red cheeks are slightly visible to Juyeon and his ears are slightly re-tuning into the background chatter.
“Oh?”
“What the-”
“That’s it..?”
Kevin gets up, not knowing what to do with himself other than chuckle and continue to conceal his flustered face behind his hands. Juyeon, who was still frozen from shock, blinks rapidly a few times to regain control of his body like a robot being rebooted. The remaining Pepero lingered in his mouth, as if Juyeon wasn't ready for this moment to be over just like that. Feeling bitter-sweet and embarrassed, Juyeon fights to ignore the magnetic pull of everyone's eyes on him as he indecisively switches from looking at the floor to looking at Kevin.
Until a fragment of a second later.
With no words said, the back of Juyeon's neck is snatched back into Kevin's embrace when he swiftly devours the rest of the pepero from Juyeon's mouth. Kevin brings Juyeon even closer by raising himself into a kneeling position and meeting his lips with Juyeon's, instantly turning the room into a festive commotion. Anyone who blinked would've missed how quickly the atmosphere just flipped on itself.
Juyeon lightly touches his lips in disbelief, looking up at Kevin whose hands are now resting on his shoulders. His eyes dumbfoundedly stare deep into Kevin's like a perfect fairytale romance where Kevin was his Prince Charming who came to save him. With a smirk on his face, he scoffs and reaches up to Kevin’s head. In one affectionate stroke, his hand travels from the top of Kevin’s head to the back of his neck, with a few strands of hair weaving in and out his fingers on the way down.
“It’s fun for you to push and pull on another man’s emotions like that, huh?” The subtle sweetened tone at the end of Juyeon’s sentence paired with a cocky eyebrow raise makes all of Kevin’s previous confidence escape out of his body in a clean, loud chuckle.
“Just.. to make it more fun for everyone else watching ya know?”
“Lies Kevin! Why are all of you guys such cowards when this is just a game!” The disbelief on Hyunjae’s face reads more serious and genuine than the one time Eric got caught messing with his Twinkle Twinkle collection. “Let your trustworthy Hyung show you how it’s done. Come here Chani”
“Ahhhhh waejoraeeee..”
“Alright everyone calm down, we only have 5 minutes left of our break so let’s just tidy up a bit and not get walked in on mid-kiss by our choreographers.” As usual, everyone follows Sangyeon’s instructions with no complaint. Juyeon throws the pepero boxes into his bag with no further thoughts and they resume their dance practice session diligently.
After a strenuous day, Juyeon and Kevin arrive back at their dorms, shower, and order food delivery. They both sprawl all over the living room couch and mindlessly scroll on their phones. One on Twitter, the other on Instagram, both intensely drained from today's practice and only occasionally sharing a small chuckle together when showing each other funny things their fans have posted. The shared silence between the two is peaceful as their ears slowly become accustomed to bustling traffic and joyous night life outside, drowning it out faintly and encapsulating themselves in the comfortable bubble that is their home. After a while of necessary screentime to wind down, the sound of their doorbell cuts through the air abruptly. Juyeon agrees to go grab the food from their doorstep while Kevin clears the living room coffee table.
“Allrrrighttt, our 1st time trying Mala Yuppdeok !!” Juyeon chuckles softly to himself that Kevin is truly the same person on and off cameras. His entertaining personality never fails to lift Juyeon’s mood, even when both of their social batteries are running low. Like a routine, they place themselves in between their couch and the coffee table, sitting with their legs either crossed or folded on the floor.
The huge plastic container of mala yuppdeok is separated into three bowls, accounting for Eric’s portion when he comes back from the gym. With their loose sweatpants and most worn-out pajama shirts on, the two comfortably dig into their meal without a care for accidentally splattering sauce onto themselves. As they take each bite, a savoury and spicy aroma engulfs the room and hugs their taste buds, trailing around them with piping hot steam and a slight linger of sweetness. Fortunately, both can handle spicy foods well and were savouring the yuppdeok flavours as an indulgent treat for their hard work today. As quickly as Juyeon's bowl was finished, his hands were fast to text Changmin a validation for his obsession over this food trend and thank him for being so insistent on making him try it.
“Kev, Changmin is saying we should try this on pizza next time”
“LOL? this is already so oily, and he has it with pizza??...Actually, yk what'll be perfect rn? Icecream ! Want me to grab you one too?”
