Work Text:
가까워져
Jisung clicks the cab door shut behind him after thanking the driver a final time. He straightens up as the car pulls off the curb, observing the soft glow of the streetlights and neon signs amongst the bustling street. It’s a Friday night, so the bars and stores are welcomed by the steady flow of customers eager to release the tensions built up in the past workweek. Jisung is no exception, though he would much rather spend his time continuing his procrastination of unpacking the mountain of boxes in his apartment. Exhaustion is still present in the tension between his shoulder blades and the unwavering craving for caffeination. And yet, he stands before the restaurant teeming with office workers and the like, unwilling to go inside but needing to nonetheless. He had made a promise to come.
At the thought of his old friends, his inexistent desire for social interaction wanes in favor of pulling his phone out from his pocket to send a text to the group chat to announce his arrival.
“Han Jisung!”
Jisung whips his head back up. A smile splits onto his face as he sees a familiar figure practically vibrating with excitement just outside the doorway of the quaint venue.
“Hwang Hyunjin!” he shouts just as loud, making his way to meet in the middle for a much-needed hug. “I never thought you could get more handsome.” He leans back to take in the other boy’s primly parted hair, its caramel color fanning over neat eyebrows, and broad shoulders clad in a dress shirt with pressed slacks to match.
Hyunjin all but beams down at him with a tinkling laugh. “But still not as handsome as you, right?”
“Of course not!”
To them, the four years they’ve been apart have been nothing but mere seconds, and Jisung can finally breathe again. Hyunjin rolls his eyes in an overdramatic fashion, the smile still pulling at his face, and he grabs Jisung’s hand to lead him inside the restaurant.
“The other two are already at a table. I was sent to get you since I was closest to the door.”
Jisung’s offended gasp is drowned out by the murmur of tableware clattering and men sharing beers. “You make it sound like no one wanted to come get me.”
Hyunjin eyes him warily as if that is, in fact, the truth, only breaking his guise once Jisung makes a threatening move to hit him. The taller squawks and pulls his arms over his face to defend himself—an action that causes him to accidentally elbow a bystanding waitress’s arm. Hyunjin apologizes by profusely bowing his head, and Jisung can’t help the cackling laughter that he muffles into the cologne of Hyunjin’s shirt as they hurriedly flee to their table.
Jisung sees Felix’s blonde head before either at the table notice their presence. His pastel sweater matches the color tone of Seungmin’s cardigan, amplifying the flowery aura that is so characteristic of them. They seem caught up in their own little bubble, unfazed by their rowdy surroundings. Jisung feels like the pieces of his life are falling back together.
Seungmin seems to be listening intently as Felix jabbers whilst cutting up the meat at the table. College life had done nothing to dull the vibrance of Felix’s smile, and it widens when the two finally catch sight of Jisung approaching. They probably hear Hyunjin’s embarrassed groaning before they see them, but he digresses.
“Yo, Felix Lee!”
The Australian springs out of his seat with widespread arms, “Peter Han!”
Their hug is just as comforting, just as warm with Felix laughing joyously in Jisung’s ear. The shorter gives a firm pat to Felix’s back before pulling away so he can see that sunshine smile properly. Felix’s freckles have gotten darker, perhaps greater in number speckled across his complexion. Jisung remembers trying to count them in the boredom of English class with Mr. Ko, and he’s more than glad that they haven’t faded—they’ve always been one of Jisung’s favorites out of all of Felix’s most endearing features. His hair is also lighter, died a fresh white blonde and fluffed up on one side from when he had snuggled into Jisung’s shoulder.
“All of my friends got so much handsomer,” Jisung shakes his head in disbelief.
Felix cups Jisung’s cheeks and gives them a doting pat while he presses their foreheads together. “But you’re the most handsome.”
“Ah, as expected of my most cherished friends. You all still know your places,” Jisung tilts his head like he’s pondering the thought with the utmost appreciation. Felix peers down at him fondly before stepping aside for Jisung to finally greet the last of their quartet.
Jisung puts on his best cutesy face and scutters over to where Seungmin is sitting primly in his seat and throwing a deadpan look that has no bite.
“I saw you yesterday but I miss you every second you’re away,” Jisung coos as he cradles Seungmin’s head. He feels the exasperated sigh leave his best friend’s body more than he hears it.
“If I come over again and the boxes blocking the bathroom are still there, I’m not helping you organize your apartment anymore.”
Jisung gives both Felix and Hyunjin a scared look that makes them shake with suppressed amusement. “Seungminnie has no faith in me.”
Hyunjin scoffs as he tucks his hair behind his ears and takes a seat across from them. “Do you blame him? I bet you still don’t even fix your bed more than once every two weeks.”
“Um, if I’m going to bed later that night then it’s just going to get messed up again. Pointless.”
Felix creeps up behind Jisung to wrap him into a back hug, and Jisung immediately relaxes against the warmth. He feels another weight on his hand where they both rest on Seungmin’s shoulders, the latter rubbing soothing motions back and forth over his twitching knuckles.
“It’s kind of crowded,” Seungmin states as they take in the sea of people occupying the restaurant. It seems like it would usually be spacious on a regular day, but the stack of extra chairs slowly dwindling and old friends becoming reacquainted as they jostle each other shoulder-to-shoulder both imply the idea that the venue is most likely breaching maximum capacity.
Felix nods as a passerby drunkenly shoves past his shoulder sans apology nor awareness. A ripple of discomfort runs down Jisung’s back at the sudden motion.
Seungmin squeezes his hand. “I think the school wanted to save money by renting a bigger place every few years to hold reunions for a group of consecutive graduating classes instead of renting smaller ones every year for each class.”
“We paid so much tuition and this is the thanks we get?” Hyunjin scowls.
“Better for me because I had a ride here,” Seungmin swivels a bit in his seat and tilts his chin up to gesture behind Felix.
Jisung holds his breath as he turns around, and he finds himself pinned by the piercing warmth of deep brown eyes.
『• • • ⏮ • • •』
“This is my hyung.” Seungmin moved to set his bag down before waving his hand dismissively towards the kitchen where a man was lounging against the polished countertop.
Jisung blinked. His mind momentarily fuzzed at the edges as it processed the stranger before him, poised leisurely in sweats and breaking into an orange slice with an overbite. The brothers both had the same warm-toned and healthy hair, a similar complexion of the slightest tan over definitive bone structure. They even had the same colored eyes—a swirling chocolate that reflected little stars of yellow and black in the light. Though, those that were peering back at him from across the room were so feline. So intrigued and deep.
“I’m Lee Minho.”
His smile was equally as feline, just as striking and it left Jisung without knowing what to say. Minho seemed to be well aware as he quirked a brow up pointedly.
“Hi,” because it was the only obvious thing to say after an introduction, Jisung came to realize. He curled his palms into the bottom fabric of his school blazer to hide how sweaty they were. “I’m Jisung. Han Jisung.”
“Han Jisung?” The cat-like smile wrapped around the name like its flavor was new and thrilling. Jisung never knew that his name could sound so nice. “Can I call you Hannie?”
Before Jisung could even form a thought around the concept, Seungmin was grunting out a disgusted noise from where he had been raiding the cabinet. “Absolutely not . Don’t you have soccer practice?”
Minho curled his lip up in Seungmin’s direction, huffily leaving his place at the counter to swat at the younger’s head on his way to the foyer. Seungmin barely reacted in his business of grabbing as many colorful bags of snacks as he could fit in his hands.
“What are you guys doing today?” Minho prodded. He snatched a water bottle tucked into Seungmin’s elbow and ignored the noise of disapproval that followed in favor of stuffing it into a duffle bag. When he looked up, Jisung stiffened having been caught staring. He didn’t even register that he was doing so the entire time. Minho gave him a show of teeth, and Jisung felt the blood rush to his face. His grip on his blazer tightened.
Seungmin settled another bottle of water on the countertop. “None of your business.”
Minho threw him an incredulous look. “My little Seungminnie’s business is always my business.”
“I would throw a swing at you if I knew I wasn’t just going to hit air.”
Jisung let out a snicker upon seeing Minho’s affronted glare, only to purse his lips closed once the glare redirected towards him. But it wasn’t nearly as sharp, and Minho’s ears turned an interesting shade of pink. Still by his station at the door, Jisung watched as Minho stalked back to Seungmin to whack him in the hip and steal a bag of chips this time around, then turn on his heel to make his way back to where Jisung stood. He didn’t spare another glance up while he packed the chips into his duffel and slipped into his athletic slides.
“See you around, Hannie?” Minho turned back as he pulled the door open, waiting for a response, and finally met Jisung’s stare one last time.
Jisung could only nod dumbly and mutter, “H-have a good practice, sunbae.”
Minho’s eyes crinkled further, and then he was out the door. Jisung almost thought the air left behind grew staler in the wake of the whirlwind that was Lee Minho.
“Disgusting. Don’t let him call you that,” Seungmin panned as he shoved some chip bags in Jisung’s hand and scooped his backpack up from its place by the foyer. Jisung shuffled to follow him as they made their way through the living room and down a hallway to arrive at Seungmin’s room. It was clean, unsurprisingly, everything neat and tidy in their respective places. The carpet appeared vacuumed, the bedsheets tucked themselves under the pillows. Even the garbage can was empty.
“Are you sure I’m allowed to be in here?” Jisung scoffed at the pristine nature of Seungmin’s desk. The pens were color-coded . “Do I need to be disinfected first?”
Seungmin sighed as he slung his bag onto the coat rack behind his door. “I don’t even want to know what your room looks like.”
“I’d rather just keep coming here,” Jisung threw him a cheeky look. Brief images of sharp brown eyes blinked across his mind, and he promptly ushered them away. “You live so close to school, too. I hope you like sleepovers. And cuddling. I’m a cuddly sleeper.”
An airy breath of amusement left Seungmin’s nose. He was eyeing Jisung with a strange look, and the latter found himself overly aware of every single one of his body parts. It took him a few moments before noticing how his fingers were drumming into his backpack strap, even a few more passed to stop fidgeting his socked feet over the carpet.
“You okay?” Seungmin’s question was absent of judgment, only genuine concern. “I know you don’t like meeting new people. Hyung can also be really…,” he twisted his face to find the right word. “... A lot. Especially when you meet him for the first time. He’s eccentric .”
“No, no! He seems fine,” Jisung swallowed. More than fine. Fine as hell . “Sorry, I just forgot you had a brother. Like, I don’t even think I’ve seen him around school, which is weird seeing how you’re obsessed with me and we’ve been attached to the hip for months now. You know, you guys have similarities and all but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you guys were brothers if I hadn’t already known.”
It was an obvious attempt to ease the attention off of Jisung’s very apparent social anxiety, but Seungmin was a good friend. He’s been nothing but good to Jisung and has always had a way of slinking into his head to pick apart just exactly what Jisung truly wants behind his loud demeanor. Seungmin has been Jisung’s best friend since they had met only earlier that year in music class when Jisung had been bouncing his leg at the concept of singing in front of the entire room of students that he barely knew. And now, Seungmin had that same empathetic smile that he did when he had passed over his kneading eraser for Jisung to fidget with instead, all kind and thoughtful and very Seungmin. A sudden pang of guilt hit Jisung squarely in the chest at the fact that he’d been comparing the two brothers. Minho was a stranger, after all.
“Our parents were both widows when they met. Hence the different surnames.” Seungmin pat the bed to signal Jisung to take a seat next to him. “But we’re still like any other brothers. Our parents married when we were pretty young so we don’t even tell people that we’re not actually related. Though it explains why we’re so different. I think we butt heads more than we don’t, honestly. He can really be a pain.”
Jisung grinned at Seungmin’s disgruntled expression, silently wishing his older brother wasn’t miles away in Malaysia. “You guys sound like you get along well.”
Seungmin sputtered out a sound of utter disgust, to which Jisung rewarded with a show of laughter. He squeezed Seungmin’s leg and the latter finally cracked, his grimace bleeding into a goofy smile of his own.
“He’s freaking annoying,” but the fondness in his voice only contradicted the statement.
“He’s also really freaking handsome,” Jisung commented, because he’d always had a love-hate relationship with his lack of a brain-to-mouth filter. He almost let the embarrassment of his sudden confession break onto his face, but then Seungmin was scoffing loudly with distaste.
“And I’m not?”
Jisung laughed at his friend’s repulsed expression and threw himself forward. Seungmin groaned under Jisung’s weight, half-heartedly pushing him away from being attacked by an onslaught of affection.
“Seungminnie is the mostest handsomest in the whole entire world,” Jisung cooed as he slithered his arms under Seungmin’s defending blows. “Your brother has nothing on my Seungminnie.”
“You disgust me.” Seungmin’s words were betrayed as he let Jisung snuggle into his side with a defeated sigh. He ruffled Jisung’s hair. “Study now. Snacks are for people who can at least get through one chapter.”
Jisung huffed as he pulled back to slump against the wall the bed was propped against.
“I bet sunbae would let me eat snacks first.”
“I will end you, Han Jisung.”
“Kinky. Love you.”
『• • • ⏩ • • •』
Jisung’s head is burning in his hands, refusing to look up as the other three at the table continue to crack up at the cost of his embarrassment. He groans when Hyunjin’s weight drapes over him but remains motionless nonetheless.
Felix slaps the table in front of him, “It’s not that bad, Sung! At least the guy’s not on your floor.”
“Let’s just hope the guy doesn’t find out where you live and slip his number under your door,” Hyunjin loses the last of the sentence to another fit of giggles.
“Okay, in my defense, he looked a lot like Seungminnie from behind!” Jisung combs his fingers through his bangs and away from his eyes. He comes to regret it once he sees Felix and Seungmin’s faces twisted in poorly restrained laughter.
Seungmin unsurprisingly keeps his cool as he shakes his head in exasperation, “That guy was wearing completely different clothes. And this is what you get for always pinching my butt in public—you deserved to get caught like that.”
Jisung scoffs in disbelief, almost falling off his chair when Hyunjin only shifts more weight onto him. “That guy literally tried to pull me into his apartment. He called me ‘ fiesty .' I can never set foot into that damn building without fearing for my life anymore. Who the hell hits on a stranger after they grope you?! That guy is insane!”
“My case still stands, you deserved it.”
Felix leans his head on Seungmin’s shoulder snugly, pink dusting his freckles from the table’s third downed bottle of soju. They practically melt into one another. It’s an incredibly endearing sight, one that Jisung is almost compelled to comment on just to spite them after being so thoroughly derided for accidental copping a feel with a tenant who looked scarily similar to Seungmin from the back, but he loves his friends and ultimately decides against it. For now.
“Oh my god, I love you, but get off me,” Jisung shoves at Hyunjin’s gangly arms winded around him. They’re heavy for how lithe Hyunjin is—or was; college has not only left his complexion as smooth as silk but with more muscle to his tall build. Jisung hates Hwang Hyunjin. “Ugh, you’re even pretty when you’re drunk, get away.”
Hyunjin shakes his head vigorously. “Not until you have one shot with me.”
“One more shot, and I’ll be cleaning your puke.”
