Chapter Text
Look.
At some point, some undetermined point, somewhen in between hours spent fogging up the mirror in their dance practice room and nights spent trying to sleep on endlessly long flights to the States and days spent mostly in a car from one schedule to another, Jaehyun has grown out of the boy who used to giggle into the crook of Doyoung’s neck and drool on Doyoung’s shoulder as he fell asleep half way through a movie. Who used to wrap his arms around Doyoung and lift him up in celebration when he bowled a strike against Taeyong’s team (because, of course Taeyong is the leader of the opponent team) and hard-carried them to victory, and let Doyoung giggle into the crook of his neck.
Really, it's no big deal. He’s simply grown out of that boy.
The boy who used to let Doyoung squeeze his cheeks and press a finger against his dimples to see how deep they go, the boy who used to whine about his growing pain and make Doyoung massage his limbs to soothe it, the boy who used to sneakily take off and hide one of Doyoung’s sneakers when he finally got knocked out in the corner of the practice room after a particularly gruesome eight-hour dance practice.
It’s nothing big, really. Jaehyun’s simply gotten older and grown taller and broader and lost all the baby fat on his cheeks, no longer a giddy something-teen year-old like he was when he first met Doyoung all those years ago, back when Doyoung was new, still didn’t dare to even make eye contact with Taeyong and thought Yuta intentionally ignored his question, not knowing Yuta still needed a translator app to communicate with everyone.
The point is that he has grown up and changed. So has Doyoung.
That is precisely and entirely why Jaehyun has found himself at this very specific point right now, in this very moment where he looks at Doyoung like this and decides he can't share a room with him. Not when Doyoung is fresh out from the shower with his hair still wet and his neck still damp, walking around in striped pyjama pants and a familiar t-shirt Jaehyun hasn’t seen for a long, long time that has become all threadbare and worn-out, yet somehow still just as too big for Doyoung as it was years ago. He just can’t.
See, it’s all explainable. Everything’s perfectly fine and nothing requires an elaborated answer, or any answer at all. What even is there to be questioned? So when Doyoung looks at him, eyes wide and voice quiet as he asks “Why?”, Jaehyun can’t utter a single word until a long moment later.
“Just because,” he says, trying hard to make his sudden request to switch rooms sound as self-explanatory and totally not that big of a deal to Doyoung as it is to him.
And maybe it works, long minutes after, because Doyoung simply turns around and leaves without any further questions, shutting the door gently and leaving Jaehyun standing there, staring at it.
“Jaehyun, do you maybe have a spare t-shirt?”
Doyoung looked at him and for a moment there, he oddly resembled a small animal stuck in the rain, much like the kitten Jaehyun found in a carton box on the way home from school many, many years ago. He was reminiscing the feeling of running his hand through its wet fur to soothe the shivering animal when a bizarre thought flashed across his mind – and all of sudden Jaehyun was the one shuddering: Hypothetically, if he were to wipe the raindrop sitting on Doyoung’s cheek away, would Doyoung also purr under his touch?
God. What was he thinking. He was mostly shielded from the rain, but it seemed like water did get into his brain and force some screws loose after all. Or was it the ramyeon they had? The corndog? Or the fishcake? See, Jaehyun did feel like it tasted kind of weird.
He swallowed hard, purposely looked away from where Doyoung’s drenched shirt stuck tight to his skin, transparent fabric hugging the outline of his body and focused on rummaging through his backpack like he didn’t only have five things in there, neatly organized.
“I only have this one, hyung”
He pulled out his practice t-shirt a little while later, and half expected Doyoung not to take it. It was common understanding that practice clothes could (and normally would have to) go a few days without a proper wash, and they as trainees so close to debuting, obviously didn’t just practice and sweat once every few days. Jaehyun silently thanked his mom for upending his backpack against his will yesterday and throwing this t-shirt and two pair of socks into the washing machine, or else it would have been kind of gross to even offer Doyoung the t-shirt, let alone expect him not to take it.
What he didn’t expect, however, was seeing Doyoung emerging a few minutes later, with Jaehyun’s t-shirt hung loosely on his frame, collar dipping a little too low around his neck and at that very, very specific moment: something in Jaehyun shifted.
“It’s a little big,” Doyoung smiled, bringing a hand up to push some wet strands of hair stuck on Jaehyun’s forehead away, “you’ve really grown so much.”
