Wonshik tried pounding with his fist on the door to the bedroom a few more times, and unsuccessfully tried the doorknob again. “It’s moving, but the door won’t actually budge!” he exclaimed in surprise, pressing his right ear up against the wood in an attempt to hear the groupmates out in the living room. “Are you guys seriously doing this?!”

Hongbin, on the other hand, stood quietly a few feet away with a completely incredulous look on his face. He had a towel draped across his shoulder, a remnant from the exercising he’d been attending to that evening, and his hair was wet and unstyled from a previous shower. Slow realisation seemed to finally come across his expression, and he calmly said, “What’s going on? I … I just got home and I’m completely lost.”

“I don’t really know, but I’m pretty damn determined to find out.” Wonshik continued his pattern of rattling the doorknob and taking a fist to the structure.

Hongbin chimed in with some noise of his own, leaning close to the very small space between the door and its frame in an attempt to make his voice heard. "Hyung, what just happened?!”

“Don’t make me bust down--” Wonshik’s threat was cut off by Hakyeon’s voice from the other side.

“Hey! HEY! … Look, HEY! Look, you guys have been really weird for the past few weeks and it’s getting really annoying! As far as I’m concerned, we’re doing this for your own good! Plus … it wasn’t my idea! You are absolutely not allowed to come out of there until you’ve either-- I don’t know-- made up or made out, I don’t care! Either way, let it out of your systems and get over it!!”

A few seconds of silence passed, both of the trapped men staring at the door in complete slack-jawed disbelief.

Finally, Hongbin offered, “Did he just say what I think he just said?” while turning to actually look at Wonshik. He attempted to keep his expression steady and neutral, but, inside, his stomach was flip-flopping. This and the moments following could potentially be chock full of awkward and the fact that he’d just gotten back to the apartment left him mentally unprepared.

Wonshik pulled his ear away from the wooden door and stared back evenly at Hongbin. The tension in the air-- from both the panicky nature the bandmates had acted in and the slow realisation of the situation the two of them found themselves in-- was thick, and Wonshik had to swallow back an annoyed comment. He reminded himself this wasn’t entirely Hongbin’s fault. “Yeah, yeah he did.” He nearly put his mouth on the door and yelled out, “This is bull and you all know it! Nobody here is down with playing your games!”

Absolutely nothing came back as a reply.

“Arrghh!” Wonshik expressed, holding back from kicking the door. He wasn’t a violent person by any means, but his usually-at-bay temper was rising. He didn’t appreciate being put in such an uncomfortable scenario, but was mostly annoyed because he knew exactly why the others had done it: both he and Hongbin had been acting a bit out-of-character lately and they knew this was one of the only ways the two of them would talk it out sooner than later. He knew Hakyeon well enough to know that not only was he correct in this assumption, but that he’d even end up thanking his leader at a later date. At the thought, he inwardly sighed.

Hongbin finally walked away from the doorway, and made his way to the corner where his futon was rolled up. He nudged it closer to the wall and out of the way with his foot, and decided to sit down on the ground cross-legged, lean back, rest his head up against the wall, and close his eyes. He looked overall peaceful, but the tight line that his mouth was forming indicated otherwise. “We almost may as well just give in. Not a single person-- much less some kind of bull-- competes with Hakyeon’s level of perseverance.”

Still holding most of his body pretty much up against the door, Wonshik turned back to flash an unconvinced look at Hongbin from over his shoulder. “You want to go along with this craziness? I mean, we’ve been on the end of some great pranks, but this is a little out of line even for them, don’t you think?”

Seemingly unphased, his eyes still lightly closed, Hongbin shrugged. “What else do you want to do? Crash through the wall?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Wonshik snapped under his breath, shooting a glare back at the door. He knew he was basically defeated, though, for Hongbin was right-- what else was there to do, short of knocking the door off its hinges? And while it was an odd predicament they found themselves in, that was obviously overkill. He audibly sighed and finally took a step back. “Whatever. They’ll get bored and let us out soon enough. We don’t have enough time in our schedules for them to keep this up long.” He trudged over to the corner opposite of Hongbin’s and mimicked his seating, leaning his back up against the wall but keeping his legs spread and knees bent, looking like the tough kid sitting in the back of the classroom. He rested his elbows on his knees and let his hands hang midair. “I still say this is bull, though.”

