Work Text:
Woonhak's eyes have started to sting from so long staring at the bright WeVerse page in the dead of night. It's too late, or rather early, for him to be still up, especially when they have a schedule in just a few hours, but here he is, driving himself insane over what was probably a throwaway comment tossed out carelessly.
"If Woonhak were a girl, I might've liked him."
Someone should scold him for saying that, Woonhak thinks dully. Wouldn't do to have dating rumors in the group, right? Or is it fine since that could never happen?
Right. Yeah. Woonhak is thinking about things that could never happen. He rolls over restlessly and presses the screen to his chest, finally giving his dry eyes a break from the wall of light. He needs to- to stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about if he were born a girl, if his hair were longer, or his face softer, body with less gangly lean angles, if Dongmin - if he might -
Woonhak squeezes his eyelids shut, trying to force back the familiar pressure building up behind his eyes. It's not possible. Trans people exist, he knows - vaguely, peripherally, but that's not possible for him. It's just not. None of this is, and it's all done and over, it's not like Woonhak can just be born again, so he just needs to shut his brain up and sleep and forget about all of it.
When he finally sinks into fitful rest, an hour of thrashing later, he dreams blurry snapshots of having long hair and delicate hands and Dongmin beaming giddy and unrestrained at her him, that one smile where his eyes crinkle into crescents and he looks like he loves Woonhak. Just like how he smiles at him now, but somehow different, somehow more.
-
Four hours and a bleary car ride later, Woonhak is - surprise, surprise - still thinking about it. His eyes linger on every passing girl group in a way that would have Jaehyun slapping the back of his head if he saw, but he's really not trying to be creepy! He just wants to see what it is he's lacking that makes them attractive. Pure academic curiosity, is all.
But every cute, chic, and classy idol that passes only makes him more aware of the awkward width of his own shoulders, the flat rectangular shape of his torso, and the indelicate lines of muscle and bone on his body. He's never been insecure about himself, has never had reason to, and for a brief second Woonhak suddenly hates Dongmin for doing this to him.
Lost in thought, Woonhak only snaps back to awareness when they get to their waiting room as Donghyun beelines past him to get to the makeup chair first. He stumbles to the couch, sinking into it and resigning to a long day of work on very few hours of sleep. And of course, none other than Han Dongmin himself deigns to perch casually on the armrest, and Woonhak is ridiculously hyperaware of his presence. He hates that too, that he suddenly doesn't know how to act anymore, like he's forgotten how to just exist with Dongmin because of some dumb post.
"Should I try this hair color?" Dongmin says abruptly. Or perhaps it wasn't abrupt, but it startles Woonhak out of his agonizing. Dongmin leans closer to show him his phone, and Woonhak swears he can feel the warmth he gives off even from more than a foot away. It's delusional, and yet Woonhak's stomach is twisting like a teenager with a crush.
He tries to refocus, peering at Dongmin's phone, to see a bright neon green.
"What?" he says incredulously, turning to face Dongmin, only to find him boohit-grinning at him with mirth sparkling in his (stupidly shiny) eyes. "Oh," Woonhak says dumbly. "You're joking." For some reason, the realization feels sour. It shouldn't, Dongmin plays pranks every second of the day and this hardly even counts as one, but somehow Woonhak feels absurdly unable to handle it today of all days.
"Duh," Dongmin responds lightly, leaning away. Woonhak shouldn't feel disappointed.
"Still, wouldn't it be funny though?" Dongmin says, waving his phone back and forth loosely.
"Yeah, sure," Woonhak responds absentmindedly. And then he gets an idea, a bad one, but he still can't stop the words from spilling out of his mouth: "Onedoors would go insane, can you imagine? They'd be all like," and here he hesitates for just a half-beat longer.
"'Taesan-oppa, so cool!!'" Woonhak pitches his voice up - not a lot, not like he usually would as a mimicry of Onedoors, but something more natural and realistic and not nearly close enough to joking. Just to see. Just to try it out.
Woonhak is watching Dongmin's face the whole time, scanning over every part of it with hawk-like focus, which is why he sees the exact instance his face twists in disgust.
"What the hell, man?" Dongmin half-laughs, face still screwed oddly.
Woonhak can't even tell what face he's making. His smile feels stuck on his face, burning where he's forcing it to stay up on his cheeks, mind scrambling for anything to say to recover this disastrous conversation through the roar in his ears and the numb static ringing in his brain. Dongmin acts before he can, shaking his head and casually leaning off the couch, wandering away presumably to bother someone less weird and incapable of social interaction than Woonhak.
