Summer Crushes | Jeongchan

eight

"Cousin, as much as I enjoy watching you lose more braincells than you generate, please calm the fuck down." Hyunjin deadpans after more than an hour of watching Jeongin pace around the bedroom styling and re-styling himself in an effort to look more presentable than he already is.

Hyunjin was entertained at first, during the first half of the hour, until he grew bored of Jeongin circling his room and occasionally marching up to Hyunjin's in search of proper clothes to wear when he looked great in everything.

Now his room is a messㅡ more so than when he was unpacking all his stuff and moving into the roomㅡ with clothes piled up on the foot of his bed (it would have been piled up all over the bed if Hyunjin didn't make himself at home there), some of them Hyunjin's, which was what prompted the older of the two to get out of his own bed and jump into Jeongin's. He's watched Jeongin try on a number of outfits and swatch different colours of make-up on his face only to erase everything until he finally settled for a more shimmery version of his usual school make-up. Hyunjin personally likes how the glitter makes Jeongin's eyes pop but Jeongin is too pre-occupied to properly appreciate the compliment.

Jeongin glares at him through his dresser mirror. "You're one to talk. You cried before your first date with Seungmin."

Jeongin remembers trying not to laugh when a crying Hyunjin called him early one evening, ranting about how he "messed up. I shouldn't have asked him out on a date, why did he agree to go on a date with me, does he want to be disappointed?" and how Hyunjin had texted him early the next morning telling him that the date went really well and he had "no idea why I was so stressed out about it in the first place."

Hyunjin produces an embarrassed squeak he didn't know he was capable of making. He throws himself to a sitting position, ready to defend himself but only coming up with a nasally, "We don't talk about that."

"Yeah, well we're gonna start talking about it if you don't stop judging me for being nervous." Jeongin argues half-heartedly as he wipes away his lip gloss for the third timeㅡ he'll end up re-applying it again later, only to remove it after staring at it for too long that it looks too glossy in his eyes.

"You know, I was crying that day because Seungmin and I weren't really friends before we started dating. We knew nothing about each other that time, we were going into the whole thing blindly." Hyunjin sighs and stands up from his spot on Jeongin's bed. He steers his younger cousin away from the dresser and studies the uncharacteristic agitation lining Jeongin's expression. "You and Chan already got the friendship part down, and as much as you two fit together in that area, anyone can see that you're so so much better as something more."

"How are you so sure?" Jeongin's voice is so small that Hyunjin's heart almost breaks. He's not used to seeing Jeongin like this. "What if we were perfect as friends and then this date ruins all that?"

"That's not going to happen." Hyunjin re-assures him. "This is Chan, for crying out loud."

"Exactly." Jeongin purses his lips. "It's Chan."

"Exactly." Hyunjin half-mocks Jeongin, if only to convince him to relax. "Chan, who spoiled you for weeks when we were kids, and who spoils you now, too. There's little you can do that can make him change his mind about how completely and undeniably enamoured he is with you."

"How are you so sure?" Jeongin repeats his earlier question.

"I said it before and I'll say it again." Hyunjin takes a hold of Jeongin's shoulders to make him sit next to him. "Chan absolutely adores you;" he hesitates before he snorts. "then and now. And I know you know that too, you're not blind. And you hang out all the time with just the both of you, this isn't any differentㅡ"