Ship/Member: Jeonghan/Seungkwan; implied Jeonghan/Mingyu Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: canonverse, friends with benefits, unrequited love Permission to remix: Yes [going for rarest pair!]
***
Jeonghan is fucking Seungkwan when Mingyu calls.
Seungkwan bites down on a moan, angling his head towards the bedside table. Jeonghan's phone is vibrating on the spot, slowly turning in a small circle. If he cranes his neck, Seungkwan can see the contact name on the screen. Kim Mingyu — full name, no emojis or terms of endearment. It's just like Jeonghan to be the most brusque with the people he cares about the most.
Jeonghan’s hips don't quite still, but his movements do falter, and Seungkwan sees his eyes dart over to the phone. He sees the flicker of surprise light up his gaze, sees the moment of hesitation that tells Seungkwan everything he needs to know.
"Are you — are you gonna pick up?"
Jeonghan looks back at Seungkwan, almost like he's surprised to see him there. Then his face clears, and he pushes Seungkwan's fringe off his forehead, fingers raking against his scalp. Bestows Seungkwan with a beatific smile.
"Mingyu can wait," Jeonghan says, with a wink, "I'm doing something more important."
Seungkwan closes his eyes and sinks into the feeling of his own body, sticky with sweat and electric with desire, and tries to believe that Jeonghan means it.
—
Seungkwan is cleaning himself off in the shower of his hotel room when he hears Jeonghan call Mingyu back. It's not that Jeonghan is trying to keep his voice down, but through the sound of running water and the partially shut bathroom door, Seungkwan can't quite make out his words.
He turns the water off and steps out gingerly, towelling himself off with exquisite care.
"—just because you can't sleep?" Jeonghan is saying. There's that lilt in his voice, the one that he uses when he's trying just a little too hard to be nonchalant. Seungkwan knows it well; he has his own version of that same voice. He runs the towel up and down his soft thighs, the terrycloth material feeling scratchy against his skin.
Jeonghan laughs, creaky and bright. "Okay, okay," he says. "Give me five minutes."
Seungkwan wraps the towel around his hips. He looks at himself in the mirror. Pale and squishy and no muscle definition to speak of whatsoever. He prods at his non-existent pecs.
"Shut up," Jeonghan says, but there's no force to his words at all. Seungkwan can imagine him, grinning his charming, devious, boxy little grin. "Yeah, sure. Meet you in the lobby."
Seungkwan steps out of the bathroom just in time to see Jeonghan hang up the call. He's standing at the foot of the bed, in his sweatpants but with no shirt on, and he looks up when Seungkwan appears. There's something so captivating about the sharp jut of his collarbones and his angular shoulders. Like the glint of a knife's blade.
"You gonna go?" Seungkwan hears it now. The odd lilt of his own voice. He tousles a hand through his damp hair.
Jeonghan turns away, ostensibly searching for his shirt. Seungkwan watches as he slips it on, dangerous edges disappearing beneath the swamp of material. Not gone, just disguised.
"Mingyu wants to go for a walk," he says, shrugging with one shoulder. "You know what he's like."
Seungkwan does know what Mingyu is like. Unfortunately for him, he also knows what Jeonghan is like. Even so, as Jeonghan goes to leave, he can't stop himself from asking—
"Are you going to come back?"
Jeonghan pauses by the door. He half-turns, just enough for Seungkwan to catch his profile in the stark overhead light. "I don't know how long I'll be gone."
Seungkwan turns away, fusses with his toiletries bag of skincare products on the desk. "I'm going to sleep," he says, "so you should probably go back to your own room."
So Jeonghan leaves, and he doesn't come back. That's the way things have always been.
—
Four months ago, in the dorms. Jihoon had gone to visit his family and Soonyoung was having late night filming for his solo comeback. Which left Seungkwan, alone with far too many bottles of soju than could strictly be considered a good idea.
And with Jeonghan, of course. That also turned out not to be a good idea.
By the end of the evening he was handsomely pink-cheeked, and he'd leaned across the sofa without warning, put his face close to Seungkwan's. Not close enough to make his intentions clear, but close enough to raise the question.
"Boo Seungkwan," he'd said, voice slightly raspy from the alcohol, "do you ever get lonely?"
All the time, Seungkwan thought. What is loneliness but the insurmountable chasm between what you have and what you long for?
