Chapter Text
i: minho
The first time he met Jisung occurred only hours after Minho had one of the more upsetting physical altercations of his life.
Minho, an honest—if not blunt—twenty-two year old guy, had plenty of experience being upfront and telling people to fuck off. He’d always believed in quality over quantity of friends, but Yonghwa’s quality was hard to dispute at this point.
“You know,” Trinity said on her way out the dressing room door. She had a pair of bobby pins clenched in her teeth as she worked her short hair into a haphazard ponytail. “If I were a shittier friend I’d call the cops.”
It was purely need-based that Trin knew about the bruises. If he hadn’t required a full-coverage foundation to mask the blemish on his ribs, he’d have taken it to the grave, but to protect her more than to protect his boyfriend. It wasn’t as though Yonghwa deserved Minho in his life. Everyone and their mother under the sun knew that, Minho himself included. He didn’t stay with the piece of shit because he wanted to.
“Not calling the cops when you know I got beat makes you an excellent friend, then?” Minho responded sharply, eyeing Trinity with a smirk as he waved a stack of papers at the foundation drying on his belly.
“Jesus, Min, do you want me to call the cops or not?”
“I’m messing with you, darling. No. I don’t.” He blinked slowly to emphasize the nonchalance of the situation. “It’d do more harm than good.”
“I want you to be safe, y’know?”
He just hummed and clipped his shirt up to his collarbone with a barrette so he could free his hands for blending his eyeliner.
Trinity sighed and heaved open the dressing room door, allowing in the flood of thumping club noises. “ Thanks, Trin. No problem, Minho. Love you.”
“Love you!” he sang, making a kissy face at her retreating head.
“We’re still going to the concert with my sister after this, right?”
He’d forgotten, but he nodded anyway. “Yep. Sounds fun.” He’d had a long day, his ribs ached terribly, and he wanted more than anything to collapse into an uninterrupted sleep, but he’d promised Trin he’d go with her to the concert. Her being his boss and the owner of their club added a second layer to his obligation, maybe, but he was the type to keep his promises anyway.
Thankfully, it was a Friday night, which meant instead of wallowing in his physical and mental distress Minho would be distracted, then exhausted, then asleep. His favorite kind of evening.
His muscle memory guided him as he stripped that night. He worked the pole like he had a hundred times before, careful not to rub the foundation off his ribcage, and left the stage with sweat blurring his vision and wads of cash stuffing his leather suspenders.
Once he was back in his street clothes—a pair of light gray joggers and a loose tank top—he found Trin waiting by the back door beside a petite, blond girl with a stylish bob and big brown eyes. The shorter girl smiled brightly when she saw Minho, and he immediately began analyzing whether she was actually friendly or compensating for something.
“Min,” Trinity said. “This is my little sister, Sunny. Sunny, Minho. Our best dancer.”
“Sunny,” Minho said, shaking the girl’s extended hand and choosing not to correct Trinity’s unnecessarily flattering introduction. “Good to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too!” Sunny enthused, and before more could be said, Trinity ushered them out to the parking lot.
Minho’s ribs ached as he climbed into the car, reminding him of the events of the day, though he pulled his mind away from reliving those thoughts before they could manifest again. He wished he’d had a chance to eat something before embarking on another nightclub journey.
“You know Bang Chan, right?” Trin said as she pulled out of the Hub parking lot. The air was crisp and chilly for May, a cold front brought on after several days of persistent rain, and Minho shivered back against his seat.
He couldn’t tell if she was talking to him or Sunny, but he knew Bang Chan, an Australian guy who grew up around Minho, so he responded. “Chan and I went to highschool together. We keep in touch.”
“No way,” Sunny said all of the sudden, peering over the back seat to beam at him. She embodied her own name, Minho realized as her teeth gleamed. She was absolutely sunny. He could see himself feeling squashed under such energy at a rapid rate, so he didn’t smile in return, but she went on without a hitch. “Chan is in the rap group 3RACHA, you know?”