“You would because—” hiccup “—you good friend! I love Sungie!”
Hyunjin’s shouting is barely noticed with the rest of the room progressively becoming more and more intoxicated. Still, Jisung looks around to see if anyone is rightfully judging them, and his heart lunges as he makes eye contact from across the room for what feels like the millionth time that night.
From over Felix’s head, Minho’s stare doesn’t falter for even a second, unfazed at being caught at this point. He takes a long sip of his water with a slow blink and Jisung diverts his attention from the bob of his adam’s apple. To calm his insides, he pops another piece of meat into his mouth, swirling the chopsticks between his lips just for something to do. He tries to focus on the conversation at hand, Felix unstitching from Seungmin’s side to throw his head back in a shot that Hyunjin has forced onto him since Jisung was so unwilling. The room is sweltering despite the chilly nip of autumn wafting through the restaurant every time the door opens for a group of men going out for a smoke.
Contrary to what Jisung would have hoped would have changed in his schooling overseas, he is still itching to find out just what exactly is racing through that head of Minho’s. It bugs him, bothers him since the beginning of the night when they’d exchanged curt waves and nothing more. It makes him cast another glimpse across the room to find that, surprisingly unsurprisingly, Minho’s eyes haven’t moved. Except they actually have, and now he watches with rapt interest as Jisung continues to twirl the metal chopsticks between his lips well after he’s finished with chewing his food.
There’s static in Jisung’s chest, not completely unlike the usual discomfort accompanied by strangers in his space, yet vastly different in how it pixelates the room until all that left is Minho; Minho who is transfixed on the motion of Jisung’s tongue as it swipes out to wet his bottom lip and pull then it in to snag it between his teeth.
He almost loses the facade when Minho offers a flashy simper, seemingly and endlessly enthralled by whatever the hell is happening between them. His smile crashes Jisung back down to reality and the fact that this isn’t high school anymore .
“I’m gonna get some fresh air,” Jisung slides out of his seat and Hyunjin nearly falls over.
Seungmin crinkles his brow, but the rest of his face remains untelling. “Do you want me to go with you?”
It’s nearly unnoticed—the way Felix’s small hand instinctively curls around Seungmin’s sleeve. Jisung smiles. “No, I just need a breather. And don’t let Hyunjin near another bottle.”
He ignores Hyunjin’s fuddled words and starts his way to the exit. Once he’s fairly sure the others have lost view of his face, Jisung looks back over to the far side of the room. Minho looks slightly confused, paying no heed to one of his tablemates knocking into him in a drunken bellow.
Jisung can’t feel the ground from how tingly he gets head to toe. He makes a pointed gesture, darts his eyes from the door and back to Minho with a raise of the brow. His face heats as Minho immediately gets it, the latter blowing out a disbelieving laugh before saying something to the table and rising from his chair. He nearly barrels into a passerby in his haste to keep his eyes trained on Jisung, who bites back a laugh and still can’t comprehend the unexpected turn of events.
The aromatic scent of grilled barbecue and merriment carries Jisung out the door and into a downwards spiral that would not escape them any longer.
『• • • ⏪ • • •』
It was way too hot. This summer had been unforgiving so far, bombarding the western coast with heatwave after heatwave. The sun-kissed curb kept singeing Jisung’s thighs where his shorts failed to cover. He probably should have worn sunscreen or a hat, but his mother had always chastised him about getting darker and he was more than a little petty towards her at the moment. Besides, Seungmin had once said he liked Jisung’s slight tan, so his best friend’s opinion far outweighed the outdated preferences of his parents.
Which is why he was here, seated in front of said best friend’s house and waiting for him to come home from cram school even though it would probably be a few more hours until then. Jisung had already made a trip to the convenience store, already finished his Melona, and was in the middle of debating eating one of the two strawberry Dwaejibas he’d picked up for Seungmin when a shadow towered over him from behind.
“Hey, stranger.”
Jisung whipped his torso around and, sure enough, there stood a familiar figure. The sun rays bounced off the left side of Minho’s face, highlighting the thin sheen of sweat that glistened off his golden skin. Though from the angle on the floor, most of his profile was obscured by shadows.
“Sunbae?”
Minho reached his hand down to help pull Jisung to his feet. Face-to-face now, the sun was now shining directly on the older’s face, and regrettably so. He looked good— really good, no doubt just returned from soccer practice by the way his jersey clung to his body as a result of the torrid heat and hours on the field. The swell of his bicep was prominent where it shouldered the weight of his duffel. Jisung didn’t think he had a thing for uniforms, but it was doing wonders to Minho’s figure. Then again, he also didn’t think he really had a thing for brothers of his best friends (though Felix and Hyunjin didn’t have any brothers). So. He’s been learning things every day, he supposed.
“—t are you doing out here?”
Jisung pried his eyes back up to Minho’s face and ignored the self-satisfaction written all over it. “I, uh. I was wondering if I could sleepover?”
“Sleepovers in high school? Cute.”
Heat crept up Jisung’s neck at the remark. He blamed it on the intensity of the South Korean summer climate. “I got into a pretty big fight with my dad.”
The teasing edge bled from Minho’s voice then, and his smile grew more understanding. “Ah. Well, I don’t think Seungminnie is going to be home for a few hours. Do you want to wait inside?”
Inside, out of the sun, alone with Minho for the first time without Seungmin acting as Jisung’s protective barrier between himself and the world of pubescent feelings.
“Uh, sure.”
They padded into the house quietly, Jisung grabbing the mail when prompted as Minho unlocked the door. From the looks of it, no one else was home. Whether that was a good thing or bad, Jisung wasn’t sure.
“Do you want something to eat? I might make some ramyeon.”
Tempting, seeing how Minho’s claimed ramyeon packs in the cabinet were the same brand that Jisung liked best. “No, I had ice cream. I don’t think it’ll mix well. But, um—“ The younger rifled through his paper bag and fished out one of the two remaining bars. He held out the treat earnestly. “Seungmin mentioned that your favorite ice cream is strawberry once. Do you want…?” The question died on his tongue, because Minho was adorning a smile that left his chest squeezing around the remaining words and replacing them with something new and odd.
The older boy accepted the ice cream, fingers brushing over Jisung’s, the shine in his eyes never faltering. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, sure.”
The dooming smile is infectious, and a few seconds passed of the two of them just beaming dumbly at one another.
Jisung was the first to break eye contact, only because Minho was suddenly whipping out his phone from the side pocket of his duffel and held it up between them. He raised the ice cream in front of the phone. “Smile, Hannie!” Jisung didn’t, blinking vapidly as the camera snap went off. Minho laughed at his phone screen.
“Hey!”
Minho swerved his phone out of reach, giggling traitorously at Jisung’s discontent while his fingers tapped away until the telltale swoosh sound of a message being sent was heard. “Don’t worry, it’s just Seungminnie.”
For some reason, that didn’t sit too well in the very back of Jisung’s moral conscience. “What did you say to him?”
The phone was suddenly shoved in front of his nose and he almost went cross-eyed trying to refocus on the texts. Jisung groaned, “I look stupid.” His eyes were popping out, like saucers, his mouth hanging open in his confusion. There was a hint of a sunburn dusting his t-zone over one of his recent breakouts.
Jisung’s ears burned as he observed how dissimilar he and Minho were. Usually, he wouldn’t care about showing whatever mess he was to Seungmin—he had probably shown worse. But Minho stood there, a clear 10 judging this picture of Jisung, who was barely a 4 if he fixed his hair and wiped the oil gathered on his nose.
“No way,” Minho didn’t seem to be laughing at him. He was lit up in glee, undeterred by Jisung’s disheveled state. “You look cute. Have more confidence in yourself.”
“Easy for you to say. Look at you.”
“What about me?”
Jisung comprehended the implications of his words far too late. Minho’s smirk was annoying, ready to pry more out of this self-dug grave and still stupidly handsome.
“You know you’re good-looking. Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not making fun of you,” Minho turned the phone face down on the kitchen counter. He silenced it after it buzzed aggressively four times so he could rip open the ice cream in peace. Jisung never noticed how veiny Minho’s hands were. They were maybe the same size as his own, but even in this case, Minho just seemed so untouchable. Just by their damn hands. “You’re sure you don’t want anything else to munch on? You’re so thin, I feel like I should really feed you.”
Laughing, Jisung slid onto one of the barstools at the island, “I actually eat a lot. I just don’t really gain weight.”
“I don’t believe you. And if that’s true, I’m beyond jealous. If it wasn’t for soccer, I’d be the one they’d kick around on the pitch.”
“I’m sure your many fans from the girls’ academy would be disappointed about that.”
“I have no clue what you mean. They obviously come to practice to see my winning personality,” Minho bit into the dessert bar, the crunchy chocolate coating satisfying to the ear, and then stuck it in his mouth so he could pull out a small pot from a bottom cabinet.
“I don’t think you need to worry about your weight, though. I’m actually kinda jealous that you can gain weight. I’ve been trying to get some more muscle for a year now and I don’t think I’m gonna look like you anytime soon. If you’re the soccer ball, I’d be the metal bar holding up the net.”
Minho laughed around the ice cream between his teeth while he took out a pack of ramyeon as the water boiled on the stove. The sound of it was high-pitched in a way Jisung had never heard before. It was pretty. Like a text message chime set for your favorite person. “I think we both look good, how about that?” He offered a compromising smile mid-chew after he set the tin flavor packets aside. Jisung found it easier to maintain eye contact even though the squirming in his chest refused to subside.
“Deal.”
With one last bite, the ice cream was gone and the next few minutes flew by with it. Talking to Minho wasn’t as great of a feat as expected. He was perfectly capable of holding an easy conversation, veering clear from that dreadful small talk about the weather or schoolwork and more towards the recognition that they shared the same kind of humor. The more Jisung let himself get lost in whatever came out of Minho’s mouth, the more dangerous it felt.
“I should go settle into Seungmin’s room. Maybe steal some clothes to change. I’m probably cutting into your relaxing time.”
Minho cracked an egg into the pot before clicking off the burner. “You’re really not. You’re nice company.”
“Oh?” Jisung wasn’t sure why that was such a revelation; they actually got along surprisingly well. Dare he say they found common ground to work off of faster than he had with Seungmin when they’d first met. Also dangerous.
As he contemplated elaborating on another excuse to weasel out of the situation, Jisung’s phone buzzed loudly on the countertop. He sighed as his older brother’s name flashed onto the cracked screen, his silly contact picture mocking Jisung for the obvious reason behind him calling in the midst of his busy school curriculum being in full swing overseas.
“Not picking it up?”
“No,” Jisung sighed again as he placed the phone back onto the counter after switching it into silent mode. “It’s my hyung. My mom probably called him to talk to me. If I answer, she’ll keep bugging him to bug me into doing what my dad wants.”
“Ah… Do you wanna talk about it?” Minho looked as awkward as he sounded. “Like, I know a thing or two about getting into fights with my dad—especially around the time where I was still confused about the fact that he’s not my biological dad, but I think the fights helped us get through the worst of it all. So.”
“You look constipated.”
Minho emphasized his glare by throwing down the potholder on the granite surface of the island, placing the ramyeon onto it and rolling Jisung a pair of chopsticks. The noodles appeared perfectly cooked and the smell was mouth-watering, but Jisung didn’t want to give in to whatever game they were playing.
“I don’t know how to comfort people.”
“Hmm. Is that why you’re so keen on feeding me? You seek to comfort with action over words?”
The appalled gawk Minho supplied was enough to bring about the accomplished laughter Jisung was so adamant in holding in. “Psychoanalyze me again, and I’m kicking you out.”
“You’re the one who invited me in! Don’t be rude!”
“That’s exactly why I can kick you out!”
“Wow, if that’s how it is, I can just go to Seungmin’s room then.”
“I made enough ramyeon for both of us.” He did. It shouldn’t have made Jisung feel as happy as it did. Alas.
“I said I didn’t want any!”
“I could tell you wanted it, anyways.”
“So, you’ve been reading my mind the whole time but get butthurt when I point out one of your traits?”
“Aha! You do want some!”
“Okay, I’m leaving.” Jisung protested Minho’s approach as he made a move to get up from the barstool. “Come any closer, and I’ll stab you with these chopsticks!”
Underneath the taper of their laughter, Jisung vaguely heard the creak of a door followed by a soft click. Before he could really process it, Minho was suddenly in his space, one arm leaning against the top of the island to effectively cage him in.
“Why? Are you shy around me, Hannie?”
That signature restlessness crawled under Jisung’s skin at their proximity, or lack thereof. Up this close, he could count the fine hairs of Minho’s forearm. He wanted to say something, anything, distracted by the mischief in the older’s playful leer that lured him in to bite the bait and run with it. His heart pounded too loud and all he could feel was the blood rushing through his veins. Minho had really nice arm veins. Maybe he could say that.
But then, Minho stumbled back, clutching his shoulder and looking up at Seungmin with a bewildered expression. The air rushed back into Jisung’s lungs with an audibly long intake.
“Kim Seungmin, are you crazy—!”
“Are you ?! Ever heard of personal space?”
The anger dissolved from Minho completely, reinstituting the initial confusion as Seungmin pulled Jisung from his seat and began trudging towards his room.
They didn’t speak until the door shut with a swift, miffed flick of the wrist. Jisung didn’t look up. His gaze was fixed onto a piece of yellow lint on the carpet.
“Sung, you okay?”
“Uh—” the noise cracked in Jisung’s throat from how bitter it laid on his tongue. “Sorry, yeah. You didn’t have to yell at him. I was fine. He’s fine.”
Seungmin sighed and took a few tentative steps towards his friend. “He shouldn’t have been in your face like that.”
“No, no! It wasn’t his fault, he was just playing around. I’m fine, seriously. Seriously. I just feel bad that you got so mad because of me. Sorry.”
The aftermaths of Jisung’s mini panic began to well up alongside the jumbled words spewing up. It wasn’t until Seungmin planted his large grip on both of Jisung’s arms that the shorter stopped his tiny, spastic movements of wringing his fingers and cracking his neck. He opened his mouth to apologize—
“Don’t say sorry, or I’m gonna fight you.”
Jisung made a defeated noise. He flopped his weight forward until his head thudded into Seungmin’s collarbone. The hands on his arms rubbed up and down, soothing motions that Jisung found a tempo to breathe along to.
“You didn’t have to yell at him.”
“He didn’t have to be all up on you like that.”
“He was joking.”
“No one was laughing but him.”
“... You left study hours because of that picture he sent, right?”
Seungmin pressed his cheek to the side of Jisung’s head. “My hyung is not someone I can trust you with. He’s hellspawn.”
“Don’t mess up your academics for a stupid reason like that.”
“I know we’re not all born naturally smart like you, but missing one day of independent study isn’t going to kill me. Why do you have your backpack on?”
Jisung hugged Seungmin’s torso tightly in spite of the latter’s voiced disgruntlement at the action. “My dad is on my ass about picking my academic focus. I want to sleepover. And I forgot your ice cream on the counter.”
