te extraño kim seungmin (HIATUS)

☆ hold me i'm your bunny

summary : Seungmin got home for holiday with bunch of stories to tell his family about

a/n : it's cringe , short , too much obssessed with ot8 fic lately , just wanted soft seungmin content 😔

anywayy enjoy ♡

(*つ´･∀･)つ

Seungmin stepped through the front door and felt it immediately , that particular pull of a place that had always belonged to him, that smelled like jasmine tea and fabric softener and something baking somewhere deeper in the house. Nostalgia, even though he had only been gone a semester. Maybe because of it.

He had enrolled at one of the most prestigious universities in Seoul. He had earned a merit scholarship , the one that included a dormitory room within the campus grounds , and while his parents were more than comfortable enough to cover every expense without blinking, Seungmin had firmly refused to let them pay more than they needed to. He was stubborn about it in the quiet, polite way he was stubborn about most things.

Because Seungmin was, by most definitions, a model student. Perfect grades, immaculate attendance record, the kind of behaviour that made professors use him as an example and made his classmates call him (not entirely without affection) the 'class robot'. He took color-coded notes with four different pens. He had a study schedule laminated and stuck above his desk. He had strong opinions about which mechanical keyboard switches were optimal for typing speed versus tactile feedback, and he was not afraid to share them at length with anyone willing to listen, and sometimes with people who weren't.

Outside of academics, his interests were what politely might be called niche. He had over three hundred manga volumes, organized by genre and then alphabetically by author. He had watched enough anime to have a ranked spreadsheet. He could hold detailed conversations about fictional world-building, card game mechanics, and the narrative shortcomings of season three of any given shonen series. He collected small gashapon figures that lined his windowsill in careful rows. He wore graphic tees with characters on them that most people his age had never heard of, hoodies with Japanese text that he had bought from import stores, socks patterned with pixel art.

He was, in short, a deeply gentle nerd , the kind who apologized when someone else bumped into him, who held doors open for strangers and then stood there long past the point of comfort waiting for them to pass through, who smiled reflexively when someone made eye contact with him on the subway.

And for a long time, he had had no friends because of it.

Not quite nerd enough for the hardcore gaming circles. Not quite social enough for the casual ones. His interests were too specific, his humor too quiet, his presence too unassuming to carve out space for itself in the chaos of high school social dynamics. He had known people, certainly , classmates, lab partners, a few acquaintances who borrowed his notes and never returned them , but friends, real ones, had always been a different matter entirely.

He had seemed, to outside observers, to take this rather well.

That was because he had his family.

His father rewarded him at the slightest occasion : a high score, a good report, finishing his dinner .With the kind of proud enthusiasm usually reserved for Olympic athletes. His mother had spoiled him since before he could walk, and had never really stopped, greeting every visit with an array of his favorite foods and an expression of pure delight at the sight of him. His older sister Minji protected him with the ferocity of someone guarding something small and precious, a role she had appointed herself to in childhood and never relinquished. She was the only person on earth allowed to tease him, and she exercised that right frequently and with great satisfaction.

They were all three united by an understanding that had never needed to be spoken aloud: Seungmin was loved. Seungmin was cherished. Seungmin was theirs, and they were going to make very sure he knew it.

He toed off his sneakers, and the simple act of bending down made him pause. There was resistance now. The soft, insistent pressure of his belly against his thighs, the fabric of his hoodie riding up at the back, the quiet strain of it. He straightened up slowly and tugged the hem down on instinct, a reflex he had developed sometime around October without quite noticing when. The hoodie was a grey zip-up he'd bought at a fan convention three years ago, back when it had hung loose on his shoulders and pooled a little at his hips. It had a Haikyuu characters embroidered across the chest in careful detail. He loved it unreasonably. It didn't fit the way it used to. The zipper sat slightly strained across his middle, and the hem barely reached the waistband of his jeans, and the fabric followed the gentle round curve of his stomach with an attentiveness he would have preferred it not to have.

He had gained weight. That was simply the truth of it. It wasn't all of sudden , it had been gradual, slow, the kind of change that crept up in small increments until the day his favorite jeans required a full breath-hold to button. His face was rounder now, his cheeks full and soft, a faint second chin appearing when he tilted his head down to look at something. His thighs pressed together when he walked, a warmth and friction that hadn't been there before. His belly had developed a distinct presence of its own by being so round and low and soft, sitting comfortably over his waistband, noticeable when he sat down and his shirts pulled taut across it, very noticeable when he bent forward.

He had not weighed himself in several months because he had decided, with calm deliberation, that he didn't particularly need that information.

He was, by any definition, soft. Plush. Well-fed. And standing in his childhood hallway, tugging his convention hoodie over his stomach, he felt the familiar small knot of self-consciousness that always arrived with coming home , the awareness of being seen, after months of existing in the comfortable anonymity of campus life.

His mother appeared from the kitchen doorway almost before he had finished processing the thought, arms already open, face already luminous.

"Pup'! There you are, finally!"

She pulled him into a hug without hesitation, without ceremony, without any pause that might have suggested she'd registered the way he'd changed since summer. Her arms wrapped around him with the easy familiarity of someone who had been hugging this particular person for twenty-two years and intended to keep doing it regardless of what that person looked like. Seungmin's cheek pressed into her shoulder. His belly pressed soft and round into her middle. He felt his face get warm.

She pulled back and cupped his face in both hands, studying him with the particular focused delight she reserved for his homecomings.

"Look at this face. Look at you." She squeezed his cheeks gently, and they gave under her hands with a soft, yielding resistance that made her smile widen. "You're eating well, aren't you? You're glowing, Pup'. Absolutely glowing."

It was not a criticism. In his mother's voice there was no irony, only the uncomplicated pride of a woman who equated a well-fed child with a happy one. For her, roundness was abundance. Softness was health. The fact that her son's cheeks had gotten squishier and his middle had filled out since the begining of the semester was simply evidence that he was doing great

Behind her, Minji leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed and a smile on her face that contained several distinct layers of emotion fondness, amusement, and the particular sharpness of an older sister who had been saving a comment up since the moment she'd heard the door open.

"Careful, Minnie." Her eyes traveled from his face to the gentle swell of his belly straining against the hoodie, and back up again. "You keep going like this and I'm going to start calling you a baozi instead of a puppy. You're practically round."

"Minji—" their mother said, in a tone that was more amused than reproving.

Seungmin made a small, wounded sound and immediately brought both hands to his stomach, pressing against it as though he could simply push it back in through willpower. He could feel it clearly under his palms — the softness, the warmth, the way it sat heavy and full and entirely unwilling to be hidden. His jeans bit into his hips at the waistband, the denim stretched tight across his thighs. When he walked, the fabric of his inner thighs whispered against itself with every step, a new development he'd grown quietly used to. His shirts rode up constantly now when he lifted his arms or leaned forward, exposing a pale stripe of soft stomach, and he had developed a habit of checking the hem every few minutes the way someone might check a loose thread.

"Be happy i'm not eating you next" he said, with some sort of teasing tone

Minji looked at him. He looked back at her. She raised one eyebrow with serene patience.

"You're very cute," she said, with absolute sincerity. "Like a little dumpling. Come on, Puppy , Mom made things."

(*つ´･∀･)つ

Installed on the sofa with a tray of tea and a plate of butter cookies, Seungmin was flanked on either side by the two women who knew him best in the world, both watching him with the expectant focus of people waiting for a show to start. He reached for a cookie before the plate had quite finished landing on the coffee table. Then a second one, almost immediately. He held his teacup in his other hand, ankles crossed, perfectly comfortable, utterly unaware of how thoroughly he was being observed.

The interrogation commenced.

"How many?" Minji asked.

"Seven."

Their mother made a sound of pure delight. Minji kept her face carefully measured.

"Are they actually your friends? Not study partners, not people who borrowed your notes—"

"I think so."

"You think so ?"

"I'm fairly confident."

"Photos?"

"Yes."

Seungmin set down his tea and pulled out his phone and scrolled to his gallery. He passed it to his mother. A series of bright, candid images: a group of young men in a café, crowded outside a convenience store at what appeared to be two in the morning, piled around a table of entirely demolished dishes. His mother made increasingly delighted noises. Seungmin pointed to each face in turn, his voice taking on that particular unhurried warmth it got when he talked about things he actually cared about.

"That's Yongbokie bit he prefer i call him felix. He's my roommate. He's Australian, incredibly loud in the mornings, but he bakes constantly. He always makes too much and just leaves plates of things on my desk. Last month he made three batches of brownies and left all of them with a note for me with a little heart drawn on it. I ate all three batches over four days." He paused. "I don't regret it."

