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“And I’m an alien who lives on Mars,” Jisung sarcastically retorted through a mouthful of chips.
Seungmin wondered why ‘Changbin and I kissed last night’ didn’t work when Jisung shrugged his shoulders, reached across the carpeted waiting room floor and proceeded to bury his hand in the packet of jellies Jeongin would likely break his wrist for.
“I bet Hyun will believe that bullshit, though,” he continued with a snort. “Can I be there when you try it on him?”
“What part of what I just said screams bullshit?” Seungmin huffed, nudging against his bottom lip that still tasted like that strangely lovely mix of them and a quiet recording booth a little past nine the night before. “I couldn’t get the part of the bridge I needed to and he just… he kissed me.”
Seungmin wondered if it was necessary to say that he kissed him back and hard. That it ended in a red-cheeked haze and a thumb brushing across the apple of his cheek when Changbin muttered ‘about time’ all gruffly against him. He didn’t know if it was necessary to mention that he draped his arms around his shoulders or that Changbin circled his waist with calloused hands.
“Mm,” Jisung finally nodded, crumpling the packet and standing to his feet. “And I saw Innie make out with Chan hyung when we went to karaoke last weekend.”
“I’d rather die,” Jeongin muttered, out of the makeup chair and walking toward the catered spread.
“That’s very kind,” Chan hummed from somewhere behind his phone and Seungmin scoffed again.
“Are you serious?” He tilted his chin up at probably the only person in the room who’d ever be earnestly interested in his love life. “You don’t believe me?”
“Come on,” Jisung sighed, doing the impossible and widening his doe-like eyes even further. “You two have been dancing weirdly around each other for years. I’d be quicker to believe that you two got into a fight instead.”
Seungmin stared at Jisung with his back teeth digging into his tongue.
Because sure it sounded ridiculous.
But he could still taste him. He could still hear that low scrape of Changbin’s voice against his ear. He could still feel those fire ants crawling around his stomach all over again the longer he thought about it.
He’d have to call in the big guns if anybody were to believe them.
⧟
Seungmin thought he’d had better luck the night some few days later, when he pocketed his keys and took off his coat and wondered if even in the muted lamplight of the living room, Felix would’ve been able to see his marked throat.
Because the moment he slumped onto the sofa and ran a hand through his hair still tousled by the autumn chill and hands that were threaded through it for the better half of an hour, Felix hummed.
“Food in the fridge,” he murmured with a face lit by the Nintendo Switch he always held way too close to his face.
“Okay,” Seungmin whispered, pulling out his phone and hating that his lips quirked to the side the moment he saw his name. “Sounds good.”
u left ur scarf
come back to me and get it
i’ll make it worth it
And it was the same strain of ridiculous giddiness that Seungmin felt in high school that made him run a hand down his face and busy his thumbs in texting back some equally flirty message he was sure Changbin was reading in the sheets they were just tangled in.
“So,” Felix tried with a whispered ‘shit’ to suffix it and Seungmin didn’t need to lean any closer to know the game he was playing. “Did you get it?”
“Hm?” Seungmin mused, leaning back, folding an elbow and propping a hand behind his head.
Because if ‘it’ meant dinner and a movie they watched for about fifteen minutes before they were a mess of limbs and lips and little whispers of ‘more,’ he probably should’ve nodded.
“My charger,” the temporary blonde hummed behind clicking buttons. “Didn’t you say you would grab it from Hyun while you were over there?”
“Oh,” Seungmin sat up. “Uh. No… No, I—um forgot.”
A socked foot dug into his knee from across the sofa.
“But you said—”
“I know,” the younger of the two murmured, gaze tracing the three little bubbles indicating that Changbin was typing. “I can go back.”
“I’ll just order a new one,” Felix ended up sighing.
“Really,” Seungmin couldn’t help his smile as his phone dinged once again. “I’m uh… I’m gonna head back there anyway tonight I think.”
“Ugh, how can you be bothered? It’s like ten minutes to get over there.”
Seungmin glanced up, tucked his knees to his chest and met his roommate’s wandering gaze.
Because Changbin said it himself when they were staring at the ceiling and wondering what the hell happens when a one time thing turns into twice in the same week. That he didn’t care who knew. That they had to keep it from the company and the fans but didn’t need to hide it from their friends.
And Seungmin had sat on this very sofa and listened to Felix go on and on about Chan too many times to count that he was probably owed some gloating.