He didn’t say that. Instead he'd tilted his head towards Jeonghan and asked in return, "Do you?"
Jeonghan had kissed him then, sweet and bitter from the soju, soft chapped lips tasting like the most dangerous kind of mistake. Knobbly fingers digging into the flesh at the back of Seungkwan's neck. Long fringe dancing out a ticklish warning against his cheek.
To this day, Seungkwan tells himself that Jeonghan was the one who made a move on him. Clever, calculating, Yoon Jeonghan, snaring him in his web of glittering charisma. But, the truth is — Seungkwan had let his mouth part in an invitation, and he'd looked at Jeonghan with bright, challenging eyes, and he'd dragged them both to the brink, from which there was nowhere else to go but to fall.
—
"Eleven."
Seungkwan's eyebrows shoot up. He knows that Jeonghan has slept with a fair few people, but that still seems like a lot given their jobs and how little time they have for a personal life.
"Nayoung," he says, counting off the ones he knows about. "Sowon. Jaehyun. Johnny. That's four."
Jeonghan laughs. He's fun like this, vibrant and electrifying. They're in bed together, fluffy white hotel blankets thrown over their bare bodies, legs tangled together. Seungkwan is on his side, propped up on one elbow, looking up at Jeonghan. Always looking up at Jeonghan.
"One of the dancers, back when we'd just debuted," Jeonghan says, continuing the list. "Two of them were fans — don't make that face, I've stopped doing that now. Sana from Twice."
"Sana from Twice?!" Seungkwan sucks in a breath and smacks Jeonghan on the arm. "How did you even manage that?"
Jeonghan shrugs. "Bumped into her backstage at some awards show. Asked if she would help me with my Japanese. One thing led to another."
Seungkwan gasps again. "Is that why your Japanese is so good?"
This, to Seungkwan's shameful delight, draws a surprised giggle from Jeonghan. He reaches over and ruffles Seungkwan's hair, in a way that should be patronising and not sexy at all, and yet it makes heat coil in Seungkwan's gut.
"No, my Japanese is good because I'm naturally talented at everything I do," Jeonghan declares, winking.
Seungkwan shoves Jeonghan's arm away from him. "That's only eight."
Jeonghan becomes more subdued. He trails his fingers along Seungkwan's collarbone. "Seungcheol," he says, and it takes Seungkwan a second to realise he's continuing the list. "Wonwoo. And, you."
Seungkwan stares at Jeonghan. It was a poorly-kept secret in the group, in the early days, that Jeonghan and Seungcheol had feelings for each other. Most of the members were convinced that they had dated for a while, but the two of them never talked about it and it had become an unspoken rule not to ask. Seungkwan wasn't expecting Jeonghan to admit to it so easily.
"You and Coups-hyung—" Seungkwan starts, then trails off. He doesn't know where he's going with the question.
Jeonghan smiles at him. "We loved each other as best we could," he says. "But we were young, and when you throw sex into the mix — it gets messy."
Seungkwan frowns. "And Wonwoo-hyung…"
"That's surprising, right?" Jeonghan's face brightens. Seungkwan can't tell if the shift is genuine or telegraphed for his sake, but Jeonghan brushes Seungkwan's hair off his forehead and it becomes hard to concentrate on anything else. "Wonwoo and I never had any feelings for each other. We had a good thing going for a few months, then broke it off when we got bored. It's better that way. Cleaner."
Seungkwan doesn't know what to say to this. He leans into Jeonghan's touch. Number eleven. He's number eleven in the group, too.
"And now, me."
Jeonghan presses a kiss into his forehead. "And now, you." It feels like love, even though Seungkwan knows that it isn't.
—
If Jeonghan isn't going to come back to his room, then Seungkwan will go over to his instead. Well past midnight, he marches down the corridor, the infinite carpeted loop that links all thirteen of them, and knocks on Jeonghan's door. For a single heart-stopping moment he's afraid that it will be Mingyu who opens it.
But no, just Jeonghan.
He doesn't seem surprised to see Seungkwan, or if he is he doesn't show it. The dark circles beneath his eyes look even darker than when he'd left, and as he steps into the light Seungkwan realises that his eyes are rimmed with red.
"Have you been crying?"
