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“Hyung, have you ever been in love?”
Hoyun glances down at the tiny hand gripping the corner of his shirt. Squinting at the black-haired child, he adjusts his sweater, pulling it down so it sits properly on his small shoulders.
“You found someone you like?” He questions back, a hint of surprise evident. His eyes scan him from head to toe, looking for a clue.
From an awkward child who refused to approach him and his brother, he was now asking questions like this of his own volition?
“Something like that.”
Such a vague answer, Hoyun muses. Pinning him under his stare, the younger boy shifts on his feet.
“I wanna know about your experienceee~” His sentence ends with a whine, and he smashes his head into his leg. Cheeks all red, he pouts, looking up at the older with a petulant expression.
Barely reaching the top of his waist, Hoyun’s hand clamps around the top of the younger’s head.
Ichae nudges into his hand, taking all the attention he can get. He lets out a little chuckle. Kids are the cutest when they act their age.
“Hyungggg.”
Pulling him out of his thoughts, he lets out a chuckle.
“Why are you so interested in hyung’s life?”
His small hand grips onto the older’s, bringing it to pat his own cheek.
“Because I like you, hyung.”
Eyes twinkling, and with his voice muffled, Ichae repeats the sentence.
He could only let out an amused laugh.
“You’re going to be a troublemaker when you grow up.” He ruffles Ichae’s hair, taking pleasure in how the younger one scowls at him as he fixes his hair. Ignoring his whine, he steps forward as Ichae follows behind him with complaints falling from his lips.
The smile on his face is lopsided, eyes thin as they curve. “Hyung will tell you when you are older.”
“Is that a promise?” The boy cheered, practically vibrating in excitement. He reaches for Hoyun’s fingers, swinging them back and forth.
“If you even remember it.”
.
.
“Hyung~”
Hoyun knows that when Ichae ends his sentence with an inflection and tilts his head, it means nothing good. No matter how cute he looks.
“What.”
He fixes him with a stare, as if he were a toddler asking if he could play in the dirt. It was obvious that the younger had just come out of the shower, droplets of water still beading at his hairline.
Taking a seat in front of Hoyun, he brings a leg up as he leans forward with a mischievous smile. Arms spread on the table, he taps on the surface rhythmically, nails painted a shiny black.
Rapidly, Hoyun went through his interactions with the younger man, checking to see if he had triggered him. All they did was shoot for their self-produced content, and nothing major had happened… After a few seconds of deliberation, he decided just to face it head-on.
“What do you want.”
“So mean~ Ichae hasn’t even said anything yet.”
Purposefully lowering his lashes and jutting out his lips, he paws at the older with one hand. “I have a question for hyung.”
Hoyun raises an eyebrow, clearly asking him to proceed. Expression soured, he stares at the ticking clock behind the bright red-haired man. Ichae’s expression gave nothing away: impish with his lips curved upwards.
“Well, Ichae is now older, handsome, and cuter-”
Hoyun begins to stand up.
“Okay, okay. I’ll get to the point!”
In an uncharacteristic manner, he raises a hand and lets out a cough. There was even a hint of a blush on the top of his cheek.
Honestly, it was creeping him out with how Ichae was acting. He wanted to grab the younger one by the collar and shake him until he spat it out.
In reality, his lips twitched, and he took a step away from the table. The situation was starting to get dangerous.
“Hyung, do you remember the promise you made me?”
Hoyun’s mind lagged, mouth moving before it could catch up.
“Promise?” A question slipped out.
It’s best to feign ignorance.
His lips pressed shut, expression schooled together neutrally. Even if his mind is muddled after the system has reintegrated with the current world, he definitely does not remember making a promise with Ichae.
“You don’t?” Ichae’s eyes gleamed, mouth pursed, as he played with a rabbit decoration that Dajun had dragged back from god-knows-where. It was honestly kind of ugly, eyes droopy, and had an overwhelming, gloomy aura. But the maknae had insisted that it would brighten up the interior, and now, it has found its home on the dining table.
A beat later: “That’s too bad.”
