Chapter Text
1. The time Martin hard launched their relationship at 8 in the morning
“So uh,” Martin says nonchalantly, dropping into the chair next to Juhoon’s at the dining table. “Me and Juhoon–we’re a thing now. Like, officially.”
He slings an arm over Juhoon’s shoulder for added effect.
Juhoon doesn't think Martin was being very nonchalant. At all, actually. He could feel Martin suppressing a smile via telepathic force despite sitting next to him, and he could also hear the undertone of barely concealed glee in his voice.
He glances at Martin briefly. Martin is now beaming like he just won the lottery. Where was the subtlety? In no way was this “breaking it to the guys gently”. Juhoon feels his eyelids growing heavy again. He's too tired to deal with this, and worse yet, he still hasn't had his morning coffee, so he just hums in affirmation and goes back to nibbling on toast.
Juhoon doesn't seem to care, but the rest of the members sure did.
If the dorm was silent in the mornings, it just reached a new level of silence today. Pin-drop silence to hearing-everyone’s-breathing silence, if you will.
Sitting right in front of them and nursing a cup of apple juice was Seonghyeon, who was originally staring down at his cup with an absolutely done expression. Now, he was staring at Martin like he grew a second head and a unicorn horn. Next to him, James's face stayed perfectly neutral, his glasses perched on his nose as he read the morning paper. Juhoon once jokingly teased James about larping as a newspaper reader before James had promptly launched into a speech about the recent stocks, political news, and for some reason, car discounts. Juhoon had shut up after that, even though he had also started calling James a fossil that reads newspapers.
In his periphery, he could also see Keonho, passed out on the table with his eyes half open. Juhoon pokes him in the side. Keonho's eyeballs rolled in his head before waking up with a start, which is objectively terrifying.
“Wharugh,” Keonho slurs, pointing at Juhoon. “What'ddyousay again-?”
Juhoon rolls his eyes in response. Unfazed by the lack of response from literally everybody, Martin repeats, “we're dating now,” still abnormally cheery. He proceeds to ask, “anyone brewed coffee yet?” like he didn't just drop a nuclear bomb on everyone.
A few long seconds pass. Seonghyeon is still staring and James has turned his attention to Martin's face. Juhoon is starting to worry for them as he watches Seonghyeon's eyelid twitch.
“Are you okay,” Juhoon starts, when all of a sudden, they break out in maniacal laughter while Keonho looks significantly less asleep and significantly more baffled, his eyebrows drawn together with wide eyes.
“Nice try,” Seonghyeon wheezes, latching onto James's arm, “I almost believed it, holy shit.”
James snickers. “April Fool's Day was over two months ago, if you guys haven't noticed.”
Seonghyeon is full on laughing now. “Fuck, man, Martin looked so serious too! Somebody give this guy his Oscar.” He mimes conjuring an award out of thin air and presents it to Martin with an exaggerated flourish.
Martin frowns. “It's not a joke, though.”
Keonho’s complexion has turned from a deathly white back into a healthy pink. “ So you guys are trying to tell me that something's been going on this whole time, and not one of the three of us has noticed?”
Yes, Juhoon thinks glumly. Bunch of clowns.
Keonho raises a brow, a hand over his chest. “You guys scared the living shit out of me! You can't be making this kind of prank at 8 in the morning, god damn. I'm at the age where my heart isn't very bright, you know. Like, I'm talking about heart attacks.”
James clears his throat loudly.
“We're actually dating,” Martin insists, going a bit red in the face now, “there's no way you guys were completely unaware.” Juhoon takes the opportunity to steal a bit of scrambled egg from his plate.
“Apparently we were, then, if you weren't making this up right now,” James snickers, getting up from the table to get coffee.
“We literally areeee,” Martin whines, pulling Juhoon closer. In an attempt to prove it, he presses a chaste kiss to Juhoon’s cheek, his lips lingering a bit longer against the soft skin. Juhoon leans into the kiss, a soft smile playing on his face.
