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Kim Seungmin really regrets ever earning his driver’s license. A whole year - or near to it - of dedication, money for lessons and practise, for what exactly? To be roped into being his friends’ personal chauffeur? Yes - exactly that. There’s hardly a free day when his friends don’t beg his services, and although they do chip in for gas every so often, and he gains free food from it every time, is it really worth it?
Yes. The answer is yes. But he’ll never tell them that. He doesn’t mind it at all, secretly. Because he lives to serve a stoic, maybe tsundere reputation… or so he thinks. Don’t spoil his self-illusion.
Anyway.
The windows are down, and Seungmin steps on the accelerator a little to match the speed limit as his best friend Jisung turns up the aux and belts out the lyrics, word for word, to My Neck, My Back by Khia. Seungmin’s somehow never heard it before, and isn’t too keen on ever hearing it again.
“Dude, the whole city can hear your ass music by now. Turn it down,” he complains, but only receives a loud groan in return.
“I’m nervous. Hearing the godly syllables of all you ladies pop your bussy like this is helping me keep my nerves at bay, man!”
“And when your date hears you blasting this ear-wrenching madness from three streets away? What then?”
Jisung is silent for a second, and then he turns it down reluctantly. The bopping beats of necks, backs and cracks fades out into the background.
“That’s what I thought. The questionable side of your music taste needs to be kept hidden away until at least the third date,” Seungmin smirks.
“Just to spite you, I’m leading the first main conversation with music tastes.”
“God, if he still wants to have a second date with you after you start the night with something so extreme, he’s definitely a keeper. What’s his name again?”
“Hyunjin. Hwang Hyunjin,” Jisung says, as if each syllable is laden with the very essence of stardust.
“Well, real talk, I hope it goes well. You know how to reach me if you need an emergency pickup or phone call, yeah?”
“I know, dummy. Thank you. But real talk right back at you: I doubt I’ll need it. We’ve been acquaintances for a while now, and from what I’ve seen myself and heard from others, he’s really sweet.”
“He’d better be. We’re here now, turn that damn music off.”
Jisung unplugs his phone from the aux (Seungmin’s car isn’t so fancy that it has a bluetooth connector, although that’s the dream) and scans the outside area for Hyunjin. “Oh, he’s here already! He’s talking to someone else, though.”
“Then I’ll come out with you and intimidate his friend into leaving quickly,” Seungmin smiles innocently, hiding a certain fire behind sweet words. “For emotional support, too. You got this.”
“Thanks, baby. You’re the best.”
“Don’t let your lover boy hear you calling me that.”
Hwang Hyunjin, Seungmin soon realises, is a lot more familiar than he first thought. The faceless figure he had previously associated with the name is quickly replaced with the long hair and pretty face of a dancer he’d seen a few times using the same studio as Felix, Seungmin’s roommate, and instantly he feels a little better about leaving Jisung here for his date.
The friend he’s talking to is likely a complete stranger to Seungmin, though. Granted, his sweatpants and oversized shirt leave no clues as to his major, but he seems close with Hyunjin, although from where they’re walking Seungmin and Jisung can only make out the back of his head: brown hair that’s impossibly glossy and distinctly familiar. As they draw closer the friend turns around, and Seungmin is met with alert, catlike eyes that instantly scan over Seungmin and Jisung critically, and an unreadable quirk of unfairly plump lips. Seungmin suppresses a groan: it’s Lee Minho, a decidedly closer friend of Felix’s, and someone who Seungmin has never been able to read. That in itself threatens him by default, and the two have an almost-comfortable rivalry that leaves the air between them charged and hostile whenever they’ve been together for more than a few minutes.
Seungmin prays they don’t spend that long together today.
“Jisung! Hey,” Hyunjin greets, holding a hand out for Jisung to take, which he does with hearts clouding his vision and eagerness clear in his countenance.
“Hey, hyung.”
“This is my friend Minho hyung - you might have seen him around the dance department? We dance together -- so he’s also a year above you,” Hyunjin introduces, and Jisung and Seungmin both bow politely.
“Han Jisung. This is my best friend Seungmin, he drove me here,” Jisung speaks for both of them, and Seungmin is content to let him speak, ignoring the way Jisung has introduced him to somebody he already knows and tuning the conversation out; already thinking about the night of studying he has ahead of him.
“Nice to meet you, Jisung,” Minho says, but otherwise stays silent as the group follows the wordless atmosphere for a second, before Hyunjin coughs awkwardly and tugs on Jisung’s hand a little, lacing their fingers together for a better grip. Seungmin tries not to snort at the way Jisung’s entire being seems to light up with delight at that simple gesture alone.
“Well - we should get going? Hyung, I’ll see you later. Nice seeing you, Seungmin,” Hyunjin says, and Jisung waves before they walk away.
“Have fun,” Seungmin calls after them, and then turns on his heel, ready to drive back home. Minho, it appears, has other plans.
He darts forwards and matches Seungmin’s pace, blocking him right before he can reach out to grab his car door handle by pressing his back onto the light blue surface, plastering himself to the vehicle and staring. Seungmin narrows his eyes and looks down at his perpetrator.
“Can I help you?”
“That’s sunbae to you.”
Seungmin resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Can I help you, Minho sunbae?”
Minho smiles. “No.”
“Then I’d appreciate being able to get to my car…?”
Trying to reach around Minho, Seungmin is stopped when Minho steps sideways, directly into the path of his hand. Seungmin whips his hand away like he’s been burned.
“I hope your friend is worthy of dating Hyunjin,” Minho muses, checking his nails as if he’s not casually inconveniencing Seungmin in multiple ways. “He doesn’t date just anyone . Too many people have tried to date him purely for his looks, which is shitty.”
“Jisung isn’t like that at all,” Seungmin bites back, “maybe judge that for yourself before coming at me like that. Wait until they return from their date and ask Hyunjin how it went yourself, or get to know Jisung a little instead. I’m not a part of this.” Based on Minho’s protective statement, Hyunjin wouldn’t be on this date in the first place if he didn’t know Jisung was a good person - but Seungmin keeps that thought to himself.
“Hmm,” Minho says suspiciously, and all Seungmin can do is stare back at him as the elder does a sweep of his entire being with his eyes.
“You remind me of the pigeon that flew into the canteen in ninth grade and didn’t know how to get out. The caretakers had to climb a ladder and bop it out with a broom. Curious little bitch,” Minho laughs, pointing at Seungmin’s quizzical expression. Seungmin blinks twice before the words register.
“And you are the human embodiment of folding the corner of a page when there’s a bookmark sitting right next to you. Get out of my face, sunbae .” Unfortunately, the way Minho’s mouth quirks up at the corners, and his eyes crease just slightly, tell him his efforts at sounding menacing were likely futile today.
“Yeah? How can I get out of your face when you’re the person leaning into my personal bubble?” Minho bites back, and Seungmin freezes, running a quick assessment of his position. Sure enough, he’s leaning forward to an extent of at least forty-five degrees, right at the waist, pressing his face right up close to Minho’s in his eagerness to retort. Flushing, he steps back hastily, and Minho cackles.
“Nice. Well, if that’ll be all-” Minho stops to stretch with a loud groan, joints popping, and laughs obnoxiously when Seungmin makes a disgusted face - “I’ll be off. Enjoy waiting for your friend to get back from their date. My friend is better.”
“ My friend is better,” Seungmin grumbles, but Minho doesn’t hear him; already too far down the street to make out the words. Without another action Seungmin climbs back into his own car - parked much closer to the date destination, he internally brags - and sets off back to campus, not sparing the elder student another thought.
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It’s three days later, and after Jisung had come bouncing back to Seungmin’s dorm room after Hyunjin had dropped him off later that night, full of happiness and energy and events to retell about his date, Seungmin had instantly relaxed, knowing that if the date went well, it was one less thing for himself and Jisung to worry about.
His mind is spinning with a tornado of assignments, questions and deadlines, which of course only means one thing:
When in doubt, consume an entire lemon and hope that the burning pain of citrus acid burns through the rest of your problems.
It’s been a strange coping mechanism of Seungmin’s since childhood, and one that branded him superhuman among his classmates as a child. He doesn’t know where it came from, but one day when he had been hit with the stress of an exam deadline for the first time, the first thing he had registered seeing was a lemon. Of course, the famously sour fruit called out to him, and he felt that if he could consume the entirety of the tear-inducing, throat-burning flesh of it then he could quite literally conquer anything.
It worked. When you feel as if you’re about to die from lemon consumption, everything else fades into insignificance. Seungmin likes to think that his taste buds can scream louder than his thoughts in these scenarios.
He pulls the squeaky-clean yellow citrus from his bag, and studies it for a moment - the lemon is about the size of his palm, give or take - before he shrugs and takes a bite. The waxy outer layer is solid and hard to pierce, but once his teeth have made an indent it’s easier, and soon he’s got a whole mouthful of the stuff.
However, it seems like Jeongin has rubbed off on him in his habits of stuffing as much food as humanly possible into his mouth as if his food were about to try and escape, and so once he’s pierced the waxy outer layer of the lemon, he’s going right back in for more, not letting himself chew yet and stuffing the entire lemon into his mouth before chewing, cheeks bulging and juice threatening to run down his chin in messy water(juice)falls. His eyes start streaming immediately, and every nerve in his mouth, nose and throat start screaming loudly, but he doesn’t react, not letting his facial muscles react at all. He’s just a funky dude, eating a lemon.
It’s only then that he catches movement at the door, and none other than Lee Minho crosses the threshold, swinging his bag onto the floor with a loud crash as he applauds Seungmin loudly.
“Oh fuck yeah! Digest it, freshman!”
Seungmin stares blankly, and swallows part of the lemon without so much as a single facial twitch. “We live in Korea.” The reply comes out horribly muffled and almost indecipherable, and an unattractive stream of lemon juice escapes his mouth as he speaks, spurting down his chin and staining his shirt.
“I was calling you a fresh man. Look at that trim!” Minho leaps across the room and whacks Seungmin across the head, letting his fingers card roughly through his hair. Seungmin yells through his lemon, but mostly out of inconvenience rather than pain -- there’s barely any pain at all, and he can tell that although Minho’s actions were rough, there was no intent to maim. Mostly.
This is only their second meeting this week - Seungmin was hoping they would never have a second meeting this week, really - but they do, and it’s to Minho catching Seungmin eating an entire lemon. Somewhere out there, some higher powers must be having a field day orchestrating this.
The room is mostly silent, save for Seungmin’s furious chewing as he finishes the last assaulting sour morsels and swallows, needing to retaliate. His teeth feel thick and fuzzy from the acid and he tries not to let himself run his tongue over them, knowing he’ll have to head to the nearest bathroom to brush them before going back to studying.
“Oh hell yeah. Chew that fruit, fuck yeah.”
Seungmin finally swallows the rest. “Shut your mouth.”
“That’s no way to talk to your senior.”
“Shut your mouth, sunbae. ”
“Better. Now - tell me why in the world you just stuffed an entire unpeeled lemon into your mouth and swallowed it without reacting? Are you god or something?”
Seungmin zips his bag closed with finality. “Yes.”
“Huh. Anyway, I’m guessing you won’t be needing this practise room for a while now because yowch , good luck singing with lemon-drenched vocal chords. And also, your time slot has run out. It’s my turn.”
Something about the world seems to tilt on its axis for a moment, and Seungmin shakes his head to clear the feeling. “You sing?”
“Who knows? But I’m here to practise on this keyboard right here. My name is under this hour’s booking, and you’ve eaten -- hah , eaten -- into six whole minutes already with your lemon antics.”
“Oh.” Packing his things at lightning speed, Seungmin slings his backpack onto his shoulders and moves to swan out of the room without another word, flustered at his own forgetfulness and poor time management. Minho snorts behind him.
“Later, lemon man.”
Instead of his lemon making the problems go away, he’s instead summoned another problem: Lee Minho, who will likely never let him forget this incident, should they ever meet again - and given their history, he certainly will. Maybe he was some sort of lemon demon, or something, only to appear when ungodly actions such as Seungmin’s coping mechanisms appeared.
Anyway.
Seungmin sincerely hopes there’ll never be a later .
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It doesn’t even take another fucking day for Seungmin to run into Lee Minho again.
This has got to be a new record.
“Come down to initiation,” Felix had said that night, tugging on Seungmin’s hand and dragging him out of his chair. “It’ll be fun! Everyone who goes is assigned a ‘person’ who’s already been attending the university for at least a year, and they show us the ropes and act as a kind of mentor for the year.”
“I don’t need a mentor, Lix, I already know my way around,” Seungmin had argued, trying and failing to pull his hand free. “We’ve been here for three weeks already and I’m tired.” Calling tonight initiation is a bit of a stretch in itself seeing as most of the events for initiation took place during the first week of arrival. Tonight’s event seemed just a little bit too little, too late but Felix had wanted to go in hopes of making friends with some of their seniors - which to be fair, is a smart move.
Felix tugged on his arm again, and Seungmin had groaned in response.
“There’s free food.”
Seungmin leapt to his feet. “Let’s go! Felix, why are you being so slow ? Let’s move already!”
And so here he stands, having been abandoned by Felix after the elder had been assigned a “ buddy” , trying to distract himself from his yawns and loneliness by committing the position of every window in the hall to memory. The food that Seungmin had originally come down for had long since been consumed, and although he was now pleasantly full of spicy noodles and tteokbokki , the sated feeling only added to his sleepiness and he once again wished he’d never accompanied Felix down here. The food had admittedly been worth it, though. Perhaps he should leave and go to bed - it was getting late, and due to his own lack of prior registration to the event it was unrealistic to expect to be buddied up to someone, too.
“Seungmin!”
The name catches Seungmin right as he was turning around to head off, and Felix runs back up to him, hugging him quickly from behind when Seungmin is too slow to turn around fully.
“You’ve not been partnered with anyone?” Felix asks, concerned as he pulls away, and Seungmin shakes his head as Felix’s own - presumed - partner walks over.
“Hey, I’m Chan,” he introduces himself. “Did I just hear Felix say you don’t have a partner?”
“Oh, I came here unregistered, Felix convinced me to join at the last minute,” Seungmin explains apologetically. “I mostly came here for the food. I apologise for the inconvenience - it’s okay though, I really don’t need a buddy.”
“Nonsense!” Chan refutes, spreading his hands wide in welcome. “There’s always someone. Luckily I persuaded my own friend to tag along at the last minute too, in case of a case like this. He’s right over -- oh, there he is. Minho !” he yells, and Seungmin freezes.
It can’t be. There are so many Minhos in the world, and in this university, there must be. It’s gotta be a different Minh--
“Lemon man!” a cheerful voice calls, and suddenly all traces of fatigue leave Seungmin’s body like a charged spirit ascending into the sky, replacing every single bodily cell with stiff resignation.
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no--
“Wagwan, bestie. Is this my assigned partner?” Minho beams, throwing an arm around Seungmin’s shoulder and squeezing . “We’re going to have so much fun together!”
Oh my god.
“It’s okay, I really don’t need a buddy, I know my way around, honestly,” Seungmin tries, but Chan seems the overly friendly type, and simply assumes it’s out of bashfulness that he refuses.
“No really Seungmin, it’s fine! Minho was brought here in case of last-minute newcomers. This is all absolutely fine, I promise!”
“Chan? Oh, Felix too? And Minho?” Another familiar voice can be heard, and another student approaches, all black hair and stormy demeanour that’s dissipated by the huge smile on his face. “Guys! You’re all here at once!”
