Work Text:
“Gyu-ah!”
At the call, the seven of them turn in almost laughable synchronicity. It’s what they’re known for, of course, but it’s always a surprise when it happens with moves they haven’t practiced (though maybe it shouldn’t be). Sunggyu’s name—all of their names—gets called a lot, but rarely with that sort of familiarity, and the novelty of it is enough to capture all the members’ attention. But Woohyun doesn’t recognize the guy in the American band t-shirt jogging towards them; he sends a questioning glance to Hoya, but he just shrugs; apparently he doesn’t know him either.
Sunggyu, though, is smiling wide at the approaching stranger, a genuine smile that Woohyun knows he only ever offers his friends (and rarely at that), not fans or even acquaintances.
“Taewon! What are you doing here?” Sunggyu uses the informal phrasing, sounding really pleased to see the guy, and Woohyun understands: it’s always a great feeling to get a brief reminder in the middle of the idol routine that you’re a real person. Sometimes it feels like they were created in a lab by the company to be singing/dancing/fan-service machines, so any small moment that gives them an escape to their lives outside idol responsibilities is welcome, even if it’s someone yelling at you across the parking lot of a shopping mall when you’ve just come from an appearance.
The guy—Taewon—smacks Sunggyu affectionately on the back as he reaches them and smiles. “I’m back in Seoul for good now; I’ve been working at that tech store over there,” he says, pointing over his shoulder.
Sunggyu looks like a completely different person when his eyes go wide like that; Woohyun is never sure how much he likes it. “No kidding. You moved by yourself?”
“No, man, Jisun came with me. We’ve got this little studio flat a couple of blocks over.”
“You two left the band?” Sunggyu asks in roughly the same tone he might use to ask, ‘the SNSD girls are zombies’?
“Nah, we just relocated. Chunhwee had his military service and we all know he’s going to get married when he gets back, so he was out. So Jisun and I packed up to move here—we found this great bassist playing in this club a while back; we’ve restructured and we’re playing gigs again.”
Oh. So this is one of Sunggyu’s old band members. Well. It’s always weird for Woohyun to think of Sunggyu screaming on the stage of some grimy club to screeching rock music; in one way it seems more natural for Sunggyu than the idol life does; in another, it’s so far away from anything Woohyun has ever seen that he has difficulty imagining it. He runs his eyes over the guy, who looks normal enough if a little casually dressed.
Woohyun notices that Jungryoul-hyung is glancing at his phone where he’s paused a few feet away, keeping an eye on the members; they must—miraculously—be running a bit ahead of schedule for once if he isn’t hurrying them on, though Woohyun knows this moment won’t last long: no escape ever does.
Sunggyu, uncharacteristically, seems not to have half his mind on the clock, his attention all on Taewon. “Really? Anything exciting?”
Taewon shrugs, the gesture careless in a way Woohyun doesn’t recognize. “Not really—mostly unpaid stuff, but we’re building a name, I think. Besides, just playing the kind of music we love is enough, you know?”
Wohyun tenses at that, watching Sunggyu closely to see if he reacts to the (really passive-aggressive) dig, but Sunggyu’s jaw doesn’t tighten the way it does when he’s offended. Woohyun’s fists don’t unclench, though; he can’t read the look in his hyung’s eyes.
Taewon takes a moment to sweep his gaze over the members for the first time: none of them have wandered off or started their own conversations; even Myungsoo is paying attention. All of them always take the opportunity to catch a glimpse into each other’s’ lives outside Infinite; for all they know each other so well in some ways, in others there are gaping blind spots in how they see each other, and they always want to fill in those gaps, even just out of sheer curiosity.
Taewon doesn’t seem impressed by the six pairs of eyes watching him intently. Woohyun knows he can be sensitive—paranoid, Sungyeol sometimes teases—but he doesn’t think he’s imagining the hint of a sneer on this guy’s face. Woohyun shifts a bit closer to Sunggyu and resists the urge to cross his arms.
“And here are your new members,” Taewon says, and the politeness in his tone doesn’t fool Woohyun. Especially not when the next thing he asks is, “What are you guys up to these days?”
Woohyun wants to snort; if this guy is really such good friends with Sunggyu, why isn’t he at least peripherally keeping up with Sunggyu’s career? “We’re on hiatus, actually,” Woohyun says, trying to keep his voice friendly for Sunggyu’s sake, even if he’s sure the steeliness he’s feeling must show in his eyes. “Hyung is focusing on his solo stuff right now—I’m sure you’ve heard about how well he’s being received.”
Something about the way Taewon’s mouth twitches makes Woohyun think that he sees everything Woohyun is feeling. “I have—I thought ‘41 Days’ was fucking awesome, Gyu,” he says, turning back to Sunggyu briefly, and Woohyun has to grudgingly admit that he looks like he really means it, like he’s really happy for Sunggyu. But any good will he might have garnered from that disappears when he turns his attention back to Woohyun, meeting his gaze a little more squarely than is polite. “So the rest of you are just taking a nice break while Gyu works his ass off then?” It sounds like a joke; Woohyun knows it isn’t. He doesn’t flinch away from Taewon’s gaze, but his eyes narrow as he opens his mouth to retort—and this time he doesn’t intend to play nice.
But he doesn’t even get a word out before Sunggyu’s answering instead, and Woohyun is gratified to hear the first hint of frost in his voice as he does. “You really don’t know much about idol life, do you? They’re still working damn hard; they’re all in demand.”
“I’m sure,” Taewon says, his tone just barely on the polite side of dry, but the way he flicks his gaze over the maknae line, it’s all Woohyun can do not to launch himself at the guy and rip him apart—how dare he look at Woohyun’s dongsaengs that way? Like they’re just pretty faces who have nothing significant to offer and can be dismissed out of hand? Nobody works harder than Myungsoo—no one has to—and Sungyeol and Sungjong are two of the best people and most brilliant entertainers Woohyun has ever known and so what if they’re all three fucking pretty? They’re all also damn committed and hard-working and loyal and funny and good friends and—
The touch of Dongwoo’s hand on the small of his back has Woohyun relaxing minutely, leaning back a bit into Dongwoo’s reassuring warmth. Fuck, Dongwoo is the best, pretty much perfect as Woohyun has often said, always knowing when to reach out and just what to offer. Dongwoo will never let any of them go too far and do something they’ll regret—like rip the face right off of one of Sunggyu’s asshole friends in the middle of a public parking lot.
Woohyun breathes out through his nose, then forces his voice back to as close to friendliness as he can manage—and Woohyun is still an idol, still Infinite’s Woohyun, so he knows how to make himself charming when he wants to be. “And we’re preparing our album for our next comeback, too,” he says. “There’s always the next single to work on, you know how that goes.”
“Yeah?” Taewon meets Woohyun’s tone with a polite one of his own, though to Woohyun it sounds more than fake. “What style are you going for this time? More hip-hop influenced or straight pop or classic Korean or something?”
Oh, nice. He wants to go there? Woohyun will go there. “Actually, we’ve been working with our songwriters to—“
“Oh, you can’t spill anything, Namu, you never know if there’s a fangirl lurking behind a van who might be listening,” Sunggyu interrupts smoothly. Woohyun’s attention is jerked away from Taewon and back to his hyung, staring at him with disbelieving eyes. Sunggyu seems really oblivious, though, reaching out to punch Taewon light only the arm. “Let’s catch up, though. If you’re in town now and Jisun, too, we can maybe squeeze lunch in one day and—“
“A week from Friday,” Taewon suggests, interrupting. “Yohan—you remember, from high school, yeah—will be in town to visit his sister and we were already planning to meet up anyway.”
Sunggyu blinks, a little taken aback at the promptness of the suggestion, and normally Woohyun would find it funny, that expression, but he’s still gaping. “Sure,” Sunggyu says, recovering. “I’ll look through my schedule and text you the time and place, okay? I’m sure I can squeeze something in.”
