Chapter Text
The wind was so strong it made the pillows from the balcony chair blow off. The windows rattled so hard that both occupants of the apartment felt like they would break at any moment.
Yesterday's weather forecast did not predict a day such as today. But then again, last week, when it predicted rainy afternoons, the sun had been so bright and the weather so unbearably hot that most of their downtime had been spent inside the climate-controlled studio, sitting on the floor under the vent while they brainstormed verses for a couple of new solo songs.
"We forgot to take the pillows inside, hyung," Hyunjin said after 15 minutes of staring at the windows from his vantage point under a mountain of blankets on the living room couch. " I hope you were not attached to them, because they flew away towards the apartment building to the left."
"Both of them flew off?" Was Changbin's mumbled reply, not looking towards either the windows or at Hyunjin. His gaze was distracted by the tablet he was holding in a vice grip in his hands. "Shame, the orange one was really comfy."
Changbin's uncharacteristic quietness made Hyunjin turn towards the older. "What are you doing Binnie? Is everything alright?" The frown on Changbin's face said otherwise, but Hyunjin's caring nature, especially towards the older, pushed him to get an answer even if his frown indicated to other people, the less Binnie-savvy ones, to run for the hills.
Hyunjin stood from the couch, the cozy blankets falling to the ground, one trapping his ankle and making him stumble a couple of steps before he paused to pick it up and pull it over him like a medieval cape.
"Bin, you are staring at that tablet like it personally offended you and your entire family. What's wrong?" He asked as he reached Changbin and draped himself over his back, pulling the blanket over both their arms and thus disconnecting Changbin's hands from the device.
"I was reading my emails," Changbin stated after several minutes of silence. Hyunjin liked to let his hyung take his time to form his thoughts. When pressured into talking about his feelings, Changbin often dismissed others' insistence on needing to open up, claiming his inner thoughts were unimportant. And Hyunjin got hurt after those dismissals, believing himself to be less important in Changbin's life, and closing himself off to the others' affection after the big emotions were done populating the older's brain.
After years of knowing eachother and living through echothers ups and downs, Hyunjin thinks he has his Binnie all figured out, so, waiting until the other feels ready to talk about what's going on inside his head is often the go to, if anything else, it will give them both time to think before they do or say something they can both regret.
"My cousin is getting married, and they sent an invite. My family wants to meet my partner." Changbin finally said, his hands reaching for the younger's arms and holding tight, not enough to bruise, but close enough.
"Your... partner?" Hyunjin, feeling like he had been slapped across the face, tried to pull back, only to be forced to slump back over Changbin by the elder's grip on him. He laughed a little, trying to calm his racing heart. Was the room getting smaller? "Hah. So you have a secret girlfriend you haven't told us anything about?" The room was definitely getting smaller.
"Not a girlfriend," Changbin mumbled. He kept his hold on Hyunjin's arms, but his hands were getting clammy, and he was lightly shaking. "A wife." He continued, his voice getting smaller and smaller. "Last year, I was talking to them about the possibility of getting split into dorms of 2. And I said I was happy about it because I just wanted to live with my wife in peace."
"Oh," Hyunjin said smartly, after much consideration. "You mentioned me? To your cousins?" All of his previous anxiety promptly turned into giddy excitement. His Binnie. The actual love of his life (Do Not let Changbin know that) is talking about him to his extended family?! "You don't think management will give us enough off days? Is that why you are worried? I'm sure we can figure it out!" He continued, talking a mile a minute. " We can even make a whole trip out of it! I will also need to get a new suit. More wedding appropriate, less award show flashy." His words left Changbing processing, clearly confused about the younger's sudden excitement. "We can get matching ties, or maybe complementary colors? What do you think?"
"Jinnie, you don't understand. I told them we were married." Changbin stood up from the chair, effectively pushing Hyunjin away from him and making him stumble back, once again getting his legs trapped in the blanket. He quickly reached for Hyunjin and helped him stabilize himself. Now, looking directly at him, face to face and holding hands, he could no longer hide the anxiety he was surely feeling.
Hyunjin looked at him fondly and held his hand a little tighter in small intermittent pulses. And that seemed to take Changbin out of the fog inside his head. "We are coworkers, friends for sure, roommates. But that's it. I can't ask that much of you." With every word out of Changbin's mouth, Hyunjin felt his spirit being broken more and more. Coworkers? Roommates? Is that all he is to his hyung? His eyes felt heavy with unshed tears, and he slowly started to lower his arms until he was able to shake Changbin's hands from his grip, instead holding on to the blanket once more and covering his whole body until only a small portion of his face could be seen.
"Well, you didn't ask. I just assumed, so that's on me,” Hyunjin said with a pout on his lips. “I didn't even want to go to a wedding to begin with…."
"No, that's not what I'm trying to say, Jinnie." Changbin tried to reach for him, but Hyunjin had already turned around and taken a couple of steps towards his room to better hide the tears running down his face. "I want you to go with me, anywhere and everywhere. But I can't ask you to pretend to be something you are not because I messed up at one family dinner and my cousins won't forget about the things I say at three am while drunk in our grandma's backyard." He chuckled nervously, and that made Hyunjin turn to look back at him. That was so unlike his hyung, the always loud and self-confident Changbin was now looking at the floor and twisting his fingers together in a way so anxiety ridden it made him reconsider the older's loud personality and put it in a new light.
