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Minho isn't going to kill Chan.
He's going to slide into Chan's bedroom, open him up with a surgical knife, don't touch a single thing and sew him back up. He won't have a nice morning noticing the scar and thinking he's been kidnapped and experimented on by aliens (or that one freaky girl who would send him typewritten love letters signed in newspapers cut-outs. He wonders where she is now. Minho quite liked her).
Chan is still sporting a dazzling smile, dimples in full display.
Minho blinks. Slowly. For the third time.
Maybe he heard him wrong. The music in the bar is quite loud, and the lights are dizzying- they could easily cause a seizure, and with that maybe even an auditory hallucination.
He's genuinely willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, because he doesn't want to be forced to cut Chan open, but then he sees the smile quivering. A vein popping up just under his jaw.
Minho's hand twitches. He reaches for the napkins and pulls out one, then two. He's bunching four up in his hand, thighs flexed to spring out of his chair and stuff his mouth full, when someone throws his full body weight into the empty chair next to him.
"A cop pulled me over," Han Jisung, little brother extraordinaire, tells everyone and no one. "It's the third time this month. I get the car is a piece of junk, but it's so fucking unfair. At least I get to see them go like this-" he pulls a baffled face, "when they see me behind the wheel rather than a middle aged junkie with a joint in his mouth." A beat. "My Lee Minho. Still stuffing people's mouths with napkins, I see."
Minho is suddenly very aware that he's still halfway out his chair, one hand gripping the armrest and the other murderously held up in Chan's direction- but he also knows he looks good while doing it.
"Hannie," he complains, "your brother is cockblocking me."
Chan sputters. Jisung nods gravely, stealing his brother's beer.
"Classic Chan."
Chan sputters more intensely.
"Excuse me? When did I ever cock-block you?"
"Lee Yun Hee," Minho and Jisung say at the same time.
Chan blushes. Changbin laughs like a hyena, coughing on his food. Sae laughs too- she's heard the tale of Lee Yun Hee a dozen times already.
"That was so embarrassing," Changbin bellows out. "You really did him dirty with that one, Channie. One to Jisung!"
Chan doesn't raise his glass (understandable) and Emily doesn't either. She just sits there looking confused.
"That was different," Chan mumbles. "You're my little brother. I didn't want you to get hurt."
"By Yun Hee?" Jisung says like he isn't over it and he's never going to be over it in his life, even if he is, just for the principle of it. "If anything, I was going to hurt her and we all know it."
"Not you being proud of it," Changbin laughs. "I miss fourteen year old Jisung so much."
"I don't," Jisung says quickly, pushing his hair out of his eyes.
Minho does. Weird little emo freak with his blue hair and fuckboy clothes and his allergy to authority and a very bad case of the how hard can it be? gene. He was so cute.
He's still quite cute today, with his black, fluffy permed hair with a little duck tail on his nape and his flannel peeking out under his oversized sweatshirt. Minho smooths down the collar, just because.
"Liar," Changbin calls him out. "And if you aren't lying, you should be. Fourteen year old Jisung was a real one."
Jisung covers his face with his hands, screams into them in tiny, then straightens his back and points at his brother.
"We're talking about your shame, here," he reminds him.
Oh, right.
Miho slumps into his chair, arms hanging by his sides.
"Hyunjin was supposed to be here tonight," he whines, lips parted, because today dignity feels like petulance. "He said he isn't coming anymore!"
"How is that me cockblocking you?" Chan protests. "I did invite him, and he did say he was going to come tonight. He had something coming up."
"Something like what?" Jisung asks inquisitively.
"I don't know!" Chan protests. "You know I don't pry! You don't count," he quickly dismisses Jisung. "Your business is my business. Still, I'm really sorry, Minho."
"It's not the first time he just happens to cancel."
"He's busy?" Chan tries, squinting his heart away. "He's rehearsing two shows and he's got his art classes to attend."
"And somehow," Minho nurses in his mouth, "he's always free when I'm not."
Chan winces.
"I swear it's a coincidence, Lino. Why would I cockblock you?"
"Because you're a control freak," Jisung says way too readily. "You don't think they should be together, so you're keeping them apart."
"You're so smart, Hannie," Minho coos in a rather irritating voice, just because he can.
Jisung scrunches his nose, lips in a small, smug pout.
"I am, am I not? Stole all the smarts in the family."
"I don't deserve that," Chan is peremptory. "And this is not your fight anyway."
"Yes, it is. He's my champion."
"He's your what?"
"His champion," Jisung nods along. "He chose me to fight in his stead. As a representative."
Chan looks at Minho, dead in the eyes.
"Coward."
"A coward that wins."
Jisung holds up his fist and Minho bumps it with his elbow just because. Jisung laughs and softly slaps him on his arm.
Chan looks exasperated. Then he looks quite happy, when a quick glance at the clock tells him pre-game is over and the movie is starting in thirty minutes.
"But I just got here!" Jisung complains while they all get up. "I didn't even get to drink."
"We'll get one to go," Minho says. "I'm driving you. We don't want you to get pulled over again in that cesspool of a car, do we?"
"I'm against the commodification of basic utilities. My cesspool of a car's got four wheels and functioning lights, what more would I need?"
Heated seats, apparently.
Jisung slumps in the passenger seat with a satisfied stretch, pressing himself to the pleather and his plastic cup to his lips.
"Warmth is a basic human need," he purrs, anticipating any jokes Minho could make at his expenses. "And this is very nice. Chan's heated seats take forever to warm up- they're an unjustifiable cost."
"Don't get too comfortable, there. You're going back to your four wheels and functioning lights when the clock strikes midnight."
"Maybe I don't have to," Jisung ponders. "Maybe you could be my chauffeur. You would look good in one of those hats."
"Do you pay well?"
Jisung smiles brightly.
"I trade in charming personality and randomly specific facts."
"Tempting," Minho smiles, slowing down at a yellow light rather than speeding through it as he would on any other night. He doesn't ask his feet why. "But I do have to feed my brothers."
Jisung lights up.
"Kittens! How are Soonie, Doongie and Dori?"
Minho smiles brightly and launches himself into a dissertation about Soonie's naps, Doongie's zoomies and Dori's newfound love of watermelon. He's quite satisfied with Jisung's oohs and aahs, and the way he asks to see pictures when they park.
Which they do far too quickly.
Jisung gets kidnapped by Changbin as soon as they regroup, and Minho is left cockblocking Chan in revenge. It does have the unfortunate side effect of him having to interact with Emily, who he is sure is a lovely woman when she isn't spending the whole night with her mouth shut in fear. She finds you unpredictable, Changbin told him one day, and she likes predictable.
She's definitely dating the right person for that. Chan is dependable, sturdy and his surprises come with a list of curated trigger warnings. He's always been very chill with other people's plans, but his life is not left up to chances.
Minho's is. As long as he's got the big picture down, he doesn't really stress over the whens or hows. He finds it much more productive to ride the wave when it comes, rather than fight it. Not that he has any business using surf-adjacent metaphors- the deepest waters he's crossed have all been chlorinated.
He's squeezing a single pop-corn in between his teeth when Jisung tugs his arm and drags him all the way back from the group as they're settling down in the theater.
"Sit with me," he says. He doesn't elaborate further. He doesn't have to.
Instead, he takes a bite out of his Kit Kat bar, which to Minho is the only right way to do it. Jisung's cheeks puff out while he chews, as round and soft as ever.
"Oh," he says while the trailer rolls. "Sorry. Did you want some?"
"Nah." He dips into the popcorn, puts one on his tongue and one between his teeth. He leans over to Jisung.
Jisung wrinkles his nose and scoots away.
"Don't try to mouth-feed me."
Minho sulks. Jisung doesn't cave. He looks like he wants to argue his point further, but Sae tugs at Minho's sleeve to ask him if puffer fish puffer up when they're threatened or are doing the threatening, and Minho asks why, and the discussion degenerates and the question goes unanswered. Or at least it does until the movie opening credit rolls, and Jisung leans into him, puts his lips close to his ear, covers it with his hand so the sound doesn't get lost, and says: "-".
Minho misses it.
He got that he was talking about the puffer fish, but that's about it. He spoke really low. And really close. His wrist smells woodsy and spicy, blending nicely with the sweet chocolate on his breath.
Minho nods, with a poignant ah.
Jisung drops his hand, but doesn't really move any further away. His shoulder grazes Minho's for the first thirty minutes of the movie- then his whole arm does, when he starts toying with his hoop earring.
Minho hates Chan.
He doesn't know why yet, his brain hasn't caught up with his stomach, but he's sure it's warranted.
It's only when Jisung says bye with one last, glorious heart shaped smile and climbs into Chan's car rather than Minho's, that his brain decides to kick-start.
Not only Chan didn't bring Hyunjin like he promised, but he brought Jisung instead. To pacify him. He said "I know you can't have your questionably straight guy of the month, but look! I brought your fourth cat! Play with him!"
And it worked.
He hasn't thought about alien kidnapping ploys, tissues, Hyunjin nor Chan for most of the night.
He has, extensively, thought about Jisung's woodsy, spicy cologne.
It still works while he drives home and doesn't take a turn to go cut up Chan's precious, perfunctory abs.
💫
Chan sends him Hyunjin number.
Minho's trying to figure out where the catch is.
"I can't believe he's making himself complicit," Jeongin wallows from somewhere around the apartment, like Minho is some sort of sex offender.
Minho just has a thing for straight guys.
Specifically, for guys he knows have experimented, or questioned, or have at least taken the am-I-gay quiz online before, and have then settled in their sexuality. Secure straight guys who give him a second glance because they've given an eye to male beauty before.
Minho finds them, he flirts with them, he blurs the lines, and when he inevitably gets kissed, he gets drunk on the satisfaction.
It's already a thrill to make guys question. It gets to his head to be an exception.
He's not an idiot. He knows half of those men probably closed a chapter too soon, took too brazen a decision- but they don't think they did, and that's what matters to Minho's cat brain.
He also knows it's icky. He knows Jeongin is well within his rights to judge him and tell him he gives gays a bad name and whatever he's been yapping his way over the years.
But Jeongin is the boring kind of gay. The one who finds a boyfriend and settles down and gets a two story house with flowers in the garden and becomes the light of his conservative neighbors' life.
Minho is on the boring end of the fucked up gay spectrum. He circles around straight guys like a cat with a mouse, waits until the prey is exhausted, then pounces. He would make conservative neighbors clutch their rifles in their sleep. Not that he would ever give them the time of day: he only goes for the kind of straight people who don't make it his problem that they're straight.
Like Hwang Hyunjin.
He caught sight of him briefly at one of Chan's things. Tall, pretty Hyunjin with a laugh chittering like glass and an easy oh, I'm flattered, but I'm straight. I've tried, ready on his lips when one of Chan's coworkers tried his luck with him.
He opens a new chat, Hyunjin's number at the top of the screen.
"Don't," Jeongin orders him. It's cute that he still tries. "Unless you're texting a therapist."
"You should text a doctor to take care of that stick up your ass."
"You and I both know I'm not uptight. I have fun." He wrinkles his nose. "With other willing gay guys."
"Boring," he states, fingers hovering the keyboard waiting for a stroke of inspiration. "Where's the thrill in that?"
"Hypocrite." He sips on his regular energy drink-spiked herbal tea. "Aren't you always the one to say trash should be taken out?"
"Exactly." He blinks up at him from his spot on the couch, hair brushing the carpet and feets losing circulation above the back. "I always take myself out swiftly before morning even comes."
The disgust woven on Jeongin's face should be comforting. This is what they do, this is what Minho does. Just another day in the comfortable life they built for themselves.
And yet Minho hasn't texted Hyunjin yet.
Something to do with the sickening aftertaste lingering in the back of his throat.
His phone chimes.
It's alien-squirrle-sparkles.
The last text in the chat is a picture of Minho with his face stuffed into Sonnie's fur, his lips nooting. Jisung never replied to it.
PLS
Tell me you're caught up with NSR
Please be I'm foaming at the mouth
Minho should be. He opens up his Shonen Jump app, realizes the last update is from six days ago, opens his favorite scan site, quickly reads through the chapter, gets his mind blown and types:
I knew they were eating each other
RIGHT?????
I've been telling the world they got their powers eating from a human flesh buffet and NOBODY believed me
I knew you would get it my little weirdo boy 👽😺
You know I always do 👽🐿️
"Oh, no," Jeongin deadpans. "Is it Jisung?"
Minho ignores him. He types faster.
"I'm out of here," Jeongin announces with a grimace Minho doesn't see because his eyes are glued to the chat. "For a week. I'll be at Chan squared."
He'll be back tonight. Jeongin hates being babied and Chan and Changbin have dedicated their lives to babying him. It's tragic, really.
He texts so to Jisung, because what is yet another conversation thread if not pure bliss.
They do this sometimes.
Talk like they're starved of human interaction, pour all the words they should be using in a month in a twenty minutes back and forth, and then keep going for hours on end. They do this for a day, three, a week, and then one of them forgets to reply, or gets in a slump, and the conversation doesn't pick up again until the next, rare time Jisung feels like hanging out with his brother's lame friends rather than his own.
Jisung's friends are cool.
Felix is a deep voiced freak who models for a living, and Seungmin makes it look like he willingly chose an office job rather than being a rockstar.
They were all in highschool together. Including Jeongin. It's a little embarrassing how Minho made lifelong friends with a freshman when he was due to fly halfway across the country to go to college in a handful of months- but Jeongin needed him. He could tell. Everytime Minho grabbed someone's butt or gave them an impromptu lap dance because that's what he did when he was seventeen and bored, he would look at him with disgusted, wide eyes, as to ask is that allowed?
It was his duty as a trademarked confident gay to answer his question with a resounding yes, each and every time.
I taught him everything he knows, (he types to Jisung).
And he went and turned out boring
He wants kids, Hannie
KIDS
You don't have kids when you're gay, you have cats
Or dogs I guess
Or an iguana
KIDS????!?!
Uttermost betrayal
How dare he
He doesn't deserve you
I would never do that to you
I won't
I'll get a cat and an iguana
Just get the iguana
You'll get SoonieDoongieDori when Jeongin gets married and leaves the apartment
You can move in
Dammit now I have to play matchmaker to hurry things up
Maybe Seungmin has some gay to give
To you maybe
He's obsessed with you
I KNOW
Chris showed me a picture of our senior talent show and Seungmin
Wait
Minho waits typing meows in the chat until a picture comes through.
Chan, ever obsessed with his brother, was home from college to help as a stage manager, so the picture is taken from backstage. Jisung's hair is bleached blond and a little frizzy, his mouth half curled up like it does when he raps. He's eating up that stage with all the confidence fourteen year old Jisung worked so hard to force, and eighteen years old Jisung just had.
He stares at the picture until it gets eaten by the top of the screen, pushed up by Jisung's texts.
SEE??
LOOK AT HIM
IT'S DISGUSTING
I FEEL VIOLATED
I LET HIM LIVE WITH ME WHILE HE WAS LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT?????
I'M TEMPTED TO MOVE IN WITH HIM AGAIN JUST TO WALK OUT ON HIM
Minho has to scroll back up and actually pay attention to anything other than Jisung.
There, in the shadows of the other side of the stage, Seungmin's smile is blinding while he stares at Jisung like he's a freshly photocopied document.
Ew
✝️✝️✝️✝️✝️
I feel violated NOW
🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
I need to wash my eyes with bleach
I drank bleach before
When I was a kid
Like chugged a whole cap and didn't tell anyone until two days later
Doctor said since I didn't die I would probably just never get sick again
Minho
Baby
I was there to see it
We thought you got superpowers
Why do you always forget about me? 🥺
I'm the cooler Han-Bang brother 🥺
Neither of you is cool
But you're the whiniest
He gets 0.3 seconds of whining.
He gives back 0.2 seconds of an over the top smacking kiss.
Ew
Please don't
Kiss me in person not on tape
I'm scarred by Felix's ASMRs
Fried chicken
It makes no sense. Minho hears Felix and his brain goes fried chicken, just like that. Jisung knows that it does.
The conversation derails, again and again, and Minho gets drunk on it.
He never has to explain himself, or keep himself from sending something weird and out of context just because his brain jumped to it without permission.
When Jisung has to go to work, off tattooing someone's skin with bold graphic lines, Minho's head is light and his tongue is bubbling with laughter.
He loves Chan the most. He's bonded to him by blood and spit.
That's why he can admit Jisung has always been his favorite.
💫
"Lino is talking to Jisung," Jeongin announces when Changbin, Chan and Emily cross the threshold of the apartment. "Excuse him for his behavior tonight."
Changbin clutches his boob in betrayal, Chan dissociates, Emily looks confused, and Minho smiles like a cat. He lazily puts a strawberry in his mouth.
"Sweet. Tastes like jealousy."
"Why is he talking to you? He said he was busy tonight," Changbin asks, throwing himself on the couch next to him.
"He is."
He takes a good look at Minho's screen.
"He isn't!"
"He's not free, he's watching RTB." Changbin looks at him like he's having a stroke, because his anime knowledge is stuck in the early twenties. "Reborn the Blade. Anime."
"Oh, right. You're both nerds."
"They go through this every so often," Jeongin is explaining to Emily in the background, like it's a health condition. "He'll go back to being his own person in a week or so."
He's typing we should report Jeongin's PSN account when Changbin wrestles his phone out of his hands and stuff a palm on his face.
"Hanji!" He shouts in the phone while Minho moves his arms around, blindingly hitting Changbin's wardrobe of a body. "Come hang out with us! You can make out with Minho with tongue and we'll say nothing."
Chan gargles like a vomiting Victorian child possessed by the devil.
"That would honestly be less annoying," Jeongin says.
Minho stops fighting Changbin's hand and pulls away, squinting at Jeongin.
"Wouldn't that be depraved predatory behavior now, Innie?"
"I said," he sighs, circumnavigating the couch to drop on the armchair, "that it would be less annoying, not that it wouldn't be depraved and predatory."
"Can you stop talking?" Chan begs, with just a hint of authority that isn't dangerous to toy with yet. "That's my little brother you're talking about."
"Exactly," Jeongin says, looking at him without fear. "He's the original sin."
Minho has no idea what he means. Neither does Chan. Emily looks like she's about to bolt. Changbin shares a manly, depressed bro fist with Jeongin.
Minho kicks his face with a socked feet.
When the doorbell rings they're wrestling on the couch and he's losing, but biting while he does. To Changbin food is more important than an honorable win, so Minho gets thrown off the couch onto the carpet. He rolls dramatically onto his back.
"He's coming," Jeongin tells him, throwing his phone directly onto Minho's stomach. "Don't embarrass yourself."
He does.
He rushes to open the door when Jisung gets there, he straightens the collar of his flannel where it peaks out of his sweater, he feeds him the pizza he personally saved from Changbin's grubby hands and slings a leg over Jisung's when they settle on the couch.
Jisung, as he always does, looks at him like he's weird, and as it always does, it doesn't bother Minho in the slightest. Not when it's so clearly a compliment, and Jisung leans into the hand feeding him.
Nothing about it is new. They've always been handsy.
What's new is that Chan looks bothered. Sure, he's got a fond smile on his lips while he looks at Minho doing his best to try and get Jisung to hold his hand without asking for it, but there's a crease between his eyebrows that begs to be smoothed.
Maybe it's because Emily is there to witness it. She's looking at them a little awkwardly, and maybe it's making Chan think this is awkward too. That it should be, at least. Then Jisung takes the hint, laces their fingers together over Minho's knee, and Minho's brain goes purrrrr.
They're watching a movie, but they're not. It's just background noise. Jeongin texts them quizzes in the group chat that Minho promptly forwards to Jisung, Changbin and Jisung diss each in raps, Chan dotes on Emily hard enough to make her forget she doesn't really like her boyfriend's friends.
Soonie joins them eventually, lured by Jisung, who picks him up and showers him in praise, and kisses his forehead even if it makes his eyes swell up and his nose itch. When he finally sneezes, Soonie bolts out and Minho gets to act on his cuteness aggression. He manhandles a whiny Jisung until he's got him on the floor, caged between his arms and legs. Jisung is resisting, his hands wrapped around Minho's wrists. He's a safe distance from Jisung's neck, but he's drowning in his woodsy spicy cologne all the same, lulled to feline satisfaction.
Jisung's sweater is slipping down his shoulder, baring the soft worn-out flannel. It looks tasty.
He wants to bite it, and so what if Jisung's shoulder goes with it. He opens his mouth.
He clicks his teeth together instead when Jisung turns, his eyebrows raised in a very cute and definite warning.
"Minho," he says, fondly irritated. "No."
"I wasn't doing anything," he pouts.
"Then you've got nothing to whine about."
He whines away, leaning his head back on the couch cushion and dragging Jisung with him.
He slumps on his chest, a soft bundle of oversized clothes and fluffy hair and woods and spice.
Minho's breathing evens out. He feels drowsy all of a sudden. He also feels like he should be bundled up in Jisung's arms rather than the other way around, but he's too tired to move.
"You can tell him off, if he's bothering you," he hears Chan say in blurred edges. How dare he middling in the one thing he isn't welcomed to.
"I do," Jisung says with a little bite. His thumb sweeps on Minho's fingers, their hands still all bundled up in a clammy, warm tangle. "He's not."
Minho falls asleep drunk of satisfaction.
He wakes up alone and cold, starfished on the carpet. He can't be too mad about it. Jisung is humming a tune strumming Jeongin's five stringed guitar. Chan and Emily are making out in a sickly sweet, weirdly unobtrusive way, tucked away on the love seat. Changbin and Jeongin are talking about some real life shit, like job perspectives and investments.
"Hannie," he says, making grabby hands at him. "You're too far away."
Jisung laughs- that staccato, low laugh that he developed during Minho's first year of college and gifted him when he was back for the summer.
He's just sitting on the couch, above Minho's feets.
He kicks Minho's hand away. Minho gladly accepts the offer and wraps his fingers around Jisung's ankle, just a little too high, touching more bare skin than he was expecting too. His socks are mismatched.
He's biting on the tip of his tongue, fingers moving on the chords.
Minho likes it when he's focused. When he uses his smarts to make something great. Something precious. Something grand. Something that will make Minho believe Jisung is the one person in the world that could really do anything he wanted. That he's living life exactly the way he enjoys, because if he wasn't satisfied, he would shoot for the stars and reach them.
Jisung gets goosebumps when Minho grazes his ankle with his nails.
"Did you text him?"
Minho blinks, eyebrows up to his hairline.
"Who?"
"Hyunjin," Jisung spells out like he's playing stupid. "I lectured Chan about minding his own business for once. He said he'd text you his number."
He glares at his brother, then promptly looks away with a grimace, perturbed by whatever sickly sweet cuddling is punctuating the cooing noises.
"Ah. He did."
"So? Did you text him?"
"You texted me."
Jisung gently puts the guitar aside.
"Are you aware you can text more than one person?"
"No, I can't," he complains, letting his ankle go when Jisung wants it back. "I don't have enough energy to."
"Me neither," Jisung has the intellectual honesty to admit. He slumps down the couch, throwing his head back, exposing the long curve of his neck.
"Sorry."
Minho blinks again.
"About what?"
"About taking up your texting energy bar."
"I like it when you do it."
"Minho."
A long stretch of kissing sounds and financial advice.
"Yes?"
"I know him."
"Who?"
"Hyunjin."
"Oh. Yeah. I guess you would. He dances with Felix, right?"
Jisung nods.
The lazy atmosphere shot his energy back down. His voice is slow and low like crackling fire. Minho leans his forehead against his fingers, staring and staring and staring.
