Prompt—BFF!Sekai,

 

Chanyeol fooled his friends into thinking that he's a psychic and jokingly predicted that Sehun and Jongin would be together since they're practically joined to the hip. This prediction confused the two best friends into overthinking the thought of them being a couple that would leave them having real deep feelings for each other.

 

Note (s)—i know i took fifteen thousand years to come with this, but i hope you love this nonetheless Tisha. i can’t even describe how happy i am that i finally finished this, i had been struggling so much with this. i am in ugly tears. okay, whatever, please enjoy everyone! 

---

 

The story of Sehun and Jongin begins in the heart of Seoul; on 14th January, they meet in some mall, dressed snugly in their cutest jackets only to end up fighting  with each other between the crowd of hundreds and thousands of people.

Now, it wasn’t always that you see five-year-olds having rivalry for a bear plushie, but Jongin would go as far as to say that he owned the plushie even before it was produced. Sehun was just the ‘villain’ of their small love story—of his and his cute bear plushie. They were with their parents; they were right at the same spot. The plushie that Sehun wanted was already sold out; the plushie that Jongin wanted was only one in the shop. It made sense that he was willing to beg his mother to buy that for him; Sehun had been just as willing. Why wouldn’t he be, when people around them were cooing at Jongin’s adorable antic and no one was paying attention to him? So he fought and begged his own mother. The shopkeeper was torn, the mothers were already in the battleground, and the kids were on the verge of tears.

Jongin...had won the lady shopkeeper’s heart before Sehun could just because there were more cheering for him from the crowd; people said Jongin looked cuter between the two kids; he was smaller in size, he was almost swollen by his own clothes, he couldn’t even slap his hands on the low counter, and he was already crying his heart out. Jongin’s mother, triumphant, said that the bear plushie had always been his baby’s favourite. To even think of separating from one would be nothing short of heartbreaking for him. Of course, the whole Kim family was nothing but dramatic.

Just before leaving the place for good, Sehun had passed a very angry look to Jongin, eyes determined to make sure the boy knew how much he hated him. Jongin had just giggled and left with his mother, happily.

-

 

-

“I heard your mother saying it was your birthday, otherwise, I wouldn’t have given up.”

Jongin rolls his eyes, sliding beside his best friend to look around the same mall they’d met for the first time in their lives. “As if I hadn’t already won everyone’s heart; I am cute, aren’t I?” He pouts, showing his big, watery eyes to his best friend. Unfortunately, Sehun couldn’t say that his best friend doesn't look cute; he cannot even think how cute he probably used to look during his childhood. From whatever pictures he has seen of Jongin’s childhood, he can say that Jongin had already passed him in one thing: being cuter and more adorable than many kids of their age.

“Yes, you are,” he replies, just because he knows Jongin wouldn’t step back until he gets the answer he wants. “Want to have some coffee?”

“I don’t drink coffee, Hun,” he whines, slapping a hand on Sehun’s bicep when he goes on rambling how he has a baby for his best friend. “They taste horrible; they taste like poison.”

“Have you ever tasted poison before?”

Jongin passes him an unimpressed look. “I haven’t, but I have tasted coffee, so I know what poison tastes like.”

“Very funny,” Sehun replies, rolling his eyes before pulling a reluctant Jongin inside the cafe; “do you want to go to the party today?” Sehun asks when they’re done ordering their respective orders.

“Well, why won’t we?”

Sehun is silent for some moments, eyes catching the gentle lights falling over his best friend’s admittedly pretty face. “You know what I am saying, Nini.”

Jongin sighs and leans against the cushioned chair. “I think I have already moved on from it.”

“You wouldn’t have cried last night then.” Jongin widens his eyes and looks surprised for a second. “We slept in your bedroom last night, Nin; of course I know you were crying.” Jongin sighs and looks away, eyes resolutely fixed on the bear stickers on the glass. “Nin,” Sehun calls, resting his hand over his best friend’s, he speaks in a gentle but firm tone, “he didn’t deserve you, and we both know that.”

Jongin stays silent until the barista leaves their table. “...but I loved him with whatever I had.”

“Leave him; some people don’t realize the worth of something until they lose it. He has lost you; you’re never going to allow him come near you again. Promise me?”

Jongin looks hesitant when he presses his hand on his best friend’s. “Promise.” He smiles, eyes wide and glossy. “We are going to have so much fun at Chanyeol’s!”

Sehun laughs, nodding along the beats of the song playing in the background. “I hope it to be a bash.”

“It will be,” Jongin answers, sounding sure of himself; “Chanyeol’s parties are always a bash.”

-

 

-

The two five-year-olds met a few weeks later in their new school; they happened to be in the same class, and they happened to be neighbours as well. Of course, there was no way of avoiding each other, they had to talk to each other someday or the other.

Jongin was the first one to approach Sehun, face spilt into a wide smile, he’d plopped next to Sehun’s seat because he’d noticed students avoiding Sehun just because he looked angry every time. His mummy told him that sometimes people do that because they are afraid to be approached by anyone; Jongin knew the new boy was the same case. Sehun had looked shocked for a second before he’d schooled his expression back to what it always was.

“Hello,” he’d greeted cheerily, a giggle lost somewhere in the puerile tone. “I am Kim Jongin. What’s your name?” Sehun hadn’t greeted back, Jongin thought that was very rude. “Hello, I am talking to you.” He waved his hands cutely, eyes blinking rapidly to show how adorable he was.

“You are the same boy who stole my plushie, I don’t think if we should talk.”

Jongin’s eyes had watered. “I love bears a lot! That plushie was mine from the start.”

Sehun scoffed, looking more mature than his real age. “You’re not the only one who loves plushie.”

“I did not say that.” Jongin pouted, wondering why the boy was so rude to him. He’d seen the plushie first, and he loved bear a lot; of course, the bear plushie had to be his. “We can be friends.”

“I don’t want friends.”

“You’re very rude.”

Sehun stayed silent throughout their free class; Jongin though wasn’t. He kept telling Sehun how he’d watched the latest episode of Doremon and liked it very much; how his mother had made him his favourite pastry; how his older sister told him story of three bears (“because I love bears!” he’d giggled); how he’d made a new friend; how he wanted to be Sehun’s friend as well so that they could do a lot of things together... among many other. Sehun had, surprisingly, listened to everything.

When the class was over and hence school as well, Sehun stood up and asked Jongin if he wanted to wait for his mother outside with him. Jongin had replied a loud “yes!”

They’d become friends the same day.

-

 

-

“Are you ready, Jongin?”

“Let me put these jeans, I am almost done!”

Sehun sighs and rubs his temple; going to any party with his best friend is a headache in itself. “Make it quick, I will be waiting outside.”

“Okay!”

He waits beside his car, humming to some song that he doesn’t remember the name of before scrolling through his Instagram to check if the cute chick he has been hitting on has posted something new. She hasn’t, he realizes with a dejected sigh, putting his phone back in his jeans pocket when Jongin comes rushing out of their small apartment. He walks inside the car before Jongin could, grabs his jacket and throws it on his best friend’s face, not allowing him any entry before he wears the jacket. “Wear it,” he repeats when Jongin stomps his feet on the ground, whining loudly.

“I don’t want to!”

“Jongin, I am not bringing you the party when you’re dressed like this.” He points to Jongin’s dressing choice, raising an eyebrow when Jongin throws his hands in the air.

From an outsider’s point of view, Sehun will look very dramatic, but Sehun knows that Jongin dressed in his skin tight jeans will bring nothing but a bad news to them. Jongin is one of the most popular guys (gays) of their school, freshly broke up with his boyfriend, no one will leave any chance to hit on his best friend. Sehun thinks he’s reasonable enough.

“You’re very mean—look they are freaking hiding my fingers!”

Sehun increases the volume of the music and lets his best friend complain for the rest of their ride to their friend’s, Chanyeol’s, place.

-

-

“When you said that you wanted to talk to us, we didn’t think you would say that.”

Jongin shifts a little on his seat, wondering when Chanyeol would stop looking at them with that look in his eyes.

They had been partying for over an hour when Chanyeol grabbed their arms and asked for some time because he’d wanted to tell them something ever since he realized his “powers” or something of that kind of . The best friends were as drunk as Chanyeol and followed the tallest with any thought.

They feel sober after hearing what Chanyeol wanted to say though. Very sober, in fact.

“Sehun isn’t even my type,” Jongin argues, Sehun snorts beside him.

“I don’t even like dudes to begin with.”

Chanyeol stays silent, watching as the best friend’s argue with each other; Jongin calling Sehun the meanest of names, and Sehun returning the favour with equal love.

“I did not say that you have to admit everything today,” he begins, catching the younger males’ attention at the heaviness in his voice. “I am not forcing any of my thoughts on you. In fact, I think you two will realize what I mean by yourself in some time.” He waves his hands a little, eyes hard and lips set in a straight line. “It’s not only me who has noticed these interactions between you two; you two look and act like freaking couple! You look more in love with each other than my own parents.”

Jongin shifts some more, Sehun clears his throat and looks away; they both don’t understand where their friend is coming from.

“The way you two act in each other’s presence, the way Sehun takes care of you, the way Jongin looks after you—I mean, guys, have you never noticed how much you two are in love?” They make no answer. “I remember one day when I came at your place and literally felt as if I came to a couple’s house. Do you remember Jongin had been cooking all that time, and you were with him the whole time? You even neglected me to make sure you help him out.”

“That’s what best friends do, Chanyeol.”

“No, no, Sehun, you do not understand!” He throws his hands in the air, annoyed at himself for not coming up with the right memories and words to explain his prediction. “Believe me or not, but I believe that you two will come together very soon. Like lovers, I mean like lovers—the boys who have always been in love but were too dumb to notice and accept it.”

Sehun’s phone rings, Chanyeol asks him to ignore it for the time being.

“Okay, tell me what you two would do if one of you ever fell in love with the other—suppose Sehun confesses that he’s in love with you, Jongin, then what would you do?”

“I—” Jongin begins sometime later when Chanyeol seems determined enough to hear an answer from him. “I think I will laugh and ask Sehun to shut it with his jokes?”

“Well,” Sehun begins, “I would do something similar as well.”

Chanyeol looks amused about something, Sehun’s phone rings once again; he says he has to leave, Chanyeol says he can. When there are only Jongin and him left, he pins the smaller under his gaze. “Jongin, my dear little friend, Sehun is going to realize first.”

“Can I sleep in here, in your bedroom?” He asks instead, falling flat on the bed before the elder can answer him. “I love this blanket a lot.”

“You can,” Chanyeol answers, voice different than before. “I want to cuddle you to sleep,” he sounds as if he has something in his mind. “Can I?”

“Yes, yes, please. I need someone to cuddle with.”

-

-

Sehun looks angry when Jongin opens his eyes the next morning; his best friend’s hair is messed, his shirt untucked from his jeans. Jongin knows his best friend scored a night with the girl he has been pining after for as long as he remembers. He tries to get up, but then realizes Chanyeol has a heavy arm draped over his waist, not allowing him to move at all. He whines a little, Chanyeol snuggles more into him.

“Sehunnie, save me,” he begs, peeking from his friend’s arm. “Why are you looking pissed off so early in the morning?”

Sehun looks taken aback for a second before he shakes his head and walks towards them. “Why did you even sleep with him—are you two ?”

“What the hell—we just cuddled! We didn’t sleep together.”

Sehun looks relieved before he grabs Chanyeol’s arm from Jongin’s waist and thus ‘helps’ him. “Thank God, I didn’t want to see your or your so early in the morning.”

“Very funny,” he snorts and then thanks his best friend for helping him. “Let’s go? I want to shower—congratulations though! I am sure you did that last night.”

Sehun blushes a little. “I asked her out as well.”

“Oh,” Jongin says, “what did she reply?”

“We are a couple now.”

Jongin squeals, jumping in his best friend’s arms. Sehun stumbles a little before helping his smaller friend on the floor with firm hands around his hips. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” he mutters, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck.

Chanyeol groans from the bed, the friends realize he is already awake. “You two are going to realize very soon.”

-

-

“Are you not coming to gym today?”

Jongin shakes his head and keeps shoving gummy bears in his mouth. “No, I don’t want to.”

“Why?—oh, Nin, you’re going to lose your abs and all those leg muscles just because of an . Don’t be like this,” he sighs, hovering where Jongin is sitting curled on the couch. “Let’s go.”

Jongin shakes his head. “I will keep remembering back to Taemin every time. I don’t wanna that!”

“You’re going to lose your y legs, my dear.”

Jongin looks like he’s contemplating, but then he’s shaking his head once again. “I need some time.”

Sehun sighs and rubs the tip of his finger over his eyebrow. “I am not going to force you, but I’ll always wait for you at gym.”

“You said you’re going with Irene, why do you even need me?”

“No one compares to my bear Nini~” he says in a sing a song voice, laughing when Jongin laughs at him. “No, but really,” he says, serious this time. “No one can take your place in my life, in my heart.”

There’s a grin on Jongin’s lips before he turns to look at Sehun. “Are you falling in love with me, Sehunnie?”

“What...”

“After what Chanyeol said yesterday—are you falling in love with me?”

Sehun slaps a hand on the back of his head, Jongin whines at the hit. “I can never fall in love with you. We don’t even look good together.” He steps back, grabs his duffle bag and leaves before his friend could come up with another of his .

Figuratively speaking, Jongin thinks, they do look good together. Or at least, everyone tells them that. Platonic, Jongin explains, platonically.

-

-

Jongin walks into the gym with the sight of his best friend heavily involved in hearing whatever the girl, Irene, is telling him. They look deep into conversation, and Jongin barely bites back the scoff when he realizes that his best friend is busy ogling her more than whatever she’s saying.

“Jealous?”

Jongin squawks, pushing Chanyeol aside. “Not in my ear, dammit, I am sensitive there.”

Chanyeol wriggles his eyebrows. “Should I tell Sehun about that?”

“Why would—Chanyeol, shut it already!” He whines, walking further into the gym, Chanyeol follows after him with a loud laugh. “Hey, Irene,” he greets, “Sehun, pay attention to what she’s saying, not her face.”

Irene giggles something in reply, for some reason she looks ugly to Jongin; he doubts if his friend did a right thing proposing her at all.

“I don’t like her,” Chanyeol admits when they move in a corner, Jongin busy on the treadmill. “I mean, she looks so ing fake.”

