‘Us’ meant Sungyeol. Naturally it meant Sungyeol – because Sunggyu-hyung is a bugger who finds amusement in being a bugger. It didn’t even really mean Sunggyu and Sungyeol. Not really, because Sunggyu has, so far, spent 99% of the evening messaging the stupid lead singer of the stupid talented band they just interviewed. ‘What do they still have to talk about?’ Myungsoo internally gripes, ‘More than what we have to talk about, that’s for certain.’ He glances over to his left and meets eyes with Sungyeol. It’s only a millisecond and Sungyeol looks away. Myungsoo’s throat feels dry and his heart unsteady. ‘Can’t spare me a glance…’ Myungsoo doesn’t succeed in suppressing the sigh this time. Luckily, neither of his present company give a flying about him at this present moment, so no one notices.

Myungsoo’s eyes travel back to his drinking companion – the one who isn’t laughing and blushing furiously at whatever message he just received. Sungyeol traces the rim of his glass with the tip of his finger. His fingers are long and slender. (Same as his legs. Same as his nose, too… Myungsoo frowns unconsciously). They looked good in his hospital drama – lots of close-up shots of him checking on patients or dramatically snapping on surgical gloves or brushing hair out of the eyes of a nervous child patient or… Well, there were a lot. It’s not that Myungsoo was paying great attention or anything. There were just a lot of scenes showcasing Sungyeol’s hands.

Back to the here and now, a drop of condensation makes a break for freedom, sliding down the outside of Sungyeol’s glass of vodka. The actor swipes it away with his thumb then brings that thumb to his lips. Speaking of, his lips look surprisingly pink and shiny considering the bar’s low lighting. Myungsoo wonders if he’s wearing lip gloss or is this just one of those idol things – always looking better than regular human beings, one of those things. The freckle on Sungyeol’s jaw is visible and a couple of small acne spots… Which suggests he’s not wearing make-up and those pretty lips are just an idol thing. Myungsoo scoffs. How annoying. Annoying when he’s not even doing anything, that’s so Lee Sungyeol. Myungsoo’s throat feeling dry again, he takes a gulp of his drink. The alcohol stings his throat and he grimaces to hold down a coughing fit. Gulping brandy, not Myungsoo’s best idea to date.

Slowly recovering, his eyes still watering, Myungsoo notices where Sungyeol’s gaze is directed. The dance floor. The photographer tries to work out if he’s checking out anyone in particular, but Sungyeol appears just to be people watching. He spots Sungyeol’s foot tapping along with the bass rhythm.

“Won’t you dance?” he asks (wheezes, actually, the alcohol making his voice rough).

The actor turns to him with a look of mild surprise, as if he’d forgotten Myungsoo was there. ‘Probably disappointed by reality,’ Myungsoo grumbles inside his head.

“I’m not much of a dancer,” Sungyeol replies in his typical (when dealing with Myungsoo) brief manner, blowing strands of bright red hair out of his eyes. Myungsoo almost rolls his eyes. Now he’s looked, Myungsoo thinks Sungyeol obviously wants to dance. Looking him up and down, he can see Sungyeol’s whole body is practically vibrating with the beat. The man’s blushing lightly, so the photographer guesses he thinks Myungsoo will mock him if he’s not good. He does blatantly have Myungsoo pegged as a pretentious douche, so it’s not beyond belief. It’s stupid and irritating, but definitely not beyond belief.

“I’d say everyone’s pretty drunk. I don’t think it matters whether you’re good or not,” he reasons, keeping most of his annoyance out of his voice. He has to lean in for Sungyeol to hear him clearly. The smell of the man’s cologne makes him feel sort of dizzy and the heat radiating from him makes tiny hairs stand up on his skin. Myungsoo supposes he’s more drunk than he thought he was.

“Well… Well, what I think is, sort of, like…” Sungyeol stammers, round eyes comically wide. Myungsoo just stares, not understanding why the actor’s suddenly so flustered. Sungyeol trails off, looking to Myungsoo then the dancefloor then back again. Myungsoo has to chuckle. Sungyeol looks like a deer in headlights – but he looks deer-like just in general, so it’s not much of a stretch. Quite unexpectedly, Sungyeol knocks back the drink he’s been nursing all evening and announces loudly,

“You know what? I will dance. I’m going dancing. Excuse me.”

He swings himself out of their booth and half-strides, half-stumbles to the dancefloor.

“Finally,” Sunggyu mutters, deigning to momentarily lift his gaze from his phone screen.

“Huh?” Myungsoo his head at the older man slouched in his seat as if he plans to meld with the couch stuffing.

“Nothing,” Sunggyu brushes him aside, “Aren’t you joining him?”

Myungsoo balks.

“I can’t imagine he wants me to,” he croaks out through his incredulity.

Sunggyu stares at him in an oddly calculating sort of way, then across their table. Myungsoo suspects he’s counting up the empty glasses – of which there are many – to figure out how much, as the eldest, he’ll be asked to pay come the end of the night.