Seonghyeon and Keonho's mouths fall open so wide it's almost comical. “James hyung, Martin just kissed Juhoon,” Seonghyeon says loudly, patting Keonho's arm repeatedly. Without any warning, he pinches Keonho's hand. Hard.
“What'd you do that for?” Keonho screeches, his unharmed hand immediately flying to the spot Seonghyeon assaulted.
Just making sure I'm awake right now,” Seonghyeon answers earnestly, a shit eating grin on his face.
“What the fuck? Pinch your own damn hand, then?” Keonho splutters, appalled by the audacity. “And you,” he points to Martin and Juhoon accusingly, “what the fuck was that?”
“They're committed to the bit,” James chuckles, not turning around. “I'm giving them two weeks, tops.”
“We are not breaking up in two weeks,” Martin retorts indignantly. “Fine! Believe what you want. You're all gonna feel so stupid when I actually start writing banger love songs,” he mutters, running out of steam.
“As if,” Seonghyeon snorts, but his teasing carries a suspicious tone, clearly still dubious of the news. The chaos lapses back into comfortable silence, though the three of them sneak glances at them every now and then, eyes squinted like they're trying to make sense of the situation and failing. Juhoon also pretends he's not seeing how James's fingers are flying over his keyboard at a speed never seen before.
-
As James is showering, Martin flops onto Juhoon's bed dramatically, his arms snaking around Juhoon's waist where he's sitting by the headboard, reading a new book. Martin shoves his face against his stomach and yells. The vibrations tickle Juhoon's skin and his hand itches to push Martin's head away.
“Told you they wouldn't believe us,” Juhoon murmurs, like he knows exactly what Martin is having a crisis over. He flips to the next page with one hand and threads his fingers in Martin's blonde hair, stroking gently.
“Yeah, well,” Martin huffs, “it's totally not a big, elaborate prank, though.” Why would they think it was a joke? Martin's feelings are so fucking real he would print banners saying ‘I'm in love with Kim Juhoon’ and then paste it everywhere if he could. A guy can dream. He imagines Juhoon's exasperated yet fond expression and smiles giddily into the soft material of Juhoon's sweater.
“You still have me,” Juhoon says. “It doesn't matter if it takes them ten million light years to figure it out.”
“Yeah, I do,” Martin breathes, before surging up to plant multiple wet smooches all over Juhoon's face despite his weak protests. He pushes Juhoon onto the bed, caging him in with his hands on both sides of Juhoon's head. Growling playfully, Martin nuzzles into Juhoon's neck and shakes his head rapidly, his hair tickling him.
“Yah! you dog, get off me,” Juhoon laughs, attempting to wrestle Martin's larger body off him to little avail, and Martin grins into the nape of his neck.
2. The Time they did couple-y things that disturbed the maknaes (who STILL refused to believe it)
“Are you seeing this,” Seonghyeon whispers to Keonho,”I think my lunch is going to come out both ways.” Juhoon has to give him his flowers for how his face turned green in seconds.
Keonho makes a face.”Eww, man,” he cringes, “but yeah, I see it. Or maybe I don't. I think all that dance practice is making me hallucinate, cause what I'm seeing can't be for real right now.”
“D'you wanna retake that schizophrenia test i sent you last week again together?” Seonghyeon asks, in a normal voice now, even though his face is stil obscured by his hand.
“Hell yeah,” Keonho says abnormally cheerily, raising his arm for a dap. They dap up perfectly like the twins they are. Nickname deserved, James hollers from where he's getting his hair done.
Juhoon stares at them with absolute judgement and concern in his eyes as they whisper-yell about him right in front of him. What's even the point of whispering when everyone and their mother can hear you? Mind boggling logic.
