Seeing Jaehyun at music shows stopped being awkward a month after their breakup, if it could be called that. They tried their hand at… something, after Seokmin’s highschool crush on Jaehyun was aired on live radio by Seungkwan. Jaehyun approached him afterwards, said he thought Seokmin was cute. Seokmin remembers feeling like he could faint any second.
They lasted a little over a month. It was to be expected, Seokmin thinks, looking back. They were too young, not even twenty years old, trying to navigate having a million fans fighting for remnants of their attention and ruthless paparazzi at their tail the moment they stepped outside. There were other reasons, Seokmin knows, but finds no purpose in delving into. He hasn’t even had a situationship since then, so he deems himself safe from such worries.
Until an interviewer at a show they’re on blatantly flirts with him.
Usually Seokmin would ignore it, laugh it off, probably not even notice it among the chaos of thirteen people talking over each other. But the interviewer keeps looking him in the eye, complimenting him, and it leaves Seokmin feeling awkward like his shoes are too big for his feet. He keeps trying to joke it off, to divert the focus to other members just to have this stranger’s unbridled attention away from him for one second, leaving him sweating like he’s standing under the harshest of spotlights.
It all comes to a close when the interview ends and they do their greeting, thanking the staff for their hard work. The interviewer stops him before he can run away, hands him their number on a small piece ripped from their cue card. Seokmin bows profusely and tries very hard not to glance around nervously as all of this happens. He slips the piece of paper into his pants pocket as they say goodbye to each other, and throws it into the furthest depths of his bag once he gets to the dressing room.
“Dokyeom-ah,” Soonyoung hollers once he notices he’s there, his pants only halfway on. “The interviewer, huh? You heartthrob!”
“Hyung, please,” Seokmin pleads, thinking his face must be red enough to show through his foundation at this point. “Anything else, but not this.”
“Alright, alright,” Soonyoung relents easily, smirking at first, though it drops immediately when he notices the mortified expression on Seokmin’s face. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Seokmin breathes out. “I just- I was caught off guard, I guess.”
Seungkwan snorts from the couch next to them. “Hyung, you've been in this business for years, how can you still be surprised when people randomly ask you out?” Because it’s not who I am, Seokmin thinks. The romantic heartthrob department is Mingyu. Maybe Jeonghan hyung or Wonwoo hyung. Not me. It should only be as part of a bit when it’s me.
“Guess I just forget sometimes,” he manages to get out, chuckling at himself about how worked up he got over such a thing.
He’s watching a drama in the living room later that week when Wonwoo walks into their dorm.
“Have you seen Vernon?” he asks Seokmin. Seokmin looks away from his drama for a second to look at him: long sleeved t-shirt that’s huge on him, horn-rimmed glasses, bedhead. He makes himself turn away a few seconds later.
“He went out for ice cream with Chan.”
“Oh. Okay,” Wonwoo says, and instead of walking out the way he came, he walks around the couch to sit next to Seokmin. Seokmin keeps his eyes trained on the drama even though it’s a scene of the side couple he doesn’t really care for. Wonwoo sits still next to him.
“Do you think they-”
“Yep,” Seokmin cuts him off, realizing he doesn’t really want to talk with Wonwoo about their group members dating. Maybe, if the others were there and they could laugh it off. But with just Wonwoo here Seokmin knows it won’t be like that, and he isn’t very eager to see how the conversation would go.
So this is allowed? he had wanted to ask when he first found out, Hansol and Chan making all of them gather in the 9th floor living room for the announcement. His gaze had kept flickering in Wonwoo’s direction to gauge his reaction.
The thought of touching each other away from the unwavering gaze of cameras or under the pretense of friendly familiarity had shaken him, forced him to step outside of the imaginary bars he had built inside his head. To want and have it not be a joke.
“Is it different now, living with them?” Wonwoo asks a while later, and when Seokmin turns to look at him on instinct Wonwoo’s eyes are already on him, sitting sideways on the couch.
“Not really,” Seokmin says, after thinking about it. “I was worried it would, but-” sighs out, turning away again to stare emptily at the TV. “It’s still us, in the end.”
There’s a number in Joshua’s sandwich at Inkigayo the next week.
Joshua scrunches his face up when he gets to the third bite of his sandwich, and when he manages to take the small piece of paper out of his mouth it’s covered in mayonnaise and the ink has smudged enough to make the number one of at least a thousand different possibilities. He doesn’t seem bothered by it, looking around to see if anyone’s watching him before hiding the piece of paper in a crumpled up tissue.
Seokmin is genuinely surprised. He thought their group was too old for that stuff now. The other members don’t seem to pay any mind to it, other than Jeonghan joking about how the sandwich was probably meant for him instead and earning a jab of Joshua’s elbow. Seokmin keeps thinking about whoever went to the lengths to put their number inside a fellow idol’s sandwich and whether they really thought it would work. Seems more like a practical joke to make idols terrified of biting into their food than anything.