He scrolled.

"Hyunjinnie studies fine arts. He takes me to gallery openings and tells me I have a poetic face, which I believe is a compliment. I've started going to the galleries without being dragged because actually some of them are interesting, but I haven't told him that. Changbinnie lifts weights every day and talks about music with unsettling enthusiasm, but he's genuinely very sweet. He takes me to restaurants after his gym sessions even though I don't actually use the gym. I wait on the bench outside and read. We've started doing this three times a week."

Their mother pressed a second cookie into his hand without comment. He ate it while continuing.

"Minho and Jisung are roommates. Both obsessive about manga I've converted them both to a few series, which I consider a personal achievement. Minho cooks almost as well as Felix, honestly maybe better, and he always tells me to have seconds and pack me food for my own dorm. Jisung just wants to talk constantly while we eat. He'll order an enormous amount of food and then spend the entire meal discussing

Last week he cried about a fictional death and then ordered more ramen and kept crying."

He said this fondly.

"Jeongin's from Busan. He brings me coffee every single morning without being asked. last week it had caramel drizzle, whipped cream, chocolate pearls, and what I think was a small cookie balanced on top. It was technically more dessert than beverage. And Chan is Felix's friend, also Australian. He appears at irregular intervals with pastries and explains that I need energy to study. He's very tall. He pats my head."

He said this last part with the straightforward matter-of-factness of someone reporting observable fact, already reaching for another cookie.

His mother and Minji had been exchanging a series of looks above his head for the past several minutes , a whole conversation conducted entirely in raised eyebrows and micro-expressions, the fluent silent language of two people who had been allied on the subject of Seungmin for his entire life.

Minji let the silence sit for exactly as long as it took for Seungmin to take a large bite of his third cookie. Then she said, calmly:

"Minnie. These men are flirting with you."

He looked up. Blinked. Cookie mid-chew.

"What?"

"Openly. With enthusiasm. All seven of them."

"No, they're just—" He swallowed. "They're attentive. They're friendly. It's different."

"Felix leaves you baked goods with handwritten hearts."

"He's affectionate by nature—"

"Hyunjin told you that you have a poetic face."

"He's an art student, he talks like that—"

"Changbin takes you to dinner three times a week."

"He's hungry after the gym—"

"Seungmin." Minji said his full name with great patience. "That's more than friendly."

There was a pause.

And then, unbidden and entirely unwelcome, the images arrived: Felix pressing his thumb gently to the corner of Seungmin's mouth to wipe away a smear of chocolate, so casual and unhesitating that Seungmin had barely registered it at the time. Hyunjin with his sketchbook open, saying stay still, 'I want to get your hands right they're very you'. Changbin's broad palm settling warm and steady on the small of his back to steer him through a restaurant doorway. Minho setting a second bowl in front of him without asking, saying 'you look like you're enjoying it'. Jeongin's eyes tracking him over the rim of the cup every single morning, waiting for the first sip, wearing that small private smile. Chan's hand on top of his head, resting there in that absentminded way that somehow always stayed a moment longer than strictly necessary. Jisung asleep against his shoulder in the manga cafe, weight warm and trusting, snoring very faintly.

The blush started at his ears. It moved inward rapidly.

"They're my friends," he said. His voice had lost some of its certainty.

Their mother reached over and patted his round cheek with the palm of her hand, soft and warm.

"Of course they are, Pup'," she said, in exactly the same tone she used when she told him the dentist wouldn't hurt.

"Of course," Minji agreed serenely, and stole his last cookie.

He let her take it. He was busy staring at the middle distance with slightly too much intensity for someone thinking about nothing.

His mother stood, announced that the raviolis were ready, and the moment dissolved into the domestic comfort of plates being carried and chairs being pulled out and the smell of food filling every corner of the kitchen. Seungmin found himself at the table with a bowl in front of him that was considerably larger than the one he'd asked for, because his mother had served him without asking, and that was simply how things worked here.

He ate three helpings. He didn't count them consciously. He was still thinking about Hyunjin's sketchbook, and the way Chan's hand always lingered.

They were only friendly right ?

Right ?

(*つ´･∀･)つ

That same evening, in the apartment two blocks from campus, Jisung was lying on his stomach on the floor of the common room, scrolling his phone with one hand and holding a half-eaten bag of chips with the other. He came across a photo from last month — the seven of them at that ramen place, Seungmin sandwiched between him and Felix, face bright, chopsticks raised, mid-laugh. Jisung stared at it for a moment. Set the chips down. Picked them back up.

"Hey," he said to the empty room, because Minho was in the shower.

No answer.

"I miss Seungminnie" he told the chips, and then felt that this was slightly embarrassing, and ate the rest of the bag.

(*つ´･∀･)つ

Across campus in the art building's studio, Hyunjin was supposed to be finishing a charcoal study. He was instead sitting cross-legged on the floor with his sketchbook open to a page he'd filled three weeks ago — not an assignment, just a sketch. It was Seungmin, smilling broadly, with his hair slightly curled and his torso larger than it actually was bit give this whole chibi vibe.

Very you, he'd said then, and meant it entirely.

He closed the sketchbook. Opened it again. Turned to a blank page and picked up his pencil.

He didn't know yet what he was drawing. He had a general sense of direction.

Seungmin was his muse , and he missed that muse

(*つ´･∀･)つ

Felix served himself dinner in silence, a single portion in a pan for one, which was a thing he had not done in several weeks because there had always been a reason to cook for two. He ate standing at the kitchen counter, which he also hadn't done in a while, because Seungmin always insisted on sitting at the table properly, and Felix had started agreeing that yes, sitting was better, meals should be an occasion.

He looked at the table. The two chairs. The chair that was usually occupied.

He served himself, sat down at the table, and pulled out his phone.

Food didn't raste the same without Seungmin

(*つ´･∀･)つ

Chan was still on campus.

This was not unusual. Chan was almost always still on campus, specifically in the music production lab on the third floor of the arts building, at a desk that had accumulated the quiet evidence of too many late nights , three empty energy drink cans he kept meaning to throw away, a hoodie draped over the back of his chair that wasn't his but it couldn't help wearing over and over as it still got Seungmin scent in it

The track he was working on wasn't going anywhere tonight. He'd known it for an hour but had kept adjusting things that didn't need adjusting

He pulled out his phone instead.

There was a photo in his camera roll from two Sundays ago , Seungmin on the bench outside the gym, reading, completely unaware, the afternoon light catching the soft round curve of his cheek in profile, his hoodie riding up slightly at the side. Chan had taken it without announcing it because he'd wanted the unguarded version.

He looked at it for a moment.

Set the phone face-down.

Picked it back up.

He thought about the pastries left outside the dorm room door. The head-patting that had started as a joke, become a habit, become something he looked forward to with a specificity that probably warranted more examination than he was currently prepared to give it.

He pressed play on the track. Thirty seconds. Stopped it.

Something was missing , Seungmin was missing

(*つ´･∀･)つ

In Busan, Jeongin was at his parents' house for the holiday, and he was standing in front of a café counter staring at the menu the way he hadn't stared at a café menu since ... since before this semester, when ordering coffee had been a simple transaction. He found himself automatically doing the mental calculation: caramel drizzle, whipped cream, the sweet ratio that worked. Then he caught himself and looked blankly at the barista.

"An Americano" he said, because that was what a normal person ordered.

He didn't enjoy it very much. It needed more caramel. It needed someone to take the first sip with their nose scrunching slightly before declaring it perfect, which was something Seungmin said every single morning with unfailing conviction regardless of how sweet it was.

He paid and sat down and looked out the window for a while.

It's not fun if Seungmin wasn't here

(*つ´･∀･)つ

Changbin went to the restaurant by himself, which lasted approximately six minutes before he ordered his food to go. The table for two felt like an accusation. He sat on a bench outside and ate his ramen from the container and watched people walk past and thought about how Seungmin had laughed last week at something on his phone and shown it to Changbin without preamble, assuming he would find it funny, which he had, but more because of the way Seungmin's whole face had done the thing it did when he found something genuinely delightful , a little helpless, the round softness of his cheeks pushed higher.

He finished his ramen. Got another portion.

He didn't need it. He was going to the gym later. He got it anyway.

heyy ♡

I apologize for responding like this and using this request as an example, but if I don't set a limit now, this risks becoming a habit for some.

(Of course no problem with you anon but it's not the first time and it's something that truly trigger me with the years)

PLEASE BE POLITE !! DOES A HELLO / PLEASE / THANK YOU WOULD KILL YOU ???