“Focus on your push ups, Chanyeol,” he advices; “let him be.”

“Are you not jealous?”

“Why would I be jealous?”

Chanyeol does not answer; Jongin thinks he’s now focusing on his push ups. “Do they look good together?”

Jongin’s answer is late, he answers nonetheless because Chanyeol looks too smug with his silence. “Sehun has been running after her for so long, it’s good they’re finally together.”

“That’s not what I asked, Jongin,” Chanyeol replies; “do you think they look good together?”

Jongin absentmindedly hums, not understanding what Chanyeol means by that. “They look good together.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

-

-

“Pass me salt,” Jongin asks, focused on the soup he has been making for the past ten minutes. “Hun, salt,” he repeats when Sehun does nothing.

“You are silent,”

“I am not, what are you saying?” His best friend has been repeating the same thing the whole day; Jongin does not understand what’s exactly wrong. It’s getting annoying, really. “What’s wrong with you?”

Sehun shrugs and passes his friend salt. “Just thought should tell you that you aren’t speaking today as much as you always do,” he explains.

Jongin hums something in reply, before feeding a spoon to the taller. “How’s it?” He asks, eyes shining in anticipation. Sehun replies that it’s above par, Jongin squeals in delight.

“Are you angry because I cancelled our plan?”

Jongin sighs; he’s not looking at his friend. “I have no right to be.” He switches off the stove, but stands still.

“You have every right to be,” Sehun says, and wraps Jongin’s hand between his own. “You’re my best friend; you have every right to be.”

“She’s your girlfriend,” Jongin says, his voice is breaking in the end though. “She has more rights, no?” He brings his hand back and quickly grabs the small towel, wiping non-existent stains from there. “Ah, let’s go and eat.”

“No one has more rights than you over me,”

“You’re being very kind, Sehun.”

Sehun laughs. “Told you, you matter more than anyone else in this world to me, Nin,” he says, voice full of raw emotions.

Jongin looks at him in silence, biting his lower lip for a second before releasing it. “Then cancel the plan with her.”

Sehun looks taken aback at the request. “What—I am sorry; I did not quite catch—”

“I am kidding, Sehun.” He laughs, although it’s strained and unsure. “Let’s go and eat.”

Sehun follows him without any other word.

“You’re in for the movie night or have you some other plan for that as well?” Jongin asks, teases, eyebrow raised in question before he moans in delight when he feeds himself some soup. “Tell me, tell me.”

“I am in,” he replies, pushing his finished bowl aside. “Thanks for this, I am full.”

“You haven’t finished your rice.”

“I did, I don’t want to eat anymore.”

Jongin raises a curious brow before shrugging. “Whatever, go set everything up. I will be there in some moments.”

“I will wash the dishes,” he reassures, grabbing his own dishes before walking towards the kitchen. “Finish yours and give them to me.”

Jongin does, happy that Sehun finally took some work for himself; his friend has been a little lazy these days. “Thank you!”

“No worries.”

The movie night isn’t a movie night at all; Jongin falls asleep on Sehun’s shoulder half an hour into the movie. Sehun helps him under his blanket and leaves the room somewhere twelve in the night, mind not catching up the time as he stares fixedly at his best friend.

-

-

In Jongin’s honest opinion, studying sometimes can be a burden as well. Sehun says he’s being too dramatic, Jongin says that he isn’t, and that his math teacher didn’t need to give them another sheet of problems to solve just before they were about to leave the school ground for good.

“You all need to keep practising on your math,” his teacher had said, eyes fixed on Jongin. “Especially kids sitting at the back of the class. I want this by tomorrow; if not all, I want most of the answers correct.”

“Hey, Hun,” Jongin calls, looking through his locker; “did you see my phone?”

Sehun shoves Jongin’s phone in his jacket, whistling when Jongin turns to look at him. “No, dude, I haven’t.”

Jongin frowns. “I don’t know where I last—Sehun, did I lose my phone somewhere?”

“How can I say, Nin, you have always been an idiot.”

“Hey!” Jongin squeaks, pouting at him in betrayal; that’s what he always does. “What if I actually lost my phone somewhere?”

“That was not expensive, Jongin, I’ll buy you another one.”

“It’s not about how expensive it was and not—I have so many things in it!”

Sehun squints his eyes. “What stuffs do you have there, Nin?”

“Nothing embarrassing, dumbhead,” he reassures, closing his locker before mumbling something, eyes flitting across every corner just in case he finds his phone there. “What are you doing here? Go, your girlfriend must be waiting for you.”

“Having a girlfriend doesn’t mean I could leave my bear behind, come on, you’re the first priority.”

“Aww,” Jongin leans up and pinches his best friend’s slightly chubby cheeks. “I am flattered, but I don’t want to steal Irene’s boyfriend. She’s passing me angry look, go and drop her first.”

Sehun takes a look himself and finds Irene actually passing Jongin stink eyes. “Are you sure?”

“I can always go with Chanyeol—he must be talking to his friends in the lot.”

“You don’t like travelling in his bike, Nin, do I need to remind you that?”

“I can manage for today,” Jongin answers in a promising tone. “I just need my phone—” Sehun absentmindedly grabs his friend’s phone from his jacket pocket and presses it in Jongin’s hand. Jongin squawks, eyes accusing when he looks at his friend in betrayal. “You thief, I thought I can trust you!”

Sehun hums something in reply, Irene calls him from behind. “Take care, I maybe late.” Jongin wriggles his eyebrows suggestively. Sehun coughs. “You’re so , Nin, go find someone.” He presses a kiss to Jongin’s head, not noticing the gasp that Irene gives in return, before leaving Jongin to walk towards his girlfriend.

“Bye, Hunnie!”

“Bye, bear!”

-

-

“You have been pouting ever since I came here. What’s the reason?”

“I am not able to solve this particular question,” Jongin says and points to one; its trigonometry one, Jongin has never been good with trigonometry.

“Oh, dear,” Chanyeol says as if fond of Jongin going through such trouble. “Let me teach you.”

The front door opens a few minutes later, the two friends, however, don’t pay much mind to it.

“...but it’s so difficult to—”

“Nin, I bought something for you—uh, hey, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol waves a little and then hovers more over Jongin, explaining another problem to the younger man. Sehun stands on the doorway, face fixed in some kind of expression that he doesn’t notice himself. He walks inside when he feels more vexed, mind trying to understand why he’s feeling territorial all of a sudden. “You are wearing my shirt,” he points out, nodding towards the shirt Jongin is wearing. Jongin gives a hum in return.

“I like this shirt a lot.”

“You look cute in it, small and cute,” he says, eyes looking into Chanyeol’s. Chanyeol shrugs. “Does he not, Chanyeol?”

“He looks cute and small in every cloth of yours, Sehun,” Chanyeol admits. “That’s why I am rooting for you two, just so you know.”

Jongin squeaks and slaps a hand on Chanyeol’s thigh. “Enough, Yeol,” he whines, cheeks reddening when he thinks back to what Chanyeol had said a few days ago.

“I mean really,” he begins once again, mind set on embarrassing his friends. “I will be waiting for the day when you two will be busy banging in your bedrooms.”

Sehun stays shocked for a few seconds before coughing a little into his fist and looking away from his best friend, Jongin leaves his bedroom, face beetroot red.

“Hey, I think Jongin’s is one of the finest that I’ve ever come across to.” He wriggles his eyebrows, feeling smug when his friend clenches his jaw in irritation at him. “If Jongin allows me to, I’d love to tap that.”

“Seriously, off, Chanyeol!”

-

 

-

“I have been waiting for so long for you, Hunnie!” Jongin bounces on the balls of his feet, tiny hands struggling to hold the toy cars in his hands. “I am sorry for this morning.”

Sehun huffs, and crosses his tiny six-year-old arms over his chest. “You always leave me alone for that boy, don’t come to me again.”

“Hunnie,” Jongin whines, almost looking like on a verge of tears; “I love you the most—daddy bought these today. Let’s play with these?”

“Why, go play with that Chanyeol.”

“...but I want to play with you,” he reasons, looking very dejected. “I wanted to show these first to you.”

Sehun narrows his eyes. “Why me?”

“Because I love Hunnie the most—let’s play.” He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet again; Sehun fears he might end up tripping again, like he always does. “Please, Hunnie, let’s play?”

He sighs, and allows Jongin to walk inside their home. “Leave you shoes there—mummy is going to scold me now!”

Jongin giggles and apologizes, stepping out of his shoes before placing them where his friend is pointing to. “Thank you, Hunnie,”

-

 

-

“Hun, I brought these video games from Chanyeol, do you have some time for me?”

Sehun groans, busy typing messages on his phone. “I am not, Nin,” he replies, not noticing the expression on his friend’s face.

“Why, what are you doing?”

“Irene,” he answers, simple and short, he knows Jongin is mature enough to understand what he means.

Jongin presses his lips in a thin line. “You’re going out with her this evening; can’t you spend some time with me as well?” Sehun does not answer, busy giggling about something that Irene replies from the other end. “You really love her, don’t you?”

“You know the answer more than me, Nin, go play with Chanyeol or someone else instead.”

Just to piss of his best friend, he sighs and nods his head. “Fine,” he says, almost spitting the word; “I am will be at Taemin’s.”

Sehun turns around immediately, narrowing his eyes when his friend seems serious about it. “You’re kidding me.”

“I am not,” he replies and shakes his head, shoving the video games in the bag Sehun and he always share, he doesn’t bother giving his friend even one glance when Sehun sits up on the bed. “Taemin is a good guy—if Taemin is busy, then I will look for his roommate. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“You cannot go to his place.”

“You do not control my life, Sehun,” he sighs, rubbing a finger on his temple. “We barely get time to spend with each other, but since you’re too busy focused on your girlfriend, I think I should look for someone as well.”

“Then look for someone else—why Taemin? I don’t like him.”

“Do I look like I care what you like and not, Sehun?” He snaps, throwing his hands in the air. He does not understand why Sehun is acting like this; if he wants to spend his time with his girlfriend then he has every right to be wherever he wants to be. It doesn’t matter if it’s his ex-boyfriend, Taemin.

Sehun clenches his jaw and sighs, it’s clear how put off he’s with what his friend has in his mind. “Do whatever you want to, I don’t ing care.”

Jongin is silent for some moments, so silent that Sehun realizes the next second that he shouldn’t have said that in the first place. “Fine,” the boy spits at last, showing Sehun a finger. “Don’t come looking after me then.”

“I won’t.”

-

-

“You’re distracted,” Irene comments, placing her hand over her boyfriend’s; “is there something that I can do about it?”

“I am sorry,” he replies with a shake of his head, mindlessly swirling his water with his free hand. “Jongin and I just had a small argument.”

“Fight, you mean?”

Sehun sighs. “Something like that.”

“Why?” She asks cautiously, “do you want to tell me something about it?”

“Let’s focus on our date than him, please?”

“Jongin will be so sad if he heard you saying this,” she says, although it’s clear from her expression that she doesn’t really care about the result. “I was saying why we don’t go to Nam— hey, what’s Jongin doing here?”

Sehun furrows his brows, what his best friend is doing in a restaurant at this time? He turns around, catching Jongin chatting away with some of the people he hates from his guts.

“Are they not Taemin and his friends? What is he doing with those people?” She scrunches her nose in distaste. Taemin and his gang are known to be rowdy, delinquents and a headache for their school administration; it’s clear why many people don’t want to associate themselves with these people, but why Jongin would go and chat with them is a mystery of its own to Sehun. “I remember you saying Jongin was going at Taemin’s, I am sure this is not Taemin’s place.”

It’s not like Jongin going to Taemin’s was any better option, but seeing his best friend involving himself with some of the most hated people of their school doesn’t sit well with him. He isn’t only with Taemin; he’s with their whole gang. From the posture of his best friend, Sehun knows Jongin probably wasn’t comfortable tagging along with them; he probably did because he doesn’t like to answer “no”.

“Leave them,” he says, growls lowly, he’s still angry with his best friend for going at Taemin’s in the first place. He had never liked Taemin, hated more when Taemin cheated behind his best friend’s back and left Jongin heartbroken for weeks. That fool is back in the arms of the same man who probably gave him the biggest heartbreak.

“Are you sure?” She asks, unsure, “Jongin doesn’t even look comfortable with them—God, they are touching your best friend.”

“I am not his dad, leave him—”

“Why Taemin’s friend is touching Jongin’s thigh?”

Sehun sighs, annoyed, and gets up from his chair to walk towards Taemin’s instead. “I don’t think this is Taemin’s place, Jongin.”

Jongin squeaks, taken aback at his sudden presence, “Sehun, what the hell are you doing here?”

“What the hell I am doing here? I am on a date, idiot.” He points to Irene’s and his table. “What are you doing with these s?”

“Excuse me,” Taemin says, offended. “Can you please leave us alone?”

“Don’t speak,” he growls, pointing his index finger at the man before grabbing Jongin’s wrist to haul him on his feet. “Let’s go.”

“He is not going anywhere,” Taemin argues, grabbing the other hand of Jongin before getting on his feet. “Go, spend your time with your girlfriend, and leave us alone.”

“Leave his hand otherwise” he warns, trying to pull his best friend away, only to no avail.

“Otherwise, what?” Taemin prompts, eyes dark now.

“Sehun,” Jongin hisses, “what the hell are you doing?”

Sehun doesn’t pay him any mind, he leaves his hand and walks towards Taemin, grabbing him by his collar to show how pissed off he is. “I remember warning you to never come anywhere near him that day already. Don’t you understand anything in simple words?”

“Look, Sehun,” Taemin says, trying to loosen the taller’s hand around his collar, a futile attempt. “Who do you think you’re to decide for him? He came here because he wanted to, we didn’t force him.”

Jongin whimpers the same thing from behind him, Sehun shows him an unimpressed look, Jongin presses his lips in a thin line. “You know well how Jongin doesn’t say no to anything, anyone. You’re a ing manipulator; I know you ing manipulated him to come with you.”

“You’re being overdramatic.”

“I love being overdramatic, does that concern you?” He pushes the shorter behind, eyebrows raised menacingly. “Stay away from my best friend; this is the last time I am warning you.” Taemin looks enough shaken to not say anything; his friends stay seated on their respective chairs. “Let’s go.” He turns around, grabs Jongin’s hand and pulls him out of there.

