Junhui was just lazing around on the sofa with Minghao, an arm casually hooked around the younger's shoulders as usual, and the younger allowing him to do so without rolling his eyes, not as usual.

"Something up?" Junhui asked, surprised by how quiet Minghao's been for the past five minutes, he hadn't even tried ducking away even once yet.

The younger dancer put down the game controller he was occupied with earlier and turned to the older with a serious look on his face, "I need a favor."

"Thought so. What is it? Need hyung to show you the ropes on certain things?" Junhui teased, pinching Minghao's cheeks playfully.

"I promise I'd go on a group blind date, but two of the guys cancelled and, well..." Minghao put on his puppy eyes, looking up at Junhui pleadingly, "can you come instead? And, uh, maybe bring a cute friend?"

"Of course!" Junhui was surprisingly compliant, things were going much more smoothly than Minghao had expected, "Only to make sure no creeps try to hit on my precious Xiao Hao Hao!"

Minghao's grin slipped slightly at this, "Well, thanks, but first things first... please don't ever call me that in front of my friends- no, just don't ever call me that again." He mumbled the rest of his sentence as Junhui was clearly not listening, already rushing off to prepare what he hoped wasn't some sort of weapon to drive the other party away.

Meanwhile, Wonwoo dropped an invitation letter down on Mingyu's snoring figure, a small smile of satisfaction pulled on the corners of his mouth when he heard something like a choke in-between snores, indicating that the taller male had probably almost swallowed the letter.

"Dude, what was that for?!" Mingyu demanded after going through a coughing fit, eyeing the letter with contempt.

"It's addressed to you." Wonwoo shrugged, "Looks like love letters still exist, huh."

Mingyu scanned over the contents of the letter speedily, folding it up into his drawer and plopping himself back onto the bed.

Wonwoo raised an eyebrow, walking over to sit on the edge of the younger's bed, "So?"

"So what?"

"What did it say?"

"An invitation for a blind date, they need two more guys, apparently." Mingyu shrugged.

"You should go then."

Mingyu lifted his head up slightly from his pillow, quirking an eyebrow at his roommate with a look that clearly showed his worry for Wonwoo's sanity.

"You've only been lazing around lately, man, this is good social experience. If you don't start being physically active soon you're going to end up like Jeonghan-hyung."

"Jeonghan-hyung's cool though." Mingyu retorted, refusing to budge as Wonwoo picked up Mingyu's phone, sending a text message to the number provided in the letter, successfully accepting the invitation for Mingyu, "Hey!"

"You will thank me for this one day." Wonwoo insisted, taking Mingyu's phone away before the latter could make a dive for it, slamming the door behind him as he escaped the room.

Mingyu stared after the door, dumbfounded. On one hand, he could just be a jerk and not show up, but on the other hand, he could be a hypocritical jerk and simply drag one of his friends to attend the blind date with him, the invitation did say that they were still looking for two others, after all. Sure, it wasn't going to lessen his suffering, but at least he could watch someone else struggle next to him to ease his boredom.

"Mingyu, you in there?" Minghao called, "I'm here to return your games."

"Hao!" Mingyu immediately threw open the door, giving Minghao a huge bear-hug, "How's my little buddy-bud-bud?"

"...Yeah, he's finally snapped." Minghao muttered to himself, patting Mingyu on the back awkwardly, "We all knew this day was coming."

"How about you and I go to this blast of fun this weekend, huh?" Mingyu continued, ignoring Minghao's condescending reaction, waving the letter in front of Minghao's face.

"A blind date? Oh, sure, I got invited too anyway." Minghao shrugged, showing Mingyu an identical envelope.

"What? Really?" Mingyu's eyes grew wide, "And you were planning on going?"

Minghao shrugged again, "Well, why not? There's nothing better to do."

"...You are the calmest in the most weirdest of moments."

On the other hand, shortly before Minghao's arrival as Mingyu's knight in shining armor, Wonwoo had ran into a very flustered Junhui, relief clearly written on the latter's face upon seeing the rapper, "Wonwoo!"

"Hey... you're not looking so good." Wonwoo stated bluntly as Junhui ran over to meet him, placing his hands on Wonwoo's shoulders, his eyes wide.