“Hey, Changbin. Where’s your partner?”
“He’s back there somewhere. His boyfriend showed up out of nowhere so I left them to it,” Changbin explains, pointing vaguely behind him. “His name is Han Jisung.”
“ You got paired with Jisung? ” Felix shrieks, and the yelling of Jisung’s name catches his attention, and then he’s dragging Hyunjin over with him to join the group. Minho still has his arms wrapped around Seungmin’s shoulders. Seungmin is frozen.
“Yeah, Jisung and I are gonna be best friends from now on,” Changbin croons, framing Jisung’s face with his hands as Jisung laughs. “Who are the pairings here?”
“Minho is paired with Seungmin-ssi, and I’m paired with Felix-ssi,” Chan replies. “Is Hyunjin paired with anybody?”
“Yeah, but he already left,” Hyunjin says, “he was tired. His name’s Jeongin, though.”
“Ah.” Seungmin knows Jeongin, too. Makes sense that every single person involved here should be someone he knows, tied to somebody he doesn’t. Small world. It will make settling in easier, though, he supposes.
“I’m also tired,” Seungmin says. “It was nice meeting you all, but I’m going to head back to my room now.” he bows politely, dislodging Minho’s arm, and then finally manages to leave the hall uninterrupted.
“Oh, I’ll come with,” Felix calls behind him, and runs to catch up with him, only speaking again once they’re both out of the building. “Man, what was that? Do you already know Minho hyung?”
“ Know is a stretch… we’re kind of hostile acquaintances. Yesterday he walked into my practise room whilst I was stress-eating a lemon, which is why he called me ‘lemon man’.”
Felix laughs loudly. “Not the lemons.”
“I know. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“It’s great that he’s the person you ended up partnered with. Chan was telling me there’ll be all sorts of events to help us get to know the university a little better, like noraebang, and meals, and bowling and stuff.”
Seungmin groans loudly. “I’m not going to any of them.”
“Not even for me?” Felix pouts. “It’ll be fun!
“Not with the guy who’s seen me eat an entire lemon and compared me to a pigeon who got stuck in his highschool cafeteria!”
More laughter fills the chilly night air as Felix throws his head back and cackles.
“I haven’t seen that side of Minho hyung yet, so it’ll be fun witnessing it when you’re here! -- I won’t pressure you to join us, but free food will be involved and it’ll be fun if a lot of us go! It’s not going to be just you and hyung on your own.”
It feels incredibly ironic that Felix should already be this close with the man who’s done nothing but rub Seungmin up the wrong way since university started. Oblivious to Seungmin’s incredulous thoughts, Felix powers on.
“Anyway, give it some thought! Hyung’s really nice when you get to know him - perhaps he thinks you’re cute and gets muddled on how to talk to you.”
Seungmin snorts loudly, and the sound echoes into the darkness. “I doubt that last part. But I will come along to the events, since you want me there so much. You’re right; it’ll be fun.” Because let it be (silently) known that Seungmin would genuinely do anything for his friends, even if he acts a little reluctant at first. There’s just no fun without a theatrical display of hyperbolic misery.
Felix’s resulting smile lights the entire night up like the next sunrise. “Perfect!”
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Seungmin manages to spend the next two weeks avoiding Lee Minho like the plague before Felix once again manages to get in the way of his avoidance skills. Really, damn him and his doe-eyed charms, they’re bloody irresistible.
Now, he sits at the soft benches of a dimly lit noraebang room, eyes following the patterns of light machines sending vibrant patterns dancing across the walls and floor as the TV screen flashes with choices of different song genres to pick and choose from.
“Thanks for coming, Seungminnie. This is going to be so fun!” Felix exclaims as they wait alone for everybody else to turn up. They’re ten minutes early by a happy accident, and are more than content to simply sit and relax, enjoying the quietness of the room before its corruption with an addition of six chaos harbingers who will turn the serenity of the night into bloody murder.
“I think it will be, too. You’re not allowed to back out of your promise, though,” Seungmin does his best to look threatening, and Felix laughs, assuring him that no, he won’t be backing out of his adamant reassurance that he’ll save at least one song to duet with Seungmin.
“I’m gonna make you sing a solo too, to make up for the time you blew off hanging out with me last week in favour of studying. Make it up to me with your beautiful vocals,” Felix teases, blowing a kiss at Seungmin when he heats up with embarrassment, looking away as if there had been anybody else in the room to witness it.
“You’re impossible.”
Before long, their friends begin to pile into the room, and suddenly it’s full of eight people instead of two, and much, much noisier than before.
“Lemon man!” Seungmin hears from behind him, and has just enough time to brace himself before a body throws itself against him, clinging on for dear life around the back of Seungmin’s neck as Minho leaps into his personal space. “How’s it going? Eaten any more lemons recently?”
“Hi, hyung,” Seungmin greets, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “No lemons today.”
“That’s too bad. I was reading up on the health benefits of them, and apparently it’s actually really good for you to eat entire lemons.”
Seungmin feels distinctly like he’s being mocked. The rainbow laser-lights flash overhead, painting his thoughts in bright colours, and he turns away with a forced smile, deciding to find company elsewhere, where words aren’t ambiguous and intentions are clear.
“Jeongin, hey,” he greets their youngest as he sits down beside him. “I’ve not seen you in a while.”
“Hey - sorry, hyung,” Jeongin says. “I’ve been really busy with societies and stuff, I feel like I’ve not had a spare moment.”
“That’s all fine,” Seungmin reassures him - “which societies have you joined?”
The two settle into a comfortable conversation about their respective clubs, societies and activities that they had tried and, on occasion, committed to after settling in: Jeongin has joined a handful of clubs, such as Latin, cooking, and choir, whereas Seungmin prefers to sing by himself in their university’s spare practise rooms, and has instead joined a writing club to stretch his creativity a little, but hasn’t joined anywhere near enough clubs to distract him from his actual work.
“I see your logic,” Jeongin says when Seungmin explains this to him, “but for me it wouldn’t work. I think if I hadn’t joined so many groups, I’d be too fixated on my actual work -- and end up overworking myself, or pushing myself to unattainable standards without other things to distract me. I like the social-work balance I’ve established here. You should come and join the choir with me, you’d love the people there!”
“Maybe one day,” Seungmin says, but they both know he doesn’t intend to stick to the words he lets slip past his lips, keeping them as merely show; a layer of cling film wrapping together a conversation and keeping it from ending in an open debate that will have Seungmin overthinking his own lifestyle and goals. It’s best to leave that cesspit of doubts unbothered until absolutely necessary.
“Everybody!” Chan grabs a microphone from where a selection of them lounge on a table, plugged in and ready to be used, “here’s to a good night. Let’s have fun and mess up some perfectly good songs!” Everyone laughs and pretends to raise a glass to him, empty hands ‘clinking’ up in the air as words of hearty agreement and assent follow. “Now - where do we start?”
After much coddling and sweet-talking, Jeongin ends up starting their night off with a sweet rendition of a trot song he had grown up listening to, blushing red when the end of the song was met with a crashing chorus of applause and hollering from the rest of the group, ah, Jeonginnie, you’re so good! Jeongin, Jeongin, come and sing for my family! Perform at our weddings! The voice of an angel!
They’re about three songs in when Seungmin is beckoned over to Changbin, who sits in the corner of the room with a mischievous glint in his eye. Seungmin ignores the empty space next to his hyung and instead throws himself over Changbin’s legs heavily, laughing when Changbin groans in pain but still winds his arms around Seungmin’s waist to secure him in his newly allocated seat.
“Greetings, Seungminnie,” Changbin says, and Seungmin has to strain to hear him over the din of everybody else. “You’re looking good today.”
“Ah, hyung, you always know how to butter me up,” Seungmin pretends to bat his eyelashes flirtily. “I’d say the same about you, but my mother always taught me never to tell a lie.”
“You -- yah ,” Changbin cries, yelling out in mock hurt and grinning when Seungmin laughs loudly, leaning back until he’s sure he’s about to fall out of Changbin’s lap. “The disrespect!”
“Seriously though,” Changbin carries on after a minute of the two silently surveying the chaos, “how are you? We’ve not had a chance to talk, just us, in a while.”
Guilt flashes through Seungmin as his mind wanders back to the piles upon piles of study and extra classwork he’d prioritised over his friends in the past week, but he tries not to dwell on it, knowing it would simply drag his mood down for the rest of the night.
“Yeah, I’m sorry hyung,” he says genuinely. “I’ve been working a lot more than I originally thought. I’ll try to tone it down, though. I’ve missed everyone.”
“Ah, our hardworking Seungminnie,” Changbin coos, patting Seungmin’s hair. “Just remember to balance it, yeah? Keep healthy in every aspect, take care of yourself.” When he receives an affirming nod, he pats Seungmin’s thigh twice, and Seungmin slides off his legs, letting him stretch and get up “Now, I promised Hyunjin I’d sing with him, and he’s beckoning me over. I’ll be back.”
“Fuck it up, hyung!” Seungmin calls after him, and laughs delightedly when Changbin flips him off in response.
To their credit, Hyunjin and Changbin make a stunning duet duo, and for the first time since Jeongin’s performance at the beginning of the night they both put their full effort into their song, resulting in a velveteen composition of Changbin’s honeyed tones and Hyunjin’s soft voice melding together like hot glass. They manage to silence the room, and receive raucous applause and begs for an encore at the end.
“Let’s play spin the bottle,” Felix begs, “but we spin the bottle twice, and whoever it lands on has to sing together. Or more than two people. Same concept.”
There are several cries of agreement, and everybody sits in a circle on the floor, ignoring the comfortable seats by the walls, as Felix sets his water bottle on the floor, spinning with vigour and screaming when he sends it careening across the room instead of staying on the spot.
“Strike!” Minho yells as it hits the wall with a bang, and everybody laughs.
“Let’s try that again,” Felix says once he’s retrieved it, mournful at the new scratches on the bottle that aren’t likely to ever be fixed - but he spins it again, gentler, and everybody watches, half-laughing, as it spins around and around and around, finally slowing to a stop facing Chan, and then Jeongin on the second spin. The two look at each other for a moment, awkwardness clawing its way into their energies as they aren’t as well acquainted with each other as everybody else, but rise to their feet nonetheless and settle on a song that they both yell with combined lung power, making Seungmin cry with laughter at the way they make their voices crack and croak through what would have otherwise been a beautiful song.
“Seungmin, Seungmin, come do a duet with me next, please, please ,” Jisung materialises at his side, begging and begging until Seungmin agrees - which doesn’t take long. They forgo the bottle after Jeongin and Chan, simply kidnapping the microphones and selecting a song before anybody can process what’s happening.
“Seungmin, you’re singing with me next!” Felix shrieks over the opening notes of a song named Take Me Home , and before long Seungmin’s possession from his other friends finally loosens, enabling him to finally grab a water bottle and down half of it in one go as everybody settles back into a circle, going back to the bottle method to determine who will sing with whom.
“You’ve got a good voice,” a voice says next to Seungmin’s ear, and Seungmin jumps a little, barely holding back a startled shriek as he whips his head around to find Minho sitting next to him, legs crossed, eyes gleaming.
“Thank you,” Seungmin says, because for once he feels as though he can read Minho, and for once he doesn’t feel as though there were any hidden jabs in his words. It’s a surprisingly refreshing change.
“We should duet.”
“Only if the bottle decides it,” Seungmin replies, loving the tone of foreboding his voice takes on and relishing in the way Minho pretends to be put out by it. It’s rather fun, play fighting like this. Way more fun than when Seungmin’s unsure whether Minho actually is being difficult in order to get to him or not.
“Can’t we decide?”
“... no.”
“You wound me, Kim Seungmin,” Minho cries, falling back onto the floor and clutching his chest dramatically.
“With a bottle I could do much worse,” Seungmin muses, and Felix, sitting on the other side of him, snorts loudly, then clutches his throat in pain.
“We’ve been singing the night away, but I feel like I’ve not had a chance to properly talk to anyone yet,” Changbin whines, kicking Felix’s water bottle out of the centre of the circle like a petulant child and drawing laughter out of Jeongin in the process. “Forget my godly vocals for a moment --” the room fills with jeers and hoots - “what’s going on in everyone’s lives?”
Minho takes the opportunity to butt in. “I got a job working at the convenience store down the street last week--” the room erupts in cheers and congratulations before Minho has a chance to speak further. “No, wait, this isn't a celebratory statement, let me finish.” The room falls silent again, save for the buzzing of electricity from the noraebang screen and speakers.
“I got the job, but every single shift, I’ve been met with at least one person trying to shoplift. Right in front of my eyes too, like they don’t even know I’m standing behind the counter, right by the door, watching their every move!”
“Throw them off a cliff. It’s what Zeus would want,” Jeongin suggests immediately.
“Throw your customers down a hole if they don’t pay up,” Changbin agrees. “Ancient Sparta would be proud.”
“ Binnie , you have been paying attention to my rants about my history classes!” Minho squeals, all but sprinting across the room to squeeze Changbin’s cheeks between his fingers and thumbs, and Changbin yells out as he tries to squirm away in vain.
The rest of the night passes with the same amount of chaos, and Seungmin goes to bed at night feeling happy and refreshed, and full of love for his friends, even if he hasn’t quite managed to figure out Lee Minho’s intentions just yet.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
“Thanks for driving me here again, Seung, I seriously owe you for being my chauffeur since uni started,” Jisung is babbling as Seungmin drives him to their nearby cinema, and Seungmin makes a non-committal noise of acknowledgement as he indicates a right turn. Really, Jisung could have easily taken the bus, but his anxiety has been fluctuating a lot recently, so Seungmin wasn’t about to let him use crowded public transport when he could very easily make life that little bit easier for his friend.
“I’ll step out and say hi to Hyunjin, too,” he says, and Jisung nods along, very happy with the outcome. Once parked, they both walk towards the entrance of the cinema, where Hyunjin stands -- with none other than Lee Minho. A cold sense of deja vu hits Seungmin square in the chest, and he struggles to inhale.
“Sungie! I messed up whilst booking the movie tickets,” Hyunjin wails, and Jisung laughs, spying more than two tickets in his boyfriend’s hands.
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t think the payment had gone through, so instead of checking I panicked and just went to repurchase -- but the payment had gone through, so now we have four tickets!”
“Oh, wait -- I mean, you’re both here already, and Seungmin is going to pick me up after this anyway so that we can study together, so why not join us?” Jisung suggests, turning to Seungmin and a grinning Minho, and Seungmin feels minute dread claw its way into the crevices of his brain, ice cold and ominous.
“Oh, please do! It’s actually a horror movie, which is a bad idea in itself because we’re both scaredy-cats, so having you two with us will lessen our fear,” Hyunjin adds quickly, before either Minho or Seungmin can get another word in. “Tickets are cheap for this movie, and I’ve just received my first paycheck - my treat.”
Well, a free movie ticket - who is Seungmin to argue with that, really?
He ends up sandwiched in between Jisung and Minho, with Hyunjin sitting on Jisung’s other side and clutching his hand in a vice grip before the pre-movie adverts even begin to roll, which makes Seungmin want to both roll his eyes and chuckle at the same time. The four of them make snarky comments at the adverts when they start rolling, giggling quietly to themselves whenever somebody makes a particularly funny observation and getting shushed by some irritable, younger teens sitting a few rows in front of them, which only serves to make them laugh harder. Seungmin feels himself relaxing fully into his seat as the lights dim further, and the movie begins to play.
