[fic] block b: playing favourites (minhyuk/yukwon) ][pg]

[counterfeited]

Title: Playing Favourites
Character/Pairing: ubomb. 92 line as the best bff ever. jaehyo/bb cream.
Summary: Minhyuk is his favourite except for how everyone is his favourite and Yukwon can't help but to love them all best.
Rating: PG
Length: 3.5k
Warnings: DICK JOKES. Unrepentant plotless fluff.
Author's notes: Written for wahwahforseobie as thank you for being my beta at the blockbtime fic exchange.



"Hey," Minhyuk says companionably. He slides his back down the wall and sits a few feet away from where Yukwon's nestled in the corner with his guitar.

Yukwon gives him a slightly smile, more a quirk of the lips than anything resembling his stage smile. He's strumming out maudlin love songs to the background chorus of Jiho and Kyung's bickering over the PS3, stopping every now and then for a few chords of the Final Fantasy victory chorus when one of them receives a crushing blow to the ego.

(Jiho's ahead. Yukwon suspects it's only because every time Kyung looks as if he's going to win, Jiho stands in front of the TV and starts dancing. Somewhat dancing. There's a lot of wiggling but Yukwon's not exactly sure. He can't look - he'll go blind.)

On the couch, Jihoon's bellowing support when not trying to coax Taeil onto his lap (Yukwon plays him a congratulatory Hallelujah Chorus when he finally succeeds through a combination of force, physics and strategic placement of freakishly long limbs), and Jaehyo's an incessant patter back and forth between Jiho's bunk ("The wi-fi's strongest there!") and the lounge room.

"Kwonnie," Minhyuk says patiently. "Are you listening to me?"

"Don't I always?" Yukwon says, though he's more concerned with watching Kyung pummel Jiho with a cushion.

Minhyuk snorts. "Sure," he agrees obligingly but smiles. "Hey, do you want to go out?"

"Now?" Yukwon asks. He keeps on strumming his guitar, an E to a B to a C sharp major chord. "Isn't it kind of late?" It is - they were all at the studio for hours, until the shortening autumn days had long passed to night and they'd stumbled home in an exhausted mess of limbs and obnoxiously loud laughter, half-drunk on the anticipation of their fast approaching comeback. "Do you need to go to the convenience store?"

"No," Minhyuk says, still smiling. "Not now. Later."

"You want to go tomorrow? Sure."

"No. I think we should date."

Yukwon's hands slip in a jarring clash of notes.

Minhyuk doesn't press. He acts the same as he usually does, which is perhaps driving Yukwon just the slightest bit crazy with a combination of nerves and indignation.

"Well," Kyung says philosophically when Yukwon drags both him and Jiho to an emergency meeting on his bed an entire 49 hours after Minhyuk's shock confession(!!). "It's not like no one called it."

"I didn't," Yukwon doesn't quite shriek because Taeil is in the room on the top bunk of the other bed, headphones plugged in securely and probably sleeping.

(Taeil had looked at the three of them huddled on Kyung's bed when he'd come in and asked, pragmatic and completely deadpan, "Do you need me to be an emotional pillar of strength?" then climbed into bed and pulled the covers securely over his head when Yukwon had ventured a hesitant no.)

"I did, hyung," Jihoon volunteers in an amicable rumble from the other bottom bunk where he's flat on his stomach, face illuminated by the screen of his phone. Yukwon gives him a betrayed look.

"Shush, maknae," Jiho commands imperiously and slashes his thumb across his neck. "You're too young and impressionable to be listening to this shit."

"Okay," Jihoon says, just as cheerful as before and goes back to eavesdropping without contributing.

"He's sort of obvious," Kyung says apologetically. "With the, you know." Kyung does something with his face that Yukwon can only stare dumbly at for a second before picking up a pillow and smashing out wildly with it.

Jico wraps himself around Yukwon's shoulders, with the bonus side effect of saving Park Kyung from death by memory foam. "Baby," he coos into Yukwon's ear in his aegyo voice. "Goo goo ga ga, goo goo ga ga."

