“This has gone on long enough,” Sungmin insisted.

            “Agreed,” said Jongwoon, sitting across from him at the kitchen table.

            “I mean, it’s obscene.”

            “I know.”

            “Over six years!”

            “I’m aware of that, I can count,” Jongwoon reminded him.

            Hyukjae just stood with his bag of chips, looking from one to the other as he ate, leaning against the counter. 

            “If something doesn’t happen soon, I think I’ll die of frustration.  How can they be so oblivious to their own attraction to one another?” Sungmin questioned, pounding his head against the table.  “Don’t they realize they act more like a couple than best friends?”

            “What if you’re wrong and they aren’t actually attracted to one another?” Hyukjae finally piped in.

            Both Sungmin and Jongwoon looked over at Hyukjae, unblinking, as if he were an even bigger idiot than the two maknaes.  “Hyuk, they’re having dinner and a movie tonight.  Most of us refer to that as a date,” Jongwoon pointed out.

            “Except they aren’t kissing each other goodnight or sleeping with one another,” he argued.

            “And if I saw either of them take a woman out instead or kiss one or sleep with one, I’d totally agree with you,” Jongwoon said. 

            “Ryeowook’s gone out with girls before.”

            “Clothes shopping doesn’t count, stupid,” Sungmin cut back in.  “And all the girls that do go shopping with him refer to him as their stylish gay friend.  Go ask them.”

            “What about Kyuhyun hanging out with Victoria all the time and the other f(x) girls?” Hyukjae threw out.

            “Kyuhyun will go anywhere there’s food,” Sungmin said.  “If given the choice between having his favorite food with us or eating out at a restaurant he isn’t that fond of with a bunch of beautiful women all by himself, he’d pick staying home.”

            Hyukjae thought of that for a minute.  “Okay, I have seen him do that but I think he was just really tired that day.”

            “Hyuk!” Sungmin yelled, exasperated.  “If f(x) asked you to go out with them and eat dog or have a ten-meal course with us, even if you hadn’t slept in three days, you’d totally go with them.”

            “Yeah, but not every man would be as dedicated as me,” he only argued. 

            “Okay, we’ll make a list of all the reasons we think that those two are in love with one another without realizing it,” Sungmin suggested.  “Let’s start with the reasons we think that Ryeowook is in love with Kyuhyun.  First of all, he cooks all his favorite foods and only makes something he doesn’t like when he’s gone.”

            “He buys most of Kyuhyun’s clothes for him,” Jongwoon added.  “You can’t deny that it’s a bit off kilter.”

            “Ryeowook does his laundry when our cleaning lady isn’t here, he wakes Kyuhyun up in the morning if I’m not available to do it, he checks to see where Kyuhyun is when he’s gone unexpectedly, he accompanies Kyuhyun to all the events a normal person would bring a date too, he fixes his hair—”

            “Fixes his clothes,” Jongwoon joined in.

            “You know, Ryeowook isn’t beyond mothering any of us either, he just does it more with Kyuhyun because he’s the youngest and requires the most babying,” Hyukjae argued.

            “Okay, let’s talk about Kyuhyun’s behavior towards Ryeowook, shall we?  Let’s list a few of those babies off.  He always insists on driving Ryeowook anywhere he wants to go, he doesn’t let anyone speak badly of Wookie, he sometimes goes into his room to sleep with him, he’s a germ-a-phobic but constantly shares his drinks and food with him…”

            “He calls Wook into the room every time he reaches a new high score in one of the games he plays,” Jongwoon added. 

            “I actually call Hae on the phone when I do that,” Hyukjae pointed out.

            “He never, ever uses honorifics with Wook.”

            “None of us do when we’re at the dorms and Kyuhyun hardly does it in public either.”

            “His mom calls Wookie son,” Sungmin added.

            “You guys are really grasping for straws now,” Hyukjae accused them.

            “Don’t you love them?  Don’t you think of them as your friends?”

            “Of course, which is why we all went on vacation together to Greece,” he reminded them, taking another bite of his chips. 

            “Speaking of which, didn’t you say they roomed together?” Sungmin asked.

            “Yeah but there were two beds and they both looked messy in the mornings.”

            “I heard they ditched you a couple times and went out by themselves,” he continued.

            “True.  One of those days I didn’t feel good because I’d drunk and eaten too much the day before and the other time I wanted to sleep in,” he explained.  “Nothing happened in Greece.”

            “If you would have just stayed home, maybe they’d be together by now,” Sungmin complained.

            “Excuse me for believing myself to be worthy of taking a vacation with my friends,” he said, rolling his eyes. 

            “Do you remember the kissing card game?” Jongwoon asked.

            “Which one?”

            “Both,” he said.  “During that first one they were so awkward with one another but the way Kyuhyun kissed Ryeowook at the second one was very confident.”

            “But Ryeowook seemed comfortable with me too,” Sungmin admitted.

            “And I felt all sorts of awkward between you and Kyuhyun.  Geez, if I was basing who was gay off of that experience, I’d say it was you,” Hyukjae told Jongwoon. 

            “Who says I’m not,” Jongwoon countered, “but we were talking about Kyuhyun and how smooth he was with Ryeowook.”

            “Fine, let’s not count the kissing games as evidence,” Sungmin said.

