Work Text:
Day 1
“Mingi, we’re ordering delivery. You want anything?” Mingi looked up from his phone, though Yunho only regarded him for a moment before his eyes were led astray to the large worn-leather book that sat on his end table.
“I’m good, I just ate.”
“Alright, I’ll let the guys know.” He wasn’t planning on asking, but that book looked serious and Mingi had never been much of a reader. “What’s with the book?”
“Found it at the flea market, scored it for only ten thousand won. It looks cool, doesn’t it?” He reached over, flapping the cover open and closed. “It’s completely leatherbound.”
“What’s it about?”
Mingi shrugged. “I looked at the first few pages but it’s in old Korean. I don’t really understand it.”
“Can I see?”
Mingi scooted to the edge of his bed, making space for Yunho to sit beside him. He pulled the book onto his lap. “Let’s see if you can make sense of it.”
When Yunho joined him, Mingi flipped it to a random page. Yunho helped hold it open by the corner of the side that opened onto his lap. They flipped through, and on turning to a certain page the book heated, first letting off a glow that quickly brightened to a flash. Two white rings of light appeared around them, one just above their heads and the other around their mid-sections. The two rings snapped together to form one, and then tightened in on them in a compression he felt slam against his chest, prompting a coughing fit.
Yunho pushed the book off his lap, clearing his throat and catching his breath. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know.” Mingi tried reading the page, sounding out what he was familiar with, but it used letters that were dropped in subsequent language reforms, ones that were alien to the both of them. “I can’t understand it.”
His chest cleared up, but it did nothing for his unease. “Jongho has an uncle that graduated with a history degree. He might be able to help us.”
Jongho was on his desktop when they went to his room. He spun in his chair to Mingi and Yunho’s greeting. “Have you guys decided what you want? I’m about to put the order in.” His eye was drawn to the book tucked under Mingi’s arm. “What’s that?”
“That’s what we were hoping to ask.” Mingi presented the book, opening it onto the page they dog eared. When Jongho moved to touch it, Mingi jerked it back out of reach.
Jongho’s brow furrowed. “Hey, what the hell?”
“Sorry. Something freaky happened with it when we touched it. We should’ve said that from the beginning.”
Jongho looked at Yunho, awaiting confirmation. “Mingi’s right. I don’t know how to describe it. It lit up and I felt it go into my body.”
Jongho sounded off a dubious, “Right,” and rolled closer in his chair to get a look. He only glanced at it before looking up at Mingi and shaking his head. “I can’t read this. I only recognize a couple of words. ‘Death’, ‘marriage’. I’m not really sure what they mean in this case, though.”
Yunho nodded. “We figured, but I remember you mentioned your uncle studied Korean history.”
“You’re right, can’t believe you remembered that. You’re in luck, too, it was with a language and literature focus.” He hummed, looking over the book. “You know what? I’ll get some pictures and send them off. I’ll see what he can tell me about it.” While whipping out his phone to take photos, he looked up at them. “But do me a favor?”
“What do you need?”
“Can you tell me your order already? I’m starving.”
-
Day 2
Yunho knew it was serious the moment Jongho shook him awake that morning, dragging him to Mingi’s room for a team effort in waking him up.
His eyelids peeled open to them, turning the other direction to fall back asleep again, but Jongho plucked him up by the shoulder. “You’re going to want to hear this. It’s about the book.”
Mingi grumbled, but he slowly strung himself up and leaned on the wall to stay upright even as his eyelids fluttered closed.
“Yunho, you should also sit down for this.”
Yunho took his advice and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“So, the book is magic."
That woke Mingi up, his floaty lids popping open. Normally Yunho would find that funny, but he was too anxious to appreciate it. “Is it evil?”
“That’s all on who wields it, but the spell that got cast on you is a death curse, so I need you guys to listen to me very carefully. Before you start panicking, it’s very preventable.”
Mingi and Yunho exchanged uneasy glances. He felt his stomach plunge, but the fact that Jongho wasn’t panicking assured him.
“My uncle explained it’s a conditional curse, as in if you satisfy the condition, the curse is lifted. Remember when I saw the word ‘marriage’?”
That was when Yunho started to panic. "We need to get married?"
“How am I going to explain this to my mom? It already took months to convince her Yunho and I weren’t dating.”
“No one has to get married,” Jongho cut in. “I told you guys to listen. Save the questions for the end. The reason why the word 'marriage' was mentioned was because it was a suggested intended use. My uncle said the spell was likely often used for reluctant arranged marriage partners to consummate their marriage.”
That settled most of Yunho's panic. “Oh, then we’re good since we’re not married.”
“Not quite. ‘Intended use’ is the operative phrase here. The spell itself requires consummation to satisfy the condition.”
“Consummation, like-”
Yunho was cut off by Mingi’s subsequent, “Sex?”
Jongho became visibly shy at the mention of the direct word, pointedly avoiding their gazes when he nodded. “Yeah.”
They looked at each other again as the slow horror crept in. Yunho turned back to Jongho. “That has to be a mistranslation. You sure it isn’t just one interpretation of it?”
“I asked him that just in case, if there are alternate translations. He assured me that, no, the words are quite literal and direct. That the text actually uses very plain language for the time.”
“But how,” Yunho hesitated at getting into the meat of it, glancing down into his lap to illustrate his point. “With our anatomy-”
“I asked him that too,” Jongho interrupted, growing visibly more flustered by the second. “He said it doesn’t matter. The spell accommodates the coupling pair.”
“But then how does it work?” Mingi asked.