He knows exactly what this is about. Martin has his head pillowed on Juhoon's lap, sleeping fitfully while Juhoon traces the swirly patterns on his funky stage jacket. Or, was tracing, seeing as now there's two idiots talking crap about them.
He glares at them, eyes thinning into slits, and puts a finger over his lips. “Shut up,” he hisses, covering Martin's ear protectively with his other hand. Not only do Keonho and Seonghyeon not shut up, they now wear matching expressions of shock and disgust.
“It's okay, hyung. We were sufficiently tricked the first time,” Keonho tells Juhoon.
“Yeah, you can drop your bit now,” Seonghyeon adds, eyes wide.
Juhoon gives them a moderately aggressive middle finger. “It's not a fucking bit,” he groans, feeling Martin shift under his fingertips. He smooths his fingers over Martin's cheek, like patting a stirring baby back to bed.
“I refuse to believe this,” Seonghyeon huffs, folding his arms over his chest. “You guys are also being really weird right now for no reason.” He gestures to Martin still sleeping like a log on Juhoon's lap, then to Juhoon, then to the sky.
“The reason being that we're fucking dating, you twat,” Juhoon gripes. Why was he cursed with oblivious, blind, homosexually unobservant teammates? He raises his gaze to the bleak crusty green room ceiling and mourns himself for being the target of whoever is up there.
James pops his head through the doorway, finally finished with his makeup. “Keonho, Seonghyeon, the director says you guys need to stay back for filming later,” he says, giving them finger guns before leaving the room again.
The both of them rise up immediately with a gaggle of protests and complaints, which is understandable. After all, which of them could've predicted that they were unwittingly submitting themselves to the claws of child labour and capitalism when they signed up to be a trainee in the first place?
Actually, they totally could. The plethora of different idols speaking out about the corrupt industry were more than enough proof, but still many aspiring teens, including themselves, of course, sign up every year.
If today were any other day, Juhoon would've felt sorry for them. Empathetic, even. But today is not any other day. For all the mental gymnastics they've forced him to perform, he doesn't give a single flying fire breathing fuck. He laughs evilly at their dejected expressions.
“We’re so not done with this conversation,” Seonghyeon says, pointing at them, even though Juhoon knows it's going to be erased from his mind the second he steps out of the green room.
“Sure we are,” Juhoon snickers, “I'm not the one with overtime, anyways.”
Seonghyeon opens his mouth to bite back with a retort, but it's interrupted by Keonho throwing his whole body on his back, manoeuvring him towards the door. Seonghyeon yells when he nearly crashes into the coffee table, no thanks to Keonho.
“Oh my god! You nearly broke that expensive jade 24 carat pure netherite mother of pearl handcrafted specialised Buddhist catholic one of a kind vase,” Seonghyeon shrieks, still trying to wrestle Keonho off him. Juhoon watches the both of them flail around with utter amusement. Who needs a circus when you've got these clowns?
They push and shove at each other all the way to the doorway, and when they finally, finally topple out of the room, Juhoon feels the air and noise pollution decrease physically while the average intelligence of the overall atmosphere rises by an attractive 100.
His hands drift back onto Martin, playing with the lapels of the jacket as he watches his boyfriend shift, chest rumbling in his sleep.
“Doesn't matter if they don't believe it,” he mumbles to the room,”as long as I get to have this.”
3. The time Juhoon accused all of them of being homophobic and received a TED Talk in return
”This is so exciting,” Martin whispers, fiddling with the edge of his scarf as the 5 of them stand on the edge of the street, waiting for the little man to turn green, “we're literally sneaking out right now.”
The little man turns green. Go, go, go. They start speed walking.
“Yeah, for content,” Seonghyeon deadpans, turning around just to level Martin with the most impassive expression ever. “I can literally point out at least five staff in our vicinity.”
“Do it, then,” Martin sniffs. “A guy can't even be a little whimsical nowadays.”
“The first one is right in front of us.”
“Who are you? The whimsy police?”
