Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jisung thinks Minho might genuinely be the one .

He knows he’s said it before, but he plans to never say it about anyone else ever again. Because he really, really means it this time.

The thought strikes him as he sheds his denim jacket over the back of the chair and unearths his work stuff from his rucksack; piling the contents neatly onto the cafe table. He first lays out his notebook and pen, then his laptop, but his fingers skim hesitantly over his tablet. The realisation makes him pause.

Jisung had been hyping himself up to come to the cafe all morning. A decision he’d made somewhere between waking up to the kiss Minho had placed into his matted hair, his cheek still squished against Minho’s pillow, and rinsing out the mugs of coffee Minho had made that morning. 

Minho’s fingers had skimmed his waist as he did it, his nose somehow finding its way into the crook of his neck like its just always meant to be there.

“You didn’t have to do that.” Minho had murmured into his skin. And then, perhaps a little less reasonably, he’d pulled a way and pouted. “I hate it when you turn your back to me. I miss your pretty face.”

Jisung had scoffed out a laugh and grumbled something about object permanence issues; pretended he was irritated when Minho took to fumbling his ass instead, “ although, this is pretty too.”

It feels a bit hypocritical now, though, as he invades the corner booth seat in the cafe Minho owns — and prepares himself to spend an entire day working there. Just so he can be within Minho’s gravitational pull. All he needs is his bonsai and a few discarded monster cans and he’s basically packed up his entire work from home set up.

He finally gives in and adds the tablet and his digital pen to the pile and tries not to overthink.

At the counter, Jeongin has only just finished starting up the espresso machines, he places the specials board at the front of the counter and observes Jisung with a small quirk of his eyebrow. But he doesn’t seem as surprised as maybe he should be.

He grins and starts jabbing his pin into the till. “Jisung-ssi.” He sings. “How are you this morning? You’re in early. I’m surprised you didn’t come in with Minho-hyung first thing, unless he smuggled you in with the pastry delivery.”

Jisung laughs nervously, but Jeongin doesn’t seem to be slightest bit deterred by his awkwardness. “Vanilla matcha latte? I’ll bring it over to you.” he takes the prongs and fishes out a raspberry croissant as well.

Jisung rings the sleeves of his cardigan. “Um, great. Thanks. How much do I owe you?”

Jeongin raises another eyebrow (a trick Jisung wonders if he’s picked from Minho). “Jisung - hyung — ah, sorry. You’re 2000’s, right? Can I call you hyung? I feel like I’ll be seeing so much of you, that it’ll be weirder if I don’t.”

He doesn’t wait for Jisung to reply, or elaborate on how he knows Jisung’s birth year.

“Anyways, I think if I tried to charge you, Minho-hyung would take the money out of my pay check. So please, go sit down.”

Jisung decides to do as he’s told and shuffles back to his seat. In the few weeks Jisung had known Jeongin, his customer service skills seemed to have deteriorated significantly. But as he observes Jeongin greet the only other customer with a little bow and chirpy walks the older lady through the specials board, he decides to take it as a good thing.

It means Minho must talk about Jisung, even when he’s not here. He’s mentioned his birth year and what pastries he must like and given the impression that he tends to keep Jisung around long enough that Jeongin should call him Hyung.

Jisung kicks his feet a little giddily under the table. Minho must like him back.

Jisung takes in the ambience of the coffee shop, Minho seems to be knitted into every corner. There’s a cheese plant growing in one corner by a loveseat, which Jisung knows has come from a cutting of the one in Minho’s living room; there’s pictures of Minho’s three cats adoring the walls and Jisung wonders if the other customers think they’re stock photos. Jisung knows they’re not, because he’s met them. Several times now.

Minho – his new (almost) boyfriend. Who owns a coffee shop and has three little cats he refers to as his brothers and isn’t one bit bothered that Jisung can’t cook because he likes to do it for him.

Minho is, in every single way, a leading shoujo love interest.

Jisung wishes he could say they met here, swaddled in Minho’s very essence; where their eyes would of met over the perfect heart Minho had decorated in Jisung’s matcha. 

Less romantically, they’d matched on Grindr.

Jisung’s not really a frequent user of Grindr. He never really talks to anybody, instead preferring to scroll through men, match with them and never respond again. A 2am hobby he liked to cycle through every few months as a psychological reaction to Felix reposting his new sporty boyfriend Seungmin on his story, or after binge watching gay youtubers and being reminded that love is, unfortunately, real. 

But there had just been something different about Minho’s profile. Maybe it was the promise that he’d turn up with banana bread for anyone who managed to get out of the talking stage, or because instead of immediately sending Jisung an unsolicited dick pic he actually had made conversation. The bar was low, but…  

When Minho had turned up to the fancy restaurant he had suggested with a little tub of banana bread, Jisung knew it wasn’t a bad decision. 

Minho is,also freakishly good at sex. Or maybe he’s just a freak. Jisung thinks he’s an angel. 

Jisung doesn’t really know what it is about him that looks like he’s begging to be fucked against Minho’s kitchen table, but they were barely through Minho’s apartment door before Minho had him bent over. He trailed  feverous kisses down his neck, fingers burning imprints into his back as Minho pushed his back into an arch and used his free hand to bunch up Jisung’s nice shirt. He’d even ironed it, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about creases anymore. 

Minho had nipped at his back before he dropped to his knees, started to work Jisung’s trousers down his thighs. 

“Are you clean?” Minho murmured, tongue hot against the back of Jisung’s knee. 

“Yeah,” Jisung had gasped. 

“Yeah, me too.” Minho panted, “I’m gonna eat you out, if that’s ok.” His hand reached up, squeezing Jisung’s ass insistently.

“Ah I thought - shit,” Minho’s teeth had found their way between Jisung’s thighs, finger nails dug into flesh as he forced them to part wider. “I thought you were a top?”

Minho’s head popped back up to Jisung’s side, eyes wide. He looked a little like a meerkat, and somehow in the most sexually charged moment of his life, Jisung still had a second to think he’s so cute. 

“I am.” Minho blinked. “Top, verse. I don’t mind power bottoming, though. I just wanted to be ready, in case you didn’t feel like bottoming, it’s a lot of work…I wanted to be ready for whatever you wanted.”

Jisung’s brain short circuited. Such a small gesture, but still. 

  I’m going to fucking marry him. 

 – So. The point is, they’re definitely compatible in that element. In the two and a bit months they’ve been hooking up, Jisung doesn’t think he’s came as much or as hard as he has. And that’s really saying something. 

Not because he’s having insane sex every weekend (Well, now he is). In reality, Jisung hasn’t had that many partners. Two serious relationships that he tries very hard to forget and he could count his hookups on one hand. 

But lack of sexual experience has never stopped Jisung from being a bit of a freak. 

The thought draws him back down to his tablet. He unlocks it to find that he’d left it on the last project he’d been working on, and hastily dims down the brightness. 

On the screen, there’s a half finished digital sketch of two men. One has their face smushed against a table, there’s a scatter of pastries littering the cartoon table, cakes oozing filling from where they’ve been smushed and deserts glistening, dripping. The man behind him is currently squirting a line of cream down his back, it makes a little, fluffy heart. Because Jisung might be a bit of a freak, but he’s also sentimental! 

“So sweet, Jagiya. Do you taste sweet, too?” 

Jisung blushes as he reviews the work, as if he wasn’t the deviant who had drawn in it, then his brow settles into a hard line. He notices the grip the top has on the bottom’s ass doesn’t look squidgy enough, and then the shadowing over one of the little cakes is off. 

Jisung may be horny, but he’s also a self critic. He is, in some ways, a professional. 

It’s a word he struggles to associate with himself. But it’s technically true. 

Jisung is a manhwa writer. Or more specifically, a Boy Love and occasional Girl Love author. He wouldn’t really say he’s got much of a following, but his friends seem to disagree. 

Hyunjin, who had been his roommate turned rival turned eventual (begrudging) best friend in Art School had once described it as a “ cult following that would only grow if you swallow your pride and draw Furry’s. ”

Felix seems to always echo that sentiment. They’d actually met on a League of Legends chat and clicked, Jisung had eventually revealed his secret identity of drawing LoL and Overwatch yuri on twitter. His origin story from 2019. He definitely hadn’t expected Felix to reveal that he was not only one of Jisung’s followers, but a fan. Jisung hadn’t even considered he might have fans. 

A few years later, he drew Felix AkaLynn yuri for his 21st Birthday. Felix had cried and called the literal porn the “ most thoughtful gift anyone has ever given me”. The rest is history.

Felix and Hyunjin also happen to be one of the very few people to know about his hobby - or, career. His family still think he works as a Marketing Executive, even though it’s been almost a year since he handed in his notice to pursue writing full time. 

He has over 50K followers on twitter, and recently hit 20K on Pixiv. His webtoon following is a respectable 30K, maybe a little less than expected based on his other sites stuff - but then again, not much of his content could really be considered appropriate enough to make the Webtoon home page. 

Jisung’s scrolls to the next panel and tilts his head, and on that note tries to decide whether the precum leaking from the tip should have the same texture as the glossy icing, or more smooth like the whipped cream. This piece he’s working on is actually a thank you for reaching 500 patreon followers, featuring two characters from his mini series. 

He supposes it’s not bad, but due to the - nature - of his work, it’s not something he ever feels like he can bring up. And based on previous situations, not something he feels he can casually drop in on a date. 

So, Minho might also still think he’s a Marketing Executive. But it’s fine, it’s not lying - it’s just withholding the truth until Jisung can be sure about him. 

Because he really, really likes Minho. And not just because Minho lets him eat his ass back - but because he’s kind, funny and seems to get Jisung in such a different way, it feels like they navigate the same world for once in his life. Minho makes him feel a little less like an alien. 

And he is not going to let being a freak ruin this for him again. Not when everything could be just perfect.

A matcha latte is placed down in front of him and a warm hand finds its way to the back of his neck, the scrape of fingernails against his nape literally dragging him out of his thoughts. 

Jisung jumps slightly and quickly locks his tablet, looks up and finds Minho smiling back down at him. Minho’s fingers slip their way into his hair and tug. 

With his throat exposed; Minho leans down and plants a tender kiss on his Adam’s Apple before letting up and sliding into the booth across from him. Jisung’s surprised the table doesn’t tremble with how hard his heart is beating.

“You can’t be here.” Minho frowns, pouty. His ankle finds Jisung’s under the table and they lock. “You’re way too distracting. Who let you walk out the house looking like that? ”

“You did.” Jisung says automatically.

He glances over his own outfit, it’s hardly scandalous. He’s in an oversized red cardigan draped over an equally massive white t shirt. Although he’d gone home to grab his work stuff, it’s the same outfit he’d packed for Minho’s last night. The most amount of skin he’s showing is the slither between where his jorts stop at the knees and his pulled up socks start.

It’s like Minho can hear his thoughts or something. He uses his strong legs to pull Jisung further down into his seat so he can slide his hand underneath the table and toy with the hem of Jisung’s jorts.

"Mm, it’s all this oversized clothing.” Minho huffs, his fingers skim just under Jisung’s knee, making him squirm and giggle. “It leaves too much to the imagination, which makes it especially hard when you already know what’s underneath to stop imagining it.” 

Minho shakes his head gravely and gives the jorts a tug. “And these? You can’t walk around with your ankles out, you want me to try and serve customers when I’m thinking about your ankles ?”

“My ankles are covered, it’s only my calves on show!” Jisung giggles a little breathlessly.

Minho gives his leg one last squeeze and finally lets go. “ Hmm, Jisung’s calves.”

“You’re so weird!” Jisung splutters, but he can’t keep the fondness out of his voice. It’s like it radiates off his body and bleeds into everything he does. “But I like weird.” Jisung pauses, casts an anxious thought back to his dissociation spiral. “…You think I’m normal, right?”

“Hm,” Minho taps his chin, pretending to consider. And then, equally as soft “But I like normal.”

The confession is bitter sweet. Minho likes Jisung as he knows him now, so he needs to be that, he needs to protect this version of himself for as long as possible.

“Drink your matcha before it goes cold. Do you like my latte art?”

Jisung looks down at his mug, there’s a white blob with two holes in its middle, two connecting triangles and a squiggly line.

Jisung takes a stab in the dark. “Soonie?”

“That’s clearly Doongie.” Minho deadpans. “Now, why’ve you set up camp in my cafe, hm? Are you moving in?”

Jisung takes a gulp of his latte so he can hide his blush behind the cup, blooming at the mention of moving in with Minho. “Uhm. I have a day in leu. From my job as a marketing executive.”

“So, a day off?” Minho cocks a singular eyebrow.

Jisung shrugs, the lie sticking a little. “Sure.”

Jisung in fact does not have a day off, it’s actually completely the opposite. He’s working on a tight deadline, needs to submit some drafts for a new concept he’d pitched in exchange for a series deposit by Monday, and none of its gone past his beta yet.

 Jisung has had the same beta reader since 2014, Chan, who had been the first and maybe only friend he’d really made in High School, after moving back to Korea from Malaysia. Chan had always been so supportive of his creative dreams. He can’t imagine sharing drafts of basically his brain with anyone else, but Chan has a fancy producing job now, and when he’s not being a workaholic he works normal Monday - Friday, with overtime. 

So he needs to get this over to him before Saturday, tomorrow , if he wants feedback. 

“What’s all this then?” Minho’s eyes land on the tablet and digital pen, his eyebrows knit together into a confused frown. “Sungie, I didn’t know you draw.”

Jisung takes a subtle, calming breath. Everything’s fine, he had prepped for this.

“Yeah, just something I do to pass the time.” Jisung chirps.

He doesn’t even wait for Minho to ask to see any drawings, he’s already got this base covered. He taps in his code and opens up a pre-curated folder filled with safe drawings of landscapes and cute animals. He passes it over to Minho. “You can flick through, if you’d like.”

Minho gives him a questioning look, but begins to slowly scroll through. “Hm, with how secretive you were when we first met, I didn’t think you’d be so willing to show me.”

Jisung blinks at him. He doesn’t think he’s been called that a day in his life. If anything, he’s a chronic oversharer. A terminal yapper.

“Secretive?”

Minho hums. “When you first came over, you mumbled about how my strawberry tea cups reminded you of Nana, and then acted like you had spilled a government secret…until I said that I had brought them because they reminded me of Nana too..” Minho’s lips twitched. “Then you yapped about it for an hour.”

Jisung flushes brighter. “It was not an hour.”

“It was definitely close, you didn’t even pause until my mouth was literally wrapped around - “

Jisung kicks him under the table, Minho still grins like he won. “My point is, you seem to be a bit guarded about your interests, that’s all.” He leans across and hands back over the tablet. “But I’m happy you’re sharing, I want to know all of you. And they’re really good, Sungie. Really pretty paintings, you’re really talented. I love the doggies.”

Jisung beams under the praise. He doesn’t confess that he’s already started a drawing of Minho’s cats, in fear of sounding too eager. It’s going to be an oil painting on a physical campus. He hopes to have it done by the time Minho’s birthday comes around.

“Thanks, Hyung. I thought I might spend the day here drawing, maybe we could get dinner after?” He hopes he doesn’t sound too eager. Then, a bit more desperately, “My treat?”

Minho snorts. “Your company is already the treat, Bug.” He pulls himself to his feet and presses a kiss to Jisung’s hair as he passes by. “It’s a date. Feel free to leave your stuff here if you want to wonder in and out, I can keep it behind the counter.” Jisung’s heart flutters a little bit at the familiarity. “Now, I better go and help Jeongin at the till, before he contacts his union about employer exploitation. Or child neglect.”

All it usually takes for Jisung to hyper focus is his noise cancelling headphones, a fun drink and a song that he likes that both encapsulates the vibe of the story he’s working on and makes his brain go brr.

Having Minho in his peripheral vision is a little distracting, but it’s a distraction that Jisung has decided he needs to get used to if he wants to keep being around Minho so much. He also needs to master the art of drawing subtly - especially this kind of art. He slinks a bit lower into his seat, probably not as inconspicuous as he’d hoped. He' chances a glance at Minho, for - motivation - and is immediately embarrassed when he finds Minho is already watching him. Arms crossed, waggling his eyebrows.

Jisung ducks his head back down. Instead of drooling over a man he’d literally just had shower sex with this morning, he starts skimming through his new draft. He’ll post the thank you art to patreon later, right now he needs to lock in on the pitch. 

The clock ticks 10am, it’s fine. He’s got this. 

Although, staring down at his own sketches does little to distract him from Minho. The figure on his tablet that stares back at him is very familiar. A distinct jaw set against softer strokes of tussled hair and soft eyes. Slightly round cheeks, pouty lips, starry eyes he’d spent hours trying to recreate in black and white.

Broad shoulders scrape across the page, a defined chest swelling underneath the creases of drawn fabric. A soft waist, strong thighs, and that same tilted smile dragged across his oc’s lips.

Jisung has told himself that his new oc is not Minho, and that right now he’s just studying the way Minho’s straight line jeans pull around his ass as he bends over - because its none specific anatomy study. But his brain can’t help but pick up on the way the denim strains as Minho crouches… or stop himself from erasing some of the lines gathering around his OC’s thighs to make them more defined. 

Jisung pulls his ipad away from his face and gives the drawing a once over. Fuck sakes, it definitely Minho. 

He knows he needs to change it. There is zero way if he gets this gig that he can send across these drawings of his lover. But, every time he tried to change the shape of the nose, or soften the lips, or dial back the thighs — his fingers betrayed him.

Every line pulled itself back to the same place.

Minho’s place.

If Jisung had been a normal manhwa author, then maybe this would be okay. The drawing of Minho is as flattering and handsome as the real life one - not that Jisung really thinks he can capture Minho’s beautiful aura. 

The incriminating part comes from scrolling down to the next panel, which connects his soft but defined torso and heavy thighs into what is, kinda obviously, his oc’s erect dick.

His tentacle dick.His long, glistening, tentacle dick - that Jisung had put great care into designing a split down the middle, like a two headed dragon where one shaft dives into one. He’s even gone as far as to put some blush overlay on the tip, which is dripping with more glimmering substance. 

The - oc’s - hand is wrapped around the joint shaft and squeezing leisurely, face drawn into a needy pout with his tongue peeking out, driven wild by the other love interest. 

This is hardly the first alien dick he’s drawn, and he’d be surprised if it was his last. But it is admittedly the first he’s ever drawn that connects to his ( nearly) boyfriend.

Jisung rubs his hands over his face and stifles a groan. God, he really is a pervert, isn’t he? It’s just that… from the moment the commission had come through, Jisung just couldn’t picture anyone else in the role.

One of the sites Jisung posts his mini series on had asked him to pitch for a new slot they had opened. A permanent, long series slot. Up until this point, he had been getting by mainly on fanart commissions and a few mini series. This would be his first chance at a weekly episode slot, spanning months. But, they had a specific slot to fill. 

“Omegaverse.” That had basically been the briefing. Not a particularly surprising request, given the sub genre’s current Renaissance. 

And Jisung certainly adverse to joining the cult movement. He’s written hybrids, aliens, predator and pray dynamics - certainly in his wheel house. 

Jisung’s already fleshed out the basics of the plot. It’s going to be set in a society where alphas and omegas have largely become extinct, and are more like hybrid creatures with varying anatomy to regular humans. Especially - down there. 

In the series, the omega lead accidentally messes up his black market suppressants and goes into heat in front of his cold, but caring, boss - who is also an alpha in hiding. And has a tentacle for a dick. For reasons. 

He’s quite proud of the premise, even if it's objectively insane. He likes to think he’s doing something new with it. Although, he often finds himself drawn to writing about hidden identity and othering. 

(He has no idea why, nope .)

Anyway.

According to his deadline tracker, he has to get over the first few pages to his editor by the end of the day. He needs to also finishing compiling a highlight folder for the portfolio submission, and he needs to make sure his write up plot summary is good to go.

He reads over the list again, the reality of how much work he needs to do today sends a pang of worry through him.

No, don’t panic. He tells himself. You freeze up when you panic. It’s fine, it’s all fine.

He takes a calming breath, turns on his playlist and forces himself to focus on his laptop. No matter what, this was sink or swim and he always swims - never drowns.

A few hours tick by uneventfully. Working at the cafe is definitely much more distracting than working at home, but he can’t bring himself to leave. He has to suppress his usual humming and rocking movements because he’s in public, and already drawing porn, so doesn’t want to draw anymore unecessary attention. 

His usual ability to hyper focus is definitely affected; he’s also conscious of Minho and Jeongin.

A little bit past the two hour mark, Minho comes back over to prod at him. He’s armed with another matcha latte, a plate of egg sandwiches and a bottle of water. Minho plants the small picnic  down in front of Jisung, his free hand finds its way back into his hair again, somehow.

"Where are your glasses, hm? You’re going to get a migraine without them on.”

Jisung puffs and grumbles, but still shoves on his chunky glasses. He doesn’t let himself think too much about the fact that Minho already knows him well enough to know about his aversion to wearing his glasses. Or, maybe Minho’s just a pervert who wants to see Jisung is glasses - he definitely hasn’t forgotten the way Minho had murmured in his ear, “ Keep them on, I like the way they fog up.” before drawing Jisung’s naked hips upwards to fuck into him hard, like, the other day. 

Not a helpful line of thought. Jisung shifts and takes a small bite of the sandwich and mumbles out, “ thank you, hyung.”

Minho clicks his tongue. “What would you do without me?”

Jisung hopes he never has to find out. He sneaks a hand towards his tablet and locks it, just in case.

“You look pretty intense for someone who’s drawing for pleasure. Is everything okay?”

Jisung snorts. “I’m intense about everything.” It comes out a little more defensive than he wanted it too.

Minho doesn’t look offended, but he just gives him that look again. The one where his eyes widen and his eyebrows raise. “Hm…I guess that’s true.” It doesn’t sound like he believes him. 

Minho gives his shoulder a squeeze and murmurs something about remembering to take breaks, hovers for another beat and then drags himself back towards the till. He looked slightly hesitant, like he was toying with whether he wanted to cross that line or not.

Jisung decides his concentration has definitely been broken, and takes the opportunity to pay attention to the nagging urge to pee and stretch his legs. Once he’s back from the bathroom, he can stick his headphones back on and focus. He’s eaten, he should of sedated the slightly over attentive Minho (Jisung secretly loves it), and there should be no more distractions.

