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MJ is an angel.
They all look good, the whole music video is amazing, but MJ looks like an angel.
That’s what Jinwoo had thought when he first saw the music video, his breath momentarily stolen from him, at the sight of his silver-bleached hair turned blond in the editing and his eyes blue because of the lenses he was wearing.
He’d lost a lot of weight for this comeback too, and whilst he was cute with his rounded cheeks and baby belly, Jinwoo can’t deny that MJ looks ethereal now.
After they had filmed the reaction video for their YouTube channel as a group, Jinwoo found himself turning back to the video, to watch the curve of MJ’s jaw, the delicate reach of his fingers where he holds an orange.
Like now, sat on the sofa in the dark of their dorm room, having managed to chase the rest of them to bed: Sanha from his video games and Minhyuk from his skincare and Bin from the fridge and Dongmin from another script, so that his phone screen is the only light in the whole place, bordering on too bright, so that eery shadows are made against the walls. On the screen, MJ reaches out, and although the sound is off, Jinwoo can hear the high note in his head, and then again, when he rewinds the video.
MJ is an angel.
The keypad for the front door beeps, and Jinwoo jumps, shutting his phone off reflexively. There’s a shuffling noise, as shoes are slipped off, then a thunk and a muffled swear as Myungjun bumps into something - his foot against the step from the heongwan, presumably - and Jinwoo smiles at the darkness.
“Are you okay?” His own voice feels loud after being in silence for so long, even though he’s whispering.
There is no response from the darkness for a long while, and then the moonlight catches the silver of Myungjun’s hair and his pale skin as he approaches the living room.
“I stubbed my toe,” he pouts, and Jinwoo resists the urge to laugh. He holds out his arms instead, and Myungjun falls into them easily.
MJ may be an angel on screen, but this is Jinwoo’s favourite version of his hyung. Soft from exhaustion; quiet, or as quiet as he can be, in the dark; warm in Jinwoo’s arms.
There’s a time limit on this Myungjun, before they’re hyung and dongsaeng, leader and member again. Myungjun recharges faster than any battery, and Jinwoo adores excited Myungjun - the one that keeps them going when dance practice runs long and late, or forces a smile on Jinwoo’s face after a difficult meeting (because being a leader also meant being six voices combined into one, and the pressure of that had tripled in the last year) - as much as he adores any other Myungjun, but getting excited Myungjun into bed without waking the younger ones was an Olympian feat.
As a responsible leader, he should drive Myungjun towards his room, to remove any lingering makeup and into his messily made bed, but he’s unable to help himself from pressing a quick kiss to Myungjun’s cheek.
Myungjun shrieks into Jinwoo’s ear, and Jinwoo shushes him.
“I’m really disgusting at the moment,” Myungjun murmurs, like they haven’t being living together for half a decade, as sweaty adolescents and then professional performers.
”I don’t mind.”
Myungjun is quiet again, then a slobbery kiss lands on Jinwoo’s face, closer to his ear than the apple of his cheek.
Jinwoo pushes him away. “I changed my mind, you are disgusting.”
Myungjun snorts - too loud - and Jinwoo can’t make out his expression in between the shadows from the moonlight, but he imagines it to be smug.
“Go wash up,” Jinwoo tells him, grumbling as if he’s upset, “before you wake up the others.”
It’s an effective threat, normally, because Myungjun is the madhyung, no matter how cute or childish he acts, Jinwoo knows how seriously he takes that role, like how Myungjun knows that Jinwoo will take all kinds of teasing from the members, so long as they give him a hug in the evening, as a reminder that they still care about him.
”Jinwoo-ya,” Myungjun says, voice pitched up like when he does fan service aegyo, and Jinwoo knows, he knows, that Myungjun wants to stay in the dark, in the quiet, in the warm, where the world isn’t quite real, but both of them are whole, but smoothed at the edges.
Jinwoo wants to stay too.
But, maybe because of the aegyo, or maybe because he’s been staring at a too bright angel for too long, he’s not quite softened enough to give in, but responds with hushed indignation, “Ew, hyung, see if I stay up for you again,” as if Jinwoo wouldn’t gladly spend the rest of his life waiting in the dark for Myungjun.
Myungjun is quicker, though, when Jinwoo brushes past him on the way to the bedrooms, and wraps his arms around Jinwoo’s waist from behind, like they’re the main characters in a romance drama.
They don’t speak, but Myungjun, who can never stay still, sways them side to side to some silent song - or, more likely, to some trot song that Jinwoo would know by sound but not by name or artist.
