uncharted territory, cnu/gongchan, pg-13
SS4 IN 11 DAYS OH GOD.
I went back to take a look at my personal view of 'K-Pop hiatus', and ended up with 'K-Pop hiatus with the exception of B1A4' because apparently B1A4's still stuck in my brain. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT? Regardless, I will neither update (much) nor check my f-list for the entirety of this year, so feel free to defriend me! You can always find me on Twitter though, where I'm more than happy to hold a conversation, but with long intervals between tweets. Ahaha.
(My Twitter account is private, so please tell me who you are in the comments below, otherwise I'll have to be reduced to my old and tried method of creeping through your respective profiles, in which case: my deductive skills are sadly lacklustre.)
Anyway, I watched two ShinChan fanvids on YouTube the other day and... this happened. From what I gather from Match Up, Chansik sleeps on the top bunk while Dongwoo sleeps below him, and they share a room with Sunwoo and Jinyoung. Right??
Title: Uncharted Territory
Pairing: CNU/Gongchan
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Brief mention of homophobia
Word Count: 6280
Summary: Five times Chansik almost kisses Dongwoo, and one glorious time he does (and continues doing so).
01. Year 2009
One of the various activities the trainees have to endure involves learning to stand on their hands. Chansik's paired up with Dongwoo, which is just as well, but when he's stuck on his hands attempting to will his blood to defy the laws of gravity and flow to his toes, it's rather disconcerting to have Dongwoo staring down at him on face-level with his feet.
"Hi," Chansik mumbles, "This is the first time we've had a chance to talk, I think." Dongwoo had always been too quiet.
"Dongwoo," Dongwoo says, and quirks a smile at him, tightening his grip on Chansik's ankles. "That's Dongwoo-hyung for you."
"Do I really look that young?" Chansik asks plaintively. "And I know your name."
"What are you, sixteen? Seventeen? You'll be grateful for it when you're forty and starting to wrinkle."
"Ugh," Chansik says, making a face. Dongwoo smiles down at him, and Chansik realises he's staring at Dongwoo's crotch.
Fortunately, the dance instructor tells them to switch positions. Dongwoo, for all his composure on his feet, turns out to be complete crap at using his hands to stay upright. Or downright, given the situation.
"Not the face!" Chansik cries, after one of Dongwoo's feet swings wildly at his nose for the fifth time.
"Girl," Dongwoo teases, and wobbles violently.
Chansik likes to think he’s outgrown the stage of mindless and hormonal crushes, the usual suspects of which were, on the most part, of the male persuasion, and rather distressingly at that. He knows now to look for the likes of 'inner beauty' in men, a feat no harder than attempting to execute a handstand with nothing but Dongwoo's support and his dubious ability to stay balanced. In other words, it's a losing battle that he's nevertheless determined to conquer.
Dongwoo is oddly attractive, but he's not pretty. Chansik just really likes his face.
Chansik's hands spasm spontaneously at the revelation, and there's a split second in which a look of panic flashes across Dongwoo's features and Chansik thinks oh shit. Dongwoo's legs flail in the general direction of Chansik's face, and it's hopeless to salvage the situation, so Chansik does the next best thing -- he dives to the left by pure instinct, decides to change direction halfway through to take some of the impact of Dongwoo's fall, and ends up, bizarrely enough, beneath Dongwoo's face.
Dongwoo's eyes are queerly shaped, slanted down somewhat and lidded heavily, eyelashes long and feminine. Certainly not the average Korean male eye, but not pretty either. Unique.
"Agh," Dongwoo says, half sprawled on top of his chest. Chansik feels the faintest breath of air brush across his lips. A second later, Dongwoo is righting his spectacles and standing up, holding his hand out in apology.
Sunwoo's the first to laugh.>
02. Year 2011
There's something about Dongwoo that makes Chansik feel safe. Dongwoo is unspeakably quiet and sensible beyond definition, and he insists on staying hydrated and keeping the dorm as clean as humanly possible, a task inhumanly impossible to accomplish with four other teenage boys. He's Chansik's closest friend, the calm to his overexcited and the beacon of sanity to the group's collective insanity. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.
They are three months away from their scheduled debut date. Junghwan has lost so much weight Chansik is a little worried, but not too worried. He has other considerably more pressing issues at hand.
"Tell me about yourself," Chansik says, propping his legs on Dongwoo's lap and shifting to rest against the arm of the couch. It goes uncontested that Dongwoo makes a superb footrest, though perhaps no one has yet presented him with evidence proving otherwise, for Chansik's a jealous friend and to allow anyone else to get to this degree of comfort with Dongwoo would be torture. His Dongwoo.
"What's there about me that you don't already know?" Dongwoo asks, without glancing away from the lyrics of their title song, likely memorising his lines. Chansik eyeballs his own sheet, laid carelessly upon the coffee table, and rates it secondary to their conversation. Irrationally, he rather wishes Dongwoo would put his sheet down too.
"Pay attention to me," Chansik says, nudging Dongwoo's inner thigh with the toes of his right foot.
"I'm up next," Dongwoo tells him, waving the lyrics in front of his nose. "After Sunwoo."
"It's just the recording," Chansik says, scowling sourly and making a grab for the sheet.
Dongwoo snatches it away, humming a line and returning his attention to the lyrics. As though to compensate, he catches Chansik's right foot with a hand.
"Hyuuung," Chansik says.
Dongwoo smoothes a thumb over the pads of Chansik's toes, and he wills back a shiver. Old habits are annoyingly difficult to scrap -- as a child, Chansik was extraordinarily sensitive to having his feet tickled, and if Dongwoo isn't careful with where he puts his fingers there's no guarantee he won't get a foot to the nose for his carelessness.
"Hyung, there's a bee in your hair," Chansik attempts, wiggling his left toes.
Dongwoo catches both his feet with his hand and continues to ignore him, and it's then that Chansik notices just how large his hand is.
"Your fly is undone," Chansik attempts again, his tone a mere shade away from outright whining.
Dongwoo remains focused on mouthing the words to his lines. Chansik observes the way his Adam's apple moves soundlessly, decides he's had enough with not being the object of Dongwoo’s undivided attention, and says, "Hyung, I'm gay."
He emphasises this with a quick jerk of his foot, but that turns out to be unnecessary for Dongwoo's hand had slipped off his feet the moment the word 'gay' found itself in the air between them.
Oops. Time suspends for a moment, Chansik's thoughts running rounds.
There are lines not to cross even in friendship, and to have forgotten that in what at present seems to be a brief bout of saturated insanity is... well, Chansik hasn't the words to describe his stupidity. He's not one to insult himself frequently.
Chansik tries to laugh it off. "Aha!" he says, grinning brightly. "Got you!"
Dongwoo peers at him. "You've definitely 'got me'," he says, and Chansik tries not to read too much into his words, because Dongwoo is far from his, even further now considering his reactions. On the bright side, Dongwoo hasn't tried to push his feet off. Yet.
"Hahaha," Chansik strains, "Ha."
"You have my attention," Dongwoo says, like he's waiting for Chansik to expound on this newest piece of information.
Of course, Chansik's uncooperative mouth goes and lets the cat out of the bag. "Don't tell anyone."
"About you... and your sexuality?"
"Yes," Chansik says, heart pumping at a potentially lethal rate. He's only just beginning to grasp how badly this might affect his friendship with Dongwoo, which is horrible, certainly, he's going to have to find a new verbal punching bag --
"My mother would kill me," Dongwoo says, out of the blue, and instead of running away shrieking he puts his lyrics down on the coffee table next to Chansik's, and rests his hands on Chansik's left ankle.
"Oh," Chansik tries to say casually. "Why?"
"You know why," Dongwoo says.
"No, I don't know why."
"She's... you know."
"Oh."
"She'd think you're 'bad company'." Dongwoo mimes slitting his throat with a finger, mouth twisting.
"Do you," Chansik blurts, "Do you agree with her?"
Dongwoo eyeballs him. "What am I, spineless?"
"I don't know!" Chansik garbles.
"No, if you really want to know, I don't. Don't worry your pretty little head about it," Dongwoo tells him, patting his ankle. "We’ve been friends for, what, two years? I’m insulted.”
“So,” Chansik gives Dongwoo a speculative onceover. "You're okay with it?" he asks tentatively.
"Oh no, I'm not okay with you at all, ew," Dongwoo says drily, giving Chansik's ankles a tiny push. "Get off me, I might get cooties. Idiot."
"Who, you?" Chansik says, but a relieved laugh bursts from his throat and he heaves himself up, pouncing on Dongwoo and wrapping his arms around his neck.
"Hold on," Dongwoo says, muffled against his chest. "Hold on just a minute, urgh, get off me, I can't breathe. This is a breach of personal space! Someone! Agh!"
Chansik takes a whiff of Dongwoo's hair, smells his shampoo, and feels contentedly like a creep. He's kneeling precariously next to Dongwoo on the couch, feet hanging off the cushion, so he doesn't quite get the support he needs when Dongwoo finally grabs him around the waist, reeling him in. He would hold Dongwoo's neck tighter, but he doesn't actually want to crush Dongwoo's head with his arms, so what results from it is a loud knock of his head making a violent acquaintance with the wall, against which the couch rests.
