onf: if the door were to open (2021)

[staygame]

if the door were to open (ao3 link, see original work for author's notes) | onf, hyojin/j-us, teen, 4.2k words
tags: canon compliant, friendship growing pains (to lovers), no archive warnings apply
written for: kpop ficmix 2021, original work here

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Seungjun meets Hyojin for the first time outside of their school, waiting to pass uniform check. He remembers it like an old photograph, yellowed with time, a slight blur to their motions as though neither of them were ready for the click of an imaginary shutter. Seungjun with his purple backpack and bowl cut, and Hyojin, two centimeters taller back then and teeth too big for his mouth.

He's grown into his teeth by the time they meet again. Seungjun's stomach lurches when he spots Hyojin across the room on his first day at the vocal academy. He feels acutely aware of the massive pimple on his chin and his awkward limbs, but mostly, he feels relieved to see a familiar face, a lifeline among the other idol hopefuls.

Since then, they've never been apart. Sometimes Seungjun imagines them as a pair of trees who've grown together, like if someone were to dig them out of the WM dirt, they'd find their roots fused and overlapping, the two of them stretching up to the sky together. Unextractable, at this point. Only able to reach these heights because of each other.

In the middle of a movie one night, Hyojin nudges him. "Do you realize," he says, voice low and quiet, "we've been friends for half of our lives?"

Seungjun has been half-asleep since before the end of the opening credits. It takes a moment for the words to filter through his fatigue, but when they do, he smiles. He tugs their shared blanket up to his chin and mumbles back, "I think we'll be friends forever, Hyojinnie."





Hyojin's first crush is Pyo Yujin. She's the class president in another homeroom and she has no less than five boys interested in her by the third month of school. She turns down Hyojin's confession on a Thursday afternoon and Seungjun is late to cram school because he is too busy rubbing Hyojin's back through his tears.

Seungjun never liked Pyo Yujin anyway. “She’s silly anyway," he tells Hyojin. "Haven’t you noticed her socks never match?” Today she was wearing one purple sock and one blue, which Seungjun noticed because he was watching Hyojin's confession from around the corner. He doesn't tell Hyojin this, but he'd hoped she would say no.

“Your socks never match either,” Hyojin whines.

"That's different," Seungjun says.

Seungjun's first crush is Hyojin, but his first kiss is a hyung named Park Wooram. It happens on the campus soccer field, a dry brush of lips that's more curious than anything else. The kiss feels like the highlight of Seungjun's week, until he meets Hyojin again and his dormant crush is forced awake and he forgets all about Wooram.

He is aware that teenagers are not known for being experts on love, but the more time they spend together, the more that Seungjun is sure—as sure as he is about becoming a singer—of his feelings for Hyojin.





After they become trainees, Seungjun learns that knowing someone so well is both good and bad. It's a blessing when Hyojin sees the cracks in Seungjun's armor before anyone else, when he calls a break and lets Seungjun collapse into him. It's a curse when they know how to press each other's buttons so effectively that Seungjun and Hyojin once spend three days not talking while Changyoon, allergic to awkwardness, shoots increasingly uncomfortable looks between them.

Throughout it all, his crush is background noise. Easy to ignore most of the time, except when everything else around him is quiet and it's suddenly so loud that Seungjun wonders how he didn't notice.

In those quiet moments, he looks over at Hyojin and feels something tugging on his insides, tight enough to squeeze all the air out of his lungs.





Berlin is the first time it's been just the two of them in a while. Twelve hours in the air plus an obnoxiously long layover in Paris, then as soon as they land in Germany they're dragged to the first shooting location. It's the middle of the night in Berlin, but early morning in Seoul and Seungjun's body has no idea what to do with these incompatible cues. He's weirdly hyped but also yawning throughout all of hair and makeup, fucking up the makeup artist's careful tightline and the second attempt.

Hyojin dozes off while his hair is being straightened and Seungjun snaps several pictures, sending them to the ONF group chat. It's probably going to be a meme for at least a week until someone else's unflattering picture becomes the new running gag.

When Hyojin wakes up, he spams a series of angry KKT stickers and then attempts to chase Seungjun around their makeshift dressing room. There's nowhere for Seungjun to go and he ends up pinned in the corner, Hyojin's fingers searching for vulnerable places to dig in and finding a soft spot under Seungjun's ribs.

"Hyojin-sshi," their stylist calls out, sounding tired but amused. "Please don't wrinkle his shirt."

