Archive of Our Own

Jeongin did not regret coming over to Minho’s house.

The point of it had been for Minho’s parents to get to meet him, because even though Minho had said that of course his parents didn’t think anything bad of Jeongin—that he seemed sweet—they still didn’t want to leave the cats with a complete stranger. And maybe they wanted to treat him to something nice, too, as a thank you for helping their son watch out for the family’s babies.

Jeongin had begun to say that maybe Minho wasn’t as good a butler as he thought himself to be, if Soonie, Doongie, and Dori didn’t personally vouch for Minho’s judgement themselves, but had quickly apologised when Minho had immediately and suddenly poked him in the ribs.

Hard.

Not even after he’d said his goodbyes to Minho’s parents on the night and then been waved off by Minho—his friend standing left on the porch shivering in the autumn cold in just his t-shirt—did Jeongin regret coming over for that dinner.

They’d been lying on the couch in the dorm living-room when Minho had first brought up the idea, both of them lazily leaning back half against the backrest, half against an armrest each. Minho had had his legs resting on top of Jeongin’s lap, the warmth and weight feeling comfortably familiar.

In the silence, Minho had suddenly said: “My parents are leaving.”

Jeongin hadn’t looked up from his phone. “What, forever?”

When Minho hadn’t answered, Jeongin had looked up briefly, checking to make sure that he hadn’t said something wrong.

Minho had just been staring at him, but his eyes had looked sarcastically offended.

Reassured, Jeongin had cast his eyes back down to his phone, which he’d found had locked itself. He’d pressed the button to unlock it again, but had then just stared, unseeing, down at his lockscreen background; a selfie of him and Hyunjin from a night months ago when they’d ordered pizza and played some games.

“Okay,” he’d said. “So?”

“For vacation,” Minho had explained. “For three weeks.”

Jeongin had hummed, waiting for his hyung to explain what that had to do with either of them.

“Soonie, Doongie, and Dori can’t feed themselves,” Minho had continued.

Jeongin had then finally begun to understand where Minho had been going with the conversation since the beginning, and he’d grinned smugly because of how coy his hyung was being about it.

He had forced down his smile, but hadn’t succeeded fully. “They don’t even have thumbs, useless,” he’d finally agreed.

That had made Minho’s face lift up in a smile, maybe at the thought of his cats being uselessly thumbless, maybe at the fact that Jeongin had thought to say something so dumb. He’d continued to smile quietly for a few seconds. Then, he continued in a serious voice: “So I want you to come with me, and help me with them when I’m busy.”

Jeongin had thought that the other had sounded awfully demanding, but Minho always did. And even though he’d tried to hide it, Jeongin had immediately decided that it actually had sounded really nice, he didn’t spend nearly as much time with his hyung as he maybe wished to. They were always both so busy, and seeing each other for schedules didn’t count.

“Are you paying me?” Jeongin had asked, jokingly, as always,  but he hadn't let that on. He had of course known that Minho would know as much anyway.

Minho had drawn his legs back to lightly kick Jeongin in the thigh. “Seeing Soonie, Doongie, and Dori is enough.”

When Jeongin had just proceeded to squint at his hyung doubtfully, Minho had sighed and rolled his eyes. “I’ll cook something when we’re there. Good enough?”

Jeongin had pretended to mull it over in his head for a moment, pursing his lips, before he’d reluctantly reached out a hand for Minho to shake to seal the deal.

Minho had just stared at it, incredulous. “You think I’d trick my favourite dongsaeng? You don’t trust me at all?”

Of course he did. “Not at all, hyung,” he’d confirmed.

“Come on, Ienn-ah,” Minho had scoffed. “I'm a total sweetheart .”

Jeongin had never been to Minho’s house before, surprisingly enough. His hyung always seemed awfully busy, and he always went out so much with Jisung or worked on things with Chan or Seungmin or the rest of Danceracha, that he seemed to barely ever have time for the youngest.

Jeongin was busy too, of course he was, being an idol wasn’t easy, and on top of that he, against his will, often found himself irritated with his hyung for not asking him to come out with him. His irritation often showed itself in trying to avoid his hyung’s occasional bouts of affection when they did arise, and he tried to pretend as hard as he could that he didn’t enjoy his friend’s touchiness that seemed to be especially saved for him.

It wasn’t easy to always force his mouth down into an angry frown as his hyung wrestled him on the couch to tickle him until he couldn’t breathe or when Minho attempted to lift him up to carry him to his bed, acting as though he was a little child. As a joke, of course.

Trying not to think about any of that, Jeongin rang the doorbell to Minho’s parents’ house.

The lock rustled almost immediately, and the door slowly swung open.

Standing in the door was Minho, gently pushing a cat away from the door with his foot before he shot his younger friend a small, polite smile. A welcoming smile.

Jeongin couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from twitching, and he especially couldn’t stop his eyes from beaming. It was different to see Minho like this, somehow he carried himself differently in his family home. He seemed younger.

Jeongin immediately noticed that Minho had gotten a new haircut since leaving the dorm the night before, and he just barely stopped himself from giving the other a quick once-over, when he saw the older man that was standing further down the hall behind Minho.

Jeongin nodded hesitantly at the man.

Minho didn’t greet him. “I cut my hair,” he said.

“Oh, you did,” Jeongin replied.

“Do you like it?” Minho continued, as he ushered the other in through the door, barely managing to keep the cat inside. Jeongin felt pretty confident that it was Doongie, but it might be Soonie, he really couldn’t tell.

“It’s fine,” Jeongin mumbled, as he carefully slid out of his shoes, placing them on the shoe shelf by the door, in contrast to how he usually removed his shoes, kicking them off his feet so that they landed on opposite ends of the room.

At his words, he felt a burning sensation at the side of his head, and when he lifted his face, he saw that the older man—Minho’s father—was looking sternly at him, but when the man realised that he’d gotten caught, he immediately shaped his face into a smile.

Jeongin tried not to stare back, but he didn’t miss the quickly shot side-eye the man gave his son and then back to Jeongin.

If Jeongin didn’t know better, he might have thought that there had been something akin to disapproval in Minho’s father’s gaze.

Minho placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let me introduce you to my parents, you already know my brothers from photos.”

Jeongin couldn’t say that he did.

For the introductions, they all went into the kitchen, where Minho’s mum stood by the stove, cooking. She told Jeongin that Minho had offered to cook for all of them, commenting that ‘you must definitely already know of Minho’s cooking, right?’,  but that she’d insisted on cooking for the guest. Jeongin nodded at that and told her that it smelled delicious, just as great if not better than the times when her son had cooked for him before.

Something in the way she smiled at his compliment didn’t seem right to him, and Minho’s father cleared his throat next to his wife.

Minho continued with the introductions, introducing Jeongin to his parents first, and then turned to introduce his parents to Jeongin. Jeongin shook Minho’s father’s hand as strongly as he could, and he was surprised at the hug Minho’s mum gave him.

For a while, they just kept talking about everyday things, how they got along at the dorms, what all the boys were up to, and then about the holiday Minho's parents would be going on.

 But then, when Minho’s mother moved over to a cupboard to grab some more spices, she had to press herself in front of Jeongin to reach through the cramped kitchen—forcing him to take a step backwards—and that moment was when the night had finally started to really plummet to reach the strange, uncomfortable feeling Jeongin would carry with him as he went home later in the night.

To make room for her to pass, Jeongin backed up against Minho, grabbing Minho’s hand as he pressed his back against his friend’s chest, who was standing against the wall behind them. Minho's right hand steadied the younger by his waist out of reflex.

Jeongin just got a glimpse of how Minho’s dad followed all of it with watchful eyes, and how the man's face fell down into a frown as soon as Minho touched him.

Jeongin didn't like the way Minho quickly let go of his hand.

They stepped apart. Jeongin rubbed at his neck and threw Minho a glance, and then his dad.

“Minho-ya?” Minho's dad asked.

Minho’s eyes shot up to meet his father’s, and as they looked at each other, Minho slowly and carefully grabbed onto Jeongin’s side, pushing lightly at him to move.

Jeongin felt with what urgency Minho tried to usher him towards the kitchen door.

“Ienn-ah?” Minho said, eyes flickering between his parents.

Jeongin looked between everyone in the small kitchen, eyes darting between Minho and his parents.

“We should go look at the rest of the house,” Minho said, and to be frank, Jeongin didn’t want to stay in the kitchen either. Something felt off. Minho’s mother smiled coldly, stirring the pot.

“Yeah, okay,” he replied, and he felt Minho’s parents’ eyes follow the two of them as they escaped out of the kitchen, rushing up the staircase. “Nice seeing you, Mr. and Mrs. Lee!" he shouted over his shoulder, right as they  turned the last corner to the upper floor.

Jeongin barely managed to keep up as Minho made quick work of the house tour, before he closed his bedroom door behind the two of them. He stared at Jeongin, something hurried in his eyes.

Hurried was probably how Jeongin would describe everything that had happened since that strange switch of atmosphere down in the kitchen.

“You can sit on the bed,” Minho said. Jeongin knew that that was his hyung’s way of asking politely.

“Uh—” he began, before he once again felt Minho’s hands against his back, pushing him into the room.

“I’m going to sit, anyway,” Minho said, pulling his younger friend along to sit down on the bed with him.

As the mattress sank beneath them, Minho’s shoulders sank with it, and he let out a heavy sigh. He groaned as he leaned back on his elbows on the bed, looking back up at Jeongin.

Jeongin couldn’t do much except stare at his friend on the bed. Something was definitely off.

When they finally properly met eyes through the half-dark, Minho’s face cracked up into a wide smile.

“Hyung?” Jeongin began, smiling a bit uncertain, but was immediately interrupted by Minho.