Chansik slides down, boneless, and clutches his head and groans. Dongwoo snorts, shifting beneath Chansik. When Chansik blinks his eyes open, his breath stalls midway up his throat, because if Dongwoo was complaining about a breach of personal space before, he has more than enough reasons to complain about it now. It's pure violation, Chansik thinks, transfixed. Dongwoo's lips are a hair's breadth away, and something in Chansik's chest swells and nearly bursts.
It's with an impressive amount of self-control, and equal amounts of reluctance, that Chansik pulls away and laughs, squeaking a little with it. Dongwoo follows suit, but his arms are still wound loosely around Chansik's waist and his eyes are the darkest Chansik has ever seen.
"Whoa!" Sunwoo's voice interrupts. Dongwoo looks like he's struggling for his cool as Chansik yelps manfully and slides backwards onto the floor, and that's a rare sight to behold. Chansik's never seen Dongwoo look anything but calm. "Practising fanservice, eh?" Sunwoo continues, bouncing to the exit. "Just a tip, you might want to tone it down a bit. For a second I thought you two were going to start making out."
"Hahaha," Chansik strains, when Sunwoo is gone. "Ha."
"Seconding that," Dongwoo says, clearly gaining his wits and sounding unruffled. He picks Chansik off the floor and stands, stretching his fingers around the back of Chansik's neck and tangling them in his hair. "You'd better practise your lines, young man."
"I barely have any," Chansik points out, leaning into Dongwoo's hand.
"Then make good what little you have."
03. Year 2011
"Cameras," Dongwoo says, sounding offended through a mouthful of toothpaste.
"The cameras like me," Chansik remarks, digging his thumbs under the waistband of his pants. "Don't look, I'm peeing."
They're taking refuge in the bathroom while chaos reigns outside, with members and cameramen alike banging on the door, although Chansik wouldn't be surprised if the bathroom was bugged along with every other room in the dorm. It's their first documentary since debuting, and it's got everyone practising different facial expressions in the mirror, with varying degrees of success.
"Where's the privacy?" Dongwoo demands, staring intently at himself in the mirror. Chansik knows this because he's doing some intense staring of his own.
"Right here," he says, and flushes the toilet. "Move over."
"I don't like them, and they shouldn't like me," Dongwoo says edgily, knuckles whitening around his toothbrush.
"But why?" Chansik asks curiously, squeezing toothpaste out of the tube. "The more screen time, the better!"
"I don't know," Dongwoo mumbles. "How would you like dropping your pants for the whole world to see? What do you say to the camera anyway? It's like my brain ceases to function. It's very intellectually crippling."
"Have you tried aegyo?"
Dongwoo eyes him.
"No," Chansik says, shaking his head. "It's not for you."
"Thank you for that intelligent conclusion," Dongwoo says, and spits into the sink.
This is what plays through Chansik's mind when he sees a cameraman start in Dongwoo's direction while they're roaming about the deck in their lifejackets. He starts towards Dongwoo then, arms outstretched, and almost runs into Sunwoo in the process. Thankfully, Sunwoo continues on his merry way and Chansik, never one to miss an opportunity to annoy Dongwoo, leaps on him.
Judging by the way his lips edge up in a delighted, slightly alarmed smile, Dongwoo's caught by surprise, but momentum has Chansik hurtling face first towards Dongwoo's features and for three seconds they pause in each others' breathing space, fighting the increasingly possible outcome of sharing an accidental kiss. An arm stretches instinctively around Chansik anyway. Dongwoo's saying something, Chansik can see his mouth moving, but all he can think about is the closeness and intimacy and the puffs of air against his lips.
Dongwoo's smile is a little frozen when at last Chansik finds his balance and slips away, but the cameraman is satisfied with his footage.
"That's going to be aired," Chansik comments breathlessly, bumping shoulders with Dongwoo.
"Shh," Dongwoo says, and wraps a lazy arm around Chansik's shoulders.
04. Year 2011
When they return to the lodge, Chansik is exhausted to the point of collapse. On the flipside, Dongwoo makes an excellent human support.
"Bathe," Dongwoo says, pushing Chansik to the bathroom.
"You're kidding!" Sunwoo and Jinyoung protest in tandem, pausing in the doorway only to fling their shoes aside. "He's the maknae!"
"Quick!" Dongwoo hisses, and bodily hauls Chansik to safety, locking the bathroom door behind him. Not a second later, the sound of fists rain down upon the door, and if it weren't made of solid wood Chansik would fear for their lives.
As it is, he sinks to the floor and clutches Dongwoo's ankle, moaning, "I'm so tired."
"We all are," Dongwoo says. "Go on and take a bath."
"Let's bathe together," Chansik suggests.
Dongwoo looks at him.
"It's not like you can leave," Chansik explains, giving the door a meaningful look.
Outside, Sunwoo screams, "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way!"
Junghwan continues, "Come out with your hands in the air and no one gets hurt!"
And Jinyoung says, rather pointlessly, "You have the right to remain silent!"
"These kids," Dongwoo sighs.
"Hey."
"You," Dongwoo sighs.
"Hey. I'm too tired to wash my back, do it for me?" Chansik asks hopefully. He gives Dongwoo his best impression of a forlorn puppy, which he knows from experience he's ace at.
Honestly speaking, Chansik doesn't actually expect Dongwoo to agree, which is how he finds himself turned firmly away from Dongwoo's naked body, soap suds trekking down his torso and suffering a minor panic attack. He passes the scrub to Dongwoo over his shoulder, trying for casual and ending up right smack in the middle of Awkwardville. It's all very painful.
"What is Dongwoo doing in there?" Chansik hears Jinyoung ask outside.
"Showering with you," Dongwoo answers lowly, his words ghosting across Chansik's right ear. Chansik stiffens, makes a concentrated effort not to swallow convulsively, and tries frantically to will his sudden arousal away.
"I'm pooped," he says instead.
Dongwoo laughs quietly, places a large, warm hand on his left shoulder and touches the scrub to Chansik's back. Chansik finds that he's having immense difficulties in the breathing arena, and coupled with a growing erection, it's an ideal set-up for disaster.
To give himself something to do, a distraction, anything, Chansik turns the heat of the shower up, hands resting heavily against the tap. He blinks against the water running down his hair and streaming down his cheeks, tries not to arch into every brush of the scrub against his back, and -- and --
The scrub pauses at the small of his back, inches away from his ass. Dongwoo clears his throat, and abruptly Chansik is hit by the impropriety of his request. A gay male, asking his straight male friend to scrub his back in the shower, naked. What was he thinking?
Chansik hears Dongwoo shift around and put the scrub down, and just as he's opening his mouth to propose switching positions so he can return the favour, he feels a hand rest against his waist. Dongwoo is silent behind him, but Chansik can see his silhouette against the tiles of the shower, watches the shadow of his other hand rise to hold his elbow. The pool of arousal stirs in the pit of his stomach.
"What are you," Chansik says hoarsely, and has to stop to clear his throat.
"Shh," Dongwoo whispers, sliding his hands up Chansik's sides by agonising increments, over his arms and shoulders. He smoothes them over his shoulder blades, achingly slow, and follows the line of his back, tracing his fingers down the notches of his spine until he reaches his tailbone. He dips his thumbs downward then, and splays his hands over Chansik's hips. There's something like wonder in the way Dongwoo moves his hands, but that might be wishful thinking on Chansik's part.
Chansik thinks he groans a little when Dongwoo's hands dip a bit too close for comfort, but he's not sure. He's half certain it's all part of a wonderfully intense wet dream until Junghwan, Jinyoung and Sunwoo start singing "CNU and Gongchan, sitting on a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G" outside.
"Hyung," Chansik says, half-laughing to mask the terror of having his hopes lifted up so high. Dongwoo's straight, he reminds himself, regardless of how much he might like holding you by the hips.
Dongwoo curses. "Ignore them," he orders, and skitters his fingers across Chansik's hips to the front, closer and closer to his dick, until Chansik has to prop an arm against the wall in front to stay standing.
"I'm sorry, I can't --" Chansik blurts, trembling, and turns around. He does what he's best at and winds his arms around Dongwoo's waist, presses his flushed cheeks against the wet skin of his shoulder.
Dongwoo is as tense as a board beneath Chansik, but he softens and wraps his arms around his shoulders, inclining his head towards Chansik's. It should be weird, Chansik thinks fuzzily, because Dongwoo is gratifyingly as hard as he is and they're both wet and naked, but he's always loved hugging Dongwoo, and Dongwoo has always been too receptive.
"Chansik," Dongwoo murmurs into his hair, "This is weird."
"And I'm gay," Chansik says, lifting his head. "Or did you forget?"
Dongwoo glances down at him, a sweet expression crossing his features. His hair is stringy around his face, and Chansik's likely to look a right mess, but then Dongwoo leans down, and there are water droplets threatening to roll off his eyelashes. Chansik closes his eyes, heart in his throat, until he hears Dongwoo breathe over the corner of his lips, "Thanks for earlier."