He makes his way back to his table to find two massive distractions occupying the seats across from him.

“ There he is!” Hyunjin huffs. He pushes his beanie further up his head to try and accentuate his frown. “There’s the traitor. Remember us?”

Felix doesn’t look as upset, he locks eyes with Jisung and beams. “Jisungie!” he chirps, “Sick cafe, right?”

“Yongbokkie,” Hyunjin scolds, “don’t be nice to him. He doesn’t deserve our kindness.”

“Yo, Jisung.” Seungmin greets. Jisung hadn’t even noticed him hovering behind Felix’s chair. He pockets his phone and offers a nod in greeting. “You alright?”

Jisung is not alright. “No,” he tells him. He turns to Felix and Hyujin. “What the hell are you guys doing here?”

“We could ask you the same thing!” Hyunjin huffs.

Jisung gestures to his stuff. “I am clearly working on commissions, Hyunjin.”

“But why here. ” Hyunjin drills his finger against the table. “You have never taken us to this nice coffee shop before, so you either hate us and want us to die - or you’ve only recently just found it.”

Jisung inhales. “I just found it. Randomly” He crosses his arms and tries to puff his chest out a little. “...No other reason.” 

Jisung can’t help but let his eyes quickly flicker over to the counter.

Hyunjin snorts. “Called it. He’s fucking the barista.”

Felix’s eyes go wide. “ Wait, does your Grindr hookup work here?"

Jisung slams himself down into his seat and reaches to smack Felix. “This is not the same guy.” He hisses, dropping his voice a bit lower. “We… we met here.”

“Bullshit.” Hyunjin glances over at the counter and jabs his thumb in the air. “That is definitely the guy from Grindr.”

“I’m telling you, he’s not!”

“Do you want us to go through the screenshots of his Grindr you sent in the group chat?” Hyunjin raises his eyebrows. “We can go through the screenshots.”

“Minho!” Felix suddenly announces. He turns his phone and shows Jisung proudly the screenshot of Minho’s first picture, his name displayed and age. Felix leans back in his chair, “Seungmin baby, isn’t that the same guy?”

“I wish to remain a neutral party.” Seungmin deadpans. And, then, “but yeah. For sure.”

Jisung can feel himself begin to flush in anger. “How the hell did you guys even find me, anyways?”

“You have your location shared with us, so we got bored and just decided to follow you.”

“ What?!?”

“You’re the one who shared it with us in the first place! Remember? Ahead of your Grindr hookup.” Hyunjin swipes his finger against his own phone screen and shows Jisung a map. “And you went all quiet on us afterwards - yeah, it was fun guys lol. - Where was the 10 minute voice note with all the details? You send podcast length updates on the latest wildlife documentaries you watch. Where did our yapper go?” His bottom lip almost wobbles a bit, “we were worried. ”

Jisung rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, and then we noticed you’ve basically been living between two places for the past month.” Felix nods, as he flicks his finger across the map. “Between your Grindr hooks up house” Swipe, “And - this coffee shop.”

“So, we put two and two together!”

“I’m a victim.” Jisung groans.

Hyunjin scoffs. “Oh yeah, it must be so hard being Han Jisung. His best friends care about him, he’s a victim of being loved and cared for.”

“I’m a victim of stalking.”

“Oh please, you call this stalking? I have Changbin’s location turned on.”

“Yeah, me and Seungminie share our locations shared too.”

Seungmin blinks. “We do?”

“Yeah, I went in your phone and turned yours on.” Felix pats Seungmin’s hand lovingly. “I knew you didn’t know how to do it.”

Seungmin sighs. “I’m going to go get us some drinks so Jisung’s Grindr boyfriend doesn’t kick us out. Do you want anything, Jisung?”

“For the last time — “ he tugs at his hair and grits his teeth. “Just, a decaf iced latte.”

Seungmin dutifully makes his way over to the counter. Once he’s out of ear shot, Felix and Hyunjin crowd in.

“Why didn’t you want to tell us you were proper seeing this Minho guy?” Felix asks. Even Felix looks a little sad. Which makes Jisung feel like a dick, although he’s actually under no obligation to tell his friends about his private life.

But, they are right — he does normally tell them everything. He just can’t bring himself to admit that the entire thing feels so fragile that he just wanted to preserve it a little longer by himself before it’s exposed it to his clinically insane friends.

Jisung shrugs a little helplessly. “It’s not like that.” He grumbles. “Not yet, anyways.”

Hyunjin and Felix share a look, as if they’re having a silent telepathic conversation. Jisung hates it when they do that, they wouldn’t have ever even met each other if it wasn’t for him - why don’t they practice telepathy with him ?

They must have agreed to shift the conversation. “What are you even doing here, anyways? Besides perving on your fling in his place of work.” Hyunjin asks.

Jisung scowls and tries very hard not to take the bait and get overly defensive at the word fling. “I have to get my portfolio for the new webtoon slot over to Chan-hyung if I want to give him a chance to look over it before final submission on Saturday.”

They both look concerned. “Ah, Jisungie,” Felix begins carefully, “that’s a bit of a tight turnaround. Do you think it’s worth asking for a bit more time? You’ve got so much stuff to work on, I’m sure the website would be willing, especially since they approached you.”

Jisung shakes his head and grits his teeth. He always hates asking for accommodations, even when he needs them. “It’s fine. I can - I can make him work.”

Hyunjin doesn’t look like he believes him. “What’s this one about anyway? You haven’t even told us about it, and you always tell us.”

“Just the usual…” Jisung says too quickly. Felix and Hyunjin share another look. Probably because they know the usual means some crazy kind of hentai. 

Jisung spares a glance over his shoulder to watch Seungmin politely chat to Jeongin as he starts prepping their order. Minho doesn’t seem to be around,, thank god. He needs to try and devise a plan to get the little parade of nosey instigators out of the way before he reappears.

Jisung stares down at his cooling latte and makes a pact with himself – he’s not going to let his weird job fuck this up.

It’s not lying to Minho, not exactly. After all, it’s not like his job is really crazy enough to lie about anyways. He’s hardly spiderman. No, he’s just the perv who’d draw spiderman taking it up the –

Anyways. It’s not lying; he’s just being selective about the truth. Strategic, GDPR and all that. Finally practicing all those self preservation techniques Chan used to try and mumble to him about, when he would sob over comments calling his WidowTracer art mid .

He’s reflected and grown as a person and decided his pervy job is his business and his business alone.

He wraps both hands around the mug and interlaces his fingers like he’s sealing the deal.

It’s decided.

Minho will not find out about this.

“Is this suppose to be Minho-ssi? ”

Jisung had almost forgotten that Felix and Hyunjin aren’t aware of what boundaries are and realises too late he has made the mistake of zoning out and left them left unsupervised.

Across the table, Hyunjin is cradling against his knee what, horrifyingly, looks like Jisung’s tablet. A glance down at the empty case confirms his fears. He’d been too busy inner monologuing to notice.

 Felix crowds over Hyunjin’s shoulder, arm draped over the back of Hyunjin’s chair as he coos.

“ Guys!” Jisung hisses, “give that back!”

He’s ignored, obviously. Instead, Hyunjin presses his delicate finger against the screen and continues to scroll.

“Oh, Jisungie,” he pouts. “Have you really made Minho the lead in your new BL?”

“It’s not him! And keep your voice down!” Jisung spares an anxious glance toward the counter, then yanks his cap down over his eyes. “I just… I took inspiration, at most. Okay? Just—give it back!”

He half heartedly lunges for the tablet, but it’s a little pathetic as he’s too worried about drawing attention. Hyunjin easily dodges him, barely sparing him a glance.

Felix clutches Hyunjin’s shoulder dramatically. “Oh Hyunjinnie, he has a muse. Maybe Grindr can be used for good!”

“We didn’t meet on fucking Grindr!” Jisung hisses. He’s ignored, again, in favour of their scrolling.

He slumps into his chair and exhales through his teeth.

It’s fine. As long as they stop at the page break and don’t scroll the entire thing, it’s—

“ Jisung!” Hyunjin squeaks, clearly scandalised.

Felix gasps just as dramatically, slapping a hand over his mouth to stifle a yelp of laughter.

Well .

“I told you to give it back!” Jisung shrieks, desperately lunging this time. 

The table wobbles, his cold drink sloshing onto his own lap as Hyunjin leaps back and cradles the tablet to his chest, clutching his metaphorical pearls. 

“Jisung! Why have you drawn Minho-ssi with such a massive… massive…”He frowns down at the screen. “Actually, I don’t know what I’m looking at. What is that between his legs?”

“Hyunjin, if you don’t keep your fucking voice down – ”

“Yeah, Hyunjin! Don’t be rude about Jisungie’s hard work.” Felix snatches the tablet and squints at it like he’s at a gallery.

“That’s clearly a tentacle dick. With two heads.”

“Felix!” Jisung groans.

“It’s art, Hyunjin. Don’t be a prude.”

“I know it’s art, I wasn’t being critical!” Hyunjin huffs. “I was just shocked at the size, not the anatomy.”

He leans back across the table, eyes alight. “Jisung—for science—how accurate are to scale your drawings?”

Jisung’s eyes twitch, he can feel the nuclear heat from his cheeks creeping down his neck. “Hyunjin,” he warns.

“Well,” Felix shrugs, “they did meet on Grindr.”

“Who met on Grindr?”

Oh, fuck.

Jisung swivels around to meet his worst fears looking back at him, eyebrows raised and holding a tray of drinks. Seungmin hovers by Minho’s side and gingerly places Felix and Hyunjin’s drinks in front of him.

Minho’s eyes slowly travel along the scene. His eyes land on the way Felix clutches the tablet to his chest, and slowly sloop over Jisung’s desperately outstretched hands. Jisung slinks back istantly, flushing at being partially caught. His eyes then trail on the stain seeping into his lap. 

Jisung can feel his flush getting worse. “I haven’t peed myself.” He says quickly. 

Seungmin tries to hide his laugh behind a cough. Minho frowns and drops down into a crouch, he cooly slides Jisung’s drink down onto the table and takes the napkins to start dabbing at the stain. 

“ Minho - hyung, “ Jisung hisses, or maybe whines, “I - can, I can do it myself.” 

But Minho doesn’t stop fussing until he seems satisfied the stain has been mostly cleaned. He draws himself back up onto his feet and presses a kiss into his hair and leans across to fix his askew glasses for him.

“Ah, Bug. Starting rumours about me? Peeing on my furniture?” Minho teases.”You’re lucky your cute, otherwise I’d have to kick you out. 

Jisung smacks him away. He chances a quick glance at Felix and Hyunjin, who look somewhere between horrified and very amused. 

“This is Minho-ssi,” Seungmin introduces slowly, once it becomes clear Jisung isn’t going to say anything. “He owns the cafe and is, uh, seeing Jisung, so we didn’t have to pay for the drinks. Which is very nice of him.”

Felix pouts. “That doesn’t count as your turn for buying then, by the way.” Seungmin roles his eyes.

“You can call me Minho - hyung.” Minho says, although he still hasn’t turned around to face any of them yet. He’s too busy studying Jisung’s face and trying to tuck his fringe behind the glasses frames. “I’m sure we’ll see more of each other again if you’re friends of Jisungie’s.”

Jisung swallows as Minho’s delicate fingers brush slightly against his ear lobe and scratch, maybe a little purposefully. Despite everything, it still shoots a pang of heat through him. He feels insane. 

 He wiggles a bit in his seat and Hyunjin peers around Minho to glare at him.

Then Minho lets go and, to Jisung's growing horror, casually pulls up a chair next to him. His hand finds its way to Jisung’s thigh almost instinctively.

Normally, he’d want nothing more for Minho to come over and fondle him under the table for a bit, but this is becoming increasingly like a nightmare blunt rotation.

His almost boyfriend is sitting across from two people who have a life sentence worth of dirt on him and are accompanied by Felix’s new, indifferent boyfriend who just seems to say whatever will cause the most amount of drama. 

Jisung doesn’t even smoke, but this scenario plus his insane deadline pressure makes him wonder if he should start.

And, on top of that, Felix still has the fucking tablet.

Minho seems to want to prove he’s a mind reader, and uses this power to maybe just piss Jisung off. As he asks, “How’s the drawing going, Bug? Seems like there’s a lot of excitement going on over here.”

Hyunjin glares at Jisung expectedly, Felix juts his lip out and mumbles ‘bug’.

Jisung quickly leans across and successfully snatches the tablet from Felix. He had planned for this exact moment as well, but now finds himself very flustered, quickly dimming the tablet’s brightness to zero and scrambling to pull up the curated folder. He manages with frantic fingers to pull up his half finished digital painting of a cherry blossom scenery he’d been working on.

“yeah pretty good!” his voice comes out a little wobbly, he clears his throat. “I went to Toyko last year, so I like to paint scenery from photos we took every now and then.”

Jisung doesn’t need to look at Hyunjin and Felix to feel the hole that they’re burning into the side of his face.

Minho observes it with soft eyes and a little hum. “It’s so pretty, sweetheart.” Minho says. “what have you done today?”

Jisung freezes. “Huh?”

“Like, what have you been working on.” Minho tilts his head. “I mean, I can see you’ve already done the outline and a bit of the colouring. But I’m presuming you haven’t done all of this today, right?”

Jisung completely glitches. Fuck, fuck.

Why hadn’t he prepared anything for that question? Minho is so attentive, he seems so genuinely invested in anything Jisung has to say. Of course he’s going to want to know more than that.

“I - I’m trying to work out the, uh, texture overly for the blossom.” Jisung stammers. There’s a pause, and fuck, does Minho really want to know even more than that?? “I need the flowers to be soft, and… like, fresh, looking. With shadows and stuff.”

“And stuff.” Minho repeats back. “Technical terms, huh?” He teases, but his voice is lacking that usual edge. Almost a bit flat, suspicious. 

Jisung can feel himself sweating slightly. Is the lie - truth bending - already cracking?

But Minho doesn’t press more than that. He sits with them for awhile and everyone by some miracles manages to be well behaved enough to engage in just some casual chatting. There’s an odd tenseness between them, but Jisung wonders if he’s the only one who can feel it.

Minho eventually takes a peak at his watch and declares his break over.

“Make sure you eat lunch too, Minho-hyung. Okay?” Jisung grumbles. “You keep coming over and don’t bring any food.”

Minho’s ears tint pink, and he smiles like he just can’t help it. “I am, Bug. I promise I have a sandwich that I’m nibbling on every time it isn’t busy.” He gives Jisung’s neck one last squeeze and rejoins Jeongin behind the counter.

Jisung slowly turns back to his awaiting trial.

“Bug?” Hyunjin hisses, “Bug???”

“It’s just a pet name.” Jisung grumbles back.

“I think it’s adorable.” Felix turns to Seungmin and frowns. “Where are my cute pet names, huh?”

Seungmin snorts. “You know we can’t repeat those out in public.”

“I don’t think Minho should be calling Jisung Bug in public, either. Not with the way he looks when he says it - it looks like I’m about to witness a reboot of Hannibal.” Hyunjin dramatically wipes his hand down his face. “Where did that even come from, anyways?”

“It’s not weird! It came from when he - when he’s, like, uhm, towering over me - because, I’m on my back - you didn’t need to know that… well, I, apparently, look like… you know when you lift a rock, and there’s little bugs underneath? Because my eyes go all… wide…” Jisung tries to gesture with his hand, but trails off.

Hyunjin looks disgusted. “You’re his prey?”

“ That is literally not what I said at all, Hwang Hyunjin-ssi! You’re just making shit up.”

“Is this why your newest mini series is about a hunter prey relationship?” Felix gasps.

“No! I was writing that before me and Minho hooked up, you both know this!”

“Oh do we? So you admit that he’s your Grindr hookup? You know, that makes it worse, that means you manifested someone who somehow matches your freak and fulfills your coffee shop AU fantasies.” Hyunjin grumbles.

He pulls himself up from a slouch, like he’s been shot with a disgruntled shot of electricity. “Does  Minho-ssi not know about the manhwa submission? About his crazy hot tentacle dick drawing?”

“He definitely doesn’t,” Seungmin snitches. “I was chatting with him and Jeongin-ssi at the counter. He said he met Jisung on Grindr and then thanked God for modern cruise culture, because otherwise he’d probably never have met him — since Minho works in coffee and Jisung’s a marketing executive. And then he had, like, a mini revelation when he realised he didn’t actually know what you do marketing for , Jisung.”

Seungmin pauses to snicker. “And then he admitted he doesn’t actually cruise. And then Jeongin asked what cruising was . So Minho explained. In detail. Out loud.”

He pulls a face. “Which, ew, by the way.” Then he’s giggling again. “He just wanted to sound like a cool, casual hookup kinda guy in front of Jisung. Because he likes him so much.”

“Hang on,” Hyunjin interrupts, “are you telling me he doesn’t know you’re a manhwa author, at all?” Hyunjin waits, but the silence is clear enough. “ Jisung!”

“What? I was going to tell him eventually!”

“Were you?” Felix asks, voice deep with concern. “Or were you just hoping that maybe he’d never ask, and you’d never have to tell him?”

Jisung wraps his fingers around his drink and squeezes, a little hard. “Felix…”

Felix exhales through his nose. “Jisungie, you can’t do this again. You have to tell him”

Jisung fiddles with his fingers wrapped around the cup. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Exactly,” Hyunjin sighs. “If you’re serious about him, Jisung-ah, you can’t hide this part of you. It’s not fair, for him or for you.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” Jisung scoffs.

Hyunjin narrows his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you make your money from doing galleries and exhibitions and shit. Like, you have actual presentable art that people pay to see. We all go and look at it together, and sometimes even your parents come too. You make art you’re proud of. You wouldn’t know the first thing about my situation.” Jisung growls, but his voice loses bite at the end. He mumbles the last part. 

Jisung’s a little shocked at himself. Had it really been bothering him that much?

Hyunjin doesn’t look angry, but hurt.

“Why aren’t you proud of your art?” He whispers. He only sounds hurt for Jisung.

“Why would I be?” Jisung asks helplessly.

The way all three of them are looking at him makes Jisung feel confused.

“Guys, come on.” His laugh is forced and self deprecating. “I draw literal pervy porn for a living. Straight up gooner shit.” Jisung says flatly. “And half the time, fuck, it’s not even that good. Why would I shout about that?”

“Because you’re a queer artist and writer with an insane cult following, completely self made, and who is able to navigate themes of identity, sexuality and crazy sex with both class and sensuality.” Felix says defensively, not missing a beat. He glares at Jisung with his arms crossed, as if he’s genuinely offended. “Please speak more eloquently about the artist who helped me discover my own bisexuality. And besides, even if it was just porn, why dos that discredit your work as art at all?”

Jisung blinks rappidly at him. “Lixie, come on. You’re not actually mad, right?” He tries to laugh it off. “You guys are blowing this way out of proportion.” 

“He hates it when you talk so badly about yourself, Jisungie. And so do I.” Hyunjin says sternly. “When you undermine yourself, you also undermine the person who I picked as my literal rival and standard in art school. You don’t get to talk shit about the art I used hold myself against, about the person who taught me how to draw people better and the guy who waltzed into my first lecture and told me “oh, I just do manga kind of shit.” and then wiped me in our fine art class. We worked so hard for all those years to try and destigmatise your own art to yourself. And I’ll do it again and again, but it doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

Jisung blinks more. He can feel that awful, heavy feeling against his forehead, pressure building behind his eyes. Like his skull is a cracking dam, and the oncoming flood might leak through his eyes if he doesn’t fucking pull it together.

“Guys,” Jisung practically pleads. “Please, please can we not do this right now? I have to get this deadline to Channie - hyung if I want him to proofread over the weekend. It’s his only time he’ll have to do it before the deadline, and - and I can’t focus if we do this now. Shit, I’m so behind already. So can we save it?”

Hyunjin’s bottom lip tremors, but he still maintains his hard stare. “You can’t submit literal drafts of Minho - hyung without telling him, Jisung.”

“It’s just the premise pitch, okay? I’m just going to submit the draft plot outline, some lower anatomy shots and my portfolio. I’ll edit the character and Minho will never have to know.”

“He should know.” Felix says, “because it’s your work, Jisungie. You can’t expect him to respect what you do, when you don’t.”

“Lixie,” Seungmin sighs. “Come on, baby. You guys are winding him up. He’s said he’ll do it. Lay off, before he starts spiralling.” Seungmin sounds like he’s trying to be light hearted but even Jisung can detect the concern in his voice.

Jisung takes a deep breath, realises he’s practically crushed the middle of his drink. Hyunjin and Felix don’t necessarily look guilty, but maybe slightly apologetic. They grumble half hearted apologies. Jisung doesn’t mention that he didn’t actually agree to anything that Seungmin said.

They decide to leave him alone after that, Hyunjin half mutters that Changbin’s finished up his shift with no more clients for the day so he’s going home, Seungmin manages to lure Felix away with the Mario karts waiting for them back at their flat.

“Don’t work too hard, Jisungie.” Hyunjin sighs on the way out, “please ask for support if you need it. Powering through and trying to hyperfixate won’t do your health any favours.”

“They’ll extend the deadline for you, I’m sure of it.” Felix adds.

Jisung hums in acknowledgement and no one mentions Minho again, but he knows the conversation is far from over.

Once the chime of the door closing announces their full exit, Jisung finally braves a glance at the clock.

4:30 PM.

Fuck, he’s completely fucked. There’s even a check in email from Chan sent over 30 minutes ago declaring “ no rush, but I’ve packed up from the weekend whenever you’re ready :-).”

He had originally told Chan he would have the drafts over latest by 6pm. But as he looks at his work planner, he realises his schedule has completely crumbled.

He only has a third of the pitch written, has made no real amendments on Minho’s –  the protagonist's character design.

Yup, bent over the table and fucked raw.

The first thing he can bring himself to do is type a wobbly and frantic apology email to Chan, begging for more time. He’s met almost with an immediate response:

Of course, Sung. Whatever you need, I have no plans over the weekend. But is everything okay?

Jisung thumbs up the email and then shuts the whole application down. He puts his laptop in to not disturb and tries to get his hands to stop shaking.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He tries to remember the self study techniques he’d taught himself, separate the tasks until they’re manageable. But all of it’s blurring into one, he can’t even begin to remember the song he needs to put on loop, and no fun drink could ever fix this.