Jeonghan exhales a breath that sounds almost like a sigh, but not quite. He turns and heads back into the room, leaving Seungkwan to trail after him. "Why are you here? I'm too tired for round two."
Seungkwan stands in the middle of the room and watches as Jeonghan crawls into bed and just lays there, looking half-dead and defeated.
"You're in love with him," Seungkwan says. Jeonghan doesn't even flinch. It's only as Seungkwan says it that he realises, it's not a question as much as it is a statement. He doesn't need confirmation from Jeonghan, he just needs Jeonghan to know that he knows. "You're in love with him and that's the only reason you haven't slept with him yet."
Jeonghan closes his eyes and tips his head back against the headboard. "What do you want me to say?"
Seungkwan is angry, but mostly at himself. Jeonghan is here, though, and as good a target for his rage and shame as anything else. He yanks the covers off Jeonghan and bites out, "You can't use other people as a tool to stave off your own loneliness."
Jeonghan's eyes fly open. His gaze is dark, monstrous in a way Seungkwan's never seen it before.
"What exactly is it that you're doing with me, then?"
Seungkwan wishes he knew.
His limbs feel heavy and sluggish. He walks himself over to the other side of the bed, and climbs in next to Jeonghan. Pulls the covers back up to cover both of them. Jeonghan is staring at him the whole time, Seungkwan can feel the heat and confusion of his gaze.
"I'm staying here tonight," Seungkwan declares. He sounds surer than he feels.
Jeonghan is silent and still for a long, frozen, moment. Then he reaches out, one hand to Seungkwan's cheek. His fingers are ice against Seungkwan's skin, and it makes Seungkwan shiver. He bites it down and leans into Jeonghan's touch.
"Yoon Jeonghan," he asks, an echo back to that first night, the night that he wishes he could erase and re-do, except he's not sure he'd do anything differently, "do you ever get lonely?"
Jeonghan smiles at him like he remembers. Like he understands. He drags Seungkwan closer, until their foreheads are touching, until their noses crunch together, until Jeonghan's teeth graze like a vice-trap against Seungkwan's lips, ready to snap shut and draw blood.
When he speaks, his voice is raspy. Hot with desire, and cold with the stark absence of—
[FILL] less lonely together
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: canonverse, friends with benefits, unrequited love
Permission to remix: Yes
[going for rarest pair!]
***
Jeonghan is fucking Seungkwan when Mingyu calls.
Seungkwan bites down on a moan, angling his head towards the bedside table. Jeonghan's phone is vibrating on the spot, slowly turning in a small circle. If he cranes his neck, Seungkwan can see the contact name on the screen. Kim Mingyu — full name, no emojis or terms of endearment. It's just like Jeonghan to be the most brusque with the people he cares about the most.
Jeonghan’s hips don't quite still, but his movements do falter, and Seungkwan sees his eyes dart over to the phone. He sees the flicker of surprise light up his gaze, sees the moment of hesitation that tells Seungkwan everything he needs to know.
"Are you — are you gonna pick up?"
Jeonghan looks back at Seungkwan, almost like he's surprised to see him there. Then his face clears, and he pushes Seungkwan's fringe off his forehead, fingers raking against his scalp. Bestows Seungkwan with a beatific smile.
"Mingyu can wait," Jeonghan says, with a wink, "I'm doing something more important."
Seungkwan closes his eyes and sinks into the feeling of his own body, sticky with sweat and electric with desire, and tries to believe that Jeonghan means it.
—
Seungkwan is cleaning himself off in the shower of his hotel room when he hears Jeonghan call Mingyu back. It's not that Jeonghan is trying to keep his voice down, but through the sound of running water and the partially shut bathroom door, Seungkwan can't quite make out his words.
He turns the water off and steps out gingerly, towelling himself off with exquisite care.
"—just because you can't sleep?" Jeonghan is saying. There's that lilt in his voice, the one that he uses when he's trying just a little too hard to be nonchalant. Seungkwan knows it well; he has his own version of that same voice. He runs the towel up and down his soft thighs, the terrycloth material feeling scratchy against his skin.
Jeonghan laughs, creaky and bright. "Okay, okay," he says. "Give me five minutes."
Seungkwan wraps the towel around his hips. He looks at himself in the mirror. Pale and squishy and no muscle definition to speak of whatsoever. He prods at his non-existent pecs.