"What?" Chansik asks, bewildered, but Dongwoo is straightening and winking at him and passing him the scrub.
05. Year 2011
The first time Chansik intentionally kisses Dongwoo -- well, attempts to, considering Dongwoo's horrifying and later fairly perplexing reaction -- he is violently pushed away.
In his bold and depressing reality it's more of a firm grip-shoulders-extend-arms kind of thing, but Chansik's knack for dramatics has an irritating habit of turning up at inopportune times.
"Perhaps this isn't the best time," Dongwoo says.
"I understand," Chansik says feebly. He'd misunderstood. The shower at the lodge was baffling, anyway, and since then Dongwoo hadn't shown any inclination towards doing anything remotely sexually intimate with him. Their hugs had lost their strange intimacy a year into their friendship, though the affection remains firmly intact. "You love me, but not like that."
"What?" Dongwoo looks puzzled.
"You're straight and terrified of the idea of exchanging saliva with another male," Chansik offers, managing to smile valiantly despite his thundering heart, which seems to think it's changed into a charging rhinoceros sometime between his ridiculous lightbulb-worthy idea to follow Dongwoo into the bathroom and kiss him silly, and the actual acting out on said idea which, upon retrospection, does not seem all that worthy of a lightbulb after all.
One of Dongwoo's eyebrows rises above the rim of his spectacles.
"Not that," he says. "I meant, my nose is itching." He waves a toilet roll around and takes a piece. He sneezes. "I'm coming down with something. The flu, perhaps." He rubs his throat and looks thoughtful.
"Oh," Chansik says, and ponders the likelihood of steering the direction of their conversation to the Land of Kissing without alerting Dongwoo's conscience.
"We can't have the visual of B1A4 falling sick now," Dongwoo continues, the voice of reason as always and most infuriating at it. "Jinyoung would kill us all --"
"I could kiss you better," Chansik offers, and bats his eyelashes.
"Have you been listening to me at all?" Dongwoo asks. "Do you have dust in your eyes? They're twitching something terrible."
Chansik stops batting his lashes so fast he thinks he pulls an eyelid muscle. If there’s such a thing. Anyway.
"Jinyoung-hyung can replace me as the face of the group."
"You wouldn't want that."
"Well, yes, but hyung are you saying you --"
"No, nope, I'm falling sick, I will not --"
"Hyung."
"You should rinse your mouth too --"
"Hyung."
"-- wash your hands regularly --"
Chansik grabs Dongwoo's shoulders and shakes him a little. "I don't care," he says, with all the precision in the world. "What I care about is why you're not freaking out about me kissing you."
Dongwoo looks surprised. "I thought I made it pretty clear that I, ahem, wouldn't mind, er. With you."
Chansik realises, for the first time, that they're having this talk in the bathroom right next to the dance studio, where any moment a member might walk in on Chansik holding Dongwoo against the bathroom wall. He only realises this because he's overwhelmed by the abrupt urge to throw himself on Dongwoo and -- and things.
He always did have problems limiting the hugs he and Dongwoo shared.
"So, do you," Chansik says against Dongwoo's shoulder, arms fitted warmly around his waist. "I mean, this means a lot. To me. I've been meaning to... er you for some time now."
Dongwoo tightens his arms around Chansik's shoulders. A hand slips to the nape of Chansik's neck, fingers sliding through the hair there. "What part of feeling you up in the shower, naked, do you not understand?"
"Every part," Chansik says, grinning against the material of Dongwoo's old cotton shirt.
Dongwoo leans away and knocks his forehead against Chansik, unafraid of crossing lines now they've officially rendered this specific line ineffective. They're breathing each other's air, noses brushing, and Chansik feels his heart organise a stampede out of his chest.
"You'll understand," Dongwoo says, his words dancing across Chansik's lips, "In time."
Then he draws away and blows his nose.
01. Year 2012
"Court is in session," Jinyoung says, sounding important. "Let us start."
They're seated in the bigger bedroom, lounging on the beds. Chansik, laziness running rampant among other ulterior motives, is resting his elbows on Dongwoo's back while Dongwoo sprawls tummy-down on his bed. He's lying likewise next to Dongwoo but angled towards Jinyoung, and needless to say Dongwoo makes a remarkable cushion.
"Bang bang bang," Sunwoo imitates. Junghwan looks delighted, and Chansik laughs helplessly. Dongwoo drops his face onto the mattress and Chansik feels him snort.
Chansik cups his chin in his palms and digs his elbows further into Dongwoo's back.
"I have something to say," Junghwan says.
"Say it then, I'm falling asleep in your boring," Sunwoo teases, yawning audibly.
"It's about Chansik," Junghwan says gravely.
Chansik's head snaps up. "What?"
"You've been really out of it," Junghwan says baldly. "It's affecting us."
Chansik feels Dongwoo tense beneath him. "What do you mean?" Chansik asks, but he has a sinking feeling. It all goes back to his trainee days, he thinks, and a pang of guilt hits him.
The first time he met Dongwoo had gone something like this:
"Hyung," Chansik asked, "Who's Spectacle Guy?"
"The guy with Sunwoo? That's Dongwoo," Junghwan said, cheeks filling out as he grinned. He was the only trainee Chansik felt comfortable and safe with, uncomfortable though he was with the reasons behind it. Junghwan was fat, unattractive, likely to fail for that reason alone; Chansik was just as likely to fail with him, but for entirely different causes. The guilt was more than a little unsettling. "He's new. Quiet sort, isn't he? Doesn't look like he belongs."
Chansik looked around the room, eyeballing the other trainees stretching and chatting, all with similar looks of determination and desire in their eyes. All reminiscent of Junghwan.
"Hey, Diet Boy!" Sunwoo shouted, "Come introduce yourself!" Then, in a conspiring whisper to Dongwoo that completely failed to stay on his side of the room, "He's trying to lose weight. And that's Pretty Face next to him, guaranteed to debut."
Junghwan made a face and dragged Chansik to the side of the room, quickly sweeping Dongwoo into a conversation about the merits of spectacle hooks. Before Chansik could get a chance to introduce himself, however, their dance instructor had come, and that was that.
" -- just strange. Not your usual self."
Chansik blinks, refocusing on Junghwan. "I," he blurts, conflicting feelings warring within him. "I'm sorry."
Jinyoung looks impatient but says, not unkindly, "We want to know why, Chansik. We've been through this."
"Um, I feel," Chansik starts, playing with the back of Dongwoo's shirt, "I feel guilty."
Sunwoo makes a loud tsk-ing noise, but stops when Junghwan whacks him on the shoulder.
"Why?" Jinyoung presses.
Chansik falters, and wonders how to phrase his feelings. He's picking at Dongwoo's neckline now. "I don't feel worthy," he says at last, and 'worthy' must be the keyword because everything pours out then like a particularly inconsistent river. "I've always been guaranteed a spot in B1A4 because of my looks, but all of you, Junghwan-hyung especially, had to work, had to work so hard, and even more have been left behind --"
"Now, wait just a moment," Junghwan protests.
"Shh," Sunwoo and Jinyoung say together.
"Do you think," Chansik says delicately, "Do you think someone else worthier than me could be here in my spot, right now, if I hadn't decided to go along with management?"
"Don't be ridiculous!" Junghwan and Sunwoo say, sounding appalled. Jinyoung, on the other hand, looks contemplative.
Dongwoo reaches back with a hand and touches Chansik's thigh, palm warm and grounding. Chansik resists the involuntary reflex to take his hand.
"Do you think we could have made it this far without you?" Jinyoung asks. "You're not worthless. You're not the best at singing, but at least you're not tone deaf, and you're not the best at dancing, but at least you don't trip over your pants every week like --" he inclines his head in Junghwan's direction.
"Hey!" Junghwan protests.
"He's just saying," Sunwoo says over Junghwan's indignation, "That we'd probably still be at rock-bottom without your pretty face. You know how the fans eat that up like sharks."
"That's supposed to make him feel better?" Junghwan interrupts incredulously.
"I would love eyes like yours," Jinyoung pitches in helpfully. "And I can only be so pretty."
"It's all about the looks anyway," Sunwoo says brusquely. "Chansik raises our average attractiveness."
"What about me?" Junghwan and Jinyoung ask together.
Sunwoo eyes them both.
"You," Jinyoung says hysterically, jabbing a finger into his ribs. "That's another thing. You need to stop being such an insensitive dick."
"Me?" Sunwoo asks, going doe-eyed, just as Junghwan goes, "Him?" and falls about laughing.
"On the contrary, my dick is very sensitive," Sunwoo declares, and everyone groans in unison.
"Make him stop," Jinyoung cries, when Sunwoo starts offering to demonstrate. "Oh, my eyes --"
"Take a video, take a video!" Junghwan says enthusiastically. "Where are the cameramen when we need them!"
Dongwoo's back shudders in laughter, and Chansik lets out a small, relieved sigh of contentment.
Half an hour and a couple of bruises later, everyone's retired to their beds, declaring fatigue and, in Sunwoo's case, a sudden desire to jerk off.