Juyeon's jaw drops in utter shock of Kevin's genius invention (the concept of dessert) and reaches his hand out for a bro handshake. Kevin lets out a short giggle at Juyeon's reaction and accepts the handshake before heading to the kitchen. In Kevin's brief absence, Juyeon exhales, slightly leaning back to take in every small detail of their living room that's been filled by his and Kevin's presence. Many of their free nights after work are usually spent on their own, despite Juyeon always believing that since they live together, all 3 of them should always eat together. It took him a while to accept that sometimes, or more often than not - Kevin would be busy cooking up new music before the idea leaves his brain, Eric would be at the gym, or both of them would've already ordered food before Juyeon gets the chance to even ask… Juyeon mentally notes to savour this moment as a fond memory that can remind him that there’s value in even the ‘boring’ moments with his teammates. Before he realises the full implications of what he’s about to do, Juyeon finds that he left his bag within arm reach and starts rummaging through it. His fingers weave through the bottomless pit of his big, grey, leather Balenciaga bag, finding packs of Re:nk face masks, vitamins, sunglasses, and tons more before he secures his grip on the leftover boxes of pepero from earlier today.
Kevin finds his place next to Juyeon again and hands him a single-packed choco monaka jumbo ice cream whilst taking a bite out of his own. The spicy grease that stubbornly loitered in their mouths immediately eases away with the perfect flavour balance of creamy vanilla and rich chocolate.
“Wait huh, why is this here?” Baffled with surprise, Kevin gestures towards the two pepero boxes with a slight nod. His mind had been preoccupied by so many other things since the last time he saw those boxes. Suddenly the room felt smaller and he was becoming way too aware of this familiar distance between him and Juyeon.
“Oh, uh… Eric gave me the leftovers from earlier today” Habitually, Juyeon’s hands wander from scratching his head to rubbing the back of his neck. “And I thought it’ll be good to have with ice cream.. right?”
Everything Juyeon says is the funniest and most endearing thing alive to Kevin.
“Are you sure you’re not just hungry for some more..” Kevin teasingly provokes Juyeon with an eyebrow raise and pouty lips. Juyeon is taken aback with his jaw dropped and only his two front teeth showing. Slowly, it merges into a smile. He can’t lie, that was impressive.
“You- Why are you so cocky now when you were so flustered earlier today?!?” Embarrassment is woven all throughout Juyeon's tone as he recalls how his pepero challenge with Kevin was somehow more messy than Eric and Sunwoo's.
“Okayy well… Why don't I make up for that right now?”
“... Really???”
“Yeah! I mean- yeah… it was kinda fun.. the game was. fun..”
For a moment, Kevin sat there staring at Juyeon, hesitantly frozen after putting a pepero in his mouth. All over his face, you can tell he's overthinking if this is a good idea or not, just like a ghost unpossessed him and he's suddenly realising what he's actually gotten himself into. Both their ears and cheeks were turning into the colour of the mala yuppdeok they just had. Juyeon gulps, his eyes that were once staring back into Kevin's are now travelling down to his lower abdomen as his brain plays flashbacks from … whatever last night was… Maybe it was okay to let his intrusive thoughts win this one time.
Juyeon sighs in defeat.
“Good thing it's just us right now” He flaunts a forced cocky tone one last time before hastily throwing himself towards Kevin. One hand grabs the back of Kevin's neck, and the other on one of Kevin's pecs - which slowly travels down and traces every curve of Kevin’s melonpan abs as he gets closer and closer to meeting his lips. Kevin’s eyes close at the feeling of Juyeon’s curious fingers. He slightly tilts his head to the side as they take the final bite of the pepero, meeting each other’s lips for the second time in one day. Juyeon’s body instantly recognises the familiar shape of Kevin’s lips and starts leaning into them with his own lips slightly parted. Kevin’s embrace around Juyeon tightens as he gently moulds to the rhythm of Juyeon’s kiss.
As they eventually pull away, their arms slowly retract from each other and their foreheads become the last thing that disconnects their shared compulsion for tasting each other’s lips just one last time. As they chew on the last few pieces of pepero in their mouths, they stare into each other’s eyes in pure adoration. A friendship like theirs was rare, and they knew that trusting each other to know the balance and boundaries of being platonic but playfully romantic with physical affection was what made them special. This very moment might make them feel painfully awkward to even look each other in the eyes the next day… but that was fine to risk because ultimately they’ll always find their home, The Boyz, in each other. Juyeon teases Kevin, commenting that his lips aren’t as thin after the mala yuppdeok, and receives a playful slap in retaliation. As the night goes on they continue to laugh together over everything and nothing at the same time. They may have left the boxes of pepero empty, but their hearts were full of good memories from what they thought would be another mundane day of dance practice. Just like this, Juyeon and Kevin will always have a strong bond with each other, and every Pepero Day will fondly remind them of their own special secret from this quiet, simple night.