"I was drunk, and I was missing you, and we always talk about each other like that, you know?" He continued, taking small, nervous looks towards him. "But then my cousin started asking questions about my wife, saying how come I had never introduced them to my partner, and I felt pressured? I guess? Everyone our age is already getting married and starting families. I tried to explain, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was more and more details about you, and us, until my sister figured out I was actually talking about you."
The dam broke, and for the first time in what could be the entirety of their friendship, all of Changbin's thoughts came barreling out of his mouth, burying them deeper and deeper in an explanation so painfully awkward that Hyunjin's sadness once more was replaced by fondness over his hyung. His facial expressions getting funnier and funnier by the second.
"Then of course, all of them know I'm an idol, so they started saying how they understood why I hadn't said anything, that they were honored I was finally opening up to them. My sister was looking at me funny so I do think she also figured out I was talking out of my drunk ass" Changbin looked at Hyunjin once more, and after seeing his expression change from sadness to something resembling contained laughter, he squared his shoulders and made direct eye contact, reaching his hands to pull the improvised blanket hoodie off from the younger's face.
"I was then too distracted by talking about us to clarify that we are not actually together. And then we jumped topics so much that I ended up not saying anything at all. I hoped they had forgotten about it. I certainly could not remember much of that night's conversation until much later, and by then I figured they had forgotten for sure." He finished. Taking a deep breath and holding Hyunjins gaze, as if trying to decipher what he was thinking, and if he was going to have to leave the apartment in extreme weather conditions to go to the convenience store and procure snacks to beg for forgiveness.
"Apparently not," Hyunjin said with a little smile on his face. His brain was already formulating a million and one ideas on how to help his hyung get out of this predicament.
"Apparently not," Changbin replied, a tentative smile on his face. "So now I'm here, thinking about how I can get out of telling them I lied, or owning up to it and facing my whole family-"
"You don't have to tell them, hyung." Hyunjin interrupted. He reached for his shoulders, shaking the older a little bit as he swayed back and forth from heel to heel. "We are already so close, you call me your wife all the time," he continued, all of the thoughts that plagued his brain since 10 seconds ago, but also since forever, rushing out of his mouth. " We already act all clingy, and your parents already like me. We can totally pass as a married couple, and no one needs to know."
"My parents will know, and my sister. I can't do that to my mom and pretend I actually got married without her knowing, it would crush her," Changbin said, and he seemed to be considering all of the possibilities as if this elaborate plan was indeed going to go into motion. "She would literally hate me forever."
"Then we say something else. Say we are only engaged, and that you got excited about me being your wife, that you started calling me that before we even signed the paperwork. " Hyunjin retreated his hold on Changbin's shoulders and started pacing the room. His improvised cape trailing behind him like a movie villain's sentient wardrobe. " We can go get a couple of rings. We certainly have lots of pictures of us two out for dinner and on other trips. We can twist some stories around, make up a fake engagement tale, a small photoshoot, easy." Hyunjin finally stopped and turned to look at his Binnie. He looked so small. Shoulders hunched and sight lost in the carpet under the coffee table as if he was hoping to disappear into the threads if he stared hard enough.
"You would do that for me?" He said after a moment of silence, turning his sight up to just barely look at Hyunjin's eyes. "It's too much to ask, and you are always so busy with schedules and-"
"Never too busy, not for you, Bin," Hyunjin said so earnestly, so determined to help, that Changbin's face turned all the way up to face him after hearing the conviction in the younger's voice. "I'm offering to help. In fact, I would be offended if you were faking being married to someone else." A little too earnest. A lot, actually.
Changbin's little giggle made all of the embarrassment his burst of honesty worth it.
"I would never even consider fake marrying anyone else. You know that, right?" Changbin replied. Reaching his hand to tuck a stray hair from Hyunjin's face behind his ear.
Hyunjin's eyes were watering. His hands were shaking. All pretenses gone. He knew he would do anything for this man, requited romantic love or not. But to hear this type of confession from him ignited the hope inside of him ten times over. "Not even Yongbokkie?" He asked, and even if his mind was pushing him to doubt, his soul already knew the answer he was going to get. His Binnie was always earnest with him.
"Not even him, I'm a loyal man." Changbin replied. With so many different emotions crossing through his eyes, his sight never wavered from Hyunjins. He felt like fainting, so small, yet larger than life. The older tilted his head to the side, never having taken his hand from close to Hyunjin's neck.
Sighing softly, Hyunjin let his cheek rest in Changbin's hand and closed his eyes. "Good, good to know." He said, his brain already fuzzy with a happiness so indescribable he felt like he might explode if he contained it a moment longer.
They remained quiet for a moment. Both savoring the feeling of being close to the other, of the possibility of becoming even closer. After a while, a minute that felt like hours, Hyunjin opened his eyes and softly asked, "So... matching rings?" With a little smile on his face, he added, "And a photoshoot. White suits. And dinner after that." Changbin could only giggle, the emotions-packed day taking a toll on him.
Thunder and lightning could be heard in the background, but in that moment, the only thing they could both hear was each other's soft breaths and the clock on the wall ticking softly. The older smiled and lifted both of his hands to take Hyunjin's face in between them, softly squishing his cheeks.
"Anything for my wife."