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"Seungkwan, some of us are cheating on our diets and we need one more person to take the guilt away. Interested?" Seungcheol asked from the doorway, one hand still on the handle.
"No, thank you. I'm good. As you can see I'm already in bed so good night, bye bye. Don't ask again."
Their leader frowned and Seungkwan's breath hitched in his throat when his gaze seemed to linger on the lumpy duvet covering most of his body.
"I have so many pillows," he said with an awkwardly nervous chuckle. "Well, good night," he repeated to encourage his room invader to get the hint and get out.
"Yeah, good night," Seungcheol replied and finally closed the door.
Seungkwan held the covers down until they started to stir. He released Mingyu from the prison between his legs and let out a relieved sigh. "That was close."
"Dammit, Seungkwan. Were you trying to kill me? You almost smothered me to death. Do you know how hot it gets under there?"
"It's not my fault Seungcheol came in.”
Mingyu huffed and climbed over Seungkwan’s leg, out from in between his thighs. He had lost all desire to continue what they had been doing. “Would it have been so bad if he saw I was here? We could have just been hanging out. You didn’t have to shove me under the covers so roughly and keep me there for so long.”
“I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to come back and you know why he can’t see you’re here. You’re not even wearing a shirt.”
“We wouldn’t even have this problem if we would just tell them already,” Mingyu mumbled. He rolled on his back and crossed his arms over the cover. “I’m tired of sneaking around and having sex as if we’re doing something wrong.”
"We've talked about this. I'm not ready to tell yet. You know I'm worried about how it'll change group dynamics."
Mingyu did know. It had already taken Seungkwan a lot to finally stop pretending like there wasn't a mutual attraction between them. Even after their first kiss he had been hesitant. Mingyu had been patient. He still wanted to be. But it was getting harder. He was in love and didn't want to hide it all the time. Especially at home.
Seungkwan ran the back of his index finger over Mingyu’s upper arm, “Are you really mad?”
Mingyu jerked away from the touch. He threw his side of the duvet open and got out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Seungkwan asked with a frown.
“I'm going to my room to sleep."
"Gyu...come on...He was just here. If you go out now—"
"Fine. Whatever." He yanked one of the pillows from the bed and threw it on the floor.
"Seriously?”
Mingyu didn’t respond as he lay down on his side, his back facing the bed.
“You’re being a baby,” Seungkwan grumbled.
"I'm not being a baby. I'm frustrated."
Loaded with his own frustration, Seungkwan clicked his tongue and sighed. He took the covers with him as he slid down the side of the bed, landing next to his boyfriend. “You’ll catch a cold like that.” He got behind him and spooned his big body. Mingyu didn’t object.
“I know you feel frustrated and I’m sorry. But you do understand where I’m coming from, right?”
Mingyu played with Seungkwan’s fingers that he had placed on his chest. “Yeah. I do. I’ll try to be more patient, but you have to try and relax a little. Just because we know that there’s a different meaning behind our touches now doesn’t mean that the others do. We were touchy before we got together and they won’t think of it as anything out of the ordinary.”
“Okay. I’ll try to relax a little.” He let out a big yawn. “Can we go to sleep now?” He pulled him closer and nuzzled his neck with his nose.
“Good night.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
~~~~~
The following day Seungkwan had done all he could to avoid Seungcheol, but he became unavoidable when he called a group meeting that evening. They were all gathered in the living room and had no idea what it was about. Seungkwan sat as far away from Mingyu as he could. Despite his promise to try and relax a little he couldn’t help but feel self-conscious about the way they interacted in front of the others.
“Thank you all for coming,” Seungcheol addressed the group. “There's just something quick that I wanted to remind you all of: the fact that we all have rooms and that these rooms have locks on them for a reason. Privacy. So, just as a reminder, when you do something private please do it in your room, preferably with the door locked."
"Did you walk in on someone jerking off or something?" Soonyoung joked, but it wasn’t met with any laughter (perhaps indicating that he was right on the money).
