by crow » 09/07/2018 1:47 AM
Ji-won was pretty sure something was going on. He just wasn't sure what it was. His reasoning was mostly as follows: Julian had been really annoying lately. More than usual, even, which was already saying a lot.
"Ji-wonnie~ What'cha reading?"
"Hey, are you two going somewhere? I want to come too"
"Whew, I'm starving. Ji-won, you still owe me a ramyeon for last time. Let's go!"
It had been bad enough when Julian was just intermittently annoying, but this was a whole new level of interference. At first, Ji-won chalked it up to Julian being himself. Maybe it was hormones or something. He didn't know. He couldn't have explained half the nonsense Julian pulled, and he wasn't interested in trying either.
But then it just kept happening, and even though he was determined to ignore anything that had to do with Julian, even Ji-won started to suspect something was afoot after a while.
So Ji-won took Julian to ramyeon, and fixed him with a stare as he inhaled noodles across the table from where Ji-won was sipping a lemon soda.
"You're not going to try some? This is really good," said Julian. With his mouth full. Of course.
"Diet," said Ji-won, then sighed, closing his eyes as Julian wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Leaning back, Ji-won crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll get to the point. I don't know what you're up to, but it has to stop."
"I'm not 'up to' anything," said Julian, but his accent was thickening, the way it did when he started to deflect. Ji-won could feel a headache coming on.
"I know something must have happened," said Ji-won. He watched Julian carefully, measuring his next words. "With Yeong-sik."
Julian choked on his noodles, coughing ungracefully into the bowl. He came up wheezing, thumping his chest. "What?" he said. His voice sounded more than a little strangled. "What makes you think it has anything to do with Yeong-sik?" His eyes were wide, the wide-eyed look of a bad liar. It made him look like a guilty child.
"Well, that, for one," said Ji-won dryly. "And for the past two or three months, you've only gotten really interested in doing something with me when Yeong-sik was around. At first I thought you were interested in him."
"It definitely doesn't have anything to do with Yeong-sik," said Julian. "I just... wanted to get revenge. For the ramyeon. That was really mean of you, you know." He feigned a hurt expression. It was about as convincing as his lie.
Right, thought Ji-won. And the sun only comes up every day because a troupe of little men work some complicated series of levers to lift it up in the morning. Ji-won wasn't impressed, but he also wasn't surprised. People trying to lie to him wasn't anything new. In fact, he almost wished they were better at it. It might be nice to actually be fooled once in a while.
Julian hadn't come clean about it, but either way, Ji-won had gotten what he wanted to know. He finished the rest of his soda in peace while Julian snuck shifty glances at him over his bowl of noodles, then stood up and left without paying the bill.
"... Hey!"
Ji-won hadn't really meant to start paying more attention to Yeong-sik. He had just wanted to get to the bottom of Julian's latest bullshit, and now that he knew at least a little of what it was, he thought he would be able to just move on. Whatever Julian said about team spirit and the benefits of camaraderie with your group-mates, Ji-won didn't buy it. He was here to do a job, and as long as he delivered when the cameras were on him, that was all that mattered.
But then, Julian never elaborated on why he was suddenly interested in Yeong-sik, or at least interested in interfering with Yeong-sik, and so Ji-won started watching Yeong-sik out of curiosity if nothing else. And he wasn't sure if it was because Yeong-sik noticed the sudden scrutiny, or if he had just never noticed it before, but Yeong-sik certainly did seem to... trip up a lot.
Whenever he put on a sweater, he always ended up flailing around in it. One time his head got stuck in the wrong hole. Ji-won watched him walk into the side of the door once while he was saying something to Sol. He also saw Yeong-sik burn his hand on a plate fresh from the microwave; trip on his way up the stairs; and startle awake once when Jeremy surprised him with something while he'd been taking a nap.
Perhaps the most memorable moment was when they were doing a live stage for a music festival. Ji-won recalled it with perfect clarity; he had been at the back of the formation, and Yeong-sik had been center and point, dancing for all he was worth. And then--- Ji-won saw it before he heard the sound--- his pants had ripped right down the middle, exposing his underwear for the entire audience to see.
Yeong-sik had flushed bright red almost immediately, and spent the rest of the dance making tiny half-hearted movements and trying to wrap as much of his outfit around himself as possible. After the performance ended, he immediately holed up in the bathroom. It took and two managers and Sol the better part of an hour to convince him to come back out again.
At the time, Ji-won had a little laugh about it, then forgot about it. But funnily enough, his mind kept going back to that moment, and the way Yeong-sik had looked, ducking his head and making himself as small as he could for the rest of the day.
And Ji-won found himself... a little more curious about Yeong-sik, after that.
"Hey. Hey. Earth to Ji-wonnie," said Julian. Ji-won blinked, coming out of his thoughts as Julian waved a hand in front of his face. "Whoa. Was that a smile?" Julian feigned surprise. "Did something good happen, or is this just a sign of the End of Times?"
"If you're going to use things like 'End of Times', you can stop pretending to be bad at Korean," said Ji-won.
"Ah-ah, you don't get to shake me off that easily. What, did the chairman give you an extra special solo project or something? Did he pat your head and call you a good boy?" Julian grinned. How could someone look so punchable so often?
"Fuck off," said Ji-won. "I'm going to bed."
"Yeah you better run!" said Julian. The sound of his laughter followed Ji-won all the way to his room. "What, did a fan get you something expensive? Ooooh, wait, someone's got a crush, huh? That's what it is, isn't it? You can't fool me, Wonnie!"
Julian had really been hoping it wasn't a crush.
He liked Ji-won, he really did. Not that kind of like. More like... how you liked the family dog, even if he liked to bark at strangers and almost bit a toddler once. But that was just the thing--- if Ji-won was a dog, Julian wouldn't have trusted him not to bite toddlers. And he was pretty sure Ji-won wasn't ready for a crush. Heck, he was pretty sure Ji-won's crush, whichever poor unlucky soul they were, wasn't ready for Ji-won.
Thank god for small mercies, at least it wasn't hard to figure out who it was. Ji-won just wasn't the type of person who paid attention to other people. So when Julian spotted him watching Yeong-sik, with this mysterious little smile on his face...
Julian was tired. He was just so, so tired. In fact, he wasn't sure he could handle this one alone.
So that was how he ended up with Sol and Se-jin, all three of them gathered in the hyungs' room. "Look," he said. "What I'm about to tell you can't leave this room, okay? But I, uh... I need your help with something," Julian said. He was already grimacing. But, damn it, if he was going to even begin to instruct Ji-won how not to scare the ever loving crap out of Yeong-sik, then he was going to need all the help he could get.