Familiar Strangers

1

a/n pretend youngk and jae's apartment looks like monica and rachel's in friends lmao

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"you hoes better like my new instagram post because i'm serving VISUALS!" proclaimed im junhyeok as he entered younghyun and jaehyung's apartment, without knocking first nor actually being invited.

"told you we shouldn't have given all our friends a key to our apartment." jaehyung mumbled to younghyun, who was too busy furiously typing away on his laptop (finishing yet another late assignment) to take a glance at junhyeok's (arguably) 'extra' entrance.

"i can hear you, asshole!" junhyeok exclaimed while gracefully throwing himself, next to younghyun, onto the sofa which stood in the centre of the apartment.

younghyun and jaehyung (who, nowadays preferred going by 'jae') bought an apartment just big enough for the two of them when they first moved to seoul. it wasn't too extravagant nor was it too minimalistic. they were happy with the place for the most part. besides, younghyun was a full time university student with a part time job in a cafe, and the occasional tutor session.

whereas jae, had graduated the previous year but still stays with younghyun (or who jae insists everyone call 'brian') and has had various part time jobs to keep the income coming in. they helped and supported each other, like friends would, with anything the latter needed. it just worked that way.

"ah, i remember the good old days when people would KNOCK or at least text their friends if they could come over." said jae in a passive aggressive tone which was clearly directed to junhyeok, who wasn't listening to jae at all but was refreshing his instagram feed to see how many likes he got on his new post.

junhyeok went to the same university as younghyun but younghyun wasn't as popular as junhyeok. the older had a fairly large soundcloud following, which junhyeok took in his stride and embraced his fangirls and fanboys fully.

junhyeok playfully rolled his eyes at jae, who walked past the sofa and 'accidentally' hit the back is his head. "why hello there jae, i don't care if you're well or not but i do wish to ask you something." junhyeok spoke formally to his elder yet didn't break the intense eye contact with his phone screen.

"what is it you wish to ask me?" jae let out a pained sigh, not really wanting to deal with junhyeok's bullshit - he was running late for his shift at the thai restaurant around the corner from the apartment.

"i invited sungjin and dowoon round."

jae stopped putting on his jacket and gave junhyeok a confused look, "that wasn't a question?"

"i'm aware of that," junhyeok stated in a matter-of-factly tone, "i thought it'd be courteous of me to let you know." junhyeok gave his elder his famous innocent yet heartwarming smile.

jae returned a blank stare (internally he has swearing at the boy in both korean and english). jae let out a sigh of defeat, "fine, fine, but it's not my problem, i've got to go, my shift starts in about thirty seconds. just don't make too much noise, brian's trying to finish a paper. don't fuck up the place too much! love you!" and with that, jae slammed the door.

"love you too." younghyun faintly replied, still typing away.

juhyeok finally looked up from his phone and looked to younghyun, the older puppy-dog-pouted until younghyun eventually sighed and looked up at him.

"i know, i know, i'm being ridiculous and it'll never happen because he's my best friend and that's all i'll ever be to him, but a guy can dream right?" younghyun looked junhyeok dead in the eye, the latter returned a blank expression.

"not gonna lie younghyun, i wasn't listening, i was just watching your mouth go up and down and how your eyes lit up as you were talking about your one and only true love, mr chicken little himself." junhyeok gave a melodramatic sigh and an innocent smile.

"get the fuck out of my apartm-"

"I'M KIDDING, GOSH." junhyeok laughed at the younger getting wound up over his roommate, but he could understand the pain of liking your best friend. he was in love with park sungjin, to put it into junhyeok's words "it was as if jesus and van gough fucked and created the most perfect man alive."

in contrast to younghyun's dilemma, junhyeok 'had the balls' to ask sungjin out (even though they'd only been roommates for a couple of months) and they're currently dating, to put it into dowoon's words "the best thing to ever happen to the world since may 25th 2008 (shinee's debut)."

alas, upon hearing this story for the umpteenth time, younghyun still didn't believe it would happen to himself and jae. he mentally cursed at himself whenever he thought of jae. everything that boy did made his heart flutter in one way or another (except when he leaves the lid on the toilet seat up and forgets to brush his teeth - younghyun didn't excuse that bullshit just because he was in love with him).

as junhyeok was telling the "gay and korean" version of "romeo and juliet", inside came park sungjin (carrying an unopened bottle of vodka) and yoon dowoon (sporting a half drunken bottle of lemonade). junhyeok quickly (and thankfully) stopped telling the story and decided to greet his boyfriend.    

"well, well, well, if it isn't korean jesus himself!"

"hi junhyeok-hyung?"

"dowoon, sweetie, he was talking to me, i'm his boyfriend." park sungjin told the younger as they entered the room, without knocking, however they were invited (for once).

junhyeok and sungjin greeted each other very passionately, which made yoon dowoon roll his eyes as "they did this all the time" and he took junhyeok's seat next to younghyun.

"hey hyung, another late assignment?" dowoon sarcastically asked his elder, younghyun gave him a death stare in reply. "anyways, how have you been? you've been ignoring the group chat more so than usual."

"he's still in love with jae!" junhyeok had clearly detached himself from sungjin and decided to embarrass  younghyun for about the millionth time since he entered his house.

"i just don't see why you can't just talk to him!" sungjin exclaimed while getting shot glasses out from the cupboard in the mini kitchen/dining area "you two are perfect together!"

"that's all you guys ever tell me to do, 'talk to him, it'll be okay', do you ever think about the fact that he'll only see me as a friend and i'll have to move because i'll be so embarrassed to even breathe the same air as him?" it went completley silent in the apartment, younghyun took that as a prompt to keep going, now fully disbanding his assignment.

"i don't even know how to talk or bring it up with him about it, if we talk about relationships or love he might end up saying he's still in love with seunghoon or something!"younghyun sighed deeply and put his head in his hands.

the atmosphere was tense. yes, everybody (except jae) knew about younghyun's feelings and the other guys just didn't get it. they just attempted to make younghyun believe his feelings were at least rational, which he believed for a while but it got old and younghyun fell more into an endless pit of despair, realising jae would never feel the same. 

"listen younghyun, i know it may seem like we don't understand what you're going through, but we do. and i know we make a lot of snide comments about it but we really want to make you and jae work, we'll listen to you and try to help you, only if you want us to of course."

sungjin was always the voice of reason, the group joked around with the idea they'd become a band and he'd be the 'leader.' but, for the most part, he was very encouraging, kind, caring and a very good listener - all qualities of a leader.

"thanks hyung," younghyun paused, a somewhat comfortable silence came over the group,

"now let's get fucking wasted."

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semi proof read

thoughts?