#46 [B1A4, Sandeul/Gongchan]
Fandom: B1A4
Title: If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun
Rating: PG
Pairing(s)/Focus: Sandeul/Gongchan
Length: 3,760 words
Summary: In which Sunwoo is blamed for being a bad influence on Chanshik, even though it wasn’t his fault at all.
Notes: First time writing B1A4 as mains, hope it’s okay /o\;
Remixee author: hwanjin
Title of work you remixed: Dealing with the villains, I'll be your Foxman
Link to work you remixed: http://bujini.livejournal.com/5935.html
From the ripe old age of three, Chanshik had been the model superhero.
“It’s in the family,” his mother and father would tell their coworkers with bright, beaming smiles whenever Chanshik would stop a train from hitting a car stuck on the tracks, or take out a bank robber, or save people from a burning building. He had the ‘right genes’, the whole of Pony Canyon knew. Born into a superhero family that had been saving the world for generations, this was the kid to beat, even though no one ever would.
Behind the scenes was perhaps a little less pleasant than the front the family put on for the rest of the world. From that very first day of three-year-old Chanshik pushing that stalled car off the train tracks, superhero rules had been drilled into his head. Training and his job came first. No social life, or as little of one as needed to maintain his cover. In his parents’ minds (and the minds of Pony Canyon’s board), that meant the only people Chanshik would ever need to speak to aside from schoolteachers would be other superheroes who also had their own covers to maintain.
Socializing with non-heroes? Ordinary people? It was so far out of the question that Chanshik couldn’t believe his ears the day Jinyoung and Sunwoo came back from lunch with two victims they ‘rescued’ from a microwave fire.
Surely there were at least five broken rules in there somewhere, the first one being that superheroes were supposed to fly away once they were done with the rescuing.
The only things that stopped the scathing glare and lecture were Chanshik being younger than them (regrettably bound to be respectful to his hyungdeul), and the look of exasperation on Jinyoung’s face. At least it hadn’t been his idea; that was a bit of a relief, because meeting for lunch in full costume was far more believable coming from Sunwoo. And thus Chanshik could just shake his head at the superhero fresh out of training, rather than wonder what went wrong with the one who was supposed to know better.
The day after, he wished he’d broken the “be respectful to your hyungs” rule and spoken up. Because no sooner had he swooped in to catch three teens about to fall from the bridge into the river, than he was being thanked under the name of…
…Captain Pup.
At first he’d been extremely bemused, and brushed it off as just an odd occurrence. But then the posters started cropping up. And then the autographs, and impromptu photo sessions. And then that one mother who, after Chanshik flew her and her broken leg to the hospital, insisted Chanshik go on a date with her daughter. Chanshik had never been so scared of an injured person before. He couldn’t wait to follow Rule #2 and fly the hell out of that room as soon as she let go of her death grip on his arm.
When the call from their trainer came, it was expected but still a kick to Chanshik’s pride. He’d never gotten in trouble like this before. When the scathing call was over and the trainer disappeared from their interactive screen, Chanshik rounded on Jinyoung and Sunwoo. It was all their fault he’d gotten into trouble, after all. He didn’t ask to be named ‘Captain Pup’ and have to sit through autograph sessions and smile tensely through his mask for photographs. He just wanted to do his job, and do it properly. With the least amount of rule-breaking as possible.
Chanshik should have figured it was just going to go downhill from there.
“Hi. My name’s Junghwan. You’re Captain Pup, right?”
The greeting would have probably come across way better if Junghwan wasn’t hanging by his shirt from the wire fence surrounding the school campus. He kicked futilely at the ground four feet out of reach, before resigning himself to his predicament.
A little impressed (or maybe just completely baffled), Chanshik broke code just long enough to ask “…How did you get yourself up there?” That was one tall fence.
“The gate’s too far to walk, so I figured I’d climb it,” Junghwan tried to shrug. “Except I slipped and my shirt…yeah. Could you get me down? Without ripping the shirt? I kind of like it.”
If he’d known this was the guy who’d managed to convince Jinyoung and Sunwoo to have lunch with him and his roommate Dongwoo days ago, Chanshik would have probably ditched the rules this one time and left him there to be some other superhero’s problem. But he didn’t know just that instant so up he flew, easily freeing Junghwan from the fence.
“Oh, thank you!” Junghwan tried to hug him before they were back on the ground. The sudden weight of arms around him startled Chanshik, and with twin yelps they both ended up on the ground, the superhero stuck underneath the older (and heavier) man.
“Ow,” was all he said, wincing as he opened one eye and blinked up at the person he’d just rescued. It had been a long time since he’d lost control of his floating like that.
“Sorry, sorry,” Junghwan rolled off of him. Chanshik sat up, quickly making sure his mask was still on properly and wasn’t slipping. “Thanks though, for getting me off that. Anything I can do to thank you?”