"You're not really, are you?" Jinyoung whispers in the dark.
"No," Sunwoo says, sounding fondly exasperated. "But that doesn't mean I'm not going to do it tomorrow morning."
"Go to sleep," Dongwoo cuts in, his words curved with his smile, and the room falls silent.
A couple of minutes later, when Sunwoo and Jinyoung start a cacophony of snores enough to wake the dead, Chansik turns over in bed and smiles into his pillow.
Below him, Dongwoo whispers, "I'm coming up."
"Okay," Chansik whispers back, and scoots to the left to make space for him.
The mattress creaks under the combined weight of them both, but Dongwoo is as quiet as the night, settling down beside Chansik and taking his right hand in his left. Chansik turns around to face Dongwoo.
"You were quiet just now," Chansik whispers.
"I was," Dongwoo agrees, reaching up to slide his right hand over the back of Chansik's neck, just the way he likes it. It's a thing of habit, this touch, and Chansik loves it, loves feeling like he belongs to Dongwoo. "You're not unworthy," he says, curling his fingers into Chansik's hair.
"I know, but," Chansik says, feeling his toes curl at the quiet intimacy of the situation. "It feels shallow. Superficial."
"How is your face any more superficial than Junghwan's vocal talent?" Dongwoo asks quietly, sounding restrained. "Or my dancing, which we all know is manufactured?"
"My looks aren't a talent," Chansik insists. "It's great that the fans like my face, but I. It's not enough."
"Will it ever be enough?" Dongwoo wonders, tracing the shell of Chansik's ear with his thumb.
"No," Chansik says despondently. "I'm going to grow old eventually and wrinkle like you said I would."
"I did?"
"You were holding me by the ankles," Chansik says, helpless against the involuntary grin spreading on his face. "I was staring at your dick."
"We were... we were doing handstands, weren't we?" Dongwoo asks. "Wow. That was ages ago."
"Two years? Two and a half?" Chansik angles his head into the warmth of Dongwoo's fingers.
Dongwoo nods quietly, moving his hand to the side of Chansik's neck, where his fingers brush against his jawbone. Chansik's still thinking about how long he's been in love with Dongwoo, two years, when Dongwoo tucks his head in and draws closer to Chansik's face.
"You need to know," Dongwoo says heavily against Chansik's cheek, just inches from his lips, "That the fans don't matter. You matter. What you love doing matters. You love communicating with the fans and the popularity they bring, but you don't love the fans. Do you understand?"
Chansik nods, tiny movements of his head. He doesn't want to get too far from the proximity of Dongwoo's lips, close and alluring. It makes sense, when Dongwoo says it, that how he got into B1A4 shouldn't matter, not compared to why he's there, and the answer is as clear as day. He's there for all of them.
"You understand, then," Dongwoo says softly, brushing his lips against the corner of Chansik's mouth. All of a sudden Chansik's brain scoots back to their conversation in the bathroom, and he almost feels something light up in his mental faculties.
"Absolutely," Chansik wheezes, and turns his head ever so, lips brushing against Dongwoo's for the briefest of seconds. It's due to an impressive error in his calculations that he turns his head too far and ends up knocking noses with Dongwoo, but Dongwoo laughs, vibrating with it, and Chansik burns in embarrassment.
Sunwoo lets out a particularly loud snore then, unparalleled in its volume, and Chansik jerks away in a brief moment of panic. That turns out to be unnecessary, however, when Sunwoo continues breathing heavily and rhythmically, and Dongwoo says huskily, "Where were we?" and then he's rolling on top of Chansik, pinning him down with a feral smile on his face.
Chansik has never seen this side of Dongwoo before, and he's only just beginning to develop an awareness of the many other never-before-seen sides of Dongwoo when Dongwoo dives in for a proper kiss.
Chansik makes a small noise in the back of throat, but it's -- it's beyond description, the gentle burn of stubble against his chin and, more importantly, the burn of Dongwoo's mouth on his. They remain like that, careful and tender, before Dongwoo whispers, "Do you have any idea how much -- how long --"
"You’ve meant it?" Chansik suggests breathlessly, feeling Dongwoo's fingers tighten around his in response. He reaches his free hand up to press Dongwoo closer, twining his fingers into Dongwoo's long, unruly hair.
"Yeah," Dongwoo murmurs, pressing tiny kisses to his lips in a terribly frustrating manner. He slides a tongue against Chansik's lips and drags a hand down Chansik's side, pulling at the material of his shirt in the process.
"But," Chansik says, pausing to meet Dongwoo's tongue and crashing his train of thoughts most splendidly. "You're straight," he points out at last, when they part for air. "I think. Not."
"Not," Dongwoo mouths against his lips, playing with the hem of Chansik's shirt with his fingers. "Clearly."
"Mmph," is all Chansik can say in response, curving his spine when Dongwoo's fingers hit his skin. "Your hand is cold."
"Shh," Dongwoo hushes, and presses a kiss to Chansik's jaw. "The fans probably fantasise about doing this to you," he adds, and spreads his fingers on Chansik's tummy, cold and insistent.
"Oh," Chansik gasps, and pulls Dongwoo up for another kiss. "I'm aware of that," he admits a minute later, when they have to part for fear of fainting from the lack of oxygen.
"Do you fantasise about them doing this to you?" Dongwoo asks, mapping Chansik's torso with his hand. He brushes a thumb against Chansik's nipple, and he sucks in such a huge gulp of air he almost chokes on it.
"Stop," Chansik says raggedly, tugging Dongwoo down for another kiss.
Dongwoo's hands still, and he peers at Chansik with worried eyes. "Really?" he asks, sounding feverish but -- but concerned. How unnecessary.
"Stop asking stupid questions," Chansik amends, "And kiss me."
"Happily," Dongwoo says, and goes down to kiss Chansik once more.
This is how they awake:
Chansik opens his eyes, feels the dead weight of Dongwoo squashing his right arm, and comes to two separate conclusions: A) he's dreaming, or B) he'd forgotten to tell Dongwoo to move back down last night lest Sunwoo and Jinyoung find out --
Oh, god.
There's a camera in his face.
"AGH," Chansik yelps, scrambling back and hitting his head against the ceiling. "DON'T AIR THIS."
"Wha --?" Dongwoo says, stirring from sleep and wincing. "Oh. My back hurts."
"Reporter Sunwoo and reporter Junghwan, currently at the scene of crime, would like to clarify the reasons for your whereabouts," Sunwoo says, shifting the camera from Chansik's face to Dongwoo's.
"The fans would like to know," Junghwan adds.
"It's not what it --" Dongwoo starts.
"-- looks like, yes," Junghwan cuts in, opting for a condescending tone. "We get that often. Alas, scandals are made from fabrications! And this looks like..."
"A very gay night spent together," Sunwoo finishes. It's a miracle Chansik's heart hasn't yet filed for a separation, given its current state of aggressive hammering.
"Ahaha," Chansik tries, when nothing from Dongwoo seems forthcoming. "I had a nightmare?"
"I was comforting him," Dongwoo adds. "And fell asleep before I could move back."
Sunwoo and Junghwan give them each the hairy eyeball. "You two are no fun," Sunwoo says at last, to Chansik’s relief, and swings the camera away. "I'm going to film Jinyoung-hyung naked in the bathroom."
"Sounds like a plan," Junghwan agrees, and follows Sunwoo out of the bedroom.
Chansik and Dongwoo heave similar exhales of relief the moment the bedroom door closes. Dongwoo struggles to sit up, arching his back and groaning. Fortunately, things hadn't gone much further than kissing and a bit of clumsy groping in the dark before Chansik pulled away, so they’re still fully clothed, though a bit worse for wear. Chansik has dim memories of Dongwoo carding fingers through his hair afterwards, but he can't say for sure.
"Good morning," Chansik says shyly, when Dongwoo stops looking like he's a degree away from breaking his back with the energetic stretching he's putting himself through.
"You're not going to be awkward, are you?" Dongwoo asks, ruffling Chansik's hair. "Awkward doesn't look good on you."
"Anything looks good on me," Chansik says. "The less informed are missing out on a great deal."
"Your dumb doesn't look good on you," Dongwoo tells him.
Chansik does what he does best, and goes about revenge with a hug in his arms and a breath of stink, gas-ified.
"Oh, c'mon," Sunwoo's voice filters into the bedroom a minute later. "Will you two stop already?"
"Get a room," Jinyoung adds.
"We are in one," Dongwoo points out over Chansik's shoulder.
"And you're in it," Chansik says.
"If I didn't know better I'd think they were together together," he hears Sunwoo complain, his voice progressively growing softer as he and Jinyoung leave the room.
"Chansik just needs to be mothered," Jinyoung replies, and then they get too far away for Chansik to hear anything else.
"Together together?" Dongwoo echoes, sounding distant, but when Chansik pulls away to look at Dongwoo he's met with a gaze so intent his eyeballs feel hot.
"Mother." Chansik grins, but his stomach twists with nerves.
Dongwoo’s lips curve up in a brilliant smile and he cuffs Chansik round the ear. "Get out," he says. "And make sure to brush your teeth. Your breath is stinking up the room."