“I’ve heard of them.” They’d performed at Buble’s once or twice, which was the music venue in the same building as the Hub, and he’d been shocked by the size of the crowd they brought in. When he’d been a close friend of Chan’s in high school, the elder had sacrificed his rare musical talent in favor of pursuing his athleticism, but Minho supposed they’d all had winding paths since those days. “Is that who we’re going to see tonight, Trin?”
“Yep,” Sunny answered for her, still resting her chin on the edge of her seat so she could look right at Minho with her round eyes and ever-present smile. “My boyfriend is a part of the trio as well. I love seeing him perform, so I’m really excited. But he’s nervous, since this is a pretty big venue. I know he’ll do great.”
Minho swiped open his locked phone and kept his gaze down. “Why are you talking like he can hear you?”
“Helps calm my second hand nerves!” she laughed, seemingly unfazed by Minho’s cold shoulder, which he found himself respecting.
There was absolutely no parking outside the concert hall, so Trinity found a street space a few blocks down and announced they’d be taking the five minute hike. As they walked down the crowded downtown block, a short guy wearing gray skinny jeans and a leather jacket caught Minho’s eye, and for a moment he was convinced it was Yonghwa. His heart leapt into his throat as his thighs tensed to spin around, but it turned out to be a white guy he didn’t know.
“You feeling alright?” Trinity asked him, always skilled at lightly asking heavy questions.
“Mhmm.” He looked her way blankly, though he hoped she knew him well enough to pick up on the glimmer of gratitude in his eyes. “If you want to drink tonight, I can drive you home, Trin. Sober sister and all.”
“Might take you up on that.”
3RACHA’s set started at 10, according to Sunny’s excited babbling, so they were far from early. When they made it into the yellow-lit, buzzing auditorium, Minho and Trin were prepared to settle against the back wall opposite the stage and squint. But Sunny persistently shoved through the crowd dragging her sister in tow, explaining to rows of sweaty people that “my boyfriend is about to perform.” Something about her made every single person step out of her way until they were just a few rows back from the foot of the stage.
“You’re a go-getter,” Minho told her when they found their spot and Trinity veered off to get drinks.
“Thanks.” Sunny held her phone with a recording app open, like a mom prepared to catch her son’s performance on video. A strange juxtaposition to her pastel pink shirt, embroidered blue jeans, and middle schooler-esque stature. “He’s gonna do great, but I’m so nervous.”
“Let him bear the nerves,” Minho suggested. He didn’t really care about Sunny’s babbling and whimpering about being nervous for her boyfriend, but he could tell she needed a little push to realign her perspective. “You just have to sit back and enjoy.”
Sunny just nodded and stared up at the stage with her teeth digging into her lip and her shoulders tense. Minho almost laughed; he couldn’t fathom being so physically, mentally, and emotionally invested in something his boyfriend was about to do. If it was Yonghwa on that stage, Minho would probably exit the building without a word.
Just a few more months, he reminded himself, fanning his tank top away from his chest as the heat of the room settled over him.
Shortly after Trinity returned with drinks, the music shorted out, and the crowd roared. Three dudes jogged out from backstage, one after the other, led by a short, broad-shouldered guy in a tank top and a black beanie. It took Minho a moment to recognize him as Chan. He’d bulked up considerably since high school. He was really hot now, Minho observed in pleasant surprise, as Chan flirted with the crowd in his Australian accent and showed cheeky dimples while introducing the other two guys.
Minho thought Chan called the shortest one SpearB. Whatever the hell that meant. SpearB wore an orange baseball cap and a tank top so deeply cut around his thick arms that the entire world could see his nipples as he moved, but he had a nice body, so Minho could hardly blame him for flaunting it. When the beat started, SpearB kicked off the initial rap, and Minho was floored the moment he started.
The kid could rap. His voice was gravelly, aggressive, and deep, and syllables flowed out of him like he didn’t have to think about them.
“God damn,” Minho said to Trinity. “They’re sexy.”
