and sunggyu doesn't understand. he doesn't understand lee sungyeol.

after three years, he would think that he’s got everyone under control and knows all the little details there are to know about infinite. heck, he’s got nam woohyun figured out pretty well and has even grown the world’s softest spot for the guy that brags too much about his good qualities but hides his bad ones first. sunggyu has even gotten around to understanding myungsoo pretty well and having all his little myunggyu moments with him on camera. he feels special that way, because being able to carelessly sling an arm around your bandmate and have it called ‘fanservice’ means that you’re pretty damn close to have people fawn over you like that. sunggyu thinks he knows everyone, has them all picked out and sorted into special categories that he likes to put them into.

dongwoo was the easiest to figure out, he’s an open book and even all his dark little corners have been sought out and found by sunggyu. howon’s a little confusing at times, but sunggyu understands why and he knows how to deal with howon. sungjong, well, through all the bickering and scolding; sunggyu feels like the dad just trying to raise his son the right way. the only member who still seems hot and cold to sunggyu is sungyeol. there are days when sunggyu thinks he knows sungyeol; the choding, the tall one, the smiles and the jokes and the playful banter. that’s the sungyeol everyone knows and the one sunggyu has completely figured out and placed into a category known as “handle with care”.

handle with care because who exactly is lee sungyeol?

as the leader, sunggyu feels he should know these things and take the time to know each member’s mood and habits, to compare which ones will help infinite and which ones need to be monitored if they were to somehow damage the group. he’s got it all figured out in his head until the day sungyeol kisses him.

it isn’t even a nice kiss or a very good one. sunggyu hates himself for days after it but sungyeol doesn’t remember much of it anyways. it’s a drunk kiss, because sometimes sungyeol seems to get these random spouts of depression and he drinks when he thinks no one is in the dorm (but sunggyu is) and he talks nonsense and gives myungsoo drunk calls while all at the same time he appears so fragile and yet sturdy and in place. as if he’s got himself figured out. sunggyu pretends like he doesn’t hear or see anything, waits quietly in his room until the lights turn off and sungyeol’s snoring quietly on the living room couch. sunggyu doesn’t know what to do, he’s handled all of woohyun’s and dongwoo’s depressed moments, was able to cheer them up or just offer simple comfort. there was even that time he decided to share in his sadness with myungsoo but ended up getting mad at the younger because a slip of tongue. but a drunk and sullen sungyeol? how is sunggyu even supposed to handle that?

when he slips out of his room to the restroom, he finds out that the best way to console sungyeol in this state is by subjecting to his messy kissing and just let the long limbs go wherever they want. there’s a faint moment where sunggyu thinks he can hear sungyeol say something sensible, but that moment fades as his mouth and mind can only register the taste and feel of sungyeol all around him.

sunggyu doesn’t know how to cope - he can’t. how can he? sungyeol acts the same, smiles and lightly touching with the other members while sunggyu thinks about those fingers tangled into his hair and then he draws many blanks that woohyun points out throughout the following days and things seem so out of place and messy and sunggyu is really losing his . his usual handle on things are all jumbled up and it’s the other members that have to scold him and tell him he’s dancing to the wrong song instead of their current choreography during practice. sungyeol sighs at his leader’s side and asks if anything’s wrong and sunggyu wants to scream, scream and scream that yes, something is incredibly wrong and by god, sungyeol’s cologne smells really good and when did he get so tall and his eyes are so intense and what’s he thinking about as he looks at sunggyu who’s all blinking and trying not to pull those damn lips into his.

it’s a curse really, how when someone like sungyeol (who’s so strange and out of place all the time and can’t even properly tie his own shoelaces) can just kiss you and then you’d find yourself getting so hooked onto it. that’s at least how sunggyu views it and he just shouldn’t even be attracted to someone so lanky and someone so much of the male species. so he tries to watch a lot of hyuna dance videos late at night when myungsoo is dead asleep and sungjong has his earphones in so he won't hear the noises sunggyu makes. sunggyu obviously does still feel attracted to hyuna, so that’s something good. he still likes the curves of her body and the small little petite features she flaunts around in the sparkly short dresses she performs in. so why does he find himself searching up sungyeol and sungjong’s parody version of trouble maker? why does he think he needs to compare the smooth feminine legs of hyuna to the tanned toned legs of sungyeol’s? sungyeol’s long long long legs that are hidden by boots, aside from his thighs peeking out of that really short red sequined skirt and sunggyu immediately tosses his phone aside and tries to empty his brain of all thoughts about sungyeol and his legs.

