“You know how some things make sense when you’re drunk?” Wonsik asks, and his computer monitor predictably doesn’t answer him.

Wonsik lets his head thunk down onto the table, both out of embarrassment and because his hangover is still thrumming, and that’s how Jaehwan finds him when he slips into Wonsik’s studio minutes later.

“Are you done hiding? Hakyeon hyung’s looking for you,” Jaehwan says, troublemaker grin firmly on.

Wonsik merely groans, not lifting his head, and Jaehwan blows an affectionate raspberry against the back of Wonsik’s neck before he leaves.

*

Hakyeon’s the second person Wonsik doesn’t want to see, because Hakyeon is going to make him talk about it and that’s the last thing Wonsik wants or needs right now. The first person is apparently still sleeping off the effects of their all-night bender in the dorm, and so Wonsik seeks refuge with Taekwoon in the other studio, the one person he can count on not to make him do anything he doesn’t want to. He squeezes himself into a corner and knows that as long as he doesn’t make a nuisance of himself Taekwoon won’t make him leave.  

After a while Wonsik realises that the sound of his hyung’s voice has stopped, and he looks up from his lyrics notebook to find Taekwoon contemplating him.

“You’re hiding, aren’t you,” Taekwoon says in his baby kitten voice coupled with a panther stare, and Wonsik really hates animal metaphors.

He looks back down at his notebook obstinately, not wanting to answer, and in a few moments Taekwoon begins singing again. It’s only after a while that Wonsik realises Taekwoon’s singing ‘Drunk Confession’ by Exhibition, totally deadpan, and Wonsik gets up and leaves immediately.

*

He has two options left – Sanghyuk or Jaehwan, but Jaehwan’s seriously practising for his musical and would mercilessly anyway, and Sanghyuk is no better; if not worse. If he goes back to the dorm Hongbin would be there, and –

No, no, no. He hasn’t gathered up the courage for that yet. If he makes it through today managing to successfully avoid Hongbin and Hakyeon there would be hope for the future. A future that would never ever again contain any soju, or dancing, or noraebangs.

He manages to sneak back into the dorm and into his room to grab a change of clothes, intending to spend the rest of the day practising choreography – well, that went against his resolve never to dance again but he supposes that dancing alone, while sober, with no equally-smashed Hongbin in sight was safe enough – and makes it all the way to the dance studio before he opens it and sees Hakyeon with one of their choreographers mid-move. Hakyeon catches sight of him in the mirror and twirls around excitedly, calling out his name. Wonsik quickly closes the door again and leaves. Hakyeon is a demon.

*

Hongbin is giggling softly non-stop in his arms as they slow-dance – very badly – to the background of Jaehwan’s voice singing some sentimental ballad Wonsik can’t make the words out to anymore, he is so ing gone he’s amazed he’s still upright. Taekwoon is trying to harmonise brokenly but he keeps hiccupping, a thing that Sanghyuk finds so hilarious he’s all but in Taekwoon’s lap weak with laughter, and Hakyeon is surveying them all from a corner of the noraebang room as if he’s sitting on a throne, regal and imposing. He’s being fancy too, sticking out his pinky as he takes small swigs from his bottle of soju.

This is how things stand after four hours of straight drinking and raucous singing and flinging themselves about, Wonsik and Hongbin stumbling around the room and Jaehwan being the only one still more or less in control of himself. Hakyeon looks fine but Wonsik knows the moment he tries to stand or walk he’s going to be on the floor in a heap.

He tries to dip Hongbin, totally out of sync with Jaehwan’s singing, and Hongbin grabs him roughly by the shoulders in order not to fall, which just serves to throw off their balance and they end up falling in a hysterically giggling tangle of limbs, just narrowly missing the coffee table. That sets Sanghyuk off on a new bout of crying-laughing, hitting Taekwoon in his mirth, and Taekwoon slowly tries to slide Sanghyuk off him and onto the floor like he’s an unwanted octopus.

