Sometimes they sit around and think of how they’d answer interview questions.

‘What’s your favourite colour?’

‘Who’s your role model?’

‘What’s your ideal type like?’

Really, really stupid questions that no one should really care about, but maybe someday they’ll be someone enough that these useless questions would be printed with their useless answers in some gaudy entertainment magazine like news. So they lie around, exhausted and just short of breathless, coming up with answers that are truthful enough to be easily remembered (without being too truthful, because that would be a problem too).

If nothing else, it’s a way to pass time between dance practice and whatever lesson of the day they had lined up. (It’s not that there’s a lot of time in between, that’s the problem. There isn’t enough time for anything else, just enough to rehydrate themselves and exchange a few words and tired laughter.)

“Purple’s good, right? It’s unexpected,” Howon mumbles once his breathing has calmed enough for him to form words. Dongwoo’s sprawled on his back beside him, limp, mouth gaping, and breathing coming in noisy gusts. He manages a nod. This is their last practice for the day (or first for the next, it’s hard to say since it’s well into early morning by this point) and the only time of day they have more than an hour free. So Dongwoo will probably fall asleep like that, hair a mess and sweat drying on his skin.

Howon thinks maybe he should tell him to get up and go to sleep properly, they can’t afford injury or getting sick (even if they did get sick none of them would even pause, because they can’t) but he can’t bring himself to get up either. They’ll probably play their little fake interview game until they fall asleep, in a few minutes. They’re too tired to last much longer but Dongwoo trying to think of some other standard question, Howon knows.

“First kiss,” he manages eventually, with forceful enthusiasm and Howon snorts.

“What first kiss? I haven’t yet.” He should have done it before becoming a trainee but it was too late, there was no time or opportunity anymore unless he decides to settle for Sungjong. A stupid thought but because he’s tired it seems funny. “Is it weird? I should lie about that, right? I don’t fit the innocent image,” he continues as he feels his eyelids begin to droop. A few more minutes and he’ll be out like a rock, so he only barely manages surprise when Dongwoo shoots up straight next to him.

Being tired is like being drunk sometimes, with the delayed reactions and how everything was a little funnier because he was tired out of his mind.

“Seriously?” Dongwoo is staring at him and looking too awake.

“Yeah,” he laughs, for no reason other than exhaustion probably. “I wasn’t a very good boyfriend,” he confesses, half remembering and half dreaming of his past girlfriends. He didn’t spend very much time with them, not since deciding to pursue his dream. He’d ditched them to spend time practicing with his friends (sometimes not even with a cursory sorry over text). This is more important, so he can’t bring himself to feel much regret.

It brought him here and maybe someday he’ll be someone enough that he’ll have to make up a first kiss story to tell so that it can be printed like news.

It’s a nice dream




Falling asleep mid conversation happens, it happens a lot, they’re all overworked and delirious more often than not, so it’s not a big deal. Certainly not the kind of occurrence that leads to awkward silences and awkward stares (it takes Howon a few days to notice to be honest, because he’s too tired).

It’s out of place; he has no idea where it came from. All he can do for a few days is send Dongwoo passing looks of concern.



“Are you okay? You’ve been off all week,” Howon asks the next time they’re sprawled on the floor of the practice room together with more than fifteen minutes to spare. He thinks it might have been more than a week but he had only noticed it a week ago and it’d taken them this long to have enough time alone to talk properly. If he doesn’t fall asleep.

Dongwoo is quiet for so long that he almost does.

“Um, first kiss.” It comes out in a mumble, like his lips are sticking together and muffling the words.

But even if he’d spoken clearly Howon wouldn’t have understood, a conversation that was abandoned more than a week ago has already been buried under a hundred other things by now, so he can only look at Dongwoo blankly, propping himself on his elbows to half sit up and blinking hard to keep himself awake.

He has a vague feeling that this is sort of important, sort of serious. Not pressing, but the kind of serious like when they talk about doing a hip hop stage together someday, something that they really want but isn’t really present yet. Dongwoo has something on his mind, something about Howon, and it’s important no matter how heavy their exhaustion is.

“Your first kiss story,” he continues, the words are clearer this time, like he’s decided to screw thinking about it and to just say whatever comes to mind.

“I don’t have one.”

It hits him then, not hard and fast because nothing comes hard and fast except for their choreography and their breathing these days, it’s like being smacked with an overstuffed pillow.

It never occurred to him to settle for Dongwoo. (He wonders if Dongwoo has kissed anyone yet, he wonders if Dongwoo is settling for him.)