“The spell actually goes into it. It requires penetration.” Jongho paused, looking at both of them as if he expected an outburst, but both Mingi and Yunho remained attentive. “And whoever is doing the penetration, it’s required that the- please don’t freak out- that the semen is expelled inside.”
“I have to cum inside Yunho?”
“Wait a minute, who said anything about cumming inside me?”
Mingi’s brow furrowed and he folded his arms. “Well, you’re not cumming inside me.”
Yunho was so concerned with the argument that he couldn’t even remember to be embarrassed. “You don’t just get to decide something like this. If anything, I should be cumming inside you. I’m older.”
“Only by a few months.”
The heated argument seemed to distract from the embarrassment of it all, save for Jongho who looked like he wanted to bury himself alive, but Yunho was so dead set on maintaining that he had the ejaculation right of way that he didn’t even stop to think about how loud they were getting.
Wooyoung appeared in the doorway, phone in hand. “I’m talking to my older brother and I’d really appreciate it if you guys stop yelling about who gets to cum in who.” He put his phone up to his ear and started walking off. “No, this isn’t normal. Those two don’t even usually fight,” he got quieter and quieter as he walked away.
“It doesn’t matter who does it,” Jongho raised his voice at them. “Figure it out amongst yourselves. You have a week, today is day two. Find me if you have any other questions.”
In the wake of Jongho leaving the room, both sat against the wall. They looked straight ahead, careful to avoid even crossing gazes. Mingi looked distantly while Yunho kept his eyes fixed on his knees.
As difficult as it was, Yunho broke the silence. “So, what do we do?'
“I don’t know. This is fucking weird.”
“I know. We’re like brothers.”
Mingi looked at him with a grimace. “Now is not the time to say something like that.”
On receiving the look, Yunho nodded definitively. “We’re gonna die.”
Mingi sighed. "We have the rest of the week. We still have time to do research and see if there's any way around it."
At that, Yunho checked his phone as it buzzed. "Jongho just sent us the email chain with his uncle. It tells us about the period and the region it’s from, so we can go from there."
"Alright, let's do this."
Yunho returned to his room and sat at his desk. San was still asleep, but stirred at the sound of his chair squeaking.
"You and Mingi were really loud."
"You heard us?"
San nodded, still half asleep. "Why are you cumming inside him?"
Yunho wanted to bash his skull against the corner of his monitor in hope of speeding up his death. "I'm sorry you had to hear that. It's a long story."
San nodded again, closing his eyes and laying back down. "Tell me later, I'm going back to sleep."
At least Yunho didn't have to address that at the moment, logging into his PC and looking up what he could about the period. He was disappointed to find most of the surviving information was on the ruling families. He would’ve assumed magic was something notable enough to document and protect records of, but what did he know? Mingi found the goddamn book at a flea market, after all.
It seemed Mingi wasn’t far behind on that conclusion, sending him a message on Kakaotalk that echoed the sense of despair. “We’re gonna die.”
They were going to die. He leaned back in his chair, letting it tilt in full while thinking of a response to placate both of them. “We’re not going to die. Maybe the spell doesn’t even do anything.”
“I don’t want to take that chance.”
Yunho didn’t either, frankly, but he didn’t want to respond to Mingi just yet. Instead, he pulled up Notepad to start a list of who got what in the event of his death, though it started getting a little too real realizing the only other member who could inherit and wear his more expensive sneakers was Mingi.
Instead of responding, he decided to get up again and shut himself in Mingi’s room. “Guessing we had the same amount of luck.”
Mingi nodded. “Nothing. I couldn’t find anything about magic.”
There was silence for a moment, Then Yunho raised his fist. To Mingi’s imploring stare, he clarified, “Rock, paper, scissors.”
Mingi blinked. “I’m going to lose.”
“We don’t know that.”
He made a face, but made a fist of his own to start a round. Yunho threw paper to his rock. “Best two out of three?”
“No way.” Yunho counted on his luck on that one. He wholly expected for Mingi to lose, if he was being honest. “I won fair and square. Look, I’ll even do your chores for a month.”
Mingi wore his defeat, pouting and hunching forward as he sulked. Yunho wondered if it was entirely organic or if he made himself look more pitiful on purpose. “Don’t be like that. One of us had to win and one of us had to lose.”
“I always lose,” he whined.
Whatever the case, it was extremely effective. “I’ll do your share of the chores and buy you lunch for a month. How does that sound?”
He perked up at that. “Okay. So, what’s next?”
“We should research a bit.” He sat in bed beside Mingi to get a look at the laptop screen together.
“What should I search?”
“‘Anal sex’, I guess.” Yunho didn’t know why he was surprised when a search for ‘anal sex’ returned porn links. Mingi clicked the first link, sending them to a porn site and a five minute clip clearly cut out of a longer production. A lovely woman with a very round ass was getting fucked from behind.
“It doesn’t look so bad.” Yunho tried to sound optimistic to hype up Mingi. “Look, she seems to be enjoying it.”
“She’s an actress.” After another uncomfortable several minutes of watching porn together in total silence and getting nowhere fast, Mingi backed out to the search again. “Oh, there’s an article about anal training.”
The article was presented as a neat, numbered list. They skimmed the meat of the content, but they read the headers to each section aloud. “A butt plug?”
“I can order one for you.”
Mingi read the blurb silently and then shook his head. “It says I can just use my fingers. I’m not using some toy.”
They moved onto the next section. “Lube. Easy enough.”
Mingi nodded. “I already have that.”
Yunho read a portion of that section to himself, but read ‘water based’ out loud. “Is your lube water based?”
Mingi shrugged. “I don’t know, I never had to care about that before.”