Their leader cleared his throat, looking slightly uncomfortable, "This isn't about anyone in particular, alright? Just, in general."
“And maybe people should also knock and wait for an answer before they actually come in,” Mingyu added, trying to sound as casual as possible because he knew Seungkwan was going to scold him later for opening his mouth at all.
“Was it you?” Soonyoung asked.
“No it wasn’t him,” Seungcheol said but instantaneously regretted his phrasing. “I mean it wasn’t anybody! Just— Just remember to do stuff in your room and to lock the door. And people should knock. That’s all. End of meeting.”
As most of the others started to get up to return to whatever they had been doing, Mingyu stayed on the couch and looked over at his boyfriend who was typing away on his phone. He didn’t have to ask who he was sending a message to and he got his own phone out.
Boo Seungkwan: [This is the worst!!]
Mingyu looked up again and found Seungkwan frowning in his direction. With a sigh he got up. “I’m going for a late night walk. Does anybody want to join me?” As he had hoped, no-one responded. One other person who liked taking walks at this hour was still wearing a thundercloud on his face. “Seungkwan?” he asked.
“Fine,” Seungkwan grumbled and he got up, walked right by Mingyu and yanked his coat from the hook.
Once outside he seemed to relax. A little.
“Why exactly are you mad at me ?” Mingyu asked, his hands shoved in his pockets.
“I’m not. I feel humiliated.”
“Why? He wasn’t even talking about us. Or at least, not directly.”
Seungkwan scoffed. “Of course he was talking about us! He walks in on us and suddenly he holds a meeting about doing private things privately?”
“That’s right. He walked in on us. Which is why I said people should knock.”
“Oh yeah, that’s why I’m mad at you. Why would you put even more attention on you at such a time? Maybe he didn’t see who I had under there, pressed to my crotch, but he must have known I was hiding someone and now you— ”
“ Nobody had any idea it was about us and maybe Soonyoung was right anyway and Cheol just thought he walked in on you jerking off. In any case, he wasn’t telling anybody to stop doing anything, just to be a bit more discreet about it. If anything, it’s a good thing, Seungkwan.” If he was being honest he thought it had most definitely been about them. Seungcheol must have known something was up when he came into Seungkwan’s room and he had seen Mingyu come out of the bedroom in the morning.
“Maybe,” Seungkwan mumbled, dragging his feet.
~~~~~
Seungcheol had been noticing a weird dynamic between Seungkwan and Mingyu all day. In fact, they had been a bit off for a few weeks now. Whereas they normally would do things such as bicker playfully. cling to each other and share their food, they had been more distant lately and today it almost felt like they were purposely staying out of each other’s way. So, being the good leader that he was, he decided to bring up the issue when he found himself alone with Mingyu in the kitchen that night.
“Is everything okay with you and Seungkwan?” he asked directly.
Mingyu glanced over at him and clicked his tongue as he looked away again.
Seungcheol frowned at the reaction. “Am I missing something here? Why are you annoyed at me ? I’m just asking if there’s something wrong.”
“Yeah, there’s something wrong. Maybe next time you walk in on people you address them separately instead of in front of everybody. Or maybe just let it go. I haven’t had sex in nearly three weeks because of you.”
“Sorry, what?”
“That little speech you gave us? About doing private things privately. Seungkwan has refused to have sex with me since then because he’s too afraid everybody will found out about us and he's mad at me now because he thinks all I care about is sex but really I just want to be close to him. He doesn’t even want to cuddle!”
“You and Seungkwan!?” Seungcheol’s voice came out high and squeaky. “S-sex!?”
“Why do you look and sound so shocked?” Mingyu asked, feeling a little shocked himself. “I-I thought you knew. You walked in on us that one night and then the next day you felt it was necessary to talk about locking the door and stuff!”
“That wasn’t about you! Jihoon had told me that he saw...something. And I thought that addressing you as a group was better than letting them know someone had seen them.”