I went back to take a look at my personal view of 'K-Pop hiatus', and ended up with 'K-Pop hiatus with the exception of B1A4' because apparently B1A4's still stuck in my brain. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT? Regardless, I will neither update (much) nor check my f-list for the entirety of this year, so feel free to defriend me! You can always find me on Twitter though, where I'm more than happy to hold a conversation, but with long intervals between tweets. Ahaha.
(My Twitter account is private, so please tell me who you are in the comments below, otherwise I'll have to be reduced to my old and tried method of creeping through your respective profiles, in which case: my deductive skills are sadly lacklustre.)
Anyway, I watched two ShinChan fanvids on YouTube the other day and... this happened. From what I gather from Match Up, Chansik sleeps on the top bunk while Dongwoo sleeps below him, and they share a room with Sunwoo and Jinyoung. Right??
Title: Uncharted Territory
Pairing: CNU/Gongchan
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Brief mention of homophobia
Word Count: 6280
Summary: Five times Chansik almost kisses Dongwoo, and one glorious time he does (and continues doing so).
01. Year 2009
One of the various activities the trainees have to endure involves learning to stand on their hands. Chansik's paired up with Dongwoo, which is just as well, but when he's stuck on his hands attempting to will his blood to defy the laws of gravity and flow to his toes, it's rather disconcerting to have Dongwoo staring down at him on face-level with his feet.
"Hi," Chansik mumbles, "This is the first time we've had a chance to talk, I think." Dongwoo had always been too quiet.
"Dongwoo," Dongwoo says, and quirks a smile at him, tightening his grip on Chansik's ankles. "That's Dongwoo-hyung for you."
"Do I really look that young?" Chansik asks plaintively. "And I know your name."
"What are you, sixteen? Seventeen? You'll be grateful for it when you're forty and starting to wrinkle."
"Ugh," Chansik says, making a face. Dongwoo smiles down at him, and Chansik realises he's staring at Dongwoo's crotch.
Fortunately, the dance instructor tells them to switch positions. Dongwoo, for all his composure on his feet, turns out to be complete crap at using his hands to stay upright. Or downright, given the situation.
"Not the face!" Chansik cries, after one of Dongwoo's feet swings wildly at his nose for the fifth time.
"Girl," Dongwoo teases, and wobbles violently.
Chansik likes to think he’s outgrown the stage of mindless and hormonal crushes, the usual suspects of which were, on the most part, of the male persuasion, and rather distressingly at that. He knows now to look for the likes of 'inner beauty' in men, a feat no harder than attempting to execute a handstand with nothing but Dongwoo's support and his dubious ability to stay balanced. In other words, it's a losing battle that he's nevertheless determined to conquer.
Dongwoo is oddly attractive, but he's not pretty. Chansik just really likes his face.
Chansik's hands spasm spontaneously at the revelation, and there's a split second in which a look of panic flashes across Dongwoo's features and Chansik thinks oh shit. Dongwoo's legs flail in the general direction of Chansik's face, and it's hopeless to salvage the situation, so Chansik does the next best thing -- he dives to the left by pure instinct, decides to change direction halfway through to take some of the impact of Dongwoo's fall, and ends up, bizarrely enough, beneath Dongwoo's face.
Dongwoo's eyes are queerly shaped, slanted down somewhat and lidded heavily, eyelashes long and feminine. Certainly not the average Korean male eye, but not pretty either. Unique.
"Agh," Dongwoo says, half sprawled on top of his chest. Chansik feels the faintest breath of air brush across his lips. A second later, Dongwoo is righting his spectacles and standing up, holding his hand out in apology.
Sunwoo's the first to laugh.>
02. Year 2011
There's something about Dongwoo that makes Chansik feel safe. Dongwoo is unspeakably quiet and sensible beyond definition, and he insists on staying hydrated and keeping the dorm as clean as humanly possible, a task inhumanly impossible to accomplish with four other teenage boys. He's Chansik's closest friend, the calm to his overexcited and the beacon of sanity to the group's collective insanity. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.
They are three months away from their scheduled debut date. Junghwan has lost so much weight Chansik is a little worried, but not too worried. He has other considerably more pressing issues at hand.
"Tell me about yourself," Chansik says, propping his legs on Dongwoo's lap and shifting to rest against the arm of the couch. It goes uncontested that Dongwoo makes a superb footrest, though perhaps no one has yet presented him with evidence proving otherwise, for Chansik's a jealous friend and to allow anyone else to get to this degree of comfort with Dongwoo would be torture. His Dongwoo.
"What's there about me that you don't already know?" Dongwoo asks, without glancing away from the lyrics of their title song, likely memorising his lines. Chansik eyeballs his own sheet, laid carelessly upon the coffee table, and rates it secondary to their conversation. Irrationally, he rather wishes Dongwoo would put his sheet down too.
"Pay attention to me," Chansik says, nudging Dongwoo's inner thigh with the toes of his right foot.
"I'm up next," Dongwoo tells him, waving the lyrics in front of his nose. "After Sunwoo."
"It's just the recording," Chansik says, scowling sourly and making a grab for the sheet.
Dongwoo snatches it away, humming a line and returning his attention to the lyrics. As though to compensate, he catches Chansik's right foot with a hand.
"Hyuuung," Chansik says.
Dongwoo smoothes a thumb over the pads of Chansik's toes, and he wills back a shiver. Old habits are annoyingly difficult to scrap -- as a child, Chansik was extraordinarily sensitive to having his feet tickled, and if Dongwoo isn't careful with where he puts his fingers there's no guarantee he won't get a foot to the nose for his carelessness.
"Hyung, there's a bee in your hair," Chansik attempts, wiggling his left toes.
Dongwoo catches both his feet with his hand and continues to ignore him, and it's then that Chansik notices just how large his hand is.
"Your fly is undone," Chansik attempts again, his tone a mere shade away from outright whining.
Dongwoo remains focused on mouthing the words to his lines. Chansik observes the way his Adam's apple moves soundlessly, decides he's had enough with not being the object of Dongwoo’s undivided attention, and says, "Hyung, I'm gay."
He emphasises this with a quick jerk of his foot, but that turns out to be unnecessary for Dongwoo's hand had slipped off his feet the moment the word 'gay' found itself in the air between them.
Oops. Time suspends for a moment, Chansik's thoughts running rounds.
There are lines not to cross even in friendship, and to have forgotten that in what at present seems to be a brief bout of saturated insanity is... well, Chansik hasn't the words to describe his stupidity. He's not one to insult himself frequently.
Chansik tries to laugh it off. "Aha!" he says, grinning brightly. "Got you!"
Dongwoo peers at him. "You've definitely 'got me'," he says, and Chansik tries not to read too much into his words, because Dongwoo is far from his, even further now considering his reactions. On the bright side, Dongwoo hasn't tried to push his feet off. Yet.
"Hahaha," Chansik strains, "Ha."
"You have my attention," Dongwoo says, like he's waiting for Chansik to expound on this newest piece of information.
Of course, Chansik's uncooperative mouth goes and lets the cat out of the bag. "Don't tell anyone."
"About you... and your sexuality?"
"Yes," Chansik says, heart pumping at a potentially lethal rate. He's only just beginning to grasp how badly this might affect his friendship with Dongwoo, which is horrible, certainly, he's going to have to find a new verbal punching bag --
"My mother would kill me," Dongwoo says, out of the blue, and instead of running away shrieking he puts his lyrics down on the coffee table next to Chansik's, and rests his hands on Chansik's left ankle.
"Oh," Chansik tries to say casually. "Why?"
"You know why," Dongwoo says.
"No, I don't know why."
"She's... you know."
"Oh."
"She'd think you're 'bad company'." Dongwoo mimes slitting his throat with a finger, mouth twisting.
"Do you," Chansik blurts, "Do you agree with her?"
Dongwoo eyeballs him. "What am I, spineless?"
"I don't know!" Chansik garbles.
"No, if you really want to know, I don't. Don't worry your pretty little head about it," Dongwoo tells him, patting his ankle. "We’ve been friends for, what, two years? I’m insulted.”
“So,” Chansik gives Dongwoo a speculative onceover. "You're okay with it?" he asks tentatively.
"Oh no, I'm not okay with you at all, ew," Dongwoo says drily, giving Chansik's ankles a tiny push. "Get off me, I might get cooties. Idiot."
"Who, you?" Chansik says, but a relieved laugh bursts from his throat and he heaves himself up, pouncing on Dongwoo and wrapping his arms around his neck.
"Hold on," Dongwoo says, muffled against his chest. "Hold on just a minute, urgh, get off me, I can't breathe. This is a breach of personal space! Someone! Agh!"
Chansik takes a whiff of Dongwoo's hair, smells his shampoo, and feels contentedly like a creep. He's kneeling precariously next to Dongwoo on the couch, feet hanging off the cushion, so he doesn't quite get the support he needs when Dongwoo finally grabs him around the waist, reeling him in. He would hold Dongwoo's neck tighter, but he doesn't actually want to crush Dongwoo's head with his arms, so what results from it is a loud knock of his head making a violent acquaintance with the wall, against which the couch rests.