“Don’t look at me with those proud mom eyes,” he flinched away when Doyoung’s hand dropped down to his cheek, the slight and supposedly familiar touch suddenly searing against his skin. Ha, as if Doyoung hadn’t gotten so used to squeezing Jaehyun’s cheeks like some kind of rubber stress relief toys for literal years already.
He tried not to notice the way Doyoung’s hand froze mid-air for a few seconds, before he dropped it down to play with the hem of his shirt.
“I practically half raised you, child.”
“Yeah, on instant noodles and microwaved kimbab and ice cre-“
Jaehyun would have laughed at the look of horror on Doyoung’s face if Doyoung’s hand wasn’t pressed on his mouth, stopping him from whatever horrifyingly scandalous thing he was about to sprout next. Doyoung shot a glare at their manager standing in the corner - grumpy as always and ready to give them hell for going off track on their diet and seethed: “Do you want me dead or something?!”
He was pretty sure the manager wouldn’t just kill Doyoung for using their precious mid-practice break to sneak out and eat junk food, but he shook his head anyway. Jaehyun really didn’t want anyone dead, he decided.
They looked at each other’s eyes for a solid minute before breaking into hysterical laughter.
It was their little secret, their little hide out, that place. Doyoung had taken him to that convenience store for the first time four months after they first met, mischief coloring his tone as he told Jaehyun “just trust me, I basically found heaven on earth” which turned out to be just fifteen-minutes away from their company, hidden somewhere in one of Seoul’s numerous poorly lit, unnamed alleys and pathways. There was hardly ever anyone there safe for some extremely exhausted late shift workers, and them.
Them. Two teenage boys at wee hours in the morning, limbs about to physically fall off their bodies after practice and before even more practice, stomachs growling as they waited for the water to boil so they could cook their cup noodles, drooling at the smell of oily greasy spicy food the way all boys their age would.
Except all boys their age wouldn’t have been forced to eat boiled chicken breast and broccoli and nuts and had their weight checked every single week like them. There was a diet to follow and he had tried his best to follow it, until Doyoung, being the bad, bad influence that he was, brought Jaehyun to that convenience store and told him to pick whatever he wanted. Jaehyun would still argue about Doyoung’s bold claim of having practically raised him, though, because how much could his eight-centimeter growth spurt have to do with instant, probably full of MSG and artificial flavoring food anyway?
But he wouldn’t argue now, not when Doyoung was standing in front of him and looking ridiculously small in Jaehyun’s t-shirt when he was in fact just a mere centimeter shorter. Not when Doyoung's hair was still wet from the rain, because this idiot of a boy had taken his hooded, water proof jacket off and insisted that Jaehyun should wear it the moment it started downright pouring on their way back.
“Next time it’s my treat, hyung.”
The next time they were there, however, Jaehyun forgot his wallet and so Doyoung still ended up paying, like he always did. He also forgot to ever return Jaehyun’s t-shirt.
Jaehyun couldn’t find it in him to mind.
The next day when he shows up for rehearsal at their concert venue, Jaehyun’s almost relieved to see Doyoung chasing Donghyuck across the stage with a shoe in his hand. Taeyong is talking to their dance instructor. Mark is showing Johnny something on his phone. Yuta is letting Jungwoo play with his hair. Taeil is stretching. Good, everything is absolutely fine. Everyone seems perfectly fine, no one looks like they’ve spent a whole night being hurt or offended or questioning why their assigned roommate refused to room with them, or anything.
He goes to join Taeil, not really looking at Donghyuck now clinging onto Doyoung like a koala and not really hearing Jungwoo calling “Hyung! Look at this!” as he runs towards the older like the real, actual human embodiment of a hyperactive puppy that he is.
“So much energy, those kids,” Taeil sighs as he changes posture, “I honestly don’t know how Doyoung can deal with them.”
Jaehyun hums a half-hearted answer to that, not because he’s still looking at Donghyuck and Jungwoo piling themselves atop Doyoung like a stack of pancakes and definitely not because he's listening to Doyoung’s exasperated groan from being squished under the weight of two fully grown men, or anything. Kids, huh.
“I wonder if they’ll stop one day,” Taeil continues when Jaehyun turns to him and shoots him a quizzical look, his stop what? not necessarily having to be spoken out loud for Taeil to elaborate, “you know, like you did.”
“Hyung, you’re gonna have to be much more specific than that,” Jaehyun laughs
Taeil sits up straight now, staring at Jaehyun with eyes that Jaehyun has never been able to read. Taeil is like that, simple only at the very first glance. “You used to be like that too, you know?”