“No, no thanks necessary; happy to help,” Chanshik put on his usual smile and stood up. “I’ll just be going-“
“What, already?” Junghwan looked like a kicked puppy. “Do you have to?”
“Yeah. Be careful climbing fences in the future.” With this departing words, Chanshik quickly flew off. When he glanced over his shoulder at the figure getting farther and farther away, he felt a little…guilty.
But he was just following the rules.
If Chanshik had thought that would be the only time he’d ever meet Junghwan, he was very, very mistaken. It amazing him how much trouble the guy seemed to find himself in; enough that it would have been a full-time job for one superhero to look after him. Since they had other people to rescue besides an extremely danger-prone student, Chanshik, Sunwoo and Jinyoung took turns when it came to Junghwan.
Junghwan…confused Chanshik. Because all the superhero was doing was following the rules, yet each time he did, he felt progressively more guilty about it. He blamed it on that guilt when, after saving Junghwan from the classroom he’d managed to lock himself in, he didn’t fly off right away. Instead, they talked. It wasn’t a big deal, really. Just a short conversation about superheroes and how in the world did he lock the door from the inside.
But it was enough to stay on Chanshik’s mind all day long. If Jinyoung or Sunwoo noticed him smiling to himself over dinner, they didn’t say anything.
It was night, and the stars shown brightly up ahead. Junghwan dropped down onto the roof with a sigh of relief, staring up at them. “I just thought of something.”
“What?” Chanshik watched Junghwan for a moment before sitting down next to him. Junghwan had a nice, comforting presence that eased Chanshik’s guard down the longer he spent around him. Chanshik liked to think of it as a painless poison. Poison, because it was a bad thing to be lowering his guard and breaking these rules, but painless because…he didn’t really mind that much.
“Do you think you could fly all the way to the stars?” Junghwan pointed upwards at one particularly bright one.
“That’s a plane.”
“…Ruin all my fun,” Junghwan punched Chanshik’s shoulder lightly. “But could you?”
Chanshik rubbed his shoulder, thinking about it. “I think I’d run out of oxygen before I got out of the Earth’s orbit. If I can even fly that high. Never tried.”
“Oh. Well, I’m kind of glad you didn’t try.”
“…I thought you wanted to know if I could fly that far, why wouldn’t you want me to try?”
Junghwan glanced at him. “Cause if you couldn’t do it, you’d die. I’d rather live without knowing.”
Chanshik looked back at Junghwan, masked eyes meeting unmasked ones. Junghwan looked serious for once. Chanshik opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
“…Do you want to fly back to your dorm?”
It was a stupid, stupid suggestion, and probably broke so many rules Chanshik couldn’t even count them all. But the way Junghwan’s eyes had lit up chased all thoughts of rules out of his mind. It was very awkward flying with his arms around the other man, but Junghwan’s loud whoop and laughter made it all worth it.
Chanshik took his time flying around to the dorm room’s balcony, thankful for the cover of night. When he finally landed and deposited Junghwan back on his feet, he was pulled into a bone-crushing hug.
“That was…that was amazing,” Junghwan was winded and giddy. His breath puffed against Chanshik’s ear as he hugged him tighter. “Thank you.”
His heart raced in his chest, and Chanshik squirmed a little before resigning himself to the hug. “It was nothing,” he said quietly, wondering if Junghwan could hear his frantic heartbeat.
Pulling back a little, Junghwan’s smile slowly faded as he took in the mask over Chanshik’s face. “Can’t you…get rid of this? Just for a minute?”
As much as he’d been expecting the question to come up eventually, Chanshik still felt a twist of guilt as he shook his head and stepped back. “I can’t. It’s against the rules.”
“So’s flying me anywhere, I think,” Junghwan pointed out. “That’s what you told me a week ago. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Were they friends? Chanshik had never really had any friends besides Sunwoo and Jinyoung (and Sunwoo would probably protest at being called his friend). That had to be why he was feeling so guilty…he was guilty over lying to his friend. Yeah…that had to be it.
“We’re friends, but I’m still a superhero,” Chanshik pointed out. “I can’t tell you who I really am.”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone. I’ll still call you Captain Pup whenever we’re around other people.”
“I can’t,” Chanshik had to turn away from the other man’s expression. A hand closed around his wrist.
“Okay…okay, I’m sorry. Don’t go. Not yet. Please?”
It was the please that did Chanshik in. Absently he wondered just what Junghwan was doing to him, that a simple word could undo years of professionalism.
Junghwan wasn’t going to let it go.
“Okay, I don't know what the chances are, but... wouldn't we at least have one class together?”
“Maybe,” Jinyoung replied, looking at Junghwan. They were all sitting in the cafeteria, the three heroes in full costume. “There are a lot of classes though. A lot of different majors. I'm not that good at math, but I think the chances aren't that big.”