Chansik slides down, boneless, and clutches his head and groans. Dongwoo snorts, shifting beneath Chansik. When Chansik blinks his eyes open, his breath stalls midway up his throat, because if Dongwoo was complaining about a breach of personal space before, he has more than enough reasons to complain about it now. It's pure violation, Chansik thinks, transfixed. Dongwoo's lips are a hair's breadth away, and something in Chansik's chest swells and nearly bursts.
It's with an impressive amount of self-control, and equal amounts of reluctance, that Chansik pulls away and laughs, squeaking a little with it. Dongwoo follows suit, but his arms are still wound loosely around Chansik's waist and his eyes are the darkest Chansik has ever seen.
"Whoa!" Sunwoo's voice interrupts. Dongwoo looks like he's struggling for his cool as Chansik yelps manfully and slides backwards onto the floor, and that's a rare sight to behold. Chansik's never seen Dongwoo look anything but calm. "Practising fanservice, eh?" Sunwoo continues, bouncing to the exit. "Just a tip, you might want to tone it down a bit. For a second I thought you two were going to start making out."
"Hahaha," Chansik strains, when Sunwoo is gone. "Ha."
"Seconding that," Dongwoo says, clearly gaining his wits and sounding unruffled. He picks Chansik off the floor and stands, stretching his fingers around the back of Chansik's neck and tangling them in his hair. "You'd better practise your lines, young man."
"I barely have any," Chansik points out, leaning into Dongwoo's hand.
"Then make good what little you have."
03. Year 2011
"Cameras," Dongwoo says, sounding offended through a mouthful of toothpaste.
"The cameras like me," Chansik remarks, digging his thumbs under the waistband of his pants. "Don't look, I'm peeing."
They're taking refuge in the bathroom while chaos reigns outside, with members and cameramen alike banging on the door, although Chansik wouldn't be surprised if the bathroom was bugged along with every other room in the dorm. It's their first documentary since debuting, and it's got everyone practising different facial expressions in the mirror, with varying degrees of success.
"Where's the privacy?" Dongwoo demands, staring intently at himself in the mirror. Chansik knows this because he's doing some intense staring of his own.
"Right here," he says, and flushes the toilet. "Move over."
"I don't like them, and they shouldn't like me," Dongwoo says edgily, knuckles whitening around his toothbrush.
"But why?" Chansik asks curiously, squeezing toothpaste out of the tube. "The more screen time, the better!"
"I don't know," Dongwoo mumbles. "How would you like dropping your pants for the whole world to see? What do you say to the camera anyway? It's like my brain ceases to function. It's very intellectually crippling."
"Have you tried aegyo?"
Dongwoo eyes him.
"No," Chansik says, shaking his head. "It's not for you."
"Thank you for that intelligent conclusion," Dongwoo says, and spits into the sink.
This is what plays through Chansik's mind when he sees a cameraman start in Dongwoo's direction while they're roaming about the deck in their lifejackets. He starts towards Dongwoo then, arms outstretched, and almost runs into Sunwoo in the process. Thankfully, Sunwoo continues on his merry way and Chansik, never one to miss an opportunity to annoy Dongwoo, leaps on him.
Judging by the way his lips edge up in a delighted, slightly alarmed smile, Dongwoo's caught by surprise, but momentum has Chansik hurtling face first towards Dongwoo's features and for three seconds they pause in each others' breathing space, fighting the increasingly possible outcome of sharing an accidental kiss. An arm stretches instinctively around Chansik anyway. Dongwoo's saying something, Chansik can see his mouth moving, but all he can think about is the closeness and intimacy and the puffs of air against his lips.
Dongwoo's smile is a little frozen when at last Chansik finds his balance and slips away, but the cameraman is satisfied with his footage.
"That's going to be aired," Chansik comments breathlessly, bumping shoulders with Dongwoo.
"Shh," Dongwoo says, and wraps a lazy arm around Chansik's shoulders.
04. Year 2011
When they return to the lodge, Chansik is exhausted to the point of collapse. On the flipside, Dongwoo makes an excellent human support.
"Bathe," Dongwoo says, pushing Chansik to the bathroom.
"You're kidding!" Sunwoo and Jinyoung protest in tandem, pausing in the doorway only to fling their shoes aside. "He's the maknae!"
"Quick!" Dongwoo hisses, and bodily hauls Chansik to safety, locking the bathroom door behind him. Not a second later, the sound of fists rain down upon the door, and if it weren't made of solid wood Chansik would fear for their lives.
As it is, he sinks to the floor and clutches Dongwoo's ankle, moaning, "I'm so tired."
"We all are," Dongwoo says. "Go on and take a bath."
"Let's bathe together," Chansik suggests.
Dongwoo looks at him.
"It's not like you can leave," Chansik explains, giving the door a meaningful look.
Outside, Sunwoo screams, "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way!"
Junghwan continues, "Come out with your hands in the air and no one gets hurt!"
And Jinyoung says, rather pointlessly, "You have the right to remain silent!"
"These kids," Dongwoo sighs.
"Hey."
"You," Dongwoo sighs.
"Hey. I'm too tired to wash my back, do it for me?" Chansik asks hopefully. He gives Dongwoo his best impression of a forlorn puppy, which he knows from experience he's ace at.
Honestly speaking, Chansik doesn't actually expect Dongwoo to agree, which is how he finds himself turned firmly away from Dongwoo's naked body, soap suds trekking down his torso and suffering a minor panic attack. He passes the scrub to Dongwoo over his shoulder, trying for casual and ending up right smack in the middle of Awkwardville. It's all very painful.
"What is Dongwoo doing in there?" Chansik hears Jinyoung ask outside.
"Showering with you," Dongwoo answers lowly, his words ghosting across Chansik's right ear. Chansik stiffens, makes a concentrated effort not to swallow convulsively, and tries frantically to will his sudden arousal away.
"I'm pooped," he says instead.
Dongwoo laughs quietly, places a large, warm hand on his left shoulder and touches the scrub to Chansik's back. Chansik finds that he's having immense difficulties in the breathing arena, and coupled with a growing erection, it's an ideal set-up for disaster.
To give himself something to do, a distraction, anything, Chansik turns the heat of the shower up, hands resting heavily against the tap. He blinks against the water running down his hair and streaming down his cheeks, tries not to arch into every brush of the scrub against his back, and -- and --
The scrub pauses at the small of his back, inches away from his ass. Dongwoo clears his throat, and abruptly Chansik is hit by the impropriety of his request. A gay male, asking his straight male friend to scrub his back in the shower, naked. What was he thinking?
Chansik hears Dongwoo shift around and put the scrub down, and just as he's opening his mouth to propose switching positions so he can return the favour, he feels a hand rest against his waist. Dongwoo is silent behind him, but Chansik can see his silhouette against the tiles of the shower, watches the shadow of his other hand rise to hold his elbow. The pool of arousal stirs in the pit of his stomach.
"What are you," Chansik says hoarsely, and has to stop to clear his throat.
"Shh," Dongwoo whispers, sliding his hands up Chansik's sides by agonising increments, over his arms and shoulders. He smoothes them over his shoulder blades, achingly slow, and follows the line of his back, tracing his fingers down the notches of his spine until he reaches his tailbone. He dips his thumbs downward then, and splays his hands over Chansik's hips. There's something like wonder in the way Dongwoo moves his hands, but that might be wishful thinking on Chansik's part.
Chansik thinks he groans a little when Dongwoo's hands dip a bit too close for comfort, but he's not sure. He's half certain it's all part of a wonderfully intense wet dream until Junghwan, Jinyoung and Sunwoo start singing "CNU and Gongchan, sitting on a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G" outside.
"Hyung," Chansik says, half-laughing to mask the terror of having his hopes lifted up so high. Dongwoo's straight, he reminds himself, regardless of how much he might like holding you by the hips.
Dongwoo curses. "Ignore them," he orders, and skitters his fingers across Chansik's hips to the front, closer and closer to his dick, until Chansik has to prop an arm against the wall in front to stay standing.
"I'm sorry, I can't --" Chansik blurts, trembling, and turns around. He does what he's best at and winds his arms around Dongwoo's waist, presses his flushed cheeks against the wet skin of his shoulder.
Dongwoo is as tense as a board beneath Chansik, but he softens and wraps his arms around his shoulders, inclining his head towards Chansik's. It should be weird, Chansik thinks fuzzily, because Dongwoo is gratifyingly as hard as he is and they're both wet and naked, but he's always loved hugging Dongwoo, and Dongwoo has always been too receptive.
"Chansik," Dongwoo murmurs into his hair, "This is weird."
"And I'm gay," Chansik says, lifting his head. "Or did you forget?"
Dongwoo glances down at him, a sweet expression crossing his features. His hair is stringy around his face, and Chansik's likely to look a right mess, but then Dongwoo leans down, and there are water droplets threatening to roll off his eyelashes. Chansik closes his eyes, heart in his throat, until he hears Dongwoo breathe over the corner of his lips, "Thanks for earlier."