It’s laughable, really. The film is dire : the acting is stilted and awkward, and the jumpscares make Seungmin burst out in laughter whenever they come up, relating them more to the perfectly-cut screaming videos Felix likes to send him on TikTok rather than the fear they’re designed to bring. Minho is the same, alternating between stony-faced and chuckling quietly to himself, but Hyunjin and Jisung seem more into the film, letting out tiny shrieks of horror at the jumpscares, leaning into one another and holding the other through their terror. It’s a sweet sight, but one that contrasts comedically with Minho and Seungmin, and the latter wants to laugh aloud again at that fact alone.
“I count five seconds before the next jumpscare,” Minho whispers lowly into Seungmin’s ear, and Seungmin makes a show of counting on his fingers -- Minho is two seconds out, because the next jumpscare appears in seven seconds, which Seungmin makes extra effort to crow over him about, “ too late, your prophecies are inaccurate,” to which Minho replies “shut your trap, I’m not Agnes Nutter ”.
“She’s going to die,” Seungmin mumbles next, and true to his word, the extra he had just pointed to falls to the floor, bloodied and zombie-chewed, and Minho nods approvingly.
“We’re clearly both horror film connoisseurs. We should write one of our own,” he replies, and Seungmin finds himself agreeing immediately.
“If you were in a horror movie you’d die just like that extra,” he says instead. Minho snorts loudly, drawing the attention of Hyunjin and Jisung, who break out of their scared reverie to turn to them quizzically.
“You seem like the noble, self-sacrificing type, Kim Seungmin. Are you saying you wouldn’t throw yourself in front of that zombie to save me?”
“Absolutely not. Get yourself a different meat shield that isn’t me-shaped,” Seungmin replies, and Minho giggles delightedly, muffling the sound into his hand so as to not disturb the movie any longer, and Seungmin finds himself chasing the sound, disappointed that such a sound should be covered and not set free. The feeling surprises him, so naturally he tucks it away for later (or never) introspection.
The movie manages to pass and finish without either Hyunjin or Jisung jumping clean out of their seats in fear, which in a way is disappointing, because Seungmin was looking forward to the blackmail material. They exit the room quietly, respectfully and to the sound of the happy couple themselves whispering loudly about how they’d save each other in their own horror movie scenarios, only to be loudly smited by Minho as soon as they step foot outside the cinema, who tells them that they’d both be targeted at the first time and run head-first into danger out of sheer panic. No one corrects him; Jisung nods sadly in agreement.
“Well, I have to say, lemon man, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience to sit with you during that movie,” Minho announces as they’re all about to split up and go their separate ways. Hyunjin has already made his way down the street, looking to catch a bus elsewhere, whilst Jisung waits in the passenger seat of the car that Seungmin already has one leg in, head poking out of the door as he catches Minho’s words.
“Oh - you, too,” Seungmin returns, slightly shocked. “It was much more fun than third-wheeling.”
“Agreed. We should all do this again sometime, but with a good horror movie next time.”
“Definitely,” Seungmin snickers, picturing the fear already paling Jisung’s face from his seat in Seungmin’s car, and bids his hyung goodbye before fully getting in and buckling up. Perhaps Minho isn’t so bad, after all. Jisung simply smirks at him from his seat, and Seungmin pretends to heave a huge sigh. “What is it?”
“Oh, nothing,” Jisung says innocently, fiddling with his fingers before he switches his phone on and starts scrolling through the notifications standing proud against a photo of himself and Hyunjin. “Nothing at all.”
Seungmin hums and starts the engine.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
The next week, five days after the legendary yet infamous noraebang night, everyone is sitting in Minho and Changbin’s shared apartment living room, which is admittedly cramped for eight grown men. They make it work, though: four sit at the table, Chan is in the kitchen making drinks, Seungmin and Jeongin are sprawled on the couch and Felix is sitting on the floor. Everyone is studying in one way or another, apart from Minho, who claims to be studying Doongie instead of his college work; labelling it as very educational and not for you weak-minded non-intellectuals .
Seungmin has just entered the Mental Study Zone of being able to tune everybody else’s conversations out, taking information in at a speed that surprises even himself sometimes, feeling like he’s inhaling facts like tapioca pearls through a wide straw.
Read, memorise, read, memorise, read, memorise, repeat--
Bang!
Minho bursts through the kitchen door frame, holding Doongie close to his chest protectively as the cat in question lazily eyes the room, unbothered.
“I just wanna know who thought it would be a good idea to tape knives to Doongie as if she were a fucking roomba.”
“Oh, nice . What type of knives?” Changbin asks, but quietens when Minho throws a glare his way. Seungmin disguises a snort behind his mug of coffee and prays to the high heavens that no one notices.
“ Santoku knives, Changbin. I don’t even own santoku knives!”
“Oh, Felix has one of those,” Hyunjin butts in helpfully. “He was telling me about his knife collection the other day.”
“ Felix! ” Minho bellows, and Felix pops his head through the door.
“Hm?”
“Did you tape knives to Doongie?”
Felix snorts loudly, and breaks down in peals of laughter. “No, but props to the person who did.”
Doongie wriggles out of Minho’s arms and leaps onto the couch beside Chan, who reaches over to stroke her ears.
“Who taped knives to you, hmm? Which bully would do that to you,” he croons, and Doongie hisses loudly. Chan retracts his hand with lightning speed. “Nevermind.”
Doongie meows and jumps onto Seungmin’s lap instead, who sets his mug down on the floor to stroke her better.
“So like, who’s gonna tell the university that you regularly sneak Doongie onto the premises?” he asks casually, and Minho’s eyes widen, his voice overlapping with Chan’s as he replies.
“Minho sneaks Doongie into university premises?”
“I will stuff you into a pringles tube and feed you to Changbin.”
“Human pringles?” Changbin’s head shoots up from its previous resting position on his arms, and he scans the room with anticipation. “Where?”
Everyone goes silent for a second, before Minho clicks his tongue in distaste. “You… you concern me, sometimes, Seo Changbin.”
Seungmin laughs silently to himself, before shaking himself out of it and immersing himself back into his studies, blocking out the sounds of everyone else’s banter. He needs to learn the course material before his next lesson, and he can’t do that whilst paying attention to everybody else’s dumbassery.
He pushes down the lingering disappointment of missing out on the fun and swallows it whole, considering it lesser to the full blown panic he knows he’ll feel if he doesn’t get a certain amount of studying done today.
Focus now, rest later.
Much, much later.
Minho ends up walking Seungmin home that night, having observed his fervent manner of study for the entire day and deciding loudly, around ten at night, that it was time for Seungmin to get some more than well-deserved rest for the next day and upcoming week. Seungmin had been reluctant to leave his space on the couch where he’d effectively blocked everybody else out with his earphones, creating a safe nook of immersive studying, but he couldn’t refuse to leave the apartment within which he was a guest, so it had really only been out of politeness that he submitted to Minho’s wishes for him to return to his own dorm room.
The elder of the two is certainly more perceptive than he seems on the surface, although Seungmin hasn’t noticed that just yet. Instead, he listens with a carefully attentive ear as Minho gently brings him out of his own subject content that whirls around his brain like a tornado, instead distracting him with his own course - ancient history - in hopes that it’ll soothe Seungmin’s brain enough to settle him down for the night, and allow him to sleep a little easier.
If anyone asked, Minho would tell them simply that it’s his job as Seungmin’s assigned ‘buddy’, his mentor, to make sure he’s not overworking himself. Deep down, he knows it’s something a little deeper than that; that he cares for Seungmin more than he’d like to let on. But that’s only for him to know. Not even Minho himself can quite place the sudden protectiveness he feels towards the younger, but he’s almost entirely sure it stems from seeing Seungmin work so hard in the midst of everybody else, who were having fun and talking all day. Seungmin had barely said a word; had hardly even looked up from his notes. It saddened Minho to see.
Seungmin remains blissfully ignorant of Minho’s clever methods, and to how well they’re really working. Instead, he laughs in the appropriate places, and considers looking up some ancient history when he’s back in his room out of interest for what his hyung is telling him - right now, Minho is enthusiastically describing how apparently, the Athenians had refused to go into battle one time, because they had a moon festival to celebrate first, which was a bigger priority than actual war. Seungmin chuckles into the night, his breath coming out foggy in the cold air as Minho cracks a joke about leaving all of his homework past their deadlines in favour of dancing naked and chanting in the moonlight, like some used to think witches did.
Minho gestures with his hands, vaguely yet desperately. “I'm just saying that ancient Athens would have wanted me to worship the moon. And I say, so be it.” Tilting his head towards the sky, he screams loudly, putting his entire lungs into it, and Seungmin gasps, smacking a hand over Minho’s mouth with a satisfying slap.
“People are sleeping, ” he whispers, and Minho grins at him.
“Not anymore.”
The very earth around them seems to grow silent for a moment as they stare at each other, Minho panting slightly from his screaming, each waiting for the other to say something in retaliation.
Minho, unsurprisingly, goes first. “Has anyone ever told you you look like the henchman of a mafia boss?”
Seungmin snorts loudly. “Shut your trap. Hyung.”
“Love you too. Anyway , it’s late. Return to your dorm now, youngling. Sleep .”
And somehow, the last dregs of irritance and inconvenience Seungmin associated with the one and only Lee Minho fade away into the night, as imperceptibly as a wispy cloud against the velvet backdrop of deep skies and twice as high.
“You’re only in the year above me,” Seungmin grumbles, but he picks up his backpack anyway, slinging it over his shoulder. “Only if you do the same.”
“Deal. Go pass out somewhere safe.”
“Bye.”
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
When the workload gets tough, there’s only one thing you can do: procrastinate.
Well, there are two things. Procrastinate, or get down and make a dent in your workload. Seungmin is hardly one to procrastinate, although his friends all are, which is how he finds himself in a private study room in the university library, shoulder to shoulder with a table only made for two people seating five; four of which are frantically cramming as Seungmin calmly checks another piece of homework off his list.
His friends, however frantic in their revision strategies, are predictably distracted.
“I once half-drowned a Turkish boy thinking it was my brother and I will never get over the shame,” Minho says out of the blue, and the study room goes silent, and everybody slowly turns away from their work to stare at him. “ I know , rookie mistake, right?”
“Oh my god,” Jeongin whispers, and Changbin slurps loudly from his can of soda, jolting everybody back to reality a little.
“I hope your brother is also still alive somewhere,” Seungmin mutters under his breath, but all Minho replies with is an ominous smile, and he doesn’t know whether that makes him feel better or worse.
Jisung speaks up next. “Minho hyung, you do history. What were the helots offered in return for their freedom?”
“George Michael,” Jeongin deadpans at the same time that Minho says, “Absolutely nothing. They do not deserve to be free.”
“I hate study sessions with you two.”
Suddenly, Changbin’s head shoots up from his textbook and he shakes Jisung’s shoulder frantically. “Wait, what time is it?”
Jisung checks his phone, away from Changbin’s eyeline. It’s five minutes into his scheduled class. “Oh, it’s half past a leg in my shirt and two to carry.”
“Oh, sorry, I forgot you couldn’t read,” Changbin says, and grabs Jisung’s phone from his hands, screaming loudly when he realises he’s late.
“Shit. See you later,” he babbles, and then sprints out of their study room, leaving a mess of untouched papers and pencils in his wake.
Jisung blinks after him. “Who’s gonna tell him he forgot his bag?”
The door swings shut behind a very bag-less Changbin, and the room is momentarily filled with the sounds of an angry librarian yelling at someone from across the building:
“ Put that flamethrower away! ”
“Nice,” Jisung snickers, and then everybody turns back to their originally planned assignments.
During the course of the day, Minho has to leave their study room in order to get to a lecture and then to his work shift afterwards, so he leaves everyone be with a gleeful finger wiggle, and is soon replaced by Felix, who is all too happy to interrupt the quiet working atmosphere with a whirlwind of freshly baked cookies and stories he’d collected on the way here. After around an hour, Changbin returns, and it’s suggested that they simply go to someone’s room instead, as the study room is far too small for the group of them when they’re not hunched down and studying, and they may as well give the room to somebody who needs it, seeing as their concentration spans are unlikely to return any time soon.
Seungmin feels reluctant to let go of his studies, but allows himself to be pulled to his feet by Felix, who helps him pack away his extensive piles of notes, flashcards and textbooks to speed up the process of leaving.
“God, am I glad we left that stifling study room for this because there is no way Felix wouldn’t have set fire to the table with the pure passion he’s talking with right now,” Jisung mutters to Seungmin under his breath as Felix rambles on about his crush on Chan, and Seungmin holds back a snort of laughter.
“... He’s hot, he’s caring, he’s kind to me, he has his life together--”
“I wouldn’t count on it. I walked into his room last night to find him still awake at four in the morning, watching a video of a chicken eating seeds on YouTube,” Changbin interjects unhelpfully.
“Imagine if I turned into a rooster and he fell in love with me,” Felix says dreamily, pushing his head into his pillow before gazing up at the ceiling in a daze.
“.... Beauty and the Beast,” Changbin replies quietly, and Felix sits up in immediate rage.
“ I will neck you so hard if you don’t run right now- ”
“WHY DO YOU RUN FROM THE TRUTH?” Changbin cries, dodging tiny fists aimed at his legs and arms.
“He’s right, Lix,” Seungmin chimes in. “You can’t just substitute a beast with a rooster and expect life to turn out like a fairytale.”
“Either way the story is borderlining on the furry lifestyle,” Jisung adds. “Just buy a fursuit and go, jeez.”
“Chan does strike me as someone with furry energy sometimes,” Jeongin says. “So maybe if you did in fact, turn into a rooster then Chan might sit up and take more notice.”
“I doubt he’s not already taken notice of Felix romantically, I’ll be honest.” Changbin picks at a loose thread on the duvet, his disinterested expression being betrayed by the gleeful gleam in his eye. “But I’ll say no more on the matter.”
“Wha-- no, you can’t just leave me hanging like this!” Felix shrieks, flying off his bed and onto Changbin's, attacking with every limb he can utilise, screaming down his ear for good measure and sniggering when Changbin screams back. “Tell me more!”
“No,” Changbin says sweetly, and Felix screams into his pillow.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
It’s another day, another time, when Seungmin finds himself taking an evening stroll with Jisung, the both of them finding themselves freed from their schedules and deciding to get some fresh air together after being holed up in their respective lectures and bedrooms all day. The evening is pleasantly cool, and feels refreshing to inhale as the sun begins to set in front of them.
“So how are things going with Hyunjin?”
Jisung beams at him, and Seungmin knows he’s found a keeper.
“It’s going so well, Seungminnie, I’m so happy,” Jisung gushes, and Seungmin can’t help but smile. “I wasn’t too keen on relationships before, not really, but now? -- I would go to the ends of the earth for this man, dude. He treats me so much better than my exes--”
“I swear all your exes are from Wish,” Seungmin mutters.
“-- and he just, I don’t know, he makes me want to be a better person, not just for him, but for myself too. I love it. I love love. Who the fuck am I? And the physical affection is also fucking elite -”
“What happened to your no swearing agenda?” Seungmin interrupts again, and Jisung whacks him on the arm.
“ Heck you, man! Anyway -- yes. All in all, things are incredible,” Jisung finishes, suddenly shy, and Seungmin can’t help but to pull him into a one-armed hug as they walk, verbalising how happy he is for his friend.
