Polaroids
Title: Polaroids
Author: theirblinggirl
Rating: PG (what does kissing count as??)
Pairing: Wonshik/Hongbin, Taekwoon/Hakyeon
Word Count: ~5500
Summary: The story of Hongbin and Wonshik's seven years at Hogwarts, told through small moments of friendship, playing, first loves and the ones that come after.
AKA another VIXX/my favorite books crossover, this time in the Harry Potter universe.
A/N: So I wrote this a few months ago, and I have a headcanon for all of the boys in my head for this actually, but for some reason I always feel like writing the Rabin parts only OTL. ALSO PHOTOGRAPHER HONGBIN IS LIFE.
1.
Hongbin visits Wonshik’s house during summer vacation after their first year. His parents are happy to take him to see his friend who supposedly “made it possible for him to pass Potions” but also a tad bit concerned about the fact that Wonshik’s muggle parents might freak out if they suddenly Apparate in the middle of their living room. Hongbin reassures them that they are, quoting Wonshik, “super-crazy about the whole magic stuff that dad always believed in a little”.
He and Wonshik spend the most amazing afternoon - and truthfully, Hongbin is almost as excited about all the wonderful food Wonshik’s mom cooks for them as Wonshik was about chasing chocolate frogs.
They play for probably hours with Wonshik’s collection of remote controlled race cars (which Hongbin has a hard time believing lack any kind of animating spell), build a huge pillow fort with their bare hands, and after dinner, his mother takes out a book full of Wonshik’s childhood pictures.
Hongbin is mesmerized with the simplicity of the un-moving pictures. Wonshik gets embarrassed and demands that she put them away because “Mom I’m not a baby anymore you can’t show people my naked body!” but Hongbin doesn’t let him ruin the fun. He keeps looking at the stills, going over and over the pages that tell him stories without actually telling anything - without actually talking or moving like the photos he’s used to. They just lay there, taped to the pages neatly, and each one is one moment, and one moment only - one perfectly preserved second of stillness. He has no idea what happens before or after that one second, he can only guess - and his imagination goes wild with the possibilities - did the swing fly higher in the next moment, or did it fall backwards, upsetting Wonshik’s balance and knocking him out of the seat? Did he cry if he fell or did he just press his lips together tightly and held it in, like a big boy?
The vagueness of the unmoving pictures enchants Hongbin unlike any magic he’s seen before, and he is, he knows, too young to put it into words, but he can feel something great, something fragile and unique in the art of preserving milliseconds, of leaving everything but one frame to the imagination - of capturing something that’s more volatile than a butterfly. It’s an unknown art - it’s mundane and maybe even silly, compared to Hongbin’s word, but with his imagination soaring higher than ever before, Hongbin feels himself falling in love with this book of frozen moments.
Unknowingly, that’s also the time he falls for possibly the biggest love of his life - muggle photography.
2.
In second year, they spend a great deal of time working on The Plan. They think through every word, every move of it carefully, prepared for any possible scenarios and Hongbin even practices teary-eyed pouting as a last resort. None of it turns out to be necessary, because Wonshik’s mom gives in very fast, and he and his little sister spend two weeks at Hongbin’s house in the summer, while their parents are on a holiday. Hongbin’s house is much, much cooler than their aunt’s, and while Hongbin's mom is pretty busy with her job every day, Hongbin’s dad is very enthusiastic to look after them and shows Wonshik around his amazing workshop. He crafts enchanted household items, mostly smaller furniture, like chests that recognize their owners and beautiful, ornate mirrors that give people the latest fashion advice, as well as tricky picture frames, and sometimes even customizes brooms. Wonshik thinks he is starting to understand why Hongbin is so good at Charms. Hongbin’s sisters play dress-up with, and dote on Jiwon, who is truly not as surprised by this whole wizard home thing as Wonshik was expecting her to be. But Hongbin shows him all the secret hideouts of his old, Victorian-style home, introduces him to the household poltergeist, plays hide-and-seek for a whole day with him in the gigantic attic that is at least twice the size of the other floors. They sneak around to use a little bit of magic here and there - Wonshik manages to impress Jiwon a grand total of two times with his Transfiguration skills - and they stay up way past bedtime, Wonshik climbing down from the second bunk of Hongbin’s bed to the first level, where they read wizard comics under the blanket and giggle whenever the hero tells them to go to sleep already.
Two days before their visit ends, they are chasing gnomes in the garden when one of them bites Jiwon and she gets so scared she blows the ugly little guy’s nose off. She doesn’t stop crying in guilt about it until it draws on Hongbin what she just did.
He never tells Wonshik but he sees the proud tears in his eyes when they tell their parents that Jiwon is a witch, and Hongbin realizes that his friend really, really loves his sister.
3.
In third year a bunch of upsetting and strange things happen to Hongbin. He also acquires his first secret he can’t tell Wonshik - as well his first muggle camera, rigged to work inside Hogwarts. The camera, he gets from Wonshik and Jiwon for Christmas - it’s sent by their parents and fixed by some of Jiwon’s older Ravenclaw friends. (Wonshik still hasn’t quite gotten over the fact that Jiwon got sorted into Rawenclaw, though Hongbin doesn’t understand why it is so important for Wonshik that his sister be in Gryffindor with him. Hongbin and Wonshik are not in the same house, either. But he figures it might have to do with family ties, since both his sisters are Slytherin like himself, and he always found that very natural. And even more annoying, sometimes.)
The secret, he acquires when he’s on his way to show Wonshik some pictures he’s taken with the camera. He loves the camera and has taken to shoot pictures of every single thing he comes across - his particular favorites right now are the shadows of the naked trees outside, but he can just never get them quite right yet. It’s a Saturday afternoon and he’s spent hours outside now that it finally stopped snowing, and he feels like he is getting a little closer to capture the long, dark arabesque of the twisted apple trees, but he needs Wonshik’s opinion on it because Wonshik just seems to have a very good eye for beautiful things.
So, he is on his way up to the Gryffindor Tower and he probably turned at a wrong corner because he’s suddenly on this very small and very deserted-looking corridor, except it’s not deserted because there are two more people there and Hongbin suddenly gets very, veryvery red and drops his camera, and he wants to turn right around and walk away, except now his camera is on the floor, broken…
The cracking sound startles the two people a few steps in front Hongbin and they stop what looks like super awkwardly yet enthusiastically trying to hide inside each other’s robes. Of course Hongbin knows what they’re doing - he isn’t a child anymore, he knows what kissing is - it’s just that he’s never seen it up close and quite so… vehemently before. Nor with so many… hands everywhere. Hongbin really wishes he learned some sort of Invisibility Spell, which, of course, he hasn’t, so now there are two boys standing in front of him, and Hongbin recognizes one of them, and uh-oh now he’s in trouble. Fifth year Cha Hakyeon is somebody his classmates scare poor first year kids with and Hongbin never quite understood why, but now, as he is moving closer, straightening his green and silver tie and dusting off his skewed robe, Hongbin feels chills running through his spine.
