happy birthday lulu! i hope you like this. i'm sorry for the mistakes, i finished this very late and it's probably full of typos. i'll try to correct it eventually.

also wow, aff when i'm not on mobile. i'll be switching to ao3 soon though!

anyway yeah, sorry if it's awkward. i've never written sungyeol, sorry~

woohyun is not sure of how it happens, how they ended up in such a position in the middle of the kitchen (which, by the way should’ve been cleaned by sunggyu ages ago since it’s his turn and *oh my god is that a ball of hair?) but he figures it’s probably sungyeol’s fault.

it always it.

--

it starts like something banal, with sungyeol and him looking for a new roommate since howon is moving far away from them to pursue his dream of being, well, whatever he wants to become. woohyun didn’t pay too much attention to his reasons since howon wasn’t exactly the best of his friends, to be honest. blame the Toothpaste Incident (of which sungyeol still has nightmares sometimes).

but anyway, they make cute little posters with the shiny silver marker that he stole from the classmate who likes to space out during Art Techniques, and place them around campus. the result is more or less satisfactory, but it’s not the posters’ doing (because all they do is attract the odd ones, and woohyun has enough with his best friend and screamer extraordinaire thank you very much). no, it’s because myungsoo--the weirdo from sungyeol’s class who likes to zone out and stare at a blank point during lectures--introduces them to kim sunggyu, who is pretty much ideal for woohyun.

(he can’t really call sunggyu perfect because let’s be real: the guy leaves dirty laundry everywhere, doesn’t throw away his leftovers after they’ve been rotting inside the fridge for like, a month which none of them do but that’s beside the point, and whines about the lack of sungyeol’s and woohyun’s enthusiasm for chores until it’s his turn. then he whines some more because he thinks he’s the only one who works around the house.)

still, that doesn’t mean that the senior majoring in literary studies feels the same about woohyun. the three of them are stuck in awkward cordiality for the first two weeks, but then everyone realizes midterms are around the corner and pretty much stop paying attention to unimportant things like, “who’s using my shaving cream?" and most importantly, "where are you shaving?”

( 1) it was sunggyu because in his words, “i’m a hairy man” and 2) woohyun discovers where, but that’s for later.)

--

when the semester ends, woohyun decides to tell sungyeol about his crush on sunggyu.

“why is this relevant to me?” sungyeol mumbles while munching on chips. some of the crumbs fall onto his shirt and after he shakes them off, on the carpet. he notices woohyun’s look and narrows his eyes. “i’m cleaning that later, control freak.”

woohyun decides to ignore the insult and looks around the apartment as if sunggyu were to pop out of nowhere, even though he’s visiting his family in jeonju for the holidays. still though, it feels kind of like building a paper plane for the first time and throwing it from the top of the highest building in seoul.

woohyun bites his lower lip and tries to smile.

“i don’t know, would you mind if we became a couple?” he plops down next to his friend, who’s busy pretending to watch tv even though woohyun knows that he has sungyeol’s full attention on him now. “i mean, i’d be kind of uncomfortable so i don't know… what do you think?”

“…you know how i am.” sungyeol shrugs, apparently uninterested. but woohyun’s known him since childhood. they’ve shared everything that is to share between two best friends and he’s sure something is bothering sungyeol.

woohyun sighs. “but…?”

sungyeol finally stops pretending to watch the stupid tv show and looks at him. “are you sure you like him? you two argue a lot.”

oh yeah. that. in woohyun’s defense, he has to say that his only way to cover up his feelings is to pretend that sunggyu irritates him (which, okay, may be true once in a while, but it’s mostly a facade fueled by his need to protect himself from any embarrassment in front of sunggyu).

he shrugs. “i guess we argue but, you know. there’s something about the way he talks to me sometimes? like i’m someone very special, only for him. and have you heard him sing? he has the voice of an angel, i don’t know why he’s majoring in literature instead of music. we’d make a great team.” his breath shudders, hands trembling slightly when he realizes how fast he’s started to speak and how excited he sounds. he clears his throat. “and i mean, he looks pretty cute when he’s angry.”

