A/N: I updated the foreword with a few notes. Please read that first before proceeding, thank you :")

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“So,” Sungmin was speaking from the direction of the bed, where he had been fiddling with his guitar for the better part of the afternoon. “I overheard the managers talking the other day.”

Caught in the middle of an intense battle against a Zerg overlord (and its annoying herd of myrmidons), Kyuhyun did not even raise his eyes from his laptop’s screen. A noncommittal grunt, however, proved to be all the incentive needed for his roommate to continue.

“Turns out that a few days ago, Siwon asked them if your extreme dislike for vegetables was due to allergies or something.”

One, two, three seconds passed in silence. Then the sentence sank in and Kyuhyun was forced to sacrifice his perfectly-strategised game as astonishment ordered him to look at his roommate. “He did what?”

“He wanted to know if you were allergic to vegetables and that was the reason why you wouldn’t eat them,” Sungmin repeated patiently.

If possible, this new piece of information made even less sense to him the second time around. Kyuhyun frowned, trying to wrap his mind around such an absurd proceeding—and failing miserably.

“Why would he do that?” he finally asked, still incredulous.

Sungmin shrugged, his skilful fingers strumming a random chord. “You should ask the man himself.”

Kyuhyun turned away and made a face at the ceiling. For some reasons which he did not even want to think about, the idea of approaching Siwon about the subject made him want to crawl into a hole and hide. Even now, the mere thought of it left his fingers gripping the edge of his desk too tightly, tension coiling around white knuckles.

Which Sungmin absolutely did not need to know, if the all-too-interested light in his eyes were anything to go by.

“Maybe he just didn’t know that I hated eating those things,” Kyuhyun said at last, for the sake of deflecting his roommate’s blatantly inquisitive stare from his face.

“Hm,” was Sungmin’s painstakingly neutral, frustratingly ambiguous response. The stare, to Kyuhyun’s dismay, did not change course.

“What else could it be? Asking that sort of question out of the blue is pretty weird, isn’t it?”

“Honestly?” Sungmin raised an eyebrow. “Weird as hell. Not to sound paranoid or anything, but you didn’t do anything that might have offended him really, really badly, did you?”

Now it was Kyuhyun's turn to stare blankly at the older boy. “I’m pretty sure the explanation lies nowhere near that question.”

Sungmin’s serious expression broke into a grin. “Just an idea,” he said mildly. “But you must have done something. He has been trying to get close to you, if you haven’t noticed.”

Kyuhyun looked away to hide an uncomfortable blush which might or might not have risen to his cheeks at so inappropriate a moment. Of course he had noticed; Siwon had literally made it impossible for him not to, with the amount of attention he had suddenly decided to shower on Kyuhyun—which included but not limited to a ridiculous extent of grabbing and holding his hand (sometimes his waist) out of the blue, either in public or private. The first time it had happened, he could do nothing but freeze in front of the camera for three full minutes.

It should not have been a problem. Kyuhyun released an annoyed sigh. He was no stranger to attention, even more so after the accident since everyone seemed to have made it their business to pamper and fuss over him at any given chance. While it felt rather nice and touching most of the times, the special treatment also frequently left him feeling suffocated, even left out, especially when his still recuperating body prevented him from participating in too many group activities.

Which, upon second inspection, was not always a bad thing, he reflected with a mix of guilt and amusement.

Siwon, though, was different. His sudden onslaught of affection was alarming to say the least, for there seemed to be neither rhyme nor reason in it. There was also his inordinate amount of concern whenever Kyuhyun as much as showed the slightest hint of fatigue, which was not only puzzling, but also embarrassing as hell. It was as if he had just been released from the hospital, while in reality four months had passed since then. For Kyuhyun, who was not an affectionate person in the first place, the rapid change from mere bandmates to closer friends had been too drastic to his liking. There had been no precursory explanation—only Siwon, suddenly there, too handsome and too kind and too close.