"You shouldn’t be here," Hakyeon says with a wide, almost friendly smile, but there is something in his eyes, something so terrifying Hongbin is starting to understand why some people have trust issues with Slytherin. He shakes his head, murmuring sorry, and bends to pick up the camera and make a run for it. But the other guy beats him to it - he lifts the camera from the floor, and with an almost inaudible spell, mends the cracks on the lens, before holding it out for Hongbin. He’s wearing a red-golden tie, and his smile is less wide, less bright, but much more calming and honest. He reaches out to ruffle his hair without another word, and then walks away.
"You are not going to tell about this to anyone, are you, Lee Hongbin?" Hakyeon asks, and his hand slides into his pocket. It’s an innocent enough gesture, except Hongbin knows that’s probably where he keeps his wand.
"No," he shakes his head. He isn’t gonna tell anyone about this, and he’s not gonna ask why he shouldn’t.
He sort of understands the next day, at the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match, anyway. The players fly around in circles in front of the tribunes before the game, and Hongbin’s ears go numb with the cheers Gryffindor’s captain gets. He’s very handsome, Hongbin supposes, or at least most girls in Hogwarts seem to think so. And when Hakyeon flies by the Slytherin seats, he waves playfully at Hongbin for some reason - he takes it as a warning, and proceeds to think about it during the whole game, and about these two for long weeks afterwards.
4.
Fourth year is spent in a haze of Quidditch for Wonshik and daydreaming and heartbreak and very important life decisions for Hongbin.
Wonshik tries out for Chaser in Gryffindor’s team and he gets the position, which they appropriately celebrate in Hogsmeade. He introduces Hongbin to the entire team there, beaming with pride as their captain, sixth year Taekwoon compliments him on his performance in the try-outs. Hongbin has mostly forgotten about the incident last year until he meets Taekwoon again, up close, and even though there is no hair ruffling this time (something Hongbin is enormously grateful for), the quiet, amused smile creeps back into the corner of Taekwoon’s mouth when he recognizes Hongbin. No other comments are made on the subject, and Taekwoon soon wanders off, leaving Wonshik and Hongbin to themselves. Wonshik throws victorious punches in the air and his arms around Hongbin, and Hongbin takes pictures of him making silly faces and posing with teammates and drinking beer and tells him that he is very glad and very proud - he truly is. He is about to tell him something else, something equally important, now that butterbeer has made his tongue loose, but before he can start, Wonshik jumps up and drags somebody else to their corner of the table.
This is how Hongbin meets Jaehwan, Taekwoon’s friend from Hufflepuff, and his thoughts of broad shoulders and bright white teeth soon get blurred by the over-the-top hilariousity that is Jaehwan.
It’s already getting dark outside when Slytherin’s team arrives, and Hongbin finds it almost as hilarious as Jaehwan how Wonshik joins the heated exchange of verbal curses between the two teams - a tradition they both used to laugh at just weeks before. He briefly wonders how one life event can change a person so much, so quickly - or if maybe Wonshik’s just doing it to fit in and bond with his team, or if most of them even mean it. Because he (maybe alone) knows the truth behind the insults Gryffindor’s captain and Slytherin’s Seeker are throwing at each other. But as he casts a side glance at Jaehwan and sees the amusement in his eyes, he thinks that just maybe, he isn’t the only keeper of Taekwoon’s and Hakyeon’s secret.
Some younger guy from their team calls out Hongbin for being a traitor sitting with Gryffindor, Hakyeon promptly whacks him on the head while Wonshik waves his middle finger at him, and Hongbin is starting to think that maybe it’s not even that important that he thinks he may be in love.
He changes his mind first thing next Monday morning when he sees him walking down the corridor, tie hanging in his neck undone and the warm autumn sunlight sparkling on his dark hair. Hongbin reaches for his camera before he remembers he didn’t bring it on his way to class, and also that it might be weird to start taking pictures of people he doesn’t know. In public, at least.
He has to wait till lunch to catch Wonshik and he drags him away from the table, because this is very, very important news and who needs food anyway, when Hongbin discovered that the planet is revolving around one single person and all birds outside have been replaced by a choir of angels and anything else can wait, really.
"Who is he?" Wonshik asks, excited, and Hongbin tells him all he knows, which is, in retrospect, not very much. All he knows is that he is on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, of course. "Quidditch players are the coolest," Hongbin sighs, but Wonshik doesn’t seem content with this much.
Two days later Jaehwan delivers all the intel he managed to gather, and Hongbin is extremely embarrassed but also very thankful, because now he can doodle his full name in his secret diary. Not his notebooks, no. He isn’t some giggling, stupid girl…
He still spends most of his free time (and classes) daydreaming, and sometimes, secretly, adding a picture or two of him to his secret diary, carefully tucked away between the hundreds he has of Wonshik and some of Jiwon and even Jaehwan.
He’s so preoccupied he doesn’t even realize when Taekwoon and Hakyeon start appearing in his collection. He does notice, however, that Hakyeon now sits with him for meals at the Slytherin table, Taekwoon helps with his homework, and Hongbin can’t remember what on Earth he found scary about them in the first place.
It’s also Hakyeon (and Wonshik, of course) that convince him to send that stupid letter on Valentine’s day.
He comes to Hongbin the next day, when him and his friends pass by the Slytherin and Ravenclaw fouth years in the corridor. He is smiling and for a very short, very beautiful moment, Hongbin feels like he is levitating, like he is standing on small clouds just inches above the floor.
"You’re Hongbin, right?" he asks, and all Hongbin can do is nod, not quite believing that this is happening to him.
"Look kid, you seem very nice and all, but… well, sorry. Really..." he says, holding up Hongbin’s letter and pushing it into his unmoving hand.
With those few words, the most beautiful moments of Hongbin’s fourteen long years of life turn into his worst nightmare ever. He thinks he can hear the broken pieces of his heart, shattering on the cold stone bricks under his feet, and he can also hear the curious whispers of the crowd around him. His hands are icy, just like his voice, but he manages to crack a smile. His best, fakest, strongest smile. The smile that gets all the teachers’ knees weak and sends Wonshik in a laughing frenzy, telling Hongbin that he should be an actor because “how can you change faces like that?"
"Oh, it’s okay," Hongbin says, taking the letter with a nod and crumpling it, and manages a short laugh. "It was just a silly dare, honestly. I wasn't even sure you would get it... sorry I bothered you!"
"That’s a relief!" he laughs, a little embarrassed (it’s endearing, and Hongbin has only ever dreamed of him laughing at Hongbin up to this day). "Have a good day, then!"
"You too," Hongbin mutters, clutching his books a little closer to his chest, as if that would numb the pain. He suddenly feels sick, and when the others start entering the classroom, the grabs the sleeve of a girl, and asks her to tell the Professor that he had to go to the Infirmary.
If Hakyeon and Wonshik ever see through their threats of breaking all his bones for refusing Hongbin, he’ll never know, because from that moment on, Hongbin swears to smile much more, and care much, much less.
5.
He still cares about Wonshik (and Jiwon and Jaehwan and Taekwoon and Hakyeon), so he tries his best not to laugh at him when he gets two weeks of detention not a month into fifth year, for sending a guy from third year to the Infirmary for possibly a few days.