“Like, hyperactive and making it my life’s mission to exhaust you guys?”
Taeil scoffs. He grabs his coffee before standing up and looking down at Jaehyun with knowing eyes, eyes that say I know a bit too loud for Jaehyun’s liking at the moment. But then just a second later, before Jaehyun manages to look away, Taeil’s shaking his head, and points his chin towards a table in the corner where some staff are gathered around: “Doyoung bought Starbucks for everyone.”
“He got himself a fully caffeinated, double-shot Americano, Jaehyun.”
Doyoung only ever drinks decaf, that much Jaehyun - everyone - knows, and today Doyoung doesn’t. And Taeil only ever rooms alone during oversea tours, he also knows this much, but seems like yesterday, Taeil didn’t. The older then leaves - almost too nonchalantly, like he didn’t just tell Jaehyun in the most roundabout way possible that Doyoung didn’t sleep a wink last night and it has everything to do with Jaehyun or something.
His stomach churns.
Jaehyun looks around. Taeyong is now going through the choreography for his solo stage. Yuta and Johnny are giggling about their freshly painted nails. Jungwoo is listening to Mark playing guitar. Donghyuck is heading towards Taeil. And Doyoung is looking at him with a face blank of any expression, eyes wide and alert and once again – after however many years - Jaehyun is reminded of the easily-frightened kitten he found on the sidewalk on a day where the rain had poured heavier than any day before that.
As he always is: Taeil is absolutely right.
Jaehyun used to be just like Donghyuck and Jungwoo, riling Doyoung up and following him like a puppy and basking himself in Doyoung’s undivided attention because he once used to be just like Donghyuck and Jungwoo, the youngest of the bunch and was allowed to be that childish. That’s what it is, right? He used to be like that, but he's grown out of it. That’s what it must have been, right? Doyoung has always been so tolerant towards younger members, the kids – as he always calls them - even when he himself was still basically a kid. What significant maturity could a seventeen-year-old Doyoung have possessed compared to the sixteen-year-old Jaehyun was? If anything, Jaehyun joined the company even earlier than Doyoung did, and has had just as many – if not even more sleepless practice nights than Doyoung.
It was four in the morning.
At this point, overnight practices had become their daily routine, because everyone had their things to do and it was the only time where they could all practice together. Some lived far away and had to spend hours traveling to Seoul, some had vocal lessons while some had rap lessons scheduled in the same time slot, and some had school to juggle with – like Jaehyun. He wouldn’t complain about it on most days, but right now - splaying on the floor of their practice room, body so sore to the point he couldn’t even pick up the pen to finish his math homework: Jaehyun felt like crying.
“Nap, Jaehyun,” He hadn’t even noticed since when Doyoung had sat down next to him, a warm palm rubbing on his back and eyes looking at him with mild worry like they weren’t bloodshot from sleep deprivation themselves. “I’ll wake you up before school.”
“Hyung, I think I’m gonna throw up just from looking at those damn math problems.”
Which really wasn't an exaggeration. It made zero sense to have this much math homework when he was attending a school for performed arts and everyone knew at this point that education to kids like him, whose future was already determined to be spent in the limelight, was more performative than practical anyway. Didn’t his math teacher get the fucking memo?
“I will throw up, and Mrs. Han will shove my head right into my own vomit after she finds out I haven’t done my homework.”
“Gross.”
Doyoung chuckled lightly before scooting closer, tapping both his hands on his crossed legs and smiling so gentle at Jaehyun he felt the need to look away. He didn’t, however, hesitate for even a second before lifting himself off the floor only to plop down onto Doyoung’s lap again with a sigh of contentment. Damn, he would really like to fall asleep right now just like this - arms wrapped around Doyoung’s waist and face buried completely into Doyoung’s tummy, letting the boy pat his back like he was calming down a fussy child. He would actually like to fall asleep like this every time, if he was allowed to.
“Stop wasting precious time and just nap. Even if you tried to stay awake now, would you really be able to do your homework?”
“Hyung, stop tempting me.”
Doyoung shrugged, "I'm being realistic."
And kind of making a lot of sense, too. Jaehyun had to be up in two hours and let’s be real here, even if it was an extremely good day where he had had eight hours of sleep and zero practice, he still wouldn’t be able to finish this much homework within just two hours. Doyoung must have heard him thinking or something, because just right when Jaehyun finished weighing all the pros and cons presented and decided it would indeed be better to just give up and nap, he heard Doyoung quietly sing.