And then the man himself, who quickly proved to be another problem entirely with its own magnitude and army of complications. If there was one thing he could say for sure about Siwon, it was that he was passionate—immensely so, despite the polished veneer of calm he always wore in public. There was a fierce sort of intensity in everything he did, which made being the object of his single-mindedness both flattering and frightening. Every time he smiled, leant closer, whispered in his ear, all Kyuhyun could do was to try with all his might not to humiliate himself by either blushing like a schoolgirl or bolting toward the exit before the proximity could leave him with a far more embarrassing problem.

The good thing was, no one had noticed.

Yet.

At least that was what he thought. Sungmin was definitely doing a great job right now in making him question this conviction.

“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” his roommate was speaking again, cautiously this time. “I’m not trying to poke my nose into your business or anything. It just seems strange to me, that’s all.”

Kyuhyun shrugged, hoping that it conveyed enough indifference to end Sungmin's interest in the matter. “It’s not a big deal. Besides, I bet all that fuss from him was just because of the accident. You’re all treating me the same way after I got injured.”

Sungmin did not reply immediately, face folded into a thoughtful frown. Unable to shake the feeling that it was not over yet, Kyuhyun ran his fingers across the keyboard, tracing aimless, shapeless patterns as he listened to the growing silence anxiously.

“I wonder about that,” Sungmin said at last, and there was a speculative edge to his words which rang a warning bell in Kyuhyun's head. “You’re kinda different around him too, you know.”

“Am so not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re more… malleable around him. And more adorable.”

Kyuhyun found himself trapped between an urge to throw something at his friend and to laugh. He opted for the latter, which seemed infinitely safer. “Malleable? Adorable? Seriously, Sungmin, what are you smoking?”

“I’m calling it as I see it.”

“Then you're clearly delusional.”

“Well, you're clearly in denial.”

“Denial is refuting truth,” Kyuhyun pointed out sensibly. “I'm stating truth.”

The older boy burst into giggles. “Really, Kyuhyun? You're resorting to semantics? Either you’re desperate or I’m actually hitting the bull’s-eye for once.”

“Definitely desperate,” Kyuhyun shot back without missing a beat. “Because clearly I’m desperate enough to use logic instead of any physical means before the prowess of your delusion. Isn’t that what desperate people do?” 

Sungmin opened his mouth, plainly intent on carrying their repartee to yet another level when a succession of short raps came from the door.  It had swung open before any of them could answer and revealed Siwon, smiling so widely that his face seemed to fill what small gap he had allowed himself between door and frame.

“Kyu, Ryeowook has some ice cream in the kitchen—vanilla and chocolate, he made them this morning. Come and eat with us?”

There were a few quiet seconds as Kyuhyun reorganised his entire mental structure in order to process this new interruption rationally. That the entire procedure took him much longer than it usually did was a detail which did not escape him.

But it was not important. Or so he told himself.

“I'll be right there,” he answered instead, nodding at his laptop. “Just let me deal with this first.”

Siwon flashed him another dimpled smile and left, closing the door behind him. Kyuhyun put his laptop into sleep mode and swivelled his chair—and that was when noticed his roommate’s conflicted expression.

“What?”

Sungmin turned a pair of pained eyes toward him. “Please tell me that he didn't ask me because he actually didn't notice me sitting right here.”

Kyuhyun did not even bother to suppress his smirk. “I would say that it's your fault for wearing that ridiculously pink T-shirt and playing that ridiculously pink guitar next to that ridiculously pink giant bunny while sitting on your ridiculously pink bed.”

“Shut up,” Sungmin retorted, unable to resist a grin regardless. “I like pink.”

“I know. Which is okay, really, since after all our definition of ‘okay’ is clearly “what the are you thinking but oh well everyone already thinks that you’re crazy as anyway so what the hell.” You like pink? Cool. By the way, do you even notice the way everyone always try to avoid looking at your part of the room?”

Kyuhyun escaped toward the door, laughing and dodging a projectile in the shape of a pink teddy bear in the process. “So, are you coming or what?”

Sungmin did not respond immediately. He slowly removed his guitar from his lap, patted his pink bunny, and then looked seriously at him. “He called you ‘Kyu’.”