“You’re his best friend,” Taemin shouts from behind them; “behave like a ing best friend, not a lover, !”

-
 

-

“Bear, don’t cry,” Sehun begs, running towards the small running figure away from him. “I promise I will share my chocolates only with you.”

Jongin stops at that, turning around to show his friend his tears-stained chubby cheeks. “I hate you!”

“Oh, please don’t say that, Jongin.” He grabs whatever chocolates he has left before pressing everything in Jongin’s tiny hands. “You were not there, that’s why I shared everything with them.”

“You forgot me,” Jongin accuses, but he grabs all the chocolates given to him nonetheless.

“I did not,” Sehun gasps, shaking his small head vigorously. “I can never forget you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” he replies. “Are you angry with me?”

“I can never be.”

-

 

-

Jongin is staring out of the window of his car; Jongin has been doing that ever since they left the restaurant. He doesn’t bother saying anything; Jongin doesn’t bother speaking anything as well.

He drives in silence, emitting a small noise from the back of his throat when his phone rings. “Hello?”

“Sehun,” Irene speaks from the other end; “what the is this?”

Oh, he realizes he forgot her in the restaurant; what a shame, she must be fuming in anger.

“Is your best friend so important to you that you forgot me?”

“I am sorry, babe—”

“No, wait hear me out,” she demands, breathing heavy as if she were crying just minutes ago. “If you care so much about him, then don’t you him?”

“What type of argument is that even?” He looks ahead when Jongin snaps a loud “look ahead, head!” “I will call you when I reach home.”

“Are you driving? Stop it in a side, and hear me out or w-we are over otherwise.”

Sehun does, Jongin cries in annoyance. “What do you want me to hear?”

“Explain how can you forget me?” She sighs. “Look, Sehun, it’s common sense that you cannot leave a girl behind when it’s over ten in the evening already. Don’t you think the same? I didn’t know anyone there, heck! I didn’t even know the way back home. Do you even know how angry my father is, he is never going to live this down?”

Jongin plays his favourite radio, as if enjoying his best friend’s misery. Sehun can whack him upside down, but he’s busy thinking of the best apology for what he has done.

“I am really sorry, baby—I just, I was so angry that you completely slipped out of my mind.” Jongin snorts beside him, a smile on his lips.

“Honestly, this is the ing excuse you came up with? What type of loser are you even...”

Sehun tunes out her completely, eyes fixed on Jongin changing the radio channels; with a firm look passed to his best friend, he switches off the radio for once and all. ‘Don’t you ing dare, you little ,” he mouths, Jongin looks pissed off as well. He switches it on again, poking his tongue out when Sehun looks unimpressed. He switches it off again, Jongin switches it on back. Repeats. Repeats. Before he finally hangs his call and leans towards his best friend, eyebrows raised menacingly, passes a sneer past his lips because he knows Jongin hates (is scared) of this look.

“I dare you do that one more time.”

Jongin presses his lips in a thin line and stares back; it’s clear he’s scared, but that doesn’t stop him from sneaking a hand to press the radio on. “I own this car as much as you do,” he says, eyebrows raised haughtily. “What are you going to do?”

Sehun switches it off once again, before hovering more over his best friend. “Do that again, and...” he stops, eyes flitting across his friend’s face, falling on the other’s very tempting lips for a second before moving them up to look into his eyes. “I will kiss you.”

Jongin breaths, eyes wide in horror and disbelief; “what the ,” he whispers, pushing his best friend away. “What the hell is wrong with you these days—you don’t like men, dude. You don’t, don’t say things like this, you sound like a creep.”

Sehun snorts, gulping down the bile before looking ahead; he honestly doesn’t know from where that came in the first place, the only things that he knows: first, how much he wanted to silence his best friend; second, how much he has been thinking about Jongin’s lips ever since he noticed his friend biting on them (which isn’t the first time, he has been noticing his best friend’s rather attractive lips for as long as he remembers).

Jongin stutters the next time that he speaks. “Drive us to home, I am feeling sleepy.” He doesn’t wait for his best friend to answer, and grabs his phone, dialling a number that he knows by his heart.

Sehun wants to ask the other who he’s calling, but he isn’t able to feel his tongue at all, so he stays silent, focusing on his driving than Jongin beside him or his girlfriend who is probably busy planning their breakup.

“Hey, Chanyeol,” Jongin stops and listens to something from the other end. Jongin shifts a little on his seat, looking away from his best friend to speak into his phone in a whisper like voice. “Sehun is acting strange, will you come at our place?—yes, yes, we can sleep together.”

Sehun snorts, Jongin’s such an idiot.

-

-

“Hey, dude, I have been waiting for you two for so long,” Chanyeol greets, engulfing Jongin in a hug when Jongin forces himself on the other. “Is Sehun alright?”

Sehun silently punches their password and walks inside their humble abode, stepping out of his shoes when Jongin asks him to.

“Sehun is being an ,” he accuses; hoping Sehun will not bother replying to him.

“Excuse me,” Sehun says, voice heavy when he turns to pin Jongin under his gaze. Chanyeol silently walks towards the couch and sits on it, ready for whatever is going to happen now. “Just because I saved you from those s, I became an ?”

“You saved me from them?” Jongin repeats, eyes wide. “Are you ing kidding me—oh, you must be kidding because you’re nothing but a kid.”

“Kid,” the other repeats, walking towards Jongin to hover over his comparatively smaller frame; “don’t be an ungrateful, little .”

Chanyeol shifts a little on his seat, wondering if laughing at this moment would be a good option.

Jongin looks scandalized as if Sehun hasn’t called him that before, in a sense, Sehun has never called him in that in this tone. “What did you just call me?”

“? Ungrateful , what else?”

“You...” Jongin says, growling in anger, although he knows he stands no chance against the taller, he still pushes him back, a slap to his best friend’s chest.

Chanyeol honestly doesn’t know what he should do now: go and stop them (are they getting really serious); stay here and entertain himself?

Sehun looks taken aback at that, so he narrows his eyes and pushes Jongin back as well.

“How dare you?” He barks, stepping ahead to push the other again but stops in time to notice Sehun leaning very close to his face.

Chanyeol chokes on nothing; Jongin’s squeak is lost somewhere between the touch of Sehun’s and his lips. He stays rooted on his spot, eyes widening the longer Sehun keeps pressing their lips together. Sehun steps back a few moments later, as if the silence around their apartment told him what he has done, before clearing his throat and avoiding his best friend’s wide, questioning eyes.

“Sorry,” he speaks in a squeak, ignoring Chanyeol gawking at him. “I just...”

“Why the hell did you—” Jongin stops and there’s a break in his voice. “Sehun, what the hell was that?”

“I just felt like kissing you, okay!” He admits in a roar, Jongin and Chanyeol flinch at his loud voice. “I don’t know—I was just feeling like kissing you—I am sorry, Nin, I didn’t mean to...”

Jongin looks at him for a few long minutes before leaving Chanyeol and him behind, walking away from them to his own bedroom. He doesn’t forget to close his bedroom door with a loud bang.

Oh, Chanyeol thinks, oh, wow.

“Oh, what did I do?” Sehun exclaims, running his hands through his black locks. Chanyeol wants to answer that he did the right thing, but knowing that his best friend isn’t in the mood of listening to anything, he keeps mum and pretends that Sehun doesn’t know that he’s in their living room.

-

 

-

“Hey, Nin, why are you crying?”

Jongin points to his bleeding knee with a chubby, tiny hand, grabbing his thighs with small, small hands when his friend kneels in front of him.

“Oh, Nin,” Sehun says, his own tiny, chubby hands grab Jongin’s calf so that he could bring it close to his face for inspection. “How did you get this?” He asks, grabbing his water bottle to wash away any dirt from the bleeding wound. Jongin whines and cries a little in his throat, small eyes pooling with more tears. “Don’t cry, you look prettier smiling, bear.”

“It’s hurting, Hunnie.”

“I will make it okay, trust me?”

Jongin nods, tears rushing down chubby cheeks. Sehun grabs his handkerchief, gently dabbing it over the wound. “Do you know how to do this?”

“A little,” he answers, sounding unsure himself. “I have heard that we should leave it open, should I leave the wound open?”

Jongin shrugs, unsure himself.

“I have a band-aid though, let it dry then we will use it there.”

Jongin blinks, now sniffling, watching as his friend blows air into it.

“Ah, it’s okay now.” Sehun smiles, brightly. He grabs his band-aid, showing Jongin that it’s his favourite bears band-aid, before gently placing it over Jongin’s wound. “It will be okay now. All the bears in it will protect you now.”

Jongin looks like he believes his friend. “Will they?”

“They will,” he answers, sure of himself. “You’ve always loved bears so much, now it’s there time to show you that they love you as well.”

Jongin giggles and claps his hands together, Sehun giggles with him. “I love bears a lot!”

“I love my bear the most!”

-

 

-

“Is he coming out?” Sehun asks, leaning heavily against the hallway wall. “I want to talk to him,” he adds when Chanyeol doesn’t bother with a reply.

“First thing first,” Chanyeol begins, “I am not your messenger, not even Jongin’s. If you two want to say something to each other, why don’t you do it on face?” He runs a hand through his hair when Sehun only shifts on his feet. “By the way, Jongin said you to off already.”

“Look, it was a mistake.”

Chanyeol stretches a hand towards Jongin’s closed bedroom door. “Tell him, this is the hundredth time that you’ve repeated the same thing to me. Why don’t you have any balls to talk to your best friend?”

“Because I ing kissed him; best friends don’t do that.”

“Can you stop taking support of this whole best friends thing already?” He asks, now annoyed. “Look, dude, there must be a reason that you kissed Jongin—what is it?”

“I just felt like kissing him.”

“People just don’t like kissing their best friends,” Chanyeol argues. “Especially if one of them is gay and the other straight as a ruler—are you not straight, Sehun?”

“I am not gay, dammit, I am dating a girl.”

“Dating girls doesn’t mean you’re straight; for all I know, you could be hiding in a closet.”

“I don’t get by seeing asses or of guys.”

“Well, is that what you think of every gay out there—about Jongin and me?” He barks. “We don’t find that we’re gays by constantly thinking about ing a guy or riding a guy’s .”

Sehun, realizing his mistake and his insensitivity, apologizes.

“I don’t need your apology, keep that to yourself.” Chanyeol shows him a hand, palm facing him. “I don’t know what or how I could help you two here, but Jongin is still crying and I think you should talk about this yourself.”

“What I am going to say to him?”

“I don’t know.” Chanyeol shrugs. “Look, me standing in this case don’t mean that I am backing up, yeah?” Sehun asks him what he means, Chanyeol grins, eyes glinting in happiness. “I mean, I still pretty much think that you two are going to end up together—maybe this was the first step, huh?” he wriggles his eyebrows, ducking just in time Sehun throws his jacket at him.

“You’re making it worse, just shut up.”

“If there isn’t something, then it shouldn’t bother you, no?”

What his best friend is saying is reasonable, Sehun thinks.

If there isn’t something between them, then it shouldn’t bother him at all.

-

-

There is something between them, though. What is that, Sehun has no idea, but he knows there’s something between them.

So he tries to think of everything, idly and unintentionally, every minute of the day; it doesn’t matter if he’s pretending to listen to what his teacher is teaching them, it doesn’t matter if he’s with his girlfriend who’s less pissy these days, it doesn’t matter what he’s doing...he just keeps thinking. In the end, he finds himself nowhere. Sehun guesses that’s because there’s nothing to look for in the first place, if there’s nothing anywhere in the first place, then there’s no chance of finding that something between them.

So he gives up.

...but Jongin isn’t talking to him for the past few days, isn’t even looking at him, Sehun feels his life turning monotone. He thinks that should be a surprise in itself, because when Jongin doesn’t bother talking to him, he runs to Irene and hopes that she will make him happy, but she doesn’t make him happy. For some reason, Sehun feels like he’s pretending to be happy for the sake of his girlfriend’s happiness, it feels like burden to him, more so because Jongin isn’t even looking at him.

When Jongin isn’t looking at him, Sehun feels like a blind being: aimless and hopeless in his own world.

“Being blind doesn’t mean that there’s no future. Stop giving that excuse for not smiling like a creep, Sehun,” Chanyeol exclaims when he repeats the same thing to him. Chanyeol thinks he’s being overdramatic, but then he says that he has no problem with it, because he’s rooting for them!

So here he is, a week later, in front of Jongin’s bedroom door at twelve in the night with his best friend’s favourite chocolates in bears shape (it had cost Sehun a fortune, Jongin better like it otherwise...otherwise, he will eat them by himself and wallow in self pity). He knocks on the closed door; Jongin makes no answer, so he invites himself in, thanking high heavens for his friend not locking the door.

“Nin,” he calls, watching the rise and fall of his best friend’s chest. He’s lying on his bed, but he isn’t sleeping; his books are still sprawled on the floor, his gaming consoles, his clothes, his things...everything is sprawled on the floor. “Can I come inside?” He’s already sitting on his best friend’s bed. “I am sorry, Nin.”

Jongin sighs, still pretending to sleep, although Sehun knows he’s listening.

“I hadn’t meant to do that, it was all, I guess, I just don’t...” he stops and places a hand over the blanket where he thinks is his best friend’s hand. “Sorry,”

“We’re going to the mall tomorrow, right?”

Taken aback at being talked to, Sehun perks up, eyes searching for Jongin’s.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, you remember you promised and broke it?”

Yeah, Sehun thinks, the day he went on a date with his girlfriend.

“Let’s go tomorrow, tell me yes.”

“Yes, we are—just forgive me for what I did, Nin.”

“I forgave you the same day you first apologized.” Jongin peeks his head through the comforter, stretching his hand to grab the chocolate box in his best friend’s hand. “ off now,” he adds when his friend gives him the box.

“Really, selfish now are we?” He doesn’t give the other any chance to understand before diving under the comforters himself, making sure to cage his best friend in his arms when he wriggles a lot.

“Leave me!” Jongin squawks, biting on his bare skin, Sehun, however, doesn’t relent. “Leave me, !”

“Stay still or I am going to kiss you again.” Jongin goes still in his arms, so still that Sehun wonders if he felt asleep in his arms within seconds already. “I was just joking.”