“Here, finish this,” he orders out of the blue, sliding his barely touched cocktail over to Myungsoo. (Sunggyu had only ordered in because it was expensive and pretty). Suspicious but obedient, Myungsoo wipes the straw and takes a contemplative sip. As the sugary, highly alcoholic concoction slithers down his parched throat, his eyes land on Sungyeol who’s throwing shapes on the dancefloor. There are a few guys and girls with him. Truthfully, he genuinely isn’t much of a dancer. He looks happy though. Myungsoo has to query if Sungyeol even knows the people he’s dancing with. Possibly not – Sungyeol seems good at quickly making friends. A knot of resentment coils in Myungsoo’s stomach. Attempting to melt it out of existence, he takes another long sip of his cocktail.

The second time they’d worked together creeps unbidden into his mind. It had been a couple of months since their first shoot that spring. Sungyeol had popped up at the magazine more than once in the meantime, he just hadn’t been working with Myungsoo. Those few visits had evidently been enough for Sungyeol to make friends with most of the staff, become thick as thieves with Sunggyu-hyung and steal the hearts of the entire hair and make-up team – even short-tempered Jessica, who mostly spent her working days looking like she wanted to shove a mascara brush in the eye of anyone who spoke to her. Sungyeol was a true people person – so long as the people in question weren’t Kim Myungsoo. Every day the grating noise of Sungyeol’s boisterous laughter would follow Myungsoo around, a monster on his shoulder that he could never shake off. Conversely, anytime Myungsoo approached, Sungyeol clammed up and looked like he’d rather accept the punishment of Prometheus than exist in a world where Myungsoo resided. The photographer had even noticed him shuffle behind Dongwoo once when Myungsoo had come over to ask the stylist a question. It was as if he were using Dongwoo to protect him from big bad Myungsoo. Considering Dongwoo is to Sungyeol as a Shetland pony is to a giraffe, that was more than a little hilarious.

Nevertheless, there was no use dwelling on the past. Myungsoo didn’t need Sungyeol to like him, but they could at least work well together. He hoped that today’s concept would help – ‘a sultry night under a starry sky, a young man is waiting for his girlfriend to approach’. They were inside in a room the magazine often used for this kind of shoot. It had been artistically draped with silk sheets and velvet throw cushions, an artificial night sky beyond the wooden window frames. In his new play, Sungyeol was playing a sidekick to the second male lead. The darker, more mature concept was intended to match the feeling of the play. Myungsoo anticipated Sungyeol feeling easier with this than that vague park shoot. He himself already felt calmed by the familiar surroundings.

And it did work. At least, it seemed to. Frankly, Myungsoo doesn’t remember what happened once the shoot started. He was in the zone, totally lost to anything. The trouble is though… Well, when you get down to it, the fact of the matter is that, at some point during the shoot, it would appear that Myungsoo straddled Sungyeol and maybe shoved him down on the settee. He has picture evidence of this. There are snaps of Sungyeol staring up at him with long brown hair splayed out on the white cushion, his bottom lip caught between his teeth and an expression which could pass for ‘alluring’ if you didn’t know that Sungyeol was simply royally pissed off. In fact, that was one of the magazine’s best selling issues. That means thousands of people have picture evidence of all of this.

Myungsoo’s not certain if he really doesn’t remember or if he’s blocked it from his mind. Considering some of the looks and poses he got from Sungyeol that day, he, well, he can’t conceive what he said to the actor. It’s horribly embarrassing to think about. Images assault Myungsoo’s mind – parted lips; hooded eyes; the tip of Sungyeol’s tongue trailing across the back of his hand; his black shirt ed, dangerously close to revealing his s. Myungsoo knocks back the remaining cocktail, almost gagging at the sweetness, to make his brain shut up. He only browsed that issue once. Once was enough.

“Oppa-ya!”

Startled, Myungsoo sits up straight. A pretty barmaid with long, chestnut brown hair and a gigantic smile is standing by their table. She’s holding a tray with two bottles of vividly colourful liqueur.

“Eunji-yah, how’s life?” Sunggyu drawls, looking up at her (and the booze) with stars in his eyes.

“Still bollocks. Some foreigner just gave me a 100 yen tip. Yen!” She sets the tray down and Sunggyu helps her offload the drinks and glasses, immediately pouring out a tumbler for Myungsoo and shoving it under his nose.

“You put this on my tab and I promise I’ll tip you double that,” Sunggyu declares, jabbing a finger in the air for emphasis. The barmaid snorts and disappears into the crowd. Sunggyu’s eyes wistfully follow her arse in its tight red miniskirt for a moment before turning his attention back to booze.

“How did you…?” Myungsoo squints at his companion. Sunggyu can’t have ordered drinks. He hasn’t budged from his seat. Besides, since when do barmaids here drop drinks to the table anyway?

“Hm? Oh, that’s Eunji. She’s cool,” Sunggyu states as if it explains anything. “Drink up. It’s my treat, so enjoy yourself.”

Myungsoo raises an eyebrow. Something’s strange. Sunggyu’s encouraging him to drink. More precisely, he’s encouraging him to drink at Sunggyu’s own expense. Surely something’s amiss. Myungsoo supposes, however, that he won’t be able to work any of this out until he’s done something about his darn parched throat. Taking a sip, wincing at the bitter, citrusy flavour, he watches Sungyeol do the whip and he muses. 

XXX

Sunggyu's machinating, huhuhu~ 

Er, hi. This suddenly got a lot more subscribers than I'd expected. I'm very thankful and a bit nervous, lol. Hopefully this doiesn't disappoint （〃・ω・〃）