The poor guy turns out to be a Slytherin called Sanghyuk, and his crime is, accusedly, holding hands with Jiwon in the hallway, which Wonshik Does Not Approve Of.
Hongbin finds the whole story hilarious, especially because only a few hours later Jiwon comes looking for her brother, and soon, Wonshik is enjoying the comfort of an Infirmary bed right next to Sanghyuk’s for a few days of his own. His sister not only turned his hair into feathers, but very nearly turned him into a chicken as well, which is really, really super funny, but neither him nor Jaehwan are allowed to laugh - for the first half an hour.
"She’s really batshit crazy, my sister," Wonshik proudly tells Sanghyuk, who, to his credit, managed to stick to grinning instead of outright laughing when he saw Wonshik coming in a few hours after him, clucking unstoppably.
"I know… she's so awesome!" Sanghyuk grins even wider, and Hongbin can tell from Wonshik’s soft cluck that he’s given his consent as Big Brother.
Against Wonshik’s strong and determined protests, Hongbin manages to take a picture of his feathers before the Madame arrives and sends them all out "for the peace and untroubled recovery of the patients."
Fifth year is also the year Hongbin and Wonshik get their first girlfriends - a fellow player on Wonshik’s team, who apparently finds Hongbin very, very sexy or so she tells Wonshik, and her friend, whom she drags along for a double date and who later calls Wonshik’s laugh “surprisingly attractive.” Hongbin can understand that, because Wonshik really is a very fun guy, albeit he doesn’t know about attractive. He supposes it’s true, Wonshik does have a nice face - it comes out very well on photographs, the different faces of Wonshik, ranging from sleepy to smiling widely to lost in thoughts, excited, tired, laughing, victorious, mischievous, drunk and concentrating - Hongbin never realized how many pictures he has of Wonshik. His girlfriend finds it weird, she tells him, but then she also kisses him, and Hongbin remembers Hakyeon and Taekwoon in the corridor, wondering if he’ll ever get the urge to kiss her like that.
"Where is your head, Hongbin?" she asks him, brows furrowing. Hongbin considers taking a photo of that, too, because it’s kind of cute, but he isn’t sure she would appreciate it. She doesn’t seem all that much into his pictures. ("Aren’t these supposed to be moving? What’s the point of pictures that don’t move?")
"I’m here," he assures her, and smiles.
"Everybody is dating, even my fucking sister is dating, and I’m just not good enough to have a girlfriend, really?" Wonshik curses, his breath forming small white puffs in the still cold March air, months later. Hongbin really doesn’t understand this whole dating thing, he decides - why did Wonshik’s girlfriend break up with him, and his own hasn’t? It’s not even like she’s interested in Hongbin that much… she never asks how his day was, never tells him jokes she heard, asks his opinion on important and ground-breaking, sudden ideas, or even what he did when they weren’t together, she only cares about being together more often, which is starting to get on Hongbin’s nerves.
"Of course you’re good enough, Wonshik," Hongbin shakes his head, and then hugs him briefly. "She wasn’t good enough."
That makes Wonshik laugh, albeit it’s only his short and frustrated laugh, but still better than him punching walls.
"Remember? That’s exactly what I said to you, last year…"
"Yeah. And also 'somebody else is gonna come around!' and 'your first love isn’t gonna be the last!" Hongbin nods, chuckling.
"I know, dude. It’s just that I think I really liked her, or something. And she was so pretty! Almost as pretty as you…" Wonshik sighs, but the corner of his mouth is curling upwards.
"Oi, don’t start with that shit again, or I swear you’ll have a broken nose to your broken heart!"
And as summer rolls around, they are both laughing about their first girlfriends and Wonshik, as per usual, spends two weeks at Hongbin’s again.
6.
It’s only them and Jaehwan and Sanghyuk and Jiwon in sixth year, because Hakyeon and Taekwoon graduated, and Hongbin feels a little alone, a little lost in the dungeons without Hakyeon - but at least Sanghyuk is there now.
Wonshik decides that he’s gonna be a professional Quidditch player like Taekwoon, and even though Hongbin suspects it’s more of a phase, and is coming from his newly appointed position as team captain, he never tells him that he shouldn’t. In fact, he promises to always be there to make fun of him after his injuries, of which there are many - Ravenclaw is playing particularly dirty this season.
And Hongbin maybe even envies Wonshik a little, because he hasn’t even the slightest idea what he wants to be, and they only have two years left in school.
Wonshik tells him he should just stick to photography, and yes, Hongbin has gotten the hang of the winter shadows and the breaking buds of spring and the patterns that the wind blows in the long, silver grass - he’s documented how Jiwon grew from a child to a teenager, how Wonshik’s skinny arms and slagging shoulders gained muscle and momentum from the constant practice, he’s captured the way Hakyeon’s eyes light up softly when he looks at Taekwoon and the tiniest of smiles Taekwoon only reserves for Hakyeon when he thinks nobody is watching. He even assisted a weird art project for Jaehwan about, well, he’s not quite sure what it was about, but it involved colorful potions and drapes and frightened house elves… Hongbin can see that his skills have grown a little, but photography is a hobby, not a job, unless you work in journalism, like his mom, but those pictures have to be… well, moving.
Not in the muggle world, Wonshik tells him, and Hongbin laughs, very hard, because sometimes Wonshik tells jokes with the most serious expression - as if he was imitating Taekwoon.
But he never completely dismisses the idea - he does take Muggle Studies, after all. It stays with him, bugging around in his head, and he is so preoccupied with a starting fantasy that he almost forgets about reality, once again.
Meanwhile, Wonshik tries to get another girlfriend and fails, Jaehwan doesn’t try but still succeeds - "I think it’s like Taekwoon and Hakyeon," he tells them. "She says we are dating, like Hakyeon used to, and I say we are not, like Taekwoon. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to work this way, though…" he continues, thoughtful, over the butterbeer and cupcakes Sanghyuk stole from the kitchen. Hongbin answers that dating as a whole thing is stupid, and Wonshik begs them to change the subject.
Eventually, he stops trying to find a girlfriend, and begins to look for jobs for Hongbin instead. Hongbin doesn’t think he’s ever spent as much time in the library as he does now, and while his efforts are appreciated, they don’t really help. School ends, and Hongbin still hasn’t got any idea what else he wants from his life - apart from staying here, now, with Wonshik (and the others), forever.
7.
They open their last year with a huge party, courtesy to some people from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, but all of seventh year is invited - and some younger students, too. Hongbin suspects that they haven’t received any sort of approval from the heads of the houses (he is wrong), but it’s still a lot of fun and badly disguised alcohol and music, dancing, teenagers quickly getting drunk, and some of the ghosts make an appearance at midnight, scaring the living daylight out of a bunch of intoxicated students.
Not entirely to his surprise, random people start kissing and even disappearing in pairs after a while - Hongbin really has to find out what this whole craze of making out is about. He briefly remembers asking Wonshik’s opinion on it, too, probably because he finds Wonshik and some sixth-year girl doing exactly that, but they have to stop when Hongbin taps Wonshik’s slightly blurry shoulder - everything is slightly blurry for some reason - and the girl leaves afterwards, something about “do it with him, then!” Hongbin doesn’t ask what “it” is - he forgets why he wanted to talk to Wonshik in the first place for a while, and when he remembers, all the answer he gets is that “it’s nice, I guess.”