Trinity cupped her hands around her mouth and whooped to cheer them on, and Minho couldn’t help the grin that curved his lips. The music worked its way into his muscles, and he bobbed along to SpearB’s rap, itching to freestyle. Somehow the kid accelerated his flow until he was rapping so fast Minho could no longer understand what he was saying, and his rap ended too soon, making room for Chan to step in and sing the chorus.
“Changbin is so talented,” Sunny whimpered, a hand over her mouth as she recorded.
“That your boyfriend?” Minho asked. They were compatible heights, after all.
“No, Jisungie is,” she said, her cheeks flaming as her eyes followed the third guy. J.One, Minho remembered. He’d been hyping up the crowd since the start, making high-pitched sound effects into the mic and jogging across the stage with his hair flopping all around, but he hadn’t rapped yet.
Until now.
When he started, Sunny made a strangled noise beside Minho.
J.One— Jisungie —leaned forward before his first bar, a snarky, confident smirk pulling up half his mouth. His voice was deeper than anticipated, since Minho deduced he looked like an eighteen-to-twenty year old. He had thick, shiny black hair that fell parted over his forehead, and he wore an oversized white t-shirt that warmed his honey skin to a smooth tan. His expression when he rapped took a dozen turns in a matter of seconds. He bared his teeth, winked, leaned back and pointed his finger at the stage as he danced on light feet. He narrowed his eyes and then smirked again, hardly taking a breath as his rap heated up, but then the aggressive cut of his teeth softened into a gummy smile, one that made Minho’s heart do something funny in his chest.
Shit, he thought. He’s cute.
His girlfriend, Minho reminded himself, was standing right next to him.
“Wow,” Minho started to compliment Sunny on her boyfriend’s talent, but his words froze in his throat when J.One’s voice changed, amping up from low and deliberate to high and energetic. “How is he doing that?”
The young rapper jogged around the stage like he owned it, gesturing at the crowd and grinning when they roared at the impressive cadence of his rap. Minho envied him. He envied the spring in his step, the brightness radiating from his facial expression, the sheer charisma he oozed. This guy loved the stage, and Minho had struggled for years with capturing that extra layer of presence when he danced.
It didn’t take much longer than five minutes of being in the same room as Jisung for Minho to decide the guy was a born superstar.
All three of them were talented, of course. Chan was a brilliant vocalist and an eye-catching, confident force on stage. SpearB was high-energy, striking, and technically flawless. But there was something about J.One. He was magnetic. He was having the time of his life up there, and Minho wanted more of him. To talk to him, to feed off that radiance that filled the room like a mist. He wanted to know him.
When the performance ended, Sunny dragged Minho and Trinity backstage to meet the boys, and Minho loathed himself for being nervous. Normally meeting new people didn’t bother him, since he tended to give a handsome-yet-icy first impression and that was exactly how he wanted people to see him, but these guys were different. They were like...celebrities, or something. Not that Minho ever had time to give a shit about what celebrities were doing.
The three boys stood in a circle in a cramped hallway, all smiles, batting at each other’s shoulders and nursing bottles of water. Chan was the first to look up when they approached, and his eyes fluttered when he noticed Minho.
“Lee Minho?” he said, an incredulous, dimpled grin lighting up his face. “You actually came!”
“Trinity managed to drag me away from my cats for a night,” Minho teased, thumping Chan’s back when he was pulled in for a hug. “Been a while.”
“Too long,” Chan agreed. “You met my boys? Binnie, c’mere.”
SpearB—or Changbin, Minho remembered—threw up an overly casual peace sign when he walked up and said, “What’s up.”
“Hi,” Minho said. “You rap fast.”
Changbin snorted out a laugh. “Thanks. Who are you? What do you do?”
“Oh, I’m Minho. I’m a stripper.”
Changbin blinked, his square jaw twitching as he clamped his mouth shut, and Minho resisted a cackle. He loved throwing that wrench into people’s trains of thought. “Right. You work for Trin?”
“Yeah, she’s my lesbian mother,” Minho said with a nod. “How do you all know Trin?”
“Ah,” Chan said, and gestured towards their third member. “We met when Jisung started dating Sunny a few months back.”