It all comes to a boil with Mingyu and his boyfriend photos.
They’re sitting inside a restaurant in Boston, waiting for their food to be served, and Mingyu hands his phone to Wonwoo and cutely asks for him to take photos of him. Wonwoo takes the phone without a word, snapping what sounds like ten photos per second, only muttering directives from time to time, telling Mingyu to roll his shoulder back, angle his head down, move his hair away from his face. They only stop once the waiter walks over with their food, and judging by the giddy smile on Mingyu’s face as he scrolls through his camera roll, Wonwoo seems to have done a good job.
“Do you want me to take some pictures of you too, Dokyeom-ah?” he asks Seokmin later, when their plates have been cleared to make room for dessert. “Me?” Seokmin asks, lips already taking the shape of a smile. “Hyung, come on, you know this is Mingyu’s genre.”
“You know, the whole boyfriend, people-being-obsessed-with-him thing?” Seokmin explains, feeling himself growing smaller as he talks. “It wouldn’t work on me.”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t do that,” Wonwoo mumbles, eyebrows furrowed. “Is it awkward for you?”
“You’re hot, Seokmin,” Mingyu cuts Wonwoo off, completely serious. Seokmin bites his lips around a smile, and nods resolutely.
“Yes sir!”
The next day, Seokmin stays in the hotel room after their concert. Jeonghan leaves to join the others in the pool, and pokes his tongue out at Seokmin when he says he’s not coming.
His phone buzzes with a notification when he’s in the middle of washing his face, and it’s a text from Wonwoo asking him to check Weverse.
Seokmin exits Kakaotalk to open said app, and sees a post made by Wonwoo only two minutes ago. When he clicks on the post to see the gallery, he’s met with a dozen photos; some of the city, some of the cafe they went to, and some of him, though he doesn’t remember Wonwoo’s lens being pointed at him that day at all. He looks different in the pictures compared to the ones usually posted of him online: serious in some of them and laughing in the others, his hair messy, face bare, more Lee Seokmin than Dokyeom.
He remembers a drunk Mingyu waxing poetic about how a picture could tell a thousand words. He thinks of Wonwoo holding his trustworthy camera with his long, delicate fingers and pointing it at him, looking at him through the lens.
He’s interrupted by a knock on the door, and when he opens it Wonwoo walks in. He’s wearing his clear-framed glasses tonight. The beanie he’s wearing is Seokmin’s, though he doesn’t plan on telling him that.
Neither of them say anything for a while. Wonwoo sits on Seokmin’s bed and Seokmin sits on the armchair facing it.
“Did you see the pictures?” Wonwoo asks him.
“Yes, I did. Thank you, hyung,” Seokmin says, and before his brain can catch up to his mouth, “But why?”
“I wanted you to see yourself from my eyes,” Wonwoo says, his deep voice serious, his gaze trying to meet Seokmin’s.
“But why?” Seokmin presses again, voice strained in a mix of confusion and desperation.
“Because you won’t listen to me otherwise,” Wonwoo says, after a moment’s pause. Realizing Seokmin’s pointed silence, he huffs out a breath.
“Is it so hard to think someone can like you?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed.
“Ah, hyung,” Seokmin mumbles, ready to joke, “you know the fans say-”
“I’m not talking about the fans,” Wonwoo cuts him off, leaning his elbows on his knees so their gazes are level.
“Dokyeom-ah, tell me,” he asks, pleading, “is it so hard to think someone can like you for you? To think that someone can be- be serious about you?”
Seokmin stands frozen still. Stupidly, irrationally, he thinks about the possibility of all of this being a hidden camera prank. He sighs to himself, then, dropping his head to look down at his lap.
“What do you mean, hyung,” he asks, suddenly tired.
“I’m saying that I want you, Seokmin-ah,” Wonwoo answers him, reaching out between the small distance between them to take his hand. When Seokmin looks up, Wonwoo’s eyes are once again already on him. “And that I would totally slip my number into your sandwich if we were in different groups or hand it to you myself after an interview.”
“You wouldn’t do any of those things,” Seokmin blurts out.
“That’s true, but I’m doing this, aren’t I?” Wonwoo asks, smiling that small smile at him.
Seokmin gives himself a second to wait; for the punchline, for the cameras to pop out, for the Surprise! banner to drop down from the ceiling.
None of that happens. Instead, what he gets is this: Wonwoo placing those delicate fingers on his jaw and pulling him close, close, closer. And surprisingly, himself meeting Wonwoo in the middle, the moment clear in his mind's eye like cameras flashing.
