“Hey hyung, I’m gonna go to a party with some friends so I’ll be back late alright?” Kibum shouted to the other lying on the couch.

 

“What, not going to invite the old man to your night on the town?” Jinki joked making Kibum stop in his tracks and turn to face him.

 

“Hyung, like you said you’re an old man. You wouldn’t want to come anyway it’s just gonna be a lot of sweaty dancing and drunken kissing.” He rolled his eyes running his fingers through his neatly styled hair.

 

“Well fine then. See you tomorrow, Kibum.” Jinki responded disgruntledly.

 

“Maybe.” He sang before shutting the door, leaving Jinki alone in the dorm all to himself.

 

The leader groaned before falling back down on the sofa only to hit his head on its arm.

 

“Ouch!” He said rubbing the back of his head with his sweatshirt-clad hand.

 

He observed that there were footsteps coming from outside the dorm and wondered if Kibum had forgotten something.

 

The door creaked open and he saw Jonghyun walk in and slip off his sneakers.

 

“Hey there Jinki, how’re you?” He asked shrugging off his coat.

 

“Old.” Jinki grumbled shifting back down into the depths of the worn couch.

 

“Um, what?” Jonghyun questioned throwing a curious look to the other.

 

“Kibum told me I was too old to go out partying with him.” He said crossing his arms and pouting his lips a bit more than necessary.

 

“Aww hyung you and I know that he can just be a sometimes. Don’t overthink it Jinki.” Jonghyun said smiling slightly and patting the other on the shoulder lightly.

 

“Jong I’m twenty-six now. I’ve never stayed out all night. I’ve never gone on a road trip with my friends. I’ve never been in a serious relationship. Where has my life gone?” He wondered aloud.

 

“I think that too sometimes, hyung. It’s a fact: we work too much and it takes away from our lives. But, we have tomorrow off and I say we live tonight like we’ve always wanted to. What do you say?” Jonghyun implored.

 

“Alright, I’ll take you up on that.”

 

Apparently, to Jinki and Jonghyun “living life” meant getting absolutely wasted and marathoning all Disney movies ever made.

 

“The lanterns are for you Rapunzel!” Jonghyun cried into the elder’s shoulder as he had been for the past hour or so.

 

“Jinki tell her they’re for her!” He bawled out gripping Jinki’s sweatshirt so hard it was practically ripping.

 

“Jongie she’ll understand soon.” He mumbled patting Jonghyun’s messy blonde locks.

 

“Can’t we just skip to the part where they kiss and everything is happy?” The younger asked glancing up at Jinki with wide teary eyes.

 

“But we can’t Jong.” He declared boldly standing up from the couch. “In life, you can’t just skip to the happy ending, you have to endure the pain of not knowing the lanterns are for you.” He said stepping onto the beer-littered coffee table. “And tonight we live like real men!  So we will watch all of this animated film and sing along to all of the songs.” He bellowed throwing his fist in the air.

 

“Because we’re singers?” the other asked.

 

“No, because we’re real men. God weren’t you listening?” Jinki huffed getting down from the small table.

 

“Hyung, that was so inspiring.” Jonghyun slurred before downing another gulp of whatever alcohol he could find.

“Sshh Jong this part’s really good” Jinki whispered as he sat back down on the couch rather ungracefully.

 

 

~~~

 

 

A few movies later Jinki was searching their freezer for frozen peas because Jonghyun’s head suffered a minor injury when they were dancing to I’ll Make a Man Out of You. Jinki may have accidently kicked him right in the cranium, but he hoped that Jonghyun would be too hungover to remember that in the morning.

 

After having no luck since their dorm never had any food regardless of how much they went shopping, Jinki settled on wrapping some ice cubes in a plastic baggie.

 

“Here you go, Jong. I’m sorry again” He smiled sympathetically down at the still crying adult man on the floor.

 

“Just pass me my beer, and I’ll forget it ever happened.” Jonghyun mumbled as he fruitlessly tried to wipe off his tears.

 

“Oh no. Jong you’re really thin right now, and I think you’ve had enough.” Jinki said feeling himself sober up a little.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means your tolerance is low and I don’t want to be responsible for my best friend’s alcohol poisoning.” Jinki sighed exasperated.

 

“Ugh fine hyung.” Jonghyun grumbled as he took Jinki’s hand and got up.

 

Jonghyun stumbled to stand up, but Jinki reflexively caught him wrapping his hands around his waist to keep him steady. Suddenly their faces were inches apart and they could feel each other’s alcohol-littered breaths against their faces.

 

“God Jinki, you’re always do damn responsible. Would it kill you to be at least a little spontaneous every now and then?” The younger huffed.

 

Their close proximity ignited something inside of Jinki that he couldn’t describe, and that feeling combined with Jonghyun’s words took over something in Jinki and before he knew it he was gripping the boy’s shirt and pressing him chest-to-chest with him. Without another thought Jinki closed the gap between them and pressed his lips onto the younger’s and practically moaned when he felt the other respond so quickly.

 

Jinki moved his hands from those slim hips up to his toned shoulders and then to comb through Jonghyun’s silky locks. The younger groaned at the contact as he gripped his hands even tighter around Jinki’s biceps.

 

Jinki lightly pushed the other onto the couch and urgently climbed on top of him to attack his neck his open-mouth kisses as Jonghyun whimpered beneath him.

 

The two of them continued like that for the remainder of the night before one of them eventually fell asleep or out from all of the alcohol.

 

 