The shrill sound of a chair pushing back pierced his eardrums, and Hoyun blinks once.
He was giving up this easily?
“Guess I’ll remember this promise by myself.” He shrugs, throwing a hand up as he heads back to his room.
Frowning, he watches as the red-haired figure grows smaller.
Strange.
.
As the days go by, the more he feels uneasy.
The younger was still interacting with him normally. Playing, teasing, getting on his nerves, and then running away when his patience grew thin. But, for some reason, that conversation stuck in his head.
“Hey.”
The door slams open with a bang, but the red-haired man barely flinches.
“Hyung, talk to me later,” Ichae mutters, eyes focused on the screen. His headphones flash brightly in the dark before Hoyun decidedly reaches over and presses the power-off button on the bottom of the screen.
“What-” He sputters, eyes blown wide as he pulls off his headphones.
Good. Hoyun thinks viciously. He oughta to feel the same type of turmoil he went through.
Red hair under a grey hoodie, he jumps out of his chair, sputtering and pointing at the black computer screen.
“Hyung, I was in the middle of a ranked game!” With furrowed eyebrows, Ichae turns to look at him with a wronged expression. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” Hoyun speaks slowly, a gentle smile playing on his lips. “Why, nothing at all.”
“Why are you talking like that?” Retreating a step, he grabs the pineapple hat residing on the table as a shield. “You’re freaking me out.”
“Why do you still have that-” The older sucks in a breath. “Never mind.”
There’s one thing Hoyun is fairly confident about: his policy on raising kids. After all, he had over a decade of experience with Seo Hojin, and he turned out… fairly well.
First step: giving a kid what he wants always works best.
“Spit it out.”
“Talk clearly, hyung.” Looking befuddled, Ichae looked up warily, holding the pineapple hat like a talisman to ward off ghosts. “Did you lose your mind again?”
He stares at the hat, which hasn’t made an appearance since the time he saw it in the recording studio during that variety show he shot with Yeonhoo.
Stepping forward, he snatched it and threw it to the ground, ignoring the younger’s shriek of “That’s my baby!”.
“What is the promise hyung made you?” Done with his mission, Hoyun patted the younger’s shoulder lightly.
“Hyung will fulfill it for you.”
This should be enough.
There’s no way that Ichae will ask for anything too ridiculous; the two of them are already past that stage. All that fighting? It’s light-years behind them now. Ichae has grown up well, and he would like to think their relationship has mellowed out after all that unrest.
“Have you ever been in love?”
Maybe not. He was definitely too confident. Slowly, the memories came back to him: as a broadcasting PD, his memory was uselessly good, but of all things, why would Ichae remember this?
A fleeting remark from years ago?
The younger had been so docile these past few days that Hoyun must have gotten comfortable with getting the wrong idea. Right, this was Ichae’s base personality: getting under his skin and then chirping like a baby chick before running away.
Hoyun pressed a finger to his eyebrow hard. Definitely, a troublemaker.
“You’re still curious?” He says exasperatedly, running his fingers through his hair. Plopping down on Ichae’s bed, he stares curiously at the other.
“Why on earth would you remember that?”
Ichae falls silent for a moment, scratching his head roughly before speaking in a small voice. “Hyung, you really don’t know how fickle a child’s heart is.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
It was such an unexpected answer from the younger that it dug at his forgotten conscience…just a little.
Not wanting to dig deeper into this ridiculous issue, he sighed before opening his mouth. “Once or twice.”
Standing up, he dusted off his pants, heading straight for the door.
“Waitttttt, hyungggg. You haven’t told me about your type yet~” Back to his normal self, Ichae clings to the leg of his pants, sprawling himself out on the carpet.
“Get off me before I get angry.”
“Bunny Seo has no romantic bone in his body at all~” Ichae pouts before letting him go, sitting cross-legged. Somehow and somewhere, the forgotten pineapple hat sits on his head, mocking him with the incredulousness of the situation.
“Hyung, close the door when you leave.”
That was all he heard before he slammed the door shut.
Seriously, how did Ichae turn out like this?