“Jisun and I took the day off, so we’re easy. We’ll be ready at any time you can ‘squeeze’ us into your idol schedule.”
If Woohyun were paying attention to Taewon, he’d notice that Taewon’s tone sounds far less mocking than his words would indicate, but Woohyun is still focused on Sunggyu, trying to figure out if what he thought just happened really just happened.
But what happens next confirms it. Completely.
“You should all come—if you can find the time,” Taewon says, glancing around at all the members. “Gyu’s old band meeting up with his new band, that would be a laugh, right?”
And then Sunggyu waves his hand and says, “Oh, I’m sure they’ll all be busy with schedules—we never have overlapping free time when we’re on hiatus,” and Woohyun thinks he might throw up. His hand gropes out blindly and latches on to Dongwoo’s arm and he distantly hears Dongwoo’s intake of breath at the force of his grip.
And then there’s Jungryoul-hyung calling out, “Kids, we’re going now,” and Sunggyu is trading goodbyes with his friend and Dongwoo is prying Woohyun’s iron hand off of his arm and steering him towards the van.
Woohyun’s head is so light, his stomach churning so much that he barely even feels Sungyeol elbow him as they climb into the van, barely hears him say, “I really thought you were going to kill that guy with your bare hands, hyung, way to be obvious.” Instead he just lets Dongwoo nudge him towards the back seat, buckling himself in automatically as Dongwoo sidles up beside him.
Woohyun stares at Sunggyu’s face over the seats between them as Sunggyu swings into his place in the front passenger seat, searching for some sort of acknowledgment of what just happened, but Sunggyu looks like he always does, no indication of anything at all out of the ordinary in his expression, and that just makes Woohyun feel even more sick. Dongwoo’s fingers interlace themselves with Woohyun’s, and Woohyun holds on tight the whole ride back, stomach still doing war with itself the entire way.
Sunggyu notices that Woohyun is a bit short and distant with him over the next few days, but he’s so busy with solo promotions that he doesn’t have time to examine it, and, besides, Woohyun can be moody for no reason at times and Sunggyu has finally learned (through much harsh experience) that the best way to deal with that is just to ignore it and eventually he’ll get over it.
It’s easy enough to do at the moment when he barely sees Woohyun for five minutes the whole day, and then only in the morning or before bed—that is, if Woohyun isn’t sleeping already when Sunggyu finally drags himself home at night. So it isn’t until Woohyun ignores his forth ‘How’s it going?’ text that Sunggyu really starts to suspect that his roommate is mad at him. The first three could be written off as not having time to chat, but the forth one Sunggyu phrases as “What’s going on with the kids?” and Woohyun always answers those kinds of texts. He takes his unofficial-but-undeniable position as Sunggyu’s right hand really seriously, and he’s conscientious about keeping Sunggyu up to date on what’s going on with the other members when Sunggyu is too busy to check himself. If he’s not answering that question as soon as he can, something must be wrong.
Woohyun is still Woohyun, though, so several hours later Sunggyu gets a couple of very terse texts outlining Infinite H’s predebut preparations progress and Myungsoo’s drama’s ratings as well as one that says they need to talk to their CEO about getting Sungyeol and Sungjong out there more to take advantage of how good they are what they do—a good suggestion, one Sunggyu has been meaning to mention to Woohyun himself but has kept forgetting in his busyness.
But the text doesn’t say anything about what Woohyun’s up to himself or ask about Sunggyu or contain any teasing comments about how Another Me is selling or how Woohyun’s getting great rest now that Sunggyu’s snoring isn’t keeping him awake since Sunggyu’s never home to sleep anymore.
Sunggyu scrolls through all the texts as the stylist noona works on his hair, and in the moment before the assistant PD shouts his name and he stumbles out of his chair, he admits to himself that Woohyun is definitely mad at him.
But it’s still a few days before he can check to be sure, before he gets home before the kids go to bed and has a moment to actually approach Woohyun. He catches him by the arm as he’s coming out of the bathroom and Woohyun is going in.
“Woohyun, want to help me go over the talking points for the interview tomorrow?”
The skin around Woohyun’s eyes is tight and so is his smile as he shrugs Sunggyu’s hand away. “I’m sure whatever you come up with will be best, hyung.”
And yeah, now there’s absolutely no denying it at all: Woohyun is definitely mad at him.
But he still has no idea why, so Sunggyu does what he always does when one of the members is being touchy or surly or too quiet or too damn confusing and Sunggyu doesn’t know why: he goes to Dongwoo.
“Hyung!”
Dongwoo is always heartwarmingly glad to see him, and tonight it’s no different when Sunggyu knocks on the door, having just passed Sungyeol and Myungsoo out in the living room watching Running Man. He bounces up from his bed and drags Sunggyu into the room, grin wide, and Sunggyu finds himself relaxing more than he has in days as Dongwoo pulls him down onto the bed beside him and starts chatting away, filling him in on what Infinite H has been up to and asking all sorts of questions about Sunggyu’s own activities that he’s more than happy to answer when he has such an enthusiastic audience. He lets himself get caught up in the way Dongwoo can make him feel like there’s nothing in the world to worry about, and it isn’t until Dongwoo mentions something about Woohyun working really hard lately that Sunggyu even remembers why he’d come.
“Dongwoo, do you know why Woohyun’s been weird with me this week?”
Dongwoo looks up at him sharply, face suddenly serious. “You really don’t know, hyung?”
How does he see everything? Where did he get that gift? And how would all of us survive each other without him? “I really don’t know, Dongwoo.”
Dongwoo bites his lip as though he’s not sure he’s supposed to tell. Sunggyu sighs. “I want to apologize to him, Dongwoo, but you know Woohyun: he’ll know in a second if I know what I’m apologizing for or not, and if I don’t know, he’ll be even more upset than before. Please tell me what it is so I can make it right.”
Dongwoo still doesn’t look thrilled at the idea, but the argument wins him over. “It was when we met your friend the other day, hyung.”
“I figured that much, Dongwoo—that was when he started acting like this. But I can’t figure out why that bothered him.”
Dongwoo looks impatient. “It was when you cut him off when he was going to tell about our music.”
Sunggyu could almost laugh. “Is that it? He got pissed that I didn’t let him do his spiel? God, I know he loves an audience, but even he—“
Dongwoo interrupts, looking upset at the misunderstanding. “No, hyung! It wasn’t just that! It was that and you not wanting us to go to lunch with your friends and—“
Fucking Woohyun. “Oh, he’s mad he’s going to miss out on a free meal, too? What a baby. He never treats any of the rest of us but he expects me to shell it out for him every time I buy for anyone else? That kid—“
“No! No, hyung!” Dongwoo seems genuinely distressed now, and it’s that as much as his interruption that stops Sunggyu short. “He thought you were ashamed of us!”
Sunggyu stares. And stares. “…he what?”
“Hyung, you steered the topic right away from our music like the last thing you would ever do is let your old bandmate hear about it.”
“But,” Sunggyu says slowly, “but I did that because once Taewon gets talking about music he won’t stop and he turns into a pretentious ass. I didn’t want to have to deal with that—I didn’t want the rest of you to have to deal with that.”
“But that’s not how he saw it, hyung,” Dongwoo says, pleading in his voice. “He thought it meant you were ashamed to talk with your friend about the music we make.” Sunggyu opens his mouth to protest, but Dongwoo hurries on. “And you just confirmed it when you dismissed the lunch invitation for the rest of us the way you did.”
Sunggyu shakes his head, not understand, trying to work all this out. Damn you, Nam Woohyun—no one else has ever been so complicated. “But I didn’t think he’d even want to eat with them—that any of you would! None of you have anything in common with them, especially not Woohyun, and you don’t even know each other and you’d have to listen to all those ‘remember when’ kinds of stories and those are always annoying if you weren’t there. I thought you all would be grateful not to have to sit through that stuff.”
