Sit-ups

[snoaz]

Title: Sit-ups
Character(s)/ pairing(s): Jiyong / Seunghyun
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3203
Note: Takes place somewhere in October (because that is when I first started this story.) Not really relevant, except for one reference in the story to Jiyong's weed scandal.
Summary: Don't accept bets from Seunghyun -- Jiyong learns the hard way.



Got rid of my scruples about writing fan fiction involving real people (which is good or not good, depending how you look at the situation.) But anyway, I enjoyed writing this -- probably because I ship these two like there's no tomorrow. There will be more to come, then. Oh, and if you have any (constructive) criticism: do let me know!

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“You need to work out more, hyung.”

They were sitting in the kitchen. With Seunghyun this meant sterile, virtually untouched furniture with lots of instant-food hidden in the cupboards and a big fruit bowl on display. As if Jiyong didn’t know.

Seunghyun looked at him from across the table with a blank expression, before arching an eyebrow. “What, you’re replacing Master Hwang now?” he huffed, more amused than offended. It took a lot more than one criticising comment to ruffle his feathers -- it was one of the reasons they got along so well.

“I’m just saying. You can’t slack off. Even though we don’t really have anything to train for…”

Seunghyun chose to ignore the last comment, for which Jiyong was silently grateful: sometimes he just got unreasonably bitter and unreasonably eager for some kind of forgiveness, even though his hyung had long made clear there was no need for any of that. (“At least I don’t have to pretend I speak any amount of Japanese,” he’d half-joked after all the commotion started, and though they both knew it was no laughing matter it did lift the atmosphere between them. It was another reason they got along so well.)

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll visit the gym later tonight,” Seunghyun conceded, waving his hand absent-mindedly before cracking a smile. “You want me to report to you? How much time I spent on the treadmill, and how long I did my muscle-training….”

“No, no,” Jiyong mumbled, already feeling a little foolish for bringing it up. Being critical was an incorrigible habit of his.

“--and how I did two hundred sit-ups,” Seunghyun continued unwaveringly, not bothered by his dongsaeng’s lack of enthusiasm.

“I already said you needn’t -- wait what, two hundred sit-ups? Oh shut up, as if you could reach that much!”

Seunghyun didn’t answer him and instead regarded him with a barely-there smile. There was a kind of expectant look in his eyes and even though Jiyong knew he should not rise to the bait -- oh, he could not resist. Seunghyun was compelling in that way.

“So you’re saying you can, then?”

“Well, I’ve never done it, but once I give it a try I’m sure it could be done.”

Jiyong let out an exasperated laugh, throwing his hands in the air. “Oh yeah, and I’ve never flown but once I jump off a building I’m sure I’ll stay airborne.”

He got an amused look from Seunghyun, who’d started nibbling his second apple of the evening. He sort of looked cute like that.

Well. His hyung often did.

“I think mine’s a bit easier to test,” Seunghyun laughed, his deep voice lending it a rumble that made it so very Seunghyun. “Or with less danger attached to it anyway.”

“Jumping from a building takes less effort, though,” Jiyong remarked, being silly but then again Seunghyun’s company made him silly. “Do you know how much two hundred sit-ups is, hyung? I’m not sure I’ve ever done it… not even sure Youngbae has.”

Seunghyun didn’t reply at first, contentedly nibbling his apple instead. For someone with a love for unhealthy food his hyung showed a remarkable taste for apples.

“In that case, let’s give a try then,” he said at last, looking him squarely in the eye from across the table-- and oh, Jiyong knew that look. It was a look he should run away from if a sane mind was dear to him.

But unfortunately for him, Jiyong never had been the kind to run, not back when he was a kid and not now; and a sane mind seemed  impossible anyway around Seunghyun, so.

“You wanna do it here?”

“Yes, if it means I won’t have to work out tonight.”

Jiyong laughed. Leave it to Seunghyun to seize any opportunity to skip the gym.

“Well, ok. Go ahead. I’ll be the judge.”

He watched Seunghyun get up and walk towards an orange-coloured, mildly questionable (--very questionable, if he was going for brutal honesty) rug in the living room. Taste was subjective, he often had to remind himself in Seunghyun’s company.

But instead of sitting down on it, his hyung turned around to face him.

“What?”

“I need you, Jiyong-ah.”

“Eh?”

