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If there were a prize for most roundabout form of self-sabotage, Hyunjin would be the reigning champion.
He’s really quite talented, and he knows it.
Were he smart, he would have given up from the start, upon realizing that Changbin was infinitely cooler than him, and clearly unreceptive to his affection. Yes, he’d face heartbreak, a few hundred kilos of it. But once his heart breaks, at least then he can figure out how to piece it back together.
(He’s never been good at puzzles, and the last time he tried to use superglue, he got some on his thumb, but Hyunjin is sure he could figure it out. He knows his own heart best after all. Surely he could approximate its shape.)
Too bad Hyunjin is the leader of paboracha, then.
Too bad he opted instead to place his heart right under the weight of a skyscraper, building story after story on top of it and watching it buckle under the strain, but never break.
Too bad he thinks—no, feels—that it would be worse to break than to suffer like this infinitely.
Tonight’s poison of choice is a clip from the latest Talker video.
“Ah, the lights are so pretty and sparkly, like Hyunjin’s eyes!” Changbin’s voice crows through his phone speaker.
Hyunjin huffs irritably at the screen, at Changbin’s innocent (and devastatingly attractive) grin. His heart rate goes from “normal, healthy, adult male” to “Miroh BPM” in the blink of an eye. A betrayal.
Hyunjin hadn’t even been there for Changbin to flirt with when he made that comment.
And why should I be? he thinks sarcastically (his favorite line of defense). It’s more for Stays than for me.
(He still guzzles it down like water in a desert.)
Another day, another attack:
“Hyunjin-ah, your lips are so pretty. Just one kiss, this time?” Changbin puckers his lips with all the dramatics of a soap opera, and Hyunjin has to pull a face so disgusted that it will trick his heart into feeling that way.
(It doesn’t. His heart is less easily fooled than his head, and that’s precisely his problem.)
What sucks is that Changbin doesn’t even realize he’s making it worse every time he does things like this.
Which is often.
Very often.
Incessantly, obnoxiously often.
And then.
THEN.
Then Changbin starts popping into his room every night.
Hyunjin doesn’t keep tabs on Chan and Jisung; they’re either still in the studio, or in their rooms, or at the other dorm, or climbing Mount Everest. He really doesn’t care, actually.
But Changbin. Changbin comes, and sometimes he shouts in a sing-songy voice, “I’m hoooome!” and Hyunjin can just see him in his mind’s eye, toeing off his chunky sneakers by the door, hair mussed, grin on his bare face.
That’s usually what happens when he gets back earlier.
If it’s late, he comes in quietly. Quietly enough that Hyunjin shouldn’t hear, but sitting in bed or at his desk with his pan of watercolors or his palette dotted with dabs of acrylic, a part of him is always waiting and listening. The faint beeps as Changbin enters the code into their electronic keypad lock. The softest of clicks as he shuts the door behind himself. The creak of the floorboard as he passes the kitchen on the way to the hall.
Hyunjin waits and listens, always.
(He even leaves his door ajar to hear better, but he likes to lie and say it’s not on purpose. Or that it’s for some airflow. He’s already inhaled too many paint fumes; he thinks that’s what started the hallucinations, which involve the usual occurrence of Changbin coming in to see how he is, maybe nuzzle his cheek, but then the nuzzle turns to a kiss, and Hyunjin can feel himself sinking into the mattress as Changbin mouths down his neck and- well. He really needs to stop wishing for something that will never happen.)
“Hyunjin-ah,” Changbin says sweetly, poking his head in the doorway. He has that affectionate smile brushed on in dusty rose, the one Hyunjin likes to believe is only for him. When he succumbs to his paint fume hallucinations, of course. “You’re still awake?”
Hyunjin hums, swishing his brush into the murky jar of water. It turns a quarter shade bluer, a cumulus cloud of pigment that disperses into fog.
If he painted Changbin, what color would he be? Blue, purple, gold? The hardest colors to come by, once upon a time. Unattainable, untouchable.
As if to spite him, Changbin comes right up close to look at his painting, so close he can smell the spice of his fading cologne, cutting through the paint fumes, then reaching an equilibrium with them.
It’s a noxious combination. The hallucinations start up again, bad as ever.
Hyunjin kissing him, holding him tight enough to feel the softness of his chest and stomach, slowly teasing up the hem of his shirt and knowing that Changbin will treasure every moment with him-
Hyunjin bites his tongue.
Changbin compliments his landscape, even though the stormy sky is too blue and not gray enough to hold all the moodiness it’s meant to.
What does Changbin know about moodiness?
