Prompt: “I might just kiss you” 

(pairing: vernon (seventeen)/seungkwan (seventeen). Genre: fluff, humor. Rating: pg. Words: 1537)  

There are, genereally speaking, two kinds of people in the world: Those who can hold their liquor, and those who can’t. Vernon falls into the latter category. He knows that, Seungkwan knows that, Seventeen knows it, hell, the rest of the world probably knows it, but does that stop him? Absolutely not. He’s turning 18, Boo, let him live a little! Is the initial argument Mingyu proposes, and the rest of the hip hop unit thinks that’s a ing brilliant one, and so they grabbed the birthday boy by the neck and dragged him out of the dorm, with Jihoon hollering after them that they’d better be back before 3, because the van would be picking them up at 5.  

Seungkwan is fast asleep when the door to the maknae line’s shared room bursts open, and something wakes him from his slumber. That something is approximately five feet and ten inches tall, smelling like the inside of a soju bottle and incapable of understanding the concept of solid objects. In other words: Vernon is plastered.  

“Hi Seungkwan!” He looks genuinely happy to see him – or he would, if his eyes weren’t busy rolling around in his head. They stop when they reach Chan’s sleeping form, and for a minute he looks genuinely confused. “Who is that? Has he always been here?” he asks, lowring his voice to a badly executed whisper. Seungkwan rubs his eyes and sighs. “That’s Chan, and he’s sleeping, so keep it down and go to bed,” he pleads. There’s an hour and a half until the van’s here (so much for keeping track of the time), and he really wants to make the most of it while he can, so if his dear roomie would kindly off to bed, that would be wonderful.  

“We missed you, actually,” Vernon says, looking up with his huge eyes. Seungkwan has a sinking feeling he’s not going to get off the floor unless somebody physically pulls him up, and with Chan being physically and mentally out of reach, that job befalls him. Just great. Exactly what he needs. “Did you now?” Vernon’s surprisingly heavy when he wants to be. Not because of his weight, but because of the fact that he seems to have forgotten how to use his damn legs. “Yes! I actually thought about calling you, but the others said you were sleeping, so I shouldn’t wake you up. But then I got back, and you were already up, so-” Not technically true, but Seungkwan can’t bring himself to actually say that. Instead he gets out of bed, hoists Vernon’s limp arm around his neck, and starts dragging him further into the room. “You smell very nice. Have I ever told you that?” Seungkwan blushes, but doesn’t reply. Vernon talks a lot of for somebody who can so easily get hit, but never to him, it’s always been real with him. Maybe it’s because they’ve been conjoined at the hip since they met, but Vernon’s always had a bit too much respect for Seungkwan to be rude to him. It’s always ‘nice to see you, Seungkwan’, or ‘I missed you earlier, you know’, and he says it with such elegance and so straightforward that nobody ever thinks twice about it. “No, you haven’t.” Again, technically not true. Vernon’s complimented his deodorant on multiple occasions, actually, but he’s never really thought about the dubious meaning behind the words. Mainly because Vernon’s often not bright enough for hidden meanings; he prefers to say things straight out, lay all his cards on the table straight away, to avoid misunderstandings. He’s a decent guy – when he’s not obstructing public ing peace by being as limp as a boiled leek.  

“Can you please move your feet?” Vernon laughs. “I would if I could, but I can’t, so I shan’t,” and Seungkwan spits out a “you’re so full of ” that only makes him laugh harder. Seungkwan shushes him. When they finally plop down on Vernon’s bottom bunk (thank God Chan picked the top bunk; getting Vernon to climb stairs like this would’ve cost lives), Vernon’s falling over backwards into his pillow. He looks very peaceful with his eyes closed like that, childlike and calm, like he has no care in the world. Sometimes Seungkwan wonders what’s going on inside his brain, because even though they’ve been best friends since before puberty, reading Vernon is still about as easy as reading a sign in a foreign language. Vernon shares what he feels like sharing, when he feels like sharing it, and other than that, he’s the Fort Knox. Of course, Seungkwan’s always prided himself in being the one person with the key to the contraption of that particular brain, but sometimes he wonders whether or not that’s actually true. “Are you sleeping?” He’s speaking in hushed tones to try and not wake Chan up, and at first, he’s worried Vernon can’t hear him.  