“My parents can be a little overbearing sometimes, don’t think too much about it.” He smiled happily at Jeongin, but somehow the light in his eyes didn’t match the weird feeling that was growing in Jeongin’s stomach. 

Ignoring the feeling, Jeongin smiled back.

Minho peered up at him from the mattress, a bit of mischief in his eyes. “Lay down with me, Ienn-ah.” He plopped his head and back down onto the bed, too, his feet still on the floor.

There was no point in hiding his smile from his hyung in this moment, he was just happy to finally be alone with his older friend, and to sit together with him, smiling. Too often, they only ever got to spend time together on car rides and in the rooms backstage, always surrounded by staff and managers and the other members. It was nice to just be like this.

Jeongin decided to listen to Minho, and forget the weird feeling that he carried with him from the kitchen.

He plopped down next to the other.

Then they just lay there in silence. Jeongin could sense how his breathing slowly matched the breathing of his friend, and they both gazed up into the empty ceiling. Minho let out a sigh next to him.

As the silence ran on, Jeongin was starting to feel a little bit embarrassed. “Seriously, hyung…”

“I'm happy that you wanted to come, Innie," Minho interrupted, and even though Jeongin could hear that his friend was smiling as he spoke, he still sounded hurried. “I'm sure my brothers will like you."

Jeongin snorted at that and turned his face toward Minho, and when Minho turned his face as well, they were only a few hand-widths apart. It was comfortable like this.

“Why do you even call them your brothers? They're cats," he asked.

Minho frowned at him. “They can be both."

Jeongin rolled his eyes. “You're a cat too, then?"

Minho smiled a fond smile, half to the side in a teasing smirk. He meowed loudly at his friend.

“Ew," Jeongin said dryly, and rolled his head away from his hyung. “Don't do that."

“I can't help it!" Minho exclaimed and grabbed Jeongin's shoulder to roll him back to face him. “I was born like this."

Jeongin snorted again. “Okay, guess that’s fine then.”

Minho’s hand was still placed on his shoulder as they smiled at each other. But with the silence, the strange feeling returned to Jeongin's chest, and his smile slowly faltered.

“Hm?” Minho asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Hyung,” Jeongin began, “your parents—”

Minho chuffed. “They just have strong personalities. Don’t worry about it.”

Jeongin didn’t think that sounded exactly right, and definitely not truthful. “It runs in the family, then,” he decided to joke.

Minho poked him in the side, and when Jeongin wheezed, he poked him again. “No?” Minho said, before poking the younger again, reaching over his body to get to the younger’s other side. “I’m very laid-back, Innie. Plain,” He stabbed him in the side with his whole hand.

“Sorry, sorry! You’re just unique, hyung,” Jeongin wheezed as Minho's fingers sped up, trying to push the other off, but not really trying. “ Special!”

Minho smiled at that, before sitting up to get better access to attack Jeongin’s neck and chest with his fingers, tickling him with no remorse or mercy.

Jeongin yelled. “Hyung! Jesus, stop it! I can’t—”

There was a loud knock on the door before it immediately swung open, not waiting for a response.

They both froze on the bed, Minho with a hand on Jeongin’s chest and the other to hold him up next to the other’s head, as Minho’s mother entered the room.

Minho’s smile immediately fell, completely wiped off his face. Jeongin’s smile disappeared as well when he saw the look on Minho’s face.

Minho’s mum scanned over the room—her eyes darting between the two boys on the bed, Jeongin’s hands on her son’s shoulders trying to push him off—and Minho slowly retracted his body from the younger.

She did not look amused, but after a few seconds her face moved up into what could be called a sweet smile. “Dinner’s ready, please come downstairs.”

Jeongin and Minho just looked at each other, and then back to Minho’s mother.

The dinner was tense, to say the least.

The food, however, was delicious.

Jeongin made sure to tell Minho’s mother that the chef gene must run in the family, but felt a bit disheartened when she only hummed in response.

As they ate, the words between bites became fewer and fewer, and in the end the air was mostly filled by chewing and Minho explaining all of Soonie, Doongie, and Dori’s habits and likes and dislikes to Jeongin.

When Jeongin laughed at something Minho had said—the other smiling back—Minho’s parents never failed to side-eye each other across the table where they sat.

Then, something changed.

Minho’s mother spoke up:

“So, Jeongin-ah… do you have a girlfriend?”

Jeongin almost startled where he sat, forcing himself not to choke on the little bit of food that he was still chewing. He gave Minho a quick glance, asking for help. He got no response other than what he could only interpret as a panicked look back.

“Not really," he finally managed to reply.

Minho’s mum smiled and leaned her head to the side. “Not really?”

“Uh,” Jeongin said, feeling a need to explain himself despite not seeing why he was doing it. “No. No, I don’t have one, at all.”

Minho’s mum nodded to herself at his answer, but as she lifted another bite to her mouth, she gave Minho a long look.

“You’ll find a good girl, I’m sure,” Minho’s dad spoke up suddenly, but he didn’t look at Jeongin. His eyes were stone-set on his son.

“Uh—” Jeongin said again.

“Yes, you’re very handsome,” Minho’s mum added. “You both are.” She looked at Minho too. “It'd be such a waste."

Jeongin felt very confused. He looked at Minho, but Minho was looking down at his plate, scraping up the last pieces of food.

“Thanks,” Jeongin managed to get out finally. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Hm,” Minho’s mum replied, smiling at him.

After that, Minho got quiet. He still laughed a few times, but Jeongin didn't think it sounded joyful or genuinely amused at all. He could tell that his friend was feeling uncomfortable, for whatever reason, but Jeongin didn't know how to help.

He reached under the table to grab ahold of his friend’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly. He didn’t know what was wrong, but it was clear that Minho wasn’t feeling well at all.

Minho’s dad cleared his throat and suddenly his mum clapped her hands together.

“Well, it’s been lovely to meet you, Jeongin-ah!” she began. Her husband nodded next to her as she continued: “But I think it’d probably be best if you left now.”

Jeongin was surprised at that. He blinked a few times between the others sitting around the table. “Okay,” he managed to get out finally. Minho’s mother’s words had come so suddenly. It didn’t feel like a natural and comfortable end to the night at all.

When he didn’t say anything more, Minho’s mother's eyes hardened for a second. “It's been so good meeting you, though."

“And it’s getting late,” she quickly added. “But don’t worry, we would love to have you stay here for longer,” but as she said that, Jeongin did not believe it for a second. But he couldn’t think of what he could possibly have done wrong.

She continued: “I’m just starting to get a little tired now at night, is all,” she gave her husband a glance. “We’re not getting any younger, after all.”

At that, Minho’s dad laughed next to his wife, but Jeongin wasn’t stupid. Neither of Minho’s parents were amused. They wanted him out of their house, for whatever reason.

Minho began to stand up as soon as Jeongin pushed his chair backwards, getting ready to leave as he read the atmosphere.

“I’ll follow you out, Innie,” Minho offered, and despite the other two’s disapproving looks, Jeongin couldn’t help but smile in gratitude at his friend.

“That’s kind of you,” his dad said. “We’ll get to meet Jeongin soon in the future, I hope.”

“Mmhm,” Minho agreed, as he moved for Jeongin to come with him, despite the strange feeling in the air. The sudden change of atmosphere that had fallen as soon as Minho’s mother had decided that they’d had enough of their guest, for some reason.

As they left, Jeongin bowed lightly. “Thank you for having me,” he said before Minho pushed down the front door handle.

It was cold as Jeongin exited the house together with Minho, autumn approaching quickly.

As they stood outside, on the street just outside Minho's home, arms crossed against the cold, Minho spoke up:

“Sorry, Ienn-ah,” he said.

Jeongin laughed awkwardly. “Sorry about what, hyung?”

“No, really,” Minho continued. “I thought it would’ve gotten better by now, especially since they already know of you.”

“Hyung, it’s fine ,” Jeongin tried to reassure his friend. He didn’t like the way Minho was pressing his lips together. He didn’t want to admit to Minho that he’d actually been pretty uncomfortable during the dinner, picking up on the disapproving energy around the table from the beginning.

Minho shook his head. Something about the way he moved seemed so regretful, and the thought of his hyung regretting inviting him made it hard for Jeongin to not feel angry. He really just wanted to spend more time with his friend, alone.

“I hoped they wouldn’t act like this anymore. It’s not your fault, it’s mine,” Minho said.

Jeongin didn’t know what to say. Speaking like this, it wasn’t like Minho at all.

“Hyung, what’s wrong?” he asked, because he wanted answers, but he also knew that something had been off during the dinner since the moment Minho had greeted him at the door.

“They don’t really like when I bring friends over,” Minho began, and when he met Jeongin’s confused, questioning eyes, he actually blinked away something in his eyes and looked off up into the air, bouncing frustrated on the ground. “ Guys , I mean,” he clarified.

Jeongin really didn’t understand. “What? They’d rather you bring a bunch of girls over? Your parents ?”

Minho let out a pained laugh, dry and too loud. “You could say that again!” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, but the teary pain was evident.

Jeongin still didn’t give any indication that he understood, he couldn’t, and Minho kept watching him carefully for any sign that he wouldn’t have to explain himself. When he didn’t seem to find anything to let him off the hook, he sighed heavily as though all the air had gone out of him. He looked awfully small.

“Sorry, this is embarrassing," he mumbled, and interrupted Jeongin as he tried to tell Minho to stop apologising. It didn't feel right.

“Innie…” he said, and he sounded tired in a way Jeongin hadn’t at all expected.

Jeongin hummed to show that he understood to listen. It felt strange to not joke around with his hyung; to play coy and cold just to hide the so obvious affection they had for each other was such an integral part of their friendship. The way his hyung appeared small in front of him also didn't seem right.

“Yes?” he urged on.

The words seemed to fail Minho again, so instead he just reached out his hand and grabbed Jeongin’s in his.