He’s like a toddler. His tantrums come on suddenly and fiercely, but he’s back to hugs and giggles in the blink of an eye.
He doesn’t know of these bottled things Hyunjin battles every day.
That’s why he’s so nonchalant as he starts to stroke Hyunjin’s hair and ask about his day.
Hyunjin sighs, and caves once again, letting his heart take the reins.
More pressure, crushing, as he accepts the affection instead of letting himself crack.
Is this always what it’s like, falling in love with a straight guy? He’s so oblivious that it doesn’t even cross his mind that Hyunjin would react to this in any way but platonic.
He’s so- so stupid.
(It’s not a kind thing to think about Changbin, but Hyunjin is glad for it. If he weren’t stupid, he would realize how Hyunjin felt every time he touched him or was close to him, or looked at him or spoke to him. And then he would stop. And Hyunjin would probably die.)
(It makes Hyunjin angry anyway.)
He’s stupid and oblivious, but still Hyunjin waits for him every night, and still Changbin comes in without fail. Sometimes just to say hello or goodnight, and sometimes to chat and to cling, and sometimes just to watch him paint.
Hyunjin starts telling him to close the door once he’s inside.
He wonders if, with enough paint fumes, Changbin too might start hallucinating.
(Even though he’s stupid and straight.)
~
Maybe it’s Hyunjin’s fault for laughing too easily.
Since almost the beginning, Changbin has gone wild with his flirting: comments on Hyunjin’s lips, clinging and gushing in an exaggerated fangirl voice, talking about dating or being a couple or even marriage.
(Four times, so far. Hyunjin’s been keeping track. Not on purpose. Each time is sort of like getting a piercing: the needle gun punches right through his skin before he even realizes what’s about to happen, and he could let it close, but he leaves in the stud, so it doesn’t. He remembers, without even trying.)
Changbin will do everything for a reaction, with anyone. He’ll spill out all his energy like Niagara Falls, thundering and incessant, and when people laugh, it charges him up even more.
Hyunjin never should have laughed.
Unfortunately for him, his muscles seem to behave on their own when Changbin is involved. Sometimes he gets sick of being called pretty, but when Changbin does it, he hears a peal of laughter and knows from the tightness in his stomach that something in the emotional, reactive epicenter of his brain has betrayed him again.
And that time Changbin pretended to open a ring box in front of him? Don’t even get him started. His face cracked into a smile, and he instantly knew that he’d ruined everything.
Changbin joked, Hyunjin laughed, and now Changbin would do the same thing five thousand more times.
Five thousand punches to the heart will leave it pretty raw.
Hyunjin needs to stop laughing.
~
Hyunjin is pretty sure nobody knows.
He laughs, yes, but he plays it so cool. Nonchalance, casual rejection of Changbin’s incessant jokes. He hangs out with Changbin all the time because it would be more suspicious if he didn’t, and he doesn’t want people to judge or pity him.
(He also likes hanging out with Changbin, even when it hurts. Which it does. Every time.)
So they go bowling and painting and walking and to that new barbecue place with the free soup on Wednesdays. And Changbin jokes, and Hyunjin laughs, and it stokes the fire that should have long burned out, but Hyunjin loves the warmth even though he keeps getting singed by the embers.
At least nobody’s figured him out.
~
“Why do you keep pretending you don’t like Changbin?”
Actually, fuck Seungmin.
“I was talking with Chan and he’s kind of worried about you.”
And fuck Chan, too.
“Felix told him that it’s getting out of hand.”
Well dammit, he doesn’t have the heart to say fuck Felix.
But he’s Hyunjin and he knows how to play it cool when it comes to Changbin. That’s his whole thing.
He takes a deep breath and leans back into the so-called cutie dorm’s couch (neither Seungmin nor Felix seems very cute to him at this particular moment; in his head they’ve sprouted devil horns and mischievous smiles and conjured pitchforks), and he makes a show of being very relaxed and unbothered.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says airily.
Seungmin laughs. He laughs. At Hyunjin.
“Stop that!” he frowns, irritated.
It takes Seungmin about a hundred full seconds of staring at the ceiling and scrunching his facial features like he’s about to sneeze to finally quit chuckling. He also stares an extra thirty seconds, and it kind of looks like he’s praying.
Finally, his head falls back down and his eyes stare into Hyunjin’s soul.
“I can’t tell if you’re lying to me or to yourself,” he says, “but it’s not working.”
Hyunjin hates his members.
~
Unfortunately, Seungmin’s confrontation buzzes like a mosquito in his ear the whole rest of the evening.
Most things that bother him, he can talk about with Changbin.