Something in Jaehyun melted.
“Okay, but wake me up in an hour. I won’t be able to do all but I should at least try, hyung.”
He mumbled, and hoped Doyoung heard.
It turned out that Doyoung didn’t. Jaehyun had an entire two hours of sleep to run on that day.
Mrs. Han also didn’t find an unfinished homework sheet when it was Jaehyun’s turn to submit, however. And if she noticed a different handwriting than Jaehyun’s normally much neater one on the paper, she decided to say nothing about it.
During the team dinner after rehearsal, the staff and members surprise Jaehyun with a birthday cake. He won’t mention the obnoxiously ugly Happy Birthday Jaehyun! banner, seemingly designed in less than five minutes on someone’s phone they’re projecting on the wall, or the way Mark nearly tripped on the threshold when he was bringing the cake into the room. He blows the candles and bows to the staff, lets Johnny take what seems like five thousand photos of him with each member and then the whole group together, and allows Jungwoo to poke his dimple once, because hey, Jaehyun’s in a good mood, okay? Technically there’s still a few days until his birthday, but with how jam packed their schedules are Jaehyun is grateful he even has a chance to celebrate at all.
“Dinner is on Jaehyun hyung, go wild everyone!” Donghyuck is too loud and too drunk for someone who just had half a pint of beer, which by the way, Jaehyun suspects to be alcohol-free, “Caviar! Lobster! Foie Gras! Order anything you want!”
Everyone laughs. This is nice, Jaehyun thinks, it feels like it was forever ago that he properly celebrated his birthday. Don’t get him wrong, he appreciates all the public ads and projects and even exhibitions fans hold in celebration for him, but Jaehyun would dare to say it’s entirely different to when it’s like this, getting drunk and fighting for a piece of grilled meat with eight boys he’s spent nearly half his life with, all while discussing with a ridiculous, yet frightening amount of seriousness about whose face will get smushed into the birthday cake later.
“Wouldn’t it make the most sense to smash it on Jaehyun’s face? He’s the birthday boy after all.” Taeil speaks around a mouthful of food.
“Come on, he’s already buying dinner. I mean, we should be giving him gifts but he’s paying for us,” Taeyong tries to make a valid point and Jaehyun appreciates it greatly. Even when he personally thinks it would have been much more convincing if Taeyong's face wasn’t bright red from just two pathetic glasses of liquor, “We should have some mercy as like, a gift or whatever.”
“Jaehyun’s already received enough gifts to last the rest of his birthdays in this life time,” someone from the staff’s table chimes in, probably their oldest manager, “being born on Valentines and all. God, how is he not fat from all that chocolate.”
Yup, definitely the oldest manager who’s almost constantly on diet. Of course he would bring up the two times he came to pick up Jaehyun at school on his birthday and overheard other students gossip about how much chocolate Jaehyun received, in the same way a proud dad would boast about his son’s academic success. Of course he would. Jaehyun pays him and all the meaningful whistles his way only half a mind. Probably even less than a quarter of it, really. The rest is choosing to focus on the furthest right corner of the table, where his peripheral vision catches the slightest pink tint that is now starting to color Doyoung’s chest and slowly spreading to his neck.
God, could someone please have a serious, serious talk with Doyoung about his collection of shirts with the collar cut either too deep or too wide or fucking both? How’s everyone letting him walk around like that?
“Jaehyun even received chocolate from the prettiest girls of a few schools nearby! Again, how is he not fat yet?”
“You just have to be born with it, hyung.” Jaehyun answers, just to be a brat.
The truth is, Jaehyun has only ever, in the twenty-five years of his glorious existence, accepted chocolate on Valentine’s day once.
It was a very cold day.
Just kidding. As if he would know. He hadn’t left the practice room since the day before yesterday.
They were in their last stretch before debut, spending most nights sleepless much like friends their age who were starting to prepare for their college entrance exam – except there were no numbers and dictionaries involved but worn-out dancing shoes, and Taeyong’s countless let’s try again from the beginning’s. It was crunch time. At this point onwards, every single step they took and every note they sang could be a deciding factor of whether they would get to debut, because this industry was quite literally cut-throat like that – it wasn’t uncommon for trainees to get dropped from the final line-ups at the very, very last minute, regardless of how many pre-debut gigs they’d publicly appeared on.
