Work Text:
You write good music, undoubtedly. It is true to your heart. It is raw. There's a common theme in your music too. Like all of these words and melodies are for the same person. But you write like you are screaming every word into a vacuum, like that person is never going to listen to you. It's a red thread through everything you work on. Could be a continuous story. A fairytale gone dark. A word of advice though – it is starting to seem like you are stuck in a waiting game. If you won’t move on, you will ever be able to evolve. As an artist, and as a person.
Jeonghyeon mulls the words over – Professor Kim wasn't wrong, was he?
After all, here Jeonghyeon is, waiting again. With his notes app open on his phone, Hanbin's sharp jaw and soft dimples staring back at him from between every line typed into a document for later use.
"Don't you ever get tired of waiting for him?"
It is Keita’s voice, his hyung’s question, that makes Jeonghyeon look up.
He tunes back into the party simmering down around him. The very party Hanbin had left with a hand wrapped around another man's bicep and a promise of milkshake kisses, perhaps even more. Probably more. No one ever looks at Hanbin and doesn’t want more.
The party Jeonghyeon is still at, waiting indeed.
Keita's gaze is unfocused enough for his words not to pierce Jeonghyeon. Kind too. But perceptive, nevertheless.
Keita sat next to Jeonghyeon after all, in their small song writing tutorial of five people. In their professor’s office whose walls are filled with a mixture of Epik High, Nirvana and Queen posters and black and white landscape photographs. Their professor, who critiques them harshly and honestly on the lyrics that are supposed to bare a part of their soul each week. When Jeonghyeon rapped lines about canines sinking into lips but never his, the salty taste of sweat and desperation, about following someone everywhere and even off a cliff, tapping a gentle beat with a pen to his thigh, Keita had watched him attentively. Hours later Hanbin’s canines had sunken into a very mid tasting cafeteria sandwich and Jeonghyeon eyes had been stuck, and Keita had known.
So Jeonghyeon is not surprised his hyung is asking now. Lines between the things you ask in daylight and the things you whisper in the night are a little blurry from liquor and neon lights tonight anyway.
The thing is just that Jeonghyeon’s tired. He wants to sleep. And more than that, he wants to listen to Hanbin’s drunken, soft snores as he falls asleep. Pathetic really. Maybe he truly is stuck. Stuck waiting. After all, he's doing it again tonight, isn't he? Keita is not wrong at all in pointing that out.
Jeonghyeon looks back to where Keita is sitting across from him on the couch. His dark brown hair falls into his eyes, and he is definitely drunk. There is also a pretty girl with a wavy bob tucked into his side. Her head comfortably resting on his shoulder, eyes closed, and glossy lips parted. One of her hands lays on Keita's thigh. The other one, Keita is holding, playing with her fingers in his. Keita's blunt nails against the deep purple dusted with glitter on her manicured ones.
Jeonghyeon focuses on those details, so he doesn't tell his hyung to go fuck himself as a defence mechanism. Or how this very girl demolished Taegyun in smash bros on the switch they had stolen from Junghyun, who had a flirty, tipsy Yunseo drag him to the dance floor. How after her win, she grabbed the collar of Taegyun's flimsy band shirt and started making out with him until they fell to the couch Jeonghyeon was lounging on to nurse a beer and not to watch Hanbin’s lithe body on the dance floor, matching dimples with god damn Tarae. Jeonghyeon had never seen Taegyun smile like that, into kisses of all things. Neither did he ever see Keita allow a girl to drunkenly nap on him in the middle of a party his hyung could be dominating – on the dance floor or in front of the gaming console.
Although it's less of a party now – only really the occupants of the house left, and Seungeon snoring on the armchair across from them. Seungeon, who Jeonghyeon would be much rather having this conversation with. Seungeon has a kind bluntness to him, a sweet way of listening that is much better for Jeonghyeon’s pathetic heart, than the way Keita can see through him so seemingly effortlessly.
Drunk Keita is scary in his perception and honesty. Jeonghyeon doesn’t know how to tell him he has always waited for Hanbin, always followed him everywhere.
He chose this university’s business degree because Hanbin chose to study here, and business degrees were the same everywhere anyway. Hanbin gave him the courage to minor in the music production that brought him friends like Keita and Seungeon in the first place. He has waited for Hanbin when Hanbin came home from his first date with a boy in their first uni year and scrunched up his nose with an "Eh" when Jeonghyeon asked "How was it?" and tried not to sound jealous. He has waited for Hanbin after the other's first theatre show three months ago only to be met not only with Hanbin but with theatre prodigy and vocal/ practical music major Tarae that has apparently become Hanbin’s new best friend.
Ever since Jeonghyeon met Hanbin all he has done was wait for the other boy. By now it is too late to stop. Somewhere in Jeonghyeon’s rib cage, too close to his heart because Hanbin is always too close to his heart, waiting for Hanbin must have been ingrained in him. It has become a part of him by now – this loving and waiting.
Jeonghyeon dug himself his own hole, and he might as well make a home in it now.
It is too late to tell himself, or anyone else who has been catching on like Keita for that matter, that he doesn’t wait for Hanbin because he loves him. That this waiting game was anything but pathetic, unrequited love.
"I don't." Jeonghyeon simply replies.
I unfortunately never get sick of waiting for him. Even though there have been times I myself wished I finally would., he doesn’t say.
He puts down the empty cup in his hands. The living room table is sticky with spilled alcohol and Jeonghyeon can too easily picture a tired and grumpy Hanbin scrubbing it down with him tomorrow, their knees touching and Hanbin’s favourite ratty basketball shorts riding up on his thighs.