All Wonsik can see is Hongbin’s too-wide smile – honestly, sometimes the number of teeth Hongbin has terrifies him a bit – and all he can feel is Hongbin underneath him holding on, one hand absently curled lightly into his shirt, and so he kisses Hongbin. It seems like the only thing to do, and it makes the utmost sense. Here they both are, Hongbin is happy and laughing, he’s been in love with Hongbin since forever, there is nothing to stop them, and he’s going to run away with Hongbin and buy him a nice apartment with many cameras with all the royalties he gets from his songs. So he kisses him.

He’s really drunk, of course, and so is Hongbin, so the kiss isn’t the most Hollywood of kisses. It’s messy; there’s really a bit too much saliva, and plus the angle is slightly awkward, but Hongbin is kissing him back (!!!), and YES isn’t that the best thing that has ever happened in the history of everything? They both taste like soju and their breath is alcohol-sweet, and god help him Hongbin’s lips are as soft as they look.

Wonsik passes out soon after, propped up against the coffee table.

*

“You’re going to have to go back to the dorm sometime,” a voice says behind Wonsik.

Damn it. Hakyeon really was a demon, apparently fitted with Wonsik-finding GPS.

Wonsik twists around from where he’s sitting on one of the playground’s swings, giving Hakyeon a pouty face and hoping that aegyo will let him off easy.

“What are you doing, you idiot?” Hakyeon asks fondly, commandeering the other swing and pushing off with his feet. They’re both way too tall for this, but it doesn’t stop Hakyeon trying anyway. 

“Hiding, as everyone tells me I am,” Wonsik says, and he doesn’t have to fake the sulky tone in his voice.

“Well, you did kiss a bandmate in front of everyone last night,” Hakyeon agrees, trying to make himself go higher. “With tongue.”

“We all kiss one another all the time, hyung,” Wonsik says for the hell of it, and Hakyeon tries to kick him with one of his long legs.

“Are you telling me you want to kiss me the way you kissed Binnie last night? Or Sanghyuk? Or Jaehwan? Actually I’d believe it if you said you wanted to kiss Jaehwan, you’re always all over him.”

“That’s different,” Wonsik grouses, and he wonders why they’re doing this dance, this pretense as if Hakyeon doesn’t know everything already.

“So the question now is,” Hakyeon watches him out of the corner of his eye, still swinging. “Do you pretend you were just fooling around and ignore the fact that he very obviously kissed you back, or do you actually, finally, finally, Wonsik, finally find the balls to do something about it?”

“Why do you always have to act like some kind of all-knowing guru?” Wonsik complains. “And for once I wish you’d get drunk enough not to remember anything the next morning.”

“Have it your way,” Hakyeon sniffs, and gracefully jumps off the swing mid-arc, landing nicely on his feet a few metres in front of Wonsik. “Don’t say I didn’t try to help.”

*

The minute he enters the dorm and Sanghyuk sees him Sanghyuk puckers up and blows him a kiss loud enough for Taekwoon cooking dinner in the kitchen to hear and start grinning to himself. Wonsik chases him a little with his hand raised to whack Sanghyuk but there’s no fight in him, really, because he’s too busy looking out for Hongbin. When Hakyeon sees him Hakyeon gestures with his head towards the bedrooms, eyebrows raised. Wonsik sighs exaggeratedly, and Hakyeon copies it back at him, leading to a few minutes of impromptu random pantomime in the middle of their dorm. Hakyeon stops abruptly in between miming ‘ballerina’ and passes Wonsik on the way to the kitchen, smacking him lightly. “Stop stalling.”

“I can’t,” Wonsik hisses at him, and Hakyeon gives him an unimpressed look.

“Do you want me to do it for you?” he threatens. “You won’t like it.”

“I’ll do it,” Sanghyuk pipes up excitedly, and Wonsik pushes him away.

“Why can’t you all just let me live in peace,” he whines, and Taekwoon in the kitchen nods his head in agreement, feeling that sentiment deeply.

*

Wonsik pushes open the door to the room Hongbin sleeps in, catching sight of a mop of black hair spread out over his pillow as he scrolls through his laptop perched precariously on his thighs. Hongbin looks up as Wonsik enters, and his eyes flick back casually to his laptop’s screen.

“Oh, you’re here. Where have you been all day? I’ve been dying here with a hangover.”

“Out,” Wonsik says, and even that one word sounds pathetic to his own ears. “Listen, uh, Bin-ah, last night-”

“That was fun,” Hongbin says, smiling. “We should do that more often.”

