[10]

163 9 14
                                    

+x+

Later that afternoon when Soobin walks into the building where they're shooting their next To Do episode, he's immediately mobbed by the kids.

"Hyung, your hair!"

"It's so shiny!"

They clamber all over him, fighting each other off to get to be the one to touch his hair first. Kai eventually wins out — or maybe Soobin just happens to lean in his direction, because he's not ashamed to say he has a soft spot for their maknae.

"It's so pretty," Kai says wondrously, petting him, hilariously unbothered by how crunchy it must be to the touch from the bleach. "Hyung, look!"

Yeonjun had hung back whilst the younger members rushed him, hands in his pockets as he watches them, amused. Now they all turn to look expectantly at him, Taehyun and Beomgyu hanging off Soobin's arms whilst Kai plays with his hair.

"I'm looking."

A shiver runs down Soobin's spine.

"It suits him, doesn't it?" Taehyun asks, because he's evil. Soobin takes back anything nice he ever thought about him.

"It does," Yeonjun agrees, a soft smile tugs his lips upward. Their eyes meet. "Hello."

"Hi."

"Good morning?" Yeonjun asks, like he hadn't been the one flirting with him and sending thirst traps for most of it.

"Yeah." Soobin half-smiles back, sees the answering glint in Yeonjun's eyes. "You could say that."

Beomgyu looks between them. "You're being weird."

Oh, right, they're not alone. Soobin pulls his gaze away from Yeonjun's and tugs his arms out of Beomgyu and Taehyun's grips. "Asking someone if they've had a good morning is weird?"

"It is when it's Yeonjun-hyung asking."

"Aigoo, Beomie, are you jealous?" Yeonjun coos, coming up behind him to wrap his arms around Beomgyu's waist. "Do you want me to ask you if you had a good morning too?"

"I had a great morning," Beomgyu snarks back as he wriggles out of his grasp, "Probably because I didn't have to spend it with you."

Yeonjun makes a great deal out of being wounded, hand pressed to his chest.

Soobin folds his arms. "That's no way to talk to your saviour," he points out. "How big was that bug in the kitchen this morning, again?"

He should have known better than to tease Beomgyu because immediately, Beomgyu turns on him, smirking. "You mean the one I came to ask Yeonjunie-hyung to help me with and found you—"

"Okay, let's get ready for the shoot shall we?" Soobin interrupts, raising his voice. Kai blinks at him quizzically and Taehyun raises his eyebrows. Hurriedly, Soobin places a hand on both their shoulders and starts leading them away. "We're going to be late to the shoot if we hang around chatting instead of getting ready—"

For the episode they have to bake in pairs, with one person blindfolded and the other giving instructions, the catch being that they're standing together, chest-to-back, with the blindfolded person behind and their arms reaching through the arms of the person in front, who can see but can't use their own arms.

When Soobin's name is called out of course it's with Yeonjun, who curls up behind him, chin resting on Soobin's shoulder. He threads his arms through Soobin's and murmurs, "This okay?" like Soobin's not imagining them pressed up together this close in an entirely different situation.

You'll also like

          

Soobin is instructed to put his hands behind his back, which puts them directly against Yeonjun's abs. He swallows and moves them lower to Yeonjun's belt instead, hooking his thumbs in the loops of his jeans. Yeonjun's breath wavers next to his ear.

Soobin turns his head slightly, and it's almost as close as they were this morning in Yeonjun's bed. "This okay?"

He tugs, gently, on the belt loops with his thumbs.

Yeonjun inhales sharply.

"Right!" announces one of the producers, "Let's begin!"

Yeonjun is in one of his more mischievous moods and refuses to listen to instructions, deliberately cracking an egg on the wrong edge of the bowl so it goes all over the counter, and knocking flour onto the floor. Apparently it looks hilarious from the front, like Soobin has no idea how to control his own arms, or so Kai tells them, MC for the episode and grinning.

"I'm going to kill you," Soobin mutters. Next to them, Taehyun and Beomgyu are absolute chaos, and Kai looks like he's going to wet himself, he's laughing so hard.

Yeonjun turns his mouth into Soobin's neck to hide his reply from the camera, "No you're not. You like me too much."

Which is far more true than he knows.

They move on to being allowed to bake together - without blindfolds - whilst Kai gives them instructions over a radio. It should be far easier to do than the previous challenge, only Kai isn't allowed to use any verbs when giving them instructions.

It goes about as well as expected.

With no verbs to tell him what to do, Yeonjun purposefully drops the eggs (uncracked) into the sugar, attempts to roll the butter with a rolling pin, and hacks at the flour with a knife, grinning.

Kai gets more and more frustrated as the recording goes on - Taehyun and Beomgyu, at the counter next to them, are just as bad - but Soobin finds it hard to be mad, when Yeonjun looks so adorable with mischief.

He attempts to admonish him, to at least give MOA the pretence he wants them to win, but all his complaints fall on deaf ears.

He should know better than to turn his back on Yeonjun with how he's been all day, but he does, surveying their cake and wondering what they can do to win. There's movement in his peripheral vision and then Yeonjun's fingers are grazing across his cheekbone, leaving a line of frosting across his face.

"Whoops," Yeonjun says, completely unrepentant.

Soobin narrows his eyes.

Without stopping to think he dips his own fingers into the frosting, then drags his hand down over Yeonjun's face.

Only he doesn't really think it through and as his hand slides down Yeonjun's face, his thumb catches on Yeonjun's bottom lip and he just sort of—freezes.

Yeonjun's eyes are dark, just like they were in the kitchen, and it's like there's no one else in the room, everything narrowing down to just the two of them.

"Bin-ah," Yeonjun says, and his voice is two octaves too low and there's a rasp to it. Too quiet for the cameras, too loud for Soobin's self-preservation.

He swallows. "Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

He could mean anything. The competition, the frosting, his hand still on the side of Yeonjun's face, thumb resting just below his lips. But Soobin knows he means something else, the nameless, formless thing between them that's been hovering there ever since this morning when they woke up in the same bed.

The Name Chapter: Yours | YEONBINWhere stories live. Discover now