Sungyeol raises his eyebrows. “are you sure your lovesickness is not interfering with the image? ‘cause he always looks like he’s about to murder someone when he’s angry.” sungyeol leaves the empty bag of chips on the side and starts rubbing his legs. woohyun stares at the salt and grease staining sungyeol’s sweatpants and is glad everyone washes their clothes individually. “and besides… what if he doesn’t like you?”

woohyun bites his cheek softly, thinking of a proper response. “that’s… actually why i wanted to tell you,” he ends up confessing. “i was hoping you would give me some sort of pep talk… or something.”

because friends like sungyeol and woohyun share everything, knowing the other will always be there to support them. it’s always been like this, and woohyun doesn’t see why now it feels like the exception.

there’s a prolonged moment of silence, in which woohyun wonders what he’s done wrong and sungyeol makes a ball with the bag of chips and throws it somewhere before throwing himself at woohyun. they both fall on the couch, with woohyun squishing his face against the cushions and sungyeol stretching his long- limbs all over him.

“yeol?”

“mmm…”

“what are you doing?”

“hugging you.”

“but why?”

sungyeol shrugs. woohyun feels the muscles of his back move. has he been working out? he hadn’t even noticed because he was too busy pinning after sunggyu.

“i’m just…” sungyeol starts, hiding his face from woohyun. “whatever happens, we’ll still be together, right?”

woohyun realizes, now. “are you jealous because i’m not gonna spend much time with you if i start dating sunggyu?” his hand moves from its resting place in sungyeol’s back to his head, fingers locking in the copper red strands. sungyeol tenses for a second, and woohyun pretends he doesn’t notice. “i’m still gonna be here, sungyeol.”

with a sigh, sungyeol gets up and offers him a smile. woohyun thinks he hears him murmur i hope so on the way to the kitchen.

--

however, now that he thinks back to it, woohyun tastes the bitterness of realizing how wrong he interpreted the whole situation.

he’s doing his readings for the first time in months (after noticing they’re actually kind of pretty damn important) in the library, earbuds plugged in and head bobbing in sync with the music until he drops his papers to silently hit that one high note that deserves all his attention and glances at the window as he mouths the lyrics.

being in the second floor and sitting next to the window has its perks: good light, a nice view to the park in front of the library, and things like that. however, woohyun wishes he hadn’t fought the freshman for that seat (okay… flirted with him a little) just as much as he wishes he hadn’t opened his heart to his best friend because the guy who rested his head in woohyun’s shoulder as they hugged that day, lee sungyeol, yeah--that guy who calls himself woohyun's other half is lying on the grass with his eyes closed and using his arms as a pillow as no one other than kim sunggyu plays with his hair and occasionally leaves kisses on his cheeks.

woohyun’s paper plane crashes.

--

the worst part isn’t even that woohyun gets his heart broken before confessing to sunggyu, or that his grades start dropping because he’s barely getting out of his room anymore. not even that the senior yells at him through the closed door since he hasn’t done any of the chores he’s supposed to.

no, the worst part is that sungyeol doesn’t know woohyun saw them, so he keeps barging into his room. sometimes they watch horror movies with bad ratings on netflix (and end up scaring himself nonetheless) or play videogames, but they don’t really talk. mostly because woohyun doesn’t have the courage to tell him.

turns out he doesn’t have to.

one day, while woohyun walks into the kitchen to throw away the iced coffee cans that have piled up in his room, he finds sunggyu making himself a cup of instant ramen. he cringes at the sight; it’s usually his duty to cook, since he’s the only one who knows how, but since he’s been hiding in his room for the past two or three weeks, the other two have to survive on take-out and whatever they can make.

he clears his throat. before, woohyun felt angry at the both of them, but know it’s all turned into a dull sense of hurt. kind of like getting used to a headache.

“um,” he starts, “do you want me to make something for you?”

sunggyu jumps about three meters into the sky and pushes the cup on accident, spilling its contents over the counter and somehow burning himself with boiling water in the process. woohyun widens his eyes and runs to his side, then opens the faucet to put sunggyu’s hand under the stream of cool water. sunggyu lets himself be dragged from one side to another, whining and mumbling “ouch” once in a while.

“you’re such a house maker,” he comments after woohyun wraps a couple of ice cubes in a (hopefully clean) towel, sitting down while watching the younger clean after his mess.

“you say it like it’s a bad thing,” woohyun replies, wiping the counter. he throws away the leftovers and prepares a pot with water to boil, this time to make slightly more decent ramen because what they have isn’t good enough for a proper meal.

“you’re right, it is not.” sunggyu shrugs, a smile blooming on his face, and woohyun wonders what they could have been. but alas, they’re not and by the look sungyeol had on his face the day woohyun saw them, they’ll never be.

he fries two eggs and prepares the ramen.

sunggyu sighs. “you know, the other day sungyeol told me something very funny,” he says, and woohyun nearly drops the cooking utensils, thinking back to that evening when he confessed his feelings for sunggyu to his best friend.

he tries to keep his voice steady. “oh really?”