Minho had intentionally been postponing looking at Jisung, since he had minimal shame (and/or self control) and Jisung was a cute guy but also a straight guy who was in a relationship, but now he didn’t have much of a choice.
Sunny was wrapped around him, her wrists locked behind his neck as she pressed little kisses to his cheeks, but he abruptly looked their way at the sound of his name. He had huge eyes, Minho observed immediately, and his cheeks were a bit puffy, two traits which made Minho question how old he was again.
Jisung shuffled forward, his cheeks lifting as he mustered a bashful little smile, and he took Sunny’s hand to lead her forward alongside him. Minho could hardly believe this was the same guy who’d been such a stick of dynamite onstage. He was...timid, and careful, and kind of adorable. Minho felt the urge to step back a few paces to give him some space.
“Hi,” Minho said again, and Jisung’s eyes fell on him tentatively, widening even more. He looked paralyzed, either from the presence of a stranger or from the presence of a handsome queer-looking blue-and-black-haired stripper. Jisung moistened his lips, and Minho’s gaze followed his tongue.
Minho, who had always been pretty sharp at picking up when someone thought he was cute, didn’t bother to contain his giggle when Jisung’s mouth slipped open and then slammed shut, potentially in a fruitless search for words. “I’m Minho,” he added.
“Minho,” Jisung echoed. The honey skin of his jaw and neck gleamed with sweat, and his voice was back to that surprisingly soft, low rumble. “I’m, uh, Jisung.”
“Nice to meet you.” Minho quirked an eyebrow as Jisung’s cheeks flushed red. He was so shy. Still, whether it was because Minho was a stranger or because Minho was Minho, he couldn’t tell. “You’re really talented. I could tell you were born to be on the stage.”
“Really?” Jisung broke into an eye-crinkling gummy smile, and Minho noticed his front teeth were crooked. He dropped Sunny’s hand so he could flatten his hair. “Thanks.”
Chan assumed control of the conversation then, wrapping his arm around Minho’s shoulders and suggesting they go get some drinks. Minho agreed to accompany but politely declined participation by accrediting his sobriety to being the designated driver. Changbin and Chan started making fun of each other for being short, Trinity and Minho started making fun of each other for being gay, and the strange tension that’d found its way into their hallway seemed to dissipate. Minho kept an eye on Jisung, who stood in silence, his arms at his sides and his fingers loosely linked with his girlfriend’s. Sunny periodically glanced up at him with an expectant sparkle in her eyes, and Jisung looked back down at her every few seconds, offering her a smile that didn’t quite reach past the nervousness in his eyes.
Minho bit his tongue to refrain from chuckling. He could pick up on a complex dynamic quicker than most, and this, this was the seed of some popcorn-warranting tension.
They made their way to the bar upstairs, where Minho found himself seated on a barstool beside Jisung. Everyone else got up to dance, Sunny and Trinity hand-in-hand while Chan and Changbin made a show of shaking their butts at each other.
Minho laughed fondly, watching as Chan had to take a phone call and Changbin started dancing between both women with a whiskey sour raised above his head. He liked Changbin a lot already, for having met him just tonight.
“You can drink if you want,” Jisung said.
Minho swung his head around slowly to look his way. “What?”
Jisung flushed under the stare and twiddled his fingers, picking at the hem of his shirt. “Um, I heard you saying you’re sober tonight so you can drive, but you can drink if you want. I could drive us. I’m on—I’m, uh, not drinking. I don’t drink. Uh, health type of thing.”
“I don’t drink either,” Minho said easily, grinning. “Used to way too much type of thing.”
“Oh.” Jisung bit his lower lip and gnawed, clearly wondering if he’d pushed too hard, but Minho just chuckled and reached out to ruffle his hair, which was silky beneath his fingers.
“It’s okay, Jisungie,” he said. “Glad we have each other to sober it together.”
“Right.” Jisung’s slim shoulders visibly relaxed beneath his tee. “I like...I like the blue in your hair.”