The minutes slide into hours as he desperately tries to get himself to focus, hopping from one task to the other. Nothing is finished and he can’t really get his thoughts to stop vibrating for long enough to know if any of it is even half done.

He almost jumps out of his skin when a little brown bag is plopped down next to him.

“Sorry, Hyung!” Jeongin says sheepishly. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Ah, no. Sorry for overreacting.” Jisung grumbles, reluctantly burrowing out from underneath his bulky headphones. He can feel himself shaking, and Jeongin’s eyes subtly track the movement. “Um, what’s this?” He tries to deflect.

“It’s some leftover savory pastries,” Jeongin points his thumb over his shoulder. “I just turned off the pastry tray. Sometimes those discounted food apps come to pick up what’s left, but I wanted you to take your pick first for your dinner… It looks like you might need a treat.” He adds on hesitantly.

Jisung rubs his temples and groans. “Thanks, Jeongin, that’s really kind but I’m actually taking Minho out for — “ Jisung eyes widen as he snaps his laptop open again.

6:35pm. The cafe is closing, Minho is expecting to go out for dinner, and Jisung is nowhere near done.

The pressure behind his eyes is pulsating now, his lip trembles almost in rhythm and his body shakes with the effort of trying to contain his panic. It’s like a storm erupting inside of him, and he feels hopeless to stop it from spilling over and drowning in it.

This opportunity is too big, too important, to miss. But he doesn’t want to let Minho down, either. He’s screwed up almost everything good in the space of a few hours.

“Woah, Hyung. Is everything okay?” Jeongin’s eyebrows knit together in confusion.

“Where is Minho-hyung? I really need to speak to him.” Jisung says.

“He’s in the office outback, just cashing up.”

Jisung is on his feet and heading behind the till before Jeongin’s even finished his sentence.

The door to the office is left ajar, its small room with just a desk and chair, computer and a safe tucked in the corner. There’s a notice board with some flyers and a rota pinned to it, but Minho explained it was more tongue in cheek - the only employees are Minho, Jeongin and two teenagers who alternate at the weekends and a few days in the week.

“Innie needs the money, and he’s competent and polite - well, at least to the customers.” Minho had explained once, pulling a face. “He’s a little shit to me. But as long as he’s not going to be a little shit to those kids he wants to teach, once he can afford to get his Teaching Certificate. I guess I’ll deal. I don’t need much more help as long as Innie wants the shifts.”

Minho is so kind , is what he’d thought. He’s so kind and considerate to everything and anyone around him. He’d probably snap at a self check out machine and then grumble an apology.

Minho is currently having a disagreement with his calculator. He doesn’t seem impressed with whatever the money weighing machine is declaring against his own maths.

'“Right, listen here, you little shit. I paid real, adult money for you - out of my own wallet, so if you don’t buck your ideas up — oh, Jisungie. What brings you back here?” Minho spins around his chair and parts his legs and arms wide, wagging his eyebrows. “Do you like my lair?”

Despite the rising panic in his chest, Jisung can’t help but huff out a laugh. “Is your counting machine misbehaving, Min?”

“Mm, it doesn’t seem to respond as well to punishment as you do.” Jisung pouts, “I threatened to spank it and I didn’t even get a moan.”

“ Minho!” Jisung flushes, “you’re so weird.”

“And you love it, love it sooo much that you couldn’t even wait 10 minutes more for me to come find you.” He grins. “Where are you taking me, by the way? Somewhere fancy, I hope.”

Jisung’s heart drops and panic fills the space it leaves in his chest. “Minho-hyung..” he begins, but his eyes are already getting blurry.

Minhos smile drops and he’s out of his chair in an instant, hands rubbing slow lines down Jisung’s arms.

“Hey,” Minho says, voice soft. “You’re shaking. Talk to me, Bug.”

“I’m really, really sorry, but I can’t - I can’t take you out for dinner.” Jisung whimpers. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t know what’s worse: the shame of saying it, or the way it makes everything else snap loose in his chest. He tenses, breaking for impact.

Minho’s rubbing slows, but doesn’t stop. “Devastating news,” Minho nods in agreement. “But as sad as I am, I’m not sure it’s worth tears. What’s going on?”

Jisung wipes at his face with his sleeve a little roughly and Minho reaches out and replaces it with his own, dabbing gently. Their fingers meet in the middle and tangle.

“I messed up,” Jisung tries to find the words to explain, but he can’t bring himself to do it.

“I…I’m way behind on my deadline and I’m so sorry, Hyung. I miscalculated, and I think I’m just going to have to work through the night.”

Minho frowns. “I thought you said you weren’t working today?”

Jisung takes a shuddering breath. “I… it’s complicated. I wasn’t technically on the clock, but there’s this project I have to submit and I’m behind so I wanted to take my day off and catch up. But I need to submit it before tomorrow.”

“But tomorrow’s Saturday?” Minho’s frown deepens.

“It’s just,” Jisung takes another deep breath to steady himself. “Marketing stuff.”

“More stuff.” Minho sighs, “You do a lot of stuff, huh?”

Jisung stiffens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Minho’s eyes don’t narrow, exactly, but something shifts behind them. A flicker of something knowing, and then it’s gone. Instead, he shakes his head a little and squeezes Jisung’s hand, grounding him. “Nothing, Bug. Don’t worry about it, let's just get ourselves home and we can work it all out.”

Jisung sniffs again, confusion clogging his airways. “What?”

Minho squeezes his hand harder. “Please, Jisung-ah. Let me take you back home. I know you have work to do, and I know you’re really stressed, but I’m worried about you.” Minho’s eyes go wide again. “Maybe tit’s selfish, but I don’t care. I’d feel better if you just let me take you home and take care of you”

“But, I’ve ruined the evening.” Jisung tries.

Minho shakes his head. “No evening could be ruined if it’s spent with you.”

It doesn’t take much convincing after that. Minho guides Jisung to sit on the swivel chair whilst he finishes cashing up, sitting on the little fold up chair. Jeongin pokes his head in to confirm he’s done with the close and teasingly yell “have fun at dinner!”, Jisung feels a wave of guilt but it's subsided by a quick kiss from Minho and his hand finding its way back to Jisung’s thigh.

Minho locks up with one hand still holding Jisung’s, like he physically can’t get himself to let go, and then drags Jisung into his car.

He plants the bag of pastries Jeongin had left in Jisung’s lap.

“Snack on these,” He instructs, “I’ll make you something proper for dinner when we’re home.” 

“Hyung, I’m really not sure I’m going to have time to eat. I’ve really fucked up.”

“We’ll make time.” Minho says, certain.

The drive home is mostly silent. Jisung is handed the aux, because Minho has told him it’s his job from the first time he picked Jisung up, and the car is filled with soft lo-fi beats and indie music.

“You know,” Minho begins, breaking the silence. “Whatever’s really going on, you can tell me. I want to help.”

Jisung tenses. “It’s… I told you, it’s just marketing stuff.”

Minho exhales through his nose. “Okay, but when you’re ready for it not to be that. I’ll still be here.”

Jisung doesn’t say anything back. 

When they shuffle through the door and their shoes have been kicked off, the first thing Minho does is plant his hands on Jisung’s shoulders and steer him towards the shower.

“Minho - hyung,” Jisung tries, but Minho cuts him off.

“Shower first, you need a break and to clear your head.” He’s already stepping into the shower to test the temperature, leaving no room for argument. Once he’s happy, he turns back around and begins to gently help Jisung peel off his outfit. Almost like he's unwrapping a delicate gift.

It doesn’t feel as charged as their usual showers do together. But even so, their lips can’t help but find each other.

Jisung litters Minho’s shoulder blades with open mouthed kisses as he starts fussing over what shower gel they should used, and when Minho unhooks the shower head so he can run it across Jisung’s scalp he ducks down to graze his teeth against Jisung’s collarbone.

Jisung can feel the familiar pool of arousal simmering, half hard as Minho’s fingers skid his hips. But it’s less urgent than how it usually feels, more just a nice warmth than a burning need. As if his body just can’t help it when he feels the touch of Minho’s skin.

It’s not until he’s being wrapped up in a big towel does it dawn on him.

“We didn’t have sex.” Jisung points out.

Minho tilts his head. “I thought we were on a deadline?”

Jisung shakes his head. “I just meant, I don’t think we’ve ever showered together and someone didn’t cum.”

Minho breaks into giggles. “I mean, at one point you looked a bit close.”

“You were kissing my chest.” Jisung huffs. “You looked like you were about to cum.”

Minho hums in agreement and crouches down so he can tickle Jisung’s sides. “ Mmm, Jisung boobies. ”

Jisung squeals, kicking out his feet until Minho finally lets go.

“I’m glad you’re feeling a bit better, Bug.” Minho says softly.

Jisung nods and lets himself be led into Minho’s bedroom, dressing him like a rag doll in Minho’s sweats and an oversized t-shirt from dance academy Minho attended, the logo fading and flaky.

The anxiety is still pulsing, but it’s not as suffocating as before. He tries not to look at the big wall clock when Minho deposits him on the sofa.

Doongie and Soonie had been lounging on the other side of the sofa, they get up and make their way over to him to paw in interest. Minho pads back into the room with a blanket from the bedroom and some extra cushions. He fusses around Jisung, fluffing them and propping them up behind him, balancing the blankets over his knees.

“You don’t have to do all of this.” Jisung mumbles, but makes no attempt to stop him.

Minho huffs in satisfaction as Doongie drapes himself across Jisung’s lap. “Aw, he’s nesting with you.”

God. Did he have to use that word? Nesting. Jisung wonders where his life took such a wrong term that vaguely omegaverse related terms could send him into a panic spiral.

“Work for a bit, see how far you get, and then we’ll check in at dinner.” Minho plops himself down next to Jisung and squeezes his knee. “We’ll make sure there’s regular breaks. How’s the lights? Dim enough, not distracting?”

Jisung nods a little numbly. “Yeah, s’good.”

Minho turns on the TV and puts it on mute. He pulls up some anime Jisung vaguely thinks he might have also seen.

Jisung turns back to his work.

Everything suddenly seems so much clearer, despite the fact the sun has already set and Jisung can’t quiet shake the feeling that he’s invading Minho’s personal time. He has to keep reminding himself that Minho asked him, well, begged him to come back here.

Jisung sinks into the cushions and lets his mind meld with his work. He manages to order his priorities, get the pitch document finished to send over to Chan and ensure that the anatomy shots and portfolio are polished. He can spiral about the fact he’s accidentally inserted Minho into an omegaverse, hybrid penis piece later. He doesn’t know how much later but, future him later.

Minho gets up for a bit at some point and returns with some kimchi fried rice.

“It’s just left overs, I’m afraid. It’s a bit late to make much else.” 

Minho seems prepared to shut Jisung’s apology down before it can even pass his lips. He blocks it with a spoonful of rice. “C’mon, small break time. Eat.”

Jisung pulls himself away from the screen, blinking the fuzz out of his eyes as he lazily wraps his lips around the spoon and gently laps the rice up into his mouth, making sure the spoon is clean before he pulls his lips away. It’s tasty and warm.

Minho blinks rapidly at him. “I think you’re gonna have to feed yourself if you want to keep focussing on your work. I’m on a water meter, I can’t keep taking cold showers.”

Jisung can’t help but giggle. 

He eats quickly but thoroughly, and then turns back to his work. He barely registers Minho’s pottering around him as he cleans away dishes, feeds the babies their dinner and does other mundane tasks.

 At some point he slots himself back down against Jisung and rests his head against his shoulder. Jisung stiffens at first, automatically going to lock the tablet and dim his laptop screen. Minho sighs beside him, he clearly has noticed. But when Jisung tries to sneak a glance out the corner of his eye he realises Minho’s eyes are still trained on the silent TV.

There’s a pang of guilt, entirely different to the low simmering one. Minho isn’t prying, he’s deliberately trying to not look at what Jisung’s doing, but his body language gives away that he's hurt all the same. 

“Bug,” Minho whispers at some point, “it’s getting really late, baby. How’s it all going?”

Jisung glances down at the monitor clock.

12:09AM.

He’d sworn they’d only just eaten.

Minho’s blinking up again at him, but its like his lashes are heavy with sleep.

“Minho - hyung, I’m so sorry. I’m keeping you up.” Jisung groans into his hands. “Shit, you have work tomorrow, Hyung…”

Minho shakes his head. “Mm, I just want you to calm down and feel better.”

Minho begins to stroke his hair, he keeps it up until the action seems almost automatic. 

About 15 minutes after the check-in, Jisung is finally ready to send the documents over to Chan for final review. He writes a rather rambly and panic driven apology with his email. Chan, concerningly, replies almost immediately to reassure him it’s okay and he’s excited to review. Jisung decides he’ll interrogate why Chan was checking his emails past midnight, and why he hasn’t questioned what Omegaverse is yet (suspicous), tomorrow. 

For now, he takes a deep breath and finally closes down his laptop. 

Minho perks up immediately and stretches his back out like a cat. 

“All done baby?” He asks, his hands rubbing small circles into Jisung’s thigh. 

Jisung nods his head. The feeling of Minho’s finger pads against the fabric on his thigh is driving him crazy, but the insane need is dripping into his subconscious all gooey and thick. He needs Minho’s lips on his, now, before the goo consumes him. 

So he does just that, he presses Minho’s hand more firmly against his thigh and swings the other one to straddle him. He takes Minho’s face into his hands and leans down to kiss him, deeply. 

Minho melts into him, unquestioning. The gasps a little as Jisung nips insistantly on his bottom lip, opening wider like the good boy he is for Jisung. Fuck, Jisung wants him so bad. 

He rolls his hip down as their tongues slip together, like his whole body drags forward with the moment. The hand that isn’t anchored to Jisung’s thigh hooks around his waist and squeezes his hipbone. 

“You’re so tiny here,” Minho groans into the kiss, his finger nails dig more instantly. “Such a strong body, tiny little waist. You fit so well in my arms.”

“Sap.” Jisung breathes against his lips, but there’s zero bite behind it. 

Minho takes advantage of the break to swing their positions around, planting Jisung to lie gently into the sofa cushions. His nest. 

“Baby,” Minho mumbles, his nose attached again to his collarbones and inhaling Jisung’s sent. He nips and bites in between his words, hips still rolling into Jisung’s thigh. He can feel how hard Minho is, the faint dampness through his sweats. Fuck, is he not wearing underwear? Jisung feels giddy. 

“Baby,” he says again, a little more lucid. “Can I get you off?”

“Where are your babies?”

“I’ve shut them in the kitchen, all their bed bits are in there for them to sleep.” Minho supplies. “Don’t worry, we won’t traumatise them… again”

Jisung smiles bashfully at the memory, and then nods enthusiastically. “Uhuh,” his voice goes breathy when Minho’s thigh slots in between his, the pressure on his dick maddening. He groans as he pushes a little on Minho’s chest to try and get him to budge up. “I think the douche is still under the bathroom sink, it’ll only take me a few – ”

“I didn’t mean like that, Bug.” Minho pulls away to look at him, brushing Jisung’s sweaty fringe out of his eyes. “I can eat you if you want, but I don’t need to fuck you.” Minho quips his lips. “We don’t really have time, baby. I just want to make you feel good so we can knock you out and get you snuggled in bed.”

“You sound pathetic.” Jisung tries to scoff, but there’s zero bite and his bottom lips wobbles a bit. God. 

Jisung loves that Minho is usually a little rough with him, and doesn’t seem to be afraid to be. Jisung had been pretty clear from the first time what he was okay with, stumbling through together to naturally slot into a more submissive role against Minho’s more controlling side. He likes that Minho can manhandle him, pin him against things, feel small against him even though their frames aren't that different. 

He’s been drawing that shit for years and years, self projections slipped into all shapes and sizes across the page. And now he finally has it and he can’t get enough of it. 

But with Minho looking down on him now, gently rolling his thigh between his legs and stroking his cheek with his thumb in tandem, the same feeling alights inside of him. 

“Please?” Minho’s eyes glisten in the low mood lighting. 

“Since you asked so nicely.” Jisung says breathlessly. 

Minho rolls his eyes. “Careful,” he pushes Jisung’s t shirt up and immediately nips at his peck. Jisung gasps in surprise, back arching like he’s a puppet and Minho’s pulled taught on the strings. 

Minho grins, “Told you, don’t get cocky.”

With that, he starts mapping out and down Jisung’s body, his fingers scraping down his back to squeeze his ass and up again, tongue digging into the slight fold of Jisung’s stomach as he crumbles forward at all the sensations. Minho’s tongue is hot and his blunt nails sting slightly in a way that blurs into pleasure, he’s touching nowhere that Jisung actually needs him too but everywhere in between. 

“I - I thought this was about getting me to wind down?” Jisung whimpers as Minho squeezes his peck again in response and flicks his nipple. He bites down on his hip bone, taking advantage of Jisung flinching to use his spare hand to squeeze Jisung’s ass properly. His fingers slip in between and ghost at his hole and rub, a blunt and silky pressure through his - Minho’s - boxer shorts. 

“Agh. ”

“Fuck,” Minho growls. “You smell like me and you. It’s so fucking hot. Throw all your clothes away, only wear mine from now on.”

“You - you can just sent mine instead.” 

Minho’s head pokes up and he blinks a few times. “Huh?”

Horror washes over Jisung, “Uh.” He says intelligently. Fuck sakes. “I… don’t know.”

Minho blinks at him again. “You say some weird things sometimes, Sungie.” 

Jisung flushes in embarrassment, but then Minho is tugging insistently at the shorts. 

“Never fucking stop,” He accentuates his words with a firmer tug. Jisung’s dick comes free and slap against his tummy, hard and already wet from all the leaking. 

Minho, like the freak he is, licks his lips. Jisung wants to smack him and tell him he’s weird, but he’s already got a hand around his shaft and is spreading the wetness expertly down from the head. 

“ Shit.” 

“You smell so good,” Minho praises, he ghosts the tip and then he smacks it gently against the plush of his bottom lip. “You get so wet for me, baby. I can smell how wet you are through your clothes.” 

“ Jesus Christ." Jisung moans. “Please, Min, please - just, anything. Come on” 

“So sweet when you beg, so cute you think it’ll get you anywhere.” Minho raises himself back up so he can lean over Jisung, smear another kiss across his parted lips. “But, I do want to get you all comfy, get you all nice and soft for me.” He makes his way back down, “lets get you there, yeah baby?”

And with that as a warning, his soft lips wrap fully around Jisung’s dick and sucks. The heat is overwhelming on his calling skin, the way Minho’s tongue maps out the length and moves against the tip in time with his lips rolling up and down and down – 

It’s overwhelming in a way that has Jisung hiccuping on a sob and scrambling for purchase underneath him. His fingers go to Minho’s hair, he tugs a little hesitantly until Minho reaches up to plant them more firmly. 

He pulls and scratches at Minho’s scalp, almost like he’s trying to steady the rhythm. But Minho is relentless, the pace isn’t fast but its consistent, the slow drag of his lips bob over and over. He pulls off sometimes just to kiss up the shaft and nip again at his groin, inhale his smell, before he’s back with his cheeks hollowed around Jisung. 

Jisung can feel his arousal pulling deep from his hips and coming forward, like Minho is slowly pulling it out of him. It feels heavy, the sort of pleasure that will break and slowly seep through his body in drawn out waves. It scares him how Minho is able to play his body like an instrument, control his pleasure from quick and explosive to the bone deep kind he clearly wants Jisung to feel now. 

“Hyung,” he whimpers, voice cracking on another throaty moan. “Min, Minho, baby, baby. ”

Minho comes up with a little pop but he keeps working his hand steadily. “Yeah baby, come on. You going to come for me?” Jisung nods frantically. “Good boy, remember to tell me.” 

Jisung hiccups again, tiny whimpers escaping with every breath. “Going to come, Minho - hyung. Minho, Minho, going to come.” Minho ducks down one more time to suck hard and slow, his tongue flat almost against his entire length.

The feeling snaps inside Jisung, and his orgasm floods his body. “ Coming, hyung, coming now. Now.” 

He comes deep down Minho’s throat, Minho squeezes his hips as his back arches and makes sure Jisung stays anchored in his mouth. He barely even splutters when the cum hits the back of his throat, just drinking Jisung down and milking him through it. 

Jisung collapses back against the sofa, after shocks rippling through his body as Minho keeps gently licking him through it. 

Minho licks another stripe up the inside of his thigh, sucks gently just beside the crease, and then slowly, lazily slides back up Jisung’s body until they’re pressed together again. His hand strokes Jisung’s tummy, rubbing idle, sleepy circles across the swell.

Jisung feels like his thoughts are crawling over his skin. They’re still there, alive and gnawing. He thought getting off would exorcise the nerves, but all it did was take the edge off. 

Minho shifts. His lips brush Jisung’s collarbone.

“You feel okay, Bug?” he murmurs.

Jisung nods. “Mhm.”

“Mm.” Minho’s voice is already sleepy, too warm and honest. “You still seem tense.” 

Jisung blinks up at the ceiling. “Do I?”

“Not in a bad way. Just…” Minho pauses, then tightens the arm around him slightly. “It feels like you're trying to hold something in, like you’re really afraid of me seeing it.” Minho breathes in his hair. “I’m trying really hard not to get in my head about it.”

“Why would you?” Jisung bites, “I told you, it’s work stuff. That’s it.”

Minho exhales. “There’s that word again, stuff. ” He snorts. “It’s like I can see your nose growing every time you use that word.”

Jisung narrows his eyes. “It’s not that deep.”  he mumbles. “I just don’t want to drag you into it. It doesn’t concern you.” A lie. 

Minho hums, unconvinced. “I’m not asking for everything. But I’ve been watching you all evening, fuck, all day. And you’ve sent yourself into almost a mini breakdown over something work related you refuse to name, even though you’d told me you were just drawing. And now I’ve had to coax you into a shower and food and trying to desperately make sure you don’t get a migraine –  “

“I didn’t ask to come here, you practically begged me.” Jisung snaps. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything but kiddy excitement when he thinks of Minho, but right now something dangerous and ugly is bubbling in his chest. Defensive, sharp. The kind of anger that only grows when you know you’re in the wrong and don’t want to be. 