Soonie walks up his chest and stabs his ribs kneading his paws there.
"I think he's straight."
Minho's smile is sharp and sweet.
"Oh, I know."
"I think he tried it out already," Jisung goes on, threading waters he hasn't really dipped his toes into before.
"So he says."
Jisung's eyes are hungry for a riddle, the hands buried in his pocket no doubt twitching to play with the pieces of this new section of the Lee Minho puzzle.
"And you're still going for him."
"I like to feel special. It's the bright side of weird."
"I like weird," Jisung says with his brow furrowed. "It's plenty bright on its own."
Minho feels fuzzy. Sticky.
He scratches Soonie ears, squints up with a makeshift naive smile.
"And aren't I the brightest?"
Jisung's foot sneaks under his thigh. His head falls to the side, eyes heavy lidded and a hint of a heart in his smile.
"Always."
My little weirdo boy. He's never heard it out loud.
Minho slow blinks.
Soonie stops stabbing him and curls up in a heavy weight on his chest.
He's only aware there's something to be interrupted when Jeongin and Changbin walk back into the living room.
"Look, they're all coupled up," Changbin smiles wickedly. He sneaks his arms around Jeongin. "We're the only one left, Innie. Give me a kiss?"
Jeongin fights for his life. He gets one sloppy kiss on his cheek before he manages to run away, and by that point Minho forgot why he was glaring at Changbin, but he keeps it up anyway, because he feels like he deserves it.
Then they're all gone and he, Jeongin and the cats are the only ones left in the apartment. Doongie and Dori reclaim their land while Soonie purrs in Minho's arms, and he feels pleasantly tired and full- like he just ate a nice warm meal rather than greasy pizza with a side of fried chicken.
Not even Jeongin speaking nonsense manages to ruin it.
"I'm sorry. For joking about it."
"You're not making any sense, Jeonginnie," he lets him know, kissing Soonie's paw. "You should go to sleep."
Jeongin sighs, but he steals Dori off the floor and walks off to his room.
💫
Minho woke up with an idea.
Jisung's downturned eyebrows and parted lips confirm to him that it isn't just a weird one, but a questionable one.
"You want a tattoo," he says. He looks Minho up and down. "You."
"Yes. I'm fun, Hannie. I'm almost thirty-" "You're twenty seven." " -almost thirty, and my go-to hair color is purple. Why is it so weird that I want you to ink me up?"
"That you hate anything permanent."
He says it as a matter of fact. Minho leans over the counter.
"No, I don't."
"You're wild, Minho," he insists, like he's being difficult on purpose. "You don't put a healthy tiger in a cage."
"But I was born in captivity," he whines. "I've been living in a cage my whole life."
"I'll do it if you want me to," Jisung says carefully. "But why now?"
Because he's steady and diligent, and he works well with a schedule, but he would fuck it all up if something shiny caught his eyes.
Because he always gives ninety percent, always keeps a healthy ten for himself, but he only does it because it feels nice to have his hands full with something.
Because he's weird.
He's always been weird.
And Jisung has always made sure he never thought it was something to be ashamed of.
"Because I'm a weirdo little alien boy," he purrs, eyes a slit. "And I want a tattoo."
Jisung looks endearingly amused.
"What do you even want?"
"Something alieny. Kitteny. Starry. Doodly. Jisungy."
He smiles and picks up his tablet. He's wearing a black t-shirt and a giant hoodie designed to look like Howl's cape. His hoop earrings dangle from his ears, a curly strand of hair caught in one.
Minho wants to untuck it. He doesn't, because Jisung is focused, even if he's humming.
"You're staring," he says, like Minho isn't self aware.
"I want to see the artist at work. I'll have plenty of time to look at the design."
Jisung smiles, pleased, and parts his bangs with the back of his pen.
He's always been so pretty. Soft cheeks, strong jawline, sharp tall nose, long eyes that so easily turn round. They aren't now. They're narrow and lazy and focused. Little weirdo alien is on his planet, and Minho gets to see him.
He hums without any real reason to. Then he holds up a finger. Jisung touches it with his own fingertip. Alien to alien communication.
It makes Minho so giggly he thinks about being embarrassed for a minute, which is a huge mistake because now he is and his ears are red.
He keeps quiet and looks pretty while Jisung works.
"Something like this?"
He turns the tablet to Minho.
It's a doodle. A tiny chubby kitten standing on an even tinier planet with his mouth open, trying to bite a chunk of a pretty star. His tail curls around the planet like a ring. It's so stupid it hurts.
"Yes," he says, a little choked up. "But his mouth needs to be heart shaped."
"No."
Minho regrets any emotion that isn't rightful anger.
"What do you mean no."
"That he's the one who gets the heart shaped mouth," he zooms to the left to show him a tiny alien-like thing that looks like nothing and a small rodent all together.
"Then I want him, too."
Jisung indulges him. He mirrors the image and places it across the star, on his own little planet.
"That's sad," Minho says. "I don't want them to be apart."
"They're close," Jisung says softly, voice smooth and velvety. "They eat the same stars and they talk to each other whenever they feel like it. They're apart, but they're not lonely."
They aren't. They are stupid, and cute, and then Jisung adds little bunny teeths to the kitten and a string swooping between their paws, and Minho thinks he might just die. End his life as a human and go back to his mothership.
"I want it," he says. "When can I get it?"
Jisung laughs, in something like disbelief.
"Han," he says with all his determination, which is quite a lot. "I want that on my body. Somewhere I can see it."
Jisung's eyes are shining in the harsh lights of the studio. They're down turned, and so are his eyebrows and his mouth.
"Lee Minho," he says, deadly serious. "We can't get matching tattoos."
His ears are flaming up.
"Says who."
"Common sense."
"Good thing I don't have any."
"Minho."
"Han," he calls, sternly. "I want those stupid ass looking little gay aliens tattooed on me."
"They're not gay," he mumbles. "They're starmates."
Minho grinds his teeth and clutches his heart in a completely genuine, totally over the top reaction.
"Hannie. I need them."
Jisung laughs softly, drawing little stars and moving them around. Stalling.
"You don't have to get it too, you know," Minho says.
"But I drew them," he says. "And now I'm attached. Where would you want it?"
It takes them a minute to decide, working around Jisung's limited real estate. In the end, they settle on a tiny spot on the edge of Jisung's left forearm, so that he can do it himself, and Minho's right, so they can get half a star and half a red string and press them together to complete it.
Minho is given a lollipop to munch on like a kid at his first blood draw. He sucks on it while he looks at Jisung peeling off the temporary stencil.
He didn't mean to get it tonight, but Jisung is right: he walked in five minutes before the shop closed with an idea in his head and a dream in his heart.
"Last chance to back out," Jisung says, snapping his glove around his wrist.
Minho rolls back his eyes, pushing the end of the lollipop against his lips.
Jisung laughs under his breath.
Then he gets to work.
Jeongin gives him a lecture. Changbin almost dies of envy. Emily, who only gets to see the tattoo because she's there with Chan when he drops by the dance studio, looks endeared before remembering the cutesy tattoo is attached to a twenty-seven year old man. Chan himself gushes over the design and the artistry for about ten hours, then he decides to face that it's a half of a whole, and freezes with his hands around Minho's arm.
"Who has the other half?"
Minho gives him a suggestive eyebrow raise. Chan gets one shade lighter, which is impressive considering he looks anemic on any regular winter day, then smiles with his full dimples out.
"Do you have a picture of both?"
He coos over Jisung's too. He doesn't coo over the finished picture, the red string tying together two little weirdo alien boys on their tiny planets.
Minho doesn't like what he's implying with all this overprotective brother bullshit.
"It's not like that," he tells Chan when Emily goes to get a phone call. "With Hannie."
"Like what?" He laughs, a little strained. "It's you and Jisung. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner."
He gives him a manly pat on the back, and goes to fetch his boring girlfriend of the trimester.
They're almost reaching the inevitable break-up that will follow Chan's profession of love.
Chan always gives one hundred percent and never keeps any for himself, pours his fierce, undying love over anyone he chooses as his. And he always ends up choosing girls that are too cowardly to bear it.
Luckily, he's got a much better eye for friends.
Minho would kill for him. He knew since the day Chan came up to him in kindergarten and offered to help him try and sew the leg of a plushie back on its body. They poked each other with the stolen needle so many times that by the time they were done, they were all covered in red splotches of blood.
Changbin called them losers.
Minho bit him.
Chan cried until their parents came to pick them up.
Han Jisung -at the time freshly three years old but already reading at top speed and incredibly mouthy- took one look at his older brother, threw himself at Minho, and bit him.
Minho bit back. Chan and Han's mother got bitten too. It was a whole thing.
A fuzzy memory floats up from the depth of Minho's brain: asking Chan if he could marry his gremlin brother because he had a good bite. He thinks he got his ass kicked.
It's been forever since Jisung bit him.
He takes his phone out to ask a question he suddenly can't live without an answer to.
How's your biting game these days?
He gets a selfie of Jisung that only shows the lower half of his face, zoomed in, teeth sinking in the hideous bunny plushie he keeps around since Minho won it at a carnival. Jisung chose it because he had an evil air about him and he's extremely fond of the thing. Minho bullies it any chance he gets.
The critter is weak
Bite me next time
I'm a better test subject
Jisung types something back, but then the little dots disappear and his status changes to off-line. He probably got distracted by something. Maybe a client booking an appointment, maybe a twitter notification.
Minho himself has two minutes before he has to start paying attention to the two girls murdering each other in the studio waiting room.
He drinks the last of his coffee and throws the paper cup in the trash. It doesn't even hit the ring.
💫
It's been four days since the last passionate conversation about nothing when he runs into Hwang Hyunjin.
He's not alone. He's with Felix. And they're both standing in his studio.
"Ah!" The fried chicken smiles, all teeths and freckles. "Minho! We were hoping to catch you."
"I'll politely turn you down. I'm not meant to live in captivity," he says, because he's still thinking about Jisung calling him wild.
Hyunjin giggles in a very sophisticated way.
"Of course," Felix says patiently. "Remember Hyunjin? He says you met at one of Chan's things?"
Minho doesn't even remember what the thing was. He remembers running his eyes over Hyunjin and seeing a pleased flush coloring his cheeks.
"Hello," he drawls, offering his right hand because it saves him fifteen minutes of awkward maneuvering.
Rather than Hyunjin's hand, his arm meets Felix's enthusiasm.
"It's so pretty!" He chimes. "Jisung really took extra care with it. Look at the little theefies."
Felix sometimes uses words Minho isn't sure are real.
"It's really cute," Hyunjin agrees, watching from a polite distance. "Jisung is so talented."
"You paint, don't you?" Minho says, wringing his arm away from Felix.
"When I have the time," he sighs. "I'd like to do it more, but I over-committed."
"Speaking of," Felix smiles so brightly Minho rapidly blinks and shakes his head. "Do you think you could spare us a room? They're kicking our crew out of the studio because of scheduling conflicts and we need a place to practice."
They arrange it fairly quickly. Minho runs the place in all but name, and he has no problem letting them close the studio on Mondays and Fridays if they're okay with practicing that late.
"I trust him," he says when Hyunjin asks him if he's sure he wants to give them a key. "He knows what will happen if he messes up."
Felix audibly swallows. He clenches his fist around the keys.
"I'll be careful."
Minho wiggles his fingers when they go on their way. Hyunjin turns to look at him over his shoulder just before he walks through the door, and Minho preens.
Animal instincts are hard to kill.
💫
He routinely runs into Hyunjin and Felix now. He teaches hip-hop to the teens every Monday and he alternates Fridays with Sae for the joy of the middle aged women dominating the 80s dance fitness class. Sometimes he goofs around with them and their crew, other times he barely says hi before clocking out.
Hyunjin stares. A lot. When Minho dances, sure, but maybe even more so when he's just standing there all sweaty and he laughs at something Felix said.
They text sometimes. First about studio schedule, then dance routines, and lately just to say hi. It's not strained, it's as comfortable as texting Jeongin would be if Jeongin could bear to interact with him outside of the house. It's not even remotely sexual- not even flirty, really. Minho isn't putting in any effort. Yet.
That's how he gets them. He's learned that if he moves too quickly he'll scare them off. Make them run the other way in the arms of a girl. It's when he plays it cool, gives them just a little sprinkle of extra attention, and then, eventually, touches their wrist with practiced ease, that they surrender. One last night with the kind of pretty boy -he's been told countless times- that should not be roaming the streets bare faced, but be dolled up on a billboard for the world to see.
The trick is to make them think it's their idea.
The chase is always long, and torturous, and sometimes it does nothing for him but inconvenience him, but Hyunjin makes it easy.
He's friends with Felix, after all. It makes sense he'd be cool to talk to.
He's friends with Seungmin as well, as he comes to find out.
Jisung is warming up to him too, Hyunjin says. He actually gets out of his room when he's over at the apartment, now, and they've talked a little about art and tattoos. He's thinking of getting one.
Minho texts Changbin. He never texts Changbin outside of the group chat, even when it's just the two of them talking and Chan third-wheeling them.
IF HWANG HYUNJIN WANTS A TATTOO YOU GIVE IT TO HIM.
That's how business transactions tend to work, yes
What's up with the full stop
He sends him a selfie, noot out and middle finger raised.
And then, because he's holding the noot and he just touched up the blond and trimmed his hair and he looks too good to waste it on Changbin, he sends one to Jisung too.
He's fully expecting it to go unanswered.
He's just shouting into the void.
The void sends a selfie back.
He's nooting, too. His hair is extra fluffy, wavy and long, poking out of a pink beanie. He's wearing a flannel, a sweater, and a puffer jacket. His cheeks and his nose are bright with cold, but his skin is gold and tanned, because it only takes him two days in the sun to look like a delectable toasted marshmallow.
Minho sends another selfie, this time pulling a weird face.
Jisung sends one back.
They go back and forth until Minho accidentally cracks up in the middle of a take and sends him the shakiest, prettiest picture of his smile he's ever taken. He's not sure he looks like that in person, actually.
Jisung doesn't send one back. He sends a picture of his alien hamster instead.
Play date?
Minho, fuzzy and warm and still not trusting that picture of himself, sends him back a photo of his alien kitten.
He shoves the selfie in Jeongin's face and asks him if he really looks like that.
"Yes, you do," he says, looking at him dead in the eyes, so he knows he's serious. "When you're being stupid."
He never understands a word of what Jeongin says. It's part of why he likes him so much- he keeps him young.
💫
They go back to radio silence.
Minho dances, spoils his cats, cooks for Jeongin, watches anime, consoles Chan when he gets dumped, and doesn't think about Jisung.
At least not until he opens the door of Chan's apartment and he finds himself face to face with a shaggy haircut and a fresh whiff of cologne. He's glad he hasn't changed it. He clings to his back like velcro while Jisung makes his way to the mopey Chan-shaped lump on the couch.
"I bought booze."
"I don't drink."
"It's for me. For Minho, too, I guess. Are you staying?"
"Shouldn't I?" He asks, his chin comfortably resting over Jisung's shoulder. He squeezes his waist, hand circling his other wrist.
"I'm not the boss of you."
Minho sulks.
"That sounds like you want me to go. Do you want me to go, Hannie?"
Jisung shifts in his arms just enough so that he can look him in the eyes.
He's very, very close. He smells extra spicy. His eyes are dark and pretty. Minho slow blinks.
"Does it look like I want you to go?"
Minho swallows. His eyebrows knit together in a tiny nod that's actually a no. He's sure his theefies are poking out.
"It's so nice," Chan mopes from the bundles of blankets he's buried in. "What the two of you have. I want it too."
He'd like to look at Chan in genuine worry, because that's not something he would ever say without a severe case of a broken heart, but Jisung's smile turns a little shy and very proud, and Minho can't exactly look away.
What he can do, apparently, is smile back with his heart beating in his throat and his eyelashes fluttering like a hummingbird's wings.
Chan sighs like an old man.
"I really thought Em was the one."
"She wasn't." They reply together, snapping their heads towards him.
"She was boring as fuck," Jisung says without mercy. "And so cold. She made Seungmin look personable."
"Don't harp on Seungmin, he's perfectly nice."
Jisung snorts.
"If there's one thing Seungmin isn't, it's perfectly nice. Little demon in a suit."
"I guess I wouldn't know," Chan sighs. "You guys never hang out with us."
"You barely hang out with you," Jisung points out, wrapping an arm over Minho's, like there's any chance he's going anywhere.
"You're right," Chan sniffles. "We should all hang out sometimes. Are they free tonight?"
They are.
Chan calls it a miracle like his pain isn't the miracle in question.
He's instantly in a better mood as he cozies up with Jisung on the loveseat, drinking hot chocolate with extra marshmallow fluff while his brother sips on his coffee-lemon liquor. Minho puts together some snacks with what's in the kitchen, and by the time he's washing his hands Jeongin and Changbin are already there. Felix, Seungmin and Hyunjin, who Minho didn't think was so close to Chan but apparently is, all come together in a bundle.
They somehow all fit in the living room, all warm and cozy and loud. Really loud. Hyunjin is sitting between him and Changbin and he looks like a bell who's being hit to tell the time.
They're all tipsy, too. Chan is the only one who isn't nursing a drink, and he looks perfectly comfortable half sitting in Jisung's lap smoothing out a pillow, his eyes still a bit red but very bright.
Jisung is on the top of his game tonight. He plays host for all the quizzes, he calls the shots when two people are arguing, he doesn't save anyone from a quip. When Felix says the taboo word on accident for the third time, he throws a fit that has them all howling.
Minho loves when Jisung is high energy. When he charges himself up one shenanigan after the other, laughs harder than anyone and smiles so proudly when he gets them all in stitches. He likes it even more now that Jisung doesn't have to force himself to do it to be comfortable anymore, even if it means he barely gets the chance to see it, now that he barely sees him at all.
Minho used to be over at Chan's so often he knew what Jisung looked like in the morning, grumpy pout and puffy eyes. He knew what snack he would choose every time until he didn't, because his favorite food had stopped tasting like serotonin and he moved on to something else. He was there when fourteen year old Jisung first dyed his hair making a mess in the bathroom, and when he came back from a date with flushed cheeks stumbling with his words trying not to trip on the world kiss, like he and Chan couldn't tell precisely because he couldn't string a word together.
He lost it all to his four years of college. Jisung had already dropped out by then, but he got stolen away from a hot shot tattoo parlor all the way out on the East coast.
It was Changbin that gave him back Jisung.
Opened a stupidly nice studio in the best part of town, and put Jisung in it on a warm and sunny Tuesday morning, wrapped in a sleeveless hoodie and a slicked back undercut. Minho hadn't even known. He had crossed the threshold and got run over by a heart shaped smile. The first thing he did was trying to stick his hand in Jisung's shirt, because he could see his ribs through the holes of his hoodie and what could he do but not touch.
He's got Jisung back, but they're not kids anymore.
The Han-Bangs don't come in a convenient package deal anymore.
"Ugh," Minho shakes Jeongin's shoulder. "Will you just hurry up and get married?"
They all act like his question is completely out of pocket. All but Jisung.
"You're hogging my bedroom, Jeongin," he says, licking his fingers clean from grease with a wild, happy smile. "Get your ass a boyfriend and stop roommate-blocking me and Lino."
Felix cries because Jisung wants to abandon him, Jeongin gets offended because Minho seemingly can't wait to shove him out, Changbin thinks it's the best idea he's ever heard. Chan peacefully continues to smooth his pillow with a sappy smile, Hyunjin laughs because that's what he does, and Seungmin, the menace, sighs: "why don't the two of you just get married?"
The silence is so thick that Minho almost chokes on it. His hands search for napping, tissues, scraps of papers, anything he can stuff Seungmin with before shoving him into the air fryer.
And then Jisung hums.
He leans over, chin in his hands and freshly painted black nails tapping against his cheeks.
"What do you say, baby? Should we sign the papers?"
It's a riot, Minho will be told.
He wouldn't know. His brain shuts down and the giggles take over him. He finds himself covering his face with sweater paws while Jisung gets on one knee despite Felix clinging to his back begging him not to leave him. When Felix cries and sobs and calls him a liar because he thought he was his 'if I had to pick a dude', Jisung shouts something like "there's nothing wrong with falling in love", and Minho is delirious.
He thinks he's running a fever.
He slides down the couch to cool himself off, but Jisung squeezes himself behind him and wraps his arms and legs around his waist. Fuck off to cooling off. Minho's much more happy to lean back into his chest and melt into him, lulled by the sloppy sounds of Felix sniffling.
He can't laugh anymore, not for lack of trying, but because his mouth is parched.
He's, very, very tipsy.
Jisung rocking him back and forth doesn't help, but he would never complain. He tips his head back, nose grazing Jisung's cheek and nails scratching his arm, wholly content.
"Now that I've given it a minute," Felix says, covered in snot and looking like an angel. "Minho and Jisung getting married is just a very Minho and Jisung thing to do, isn't it?"
Everyone agrees. Jeongin even asks out loud how they never joked about it before.
Minho vaguely thinks about defending himself from the accusations of being even remotely the kind of respectable gay Jeongin is, but he can't.
He can't do much at all, really.
He can avoid death, maybe. If he puts a lot of effort into it.
The ghost of Jisung's lips brushing the top of his hair taunts him.
He's missed the kiss. Lost it to a white-out, hazy head.
But the memory is there on his hair. He turns, searching for a confirmation, a smug smile, a wink, but he finds only Jisung, not quite smiling and not quite deep in thoughts, like kissing is something they just do.
It's weird they don't.
Minho smiles, then swallows when Jisung nods in front of him, urging him to tuck himself back in his arms. Minho's most hated song in Changbin's playlist is playing. He hums along to it, and tightens Jisung's hold around him with his own hands.
They're all considerably sobered up when Jeongin startles out of his nap and jumps off the couch, tripping over Felix and Changbin, who had been cuddling on the floor because, Minho quotes, it's unfair only Hanji gets to snuggle up with a hot older guy.
Minho doesn't feel older than Jisung. He guesses maybe he did at some point, but the truth is that they always met in the middle, a special space just for them. Little weirdo boys hanging out on an asteroid belt.
Jisung kissed him once more. On the nape of his neck. Minho heard a Jeongin-sounding voice in his brain asking is that allowed?
The truth is that Minho's always been allowed everything he wanted. Even when Jisung said no, it usually came with an amendment. Not now, not where we are, not in front of this particular set of people.
He's never heard a no that hurt.
He never asked for anything that would make it hurt if Jisung said no, to be fair.
He's perfectly happy with his cuddles, his nuzzles, his pet-names.
Now Jisung is kissing him, and it's Minho's fault if he didn't know he could do it.
Because he never tried to.
It feels like it would hurt, if Minho tried to, and Jisung said no.
He doesn't like even the prospect of pain, so he pushes the thought away, and himself onto his feet.
He doesn't want to get up, but everyone is stretching and gathering their things. Jisung disappears somewhere, maybe in the bathroom, maybe in the kitchen for a glass of water, and Minho entertains Felix's tiny kitten noises as the next best thing.
Chan gets up from the couch with eyes so laced with sleep and his voice so groggy he probably doesn't even remember who they are, so they all climb down the stairs like polite little ducklings. All but Jisung, who's still missing and is maybe staying the night.
Jeongin is the first to go, blasting rock music so that he won't fall asleep. Minho would go next, but staring at a very sober Seungmin trying to fold a very tiny, slippery and drunk Felix into the back of their car is extremely entertaining.
Hyunjin, who he's trying to ignore, is standing very close to him.
He doesn't want to stand next to Hyunjin right now. He wants to stand next to someone his own height that will slap him on the arm if Minho blows in his ear for fun.
