for nnmhmh;; (4444 words)

There are many times that Myungsoo sits back and seriously contemplates his life choices - like falsely thinking he could pull off the persona of L, starring in a drama that required him to wear a horrible blonde wig, agreeing to destroy his image in their latest reality show - but right now, he is having some major issues with the direction his life has gone.

Unfortunately, he was getting a first hand lesson in understanding that famous saying - the road to hell was paved with good intentions - and now as he watching his best friend get manhandled by the other members, he couldn’t help but wish that he had thought his plan through a little more before introducing it to the rest of the group.

It wasn’t that Myungsoo was a possessive person - he watched as Sunggyu leaned in slowly, his lips stretched into that smug grin as his pretty hands cradled the brunette’s face, brushing his lips softly over Sungyeol’s full cheeks - okay scratch that, he was definitely a possessive person. He wanted to push Sunggyu away from his best friend, wanted to remove the leader from the room entirely, but he couldn’t exactly do that; after all this had been his idea.

Really, most of Myungsoo’s current situation was out of his control. While some might think that living in the same place as Sungyeol would ensure him time with his best friend, that wasn’t exactly the case. Before there had always been individual schedules, reasons that they couldn’t see each other as much as they wanted. But these past couple years in particular had been worse than normal - going on the road for months with the world tour, then filming a reality show as soon as they returned to Korea, and now Sungyeol was busy with his role in the drama. Myungsoo wasn’t bitter or anything, he was extremely proud of Sungyeol for working so hard to further his acting career. But with all the script issues, reshoots, and plot changes that had happened with the drama, shooting schedules were more than demanding - they were hell.

The worst part was that Sungyeol was doing all of this on top of his commitments to Infinite - first there was Last Romeo, and more recently, Back. It seemed like they were always in the studio, working on vocals and tightening up the choreography. Then once the summer concert was announced - seven full days of performances, not counting at the rehearsals for group songs and solo performances - things really got crazy. Myungsoo knew that deep down he should be thankful, that there were other groups that would kill to be busy with projects - and he hadn’t forgotten the days in the beginning when they all prayed for someone to give them a schedule so that they could have a chance - but at the end of the day, he just missed his best friend.

Spending time with Sungyeol was that one thing that calmed Myungsoo down, he was the person that not only gave Myungsoo comfort, but gave him perspective on situations. In a sense he humbled Myungsoo, made him remember that at the end of the night he was still a normal human being, despite the unnatural lives they led during the day as celebrities. But the huge increase in obligations and the sudden inability to spend that quality time with his best friend left Myungsoo feeling completely lost.

So naturally he was more than a little peeved when he wasn’t able to cling to his best friend in the few moments they were around each other. It was as if suddenly all the members wanted a piece of Sungyeol, wanted to interact with him on stage and steal his attention backstage. He couldn’t even get five minutes alone with Sungyeol these days without someone coming along and demanding his attention. And it wasn’t like he could hold that against Sungyeol either; he knew how important it was for his best friend to be liked, to be needed by the other members and not just him.

Myungsoo couldn’t exactly explain why, but lately it seemed that the members had become much more touchy with Sungyeol - whether it was Sunggyu leaning over to rest his head on his shoulder, Hoya wrapping at arm around his waist, Sungjong pulling him into a back hug, Woohyun fondling his chest on stage, and worst of the worst, Dongwoo kissing his cheek for all the fans to see - Myungsoo was officially at his breaking point. This didn’t even make sense, Myungsoo was the unofficial boyfriend, the person that the fans shipped with Sungyeol, and yet all the other members were touching him!

He tried to write off the kisses - yes, plural - with Dongwoo; he told himself that those were for show, as Hoya deemed the two of them Infinite’s Romeo and Juliet, and were purely for the fans, a way of saying thank you for helping them win another music show. But still, seeing Sungyeol cover his lips in the bright red lipstick, watching him chase Dongwoo around the stage to plant a kiss on both of his cheeks, puckering up with no sense of shame, made Myungsoo extremely uncomfortable. It only became worse when Dongwoo returned the favor to Sungyeol, making Myungsoo start to become skeptical of Dongwoo’s so called ‘innocent’ skinship.