“Thanks. I’ll get it later. But for now—,” with a ruffle to Jisung’s hair, Seungmin pried out of the grip around his chest and moved to settle his bookbag down at his desk chair. He tossed Jisung a few garments from his closet: a loose shirt and sleeping shorts. “Get comfy while I order a pizza and we’ll watch Howl’s , ‘kay?”
Jisung couldn’t help but scowl; their ‘Sung is having one of those days’ routine. Still, he nodded through his discontent and sulkily began to strip off his sun-stained tee shirt with a huff. Seungmin excused himself from the room, leaving Jisung with his thoughts for the next few minutes. After changing into his new loungewear, he sprawled onto the bed to gather himself. The scent of ramyeon lingered in the air. He wasn’t hungry, but he could eat. That was why it was so tempting to risk Seungmin’s anger. That was definitely why.
The rest of the evening fared relatively normally. Minutes became hours until the moon was perched high enough in the sky and the sugar rush of another round of ice cream wore off. Even when the quiet rhythm of Seungmin breathing in his sleep was the only thing to fill the room, the inner depths of Jisung’s brain were churning and clunking without break. He pondered the strange, sour feelings from when Seungmin had reassured him that Minho had left to sleep over at a friend’s house.
Who was this friend? Were they close?
It shouldn’t have mattered, because Jisung was doing the exact same thing.
He wasn’t able to sleep well that night.
『• • • ⏩ • • •』
As soon as he hits the bench, the tension in Jisung’s shoulders ascends and is whisked away in the open air. The spaciousness of the street envelops him. It wards away the remainders of unknown presences breathing down his back. Being in his old friends’ company is wonderful, of course, but the pressures that come from old classmates approaching their table to revive threadbare connections were… tiresome, to put it nicely. Especially in the too many instances where they would make friendly efforts to involve Jisung in the conversations, a downside to being around two extroverts and Hyunjin’s stupid good looks. Despite Seungmin’s clever antics in steering the attention back and away from Jisung, the latter could still only take so much before the discomfort ate away at his edges and left him ragged and worn.
So maybe he deserves this little break.
He mentally sends Seungmin both his apologies and thanks as the clacking of leather dress shoes makes its approach.
“Hannie?”
Minho is—well, gorgeous. The neon lights color where the shade doesn’t reach, painting him as a stained glass mural of defined countenance and angular lines. It’s as if he hasn’t so much as aged a day. His complexion appears lighter, likely from his time stuck in some corporate office from the looks of his work attire—the thick cloth of his blazer and shiny cufflinks signal as much. He embodies the definition of daylight robbery.
Perhaps there is a bias, however. Jisung has always been a sucker for a man in uniform.
“Hi, stranger.”
Minho grins at him, all white teeth and cheekbones. He sidles over to sit on the other side of the bench, enough room left between them to remind Jisung of a distance he has always wanted to cross, wondering what lies on the other side. “What are you doing out here?”
“Just… needed some space from the crowds. You know.”
Minho hums, nods. “Is it okay that I’m here then?”
“More than okay.”
Jisung would like to think he’s not the same fidgety, spastic kid who yellowed through his school dress shirts and covered up his cracking voice with added volume to his statements. He likes to think he’s grown, as a person, as a man. He’s traded in the denial of his anxious tendencies for being at peace with setting boundaries for himself. Staying in Malaysia helped a lot, what with the different types of people that his international college had in attendance. It gave Jisung the ability to branch out and to explore himself. To test the shallow waters that he was egged into toeing through as a gangly teen, and finally letting himself dive into the deep end. Now he can see how clear the water is, how great of a swimmer he could be with practice.
It feels rewarding to see one of the people responsible for these changes to be acknowledging them as a smile blooms on Minho’s face and it lights up in a nostalgic fascination.
“That’s good. I almost didn’t recognize you without your usual sweats and baggy tee. You look good.”
“I do, don’t I?” Jisung strikes a pose, bringing his pointer finger and thumb to frame his chin and basking in Minho’s mirth.
“Not as good as I do, but still good.”
Jisung agrees. “Very debatable. And I can debate for a very long time—just ask Seungminnie. He can vouch for me.”
“I don’t even think I need to ask him to believe you.”
“Thank you for having trust in me, sunbae.”
“I said no such thing,” And then Minho adds, “You know you don’t really have to call me ‘sunbae’ anymore, Hannie. ‘Hyung’ is fine.”
Which is true. Technically, Jisung hasn’t needed to call Minho ‘sunbae’ since his second year, after Minho had graduated and moved to his dorms in the city, but it would only feed into the delusion.
Calling Minho ‘sunbae’ was a way to establish a wall—the untouchable aspect of their relationship that wasn’t to be crossed. He never knew if he was ready to break that barrier between them, that distance. Even now, it implies too much. Though Minho is so clearly within physical range, everything around him is too unclear, the thinned line drawn at their feet especially so.
“Force of habit, I guess?”
Minho tilts his head, looking over Jisung from head to toe in a manner that has the younger wanting to both straighten his posture and curl into himself all at once. “You seem to have broken out of a few habits, as far as I can tell.”
“We’ve barely spoken for five minutes and you’re already saying I changed so much.”
“I’m observant.” Jisung doesn’t doubt that, so he reminds himself to be careful.
“What about your other friends then? Have they changed a lot?”
Minho crosses his ankle over his knee, leans back to observe the stars beginning to crowd in the coming nightfall. His neck is elongated and his shirt stretches over his chest. He looks like a fantasy. Jisung counts the gum stains on the pavement as Minho answers, “I mean, I’ve kept in touch with my closer friends. Chan’s always busy, but he’s still around so it’s not too hard to see him when we’ve got the time. And Changbin dormed with me until I graduated. Other than them, there are a couple faces that were nice to see again.”
“You were pretty popular, though. I’m sure there were more people you were excited to see.”
As vice-captain of the soccer team in his third year, paired with extrovert characteristics and a personable demeanor, Minho was always well-liked amongst his peers. People knew who he was, or wondered who he was if they didn’t, or even envied him. But he just shakes his head and says, “Not really. Well, actually—” and he looks square in Jisung’s eyes, “maybe.”
“Oh.” Jisung bites the giddiness back by chewing on his lip. He knocks his knees together idly, then changes the subject, “Well, it’s nice to see old friends. Seeing Felix and Hyunjin after so long was nice. I missed them. They missed me more, which— understandable —but I missed them a lot.”
“Four years is a long time to be away. They probably had more peace and quiet, though.”
Jisung laughs a tad too loud to his own ears. “Probably. But who said that’s any better?”
Minho makes a thoughtful noise as he crosses his arms. “Peace and quiet does sound boring.” A pause. The silence is comfortable. It’s not as strange as it should be. Then again, they’ve never been strange between them from what could be recalled. “It was weird without you always coming over. Or running into you around the neighborhood. Way quieter.” The sentence trickles away and down the sewer drain a few feet away, the very end of it wanting to add something else but never doing so. “You came back recently, then?”
“Yeah, a little over a week ago. I’ve settled into my apartment and all—or, I’ve got all my boxes laid out in their respective rooms. So basically all settled. Seungmin would beg to differ, but he’s a neat freak.”
“He is. But, I think I’ll have to take his side on this one.”
“Sunbae, you never take Seungminnie’s side.”
“Your religious devotion to your ‘habits’ does not apply to everyone.”
“Whatever,” Jisung kicks in Minho’s direction and pretends not to be so affected by the other’s grin. “You’re not living at home anymore, right?”
Minho shakes his head, his smile never fully fading. “I got my own apartment after graduating. It’s actually not far from here, and close enough to where I work. And apparently close enough for Seungmin to bug me for a ride from home.”
“He lives, like, a forty minute drive from here, doesn’t he?”
“Do you think my brother cared? He’s downright spoiled.”
Jisung giggles, “He definitely didn’t. But an apartment in this area of Seoul? That’s some big bucks you’re making.”
“I work as a software engineer for a pretty big tech company. There’s a lot of development and data analytics that I won’t get into because I won’t torture you, but I’ll just say it pays well.”
“Sounds busy. So, you’re not home very much, then?”
“Not really. Maybe for holidays, sometimes I raid the kitchen when I get tired of cooking.” A teasing lilt makes its way into Minho’s voice, “Why? Did you miss me, Hannie?”
Yes.
“No way.”
Minho laughs and throws an arm around the back of the bench. His hand is only a mere stretch away from brushing against Jisung’s shoulder. One of them would just have to lean in. “Understandable. I’ve probably been in your dreams enough for you not to miss me too much.”
“Ah, you mean my nightmares . So, that was you then.” He stifles a snicker under Minho’s unamused glare.
“I liked you better when you were a first-year and clammed up every time I came within twenty feet of you.” Not one of Jisung’s proudest memories.
“You liked me, huh?”
Behind his smug exterior, the erratic beat of Jisung’s heart threatens to expose him for just how high-strung he really is. Not like how he is in crowds. Something nicer. Minho doesn’t seem to notice.
The older quirks a brow. “Past tense, you brat.”
Jisung’s stomach dips. Minho doesn’t mean that seriously. He isn’t talking about the same ‘like’ that Jisung is. Jisung is sure of it. “Sure you don’t.” At least, he thinks so. It’s better to think so.
Minho sighs, exasperated and indulgent all the same. They fall into another silence. Faint chatter of the nightly patrons back in the restaurant behind them fill it until it brims with the relief to be back home and the pleasant tellings of autumn. The lights buzz in blues and reds and greens, creating a kaleidoscope of an average night out in the streets of Seoul.
“You didn’t ask what I was doing out here,” Minho says.
It’s a plain and simple fact. An observation of the obvious. Irrelevant. No potent meaning out of context. Yet it holds so much more behind every syllable that it has Jisung teetering on the edge of just letting the most honest parts of his brain do all the talking to get over his constant lamenting of the what-ifs .
“Hannie.”
Jisung presses his nails into the stiff fabric of his jeans. “Yeah?”
“Am I reading this wrong?”
Minho’s arm slides off the backing of the seat. His hand rests in the space they don’t occupy, right at the halfway mark. Jisung’s insides dip and twist when he finds Minho staring at him with a wisp of something wistful, catching focus on the younger’s lips when they open to reply.
“... No. You’re not.”
It’s so quiet, the air so still that the small, scribbled sound Minho emits rings like alarms in Jisung’s skull. Suddenly, the older stands. For a moment, Jisung thinks that maybe he messed up. Maybe he is the one who read this wrong and risked it all only to lose everything in the end.
Minho extends his hand, face lax and palm up. “My place is a ten minute drive. And don’t worry, I didn’t drink.”
The cool tones of his irises are softer now, lined with consideration and a vulnerability that almost makes Jisung want to spit out the real reason as to why he’s sitting on this bench, silently begging for Minho to take him away for more than just one night.
Almost.
Jisung brings his hand up to take Minho’s. The skin of their fingertips sizzle at the touch, Minho is so warm. With a steady breath of an answer, Jisung grabs this chance by the reigns.
“Okay.”
『• • • ⏪ • • •』
Jisung wasn’t actively seeking Minho out around the school.
Sure, he would keep his chin up a bit higher, sweep through the dispersing mass of students filtering through the school grounds while lingering on slightly taller brunettes. But he never stepped foot near the third-year classrooms or made his way down to the soccer field during practices. So he wasn’t really on a manhunt. Maybe just more aware of the older boy’s possible presence in the vicinity.
On the fourth day of not seeking out Minho, Jisung found success after classes had finished for the day and clubs were beginning to commence their designated hours. A few students were pasting posters on the bulletin board down the hall, a couple others loitering at the water fountain. Other than them, Jisung only saw Minho, dressed in his school blazer with his duffel slung over the shoulder. The cut of the uniform accentuated the width of his back where it was turned towards Jisung.
“Hi, stranger,” Jisung offered a small smile. Minho raised his brows ever so slightly, seemingly confused before his own pleased smile blossomed onto his features. It relieved some of the weight in Jisung’s chest. Oddly.
“Hannie,” Minho replied. His mouth pressed in a thin line then, and his long lashes curtained his eyes as they pondered the floor. When they flickered back up, he seemed determined. “Look, I wanted to… to talk to you.”
“About?”
“Uh. Don’t be mad at him or anything but Seungminnie told me about your discomfort with people you’re not close with being in your space and all,” he admitted, and Jisung internally cringed. “Look, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable in any way and I should’ve realized that you weren’t cool with it. My way of… fooling around might not be for everyone, I guess? I think I was just being stupid.”
And then Jisung thought, Ah, he’s kind.
Minho didn’t have to apologize. He didn’t need to confront his little brother’s friend just to own up to something that he could have never foreseen. Yet here he was, all stiff posture and overthinking and blatantly trying to be a decent human being.
“Thank you,” Jisung leaned his shoulder against the wall besides the bulletin board that Minho had been reading prior to his interruption. The younger caught sight of a particular flyer, bold black ink offering open hours for the college entrance advisor’s office. It bothered him, silently, annoyingly, to have another reminder of Minho’s standing compared to his own. “You didn’t have to apologize. And you did nothing wrong. I’m not upset, and you shouldn’t be upset at yourself, either.” He looked back at Minho, who had a softness to his edges that pinpricked a feeling of content in Jisung’s nerves. “You’re a good person.”
Minho laughed at that, and it confirmed that it truly was a lovely sound. “Thanks. You are, too.” He reached over to ruffle Jisung’s hair. It was a simple touch, yet it felt overwhelmingly intimate. Jisung shook his head in mock disgruntlement to hide how fidgety he suddenly felt. “Ah, cute! You’re like a cat.”
“Sunbae!” Jisung groaned as Minho kept fussing with his hair. He wanted him to stop lest his pulse took speed even quicker till his heart threatened to explode, but he also didn’t want him to stop because he liked the attention. He liked the teasing smile on Minho’s lips. Minho’s very nice, very pink lips.
“By the way,” Minho drew back a little while Jisung flattened down his hair. “Seungminnie seemed really protective of you. He got pretty mad at me that day.”
“Yeah, he treats me like a kid sometimes. Even though I’m the older one.”
“Right. But, I don’t know, it seemed kind of… suspicious?”
Jisung blinked, furrowed his brow at Minho’s pensive expression. “What do you mean?”
Minho sighed and that awkwardness returned to tense in his shoulders. “I know we might not seem like we get along so well, but Seungminnie is my little brother. And his business is my business, whether he likes it or not. So, I’ll just ask. Are you guys, like, a thing?”
“A-a thing?” Jisung balked. He threw his hands up and shook them as if trying to banish the idea out of the air. “No! No, we’re just friends—he’s my best friend. Like, I would die for him and all but—I mean, I didn’t even know he swung that way, honestly. We-we’ve never talked about that stuff.”
The summer sun twinkled in Minho’s mooning eyes. “Getting pretty worked up there, Hannie.”
“You just asked if I was dating my best friend! Your brother!”
“Fair point,” Minho walked away from the bulletin to copy Jisung’s position against the wall on the other side of him. “To be honest, I don’t even know, either. Seungminnie has never opened up about any of that stuff to me. For all I know, he’s nowhere near interested in romance or dating. I thought I could’ve gotten something out of you.”