Minho goes still behind him. His hand, which had been rubbing soft lines into Jisung’s waist, stills completely.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Minho says after a beat, voice quiet.

Jisung groans and covers his eyes with the heel of his palm. “I know. I’m just—I’m tired. Can we just not do this right now?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Minho replies, and he sounds so calm, which only makes Jisung feel worse. “I just wanted to understand. You’re so open with me about everything else. But when it comes to your art—or your job, whichever it actually is—you shut down.”

“Maybe take the hint, then,” Jisung mutters, more bitter than he means to be. “Not everything has to be shared.”

Minho goes quiet again. He shifts slightly, like he’s about to sit up, but then thinks better of it.

“I get that,” he says eventually. “I’m not trying to pry, Bug. I just thought—I don’t know. That you trusted me.”

Jisung feels it like a slap. His stomach flips, and he hates himself for the way it stings.

“I do,” he says, barely audible.

Minho nods, but it’s hard to tell if he believes it.

They lie there for a moment longer, the silence thick and heavy between them. The warmth from their earlier closeness is still there, but it’s dulled. Distant.

Jisung doesn’t know how to fix it without making it worse.

Minho finally pushes himself up. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth.”

Jisung nods but doesn’t turn around. The sound of footsteps and the bathroom door clicking shut feels disproportionately loud. 

He pulls himself off the sofa alone and forces himself towards Minho’s bed. Under the covers, the anxiety from earlier has stopped crawling over his skin and instead burrowed into it. 

He’s fucking this up so bad, maybe beyond repair. If it's this fragile when Minho doesn’t know the truth, he doesn’t want to have to imagine if he did. 

“This doesn’t concern you” he’d spat, as if it's not literally Minho’s cartoon face attached to a two headed tentacle dick. 

Jisung presses his face into the pillow and tries not to think about how he can feel it getting damp. He’s already stressing Minho out this much when he hardly has scraped the surface of context. What would Minho think when he saw all of Jisung laid completely bare, hentai dicks and all? 

He’d probably realise Jisung is a crazy pervert, profiting off cringe, and politely get the fuck out of here. 

Sometimes, Jisung just feels like there’s too much of him to love. Too much to have to look past to stick around, and that no matter how hard he’ll try he’ll always be this version of himself - a little weirdo, with weirdo hobbies he can’t untangle himself from, and without even the emotion stability of someone you’d expect spent years perving and yearning over BL and GL. 

A loser. 

The light switch to the bathroom clicks off. Jisung can hear Minho pad into the living room to put his babies to bed, and then he slips into the dark bedroom. 

He doesn’t say anything, but his arm does still snake around Jisung’s waist and he pulls him closer, although the movement is hesitant. Jisung thinks Minho kisses his hair, but he’s not entirely sure because the movement is so faint. 

When morning comes, Minho isn’t beside him and Jisung can’t really blame him. He almost expects him not to be. 

It’s an immature thought that once the cloggy sleep headache eases up, after a few minutes of solid blinking, he’s able to connect reality to Minho’s absence. 

No, Minho has not dramatically stormed out of his own flat and left Jisung for dead. He lives here, for a start.

 Jisung groans and smacks his hand around onto Minho’s side of the bed, feeling the fluff of the duvet but nothing else. Pulling himself up onto his elbows, he blearily can see something left on the pillow next to him. 

It’s a little key looped around a key ring with some magical anime girl doing a peace sign. There’s even a little note, because Minho pretends he's standoffish basically for fun but is secretly a romantic. 

I hope you feel better this morning. My apartment is old and crappy so there’s no lockpad, it requires this ancient relic (key). This is my spare, lock up behind you and you can keep it for next time. 

• Min. 

Next time. 

Fuck, can he even let there be a next time without completely humiliating himself?

  Jisung has secretly been commending himself that he hasn’t yet cried in the past 24 hours over this situation. But he’s getting really fucking close. 

Instead of bursting into tears, he presses his hands against his eyes as hard as he can, and stumbles towards the shower. He doesn’t use Minho’s fancy shampoo that smells like baby powder, or borrow his expensive moisturiser even though Minho has insisted over and over again that it’s okay. Because none of this feels okay right now, or his to share.

Jisung knows he’s prone to spiralling, and maybe right now he should try his best to stop and emotionally ground himself. But he doesn’t feel like he has time for that. 

Right now, a reality where he somehow fixes this by sitting Minho down and going, “How do you feel about tentacle penises, in proxy to your likeness?” Feels unreachable. It never fully did feel like a reality he was going to face, but especially not after hurting him. 

No, Jisung needs to get himself out of this situation. Before the humiliation drowns him. 

He finds himself at Minho’s cafe a few hours later. He’d slept in so long it’s almost lunch time, so he’s able to duck behind the customers queueing and shield himself with his cap. 

By the time it’s his turn to serve, he thinks he could throw up from the anxiety. 

Thank God, there’s some teenager behind the counter. 

“Is Yang Jeongin here?” He manages to spit out. 

The kid looks a bit startled at Jisung’s tone, and probably the lack of formality. 

“Uh, I can grab him?”

“Please.”

She stumbles back from behind the counter to wave Jeongin down from where he’s collecting up some mugs. 

“Jisung - hyung,” he greets, brows pulling together in confusion. “Is everything okay?”

Jisung stuffs his hand into his jeans pocket and fishes out Minho’s spare key. “Can you give this to Minho?”

Jeongin’s frown deepens. “He’s only in the office, I can go grab him – “

“ No. ” Jisung snaps. Jeongin flinches, he makes an effort to soften his voice. “No, thank you Jeongin. Just, say I brought it back to him.”

Jeongin looks uncomfortable, but still nods his head. “Okay, Hyung. Sure.” He agrees. 

Jisung forces out something he hopes sounds like an apology and stumbles back out of the cafe. 

He only recognises he’s nearing his bus stop when the feet on the pavement become denser, he’s had his head down the entire time. That felt like a very final, irreversible decision. 

He squeezes his eyes shut. He’s chosen to be a coward once again.

Chapter Text

It’s Sunday afternoon when Jisung finally braves a glance at his phone.

Since Saturday, he has had a productive weekend spent somewhere limboing between trying to starve off the existential dread via video games, and embracing his all-encompassing shame by staring at his bedroom wall and letting his thoughts consume him.

Chan had sent his feedback by Saturday afternoon via email with an open invitation to “talk things through”, that Jisung knows is directed at his mental state and not his work

(Especially since apart of Chan’s feedback highlights: “this seems to be a deeply personal and intimate piece..” whatever that means. It’s just tentacle Omegaverse. Chan needs to keep his nose where it belongs).

Otherwise, Chan’s edits on the submission are minimal, so he’s able to submit it and for the first time in his life doesn’t redownload the file three times to tripple check he’s uploaded the right thing. He can’t bring himself to care anymore.

He feels so whatever about the opportunity now, celebrates the submission by ordering fried chicken he doesn’t even want. Instant ramen just somehow sounds like too much effort right now.

It’s all super healthy. He’s eaten maybe three bowls of cereal across the entire time besides the chicken and has advanced to from Adventure Rank  56 to 58 in Genshin. The joints in his hand ache from skipping through dialogue.

He’s gnawing on a energy bar, spacing out as Delicious in a Dungeon blurs on the tv, when he’s suddenly met with a surge of courage.

Jisung has managed almost 2 whole days without checking his notifications. He’s not worried about missing texts from friends. They know he goes through phases of texting, sometimes sporadically when he finds it hard to deal with the pressure of immediate responses, and other times in an info dump style stream of consciousness.

They won’t be panicking, but there’s a ugly desire inside of him hoping that someone in particular will be.

Jisung’s still in bed, so he rolls over and grabs his phone, yanking it free from the charger. The screen lights up as he finally takes it off Do Not Disturb, and his heart sinks.

Nothing.

No check-in text. No long ramble about what went wrong. Not even a fuck you for his weak attempt at ghosting.

Silence.

A wave of unjustified sadness and unreasonable anger fills the gap in his chest.

He shouldn’t be upset at Minho. If anything, Minho should be upset with him — and that’s exactly what he wants. Some kind of reaction, some proof that despite how shitty Jisung’s been he’s still something worth Minho’s time and energy.

He’s worth fighting for.

It’s cringe as fuck and maybe the one thing Jisung truly hates about himself. He wants people to chase after him. And he’s upset that all he’s done is prove himself right once again.

But even so, Jisung’s not delusional. Why would Minho have any incentive to chase after Jisung, anyways? He’d been bratty and rude, leached of Minho’s good will and desire to care, and then thrown it all back in his face.

And what did he have to say for himself? He’s bad time management, has concentration issues and that yaoi porn really is that serious to him.

He rolls back over; forearm pressed against his eyes. Really, this must be some kind of world record on speed running fucking up your life. He deserves a medal, or some kind of recognition at least.

He takes a quick snap of his bedroom and sends it to his group chat. He will break the news of his fuck up to his friends.

hannie:

[hannie sent a photo]

 im stuck where the trade left me :(

Seungmin: 

Whatever that means 

lixie: 

omg nooo 

reddit was right being a fujoshi 

does destroy relationships omggg 

hannie:

Replying to: Seungmin: whatever …

why is felix’s bf in our gc 

lixie: 

he’s an 00 liner too he should be included 

Seungmin: 

Whatever that means 

hannie:

what 

hyunbin REAL: 

Replying to: hannie: im stuck where the…

ok first of all clean your fucjing room 

second of all, YOU!!!! 🫵🫵 left the TRADE !!! 

i will kill you Han Jisung 

lixie:

you know seungminnie is kinda trade 😍

Seungmin:

What are you trading me for? 

Hyunjin’s typing bubble pops up and disappears, once, twice, and then the call flashes on Jisung’s phone.

He answers hesitantly. “What?”

“You’re infuriating.” Hyunjin huffs down the phone. There’s a faint background noise, the sound of maybe a car engine and traffic rushing by. “Are you decent?”

“No.”

“It’s gone midday.”

Jisung huffs. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Well get in the mood, me and Binnie will be at yours in 20 minutes.”

Before Jisung can even grumble out a process, Hyunjin has hung up the phone.

He wrestles on the first clean looking joggers he can find and a oversized hoodie. He has just enough time to run his fingers through his fringe so it stops sticking up weird before his doorbell rings in warning, and Hyunjin’s punching in the door code and throwing himself into the apartment.

Hyunjin’s eyes cast over the discarded mugs and bowls left around the room with a twitchy frown, Changbin’s head pops over Hyunjin’s shoulder with matching judgement.

Hyunjin walks fully into the room, Changbin in toe, and picks up Jisung’s abandoned Switch, still paused on a weird dating game he’d completely forgotten about. He had been in the middle of flirting with a humanoid washing basket.

Hyunjin holds it out, delicate eyebrows arched. “Productive weekend?”

“Fuck off.” Jisung spits. He snatches the Switch and shoves it underneath a growing pile of clothes on his sofa. He doesn’t even remember starting the pile.

“Why are you even here?”

“You said I could use your scanner, remember? I need to digitalise my copies for the exhibition’s leaflets next week, the gallery’s scanner isn’t as high res as yours.”

Jisung massages his temple. “Sure, whatever. Just, be quick about it.”

“Delightful.” Hyunjin snorts.He makes his way into Jisung’s little office to start fiddling with the scanner, the sound of it chirping to life follows shortly.

Changbin flops down onto to the sofa and gives Jisung a thoughtful look.

“So, you dumped Minho then?”

Jisung groans into his palms. “No, I didn’t dump Minho. We were barely together.” Jisung’s head snaps up. “Hang on, how did you know that? Actually, how did Hyunjin even guess earlier?”

Hyunjin pops his head out of the office. “My wife told me.”

Jisung turns back to Changbin. “Eh?”

Changbin just nods. “Yeah, Minho’s actually one of my Clients.”

“What?”

“Yeah! He has been for awhile,” Changbin shrugs.

“He’s real big on his marathon training, so normally we focus on shit that will improve his core and stamina. But about like, I don’t know, few months ago? He got really into lifting. Kept asking me if I thought his core strength could support the weight of someone else.”

Changbin snorts at the memory. “He finally admitted that he was seeing someone that he really liked, and that said person was encouraging him to get more creative intimately…. I didn’t know Minho-hyung could go that shade of red, I got worried he was gonna pass out mid set.”

“Changbin-hyung!”

“And then he cancelled his session yesterday. Said he didn’t care that much about upper body anymore. We put two and two together when your text came through.”

“What happened to client confidentiality?”

Hyunjin reappears in the doorway, scowling. “Oh please. The dramatics he’s pulling are almost at your level. And really, Jisung? Handing over his apartment keys and making Jeongin-ssi break the news? How low can you go?”

“How the hell did you know that?”

Hyunjin and Changbin share a look.

“…Okay, maybe I called him,” Changbin admits. “He cracked and told me what happened.”

Jisung claps slowly. “Wow, detective duo of the year over here. So he just told you and you came to interrogate me?”

Changbin’s eyes narrow. “You hurt him, Jisung.”

Jisung feels hot shame-anger prickle. He doesn’t need Changbin and Hyunjin to come over and rub his failings in his own face.

“So that’s it, you came to give me a lecture?”

“We came because I was worried.” Hyunjin’s tone softens. “And because I did really want to use the scanner.”

He emerges back from the office, snapping his portfolio shut and shoving it back into his tote bag, but he’s no longer scowling. “Jisung-ah, what is going on?”

Jisung shifts uncomfortably. He hates it when Hyunjin gets like this, when his eyes well with concern and he looks as fragile as Jisung feels. The regret boils in his gut.

“Don’t tell me he reacted badly to your art?”

Jisung shakes his head miserably. “I didn’t even get that far, Hyunjin-ah. I couldn’t do it, I can’t go through that kind of rejection again.” Jisung hands fall to his sides. “Fuck, how many times am I going to choose drawing pervy art over real happiness?”

“You shouldn’t have to choose, Jisung.” Hyunjin sighs, “The right person should exist in that happiness. You can have both at the same time…And it doesn’t really sound like you gave Minho that chance.”

“I’m a coward.” Jisung says flatly. “I didn’t want to get rejected and don’t need him to make me feel like a weirdo.” He gestures to his flat. “I can do that perfectly fine all on my own.”

Changbin sighs. “I really don’t think Minho is that kind of guy.”

“It’s not about what kind of guy he is though, is it? It’s about what kind of people those who hurt you before were. You have trust issues.” Hyunjin says knowingly.

“But, Jisung-ah, don’t you think you’re letting other people’s past shame control who you are right now?”

“I don’t want to give up my art. It’s too important to me.” Jisung snaps. He falters momentarily, shocked by his own words. He doesn’t think he’s ever really said that out loud.

“It should be important to you, nobody is asking that.” Hyunjin agrees, “I just think Minho could be important alongside that, too.”

Jisung doesn’t say anything to that, he picks up the discarded hoodie and begins wringing it between his fingers instead.

Hyunjin pulls back with an exhale and Changbin reaches out to rub circles on his shoulder blades.

But they don’t stay long after that. Hyunjin waves off Jisung’s reluctant offer of tea with a snorts and instead begins to wrestle his shoes back on.

“Did you at least get your pitch in?” He asks at the doorway.

Jisungs hums. “Yeah, I dunno when I’ll hear back, though. I don’t think they’ll like it.”

“You never do.” Hyunjin says pointedly. “Think about what we’ve said, okay?”

Jisung nods, but he’s not sure he means it. Changbin claps him on the pack and gives him another one of his looks, fix it written between the creases in his eyebrows.

The door snaps shut, and suddenly the flat seems much quieter than it has in weeks.

Jisung flops himself back down on the sofa and closes his eyes, tries to sift his way through his own emotions to find something he can act on.

Hyunjin’s words echo uncomfortably through his brain.

“You have trust issues.” He’d said, so matter of fact and jammed in between sentences so there was no room for arguing. And it had stung, the way these comments usually do when Hyunjin makes a conscious effort to say what he thinks.

Jisung doesn’t think he does have trust issues. He just thinks he has several case studies that prove his silly little career, and romantic relationships have never gelled well.

His first — and only — girlfriend had outright called him a pervert.

He’d been about twenty, and it had taken weeks of stumbling over himself to win her over. Once she’d finally agreed to date him, he’d been constantly aware of how fragile the whole thing felt. Dating the kid who wanted to be a manhwa author wasn’t exactly a brag-worthy addition to her five-year plan.

He’d tried to frame his work in a way she’d approve of, comparing his ideas to action webtoons and shounen manga, as if that might make him a more acceptable — or more masculine boyfriend.

Then he’d left his laptop open. The tab with two boys kissing stared back at her, and the illusion shattered instantly. The accusation cut deep; the shame left a bruise that didn’t fade for years.

Felix and Hyunjin had said she was basically being homophobic, but that hadn’t made him feel any better about it all.

After that, he stayed clear of anything serious until he was twenty-four. A few hookups in between, which he treated more like “field research” for his art than anything romantic; but nothing he could count as a relationship.

Then came Jihoon. Older, seemingly secure in himself and sexuality, even considerate enough to keep a spare toothbrush at his place for Jisung. For a while, it felt steady.

Until Jisung quit his marketing job to focus on art and decided to be honest.

Jihoon had stared at Jisung blankly whilst he explained his entire career like a confession, tripping over his story as if it was an apology. If it had been, Jihoon had definitely not excepted it.

After that, invites to meet his friends stopped. The work events dried up. When Jisung finally asked about it, Jihoon had just sighed.

“And what do you want me to say to them, Jisung? When they ask about your work?” He had scoffed.

“You could just say I’m a manhwa author.” Jisung had tried to stick up for himself, but his voice had wobbled.

“Is that any better?”

Jisung knows, deep down, they were shitty people. But that’s the point.

If Minho — lovely, kind, perfect Minho— potentially couldn’t accept him, then maybe nobody ever could.

Jisung’s not sure he’d come back from that.

It’s enough to keep him holed up and frozen in his spot, the flat drifting further into chaos. He knows at some point he manages to pull himself up to maybe boil a cup of tea and try and get himself some cereal, but then there’s no evidence of either of those things when he finds himself pulled back onto the sofa. He thinks he’s maybe scrolled past the same reel twice as his mind goes numb from instragram post after instagram post, he doesn’t even remember taking his phone out.

It’s like he’s been made hostage in his own body, a loop of knowing he needs to do something - but it’s like his will to function is still screwed up with Minho’s keys.

Which is pathetic. He was independent before Minho, his two month relationship –gsituationship. He can be independent after.

But when he manages to draw his eyes away from the screen long enough to look at his wall clock, he realises the minutes have melted into hours and the day has slipped through his fingers.

There’s an empty mug on the windowsill he can’t remember putting there, laundry slumped against the wall like it gave up halfway to the machine, pencils rolling on the floor where they fell days ago. He tells himself he’ll clean when he feels better, then tells himself he’ll feel better when it’s clean — and does neither.

Jisung knows a paralysis spiral feels like, and that he needs to break it before everyone becomes too sticky. He doesn’t get sick days anymore, so if he wants to literally eat then he needs to break out of it.

The tidy-up is half-hearted at best, a rotation of stacking piles into slightly neater piles, gathering things into his arms with no clear plan of where to put them.

It’s when he gets to his desk that the pile of sketchpads and block of canvas shifts, one canvas slips off the edge and smacks the floor. He catches it without looking — and stops.

The draft sketch of Minho’s cats stares back up at him. Jisung sits back on his heels, thumb tracing the faint smudge where he’d started working the fur texture in. He remembers starting it one night after Minho had sent him a photo, his voice sleepy over the phone as he told Jisung how Doonie “helping” him with receipts by rolling in the pile of them, Dori passing a scrunched up till roll between * its paws whilst Soonie stretched over Minho’s lap.

It was the piece Jisung had wanted to turn into an oil painting for Minho’s birthday.

There probably won’t even be a ‘Minho Birthday’ anymore, he’d already made that decision for the both of them.

But, even so, he can’t really bring himself to chuck the canvas away.

Instead, he sits crossed legged on the floor. He reaches up blindly onto his desk until the tips of his fingers collide with his pencil case and then begins to study the canvas properly.

There’s some tweaks he needs to make before he even thinks about putting paint to it. Not that he ever will, there’s no point now. It wouldn’t hurt to practice though, right? It’s hardly time consuming to make the edits that could have potentially helped transform the piece.

Sure, he normally does digital art, but it’s always good to keep practicing.

He gets to work on altering the drawing. He rubs out where the canvas has smudged under the weight of what had been left on top and does his best to try and soften around Soonie’s eyes so they look wider and more innocent, an expression Jisung has learnt the cat pulls off very well when he’s probably peed somewhere he shouldn’t have.

He does a lot of work on the expressions and makes sure the lines are heavier so it will be easier to follow with oils. Not that he ever will - and besides, maybe oil wouldn’t have been the right choice anyways. Water colours — that’s it. To capture the way light seeps gently across the page, amber glow of Minho’s lamp and the way shadows dance pale across his the cats faces.

Before Jisung even realises, he’s suddenly in his kitchen pushing dirty dishes out the way in order to fill up a little glass of water. He sits back down cross legged and balances the water colours he doesn’t even remember digging out onto his knee. His collection of water colour paintbrushes is rolled out in front of him.

It’s basically muscle memory from there. Almost nostalgic, it reminds him of lazy afternoons spent with Hyujin, sitting crossed legged in their tiny living room as they would work on art beside each other.

Except Hyunjin isn’t anymore, and Jisung is very much alone.

The water colours blend beautifully together and allow the soft pencil marks to bleed through the pale colours. He’s able to tint the edges of the cats fur with delicate amber, and make Minho’s socked feet and pyjamas clad lap look warm and inviting.

Jisung wishes he could put his head back down in that lap.

He can feel himself getting warm with embarrassment. Even alone, he’s embarrassed by how much he wants Minho in every way.

Jisung isn’t sure how much time passes. He lies down at some point on the floor, using his pencil case as a pillow when his lids get too heavy.

He wakes up to a crick in his neck and all his lower body muscles pulled taught, but his desire to paint has burnt out despite exhaustion. And then he drags himself to the takes the entire box of cereal back with him so he shovel handfuls into his mouth as he works.