"Sorry if I'm overstepping," Hyunjin says while Seungmin cracks and actually, properly laughs. "But be careful."
He blinks.
Hyunjin fixes the collar of Minho's unzipped hoodie where it folded in itself.
"I've been where he is," he confesses, his voice nothing more than a whisper. "I was so enamored by a friend, so flattered by his crush on me, that I walked so close to the line that I couldn't help but cross it. I hurt both of us. Everyone blamed me for it. That's why," he gives a very tiny, true smile. "Felix adopted me. I found myself alone because for him I thought I could be something I'm not."
Minho knows, he does, that Hyunjin means well.
He also knows he doesn't know shit.
He just got here.
He doesn't know much more than fucking Emily did about Minho and Jisung.
Minho doesn't have a stupid crush on Jisung- it's ugly and dirty and reductive and everything doesn't always have to be about sex.
Or about stupid kisses, for what it's worth.
That Jisung is now giving him.
He leans in and kisses Hyunjin, mouth closed, just long enough that Seungmin notices and gags, and Felix giggles like a mad man with his head hanging out of the car window.
Hyunjin is still frozen in place.
"There," he says, resisting the urge to clean his mouth because sometimes it's not fun to be twelve. "Did something about it before it ruined anything. Since you're sticking around and all."
He doesn't know what he's talking about.
Hyunjin giggles. It sounds like a bell. He covers his mouth and his eyes curve in perfect crescent moons.
He looks, sounds, nothing like Jisung.
It calms Minho down, just a little.
"Was I that obvious?"
"I was searching for it."
Hyunjin's eyes get mischievous.
"Can I kiss you some more? You're very pretty and I think it's very tragic that my boy kissing ended up being so sad. I think I'd like a good memory."
Minho giggles in earnest, scrunched up nose and everything.
They kiss some more. It's nice. Hyunjin is obviously shy about it, even if he asked for it.
Minho's just leaning back when he sees Jisung walking out of the building. He can't see his face, not really. The light of the hallway is bright enough to cast him in shadows.
Hyunjin presses his mouth against him one more time, and Minho kisses him back, hand coming out of his pocket to hold Hyunjin's jaw, tongue lightly tracing his lips. Eyes fixed on Jisung.
Like a freak.
He pulls back. He even gives Hyunjin a chin scratch, which is universally a friendly gesture. He thinks.
Either way, Hyunjin waves shily at him and runs to the car with his face buried in his hands, shaking his head furiously. He climbs in the backseat with Felix rather than getting in the passenger seat, no doubt in order to gossip with him about Minho.
Minho waits until he's sure he can't be seen anymore and wipes his mouth. He's just done with his childish scrubbing when Jisung stops right in front of him.
He doesn't seem put off but his freak behavior, which seems obvious now that he isn't worried about it anymore. He even is a little bit offended on his behalf: Jisung would never be put off by his freak behavior.
"I'm sorry for him," Minho says. "He'll never find a girlfriend. All the sensible ones will think he's gay."
Jisung knows he wasn't joking, not really, but he still laughs.
Maybe not for the reason Minho thought, because his eyes go round, all pretty and teasing.
"You went for it and you knew he was straight, didn't you? You're hardly the only bold attractive person in the world, Minho."
He squints. Now that's rude.
"Did you just call me common?"
"I would never. You wound me. There's no one like you. You're weird. You're a weirdo. You don't fit in. You don't want to fit in. You're not like other boys."
He shoves Jisung's shoulder.
"Stop flattering me."
"Or what?" Jisung laughs, voice low and smooth. "You'll fall for my charms?"
Something ugly twists inside his chest. Something that isn't cozy and satisfied, but hungry and greedy instead. That doesn't belong to them.
"Yeah," Minho nods. "And then we will have to get married for real and Chan will hate me because he'll never get to have nephews."
"Chan will get over it," Jisung assures him with the brightest smile. "He wanted to marry me himself when we were kids, he would be a hypocrite to keep me from marrying you."
Minho is not impressed.
He glares- as well as he can glare at Jisung, at least.
"Not because you're like an older brother," Jisung amends fondly but with a hint of urgency that Minho suspects is only due to the face he's making. "Because of the nephews. If he married me, he would have never had them either."
Now that's better.
He puts his forearms over Jisung's shoulder.
"Why are we talking about you marrying your brother?"
"Because he's a freak and he would marry me himself rather than giving me away."
"But he likes me," he coos, "I'm his best friend. We spit in each other's hands and swore ourselves to one another. He would give you to me if I asked nicely."
"You're delusional. The other day I told him I would fuck you if I so wanted, and he almost choked on his own spit."
He slow blinks.
Jisung's cheeks have the decency to turn a little red.
"There's context."
"I'm sure." It's condescending on purpose.
"There is," Jisung protests, eyes ablaze. "He was berating me about the matching tattoos. He was being annoying. I had to shut him up. I swear he thinks I'm five years old. And even then-" His voice goes up and down in emphasis, his shoulders shake with passion under Minho's forearms. His fluffy hair billows in the gentle wind. "I bit people for him when I was younger than that! He should know I can look after myself!"
It's cute that smart, perceptive Jisung that puts people together like puzzles can't see that Chan beat up people for him too, but he's chronically incapable of looking after himself. Everyone has their blind spots.
"Bite me."
Jisung's eyes go huge.
"I might just do that," he says, shaking his head, in search of an explanation.
Minho giggles, and Jisung gives him the appropriate reaction, eyes growing fond and mouth holding back a sweet sound with a pout, rather than just standing there not appreciating art when he sees it (any reference to any Hyunjin is purely coincidental).
"We need to test your biting game," he reminds him. "What if you get roped in a biting competition and humiliate yourself because you haven't been practicing?"
"Minho. I'm not going to bite you."
Minho tilts his head, shifts his weight.
"That seems arbitrary." He plays with the short, soft curls at Jisung's nape. "You're not biting me but you're kissing me?"
Jisung goes very, very still.
Then he looks very, very silly. He pushes his lips out and leans forward, even makes fake kissing noises that sounds like he's calling a cat, and Minho laughs to his floozy heart content and swats him on his arm. Then once more, because it's fun, and Jisung is laughing too, and it's Minho's favorite kind of laugh.
He takes Jisung's hand hostage until they make it to the piece of junk held together by tape and dreams that he likes to call a car.
"When you die in a car accident," Minho says, swinging their hands together. "Do you want me to lie and yell to the clouds that it doesn't make any sense?"
Jisung is already looking at him, squeezing his hand tight. He bumps his shoulder against his, gets close enough that Minho feels his next breath on his skin.
And then he's saying goodbye with a heart shaped smile, leaving Minho with nothing to do but drop his suddenly cold hand like a dead weight.
He shuffles on his feet.
He should feel warm, fuzzy and satisfied like a cat in the sun.
He did, before Jisung left. Leaving Minho to-
wait.
💫
Minho's hands aren't functioning properly.
Turns out it's kind of hard to get them to do things if you're trying to forget you have them in the first place. He hands the coffee pot to Jeongin.
He looks weirded out but he knows better than to argue. He unscrews the moka pot and hands it back.
Minho empties it, rinses the filter, and then fills it up with spoonfuls of coffee grounds.
"I didn't kiss Hannie," he says to the mess of coffee powdering the counter, because he's going insane.
He knows he didn't kiss Jisung.
He kissed Hyunjin, looking at Jisung. He was in his line of sight, what was he supposed to do? Look away? From Jisung?
"Okay," Jeongin says, like Minho was talking to him and not just practicing words of affirmation.
He didn't kiss Jisung.
He feels like he kissed Jisung.
If he just closed his eyes, he would taste the wood, the spice and a hint of his sweat.
He knows because that's how he woke up. Eyes closed and the taste of Jisung's smell in his mouth.
He tries to get the stove to start up three times before he finally manages to.
The kitchen is silent. The cats are fed and satisfied, already asleep somewhere in the living room, and the only sounds in the kitchen are Jeongin's disapproving sighs and the ghost of moans he never heard, modeled crudely on laughters and low whispers.
He feels dirty.
"I didn't kiss Jisung," he repeats.
He doesn't hear what Jeongin says. He heard words, but Jeongin can't have spoken them, because Jeongin would never say:
"Maybe you should. Kiss him."
Minho blinks.
Jeongin takes the kind of big breath that gets him through parent-teacher meetings.
Minho is about to get scolded.
Minho.
By Jeongin.
He laughs. Hysterically. He leans into it, because it feels good to be a little unhinged.
And then he gets the fuck out of the house, all bundled up in his giant hoodie.
He has no idea where he's going.
He keeps thinking about Jisung.
He hates it.
It's not like that, it's never been like that.
This is Hyunjin's fault for projecting his shortcomings onto Minho and Jisung.
He would never be thinking about kissing Jisung if it wasn't for his jumbled up brain attempt at streamlining all that happened last night.
This is Chan's fault, too, because if he had just set him up with Hyunjin rather than bringing Jisung into it, now Hyunjin would be long fucked and gone, and Minho wouldn't have intrusive images of Han Jisung kissing him filthy on a sidewalk.
Except Hyunjin would still be around, because he's friends with Felix and Seungmin and Jisung is warming up to him, too, and if Minho had pounced on him it would all be a huge mess. He can't believe Chan was right. It's a revolting thought. What else was he right about? About Minho not eating weeds? Prom king Brian Kang having a crush on him when they were in High School? Him and Jisung being really fucking weird around each other and getting a matching tattoo on a whim, just because Minho got overwhelmed looking at Jisung strumming a five chord guitar in pink neon light?
No.
It wouldn't have been a huge mess if Minho fucked Hyujin. Because Hyunjin is Felix's, and Felix's is Jisung's, and Minho is Chan's, and they don't all hang out together. It's not an eight men operation they're running here.
It would have maybe been a little awkward for Hyunjin to get a glimpse of him every once in a full moon, but it wouldn't be a mess, and Chan isn't right.
He isn't right about Hyunjin, about the weeds, about Brian Kang, and sure as hell he isn't right about Minho and Jisung.
Minho and Jisung are right about Minho and Jisung.
No one else gets a say. Not even Changbin.
Changbin says all these horribly mundane things about him and Jisung. Things like "you and Jisung are he only people who could watch this horrid movie, you should go together", "Jisung is playing a gig on Saturday and needs help with the amplifiers, you should go help", or even "I know Felix is in HongKong/Amsterdam/Paris for the week, you should go over at Jisung and watch that fucking anime with someone who likes it".
All things that sound perfectly reasonable to someone who doesn't get that Minho and Jisung live in a liminal space and they can't pollute it with things like one-on-one dates.
They don't make plans together.
They run into each other. Because of Chan.
Because Minho is Chan's, not Jisung's. He's sworn by spit and blood to the elder Han-Bang brother, who isn't his favorite but he loves the most.
By the time he's done banging his head against the fence of Jeongin's elementary school, because that's where his feet led him, he almost pulled himself together.
The cold helps. The days are getting warmer and the sunlight is bright, but it's not warm enough to forget your jacket because you needed to run away from the thought of your best friend's little brother tasting like wood and spice and sweat, and you needed to run away now, before the baby bread living in your apartment spelled out all of the stupid ass nonsense he's been alluding to over the years in a neat report card.
He's never going home again.
He goes to Changbin.
The tattoo parlor is blasting with pop punk music. Jisung isn't working today. He told Minho sometime before breaking Felix's heart confessing his love for him. He giggles.
"Don't do that," Changbin says, swiping a girl's shoulder of excess ink and droplets of blood. "You can't let strangers know you're cute."
The girl chuckles.
Minho couldn't tell she's pretty if he had a rifle pointed against his forehead. He never learned the visual language of women.
"Why are you here, anyway?" The whirring of the tattoo gun is soothing. He wheels left to right in the office chair he borrowed. "I was convinced you didn't know this place existed before you got your husband to draw gay aliens on your bodies."
"He's not gay. Well. My cat is, they aren't. They're starmates."
Changbin is very careful to lift his hands before he holds his boob dramatically.
"Argh. I love you and Jisung so much."
"I thought you were tired of us."
"It's a roller coaster. You make it difficult to love you, but it's worth it."
"You betcha."
Minho almost jumps out of his chair. He balances himself by gripping the bed the girl is thankfully not getting tattooed on, sitting on a chair with her arms folded over the back.
"Everything all right?" She asks, looking at him with round, tear-filled eyes.
He doesn't have time to be kind in return. He waves her off and turns to Jisung. The traitor.
"You lied to me."
Jisung chuckles and exchanges the notebook in his hand with another one.
"I said I wasn't working today. Not that I wasn't coming in."
Minho squints, accusatory.
"Why would you voluntarily leave your room if you didn't have to?"
"Because I have something on my brain," he says, flipping through the pages with his sexy crooked fingers.
Sexy?
Minho doesn't have time to choke over it. Not when Jisung is wearing his hair half tied up and pinned with bobby pins spray painted hot pink, and he's got the sleeves of his heather gray hoodie rolled up to his elbows. And his jeans are so tight.
"What happened to the baggy pants?" He asks.
Jisung looks up at him with his eyebrows knitted together.
"I put them in the wash?"
"Felix put them in the wash," Changbin corrects him. He turns to his girl. "You can tell me if they're bothering you."
"No, it's fine. It distracts me from the pain."
"Mine didn't hurt," Minho says, swishing on his chair again.
"No need to brag," she mumbles.
"He got it on his forearm," Jisung says, voice coming from whatever planet he's picking inspiration from. "It's like the least painful spot to tattoo."
"You've got them all on your arms, too!"
"Not all of them," Changbin says.
Jisung nods.
Minho holds his outrage. He scours his memory. On his sleeve: six colorful plasters, twelve enamel pins, four song lyrics -his own- in bold lettering. The alien rodent.
"Liars."
Jisung's eyes twinkle in a smolder.
"You wouldn't know unless you've seen me shirtless, baby."
Jisung is sprinting for the door before Minho is out of his chair. He squirms like a worm while Minho manhandles him and tries to push his clothes out of the way. Minho isn't really pulling, and Jisung isn't really pushing away, but they sure bicker like Minho is assaulting him.
"Fine, fine," Jisung yells, out of breath, his cheeks pink. He turns so that only Minho can see him lifting his shirt up around his chest. "Here it is."
Minho sees it right away because it's in the safest spot to look at, right over his ribs, rather than somewhere down on his soft tummy that shows the imprint of abs whenever he breathes out.
Minho wants to bite. He's a biter, he can't help it.
He leans in to take a better look at the precise, thin lines of Changbin's miracle hands.
He snorts.
"I knew you would love it," Jisung says proudly, letting his shirt fall to cover himself up again.
Minho stops the fabric with his wrist, hand curled just under Jisung's stupid tattoo.
Han's stupid tattoo. DOOL SET NET, it says, a polished underscore in the place of the missing HANA.
The more he thinks about it, the funnier it is.
He's pretty sure that's the only Korean words Jisung knows.
"Do you even know how to count to five?" His laugh is strangled.
"Nope," Jisung says, deadly satisfied. "That's why I stopped after four."
He wheezes, freeing Jisung so he gets swallowed by his sweater again, but clutching at him right away. Changbin laughs too.
Jisung kisses his cheek where it's the fullest.
Minho intuitively knows he's not allowed to show Changbin it happened. He bites the inside of his bottom lip, curls his arms a little looser around Jisung's shoulders.
Jisung nods to him with a little smile when their eyes meet, and Minho's brain goes purrrrrrr. He smiles, and maybe he really does look like the picture he took that one time, because Jisung looks like he might be taking in a sight like that.
You do, when you're being stupid , Jeongin had said.
What does Jeongin know anyway?
Everything, probably.
At least everything Minho doesn't want to ever know.
But that's not possible, because it's Minho who taught him everything he knows.
He's very satisfied with his wits and his kiss and the squeeze of Jisung's hand on his hip, when Changbin says:
"Can you not do whatever it is that you're doing behind my back? I've been your biggest supporter since we were kids, I deserve to see it."
Minho pouts.
"You say that, and yet I still have to see you in a cheerleading uniform."
"Ew," Jisung wrinkles his nose. "I aspire to die without ever seeing that."
"He would look good in it," the girl says with a shaky voice. "Let me know if that happens."
It's always entertaining to see Changbin being a flustered mess. Big baby.
Jisung's stupid sexy crooked fingers curl around his hip.
"Be my test subject? Since you're here?"
Minho blinks.
"For biting or wearing a cheerleading uniform? It's yes to both, but one requires preparation."
Jisung slaps his shoulder with some strength and shoves him away.
"For designing, you dumb freak. Give me your arm."
"But I need it."
"I'll give it back. Sit down."
He does as he is told. He doesn't even pretend to sit down because it's his own idea, it's well known Jisung is the Minho tamer.
He still swishes in his chair while Jisung sits on his stool, uncaps a sharpie and balances a cloth soaked in alcohol on his knees for easy clean up. He extended his arm, freed by the constraint of his sweater, for easy pulling. Jisung grabs it and wheels Minho around until he's comfortable, then he gets to work.
It's a whole lot of touching. Jisung maneuvers him like he's a canvas, pulling carefully but not gently at the skin to keep it taut. He runs his fingers on the vein in his arm, the crook of his elbow, even along his fingers, tracing a path before inking it with the softened felt pit of his sharpie.
Minho isn't breathing properly.
His lungs are filled with wood and spice and ink and rubbing alcohol, his skin is alive under the tickling of the felt tip, and he's never seen something more beautiful than Jisung and his floppy hair falling out of bobby pins, his tongue peeking out at the corner of his lips in concentration.
What is it that Jeongin said?
Jisung is the original sin.
Minho needs to die. He slides down the chair, legs wide, enclosing Jisung in them.
Jisung looks up at him and smiles. Sticks the landings. A perfect heart shape.
"It's a 9.9 out of 10," he says, out loud, because he's stupid.
Jisung looks confused for approximately three seconds before he smiles again, this time with his lips closed.
"Liar. You just want to make sure I try again for the perfect score."
"Take out your veneers and we'll talk. The 0.1 is for your chipped tooth, you took it away from me."
Jisung laughs. Full, bold sounds. Ah. Ah. Ah.
He'd taste like wood and spice and sweat.
Minho flexes the tendons in his arms.
"Getting tired?" Jisung asks, swiping his thumb over his skin. "I'm almost done."
Minho makes it through.
He gets to try out oxygen again when Jisung pulls away to take a million pictures in different angles. He's not sure if he likes it or not.
Changbin takes a look at it while he stretches his fingers, the girl's giant intricate tiger still only halfway done. He and Jisung talk about it in professional terms, looking both at the screen and Minho's arm.
It's something out of a Ghibli movie, but traced in bold, uncompromising lines. Sugar stars and splashes of water surround a half submerged dragon jumping out of a galaxy rather than a lake.
It's gorgeous. It's the best thing he's ever seen. He thinks that about every design hanging on the wall in Jisung's booth.
"Can I-"
"No," Jisung says categorically. "You're not getting a sleeve. I will, maybe, if I feel like it, give you something else. Smaller."
Minho stomps his feet, wriggles back into his sweater.
"I'll happily do you a sleeve," Changbin smiles. "You might not be as pale as Chan, but it's still prime real estate."
He sees in Jisung's eyes that it's a trap, but he's already talking, theefies out and everything.
"I only want Hannie to do me."
"Oh," Changbin grins. "We're saying that out loud, now?"
The girl laughs while Changbin gets a pounding from both Minho and Jisung.
Anything not to linger on the sound of it. Their eyes never meet once, and if they do, they don't acknowledge it.
"I'll have to sterilize the needle again," Changbin complains, spitting out tissue paper. "But it was worth it."
"Oh, I could use a break, anyway," the girl says, stretching her neck. Changbin looks. Minho and Jisung both elbow him.
"How about," he says, bright red, slapping them away. "The two of them make themselves useful and go get us food, and then we take a break?"
It's a nice walk to the kebab joint and back. Uneventful. Comfortable. Jisung demands to see photos of Soonie, Doongie and Dori, then shows him a few character designs he's making to help a friend pitch an animated tv series.
They share food in the studio lounge and he unwraps Jisung's kebab while Jisung opens a water bottle for him.
Changbin's next girlfriend is named Chae and everytime she slaps Changbin's arm while she laughs it sounds like she slapped a mountain.
Minho likes her. He likes most of Changbin's girlfriends. He stole all of Chan's good taste.
Jisung gives him a ride home when he finds out he walked all the way there, and Minho dozes off in the piece of junk. The seats are cold, worn out and cozy like an old couch.
He wakes up to Jisung tucking his hair behind his ear.
"It's been blond for a while, now."
He's grumpy when he answers. He liked his nap.
"Someone told me I don't do permanent and I took it as a challenge."
Jisung laughs softly, eternally amused by Minho. Then he laughs some more, and Minho puts Jisung over napping and opens his eyes a sliver.
He still has a hand on the wheel, sexy crooked fingers curved around the brittle leather.
"What?" He inspects when Jisung keeps laughing.
"I was just thinking about the first time you bleached it."
Minho blinks. Rapidly.
"You don't remember?" Jisung asks, eyes round and pouty lips. "How can you not remember?"
"I have limited storage space."
"So do I, but I remember things about you!"
He aggressively steals Jisung's hand and plays with his rings. He closes his eyes and makes a whirring sound.
"Fine. Just deleted something about my mother. Tell me about me bleaching my hair for the first time."
Jisung savors it. His smile doesn't promise anything good.
"I guess you also forgot how fourteen years old Jisung-" "My favorite." "-was convinced he'd get to take a blonde to prom, too."
Minho blinks.
"You went to prom with Seungmin because you both got dumped the night before."
Jisung goes pink.
"So that's what you remember, hm?"
Of course. He looked so embarrassed when Minho wrangled it out of him at Changbin's birthday, that one summer after freshman year.
"Someone has to make sure you don't forget."
"God forbid," he grumbles. "We're talking about you, here."
His brain meows, completely devoid of human thoughts. The sun is flooding the car.
"My twenty-first birthday," Jisung says. "When you came all the way to Michigan to embarrass me. You showed up with blond hair."
Oh. Right.
That's why Jisung was laughing.
"Since prom didn't work out for you, I thought I'd be the blond arm candy you missed out on."
"I know," Jisung says, emphasizing the pronoun. "Chan knows, too. He choked on his drink when you announced it to the bar."
He slaps Jisung with his own hand.
"So that's how he almost died."
Jisung looks offended that he remembers the choking hazard but not frying his virgin hair for him.
"I guess I didn't quite get the job done, though," Minho says, sleepy and unguarded.
"He is still alive, yes."
Another slap. Jisung holds his hand, twines their finger together.
"I meant I was blond and I was there, but we didn't even dance."
"How do you know you haven't forgotten?"
"If I did, it's like we didn't dance anyway."
"We didn't," he says, all round. "I thought we would, but you didn't ask."
"I was the blonde arm candy," he muses, "you were supposed to make of me what you wanted."
Jisung bites his lips.
Minho barely sees him launching himself out of his car. The whole thing shakes when the door closes with a bang.
Minho is blinking so much he can't really see Jisung opening his door and urging him to get out.
"Come on, arm candy," he says, his voice a little drunk. "Let's dance."
Minho can't see, but he doesn't need to to move.
He laughs when he staggers into Jisung and grabs his waist. He's way too close to his face. It makes it difficult for Jisung to browse his phone, put on some good punk rock music, but he manages and throws his phone on the passenger seats. It falls to the floor and the sound comes through muffled and Jisung swears, but Minho wraps his arms around him, the beat scratching his brain just the right way.