Half of them was hurting somewhere. Taeyong’s back was hurting. Taeil wasn’t fully recovered from his vocal chord nodules. Ten’s knees were so bruised. Yuta’s ankle was swollen. So was Johnny’s. The other half, well. The other half was just waiting for their turn.
Did they care, though? No. They couldn’t afford the time to care.
It wasn’t until the point where Taeyong couldn’t stand up straight anymore that someone shouted for a break, finally. Jaehyun saw most people flock towards their leader and trust him, he would absolutely do the same if he wasn’t on the brink of passing out himself. He slumped down in a corner and let out a breath he didn’t know how long he was holding for. Jaehyun would definitely feel sorry for thinking this way later, but a part of him hoped that Taeyong would need a bit longer to feel okay. Just a bit more time, he begged quietly. Enough for him to take a second breath.
“Hey, you alright?”
Jaehyun felt rather than heard Doyoung’s question, warmth in his breath tickling the shell of Jaehyun’s ear - which he was damn sure was traitorously getting red now. For whatever reason Jaehyun was too tired to figure out.
“You look pale,” Doyoung said, like his own lips weren’t so chapped and his own knees weren’t straight up shaking from all that dancing, “are you alright, Jaehyun?”
Even to this day, Jaehyun still wondered what exactly in that moment broke. Nothing really happened, he could swear. They were just taking a break from practice like they normally would. Sitting in a corner of their practice room. Knees leaning against each other. Like they normally would. Doyoung looking at him like he always had, with eyes that could momentarily trick Jaehyun into thinking him being a little pale was Doyoung's biggest problem and he was all Doyoung ever saw.
Whatever it was, it broke.
“Hyung, I’m so, so scared,” Jaehyun didn’t know he was crying until Doyoung pulled him into his arms and let Jaehyun’s tears dampen his already sweat-drenched shirt, “I’m so tired. So tired and scared, hyung, what if I don’t make it?”
Doyoung didn’t say a single word back and simply held Jaehyun so, so close. He let Jaehyun sob his fears right into his chest like he was willing to take them all to become his own heart’s burden, if it meant it could lessen Jaehyun’s. Doyoung held him like that, for however long it was until Taeil came over to let them know the dance teacher had decided to call it a day, because they really couldn’t risk having Taeyong hospitalized no matter how heartless they were.
“I’m scared too, Jaehyun,” was what Doyoung said when they were already standing side by side at the bus stop, watching Seoul slowly wake up to a new day as they waited for their bus home to finally end theirs, “I’ll keep being scared shitless until our actual debut stage. Or until we get our first win on music shows? Hell, I’ll probably still be scared even when we’re already, what, eight years into our career and on our second world tour and about to receive our third Artist of the year award. And I know I would still be scared even when our eighteenth full-length album is confirmed to be yet another million-seller, again.”
Jaehyun chuckled at that, and realized at the very same time just how long he hadn’t done that. Probably long enough for his face to actually lose the muscle memory of how to split into a genuine smile. “You’re getting quite far ahead of yourself there, hyung.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of having a dream?”
Doyoung was right. They had a dream. A dream that took so fucking much courage to just dream and would always sound wild even when they’d already achieved it. A dream that was genuinely so terrifying to even dream and would always be as scary as it was beautiful.
And yet here they were, dreaming.
Doyoung’s bus arrived just then, and Jaehyun didn’t manage to look down at what he had shoved into Jaehyun’s palms until he was already waving at Jaehyun through the glass window, eyes tired, but bright: a Snickers bar.
His phone flashed and buzzed from a new message notification. It was 6:22, February the Fourteenth.
Happy birthday, my bravest boy.
It was because of Doyoung that Jaehyun realized maybe, maybe being scared didn’t have to be all that scary.
Today, they'll be standing on their dream stage. Their first Tokyo Dome concert.
“Wow, you look great!” Their make-up artist exclaims, “we should do dark eye make up for you more often.”
Jaehyun swears he didn’t intentionally look up at that, he swears. It’s just that Donghyuck suddenly calls him to look into the camera from where Jaehyun’s having his own make up done for some concert backstage footage, and he just so happens to meet Doyoung’s eyes through the mirror. He can only hope Donghyuck and his damned camera didn’t catch the way he turns his head in another direction so fast the make-up artist nearly pokes straight into his eyeball with the eyeliner pencil. It really wouldn't be ideal to perform at their first Dome concert with only one functioning eye.