“It’s not that he wanted to go, hyung. He probably doesn’t. It’s the fact that you didn’t even consider it, didn’t even ask any of us, just said no like you didn’t want us to eat with them.”
And Sunggyu had thought the girls he dated in the past were confusing. None of them have anything on Nam Woohyun. “And he thought all that meant I was ashamed?”
“Yes, hyung, don’t you see? You used to make a completely different kind of music with completely different people. And everyone knows you came to Woollim to do something like Nell. Everyone thinks you’re settling with Infinite, that you don’t like the music and you’re only doing it because you can’t do what you really want to do, and you leap at the chance to do your solo stuff, and Woohyun is happy for you, he really is, but he doesn’t miss how different that music is from ours. And then you see the people you used to make your old music with, and you won’t talk to them about our music at all and you don’t even consider the idea of letting them spend any time with us—are you really so surprised that he thinks that means you’re ashamed of us? Ashamed of him?”
Sunggyu clenches and unclenches his fists, trying to get his heart to stop racing—he doesn’t even know why it is or when it had sped up, but it’s going way too fast in his chest as he lets all this sink in.
And then he wonders when the last time he touched Woohyun was—really touched him—and he can’t even remember, he’s been so busy and they never see each other and when they do Sunggyu is so damn exhausted and—
“Shit,” he says finally, and Dongwoo’s face relaxes out of its concern.
“Do you see now, hyung?”
“Shit, Dongwoo, how do I make him see that it wasn’t that at all?”
Dongwoo shakes his head. “That, I can’t tell you, hyung. You have to figure out how to show him that yourself.”
Shit.
Woohyun barely glances up when Sunggyu opens the door, keeping his headphones on and his eyes focused on his laptop, his face set but blank. Sunggyu hesitates for a moment watching him, shuffling his feet a bit and hoping that Woohyun will yank the headphones off and start yelling at him—at least that would start the conversation.
But Woohyun just ignores his presence entirely, eyes glued to the computer screen, even if Sunggyu can see the muscle jumping in his jaw. After a moment he sighs and walks over to the bed, reaching out and tugging the cord of the headphones till one of them slides off of Woohyun’s ear.
Woohyun yanks the headphones away completely, shoulders tensing as he turns to look at Sunggyu. “Yes, hyung, what did you want?” The words are perfectly polite, and the tone almost is, if only there weren’t rage and annoyance lurking behind it and lighting up Woohyun’s eyes. Dongwoo was definitely right. Sunggyu takes a quiet breath.
“Do you think you’ll be free for dinner on Friday?”
Woohyun goes very still for a long moment. When he finally speaks, his voice is overly casual. “I thought you didn’t want the rest of us there.”
“It would be stupid to drag all six of you along to hang out with people you don’t know. But just one should be okay.”
Woohyun is still holding himself very still. “Why don’t you ask Dongwoo or Howon, then?”
Oh, Woohyun. “Because you’re the one I want, pabo.”
In the ensuing silence, Sunggyu thinks he sees the corner of Woohyun’s eye twitch. “I don’t want to get in the way,” he says finally, very precisely.
Oh, Woohyun. Sunggyu only lets himself sigh on the inside. “I wouldn’t ask you if you would. But I haven’t seen them in forever and who knows if it will be awkward or what? At least if you’re there I’ll have someone I can actually talk to.”
Again there’s silence. And then Woohyun jerks his shoulder in a shrug that’s a little too sharp to be casual. “Well, if you need me to save you, then I guess you can owe me one.”
Sunggyu rolls his eyes, but he lets that go for once; after all, Woohyun is the one who’s feeling rejected. “Great, then. I’ll text Taewon and tell him to make it five.”
Sunggyu turns his attention to getting ready for bed then, purposefully not looking at Woohyun as he moves around the room, gathering his things. When he heads towards the door to the bathroom, though, he glances at Woohyun for just a moment, and he has to smile when he sees that Woohyun’s shoulders are a lot more relaxed.
Sunggyu’s friends are jerks. Pretentious, bombastic jerks. That’s what Woohyun has gotten out of this meal so far.
Okay, so maybe they aren’t the worst people on the planet, and when they’re just reminiscing about their past experiences, they seem almost normal, even if it’s deadly boring to listen to their constant stream of ‘remember that time…?’s. But Woohyun is used to that kind of thing; that’s what it’s always like when old friends get together, and he’d agreed to come knowing what he was getting into (he didn’t even really want to come, but Sunggyu had said ‘you’re the one I want’ and, well, Woohyun is easy). As obnoxious as it is to smile awkwardly while the others laugh their asses off about some stupid thing they did when they were seventeen (and Woohyun’s only the slightest bit bitter that he hasn’t seen Sunggyu laugh this hard in a long, long time, the curve of his cheeks rising to hide eyes as he opens his mouth so wide in his mirth), Woohyun greatly prefers it to their only other topic of conversation, because that’s when the snobbery kicks in.
It starts out innocently enough, but Woohyun’s grip tightens around his chopsticks when Jisun—a glasses-clad man with a frame like Sungyeol’s and a purple Mohawk—asks Sunggyu what he’s been listening to lately.
Here we go.
“Besides Nell, you mean?” The words come out of Woohyun’s mouth on impulse, and for a second he regrets them—he’s been eating almost silently since the all sat down (in his attempts to appear busy with his meal, he’s ended up eating more than he has over the course of an entire day in years, and he knows he’ll have to hit the gym hard this week to make up for it), having nothing to contribute, and the words seem to pop right out of his mouth.
But the other three laugh knowingly, and Yohan—hopelessly nerdy-looking but with a sharp tongue that’s set the rest of the guys to roaring with laughter more than once over some particularly sarcastic dig on one of their old classmates—groans. “Don’t tell me you’re still so hung up on Nell that you can’t see any other bands at all. There is other music in the world, Gyu.”
Feeling a little relaxed for the first time since he entered the restaurant, Woohyun grins. “I don’t expect he’ll be able to escape their grip, not when they’re writing songs for him now.”
Sunggyu’s neck still goes a bit pink whenever anyone mentions his heroes working with him, but he just shakes his head in that way of his. “Don’t make it sound like they’re working for me or something. It was just a one-time thing.”
Feeling like he can actually touch Sunggyu for the first time in a long time, Woohyun nudges Sunggyu’s ankle with his own under the table. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they ask you to join them and you get so excited that you end up leaving us without a look back.”
Sunggyu rolls his eyes, and fuck Woohyun has missed him. “Yeah, because that sounds just like me, abandoning my responsibilities like that.”
The word ‘responsibilities’ almost hurts, but Woohyun just reminds himself that this is Sunggyu and for Sunggyu responsibilities are more important than just about anything. It’s not like if someone else said that, implying that Infinite is nothing more than duty. “But if Kim Jongwan-sunbae looked at you from behind those glasses with his eyes so earnest and said—“ Woohyun drops his voice an octave and plasters on an overly earnest face as he leans closer to Sunggyu, “‘Please, Sunggyu-ssi, we need you in our band. Nell needs you.’” He grins as he falls back into his regular voice. “You would drink that up like Sungyeol drinks coffee and run away from us so fast you’d make anyone ashamed they ever called you grandpa.”
Sunggyu’s wearing that expression he puts on when he’s trying to look annoyed but he’s really hiding amusement; it always makes him look constipated and Woohyun thinks he maybe shouldn’t find that as endearing as he does. “And what would you do if I did? Come running after me begging not to leave you?”
Woohyun snorts. “Hell no! You think this sort of thing isn’t what I’ve been waiting for since day one? I’d be the leader! Finally in my rightful place!”
“Technically Dongwoo’s next in line for leader,” Sunggyu points out, mouth twitching.