It was willpower and sheer willpower alone which allowed Kyuhyun to keep his face straight. “You do too sometimes.”

This time, it was Sungmin who enjoyed the pleasure of a well-timed smirk. “Not in that loving tone. Ryeowook just made some ice cream, Kyu, do you want some or would you rather have me–”

That was when Kyuhyun launched himself at the laughing man, pink bed and all be damned.

.

One of the first few things Siwon discovered about Kyuhyun after they had started spending more time together was that he, in fact, barely knew Kyuhyun at all.

He knew that Kyuhyun sang like an angel. He knew that Kyuhyun was uncomfortable with the thought of standing in front of a camera or talking to reporters and fans, and yet became another person entirely once he held a microphone in his hand and opened his mouth to sing. He knew that Kyuhyun could melt hearts and sculpt smiles with the exquisite tapestry that was his voice alone. He also knew that Kyuhyun’s smile was one of the most beautiful things he had ever beheld.

What he did not know was that most of his preconceptions were far too shallow, that there was always something more, third, fourth layers which lay hidden underneath these impressions. It was true that Kyuhyun sang like an angel; what he had not known before was that that angel’s voice could easily glide into the region of sensual and lascivious with a slight adjustment in timbre and lilt. That Kyuhyun’s smile was beautiful was beyond any conceivable or imaginable doubt—but then he angled his head one way, catching a different slant of light, one corner slightly quirked, and it was seamlessly transformed into a smirk.  It was also true that Kyuhyun was reserved and shy in front of the camera, but then Siwon inched a little closer, dug a little deeper, and discovered that the boy’s true nature was something different, something coarser and a little more diabolical.

And also something a little sweeter. The first time he had any inclination about this fascinating paradox was on a quiet evening at the dorm and suddenly Eunhyuk’s enraged scream could be heard echoing from one end to another.

Siwon looked up from his cell phone, glancing at Kyuhyun who was, as always, busy in front of his laptop, and promptly stared. They were alone in the common room, Kyuhyun sitting cross-legged on the floor, he in the sofa—and the younger man was smirking.

“What did you do?” the question left his mouth before he could stop himself.

Kyuhyun raised a questioning eyebrow at him, feigning incomprehension, but even from that distance, Siwon could see the lingering traces of a smirk on the younger boy's face. Before he could find his voice again, however, the door had burst open and Hyukjae stormed in.

“You evil maknae!” he screeched, launching himself at Kyuhyun and locking an arm around his neck. “I'm going to kill you. I'm going to ing drown you!”

Siwon blinked at the spectacle in front him. Before he could move to interfere, however, another angry shout reached his ears and he looked in alarm as Donghae burst in and joined the fray. Between the two of them, they managed to drag Kyuhyun toward the bathroom and make good of Eunhyuk’s threat in the bathtub which water, for some unexplainable reasons, had turned into a hideous shade of purple.

Ten minutes later (mostly due to Jongwoon's painfully disjointed and rambling narrative style), Siwon was finally able to make the connection that the water had apparently been responsible for dyeing one of Hyukjae’s expensive dress shirts and Donghae's favourite vest purple—hence their seemingly-out-of-proportion outrage. That their youngest member had been the one responsible for the entire process was glaringly obvious when Kyuhyun meekly accepted his punishment, without even a single affectation of protest.

“Why?” Siwon asked after Kyuhyun had returned from the bathroom, freshly showered. The pale golden brightness of his hair shone even under the lamp’s artificial glare, beads of water hanging at the locks’ ends like tiny crystals on a chandelier. The outline of a grin still lingered about his lips.

“You mean the prank?” Kyuhyun shrugged, resuming his seat in front of the laptop. “No reason. I just hated seeing them sulk all day. It made me depressed.”

Siwon could not find an appropriate response for a long time. He had noticed the tension between the pair, of course, but it was only natural after the quarrel they had gotten into on the night before. Close enough to be real brothers, Hyukjae and Donghae fought in regular basis—and never failed to make up in the end, which was why the rest of the group did not even bother to raise an eyebrow whenever yet another argument broke between them.