“So anyways, the second one is across the road from us, the third is–umprufhh-”
Martin slaps a hand over Seonghyeon's mouth.“Shhhh, let me live,” he insists, taking an overly exaggerated inhale of what he claims to be “unpopulated night air”. Seonghyeon struggles with wrangling his hand off his face.
“I don't want to begin to fathom the number of air pollutants you just breathed in,” James tells Martin exasperatedly. As expected, Martin shuts his big mouth instantly. Behind him, Keonho snickers.
“Jju,” Martin sniffs, turning to his last chance of protection. “They're bullying meee,” he whines, his eyes going wide like when he wants something. In this case, Juhoon as his defendant.
Before he can open his mouth to formulate some sort of consolation, Keonho pipes up. “We're here!”
The seafood restaurant is nothing short of mediocre. They settle in their seats, get banchan, order off the slightly overpriced menu. Martin plops into the seat next to Juhoon. To be honest, the only item Juhoon wants right now is a pillow and a bed to send him off to Dreamland, but you don't always get what you want, he supposes.
James reads the horrible pick up line printed on the banner behind them and laughs at it. Keonho pokes and prods at Seonghyeon's corn cheese as he hems and haws over whether he should get himself a plate, until Seonghyeon's patience wears thin and shoves the ordering paper in his hands.
When the actual seafood comes, they take turns grilling and eating it, the table becoming a flurry of metal platters emptied in 3 seconds flat, all kinds of seafood shells, and arguments over who takes which piece. Wordlessly, Martin reaches over the table with his long ass limbs to get the coke on the other side, placing it in front of Juhoon with a clunk. He even squeezes a chunk of lemon into the cup, exactly how Juhoon likes it. James raises an eyebrow but doesn't mention it.
Halfway through the grilling, Juhoon wordlessly peels and puts a few pieces of shrimp on Martin's plate, much to Seonghyeon's chagrin, who has bits of decimated shrimp shell all over his hands and barely half of a shrimp.
“Love you, babe,” Martin beams, scarfing them down at an inhumane speed–but not before unsubtly gloating in front of a disgruntled Seonghyeon.
Corn cheese falls out of Keonho's mouth. James tilts his head. Seonghyeon starts crashing out.
“This is so overkill. No one's believing this,” Seonghyeon bemoans, rubbing his palms together to rid himself of shell residue.
Keonho squints. “I thought the bit was over a while ago.”
“I thought you were being nice with the coke, but why’re you calling him babe?” James asks, a look of genuine curiosity on his face, and oh my god, Juhoon thinks he might need to take him to the doctor for onset dementia soon.
Martin's look is one of absolute confusion. He turns to Juhoon, baffled. “They know we're dating, right?”
“No,” Juhoon replies flatly. “They all still think it's a prank.”
“Oh, good,” Martin breathes. “I thought I hallucinated me hard launching it in the living room at 8am two weeks ago.”
“You did,” Keonho replies. “We just don't believe it.”
“What part of this isn't believable?” Martin questions, straightening up, and that's when Juhoon knows it's about to get noisy.
“You guys still act like friends,” Seonghyeon splutters. “You get loud and Juhoon calms you down. That's normal.”
“Yeah, except now he calms me down by giving me a kiss,” Martin grins.
“I did not need to know that,”Keonho announces. “But anyways, platonic kissing is totally a thing. Who says you're not just friends that like physical affection?”
Juhoon is so done. He's actually so done. He's 10000% sure his face is conveying the disbelief he's feeling right now. Platonic kissing is something to unpack for another day.
“We sleep in the same bed,” he frowns, “you guys have literally walked in on us cuddling before.”
“That's normal friend things,” Keonho says. “Me and Hyeonie do that too.”
“Yeah,” Seonghyeon agrees, “it's just nice to do that after a really tiring day, right?”
Before Juhoon can even process what that means for the both of them, Keonho somehow manages to come up with another miraculous statement.