"No homo," Yukwon says with a shudder and tries to shrug Jiho's freakishly long arms off.

Jiho grins. "You're already all the homo. Admit it. Move on. Go tap that ass."

Yukwon tries his hardest to put an elbow through Jiho's solar plexus.

"Or let him tap yours," Jiho continues, completely unfazed.

"Urgh," Yukwon says and tries in vain to bite Jiho's arm which has him in more of a chokehold than friendly hug.

"We are accepting of the homo here," Kyung says brightly and grins, all teeth and grease. "Look at the beautiful, functional relationship between me and my husband Jiho."

Jiho stares at him, completely disgusted. "I've changed my mind," he says flatly. "No homo."

"No takebacks," Kyung says triumphantly and grabs at Jiho's arm. Jiho shoves him away with a hand to the face.

"You guys are the actual worst," Yukwon says wonderingly and throws all of his weight to one side, toppling both Jiho and himself onto Kyung.

"Water," Yukwon gasps pathetically, sprawled flat out on the floor in the short break between one runthrough of the dance and the next. A bottle drops next to his head with a thud; he scrambles clumsily for it and holds it to his face - it's room temperature but feels blissfully cool.

"Kwon-sshi-" It's Minhyuk. Yukwon squints up at him. "-you should probably sit up. You'll choke."

Yukwon waves him off but Minhyuk drops down to sit besides him, body radiating heat even in the thin wife-beater he's barely wearing. Yukwon can see things. It's not decent.

"Kwon-sshi."

There's a hand waving in front of his face. Yukwon blinks at it, then beyond it at Minhyuk's face. It takes him a long moment to lever himself up, then slumps against Minhyuk's side. It's warm in the practice room - their overheated skin almost sticks together with sweat and it shouldn't be as comfortable as it is.

"Thanks," Yukwon says, a bit too late, but Minhyuk shrugs. Yukwon feels it more than sees it.

"No problem."

They remain pressed together until the dance instructor bullies them into formation for the next practice.

"Do you think," Yukwon says very seriously that night, leaning forward into the hushed, cramped space that is Kyung's bed and the official meeting space of the '92 line. "That I'm his rebound?"

There's a moment of silence. Jiho and Kyung exchange a long glance.

"He cried over her a lot, you know," Yukwon says helpfully.

Kyung takes a deep breath:

"Kim fucking Yukwon, I'm going to fucking kill you," he announces, and pounces.

Three minutes later, they're on opposite sides of the bed, Jiho nominally between them. Yukwon's sprawled half over his thighs, held down by the heavy weight of Jiho's hands on his back, while Kyung sits at the head of the bed with his back against the wall and a pillow clutched aggressively in his hands.

"You can't hit his face," Jiho patiently explains to Kyung. "He's our visual."

Yukwon makes a noise a little like a boiling kettle and a dying parrot.

"It's fine," Kyung says, widening his eyes and flashing his trademark smile. "I'm the leader of the visual line."

"And his arms," Jiho adds thoughtfully. "No marks where he has to be naked. Try the kidneys."

"I'm the dancer." Yukwon aims a pointed elbow at the soft flesh of Jiho's stomach, but he is rolled off Jiho's lap and onto the bed before he can make contact.

"You're right," Jiho admits easily and rolls Yukwon a little bit more, onto his back from on his front and then a little back and forth movement that Yukwon allows petulantly. "Don't punch him at all."

"Hey-" Kyung scowls, brandishing his pillow, but Jiho isn't done yet.

"Tell Minhyuk-hyung what he said,"  Jiho says and smiles.

"Fuck you," Kyung breathes, reverent. "Woo Jiho, you're the fucking devil."

Yukwon makes a strangled noise and launches himself at Jiho.