Minho is not even tipsy. He's full-on drunk. His laughter bubbles in his throat, he's too handsy, he thinks it's a good idea to body roll all over Jisung, just once because he's classy like that.
Somehow they end up looking in each other's eyes, Jisung's hand firmly holding the back of his neck. His smile is so bright. His eyes are the prettiest crescent moons he's ever seen. A bobby pin fell down and strands of hair are brushing the top of his cheek.
Minho forgets the music and remembers it's Jisung he's dancing with.
He smiles, too. Slows down. Bumps his head to the side of Jisung's.
He did something like that before, he's almost sure. Rubbed himself all over him like a cat marking something with his scent.
"You did get a blonde," he says, mouth so close to his jaw.
He only remembers her hair. Feeling like an idiot standing in front of Jisung's dorm room, looking at her laughing behind him, straightening her dress. He doesn't know why she didn't go drinking with them, maybe Jisung forbid her, but he does know Jisung had a hickey poking out over Minho's favorite sweater of his and didn't smell like himself.
"A few," Jisung says, raspy, curling his fingers in Minho's hair. "But I liked you better. I always like you better."
Minho isn't sure if he was meant to hear it. Then he feels the shape of a heart on his cheek, and remembers to breathe again.
Of course he was meant to.
It's the kind of shit they say, that always leaves him purring like a cat.
He swallows. Smiles. Closes his eyes.
He needs to stop being weird about Jisung.
He doesn't want to be Seungmin creeping at him from backstage like a lovesick puppy.
Jisung turns around in his arms, bites his lip, loops his fingers in Minho's jeans.
Minho is worse than Seungmin.
Seungmin smiles at Jisung like he's looking at the love of his life and it's funny, because it isn't true.
He's not really lovesick.
Unlike Minho.
Jisung laughs when a commercial starts in between songs, covers his mouth with his fingers, and Minho just stares. He's frozen in place. He doesn't know if time is passing. It must be, because Jisung is swearing, and getting away from him, and bending down to pick up his phone from the dusty carpet.
Facing him again, cheeks flushed and a question in his eyes.
"Are you all right, baby? My ass was right there and you didn't smack it."
Minho gives a poor excuse of a laugh, forcing his mouth closed. No theefies today. They feel vulnerable. Soft. He burrows himself in his hoodie.
Jisung looks at him for real, searching for something he can't find. Because Minho doesn't want him to.
He's saved by Jeongin.
"I thought it was you," he says, round glasses balanced on his nose just for show. "The neighbors were complaining about the music. It's nap time."
"Nap time," Minho confirms. "I was having one before Hannie interrupted it."
He looks outraged.
"I woke you up to make you go take a nap in your own bed!"
"Maybe I wanted to take a nap in your shitty car."
"You always complain you have the back of an old man! I was being nice to you!"
"And you're being loud to anyone else," Jeongin points out. "I have to go to school for the parents-teachers conference. You two be nice and go take a nap. Not in Minho's bed."
They take a nap in Jeongin's bed. It's a rather aggressive one. They stick to the opposite end of the mattress and Minho is pretty sure Jisung just plays on his phone for the whole time.
It kind of soothes him, having Jisung there while he looks back at his whole life in search of the moment things turned weird for them and comes up with nothing.
So are Jisung's fingers carding through the messy hair at his nape when he thinks he's asleep.
Maybe it's weird.
It probably is.
Minho has always been weird.
When he wakes up from his nap he's groggy and overwhelmed and he doesn't want to see anyone, or hear a single noise.
He burrows his face between Jisung's shoulder blades and hugs his tiny waist while he plays on Jeongin's Switch, volume turned all the way up.
"Why are you angry with me, Lino?"
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are."
"No," he whines, muffling the sound in the fabric of Jisung's hoodie. "Would I be snuggling you if I were?"
"Apparently," Jisung says. "Since you're doing it."
Minho rolls away and then drapes himself over Jisung's back.
He oohfs and folds in two, but he doesn't move away. He never does.
He would if he knew Minho was a freak and he was thinking about licking his neck. Or maybe not. He would if he knew he's thinking about licking his neck and not doing it. Not doing it means that there's something icky behind an innocent mlep.
He mleps. Not far enough to actually touch skin.
Jisung giggles, all breath.
"I'm not angry," he says, angrily, playing with Jisung's sleeves. "I'm sleepy."
"No you're not. I know you when you're sleepy. This is new."
There's a bright side to everything. He smiles like a cat.
"You want to know what I'm thinking so bad."
"Then tell me."
"Absolutely not. I'm a mystery again. Unknowable."
"You only ever call me Hannie. Do you like it so much because it sounds like honey?"
Minho opens his mouth. Closes it again.
Jisung is perfectly relaxed in his arms. He's playing better than he's ever seen Jeongin play.
"A mystery," he repeats. "Unknowable."
"That's fine," he says. "That's the kind of thing I'm okay not knowing. I'd like to know if you're upset."
His voice is so reasonable.
It's so, so soft.
"HannieSoonieDoongieDori," he says. "I call you Hannie because you're my first cat. I got you first."
If Jisung is upset he answered the wrong question, he doesn't let him know. He pauses the game to turn at Minho.
Close.
Wood and spice.
"I can't be your cat. Then I'd be your favorite, and I can't do that to Soonie."
"You do that to Felix," he points out. "We're both cats, and I'm your favorite."
Jisung downturns. Eyebrows, eyes, lips. Shoulders, too.
Minho smiles like he does when he's being stupid.
He thinks Jeongin might have meant lovesick.
And then Chan opens the apartment door.
"Minho," he calls, almost singsongy. "Minho, kitten, where are you?"
He doesn't spring away from Jisung. Jisung springs away from him.
It's an important distinction his brain is hitting repeatedly against. He vaguely hears the Han-Bangs making a scene in the living room, but he doesn't give a fuck about it.
Why did Jisung get away from him?
He jumps on his feet.
He ignores Chan.
"Why did you run anyway?"
Jisung already has his foot down.
"Why are you angry with me?"
"Don't answer a question with a question!"
"I've asked my question first!"
"That was in Jeongin's room!" He points at it. "We changed locations, it doesn't count!"
Jisung looks at him like he's getting mad.
Usually it's the point when Minho reels it in, because whether he's riling him up on purpose or not, he doesn't ever want Jisung to be mad.
He's not backing down now.
Jisung isn't either.
"Why were you in Jeongin's room?" Chan asks, completely incapable of reading a room.
"Because he said not to take a nap on Minho's bed!" They yell at the same time.
Well, Minho yells my bed, but it doesn't feel important.
Minho drops his hand, still pointing.
Jisung fixes his bangs.
Chan looks at them with an over the top, cutesy smile. Like he's drinking spoiled strawberry milk.
"Guys,"
"Shut up!" They both yell.
And then Jisung is flying out of the apartment.
"Let me know when you decide to take your head out of your ass!" He yells at the door while it's still rattling.
"Don't get a cat if you don't want them to act up!"
His chest is heaving. His fists are curled up.
His head is still banging against a wall.
"What?" He yells at Chan, when he's tired of being stared at.
"Jeongin said you might want to talk about something, but you don't want to talk to him about it because he's baby bread and you're the big bad kitten that taught him how to be a cat."
"Jeongin is right," he says. "But I also don't want to talk to you."
Stupid Jeongin and his chaos.
He wouldn't have wanted to talk to Chan about not kissing Jisung even before the hot pink bobby pins and the dancing.
Before Jisung fucking ran away from him like they couldn't be caught doing- what? Cuddling? Smiling? Looking at each other? Being Minho and Jisung?
Minho screeches.
It's loud. It's also past nap time, so the neighbor will fuck himself.
He screams until he's all tired out, which is admittedly very soon. He slumps on the carpet, not sure what shape his limbs are lying in.
Chan crouches next to him and pets his hair.
Minho bares his teeth, but it's comforting for a minute. He feels marginally more normal- he's being petted and he's not thinking about jumping Chan.
Or keeping himself from thinking about it, which is what he would be doing if Jisung was petting his hair. He screams in tiny. He's too tired to do anything else.
"Minho," Chan asks, voice deep and rumbly and smelling like something Minho won't want to hear. "Did you and Jisung-"
He gets a pillow from the couch and smacks Chan square in the face with it. He falls down on his ass, but Minho isn't taking prisoners.
"Enough with your fucking obsession! He's an adult! He can fuck whoever he wants, stop putting your grubby hands all over his business!"
"That came out really really wrong," Chan thinks is the smart thing to say. "But ignoring how that sounds, I'm not putting my grubby hands all over his business. I'm putting them all over yours."
"Same thing."
"No," Chan shakes his head, mouth a straight, concerned line. "He's not the one I'm worried about, Minho."
This is the single most absurd thing Minho ever heard, and he deals with Jeongin's nonsense all the time.
"You're always worried about Jisung, it's three fourths of your personality."
The other fourth is the abs.
Chan blushes.
"Yeah, well. I am worried about him, but I'm more worried about you."
Minho bares his teeth in disgust again.
"Ew. Do you have a crush on me?"
He sighs.
"Minho. Focus."
"I am."
"No. You're focused on avoiding what you should focus on. What happened with Jisung?"
"We danced," he says. "And we took a nap."
Chan nods. He nods again. He drops his head forward, then looks up at the ceiling.
"I'm starting to remember why people drink."
Good idea. Great idea.
He stomps into the kitchen and drinks a shot of gin.
He zones in on the burning sensation in his throat. He breathes in. He can still smell the fucking spice.
"If it's easier," Chan sighs, sitting down at the table. "We can pretend this is not about my brother."
"Easier for whom."
"Minho. Stop being difficult. We're sitting through this for you."
"You're the only one who's sitting."
"Minho."
It's an order. Chan orders people around all the time. It comes with the sweet concern and the dependability: he knows how things should be run in order to be smooth, and depending on how much weight he's carrying on his shoulders, he will only suffer through so much deviation before reminding you that he expects you to follow the path of least resistance.
Chan never orders Minho around.
Minho doesn't need to be kept in check, not when it matters. He respects Chan, and he knows when it's time to stop playing.
Minho takes a deep breath.
He accepts he's stepped over the line.
But it's not Chan's line to set.
"I don't come to you demanding you pour your heart out about your girlfriend of the trimester, do I?"
Chan raises both of his eyebrows. He's looking at him from below, but it doesn't look like it. Minho straightens his jaw.
"Sorry if Jeongin called you. You can go."
"Minho," it's gentler, but it's still an order.
He takes a deep sigh.
"Minho," almost something like reassurance. "I want to help."
Maybe he can take his head out of his ass for long enough to say:
"It's too soon."
Something comes down on Chan's face.
Surprise. Even pity.
Whatever Minho is coming to terms with, Chan is several steps ahead.
He didn't want Minho to confess he has feelings for Jisung that aren't a little less special and a little more human.
He wanted Minho to confess to something else, something he has no fucking clue about, because he just looked at Jisung today and though: oh. I'm sick for you. Like a freak.
He wipes a stray eyelash at the corner of his eye.
"Of course," Chan nods, standing up.
He gives him a suffocating, unnecessary back hug, and Minho vibrates through it, eyes shut.
It still feels a little cold when it's over.
"Whenever you need me, you know where to find me."
Minho nods softly, and closes the door behind him.
💫
The original sin, Jeongin said.
He thinks about it wrapped in his blankets, deep at night, when he should be sleeping but he's too afraid to wake up with the taste of Jisung on his lips.
Maybe he should kiss him, Jeongin said.
Minho has a thing for straight guys.
He didn't always.
All of his crushes, his first kisses, his first words hushered in the dark of someone's backseat, they were all for other young, naive boys who were trying to work up the courage to call themselves something they already knew they were.
All perfectly nice guys who he thought he really liked, and then dropped to hang out with Chan and Changbin, because he liked them more. Because they liked him and not his hands, or his mouth, or however little of himself Minho shared with the strangers he kissed.
It was only in his second year of college that he started wanting to make men look at him.
After Jisung showed up at Changbin's pool party in smart shorts and blue reflective sunglasses. After he dropped his cocky attitude for Minho and Minho only, giving him a hug that lasted so long Chan tried to unglue them crying it was unfair. After Jisung laughed a new, deep staccato laugh that made Minho's brain go purrrrr.
He's thinking, while his sideways phone plays the opening of yet another anime episode he will look at but won't watch- that he maybe only ever wanted Jisung to look at him.
That being touched by straight hands that shouldn't want him was only ever a thrill because it meant that maybe, if he was really, really lucky, he could get Jisung to touch him too.
That Jisung being blind to men the way Minho was blind to women wasn't a deal breaker- for all those straight guys who touched him fervently, once only had looked at women too.
And then came the even bigger thrill of finding a guy who was so sure of himself that he would flirt with Minho without thinking twice about it. Because it was harmless. Because nothing was ever going to happen.
It always did.
Maybe he should kiss Jisung, Jeongin said.
So that he could finally hear the no that counted.
Stop deluding himself that there's a way to have what he longs for so intuitively that it's just a part of him.
He knows there isn't.
Jisung didn't pull away from him because he felt the need to hide something- he rushed towards Chan. An instinctive reaction to his brother always butting in in his business.
Minho knows he can't have Jisung like this.
Jisung lives the life he wants, and if he wanted Minho, he would have him already.
They're not little gay aliens.
They're starmates.
Minho is perfectly happy with that. He's always been.
💫
He pulls himself together in the morning. Puts on a button-up, a nice pair of jeans and styles his hair properly. He has no classes to teach today but a whole lot of meetings with sponsors in the morning, and some meetings with the youngest kids' parents, the ones who want to know if their kids have a future and their money are being put to good use. He can't afford to mope around in sweats and have his hands twitch with the thought of Jisung's waist under the winter layers.
It helps him. Centers him. He's Lee Minho, before he's Minho of Minho and Jisung. Prettiest man in the city, trademarked confident gay.
He's so confident, in fact, that after work he goes straight to pick up Jeongin's at the school, anime OSTs blaring out of the car windows.
"What are you doing here?" Jeongin asks when he recognizes the car. "And why are your windows rolled down? It's snowing."
Snowflakes are barely forming, really. Evaporating before they hit the ground.
"If you call this snowing, you're weak. Get in."
"I drove here in my own car."
Minho rolls his eyes.
"I'll drive you tomorrow morning."
"You have classes at 8am and I don't come in until 11am," he deadpans. "I'm not getting here two hours early."
"But I drove all the way out here to come and get you."
Jeongin squints at him. He's onto him. He knows Minho is planning something. He just doesn't know what yet.
Minho can't blame him. It's not a plan he can foresee.
Jeongin sighs and gets in the car.
"You look nice," he tells him, suspiciously. "Did you dress up for work?"
"Yes."
The lip tint he applied before driving there, but Jeongin doesn't need to know it. Yet.
He believes him and marginally relaxes, shifting on the passenger seats.
Jisung had curled up in it so nicely. Took so much space with his giant puffer jacket and spread out legs.
He grips the steering wheel. Tight.
He brings Jeongin to one of their favorite nice-but-not-formal restaurants, and although Jeongin is looking at him like he's waiting to be stabbed, they enjoy their meals and have a nice conversation. They get along well, even when one of them is acting up- that's why they moved in together and have no intention of splitting up until Jeongin gets a husband.
"I've been talking with Felix," Jeongin says when he's tired of Minho stalling. "He says that he would be willing to switch roommates if you and Jisung wanted to give it a go."
Minho blinks.
Then chokes on his beer.
"I mean," Jeongin goes on, unperturbed with his death. "Since the two of you are so close, and such good friends, and there's absolutely no reason why this would be a spectacularly bad idea and all."
Minho has taught him too well, he thinks at times.
"You just want to get rid of me."
"At this point?" Jeongin asks, raising an eyebrow. "Yes."
Minho is outraged. He picks up a chopstick and grabs it as a weapon. Jeogin catches his hand.
"I'd like to not be kicked out, I like this place." He says, quickly. And then, like it's something that should be spoken aloud and not cause rifts in the universe: "It's okay if you like him, Minho."
The words roll off his neck, all the way down his spine.
Minho cringes. A full body wince. He drops the chopstick, and Jeongin drops his hand.
"I'm really grateful to you, Minho." He sounds like he would literally be glad to do anything else rather than admit it, including scrubbing his kids' vomit off the wall. "We joke about it all the time, but you really made it comfortable for me to come to terms with a big part of my life. You always had an answer for me, and if you hadn't, you went out of your way to find it for me. I'd like to be there for you, too."
Minho sniffles. Drily. It's a feline response to smothering.
"So much so that you're moving out."
Jeongin is disappointed. But he was expecting it.
"Are you done?"
"Yes." Minho plays with a bottle cap. It bounces. "I like Jisung."
It feels cheap to use his first name, but that's what he's got for now.
"Sigh," Jeongin spells out. "You really weren't playing dumb, were you?"
Another bounce.
"Not consciously."
"It's a good thing you're staring at it, now. It's a first step."
"Towards what?"
"Stop chasing him in every other pretty straight guy," Jeongin says as if it's a matter of fact. "It's not good for you."
"It's been great for me, actually," he corrects him. "It's fun. It's not like I want to settle down anyway."
"I think you do." It's very gentle. It makes Minho's skin crawl. "I think you've known what you want for a really long time, Minho."
"I can still have it." He's stubborn. Driven. "Hannie wants it too. The important stuff, I mean. We'll be fine."
Jeongin takes a good look at him.
"You want to get over him as a man, but not as Jisung?"
Minho nods. Of course.
What other option does he has? Get over Jisung as a person? Get over Minho and Jisung?
It's almost funny, really.
That's his soulmate.
You can't get rid of a soulmate because of something silly like a dirty little crush.
"Yeah." He verbalizes, because Jeongin doesn't seem to want to swallow it.
"Leave it to you to choose the hardest path."
"There's no other path," he doesn't whine, for once. "It's me and Hannie. It has to be okay."
If anything, he's happier that he's always been stupid for him.
It means that even if he never gets him like a man, he'll be happy anyway. Warm and drunk and fuzzy, holding a whole star in his arms.
He just needs to actually throw the trash out rather than sweeping it under the bed.
"Speaking of," he says, reinvigorated. "You're going to take me dancing. I'm going to try it your way. Play the field of other willing gay guys, like a boring person."
"No."
He hangs his mouth open in betrayal.
"What do you mean, no?"
"It's a Wednesday. We both have to go to work tomorrow morning. Wait until Friday night, and I'll take you dancing."
"I can't wait until Friday!"
"Why not?"
Because he needs to start dealing with the trash before he sees Jisung again, and he can't wait until Friday to see Jisung again.
He wants to hold his hand and fix the collar of his shirt and kiss him. Just a little. Brush his lips on his cheek while he tucks away his fluffy bangs.
"I want to see Hannie."
He pulls a face. He didn't mean to be honest. Jeongin sighs.
"You'll survive."
He doesn't budge. He goes as far as to suggest Minho could go alone, which is just vile, because you never let your baby gay wander alone in a gay bar with his pretty little head full of fucked up thoughts.
Minho sulks, but he accepts it. He's gone without Hannie for far longer. He's Lee Minho. He has a life outside of Han Jisung.
He thinks about Jisung constantly.
It's the fact that he can't see him that drives him crazy. Knowing that if he took a glance at that heart shaped smile right now, he couldn't help himself from thinking about all the things that mouth could do. It's shameful enough to think about it in the privacy of his own head, he's not going to space out in front of Jisung thinking he wants him to suck his dick.
It's dirty.
He's also very aware he's spent entire business weeks trying to drill into Jeongin's head that he should throw vocabulary like that out the window and let the old people deal with their own generational shame, but this is different.
This is personal.
He just shouldn't think about Jisung like that.
But he does.
He tastes the reversed engineered taste of him on his lips, he feels the strain his thighs would get from wrapping around his tiny waist and not letting go, he sees his pretty dark eyes looking down at him behind wisps of dark curls.
In all honesty, he has no real faith in his plan of action. He doubts fucking some random guy who just barely gets a passing grade will do something to wipe his brain of lustful visions of sinful angels, but at least he'll be a little less horny. He'll take what he can while he gathers his infamous iron will and determination and schools his brain into thinking only the most innocent, purest of thoughts towards Jisung.
Like he used to. Like he still does.
Except, unlike Chan, he's always known Jisung is a man.
He's fucked, really.
He's just going to have to play this by ear and hope for the best. At least he's good at it.
It's still Jeongin's fault he has to wait until Friday to touch someone's ass, so he touches Jeongin's any chance he gets. In retribution.
💫
"I guess it's not surprising," Jeongin muses from somewhere deep below- or above. "That you don't seem to like anyone here."
"That's not true!" Minho complains, sprawled on the couch -or the floor- with an arm over his eyes. "I like you."
Jeongin is horrified.
"How much did you drink?"
"I'm sweating it out," he grumbles. He can still feel his tongue and his brain functions are intact, if his sense of direction isn't. He's peachy.
"Can I go get you some water or will you manage to make a mess the moment I leave?"
"Go get yourself a man. I can't live with Hannie if you don't get married, and you can't get married without a man. Go get yourself a man."
"You said that already."
He almost doubles over the couch when he half sits up -or sideways- to yell at him.
"And you're still here!"
Jeongin laughs, the bastard.
Minho knows he's a cute drunk. It's not a source of pride, but it is what it is.
Rather than laying back down, he opts to stretch his legs. He does that after stretching his arms instead.
He waits for a while, judging the music selection. They don't play good songs anymore- it's all grinding sounds and fake moans and intelligible lyrics. There's this place the Han-Bangs know that only plays disco music and rock bangers. He wishes he was there instead, but that's where he scores most of his straight boys and he's trying to get over it.
He likes his straight boys. Cute. Eager. A bit messy.
Honestly, he deserves one last good straight boy before he goes on his cleanse. Going cold turkey is a stupid idea.
There has to be some straight friend on this dancefloor. Open minded and easily impressed by someone buying a drink for them. Nobody ever buys straight guys drinks.
It's very sad. Girls, in Minho's opinion, should buy boys more drinks. Especially the pretty ones.
Like that one over there, with a tiny waist showed off by a crop top and messy, fluffy black hair. Minho is annoyed. He could be Jisung, and yet he's not applying himself. Too tall, too little time in the gym building useless vanity biceps, overall not round enough. Minho isn't asking for much, and yet he's relentlessly disappointed.
He's pissed and he's bored and he doesn't remember what he's waiting for, so he stops waiting. He can even tell up from down- he can almost never tell left from right anyway because he can't really use tricks like "think what hand you write with". Hot ambidextrous problems.
He complains about it to a guy with hideous highlights, but he only gets a blank stare and an awkward wave back, so he turns and goes dancing on his own. He's good at dancing on his own.
"Minho?" A strangled, deep voice calls for him like he just saw the devil.
Minho searches for Felix's face and he finds it really close to his own.
"Hi, Lixie," he grins, putting his arms on his shoulders. "I always forget you like boys, too."
"Yeah, well," he stutters, grabbing his waist and moving him around quite nervously. "I do. You, too. Funny how that works."
"Did we kiss before?"
"No," he chokes out. "And we're not going to."
Minho, lips already nooting, is not particularly disappointed but he isn't happy about it either.
"You're always down to kiss Hannie. Did you ever kiss Hannie?"
"Are you here alone, Minho?" He asks urgently, head turning left and right.
"Jeongin is here somewhere I guess."
He looks around too, searching for a ginger head, when he sees something he likes.
Tiny waist, dark wash denim, black tank top and a cropped leather jacket. Hoop earrings and a perfect mess of wispy dark curls. Round.
"See?" He says, pointing at the pretty boy. "It's not that difficult to look like Hannie. People are just lazy."