“To hold my feet,” Seunghyun said with a little grin and Jiyong fought down a smile himself.

“Fine,” he said, getting up. This was probably Seunghyun’s way of punishing him for that work-out comment. Well, it was not like

Seunghyun would get anywhere near two hundred sit-ups: no worries there.

His compliance got him a dimpled smile in return, and Seunghyun looking way too pleased with himself overall. Jiyong fought the urge to smile, again, and failed miserably. He was having a lot of trouble with that lately when Seunghyun was around -- the stupid dimples probably were to blame.

Seunghyun lay down on the most likely very expensive, but still fugly rug as Jiyong positioned himself on his feet to keep him steady. When his hyung gave him another smile before leaning backwards -- this time a little challenging and a little mischievous -- Jiyong could only curse himself for agreeing to this, because he knew what that look meant. And it did not matter that Jiyong usually quite liked the outcome of said look, because he still should not have agreed.

Seunghyun voluntarily doing sit-ups should have been the first hint.

At present his hyung did a good job of pretending he intended to reach the two hundred, though, performing the sit-ups in a not-all-too-fast but still steady rhythm. Jiyong could not help but be reminded of the Secret Garden parody and unintentionally did it out loud.

Seunghyun’s eyes instantly gained a sparkle Jiyong was all too familiar with -- it was his mischievous five-years-old look that justified any comment or action to come, using the theory of ‘I’m a child on the inside’, ‘I’m an actor’ or simply ‘I’m T.O.P.’

For some reason people seemed to buy it, save for Youngbae. He was the sane one of the group.

Jiyong most definitely was not.

“My hair was black then,” Seunghyun replied semi-thoughtful, “I looked better, don’t you think?’

Jiyong let out a little laugh, feeling slightly exasperated. They’d been there before.

“Ya, stop fishing for compliments, you! Save them for people who don’t hear them every twenty seconds,” Jiyong joked, though not entirely. Every so often he wondered what it must be like to be as handsome as his hyung and felt slightly envious. He got out of it by realising he was showing dangerous resemblance to what they half-jokingly referred to as maknae-behaviour.

“I could say you make a nice woman?” Seunghyun suggested, leaning back to do his twentieth (twenty-first, twenty-second?) sit-up.

“What?” Jiyong laughed, trying to look offended but probably ending up cheerful-looking instead. “Stop saying I look good as a girl! Really, I’m getting more compliments wearing drag than as my normal self… how is that supposed to work as a compliment…”

Seunghyun did not make the obvious ‘perhaps-you-should-dress-up-as-a-girl-more-often’ comment, though his expression revealed all. And anyway, Jiyong did not need reminding he made a pretty girl. There was just a difference between saying it out loud or tacit acknowledgment.

“Okay, then instead should I tell you you look good as a man?” Seunghyung suggested, his voice tilting somewhere between joking-mode and seriousness; and Jiyong’s face broke into a grin he could not prevent. Their interactions were clouded in mockery only because without the silliness things would become entirely too awkward. It made it hard sometimes to detect whether they were being serious or just fooling around, especially when the person opposite him was Seunghyun, who handled the poker face like no other.

It did nothing to the pleasant tingling in Jiyong’s chest, though. Being complimented by Seunghyun tended to have that effect.

“Just continue your sit-ups, hyung,” he answered, still grinning a little. “Sucking up to me won’t do you any good here.”

“You’re so harsh, Kwon Leadah.”

It came out as a whine, and it would have done a good job of annoying Jiyong had Seunghyun not looked entirely too cute for his own good doing it.

Obviously his sitting position was compromising his sanity when he was having thoughts like that (not for the first time, too) -- he therefore was happy to see that a small sheet of sweat had appeared on Seunghyun’s forehead and nose wings. The end could not be far now.

“Feel like quitting already, hyung?”

“No. Stop discouraging me, Jiyongie.”

“But you’re panting. Just admit that you’re tired!”

“Perhaps if you’d stop talking…”

“Am I wearing you out?”

“Yes.”

Jiyong smiled. “Good.”

This of course proved to be a mistake, because Seunghyun momentarily paused his sit-ups to look Jiyong in the eye, brow sweaty and mouth half-open in irregular breathing.

“Are you trying to make me give up?” he asked in a disappointed voice that Jiyong was ninety percent sure was fake. “But I want to get to two-hundred!”