The thought makes Jeonghyeon want to type more notes into his phone. It itches in his fingers to write something about the way Hanbin will always roll his eyes about the bad jokes Jeonghyeon makes but then laughs about them anyway – a small grin and a dry chuckle. He doesn’t, though. Keita is still watching him, and Jeonghyeon thinks he might need to start practicing some sort of self-control anyway.
Keita yawns and shrugs. "Suit yourself. I'm here of you ever wanna talk about it."
Jeonghyeon is not foolish enough to ask talk about what, so he just watches Keita breathe a kiss to the girl’s hairline and then lean his head back against the couch to close his eyes as well.
Somewhere in the depth of this God forsaken frat house Jeonghyeon regrets moving into regularly and would move out of if he didn't love his house mates so much, someone is laughing. From somewhere else, he hears a high-pitched moan that sounds too much like Yunseo. He makes a face and then pulls out his phone. Self-control can wait until he at least has Hanbin in his proximity again.
On the screen, a message from Hanbin awaits him. omw back to the house, Hanbin texted. Followed by: milkshake guy wanted a bj in the mcdonalds bathroom & i’ve not yet sunken that low
Not much waiting left for tonight, then. Because as much as Jeonghyeon waits, Hanbin will always eventually come back to him. That too is inevitable.
Jeonghyeon's heart settles in his chest. At least a little.
~
Jeonghyeon waits for Hanbin in front of the other boy’s lecture hall, only for none other than Keita and Taegyun's party hook up, or whoever this girl might be, to walk out with her arm hooked into Hanbin’s, delicate tattoos of butterflies and bees and falling flower petals on display on her skin. They are woven around what looks like computer code or some sort of cypher, a Spotify QR code to a favourite song maybe, and make her look incredibly interesting. Never more interesting than Hanbin though. Not to Jeonghyeon at least.
Jeonghyeon has given up on finding girls more than attractive in a neutral yet appreciative sort of way since he first felt the blood go cold in his veins and all the heat rush down, down, down that one summer a seventeen-year-old Hanbin pulled off his shirt at their local swimming pool and Jeonghyeon spotted hickeys like bruises on his collarbones that he suddenly desperately wished were his doing.
"Jeonghyeon!" Hanbin's face lights up with a smile. A hint of surprise in his eyes. But never rejection.
Hanbin has never actually rejected Jeonghyeon. Not yet at least.
"You waited for me?" "Thought we could head to lunch together.", Jeonghyeon shrugs, trying to sound casual. He accidentally meets the girl's eyes. She looks sharp and raises one eyebrow, kind of like she sees through him and his feelings more than Hanbin does. More than Hanbin ever did. More than he ever will, perhaps.
Hanbin, who nods "Sure, let’s go." and then pulls Jeonghyeon along.
Sometimes Jeonghyeon wonders whether Hanbin knows he would follow him anywhere. Whether he has ever inspired this kind of loyalty in Hanbin as well.
Jeonghyeon knows Hanbin likes to spend time with him – they fold their laundry together and have nightly tea together as they sit in their frat’s spacious living room and do their assignments or comment on TV shows together like they always know better than whoever is on the screen. They share a room and blast a shared playlist of a mixture of rap and trendy idol music when they clean it together. Sometimes Jeonghyeon will find his favourite snacks on his bed when he comes home from studio time on the weekend and Hanbin will lounge in his own bed and tell Jeonghyeon “Got them for you because I know you forget to eat when you’re busy.” without looking up from scrolling on his phone.
So Jeonghyeon knows Hanbin cares for him, even though it is quieter and more settled, less boisterous and silly boyish cuddly than it is whenever Hanbin interacts with Junghyun or Yunseo or Keita.
Sometimes Jeonghyeon just feels like it’s never enough. Like he’ll be forever left waiting.
He suppresses a sigh, pulling himself out of his own head, and lets himself fall into step with Hanbin and the tattooed girl.
On their way, Hanbin introduces the girl as Chaewoo. Jongwoo's sister, apparently. Jongwoo, who dances with Hanbin and is one of Taegyun's best friends. Taegyun, who has history with Keita that makes the two amateur producers apparently unable to work together. So much so, that their whole music production class knows, and Keita just waved it off with a plastered-on grin and a hurricane of emotions in his eyes when Jeonghyeon wanted to ask.
Everyone in his friend group is always intertwined and Jeonghyeon remains watching from a safe distance that he doesn’t quite know how to cross. He loves his friends, and he relishes in their drama just as much as he steadily supports them, but it can be a little lonely sometimes on the sidelines. It has also been a while since it was Hanbin narrating their friend’s gossip to him, the two of them lying side by side on the floor of their shared bedroom at the frat house, shoulders touching and Hanbin turning to Jeonghyeon at one point, propping his head up enough to look down at him and ask with sparkling eyes "Why is there never anything new with you? Any hearts you want to break or mend?" More than once, Jeonghyeon wanted to say "Yours.", but he's been a continuous coward.
Hanbin only ever makes Jeonghyeon brave in doses. He has yet to gather enough courage to tell his best friend he loves him. Is in love with him.
In the cafeteria, Keita waves them over from a table he shares with Yunseo in a cropped sweater and Seungeon complaining about their music theory professor and awful essay topics. Keita smiles when Chaewoo unceremoniously presses a kiss to his lips as a greeting and she then plops down in between Jeonghyeon’s friends naturally, nudging Yunseo to playfully tease whether Junghyun likes his outfit today.
Jeonghyeon sits beside Hanbin and asks himself how long he'll have to keep waiting while his friends fall in love all around him.
~
Jeonghyeon is having a pretty good day today. He’s wearing one of his favourite green, light long sleeves, his hair dried well today after his shower, and he watched a new video of his favourite YouTuber with breakfast.
He’s also grocery shopping with Hanbin right now, so that might have influenced his mood today as well.