Felix produces a very shrill laugh for someone with a voice that deep.
"Yeah. Right. It's crazy how he totally does look like Jisung. Why don't we go find Jeongin?"
Minho blinks.
"Felix, I'm not stupid. I know that's Jisung."
"Oh." He swallows. "Okay. Well. Why don't we go find Jeongin?"
"You go find Jeongin," he says, pushing him away. "I'm going to say hi."
Felix catches his wrist. He releases him after one second that would have cost him his arm if he was anyone but Felix. Minho likes Felix. He likes him even better when he's not obsessing over Jeongin.
"Did you ever kiss Jeongin?"
"I don't remember." Felix lies. "Why don't we go ask him?"
He ignores him. Felix squeals several sounds while the music gets a little punchier and the lights flesh hot pink and acid green rather than purple and ice blue.
Jisung is feeling himself on the dance floor, as he should. His skin is glowing. He's biting the corner of his lips, a big grin on his face while he's swaying his hips.
This is not good for Minho in any capacity. He's both tipsy enough to recognize it and completely disregard it.
"Brought Felix window shopping?" He asks, dancing with lazy limbs in front of him.
Jisung looks surprised, then pissed, then amused, then pissed again.
Minho didn't forget how they left the last time they saw each other, but he's in the clear.
"I still haven't," he assures him, getting closer just to be heard. "Got my head out my ass, I mean."
Jisung laughs. Ah ah ah. Minho can't hear it, but he can see it.
"Good to know."
He pulls Minho closer by his shirt. He lets him go when Minho is close enough that people won't cut through them unless they're willingly looking for a fight.
They dance progressively closer, but they aren't dancing together. Minho wants to, but he probably shouldn't, because he would also really like to grind his ass on Jisung's lap and smile in his neck, but he's definitely not drunk enough for that.
He's barely tipsy anymore, really.
He stops dead still.
"Drink?" Jisung asks fondly, without needing to ask.
Which is extra cute because they haven't been out dancing together all that much.
Jisung in general doesn't like it, too many people pressed together. He looks good tonight, grip firm around Minho's wrist where he caught it. Minho ignored it when he did it because he would have otherwise either jumped him or collapsed.
He nods to whatever Jisung asks him if he's okay with. He let go of his wrist, but their hands are almost pressed together on the edge of the counter. Minho likes the little space. It's alluring. Atrocious.
"Here with Jeongin?" Jisung asks, only having to turn his chin up a little to talk right into his ear.
"Uh," Minho nods, mouth hanging open for just the time of a blink. "Why is everyone obsessed with Jeongin?"
"I didn't catch it," Jisung says, turning his head and tapping his cheek, right next to his ear.
Minho is not a weak man. He's known for his iron will and dedication.
He grips the polished, sticky wood with more fervor, and he leans to Jisung side to whisper- he doesn't remember, really. Not at all.
Jisung waits what seems like an arbitrary amount of time but it's probably the exact number of seconds it takes Minho to remember something he's got on the tip of his tongue, then turns to look at him.
It's devastating how pretty he looks. How hot he is, too, chest still heaving softly from the dancing and sweat glistening on his brow, his cheekbones, the side of his neck.
Minho doesn't know about the number of seconds, but he does know when Jisung's silence starts to linger a little too long.
"Two ruby hearts!" The barman shouts with Changbin's voice volume.
Minho gets his and downs half in one go. It's bitter and grassy. Rich with syrup, too. He smacks his lips together. Jisung is nursing his glass with a little less desperation.
The music is too loud to talk, so they just stand there somewhat awkwardly, almost touching but not quite, Minho standing kind of sideways to fit between Jisung and a stool.
The stench of the club almost makes Jisung smell like nothing. It's frustrating.
"Will you get drunk if we get shots?" Jisung asks with somewhat displaced fierce determination once their drinks are gone.
Minho orders in response. Something minty fresh. They take a loveshot after wiggling around, hands on hips and shoulders jamming into chests, and somehow they don't spill any of it.
And then, because Jisung is always one step sideways, he puts his mouth square to Minho's ear, breathes warm and tingly, and asks: "do you want to get in my car?"
He sees Jeongin from the corner of his eye while they giggle all the way to Jisung's piece of junk. He doesn't know if Jeongin sees him, and he doesn't care. He sends him a text composed of a car emoji and a capital H, and then adds a stop sign, just to make it clear he does not want Jeongin butting in his mess.
It's not like anything is happening anyway, he'll just torture himself basking in Jisung's presence for a while, and then he will go back to the original, terrible plan of getting someone to fuck him stupid so that he will stop thinking about stripping Jisung, starting with his hot but stuffy leather jacket. But it's cold in the car, and Jisung won't get it off.
"This place sucks," Jisung says, toeing off his platform sneakers and kicking them under the seats.
They're in the backseat, each on their own end, not touching. Minho doesn't like it. He puts a hand on Jisung's knee.
The car smells like dwindling air freshener, old carpeting and those damn spices. Whatever cologne Jisung is using, it's never getting out of Minho's head. He'll sniff it on his deathbed.
"I want to be cremated," he reminds Jisung.
"I know," he replies, voice a little more than a whisper. "Chan and Seungmin both have it in writing."
"Can we mix our ashes together? When we die? Make a star dust baby?"
Jisung chuckles. Put his hands over Minho's.
"I'm well ahead of you. Seungmin has that in writing, too."
It's a lie, but it's a nice one. Minho purrs. He closes his eyes, letting his head fall on the seat.
He doesn't want to waste this time drowsing off, but he's liquored up and content and sleepy, so he will forgive himself if he does. Jisung will wake him up when he wants Minho awake anyway.
"You're not the only one who's got his head up his ass."
Minho opens his eyes.
He's staring at fourteen year old Han Jisung. Chin up. Shoulder squared. Eyes piercing, looking right in front of him. He's slumped in the seat in an artful display of ease and confidence. The spices are melting into the intoxicating smell of defiance.
Jisung has no clue what he's doing, but he will do it.
"Don't worry, I didn't notice."
"I've been kissing you, Minho."
Minho licks his lips. They're dry.
"You kiss Felix all the time."
Jisung snorts.
"For whose benefit are you playing it dumb?"
Minho isn't drunk, but he isn't sober enough to keep up with Jisung.
He wouldn't have taken the shot if he had known Jisung would get him in a car and speak from the very bottom of his chest and put him on the spot.
He thought he was safe.
"Hannie," he says, squinting just enough to make it clear he means it. "Simple words."
He smiles. It's small, but his eyes curl up too. For a second Minho even knows his right from his left.
"You kissed Hyunjin."
"Yes."
He's getting frustrated. Minho will too, if Jisung keeps not giving him enough to understand what he wants from him.
Jisung senses it, of course he does.
"I'm not here for Felix."
Minho isn't weak.
He keeps his hand on Jisung, because he needs it there. He breathes in, and out, and in again.
"I'm not here for Jeongin."
Jisung chuckles. He pushes his hair out of the way, puts his elbows on the sill, leans his forehead against his fingers.
"Yeah, well. That's not that damning, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah." He says, eyebrows raised and mouth slack. "I rarely pick guys up in gay bars."
"Right. You like to feel special."
He says it in very round letters. Almost like it's an accusation.
"Han," he spells out. "I'm tipsy. Talk to me like I am."
Jisung turns. Black piercing eyes rimmed in splotchy black eyeshadow. Black holes. Minho wants to swim in them.
"You kiss straight guys. I'm straight."
He snaps back into his mortal constraints.
"Yeah, but," he says. "You're Hannie."
Minho doesn't often say the wrong thing to Jisung. Not accidentally, when he doesn't want to rile him up. It appears he's getting better at it.
"And Hannie isn't a straight man?"
"Yeah, but-" it's a comforting string of words. "I don't want to be weird about it."
Jisung put his hand over Minho's, sneaks just one finger under his.
"I'm the one who's being weird about it." He takes a long sigh. "I think we've been weird about it from the start."
"But I like it." His hair bunch up against the seat. Jisung keeps himself from smiling. It's cute. Minho smiles for him, instead. He's tired of the stuffy air between them, of the ugly specks polluting their asteroid chain.
He smiles, and Jisung kisses him.
Skin.
He tastes like wood and spice and sweat and skin.
His fingers are hooked in the front of Minho's nice silk shirt, in between the buttons so it doesn't slip away. He's awkwardly pressed against Minho's side, their knees jammed together.
Minho doesn't dare move.
He can't even kiss back. He doesn't know how to. He's never kissed Jisung before.
Luckily Jisung is doing the most for him.
It's his way to be shy about it.
Minho knows, of course. He knows Jisung too well and without any reason to.
Jisung's hand is moving around his chest, his shoulder, his waist.
"Fuck this stupid shirt," he rasps in Minho's mouth. "Why are you wearing silk? You never wear silk."
Because it makes handsy men go crazy.
Minho usually enjoys their fumbling, relishes in their flustered frustration.
Jisung isn't flustered, he's annoyed. And Minho has no wits left.
He cups Jisung's face with both hands. He surrenders. His dedication melts to Jisung's spicy sweat, drowns in his mouth, dies by his tongue.
Kissing isn't supposed to feel like this. It isn't meant to light him on fire and make his head float in open space without oxygen support. Kissing is supposed to be nice, and passionate, and make him long for more. He would know, he loves kissing.
He's not sure he loves whatever Jisung is doing to him. Whether the feeling of free falling is something he's chasing or enduring.
And then Jisung pulls away, presses chapped lips slick with spit right up his ear, and says:
"You looked at me. While you were kissing him."
Like a freak.
He turns his face into Jisung's.
"You were there. I always look at you when you're there."
Jisung pushes one leg between Minho's. He's only balancing himself, getting leverage to kiss down Minho's neck. He's way too close and too far, walking the thin line of danger.
Minho can still take this and put this away. Shove it under the bed. Find a way to deal with it on his own.
"Hannie," he calls.
Jisung finds a gap at his waist. Sneaks his fingers up his back, under his shirt.
Minho doesn't mean to grind against his thigh, but he's startled, and he has nowhere else to go but closer to Jisung. He's caged in.
Until he's not.
Jisung sits back. He doesn't go far, legs pressed together and a hand on the back of his neck, but he's not overwhelming him anymore. He gave him enough square footage to roam around.
Minho doesn't know what to do with it.
He leans forward, tucks away a wispy curl. Smudges the corner of his make-up.
He knows exactly what he wants.
He wants Jisung.
He's unsatisfied and eager and flooded by greed.
He wants to mark Jisung, to ruin him, to drink him up, to take everything he's willing to give.
Jisung curls his fingers under Minho's chin, black nails scratching his skin.
He's a liar.
He wants Jisung to ruin him.
He has no idea what Jisung wants.
"Hannie," he says, trying to level his voice. "You're the one with a good head on his shoulder. I'm trusting you."
Jisung looks at him with wide, loving eyes. A deer in headlights who recognizes the man about to run him over.
"Yeah. We're fucked."
"We could be," Minho says.
Like a freak.
Jisung swallows. Stiffens in Minho's arms.
"That's what I've been thinking."
Minho giggles. It's neither the place or time for it, but it's the right company.
He plays with the loose chain around Jisung's neck, jewelry he's seen on him countless times before. Jisung is curious, but not fickle. When he finds something he likes, he keeps it.
Minho would know. Jisung always circles back to him.
"If you want to," he says, voice levered in misplaced confidence. "We can."
"If I want to." Jisung mouths. "I jumped you, Minho."
True. Jisung frowns, waiting for the stupid thing Minho is about to tease him with.
"Whatever. We kissed before."
Jisung's pout is very determined.
"I've kissed you before. You've kissed Hyunjin."
He's bubbling like champagne.
He smiles in a straight line, gently scratching up the seam of Jisung's jeans.
"It really bothers you."
"Yeah," he nods. "I was right there kissing your neck and you went and kissed Hyunjin."
He shrugs.
"He's pretty."
Jisung is outraged. He's right to be. Minho thinks it's really, really funny.
He laughs, groping his shoulder when Jisung blabbers about seeing who's prettier and how he's not putting up with this treatment anymore.
He climbs in Jisung's lap just as he fakes cracking the door open.
"You're prettier," he says, deadly serious, wrapping his arms around his neck.
Jisung is flushed, looking up at him with stars in his eyes.
"Am I, now?"
He nods.
"That's why I didn't kiss you. You're too pretty."
Jisung grabs his thighs. Both of them. Tries to get some kind of leverage in the fabric of his jeans to drag him closer, but they're too tight too.
"Wouldn't you want to kiss me more?"
"Yes." He blinks. "But it's scarier to do it."
"I'm scary?"
"Terrifying." It's easier to admit if he jokes about it. "Am I scary?"
Jisung headbutts him. Gently. Minho slow blinks.
"No." He speaks against his mouth. "I think I'm the scary one, too."
Minho kisses him.
Curls his fingers around Jisung's neck, opens the single button keeping his jacket closed. The loud snap makes something turn in his stomach. Jisung grabs his hips, fingers in the empty loops of his jeans.
He's back to outer space, but he's got a thread tying him to Jisung. If he's stranded, he's not alone.
They kiss until it feels less like driving top speed down the hallway without a steering wheel, and more like kissing should. Nice. Passionate. Making Minho long for more.
He kisses down Jisung's neck. The chain caught under his lips is a cold snowflake on the scorching planes of his skin. He licks along the chain, bites gently into the side of Jisung's neck.
Jisung is very quiet. His fingers are glued to Minho's sides, thumbs digging into the flesh of his hips. He gives him access to everywhere Minho wants to touch, kiss, lick, but Minho knows he's thinking. He kisses his throat right where it's imprinted with the shape of a heart.
"Hannie," he says, breathless and serious. "Touch me. I want you to."
He chokes on a moan when Jisung kisses him. He shoves his tongue inside his mouth, bites on his bottom lip, sneaks his hands up his shirt, pulling him closer, as close as they can get in the cramped space of the back seat.
Minho gives back, but he's not sure if it makes it better or worse. He doesn't know where he is, what his hands are doing, if it's his voice making tiny kitten sounds.
He knows it's Jisung's doing.
He's too busy resisting the impulse to bruise Jisung's neck like crazy to mind what Jisung is doing. Minho isn't prepared when he feels a strong arm tighten up around his waist to keep him in place while Jisung thrusts up into him.
Minho knew he was hard, but now he knows he is, and Minho has an iron will but he's very good at using it to his own interest.
"Do you want me now, Hannie?" A kiss on his jaw. "Get it over with?" A kiss on his cheek. "Fuck me out of your mind?"
"I don't want to get it over with," he grumbles in the dirtiest, raspiest voice he's got. "But I want you."
A kiss on the lips.
"How do you want me?"
Jisung's lips close for just the time it takes him to swallow. Minho brushes his thumb over his bottom lip.
"How do you want me?" He claps back, fingers working two buttons open, just low enough that he could lick the dip between his pecs.
"However you'll let me have you."
His eyelashes flutter when Jisung points his feet on the floor and raises his legs just high enough to make it easier to lick his chest. Bottom to the top. He sucks on his pulse, at the base of his throat.
"You're not helpful."
"I'm honest," he replies, pushing his hair back. "Why do I have to make the call?"
"Because you're the one who's used to do this."
"That makes no sense. If I was used to doing you, we'd both be."
Jisung groans. Looks up at him. Minho pushes back his hair, too, runs his fingers through the curls until he meets a knot. He's made a mess of it. He licks his lips.
He's made a mess of him.
Jisung looks desperate. Eyes blows black, splotchy flushed cheeks, eyebrows turned in aggravation. It's a great look. He licks Jisung's lips.
"Do you really have no pointer for me, baby?"
He purrs. Gives back a chin scratch because he believes in equality.
"Guys usually want to be fucked. Say if they're only doing it once, they might as well know how it feels."
Jisung's eyes look very dark, all smudged in black.
"I guess it makes sense."
Minho tilts his head.
"You're not convinced?"
"I just," he catches his breath. "I only really care about finding out how it feels to be with you."
Fuck it.
He's going to be selfish.
Minho kisses him. Messy and dirty, open mouths barely catching onto each other.
"I'll ride you." He lets him know.
Jisung unbuttons his jeans for him.
Minho guesses there's another reasons why straight guys prefer to be fucked- there's less of a chance to get their hands dirty. Involved. Taking it from behind, it could be anyone opening them up and fucking into them.
Even if Minho opened himself up right now, sitting on Jisung's lap with his pants stretched painfully across his thighs as low as they'll go, there's still a lot of man for Jisung to deal with.
He doesn't seem to mind. He steals the packet of lube from his hands and opens it for him.
"Do I do it?" He asks, after making a mess of his fingers already. His black nail polish is chipped.
Minho raises both of his eyebrows with a cat smile.
"If you're not a coward."
Jisung is not a coward.
Minho hangs on his hair and drowns. He makes sure to tell him when he wants more, and he's sure Jisung knows wants isn't the same as he's ready for, but he pretends he doesn't. Minho loves him for that.
For the tight pressure of his fingers, for his hot breath panting on Minho's skin, for the fierce way he hold on Minho's hip, careful not to squeeze out all of the lube. The jagged corner of the packet he holds between two fingers scratches his hip every time Minho messes with Jisung's work because he's impatient.
When he said he'd be selfish, he wasn't kidding.
He's getting this, and he's making it good for himself. If Jisung enjoys it, all the better.
"You'll tire yourself out," Jisung mouths against his neck, mouth vaguely heart shaped against his skin.
"With these thighs?"
"Yes," Jisung chuckles. "I'm not making it quick for you."
Minho isn't the only one with an iron will. Jisung simply chooses to employ it sparingly.
"I hear a lot of talking."
Even if there's more talking to hear after Jisung keeps him busy with maddening kisses while he slicks himself up, he doesn't catch it.
He's already so out of it that when he sinks onto Jisung, it's just pure relief. His brain, will and soul melting into sweet nothing.
He feels so good.
Any other word would be too much or not enough. It's just as good as a nice day of April, not too warm and not too cold.
Minho is just meant to take Jisung's dick. He would be offended if that wasn't the case.
"Okay?" Jisung asks him just the minute Minho blinks himself to consciousness again.
Minho bites his lip, gives a quick eyebrow quip to warn him. Jisung takes it well until Minho grips his shoulder and slams a hand against the window to get leverage. His eyes go wide.
Minho gets to work.
Sex is easy. He knows the motions and he knows he looks good going through them.
It gets progressively less easy as Jisung finds his center and grips Minho's thighs, feels his arm up, licks the side of his neck.
It's still Minho's game until Jisung pushes Minho's hair back and keeps it in place. He says something Minho ignores. A heart blooms on his face, a perfect 10 accounting for the absence of Minho's beloved chipped tooth.
"Can I play, too?" Jisung asked.
Something Minho didn't have the capacity to deal with, but he really should have forced himself to, because when Jisung stars fucking into him in earnest, it takes Minho by surprise.
Jisung hits something inside Minho that he's not sure it's purely physical. His hand stays in Minho's hair. Like he wants to keep it out of the way to take a good look of Minho's face as he makes a mess of himself.
The issue is, now Minho has no excuse not to look at Jisung's face as well.
If it doesn't do him any good in plain sunlight, it's lethal here in the dim streetlight.
Minho swallows.
He's overwhelmed. His body feels too good, his heart is aching, his mind is filled with white noise. There's nothing to hang onto. He tries to close his eyes and escape Jisung, but then the smell of spice gets worse and so do the noises of the car. And Jisung's moans.
God, Jisung's voice.
The sounds he's making.
The raspy breaths, the choked words.
Minho opens his eyes again but there's no escaping it anymore. He gives up on trying to keep himself together and curls his arms around Jisung's neck, purring in his neck, letting every noise Jisung makes vibrate through him.
"Hannie," he moans, and it's selfish. It's bait.
"Minho," he growls, nails digging on his side.
He flatlines.
He needs this over with so he can survive it.
"Touch me."
He didn't mean to ask. He's not even sure he did, and it wasn't just some crazy echo in his mind.
Jisung touches him.
Eager. Enthusiastic. Like he was just waiting for pointers.
Minho is sick of him.
In a nice way.
He comes before Jisung, and he's not sure what happens next. He knows he keeps moving, lazy, satisfied, because it would take intent to stop, and he doesn't have any initiative left in him.
He doesn't have anything left in him.
He closes his eyes for just a second, hissing at Jisung's lasts, jerky thrusts- and next thing he knows he's wrapped in Jisung's arms, all cold, sticky and boneless.
Jisung's fingers are slipping over the silk, trailing up and down his spine. Minho doesn't know where his other hand is, and it bothers him.
Minho searches for it, but he's too lazy to commit to it, so he just sulks.
Jisung wraps both of his hands around his hips and coaxes him into moving up and to the side. The seat is fucking cold under his bare ass. Minho grumbles and searches for the box of kleenex lodged underneath the seats, tossing two to Jisung.
Minho isn't a dirty fuck and he usually enjoys cleaning up, but right now he's sleepy and sore all over and he'd just be very happy if his pants buttoned themselves up without needing his involvement.
Jisung does the buttons up for him.
Minho throws an arm around his shoulder and make him crash into his chest, backing up until his head hits the fogged up window.
It's hideously uncomfortable.
He shoved Jisung back on his ass and throws himself over him, one leg across his lap.
Jisung indulges him. He's so docile Minho thinks he might have dozed off.
He laces their fingers together on his stomach.
Minho doesn't mind the quiet. It's comfortable.
Jisung's lips touch Minho's hair in the ghost of a kiss.
He dozes off feeling nothing but warm, fuzzy feelings with just the barest hint of dirty thoughts.
Jisung wakes him up when he wants him awake.
Minho gets a heart shaped smile and a kiss on his nose, demands a chin scratch, and then they're out of the car and back inside the club, because neither of them is fit to drive, not really, and because Minho wants to dance.
They've been attempting anime opening choreography for a while, mostly laughing their asses off, when Jeongin yanks him by the collar of his shirt like an unruly baby kitten. Minho gasps. The disrespect. He lets it go. He's too sleepy to care. He almost doesn't make a fuss when he has to unglue himself from Jisung when Felix gets behind the wheel.
"Happy now?" Jeongin asks him, buckling his seat belt up for him.
"Very," he confirms, snuggling in his heated seat.
💫
The dance studio is open on Saturday, but Minho has no classes to teach until the afternoon. He usually goes into work anyway because he can always find something to do or someone to bother, but he doesn't drive there today.
He drives to the tattoo parlor, says hi to the high-school girl that holds the counter when the artists are both busy, and slips right into Changbin's booth.
He was invited.
Chan is getting another flower on his sleeve, and he never gets anything done without Minho there. It's all an excuse to relentlessly try to hold his hand under the guise of pain management, but Minho enjoys both the teasing and the free lollipops.
He's just popped one in his mouth when the two of them stop bickering and take a good look at him.
"Ew," Changbin says while Chan sighs. "You got laid."
"You should congratulate me."
"That's for Chan, because he's shy about it. God knows you don't need encouragement," he points out.
Chan gaggles, then he squeezes his eyes close and reaches out for Minho's hand. Minho ignores him. He's busy with Changbin.
"Do you need encouragement?"
"What for?"
"Sleeping with Chae."
His face goes bright red and his mouth hangs in a useless pout.
"Dude, she's so cool," Chan says. "And she likes you so much. You're so lucky."
"When did you see her?"
"She's over all the time," Chan smiles like a toothy friendly wolf. "Business hours only."
"We're catching up on a TV show," Changbin specifies.
Eight seasons, Chan mouths, then makes a very rude but hilariously polite gesture for fucking. Minho moves his eyebrows in appreciation.