“Oh.” Junghwan bites his bottom lip. “But we could be, right?”
“We can't tell you,” Chansik spoke then, poking at his food. His appetite was gone. His costume was uncomfortable, and in the back of his mind he knew how easy it would be to just…take it off and sit in normal clothes in the cafeteria instead. Preferably right beside Junghwan.
“This means one of you or maybe all of you have at least one class with me. I'm so going to look around and see if I recognize any of you in my classes.” That remark made Chanshik choke on the food in his mouth, sputtering as he tried to convince Junghwan otherwise. Little did Junghwan know, Chanshik was in one of his classes. Thankfully his mask covered his black, curly mass of hair, because it would have been all too easy to pick Chanshik out of the crowd otherwise.
Sharing classes made it all the harder on the superhero, because not only did Chanshik have to resist unmasking himself for Junghwan, he had to resist talking to the older man like he knew him when out of costume. It was a fight Chanshik was slowly losing.
Just a quick hello, he told himself. Hi, how’s it going, my name’s Chanshik, I don’t think we’ve ever met before. Well, we have, but you can’t know that. So, uh. Maybe we could go eat lunch together sometime?
It sounded creepy even in his own head.
Chanshik got in line behind Junghwan in the cafeteria, trying not to obviously stare at the back of the guy’s head. No costume today, no Captain Pup (he didn’t even realize he now thought of himself exclusively with the nickname Junghwan had given him), just quiet Chanshik. Pony Canyon didn’t teach superheroes how to socialize outside of costume. They weren’t really supposed to. But for the first time, Chanshik wished that they had covered some sort of ‘how to make friends with people you know but who don’t know you’ course in Pony Canyon.
Bite the bullet, Chanshik. “Hi?” He practically squeaked, and had to resist flying out of the nearest window, because what was that?
Junghwan, tapping his wrapped chopsticks against his plate idly, turned around and looked at him quizzically. “…Hi?”
“My name’s…uh…we’ve never met.…I was wondering if we could eat lunch together? Sometime?” The carefully rehearsed lines fell apart coming out of his mouth. Chanshik heard a crack in one hand and looked down; he’d held onto his chopsticks so tightly they’d snapped right in half.
Junghwan was looking at the chopsticks too. “Uhm…do I know you?”
No. “Yes-I-I mean, no, you don’t,” Chanshik stuttered, then tried a nervous smile in an effort to not come across as a total creep. “I just-uh- your friend isn’t here today? So I thought…maybe you’d like some company.”
“My friend? You mean Dongwoo? Do you know him?”
Well, crap. Retreat, retreat!
“I…Nevermind, I have to go, see you later!” And with that Chanshik hurried out of the line, wishing he had invisibility in his arsenal of powers. He could practically hear Junghwan’s confused thoughts. Great, the guy thought he was a stalker now.
Was it too late to request a transfer to the other side of the planet?
A few days later, Chanshik realized he wasn’t the only one losing the fight to keep their hero secret.
Jinyoung was considering…seriously considering…telling Dongwoo who he was. Really, only an idiot (or Sunwoo) could miss the hormones flying around the air whenever those two were together. It was only a matter of time before Jinyoung started thinking about taking whatever they were and making it official out-of-costume. Which would break one of the biggest rules of all, the rule Chanshik desperately held onto no matter how much he wanted to let go.
“Don’t do it,” Chanshik sighed, not looking up from his textbook.
“Do what?” Jinyoung asked, pretending not to know what Chanshik was talking about.
“Don't ask Dongwoo out and don't reveal yourself. It will get you in trouble and God, do you know how much paperwork that is? And don't get me started on the consequences for us. Well, for me actually, because I don't think they expect Sunwoo to be a good influence on you.”
Hah. That sentence was laughable. If only the board knew that Chanshik had broken just as many rules as Sunwoo in the last couple weeks, all in the name of an accident-prone, overly affectionate student in his English class. Who was convinced Chanshik was some kind of stalker. Just the other day Junghwan had caught him trying to give himself a pep talk in a back hallway before putting a hole into the wall in frustration. Completely an accident of course, but now Chanshik was apparently a violent stalker, because he couldn’t exactly explain the problems that came with having super strength.
Sunwoo broke into their serious conversation with a loud protest. “Hey, I never did anything to reveal our identity to someone. It’s all you. Or him. It has nothing to do with me.”
Chanshik groaned inwardly. Surely Sunwoo hadn’t noticed his fumbled attempts to get Junghwan’s attention.
Thankfully, Jinyoung piped up with a “you forgot to wear your mask last week.”
“I didn't -”
“You did and then we had to come save your ass.” Chanshik added. “I can still tell my dad about that...”
Sunwoo practically vaulted himself over the couch to land on top of Chanshik. “You can't,” he said, slapping Chansik. It didn’t hurt, and both of them knew it. “I will tell your dad that you...you...you...”