Jeongin looked down at their suddenly interlocked fingers, but he didn’t comment on it. It was nice, anyway. So he just waited for his friend to continue.

“Innie?” Minho said again, quieter this time, softer, and Jeongin didn’t dare breathe as Minho stared at him with parted lips, as though it was impossible for him to let the words out.

“I…” Minho began.

Jeongin squeezed the other’s hand hard in his to urge his friend to continue.

Minho’s eyes met Jeongin’s properly, and Jeongin could tell that he’d finally made up his mind. And so Minho said it, voice thick:

“There was this boy, in high school.”

Jeongin stared, the air thick as water. The wind blew.

Ah.

With Minho’s words, it was as if a puzzle piece fell into place in Jeongin’s mind. He couldn’t do anything but look at his hyung in silence, but it pained him to see that his friend had to be so torn up about something like that, even in front of him.

Jeongin squeezed Minho's hand again, and with it, Minho smiled a little smile as he understood what message Jeongin was trying to send him, and he blinked away a few tears.

“My aunt, she saw us one day. Behind a bus stop,” Minho continued his confession, and laughed at how stupid it had been.

Jeongin just let him continue, holding his hand.

Minho snivelled dryly, but it tugged at Jeongin’s heart to see the shine in the other’s eyes. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he didn’t like to see his hyung like this.

“She told my parents,” Minho said finally.

Jeongin felt like his stomach had been filled with cold, heavy rocks at the other's words. He knew all too well what that meant. “What did they say?” he asked, but he already knew.

Minho shrugged, and he threw a glance back to the house behind him. “Nothing good. I moved out as soon as I could. But it’s fine now,” he tried to assure Jeongin, but Jeongin could hear that there was more to it than that. A made-up apology from his parents created by Minho himself, for himself.

Minho let his hand drop, falling out of Jeongin’s. He crossed his arms, and Jeongin could tell that he was shivering, not so much from the cold as from stiff tension.

They stood in silence for a while, the wind wisping quietly in the bushes and leaves by the neighbouring houses, the growing sounds of the evening. Minho shifted uncomfortably.

“Hyung?” Jeongin said after a while.

“Mhm,” Minho grunted in response, but Jeongin didn’t take offense. Of course he didn't.

“Do you wanna go back to the dorms? Jisung-hyung's got some beers in our room that we could share?” he asked carefully, trying to catch his hyung's cast down eyes.

Minho’s gaze traveled up Jeongin’s face to his eyes, and as unreadable as he was—his eyes steeled and hardened—Jeongin could still tell that he really, really wanted to take him up on his offer.

“No,” Minho said finally, “I’m going back inside.”

Jeongin was disappointed. And hurting for his hyung. “Okay,” he said, trying to think of anything to make his friend feel better.

In the end, he placed a steady hand on Minho’s shoulder, and as he pulled him into a hug, it didn’t go by him unnoticed how Minho threw a quick look to the window of the house behind him before he accepted it.

Jeongin held Minho for a while, but then, as the seconds ticked by, he started to feel awkward about it, the unusual intimacy lacking the backbone of a joke as it always had before. He slowly clapped Minho on the back, and as they both felt how the other tensed up, realising how genuine and intimate the hug had felt, Minho quickly let go too.

"I'll see you at the dorms tomorrow," Minho whispered.

"Yeah, you too," Jeongin confirmed, still holding a steady grip on the sides of Minho's arms.

Minho smiled at Jeongin before he went back inside, leaving Jeongin with a grieving feeling in his chest.

He hadn't known.

He caught a bus back home, trying not to let his thoughts wander to what Minho's night would be like.

The day after the dinner, Jeongin still didn’t regret that he’d gone with Minho.

When his hyung had gotten home the next morning, he hadn’t seeked out Jeongin right away, but when he finally did run into Jeongin in the living-room, he quietly sat down next to him and brought out his phone, as if everything was normal.

Jeongin threw a quick look up at him. “Hyung?”

“Mhm,” Minho said in response.

Something in the air almost made Jeongin feel like Minho wanted to apologise again, and Jeongin hoped he wouldn’t. He wasn’t good at comfort, especially not when the comfort shouldn't be necessary, when the issue was unsolvable. Especially when it was his hyung who needed it.

“Was it alright? Yesterday,” Jeongin asked, the feeling in his stomach still not gone after the difficult night. It had left a sour taste in his mouth.

“Yeah,” Minho said, but carefully reached down to grab onto the younger’s calf that was pulled up on the couch—the closest available part of him—as though moving slowly wouldn’t make Jeongin realise that the older wanted comfort. Just the little bit of physical touch, skin-to-skin, had always seemed to help Minho stay calm, and he often seeked Jeongin out for that, even if the younger often acted like he didn’t reciprocate.

Usually Jeongin would’ve kicked him off, told him that he’d have to find someone else’s feet to be interested in, but he realised Minho needed comfort without being openly affectionate, and to just sit together.

So of course he let him. In truth, he liked the attention anyway.

“Okay,” Jeongin said. “That’s good.”

Minho didn’t smile at that, and Jeongin didn’t believe him about what he’d said. Still, the situation might be better than he’d worried. Minho often visited his parents still, and a person got used to navigating these sorts of things, Jeongin knew that.

After that day, Minho seemed a bit more watchful around Jeongin, but not in an awkward, unpleasant way, but as if he was scared Jeongin would tell someone else. Of course, Jeongin wouldn’t, it hadn’t even crossed his mind before he realised his hyung felt anxious about it.

Other than that, nothing much had changed.

Getting outed wasn’t really something Jeongin had ever worried about, because he knew that the company would protect that secret from getting out at any cost. Still, he had always avoided fan service, something he’d gotten away with on the basis of being the youngest and a minor at debut. He thought the group had found a good balance between authenticity and intimacy.

But he knew how terrifying it must feel for his hyung, that his secret would get out, even if it was just to his closest friends, especially with his history with coming out. That was something that had to happen on your own terms.

But the dinner had led Jeongin to think, and that was the reason he didn’t regret going with Minho. Now he knew , and even though he wouldn’t tell anyone, he still wanted to help Minho, just in any way he could. His hyung had always taken good care of him, even before debuting, and despite their ages Jeongin thought it was only right that he support his friend and ease his worries and anxieties.

Now, whenever he and Minho touched or hugged or play-fought as usual, Jeongin imagined he could almost feel Minho’s ache through his chest. And every time, he ached for the other in return.

Just a few weeks later, when the group had been allowed a longer vacation, Jeongin finally brought it up.

“Minho-hyung?” he said, sitting alone with Minho at the breakfast table, Chan and Jisung having just left to join Changbin at the company.

Minho raised his eyes.

“I’m going back to Busan just this weekend, for a few days,” Jeongin explained, and for some reason he felt his pulse increase in his chest. He tapped lightly on his neck instead of slapping his own face to snap out of it, like he instinctively felt like doing. He didn’t have anything to be nervous about.

Minho tilted his head.

“I was wondering if you wanted to come with,” Jeongin said, not being able to stop himself from pursing his lips into a thin line. He hoped his hyung couldn’t see that the proposal made him nervous, because it wasn’t meant to be anything special.

“With you?” Minho asked, looking surprised, but not seeming completely averse to the idea, which instantly warmed Jeongin’s heart, making something jump inside him.

“No, alone,” Jeongin said sarcastically but then felt embarrassed about how he’d have to correct himself. He did it anyway: “No, with me, yeah.”

Minho was quiet for a second, but in the end he replied faster than Jeongin had anticipated, like he didn't need to think twice about it. “Mhm, sure.”

Jeongin looked at him, and when Minho saw how surprised Jeongin looked, he reached over to tussle the other’s hair, which Jeongin just barely managed to duck away from. “Of course I do, Ienn-ah, a few days with my fourth favourite dongsaeng.”

Jeongin smiled at him when he realised Minho was talking about his cats, and Minho smiled back.

In short terms, that was how Jeongin and Minho found themselves exiting a train far north, getting stuffed into a taxi with the instructions to drive them to where Jeongin’s parents lived.

Jeongin saw that Minho looked a little nervous, sitting next to him there in the back seat, but whenever he looked at Jeongin, he still smiled warmly, reassured.

“My brothers will be there, my older too,” Jeongin said.

“Oh?” Minho said back.

Jeongin nodded. “Yeah, he’s staying for the week. But you’ll stay in my room anyway, and my brothers will have to share a room themselves.”

Minho nodded at that, mostly to himself, it seemed. “That’s good.”

Jeongin smiled.

When they arrived, Jeongin was surprised at his hyung. With the memory of how vulnerably nervous Minho had seemed in the car just minutes before, as soon as they entered the house he carried himself with a pleasant confidence that Jeongin hadn’t been able to show when he'd visited Minho’s parents.

Minho managed to strike up conversation and pleasantries with Jeongin’s parents seemingly with ease, even shooting Jeongin’s younger brother a joke to lighten the atmosphere when the younger looked unsure about why Minho would be staying there.

Jeongin hadn’t brought friends before, for years, at least. He'd been too busy, lived too far away to think of it, so it all seemed to feel rather special to his family, like it was some type of event.

Minho told Jeongin's younger brother that maybe he was just special like that, but then he laughed to show that he wasn’t sincere, not overly cocky and confident in himself.

Jeongin could tell that his parents liked his friend, approved of his groupmate and were finally able to agree with everything Jeongin had told them about Minho over the past years. It made him smile, for some reason making him feel proud for his hyung, and when Minho turned to him and winked when his family had their backs turned, something fluttered in his chest. He smiled back.

Jeongin had felt a bit tense and nervous that Minho wouldn’t be comfortable visiting his home, but he was happy to see his friend get along fine with his family.