"I remind you I have a gun pointed at you, Chan. Do with that what you will."
Chan schools himself in a perfect sitting position, back straight and eyes closed.
He's cute. It runs in the family.
He can hear the faint music coming from Jisung's booth when Changbin's playlist jumps from one song to another.
"Ew," Changbin repeats. "Look at that face. You got laid good."
"Sure did."
"I don't want to hear about it."
"Then don't bring it up."
A suspicious silence. He sucks on his lollipop and sways on his chair, fingers crossed on his stomach. It would be better if one of the hands weren't his, but he'll make do.
"Jeongin sent me a text," Chan confesses. Scratches his nose shily. "Said we better deal with you before he gets to you or he will kill you."
"I'm terrified," he deadpans.
"I think he's reached the breaking point." Changbin swipes Chan's arm once and shifts angles.
"I guess you, erg-" Chan, to his credit, hesitates only a second under Minho's glare. "Decided to take care of that thing we didn't discuss the old fashioned way and Jeongin disapproves?"
Changbin looks like he think he might be having a stroke.
"Please say a sentence that makes sense."
Minho ponders.
He doesn't usually kiss and tell, but the thing is. There is something very funny about having this conversation right now.
He looks at Chan nervously showing his dimples.
He takes the lollipop out of his mouth.
"I did. Got fucked real good."
Changbin air high-fives him. Chan giggles, all shy, which wouldn't register as absolutely depraved if hadn't proofread a lot of filth he sent his girlfriends in his teenage years.
"The usual?" Changbin asks.
"Yep." Minho's body rejects it, but he needs to be rational about this. Factual. And the facts are: "found a pretty straight guy in a gay bar and went at it in the backseat of his car. Very hot. Would recommend."
"One day you're going to realize none of those guys are actually straight and you will stop being obnoxious about it."
"It's the thought that counts," he assures him sweetly.
Chan howls and squeals as he gets stabbed around his elbow. Minho grabs a new lollipop and holds hands with Chan through it.
"I hate fucking in cars," Changbin sighs. "It's not even because it's uncomfortable, it's just that it reminds me of prom."
They all make a painful sound.
Prom was a mess of all of them. Chan got wasted so badly he swore off alcohol forever and kept his words. Changbin was found having sex in his car by the principal himself. Minho picked a fight with a homophobic jock and almost got expelled two weeks before graduation. Luckily, he was a teacher's pet.
It comes to him in a flash.
The memory of Jisung with fried blonde hair and his smile gloriously chipped, brushing his fingers tenderly against Minho's bruise in the harsh lights of the Han-Bangs kitchen. "Maybe I should have really gone to prom with you," he said. Because they had been joking about it for months, called each other date and baby to rail Chan up at every chance they got, and coordinated outfits they never bought.
Minho almost got expelled two weeks before graduation because he was upset he didn't actually go to prom with his best friend's little brother.
"Fuck," he spells out, because he's pathetic.
"That you did," Chan giggles, waving the lollipop and Minho's hand with it.
Chan is going to kill him.
Whether or not he ever finds out he's heard Minho talk about hooking up with Jisung in his shitty car, probably exposing them both to tetanus.
Maybe that's what Jeongin meant sending his call for help to Chan and not Changbin- for Minho to know that if he had to deal with him, he would tell Chan, and then Chan would kill him.
He swallows. Thickly. He taught Jeongin a little too well.
Which is an amazing feat, considering he's pathetic. Maybe he just showed him everything he shouldn't do, like repressing his crush for a mouthy emo freak with so much dedication it took him fucking it out with said mouthy former-emo freak to accept that's he's been horny for him since forever.
God, he wants to fuck him again.
"What do you think, Lino?" Changbin says, referring to something he and Chan had been discussing that Minho knows absolutely nothing about because he was mentally checked out.
"Sure. What?"
Changbin sighs. Chan coos at him.
"Isn't he so cute? Just like a kitten."
He drops the lollipop to mime a chin scratch.
Minho actually wheels forward rather than back.
In his defense: he was thinking about Jisung.
Luckily Chan worries too much and takes the aborted willing approach like some symptom of a serious mental condition.
"Minho," he says gently. "Have you talked with Jisung again? After last time?"
"Wait," Changbin says. "Did they have a fight? Did you have a fight?"
"Chan had a fight with Hannie and I got roped into it."
"Minho." Gentle, again. "He won't tell me anything about it either. I don't like the thought of the two of you not being okay."
He's about to say they're more than okay, but it would be a lie.
He doesn't know if they're okay. They were okay when he was drowning in Jisung, and they were okay when they were dancing like anime girls some time after that, but he doesn't know if they will be okay today.
"I don't like that either," he says, holding up the lollipop again. Chan takes it.
Changbin moves his bangs away with the back of his hand, then leans on his thigh.
"Is someone going to tell me what's going on or not?"
"I have a crush on Hannie."
Chan nods with gravitas. Changbin squints at him.
"And?"
"Nothing," he rushes out.
"Linoring," he mocks him, "you had a crush on Han since we were infants. Is the big deal that the big bad wolf finally took the blinder off and figured it out, or what?"
"Hey, I've known for a while!" Chan points at himself, yanking the lollipop away from Minho's hand, which is just rude.
"Since when?"
"I don't know! I had a feeling! And I knew it before he did, anyway!"
Minho would very much like not to be implicated in any way. He sits perfectly still and blinks a few times.
"How did you not know?"
"It's Hannie." He shrugs. "I wasn't thinking dirty thoughts about him."
Chan beams. Changbin's muscles twitch.
"You lost your virginity the same day he got home with a hickey on his neck. Freak behavior, by the way."
"That was a complete coincidence!" He yells. "We were working up to it and it just happened that it was the right night for it."
"We were going to watch a movie and you ran out of the house, Minho."
"I don't want to know about this," Chan laments, one finger stuck in his ear. "That's my little brother."
"Your little brother fucks!" Minho yells, again. "Get over it!"
"Agreed," Changbin says. "But we're talking about you, here. Did you really just realize you want him to-" he glances at Chan. "Make love to you?"
Minho clutches his heart in disgust. Chan wails and turns into a ball.
"That's even worse!"
"What am I supposed to say? Fornicate?"
Minho screams on mute. Chan kicks his feet.
"You never made it past the age of five," Changbin informs them, a little red. "Whatever. You want to fuck Jisung. You had a fight with Jisung. Were the two things connected in any way?"
"No. I guess. Maybe. He asked me why I was upset and I couldn't tell him, and then Chan butted in and they had a fight, and then Hannie told me to get my head out of my ass and I still haven't done that, so we didn't hear from each other."
"Okay," Changbin nods. "That sounds manageable. What did you have a fight about?"
"The usual," Chan admits, cheeks a little red. "He was upset that I got there even if he told me not to."
"He told you what?" Minho snaps.
Chan scratches his neck.
"Well, when Jeongin called me to tell me to check up on you, I texted Jisung because we were supposed to meet for dinner, and he told me he was there with you and that there was nothing to worry about."
Minho blinks. He leaves it to Changbin, because he's vibrating with violence.
"Then why did you go?"
"I just wanted to have dinner with them! I swear! Jisung just jumped at me before I could say so."
"He was right," Minho grumbles.
"Well," Changbin sighs. "If you all had negligible fights, then what is it that Jeongin wants us to deal with?"
"Me having a crush on Hannie," Minho repeats. "I told you, it was a recent development. I didn't wrap my head around it."
"But you did now?" Chan asks like he isn't still on time-out. Jokes on him.
"Kind of. I'm more than okay with having dirty thoughts about him, now."
Chan weeps.
"Good, I guess," Changbin says, wiping both the needle and Chan's arm with a disinfectant wipe and getting to work again. "I guess he's upset you went to a gay bar to find a nice gay guy to have a date with for a change, and walked out with your ass sore and another straight guy under your belt?"
It's technically all true, and yet it's a really big lie.
Chan makes a strangled sound.
"Wait."
"Just stay still while you go through the five stages of grief."
"You only fuck straight guys because you can't fuck my brother?"
Minho smiles in a straight line, showing teeth.
"Yes, but consider: I just found out myself."
It's a really, really good thing Changbin is holding Chan down.
"Okay, let's deal with it. How does it feel to engage in your favorite coping mechanism now that you know it's one?"
He would love to answer him.
If only he knew.
He stalls. Chews on the lollipop stick.
Then Jisung saves him.
"I thought I heard you," he says, pulling the booth curtains. His smile is beautiful. Unbothered. "Whatever you're fighting about, just tell me which side you are on before I argue half-an-hour in favor of the other team."
"Jesus, Jisung," Changbin wrinkles his nose. "You look like shit."
He does not. Sure, it's hard to tell what's leftover eyeshadow and what's dark circles around his eyes, and his glorious hair has seen better days, but he's all swaddled up in a big white sweater with a tiny smiley face embroidered by the collar, and he's glowing.
And those are definitely last night jeans. Dark denim wash. Just one size too big, the waist taken in with two little daisy pins bunching up the sides.
"I promise I washed myself," he says, raising his arm and shoving his armpit in front of Changbin's face. "I just didn't have time to wash my hair."
"Or your face," Chan nags him.
"Felix dolled me up with fancy shit and I didn't even attempt to understand which one of the thirty bottles in our bathroom would take this off."
"Couldn't you ask? You look like a trash panda."
"Trash pandas are cute," it's Minho's relevant contribution.
Jisung leans on his shoulder with a small smile.
"I woke up really late, he was already out."
"Why were you all dolled up?" Chan coos, momentarily more endeared by his brother than preoccupied about the sex offender he's touching. "Did you take selfies?"
Jisung takes out his phone to scroll his gallery.
"We just went to a club."
Chan's phone pings with a notification. Minho frowns and turns to Jisung. Noots in displeasure.
"Why were you in a club?" Changbin asks, rightfully weirded out.
"I've been in a club with you, before. Aren't you the one who insists I actually like being out, I just don't like going out?" It's mocking.
"That's because you do," Changbin argues back, because that's their love language. "You're just an antisocial pretentious ass."
"Oh, you look so cute," Chan says, all cutesy himself. "You look just like dad when he was in his band. Can I send it to him?"
"Already did," Jisung says.
"Oh for the love of," Changbin says, pointing at Minho. "Give him attention before he throws a fit."
Jisung turns to him already wearing a fond smile. Minho is still sporting his noot.
Jisung gives him an air kiss.
"No pictures for me?"
"You don't need pictures."
It's a very innocent statement with very damning implications.
Luckily, Chan is still being weird about Jisung.
Changbin, on the other hand.
Minho can see the gears turning in his head. His hand hovers a moment too long over Chan's arm.
Still, he says nothing.
Jisung goes to take a peek of the design, takes Chan's hand and rubs his thumb over it until the parlor's bell rings and he has to go working on his next piece.
Minho smacks his ass while he passes him by. He can't exactly help it.
It's cute Jisung's first instinct is still to question him. Not even Chan bats an eye, and he's just found out Minho has impure thoughts about that ass. Of course Chan is also busy trying not to snot all over himself.
They hear Jisung making small talk with his next client, laughing loudly at something that probably wasn't that funny.
"He's in a good mood, today," Changbin says.
An innocent enough observation directed at a not so innocent bystander.
"He is, isn't he?" Chan gushes, blissfully oblivious. "It's so good for him, being a tattoo artist. I still think he belongs on a stage, but he just looks so comfortable here that it's not hard to think this is what he should be doing, you know? I'm so happy he's happy, I hated that he was so miserable in college."
Minho knows.
Not only he shares the same feelings, but he was there for Chan when Jisung declined yet another call and Chan looked so sad that made Minho consider not to fight back against the back hug he was going to have to suffer through.
He sits down next to Chan, puts his hand over his where it's testing how sturdy the bed is with his grip. He tenses up even more. Changbin stops moving his leg up and down.
"You said you were worried about me."
Chan turns his hand in Minho's and squeezes it tightly. There's tears in the corner of his eyes. Changbin is coloring the skin of his elbow.
"I know I'm terrible at relationships," he says. "But you don't even try, Minho. And I know it's not necessary, but- when you're around Jisung, I can't help but feel like you'd like something like that."
"I do," he says, honestly. "I want something like that, with Jisung. It's what we already have."
"He's worried," Changbin cuts in, "that you will keep yourself from experiencing romance because you'll settle for what Jisung can give you."
"Settle? For a soulmate?"
"Don't look at me. I know."
He's looking at Changbin because he will laugh if he looks at Chan trying to be serious while he's desperately holding back tears.
He risks a look. His mouth quirks up. He schools himself.
"I'm good on my own," he says. "I'm happy. Do I look unhappy to you when I'm not talking to Hannie?"
Chan shakes his head, deadly serious. Teardrops are trapped in his lashes.
"I've got a lot of love in my life. And yes, maybe I've never looked for someone to be with because I wanted that someone to be Hannie and I didn't even realize it, but it never hurt. It won't hurt now. I'm just a cat, Chan. I chose Hannie."
Chan squints. A single tear rolls down his cheek. "Minho. I'm a dog person."
Minho is strong. Determined.
All it takes him to crumble is Changbin cracking up.
Minho does feel bad about it, though, so he snuggles on Chan's shoulder. Just until he's done laughing in his face.
"That's your problem, Chan," Changbin says after coughing out his laughing fit. "You're a dog. You care more about the relationship than the person. Minho only cares about his person."
Chan takes back his hand from Minho, wipes his eyes more or less dry. Nods in understanding, or at least like he's closer to get there.
"Worst should be done," Changbin says, gently wiping away the ink and blood. "Can you take another fifteen minutes? It's just line work."
He looks like he'd rather die.
"If Minho stays."
Minho cages his hand between his thighs, just to be cheeky, but he gives him his best smile.
"Of course I'm staying. Where else would I go?"
Chan puts a rock hard arm around him and squeezes him, because he just has to take the whole arm when he's offered a hand.
"Minho, kitten," he says, only whimpering a little when Changbin goes back to work. "Just be happy."
He's going to be sick. He's not built for this.
He endures it just because he's lazy, and it will take less energy to wait out the thirty minutes rather than fight off Chan's embrace of steel and not mess up Changbin's work.
He takes out his phone to make it clear he's suffering through this, not being a willing participant.
He's got a few messages from Jisung.
He slow blinks.
The first few pictures are normal. Jisung is cute. Hot. Pretty. Angelic. Felix is cute too, he guesses.
Then there's a single text message Minho almost skips over.
Don't send these to my dad 👽
These ones he took when he got home.
It's just a few, taken in rapid succession, Jisung's smile getting progressively wider.
He's on his bed, black messy hair making the sheets look whiter, an arm thrown over his head. He's still wearing the damn leather jacket, but it's unbuttoned, like Minho left it. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes shiny and unfocused. His lips red and swollen.
Minho did this.
He wants to do it again.
On a bed, this time. Where Jisung can press him into the mattress and fuck him like he wants to.
He turns the screen off. Put the phone face down on his thighs, innocent.
He doesn't join in the conversation. Force himself to meditate even if he sucks at it.
For the most part, they leave him be. They just assume he's sleepy.
"Done," Changbin says, the whirring subsiding. "You're free."
Minho patiently waits for Changbin to wrap Chan's arm in film and clean up.
"I'll go say bye to Jisung," Chan eventually chimes, happy and tatted and filled with endorphins.
Changbin and him share a companionable silence until they can't hear his steps anymore.
"Did you fuck Jisung?"
"He fucked me in the back of his car. Keep up." He shoves his phone in Changbin's face. "Do you think he wants to fuck me again?"
Changbin grabs his wrist and keeps the phone a normal distance from his eyes. His eyebrows shoot up. He clasps a hand over the screen.
"I think he just might," he shrills.
"Good." He pockets his phone. Pats Changbin on his shoulder. "Thank you for your support."
He gets grabbed by the elbow.
"Minho."
"Yes?"
Changbin's eyes are cautiously sparkly.
"Don't fuck it up."
Minho squares up. It's not just about him and Jisung. Other people have stakes in this too.
He nods solemnly.
"I'll try my best."
His best, turns out, is sending a pouty selfie to Jisung.
Didn't take any last night
Might need to go at it again to return the favor 😿
He puts the phone on airplane mode and hides it behind the reception counter. Sae doesn't seem impressed with him. She also knows his passcode, so he reaches out for the phone right before she can, and hides the phone in his locker instead. Jail time it is.
Saturday afternoon is k-pop camp. It's what keeps the studio thriving. The girls are happy and Minho actually likes indulging them and filming cute challenges with them. There's a video of him doing a dance and collapsing against the mirror giggling that has done more for the business than any meeting or sponsorship ever could.
This place is nothing without him.
Or it used to be, before Felix and Hyunjin started roaming around like they owned the place- Minho never gave either of them permission to show their faces to k-pop camp.
"Oi," he shouts. "Trespasser."
"Sorry," Hyunjin giggles, crossing the room in a huge cardigan and baggy pants.
Minho starts making a police siren sound. The girls laugh. Hyunjin slaps him on his arm.
"I wanted to hang these on the entrance, can I?"
Minho grabs a flier. He was expecting something dance related, but it's an advertisement for an art showcase.
"They're showing our final projects," he smiles. "It would mean a lot if a few people came."
"Sure," he says, even if technically he should run it to the old man and not Minho, but nobody cares about that. "Are you going to be there?"
He beams.
"For the whole day."
He turns the girls and points at him.
"You've heard him." He reads the time and place out loud.
The girls giggle, Hyunjin slaps him. He squeezes his arm this time, too, even if Minho is sweaty and gross.
"Thank you, Minho," he says sheepishly. "Really."
Minho retreats, theefies out in warning. He slaps his wrist with the flier.
He's on his merry way when Polly, his now former favorite student, ask: "will you do a challenge with us?"
He would, and so Minho has to do it with him too, because he's not getting replaced as the resident discount k-pop idol.
They get a smoothie at the vending machines in between Minho's classes. Hyunjin is fun to be around, and it's not like Minho can waste time on his phone right now.
He doesn't know what possessed him to send that text. Why did he have to push the glass off the table? It wasn't even bothering him.
"So," Hyunjin says out of the blue. "I have a favor to ask you."
"I'm not sleeping with you."
"But will you pretend to?"
Minho blinks. He slurps on nothing, the smoothie all gone.
Hyunjin looks mischievous.
"There's a chance my old friends will be at the showcase. Felix is going to be there too, but," he sighs. "It would make me feel better if they ate their words a little."
"Didn't they shun you out because you strung their friend along?"
"Yes."
"And wasn't that true?"
He blushes.
"I didn't do it on purpose. I really thought it could work out. I always found him beautiful and we got along so well and he liked me so much. Sure, I didn't feel a raging passion for him, but that's not all relationships are about, anyway. Or so I thought."
"He didn't like the sex."
"He said he didn't feel appreciated. Like he was doing all the work. I guess he was, I just- that had always been our dynamic anyway. He seemed so happy to dote on me. But then I thought about it, and, yeah. I wasn't really into it. Wouldn't have been into it at all if it wasn't him. And it obviously was important for him that I was, so I cut it off."
He tucks black hair behind his ears. He looks so dignified while talking about his feelings. Minho is absolutely baffled. Personally, he would rather die than sit there and explain to him what he feels about Jisung. He doubts he could even do it- he's recently found out he has no self awareness when it comes to his emotions.
"It turned so ugly, so fast. Everyone turned on me. Said I should have known better, that it wasn't smart to experiment with a guy that liked me so much. That they knew I'd break his heart. I guess it's true, I just… the way he looked at me, he made me feel so special. I wanted to trust it. Give it a chance."
Minho isn't sure Hyunjin understands where he went wrong. He's also not very diplomatic.
"Did you ever think maybe he wanted to feel special, too?"
Hyunjin bites his bottom lip.
"Well. He was the only one who made me want to try being with a guy."
"But did you bring anything else to the table?"
Hyunjin is looking at Minho's empty plastic cup like it's the most interesting object he's ever seen.
"Relationships aren't all about raging passion, but they have to be about something. If you just like to feel liked and won't mind laying there and being pretty, go find yourself a sugar daddy."
Hyunjin cracks a laugh. Hides his mouth behind his fingers and all.
Minho really wasn't joking, but he'll take it. He won't take Hyunjin getting comfortable with him.
"Does Jisung do that for you? Give you something?"
He gives Minho everything.
Companionship. Understanding. Humor. Affection. Love.
He scratches a different itch a best friend or a brother would. Different from a lover, too.
Minho really is fine with that being not quite platonic, not entirely romantic. Chaste.
He thinks he could see Jisung fall in love like people do and be happy for him. He'll be jealous for a while, more like a lifetime, but they're soulmates. A marriage isn't going to get in the way of that.
It's the good thing about unconventional relationships: they're not easily threatened by something that has a name.
"He does," Minho says.
Hyunjin smiles, tilts his body forward in a way that makes him look much smaller than he is.
"The two of you really are something. Makes me a little jealous."
"You can't have it. It's designer. Custom made."
Tiny bells ringing in his laugh. "So annoying."
"I still don't get why having me on your arm would make your friends eat their words."
"Well." He plays with his fingers like he's hand modeling for a luxury brand. "If I had a nice man on my side, they would maybe think the problem wasn't me."
"Hyunjin. You were the problem."
Hyunjin almost takes it as a compliment. And people say Minho is weird.
"I think maybe that's what Felix was trying to tell me when he said I should show myself happy and independent."
"Felix is too nice for you."
"That's how I like it," Hyunjin admits. "Jisung always tells me it's a good thing we didn't meet in high school."
"That means he wants to beat you up."
"Yeah, I know," he says with a grin. "He's not that difficult to read, you know?"
Hyunjin keeps forgetting he just got here.
Minho can't have that.
The girls from his next class giggle in delight while Minho stuffs his mouth full of napkins and let him know there's an air fryer in the break room ready to run at 180 degrees for twenty minutes.
Jisung didn't reply when he retrieved his phone from jail.
Neither does he reply for the rest of the evening.
Minho would like to die.
Jeongin finds him laying down on the floor at a weird angle.
"I'll take it if you want me to kill you."
"You're late. Were you out on a date?"
"I was having dinner with Felix."
He turns to face Jeongin's direction.
"Uuh."
"There's no uuh. The boy is having a mental breakdown."
There's a silver lining he didn't consider in his and Jisung's circles overlapping so much they're basically a circle.
"What about?" He asks. "How does it look on the other side of the trenches?"
"Deranged," he sighs, plopping himself down on the couch. "Jisung just got up to him and said bring me to a gay club, and refused to elaborate. He's a locked safe. It's driving Felix insane that he won't communicate. He guessed it was about you, obviously," he glares. Minho is very satisfied. "So he panicked when he saw you there yesterday. He ran to get me but I was in the bathroom looking for you, because I couldn't find you, and it was too late to stop you, and now Jisung hasn't talked to him all day and Felix is eating himself up for not being a good babysitter." Jeongin takes his jacket and his useless fashion glasses off. "I swear I hate you for making me be the voice of reason."
He probably does.
Once he pretended to be dating a forty year old married man just to see Chan pulling his hair out and Changbin throwing himself at him saying he was right there if all he wanted was a rich man to spoil him. Minho knew it wasn't true because Jeongin is always only fun for fun.
Minho still doesn't know if he really eats soap or just bites it, spits it, and leaves it on the sink for Minho to find. It's a thrill he doesn't want to demystify.
"Why are you even doing it? Shouldn't this be fun for you? If it goes up in flames?"
Jeongin looks disappointed.
"I like chaos for the fun, not the damage. I don't like seeing you like this."
Minho blinks.
"I'm fine," he promises.