Hanbin has his hair in a little ponytail at the back of his head, sweatpants accentuating his lithe hips and thighs with dancer muscles, and a long sleeve he definitely stole out of Jeonghyeon’s closet with one of those ahjussi-vests Hanbin loves finding on his shopping trips with Yunseo and Junghyun.
Since it is their turn to shop for the frat house this weekend, Hanbin has been standing in front of the cereal aisle for a solid five minutes, debating what to buy and whether to only choose the things on sale with Seungeon via increasingly animated voice mails.
Jeonghyeon has been watching and witnessing the whole thing with the kind of amusement and fondness in his inners that left him all warm. He does love his friends a lot, in moments like this. Little things that make day to day live a little brighter and more fun.
He can also still feel the imprint of Hanbin’s warm fingers on the inner side of his wrist, from where Hanbin dragged him through the produce section and straight to the meat earlier. They are planning a barbecue this weekend and Hanbin has been craving lamb skewers specifically. Jeonghyeon had a debate about cuts of pork with him that was interrupted by a slightly impatient store clerk, and that left him with an adrenaline-like tingle in his belly. Something about the wavelength and chemistry Hanbin and him share whenever they discuss something. How they are just as good at playing in a team as they are going against each other.
It's exhilarating. It’s one of those things that makes Jeonghyeon sure he’ll never get tired of waiting for Hanbin. It doesn’t always feel like waiting, after all.
Most days, it feels like today – just being by Hanbin’s side and going through everyday things with him.
Hanbin huffs in annoyance at Seungeon’s latest voice mail, Keita screaming commentary into the phone too, and Jeonghyeon gently pushes Hanbin forward and out of another customer’s way with a hand in between his shoulder blades.
Hanbin leans into the touch, shoulders tensing and untensing. “I need ice cream after this.” “Sure, a sweet treat sounds good.” Jeonghyeon agrees easily. Most of the time, agreeing with Hanbin is one of the easiest things in the world to him.
Jeonghyeon allows his hand to trail down Hanbin’s back, just a feather of a touch. Maybe he’s imagining it, but for a moment, he almost thinks Hanbin shivers at the light contact. At the hint of warmth.
It causes something to stir in the pits of Jeonghyeon’s stomach. Something heated, like desire.
He blinks it away quickly. Pulls the cart closer and grabs two random boxes of cereal from the shelf. “You get to choose the third one.”, he tells Hanbin. Hanbin, whose eyes crinkle with a smile both surprised and amused. “Ah, look at you making executive decisions for the household. And here I was thinking you only benefitted us with your looks.” A sort of running gag of theirs – Hanbin calling Jeonghyeon the visual of their friend group, and Jeonghyeon pretending it doesn’t make his heart race in his chest.
“If you keep teasing me, I’ll decide which ice cream you get too. And you’ll have to live with the choice.” Jeonghyeon replies, almost seamlessly. There’s only the slightest of blushes on the highs of his cheeks. Hanbin takes the cereal Seungeon specifically requested from the shelf because he is just as much as a menace as he is a dedicated friend, and then falls into step with Jeonghyeon pushing their cart towards the freezer section.
“You do know all of my favourites and the exact ways to piss me off.” Hanbin agrees, grinning. Jeonghyeon loves when he’s grinning like this – all casual and boyish. None of the pretences Hanbin puts on to perform on stage and shape himself into different roles. He is currently rehearsing to play Hamlet in a radicalized and modern version of the play, and sometimes Jeonghyeon witnesses Hanbin rehearse at home and is scared, turned on and in awe all at once.
Hanbin puts one of his hands on the side of the cart, steering it into the direction of the ice cream and Jeonghyeon follows the directions easily because Hanbin always has a plan.
It reminds Jeonghyeon of the time a few months ago when his younger brother Jihoo stayed with them when he was on vacation from high school, and Hanbin coordinated when to wake up and everything to prepare in advance in order for them to make a full breakfast spread for Jihoo. Only for Jihoo to spot an open bag of corn chips on the table while Hanbin and Jeonghyeon were bickering over when to flip the pancakes for the perfect golden-brown colour and starting to munch on it unceremoniously.
Back then, Hanbin and him got as far as starting their next debate about fried eggs until Jihoo couldn’t help but dissolve into giggles and started teasing them about their domesticity. Jihoo has been incessantly teasing Jeonghyeon about Hanbin ever since he passed the age of thirteen and realized his hyung had a terrible, obvious crush.
Now, seeing them grocery shop together, Jihoo would probably say something cheesy like “Jeonghyeon-hyung is Hanbin-hyungs, they never go anywhere without the other.” and it wouldn’t even be that far off.
Jeonghyeon blinks himself out of his thoughts, stopping the cart as Hanbin bends his body to look down at the ice cream freezer, and Jeonghyeon’s eyes catch on the outline of his ass for a moment. He looks away just as quickly, the tips of his ears burning a little, only to spot none other than Taegyun and Chaewoo across from them.
They are standing by the tubs of ice cream displayed in hanging freezers, Taegyun’s hand in the back pocket of Chaewoo’s ripped denim skirt and her leaning into his lanky figure as they debate which flavour mix to get.
“Look at that!”, Jeonghyeon whispers with emphasis, nudging Hanbin. Hanbin, who frowns a little and is about to complain about Jeonghyeon’s elbow to his hip all while his hand wraps around Jeonghyeon’s arm, only for his mouth to fall open and his fingers to dig into Jeonghyeon’s skin at the sight of these two people that keep hovering around their friend.
Just a few days ago, Keita came out of his bedroom looking the most satisfied kind of dishevelled, padding into the kitchen in sweatpants low on his hips and a near disgusting glow in his eyes. He was even shirtless, a rare sight for Keita who likes to keep private things to himself like he’s hoarding a treasure. Keita had hummed to himself while making hot chocolate in the microwave and then disappeared back into his room, the not-so-gentle scratches of nails on his shoulders. When Jeonghyeon and Yunseo exchanged gazes, Seungeon looked up from his homework and told them “Chaewoo has been over all day, why do you think I’m suffering with music theory homework on my own.” with a deadpan face.