Opening his eyes slowly, Hongbin continued to keep his expression disinterested as he glanced towards the other. There was a thin veil of challenge in his voice when he then asked, “Are you talking about me or all of this?” He gestured with his hand in a circle with a low amount of effort.

“I’m talking about Hakyeon hyung and … and Jaehwan and whoever else is involved.” Wonshik narrowed his eyes at the mild defiance in his bandmate’s tone, but managed a small smirk and a quiet scoff. “I think even this trumps whatever’s been up with you lately.”

A flicker of registration came over Hongbin’s once-neutral demeanor, but his near-indifference returned as quickly as it had disappeared. “I’m not the one so offended over their little gag, though. So, no, my ‘whatever’ holds strong, sorry.” He swallowed back his snippiness, realising just how powerfully his bad mood lately was taking over his day-to-day interactions. He kept this up, he internally warned himself, and Wonshik will have been absolutely right to pry at him. He took in a deep breath, wondering lightly if this interaction was the whole point of his groupmate’s antics.

Not wanting to press the topic, Wonshik remained quiet in response, and they both remained that way for a few very conspicuously awkward minutes. He pulled his phone out from his pocket and idly thumbed through apps, his eyes occupied by the screen but his mind occupied by the uncomfortable silence sitting in the room between them. His open annoyance stemmed mostly from Hakyeon being a jerk and usually having a good reason for doing so. He was also very aware that his and Hongbin’s relationship had been strained lately, which was very odd for the two of them-- they were usually very close, and had been since their MyDOL days.

At that moment, Hongbin had been thinking something very similar. The uneasy conversation between them was uncharacteristic, and he knew that. The only real difference was that he was fairly aware of the reason why, and knew the ball was basically in his court. At that reflection, though, he felt his deep-seeded shyness bubble up the surface and he couldn’t bring himself to speak up just yet.

“Hey.”

Hongbin wasn’t sure he’d heard him at first, but he looked up from the floor and over at Wonshik at the hushed prompt. “Yeah?”

“Your attitude just  lately, man,” Wonshik said pragmatically, not having yet looked up from his phone. He seemed to be obviously just scrolling mindlessly, though. “Can we just … get something out in the open? What’s been going on with you? What was with your level of weird in the car? You were so hyped during the show but so childish afterward.”

Hongbin had been slowly preparing himself to say something through the substantial silence that had taken over the room, but he swallowed the sudden acid he felt in his throat at Wonshik’s spoken lack of tact. His mouth resumed the taught scowl he’d had previously. “My attitude? Childish?” he questioned, taking effort to keep the scorn out of his voice. “Look. If you would have just let me stew for a bit, I would have been fine. I don’t always need you prying.”

“You do need it, though, because you really gotta start controlling that.”

Hongbin sighed, clearing his throat from the effort of keeping his tone polite and even. “I am … trying to control it. By stewing. That’s exactly the point of stewing in the first place.” He waved gingerly in the other’s direction across the room. “What do you do when you’re upset?”

Realising they were beginning to do exactly what Hakyeon had intended with all this crap, Wonshik bit back an audible swear. He shrugged instead, shifting his position on the hard ground uncomfortably. “I don’t know. Eat? e? Go for a run? Record a track?”

“I mean in public,” Hongbin sighed in reply. “You know I couldn’t do any of that in the car.”

Wonshik was the one to sigh in return. “Yeah, I know, I just--” he cut himself off, trying to compose an answer without giving up on his lecture. “We have a responsibility to the fans, though, and that’s part of the point of VIXX Diary. We can’t let them down, this is our chance to really show them what we’re made of.”

“I feel like our fans would be more annoyed knowing I was putting on a big fake smile for them, though,” Hongbin pointedly stated. “They want to see the real us, deep down inside, don’t they?”