“That I what?” Chansik asked, smiling sweetly. Thankfully, Sunwoo didn’t seem to know about his stalker issues, because the other man just rolled off him and threw his hands up in defeat, muttering something about hating both of them. Chansik snorted, turning his attention back to Jinyoung. “You're not going to tell him.”
“I'm not.” Jinyoung replied, and he wasn’t lying.
Listening to the thoughts bubbling up, Chanshik watched the oldest in first surprise, then thoughtfulness. So Jinyoung was going to go for approaching Dongwoo out of costume too. Maybe he’d have better luck with it all than Chanshik…he did seem better at talking to civilians.
A small smile curled his lips. “Nothing is wrong with that, I guess. As long as you don't tell him...”
“I won't say a word.”
“Good. Have fun on your date!”
Sunwoo looked between the two of them with a confused frown. “Did I miss something?”
Chanshik planned to spend the whole day Jinyoung was off trying to woo Dongwoo studying, rather than make a fool of himself yet again. He’d wait until Jinyoung came back, see how his friend handled their predicament. If he had successfully asked Dongwoo out without giving himself away, then Chanshik could swallow his pride this one time and ask for advice. Before he could scare Junghwan away thinking he was some sort of psychopathic murderer.
That was what he had planned, anyways. But then his alarm went off, and all hope of studying went right out the window. On the costume went, and Chanshik headed out to save whoever needed saving this time.
He was flying over the highway when he smelled gasoline. Speeding up, he was at the scene of the car accident three blinks later, hitting the ground at a run as he surveyed the situation. Sometimes, he’d wish someone else got the really important calls once in a while and he could deal with something as simple as cats stuck in a tree.
Two cars had collided and rolled into the ditch. The smell of gasoline was everywhere, Chanshik covering his nose. It was just a matter of time before something exploded. “Everyone back!” He found what Sunwoo referred to as his ‘hero voice’, the soft-spoken mannerisms dropping away as he radiated authority. Hurrying to the cars, he pushed those standing around away from the danger.
One of the cars was vacant, but the other…someone was stuck inside. Chanshik skidded to a stop next to the car door, trying it. Busted shut.
Scared eyes peered at him from inside the car, and Chanshik suddenly found his strength. He tore the car door right off it’s hinges, pulling Junghwan out of the car. “Come on!” The other man was in shock, but stumbled along at Chanshik’s insistent pulling.
There was the sharp hiss of air behind him, and Chanshik did the first thing that came into his head. Throwing them both to the ground, he covered Junghwan’s body with his own and shut his eyes tightly.
BOOM.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, really.”
“It took apart half your costume.”
“I know it did-ow!”
“You said that you were okay!”
“That doesn’t mean you can poke it.” Chanshik swatted away the hand prodding at the burn marks along his side. He’d blacked out for a moment after the explosion, before waking up to Junghwan’s shouting and worried face. It surprised him somewhat that Junghwan hadn’t taken the chance to pull off his mask (which had somehow surprised the explosion), but apparently his safety was more important than his identity.
It had taken nearly the rest of his strength to fly them both back to Junghwan and Dongwoo’s shared dorm, and Junghwan didn’t let him leave. Instead he sat the dazed superhero down and got to work cleaning up the exposed burns. Chanshik for his part let him, hissing in pain every now and then.
“Thank you,” Junghwan said finally after a long minute, looking up at him. “You saved me…again.”
“I’m getting used to it by now,” Chanshik gave him a faint smile, closing his eyes.
He felt a hand brush against the side of his head. “…Huh. Black curls.”
Eyes snapping open, Chanshik blinked at Junghwan in a daze before bringing one hand to the side of his head. His hand met soft curls of hair; there was a hole in the side of his mask, and his hair was sticking out. “…Oh.”
“This whole time…” Junghwan snorted, then suddenly started to laugh.
Chanshik tried to push his hair back out of sight. “What? Tons of people have curly hair,” He muttered lamely, giving what seemed to him a valiant attempt to preserve his identity.
“Only one person I know of, actually. Which is a great relief for me, I was getting a little worried about this stalker who could put holes in the wall.”
“That was an accident-“ Chanshik’s protest was cut off with a soft kiss. His mouth remained a little open when Junghwan pulled back, blinking at the older man in surprise.
“So,” Junghwan grinned. “Are you going to tell me your name now?”
“I can’t, hero rules.”
“You know I’ll just find out in English class.”
Chanshik’s lips curled a little. “…That’s fine. I wouldn’t have told you myself, so I can’t get into trouble.”
“Daredevil,” Junghwan chuckled before leaning in for another kiss.
Chanshik found he liked that word a lot more than ‘rule-breaker’. And if he was a rule-breaker now, well, the board would just blame it all on Sunwoo anyways.