"Shut up," Jeonghan says, but there's no force to his words at all. Seungkwan can imagine him, grinning his charming, devious, boxy little grin. "Yeah, sure. Meet you in the lobby."
Seungkwan steps out of the bathroom just in time to see Jeonghan hang up the call. He's standing at the foot of the bed, in his sweatpants but with no shirt on, and he looks up when Seungkwan appears. There's something so captivating about the sharp jut of his collarbones and his angular shoulders. Like the glint of a knife's blade.
"You gonna go?" Seungkwan hears it now. The odd lilt of his own voice. He tousles a hand through his damp hair.
Jeonghan turns away, ostensibly searching for his shirt. Seungkwan watches as he slips it on, dangerous edges disappearing beneath the swamp of material. Not gone, just disguised.
"Mingyu wants to go for a walk," he says, shrugging with one shoulder. "You know what he's like."
Seungkwan does know what Mingyu is like. Unfortunately for him, he also knows what Jeonghan is like. Even so, as Jeonghan goes to leave, he can't stop himself from asking—
"Are you going to come back?"
Jeonghan pauses by the door. He half-turns, just enough for Seungkwan to catch his profile in the stark overhead light. "I don't know how long I'll be gone."
Seungkwan turns away, fusses with his toiletries bag of skincare products on the desk. "I'm going to sleep," he says, "so you should probably go back to your own room."
So Jeonghan leaves, and he doesn't come back. That's the way things have always been.
—
Four months ago, in the dorms. Jihoon had gone to visit his family and Soonyoung was having late night filming for his solo comeback. Which left Seungkwan, alone with far too many bottles of soju than could strictly be considered a good idea.
And with Jeonghan, of course. That also turned out not to be a good idea.
By the end of the evening he was handsomely pink-cheeked, and he'd leaned across the sofa without warning, put his face close to Seungkwan's. Not close enough to make his intentions clear, but close enough to raise the question.
"Boo Seungkwan," he'd said, voice slightly raspy from the alcohol, "do you ever get lonely?"
All the time, Seungkwan thought. What is loneliness but the insurmountable chasm between what you have and what you long for?
He didn’t say that. Instead he'd tilted his head towards Jeonghan and asked in return, "Do you?"
Jeonghan had kissed him then, sweet and bitter from the soju, soft chapped lips tasting like the most dangerous kind of mistake. Knobbly fingers digging into the flesh at the back of Seungkwan's neck. Long fringe dancing out a ticklish warning against his cheek.
To this day, Seungkwan tells himself that Jeonghan was the one who made a move on him. Clever, calculating, Yoon Jeonghan, snaring him in his web of glittering charisma. But, the truth is — Seungkwan had let his mouth part in an invitation, and he'd looked at Jeonghan with bright, challenging eyes, and he'd dragged them both to the brink, from which there was nowhere else to go but to fall.
—
"Eleven."
Seungkwan's eyebrows shoot up. He knows that Jeonghan has slept with a fair few people, but that still seems like a lot given their jobs and how little time they have for a personal life.
"Nayoung," he says, counting off the ones he knows about. "Sowon. Jaehyun. Johnny. That's four."
Jeonghan laughs. He's fun like this, vibrant and electrifying. They're in bed together, fluffy white hotel blankets thrown over their bare bodies, legs tangled together. Seungkwan is on his side, propped up on one elbow, looking up at Jeonghan. Always looking up at Jeonghan.
"One of the dancers, back when we'd just debuted," Jeonghan says, continuing the list. "Two of them were fans — don't make that face, I've stopped doing that now. Sana from Twice."
"Sana from Twice?!" Seungkwan sucks in a breath and smacks Jeonghan on the arm. "How did you even manage that?"
Jeonghan shrugs. "Bumped into her backstage at some awards show. Asked if she would help me with my Japanese. One thing led to another."
Seungkwan gasps again. "Is that why your Japanese is so good?"
This, to Seungkwan's shameful delight, draws a surprised giggle from Jeonghan. He reaches over and ruffles Seungkwan's hair, in a way that should be patronising and not sexy at all, and yet it makes heat coil in Seungkwan's gut.
"No, my Japanese is good because I'm naturally talented at everything I do," Jeonghan declares, winking.
Seungkwan shoves Jeonghan's arm away from him. "That's only eight."