“I’m very glad to hear it.”
“I was a little nervous about the - you know - the sexual aspect of it, not gonna lie, but for the first time ever in any relationship I’ve been in, Hyunjin has never pressured me, or made me feel bad for wanting to wait longer,” Jisung continues, and Seungmin feels relief flood him. Jisung had never been physically forced before, but had had to break up with two out of three of his exes (the shitty lot of them) in the past due to them thinking that sex was crucial in a relationship, which Jisung wasn’t ready for. Seungmin would never stop being proud of him for staying firm in his decisions, and breaking things off when they got hard instead of staying for longer until things worsened, and he knows that many haven’t been so lucky as to have that leaving ability in the first place. Due to that, he’s grown quite protective of Jisung in that aspect, so it feels as if his soul itself is singing to hear of how well Jisung’s relationship with Hyunjin is going.
“Basic human decency - but again, so much better than your exes. I’m very happy about that,” Seungmin says, and Jisung snorts.
“Yeah, people are disgusting. Not Hyunjin though! How about you though, Minnie? Anyone on your radar recently?”
Seungmin shrugs. “Not really… I’ve been trying to avoid romantic feelings recently anyway.”
Jisung’s eyebrows raise. “Oh? How come?”
“It’s just… I don’t know. It seems these days like all anyone wants to do is fuck. Is it too much to ask for a relationship that’s sex free?”
“I agree, everything’s so sexualised and shit,” Jisung agrees, and Seungmin makes a little ‘ ah’ noise in the back of his throat at the swear. Jisung nods in gratitude and carries on. “When Hyunjin and I started officially dating, I had his friends come up to me after just one week of it, asking what we’d “ done” together. It was disgusting. I’d never talked to them before in my life.”
“I know!” Seungmin agrees vehemently. “I just want to be able to fall in love without sexual expectations. And some people I’ve spoken to have had the nerve to tell me that a relationship without sex is just a friendship! In what universe? How do they disregard the emotional connections, the romantic aspects? I really don’t get it.”
“It’s frustrating as hell,” Jisung sympathises.
“If you boil everything down to its bare essentials, everything is ‘fall in love and fuck’. For some species it’s just fuck . For me it’s just fall . On the floor. Smack bang.” As if on cue, Seungmin trips over his own laces, smacking his hands on the concrete below him and groaning loudly as Jisung cackles. “Look! I did it,” Seungmin carries on, and Jisung can’t even muster the strength to help him back to his feet through his laughter.
“You have no right being so funny.”
“Help me up, I am but a weak, small child with soft spaghetti bones.”
“Okay, but real talk-” Jisung pauses to haul Seungmin back up off his ass - “I promise you not everyone is like that, with weird sexual expectations. There are plenty of people who actually treat others with more respect than the bare minimum, and people who are also asexual, like you. You’ll find someone.”
“You think?” Seungmin asks, sounding weary and doubtful. Jisung smiles and squeezes his hand.
“Yep. It’s all down to a little thing, that begins with an f , and ends in ate .”
Seungmin blinks. “Free real estate?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Ironically, the root of Seungmin’s relationship fear is addressed directly just three days after his fateful conversation with Jisung.
Seungmin is sitting on a bench in the middle of campus, shuffling through the notes he had made in his past class, thinking quietly to himself about how best to go about improving said notes, and condensing them further into bite- sized flashcards that would help him memorise the content as easily as possible. He barely registers the presence of a classmate next to him until they speak up suddenly, and he jumps so hard that he almost drops his notes onto the floor, where they would have been swept up by the breeze.
“Hey, Seungmin hyung,” his classmate says - Junghwan is his name.
“Hey. How are you doing?”
“I’m good - I actually came to ask you if you wanted to come out with us tonight. We’ve got a group of us together to go out to a nearby nightclub,” Junghwan offers, and Seungmin considers for a moment.
“I’d better not, I have a lot on my plate right now. Studying and all that.”
“Oh, just come for one night! It’ll help you destress, we’ll get you laid!” Junghwan encourages, and Seungmin freezes minutely.
“Uh… sex isn’t really my thing. But thanks anyway, I hope you all have fun tonight.”
Junghwan laughs harshly. “What does that even mean? Everyone needs to get laid every once in a while. Come on, man!”
“I’m actually asexual, so I don’t need that, or want it.”
“Asexuality is so fake,” Junghwan says, and something within Seungmin bristles, then breaks a little.
“Okay.”
“Like, how can you not be sexually attracted to people? You’re missing out man, I feel so sorry for you,” Junghwan keeps going, and Seungmin feels himself growing annoyed at the younger’s tone of condescendance. Next thing he’ll be saying--
“You’ll want to have sex eventually, it’s inevitable,” Junghwan says, and Seungmin has had enough . He sweeps his notes into his arms, not even bothering to put them into his bag, and all but runs away, his mind racing with anger and his eyes swimming with frustrated tears, tinged with the crushing devastation of being unacknowledged and invalidated by yet another person. He makes it a further few minutes past campus, into a quieter orchid of trees, where he flops down onto a bench, setting his notes under his thigh so they won’t blow away before he hides his teary face in his hands, breathing in great gulps of air in an attempt to calm himself down.
Footsteps approach, almost too soft to be heard, and a familiar voice makes itself known out of Seungmin’s self-induced darkness.
“Seungmin? Are you okay?”
“What -- oh, hi hyung,” Seungmin says, eyes squeezed closed as he presses the heels of his palms into them. “Everything’s okay.”
“Clearly they’re not. Do you wanna talk about it?” Minho asks, sitting down on the bench next to Seungmin. “If you don’t, that’s also fine.”
“It’s just… ugh.” Where should he even start ? “Just people being assholes. I’ve just had someone tell
me they’re ‘sorry for me’ because I’m asexual, and then go on to tell me that I’ll want to have sex eventually.” He feels sick. Minho sucks in a sympathetic breath beside him.
“People are horrible. Whoever said that to you clearly doesn’t have the capacity to understand basic concepts, so try not to waste your time thinking too much about them,” Minho reassures him, resting what he hopes is a comforting hand on Seungmin’s shoulder. “The last time someone said that to me I decked them. But I don’t recommend that, it was a very hasty and wrongful reaction.”
Seungmin straightens up, the cogs in his brain whirring at top speed. “Said it… to you ? You’re ace too?”
“I’m gray ace,” Minho explains. “I’ve felt sexual attraction before, but only faintly and very rarely.”
“Ah.” The sure feeling of connection to Minho grows within Seungmin instantly, twining warm arms around his heart, and suddenly he knows it’s something he won’t be able to shake easily, even if he had wanted to.
“It’s hard to feel like you belong in a world where everything is so oversexualised and everything, but if you need someone to talk to, and relate to your struggles a little bit, I’m always here, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Seungmin decides he likes that a lot. “Yeah, thank you hyung.”
“Of course. Wanna come back to my apartment and see Doongie?”
“I’d love that.”
Felix and Jeongin are sitting in their teaching lecture when both of their phones vibrate in unison.
Chat: say yes to the mess
Lee Minho: my apartment is open for the afternoon for cat reasons
Lee Minho: the entry fee is ₩ 7839 :)
Bang Chan: that’s incredibly specific
Lee Minho: i dont care
Lee Minho: also seungmin’s here he’s just been invalidated so bring snacks for him too or ur not allowed in either
Jeongin abruptly stands up, gathering his belongings. “I am leaving this class to commit felonies. Goodbye.”
“Innie, you can’t just walk out- ” Felix hisses, but the younger is already out of the door, leaving only a gleeful finger-wave in his wake. Exasperated, Felix packs up and follows him out. No felonies are being committed without him there, too.
“You’re unbelievable,” he says once he catches up to the younger, but all Jeongin does is flick his raven hair behind his ears, pretending he has enough of it to actually flick over his shoulder, and huffs indignantly.
“Things are happening . I’m not gonna miss them,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“There are things happening in the lecture hall you just bunked out of.”
“And yet, you’re still here with me. Pity you’re missing out on that lecture, though,” Jeongin smiles, and Felix bites back a snort in place of his exasperation.
“When we fail this class I’m blaming you.”
“It was your own free will that had you follow me! I had no say in this!”
“ Actually , it was the fear of missing out, so suck on that-- ”
“Guys? I thought you had a class right now?” Oh, shit.
“ Heeeyyy , Channie hyung,” Felix greets nervously, pushing a lock of blonde hair behind his ear. “No classes for us, haha. Not now.”
“We’re skipping for Seungmin,” Jeongin supplies helpfully, and Felix has to restrain himself from wrangling their youngest’s neck right there and then. Soon , he thinks.
“Hmmm. I’d reprimand that, but I’m doing the same,” Chan says, and Jeongin snorts loudly as Felix fights (and loses) the urge to choke on his own spit.
“Well then, away we go,” Jeongin says finally, and they all carry on as they should have done, out of campus and all the way to Minho’s apartment, where himself, Seungmin and a pile of snacks await them all.
“Sit down, I’ll get you a drink. How much poison do you take in your coffee?” Minho asks sweetly, and Seungmin rolls his eyes as he sits down on the sofa, attention diverted as Doongie immediately leaps up onto his legs with a small ‘ prrt’ noise.
“Enough to kill a trained assassin,” he responds, and Minho huffs loudly, muttering mock-angry words about his response being ‘ not specific enough, how trained does he even mean’ , and ‘ fine, I’ll add the most instead’ . When he hands Seungmin a perfectly safe mug of coffee, steaming hot and sweetened to perfection, the younger simply acknowledges it with a smile and a nod, cradling it to his chest with one hand as the other runs through Doongie’s soft fur, and Minho once again pretends to huff in indignation at the sight of his beloved cat choosing somebody else over him.
“Little traitor,” he says, and sits down across from Seungmin, at the small kitchen table surrounded by three hard, wooden chairs. Seungmin frowns at Minho’s sitting on such an uncomfortable structure by choice but he lets it slide, figuring it’s Minho’s choice to sit wherever he wants. Before long their friends trickle in one by one, and Minho’s apartment is soon full to bursting with rowdy people sitting, standing and yelling. On one hand, it does little to quell Seungmin’s racing mind, but on the other - well, it certainly distracts him from his thoughts.
“Asking me to not murder innocent civilians in video games is like asking a bird not to fly,” Jeongin complains, working to the best of his ability to defeat Chan and Felix in a mobile version of a violent-sounding video game, and Changbin groans behind him.
Minho is by far the calmest of everyone, simply watching as Jeongin screams loudly at Felix and Jisung loudly play-argues with Chan in an attempt to distract him from his winning streak.
“I wonder how you can stay so calm in these environments,” Seungmin mutters as Minho comes to sit down beside him, nudging Hyunjn out of the way with his butt as he does so.
Minho beams and leans back on the sofa, crossing his arms behind his head leisurely. “Well, I’ll let you into a secret. Some people have emotional support characters or celebrities. I have an emotional support butt.” As if on cue, Jisung squeezes past the sofa to get to Hyunjin, and Minho slaps his ass loudly, cackling when Jisung groans. “Nice.”
“I want an emotional support ass,” Felix pouts across the room, and Chan snorts.
“Be careful how people interpret that.”
“Interpret it however the fuck you want! Emotional. Support. Ass. If you please ,” Felix finishes his demand with an innocent smile, and Chan chokes on his coffee.
“I’m revoking your emotional support ass privileges. I have a boyfriend now,” Jisung tells Minho, who whines loudly and tries to smack his butt again. When Jisung dodges and sits in Hyunjin’s lap instead, Minho smirks and turns to Seungmin, who clutches his mug of coffee tighter to his body in fright.
“Absolutely not--”
“ Come here, Seungminnie, ” Minho sing-songs, lunging forward with claw-like grabby hands and making Seungmin scream and jump back, sending his coffee flying everywhere. It soaks his hair and hoodie, and he has just enough time to set the now-empty mug on the ground, saving it from further damage as Minho grabs him, pulling him across the couch and into his lap, where he lands a satisfying smack to Seungmin’s jeans-clad butt.
“You’re staying right here,” Mingo declares, and once Seungmin takes a moment to resign himself to his sorry fate he shrugs, and pulls out his flashcards from his pocket as Minho plays his butt like the bongo drums, feeling the coffee saturate his hair and scalp with mild resignation. He’s read caffeine is good for your hair, anyway. Hopefully it’s true. Minho’s voice pulls him out of his caffeine contemplations with a high-pitched exclamation of triumph: “This ass is so much better than Jisung’s. Sorry, Ji, you’re being replaced.”
“I literally just quit my position and you’re already hiring someone else? Whore,” Jisung bites back, but his words are full of good humour and there’s a sparkle in his eyes as he speaks. “I’m wounded.”
“Then get a bandage and jog on.” Minho pauses to yank the flashcards out of Seungmin’s hands, ignoring his whine of protest and setting them out of arm’s reach. “Absolutely not. Fun time now, no studying allowed.”
“I can’t believe this!” Jisung groans in response to the part of Minho’s speech that was directed at him.
Seungmin wriggles about determinedly and rolls off Minho’s legs, falling to the ground in a twisted pile of limbs with a concerningly loud bang that has several of the room’s inhabitants looking up in surprise. He grins as Minho’s face peers over the couch to stare at him.
“And that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
To Seungmin’s credit, it does take a good while - five months from the beginning of term, actually - for the weight of the stress of everything university-related to kick in. When it does, it’s because of a less-than-perfect score on a half-termly exam, and he leaves his lecture immediately, all but fleeing the hall as he hurries, breathing uneven, back to his and Felix’s apartment, head full, eyes brimming and mind racing with failed expectations and dying self-image and a sense of hopelessness overtaking every cell in his body with icy, unforgiving fingertips.
“You good, dude?” Jisung asks, right as Seungmin enters the apartment. He hasn’t even seen Seungmin’s face yet, but he can sense that the vibes are off already. Spidey senses? No, these are Seungmin senses, and they’re vibrating into his next damn life. Seungmin walks further into the apartment and Jisung stands up in concern at the sight of his usually stoic friend looking crestfallen and dejected.
“Seungmin?”
“I… Well, you’ve heard of a superiority complex, now get ready for the polar opposite of that complex!” Seungmin announces, and then promptly collapses onto the couch and bursts into tears.
Jisung panics, and launches himself onto the sofa beside his friend, wrapping all four limbs around Seungmin in an attempt to console him via pressure and warmth. “Oh god, are you okay? Is this helping? Do you wanna talk about it? I’m here, just let it out…”
“I’m not crying, my eyes are sweating,” Seungmin stutters out through his tears, clinging to Jisung as if his life depends on it, and Jisung rolls his eyes.
“I’ll make your eyes sweat if you don’t shut it and embrace your emotions.”
“What does that even mean- ” Seungmin’s voice cracks and he dissolves into tears again, and Jisung coos, humming in what he hopes is a soothing way as he lets Seungmin cry it out.
In the corner of his mind Seungmin can hear additional footsteps that can’t belong to Jisung because he’s sitting right here with him, but he doesn’t draw away from the comfort that is Jisung’s sweater-clad chest to see who’s also in their apartment, the shame of already crying in front of more people than he anticipated being more than enough incentive to stay hidden until they hopefully take mercy on the situation and leave.
It’s unlike Seungmin, really, how he cries openly for so long -- it must be a good few minutes before his sobs cease into something more controlled, and he almost berates himself for not making it to his room before he had broken down in tears. But he knows that his emotions are nothing to be ashamed of, so he pulls a tissue out of his pocket and blows his nose loudly when he feels able to pull away from the warmth of Jisung’s supportive embrace, tossing it (and missing) at the trash can that sits open next to the coffee table.