[FILL] how do i be your baby
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: canon compliant, learning to want and be wanted
Permission to remix: Yes
WC: 1.8k
crossposted on ao3: https://ao3.org/works/43849824
hope you enjoy<33
***
Seeing Jaehyun at music shows stopped being awkward a month after their breakup, if it could be called that. They tried their hand at… something, after Seokmin’s highschool crush on Jaehyun was aired on live radio by Seungkwan. Jaehyun approached him afterwards, said he thought Seokmin was cute. Seokmin remembers feeling like he could faint any second.
They lasted a little over a month. It was to be expected, Seokmin thinks, looking back. They were too young, not even twenty years old, trying to navigate having a million fans fighting for remnants of their attention and ruthless paparazzi at their tail the moment they stepped outside. There were other reasons, Seokmin knows, but finds no purpose in delving into. He hasn’t even had a situationship since then, so he deems himself safe from such worries.
Until an interviewer at a show they’re on blatantly flirts with him.
Usually Seokmin would ignore it, laugh it off, probably not even notice it among the chaos of thirteen people talking over each other. But the interviewer keeps looking him in the eye, complimenting him, and it leaves Seokmin feeling awkward like his shoes are too big for his feet. He keeps trying to joke it off, to divert the focus to other members just to have this stranger’s unbridled attention away from him for one second, leaving him sweating like he’s standing under the harshest of spotlights.
It all comes to a close when the interview ends and they do their greeting, thanking the staff for their hard work. The interviewer stops him before he can run away, hands him their number on a small piece ripped from their cue card. Seokmin bows profusely and tries very hard not to glance around nervously as all of this happens. He slips the piece of paper into his pants pocket as they say goodbye to each other, and throws it into the furthest depths of his bag once he gets to the dressing room.
“Dokyeom-ah,” Soonyoung hollers once he notices he’s there, his pants only halfway on. “The interviewer, huh? You heartthrob!”
“Hyung, please,” Seokmin pleads, thinking his face must be red enough to show through his foundation at this point. “Anything else, but not this.”
“Alright, alright,” Soonyoung relents easily, smirking at first, though it drops immediately when he notices the mortified expression on Seokmin’s face. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Seokmin breathes out. “I just- I was caught off guard, I guess.”
Seungkwan snorts from the couch next to them. “Hyung, you've been in this business for years, how can you still be surprised when people randomly ask you out?”
Because it’s not who I am, Seokmin thinks. The romantic heartthrob department is Mingyu. Maybe Jeonghan hyung or Wonwoo hyung. Not me. It should only be as part of a bit when it’s me.
“Guess I just forget sometimes,” he manages to get out, chuckling at himself about how worked up he got over such a thing.
He’s watching a drama in the living room later that week when Wonwoo walks into their dorm.
“Have you seen Vernon?” he asks Seokmin. Seokmin looks away from his drama for a second to look at him: long sleeved t-shirt that’s huge on him, horn-rimmed glasses, bedhead. He makes himself turn away a few seconds later.
“He went out for ice cream with Chan.”
“Oh. Okay,” Wonwoo says, and instead of walking out the way he came, he walks around the couch to sit next to Seokmin. Seokmin keeps his eyes trained on the drama even though it’s a scene of the side couple he doesn’t really care for. Wonwoo sits still next to him.
“Do you think they-”
“Yep,” Seokmin cuts him off, realizing he doesn’t really want to talk with Wonwoo about their group members dating. Maybe, if the others were there and they could laugh it off. But with just Wonwoo here Seokmin knows it won’t be like that, and he isn’t very eager to see how the conversation would go.
So this is allowed? he had wanted to ask when he first found out, Hansol and Chan making all of them gather in the 9th floor living room for the announcement. His gaze had kept flickering in Wonwoo’s direction to gauge his reaction.
The thought of touching each other away from the unwavering gaze of cameras or under the pretense of friendly familiarity had shaken him, forced him to step outside of the imaginary bars he had built inside his head. To want and have it not be a joke.
“Is it different now, living with them?” Wonwoo asks a while later, and when Seokmin turns to look at him on instinct Wonwoo’s eyes are already on him, sitting sideways on the couch.
“Not really,” Seokmin says, after thinking about it. “I was worried it would, but-” sighs out, turning away again to stare emptily at the TV.
“It’s still us, in the end.”
There’s a number in Joshua’s sandwich at Inkigayo the next week.
Joshua scrunches his face up when he gets to the third bite of his sandwich, and when he manages to take the small piece of paper out of his mouth it’s covered in mayonnaise and the ink has smudged enough to make the number one of at least a thousand different possibilities. He doesn’t seem bothered by it, looking around to see if anyone’s watching him before hiding the piece of paper in a crumpled up tissue.
Seokmin is genuinely surprised. He thought their group was too old for that stuff now. The other members don’t seem to pay any mind to it, other than Jeonghan joking about how the sandwich was probably meant for him instead and earning a jab of Joshua’s elbow. Seokmin keeps thinking about whoever went to the lengths to put their number inside a fellow idol’s sandwich and whether they really thought it would work. Seems more like a practical joke to make idols terrified of biting into their food than anything.