“yeah… it was something about when you were younger. inside a treehouse, on a starry night?” sunggyu comments carefully, and this time woohyun does drop whatever he has on his hands. “so i guess it was true.”

woohyun shakes his head lightly, putting the eggs inside their plates along with the upgraded ramen and some condiments on top. at least he manages to do that without trembling, but once he places the plates in the table, he can’t bring himself to hold the chopsticks. sunggyu, however, starts devouring the food as soon as woohyun puts it in front of him.

by the time woohyun finally calms himself down enough to take the first bite, sunggyu is already pushing his plate away. he stares at the older man’s face, slightly shiny and with a couple of tiny pieces of leftover ramen stuck to his chin, and decides to speak.

“whatever happened that day,” woohyun starts, putting his untouched food aside, “it’s in the past now. i’ve forgotten about it.”

it’s only a half-truth, of course. because woohyun might have fallen in love with the man in front of him, but there are things that are never forgotten. like star-gazing. sneaking outside to watch the sky from sungyeol’s treehouse even though they hadn’t used it in years. kisses. a first time. sungyeol’s long limbs stretching on top of him.

(friends like sungyeol and woohyun share everything.)

“yeah, well.” sunggyu clears his throat, looking away. “i don’t think sungyeol has.”

…

“what?”

sunggyu turns back to him, scratching the back of his head. “i mean, he’s mentioned it before. he still likes you… kind of a lot.”

…what?! woohyun screams in his mind. “b-but aren’t you together?”

“he likes me kind of a lot as well,” sunggyu replies, and then frowns. “wait, how do you know we’re together?”

“i saw you two together.” sunggyu shrugs like it’s not a big deal, when in fact, his mind is spinning with all sorts of questions.

“oh well, that explains why you’ve become a hermit these days.”

“yeah, i…” woohyun doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, so he lets it hang in the air until sunggyu decides to be ing kim sunggyu.

“i understand that you felt all betrayed and stuff, but if you had told me about your feelings for me we could have solved this long ago.” sunggyu decides to act all offended and crosses his arms over his chest. "i'm not gonna apologize for dating sungyeol."

woohyun narrows his eyes. “first of all sungyeol has no business telling you about what i feel because they’re my feelings. and second, i'm not asking for an apology. and i didn’t ask sungyeol to tell you. and also, what business do you have bringing this up now? you two can go and be happy together and stuff. i’ll--” he chokes, feeling his eyes sting.

he doesn’t need to continue because sunggyu, leaning back on his chair and staring at him with some kind of cheap concern woohyun doesn’t want anything to do with, says, “because sungyeol likes you. and so do i.”

“stop making fun of me,” woohyun, proud as he’s always been, mutters between his teeth.

sunggyu shrugs, and he kind of wants to throw something at him. “i’m not.”

“then what do you call this?” woohyun asks, taking a step back. he’s so focused on feeling hurt he doesn’t notice when he stood up.

“don’t run away,” sunggyu warns as he watches woohyun take another step back. “i call it telling the truth, and now i see why sungyeol was so scared of telling you.”

woohyun’s head hurts and his heart beats erratically, like someone keeps punching him from the inside. “whatever,” he mumbles. it, he’s out of here.

except he’s one step out of the kitchen when he bumps into no other than the person they're talking about because of-ing-course. he looks up to find sungyeol’s eyes shining lightly, like he’s holding back tears. judging by that, he’s probably heard enough.

.

woohyun promptly turns around to see that sunggyu’s stood up as well. “i feel slightly cornered,” is all he comes up with.

“woohyun--” sunggyu starts. behind him, woohyun hears sungyeol hiccup and finally, finally realizes.

“it’s… not a joke, right?” he ventures. sunggyu shakes his head. “you… two… like me. like, in equal ways?”

sunggyu takes a step closer to him, his shoulders less tense, his voice less scary. “i don’t know if there’s a way to measure that, but yeah, i guess. the question here is,” he pauses, gulping, and it’s the first time in the almost eight months of knowing each other that woohyun sees him doubt himself, “if you want us too.”

it’s then when he finally sees he doesn’t need to choose one. this time not because he can’t since they’ve chosen each other, but because he can be with both. and in the moment of tension and utter silence, all he needs to do is nod before the tornado that is lee sungyeol throws himself at him and they both basically smash

despite the fact that he nearly bursts his head open with the kitchen floor and sunggyu is yelling at them both for hurting themselves, woohyun feels like he’s picked up the paper plane, smoothed out the wrinkles, and thrown it again.

this time, it flies.