They should've outgrown this childish poking and prodding a long time ago, but they're both so easy to get a rise out of. Besides, Seungjun is always secretly delighted by this exact moment—when Hyojin is focused entirely on Seungjun, his gaze narrow and determined. Seungjun wants to live in that moment, to press pause on everything around them and lean in and kiss Hyojin's scowl.

As it is, Seungjun takes advantage of the distraction to slip out from Hyojin's grip. He smooths a hand down the front of his t-shirt. "See, no wrinkles, noona."

Filming lasts all the way from sunrise to sunset. It's a blur of posing and running and bang touch ups and worrying about whether or not he's adequately portraying the emotions of some storyline he's not sure he (or anyone else) understands. To commemorate the end, Seungjun takes a final picture of Hyojin's back and outstretched arms against a blue and orange sky.





The next day is supposed to be their free day. They'd sat down together in the dorm and made a whole plan, but neither of them accounted for the fog of sleep deprivation and it's only an hour into the morning when Hyojin has to shove the camera into the hands of one of the managers, away from their fight.

"You're always like this," Hyojin snaps. "You want to be in charge but when you are, you have no idea what you're doing."

Seungjun grits his teeth; Hyojin's words—you're always like this—prickle at his skin. "I could say the same for you. Why don't you get us there, huh?" He waves his phone, still open to the maps app, in front of Hyojin. "Here. If you know what you're doing."

"Guys," the other manager tries to cut in. A family of western tourists, clearly attempting to eavesdrop despite the language barrier, has to weave around them on the sidewalk.

"Or you could just let me figure it out instead of getting impatient," Seungjun says.

"You are so—"

Their manager steps between them with a very exhausted sigh. "There is a Starbucks up the street. You'll feel better after coffee."

While the managers are in line for the bathroom, Hyojin pulls up a chair beside Seungjun at the counter by the window, where Seungjun is watching a pigeon peck at a Starbucks pastry wrapper. Their knees bump under the counter. Hyojin says, "I want this to be fun."

It's not an apology, but Seungjun recognizes a truce when he hears one. He looks away from the pigeon, to Hyojin's earnest face. "Let's have fun, then," he says.

Hours later, only their second Berlin sunset even though, mentally, Seungjun feels like he's been here for a week, they settle down for dinner at an outdoor cafe. Hyojin had insisted they drink a German beer and Seungjun's tired and a little cold and a little tipsy as they eat, but Hyojin's body is warm next to him.

"This was your first trip, right?" he asks. "Your first trip and it's with me. Isn't that great?"

"It's great," Hyojin says, and his lack of enthusiasm makes Seungjun laugh out loud. "But no, I liked it. Honestly, I think I've done a lot of things for the first time with you."

Seungjun's hands still on his fork and knife. He needs a list, fully annotated with citations and diagrams, Hyojin's full account of the things that only the two of them share. "Tell me the specifics."

"My first time debuting," Hyojin says. "My first time on stage was with you."

"You're right," Seungjun says, and it's only in the taxi home that he realizes why the conversation's left an acidic taste in his throat. He wants so many more firsts with Hyojin. Firsts he's been trying and failing to grasp at for years, never quite within his reach.





It's easy, sometimes, for Seungjun's longing to tip over into bitterness. He finds himself looking at Hyojin and thinking, if you know me so well, why don't you know this? Come on, you act like you can predict my every move. Well? Did you predict this?





Seungjun has always thrived on attention. Really, no one becomes an idol unless they like a little attention, but Seungjun loves it. Entertaining crowds, charming PDs, making new friends. It's why he leaves the first day of Road to Kingdom filming with a dozen new KKT contacts. Everyone is nice, even in the face of competition, but it's Hwitaek who seems to take to Seungjun the most.

Truthfully, he's a little starstruck the first time they're alone together, waiting for refills at the Cube Cafe counter, but for all of Hwitaek's genius, he's mostly just a normal guy. Loud and funny and eager, surprisingly easy to talk to.

They keep in touch after Road to Kingdom ends. Hwitaek always replies in the middle of the night, finally leaving work at the same time Seungjun's getting up to head to the salon. "He's trying to do everything before he has to enlist," Hyunggu had told Seungjun during filming as they watched Hwitaek slumped over on a waiting room couch. "He says he'll have time to rest when he's serving."

On a night when their schedules finally align, Hwitaek invites Seungjun out for a drive.

