Work Text:
The changes throughout an idol’s career really were like night and day. When NCT was young, Jaehyun remembered, the managers would monitor their whereabouts and what they did with their free time and hell, even their diets. Those were always the first barriers to fall, but as they’d been in the industry for five, six, seven years, as their first contracts ended and they decided whether to sign another, the company would begin to relax their standards on dating, too. Some of them were public with their relationships (Shotaro and Seulgi— that one still threw Jaehyun for a loop, how was that even possible?), while others were dating non-celebrities and preferred to keep their private lives quiet (Kun, the first secret NCT-dad, to nobody’s surprise).
Jaemin and Jeno were an unprecedented case, though— none of the others were dating each other. Their announcement of their relationship within the group had made waves, with everyone shocked except for the Dream members closest to them. (They’d been dating since before their debut, nearly ten years, it was inevitable that the people living with them would know.) But they were tired of living in secrecy, Jaemin had explained without apology, not when they didn’t have anything to be ashamed of. “Our relationship is more stable than most of the straight couples we know,” he pointed out once— sitting in the practice room with Jaehyun, Johnny, and a few of the others, taking a break from their NCT 2025 dance rehearsal so they could shovel down some take-out.
“We had to at least tell you guys, and the staff,” Jeno added solemnly, reaching for another piece of fried chicken with his chopsticks. “We’re waiting for permission to come out to the public, but PR doesn’t like the idea. I understand why, but it’s a little frustrating.”
“Aww. Yeah, it sounds frustrating,” Taeyong commented, frowning a little. “We all support you! You’ve given so much of yourselves to this company, you deserve the chance to be honest with yourself in return.” The others around him murmured their agreement, and Jaemin smiled gratefully, taking Jeno’s free hand for comfort.
Then he looked directly at Jaehyun, into his eyes, and asked, “You and Johnny know what it’s like, right? Have the two of you ever thought about going public with your relationship?”
“Have we…”
“...what?” Johnny finished Jaehyun’s question, which was not too uncommon of an occurrence. After all, they’d been trainees together, they’d lived together in the dorms for years, and when the time had come to dissolve the 127 dorms and get their own apartments, he and Johnny had continued to live together. They had a nice place, too, roomy for a one-bedroom, with a gorgeous balcony and a great view of the sunset.
“Oh, wow. I almost forget that you guys are together sometimes,” Yuta commented with a little chuckle. “Considering you’ve been up each other’s butts since you were teenagers. I don’t think any of your fans will even be surprised when you decide to come out.”
Jaehyun looked helplessly at Johnny, hoping that his roommate would cue him in on how to respond to this— joke, right? Yeah, it had to be a joke, because Johnny was laughing.
“You guys, that’s a good one. Neither of us have had girlfriends since we debuted, but I’m still pretty sure we’re the straightest two out of all thirty-six members.”
Taeyong was laughing, too, suddenly. “Yeah, good thing you haven’t had girlfriends. You couldn’t bring them back to your apartment without explaining to them why you sleep with your beds pushed together.”
“Beds pushed together?” Jeno interjected incredulously. “You haven’t bought yourselves a king-size? What, do you push them apart when you’re arguing or something?”
Johnny’s mouth dropped open, but wouldn’t you know it— it was the rare occasion in which he found himself completely lost for words. It was Jaehyun who picked up the explanation, because he was actually beginning to suspect that nobody was joking.
“We pushed the beds together because the window is so drafty. It gets cold in our bedroom, even with the heat cranked up. Sometimes we cuddle. It’s nice.” Silence met Jaehyun’s explanation, and he felt a rush of blood to his face. “Damn, I know some of you platonically hug each other. I’ve seen it. Taeyong, you and Doyoung—”
“Me and Doyoung don’t refer to each other as soulmates!”
“Soulmates doesn’t have to mean a romantic relationship!” Jaehyun argued quickly, practically cutting Taeyong’s sentence off. “I mean, we are soulmates, but we’re like brothers. Wait, are you guys fucking with me right now? Did you all seriously think— that me and Johnny were dating?”
“Wait.” Jungwoo’s voice cut through impatiently. His gaze was intense, and he even put his chopsticks down. “Are you fucking with us? You guys took a week-long vacation in Hawaii together in 2023. Wasn’t that your honeymoon? I thought you guys were like… married.”
“That was just a vacation to celebrate the travel restrictions being lifted!” Johnny finally came to Jaehyun’s defense, which made this feel less like a fever dream. I was starting to think we really had been married this whole time, and I was the only one not let in on the secret. The thought nearly made him laugh. “Are you kidding?! Jaehyun and I are not dating. We’re just best friends and found family and soulmates. We love each other, but we’re not in love.”