Jisung huffed. “You could just ask him, you know. Instead of trying to pry it out of me. I think something like that is best heard from the person themself instead of second-handedly from someone else that they entrust that kind of personal information to.”
There was a short pause.
“You’re surprisingly well-spoken.”
“ Surprisingly ? Of course I am.”
“So, do you, then?” Jisung broke his fixation on his fingers at the puzzling question. Minho wasn’t looking though, instead observing the calm dance of vivid green trees in the wind through the hallway window.
“Do I what?”
Minho finally flicked his attention over from the trees to peer into Jisung’s nerved gaze. “Swing that way. You said you didn’t know if my brother swung that way, but you didn’t say anything about you not swinging that way.”
Jisung stood rigid in place. Minho’s eyes were dark, searching for something that Jisung was scared to give but just might anyways. “Ah—,” his answer cut off and his thoughts were far too jumbled. “I, um. I like girls.”
It was seemingly neither the wrong nor right answer, and the slow churn of browns in Minho’s piercing irises seemed to find tempo with the stirring in Jisung’s gut. “But, do you like boys? You can like both, or one, or neither. We’re in modern times.”
“Neither?”
“It’s possible. Sometimes I wonder if that’s Seungmin’s case or if he’s just a late bloomer. Or maybe he’s just doing his own thing. But from how you asked, I assume that’s not the case for you. So? Both or one?”
It happened on one of the colder days during primary school, with a 9-year-old Jisung having just been beaten out of snagging the last pack of chocolate acorn snacks from right under his nose.
The other boy looked around his age, puppy-like features behind wireframe glasses and a hairstyle that escaped Jisung’s recollection from how brief the interaction had been. But he remembered being very upset, because those snacks were his favorite at the time and he was only two seconds behind grabbing them for himself.
But then the other boy looked at him, pursed his lips at Jisung’s face scrunched up in disdain, and held the box out.
Jisung took it hesitantly, still unsure of the strange kid’s intentions until the boy said, “You look like you really wanted them. It’s okay. I’ll get something else.”
“Oh,” Jisung said. He toed at the laminated tile of the convenience store, unsure of what just happened. “Do you want to share?”
The boy grinned, one of his upper teeth missing towards the back. His cheeks rounded out cutely. “You can have it all. Since you like them.”
“Oh,” Jisung echoed, now also unsure of what else to say. Then added, “Thank you. I’m Jisung.”
“Hello,” the boy stuck out his hand for Jisung to shake, and the latter took it whole-heartedly. “My dad said this is how he introduces himself at work.”
Jisung was just about to comment on how his dad did the exact same before a tall man clad in a suit poked his gangly figure around the corner. “Come on, bud! Papa’s paying now.”
The kid whipped his head around, “I’m coming!” He turned back to Jisung, gave one last happy smile, and waved. “Enjoy your acorns!”
It wasn’t until the boy had disappeared from sight out the automatic doors, one hand holding a bag of chips while the other gripped his father’s hand tightly, did Jisung realize he never got a name.
Jisung’s first love was a nameless, fleeting act of selflessness. Jisung’s first love was a boy.
Minho wasn’t asking in a way that held any pressure or prudence. He seemed to be curious, perhaps. Or kind in the way that he thought that maybe Jisung needed to talk about this. Jisung had no clue. But he wasn’t so scared as he thought he might have been.
“I—girls, I think? Or, uh… I guess I don’t know,” the confession rolled straight from its creation in Jisung’s brain off his tongue. He didn’t even think to play around with the idea, only focused on how Minho made him want to be honest all of a sudden. It felt good. The smile Minho gave felt even better.
“That’s okay,” he giggled. “You don’t have to know. You have your whole life to figure that out.”
In the blink of an eye, the ground beneath Jisung’s feet grew sturdy again even as he felt like he could walk on air.
“I—yeah.” He hoped that the grin he offered could translate every ounce of gratitude that was practically oozing out his seams. “You’re pretty well-spoken, too, sunbae. Thank you.”
Minho gave an ugly snort. His ears faded a bright red, whether it be at the compliment or the noise that left his throat, Jisung didn’t know but was endeared nonetheless. “There’s nothing I can’t do. I’ll be a good role model for you.” He ran his hand at the crown of Jisung’s head a final time before pushing off the wall. “I’m probably late to practice. See you around?”
Jisung nodded as he readjusted his bangs. “Have a good practice, sunbae. Not that you need me to say it.”
“Thanks.” The corners of Minho’s mouth turned up happily and he waved goodbye.
As Jisung watched him take off down the corridor, he found he didn’t think he would need his whole life to figure it out. Maybe the answer was right in front of him.
『• • • ⏩ • • •』
In the car ride over, the streets somehow shrink and Jisung wishes Minho lived further away. They stride back into their comfortable banter like nothing has changed. Like they aren’t about to do unspeakable things in Minho’s apartment first thing after meeting again.
“That’s really great for you,” Minho says. “I remember that day you had a fight with your parents and came to sleep over because they didn’t want you to pursue music.”
“Ah, you mean that day.”
Minho makes an excited noise as though the mere mention of it brings him back years. “That was an interesting day. I’m glad you’re where you are now, though. Not a lot of people can say that they’re in their dream career fields. You’re pretty lucky.”
“To have a talent like mine in their production team, my company is the lucky one.”
“Wait until they see how exhausting it’ll be to work with you. My brain is so tired of you, I’m already falling asleep on the wheel.”
“I have my license,” Jisung swipes a hand across the dashboard, the texture like leather gold under his fingers. “I can drive.”
“Despite the amazing job you’ve landed, my car is still nowhere near your paygrade.”
“When I eventually get promoted or move to a Big Three company, I’m going to rub those words in your face and buy a car for each time a song of mine hits the top 100 on MelOn.”
With the moon hung and weather light, there is a bliss in the air. Minho’s smile is like revisiting a favorite memory, but then again, it is exactly that. The more they steal away from the night, the more Jisung comes to the reality that Minho is one of the reasons why returning to Korea tasted like a refreshing glass of water after a good workout. Like curling into warm sheets after a tiring day of winter classes.
After endlessly stumbling to propel himself forward, the two of them fall in step the second Jisung had let go, fifteen minutes ago on that bench. It feels natural. Seungmin had always been their shared interest. A precursor to their regular conversations. But now his name is long absent from their exchanging quips and small talk.
Though, as if thinking him into existence, the stereo halts the low hum of one of Big Bang’s many hit songs and begins to ring.
Jisung doesn’t breathe for a second. His ears go numb like his brain is trying to deny the shrill ring of the incoming call—but he’s not blind , and that is definitely Seungmin’s name in thick white letters on the touchscreen.
Minho throws Jisung a wary look as if to say Should I pick up?
It’s risky. Though, it had probably been eerily suspicious for Jisung to text Seungmin that he was heading home early for not feeling well the same time Minho disappeared from the restaurant.
“Did you tell him you went home?” Jisung asks.
“I—… I did not—”
“ Sunbae .”
“I got this! Just—,” Minho brings his pointer finger up to his lips, and they share a hushed pair of grins before Minho presses the answer button on the wheel. “Kim Seungmin, I’m driving.”
“So you did leave?”
“I got a call from work saying that I need to resend some data work because one of our interns mixed up the files for—you know that intern I always complain about? The one who says he understands what he needs to do when we assign him things but then it’s so obvious that he really doesn’t?”
“You were my ride home.”
“I was going to send you money for a cab as soon as I got home.”
“Fine. Did you see Jisung when you left?”
Ever-observant Seungmin. Jisung shares a wide-eyed look of comedic panic with Minho before the both of them are tiptoeing the edge of a dooming fit of giggles. Minho rips the smile off his face so it isn’t evident in his voice when he speaks again.
“Who? Jaesung? A friend of yours from school or something?” Minho purposefully squints down the road like his brain is struggling to pull an answer, and Jisung almost ruins everything by bursting out in offense to the ruse. The older man holds steady his facade, even shaking his head even if Seungmin can’t see it. “I don’t really remember seeing any of your friends besides the ones that were at your table before I left.”
“ Bullshit. Don’t pretend you don’t know Jisung after all the years you’ve been— ”
“Ah!” The loud boom of Minho’s voice sends the two of them jumping in their seats. Luckily, they still maintain a steady course on the road. Jisung plasters on a look of bafflement as Minho pointedly glares at the sound system. There’s no time to question it before his expression morphs into that familiar charming smugness that always seems to accompany a snarky remark. “Oh, you mean that little twink with the chubby cheeks. The obnoxious one you were always with, right?”
Completely offended and a bit more smitten than before, Jisung pinches at Minho’s arm hard enough to result in a satisfying look of anguish. Minho bites the back of his finger to stifle the weird noises threatening to burst out, his face scrunched in silent laughter the second they stop at a red light. He turns back to mouth I’m driving! , but Jisung only gives him a pouty glare in response.
Seungmin says something else through the sound system, but it fades into white noise as Minho takes his right hand from the wheel and lets the tension accumulated within the confines of the car drag it down to rest on Jisung’s thigh. It squeezes around the bone of his knee, knuckles protruding and veins manifesting to snatch any remnants of sanity straight out from Jisung’s mushy brain.
“—if he sent you a text, then you shouldn’t worry. He’s probably fine. Look, I’m still on the road so I’ll talk to you later. Just request me however much money the cab is when you get home, alright?”
“ Whatever. Be safe. ”
The call ends with a brief chime, and Minho releases a long breath. “I hope that was believable.”
A cloud passes by the waning moon, slowly creeping across the collection of stars thrown amongst the deepening sky. Despite the cool serenity the night provides, Jisung feels warm all over. He knows by now that it’s not because of his knit sweater, or the aftershocks of the crowded venue.
“I feel bad you lied to him, though.”
“Seungmin can shove it.” Jisung flicks at Minho’s hand in defense of his best friend. “You guys were practically attached to the hip when we were kids! Now that you’re back, I’m sure it won’t be any different. He already saw you, like, twice since you landed.”
“Three times. He picked me up from the airport.”
“He can deal with not having you for one night.” The hand on Jisung’s thigh inches higher, more dangerous. “You’re all mine tonight.”
Waves of butterflies surge up to barrage Jisung straight in the face. All Minho’s. He dry swallows.
“Hey, I belong to myself.”
Minho pouts, his eyes still diligently sweeping the streets though now with a newfound playfulness. The streetlights twinkle within them like the stars, like fleeting and fond memories. “Not even for me?”
They’re only playing around, and yet something lies deeper beneath this light banter. Something heavy and bright and immovable. Jisung pointedly looks out the window when he feels Minho sparing a glance or two, even three, to gauge his reaction.
“Definitely not.” But the hand that finds itself resting on top of Minho’s says differently.
『• • • ⏪ • • •』
Jisung stretched his arms as far as they could reach above his head. He reveled in the pull of his stiff muscles from his shoulder blades all the way to the leftover cramp in his palm from last period literature. The hallways were barren save for the stray student on their way to independent study or after-school extracurriculars. It was a relief from being stuck inside the stuffy classrooms for hours on end, even more so when the promise of the weekend not far away was so sweet on Jisung’s palate. He thought of the pastries at the bakery in the shopping district and made a mental note to shoot a text in the group chat to weasel his way into dragging someone along for the trip.
He threw his arm around Felix’s shoulder. “Can we get cheesecake from Sunni’s on Sunday?”
“Do you even need to ask me?”
“No. I just like the sound of my voice.”
“And you assume I do, too? Talk to yourself then.”
“Okay—I recently found out that there’s a certain species of shark that acts like a dog. Like, if they see a human that they like interacting with other sharks, they actually get jealous and will try to steal their attention or bully the other shark to go away.”
Felix steered them around the corner, the sun filtering in from the parade of windows lining the entirety of the hallway and pooling in to foreshadow the warming weather. The beige linoleum floors shone with a new vigor, the air less biting with every breeze. At this time of day, Jisung liked the hallways the best. A vast space of bright neutral colors that go underappreciated during the daytime where too many people smush together in the event of switching rooms or going to make their breaks worthwhile.
“Wait, that’s actually so cute.”
“Excuse me, I’m having a conversation. With someone who actually wants to listen to me.”
“I listen when you have important things to say. Like shark dogs .”
“You can’t pick and choose when to be a good listener!”
“I’m not listening anymore.”
Jisung squeezed down on Felix’s nape for his lack of good friendship. His grip only lightened up when the pleading for forgiveness grew loud enough that it might have drawn the unwanted attention of any stranglers in the classrooms. He left Felix limp against the windows, continuing the trek to the music room until the other boy regained his strength enough to speak normally again. “Oh, soccer practice.”
Turning to where Felix was peering outside, Jisung could see the soccer pitch down below. The team was spread out, the white and black of their uniforms contrasting against the vivid green turf. They didn’t appear to be in the full swing of drilling exercises just yet, so it was easy to pick out their friend from the sea of players.
Hyunjin was combing his dark hair out of his eyes, the sweat from running the field plastering stray hairs to his forehead. He looked tired but was glowing nonetheless. As expected of Hwang Hyunjin.
“Wah, Hyunjinnie’s so handsome,” Felix leaned against the windowsill.
“They sure think so,” Jisung bumped his friend’s elbow again and gestured to the farther end of the field, where a group of students from the girls’ academy was giggling amongst themselves from the other side of the fence. They grew louder, more excited as Hyunjin lifted up his shirt to wipe the glisten off his neck. Jisung couldn’t help but scoff. “If they’re going to leave after main classes to objectify the soccer team, they might as well use the time to take advantage of afterschool study hours.”
“Hey, hey, isn’t that Sooyeon? With her hair up, to the left.”
Jisung blew a raspberry after he picked out the girl in question from the string of boy-crazed onlookers. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
“Didn’t she confess to you, like, last week?”
“Seems like she doesn’t care too much that I turned her down, huh.”
Felix shrugged. “I heard she isn’t very nice to her dongsaengs, anyways.” That wasn’t all too surprising, though Jisung didn’t know any better, either, so he wouldn’t be surprised by anything about her. Unless she was a pro wrestler or something.
In all honesty, he hadn’t even known who she really was. He recognized her from the times her group of friends would stop by their school on the way to the train terminal to watch the soccer team play, but he wasn’t even aware of her name before the confession fiasco. Even then, Seungmin was the one to recount what exactly had happened to Felix and Hyunjin after she had stopped him and Jisung to supposedly profess her undying affections for the latter.
At first, he had felt bad. Sooyeon didn’t appear to be a bad person, let alone someone who wouldn’t be ranked up as a ‘good score’ in terms of high school romances. She was pretty, fair-skinned and a slender face with a kind voice that accentuated her high-school-sweetheart demeanor. But Jisung couldn’t bring himself to lie to her with false promises to be the best boyfriend he could be. And again, he didn’t even remember her name.