Like, I love y'all and this community and have never had any problems, but politeness is something I don't compromise on. I understand that depending on each person's and so on, it can vary, but if you decide to post a request or anything else anonymously, could you at least be a little polite? Just the basics, because honestly, it doesn't make me want to write the request at all :(

Sorry for this rant i don't like being negative and annoying like that but as i said it's not the first time and i want to keep this blog a truly safe space for y'all and also for myself and make writing a fun experience

Anyway sorry again and please feel free to send me a DM or resent your request anon ^^ ,

honestly it was so cute that i couldn't just not write it 🥺🤌

i hope you'll like it ^^

0801

☆ you're doing great

Enjoy ♡

ﾟ+(人・∀・*)+｡♪

It ended quietly, almost gently. Like the last page of a book you keep putting off because you know you'll miss the characters.

After years together, the eight of them sat down in a conference room at JYP and did the math. The contract was up. Chan had said it first. He always did.

"I think we've done everything we set out to do. We're allowed to rest now."

Nobody argued.

They announced it on a Tuesday. The internet lost its mind. The eight of them had already made their peace.

What came next surprised them, in the best of ways.

3RACHA founded RACHA Entertainment, a small but fiercely respected label. Within two years, three groups had debuted under them and they'd won two producer-of-the-year awards that lived in a drawer somewhere. They wanted the studio at midnight, not the stage.

Minho spent three months doing nothing at all before walking into the audition of Seoul's most prestigious contemporary dance company. He became a teacher. Exacting, occasionally terrifying, beloved.

Seungmin's ballads made people cry in the way that feels like relief. Jeongin's debut was a pop-punk record nobody saw coming and everyone immediately understood. They toured separately and were loudly, simply proud of each other.

Hyunjin packed too many canvases into a backpack and left. His Seoul exhibition sold out in forty minutes and french press didn't wait to reviewed his Paris show.

And Felix went home.

Australia was waiting with open arms and eucalyptus and salt air he hadn't realised he'd been missing every single day for a decade. He and Chan found a flat near Bondi Junction almost immediately, spacious and full of light, with a balcony where you could just about spot the ocean between the buildings on clear days.

Chan produced music in the spare bedroom he'd turned into a studio. He wore headphones six hours a day and came out for meals, sunsets, and Felix. Not necessarily in that order.

It was perhaps inevitable. Two people who'd survived the extremity of fame together, landing softly in the same quiet life. Nobody announced anything. Nobody needed to. It lived in the way Felix laughed at Chan's jokes, really laughed, bent at the waist with his hand over his mouth. It lived in the way Chan looked at him sometimes mid-sentence, like he'd just remembered something important.

There had been evenings, more than a few, with wine and Sydney's golden light, where they'd drifted together on the couch until Felix's head was on Chan's shoulder and neither of them moved away. Those evenings sometimes ended with a kiss that tasted like wine. Neither of them talked about it the next morning. Neither of them apologised either.

The words hadn't been spoken. But the shape of the thing was perfectly clear.

ﾟ+(人・∀・*)+｡♪

Chan was at his desk, headphones around his neck, when he heard the front door and the specific rustle of grocery bags that meant Felix had done a proper shop.

"I'm back!" Felix called, in that singsong way, as if Chan might have forgotten he existed in the forty-five minutes he'd been gone.

"Hey" Chan called back.

Felix appeared in the studio doorway, canvas tote on one shoulder, blond hair behind his ears, freckles catching the afternoon light.

"They were doing a sale on the good lamb," he said, pleased with himself. "And I found yakgwa at the Korean place on Oxford Street. The real stuff."

"You're a hero" Chan said, meaning it.

"I know." Felix tilted his head. "How's it going?"

"Second verse needs something. Brain's flat."

"Eat something and it'll come back. I got your crackers. The seedy ones."

"God, I love you," Chan said, automatically, easily, the way he always did. Felix smiled the way he always did when Chan said that, warmly, letting it sit between them.

"Oh." Felix pushed off the doorframe. "Did you see the group chat?"

"Not since lunch. What happened?"

"Hyunjin's exhibition." Felix's face lit up. "Here. In Sydney." A pause for effect. "And the others are coming for it."

Chan took his headphones fully off. "All of them?"

"All of them." Felix grinned. "Jeongin from Busan. Minho and Jisung from Seoul. Seungmin and Changbin too."

The smile spread slowly across Chan's face, starting somewhere behind his eyes. "We're seeing everyone. Here."

"Here," Felix confirmed.

Chan checked his phone. The group chat was moving at a pace that blurred the screen.

[SKZ 🔥🔥🔥🔥]

hyunjinnnnn: expo is a MUST TO GO and I want everyone there

minhocat: already booked. don't make it weird

doolsetnet: ITS ALREADY WEIRD I'M CRYING IN THE AIRPORT LOUNGE

CHANGBIN: jisung crying is a constant. old news

yang.jeongin: coming from busan!!! my mom packed snacks for everyone

seungminnie: she packed them for Chan specifically. we all know

CHANGBIN: ☠️☠️☠️

hyunjinnnnn: CHAN AND FELIX I NEED YOU BOTH THERE

FelixLee: we'll be there 💛

BangChan: wouldn't miss it for anything

Chan smiled at his phone for a long moment. He could hear each of them in those messages as clearly as if they were in the room. He missed them. He hadn't let himself feel how much until now.

"I need to figure out what to wear," Felix said, already drifting toward his room. "The cream linen or the dark blue. Does the blue wash me out?"

"Nothing washes you out," Chan said, but Felix had already disappeared.

Chan looked back at his screen. The mix could wait.

He looked down at himself.

Carhartt hoodie, washed grey, bought the first month in Sydney when he'd thought he might use the gym. He hadn't used the gym. Below that, black sweatpants with a drawstring he'd progressively loosened over the past year without registering he'd done it.

He stood up and walked to the bathroom.

He turned on the light and stood in front of the mirror.

Bang Chan, thirty-six years old, looked back at him.

The face was the same in its essentials, same dark eyes, same nose, same mouth, but it was rounder now. Softer. His cheeks had filled out so substantially that his jawline had almost disappeared into them, round and smooth and full, giving him the look of someone well-fed and comfortable with it. The sharp angles he'd had at twenty-six were long gone.

He pulled the hoodie off.

His arms had changed thoroughly. The muscle he'd spent years building was still somewhere underneath, but buried under a generous layer of softness that made his upper arms thick and pillowy, swaying slightly when he moved. His forearms were heavier. His shoulders had lost their definition entirely and rounded out into something plush.

His chest sat heavier on his frame, softer and fuller, and below it his stomach. He stood looking at it for a moment.

It was large. Genuinely, substantially large. It wasn't a small paunch or a bit of extra weight, it was a proper belly, round and full and heavy, hanging over his sweatpants with a comfortable authority that no amount of sucking in was going to change. He pressed his hands to his sides and felt the soft rolls at his flanks, the generous love handles that spilled over any waistband that tried to contain them. He turned sideways. The arc of his stomach curved outward dramatically, dropping with gravity in a way that was impossible to ignore, and his lower back curved inward to compensate for the new weight at his front. His backside had filled out to match, round and full, and his thighs were thick enough now that they pressed together at the top with every step he took.

He put the hoodie back on. It settled around him without complaint. The hoodie had always been a faithful companion in this.

He went to the wardrobe. He had, he quickly discovered, almost nothing that wasn't hoodies or sweatpants. He pulled out a button-down he'd loved two years ago.

First two buttons, fine. Third, effort. Fourth, the fabric pulled across his chest and the seams at his shoulders strained. He stood with the shirt hanging open over his stomach, which filled the gap entirely, and took it off.

Another shirt, larger. He got all the buttons done. The fabric stretched tight horizontally, outlining everything, buttons pulling at their holes. Wearing it in public would constitute a statement he wasn't sure he was ready to make.

He had four pairs of jeans. He hadn't worn them in eight months.

The first pair didn't get past his thighs.

The second made it to his hips and stopped there, several centimetres from closing.

The third, a looser Melbourne purchase, he wrestled into for a full minute before getting the zip most of the way and attempting the button. He pressed both sides together with both hands and held them there for five seconds of strained optimism before the back inseam split cleanly.

He stood in his room in the ruined jeans.

He knew exactly how it had happened. Late nights. His mother's cooking on visits home. Felix's insistence on proper meals. Losing Changbin as a gym companion. Ten hours a day in the studio chair. The slow, unconscious replacement of physical discipline with the genuine, simple pleasure of a life that didn't demand the constant performance of his own body.

And the food. He'd enjoyed the food. He wasn't going to pretend he hadn't.