“Oh, please, I can handle Dongwoo,” Woohyun answers, waving a hand dismissively. “It’s not like he’d even want to be leader anyway. I’d just remind him that he’d have to yell at the kids sometimes and he’d immediately hand over the position. And then I could run things the way they’re supposed to be run and who knows how far Infinite could go without your lazy ass holding it back?”
Two years ago, Woohyun would never have been able to joke around with Sunggyu this way. Back then, they were just inching past grudging respect and into something like a working partnership, but they were both so prickly and competitive, always looking for reasons to take offense in the others’ words and actions, that any hint of one of them holding Infinite back or not being a good leader would have been taken completely seriously and ended in an ice storm of a fight.
But that was then. Things have changed. A lot of things. And Woohyun can tease Sunggyu about his leadership abilities this way because he knows that Sunggyu knows just how absolutely Woohyun trusts him to do the right thing for the group. And because of other reasons.
“Well, maybe I should leave right now, then. I’m already doing solo promotions and with as well as I’m doing, it’s pretty clear that I don’t need the rest of you at all.”
Two years ago, those words would have torn Woohyun in half, one part of him teeming with pain, the other raging with fury. Now, he just smirks.
“Let’s see how well your next video does without Myungsoo’s face all over it. You think anyone was actually watching it for you and your music? Please, they just wanted to see L make big dewy eyes at the camera so they could sigh and cry all over the place at how beautiful he is. If your face is front and center anyone watching would turn off the television in terror.”
“I’m pretty sure without me there to deflect, Infinite wouldn’t have any fans left at all because they’d all have drowned in your grease, which is a thousand times scarier than my face could ever be.”
“Wow, I thought the flirting between members was just for fanservice in front of the camera. Are you two always like this?”
Woohyun jerks back (when did he lean in so close to Sunggyu?) and his head whips around in time with Sunggyu’s as they turn to stare at Yohan. Out of the corner of his eye, Woohyun can see Sunggyu’s blank face, but he can feel his own cheeks heating up.
But then Sunggyu laughs and the moment shatters, and Woohyun has always been shocked when Sunggyu figures out how to steer a situation into smoother waters, and it’s no different now. “Whatever, this one just doesn’t know when to shut up. You should see him and Sungyeol try to top each other with one-liners. It gives all the rest of us headaches. Actually, it reminds me of when you and Misun used to get into all the time back in school, Yohan, remember?”
And just like that, the reminiscing is back on track, mixed with liberal doses of music snobbery, and Woohyun sinks back into silence, feeling like Sunggyu has forgotten he’s even here. For a moment there, Sunggyu’s eyes had been on him—on him in a way they haven’t been in what seems like forever—but now he’s fading back into the background again and he can’t help that little gnawing terror that wriggles to life inside him again, nibbling away at whatever space to breathe he’s found over the past few days: the fear that Sunggyu really will leave them. Woohyun knows it’s stupid, knows how Sunggyu feels about responsibilities and commitments and Infinite. He knows. But he also knows how Sunggyu gets so lost in the music when it’s the kind he really loves, so lost in a way that he never gets with Infinite’s songs. He knows how Sunggyu’s eyes go all worshipful when the Nell sunbaes are in the room, no matter how hard he pretends to be cool. He knows how Sunggyu used to lie in bed at night and dream of something completely different than anything Infinite is, how Sunggyu gave up everything he knew in life to come to Seoul to be a part of that kind of something. Woohyun isn’t sure which thought is scarier: that Sunggyu will leave or that Sunggyu’s only staying with them because he made a commitment.
Actually, yeah, he does know which one is scarier. Nothing could be scarier than the thought of Sunggyu not being there anymore. Nothing.
“Nah, I’ve got this,” Sunggyu is saying when Woohyun kicks his fear away and zones back into the conversation. He pulls his credit card out of his wallet and Woohyun reaches over and takes it.
“I’ll go pay, hyung.” Good. A chance to escape for a minute.
Sunggyu shakes his head in exasperation. “You just love to rack up money on my card, don’t you, Woohyun?”
Woohyun knows how to play to the crowd, even with fears skittering around in the back of his mind like insistent rats, so he smirks as he pushes his chair back. “What can I say, hyung? I just love to see that tortured face you make when you see the bill.”
“If you sign as ‘Sunggyu pabo’ I’m putting you on bathroom duty for the rest of the year!” Sunggyu shouts after him as Woohyun walks away, and Woohyun can’t help but chuckle, if only for a moment before his mirth dies away, replaced again by the moody restlessness he’s been feeling since Sunggyu’s solo career went from theoretical to something the company was actively working at. Sungyeol had teased Woohyun at first about how obvious he was being in his jealousy—“You just can’t stand when the eyes are on someone else, can you, hyung?”—and yeah, okay, Woohyun can admit that he’s been feeling pangs of envy. But they aren’t anything Woohyun can’t ignore, and it’s definitely not jealousy that’s made him feel like he’s dragging along the bottom of the ocean, pressed down by the force of miles of entrapping water above him.
The source of his anxiety is half-formed, even in his own mind, a hazy kind of fear that Sunggyu will leave them, that Sunggyu will stay but resent them (him), that Sunggyu is growing beyond them (him), that the reason Sunggyu feels so far away isn’t just because of his busyness but because he really is. Woohyun can’t talk about that to anyone, though, not even Kibum, and his only comfort has been that Dongwoo’s seemed to sense it without even being told (sometimes Woohyun thinks Dongwoo has psychic powers and honestly if anyone could be trusted to use them for good, it’s definitely Dongwoo). It’s such a relief to have Dongwoo around, Dongwoo who understand but never pushes and only offers advice when he can tell someone wants it, Dongwoo who’s been letting Woohyun spend a lot of their bits of free time lying face-down on Dongwoo’s bed as Dongwoo plays with his toys or scribbles in his notebook or updates his twitter or whatever, their feet tangled up at the foot of the bed, comforting and right. Beside Dongwoo is just about the only place Woohyun feels close to being at ease anymore (there used to be another place, another bed, but it’s been so long and Woohyun doesn’t even let himself fantasize about it anymore as it recedes further and further into the distance) and he sorts of hates himself for forcing Dongwoo to deal with his perpetually broody self, but he’s just so grateful for Dongwoo’s comforting presence that he can’t bring himself to pull away.
Woohyun’s always been needy. He knows it’s off-putting to most people, pathetic or annoying or obnoxious. He’d hoped he’d outgrow it, mature past that nagging need for reassurance, but he hasn’t. Sometimes he thinks he’s gotten better at hiding it, but maybe he’s fooling himself. Sometimes he’s really good at that (though rarely when it really counts).
He runs a weary hand over his face as he signs Sunggyu’s name (no ‘pabo,’ not this time) on the receipt and bows to the cashier, turning to drag himself back to the table where Sunggyu’s laughing with his friends. At least he can see Sunggyu’s face without a TV screen mediating the distance between them, can watch the stupid faces he makes and the way his eyes grow and shrink with emotion. That’s something, anyway.
But he pauses as he turns the corner, Taewon’s voice slamming into him and freezing him in place.
“…you’ve sold out, man.”
The words seem to wrap themselves around Woohyun’s neck, choking him with fury—how dare this guy? What kind of pretentious ass is he? He’s about to burst around the corner and light into him when he hears Sunggyu answer. His hyung’s voice is unamused but not quite dismissive, and sometimes Woohyun forgets that Sunggyu can be savvy, controlled when he wants to be; so often he comes across as a bit awkward and easily flustered, but Sunggyu can be stony-faced when the moment demands it, can manipulate situations with far more skill than most people would guess.
“If that’s what you call it when you shift the kind of music you make so that you can make a living doing what you love then, yeah, I guess I’ve sold out.”
Anyone else would probably hear the note of warning in Sunggyu’s voice, hear it and take it, but Taewon is some kind of stubborn bastard, because he presses. “But that music’s so shallow—they crank it out like an assembly line, it’s got no soul.”
