문빈　￭　EGOIST

it’s way too late in the evening to have bin over to visit, taeyang knows that, but with both their busy schedules it really can’t be helped. now, they could, by all means, practice at the training complex in seocho, and they do, but here they are in his very apartment after working hours. it would even be better to stay at bin’s place due to the size of place, but no. 

he means to reject to the request, or rather, demand, of attempting the high note, but he is not quick enough to stop it from happening. lips part but it’s too late, bin has already dived into the part and before he knows it, there is a sort of scream– followed by a muffled curse, taeyang is guessing that it’s the neighbour that has finally had enough of their whining.

they aren’t talentless per se, but… perhaps they have overestimated themselves a little bit. he sighs as he become a human shield, only to leave the other behind as he open the door. “i am going to guess the neighbour,” he murmurs, being correct. he doesn’t at all expect the woman next door with a child on her hip though, surprised to be told they are babysitting.

“i’m so sorry, we’ll quiet down.” it’s a promise he is unsure whether he can keep, and he eyes bin with a glare when he close the door.“no more high notes, she had barely managed to get the kid to sleep when you scared the entire city–” he snorts, admittedly it was kind of funny.

         “the entire city?”  he echoes, absolutely flabbergasted that his bestestest friend would even suggest that  ( whose side is he on anyway, hmph!! ).  “actually -- that would be an achievement.  everyone would know your name, you’d be famous!  or . . . well, infamous.  but can you imagine me?  a villain?  i don’t even have a villain face!!  you, on the other hand . . .”  he waggles an eyebrow at taeyang before playfully smacking him across the arm.  “ju~ust kidding!”  

        he makes it back to the living room, far from taeyang, before he says,  “but between me and you, the kid would cry at your face first.”

“the instructors probably already remember you.” she shrugs casually, laughing as she looks over at him, using the spare time to stretch while she talks. “you’re just…memorable.” she means this in only the best way, because he always has his own way of doing things, and it might get him in trouble someday but maybe she likes guys that are dangerous. granted, he’s a softer kind of danger, not the ones that she usually expects.

lisa thinks by now she’s more or less mastered the art of blending in and standing out at the same time around royal. she blends in just enough so that the trainers don’t single her out too much to do things, but she gets the attention she wants when she wants. sometimes.

or sometimes the trainers yell at her for not being able to sing. but she takes the good with the bad.

“if i get first class seats i won’t be able to eat for a week and!! you know i like my food!” besides, does it really matter? she’s never been on a first class train but she can’t imagine it’s that much different than normal. lisa crosses her legs, tying her hair up into a high ponytail as she talks. “you can’t pay for me, i’ll pay for myself it’s fine.”

        “love,”  he pauses at the slip but doesn’t acknowledge it beyond that.  they’re the only ones in this area, so unless the company has cameras recording every single thing trainees do  ( which he’s certain is unlawful, lest he missed something when reading the contract ),  then it’s no big deal.  

        "lisa, you don’t have a lot of money.”  the moment those words roll off his tongue, he flinches and quickly reaches out to grab her arm.  “i don’t mean it in a bad way!  i mean it like---”  he releases his hold on her so that he can make grand, nonsensical gestures to show his embarrassment.  “---you work superrr hard!  so your money should go towards things you like . . . like clothes!  and food!  to spend your hard-earned money on just a train ride . . . i won’t allow it!  it’ll be a waste.”

[ . . . ]  it doesn’t surprise her that he seems to behave the same, whether he is on screen or off. she finish wiping the table and fold the cloth neatly before turning properly to the male, wondering whether he meant for her to pry. it could seem that way, at least, given that he practically laid out everything she could possibly need to dive into the matterat hand. “has she not sent you a message yet? perhaps something came up,” she suggests although having nothing to say of the matter. after all, she can’t possibly know what has happened.

          “nope, not a single message.”

          he taps to view his messages to one of his friends that hasn’t responded yet, feigns more disappointed sounds, then closes the app.

          “may she did fall asleep---should i call her?  would that be too rude?  then again, she’s the one missing our date, so she was rude first!”

          to further drill it in that he has very much been ‘stood up,’ he opts to call his cousin -- someone he knows wouldn’t pick up during this hour  ( or ever, for that matter;  his dear cousin has a rather impertinent streak of straight up ignoring his calls ).  after several rings, he hangs up and slumps over the table, full dramatic.