"Do you have any plans this weekend?"

"Uh, that depends, what are you trying to get me into?"

Junhui sighed, "Good, that means you're free!"

"No."

"Come on, please!" Junhui whined, shaking Wonwoo back-and-forth, "Minghao asked me to go on a blind date with him and some friends, and they're still short on one more!"

"And you thought I would be a good option because...?" Wonwoo raised an eyebrow, trying to ignore his growing sense of nausea from motion sickness.

"Because you're my BFF!"

"You're broken."

"I am, save me."

Wonwoo sighed, breaking away from Junhui's grip, "Fine, I guess it wouldn't hurt, and I'm sure Minghao would appreciate someone coming along with you in case you go overboard on... certain things."

"Like what?" Junhui pouted, pretending to look offended.

"Like accidentally calling his nickname in front of everybody, and then breaking into an impromptu wushu competition-"

"Oh, right, sorry about that." Junhui smiled sheepishly, "But seriously, I'd appreciate it if you came."

"I'm sure you would..." Wonwoo sighed heavily, patting Junhui on the shoulder.

"Wonwoo-hyung?"

"Minghao?"

"Jun-hyung!"

"Mingyu?"

Upon arriving, the four looked at one another, deeply puzzled by the fact that only they showed up. Was this some sort of prank show? If so, they sure were doing a good job hiding and waiting since no one's popped out yet even after they've already settled down and ordered food.

"So, uh, this is weird." Mingyu laughed uneasily as they waited for the food to come.

"Yeah, thank goodness none of the other members are here to see this." Junhui rolled his eyes, sipping his latte nonchalantly, leaving a foam mustache unbeknownst to him.

"Yup." Wonwoo replied curtly, leaning over to clean Junhui's face with his napkin.

Mingyu watched the exchange, a feeling of uneasiness washed over him and he suddenly felt very self-conscious.

"You okay?" Minghao asked, nudging him gently from the side.

"Huh? Sure, never better!" Mingyu quickly stated, jumping back a little in his seat, hitting his knee on the corner of the table in the process.

Minghao laughed lightly at Mingyu's pained expression before rubbing the injured spot soothingly with the latter glancing at him gratefully.

After some time, the four's corner became slightly noisier as they finally found topics to discuss, like Junhui and Minghao's new choreography spoilers, Wonwoo and Mingu's new rap verses, then the conversation briefly split into double two-ways as Minghao and Mingyu talk about upcoming video games they were planning on getting together, while Junhui and Wonwoo chat over gossip regarding the other members they managed to catch recently.

"I'm going to see what's going on with the food, it's been way too long." Minghao stated, getting up.

"I'll go with you." Wonwoo offered, standing up and following the younger boy to the back, leaving an uncomfortable silence behind them as Mingyu and Junhui glanced down at the table, at a loss for topics.

Junhui sipped his water, pretending to be interested in looking around his surroundings as Mingyu fiddled with his fingers under the table.

"Kind of strange with just the two of us, huh?" Junhui grinned awkwardly.

"Yeah..." Mingyu replied, unable to hold eye contact for even a second.

"I wonder why, we've lived and worked together for ages."

"Because you're always hanging out with the others, like Minghao and Wonwoo." Mingyu answered almost immediately, prompting a surprised expression to appear on the older boy's face, "I-I didn't mean that in a bad way..." Mingyu sighed deeply, "Okay, fine, sometimes I think you skip out on me on purpose."

"Mingyu?" Junhui raised his eyebrows in shock, "I would never do that! I mean, I thought it was the other way around!"

"What? Me ignore you? I would never!" Mingyu blurted out clumsily, "I mean, because... you know..."

Junhui chuckled, reaching over to brush a strand of stray hair out of Mingyu's eyes, "I'm sure you wouldn't. It's just that, we both hang out with Wonwoo and Minghao so much that people are starting to give us a clique name, but we've never really spent as much time with just the two of us, huh?"

Mingyu nodded, trying to ignore the burning feeling left by the tips of Junhui's fingers even though they barely touched his skin for even a millisecond.

"Let's start over then. Hi, I'm Junhui." The dancer smiled at Mingyu's confused expression, "We're on a blind date, remember?"