"Sure."
"I am. I'm only suffering because I'm stupid, not because of Hannie."
He offers him his phone. He's too tired to explain.
Jeongin takes it. His eyes widen.
He throws the phone on Minho's head.
"Check your phone before you hand it over to other people."
Minho blinks. He stares at the screen.
I'm sure you can get creative
It's dated fifteen minutes ago.
Minho jumps to his feet and regrets it right away when his back sprains, but he isn't going to let a car fuck, three hours of sleep, k-pop camp and a day of draining conversations keep him from jerking off and send an afterglow picture to Jisung.
"You know, you could actually get creative," Jeongin says, picking his Switch up from the coffee table. "Bring him out on a date."
He knows Jeongin is fucking with him.
He also knows it's a concession. He's telling Minho he's done playing teacher.
That if Minho says he's fine, Jeongin will believe it.
It's also a challenge.
Minho never backs down from a challenge.
Minho sends a photo of SoonieDoongieDori all waiting for threats on the kitchen table.
Pitching my ideas to the board
I believe they'll take your insight into consideration
They look very distinguished
And eager enough to be fed
He sends him a few more pictures of the cats, all zoomed in and blurry.
Jisung sends back a zoomed in, blurry picture of his hideously round face, and Minho almost has a heart attack.
It's dangerous, this game he's playing. His opponent already knows the way to his heart.
He's the only one who does.
💫
Minho is a chicken.
It's been four days and he still hasn't asked Jisung out.
They texted here and there, so he knows they're okay.
Jeongin judges him. He's delighted, the little devil. He even gives him a head scratch when he finds him stirring a pot on an unlit stove, holding up the phone with his free hand.
Minho doesn't care for official dates. They sound boring and stuffy and there's this hideous list of hidden requirements like having to choose a nice outfit and not talking about your exes and fighting for the bills that everybody seems to agree on.
What terrifies him is that he doesn't know if Jisung doesn't care for them either.
He would love to say he doesn't, but he doesn't know if it's instinct or wishful thinking.
Dates and romance is a topic that never comes up between them. He doesn't know how Jisung likes to act on a date. He barely even knows how Jisung acts when it's just the two of them hanging out.
He's stressed.
Dancing it out doesn't work. Bullying Hyunjin doesn't work. He can't go bother Changbin because he'll run into either Chan or Jisung, whom he doesn't want to see for entirely but similarly passionate reasons.
He wants to see Jisung.
He wants to lick Jisung, specifically.
He's thinking about it without shame when he opens the door to his apartment and finds it full of people he doesn't remember inviting over.
Chan and Changbin are bickering over a beer bottle label of all things. Felix and Seungmin are playing videogames quietly, Felix because he's holding his rage in and Seungmin because he just isn't bothered. Hyunjin is talking to Chae, who looks perfectly at ease sitting on the back of the couch.
He can't see Jeongin anywhere.
"Did you all break in?"
"Yes," Seungmin says.
Felix, ever more helpful, says: "Jeongin invited me over to play, but I was already playing with Seungmin, so he invited him, too."
"And I invited myself because I wanted to see you, Linoring," Chan gushes, making grabby hands at him.
"We were supposed to just drop him off before going on a date, but Chae's having fun, so."
She flashes him a peace sign.
"And how do you fit into this?" He questions Hyunjin.
"Felix invited me when it turned from a playdate to a party."
"It's not a party," Jeongin clarifies climbing inside from the fire escape staircase with a beer crate in hand. "There's just a lot of us."
Minho looks around and decides he doesn't care.
He's tired and sleepy and he'll follow Jisung's example and simply not attend.
He takes off his jacket, kicks off his shoes, goes empty his gym bag in the wash and throws in his hoodie too. When he makes it back to the living room, Chan whistles at his bare arms. Minho is overcome by a yawn so good he doesn't remember if he was going to play along or fake an exasperated demonic possession. Whatever.
"I'll be in my room," he says, stealing a beer and a bowl of popcorn and balancing it in one hand. "Have fun."
He opens the ajar door with his foot and kicks it close behind him.
"I left it open for the cats."
He almost loses half of the popcorn, but he manages to scatter only a few.
Jisung is lying on his bed wrapped in one of Minho's sweaters, Soonie curled up in his lap. The lucky son of a bitch is getting belly rubs.
"Hi," he says astutely, theefies out.
Jisung looks up from his phone after what seems an arbitrary amount of time but probably isn't. He takes one earbud out.
"You don't mind, right? That I holed myself in here?"
Minho blinks himself to his mortal constraint and walks up to Jisung, who doesn't need to scoot to accommodate him. He isn't sitting in the center of the bed.
He left space for him.
Minho is suddenly worried about spontaneous human combustion.
"I guess you don't," Jisung chuckles fondly.
Right. Minho didn't reply. He bumps into his shoulder, settles the bowl between their thighs.
"What are we watching?"
"A really bad sports anime."
Minho accepts the earbud offered to him and nestles on Jisung's shoulder.
They could just watch it with the speakers on, but he knows Jisung likes to isolate himself sometimes. Minho likes it too.
He likes feeling his shoulders rise with each breath, their fingers catching in Soonie's fur, feeding Jisung popcorn from his hand. He likes the muffled noise coming from the living room, the taste of butter and beer in his mouth.
He dozes off fuzzy and content, immersed in the smell of laundry detergent.
He blinks, suddenly awake. He turns his nose in Jisung's neck, takes a few sniffs.
Skin, male musk, Minho's own laundry. And there in the back, if he squints, a hint of familiar spice.
"Why is it gone?"
Jisung blinks down at him, eyes round.
"The cologne," he insists. "Why is it gone?"
Jisung holds his wrist up, like he can't take Minho's word for it.
"Oh. I guess I forgot to put it on. Felix rearranged the bathroom shelves, he must have moved it from its spot."
"He's going to put it back."
Jisung's eyes go round.
"Don't threaten me. Threaten him. He's just in the other room."
"Later," Minho says, quickly getting the bowl and empty bottle out of the way. "I like it here."
He sneaks back in Jisung's arms.
Soonie looks up at him with unfocused eyes, telling him to stay still and not disturb him. Jisung is closer and quicker to rub his belly.
Minho pouts, chin hooked over Jisung's shoulder.
"No belly rubs for me?"
Jisung laughs, low and pleasing, and soon Minho is winning. He purrs when Jisung pats his stomach and scratches him gently over the cotton of his t-shirt. It tickles. He exhales slowly, eyebrows knitted together to hold it in.
"Big kitten," Jisung teases, patting him one last time. "So jealous."
"I'm not jealous," he says proudly, looking around the room for another cat to steal. He knows they're there. Lurking. "I'm envious. It's different."
Ah. A glimpse of a tail behind the desk. Minho jumps off the bed and grabs Dori, who meowls like he's dying.
"You've lost," he tells him. "Miserably. Terrible camouflage skills." He kisses him between his ears and plops down on the bed again, this time at the foot of it, facing Jisung.
Dori puts up a fight, but eventually slumps down in Minho's lap. He's a proud and lazy creature. Minho respects it.
Jisung touches his foot with his own.
He looks so soft. So round. So stupidly pretty.
His smile is a heart, and Minho's heart smiles in return. He cringes at himself, but he can't sweep it under the bed. He promised himself not to.
"Thief," he says eventually.
Jisung grins.
"I had to lure the cats. Make myself smell good for them."
Minho hums.
"Always so smart."
"It's a gift. One of many."
He leans back into the pillows, mindful of shifting in a way that won't disturb Soonie, even if he's so far gone that Jisung could take a bite for all he cared.
Minho wants to kiss him. He isn't even thinking further than that, just that he wants to kiss his eyes, his cheeks, his lips, and press him further into the pillows, hair stark against the white cotton. Jisung looks good in any color, thanks to his golden skin and warm eyes, but he looks the best in stark white, bold reds, absolute black. It accentuates the soft and sharp mix of his features.
Minho could just stare forever, and it would be his bliss.
Jisung bites the corner of his lips.
He wants to kiss him.
They turned on the music in the living room. Not a party my ass.
People kiss at parties. Minho does, historically.
"I had my first kiss at a party," he says.
"Yeah?"
He nods. "I was thirteen. Chan was kissing his girlfriend and I didn't understand why anyone would want to kiss a girl, and this one guy heard me and asked me if I was gay and I thought he wanted a fight but he just wanted to kiss me."
"That's cute."
"I guess." He makes a plane out of Dori's ears. "I kissed more boys after that."
Jisung chuckles, eyes crinkling.
"Chan told me, you know. Sat me down and everything. He said you liked boys and that if I ever made fun of you he would kick my ass. I got so offended he would think I'd thought anything you did was lame that I bit him. The funny thing," Jisung goes on, laughing, "is that you came over that night and called Changbin gay for wearing a pink shirt."
Minho laughs. He wishes he had long sleeves to make sweater paws out of.
"We never really talked about that. Boys and girls."
"We always had something more interesting to talk about." Jisung shrugs. "It messed Felix up a little, though."
"Felix?"
"Yeah." He tugs at his hoop earring. They're a part of his face, as far as Minho's concerned. "Around sophomore year he started asking me about you, if you had a boyfriend in college, and I never knew what to tell him. He thought it was because I was uncomfortable with the thought of you having a boyfriend, and he says it probably slowed down things a little for him. To think I might not be comfortable with him anymore if he liked men. I will admit I felt like shit when he told me."
"It's not like you could know."
"No," he nods. "It still doesn't feel great when you've got your best friend telling you in tears that he doesn't want to make things awkward between you but he can't lie to himself anymore."
"But," he says, lips parted. "Us."
Jisung looks at him, and Minho understands before he speaks.
"It was before you started touching me any chance you got."
"Oh."
"I admit I was a little weirded out at first," Jisung laughs. "I really thought you were coming onto me. Especially when you pulled at the strings of my hoodie like a kid on the playground."
"I think I might have been." His whisper is very clear in the silence. "I just wanted to touch you all the time, so I did."
Jisung tilts his head. His chest raises with a deeper breath.
"Do you want to touch me now?"
He really, really wishes he had sweater paws. He scratched his wrist.
He nods.
He feels so bare. Raw.
Jisung smiles, face glowing with fondness.
"Then why are you all the way over there?"
Because he wants to touch him in a way he's not sure he's allowed to.
Because he doesn't want to hear a no.
Because he doesn't want to hurt.
He moves Dori out of the way. She yelps.
He crawls up to Jisung, sits on his heels next to him. He brushes his bangs away with his knuckles, gently. Not for Jisung's sake, but his.
Jisung is staring at him without blinking. He looks enraptured.
It's a look Minho knows.
He cradles his face. Leans down.
He kisses his cheek, butterfly light, wiping his thumb over Jisung's skin like he's smearing paint over him.
His heart is beating too fast.
He's hallucinating the spice tickling his nose.
Jisung's breathing is uneven.
Minho leaves another kiss in his skin. Takes a little more time pulling away.
He wants Jisung's hands on him. On his waist, on his chest, on his thighs. Gripping, holding onto him like he wants him.
He doesn't know how to ask for it.
The more they stay close like that, the sound of swallowing drowned in electro rock, the more he doesn't think he can.
Jisung doesn't kiss him.
Minho pulls away, but he just lays his head on his chest. Smiles when Jisung kisses his hair, holds Soonie's paw even if he knows he'll jerk away.
Minho's suffocating.
"Aren't you cold?" Jisung asks him, fingers running up his naked arm.
He shakes his head. He's chilly, but he doesn't want to move.
Jisung shares his sleeve with him. Pulls Minho's hand inside of it, arranges the fabric up his arm.
Minho clicks his tongue, looks away. He's shy.
Jisung pulls his phone up again, presses play.
Minho can't doze off now, probably won't be able to fall asleep tonight either.
When they finish the episode, Jisung wants a beer and Minho kind of wants to be able to breathe again, so they wander in the living room.
Changbin looks very disappointed Minho doesn't look however he looks after a fuck.
They stick around. They socialize. They play a board game playing as one team because there's nine of them and it's for four-to-eight players, but really because it's more fun that way. Minho follows Jisung around, his hand always there for Jisung to hold when he feels like it. He tries feeding him popcorn from his mouth, and Jisung rejects him for the hundredth time.
"I'm so glad you're okay," Chan tells him when he gives him a back hug without his consent. "You're so cute."
Minho knows.
Jisung says goodbye with an air kiss to Minho's noot. Minho smiles, satisfied.
They're okay.
💫
They text. They send selfies back and forth. They cuddle in the bar booth when Jisung sticks around for a pint after work.
Jeongin looks at him like he's a pitiful worm, but doesn't comment on it. Chan tries really hard not to pity him when Jisung calls him husband.
Jisung's hair grows even longer and he ties it back with more spray painted bobby pins until he asks Minho to cut it a little shorter in his bathroom and Minho does it for him even if it kills him.
The weather gets nicer.
Spring is coming up and they can ditch the puffer jacket for lined leather and thick denim and warm jerseys. The days get longer, and the sun makes Jisung's skin glow.
He asks Minho to test new colognes with him, to choose something a little lighter for the spring. Minho gets drunk on one that smells like lemon, coffee and expensive sunscreen, and Jisung wears it everyday.
Jisung doesn't kiss him again.
Life is good, really.
Minho is happy.
This time he's locked the trash in the basement with padlocks and soundproofed the walls.
He's in such good spirits that he even agrees to fake fuck Hyunjin to spite his old friends. If anything for the possibility of making a scene in the middle of the showcase, just for fun.
💫
It's a day of light rains and bright rainbows when he helps Changbin give his half of the apartment a new coat of paint.
Chan and Changbin aren't roommates the same way he and Jeongin are- they're more like neighbors who share a living room. They each have a tiny kitchen, a private bathroom and huge walk in closets that double as studios. The works of royalties and rich parents.
"Break?" Changbin calls when they're done with the first coat. The plastic crinkles under his feet. "I'm starving."
"Sure," Minho says, soaking the brush so that the paint won't dry on it.
They crack open a beer and eat the stuffed homemade pretzels Minho made the night before.
Changbin didn't say, but he's renovating because he wants to ask Chae to move in. She's already over all the time and sure didn't seem to mind the old paint job, but Minho guesses it's cute.
Maybe it's because he's thinking of his own relationship and his girlfriend, that he eventually says:
"So, uhm. You and Jisung."
"What about us?"
He scratches the side of his neck, just below his ear. He's got both elbows planted in his thighs.
"I never heard anything about it."
Minho didn't either. He nurses his beer.
"It's good."
"Minho," Changbin sighs. "I'm sorry."
"You've got nothing to be sorry about. We're good."
Jisung walks around smelling like Minho likes him to. Of course they're good.
"Yeah, well, I'm sorry for myself. I thought I might escape this hellish limbo."
"It's not limbo," he snaps. "It's not waiting to be something else. It just is."
He sounds defensive.
It's new.
It used to just be the truth. Now it feels like a lie he's dug his claws in and won't let go of.
"Okay." Changbin's voice is soothing. "I'm still sorry. I really thought you had a shot, man."
Minho did too.
He still does, sometimes. When he thinks Jisung looks at him like he did when he kissed him. It's always gone with a blink.
They put their beers down and get to work again.
The rain turns into a downpour.
Minho is soaking wet when he makes it home.
Jeongin is still at work.
He curls up on the couch with SoonieDoongieDori and listens to the rain tumbling on the balcony.
💫
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Hyunjin repeats again and again.
He's unnecessarily fixing Minho's silk shirt for the fiftieth time, all sugary smiles and sparkly eyeliner. He's been dressing more like a fuckboy, lately, even stealing Jisung's giant hoodies without anyone's permission, but he wanted to really channel the Hyunjin that made these pieces or whatever the fuck he said.
He said a lot of things and Minho only listened to half of it.
Art showcases are boring. Especially when he can't escape.
He likes to watch pretty art, but he likes traditional pieces more. Immediate beauty. He takes a quick look, appreciates the snapshots and moves on. Jisung is the same.
"Meow," he says back to Hyunjin, because he's tired of talking.
Hyunjin used to have a lot of friends. All coming and going, taking forever to look at the pieces and often sending seething glances towards him. Them. Which means they always have to look engrossed in rapturing conversation.
To their credit, some of them had tried to be nice before Hyunjin looped his arm through Minho's and proceeded to be insufferable about it.
"Why are they all here, anyway?"
"Networking. It's the heart of art."
Minho makes a face, but Hyunjin just boops his nose.
You can tell many things about Hyunjin, but he's got courage. Luckily for him, Minho gets distracted by the waiter bringing out more wine in a bucket. He's already going for it when Hyunjin squeezes his arm.
"Get me a glass, too?" he asks, tilting his head.
"Get it yourself."
He sends a sideways glance to, Minho guesses, one of his former friends.
"Always so silly," he says in a repulsive saccharine voice.
Then he kisses him. On the mouth. Sticky gloss he just reapplied and everything.
Minho will air fry him.
The last person he kissed was Jisung and he wasn't going to change that. Possibly ever.
The cooking can wait, though. He did agree to commit to the bit. And it's barely more than a peck anyway. He kissed Changbin with more tongue before.
Hyunjin looks very satisfied with himself when he pulls back.
Something crosses his face when he looks to the side.
He chews on his lip.
"Oh."
Minho expects to see his infamous ex in the flesh, but he ends up seeing Jisung.
He's all dolled up. Smart white shirt tucked in high waisted black linen pants. Tie swapped out for jewelry. An oversized but tailored black jacket.
He looks gorgeous, and he's pissed.
He breaks eye contact and he beelines for the catering.
"Ops."
Hyunjin is very, very lucky Minho has his priorities straight.
He glues himself to Jisung's side.
"Hi," he says, because he's polite.
"Hm," Jisung grumbles in reply because he's pissed.
"You look good."
"I'd say the same, but I'm sure Hyunjin made sure you knew it."
He's cute.
You kissed Hyunjin, he said, eyes dark, not long before kissing Minho.
Minho is very, very close to forming a thought that seems pivotal to his life when Jisung slams his empty glass of wine on the table.
"Come with me for a second? Or you have to ask your boyfriend for permission first?"
"Lover."
"What."
"We're lovers. It sounded sexier."
Jisung actually holds up his fist. It's one of Minho's favorite habits of his.
He can't really enjoy it because it lasts a second before Jisung is walking away. Minho follows him.
"Hannie," he whines, pulling him back by his jacket. "Don't be angry with me."
"I'm not-" he interrupts himself, looking over his shoulder.
He looks hurt.
It doesn't look that different from pissed, on Jisung's face, but Minho knows.
He drops his hand.
It's cold outside and unlike Jisung he lost his jacket somewhere inside the venue, but he doesn't complain.
"I am angry," Jisung says, and he looks gorgeous. "At Felix. Myself, mostly. For listening to him and actually showing up even if I knew you and Hyunjn would be busy shoving your tongue down each other's throats."
It's a hyperbole if he ever heard one.
"We only kissed once."
"And wasn't I just so lucky to catch it."
Minho's tongue tingles with the thought that he can't seem to grasp.
"Hannie. I don't want to kiss Hyunjin."
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying." His voice is clear. "I don't want to kiss him."
Jisung looks at him like he can't believe him.
"You put up a scene because Chan was cockblocking you!I asked Chan to give you his number for you!"
Minho gets whiplash. It feels like a lifetime ago. He's pretty sure he forgot.
"And I never used it!" He says, honestly. "Not until we became sort of friends. And I didn't want to kiss him anymore, then."
"Then why do you keep doing it?"
It's a good question.
"I didn't even think about kissing him today. He just sprung it on me. And the other time," he sighs. "I don't know, I think I was upset."
"You kissed Hyunjin because you were upset," Jisung repeats, like he wants him to hear how it sounds like.
"Not for comfort," he explains. "He gave me an opinion I didn't ask for, and I- I guess I just did the first thing that came to mind."
It was the wrong thing to say. Jisung looks even angrier.
"Great. He just gets kissed for no reason at all. I love to know that."
I was right there kissing your neck and you went and kissed Hyunjin, Jisung said with a spark in his eyes and his lips red in the streetlight.
Jisung's eyes fall to the ground.
"Look, I know I have no right to get pissed at you for kissing whoever you want. I just- I still have to deal with you not wanting me, and seeing you kiss Hyunjin especially doesn't help."
Minho doesn't even slow blink. He flat out closes his eyes and opens them again.
"Sorry. Have to deal with what?"
Jisung winces.
"Don't make me say that again."
"Han," he says, clearly, taking a step closer. "Why would you think I don't want you?"
Jisung snorts. Once, twice. Shakes his head like he can't believe Minho. Like he's going to strangle him, too.
"Let's see," he says, arms still hugging himself. "I asked you to take a picture after jerking off, and you sent me a picture of your cats." Minho opens his mouth, but Jisung has more to say. "I flat out asked you if you wanted to touch me while I was on your bed wearing your clothes, and you kissed me on the cheek. More recently-" his cheeks flame up, but his voice doesn't falter. "I locked you in a bathroom with me for thirty minutes asking you to sniff my neck and you pulled back when I tried to kiss you."
"I did not!" It was way louder than it needed to be. Minho doesn't care. "And you didn't try to kiss me!"
"Yes, you did and yes I did!" Jisung mocks. "I was going crazy feeling you breathing down my neck and I said fuck it and turned my head to kiss you, and you pulled back. And you giggled."
Minho remembers all too well.
Getting a little too close to Jisung, giving in to the impulse of kissing his neck, and almost bumping into his mouth instead.
"I thought it was an accident!" He defends himself. "You were yapping!"
"I was trying not to lose my mind!"
"I was trying not to lose my mind, too! You weren't the only one in that bathroom, you know?"
They look at each other, their chests heaving.
"And I," Minho continues, because he's shy but he can't have Jisung thinking he doesn't want him. "You said to get creative, and I wanted to take you out on a date, but I was too much of a coward too, and then you were on my bed wearing my clothes and still you didn't kiss me and I- accepted that. Tried to."
"Why did I have to kiss you?" Jisung asks, spiteful and extremely soft. Round and sharp. "Why couldn't you kiss me?"
"Because I thought it could make you uncomfortable."
"Minho." He takes a step closer. "I told you to touch yourself and send me a picture of what it did to you."
"I know," he says. "But."
Jisung turns his face down. Eyebrows. Eyes. Mouth.
"But what?" He asks, fondly. "Is that so hard to think that I might want you back?"
No.
He remembers the way he held him, how he kissed him. How eager he was to get lube on his fingers and how beautiful his voice sounded when Minho let him take the lead.
He puts his arms on Jisung's shoulders, intertwines his own fingers together. Jisung keeps his arm around himself.
"Do you? Want me?"
Jisung smiles. Perfect heart shape.
"Yes, baby. I do."
Minho wraps his arms around his neck.
He pouts when he meets Jisung's fingers.
"Don't even think about it. You're washing your mouth first. I'm not eating Hyunjin's sticky gloss off your lips."
Minho laughs. Mouth open, nose scrunching up, stars in his eyes. Sunlight in his eyes.
Jisung scratches his chin.
"I happen to know your place is empty," he says, quietly.
It's true. Jeongin is over at his place, playing Overwatch with Seungmin and Felix.
Jisung left himself open.
Minho kisses him, burying his hands in his hair so that he can't get anywhere. He doesn't even try. He chuckles against his mouth, but he kisses back right away.
It's barely more than a peck.
It still feels like free falling.
It's short and it tastes like summer. When Jisung pulls away and leads him by the hand, Minho isn't really steady on his feet.
The house has never been so quiet. The curtains are open and light is pouring inside, warming up half the bed.
Jisung laughs when he finally pushes his enemy off Minho's shoulder.