Title: If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun
Rating: PG
Pairing(s)/Focus: Sandeul/Gongchan
Length: 3,760 words
Summary: In which Sunwoo is blamed for being a bad influence on Chanshik, even though it wasn’t his fault at all.
Notes: First time writing B1A4 as mains, hope it’s okay /o\;
Remixee author: hwanjin
Title of work you remixed: Dealing with the villains, I'll be your Foxman
Link to work you remixed: http://bujini.livejournal.com/5935.html
From the ripe old age of three, Chanshik had been the model superhero.
“It’s in the family,” his mother and father would tell their coworkers with bright, beaming smiles whenever Chanshik would stop a train from hitting a car stuck on the tracks, or take out a bank robber, or save people from a burning building. He had the ‘right genes’, the whole of Pony Canyon knew. Born into a superhero family that had been saving the world for generations, this was the kid to beat, even though no one ever would.
Behind the scenes was perhaps a little less pleasant than the front the family put on for the rest of the world. From that very first day of three-year-old Chanshik pushing that stalled car off the train tracks, superhero rules had been drilled into his head. Training and his job came first. No social life, or as little of one as needed to maintain his cover. In his parents’ minds (and the minds of Pony Canyon’s board), that meant the only people Chanshik would ever need to speak to aside from schoolteachers would be other superheroes who also had their own covers to maintain.
Socializing with non-heroes? Ordinary people? It was so far out of the question that Chanshik couldn’t believe his ears the day Jinyoung and Sunwoo came back from lunch with two victims they ‘rescued’ from a microwave fire.
Surely there were at least five broken rules in there somewhere, the first one being that superheroes were supposed to fly away once they were done with the rescuing.
The only things that stopped the scathing glare and lecture were Chanshik being younger than them (regrettably bound to be respectful to his hyungdeul), and the look of exasperation on Jinyoung’s face. At least it hadn’t been his idea; that was a bit of a relief, because meeting for lunch in full costume was far more believable coming from Sunwoo. And thus Chanshik could just shake his head at the superhero fresh out of training, rather than wonder what went wrong with the one who was supposed to know better.
The day after, he wished he’d broken the “be respectful to your hyungs” rule and spoken up. Because no sooner had he swooped in to catch three teens about to fall from the bridge into the river, than he was being thanked under the name of…
…Captain Pup.
At first he’d been extremely bemused, and brushed it off as just an odd occurrence. But then the posters started cropping up. And then the autographs, and impromptu photo sessions. And then that one mother who, after Chanshik flew her and her broken leg to the hospital, insisted Chanshik go on a date with her daughter. Chanshik had never been so scared of an injured person before. He couldn’t wait to follow Rule #2 and fly the hell out of that room as soon as she let go of her death grip on his arm.
When the call from their trainer came, it was expected but still a kick to Chanshik’s pride. He’d never gotten in trouble like this before. When the scathing call was over and the trainer disappeared from their interactive screen, Chanshik rounded on Jinyoung and Sunwoo. It was all their fault he’d gotten into trouble, after all. He didn’t ask to be named ‘Captain Pup’ and have to sit through autograph sessions and smile tensely through his mask for photographs. He just wanted to do his job, and do it properly. With the least amount of rule-breaking as possible.
Chanshik should have figured it was just going to go downhill from there.
“Hi. My name’s Junghwan. You’re Captain Pup, right?”
The greeting would have probably come across way better if Junghwan wasn’t hanging by his shirt from the wire fence surrounding the school campus. He kicked futilely at the ground four feet out of reach, before resigning himself to his predicament.
A little impressed (or maybe just completely baffled), Chanshik broke code just long enough to ask “…How did you get yourself up there?” That was one tall fence.
“The gate’s too far to walk, so I figured I’d climb it,” Junghwan tried to shrug. “Except I slipped and my shirt…yeah. Could you get me down? Without ripping the shirt? I kind of like it.”
If he’d known this was the guy who’d managed to convince Jinyoung and Sunwoo to have lunch with him and his roommate Dongwoo days ago, Chanshik would have probably ditched the rules this one time and left him there to be some other superhero’s problem. But he didn’t know just that instant so up he flew, easily freeing Junghwan from the fence.
“Oh, thank you!” Junghwan tried to hug him before they were back on the ground. The sudden weight of arms around him startled Chanshik, and with twin yelps they both ended up on the ground, the superhero stuck underneath the older (and heavier) man.
“Ow,” was all he said, wincing as he opened one eye and blinked up at the person he’d just rescued. It had been a long time since he’d lost control of his floating like that.
“Sorry, sorry,” Junghwan rolled off of him. Chanshik sat up, quickly making sure his mask was still on properly and wasn’t slipping. “Thanks though, for getting me off that. Anything I can do to thank you?”