“You like it?” Minho hummed, crossing his legs and curling a lock of the fading blue around his index finger. He knew he was (mostly unintentionally) putting on exactly the show he put on around someone he was trying to sleep with, and Jisung was very much in a relationship, but he couldn’t help himself. The kid was just too cute when he was flustered.
Oh, and Minho was in a relationship too. Right.
“Yeah. I used to have a lot of fun colors in my hair too, but then I got my day job and sadly, fun is frowned upon in this capitalist world.”
Minho laughed out loud, surprised by his candid humor, and uncrossed his legs to lean back against the bar. The force of his laugh had reminded him of his aching ribs. “You’re right about that. What do you do?”
“I sell electronics.” Jisung cringed after he said it, and Minho had to bite his lip to keep from laughing again at his facial expression. “Which I’m completely underqualified for since I can barely work my own iPhone.”
“Mm, but selling is about being able to work people, not iPhones.”
“I can barely figure out what I’m thinking.” Jisung gave an awkward giggle. “Much less anyone else.”
“Ah, bullshit.”
Jisung blinked, his lips parted. Minho noticed his lower lip was a bit fuller than his upper, making him look pouty. “What?”
“I said, bullshit. Your lyrics were philosophical as hell. You probably understand people way better than you give yourself credit for.”
Jisung’s ears flamed red at that, but he punched Minho’s arm lightly, grumbling, “How d’you even know I wrote those lyrics?”
“Could just tell by the way you performed.” Minho shrugged to cover up his delight at Jisung’s increasing ease around him and took a sip of ice water. “But don’t worry, most people aren’t as observant as me.”
“So it seems,” Jisung said with a good-natured chuckle. Minho was relieved he hadn’t been too off-putting with his analysis; he could be abrasively honest now and then. But Jisung didn’t seem to mind. “What about you, what do you do?”
“I dance. I dance at Trin’s club, I’m on a dance team, I teach dance.”
“Oh shit, really?”
Minho smiled as he nodded, biting down on his drinking straw. Jisung’s eyes, sparkling under the bar’s colorful lights, traced the shape of Minho’s mouth as he went on, “I also have a minor role selling drugs and transporting them for a local gang.”
Jisung’s brow crinkled, his upper lip tensing into a bewildered frown, just as Minho chimed out a giggle and said, “Just kidding.”
“Not sure I believe you,” Jisung responded, his laugh too loud.
“Mmm.” Minho watched as Jisung’s eyes followed Sunny, who was getting another round of drinks for her, Trin, Changbin, and the recently-returned Chan. Jisung rested his face on his palm as he watched her, his cheek smushing against his hand adorably, and Minho decided they were cute together. “You and Sunny make a good couple.”
“Thanks,” Jisung said, crossing his ankles and kicking them up and down. “Yeah she’s an awesome girl.”
“How long has that been going on?”
“About two months now. Or, three?” He pouted, eyes on the ceiling, did some math with long, tan fingers, then huffed out an embarrassed laugh when he failed. “We met at college, earlier in the spring semester. We uh, both study music.”
“Music? What’s the goal?”
“Producing,” he admitted, scratching a flaming ear. “I-I know I’m not nearly good enough to get anywhere, at least not yet, but I really love making music. And writing lyrics. Luckily I met the hyungs my freshman year, and we’ve taken off a lot more than I expected us to.”
“You guys definitely have something special.”
“Aish,” Jisung said, drinking some water and hiding half his face behind the glass. “Stop stroking my ego.”
“I’d never,” Minho said smoothly. “I just tell it like it is.”
Their conversation devolved from there, taking a series of bizarre turns until they were arguing about whether having a cat as a child makes for a cat-like adult. Minho’s argument was no, since he had a dog as a kid and his personality was quite the opposite of energetic and affectionate, and Jisung argued he’d had a cat household and it made him into the skittish homebody he was today. The word homebody led them to talk about Peabodies, which led them to talk about Portal 2, a video game they’d both wasted many hours playing the solo op of, and Jisung suggested Minho come over some time to play Portal 2 with him and the hyungs.