“Well, I think things are kinda getting serious,” he confessed far too easily and it was enough to get the blonde to glance up from his Switch. “Bin wants to have dinner on Saturday too at that malatang place that just opened up and—”
“Saturday?” Felix raised his head. “What time? Innie and I were going out but we can just link up with you two if you’re trying that new place.”
“No, like. I think he meant it like a date.”
Felix paused both his movement and his game with a single squint of his eyes and flick of his thumb.
“A date?”
Seungmin rubbed the inside of his wrist, because that was exactly what Changbin said.
‘It’ll be nice,’ he shrugged so nonchalantly when Seungmin sat on the edge of his bed and fell back into his trackpants. ‘Would that be so bad, huh?’
“I mean… yeah.”
The snort Felix let out was enough to cut through the memory of an hour ago.
“You’re silly,” he chuckled with a roll of his eyes. “Anyways, I’ll text Innie and tell him to meet us at say… eight on Saturday? Or can hyung pick us all up on the way there? Dude, I think I’d kill a guy for some malatang—”
And Seungmin sighed, sending Changbin one quick ‘on my way,’ before closing his phone, standing to his feet and cutting his roommate off with a wave of his hands.
“Fine—whatever. I’m going to get your stupid charger now.”
“Thank you, love you!”
⧟
Seungmin loved his friends but sometimes he wanted to hurl something at their very unsuspecting temples.
Not a rock or anything. But not a cotton bud either.
Seungmin stared at his palm and wished he had a foam stress ball he could hurl Hyunjin’s way when they sat at the edge of the practice studio and Jisung was playing that game he just loved to play in ‘seeing how many times he and Minho could be grossly affectionate before someone intervened.’ Because they were terribly good at that game and Hyunjin was terribly good at letting them win.
“...You literally live together, you don’t need to sit on his lap when there are like a thousand couches in here”
Hyunjin had his hands at his hips and his hair tied up so erectly it was a shade of black away from looking like a bunch of chives.
Because Hyunjin of all people should’ve been the one to believe him that, yeah, it had been a little over a month now and he was still dating Changbin. Hyunjin loved love. He loved romantic movies and he loved crying over them too. He loved writing lyrics that were so deep that one of them usually uttered ‘who the hell hurt you’ after the first draft was circulated.
And he loved the idea of Jisung and Minho almost immediately after they announced they were together.
So, Seungmin channelled his semi-violent tendencies (if fantasising about tossing a stress ball at his friend’s head equated to a violent tendency) and headed toward the dark cargo pants and too-loose t-shirt by the speakers.
“Do I sound like an asshole?” Changbin immediately grunted and threw an arm over the head of the couch before Seungmin even sat down. “I feel like I sound like an asshole.”
And it was almost magic that every brutish thought left his head the moment he tucked himself beneath Changbin’s bicep.
“Let me see,” Seungmin hummed, grabbing Changbin’s phone from his palm and running his eyes across the draft email to some producer guy that Changbin always complained about. “I mean… you don’t sound like a mega asshole or anything.”
“Just a little asshole, then?”
Seungmin snorted. “Yeah. A four on the asshole scale.”
The arm around his shoulder tightened and Changbin reached forward with his other hand, clicking send.
“Well, that’s that over and done with,” he muttered, bare-faced and dimpled and only slightly sweaty from practice that Seungmin couldn’t help it. The way he shuffled his thighs closer and the way he tilted his chin until the back of his head met his arm. “What about you, huh?”
“What about me?”
Changbin raised an eyebrow. “What’s got you all pouty?”
“I am not pouty,” Seungmin scoffed, partly because he certainly wasn’t and partly because he liked the way Changbin nestled a little closer to him whenever he’d playfully protest. “But don’t you think it’s weird?”
“Hm?”
Seungmin darted his eyes toward Jisung on Minho’s lap with a finger directed at Hyunjin who was still going on about establishing some sort of code about PDA in the studio.
“I swear nobody knows or nobody cares that we’re… you know… and it’s weird, right?”
Changbin made that face Seungmin was infuriatingly fond of. “You know?”
Seungmin nudged him.
“You know.”
His lips curled into a knowing smirk and Seungmin wondered if it would ever not make chest tighten.
“Everyone knows,” Changbin shrugged before he knit his brows together. “I mean. Chan for sure knows. Jisungie, too.”
“Jisung absolutely does not know,” Seungmin deadpanned. “And don’t you think it’s kinda rude that everyone immediately believed them when they told us they were dating?”
Changbin’s gaze darted toward Jisung and Minho.
“And you’re saying you didn’t hear them fucking for who-knows-how long before they told everyone?”
