Groaning, Jonghun squirmed in his bed. He pulled his thick quilt over his head as he curled on his queen size bed, trying his best to ignore the annoying noise of his apartment’s doorbell. Jonghun definitely didn’t like it when someone decided that it was a great idea to disturb his Sunday morning by coming over. And if this person that was ringing his doorbell non-stop was Hongki, Jonghun swore to God that he’d make sure Hongki’s manager add extra vocal training classes to Hongki’s schedule.

A smile crept on his face when the doorbell stopped, was satisfied that he had successfully made Hongki think that he wasn’t at home. So Jonghun closed his eyes again, drifting to the dreamland to enjoy his Sunday with lots of… sleep. He had a rough week so he deserved it, he thought.

But then, before he even managed to fully fall back to sleep, his phone rang. He swore to God, someone was going to get hurt really badly. With his eyes still closed, Jonghun reached out for his mobile phone that he had put on his bedside table – answering the phone call half-heartedly.

“Hyung!! You’re not home?!” his caller asked him.

“…I am…” he answered lazily, his mind trying to recognise the voice on the other line.

“Then why didn’t you open the front door? Key just left, so like I’ve promised last night, I came over. Are you still sleeping? I can come again later.”

“It’s Sunday. I’m just lazy to move--…” Jonghun’s eyes flew open; the name Key quickly rang a bell and he cursed at himself right away. The musician sat up on his bed, ruffling his hair furiously before crawling off his bed in a hurry. “Jaejin!! Oh God, I’m so sorry about the door. Where are you now?!”

“Waiting for the lift, heading back since you didn’t open the door.”

“Wait! Don’t go!”

“But--…”

Jonghun didn’t wait for Jaejin to finish his sentence, stumbling his way out from his room to the front door. He slipped into the first slippers he could find before rushing to where the lift was. How could he forget about it? He went out with Jaejin the night before – a great date, according to Jaejin and much to his own surprise – and the younger guy had promised Jonghun that he’d come over once Key left.

It felt like some random drama scene that he sometimes watched on TV when he recognised Jaejin’s skinny yet manly figure in front of the lift, pacing up his steps to meet the younger guy. “Jaejin!” he called out when Jaejin was about to walk into the lift. Thank God, the younger guy heard Jonghun, turning his head to Jonghun as he blinked.

Jaejin looked casual, definitely didn’t dress up like the night before. He was wearing knee-length pants and a black t-shirt, with his black-framed glasses on – something that Jonghun had learned as one of those moments when Jaejin didn’t feel like stepping out of his apartment. Did it mean Jaejin wasn’t really planning on coming over? Or it was just that he was comfortable enough to visit Jonghun with his glasses on?

That aside, Jonghun kind of loved the gap in Jaejin’s looks. One time he could look gorgeous and pretty, and another time he could look almost like a hobo. And he loved the fact that he didn’t feel like he was walking next to a colourfully-decorated Christmas tree like when he was walking next to Hongki.

When Jonghun smiled at him, Jaejin only stood still while eyeing Jonghun from head to toe. “…I told you I can come back later, didn’t I?” he spoke up.

“But I’m awake now, so don’t go home?” Jonghun pleaded.

Jaejin looked away, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Okay. But put something on,” he mumbled.

Jonghun frowned, did not understand what Jaejin meant by putting something on. He looked down to see what he was wearing. The slippers he randomly put on, grey sweat pants and white tank top. There was nothing wrong with what he was wearing, he thought.

“…like you know… a proper shirt,” Jaejin added, seemingly had realised that Jonghun didn’t get his point. “Your muscles all out like that with that tank top. It’s rather scary and it feels like I’m about to go to some hit-man’s apartment.”

Instead of saying ‘yes’ or ‘okay’ to Jaejin’s demand, Jonghun ended up laughing. He never thought that his muscles could intimidate the younger guy like that. “But aren’t they gorgeous?” Jonghun grinned, lifting his arms to show them off.

“…eww… seriously?” Jaejin rolled his eyes before then walking towards Jonghun’s apartment.

Jonghun followed Jaejin as he frowned. Did Jaejin seriously just ‘eww’ his muscles? How could he? Did he know that Jonghun spent years to get these babies on him? He was such a scrawny kid that he didn’t have much confidence about his appearance. Not to mention that he had such a pretty face, making people hardly take him seriously. But now that he was all buffed up, he felt a lot more confident. And the ladies like it… which probably explained why Jaejin wasn’t all thrilled. Jaejin wasn’t one of the ladies.