“Ha-ha,” Jongin laughs awkwardly, shifting a little on the bed before pressing the box of chocolates to his chest. “Hun,” Jongin says a few minutes later, Sehun shifts a little behind him, hugging him tight. “I remember you saying you thought my was y.”

Sehun squawks behind him, clearly embarrassed about being reminded of such thing. “I remember telling you to forget about it the same day.”

Jongin hums. “I was just reminding you because you’re sleeping behind me, and I don’t want you to feel my .”

Sehun is very silent behind him before he shifts back, and some more. “You —why would I even?”

“I told you already, don’t make me repeat it, dude.” He turns around, eyes narrowed at his best friend. “Don’t, means don’t.” Sehun promises him that he won’t. “Shut the lights off now, I am sleepy.”

Sehun whines a little in the back of his throat. “I don’t want to get up.”

“Sehun, I will kick you out of my bedroom otherwise,” he warns, although it’s lacking any kind of threat.

Sehun huffs and with a dramatic sigh, gets up from the bed to switch off the lights. He climbs behind his best friend a few seconds later, eyes heavy with sleep. “I am honestly sorry about what I did, Nin. I promise I will never do that again.”

Jongin hums a little before snuggling into the box of chocolates. “Good night, Hun.”

“Good night, bear,” he whispers back, pressing a kiss to the back of Jongin’s head like he used to.

-

 

-

“I am so tired, Hunnie!” Jongin whines, standing akimbo and watching in silence as his friend’s small body wriggles in and out of the small tent they made half an hour ago. “I want to sleep.”

“...but we can play more, bear,” Sehun replies in a promising tone, and peeks his head through the opening to look at his friend bouncing on his bed. “We still have a lot of time.”

“You’re looking so cute, Hunnie!” Jongin squeals, then as if remembering something, “I really want to sleep now.”

“You’re cuter though,” the boy argues, crawling out of the tent because he knows he is not going to win this time. A sleepy Jongin means a very whining Jongin, he doesn’t think if he wants to see his friend crying at this time. “Alright, you child,” he mutters, shaking his head before grabbing the pillow from the floor. “Catch it,” he warns just a second before throwing it in Jongin’s direction. Jongin, not ready for such, falls back on the bed with the impact of the pillow thrown at him; the cover of the pillow slaps hard against his cheeks and before they know, Jongin is already crying his eyes out.

“Oh my God,” Sehun cries out, eyes widening in fear when he hears his mother’s voice coming close to his bedroom; “Oh, bear, I am sorry, I didn’t mean to.” He kneels in front of his friend, not really knowing what he should in this situation. “I am sorry, please, don’t cry.”

“It hurts,” the boy cries, showing his cheeks to his friend. Sehun does not see anything, okay, there’s a red mark on his right cheek—“why are you crying, Hunnie?”

“Because you’re crying, Nini,” he reasons, wiping the tears from his own chubby cheeks.

“I won’t cry,” Jongin promises, wiping his tears away. “I am okay, I am fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, I am.”

-

 

-

“Do you have your credit card with you, Hunnie? I forgot mine.”

Sehun rolls his eyes. “Say something worth acceptable, Nin, you don’t even have money to begin with, you beggar.”

“Hey,” Jongin whines, turning around to slap his best friend. “Don’t call me that, I am not a beggar.”

“I know, I know,” he replies with a small nod when Jongin goes on ranting how his best friend has stopped loving him ever since that Irene came in his life. “I have to buy some clothes as well.”

“Can I order Gucci later, Hunnie?”

Jongin has always loved wearing Gucci clothes, it costs a lot to Sehun; if he were not son of such a rich lawyer, he would be dealing with broke life already. Jongin’s family is well off too (not as rich as them), but they can afford Jongin’s demands, although there’s a high possibility that they would end up in debt if they even paid for Jongin’s needs (demands) the way Sehun does.

“Let’s check that one first,” he says and points to one shop. Jongin is already following his way with a bounce on his steps. He just loves using his best friend in the name of friendship and basically nothing else.

“Is this okay, Hun?”

Sehun peeks his head, watching as Jongin stares confusedly at the two shirts in his hands. It has been almost half an hour ever since they stepped inside this particular shop, he has found total two shirts in such time, and Jongin...well, Sehun has already forgotten the number of times his best friend came to ask him the same question as above.

“The black one, it compliments your skin well.”

Jongin presses his lips in a thin line before shaking his head. “I am going with the white one, I love white on me more.”

Why did you even ask me then? He rolls his eyes and waves his friend off.

“Sehun,” Jongin calls, hesitant, Sehun hums in reply. “There are more people than before.” There are. “Wait for me outside the changing room—I want to try every shirt, you can try your as well, after me, I mean.”

“I don’t want to try mine, I know I want them.” He furrows his brows, rolling them once again when Jongin stays rooted on his spot. “Okay, let’s go.” He follows his shorter friend towards the changing room, groaning when Jongin slaps at least ten shirts and a few pants in his arms.

“I will come wearing one soon, wait a bit.” He smiles, disappearing behind the door.

Sehun shifts a little on his feet, whistling and looking away when his state gathers attention of almost every customer there. The things he does for his stupid best friend.

“Sir,” a female voice calls, Sehun turns to see a female staff standing beside him with a small basket. “You can keep the clothes in it; you don’t need to carry them for your boyfriend.”

The smile disappears from Sehun’s lips, and he coughs a little, thanking the lady before dropping every cloth in the basket. “Uh, we-we are...”

“You two look really cute together, sir. I hope you two to be always happy with each other.” She smiles a harmless smile, but all Sehun really wants to do is wipe that away from her pretty face.

Jongin opens the door and walks out, surprised to see the lady staff standing so close to his best friend.

“Please, enjoy your time with your boyfriend, sir.” She bows and leaves with a small giggle, some more giggles follow her; she probably told her own assumed truth to her friends.

“What the hell did she just say?” Jongin mutters in confusion before shaking his head. “Sehun, are you really so shameless?”

“What did I do?”

“How can you flirt with someone when you have a girlfriend waiting for you?”

“I—” He opens and closes his mouth a few times before narrowing his eyes at his best friend. “I wasn’t, dumbhead, she was just muttering how good we look together, and how we should always be happy together.”

“Well,” Jongin says and furrows his brows. “We are best friends; of course, we are going to look good together. What the hell is wrong with people these days?”

“She thought we were boyfriends,” he says when Jongin is done showing him how cool he looks in his new clothes; he looks cool, actually handsome in them.

Jongin blushes before he stomps his feet inside the changing room to try another choice.

“You didn’t have to show me that face...” he mutters behind his best friend, “it’s not like I said that.”

-

-

“You’re once again silent today,” Sehun comments, watching the rise and fall of his best friend’s chest; “what did I do today, dude?”

“Nothing, Hun,” Jongin replies, he’s biting his lower lip and fiddling with his fingers. Sehun knows his best friend is nervous about something, but he doesn’t understand what.

“Did you not like the clothes that we bought today?”

Jongin shakes his head. “No, that’s not it.”

“Then?” He prompts, shuffling a little close to the shorter to grab his hand. He remembers that one time when Jongin had said that whenever he would be nervous, Sehun just needs to hold his hand, and he would forget every little thing that makes him nervous in the first place. “Nin, is there something that I should know?”

“Someone proposed me,” Jongin says a few minutes later, poking his own thigh with his index finger. “I accepted.”

“Okay,” he says; “t-that’s cool, I guess. Why are you so nervous about it?”

“You’re cool with it?” Jongin asks, and he searches his best friend’s eyes when Sehun nods at him. “I just thought you won’t like it.”

“Why would I not? Nin, I have always supported you for whatever you want—wait, tell me first, who’s the guy?”

Jongin presses his lips in a thin line; he seems to avoid his best friend’s eyes. “Baekhyun,” he answers, quiet like in a whisper.

Why do you always have to choose losers? “What the hell, Jongin?” He moves his hands here and there, clearly taken aback at his best friend’s choice. “Why Byun monster Baekhyun?—that dude doesn’t even know how to walk—”

“Oh, Hun,” Jongin says and he’s blushing, “you won’t believe what he said.”

Sehun narrows his eyes, bringing his hand back from his best friend’s lap, he pretends to be angry. “What?”

“He said that he keeps falling for me, and that’s why he forgot how to even walk! So ing sweet, oh my God,” Jongin says, and he has the audacity to look impressed with that ty pick up line.

Sehun thinks Jongin is turning idiotic day after day otherwise, he would never accept that loser Byun Baekhyun—okay, maybe Sehun knows that he’s one of the main singers of their school band, but he’s still a loser in his eyes.

“When did he say that—I mean, when did he propose you?” He words his question differently when Jongin looks confused at first.

“Ah,” Jongin says, tucking his chin in his knees that he has pulled to his chest. “Yesterday, I couldn’t deny him, Sehun. I-I think, uh, I need someone as well, I don’t want to be left alone when you would be all lovey-dovey with your new girlfriend.” Jongin looks hopeful when he turns to look into his eyes. “Are you not happy for me, Hun?”

It’s not like he isn’t happy for his best friend for finally choosing someone (no matter the fact that it’s Byun clumsy-as-hell Baekhyun), but he feels a little weird after hearing such. He doesn’t know if it’s bad kind of weird or not, but he just feels weird. Kind of, he wants to be upset a little, but at the same time he doesn’t want because his best friend looks happy. Sehun wants him to move on from Taemin, if it’s Baekhyun then let it be.

“I am happy for you, Nin.”

Jongin’s smile is bright when he pulls him in a hug, and for the first time in his life, Sehun feels a spark of electricity run through his veins at the touch.

Oh, he probably needs his girlfriend now.

-

 

-

“Hunnie,” Jongin says, his eyes bright and smile wide. “What are you doing here?”

Sehun refuses to look at his friend, mind set on solving the subtraction questions his teacher had given them earlier. “I am doing my homework.”

“I know what you’re doing, Hunnie,” Jongin whines, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “...but let’s meet my new friend, I have made a new friend.”

“I don’t care,” he replies, sounding cold and on a verge of tears at the same time. “Go play with your new friend.”

“I want to play with you, too.” Jongin reasons, plopping beside his friend before waving to his new friend; “look, he’s waiting for us. Let’s go, Hunnie.”

“I said I don’t want to play. Go play with him!”

Jongin tears up. “Why are you angry?”

“I am not angry, ugh, just-just go away.”

“Why are you saying that? Am I not your friend anymore?”

Sehun slaps his pencil on his notebook, turning around to look at his friend who’s looking smaller than he actually is at this moment. “You were the first one who forgot me.”

“I never forgot you.” Jongin gasps, trying to grab his friend’s tiny hands between his own tinier ones, Sehun refuses any touch. “Hunnie, why are you doing this to your bear?”

“You’re not my bear anymore.”

“Why are you saying that?”

“You found a new friend,” Sehun reasons, tearing up, “you two will be best friends then, and you’ll forget me.”

Jongin gasps, again. “I’ll not.” He shuffles close to his friend, eyes wide and glossy. “You’re my best friend, no one else,” he says, honest in his tone.

Sehun looks like he doesn’t believe him for a second, Jongin almost cries, Sehun almost cries along with him because he doesn’t like seeing his friend cry. “I am your best friend?” Jongin nods, small tears rushing down chubby cheeks. “You promise?”

“I promise, Hunnie, you’re my best friend.”

“Oh, bear; you’re my best friend too.” He smiles then stands up. “Let’s meet this new boy.”

-

 

-

“Stop passing Jongin’s boyfriend those eyes, will you? It looks like you could murder him right this moment.”

Sehun snaps out of his one-sided staring contest, cheeks reddening in embarrassment when he realizes that his friend has noticed everything. “I-I wasn’t, shut up.”

Chanyeol rolls his eyes, leaning back against his own chair; he fixes his friend under his heavy gaze. “You’re again passing him those eyes—what the hell is wrong with you?”

Sehun huffs as if it were Chanyeol at mistake before throwing his hands in the air. “I just don’t like how they look together. Happy to find out?”

Chanyeol scrunches his nose and looks at the two mentioned people; they look ing cute together, uh, if only Baekhyun stop giving Jongin all those heart eyes, and Jongin acting like that. “What is wrong with Jongin?”

“Exactly,” Sehun mutters, “look him being all giggly and , oh, he was never like that with me.”

“Why,” Chanyeol begins, he’s looking smug. “Are you jealous, huh?”

Sehun sputters. “Why would I be jealous?”

Chanyeol wriggles his eyebrows, eyes bright as if he understands things that his friend isn’t able to. “The first stage of realization,” he explains when Sehun stares at him, dumbfounded. “I mean,” Sehun is still staring at him as if he were an idiot. “I mean, it’s like you don’t like all of this because Jongin is paying more attention to Baekhyun.”

Looking much put off with the whole his friend said, he shakes his head and awkwardly laughs a little. “It’s because it has been time since I last saw Jongin paying so much attention to—to...” he stops when Chanyeol nods, as if he understands that his friend is making up things. “Chanyeol, dude, can you stop that already?”

“What, I did not even do anything.” Chanyeol exclaims, throwing his hands in the air in amusement. “I told you, if there’s nothing then it shouldn’t even bother you at all.”

The thing is: it bothers Sehun a lot.

He realizes it when Chanyeol and he step out of the cafeteria, and Jongin keeps giggling along to some story that Baekhyun narrates; he realizes it when he silently sits through his class, and Jongin decides to sit with his new boyfriend instead of him; he realizes it when he reaches their home alone, and Jongin tells him that he’s going to spend his night at Baekhyun’s.

He realizes he’s angry, very angry.

The thought of sharing his best friend, and his time, with someone else annoys the hell out of him. Jongin had just left Taemin and his worthless company, and they’d just gotten some time to spend with each other that Baekhyun came between them, and stole his best friend’s attention, from him one more time. Oh, he believes that he isn’t jealous, he’s just plain annoyed. Chanyeol says that he’s still lying to himself.

“I remember you used to act the same way when Jongin was dating Taemin.”

“Because I had never liked that dude,” he reasons, words slurring now that he’s on his third bottle of bear.

“Nah,” Chanyeol denies with a shake of his head. “It was never about Taemin or anyone else being bad—if it were, then explain me why you didn’t behave the exact way with Jongin’s previous boyfriends? Junmyeon, Minseok, Lucas—heck, you never even spoke well with them. Those three were great dudes; you and I both know they were perfect.”