He keeps going, and going, and going until he’s reaching for a paper towel to dab at the final excess water.

He blinks through whatever gunk has gathered in his eyes. If Minho was here, he’d have passed his glasses over by now.

Not that Jisung even know what time now is, or how long he’s been sat on the floor. He’s too busy pressing his thumb against the drying water colour, trying to create fur texture.

He stands up on wobbly legs and cracks his back. He places the finished painting on his desk and observes it.

hard to express sometimes how he feels about what he creates, because it’s so often tied with shame and embarrassment at what he’s put on the page.

Oddly enough, this painting feels as awkward to look at his porn. It’s exposing and intimate in a way that feels very familiar.

His finger traces gently over the crease of Minho’s thigh and along the spine of the cat sprawled across his lap.

Well, he’s finished it.

Now what?

Jisung pulls his eyes away from the paint and finally braves another look at the digital clock on his desk.

Tues, 4:32pm.

Fuck, he’s painted through two entire days. God, maybe he should think about going back on his meds. 

He scrubs a hand over his face, feel the tackiness of his skin. Self-awareness makes him feel like he’s just been dunked in a barrel of sludge. 

He stares at the watercolours until the edges blur, thumb tapping a nervous rhythm against his knee. He could shove it back into the pile, let it collect dust, pretend it was never meant for anyone. That’s what he usually does; keeps the good, vulnerable pieces hidden, safe where no one can pick them apart.

But this one feels restless. Like it’s meant to leave him. Every brushstroke still warm from the hours he’s poured into it, from the way he’d almost let himself imagine Minho’s cats were in his lap while he worked.

The thought of Minho actually seeing it makes his stomach twist in embarrassment, in longing, in something sharp and unnameable. He tells himself it’s pointless, that Minho doesn’t need a gift from someone who’s already half-vanished from his life. He tells himself it’ll only make things worse.

And yet the urge is still there. Lodged in his chest like an itch under the skin.

Minho should see it. Even if it’s the last thing Jisung ever hands him, even if the moment’s awkward and half-botched and they never speak again, Minho should see this.

Before he can talk himself out of it, he’s sliding the canvas into his rucksack, tucking a hoodie over it so it won’t knock around, then leaves the bag propped by his desk while he scrambles for something clean to wear.

The shower is quick, no time for the luxury of letting the heat work into his shoulders. Just enough to scrub the paint flecks from his wrists and wash the faint scent of turpentine from his hair.

He pulls on a hoodie from what he hopes is his clean clothing pile and wrestles on clean sweats. Jeans are too heavy and he’s worried any wrong move and he’ll talk himself out of this.

 Glancing at the clock he’s still somehow already waisted an hour, but if he runs from the bus stop to the cafe he can make up for the rush our traffic.

His hand closes around the nearest tote bag on his way out, already slinging it over his shoulder as he locks the door. The rain-dark air bites his cheeks and he tucks his chin into his collar, feet quick on the pavement.

It’s not far. He can already picture the warm light spilling from the café windows, smell the espresso, imagine Minho’s face when he sees what Jisung’s brought him.

Jisung picks up the pace, almost a jog now, the tote swinging against his hip.

The bus is as slow as predicted, and by the time pulls into the nearest station Minho’s Cafe is almost due to close. Jisung doesn’t let it deter him, he’s been running on nothing but shame and regret for days now, he’s sure he can find it in him to put his best put forward and sprint as fast as he can. His tote bag smacks against his back as he does, and the balls of his feet burn in process.

He still runs anyway.

It’s 6:41pm when the coffee shop comes skidding into view. Jisung’s barely able to plant his feet firmly into the ground fast enough to stop himself from head butting the glass front windows, throwing out his hands in panic and smacking them against the door. The “closed” sign quivers under the force of his shoulders colliding. 

Jeongin, who had been wiping down the window, frowns at him from the other side.

Despite everything, he opens the door without question.

“Hyung?” he asks, head tilted. Another Minho mannerism. “What are you doing here?” 

Jisung tried to crane his neck around him, his heart fluttering when all he can see is a dimly lit counter and nobody else. He can’t tell if he’s upset or relieved.

“Is — is Minho here?” he manages to gasp, out of breath from the running, or maybe panic. “Or…were you running the day?” 

Jeongin hesitates. “Minho-hyung, uhm, he isn’t —“

“It’s fine, Jeonginne.” 

Minho steps out of the office, his back turned as he takes him time locking the office door. Jisung can see the way his shoulders rise and sag and he takes a moment, like he’s trying to take a deep breath to steady himself. 

Jisung’s heart sinks. Oh, so he had cared, then.

When Minho does turn around, his hands are stuffed in his pockets, and his expression is neutral. But Jisung has learnt with Minho, sometimes he says more in what he doesn’t do than what he does. His disinterest is artificial, caring comes to naturally to him.

“I…” Jisung grasps the handle of his tote bag. He hadn’t really planned this far ahead and now faced with Minho at his most guarded he doesn’t feel equipped to try and chip down at his walls. He’s never been on the outside until now.

Minho sighs. 

“Did you come back for your charger?” He asks.

Jisung blinks, confused.  “What?”

“You left your phone charger at mine.” Minho shrugs. “Presumed you came back to get it.” 

“I… I hadn’t realised I’d left it. I have spares.” 

“Yeah, figured you must’ve. At first, I kinda hoped that the reason you didn’t text me was because your phone died. But I figured you just didn’t want anything to do with me pretty quick.” 

“It’s not like that.” The words spill before he can stop them. “You didn’t call me either.”

Minho scoffs and swings his keys around his middle finger. “Really, Jisung?” 

Jeongin clears his throat and they both turn towards him, his presence momentarily buried under the tension.

“Minho-hyung…” 

“Go home, Innie. I’ve got it from here.” 

Jeongin doesn’t need to be told twice. He wastes no time wrestling on his raincoat and grumbling under his breath as he peaks a look at the weather outdoors. There’s the faint sound of the door ringing open and the patter of rain before the door jingles shut. 

Jisung barely registers it, his eyes are trailed on Minho.

With Jeongin Minho fully turns towards Jisung, arms crossed and looking as unimpressed as ever. 

He cocks one eyebrow, but Jisung can see the way his forearms tremor slightly.

“Well?”

Jisung wrings the strap again, so hard this time his skin pricks like rope burn.

He swallows. 

“I…I’m not here to change your mind about me. Because disappearing was really shitty of me, and I’m sorry, no that it will make what I did any better.” 

Minho shakes his head. “Bug — Jisung, I don’t even get what happened. One minute you’re being nice and cuddly with me, and then you’re just … gone…I don’t…”

He breaks himself for one moment to tug at his hair in frustration, hands falling back down heavily against his sides. “I just don’t understand, and I really don’t like not understanding things.”

Jisung nods guilty. “I’m sorry for causing you distress.”

“Don’t make it about that.” Minho snaps.  

When Minho looks back up, his eyes are a little glassy. Jisung feels the guilt like a rock in his stomach.

Minho deserves an explanation, of course he does. And he shouldn’t be with someone who just upsets and confuses him. 

Love should be intuitive, Jisung’s written about it enough times to know that. He wishes he could be that.

Jisung takes another steadying breath and drops his bag down onto the nearest table. He turns back to Minho, his legs feel a bit wobbly, but he tries to stand as tall as possible.

“I’m sorry, Minho-hyung. I wish I was braver to explain myself better, but I just - I sometimes think people like me are better shut off in the dark, you know?” 

Minho looks pained. “I don’t want you to be in the dark.”

Jisung shakes his head. “You just have to trust me on this one, just one last time Minho-hyung. I really enjoyed our time together, and I’m sorry I’m more messed up than you know and I can’t bare to be honest about it. But I wanted you to have this. At least. It should belong to you.” 

Jisung reaches into the tote bag and curls his fingers around the canvas, but when he drags his hand out he’s met with nothing but a sketch book. 

There’s nothing in the bag.

His body seizes. 

No, he packed the canvas, he remembers specifically doing it.

He digs through the bag again frantically, finally deciding to tip it upside down, just in case somehow an entire canvas has gotten lost in the folds of fabric. 

And then his brain decides to provide the missing piece.

 He had packed it, in his rucksack. This was his tote bag.

He’d picked up the wrong bag.

His bottom lip begins to wobble as the weight of all his clashing emotions burrow into his shoulders.

He can’t do anything right, can he?

Can’t even break up with the best almost boyfriend he ever had the way he deserves, because his brain simply does not function like everyone else’s just for five fucking minutes.

There’s the click of the counter flap lifting the soft thud of shoes against the floor as Minho closes the distance. Jisung’s still buried in the bag when fingers close around his wrist.

“Jisung,” Minho says sternly. His free hand tilts Jisung’s chin up, forcing him to look into his dark eyes. “I really don’t know what’s going on with you, and I get you’re trying to orchestrate the most confusing break up of my life, but you’re worrying me. If you don’t want to be - whatever we were - then, fine. But you’ve been acting erratically for days, so you’re going to have to suck it up and let me drive you home.”

Minho brings a hand to his forehead, faltering slightly as his palm meets skin. Like he just couldn’t help himself.

“You’re burning up, when did you last sleep, Bug?” Minho murmurs. He doesn’t even notice the nickname slip, lost in his own concern. 

Jisung holds back embarrassed, anxious tears. He weakly tries to paw Minho away.

“No, no. It’s okay, I can get myself home.” 

Minho’s voice drops. “It’s pouring outside, Ji. You can’t wait for a bus out in that.” 

Jisung’s head snaps left to look out towards the window. Rain smacks harshly against the glass and pavement. He can just about remember Jeongin wrestling his coat on and zipping it to his nose.

Minho takes his wordless staring as an answer. “Gather your shit back up, Jisung. I’ll be able to drive you back in five.”

Minho ignores Jisung’s stammer of protests in favour of turning off the lights and setting the alarm. The beeping count down tells Jisung he’s run out of room to argue now.

Jisung’s shoulder sag with defeat, he casts one last pathetic thought to his painting plan, and lets himself stumble through completely unknown territory. No plan, raw dogging emotional exposure once again.

Minho manoeuvres Jisung out of the building and toward the staff carpark, like he’s done several times before.

His hand finds it’s way to the small of Jisung’s back like muscle memory but retracts quickly. He does, however, keep Jisung close enough to try and protect him from the rain with his own denim jacket.

Minho opens the door for Jisung, as he does every time before, and then pulls himself into the driver’s seat. He starts up the engine and taps his fingers against the wheel, scoffing out a sarcastic laugh.

“I just realised, all this time and I don’t even know where you live.” Minho shakes his head, disbelieving.

There’s a reason for that, Jisung thinks.

Jisung watches the way water hits against the windscreen and thinks better of trying to argue again.

Instead, he leans across and wordlessly types it into Minho’s GPS.

Minho’s lips twitch into a smirk as he steers the car onto the main road.

“You know, you’re maybe the only person I know who could break up with someone and still squirm your way into getting chauffeured around.”

Jisung scowls. “Once again, you begged me to do this.”
It’s second nature to bite back, but the sharpness drains quickly.

“Sorry.” He murmurs.

Minho drums his fingers against the wheel. “Yeah, it’s fair. I do feel bad, you’ve given me so many signals that I’ve been too much and somehow, I can’t stop being that.”

“That’s not true.” Jisung says quickly. "You’re not too much, of course not.”

I’m too much, Jisung thinks, that’s the point.

Minho scoffs softly, eyes fixed on the road. “Jisungie, c’mon. I can’t keep to myself when I’m around you. There’s just something about you—it’s like something settles inside me when you’re near. I get less… fuzzy.”

Jisung’s fingers tighten around the seatbelt strap.

Minho’s jaw works as he keeps talking. “Your presence grounds me, so when I see you all… dysregulated, and stuff—I just want to…” His voice trails, a hiss through his teeth. “Yah, I’ve said way too much.”

 “I think you should say more, actually. I missed hearing you say things.”

That gets him a glance in the rearview mirror, quick, almost shy — before Minho looks away again.

“I’m sorry.” Jisung says quietly.

Minho shakes his head.

“Ah, it’s okay. You’re just so confusing. I’m not the best at reading social norms, y’know? And I get worried sometimes because maybe I don’t back off when I should, and I know people like to fuck me, and I know I’m good at making friends. But sometimes, I worry my connections are fake, because it’s all based on everyone else's rules and stuff, and I’m just following them, even if it’s in my own way.”

Minho takes a glance at Jisung. He can see how wide Minho’s eyes are, the way his face softens with his honesty.

“I just didn’t feel like I had to do that with you. It just felt like we were building something on our terms. Nobody else’s…” his eyes focus back on the road with a shrug. “It all felt a bit less lonely with you. And then you left, and you didn’t say why… so all I can say, is I’m sorry I misread this so bad that you felt like you had to completely run away.”

Jisung swallows, watching the way Minho’s knuckles flex on the wheel.

“But then you turn back up, yapping about being sorry and being messed up and I’m just more confused. If I’m not the problem, then why did you go?”

Jisung shifts in his seat, fighting the urge to fill the silence.

Minho sighs again. “Aish.. I’m not very good at this…” he flaps his hand around, fishing for the words in the air. “…being open stuff.”

“I know this isn’t easy for you Hyung, I'm sorry that ghosting you brought up those feelings again. I knew I had hurt you, but I didn’t realise that what I did would upset you that much.”

Minho’s eyes flicker anxiously. “What do you mean, you knew?”

Jisung hisses out a sigh. “Ah.”

He deliberates for a moment how honest to be, and then thinks fuck it.

“We might have some…mutual friends. Or, friends in law.” Jisungs grumbles out. “…Changbin mentioned you were upset.”

Minho’s ears turn a bright shade of red, his face lights up with alarm. “My Personal Trainer sent you??”

The car crawls to a red light and Minho takes the opportunity to smack his forehead against the wheel.

“Oh my god. Is this just because I didn’t want to do dead lifts? Do you work for the gym?”

“He didn’t send me!” Jisung jumps to reassure, waving his arms a little frantically. “

No, no. I promise. He’s dating Hyunjin, remember? The guy with the prickly hair from the other day? They just came over to check on me because I was crashing out and - and I’m here because I had to see you, okay? It’s out of selfishness… if I’m honest.” Jisung trails off.

Minho peers up at him. “Changbin’s gay?”

“Uh… yeah? Has he never mentioned it? Sorry, is that all you took from what I just said?”

Minho pouts, clearly fixated. “But he always talks about his wife Hyunjin.”

“No, that’s my Hyunjin. They just have this confusing lesbian roleplay that we’re all involved in for some reason.”

Minho lets out the breath he was holding. The car crawls forward as the lights change.

“Like, a sex thing?”

“Ew. Hyung!”

“I don’t know, I could get into it… If it was us.” Minho grins back.

Jisung giggles, shaking his head. 

Minho’s grins back, but it begins to falter and flicker, as they pass through street lights.

“This is what I mean, Bug.” Minho confesses softly, “I thought we clicked so well, so why did you pull back?”

Jisung hesitates, his eyes cast over the GPS. They’re only a few minutes from his apartment, and the conversation has completely veered off track from where he’d wanted it to go.

Not that there was much vision in the first place. Because, really, what was the plan?

Hand Minho an embarrassingly intimate painting based on a photo he probably doesn’t even remember sending, mumble some half-baked apology, and then what?

The painting is basically a confession in colour. Every brushstroke a piece of unfiltered yearning he’d never dared to say out loud. And now, with the adrenaline bleeding out of his system, the whole idea feels like the ramblings of a crazy person.

Which, maybe Jisung is. But still.

His attention drifts to Minho’s hands on the wheel, the steady tap of his fingers against the leather. It’s a rhythm Jisung’s felt before, against his hair, curled around his thigh. He wants that again. Wants him again.

Jisung doesn’t want to give up who he is or how he chooses to express himself. He can’t shake the fear that in twenty, thirty, forty years, he’ll still be into theorising how mermen could fuck each other or how a yuri alpha x alpha dynamic might work. And maybe that’s fine—maybe he just needs to accept that’s just genuinely who is and who he will always be—

But.

As Minho drives, those fingers keep tapping, trying to soothe himself. His teeth press into his bottom lip, lashes casting shadows over his cheekbones. Jisung feels the want like a stone in his gut.

He thinks how much he’d like Minho to be there, too.

They turn onto his road, and Jisung decides.

For somebody who quit their job to pursue a career in hentai BL, and has spent real life money on Genshin, he sure as hell seems really adverse to taking a gamble.

But, Minho is worth the risk.

He almost laughs at himself—cringe—and then shakes it off.

“Minho-hyung,” he says finally, after what feels like a long stretch of silence.

Minho doesn’t push. He never does. “Yeah, Jisung?”

The car slows as they near his building. Minho flips the hazards on, the blink of amber light strobing through the rain.

“I have a parking permit,” Jisung says, tilting his head toward the carpark. “Nobody ever uses it, and obviously I don’t, because you know – can’t drive – but…. Park here. Tonight.”

Minho’s eyebrows pull together. “What?”

“I’m inviting you inside.” He draws a deep breath. “I want you to come inside. Please.”

“I thought… aren’t you breaking up with me?”

Jisung shakes his head. “No, Hyung. I don’t want to break up with you… but I want to be honest and give you the chance to break up with me.” His eyes close briefly, another steadying breath. “And if you do—especially after all of this—it’s okay. I’ll deal with it.”

Minho’s gaze lingers on him for a long moment, eyes flicking between Jisung’s and the rain-smeared windscreen. Then he gives a small, humourless laugh, shifting the gear into park.

“You’re… unreal,” he mutters, but there’s no bite.

The hazard lights click in the silence, steady as a metronome.

Jisung’s pulse thumps in his ears. “So… is that a yes?”

Minho doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he reaches for the keys, twisting them until the engine cuts out and the car falls into a cocoon of rain and cooling metal. He leans back in his seat, looking at Jisung like he’s trying to read something written on his skin.

Finally, he nods once. “Alright, bug.”

Jisung’s breath catches. He fumbles for his seatbelt, the click of it releasing far too loud in the small space. His hands feel clumsy, and he nearly drops his tote bag trying to pull it onto his shoulder.

They step out together into the wet air. Rain needles at Jisung’s cheeks instantly, cold and fine, seeping into the cuffs of his hoodie. Minho locks the car with a sharp beep and falls into step beside him, one hand hovering at Jisung’s hip like he’s still not sure how much space to keep.

The carpark smells faintly of petrol and wet asphalt, every puddle glinting orange under the streetlamps. Jisung swipes his key fob over the entrance door, holding it open for Minho, and Minho ducks inside without a word.

The warmth of the building hits immediately, making his damp hoodie cling to his shoulders. His heart’s beating hard enough that it feels loud in the quiet corridor, each step toward the lift stretching out.

When the doors slide shut, Minho leans against the wall, watching Jisung like he’s waiting for him to bolt. “You’re sure about this?” 

Jisung nods quickly, then adds, softer, “Yeah. I’m sure.”

Even if he’s not totally, he is. He has to at least try to be.

Minho huffs out another puff of laughter and shakes his head.

“You better have some kind of like, sex dungeon inside after all this drama. You’re being crazy shady about it.”

Jisung tries to smile but the anxiety of the situation is making him feel sick.

He’s not going to runaway anymore, he’s going to be fucking brave…

(And if it all goes wrong he’ll crawl over to Felix’s and kick Seungmin out of his own double bed and curl into up with Felix and cry for the next century.

He’ll be okay.)

The elevator doors ping open sooner than Jisung would like.

He tries not to over think it as he punches in the key code to his front door and doesn’t want to acknowledge if his slippery fingers are from rainwater or nervous sweat.

Minho’s hand finds its way back to his hip and strokes gently. He’s still so unsure, the movement is insecure and so unlike the possessive hold Jisung had gotten used to.

He curses himself for doing that to Minho and hopes, even if it’s without Jisung, he can heal from that quickly.

The door clicks open, and Jisung shuffles them inside.

Jisung’s home is very much a museum of who he is. There’s paper and pens scattered everywhere, a guitar and stand mounted to his wall that he still loves to play and sing softly to himself when he knows he’s not in danger of being caught.

And then there’s the shelf. Friends and a few vetted partners (Seungmin and Changbin) are allowed in, and barely bat an eyelid at the large floor to ceiling bookshelf that expands the entirety of his left hand wall, and across the corner of the next connecting.

Shelves and shelves of manga and manhwas, sorted alphabetically with small, aesthetic breaks where he displays different anime figurines and some of the lego flowers and bonsais he’d spent hours fiddling with. There’s even a shelf dedicated to his kpop albums, and three full clear cases to display his vinyls.

He takes pride in how beautiful his bookcases look, and he’s not really ashamed of them. He’s at a point in his life that if somewhere would likely judge him for being a dork, they wouldn’t be in his house in the first place.

But nobody goes into Jisung’s bedroom.

He casts a stray thought to the room, and all the shit he has locked away in there that he’s adamant nobody can see.

But God, does he hate hiding from Minho.

He doesn’t expect Minho to go running from the hills just yet.

Minho is also a weeb and a bit of a dork. It’s one of the first things, after his incredible banana bread and ace dick game, that enchanted Jisung in the first place. 

He hardly expects Minho to be put off by some manga and busty (but tasteful) magical girl figures. 

Minho doesn’t say anything first. The place is still a bit of a mess from Jisung’s foggy attempt at tidying, but he doesn’t look put off or surprised. 

“So, where are your unconventional desires kept then, eh?” Minho tries to joke, but Jisung can see through the way he stands very steel, he's confused and uncomfortable.

Jisung snorts at the irony. 

“50 shades of grey reference in the big year of 2025 is crazy, hyung.” Jisung shakes his head and guides Minho to stiffly plop into the sofa. “Sit, I’m going to make us tea.”

Minho nods a little robotically. “It’s a lovely apartment, Jisungie… it’s very warm and cosy..”

Jisung just hums at the compliment, already retreating toward the kitchen before Minho can say anything else. The kettle clicks on with a hollow pop, filling the space with the low rush of water heating.

He grips the counter’s edge for a second, palms flat, breathing in the faint smell of tea leaves and whatever detergent he last used. His chest feels tight.

It’s ridiculous, in some ways. Minho has literally licked his asshole. Seen him in positions most people couldn’t even admit to their doctors about.

But this is so different.

