ISS 2012: for romeyeol
Title: Desperate Times Mean Desperate Measures
Pairing/Focus: Woohyun/Sungyeol
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4,703
Summary: With every household appliance that breaks in Infinite’s dorm, a bit of Woohyun’s sanity is heartlessly demolished along with it.
To: romeyeol
From: Your Secret Santa
Their shower is the first thing to break. Woohyun thinks the showerhead falling off the spout to its untimely demise is tragic, but no one else seems to agree, since everyone thinks it’s just fine to use Woohyun and Sunggyu’s bathroom.
An en-suite bathroom had been the perk Woohyun was most enthused about when they’d finally bid goodbye to their dilapidated lodgings for something more upscale, dropping the two cardboard boxes in his arms to greet his own toilet and shower like an old friend the moment he’d stepped foot into his room. It’s basically his bathroom, since Sunggyu uses it very early in the mornings while Woohyun likes to shower at night, so Woohyun is a bit possessive over it--understandably, he would say.
But the others; they just don’t get it. And because Sunggyu absolutely cannot condone having five men stinking up the place all because, “Woohyun is acting like an entitled little brat,” and Woohyun doesn’t actually like when he can see Sunggyu’s eyes, piercing into him in his normal look of, “Do as I say or you get it,” Woohyun has no choice.
“Sungyeol, keep out of the cabinets,” Woohyun immediately warns, watching Sungyeol prance out of his room, toiletries and towel in his arms. Woohyun’s going to be very jumpy until he gets used to this idea, or, realistically, until someone fixes the goddamn showerhead. (“Three days, Woohyun,” Sunggyu said, patting his shoulder. A fucking century, Woohyun heard.)
“Hmm, a bit quick on the draw there, aren’t we, Woohyun?” Sungyeol hums, darting through the living room. “I wasn’t even going to check there!”
Woohyun snarls at him, and pointedly ignores Sunggyu’s knowing, raised brow, as well as Hoya’s remarks about condoms and Sungyeol and lube or something equally as dirty. He ignores Hoya; Woohyun does not need that kind of negativity in his life.
“I just don’t want Sungyeol rooting through my vitamin bottles,” Woohyun says very calmly. “I don’t need him fooling around with them, switching labels or mixing pills. I could die.” He sweeps the living room with a very judging glare of consternation.
“I think Sungyeol hyung would much prefer the condoms and lube theory Hoya hyung had going on,” Sungjong says flippantly, wresting the remote control from Dongwoo while the other is incapacitated (i.e., laughing like an hyena).
Myungsoo hums in agreement.
“No,” Woohyun says, steadfast. He’s never really this stubborn, especially when he likes someone, but something about Sungyeol has him oddly tentative to make the first move. Woohyun wants to say, to the room at large, that Woohyun is like one those people that go on safaris and scout out endangered species or whatever it is they do, and Sungyeol is like a giraffe-zebra hybrid that shouldn’t exist, but regrettably does, and Woohyun is now the unfortunate soul who has to figure out how the fuck that happened. He thinks he lost his point somewhere. “No,” he simply repeats. “No.”
The shower is still not repaired the next day, but everyone is too tired after schedules to wash up anyway, so Woohyun gets to bathe in peace, singing out his part in The Chaser like the fucking main vocalist he is, fuck Woohyun you are great, you are better than Sunggyu, yes you are--
There’s a knock on the door, muted some by the rush of the shower.
“I was trying to figure out a polite way to say shut the fuck up, but,” Sunggyu coughs slightly, “yeah, Woohyun, shut the fuck up.”
Woohyun’s singing in the shower may be cut short, but nothing can take away from the fact that no one is going to use his bathroom tonight, no hassles with Dongwoo nearly slipping and busting his ass in the shower since Woohyun and Sunggyu don’t require a non-slip mat for when dancing in the shower is deemed necessary, none of Hoya’s manly essences clogging the drain, nothing but Woohyun and his shower.
When Woohyun stumbles into the bathroom at three a.m., only an hour after falling asleep, he really needs to take a piss. So he barely notices Sungyeol, naked, standing on the balls of his feet in front of the mirror, humming a nondescript song to himself as he applies deodorant, as he hobbles past and gets his dick out to pee.
Sungyeol has common sense, so he waits until Woohyun finishes his business and tucks himself back into his boxers before speaking.
“Um, hi, Woohyun?” Sungyeol offers weakly.
Woohyun opens his mouth to scream and gets into kung-fu stance to employ his nonexistent kung-fu skills in this opportunity, but Sungyeol dashes forward and covers his mouth before a mere gasp of breath is taken in.
“It’s just me,” Sungyeol assures. “Admittedly, I’m naked and my dick is kind of brushing against your boxers, but.” Woohyun’s eyes are widening over Sungyeol’s hand and he kind of can’t breathe and Sungyeol has no clothes on and he’s wet this is really hot no-- “Oh!” Sungyeol drops his hand, grinning sheepishly at the realization of everything.
“Yeah,” Woohyun chokes.
Sungyeol laughs. “Sorry. I kind of figured you wouldn’t want the entire house to know you were threatened by a naked beanpole.” His laughter stops abruptly. “On second thought, that would have been fucking fantastic, oh, I’m a terrible person!”
“Yeah,” Woohyun says. He still doesn’t really remember what breathing is.
Sungyeol caps his stick of deodorant, now back in front of the mirror. “Do you need help getting back to bed or will you be alright?”
Yes, please, please help me. “No, I’m fine,” Woohyun says, and stumbles back the way he came.
He scrambles up the ladder to his top bunk the second he’s out of the bathroom, the memory living on because the strip of light beneath the door is bright and Sungyeol is still in there, still naked, still long-limbed and very long elsewhere (even flaccid, surprisingly, and wow no), and Woohyun decides that pillows are very nice to scream into, even if it makes Sunggyu hate him the next morning. Sungyeol laughs, though, at Sunggyu’s disdain of Woohyun, and if Sungyeol is laughing, that laugh that’s a bit crazed with his mouth all open, a gross mixture of coffee and toast still in his mouth, then Woohyun is laughing too.
The shower is finally fixed the next day, and Woohyun thinks he’s grown as a person because of this experience, so he’s grateful. He’s always really good at pretending Sunggyu’s words of encouragement are his own.
He’s sane for the next few days, even managing to pull a prank with Sungyeol and succeed in dance practice without falling over himself because of Sungyeol's body, Sungyeol piercings glinting in the fluorescent light of the dance studio, Sungyeol's tummy bared by a flailing arm, just Sungyeol Sungyeol Sungyeol (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧. Woohyun is an embarrassment to himself, and this has all gotten so bad that even Hoya’s jibes and teases aren’t offensive anymore (because they’re true).