"What?" Chansik asks, bewildered, but Dongwoo is straightening and winking at him and passing him the scrub.
05. Year 2011
The first time Chansik intentionally kisses Dongwoo -- well, attempts to, considering Dongwoo's horrifying and later fairly perplexing reaction -- he is violently pushed away.
In his bold and depressing reality it's more of a firm grip-shoulders-extend-arms kind of thing, but Chansik's knack for dramatics has an irritating habit of turning up at inopportune times.
"Perhaps this isn't the best time," Dongwoo says.
"I understand," Chansik says feebly. He'd misunderstood. The shower at the lodge was baffling, anyway, and since then Dongwoo hadn't shown any inclination towards doing anything remotely sexually intimate with him. Their hugs had lost their strange intimacy a year into their friendship, though the affection remains firmly intact. "You love me, but not like that."
"What?" Dongwoo looks puzzled.
"You're straight and terrified of the idea of exchanging saliva with another male," Chansik offers, managing to smile valiantly despite his thundering heart, which seems to think it's changed into a charging rhinoceros sometime between his ridiculous lightbulb-worthy idea to follow Dongwoo into the bathroom and kiss him silly, and the actual acting out on said idea which, upon retrospection, does not seem all that worthy of a lightbulb after all.
One of Dongwoo's eyebrows rises above the rim of his spectacles.
"Not that," he says. "I meant, my nose is itching." He waves a toilet roll around and takes a piece. He sneezes. "I'm coming down with something. The flu, perhaps." He rubs his throat and looks thoughtful.
"Oh," Chansik says, and ponders the likelihood of steering the direction of their conversation to the Land of Kissing without alerting Dongwoo's conscience.
"We can't have the visual of B1A4 falling sick now," Dongwoo continues, the voice of reason as always and most infuriating at it. "Jinyoung would kill us all --"
"I could kiss you better," Chansik offers, and bats his eyelashes.
"Have you been listening to me at all?" Dongwoo asks. "Do you have dust in your eyes? They're twitching something terrible."
Chansik stops batting his lashes so fast he thinks he pulls an eyelid muscle. If there’s such a thing. Anyway.
"Jinyoung-hyung can replace me as the face of the group."
"You wouldn't want that."
"Well, yes, but hyung are you saying you --"
"No, nope, I'm falling sick, I will not --"
"Hyung."
"You should rinse your mouth too --"
"Hyung."
"-- wash your hands regularly --"
Chansik grabs Dongwoo's shoulders and shakes him a little. "I don't care," he says, with all the precision in the world. "What I care about is why you're not freaking out about me kissing you."
Dongwoo looks surprised. "I thought I made it pretty clear that I, ahem, wouldn't mind, er. With you."
Chansik realises, for the first time, that they're having this talk in the bathroom right next to the dance studio, where any moment a member might walk in on Chansik holding Dongwoo against the bathroom wall. He only realises this because he's overwhelmed by the abrupt urge to throw himself on Dongwoo and -- and things.
He always did have problems limiting the hugs he and Dongwoo shared.
"So, do you," Chansik says against Dongwoo's shoulder, arms fitted warmly around his waist. "I mean, this means a lot. To me. I've been meaning to... er you for some time now."
Dongwoo tightens his arms around Chansik's shoulders. A hand slips to the nape of Chansik's neck, fingers sliding through the hair there. "What part of feeling you up in the shower, naked, do you not understand?"
"Every part," Chansik says, grinning against the material of Dongwoo's old cotton shirt.
Dongwoo leans away and knocks his forehead against Chansik, unafraid of crossing lines now they've officially rendered this specific line ineffective. They're breathing each other's air, noses brushing, and Chansik feels his heart organise a stampede out of his chest.
"You'll understand," Dongwoo says, his words dancing across Chansik's lips, "In time."
Then he draws away and blows his nose.
01. Year 2012
"Court is in session," Jinyoung says, sounding important. "Let us start."
They're seated in the bigger bedroom, lounging on the beds. Chansik, laziness running rampant among other ulterior motives, is resting his elbows on Dongwoo's back while Dongwoo sprawls tummy-down on his bed. He's lying likewise next to Dongwoo but angled towards Jinyoung, and needless to say Dongwoo makes a remarkable cushion.
"Bang bang bang," Sunwoo imitates. Junghwan looks delighted, and Chansik laughs helplessly. Dongwoo drops his face onto the mattress and Chansik feels him snort.
Chansik cups his chin in his palms and digs his elbows further into Dongwoo's back.
"I have something to say," Junghwan says.
"Say it then, I'm falling asleep in your boring," Sunwoo teases, yawning audibly.
"It's about Chansik," Junghwan says gravely.
Chansik's head snaps up. "What?"
"You've been really out of it," Junghwan says baldly. "It's affecting us."
Chansik feels Dongwoo tense beneath him. "What do you mean?" Chansik asks, but he has a sinking feeling. It all goes back to his trainee days, he thinks, and a pang of guilt hits him.
The first time he met Dongwoo had gone something like this:
"Hyung," Chansik asked, "Who's Spectacle Guy?"
"The guy with Sunwoo? That's Dongwoo," Junghwan said, cheeks filling out as he grinned. He was the only trainee Chansik felt comfortable and safe with, uncomfortable though he was with the reasons behind it. Junghwan was fat, unattractive, likely to fail for that reason alone; Chansik was just as likely to fail with him, but for entirely different causes. The guilt was more than a little unsettling. "He's new. Quiet sort, isn't he? Doesn't look like he belongs."
Chansik looked around the room, eyeballing the other trainees stretching and chatting, all with similar looks of determination and desire in their eyes. All reminiscent of Junghwan.
"Hey, Diet Boy!" Sunwoo shouted, "Come introduce yourself!" Then, in a conspiring whisper to Dongwoo that completely failed to stay on his side of the room, "He's trying to lose weight. And that's Pretty Face next to him, guaranteed to debut."
Junghwan made a face and dragged Chansik to the side of the room, quickly sweeping Dongwoo into a conversation about the merits of spectacle hooks. Before Chansik could get a chance to introduce himself, however, their dance instructor had come, and that was that.
" -- just strange. Not your usual self."
Chansik blinks, refocusing on Junghwan. "I," he blurts, conflicting feelings warring within him. "I'm sorry."
Jinyoung looks impatient but says, not unkindly, "We want to know why, Chansik. We've been through this."
"Um, I feel," Chansik starts, playing with the back of Dongwoo's shirt, "I feel guilty."
Sunwoo makes a loud tsk-ing noise, but stops when Junghwan whacks him on the shoulder.
"Why?" Jinyoung presses.
Chansik falters, and wonders how to phrase his feelings. He's picking at Dongwoo's neckline now. "I don't feel worthy," he says at last, and 'worthy' must be the keyword because everything pours out then like a particularly inconsistent river. "I've always been guaranteed a spot in B1A4 because of my looks, but all of you, Junghwan-hyung especially, had to work, had to work so hard, and even more have been left behind --"
"Now, wait just a moment," Junghwan protests.
"Shh," Sunwoo and Jinyoung say together.
"Do you think," Chansik says delicately, "Do you think someone else worthier than me could be here in my spot, right now, if I hadn't decided to go along with management?"
"Don't be ridiculous!" Junghwan and Sunwoo say, sounding appalled. Jinyoung, on the other hand, looks contemplative.
Dongwoo reaches back with a hand and touches Chansik's thigh, palm warm and grounding. Chansik resists the involuntary reflex to take his hand.
"Do you think we could have made it this far without you?" Jinyoung asks. "You're not worthless. You're not the best at singing, but at least you're not tone deaf, and you're not the best at dancing, but at least you don't trip over your pants every week like --" he inclines his head in Junghwan's direction.
"Hey!" Junghwan protests.
"He's just saying," Sunwoo says over Junghwan's indignation, "That we'd probably still be at rock-bottom without your pretty face. You know how the fans eat that up like sharks."
"That's supposed to make him feel better?" Junghwan interrupts incredulously.
"I would love eyes like yours," Jinyoung pitches in helpfully. "And I can only be so pretty."
"It's all about the looks anyway," Sunwoo says brusquely. "Chansik raises our average attractiveness."
"What about me?" Junghwan and Jinyoung ask together.
Sunwoo eyes them both.
"You," Jinyoung says hysterically, jabbing a finger into his ribs. "That's another thing. You need to stop being such an insensitive dick."
"Me?" Sunwoo asks, going doe-eyed, just as Junghwan goes, "Him?" and falls about laughing.
"On the contrary, my dick is very sensitive," Sunwoo declares, and everyone groans in unison.
"Make him stop," Jinyoung cries, when Sunwoo starts offering to demonstrate. "Oh, my eyes --"
"Take a video, take a video!" Junghwan says enthusiastically. "Where are the cameramen when we need them!"
Dongwoo's back shudders in laughter, and Chansik lets out a small, relieved sigh of contentment.
Half an hour and a couple of bruises later, everyone's retired to their beds, declaring fatigue and, in Sunwoo's case, a sudden desire to jerk off.
"You're not really, are you?" Jinyoung whispers in the dark.