The kettle clicks off. He swallows, forces his hands to move, and reaches for the mugs.

Minho is still sitting rather tightly on the sofa, hands clasped over his knees and eyes a little spaced out as he stares straight ahead. As if he’s worried one wrong move might take the whole room down with him.

Jisung sets the mugs down carefully and skims his fingers across Minho’s shoulders.

Minho looks up. Jisung looks down. For a split second the distance between their mouths is barely there, a breath away from closing. God, Jisung has missed kissing him.

But it wouldn’t be fair. Not yet.

Instead he pushes Minho’s fringe out of his eyes and presses a light kiss to his forehead.

“You need a haircut, hyung,” Jisung murmurs, lips brushing damp skin. “You know it gives you sensory issues when it gets too long.”

He tugs gently at the strands, then lets go and slips past the sofa toward the bookcase.

His eyes land on the slim zine shoved at the end of the shelf. He doesn’t even remember the last time he touched it, but it feels like as good a place to start as any.

He grabs it, scoops up his laptop too, and hugs both to his chest as he plops back down beside Minho. The sofa bounces: Minho steadies him with a warm hand on his thigh.

God, he’s missed that too. Their knees knock together as Jisung tucks his foot underneath himself.

“What’ve you got there, Bug?” Minho asks softly.

Jisung digs his nails into the glossy cover until little half-moons appear. He forces them to unclench. The laptop stays propped defensively on his knee.

“Minho-hyung…” He starts and then stalls.

Minho-hyung, I draw hentai for a living.

Minho-hyung, yuri is really serious to me. Please understand this strapping scene means a lot to me.

Minho-hyung, have you ever heard of the omegaverse? No? What are your opinions on, say, double tentacle penetration?

His throat locks.

“Minho-hyung,” he tries again, “me and Hyunjin met in art school.”

Minho nods slowly. “Right. Your friend from the other day.”

Jisung nods too, jittery, shifting like his bones can’t quite settle. “And Felix? I met him online. He liked the art I used to post.”

“That’s really nice, Jisungie.” Minho says simply. He waits. Doesn’t push.

Jisung swallows. “Yeah. They’ve always supported me. And my art. But I find it really hard to share… for my own personal reasons.”

His nails pick at the edge of the book. Another breath. “Minho-hyung… I’m not a Marketing Executive.”

Minho huffs out a soft laugh. “Yeah, bug. I figured.”

“I’m sorry for lying,” Jisung blurts, heat creeping up his neck. “Being truthful is… scary.”

“Authenticity’s hard,” Minho agrees, quieter now. His voice gentles in a way that makes Jisung’s chest ache. “But I think I’d like you whatever you do, Jisungie. You don’t have to hide this from me.”

Jisung flattens the book against his lap and holds it out like an offering. His pulse hammers.

Minho meets his eyes, then takes it carefully. He studies the cover, then flicks a glance back at Jisung.

Minho’s fingers trace the glossy image of Nana and Hachi sprawled beneath a tree in opposite directions, earbuds split between them connect their expressions, their hands almost brushing.

“You drew this?” His voice is edged with something Jisung doesn’t recognise at first, until he realises.

Admiration.

Jisung nods again, already feeling his skin prickle in hot embarrassment.

“Yeah, uh. I had like, a pretty dedicated following for my fan art, and this one on going idea I kept posting in parts. So I just compiled it into the completed story and printed a few copies… had a few preorders. It wasn’t like, anything crazy.” He mumbles into his knee. He peaks a glance at Minho, already bracing himself for some kind of judgement.

Minho’s face lights up like someone’s flipped a switch.

“You drew the whole thing? Like, an actual book? Bug, that’s insane.” His grin tilts crooked, equal parts impressed and teasing.

“Do you draw that often? No wonder your wrists hurt all the time, and there I was thinking you were just jacking it too much.”

Jisung lets out a weak laugh, embarrassment fizzing in his stomach. 

The zine feels like scrap work compared to what he does now, deadlines and commissions and entire worlds. But Minho is cradling it like it’s precious, his thumb hovering over the cover like he’s about to peel open the greatest treasure on earth.

He still waits, eyes flicking back up for permission.

Jisung nods, throat tight. “You can look, hyung.”

Minho begins to palm through the pages delicately.

“You draw them so gorgeous.” He breathes. “I can’t believe you made this, you’re incredible…”

Jisung scrunches his shoulders, flustered. “Yeah, it was the first thing I published, technically. Not that they’re OC’s or anything, but I guess it counts?”

Minho glances up, eyes wide, shining. “You’ve done more?”

Jisung’s mouth is dry. He nods once, then shakes his head, then nods again, like he can’t make his body settle.

“Yeah,” he admits, voice wobbling. “You could say that I’ve done a bit more.”

Minho tilts his head, waiting but not imposing. 

Jisung digs his nails into his hoodie sleeve, forcing himself to look up. His pulse is thunder in his ears.

“I, ah, actually draw for a living. I’m a manhwa writer.”

Minho blinks at him slowly in that way he does when he’s trying to buy himself time to process, figure out how he’s supposed to react. 

“Oh!” Minho coughs out, a little stiffly. “That’s lovey… that’s…”

Minho shakes his head fast and then stares at Jisung intensely. 

“Jagiya, I’m trying to react like a normal person, but that’s really fucking sick.”

Jisung’s heart stutters. “What, really?”

“Jisung.” Minho breathes, disbelieving. “Yeah, that’s so cool. You mean I’ve been hooking up with some big shot author, this entire time?” Minho bounces slightly on the sofa, like his body is vibrating with excitement.

Jisung can feel the blush on his cheeks bloom brighter and slowly grow down his neck. 

“I’m not… famous or anything.” Jisung grumbles. 

“But it’s your job, that’s amazing. You’ve achieved what so many people can only dream of doing, you get to live off what you love doing. Have you written anything I would know?”

“God, I hope not.” Jisung grumbles to himself.

Minho’s smile faulters and his bouncing stops, his eyes trail over Jisung tense posture.

“…Why would you not tell everyone about this? Is this like a secret identity kind of thing?” 

Jisung hesitates.

“Uh, kinda.” 

Minho’s face screws up in concern again.

“…Why do I get the feeling it wasn’t some kind of GDPR breach that stopped you from bringing this up until now?”

Jisung presses his hands over his face with a groan. “Because it’s not—” His voice cracks. “It’s not always safe to explain the kind of stories I make.”

Minho’s eyes cast over Jisung, looking pained and confused. He gently shifts closer, his arm hovering around the back of the sofa like it’s as close as he feels he’s allowed to get. 

“Hey, hey Bug. Listen to me, look at me, okay?” 

He reaches out and gently brushes Jisung’s cheek. He still holds the book flat out on his lap and soothes down the pages. 

“Whatever’s going on, you need to know that everything you’ve shown me so far is art, okay?” He picks up the zine and gives it a little shake for art. “This is beautiful, Jisungie.”

His fingers swipe through the pages carefully but quickly, as if he’s trying to speed run self assurance with Jisung. 

And it would be such a sweet moment, if Minho hadn't skipped just a little too far ahead. 

It’s been a good few years since Jisung has flipped through this zine, and he can’t really remember the plot besides Hachi chases after Nana and finds her in London, and they begin to build a life together over there as they finally accept each others feelings. 

What he had conveniently forgotten, was exactly how their feelings where realised.

But the memory comes flooding back to him, making his vision swim in panic as Minho flicks past a particular panel of the pair of them sharing a delicate kiss, Hachi’s hand tentatively reaching out to press delicate, manicured fingers into the swell of her chest in a close-up panel. 

The fear washes over him, almost suffocating. 

“Minho wait –” 

And then Minho is opening the zine onto a full page spread of Hachi and Nani scissoring. 

The page spread is detailed, to say the least.

Hachi and Nana tangled thigh-to-thigh, cunts pressed wet and shining, every line slick with exaggerated gloss. Nani’s head is thrown back in a moan while Hachi claws at the sheets, their swollen folds grinding with obscene detail, the page looking almost damp with how vividly it gleams.Minho stares at the page. His ears go pink and his throat bobs.

Jisung holds his entire body taught.

Shit.

“Oh,” Minho says faintly. His ears go bright pink. “That’s… definitely not in the anime.”

Jisung lets out a strangled noise and lunges for the book. “Hyung, please, don’t—”

But Minho just tilts it out of reach, eyes flicking between the page and Jisung’s flaming face. His voice is low, careful, threaded with something new. “So…this is the kind of story you mean?”

Jisung wants the floor to swallow him whole. “This, this isn’t how I wanted to tell you — ”

Minho cuts in, still staring at the page. His voice sounds weirdly calm, too even. “So when you said you didn’t feel safe explaining your stories…”

Jisung squeezes his eyes shut like he can’t bare to watch the way Minho’s expression might shift. He finds it funny now, but as realisation will unravel like barbed wire, it’ll prick Minho’s skin with the same second hand embarrassment that had cut into everyone else before.

And then he’ll realise that Jisung’s loserisms go beyond just aesthetics, it’s in his blood, and finally it’ll all be too much. And, and —

And Minho is laughing, softly. In that husky, breathless tone that normally comes when Jisung’s made a joke just after they’re done fucking.

Jisung peaks one eye open to find Minho grinning back at him.

“My Jagiya,” Minho murmurs. He reaches out and pulls Jisung’s hands away from his face. “My sweetheart, is this what all the theatrics was about?”

The words hit him like a slap.

Jisung’s never been good at hiding his expressions, and he clearly looks as shocked as he feels as Minho splutters out more laughter.

“I - Minho-hyung, it’s — it’s not funny!” Jisung tries to argue, it comes out whinier than he had intended.

This entire situation is making his brain do back flips. Why the fuck is he whining, anyways? He should be over explaining by now, sitting as tall as possible and trying to compose dignity as he grovels for an inch of understanding.

But Minho just smiles.

“Oh baby, no, Hyung isn’t laughing because it’s funny, I promise.”

Minho presses his thumb against Jisung’s bottom lip, like he’s trying to stop it from wobbling.

“Don’t pout at me, bug. I just… this was your big secret? That you’re talented? That you make something beautiful, horny art?”

His eyes flick down at the scissoring spread again, the tips of his ears still scarlet. “Okay—very horny. But still beautiful. Very you.”

Jisung bristles at that. He leans over again to try and snatch the zine back, but Minho pushes his arm forward protectively.

“Hey! No take-back-sies.”

“What do you mean it’s very me?”

“Well, for a start it’s all very like, wet and glossy looking. And I know how messy you like it.”

“Minho-hyung!”

“What? I do. I’ve been there many, many times before.” Minho pouts. “But also…”

Minho taps the drawing, tracing the pad of his fingers across Hitachi’s face.

“It’s their expressions, they’re all soft looking. Like, okay, they’re bumping purses, but…You draw them in a way that looks all messy and sticky but their eyes kinda pinch so it looks like they’re getting all emotional, not just rocking their socks off…” Minho trails off, his eyes unmoving from the piece.

“It’s really fucking hot.”

Jisung finally drops his knees down and looks at Minho properly. His lips are parted, tongue peaking through as he turns the pages slowly with wide eyes. The red twinge from his ears has crept down all the way across his cheeks in a faint glow.

It’s an expression that he’s seen many, many, times before.

Jisung gapes at him, mouth working soundlessly.

“Hyung, are you really getting horny over this?”

Minho cocks an eyebrow.

“Am I not supposed to be getting worked up over hot, emotional, lesbian porn? God forbid a man is an ally.”

“No! I mean — yes, you can, get off to whatever you— why aren’t you more creeped out?” Jisung fights through his own breathing, desperate to get Minho to see, to really understand.

“Why aren’t you ashamed of me?”

Minho’s voice softens. “Jisungie, if you think I could ever be ashamed of you because of this—then you don’t know how proud I already am.”

He closes the zine carefully, then looks Jisung dead in the eye. “I don’t know what anyone’s told you in the past, Jisung-ah. But you shouldn’t feel bad for being who you are.”

Jisung’s throat tightens. He wants to argue, to explain how unsafe it’s felt before, how every bruise of rejection still throbs. But the way Minho is looking at him makes his excuses dissolve before they can form.

Instead, what comes out is a weak, cracked: “You really don’t think I’m a freak?”

Minho huffs, presses his forehead briefly to Jisung’s. “Baby, I already thought you were a freak. I just happen to love that about you.”

Love.

Minho shrugs shyly. “We can just be freaks together.”

Jisung can’t bare it anymore. He’s confused; he’s sort of pissed off that his spiralling and self sabotage might have been for nothing —

And underneath it all there’s a thrum of desire that’s lodged in his heart and is pumping hot through his veins. Minho’s to close and too far away all at once.

When he finally lets himself lean a little further in and press their lips together, it feels like a cold press against a burn. It doesn’t really settle anything, the sting of need hasn’t gone, but it sates him.

Fuck, has he missed Minho. And by the way Minho’s hand comes to cradle the back of his head to deepen the kiss, he thinks Minho must feel the same.

But the kiss brief, Minho pulls away.

“Sorry, bug. This has been great and all, but I have some hot yuri sex to finish reading.”

Jisung gapes at him, Minho just grins back.

“What? Scissoring is hot, and I wanna know what happens next!” Minho wags his eyebrows. “Do you think we should try it?”

Jisung scowls at him. “Boys can’t scissor, hyung.”

“Oh? Do you know that? Have you tried?” Minho taunts.

He then wraps his hands around Jisung’s waist and drags him closer, until Jisung’s upper body is sitting in his lap and one of his legs is squished in between.

Minho raises his knee up, forcing Jisung’s thighs apart.

“Hm? My resident scissoring expert has never tried is out?” Minho drags Jisung forward a little, so there crotches brush together lightly.

He can just feel the way Minho strains in his own work slacks, making Jisung gasp.

“Fuck, you’re - you’re actually horny.” Jisung gasps.

Minho laughs a little nervously. “What? I said you’re good at drawing, okay?” He crowds over Jisung so he nip at his ears and plant a kiss against his jaw. “I really missed you.”

Jisung closes his eyes and sighs, allows himself one more beat in the moment before he’s pulling back away.

“No, Hyung. You don’t get it; I’m a complete pervert.”

Minho snorts and rolls his eyes. “Well, yeah. I knew that.”

“No. You’re not listening, it’s - it’s worse than just the Nana art! I’m a real freak about it. I draw, like, proper BDSM stuff, and guys with tentacle dicks and - and the Omegaverse.”

“I know two out of three of what those words, mean and I’m proud of myself.” Minho juts out his chin and grins back. “I’m a fast, learning, Jisungie. I’m sure I can get into the rest of it.”

Jisung groans in frustration and yanks his laptop back into his lap.

Minho just isn’t getting it.

He’s going to have to bring out the big guns and cross the bridge of no return.

The original drafts of his Omegaverse panels are still locked away in his files. He promised himself as soon as he hears back from his submission, he’ll delete them. Beyond the quick glances Felix and Hyunjin had caught, nobody was ever supposed to see them.

But he’s laid himself bare in front of Minho, and all Minho has done so far is try and kiss down his neck and touch him like it’s all okay.

He needs to show him it isn’t. So everything makes sense again.

And because it’s honest, and right, and Minho deserves to know just how much his presence has meant to him.

Minho deserves to simultaneously understand that he has meant to so much to Jisung, and it’s just a shame he doesn’t know how to not be a freak about it.

“Ooh, what are you doing?” Minho shifts so he can poke his head over Jisung’s shoulder. “Does my pretty boy wanna show me more of your pretty drawings, to really make sure I mean it?”

Jisung ignores the taunting, his thumb hovers over the trackpad, eyes glued to the folder.

“This is… worse,” he warns, his voice low, nervous. “Like, way worse.”

Minho tilts his head, eyes wide, curious as ever.

“Try me.” Minho challenges.

“Hyung,” Jisung groans, already regretting everything. His handshakes as he clicks open the file. “Please. Just… don’t look at me while you’re looking, okay?”

The screen floods with panels he hasn’t dared to glance at in days. The clean black lines, heavy shadows, the obscene slick shine he worked on until his wrist ached.

And the opening one, character shots of the alpha.

 With his broad shoulders and defined chest swelling, dripping sweat soft waist, strong thighs, and that same tilted smile Jisung has come to mourn.

And, of course, the two headed tentacle dick. Sprouting from dented and structured hipbones, flicking with little lines to indicate the way it twitches and curves by itself. Markings that show how alive it is, oozing with glossy substance.

He double clicks on it, turns the entire laptop towards Minho and dramatically shields his eyes with his forearm.

Minho inhales, sharp and startled.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Jisung echoes miserably, curling into himself. His hoodie sleeve is already balled between his teeth to stop the embarrassed noise clawing up his throat.

He peaks his eyes open and watches as Minho leans closer, squinting at the panel.

“is that…” his eyes shoot down, like he’s checking himself over. They snap back up to the screen.

“Is that me?”

“No, it’s Changbin.” Jisung can’t help but bite sarcastically, because even at his lowest he still somehow manages to be a snarky bitch.

Minho blinks at the drawing confused. And, jesus, he’s a bit of an idiot sometimes.

“Yes, Minho-hyung. It’s you.” Jisung says flatly.

He sucks a harsh breath through his teeth. “I am so obsessed with you, that I’ve drawn you as an alpha with a two headed monster cock. Because I was given a commission for an actual series spot and when they asked me to design character I truly, genuinely, couldn’t picture the alpha top to be anyone but you.”

He pushes his arm back dramatically, there’s a burn of confused, angry tears against the back of his eyes that threaten to spill. He needs to see Minho’s face when it finally clicks.

“Bug,” Minho murmurs finally, voice low and strangely reverent.

“This is… really fucking hot.”

Jisung drops his face back into his hands and fights the urge to scream.

“Why is that your answer to everything? You’re supposed to be horrified. I drew you with a tentacle dick, Hyung. Can you please just be normal and act accordingly?”

“You said you like weird, though.” Minho hums.

And, like he’s reading the newspaper, Minho begins to casually scroll further through the panels. The only give away that he’s affected is the way his ears burn an even brighter shade of red.

Jisung lets out a strangled groan.

“Sorry, Jisungie, but I’m too busy skipping through the meadows in my little brain because the cute guy I’m seeing makes enough money drawing hentai for me to retire at 30.” He looks up and grins. “That’s only in 3 years. So you better get me and my monster cock to press stat.”

Jisung peeks through his fingers, glare weak. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

“I’m taking it very seriously.” Minho’s voice dips, rougher now, eyes still fixed on the panel. “You’re incredible, Jisung. I really, really, mean that.”

“You’re… not upset that I turned you into hentai?”

“I mean, it’s maybe the most unconventional way anyone has ever confessed to me, but you draw me like a god.” Minho says. His eyes find Jisung’s again. “How could I be upset at that?”

“I also draw you fucking like one" Jisung grumbles.

He’s still not totally convinced this isn’t some weird, insomnia induced hallucination.

“Sick.” Minho chirps and doubles his efforts to start flicking through the panels.

Way too casually for someone looking at a tentacle dick AU of himself. His ears are red but his mouth keeps twitching like he’s trying not to smile too wide.

Then he stops. The panel he’s frozen on makes Jisung’s chest tighten — the omega splayed open, flushed, eyes dazed. Every line of him practically begging.

Minho tilts his head. “Wait.”

Jisung stiffens. “Wait what? Don’t wait, keep going, or no, stop going, actually give me that back—”

But Minho’s not listening. His gaze flicks from the panel to Jisung, then back again, narrowing with slow recognition.

“Bug…” His voice has gone careful, too careful. “This isn’t just me you drew.”

Jisung lets out a shaky laugh, already clawing for the laptop. “Yes, it is, I literally told you it was you, hyung. Alpha with the monster dick, remember? Don’t get confused now—”

Minho shakes his head slowly, eyes still glued to the page. “No. Not that.”

Jisung’s pulse spikes. “What, then? What are you looking at? I told you it was graphic, I know it’s super weird, you don’t have to spell it out—”

Minho finally looks up, and the way his expression softens makes Jisung’s stomach twist violently. His finger taps the omega’s face on the screen. “Bug… this is you.”

The words knock the air right out of him.

Jisung stares at the page, throat tight, heart battering against his ribs. The wide, desperate eyes. The pouty mouth. The slope of the nose. The hair curling damp against a flushed temple.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“No,” he croaks, voice breaking. “No, it’s just—it’s a random omega, the bottom always looks all wide eyes and shit, it’s generic features—” He drags his hoodie sleeve up to his teeth and chews down, muffling the way his breath comes out in sharp, panicked bursts. “I don’t do self insert. I’m not your naname. I didn’t—I wasn’t—”

“I’d recognise those big bug eyes anywhere.” Minho whispers.

But he sees it now. It’s him. It’s undeniably him.

He stares at the drawing and looks back at himself — cartoonish, exaggerated, and spread wide open for Minho’s soft drawn nose to press against the shaft of his own, smaller, cock.

It’s his own shoulders, his own bitten lip, he’s even captured the way his knees bend in and the tremor of his thighs as he always try to snap them shut, no matter how many times Minho pries them apart and would tell him to keep them open. The way they tense when he’s overwhelmed. He’s put himself on the page, begging under Minho, and he hadn’t even fucking noticed.

“Oh my God.” His voice shatters. His hands slap over his face as if he can blot it all out. “Oh my fucking God. No. No no no no—”

Minho’s hand twitches, like he wants to reach out, but he hesitates, watching Jisung unravel.

Jisung’s whole body trembles, knees bouncing, words spilling fast and frantic. “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t even know I was—I wouldn’t have, Hyung, I swear—fuck, I’m so—oh my God, I’m disgusting.”

“Jisung.”

“I drew as fucking. In Omegaverse —”

“Jisung.” Minho snaps the laptop shut before Jisung can, the sound making him flinch. He sets it aside on the coffee table, out of reach, then catches Jisung’s wrists before they can claw any higher up his face.

“Hey. Look at me.”

Jisung shakes his head frantically, muffled behind his sleeves. “No, don’t, Hyung, please, I can’t—”

“Yes, you can.” Minho tugs gently until Jisung’s eyes peek out, red-rimmed and glassy. His own gaze is steady, unflinching. “It’s you. So what?”

Jisung stares at him, horrified.

“So what? I made porn of myself without even realising—of me begging for you to—” His voice strangles itself. “That’s insane. That’s—”

“Jisung.”