it’s just a kiss, he tells himself. he reminds his brain that all of them are ually deprived and can’t even touch a girl without a scandal being released to the media. he tells himself that sungyeol was drunk and he was confused and just being a nice friend. that if it had been woohyun or dongwoo then he would act perfectly sane about it. except he’s having a terribly hard time being sane over sungyeol kissing him so the second he can, he corners woohyun and through the other’s protests of “what the hell are you doing gyu?” he kisses woohyun and it’s really gross and sickening and sunggyu scrunches up his face and balls his fists into woohyun’s shirt before releasing him (with a small push of course) and then looking very disappointed because ew, he’s just kissed one of the most greasiest human beings alive.

“what the was that?” woohyun spits and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand because ew, tight wad leader sunggyu just kissed him.

“i was testing something,” sunggyu looks lost in thought as he scans woohyun over and tries to think about any of his attractive qualities. mainly legs.

“test what? test if you’re a good kisser? because i’d hate to break it you, but you’re really terrible,” woohyun insults, but feels terrorized under sunggyu’s gaze, “can you stop looking at me like that? god, it’s like you’ve turned gay or something. imagine if the fans caught sight of that though, they’d be having a goddamn field day.”

sunggyu stops staring at woohyun after he concludes that yeah, woohyun is a good looking dude, but nothing about him really stands out or makes sunggyu want to slide his hands all over (like how he wants to slide his hands all over sungyeol’s legs), “i’m not gay,” he defends instead, “just testing out whether or not you’re attractive. you failed by the way.”

sunggyu leaves with his thoughts while woohyun wonders what the hell is wrong with their leader.

sunggyu has been off his game as of late so most of his mistakes are forgiven, though he doesn’t miss the worried looks or mumbled “is he okay?”s as he proceeds to act like everything is perfectly normal when nothing is normal because sungyeol kissed him and now he cannot for the life of him stop thinking about kissing sungyeol again.

it’s bad enough that he can never figure out what sungyeol is thinking (is he angry? is he happy? will he randomly buy another cat?) but now he’s become so damn self conscious around sungyeol and that just makes everything so much more complicated and sunggyu wants to pretend that nothing happened but something happened and that something lingers whenever sungyeol is around and sunggyu really needs to get his together.

and he thinks he does, that he’s over everything (it’s been weeks since the drunken connection of two very unsuspecting lips) and he’s finally the leader again. taking charge and barking out orders and helping s just as the eldest should. of course when he thinks things are back to normal and working perfectly fine again, there’s lee sungyeol being the person sunggyu isn’t sure about and someone he needs to handle with care.

“hyung, can i speak to you for a minute?” sungyeol asks and his eyes are this weird mixture of dark and glassy and sunggyu is afraid to look at them for too long because he can’t read them at all.

“sure,” he replies with though and he pinches his arm so that it’ll stop shaking so damn much and he slips outside into the night with sungyeol who looks worried and confused and sunggyu feels like this could go one of two ways right now. both ending with sunggyu running down the street screaming in confusion about sungyeol.

because sungyeol looks like he just remembered something, something important and holy frick, sunggyu knows what it is and sungyeol knows that sunggyu knows and they walk in utter silence for five minutes knowing this and yet sungyeol looks so distressed about what to say and sunggyu can’t find his voice to ask what it is sungyeol wanted to talk about even though he knows.

they end up not talking about anything at all and just get coffee and sunggyu thinks what the heck, because sungyeol had him there and had the chance to say something and sunggyu was 101% sure that he was prepared for whatever it was that sungyeol was going to say, but instead he said nothing, except for good night when they returned to the dorm and sungyeol slipped off to his own room. sunggyu finds sungyeol to be so complicated, it crawls through his skin and makes him itch; an itch that cannot be satisfied with a scratch.

the next few days, both sungyeol and sunggyu are moody and the other members shift awkwardly away from them and avoid letting them be alone because they think a fight will break out or something (which is weird because the only person sunggyu ever gets into real fights with is woohyun). sungjong tries to talk to sunggyu (moments like this he acts like he’s the hyung) and sunggyu ends up shouting about random nonsense that makes sungjong frustrated and moody too. dongwoo tries next time, with both sunggyu and sungyeol (separately of course) but he comes up with nothing as well and it’s woohyun who figures it all out.