“Maybe,” Wonshik relented, “but I’m pretty certain manager hyung wouldn’t agree.”

“Then who’s this really about? Our superiors or the fans?”

“Both. They don’t need to deal with our inner demons, and that satisfies everybody in the end.”

Hongbin shook his head, closing his eyes and considering for a moment. He leaned the back of his crown against the wall and took in another steady breath. Opening his eyes after a few seconds passed, he repeated his earlier position with, “Just edit my parts out, then. I don’t mind, I’m not going to be offended. Taekwoon sleeps through these things all the time, should have just let me stay that way-- no one would question me being tired after a show.”

“You weren’t sleeping, though,” Wonshik responded with a humourless laugh. “You were being pissy when asked questions!”

“Look,” came Hongbin’s cold, abrupt answer, “I just really, really wasn’t up for questions, okay?”

The strained tone in his friend’s reply triggered something in Wonshik’s thought process. It was beginning to dawn on him, somewhere in the back of his mind, that this definitely had to be more than just his bandmate being in a consistently bad mood; something was really, earnestly eating at him. He felt a sting of raw taste in his throat as he realised he might have been being a touch insensitive. His strong lack of desire to back down persisted, but he did manage to soften the edge in his voice. "Come on, man,” he said gently. “What's wrong, anyway? We're stuck here, Hakyeon hyung wants us to have this out, and I may as well know. What's up?"

“It’s nothing.”

Hongbin’s short reply made a muscle in Wonshik’s eye twitch. He was trying to keep it kind and amicable, but the inflexibility going on in the conversation was beginning to get to him. “Oh, for ’s sake,” he grumbled, nimbly slapping his palm to his forehead with annoyance. He brought his hand away and resumed his tough guy act. “Are you going through mood swings or something? Do I need to take you to a doctor for a sudden second bout of puberty?!”

At the snap, Hongbin’s voice went dangerously icy. “No. It’s just none of your business.”

“Yo!” Wonshik exclaimed, furrowing his eyebrows and staring intensely at the other. “You’re my family! In this group, everything we do is each other’s business, and we’re healthy because of that. Save the foolish brooding for rookie groups.”

The arctic biting stayed in Hongbin’s tone. “I’m allowed my secrets.”

“Not when they’re affecting the rest of us like this.”

“Then how about you don’t let it affect you?” There was a slight rise in Hongbin’s inflection.

Wonshik’s exasperation finally detonated, and he jumped up to his feet with a growl and gesticulated energetically at Hongbin. “Would you quit being a jackass and just ing tell me already?! This is ridiculous!”

“ing fine,” Hongbin snapped in a hiss between clenched teeth. “But don’t regret that you asked.”

Wonshik’s face suddenly changed into an expression of surprise at his groupmate’s swear, something that was fairly rare (at least compared to him and Hakyeon). He was feeling torn between gratefulness that he’d finally struck a nerve and gotten a reaction, and nervousness that he’d hit too hard. He stayed silent, not sure what to say yet.

“It’s … it’s you, you .” Hongbin had started the sentence strong but his voice caught for a moment as he swore a second time. He took an unsteady breath in and continued, squarely staring Wonshik in the face but not without a bit of wavering confidence. “It’s you. It’s the way you … that you conduct yourself, it’s the way-- that you talk. That … that you talk to me.” His eyes flickered to the floor, unable to keep his gaze steady anymore. “The way that you look at me. I’m really, really tired of you thinking that I’m … that I’m only good at being a visual, just being here as a handsome face. I need more than that out of you.” Colour started to creep into his cheeks, and he kept his narrowed eyes focused anywhere but on his bandmate.