The girl was fairing rather well after Jisung had apparently broken her heart (and he’d even gotten a pretty nasty slap from one of her wing women after he called her by the wrong name for the second time that day). Sooyeon was pointing at Hyunjin now, her friends dressed up in their flirtiest smiles and curled hair, likely styled by one another during their lunch period. Jisung can’t say that any of this surprised him too much.
Especially the Hyunjin part. Ever since Hyunjin had been determined as the prime candidate for succeeding the title of team captain for their coming third and final year, his female suitors had only increased in numbers. Jisung had no doubt that it would only be the same once they graduated, and the thought made him sad in a way where he wished he could pause time in the now, with the four of them enjoying their less stressful days as second years.
He sighed. “Girls are a different breed.” Felix nodded with a drawn-out noise of agreement as they watched Hyunjin poise himself in preparation for the next exercise to start. Jisung opened the window wide enough for both him and Felix to be able to lean out of it comfortably, and cupped his hands around his mouth, “Hwang Hyunjin is so sexy! I’ll cheer for you, Jinnie! Please notice me!”
Multiple heads snapped over to the window, but Jisung didn’t let it keep him from grinning wickedly at the way Hyunjin beamed up at them once he had realized who was the culprit behind his new jeering crowd. Felix guffawed and waved frantically when Hyunjin raised a tired arm up in greeting.
“Hwang Hyunjin! I’ll be your soccer ball if you kick me in the face!” Felix howled, and Jisung doubled over in laughter.
Hyunjin threw his head back as he cackled just as wildly, then straightened up with an exaggerated look that Jisung assumed was supposed to be sultry before proceeding to spray himself with the contents of his water bottle. Felix and Jisung continued to catcall him, even getting some of Hyunjin’s teammates to join in on the show.
Jisung’s eyes flickered up, and he caught sight of Sooyeon staring back at him warily. Not even a millisecond passed before she quickly looked away with an embarrassed and saddened twist of her tinted lips.
“Hey, hey, keep it PG!” Felix squealed and covered his eyes with Jisung’s shoulder, his laughter enough to shake the both of them. Jisung smiled wide once he saw what Felix was balking about—Hyunjin was struggling to keep his shirt from being lifted up by one of the other players, a broad-shouldered guy with dimples and a pleasant eye smile. Hyunjin’s teammates continued to smother him until someone who seemed to be the captain finally reigned his team back in to continue their practice.
“Oh, Chan-hyung is there,” Felix said, pointing to the dimpled man.
“You know him?”
Felix hummed in affirmation, “Our moms are good friends since we’re both from Sydney. He was last year’s team captain. He graduated already but I don’t think it’s uncommon for the sunbaenims to visit practices and play around sometimes.”
Since their academy was relatively small, mostly comprised of neighbors and familiar faces, it wasn’t too hard to distinguish who Jisung knew was still attending and who he hadn’t seen since last February’s graduation. With the springtide finally settled and midterm season recently finished, he guessed that this was the perfect time for friendly outdoor activities to release steam. But if recently graduated alumni was here, that meant—
Out of the sea of faceless soccer jerseys, Jisung’s eyes met that familiar feline gaze that struck him like lightning and sung like stars. Devastatingly striking, leaving the pollen-ridden air thicker than before.
Minho beamed at him once he had caught Jisung’s attention, and the younger wondered if Minho had been staring at him this entire time just waiting to be noticed. Jisung offered a big smile of his own paired with a small wave. Billows of fluttery feelings washed ashore in his gut once Minho gave an enthusiastic wave back, the satisfaction etched into his face growing even more alight. It was a good look on him, sweat-slick fabric sticking to his torso in an almost obscene fashion along with a pleased curl of the lips that was a product of Jisung’s acknowledgment.
I did that , he thought.
It had been a couple months since he’d last caught sight of Minho on a spontaneous trip to Seungmin’s. Just like now, it was completely unexpected, Minho had escaped from his dorm for a weekend at home, and he’d left Jisung just as nerve-wracked, just as light and airy and planted to the earth. But then he was gone when Jisung emerged from Seungmin’s room after hastily excusing himself to go to the bathroom, and for that rest of the day, Jisung sat on the disappointment of being unable to muster up a conversation with Minho after so many weeks apart. A missed chance, one Jisung had let slip right between the cracks.
But there Minho stood, peering up at him with that fantastic sparkle in his eyes and his hair a shade or two lighter.
Another chance.
In a fit of courage, Jisung leaned a bit further out the window, “I’ll cheer for you, too, sunbae!”
Minho appeared to be just as surprised at Jisung’s sudden bravery. Wonderstruck and ever-radiant, letting out a bright laugh that rang sweetly in the gust. The look of pure elation tacked onto his characteristic charm was breathtaking. Jisung dug his fingers into the siding of the school building in anticipation as Minho flashed one last happy set of teeth with an attempt at a wink before jogging off to join the rest of the players on the field.
Jisung pursed his lips to hide the emotions bubbling in his throat. He spared a glance over to Felix, who was darting wide eyes between the field and Jisung with his eyebrows bowing up into his hairline.
“What are you looking at,” Jisung pinched at Felix’s cheeks as they began to bunch up knowingly.
“I’m just watching the team play! Look, look, they’re starting a new game— Ow !”
Felix rubbed at his face as Jisung grumpily turned back to see the soccer players divide themselves into teams and ready their positions for practice to resume. He didn’t know much about soccer (or really any sport for that matter) but he still kept his promise in cheering on both Hyunjin and Minho. They were on the same team, which was convenient enough, and after a few minutes of close goals and skilled dribbling, Jisung found himself more enraptured in hoping their team won than he had thought he’d be.
“Do you even know what’s going on?” Felix asked, hooting in excitement as Hyunjin managed to intercept a pass and begin dribbling to the opposing team’s goal.
“ Go, Hyunji —! Ah, freaking goalie. Nice shot, Jinnie ! No, but I think we’re winning?”
Felix laughed and nodded, “I think so.” He spared a glance at his phone, paused with a pensive expression, and then began to type away at the screen. “Let’s get going in a few minutes, yeah? Seungmin says he’s finishing up with his tutoring.”
Watching with unwavering interest, Jisung felt his neck warm from the unfiltered spring sun and the flex of Minho’s calves as he drifted down the field. Said player threw a peek back up at them, double-taking before adding a pretty smile that rested easy and tired on his face. Jisung’s voice was quiet, “Ah, okay.”
A few more measures of time passed where Jisung found himself momentarily suspended in the tension of Minho’s eyes boring into his through quick glances and refreshing simpers. It was always so riveting, yet uncertain like a never-ending purgatory where Minho was warm browns and pinks but together they were grey. Jisung was caught in a constant state of hot and cold. Lukewarm is nice, but here it makes him bone-weary. Antsy. So he ripped himself out of his fixation on the field to see Felix smiling down at his phone. There were sparkles in his eyes.
“Now what are you smiling about?” Jisung craned his neck to catch a glimpse of his friend’s screen only to have it snatched away from reach. That was interesting. “You’re still texting Seungmin?”
“Maybe,” Felix shoved his phone back into his pocket, blatantly avoiding Jisung’s curious leer.
“And smiling like that?”
Felix sighed warily. “You’re reading too much into it.”
Very interesting. “Too much into what exactly?” Jisung twisted his head to observe the more minuscule details in Felix’s reactions. “I’m just saying, you guys have been hanging out a lot more without me and Jinnie recently. Should I be concerned about third-wheeling in the near future?”
Another sigh, though Felix didn’t look the slightest bit amused. His freckles scrunched up, like he was holding his tongue on whatever was on his mind. It was reasonable, however, when he finally said, “Well, should I be concerned about… whatever this is?”
The words burned, coiled in Jisung’s gut and he flinched back. “W-what do you mean?”
Felix gestured to the field, where the game was still ongoing. Jisung’s eyes immediately locked onto where Minho was wiping the film of sweat from sharp cheekbones, and Jisung understood. But it was terrifying, because that meant he was being way too obvious, and the unease in Felix’s cadence was telling of the fact as to why that was bad in the first place—why this whole thing was bad in the first place.
So he lied. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Felix knew him better. “I mean, we don’t have to talk about it. If you don’t want to.”
Jisung didn’t, though he knew he would have to eventually. He thought about the strain it might put on Seungmin, on his best friend, and not only their relationship, but the relationship between Seungmin and his own brother . This stayed in the back of Jisung’s head throughout the past year and a half. It kept him awake on the nights he slept over Seungmin’s house before Minho had moved out, made him clench his fists at how he was too conscious of the fact that Minho was asleep on the other side of the bedroom wall, all the while Seungmin dreamt peacefully on the other side of his bed. Jisung felt so alone then, stuck to contemplate his situation on his own because he could never break the peace by bringing the truth into light.
But still. With the elementary interactions he would share with Minho, whether it be a quick smile in passing or an electrifyingly sweet “Hannie”—Jisung crackled like wildfire as he let the flames of Minho swallow him in and bury him kilometers under.
So maybe Seungmin could understand.
Jisung’s mouth hung open, a tentative reply readying itself at the tip of his tongue, when his focus immediately honed onto the field at the sound of shouting voices growing more frantic. Minho had stolen the ball right out from under the other team’s feet, weaving narrowly around intercepting players with a deft agility that had their knees buckling to keep up. Complete concentration hardened his features, drenched in perspiration, zeroing in on the goal post just meters in front of him. Jisung grasped onto Felix’s arm. The two of them cheered louder as the distance between the ball and net shrank and shrank—until a rival player miscalculated their attempt in intercepting and Minho came tumbling onto the turf.
“ Sunbae !” Jisung held his breath, his heart stuck just beneath it, as Minho laid on the grass. He only released a sigh of relief once the older began to sit up and wave off his teammates’ worried gestures. He shot them all a dismissive smile as the captain pulled him back onto his feet. Jisung didn’t even realize he was bending himself so far out the window until he felt Felix’s hand gently pull him back inside.
“I think he’s okay,” Felix gave a kind squeeze to his shoulder, and Minho did the same to the player who had fouled him to placate the terrified and apologetic look on his face. “Yeah, he’s okay. And he even gets a penalty kick now.”
Jisung bit his lip as he nodded, but the worry was still sewn into his bones and bleeding into the way he curled his knuckles around the metal of the sill. Minho didn’t appear to be in any pain, even jogging over to the penalty box where the captain passed him the soccer ball before lining up with the rest of the players on the field.
Minho swiveled his head and their eyes met once more. Jisung’s hands unfurled from their steel grip on the windowsill, the tension drained from the furrow in his brows. His heart pounded, vicious and unrelenting like he had been the one who was just racing down the field, as Minho pointed to the soccer ball and then straight up at Jisung.
For you , he mouthed.
The world disintegrated around them, and all Jisung saw was Minho. Minho with that cocky smile, windswept hair, and genuine gleam in his honeyed eyes. The greys became red hot and pinks and purples and whites, like fireworks. Vivid and enrapturing.
Reality came into focus again as whooping and hollering erupted from the other players, and Jisung covered his breathlessness behind a plastic smile. None of the others knew that there was something deeper behind Minho’s actions, that it teetered on the cusp between a joke and a truth, except for the two of them. And Felix apparently, so Jisung kept him in his peripherals to avoid whatever look was being thrown his way.
Eventually, the commotion died down. Minho readied the ball at his feet, stepping back once everyone else was ready for him to take the first step. He then took a deep breath, sprinted towards the ball, catapulted it with a swift kick as his teammates began to close in on him and—
Swoosh .
The ball thudded to the ground as it fell from where it hit the back of the net next to the goalie, who looked down at it in awe at the speed it flew. Minho threw his hands up the same time Jisung did, and those on Minho’s team ran in to praise him for his goal. They soon began to disperse, taking positions for the ready, but Minho didn’t follow suit. Instead, he moved to approach the window, Jisung’s grip on his blazer tightening as familiar feelings of candy-sweet anticipation began to warm his insides.
Minho got about halfway down the field, his focus hooked onto Jisung like he was being pulled in, closer and closer, until the dimpled guy, Chan, grabbed him by the arm. Minho spun his head towards his friend, his face obscured from the angle. His jaw moved as if he was saying something, then Chan rolled his eyes and began to drag them both back to the game.
Disappointment stamped down Jisung’s gut while he watched Minho go, the distance between them widening. When Minho looked back to give him a last apologetic smile and wave, Jisung returned both with full force.
“Hey.” A hand clasped onto his shoulder, and Felix offered a quick upturn of his mouth. There was an anomaly within it, like hesitation or caution. “Let’s get going, yeah?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Jisung let himself be tugged along by the wrist down the hallway. Just before the windows reached out of view, he sent one last longing glance down to the playing field.
Minho’s face was smaller in the distance, the stretch between them too expansive now, with his mouth agape and eyes wide while he witnessed Jisung being towed further and further away. He raised his arm up a final time before all Jisung could see was drywall.
The hallway was dim and cold compared to the natural light of the soccer pitch.
『• • • ⏩ • • •』
Minho wasn’t kidding when he said he had a decent paying job. His apartment building is pristine, light marble and sleek steel with a white-collared doorman who welcomes him by name.
They carry the idle chatter from the car ride all the way up to Minho’s door. As the elevator doors slide open to their sixth-floor destination, it sinks in that Jisung is at Minho’s apartment, his sanctum of privacy. The giddiness floods back with harsher intentions.
“Oh, and you get to meet my babies,” the older man pushes open the heavy wood door after the lock gives way.
“Your—what now?”
Minho giggles at Jisung’s befuddlement, “My cats. I have three. But they might not all come out since they don’t know you.”
“You have children ? And haven’t shown me a single picture ?”
“Well, hopefully you’ll be able to see them in person now that you’re, you know, here,” Minho shucks the contents of his pockets into a bowl by the entrance, hangs his keys on the little hook rack above it. Jisung toes off his boots as Minho kicks off his loafers, the former silently grumbling about the three centimeters it takes off his height, and the two of them make their way into the common area. “Do you want something to eat? I can whip up something quick. Or I have wine. Or juice? If you don’t drink?”
Jisung can’t help but poke fun. “You should know that I already ate from how intently you were watching me eat from across the room.” The reddening color of Minho’s ears never gets old.
“I—fair enough. Sorry, I don’t know what to really do in these situations.”
“You mean, you don’t, like… bring people home?”
Minho sits atop the arm of his couch and rubs at his neck. “No, I mean, I’ve gone home with people before. But I’ve never actually brought anyone here. To my place.”
And that—that does things to Jisung. Things that make him feel too many other things at once. He steadies himself by leaning against the back of one of the leather chairs adjacent the TV. There are hints of scratch marks decorating the corner of it.
“Oh, well, I don’t really hook up with people either.”
He brushes off the small, twirling hope that maybe that will have the same effect on Minho. But when he looks up from observing the minimal, modern decor of the room, the older doesn’t appear pleased. Instead, his expression draws blank, a bit creased below his forehead.
“So, you’ve done this before. Like, going home with people.”
“I have.” The room somehow grows too big, the two of them feeling too small for it, and the tether between them vibrates with sudden tension. Jisung is almost compelled into lying, saying he actually never has casual flings or anything of the sort. But Minho doesn’t deserve to be lied to. “Is that— Woah !”