Sehun ruffles his hair; he doesn’t understand what his friend is trying to tell him.

“Tell me what exactly do you feel?”

“Nothing,” he answers in a heartbeat. “I mean,” he begins when Chanyeol raises a curious brow at him. “I mean, I feel angry that Jongin is paying so much attention to that Baekhyun—”

“It’s only the first day, Sehun,” Chanyeol reminds, Sehun waves him off with a careless flick of his hand.

“I mean I don’t want Jongin to spend so much time with someone else—like, like that.”

“Like what,” Chanyeol prompts.

“I-I don’t know.” He shrugs, not able to explain what he exactly means. “Just like that, the way he acts with all of his boyfriends.”

“Sehun,” Chanyeol calls, a laugh lost somewhere in between. “You two are best friends, why would he act like a boyfriend with you?”

What Chanyeol said makes sense, if anything, it sounds reasonable enough. Yet, Sehun can’t help the groan of annoyance that travels up his throat and slips past his lips.

“Do you not want to be his best friend?”

“Are you dumb or what?” He mutters, “We have promised to always be best friends, we are going to die being best friends.”

The huff that Chanyeol gives in return is sure annoyed. “Then you have no right to be angry at anything; you just cannot act like you own every minute of your best friend’s life. Sehun, you’re not an , dude. If Jongin is happy with Baekhyun, then let him be.” Then as if remembering something, he smugly adds; “I mean there’s nothing, right? It shouldn’t bother you like that.”

-

-

Jongin is too bouncy this morning and for some reason, Sehun feels irritated with that satisfied smile on his best friend’s face. He keeps his face in a permanent pissed off expression, eyes narrowing whenever he hears his best friend humming in a new love song. Oh, God, he can just—

“Jongin,” he barks, anger and annoyance evident in his voice. “Did you not make breakfast, yet?”

Jongin drops the remote in his hand as if he flinched from such booming voice of his friend. “What the , Sehun?”

“Breakfast,” he snaps, pointing towards the kitchen. “Why did you not make something, yet?”

Jongin looks taken aback for a moment before he narrows his eyes at his best friend. “Sehun,” he says, tone saying how angry he is. “I am not your wife, don’t talk to me like that, .”

“Oh, really, now playing couple-couple, are we?” He snorts; he doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore. “You are the one who cooks our food, this is your ing job, how can even forget that?”

“Sehun,” Jongin says, confused. “What the hell is wrong with you?” He points a finger at his friend, shaking his head as if he doesn’t want to believe something. “You drank so much last time, then now, what the hell—”

“It’s not like you didn’t have enough entertainment yourself.” He smirks when Jongin looks confused for a second, he could feel an upcoming headache and God, and he wants Jongin to stop his already (even though he’s a lot sure that it’s him who’s ting if anything). “Had a fun night with your new boyfriend?”

“Sehun,” Jongin says, “stop it already.”

“What?” He says, stepping towards his best friend, Jongin stands his ground. “Tell me you were there for some other reason than sleeping with your new boyfriend.” He pokes Jongin’s cheek with his finger, ignoring his friend’s teary eyes; he speaks “that’s why you always get boyfriends anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if you accepted Baekhyun just because you wanted a .”

“Was he a good , Jongin, or are you planning on finding a new boyfriend?”

A tear slips out of Jongin’s eyes, but he doesn’t give any chance to Sehun to speak anything before running towards his bedroom and closing the door with a resounding bang. Sehun is sure he hears a loud “you er” just before Jongin closes the door.

He does only one thing that he can think of: call Chanyeol.

He ed up a big time.

-

-

“I ed up,” he repeats for the nth time. “Oh my God, Chanyeol, he’s going to leave me now. What should I do now?”

Chanyeol shrugs; it’s clear he doesn’t know what to do in a situation like this as well. “I remember you ing up before as well,” he says, referring back to the moment when Sehun had kissed Jongin.

“That’s not why I am to here to hear.”

Chanyeol shrugs once again. “What do you want me to say then?”

“I don’t know—just tell me what I should do now.”

“Apologize?”

“As if Jongin would give me enough time to apologize—you see this?” He stops and points to cheek. “Before coming to your place, I had tried apologizing to him. He slapped me, this mark; it’s a gift from him.”

“This isn’t the first time Jongin slapped you though,” he says, cringing when he traces the damage that Jongin did on his friend’s skin with his eyes. “Well, wow, he knows how to do damage after all.”

“Dude, it’s different this time because he was actually angry—he wasn’t pretending, we weren’t joking around and everything.”

“Tell me what you exactly said to deserve this.”

Sehun shrugs, he seems guilty though. “I might have said that he looks for boyfriends just because he wants people to with.”

“Oh, wow,” Chanyeol says after a brief silence. “You really outdid yourself, Sehun.”

The door to Jongin’s bedroom opens the next second, Jongin with his pretty swollen face steps out of it, and doesn’t spare any glance to Sehun.

“Chanyeol,” he says, “I am going to a friend’s house. I will not come back tonight, because I like to a lot. Good night.”

Sehun feels guilty on a whole new level, before he rushes to his best friend before he could actually leave their apartment. Chanyeol shifts a little on his seat, wondering what’s wrong with these two particular best friends.

“Bear,” Sehun begs, “please hear me out.”

Jongin rolls his eyes at his friend kneeling in front of him. “Is there something left to hear, Sehun?”

Oh my God, Chanyeol thinks, Jongin really is very dramatic even in a situation like this.

“I am sorry, Nini, I didn’t mean anything—it was my mistake, I take full responsibility of it. I don’t know what I was thinking that I even said that, but, Nini, please take my words. I am ashamed of what I had said this morning.”

Jongin passes a bored look to his friend, begging Chanyeol to bring him away from there already. “Yeah, yeah, I heard what you wanted to say. Now leave, I love to around a lot, and I am planning on doing it again.”

“Bear,” Sehun begs, he looks like he could cry. Jongin thinks he looks foolishly, regrettably adorable right this moment. “I beg you, please give me whatever punishment you want to give...but don’t ignore me as if you’ve forgotten about my whole existence.”

“I actually forgot about your whole existence, but you showed me your sorry, ugly face, and I realized you’re still alive. What a shame.” Playing with Sehun’s feelings feel like the best option to torture the hell out of him anyway. “For punishment, leave me alone please?”

“Oh, bear,” Sehun says, grabbing Jongin’s feet before he could wear his shoes. Jongin asks him to leave him, Sehun doesn’t, thanking high heavens for giving him enough mind to spend his time at gym. “Nini, I beg you. I am ashamed of what I said this morning, and I swear I mean nothing, about what I said.”

“You said though,” Jongin finally says, voice breaking in the end. Sehun looks up to see his best friend’s eyes filled with tears, he has never felt this guilty in his life before. “You always say mean things to me.”

“Jongin, I never mean any of the mean things. I was just—I don’t know, but please forgive me. I promise I will never say things like that.”

“I didn’t even sleep with Baekhyun last night; he just sang a song for me. That’s it, we didn’t do anything else. Heck, we haven’t even kissed, how could you even think that we’ll sleep on our first day of relationship? You honestly don’t me, Sehun.” There’s a disappointed lit in his tone. “How could you say that I get in relationships just to ? You really are an .”

“I am,” Sehun admits, tears pooling in his own eyes. Oh, his bear doesn’t look good crying, Sehun doesn’t want to see him crying.

“Leave me now; Baekhyun is waiting for me outside.”

Oh, Chanyeol thinks, the change in Sehun’s expression though.

“Why is he here?” Sehun asks, sounding suspicious.

“Unlike you, my boyfriend actually remembers that I exist. I wonder what poor Irene must be feeling this moment.”

Sehun scrunches his nose, as if he didn’t like hearing his own girlfriend’s name. “She’s at her parents.”

Jongin, however, is already wearing his shoes. “See if I care anything about your personal life.”

“Bear,” Sehun says, standing up from the floor to catch Jongin’s arm. “Did you forgive me?”

“I never said that I did,” Jongin retorts, not caring about the dejected expression on his best friend’s face. Sehun was an this morning, he deserves to be tortured. “Don’t ruin my night now; I am going out on a date. Good night.”

Chanyeol wonders if the best friends even know that he’s still sitting there. He realizes Sehun had almost forgotten about him when he turns around and jumps at the sight of him.

“Oh, dude, you scared the hell out of me.” Sehun places a dramatic hand over his heart.

“It’s not my fault that you suffer from short term amnesia.” Jongin has left; its clear Sehun’s mood is officially ruined for the night as well. “I am still wondering why you hate Baekhyun.”

“Don’t talk about losers.”

-

-

“Um, Sehun,” Irene begins, unsure and a turning a little timid under the weight of her boyfriend’s gaze. “We have been talking about Jongin ever since we came here. In fact, we have been talking about Jongin ever since you came to pick me up.”

“Is that wrong?” He angrily mutters. Jongin is his best friend; he deserves to always be in conversations. “It’s just bear.”

“Bear,” she repeats, eyebrows raised. “His nickname is bear and what else to do you call him—ah, Nini.” Sehun hums. “You haven’t given me any cute nicknames though.” She complains.

Sehun, understanding his girlfriend’s tone, clears his throat and smiles one of his many charming smiles. “Oh, baby,” he sighs. “You don’t need any cute nicknames, you’re already so cute.” He leans up to pinch his girlfriend’s cheeks, she slaps his hands away.

She doesn’t seem flattered though, even if she has gotten some flush to her cheeks, but that must be because of the cold weather. “Sehun, what I mean is that you pay more attention to your best friend than me,” she says, and even though there’s complaining in her tone, she doesn’t exactly look accusatory. In fact, she looks excited about some of her own thoughts. “We always talk about Jongin, even when we’re on dates.”

Sehun shifts a little on his seat, he never noticed such. “Ha, we don’t always. What are you saying, Irene?”

“Sehun,” she says; “I am a girl, and I understand things better than most of the boys. Is there something going on between Jongin and you?”

Sehun chokes on his coffee. “No, no, of course, not,” he replies with a shake of his head. “He’s my best friend.”

“Sehun,” she calls and raises a brow. “There’s no written law that you can’t fall in love with your best friend.”

“Why are we even talking about falling in love anyway?” He asks, confused but very much interested in the conversation. “I love you—”

“No, you don’t,” she denies. “You don’t love me, you don’t even like me.”

“Baby,” Sehun says, is his girlfriend suffering from some kind of insecurity? “What are you saying?”

“You remembered the promise of taking Jongin out to mall, but you didn’t remember my birthday.” She’s smiling, though there are tears in her eyes. “I was honestly very upset that day, Sehun, I am not going to lie,” she says, shaking her head when he apologizes and tries to explain with some kind of ty explanations. “My parents were angry, but they finally decided to bring me out with themselves. We were at the same mall, thank God, my parents didn’t know you.”

How he didn’t notice his girlfriend there though?

“I saw you two shopping, and you two literally behaved like people in love.” She giggles. “When the lady met you, I was standing on the other side of the aisle, of different section for girls. I heard everything, Sehun,” she pauses for a second. “You two actually looked like boyfriends.” She bites her lower lip, taking Sehun’s silence as the initiative, she continues, “you two look good together, cute even.”

Sehun stays silent, looking out of the window because he doesn’t understand what she wants to say.

“Do you like him?”

Sehun laughs. “What are you saying?”

“Sehun, I am serious,” she actually sounds serious. “Do you?”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Irene.” He likes Jongin, of course, he does. Jongin is his best friend; they have been together for more than thirteen years of their young life. He likes Jongin, of course... but something about Irene’s expression says that she doesn’t mean the way he’s thinking. Does he like Jongin the way she’s saying? That’s not possible, a part of him provides, they are best friends and best friends don’t like each other like that. “I honestly don’t know what you mean.”

She smiles as if understanding the situation. “Let’s break up.”

Sehun looks taken aback, although the words don’t impact him the way they should. They shocked him right, but they don’t sadden him? Don’t make him want to get on his knees and beg for her mercy. “What?” he mutters, because he should at least look like he’s—

“Ah,” Irene says, leaning back on her chair. “Now neither you have to act nor I.”

“What do you mean?” Does she like girls?

“I mean, it was like giving everything to relationship where my partner didn’t give a about me.”

“Irene,” he says, apologetic.

“The next time you come anywhere near Jongin, make sure that you notice your own behaviour. If you want, you can compare the moments spend with him to the moments spend with me at the beginning of our relationship. At first, you actually looked like you loved me, so that should help.” She shrugs, she’s making Sehun feel guilty. “Or maybe, you should start noticing everything yourself. Let’s talk a bit, okay?” She doesn’t give Sehun any chance to reply before getting on. “Who you are most happy with—or, um, who do you think makes you the happiest?”

“Jongin,” he answers, without any doubts in his tone.

She grins. “Who do you always share things with first—anything that happens, good or bad, that doesn’t matter; even baseless things that will not bother anyone listening.”

He clears his throat. “Jongin,” he answers; “we always share things with each other, whether good or bad.”

Her grin has widened. “You never spent a penny on me.” Okay, did he do that? “Who do you spent—”

“Oh my God, Irene, stop it already.” He throws his hands in the air, not caring about the attention he has managed to gather.

She stops and presses her lips in a thin line. “Just be on lookout, I know it’s what I think it is.”

Sehun sighs and looks away from her. The thing she questions (even though there weren’t many to begin with) gives him some verisimilitude. “I said some mean things to him, he isn’t talking to me.”

“Apologize,” she suggests. Sehun tells her that he said some of the meanest things, and that he has already apologized. “Then, bring him out to some place that he likes,” she suggests, not understanding the whole matter completely. “What does he like?—do that for him, and then apologize. It doesn’t sound good when best friends start avoiding each other. Besides, the longer you wait, the more you’ll end up damaging your relationship with him.”

-

-

Jongin walks into his apartment with lights switched off. He furrows his brows in confusion, switching on the lights before looking around the place to find—

Oh. Sehun nervously stands beside their dining table, tapping his foot when Jongin stands on the doorway, shocked to his bones.

“What is it, Hun?”

“I cooked lasagne for you,” Sehun mutters, waving his hands a little. “I also bought a gift for you. A-as apology,” he mutters, walking towards Jongin with hesitant steps. “Come on,” he makes sure to keep his face away from his best friend’s hands just in case he decides to slap him in anger. Jongin steps out of his shoes and follows him inside, surprised to see what Sehun has done. “I tried my best; you know this is the only thing that I know how to cook.”