His sanity train grinds to a very abrupt halt when Myungsoo trips over Sungyeol’s legs upon crossing through the living room, sleepy after his sitcom filming, and promptly knocks a decorative bonsai plant over, which knocks over Dongwoo, who knocks over the TV.
“Sungyeol, I hate you,” Hoya says in the aftermath, after Dongwoo finally lets them inspect his bruised arm and Myungsoo makes Sungjong rub his head where it’d hit the plant. “If your stupidly long legs hadn’t been taking up the place, this wouldn’t have happened. We would still have a TV.”
“And here I thought you cared about Dongwoo hyung,” Sungyeol snipes, returning the pout that Dongwoo sends at him.
Woohyun, initially, doesn’t really care about the hole ripped jaggedly through the TV screen: he can monitor his drama on his computer, after all, and it’d save him from Sungyeol and Hoya’s teasing words about his sub-par acting. He’s just fine with curling up in his top bunk, laptop balanced on his knees, and watching himself flash his abs at Hyomin, Sungyeol screeching about something in the living room his melodic background noise.
But then Sungyeol gets bored (or, alternatively, Sungyeol beleaguers Woohyun and conforms him into his own personal entertainment system).
“Don’t you have Myungsoo to bother?” Woohyun complains, folding an extra t-shirt into his gym bag. Sungyeol had barged in unceremoniously, waxing plaintive about life-crippling boredom and save me, Woohyun, but if Sungyeol doesn’t like him romantically (or at least sexually), then the fangirls do, and Woohyun needs to maintain those chocolate abs so to the gym he goes. Not to Sungyeol he submits, since Sungyeol seems to want to boss him around and make him bend over backward to make him laugh.
Sungyeol bounces onto the bed beside Woohyun, long leg nearly kicking Woohyun in the nose. “Myungsoo’s filming,” he says, planting his face in Sunggyu’s pillow. Woohyun kindly doesn’t tell Sungyeol that that same pillow had been sandwiched between Sunggyu’s legs while he slept last night. “And Dongwoo and Hoya are playing basketball somewhere, and Sungjong is talking to his reflection in the mirror or plotting Sunggyu’s demise or kickboxing, I don’t know.” He pouts. “Entertain me.”
Sungyeol ends up going to the gym with Woohyun (or, also alternatively, Sungyeol ends up making Woohyun want to throw a dumbbell at Sungyeol’s make-up free, shining face every single time he moves).
“You should probably take that hoodie off,” Woohyun advises when they get to the company gym, already shucking his own zip-up, pulling down the hem of his white beater. He doesn’t want to give Sungyeol a show--well, he does, but Sungyeol would probably turn all clammy and awkward if Woohyun performed an impromptu striptease, wouldn’t he?
Sungyeol blinks. “What?”
Woohyun flicks his bangs aside as he glances up. Sungyeol looks uncomfortable standing next to an elliptical trainer, toying with the zipper of his hoodie. “Your sweatshirt,” Woohyun says, gesticulating out the motions Sungyeol needs to carry out. “Take it off.”
“No need to be so forward,” Sungyeol mutters, but listens nonetheless, and Woohyun feels dumb for forgetting Sungyeol’s stupid complex about his upper body.
Woohyun sighs as he walks over to Sungyeol, and when he places a hand on Sungyeol’s bare forearm, cool to the touch beneath his warm palm, Sungyeol jolts, turning wide eyes onto Woohyun.
“Listen, I know you don’t like your arms, or stomach, or whatever but. You’re being stupid,” Woohyun begins, and quickly continues because Sungyeol’s gaze is starting to border on murderous. “I--I like your abs.” And your arms and your hands and those legs--
“The abs I don’t have?” Sungyeol scoffs, but Woohyun thinks he looks vaguely pleased, that shimmer that Woohyun treasures so much, sees in behind his lids when he’s trying to sleep but Sunggyu is snoring and he’s not that tired anyway, returns to Sungyeol’s eyes. “You mean you think my flabby stomach is prizeworthy?”
“Yep,” Woohyun affirms, smile cheesy when he pinches at Sungyeol’s tummy through his tank shirt. He talks loudly over Sungyeol’s shrieks of protest. “And it’s not flabby, it’s...soft.”
Sungyeol’s eyes widen, and a blush suffuses Woohyun’s cheeks. He’s not sure if he crossed the line between friendly male compliment and I think your belly is cute and would look even cuter littered with kiss marks and I want to squish it. But Sungyeol’s expression has turned even more satisfied, so Woohyun hopes it’s okay, and plans to write off his slip of the tongue as his normal greasiness if need be.
“I’ll try not to work out too hard then,” Sungyeol says, ending the weird tension when he slips his arm out from where Woohyun had forgotten he’d been holding it, straying over to the rack of dumbbells. “Wouldn’t want to lose my,” he laughs, and Woohyun thinks, with a flutter in his stomach, that it sounds nervous, “my soft stomach that you seem to like so much.”
“It’s your biggest charm,” Woohyun says solemnly.
It’s impossible to do anything in silence with Sungyeol, so Woohyun listens to his babble as he runs on the treadmill, rants about Dongwoo’s strangely designed underwear ending up on Sungyeol’s bed when Dongwoo stumbles in sleepily and misses the hamper, complains about how itchy his piercings felt when they were healing, inane prattle that would have been a welcome backdrop to assuage the pull of Woohyun’s leg muscles when he switches to the elliptical had it not been for Sungyeol’s body greeting him every time he glanced over.
Sungyeol looks really, really nice in beaters, clinging to his chest with sweat, even better when his arms flex and the hint of muscle lurking in his biceps curve under his skin with every lift of the weight upward. He’d traded the smaller dumbbells for ten pound ones (and even those looked oversize for Sungyeol’s thin arms, bless him, Woohyun thinks), and they’d only made his arm swell further from the exertion. Woohyun almost loses his footing on the exercise machine, and death by cross trainer just sounds embarrassing.
“We should probably go soon,” Woohyun says when he’s had enough of checking out Sungyeol’s small, practically nonexistent ass once he’d finally started on one of the machines. This whole event has been one masochistic venture, but Woohyun knows where to draw the lines.
Only not really, because after schedules the next day, Sungyeol wheedles Woohyun into taking him out for patbingsu despite the wintry weather, and the residual chill combined with the ice of the dessert has Sungyeol’s mouth red and wet, and every spoonful feels like a direct kick to Woohyun’s precious face. And then to his groin, when Sungyeol licks his lips and his tongue is just as slick and scarlet.