Woohyun has to roll his eyes that the word ‘soul,’ and count on Sunggyu to say what he says next: “Well, now I know you haven’t listened to it. Anything Kim Sunggyu does has soul.”
Something tightens (in Woohyun’s throat, in his stomach, in his chest) at the words (the familiarity of them, the Sunggyuness).
“Well, maybe yours,” Taewon allows, but then he’s continuing and Woohyun’s pretty sure he’s never hated anyone quite this much. “But fuck, man, half the guys can’t even sing, they’re just there for their looks, how can you deal with them?”
And again with the insults to Woohyun’s dongsaengs. They aren’t words Woohyun hasn’t heard a thousand times before—he isn’t stupid, he knows how some of the members get talked about. But most people at least have the decency to hint at that meaning without actually saying it or, if they want to be blunt, to say them online or, you know, not right to one of the members’ faces. Woohyun finds he’s clenching his fists again, and it takes all his will power to stay still.
Sunggyu’s voice manages to be stony and dismissive at the same time, and Woohyun has no idea how he’s doing it (but maybe he falls even more in love with him because of it). “Not all of them are fantastic singers, that’s true. But none of them coast on their looks; all of them work their asses off and find other ways to contribute. I’ve never known a group of people to work so hard.”
There. That’s LeaderGyu, not Kim Sunggyu Solo Artist who’s all over the TV lately, constantly filming interviews and going to photoshoots and performing by himself (it’s by himself, Woohyun always stubbornly insists to himself. The band doesn’t count—that’s by himself). This is Leader Sunggyu who might rip into the members when he feels like they’re not giving their all, but who they all know appreciates the hell out of them anyway. That’s Sunggyu.
Taewon-that-idiot-son-of-a-bitch doesn’t get it, though. (He doesn’t know LeaderGyu. This Sunggyu was someone who was born the day Sunggyu volunteered to take the vacant leader position and has been growing ever since, and Woohyun has been there, every step of the way, watching him the whole time.) “You’re carrying them, man. No wonder they made you the leader—you’re the only one who could make anything of them, they’d be nothing without you.”
There’s just enough truth in there—Sunggyu has made them more than they ever would have been without him—that it almost makes the flame of Woohyun’s anger flicker lower. Almost.
And then Sunggyu speaks again, tone still hovering between steely and indifferent. “That’s not true. If they didn’t have me, they’d still have Woohyun.”
Sunggyu. Fuck, I— Woohyun can’t think of anything at all, can’t even breathe, because something in his chest is swelling to block the flow of oxygen (if he was being Infinite’s Woohyun, Namtrainer with his grease, he’d say it’s his heart. But right now he’s just Woohyun and no matter how pathetic he knows he is, he isn’t quite prepared to admit that to himself). He can feel the back of his eyes burning with tears he won’t ever let fall. Sunggyu.
“What, you mean that greasy ass with the fucking stupid aegyo? You honestly think he can do anything but flirt with the audience and flash his abs?”
It’s nothing Woohyun hasn’t heard before, a thousand times, a million times, but it still usually hurts, no matter how hard he tries to convince himself that it doesn’t. Sometimes he thinks he’s never going to grow thicker skin, sometimes he hates himself because he just cares too much and he always will. But right now the words bounce off like he’s coated with Teflon, and he realizes he doesn’t give a damn what this guy thinks. (Because clearly Sunggyu doesn’t either.)
Woohyun has to lean against the wall when he hears Sunggyu’s lisp flare up--his voice is just barely controlled, but that lisp gives him away. “Woohyun would be a great leader. He’d probably run things completely differently than I would, but he’d do it just as well as I could. He’s the only one I would trust to lead them, and he wouldn’t disappoint me. I trust him more than anyone. No one works harder than he does, no one cares more than he does. He may look like your average idol on TV, but he’s sacrificed more than you could ever know and gives more than anyone will ever see.”
Woohyun’s breath stutters through his lips. The silence of the rest of the table swaddles the scratching drag of a chair being pushed back and when Sunggyu speaks again, his lisp is banished once more. “I’m not going to listen to you talk about him like that anymore. So if you don’t have anything else to talk about, I should really be getting back to my schedules. The kids are waiting for me.”
Woohyun barely manages to jerk himself upright and swipe his face clean before suddenly there’s Sunggyu rounding the corner, round jaw set, eyes narrower than ever, Woohyun’s coat tossed over his arm. He blinks when he sees Woohyun, and Woohyun plasters a casual look on his face, holding out the credit card like he’s just come from the cashier. His hand barely shakes at all, so subtle that no one would ever notice (well, maybe Dongwoo, but Sunggyu is infuriatingly delightfully oblivious so much of the time, and for once Woohyun is thankful). “I swear I didn’t write ‘pabo,’” Woohyun says, trying to sound teasing. “This time. But I’m only being easy on you because I know how hard you’re working right now and your old man heart can’t take it.”
Sunggyu just stares at him for a moment, and there’s a hint of a flush to his pale skin. Then he reaches out slowly, taking the credit card as he studies Woohyun closely. Woohyun wants to twitch and fidget, but he keeps his expression and demeanor casual. He doesn’t quite know why he doesn’t want Sunggyu to know that he overheard all of that—maybe because he knows that Sunggyu isn’t the soul-baring type, isn’t one to express himself easily and without embarrassment. All Woohyun knows is that he’ll never, ever tell Sunggyu that he overheard what he said (and if he’ll also never, ever forget it, hoarding it away inside him and bringing it out now and then to paw over, well, that’s something no one else needs to know).
Sunggyu holds his gaze for a heartbeat too long, a heartbeat that almost sets Woohyun into a panic, thinking he’s given himself away. But then Sunggyu shakes his head and looks away, fumbling through his wallet to return the card to its place. When he looks up again, he gives Woohyun a forced smile. “Let’s get out of here.”
Woohyun agrees with a nod and a grin (only the slightest bit shaky) and takes his coat, and they’re turning to leave when Jisun comes around the corner, surprising them both.
“Listen, Gyu,” he starts before he’s even come to a standstill. “He didn’t mean—he was just being Taewon, you know how he is and—“
“Yeah, I know,” Sunggyu interrupts, mouth curling wryly. “Forget about it, okay, Jisun?”
“But he—“
“I said forget about, okay?” It isn’t quite Sunggyu’s I’m-the-Leader voice, the one that makes Sungyeol’s eyes flash and Myungsoo’s head bow, but it’s close, and apparently it has enough power to get Jisun to nod.
“I’ll see you later, Jisun, right?”
“Yeah, Gyu, sure.”
“Take care of yourself.”
And then Sunggyu’s got Woohyun by the arm and is steering him out the door.
“What was that?” Woohyun hisses as soon as the door closes behind them with a ring of its bell.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Taewon was just a jerkass, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“That Taewon guy? Really? Surely you’re joking.”
“Shut up, dumbass.”
For some reason, though he’s still shaking just a bit, Woohyun can’t hold back the grin that grows across his face, so he tosses it to Sunggyu, breathing deep of the cool air. “Beat you back, grandpa.”
Woohyun is an annoying puppy all the way back home, grinning and teasing and acting in ways that no adult human should act in public (Sunggyu tries to convince himself that he’s embarrassed, but he’s never been good at convincing himself of things that have to do with Woohyun). Sunggyu (makes himself) rolls his eyes and shakes his head and barks at him to stop acting like an idiot a few times, but Woohyun ignores him, and if Sunggyu’s honest with himself (which he isn’t very often), he can’t deny that the sight of those smile-lines framing Woohyun’s mouth, the streak of a dimple just below, the unique timbre of his voice—all of the things that make him Woohyun—make him feel relaxed for the first time in weeks, the tension draining out of his shoulders and neck with every stupid comment.