At the point of getting to enemas, they found it was a mistake to discuss the article out loud. Mingi closed out of the browser and shut his laptop wordlessly. “We’re gonna die.”
Yunho nodded with him. “It was a good life, though a little short.” He sighed and stood up again, beginning to mentally re-catalogue the contents of his will and testament. “Hopefully no one tells our parents why we died.”
-
Day 3
Yunho was up early in the morning to catch Jongho just before he left for the gym. “I was hoping to talk to you real quick. About the book thing.”
“I got a few minutes. What’s up?”
“I was wondering, does it have to be Mingi? Can’t it be like, I don’t know, Hongjoong?”
“Why? Nevermind, I don’t want to know. No. It was whoever was touching the book when they opened that page together.”
“Why’d it have to be Mingi? Jongho, I just don’t think I can do this.” He made another noise. “We’ve known each other since grade school.”
“That’s the least of your worries. It’s literally life or death. You don’t really have the luxury to stress the hang ups.”
Yunho sighed. “Goddamn it.”
“I’m sympathetic, I really am. I can’t imagine how difficult this is. I know you're having a tough time coming to terms with it, but it's better to just face this head on." Jongho squeezed his shoulder. "Talking about it like this won't get you anywhere. You're setting yourself up for failure."
Mingi popped his head in. "Hey Jongho." He spotted Yunho and nodded in greeting. "Oh hey. Anyway, Jongho, I was thinking, can't it be with Yeosang or something? Does it really have to be with Yunho?"
Jongho looked between the both of them incredulously before picking up his gym bag. “You know, I feel pretty bad for you guys but I can’t help but think this was meant to happen."
When jongho pushed past them, Mingi looked at Yunho. "What's his problem?"
Yunho shrugged. "I don't know. I think it's a perfectly good question."
"Right? Anyway, I stopped at the drugstore last night."
"Oh?"
Mingi's fingers tapped on the doorway, shrinking away. "I got the right lube and...the thing."
"The butt plug?"
"They don't sell those there. You know, the thing." Mingi emphasized the word 'thing'.
"Ah, the ene-"
"Yeah that thing," Mingi was quick to interrupt.
"So we're really going through with it?"
"I can still return it. The receipt's in my wallet."
"Hold onto it. You know, just in case." He cleared his throat. "I found free will making software online.”
"Don't those need to be done with, like, a lawyer or something?"
“Oh."
"Are you actually writing out a will?”
"I promised San that he'd get my pc if something happened to me so I just wanted to make it official.”
“That makes sense." Mingi stayed by the doorway as if he wanted to say more, the gears in his head turning.
"Maybe we should sit the others down, see how they feel about it,” Yunho suggested. When Mingi nodded, they set out to gather the others.
Aside from Jongho, who was still at the gym, they brought the others together. Yunho and Mingi remained standing while the other five squeezed in together on the couch. Yunho regretted not planning what to say ahead of time with five pairs of eyeballs looking at him expectantly.
Hongjoong led the conversation. “If this is about the magic thing, we all know and we all promised we wouldn’t bring it up. You guys just do what you have to.”
"About that," Yunho started, finding it difficult to articulate but, thankfully, Mingi hardly cared to articulate.
"We were thinking about what could happen if we can't go through with it."
Hongjoong's expression said everything, everyone turned to look at him and an unsettling quiet fell over them. Before he had the chance to say his piece, Seonghwa spoke up. "Guys, it's really no big deal. Your lives aren't worth something this trivial.”
"Forget their lives, I'll bring them back and kill them again myself if they let themselves die because they're, what, too shy?"
Okay, so calling the meeting was a bad idea. Yunho put up both hands, hoping it would remind Hongjoong to calm down. “We’re just saying that there’s a possibility-”
"Don’t even entertain it as a possibility. You two had better start trying by tomorrow otherwise I'm going to watch and get the managers involved, and you're not going to want that. Do I make myself clear?”
Both Mingi and Yunho nodded concurrently, offering a simultaneous and defeated, “Yes, hyung.”
In hindsight, Yunho didn’t know why he thought that would go any other way.
-
Day 4
Badgering was the polite word for Hongjoong constantly checking in on Yunho, whether it was checking to see if he was in his room with San or not-so-gently reminding him with messages on Kakaotalk. It wasn’t until the late evening that Mingi had finally reached out to him with a message that read, “Come to my room.”
About half the dorm was asleep by the time he sent for him, but the walls were paper thin despite that and it wasn’t as if the other six didn’t know. Still, it felt better to pretend to have propriety.
When he shut the door behind him, Mingi refused to look him in the eye. "I, uh, with my fingers right before this. In the shower. And I did with lube just now, too."
Yunho didn't mean to picture Mingi bent over in the shower, but he did. He imagined him pressed up against the wall, reaching behind himself to finger himself open. It was one hell of a mental image. "For how long?"
"Like, fifteen minutes total."
"I don't know, that doesn't sound like enough time."
"It's fine, there's plenty of lube."
Yunho thought that meant left in the bottle, but when Mingi removed his pajama bottoms, even mid-thigh he was wet and sticky with lube. He felt a stir that went hand in hand with his panic. He squashed both feelings down and tried to keep his expression level. “How much did you use?”
"A lot. Everything I read said there’s no such thing as too much.”
It wasn’t lost on Yunho that Mingi wore an especially long t-shirt, one that was hemmed below his crotch. Before it became apparent that he was staring, he brought his eyes up again for the next question. “How many fingers?”
"Two." He noticed Mingi hovering around the waistband of his boxers beginning to fold them down only to let them snap back into place, glancing between Yunho and the floor repeatedly.
"My- I'm a bit bigger than two fingers."