          “she’s goneeee,”  he grumbles.  then, thirty seconds of moping later, his head pops back up:  “people usually text if they’re running late, right?  or if something happened . . . or maybe she got in a really bad accident and her phone flew out of her hand and shattered on the ground and---”  his head drops back down, and he moans another unnecessary she’s goneeeee.

          it’s only after a good minute that he sits back up and looks over at yoohyeon.  “wait . . . i know you from somewhere.”  of course, he does, but he can’t be too obvious, else he’d look like a total creep!  “you’re the asmr girl.  my aunt’s a big fan.  says your voice makes her fall asleep or something.  ah, she was so happy when i sent her those videos.  y’know, the ones i asked you to do.”  he breaks into a goofy grin.  “she mentioned something about your accent . . . are you from around here?”

getting a hand slapped over her mouth, yuzu’s first initial response is to lick at his fingers which of course she does before resolving into another fit of laughter. the two of them really were one chaotic disaster but that is essentially what made their friendship great in its own way.

“c’mon dun be a big baby;” she mocks him in between fits of giggles, reaching over to ruffle at his antlers. moonbin being dramatic really was such a relatable response though. eventually she gave his fluffy head a pat, a grin hidden behind the fake beard she wore.

her gaze goes towards the bag, shoulders shrugging. “wasn’t sure if we were allowed to hand out chocolates, y’know? ain’t wanna get us in trouble for seducin’ ‘em trainees to break their diets n’ all.”

        he purses his lips.  it’s true -- chocolate would get them in trouble  but at the same time, it’s the holidays.  people are probably secretly stuffing their faces anyway!  “what’s the worst they can do?”  he ponders, tapping his chin inquisitively, though he’s nearly certain of the answer  ( that is a staff member berating them for not being considerate, and for not asking for permission, even though it’s the giving season, and they’re just doing their part by giving ).

she fully expects him to go along with her suggestion, because he’s never been difficult about these kinds of things, and who doesn’t like pizza? it was the first thing she thought of because it’s easy, because it’s convenient to access and everyone likes it. she knows the pineapple part can be a little divisive but all people with good taste would understand her, and she knows that he has good taste. he has great taste in girls ( at least as far as she knows — she can’t speak for the exes nor is she willing to make assumptions like that ), has decent taste in regards to his everyday styling, and she’s liked every food that he’s suggested.

so when he rejects her idea so immediately, she looks up from her phone, staring at him in silence for a few seconds as she tries to figure out if he’s joking.

“what do you mean? who’s they? pineapple on pizza is the trend these days. everyone likes it.” she crosses her arms in front of her chest defensively, feeling the need to defend the food for no reason in particular. honestly, she’s probably just annoyed that bin is disagreeing with her, and on top of it he’s being so dramatic.

she’s not entirely sure if he actually hates pineapple on pizza or if he’s just being difficult, so she frowns, trying to make sense of the situation. “what do you know about italian law? why would they care about fruit on pizza? isn’t tomato a fruit? they put that on there.” lisa pauses, then looks at him. “you’re not making sense. if you want to eat something else then we can just eat something else. it’s not a big deal.” she picks her phone up again, scrolling through the delivery options and looking for other food to suggest if he’s that against pizza.

        “tomatoes aren’t fruit,”  he responds pointedly, as if he’s right even though technically he’s not.  “if you go to the supermarket, they’re with the vegetables.  every supermarkets put it with the vegetables, even the italian ones.”  says he, who has never actually been to italy.  “you wouldn’t put apples on a pizza, right?  or oranges?  or kumquats.  whose idea was it to use pineapple, anyway?”  for some time he rambles on and on and on with dramatic gestures, but then he peers over.

        lisa’s on her phone.

        and she doesn’t look happy.

        ohhhhh no.

no matter how many times moon bin express a pun, whether it’s regarding his name (which it most often is) or something else, it never fails to crack taeyang into a snicker. you would have thought that he had grown tired of them all already but no, not yet. dramatic as always though, the elder of them is almost able to convince him that it is in fact cold outside but ultimately, he know better than to trust every single word that comes out of his friend’s mouth.

it’s not like taeyang don’t trust him, because he absolutely do, but he know very well that this particular moon has a strong habit of exaggerating. the expression of amuse changes quickly when he hear that the other wish to be sick and it’s replaced with curiosity; while retrieving his hand to cross arms across a toned chest, he listen to complaints of a daily routine that to him sounds rather bearable. “oh, no~ do you have to do something for an entire day?”

he can’t help but tease, moon bin has chosen this for himself and surely it can’t really be that bad. taeyang grins, now amused again. “no, i haven’t vacuumed,” he replies casually and he leave out the tiny detail that reveals that one of his coworkers already took care of that before they left the premises. “i take it you had an alright day then, hm?”