Jeongin’s mother had asked a lot of questions at first; how the trip had gone, what school Minho had gone to, if he’d done well, if he had siblings, if he was studying on the side, if they were getting along at the dorms in Seoul, if he liked the house. Jeongin held his breath as his mother seemed to make an assessment of his hyung’s answers, but then her face burst into a smile and she welcomed him.

Jeongin’s father told a lot of stories about Jeongin, but even though some of them were a little embarrassing, Jeongin didn’t mind much, since at every story Minho turned to Jeongin and gave him a teasing smile and at every smile Jeongin rolled his eyes back. After all, Jeongin had brought his hyung home for him to be happy.

Jeongin’s older brother had been sent to the kitchen to prepare the last touches for the dinner, as it had already begun to get late when the two boys arrived at the airport.

The conversation continued naturally to the table, and Minho ended up next to Jeongin and his older brother, with Jeongin’s younger brother opposite of him and his parents by the far end of the table.

The dinner went smoothly, they laughed at a few comments from Jeongin’s mother, Jeongin fought a little with his younger brother, maybe in part because the back-and-forth made Minho laugh, and Minho placed some of his food onto Jeongin’s plate when that dish had already run out.

Jeongin’s parents smiled at them.

After a while, Jeongin’s younger brother put his chopsticks down and placed his cheek in his hand and turned to Jeongin.

“So, is it a secret?”

Jeongin looked at him, looking bored with his brother. “That I’m here? No, don’t be stupid.”

Jeongin’s brother waved him away. “Not that ,” he complained, as though Jeongin was messing with him.

“What then?” Jeongin asked, and he could see that Minho—sitting next to him—watched the conversation with curious eyes. He probably didn’t know what secret Jeongin’s brother could be referring to either, there were so many, especially when you were an idol.

His younger brother rolled his eyes. “ Obviously it’s a secret, I get that much. I just meant if you’ve told Yongbok and Changbin and Seungmin hyungs and everyone else yet.”

Now, the rest of Jeongin’s family leaned in to follow the conversation more closely too, especially his parents. His older brother kept slowly chewing his food, but they all seemed awfully curious about whatever the two brothers were talking about.

“I meant Minho-hyung.” He pointed to Minho, who raised an eyebrow at the youngest, wondering what he had to do with Jeongin’s secret.

“Hyung?” Jeongin asked. “And don’t point.”

“Fine,” his brother said. “I just meant, you know, you two…” he trailed off.

A growing suspicion suddenly dug itself into Jeongin’s chest. He shot Minho with a watchful eye, just to see if the other had gotten an inkling yet, too.

Seeing how Minho was still smiling at the youngest at the table, he had not.

“What about me and Minho-hyung?” Jeongin asked.

“ Ah ,” Jeongin’s father said from the far end of the table, and Jeongin understood that his dad had just realised what misunderstanding had taken place.

“You two being together, I meant,” his brother said, dropping the bomb Jeongin had feared, and Jeongin heard Minho’s chopsticks immediately clatter down onto his plate.

“Uh—” Jeongin’s younger brother shot a confused look at Minho before he continued.  “I just meant, did you tell the group that he was coming with you to meet us?”

Jeongin stared at his brother, wondering why he would’ve said such a thing, there was no indication for it, and then he turned to look at Minho.

Minho’s eyes were wide open and glassy—blinking rapidly, stunned—and he was quickly adopting a pale, nearly white colour. His bottom lip fell down as Jeongin’s younger brother’s words slowly caught up with him.

Minho turned his head to face Jeongin straight-on—and Jeongin wasn’t sure if it was accusatory or desperately seeking support—and then he directed his eyes to Jeongin’s younger brother, then his other brother, then his parents, and then back again. Like he was searching for what this would mean for them, if they'd be allowed to stay at the house, if they'd even be allowed to finish the dinner.

Minho’s voice was shaky when he spoke. “We—We aren’t—”

“We aren’t together,” Jeongin cut off, sparing Minho the humiliation of it all, his gaze still flickering to Minho to see if he was in any way okay.

It didn’t seem like he was.

“We’re just friends.”

Minho turned to him and managed to look thankful that Jeongin was speaking up for him, but the accusatory look still lingered. He nodded, but still looked like there was a storm of a panic seering inside him, no doubt all kinds of emotions and memories whirling inside him no matter how still and calm it was around the table.

Jeongin’s mother’s eyes widened. “ Oh ,” she said, her mouth forming a perfect ‘o’ shape. “I thought that, too.”

Jeongin’s father kept his head lowered and continued eating, but his ears were suspiciously pink.

Jeongin’s brother gaped before he was able to speak. “Sorry, hyung. I didn’t mean to imply that you’d want Jeongin-hyung for a boyfriend.” 

“Don’t say that!” Jeongin cut, not to defend himself but to not put ideas into his hyung’s head. Jeongin realised that his younger brother didn’t realise the severity of the situation, but only thought it was a funny misunderstanding.

“I didn’t—” Minho said again, but he didn’t finish his sentence. He sniffed next to Jeongin, and Jeongin’s chest squeezed as though restrained by elastic bands.

Minho turned fully to Jeongin, and his voice nearly, but not completely, broke. “What did you tell them?”

Jeongin didn’t know what to say. Was his hyung asking if he’d told them that there was something special going on between the two of them? If he’d told them that he liked his hyung as something more than friends? If he’d told them that Minho liked guys? If he’d told them that he liked guys, too?

“Nothing,” he said, but when his hyung furrowed his brow, he realised that that had been the wrong answer. Minho didn't believe him.

All of them sat quiet again, except for Jeongin’s father, who kept eating, and his older brother, who’d decided to follow suit.

Minho sniffed again. He blinked rapidly.

“Minho-ya?” Jeongin’s mother suddenly spoke up, and her voice was carefully comforting. Jeongin shot her a look, closely watching out for what his family would say next. He trusted them, but they'd also just shown that they didn't understand the situation at all.

“What’s wrong?” she asked softly, once they’d locked eyes.

Minho didn’t seem to want to look at her, so he looked back to Jeongin again.

Despite being older, he looked almost like a child in the way his eyes were clinging onto the younger. He must’ve felt comfort in the familiarity in his friend, because he managed to blink away the line of tears that had threatened to escape him. He seemed to seek some type of answer on Jeongin’s face as to what was going on.

“They know I like guys,” Jeongin said, and it didn't feel much like a confession of a deeply hidden secret. His hyung had never asked—if he had, Jeongin would’ve told him. Still, he felt ashamed that he hadn’t come out when Minho had, as well, there in the autumn dark outside his parents’ house.

Minho stared at him, at a complete loss for words, and Jeongin felt an embarrassed blush rise on his cheeks.

“You’re…” Minho began.

Jeongin’s older brother seemed to read the atmosphere and Minho’s face faster than the others. He spoke up: “Jeongin told us years ago. What was it?” He turned to his dad.

“Fourteen,” Jeongin’s dad replied. “He was fourteen, still in middle school.”

Jeongin nodded and smiled uncertainly at Minho, and reached under the table to grab onto the other’s hand, carefully, not sure if it’d be okay. The iron grip Minho gave back answered his question, and it made his smile widen. “It’s fine, hyung.”

“So you do like guys too, Minho-ssi?” Jeongin’s brother asked, and at his words Minho’s face dropped again.

“ Guys ,” Jeongin said, after asking Minho through his eyes if it was okay for him to answer. “Not me.”

Minho sat in silence, his face blank but thousands of thoughts clearly flashing through his head.

“Yeah,” Minho finally agreed, and he almost seemed to gasp at himself in surprise that he'd actually answered.

Something about the atmosphere had made him comfortable just enough to open up to near strangers. Jeongin wasn’t sure if the other regretted it or not, and when he looked at Minho, he didn’t even look sure himself.

Jeongin’s younger brother rolled his eyes again, it seemed to have become a bad habit of his. “Well, we know that .”

Then, there was another quiet around the table. But not a quiet like it’d been around the table when Jeongin had visited Minho’s parents’ house a few months before.

Back then, Minho had been the only one fully in the know, but completely without power and control. The silence had been tense and disapproving, judging, a kind of silence that no son and no guest should have to sit through around a dinner table. No one had known what to say, and there had been an almost pressing need to fill the silence in any way they could.

The silence around Jeongin’s family table was similar in many ways, but the most important difference was that there was no need to fill the silence. The silence wasn’t comfortable, and Minho still looked pale and still hadn’t gone back to pick up his chopsticks from his plate, but the silence wasn’t for a lack of words, but instead to give the boys the time necessary to let what had just taken place in the kitchen properly sink in.

Jeongin’s older brother suddenly spoke up, but no one startled and no one caught their breath in surprise. Minho slowly shifted his eyes to listen:

“Minho-ssi,” he addressed Minho. “It’s fine. You don’t have to worry.”

Maybe that hadn’t been the right thing to say, because Jeongin saw how Minho’s jaw tensed reflexively, and he began to blink rapidly in a way that he always did but this time no doubt to keep new tears at bay.

Then Jeongin’s father dropped a piece of chicken from his chopsticks that bounced onto the table, and he swore under his breath. He looked back up when he realised everyone had turned to look at him, but then everyone decided to pretend like nothing had interrupted them.

“Okay,” Minho said, and Jeongin squeezed his hyung’s hand harder under the table when he heard his voice. “Okay.”

Just like it’d felt all those months ago, it still didn’t feel right that he was the one to comfort his hyung, but he didn’t mind.

“Okay, Minho-ya,” Jeongin’s mother reassured him.

“We don’t have to talk about it anymore,” Jeongin put in. “Maybe.” He looked to his mother.

Jeongin’s younger brother nodded silently next to him, and he had a bit of a sheepish look on his face and a blush on his ears, most definitely shame from having been the one to tear up the dinner to begin with.