"It's fine. Let's just get it over with.” Instead of ridding of them standing, he sat where the shirt covered a little more. He pulled his underwear off like ripping off a bandaid. Yunho stared at the sudden movement, not even realizing. Mingi cleared his throat to get his eyes back up. “How should we, you know?"
"Well, we probably shouldn't really look at each other."
"Okay, I'll just-" Mingi knelt up on the bed. “Like my hands and knees?”
That wouldn’t be bad. He wouldn’t see Mingi’s face, but on the other hand he’d have a full view of ass, balls and dick. Yunho shook his head. “I think there’s a better way.” Yunho climbed in bed around Mingi, laying down beside him. “Like this, on your side, with your back to me.”
“That’s a good idea.” Mingi held his shirt down while shifting to try and modestly lay on his side.
They’d seen each other naked loads of times in going to saunas and bathhouses together. They’d changed in front of each other often. Yunho never thought about it before, and Mingi had never previously been skittish. It was amazing what context did. It reddened the tips of Mingi’s ears. It caused him to tug down his shirt again every time it rode up even a little bit. It made Yunho sheepish for even looking to begin with.
Every time Yunho so much as stirred he was able to see a tightening of one of the shoulders accompanying one of Mingi’s sudden intakes. “Can you pass me the lube?” He’d startled Mingi with that, saw the way his body tensed completely before registering the question and passing the bottle. He felt for Mingi, anticipating and anxious, only going off of sound and feel, kept waiting as Yunho popped the cap off and slicked himself.
Yunho shut his eyes and thought of women he liked, thought of porn he'd seen. When he was hard enough he figured he'd let sensation do the rest of the work because it was hard to focus knowing he was about to try and fuck one of his dearest friends.
"Okay," Yunho gave the heads up.
"Okay,” Mingi repeated back.
Then he realized he actually had to touch Mingi and his hand froze in place. He could barely see past the curve of Mingi's back, which meant he had to go by touch. He thought of apologizing first, but that seemed worse than just a casual warning. "Gonna touch you now."
"Go ahead."
His heel slid down the top of his ass. He tried not to think too much about how firm and soft it felt and gave Mingi a moment to get used to it, waiting on a more relaxed exhale to continue. He dipped down with two fingers until he felt the hole, hot and wet to the touch. Even if he wasn't sure, it twitched when he brushed the rim.
Now he needed a moment to breathe, kept his hand in place to spread a cheek with his thumb while he reassured himself. His other hand reached for himself, stroking himself a few times hoping to get just a bit harder before guiding and lining up the head of his cock.
He pushed, and Mingi went from twitching at the movement to full on tensing, where Yunho met nothing but resistance. "Stop tensing," and he didn't mean to sound so frustrated, recognizing his mistake only when Mingi got frustrated in return.
"I'm not tensing."
At that, Yunho pushed lightly again, an attempt to prove his point rather than a genuine attempt at penetration. "I can feel you tensing."
"You're not even that hard. You'll slip right out." Mingi craned his head in a half turn, enough to look at Yunho with one of his eyes, and he looked annoyed.
"That's because you keep tensing. You're supposed to relax."
"If you're the expert, you mind telling me how I'm supposed to do that?"
"I'm not trying to pretend I know any better. I'm just saying I can't do this with you tensing up." Yunho rolled onto his back, pulling his pants back up as the argument made him completely soft. "What about a massage? Do you think that’ll work?"
"We can try it." He reached on the floor for his briefs and pulled them back on before rolling onto his stomach.
Yunho stayed to the side, sitting up and reaching over to start by squeezing his shoulders. Just by the satisfied hum that Mingi let off, Yunho was doing well.
The feedback didn't last. As he moved down the back, he went silent. He looked over, seeing Mingi's eyes were closed. It probably meant he was really relaxed. On the lower back, though, when he checked again and saw the mouth slowly gaping, he realized Mingi had fallen asleep.
"Mingi, wake up." He shook Mingi's shoulder.
Mingi blinked, breathing deep and casting a glance at Yunho. "You're really good at giving massages."
"You can go back to sleep. Let's just try again tomorrow." He sat up, getting ready to leave. "We need to prepare more."
-
Day 5
He didn't even get a look at Mingi's hole but he couldn't stop thinking about how it felt when it softened and clenched on the head of his cock. He got a little horny in the morning, found it weird since the idea of actually having sex with Mingi was still alien to him.
It was surprising just how small the things that could cling to memory actually were. He saw only a bit of the swell of Mingi's ass, the dip in his lower back. He always had one hell of a body, but what really stuck around was the memory of thick, lube-slicked thighs. Had things gone as planned, they'd have been slicked with cum. Yunho's cum.
He tried blaming getting hard that early just on morning wood, but he'd been awake for nearly an hour at that point, absently touching himself on and off. He didn't know how to feel about getting hard over Mingi. It felt like a good sign, like it should've been welcomed, but it also made him feel like he crossed a line.
So it was just morning wood, he thought to himself. Morning wood and persistent day-after thoughts. Yunho always had a vivid imagination.
He staved jerking off in hope of better results later, washed up and hung around in the kitchen to fix himself something to eat. Any time he touched a pot handle or a utensil, he hoped it worked to replace the very fresh memory of the way Mingi's hole felt on the tips of his fingers.
He wished he stayed in bed when Hongjoong joined him in the kitchen and accosted him immediately. "Well?"
"Good morning to you too, hyung."
"Yeah, good morning. Is it done?"
Yunho shook his head. "He fell asleep."
"He fell asleep?"
Yunho winced at the implied insult of the words repeated back to him. "I mean, more happened in between. I couldn't- God, I don't feel comfortable talking about this."