Next day’s activity seems safer: folding paper into badly crafted planes to throw at the rest of their bandmates in a ploy to annoy them. It turns dangerous when Sunggyu, sufficiently annoyed, rips an airplane from Sungyeol’s hand and gives him a papercut, and his thumb is sucked past his lips to abate the pain. Woohyun begins to think he has an oral fixation. Or maybe it’s just a Sungyeol fixation, because when Sungyeol screams at him to fetch a bandaid, Woohyun dazedly admires the line of Sungyeol’s neck and how his Adam’s apple bobs before springing into motion.
He can’t deal with this anymore.
“I can’t fucking deal with this anymore,” Woohyun tells Sunggyu when they’re in their respective bunks, hands folded neatly over his middle as he tries very hard to pretend Sungyeol hasn’t wiggled his way into his thoughts and permanently sat his lack-of ass in the forefront of his brain. “I can’t deal with this--” He grasps for the right word.
“Sexual frustration,” Sunggyu supplies for him, albeit wearily.
Woohyun frowns. “I was going for something not so crass--”
“Just kiss him, or something, Woohyun,” Sunggyu says, and where once it’d been embarrassing and difficult to advise Woohyun to make out with Sungyeol in the middle of the living room if he had to, it’s now second nature from hearing Woohyun’s romantic woes every week for the last four months. “Skywrite it, propose to him after a performance, fucking sneak into the shower with him, I don’t care.”
Woohyun contemplates this all with the utmost care before answering. “Where can I hire a skywriter?”
Sunggyu groans into his pillow, and Woohyun kindly doesn’t tell him that Sungyeol had drooled on it when he dozed off waiting for Woohyun to get changed to take him out for patbingsu.
Woohyun is almost near tears when he gets home that night after an Immortal Song 2 filming with Sunggyu and, glinting newly in the wall unit, is a new TV, Hoya and Myungsoo already hooking up their PS3 while Sungyeol flails in celebration and Dongwoo looks beside himself with happiness on the couch, Sungjong presumably given the job of calming him down. He’s sat stoically on Dongwoo’s stomach, flipping through the menus on his phone.
The world is back on its axis, Woohyun has gotten a slight reprieve from Sungyeol’s constant presence (the breathing against the back of his neck while he’s cooking dinner, the trickle of want it elicited, the pleas to take Sungyeol everywhere, all nipped in the bud because Sungyeol’s favorite dramas fell in that exact time), and everything is perfect!
“Central heating is broken,” Sunggyu says a few nights later, when Woohyun is already tucked into bed, waiting for sleep to claim him. “I found the kids some portable heaters, but Sungyeol was complaining when I left.” It sounds like a warning, but Woohyun can’t see where it’s necessary.
“Will you be okay?” Woohyun asks, peering down at Sunggyu from his perch. He’s digging extra blankets out of their closet, and his eyes are well on their way to forming into sleepy slits when he glances up.
“Should be fine,” he mumbles, and Woohyun sinks back into his mattress, the slight chill that he feels slowly winding into their dorm barely making him shiver.
Woohyun’s still awake five minutes later, the exact span of time it took for Sunggyu to crash onto his bed and pass out, and he’s startled when his phone lights up and vibrates beside his head.
From: Sungyeol
i’m freezing my tits off, woohyun
To: Sungyeol
I’m sorry? =__=
From: Sungyeol
make room, i’m coming over
Woohyun takes thirty seconds to digest this, and then another ten to fully process it, but by then Sungyeol has twisted the knob and waddled into the room, covered head to toe in his comforter.
“What are you doing?” Woohyun hisses, almost hitting his head on the ceiling upon sitting up abruptly.
“I’m going to steal your warmth,” Sungyeol says placidly, bunching the comforter beneath his arms and crawling up the ladder. “I’m too pretty to die of hypothermia.”
Woohyun hurriedly scoots closer to the wall, watching Sungyeol’s snail-paced descent onto his bed. He’s no stranger to sharing a bed because he and Sunggyu sometimes ended up on the same mattress back in their old dorm, usually after a long, particularly stressful day, but this is Sungyeol, and with him comes legs and breathing that Woohyun has deemed maddening and feelings.
Stupid, infuriating feelings that make Woohyun feel like so much more than his heart-tossing, silver-tongued public persona, that draw out Nam Woohyun and sometimes make him wish for things that Idol Woohyun would never dream of--that he and Sungyeol were both normal, nondescript guys who liked each other, inexplicably, and lived quiet lives that meant he could kiss Sungyeol without worrying about Image and Career and Infinite.
“I’m sure Warmth Leech Myungsoo is available for that,” Woohyun says, still just watching as Sungyeol stretches out on his mattress, arches his back, catlike, and yawns widely. It’s entrancing, the sight, Sungyeol’s hair tousled and eyes sleepy and lips chapped.
“Nope,” Sungyeol says, and Woohyun belatedly realizes that Sungyeol has stolen his pillow. And Sungyeol drools. “Dongwoo is hogging him. Insulting, really,” he sniffs.
“Hoya, then,” Woohyun says, grasping at straws here. He can’t sleep (think, really), can’t function with Sungyeol curled up on his mattress, Sungyeol fixing his comforter and pulling it snug around him, Sungyeol’s sated smile.
Sungyeol scoffs. “Like Hoya is cuddly.”
“Hoya is the poster child of cuddles,” Woohyun protests, but all the fight in him is steadily dwindling away.
“You’re doing a terrible job,” Sungyeol says instead, blinking up at Woohyun. “You’re supposed to be warming me up.”
“Sungjong. He’s warm.”
“He’s also bony,” Sungyeol huffs, tone impatient. “Am I really that repulsive that you don’t want me in your bed with you, Woohyun?” His eyes are open now, wide, sleep still swimming in them, and Woohyun wants to brush aside every sensation that sweeps along the inside of his stomach and wrap warm arms around Sungyeol’s shivering body. But he can’t. He doesn’t know how to do that anymore.
“You’re not repulsive,” Woohyun says softly. “Never. You’re the exact opposite of that.”
Sungyeol slowly sits up, propping himself up on one arm bent at the elbow, bangs cutting across his eyes. “And what is the opposite of repulsive?”
“Perfect?” Don’t take me seriously, Sungyeol, I’m being Woohyun--greasy, stupid, sly Woohyun--
“Do you mean that?” Sungyeol's voice is pitched low, careful, and fear belies his forced casual tone.
No, say no, Woohyun-- ”Y-Yes.”
“Come here,” Sungyeol whispers, his eyes wider than Woohyun has ever seen them, and if he let them, he’s sure they’d swallow him up.
Woohyun listens, whole body trembling when he leans forward--knowing what’s coming, that impossible chance rising before him for his capture, instills a kind of excited fright within him, and he’s still shaking when Sungyeol cranes his neck upward and kisses him.