“Could you please just stay still, Jung Jaehyun?!” their make-up artist half yells at him and Jaehyun feels a bit wronged, “I can make your eyes look sharper but can’t install you a new pair, okay? Now keep looking down!”
He sure as shit will try his best to keep his two traitorous eyes on the floor, thanks for reminding. Jaehyun can already guess where – who – they’d glue onto otherwise because they’ve done that worryingly often lately, finding Doyoung’s face and deciding to stop there for seemingly forever even on days Doyoung didn’t have dark eye make up on and didn't look a certain type of way.
See, the point is that Doyoung is very good looking.
That’s an established, proven fact, nothing to delve on here. He’s a fascinating mixture of soft edges and sharp lines, dancing on the fence between heartfluttering-ly adorable and lethally alluring. He’s not at the stopping-traffic level of breathtaking-ness like Taeyong or Yuta, but is more than capable of making everyone look twice, and thrice, and another four, five, six more times. That’s the thing about Doyoung. He looks clean and deceptively simple in a way that makes people think they can gauge all of him at first glance, until they find themselves at loss in front of all the sides Doyoung has to show them and even those he has yet.
To people, he’s enigmatic like that. He could be cute and playful with his animated reactions, all wide eyes and echoing laughters, or he could be like he is right now – making one feel sinful to just stare, all heavy gazes under dark lashes and a smirk just a hint too coquettish to not have been deliberate. Jaehyun swallows dryly, again, when he overhears staff complaining about having to insert more pins around the waistband of Doyoung's dress pants, because even belts could only be so tight and Doyoung’s measurements simply make absolutely no sense like that.
Seriously, whose idea was it to dress them like office workers anyway? Did no one really consider the way that dress shirt fits around Doyoung’s wide shoulders and how those slacks hug around his long legs? Who thought now would be the right time to dress Doyoung in tight-fitting clothes that basically sketch out the outline of his body to everyone’s bare eyes after all those years of only hip-hop themed, baggy stage outfits?
Then again, nevermind. The mere idea of anyone out there thinking about Doyoung’s body that way is starting to make Jaehyun feel sick in his stomach.
Jaehyun was mortified when he first admitted to himself that he indeed, at some point, had started thinking about Doyoung that way.
They’d been practically living in each other’s pocket for a couple of years now, already moving into a dorm together right after the fixed line-ups for all units were finalized. Jaehyun honestly thought all the members had known each other so well, so damn well they couldn’t possibly know each other any better than they already did, but you bet this whole cohabitation situation made him rethink. Apparently there was a fundamental difference between spending most hours of the day with the some people and spending every hour of the day with them - he bitterly realized two weeks and sixty eight arguments into their dorm life.
It was so easy to get in anyone’s hair. Someone talked too loudly on the phone, someone always forgot to wash their dirty cups, someone needed to sleep with the window open, some other wanted all lights off. It simply wasn’t the best idea to cram ten boys at their most difficult, most sensitive, most bratty age into two bedrooms that could barely fit three bunk beds and a sorry excuse of a wardrobe inside, but what choice did they have? Jaehyun almost started feeling thankful for their endlessly long practice sessions, because if it wasn’t for the fact that everyone was already too exhausted to form comprehensible words on most nights when they returned home, they’d be tearing each other’s heads off on an hourly basis. For whatever reason they were also too tired to recall.
God, humans could really adapt to anything. He’d learnt to sleep through thundering snores and mastered the art of showering under five minutes, and Jaehyun was even starting to find Donghyuck’s screams when he played game somewhat tolerable.
But for some reason, Jaehyun for the life of him just couldn’t fall asleep right now, even when all windows were closed and all lights were off and everyone, including him, was too tired to even snore. It was quiet for once and yet he just couldn't sleep. Did he really get so used to sleeping through snores that he couldn't sleep without someone loudly snoring right next to his ear anymore?
He was probably just hungry, he thought to himself. At that point of their career, Jaehyun could only afford time to either be hungry, nervous or sleepy. If it wasn’t one thing then it must have been the other thing. If that thing, too, wasn’t the problem, then it must have led to whichever thing was left. He was definitely hungry, Jaehyun concluded.
wanna get food?
Doyoung’s message came before Jaehyun could finish contemplating whether the temptation of instant noodles at two am was worth being scolded for looking swollen when their manager came over in four hours, picking them up for their schedule. Did he really even have a choice?
