FORTE → SOONGYUHOON

DAY FIVE: comme des garçons

The gummy bear debacle has haunted Jihoon in the recesses of his subconscious for the last six months of his life.

The worst part of it was that every involved party was sober. It was spurred by pure insanity and poor impulse control, coupled with Seungcheol's bizarre obsession with putting Jihoon in compromising situations.

For the longest time, people avoided calling Jihoon 'cute.' For a guy, he's pretty short, and his baby face still shaves a few years off of him, so his friends like to pinch his cheeks and ruffle his hair. The thing, though, is that Jihoon doesn't like people pinching his cheeks and calling him cute. In a general sense, skinship just isn't his thing, and for a long time, people— even his friends— respected that.

Until the gummy bear incident.

The previously mentioned dare began around two in the morning during at Seungcheol's house where Junhui and Jihoon had slept over.

In a last ditch effort to take advantage of their winter break, the trio bought pizza for dinner the night before and walked to the nearest convenience store for a few bags of sweets. After pizza and a split bag of marshmallows, the three talked and talked until they passed out at ten-thirty, laying on top of each other in Seungcheol's bed.

Some time after midnight, however, they collectively reawoke. Jihoon remembers drooling on Seungcheol's sweatshirt, Junhui tucked between them, the least awake out of them, sleepy fingers curling around the shortest's whenever they moved.

Jihoon also remembers how Seungcheol had propped his head on his palm to stare at him, a sly grin breaking his face before he whispered, "Truth or Dare."

From there, it only went downhill. The best friends played for a short while as Junhui slept between them, Seungcheol's hand carding through his hair sweetly. It started off normal, like most of these games do. Seungcheol admitted several things Jihoon wished he hadn't, and Jihoon was dared to peck Junhui on the forehead (which he did without hesitation, already fond of him. Junhui's mouth twitched, evidently content at the attention he was given.)

That night, though, Jihoon must have been out of his mind. He dared Seungcheol to a contest involving how much candy they could fit in their mouths, betting his hair color at the older's request. That's where the gummy bears came in.

To Jihoon's dismay, Seungcheol won, that night, almost choking in the process of spitting the sugary bears back out.

The next morning, Seungcheol picked up some temporary hair dye, bubblegum pink, and held Jihoon down with Junhui's help to apply it to his already bleached hair. The color made him look six years younger, and to alleviate his embarrassment as much as possible, Jihoon swiftly got a haircut to get rid of as much of the color as possible.

(His hair is still growing out from the debacle, and although much of the color remains, it consistently fails to cover his dark roots. Before his next school year starts, Jihoon can hopefully redye it completely or cut it off again. Either way, he hopes Seungcheol is happy.)

Junuhi was always the one ruffling his new hair, calling him small and pointing out how cute he looked— out of genuine appreciation and not just to tease him. He really did think he looked cute that way.

Now, after almost two months, Junhui is still calling him cute, but for a completely different reason.

With Mingyu and Soonyoung around, he's calling him cute and whipped because he can't stop himself from getting flustered or embarrassed around them. Junhui's playing a dangerous game, practically asking to have his ass kicked.