So, Hongbin guesses it’s nice. He smiles and goes back to dance instead, quite enjoying the way the music and people’s voices blend together in his fuzzy head, dances with Jaehwan and then Wonshik and then another guy and two girls and somebody along the line kisses him, too, or maybe he kisses first, but really, the next thing he remembers clearly is waking up in the morning in his bed, and being mortified about not remembering how he even got there.
To his relief, Wonshik doesn’t remember much about the party either, and with a strange, pounding headache, Hongbin says a silent thank you to his yesterday self for not taking pictures of last night.
After the warm welcome, they quickly get cooled down by the cold reality of their classes, which are all harder than ever, and Hongbin and Wonshik spend most of their time in the library, helplessly staring at each other’s homework and considering just chasing each other around with a copy of ‘The Monster Book of Monsters’. One time they actually do, and get promptly thrown out for a whole week.
"Astronomy is a stupid class, I don’t know why you’re still taking it" Wonshik says one night, on the top of the Astronomy Tower, where Hongbin came to finish one of his assignments and Wonshik accompanied him “to not let him fall asleep.” Hongbin knows that the other just wanted an excuse to be outside at night, but doesn’t call him out on it.
"I like the stars, they’re pretty…" Hongbin answers, not looking up from his telescope, and he can hear Wonshik murmuring something in response, but can’t quite make out the words. "If you start that 'No, you are pretty'-shit again, I’m gonna teach you to fly without your broomstick, you hear me?"
Wonshik only laughs, and judging by the small, rustling sounds, makes himself more comfortable on his cushions on the floor.
"That’s what I thought" Hongbin nods, nearly hitting the telescope, and he thinks that’s probably a sign to take a rest. Which he refuses.
"Aren’t you tired?" Wonshik asks, after a few more minutes of silence. "Because I’m bored. So you should take a break."
"You’re supposed to keep me company, not the other way around!" Hongbin sighs, rolling his eyes, but he finally straightens his back, and comes to sit next to Wonshik, head falling on his shoulder immediately. Guess he was tired, after all.
"You’re right, though, they are pretty… but I like it better when I can just watch them, without having to know their names, or where they go, or what they do… That way I can think of anything, when I’m watching them, you know?" Wonshik breaks the silence after a while of just sitting there together, then "Hey, Hongbin? Do you remember that party, back in September?"
"Not much, why?" he shrugs, turning to look at Wonshik with slightly furrowed brows.
"This face! It looks like you’re in pain from trying to think! Hilarious," Wonshik snorts, poking at Hongbin’s temple. "Nah, just curious. You asked me something like what was so special about kissing."
"Yeah. I think so… Don’t remember what you said. Why bring it up, though?"
Hongbin’s voice falters because he suddenly discovers that the stars are reflected in Wonshik’s eyes and that the warm brown hues of his iris are giving them a very new, very magical shine. It’s a strangely intimate beauty and Hongbin thinks he would never be able to capture it on film, even if he tried.
"You’re doing it again. The weird statue-staring… Nevermind," Wonshik grins. "Are you gonna continue your stargazing, or do you wanna make out instead?"
Hongbin isn’t sure whether he heard it right or not, because Wonshik is smiling, but he’s always smiling, not modest and respectful and vague (and fake) like Hongbin, but open and friendly and honest, and he’s not repeating the question like he usually does when Hongbin spaces out.
"Make out?"
"Yeah. To find out. Testing process for the 100 Weird Shits Lee Hongbin Wonders. Or something. Still better than homework..."
"Sure" Hongbin shrugs again, after a few seconds of consideration, not quite sure what’s happening but still going with it, like most things Wonshik has dragged him into. Then the other reaches out to cup his neck and pulls Hongbin closer to kiss him.
The angle is awkward at first - they have to shift a few times before their neck is not straining, and Wonshik ends up kneeling in front of Hongbin, one hand in his hair and the other on the back of his neck again - but they barely break apart. Hongbin is determined at first, determined to finally find out what the deal about kissing is, but it’s only when he stops caring that he starts enjoying, really enjoying, and then, absent-mindedly, he thinks the secret might be in not trying. Just going with it. Just going with Wonshik, like he always has, letting him take lead - playfully snatching it away a few times, and then giving it all back and more, until he’s not very certain where his head is, where they are, anymore, and all he knows is Wonshik’s lips and teeth and tongue and hands and the scent of winter fighting it’s last battles against spring, coming with the winds from the distant north.
He doesn’t think about anything now, he doesn’t think about Hakyeon and Taekwoon, but if he did, he would remember that this is how it happens, this is how hands end up disappearing under robes and shirts and tees, how ties come undone and hair gets dishevelled, this is how air starts running out until you have to steal it from the other person’s mouth, except it’s still not enough.
It’s never enough, Hongbin finally understands, when they do break apart to catch their breath. The deal about kissing is that when you’re doing it with the right person, it’s never, ever enough.
Wonshik is laughing now, and Hongbin joins in, his own laughter such a strange noise to his ears - he hasn’t laughed this carefree, this open, this deep in a long, long time. When they stop, Hongbin scoots even closer - it’s really beginning to get cold now - and this time he kisses Wonshik, one hand running through his hair and the other curiously sliding on his lower back.
"Hey, I just remembered something" Wonshik pulls back way too soon, and Hongbin is confused for a moment, because he was really forgetting everything else apart from kissing.
"What?" he asks, a little annoyed, but then he notices that something’s going wrong on Wonshik’s face.
"Are you still not dating anybody because it’s stupid?" Wonshik asks, and probably for the first time in his life, he drops his gaze from Hongbin’s eyes in uncertainty. Which he decides he really hates, and Wonshik should never do again because it just doesn’t feel right at all.
"It is stupid," Hongbin nods affirmatively, and he pokes Wonshik in the ribs to make him smile, make him look up, look at Hongbin because if he isn’t, if he can’t see himself in Wonshik’s eyes right now, Hongbin can’t be sure that this is really happening. "But I never said I won’t still do it. I just didn’t… yet?"
And it isn’t really a question - they don’t have to ask this question, there is no point, not when everything falls into place so swiftly, it’s not an answer, it’s a fact now and they just leave it at that, and, to Hongbin’s utter relief, resume kissing instead.
And he doesn’t have to take a picture of this Wonshik for his collection, of Wonshik with a red, swollen mouth and eyes gleaming like a thousand stars and face just inches from Hongbin’s, rough fingers tracing the lines of Hongbin’s eyes, his nose, his mouth, because it burns into his memory, brighter than film could ever capture.
A/N2: AS I SAID ANOTHER CROSSOVER OUO! I actually have a headcanon for HP!VIXX and I swear that surprise dressing up they did a few weeks back killed me O.O
Aaaaanyways, thank you so so so much for reading, and if you feel like discussing HP!VIXX (or the reasons I sorted them into these particular houses) then I'd love to do so! Also, I am much much much thankful for comments and criticism, as always (and promise to check on comments regularly from now on OTL)
Author: theirblinggirl
Rating: PG (what does kissing count as??)