"I hate silk."
"It's the nicest shirt I own."
"Well, I'm the nicest man you own, and I hate it, so. Priorities."
Minho is floating.
His mind was sound when he teased Jisung, asking if he wanted to help with that picture he was owed. He lost it somewhere in the hallway, when Jisung worked his pants open before he did anything else.
"Say that again."
"That I hate that fucking shirt? How many times as you want, baby."
"Fuck you." He chuckles, hands roaming up Jisung's sides.
Jisung pushes him down on the cotton sheets, takes both of Minho's hands and intertwines their fingers next to his face.
His hair falls sweetly over his eyes.
"I was thinking I'd fuck you again," he says, voice hitting that sweet spot between raspy and smooth. "If you'd like that."
It's all he's been thinking about.
He slow blinks.
Jisung kisses his cheek, his mouth, his throat. Minho stops him to take off his shirt, too, mindful not to break all the necklaces and lose the pins.
He's wearing a pure white tank top underneath and he looks so good Minho almost tells him to keep it on, but Jisung is quicker.
Oh well, he thinks tracing his pecs with the tip of his fingers, padding over the dool, set, net on his ribs. He'll have time to fuck him with all kind of clothes on.
Jisung told him in the car. Looked straight at him and said: "just so you know, this is not the last time it happens. If it's up to me."
Lino smiled like a cat, but his ears turned red.
He can't help it when Jisung teases him. Tells him to calm down. Guides him.
He moans when Jisung bites his thigh. Shivers when he kisses it. One of his hands is flat on his hip, his fingers touching skin, his palm on his boxer briefs. He doesn't know what's better- the friction on his skin, or the anticipation of feeling his warmth through the fabric.
His legs twitch when Jisung licks up from his knee to the inner part of this thigh, but he doesn't close them. He grips the sheets instead, finding relief in the cool cotton bunching up between his fingers.
He chuckles.
Jisung kisses his thigh one last time, looks up at him with an impish smile and innocent eyes.
"I can't be the only one who has a thing for your thighs."
He doesn't even pretend to deny it. Hot. Minho smiles.
"Hardly. I was just thinking I should get silk sheets."
Jisung grabs him by the hips and drags him down the mattress, until their thighs are touching. He looms over Minho.
"Sure," he replies to something Minho just forgot. "Hope you and Hyunjin have a good fuck in them, because I sure as hell won't."
Minho laughs, and doesn't stop even when Jisung kisses him.
His head is spinning. His heart is bubbling.
He drank three bottles of champagne and forgot about it, surely.
"Are you always this docile?"
Minho purrs, wraps his legs around Jisung's waist.
"You want me feisty?"
"I want you however you want," he says with a kiss where Minho's collar bones meet. "I was just curious."
"Were you thinking about Hyunjin fucking me?"
Jisung bites him. Hard.
"No," he says, categorically. "I was thinking about other men fucking you."
"Don't," Minho purrs in his ear, fingers gripping his hair. "I'll get jealous."
Jisung chuckles in between butterfly kisses.
"Of what?"
"Of you thinking about other men. I'm the only man you're allowed to fantasize about."
"You can't police my fantasies."
He licks Jisung's ear.
"I can make sure you know I disapprove of them."
Jisung kisses his lips, licks the side of his mouth.
"You're lucky you're so pretty that you ruined men for me."
He'd like to die. Now. Burn to ashes and be scattered in the wind.
"Hannie?" He asks, breathless, with a purpose.
Jisung hums in his neck, hooks his fingers in Minho's briefs.
"Yes, baby?" A kiss.
"You're wearing too much clothes," Minho complains when he's naked under him.
Jisung smiles and makes quick work of his pants.
He pushes his hair back before he's onto Minho again, and it's the hottest thing Minho has ever seen.
Which reminds him.
"Han," he says, serious business.
A heart stamped to his cheek. Fingers mark his thighs.
"Yes?"
"Ruin me."
Jisung takes it to heart.
He fingers him like they're in a hurry, because that's how Minho likes it. He remembers.
Minho basks in his face, the sheer sheen of sweat that's starting to cover him. He bites his neck without leaving marks and he sucks one between his neck and his shoulder. He would have done one more, but Jisung interrupts him. I like to hear you, he says. Like it won't shatter Minho in pieces so small he won't be able to put them back together. Like it would, because Minho asked for it.
Minho still gathers the wits to tease him about it. Amps the moans up for his own entertainment. Jisung slaps him across his chest and shuts him up with a kiss, and Minho complains he's giving him mixed signals.
He's just getting comfortable again, all warm and satisfied, when Jisung looks up at him through his lashes and takes his fingers away.
Minho winks at him.
Jisung takes both of his hands in his, guides them over Minho's head.
Minho wonders if he's making the same face Jisung did when he slammed his hand on the car window.
He thinks about it. To let Jisung know he's going to take what he wants, like he did then. Flip them over. Remind Jisung that he's got Minho under him because Minho wants to be there.
God, how he wants to be there.
Jisung fucks him, and Minho whites out again. He wraps his legs higher up his waist, scratching the back of his neck. He feels goosebumps on Jisung's skin.
He barely leaves him time to adjust. Just like Minho likes it.
He fucks him like he means it. His hands are gentle and firm. His kisses are messy, broken by tiny noises and heavy breathing.
He curls his fingers in Jisung's hair, tries to keep his head there with him. He wants to look at him, this time. He wants to know what he looks like when he comes.
He digs his nails into Jisung's arms, leaving scratches over the tattoos. He throws his head back and never gets to drop it forward again because Jisung bites at his throat, mouth wide open.
Minho wants Jisung to eat him.
"Don't be shy," he says, right when Jisung groans in his neck and his teeth dig in enough to make him shiver. "Mark me. Everybody seems to know when I get fucked anyway."
"Of course we do." Jisung sneaks an arm around his waist, urges his legs down until Minho's feet are flat on the mattress.
He still has no idea what they all mean.
He has no idea what anything means when Jisung lifts Minho's hips up and thrusts into him. Fast, deep, uncompromising. He doesn't know up from down, left from right, dead from alive.
He only knows he would have cried by now if Jisung hadn't told him it wasn't the last time they were doing this.
It's probably not true, he never cries. Forgot how to when he decided it wasn't a release, it only made him more emotional, fucked him over.
"You're gorgeous," Jisung says. "Most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
Maybe he could cry, if he tried. Not in bed, ever.
"I'm an ugly crier."
Jisung laughs, all deep and raspy.
He puts Minho down in the sheets, ignoring his protest. He kisses his face again. He rubs circles in his hips. He wraps Minho's legs around him and keeps them there.
Minho is so full. So happy.
Whatever Jisung is doing to him isn't sex. It's something else he doesn't have a name for.
He grips his shoulder, breath against his mouth. He's trying to shotgun oxygen out of him.
Jisung looks so good Minho can't stand it. His eyes are narrow, his brow creased, his mouth red and swollen. He looks flushed, sun kissed.
Minho is sun kissed.
Have been, is now.
Jisung kisses him properly, tries to when his arms are tensing up, his hips losing the perfect coordination he's been fucking Minho stupid with.
Fucking Minho romantic.
Sun kissed, secret thing other than sex, crying. It's a good thing he's kept quiet, or he'd never have the courage to look at him again.
Jisung breathes into his neck, searches for Minho's hand to hold.
Minho kisses his hair, scratches his lower back.
He wants Jisung to know some of it. He deserves it.
"I'll think I'll get a sunburn," he whispers, sheepish.
It's too roundabout.
He won't get it.
Minho skips a heartbeat.
Jisung laughs. A soft, sweet sound. His voice is deep and raspy.
"Keep that sappy shit for later, will you? I'm trying to make you come."
Minho laughs. High pitched. Delighted.
He lets himself bask in sunlight. Counts Jisung's eyelashes. He knows how to shift to make the fullness unbearable, but he won't do anything about it. Jisung hasn't touched him. It's not because he doesn't want to, it's because he has a vision. A self-imposed challenge.
Minho won't mess with it, but he'll tease him about it.
He curls his hand in his hair.
"Can I do something for you?"
"Now you want to help?" Jisung bites his neck, shifting his leg a little higher. "No, thank you. I have my pride. Just be tight and pretty for me."
Minho purrs.
He's really, really close.
Minho doesn't doubt Jisung could hold out, mess around some more, and make Minho come untouched like he wants to.
He puts his lips to Jisung's ear.
"Do you want me to come while you're still fucking me or not?"
Business offer. Red ears.
Jisung swears. Tenses in his arms.
He stays still for half a second. Hisses when he moves again.
"Yes," he says, like it's costing him everything.
Minho laughs and digs his heels under his ass, grabs the sheets to get some leverage to hike his hips up.
He gets lost between stars, but he doesn't go far. He's tied to Jisung with a string.
"Wait," he mouths urgently when he's coming down from his high, wrapped tightly around him. "I want to see you."
He holds his face in his hands, blinks until his vision clears up.
He's fairly certain Jisung doesn't normally look that annoyed when he's about to come, but Minho quite likes it.
He's gorgeous. Prettiest thing he's ever seen.
A sun that shines so bright it makes Minho glow too.
He smiles, hazy.
Jisung smiles, heart shaped.
"Took a good look?" He asks, pushing Minho's hair back on his forehead.
He nods. He welcomes Jisung's last, erratic thrusts even if he's so overwhelmed he wants to melt. He's still looking straight at him when Jisung comes, mouthing something that could be a curse, could be Minho's name, could be anything, and Minho would still pay to hear.
They hold each other without strength.
They aren't going anywhere.
Minho lazily tests pressure points on Jisung's forearm just because he can. He pouts when the only reaction he gets is a cute frown.
He gives up and gives a head scratch to the little alien rodent. Jisung scratches his tummy despite the sticky mess there and Minho squeezes his eyes and his mouth tight to resist the tickles.
Iron will.
"Were you really going to take me out on a date?"
"You sound doubtful. Should I be offended?"
"A traditional date, or just- us doing things together and calling it a date?"
"I'd like the latter." He plays with every single wisp of hair on Jisung's forehead. "But I think Jeongin meant a real stuffy date in an overpriced restaurant and everything when he taunted me about it."
Jisung's got that spark in his eyes that promises trouble.
"Let's go then," he says. "Our best clothes are currently on the floor and I'm starving. Take me out to a five star Michelin restaurant and fight me on who gets to pay the check."
Minho cat smiles.
"Five stars because we're the two extra ones?"
"Mh," Jisung says, scrunching up his nose. "Right on point, baby."
Minho pushes his lips out for a kiss and Jisung gives him an air peck.
Minho laughs.
It's the most beautiful sound he's heard himself, so he only has the utmost respect for the lovesick downturned look on Jisung's face. It's very dignified.
He pecks him on the lips.
Then he slaps him on the ass. Squeezes too for good measure.
"Get up. We need to freshen up or they won't let us in."
"Damn it," Jisung jokes. "That was half the plan."
"Was the other half to end up taking coffee and bagels to go and eat it in bed?"
Jisung winks.
"You know me too well, baby."
He does. They both do. They wouldn't be so good at spitting absolute improvised nonsense at rapid fire otherwise.
Minho kisses him again.
It's a fairly long time before they make it out of bed. And when they do and they're all dressed up, Jisung shoves him on the sheets again.
"Wait," he says, taking his phone out. "I have some pics to take."
Minho lets him take his pictures. Refresh the bruises on his lips, the little love bites that will fade overnight.
They only make it out of the house because Jisung doesn't want to deal with the silk shirt again.
They eat iced coffee and bagels at the dingiest place they can find, dressed in their best outfits and drenched in cologne to overcompensate the quick wash.
They argue about Jisung not addressing him with the proper respect since he's older and wiser, Minho gets immediately accused of being a lazy fuck which he takes as positively as it's intended, and they swap bagels halfway because Jisung notices they got Minho the wrong one and he would like Jisung's best and he likes both anyway.
Minho slaps Jisung's arm a lot, and he gets just as many slaps in return.
It's only when they say goodbye that Minho opens his phone to find the pictures Jisung took of him.
No wonders they can all tell when he fucks.
He looks so obnoxiously smug he would gladly punch himself.
💫
They talk.
Felix would be proud.
They don't plan to, Minho just shows up and drops on Jisung's bed on a random Monday evening like it's just something he does. Jisung finishes watching his three hour long video essay on YouTube while he plays on his phone, occasionally petting Minho's hair when he feels like he'll die if he doesn't get attention right now.
They eat leftovers on the bed and liquor up. They share earphones. Minho strips to his boxer briefs and strips Jisung of his giant hoodie to wear it himself. They match: Jisung has his sweatpants on but just a black tank top on top. They play tic tac toes on Minho's thighs with eyeliner pens. Jisung plays with suns and Minho with moons, because he shines much brighter whenever Jisung is around and he wants a cute couple symbol with him to text each other and doodle on business papers like he's twelve.
"You don't mind, do you?" Jisung asks in a small voice while he's smudging a rogue moon Minho drew outside the grid. "That I don't think I'd sleep with a man if it wasn't you?"
Minho giggles.
"Don't butter me up, Han Jisung. You got me in your bed already."
"I'm serious," Jisung whines, but he's smiling. "I don't want you to think I don't really appreciate you."
"You'll know if I do. I'll file an official complaint."
"Will you stamp it?"
"I'll have Seungmin do it."
Jisung scoots down on the pillow, hugs himself with the most beautiful heart beating on his lips. Minho puts his leg over his.
"Okay. That's it for me, then. No take backs."
Minho's heart liquefies. He almost chokes on it.
He leans his head back on the pillow, stares with deliberate longing for all the times he didn't call it what it was.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Anything."
"What changed?"
Jisung is embarrassed. A little ashamed when he says:
"Hyunjin."
Minho blinks.
"You were going for him even if he was straight, said you liked to feel special, and I couldn't figure out why you wouldn't want me to make you feel special."
"I was always special to you," Minho mouths.
He nods.
"You were."
Minho can see him moving his thumb back and forth over the skin above his elbow. He takes his hand, sweater paw to skin contact.
"I was so offended," Jisung confesses with a giggle. "Went a little mental over it. I think what really drove me mad was that I thought I had nothing to do with that part of your life, and now suddenly I found out that I could and I was missing so much. Skipped an entire class because I forgot to turn the schedule over."
Minho is pretty sure he's the only student in the class, but he likes that.
"I wasn't even thinking about sex, I was caught up in understanding why I wouldn't be an option to you. I felt like I should have been." He gives a flustered half laughter. "That sounds conceited when I say it out loud."
"No." He says softly. "That sounds right. It would be delusional not to think that. I would know."
Jisung leans in like he isn't thinking about it.
"That's why you were upset with me that day we danced in the streets? Because you asked yourself the question? "
Minho nods, ears red and warm.
"I woke up thinking about you," he confesses in the tiniest voice he has. "The day after I kissed Hyunjin while looking at you like a freak."
"I was there," Jisung smiles. "Where else were you supposed to look?"
Minho doesn't even mind that he's been mocked. He feels so full of love. He doesn't know what to do with it. It's choking him.
He gives some of it away.
Curls up against Jisung, kisses his mouth.
It's the only mouth he ever wants to kiss again. The only one that feels like a mouth should, now.
"Will you kiss someone else?"
It's humiliating to ask. He needs to know.
"Are you testing me?" Jisung scratches his chin gently. "I said this is it for me, didn't I?"
His chest hurts. Embarrassing.
"I have you now."
A kiss on his closed eyelid.
"You've got me."
Jisung's eyes, looking at him with stars in his eyes. They're the ones Minho feeds on, star eater kitten with bunny teeth that he is.
He wants to hear him say he's got him, too. He doesn't know how to ask.
Jisung cradles his neck, gets so close Minho has to close his eyes again. Too much sunlight.
"You're mine."
He wraps his arm around Jisung. He buries his face in his neck. He's too warm, he's too fuzzy. He's lovesick.
He gives away a little sickness to Jisung.
He's sure he won't mind- he thinks they might have the same disease.
Felix sees him slip away in the middle of the night, busy playing on his computer in the living room.
Minho acts like they're all used to him sneaking out of Jisung's room wearing his hoodies and Felix is weird for looking at him like he's just seen a ghost.
There's hope there, too. Strained. Frightened.
Who is Minho not to leave it hanging.
He cat smiles, steals a juice box from the fridge, and gets home to Jeongin.
💫
They don't tell anyone.
Not because they're hiding, but because it would require using words, and they don't have words for what they are. There just isn't any.
It's hilarious how much they get away with.
Nothing Minho does fazes them. The novelty of Jisung touching him first lasts maybe a night.
Jisung, albeit reluctantly, lets Minho feed him popcorn from his mouth, and no one bats an eye.
They don't tell anyone, but someone knows.
Changbin takes one look at Minho wrapped in Jisung's arms and knows that the fuck he just pitied him for came from inside the house. Minho just nods at him when he asks with an eyebrow raise if this is something good or something painful, and he doesn't ask for anything else.
Always respectful, forever on their side.
Jeongin knows because Minho is happy, and he's around him all the time. He doesn't say anything, but makes sure to hang out with Felix way more often and always tells Minho which house they will be in.
Felix, Jeongin says, is trying to respect Jisung's preference for working things out by himself before he talks about it, rather than talking through them. It's stressing him out so much that a few of his stress balls have bite marks on them.
Seungmin clearly doesn't give a fuck as long they don't bother him.
Hyunjin knows better than to breach the topic, although sometimes he does look their way with mischief in his eyes because he has no self preservation.
Chan doesn't know, and Minho swings like a pendulum between the burning desire to tell him and the absolute dread of him finding out he is, in fact, fucking his little brother.
Jisung is on a similar ride, he suspects, which is why they don't kiss in public. That, and because Minho can already barely handle Jisung brushing things away from the corner of his mouth without giggling, screaming and kicking his feet.
He's pathetic.
Jisung smiles fondly at him and sometimes says he's cute, if he's tipsy enough and thinks Minho can take it without dying. Minho doesn't like to disappoint him, so he keeps himself alive.
They kiss in private.
In the kitchen while Minho whips up midnight snacks. On the balcony when they hide on it in the middle of a party and no one goes to bother them. In the back of Jisung's car when they go for a drive just to feel the wind in their hair and the sun on their forearms and they end up just lying there in the middle of a field with the doors open and the breeze making ripples of Jisung's hair.
Minho doesn't seem to get used to it.
Each time he wonders if this will be the time he won't feel star lost, and finds himself discovering new corners of space.
He hates Jisung is right when he says he's romantic. He will deny it until he's returned to stardust.
💫
Spring is in full bloom when Chan gets a new girlfriend.
They're hanging out at the park, people coming and going and sharing slushies around until they can't tell which tastes like what, when Chan shows up hand in hand with a pretty blonde.
She's smart and fun and full of life. They all look at each other wondering if they're being tricked.
Chan props down next to Minho, Jisung, Changbin and Chae and tells them with the shyest dimples: "I've been thinking about it. How I search for a relationship rather than a person. Then I thought I had such good taste in friends, I could try finding another one first."
They're all really happy for him.
They tease him through the ground. Call Dianne mate and smack her on her back. She rolls with it with a bright smile. If it's vaguely heart shaped, nobody says it.
Not even an hour into meeting them, she's trying to coax them into attending a friend's slam poetry show.
"The more of you are there the more likely you are to get kicked out!" Her wrist rattle with bracelets.
Minho likes her reasoning, but slam poetry is a tougher sell than that.
"And since the theme is love, there's a couple discounts!" She adds vehemently while Chan looks at her like she personally hung the moon.
Jisung got a crescent moon and an eye on his wrist, the eye standing in for Minho's supposedly notable blinking habits. Minho got a sun and a heart, for Jisung's smile.
He's tracing the moon of Jisung's wrist when Seungmin sighs.
"They're not together," he says in response to something Minho was too sleepy to pay attention too, engulfed in the smell of lemon and coffee. "Don't ask."
The couple discounts. She might have suggested he and Jisung used it alongside Chae and Changbin.
He looks up at Jisung from his spot in his lap.
If they let this go, it will feel like hiding.
"Oh," Dianne says. "But Chan said-"
Minho sits up at the speed of light.
A continuous aaaaah escapes Jisung's lips, his hands nowhere near Minho.
Everyone's holding their breath. Even Seungmin's got his lips around the bottle but isn't drinking. Jeongin, the madman, is snickering.
Chan's dimples look extremely smug while he looks at Minho.
"Got something to say to me, Lino?"
Minho is living in a suspended moment in time.
He smiles in a straight line and throws up a peace sign.
It breaks the tension. Jisung chuckles and weaves his fingers through Minho's on the grass.
"He's got me," he says. "And I've got him."
Chan looks at them both for what seems like a year.
The seasons come and go, and it's spring again and Chan is smiling.
"Only because it's you," he says.
Jisung moves his fingers between him and Minho.
"Who were you talking to?"
"Both of you. I wouldn't have given either of you away to anyone else."
Eventually, Minho will do the mature thing and talk to Chan.
Or maybe this is Chan doing the mature thing and letting them live their lives.
Either way, Minho will shamelessly accept his gift for now.
"Wait," Seungmin says, pointing at them with his beer. At Jisung. "You're straight."
"Uhm." It's the eloquent answer. Luckily Seungmin isn't waiting for answers.
"You are. Because if you aren't straight, then why the hell did this take twenty years to happen?"
"Because they don't talk!" Felix yells with his full chest like he was waiting for it for his whole chicken life. "If they just opened their fucking mouth they would have been fucking in high school!"
"Don't say that!" Chan shouts, his fingers in his ears.
"You just gave them your blessing!"
"I don't want to hear about it!"
"Jisung fucks, get over it!"
"Maybe you should fuck too," Seungmin grumbles. "You don't sound very relaxed."
Minho stops dissociating when Jisung frees Minho's hand just to sneak his arm around his waist and keep him close.
Minho doesn't stop looking at the daisies growing in the circle of his legs. He's hiding his face, because too many people are looking at him and even if it's his closest friends, he's shy.
Jisung is smiling at him, he knows it, and it's only making it worse.
He's always shy when it comes to Jisung.
It's too important, too private. And yet it's there for everyone to see.
Jisung makes kissy noise at him to get his attention, and Minho looks up.
Animal instinct.
His ears are on fire when someone echoes it. He doesn't get to confirm if it's Jeongin and Seungmin, because Jisung asks for a kiss with hair falling in his huge round eyes.
The weather is nice, and he gets to peck Jisung on his lips while sitting in the flowers.
"By the way," Hyunjin says in a really angelic tone. "You're welcome."
He had been too quiet.
Jisung seeths.
"I knew you did it on purpose."
"It was an act of repenting," he smiles. "Make it right for the two of you to make up for how much I fucked it up with my friend."
"You didn't make anything right!" Jisung shouts with big gestures and expressive eyebrows. "Don't you dare take credits for this! You just got here!"
"I had fresh eyes and an intuition."
"You saw something you didn't understand and messed with it!"
"And I did God's work. You can all thank me."
"Wait, wait," Changbin cuts in. "What the hell happened? What do you have to do with this?"
Minho covers Jisung's ears with his hands because he's honest, not cruel, and Jisung really doesn't need to hear this.
"Everything."
Hyunjin laughs in a chimes of bells.
Minho deserves to be slapped that hard, really. To be called a traitor, pushed with his back on the grass, forced to stoically resist tummy tickling.
It's getting late and the sun is setting.
It's shining right above Minho's face, in the shape of a heart.
He brings Jisung's down for a kiss because he's shy.
It's between him and Jisung, what Minho looks like when he's lovesick and he isn't being stupid about it.