“Yeah, but you’re still a long way from that… you’re only at - eh - sixty? Sixty-five? Ah I forgot the number...”

Seunghyun blinked large innocent eyes. “Am I distracting you?”

“Yes, with your stupid questions,” Jiyong replied, pushing him away a little. “Now continue or else I’m gone.”

Seunghyun laid back obediently, a goofy smile on his face.

“So we were at eighty?”

“What? No you were at -- oh screw this, yes, you were at eighty,” Jiyong agreed with a small sigh, thinking that Seunghyun’s completely expected attempt at cheating would sooner bring an end to whatever this all was.

But as Seunghyun continued his sit-ups, Jiyong did have problems with keeping track. His hyung’s face betrayed nothing but at each number Jiyong swore he hadn’t come this close last time, nor that there was any need to do so except as a way to make him squirm.

He hated to admit that it sort of worked. And wasn’t that just ridiculous, because why should he feel trapped when it yours truly who did the feet-holding?

It was a bit like that expression, ‘The world turned upside down.’

Seunghyun had a knack for doing that.

“What number am I at?” Seunghyun panted at last, coming to a halt mere centimetres from Jiyong’s face. His brow was sweaty; the sides of his nose too.

“Eh --” Jiyong said, racking his brain, “121.”

He figured that if it was said with enough nonchalance, Seunghyun would buy it and not be aware of the fact that Jiyong had completely lost count. Again. For a second Jiyong was under the impression that Seunghyun had indeed done so, but then he caught sight of the sparkle in his hyung’s eyes and the slight curving of his lips.

Great.

“Let’s just give up now, okay hyung?” he ventured, tired of holding the feet of someone who made him lose count.

“All right,” Seunghyun agreed easily and Jiyong blinked.

“So I did sort of get there, didn’t I?”

Jiyong let out a snort. “No you didn‘t.”

“But Jiyong-ah, if you lost count, how do you know?”

“What -- hyung, I didn’t lost track that much,” Jiyong cried out exasperatedly, knowing that Seunghyun was only teasing him, but. Whatever.

“Well, anyway, I suppose you didn’t do so badly after all,” he conceded a bit later. “If only you’d put in this kinda effort at practice.”

“If only usually you were this helpful,” Seunghyun countered evenly and Jiyong quirked a smile.

There was a moment of silence which was filled mostly with Seunghyun’s ragged breathing. Jiyong supposed that should be gross -- someone panting this close up to your face -- but it was not. Not really.

He didn’t know what to make of that fact.

He also didn’t know what to make of the fact that they were still sitting here even though Seunghyun had made clear the bet was off.

If there ever had been a bet, that is, because really, he wouldn’t put it past Seunghyun to have used this as an excuse to get them in said sitting position. And that was officially territory marked ‘weird’ and ‘don’t go there’.

“Ehm,” he said, laughing a little (nervously, if he had to admit) racking his brain for something to say, “I suppose I should go try that flying thing now, huh?”

Seunghyun looked bewildered for just a moment, and probably only because he had to mentally backtrack. Not because what he’d said was weird or anything like that.

“Yeah, but I’m not going to be there to hold your feet, Jiyong-ah. You’re going to have to do the jumping.”

Jiyong suppressed a smile and looked down at this feet. Leave it to Seunghyun to make this seem like a perfectly valid conversation topic. One of the perks of being the lesser weirdo of the two, he supposed.

“Ah, I’m going to wait a bit with that,” he answered, raising his gaze again and grinning a little, “I don’t think the world’s quite ready for a flying G-Dragon.”

“Well, you are a dragon after all,” Seunghyun replied and they both instantly cracked up at that. It was cheesy as hell, but heck, they were.

And Jiyong just didn’t want the joke to end because laughing was better than awkward staring. So he lifted his hands to Seunghyun’s waist and tickled him -- first once, then twice, because his hyung’s hyper allergic reaction to this never got old and Jiyong thought it was hilarious for someone as robust as Seunghyun to be so squirmy.

He was letting out fits of laughter himself now, high-pitched and slightly uncontrollable -- not because his hyung’s attempts at retaliation were any effective but because they might as well have been. Seunghyun squirmed violently under the ongoing attack and reached forward in seemingly-blind fashion; pulled, then pushed him, made him fall back, squirmed again, let himself be pulled too, and then Seunghyun really was on top of him and fuck.