“No, no thanks necessary; happy to help,” Chanshik put on his usual smile and stood up. “I’ll just be going-“
“What, already?” Junghwan looked like a kicked puppy. “Do you have to?”
“Yeah. Be careful climbing fences in the future.” With this departing words, Chanshik quickly flew off. When he glanced over his shoulder at the figure getting farther and farther away, he felt a little…guilty.
But he was just following the rules.
If Chanshik had thought that would be the only time he’d ever meet Junghwan, he was very, very mistaken. It amazing him how much trouble the guy seemed to find himself in; enough that it would have been a full-time job for one superhero to look after him. Since they had other people to rescue besides an extremely danger-prone student, Chanshik, Sunwoo and Jinyoung took turns when it came to Junghwan.
Junghwan…confused Chanshik. Because all the superhero was doing was following the rules, yet each time he did, he felt progressively more guilty about it. He blamed it on that guilt when, after saving Junghwan from the classroom he’d managed to lock himself in, he didn’t fly off right away. Instead, they talked. It wasn’t a big deal, really. Just a short conversation about superheroes and how in the world did he lock the door from the inside.
But it was enough to stay on Chanshik’s mind all day long. If Jinyoung or Sunwoo noticed him smiling to himself over dinner, they didn’t say anything.
It was night, and the stars shown brightly up ahead. Junghwan dropped down onto the roof with a sigh of relief, staring up at them. “I just thought of something.”
“What?” Chanshik watched Junghwan for a moment before sitting down next to him. Junghwan had a nice, comforting presence that eased Chanshik’s guard down the longer he spent around him. Chanshik liked to think of it as a painless poison. Poison, because it was a bad thing to be lowering his guard and breaking these rules, but painless because…he didn’t really mind that much.
“Do you think you could fly all the way to the stars?” Junghwan pointed upwards at one particularly bright one.
“That’s a plane.”
“…Ruin all my fun,” Junghwan punched Chanshik’s shoulder lightly. “But could you?”
Chanshik rubbed his shoulder, thinking about it. “I think I’d run out of oxygen before I got out of the Earth’s orbit. If I can even fly that high. Never tried.”
“Oh. Well, I’m kind of glad you didn’t try.”
“…I thought you wanted to know if I could fly that far, why wouldn’t you want me to try?”
Junghwan glanced at him. “Cause if you couldn’t do it, you’d die. I’d rather live without knowing.”
Chanshik looked back at Junghwan, masked eyes meeting unmasked ones. Junghwan looked serious for once. Chanshik opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
“…Do you want to fly back to your dorm?”
It was a stupid, stupid suggestion, and probably broke so many rules Chanshik couldn’t even count them all. But the way Junghwan’s eyes had lit up chased all thoughts of rules out of his mind. It was very awkward flying with his arms around the other man, but Junghwan’s loud whoop and laughter made it all worth it.
Chanshik took his time flying around to the dorm room’s balcony, thankful for the cover of night. When he finally landed and deposited Junghwan back on his feet, he was pulled into a bone-crushing hug.
“That was…that was amazing,” Junghwan was winded and giddy. His breath puffed against Chanshik’s ear as he hugged him tighter. “Thank you.”
His heart raced in his chest, and Chanshik squirmed a little before resigning himself to the hug. “It was nothing,” he said quietly, wondering if Junghwan could hear his frantic heartbeat.
Pulling back a little, Junghwan’s smile slowly faded as he took in the mask over Chanshik’s face. “Can’t you…get rid of this? Just for a minute?”
As much as he’d been expecting the question to come up eventually, Chanshik still felt a twist of guilt as he shook his head and stepped back. “I can’t. It’s against the rules.”
“So’s flying me anywhere, I think,” Junghwan pointed out. “That’s what you told me a week ago. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Were they friends? Chanshik had never really had any friends besides Sunwoo and Jinyoung (and Sunwoo would probably protest at being called his friend). That had to be why he was feeling so guilty…he was guilty over lying to his friend. Yeah…that had to be it.
“We’re friends, but I’m still a superhero,” Chanshik pointed out. “I can’t tell you who I really am.”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone. I’ll still call you Captain Pup whenever we’re around other people.”
“I can’t,” Chanshik had to turn away from the other man’s expression. A hand closed around his wrist.
“Okay…okay, I’m sorry. Don’t go. Not yet. Please?”
It was the please that did Chanshik in. Absently he wondered just what Junghwan was doing to him, that a simple word could undo years of professionalism.
Junghwan wasn’t going to let it go.
“Okay, I don't know what the chances are, but... wouldn't we at least have one class together?”
“Maybe,” Jinyoung replied, looking at Junghwan. They were all sitting in the cafeteria, the three heroes in full costume. “There are a lot of classes though. A lot of different majors. I'm not that good at math, but I think the chances aren't that big.”
