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It got disconcerting sometimes. Not in a particularly bad way, a neutral kind of feeling that really only proved to throw him off balance a bit. The love triangle thing was always a running joke, Sicheng being the star of their band’s very own harem anime just to play with him. He knew it was never really serious, but the onslaught of affection when the camera was on could throw a curveball at him.
Skinship wasn’t really his thing, aegyo making him want to palm their face like someone would do to play with a particularly meddlesome cat. Everyone knew it didn’t upset Sicheng, just that it wasn’t something he was fond of. That’s what made it funny, so when he would bat them away they knew it was all in good fun. No one was getting hurt.
Taeil would try to get him to kiss him, make overly infatuated remarks, laugh loud and genuine when Sicheng would just sigh and shake his head before Johnny came to pull Taeil away. Taeil’s sincere romantic affection was in small smiles and awkward laughs, letting Johnny pull on his arms and fake dance on stage.
A modest kind of love that came through in everything. Sicheng thought he was a little jealous of their relationship, something that belonged to someone’s seventy year old grandparents that were married for forty-two years. Then he remembered they weren’t that much older than him and were just weird, feeling marginally better about not being heads over heels at twenty.
Donghyuck would make loud statements and kiss his cheek with flourish. Vocal about his love for Sicheng and played it up, clinging onto him a little and grinning when Sicheng would smack him light on the cheek and push him off despite the pretend affront that he’d host.
Donghyuck would then lean on Mark’s shoulder, tell him he’s doing something wrong with a grin. Drag him with hearts in his eyes and Mark’s hand on his thigh. Sicheng thought about them too, sometimes, the thought of falling in love with someone they practically grew up with. It sounded romantic and also like a nightmare. He wondered if they knew they were in love but would never ask.
Jaehyun didn’t do it as much as the others, but would still hook an arm around his shoulders and pull him closer than he would if the lens wasn’t on them. Grin in that sweet way while doing some weird thing with his hands that Sicheng would try to copy until he giggled and moved away. Jaehyun was cute, kind and genial in a way that made him happy.
There was always an attempt to play it up, but Jaehyun was always too fraternal. Sicheng wondered if Jaehyun could ever kiss anyone without making it a little weird, then he wondered about the way Jaehyun looks at Taeyong and decided to let the boy figure it out on his own. Taeyong was a little weird anyway, he’d watch enough of their own vlives and lived with the man long enough to know it.
But then there was Yuta. Nakamoto Yuta who would pinch his cheeks and kiss them after with mischief and something else in his eyes. Press his head against Sicheng’s arm and sing cute lyrics, laugh and lick Sicheng's hand when he had clamped it over Yuta’s mouth to get him to shut up.
But instead of backing off when Sicheng pulled back, Yuta would always keep grabbing at him. Sometimes persistent, sometimes just for a few more playful pouts. He always let Sicheng escape when he really wanted to, never forced him to stay seated next to him so Yuta could scratch at the nape of his neck idly. It never seemed to matter if there was a camera or not. It threw Sicheng through a loop.
It didn’t help that he never had any measure for what Yuta’s real affection really looked like. Sicheng knew he had a girlfriend a while ago, high school or something. She had been long forgotten in the chaos of Yuta’s life, but that’s all Yuta had ever mentioned. He never eyed any of the members, any of the managers, even anyone at the company, never alluded to pining.
Sicheng didn’t know what to do with any of the information he had. Something curled in his gut, whispering through his body to try and reach his heart to tell it Yuta only acted the way he did with Sicheng. It made him turn over in his bed and sigh, his brain stopping the telephone game short.
He wasn’t sure if it was because it just wasn’t something he wanted to deal with, that he was uninterested and didn’t need the drama of it, or if it was because it made something stir in his chest maybe, possibly, akin to hope and it terrified him. Rather than be analytical about his own feelings, Sicheng would shove his face into his pillow.
Yuta hadn’t been his first friend in the company, far from it. Sicheng had barely been able to get out a greeting when he first came, clinging onto Kun and straining his ears to try to understand a language he couldn’t comprehend. He and Yuta didn’t mean much to each other at first. They were just friends by proximity, barely more than co-workers really.
It wasn’t until the NCT Life they shot together that they really actively sought each other out. At first it was always Yuta approaching him, laptop in hand and telling him in simplified Korean that Sicheng still didn’t fully understand that he found an anime with mandarin subtitles. It had made his eyes light up and led to him patting the empty space beside him as an invitation.
Sicheng appreciated the gesture a lot more than Yuta probably thought, but was unable to articulate it in a tongue that Yuta would understand at the time and was unsure of how to bring it up now, so long after it had begun. The other members always tried hard to include him, Taeyong going as far as to sitt on Sicheng’s bed every other night with google translate open on their phones and have broken conversations about anything.