He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, or his lips, for that matter, and Sungyeol seems just as clueless, but for all their bumbling and frantic breaths that travel between confused mouths, it’s still making Woohyun tingle all over, the feeling of cold lips pressed to his, so gentle and cautious.
“You wanted that right?” Sungyeol asks shakily a moment later, nose brushing Woohyun’s.
Woohyun licks his dry lips, still so nervous. “I still want it.”
And Sungyeol leans in again, a bit less careful this time, and where Woohyun had thought the first kiss drove him crazy, this one shatters him, makes him part his lips against Sungyeol to kiss him hard, fingers dipping under his chin to bring him closer, and even that doesn’t feel close enough.
It has to be enough, though, because Sunggyu is sleeping right underneath them, but it doesn’t feel too difficult to deal with when Woohyun finally slips beneath the comforter with Sungyeol, who sighs happily at the warm contact.
“Get your elbow out of my neck, please,” Woohyun says calmly, while Sungyeol nearly throws a hissy fit when Woohyun’s knee digs too hard into his thigh, and though it takes a few failed tries, they’re finally content when Sungyeol tucks his head beneath Woohyun’s chin and slides his arms around his waist, Woohyun’s own hands settled on Sungyeol’s shoulder.
“So,” Sungyeol murmurs, “you wanna be boyfriends, or whatever?”
Woohyun laughs into the wisps of Sungyeol’s hair tickling his nose, and he thinks the title of Lee Sungyeol’s Boyfriend has as nice a ring to it as Lee Sungyeol, Boyfriend of Nam Woohyun does.
“Yep,” Woohyun says, smile teasing around his lips.
“Good.”
Silence swells over them, the only hint of noise issuing from beneath them as Sunggyu squirms in his own bed, and Woohyun thinks he may actually manage to drift off easily, coaxed into sleep by Sungyeol’s deep breathing.
“Hey. Woohyun.”
“Yeah?” Woohyun breathes, rolling his shoulders back into the mattress, any lingering tension from his long schedule sliding away.
Sungyeol walks his pointer and middle fingers down Woohyun’s forearm, cheek pressed warmly against Woohyun’s chest. “I’ve been a bad person~” he sings, and Woohyun has heard that tone enough times, that mirthful, proud tone, that he knows Sungyeol has been sneaky about something.
Woohyun sighs, “What did you do?”
“You remember the broken shower head?”
“How could I not?” I walked in on you naked that one night, Sungyeol--I saw your dick--
“I did it,” Sungyeol rushes out, slapping his palms over his face, and Woohyun knows he’s probably burning up a blush, flaming over his cheeks and spreading to his ears, but wait. What?
“...What?”
“I broke the shower!” he says quickly, voice muffled, “Which was kind of a failed endeavor, but.” Sungyeol groans into his hands. “And the broken TV thing was me, too! Myungsoo agreed to help me so he ‘tripped’ over my legs but the Dongwoo part was an accident! He got caught in the crossfire! We really didn’t mean to hurt hyung; he’s so little, you know? But I didn’t break the heater! That was pure luck. Unless Myungsoo liked his accomplice role too much and decided to somehow kill the heating system, and I mean he did say he felt like an anime character being sneaky and you know Myungsoo--”
“Wait,” Woohyun says slowly, cutting Sungyeol’s rambling short, laughing a little because what the actual fuck??? “So you mean to tell me you orchestrated this entire thing?”
“Yes.”
Woohyun is really laughing now, and he should be accustomed to the incredulity he feels because when is Sungyeol not ridiculous? “But... why?”
Sungyeol stammers unintelligibly, making those weird noises that manage to both endear and confuse the shit out of Woohyun, until he finally bursts out, “I wanted excuses to spend more time with you, okay? I wanted to drag you places and drive you insane with my stupidity and watch you eat foods that make your mouth more sexual than it already is!”
“I think I found one thing we have in common,” Woohyun says faintly, running his fingers through Sungyeol’s disastrous, fluffy hair. Sungyeol hums, satisfied. He continues, “You didn’t have to go destroying the house though, you know.”
“You kinda looked miserable when I kept bugging you, hanging around and whatever,” Sungyeol says, sounding slightly put-out. “So I stopped breaking things, but this--this was my last-ditch effort to see if you liked me, I guess?”
Woohyun sits up slowly, suspended in surprise, eyeing Sungyeol confusedly. “I thought I was so goddamn obvious!” he exclaims quietly, wary of Sunggyu waking up and discovering them in bed together, so closely intertwined. Well, he had said whatever it takes. “Everyone knows how I feel, Yeol.”
“Oh.”
Woohyun scoffs. “Stupid.”
Sungyeol doesn’t disagree, only lets out a laugh and snuggles closer into Woohyun. Sunggyu snorts in his sleep below them.
The next morning, Woohyun is roused with a horrified scream from the direction of the kitchen, and even in his half-awake, crusty-eyed state, it’s not very hard to put two and two together--the slightly warm, empty space beside him and how bloodcurdling the shriek was--to figure out that was Sungyeol who probably woke up the entire building.
Woohyun hears a laugh from the doorway, and when he sits up, Sunggyu is standing there, arms crossed, eyes unaccounted for, and lips upturned in a smirk.
“I may have been awake for a portion of your talk with Sungyeol last night,” he says, tone evenly casual.
“Oh?” Woohyun yawns.
“I may have also heard that he broke the shower, and, more importantly, the TV.”
“Oh.”
“I definitely told Howon.”
Woohyun chokes. “Oh.”
Sunggyu is pushed out of the doorway when Sungyeol scrambles into the room, bedhead almost comically haphazard atop his scalp, his eyes so wild that Woohyun thinks he could pass for an animal he’d picked up on a safari.
“Hoya decimated my coffee maker, Woohyun, he decimated it--he clogged it up with Dongwoo’s underwear!”
Woohyun idly wonders if he could a sympathetic response skywritten, but since Sunggyu had groaned at that half-fleshed idea a few days ago, Woohyun settles with sliding sleepily out of his bunk, stumbling over to Sungyeol, and kissing him on the mouth, quieting any impending screeches.
In true half-asleep manner, Sunggyu breaks into overdramatic applause, complete with impassioned sighs and fake tears. This attracts the attention of Hoya and Sungjong, who drag Dongwoo out of the bathroom mid-mouth rinse to check out the action, who subsequently trips Myungsoo with a flailing limb and sends him careening into the wall.
“Good morning,” Woohyun mumbles into Sungyeol’s neck a few moments later, ignoring Myungsoo’s unblinking, tired eyes that follow him as Sungyeol ices the bump on Myungsoo’s head.
“Terrible morning,” Myungsoo grumbles, but Sungyeol’s smile aimed at Woohyun, sunny and beaming despite the sorry state of his beloved coffee machine and a whining, now frowning best friend, tells Woohyun just how much Sungyeol agrees with him.