"I'm not asking because I'm dying to know the dirty details, you know."
"I know. I really do appreciate it, but it's already bad enough all of you know. It's bad enough that we have to do this in the first place. At least let me keep some of my dignity intact? I promise, we made good progress."
"I trust you, but please just keep me updated?"
"I will."
Hongjoong offered a softened look, and Yunho was just glad to not have the weight of his scorn on top of everything else on his shoulders.
Seeing Mingi was especially jarring, like a familiar stranger, but he was also eager to keep to his room in the midst of their ordeal. That was good. He couldn’t imagine looking Mingi in the eye, talking about mundane things like dance practice or tv shows while he swore he could still remember the way his hole twitched on him.
That thought was terrifying, because to Yunho it posed a danger to their friendship. He thought of throwing a lifesaver in the form of a funny gif or a video of a dog, but every time he hovered on send he backtracked because he also worried that it seemed like he was belittling the situation.
So he kept a comfortable distance, offered a smile in greeting if they so much as passed each other in the hallway, but reserved all talking until Mingi messaged him again that night.
On entering his room, Yunho was greeted with, “I did more reading up on it and I spent more time getting ready. We should be good.”
“Should we just get right into it, then?”
“Yeah.” Just like the previous night, Mingi wore an oversized tee. He was a little less mindful about holding it down to preserve his modesty. At the same time, Yunho got in beside him and pulled his pants down with Mingi’s back to him.
He knew Mingi’s body better now, which was such an odd thought that it made him hesitate. He’d gotten hard multiple times throughout the day, but actually facing Mingi, he was so nervous that no matter how he tried to direct his thoughts and touch himself he stayed soft.
“I’m having trouble.”
“Do you want your phone?”
There was a thought. He'd be able to pull up a video and pour his attention into that instead. “Yeah, hand it to me.”
When Mingi reached over for Yunho’s pants on the ground, he rolled onto his stomach. Without thinking, his eyes snapped to Mingi’s ass, and the moment it registered he was staring at it he corrected his gaze to the back of Mingi’s head while he waited for his phone.
He pulled a favorite video up. Considering everything so far, jacking off next to his friend really wasn’t that much weirder than everything else that had led up to that moment. All Mingi could really do was wait and listen, which made Yunho acutely self conscious of the sound of his palm slamming down his shaft in trying to get hard, or the wet slapping sounds from the lube.
When he figured he was hard enough, he kept the phone angled on the pillow just so he could consult it if need be. “I think I’m good.”
“Okay.”
He felt around again, weirdly giddy about feeling Mingi’s hole, and the fact that it felt a little softer to his touch, less resistant. When he swallowed down, he kept it quiet to not tip Mingi off to his anxiousness.
Mingi breathed in when he spread his ass, and Yunho matched it with an exhale in a call and answer that he hadn’t intended for. He pushed his tip up, holding it like that for a second just in case Mingi tensed up again. With Mingi remaining relaxed, he pressed in.
When he felt his stomach knotting, he looked at his phone to get his mind on the woman on camera getting her holes filled, but Mingi’s breath was loud and heavy. It brought him back to what was really happening, that he was working his way into a friend and his eyes shut tight from the intense onset anxiety that came with it.
He felt himself shrink, going soft against the hole and unable to push in. “I can’t.” He pulled his lower half back to put distance between them after another failed thrust before he’d gone completely soft. “I’m too nervous.”
“You’re nervous?” As if he had any right to be, but Mingi didn’t have to say as much to get the message across.
“I’m sorry. I’m in my head right now.”
Yunho knew the quiet meant Mingi was thinking, but it stung to bask in his failure in total silence. He didn’t want to interrupt when he was strapped for ideas, though, and counted the grueling seconds until the other had a proposal for him.
“I think,” Mingi hesitated. Yunho was just going to let it pass, not wanting to put anymore pressure on him. He turned, partially, and Mingi’s own uncertainty put him a bit more at ease. “This is going to sound weird.”
For the first time that night, he felt a genuine smile come on. “How much weirder can it get?”
And when Mingi smiled back, Yunho felt like maybe their friendship wouldn’t end up unsalvageable afterall. “You know when you’re with someone new, you have to get used to them. Even if our situation is different, it’s not gonna do any good if you’re not comfortable.”
Yunho nodded, urging Mingi to continue.
“We can try just jerking off in the same room.”
“Next to each other?”
“Yeah, but we’ll just lay on our backs and be on our phones.”
It seemed like a good idea, so Yunho readily agreed. Mingi reached for his phone on the end table and both rolled to their backs, careful not to exchange glances or let their eyes wander further than necessary. Movement called the eye, though, and the movement on screen was nothing like the movement in his periphery. His eyes dipped, led astray for a second by curiosity, seeing Mingi stroke his big cock, which he’d seen soft a dozen times but never had seen hard before. It was a little thicker than his, which honestly made Yunho really relieved that he’d won rock paper scissors.
Stares held weight. He felt when Mingi’s eyes swung over, caught him staring at the way Yunho masturbated. Then they glanced up, meeting eyes for a second of lingering panic before snapping back to their phones and pretending like it never happened.
Mingi let himself cum, and he had no reason not to, but it meant Yunho heard the stuttered breaths and the ensuing, slowed sated ones that came in the afterglow. Yunho staved off his again when he got close only following Mingi’s, wondering what that might have meant, if it meant anything.
“Should we try it again?” Mingi’s voice was heavy and low post orgasm. He looked in Yunho’s direction, but still avoided his gaze as if looking through him.