Seungmin’s raised brows immediately dropped like some sort of messed up muscle memory when he thought of then. When Jeongin would conveniently ask him and Felix to take a long walk when Jisung came bouncing through the door and beelined straight for Minho’s room without the intent to leave anytime soon.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Changbin snorted before his fingers threaded through the too-shaggy bits of hair on Seungmin’s forehead as though it were a habit. “And who cares anyway? You want them all up in our business?”
“God no,” Seungmin uttered and Changbin only chuckled dryly and tightened his arm around his neck until his lips met the crown of the younger man’s head.
“Good, because only I wanna be all up in your business,” he muttered into his hair, kissing him once and then twice—enough for Seungmin to roll his eyes and only think of later on. Dinner and quiet and Changbin’s arms wrapped around his waist. “Nobody else, mm?”
“Nobody else,” Seungmin hummed like a hymn sung just for them before pulling away and letting out a sigh when he noticed Hyunjin heading toward them.
“It’s like we work with two rabbits,” Hyunjin grunted, all but throwing himself to the floor by his bag.
Seungmin only felt Changbin’s arm tighten.
“Yah, you know, don’t you?” Changbin asked and Seungmin nearly grimaced at how fast his chin snapped toward the taller man on the floor, almost too keen to hear his response.
“Know what?”
“That Minnie and I are also very much dating,” he said as though it were obvious and all it earned from Hyunjin through the hair he just pulled free from his sweat-slick headband, was a glare.
“Oh, could you imagine?”
“It’s true,” Seungmin scoffed when Changbin’s lips pressed against his temple again.
But Hyunjin rolled his eyes, pulled his drink bottle free, and stood to his feet.
“Sure it is,” he sighed sarcastically. “You two are dating and Jeongin and Chan hyung are getting married next week.”
“I’d rather die a fiery death,” Jeongin added from a position closer than Seungmin realised.
“Ouch,” Chan retorted and Seungmin blinked again.
Was everyone fucking blind?
⧟
Unsurprisingly, Seungmin’s faith in his friends’ intelligence dwindled as the weeks went on.
He thought the group might have blinked awake and realised that every time Seungmin mentioned his boyfriend, he meant it.
It was a close call the other day in the car on the way to a schedule—when Changbin all but pulled Seungmin into the backseat, hands tight around his waist, playful smirk clad his lips as he dipped close to his nape and uttered that he would get him for all the teasing Seungmin sent his way when the cameras were directed elsewhere.
“You like getting on my last nerve, Puppy,” his boyfriend whispered, pinching his chin between his index finger and thumb and it was only through the very stark clearing of a throat that pulled Seungmin from every thought of begging that Changbin kissed him right there.
Because when Seungmin glanced up and realised that Minho was very much sitting in the front of the very same car, he thought that they were finally out in the clear.
Instead, Minho simply sighed as though the ruckus was fine and normal and not his problem.
“You ask for it, Seungmin,” he said pointedly from the front seat, returning to his phone. “It’s like you want to be thrown around.”
Seungmin even tried his luck at being blatantly apparent about it when he got his usual dessert with Jeongin when everyone else was either sleeping, on schedule, or in Changbin’s case, in the studio.
“I think I’m gonna see how many consecutive hours in a row I can sleep,” Jeongin snorted when they brought up one of the scarce few days off they had in the coming months. “Think it’s possible to sleep for the whole twenty-four?”
“No and I’ll probably just stay at Bin’s.”
“Why?” Jeongin countered far too quickly and far too honestly.
“What do you mean why?”
“I mean… love him and all, but it’s a day off,” he continued in a scoff as though it were the most obvious thing. “Sometimes even looking at you guys makes me tired and stressed and I get that weird jumpy knee thing like before we go on stage.”
Seungmin thinned his lips and wondered how Jeongin got away with speaking like that when Seungmin typically got an arm cranked around his neck.
“Because we’re dating,” Seungmin replied.
But Jeongin simply adjusted the cap, nearly covering his fox-like eyes.
“You guys are still doing that bit?” He chuckled. “I gotta give it up to you—you’re both consistent.”
“Seriously,” Seungmin breathed. “Do we need to fuck somewhere within earshot and let you guys overhear it to actually prove it? I can pull a Jisung and whine extra loudly if that helps?”
Jeongin shuddered at the memory. Seungmin did too.
Then the younger of the two laughed like his best friend had very successfully told yet another Changbin-related joke.
⧟
So, Seungmin thought it might be wise to stop trying.