Before he can get another thought out, something slinks in between his ankles and Jisung almost flails into the chair from how badly he startles. Fear is quickly replaced by head-over-heels infatuation once he spots the pair of large yellow-green eyes staring up at him.
“A baby!” he whispers, and crouches down to allow the cat further inspection of their home’s intruder. They give a tentative sniff, then a soft mewl in approval. Jisung wants to melt into the floor so he can seep into the wood paneling and be with the cat forever.
“That’s Dori,” Minho strides over from the couch to lean against the armchair. “You’re right, though. He’s the baby.”
“He’s the cutest baby ever. I love him with all my heart,” Jisung swoons as Dori proceeds to rub under his knees and gladly accepts scratches on the white fur beneath his chin.
There’s another meow, but not from Dori. When Jisung peers upwards towards the bedroom door left ajar, he gasps in heightened delight.
“Hi, sweetie!” he coos at the newcomer. This cat has orange tabby fur in contrast to Dori’s grey, a bit larger in size but similar eyes pooling with curiosity.
Dori paws at Jisung’s hand after a brief pause from his dutiful scratching, and Jisung is suddenly overwhelmed by the two cats begging for his attention.
“That’s Doongie,” Minho grins. He offers his leg when Dori brushes lovingly into it. “They seem to like you a lot.”
Jisung squeals quietly. “Maybe they can sense how much I love them already.”
Minho laughs, stepping away from the cuddle fest on the floor. Jisung spares a momentarily glance to see where he had gone, only to drop his jaw when he sees Minho bringing over another cat. “And this is Soonie. He’s the worst with strangers, so let’s see how far you get.”
“It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t love me, I love Soonie.” Jisung holds his breath, the smile permanently stuck to his face in the presence of so many cuddly pets, as Minho plops Soonie down by his feet. He is maybe the biggest of the trio and looks very much like Doongie except for the lack of white on his snout. His pupils are like thin, vertical slits, unmoving as they fixate on Jisung. The latter watches in fascination as the pupils dilate into circles of pitch black. “Hi, Soonie. You’re so handsome.” In response, Soonie wiggles his tail and lunges up to perch on Jisung’s knees. The added weight knocks his center of gravity off kilter, causing Jisung to wobble over onto the floor with an “ oof! ”
Laughter comes spilling out Jisung in body-quaking waves. Though Soonie scuttles away and a dull ache rides up from Jisung’s tailbone, he can’t be anything but overjoyed at the turn of events. Especially when Minho is laughing alongside him and Dori has been attacking his socked feet since they had kicked into the air on his way down.
“I can’t believe it,” Minho slumps down to sit by Jisung on the floor, both of them out of breath and still giggling dumbly. “They like you. Even Soonie likes you. What the hell.” Dori stops his vicious assault on the tiny toast prints littering Jisung’s socks to greet his owner now that he’s level with the rest of them. Minho goes to pet him, only for the kitten to change route and run off to follow wherever Doongie has disappeared to. Jisung can only snicker at Minho’s horrified gape. “Lee Dori, you traitor!”
He lights up again when Soonie trots over to him, the feline accepting any affectionate scratching and coddling with a purr reverberating through the room. Jisung can feel himself fall further.
“You guys seem to like Hannie, huh,” Minho kisses Soonie on the nose a few times. It’s tear-worthy. “I was hoping you guys would like Hannie as much as I do. I didn’t think you actually would behave. Ah, let me get the feather toy for you, Han-ah. The kids love that thing.”
Minho picks himself up off the ground to walk over to a drawer set besides a tall cat tower in the corner of the living room. But Jisung is stuck, rooted in place from the one off-handed comment of ‘you guys would like Hannie as much as I do .’ Which is stupid. And childish. And he’s overthinking it. Taking into account the situation, it’s ridiculous how easy it is to overthink every little detail.
Because, after this night, this all becomes a memory.
He won’t ever see Soonie, Doongie, or Dori again. He won’t be able to banter over radio music in Minho’s car anymore. He won’t be anything more than this.
None of it is Jisung’s to keep.
Despite the newer air of affluence painting the work of art that is Lee Minho, he is almost exactly as Jisung remembers him four years ago—a shooting star on a foggy, cloud-scattered night. He is a favorite color buried in a sea of wildflowers, a wishful thought that skirts along the edges of the most obscure dreams. He is fine lines and award-winning talent and he is in front of Jisung cooing over his cats and softening at the seams.
Jisung wants this and so, so much more. He wants to keep this with him forever, but for now, he takes a mental snapshot and promises to store it away for the downer times in his near future.
Soonie stares up at him as he rises from his crouched position, then slinks away as Jisung reaches out for Minho’s back. It’s broad, the image of it feels permanent in Jisung’s recollection because of how he was always just a footfall behind, never besides Minho on the same page or synching in step.
He tamps down the small, petulant voice in the back of his mind that says Minho wants this, and he could want more. He squishes the voice down under the soles of his feet, stomping it away and wishing it could stop storming his head with fantastical concepts that are just that: fantasy and nothing more.
Minho stiffens the moment Jisung’s fingers meet the lush fabric of his suit jacket. They trail down the firmness of toned muscle hiding beneath too many and too few layers. Before he can lose whatever is empowering him through this night, Jisung brushes his lips against the skin peeking out from Minho’s dress shirt collar, just below the nape. The shiver it evokes carries over down Jisung’s back as Minho turns around slowly, until he’s completely facing the younger man with a look that is impossible to grasp and even harder to dissect.
His eyes are dark, gravitational, albeit tinted with uncertainty. They pool deeper when he leans forward ever so slightly, darting from watching Jisung’s lips part and back up to clarify what it is that Jisung is thinking. He doesn’t move further, and it takes a few dizzying seconds and a jack-hammered pulse for Jisung to realize that Minho is waiting for him .
Years of daydreaming couldn’t have possibly prepared Jisung for what kissing Lee Minho was like. Like fireworks rippling behind his eyelids, nerves ablaze, systems rewiring after a wrench dislodges from the gears. It’s chaste and over as soon as it began. Jisung pulls back just to make sure he isn’t still daydreaming. His mind reels when he realizes that, yes, Minho is still there with his eyes fluttering back open and holding galaxies this up close.
“Okay?” Minho asks quietly, like he’s the one who pressed up closer than high school Jisung could have imagined in his wildest reveries and kissed him soft and sweet. Jisung doesn’t understand why but he nods instead of voicing the fact in a snarky remark, his capacity to behave in the norm long been left at the restaurant. This is apparently a cue for Minho to dip back in to catch Jisung’s lips with his own again. It’s an actual kiss this time around, supple skin moving together while a firm hand comes to rest on Jisung’s hip to anchor him.
Jisung doesn’t know what to do with his own limbs, so he clutches his fingers into the front of Minho’s button-down as if to just keep him there. The material feels way too expensive for his own messy habits, but it doesn’t beat the sound that bleeds into their mouths when Jisung nips Minho’s bottom lip between his teeth—absolutely priceless . It catalyzes them down a more heated path, where their hands are pulling each other in and tongues begin exchanging soft breaths wet with indulgence.
Jisung’s lungs border on the verge of imploding once Minho ducks down to mouth at his neck. His skin scorches everywhere, the blood vessels popping under Minho’s teeth just behind his ear. One of the hands fisted into the older’s shirt is guided up to the topmost button, and Jisung’s fingers fumble to undo it before he’s popping them open one by one, enough to slide his palms over the expanse of smooth skin that uncovers from beneath.
“Han-ah,” he whispers, low enough to curl around Jisung’s throat and reel him in even closer. They’re almost chest-to-chest, toe-to-toe. So close but not enough. “Tell me what you want.”
You , Jisung cries in his head. I just want to be here with you.
“Bed,” is what softly slips out in quivering desperation.
Minho looks ethereal with his kiss-bitten lips, shirt fallen open to unveil the shadows that catch under his unfair physique. He looks unlike the cool and collected upperclassman that was always so quick to sharpen the air with cutting words. Like a different version of the premium. Jisung wants to see how much further this Minho can fall apart, and realizes soon after that he’s going to see just that in only a moment’s time. He almost crumbles right then and there, but then Minho is hoisting him up by the backs of his thighs to knock the wind right out of him. Jisung scrambles for purchase around Minho’s neck, legs clamping around his waist as the room spins from the intimacy of it all.
Their faces are so close, every lash countable and the kisses that soon come after leaving them barely pulling apart for air. Minho’s expression tells of desire, of worship. It snatches the lingering doubts that curtailed Jisung’s most fatal impulses and he lets himself go.
Jisung lets Minho carry him away through the living room, past Soonie and Dori now sleeping on their cat tower, and away from the daydreams because this is real.
『• • • ⏪ • • •』
It wasn’t fair.
As Jisung clung to his friends while they wiped their dampened faces on each other as they laid a mess on Seungmin’s living room floor, all he could think was it wasn’t fucking fair .
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled into Felix’s hair. The other boy just brought himself closer as he cried louder. “I promise I’ll visit you guys. Whenever I get the chance, I’ll come back home.”
“You promise?” Felix choked out. His face was bloated and red, his eyes bloodshot. “Y-you gotta promise, or I’ll swim through the fucking ocean to come g-get you back!”
The words still rang in his head from when, a few months prior, his father had sat him down with a solemn look and declared with finality:
You won’t get to come home until you get a degree for something useful. No more music, no more auditions.
But Felix looked so broken. So sad and small that a little bit of false hope couldn’t hurt him. For now, he could at least hold on to this. It would hurt less in the future once they’d all be settled into their own respective colleges, distracted by the influx in new lifestyle changes and more demanding academics, so the dawning truth that Jisung probably wouldn’t come back might sting a bit less.
Jisung combed his hand through Felix’s hair and squished his cheek as hard as he could against the softness atop his crown.
“I promise.”
Hyunjin tightened his hold around Jisung’s waist so his chest was flush against the smaller’s back, “You have to come back for Chuseok. So we can celebrate everyone’s birthdays like we always do.”
“It’s tradition,” Seungmin said from where he was rubbing Felix’s back. His face was equally as red, the droopiest that Jisung had ever seen it in the three years they’d been the soulmates that Jisung claimed them to be, and it was probably the most heart-breaking. It made Jisung buckle under the looming reality that—
He was leaving his friends, his parents, his home for a foreign country of which he knew nothing about. Not the language nor the culture nor the certainty if he would be able to get through this journey in one piece all on his own.
“I wouldn’t want to break tradition,” Jisung whispered, and he can feel the tears pricking his eyes again. Without a second of hesitation, Seungmin leaned back in to press his face into the crook of Jisung’s shoulder, the one that Hyunjin wasn’t occupying himself.
As the boys continued to weep at the loss of their quartet, Jisung vowed that he would let no measure of distance keep him from the people he loved.
Hours into their little going away party (if crying for the majority of it could be counted as a party), the fresh tears began to subside and their defense mechanism of crude humor kicked in. After that, the time kept flying by. An hour or two was lost waiting around for ordered food to arrive and sharing desserts afterwards, a whole fifty minutes in between was left to deeper conversations about the universe, and the night closed off with two of Jisung’s favorite movies. It was during the climactic confrontation between Madame Sulliman and Sophie when Jisung’s mother sent him a text that she was two blocks away and waiting to pick him up so that he could prepare for his flight in the morning. He doesn’t let it show how heavily the reiteration of his departure hurt so badly.
“I have to go, actually,” he murmured as he stared down at his phone screen. He loved his parents, but sometimes he wished they never did the things they do.
Seungmin paused the film before shaking awake a slumping Felix falling asleep on his shoulder. The Australian immediately shot up, whipped his head over to Jisung with a charmingly drowsy look. “You go now?”
Jisung grinned and thumbed away the sleep from the inner corners of Felix’s eyes. “My mom just texted me. She’s at her friend’s cake shop waiting to drive us both home.”
“Shit,” Hyunjin pressed his hand to his eyes. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
An understatement.
“Ah, come on now,” Jisung sprung up from his seat on the couch. He kept a bounce in his step and a scared, but genuine smile at the ready. “It’s not goodbye forever. More like ‘I’ll see you soon.’ So come here. Big hug! We gotta rip this off like a bandaid or I might not ever get on that stupid flight.”
“Good, then stay here,” Hyunjin pleaded as he hooked his arms under Jisung’s and nearly lifted him from the ground. “Don’t go then!”
“Jinnie,” Seungmin sighed. He wrapped his arms around the two of them, Felix quickly joining in.
“I’ll be back before you know it. And I’m taking a piece of you guys with me,” Jisung retracted his arm from their tangle of limbs to hold up his wrist, where a red and white beaded bracelet was tied around the thin bone. “With this, we’ll all still be together, right?” Like physical promises of their bond as friends, the handmade bracelets embellishing each of their wrists served to represent just that: no matter the hardships, they would carry each other with them wherever they went. “Right?”
Seungmin nodded, something like pride ornamenting his eyes. “Right.”
Goodbyes were hard, and this felt even worse when it wasn’t certain how long the goodbyes would last. But, they eventually plow through it. Jisung gave his last loving bear hugs to both Hyunjin and Felix before Seungmin was walking him to the door. It felt so surreal as he glanced around the foyer, silently proud of the small speck of white plaster on the wall that covered up the instance in which Jisung had broken through the drywall after almost falling over to take off his snow boots last winter. Like he was permanently a part of this house.
This house with thousands of memories made with his friends. With Seungmin, who was tearily shooting daggers at the floor and so obviously holding everything in for who knows why.
“You sure you don’t want me to walk you to your mom?” Seungmin asked.
Jisung took Seungmin’s hands in his own. They were always so much bigger than Jisung’s, veiny and manly and surprising for someone as soft as Seungmin was behind closed doors. The purple bracelet on his left wrist was pretty against his complexion, its tan lost to one of the harshest winters they’ve faced in their adolescence by far.
He shook his head and thumbed at Seungmin’s outermost knuckles, “I already said it’s fine. There’s almost a meter of snow outside so it doesn’t make sense for you guys to get all bundled up just to come back after five minutes.”
“It makes perfect sense, Sung. You’re leaving .”
“Yeah,” Jisung offered a small, sympathetic stretch of his lips. “I’m leaving. I’m sorry, Minnie.”
Seungmin had a hard set to his jaw. It clenched and unclenched as if chewing around the words he wanted to spit out. For whatever reason, he doesn’t, but the intense look in his eyes told Jisung that maybe it wasn’t the right time for whatever his best friend was contemplating over. So he gave a hard squeeze to the taller boy’s hands and assured, “You know you’re my best friend, right?”
“I do,” Seungmin replied, yet his face was anything but happy. Jisung hated it.
“I love you, Min. I know you guys will be okay, just try not to have too much fun without me! And if you do, don’t send me pictures. I get jealous.” Jisung gave a cheeky leer before stage whispering, “But that doesn’t count for whatever is going on between you and Felix. You better keep me updated on that, or I’ll really be mad.”
Seungmin’s face spasmed like he just got smacked hard across the head, and it took everything out of Jisung not to laugh. “Me and—and Felix?”