“You guys could be in platonic,” he smiles smugly, “me and Seongie and totally in platonic with each other. That doesn't mean we're dating.”
Juhoon's features scrunch up in incredulity. What the flipping fuck? He opens his mouth and closes it. He pats Martin's thigh twice and downs his lemon coke to calm his racing mind.
He opens his mouth again. “Are you guys homophobic?” In the end, you really have to battle absurdity with absurdity.
“WHAT?” they shout in unison. Keonho even gets so offended he stands up, the utensils clinking noisily. Multiple heads turn at the sound.
“Why're you guys so against the idea of us dating if not?” Martin reasons, going along with the bit like the supportive boyfriend he is.
“That's ten thousand quadrillion American footballs away from the point!” Keonho exclaims, his hands flailing wildly. “I even came out as bisexual, and you're saying I'm homophobic?”
“Hyungs,” Seonghyeon says blankly, “We've quite literally gone to a pride parade before. We just don't LGTQBelieve in your relationship.”
“Why the fuck not,” Juhoon starts, but he's interrupted by James jumping up and holding out his pointer finger in an Eureka! moment.
“Guys,” he starts, “Did you know that research shows that close social bonds can lower blood pressure, strengthen the immune system, and even help regulate glucose levels? Studies also reveal that friends’ brainwaves, breathing patterns, and heart rates can synchronize during shared experiences.”
The four of them turn to stare at him. Even Martin, who'd tapped out of the conversation a few minutes ago and had started concocting truly innovative cuisines that Juhoon wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.
Oblivious to their stares, James continues, “Sometimes, our closest friends understand us in a way that romantic partners never will, and all without having ever shared physical closeness with us. And that is perfectly valid. But, as long as enthusiastic consent is given, nothing should be stopping us from celebrating and appreciating our friendships with physical intimacy, such as cuddling, stroking each other’s hair, or holding hands.”
He meets the perplexed couples’ eyes with a firm gaze, holding out an enthusiastic thumbs up. “I support you,” James declares.
“Support our what,” Martin says slowly, “our very romantic relationship, right?”
“For being affectionate towards each other,” James corrects. “I like that you're boosting team morale.”
What the hell is this. Juhoon genuinely can't choose what's worse. Keonho and Seonghyeon using the platonic-romantic relationship skipping rope to perform circus acrobatics, or James adopting extremely selective hearing and bursting into passionate speech in the middle of their meal. None of this is appropriate to be aired.
“Okay,” Martin says loudly, intervening before Juhoon's brain combusts, “let's all pretend this conversation did not happen. This conversation did not happen. Let's go home.”
No one has any objections, so they go home.
-
“Mmph,” Juhoon breathes into Martin's mouth, half asleep. They're lying on Juhoon's bed, kissing unhurriedly with Juhoon lying on top of Martin. Martin licks at the corner of his lips playfully, his hands roaming the expanse of Juhoon's tiny waist.
As he turns his face to allow Martin access to his neck, he spots James passed out on his bed, knocked out despite his earlier protests of their group of half minors not being able to do anything fun. “How is it that they still don't believe it,” he mumbles, before pressing feather-light kisses to Martin's collarbone.
Chuckling softly at the ticklish sensation, Martin brings a hand up to Juhoon's hair, stroking it consolingly.
“Don't mind them,” Martin says. “They're gonna accept it in their own time,” he pauses, “or maybe when they walk in on us making out.”
“That's weirder,” Juhoon whines, propping his head up on Martin's chest with his arms. “I don't want them walking in on us, like, ever.”
Martin pulls him back down to peck him on the cheek. “Me neither,” he laughs, and Juhoon rolls off him onto the bed. He pulls at Martin's arm to wrap around him, nestling his face against the curve of his neck. Martin tone turns serious when he says, “so do you think Keonho and Seonghyeon are in a situationship or nah?”
Juhoon laughs, a free, unbridled thing.