Woonhak slowly melts back into the couch, already feeling the flush of humiliation flood his head. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He's still lost in thought when he finally takes his seat at the makeup table. He's trailing his eyes over the spread, not really taking anything in, except - except his eyes catch on the makeups they use for the girl groups, and if he tilts his head just a little he can see the long, sleek wigs at the other table, and for the second time that day Woonhak makes a terrible, terrible decision and is speaking before he thinks.
"Noona, can I borrow some of those?" he asks, words wobbling at the end as he starts regretting it halfway through. The makeup artist blinks, caught off guard.
"Some of what?" she asks politely, and Woonhak has to swallow around his suddenly very dry throat.
"Some of this," he says, waving vaguely over the makeup table, "And one of the wigs, maybe?" he says, voice squeaking upwards at the end. He avoids eyecontact with her as she takes his question in, face unreadable.
"I'm gonna - I'm gonna play a prank on one of the members," he adds hastily, and her face clears.
"Oh," she laughs, and Woonhak must be imagining the relief in her voice. "I'm not sure about the wig, but you can borrow some of this makeup for sure. Just bring it back tomorrow, yeah?" she says, going back to combing out his hair as she talks. A rush of relief fills Woonhak.
"You really can't spare a wig? Just for a day?" he tries, some ugly feeling twisting in him at the thought of trying - something, with just his short bleach-fried hair to work with. The makeup artist hmms consideringly, turning an assessing gaze over the assortment of hair products.
"Okay, fine. This one, I don't think anyone's used in months, it should be safe to borrow," she relents, handing over a sealed plastic bag. Woonhak's heart jumps.
"Thank you! I'll bring it back tomorrow, I promise!" he rushes out, hands almost shaking as he reaches out to take the bag. She hums in response.
Woonhak spends the rest of the workday in a daze, unable to focus on anything but the stolen set of makeup and the wig carefully stashed in his bag. He's practically vibrating by the time they get off work, rushing out hasty good-nights to Donghyun and Jaehyun at the dorms before speedwalking to the bathroom, contraband in hand.
He's breathless as he carefully arranges and organizes the stuff - he's seen the makeup artists work millions of times, and even snuck in a girl's makeup tutorial on the car ride home, so it's with not fully baseless confidence that he sets to work. Skipping all the base steps in his rush, he goes straight for the lipstick - the exact shade he was wearing in his dream, a bold shade of pink, and he can almost see it. He can almost see the girl he was in his dream, and there's giddy butterflies in his chest, except that he looks up in the mirror and -
It's just Woonhak, with lipstick.
There's a heavy feeling settling into the bottom of his stomach. But there's other steps, and what does lipstick do, anyways? Surely, when he's done, he'll look like a girl. He'll look like himself, but a girl, so not himself.
The mascara goes on next, and then the fake eyelashes, and the blush, and the eyeliner, and all the right steps that made the girl in the video look darling and lovely and cute and chic and classy, and the wig goes on too as some last ditch effort, but.
But it's just Woonhak in the mirror. Woonhak, with lipstick and mascara and a wig that sits wrong on his head, looking closer to a clown than a girl, or like a kid in his mom's makeup. Stupid, stupid Woonhak, with his stupid angular face with all the wrong dimensions to be the girl from his dream because of - anatomy, or genetics, or some other stupid, dumb, unchangeable reason that says that Dongmin can't be in love with Woonhak.
His vision blurs sharply in the mirror, and he has to blink quickly against the painful pulsing behind his eyes. There's a lump in his throat, and an ache in his temple, but Woonhak will not cry over this. That would just be the final straw of humiliation in this whole disaster, and he cannot, will not let it happen.
He's suddenly angry, as he tears off the wig and scrubs the makeup off probably too forcefully. He's not a girl, he's not trying to be a girl, he doesn't want to be a girl. What he wants is to be liked by Dongmin.
His reflection in the mirror, lipstick smudged up his cheeks in a cruel sneer, is only proof that he never will be.
-
The next day, he returns the makeup and wig with a deep bow to the stylists and a grin that doesn't quite reach his eyes. Dongmin, passing by, notices the exchange, because of course he does.
"What's all that, did you need that stuff for something?" he asks, curious and casual. Woonhak laughs, bright and false.
"Nothing important," he says airily. "It was stupid."