The thing is, though, he can’t relax completely because he has no idea why Woohyun is acting this way. Could he really be that pleased that Sunggyu took him along? It had to have been really boring for Woohyun, even if Sunggyu enjoyed himself (for most of the meal, anyway, at least until Taewon started ripping into his members, and then his anger had burned so bright he’d forgotten what emotions like enjoyment were like), and there had been something about Woohyun’s face—or maybe it was the way he held himself? Sunggyu’s so bad at actually getting a hold on these things—after he came back from the cash register that had made Sunggyu feel like there was something going on that he was missing. (He feels that way a lot with Woohyun, actually.) He’s used to having no idea what’s going on in Woohyun’s head (unless he asks Dongwoo to translate), used to just riding out Woohyun’s moods because there’s nothing else to do (now that they’ve stopped fighting each other so much), but it still sometimes makes him uneasy, how different Woohyun’s mind is. There’s something about Woohyun that feels so easy and comforting and familiar on the one hand and so absolutely confusing and infuriating and challenging on the other. Sunggyu’s not used to feeling such mixed emotions like that, at least not ones that aren’t prompted by music—he never used to feel them, not until Infinite and Nam Woohyun came into his life. He’d thought they’d get easier to deal with, but that hasn’t really been the case.
So his head starts to ache when they reach home and kick off their shoes and greet the others before heading to their room to shed their coats and then Woohyun falls silent. After the lightheartedness he’d been emanating the whole way home, the abruptness of his brooding is jarring, and Sunggyu knows he’ll never understand how Woohyun cycles through emotions so quickly. Dongwoo understands, and maybe Sungyeol gets it, but Sunggyu just isn’t wired that way.
So he isn’t quite sure what to do as he watches Woohyun hang up his coat, then swipe a few items from the mostly-clean pile on the floor to hang them up, too. He seems restless, somehow, and Sunggyu watches him steadily as he slowly hangs up his own coat, feeling as though there’s something suspended between them that he can’t see.
“You can thank me for accompanying your ass today by not talking about how jealous I am in your next interview.” Woohyun’s voice seems too harsh for the room, too large to fit inside it even though it’s not all that loud. Sunggyu tugs on the bottoms of his sleeves. “It’s not like anyone would believe I could possibly be jealous of you, so it makes you look pathetic to talk about it.”
Sunggyu narrows his eyes. This is a stupid level of jokey discomfort that he rarely sees from Woohyun, usually only in moments when he feels completely out of his element, and it seems even more extreme in the wake of his cheerfulness on the way home. Had that been a façade, hiding some other emotions? Sunggyu’s never been good at telling and it’s so frustrating. Why can’t Woohyun be easy to understand, like Howon or Myungsoo? Even Sungyeol, who Sunggyu is sometimes convinced is absolutely crazy, is actually pretty easy to wrap your mind around once you figure out that he values honesty above everything else. After you realize that, everything falls into place, like a codebook unlocking a code. But if there’s a Rosetta Stone to translate Woohyun, Sunggyu has never found it, no matter how hard he’s searched (and he has. No one else might believe it, but he has).
And he doesn’t appear to have been given the gift of tongues right now, hasn’t stumbled across something that will miraculously help him understand Woohyun. He reaches up and twitches his hair out of his eyes, watching the line of Woohyun’s back as he bends to pick up a sweat shirt. It takes him a moment to remember what Woohyun had just been talking about.
“I also said you’re the most supportive, in case you didn’t hear that, too. And that you’d be the best at doing a solo album.”
Woohyun snorts, shoving the arm of a hanger through the neck of the sweatshirt, and how many times has Sunggyu told him that you insert the hanger through the waist of a shirt? “Yeah, I noticed how you couldn’t seem to stop talking about me—I think everyone else did, too.” He hangs up the sweatshirt and reaches out as if he’s going to touch Sunggyu—but then he jerks back.
He jerks back and turns away and there’s no reason he should have pulled back because Sunggyu lets Woohyun touch him all the time and there’s no reason he should have turned away but he did and suddenly a few things click into place. Not everything, not even most things. It’s not like Sunggyu now understands Woohyun, because he doesn’t, because Woohyun is so very many things that Sunggyu is sure one person could dedicate the rest of their life to studying him and reach the end and still not have figured out all the things Nam Woohyun is. He certainly still has a mental list a mile long of all the frustrated questions he has about the why?s and how?s of Woohyun. But he thinks maybe he understands this moment. And maybe, with Woohyun, this moment will be enough.
“Dongwoo told me you thought I was ashamed of you.”
Woohyun’s head flies up and Sunggyu winces. Okay, just because he thinks he understands doesn’t mean he’s not going to bungle dealing with it. Something flashes in Woohyun’s eyes, then solidifies into hardness and Sunggyu bites his lip, then hurries to speak before Woohyun can say anything.
“I knew you were angry but I didn’t know why and—“
“And you had to ask Dongwoo, of course.” The dryness of Woohyun’s voice just barely conceals the note of bitterness lurking beneath and Sunggyu, for once, hears the things Woohyun doesn’t say: You couldn’t pay enough attention yourself to figure it out. You had to cheat. Sunggyu feels anger lapping at him, wants to release his annoyance and shoot back, Well if you weren’t so fucking complicated all the time! or At least I cared enough to ask instead of ignoring your stupid moping! and once upon a time that’s the way this conversation would go.
But it’s been years now since he first decided he didn’t like the former model with the too-wide smile who was learning all the choreography so easily even though he said he’d never danced before. Been years since the days when they fought over anything and everything, turning every encounter into a power play and a competition. That’s years behind Sunggyu now, and even though it would be so easy to fall back into those patterns, he doesn’t.
He doesn’t. Instead, he does what he probably should have done the other night after Dongwoo first told him what the problem was. Actually, what he probably should have done weeks ago, should have been doing all along. He’s been so busy lately, so incredibly tired, so exhausted from the day they first started working on his solo debut, and he’d used that as an excuse. Well, not an excuse—it’s a really good reason, actually, and anyone would understand. Anyone except for Woohyun, who never understands anything the way he should, some filter in his mind twisting everything Sunggyu does and says till he gets it exactly wrong. For one of the most selfless people Sunggyu knows, Woohyun is so ridiculously self-centered sometimes, thinking everything’s about him, even when it’s really about the fact that Sunggyu just wants to fucking sleep. But you can’t count on Woohyun to see it that way. Of course he has to go and feel rejected.
Well, Sunggyu isn’t going to stand for that, not anymore. Woohyun isn’t going to feel sorry for himself tonight, not when Sunggyu has a few hours of free time and a fire in his belly that was kindled by his jerk of an old friend disrespecting his members. Sunggyu doesn’t have time to deal with that annoyance and Woohyun’s issues too, so he’s going to put an end to it now.
And so he reaches out and grabs Woohyun and pulls him close.
Woohyun is so surprised that he stumbles right into Sunggyu, who doesn’t much care, jerking Woohyun into his arms and fastening his lips onto those pouty ones. After that split second of surprise, Woohyun lurches away, pretending to put up a fight, but there’s no strength behind it and even while he’s kissing, Sunggyu still manages to roll his eyes. For someone so needy, Woohyun can be stupidly proud sometimes.
And stupidly stubborn. He lets Sunggyu kiss him, but annoyingly doesn’t kiss back, and while it’s far from the worst kiss they’ve ever had (that first time, desperate and half-drunk and exhausted and just needing something, that had been pretty bad. And yet one of the most important things that’s ever happened to Sunggyu, so), it’s not enough. Sunggyu tries to pry Woohyun’s lips and teeth apart, to force his tongue inside, but Woohyun won’t let him, and that’s when Sunggyu digs his fingernails into Woohyun’s hips and pulls back just enough to slide his mouth down Woohyun’s neck and whisper against the skin, damp and warm: “You really are a pabo.”