(He listens and makes him feel better. Even though it also hurts.)
This is not so simple. And since all his friends, apparently, are in on the backstabbing, he’s not sure he can go to any of them.
Maybe that’s why he breaks.
Changbin doesn’t come into his room until after one in the morning, and Hyunjin had half a mind to call him and ask when he would be back.
(He’s done it before. Changbin liked the attention, and his flirting was so over-the-top and silly when he got back that Hyunjin knew it was dangerous to do it again. It would only encourage the monster.)
(He did it again two weeks later and pretended the flirting was real.)
He had half a mind to call him, but he didn’t, just waited and listened.
Changbin comes into his room first thing, like always, peeking in cautiously.
“It’s late, Hyunjin-ah,” he says, slipping in. “You’re not even under the covers yet.”
He’s right. Hyunjin washed up, got into comfy sweatpants and a tee, and has been sitting cross-legged on his bed staring at the wall for the past hour and a half, feeling one-third like he’s dying, one-third dead, and one-third like his hallucinations are actually quite nice and maybe this time Changbin will come right up to him and put his hands solidly on his waist and kiss him senseless.
Hyunjin pouts, because Changbin did not do any of that, and he has to pretend he doesn’t care, and he’s tired of it.
Changbin’s pretty mouth (always moisturized; Hyunjin started using the same strawberry lip balm because he’s normal like that) quirks into a smile.
“Ah, Hyunjin!” he says, in his flirty joke voice, with a playful punch to Hyunjin’s shoulder. “Were you waiting for me?”
Hyunjin’s face drops into a frown, and his eyes widen as Changbin’s fisted hands relax and settle onto his waist.
“You just couldn’t go to sleep without hyung holding you!”
Warmth floods Hyunjin’s neck and face.
He doesn’t laugh, not this time.
He doesn’t think he could if he tried, chest and throat constricting in desire and frustration and- and everything.
“Would you- just shut up already?”
Changbin reels back, the soft, teasing smile falling from his face. Hyunjin’s waist goes cold without his hands there.
“I… sorry?”
He looks confused, and Hyunjin can’t stand it anymore. How utterly oblivious he is.
The foundations start to fracture.
“Don’t you ever think about how this makes me feel?” he blurts out.
(His own words scare him. They’ll ruin everything, his heart cries out in warning. But his heart is too strained from holding up the skyscraper to also keep his mouth shut like it should.)
“You-” Changbin frowns. “You don’t like it? You always seem to like it when I say things like that…”
“I do like it!” Hyunjin shouts, like a confetti popper that rains down tissue paper squares of exasperation and lovesickness all around them.
Surprise!
(It’s gonna be a nightmare to clean up.)
“That’s the problem!” he cries.
“How is that-”
“Yes, I like you saying those things, but only when I imagine you mean them!” Hyunjin’s teeth and lips and tongue have become a direct pipeline from his heart, leaving his head out of the discussion. He can’t stop them now. “Not when you say them as some stupid- some stupid joke!”
Hyunjin feels like a volcano, heated with so much passion and pressure, unable to stop himself from exploding.
Changbin’s brow wrinkles and of course he looks confused, Hyunjin thinks, fuming. He’s so unaware, oblivious, stupid! Hyunjin can’t stop it; he glows red hot, even as Changbin inhales slowly, maintaining an air of infuriating calm.
“Hyunjin,” he says, like he’s calming a rabid dog. (That’s what Hyunjin thinks, at least, because that’s how he feels. Granted, it’s not an objective assessment, but Hyunjin is anything but objective when it comes to Changbin.) “I’ve been praising you, spending all my free time with you, and practically begging you to kiss me for the past four years.”
Don’t I know it, Hyunjin thinks miserably.
“What part of that sounds like a joke?!” Changbin finishes.
Unbelievable. Un. Believable.
“Obviously it’s a joke!” Hyunjin shouts, throwing both hands in the air in a show of frustration. Because clearly Changbin doesn’t get that he’s serious and he means it and he can’t take this bullshit anymore. “You’re straight!”
Changbin stares, then pinches the bridge of his nose and screws his eyes shut.
“And why,” he says, voice straining, “pray tell, do you believe that I’m straight?”
Hyunjin huffs in disbelief.
Does Changbin think he’s daft? Blind?
It’s not like he’s ever even pretended to keep it a secret. His interest in girls.
“Remember?” he says coolly, with a roll of his eyes. “That time at the crab place during District 9 promotions? You told me all about that girlfriend you had in eighth grade!”
Changbin’s hand drops, followed by his jaw. He stares.