Minho was making a friend. It’d been a while since he’d done such a thing with enthusiasm. Normally, he enjoyed the tininess of his inner circle, but he supposed Jisung was connected to Trin, so his circle wasn’t breaking. Just growing a little bit.
Jisung was downright animated by the time they’d finished their waters. He was a noisy kid, actually; he broke into spontaneous song several times throughout their conversation, each time making Minho jump and then start laughing, and he spoke faster and louder the more comfortable he grew. Normally excessive noise and babbling bothered Minho, but Jisung never said an uninteresting thing, and his tangents were unpredictable enough that Minho was forced to stay on his toes, prepared to dive into the swing of banter alongside him.
“Lyrics can be interesting no matter what they’re about,” Jisung was saying, “so long as it’s explored from a creative or original angle.”
“So you could write interesting lyrics about anything?”
Jisung seemed flustered by the pointed framing of the question, the way it forced him to brag about himself. “Let’s try. Give me a topic.”
“Eggnog.”
“Eggnog? Easy. Eggnog is the nectar of the Christmas season,” he started to rap, and then turned bright red halfway through, bursting into a fit of laughter and smacking Minho’s arm. “Stop looking at me like that!”
“I’ll turn around and you’d better spit a fire rap about eggnog to the back of my head.”
“Fuck off, Lee Minho.”
Minho turned around and stuck his tongue out at Jisung over his shoulder.
The eggnog rap actually was pretty fire.
Minho was just glad Jisung seemed to be feeling relaxed, and he was much more recognizable as the beam of light he’d been on stage. That same magnetic, radiant energy that was impossible to ignore while he was performing applied to his personality too, Minho supposed.
“Guess,” Jisung was laughing, pulling his lips back over his teeth and twiddling his fingers in front of his cheeks.
“Pufferfish.”
“Minho!”
“Spider.”
“Gross.”
“Beetle?”
“You’re insulting me, asshole!”
“Gandalf.”
“Minho,” Jisung cackled, smacking his shoulder and nearly falling off his barstool. “None of those things are cute.”
“Gandalf is very cute, how dare you disrespect my religion?”
“Yes, but not as cute as me.”
Minho rolled his eyes, thought, true, and said, “Sea urchin.”
“I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”
Minho laughed evilly, knowing exactly what he was supposed to say from the beginning, and humored the ridiculous boy across from him. “Squirrel?”
“Yes! Jeez, you’re terrible at this game.”
Sunny came over then, drunk and swinging her legs this way and that, falling into Jisung’s arms with a terribly loud giggle. “Jisungie!” she sang, plopping a kiss right on his lips. Minho laughed at his flustered expression. “Dance with me!”
Jisung glanced up at the dancefloor with his lips parted and his eyes round, and Minho immediately picked up on his nervousness. Doesn’t drink, almost admitted to being on meds of some kind, fiddles with his fingers a lot...anxiety. Doesn’t like crowds. Minho watched Sunny, unimpressed, as she failed to observe her boyfriend’s clear discomfort.
“Ah,” Jisung said, trying to smile at her. “I would love to, baby, but…”
The word baby in Jisung’s soft, hesitant voice made Minho’s stomach flutter, but he locked that feeling thoroughly in a box and chucked the key into a pit of lava. “Sunny,” Minho cut in, smiling at her sweetly when she whirled around. “I’ll dance with you, darling.”
“Will you?” She beamed; she was just a drunk gal who wanted to dance, and Minho was a good dance partner. “Let’s go, Minhooo!”
Jisung caught his eye over Sunny’s shoulder, mouthing a sheepish thank you.
Minho waved the words aside with a flick of his wrist and a wink.
It was nearly two o’clock when it was time for Minho to transport everyone home. They stood outside of Trinity’s car, which had five seats for six people, so a shitfaced Chan declared he wanted to walk home, claiming it “helped him process the night” after drinking.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Minho said.
“I love drunk walks,” Chan whined, hopping up and down slightly and looking much more like an indignant toddler than a drunk twenty-three year old man.
“Jisung how long’s the walk to Chan’s apartment?” Minho turned on the only other sober person.