Hwitaek drives them to the outskirts of Seoul, following the highway along the river until they reach an isolated little stretch and Hwitaek pulls off the road. They're far enough away out here that when Seungjun looks up through the moonroof, he can actually see stars.

"Are you from Seoul?" Seungjun asks.

Hwitaek shits in his seat, stretching his arms up to the ceiling. "Gwacheon," he says. "So basically Seoul. It's nice to get away sometimes, you know?"

"Yeah. I miss traveling. We were supposed to go to Thailand for our music video, but obviously that wasn't happening."

"You guys have the coolest music videos," Hwitaek says, and Seungjun tries not to go giddy over the compliment. "You get to go to all these places. Our company is not spending that kind of money on us."

Seungjun scoffs. "Well they should. It's what you deserve."

"Eh, not their style," Hwitaek says, shrugging.

They talk about music videos for a while, exchanging horror stories about wardrobe malfunctions and broken props and the time that Pentagon managed to lose Yan An on a set. Hwitaek loves his members; it's obvious in the way he talks about them, the warmth in his tone and his reflexive smile.

"Which member have you known the longest?" Seungjun asks.

"Changgu," Hwitaek says. "He actually joined Cube two weeks after me. And Hyunggu was already there. So that's, what? Seven years now?"

"That's a long time," Seungjun says.

"Not as long as you and Hyojin."

It takes Seungjun a long time to respond. Hwitaek's left the car running to give them a bit of cool air, but the engine is nearly silent. A song plays softly over the speakers, its volume too low for Seungjun to make out anything besides a faint melody. "Have you ever felt a little trapped by how well someone knows you?" he finally asks.

"Oh," Hwitaek says. "Um, maybe."

"Like you'll never be able to change their impression of you? Like you're always going to be a certain way to them?" The more he tries to articulate the feeling, the further it feels from the tip of his tongue, something he's never tried to put a name on until now.

Hwitaek looks thoughtful for a moment, head tilted up toward the expanse beyond the moonroof as he thinks. Then he says, "Like when your dad and your hyung go fishing without you, and when you ask why they didn't ask you, they say that you never wanted to go before. But maybe that was the time you were going to change your mind." He looks back at Seungjun. "Kind of like that?"

Seungjun laughs a little because he's made things awkward. "I guess. Maybe I should accept that things aren't going to change."

"Hey," Hwitaek says, bumping Seungjun's knee with his fist. "Aren't you more stubborn than that?"

For how much longer, Seungjun wonders.







Hyojin is weird when Seungjun gets back from spending time with Hwitaek, though Seungjun can't tell if it's annoyance at being left out of the loop or—or what else, he's not sure. Whatever. That's Hyojin's problem.

Then, the next morning, as Seungjun is trying to stretch out a crick in his neck, Yuto pokes his head into Seungjun's bunk and says, "Hyojin hyung was looking for you last night."

"He really thinks he's my mom, huh?" Seungjun huffs.

Yuto twists his mouth, thinking. "I don't know. Maybe he missed you."

"We spent eight hours together yesterday," Seungjun says. His neck is still stiff when he turns it to the left. Last week, he'd whined about his lower back when getting up from the couch and Hyojin had joked look, we're turning into old men, which made Seungjun imagine them as a pair of ahjussis, still walking a shared path. Now, he stands and rolls his shoulders one last time. "Gosh, I'm so handsome that people can't stand not being near me."

"Don't flatter yourself," Yuto says.

Seungjun clutches his chest and stumbles backward like he's been stabbed. "Yuto, you wound me."

Yuto doesn't dignify this with a response.





Hwitaek is rarely available at normal human hours because, as Seungjun has gathered, that's usually when he's sleeping off a previous all-nighter. It's always after Seungjun's finished practice for the night that he goes out with Hwitaek. Tonight, he's shoving a baseball cap over his filthy hair when he runs into Jaeyoung on his way out of the building.

"You leaving?" Jaeyoung asks.

"I'm hanging out with Hwitaek hyung," Seungjun says.

Jaeyoung looks like maybe he wants to say something else, but he just nods. "Tell hyung I said hi."

It's drizzling when Seungjun slips into Hwitaek's car, but it's a full-blown downpour by the time Hwitaek merges onto the highway. He's quiet with concentration and Seungjun closes his eyes, listening to the sound of fat raindrops hitting the windshield and cars passing by on either side. He's reminded of the time they'd driven back from a concert in Daegu in the rain, seven of them then. Seungjun remembers stirring when the manager pulled into a rest stop to refuel, rolling over in his seat to look at Hyojin, half of his face illuminated by the gas station lights overhead. He doesn't remember reaching for Hyojin's hand, but apparently he did, because Minkyun had snapped a picture of their intertwined fingers hanging down between their seats. Seungjun acted embarrassed, but he saved the photo to his phone.