“Oh, come on, dude. I’m not blind.”
“I think you’re reading too much into it.”
“Wow, you guys are seriously meant for each other.”
Being as collected as he usually was, to see Seungmin completely at a loss for words was a different type of serotonin. The younger boy appeared to be gathering up another point to argue, so Jisung just rolled his eyes and dove in for another hug.
“Just trust me, Kim Seungmin. I never knew you could be so dense.”
Seungmin scoffed, returning the hug with his whole body as their legs pressed together and a pair of lips found a place on Jisung’s temple. And these were some of Jisung’s favorite moments with Seungmin, where he surrendered his sarcastic distaste for their tomfoolery and let his inner appreciation for their company be shown without shame.
“Love you, too, Sung.”
After they pulled apart and made fun of each other for the new sets of shine glossing their eyes, Jisung slipped on his winter gear to prepare for the icy journey to his mom’s car.
“I’ll text you as soon as I get home. And update the group chat when I get to the airport.”
Seungmin pinched at Jisung’s cheek. “You better.” He paused as the shorter pouted through the aftermaths of ache in his face, a stoic set to his mouth alluding to something that made Jisung nervous. “And don’t go around to the side alley. Minho-hyung texted me that he’s stopping by a little while ago but he’s out there doing—I don’t even know what.”
Jisung concealed the jolt in his stomach by giving an overexaggerated nod while turning to pull the door open. The lack of wind was forgiving, but the bitter cold of the dipping climate not so much. He gave one last longing look to the foyer, to Seungmin who had a mirrored pain in his grimace.
“I’ll see you.”
Seungmin smiled after schooling his expression. Jisung wished he would stop doing that. “I’ll see you.”
With that, the door shut behind him as Jisung stepped out of the warmth of the indoors and into the cold. There was snow piled up across the front yard over what was usually green rows of grass and flower beds. The salt crunched beneath Jisung’s boots when he carefully descended the two short steps down.
He didn’t even wait a second before veering to the right and peeking around the corner of the house.
There was a little alleyway that led into the backyard along the side of the residence. It was tiny, cramped but perfect for easy access in the event of summer barbecues hosted by Seungmin’s mother. Just beyond the alley’s tiny wood gate, Minho seemed to be tinkering with a large cardboard box. There were small blankets lining the inside of it, a little bowl, and hay sticking out the bottom of the fabrics.
Jisung undid the gate’s latch from the inside and swung it open carefully, but the clinking of metal on wood drew Minho’s concentration up from his work and straight onto Jisung.
“Oh, Hannie,” he straightened up from where he was crouched on the pavement and dusted off his hands. They were painfully pink from the weather.
“Hi. What are you doing?”
Minho gestured to a bag at his feet that was previously obscured by his knees. “There are some strays that used to come before it started snowing so I set up this little shelter in hopes they might come back.”
And Jisung nearly broke down and threw a damn tantrum right then and there. As if Minho couldn’t get any more perfect, literally the ideal teenage heartthrob. Good looks, athletic, smart and kind to boot. Nearly flawless. A prime example of a young man’s aspirations.
Unreachable.
“That’s so cute! I didn’t take you for such a softie. But I’m not really surprised that you’re a cat dad. You give off the vibes,” Jisung chaffed. He was sure that, if not for the nearly below freezing temperatures, Minho’s ears would have gone pink from the comments.
“It’s a really cold winter,” Minho countered. “They might not find food in all this snow.”
“That’s really sweet of you.”
“You say it like it’s surprising that I have a heart.”
“Seeing how much you bully Seungminnie?”
“MinMin and cats are completely different things,” Minho rolled his eyes, though the budding smile on his face was contradictory. His eyes grew soft, and Jisung almost lost his wits. “Are you leaving now? Already?”
“Yeah, I still have some last-minute things to take care of before—,” his voice momentarily caught in his throat, the words too upsetting to admit. “—before I leave tomorrow morning.”
“Right.”
An emptiness wafted into Jisung’s chest down to the bottoms of his boots. He shivered and yet there was still no wind.
“Do you need a ride home?” Minho was wringing his hands to warm them up. “I can drive you. The sidewalks are pretty icy.”
The offer was so tempting. Sinfully so. But, unfortunately, “My mom is driving me home, actually. She’s waiting for me at the cake shop a couple blocks away. So.”
Minho made an understanding noise. It was nearly palpable how he was grasping for something else to say. Maybe an excuse that the two blocks were a lot to walk in this weather. Or maybe a query to know when Jisung would come back to visit Korea again. Maybe the stiffness in Minho’s tiny frown was the reluctance to let Jisung go.
Maybe it was just Jisung’s wishful thinking. Probably not maybe.
“I should go. My mom is probably wondering how much longer I’m gonna take.”
“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you.”
But Jisung wanted that.
He wanted Minho to keep him here. He wanted Minho to want him to stay. Jisung wanted Minho to repeat all the sad sentiments that his other friends had poured onto him for the last few hours. Because they would be different even though it was all the same—because it was Minho.
Jisung closed the gap between them. He ignored the thunder of his pulse inside his skull, the way his nose had gone numb, as he pulled off his gloves and carefully took hold of Minho’s hands. It was a burst of courage, pulled out of the thinning air. Somehow, Jisung always felt a bit braver when it came to Minho. Perhaps not brave enough to look him in the eye as he dressed Minho’s freezing hands in his own gloves. The raw red of his skin disappeared beneath the brighter red of the cotton.
“You’re gonna freeze to death out here,” and when he picked his head back up, death was metaphorically not far away in Jisung’s case.
Minho had always had such expressive eyes. They were big, observant, alluring. They told of stories and truths that the rest of his body language failed to convey. They were gazing at Jisung like the glittering snow when kissed by the sun.
“Your face is all puffy and red,” stated Minho.
“It is. Your hands are redder so you can keep the gloves for now. Just give them back next time you see me.”
Those eyes then mooned in delight. “I’ll take good care of them. Until you come back.” He said it like it would be soon. They both knew that it really wouldn’t be. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Jisung finally stepped back, immediately missing the warmth that Minho supplied up close. It felt colder now, from the goosebumps riding down Jisung’s arms to the marrow of his bones. He didn’t understand why this goodbye hurt so much. He didn’t want to understand. He was afraid. “I’ll see you soon, then. And I’ll be back for my gloves.”
And there was that look again—the one that burnt like firewood beneath the mantle on a nippy winter morning and crackled as wildly as it warmed the soul.
“Goodbye, Han-ah.”
The word sounded wrong to the ears. It pang in Jisung’s chest hard enough to urge the disappointment straight out of his throat. Minho-sunbae , it called. Say it: Minho-sunbae. Minho-hyung. Jisung wanted to feel the weight of the name on his tongue, the flavor it would leave in its wake.
But he couldn’t. But he was leaving. So he murmured softly, just so the reluctance in his voice wasn’t outright audible, “Goodbye, sunbae.”
Jisung turned on his heel, hands gripped tight now that he could feel his nails biting into his palms, as if grounding him, and he walked past the front gate without even looking back.
Halfway down the street, Jisung’s ribcage still felt almost too tight to breathe. He resisted the urge to run back, to grasp just a few more fleeting moments in Minho’s company. They were basically strangers. Or they should’ve been. Saying they were seemed like a lie now.
Finally, too late in realizing so, Jisung understood why this goodbye hurt so much. With Seungmin, and with Felix and Hyunjin, they all had memories to share and look back on. Those parts of their lives would stay forever in their adolescence and in their little neighborhood in Gimpo. They would all have bits of each other to recollect on, to carry amongst themselves in the bracelets twined around their wrists. But he had nothing to leave behind with Minho.
All Jisung’s feelings, all the unspoken words and buried emotions weren’t Minho’s to keep. He would always be harboring them by himself. Their weight burdened his shoulders as his steps dragged the frosty pavement. He had no choice but to do so. The only thing left behind was Minho himself, in his candy apple gloves, because Jisung couldn’t take any part of Minho with him.
Jisung stole one last glance down the street just as he turned the corner of the block. He wasn’t sure if the figure standing in front of Seungmin’s house was a figment of his imagination or not. He convinced himself that it was.
『• • • ⏩ • • •』
Jisung hits the bed with a breathless sound of pure adrenaline that has Minho pressing him into the mattress just to swallow it down. Their mouths slide together with a slick hunger, messy and uncoordinated, until Minho eventually retreats to begin ripping Jisung’s jeans off. He’s halfway out of his suit jacket when the mere vision of him towering over Jisung and hastily shedding their clothes has the younger yanking him back down by the open collar and licking out the laugh that follows through. Everything is so natural to them, synching up to each other without a spoken word or delivered question.
“What did you say before?” Minho bites into the strained muscle of Jisung’s neck hard enough to bruise. Jisung hopes it will. “In the car. You didn’t want to be mine for the night? Then I’ll be yours, okay? Whatever you want, Hannie.”
The line between whether Minho knows or not is hazy. The more he rolls it over in his head, Jisung has always been so open about his infatuation that it’s hysterical. And yet, Minho is still skin-deep into Jisung’s life and only begging to go deeper.
Perhaps it’s a sign, flashing and blinking obnoxiously for Jisung to just ask for something beyond this one night. Minho is looking at him too intensely for this to be anything less. His hooded eyes are too warm, his touches too careful, his lips too awe-inspired.
Eager hands slide under Jisung’s sweater, the turtleneck layered under coming up with it until both are over the head and thrown somewhere past the foot of the bed.
Minho’s eyes dance down the definition of Jisung’s heaving chest, then back up his stomach and resting on his likely bruised mouth. Jisung doesn’t think he’s ever felt this revered.
“Stop staring,” he mutters. His hands subconsciously move to the new path of skin Minho’s eyes have begun trailing over. His own body is hot to touch, flaring with a million reasons of how he can’t believe this is happening .
“Can’t go all shy on me this far in, Hannie. All bark and no bite,” Minho teases, though the smugness of his words doesn’t fall in line with the gentle way he brushes Jisung’s hands aside and cradles them against the mattress. There is a vulnerability that comes with being laid out and spread under Minho. It should be terrifying. “I want to see everything. I want to remember this.”
Lightning sears white-hot in Jisung’s gut at how tender Minho’s voice is, how honest his words taste in the air mingling between them. Like he doesn’t want to scare him off or push him too far.
“Sunbae,” Jisung whispers, and Minho’s gaze snaps up.
“Yeah?” He halts his movements in a way that tells Jisung he could have anything he asks for.
But Jisung doesn’t even know what he wants to ask for, because he wants everything . “Sunbae,” comes out whinier this time.
Minho seems to understand, though. He leans down to placate Jisung’s gaping mouth, kissing slow and easy and perfect. Everything feels like fire and burns bright where skin touches skin. When Minho begins mouthing at his neck again, the grip around Jisung’s pinned wrists tightens. It sends shockwaves and happy tingles through every nerve in his body.
“Sunbae, please.”
Minho sighs shakily, his pupils blown wide. “I’ll give you whatever you want, Hannie.” And Jisung’s heart threatens to burst. “We waited so long for this, didn’t we?” And they did .
Jisung had always thought it was only him, but he looks back at the sidelong glances, the simple smiles, the teasing remarks, the fumbling gestures of kindness. He looks at Minho on top of him, mere millimeters away, at how willing he is to give Jisung the world. And Jisung finds that maybe it hasn’t been only him this entire time .
It’s all maybe, maybe, maybe . What’s certain is how Minho kisses like he’s starving for it, languid with tongue and a thousand silent words built up in the near decade they’ve danced around each other. He bruises supple skin like he’s never seen anything better and listens eagerly for Jisung’s vocal pleasure like that alone is enough to stimulate him.
So Jisung lets Minho pepper him with telling touches, smother saccharine appraisals into his jaw, open him up like they were made for this.
By the time Jisung finally slides himself onto Minho’s length, he’s never been so sure that this is everything he wants and more. It’s another scarce certainty, and he holds onto it for dear life.
“Jisung-ah,” Minho gasps out. “Say my name.”
In the overwhelming sensation of Minho inside him, Jisung cries it out like a prayer.
“M-Minho-sunbae,” he whines. The syllables curl immaculately around his tongue. Nothing has ever sounded so right. “Minho-sunbae—… Hyung , Minho-hyung.”
The guttural moan Jisung receives in response rumbles throughout his entire body. There are so many overwhelming sensations flooding his consciousness, from where their bodies connect to even inside the confines of Jisung’s head and his swarming thoughts of Minho.
Minho . Everything is Minho . Right there, at that moment.
“Good,” Minho shudders. “My Hannie is so good to me.” His. Minho’s . “So good for me.” Good for Minho . “Just for me.” All of Jisung, just for Minho.
That night, Jisung is Minho’s and Minho is Jisung’s.
Only tonight. Jisung bites back the emotions bursting in his chest, and he wishes Minho could drive the uncertainty out of him with every pistoned thrust. Tonight might be the closest we get.
『• • • ⏪ • • •』
“I miss you.”
Jisung wiped at his face, his sleeve growing increasingly damp the more he does so. He sniffled loudly as an equally wet sigh filtered through his phone.
“I miss you, too. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this by yourself,” Seungmin groaned. There was a soft sound as if he had flopped onto his bed or couch. “I’ll kill him. That son of a bitch didn’t deserve you.”
“He was pretty awful to me, wasn’t he,” Jisung pressed his forehead into his knees and hugged his legs closer to his body. The room felt so cold, so empty now that it only held his belongings and his alone. Gone were the random hoodies thrown over his desk chair, as well as the jewelry that was never his but Jisung liked to wear anyways. His spare drawer was now just that—empty and bare and hollow and lonely. “He even took back the necklace that he got me for our 100 days together. But he didn’t leave the earrings I got him.”
Seungmin grit out angrily, “Fucking piece of shit—I hope that he gets hit by a fucking cab when he flies back to America or whatever hole he crawled out from.”
“He’s from Japan.”
“He’s from hell . And I hope he burns a painful death there.”
Jisung hiccuped a much-needed laugh. His crying had subsided since he had first called Seungmin twenty minutes prior, but the painful ache in his chest hadn’t waned in the slightest.
There was another frustrated noise from the end of the line. Seungmin could be heard shuffling around before clearing his throat to speak again, “I’m really glad you called me, though. I had a feeling something happened after you wouldn’t answer my calls last week.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Jisung sighed as he sprawled out over his mess of blankets and pillows. The stuffed toy that Youta had gifted him on their second date was still sitting on the shelf above Jisung’s bed. He made a mental note to punch his frustrations out onto it later. Or probably just give it away, because the little cat plushie hadn’t done him any wrong. “I just didn’t want to talk about it yet. And I think I cried so much in the past week that my voice could’ve been mistaken for Felix’s when he does that demon thing.”
A soft breath of a chuckle swam out from the phone and did wonders to brighten the dimly lit dorm room. Jisung threw an arm over his eyes to suppress the urge to let his frustration bubble up violently for the umpteenth time since Youta had completely stopped answering his messages and posted a picture with the European girl from his study group on his Instagram story that was nearly identical to the framed picture in Jisung’s trashcan.