To stop thinking twice about their linked fingers on waiting rooms floors or how Changbin asked Jisung to leave when they were recording one of their Mixtape songs upon the onus that Seungmin would sing better if they were alone.
He stopped telling his friends that yes, he was staying over at Changbin’s because he liked the scent of his sheets. He stopped mentioning that the guy blowing up his phone whenever the group were apart was, in fact, another member of said group. He stopped rolling his eyes whenever Chan would playfully poke his shoulder and muse ‘who has got you all smiley?’ when Seungmin caught himself laughing a little too hard remembering one of Changbin’s lame jokes.
And yet, it happened on a Tuesday.
Which felt unfair, somehow, because Tuesdays were supposed to be boring and busy and habitual.
But it was their first day off in what felt like forever and their last day off before their weeks would be filled with airports and stadiums and so many things to film Seungmin usually forgot to wash his makeup off before bed.
Seungmin was in Changbin’s kitchen, wearing one of his hoodies and not much else, spooning cold rice straight out of the container. Changbin was right behind him. Completely unsubtle and completely him that he barely flinched the moment he felt two strong arms around his waist like they’d always belonged there. His chin found Seungmin’s shoulder and then his lips found the space beneath his ear.
Seungmin leaned back into him.
Because it was rare it got to be like this. When Hyunjin wasn’t holed up in his room or at Seungmin’s place, when Felix wasn’t sitting on the couch, or the counter, or sitting at the edge of Seungmin’s bed because he thought Changbin coming over meant he was there for everyone.
They had the place to themselves. The bedroom. The kitchen. The shower.
They got to live in the small, blissful wonderment of what their future might look like.
And it looked like Seungmin scooping rice into a bowl with lips slowly peppering his throat, apparently.
“You smell like me,” Changbin whispered in his nape.
Seungmin nodded, tilting his head so Changbin’s lips brushed his cheek.
“Good.”
Changbin kissed him there once and then again, sliding his mouth down to the soft skin beneath Seungmin’s ear and the younger of the two closed his eyes, let himself melt, nestled backward into the one place he felt safest.
And Seungmin wondered how the hell he used to concentrate. Because with Changbin’s arms around him, his small, whispered words of ‘so pretty’ as his lips travelled down his throat, spooning rice into a bowl was suddenly far too difficult.
“Bin,” he murmured, half warning him, half inviting.
Changbin grinned against his skin.
“You started it.”
Seungmin made a quiet sound and turned in Changbin’s arms until his backside hit the kitchen counter and his legs parted on instinct. Changbin’s hands rose like muscle memory—one at his lower back, the other cupping his jaw—and kissed him slowly and warmly and familiarly in a way that still made Seungmin’s chest ache.
Seungmin’s lips parted until their tongues brushed. His fingers spread and buried themselves in his dark, curled hair that still smelled of the shampoo Seungmin scrubbed in only hours ago.
And they drifted like that. Melted, even. In a mess of limbs and practised movements until they were heading toward the couch.
Changbin sat first but pulled Seungmin on top of him only a moment after until his knees were sinking into the cushions and Changbin’s hands were sliding upward, ghosting against his skin bare against the hoodie.
“So annoying,” Seungmin said softly against his mouth.
Even if he only whispered it for Changbin to smirk into the kiss, to squeeze his backside, to press him so close Seungmin wondered if they were sharing one body.
“You love me, don’t you?”
“Mm,” the younger man whispered. “Obviously.”
There, they kissed again. Changbin’s thumbs traced lazily into Seungmin’s hips and Seungmin’s fingers tangled into his hair. Everything else dissipated into breath and warmth and the way Changbin always made this quiet, satisfied sound in the back of his throat when Seungmin leaned into him like this.
And that, on some unsuspecting Tuesday, was when the front door opened.
Laughter so unmistakable sounded off first.
It was Jisung, loud and bright and Felix right behind him, complaining about carrying drinks. Jeongin was grunting something and even though their new two-person dorms were far larger than anywhere else they had lived, Seungmin could’ve recognised the shuffle of too many shoes in a too-small entryway just about anywhere.
Seungmin froze like the troop flouncing through the door hadn’t seen him naked in far too many dressing rooms to count that wearing not much more than a hoodie and Changbin’s hand at his backside felt as though he were stripped completely.
“...someone swap with me—mine tastes like shit,” it was Hyunjin’s voice following them with a rattle of the keys and Seungmin sighed.
Because they were like that for a full second. Their mouths barely inches apart. Some part of their minds humming that they prepared themselves for whatever the hell would come next
It was Jisung first, who rounded the corner and let the convenience store bag thud to the floor the moment his eyes met Seungmin’s.