“Oh, bub,” Jisung soothes him as he sits up to do so, revealing a red, tearstained face that’s puffy and swollen. He wipes the remaining tears away with the pads of his thumbs before speaking again, and Seungmin leans into the touch like a man starved for months. “Really bad day?”
“You have no idea.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
Seungmin thinks for a second, and can already feel the tears starting again.
“Just… don’t feel good enough,” he admits. “It feels like no matter how much I study, or try, I’m never as good as the standards I set for myself…” memories of the imperfect test score on his paper flash behind his eyelids again, and he blinks aggressively to obliterate them.
Jisung also thinks for a moment, before he responds.
“Would you like me to listen, or sympathise, or offer advice, or a little combination?”
Seungmin laughs wetly at that. For someone who acts so silly most of the time, he really does love Jisung’s ability to switch to seriousness in a matter of seconds, and his maturity in situations like these. “A bit of listening and advice, please.”
“Okay. Well, I’d say that, as hard as it sounds - you need to lower your expectations for yourself. They’re unfairly high, and I know that you’d hold nobody else to such pristine outlines of being, so why inflict it upon yourself? It’s only holding you back from pride in the academic fields,” Jisung says carefully, choosing his words with hesitance. “You’re incredible at what you do: you’re so talented, and so dedicated. It’s time to give yourself some credit for it.”
“I just want to be the best I can be, and always keep improving,” Seungmin whispers, and Jisung nods, shushing him as he hugs Seungmin again, who offers no resistance and lets himself be pulled back into Jisung’s comforting embrace.
“I never said you shouldn’t strive. But there’s a difference between striving to improve and striving to reach an unattainable standard of perfection, and tearing yourself down in the process,” he whispers back, and Seungmin lets a few more tears escape his eyes, blinking slowly as he nods.
“You’re allowed to not always be the best. You’re allowed to take breaks, and have fun, and prioritise things that aren’t to do with academia and achievements. It’s basic self care, Seungmin, and I think you’re a little deficient in that necessity.”
“I think you’re right,” Seungmin sniffles, and gratefully accepts the glass of water that Jisung pulls off the coffee table for him to drink, enjoying the refreshing chill against his throat that stings, swollen and sore from crying.
“Good. And I’ll be here to support you through it too. And everyone else will, too, if you’ll let us,” Jisung reassures him, and it’s then that Seungmin remembers his vague registering footsteps before.
“Oh, speaking of - was there somebody else in here when I came in? I didn’t see anyone, but I swear I heard someone.”
“Yeah, Chan hyung and Minho hyung were here, but Chan hyung is working on something in Felix’s room, and Minho hyung left right away - he left all his stuff here though, so I’m not sure whether he’s coming back or not--” as if on cue, the door opens and Minho strolls back into the apartment like he owns it, holding a bag full of convenience store goodies and eyeing the two on the sofa immediately.
“Serotonin time, lemon man,” he announces, and plops himself unceremoniously onto the couch beside Jisung and Seungmin, his bag crinkling ominously as he does so. “Jisungie, hand me my mentee. This is mentor-level stuff now.”
“But I’m his best friend,” Jisung whines, but it’s at that moment that a blissfully ignorant Chan pokes his head out of Felix’s room to ask him for help on something - god knows why Chan and Jisung are doing producing work in Felix’s room, whilst the owner of the room is out for the day, but never mind that - so Jisung reluctantly stands up, dislodging Seungmin from his spot on his lap in the process and leaving him alone with Minho. Minho smiles, but it’s not a mischievous grin like usual: rather, it’s sympathetic and almost worried in its depth. He starts pulling items from his bag as he speaks.
“Everything okay, Seungminnie? Anything your dear, beloved hyung-buddy can help out with?” He sets numerous bottles and packets out on the coffee table like they’re a delicious spread - which, to a broke university student, it most certainly is. “Tell hyung all about it.”
Seungmin honestly isn’t sure how much he wants to reveal, having not known Minho for much longer than five months by now, but he tells him a little bit of it, sticking to the vague outline of not feeling good enough and pushing himself too far for fruitless outcomes . The explanation has Minho scoffing in disbelief at Seungmin’s genuine belief that he’s not good enough, and it surprises Seungmin when Minho takes his hand within both of his own, massaging his palm and fingers as he reassures him that everything is going to be okay, and that he’ll be here for Seungmin whenever he’s feeling like this.
Something about it feels different to Jisung’s very similar reassurances, but Seungmin puts it down to having just broken down in lungfuls of tears. It does a number on your heart, or something.
They talk for what both feels like hours and mere minutes at once, and when Minho gently brings up the idea of Seungmin starting counselling to get professional help undoing such a harsh mindset that’s so deeply ingrained in him, Seungmin cries a little more, but accepts. He does need the help; his current mindset isn’t healthy. He wants to get better. He wants a balance, and he wants to do it properly, instead of having to rely solely on his friends who have their own problems and lives to go through without him beginning to use them as an emotional crutch. Nobody deserves that -- Seungmin knows he’ll be doing this for his friends just as much as he’s doing it for himself.
“Stupid waste of tears, keep your body moisture inside your ducts next time,” Minho mutters finally, but he hands Seungmin a bottle of water and another of juice, and then pulls him back to sit between his legs on the sofa, with Seungmin’s back against his chest, and loops his arms around Seungmin’s waist. “Rest now. Emotions are exhausting.”
Seungmin doesn’t know when they crossed the line to a more touchy friendship, but he finds that he doesn’t mind it at all. He leans his head back against Minho’s shoulder, and mumbles out a soft thank you before closing his eyes and allowing himself to drift off to sleep, exhausted from the day’s emotional drainage.
He sleeps for two hours, and when he wakes up, groggy and full of a post-crying headache, he finds Minho still behind him, his position unchanged, although his limbs must be aching and stiff by now. He’s scrolling through his phone, which by now is critically low on charge, and peering over Seungmin’s shoulder to see the screen, and when Seungmin stirs awake he turns the device off, jostling the younger just a little and smiling at him as he blinks awake back into the real world.
“Welcome back to reality,” he says, and if Seungmin’s face instantly feels set alight with flames, he’s blaming it on his impromptu nap and prior breakdown, and nothing else at all.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
“Which one of you assholes put my left ear for sale on the black market?” Jisung kicks the lounge door open and storms in, drawing everyone’s attention away from the fight scene happening on TV in acute wonder.
“Damn, that was your ear I bought?” Felix says disappointedly, scratching his head. “Fuck. Gonna have to return that bad boy now, I’ve seen firsthand how much wax your ears produce. It’s nasty, man.”
“Fuck you too!” Jisung yells, cheeks flaming as everybody laughs. “My ears are cleaner than yours, twatbucket. I’ll put your fucking eyes on the black market!”
“Language, Sung,” Changbin reminds him innocently, and Jisung leaps onto the older man, smothering him with his entire bodyweight.
“ Fuck not swearing! There are more important things at hand here!”
“We’re literally getting to the good part of this movie, can you please save violent enucleation for later on in the day, I’m begging you,” Jeongin groans over the sound of gunshots and explosions booming out of the tinny speakers connected to the TV, and reaches for the remote to turn up the volume, attempting fruitlessly to block out Jisung’s screaming and Changbin’s arguments. Seungmin grins to himself, turning the pages of a textbook to recap his knowledge of what his professor has told him today’s lecture would be on, and Felix swings his legs into Seungmin’s lap as he gets more into the movie. Hyunjin, Chan and Minho are all in class, missing out on the fun of black markets and violent movies, but it’s just as noisy as if they had been there in the first place.
Good thing Seungmin adapted to his friends’ noise early on, before their new additions were made to the group at the start of the academic year, or else he would be in the equivalent of jail and hell right now, fruitlessly attempting to concentrate. He guesses he has Jisung and Felix to thank for that.
“I’ll do the electric boogaloo on your balls!” Jisung yells, and Seungmin’s focus snaps like a taut rubber band.
“What the fuck , Jisung,” he says, in equal parts awe and horror, and Changbin hurriedly pushes Jisung off his lap, covering his crotch with a cushion for good measure as he draws his knees up to his chest. Even Jeongin has paused the movie to properly process what’s happening, and Felix has to bury his face into Seungmin’s shoulder to smother his laughter. It’s at that moment that the door swings open, and Hyunjin and Minho walk into the apartment, looking suitably worn out from their dance classes.
Everybody else freezes as if they were caught red-handed in the wrong, and five heads whip around to stare at the newcomers at once. Minho looks around, unbothered, and Hyunjin ignores everybody in favour of hurling his bag at the ground and falling face-first onto the sofa.
“You will not believe the day I’ve had,” he groans into the cushions, but Changbin beats anyone else to a response.
“You won’t believe the day I’ve had! Your boyfriend fucking threatened to dance on my--”
“Oh, he finally voiced that?” Hyunjin interrupts him lazily, turning to grin at Jisung. “Good job, baby. I’m proud of you for communicating.”
“ What the fuck? ” Changbin cries, but he’s cut off by Jeongin pressing a pillow into his face as he presses play on his movie again, and as Changbin struggles to yell through a mouthful of stuffed fabric, Minho wordlessly picks up the remote and turns the volume up until he can no longer be heard.
“We’re gonna get noise complaints,” Seungmin says although he’s mostly unbothered. Minho plops down in the spare gap next to him and ruffles his hair, and Seungmin bites back a grin in place of a glare at his hair being messed up. He’s not too sure how to act, with the last time he saw Minho being last week on the night of his breakdown, but Minho seems unbothered, leaving Seungmin questioning whether he’s overthinking how to act in front of the person who held him as he slept and wordlessly handed him drinks and snacks once he woke up. He feels as if the boundaries between them have been stripped away, and although it’s by no means a bad thing anymore, it leaves him feeling a little as though the rug has been pulled from beneath his feet.
“When’s your next lecture?” Minho asks innocently, and when Seungmin informs him that it’s not for another three hours Minho whips the textbook out of Seungmin’s hands and closes it obstinately, putting it beneath his thighs and pressing it further and further into the couch with them when Seungmin tries to make a grab for it.
“Not for another two and a half hours, lemon man,” he warns sternly, and soon after Seungmin has to give up, Minho’s sheer leg strength too much for him to handle.
Seungmin purses his lips, but ultimately accepts his fate and leans back into the sofa, trying to ignore the way that Minho's arm rests along the back of the seat and brushes against the back of his neck just slightly. It makes the hair at the base of his neck prickle, as though he's being teased, and he huffs in annoyance and throws himself back against Minho instead to make him commit to the contact, the slippery coward. Minho simply blows amused air out of his nose in response, and Seungmin immerses himself in the conversation that Felix and Hyunjin are having, feeling something akin to relief flooding his body in the release of studies that he hadn't thought to feel before. As Changbin and Minho talk and laugh to his left, and Jeongin makes faces on his right, Seungmin feels a sense of completeness lock into place within him; one that never accompanied studying, no matter how well his work paid off in the end.
Perhaps his friends have a point about him studying too hard.
Maybe it really is time for him to find a healthier balance.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
“Lemon man!” Seungmin hears across campus the next week, and sighs sleepily as a far too awake Lee Minho sprints across to him, leaping cleanly over a particularly large puddle as he does and sending his hair and glasses askew.
“You’re too awake for so early in the morning, hyung,” Seungmin groans, and Minho grins, looking up at the cloudy sky.
“It’s only half eight, that’s not early. Anyway - look what I found!”
“Hmm?” Seungmin still has twenty minutes to get to his class, so he’s not worried when Minho starts rooting around in his backpack for whatever it is he wants to show Seungmin. He covers a large yawn with his hand and switches his weight to his other foot, wishing he had a free morning to sleep in today. Tomorrow, he’ll make the most of a lie-in.
“Ah! Here-” Minho finally grasps what he was looking for, and throws a handful of sunlight in Seungmin’s vague direction, leaving the younger scrambling to catch an armful of soft, yellow fabric before it hits the dusty ground.
“It’s a lemon hoodie!” Minho blurts out before Seungmin can get a proper look at it, and he leaves his backpack open on the ground to close the distance between them and grab the hoodie from Seungmin’s hands, shaking it out and holding it up for him to see. “Look! It’s got a lemon embroidered on the chest!”
The material is soft in the way that it reminds Seungmin of the warmest embraces, and is a muted yellow colour, with a lemon about the length of his thumb embroidered carefully onto the front.
“Lemon hoodie for lemon man,” Minho says excitedly, shaking the hoodie a little, sleeves flailing, before he hands it back to Seungmin and anticipates his reaction.
Seungmin feels… emotional, to say the least. The notion of someone spending their money on him, and so much in fact, because this hoodie feels like good quality and therefore must have cost a pretty penny in light of their poor student statuses - it’s a lot for his sleep-addled brain to process.
“For me?” he whispers, and Minho nods.
“It reminded me of you, because of the lemon,” he explains needlessly, growing more and more restless by the second as Seungmin remains outwardly emotionless. “You don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to, though.”
“No -- no , hyung, I really love it,” Seungmin rushes to reassure him, finally breaking out of his stricken reverie to hug the hoodie to his chest, meeting Minho’s eyes with heartfelt sincerity that he hopes can be felt by the other man. “Thank you… I don’t really know what to say apart from that. It’s beautiful, thank you - are you sure, though? I feel bad having you spend money on me.”
“Hard earned cash earned by stopping youngsters from shoplifting on the daily? Don’t mention it,” Minho replies, but there’s a twinkle in his eyes that puts Seungmin at ease immediately. “I hope to see you wearing it soon, though.”
“I’m gonna wear it now,” Seungmin insists, shucking off his current grey hoodie, decorated with a single heart-shaped wifi symbol where the lemon on his new hoodie sits, and holds it securely between his knees as he pulls the yellow hoodie over his head, before folding up the grey hoodie neatly, ready to tuck away in his backpack once he’s safely seated in class. “How do I look?”
Minho laughs aloud, sounding more than pleased with himself at the sight before him. “Like a real lemon man. It suits you.” Seungmin notices a slight flush to Minho’s cheeks, but doesn’t think much of it, subconsciously filing the cause away as something due to a little morning chill.
“I can’t believe you made me an entire branding with that nickname, and now are making me physically become it.”
“All in a day’s work. Next I’ll be on the lookout for a huge lemon bodysuit that borders on psychological horror for all who witness it.”
“Buy that and I’ll lock you under my bed for a fortnight,” Seungmin replies, horrified at the mental image, and Minho cackles loudly. “But I do have to go now - I have class in ten minutes.”
“Yeah, me too,” Minho says regretfully, and waves once he’s done zipping his backpack up, slipping it onto one shoulder with ease. “May the yellow hoodie bring you good grades and watered crops!”
“Bye, hyung.”
And if Seungmin wears the hoodie every day for the next six days, to the point that he only doesn’t wear it the seventh day because it needs washing so badly - well, no one verbalises a thing.
(There are many thoughts, however, and even more knowing glances exchanged between blissfully ignorant backs.)
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
It’s eight at night, and a wide awake Kim Seungmin is currently standing in the toiletries aisle of his nearest convenience store, an empty basket swung over his arm as he walks up and down the supplies shelves, shaking his head to himself at the way the store had recently had a complete rearrangement and wishing his brain was unscrambled enough to register where his usual bottles of shampoo were hiding.
