Chapter Text
Jeonghan & Sojeong
March’22
The saying goes,
Hi guys this is Jeon Won
Good evening everyone, I am Jeon Wonwoo and today Jeonghan
“Wonwoo.”
“Hm?” Wonwoo responds, eyes not leaving the yet-again-blank notepad.
“You know right, wasting paper is like, criminally offensive nowadays?”
Wonwoo is forced to look up, distracting himself from whatever comprehensible set of words he almost came up with. He has to physically refrain himself from throwing hands at Soonyoung who is now skillfully vandalising Wonwoo’s bedsheet by rolling on it. “Get off my bed,” Wonwoo requests imperatively.
Soonyoung stands up on the bed– is that wine in his hand? – and irons the creases on his suit with the palm of his free hand. He giggles very very unapologetically when Wonwoo clicks his tongue with a rising fit of rage. “Alright, alright,” Soonyoung steps down from the bed, barely balancing the wine glass. “But when are we addressing how you’ve been destroying the trees, the environment and even this five-by-five walking space with… these?” He twirls in his place to point out the evidence of Wonwoo’s hour-long battle with his notepad all over the carpet.
Wonwoo sighs. His best man speech is not a single sentence in and Soonyoung is already drunk.
That makes it easier to blame this entire predicament on Soonyoung. In Wonwoo’s defence, he did have a script ready– well, at least framed in his head – before coming to the wedding. The only mistake that he has ever done was to lay out his approach with the speech to Soonyoung in the morning, over breakfast.
Soonyoung dropped his omelette and looked at him with equal shares of concern and disgust. He drew his chair towards Wonwoo and whispered, “Wonwoo, do you want to hear my honest opinion?”
Wonwoo bailed out of it.
And immediately started reworking on the writing. Which has only been going from worse to Worse with each page torn and crumpled.
Withdrawing himself from another round of self-demotivations, he pushes up his prescription glasses to draw focus on Soonyoung, who has currently abandoned his drink and is folding one of the discarded papers into a limbless bird. Wonwoo glances at the blank page open in front of him, tears it and walks towards Soonyoung to gift it. Soonyoung frowns at first, then smiles his very specific drunk-Soonyoung smile as he accepts it. Wonwoo smiles back weakly, picks up the wine glass and sips on it.
To begin with, Wonwoo was not expecting Soonyoung to show up for the wedding itself. He has been going through his third this-is-the-worst-breakup-of-my-life , and this time… it’s actually pretty serious. Even Wonwoo was half-hoping for a grand HEA from them. Dongyoung is a true charmer and definitely matches Soonyoung’s spectrum, so it was quite a bit of a shocker when Soonyoung deactivated his IG and Dongyoung removed their couple photos.
Wonwoo heard from Jihoon that Soonyoung has been badly miserable ever since. “I went to his place and it was a literal pigsty. There were probably three huge boxes labelled “fuck you” or like, “burn these”. And the stench of alcohol was so fucking disgusting. Mingyu says Soonyoung needs a hug. I think he needs a bath and a hug. In that order.”
Wonwoo silently sits beside Soonyoung on the bed. After a while, Soonyoung gestures to hold out the palm of his hand, and Wonwoo does so. Soonyoung places an origami bird, now with proper wings, on top of it. They inspect the thing with dumb curiosity until Soonyoung sneakily snatches the wine glass away from Wonwoo’s other hand.
“Just say whatever,” Soonyoung says after chugging down the rest of the drink. “It’s a best man speech. It’s supposed to make people laugh. Do you want to put all these mindless wedding-goers through what seems to be a morning lecture that they would have loved to miss in college?”
In any other scenario, Wonwoo would have snapped back with something like what the fuck, Soonyoung? But maybe… just maybe he has a point.
Wonwoo picks at his chapped bottom lip. Lawfully, tonight he is sort of "substituting" Jeonghan’s official best friend Seungcheol, who cannot make it to the wedding because of– how Jeonghan likes to put it – some stupid overseas work. Wonwoo thought Jeonghan had him as the second option simply because– once again, how Jeonghan likes to put it – “Wonwoo reads. A lot.”
Of course other reasons include: Wonwoo was his college junior and at present, is his single most favourite coworker. But Wonwoo doubts if all the image that he has created over the years is about to get destroyed by a failed attempt to construct a monologue that’s fun.
Adding to that, his humour has had only a handful of social experiment successes. Only his cats and Soonyoung-from-college-days have ever found him funny.
“Also… could you please be a little mindful of the environment while you do this,” Soonyoung says while picking up all the papers from the floor. Drunk-Soonyoung always has some weird fixations. “Don’t you have a Notes app or something on your phone?”
“I need pen and pap–”
“Oh yeah, right, sometimes I forget you are actually an old man trapped in this twenty eight year old body. Everything screams so old about you, Jeon Wonwoo,” Soonyoung drops all the paper he collected to express exactly how old Wonwoo is, using both of his hands. “Remind me to not have you as my best man.”
♡
Jeon Wonwoo you little fucker is the first thing Jeonghan says after the applauses die down. The drink in his hand almost spills when he makes his way through the tables to hug Wonwoo. Sojeong follows him too, smiling so prettily at Wonwoo that he feels an uncanny kind of relief settling in his stomach.
More people join– some faces too well known, others not so much– to congratulate on the speech that has become an instant crowd favourite, surprisingly.
Shit, Soonyoung will definitely capitalise out of this. Forever.
Wonwoo skims through the people in hope to find him at his table, now even farther from the reins of sobriety. He catches only a glimpse of Soonyoung sitting there, which he probably has invaded with his superpower of feigned extroversion. Like, why are the others at the table well over sixty?