“Is this like an open relationship thing, or is Keita-hyung being toyed with? Should we be worried?” Jeonghyeon glances down at Hanbin’s hand curled around his arm, Hanbin’s perfume and aftershave in his nose, and then looks back at Chaewoo giggling and leaning into Taegyun even more.
“Ita-hyung doesn’t really talk about it. I’ve tried.”, Hanbin shakes his head. And then, more curiously: “They do look awfully cozy, don’t you think? I never pegged Taegyun for such a PDA guy. Isn’t it Yedam and Seongmin who are always all over each other in their friend group?”
“Well, have you asked Chaewoo? You guys are friends, aren’t you?” Jeonghyeon shakes Hanbin’s fingers loose, gentle imprints left on his skin, and swallows down all the thoughts coming up in his mind at the thought. He never pegged himself for someone to have to fight down an erection in the supermarket either.
“She’s purposely vague about it to annoy me.”, Hanbin rolls his eyes. He keeps watching the two across from them, hip leaning against the freezer and a contemplative look on his face. Jeonghyeon often thinks he could talk about anything and everything with Hanbin, philosophize about the world with him forever. He’d never get bored. He’d always want to hear all of Hanbin’s thoughts.
“Maybe-“, Jeonghyeon stops, when the unmistakable name Keita makes its way over to them.
Hanbin and him look at each other, eyes wide, and then they move closer to the pair across from them at the same time.
“Keita-hyung will have a field day if you choose too much yogurt ice cream again. We should get some more dark chocolate flavour for him.” That’s Taegyun. Talking about Keita both casually and fond like he knows him very well, and not at all like the two have some sort of secret rivalry going on that has broken them apart. Rather, this has the sounds of a secret relationship.
“Polyamory.”, Hanbin nods, the realization dawning on both him and Jeonghyeon at the same time, as Chaewoo pulls out a half strawberry and half dark chocolate tub out of the freezer and then directs Taegyun into another aisle.
“Good for them.”
Jeonghyeon keeps looking after the two and somehow it is very easy to imagine Keita curled up in between them on the couch. Chaewoo talking and both boys listening fondly. Taegyun and Keita behind the desk in a studio and Chaewoo visiting with snacks, plopping down on one lap and rolling the other’s chair closer.
Damn, more of his friends falling in love all around him then.
And suddenly Jeonghyeon’s good mood is not exactly dampened, but he does feel a little irritated. He looks at Hanbin picking out ice cream, sees Hanbin’s lips move, and hears nothing.
He wants that too, he realizes. So much. Casual love. Eating his ice cream with Hanbin not while they carry groceries back to their frat but curled around each other on the couch, Hanbin’s head on his chest. He’d watch something with Hanbin that only Hanbin is really interested in, and they’ll get distracted halfway through kissing the flavour of ice cream off each other’s lips.
Jeonghyeon looks at Hanbin choosing the exact magnum flavour for Jeonghyeon that’s his absolute favourite, and his heart aches.
In moments like this, waiting feels like one of the worst things in the world. Like a punishment. Like too much and never enough.
“Leejong?”, Hanbin asks.
“Hmm?”, Jeonghyeon replies. Hanbin takes a step closer to him to hand him his ice cream, and Jeonghyeon takes a step back.
Hanbin frowns. “Where did you just go?” “Nowhere.”, Jeonghyeon answers too quickly. Hanbin can see right through him, eyes sharp and mind even sharper.
But all Hanbin does, instead of poking at him, is just look at him for a moment. And then, Hanbin puts both ice creams into the cart, one hand coming up to gently trace the back of Jeonghyeon’s neck. Like some part of Hanbin knows there are no words he could say right now to sate the need in Jeonghyeon’s inners. No words but the words he won’t say.
An I love you hangs in the air between them. And for not the first time during the course of their friendship, but certainly an intense one, Jeonghyeon looks at Hanbin as he starts walking to the frozen greens and starts chattering mindlessly and wonders how much longer Hanbin is going to make him wait.
Because in moments like this it becomes painfully clear that Hanbin knows. Maybe not all of it, the extent of Jeonghyeon’s feelings and how deep they run, but definitely that Jeonghyeon is attracted to him. Hanbin is too smart to know nothing. Too aware of himself and his powers, his impact on others and how he leaves them in his wake.
Jeonghyeon takes a moment, Hanbin’s voice fading into the background again.
Just a moment, and then he’ll be good again.
He’s used to this, after all.
~
And then, a few weeks later, Jeonghyeon doesn't have to wait for Hanbin for once. They go somewhere together. Somewhere that feels unfamiliar enough for just the two of them for it to be somewhat of a special occasion. Somewhat of a date, even, if they weren’t so deeply in their years-long friendship that romantic feelings have never come up and are buried first and foremost.
Together, they drown ice cold cans of beer in between singing songs in a cramped Noraebang room. Hanbin dances to Twice and smiles with all his teeth through Jeonghyeon rapping Zico and croons a ballad that has Jeonghyeon’s heart bleeding.
And all Jeonghyeon wants is for Hanbin to sing one of the songs he writes. Maybe that's another thing he does – writing more for Hanbin’s vocals than himself. Is that keeping him from evolving as an artist and a person as well? Or does Hanbin being his muse make him a better artist and person in the first place?
Jeonghyeon downs the rest of his beer and crumples the can in his hands. Hanbin is on the last stretch of a ballad as Jeonghyeon sloshes the beer around his mouth and finally, swallows.