All the time he had been putting to good use studying and trying to spend more time with his friends recently had failed to include time for actual self care, and he hadn’t realised that he was out of shampoo - and almost out of hand soap too - until he stepped into the shower that morning, about to turn the water on. He’s eternally glad he didn’t start the blissful, hot spray of water and step beneath it before turning to check how many shower supplies he had left, or else this grocery trip would be embarrassing, full of grease, and would leave him feeling filthy to his very core. For now, he can ignore the fact his hair hasn’t been washed in two days, grateful that it doesn’t look as greasy as he feels it does by a long shot, and browses the newly-rearranged shelves for his usual brand.
And yes, he could have used Felix’s shampoo, but something in the brands he currently uses makes Seungmin’s scalp itch like there’s no tomorrow. He refuses to touch the stuff, even in desperate measures such as this -- there’s nothing worse than walking around with hair that itches beyond belief and being unable to scratch it due to fear of accumulating ungodly amounts of dandruff. The one time he had stolen Felix’s shampoo, he had ended the day with fucking families of dandruff on his head: the dandruff had dandruff. Enough mentions of dandruff. He’s here for his own brand of shampoo now, one that does its damn job and nothing else.
He doesn’t realise that he’s not alone until it’s too late, and none other than fucking Lee Minho yells at him incredulously from across the store.
“Holy fuck, what kind of bong is that ?” He sprints down the aisle that Seungmin is currently standing in, ignoring the offended glares from fellow shoppers, and fixes his gaze on the item that Seungmin is holding.
“.... Hyung, this is a shampoo bottle.”
“Hm. Could have fooled me. What’s the shampoo made from? Cocaine?”
Seungmin fixes him with a blank stare. “You don’t smoke cocaine, let alone out of a bong.”
“All drugs are basically the same, right?”
“... No.”
“And you’d know that how ?”
An elderly woman passes the two of them and glares heatedly, but it’s her fault for eavesdropping.
“It’s common knowledge.”
“Until you’ve taken every drug available and can attest personally to your statement, I refuse to accept the truth. But I am in no way advocating the recreational use of harmful drugs. Now ,” Minho moves swiftly on, clasping his hands together and rubbing them in a way that resounds loudly, making Seungmin shudder too as the sound goes right through him, “there’s another event tonight. It’s not a partner-partner one, because those ended last month, but I was wondering if you’d still like to accompany me. We’re going to noraebang again; it’ll be fun! You were really good last time.”
Seungmin sighs, and pretends to think about it. “If I have to.”
Minho grins at him, and Seungmin knows instantly that the elder has already seen right through his act of reluctance. “You do have to. If you don’t come I’ll make you smoke a pine leaf out of that shampoo bottle.”
“I thought you were against drugs?”
“Pine leaves aren’t drugs. Loophole! Let’s go.”
Seungmin dithers for a second, glancing back longingly at the shampoo bottle he’d finally been about to buy and restock with, before putting it back on the shelf and sending Minho a withering glare as the elder has the audacity to laugh about his loss. Maybe he’ll steal Minho’s shampoo next, just to spite him. See how he likes it without means of washing his hair every day.
“I’m sacrificing clean, shiny hair for this,” he grumbles, but there’s no heat behind his words as Minho laughs delightedly.
“I’ve always thought a slicked-back hairstyle would suit you anyway. We can come back here after we’re done if you want.”
Spoiler: they did not, in fact, end up returning to the convenience store that night. But the loss of shampoo was entirely worth it.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
“So I was sitting there, steaming away like a merry little bowl of couscous, and this motherfucker has the nerve to push my entire face into my bowl of jajangmyeon ,” Minho retells the stories of last night’s noraebang with vigour, holding back his own laughter as Seungmin shakes with mirth beside him. The barely concealed grin contorting Minho’s face past the seriousness he’d like to be the very picture of only serves to make Seungmin laugh harder as Felix and Chan laugh along with him, finding the mental image of Seungmin faceplanting Minho into his food much funnier than Minho had at the time.
“It was -- it was funny ,” Seungmin wheezes, and an ugly syllable of laughter bubbles out of Minho, unbidden, and he presses his lips together to avoid any more as Felix starts silently slapping his thighs, unable to laugh any harder. “Hyung was covered in it, and his hair-- ” he snorts loudly, and their small group of four finally breaks apart, everybody collapsing in giggles, even Minho.
“You’re a little shit,” he fake-seethes, and Seungmin shoots him finger guns.
“You’re lucky Minho didn’t get any in his eyes,” Chan points out, amused, and Seungmin’s laughter joins Felix’s in the silent syllables of tear-inducing, body-shaking howls as he silently gestures to Minho’s face as if that would help him communicate at all.
“ I did, ” Minho fake-smiles. “It fucking burned. My eyelashes were fucking sauced .”
Seungmin and Minho had spent four hours at the aforementioned noraebang after Minho had dragged Seungmin kicking and screaming (not really) from the store last night, and spoiler alert: no, Seungmin hadn’t had time afterwards to go back and buy his shampoo. He had gone back this morning, shortly after waking up, to do a quick run there and back, and only then had he been able to carry out his long-awaited shower, which had in turn blessed today with a lovely fresh feeling that only comes with being freshly exfoliated and shampooed after a few days of feeling utterly disgusting. Now, the throes of laughter are making Seungmin heat up beyond comfort, and sweat begins to accumulate at the back of his neck, right where his hair meets his nape. He’ll be showering once more when he returns to his dorm room, he guesses.
“I wondered why Minho passed me at like, midnight last night looking weirdly moist,” Chan comments, and Minho fake gags at the word moist . “The lighting was dark outside, so I guessed you were sweating or something.”
“Sweating fucking black bean sauce, yeah,” Minho retorts angrily. “Count your fucking days, Kim Seungmin. Sleep with one eye open tonight.”
“Bold of you to assume I sleep at all.”
Last night’s noraebang had left Seungmin with more laughter-induced stitches than he had ever thought humanly possible to get, and lungs gasping around stolen half-breaks of air as he struggled to keep himself conscious through endless mirth. Although none of his close circle, albeit Minho had attended, it had been fun to be introduced to Minho’s other friends and experience what Seungmin felt was the real student life that he’d been missing out on for the first half of his first year of university. He still has a long way to go, but this made a magnificent start.
“I can’t believe I missed all this,” Felix groans from where his head has found a place on the table, cradled by his arms. “The one time I declined an invitation.”
“Self care is more important, Lixie,” Chan assures him, one hand stroking circles into his shoulder. Seungmin eyes the way his friend’s face blushes underneath his arms and holds back a telling chuckle. “It’s better missing a night of fun to rest and take care of yourself than become exhausted and not enjoy any of the socials you attend at all.”
“Mhmm, true,” Felix mumbles, and turns his face to the side, his cheek pressing against the cool wood of the table, away from Chan. Seungmin has a front row seat to the redness prominent on Felix’s face now, his freckles standing out wonderfully in contrast, and pokes one of his blushing constellations with a finger, making Felix recoil and pretend to bite him.
“When everyone’s free next week we’ll find time to go again, Lix,” Minho assures him, and Seungmin grins devilishly as he backs him up.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll even be able to recreate last night with Minho hyung to give you the full experience, so you’ve not missed out on anything,” he says innocently, and Minho pretends to whack him upside the head.
“Brat.”
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
“So,” Chan claps his hands together as he enters Changbin’s apartment pre-announced, and seven heads obediently turn to stare at him at once. He snickers, and Seungmin admires the happy crinkle of his eyes as he does so. “That mystery meeting I had with my higher-ups… They’re saying it could lead to a big opportunity for me, career-wise. I’m having another meeting next week with somebody from a big label, although they haven’t told me which one yet, and… yeah. It’s all very big and exciting, so I wanted to tell you guys.”
The room erupts in raucous applause, and Chan bursts into laughter as Felix, Jisung and Jeongin launch themselves at him at once, finding himself with armfuls of dongsaengs whose vigour threatens to knock him clean off his feet. Everybody else crowds around the four of them, waiting just a little more patiently for a turn of their own to personally congratulate Chan on this budding opportunity (Changbin forcefully peels Jisung off Chan and threatens to bite him when Jisung tries to wriggle in between Changbin and Chan again, whilst Seungmin leaps onto Felix’s back to get a leg-up and wrap his arms around Chan’s head in a suffocating hug that almost blinds the group’s eldest).
“Hey, leave some Channie for the rest of us,” Hyunjin whines, and Chan frees both of his arms to pull Minho and Hyunjin in, claiming that there’s always room for his family in his hugs. The group stands there for a moment, soaking in the love that they have for each other as they breathe in each other’s scents - each as comforting and unique as the other - before Felix sneezes loudly, and at least three of the group recoil in disgust.
“ Ew, hyung,” Jeongin says, and Felix grins sheepishly.
“Sorry. Couldn’t help it.”
Pulling a clean tissue from his pocket, Chan jokingly dabs at Felix’s face before handing it to him fully and then the group disperses across the room a little more as people find their seats again, begging Chan for more details, which he gladly gives, although a lot of the details are still unknown to him, or confidential until everything has been set in stone. And as much as he’d like to tell his friends about the confidential aspects, as exciting as the prospect is - he can’t quite trust that there won’t be an accidental slip of the tongue somewhere or other. They’re only human, of course.
Chan’s speech becomes mere background noise as Seungmin stares ominously at Minho, his face slightly tilted downwards to give himself an evil air as he waits for the elder to catch his eye. As if drawn in by a vice Minho stares back within ten seconds, and they start an unspoken contest as to who can go longer without blinking. Suddenly, Minho blinks slowly at Seungmin, and Seungmin’s heart flips as he remembers that a slow blink is a sign of trust shown by cats, and surely that wouldn’t be a coincidence as Minho loves cats so much himself, so a wordless sign of trust like that is so sweet it sends his heart into more somersaults and--
“-- And when Seungmin and Minho stop fucking dry humping each other from across the room we can go,” Jisung says loudly, and Seungmin startles a little, blinking and looking away.
“Die,” he tells Jisung, and follows Chan and Felix out of the room as everyone else laughs loudly.
“Where is it we’re going?” he whispers to Felix, and Felix chuckles lightly.
“We’re gonna go and get bubble tea. Chan’s craving some popping pearls.”
“Ah.”
A large painting, square and gold gilded, is being precariously carried out of a van when the group arrives at the bubble tea shop, and half of them wait outside whilst the others go inside to order, as there’s no inside seating and they should all probably take care and stay conscious of overcrowding - it was a little too easy to forget how big of a group they looked, at times. Seungmin watches the delivery men shift and lift the painting with great care, presumably (obviously) to place it into the city museum a few doors down, and the sound of Changbin and Jeongin chatting next to him becomes background noise as he begins to daydream.
Of course, daydreaming can only last so long when the human incarnation of a needy cat is standing right next to you.
“Minnie. Minnie. Seung-Seung-Seungminnie,” Minho is chanting, and Seungmin represses a grin as he bats blindly at his arm in retaliation, eyes still glued to the painting. It’s beautiful: what looks like oil paint hangs thick and textured on a weathered canvas, depicting a young woman in what an uneducated Seungmin guesses is a fucking long time ago , if the long, flowing hanbok and beautiful hairstyle is of any indication.
“Shush.”
“Shush, hyung ,” Minho corrects, and Seungmin makes a defiant sound in the back of his throat. Minho coughs loudly, and launches into a made up life story about the woman in the painting as if he knows it like the back of his hand.
“Oh, she was a dreadful, terrible woman,” he wails, “I know the woman in this painting and she would not have been wearing a dress like this. Oh, no, she was very scandalous back in her day… look at that. Look at that. She’s showing off her entire ankle.”
“Wow, what a slut,” Seungmin mumbles without thinking, and takes the mango fruit tea Chan walks out of the tea shop with, sipping blankly as Minho carries on with his furious ranting as if nothing had ever interrupted him in the first place, gesticulating wildly to the point of Seungmin automatically taking Minho’s tea out of his own hands before he spills or throws it everywhere. He takes a sip as payment for his actions, and pulls a face when a lemon flavoured popping pearl explodes on his tongue, chasing away the sweet mango he had chosen for himself.
“Lemon pearls? You monster,” he says, and Minho’s ranting halts faster than Seungmin could even blink.
“You literally eat entire lemons, you can’t say a word against lemon popping pearls!” Minho screeches, and Chan and Changbin start laughing behind them, leaning on each other for support.
“I have lemon privileges. You do not. Lemon pearls are bottom tier.”
“You’re insulting your entire family and lineage right now,” Minho mutters, but then Jeongin leans over to steal a mouthful of Seungmin’s fruit tea, and Seungmin’s handing Minho’s tea back to him to have a free hand to beat Jeongin away from him like a pesky fly; their conversation draws to a halt as they intersperse back into the rest of the group again.
Seungmin walks up to the sniggering backs of Felix and Changbin, who are whispering to themselves about old married couples and idiots , and takes a loud, obnoxious slurp of his fruit tea.
“You two talking about Felix’s hopeless crush on Chan again?”
“ You bitch , don’t let him hear you,” Felix practically shrieks, his voice turning uncharacteristically quiet towards the end of his sentence when a few of their group turns to him in amused question. Changbin’s snickers grow louder and Jeongin slips in between Felix and Seungmin.
“What’s this about Felix and Chan?” he asks with a devious grin, and Felix scowls.
“Another word and I’ll drink your entire bubble tea.”
“You’re talking real bold for someone within punting distance.”
“ You’re talking real bold for someone whose entire reputation I can ruin with just one sentence about a piano, a mango and--”
“ Okay! You win, you fucking cretin,” Jeongin yells over Felix’s voice, and Seungmin and Changbin crowd closer in interest.”
“What’s this about a piano and a mango?” Changbin sings, and Hyunjin turns around, spluttering on lungfuls of laughter.
“ Oh , are we talking about this again? A few weeks ago, this bitch had the stupidity to try and break an entire-”
“Another word and I’m telling Jisung about the time that you drunkenly made out with a chimney,” Jeongin practically growls , and the group falls silent in the street, freezing in pure disbelief as Jeongin grins. “Oops.”
“A chimney ?” Jisung wheezes, and Hyunjin slaps a hand over his mouth, trying in vain to stop him from asking more. His words come out wonderfully garbled through Hyunjin’s fingers. “How the fuck did he make out with a chimney ?”
“He climbed up onto some stranger’s roof,” Jeongin recounts with glee, and raises his voice over rising laughter as Hyunjin covers his reddening face, “and sent slate tiles flying everywhere. He was so committed that he didn’t even see the owner of the house come storming out to call the police on him.”
“You -- you-” Changbin howls with laughter, unable to speak properly as he points at Jisung. “You kiss the -- the mouth that’s ma-- m- made out with bricks--”
Minho falls to his knees laughing, and Changbin topples on top of him. They hold each other, close to tears with mirth, and Chan struggles to keep a straight face at the sight of everybody else’s facades breaking clean in half.
“Don’t laugh,” Hyunjin whines as Jisung joins the pile on the pavement, “it was a low moment for me.”
“It sounds-- it -- it sounds quite -- h - high -- to me-” Changbin wheezes, and Jeongin, Felix and Jisung’s laughter turns silent, the two of them creased in half, clapping like seals and slapping their thighs. Even Chan starts laughing then, and Hyunjin can’t help but join at that fucking comment.