There is a brief moment where their eyes meet. Wonwoo awaits an inaudible snide remark, or at least a vile kind of smirk from him. Instead Soonyoung just raises his glass, tiny clapping along with it, like a proud mom.
“Let’s have the bride and the groom out on the dance floor!” The announcement sends the crowd into a frenzy. Wonwoo turns back to the newlyweds. Sojeong mouths a thank you to him as she takes Jeonghan’s hand.
Wonwoo shifts to a side to make way for them. The music starts and suddenly there’s an influx of the particular group of people who are always way too over enthusiastic about this whole ritual at every wedding. Jeonghan gestures at him to join but Wonwoo gives it a pass. Best man duties have had him mingling enough for the rest of the month.
So he does what he is best at— observing. Certain things are obvious: Jeonghan and Sojeong make an extremely visual pair, the song is way too loud for a venue like this, dancing is not for everyone and Wonwoo feels awfully lonely (but he won’t do anything about it).
He glances over to what has been labelled as the “singles’ corner”. He is having a great time spotting all the cases of awkward socialisations in that little circle of people when he notices it .
Soonyoung, for the lack of partners ( or an abundance thereof , Wonwoo realises soon), has taken up the duty to make everyone at his table dance. A few of them are grooving with Soonyoung as they follow the old-fashioned Grandpa-style hand flailing. Some are seated but still joining in spirit. Soonyoung looks so genuinely happy that a bit of that happiness infects Wonwoo too.
He laughs a little. Tries to ignore the guilt that kicks in immediately. The guilt of not reaching out to Soonyoung enough while he has been hurting and has been having such a hard time dealing with the breakup.
Soonyoung must be telepathically wired to him, the way he turns his around, absolutely on cue. He grins, teeth gradually emerging and eyes gradually disappearing.
And Wonwoo thinks he catches a glimpse of Soonyoung-from-college-days .
♡
Wonwoo fears someone might call the cops, the way he hauls Soonyoung’s body across the hallway. Soonyoung has given up on all his motor actions; except his mouth, which easily compensates for all the other muscles in his body. Right now, he is going off about how Jeonghan practically threatened him to attend the wedding.
“– and then he handed over the phone to Sojeong. I was like what the f – Wonwoo, are you listening? But really, why does everyone have to get married this year. Soon it’ll be just you and me. Look at literally anyone… look at Jihoon, can you believe it, even Jihoon ? I have to attend four weddings this year alone.”
“Not to brag but I’ve got five. Now, will you kindly,” Wonwoo tugs at Soonyoung’s right hand which is thrown limply across his shoulder, “cooperate for a fucking second?”
Soonyoung snickers. “Doesn’t it feel like burying a corpse?” he asks and Wonwoo gets this instant urge to drop him on the floor, right there. Good for him that they have reached the front of Soonyoung’s room by now.
“Give me your keycard,” Wonwoo demands, “don’t tell me you forgot it inside the room.”
Suddenly Soonyoung does the unthinkable: he stands straight (almost). He isn’t that drunk, afterall.
“I knew you’d say that,” Soonyoung replies groggily. “You think I’m such an idiot but you know what?” he pulls out the keycard from his pocket, “ you are a judgemental bitch, Jeon Wonwoo, yes, that’s what you are!”
Wonwoo waits, watching Soonyoung press the keycard at all the wrong places. However, Wonwoo loves his sleep more than this cheap entertainment at 1:43 am, which is why he pulls the card out of Soonyoung’s grip and opens the door for him.
Soonyoung lags for a few seconds once more, yet Wonwoo is thankful he gets the hint that he needs to enter the room. He walks in and Wonwoo prepares to close the door behind him; but Soonyoung quickly leans against the door.
“What now?” Wonwoo asks.
“But I still love you.”
Wonwoo frowns and promptly squares up as a reflex. Drunk-Soonyoung is way too affectionate and he tries to prove that by simply kissing his object of affection. Surprisingly, he makes no move, which in turn puts Wonwoo in a spot. He feels like he should say something back when Soonyoung speaks up again.
“You wanna come with me to my ex-co-trainer’s wedding next weekend?”
Wonwoo blinks. “No.”
“I already told her–”
Wonwoo reaches for the edge of the door. “Goodnight, Soonyoung.”
Soonyoung blocks his way. “I was supposed to take Dongyoung with me,” he says, which makes Wonwoo pause. Soonyoung droops his head, fiddles with a button of his suit. This is the first time he has brought up the name today. “and then… it happened.”
Wonwoo’s conscience strikes again, suppressed guilt materialising, and he yields to it. “Alright,” he responds faintly.
Of course drunk-Soonyoung is unpredictable too, because he finally lands the due kiss on Wonwoo’s head, holding it in place using his hands, as soon as he finds Wonwoo vulnerable. Before Wonwoo can even resist, Soonyoung has already closed the door and there is a muffled I’ll make sure you meet someone hot there, thank you!
Wonwoo stays there for a minute, collecting himself. All of it seems extremely terrible in his head and he will probably (definitely) regret it by the end of next weekend. Together they will make a pair of two lonely souls, one by fate and one by choice, wafting through the party full of animated people.
Being Soonyoung’s plus one shouldn’t be as incongruous as the thought of it is.
Wonwoo takes out his own keycard and retreats to his room. Packing is still left, the more he thinks about it the more weary he gets. Removing his shoes, he sits on the bed. He reconsiders if tomorrow morning he should pretend none of this conversation even happened because Soonyoung will barely remember any of it anyway.
He takes off his watch, puts it on the table, alongside two paper birds and an empty glass of wine.
It felt good today to catch up with Soonyoung. He would like to do it again.