They met in the living room.
“Hyung, you’re crazy,” Jaehyun barely managed to keep his voice down when Doyoung handed him a mask identical to the one he was already wearing. The one he always wore when they went outside and not wanting to be recognized. “what are you even thinking!”
“Are you coming or not?” Doyoung beamed, and Jaehyun could almost see his gummy wide grin through the black mask and the cap that was covering most of his face. He almost found it cute if he wasn't straight up terrified for his fucking life. “Taeyong hyung’s gonna keep watch. He owed me one when I covered for him and Yuta hyung.”
He could list half a dozen reasons why they shouldn’t go anywhere but back the fuck to sleep, but in the end Jaehyun chose not to.
See when Jaehyun texted Doyoung an okay back, he was expecting more of an instant-noodles-in-the-kitchen situation and not being here, at ungodly hours of the night – having spicy food and beer with Doyoung inside a street food tent. God, they really were batshit crazy for this, sitting here and chugging down beer like there wasn’t a whole day of schedules waiting ahead just a few hours from now, like any of the very few customers around them couldn’t turn out to be a paparazzi tailing them for any juicy bit of gossip, like they were not two idols whose faces were among ones of the most recognized and voted as most desired by women of all ages lately, but just them.
Like they were just two boys, in the summer of his twenty-one and Doyoung’s twenty-two years old, cringing at each other's lame jokes and daring each other to take another shot and making fun of each other’s reddening faces, calling each other lightweight and giggling the night away without a single care in the world.
“You are right,” Doyoung sighed dramatically with fake conscience written on his face, somewhen after they cleared their third bottle of soju after however many pints of craft beer, “this was kind of a bad idea.”
“If I feel like shit tomorrow,” Jaehyun scoffed, trying hard to speak as clearly as one could with a mouthful of spicy rice cake and noodles and a stomachful of a certain emotion he was not sober enough to put a finger on, “you’re paying for my coffee, hyung.”
Doyoung leaned all the way back and laughed a bit too loud the way he always did, attracting one too many curious and slightly annoyed gazes from the handful of customers left in the tent. And guess what, Jaehyun should have shushed him quiet but no, he just sat there like an idiot and watched Doyoung nearly falling off the stool with his whole body shaking from boisterous laughter, twin crescents on his eyes and color high on his cheeks and making Jaehyun wonder in the midst of an alcohol-induced haze if he had ever before this very moment, seen something so beautiful.
He searched then when Doyoung was busy stuffing his face with ominous looking fried food, and didn’t know that he’d continue searching high and lows much later on into the future, years into this whirlwind of a career where picture perfect faces were surrounding him like grass in the field, and still wouldn’t find the answer.
No one could ever compare.
Doyoung probably had no idea how he looked right now, Jaehyun thought, with his collar bones jutting out from the t-shirt at least three sizes too big he was wearing, neck curved beautifully every time he knocked back a shot, face half covered by a cap and Jaehyun was pretty sure there was a smudge of sauce at the corner of his mouth as well. He probably wasn’t even aware of the way the tip of his tongue kept peeking out every time he brought the shot glass to his plush lips, pink and wet and enticing looking, and whatever it was doing to Jaehyun’s sanity that made him borderline lightheaded from the urge to taste it with his own goddamn mouth.
Shit. What was he even thinking?
“Should we get going? Are you still hungry?”
At some later point, Jaehyun would realize that it had taken every bit of restraint he didn’t even know he had to not give his answer by hovering over the table between them, and kiss Doyoung the way he really, really shouldn’t. Yes, he thought - he was still hungry.
“No,” he said at that point, however, “let’s go.”
After a certain number of years and million-selling albums, their manager started to turn a blind eye to the members' late-night ventures, because there really was no way, and absolutely no point in stopping a bunch of twenty-something men doing what all twenty-something men would do. And yet somehow, every time Jaehyun wakes up in an unfamiliar feeling bed next to an unfamiliar looking face, his traitorous mind always finds its way back to one particular morning a certain number of years ago.
The hungover headache when he woke up that morning was so fucking terrible Jaehyun nearly considered chopping his head off, but the shame of having to wash his soiled boxers in the shared bathroom of their first dorm – with Yuta slamming and yelling “Get out! I need to pee!” outside the door – really beat it by far.
He didn’t really dare to think of the face appearing in his dream the night before, no. He still doesn’t.