Pairing: Wonshik/Hongbin, Taekwoon/Hakyeon
Word Count: ~5500
Summary: The story of Hongbin and Wonshik's seven years at Hogwarts, told through small moments of friendship, playing, first loves and the ones that come after.
AKA another VIXX/my favorite books crossover, this time in the Harry Potter universe.
A/N: So I wrote this a few months ago, and I have a headcanon for all of the boys in my head for this actually, but for some reason I always feel like writing the Rabin parts only OTL. ALSO PHOTOGRAPHER HONGBIN IS LIFE.
1.
Hongbin visits Wonshik’s house during summer vacation after their first year. His parents are happy to take him to see his friend who supposedly “made it possible for him to pass Potions” but also a tad bit concerned about the fact that Wonshik’s muggle parents might freak out if they suddenly Apparate in the middle of their living room. Hongbin reassures them that they are, quoting Wonshik, “super-crazy about the whole magic stuff that dad always believed in a little”.
He and Wonshik spend the most amazing afternoon - and truthfully, Hongbin is almost as excited about all the wonderful food Wonshik’s mom cooks for them as Wonshik was about chasing chocolate frogs.
They play for probably hours with Wonshik’s collection of remote controlled race cars (which Hongbin has a hard time believing lack any kind of animating spell), build a huge pillow fort with their bare hands, and after dinner, his mother takes out a book full of Wonshik’s childhood pictures.
Hongbin is mesmerized with the simplicity of the un-moving pictures. Wonshik gets embarrassed and demands that she put them away because “Mom I’m not a baby anymore you can’t show people my naked body!” but Hongbin doesn’t let him ruin the fun. He keeps looking at the stills, going over and over the pages that tell him stories without actually telling anything - without actually talking or moving like the photos he’s used to. They just lay there, taped to the pages neatly, and each one is one moment, and one moment only - one perfectly preserved second of stillness. He has no idea what happens before or after that one second, he can only guess - and his imagination goes wild with the possibilities - did the swing fly higher in the next moment, or did it fall backwards, upsetting Wonshik’s balance and knocking him out of the seat? Did he cry if he fell or did he just press his lips together tightly and held it in, like a big boy?
The vagueness of the unmoving pictures enchants Hongbin unlike any magic he’s seen before, and he is, he knows, too young to put it into words, but he can feel something great, something fragile and unique in the art of preserving milliseconds, of leaving everything but one frame to the imagination - of capturing something that’s more volatile than a butterfly. It’s an unknown art - it’s mundane and maybe even silly, compared to Hongbin’s word, but with his imagination soaring higher than ever before, Hongbin feels himself falling in love with this book of frozen moments.
Unknowingly, that’s also the time he falls for possibly the biggest love of his life - muggle photography.
2.
In second year, they spend a great deal of time working on The Plan. They think through every word, every move of it carefully, prepared for any possible scenarios and Hongbin even practices teary-eyed pouting as a last resort. None of it turns out to be necessary, because Wonshik’s mom gives in very fast, and he and his little sister spend two weeks at Hongbin’s house in the summer, while their parents are on a holiday. Hongbin’s house is much, much cooler than their aunt’s, and while Hongbin's mom is pretty busy with her job every day, Hongbin’s dad is very enthusiastic to look after them and shows Wonshik around his amazing workshop. He crafts enchanted household items, mostly smaller furniture, like chests that recognize their owners and beautiful, ornate mirrors that give people the latest fashion advice, as well as tricky picture frames, and sometimes even customizes brooms. Wonshik thinks he is starting to understand why Hongbin is so good at Charms. Hongbin’s sisters play dress-up with, and dote on Jiwon, who is truly not as surprised by this whole wizard home thing as Wonshik was expecting her to be. But Hongbin shows him all the secret hideouts of his old, Victorian-style home, introduces him to the household poltergeist, plays hide-and-seek for a whole day with him in the gigantic attic that is at least twice the size of the other floors. They sneak around to use a little bit of magic here and there - Wonshik manages to impress Jiwon a grand total of two times with his Transfiguration skills - and they stay up way past bedtime, Wonshik climbing down from the second bunk of Hongbin’s bed to the first level, where they read wizard comics under the blanket and giggle whenever the hero tells them to go to sleep already.
Two days before their visit ends, they are chasing gnomes in the garden when one of them bites Jiwon and she gets so scared she blows the ugly little guy’s nose off. She doesn’t stop crying in guilt about it until it draws on Hongbin what she just did.
He never tells Wonshik but he sees the proud tears in his eyes when they tell their parents that Jiwon is a witch, and Hongbin realizes that his friend really, really loves his sister.
3.
In third year a bunch of upsetting and strange things happen to Hongbin. He also acquires his first secret he can’t tell Wonshik - as well his first muggle camera, rigged to work inside Hogwarts. The camera, he gets from Wonshik and Jiwon for Christmas - it’s sent by their parents and fixed by some of Jiwon’s older Ravenclaw friends. (Wonshik still hasn’t quite gotten over the fact that Jiwon got sorted into Rawenclaw, though Hongbin doesn’t understand why it is so important for Wonshik that his sister be in Gryffindor with him. Hongbin and Wonshik are not in the same house, either. But he figures it might have to do with family ties, since both his sisters are Slytherin like himself, and he always found that very natural. And even more annoying, sometimes.)
The secret, he acquires when he’s on his way to show Wonshik some pictures he’s taken with the camera. He loves the camera and has taken to shoot pictures of every single thing he comes across - his particular favorites right now are the shadows of the naked trees outside, but he can just never get them quite right yet. It’s a Saturday afternoon and he’s spent hours outside now that it finally stopped snowing, and he feels like he is getting a little closer to capture the long, dark arabesque of the twisted apple trees, but he needs Wonshik’s opinion on it because Wonshik just seems to have a very good eye for beautiful things.
So, he is on his way up to the Gryffindor Tower and he probably turned at a wrong corner because he’s suddenly on this very small and very deserted-looking corridor, except it’s not deserted because there are two more people there and Hongbin suddenly gets very, veryvery red and drops his camera, and he wants to turn right around and walk away, except now his camera is on the floor, broken…
The cracking sound startles the two people a few steps in front Hongbin and they stop what looks like super awkwardly yet enthusiastically trying to hide inside each other’s robes. Of course Hongbin knows what they’re doing - he isn’t a child anymore, he knows what kissing is - it’s just that he’s never seen it up close and quite so… vehemently before. Nor with so many… hands everywhere. Hongbin really wishes he learned some sort of Invisibility Spell, which, of course, he hasn’t, so now there are two boys standing in front of him, and Hongbin recognizes one of them, and uh-oh now he’s in trouble. Fifth year Cha Hakyeon is somebody his classmates scare poor first year kids with and Hongbin never quite understood why, but now, as he is moving closer, straightening his green and silver tie and dusting off his skewed robe, Hongbin feels chills running through his spine.