In the aftermath of battle, the mattress has slipped halfway off Kyung's bedframe, and Yukwon slipped halfway off that, tangled deliberately in the bed-sheets. The quilt is a crumpled heap to the left, Hello Kitty perched upon it like a disdainful queen. Jiho sits lightly on Yukwon's stomach, Yukwon's hands gathered in his to prevent more injuries than the somewhat battered plaster of the wall from the bunk bed frame jolting into it. Kyung grins down at Yukwon from where he's leaning against Jiho's back, vaguely devilish from Yukwon's upwards angle, straight up Kyung's nose.

"Are you done?" Jiho asks mildly. Yukwon hisses at him. "I guess not," Jiho says and shakes Yukwon by his captured hands.

"Idiot," Kyung chimes in. He pokes Yukwon's stomach and grins. "I don't actually know what he sees in you."

"Liar," Jiho snorts and there's a soft 'oof!' as he drives his elbow back into Kyung's ribs. "Kwonnie's hot. Everyone knows that."

"I'm hotter," Kyung insists. "But you know. Minhyukkie actually likes this idiot for more reasons than his abs. Which is good, since you're getting a bit pudgy, Kwon-ah."

The upside to being ridiculously flexible, Yukwon muses, is that no one ever expects you to be able to kick them even when trapped under the whale that is Woo Jiho. He says so out loud and then needs to spend a minute gathering his breath when Jiho shifts his weight hard. (Kyung yelps. No one cares.)

"Kim Yukwon," Jiho says firmly while Yukwon is busy dying from being smothered. "You're an idiot and a bastard for making me say this, but-" he pauses here to take a deep, pained breath "-you like him. He finally got his shit together and asked you out. Do something about it before you force me to mess up our dance formations. By killing you."

Yukwon glares furiously. "Wha-"

"I'm getting hives from the amount of unrequited gay in this apartment."

"You loooo-OW, FUCKING DAMNIT, KWONNIE," Kyung yelps when Yukwon scores another direct hit.

"Just go put him out of his misery, already."

Yukwon stares stonily at them until Jiho relents and stands up, shrugging Kyung off. He reaches out his hand to help Yukwon up, and doesn't let go even when they're all standing. One quick tug and Yukwon's wrapped in a hard hug.

"It's not going to change anything, you know," Jiho says, low. "We'll make sure of it."

Yukwon stands stiffly in his arms for a long moment then coughs and pushes away.

"Aww," Kyung coos, making a truly disgusting face. "What a touching bonding moment."

"Fine," Yukwon grumbles, arms crossed over his chest. He turns on his heel and stomps away, the stiff line of his back radiating indignation. He wrenches the door open, but pauses before he steps out and says, vindictively, "We're going to make out on every surface around the apartment. Including your bed."

Jiho almost brains himself tripping over the quilt as he rushes from the room, howling, "KEEP YOUR FUCKING HOMO OFF MY THINGS."

Yukwon comes barrelling out of his room with Jiho hot on his heels and grabs Minhyuk's hand, laughing wildly, to pull him out of the apartment. He merrily sacrifices a hapless Jaehyo by neatly nudging him into Jiho's path and scrambling into his shoes in the confusion that follows. Minhyuk follows his lead and in moments, they're down on street level. Between them, they have a handful of change and one mobile phone holding 8% charge. It's past midnight and even the streets of Seoul are quiet and still.

They get half a block away before Yukwon pulls them under the awning of a closed store, standing close and breathing hard. He drops Minhyuk's hand with something that definitely isn't a squeak and take a startled half-step back. When they're out of make-up, away from the stage costumes and lifts, they're closer to the same height than not - Yukwon's still a little unused to having to tilt a hairsbreadth up instead of down.

"So," Yukwon says, a little awkward, smile fading.