Woohyun jolts against him, tries to pull away again, but Sunggyu tightens his grip, mouth against Woohyun’s collarbones. Woohyun’s breathing deep now, not quite panting but close to it and Sunggyu smiles against his skin. “You thought I was ashamed of Infinite? Are you fucking kidding me right now?” A kiss against the dip of his clavicle. “Infinite’s fucking amazing, and you and I built that.” Woohyun starts again, but it feels less like an attempt to move away, and Sunggyu’s smile widens even as he licks at a tendon in Woohyun’s neck. “You thought I was ashamed of you?” This time Woohyun goes tense all over, and Sunggyu knows it’s got nothing to do with the kiss he’s pressing against Woohyun’s pulse point. All this time and he’s still so scared to show me any weakness. “Yeah, I mean, you’re a ridiculous greaseball who wants attention way more than is natural and has the world’s stupidest eating habits and your taste in music is pretty bad and your clothes are even worse—“ He knows Woohyun’s going to shoot back something about Sunggyu’s own taste in clothes, but he hurries on before he can, feeling the tightness of Woohyun’s barely-controlled body against his. “But I’m not fucking ashamed of you.”
Now Woohyun is full-on panting, his grip on Sunggyu’s biceps so hard Sunggyu’s going to have bruises there tomorrow—good thing none of his outfits are sleeveless—and there’s a desperate hitch to that panting that makes Sunggyu think that just maybe Woohyun’s fighting to keep some sort of emotion bottled up. He brings his mouth around to bite lightly on Woohyun’s Adam’s apple and at the strangled groan—the one Woohyun tries to cut off, no doubt embarrassed, but Sunggyu hears anyways—Sunggyu says, “The only thing I’m ashamed of, Nam Woohyun, is that you’re stupid enough to think I could ever be ashamed of you.”
Sunggyu can almost feel whatever control Woohyun had snap right in half, and suddenly Woohyun is shoving Sunggyu’s arms aside and jerking Sunggyu’s shirt off. Sunggyu yanks his head back and gets a glimpse of Woohyun’s face, flushed and blurry with tense emotion, his eyes too dark for Sunggyu to read anything in their depths, but he lets Woohyun rip his clothes off, returns the favor, and then they’re stumbling to the bed, falling onto it, and Woohyun’s letting Sunggyu roll him beneath him. Woohyun is always so hard beneath him, all solid muscle and bones too prominent—that’s what happens when Sunggyu isn’t around to keep an eye on Woohyun’s eating and exercise habits. Sunggyu thinks of that round-faced boy with the bad hair and the bit of chubbiness back when they were first trainees, and he doesn’t understand why Woohyun wants to kill himself to rid himself of any bit of flesh on his body. The hardness of Woohyun is no less hot than some cushioning would be—Woohyun’s hotness has very little to do with his body, though he doesn’t seem to understand that—but Sunggyu wishes he would keep his focus on health instead of chocolate abs if he’s going to think about things like that at all.
But this isn’t the time to think about that. Not when Woohyun’s smooth, warm skin is rubbing against his for the first time in weeks, not when he can allow his hands to slide over toned muscle and his mouth to plunder Woohyun’s as he hasn’t in what seems like forever. He sees now that he was stupid—he’s been needing this for forever but thought he didn’t have the time to indulge in it, and so he’d tucked all his instincts—every one crying out for Woohyun’s touch—back into a top shelf of his mind and carried on. But now Woohyun is against him again and his nearness is so intoxicating that Sunggyu wonders how he possibly made it this long without him.
Their foreplay is frantic, mouths just a little too demanding, touches a little too harsh. They aren’t always like this—sometimes things are so slow and almost…gentle that Sunggyu isn’t sure he can handle it. But this is what they need right now, and if Sunggyu weren’t so focused on Woohyun he’d probably be close to tears with relief.
But even though he needs this so badly—more than he ever allows himself to need anything—he isn’t the point of this. Woohyun is. This is about Woohyun. He’ll be greedy next time.
He drags himself from Woohyun long enough to fumble in the drawer of the bedside table for the lube. It’s hard to flip the top, the seam crusted a bit, and it reminds Sunggyu of how long it’s really been. When he prods with his fingers at Woohyun’s opening and finds it tighter than he remembers it being since their first few times, he’s reminded even more forcibly.
And of course pabo Nam Woohyun thinks that if Sunggyu hasn’t touched him in so long it means that Sunggyu doesn’t want him. Sunggyu nudges his hips against Woohyun’s thigh, prodding him with the evidence of just how much he does want Woohyun, and working his fingers in bit by bit.
“You probably thought I was ashamed of this, right?” Sunggyu mouths at one of Woohyun’s nipples while easing his fingers further in. Fuck, he’s tight. “Thought I’d thought better of it or figured out that I don’t need you anymore, right?”
Woohyun’s breathing still has that desperate edge to it, and Sunggyu is almost glad he can’t see his face. He isn’t sure his heart would be able to handle seeing Woohyun so at war with himself—so emotional but fighting so hard not to show it. “I fucking always need you, Nam Woohyun.”
Sunggyu’s fingers are in far enough to scissor a bit now, and Sunggyu isn’t sure whether it’s that sensation or his words that make Woohyun let out that sound. All he knows is that every cell of him has missed the noises Woohyun makes, the feel of Woohyun against him, the smell of his sweat and the taste of his skin. “I could never be ashamed of anything you and I do together, Nam Woohyun.”
Woohyun’s hands are fisted in the sheets, have been for some time though Sunggyu hasn’t been paying attention, but he’s suddenly aware of them as Woohyun lets out a moan and jerks at them desperately. By now, usually, Woohyun would be begging or teasing or goading or otherwise verbally spurring Sunggyu on—he never shuts up, not even in bed (except when he does, and his silence is so much more than anyone else’s words), but he’s silent now, silent in a way that seems to take up so much more space than words could. Sunggyu rips open a condom, movements so fast they’re almost shaky as he rolls it on, and then he’s pushing his way into Woohyun, and it’s been so fucking long.
They’ve gotten so good at this that it usually comes easier than anything, but it’s been so long that it takes Sunggyu a moment to get the rhythm right. And then it’s just like it’s always been, the pleasure and the intimacy so much more than Sunggyu knew existed before Woohyun, except it’s nothing like it’s ever been, because something in Woohyun is still holding back. His hands are still fisted in the sheets, not running over Sunggyu’s body as they’d usually be, his eyes screwed up tight instead of searching Sunggyu’s face in a way that always makes Sunggyu feel pathetically naked, his beautiful lips pressed together till they’re white instead of pink, not spewing moans and groans and filthy or loving half-formed words like they usually do.
This isn’t right, there’s something wrong here, so Sunggyu pulls out, rolls them over, and prods at Woohyun to move back onto him. Woohyun hesitates, like he’s actually thinking of refusing, but then he works Sunggyu back inside him and sinks down and then starts to move again.
Sunggyu’s always liked this, Woohyun riding him, likes it as much as he likes to ride Woohyun. The ninety-degree angle of their bodies somehow seems the best one to let him see Woohyun’s face, and letting the one being penetrated be in control usually works out a lot better for obvious reasons. It’s better like this now, too, but still not quite right, even as Sunggyu wraps his hand around Woohyun’s erection and moves it in the rhythm he knows Woohyun loves best.
Woohyun is moving desperately over him, panting helplessly, but his eyes are closed, his face still all screwed up like he’s trying to hold something back, like he’s afraid to let it show, like he’s trying so, so hard not to let Sunggyu see it.
That won’t do.
He caresses Woohyun’s hipbone with his thumb, then runs the hand up Woohyun’s body till he just touches Woohyun’s cheek. Woohyun jerks back away from the touch, eyes flying open for just long enough for Sunggyu to see the flash of terror in them before he slams them shut again. But Sungygu moves his hand back, palm covering Woohyun’s cheek, thumb moving to caress his lips. This isn’t usually how Sunggyu touches Woohyun, the gesture a little more openly loving than he’s used to, than he’s comfortable with. It does feel awkward, really, but Sunggyu’s discomfort doesn’t matter. Not when Woohyun is moving like he’s totally lost control.