But the reunion was in five days .... He opened his laptop and found a clothing site. He spent twenty minutes selecting things in sizes he'd never bought before, 2XL in some cuts, 3XL in others, elastic-waist trousers added with the pragmatism of someone who has recently destroyed their last pair of jeans. He checked out without looking at the total.

Then he went back to the studio, put his headphones on, and found the missing note in the second verse.

It was a low cello line. It had been there the whole time.

ﾟ+(人・∀・*)+｡♪

Hyunjin's exhibition was called Love at Every Season and occupied an entire floor of a gallery in Surry Hills.

Chan and Felix arrived twenty minutes after opening. Felix wore the dark blue shirt. Chan had been right, it didn't wash him out, nothing did.

Chan wore the new clothes: trousers in a relaxed cut that fit him without protest, and a soft olive button-up that lay flat over his chest and stomach without straining. Not the body he was used to show in public But it was his, and the shirt fit, and that was enough.

Before they'd left, he'd stood in front of the mirror too long. Felix appeared in the doorway, clocked his expression immediately, and said: "You look good. Stop making that face." And because it was Felix, Chan had exhaled and believed it. Mostly.

They found familiar shapes near a painting of the Sydney coastline.

Changbin looked good, the way he always did, someone who trained regularly and ate whatever he wanted with cheerful defiance. His arms in the fitted black t-shirt were still dense and solid. But there was a new roundness at his middle, a belly pushing against the fabric of his shirt and sitting over the waistband of his jeans with a visible, unapologetic comfort. He looked like someone who worked out but couldn't say no to take out

Seungmin stood beside him, elegant and easy, hair slightly longer than Chan remembered.

Seungmin saw them first and crossed the room in three strides, pulling Chan into a hug that was tighter than it looked.

"You're here," Seungmin said, stepping back to look at him. His eyes went to Chan's face, then dropped, a quick involuntary sweep taking in the full picture of him, the round cheeks, the broad soft frame, the belly visible even under the relaxed-fit shirt, then back up. Something small moved in his expression. "You look .... good."

"Thanks?" Chan said.

Changbin grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him once, his standard greeting. He looked Chan over with undisguised assessment, his gaze moving down from Chan's face to his chest, to his stomach, to the soft overall roundness of him, before coming back up with a grin. "Sydney is happy with you," he said. "All of Sydney, apparently."

"That's one way to put it," Chan said.

Changbin's grin widened. "It's a good way."

They moved through the gallery together, talking between the paintings. A track Chan had produced that had gone unexpectedly viral, Seungmin's drama soundtrack ballad, Changbin's catastrophic attempt at homemade gochujang.

"Inedible," Changbin admitted. "Genuinely inedible. I'm going to try again."

Chan laughed and felt the months of distance dissolving.

The gift shop had the energy of a controlled disaster.

Minho was wearing a cat-ear headband with the absolute conviction of someone who considers their appearance entirely their own business. Jisung stood beside him wearing springy pom-pom eyes on his head, examining himself in the display mirror with complete seriousness.

"The pom-pom ones are more versatile," Jisung was explaining. "You could build a whole look around..."

He looked up.

The sound he made was not a word. It was approximately between a scream and a sob and it came out at a volume that made people in the next room look up.

"CHANNIE HYUNG!"

Minho turned. He took in all four of them in the doorway and his face did the rare thing, opened, unguarded, warm.

Then Jisung was across the shop and wrapping around Chan with the full-body commitment of someone making up for years of missed hugs at once. Chan staggered back half a step, laughing. He was dimly aware that he made a more substantial landing target than he used to, and that Jisung had made a small surprised noise on impact that he was politely not mentioning.

"You're so..." Jisung started, muffled against Chan's shoulder.

"Don't" said Minho, calmly.

Jisung pulled back, eyes bright. "I was going to say here. You're so here." He beamed. His eyes traveled down and back up with the guilelessness of someone who has never successfully hidden a thought. "You look cozy, hyung."

"Cozy" Chan repeated.

"I meant it nicely."

"I know you did."

Minho hung the cat-ear headband back up with ceremonial care and walked over to Chan. He looked at him for a moment with that precise, fifteen-year gaze that saw more than it let on, then pulled him into a brief, tight hug. "You look good," he said into Chan's shoulder. He stepped back and added, at normal volume: "Wider. But good."

"Minho" Felix said.

"I said good" Minho said. He turned to Felix. "You look exactly the same. It's offensive."

"Skincare," Felix said.

"I hate you," Minho said, warmly.

Minho's gaze moved to Changbin, who was studying a print behind them with studied nonchalance.

"Dwaekki," Minho said.

Changbin turned. "Don't."

"You've got a little something." Minho gestured vaguely toward Changbin's middle. "A little extra. Stress-eating again?"

Changbin pointed at him. "I will put you back in the cat ears."

"Go ahead. I looked incredible."

"He ate too much samgyeopsal," Jisung informed the room. "I watched it happen. Over several years."

"You ate more than me every single time," Changbin said.

"Hummingbird metabolism," Minho said. "Scientifically unfair."

Chan laughed, and felt briefly, gratefully aware that Changbin's extra weight had absorbed the room's attention in a way that had quietly taken the pressure off himself. He was privately aware that his own stomach considerably outpaced Changbin's, that there was a clear scale here and he was at one definitive end of it. He was also aware that nobody in this room was going to say so out loud.

He was hungry, he realised. He'd been nervous this morning and barely eaten.

Good. The restaurant was next.

ﾟ+(人・∀・*)+｡♪

The Korean BBQ restaurant had been privatised for the evening. Eight chairs around a grill table in the back room, the exhaust fan humming overhead, the smell of charcoal and sesame reaching back into Chan's muscle memory.

Hyunjin and Jeongin were waiting outside. Hyunjin's hair was long and dark and he moved with his usual unconscious elegance. Jeongin had grown further into himself, steadier, older, still that same brightness held more securely now.

When Hyunjin saw all six of them round the corner together, he put a hand over his mouth.

"Oh," he said. "All of you."

Jeongin walked forward without a word and worked his way down the row of them, making sure each one was real. When he got to Chan he held on a moment longer.

"Hyung," he said quietly

Jeongin pulled back and looked at him properly. Not the quick polite glance the others had managed, a real look, the kind he'd always been capable of. His eyes moved over Chan fully, the round soft face, the broad frame, the belly that pushed visibly at the front of his shirt with undeniable presence, before coming back up to his face.

"I missed you," Jeongin said. Nothing else.

"Me too," Chan said. "A lot."

Hyunjin took Chan's shoulders in both hands and looked at him with an expression working hard to appear casual. His gaze slipped down, just once, taking in the full soft roundness of him, the way Chan occupied space differently now than he ever had, and came back up with something that looked like genuine, uncomplicated warmth. "You look so good," Hyunjin said, and meant it.

"The exhibition was incredible," Chan said, letting the deflection happen.

Hyunjin's face transformed completely "Did you see all of the painting?"

And they were in, and they were talking, and the last of the morning's dread dissolved.

At first it was typical small talk , how they were doing , how's life treating them , Minho and Jisung deciding to go to Sydney three days ealier than planned to get married , The funny routine of Hyunjin and Seungmin living together but Changbin living only 5 meters away from them so it was mostly all three of them and two appartements , just basic informations

The grill fired up. The first meat went on.

"You look great, hyung," Jisung said, looking at Chan with his head tilted. "You look like a person who eats. Regularly. Consistently." He paused. "With real enthusiasm."

"Thanks... i guess ?" Chan said.

"I meant it as a compliment!"

"He looks happy," Jeongin said, from the other end of the table, with a quiet finality that should have closed the subject.

It did not close the subject.

What followed was two hours of the most coordinated, deniable, entirely loving overfeeding Chan had ever experienced.

It started with Changbin. He reached over for the tongs, flipped a piece of pork belly on the grill, and slid it onto Chan's plate. "This one's done," he said. "It'll get cold."

"I have–"

"Eat it."

Minho refilled his soju glass without being asked. When Chan reached for a finished piece of meat, Minho got there first with the tongs and transferred it to Chan's plate with the efficiency of someone who had thought about this. "Eat," Minho said pleasantly.

"I am eating."

"More."

"You've been sitting in a Sydney studio," Seungmin observed, from across the table, in the same tone as commenting on mild weather. He added a portion of japchae to Chan's plate. "Probably not eating properly."

"Felix makes sure I eat properly."

"Felix is too nice," Changbin said, loading more meat onto the grill. "He lets you have crackers for dinner."

"That was one time," Felix said, without looking up.