"Wait, who are you talking about if not—"
"You and Seungkwan? Seriously, just how many of us are having sex?"
“No, but, who are you talking about?”
“Nevermind that! What do you mean when I walked in on you guys? I’ve never— Wait, when I came to ask Seungkwan if he wanted a late night snack? You were there !?”
“I was under the covers,” Mingyu answered, blushing. “Don’t you remember you saw me come out of his bedroom in the morning? I thought you must have made the connection even if you hadn’t seen me when you were in his room.”
“I swear I had no idea! I didn’t even think Seungkwan was up to anything. Really, I didn’t!”
“We’re not just hooking up, you know,” Mingyu said, feeling the need to make sure that Seungcheol knew that.
“Okay.”
“We’re together . I love him. We didn’t mean for it to happen. But before I knew it I had fallen in love with him. It still took us some time to get there after that but…” He thought back to the night where they had kissed for the first time and confessed their feelings to each other. “He loves me too.”
“Mingyu,” Seungcheol said and he placed a strong hand on his friend’s shoulder and looked him dead in the eye. “ Okay . Love is a good thing, Mingyu. Me and the other guys will have your backs no matter what.”
Mingyu sighed and turned around to lean against the kitchen counter. “Thank you. But now we’re sort of fighting…He thinks that you saw us and that if we do anything the others will find out too. Ironically, the whole reason he doesn’t want you guys to know in the first place is because he’s worried it will do something to our group dynamic but now that we’re going through a rough patch it’s already doing things.”
“I’m sorry that Seungkwan feels like he can’t be honest with us but I understand his reservations.”
“I’m just worried that he’s using this ‘I don’t want the others to know’ thing as an excuse to just...not be with me, Cheol.”
“Listen, I’m still sort of processing the fact that you two are actually dating, but you have to talk to him. I promise I’ll stay out of it as long as you two don’t take this with you to work. On a personal level I am so happy for you guys, but…”
“I know,” Mingyu replied softly and opened his arms to signal he could use a hug. Luckily their leader gave the best ones.
~~~~~
Mingyu knocked on Seungkwan’s door and waited for him to tell him he could come in. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. “Seungkwan, I just want to say something and then I’ll leave again,” he said the words he had prepared in his head. “I don’t like how things have been between us these past few weeks. It’s not just about us not having sex. You’re avoiding me, so now I don’t get you at all. Not only that, but...you’re either avoiding me because you want to have sex too and you know that if we’re alone together we’ll end up doing it or—” He stopped to take a deep breath. “Or you just don’t want to be with me anymore at all. You’re right there but you’re not. It sucks. Anyway, I guess what I want to say is that I miss you. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow and the day after that, so I’ll let you get to sleep now, but I hope we can talk more about this in a few days. That’s all I guess. Good night.” He turned around and with his back facing him added, “I love you."
~~~~~
While Seungkwan had sent him a message saying that he loved him too and that it was definitely not the case that he no longer wanted to be together, they hadn’t actually talked. Not that they could have. Their schedule had been packed airtight this day and it wasn’t as if they could talk about this on the way to their schedule or during breaks when everybody else was around.
Their two-day schedule was far enough from home for them to be spending the night in a hotel, however. They usually left the division of the rooms up to fate and today was no different. Mingyu was pleasantly surprised when Seungcheol started whining that he didn’t want to be paired with Mingyu when they ended up together and made Seungkwan switch with him. It didn’t feel like a coincidence.
There was a certain tension hanging in the air when they entered their room and placed their bags next to different beds. Seungkwan sat down on the edge of his, facing Mingyu who sat down opposite him.
“So…” Mingyu said.
“So,” Seungkwan parrotted.
“Just to start off with all cards on the table, I kind of talked to Seungcheol last night before I came to your room and I think that’s why he made sure we got to share a room. So we can—”
“What do you mean you talked to Seungcheol? I’m the one who asked him to pair us up for the rooms today,’ Seungkwan interrupted him.
“What? You did? When? Why?” Mingyu stammered, taken by surprise.