Sunggyu pauses in his own movements, ignores the awkwardness of the position to curl up until he can press his cheek against Woohyun’s. Again, Woohyun tries to pull away, but Sunggyu doesn’t let him. Instead, he just whispers a few raw words against the shell of Woohyun’s ear before he lets himself fall back onto the bed again.
“I fucking love you, Nam Woohyun, and I’m not going anywhere.”
The sound Woohyun makes is like his soul’s being cracked open, and then he’s sobbing, and there aren’t many tears, just a few that even Sunggyu can tell must burn acid-hot, but he’s shaking all over with the sobs, and Sunggyu knows how given Woohyun is to extreme emotions, has seen him more than once display his feelings in ways Sunggyu had never known a person was capable of, but this is another thing all together. This isn’t the first time Sunggyu has told Woohyun he loves him; there’s been a couple of times before, and each time it felt awkward, like he was revealing too much, but he knew Woohyun needed to hear the words and so he’d said them. Words are so much easier for Woohyun, showing his feelings, too, when he doesn’t feel that he’ll be judged about them. He must have thought he’d be judged about them today, he must not have trusted Sunggyu with them, and that’s why he’s been holding back like that, but now the dam that’s held back the surging flood of his feelings has burst, and it’s all right there and as much as it makes Sunggyu’s heart ache, it soothes something else inside him as he runs a worshipful, comforting hand down Woohyun’s arm, the other moving on his erection.
That’s it, Woohyun. Don’t hold anything back. Give it all to me, I’ll take care of you, I’ll always take care of you. I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.
The rhythm of Woohyun’s movements is too desperate and fast to really be pleasant, the squeeze of him around Sunggyu’s cock almost painful in its tightness. But that doesn’t matter, not when Woohyun is half-moaning, half-sobbing as he rocks faster and faster, his face so contorted with emotions that it would be unattractive if it was anybody else but Woohyun.
He can feel when Woohyun is about to come, and he rubs his thumb across the damp tip of Woohyun’s cock, squeezes it just the right way, and then soaks in the keening sound Woohyun makes as his orgasm overtakes him. Ignoring the semen that coats his hand and his stomach, he keeps pumping, drawing Woohyun’s pleasure out as long as he can. It’s long, this orgasm, and Woohyun’s face goes slack with it, and Sunggyu hadn’t known it was possible to feel such relief when he still hasn’t come himself. Sunggyu has always thought that people’s orgasm faces were actually really unattractive, ugly as they seek their pleasure, and if he’s objective, he knows that Woohyun’s is, too. But somehow he thinks he could keep watching Woohyun forever.
His own orgasm, when it comes a few moments later, feels almost like an afterthought, irrelevant in the wake of watching Woohyun fall apart. Sunggyu doesn’t try to draw it out as he usually would, even pulls out without lingering in the afterglow at all, wiping his hand and then disposing of the condom quickly and moving to pull Woohyun to him. Woohyun is still shuddering and tears are squeezing out of his eyes no matter how hard he tries to hold them back. Fuck, he’s so gorgeous.
Sunggyu gathers Woohyun into his arms, feeling the damp of sweat and tears and probably snot against his neck as Woohyun buries his face there. Sunggyu doesn’t like the bodily fluids part of sex, has always found it distasteful even if it’s necessary, but right now he doesn’t care at all. Not when he works his fingers into Woohyun’s hair and Woohyun gasps the first words he’s said the whole time against Sunggyu’s collarbone: “Sunggyu.”
Sunggyu knows what he needs to say. He does. He also knows that it will be uncomfortable to say it, maybe even painful in the way it goes against his character, against his every instinct. He is not a sappy person, not a soft one. But maybe for Woohyun, just this once, he can be.
He smooths down Woohyun’s sweat-soaked hair for a few more minutes, letting Woohyun settle down till he’s barely twitching any longer. Then he rolls them over, arms still cradling Woohyun but his face close above Woohyun’s now. Woohyun only meets his eyes for the briefest of moments, then drops his gaze.
“I could never be ashamed of anything you are, Nam Woohyun.” The words come out like a woman giving labor—it’s so hard to say them, but Woohyun still isn’t look at him, so Sunggyu squeezes them out. “Annoyed, yes. Frustrated, often. Confused and infuriated and irritated and angry.” Woohyun turns his face away, and Sunggyu leans down to kiss the line of his neck. “Surprised,” Sunggyu continues, and Woohyun still seems to be straining to get away from him without actually pulling away. “Amazed.” He feels Woohyun tense up beneath him, feels how still he goes, hears his sudden intake of breath, and somehow that makes it easier to get the next words out. Don’t you get it, Woohyun? “Humbled. And…inspired.” Head over fucking heels in love with every single thing you are.
Sunggyu raises his head again, almost scared to look at Woohyun’s face and see what’s revealed there. But Woohyun’s face is relaxed, muscles at rest and eyes calm even as he takes a few breaths still shuddering with the aftershocks of his breakdown. Woohyun bites his lip—the plump bottom one that’s Sunggyu’s favorite—and opens his mouth. “Sunggyu—“
Sunggyu’s always liked how Woohyun never calls him ‘hyung’ in bed, even if he sometimes pretends to be grumpy about it since he never technically gave Woohyun permission to drop the honorific. But it feels right, hearing Woohyun call him by his name, not cluttering it up with titles. Out there, Sunggyu is his leader and his hyung and his bandmate. But in here, in their room they’ve shared since Infinite began, they’re just Sunggyu and Woohyun. “I wasn’t pulling away from you, pabo. I’d never do that, never pull away from you or Infinite. Do you really not know that?” His voice isn’t soft, he can’t make it be, that isn’t him. But he can say the words, just barely, because this is Woohyun.
Woohyun drops his eyes again at the question, but Sunggyu just leans down to kiss him again, a deep, long kiss that Woohyun returns, easing his way into it until he’s as much a part of it as Sunggyu is, and then Sunggyu rolls them again till they’re on their sides, face to face and close enough to feel each other’s’ breaths.
“Gyu—“
“I know, Woohyun,” Sunggyu says. Then: “Why don’t you just shut up for a while?”
Something flashes in Woohyun’s eyes, but it’s not terror this time, it’s the annoyance Sunggyu knows so well, the cheerful defiance that only Woohyun can manage. “Shut up for a while? Are you serious right now? I didn’t say anything for the past however long! Do you really like the sound of your own voice so much you won’t let mine compete with it? What, are you going to gag me next?”
The thought isn’t too terribly unappealing, but Sunggyu just rolls his eyes. “It’s only been like an hour. Are you really incapable of keeping quiet for that long?”
Woohyun hits at his chest with a closed fist—not hard enough to really hurt—and then it’s nag-each-other time. They’re both really good at it, having perfected the art of arguing and pointing out each other’s’ flaws long ago when their fights seemed to risk so much more, but it’s almost enjoyable now, even though the childishness of it should probably annoy him. Maybe it’s the familiarity or maybe it’s just Woohyun, but it doesn’t really matter. Sunggyu has another variety show to film tonight—probably in an hour or two, who knows how long they’ve been in here?—and he knows he’ll leave a pouty and whining Woohyun in bed when he has to get up: Woohyun hates being left in bed alone. But it’s necessary, it’s the life, and as long as Sunggyu remembers that he can’t go so long without reminding Woohyun that he needs him, he’s pretty sure Woohyun will be able to deal with it.
And if he doesn’t, if he gets too distracted and screws things up again, if Woohyun gets moody and blows something out of proportion, if the two of them read each other in all the wrong ways again and have to fumble around to find some sort of balance so they can both stay on the life raft without one side dipping too low and one of them drowning, well, setting things to rights again isn’t all that bad.