“Vernon?”  

“Not sleeping. Only thinking. About stuff.” Vernon’s voice is very attractive when it’s low, Seungkwan thinks – and that’s a very weird sentiment after midnight, but at least he hasn’t said it out loud. Instead, he smiles. “That sounds serious.” Seungkwan lies down next to him and looks up. “What kind of stuff?”  

“Just... Stuff, I guess,” Vernon tries to shrug it off, but it doesn’t work. Besides, Seungkwan’s way too nosy and curious to just settle for ‘stuff’. “That’s really not an answer,” comes the reply, typical Seungkwan fashion. 

“It’s feely stuff.” 

“Feely stuff? Like, about feelings?” 

“Yeah, feely feelings-related stuff.” Sometimes, Seungkwan thinks, Vernon’s brain is a wonderous place. God the boy is dense.  

“You know it’s almost four in the morning, right?” he asks, just as Vernon looks at him and asks, “have you ever had feelings for someone? Like, not friendly feelings?” Seungkwan can’t say that he has. Idol life doesn’t really leave a lot of time and space for pursuing private relationships of any kind, and putting his entire emotional spectrum under public scrutiny isn’t really something he feels he’ll ever be up to. “I don’t really know. Have you?” 

“I have them right now.” The reply comes as a surprise. Seungkwan usually knows everything that’s going on with Vernon, sometimes even before Vernon himself does, but this is news. “Oh really? About who?” Vernon narrows his eyes, and looks Seungkwan dead in the eye before grinning widely. “I’m not telling.” And then the serious undertone is gone. “Oh come on!” Seungkwan says,  “Give me something!” But Vernon isn’t budging.  

“My lips – are sealed! Yours are really pretty by the way.” There’s a beat, a pause, and then Seungkwan eyes glip. “They are?” 

“Very symmetrical and stuff.” They lie in silence a little while after that – Seungkwan has to physically check on Vernon a few times to make sure he’s not fallen asleep, but he’s wide awake, with his eyes trained on the bottom of Chan’s mattress above them, hands neatly folded on his stomach. He looks very pretty like that. But then again, Vernon has always been sort of pretty, in a foreign almost exotic kind of way, with his dark eyes, angled face and narrow lips. “Hey, Seungkwan?” He sounds very small and silent, but Seungkwan envertheless likes hearing his name come out of the other’s mouth like that. “Yeah?” 

“I might kiss you, you know. One day, when I’m brave enough. Would that be cool?” Seungkwan doesn’t know what to say. At this point he doesn’t know if he wants him to or not, but logic tells him that if he isn’t running screaming for the hills, the prospects can’t be that bad. Can they? He shifts a little on the mattress, and copies Vernon’s lying position. “Uhm... I... I guess so, yeah,” he finally replies, and he’s immensely proud of how calm he sounds when the words leave his mouth.  

“Neat.” 

Neat is a terrible answer, and totally not what he expected to hear, especially not after what came directly before that confession, but before he can chastise his friend for being uncharacteristically vague and confusing, Vernon’s head has tipped off to the side, and he’s fast asleep. It’s almost too cliché to bear, and Seungkwan has half a mind to shake him to make him come to his senses again, but then again... He does look so very peaceful. And lord knows he's going to need every single minute of sleep he can get if he wants to wake up and function tomorrow, so he drops it, and instead moves to give his friend the comfort of his full bed. He’s inched his way almost into a sitting position, when Vernon stirs. “No, stay,” he says sleepily. And when he says it like that, combined with his stupid, stupid face and his stupid, stupid mouth that sometimes widens in a stupid, stupider smile, how can he possibly refuse?  

“If you snore, I’m out of here,” comes the warning, but Vernon doesn’t hear anything. Of course he doesn’t. Instead of saying anything, however, Seungkwan just shakes his head, and rolls onto his side, taking one final look at the arguably most confusing person he’s ever met, before he closes his eyes and drifts back off to sleep.