“Yeah, sure,” his own voice sounded especially deep to him as well, affected by his denial. He felt just on edge enough that he thought that maybe they could wrap it up once and for all.
Mingi turned onto his side again, though this time he reached out for the lube and re-applied some in himself. Yunho discreetly stared at the novel sight of him fingering himself open. God, he wanted to cum, an intrusive thought, as appropriate as it was for the situation, because it became especially salient when he watched fingers dip into his hole.
It wasn’t just that he wanted to cum. He wanted to cum inside Mingi.
“I’m good.” The heads up was sobering. When Mingi gave the greenlight, he squashed the feeling of excitement, feeling ridiculous for getting so hyped up over what would just end up being a forgotten moment in their lives.
He applied another coat of lube on himself. Still rock hard, he was easily able to keep grip on himself and push in, feeling the head of his cock sink in and become enveloped. Just that shallow push was enough to get his eyes rolling back into his head until another nudge in earned a grunt that was loud and pained.
“Fuck,” Mingi hissed. When Yunho slowed, he urged, “It’s fine, keep going,” though there was no doubt it was said through gritted teeth. Mingi had terrible pain tolerance.
Any of the good he felt was supplanted by guilt. Guilt for feeling good. Guilt for hurting Mingi. Guilt for partly causing all of it to happen to begin with, and it was like he hit a wall, feeling himself start to lose it and get soft as he secluded himself back in his thoughts.
“Yunho,” Mingi sounded annoyed, but he breathed out a sigh of relief when Yunho pulled away.
“No, I think we’re done for tonight.” He set the boundary, made it clear by standing and pulling up his briefs. “We have two more days. I’m not ready, and neither are you.”
Thankfully, Mingi didn’t argue with him.
-
Day 6
He needed to confide in someone. As brusque as Hongjoong could be, it was from a place of affection. Along with being the first to criticize, he was also the first to listen.
"-And I thought things were moving along like they should've." Yunho chose to speak vaguely, replacing the racier words with gestures that meant nothing, but Hongjoong nodded along like he understood no matter how wild and indecipherable they became.
"But?"
"I hurt him."
"What do you mean? Like, his feelings?"
"No." Yunho made a gesture that involved his hand shaking wildly, which was the first time Hongjoong actually quirked a brow in the course of the conversation. "Him. You know, when we tried to-"
"Oh." He nodded rapidly. "Oh, okay, I get the picture."
"I can't shake the feeling that this'll change things between us. And I don't know how to talk to him about it." He buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know if I even should. Please, please don’t tell anyone else about this, but yesterday, before I hurt him, I was actually looking forward to it. Especially when it was about to happen.”
He didn’t expect Hongjoong to have advice for him, but he reached across the table, grabbed his wrist and squeezed. “Take this one step at a time. Focus on saving your lives and whatever happens afterward, you know you can talk to me. I’m not going to think any different of either of you.”
It was what he needed, bringing the thrum he’d been feeling in his head to a standstill.
Seeing Mingi around the dorm got a little easier, though Yunho also couldn’t help feeling like he wanted to say more than brief greetings and ask more than inane questions. He respected Mingi’s pace, though, and waited until he was called for again at whatever hour he felt ready.
“I was thinking we should try something different so we don’t have a repeat of last night,” Yunho said.
“What’d you have in mind?”
“It’s hard to, with the angles and everything, you know, your own fingers,” he pressed on despite his word salad. He figured Mingi knew where he was getting at. “I could with mine. There’d be better control, then I also have an idea of how much you can handle.” When Mingi looked at him, Yunho held up his hands. “I even cut my nails.”
“We can try it, I guess. How, uh-”
“We can just do it the same way we’ve been trying.”
“Okay.”
He noticed when sliding in beside him in bed that Mingi hadn't even bothered with an oversized shirt. When they got in position, it rode up a bit higher on his back.
Yunho coated his fingers in lube. He remained halfway upright, propped up on an elbow. From that angle, his eyes followed along the arch of Mingi’s lower back and the curve of his ass. "Just let me know if anything I'm doing is hurting you."
Mingi turned his head, making brief eye contact and nodding.
He liked Mingi's ass. It almost didn't feel like an intrusive thought. When he spread it with a hand, he imagined what it would feel like to squeeze it. He reminded himself of his original objective, though, and pressed a finger up to the hole.
It wasn't too different from previous attempts, finding it by catching on the rim. Only now, it’d be going inside. "Okay,” he warned before pushing in up to the knuckle, an easy glide in.
Mingi readjusted himself. He tucked his arm beneath his pillow, making an array of expressions.
"You alright?"
"Yeah. It doesn't hurt at all."
The, 'it's just weird' was left unsaid, certain their thoughts were echoed. And it was weird, Mingi's insides around him, where he could feel every twitch of every movement, tight even on the one finger. It was almost crazy thinking he nearly fit his cock in, and it was almost exhilarating knowing it would have to.
The one finger was easy enough, and Mingi had been regularly fucking himself open on two since the whole ordeal started, so he moved in a second. Mingi's thighs shifted, and Yunho thought that was just a position switch for comfort until he looked over and noticed the head of Mingi's hard cock peeking out from between his thighs.
Fuck. Yunho felt something from looking at cock. From looking at Mingi's cock, and him getting hard probably didn’t mean anything aside from the stimulation doing its job, but the sight had Yunho's mind reeling all the same.
His thighs shifted again with the third finger, squeezing in on himself. Mingi had gone a little flush, breathed out bothered. It wasn't like Yunho was doing much better, he'd gotten hard just knowing he brought Mingi to that point.