Sehun pushes him to sit on the chair, tapping his feet in nervousness when Jongin stays absolutely silent.

“I am hungry, let’s eat.”

“Uh, yeah, yeah.” He nods, sitting on the other chair before serving Jongin some. “Have some—”

“I am going to eat everything, you go and die,” Jongin says, laughing when Sehun stares at him in shock. “I was kidding, Hun, what the —why are you so jumpy these days?”

“Thanks,” he mutters, taking a little in his bowl. “Are you still angry with me?”

Jongin shakes his head. “I am not, I thought about it the whole day, you know—I realized that you were an to me, but you’re my . How can I stay angry at my own ?”

“Wow, that’s cool,” he sarcastically mutters.

“Hey!” Jongin squawks. “I didn’t even say as much as I should have, you were pretty much a big to me.”

“I am sorry, Nin. I told you I didn’t mean anything.”

“I know,” Jongin says, chewing on his bite. “That’s why I have forgiven you otherwise, I wouldn’t have, ever.”

He clasps Jongin’s hand under his, for the first time feeling the intimacy of the touch between their hands. “Thank you.”

Jongin smiles, a cute gummy smile. “You’re lucky that you have me as your best friend.”

“Yeah, best friend.”

-

-

can you come into my bedroom?

the lights have gone and you know how much i am scared of the dark?

Sehun, i know you’re reading this

, please

ask sweetly

maybe i will come then

Sehun don’t. be. an. to me

Jongin

Hunnie, your bear needs you to fight all the monsters hiding under his bed

i am coming

wait a minute

Sehun laughs a little to himself before clearing his throat and opening the door to his best friend’s bedroom; he knew, as soon as the lights were out, that Jongin will demand his presence and for that, he had been waiting outside of his door. Guess, knowing Jongin for years is the reason.

Jongin is hiding under the duvet when Sehun switches on the flash light of his phone, tossing and turning on his bed because he fears the ghost might come from anywhere.

“Jongin,” he calls, just before climbing on the bed. Jongin whimpers a small “Sehun” under his breath before clinging to him as soon as he dives under the duvet. “Hey, I am here, you don’t need to fear.”

“When the lights will come?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, placing his phone on the bed, all while ignoring Jongin’s innocent, adorable babbling of how he should “keep his hand inside just in case some ghosts were to catch his hand”. “Sleep now, it’s late.”

Jongin hums and snuggles into him more. “Thank you, Hunnie.”

“No worries.” He plays with the ends of Jongin’s shirt, feeling the shift of Jongin under his arms before opening his mouth to tell his best friend what he has been hiding ever since this morning. “I broke up with her—I mean, she broke up with me.”

Jongin is silent for some moments before he shifts to look up at him, although there’s nothing visible there. “Why, what happened? When did you two breakup, why do I know only now?”

“This morning,” he answers, playing with the soft locks of his best friend.

“Is everything alright, Hunnie? Are you hiding something from me?”

Tears gather in his eyes and he’s feeling as if he’s betraying his own best friend by hiding such big thing; he thought about everything a lot, pondered over every little memory of them spending their time together...everything, and now he has come to the conclusion that he definitely feels attracted to Jongin, more than any best friend would their for their best friend.

“I am not hiding anything.”

If Jongin catches the break in his voice, he doesn’t point that out, instead snuggles into him as he always does whenever Sehun feels even a little vulnerable. “I am always there for my Hunnie.”

Sehun smiles and presses a kiss to his head; finally closing his eyes and letting Jongin’s and the duvet heat bring him much-needed sleep. “Night, bear,” he mutters in a small whisper.

“Night, Hunnie.” Jongin snuggles some more before whimpering a little. “Keep away the monsters and ghosts from me.”

Sehun laughs, his best friend is so ing adorable.

-

 

-

Jongin’s fear of dark was solely started by his future best friend.

“Um, Hunnie,” Jongin says, looking around the dark basement. “Why did we come here?”

“We are playing hide and seek, right?” He asks, looking at their other friends bouncing up and down on their feet and giggling. “You have to look for us, you will start from here.”

“Why here?” Jongin shifts a little on his feet before looking on the other side when his friend asks him to, he doesn’t notice four of their friends sneaking behind him and hiding behind a table. “It’s dark here, Hunnie.”

“...the door will be open, and we both know there’s nothing in the dark.”

“...but,” Jongin says, but Sehun says that he’s leaving him alone, and that he can start counting. “Okay, hide well. I will find you soon.”

Sehun giggles something in reply before running out of the basement and closing the door of the basement with a loud bang. Jongin jumps at the sound before looking around himself in the dim lighting of the lone bulb.

“One,” he starts, wondering why his friend closed the door. “T-two—” he stops at the first squeak coming from somewhere beside him. “Who’s there?” His small figure shakes in fear before he steps back, tears already pooling in his eyes. “Who’s there?” A whoosh comes from the other side, Jongin shivers in fear. “Hunnie!” He shouts, curling in a corner and breaking into tears when some weird sounds start coming from all around him. “Hunnie, there’s someone here.”

When Sehun does not make any answer, he tries to walk towards the stairs of the basement, jumping in surprise and fear when a laugh comes from his right. “Who’s there?”

“We are here, come here, boy,”

“Ah, Hunnie!” he sobs and falls on the floor, curling into him because he doesn’t know where to go. Are they ghosts? But Hunnie promised that there’s nothing here, then—“Hunnie!”

The door opens a minute later; childish laughter fills up the whole place. Jongin, however, doesn’t look to see his friends, eyes shut tight in fear. He needs his friend, his Hunnie with him right now.

“Bear,” an unmistakable voice that greatly resembles his friend comes from his right. “Bear, I am here.”

“Hunnie, there were so many sounds.” He latches onto his friend’s body, their small bodies colliding with the impact. “Hunnie, there were ghosts.”

“...but I am here, aren’t I? I will keep all those ghosts away.”

“Promise, Hunnie?”

“I promise, bear.”

-

 

-

“Sehun broke up with her, I know he needs me.”

Baekhyun shifts a little on his feet, clearly upset at his boyfriend cancelling their plan of this evening at his house. “That’s fine, I guess.” He smiles a tight-lipped smile, sighing when Jongin pouts and looks on a verge of breaking into tears at the clear dejection in his answer. “We can go sometime else, I guess.”

“I am sorry; I know you planned so much for today. I had to ruin everything.”

“Hey,” Baekhyun says, cupping his cheeks before pulling him down to press a kiss to his lips. “It’s fine; he’s your best friend. You know him better, if you say that he needs you then he needs you. I know, don’t worry.” He pats Jongin on his , laughing when Jongin squeaks at the intimate contact in public. “Besides, I know you’ll pay me something in return.”

Jongin slaps him hard on his elbow, whining about how his boyfriend is turning into a complete ert.

“Hey,” Baekhyun says. “Your is work of art! I can be as much of a big ert for it as you want.”

On the other side, Sehun is completely pissed off by his best friend’s and his boyfriend’s PDA.

“You look ugly, dude.” Chanyeol remarks, groaning when Sehun slaps him on his thigh; “they look cute together—look, look, Baekhyun actually looks like he could Jongin right then and there.”

Sehun shows his elbow to his friend, growling a little in the back of his throat. “Don’t say things like that.”

“...but they are boyfriends! They can do whatever they want to—I can imagine whatever I want to.”

“You know why I am saying that, . Don’t make things difficult for me.”

Chanyeol muffles a laugh into his fist. “Told you, you would be the first one to realize everything.” He shrugs when Sehun doesn’t bother with a reply. “I mean since you two are basically a couple—even platonically—things won’t change much even if you two come together. Except, since I imagine you two to be as , you two will all over the place.”

Sehun slaps a hand over Chanyeol’s mouth just when Jongin climbs inside his car. “What happened?” He asks, sweet in his tone.

Jongin pouts a little to himself, eyes fixed on Baekhyun leaving the place on his own bike. “He was sad.”

“Oh,” Sehun says, as if it actually bothers him. “I am sorry, Nin.”

“You don’t have to apologize, dumbhead. Let’s go, it’s party time!”

-

-

Their party time consists of playing video games at Chanyeol’s apartment at late night, empty beer bottles and snacks sprawled around them, and the three friends swearing at each other because they don’t know how they would win in their current situation.

“Jongin, you might as well sit wholly on Sehun’s lap,” Chanyeol comments, rolling his eyes when Sehun announces that he won’t play anymore, no worries; he was in the last spot anyway.

“Shut up,” Jongin whines, purring when Sehun rubs his hands up and down Jongin’s sides. Chanyeol shifts a little on his seat. “Sehun, ya know what happened at Baekhyun’s?”

Chanyeol looks away, hoping to never see such level of intimacy between his friends again. His friends aren’t even in the right state of mind, who knows what they’ll end up doing. He grins at the thought, what if they end up sleeping together? Sleeping, in a sense, sleeping together. Chanyeol can’t wipe the grin from his face with the vivid imagination of what his friends might react like if they actually end up sleeping together.

He rubs his hands together, feeling very much like a psychopath, before turning to look at his friends only to choke back a laugh (or is it a disappointed groan?) when he catches sight of Sehun knocked out and Jongin sprawled over him with all his long limbs. Oh God, help these losers.

-

-

“Chanyeol is angry about something.”

“Chanyeol is pissed off about something,” Sehun corrects, watching their friend resolutely looking straight at the television. The television is switched off. “uh, Chanyeol dude, everything’s alright?”

“Nah,” Chanyeol replies sarcastically. “I want some people to , but they aren’t ing.”

Jongin shifts a little on his seat, and Sehun looks amused before he wipes the smile off his face realizing that his friend must be talking about Jongin and him (with all those stink, disappointed eyes that Chanyeol is passing them, especially him).

“Ya know, I was waiting the whole night for the sounds, but they never came.”

“Ugh,” Jongin mutters, getting up from the couch to walk into the kitchen. “You have some weird kinks, Chanyeol.”

“I might have as well,” Chanyeol retorts, looking Sehun up and down. “Since I am actually waiting for some action,” he adds quietly.

Sehun covers his clothed crotch with the cushion, passing his friend a funny look because he’s being weird.

“Look at Jongin’s ,” Chanyeol begins a few minutes later, and when he’s sure Jongin won’t return for some more time. “Look at his lovely skin, don’t you feel like ing him?”

Sehun hisses, and slaps a hand on his friend’s mouth, Chanyeol slaps it away. “What the , Chanyeol?”

“Do you want me to work on Jongin’s —no, not like that, unless you want me, that is—and bring some pictures of his fine piece of ? Dude, I know you aren’t straight, drop the act already.”

“I am straight,” Sehun mutters, sounding confused himself. “Hey, I got hard ogling a girl’s s.”

“What the , ew, Sehun.” Chanyeol scrunches his nose in distaste.

“What?” Sehun laughs. “You basically talked about me...uh, Jongin and me ing, and when I talked about getting hard on a girl, you just—”

“I ship you two together, not a girl and you. Go and die.” He throws his hands in the air, wondering why he’s being so dramatic. “Look, dude,” he begins a few seconds later, sounding serious this time. “I still think that you two look good together, and will end up together, so why can’t you bless my soul by announcing the news to me already—or wait,” he stops, sounding suspicious. “Are you two already in a relationship and hiding from all of us, huh?”

“Chanyeol, Jongin is dating Baekhyun dude, and we both know that.”

“Why are sounding so heartbroken, huh?” Chanyeol grins, poking a finger straight on Sehun’s chest. “Why, why, why, tell me why?”

“I am not sure what you’re talking about.” He denies, but there’s a flush on his cheeks.

“Jealous, are we?” Chanyeol looks up to see Jongin walking out of the kitchen with three bowls of rice in a tray. “Hey, Jongin, do you think Sehun is handsome?”

Jongin scrunches his nose before he nods, not sure about the whole situation. “Yes, he is, unfortunately but whatever.” Sehun squawks and slaps a hand on the back of Jongin’s head, the slap is hard, and Jongin gets teary eyed. Sehun, worried for his best friend, apologizes and massages the exact area that he slapped. “You’re always an to me, Hunnie.” Jongin mutters, whining low in his throat.

Wow, if his friends aren’t the most subtle pair of couple out there.

-

-

“Baekhyun is out of station for some days.”

Sehun couldn’t be more delighted with the news.

“I miss him already,” Jongin whines, “he always says all these cheesy lines.” Sehun shifts a little, refraining himself from rolling his eyes because he knows what type of cheesy ty lines Baekhyun picks up. “Baekhyun is handsome, no?”

“Is he more handsome than me?”

“No, of course, not,” Jongin answers in a heartbeat. “No one can be more handsome than my Hunnie.”

Sehun hums and wills the smile away. “Have you solved your questions, yet?”

Jongin whines, and looks down at his own notebook. He hasn’t solved even one question ever since they sat for late night studying one hour ago. The bedroom lights cast a glow on Jongin’s face when he looks up at him again, his wide eyes looking very much innocent this moment, and the permanent pout that he never noticed before very noticeable to him at this moment. In short, he feels captivated by his best friend’s beauty for a minute.

He thinks no more than twice before leaning in to brush aside the fringes falling over kind, brown eyes, just so that he could stare at them for the rest of his life, without any obstruction. “I’ll help you,” he says, “just let me finish mine.”

Jongin hums something in reply before watching him working on his own questions. “If only teacher didn’t give us different questions.”

“No worries, you got your Hunnie for your rescue.”

Jongin doesn’t answer, and keeps staring at him in silence. For the first few minutes, Sehun lets him have his moment of appreciating him, but when he couldn’t take in anymore, he huffs.

“Jongin, stop staring at me like that,” Sehun mutters, adjusting his glasses before writing down the answers of the solution he has calculated.

“Oh, Hunnie,” Jongin sighs, a dreamy smile on his face. “You always look so hot in glasses.”

Sehun reddens. “What the , Jongin?”

Jongin shrugs, eyes flitting across his best friend’s face; his best friend is an (most of the times at least), but a handsome nonetheless. “If you were not my best friend,” he begins a few minutes later; “I would’ve asked you to me, all while wearing those glasses.”