A very thick silence settled like a lead blanket as Wonshik stared wide-eyed, almost unable to register what he just heard. He was expecting a slew of things ranging from that Hongbin had had a fight with some secret girlfriend to that his childhood pet back home died, but this was completely off his radar. He was so shocked he’d momentarily forgotten how to breathe. As he began to actually hear the words that had been aimed at him, he shook his head like water plugged his ears. “Wait,” he vocalised, swallowing the dryness that had appeared in his mouth. “What in the world are you talking about?” He paced towards another corner of the room, still staying across the distance from the other. His eyes wandered the rolled-up futons along the walls. “I’ve never said anything like that, I don’t even think anything like that! You’re-- how-- how could you think that I-- you’re my brother! You’re one of my best friends! I know we’ve been kind of at each other’s throats lately, but I never thought of you as anything less!”

Recovering from a kind of shock that he’d said anything at all, Hongbin’s knees pulled up toward his chest and he rested his crossed arms on top of them. He groaned quietly, realising he had to keep going and that the plunge had happened. “I know-- no, I meant … that-- what I’m trying to say is ….” He took a deep breath loudly and put some resolve in his voice. “It’s that friend part. I always wanted-- I mean, not always, I guess, but … lately, I-- I wanted to be more than that.” He let his face flop forward onto his arms, burying his face and muffling his voice. “But you never let me.”

Wonshik remained stunned, his ears burning with the redness beginning to crawl up his skin. Comprehension was very slowly beginning to trace its way into his mind, and he started to question if he was dreaming or hearing things wrong. He quit his pacing and stared at Hongbin’s form in the other corner, looking not unlike a small child reeling from punishment. As the words hit their mark, his voice went deadly calm and very steady. “More than that? Never let you? Where did this even come from?”

“Forget it,” Hongbin’s upset voice came from between his folded arms. “Please forget it.”

“No,” Wonshik riposted with icy stillness. “I’m confused and just a little bit insulted. When did you ever tell me that you felt that way? When did you even give me a chance to respond without assuming all this?”

Hongbin’s head lifted and he couldn’t help the shame and distrust that crossed his features, like he’d just been accused of stealing money from a kid’s piggy bank. “It’s not that I didn’t do--” He suddenly stopped, his expression switching from disgraced to bewildered. “W-Wait, what do you mean ‘respond’?” His voice went cautious, as if talking to a riled animal. “What would you have responded with?”

A vibrating noise came from Wonshik’s pocket, where he’d returned his phone after standing, and he pulled the mobile out to glance at it. Ignoring whatever alert he’d gotten, he steadily met Hongbin’s eyes and let out a breath he didn’t even really realise he’d been holding. Pocketing the phone again, he slowly and tentatively made his way to the corner that his bandmate was curled up in, settling down on one knee a couple of feet away. They were treating each other with so much caution, as if one wrong move would bring the ceiling crumbling to the floor. He leaned his arms on his raised knee and gently replied, “That I always tease you for being so handsome because I think you’re beautiful.”

“Wh-What?” All Hongbin could manage was a stutter.

“All of you, not just your stupid pretty flower boy face.”

“Wha--”

“That that’s why I’ve been getting on your case lately,” Wonshik continued, ignoring the blush in his face. In both of their faces. He fidgeted with the collar of his shirt and then toyed idly with the hem of the leg of his jeans, suddenly unable to look his groupmate in the eye. “That I’ve been … that I’ve been wanting you to put your best self forward … for our fans.” He looked up, fighting the timidness surfacing; luckily, he was good at that. “I want them to see what I see all the time, on- or off-camera.”

Hongbin’s completely floored expression could not be erased by mere willpower. He swallowed back the jitters in his system, keeping a steady eye on Wonshik, still crouched just a couple of feet away. He had to resist the urge to pinch himself to see if this was really happening, and instead unfolded his arms and hugged his knees in toward himself, scarcely aware that he looked (and probably sounded) about ten years younger than he actually was. “You actually … feel that way for me?”

“Pretty much always ing have,” Wonshik confirmed with a matter-of-fact nod. He disentangled his legs out from under him and planted himself directly next to his bandmate, back up against the wall, but not quite ready to reach out to him. His voice took on a more comforting tone, but who out of the two of them it was intended for was unknown. Probably both. “Maybe if you’d given me a chance instead of presuming to know how I felt, you wouldn’t have been such an all the time.” He attempted a soothing half-smile.