“Oh.”

The next few seconds are weird.

There aren’t a lot of things that Howon thinks will never happen but there’s a long list of things that he thinks will take a damn long time to happen. Them becoming someone enough that their useless answers to useless questions will make news is one of them. Them getting enough sleep to feel human again is another unfortunate one.

Someone (he never thinks of anyone specifically) settling for him is another.

For a moment he thinks there might be something wrong with this, settling. It only lasts a moment, because realistically settling will be the only opportunity he’ll have for a lot of things, at least until they find some measure of success (they, not him because it has to be all of them). He’s curious and he likes Dongwoo, they think of things they want to do together in the far off future when they’re successful so this can just be something they can do together right now.

“Is it weird?” Dongwoo breaks the stretch of silence, sounding a bit unsure.

“It really is,” he answers even as he sits up properly (because doing this lying down would be a thousand times weirder).

It takes them another moment (how much time have they wasted?) to settle cross legged in front of each other, cracking up in tired laughter. It’s good and bad that they’re drunk on exhaustion. It helps them cut the chase and get to it (too tired to think too hard) but it makes the situation even funnier than it is weird. It’s ridiculous so finally Howon grabs Dongwoo’s face with both his hands in an effort to get them to focus.

“Stop laughing,” he demands, lips stretched into a grin.

“Okay.”

“Close your eyes.”

“You should close your eyes first!”

They’re hovering so close to each other, eyes not quite shut. He notices the way Dongwoo’s eyelashes are shaking, straining to keep his eyes open a bare slit. Their noses bump and one of them reels back (Dongwoo), trying not to laugh (Dongwoo).

“Is this going to work at all?” But they’re close again, close enough that he can feel Dongwoo’s exhale against his face, close enough to see the individual pores on his face. Howon closes his eyes.

One of them (he can’t tell if it’s him or Dongwoo) must have tilted their head because this time their noses don’t bump and he feels his lips settle on Dongwoo’s lightly. Dongwoo’s lips are incredibly thick and surprisingly soft.

That’s all; it’s more like touching rather than kissing but with lips instead of their shoulders or their hands. He presses a little harder experimentally, moves his lips just a little and Dongwoo does the same. Dongwoo’s bottom lip is caught between Howon’s, and he tries to just feel it without thinking that he’s kissing Dongwoo. Maybe that’s the thing about settling, they can settle but there isn’t a sense of excitement, now that they’re past the nervousness it’s just the two of them again. He can’t seem to get beyond the fact that he’s kissing Dongwoo, even with his eyes closed he can see Dongwoo’s face.

He his lips as he pulls back (because his lips are always dry and he wonders if Dongwoo thought they felt chapped) and his tongue just barely swipes against Dongwoo’s lips. That’s all.

“You’re a terrible kisser,” he says once he’s sitting properly again (once he’s not leaning into Dongwoo anymore) and Dongwoo laughs.

“Give me a break, it’s not like I’ve had a lot of kisses before either!”

“Then why did you offer?” He manages to fix Dongwoo with a dirty look for a second before he cracks up laughing.

“I swear, that look will win you awards.” He gives Dongwoo that same look again, just for another second before falling back and returning to the sprawled position they had started in. Dongwoo does the same next to him, he knows this without looking. It’s like nothing out of the ordinary happened at all, it’s just the two of them.

“You know. I still don’t have a first kiss story, I can’t exactly say: My first kiss was with Dongwoo hyung when we were trainees.” Or maybe he could, for the shock factor, but he wasn’t willing to risk the scandal that would come with that if he became someone enough to matter.

He twists to lie on his side so that he’s facing Dongwoo, “What was your first kiss?”

Dongwoo’s quiet for a moment (and for that moment the quiet in the room seems to hum impatiently, or maybe that’s Howon’s curiosity). “Dance studio. With my best friend.” Dongwoo’s smiling, wide and carefree.

Howon snorts. “You’re not talking about me, are you?”

Dongwoo’s laugh is kind of embarrassing but super distinctive, he shakes his head because once he starts laughing it takes him forever to stop.

“That laugh,” Howon says, “it’ll win you awards.”

They fall asleep like that (again) but not before Howon thinks of possible answers to the question. His first kiss was by the beach, close to sunset. They walked together hand in hand along the coast and when they stopped Howon leaned in to kiss her, careful but insistent.

Her lips were incredibly thick and surprisingly soft.