“I hate all of you so much,” he whispers through hiccups of laughter, and Jeongin beams at him.
“I have better blackmail material than any of you. See what happens when someone else tries to expose me,” he deadpans, and Chan holds up a hand in interruption.
“No blackmail in verbal warfare.”
“Let those without stones throw the first brick,” Minho says solemnly, and Felix blinks at him.
“That’s not how the saying goes.”
“It is now.”
Seungmin practically inhales the last of his drink, popping pearls and all, and tosses the empty cup into a nearby recycling bin.
“This time tomorrow, it’ll be half past three,” Jeongin announces.
“Jeongin, it’s currently five-twenty.” Changbin looks confused out of his mind, the poor man.
“I said what I said.”
“One normal day. No - one normal conversation . That’s all I’m asking for,” Chan begs.
“Nah.”
“Nope.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Never.”
Chan inhales the rest of his tea and sighs. “It’s a good thing I love you all.”
They round a corner, and the sun breaks free from the confines of the clouds, casting a bright glow upon the group and the street before them.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
A further three months have passed since Seungmin’s fateful breakdown about his grades and internal pressure, and he swears his friends are doing everything within their power to distract him from his studies nowadays. It’s either that, or he’s completely missed out on so much chaos that being around them nowadays feels fresh and new, like he’s experiencing being fully part of a group for the first time.
Perhaps he is. Perhaps he’s finally learning to embrace the social aspects of life; those aspects that don’t come with a big red grade attached to them. It’s refreshing. He’s inhaling it like it’s the last oxygen he’ll ever breathe; he can’t get enough.
“I don’t need friends when I have the spider that’s been inching closer to my bed every day,” Jisung says, inspecting his nails. “Soon we will make contact. We shall bond. It is almost time.”
“I’m literally sitting right next to you,” Hyunjin replies, and Jisung snorts. Seungmin absentmindedly picks at a loose thread in his jeans as he leans back against the sofa, sandwiched in between Jisung and Changbin, and relaxes back into the cushions. Chan and Felix sit opposite them, separated by a coffee table full of mugs and empty bowls littered with chopsticks, and the TV serves gentle background noise to add to their raucousness.
“See if you’ll still be sitting next to me when Larry, my eight-legged friend, has anything to do with it,” Jisung carries on passionately.
“You’re not breaking up with me for a spider.”
“I’m just saying, he has more legs than you! And you know what they say about people with many legs!”
The room is silent for a minute.
“ No, ” Changbin says, “literally no one has ever said anything about that.”
“I’ll grow more legs for you,” Hyunjin offers, and Jisung beams.
“ Darling, ” he whispers loudly, clutching his chest, and Hyunjin throws his arms around Jisung with just as much vigour.
“That’s true love, folks.”
“Your relationship is so strange,” Chan mutters before picking up his bag. “Anyway, I’ve got to go now - I’ve got a meeting with a higher-up in about half an hour, although I’ve absolutely no clue what it’s for. Lix, remember to eat something today, or else I’ll be forced to eat you up myself. I’ll catch you all later!” and with that, a ruffle of Felix’s hair, and one last bout of slightly prolonged eye contact with his so-dubbed Aussie “ Bro ”, he leaves. As the door clicks closed behind him, four heads simultaneously whip back towards Felix, who blushes under the attention and desperately tries to divert it.
“ Absolutely not,” Changbin yells as Felix opens his mouth, no doubt in an attempt to spout the first bullshit that comes to mind as a last-ditch effort to avoid what he knows is inescapable, and their freckled ray of sunshine clamps his mouth closed again in defeat.
“When?” Seungmin asks. “When are you going to end your suffering?”
Felix grins. “What is love without suffering and pain?”
“ Healthy . Pack it in, Marianne Dashwood,” Hyunjin rolls his eyes, and Felix whines loudly.
“I still don’t understand your literary references. Anyway - my point is that I’m a coward and would rather perish than tell Chan how I feel,” Felix carries on. “It makes my legs turn to jelly and not in a good way.”
“If you tell him then maybe the good way will actually happen ,” Jisung bellows, and Hyunjin snorts. “And if not, you can move on and won’t be tormented by hesitance anymore. Win-win situation.”
“I’m good, but thanks for asking,” Felix bats Changbin’s fists away with an eye roll, and runs a hand through his hair, messing up the blond locks. “Maybe another time.”
“Suit yourself, but you know whatever you do in the long run will be supported by us all,” Seungmin says, and Felix plops himself down into Seungmin’s lap, snuggling into his side in gratitude.
“Thanks. I think I’ll pine for a while longer though; I’m comfortable where I am. No use rushing when I’m not entirely comfortable with things moving forward yet.”
“Good mentality,” Hyunjin applauds, and Changbin joins in as Seungmin strokes Felix’s hair.
They’re all going to be just fine.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Time to read for pleasure , Seungmin thinks, glancing one more time at the pile of textbooks he feels like he should be reading by now, but after making his promise to his friends and to himself to take better care of himself and achieve a better work-life balance, he sets them to one side and stands up, grabbing his phone and student pass for library access.
Following a late-night text conversation with Jisung the previous night, Seungmin had acquired a list of enthralling reads, ranging from sci-fi to non-fiction (but completely unrelated to his course content) and he planned to check out around three of them, to keep his seemingly insatiable mind occupied now that the space mostly occupied by studying has been cleared.
Having reached the library and moved on to scan the shelves for his first book, he’s so concentrated on scanning the authors’ names on each book that he fails to notice quiet footsteps creeping up behind him, and then it’s too late.
“... You got games on your phone? ” Lee Minho whispers right into his ear, and Seungmin bites down a shriek, turning around and aiming a blind punch in shocked self defense at the person behind him, not realising that it was Minho all along. Minho catches the fist aimed at him without missing a beat, grinning widely at the scared look on Seungmin’s face, and Seungmin relaxes once he registers Minho’s face, sighing and aiming another punch with his free hand at the elder.
“I can’t believe you,” he whispers, not wanting to disturb the peace of the library, and Minho lets go of Seungmin’s hand so that he can snicker into his own.
“Oh -- hang on, your collar is just a little-- ” Minho leans forward, and straightens Seungmin’s shirt with delicate fingers, featherlight touches. Seungmin freezes - what can he do? - and stares. Minho’s hair falls into his eyes just slightly as he looks down, concentrating on folding Seungmin’s collar so that it hangs just so, and Seungmin is punched with the urge to tuck the hair behind Minho’s ear for him, and use that same hand to pull him closer, and closer, and --
Oh .
From mortal (not really) enemy, to panicked gay mess. What a development arc , he thinks drily.
Seungmin reddens, although he thinks he controls it pretty well, and turns away once Minho pulls away, grinning with satisfaction at his handiwork of Seungmin’s collar. “Nice. Thank you. Sorry, I have a library to visit now so I have to go, haha...”
Blinking confusedly, a slow smile of realisation crosses Minho’s face, as if he knows he’s won already. “We’re literally standing in one right now.” Shit.
“Uh -- it’s a different library,” Seungmin covers up his mistake quickly, pulling out his phone and untangling his earbud wires as he speaks. Flawless execution, and extremely flawed logic.
“Oh?” Minho’s still smirking. “I wasn’t aware of a different library you had access to? The nearest one away from here is a good twenty miles away.”
“Oh yeah dude, it's the -- the Library of Alexandria! Anyway I have to go there now, I’ll see you later, haha,” Seungmin splutters, and then legs it out the door, hearing Minho’s pretty laugh chiming behind him as he leaves. The laughter alone tells him enough - that was one dumbass library to reference. But he can’t undo it now, and the main point is that he escaped unharmed -- all of him, apart from his pride. Yeah, his pride stings like a bitch.
Gonna go burn with those scrolls now, he thinks wryly.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
After Seungmin’s grand realisation , or as he would rather have called it, very much ungrand , being around Minho became just that little bit harder. He wasn’t uncomfortable, per se; just very much over aware of every little action both himself and the newly discovered object of his affections carried out, and from the smallest amount of eye contact to the longest physical touches he could measure between the two of them during their closer friendship, Seungmin feels like he’s in hell. What with his having to process the new information and his heart breaking into the electric boogaloo every time he tried to properly think about it, he hasn’t actually gotten very far in taking action on said feelings just yet.
When in doubt, eat a lemon.
He cuts it up this time, enjoying the slice of sharp metal through thick, waxy skin before it pierces the citrus beneath, and watches pinprick-width spurts of juice fly out of the fruit as he separates it into four waxing crescents. He’s alone in his dorm, so thankfully he doesn’t need to worry about being walked in on this time, and unceremoniously shoves two pieces into his mouth at once, trying not to laugh around the mouthful of fruit at the sheer absurdity of his actions.
I figure out I’m experiencing feelings and the first real action I take is to eat another whole lemon.
His lemon hoodie weighs heavy on his shoulders, dense out of nowhere, and his fingers brush the embroidered lemon sitting over his heart. He really needs a rebrand if this is what his life has come to.
I’m still distracted , he thinks, and shoves the other two pieces of lemon between his lips. They sting, and he knows he’ll regret that later, but for now he sucks the toe-curlingly sour juice from the fruit, bleeding it dry before pulling the empty zest from between his teeth as he chews on the remaining carpel; brain running a mile a minute.
I’m going to get a job.
Okay. Not the thought he had immediately expected to come out of a lemon, but he’ll take it. Is he running away from his feelings? Possibly. Is he also taking Minho’s advice in branching out away from his studies to do things that will benefit him? Probably.
Is a very secret part of him using a job as an ulterior motive to be able to save money to fund outings, including friend-group memories in the making and possibly even… dates?
No. Fuck you. (Definitely.) When Seungmin will admit that fully to himself is a mystery to even the most talented soothsayer.
He swallows the last of his lemon, pulls out his laptop, and types popular job sites into the Google search bar.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
It’s a few weeks later.
After Seungmin had finally landed a job as a librarian in the great library one town away from their university, and Chan’s mystery “meetings with the higher-ups” had lead to him signing an entire record label for his music (which unfortunately meant his leaving university a year earlier than planned, but no one dared acknowledge the less exciting aspects of his victory for now), the group collectively decided that they were due a big celebration, formal style, in honour of Chan’s fancy signing -- even though Chan did try to deflect his glory onto Seungmin too, because anybody landing a new job deserves to be congratulated, too.
And what better way to celebrate a formal occasion than in a formal, prestigious restaurant that costs much more than a pretty penny and considerably dents everybody’s already weak and tearful wallets? Of course, that was what everybody settled on, more than agreeing how Chan needs to be rewarded. He had protested at first, as was his nature, but had eventually given in on the day of their reservation; truly weak at the hands of seven dongsaengs with set intent on loving him to the very maximum of their abilities. So when he’s sent out into the early evening to grab some supplies for their ‘afterparty’, consisting of snacks steeped in carbs and drinks stronger than Chan’s resolve, he suspects absolutely nothing.
When he walks back into Seungmin and Felix’s dorm a while later; suit on, items acquired, present and ready to use that night, he stops in his tracks in the doorway and gapes. Sure, everybody is dressed formally : they’re all in black and white suits, complete with bowties and looking very dapper indeed - or, they would look dapper if they weren’t all wearing bald caps, sunglasses, and had tiny beards scrawled onto their faces with terrifyingly chunky face paint.
“Okay, I knew I said we should all dress up formally, but why are you all dressed like Pitbull --”
“Oh, not all of us are,” Felix (Chan can literally only differentiate by voices at this point, as the bald caps and sunglasses are great at disguising everybody) supplies cheerfully, and Chan feels his entire heart rise into his throat, choking him as Changbin steps out of the bathroom, wearing a furry tail and a scarily realistic, handmade, painted papier mache headdress shaped like a dog. An American pitbull, if you will.
“What the fuck .”
“Oh, hey Chan, you’re back!” Changbin says cheerfully from behind his mask. He shakes his butt, turning around for full effect - god , Chan’s never felt more threatened by a tail in his life.
“Why-”
“Well, everyone told me to dress like Pitbull and I didn’t get the fucking memo, it seems,” Changbin tssk s, “but it’s chill. I think I make a great pet pitbull.”
“Fucking furry,” Seungmin hisses across the room at him, and Minho and Jeongin snort loudly.
“We can’t go to a formal dinner dressed like this!” Chan wails despairingly, but he’s met with seven pairs of sunglasses and one papier mache dog head staring into his soul with the force of a thousand freight trains.
“Says who?” Jisung implores, and rips his shirt open, exposing his chest all the way down to his bellybutton. Someone chokes loudly behind him. “This restaurant is not ready for this.”
“I don’t think anyone ever will be,” Chan mutters, but everybody’s already started leaving, milling out past him into the corridor outside, and before he knows it he’s the last person standing in there. Distant commands telling Changbin to crawl on all fours get fainter as his friends file downstairs, waiting for Chan in the lobby of the apartment complex, and he closes his eyes in defeat.
He’s going to be the only recognisable person at the table. In this fancy, prestigious, cripplingly expensive restaurant. Suddenly, he wishes he had been included in these plans to dress up -- at least the rest of the group will be unrecognisable.
“We’re going to get banned.”
Sighing, he locks the door and heads out after them. If he’s going to be the only normally dressed person there, he’s going to make the most of it.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
“So,” Felix all but sings as he waltzes back into his and Seungmin’s dorm room the next day, bright and early at the sprightly time of three-thirty in the afternoon, “You looked like you had extra amounts of fun last night.”
Seungmin pretends to sigh as he closes the door behind Felix. “Ah yes, hello there to you too Felix, my day has been good, thanks. Yes, I did sleep well, thanks for asking.”
“Drop the act, you sly motherfucker,” Felix narrows his eyes playfully at his friend. “I saw you last night.”
“As did everyone…?” Seungmin pretends to have no idea what his hyperactive friend is getting at. He really knows exactly what Felix is getting at, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge it for fear of things becoming too real. He has a feeling that, however he tries to avoid thinking about last night, it’s about to bite him in the ass within the next five minutes regardless.
Felix pins him in place with a death stare. “Let’s just say that two out of the six Pitbull cosplayers sitting at our table last night looked a whole lot cosier than the rest of us!”
Seungmin gulps as images from last night flash through his mind; words whispered just a little closer to the ear than was normal for a public outing; an arm snaked around his waist; the smell of cinnamon and vanilla grounding him to reality as his heart pounded like the pitter-patter of a thunderstorm against glass on a cold, dark night.
Felix chuckles at the heat that clearly rises to Seungmin’s face and nudges him with his shoulder. Seungmin startles, having not noticed his approach, and Felix’s chuckles grow louder.
“You two looked close,” he murmurs, “closer than I’ve seen you to anyone other than me, Jisung or Jeongin, for a long time. It was nice to see you let your guard down for someone else like that. I’m happy for you.”
The unison of everyone but Chan and Changbin wearing identical bald caps had lent an air of anonymity to the night that had Seungmin comfortable enough to give in to the urge to be affectionate towards Minho, under the self inflicted delusion that nobody could quite tell who it was at the time. A naive point of view, yes, but to have it shattered completely by someone else makes Seungmin’s mind threaten to start thundering once more. Minho had held him last night, and Seungmin’s heart had stuttered and stumbled throughout every second at the feeling of Minho’s arm around his waist as they had sat around their large table, in a prestigious restaurant, always one wrong action away from being kicked out from their appearances and loud mannerisms that clashed with the formal atmosphere.