But then the sound of Donghae's laugh floated in from the kitchen, so bright and carefree a sound that it seemed to light up the entire floor. Siwon saw the smile spreading across Kyuhyun's lips, and came into a realisation.

“You're doing it for them.”

The younger boy glanced at him and scoffed, “I'm not that nice.”

Siwon bit his lips to hide a smile, saying nothing, and yet his opinion was scarcely altered. Obviously he was not the only one who had arrived to the same conclusion, for when they went out for lunch with the others on the day after, Hyukjae announced, out of the blue, that he was paying for Kyuhyun's food.

The rest of the group stared at him as if the end of the world was nigh. “What?” he challenged. “I can be nice and treat my friends too sometimes.”

“No, actually you can’t,” Heechul pointed out, disbelief spread all over his face. “Something bad will happen if you do, because Lee Hyukjae’s paying for someone else’s meal is basically the virtual equivalence of the night before apocalypse.”

“Yeah, something bad is definitely going to happen, like your getting punched in the face,” Eunhyuk shot back.

“So, are you treating us all?” Jongwoon suddenly joined in, sounding hopeful.

“, no.” Eunhyuk laughed, blowing a raspberry at him. “Just our maknae.”

Heechul crossed his arms and frowned, making everyone else in the vicinity instinctively take one step back. "Why?"

“Easy.” Eunhyuk grinned, undaunted. Then he wrapped an arm around Kyuhyun's taller build and landed a kiss on his cheek. “Because he is special.”

Kyuhyun burst into laugh and returned the kiss with one of his own, briefer and lighter. It nevertheless lit a grin so wide on Hyukjae’s face that everyone started whistling and laughing at him. Siwon did not miss the way Donghae remained at the periphery, for once not taking part in the merriment. Neither did he miss the way Kyuhyun tried to push Hyukjae to Donghae’s direction when they took their seats. The younger boy was already wearing his usual trademark half-smile, and for the first time ever, Siwon had to wonder about it.

“How many faces are you actually hiding behind that smile?”

They were halfway through dessert and four different conversations were going strong all over the table when he finally had the chance to shoot the question. Sitting next to him, Kyuhyun looked up from the generous slice of blueberry cheesecake he was happily devouring, bewildered at first.

“How many are there usually?” he answered at last, batting his lashes innocently—except this time, this close, Siwon saw the unmistakable glint in his eyes which too clearly spoke of amusement.

He could not believe that he had never noticed it before.

“Why do you ask?” Kyuhyun spoke again when Siwon did not, sounding genuinely curious.

Siwon did not blink when he met the younger boy’s gaze squarely. “Why is it usually?”

Kyuhyun looked taken aback for a moment and Siwon almost grinned. It was a curiously new and liberating experience to be able to surprise the other in this manner. He was not usually the one holding the gun.

“I see," Kyuhyun drawled, face pensive, voice holding a different edge which sent a shiver down Siwon’s spine. "I’m not the only one hiding faces, am I?”

“That is a very arrogant presumption,” he pointed out.

“That is just what one of my many faces thinks,” Kyuhyun retaliated, a smirk hovering above his lips. “Not necessarily true for the rest of me.”

“That’s interesting.” Siwon fell silent for a moment. He could feel the small frown gathering on his brow. “I wonder. Is there any chance that I'll meet the rest of you?”

"You made it sound like I had an MPD."

"Actually you made it sound like you had an MPD."

The amused light in Kyuhyun eyes sharpened into something more dangerous; Siwon felt his breath catch. "Fair enough," the younger boy nodded, hiding a budding grin as he did so. “Why are you so interested though?”

It took Siwon barely two seconds to come up with an answer. “I like you," he said solemnly, and realised that it was the truth. "Or to be precise, if we’re going by the same premise you did earlier, I like one of your faces. I’d love to see if I can like the rest too.”

Kyuhyun allowed a small laugh. “I’m not that interesting.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Well, then you’re welcome to try,”

Then he smirked and a bit of cream off the tip of his fork.

Siwon did not tear his gaze away for another ten seconds.

End Chapter 2

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A/N: Thank you for reading and please comment :D