Work Text:
Physical charming point.
“First of all,” Jeyou turns to Sungmin, who does the same. It’s no contest. Sungmin looks at him expectantly, smiling with anticipation. Jeyou wonders if Sungmin’s curious about what he’d say because there’s no hesitance in his mind. “His smiling eyes.”
The studio lights make Sungmin’s eyes shine like polished silver. “Smile for us.” For me. Sungmin turns to the camera and smiles and Jeyou wonders if any camera can capture the beauty in his eyes. “His smiling eyes are very charming.” Jeyou meets Sungmin’s eyes again.
Charming like the sparkling waves beckoning sailors to the sea. Jeyou would too, leave home and everything familiar for him. Packing up his things from Changwon, hugging his parents and sister goodbye to living in cramped Seoul in a cramped dorm with 9 other people and a manager, but that’s already happened. It’s just history. Now, Sungmin is home and Jeyou stands in the sea with the water up to his chest, waves glittering as far as he can see.
“That was fast.” Sungmin teases, grinning wide. Jeyou smiles back. It’s easy to forget that they’re not alone, that they’re in a studio with a dozen lights and eyes and cameras on them. That they’re never alone, that they’re not each other’s, can never be. But for the moment that Jeyou holds Sungmin’s gaze, he can pretend that those eyes are telling him that Sungmin loves him, really loves him without a contract expiration date.
“Next,” Jeyou hopes they cut the pause from the final video. “His shoulders.”
He wonders if Sungmin sees the same thing in Jeyou’s own round eyes. The ones he described as “full of grief,” because Jeyou’s in constant mourning. Every gasp of hope born from Sungmin’s fingers on his cheek dies every time Jeyou stops himself from leaning in to kiss him. Maybe Sungmin can see it, pain in the form of tears welled up behind his glassy eyes. Because every time Jeyou almost does, Sungmin doesn’t.
“Jeyou-hyung has had a crush on me since we were trainees,” Sungmin says, glancing at the camera with a knowing look. Jeyou doesn’t have time to react before it hits him like a wave. “I’ve been pretending not to know.” Jeyou’s lungs fill with water and salt is all he can taste.
Jeyou tries to paddle, tries to fight against the current. “No, say something you want to say to me.” It’s only due to the media training that he’s still putting up a normal front when Jeyou’s drowning, limbs dangling, and useless when the water toys with him like a twig. Sungmin turns to him and giggles a little, patting his other shoulder.
“You don’t have to hide your feelings anymore.” Sungmin accompanies it with a laugh, eyes glimmering, knowing. The sea hides its secrets under sun-lit waves and Sungmin hides his beneath sparkling eyes. Jeyou wonders when he first knew, when he first realized, but maybe Sungmin always did, the twinkle in his eye as a nod to the secret he’s always been able to see in Jeyou.
“I’m really speechless.” Jeyou turns back to the camera as if Sungmin hadn’t just put his deepest, darkest secret on the internet, to be immortalized forever. It’s surprising, the number of things you just have to be okay with, or at least put on your brave face for, when you’re in the industry.
“What do you want to say to me?” Sungmin grins. Three little words, just like their song. I love you, I love you, I love you, you.
“Jerome-ah,” Sungmin’s the only version of his name that feels right on his tongue, but Jeyou forces himself out of the habit for the camera. Their manager gets annoyed when any of them slips up. “Even when you tease me like this, I know you think about me and care about me.” Jeyou stares straight ahead at the camera because he can’t say this while facing Sungmin.
If he turns to Sungmin in the middle of his speech, looks into his eyes, with all the warmth and brightness and promise in them, Jeyou can’t be sure what he’d do. Because he wants to believe, more than anything.
“So I want to say thank you, and let’s be closer from now on.” It’s cheesy, it’s vague, it’s whatever the fans want to hear. But Jeyou turns, meets Sungmin’s eyes, and there’s something they exchange, beyond words.
Sungmin smiles. His eyes sparkle.