"How often do you skip breakfast?" Jeongin asked, with the innocence of someone asking an entirely academic question.

"I don't—"

Jeongin placed a perfect piece of grilled pork onto Chan's plate.

Hyunjin selected the best-looking piece from the centre of the grill, placed it on Chan's plate with care, and said: "You're running a whole label. You need to keep your strength up." He said it with the gentle certainty of someone stating an obvious fact about the weather.

Chan looked at his plate, which had accumulated significantly more food than he'd put there himself. He looked around the table. Seven faces looked back at him with varying degrees of innocence.

"What" he said.

"Nothing," Jisung said, and added one more piece. "You're our leader. We want you healthy."

"Jisung. What does healthy mean to you right now, specifically."

Jisung pointed at Chan's plate. "It means eat that."

Chan ate it. It was very good. He'd been hungrier than he'd admitted to himself.

The conversation kept moving. Jisung and Minho's courthouse wedding, the cats in bow ties, the registrar's bewildered face. Hyunjin and Seungmin's two-and-a-half years that everyone had known about and nobody had technically confirmed until now. Changbin, who had apparently told Seungmin first, maintaining that he'd been helpful about the whole thing.

Chan laughed, genuinely, until his shoulders shook.

When the conversation circled toward him, he was on his third plate. He hadn't entirely planned the third plate, but Jeongin had quietly put more on the grill in front of him, and Minho had topped up his glass again, and it had seemed ungrateful not to.

"Tell us about you," Jisung said. "Not the label. You."

"I'm good" Chan said. He glanced at Felix across the table. "Really good, actually."

Nobody pushed. They nodded, and Minho made a sound of satisfaction, and Jeongin reached over and placed the last piece of beef from the serving plate onto Chan's plate with a quiet, deliberate gesture that said everything without saying anything.

Chan looked at it. He laughed softly to himself.

"Your hair looks incredible," Hyunjin said. "When did you start doing it like that?"

"Recently," Chan said, touching the back of his neck.

"It works" Seungmin confirmed.

"You look good, hyung," Changbin said, meeting his eyes directly. "Happy looks good on you." A beat. "All of you."

Seungmin raised his glass. "To our idiot old leader."

"To Chan-hyung," Jeongin said immediately, with feeling.

"To Chan-hyung," the rest of them said, in the overlapping, slightly out-of-sync way of people who spent years doing everything together.

Chan raised his glass. Something that had been wound tight since he'd stood in front of his bathroom mirror unwound slowly in his chest.

He was recognised here. Every one of them looked at him and saw Bang Chan. Not the weight, not the change. Just him, the way they always had.

He accepted a fourth portion when Jeongin offered it without making it a statement.

He laughed until his face hurt.

ﾟ+(人・∀・*)+｡♪

The Uber home was quiet in the comfortable way that follows a long, full evening.

Chan sat with his hands resting on his stomach, which was pressing against his waistband with a firmness that left no room for ambiguity. The button had been doing its best for the past hour. He respected its commitment.

"You okay?" Felix asked, from beside him, the ghost of a smile already there.

"I'm full," Chan said.

"You're very full."

"Felix. I ate four plates."

"I counted," Felix said. "Jeongin put food on your plate nine separate times."

"Minho did it at least four. And Hyunjin gave me his own portion at one point, I saw him do it."

"He was smooth about it," Felix said, appreciatively. "You almost missed it."

"I'm going to explode," Chan said.

"You're not going to explode."

"I'm genuinely not sure about that." He pressed his hands against his stomach, which was round and taut and enormous, and exhaled slowly. "Why did nobody stop them."

"Because you kept eating," Felix said, reasonably.

"Because they kept putting it in front of me!"

"Because they love you," Felix said simply. "That's all that was."

Chan went quiet. He looked out at Sydney sliding past the window, the orange glow of streetlights. He thought about Jeongin and the tongs, Minho's refilled glass, Changbin's carefully casual piece of pork belly. Seven people, quietly, continuously, collectively making sure their leader ate enough.

"Yeah," he said. "I know."

They got home.

Chan made it through the front door and stopped in the entrance hall, hands pressed to his middle, taking stock. The trousers were not comfortable. They had not been comfortable for some time. His stomach felt round and heavy and genuinely enormous under his palms.

"Right," Felix said, appearing beside him. "You need to not be wearing those trousers anymore."

"Accurate," Chan said.

Felix took him gently by the elbow and steered him toward the bedroom, easy and matter-of-fact, the way he'd always known what Chan needed before Chan had worked it out himself. He undid the button at Chan's waist, which released with something close to audible relief, and helped him step out of the trousers without comment.

Chan pulled the olive shirt over his head himself and dropped it on the chair. He stood in the middle of the room in just his boxers.

His stomach was very round. Very full. Even rounder than it usually was, which was already quite round. It curved out in front of him, soft and heavy, sitting over the waistband of his boxers with a weight that was simply and entirely present.

Felix turned back from hanging up the trousers and looked at him.

He didn't look away.

"Better?" he asked.

"Much better," Chan said.

Felix picked up the soft jersey shorts from the end of the bed where Chan had left them that morning and handed them over. While Chan stepped into them, Felix sat on the bed and watched him with an expression that was open and calm and didn't try to be anything else.

"You're staring," Chan said.

"I am," Felix agreed.

"Why?"

Felix thought about it for a moment, the honest way he thought about things that deserved honesty. "I don't see you like this very often," he said. "Without the hoodie. You spend a lot of time under a lot of fabric."

"For reasons," Chan said.

"Yeah. I know." Felix paused. "Come here."

Chan sat down on the bed beside him. Felix shifted, turning toward him slightly, and then placed one hand, warm and light, on Chan's stomach.

Chan went still.

Felix moved his hand in a slow easy circle, gentle and unhurried, and Chan felt the tightness ease almost immediately, the pressure redistributing into something more manageable.

"Okay?" Felix asked.

"Yeah" Chan said. Quieter than intended. "Yeah, that helps."

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

"You were nervous today" Felix said.

"A bit."

"Is it beceause about how you look ?"

"About what they'd think," Chan said to the ceiling. "About whether they'd... I don't know."

Chan thought about Changbin's grin and all of Sydney, apparently. Jeongin's long honest look followed by I missed you. Hyunjin's surprised warmth. Minho's wider, but good, which had been the most honest thing anyone said all evening and somehow the easiest thing to hear.

"They were them," he said. "Exactly them."

His hand kept moving, slow and warm. Chan closed his eyes.

"I like it," Felix said, after a moment. Quietly. Matter-of-factly.

Chan opened his eyes and looked at him.

Felix met his gaze without flinching. "How you look. Right now." His eyes moved over Chan without hurry, the round soft face, the heavy arms, the belly under his hand, full and warm. "I've liked it for a while. I know you don't always. I know you stand in front of the mirror too long sometimes." He paused.

Chan stared at him.

"Also," Felix added, with a small smile working at the corner of his mouth, "you're extremely warm. Particularly in winter."

"That's not—"

"Objectively cuddly," Felix continued, undeterred. "Measurably."

"Felix."

"I'm just saying" Felix said, and the smile had won entirely now, warm and private, the one he kept just for the two of them.

Chan looked at him. The freckles, the easy smile, the hand still resting warm on his stomach like it was the most natural place in the world to put it.

Something settled in his chest that had been waiting a long time to settle

Outside, Sydney settled into its late evening. Distant city noise. The faint sound of the ocean two streets away.

Chan was full. He was warm. He'd been seen by all of them, really seen, and loved anyway. By the ones who'd made jokes and the ones who'd said nothing and the one sitting right here with his hand on Chan's stomach like there was nowhere else it belonged.

"Felix" he said.

"Yeah?"

"Don't move."

Felix smiled. He didn't move.

Chan closed his eyes.

Eso me dejó pensando, mmm (el concepto es muy parecido a mi os 2min 'care of you', por cierto), ¿qué tal si:

yay guys i drew again :3

☆ I wanna know if you're built for this

summary : hyunjin just started his military service , what's wrong could happen could him ?

a/n : this fic is the sequel of this fic , you don't necessarily need to read it to understand this story :)

Enjoy ♡

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

Hyunjin had never been particularly athletic.

Growing up in a comfortable home on the outskirts of Seoul, he had always preferred art to sports, daydreams to discipline. He spent his childhood sketching in notebooks instead of running laps, watching clouds instead of counting reps.

Therefore his body reflected that preference : soft around the edges, a little rounder than his classmates, never quite fitting the sharp silhouettes of the boys who dominated gym class. And of course , his mom's cooking didn't help. She always enjoyed spoilling him , cooking him his favorite dish , encouraging him to always finish his plate

And of couse his father noticed.