He chooses the exact moment the song ends and Hanbin’s score of 94 flashes across the screen, met with a slight irritated tilt of perfectionist Park Hanbin who needs to excel in everything even if it is half-drunk karaoke, to blurt out: "Will you sing for me?"
Jeonghyeon just wanted to test the words on his tongue, their feel. He hoped the noise would suck them up and evaporate them before they met Hanbin’s ears.
Now though, Hanbin’s head snaps to look at him. Sharp eyes and unreadable expression. Then, after a moment – an amused grin and a slight raise of eyebrows.
"Isn't that what we're doing right now? Or do you want me to serenade you properly." Hanbin says it like it's a joke. Jeonghyeon’s heart bleeds more. He ignores it, swallowing down the copper taste of unrequited feelings. He's almost as good at that as he is at waiting. But now he said it. Might as well commit.
"No, sing one of my songs. For our next assignment. I still need someone for the recording. Not like I can use my demo."
“So, I’m your last choice.” Everything Hanbin says is a challenge. Like he is trying to drive Jeonghyeon to the edge of a cliff.
You could never be my last choice. You’re always my first fucking thought. I have just never been brave to have you sing for me because I don’t know what it’ll do to me.
Jeonghyeon licks his lips, looks at the empty cans of beer crowded on the small table of the karaoke booth. Hanbin comes closer and his perfume is in Jeonghyeon’s nose. Sharp and eye-catching, like all of Hanbin.
“I never asked because I didn’t know whether…”, Jeonghyeon looks at Hanbin just as the other boy sits down. “I didn’t know if you wanted to sing for me.”
I don’t know if you want me like I want you – that’s what hidden in those words.
What Hanbin does though, is laugh. Easy and pretty. His eyes shine with honesty. “I’d do everything for you, silly.”
Jeonghyeon splutters a little at that, and Hanbin laughs again. “Of course I’ll sing for you. Let’s arrange a meeting later. But first, sing me a girl group song. Entertain me.”
Hanbin leans back, eyebrows raising at Jeonghyeon and there’s that challenging look in his eyes again. Another thing about Hanbin Jeonghyeon can’t resist.
Jeonghyeon makes a show out of sighing and getting up like it physically pains him. mostly to get Hanbin to laugh again. All the while he thinks: I’d do everything for you too. Everything, and so much more.
~
Jeonghyeon and Hanbin always shared their dreams with each other.
They met as teenagers, when Jeonghyeon had just stopped wanting to become a fireman and all the praise of ahjumma’s and his friend’s mom’s telling him puberty kept making him more and more handsome went to his head enough for him to want to become a model. He found all the shades of green he possibly could in thrift stores, started an ulzzang boy Instagram and acted cool, calm and collected in ways that make him cringe about himself whenever he reminisces.
When he met Hanbin, a cut-throat ambitious and disciplined dancer at the dance studio Jihoo had been enrolled in since he was five and Jeonghyeon could pick him up there after his hagwon where he thrived in maths, Jeonghyeon found out what coolness really was. This skinny guy with canines shining with each smile, just fourteen but with dreams he was prepared to work for the hardest to achieve.
Hanbin wanted to be a choreographer, he told Jeonghyeon, after the two had gotten closer and Jeonghyeon stopped doing maths homework while waiting for Jihoo to finish class and instead started sitting in sweaty, tiny dance studio rooms with Hanbin, doing a Rubik’s cube to keep his hands busy as Hanbin talked.
“Like Lia Kim, Wootae, Kasper or Back Kooyoung.”, Hanbin told him, swiping sweaty bangs out of his face, his shoulder pressed against Jeonghyeon’s as he showed him dance videos of his phone. The summer they met, Jeonghyeon deleted his Instagram, got himself immersed in maths again and wanted to do IT for a while. Until he discovered a program online that he could make music with from his old laptop in his childhood bedroom.
The year Jeonghyeon discovered his true dream, making music, while he kept up his breaks to still get the “realistic and useful” business degree his parents expected of him, Hanbin hurt himself while on holiday with his parents. He came back with his choreographer dream shattered. Depression wasn’t really something to be talked about openly, especially not concerning teenage boys and their desires to be a kind of manly that was unnecessary and cruel, but Jeonghyeon feared for Hanbin after the accident. They were fifteen and then they were sixteen, and it took them until the spring of their seventeenth year, the year Jeonghyeon realised his feelings for Hanbin weren’t entirely platonic, until Hanbin found a new dream. Until something in Hanbin finally unclenched, untensed and he stopped gritting his teeth hard enough to grind them down in fitful sleep.
Hanbin acted in a school friends’ short film after he was asked for being handsome and having dimples, and while him and Jeonghyeon met former child actor Junghyun who was assistant director on the high school project, Hanbin learned to dream again.
It was Junghyun who told him to be in the theatre club at school, Jeonghyeon who was nervous enough to feel like he was about to throw up when in the audience for Hanbin’s first play.
And so, the years kept passing and their dreams grew with them.
At university, after Hanbin’s excited opening of his acceptance letter and the way he hung off Jeonghyeon’s neck for a suspended moment in a euphoric hug, the two made new friends though. New people to share their dreams with. People who shared their dreams and passions.
Not much has changed between Hanbin and Jeonghyeon between the years, they still talk like they used to, silently but steadily support each other and love each other in a quiet and fiercely loyal way, but they stopped dreaming together like they used to. Like they used to when Jeonghyeon started making beats and Hanbin couldn’t dance anymore like he used to, but still choreographed a little or those first few, scrappy tracks. It was Hanbin who pushed Jeonghyeon to start writing lyrics as well. And it was Jeonghyeon who insisted to Hanbin that being on stage in theatres and auditoriums was even better than being locked up in practice rooms and teaching idols.