He wanted to encourage Mingi to just go ahead and touch himself, but his mouth felt wired shut on acknowledging anything out loud, afraid to to tip off that he’d been interested enough to even be aware of it in the first place. Maybe he wouldn't need to say anything. He shifted himself, pressing his crotch to the back of a naked thigh so Mingi could feel just how hard he was and decide what to do with that information.
He thought there was a chance it wouldn't land, but the turn of Mingi's head, the drag of an eye downward and the understanding raise of his brows meant it got across. Though nothing followed it, not immediately, and Yunho honestly didn't blame Mingi for being so shy when he felt just as arrested.
Then the thighs shifted again, legs extending down. "You mind if I?" Mingi made a stroking gesture.
Yunho shook his head so rapidly that he was worried he looked eager. "Not at all."
When Mingi started jacking himself off, Yunho wasn’t prepared for feeling how the hole clenched a bit around him. He arched, pushed back against the presses of Yunho's fingers if they curved a certain way. He made small noises, mostly breaths, but some whines and hums from the back of his throat that he let out inadvertently and his ears reddened after every single one.
Yunho wanted to fuck him. He wanted to make Mingi feel like that on his cock so badly that it ached. He desperately wanted it to feel what he was feeling around his fingers. To relieve some of the pressure, he pressed his hips up against a thigh just to feel something on it, pushing lightly to stay subtle.
Mingi didn't notice. His own movements became more exaggerated and frantic, as if he didn't care anymore. Yunho found that incredibly hot.
When Mingi came, he tensed, contracting muscles spasming around Yunho's fingers. Judging by the tremors of his body, it was a good orgasm. His knees shifted and tightened, his toes curled and he threw his head back, nearly knocking into Yunho's forehead. Yunho was so absorbed he almost didn't pull back in time.
When Yunho pulled out, Mingi was still breathing heavy, flushed to the ears. He rolled over, grabbed the tissues on the end table and dropped them on the bed between them. He rolled onto his back, not even trying to cover himself anymore. Instead, he looked openly at Yunho's crotch.
Yunho let him, but that was about all the nerve he could muster wiping the lube off of his fingers and avoiding holding the gaze for too long.
"Are we?" and Mingi's eyes swept down, up to Yunho's again. His lips parted and lids still heavy, he had a look that seared when he knew how to summon it. Yunho felt like his body was on fire.
"Tomorrow," he managed, worried about what he'd say if he let himself say any more. If they tried right then, he was absolutely sure he'd do or say something that would ruin everything between them.
Even only going a couple of doors down the hall, he forgot just how much it hurt to part with someone so abruptly.
-
Day 7
He slept poorly. He'd eventually get soft again by distracting himself with his phone. Then when he'd try to roll over and sleep, he'd think about his evening with Mingi and get hard again. That went on for hours until it bled into lousy sleep.
Even his dreams weren't spared, or maybe it was the nervous late night delirium that recalled the images of Mingi's bed without reprieve.
That morning, Hongjoong was understandably uneasy about Yunho having pushed it off to the very last day, and every moment they crossed paths, Yunho assured him time and time again with, "Tonight."
The message he got from Mingi that night made him laugh aloud. "Can you just come in? Hongjoong hyung keeps bothering me."
Yunho was just glad he wasn't the only one under the microscope. "Yeah. Give me a minute." Really, he didn't need to ready anything. He just sat in bed thinking about their friendship, about what it meant to him.
He thought about how close he was to reaching around and touching Mingi himself, about how he wanted the other to lean his back against his chest and bear his weight. Yunho thought how he wanted to make Mingi feel good, so much that the thought nearly manifested into words in the heat of the moment.
Truth be told, he wasn't ready. His body was, and he suspected Mingi's had become receptive enough. But his mind wasn't. He wasn't coolheaded, wasn't objective, wasn't detached enough to survive this without another piece of him chipped away at.
He didn’t know whether to call it infatuation. Maybe it wasn’t so severe, not yet, though he knew he was toeing that line. But he was attracted, he could admit to that much. That was damning in its own right.
When he finally joined Mingi, he tried to gloss over the disappointment he felt at it being the final night. There was a restored kind of awkwardness like a repeat of the first night they tried, but heavier somehow, loaded.
“How do you feel?” Mingi asked him, and there was something grounding in knowing that Mingi was just as worried about him.
It was a question that had many answers, though Yunho didn’t want to overcomplicate it. “Good, I think.”
“Me too.”
They got into the usual position after their brief exchange. “Pass me the lube?”
He was getting pretty good at finding Mingi's hole. After lubing up, he found it easier to get hard, easier to maintain it. He lined himself up, Mingi's back curved with it now that he also understood his own body better. When he pushed in, though, he heard a hiss of pain. Less pronounced, but he pulled back and propped himself up to see Mingi's brows knitted.
"It's fine."
"It's not fine." He sat up, frustrated. Though one thing had remained unchanged in all of their attempts, he realized. "Try laying on your back."
"But we'll see each other."
Yunho only noticed how appealing that sounded when Mingi pointed it out. "I think it'll be easier. And I'll also feel better if I can see you’re feeling alright.”
Wordlessly, Mingi laid on his back and drew his knees up. He kept them together until Yunho knelt up on the bed in front of them, then he spread them. Spread for him, though Yunho tried not to listen to his horny ego.
He remembered the first attempt, where he thought seeing Mingi's body would put him off. Now it was all laid out for him, his half-chub beginning to arch against his stomach, his ass waiting, and Yunho couldn’t believe how little he knew himself.
Similarly, he noticed the slow once-over Mingi gave him, and a repeat of that look from the previous night of lidded eyes and parted lips in wait and open curiosity.
"Can I touch you?"