It all comes to a boil with Mingyu and his boyfriend photos.
They’re sitting inside a restaurant in Boston, waiting for their food to be served, and Mingyu hands his phone to Wonwoo and cutely asks for him to take photos of him. Wonwoo takes the phone without a word, snapping what sounds like ten photos per second, only muttering directives from time to time, telling Mingyu to roll his shoulder back, angle his head down, move his hair away from his face. They only stop once the waiter walks over with their food, and judging by the giddy smile on Mingyu’s face as he scrolls through his camera roll, Wonwoo seems to have done a good job.
“Do you want me to take some pictures of you too, Dokyeom-ah?” he asks Seokmin later, when their plates have been cleared to make room for dessert.
“Me?” Seokmin asks, lips already taking the shape of a smile. “Hyung, come on, you know this is Mingyu’s genre.”
“Why not?” Wonwoo asks, seeming genuinely confused.
“You know, the whole boyfriend, people-being-obsessed-with-him thing?” Seokmin explains, feeling himself growing smaller as he talks. “It wouldn’t work on me.”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t do that,” Wonwoo mumbles, eyebrows furrowed. “Is it awkward for you?”
“You’re hot, Seokmin,” Mingyu cuts Wonwoo off, completely serious. Seokmin bites his lips around a smile, and nods resolutely.
“Yes sir!”
The next day, Seokmin stays in the hotel room after their concert. Jeonghan leaves to join the others in the pool, and pokes his tongue out at Seokmin when he says he’s not coming.
His phone buzzes with a notification when he’s in the middle of washing his face, and it’s a text from Wonwoo asking him to check Weverse.
Seokmin exits Kakaotalk to open said app, and sees a post made by Wonwoo only two minutes ago. When he clicks on the post to see the gallery, he’s met with a dozen photos; some of the city, some of the cafe they went to, and some of him, though he doesn’t remember Wonwoo’s lens being pointed at him that day at all. He looks different in the pictures compared to the ones usually posted of him online: serious in some of them and laughing in the others, his hair messy, face bare, more Lee Seokmin than Dokyeom.
He remembers a drunk Mingyu waxing poetic about how a picture could tell a thousand words. He thinks of Wonwoo holding his trustworthy camera with his long, delicate fingers and pointing it at him, looking at him through the lens.
He’s interrupted by a knock on the door, and when he opens it Wonwoo walks in. He’s wearing his clear-framed glasses tonight. The beanie he’s wearing is Seokmin’s, though he doesn’t plan on telling him that.
Neither of them say anything for a while. Wonwoo sits on Seokmin’s bed and Seokmin sits on the armchair facing it.
“Did you see the pictures?” Wonwoo asks him.
“Yes, I did. Thank you, hyung,” Seokmin says, and before his brain can catch up to his mouth, “But why?”
“I wanted you to see yourself from my eyes,” Wonwoo says, his deep voice serious, his gaze trying to meet Seokmin’s.
“But why?” Seokmin presses again, voice strained in a mix of confusion and desperation.
“Because you won’t listen to me otherwise,” Wonwoo says, after a moment’s pause. Realizing Seokmin’s pointed silence, he huffs out a breath.
“Is it so hard to think someone can like you?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed.
“Ah, hyung,” Seokmin mumbles, ready to joke, “you know the fans say-”
“I’m not talking about the fans,” Wonwoo cuts him off, leaning his elbows on his knees so their gazes are level.
“Dokyeom-ah, tell me,” he asks, pleading, “is it so hard to think someone can like you for you? To think that someone can be- be serious about you?”
Seokmin stands frozen still. Stupidly, irrationally, he thinks about the possibility of all of this being a hidden camera prank. He sighs to himself, then, dropping his head to look down at his lap.
“What do you mean, hyung,” he asks, suddenly tired.
“I’m saying that I want you, Seokmin-ah,” Wonwoo answers him, reaching out between the small distance between them to take his hand. When Seokmin looks up, Wonwoo’s eyes are once again already on him. “And that I would totally slip my number into your sandwich if we were in different groups or hand it to you myself after an interview.”
“You wouldn’t do any of those things,” Seokmin blurts out.
“That’s true, but I’m doing this, aren’t I?” Wonwoo asks, smiling that small smile at him.
Seokmin gives himself a second to wait; for the punchline, for the cameras to pop out, for the Surprise! banner to drop down from the ceiling.
None of that happens. Instead, what he gets is this: Wonwoo placing those delicate fingers on his jaw and pulling him close, close, closer. And surprisingly, himself meeting Wonwoo in the middle, the moment clear in his mind's eye like cameras flashing.