BEFORE

He breathes in and out, letting the cold wall he leans on soothe his erratic heart. His busted lip hurts like a , and his right eye throbs with what will certainly become an ugly bruise. His scrapped knuckles are the least of his problems considering this; it’s almost dawn, and he has to go back home soon if he wants to avoid seeing his parents leaving for work.

Han Sanghyuk was born into a common household, from common parents. As a child, he wasn’t much, a common kid with average looks and average grades. He didn’t show interest in anything in particular and wasn’t particularly good at anything either. He also wasn’t one to give his parents headache, because despite being an average person, Sanghyuk did try his best. 

The catch is, you don’t get to be average in a house in which lived his older brother. Brilliant hyung, hyung who got the best grades and succeeded into everything he put his mind into; swimming? He had been the county’s winner for the past four years. Track? Fastest in his category. Class President, Student Council Treasurer, Voted by the students as Most Handsome in Third Year. In a house with his brother, being mediocre meant being invisible. 

At fourteen, Sanghyuk did his best to be like his brother; he studied until he had migraines, he woke up at 4a.m to run around the neighborhood and used up all his allowance to keep his appearance as close to his brother as he could. He forgot about his interests – reading mangas and comic books and taking pictures – to go for more approachable, sociable ones, so maybe he could achieve a third of his brother’s popularity. 

For some time, it worked; his grades went up, he started to lose some of his baby-fat, he had more friends than ever and a girl even confessed to him. At the first signal of being noticed by his parents, his brother did him a favor and entered the most prestigious university in South Korea. It didn’t matter that Sanghyuk had done his best, for his best was nothing compared to the sheer amazingness that was his older brother.

At fifteen, Sanghyuk stopped trying; he was once again the average boy, another faceless student in his school. His supposed friends vanished one by one; girls didn’t spare him a second look. 

With the sudden free time in his hands, Sanghyuk dedicated it to go back to his hobbies. He bought all the late issues for his favorite mangas and spent everything he had on a new phone.

It’s just coincidence he met a bunch of kids looking for trouble; they saw his bags of shopping and decided he’d be the one they’re going to steal them from, and not before roughing him up a bit against a wall in an alley. They shove him against the wall and mock him, take his bags from him and slap his face.

Years after this day, Sanghyuk will still remember what he felt; the loathing for those horrible people, the frustration from having failed at being like his brother, revolt from even having tried to be like him. He was his own person, why should he be different? The fault was his parents’ that never bothered to love him like he was; who couldn’t accept him as simply Sanghyuk, their youngest child. He hated them, hated his brother who didn’t do anything for him, hated his fake friends and especially, hated himself for trying to mold to fit in with them. What good had this done him?

All this hate morphed into rage when he saw the smirking faces of his assailants. His fist connected with a nose in a resounding crack and Sanghyuk’s memories blur after that beyond the pain, adrenaline and waves upon waves of pent up aggression.

He went back home with a swollen eye, a split lip and aching ribs. Unexpectedly, his body was light, his mind clear.

From that day onwards, Sanghyuk found a way to deal with all of his feelings.

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In the end, Hakyeon ends up merely taking the discolored green off his bangs and t the edges, despite having talked the entire bus ride from their apartment to the hair saloon about wanting to innovate and go beyond. Years ago, Taekwoon would have been very annoyed by this. He comes from a naturally quiet family, and too much noise and mindless chatter is something that to this day, makes him uncomfortable. 

Hakyeon is an exception in some cases; his lifelong friend is going through a rough phase, with his incoming dance presentation, his new conquest – from what he tells him, a handsome boy he wraps tighter around his finger day after day – and the intense, sudden strain with Sanghyuk. For the past week at least, Hakyeon has avoided the youngest of their little group with fervor, leaving a room as soon as Sanghyuk enters it, leaving the boy confused and hurt. He still hasn’t said anything to Taekwoon, which is unexpected. Hakyeon can bottle up his emotions, yet he never does so with him.

It leaves a foul taste on his mouth, to be in the dark when his friend is so obviously suffering, and not for the first time, Taekwoon wishes he could be better at communicating his thoughts. He wouldn’t hesitate to comfort Hakyeon if he knew what words to use. Now he offers his time and his ears, not complaining when Hakyeon drags him to do his nails or spend forty minutes at a clothes shop and not buy anything. He bears with Hakyeon’s whims, following him silently.

They’ve rarely fought like this, Taekwoon and Hakyeon; the first years of their friendship was difficult, to say the least. Taekwoon and Sanghyuk never fought to a point of one ignoring the other.

Hakyeon and Sanghyuk fight a lot; some of it is thanks to their very clashing personalities, some thanks to Hakyeon’s actions and some… thanks to a tension that increases as years pass, something that permeates the air when the two are in the same room, too close to each other.

