title: you deserve better love
pairing(s): leo/hongbin, ravi/hongbin
rating: pg
wordcount: ~1020
summary: Wonshik and Hongbin are sort-of boyfriends, and Taekwoon watches from the sidelines.
a/n: I seem to be the only one shipping Hongbin and Leo?? lol. This is based off
ep41 of Vixx Tv.
Sometimes Hongbin will say purse his lips and say things like, "I think my face is too squishy. I should stop smiling so fucking hard."
And Taekwoon will say nothing.
Hongbin's words aren't meant for him anyway. They're meant for Wonshik, who's pinching Jaehwan's ears teasingly, or licking his thumb to wipe the smudge of eyeliner beneath Sanghyuk's lower lashes, or letting Hakyeon dictate the next tweet from @AceRavi to @CHA_NNNNN. Wonshik, who kisses Hongbin on a fairly regular basis, who leaves bite marks in places the cameras aren't allowed to see.
Taekwoon isn't supposed to see those marks either, but when Hongbin walks around the dorm in nothing but a ratty pink tank top and gray boxer briefs, can Taekwoon be expected not to stare at the purple-red splotches staining Hongbin's milky white inner thigh? And he despises himself for it, but he starts keeping track of the hickeys, he starts noticing when Hongbin's lips look redder, more swollen than usual, he learns the shape of Hongbin's sex-hair.
The rest of them know about Wonshik and Hongbin's Casual Gay Fling, but they only care to the extent that management doesn't find out.
"Now that your lips have been on Hongbin's dick," Jaehwan tells Wonshik reasonably, "you will no longer be eating from my chopsticks."
Wonshik nods and grins, running his tongue slowly and provocatively over the aforementioned lips. Hongbin flushes cherry-red, buries his squishy smile in his hands.
And Taekwoon says nothing.
They do a photoshoot for spring, even though it's still technically winter, and they have to wear heavy parkas to the site of the shoot. Wardrobe gives Hongbin a light blue denim shirt buttoned to the top, and Taekwoon's not trying to watch him change but he just happens to notice the splotchy red mark on his collarbone. Hongbin doesn't know how to tie a tie; Taekwoon does, but the stylists beat him to it.
When a cameraman appears seemingly out of nowhere, holding the plastic bag with all of their prop mics in it, Hakyeon groans from his seat in front of the makeup mirror.
"I'm not ready!" he cries, waving his hands.
The stylist moussing his hair reprimands him gently.
"Me neither," Wonshik says, one eye lined with smoky black, the other bare. "Make it Ken TV."
"I'm shooting first, though," Jaehwan protests around the powder puff bronzing his cheeks.
Taekwoon doesn't look up from his phone. Nobody asks him, even though he's the first done with makeup and the last to do his solo shoot.
Hongbin is the second done with makeup, and he's sitting next to Taekwoon looking helpless. The cameraman hefts the mic bag at him expectantly.
"I can't do it by myself," Hongbin says. "I wouldn't know what to say."
"Nobody cares," Wonshik says. "You're the artwork. You could recite the alphabet and they'd still watch."
Taekwoon thinks that's meant to reassure Hongbin, but Hongbin's eyes are downcast, crestfallen as he follows the cameraman out to the set. He's handsome in sadness, but it doesn't suit him, Taekwoon thinks.
Out of the corner of his eye, Taekwoon watches Hongbin babble at the camera. He seems to be struggling without any other members, and soon recruits Jaehwan as his featured guest. They do a segment on Jaehwan's obscenely tight pants that Taekwoon knows will be immediately edited out, and after some pointless chatter about cherry blossoms, they run out of things to talk about. No one else is around; Taekwoon knows he's next.
"A song that relates to spring?" Hongbin's perfect fingers extend the mic to Taekwoon's mouth.
Taekwoon says Chungbunhi Yeppeo maybe because he's not thinking, maybe because it's been stuck in his head all morning, maybe because those are words that Hongbin needs to hear. Maybe he says it because he really likes Hongbin's squishy smile, and because he hates the way Hongbin watches solemnly, poker-faced, when Wonshik's fingers wander Hakyeon's arms.
Hongbin blinks.
"That's relevant to spring?" he asks.
Taekwoon nods blankly, then realizes:
"No." Not spring, just you.
A moment passes, and then Hongbin cracks a wide, bewildered smile, giggles loudly. Taekwoon just watches him, his heart pounding out of control, flailing for purchase in his chest.
Hongbin's jittery laugh, along with Jaehwan's crotch-strangling orange pants, will be edited out long before the episode airs.
Predictably, Hongbin wanders back to Wonshik. At the photoshoot, and just, always. It's clever how Wonshik has attached them at the hip, how he's consistently been vocal about Hongbin's looks, how he's accumulated heaps of suspicion-free reasons for them to be together before the camera.
"My artwork," he's fond of saying. My artwork, my Hongbin, mine.
Taekwoon once heard Hongbin say, "Let me be an anchor for once."
And he'd heard Wonshik reply, "Me and Hakyeon hyung are the anchors for a reason, okay, it's because of our personalities. You're my artwork. You just have to look good."
Taekwoon knows that those words are just recycled from pep talks from the management, but he still wants to grab Hongbin by the shoulders and look deep into his eyes and recite his various perfections. The pink of his soft lips, the sheen of sweat clinging to the back of his neck during dance practice, the way he kicks the ground when he's frustrated, the curve of his left leg as it pokes out from under his comforter on warms nights. Hongbin's a masterpiece, but not the kind to be viewed through a still-life frame, the kind to be heard and tasted and smelled, the kind Taekwoon would gladly spend years studying in tranquil worship. He's fresh sunlit air, caressing the backs of Taekwoon's hands and slipping oxygen along his tongue. He's not the flower you cut and keep in a vase until it withers; he's the garden you water and sing to and marvel at every single day.
He wants Hongbin to knows these things, but he wants Hongbin's (sort-of) boyfriend to be the one saying them. And that person isn't him, it's Wonshik, and Wonshik can really only express his affection by sucking bruises into Hongbin's skin. Taekwoon's supposed to be the quiet one anyway.
So he says nothing.
notes
i guess this is more a drabble than a fic?? ah well.
also, title is from pretty enough by verbal jint aka my new favorite thing for multiple reasons have you WATCHED
THAT FUCKING MV WOW, im late to the party but wow. i also love that leo is fcking singing it as he walks in the background of hongbin and ken talking during the ep ashjgk;f LEO jfc