MJ is an angel, but Myungjun is real. Real and solid, where he rests his head on Jinwoo’s shoulder, where his breath cools Jinwoo’s ear, where an angel could never hope to be more real than a dream.
“I missed you,” Myungjun says at last.
Jinwoo knows that those aren’t the right words, but the right words aren’t for the dark, strangely. But Jinwoo knows, and he tilts his head back until it lands on Myungjun’s shoulder behind him in reply.
Myungjun’s lips ghost his neck where he’s exposed it to the open air, not quite a kiss but not quite empty air either.
At a lack of anything else to say, Jinwoo responds with, “I waited for you,” which is obvious.
Myungjun giggles and thanks him.
Jinwoo adds, “We really do have to go to bed, though. We have a busy day tomorrow.”
Myungjun huffs against Jinwoo’s Adam’s apple. “We always have a busy day tomorrow.”
Thank goodness, Jinwoo doesn’t say, because he feels happy right now, and he doesn’t want to think of the quiet, empty days last year when they had no work.
Thankfully, Myungjun correctly interprets his silence, and releases Jinwoo. Jinwoo misses him immediately. “Let me have some honey tea first, then. I feel like my throat’s going to be bad tomorrow.”
”Go wash up, I’ll bring it to you.”
“JinJin the best!” Myungjun squeals in accented English, then flounces to the bathroom, and Jinwoo can’t catch his laugh before it escapes his chest.
He gathers his phone from where he abandoned it on the sofa, so he can use the torch to make the tea, rather than turn on the big light. He thinks he hears shuffling from one of the bedrooms when he switches on the kettle - Minhyuk or Dongmin are the lightest sleepers; it’s a miracle (or a testament to their exhaustion) that nobody has been woken up yet - but no one emerges so Jinwoo supposes that they must go back to sleep.
They don’t have the honey tea bags any more, because the other members make a fuss (except Bin, who’ll eat almost anything), and Jinwoo, who isn’t a singer and therefore hasn’t ever actually needed to use them, isn’t really in a place to argue against it, so he makes it with real honey. The jar of it has taken to living on the counter beside the kettle during promotions, because it’s used so frequently; anyone who would think to put it away was already using it.
He puts in a teaspoon and a half for Myungjun, because he has a sweet tooth, but it’s late and Jinwoo doesn’t want him to stay up late, or at least, later, because of the sugar, then stirs it until the honey has melted away.
The phone torch is used again to navigate around the dorm, the tea held in the other hand, so that he has to nudge the door to the three-person room open with his foot, glad that Myungjun thought to leave it cracked.
Jinwoo doesn’t think it takes that long to make the tea - the water’s still hot in the cup - but Myungjun is already tucked in bed, although, given his rushed personality and Jinwoo’s more relaxed pace, it’s equally likely that Myungjun hurried through his skincare or it took longer than Jinwoo thought. Or both, even, but Jinwoo is more inclined to believe the former to be true.
Myungjun has earphones in, watching something on his phone, but sets it aside and beams up at Jinwoo when he sets the mug down on the little table. He tucks the blanket around Myungjun’s legs, although it immediately comes loose when Myungjun kicks them about in happiness. Jinwoo rolls his eyes, but feels the same happiness kick around in his stomach.
”Don’t stay up too late.” Jinwoo reminds him, eyeing the phone meaningfully.
”Yes, Mother, “ Myungjun teases back.
Jinwoo bends down and gives Myungjun one last quick hug, then pulls away, before the allure of squeezing in beside him gets too great, like when they were trainees.
He gives a cursory glance at the other occupants of the room - Minhyuk is a shapeless lump under the blankets, so Jinwoo lets him be, lest he wake him; and Sanha is passed out, open-mouthed, limbs askew, although some game is still playing on his phone in his hand, so Jinwoo eases it out of his grip and plugs it in to charge.
He waves at Myungjun (like he’s not just sleeping in the room opposite, like he has some separation issue, which, maybe he does, considering how much of his time not with Myungjun he spends looking at MJ on a screen) and pulls the door closed.
He flips his phone over to check the time, but it unlocks right away, revealing the still opened but paused music video, stopped, amusingly, on MJ.
Behind the door at Jinwoo’s back, he can hear Myungjun making little… Myungjun noises; happy, wordless sounds. Jinwoo smiles at the darkness and swipes at the screen until the video closes.
MJ is an angel.
But Myungjun is Jinwoo’s.