To Hongbin, he’s the loveliest.

“Okay,” Hakyeon pants. He looks exhausted. “Let’s go grab something for dinner.”

“Finally,” Hongbin sighs, pushing back his sweaty fringe and pulling up the T-shirt he used for practice on his stomach to let some air underneath it.

“No, no,” Hakyeon says, pointing at Hongbin and Jaehwan, “not you two. You didn’t take this seriously enough so you guys stay here and practice an hour more.”

“Hyung!” Jaehwan whines, faking some sobs for good measure. “I’m so hungry!”

“You should’ve thought about that before you started uselessly shaking your instead of doing what I told you to do.”

“Can’t we just have dinner first, then?” Jaehwan asks, a dissatisfied grimace on his face.

“You aren’t even willing to wash your face after dinner, Jaehwan,” Taekwoon remarks and Hakyeon nods at the reassurance.

“One hour more,” he says, and then ushers Sanghyuk, Wonshik and Taekwoon out through the door.

“Slavery,” Jaehwan mumbles, glaring at the closed door. “Forced labour. Give me another synonym.”

Hongbin blinks and then looks up at the ceiling, thinking hard. “Exploitation?”

“That’ll do,” Jaehwan says, and then steps to the stereo to turn on the song again.

For someone who didn’t even want to do it in the first place, Jaehwan dances like his life depends on it, giving it his all, face focused and his eyes fixated on the mirror to follow his own steps. He looks quite distracting in the tank top that sticks to his body and leaves his arms free, a way too short pair of shorts riding up on his thighs at every second move. He runs his hand through his hair a few times, sweeping his fringe to the side, and Hongbin finds it hard to concentrate on the choreography.

It’s not that Hongbin is smitten with Jaehwan—not as much as Wonshik is, at least—, but Jaehwan is pretty attractive, very funny and on top of that, freaking talented at what he does. All in all, while Hongbin wouldn’t tell anybody about how much he admires Jaehwan (just a little bit more than it would be considered normal, probably), he only finds it logical that he is drawn to the boy.

It takes only a little bit of distraction for Jaehwan to leap onto Hongbin’s back without the latter noticing, letting out a loud “ugh” when Jaehwan’s entire weight lands on his back. A second later there’s a screech and a yell as Hongbin stumbles forward, losing his balance, and both of them end up on the floor, Hongbin sprawled out on top of Jaehwan.

“,” Hongbin groans as he pushes himself up on his hands and looks down at Jaehwan to check his face for damage.

Jaehwan starts laughing, though; eyes forming crescents and crinkling at the corners, full lips stretching into a wide, crooked smile—God damn it, he looks beautiful and his laughter makes blood rush into Hongbin’s face.

When Jaehwan’s giggling fit finally dies down, he lets out a small sigh, saying, “You’re so clumsy.”

“You were the one who jumped on my back without warning!” Hongbin tries to say indignantly, but it almost comes out as a simple statement.

Jaehwan grins wider, looking into Hongbin’s eyes, a hand coming up on the back of Hongbin’s neck, generating a very coherent message of several ‘holy ’s, ‘what’s going on’s and 'oh my God’s in Hongbin’s brain when Jaehwan pulls his head lower…

…and rolls them over so he would be on top.

Hongbin stares up at Jaehwan’s glowing face, taking quick breaths, stomach in tighter and tighter knots by the second as Jaehwan watches him from above.

“You looked like you were about to kiss me,” Jaehwan says, chuckling, and if Hongbin weren’t so love-struck surprised, he’d probably kneel him in the chest for it. “That would’ve been pretty awkward.”

“Isn’t it awkward this way?” Hongbin blurts out, willing his eyes to stay on Jaehwan’s, lest he looks down at his lips and really kisses him.

“Everything you’re involved in is awkward,” Jaehwan laughs and pushes himself back, standing up from the floor. “Let’s do this before Hakyeon makes us go to bed without dinner.”

“Yeah,” Hongbin murmurs, still lying on the floor, trying to calm down after whatever this little interlude was meant to be.

If only he really kissed Jaehwan.

.