Sehun sputters and throws his pen towards his best friend; Jongin somehow manages to duck in time. “What the hell—go to your new boyfriend, you , little ,” he makes sure to pass Jongin an unimpressed look; his mind tries to provide him vivid imaginations of what his best friend said, but he absolutely refuses to show them on his face. If Jongin could read mind (or face for that matter), he would probably leave him and never come back into his life, his thoughts and imagination right this moment are that disgusting.

Jongin seems undeterred though. “No, but I wonder what would happen if we weren’t best friends. Suppose we never met at that mall, suppose we met during one of our classes. What would’ve happened?”

“You would’ve fallen for my handsomeness,” he answers, smug in his tone.

Jongin looks like he’s thinking something though and he turns fully to his best friend. Sehun does the same. “I sometimes wonder what we would have done if we weren’t best friends, and living like this—in an apartment, sharing the rents and all.”

Sehun doesn’t complain when Jongin shamelessly places both of his legs on his thighs, he almost naturally gets on massaging Jongin’s thighs like the way he’s used to. “I told you, we would’ve fallen in love—it’s hard not to fall for you. Romantically, I mean.” He gulps and hopes Jongin doesn’t notice the nervousness in his tone and his posture.

Jongin seems smug by the answer. “It’s hard to not fall for me, right?” He wriggles his eyebrows before placing his cheek on his hand, elbow snugly placed over their study table, his cheek looks chubbier than it actually is (and Sehun kinds of wants to pinch it). “Sad that you aren’t gay,” he mutters, almost sounding disappointed. “I would love to have a caring boyfriend as you. You’re sweet, charming—heck, you could charm someone off their pants just by smiling!—and you’re so ing awesome, cute and everything that anyone would want in a partner.” He pouts then, eyes actually looking sad for a fleeting moment. “So sad that you aren’t gay,” he says as if mocking the fragile newly found feelings of his best friend.

He is. Gay. He is gay for Jongin, not for anyone else. Not for any other guy, but he’s gay for his best friend. God, what a trouble he has managed to land himself into.

“Why are we even talking about all this,” Jongin questions, laughing a little to himself.

Sehun thinks Jongin looks terribly precious in his burrowed shirt from him, his bear trousers and that face.

-

-

Sehun thinks he gets the feeling of protecting Jongin from every bad thing in this world more often than anything else. He also thinks Jongin should not associate himself with so many guys, male dudes, because they always look like they want to do the same for Jongin. Sehun also gets worried that Jongin might notice their feelings than his just because they’re best friends.

He also doesn’t like the smug, knowing look that Chanyeol always wears as if he knows things more than he does. In a sense, he does, but really whatever. So he huffs and pretends that Chanyeol doesn’t know what’s keeping him on the edge ever since they stepped inside the cafeteria of their school.

“Jongin should stop wearing jeans that tight, no?”

Sehun hums, agreeing right away. “He should never.”

“Well,” Chanyeol says and his lips. “I have heard there’s a party that some dude is holding, a couple party. You know what I mean, don’t you, dude?”

Sehun does, but he fears what change that would bring between Jongin’s and his relationship.

“Did you hear about the party?” he cautiously asks when they return to their place, watching as Jongin hums in reply.

“What about it?”

“Are you going?”

“Baekhyun isn’t here, Hunnie.” He stops and eyes Sehun. “What do you actually want to imply?”

“Um, I have heard that they will give free food as well,” which is nothing but a ty excuse; “there’s nothing more fun than eating free food.”

Jongin looks like he’s thinking about it, before his eyes light up all of a sudden. “Would they give us chocolates as well?”

Sehun shrugs, laughing a little to himself. “If they didn’t, then I will buy you some.”

“Really?” Jongin asks, as if Sehun would buy him chocolates for the first time in years of their friendship. “You really are charming, Hun.”

“Thanks.” He smirks, winning Jongin over is so ing easy.

-

 

-

“It’s sad that you got cold today, Hunnie.”

Sehun pouts from the other end, huffing and puffing because his parents didn’t allow him to even taste his favourite ice-cream. “Go away.”

“Why are you angry on me, Hunnie?” Jongin hums, sounding greatly puzzled and sad. “I didn’t do anything.” He plops next to his friend, Sehun looks away from him. “Uncle, auntie just don’t want you to get more sick.”

“Ugh, don’t speak,” he mutters, annoyed that his friend is taking his parents side. “You ate your ice-cream, why are you here then? Go and eat more.”

“...but I brought some for Hunnie,” the boy says, waving the small bowl in his small hands in front of his friend’s face. Sehun widens his eyes in surprise before grabbing the bowl from his friend’s hands in his own small hands.

“Thank you, bear!”

Jongin sweetly giggles, watching as his friend eats the ice-cream as if he hasn’t eaten in forever. “I brought only a little because I know you’re sick, and I don’t want you to get sicker.”

“Thank you, bear. I love you anyway.”

Jongin smiles a cute smile, asking his friend if he would share some with him as well. Sehun looks reluctant at first, but shares a few spoons with his friend nonetheless.

-

 

-

“What if someone from school realized that I am not with Baekhyun but with my best friend?”

“Tell them you two broke up, and I proposed you, and we became boyfriends.”

“Oh, wow, Sehun,” Jongin exclaims, sounding greatly amused. “You sure are getting good at lying.”

“What do you mean?” He bounces on his feet a little, grabbing Jongin’s hand to haul him up his feet when he notices couples walking inside the hall. Jongin, not ready for such pull, stumbles into his best friend’s chest, huffing when Sehun groans.

“You don’t always need to show off your incredible arm strength, Hun.” Sehun raises an amused brow before bravely wrapping an arm around Jongin’s waist and walking further inside the party area. “You don’t need to hold me like this, Hun,” Jongin points out, but he’s blushing.

“Act like a couple in love, bear. Smile now.”

Jongin does, finding comfort in the familiar warmth of his best friend’s arm. More than he finds in the arms of his new boyfriend.

The party is, to some extent, sumptuous; Jongin and Sehun can’t help but feel happy that they decided to attend the party, as a couple, but it’s not like it means anything. They are here just for free food, and some fun, and nothing else. At least Jongin, if not Sehun. Much to Sehun’s displeasure, Jongin quickly becomes the cynosure of all eyes in the party, especially the males who have been nothing more than dogs running after their school popular, Kim Jongin.

Jongin, much to Sehun’s annoyance, flirts with them back; if Baekhyun were here, he wouldn’t have done that. Sehun knows that Jongin means no harm with all the flirting, he’s just passing the time until they’re allowed to eat food, but even that can’t help the anger that brews up his throat.

Why can’t Jongin flirt with him as well?

Of course, he has the answer for it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel like pulling Jongin close and kiss that smirk off his pretty lips.

“Why are you sitting here, alone?” Jongin comes to him, all wide eyes and looking haughty with all the attention he has managed to get within half an hour after their arrival. Not like Sehun hasn’t, but when you have your eyes set on someone, then no other attention matters to you more than that of that particular person’s. Sehun thinks he’s reasonable enough when he shifts back on the couch of the living room and raises an eyebrow at his best friend.

They are drunk, and this is the best time to let everything lose.

Jongin crawls into his lap, humming to the song played in the background. “I want to eat something.”

“You having so much fun, why do you even want to go back?”

Jongin shrugs into his neck, hot breath fanning Sehun’s ear, and doing things that Sehun finds pleasure in. Oh, how he didn’t notice the effect Jongin has on him?

“You like holding me a lot these days, Hunnie.” Jongin comments, he has noticed a lot of things. “More than ever, like,” he slurs a little and looks into his best friend’s eyes. “Do you want to tell me something? Are you hiding something from me?”

“I am not,” he answers, lies through his clenched teeth.

“You are,” Jongin denies, easily reading the expression on his face; Jongin has known him for years, it would be a futile attempt to even hide any real emotions from the same being who knows him more than he knows himself. “What is it?” Jongin is already mapping his face with his delicate, little fingers; like he always does when he’s thinking something that he’s hesitating telling Sehun. “You really are handsome, do you even know how much I wish you weren’t my best friend.”

Sehun laughs a little, poking cute nose of his friend. “Why, do you not like I am your best friend?”

Jongin shakes his head and lolls his head a little; he is drunk, Sehun is going to have trouble walking him back to their apartment. “I just wish...” Jongin stops, Sehun’s heart races. “I wish you were more.”

-

-

The walk back to their apartment is nothing short of struggling for Sehun; he stumbles a little on his way, catches Jongin before he could fall face first on the road, sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and stumbles again. Repeats.

“Hunnie,” Jongin giggles, “you’re so cute.” Sehun rolls his eyes, and tightens his hold around Jongin’s waist. “Hunnie, Hunnie!”

“Jongin, shut up, you’re screaming.”

“I am whispering,” Jongin claims, eyes wide when he searches for Sehun’s. “I don’t always scream.” He does a ty job at wriggling his eyebrows, laughing at his own joke. “Unless you make me,” he adds.

Sehun’s face burns red, and he’s glad that the streetlights aren’t really doing their work, he doesn’t think if he could explain his dirty thoughts to the other male. “Shut up.”

“Baekhyun wants to me,” Jongin says, all of a sudden being an understatement. He asks Sehun if they could wait a little where they’re currently standing, Sehun refuses and tells him that he’s sleepy. “I don’t want to sleep with him though.”

“Is he forcing himself on you?”

“Apparently everyone thinks that I just sleep around with every guy of our school. Baekhyun thinks the same, even though he hasn’t really said that, I know he thinks the same.” Jongin answers instead. “I hate what he thinks of me. I mean...” he hiccups a little, Sehun realizes he’s crying. He stops and pulls the shorter in his arms, giving him the warmth that he needs but isn’t asking for. “I mean, he’s a nice guy, Sehun.” He stutters when he continues. “...But I honestly don’t like what he thinks of me, what everyone thinks of me.”

Sehun remembers saying something like that as well, and he apologizes for being inconsiderate of his words, and for being insensitive towards his own best friend. Jongin shakes his head into his chest, Sehun’s shirt soak every little tear of Jongin.

“Do you think the same, Sehun? I remember you saying that—do you think the same?”

“I don’t,” he answers, voice promising. “I am sorry, but I didn’t mean anything.”

“Really, Hunnie?”

“Really, bear.” Then as if remembering something, he smiles into his friend’s hair.

“Would you leave me?”

“Why would I?”

“No,” Jongin mumbles, sad in his tone; “I just thought you would.”

Sehun stays silent for the first few moments. “You know what my mom says?” He asks when he’s sure Jongin could break into fresh tears.

“What?” Jongin hums, acting more than he actually is. “What does she say?”

“One day she held my hand and advised me wisely to never leave my bear.” Jongin hums in his chest, the boy knows Mrs. Oh’s liking for him. “I asked her what would happen if I left him. She got very angry, but then she just said something that I haven’t forgotten yet.” He stops for with a small pause. “She always says the same.”

“What is it? What is it?” Jongin bounces a little on his feet; Sehun adjusts him in his arms.

“She says you and I, both of us, are connected by this thread.”

“Thread,” Jongin mumbles, looking as confused as ever when he looks up into his eyes.

“Yes, she says it’s a red thread. She says we cannot see it, no one can see it except the one who made us. She says throughout all these years—the years we have spent together, with each other—it has only gotten stronger, and no matter how hard we try, we cannot run away from this. We cannot run away from each, it doesn’t matter how upset or angry we are with each other.” He rubs a thumb over the soft skin of Jongin’s cheek, wondering how he is coming up with such cheesy lie, something that his mother never said in the first place. “Even after that, if we try to run away, we will never be happy without each other. We will always be in a desperate need of each other; in short, we will always be sad. Do I want to be sad? No. Do I even think about leaving my bear behind me? No. Do I fear the day when we would separate? Yes, I do, I ing do.”

“You’re lying, no?” Jongin giggles, but there’s a smile on his lips, as if he understands everything even without understanding anything. “Auntie never said all those things, right?”

Sehun hates how Jongin could read through him, but isn’t able to read all the signs of Sehun feeling more than attracted to him. “I am,” he says, accepts with a smile. “Whatever I said, however, was true. I cannot leave you behind, I cannot even think of leaving you behind. Don’t even ask that ing stupid question, again.”

Jongin scrunches his nose and hugs him tight; Sehun thinks he’s crying again. “I love you, my Hunnie.”

“Love you, too.” Then as if remembering something; “my bear, love you too.”

-

-

“Hunnie,” Jongin announces his presence in their apartment a few days later. “I got zero in history.”

Sehun, shocked to his bones because history is his best friend’s favourite subject, turns around to dramatically pull the shorter in his arms for a hug. “How did you get zero—that’s ing insane.”

“Hunnie,” Jongin says, stepping back before passing his friend a bored look because Sehun’s being too dramatic for his liking. “I was kidding.” Of course. “I got the highest!” He shows him the paper before bouncing on his feet and announcing his friend how many praises he got from his teacher. “If only you’d history as well.”

“Then you would be laughing at me,” Sehun says, tone accusing before he turns around to place his books back in their place. “I am glad that I didn’t take history, I don’t even like history to begin with.”

“...but you started playing badminton just because I love it,” he points out, pouting he doesn’t know what else to do. “That doesn’t matter though, you’re a loser, and you’re always going to be a loser, Hunnie.”

“Thanks, Nin, I wanted to hear exactly that.” Jongin laughs a little behind him but doesn’t say anything.

“Hunnie,” he begins a few minutes later. “I have something to tell you.” He sounds serious, so Sehun turns around to make sure it isn’t something bad. “I don’t think if I should delay this anymore.”

Sehun raises an eyebrow, watching as Jongin stumbles in his short way to Sehun’s bed. “What is it?”

“I...” he stops, and he’s looking very nervous. “I am...”

“You’re what?” Does his best friend suffer from some chronic disease? “Bear, you’re scaring—what, what did you say?”

Jongin bites his lower lip, lowering his eyes because Sehun looks like he could explode any moment. “I am pregnant,” he repeats.

Sehun almost does explode—because what? Jongin is pregnant? How could he when he’s a guy? “What the are you saying?”

“I am pregnant,” Jongin huffs; “dumbhead, Baekhyun’s the dad.”

What. The. ? “What the , what the , what the ?” He rubs his hands on his face, wondering if he’s still sleeping and dreaming some kind of ty dream. “What the do you even mean? How could you even get pregnant?”