“I drew us fucking, hentai style.” Jisung’s voice cracks, his whole body trembling. “You must think I’m a freak. A loser who spends all their time scrolling 4chan and jacking off to—”

“Jisung.” Minho says it firmer this time, hands sliding from his wrists to clamp gently but solidly onto his shoulders, steadying him. He gives them a squeeze, punctuating every word. “I don’t think any of that. Of course I don’t.”

Jisung lets out a low, broken whimper, eyes darting everywhere but Minho’s face.

“Jagiya,” Minho exhales through his nose, voice gentling even as his grip stays firm, “if I was offended by any of this, I would’ve said it by now. I’m not.” His thumbs rub slow circles into Jisung’s tense shoulders.

“I don’t know what’s happened before, who’s made you feel like this. But once you felt safe enough to draw this, I’ll do anything to make you feel that safe again.”

Jisung gives a shaky nod. It’s so far from okay, really.

But Minho isn’t embarrassed. He isn’t laughing. He’s interested, intrigued, in awe. Words Jisung can’t even begin to associate with himself.

“What’s the omegaverse, anyways?” Minho asks softly.

Jisung groans and tries to bury his head against Minho’s shoulder.

“Really, hyung?” Jisung murmurs wetly. “You’re asking me that now?”

Minho’s hand skid from his shoulders to his back, rubbing up and down and pulling Jisung even closer as he does. His work shirt presses the faint sent of cologne and coffee beans into against Jisung’s nose.

“Well, yeah. I wanna know what universe I have to go to in order to have a sick tentacle dick.”

Jisung splutters out a wet laugh and pulls back slightly, whispering the words into Minho’s chest.

“It’s like… well, in my version of events. Everyone is born as, ah, either a beta - which is, normal everyday people. And then, like, a very rare few are born as either an alpha or an omega.”

“Like me!” Minho chirps.

Jisung snorts and rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, like you. But it’s a tiny minority of the population, and they have to hide those facts about them in order to not be penalised, and stuff. Alphas have, uh, interesting anatomy… as you saw… and they have to go through things like…. it’s called a rut. It’s basically, fuck or die situation.” Jisung gets out in a rush.

Minho hums in thought.

“Fuck or die?”

“…Yeah.”

Minho nods again, like he’s considering this seriously.

He then follows up by popping a finger in the air, like he’s in class.

“Question, is this anything to do with Omega Males and Alpha Males podcast? One time Changbin went on a rant that lasted my entire PT session about how got called an omega because he didn’t want his crusts by his own wife.”

“Hyunjin can be savage.” Jisung snorts. “But no, it’s more… think wolves.”

“Wolves?” Minho’s eyebrows shoot up. “Then why do I have a tentacle dick and not a wolf dick?”

“… I just find tentacles hotter.” Jisung grumbles.

He can almost feel Minho’s smirk pressed to the top of his head. He manhandles Jisung until he’s back in his lap, bouncing him a little on his knees.

“Oh, my Jisungie really is a pervert”

Jisung scowls at him. “Hyung — “

“But he’s my pervert. My talented, kind, gorgeous little pervert who wants his big strong alpha to fuck him with his tentacles.”

“That’s not —”

But his words are cut off in a gasp when Minho’s guides Jisung to press himself back down onto Minho’s thigh. He hadn’t even registered the slight twitching between his own legs, the way Minho’s taunting words are already causing heat to simmer deep.

“Keep telling me about omegas.” Minho murmurs.

“They have this… thing called a.. a heat... it’s another fuck or die situation but…” he bites down on a gasp as Minho’s warm hands sneak up underneath his hoodie. “But, they have to be the ones getting fucked.” Jisung manages to squeak.

The hand on his skin stops rubbering momentarily. Minho leans back so he can blink at Jisung owishly.

Then his lips twitch into a smirk.

“Oh, do they now?” He shifts again, purposefully, so his thigh rubs up harder against Jisung’s hardening cock. He drags Jisung down to meet the movement.

Jisung gasps into his shirt again, trembling in Minho’s lap.

“So, if we’re both having to hide our identites in this universe, how do we find each other?”

“Ah… it’s… it’s our - their sent.” Jisung gasps, he can already feel the tiny beads of wetness sliding against his shaft in his boxers.

“We - fuck - they, catch each others sent in t-the office on their first day together. And it… it sends the omega into heat… a-and then they realise they’re not just biologically compatible, but they could navigate being hidden together.”

“Fuck at first sight,” Minho trails his mouth so his teeth can toy at Jisung’s earlobe. “Sounds kind of familiar.”

Jisung squeaks as Minho hauls him up into a straddling position, guiding Jisung’s hands to grasp purchase onto Minho’s shoulders as he bucks his hips up to meet Jisung’s properly.

“You know,” Minho says a little breathlessly, “this story… two people, really attracted to each other… but feel kind of alien when alone.” He pushes Jisung’s fringe out of his eyes, so he can stare into them.

Jisung squirms in his lap again, this time out of nerves than just desire.

“I think I’ve heard that one before.” He says.

“Minho-hyung…” Jisung whimpers. He doesn’t know what he wants, but when Minho slowly guides his hips downwards to meet Minho’s tiny thrust upwards, he decides Minho must know.

“H-hyung,” he breathes, shakily.

“I wanna read more,” Minho slowly grinds their hips together, the thick outline of his cock is hot through the thin layer of his slacks, gliding easily against Jisung’s own joggers.

“Do you think they can scissor in the omegaverse?”

Jisung lets out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan.

“What’s with you and scissoring?”

Minho’s hands creep further down his back, squeezing at his bare hips and guiding Jisung’s rocking, slowing the movements down so they’re paced and purposeful.

“I can just tell how much you like it.”

Jisung flushes, so easily read by Minho.

As his brain becomes foggy, hazing over with the husky sent of Minho and the electricity crawling through his body, he wonders how he ever thought he could hide this from him in the first place.

Minho could probably still see him from space.

Minho noses at the corner of Jisung’s mouth, their lips brushing with each shaky grind.

“Oh, fuck.” Jisung hisses on a particular good grind, the drag of his cock against the soft fabric has his head spinning.

“Minho-hyung, more.” He begs against Minho’s throat. “More, please, more.”

Minho’s hand comes down between them so he can palm at Jisung through his sweats, he hisses when his fingers curl around the outline of Jisung’s cock.

Jisung can feel it himself then, the dampness pressed back against his own skin as Minho continues to grind his palm up and down.

He’s wet, dripping already through the sweatpants. He tries to grind himself closer, more to hide what he’s worried is an embarrassing wet spot.

But Minho pushes on his chest until Jisung’s back arches, eyes drawn to the mark seeping through.

 “Fuck, you’re already dripping through,” he mutters, voice low and teasing. “Good boy." just like that.”

Minho faulters, only for a second, his movements come to a stop.

Jisung hums in confusion, but then he’s dragging Jisung closer against his hand.

“Do all omegas get as we as you?”

Jisung thinks the world stops for a second. Or maybe it’s simply just his heart.

“Min-Minho-hyung…” He stammers.

“Is this, okay?” Minho noses at the corner of Jisung’s mouth, their lips brushing with each shaky grind.

“I…” Jisung feels a weird flood of emotion.

Minho, his not even really boyfriend, is willing to engage in omegaverse roleplay. Despite everything.

Minho watches Jisung’s expression and clearly takes it as hesitance.

“You’re… gonna have to walk me through the law a little bit.” Minho half jokes, “but I think it’s hot, if you do…”

Jisung blinks up at him.

“… it’s actually really normal for omega’s to get wet during their heats, actually.”

Minho breaks into a grin.

“Oh, yeah?” He gives Jisung one last harsh squeeze and then guides him back to the thick of his thigh.

Fuck, has Jisung missed these thighs.

“Tell me more, baby. If you’re good,” he presses his thigh up harsh, “I’ll reward you.”

Jisung gulps.

“I-it’s… it’s not just, uh, heats and ruts. There’s, like..mating marks, and scenting, and… uh..knotting.” The last word makes his cheeks burn, but he keeps talking, words spilling as fast as his breath. “It’s…it’s when the alpha’s cock swells and locks inside, and—and the omega can’t move away, they just… stay there. S-stuffed full and…” His voice wavers, another whimper breaking through. “…n-not alone.”

Minho stills for a moment, then lets out a low laugh against his ear. “You’re really getting off on lecturing me, aren’t you?” He grinds down again, but is still grinning. “Do you get a little hard when you get to tell me fun nature facts, too?”

Jisung lets out a wrecked sound, somewhere between a whimper and a laugh, his hips still grinding helplessly. “Sh-shut up, it’s—ahh—important—”

“Important?” Minho presses his thigh harder up between Jisung’s legs, making him jolt. “Feels pretty fucking urgent, bug. You’re soaking through me.”

Jisung whines, high and pathetic, clinging tighter. His mouth keeps moving, words spilling even as he gasps. “It’s not—just porn—it’s—it’s the bond, the scent, the… the way they can’t let go—” Another broken moan cracks his voice. “Feels safe.”

That makes Minho’s grin falter, his eyes darkening. “Safe, huh?” His hand cups Jisung’s ass, dragging him harder against his thigh.

Minho hums, all fake sympathy and false concern. “Jagiya. Is that it? Surely there’s more to your world building than that.”

Jisung chokes on a sobbing moan, his face buried in Minho’s neck. “It’s too much, hyung—f-feels too good—”

“Yeah?” Minho noses at his hairline, breath rough, voice dropping lower. “You get worked up just explaining it? My little omega getting hot over his own world building?”

Jisung whimpers at the word omega like it’s lit a fuse under his skin. His hips stutter fast, messy, and he gasps,

“D-don’t call me that—” even though his cock is already straining against damp boxers, leaking.

“Don’t?” Minho smirks, grinding him down slow, deliberate. “But you’re twitching on me. My poor little baby, doesn’t even know what he wants, hm?”

The sound Jisung makes is humiliatingly loud, a cracked, keening sob. He squirms in Minho’s lap like he can’t decide if he’s trying to get away or get closer, fingers digging into his shoulders.

Minho just holds him steady, voice gone husky. “So sensitive. You’re really about to come like this, aren’t you?”

Jisung nods, grinding down harder now. It’s humiliating and vunerable, and the scorching hot promise of an orgasm is at the tip of his cock –

Minho’s thigh shifts beneath him at the last second, breaking the rhythm Jisung was chasing. His whole body jerks, a sharp cry tearing out of him as the pressure slips away. His hips keep stuttering anyway, like muscle memory, like his body refuses to accept it’s been denied.

“Uh-uh,” Minho’s lips twitch higher into a smirk. “Omega’s don’t get to come until the end of their heats.”

“Hyung,” he gasps, clutching at Minho’s shirt with trembling fists. His voice cracks with frustration, high and raw. “That’s not—no, that’s wrong—”

The noise that rips out of Jisung is almost a sob, desperate and shaking. “They—they come a lot in heat, hyung. Over and over, they can’t stop—so I should—ahhh, I should—”

Minho hushes him with a thumb brushing his lower lip, eyes dark but soft. “Not my omega.” The words land with finality, warm and cruel all at once. “My omega waits.”

“Hyuuung, thats not how that works.” Jisung whimpers, outright pouting even as his cock throbs, leaking through thin fabric. His face is pink and wet, shame and want tangled together. “Let me—please, I’ll die—”

“You’re not dying.” Minho kisses the corner of his mouth, gentle against the desperation. His thigh presses back in, grinding him slow, lazy, nowhere near enough. “You’re needy. Big difference.”

Jisung tries to wiggle again, desperately chasing the feeling as the burn of his potential orgasm fades too quickly. He knows if he just rubs himself right, just a little, he can still get a quick release.

But Minho’s grip is final.

“No.” Minho’s voice is quiet, but there’s no room for argument. He kisses Jisung’s swollen mouth once, then again, softer, until Jisung’s cries taper into little hiccupped gasps. “Not like this.”

Jisung lets out a broken noise, half whine, half plea. His hips buck uselessly, soaking through both their clothes, his face hot with shame. “Hyung, I-I can’t hold it… please.”

But Minho is shaking his head. He kisses him again, deeper this time, his tongue slipping into Jisung’s mouth when he lets out another whimper, his fingers tug in Jisung’s hair until he opens wider.

Jisung can feel Minho’s own cock twitch against his hip, the way he chases his own pleasure in tight little circles.

But then he’s pulling away, still shaking no.

Jisung juts his lip out, even though he already knows it won’t get him anywhere.

“Don’t pout at me, bug.” Minho tuts softly and strokes Jisung’s jaw with his thumb, like he’s petting something fragile. “Not here,” he says finally, almost gentle but with an edge that makes Jisung shiver. “Not like this. I’m not letting you ruin these sweatpants. You want to come? You’re gonna do it properly. In bed.”

Jisung stills at the mention of bed.

The bed. His bed. Located in Jisung’s bedroom.

Nobody ever goes into Jisung’s bedroom. It’s the only room he keeps the door tightly shut on.

But he can’t turn back now, he’s not even sure he wants too anymore.

Minho senses his hesitation. “We… don’t have too.”

Jisung quickly shakes his head. “No—no, I want too…” He swallows hard, throat dry. “I do.”

The words are true, but his feet won’t move. The thought of Minho stepping past that threshold makes his stomach twist. The mess, the half-finished sketches scattered everywhere, the stack of reference books that don’t look so innocent out of context and –

fuck, the shelf.

Nobody goes in there. Not Chan, not Hyunjin, not even Felix. Not even if someone needs to stay the night. Jisung has kept it off-limits for a reason.

Minho studies him, patient, thumb still stroking along his jaw. “Bug,” he says, softer now. “We can stay here. Couch works just fine. Floor too, if you want more messy.”

Jisung shakes his head again, quicker this time, like he can shake the panic out of his chest.

“I said I want to,” he insists, voice high and unsteady. His fingers curl tight in Minho’s shirt, anchoring himself. “Just—just give me a sec.”

Minho doesn’t push, just waits. It’s infuriating, that patience. It makes Jisung feel seen in a way that’s scarier than being rushed.

Finally, he forces his legs to move, tugging Minho by the wrist and towards the door at the back of the living room. Minho follows obediently, pressed against Jisung’s back so he grind himself gently into his ass as Jisung fiddles with the door handle.

When it pushes open, Minho twirls Jisung back round so he can lick back into his mouth. His hands caress over Jisung’s chest, his thumbs rubbing over his nipples through his shirt as they tumble into the room.

Minho only pulls apart to cast a half-interested eye around the room. He doesn’t seem too shocked by what he says, takes in the scattered paper, a small quirk of his eyebrow as he sees the stack of clearly 18+ BL that sits by Jisung’s messy bed.

And then his gaze drifts up, and he pauses.

His jaw goes slack a little in surprise.

It’s a fair enough reaction, really, to the display of colourful, well sculpted dildos Jisung has above his bed.

At first glance, it could be mistaken for an art piece. He’s organised them like everything else in his flat, colour coded into a rainbow — smallest to biggest.

There’s a dark red one, shaped to look like a fantasy dragon, that comes with a cracked dragon egg stand. In the greens, one is adorned with ivy and glitters in the light, his fae dick.

And in the purples, there’s a distinctive, rubbery looking tentacle.

It’s one of Jisung’s favourites and happens to be one of the first he’d ever brought. Under the guise to himself that it was for studying, that if he wanted to dive deeper into the realms of monster fucking, he needed a reference for drawing.

And a reference for texture. And, eventually, a reference for fucking.

“Stop staring.” Jisung hisses, insecurity scratching at his throat.

Minho spares him a small glance before he goes back to staring.

“Baby,” Minho breathes. His arms find their way back around Jisung’s shoulders, and one grasps at his throat. He tilts Jisung’s head up to look at his own shelf.

“Pick one.” Minho scrapes a fingernail down his throat. “I want to fuck you with it.”

The words thrum through him. Jisung’s pulse hammers where Minho’s hand curls around his throat.

Jisung can’t breathe. His eyes lock helplessly on the purple tentacle toy, he should look away, but he can’t. The sight of it in Minho’s hand feels like his insides have been peeled open.

Minho clocks it instantly, the way Jisung’s thighs clench, the way his chest heaves.

“Oh.” Minho gasps. “Oh baby. Of course.”

He doesn’t wait for Jisung to confirm, Minho can tell which one he’s looking at.

Minho softly deposits Jisung onto the bed and reaches around him on his tiptoes, slowly coiling his hand around the purple tentacle.

It lays thick and heavy in his hands. Jisung’s eyes are glued to the way Minho’s short fingers trace over the ridges, dipping into one of the suctions and circling around over and over.

He shuffles onto the bed and strokes down, holding the dildo level with his crotch.

Jisung thinks he can feel his brain leaking out of his ears.

Despite his confident stance, Minho’s ears have gone bright red again.

“Bug, lube?”

Jisung scrambles to comply, throwing his body across the bed to chuck his bedside draw open. Minho coughs out a laugh as he trips back over himself to present it to Minho.

“My sweet omega,” Minho murmurs, still pumping his hand down the tentacle like it’s really his own cock. “How am I suppose to fuck you through all these layers, hm?”

Jisung nods frantically in agreement. “Excellent observation.” He agrees easily and begins to try and wrestle his sweats off as quickly as possible.

The legs curl around his feet and he almost goes toppling off the bed as he traps one leg of the jogger under his knee. Minho reaches out to steady him.

“Woah, easy tiger.” He giggles. He uses Jisung’s lack of balance to snag his free hand under Jisung’s thighs instead and drag him down the bed. From there it’s much easier to pull the joggers down all the way from him.

Minho’s tongue darts between his parted lips as the clothing, damp from sweat and whatever else Jisung has been leaking, reveal his shaking thighs and bare skins.

His cock springs free and slaps softly against his tummy, glistening from where he’d steadily been leaking.

“I knew you weren’t wearing underwear.” Minho shuffles his way up the bed, abandoning his new favourite dildo to instead claw his way up Jisung’s bare legs and press his nose into his groin. He teases gentle finger tips up the shaft of Jisung’s cock and, humiliatingly, it reminds Jisung of how he holds his art work.

“I forgot in my rush…” Jisung breathes out, but he knows Minho isn’t really interested in the answer.

He’s too busy breathing Jisung in, not deterred from what Jisung can only imagine isn’t a necessarily a pleasant smell. He’d ran to the coffee shop, got caught out in the rain, it must just be sweat and musk.

But when Minho licks a stripe across it’s groin he groans like its a taste he can’t get enough of.

“My omega,” he mumbles again, “smell so good, baby. I’m gonna sent you up.”

Jisung bites back a laugh and swallows down the desire to correct him. It’s crazy Minho is willing to do this, wants too, but the sentiment hasn’t been lost on Jisung.

It is, in some ways, the most romantic thing anyone has done for him.

Minho looks up at him, eyebrows set as he still noses at the crease of his thigh. It’s torturous, really. Minho knows where Jisung wants his mouth, and Jisung knows for that reason alone Minho won’t give it to him.

Instead Minho pulls himself up onto his elbows and manoeuvres himself up until his thigh’s are caging Jisung’s. His clothed crotch bumps up against Jisung’s bare cock subtly. His slacks feel smooth and silky against Jisung’s bare head.

Minho reaches behind him for the dildo and the lube. He squirts a large glob onto his palm and then runs it up and down the shaft.

Then, he taps it against his lip.

“Get it nice and wet for me, Jagiya.” Minho instructs, slowly pushing the tip of the tentacle past Jisung’s pilant lips. “Remind your alpha how good you are at sucking cock.”

Jisung whines in protest but still lets Minho push the silicone into his mouth. He doesn’t want the tentacle; he can have this piece of plastic any day of the week. He wants the real thing, trapped somewhere behind too many layers and buttons.

He tries to illustrate that without popping his mouth off the dildo. He sucks on it diligently, letting his tongue explore the ridges and suckers, feels the way it bends up against the roof of his mouth and the slap against his tongue. The taste of artificial strawberry dances in his mouth, and then just becomes goo.

At the same time he reaches for Minho’s crotch, eyes big and wide and pleading as he fumbles for the button.

As expected, Minho pins his hands down.

“Needy thing.” He coos. “You already have my cock, hm? The one you’ve been drooling over. What more can you want?”

“No,” Jisung protests, trying to widen his jaw so he can get the words out around the dildo. “real thing.”

“Lets see how good you can be for this cock, and maybe I’’ll think about giving you another.” Minho retracts the tentacle from Jisung’s lips with a little pop.

His hands find purchase on Jisung’s thighs, and he slowly drags them apart. They tremor under the anticipation, and Jisung does his best not to try and snap them shut as Minho pushes them into a bend.

“My bambi legs.” Minho giggles, he gives Jisung’s knee a little kiss. And then he slaps his thigh. “Turn over, bug, I can’t fuck you with something like this on your front.”

Jisung huffs in protest but still does what he’s told. His hands haven’t even hit the bed yet and Minho has already positioned a pillow under his hips and placed one by his arms.

Then, he digs his fingers on Jisung’s bare hips and draws him up.

“Wait.” Jisung says suddenly. He looks over his shoulder, face crumbling a little. “Ah, I’ve cleaned, Hyung, but I haven’t cleaned, cleaned.” He feels his skin prick with shame. “We don’t have to - “

Before he’s even finished the sentence, Minho has parted his cheeks and licked a hot stripe right over Jisung’s hole.

“Hyung.” Jisung yelps.

Minho huffs out a small laugh, but his eyes stay dark with want. “Jisung-ah, I wouldn’t play in the woods if I ever minded getting a little dirty.”

“Hyung!”

“It’s true, bug. Please don’t worry, I know you didn’t have time to prep like that. But I can still smell the honey sugar of that lush soap you like. You’re clean.”

He then leans across and presses Jisung’s head back down into the cushion, back arched.

“Or maybe, that’s just your sent.” He murmurs.

Jisung’s pulse picks up somehow even faster. He wonders if maybe he’ll go into cardiac arrest, and they’ll have to take him away with his dick out and a tentacle dildo next to him on the stretcher.

His thoughts are interrupted by the pop of the lube cap and the sound of Minho smearing it over his palms, the slick sound of it sticking.

He is still shocked when a finger prods gently at his entrance. A particularly slick finger.