Pairing/Focus: Woohyun/Sungyeol
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4,703
Summary: With every household appliance that breaks in Infinite’s dorm, a bit of Woohyun’s sanity is heartlessly demolished along with it.
To: romeyeol
From: Your Secret Santa
Their shower is the first thing to break. Woohyun thinks the showerhead falling off the spout to its untimely demise is tragic, but no one else seems to agree, since everyone thinks it’s just fine to use Woohyun and Sunggyu’s bathroom.
An en-suite bathroom had been the perk Woohyun was most enthused about when they’d finally bid goodbye to their dilapidated lodgings for something more upscale, dropping the two cardboard boxes in his arms to greet his own toilet and shower like an old friend the moment he’d stepped foot into his room. It’s basically his bathroom, since Sunggyu uses it very early in the mornings while Woohyun likes to shower at night, so Woohyun is a bit possessive over it--understandably, he would say.
But the others; they just don’t get it. And because Sunggyu absolutely cannot condone having five men stinking up the place all because, “Woohyun is acting like an entitled little brat,” and Woohyun doesn’t actually like when he can see Sunggyu’s eyes, piercing into him in his normal look of, “Do as I say or you get it,” Woohyun has no choice.
“Sungyeol, keep out of the cabinets,” Woohyun immediately warns, watching Sungyeol prance out of his room, toiletries and towel in his arms. Woohyun’s going to be very jumpy until he gets used to this idea, or, realistically, until someone fixes the goddamn showerhead. (“Three days, Woohyun,” Sunggyu said, patting his shoulder. A fucking century, Woohyun heard.)
“Hmm, a bit quick on the draw there, aren’t we, Woohyun?” Sungyeol hums, darting through the living room. “I wasn’t even going to check there!”
Woohyun snarls at him, and pointedly ignores Sunggyu’s knowing, raised brow, as well as Hoya’s remarks about condoms and Sungyeol and lube or something equally as dirty. He ignores Hoya; Woohyun does not need that kind of negativity in his life.
“I just don’t want Sungyeol rooting through my vitamin bottles,” Woohyun says very calmly. “I don’t need him fooling around with them, switching labels or mixing pills. I could die.” He sweeps the living room with a very judging glare of consternation.
“I think Sungyeol hyung would much prefer the condoms and lube theory Hoya hyung had going on,” Sungjong says flippantly, wresting the remote control from Dongwoo while the other is incapacitated (i.e., laughing like an hyena).
Myungsoo hums in agreement.
“No,” Woohyun says, steadfast. He’s never really this stubborn, especially when he likes someone, but something about Sungyeol has him oddly tentative to make the first move. Woohyun wants to say, to the room at large, that Woohyun is like one those people that go on safaris and scout out endangered species or whatever it is they do, and Sungyeol is like a giraffe-zebra hybrid that shouldn’t exist, but regrettably does, and Woohyun is now the unfortunate soul who has to figure out how the fuck that happened. He thinks he lost his point somewhere. “No,” he simply repeats. “No.”
The shower is still not repaired the next day, but everyone is too tired after schedules to wash up anyway, so Woohyun gets to bathe in peace, singing out his part in The Chaser like the fucking main vocalist he is, fuck Woohyun you are great, you are better than Sunggyu, yes you are--
There’s a knock on the door, muted some by the rush of the shower.
“I was trying to figure out a polite way to say shut the fuck up, but,” Sunggyu coughs slightly, “yeah, Woohyun, shut the fuck up.”
Woohyun’s singing in the shower may be cut short, but nothing can take away from the fact that no one is going to use his bathroom tonight, no hassles with Dongwoo nearly slipping and busting his ass in the shower since Woohyun and Sunggyu don’t require a non-slip mat for when dancing in the shower is deemed necessary, none of Hoya’s manly essences clogging the drain, nothing but Woohyun and his shower.
When Woohyun stumbles into the bathroom at three a.m., only an hour after falling asleep, he really needs to take a piss. So he barely notices Sungyeol, naked, standing on the balls of his feet in front of the mirror, humming a nondescript song to himself as he applies deodorant, as he hobbles past and gets his dick out to pee.
Sungyeol has common sense, so he waits until Woohyun finishes his business and tucks himself back into his boxers before speaking.
“Um, hi, Woohyun?” Sungyeol offers weakly.
Woohyun opens his mouth to scream and gets into kung-fu stance to employ his nonexistent kung-fu skills in this opportunity, but Sungyeol dashes forward and covers his mouth before a mere gasp of breath is taken in.
“It’s just me,” Sungyeol assures. “Admittedly, I’m naked and my dick is kind of brushing against your boxers, but.” Woohyun’s eyes are widening over Sungyeol’s hand and he kind of can’t breathe and Sungyeol has no clothes on and he’s wet this is really hot no-- “Oh!” Sungyeol drops his hand, grinning sheepishly at the realization of everything.
“Yeah,” Woohyun chokes.
Sungyeol laughs. “Sorry. I kind of figured you wouldn’t want the entire house to know you were threatened by a naked beanpole.” His laughter stops abruptly. “On second thought, that would have been fucking fantastic, oh, I’m a terrible person!”
“Yeah,” Woohyun says. He still doesn’t really remember what breathing is.
Sungyeol caps his stick of deodorant, now back in front of the mirror. “Do you need help getting back to bed or will you be alright?”
Yes, please, please help me. “No, I’m fine,” Woohyun says, and stumbles back the way he came.
He scrambles up the ladder to his top bunk the second he’s out of the bathroom, the memory living on because the strip of light beneath the door is bright and Sungyeol is still in there, still naked, still long-limbed and very long elsewhere (even flaccid, surprisingly, and wow no), and Woohyun decides that pillows are very nice to scream into, even if it makes Sunggyu hate him the next morning. Sungyeol laughs, though, at Sunggyu’s disdain of Woohyun, and if Sungyeol is laughing, that laugh that’s a bit crazed with his mouth all open, a gross mixture of coffee and toast still in his mouth, then Woohyun is laughing too.
The shower is finally fixed the next day, and Woohyun thinks he’s grown as a person because of this experience, so he’s grateful. He’s always really good at pretending Sunggyu’s words of encouragement are his own.
He’s sane for the next few days, even managing to pull a prank with Sungyeol and succeed in dance practice without falling over himself because of Sungyeol's body, Sungyeol piercings glinting in the fluorescent light of the dance studio, Sungyeol's tummy bared by a flailing arm, just Sungyeol Sungyeol Sungyeol (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧. Woohyun is an embarrassment to himself, and this has all gotten so bad that even Hoya’s jibes and teases aren’t offensive anymore (because they’re true).