“Sung, I’m sorry but I really don’t know what you saw in him,” Seungmin said, and Jisung almost laughed. “I know that I’ve never met the guy—I don’t even know what he looks like—but the things you would tell me always just rubbed me the wrong way.”
It was a valid point, and it was the point. Seungmin had never met Youta. He had never seen how Jisung’s ex pulled him in with his striking brown eyes, high nose bridge, and feline simper. Or how he liked when Jisung called him ‘hyung’. Or how he looked great while playing a friendly game of basketball with his friends and cooed at Jisung when he would keep misusing soccer lingo to cheer him on, or how his hands were of similar size to Jisung’s own.
Seungmin didn’t know and he never would. He never could .
Jisung pressed the heels of his palms flush to his eyes as the pressure continued to build behind them.
“I really don’t know what I saw in him either.”
『• • • ⏭ • • •』
A hallway.
Jisung dreams of a hallway that runs kilometers and ends somewhere in the distance, if there is an end. Vaguely, somewhere, there is a specter of blue skies and fresh dew between his toes. He can almost feel it, taste it, but all he sees is hallway.
Before any of these mysterious sensations can solidify, Jisung is pulled from the bland walls and blinding alabaster floors to an empty bedroom that holds the glow of autumn dawn. Sunlight filters through the curtains to gently pilot him to full consciousness. It takes him a moment or two to realize that the ringing in the very back of his head is not simply imagined, and he forces himself to detangle from the comfort of the bedding to fish for his phone in his pants discarded on the floor. He groans when he sees Seungmin’s contact on the screen.
Last night was perfect, Lee Minho is perfect. And Jisung is already so tired and yet the day has just begun.
Today will be the day that he lives through the reasons why he was never supposed to give in.
Jisung shuts the volume off his phone so the call can ring out without further disturbing the quietude of the morning. He sighs, long and weary, as he flops back onto the sheets so he can bask in the bestowing warmth of the sun that paints the bed. He needs all the strength he can get, and if photosynthesizing might grant that, then so be it.
As he looks around the room, he finds that it is so characteristically Minho. Everything is tidy, just like his childhood bedroom, with little accents of mint green plants, the occasional cat toy, and valuable-looking paintings enclosed by dark oak walls. It screams of the typical rich man protagonist so frequent in k-dramas that Jisung wonders what the hell he’s doing here in his underwear, sore in his jaw and thighs after three rounds of Minho’s Olympic-level stamina.
The attraction had always been there. Why Minho would lust for him out of all the people that were falling over to be in this position, Jisung doesn’t know. But lust doesn’t mean much these days. It doesn’t mean Minho feels anything beyond that.
It doesn’t mean that Minho feels even a fraction of what Jisung feels.
Even if there are parts of him that like to entertain that possibility, Jisung ignores it in favor of collecting his clothes around the room to dress himself. If he’s about to get kicked out, he would rather do it quickly before he can say anything stupid. Or do anything stupider.
He pads over to fix his appearance in the mirror only to flush at how his turtleneck can’t even cover all the marks constellating his neck. He pulls at his clothes so he can inspect the worst of the damage, dark purples hued angrily along his collarbones that carried down to his hip. Jisung has never been one for lovebites, but he plays around with the ambitious idea that these stay around for a while.
Once his hair is patted down and the crust is gone from his eyes, he finally steels himself enough to step out of the bedroom. The aroma of frying oil and spices floods his senses as soon as he opens the door. What’s more stimulating is the sight of Minho, across the apartment, fiddling with a pan in nothing but sweatpants hung low on his hips and a phone sandwiched between his ear and his shoulder. It’s so domestic that Jisung nearly runs back to bury himself back into the bedsheets and wait for starvation to take him.
He really almost does, but then Minho’s voice captures his interest.
“—ook, he’s a grown man. He can make his own choices. And you know that I wouldn’t—… No, he’s still sleeping, it’s only 9:30 in the fucking morning. On a Saturday… Oh, 9:54, sorry ,” He pushes out a harsh breath through his nose and carefully flips over the egg in the pan with only a single hand. “Hey, you know that I wouldn’t make him do anything he wouldn’t want to do.” Suddenly, his voice grows softer, more truthful, “I promise. I’d never do anything to hurt him. I really wouldn’t. He’s a good person… I know that.”
The slide of Jisung’s socks on the wood floor has Minho spinning around. The younger man’s stomach flips as something plush and content replaces the irritation on his face.
“Hold on, sleeping beauty just woke up,” Minho rushes into the phone, and he holds it away from his ear to take in Jisung’s appearance. His brows twitch. “You’re wearing your clothes from last night.”
“Oh,” Jisung looks down to validate the obvious statement.
“Were you gonna leave?” He says it like he doesn’t want to.
Jisung takes note of the pot of red stew on the stove, the oil still popping from the eggs laid in two separate bowls on the countertop, and the small side dishes on the dining table by the window. “I didn’t know if you wanted me to stay.”
Minho fidgets at that, rubbing at the hairline behind his ear. “I mean, I made breakfast. If you want any.” His ears go red like they do when he’s nervous or flustered, and Jisung can feel his anxiousness begin to bleed away.
“Breakfast sounds really good.”
And then, Minho puts on this shy little smile that has Jisung falling in love all over again. “Do you want to borrow some sweats? Or a toothbrush?”
Jisung doesn’t even bother masking how much those things appeal to him. “That would be really good, actually.”
“Right, let me just—,” Minho brings the phone back to his ear. “Hey, sorry. I—… Uh, okay. I’ll pass the phone then.” He has this lop-sided smirk, apparently amused by the situation that Jisung is completely clueless about.
“You know Seungminnie has your location, right?”
Jisung’s heart drops—he is a fucking idiot . His eyes must be bulging out of his head because Minho is suddenly laughing and tugging him closer. Being held helps to bring him back down to reality, distracting him from the inevitably premature passing he is sure to face once Seungmin gets a hold of him.
“I’m going to jump out the window.”
“No.”
“Hyung.”
“Yes.”
“No, hyung—,” Jisung makes an unattractive noise of anguish, but he can’t bring himself to care given the circumstances.
Minho laughs again, and he ruffles Jisung’s hair before handing him the phone. “Good luck, I already got my earful. I’m gonna go get you some clothes.” He withdraws from Jisung’s grip on his bare biceps (very nice biceps, with very nice little traces of Jisung’s nails digging into them from when he was drilled into the mattress) so he can retreat into the bedroom and leave Jisung to the wolves. Or more like one vicious, rabid puppy.
Once it’s clear that Jisung can’t hold this off any longer, he raises the phone to his ear and prepares for the worst.
“Hello?”
“ Han Jisung, what the fuck.” Jisung shuts his eyes, wincing at the blatant venom in Seungmin’s voice. “ First, you just leave without saying goodbye. Then, you don’t even reply to my text just to let me know if you’re okay. And then, I wake up to check your location just to make sure you didn’t die on the way home only to find out you’re at hyung’s apartment?’
Jisung chews on his lip. “... Are you really that mad?”
“ I’m going to kill you ,” Seungmin hisses. “ I almost had a heart attack when I woke up this morning and saw that you still hadn’t texted me—actually, no. I’m going to murder my hyung. He’s a dead man .”
“Wait, no—It’s not his fault, or anyone’s fault! Okay, just—you have to calm down,” Jisung sputters and cringes at his lack of level-headedness when it comes to Seungmin’s criticism.
“ I am calm. I’m just pissed .”
“Okay, I’m sorry. It all just happened so quickly, I just wasn’t thinking. Not that I hadn’t thought this through—well, maybe not all the way through. But I made a conscious decision to come here, to do… this, or—did Minho-hyung tell you? Or...?”
“ Han Jisung, this did not all ‘just happen so quickly .’” Which—okay. But Seungmin couldn’t have known how far back this went. Couldn’t know the years that it took to get here. “ You think I didn’t notice it ever since you first came over when we were first years? I’m not stupid, Sung .”
Ah, so maybe he did. Jisung feels dumb for thinking that he didn’t.
“Was I really that obvious about it since then?”
“ You ?” Seungmin squawks. “ Forget about you—my hyung was way too obvious about his thing for you. It was so weird when we were kids .”
Jisung widens his eyes, mouth slack at the admission. “He was?”
Seungmin groans, the sound staticky with indignation through the phone’s speaker. “ Sung, it was awful. The way he’d always act when you were around made me want to throw up. I remember telling him about that one girl who confessed to you in our second year and he basically interrogated me for every detail. He literally sighed in relief when I told him that you rejected her .”
A warm, fluttery sensation fills Jisung’s chest and spiderwebs outwards to every crevice of his soul. He really wasn’t imagining it. Minho liked him. And possibly—Minho still likes him.
“I—are you sure? Like, positive?” But the doubts clear from his mind, the blue skies defog from their tireless trepidation to brandish a sunlit visage of clean grass and fresh air. Jisung trusts Seungmin’s word without a fault. And maybe he begins to trust his instincts a bit more, as well. The instinct that has been crying out to him that Minho isn’t just a pipe dream. He isn’t just a daydream. Or a wishful thought. Minho is asking him to stay after a night spurred on by pure impulses and to wear his clothes around his apartment with his cats. He’s fitting Jisung into his life so willingly, and it should have been so obvious from the start.
“ God, you’re annoying me even more because you’re so dense. ” The lack of an argument comes from the fact that Jisung really was.
“Well, if you saw this coming the whole time, I don’t understand why you’re this upset.”
“ Because you kept me in the dark about this. You basically lied to me, Sung .” And that stings, but it isn’t exactly an exaggeration. “ I mean, we’re best friends. You call us soulmates, but you couldn’t even be honest with me about something as important as your feelings? It feels like—like you didn’t trust me .”
“You know that’s not true!”
“ I mean, can you blame me for thinking that ?”
Jisung really can’t. His agitation must have been disturbing the air, because suddenly Dori has woken up from his perch on his cat tower and is rubbing up against Jisung’s ankles. He smiles fondly and crouches down to give the little guy proper attention he deserves, and it smooths out the vibrations in his breathing just a bit. Dori continues to beg for more attention, so Jisung puts the phone on speaker and sets it on the ground to have Dori fully occupy his hands. “I didn’t know how you would feel about it. I never thought that anything would actually happen between us. It never seemed… like it would actually happen, I guess?”
Seungmin lets out a long breath, and Jisung can picture him pinching the bridge of his nose like he always does when one of their friends does something particularly unprincipled. “ Sung, you’re doing it again .”
“Doing what?” But Jisung knows exactly what.
“ Sung .” It goes unsaid: I love you so I won’t say it. Jisung loves his best friend. “ I know you’re your own person and I know that you’re fully capable of acting on your own. I trust your judgment, I really do, but just… Just be honest with me from now on, yeah? ”
Jisung has made many mistakes in his life; he didn’t appreciate his parents enough when he was younger, didn’t care to be too considerate of people’s feelings more than he’d like to admit, has been impulsive in situations he should’ve sat on more thoroughly. All things that people should make mistakes on so they can learn and grow from them. And now he’s lucky enough to have Seungmin forgive him for his sins and reconcile with him even after his decade-long fit of selfishness.
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Jisung traces the dark M-shaped pattern just above Dori’s eyes, pleased at the purr that trickles out because of it. “I shouldn’t have lied to you like that. Especially about this.”
“ I forgive you ,” and Jisung feels like himself again. “ I mean, you didn’t exactly lie about it. I get why you didn’t say anything, I guess. What I still don’t get is why you would even—I mean, Minho-hyung? Really? Out of all the people, you fall for that guy. Your tastes are questionable. ”
Jisung is still crouched even after Dori has trotted away, bored from being petted. The grey fur of his coat bristles as he halts at the bedroom door, slightly cracked open, before mewling cutely as he peers up at something just behind the wall. Jisung leans over to catch sight of whatever has captured Dori’s interest until he sees an ear dipped in that telltale red flush.
He contemplates whether he should be embarrassed by having such a private conversation being overheard, but decides in the end that testing just how saturated that red can get is the best course of action.
“I don’t know. I think at first it was purely physical attraction,” Jisung snickers at Seungmin’s disgust through the speaker and the way Minho’s head slightly turns to get a better listen. “But, I never met someone like him. When I first met him, I expected some jock type with a God-complex and self-importance. Which is true. He’s pretty obnoxious sometimes. But—,” he purses his lips to compose himself after Minho hangs his head low in defeat. The ears go redder. Jisung loves it. “He’s so dimensional. There’s a lot beneath all that on the outside. He’s… respectful. And he made me feel things and think things that I don’t think I would have if he hadn’t been there. I don’t know. I don’t know exactly why I… I like him so much. Which I think is okay. I kind of want to find out, though. If he’ll let me.”
It’s only a tiny sliver of what Jisung wants to say, but he holds his tongue in hopes of being able to tell Minho face-to-face in the future.
“ I’m gagging right now ,” though Seungmin has that tone of pride and endearment. “ I’m hanging up before you keep waxing poetic about my hyung. You and I are getting dinner later, though. So I can be disappointed in you to your face. But hyung isn’t allowed to come. ”
Jisung picks the phone up off the floor as he rises, his knee cracking as it straightens out. “I’ll pay as tribute to your suffering.”
“ Deal. Love you, Sung .” Seungmin never says he loves him first.
“Love you.”
The call ends with Jisung feeling as though he’s made peace with the worst of his inner demons. He tiptoes over to the bedroom door and relevels down to where Minho is sitting propped against the other side of the wall with his face buried into the side of the bed.
“Hyung, it’s rude to eavesdrop, you know.”
Despite the flustered color of his entire neck, Minho pries himself from the comforter with an expression that’s so bright and beautiful it puts the seven wonders of the world to shame.
“You meant it? Everything you said to MinMin?”
“I guess that depends,” Jisung sticks out his hand for Minho to take after he stands again, then parrots back the decidedly iconic line from the night before, “Am I reading this wrong?”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Minho chimes without a beat. He gladly accepts Jisung’s hand and lifts himself off the carpet so he can barrel into Jisung with a lovestruck force. “I waited too fucking long for this.”
Minho continues to surprise Jisung, but he can’t say he doesn’t like it. Admittedly, there is nothing that comes to mind when he grasps for anything he doesn’t like about Minho. From his cocky attitude to the way he aims to nurture, he loves it all.
And Minho might love him, too, from how he melts into Jisung’s hold like he has, in fact, waited too fucking long for this.
Looking back, Jisung wishes he had said something sooner. He wishes he could have just spit out the words, the thoughts, the feelings he believed were fruitless.
He can’t go back, but there’s so much to do going forward.
Forward.
Going forward, Jisung sees Minho on his path. He’s clearer, closer than ever before, no longer just out of arm's reach.
So, Jisung takes the leap as he gently pulls Minho in by the nape, and connects their lips because he can, and because he wants to make up for all the years they could have been doing just this. Even though they pull apart eventually, the gravity between them continues to pull them endlessly closer and closer together.