"So," Minhyuk repeats, a smile in his voice. The uneven street lights cast strange shadows on his face, highlighting his rounded cheeks. Yukwon tries to look away but can't. Minhyuk takes a step forward; Yukwon shuffles back until the cool grate of the security gate presses against his back. This close, Yukwon can feel Minhyuk's body heat down his front, Minhyuk's arms bracketing his sides, the soft puff of kimchi ramyun-scented breath-

And all of a sudden, Yukwon is laughing. He presses his forehead against Minhyuk's shoulder, slides his hands across Minhyuk's waist to his back and rests his palms against the warm muscle. It's late, a little too cold for the thin t-shirts and shorts they've run out of the house with, and Minhyuk presses a smile against his hair, like they're not almost famous (infamous), like they're any other twenty-something couple in Seoul.

The end up at the convenience store, buying a carton of iced milk coffee with the handful of coins they scrape out of their pockets. They take two straws but use one, walking side by side with their hands only briefly brushing now and again.

"Is this our first date?" Yukwon asks and if he puts his lips on the straw exactly where Minhyuk's were, no one can say.

Minhyuk laughs. "I treat you so good, you don't even know," he says and makes them take a selca under the next street light. The lights are yellow and his phone camera is grainy at night; they look awful, unbrushed hair and faces scrubbed free of make up. Yukwon smiles so hard that his eyes are the barest black slits, soulless in the low resolution.

When they stumble back to the dorms, hours later, hands clumsy with the cold, everyone else has already gone to bed. They brush their teeth in the tiny bathroom, jostling elbows and getting water all over the floor, and part ways in the living room.

"Good night," Minhyuk says softly, stretching up on his toes to brush a kiss on Yukwon's forehead.

"Mrrfpht," Yukwon says in return and flees.

It takes the entire time for Yukwon to change into his fluffiest pyjamas and locate his phone for his heart to stop being ridiculous, which is ruined the second he gets his hand on his phone, when it chimes and almost gives him a heart attack. Luckily, no one wakes up and he hastily thumbs the volume down to mute before gingerly flipping the case open.

His inbox has pretty much exploded with about 72 messages from 'woo fucking jiho,' most of them threats against his body and possessions and one actually terrifying, im putting my balls on ur stuff fucker. The most recent message, though, is from 'lee minhyuk (unique!!)'.

It's a multimedia message, the selca from before with its shitty resolution and crap lighting that shows the tired smudges beneath their eyes and the roughness of their skin. The accompanying message only says sleep well ^^.

Yukwon falls asleep with his phone in his hands.

Yukwon wakes up to hell. Or reasonably close enough, because Jiho is merciless and peels Yukwon's sleeping mask off him and hustles him out of bed and onto the floor. Yukwon takes his quilt with him because fucking sunlight, why.

(Trial and entirely too much error has proven that the top bunk cannot hold three twenty-one year olds, even if Kyung is a midget and Yukwon diets whenever the company insists.)

Taeil and Jihoon are already out, though Kyung grins entirely too cheerfully from his bottom bunk. He has too many teeth. Like a shark. Except tiny.

"Kim Yukwon," Jiho intones threateningly.

"Fuck off," Yukwon says and rolls himself more securely in his blankets. Then winces and rummages around in his blanket cocoon to find his phone before the sharp corners can do any more damage to his ribs.

good morning ^^

-the message from Minhyuk says, bright and cheerful even at this hellish hour. Yukwon filters out Jiho's voice with the ease of long practice and carefully swypes a reply:

jiho hates me

I can hear him from here.
         you're his favourite.
         you're my favourite, too.
         I got you breakfast.

The messages come one after another, too fast for Yukwon to reply to individually. The last includes a picture of - Yukwon squints, still bleary eyed from sleep - two store-bought onigiri and a vitamin water and a convenience store plastic bag. It's from the same store as last night.

hes talking about balls

-Yukwon types plaintively, then,

thnx

-and snaps his phone shut, though it keeps chiming with new messages. Jiho's still talking, pacing back and forth even though it takes him all of two steps to cross the entire room, but Kyung's watching him with surprisingly cool and steady eyes.

"Kwonnie," Kyung says and tries for his best greasy smile, but his eyes are puffy with sleep and voice still a little husky. "Appa and umma just want the best for you."

"Never say that again," Yukwon says, horrified.