Minho nodded as well, like he was so caught up in his own head to really pay attention to what the others were doing, too shocked to speak, so he didn’t say anything. He understood, but he didn’t look like he could believe it.

“Actually,” Jeongin’s father interrupted them. “Why don’t the two of you go up to In-ah’s room.” He looked around, and when he saw the approving look on his wife’s face, after a second’s thought, he continued. “I’m full. Stuffed. I think we’re all feeling like we’re done for the night.”

Jeongin’s mother nodded. “It’s getting late, too,” she said. “At least for us.” She laughed and looked at her husband. “We aren’t getting any younger.”

Minho sniffed dryly as Jeongin pulled him up from where he was sitting, and Minho quickly rubbed at the corners of his eyes with his free hand. There weren’t any tears to wipe away, but maybe his eyes were burning anyway.

Jeongin felt how the other tried to let go of his hand, so he quickly let go himself. He took a step back to give Minho room to collect himself.

The events of the evening, the words spoken around the table, seemed to have made Minho lose his footing entirely. Of course it had.

Jeongin watched his friend as the other almost looked like he wanted to physically shake off the stupor he’d fallen into from the mix of horror from his secret having been voiced out into the world as well as the resounding acceptance from Jeongin’s family that he’d never gotten from his own.

Minho nodded. He looked across the table at Jeongin’s parents.

“Thank you,” he said. “The food was really great.”

Jeongin’s father smiled sheepishly. “Thank you,” he replied.

Jeongin’s mother smiled too, but in a way that showed that she understood that Minho wasn’t only thanking them for the food.

Minho nodded and sniffed, and Jeongin reached down to grab his hand again. “Let’s go, hyung.” He pulled at his friend’s hand.

“See you boys tomorrow,” Jeongin’s mother said as the two started to make their way out of the kitchen.

“Thank you,” Minho said again, halting for a second to turn his head around.

She smiled back. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Mr. and Mrs. Yang,” Minho said right as Jeongin began to climb the staircase with him in tow, following him close behind but trying to get a last look at the happy family downstairs.

Jeongin couldn’t help but allow a small smile to press forth on his face as he felt Minho follow behind him.

The sick feeling that he’d carried with him for months—ever since he’d stepped out of Minho’s house into the late summer air that night—was still resting at the bottom of his stomach, but he smiled nonetheless. It’d been right to ask his hyung to come along to meet his parents and brothers, even though it might have caused Minho pain to have been faced with what his life could have been like too, if his family had been different.

As they climbed the last step, Jeongin decided that they probably didn’t need a house tour. What they needed was to sit down alone and maybe talk, or maybe to just be together.

The sudden thought to grab ahold of Minho’s hand as his hyung followed behind him entered his mind, but he decided against it. Minho would follow along without being dragged, but still, for some reason Jeongin would’ve felt better about having just put Minho through a turmoil of a dinner if he could just show a little bit of support.

Jeongin opened his bedroom door.

“You can sit on the bed,” Jeongin said as soon as he went over the threshold to his room. He turned around to usher Minho inside. 

Minho was still standing in the doorway, and it both pained and endeared Jeongin to see how Minho’s posture and confident body language from just an hour earlier—before the dinner—had disappeared completely. To Jeongin, he looked much, much younger than usual.

It had always been special to Jeongin how his hyung didn’t take on the role of an elder with him, how he instead treated Jeongin like any other friend. If it’d been Chan or Changbin it would’ve felt strange, wrong, but with Minho it was different.

Maybe Minho wasn’t acting like a conventional hyung when he stormed into the younger’s room to whine about the smallest of things, but Jeongin wasn’t much of a conventional maknae either.

They could meet halfway.

Minho had said it himself that it was relaxing and easy to be with the youngest because of how well they got along despite their age difference, and Jeongin tried to not think too much about how that made him feel.

In the doorway, he waited for Minho to properly enter his room, and when Minho seemed to realise that Jeongin had no intention of leading the way, he startled where he stood but then finally began to make his way over to the bed, moving on hesitant legs.

The bed was neatly made, fresh, new sheets that Jeongin had never seen before. His parents had remade his room into a guest room and a bit of a storage, with boxes lining the walls. Still, all his own belongings from his childhood were still lining the walls.

Jeongin plopped down on the mattress unceremoniously.

“So,” he began, as Minho slumped down next to him as well. The bed sank a bit when he sat, and Jeongin slid half an inch closer to the other. He paused, he didn’t know how to bring it up, it’d been such a big thing, but he had to anyway, somehow. “Are you, you know, okay?”

Minho didn’t look at him at first, staring ahead of himself, eyes taking in the walls and shelves in Jeongin’s old room, which honestly made Jeongin feel a bit embarrassed. He didn’t have any secrets to hide from Minho, but he didn’t want him to find anything stupid that Jeongin had forgotten to get rid of, either.

Finally, Minho turned his head and looked back at him, and Jeongin ignored the little pinch he felt in his chest as his friend blinked at him, looking at him for a few beats in silence as though he was trying to organise his thoughts before answering.

Jeongin put his hands in his lap to get a bit of distance between himself and the other, but kept the eye contact even though it once again felt just a little bit too intimate to see the kind of honest emotions that were floating past in Minho's eyes so up-close. He swallowed, but waited.

“I’m okay,” Minho finally said. He seemed to hesitate, and his eyes dipped for a second before he answered. “I like your family. Your parents are very kind. Your brothers too.”

Jeongin watched the other for a few seconds, trying to identify any signs that he was lying. Minho had many reasons to lie, either to not admit to Jeongin that he was hurting, or to not let on that Jeongin had hurt him. It couldn’t have been easy to be forced to face what his own parents were lacking, and by extension what he’d been lacking as well, without any warning or say in the matter.

Jeongin leaned forward a bit to rest his elbow on his thigh, holding his cheek in his hand. He looked up at his friend, not knowing if he was feeling nervous or embarrassed with just the two of them there. There was something strange in the air between them, sitting so close to each other alone in his old childhood bedroom, and so far away from their usual relationship, their work and the other members.

He felt a need to apologise. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, about me.”

Minho’s eyes snapped over to him immediately, and he looked genuinely surprised and confused at Jeongin’s words as his eyebrows shot up. “No, it’s okay,” he said.

Minho lifted himself up a bit and slid an inch away from Jeongin, which on one hand made Jeongin happy as it allowed him to see his hyung’s face better, but on the other he couldn’t help but feel disappointed as he couldn’t feel the warmth radiating from the other’s leg anymore. “I didn’t tell you either,” Minho finished.

Now it was Jeongin’s eyebrows’ turn to shoot up, before he could stop himself. “That’s not the same, like, at all.”

“It’s the same words,” Minho insisted.

Jeongin didn’t understand how his friend could say that and still look so honest while being so wrong. He stared. “I don’t think it’s the same thing, anyway. I could’ve told anyone whenever. I wasn’t scared.”

Minho didn’t seem to have an answer to that, and before the other spoke again Jeongin worried that maybe that had been insensitive.

“Guess we both made a mistake, then,” Minho said finally. “I would’ve liked to know.”

“Why?” Jeongin asked immediately, and he realised how stupid it sounded as soon as the words left his mouth. Of course Minho would’ve liked to know. He’d been completely alone, he’d been scared.

Minho still didn’t seem fazed as he answered: “Just because.” He put his cheek in his hand as well, matching Jeongin’s pose so he didn’t have to look down at him. “I think it would’ve been nice to know. We could’ve been different with each other.” He smiled.

The words didn’t register at first, but Jeongin immediately felt a heat spread to his ears when they did. He tried his hardest to ignore it and instead just hoped that the shadows in the room would hide the blush. “What, what does that mean?”

Minho just looked at him, and Jeongin didn’t know how to make his ears stop flushing as he couldn’t read any thoughts on his friend’s face, any hint as to what was going on inside the other's head.

Whatever ‘different’ meant to Minho, in that moment Jeongin definitely felt like he would’ve liked to know about Minho from the start as well. 

Instead of replying, Minho straightened his back and sighed. He leaned back and slumped backwards to lean on his elbows on the mattress, looking up at Jeongin.

The scene felt strangely familiar. 

Jeongin’s mouth felt way too dry as he looked back down at his friend on the bed. The silence didn’t seem natural anymore, and he wished Minho would just answer him. With the words Minho had just said, the way he was just looking up at him, like he was considering what to say, looking for something on Jeongin's face that would change his answer, the air felt denser than it ever had for the entire span of their friendship.

Jeongin’s averted his eyes from his hyung’s face, but instead they fell down to land on the other's neck where his shirt hung loose, falling over his shoulders but hugging his chest, pulled to the side by his arm. Jeongin froze when he saw his hyung readjust his thigh where it lay over the sheets.

Jeongin didn’t breathe as his eyes travelled back up to land on Minho’s face—realising that the other was still watching him, and had definitely seen how his eyes had been moving over his body where he lay—and Jeongin could no longer ignore the embarrassing blush that was burning on his cheeks.

Minho still didn’t reply as Jeongin forced himself to keep his eyes fixed hard into his hyung’s, to not let himself accidentally follow the line of Minho's cheeks and jaw or the way his shirt was covering his shoulders and stomach, but not his collarbones or arms.

It had always been something that Jeongin kept catching himself doing, getting stuck with his eyes on any of his hyungs as they moved around in the kitchen, stretching to get something from a higher shelf, or during dance practice when gulping down water out of their water bottles. It was just that it felt weird and wrong in a different way when it was just the two of them, him and Minho, alone in his old bedroom with the door closed, not in their apartment in Seoul but in his family home in Busan.

Then, Minho suddenly spoke, eyes resting on Jeongin, questioningly. “We would’ve known we were the same way. It would’ve been different for us, from the others. I never had that after what happened, and I think if I got to choose, I'd want it with you.” He smiled, and Jeongin's stomach jolted. Still, Minho sounded confused as to why Jeongin was staring so intently at him, why the air had grown so heavy. Or maybe that was just Jeongin’s imagination.