College though, had changed things a little. Jeonghyeon met Keita and Seungeon in class. Discussed equipment over cans of beer with Jongwoo and Taegyun. Hanbin befriended Tarae like two suns bursting to flame together and lighting up the whole damn sky and started a competition turned friendship with the department’s prodigy of musicals Jay.
They never stopped being Jeonghyeon and Hanbin. But the moment Jeonghyeon leads Hanbin into one of the small campus studios the music students can rent for hours of assignments and creative free time, the moment Hanbin turns in the space and inspects the equipment with unabashed curiosity; it is in that moment that Jeonghyeon remembers to dream again.
He watches Hanbin plop down in the producer’s chair, effortlessly taking the control Jeonghyeon should have in this situation, in this space he is so familiar with. He himself is still standing on the threshold, the door just having fallen closed behind him.
“Play me that song of yours.”, Hanbin says. A wiggle of his eyebrow, a teasing grin that glimmers with years of support. Jeonghyeon’s heartbeat speeds up instantly.
Finally, Jeonghyeon steps forward. “It’s inspired by Mike Jay’s Birthday Suit and NCT U’s Baby Don’t Stop. I went for something both trendy and sexy. Sultry pop, kind of.” He doesn’t know if any of his words even mean anything to Hanbin, focuses on working the console, connecting his laptop and setting things up.
“So, you want me to seduce you.” Hanbin is still nodding, when Jeonghyeon splutters and looks at him, eyes slightly widened. He looks contemplative. Like he does when he forces Seungeon or Yunseo to be a stand in for his partner on stage and run lines with him. Like he does when he gets into a role.
“I…”, Jeonghyeon’s throat dries out for a moment, lips feeling chapped, when Hanbin looks at him. brown eyes sharp, blinking up at where Jeonghyeon is standing in front of him. Hanbin’s legs spread on the chair, one of Jeonghyeon’s almost between them.
Jeonghyeon’s tongue darts out to wet his lips and for just a moment, he thinks Hanbin’s eyes flitter downwards to track the movement. But then Hanbin shifts on the chair, crossing his legs and pushing a few centimetres of distance between Jeonghyeon and him. Jeonghyeon must be dreaming, or close enough to dreaming to imagine things.
Hanbin has never before looked at Jeonghyeon like he wanted to kiss him. Why would he start now?
“I heard you in musicals before.” Jeonghyeon tries composing himself, goes back to his laptop to open the song’s file. “I know you can do that breathy, soulful voice. That’s what I need.”
Hanbin hums. He gets up from the chair and stretches. Jeonghyeon’s gaze is pulled to a sliver of stomach exposed like Hanbin’s skin is magnetic but quickly looks away again. The shirt Hanbin is wearing today is flimsy. It used to be purple once, when they were eighteen and Hanbin danced on stage again in rehearsal for the first time in a high school musical production. Now, it is outwashed and the colour of the hickeys Yunseo carries on his smooth, pearly skin whenever Junghyun has finished hyperfocusing on some short film he’s working on and shifts all his attention to Yunseo again.
“Let’s go then.”, Hanbin walks the few steps to the booth, hand finding its doorknob. Jeonghyeon watches how his fingers curl around it, knuckles protruding, and it aches in his chest how much he wants to feel that touch. Delicate and rough. Everything, anything, Hanbin would give him.
“Let me give you what you need, PD-nim.”, Hanbin winks. He looks like a sly, playful cat. Jeonghyeon’s heart does something terrible and beautiful in his chest, all while Jeonghyeon’s face does his best to stay neutral. To look amused at Hanbin’s words but not too affected by them.
Jeonghyeon breathes out when Hanbin has closed the booth’s door behind him, breathes in to compose himself and remember that this is his turf. He knows what to do here. He feels at home here. Has spent hours rapping in the booth under Keita’s watchful eyes, has listened to Seungeon belt the same sequence ten times, has lost his mind over sheets of lyrics and strewn cans of energy drinks in here.
Hanbin’s presence doesn’t erase any of that, any of Jeonghyeon’s certainty, but it brings a kind of intensity that Jeonghyeon needs a moment to adjust to. Hanbin makes everything so much more intense. All or nothing. It what spurs Jeonghyeon on to always be the best version of himself with Hanbin, to keep going and strive forward.
One of the reasons waiting for Hanbin has never been boring after all, is because Jeonghyeon might be waiting, yes, but he has never been left behind.
Jeonghyeon presses the button for Hanbin to hear him even while in the booth. “I’ll just play the song for you first.” “Yup. I’m pulling the lyrics you sent me up on my phone to cross check. Did you sing the demo?” “I did. Don’t you dare make fun of me.” Jeonghyeon hears Hanbin chuckle: “I’d never.”
Jeonghyeon presses play. The first time the song plays, Hanbin is almost still as a statue in the booth. Then he asks Jeonghyeon o play the song two more times. The second time, he starts humming in tune, lips forming words near soundlessly. And the third time, when some of the nervous tension has seeped out of Jeonghyeon’s body and he is starting to both feel relaxed and in perpetual awe of his friend, Hanbin sings under his breath, body swaying to the rhythm like on autopilot.
It’s that third time when something seems to take over Jeonghyeon’s brain. The rational part of it falls asleep. While watching Hanbin familiarize himself with his song, in a studio where he has spent so much time dreaming, so many hours writing about the very boy who will now sing for him, Jeonghyeon is overcome by feelings.
His lips part as the song reaches its bridge, a moment of exhilaration and aching want at the same time, and Hanbin’s vocals climbing the octaves send a shiver down Jeonghyeon’s spine.
“I’m in love with you.”, he mumbles.
Quiet and mostly to himself, eyes fluttering down to the console. He tests the words on his tongue and finds he likes how they feel. How they taste. Sweet in a way he always feared would be tinged with bitterness if he ever said it out loud.
