by crow » 02/19/2017 2:16 AM
Three weeks after the prank, and really, if someone asked about what was going on with him and Young-soo one more time, Chan-ho was going to lose it.
Though to be fair, it wasn't as if he couldn't see it coming. He and Young-soo were friends. It was a known fact among both the group members and the public at large, so of course they would notice if the two of them started avoiding each other. Or, you know, if Young-soo started avoiding Chan-ho, anyway. Chan-ho was a live and let live sort of guy. Yeah, sure, he liked the limelight, but he wasn't about to force himself where he clearly wasn't wanted.
What puzzled him was that he wasn't wanted. And it wasn't like he hadn't tried to test the waters either--- greetings when he came back into the dorm, nudging his shoulder to show him something funny he found on a fansite, the kind of little nothings that could be brushed off without raising a fuss. Chan-ho wasn't blind. He could tell Young-soo was pissed. He just hadn't expected it to last more than a little while.
But the more it dragged on, the more he could see other people watching him. Their worried looks ate at him until it was almost a physical itch. If you want to say it, just say it, he thought. And then they did, which wasn't any better.
"Hey, are you doing okay?" Hyun-jin--- because of course it was Hyun-jin--- started off nonspecific, and Chan-ho, perhaps out of frustration, responded in kind, until it wasn't 'are you okay' anymore but 'did something happen between you two' and 'I'm really worried about you'. It came from a good place, but it got to the point where Chan-ho started wondering if he was going to have to start avoiding Hyun-jin like Young-soo was avoiding him.
TK's approach was more direct, in that screwball TK kind of way. Sitting on the edge of Chan-ho's bunk, TK had shaken him awake at something like 4 AM and whispered, "Hyung, I can't marry you, okay? I really can't do it. So you and Soo hyung should hurry and stop fighting." At least he kept his voice down this time. Chan-ho had made a vague, indistinct noise and gone right back to sleep, because TK always made it easy. That was why he liked TK. But TK was watching them too, and TK didn't watch people, not really. So that meant it must have been pretty bad.
Even Jae noticed, which was really funny actually, because as a general rule Jae tried not to think about Young-soo's existence more than strictly necessary. It was better than it used to be, but he still wasn't exactly Young-soo's number one fan. After the sixth or tenth brush-off, he'd eyed Chan-ho and said, "Hyung." He didn't say anything else. He didn't have to. By that point Chan-ho was perfectly aware of what he was thinking--- what they were all thinking.
So he'd waited, until it was just him and Young-soo in the dorms again. Separate rooms, of course, as had become their habit in recent weeks. But Chan-ho took a deep breath and pushed up his usual smile, and walked into the living room. "Young-soo," he said. "Young-soo. Earth to Young-soo. You haven't gone deaf from your in-ears, have you?"