When Minho had finally answered, Jeongin just blinked at him. He felt stupid for whatever thoughts had gotten into his head for just a second, there had just been something in the way Minho had looked at him that had put images into his mind of things he’d never felt for his hyung before.

He scratched his nose but didn’t look away. He let Minho continue to speak, not really trusting himself to not stammer with his embarrassing thoughts’ little private journey fresh in mind.

“I would’ve liked to be friends like that,” Minho continued on. He smiled. “But now we know.”

“Yeah,” Jeongin said after a second, and he couldn’t make the smile he shot back at the other seem anything but nervous.

He decided to quickly put the past minute behind them, forcefully pushing away all thoughts that had seemed impossible to ignore just a few moments earlier.

Still looking up at him, Minho patted the mattress next to where he was lying. He plopped down on Jeongin’s bed with his head and back entirely.

Jeongin looked at how his friend’s lightly brown hair spread out around him and the smile in his eyes beamed up at Jeongin, the usual playfulness back in them.

Minho patted the mattress again. “Come."

Jeongin dragged his fingers down his face and sighed. Minho didn’t seem to have caught on at all, thankfully, so hopefully it came across as his usual exasperation at his hyung’s playful attention—affection—and not as exasperation at his own on all levels inappropriate thoughts.

He turned and plopped down next to his friend, head bouncing as it hit the mattress.

In his periphery, Jeongin saw his hyung turn his head to look at his profile, but made sure to ignore it until the other turned back to stare up into the ceiling with him.

They lay in silence for a while, allowing Jeongin’s pulse to calm down entirely and his blush to fade away. What had flashed past in his mind had been stupid. Those things weren't something he actually felt, not his actual feelings. It was no different than watching Chan whisk pancake batter in a tank top or watch Hyunjin wipe his forehead with the back of his hand after dancing. It was nothing.

“Thank you,” Minho said suddenly.

Jeongin turned his head. “For?”

He saw how Minho furrowed his brow next to him, still staring up into the ceiling. Maybe he didn’t know exactly what it was that he was thankful for. He didn’t reply.

“It’s okay, anyway,” Jeongin said. “I’m happy you’re happy. I am, too.”

Minho was quiet for a second more. “Yeah, I’m happy,” he seemed to decide at last. He turned his head so they were facing each other on the bed. “Good thing we got to be together in the end, you know, with the others. And that we’re here too.” He paused, and then smiled. “You know I’ve always really liked you, Ienn-ah.”

Jeongin didn’t blink. He already knew that, and he really liked his hyung too.

“Thanks,” he said.

Minho snorted, the air hitting Jeongin hard in the eyes. “But I can still change my mind,” he said and turned away to look back up into the ceiling again. “Watch it.”

Jeongin smiled, but quickly raised his head when Minho suddenly rose from the bed with a jolt to a sitting position again.

Minho looked down at him and furrowed his brow. He didn’t seem like he’d sitten up to leave but because it was easier to think properly that way.

“We’re here,” he said, pursing his lips like there was something that wasn't quite right.

“Really?” Jeongin asked, and hoisted himself up to lean on his elbows. “I didn’t know.”

“I mean we’re together, both of us.” Minho was talking like it should be obvious what he meant.

Jeongin shook his head at him, saying ‘no’ or maybe just ‘I don’t know’ to whatever the other was going on about.

They stared at each other.

“Where will I sleep?” Minho finally asked, throwing a quick glance down at Jeongin and then at the bed.

Jeongin looked back up at him, raising an eyebrow, confused, but mostly surprised at the sudden question. “Here?” he said slowly, and then pointed right down to where he was lying on his back.

Minho blinked. “With you?”

Jeongin stuttered. “No?” he almost replied before he’d even processed the words. Something jolted in his stomach and he rushed to sit up completely. “There’s a mattress there,” he hurried to clear everything up. He’d had enough inappropriate thoughts about his friend that night already. He pointed to the mattress that had been stood leaning against the wall the entire time. “I’ll sleep on that one. I wouldn’t want to sleep with you.”

He immediately wanted to jump off a cliff.

“That’s not right,” Minho said without acknowledging what Jeongin had just said at all. “This is your bed, I can take the floor. Or I mean the mattress.”

Jeongin looked at him without blinking. Somehow he kept almost creating one extremely awkward situation after the other, especially considering the conversation that had just taken place downstairs, but Minho didn’t seem to pay it any mind. And Jeongin wasn’t about to repeat himself or point it out either.

“You're saying you'll sleep on the floor at your age?” he said instead, raising an eyebrow.

Minho just stared at him. Then he smiled and looked away. “Stop,” he said. “I’m as spry and young as ever. Don't test your luck.”

“Sure you are. I just don’t want to have you walking around whining about your back and joints all weekend every day we’re here,” Jeongin kept teasing, and even though he still felt like the air was heavier than usual, the energy tenser, he was happy to be let back to their usual jargon. For some reason, though, he did miss the honest, intimate feeling that had just passed between them.

Minho looked at him and rolled his eyes. “Fine." He threw himself backwards onto the bed again and closed his eyes. “Suddenly I’m very tired. Guess you have to be quiet now.”

Jeongin snorted. “You just don’t want to face the truth, hyung. I’ll take the mattress.”

Minho opened an eye and peered up at him. “Get off, this is my bed.” He kicked Jeongin as hard as he could by dragging one of his legs sideways, so it didn’t end up very hard, but Jeongin got off the bed anyway. Minho closed his eye again. “I’m twenty-four, it’s getting too late for me.”

“It’s ten in the evening.”

“Exactly,” Minho said.

Jeongin rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he sighed, “I hate how I always get it my way.”

Minho smiled on the bed. “We can still share if it’s such a problem, Innie.”

Jeongin’s smile quickly dropped, and he swirled around immediately to go get the mattress. “No, I don’t want to.”

Minho snorted behind him, but didn’t say anything back.

Despite how early it was, Jeongin wasn’t about to complain about going to bed. They both had sleeping pills with them anyway, prescribed to compensate for their usually hectic schedules, and Jeongin definitely needed a new start in the morning. Something about how the evening had progressed had thrown him off completely, and he’d rather just sleep it off.

Crawling out of their clothes and in under their blankets—Jeongin turning off the ceiling lamp and then nearly falling on his face as he stumbled over his mattress through the dark—the long day was finally coming to a close.

It all felt so surreal, how one thing had led to another, that feeding cats had somehow led to Minho sleeping in his bed hundreds of miles from their shared home. It didn’t feel possible, the way things connected.

As he lay down, finally letting his head sink into his pillow, he stared up at Minho, who was on his side too, watching him.

“Goodnight, hyung,” he said.

“Mmhm,” Minho hummed back. “Goodnight, Ienn-ah.”

They were quiet for a moment, but none of them turned back around. There was no reason for any of them to hide their smiles as they watched each other through the darkness, as they could only see the outline of the other’s pale face anyway.

Jeongin hesitated. Maybe it was unnecessary. “Hyung?” he said anyway.

Minho hummed quietly to show that he was listening.

Jeongin hesitated.

“You’re okay, right?”

Minho was quiet for a moment, and Jeongin felt his heart sink when his friend turned around to lay on his back. Then he spoke:

“I already told you. I’m happy.”

Jeongin didn’t reply. He just watched the silhouette of his friend on the bed above.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, hyung,” Jeongin said after a while “I wanted to say it again.”

He heard Minho shuffle on the bed, but he couldn’t exactly make out what direction the other was facing. He thought he felt the other’s eyes on him, though. “You didn’t have to, Ienn-ah. It’s private, I know that. Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

“No, I did,” Jeongin pressed. “I know you were scared.”

Minho replied quickly: “I wasn’t scared.”

Jeongin knew that the other was lying, and of course Minho knew that he knew, as well, but none of them acknowledged it. Instead they let the silence run on, the unsaid words hanging over them, awkward and absolutely impossible to ignore, even though Jeongin was trying his hardest to.

“Go to sleep,” Minho mumbled finally, and Jeongin heard him turn over to his other side.

Jeongin turned his head to look at the other, but his eyes got stuck at the wide back and broad shoulder blades that were facing him.

The white shirt that Minho was wearing shone in the darkness, reflecting light Jeongin couldn’t place the source of in the dark room, and he followed the white shape that draped over his hyung’s body with his eyes. Jeongin could just barely make out the nape of the other’s neck, resting between his shoulders and broad back, and then tapered down to his waist as Jeongin followed the line of Minho's spine.

Jeongin kept his eyes on the blurry outline of Minho’s slowly rising and falling back until he slowly let his eyelids fall shut, not paying any mind to the warm, yet uncomfortably sticky, guilty feeling that was spreading through his chest.

He and Minho were only in Busan for four days—like they'd planned—not long enough to see much outside the neighbourhood but long enough to get comfortable in the house. Not that they spent a lot of time there.

Every day, Minho would already be awake when Jeongin opened his eyes. He’d be sitting on the bed, scrolling and typing on his phone, smiling to himself.

Jeongin would roll over wrapped in his blanket, and every time he’d feel Minho’s eyes fleet over to where he was lying, for a short moment, before they’d return back to the screen in his hands.

In the mornings, they rarely ate with the rest of the family. Each family member grabbed their own breakfast, and on all days but one Jeongin and Minho went out for breakfast anyway. Minho told Jeongin that he felt a bit bad about them eating all their meals out in the city, like they were ungrateful guests, but Jeongin scoffed and reassured him that his parents were just happy to not have to cook anything special every day.