"Babyyy," Kyung coos at him. Yukwon violently twitches and rolls his entire blanket burrito self away and into Jiho's legs.

Jiho sighs and bodily hauls him up and shoves him half on top of Kyung. "Bros before hoes, fucker."

Yukwon struggles pathetically but Kyung is some undisclosed percentage tentacle monster and experienced in subduing his prey in hugs. Jiho drops heavily onto the bed and leans against Kyung's side, the taut line of his mouth relaxing.

"Whatever," Yukwon mumbles into the warm curve of Kyung's neck and they lay there, listening to the rumble of Jihoon's laughter until the door flings open and Jaehyo comes flailing in, shrieking about his BB cream.

("Wait," Yukwon says, midway through dance practice and just before the twenty third time they run through the Nillili choreography that day. "Did you call Minhyuk-hyung a ho?"

Jiho shrugs expansively. "You're all my hoes."

Yukwon opens his mouth to protest, or something, but there's... sort of really nothing, so he shrugs and moves wordlessly back into formation.

"It's okay," Jiho allows generously. "You're my favourite."

Kyung smacks him and practice is delayed for a few minutes more as Jiho and Kyung roll around, flailing wildly at one another. Yukwon stands at the side with Minhyuk and Taeil, Minhyuk's arm heavy around his shoulders.)

Dating Minhyuk is a lot like not dating Minhyuk, all things considered. They sit together in the short breaks between rehearsals and sometimes in the van, thigh pressed against thigh in the back bench because Yukwon likes the backmost corner seat snug against the window - but it's nothing new.

He still sneaks into Minhyuk's bed, though now after long and protracted negotiations with Jiho who sleeps in the bed adjacent.

("I'm not going to put dick on your pillow," Yukwon tells him sincerely.

Jiho looks nauseated. "Fuck you, Kim Yukwon."

"That won't happen too," Yukwon says primly then cackles. He curls smaller into the furthermost corner of the van and grins smugly at Jiho scrabbling against the hold of his seatbelt in the bench in front.

"We can have our own sleepover," Kyung coos at Jiho, making a kissy face.

Jiho slaps him lightly on the cheek and says flatly, "You fart in your sleep."

"With love," Kyung insists and then they're scuffling again, all flailing limbs and sharp elbows, while Jaehyo - trapped between them in the same row - tries to get away without more than minor bruising. Jihoon in the bench opposite gives him an encouraging little fist-pump and hwaiting! before going back to poking at Taeil who ignores everyone with the serenity of long practice.

Minhyuk laughs low in Yukwon's ear. "I knew it. You're just using me to get away from him."

Yukwon smiles and grips his hand a little tighter.

"Oh my god," Jonghwan-hyung says despairingly from the driver's seat. "If everyone doesn't shut up, I'm going to drive into the river and kill us all.")

Jaehyo doesn't get a say, though he plugs his headphones in with fatalistic despair when Yukwon bounces in and flings himself onto Jiho's bed. Jaehyo is totally Yukwon's favourite, except for how everyone is his favourite and Minhyuk is the best.

"Hi," Yukwon whispers into the curve of Minhyuk's neck, warm and smelling of that ridiculously girly coconut body wash that Kyung bought and everyone else borrowed.

"Hey." Minhyuk's eyes crinkle.

Yukwon grins at him, then bounces. The bunk bed shakes and maybe Yukwon's grin gets a little mean as he lets loose a filthy moan because, okay, Minhyuk is totally his favourite but fucking with Jaehyo comes a really close second.

"Oh god why," Jaehyo says faintly and Minhyuk laughs so hard the bed keeps shaking, smothering the sound in Yukwon's hair. Yukwon grins and with a surge of strength, rolls the both of them into a warm cocoon of blankets, startling another burst of laughter from Minhyuk's throat.

"Brat," Minhyuk says, low and fond.

Yukwon only laughs and wraps Minhyuk's arms around himself more securely. He falls asleep like that, thinking of nothing in particular at all.