“Uh, he lives with me,” Jisung said. Sunny was wrapped around his arm like a koala. “So, twenty minutes or so.”
Minho couldn’t believe he and Jisung had talked for almost two hours and it hadn’t once come up that he lived with Chan—he supposed they’d found a way of talking about everything and absolutely nothing at the same time—but he covered up his surprise by turning on Chan again. “Just let me give you a lift. I’m dropping off Jisung there anyways.”
“And Changbin!” Changbin screamed, far louder than necessary, his torso thrust backwards to accommodate the force of his yell.
“And Changbin,” Minho echoed, pursing his lips to conceal his smile. These idiots. “Get in the car, hyung.”
“I can sit on Sungie’s lap,” Sunny offered. “We’ll be fine with six.”
Jisung looked at Minho suddenly. His eyes really were huge, dark, and round, and all his emotions beamed through them so blatantly Minho almost felt like he was intruding as he looked back. “Are you good to drive?”
“Mhmm.” Minho smiled. “Unless you want to, then I can sit on Trinity’s lap.”
Sunny pouted, which Jisung quickly observed and pulled her into a hug, saying Minho could drive without meeting his eyes.
Minho dropped off the girls first. After dropping Sunny at her parents’ and Trin at her condo, he drove towards the boys’ apartment, chuckling as he caught sight of the three of them packed elbow-to-elbow in the back seat. Minho felt a smidge of delight at escorting home 3RACHA, an incredibly talented rap trio, but his exhaustion was beginning to weigh on his capacity for joy.
They sang so loudly Minho wished he had the function to turn them down with a knob. An onlooker would’ve guessed Jisung was just as shitfaced as the other two, based on the volume of his animated belting. When they arrived outside their apartment complex, which was a squat, modest unit a few miles from the edge of town, the three of them scurried out of the car in a flurry of “thanks Minho!”’s and “don’t fucking touch me, hyung”’s. When they’d disappeared into the complex, Minho moved to put Trin’s car in drive, but he noticed the glow of a phone in the backseat.
He unbuckled so he could reach what turned out to be an iPhone, with a squirrel sticker under the camera.
He sighed, but a certain warmth pulled at his chest. He kind of wanted an excuse to see Jisung one more time, anyway. He fiddled with the iPhone till he found the emergency contacts, smiling when he noticed Jisung’s lock screen was an endearing photo of him kissing Sunny’s cheek, and clicked Channie hyung ’s contact.
“Jisung?” Chan answered. “Aren’t you taking a shit?”
Minho shrieked out a laugh. “Chan, it’s Minho. He left his phone in the car.”
“Ohhhhh.” Chan gave a slow, drunk sigh. “I’ll go tell him.”
Minho hung up.
Less than five minutes later, Jisung came bursting from the building once more, his eyes huge and his mouth pulled into a straight, tense line. Minho climbed out of the car and strolled up to him, not bothering to cut the engine, and laughed at Jisung’s apologetic expression.
“Sorry,” Jisung panted, reaching for his phone. “And thank you.”
“No problem.”
They stood there for a moment, Jisung’s fingers dancing over his phone case while he chewed his lower lip, his shapely throat bobbing. Minho fiddled around as well, shifting his weight from side to side, trying to remember how to platonically ask for someone’s number.
“I feel like you and I should be friends,” he settled on.
Jisung nodded maybe a bit too fervently and laughed, his lip popping from between his teeth. It was red, a bit swollen from biting, and Minho tried not to stare. “Yeah, tonight was weirdly fun, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Could I maybe...get your number? Or snapchat, or whatever you youths do these days?”
Jisung grinned, averting his eyes and unlocking his phone. Minho noticed his fingers trembled against the glow of the screen. “I’m only two years younger than you,” he argued. “I don’t really like snapchat ‘cuz I’m not big on pictures of myself, but, uh, yeah. What’s your number? Or, uh, do you want mine?”
“If you’ve got it up, I’ll give you mine.”