Completely embarrassed, Hongbin stared at the floor directly in front of them, all too aware that he could feel the heat radiating from Wonshik’s body next to him. “But,” he started, shaking his head in mild disbelief, “you’re always such a … a flirt. The fans love you for it, and you treat everyone like that. I never even got a hint of it from you though.”

Wonshik managed a barked laugh. “Oh, please! First of all,” he began, tipping his head forward to try to meet Hongbin’s eyes. “that’s a big part of my stage personality, and you know it. I like to flirt, sure, but I load it up tenfold for them. Second of all, you tell me: when has it ever been easy to flirt with the person you want?”

Hongbin gave a light shake of his head in response.

“Exactly. For them it’s a show, but I never needed to do that with you.” Wonshik nudged his left shoulder against the other in an attempt to pull him from his shell. “I never needed to put on a front with you. You know me for me, and that’s all.”

“Oh.”

Silence once again enveloped over the two, but it was leaps and bounds from what had been plaguing them earlier. Relief was involved in this time, although both of their nerves still felt like they were on fire. As before held the sudden fear of confession, though, a different kind of feverishness began to develop as they were both acutely receptive to their close proximity.

A bbzzzttt vibration sound pulled both of them away from their thoughts, and Wonshik immediately made a sour face. “Come on,” he muttered with annoyance, stretching his legs out in front of him so he could pull the phone back out of his pocket again. He glimpsed at the message on the screen then once again ignored it, putting it away. All Hongbin could observe in the quick moment was that it was Hakyeon texting him, but that was it.

“What’s N hyun--”

“It’s not important,” Wonshik interrupted, turning his body and pulling his back away from the wall to completely face Hongbin. He reached out and confidently pried his groupmate’s hands off from hugging his knees to his chest, and unfolded the other’s body as if he were a stiff mannequin. With his legs now extended straight out instead of blocking his torso, Wonshik turned himself so he could place one hand on the other side of Hongbin’s legs, leaning his body over him casually and staring straight into his now-wide eyes. “What is important is what’s been established today. And that is … ?” he trailed off, attempting to prompt an answer like a teacher would to a student. A playful smile sat on his lips.

“That maybe I should have said something,” Hongbin mumbled, clearly a bit flustered by thinking about his recent actions. He didn’t have much of a choice but to retain Wonshik’s eye contact. “That maybe if I had, I’d have been able to do something about this internal-- this-- this frustration that’s been driving me crazy.”

“Exactly!” Wonshik exclaimed, his good-natured smile morphing into a big, impish grin. In a shift of what he was feeling earlier, he seemed to be oozing confidence. “And if you’d wanted to do something about this frustration, you say, you should have just done something like this.”

Still leaning against his right hand across the other’s body, he brought his left hand up to rest on the crook of Hongbin’s neck and shoulder as he leaned in for an electrifying kiss. Feeling sparks on the tips of his nerves, Hongbin’s hands instinctively grasped awkwardly at handfuls of Wonshik’s t-shirt, and he returned the kiss with vigor. He pulled away from the wall and leaned his weight into the other, careful not to knock him backwards, countering the push by tugging forcefully on the shirt. Wonshik responded in turn, pushing back with some aggression, tongue entering the equation that lips had began.

Suddenly needing to catch their breaths, the two separated by mere inches with hesitation and found themselves staring short-winded into each other’s covetous eyes. “Woah,” Hongbin breathed, his very familiar dimpled smile splitting across his face, no longer able to hold back the excitement in him. “I really should have done that before.”

Wonshik waggled his eyebrows up once and nodded in agreement. “It would have been really hot,” he jokingly chided, “although you have to admit I’m way smoother at that than you are. Did you see how I swooped? That was a good swoop.”

Hongbin laughed aloud, releasing some of the tension in his body.

“Ahh, there’s what I needed,” Wonshik mused, affectionately brushing the hair off of Hongbin’s forehead. He then pulled himself completely away, attempting to hide how hard his hands were shaking. “There’s the smile and laugh that the fangirls love, I was beginning to think I wouldn’t see it again.” He climbed up shakily from the floor, gaining a kind of steadiness on two feet, and offered his hand out to Hongbin.