"You shouldn’t be here," Hakyeon says with a wide, almost friendly smile, but there is something in his eyes, something so terrifying Hongbin is starting to understand why some people have trust issues with Slytherin. He shakes his head, murmuring sorry, and bends to pick up the camera and make a run for it. But the other guy beats him to it - he lifts the camera from the floor, and with an almost inaudible spell, mends the cracks on the lens, before holding it out for Hongbin. He’s wearing a red-golden tie, and his smile is less wide, less bright, but much more calming and honest. He reaches out to ruffle his hair without another word, and then walks away.
"You are not going to tell about this to anyone, are you, Lee Hongbin?" Hakyeon asks, and his hand slides into his pocket. It’s an innocent enough gesture, except Hongbin knows that’s probably where he keeps his wand.
"No," he shakes his head. He isn’t gonna tell anyone about this, and he’s not gonna ask why he shouldn’t.
He sort of understands the next day, at the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match, anyway. The players fly around in circles in front of the tribunes before the game, and Hongbin’s ears go numb with the cheers Gryffindor’s captain gets. He’s very handsome, Hongbin supposes, or at least most girls in Hogwarts seem to think so. And when Hakyeon flies by the Slytherin seats, he waves playfully at Hongbin for some reason - he takes it as a warning, and proceeds to think about it during the whole game, and about these two for long weeks afterwards.
4.
Fourth year is spent in a haze of Quidditch for Wonshik and daydreaming and heartbreak and very important life decisions for Hongbin.
Wonshik tries out for Chaser in Gryffindor’s team and he gets the position, which they appropriately celebrate in Hogsmeade. He introduces Hongbin to the entire team there, beaming with pride as their captain, sixth year Taekwoon compliments him on his performance in the try-outs. Hongbin has mostly forgotten about the incident last year until he meets Taekwoon again, up close, and even though there is no hair ruffling this time (something Hongbin is enormously grateful for), the quiet, amused smile creeps back into the corner of Taekwoon’s mouth when he recognizes Hongbin. No other comments are made on the subject, and Taekwoon soon wanders off, leaving Wonshik and Hongbin to themselves. Wonshik throws victorious punches in the air and his arms around Hongbin, and Hongbin takes pictures of him making silly faces and posing with teammates and drinking beer and tells him that he is very glad and very proud - he truly is. He is about to tell him something else, something equally important, now that butterbeer has made his tongue loose, but before he can start, Wonshik jumps up and drags somebody else to their corner of the table.
This is how Hongbin meets Jaehwan, Taekwoon’s friend from Hufflepuff, and his thoughts of broad shoulders and bright white teeth soon get blurred by the over-the-top hilariousity that is Jaehwan.
It’s already getting dark outside when Slytherin’s team arrives, and Hongbin finds it almost as hilarious as Jaehwan how Wonshik joins the heated exchange of verbal curses between the two teams - a tradition they both used to laugh at just weeks before. He briefly wonders how one life event can change a person so much, so quickly - or if maybe Wonshik’s just doing it to fit in and bond with his team, or if most of them even mean it. Because he (maybe alone) knows the truth behind the insults Gryffindor’s captain and Slytherin’s Seeker are throwing at each other. But as he casts a side glance at Jaehwan and sees the amusement in his eyes, he thinks that just maybe, he isn’t the only keeper of Taekwoon’s and Hakyeon’s secret.
Some younger guy from their team calls out Hongbin for being a traitor sitting with Gryffindor, Hakyeon promptly whacks him on the head while Wonshik waves his middle finger at him, and Hongbin is starting to think that maybe it’s not even that important that he thinks he may be in love.
He changes his mind first thing next Monday morning when he sees him walking down the corridor, tie hanging in his neck undone and the warm autumn sunlight sparkling on his dark hair. Hongbin reaches for his camera before he remembers he didn’t bring it on his way to class, and also that it might be weird to start taking pictures of people he doesn’t know. In public, at least.
He has to wait till lunch to catch Wonshik and he drags him away from the table, because this is very, very important news and who needs food anyway, when Hongbin discovered that the planet is revolving around one single person and all birds outside have been replaced by a choir of angels and anything else can wait, really.
"Who is he?" Wonshik asks, excited, and Hongbin tells him all he knows, which is, in retrospect, not very much. All he knows is that he is on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, of course. "Quidditch players are the coolest," Hongbin sighs, but Wonshik doesn’t seem content with this much.
Two days later Jaehwan delivers all the intel he managed to gather, and Hongbin is extremely embarrassed but also very thankful, because now he can doodle his full name in his secret diary. Not his notebooks, no. He isn’t some giggling, stupid girl…
He still spends most of his free time (and classes) daydreaming, and sometimes, secretly, adding a picture or two of him to his secret diary, carefully tucked away between the hundreds he has of Wonshik and some of Jiwon and even Jaehwan.
He’s so preoccupied he doesn’t even realize when Taekwoon and Hakyeon start appearing in his collection. He does notice, however, that Hakyeon now sits with him for meals at the Slytherin table, Taekwoon helps with his homework, and Hongbin can’t remember what on Earth he found scary about them in the first place.
It’s also Hakyeon (and Wonshik, of course) that convince him to send that stupid letter on Valentine’s day.
He comes to Hongbin the next day, when him and his friends pass by the Slytherin and Ravenclaw fouth years in the corridor. He is smiling and for a very short, very beautiful moment, Hongbin feels like he is levitating, like he is standing on small clouds just inches above the floor.
"You’re Hongbin, right?" he asks, and all Hongbin can do is nod, not quite believing that this is happening to him.
"Look kid, you seem very nice and all, but… well, sorry. Really..." he says, holding up Hongbin’s letter and pushing it into his unmoving hand.
With those few words, the most beautiful moments of Hongbin’s fourteen long years of life turn into his worst nightmare ever. He thinks he can hear the broken pieces of his heart, shattering on the cold stone bricks under his feet, and he can also hear the curious whispers of the crowd around him. His hands are icy, just like his voice, but he manages to crack a smile. His best, fakest, strongest smile. The smile that gets all the teachers’ knees weak and sends Wonshik in a laughing frenzy, telling Hongbin that he should be an actor because “how can you change faces like that?"
"Oh, it’s okay," Hongbin says, taking the letter with a nod and crumpling it, and manages a short laugh. "It was just a silly dare, honestly. I wasn't even sure you would get it... sorry I bothered you!"
"That’s a relief!" he laughs, a little embarrassed (it’s endearing, and Hongbin has only ever dreamed of him laughing at Hongbin up to this day). "Have a good day, then!"
"You too," Hongbin mutters, clutching his books a little closer to his chest, as if that would numb the pain. He suddenly feels sick, and when the others start entering the classroom, the grabs the sleeve of a girl, and asks her to tell the Professor that he had to go to the Infirmary.
If Hakyeon and Wonshik ever see through their threats of breaking all his bones for refusing Hongbin, he’ll never know, because from that moment on, Hongbin swears to smile much more, and care much, much less.
5.
He still cares about Wonshik (and Jiwon and Jaehwan and Taekwoon and Hakyeon), so he tries his best not to laugh at him when he gets two weeks of detention not a month into fifth year, for sending a guy from third year to the Infirmary for possibly a few days.