“I don’t know!” Jongin throws his hands in the air. “It’s some weird science; men can get pregnant as well.”

“Wait,” Sehun says as if caught on something. “You said that you two didn’t sleep together, how could he then—” he stops at the first laugh that bubbles out of his best friend’s throat. “You ing , you liar.”

“Oh my God,” Jongin wheezes, shuffling back on the bed when Sehun runs to him; “you’re so ing stupid. Haha.” He presses his lips in a thin line, trying to hold back his laugh when Sehun catches onto him, arms wrapped so tight around him that he isn’t able to move. “Leave me! Leave me, please.”

“No way,” Sehun growls, pinning the boy’s hands over his head because Jongin is being a little ; “what kind of joke was that?”

“I was just,” Jongin stops, trying to wriggle a little under Sehun’s weight, to no avail. “You’re so heavy; you’re going to kill me. Get up.”

“I won’t.” He grins, sleazy. “Does Jonginnie have a pregnancy kink?”

It’s Jongin’s turn to blush, and he does that ever so delicately that Sehun almost misses his reaction if it were not for his eyes fixed on Jongin’s pretty face. “Shut up,”

“Say sorry.” He demands, raising an eyebrow when Jongin shakes his head. “Apologize, Jonginnie.”

“Why would I—you should apologize instead.”

“Why?”

“Apologize for being stupid, what else, dumbhead.” He laughs some more, choking on it when Sehun leans a little more down. “Ugh, what are you doing—keep your face away from me!” He’s blushing and Sehun finds delight in knowing that it’s because of him.

“Apologize or I will kiss you.”

Jongin comically widens his eyes, taken aback at such threat. “What are you saying?” He squeaks, trying to push Sehun off him, only to end up failing. “Sehun...”

“Apologize, Nin.”

“I won’t—” He stops at the first smack of their lips, first time after that day, words pressed between their lips. Keeping his eyes wide open, he watches as Sehun shuts his own, moving his ing perfect lips against his plush ones. He tries to push his friend off when the shock fades into nothing but confusion and hurt (hurt?), Sehun pulls back, but doesn’t get off from him. He adjusts a little on top of him instead, moves so slow and calculated as if he doesn’t want Jongin to even feel them.

“Sehun,” Jongin says, turning more confused when he notices no remorse, guilt or shame on his friend’s face. “What the was that?”

“I am not going to apologize,” he whispers, pressing their lips together, again and again. He likes the way their lips fit together, as if they were made to mould together. Curling his fingers into Jongin’s, he slaps them hard against each side of Jongin’s head, angry at himself for being this foolish but satiated nonetheless.

“Sehun, get up.”

“I won’t,” he replies, shaking his head and burying his face into the juncture of Jongin’s neck. Jongin shivers, a lot, at the press of his open mouth there. Sehun realizes Jongin is sensitive there, very much.

“Sehun,” Jongin repeats, warning lacing his tone; “I said get the away.”

“I won’t,” he whines, shaking his head where he has buried it. “I won’t, Nin, I won’t leave you.” He stays silent for some moments, even Jongin stays silent. “I like you, Nin. I love you.”

“I love you as well, ; we’re best friends, of course, we love each other—”

“Not like that, Nin, not like that.”

“Sehun,” Jongin says and shifts under him, or tries to shift under him. “You’re not making much sense.”

“I want to take care of you, look after you. I want to be with you, every moment.”

“You are,” Jongin says, still confused but his voice is gentle, as if he were talking to a kid Sehun. “You are ing there for me for everything!”

“Then why don’t you understand?” He questions, eyes turning teary the longer Jongin stays silent under him. “Why don’t you understand anything then?”

“Sehun,” Jongin says, kind in his tone. “I understand, you’re there for me, and that’s why I say you’re always there for me. You’re always there for me, I know.”

“More than best friends, Nin,” He looks up, eyes fixed in Jongin’s; “I want to do so much—take care of you, look after you, be there for you, fulfil every little demand of yours, kiss you, hold you, do everything. Not as a best friend, I want more.”

“It’s Chanyeol getting on you.” Jongin narrows his eyes.

Sehun shakes his head and gets up from Jongin. “No, not Chanyeol.” Jongin lies perfectly still on the bed. “This stupid feeling that I am realizing now; Chanyeol just gave a little push, and here I am now,” Sehun says, honest in his words.

“ing shut up.” Jongin growls and sits up on the bed.

“Trust me, if I’d known how to stop this, I would have done that the same day I—”

“Sehun, shut up.”

“The same day I realized that I love you. Heck, even Irene knew something was up with me, and I didn’t even know her personally for more than a week.”

Jongin looks away, sitting on the edge of the bed as if he wants to get up, but at the same time isn’t able to because something’s holding him back. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I am not,” he answers after a brief pensive silence from his side. “I am not, I am serious.”

Jongin stands up and anxiously paces around the small bedroom. “Why do you have to do this to me? W-we can’t be—how could you, how could you?” By the end of the sentence, his voice breaks, as if he hadn’t expected his friend to do such. “We’re best friends, Sehun! How could you?”

“You’re saying as if falling in love with you is sin.”

“It is!” Jongin says and throws his hands in the air, he watches in silence as Sehun sits on the bed as well, Sehun isn’t avoiding his gaze though. “You’re my best friend; we ing promised that we will never.”

“ that promise,” he growls, shocking Jongin greatly. “It’s so ing hard to not fall for you!” He waves his hands a little, not realizing he has broken into tears already. “I have been doing everything without realizing anything, and then that bastard had to say all those rubbish and...” he rubs his hands over his face, sobbing because Jongin isn’t coming to stop and wipe the tears rushing down his cheeks. Oh, how lonely he feels right this moment.

“I hadn’t known that I was already there, bear. I-I just realized that now—I am not sorry, I am honestly not sorry at all.”

Jongin looks like he’s caught himself in dilemma; his posture looks like he’s struggling to either go and hug his friend, or leave Sehun’s bedroom and lock himself in his own. He doesn’t do anything, and stays still there, listening to Sehun blubbering the things that he has noticed between them, and how natural everything is between them. Listening to his best friend pointing out makes him want to believe everything himself, and he realizes, when he rubs his face with his hands, how he’s crying as well. He doesn’t know if he’s crying because he doesn’t understand the situation or because Sehun is crying, but he’s crying, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

His phone rings just then, he picks up and leaves the bedroom to walk into his own.

-

-

“Um, you’re freeloading in my apartment,” Chanyeol comments, just because Sehun doesn’t want to hear anything about Jongin, and Chanyeol doesn’t have anything to say because he’s freaking happy that something happened between his friends after all, in the end. “If you want to stay even one more hour, go and find some work to pay for the rent.”

“I am basically staying on this couch, don’t be selfish. Let me live,” he sighs and watches as romance blooms between the two protagonists in the movie, and oh, they are best friends. If it’s that easy there, then why it can’t be easy here as well? “I think it’s your duty to serve me.”

“You’re not a Prince, so excuse me.”

“I am your friend though, so there that’s it.”

Chanyeol rolls his eyes and comes back with pizza that he’d ordered earlier.

“...and,” Sehun says, “you always give me pizza to eat, and I pay half for it. So don’t be so whiny about me living here.”

“You’re freeloading here for three days!” Chanyeol exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “Have you even talked to Jongin after that day? Don’t you think he would be worried about you?”

“You told him I am here, I don’t think if he has any reason.”

“Of course, he would be. He’s your...” he coughs, and hides a smirk behind his slice of pizza. “He’s your best friend.”

Sehun stays silent for some moments, the slice just an inch from his face. “I told him to never come to me if he thinks of me as his best friend.”

Chanyeol, shocked, places his half-eaten slice back on the box, staring at his friend as if he did the biggest mistake of his life. “You can’t be serious, dude.” Sehun stays silent, and presses his lips in a thin line. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“I didn’t think it would be important, that’s it, dude.”

“Are you kidding me?—you actually asked him to never come to you?”

“As long as he thinks that we can only be best friends, yes, I did then.”

“You sure are a child, Sehun.” Chanyeol tsks, shaking his head because he has no idea what Sehun was thinking while saying that. “I was wondering why Jongin wasn’t coming at my place to meet you, and I guess, I finally got an answer.”

Sehun looks taken aback by the theory, and he has the audacity to get teary eyed. “I didn’t know what else to do! H-he wasn’t listening, he was just swearing at me for being a dumbhead, stupid, and I couldn’t take it. So, so I said that.”

“You know Jongin is as headstrong as you are, don’t you dude?” Sehun buries his face in his hands, wondering why he did what he did. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Jongin didn’t come to you for a whole week, a month, and months, a year or , for an eternity. Not even at your funeral.” Chanyeol sounds as if he’s worried now; he has known Jongin for years, and knows how proud his friend can be. To challenge him like that...Sehun sure wasn’t in his right state of mind. He wouldn’t accept anything until Jongin comes at his door and demands Sehun’s presence back in his life.

“Think positive, dude,” Sehun begs.

“I can’t think of any positive thing at all, Sehun. Tell me how I should think about positive things when you dug grave to bury your years of friendship in it. Heck, you selfish , you could live just being his best friends. Why you had to be so dramatic as to challenge Jonginnie?”

“Now he’s Jonginnie for you?”

“He has always been Jonginnie for me, thank you.” Chanyeol challenges, raised eyebrows and all.

The bell rings then, Chanyeol asks if Sehun has any mood to check on his door, Sehun kindly refuses. Chanyeol gets up with a small huff and walks to the door, opens it to catch sight of a teary-eyed Jongin awkwardly shuffling on his feet. He looks like he had been crying before coming here; the dark circles under his eyes tell how he probably hasn’t been sleeping well as well. Sehun is definitely an in his eyes right now, what has he done to his pretty friend?

“Hi, Jongin,” he greets, smile awkward when he finally catches Jongin’s eyes.

“Is the here?”

Uh. “Yeah, he’s inside...”

“Call him; tell him I am waiting here.”

“Do you not want to come inside?”

“I asked you to call the here, Chanyeol. Do you not understand what I mean?”

“I-I do.”

Jongin looks like an angry puppy, but Chanyeol refuses to point that out in fear of Jongin actually biting on him. He walks back into the living room, kicks Sehun on his side and asks him to get the out of his apartment right now.

“What happened?” Sehun groans, rubbing his side.

“Jongin is here,” Chanyeol answers, nodding at the still open door of his apartment. “He’s looking very upset, and his eyes—dude his eyes are red and swollen, and I feel like kicking you out of this planet for hurting my puppy friend.”

“Puppy friend,” he scoffs and gets up when Jongin shouts a loud “come out, you er!” a minute later. “Okay, I will go. Pray for my soul.”

Chanyeol clasps a hand on his shoulder. “I will, bro, I will.”

-

-

“I broke up with Baekhyun,” Jongin announces, looking ahead at the dark road in front of them. Sehun walks silently beside him; mouth sealed shut because he has no idea why Jongin is even talking to him. “I told him everything, and he gave me pretty good insights about a lot of things.” Sehun still keeps mum. Jongin presses his lips in a thin line, although his lips wobble, a sign that he could break into tears any time. Sehun feels like pulling him in a hug. “I thought I loved him, but Baekhyun said something that I couldn’t understand until I locked myself in my bedroom. To cry.”

“What did he say?” He asks when Jongin looks up at him, as if begging him to talk to him.

Jongin shakes his head, as if refusing to speak any further. When he notices the first tear slipping out of his friend’s eye, he pulls him in a side hug, continuing walking because Jongin looks like he needs the familiar comfort of their home.

“He just said that I was trying to run away from something that I can never run away from. A futile attempt to run away from something, or someone, that’s destined for me. He said I was stupid for even thinking that I could move on when I was already...” he stops, breaths in, breaths out; “when I was already willingly trapped in it.”

Sehun rubs his thumb on Jongin’s shoulder, just over his shirt. “Let’s drink your favourite hot chocolate and talk, yes?”

“...but,” Jongin says, confused yet smiling a knowing smile. “You don’t even like hot chocolate.”

“...but I like I my bear, don’t I?” He teases, “I can even drink poison for him.”

“Oh my God, Sehun,” Jongin giggles, slapping his hand away; “You’re so ing cheesy—your lover will always cringe at you.”

“Well, then you should learn how to deal with a lover like me. Don’t you?”

Jongin doesn’t answer; Sehun notices the blush on his cheeks though.

-

-

“Will you say anything at all?” He asks, grin widening when Jongin rubs his toe on his ankle.

They returned home half an hour ago, freshened up in silence, kept giggling at each other, and then finally came into Jongin’s bedroom. Jongin had pushed him to sit on the bed, leaning heavily against the headboard, and he’s sitting on the chair kept right beside the bed. Jongin has been rubbing his toe on his ankles ever since they sat there; Sehun knows Jongin means no harm, but he still feels as if Jongin wants to arouse him. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up being aroused in the end.

“What?” Jongin asks, tone so shy that Sehun almost pulls him in a hug.

“You wanted to tell me something.”

“I don’t remember saying anything like that.” He giggles, Sehun giggles along.

Oh my God, they look like fools. Fools in love.

“So should I go and sleep.”

“I dare you to.” Sehun doesn’t move. “Thought so,” he says and smugly smiles. “What do you want to hear, God?” He exclaims when Sehun repeats what he wanted to say.

“Tell me when you realized.”

Jongin shrugs, he seems nervous. “The moment I realized that you stood beside me like a lover; when you stayed with me in any given circumstance, when you stayed with me when I needed you the most. When I realized that there’s not even one day that I spent without you ever since we became friends.” He smiles; there are tears in his eyes. “The moment I realized that I want the same for the rest of my life.”

“...and?”

“The moment I realized that I wanted to change the relationship as well.”

Sehun raises an eyebrow.

“The moment I realized that I want to kiss you anytime as well, the moment I realized that I want to be there for you. Like a lover, more than best friends.”

Jongin scrunches and giggles some more in embarrassment, Sehun smiles and stretches a hand to him, Jongin takes it and crawls on his lap. Pressing a kiss to Jongin’s lips, he promises him of an eternity. Jongin presses a kiss to his head, and promises him back, curling more and more on Sehun’s lap the more the taller wraps him into his arms and the warm comforter around them.

“Love you, Hunnie.”

“I love you too, my bear.”