His sanity train grinds to a very abrupt halt when Myungsoo trips over Sungyeol’s legs upon crossing through the living room, sleepy after his sitcom filming, and promptly knocks a decorative bonsai plant over, which knocks over Dongwoo, who knocks over the TV.
“Sungyeol, I hate you,” Hoya says in the aftermath, after Dongwoo finally lets them inspect his bruised arm and Myungsoo makes Sungjong rub his head where it’d hit the plant. “If your stupidly long legs hadn’t been taking up the place, this wouldn’t have happened. We would still have a TV.”
“And here I thought you cared about Dongwoo hyung,” Sungyeol snipes, returning the pout that Dongwoo sends at him.
Woohyun, initially, doesn’t really care about the hole ripped jaggedly through the TV screen: he can monitor his drama on his computer, after all, and it’d save him from Sungyeol and Hoya’s teasing words about his sub-par acting. He’s just fine with curling up in his top bunk, laptop balanced on his knees, and watching himself flash his abs at Hyomin, Sungyeol screeching about something in the living room his melodic background noise.
But then Sungyeol gets bored (or, alternatively, Sungyeol beleaguers Woohyun and conforms him into his own personal entertainment system).
“Don’t you have Myungsoo to bother?” Woohyun complains, folding an extra t-shirt into his gym bag. Sungyeol had barged in unceremoniously, waxing plaintive about life-crippling boredom and save me, Woohyun, but if Sungyeol doesn’t like him romantically (or at least sexually), then the fangirls do, and Woohyun needs to maintain those chocolate abs so to the gym he goes. Not to Sungyeol he submits, since Sungyeol seems to want to boss him around and make him bend over backward to make him laugh.
Sungyeol bounces onto the bed beside Woohyun, long leg nearly kicking Woohyun in the nose. “Myungsoo’s filming,” he says, planting his face in Sunggyu’s pillow. Woohyun kindly doesn’t tell Sungyeol that that same pillow had been sandwiched between Sunggyu’s legs while he slept last night. “And Dongwoo and Hoya are playing basketball somewhere, and Sungjong is talking to his reflection in the mirror or plotting Sunggyu’s demise or kickboxing, I don’t know.” He pouts. “Entertain me.”
Sungyeol ends up going to the gym with Woohyun (or, also alternatively, Sungyeol ends up making Woohyun want to throw a dumbbell at Sungyeol’s make-up free, shining face every single time he moves).
“You should probably take that hoodie off,” Woohyun advises when they get to the company gym, already shucking his own zip-up, pulling down the hem of his white beater. He doesn’t want to give Sungyeol a show--well, he does, but Sungyeol would probably turn all clammy and awkward if Woohyun performed an impromptu striptease, wouldn’t he?
Sungyeol blinks. “What?”
Woohyun flicks his bangs aside as he glances up. Sungyeol looks uncomfortable standing next to an elliptical trainer, toying with the zipper of his hoodie. “Your sweatshirt,” Woohyun says, gesticulating out the motions Sungyeol needs to carry out. “Take it off.”
“No need to be so forward,” Sungyeol mutters, but listens nonetheless, and Woohyun feels dumb for forgetting Sungyeol’s stupid complex about his upper body.
Woohyun sighs as he walks over to Sungyeol, and when he places a hand on Sungyeol’s bare forearm, cool to the touch beneath his warm palm, Sungyeol jolts, turning wide eyes onto Woohyun.
“Listen, I know you don’t like your arms, or stomach, or whatever but. You’re being stupid,” Woohyun begins, and quickly continues because Sungyeol’s gaze is starting to border on murderous. “I--I like your abs.” And your arms and your hands and those legs--
“The abs I don’t have?” Sungyeol scoffs, but Woohyun thinks he looks vaguely pleased, that shimmer that Woohyun treasures so much, sees in behind his lids when he’s trying to sleep but Sunggyu is snoring and he’s not that tired anyway, returns to Sungyeol’s eyes. “You mean you think my flabby stomach is prizeworthy?”
“Yep,” Woohyun affirms, smile cheesy when he pinches at Sungyeol’s tummy through his tank shirt. He talks loudly over Sungyeol’s shrieks of protest. “And it’s not flabby, it’s...soft.”
Sungyeol’s eyes widen, and a blush suffuses Woohyun’s cheeks. He’s not sure if he crossed the line between friendly male compliment and I think your belly is cute and would look even cuter littered with kiss marks and I want to squish it. But Sungyeol’s expression has turned even more satisfied, so Woohyun hopes it’s okay, and plans to write off his slip of the tongue as his normal greasiness if need be.
“I’ll try not to work out too hard then,” Sungyeol says, ending the weird tension when he slips his arm out from where Woohyun had forgotten he’d been holding it, straying over to the rack of dumbbells. “Wouldn’t want to lose my,” he laughs, and Woohyun thinks, with a flutter in his stomach, that it sounds nervous, “my soft stomach that you seem to like so much.”
“It’s your biggest charm,” Woohyun says solemnly.
It’s impossible to do anything in silence with Sungyeol, so Woohyun listens to his babble as he runs on the treadmill, rants about Dongwoo’s strangely designed underwear ending up on Sungyeol’s bed when Dongwoo stumbles in sleepily and misses the hamper, complains about how itchy his piercings felt when they were healing, inane prattle that would have been a welcome backdrop to assuage the pull of Woohyun’s leg muscles when he switches to the elliptical had it not been for Sungyeol’s body greeting him every time he glanced over.
Sungyeol looks really, really nice in beaters, clinging to his chest with sweat, even better when his arms flex and the hint of muscle lurking in his biceps curve under his skin with every lift of the weight upward. He’d traded the smaller dumbbells for ten pound ones (and even those looked oversize for Sungyeol’s thin arms, bless him, Woohyun thinks), and they’d only made his arm swell further from the exertion. Woohyun almost loses his footing on the exercise machine, and death by cross trainer just sounds embarrassing.
“We should probably go soon,” Woohyun says when he’s had enough of checking out Sungyeol’s small, practically nonexistent ass once he’d finally started on one of the machines. This whole event has been one masochistic venture, but Woohyun knows where to draw the lines.
Only not really, because after schedules the next day, Sungyeol wheedles Woohyun into taking him out for patbingsu despite the wintry weather, and the residual chill combined with the ice of the dessert has Sungyeol’s mouth red and wet, and every spoonful feels like a direct kick to Woohyun’s precious face. And then to his groin, when Sungyeol licks his lips and his tongue is just as slick and scarlet.