Once they got inside, Jonghun let Jaejin to go to the living room on his own while he went to his room to get something from his closet. A cardigan would do, he thought. He didn’t really want to complicate himself by changing his clothes, so putting some thin cardigan should do the trick and he wouldn’t feel way too hot in it either. Jonghun then made a small trip to the bathroom to brush his teeth, not forgetting to check himself up in the mirror. Once he felt satisfied with everything, Jonghun stepped out from his room excitedly, liking the idea of having Jaejin at his place early in the morning like that.

Though much to his surprise, he found Jaejin on his couch - asleep. The younger guy was seated properly on it, but his head was against the backrest and his eyes were closed. Now that he thought about it, Jaejin looked kind of tired. Jonghun knew Jaejin, at least he knew from his observation through his veranda every morning that the younger guy wasn’t really a morning person. He didn’t usually wake up late or anything, just not at this hour either.

He walked over to where Jaejin was, sitting down next to the younger guy. He didn’t want to surprise him so he just sat there, staring at Jaejin while waiting for the other guy to realise that he was there. Jaejin’s breathing got steadier instead though, seemingly did not have the slightest clue that Jonghun was next to him.

“…do you want to sleep in my room instead?” Jonghun finally asked, softly so he wouldn’t startle Jaejin.

Jaejin slowly opened his eyes, lazily dragging his gaze to Jonghun. “…I didn’t notice you coming. Sorry about that.”

“Stayed up late?” Jonghun asked.

“Yeah. Key asked a lot about the date and stuff. We ended up talking about our high school stuff the whole night,” Jaejin answered, sitting up as he slid his finger behind his glasses to rub his eyes.

Jonghun stood up, ruffling Jaejin’s blond hair as his lips curved upward – a complaining groan from Jaejin on the ruffle quickly followed. “Take a nap. I’ll go to the convenient store to get some stuff then make breakfast.”

---

Jaejin woke up to an unfamiliar room – an extremely unfamiliar room. He literally jumped on the bed, which he noticed was way bigger than his own bed. Everything about the room was so unfamiliar that it kind of scared him a little. Once he was seated, he saw a nicely positioned keyboard by the big L-shaped window. There was an armchair not far from it was, with two acoustic guitars on the side. Jaejin turned his head to his right, finding bookshelves that mostly were filled with CDs instead of books, an electric guitar and something that he noticed as an amplifier.

It struck him the moment he saw the photo frames on the bedside table. There, a couple of photos of clearly much younger and skinnier Jonghun were waiting for Jaejin to discover them. One of them showed little Jonghun with his parents on each of his side. Another frame was a photo of Jonghun and Hongki, grinning widely. Jaejin didn’t recognise the rest of the people on the other frames, but those two frames were enough to make him realise where he was.

What the hell was he doing in Jonghun’s room?

He crawled off the bed, blinking when he saw his clothes scattered unevenly on the floor. Jaejin quickly looked down to his body, the only piece of clothing he had on him was his brief. What just… freaking… happened?

After putting his clothes on, Jaejin tiptoed his way out of the room – his eyes casted over the apartment to find any sign of Jonghun. His heart sank to his stomach the moment he saw the owner of the apartment sitting idly on the dining chair, staring at the seemingly what the older guy had made for breakfast.

“Y-you’re not eating?” Jaejin cleared his throat, walking reluctantly to the dining room.

Jonghun looked up, nervously rubbing his palms against the outer sides of his thighs. “I was… waiting for you,” Jonghun forced a smile.

The younger guy didn’t like how awkward they both seemed to be, giving him all the wrong idea about what might have happened.

“…well..erm. I’m here now?” Jaejin grinned awkwardly. “Let’s eat.”

They both ate their breakfast in silence, though Jaejin was rather distracted by the soup that Jonghun made because it was surprisingly good and went well with the rice. He didn’t fail to notice how Jonghun kept on glancing at him.

“Did… something happen?” Jaejin asked. “I kind of… woke up in your room…”

Jaejin sipped into his fresh orange juice, eyes staring at Jonghun that was biting his lower lip. It didn’t look good at all. Jaejin didn’t want to think of the embarrassing but all he could think of was…

“Well, I got back. You were still sleeping on the couch, so I just went ahead and prepare breakfast. And then…you sleepwalked to my room…while stripping your clothes off…”

And it was just like what Jaejin thought. Among all other times it could have happened, it decided to happen now – when he was at Jonghun’s place, the day after a great date. What a way to ruin his image in front of his neighbour.

“I’m sorry,” Jaejin smile awkwardly. “It kind of happens from time to time, mostly when I’m tired. I didn’t mean to act inappropriately.” Especially not after he just told Jonghun to put some shirt off literally a couple of hours ago, Jaejin added in his head.