"Are you asleep?"

Hwitaek's voice is amused. When Seungjun squints his eyes open, the car is already parked at the little spot by the river.

"No," Seungjun says. Then, after a yawn, "Maybe."

"No worries, sleep is good for you," Hwitaek says.

Seungjun reaches for the iced Americano that Hwitaek had brought him, wet with cold condensation. "Is that what we call irony?" He takes a long sip. "How's that thing you're working on coming?"

"Which thing?" Hwitaek asks. "I've got a lot of balls in the air."

True, which is why Seungjun, for all of his effort to be a good friend, can't keep up with them. "The one that you were having trouble with."

Hwitaek walks Seungjun through his solution to this one problematic bit of a song he's been working on, playing it over his phone speaker. Even with only Hwitaek's voice on the guide, Seungjun can already tell it'll be a hit.

"And how's it going with your—" Hwitaek pauses, cheeks puffed out in thought—"friend?"

"Ah," Seungjun says. He looks down at his cup, rattling around the slivers of ice left in his drink at this point. "Same old, same old."

"You know," Hwitaek starts, voice soft. Seungjun wonders if it's his leader voice, the one reserved for breakdowns thirty minutes before showtime or episodes of homesickness that feel insurmountable. "It's okay to acknowledge when you're not getting what you want out of a relationship. It's okay to get it from somewhere else."

There's a dull pang right in the center of Seungjun's chest when Hwitaek curls a hand around his arm. Seungjun recognizes the undercurrent that's been building for the last month and he wants to want to give in, but he knows his heart wouldn't be in it. He'd apparently rather be a 25-year-old virgin than move on from something that doesn't seem like it will ever happen. He'd admire the strength of his conviction if it wasn't so pathetic.

"Thank you, hyung," Seungjun says, patting Hwitaek's hand. "I'll keep that in mind."

Seungjun doesn't need to say anything else. Hwitaek nods, knowingly. "Want to hear the song Hyunggu's been working on?" he asks. Subject changed.





Seungjun wakes up after everyone else the next day. He'd gotten home late enough that he'd quietly slipped into bed without remembering to set an alarm, then slept through both Yuto's and Jaeyoung's. He follows the sounds of breakfast out of the room, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"There's extra on the stove, hyung," Yuto says.

"Thank you," Seungjun says, ruffling Yuto's damp hair as he slips behind his chair. "I was out late with Hwitaek. I overslept."

There's a clatter from the sink, the sharp sound of something breaking that silences everyone in the room. Hyojin turns wordlessly, leaving the kitchen before Seungjun even has time to react.

"What's up his ass?" Seungjun wonders aloud.

A look passes first between Changyoon and Jaeyoung, then across the table to Yuto before landing on Minkyun, who is still holding a spoonful of doenjang jjigae up to his mouth.

"Who knows?" Changyoon says. "Sit, eat. I'll clean it up."

Thirty minutes later, when they're all climbing into the van, Hyojin shoves his earbuds in and doesn't acknowledge anyone else. This leaves Seungjun itching to rip out one of Hyojin's earbuds and toss it out the window, to shake his shoulders and remind him that he's not Seungjun's mother, and if he's mad that Seungjun stayed out too late than he should say it to his face instead of breaking their plates. But Seungjun doesn't know how to have this conversation without it devolving into a shouting match, so he just puts his own earbuds in and hopes the weirdness won't linger for the whole day.





If Seungjun had been paying more attention, maybe he could've put the pieces together. He'd always been paying attention before, picking up on the defeat in Hyojin's voice after a recording session when everyone else thought he was fine, registering that odd look on his face as give me that cake right the fuck now. After a decade of friendship, these things are second nature.

But Seungjun's spent most of the year training himself to stop noticing Hyojin so much, and besides, the pieces don't match the picture on the front of any puzzle Seungjun recognizes.

Which is to say that he has no idea why Hyojin is mad at him.

"I'm not ignoring you," Hyojin says to the ceiling. He'd been lying here on the floor when Seungjun walked in, glaring up at the ceiling like it'd done something to mortally offend him, and then he'd ignored Seungjun's attempt to make conversation.