The poor guy turns out to be a Slytherin called Sanghyuk, and his crime is, accusedly, holding hands with Jiwon in the hallway, which Wonshik Does Not Approve Of.
Hongbin finds the whole story hilarious, especially because only a few hours later Jiwon comes looking for her brother, and soon, Wonshik is enjoying the comfort of an Infirmary bed right next to Sanghyuk’s for a few days of his own. His sister not only turned his hair into feathers, but very nearly turned him into a chicken as well, which is really, really super funny, but neither him nor Jaehwan are allowed to laugh - for the first half an hour.
"She’s really batshit crazy, my sister," Wonshik proudly tells Sanghyuk, who, to his credit, managed to stick to grinning instead of outright laughing when he saw Wonshik coming in a few hours after him, clucking unstoppably.
"I know… she's so awesome!" Sanghyuk grins even wider, and Hongbin can tell from Wonshik’s soft cluck that he’s given his consent as Big Brother.
Against Wonshik’s strong and determined protests, Hongbin manages to take a picture of his feathers before the Madame arrives and sends them all out "for the peace and untroubled recovery of the patients."
Fifth year is also the year Hongbin and Wonshik get their first girlfriends - a fellow player on Wonshik’s team, who apparently finds Hongbin very, very sexy or so she tells Wonshik, and her friend, whom she drags along for a double date and who later calls Wonshik’s laugh “surprisingly attractive.” Hongbin can understand that, because Wonshik really is a very fun guy, albeit he doesn’t know about attractive. He supposes it’s true, Wonshik does have a nice face - it comes out very well on photographs, the different faces of Wonshik, ranging from sleepy to smiling widely to lost in thoughts, excited, tired, laughing, victorious, mischievous, drunk and concentrating - Hongbin never realized how many pictures he has of Wonshik. His girlfriend finds it weird, she tells him, but then she also kisses him, and Hongbin remembers Hakyeon and Taekwoon in the corridor, wondering if he’ll ever get the urge to kiss her like that.
"Where is your head, Hongbin?" she asks him, brows furrowing. Hongbin considers taking a photo of that, too, because it’s kind of cute, but he isn’t sure she would appreciate it. She doesn’t seem all that much into his pictures. ("Aren’t these supposed to be moving? What’s the point of pictures that don’t move?")
"I’m here," he assures her, and smiles.
"Everybody is dating, even my fucking sister is dating, and I’m just not good enough to have a girlfriend, really?" Wonshik curses, his breath forming small white puffs in the still cold March air, months later. Hongbin really doesn’t understand this whole dating thing, he decides - why did Wonshik’s girlfriend break up with him, and his own hasn’t? It’s not even like she’s interested in Hongbin that much… she never asks how his day was, never tells him jokes she heard, asks his opinion on important and ground-breaking, sudden ideas, or even what he did when they weren’t together, she only cares about being together more often, which is starting to get on Hongbin’s nerves.
"Of course you’re good enough, Wonshik," Hongbin shakes his head, and then hugs him briefly. "She wasn’t good enough."
That makes Wonshik laugh, albeit it’s only his short and frustrated laugh, but still better than him punching walls.
"Remember? That’s exactly what I said to you, last year…"
"Yeah. And also 'somebody else is gonna come around!' and 'your first love isn’t gonna be the last!" Hongbin nods, chuckling.
"I know, dude. It’s just that I think I really liked her, or something. And she was so pretty! Almost as pretty as you…" Wonshik sighs, but the corner of his mouth is curling upwards.
"Oi, don’t start with that shit again, or I swear you’ll have a broken nose to your broken heart!"
And as summer rolls around, they are both laughing about their first girlfriends and Wonshik, as per usual, spends two weeks at Hongbin’s again.
6.
It’s only them and Jaehwan and Sanghyuk and Jiwon in sixth year, because Hakyeon and Taekwoon graduated, and Hongbin feels a little alone, a little lost in the dungeons without Hakyeon - but at least Sanghyuk is there now.
Wonshik decides that he’s gonna be a professional Quidditch player like Taekwoon, and even though Hongbin suspects it’s more of a phase, and is coming from his newly appointed position as team captain, he never tells him that he shouldn’t. In fact, he promises to always be there to make fun of him after his injuries, of which there are many - Ravenclaw is playing particularly dirty this season.
And Hongbin maybe even envies Wonshik a little, because he hasn’t even the slightest idea what he wants to be, and they only have two years left in school.
Wonshik tells him he should just stick to photography, and yes, Hongbin has gotten the hang of the winter shadows and the breaking buds of spring and the patterns that the wind blows in the long, silver grass - he’s documented how Jiwon grew from a child to a teenager, how Wonshik’s skinny arms and slagging shoulders gained muscle and momentum from the constant practice, he’s captured the way Hakyeon’s eyes light up softly when he looks at Taekwoon and the tiniest of smiles Taekwoon only reserves for Hakyeon when he thinks nobody is watching. He even assisted a weird art project for Jaehwan about, well, he’s not quite sure what it was about, but it involved colorful potions and drapes and frightened house elves… Hongbin can see that his skills have grown a little, but photography is a hobby, not a job, unless you work in journalism, like his mom, but those pictures have to be… well, moving.
Not in the muggle world, Wonshik tells him, and Hongbin laughs, very hard, because sometimes Wonshik tells jokes with the most serious expression - as if he was imitating Taekwoon.
But he never completely dismisses the idea - he does take Muggle Studies, after all. It stays with him, bugging around in his head, and he is so preoccupied with a starting fantasy that he almost forgets about reality, once again.
Meanwhile, Wonshik tries to get another girlfriend and fails, Jaehwan doesn’t try but still succeeds - "I think it’s like Taekwoon and Hakyeon," he tells them. "She says we are dating, like Hakyeon used to, and I say we are not, like Taekwoon. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to work this way, though…" he continues, thoughtful, over the butterbeer and cupcakes Sanghyuk stole from the kitchen. Hongbin answers that dating as a whole thing is stupid, and Wonshik begs them to change the subject.
Eventually, he stops trying to find a girlfriend, and begins to look for jobs for Hongbin instead. Hongbin doesn’t think he’s ever spent as much time in the library as he does now, and while his efforts are appreciated, they don’t really help. School ends, and Hongbin still hasn’t got any idea what else he wants from his life - apart from staying here, now, with Wonshik (and the others), forever.
7.
They open their last year with a huge party, courtesy to some people from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, but all of seventh year is invited - and some younger students, too. Hongbin suspects that they haven’t received any sort of approval from the heads of the houses (he is wrong), but it’s still a lot of fun and badly disguised alcohol and music, dancing, teenagers quickly getting drunk, and some of the ghosts make an appearance at midnight, scaring the living daylight out of a bunch of intoxicated students.
Not entirely to his surprise, random people start kissing and even disappearing in pairs after a while - Hongbin really has to find out what this whole craze of making out is about. He briefly remembers asking Wonshik’s opinion on it, too, probably because he finds Wonshik and some sixth-year girl doing exactly that, but they have to stop when Hongbin taps Wonshik’s slightly blurry shoulder - everything is slightly blurry for some reason - and the girl leaves afterwards, something about “do it with him, then!” Hongbin doesn’t ask what “it” is - he forgets why he wanted to talk to Wonshik in the first place for a while, and when he remembers, all the answer he gets is that “it’s nice, I guess.”