The older guy took a moment to digest the brand new information, frowning in a somewhat amused manner before bursting into laughter. “You have no idea how shocked I felt when it happened,” he commented, starting to loosen up after an awkward meal. “That was a really interesting habit of yours.”

“Oh shut up…” Jaejin kicked Jonghun’s leg from underneath the table.

It did make Jonghun stop laughing, but the older guy ended up chuckling so hard. Jaejin wasn’t proud of his weird habit. Minhwan’s face got so red when he saw it happened for the first time, though Seunghyun pretty much enjoying the weirdness in it. Key was pretty immune about it but he would be the first one mentioning it to everyone when it happened. It felt really embarrassing most of the times.

So when Jonghun couldn’t stop his chuckle and ended up laughing again, Jaejin grabbed Jonghun’s neck and pulled the older guy closer to where he sat. He pierced his eyes on the other guy, lips pursed unamusedly before he pressed their lips together. Just a silent kiss to make Jonghun stop. “…shut up…” Jaejin mumbled.

Jonghun calmed down from the laughter, a big smile plastered on his face. “Fine~,” Jonghun said, stealing a quick peck on Jaejin’s lips – seemingly not satisfied with just what Jaejin had given him, before pushing himself back to his seat and continuing his breakfast. “I should laugh at you more often in the future, I guess. Since you have another weird habit besides stripping off when you are asleep – which is kissing someone to shut him up.”

This time, Jaejin threw a spoon of rice to Jonghun’s face.

---

Just like when he had mood swing, it was usually pretty obvious when Jonghun was feeling great about his day. Big smile wouldn’t leave his face and he would start pulling some harmless pranks. Today was no different. Jonghun went to work with a big smile on his face and he kept on randomly poking Hongki’s cheek.

“What the hell is wrong with you?! STOP IT!” Hongki snapped at the end, throwing the pencil he was holding to Jonghun.

“Nothing~,” Jonghun answered as he chuckled.

“You’re clearly in a good mood because you’re being annoying! Being annoying is more of my thing, not yours. I can only assume that you got it steamy with Jaejin?” the singer sighed, leaning back on his chair.

Jonghun’s big smile dropped. He wished something steamy happened. “…not exactly. But we had a great time. The date went well and he spent the entire Sunday at my place. We jammed, and then I let him do his research on my laptop while I worked on this song’s composition,” he quickly smiled again.

“…that’s it?”

“That’s it…” Jonghun pursed his lips innocently – on purpose.

Hongki’s eyes widened as his mouth gapped. He leaned forward, pressing his palm against Jonghun’s forehead, seemingly trying to measure his producer’s body temperature.

“Wow, that was the lamest date and the day after I’ve heard from you,” Hongki commented. “Was the that bad? I heard it takes more and stuff. Y’know, to do it with a guy…from behind like that.”

He definitely didn’t expect Hongki to mention at all. He even hadn’t thought of it yet! All he had cared about was to get Jaejin to accept his feeling, and even after the date Jonghun wasn’t sure if they were in any kind of relationship at all. And now that Hongki had mentioned it, Jonghun suddenly realised that he would eventually do it and he still had zero clue on how to get there.

“It’s nothing like that! We didn’t have !” Jonghun exclaimed, feeling his cheeks burning at the thought that Hongki had planted in his head.

“…wow. Lee Jaejin, what have you done to my best friend?” the other guy shook his head, crossing his arms against his chest while staring at Jonghun in disbelief.

“Oh come on. There’s nothing wrong with me not having on my first date,” Jonghun cleared his throat as he stood up.

He ignored Hongki’s ramble on how it was actually something out of the ordinary, mentioning the last couple of dates Jonghun had where ual s were definitely involved on those first dates. Jonghun didn’t want to really think about it. He had just let his relationship with Jaejin go with the flow, and if super slow was their pace, then super slow it was.

Walking out of the studio, Jonghun let Hongki kept on ranting in the background – the noise of Hongki’s squeaky voice disappeared as he closed the door. He definitely did not need some Hongki’s speech because he was feeling great and he would avoid anything that would ruin it.

But things didn’t go according to Jonghun’s plan. Just when he was turning to what he thought was an empty meeting room, he was frozen on the spot when he saw a familiar figure sitting on one of the seats with… his boss.

“Jonghun!! Just when I was about to call you!” his boss stood up, giving Jonghun a warm hug. “Let me introduce you to your new project!”

“…Hyung?” the other person in the room smiled awkwardly.

“Seunghyun?!”

“Oh! You guys know each other?! Perfect! I will get all the paper work done then!”

Jonghun turned to his boss, wasn’t sure what was happening. New project? But he has Hongki, why he had a new project when he wasn’t done with Hongki yet?! He never heard about this either before!

