Niel and C.A.P were playing around; it was their usual game. Niel was seemingly trapped in C.A.P’s grasp. Every time he tried to escape, C.A.P would pull him tighter against him, trapping Niel’s arms so he couldn’t move. The younger would then attempt another escape as soon as C.A.P relaxed again.

“Stop squirming,” C.A.P whispered darkly into Niel’s ear, and the vocalist pulled harder against his hold. “You’re causing attention, just sit still.”

“Just let go,” Niel said.

“Just keep still.”

Niel sighed and went limp in C.A.P’s arms and he soon felt the other smirking against the back of his neck.

“Good boy,” C.A.P said, loosening his hold and letting his hands slide down Niel’s arms until they gripped his wrists. “Doesn’t this feel nice?”

“For you,” murmured Niel. “I should kick your .”

“Please do.”

“I will.”

“You have to get out of my grip first.”

Niel bristled and C.A.P chuckled as the struggle for Niel’s freedom started anew.

The stylist fingers raked through Ricky’s hair as she prattled on about whatever popped into her mind. Ricky nodded, answering back as needed but his eyes were trained to the mirror in front of him, spying on the couple playing behind him. The stylist put her work on pause and clucked her tongue turning to the two as they horsed around.

“Cut it out!” she scolded. “You’ll mess up your hair.”

C.A.P let go of Niel almost immediately and went to walk away but Niel made sure to stick his foot out so C.A.P stumbled as he did so. The stylist rolled her eyes and returned to Ricky and his head.

“Kids these days,” she muttered. “Are they always like that or is it only when they’re wearing their perfect hair and makeup?”

Ricky laughed slightly and said, “More or less the same.”

“Aw, it must be lonely. You should get someone too then. It must be annoying for you all to live with that and then there’s also Chunji and his parade of girlfriends.”

Ricky sighed, “Noona I don’t need a girlfriend, I have you.”

The stylist threw her head back and laughed, swatting at his shoulder causing Ricky to wince slightly.

“You’re such a charmer. But I mean it. I have been working with you for a year now and I haven’t even caught a whiff of so much as a girl emailing you in this time.”

Ricky rolled his eyes. It was always the same with this noona. She always wanted to get his love life jump started, or some such thing. Why couldn’t she just accept that Ricky was fine being single even if he was at a prime time in his life to experience love or whatever such thing. He still didn’t graduate from high school yet as it was. But that kind of reasoning didn’t work on her so he kept mum and let her prattle on.

Besides there was so much she didn’t need to know. There were the arguments for one. Despite Niel and C.A.P getting along well a lot of the time the moments that things blew up were not something anyone wished to witness. And then there was Chunji and his shallow flings. With those three as his main examples of what a relationship could be Ricky just found it all too tedious to bother with. Really, Ricky couldn’t consider himself unhappy so he felt no need to search for anyone to call his own.

So in that manner, Rcky actually was able to achieve a blank zen-like state in his mind with the dull hum of the stylist’s constant chatter.

“Think about what I said. Maybe one of those T-ARA girls would be interested.”

“Yeah right, noona!” Ricky laughed and bounced away just as Changjo came to sit in his spot.

----

Dinner was wolfed down without ceremony: another night of take out. It was Chunji and L.Joe’s turn to clean the dishes so TeenTop’s maknae line escaped while they could into the living room to play games only to see C.A.P was already there.

“How did you get here before us?” Niel asked, diving to sit closest to his boyfriend.

The older didn’t bother answering or taking his eyes from the screen and Niel grabbed an extra controller that happened to be near his foot. Ricky and Changjo were left to argue over the last remaining controller.

“I go first, I’m older,” Ricky said, snatching the controller from the game basket.

“I think we should rock paper scissors for it,” Changjo replied in a cool tone. “It’s only fair.”

“I think we all should,” Niel agreed, stretching and dropping his controller into his lap. “Let’s go. Rock paper scissors.”

“C.A.P hyung too,” Changjo suggested.

Niel nodded and turned to his boyfriend, tapping his arm, “Hyung can you start your game over. We want to play.”

There was no answer as C.A.P eyes remained transfixed to the screen.

“Hyung…” Niel prodded again and there was a slight furrowing of C.A.P’s brow.

“Wait… after this… lap.”

“Hyung you already been playing since before we got here,” Ricky whined but it took one look from C.A.P for him to shut up.

Ricky shot Niel an exasperated look to which Niel shrugged before turning back to C.A.P again.

“Yah! Stop being selfish!!!” Niel said and went to jab C.A.P in the ribs roughly but he just swatted the hands away.

“One more lap.”

“No.”

“I’m almost done, Niel.”

“You’ve been almost done for 5 minutes now,” Niel whined.

“You haven’t even been here for 5 minutes,” was C.A.P’s reply.

Niel sighed and kicked C.A.P’s legs but the other just kept playing.

“Ugh I can’t believe you hogging the game like this. We’re all tired we all want to play we all want to—“

“I said ing 5 minute’s!” C.A.P said turning suddenly, his arm raised in a fist.

“Hyung!” Ricky and Changjo gasped as the eldest turned, face contorted in frustration. In just that fraction of a second they felt something in them stop as the hand aiming towards Niel rush forward, and then refuse to start again until contact was made with the couch behind Niel’s head.

The two maknae let out a breath in relief and C.A.P turned back to his game without another thought. Yet, there still was Niel who sat frozen with his arms raised defensively, face pale and eyes screwed shut as if bracing for an impact that hadn’t come. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that his body seemed to recognize it was no longer in danger, but the previous relaxed atmosphere was gone for all except C.A.P.

Niel put on a half-smile that couldn’t mask the hints of fear swirling in his eyes.

“Just one more lap for him, ok,” Niel said, turning to his dongsaeng. He rolled his eyes and gestured his thumb towards the leader beside him. “He’s being a .”

“Haha we can wait, right Changjo?” Ricky asked, laughing his normal sung laugh and smiling over at Changjo.

“Yeah it’s no big deal,” Changjo said.

Niel nodded and pulled his knees to his chest, fixing his eyes to the television screen as the younger two tried their hardest to ignore the giant elephant looming in the room.

-to be continued-

AN - thanks for reading and subscribing. please leave comments. This my first tme writing serious fic especially for TeenTop. Sorry for OOC and this is still the exposition by the way. Sorry if anyone hates this depiction of NAP. I really do love them even their uhm... violent tendencies. How can I say that without sounding weird? NAP is my OTP ;~;