Upon taking Wonshik’s hand and pulling himself up off the floor, he readjusted the towel that had been resting on his shoulders and glanced inquisitively over at the door. “Wait, how are we supposed to leave? Do we just tell them the secret code of truce and they let us out?”

Wonshik nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, the door’s been open for a while now.”

Hongbin blinked in surprise, caught off-guard. “Wait. What?”

“Yeah, that’s what those texts were,” Wonshik continued coolly, trying to hide his grin as he noticed the realisation spreading across Hongbin’s face. “Hakyeon hyung couldn’t contain his guilt anymore when he heard us shouting, and he told us to come out and talk about it as a group. I guess he didn’t want to interrupt though because he never came in.”

After a moment of staring, Hongbin blurted, “Wait what-- how-- why didn’t you tell me sooner?!”

At the stammering, Wonshik completely burst out laughing. “Why?!” he exclaimed, letting out a grunt in surprise when Hongbin landed a punch to his shoulder. “You think I was going to disturb that amazing conversation we just had?! No way, holy , I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.”

“I mean--” Hongbin sputtered again, conflicting expressions crossing his face. “I mean, I guess so, but you could have said something. I wasn’t about to leave.”

“I know. Besides,” Wonshik added, effortlessly slinking his arm across Hongbin’s shoulders so he could lean in closer to him as they stood there, “there was a part of me that really wanted to see the look on one of their faces if they’d walked in at just the right moment.”

Side-eyeing him in an attempt to hide the bit of blush gliding up his neck, Hongbin snorted with amusement. “I mean, we really just kissed, I don’t think--”

In one swift aggressive movement, Wonshik tightened his grip across Hongbin’s shoulders and half-push, half-stumbled, him toward the wall. With a thud, his partner hit it and gasped in surprise. Wonshik planted his hands firmly on either side of the other’s torso and leaned in close, a devillish smirk on his face and a mischievous glint in his dark eyes. “Just kissed? Because, I mean, if that wasn’t enough for you, we could--”

“Hey, I didn’t say--”

“How much more do you want to fit in before the others catch on?” Wonshik murmured.

He’d just managed to press his lower body forward and lean in for the kill when they suddenly heard their leader proclaim, “Look, I know I said ‘make out’, but I wasn’t expecting it to actually convince you guys! Come on! I’d say ‘Get a room,’ but I guess you kind of did.”

A strained noise of surprise escaped Hongbin’s lips, and he flushed a deep scarlet. "N hyung, there’s--”

“Your timing ,” Wonshik groaned, pulling away calmly from the other. He straightened out his shirt and readjusted his beanie once again while turning toward the doorway, where Hakyeon stood with a completely unruffled look on his face. “I thought you might have gotten the hint when I didn’t reply.”

“No, I actually assumed one of you knocked the other out, and your silence was either your admission of guilt or that you were passed out.” Hakyeon shrugged mildly. “I’m guessing this means you guys are cool now and we totally helped! Taekwoonie owes us money.”

Hongbin spoke up, mumbling, “ty plan but good results.”

“Yeah, kind of a move,” Wonshik agreed, “but, as usual, you were right.” He started to make his way out of the room. “I normally really hate it when you’re right, but I’ll make an exception this time.”

“You’ll make an exception every time if you know what’s good for you,” Hakyeon retorted as he exited the room, tossing over his shoulder, “and we’re about to have dinner, so hold off on your manly urges until later, okay? Unless you want Hyukie catching more than just your innuendo-filled conversation on camera.”

Wonshik followed suit, turning his head back and slyly winking at Hongbin. “Okay, until later then.”

Feeling completely overwhelmed with emotion, embarrassment, and near-staggering ual frustration, Hongbin was finally able to slink away from the wall and move his unstable legs in the direction of the doorway.

“Seriously though,” he whined to no one in particular on his way out, running a sweaty palm through his messy hair, “why didn’t you tell me sooner?!"