Except, maybe not really.

(Except, yes.)

His hyung’s face was close to his, eyes large and still in the process of going from uncontrolled mirth to mild shock. Jiyong vaguely wondered if they mirrored his own.

Their rapid breathing did an out-of-time dance with their heartbeats, either filling what otherwise would have been silence. Jiyong thought he should say something. He did not know what.

“Is this part of the training?” he breathed without thinking, staring up in his hyung’s dark eyes. “For the flying thing?”

“If you want it to be,” Seunghyun replied with almost endearing sincerity, eyes boring into his, momentarily lowering to where his mouth was still parted in breathless breathing.

And fuck, yes, he did want it.

He did.

So once Seunghyun had levelled his gaze again he only waited the smallest bit of a second -- that one fraction in time where actions come without analysis and second-thoughts do not exist -- before he grabbed the back of his hyung’s head and pulled him towards him.

Their mouths came together in an awkward angle and Seunghyun let out a ‘mmph’ that could only be interpreted as shock; but then Jiyong stopped interpreting altogether as he moved his head for a better position and instinct took over, fused with a want that had been buried for years but never dead, never gone. There had always been that crack for it to seep through. Now it came crashing over him in large waves, flowing from somewhere above his midriff all the way to his tingling fingers tips, buried in Seunghyun’s hair and clothing.

His hyung seemed to have recovered from his initial shock, or at least enough to angle his head and answer to the pressure of Jiyong’s mouth in a manner nothing short of zealous. Somewhere in the back of his mind the thought formed, typical Seunghyun.

That was all the mental activity there was though, because for the rest his mind was pretty much stumped. The kiss was wet; urgent; but above all good. There were the metaphorical stars in his eyes that so often served as cheesy lyrics to equally cheesy love songs (he’d never stoop that low but maybe now he would, maybe now he should) and for heaven’s sake it shouldn’t be like this because this was Seunghyun he was talking about: his best friend, the guy he smoked and got drunk and shared secrets with they’d both forgot about when sober; and yes, also the guy he’d harboured a slight crush for the past five years or so, a crush that would soon outgrow the label ’slight’ were they going to keep this up any longer.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, then, Jiyong knew all this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Seunghyun and him fit together like two weirdly shaped and overly-bright puzzle pieces, a connection that was natural and instant and good.

So never mind the fact that it was his best friend whom he was kissing (best male friend) never mind the fact that Seunghyun’s body weighed him down and cut off his breathing circulation, never mind the fact that he felt jittery all over and this shouldn’t be happening.

Never mind all that.

(La vita dolce, he thought and snorted a little, because making out with his sweaty hyung could not have been what he’d had in mind when selecting that quote.)

Seunghyun raised his head at the sound to regard him with slight wonder, as though he too had difficulty believing this was really happening. “What?”

“Nothing,” Jiyong replied with a grin, noticing that the jittery feeling had not gone away even though the kissing had stopped. He felt warm, not in the gross sweaty way (though Seunghyun did and he should direct him to the shower later) but in the slightly mushy, slightly corny way; the kind you croon about in love songs and pen lyrics for that are only not embarrassing when you’re the one writing them.

Seunghyun ducked his head and laughed, and Jiyong joined in because really, the situation didn’t call for anything else.

Except maybe for more kissing later on.

“Ya, hyung,” Jiyong said after a while, quite out of breath and grinning from ear to ear, “this your way of working out then, huh?”

Seunghyun cracked up again before giving him a gleeful look. He looked happy and almost stunningly beautiful. Jiyong didn‘t know why he could still feel surprise over that.

“It makes you lose calories, Jiyong-ah,” Seunghyun answered in voice that was probably meant to be serious but didn‘t quite get there, “don’t mock the act of kissing.”

“What women’s magazines have you been reading,” Jiyong snorted, and poked his hung’s side for good measure. It seemed a better answer than requesting a second round.

Seunghyun shrugged -- or meant to do so, probably, though seeing as his hyung was lying on top of him the motion didn’t get very far. In fact the only thing it resulted in was bringing them closer together and sending a little jolt coursing through his body.

“Well then, Seunghyunnie, next time you need to work out,” Jiyong breathed out quite despite himself, “you just let me know.”

He received his answer the very next second.