When they were out, Jeongin tried to show Minho as much of Busan as he could, but he quickly realised that maybe they didn’t have to visit the most famous sites and buy tickets to different tourist traps or pay for expensive food for the trip to be exactly what his hyung needed. He’d planned the whole weekend out and made a list in his head of everything he’d like to show Minho in his hometown, but maybe it was the smaller things that mattered.

The more time they spent in Busan, the more Jeongin realised that what seemed to mean the most to Minho—what made his friend’s eyes beam and lips turn up in a small smile—was to sit at the outskirts of the grounds of what had been Jeongin’s elementary school, pulling at the grass in silence or making the occasional comment about the other members back in Seoul or about whatever came to mind, or to buy a small bag of chips at the corner store Jeongin had gone to during lunch for his first year of high school, or even something as simple as Jeongin’s mother telling them good morning before they left the house.

And maybe Minho was right.

During the weekend, the sticky, guilty feeling that Jeongin had felt that first night—after having looked at Minho for just a few seconds in a way he hadn’t ever really done before—had slowly sunk away, and the warm feeling in his chest had only grown stronger. There was something so special about just spending every hour alone with his hyung—something he’d missed so much for the past years, even making him jealous of some of their other friends—to just walk through the streets in the midday sun or sit across from each other at the cafe they went to every day, and that Minho acted like everything was just like usual.

But everything wasn’t like usual. In many ways, everything was better. Because even in the past when he and Minho had spent time together alone, the all too sporadic shopping rounds or the few times they’d gone to see a movie together, the new connection that they now had hadn’t existed between them.

Now, everything felt special, because even when they were just walking in silence, they knew each other in a completely different way in which no one else knew them. There was now something between them that they’d never had before, but something that they would now always share together.

When Jeongin thought about it, lying awake one night, watching his hyung’s shoulder blades rise and fall in the darkness, he decided that it felt a lot like that connection that they’d always had anyway, because of the way Minho could act completely natural, unbothered with him despite their ages, and many times even act younger than Jeongin. But now there was something more as well, an understanding about the other that put them on the same level, not just by an indifference for their ages and standing.

Now, he and his hyung knew they had something in common that none of their other friends did, and even though he felt embarrassed about that pettiness, it made him smile to himself—pleased—that in at least this, he had Minho all to himself.

So, lying awake, thinking about everything that had happened, Jeongin also thought about how he absolutely did not regret coming over to have that dinner with Minho’s family.

On their first morning in Busan, Minho was sitting on Jeongin’s bed, looking directly down at him when he woke up. Jeongin closed his eyes again, and pushed his face down into his pillow, ignoring the sunlight that was shining in through the window, bathing Minho in it.

Minho prodded him with his bare foot, which Jeongin tried to groggily slap away with a hand, but he missed and just uselessly stroked Minho’s shin. He groaned, and turned back to look at his friend.

“I want to wash up,” Minho said, kicking him again.

Jeongin grunted. “Wash up, then.”

Minho was quiet for a second. “Come with,” he ordered, staring intently at Jeongin.

Jeongin squinted up at him. “Are you scared to go alone, or what?”

“No, I just want company,” Minho said, and pushed his foot up in Jeongin’s face.

Jeongin just barely managed to get away before Minho pushed his whole foot into his mouth, but while doing so he rolled and fell off the mattress with a low thud in a heap of blankets and limbs.

Minho snorted. “Come with,” he said again, smiling down at Jeongin who was sitting on the floor, rubbing his elbow and glaring at the other.

On their second day in Busan, the two of them were resting in the shade under a tree in a park way too far away from Jeongin’s house for them to be able to walk back home on foot.

Jeongin was sitting with a bag with candy that Minho had bought him when they’d gone into a store that Jeongin had never been to—starting to run out of places to visit that he could remember but wanting to show as much of his home as possible—the shelves and aisles lined with American themed wares and snacks.

Jeongin had bought Minho a bar of some type of chocolate as well, but the older had put it in his bag, saying that he’d save it for later. Jeongin suspected that the other just didn’t like the look of the unappetising picture of the bright green mint-flavoured interior on the packaging, and was trying to weasel his way out of trying it.

Jeongin put another piece of candy in his mouth.

Minho was sitting about a two-person’s width away from him, mindlessly looking up into the foliage of the tree crown above them. A bit of sunlight was spilling onto his face through the leaves.

Jeongin had tried not to think about what had passed through his head that first night they’d spent in Busan, alone in his room when his hyung’s hair had spread out in a halo on the sheets, looking up at him in the half-lit room before they’d gone to sleep.

Minho hadn’t seemed aware of what kind of images had briefly passed through the younger’s mind, and he still didn’t act like anything had changed in how he viewed Jeongin during the last two days either.

And that was for the better, Jeongin decided. He didn’t view his hyung any differently either. He'd always known that his friend was attractive. He’d watched him before, he often did when he forgot himself to thoughts in the practise room or together on the couch at the dorm or sometimes even during a schedule. Really, he was surprised that none of his friends had made any teasing, joking comments about it yet. Stay certainly had.

It had always been a joke between the members anyway, everything that Stay said about all of them. The other members rarely initiated physical contact with Jeongin, which maybe was the reason as to why he always got away with it himself when he seeked them out.

He threw another quick glance at the other.

Minho was still sitting cross-legged—almost statuelike—on the grass under the shaded sun. He was mindlessly tearing grass out of the ground, putting it down right next to where he’d pulled it from, making a little pile next to his foot. His head was angled upwards, his jaw relaxed in not quite a smile but something pleasantly calm but still defined in the almost perfect angles that shaped his face.

Jeongin rarely paid much attention to the other’s hair or the way the skin on his nose and cheeks almost glowed after a day out in the sun when he lost himself to mindless thoughts. Instead he could rarely stop his gaze from travelling downwards to trace his neck and shoulders, and the way his shirts clung to him, how his chest moved when he stretched. In the sun like this, though, it was different.

“What are you looking at?” Minho suddenly asked, mindlessly, but Jeongin still jumped where he sat.

“Just the grass,” he said quickly. “Or something, I don’t know. I’m resting my eyes.”

Minho’s eyes slid over to him, looking at him from under his eyelashes. “Mmhm,” he finally hummed, like he accepted his answer or maybe didn’t mind that Jeongin was lying about it. Jeongin often lied to hide the affection he had for his hyung, and Minho knew that.

“What are you looking at then?” Jeongin deflected, but he didn’t really care that he’d been caught staring. Minho didn’t seem to care either.

Minho kept looking at him for a second without moving a muscle, like he’d frozen to the ground mid-motion, before he turned back around and pointed up into the leaves above them. “Those,” he waved his hand around in an erratic pattern pointing all over the tree, and Jeongin leaned closer to get a better look at what the other meant. “The berries. There’s thousands of them.” Minho looked back at Jeongin. “Pretty, right?”

“I don’t know,” Jeongin said. “Sure, they look like berries. I think.” He furrowed his brow, accepting the new path of the conversation. He thought that maybe he would’ve actually liked it more if the silence had continued on, just Minho looking up into the tree crown and he himself following the outline of the older’s nose, chin, neck, with his eyes.

Minho looked back up into the leaves. “I think they’re poisonous,” he said, and squinted.

Jeongin blinked. “You know about that stuff?”

Minho blinked back at him, looking confused. “No, it’s just an opinion.”

Jeongin didn’t really know what to say, he rarely did whenever Minho lost himself to whatever ran through his head at any given moment. “Sure," he settled on.

Minho nodded, and shot Jeongin a little smile before looking back up into the leaves. “I think they’re pretty, anyway.”

Jeongin looked doubtfully at him. “Uh-huh,” he said, but scooted a little closer on the ground, to join Minho in watching the tree crown above, and to maybe catch a glimpse of what the other was talking about.

On their third evening in Busan, Minho was lying bunched up against the bedframe of Jeongin’s bed with his phone, leaning relaxed against the wall, and in turn Jeongin was lying flat on his stomach right across the bed by Minho’s feet, watching a video that Jisung had sent him.

Each of the other members had messaged both of them nearly every day asking how Busan was treating them, what they were doing, if they were both still alive, but really, Jeongin wished they’d stop.

He didn’t like it when Minho’s phone chimed late in the evening, screen lighting up with a message from Jisung, making Minho turn around in bed to stay awake for an additional thirty minutes with the screen illuminating his face, leaving Jeongin to stare up at his back from the floor.

He knew it was stupid, but he hadn’t only invited his hyung along for him to get a chance to meet his family—to show Minho a bit of domestic love despite how the two of them differed from others—he’d also been thrilled at the idea of having the other to himself for an entire weekend, just the two of them without interruptions from work or their friends. They never seemed to find the time, usually.

He turned to look at Minho where the other was half-sitting at the end of the bed. Jeongin didn’t try to hide the glance he was throwing the other, he wanted Minho to look back. It was their last night alone in Busan, and it was quickly coming to an end.

Minho lifted his eyes to meet his, but didn’t react. It was nice to just be together in the silence.

Jeongin put his phone screen-down on the mattress and crawled up on his elbows and across the bed, finally slumping down to sit next to Minho against the bed frame. He let out a long breath as he relaxed against the wall, his shoulder leaning against the other.

“What are you doing?” he asked, and looked down at Minho’s phone screen without waiting for an answer.

Minho had the Bubble app open, but he hadn’t typed up any message, and he hadn’t sent any messages in nearly thirty minutes. It seemed like he’d just been leisurely scrolling through his own messages and the replies, perhaps thinking of what to say next.

“Stay,” Jeongin commented.

“Mmhm,” Minho said back, and typed two letters but erased them.

Jeongin readjusted himself a bit next to Minho. “What have you been telling them about Busan?”

He saw Minho quickly turn his head in his periphery to look at him, but Jeongin kept his eyes on the screen to give the other time enough to turn back around.

When he lifted his eyes to look back, Minho was still staring right at him, slowly blinking every couple of seconds.