His father always noticed.

"You need structure," he said one evening over dinner, chopsticks pointing at Hyunjin like an accusation. "Discipline. The military will fix that."

Hyunjin blinked slowly, still half-lost in a thought about the way the evening light was catching the window. "Fix what?"

His father's jaw tightened. "You know what."

And so, at nineteen, Hyunjin found himself standing at the gates of a military training facility with a duffel bag over his shoulder and absolutely no idea what he was doing there.

The intake officer glanced at his paperwork, then at him, then back at the paperwork.

"Early enlistment?"

"Y... yes, sir."

"Reason?"

Hyunjin hesitated. Because my father thinks I'm too fat didn't seem like the kind of answer that would inspire confidence.

"Personal development," he said instead.

The officer stamped his forms without further comment.

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

The barracks smelled like sweat and industrial cleaner.

Hyunjin was assigned to Unit 7, Room 3

It was a narrow space with six bunks, metal lockers, and exactly zero personality. The walls were bare concrete, the floor worn linoleum, the single window too high to see anything but a rectangle of gray sky.

His bunkmates were already there when he arrived.

The first to approach him was a sharp-featured man with cat-like eyes and a smirk that seemed permanently attached to his face. His name tag read "Lee Minho," and his rank insignia marked him as the room's senior soldier and acting squad leader.

"Fresh meat," Minho said, circling him slowly. "Let me guess. Rich family. Never worked a day in your life. Daddy sent you here to toughen up."

Hyunjin felt his cheeks flush. "I‐"

"Don't worry." Minho patted his shoulder, the gesture somewhere between reassuring and condescending. "We'll take good care of you."

The other soldiers in the room laughed , not cruelly , but not kindly either.

There was Kim Seungmin, a quiet soldier with sharp eyes who kept to himself and seemed perpetually focused on some internal goal. Felix, a freckled boy who spoke Korean with an Australian accent and smiled at everyone indiscriminately. And two others whose names Hyunjin immediately forgot in the chaos of unpacking and introductions.

That first night, lying in his bunk and staring at the ceiling, Hyunjin wondered if his father had any idea what he'd actually signed him up for.

Probably not.

His father never did.

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

The first week was brutal.

Morning drills at 5 AM. Endless laps around the compound. Push-ups until his arms trembled. Obstacle courses that left him gasping and covered in mud while everyone else seemed to power through effortlessly.

Hyunjin was not built for this.

By the third day, he was trailing so far behind during runs that the drill instructor had to send someone back to make sure he hadn't collapsed.

"You're embarrassing yourself," the instructor barked. "And you're embarrassing this unit."

Hyunjin nodded, too breathless to respond.

That evening, Minho found him sitting alone in the mess hall, pushing food around his tray without eating.

"Not hungry?"

Hyunjin looked up, startled. "I... no ... not really."

Minho slid onto the bench across from him, his own tray piled high with food. "That's your problem, you know. You're not eating enough."

"I thought I was supposed to lose weight."

Minho laughed—a sharp, genuine sound that echoed in the half-empty hall. "Who told you that? Your drill instructor?"

"... my father."

Something flickered in Minho's expression, too quick to read. Then the smirk returned. "Look, kid. You're already behind everyone else. If you stop eating, you'll just get weaker, and then you'll really be useless."

He pushed a bread roll across the table.

"Eat. That's an order."

Hyunjin hesitated, then took a bite.

It was the first of many.

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

The feeding started gradually.

It wasn't organized. It wasn't planned. It was just... the way things evolved.

Hyunjin struggled. Everyone could see it. He fell behind during training, got winded during drills, and looked perpetually exhausted. The natural response, somehow, was to give him food.

It started with Minho's bread rolls.

Then Felix started saving his extra portions from dinner. "You need the energy more than I do," he'd say cheerfully, sliding his rice onto Hyunjin's tray.

Then the midnight snacks began.

Soldiers returning from night duty would bring back treats from the convenience store just outside the base. From chocolate bars to chips or even instant noodles. Hyunjin's bunk somehow became the unofficial distribution center.

"For your blood sugar," someone would say, tossing a candy bar onto his pillow.

"You skipped lunch again," another would add, pressing a package of cookies into his hands.

Hyunjin didn't refuse. He never refused.

Partly because the food was comforting. Partly because refusing felt rude. And partly because (though he wouldn't admit it) he was starting to enjoy the attention.

Back home, his weight had always been a source of shame. Here, it had become a kind of inside joke, a bonding ritual that made him feel like part of the group rather than apart from it.

Even if it meant his uniform was getting tighter.

Even if it meant the scale in the medical office crept higher every monthly check-up.

Even if it meant he was becoming exactly what his father had sent him here to stop being.

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

Three months in, Hyunjin had gained fifteen kilograms.

His cheeks were rounder, his belly noticeably softer beneath his uniform shirt. The standard-issue pants that had fit loosely when he arrived now strained at the waist, and he'd had to request a larger size twice.

Minho, of course, noticed everything.

"Looking well-fed there, Hyunjinnie" he'd say during morning roll call, his voice pitched just loud enough for the room to hear. "Did someone smuggle a convenience store into your locker?"

"S ... stop it hyung"

"I'm just saying. If you keep growing at this rate, we'll have to roll you to the training field."

The other soldiers laughed. Hyunjin's face burned. But there was no malice in it , well not from Minho, at least. The senior soldier had a way of making even his sharpest comments sound almost affectionate, like a cat batting at a mouse it had no intention of actually hurting.

And besides, Minho protected him.

When soldiers from other units made comments, the kind that actually stung , Minho shut them down immediately.

"Hey, is that the pig from Unit 7?" a soldier from Unit 3 called out one afternoon, loud enough for half the compound to hear. "I heard they're using him as a training dummy because he's too soft to fight back."

Minho stepped forward, positioning himself between Hyunjin and the other soldier with a casualness that belied the steel in his eyes.

"That's funny," he said, voice silky. "I heard Unit 3's average IQ drops every time you open your mouth. Correlation or causation, do you think?"

The soldier's smirk faltered.

"Walk away," Minho continued. "Now."

Later, back in the barracks, Hyunjin mumbled a thank you that Minho waved off.

"Don't mention it. Seriously, don't. If people think I've gone soft, my reputation is ruined."

"You have a reputation?"

"I have layers, Hyunjin. Like an onion."

"Or an ogre."

Minho threw a pillow at his head.

"Shut up before i stuff your mouth with tissue"

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

It was around the six-month mark that Seungmin started opening up.

They'd been bunkmates since the beginning, but Seungmin had always kept to himself. He was polite but yet distant, focused but private. He trained harder than anyone, studied obsessively, and seemed driven by something he never talked about.

One night, after lights out, Hyunjin heard him moving in the bunk below.

"Can't sleep?" Hyunjin whispered.

A pause. Then: "No."

"Me neither. Want a snack?"

He reached under his pillow and pulled out a package of sweet rice cakes that Felix had given him earlier. After a moment, Seungmin's hand appeared in the darkness to take one.

They chewed in silence for a while.

"Why did you enlist early?" Seungmin asked finally. "You don't seem like the type."

Hyunjin considered the question. "My father thought it would be good for me. Help me lose weight, get disciplined. That kind of thing."

"Is it working?"

Hyunjin looked down at his belly, which was pressing against the waistband of his shorts even while lying down. "What do you think?"

Seungmin almost laughed. Almost. "Fair enough."

"What about you?" Hyunjin asked. "You're young too. Why early?"

The silence stretched longer this time.

"I needed to grow up," Seungmin said quietly. "I needed to prove I could stand on my own. That I wasn't just... someone who needed to be taken care of."

"Prove to who?"

Another pause. "To myself, mostly."

Hyunjin sensed there was more to the story, but he didn't push. Instead, he asked, "Is there someone waiting for you? On the outside?"

Even in the darkness, he could feel Seungmin tense.

"Yeah," he admitted finally. "There is."

"Oh your girlfriend ?"

The pause was just a fraction too long.

"...yeah , something like that."

Hyunjin didn't really understood , but yet he didn't say anything more, just passed another rice cake down to the bunk below.

Some truths were safer left unspoken.

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

As Minho's discharge date approached, he talked more and more about "Hannie."

It started small , a comment here, a reference there. But as the weeks counted down, the mentions became more frequent, more detailed, more openly affectionate. When he wasn't talking about his three cats (that he was referencing as his sons with Hannie) , it was that mysterious girlfriend that no one heard until now

"Hannie makes the best kimchi jjigae," he announced one evening, apropos of nothing. "Seriously it's better than restaurant quality."