~~~

 

 

Jonghyun woke up with the most blaring headache he’d ever had and spewed out a series of curses as he sat up from his bed. He turned around to look at the clock to find that it was already one in the afternoon and he’d slept through the entire morning of his rare day off. Swearing some more, he made his way off of his bed and took a look at himself in the mirror. His hair was a complete wreck and it looked as if even industrial combs wouldn’t help. His eyes had bags underneath them and his breath was absolutely disgusting.

 

As he was walking to the bathroom his nose picked up the smell of something cooking. He turned to head instead towards the kitchen where he saw Jinki sitting down eating some sort of soup with his head resting on his hand and his eyes barely opened. Clearly he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night either.

 

“Morning, hyung” Jonghyun managed to say without yawning.

“It’s not even morning Jonghyun-ah.”

 

“Ah you’re right. Seems I slept in more than anticipated.” He said walking over to the stove and pouring himself some of the stew.

 

“Me too. I can’t even remember when I went to bed last night.” Jinki grumbled.

 

“I think the two of us got a little too drunk for comfort yesterday.” He mumbled back.

 

“Um-yeah I guess we did.” Jinki murmured.

 

“Do you remember anything of what we did?” The younger asked.

 

“Just watched some movies and had a lot to drink.” Jinki shrugged before scooping up more stew and shoveling it into his mouth.

 

“Been a while since we just hung out like that eh?“ He thought out loud.

 

“Yeah it’d been too long. We really need to stop working our asses off so much.”

 

“Not like we have a choice, Jinki.” Jonghyun sighed.

 

“I know, I know. It’d just be nice is all. To be able to hang out more.”

 

“It would be indeed.”

 

A pregnant silence fell between them aside from the slurping of their food and the groans when Jinki’s eyes caught look at the bright sun.

 

~~~

 

After finishing his food Jonghyun headed to his room and shed off his shirt. He glanced at himself in the mirror and noticed a small red bruise on the side of his neck and wondered where he possibly could’ve gotten that. He shrugged it off nonchalantly just thinking he must have bumped into something when he was intoxicated.

 

He took a hot shower that seemed to temporarily cure his hangover for at least a little while before it unfortunately came back not five minutes after drying off.

 

Jonghyun wrapped a white towel around his waist and made his way back to his bedroom. He noticed Jinki was still at the dining table seemingly staring into space and Jonghyun chuckled to himself at the mystery that was the leader.

 

He laid down on his bed and unlocked his phone that had been charging since he woke up. He was swiping through his social medias and noticed he hadn’t posted on Instagram in over two months, so he opened up his camera to take a quick selfie because he needed to publically complain about how painful this hangover was.

 

When he opened up the app though he saw something peculiar in the bottom left corner. It looked to be a picture of him and Jinki…no it couldn’t be. He pulled up the photo and it revealed to be exactly what he feared: a picture of him and Jinki in a rather graceless liplock.

 

His heart dropped and his eyes widened. He immediately fell back and clenched his fists into the sheets of the bed. His eyebrows furrowed and a soft was whispered into the air because he just didn’t know what to do.

 

Well tell Jinki. That was the natural first step he thought. Taking a couple deep breaths and trying to get his exasperation under control he opened the door and stalked over to where Jinki was still sitting at the kitchen table.

 

“Jinki. I need to show you something.” Jonghyun said fiddling with his fingers in his pocket as an attempt to release some of the tension he’d just built up inside of him.

 

“Umm…okay what?” Jinki asked uninterestingly.

 

Jonghyun passed his phone to the other man and watched as his eyebrows flew up his forehead.

 

“Jong…what is this?” He asked with his eyes expressing utter confusion.

 

“I mean isn’t it pretty clear? We were drunk last night and I guess…” Jonghyun trailed off awkwardly.

“Yeah no I get what happened. It’s fine.” He stated clearing his throat assertively, “Just delete the picture and we’ll pretend this never happened.”

 

“Jinx…” Jonghyun sighed looking up at the elder with hurt-filled eyes.

 

Jinki raised his eyes up to meet the other’s to listen to what he had to say, even if he didn’t want to hear a word of it.

 

“Can’t we talk about this?” He asked stepping closer to Jinki and tilting his head to the side in an endearing way.

 

“Look Jong, there’s not much to talk about. You know very well this can never happen for several reasons. I don’t want to indulge in the topic of even that possibility. So I’m gonna delete this,” He said tapping his finger on the trash symbol “and see you later.” And with that Jinki turned around and slammed his bedroom door behind him.