“Oh.” Junghwan bites his bottom lip. “But we could be, right?”
“We can't tell you,” Chansik spoke then, poking at his food. His appetite was gone. His costume was uncomfortable, and in the back of his mind he knew how easy it would be to just…take it off and sit in normal clothes in the cafeteria instead. Preferably right beside Junghwan.
“This means one of you or maybe all of you have at least one class with me. I'm so going to look around and see if I recognize any of you in my classes.” That remark made Chanshik choke on the food in his mouth, sputtering as he tried to convince Junghwan otherwise. Little did Junghwan know, Chanshik was in one of his classes. Thankfully his mask covered his black, curly mass of hair, because it would have been all too easy to pick Chanshik out of the crowd otherwise.
Sharing classes made it all the harder on the superhero, because not only did Chanshik have to resist unmasking himself for Junghwan, he had to resist talking to the older man like he knew him when out of costume. It was a fight Chanshik was slowly losing.
Just a quick hello, he told himself. Hi, how’s it going, my name’s Chanshik, I don’t think we’ve ever met before. Well, we have, but you can’t know that. So, uh. Maybe we could go eat lunch together sometime?
It sounded creepy even in his own head.
Chanshik got in line behind Junghwan in the cafeteria, trying not to obviously stare at the back of the guy’s head. No costume today, no Captain Pup (he didn’t even realize he now thought of himself exclusively with the nickname Junghwan had given him), just quiet Chanshik. Pony Canyon didn’t teach superheroes how to socialize outside of costume. They weren’t really supposed to. But for the first time, Chanshik wished that they had covered some sort of ‘how to make friends with people you know but who don’t know you’ course in Pony Canyon.
Bite the bullet, Chanshik. “Hi?” He practically squeaked, and had to resist flying out of the nearest window, because what was that?
Junghwan, tapping his wrapped chopsticks against his plate idly, turned around and looked at him quizzically. “…Hi?”
“My name’s…uh…we’ve never met.…I was wondering if we could eat lunch together? Sometime?” The carefully rehearsed lines fell apart coming out of his mouth. Chanshik heard a crack in one hand and looked down; he’d held onto his chopsticks so tightly they’d snapped right in half.
Junghwan was looking at the chopsticks too. “Uhm…do I know you?”
No. “Yes-I-I mean, no, you don’t,” Chanshik stuttered, then tried a nervous smile in an effort to not come across as a total creep. “I just-uh- your friend isn’t here today? So I thought…maybe you’d like some company.”
“My friend? You mean Dongwoo? Do you know him?”
Well, crap. Retreat, retreat!
“I…Nevermind, I have to go, see you later!” And with that Chanshik hurried out of the line, wishing he had invisibility in his arsenal of powers. He could practically hear Junghwan’s confused thoughts. Great, the guy thought he was a stalker now.
Was it too late to request a transfer to the other side of the planet?
A few days later, Chanshik realized he wasn’t the only one losing the fight to keep their hero secret.
Jinyoung was considering…seriously considering…telling Dongwoo who he was. Really, only an idiot (or Sunwoo) could miss the hormones flying around the air whenever those two were together. It was only a matter of time before Jinyoung started thinking about taking whatever they were and making it official out-of-costume. Which would break one of the biggest rules of all, the rule Chanshik desperately held onto no matter how much he wanted to let go.
“Don’t do it,” Chanshik sighed, not looking up from his textbook.
“Do what?” Jinyoung asked, pretending not to know what Chanshik was talking about.
“Don't ask Dongwoo out and don't reveal yourself. It will get you in trouble and God, do you know how much paperwork that is? And don't get me started on the consequences for us. Well, for me actually, because I don't think they expect Sunwoo to be a good influence on you.”
Hah. That sentence was laughable. If only the board knew that Chanshik had broken just as many rules as Sunwoo in the last couple weeks, all in the name of an accident-prone, overly affectionate student in his English class. Who was convinced Chanshik was some kind of stalker. Just the other day Junghwan had caught him trying to give himself a pep talk in a back hallway before putting a hole into the wall in frustration. Completely an accident of course, but now Chanshik was apparently a violent stalker, because he couldn’t exactly explain the problems that came with having super strength.
Sunwoo broke into their serious conversation with a loud protest. “Hey, I never did anything to reveal our identity to someone. It’s all you. Or him. It has nothing to do with me.”
Chanshik groaned inwardly. Surely Sunwoo hadn’t noticed his fumbled attempts to get Junghwan’s attention.
Thankfully, Jinyoung piped up with a “you forgot to wear your mask last week.”
“I didn't -”
“You did and then we had to come save your ass.” Chanshik added. “I can still tell my dad about that...”
Sunwoo practically vaulted himself over the couch to land on top of Chanshik. “You can't,” he said, slapping Chansik. It didn’t hurt, and both of them knew it. “I will tell your dad that you...you...you...”