"No," Sunwoo says, sounding fondly exasperated. "But that doesn't mean I'm not going to do it tomorrow morning."
"Go to sleep," Dongwoo cuts in, his words curved with his smile, and the room falls silent.
A couple of minutes later, when Sunwoo and Jinyoung start a cacophony of snores enough to wake the dead, Chansik turns over in bed and smiles into his pillow.
Below him, Dongwoo whispers, "I'm coming up."
"Okay," Chansik whispers back, and scoots to the left to make space for him.
The mattress creaks under the combined weight of them both, but Dongwoo is as quiet as the night, settling down beside Chansik and taking his right hand in his left. Chansik turns around to face Dongwoo.
"You were quiet just now," Chansik whispers.
"I was," Dongwoo agrees, reaching up to slide his right hand over the back of Chansik's neck, just the way he likes it. It's a thing of habit, this touch, and Chansik loves it, loves feeling like he belongs to Dongwoo. "You're not unworthy," he says, curling his fingers into Chansik's hair.
"I know, but," Chansik says, feeling his toes curl at the quiet intimacy of the situation. "It feels shallow. Superficial."
"How is your face any more superficial than Junghwan's vocal talent?" Dongwoo asks quietly, sounding restrained. "Or my dancing, which we all know is manufactured?"
"My looks aren't a talent," Chansik insists. "It's great that the fans like my face, but I. It's not enough."
"Will it ever be enough?" Dongwoo wonders, tracing the shell of Chansik's ear with his thumb.
"No," Chansik says despondently. "I'm going to grow old eventually and wrinkle like you said I would."
"I did?"
"You were holding me by the ankles," Chansik says, helpless against the involuntary grin spreading on his face. "I was staring at your dick."
"We were... we were doing handstands, weren't we?" Dongwoo asks. "Wow. That was ages ago."
"Two years? Two and a half?" Chansik angles his head into the warmth of Dongwoo's fingers.
Dongwoo nods quietly, moving his hand to the side of Chansik's neck, where his fingers brush against his jawbone. Chansik's still thinking about how long he's been in love with Dongwoo, two years, when Dongwoo tucks his head in and draws closer to Chansik's face.
"You need to know," Dongwoo says heavily against Chansik's cheek, just inches from his lips, "That the fans don't matter. You matter. What you love doing matters. You love communicating with the fans and the popularity they bring, but you don't love the fans. Do you understand?"
Chansik nods, tiny movements of his head. He doesn't want to get too far from the proximity of Dongwoo's lips, close and alluring. It makes sense, when Dongwoo says it, that how he got into B1A4 shouldn't matter, not compared to why he's there, and the answer is as clear as day. He's there for all of them.
"You understand, then," Dongwoo says softly, brushing his lips against the corner of Chansik's mouth. All of a sudden Chansik's brain scoots back to their conversation in the bathroom, and he almost feels something light up in his mental faculties.
"Absolutely," Chansik wheezes, and turns his head ever so, lips brushing against Dongwoo's for the briefest of seconds. It's due to an impressive error in his calculations that he turns his head too far and ends up knocking noses with Dongwoo, but Dongwoo laughs, vibrating with it, and Chansik burns in embarrassment.
Sunwoo lets out a particularly loud snore then, unparalleled in its volume, and Chansik jerks away in a brief moment of panic. That turns out to be unnecessary, however, when Sunwoo continues breathing heavily and rhythmically, and Dongwoo says huskily, "Where were we?" and then he's rolling on top of Chansik, pinning him down with a feral smile on his face.
Chansik has never seen this side of Dongwoo before, and he's only just beginning to develop an awareness of the many other never-before-seen sides of Dongwoo when Dongwoo dives in for a proper kiss.
Chansik makes a small noise in the back of throat, but it's -- it's beyond description, the gentle burn of stubble against his chin and, more importantly, the burn of Dongwoo's mouth on his. They remain like that, careful and tender, before Dongwoo whispers, "Do you have any idea how much -- how long --"
"You’ve meant it?" Chansik suggests breathlessly, feeling Dongwoo's fingers tighten around his in response. He reaches his free hand up to press Dongwoo closer, twining his fingers into Dongwoo's long, unruly hair.
"Yeah," Dongwoo murmurs, pressing tiny kisses to his lips in a terribly frustrating manner. He slides a tongue against Chansik's lips and drags a hand down Chansik's side, pulling at the material of his shirt in the process.
"But," Chansik says, pausing to meet Dongwoo's tongue and crashing his train of thoughts most splendidly. "You're straight," he points out at last, when they part for air. "I think. Not."
"Not," Dongwoo mouths against his lips, playing with the hem of Chansik's shirt with his fingers. "Clearly."
"Mmph," is all Chansik can say in response, curving his spine when Dongwoo's fingers hit his skin. "Your hand is cold."
"Shh," Dongwoo hushes, and presses a kiss to Chansik's jaw. "The fans probably fantasise about doing this to you," he adds, and spreads his fingers on Chansik's tummy, cold and insistent.
"Oh," Chansik gasps, and pulls Dongwoo up for another kiss. "I'm aware of that," he admits a minute later, when they have to part for fear of fainting from the lack of oxygen.
"Do you fantasise about them doing this to you?" Dongwoo asks, mapping Chansik's torso with his hand. He brushes a thumb against Chansik's nipple, and he sucks in such a huge gulp of air he almost chokes on it.
"Stop," Chansik says raggedly, tugging Dongwoo down for another kiss.
Dongwoo's hands still, and he peers at Chansik with worried eyes. "Really?" he asks, sounding feverish but -- but concerned. How unnecessary.
"Stop asking stupid questions," Chansik amends, "And kiss me."
"Happily," Dongwoo says, and goes down to kiss Chansik once more.
This is how they awake:
Chansik opens his eyes, feels the dead weight of Dongwoo squashing his right arm, and comes to two separate conclusions: A) he's dreaming, or B) he'd forgotten to tell Dongwoo to move back down last night lest Sunwoo and Jinyoung find out --
Oh, god.
There's a camera in his face.
"AGH," Chansik yelps, scrambling back and hitting his head against the ceiling. "DON'T AIR THIS."
"Wha --?" Dongwoo says, stirring from sleep and wincing. "Oh. My back hurts."
"Reporter Sunwoo and reporter Junghwan, currently at the scene of crime, would like to clarify the reasons for your whereabouts," Sunwoo says, shifting the camera from Chansik's face to Dongwoo's.
"The fans would like to know," Junghwan adds.
"It's not what it --" Dongwoo starts.
"-- looks like, yes," Junghwan cuts in, opting for a condescending tone. "We get that often. Alas, scandals are made from fabrications! And this looks like..."
"A very gay night spent together," Sunwoo finishes. It's a miracle Chansik's heart hasn't yet filed for a separation, given its current state of aggressive hammering.
"Ahaha," Chansik tries, when nothing from Dongwoo seems forthcoming. "I had a nightmare?"
"I was comforting him," Dongwoo adds. "And fell asleep before I could move back."
Sunwoo and Junghwan give them each the hairy eyeball. "You two are no fun," Sunwoo says at last, to Chansik’s relief, and swings the camera away. "I'm going to film Jinyoung-hyung naked in the bathroom."
"Sounds like a plan," Junghwan agrees, and follows Sunwoo out of the bedroom.
Chansik and Dongwoo heave similar exhales of relief the moment the bedroom door closes. Dongwoo struggles to sit up, arching his back and groaning. Fortunately, things hadn't gone much further than kissing and a bit of clumsy groping in the dark before Chansik pulled away, so they’re still fully clothed, though a bit worse for wear. Chansik has dim memories of Dongwoo carding fingers through his hair afterwards, but he can't say for sure.
"Good morning," Chansik says shyly, when Dongwoo stops looking like he's a degree away from breaking his back with the energetic stretching he's putting himself through.
"You're not going to be awkward, are you?" Dongwoo asks, ruffling Chansik's hair. "Awkward doesn't look good on you."
"Anything looks good on me," Chansik says. "The less informed are missing out on a great deal."
"Your dumb doesn't look good on you," Dongwoo tells him.
Chansik does what he does best, and goes about revenge with a hug in his arms and a breath of stink, gas-ified.
"Oh, c'mon," Sunwoo's voice filters into the bedroom a minute later. "Will you two stop already?"
"Get a room," Jinyoung adds.
"We are in one," Dongwoo points out over Chansik's shoulder.
"And you're in it," Chansik says.
"If I didn't know better I'd think they were together together," he hears Sunwoo complain, his voice progressively growing softer as he and Jinyoung leave the room.
"Chansik just needs to be mothered," Jinyoung replies, and then they get too far away for Chansik to hear anything else.
"Together together?" Dongwoo echoes, sounding distant, but when Chansik pulls away to look at Dongwoo he's met with a gaze so intent his eyeballs feel hot.
"Mother." Chansik grins, but his stomach twists with nerves.
Dongwoo’s lips curve up in a brilliant smile and he cuffs Chansik round the ear. "Get out," he says. "And make sure to brush your teeth. Your breath is stinking up the room."