"Oh... oh!" Mingyu quickly sat up, adjusting his collar slightly, "H-hi, I'm Mingyu." An uncharacteristically bashful expression appeared on the taller boy's face.

"So tell me what you like, Mingyu." Junhui's smile didn't waver, leaning his chin on his palm calmly.

"Um, well, I like hip hop, obviously... and, well... food, I guess... I've been pretty into video games lately as well." Mingyu mumbled, trying not to cringe from the awkwardness, but Junhui's presence felt surprisingly calming to him. He probably would have made up an excuse and bolted out by now (with Minghao or not) if it were anyone else, "Er, what about you?"

"Right now?" Junhui's smile spread into a grin as he looked into Mingyu's eyes, his usual confident glow on stage showing, "I'm thinking of puppies, puppies, and... ah, yes, giant puppies."

"I knew it! It was all a setup by you two!" Junhui exclaimed the next morning, throwing a pillow at Wonwoo as the latter rubbed away the sleep in his eyes while yawning.

"Well, something good came out of it, right?" Wonwoo mumbled, throwing his blanket over Junhui in irritation as the latter continued to pummel him with pillows, "You two needed that quality time."

"I guess, and thanks to that, I found something cute to tease." Junhui said in a slightly muffled voice as he pulled Wonwoo's blanket off him, a visible smirk on his face as he reemerged from under the covers.

"Gross."

"Hey, you were the one who set us up."

"Anyway, did you answer the question form? It's supposed to be used for this game during our next interview." Wonwoo indicated to the pile of papers on the desk.

"Ah, right!" Junhui hurriedly grabbed a pen and quickly powered through the questions, stopping at one, What three things would you bring if you were stranded on an island?

Smiling, Junhui wrote down his answer confidently.

"Mingyu, Mingyu, and Mingyu!" Chan piped up as Junhui clapped proudly behind him, giving him a celebratory hug in the process, "It's because of what happened on One Fine Day, right, hyung?"

"Hm? Of course!" Junhui replied nonchalantly, giving Mingyu a wink as the latter pretended not to notice or pay attention to the response at all.

Once the interview ended and the group headed backstage together, Mingyu muttered in Junhui's ear, "You should really be more discreet."

"What ever do you mean? It's not my fault you're so capable." Junhui replied, a teasing smirk on his face, "What else was I supposed to write aside from my cutiepie?" The older cooed, purposely using an ever so cringeworthy voice.

In one swift movement, Mingyu pulled Junhui to the back of the group as the other members filed into the dressing room, the two briefly disappeared behind the door as Mingyu pressed Junhui against the wall, delivering a short but deep kiss to the latter, his tongue dragging itself lazily around the corners of his mouth as they separated.

"You're the cute one." Mingyu muttered before joining the others in the dressing room.

Junhui stood in the same spot, still stunned, before finally moving his hand up to touch his lips softly, "Looks like the puppy's growing up a little too fast..."

The two continued to sneak moments together backstage while Junhui tried to tone down his urge to touch Mingyu a little too affectionately on camera, while the latter continues to express indifference towards the former's actions, occasionally giving snide comments like during the lie detector game or when he was feeling slightly bitter about Junhui's praise towards Monsta X's Wonho.

So of course, Junhui was more than delighted when Mingyu gave a pumped up bro shake to him openly on stage, prompting him to do a flip out of sheer happiness during the dance battle which no one's ever seen done before by him, especially since he's just started to recover from a slight hip injury.

"Okay, that was actually pretty impressive." Mingyu mumbled into Junhui's neck as they met again backstage for their brief moment, it was kind of a routine now.

"I'm always impressive... Watch your canines." Junhui replied, running his fingers through Mingyu's hair as the younger planted kisses along the crook of his neck.

"Way to spoil the mood." Mingyu pouted, pulling away but his arms remained around Junhui's waist.

Junhui chuckled, giving Mingyu a quick kiss under the chin, "And I'll spoil you lots when we go back."

The younger hummed in content, giving the older male one last kiss on the forehead before disappearing off into the dressing room with the others once more. It was hard to believe that two people so close could be so distant, but at the same time, still closer than anything.