Seungjun lies down beside him. "You've been weird for weeks. You know you can tell me anything."

"Like you tell me everything?" Hyojin rolls over, now looking at Seungjun like he's done something to mortally offend him.

"Uh, yeah?"

Hyojin sits up, tugging annoyedly at the back of his sweat-damp shirt. "You didn't tell me about your dates with Hwitaek, for one."

"What is this about?" Seungjun asks. He sits up too, but then Hyojin is standing, leaving Seungjun to scramble up after him. "I'm sorry, but you didn't really give me the impression that you wanted to hear about them."

"You're right," Hyojin says. "I don't care. I don't care who you're fucking anyway."

Seungjun takes a step back on instinct. He opens his mouth but all that comes out is a gasp. It's so far from the direction he thought this conversation was heading that he can't believe it for a second, not until Hyojin tries to apologize, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"No," Seungjun says, loud in the empty practice room, loud enough for Hyojin to flinch. "No, you don't get to do this. You don't get to act jealous now when I've spent our entire friendship waiting for you to see me differently."

Hyojin attempts to reach for him, but Seungjun sidesteps him, sneakers squeaking on the hardwood floor. "We're just friends. We've just been talking. It's nice, you know, to talk to someone who doesn't see me as the same kid they knew at fourteen. I've been waiting our whole friendship for you to see me as anything else."

"I don't—"

"I haven't been fucking Hwitaek hyung," Seungjun says, throwing his hands up in the air. "I haven't been fucking anyone."

There is a long moment of silence. Without righteous anger filling his chest, Seungjun deflates. He's on the verge of tears, face hot and legs trembling, and the admission feels like it's been scraped out of him with something rusty. "He's listened to me talk about what it's like to be in love with your stupid best friend."

This time, when Hyojin reaches for him, Seungjun lets him take his hand. He remembers holding hands on the bus ride to audition for WM. One kid who'd tied a string around the other's heart, never letting go, even when the string was pulled taut enough to snap. He'd always been sure, for better or worse.

"How long?" Hyojin asks.

Seungjun laughs weakly. "The first morning we met. You probably don't even remember."

"We were just kids then," Hyojin says, like he can't believe it.

"You had those big front teeth," Seungjun says. He smiles automatically at the memory. "I thought you were cute."

Hyojin tugs Seungjun forward by his hand, until they're standing toe to toe. Seungjun watches the bob of Hyojin's adam's apple as he swallows. "Your bookbag was purple," Hyojin says, looking at Seungjun with wide, serious eyes. "We were waiting at uniform check and you turned around and smiled at me. I do remember."

Hope wells up in Seungjun's throat and he finds it hard to breathe. "How long?" he asks, voice coming out in a whisper.

"Berlin," Hyojin says.

Seungjun shoves Hyojin in the chest, and Hyojin lets out a surprised burst of laughter. "It took you until Berlin to fall in love with me? That was only last year."

"No," Hyojin says, catching both of Seungjun's hands in his. "I think I've probably loved you since we were kids. I'm sorry if I took that for granted."

"Don't do it again," Seungjun warns. He tips his head forward onto Hyojin's shoulder, breathing in his familiar scent.

"You're my best friend," Hyojin says and Seungjun squeezes so hard that Hyojin lets out a little oof sound. They haven't hugged like this in ages.

Hyojin leans back. "Hey. Do you remember when we were at dinner in Berlin and we talked about how we've had all our firsts together. And you said you'd had firsts without me?" Hyojin asks, and Seungjun nods. "What did you mean by that?"

"I took my driving test without you," Seungjun says.

"That's not—" Hyojin steps on Seungjun's foot to emphasize his complaint—"That doesn't count. I thought it was something important. Do you know how long I wondered about that?"

Seungjun grins. "Here, I'll make it up to you. I thought of another first we could share."

"What's that?" Hyojin asks, but the last syllable is cut off when Seungjun kisses him. Seungjun feels Hyojin's hands coming to cup his face, holding him like he's something delicate. Which is sweet and all, but Seungjun wants so much more.

Before Seungjun can attempt to get Hyojin to deflower him right here on the practice room floor, Hyojin pulls back. "I really need to shower," he says, starting to gather his things.

"First shower together?" Seungjun offers.

Hyojin looks up from zipping his bag. "Pretty sure we already checked that off the list years ago," he points out.

Seungjun winks. "First time with a happy ending."