"And did i told you about how much Hannie love cheesecake ?"

"We know," Felix said. "You've told us seventeen times."

"Because it's important information. You should all be jealous."

"We are," Hyunjin mumbled through a mouthful of instant noodles. "Deeply jealous."

Minho ignored the sarcasm. "And the smile. God, that smile. It's like... you know how sometimes the sun comes out after a storm, and everything looks brighter? It's like that, but concentrated into one person."

Seungmin looked up from his book. "That's surprisingly poetic for you, hyung."

"I contain multitudes."

"You contain delusions, maybe."

Minho threw a sock at him.

But the stories kept coming. Hannie's laugh. Hannie's cooking. The way Hannie hummed while doing chores. The way Hannie's nose scrunched up when concentrating on something.

None of them knew what Hannie looked like. None of them knew anything concrete, it was just fragments of a person filtered through Minho's obvious adoration.

"You really love her, don't you?" Hyunjin asked one night, when it was just the two of them awake.

Minho was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer than usual, stripped of its usual sardonic edge.

"More than anything."

It was the most honest thing Hyunjin had ever heard him say.

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

The day Minho left, the entire unit accompanied him to the base gates.

It was against protocol, technically, but no one stopped them. Minho had been there longer than anyone, had led Room 3 through three different cycles of soldiers, had become as much a fixture of the place as the buildings themselves.

Hyunjin stood at the back of the group, feeling unexpectedly emotional. For all Minho's teasing (and there had been a lot of teasing) th e senior soldier had looked out for him in ways that mattered. He protected him , he made him feel like he belonged.

"Don't cry on me, Hyunjinnie," Minho said, pausing in front of him. "You'll ruin my dramatic exit."

"I'm not crying."

"Your eyes are suspiciously shiny."

"It's allergies."

Minho laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Take care of yourself. And for god's sake, stop eating everything in sight. At this rate, you'll outgrow the base."

"I'll try, hyung."

"You won't. But it's cute that you said it."

And then Minho was walking through the gates, duffel bag over his shoulder, heading toward the parking area where someone was waiting.

They all watched.

The figure that emerged from the waiting car was not what any of them expected.

It was a man.

Shorter than Minho, with round glasses perched on his nose and a soft, friendly face. He was wearing a casual oversized sweater and jeans, his cheeks slightly chubby, his smile—when it appeared—exactly as radiant as Minho had described.

Minho dropped his bag and ran.

He swept the man into a hug so fierce it lifted him off the ground, spinning him once before setting him down and kissing him without hesitation, without shame, without any attempt at subtlety.

"Hannie," he breathed, loud enough to carry. "God, I missed you."

Behind them, the soldiers of Unit 7, Room 3 stood in stunned silence.

Felix was the first to speak. "Oh man ..."

Seungmin said nothing, but his expression had shifted something complicated moving behind his eyes.

Hyunjin just smiled, watching as Minho the sharp, sarcastic and untouchable Minho , was the one who melted completely in the arms of the man he loved right in front of his unit.

It was, he thought, unexpectedly beautiful.

Deeo inside he hoped thid kind of love could reach him too

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

Minho's replacement arrived three days later.

His name was Bang Chan, and he was, by all accounts, an unusual addition to the unit.

For one thing, he'd grown up in Australia. His Korean was fluent but accented, peppered with occasional English phrases that slipped out when he was tired or distracted. For another, he was unfailingly, almost aggressively warm , clearly a stark contrast to Minho's cool sarcasm.

"G'day everyone !" he said on his first day, shaking hands with everyone in the room like he was running for office. "I know I'm not Minho but I promise I'll do my best. We're a team. We look out for each other. That's how this works."

Felix, being Felix, was immediately charmed. "Finally, someone who speaks Australian!"

"... It's called English, mate."

"Same thing!"

Hyunjin watched the new arrival with cautious curiosity. Chan was broader than Minho, more solidly built, with a kind face and eyes that crinkled when he smiled. He seemed genuine. He seemed... nice.

Maybe too nice for this place.

But Chan proved himself quickly. He was strict when necessary , protocols were followed, discipline was maintained. But he was also attuned to his soldiers in a way that felt personal, not performative.

He noticed when Felix was homesick and found excuses to talk about Australia. He noticed when Seungmin was pushing himself too hard and quietly adjusted his duty roster. And he noticed when Hyunjin was struggling.

"You okay there?" Chan asked one afternoon, finding Hyunjin sitting alone outside the barracks, catching his breath after a training exercise.

Hyunjin looked up, embarrassed. "Fine. Just... needed a minute."

Chan sat down beside him. "Take all the minutes you need. No judgment."

"Thanks."

They sat in silence for a while. Then Chan reached into his pocket and pulled out a protein bar.

"Here. You look like you could use the energy."

Hyunjin took it automatically. "I'm not sure more food is what I need, hyung."

Chan glanced at him, assessing. "Maybe not. But you're working hard, and you need fuel. Don't skip meals, don't punish yourself. That's not how progress works."

It was sensible advice. Caring, even.

Hyunjin ate the protein bar.

And then the next one Chan gave him.

And the next...

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

Under Chan's leadership, the feeding didn't stop. If anything, it intensified , but in different ways.

Where Minho had been teasing and ironic about Hyunjin's weight, Chan was earnest. He genuinely believed he was helping.

"You had a tough session today," Chan would say, pressing a package of crackers into Hyunjin's hands. "Make sure you refuel."

"You've been on your feet all day. Here, I grabbed this for you."

"You look tired. When did you last eat? Here, take this."

The snacks accumulated. The portions at meals grew. And Chan as well-meaning as he was , kept finding ways to lighten Hyunjin's workload, to spare him the more grueling physical tasks.

"Hyunjin, you stay back and organize the equipment."

"Hyunjin, you supervise from here while the others run the course."

"Hyunjin, rest up. I'll handle it."

It was protection. It was accommodation. And it was, slowly but surely, making everything worse.

By the eight-month mark, Hyunjin had gained another twenty kilograms.

His uniform shirt no longer buttoned properly. The standard-issue belt had run out of holes. His belly was now hanging over all his pants When he walked, he could feel the unfamiliar weight of his body shifting with each step , he was now waddling as his thighs were rubbing together. His belly was swaying slightly, his breath coming harder than it should.

He avoided mirrors. He stopped looking down in the shower. He pretended not to notice the way his bunk creaked more ominously each night.

But everyone else noticed.

"You're getting big, Hyunjinnie," Felix observed one evening, with the kind of blunt honesty only he could get away with. "Like, really big."

"I know."

"Are you okay with that?"

Hyunjin considered the question. Was he okay with it ? He'd come here to lose weight. His father had sent him here to lose weight. And instead, he'd gained more than he'd ever carried in his life.

But also... he didn't hate it. Not really. The food was comforting. The attention was warm. And between starving himself, pushing through pain, becoming someone he'd never been and this , the choice was easy to make

"I don't know," he admitted. "I think I've just... stopped fighting it."

Felix nodded slowly. "That's valid. Bodies do what they do."

"Tell that to my father."

"I'd rather not. He sounds scary."

Hyunjin almost laughed. "He is."

That night, he dreamed about bread rolls and convenience store chocolate, about Minho's smirk and Chan's gentle hands pressing food into his palms. In the dream, he was bigger , much bigger , clearly the biggest he ever was and somehow that felt right.

The next day he woke up hungry. Craving some of Chan's chocolate bar

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

The medical examination was mandatory.

Every soldier underwent regular health assessments, but this one was different. This was the comprehensive yearly physical, the one that determined continued service eligibility.

Hyunjin had been dreading it for weeks.

He stood in the medical building's waiting room, surrounded by soldiers from other units, acutely aware of how much space he now occupied. His uniform was the largest size available, and it still stretched tight across his belly. His cheeks had filled out so completely , making his double chin more visible that his face looked almost unfamiliar in photographs. Even his hands seemed thicker, his fingers softer.

When his name was called, he walked into the examination room with the slow, careful gait that had become his default.

The military doctor (a tired-looking man in his fifties) glanced up from his clipboard, did a visible double-take, and then sighed deeply.

"Hwang Hyunjin?"

"Yes, sir."

"Step on the scale, please."

Hyunjin approached the standard-issue scale in the corner. It was the same model he'd been weighed on every month since arriving , a sturdy thing designed for soldiers in full gear.

He stepped on.

The digital display flickered. Numbers appeared, then vanished, then appeared again. The scale beeped once. Twice. Three times.

ERROR, the display read.