Next day’s activity seems safer: folding paper into badly crafted planes to throw at the rest of their bandmates in a ploy to annoy them. It turns dangerous when Sunggyu, sufficiently annoyed, rips an airplane from Sungyeol’s hand and gives him a papercut, and his thumb is sucked past his lips to abate the pain. Woohyun begins to think he has an oral fixation. Or maybe it’s just a Sungyeol fixation, because when Sungyeol screams at him to fetch a bandaid, Woohyun dazedly admires the line of Sungyeol’s neck and how his Adam’s apple bobs before springing into motion.
He can’t deal with this anymore.
“I can’t fucking deal with this anymore,” Woohyun tells Sunggyu when they’re in their respective bunks, hands folded neatly over his middle as he tries very hard to pretend Sungyeol hasn’t wiggled his way into his thoughts and permanently sat his lack-of ass in the forefront of his brain. “I can’t deal with this--” He grasps for the right word.
“Sexual frustration,” Sunggyu supplies for him, albeit wearily.
Woohyun frowns. “I was going for something not so crass--”
“Just kiss him, or something, Woohyun,” Sunggyu says, and where once it’d been embarrassing and difficult to advise Woohyun to make out with Sungyeol in the middle of the living room if he had to, it’s now second nature from hearing Woohyun’s romantic woes every week for the last four months. “Skywrite it, propose to him after a performance, fucking sneak into the shower with him, I don’t care.”
Woohyun contemplates this all with the utmost care before answering. “Where can I hire a skywriter?”
Sunggyu groans into his pillow, and Woohyun kindly doesn’t tell him that Sungyeol had drooled on it when he dozed off waiting for Woohyun to get changed to take him out for patbingsu.
Woohyun is almost near tears when he gets home that night after an Immortal Song 2 filming with Sunggyu and, glinting newly in the wall unit, is a new TV, Hoya and Myungsoo already hooking up their PS3 while Sungyeol flails in celebration and Dongwoo looks beside himself with happiness on the couch, Sungjong presumably given the job of calming him down. He’s sat stoically on Dongwoo’s stomach, flipping through the menus on his phone.
The world is back on its axis, Woohyun has gotten a slight reprieve from Sungyeol’s constant presence (the breathing against the back of his neck while he’s cooking dinner, the trickle of want it elicited, the pleas to take Sungyeol everywhere, all nipped in the bud because Sungyeol’s favorite dramas fell in that exact time), and everything is perfect!
“Central heating is broken,” Sunggyu says a few nights later, when Woohyun is already tucked into bed, waiting for sleep to claim him. “I found the kids some portable heaters, but Sungyeol was complaining when I left.” It sounds like a warning, but Woohyun can’t see where it’s necessary.
“Will you be okay?” Woohyun asks, peering down at Sunggyu from his perch. He’s digging extra blankets out of their closet, and his eyes are well on their way to forming into sleepy slits when he glances up.
“Should be fine,” he mumbles, and Woohyun sinks back into his mattress, the slight chill that he feels slowly winding into their dorm barely making him shiver.
Woohyun’s still awake five minutes later, the exact span of time it took for Sunggyu to crash onto his bed and pass out, and he’s startled when his phone lights up and vibrates beside his head.
From: Sungyeol
i’m freezing my tits off, woohyun
To: Sungyeol
I’m sorry? =__=
From: Sungyeol
make room, i’m coming over
Woohyun takes thirty seconds to digest this, and then another ten to fully process it, but by then Sungyeol has twisted the knob and waddled into the room, covered head to toe in his comforter.
“What are you doing?” Woohyun hisses, almost hitting his head on the ceiling upon sitting up abruptly.
“I’m going to steal your warmth,” Sungyeol says placidly, bunching the comforter beneath his arms and crawling up the ladder. “I’m too pretty to die of hypothermia.”
Woohyun hurriedly scoots closer to the wall, watching Sungyeol’s snail-paced descent onto his bed. He’s no stranger to sharing a bed because he and Sunggyu sometimes ended up on the same mattress back in their old dorm, usually after a long, particularly stressful day, but this is Sungyeol, and with him comes legs and breathing that Woohyun has deemed maddening and feelings.
Stupid, infuriating feelings that make Woohyun feel like so much more than his heart-tossing, silver-tongued public persona, that draw out Nam Woohyun and sometimes make him wish for things that Idol Woohyun would never dream of--that he and Sungyeol were both normal, nondescript guys who liked each other, inexplicably, and lived quiet lives that meant he could kiss Sungyeol without worrying about Image and Career and Infinite.
“I’m sure Warmth Leech Myungsoo is available for that,” Woohyun says, still just watching as Sungyeol stretches out on his mattress, arches his back, catlike, and yawns widely. It’s entrancing, the sight, Sungyeol’s hair tousled and eyes sleepy and lips chapped.
“Nope,” Sungyeol says, and Woohyun belatedly realizes that Sungyeol has stolen his pillow. And Sungyeol drools. “Dongwoo is hogging him. Insulting, really,” he sniffs.
“Hoya, then,” Woohyun says, grasping at straws here. He can’t sleep (think, really), can’t function with Sungyeol curled up on his mattress, Sungyeol fixing his comforter and pulling it snug around him, Sungyeol’s sated smile.
Sungyeol scoffs. “Like Hoya is cuddly.”
“Hoya is the poster child of cuddles,” Woohyun protests, but all the fight in him is steadily dwindling away.
“You’re doing a terrible job,” Sungyeol says instead, blinking up at Woohyun. “You’re supposed to be warming me up.”
“Sungjong. He’s warm.”
“He’s also bony,” Sungyeol huffs, tone impatient. “Am I really that repulsive that you don’t want me in your bed with you, Woohyun?” His eyes are open now, wide, sleep still swimming in them, and Woohyun wants to brush aside every sensation that sweeps along the inside of his stomach and wrap warm arms around Sungyeol’s shivering body. But he can’t. He doesn’t know how to do that anymore.
“You’re not repulsive,” Woohyun says softly. “Never. You’re the exact opposite of that.”
Sungyeol slowly sits up, propping himself up on one arm bent at the elbow, bangs cutting across his eyes. “And what is the opposite of repulsive?”
“Perfect?” Don’t take me seriously, Sungyeol, I’m being Woohyun--greasy, stupid, sly Woohyun--
“Do you mean that?” Sungyeol's voice is pitched low, careful, and fear belies his forced casual tone.
No, say no, Woohyun-- ”Y-Yes.”
“Come here,” Sungyeol whispers, his eyes wider than Woohyun has ever seen them, and if he let them, he’s sure they’d swallow him up.
Woohyun listens, whole body trembling when he leans forward--knowing what’s coming, that impossible chance rising before him for his capture, instills a kind of excited fright within him, and he’s still shaking when Sungyeol cranes his neck upward and kisses him.
He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, or his lips, for that matter, and Sungyeol seems just as clueless, but for all their bumbling and frantic breaths that travel between confused mouths, it’s still making Woohyun tingle all over, the feeling of cold lips pressed to his, so gentle and cautious.