“I talked to him today...Because I miss you too.”
Mingyu smiled the shy happy kind of smile that he tended to reserve for his boyfriend and stood up from the bed. He sat back down on Seungkwan’s bed and they shared a long overdue kiss.
"I do hope you appreciate how embarrassing it was to basically ask him to room us so we can have sex in peace," Seungkwan whispered with their foreheads pressed together.
Mingyu giggled and kissed him again. “Shouldn’t we talk first?” he asked in between kisses.
“Maybe,” Seungkwan replied, chasing and catching his lips. “I’m sorry I made you”—he pulled Mingyu’s shirt over his head—“feel like I didn’t want to be with you.”—he straddled Mingyu’s thighs and pulled his face close with both hands on either side. He kissed him deeply—”The other thing you said was more accurate.”
“About you also wanting sex but being unable to resist me if—” He was silenced by the return of Seungkwan’s lips on his own.
They could talk later.
~~~~~
"For a guy who says he's worried about the others hearing us, you sure make a lot of noise," Mingyu teased as he continued his steady thrusts. “These walls aren’t soundproof, you know.”
"Then don't fuck me so hard!" Seungkwan retorted, his fingers digging into his pillow and pushing back with his hips enough to avoid hitting his head on the headboard.
"But every time I try to have soft romantic sex with you, you complain about it being embarrassing and you blush so much I'm worried you have a fever and you won't even look at me!"
Seungkwan pushed at Mingyu’s hip, signaling him to pull out. He turned around and got on his back. “Fine. ‘ Make love ’ to me then.”
Mingyu sat back on his knees. “I don’t want to if you make it sound like that,” he said with a pout.
Seungkwan brought his knees together and looked away shyly, “I’m sorry. It’s just a little overwhelming when you look at me the way that you do when we have sex that’s more intimate...”
“Is that a bad thing?”
"No," Seungkwan replied and he sat up on his knees. He found Mingyu’s hands to tangle their fingers together. “Of course not.” He leaned in to kiss him softly. He wanted to push out the part of him that got shy and overwhelmed. He wanted to give himself entirely.
Mingyu added his weight to their kiss and made sure his boyfriend landed with his head on the pillow underneath. Seungkwan's soft moan when he entered him vibrated in his ear. Before he started to move again he took a moment to take in his face. As expected he was blushing. But he didn't look away like he usually did. Mingyu smiled and playfully booped his nose with his index finger. "You're an experience."
Seungkwan let out a little laugh. "What does that even mean?"
Mingyu smiled, "I don't know. But you are." He leaned down and kissed him slowly. He moved to hook his arms under Seungkwan's legs and pushed them to his chest. The way they connected not only through their bodies but through their unbroken eye contact was intense. It was raw and completely exposed.
They had used the words 'I love you' before but this time felt deeper, realer. They didn't even have to open their mouths to say it.
~~~~~
"Let's tell the others," Seungkwan said as he lazily ran his fingers through Mingyu’s hair. While he liked cuddling up to Mingyu, he liked this more. Him with his head on Seungkwan’s chest, long limbs wherever.
“You decided that just now?” Mingyu asked. “Right after we had sex?”
“No,” Seungkwan answered. “I mean, not really. Partly.”
“Why now?”
“Look, do you want to tell them or not?” Seungkwan grumbled.
Mingyu sat up so they could look at each other as they talked about this. “Yes! You know I do. I want to be able to freely hold your hand at the breakfast table and give you a quick peck on the mouth when one of us is in a hurry to get to a schedule. But I also want to know why you changed your mind. I want you to feel comfortable with it too. I know I have made it clear I want to tell them but I don’t want you to feel pressured. Just because I find it hard to keep it from them doesn’t mean I’m not willing to do so if that’s what you want.”
“It’s not what I want,” Seungkwan said and he felt himself choke up. “Those guys are our family just as much as our actually families are and I hate lying to them, but—”
Mingyu took his hand.