“this is about that kiss, isn’t it?” woohyun is leaning against the doorframe of sunggyu’s room with a smug look and a cup in his hand.

“what?” sunggyu chokes out and he spins his head so fast at woohyun that it’s almost comical. almost.

“something… something about attractiveness and kissing and sungyeol. that’s what’s going on isn’t it?” woohyun shifts the cup in hand as if he’s stirring it’s contents.

“i don’t know what you’re talking about,” sunggyu goes back to the book he was reading except now it’s like he’s lost the ability to make out words on paper.

“you and sungyeol,” he lets the words weigh on his tongue, “you two kissed… didn’t you? and then… you got attracted.”

and oh my goodness, sunggyu hurls the book at woohyun who dodges it smoothly and things just fall apart because someone has said it and now it’s true and sunggyu hates nam woohyun.

after an hour of denying everything that spills out of woohyun’s mouth, sunggyu finally tells him the truth and woohyun can’t help but notice how perpetually upset sunggyu is over the fact that sungyeol didn’t mention it.

“he just… pretended nothing happened, i guess.” sunggyu says solemnly.

“you pretended nothing happened too.”

“that was different.” sunggyu defends lamely.

“did you want him to bring it up? so that you could yell at him and embarrass yourself about how you’ve been fantasizing about him?” the smile on woohyun’s face is so annoying that sunggyu almost kicks him.

“i need a drink, hand me your cup,” sunggyu demands and avoids answering woohyun.

woohyun hands him an empty and perfectly clean cup. turns out he just thought standing in the doorway with a cup makes him look cool as he calls sunggyu out for all his weird behaviour.

sunggyu kicks woohyun.

he blows up two days after sungyeol’s birthday and it’s absolute hell. the other members are baffled (except woohyun who had been anticipating this) and even sunggyu can’t believe his own actions because he’s standing over a half sober sungyeol and yelling about all the things he dislikes about sungyeol. how he can’t understand him and how sungyeol just decides to do whatever he wants and acts however he finds proper and how sungyeol just isn’t man enough to say the things he should say when he has the chance to. sunggyu is ranting (it’s the alcohol that’s helping too) and he really feels embarrassed once he’s done and he’s never seen myungsoo so goddamn scared in his life.

and there it is, that glorious look of sungyeol’s that both confuses and sends nerve wracking butterflies spiraling into his system. sunggyu is breathing heavily when he finishes before sungyeol sits up and pulls him out of the room in a drunken stupor. he’s pushed into sungyeol’s room and the door is clicked lock and the other members are alert now except woohyun assures them that the only marks they’ll procure from each other is from their mouths and howon seems to be the only one to catch onto that one.

without words, without thinking, or trying to figure out, or understand, or categorize, sungyeol kisses sunggyu and why would he think kissing would solve anything right now? only it does and sunggyu can’t help that he feels helpless like this, that the hyung-leader side of him slips away and then he feels so glad that sungyeol is taller because he falls into the long arms and leans into that damn kiss. it still isn’t all that good, but man, sunggyu feels like it’s the best kiss ever and hands are going everywhere and sungyeol’s nose is red and sunggyu can feel all the mixed and strange emotions pour into him and his own pour into sungyeol. it feels damn good to be kissing sungyeol like this, to have said all those things he said because this invisible weight is lifted from his shoulders while sungyeol sighs and kisses sunggyu even more.

and does this mean sungyeol likes him? does he like sungyeol? why is this all so complicated? why is the very existence of lee sungyeol so complicated and why does it start fires in sunggyu’s chest that burn so bright and vividly and why does sunggyu not want them extinguished? he doesn’t care and maybe some thing aren’t meant to be resolved because just breathing in the scent of sungyeol makes things okay and sunggyu feels okay now and it may take him a million years to figure out sungyeol - or never, but what does it matter now? not when sungyeol’s longlonglong legs wrap around sunggyu’s and not when his tongue is halfway down his throat and damn sunggyu does not have everything under control.

but it’s in the good sense and maybe it’s okay for him to be like this with sungyeol.

to let someone else take control for a change.

sunggyu doesn’t seem to mind for once, at least not with sungyeol that is.