Checkmate.
Hyunjin crosses his arms and glares, because how dare he have the audacity to get upset when he’s the one who made everything entirely obvious from the start. Being straight, flirting with Hyunjin for the laughs anyway, not even realizing that it might upset him.
Changbin is gaping at him, studying him, and Hyunjin gazes right back, steely and confident. Challenging him to argue.
He smirks, knowing full well that he won’t be able to.
“Oh my god,” Changbin finally whispers, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I’m in love with an idiot.”
An idiot! How dare he?!
“Hey! I am not an-” Hyunjin freezes. Suddenly his insides feel like they’re in a time warp, slowing then racing in an irregular stumble.
He stares. Rewinds in his head. Sniffs the air for unusually high levels of paint fumes, just in case.
“What did you just say?” he whispers.
“I said,” Changbin closes the distance and takes Hyunjin’s face in his hands. He feels like he’s one-third dying, one-third hallucinating, and one-third brilliantly, vibrantly alive, blazing with the light of a thousand suns, “that I’m in love with an idiot.”
Hyunjin breathes into the space between them, smaller than it’s ever been. Smaller than the time Changbin pretended he was going to kiss him during a livestream once (had he wanted to?), smaller than the time he was removing an eyelash from Hyunjin’s cheek while filming a B-side music video (did his heart also flip-flop in that wonderfully awful way?), smaller than the time they were playing two truths and a lie and he got right up close to stare into Hyunjin’s eyes to see if he was lying.
(Not that Hyunjin was keeping track. Not on purpose.)
“Um, so just to clarify,” he whispers, “you’re very not straight?”
“That is correct.”
“And, um. I’m the idiot?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Hyunjin blinks. He glances at Changbin’s lips, then back up.
“That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
(He won’t tell Changbin how many times he called him stupid under his breath, in the privacy of his bedroom.)
“Saying nice things never worked before now, did it?” Changbin teases gently.
“Oh, it worked all too well,” Hyunjin confesses, breathy and starting to grow wonderfully dizzy.
“Well that’s good then, isn’t it?”
Hyunjin might pass out from the paint fumes.
So he lets the only coherent words he can think of slip out.
“Kiss me, then.”
And Changbin does.
He surges forward like a tidal wave, cooling all the last trickles of Hyunjin’s lava with the eager pressure of his mouth. It floods Hyunjin’s senses, engulfs him. He parts his lips and allows Changbin in, scooting forward to brace his knees around his hips, every point of contact overwhelming but far from enough.
Changbin’s lips are silken, soft, and there’s a faint mintiness on his tongue. His arms wrap around Hyunjin, strong and warm, pulling him in tightly. Hyunjin lets his own arms slip over Changbin’s shoulders, around his neck, burying fingers in coarse curls and cotton t-shirt.
Everything Hyunjin wanted (well, almost everything, but he can take things slow. Probably. Maybe not.) beneath his hands, trembling from excitement and overwhelm.
Sharp breaths through their noses, an equilibrium that teeters just enough to keep things interesting. Changbin pulling, Hyunjin pushing, a tilt, a press, a gasp.
“Pabo,” Changbin murmurs against his mouth.
(His voice is so sexy, and even more so when it vibrates directly through Hyunjin’s skin, and-)
He pulls away, but Changbin chases his mouth so desperately that Hyunjin has to turn his face altogether, Changbin’s lips meeting his cheek instead.
Oh.
That feels nice, too. Very nice.
Hyunjin reminds himself to paste on a pout.
“I’m not a pabo.”
Changbin smirks, lovingly. Warmly.
Has he always looked at me like that?
Hyunjin knows the answer, of course he knows the answer, because he has every microscopic pixel of Changbin memorized.
“I’m a little bit a pabo,” he admits with a reluctant sigh.
(He would confess to a crime he did not commit if it meant getting more of Changbin, getting every touch and smile and glimmer in his eye, every kiss and sigh and murmured word. But perhaps being a fool is a crime he did commit. In self-defense, of course.)
“Thanks for getting mad at me,” Changbin says then, “so we could finally get to this.”
He leans in, kissing right under Hyunjin’s ear and along his neck.
(Hyunjin gasps and arches forward, legs wrapping tighter to pull him closer. So floaty from the sensation, in fact, that he mixes up which sort of sentences belong in parentheses.)
But it’s alright, because between kissing on his bed and waiting up each night and Changbin’s cheesy pickup lines (he’s already picked Hyunjin up, but it still makes Hyunjin feel high), the lines between his head and his heart blur pleasantly. Perfectly.
No superglue needed.