The doctor frowned. "Step off and back on, please."

Hyunjin complied.

ERROR.

"One more time."

ERROR.

The doctor exhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "The scale's maximum capacity is 150 kilograms. You're exceeding it."

The words hung in the air like a verdict.

"I'm... what?"

"You're over 150 kilograms, Soldier Hwang. The scale can't measure you."

Hyunjin stared at the display, uncomprehending. Over 150 kilograms. He'd arrived weighing somewhere around 85. In less than a year, he'd gained...

He couldn't do the math. His brain refused.

The doctor was already writing on his clipboard. "I'm going to have to flag this for review. Your BMI is well beyond acceptable limits for active duty. Field work isn't possible at your current weight , you'd be a liability to yourself and your unit."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," the doctor said, not unkindly, "that you're being reassigned. Civic service. Administrative duties. Something that doesn't require you to run, climb, or fight"

Hyunjin should have felt devastated. Should have felt ashamed. Should have felt like he'd failed because he had failed, hadn't he? He'd been sent here to lose weight and had done the exact opposite.

Instead, all he felt was relief.

"When?" he asked.

"Effective immediately. You'll be transferred to the city administrative office tomorrow. Someone there will help you finish out your service."

"Yes, sir."

The doctor looked at him for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then he shook his head slightly and went back to his paperwork.

"Good luck, Soldier."

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

The administrative office was nothing like the military base.

It was quiet. Climate-controlled. The floors were actual floors, not mud or concrete, and the chairs were cushioned. There were plants by the windows , real plants, not the stubborn weeds that grew around the barracks.

The only things he would missed was his Roommate. Chan had given him his number, while Felix had promised to visit him after his enlist. Seungmin remained fairly calm but promised to see him again when they had all finished military service .

Hyunjin stood in the lobby on his first morning, feeling overwhelmingly out of place. His civilian clothes (hastily purchased when it became clear nothing from before his service would fit) they were simple but comfortable: a loose sweater, stretchy pants, slip-on shoes. No uniform. No ranks. No expectations.

"You must be Hwang Hyunjin!"

The voice came from his left. Hyunjin turned to find a young man approaching him younger than him, maybe, with bright eyes like a fox and an infectious smile that seemed to light up the entire room.

"I'm Yang Jeongin," the man said, extending his hand. "I'll be showing you around today. Welcome to the Seoul Metropolitan Administrative Corps!"

Hyunjin shook his hand, slightly dazed. "Thanks. Sorry, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do here."

"That's totally fine! Most transfers don't. The military doesn't exactly prepare you for paperwork." Jeongin laughed, a warm sound. "Come on, let me show you your desk."

He led Hyunjin through a maze of cubicles and filing cabinets, chattering cheerfully the entire way. The office, he explained, handled various civic matters , permits, registrations, complaints, records. It was unglamorous but essential work.

"And here we are!" Jeongin stopped in front of a desk near the window. It was already set up with a computer, a phone, and a small stack of orientation materials. "This is you. I'm right over there if you need anything." He pointed to a desk a few meters away.

"Thanks," Hyunjin said, settling into the chair. It creaked under him but held. "This is... nice."

"Better than running laps in the mud, right?"

"Much better."

Jeongin grinned. "I thought so. Oh, also ..." He reached into his bag and pulled out a small container. "...I brought extra kimbap for lunch. My mom always makes too much. Want some?"

Hyunjin hesitated.

Then his stomach growled, loud enough to be audible.

Jeongin laughed again. "I'll take that as a yes! I'll bring it by at noon."

He bounced off to his own desk, leaving Hyunjin staring after him with a strange sense of déjà vu.

Food offered freely. Kindness wrapped in calories. A warm smile that asked nothing in return.

It was familiar , but he didn't complain.

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

The first week passed smoothly.

The work was simple , data entry, mostly, with occasional filing tasks. Hyunjin found he didn't mind it. After months of physical demands he could never meet, sitting at a desk felt almost like a vacation.

And Jeongin was... everywhere.

He appeared at Hyunjin's desk every morning with coffee. "You look tired! Caffeine helps."

He appeared at lunch with extra portions. "Mom packed too much again. Please help me finish it."

He appeared in the afternoon with snacks. "I found these at the convenience store. Have you tried them? They're amazing."

Hyunjin accepted everything. He told himself it was politeness. Told himself he didn't want to be rude. Told himself Jeongin was just being friendly.

But by the end of the first week, his pants were already feeling tighter.

"You're settling in well," Jeongin observed on Friday afternoon, perching on the edge of Hyunjin's desk. "How are you finding it?"

"Quiet," Hyunjin admitted. "But good quiet. I like it."

"Better than the military?"

"Much better."

Jeongin smiled, and Hyunjin noticed for the first time how the younger man's eyes lingered on him , not judgmentally, but... assessingly. Almost appreciatively.

"I'm glad," Jeongin said. "You seemed stressed when you first arrived. Now you look more relaxed."

"I feel more relaxed."

"Good." Jeongin hopped off the desk, then paused. "Oh, I almost forgot! My mom's making tteokbokki tonight , she love making it with tons of cheese because of my brother. She always makes a huge batch. Would you want me to bring some on Monday?"

Hyunjin knew he should say no. Should politely decline. Should at least pretend to have some self-control.

"That sounds great," he said instead.

Jeongin's smile widened. "Perfect! I'll bring extra."

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

Weeks passed.

The tteokbokki became japchae. The japchae became bulgogi. The bulgogi became endless varieties of home-cooked meals, convenience store treats, bakery pastries, and anything else Jeongin could reasonably justify bringing to the office.

"My mom made too much."

"The bakery had a sale."

"I can't finish this alone."

"You've been working so hard hyung , you deserve a treat."

The excuses were endless. The food was endless. And Hyunjin, who had never been good at saying no, found himself accepting all of it.

His body continued to change.

The desk chair that had creaked on his first day now groaned with every movement. His stretchy pants had been replaced with stretchier ones. His sweaters, once loose, now clung to the soft expanse of his belly. When he sat down, his stomach rested heavily on his thighs. When he walked, he could feel every excess kilogram.

He'd stopped weighing himself entirely. The number didn't matter anymore. What mattered was the comfort of it.

One afternoon, Jeongin appeared with a slice of cake from the shop across the street.

"Anniversary special," he explained, setting it on Hyunjin's desk. "One year since the shop opened. Free samples for everyone."

Hyunjin looked at the chocolate cake, it was filled with cream frosting, the kind of thing he would have been forbidden to touch as a teenager.

"You know," he said slowly, "you don't have to keep feeding me."

Jeongin tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"The food. Every day. You're always bringing me things."

"Because you like them," Jeongin said simply. "And because it makes you happy. Is that wrong?"

Hyunjin opened his mouth to explain that yes, actually, it might be wrong, that he'd already gained an alarming amount of weight, that his father would be horrified, that this wasn't normal

But Jeongin was still smiling at him. That warm, uncomplicated smile. And suddenly Hyunjin couldn't remember why he was supposed to resist.

"No," he said finally. "It's not wrong."

"Good." Jeongin pushed the cake closer. "Then eat. I'll bring you something to drink."

He disappeared toward the break room, leaving Hyunjin alone with the cake and the growing realization that he was, perhaps, exactly where he'd always been meant to end up.

He wasn't thinner , of stronger or "fixed"

He was just... himself

Softer and rounder and somehow more at peace than he'd ever been

Hyunjin took a bite of the cake

And it was delicious

ﾟ.+:｡∩(・ω・)∩ﾟ.+:｡

Months later, when his mom phoned and asked about his military service casually, during one of their rare conversations , Hyunjin just smiled.

"It was an experience" he said

"A good one?"

Hyunjin thought about Minho's bread and teasing. About Chan's well-meaning snacks. About Jeongin's cakes and his mother's cooking and the way the office chair had eventually been replaced with a sturdier model without anyone ever mentioning why.

"The best kind," he said.

(Wdym i saw them in concert last year ??? Still cannot believe it)

Because today it's their 8th year anniversary i thought making just a simple post about them was necessary

I feel it might sound kinda cringe but who cares ???

I stan them since 2019 , i saw them growing up , evolving , finding their style , trying new genre ... i basically grew up with them and seeing how fare they become can only make me happier for them.

I can only wish the best for them , hoping we'll get more years with them as they always be a happy memory for me ♡

Anyway nostalgia aside i'm working on my big fic project 👍

I want to keep it a mystery, but I also like spoilers, so here's what to expect 👀 :

Time travel , rapid weight gain , slow burn , enemies to lover , slice of life and probably some smut