“This would look great on you, Taekwoonie! Try it, try it!”

Hakyeon snaps him out of his thoughts by waving a stripped black and red shirt on his face. He puts it on his chest, checking the size.

Greyish, slightly wavy hair falls around his eyes, obscuring his vision; it fells weird to push the hydrated strands back, away from his face. He had kept the dyed blonde, after being scolded by the hairdresser that he should take more care of it. It’s not as blonde as it was before though, this time greyish, which accordingly to the person doing it, would not damage it as much. Hakyeon, as he expected, had trimmed his bangs and taken the green off, his sudden courage in changing drastically leaving as soon as they had gotten to the beauty parlor.

Sighing, Taekwoon obeys, picking the shirt. He reminds himself he’s doing this to distract Hakyeon of his miserable moping. It’s not like he has anything better to do.

Images of spending time in a room full of baby animals, playing with them as he hums softly cross his head. A week has passed since he last visited Caramel and the other animals, and he misses her. Not that he would ever admit it to anyone – not even to himself – but he also feels some longing for seeing the dimples in Hongbin’s chiseled face. The other boy doesn’t mean anything to him, but he also isn’t like the people around the campus; he doesn’t stare at Taekwoon like he is a rare animal in a fair, despite the way he eyes his face and body. Taekwoon knows he ranks high on appearance – Hakyeon is sure to update him on the ever growing rumor mill that circles the ‘B1 trio’ – even if he isn’t exactly sure why. Maybe because he walks with both Hakyeon and Sanghyuk, who are beautiful and handsome; an illusion people believe in.

Hongbin is someone people look twice at, yet he looks Taekwoon like he’s the one who should be looked at, at the same time he sees how uncomfortable that makes him. Outside Hakyeon and Sanghyuk, he’s the only one who can bear to stay by his side in silence, not bothered by his ways. He listens to Park Hyoshin and talks about his music as passionately as Taekwoon feels for them. As expected for someone in the vet course, he holds the animals with immerse care, looks at them with so much fondness.

Taekwoon doesn’t understand why his chest tightens when he spends time thinking about the younger boy. Must be the loneliness finding forms of distraction to the ache in his heart every time he witnesses the building tension between his two friends, the stares he receives at practice that scream ‘unworthy’ at the cracks on his voice.

Either way, it’s not an unpleasant feeling. 

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Jaehwan knows when to shut up and be quiet when the situation calls for it.

Right now, he wonders what would happen if he cracked a joke at Sanghyuk.

If murderous is his normal, everyday look, today Sanghyuk looks like he’s about to commit a massacre. There’s this tension set on his hunched shoulders and a maniac gleam in his eyes that bothers even he, the king of nonchalance. They are sat on the library, supposedly to work on their assignment together, but since he’d arrived, Sanghyuk hasn’t said anything. He ignored Jaehwan’s hello and glared at the world from then on. Everyone on the library is giving them a wide berth, the sound of whispers loud in the otherwise quiet place.

He knows Sanghyuk is being ignored by Hakyeon for reasons the boy doesn’t know, and that that is ing the boy up; he’s someone who is in like, a crazy-dependent and is also in love with 1/3 of said , so Jaehwan kind of understands.

Kind of; he’s not an emotionally-constipated brat with anger issues.

Speaking of anger issues, Sanghyuk has a lot of issues in general; the psychology students would have a field day with him. With the entirety of the B1 trio, to be honest, but especially Sanghyuk.

As if feeling his eyes on him, Sanghyuk glares, baring his teeth at him like a beast.

Like said before, Jaehwan knows when to be quiet.

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When Hakyeon invited him to go see a movie, Wonshik had mentally fist bumped himself. Till that moment, he had been the one to go after Hakyeon like a – ugh, this is what bothered him the most – lovesick puppy, and to be sought after certainly felt like a victory, a step closer to win the bet. 

He should have known it was too easy, and to this point, nothing related to the dancer had been so.

As soon as Hakyeon sees him, he turns his back and walks towards the cinema, leaving Wonshik to once again trail after him, and if that doesn’t deflate Wonshik’s recently acquired ego, he doesn’t know what will. Hakyeon acts like he knows what is going on through his head, and continues to thoroughly act in that indifferent manner that he doesn’t really show anyone. He buys his own ticket to a – , , , is there still time to cancel this mistake? – psychological horror and proceeds to cross his arms, as if annoyed by the time Wonshik’s taking. 

Cursing his past drunk self, Wonshik also buys his ticket, stuffing it on his jeans’ pockets to try to forget its existence until the time comes. He was ready to see the melodramatic movie couples are making a line to wait for – girls giggling at the begrudging faces their boyfriends make – or with luck, the new Marvel movie groups are gathering to wait. , he’s sure that he and Hakyeon are the only ones who bought tickets to see a horror movie. 