“You wanted that right?” Sungyeol asks shakily a moment later, nose brushing Woohyun’s.
Woohyun licks his dry lips, still so nervous. “I still want it.”
And Sungyeol leans in again, a bit less careful this time, and where Woohyun had thought the first kiss drove him crazy, this one shatters him, makes him part his lips against Sungyeol to kiss him hard, fingers dipping under his chin to bring him closer, and even that doesn’t feel close enough.
It has to be enough, though, because Sunggyu is sleeping right underneath them, but it doesn’t feel too difficult to deal with when Woohyun finally slips beneath the comforter with Sungyeol, who sighs happily at the warm contact.
“Get your elbow out of my neck, please,” Woohyun says calmly, while Sungyeol nearly throws a hissy fit when Woohyun’s knee digs too hard into his thigh, and though it takes a few failed tries, they’re finally content when Sungyeol tucks his head beneath Woohyun’s chin and slides his arms around his waist, Woohyun’s own hands settled on Sungyeol’s shoulder.
“So,” Sungyeol murmurs, “you wanna be boyfriends, or whatever?”
Woohyun laughs into the wisps of Sungyeol’s hair tickling his nose, and he thinks the title of Lee Sungyeol’s Boyfriend has as nice a ring to it as Lee Sungyeol, Boyfriend of Nam Woohyun does.
“Yep,” Woohyun says, smile teasing around his lips.
“Good.”
Silence swells over them, the only hint of noise issuing from beneath them as Sunggyu squirms in his own bed, and Woohyun thinks he may actually manage to drift off easily, coaxed into sleep by Sungyeol’s deep breathing.
“Hey. Woohyun.”
“Yeah?” Woohyun breathes, rolling his shoulders back into the mattress, any lingering tension from his long schedule sliding away.
Sungyeol walks his pointer and middle fingers down Woohyun’s forearm, cheek pressed warmly against Woohyun’s chest. “I’ve been a bad person~” he sings, and Woohyun has heard that tone enough times, that mirthful, proud tone, that he knows Sungyeol has been sneaky about something.
Woohyun sighs, “What did you do?”
“You remember the broken shower head?”
“How could I not?” I walked in on you naked that one night, Sungyeol--I saw your dick--
“I did it,” Sungyeol rushes out, slapping his palms over his face, and Woohyun knows he’s probably burning up a blush, flaming over his cheeks and spreading to his ears, but wait. What?
“...What?”
“I broke the shower!” he says quickly, voice muffled, “Which was kind of a failed endeavor, but.” Sungyeol groans into his hands. “And the broken TV thing was me, too! Myungsoo agreed to help me so he ‘tripped’ over my legs but the Dongwoo part was an accident! He got caught in the crossfire! We really didn’t mean to hurt hyung; he’s so little, you know? But I didn’t break the heater! That was pure luck. Unless Myungsoo liked his accomplice role too much and decided to somehow kill the heating system, and I mean he did say he felt like an anime character being sneaky and you know Myungsoo--”
“Wait,” Woohyun says slowly, cutting Sungyeol’s rambling short, laughing a little because what the actual fuck??? “So you mean to tell me you orchestrated this entire thing?”
“Yes.”
Woohyun is really laughing now, and he should be accustomed to the incredulity he feels because when is Sungyeol not ridiculous? “But... why?”
Sungyeol stammers unintelligibly, making those weird noises that manage to both endear and confuse the shit out of Woohyun, until he finally bursts out, “I wanted excuses to spend more time with you, okay? I wanted to drag you places and drive you insane with my stupidity and watch you eat foods that make your mouth more sexual than it already is!”
“I think I found one thing we have in common,” Woohyun says faintly, running his fingers through Sungyeol’s disastrous, fluffy hair. Sungyeol hums, satisfied. He continues, “You didn’t have to go destroying the house though, you know.”
“You kinda looked miserable when I kept bugging you, hanging around and whatever,” Sungyeol says, sounding slightly put-out. “So I stopped breaking things, but this--this was my last-ditch effort to see if you liked me, I guess?”
Woohyun sits up slowly, suspended in surprise, eyeing Sungyeol confusedly. “I thought I was so goddamn obvious!” he exclaims quietly, wary of Sunggyu waking up and discovering them in bed together, so closely intertwined. Well, he had said whatever it takes. “Everyone knows how I feel, Yeol.”
“Oh.”
Woohyun scoffs. “Stupid.”
Sungyeol doesn’t disagree, only lets out a laugh and snuggles closer into Woohyun. Sunggyu snorts in his sleep below them.
The next morning, Woohyun is roused with a horrified scream from the direction of the kitchen, and even in his half-awake, crusty-eyed state, it’s not very hard to put two and two together--the slightly warm, empty space beside him and how bloodcurdling the shriek was--to figure out that was Sungyeol who probably woke up the entire building.
Woohyun hears a laugh from the doorway, and when he sits up, Sunggyu is standing there, arms crossed, eyes unaccounted for, and lips upturned in a smirk.
“I may have been awake for a portion of your talk with Sungyeol last night,” he says, tone evenly casual.
“Oh?” Woohyun yawns.
“I may have also heard that he broke the shower, and, more importantly, the TV.”
“Oh.”
“I definitely told Howon.”
Woohyun chokes. “Oh.”
Sunggyu is pushed out of the doorway when Sungyeol scrambles into the room, bedhead almost comically haphazard atop his scalp, his eyes so wild that Woohyun thinks he could pass for an animal he’d picked up on a safari.
“Hoya decimated my coffee maker, Woohyun, he decimated it--he clogged it up with Dongwoo’s underwear!”
Woohyun idly wonders if he could a sympathetic response skywritten, but since Sunggyu had groaned at that half-fleshed idea a few days ago, Woohyun settles with sliding sleepily out of his bunk, stumbling over to Sungyeol, and kissing him on the mouth, quieting any impending screeches.
In true half-asleep manner, Sunggyu breaks into overdramatic applause, complete with impassioned sighs and fake tears. This attracts the attention of Hoya and Sungjong, who drag Dongwoo out of the bathroom mid-mouth rinse to check out the action, who subsequently trips Myungsoo with a flailing limb and sends him careening into the wall.
“Good morning,” Woohyun mumbles into Sungyeol’s neck a few moments later, ignoring Myungsoo’s unblinking, tired eyes that follow him as Sungyeol ices the bump on Myungsoo’s head.
“Terrible morning,” Myungsoo grumbles, but Sungyeol’s smile aimed at Woohyun, sunny and beaming despite the sorry state of his beloved coffee machine and a whining, now frowning best friend, tells Woohyun just how much Sungyeol agrees with him.