Mingi looked confused, but he nodded. Yunho lubed his fingers, pressing them in to test if he was relaxed. Rim soft, he pressed in two easily, so he added the third and fucked them in. "Any pain?"
Mingi shook his head, and even if he hadn't, he’d gotten rock hard since Yunho started.
He withdrew his fingers. Yunho felt warm and pulled off his shirt, not wanting to read too much into the way Mingi’s eyes raked down afterward. He wished Mingi had taken off his shirt, too.
He lubed up again, jacking his cock a bit. Mingi did the same, but laxly, looking up with that expectant look that made Yunho warmer by the second.
Moment of truth. Yunho settled in a little deeper, pulling Mingi's legs apart wider for him. He got a good view of everything like that, making it easier to line himself up but he also imagined just how good Mingi's hole would look clinging around him.
He nudged in, and instead of the hisses and grunts of the previous failed attempts, there was a slow breath out. Labored and shaky on the exhale, his eyes closed firmly, but opened and rolled back on an inhale. "It doesn't hurt," he insisted. "I'm good."
With those nerves calmed, he pushed in a little more, and without being immediately pushed out, he was able to enjoy the feeling on the head of his cock. It felt perfect, tight and hot and clenching on him a bit with so much as a breath.
When he bottomed out, when his pelvis met Mingi's ass as deep as he could go, he held it for a moment. He looked down at the way they were pressed flushed together, and felt just as overwhelmed as Mingi looked, both learning to breathe in time, but an exhale on Mingi's inhale and vice versa, calling Yunho's eyes to Mingi's mouth.
That could wait. Instead, he grabbed an ankle, started pumping his hips to fuck properly. Calves kept bumping into Yunho’s hips, so Mingi locked his legs loosely around Yunho's back to keep things from knocking around.
He looked down, Mingi flushed, unsure if he was nodding along or just jostled. He watched Mingi's cock bouncing upright against his stomach, so close together it bounced up against Yunho's abs on the harder thrusts. He didn't realize Mingi had released himself, burying his hands up by his head beneath the pillow, letting his shirt ride up to his mid.
He wanted to make Mingi cum, wanted to see it firsthand. He pushed up on Mingi's shirt, right above the nipples though it fell and upraised itself with the commotion, but just about everything was on display for him as Yunho took Mingi in hand. When he squeezed, it made Mingi moan out.
"You're so fucking sexy," and the place that came from wasn't rational, but he supposed when Mingi gave him something of an open mouthed smile, a pleased, little embarrassed laugh, it didn't matter anymore. It was out of his mouth, broadened with a breath of a moan that Yunho wished he had on loop.
Fuck it all, and he leaned over so they were pressed close together, legs tightened around his back when he leaned in to kiss Mingi. Before he could really start to worry about the choice, Mingi kissed him back, wet and desperate and interrupted with laughter from either and both of them because it was just too crazy not to.
He got so close, and what pushed him on that edge was a tongue dipping out to his lower lip after he'd pulled back a bit, searching. "I’m cumming." He buried himself deep, only barely coherent enough to notice the ring around them pulling apart to two separate ones. He didn’t care anymore, single-focused on the feeling of Mingi draining him.
He took a moment to collect himself before he collapsed forward onto Mingi’s chest. He gave a light squeeze to his cock to assure he hadn't forgotten about him as he caught his breath.
He was still hard enough to keep going a little longer, as sensitive as he was. Mingi's hand closed over his, guiding him, showing Yunho how he liked to be handled. He managed to make Mingi cum while he was still inside, able to feel the clenching and spasms, able to hear the breaths and see the way they made his bottom lip quiver.
Minutes passed in settling quiet, the energy in the room dying down. They pulled apart, and Yunho flopped stomach-down onto Mingi's bed. “Think we did it.”
“Thank God.”
Mingi reached down to grab their boxers, both got dressed without even bothering to clean up. Yunho buried his face in the pillow so he wouldn’t be seen smiling about Mingi keeping his cum inside.
When he felt Mingi looking at him, he looked back. Yunho couldn't think of what to say. Neither did Mingi, so they kept staring at each other and looking away when it got to be too much. But Yunho didn't want to leave, and Mingi didn't kick him out. Eventually, they’d fallen asleep like that.
-
A new week:
When Yunho awoke, it was to the click of the door. He craned to see Hongjoong poking his head in. In any other circumstance, he’d be annoyed, but as Hongjoong was just ensuring they weren’t dead, he gave it a pass.
Yunho gave a thumbs up and Hongjoong nodded and immediately left. Mingi stirred at the click of the door shutting.
"Hey," Yunho greeted.
"Hey." Mingi turned onto his side, facing Yunho. "So, do we talk about last night?"
Yunho's stomach sank. "What about it?"
Mingi's hand came up to his face, squishing Yunho's cheeks to make his lips flap as he spoke over it, "Oh Mingi, you're so sexy."
Yunho plucked the hand off. "Heat of the moment."
Mingi smiled. "Yeah, right."
"Whatever." Though Yunho tried not to smile back.
"We'll talk about it later. Let's just destroy this book before we unleash some other spell."
Both shifted, sitting on the edge of the bed. Mingi grabbed it and it fell open onto the floor, pages down. Mingi and Yunho reached for it at the same time, only realizing their mistake when they felt the book heat, saw it glow and two rings of light around them joined together once again. When they turned the book, it was on their dog-eared page.
“Goddamn it,” Yunho hissed.
They shared a look after a moment of stone silence. To his surprise, Mingi broke out into laughter. “Dibs on cumming inside you this time.”
When Yunho found himself joining in, whatever happened, he knew they’d be alright.