This did make them laugh, both of them. It was just too crazy of a thought, but then again… they did cuddle an awful lot. They did take trips together. They did sleep in the same bedroom, Johnny at age thirty and Jaehyun creeping up behind him at twenty-eight, and they did eat all their meals together and they did share socks and underwear and hoodies and they did have two adorable dogs together that Jaehyun referred to himself as the mother of. And of course Jaehyun’s parents loved Johnny, they referred to him as their son.
But they weren’t dating, or married— married, really Jungwoo?! They didn’t kiss, they didn’t have sex! Jaehyun was straight! He just didn’t have time for women, he was career-focused, was that so fucking weird at twenty-eight?! Eventually, he would meet a nice woman and settle down and raise a family, he and Johnny had talked about it— they’d have a duplex building together, each living with their respective wives, and they’d have a shared backyard where their kids could play together, and shared custody of the dogs.
Of course. Of course.
“I can’t believe this,” Yuta was saying. His eyes were wide and round and a little blank, like he was just unlearning something he’d been convinced of his whole life. Like he was a five-year-old being told that Santa didn’t exist. Like the very fabric of his own existence was fraying before his eyes. “You guys have wedding rings! You guys literally have wedding rings on your hands right now!”
“They’re friendship-promise rings!” Okay, now Johnny was starting to genuinely get a bit irked.
“Wait,” Jungwoo demanded, narrowing his eyes. “Tell me what you told me before. About the design. Tell me why you picked those rings. I swear to god—”
Jaehyun smiled instinctively. Honestly, he and Johnny had looked far and wide for the perfect promise rings, and there was indeed a story behind the ones they’d finally chosen. “They’re braids of white and rose gold,” he explained quietly, putting his hand in the middle of the circle of them, so everyone could see. “The two colors symbolize how different we are, and they’re twisted together to symbolize our hearts that will be intertwined for the rest of our lives. And the ruby represents the burning passion of our incredible friendship.”
The words had no sooner slipped from Jaehyun’s lips than he began to second-guess himself. That sounded like… a lot. Everyone else was silent, perfectly silent, their eyes wiped clear with disbelief— except for Jungwoo, who was laughing so hard that he was crying.
💫
Getting home was never more of a relief than it was that night, after a very strange and awkward day. Practicing was fine, it almost always was; it was the awkward moments in between the practicing that were fucking him up, where more of his bandmates were refusing to look him in the eye with each break. Jungwoo. What the fuck is Jungwoo telling them? It was actually getting a little stressful, and it was making Jaehyun think about things he’d really rather not.
What did a married couple live like? Well… from the sounds of things, they lived like him and Johnny, except maybe a little more put-together, honestly. Kun and his wife argued about money and he sometimes slept in the guest room. Yuta had told some of them that his girlfriend of four years was pressuring him for a marriage and kids, but that the concept of children terrified him.
Johnny and Jaehyun never argued, and they’d yet to find anything that they couldn’t compromise on. Their tastes were remarkably similar in a lot of ways, or at least complimentary. They were both dog-people (Gilbert, corgi, age 6, and Jerry, mini schnauzer, just 18 months— Jaehyun had pictures of them in his wallet, and he’d show them off to anyone who asked). They both liked their coffee strong and their wine dry. They listened to the same weird alternative music, and liked the same super-macho action movies with lots of car chases and explosions. Johnny preferred center-piece brownies and Jaehyun liked the edges, so they never stepped on each others’ toes. Johnny was a big spoon, Jaehyun was a little spoon.
In spirit, this wasn’t a marriage, but functionally? Jaehyun was beginning to doubt his own convictions.
He held it in, though, and he didn't talk about it while they had their late-night dinner together and walked their sons— but he did consider carefully the people who stopped to snap their pictures, wondering what they thought. Couldn't two men fall in love platonically and pledge their lives to each other, as bros? Was it really so strange, two painfully handsome celebrities living their lives attached at the hip?
It clawed at him and ate at him, but he decided to let Johnny be the one to bring it up, later that night, while they were getting ready for bed— their master bathroom had two sinks and ample counter space, perfect for the two of them to stand around in nothing but towels after their shared bath, brushing their teeth and washing their faces together. Was this weird? Jaehyun was going to be questioning every last detail of their existence together from now on.
“That stuff with Jeno and Jaemin today… wild, huh?”
Jaehyun forced a laugh, and he hoped Johnny didn’t notice the way he slapped his moisturizer into his cheeks a bit harder than necessary. “I’m still not sure what to make of it. I really think they were serious— they seriously thought we were gay together.”
“I mean, there’d be nothing wrong with that, dude. Nothing wrong with being gay. Hell, I’d be lucky to have you as my boyfriend, if I was gay. Which I’m not.”
