Junhui hasn't noticed it before, but Minghao has a lot of bruises. He's flabbergasted as to how he hadn't noticed sooner, but he blames it on the fact Minghao likes to wear pants and long-sleeved shirts one size too big—it's not-so-secretly cute. Still, when Junhui stares at Minghao's bruises a pang of guilt hits his chest, or is it his heart?

Wait, were those scabs, too? What in the world was this boy doing, fighting crime on the side?

“Jun...?”

Minghao's voice breaks Junhui's train of thought. The silver-haired boy is still shining with sweat from practice while exhaustion eclipses his eyes but somehow Minghao smiles under Junhui's blank face. For a moment Junhi forgets the injuries on his friend's arm, instead he shoots a silly grin back and Minghao breaks out into a mess of giggles and wiggling limbs. The b-boy ends up rolling onto his back to Junhui's amusement. Slowly, the laughter dies down into a calm silence once again.

“You're being weird,” Minghao mutters as his long legs kick out to nudge Junhi's prone form. It's not long before Minghao's standing up to leave, pulling down the sleeves to his shirt which reminds Junhui of the bruises, but before he can ask Minghao's talking in a mixture of Korean and Chinese. Well, it's mostly Chinese with two or three Korean words sprinkled messily.

It's also kinda, sorta cute.

“I need to find Hoshi. I'll see you back at the dorm.”

Junhui wants to stop Minghao and ask him about the injuries but he's a little too exhausted. Besides, they were all boys, boys got hurt.

(What does he want with Hoshi anyway?)

The brunette groans and proceeds to roll on the floor.

A few days after Junhui's discovery, however; the Chinese idol notices another, rather large, bruise on Minghao's knee. The younger male resents wearing shorts due to his thin, wiry figure—same with sleveless shirts—but tonight's a particularly humid night. Some of the members probably went to bed in their underwear.

Junhui derails that train of thought like his life depended on it.

“What happened to your knee, Minghao?”

The dancer jumps at the question, having not expected to turn only to find his friend towering over him; he blames his skittishness on sleep deprivation.

“My knee? What about my knee?” He questions softly, his Chinese slurring a little as he tries (and fails) to conceal a yawn.

Junhui's eyes soften as he gives the boy room to breath, “I mean, there's a huge bruise on your leg.”

It takes Minghao a minute to understand—Junhui practically sees the wheels in his head turning—before he lets out an “Oooh” in realization.

“Hoshi-hyung and I were practicing. I accidentally fell.”

Eyebrows knitting together, Junhui leaves the kitchen, forgetting why he was in there in the first place, and strides back to their room where a passed-out Soonyoung is sprawled on the floor. Junhui shakes the leader of the performance team awake, well, half awake because it's two in the morning for god's sake. Junhui fails to take that into account though as he reprimands the same-aged boy.

It's all in Chinese of course (which Jun also fails to notice) and Jihoon threatens to get his guitar if they don't shut the hell up.

Much to Junhui's dismay, Minghao seems to get more bruises the more he hangs out with the other members. Today it's all Hansol's fault.

“Didn't he have protective padding on,” Junhui half shouts as he squares his shoulders off, trying to seem intimidating but it's rather hard when you have such a pretty face. Hansol seems more amused than terrified. Sometimes he thinks the members forget he does martial arts.

“Don't get mad at me, it's not like we were doing tricks or anything! He just rode the thing for literally five seconds before crashing! I don't even know how he managed it,” Hansol defends.

Somewhere in the kitchen Junhui hears a small cackle. His eyes train on Seungkwan who's resting against the counter, a smile on his face, “C'mon hyung, you know how much of a klutz Myungho-hyung can be.” The vocalist his head to the side when Junhui shakes his head no.

“What? You didn't know? You're all over him like a sloth, how can you not know?”

Junhui lightly smacks the back of Hansol's head, “Because I make sure he doesn't get hurt. Obviously something no one does around here,” the brunette denounces with squinted eyes.

“Don't be so salty~” Junhui hears Hansol sing out. He responds with some rather colorful words, all in Chinese of course.

Turns out Seungkwan wasn't kidding when he said Minghao was quite accident-prone. The performance team plus Seungcheol and Jisoo are out jogging—sorta. They haven't gotten very far because Minghao keeps tripping over his own two feet, slammed his shoulder against a utility pole and even tripped on a curb. After a while Seungcheol offers to walk with Minghao until they reach the Han River where “there are less things to hurt yourself with” the leader explains.

“You're already skinny, hyung. You don't need to jog,” Chan complains, walking by the dancer's side a little too close for Junhui's comfort. Minghao lets out a soft whine at this; the members watch as the two younger boys argue back and forth. It's a little concerning how well Minghao's korean is when arguing—much better than his conversational skills.

Junhui isn't the only one curious judging by the look of surprise on Jisoo's face. It's probably Hansol's fault, the kid causes a lot of trouble.