But it just feels right.
So, Jeonghyeon repeats the words. Says even more of what he has kept stashed between his ribs and heart, has poured into lyrics. Hanbin is in the booth and can’t hear him anyway.
“I’m in love with you. And somehow I remember the exact moment it happened, yet it has always been a part of me. I’ve been sitting here, waiting for so long. And I don’t even know what exactly for. For you? For you to love me too? I don’t know. It would be a dream come true, but I’m not sure I’m hoping for that. Whether I’ve dared to let myself hope for that. But it is starting to become who I am – loving and waiting. I have learned enough about ambition from you for that to bother me sometimes. And still, I love you. I always love you. And I don’t to stop. I just want to-“
“Say that to my face.”
Jeonghyeon’s entire world stops. For a moment, everything is suspended in motion.
Jeonghyeon blinks and looks up in slow motion. Spots Hanbin stare at him from the booth, headphones around his neck and expression unreadable.
“What.” Jeonghyeon says. Not even a question, just a reaction. “How-“, Jeonghyeon glances down and sees the green light for sound communication with the booth. His heart drops to the floor. He feels bottomless. Helpless.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.” Those words are mumbled. Barely make it past his lips. They are shameful, uncertain.
“No.”, Hanbin replies. Almost sternly. There’s noise, the sound of Hanbin leaving the booth. But Jeonghyeon doesn’t dare to look up. He can’t look up. He can’t face this, face Hanbin. Not when it could ruin everything.
“Say it to my face. Don’t hide from this.” Hanbin’s voice cuts through Jeonghyeon like a knife. Is this what it feels like when your heart breaks? Not something that just happens to you but someone actively carving you to into pieces? Is this moment-
“Leejeong.” Hanbin says. Quiet but firm.
Jeonghyeon finally looks up at him. he feels like burning, like wanting the earth to open up and swallow him whole.
But when he looks into Hanbin’s eyes, his breath catches in his throat. For a second he swears his heart stops beating.
“Jeonghyeon.” Hanbin takes a step closer. He swallows, breath fluttering past his lips like an unsteady butterfly. Like Hanbin is nervous.
“You have always been a pillar to me, you know. And you have always been damn good at underestimating how much you mean to me.”
Now, Hanbin is standing right in front of jeonghyeon in the producer’s chair. He kicks his leg forward, knee meeting Jeonghyeon’s, pushing gently until the back of the chair hits the console.
“What makes you think I wouldn’t want to hear your confession?”
“I- You never – I just thought…” Jeonghyeon trails off. He presses his blunt nails into the fabric of the jeans on his thighs. Hanbin is so close. If he sat down, he’d be in Jeonghyeon’s lap. Another dream come true.
Instead, Hanbin bends down, hands placed firmly on the chair’s armrest.
“Stop thinking.”, Hanbin whispers. His breath hits Jeonghyeon’s face. It smells like coffee and fruity gum. His jaw smells like aftershave. Jeonghyeon can count Hanbin’s eyelashes.
And then, Hanbin is kissing him.
A press of Hanbin’s lips against Jeonghyeon’s. a little dry, strong like Hanbin is sure about this. And Jeonghyeon needs a second. Blinks his eyes closed, just feels for a second. Breathes out through his nose and in again.
When Hanbin is about to pull away, lips parting with a breath and his hands on the chair’s arm rests twitching, Jeonghyeon awakes. Or rather, his feelings do. Buried and suppressed, they have finally breached the surface and run wild. Desire washes over Jeonghyeon like a wave. It cleanses him, it drowns him.
He springs out of the chair, arms wrapping around Hanbin like that’s all they were meant to do ever. He splays out one hand on Hanbin’s waist, buries his fingers in the fabric of Hanbin’s ratty shirt and bunches it up.
He chases Hanbin’s lips and kisses him back with the force of years of pining.
Hanbin’s breath stutters, a sound of surprise, and then he matches Jeonghyeon. It is Hanbin, whose arms wind around Jeonghyeon’s neck and who presses in closer, whose tongue parts Jeonghyeon’s lips first, whose lips set a rhythm that turns Jeonghyeon’s world upside down and whose hands pull at Jeonghyeon’s hair until Jeonghyeon catches himself making a sound like a moan.
Jeonghyeon blushes violently, pulling away to breathe and feeling both helplessly aroused and embarrassed when he finds Hanbin’s lips shining with what must be his spit. But then Hanbin licks it up with his tongue, fingers playing with the hairs at Jeonghyeon’s nape.
“Don’t stop kissing me.”, Hanbin demands. And Jeonghyeon has always listened to Hanbin. He sure as hell won’t stop now.
So, he dives back in. Lets Hanbin crowd him against the console until his back his pressed into it, Hanbin in between his legs and their hips aligned for both of them to chase friction like men who have never known hunger like this.
Their kisses start making obscene noises, and Jeonghyeon kind of wants to record it all. The way Hanbin mewls when Jeonghyeon trails one hand down Hanbin’s chest until his fingertips can dip into his pants and boxers all at once.
His world spins when Hanbin starts rocking into his hand, when he can wrap his fingers around Hanbin’s leaking cock. When his own hard-on feels like its suffocating against denim. Hanbin’s mouth falls open and he breathes against Jeonghyeon’s collarbones, forehead pressed to Jeonghyeon’s neck and hair at the crown of his head in Jeonghyeon’s nose.
But Hanbin smells like Hanbin, familiar and delicious, and Jeonghyeon suddenly feels ambitious like never before. He moves his hand, quickly and impatiently, spurning Hanbin on with wordless pecks and little licks against the shell of Hanbin’s ear.
And when Hanbin comes, body tensing up and then untensing like something blooming against Jeonghyeon, Jeonghyeon feels like he has reached some kind of paradise.