So, Hongbin guesses it’s nice. He smiles and goes back to dance instead, quite enjoying the way the music and people’s voices blend together in his fuzzy head, dances with Jaehwan and then Wonshik and then another guy and two girls and somebody along the line kisses him, too, or maybe he kisses first, but really, the next thing he remembers clearly is waking up in the morning in his bed, and being mortified about not remembering how he even got there.
To his relief, Wonshik doesn’t remember much about the party either, and with a strange, pounding headache, Hongbin says a silent thank you to his yesterday self for not taking pictures of last night.
After the warm welcome, they quickly get cooled down by the cold reality of their classes, which are all harder than ever, and Hongbin and Wonshik spend most of their time in the library, helplessly staring at each other’s homework and considering just chasing each other around with a copy of ‘The Monster Book of Monsters’. One time they actually do, and get promptly thrown out for a whole week.
"Astronomy is a stupid class, I don’t know why you’re still taking it" Wonshik says one night, on the top of the Astronomy Tower, where Hongbin came to finish one of his assignments and Wonshik accompanied him “to not let him fall asleep.” Hongbin knows that the other just wanted an excuse to be outside at night, but doesn’t call him out on it.
"I like the stars, they’re pretty…" Hongbin answers, not looking up from his telescope, and he can hear Wonshik murmuring something in response, but can’t quite make out the words. "If you start that 'No, you are pretty'-shit again, I’m gonna teach you to fly without your broomstick, you hear me?"
Wonshik only laughs, and judging by the small, rustling sounds, makes himself more comfortable on his cushions on the floor.
"That’s what I thought" Hongbin nods, nearly hitting the telescope, and he thinks that’s probably a sign to take a rest. Which he refuses.
"Aren’t you tired?" Wonshik asks, after a few more minutes of silence. "Because I’m bored. So you should take a break."
"You’re supposed to keep me company, not the other way around!" Hongbin sighs, rolling his eyes, but he finally straightens his back, and comes to sit next to Wonshik, head falling on his shoulder immediately. Guess he was tired, after all.
"You’re right, though, they are pretty… but I like it better when I can just watch them, without having to know their names, or where they go, or what they do… That way I can think of anything, when I’m watching them, you know?" Wonshik breaks the silence after a while of just sitting there together, then "Hey, Hongbin? Do you remember that party, back in September?"
"Not much, why?" he shrugs, turning to look at Wonshik with slightly furrowed brows.
"This face! It looks like you’re in pain from trying to think! Hilarious," Wonshik snorts, poking at Hongbin’s temple. "Nah, just curious. You asked me something like what was so special about kissing."
"Yeah. I think so… Don’t remember what you said. Why bring it up, though?"
Hongbin’s voice falters because he suddenly discovers that the stars are reflected in Wonshik’s eyes and that the warm brown hues of his iris are giving them a very new, very magical shine. It’s a strangely intimate beauty and Hongbin thinks he would never be able to capture it on film, even if he tried.
"You’re doing it again. The weird statue-staring… Nevermind," Wonshik grins. "Are you gonna continue your stargazing, or do you wanna make out instead?"
Hongbin isn’t sure whether he heard it right or not, because Wonshik is smiling, but he’s always smiling, not modest and respectful and vague (and fake) like Hongbin, but open and friendly and honest, and he’s not repeating the question like he usually does when Hongbin spaces out.
"Make out?"
"Yeah. To find out. Testing process for the 100 Weird Shits Lee Hongbin Wonders. Or something. Still better than homework..."
"Sure" Hongbin shrugs again, after a few seconds of consideration, not quite sure what’s happening but still going with it, like most things Wonshik has dragged him into. Then the other reaches out to cup his neck and pulls Hongbin closer to kiss him.
The angle is awkward at first - they have to shift a few times before their neck is not straining, and Wonshik ends up kneeling in front of Hongbin, one hand in his hair and the other on the back of his neck again - but they barely break apart. Hongbin is determined at first, determined to finally find out what the deal about kissing is, but it’s only when he stops caring that he starts enjoying, really enjoying, and then, absent-mindedly, he thinks the secret might be in not trying. Just going with it. Just going with Wonshik, like he always has, letting him take lead - playfully snatching it away a few times, and then giving it all back and more, until he’s not very certain where his head is, where they are, anymore, and all he knows is Wonshik’s lips and teeth and tongue and hands and the scent of winter fighting it’s last battles against spring, coming with the winds from the distant north.
He doesn’t think about anything now, he doesn’t think about Hakyeon and Taekwoon, but if he did, he would remember that this is how it happens, this is how hands end up disappearing under robes and shirts and tees, how ties come undone and hair gets dishevelled, this is how air starts running out until you have to steal it from the other person’s mouth, except it’s still not enough.
It’s never enough, Hongbin finally understands, when they do break apart to catch their breath. The deal about kissing is that when you’re doing it with the right person, it’s never, ever enough.
Wonshik is laughing now, and Hongbin joins in, his own laughter such a strange noise to his ears - he hasn’t laughed this carefree, this open, this deep in a long, long time. When they stop, Hongbin scoots even closer - it’s really beginning to get cold now - and this time he kisses Wonshik, one hand running through his hair and the other curiously sliding on his lower back.
"Hey, I just remembered something" Wonshik pulls back way too soon, and Hongbin is confused for a moment, because he was really forgetting everything else apart from kissing.
"What?" he asks, a little annoyed, but then he notices that something’s going wrong on Wonshik’s face.
"Are you still not dating anybody because it’s stupid?" Wonshik asks, and probably for the first time in his life, he drops his gaze from Hongbin’s eyes in uncertainty. Which he decides he really hates, and Wonshik should never do again because it just doesn’t feel right at all.
"It is stupid," Hongbin nods affirmatively, and he pokes Wonshik in the ribs to make him smile, make him look up, look at Hongbin because if he isn’t, if he can’t see himself in Wonshik’s eyes right now, Hongbin can’t be sure that this is really happening. "But I never said I won’t still do it. I just didn’t… yet?"
And it isn’t really a question - they don’t have to ask this question, there is no point, not when everything falls into place so swiftly, it’s not an answer, it’s a fact now and they just leave it at that, and, to Hongbin’s utter relief, resume kissing instead.
And he doesn’t have to take a picture of this Wonshik for his collection, of Wonshik with a red, swollen mouth and eyes gleaming like a thousand stars and face just inches from Hongbin’s, rough fingers tracing the lines of Hongbin’s eyes, his nose, his mouth, because it burns into his memory, brighter than film could ever capture.
A/N2: AS I SAID ANOTHER CROSSOVER OUO! I actually have a headcanon for HP!VIXX and I swear that surprise dressing up they did a few weeks back killed me O.O
Aaaaanyways, thank you so so so much for reading, and if you feel like discussing HP!VIXX (or the reasons I sorted them into these particular houses) then I'd love to do so! Also, I am much much much thankful for comments and criticism, as always (and promise to check on comments regularly from now on OTL)