He had been fooling himself more than anyone, and that illusion had been blissful… but perhaps it was knowing, and letting himself acknowledge that the illusion was also reality, that made the memory even sweeter.
“It’s not like that ,” Seungmin argues weakly, but he knows that Felix can see right through him.
“Whatever it is like, I’m still happy for you,” he concludes, and pulls Seungmin in for a hug, long and warm.
“Thank you,” Seungmin whispers into his neck, and that’s that.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
It’s a little hard, to say the least. Adjusting to having a crush, the thing that Seungmin had honestly been dreading and fearing for the past goodness knows how long , was at first an annoying and dreadful process, before he realised that the only real thing he had been afraid of all along was just that: a word. A concept . In reality, was he scared of Minho? Was he scared of the feelings he felt when in his hyung’s presence, walking alongside him, laughing with him whilst wrapped up in warm butterflies that made him feel like he was flying along with them? No, of course not — to Seungmin, Minho is a place of comfort; an oasis in a suffocating desert full of unsurety, trials and obstacles. With Minho, it was like everything was going to be okay, no matter how big or small.
Of course, there still lingers the sour scent of doubt; the taste of things that could go wrong sticking to his tastebuds and stomach in an unpleasant coating of hesitance, but he’s come to recognise recently that all he needs to wash that taste away is just a sip of Minho’s presence; a hint of reassurance that no matter what happens, everything will work out as it’s meant to. It’s reassuring, to the point of such immense relief it could bring tears to Seungmin’s eyes. Now, he only needs to face his own fears, and take action.
It doesn’t happen as he had expected it to, but then again, when has anything with Minho ever gone according to expectation?
“Lemon man!” Seungmin hears behind him, and he slows his pace just a fraction to let Minho catch up to him, not looking back until the elder is right next to him, and only then does he allow himself to slow to a full stop, right outside the library.
“You know, that nickname is getting old,” Seungmin muses with mock sincerity. “Perhaps you should think of a better one.”
“Perhaps I should call you mine instead,” Minho fires back, and Seungmin feels a blush light his being up like flames, and if he spontaneously combusts right here and now then that’s Lee Minho’s fucking fault .
“God, just say you wanna kiss me and go,” Seungmin taunts with fake coolness, fully expecting Minho to splutter in indignance and leave.
He does not.
What he says next knocks the air right out of Seungmin’s lungs.
“Okay. I want to kiss you,” he says, and takes a step closer. It’s all Seungmin can do to simply hold his ground, and not run away like the scaredy-cat that he secretly really is. Schooling his features into indifference, he lets his gaze drop to Minho’s lips just once before meeting his eyes again, raising a single eyebrow.
“You’re acting so unbothered,” Minho whispers, stepping closer again and leaving only a breath between the two of them, “but you forget that I can read you like a novel.”
Seungmin’s heart stutters. “You’re clearly disregarding the last part of my sentence,” he says cooly, knowing he’d fare a lot better if Minho had just left once admitting he wants to kiss him. Two lovely syllables, that if obeyed can give Seungmin the chance to run away from his feelings once and for all before he even gets to give them a chance. Protection from potential hurt, and misunderstandings, and disappointment. However, he knows that’s not the best option to run, not this time; he shouldn’t leave the confession hanging. But is it really them if there isn’t a little push and pull involved?
“I know I am,” Minho replies with just as much indifference, but he’s walking forward as he says it, making Seungmin step backwards and backwards and backwards until his back meets the brick wall of the outside of the library, and he takes a quick glance around the deserted campus to check for onlookers. There are none - it’s almost midnight, after all. Any self-respecting student would at least be back at their dorm room by now, or out anywhere that isn’t campus.
Seungmin barely represses a gasp when his back hits the wall, and Minho crowds closer, grinning unabashedly when Seungmin’s hands come up to rest on his shoulders. Once again, Seungmin’s eyes are drawn to Minho’s lips like a magnet, and this time he can’t look away. Minho chuckles quietly.
“It seems like you’re the one who wants to kiss me , honestly,” he teases, and Seungmin rolls his eyes, leaning that little bit closer until he’s almost bridged the gap between them, but now just quite yet. Minho’s hands come to rest at his waist as Seungmin says his next words.
“Just kiss me already,” he mutters, voice strained, and thankfully, mercifully , Minho finally closes the gap, pressing his lips to Seungmin’s and revelling in the way the younger sighs into it, wrapping his arms snugly around Minho’s neck and relaxing into the intimacy like he was fated to be there all along. It’s soft; warm against the chilly night air, and most importantly, it feels a little like home.
They pull away enough to breathe, no further, and Seungmin pulls a face, feigning disgust. “You taste acidic.”
Minho laughs, and the feeling of it warms Seungmin’s lips, just millimetres away. “It’s the lemons. I got so curious I just had to try eating one.”
“And?”
“It was horrible. I cried.”
Seungmin laughs then, and Minho beams at the sight, his arms tightening around Seungmin’s waist. Seungmin tries not to show how much he’s melting into it, but the look in Minho’s eyes tells him that it’s not working a single stitch.
--
Of course, they have to have a lengthy conversation about boundaries: as with any relationship, it’s best to be clear on your partner’s preferences than trying things out of nowhere and making them uncomfortable, and for Minho and Seungmin it’s no different - if anything, more detail is needed to accommodate both of their needs and preferences, baring their asexualities in mind.
“I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily be against making out,” Seungmin rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed as Minho squeezes his hand; gently encourages him to speak on with a nod, “but just… without the expectation, or implication, of it going any further.”
“Agreed,” Minho says happily. “You know, it’s refreshing to have this conversation with someone whose preferences actually align with my own. We’re simply meant to be.”
Seungmin snorts; Minho’s sudden declaration takes him off guard. “Perhaps we are.”
Minho grins at him for a moment. “Okay, where were we? Public affection. How do you feel about that?”
As they slowly set boundaries and discuss what they’re comfortable and not comfortable with and doing, Seungmin feels content; fulfilled in a way he never would have thought this type of conversation would provide. He’d never thought that, should he start dating, his partner would care so much about having him feeling as happy and comfortable as possible in their time together, and had honestly dreaded some parts of it; expecting to have had to sacrifice his own comfort to keep his partners happy. The whole concept of romantic relationships must be sexual created by society had put him right off the entire subject, and although he had hoped to find someone who shared his own boundaries and feelings - perhaps even asexuality too - he had never actually thought he’d have succeeded in finding someone. And now look at him, holding hands with none other than Lee Minho across a quaint coffee shop table, working out their ground rules early on to avoid conflict or tension. Amazing.
“I never really thought a relationship would feel this nice,” Seungmin confesses quietly, and Minho leans forward a little in his seat to hear him better through the tinny background noises of the coffee shop. “To be honest, I’d never given it the proper consideration, but… thank you. For caring about my needs and boundaries so much.”
“Don’t thank me, I’m doing the bare minimum,” Minho laughs, but he squeezes Seungmin’s hand again, his eyes softer than honey. “But of course. Thank you for doing the same.”
There, surrounded by the smell of coffee beans and filtered tea leaves, Seungmin realises fully that this entire time, he’d had nothing to fear after all.
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Six months later.
“GET BACK HERE AND SET FIRE TO ME LIKE A MAN,” Felix howls, banging loudly on the bathroom door as Seungmin ducks behind it, winded with laughter.
“Not until I find the hair dye you stole, bitch,” he replies through the wooden door, and Felix screams as he bangs on the door again.
“But it’s limited edition! I need it to seduce Chan hyung with,” he wails, and Seungmin snickers loudly as he rummages through Felix’s drawers, privacy be damned. Privacy was ruled out a week ago, when his dye had first gone missing.
“I paid good money for this!”
“I’ll pay you good money if you let me keep it! Please, ” Felix fake cries. Seungmin pokes his head out of the bathroom door and pretends to think.
“No,” he says sweetly. Felix falls forward against him, defeated. “What if,” Seungmin suggests, “we share instead?” The hair dye box is a bigger one, and contains a specific shade that the brand doesn’t usually sell, hence Felix’s ulterior motives. It theoretically should be enough to do both Seungmin and Felix’s hair, if they’re careful with not spilling any or applying it too liberally. Felix’s eyes widen.
“You’re serious?”
“No,” Seungmin deadpans, and Felix giggles as he hits at Seungmin’s chest. “Of course I’m serious. We can be sexy and match and both have the hair colour we’ve been eyeing.”
Felix grins, and Seungmin feels happiness build in his chest like wildfire. “Okay. Now?”
Why the hell not? “Let’s do it.”
It takes six hours, several rounds of hair bleach and toner and an almost-breakdown before they’re done. Scalps stinging and weeping with chemicals and throats and noses hurting from the lack of ventilation in their small bathroom, the two finally emerge from their dorm with matching silver hair and twinning grins that rival the sun itself. It’s powerful. It’s new. It’s gorgeous. They feel… incredible.
“I hope this transformation will finally give you the confidence to do something about your damn pining, or else you wrongfully bribed me with your begging to use seduction as a method with your new hair,” Seungmin says to Felix as they step out into the sun, set on walking to Jisung’s apartment to show off their new hair. “I do know how to dropkick a bitch.”
“Well, I am feeling particularly powerful with this new look,” Felix’s voice takes on a sultry tone as he stops walking to wiggle his hips. The effect is almost ruined by the fact that he’s only wearing a hoodie and jeans, but the overall vibe makes Seungmin laugh anyway.
“Irresistible.”
“Let’s hope Channie hyung thinks so too.”
“He won’t need a new hair colour to think that, dumbass,” Seungmin mutters, but right as Felix opens his mouth to retaliate Seungmin rounds them through the doors to Jisung’s dorm block, and Felix is distracted by opening the doors to the elevator and pressing the correct buttons to get them to where they need to go. As far as they both know, they’re meeting the whole squad tonight, so everyone will be able to see their new looks at once without them having to send any pictures to the group chat to keep everybody in the loop.
Judging by the volume coming from Jisung’s closed door by the time they reach its outside, they won’t be waiting for many more people to join them tonight.
Felix takes initiative and knocks thrice, and adrenaline shoots through Seungmin’s veins in a spicy cocktail of nerves and anticipation. It’s Jisung who opens the door, and his jaw drops to the ground in an instant.
“No freaking way ,” he yells, waving his hands about in the air like a man possessed, “ NO FREAKING WAY?”
“Yes, I’m afraid,” Seungmin says as he ducks under one of Jisung’s arms, toeing his shoes off and ignoring everybody else’s yells of excitement as he and Felix plop down on the couch. “Yes freaking way.”
“You look so good, holy shit,” Hyunjin exclaims, and a quick glance across the room provides Seungmin with a glorious view of a very red-faced Chan staring, gaping, at Felix as if he’s the only thing he’s ever seen as well as the last thing he’ll ever witness. Glorious - Seungmin hopes they’ll finally stop dancing around each other now, it’s disgusting to watch. Perhaps now they’ll be able to communicate the strong feelings that love brings like they want to, instead of limiting themselves to being “good bros” in the face of being too scared to actually confess.
Speaking of communicating strong feelings… Seungmin lets himself relax into the arms that snake around his neck from behind, knowing the familiar, warm scent of cinnamon and vanilla anywhere, and smiles as Minho’s hair tickles his neck.
“When did this happen?” Minho says into his ear, bent over the back of the couch to get to his boyfriend, and buries a hand in Seungmin’s freshly dyed locks, cradling the side of his head. “You look so good.”
“Lix and I just finished dyeing our hair like, an hour ago,” Seungmin explains, leaning into Minho’s touch. “I had some dye and we decided to share it after Felix literally stole it from my drawer in the bathroom.”
“Desperate times!” Felix defends himself swiftly, holding his hands aloft in surrender when Minho turns to look at him curiously. He grins suddenly, and Seungmin wonders what he’s up to when--
“Hey, Channie, do you like our Felixie’s new hair?” Minho asks innocently, blinking rapidly, and Chan has to take a moment to compose himself.
“I -- yeah , yeah, you look amazing, Lix,” Chan barely manages to avoid stuttering, “amazing. Silver hair really fruits you, wow.”
Snickers fill the room as Felix blushes a deep red colour.
“Did you mean it suits him?” Jeongin asks, and Chan blushes even deeper.
“Oops. Yeah.”
“ Smooth, ” Minho whispers to Seungmin, who chuckles and shuffles further onto the couch, making room for Minho so that he doesn’t have to bend at an awkward angle to be close to him. He takes the bait immediately and sits down, thighs touching, one arm slung around Seungmin’s shoulders, and Seungmin’s heart feels giddy with warmth.
“I’m gonna go get some water,” Felix announces, and stretches as he stands to go and walk into the kitchen. Changbin snickers as Chan dumbly stares after him, gaze still locked on silver strands, and kicks him in the thigh to get his attention again.
“Go and like, follow him or something, dumbass -- hyung.”
Chan narrows his eyes, but wordlessly follows Felix into the kitchen, and the lounge explodes into giggles.
“How long?” Jeongin asks, eyes alight with mischief, and Hyunjin shrugs as Jisung grins.
“I give it two minutes,” Jisung says.
“Five,” Minho challenges.
“Thirty seconds,” Seungmin adds.
“I’m going to be the judge of this,” Jeongin decides, and tiptoes over to the kitchen door, which has been left open by a hair’s width. It’s enough for him to peer in as the living room grows silent with thick, sticky anticipation, and he grins for a moment, before--
“ Shite , yes, they’re kissing, good lord,” he exclaims, probably too loudly for anybody’s comfort, because a moment later Felix reemerges, missing a glass of water but with the addition of dishevelled hair and a similarly dishevelled looking Chan.
“Were you spying on us?”
“No,” Jeongin lies obviously, and Jisung snorts.
“I win!” Seungmin dances in his seat obnoxiously. “I’m better than all of you.”
Chan shifts between the balls of his feet, eyes flitting across the room, distracted. He takes Felix by the hand, who jolts slightly at the contact, his face colouring.
“I think we should go and talk in private about this,” he says gently, and flashes Felix a smile that does nothing to quell his obvious panic. “We’ll be back soon.”
Jeongin sniggers into a closed fist as the door closes behind them. “Who’s willing to take bets with me that they won’t actually come back?”
Changbin raises his hand so fast that he smacks Hyunjin in the side of the head, who wails dramatically and stumbles about, almost losing his footing and falling flat on his face.
“ Bet on it, bet on it, ” he sings, a beautiful harmony to Hyunjin’s fake screams of agony.
“Do you think they bet on us too?” Minho asks Seungmin offhandedly, and Changbin raises both arms above his head in victory.
“ I did,” he crows triumphantly. “I lost magnificently.”
“Wonderful,” replies Seungmin in slight disbelief. “And we had no idea.”
It’s been a long journey, but Seungmin recently realised that he can finally, finally take time for himself, both independently and socially, without the impending threat of failure and constant need to bury his head in a textbook following him around like an incessant, weighty stormcloud of anxiety. Now, he looks around the lounge, full of the five out of seven people he loves most, feeling the reassuring weight of his boyfriend’s arm curled around his shoulder, and he smiles.
He’s not carefree, but he’s content. He’s certainly no longer devoid of stress, but thanks to the help of his loved ones, he’s managing it a damn sight better than he used to be able to. He’s still learning to be vulnerable and let people in, and that in itself is already helping so, so much. He’s happy. He has everything he could ask for, in this stage of life at least.
And most importantly, he knows that although he feels as though he’s peaking now, the future will only ever shine brighter.
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~ .Fin. ~