He holds Hanbin against him and whispers “I love you.” Into his ear, his own breath coming ragged and his own dick still painfully hard. But all that matters for a moment is how he made Hanbin come, he did that, and how Hanbin clings to him, fingers wrapped so tightly around Jeonghyeon’s upper arms that it might leave bruises. Jeonghyeon kind of hopes it will. He could write songs about that too. How he is Hanbin’s pillar, how he’ll always hold Hanbin up.
“I hate you.”, Hanbin breathes out. He raises his head, eyes glazed over and shimmering like the night sky. “I feel sticky.”
Jeonghyeon can’t help grinning at that. Triumphant and silly.
“You’re beautiful like this.”, he murmurs, leaning in to peck Hanbin’s lips. Hanbin smiles despite himself.
“So, you like me sweaty and disgusting?”, his eyebrows twitch. Then, he raises one hand and brushes hair out of Jeonghyeon’s face. “Based on how you are looking at me though, I think you like me always, don’t you? My Leejeong.”
Jeonghyeon leans into the touch. Doesn’t reply but just kisses Hanbin again. Until he is the one steadily losing his breath when Hanbin finally touches him where he needs it most. When Hanbin sinks to his knees with something mischievous in his eyes and Jeonghyeon fists his hair, biting his lip until he tastes blood in order not to do something stupid like scream when Hanbin puts his lips around Jeonghyeon’s cock.
He comes after maybe thirty seconds, too wind up to be embarrassed about it, and Hanbin is back on his feet to kiss the taste of Jeonghyeon’s cum into his own mouth immediately.
The “I love you too.” Hanbin whispers in between, has Jeonghyeon smiles into the kiss.
And later, when Hanbin manages to detach himself from Jeonghyeon and rediscovers his discipline, getting back into the booth, Jeonghyeon will be convinced this is not just the best day of his life, but also the day he has made the best song. A song that’ll forever remind him of the way Hanbin was the one who kissed him first.
~
“Leejeong!”
That’s Hanbin’s voice. Cutting through the chatter of students on campus, the sight of him parting the crowd in front of Jeonghyeon like something magical.
He grins, his waving hand dropping back to his side. The sleeves of his t-shirt, the one he casually stole from Jeonghyeon’s closet this morning when Jeonghyeon was still pressing kisses to his neck and shoulder blades and Hanbin was trying to get ready, are rolled up. His eyes shine with something. Love, probably.
Hanbin is waiting for Jeonghyeon after class. Anticipating his return, even.
Jeonghyeon’s stomach does a somersault. His lips split into a grin as well.
Seungeon makes a dramatic retching nose next to him, as Jeonghyeon tries to walk down the stairs and towards Hanbin cooly but the spring in his step makes it impossible.
“Young love.”, Keita comments, amusement and fondness wrapped into one. As if he doesn’t have both a girlfriend and a boyfriend waiting for him. One of whom is only a few steps behind them, adjusting the beanie on his head with a nose ring glinting in the sunlight. It’s kind of funny, how Keita and Taegyun play up their musical rivalry while literally being in a relationship. But it’s great fodder for campus gossip and both of them seem to get off on being a little mysterious and secretive. Like how Keita writes the most beautiful, heartfelt, youth riding off into the sunset songs and then sits in their songwriting class with his arms crossed and a frown on his face as they all listen to it, like he had absolutely nothing to do with the emotions it took to make the song.
In this moment though, like a lot of moments before and even more since Hanbin kissed him and they have been discovering being together in ways Jeonghyeon has only ever dreamt of and has been waiting for so desperately, Jeonghyeon focuses on Hanbin only.
He reaches his boyfriend and leans in to kiss his cheek. The subtle public display of affection leaves him with a slight blush, but it’s entirely worth it for the way Hanbin smiles at him with loving eyes. For the way Hanbin reaches for Jeonghyeon’s hand and their fingers intertwine like it’s the most natural thing.
Hanbin nudges Jeonghyeon’s shoulder with his as they fall in step with each other. “How was your day?”, he asks, simple but sweet in that special way of his Jeonghyeon has been having the honour of getting to know these past few weeks.
On Jeonghyeon’s other side, Seungeon side eyes them and then focuses on his phone. Probably gossiping about them to their house group chat. Junghyun loves making fun of Jeonghyeon in ways that causes Jeonghyeon to think Junghyun must have selective memory because nothing is as bad as Junghyun’s pining or simping when Yunseo from one of his weekend volunteer days of teaching children how to play basketball, looking flushed and pretty.
Jeonghyeon starts replying to Hanbin, corners of his lips still curved upwards, watching Keita not very subtly speed walk to meet Chaewoo, Taegyun already at their girlfriend’s side.
Love is all around, and as Hanbin looks unimpressed at Jeonghyeon’s impression of one of his stern music theory professors and then teases him relentlessly in amusement, Jeonghyeon realizes it is around him too. Next to him, within him. He’s not waiting anymore.
Jeonghyeon has started to write love songs, permeated with fulfilled desire. He has started writing raps about working hard to make dreams come true, about moving mountains. Professor Kim has been praising him for the way he has evolved. Jeonghyeon can’t even pretend Hanbin isn’t the reason for that as well. Neither could Keita, when he grinned to himself as Jeonghyeon’s ears blushed with Professor Kim’s feedback.
But Jeonghyeon wouldn’t want it any other way.
The only games he now plays with Hanbin are the ones hidden in the privacy of their bedroom, sweet nothings whispered into ears and lips pressed to ribcages and inner thighs. It’s a game Jeonghyeon knows he will never get tired of. Never wants to either.
And Hanbin, by Jeonghyeon’s side in all the ways he used to be and new ones that are exhilarating and incredibly, will keep playing with him.