His mouth opened.
Then it closed.
And it opened just as quickly.
Seungmin almost felt a lick of pleasure ripple through his chest at the very possibility he was giving Jisung a taste of his own medicine.
Felix appeared beside him, widened eyes flickering from Seungmin’s knees to Changbin’s arms to the barely-there space between them.
Hyunjin was next, already mid-sentence about something entirely unimportant, but stopped so abruptly he nearly walked straight into Felix’s back.
“What the hell,” Jeongin was the first to whisper, leaning around Hyunjin’s shoulder.
And it was then that Seungmin became acutely aware of approximately everything all at once.
The hoodie was sitting so high on his thighs his boxers were poking out. How Changbin’s thumb was still pressed into his hip. The fact that he was very much sitting on his boyfriend’s lap in his boyfriend’s living room while everyone stared.
“Uh…” Seungmin finally breathed. “Hey.”
“You said you’d be back tomorrow,” Changbin cleared his throat, pointing an accusatory finger at Hyunjin but Seungmin imagined the taller man didn’t see when he was too busy glaring between the two as though they were intruders. “Huh?”
But Seungmin supposed Hyunjin couldn’t hear or move or comprehend.
Jisung stepped forward with eyes still wide and wet and it was infuriating how he had the same look on his face that he adopted whenever he’d watch those corny reality dating shows.
“So, you… you were serious?” He whispered and Seungmin rolled his eyes.
“No, Jisung, I was just saying it for fun.”
But the older of the two stepped forward again, too giddy and too smiley and too bright for Seungmin’s liking.
“We thought you weren’t serious,” he breathed, though his voice wobbled with delight. “Because you’ve always been this way.”
Changbin scoffed before either of them could answer, even as his hand—warmly and unmistakably—remained exactly where it had been.
“We weren’t like this before we started dating,” Changbin shot back. “Mind you, my hand is still on his ass.”
Then all the blood rushed to Seungmin’s cheeks when every head in the room seemed to jerk toward it.
“Please get it off,” Jeongin muttered, scrubbing a palm down his face.
“No… keep it there,” Felix insisted, fully beaming now. “And you always were, hyung. You guys always hung out in a weird way.”
“Did not,” Seungmin scoffed.
“Did too,” Felix argued with a grin. “Like you were so exclusive but pretending not to be.”
Seungmin’s lips parted before he thinned them firmly shut.
And for a half second, he remembered it. The weeks before they first kissed being certain he had become insane. Where he lay awake at night trying to convince himself that he hadn’t always loved the man he had known for what felt like forever. Where he gaslit himself for what felt like years into thinking everything was fine.
“Well,” Hyunjin suddenly declared, voice strangled in a way that made Seungmin’s head snap toward him, “I think it’s beautiful.”
Whatever the hell he was holding clattered uselessly to the floor. He crossed the room in two dramatic strides.
His arms were long enough to engulf them both at once, even in their wildly compromised position—inadvertently pressing Seungmin further into Changbin’s lap and Changbin further into the couch.
“Hyun—”
But then Felix made a delighted sound and bounded forward too, adding two more arms to the growing tangle of limbs with his typically zero regard for spatial awareness.
“I’m so happy for you guys!” He squeaked.
“Wait—Hyun—your elbow—”
But Jisung cut Changbin off with, predictably, the most dramatic noise of all.
He clutched his chest like cupid had pierced an arrow through his heart and stumbled forward with bandy legs and too-high socks.
“I’m so happy for my Seungmo and Hyung,” he wailed as he threw himself into the mess as well.
The couch groaned beneath their weight.
But Seungmin groaned louder.
And then two more arms apprehensively wedged themselves into the chaos followed by Jeongin’s long-suffering sigh.
“Fine,” he muttered, face still a shade of pink as he hooked an arm somewhere around Changbin’s shoulder. “This is somewhat cute.”
Just like the straw that broke the camel’s back, the weight of them forced Seungmin forward until his forehead bumped into Changbin’s where they became a mess of brushing noses and mingling breaths—trapped in the middle of their friends.
Seungmin blinked at him.
Changbin blinked back with something dangerously fond in his eyes.
Seungmin didn’t mind the proximity.
“Uh…” he managed weakly, voice slightly crushed beneath (what might have been) Felix’s elbow. “Can we do this when I have pants on, guys?”
Then Jeongin grunted so loudly it echoed.
“Okay,” he muttered flatly. “I seriously have to die.”