There’s more lube than usual, Minho has basically balanced an entire glob onto his finger and is massaging it around his sensetive hole, down the back of his thighs and in between his cheeks. All without pushing in.

“Oh Jisungie,” he coos, “you’re getting so wet, bug. You must really need this, huh?”

The almost permanent red that’s bloomed on Jisung’s cheeks has found its way down his neck and across his shoulders, it probably pools rosy even in the dimples in his back.

“Hyung-ah.” He whimpers.

“Tell me how bad you need me, Jagiya.” Minho keeps prodding but not pressing. Another spitting sound and even more lube is being smeared over his ass. “Fuck, you’re dripping.”

“I need you.” Jisung gasps. And he means it, on so many levels. “Minho-hyung, Jagiya, I need you. I can’t, please.”

“I need you too, Bug.” Minho reassures, and then he finally presses his finger in.

It’s a relief but nowhere near enough. Minho’s fingers aren’t long or thick, but he knows how to move his wrist in such a way that it strokes Jisung’s walls perfectly. He’s a little pent up, so it takes maybe a bit longer than usual before a second finger can accompany.

The pace is consistent, a slow pounding that has Jisung hiccuping little gasps as he slips them fully out and then all the way back in. He purposefully curls in a way that fills him up, but doesn’t touch his prostate. And when he tries to grind his hard on into the mattress, Minho reaches out and stills his hips.

The minute slur into one, Minho will only stop to dribble more lube into his crack every now and then, pushing it inside him until Jisung thinks he must really be slick inside and out.

“Hyung,” he slurs, “please, Minho-hyung. I wanna come, I need to come, please.”

“You don’t need anything.” Minho hums, his fingers slip out and Jisung swears he can hear a little pop sound.

“But, you’re so nice and wet for alpha now. It would be a shame to waste it.”

Jisung props himself up on his elbows and nods feverishly, eyelashes fluttering. His eyes feel wet, just like the rest of his body.

Minho is picking back up the tentacle dildo and Jisung can feel his breath catch his throat.

Jisung has just enough time to whimper before the blunt, ridged head of the toy is nudging at his rim.

It’s nothing like Minho’s fingers.

Slicker, heavier, curved wrong in a way that makes his body seize up and then shudder loose all at once. Minho pushes slow, patient but relentless, until the first thick ridge parts him. Jisung gasps, fists flying up to clutch the pillow beneath his face.

“Baby,” Minho drawls, voice thick with want. “Look how pretty it looks in you. Like it was made to go inside.”

Jisung whines, the sound muffled by the cushion. “Hyung, don’t—”

“Don’t what? Don’t fill up my needy little omega? Hm?” Minho’s tone sharpens into a purr.

The first push is slow—too slow. The ridges catch and drag over his rim, making his whole body shudder. The toy bends slightly with his twitching, then springs back into shape as Minho works it deeper.

“F-fuck,” Jisung chokes, his toes curling into the sheets. His thighs tremble around the intrusion, every ridge sending sparks up his spine.

“Yeah?” Minho presses the base down, forcing another few inches inside. “Feel all those bumps? It’s not even halfway yet, sweetheart. My poor bug’s already dripping.”

The toy curves with his body, sliding in a way that has Jisung keening, but Minho is ruthless in his precision. Every thrust skirt just shy of that sweet spot, grazing close enough to make his cock twitch but never, ever hitting it.

“Hyung, please,” Jisung’s voice breaks completely, wet with tears. His arms tremble where he props himself up, hips pushing back desperately against every movement. “I-I don’t wanna cum yet, not with that, I want you, please, please,”

Minho thrusts it back in and presses it down harder, the tip of the tentacle curls against his prostate and makes him jump.

“Let me come, hyung. No, hyung. I don’t want to come.” Minho mocks, “Aiesh, make up your mind Jagiyah.”

Jisung babbles, head shaking against the cushions, his voice hoarse and frantic. “I swear, I’ll be good—don’t make me—don’t let me—” His body jerks as the ridges grind deep again, tears sliding hot down his cheeks.

Minho massages the tentacles silky ends more purposefully now, pushing hard against Jisung’s prostate in a way that makes his head spin.

 “Hyung, I’ll cum, I can’t hold it—”

Minho’s free hand slides up to fist gently in Jisung’s hair, tugging just enough to tilt his head back. “Yes, you can. My omega can wait.”

The toy pushes in deeper, curving, dragging slick and obscene inside him. Every ridge is a taunt, every thrust another test of his restraint.

Jisung is wrecked—face blotchy and wet, chest heaving, cock leaking a dark stain into the sheets beneath him. His voice breaks into little sobs, begging on repeat. “Please, hyung, not like this, I need you, I need you—”

“Poor baby,” Minho coos, his tone so condescending it burns. “So needy. So wet. Crying because you can’t cum on fake cock. What would you do without me, hm? Just grind yourself raw on this thing until you broke?”

Jisung shakes his head furiously, hiccupping through his tears. “No, hyung, no, I need you. I only want you. Please, not it—”

“Not it?” Minho laughs softly, pulls the toy out another inch. “Say it properly.”

“I want your cock,” Jisung gasps, desperate enough to choke on the words. “Please, hyung, I’ll do anything. Just you, not it, only you—”

That’s when Minho finally withdraws the toy fully. It leaves with a slick, obscene pop that makes Jisung whimper in relief and frustration all at once. His body clenches down on nothing, needy and fluttering.

“Good boy,” Minho murmurs, tossing the toy aside. He spreads Jisung open with both hands, thumbs stroking over the mess of lube and slick. “Look at you, swallowed it right up. Bet you’ve thought about this a hundred times, huh? Drawing tentacle cocks and wondering how it would feel.”

Jisung shakes his head helplessly, he feels dizzy with want and need. Like if Minho doesn’t push inside now he might just choke on the longing.

Minho must sense his distress. He crawls up Jisung’s bare back to plant kisses over his shoulder blade.

“It’s okay, bug. You’ve been so good, done so well for me.” He presses a kiss into the back of his hair. “Doing okay up here?”

Jisung doesn’t think he can string a sentence together right now, but he does have enough sense to twist himself around so they can smash their lips together. He kisses desperate; after being fucked on plastic he’s never needed more to feel Minho’s hot skin.

He paws at the buttons of Minho’s shirt, because he’s ridiculous and still fully dressed. Jisung would call him out on the obvious kink he has, if they weren’t in the middle of perhaps the most self-indulgent half roleplay Jisung could ever come up with.

But maybe Jisung’s tears have finally melted Minho’s heart, as he gently curls his fingers around Jisung’s and guides hinto unbuttoning his shirt. Then he’s pressing Jisung back down with a kiss to his back.

The sound of his belt coming loose and button popping undone echo in the silence of the room. It’s the only real thing Jisung can register over his own heavy breathing, body taught like a string with anticipation.

Minho slaps his ass lightly. “Need to relax, bug. I’m not fucking you tense.” He kneads at Jisung’s ass, as if he really believes that would be soothing.

Jisung focuses on matching Minho’s breathing, trying to force his muscles to relax as Minho dribbles more strawberry lube over his cock.

Jisung gives a little nod, steadying himself. Heartbeat no longer shuddering in his ear drums.

Minho clearly seems satisfied too. He can hear the slick sound as he works the lube over his cock, the hiss of relief he lets out as he finally has some kind of skin contact. Jisung doesn’t know how he does it, really.

I get lost in you, bug. He’d once said. And then Jisung had asked him to never repeat it again out of embarrassment.

He thinks he might like to hear it again now, though.

Then finally, finally, he presses the blunt head of his cock to Jisung’s hole.

Jisung shudders, the sob that breaks out of him raw and wrecked. “Jaigya.”

“Breathe, sweetheart,” Minho soothes, pushing in steady and unrelenting. His cock stretches him open, thick and burning, filling every inch that the toy had teased without satisfying. The ridges are gone, the bend is gone, just the hot, solid weight of Minho, sliding right to the hilt.

Jisung keens, his body arching up to meet it, voice cracking around the sound. His cock drags against the sheets, drooling pre-come, his thighs trembling so hard they knock.

“That’s it,” Minho hums, kissing the sweat at the nape of his neck, voice smug and sweet all at once.

Minho thrusts into him, almost a little experimentaly, and finally his composure breaks with a little cry.

He sound is broken, strained, panting as he begins to set a deep, hard pace. Nothing like the smug composure he’s clung to. His hips stutter as he grinds in deep, cock trembling inside Jisung.

“Fuck, baby, too tight, too wet, I can’t—oh, fuck—”

Minho sounds wrecked, like he’s the one begging. His hands claw at Jisung’s hips, desperate to keep him still. “God, I’m losing it, Jisung-ah. You’re—fuck—you’re milking me, I can’t—” His laugh catches, hysterical at the edges. “Supposed to be teasing you, baby, but I can’t even breathe.”

“Hyuuung,” Jisung sobs, cheeks wet, drooling into the cushion. He tries to move, to grind down, but Minho pins him harder and ruts helplessly, shallow thrusts betraying his control.

“Don’t pout—don’t, bug, I’ll give in.” Minho’s voice cracks. His forehead presses to Jisung’s shoulder, his teeth sinking clumsily into skin like he needs the anchor. “You’re mine, Jisungie, my pretty omega, fuck—if you keep squeezing me like this I’ll cum before you do.”

Jisung whines at that, eyes glassy. “Please, Minho-hyung. I wanna—I can’t, it hurts—please—”

Minho’s laugh is hoarse, half-choked. He fucks into him rough, erratic, like he’s chasing the edge himself. “You’re not the only one suffering, sweetheart.”

Minho’s voice is shredded, half-groan, half-snarl. His hips slam forward, sharp and unsteady, like he’s chasing something he can’t quite catch.

Jisung keens high and broken, pushing back into every thrust like he’s starving for it. His arms give out, cheek pressed into the pillow, drool slicking his chin. “Hyung, hyung, hyung,” It’s a litany, a prayer, all he can cling to. His thighs shake as Minho drives into him harder, wetter, every stroke pulling another whimper from his raw throat.

“Fuck, baby, fuck, listen to you.” Minho pants, voice cracking with every slam of his hips. His hands grip Jisung’s waist so tightly it’ll bruise, dragging him back onto his cock like he can’t bear even a second without him. “So good, so wet, all mine, all mine, fuck—I’m gonna lose my mind.”

The rhythm turns frantic, sloppy, both of them rutting like they’ll die if they stop. Minho’s chest presses to Jisung’s back, breath hot and ragged in his ear.

“Gonna make you cum on me, bug, make you fall apart for me, God, please, I need it—”

Jisung sobs into the cushion, voice breaking around every thrust. His cock leaks untouched against his stomach, smearing mess across the sheets. “Hyuuung, I’m—ahhh, I can’t—I’m gonna—” His whole body tightens, trembling on the brink.

And then, blind and shaking, he throws a hand back. His fingers scrabble at the air until Minho catches them, tangling together like they’re holding on for dear life. Minho groans at the contact, forehead pressed to the back of Jisung’s shoulder, their knuckles crushed together between slick skin.

“Do it, baby, fuck, do it with me.” Minho’s thrusts grow rougher, desperate, his rhythm breaking as he chases his own edge. “Cum for me, please, please—”

Jisung shatters with a cry, his body locking around Minho’s cock, pulsing and spasming as cum spills hot across his stomach. He sobs through it, overwhelmed, wrung out, fingers squeezing Minho’s like a plea he can’t voice.

Minho follows instantly, the sight and feel of Jisung undone tipping him over the edge. He gasps against Jisung’s skin, hips grinding deep as he spills inside, hot and thick, until it overflows and leaks out around him. His breath catches on a half-laugh, half-moan, too wrecked to stop himself. “Oh, fuck, baby, it’s everywhere—”

Jisung whimpers at the sensation, cum oozing warm between his thighs. His body trembles with aftershocks, twitching as Minho stays pressed inside him, holding his hand tight, both of them breathing ragged and desperate like they’ve just barely survived it.

“Hyung”, Jisung is hiccuping before he can help himself. “I missed you.”

Minho’s palms find their way back to his ass and grabs gently. “Oh, bug.” He whispers. “I don’t have to go anywhere ever again. Just, fuck. Stop trying to return my keys. Okay?”

Jisung hiccups on a laugh, and nods. “Okay, hyung.”

Minho pulls out with a hiss and collapses down next to him.

The clean up is quick and methodical. Jisung feels so weak on his legs he wonders if his bones had cracked with the force of his orgasm. But as they stumble into the shower together, Minho drags them up into his lap and asses that, although fun to squidge, their is still bone underneath.

When they’re clean and both smell of Jisung’s fancy sugary Lush soap, they collapse back into bed. There’s a distinctive wet spot that Jisung has elected to throw a blanket over instead of deal with. And as much as Minho protests, it’s not his house. So, Jisung finally wins a round of this particular argument.

They lie in bed next to each other, their hair still a little wet and fuzzy. Jisung watches as Minho taps away at his phone, swapping shifts around to ensure that Jeongin has enough last-minute cover for tomorrow that Minho doesn’t have to leave all day. He’s already sent a text to his neighbours asking them to check in on the cats.

Jisung watches him for a few more minutes, his eyes stroll lazy around the room and land on a stray water colour paint pot he must have accidentally kicked into the room in his rush this afternoon.

Jisung sits up suddenly.

The painting! How could he forget?

Before he can back out, Jisung is swinging his feet off the bed and marching towards the door.

Minho reaches out and grabs his wrist, halting him. Minho’s fingers flex slightly and there’s a beat of panic across his face, then he looks embarrassed. Like he hadn’t meant to reach out, a shameful reflex.

“Where are you going? You’re coming back, right?” Minho asks quickly.

Jisung’s stomach twists with guilt.

“Yeah, of course hyung.” He reaches to catch Minho’s fingers and give them a little squeeze. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

Minho gives a little nod and then lets go.

Jisung doesn’t think he’s ever been on the other side and caused insecurity before. It’s hard to picture someone like Minho, so self-assured and confident and put together, could be broken down by the likes of him.

It’s hard to imagine him meaning that much to anyone.

Minho means that much to him, though. So, he understands the feeling, the way it swallows you whole and eats away at you all at once.

He’s just not as good at saying it as Minho is.

It’s why he makes a very active effort to go back into his study, carefully push away the box of cereal he’d forgotten about and reach for the rucksack. Still sitting there, waiting for him.

He waddles back into the room, digging through it until the canvas comes into view.

Minho is sitting up in bed scrolling through his phone. He clicks it off as Jisung places himself back down crossed legged across.

“Hi.” Jisung says.

Minho smiles crookedly. “Hey, bug.”

“This is going to be a bit cringe… especially after, uh, everything we just did. But I want you to have this.”

He leans forward, almost in a little half bow, and stretches his arms out for Minho, painting clasped between shaky fingers.

Minho takes it off him and turns it over, brows pinched together in confusion. But the creases in his expression smooth quickly as his eyes grow wide and a little shiny, brown catching ember in the low lamp light.

“It’s my cats.” Minho whispers.

Jisung nods heavily. “Yeah, and you… well. Your feet…”

Minho looks up, and then back at the painting, and then back at Jisung. Like he can’t quiet work out where he wants to look. “I don’t… why?”

“I wanted it to be a birthday present… but then I fucked up so bad I was worried there wouldn’t be a birthday to give it to you. So then I sort of painted it over 48 hours without stopping in some kind of panic spiral — “

“Jisung —”

“I’m okay!” Jisung puts up his hands to steady Minho’s panic. “I swear, uh. We can make ramen later.” He glances at his bedside table. “..2am dinner, it’s fine! Just, I really, really wanted you to have it.”

Jisung’s finger clasp anxiously over Minho’s, dragging them into his own lap. He stares at the way they tangle together. “Even if it’s super scary, and I’m really embarrassed.” He says in a rush. “But I really, really like you and…”

He takes one more deep breath.

“And right now, I just want to give my boyfriend something nice.” He hesitates, panic shooting through his nerves, his fingers twitch and he squeezes Minho’s hand hard. “That is, if you would want to be my boyfriend. After all of that. Will you be my boyfriend?"

The silence stretches, and the panic finds its way back through his veins and into his chest. He’s misread it, hasn’t he? This was a curtsey hook up, a farewell fuck, and Minho was just being considerate and indulgent and —

He’s snapped out of spiral at the first sniff.

He finally braves looking up and is met with Minho staring at him, his eyes glassy with tears. He blinks rapidly and a few spill over, slipping down the slopes of his pretty cheeks and one bleeding into his lip.

Jisung feels his own eyes begin to swell. He always cries when someone else cries.

He quickly reaches forward to press his thumb under Minho’s eyes.

“Hyung, hyung, please don’t cry. Minho-hyung, what did I do? Was it too much?” He babbles. He fidgets with anxiety. “Is the painting not nice? It’s probably not as good as it could of been, it’s a bit of a mess, I’m sorry, you don’t have to be my —”

“You know how much I love my cats.” Minho finally gasps out.

Jisung stills.

“Of course, hyung.” Jisung says softly. “They’re your babies.”

“You’re my baby too.” Minho hiccups. His hands reach out blindly until he can fist in Jisung’s shirt, yanking Jisung as close to his chest as possible.

“I hate crying in front of people.” Minho tries to steady his breath, but it catches on a sob. “You’ll have to pay for this, Han Jisung. No coming for a month.”

Jisung gasps out a laugh. “Hyung, I was being nice. That’s not fair.”

“Never be nice to me again. I’ll lose my street cred.”

He pushes his head into the nape of Jisung’s neck and whispers into his skin.

“They’re perfect, Jisungie. It’s the best thing anyone has ever done for me. Thank you.” Another sniff, and then, “and yes, I want to be your boyfriend.”

The relief and happiness bubble in Jisung’s chest and push past his lips, as he showers Minho in giddy, giggly kisses. He keeps going, blowing raspberries into Minho’s neck and kissing all over his face until Minho is squealing, thrashing so hard their legs begin kicking together.

As the adrenaline bleeds out of their body, the exhaustion finally kicks in.

***

Jisung doesn’t necessarily remember when they fall asleep, but he does distinctly remember what his phone going haywire sounds like, even when his eyelids are as gunky as his exhausted brain feels.

He just about manages to clumsily untangle his limbs from Minho’s without waking him, to smack his hand about until he feels the cool press of his phone screen.

His glasses are left on the nightstand. Minho must have brought them in for him from the bathroom, because Jisung certainly didn’t.

The obnoxious clock his phone announces that its 10.13am, and Chan is spam texting him.

Jisung

Jisung

Han Jisung

Han FUCKING Jisung

You NEED to answer your email!!

Yes or no answer buddy.

The publishes are now drop calling mE. can you reply to them

Or to ME??? so I can tell them WHAT YOUR DECISION IS??

Im making it ur problem, because it literally is kiddo. PLS JUST DECIDE

Jisung’s heart leaps out of his throat. He scrambles to click on his email app, sifting through the hundreds of emails that have piled up over the few days when he couldn’t bare to look at his phone.

RE: Omegaverse BL Episode Submission, Acceptance of Commission.

His heart stops.

Whoops.

After:

Jisung is sitting in the cafe a few weeks later, iced matcha latte cool pressed against his palm as he swirls it around to watch the way the liquid splashes against the little ice cubes.

Chan is on his second tangent about the pacing of Jisung’s chapter, his marker pen hardly pausing as he crosses out and adds comments and cuts bits of dialogue. He only seems to stop when Jeongin slinks back over with the mop in one hand, and two bagged pastries balanced on his arm.

He chucks Jisung’s at him with half hearted aim, and then sets the other bag gently in front of Chan.

“These are for you, Channine-hyung.” He says sweetly. “I baked them myself, Minho-hyung is teaching me how to use the baking oven.” He waves disinterestedly at Jisung. “Split yours with Felix-hyung.”

“You’re so talented, Innie. Is there anything you can’t do?” Chan asks.

“No.” He beams back. “I am talented in lots of different things. I’d be happy to show you, if you’re free after dinner.”

Chan’s eyebrows tilt into a confused frown. Jisung groans, leaning across the table to smack Jeongin with the paper bag.

“Would you please stop coming over and making heart eyes at my editor?”

“He’s not - he doesn’t —” Chan tries to chirp in defence, but Felix is quicker to wave them off.

He scoots the chair he’d been sitting in closer the table, swinging back from where he’d been analysing panels.

“These are really good, Ji. But I think we need to work on the mechanics of hyung’s tentacle dick a bit more.” He taps his chin in thought. “Like you wrote in this speech bubble “ah, sorry, baby, it has a mind of it’s own, just be good and try to take it”…which leads me to ponder. Is it sentient, does it have a mind of his own?”

Jisung nods in consideration but is easily distracted by Jeongin trying to once again wipe down their table, just so he can lean closer to Chan. Jisung he goes back to beating him with his own pastries.

He lifts his arm to smack him again but is stopped by a firm grip.

He tilts his head up, and is met with Minho’s head tilting down.

“Jagiya,” he scolds gently, a little condescending, all the ways he knows Jisung likes, “don’t play with your food.” He kisses Jisung’s knuckles, tongue darting out to lap quickly between his fingers, and then lets go.

“Are you guys almost done? Hyunjin-ah booked the table for eight, it’s already half seven.”

“We can stop here for the night.” Chan agrees, “Felix?”

“Seungmin’s going to bring the car around, he said he won’t drink so he can drive us all home, which means we can get as fucked up as we want, Jisungie.” Felix sighs wistfully and clutches his phone to his chest. “My dream man.”

Minho snorts, he gives Jisung’s shoulder a squeeze. “C’mon, pack up then lovebug. Can’t be late to your own celebratory dinner. Me and Jeongin-ah will meet you outside.”

Jisung watches as he leaves, the sway of Minho’s hips, the way the string of his apron dangles a bow above his ass, like a nicely wrapped gift.

He’s able to wrangle in his horny thoughts for just long enough to gaze up and cast his eyes to the familiar painting framed above the counter.

My family

Reads the little plaque underneath. Stuck over the top of the painting, in the corner, is a crudely drawn picture of Jisung. Minho had said he wasn’t good at drawing, and the evidence does seem to be there. There’s also a stick man with Jeonginnie <3 labled in the far corner.

Cringe. Jisung thinks. More fondly than he’s thought about anything else, ever.