            “You two are just delusional.  Those two are just really close friends, not unlike Hae and I,” Hyukjae concluded.

            “But you and Hae go out with girls all the time.  It isn’t normal that two men in their mid-twenties are rarely ever seen hanging out with one or chatting them up on the phone.  And look at how often they hang out together?” Jongwoon pointed out.  “You can’t say that’s normal.”

            “Sure it is,” he said.  “You and Minnie do that all the time yourselves.”

            Sungmin looked at Jongwoon, narrowing his eyes but Jongwoon shook his head and grabbed Sungmin's hand to calm him down.  Jongwoon spoke before Sungmin had the chance to blow up.  “How about Kyuhyun going on Kiss the Radio on Kyuwook Day?  Sungmin didn’t even know about it until a week ahead of time.  Wookie and Kyu decided it for themselves and you can’t tell me that they don’t know what day their relationship is celebrated.”

            Hyukjae shook his head and put his chips away before heading for the kitchen door.  “They did that as a joke.  Come on, admit it, they are just very innocent young men that are too dedicated to their careers to worry about dating yet.  If they’re smart, they’d wait until they’re done with their military services and their popularity simmers down a bit so they aren’t stuck dating a bunch of women that only care about them because of their fame or money.”

            With that, he left them alone to their plotting.  “I don’t understand why it’s taking them all this time to realize that they’re in love with one another.”

            “Well, it can’t help that you share a room with Kyuhyun,” Jongwoon pointed out.

            “And you have an idea that will fix that, since there aren’t any spare rooms for me to move into,” he pointed out.

            “Well, I actually was considering moving most of my things to my parent’s house but I was still hoping to sleep here until I left,” he admitted.  “Maybe you should just move into my room with the idea that you’ll be taking over there once I leave.”

            “They’re going to think we’re dating or something,” Sungmin pointed out, frowning.

            “That might not be a bad thing, come to think of it.  Maybe neither of them has spoken up because they think we’ll overreact about them being gay.  If we pretend we’re dating, maybe they’ll feel brave enough to be together,” Jongwoon said, smiling at his ingenious idea.

            Sungmin began to bounce in his seat in his excitement.  “That’s great!  Why didn’t I think of something like that earlier?”

            “Well, it only occurred to me because Hyukie was laying into you about hanging out with me,” he admitted, leaning back in his seat, much more relaxed.  “Should we start tomorrow?  Do you have plans?”

            “I’m free most of the day, I can help you move things out and when there’s enough space, I’ll begin moving my stuff over.”

            “I bet if we work at it all morning, we can get your bed moved in, at least.”

            Sungmin smiled and rubbed his hands together.  “This is so going to work!”

            “But don’t just come out and tell them we’re dating, just let them wonder at it and if they ask, don’t be direct about it at first.  If you force them to analyze our behavior around one another, they might realize that they act the same way around one another.”

            “Then they’ll realize they’re in love and finally confess to one another,” Sungmin said, sighing dreamily as he imagined them finally acting on their feelings.

            Just as they were beginning to congratulate themselves on their plan to make the maknaes fall for one another, the two in question came walking into the room, laughing as they walked into the kitchen.

            “Hey,” Ryeowook said, smiling.

            “How was the movie?” Sungmin asked.

            “Hilarious,” he said, looking over at Kyuhyun with amusement as he walked into the room and just seeing Ryeowook laughing hysterically caused him to start laughing all over again.

            “Oh,” Sungmin said, confused.  “I thought you were going to go see that new horror flick.”

            “We did,” Kyuhyun said, opening the fridge and looking around.  “Are we out of pop?”

            “Yeah,” Ryeowook said.  “Here, have the rest of mine from the theater, I wasn’t going to drink it anyway.”

            Kyuhyun took the drink and began to drain the rest of the cup, on the straw that Ryeowook had just taken his lips off of.  “Yeah, the movie wasn’t very good and the graphics , it was hilarious.”

            “Bad acting,” Ryeowook agreed, giggling again.

            “You screamed when the vampire popped up on the screen suddenly,” Kyuhyun teased.

            Ryeowook smacked him on the chest playfully, “I wasn’t expecting it.”

            “I practically had to hold his hand,” Kyuhyun continued teasing him, which made Jongwoon and Sungmin look at each other in amusement.

            Ryeowook smacked him again before turning back to them.  “You shouldn’t see it.”

            “I don’t know, you two look like you had so much fun, I have a hard time believing you,” Jongwoon said, watching his KRY companions with more interest than usual.

            “That’s right,” Kyuhyun said, nodding.  “If I told you it was really good, you’d assume I was lying.  That’s okay, you can waste your money on it if you’d like.  Might want to bring someone really cute though so you have someone to make out with during the boring parts.”

            “About half the movie,” Ryeowook said, turning his back to the others as he the water, automatically noticing the dishes that had begun to pile up.  Good thing he did, Jongwoon thought, since Sungmin couldn't help but laugh a little, which Kyuhyun was more oblivious to. 

            Kyuhyun walked out of the kitchen and into his shared room with Sungmin, probably intending to play on the computer until the wee hours of the morning.  Behind Ryeowook’s back, Jongwoon nodded to Sungmin.  “Tomorrow.”

            “Tomorrow,” Sungmin agreed before getting up out of his seat and walking over to Ryeowook to help him clean up.