“I mean, yeah. Of course. Same,” Jaehyun dismissed absently, shaking his head. “It’s nothing like that. It just sort of… got me thinking…” He paused, watching Johnny discreetly in the mirror as the other finished brushing his teeth and leaned over to spit. “They’re sort of right, in some ways? Like, Doyoung and Taeyong don’t act like this. Even when they lived together, they didn’t share a bed. Or take baths together. Or refer to each other as ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ when talking to their dogs.”
“Doyoung and Taeyong’s friendship game is fucking weak, that’s why!” Johnny scoffed. “You know, I asked Doyoung once when their anniversary was, and he didn’t even know. He gave me some cop-out bullshit like ‘sometime in 2013, I guess’. How do you not know when you met your best friend?”
Jaehyun couldn’t keep from smiling. This was the type of banter he so loved; no matter how hard the day had been, Johnny always knew exactly what to say. Even now, he probably knew that Jaehyun needed a good laugh, a cuddle-pile in bed with their dog-children, and Johnny scratching his back to soothe him to sleep. Yes, that sounded perfect.
“And you know what I told him, Jae?”
“What?”
“I told him that I met you on April 11th, 2013, at 8 in the morning, in practice room 2-B. And that I took one look at you and knew somehow that I was going to remember that moment for the rest of my life.”
Jaehyun grinned. Why had he even been worried, honestly? What he and Johnny had worked perfectly for them, and that was all that mattered. “Dude, you’re the sweetest.”
“They’re just jealous, Jaehyun. They know that they’re all going to fall in love once, if they’re lucky, and they’re going to get married to people that they’ll eventually find themselves living with and putting up with just because society expects them to.” Johnny paused to rinse his face once more and wipe off his mouth, and then, with his breath minty-fresh, he pulled Jaehyun in for a nearly-naked hug. “And they know that you and I are both going to experience falling in love twice. Once with each other, and once with the right women, when the timing lines up. But in the meantime, there’s no need to rush getting married, because I’m perfectly content just being with you.”
“Do you think the timing is ever going to line up for us? With— with women, I mean?”
“Yeah, obviously! We’re both hot. Getting married is going to be easy for us,” Johnny answered simply, giving Jaehyun one more squeeze before leading the way to bed. “By the way, I still think the ultimate goal should be identical twins. If we each marry an identical twin, then our kids will genetically be half-siblings of each other.”
Jaehyun smiled. The vision was always there, somewhere, in the back of his mind. The duplex, the wives, the kids. The shared dogs. Sunday morning brunches all together, except Johnny and Jaehyun would sit on the same side of the table so they could hold hands. Family vacations, pushing the queen-sized hotel beds together so they’d still have room to spoon. Was four-way spooning a thing? Was it possible?
Their beds were already pushed together, and the dogs were waiting for them— he could see Jerry’s stumpy tail sticking out from beneath the blankets. He grabbed a pair of boxers (Johnny’s— they were so much more comfortable) and slipped them on to sleep in, and Johnny followed suit before they lay down.
“You’re not getting cold feet on me, are you, Jae?”
“Of course not! You know me better than that!” Jaehyun wormed his way closer, pulling Johnny’s arm over him, and his best friend knew at once how he wanted to be held: right against his strong chest, close enough to feel his heart pounding slowly in his sleep. “I’m sorry if it seems that way. Today just really threw me for a loop. But you know that I wouldn’t change a thing about what we have. Platonic soulmates ‘til we die.”
“I’m so glad. Because honestly… even in the tiny, tiny off-chance that we never get married… I think I’d be pretty okay with living the single life forever, if I got to do it with you.”
“Yeah… yeah, same, dude.” Jaehyun smiled, feeling a sense of sorely needed peace. He was so glad they’d talked about it, and so glad that Johnny was right. There really was nothing weird about loving your best friend! It was everyone else who was weird, for limiting themselves! “Anyway, I’m tired. I’ll probably fall asleep before long. Where’s my platonic good-night cheek kiss?”
“I didn’t forget! Hold up—” Johnny grabbed his phone, using it to turn off their fancy Bluetooth bedroom lights, leaving it perfectly dark. Then, he shifted closer, and just like that, his lips grazed Jaehyun’s cheek.
And the corner of his mouth. Just for a second, but it was enough to make Jaehyun’s heart skip a beat. An unfamiliar bloom of warmth exploded in his chest like a firework, and he had to remind himself to breathe.
“Goodnight, bro. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Jaehyun murmured into the darkness, heart still pounding. The conversation in the practice room hadn’t changed anything, but that kiss sure had— that kiss had changed everything, and Jaehyun no longer knew what to do about it.
All he knew was that there was no rush to think about marriage. For however long he needed to wait, being with Johnny was just fine.