“Things will change,” Seungkwan continued. “I know they will and it scares me.“
“You’re right,” Mingyu spoke calmly. “If we tell them that we’re dating, that we’re in love, yeah, maybe certain dynamics in the group will shift a little. But isn’t that life? Don’t you think it will change at some point anyway? It’s not as if the rest of them are going to stay single forever.”
Seungkwan nodded. “Right. I know that. I just...Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I needed to be sure . About us. I already knew that I loved you but I wasn’t sure yet how much. These past few weeks sucked so hard, Mingyu. I know I was being stubborn and pushed you away and I don’t want to do that. I want to do the opposite. And I can’t do that if we’re hiding in our own home. So, let’s tell them. Whatever happens after that, happens.”
“You...had doubts about us?” Mingyu asked with a small voice.
“Not doubts necessarily. But...what if we’d tell everyone and then break up after that first wave of feeling in love was gone? You know?”
“I guess I can understand that. It’s not as if I’ve never thought about things like that. I just find it hard to imagine.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t imagine myself in a world where I’d fall out of love with you, Seungkwan. I know we’ll argue and maybe even fight on occasion, but I think it’s physically impossible for me to not love you.”
“Wow…” Seungkwan sighed. “That’s super cheesy but dammit it works. Come here so I can kiss you.”
With a happy grin Mingyu leaned forward so he could do just that.
“I love you so much, Kim Mingyu. So you better not be lying about how you’ll never stop loving me because I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
~~~~~
“So...yeah. That’s basically it,” Seungkwan concluded after he and Mingyu had told the group about their relationship. “We’re a couple now and while our relationship has changed we hope it doesn’t change how any of you see us or how you will treat us. Thank you.”
“You’re so cute, Kwannie,” Jeonghan said with a smile. “You sound like you’re giving a speech at some black tie event. It’s just us.”
“I know, but—”
“Did you guys kiss?” Soonyoung asked with childlike glee and he giggled right after.
“They’ve probably done more than that, don’t you think?” Wonwoo replied dryly. “They said they’ve already been dating for months.”
Soonyoung’s mouth fell open. “No. Damn. That’s kind of hot though.”
“What the—” Seungkwan started but the rest continued to talk over him.
“Ooh, so that’s who Seungcheol walked in on when he told us to be more private,” Seokmin nodded in understanding.
“I told you I didn’t walk in on anyone! Jihoon was the one who—” Seungcheol was too late to stop himself. “The one who...also didn’t walk in on anyone.”
“Jihoon!?” Mingyu asked in shock. “W-when did you?” He exchanged a look with his boyfriend who was also dumbfounded.
“I didn’t walk in on you guys,” Jihoon mumbled back with a red face. “I’m not even sure if I saw what I think I might have seen. It was dark...in the living room...It doesn’t matter!”
“Well that definitely wasn’t us,” Seungkwan said as he wrinkled his nose. “We have never done so much as kiss in the living room. We have more sense than that.”
“Guys, that’s enough,” their leader spoke up. “Privacy goes both ways, ok? Enough with the gossip,” he said, hoping that the others would let it go before they noticed the way Jisoo and Jun’s faces were flushed red right now. He turned to Mingyu and Seungkwan. “Thank you for opening up to all of us and trusting us. We’re a family and nothing can ever change that.” He turned back to the others. “Now, I don’t know about you guys but I’m hungry. What do you say we order a bunch of take-out and all have dinner together?”
“Are you paying?” Chan asked with a cheeky smile.
“I never said that!”
“Wow, our leader is so generous,” Minghao joined in.
“I didn’t—”
“Our kind and rich leader,” Jeonghan contributed to their attempts to get him to pay.
As the others were busy squabbling, Seungkwan and Mingyu looked at each other. Seungkwan knew that look. It made him want to giggle and blush like a shy teenager. He got on his tip-toes and pressed a kiss on his boyfriend’s lips. Soft and quick. Free and unbothered. Closer than ever. Stuck together in love.