“But… Hongki?! I still have his first album to work on!” Jonghun responded.

“Oh, Hongki will still be yours, but you have Seunghyun too now! He has decent voice, but he can rap, he plays the piano, and he’s learning fast with the guitar. Geunhwa is working on his vocal, so he’ll be great in no time! You can start working on a song that’ll suit him.”

Now that totally ruined his mood.

When his boss left him and Seunghyun alone in the meeting room, Jonghun took a moment to get his composure together. No, he definitely didn’t like it that he had to deal with Seunghyun even at work. He didn’t hate the younger guy, but he didn’t like him either. Seunghyun’s friendship with Jaejin bothered him a little. The younger guy’s straight forwardness and annoying mega-watt smile were rather annoying too!

“I had no idea you’re gonna be my debut producer,” Seunghyun mumbled. “Well, I didn’t know I was gonna debut in the first place.”

“You could have rejected it,” Jonghun commented lazily, taking what it seemed to be Seunghyun personal profile from the wooden table.

“But I kind of wanted it, so why not,” the younger guy shrugged.

“You better be serious about this because I do my work seriously.”

Jonghun sat down to the seat opposite of Seunghyun, his eyes somehow were locked on the younger guy. Seunghyun was just smiling happily at him, almost as if there was no burden on his side. Well, almost. At least until the yet-to-be-debuted singer’s expression changed. Jonghun would be lying if he said no-smile-Seunghyun didn’t surprise him. He had no idea that the other guy was capable of looking… serious.

“I am serious. Just as serious as me telling you this - I’m gonna hunt you down if you break Jaejin-hyung’s heart,” Seunghyun said straightforwardly.

He gulped, not liking the fire on Seunghyun’s eyes. “I won’t. I can assure you that.”

“We’ll see. You don’t know him like I do. He might look all cool and ignorant about his surrounding, but he’s nothing like that,” Seunghyun sat back, crossing a leg over his other one.

“I know him well enough to know that he’s not like that. His eyes tell it all,” Jonghun rolled his eyes, feeling that he would really love to go back to their main topic – their work.

Seunghyun leaned forward, his arms rested on the surface of the table. His expression was straight and remained unchanged, the only thing he did was blinking in an almost slow-motion manner.

“Awesome~! Let’s get back to work then, Hyung-nim~,” Seunghyun then threw Jonghun his signature big smile.

Jonghun decided that he didn’t like Seunghyun. At all.

---

Stretching his arms out, Jaejin inhaled the fresh summer breeze – never thought that he’d like the hot sunshine. Finally after weeks of lack of sleep, a lot of caffeine in his system, and many useless morning library sessions with Minhwan; Jaejin was now a free man. No more assignment, no more class. He had just submitted his last schoolwork and it marked the end of his academic year. Life was good.

He walked out of his campus, a big smile was on his face. The striking sun didn’t bother him, the lack of wind was enough to make him feel contented with almost everything. But most of all he was contented on how he always managed to see Jonghun by the campus’ gate, leaning against the side of his car, waiting for Jaejin. For whatever reason, each time they were supposed to meet somewhere, Jonghun always insisted that he would pick Jaejin up, even when they practically lived in the same area.  It made Jaejin feel a little bit like a girl but he couldn’t deny how that would save him on bus and train fee so he couldn’t really insist in getting to their meeting point on his own. Transportation cost wasn’t all that cheap for him, especially when he didn’t even work part time anywhere at all.

“Ready to go?” Jonghun smiled at him.

“Where exactly are we going?” asked Jaejin, quickly putting on a not amused expression because he didn’t want Jonghun to know that he actually liked it when the other picked him up. Nope, he definitely didn’t want anyone to know. Not when his man-pride was on the line.

“Nowhere, actually. We can just head home.”

Jaejin frowned, walking to the front passenger seat before settling himself there. He waited for Jonghun to get inside too before he raised an eyebrow at the older guy.

“Then why are you picking me up again today?” he asked.

“There’s nothing wrong about getting your… boyfriend from where he was… right?” said Jonghun, clearing his throat in the process as he started his car, eyes seemingly trying to avoid Jaejin.

“Your boyfr--… WHAT?!”

His eyes widened as he spontaneously grabbed the safety belt that he had put on earlier on, gripping on it tightly. A boyfriend?! Him? Jonghun’s boyfriend? When did that happen?! Yes, they went on a date. And yes, Jaejin had been spending his time at Jonghun’s place and via versa; but none of them ever stayed over if that made any difference! They didn’t even kiss that much! They did, but not much. Just…like twice or thrice.