Wonsik stops. “Do what, exactly? And who’s ‘we’?”

Hongbin shrugs. “You and I. Get drunk. I feel like we’re sober way too much for guys our age.”

“Ah,” Wonsik says delicately. “Hongbin, when we were drunk yesterday-”

“We had fun, didn’t we?”

“Hongbin,” Wonsik repeats, feeling desperate. “Stop interrupting.”

“But I’m just saying-”

Wonsik swallows, but then he notes Hongbin’s fingers worrying the edge of his bedsheet.

“Okay. Hongbin? Last night. We kissed. I kissed you. Yes?” Wonsik blurts out, figuring there was nothing else to do but just to go for it.

Hongbin nods, for once quiet.

“Did you kiss me back because – to play along? Because we were fooling around?”

Hongbin pauses. “Did you?”

“I asked you first.”

“Now I’m asking you.”

“That’s not how it works. You have to answer first.”

“Well-” Hongbin breaks off, and he’s flustered, slow blush creeping up his neck. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Wonsik has a tiny explosion, incredulous. “What does ‘maybe’ mean?”

“Maybe I was playing along, and maybe I wasn’t,” Hongbin says defiantly.

“Hongbin.”

“Wonsik.”

Wonsik stares at Hongbin in consternation, wondering how to get out of this. He feels like he was twelve again, trying to confess to the most popular girl in his class and nearly fainting from anxiety. He’d bungled that up, too.

“If I told you I liked you, what would you say?” Wonsik tries another tactic, and at Hongbin’s stymied face he cheers a little inside and then immediately wonders what he’s doing, treating this like some kind of competition.

“I would say thank you,” Hongbin answers finally, primly, and Wonsik narrows his eyes.

“Thank you?”

“Thank you,” Hongbin repeats, nodding. He’s taken now to folding and refolding the corner of the sheet compulsively, and Wonsik decides he has nothing to lose. He puts one knee on the mattress, leaning forward, and Hongbin does that thing with his face that looks like he’s just seen ten million ghosts. Wonsik crawls towards Hongbin slowly, eyes not leaving Hongbin’s face, and he can tell one hundred percent that Hongbin doesn’t know whether to back off or stick to his guns and stay where he is.

“So if I kissed you again,” Wonsik says, faces a breath apart and hardly able to hear himself from the slamming of his heart in his chest, “What would you do?”

Hongbin audibly swallows, eyes flicking to Wonsik’s mouth and up again to his eyes. “I – I would-”

“Kiss me back?” Wonsik prompts, almost not breathing with how daring he’s being.

“Probably,” Hongbin breathes, not about to lose.

So Wonsik kisses Hongbin, hovering over him with Hongbin’s laptop in the way, and it’s so different from when they were both completely pissed. Not so much saliva, for one thing, and Hongbin tastes – he tastes –

Hongbin makes a small sound in the back of his throat, half-pleased and half-terrified, and Wonsik pulls back slightly, only slightly, so that their lips are barely just touching.

“So. We’re dating now. Okay?” Wonsik asks, awkward as hell.

“Alright,” Hongbin agrees, nodding as if Wonsik has just told him they were having bibimbap for lunch.

Wonsik pushes himself to his feet and smiles at Hongbin, trying his best not to look goofy. “Dinner’s soon. You should come out and eat.”

“Sure,” Hongbin says, looking slightly at sea. “Let me just shut down my laptop first.”

Wonsik walks to the door and out of it, and on the way to the dining table he takes the time to yell out at the top of his lungs an exultant ‘YES!!!!’ before settling himself down peacefully and leaving the seat next to him empty for his new boyfriend.

Hakyeon shakes his head at him and Taekwoon curses from where Wonsik’s shout had made him jerk in shock and accidentally spill hot stew over his hand, Sanghyuk rushing to go get kitchen towels to mop it up.

“Is this a good thing?” Taekwoon asks Hakyeon as Hongbin comes in and sits down next to a beaming Wonsik, blushing so hard he looked like a black-haired strawberry.

“Think of the blackmail material,” Hakyeon says, and looks at Taekwoon, eyebrows raised.

*