Wonshik is not afraid, nope, he’s not. It’s just that horror movie tend to have bugs, which he hates… and ghosts, that be pretty ing scary… , okay, he’s a little afraid.

The fact that Hakyeon doesn’t seem at all fazed by the title makes it worse; what if he screams and embarrasses himself to the point he’ll never want anything to do with Wonshik ever again?

“I didn’t know you liked horror movies, hyung,” he tries to break the silence, since Hakyeon hasn’t really said anything for the past fifteen minutes.

“I don’t.”

The answer is flat, tone emotionless. Kind of pisses him off, a little – or a lot.

“Then why–”

“Are you going to buy snacks or..?” Hakyeon interrupts him, not even looking in his direction. Wonshik sees that the people around them are starting to move towards their movie’s doors.

“Wasn’t planning to,” he admits, counting how much more money he had to spend on this… “Do you want me to buy you anything?”

Hakyeon doesn’t answer, instead choosing to grab him by his hand, the act so surprising Wonshik lets himself be guided by the other, as engrossed as he is in staring at their linked fingers – Hakyeon’s hands are impossibly soft and warm, no roughness or callus that he can identify. He hands his ticket over to the guy at the entrance without paying attention; a little behind Hakyeon as he is, he has this great view of his jeans cladded , and Wonshik is just a weak, weak man. He doesn’t protest or attempts to say anything else, some of his irritation vanishing after his privileged view and the feeling of Hakyeon’s hand on his.

He is all but thrown on his sit, a bit too distant from the screen that he prefers – in this case, might be perfect, he doesn’t want to be any closer to the movie than he already is – with Hakyeon taking place by his side. Like he imagined, there’s almost no one with them on the room. Before the lights go dim, he counts a small group of four heads far from them and another single head, and who in the world goes to see a horror movie by themselves?, six rows beneath them.

Mentally preparing his body to not embarrass himself, in the beginning Wonshik doesn’t notice what is going on. The hand that holds his suddenly isn’t there anymore, instead softly lying on his thigh. It stays there during the trailers, and during the first fifteen minutes of movie, enough that Wonshik forgets about it. 

That is, forgets it until deft fingers start to run through his thigh, short nails scratching at his jeans teasingly. A shiver runs through his whole body.

“Hakyeon-hyung?” he whispers to Hakyeon, struggling to keep his eyes on the movie in front of him in an attempt to focus on the few minutes of peace it has to offer. “What are you doing?”

At first, Hakyeon doesn’t say anything, merely humming to show he’s listened; Wonshik’s heart beats so loudly he wonders if the other can’t hear it from his place, and the room wasn’t so hot like this before, was it? 

“What do you think I’m doing, hmm, Wonshik-ah?” Hakyeon leans over his seat, saying it directly into his ear. His breath is hot and the hairs on Wonshik’s nape stand on attention.

Before he can answer properly, lips touch his face, robbing him of any word he would have conjured. Instead he turns his face, meeting Hakyeon’s half obscured face. Even with minimum light his lips look shiny and tempting and his eyes are half-lidded, fixed on Wonshik’s. All he can focus on is the blatant invitation coming from the man he’s supposed to seduce; he feels as if he’s the one being seduced, going after a beautiful butterfly only to fall on a spider’s net. Hakyeon is the spider, weaving his silky web around him, watching him struggle with a broad smile.

He remembers their dance. Their bodies had fit well and Hakyeon’s body was hot like a furnace, his dark skin unblemished and as alluring as the swaying of his hips. Somehow, Wonshik knows this moment is different from this one; Hakyeon is a predator too, not a prey he’ll feast on. Adrenaline rushes through his blood, exhalation at the development. He wants this, to play this dangerous game so he can ultimately win it, and victory will be sweet. 

Hakyeon willingly lets himself be pushed into his lap, falling on top of it with grace. Hot hands touch his face for a brief moment; he can still feel their warmth before fingers grab his hair and lips crash into his.

They taste like peach, and are soft and velvety as one. Wonshik doesn’t lose time with keeping the kiss chaste, not with the way Hakyeon sighs and grips his hair tighter. His own grip tightens on Hakyeon’s waist, the fabric bunching up in his hands, closing the already non-existent space between their bodies. A scream echoes inside the theater, probably someone being murdered, as horror movies usually go. Easily ignored, with teeth nipping at his bottom lip and hot body pressed to his. 

Wonshik kisses Hakyeon with everything he has and receives equal passion back from the other. On his tongue, Hakyeon’s peach chapstick starts to taste like victory.

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This chapter is not the greatest, not the longest. Still, I hope everyone can enjoy it.