“That I what?” Chansik asked, smiling sweetly. Thankfully, Sunwoo didn’t seem to know about his stalker issues, because the other man just rolled off him and threw his hands up in defeat, muttering something about hating both of them. Chansik snorted, turning his attention back to Jinyoung. “You're not going to tell him.”
“I'm not.” Jinyoung replied, and he wasn’t lying.
Listening to the thoughts bubbling up, Chanshik watched the oldest in first surprise, then thoughtfulness. So Jinyoung was going to go for approaching Dongwoo out of costume too. Maybe he’d have better luck with it all than Chanshik…he did seem better at talking to civilians.
A small smile curled his lips. “Nothing is wrong with that, I guess. As long as you don't tell him...”
“I won't say a word.”
“Good. Have fun on your date!”
Sunwoo looked between the two of them with a confused frown. “Did I miss something?”
Chanshik planned to spend the whole day Jinyoung was off trying to woo Dongwoo studying, rather than make a fool of himself yet again. He’d wait until Jinyoung came back, see how his friend handled their predicament. If he had successfully asked Dongwoo out without giving himself away, then Chanshik could swallow his pride this one time and ask for advice. Before he could scare Junghwan away thinking he was some sort of psychopathic murderer.
That was what he had planned, anyways. But then his alarm went off, and all hope of studying went right out the window. On the costume went, and Chanshik headed out to save whoever needed saving this time.
He was flying over the highway when he smelled gasoline. Speeding up, he was at the scene of the car accident three blinks later, hitting the ground at a run as he surveyed the situation. Sometimes, he’d wish someone else got the really important calls once in a while and he could deal with something as simple as cats stuck in a tree.
Two cars had collided and rolled into the ditch. The smell of gasoline was everywhere, Chanshik covering his nose. It was just a matter of time before something exploded. “Everyone back!” He found what Sunwoo referred to as his ‘hero voice’, the soft-spoken mannerisms dropping away as he radiated authority. Hurrying to the cars, he pushed those standing around away from the danger.
One of the cars was vacant, but the other…someone was stuck inside. Chanshik skidded to a stop next to the car door, trying it. Busted shut.
Scared eyes peered at him from inside the car, and Chanshik suddenly found his strength. He tore the car door right off it’s hinges, pulling Junghwan out of the car. “Come on!” The other man was in shock, but stumbled along at Chanshik’s insistent pulling.
There was the sharp hiss of air behind him, and Chanshik did the first thing that came into his head. Throwing them both to the ground, he covered Junghwan’s body with his own and shut his eyes tightly.
BOOM.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, really.”
“It took apart half your costume.”
“I know it did-ow!”
“You said that you were okay!”
“That doesn’t mean you can poke it.” Chanshik swatted away the hand prodding at the burn marks along his side. He’d blacked out for a moment after the explosion, before waking up to Junghwan’s shouting and worried face. It surprised him somewhat that Junghwan hadn’t taken the chance to pull off his mask (which had somehow surprised the explosion), but apparently his safety was more important than his identity.
It had taken nearly the rest of his strength to fly them both back to Junghwan and Dongwoo’s shared dorm, and Junghwan didn’t let him leave. Instead he sat the dazed superhero down and got to work cleaning up the exposed burns. Chanshik for his part let him, hissing in pain every now and then.
“Thank you,” Junghwan said finally after a long minute, looking up at him. “You saved me…again.”
“I’m getting used to it by now,” Chanshik gave him a faint smile, closing his eyes.
He felt a hand brush against the side of his head. “…Huh. Black curls.”
Eyes snapping open, Chanshik blinked at Junghwan in a daze before bringing one hand to the side of his head. His hand met soft curls of hair; there was a hole in the side of his mask, and his hair was sticking out. “…Oh.”
“This whole time…” Junghwan snorted, then suddenly started to laugh.
Chanshik tried to push his hair back out of sight. “What? Tons of people have curly hair,” He muttered lamely, giving what seemed to him a valiant attempt to preserve his identity.
“Only one person I know of, actually. Which is a great relief for me, I was getting a little worried about this stalker who could put holes in the wall.”
“That was an accident-“ Chanshik’s protest was cut off with a soft kiss. His mouth remained a little open when Junghwan pulled back, blinking at the older man in surprise.
“So,” Junghwan grinned. “Are you going to tell me your name now?”
“I can’t, hero rules.”
“You know I’ll just find out in English class.”
Chanshik’s lips curled a little. “…That’s fine. I wouldn’t have told you myself, so I can’t get into trouble.”
“Daredevil,” Junghwan chuckled before leaning in for another kiss.
Chanshik found he liked that word a lot more than ‘rule-breaker’. And if he was a rule-breaker now, well, the board would just blame it all on Sunwoo anyways.