Jeonghan becomes more subdued. He trails his fingers along Seungkwan's collarbone. "Seungcheol," he says, and it takes Seungkwan a second to realise he's continuing the list. "Wonwoo. And, you."
Seungkwan stares at Jeonghan. It was a poorly-kept secret in the group, in the early days, that Jeonghan and Seungcheol had feelings for each other. Most of the members were convinced that they had dated for a while, but the two of them never talked about it and it had become an unspoken rule not to ask. Seungkwan wasn't expecting Jeonghan to admit to it so easily.
"You and Coups-hyung—" Seungkwan starts, then trails off. He doesn't know where he's going with the question.
Jeonghan smiles at him. "We loved each other as best we could," he says. "But we were young, and when you throw sex into the mix — it gets messy."
Seungkwan frowns. "And Wonwoo-hyung…"
"That's surprising, right?" Jeonghan's face brightens. Seungkwan can't tell if the shift is genuine or telegraphed for his sake, but Jeonghan brushes Seungkwan's hair off his forehead and it becomes hard to concentrate on anything else. "Wonwoo and I never had any feelings for each other. We had a good thing going for a few months, then broke it off when we got bored. It's better that way. Cleaner."
Seungkwan doesn't know what to say to this. He leans into Jeonghan's touch. Number eleven. He's number eleven in the group, too.
"And now, me."
Jeonghan presses a kiss into his forehead. "And now, you." It feels like love, even though Seungkwan knows that it isn't.
—
If Jeonghan isn't going to come back to his room, then Seungkwan will go over to his instead. Well past midnight, he marches down the corridor, the infinite carpeted loop that links all thirteen of them, and knocks on Jeonghan's door. For a single heart-stopping moment he's afraid that it will be Mingyu who opens it.
But no, just Jeonghan.
He doesn't seem surprised to see Seungkwan, or if he is he doesn't show it. The dark circles beneath his eyes look even darker than when he'd left, and as he steps into the light Seungkwan realises that his eyes are rimmed with red.
"Have you been crying?"
Jeonghan exhales a breath that sounds almost like a sigh, but not quite. He turns and heads back into the room, leaving Seungkwan to trail after him. "Why are you here? I'm too tired for round two."
Seungkwan stands in the middle of the room and watches as Jeonghan crawls into bed and just lays there, looking half-dead and defeated.
"You're in love with him," Seungkwan says. Jeonghan doesn't even flinch. It's only as Seungkwan says it that he realises, it's not a question as much as it is a statement. He doesn't need confirmation from Jeonghan, he just needs Jeonghan to know that he knows. "You're in love with him and that's the only reason you haven't slept with him yet."
Jeonghan closes his eyes and tips his head back against the headboard. "What do you want me to say?"
Seungkwan is angry, but mostly at himself. Jeonghan is here, though, and as good a target for his rage and shame as anything else. He yanks the covers off Jeonghan and bites out, "You can't use other people as a tool to stave off your own loneliness."
Jeonghan's eyes fly open. His gaze is dark, monstrous in a way Seungkwan's never seen it before.
"What exactly is it that you're doing with me, then?"
Seungkwan wishes he knew.
His limbs feel heavy and sluggish. He walks himself over to the other side of the bed, and climbs in next to Jeonghan. Pulls the covers back up to cover both of them. Jeonghan is staring at him the whole time, Seungkwan can feel the heat and confusion of his gaze.
"I'm staying here tonight," Seungkwan declares. He sounds surer than he feels.
Jeonghan is silent and still for a long, frozen, moment. Then he reaches out, one hand to Seungkwan's cheek. His fingers are ice against Seungkwan's skin, and it makes Seungkwan shiver. He bites it down and leans into Jeonghan's touch.
"Yoon Jeonghan," he asks, an echo back to that first night, the night that he wishes he could erase and re-do, except he's not sure he'd do anything differently, "do you ever get lonely?"
Jeonghan smiles at him like he remembers. Like he understands. He drags Seungkwan closer, until their foreheads are touching, until their noses crunch together, until Jeonghan's teeth graze like a vice-trap against Seungkwan's lips, ready to snap shut and draw blood.
When he speaks, his voice is raspy. Hot with desire, and cold with the stark absence of—
Seungkwan's breath hitches.
Jeonghan whispers, "Do you?"