“You don’t like that idea?” the older boy asked, turning his face to Jaejin.

“It’s nothing like that. I just never really thought about it…”

“Well… why don’t you think about it now?” Jonghun mumbled.

“I…”

“Just take your time. You don’t have to answer me now.”

Jaejin went silent, wasn’t sure what to tell Jonghun. Part of him was glad that they were heading home because he knew that it would only end in a very awkward outing.

The ride home was quite – as short as it was, it felt like eternity for Jaejin. Back in the days, he enjoyed their comfortable silence and small talks. But it was different now. He had slowly opened up to the older guy and they had started to talk about anything and everything. At times, Jonghun would talk about work. Stuff like his frustration on his composition, and Jonghun even asked Jaejin for opinion on lyrics. Jaejin hadn’t really talked much about his life to Jonghun, but the older guy seemed to understand even without him saying a word. For him, it offered a different kind of comfort.

“How’s your day?” he asked, even when Jonghun had literally just parked his car.

“It was alright. I’m working with Seunghyun now.”

“Seunghyun?” Jaejin frowned.

“Yeah. Apparently our CEO wants to release his CD debut or something. And guess who he assigned to become Seunghyun’s producer?”

“You?”

“Yeah… unfortunately.”

Jaejin laughed, finding it amusing the way Jonghun answered him in such an unhappy manner. He still couldn’t understand why Jonghun was so worked out when it came to Seunghyun. Jaejin had countless times told the other guy that there was nothing going on between the two of them and as far as he was concerned, Seunghyun was as straight as a man could be. Jonghun definitely had to see Seunghyun and Minhwan watching a Japanese drama with this chick called Aragaki Yui or something. Total fanboys.

“Don’t be to hard on him,” Jaejin chuckled.

“Me? Being hard on him?” Jonghun unbuckled his safety belt, tilting his head to Jaejin. “Do you think I would be all friendly and soft on him instead? Are you for real?”

“Oh come on. He’ll grow on you. He’s a good kid.”

“His smile is annoying,” Jonghun complained.

“Well… I agree on that one.”

They both went out from the car as they laughed, feeling less uncomfortable than before. Jaejin contemplated for a while. He did want to just go home earlier on, but now that they weren’t so much on the boyfriend subject anymore, he kind of wanted to spend more time with the older guy. He didn’t have the guts to turn away and walk out from the building to head back, but he wasn’t brave enough to follow Jonghun to his place either.

“Wanna come…”

“…come over?”

They asked in the same time.

“We really need to stop feeling so awkward like this,” Jonghun chuckled.

“Your fault. Mentioning the whole boyfriend thingy,” Jaejin shrugged.

“But we’re not just friends either, are we?”

“…true…”

“And since you’re done with schoolwork, while I have Seunghyun’s song to deal with, so my place?”

Jaejin nodded, thinking that he could crash Jonghun’s bed since he didn’t have much sleep to do some last minute check on his assignment the night before. Jonghun’s bed was awesome, it seemed to be expensive or something. And no, he didn’t try to imply anything at all, purely just sleeping.

Which practically what he did the moment he got to Jonghun’s place. Jonghun almost laughed at him but decided that taking a nap kind of seemed like very tempting option. He pushed Jaejin towards the other end of the bed, leaving space for himself. It made Jaejin’s heart stopped when the older guy lied down next to him, the other felt so big compare to him.

“I thought you were supposed to get Seunghyun’s song done?” Jaejin asked, using every strength he had to sound normal.

“That can wait… it’s just Seunghyun. I’m not you. Seunghyun is not all that important to me,” Jonghun shrugged, turning around to rest flat on his stomach, eyes staring at Jaejin. “A nap sounds better right now.”

“…fine.” Jaejin turned around, his back facing Jonghun.

He didn’t want to look at Jonghun while trying to go to sleep. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep instead, probably gonna feel way too nervous for his own good. Even when he was facing the wall, his heart couldn’t seem to calm down, the idea of them on the same bed was pushing all of Jaejin’s nerve buttons.

“Have I mentioned that Hongki asked if we had after our first date?” Jonghun suddenly spoke up.

Jaejin then kicked Jonghun out of the bed; cursing and telling the older guy to just start on Seunghyun’s song, covering his face with Jonghun’s pillow.

---

Sorry for the late update! Was on a holiday for about two weeks XD. I should have said something about it before. Anyway, I'm trying to work out how they'll go to the next level, and possibly some drama or just something to add more to the dynamic. Let's hope I got things worked out soon.

Note: Geunhwa is a member of M Signal, and was vocal-training Seunghyun and CN Blue's Jonghyun before he debuted with M Signal.