        “it was okay . . . or well, it was okay ‘til i found out that you haven’t vacuumed,”  he moans, slapping the ground with much more vigor than needed.  “taeyang-ah, why are you slacking off at work?  what if they fire you and then you’ll be jobless and homeless and then you’ll have to come and live with me?  i don’t even have an extra bed, so you’ll have to sleep on the floor.  you don’t wanna sleep on the floor, right?  so you should vacuum right now.”  

        wait.  

        “you haven’t---you haven’t vacuumed!”  

        his body jerks upward without warning.  he swivels around, pats the back of his pants clean, before looking at taeyang with wide eyes, almost as if the other had committed a heinous crime.  “you should’ve stopped me from lying on the ground!!  what kind of best friend are you!!  this jacket is armani!!”

she’s draped lazily on the edge of her bed, phone in her hand as she tries to do everything at once — scroll through her instagram feed, intercept incoming texts and reply to them, and look for a new phone wallpaper all at the same time. thankfully, she thinks she’s pretty good at this by now, and she can even do it while thinking about what she wants to eat for dinner. it’s easy enough to get something by herself, because it doesn’t take a lot to please her, but when she’s with someone else it forces her to maintain some order in her otherwise haphazard way of living.

“are you hungry?” she sits up, crossing her legs and looking at moonbin, and though she phrases it like a question it’s more so of a statement that she’s hungry. “can we get pizza?” lisa thought about holding off until later, but she’s hungry now and she heard that eating too late is bad for you anyways, so she sets aside her social media multitasking in favor of more pressing matters.

besides, she can’t post anything anyways with the sns ban on royal, something that she suddenly remembers with a loud and decisively unhappy sigh. just because other people couldn’t keep their mouths shut, why should she have to be punished?

“i want the pineapple ones.” lisa slides next to him, sitting so their shoulders are touching, taking his hand in her’s and shaking it as if to get his attention. “please?”

        for the most part, and especially when it comes to lisa, bin is the ‘yes’ man.  anything she wants, he’ll give it to her -- even when she doesn’t ask.  he’s intuitive;  he’s got eyes.  if he catches her looking at something a little longer than everything else, he’ll loop back around the next day and purchase the item.  granted, she won’t receive it until a special occasion  ( read: valentine’s, birthday, christmas---and some made up days like ‘bin bribes lisa because she’s not giving him enough attention day’ or ‘lisa is kinda sad so bin has to cheer her up day’ ),  but hey, it’s the thought that counts.

        and because he’s the ‘yes’ man, he’s got the answer on the tip of his tongue the moment he hears her ask about pizza.  but then:  a stroke of brilliance.

        revenge.

        see, here’s the thing:  sure, they’ve known each other long enough to coexist in the same space without talking, but that’s not his preference.  he’s a talker, so he needs to talk, and he can’t talk if lisa’s on her phone.  he doesn’t want to distract her, even though he knows that she multitasks well, since she’s always on his phone  ( okay, that’s an exaggeration, but she’s on her phone more than he’s on his, so that’s practically “always” in his book ).

        revenge takes form in being difficult.

[ . . . ]  as soon as he entered the room, he was greeted with a sight he didn’t liked at all: fellow royal trainee bin had settled in front of her, a go board between them. and what the other said in greeting irritated him even more: “joonie? shouldn’t you call me sunbae instead?” he huffed about the younger man’s informality. normally he couldn’t care less, but in light of the other’s obvious flattery, he just felt the anger in his stomache. didn’t that kid had his own family to spend time with? “and besides, stop letting my grandma win. she doesn’t like to be taken easy.” he growled, before sitting down next to her and hugging her accompanied by a sweet kiss on her cheek. “i’m home, grandma.”

        though he has a few choice words for kangjoon, he chooses to bite them back until the grandmother offers to make them tea.  being the kiss-up sort, he jumps to his feet and insists that he make the tea instead, but as expected, she tells him to stay seated, that he’s their guest.  besides,  she says, patting his arm,  two young men have much to talk about.  it’s a statement he agrees with, though inwardly.  after she vacates the living room, bin’s gaze travels back to the go board.  he reaches over and begins to rearrange the stones.