“Wait, Myungho-hyung!” Their maknae suddenly yells out.

All eyes are suddenly back on Minghao as the tall Chinese boy starts to run. Jisoo yells for him to wait up as they start to run towards him, but Minghao doesn't make it far as his foot catches a break in the sidewalk. Balance suddenly off kilter, Minghao leans to the right where the sidewalk slopes to grass to meet the Han river.

Junhui doesn't think he's ever ran so fast in his entire life.

When he gets down to where Minghao is, he tries not to wince at the small cuts and grass stains, “God, we should have just left you at the dorm,” he grouses with a small smile.

“Did everyone see that?” Minghao questions staring at the river he was so close to falling into.

“Yeah...”

“I'm never going to live this down, am I?”

Junhui chuckles as he pulls the skinny teenager up. It's an obvious “yeah” but he doesn't want to say it. The two slowly walk up the slop to see the other members grinning at them, well, they're grinning at Junhui anyway, except for Jisoo who is too busy inspecting the very sore Minghao.

After that Junhui becomes a little more...squid like. He makes sure he's near Minghao at all times, sometimes engaging in skinship, sometimes not, but either way the members feel a little suffocated just by looking at the China-line. Junhui doesn't notice, or rather refuses to notice, his recent clingy-ness towards Minghao until some of the members point it out.

Seokmin mentions it first while they're sitting in the van. Somehow Junhui got separated from Minghao but he can still see the top of the silver-haired boy's head so it eases him somewhat.

“You're spending a lot more time with lately,” Seokmin states casually, but Junhui isn't really paying attention. “I mean, not that you haven't before, but now you seem more...possessive? Haha, Myungho's cute though. What if we want him to ourselves? You should learn to share, hyung~”

Now that, that Junhui hears.

When the van drives over a pothole and Seokmin hits his head on the back of the van Junhui can't help but smirk. He focuses his eyes forward only to see Minghao's head being rubbed soothingly by Jeonghan.

Christ, Junhui just can't win, can he?

Jihoon mentions it too, in that grossed out way of his as if he were looking at Minggyu and Wonwoo. He and Minghao couldn't be that bad, right?

“I can't wait till we move to a new dorm so I don't have to eat to this,” the producer grumbles, quickly shoveling away his soup. Minghao's smile suddenly disappears as he stares down at his bowl almost guiltily. Junhui lets the younger boy scoot away from him, knowing that if he doesn't it'll just make him more frustrated. Jun would have totally hit Jihoon if he didn't know what the short boy would try to do later. All possible scenarios involving guitars; he tries not to shiver.

“Jun, I'm fine,” Minghao complains for the umpteenth time at the kneeling down brunette. Junhui chooses to ignore him and continues to clean the cuts and scrapes on the teen's shins. It's particularly bad today, the cuts are deeper than usual and dirt is caked near the small wound. Junhui curses himself for sleeping in today. If he had known that Minghao was going to go hike with the rest of the members-

Minghao lightly kicks him, “Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Blaming yourself. It's not your fault.”

Junhui tugs the pant leg back down as he closes the medicine cabinet. He sometimes hates how Minghao knows what he's thinking.

“It's my fault, I should have just stayed home today with you,” Minghao moans, stretching his legs out slowly. Silence engulfs them but it's comfortable. That's what Junhui likes about being alone with Minghao, he doesn't feel pressured to talk a lot and when they do talk it doesn't have to be in Korean. Minghao is just like a little slice of China—a slice of home.

They end up moving to the couch in the living room, falling on it unceremoniously.

“I know that you don't like me getting hurt...” Minghao trails off, shifting so that there's some space between them, “but I'm a boy so it's okay.”

Junhui can't bring himself to stare at Minghao.

“So, don't worry about me. Besides, even if I get hurt I know you'll be there to help.”

“What if I get tired of being there,” Junhui challenges with a smirk.

Minghao huffs out a puff of air and grabs the nearest pillow and hits the brunette square in the face. “Be quiet,” he says with a giggle. Junhui can't help it, he falls forward laughing along, his body covering Minghao's as the teen tries to wriggle out of his grasp.

The two can faintly hear the sound of the door opening as the members pile inside. Jihoon lets out a groan of “get a room” and the two stop laughing for a moment only to start back up again.

Maybe Junhui can learn to get used to this.

A/N: Junhui and Minghao most likely talk to eachother in Chinese when it's just them, but if you're learning a new language sometimes you mix in some words :) Minghao is just to precious for words >_> I need more stories about him! I'm not sure what Junhui's personality is like, but from what I get is that he's usually quiet and rather 4D, but I guess he's also very skinship-y??? Anyways, if you're wondering what "Salty" means just go to Urban dictionary, I can't explain slang :d I guess that's all I have to say, please don't forget to comment if you liked it!