When Jisung was done, he sent Minho a text, which he could feel via a vibration against his ass. Then Jisung smiled again and took a hesitant step back, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ll see you around, Minho. Thanks for the ride. And for my phone. And…” he squinted a little as he thought over his words. “And for being so cool to talk to.”
“No problem,” Minho said, waving a hand. “No need for thanks. I’ll see you soon.”
Then they parted, and Minho checked his phone when he was settled back behind the wheel to see the text: This is Jisungiiiie!
He smiled dumbly to himself and set off for Trinity’s.
The walk from Trinity’s driveway to Yonghwa’s apartment was about ten minutes, and that was ten minutes longer than Minho felt like venturing at two o’clock in the morning, but he didn’t want to bother his boyfriend by asking for a ride. So he made the trek with his switchblade open in his hand, concealed by the pocket of his joggers, and his keys curled in his opposite fist.
The cloud of happiness from an evening well-spent began to subside as Minho approached the apartment. Tension built up in his shoulders with each step, and the ache in his ribs reminded him of what he was going back to.
He didn’t announce he was home when he stepped through the door into Yonghwa’s sparkling clean kitchen. It’d been months since he’d come home in that manner. Still, Yonghwa was up when he got home, sprawled on the couch with his slim, lanky legs swung up onto the footstool and a cigarette dangling from his lips.
“Hey,” Minho said, stepping from his shoes.
“You were out late,” Yonghwa said, not looking away from the wall-mounted flatscreen.
“How very observant of you.”
Yonghwa’s lip curled. He slid a narrow glare Minho’s way.
“I’m going to bed,” Minho said.
“Tell me where you were, Min.” His voice was softer now, and he plucked the cigarette from his mouth. The smell of chemical smoke made Minho’s nose wrinkle. “I was worried.”
“You could’ve texted me.”
“You never answer my texts anyways.”
“Oh.” Minho frowned, tapping a single finger to his jutted bottom lip. “Maybe that’s because you regularly beat the shit out of me and wonder why I don’t fucking enjoy being around you anymore.”
“Watch your mouth, Minho. You’re lucky you have a place in my bed. You know exactly where you’d be without me.”
“I was at the club with some friends.” He raised his eyebrows. “Happy?”
Yonghwa sighed and heaved himself into a seated position, planting his feet on the floor. He was a handsome guy—pretty face, shapely jaw, long legs—but now he just looked exhausted, and Minho could hardly find signs of his simmering, sporadic anger in those puffy, tired eyes. “I’m sorry about today,” Yonghwa said.
Here we go. “You always say that.”
“I just get so angry...when you say stuff like that. It feels like you don’t love me anymore. It’s hard.”
Minho, rattled by the admission, blinked at Yonghwa slowly until his thoughts fell into a coherent pattern. “I do love you,” he said, and it was only half a lie. “But if I didn’t, that’s not an excuse to lay a finger on someone, and you know it.”
“I know it. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t do it again,” Minho said.
Yonghwa lifted his chin slightly, meeting Minho’s words like they were a challenge. And in a way, they were—both Minho and Yonghwa knew it was a futile demand. “I will try,” he said. “But...what could you do about it, anyway?”
Minho smirked. “Careful.”
Yonghwa narrowed his eyes, his dark gaze cutting through Minho’s numb confidence, making his skin crawl. “You need me, Min. You need me.”
Minho could almost hear the implied, insecure right? tacked onto the end of the statement. “I do.”
I’ll let you keep believing I do.
“Okay. And I need you too, baby. You’re my king, you know?” He leaned against the back of the couch, making himself appear smaller, his fingers tracing across the cushions as he looked Minho’s body up and down. “You’re my partner in crime.”
“I’m going to bed.”
“Minho…”
He marched into the bedroom, closing the door behind him without another word. Soonie and Doongie both lie curled up on the bed, and Soonie looked up when he came in, meowing and flicking his tail slightly. Minho’s chest flooded with relief when he saw them, grateful to have a little piece of home in Yonghwa’s apartment. Just a few more months, he chanted to himself as he curled up on the bed between his cats. And we’ll be free.