On top of that, a recent interview brought his attention back to the Troublemaker days, when Sungyeol had blushingly denied really kissing Sungjong when Myungsoo had asked him. He could never see too clearly because he was busy with outfit changes and makeup retouches backstage during their concerts, plus Sungyeol’s long curly wig did quite the job of covering up their faces. But then Sunggyu had revealed on broadcast crazy stories, things like Sungyeol actually dreaming of kissing Sungjong, and he had watched the way his best friend had blushed and panicked at the admission, and his skepticism reached new levels. That night, courtesy of Youtube, he found out exactly why Sungyeol was blushing - seeing the kiss from multiple angles of fancams showed him just how dedicated his best friend and the maknae were to pulling off the concept for the special stage.

Which brought him back to the present; how was it that he was Sungyeol’s best friend, he was the one Sungyeol was closest to, and he was the one who the fans thought paired the best romantically with Sungyeol, and yet, he had never even kissed him?! The closest he got was in Couple’s Game, but that didn’t really count since pepero and paper were in the way. Sungyeol had kissed him on the head, and at the time that had made him feel victorious, but obviously now the stakes had been raised. He wanted his obligatory fanservice and attention from his supposed boyfriend damn it, and he wouldn’t stop until he got it!

Well, technically, this could be one of those times where people could point out that Myungsoo was the one sole person in the group that had two ‘boyfriends’. And while he was told to show Sungjong attention from time to time, it just wasn’t the same as when he did things with Sungyeol. Myungsoo could watch Sungjong literally mount the nearest member and fell nothing, but if Sungyeol did the same he would be finding a reason to pull him away. He told himself that this was because Sungyeol was actually his best friend in real life, not just his companion for the fans, but as time went on and his jealousy grew, he stopped finding reasons to deny it anymore. But he couldn’t exactly demand that Sungyeol pay attention to him - he couldn’t demand Sungyeol to do anything, the boy was as stubborn as they come - so Myungsoo continued to suffer in silence and long for the good old days like Man in Love, when he was allowed to fondle Sungyeol on a weekly basis to his hearts content.

It wasn’t until he was hanging out with the other members, discussing Sungyeol’s upcoming birthday, that the idea popped into his mind. His musings and explorations on the internet had alerted him to how ‘weak’ things had been between him and Sungyeol lately. If even the fans were noticing the distance - and Sungyeol’s tiredness which hurt his heart on multiple levels - then something had to change. That was when the idea started to plant in his head, growing and growing until he had the revelation of just how the members were going to celebrate Sungyeol’s birthday and give back to the fans.

At first, when he was adjusting his camera lens and watching Sungyeol’s oh so precious reaction to their ‘surprise’ - of course they had told him the plan before the camera starting rolling, Sungyeol was on edge during his birthday ever since Dongwoo’s crying prank and Woohyun’s failed cake incident - Myungsoo was convinced that he was a genius. He had deemed himself the camera man - not that any of the other members would argue - and after a brief explanation of what they were doing and why they were recording, from Woohyun of course, always the one who felt obligated to play host, Hoya had been the one to start things off. In theory, this should’ve been perfect.

24 kisses for Sungyeol’s 24th birthday.

With six members to work with, that equated to each boy giving Sungyeol four kisses each. Was it over the top? Of course, but they liked doing special things for their fans, and after Myungsoo had reminded them - oh so subtly - that they hadn’t done anything close to this level since Couple’s Game and that other boy groups these days were upping the intensity and frequency of shipping moments on stage, they all agreed to join in. So now he was filming like the dutiful best friend - and mastermind - as the birthday boy enjoyed the attention.

The rule was that you could kiss Sungyeol where ever you wanted, you only had to do it the right number of times. Unsurprisingly, Hoya had kept things pretty chaste; planting all his kisses on Sungyeol’s hand. Sungjong followed Hoya’s lead in terms of riskiness, choosing to kiss the top of Sungyeol’s head. Myungsoo reminded himself to stay calm when Dongwoo stood up next, but his worries were for nothing; the rapper placed kisses on both of Sungyeol’s knees and elbows, Dongwoo’s amusement at his choice of location clear even after he finished. They were more than halfway through, twelve kisses down with no problems, and Myungsoo metaphorically patted himself on the back for dreaming up this whole thing in the first place.

But his self praise stopped fairly quickly after the leader had moved closer, the first kiss enough to make warning bells go off in Myungsoo’s head. Was it really necessary for Sunggyu to look at Sungyeol that way, to hold him so delicately? He started off safe enough, two kisses taken care of with both of Sungyeol’s hands, then one on his forehead, but t