But this was something more comfortable, something less demanding. It was something any pair of friends could or would do, just watching some subpar show on a shoddy and shady website that looked like it came out of the nineties. It became one of Sicheng’s favorite things to do, Yuta becoming one of his favorite people in the process.
There was a mutualism to it, reminding Sicheng that Yuta was a foreigner in weird lands with a difficult language too. He had been much better at adapting than Sicheng, instantly sinking into the culture and the words that came with it. But the subtle reminder that this wasn’t initially home hitting them both with jokes they didn’t understand, holidays they didn’t celebrate, long-distance charges on phone calls to people that used to live down the road.
Sicheng liked to think that Yuta watched things with him for that feeling of solidarity. He thought, knew, there was more reasoning than that as time went on, but that was another conversation with himself that he was afraid of having. Even when Yuta looked enraptured with just tracing the lines in Sicheng’s knuckles, one of his few docile moments.
Even when Yuta would lean against his shoulder, yawn with hot breath against his neck and maybe unconsciously but also probably consciously allow himself to sink in closer to Sicheng. Even when Yuta let Sicheng wrap an arm around him out of habit and pull him into his chest so his chin stopped digging into the bony hollows of his collarbone.
Sicheng would focus on the pink eyed anime girl with a comically high voice instead of watching his best friend, his dumb and beautiful best friend, sleep against him.
It was one of the times that Sicheng wondered if Yuta knew exactly what buttons to press, exactly what to do, to get Sicheng’s attention. To get a flick to the nose or an delicate smile, interlace their hands easily or mock tackle him. It was a power that made Sicheng have another of those not necessarily bad but unnerving feelings.
Then he remembered he could do the same things to Yuta. Pull at his scarf and have him do whatever he wanted if he just asked. Pull himself under Yuta’s arm and have him pay for ice cream that Sicheng had no intention of letting him even look at. Give him wide eyes and have Yuta training for another three hours just so Sicheng had company when he’d fall to the ground.
Sicheng would never exploit it though, and he knew that Yuta would never dare to tug his own end of the thread harder than a joking pull. His brain shook his own rib cage like he was watching a car crash and Sicheng desperately shook his head to derail the thoughts. Pretending like Yuta didn’t crack open an eye to look at him in humor and concern, wrapping his fingers around Sicheng’s wrist to get his attention.
Yuta got jealous sometimes, Sicheng thought it was possessive but then he thought his mind was just projecting for something he maybe wanted. He still wasn’t sure about that part. Sicheng wasn’t sure if he wanted to be sure about that part any time soon but knew he would be.
But Yuta got jealous sometimes. Like when Sicheng would let Jaehyun land playful punches to his arms and then let him rub the blows away with a soft grin. Sicheng would watch him roll his lips between his teeth before turning away like he hadn’t just crossed his arms. It never surprised him when Yuta would be sliding up next to him a few minutes after Jaehyun went to bother someone else, wrapping a hand around Sicheng’s arm as if to cover anything Jaehyun left. Sicheng would elbow him in the side.
He’d get jealous when Taeil would grab him and they’d mock fight, Sicheng palming at Taeil’s face when he’d try to kiss him and push himself out of the weird hold he had Sicheng in. Beyond Taeil’s ringing laugh, he could always spot Yuta leaning against the wall with his lips all twisted up to the side. Sometimes Taeil would pull back and roll his head toward Yuta while making rolling eye contact with Sicheng. Sicheng wondered if Taeil had a certain clairvoyance that came with being the oldest or if Yuta was just obvious.
He’d get jealous when Donghyuck would kiss his cheek and wrap him up in a sideways hug, lean back in his seat and put his ankle on his knee while watching Sicheng from the corner of his eye. Sicheng kind of wanted to strangle Yuta in those moments, point to Donghyuck’s birth certificate and huff. It was driving him up a wall.
Sicheng didn’t know why he felt so frustrated by all of it. Maybe it was because Yuta would sit and pout until whoever was harassing Sicheng let him be so Yuta could shove himself into whatever nook he could find in Sicheng’s personal space. Maybe it was because Yuta never actually stopped anyone, knew it was always in jest. Just like his was supposed to be. But then why did he feel the need to act like such a toddler about it?
Sicheng wasn’t sure what drove him to do it. Maybe it was the incessant way his chest ached and bloomed with the tides of Yuta’s attention, maybe it was the way the lens looking at them never seemed to matter to the affection Yuta gave him. Maybe it was the way that Yuta never pushed him too hard, never forced him to do anything. Maybe it was the way Sicheng finally stopped ignoring the logical part of his brain that told him that he liked Yuta, maybe more than he was supposed to. Maybe the way Sicheng figured that Yuta might, probably, have felt the same but never wanted to push Sicheng that hard.