[ . . . ]  the realization hurt, when it all was finally falling into place.  how easily bin could get under his skin, how he could get hongjoong to do just about anything when he called them soulmates.  how he’d always call his sister strange when bin was the one who was really odd  -  thinking about it now, it all sends his blood into a boil.  hongjoong clenches his fists.  he just hopes he goes away.

but he doesn’t.  bin is always good at ignoring the things he doesn’t want to see or hear, and that’s something else that sua labelled toxic.  he rambles on and on, but hongjoong barely hears it over the blood that rushes through his ears in all his anger  -  did he really not remember the last time that they met? how he said that he never wanted to see him again?

then he hears the word destined.  he snaps.  (  hongjoong always loves people more than they love him.  bin just really loved to manipulate him.  )

“ didn’t i tell you last time?” he grits through his teeth.  “ we aren’t friends.  we have no destiny.”  he pauses.  “ don’t make me laugh.  let’s go back to being nothing to each other.”

        his heart breaks.  shatters.  it plays like a symphony of sorrow -- a tingle that runs down his spine and through this lips, which quiver as he looks on with hurt in his eyes.  they were friends.  are friends.  once upon a time, hongjoong was the one he dotted on most, the one he valued above all other friends, the one he coddled, cradled, and gave special attention to.  they had a bond that transcended that of typical friendship.  it’s as bin said:  soul mates.  no matter what’s thrown between them, no matter how different their paths are now, they would always, always find their way back to each other.

yuzu is laughing her ass off. she leans back and forth in her santa costume, stomping in place as she sees moonbin in his reindeer onesie. when she had wondered out aloud about her idea to just get heat-packs for everyone in the royal building and dress up as santa, of course the male would be the first to agree and be down to help her.

them dressed up like this was really just the cherry on top. 

bluetooth speaker beside her, blasting old time christmas carols, everything was ready and set up for the first workers and trainees to come in and collect their tiny present from the two idiot trainees.

“fuck ya! yer look ten times more ridiculous! is that a fuckin’ clown nose?!” still howling of laughter she tugs at his nose only to let it snap back into place, laughing only ten times harder.

        moon bin, the innocent  ( yeah, right )  slaps a hand over yuzu’s mouth, his eyes widening comically as he sweeps the area for any staff members.  “you can’t just swear in the building!”  you’ll get in trouble! is the implication that follows.  it’s not like bin has anything against swearing---but he’s been brought up in a household where swearing earns him a sharp glare and grating silence  ( and he’s absolutely terrified of his parents, so he’ll never cross that bridge ).

        “that hurt, by the way . . .”  his lower lip juts out in a pout as he pulls his hand back to rub the side of his reindeer nose.  “yuzu is so mean . . . what if it actually hits my nose and i get a nosebleed!  you’ll have to take responsibility!  stop laughing, it’s not funny!!”  like a child, he stomps a foot out -- and for a moment, it seems as if he’s actually upset, but then he, himself, breaks out in laughter that’s loud enough to rival yuzu’s own.

A Compilation of Moon Bin and Zhu Zhengting Incorrect Quotes

Merry Christmas, Tea! I’m not sure whether this is what you had in mind, but I hope you enjoy this! 

Bin: We need a plan. Ok, here’s the plan. Step 1: get a plan. Step 2: do the plan.

Zhengting, not sarcastically at all: [smirks] Yep, this is working!

Bin: Zhengting! Focus.

[ . . . ]  “ just relax, moon bin-ssi, ” yoojung tries to calm, offering the male a smile. “ you’ll be okay. you’ll be able to do everything just fine, just relax. don’t push yourself too hard, it’ll just make everything worse, ya’know. ” she points out. “ here – keep the throat drop for later; we’ll grab some tea. they have this special blend as sort of a throat-coat thing here too. must’ve been something they wanted to make sure they kept around for the trainees. ” she chuckles.

        bin looks at her so pitifully that his expression may very well compare to that of a kicked puppy.  it’s rare for him to get sick and even rarer for him to receive kind words  ( his parents nor his roommate are the pampering type, see ),  so as she goes on to list the things he should do, he nods eagerly, understanding.  he can only wonder, in that moment, where his cold came from -- are colds contagious?  he’s not even sure . . but if they are, then it’s likely that lisa is also sick.  or maybe lisa is the one who gave him the sickness!  how dare!  but if he gave her the sickness . . ahh, he wouldn’t forgive himself!  to be sick is absolutely dreadful, and he wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.

        “yoojung-ah is so prepared,”  he says, accepting the throat lozenge she had offered him and tucking it in his coat pocket.  “a special tea blend for trainees . . how come i never heard of it?”  granted, he’s not the biggest fan of coffee, so he hasn’t frequented the cafe enough to know its expansive menu, especially this secret menu for trainees.  “let’s go, let’s go ~”

        after arriving in the cafe a few chilly minutes later, bin surveys the menu printed on the board behind the barista’s head.  there isn’t a specific section for trainees, per se, nor do the tea options look like they’d help the throat . .  his eyes fall to the barista, who’s a cute petite girl with a dimpled smile.  “---ah, it’s you.”