He stood at the foot of Yuta’s bed for several long seconds, fingers curling and unfurling at his side. It was kind of awkward. Yuta had lit eyes on him, expectant and waiting for Sicheng to say whatever he had to say. He didn't have anything to say. Which was a lie in a sense but also not- he didn't have anything to say right now. He couldn't find the right words. Sicheng doubted that he'd have them in his mother tongue either.
Yuta began to talk for him after a while, but Sicheng rapidly shook his head at the first syllable that came out his mouth. Yuta began to look nervous despite his calm exterior. He had learned the way that Yuta would tense minusculy under pressure, a barely there shift. Sicheng then realized he was able to read Yuta like a book and that he was so stupid to ever think otherwise. It didn't stop him from hesitating for a few more seconds before finally moving forward.
Sicheng crawled onto the bed, tentative and pretending that his ribs didn't hurt a little at how relieved Yuta looked by the familiarity of the action. How Yuta looked caught off guard for a split second when instead of stopping when he settled next to him, Sicheng reached over him with arm and leg and sat down on his thighs. His long legs folded along the sides of Yuta’s, he kind of wanted to marvel at the contrast of skin tone but there were arguably more important things to care about.
Like the way Yuta’s hands twitched at his side before placing themselves on the sheets. It's not that Sicheng never initiated skinship, it was just never as loud and flagrant as Yuta’s. It was never Sicheng quiet in his lap and looking at him as if he was trying to figure something out. It had never been Sicheng reaching up with big, cautious hands as he placed them on Yuta's shoulders and smoothed them over his collarbones, over the nape of his neck.
Sicheng leaned forward, ignoring the way Yuta gulped despite how infallible he always acted, and sat his face dangerously close to Yuta’s. Eye contact was weird this close up, Sicheng have to choose an eye and stick with it. There were several long breaths until he realized that Yuta wasn't going to take that step, that he had been waiting for who knows how long for Sicheng to bridge the gap himself.
In retrospect, that was probably the best thing to do. Sicheng wasn't stupid or slow by any accounts, but he did ignore his own feelings for what was easier to deal with. It was something he had to learn to stop doing, especially when it deprived his friends of things they deserved. When it deprived Yuta of a certain kind of happiness that Sicheng was willing to try and provide.
So he kept pushing on, slow like Yuta was a stray cat he was trying to befriend, pressing his lips against Yuta in something that was barely more than just that. Sicheng didn't pull away, letting himself have a shaky breath before trying again. It became a halfway point of chaste and something, Sicheng gentle and persistent to invoke some type of reaction.
A light bite at Yuta’s bottom lip and Sicheng physically grabbing his hands from where they fisted the sheets to place them encouragingly on his hips is finally what got Yuta to snap out of whatever stupor he was in. It wasn't frantic but it sure wasn't calm, Yuta finally having permission to chase and not having to back down after three seconds. His fingers dug half moons in Sicheng’s skin and his tongue traced its way into his mouth.
Yuta dragged his hands further up, cupping his waist and smoothing over Sicheng’s stomach for just a second before moving them back to pull him closer. It made Sicheng grab his forearms to stay balanced. Being flush against Yuta’s chest while Sicheng awkwardly balanced in a half-crouch on his knees felt more comfortable than it should, licking away the noises from the roof of Yuta’s mouth and finally pulling his face back a little.
Sicheng tried not to be a little grossed out by the thin string of saliva that connected them. He watched Yuta pant lightly, following him a little and letting out a chuckle that was just kind of hysterical when Sicheng kissed his nose. He asked if they needed to talk about everything with his chest heaving and Sicheng nodded into the crook of his neck while muttering a ‘later’ against it. His arms dangled from where they crossed loosely over Yuta’s shoulders and he could feel strong hands tracing indescribable, meaningless patterns along the small of his back.
That’s not to say that the stupid harem jokes even came close to stopping, that Taeil didn’t kiss Sicheng’s temple when the camera was focused on them or that Donghyuck didn’t sit on his lap on some slow vlive. Yuta didn’t change much either in front of the world, still flamboyant with his affection and grabbing at Sicheng every chance he got.
Just now things were different when the lens was gone, something that’d never happen before. Now there were kisses at the corner of his mouth in training rooms and a malleable but firm body sinking into the curve of his on late mornings with no schedule. Sicheng sat in Yuta’s lap during anime sessions, too big to fit right but pulled in anyway.
Sicheng asked Yuta how long he’d meant what he did, something that Yuta only shrugged to. Not always but for a long while, he said after a couple of minutes of watching boys hit a volleyball back and forth. It made him warm and giddy.
He wasn’t ready to tell Yuta he loved him, still trying to figure out how deep his affection ran, but Sicheng didn’t think Yuta was ready to say something like that to him either. Instead Sicheng just rested his head against Yuta’s temple and let the soaring Japanese voices and harsh mandarin subtitles take his attention.