Jeongin froze, but didn’t look away.

Their shoulders were pressed flushed, and he felt Minho’s exhale fan lightly against his face. Jeongin could see a long eyelash right below Minho’s left eye on his cheek, and the hair he’d pushed out of his face earlier was slowly falling back a few strands at a time. There was a light, nearly invisible stubble on Minho’s chin and along his jaw.

Jeongin lifted his eyes back to Minho’s, and the other’s eyes came to a stop with half a second’s delay, definitely having followed the mindless movement of Jeongin’s eyes across his face.

None of them said anything for a second, the time passing just a little slower than it should.

“So, what do you think of Busan?” Jeongin finally said, voice steady but almost a bit too controlled, like he was trying to pretend like he and Minho weren’t sitting not even an inch away from each other on his childhood bed, hundreds of miles away from Seoul and their usual life, not even a week after learning the secret that they now shared together. Like he wasn't trying to pretend that he wasn't nervous.

Minho blinked rapidly, and then his eyes flickered over Jeongin’s face, searching for something. “I don’t regret coming,” he finally settled on.

“You don’t regret coming,” Jeongin replied dryly, and he realised that their jargon called for him to put some distance between them for it to feel normal for them. But he didn’t want to.

The warmth of Minho’s thigh against his felt all too right, and if anything, he wished that Minho would lean his head on his shoulder like he did at home at the dorm right before Jeongin would usually push him off and roll his eyes.

“Mmhm,” Minho replied. “I told you I wanted to spend time with my fourth favourite dongsaeng, didn’t I? I did,” he answered his own question. “And then there’s the other thing.”

Jeongin exhaled. “The other thing.”

“Your parents have been very kind to me,” Minho continued. “And seeing the city has been nice too.” He seemed to have to think about his next words. “I should show you around Gimpo sometime, and the best sites of Seoul.”

Jeongin let out an airy laugh. “I’ve already been. But sure.”

The thought of spending more time alone with Minho didn’t sound bad to him, it’d been just what he’d wanted for years, really, but there was a kind of stinging feeling in his chest because deep down he knew it wouldn’t feel the same as the time in Busan had.

Minho smiled back, a full smile with his full row of white teeth showing.

Then, they sat in silence on the bed.

Physically, there was nothing different between this evening and how they usually spent the evenings together at the apartment back in Seoul, both of them used to seeking out each other for the casual, affectionate touching that they often turned down from their other friends.

Really, there shouldn’t have been anything much different between how they were currently sitting together from how it’d felt their first night in Busan, or their second, but something was different. This was their last night that they’d be able to spend sitting like this, close together on his bed. 

“I didn’t know at all,” Minho suddenly said.

Jeongin paused, and he almost blushed realising Minho had been thinking about what had been the most important part and purpose of the trip, while Jeongin had been thinking about how warm Minho’s side felt against him, and how he could almost catch the smell of the shirt Minho had been wearing the whole day. He tried to collect himself before he replied:

“I’m still sorry I didn’t tell you,” he managed to say back.

Jeongin hadn’t apologised since that first night, when Minho had asked him not to, but still, he felt a little bit of a responsibility to make sure that his friend wasn’t hurt. That’s why he’d been so persistent on them coming there together to begin with, even if he kept forgetting that fact with his friend’s body so close.

Minho insistently shook his head. “Don’t be, I don’t care,” he said. “Don’t you think I would’ve told you if I was angry? Just because you’re the maknae, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t chew you out. You really think I’m a silent-treatment guy who would just let you hurt me, Ienn-ah?”

Jeongin stared back. “No,” he said.

Minho nodded, and looked away for a second. He was quiet for another beat before he continued, a bit more quietly:

“It did hurt a lot to pretend like nothing had happened all those weeks, after—” he furrowed his brow in stead of mentioning the dinner with his parents, “with the other members. And with you.” His eyes fleeted over Jeongin’s face again, like he was asking if what he was about to say would be okay, but Jeongin just stared back in silence, feeling like if he breathed, Minho would stop.

“We have the rest of our lives together, because now we know. It’ll be different between us now, don’t you think? Even when we get back to the others," Minho concluded.

Jeongin didn’t know what to say, because he still didn’t know what Minho meant by ‘different’, or what ‘different’ Minho wanted. If Jeongin were to be completely honest with himself, he didn’t even think he actually wanted anything to change between them. He still wanted to sit with Minho’s legs swung over his lap on the couch back in Seoul, and he still wanted Minho to poke him hard in the side and playfully kick him when Jeongin teasingly said something out of line, specifically to get that reaction out of his hyung.

“I’ve never had a friend like this before,” Minho continued while Jeongin was still lost in thought next to him.

“A friend,” Jeongin parroted, because he didn’t know what else to say, especially having been pulled so suddenly out of his thoughts.

“A friend like you, who’s like me,” Minho explained, even though Jeongin had already gotten that, and Minho definitely knew as much.

Jeongin swallowed. “Never? Like, not ever?”

“No,” Minho replied immediately, but then blinked like he was surprised. “Not that I know of.”

Jeongin didn’t reply. He’d known that he would come to take on that role for his hyung—the role of a protector, or teacher, despite their ages—as soon as Minho had come out to him after the dinner at his parents’ house, and Jeongin had etched it into their relationship the moment he’d invited Minho along to Busan. He didn’t regret it, but he knew that it was a responsibility he’d decided to shoulder, to be a hand for his friend to hold onto while going down a path he would’ve had to explore sooner or later in his life anyway.

Instead of saying anything, Jeongin carefully reached over to grab Minho’s hand and put their interlocked fingers to rest on their laps where their thighs met.

He’d wanted to grab ahold of his hyung’s hand in support ever since they climbed the stairs leaving the dinner downstairs a few days earlier, and he felt like it was better to do it late than never.

Minho raised his eyes to look up at Jeongin, and Jeongin met his eyes in return, searching for something in the way the other was looking at him.

There had been a constant silent conversation going on between them the entire weekend, a continuous wordless discussion about what would happen with their friendship going forward, what was okay and what felt too strange, how they could move around each other and how they could touch, what feelings they’d leave in Busan and what feelings they’d bring with them back to Seoul.

Looking into Minho’s eyes, Jeongin realised that this was when that wordless conversation would be coming to its conclusion.

Minho lifted their interlocked hands into the air, before he let them fall to bounce back onto their legs. Jeongin followed the movement as Minho repeated the motion, the back of his hand falling hard against his thigh, eyes still locked with his friend’s.

“You know,” Minho said quietly, turning his eyes to look down at Jeongin's chest. “It’s been lonely at the dorms, with no one knowing about me, like you do now. Even though it’s always so loud and Hyunjinnie can’t stop screaming and Han, too. And you too.” Minho raised his head to look at Jeongin again and when they locked eyes, he snorted. “Fine, me too.”

Jeongin laughed. “ Especially you, hyung,” Jeongin said, really just to tease the other, but his words faltered when he saw Minho’s smile fade as his breath hit the older. And then Jeongin realised that he couldn’t feel Minho’s breath back on his own face anymore, once his gaze had dipped down to his hyung’s lips.

“I guess so,” Minho replied, but Jeongin wasn’t sure Minho actually knew what he was replying to. The older’s eyes trailed back up to meet his, from having just rested on his mouth for not more than a second. It looked like he was going through a thousand thoughts.

As their eye contact continued, Jeongin saw how something amused glinted in Minho’s eyes and how the corner’s of his mouth twitched.

Minho let out a half-breath, half-laugh.

“This is weird,” he said, but he didn’t lean back or move away.

Jeongin couldn’t help but smile back. “Yeah, a bit,” he agreed, and Minho hummed.

A chill ran up his spine as he felt Minho place his hand lightly—barely there—on his thigh, close to his knee, and he twisted his body to be able to face him better, straight-on. Like he was asking a question.

“I can imagine worse things,” Jeongin mumbled and Minho let out a bit of a quiet, short snort.

Jeongin readjusted his position on the bed as well, towards the other. A tingling feeling was travelling up his entire body, and there was something dreamlike about the whole situation, taking in Minho’s face, so up close that their foreheads were nearly touching.

Minho’s grip on his thigh tightened. “Really,” he smiled.

He didn’t know what he expected from it—in the moment not sure if he even actually wanted anything beyond what their friendship already had—but when Jeongin felt his friend’s breath against his lips and his hand on his thigh, he almost instinctively raised his hand to the other's face and jaw, moving carefully and slowly so the other would have the time to bat him away if he wanted.

Minho's nostrils flared, eyes piercing his, as Jeongin slowly reached around to grip the back of his hyung’s neck, and Minho's breath hitched just a bit in response when Jeongin’s fingers grabbed onto his hair.

Minho snaked his hand firmer around Jeongin’s thigh, and Jeongin let himself get lifted without giving it a second thought as Minho pulled him around to position him to straddle his thighs, the thrill of what they had silently agreed was about to happen between them settling into his chest. Jeongin felt a heat spread up his neck to his face as he felt his hyung’s muscles shift underneath him.

Jeongin couldn’t stop his mouth from moving up into a big smile, like the two of them were playing out some kind of ridiculous game, as Minho bent his knees, making him slide down to sit on the older's pelvis.

“What if the others could see us,” Jeongin laughed quietly, readjusting his seat on top of Minho, making the other exhale sharply.

Minho’s smile slowly faded. “They won’t,” he said, and shifted underneath Jeongin, making the heat swirl deep in Jeongin’s gut.

“I know,” Jeongin replied and just barely brushed his nose against Minho’s, the air hot between them and their lips fanning over each other. “Don’t worry. I didn’t mean it like that.” He made sure to say the words without his voice shaking.

Jeongin moved his hands from Minho’s hips up to around his neck and leaned in to rest his forehead against Minho’s, keeping the eye contact.

They’d made up their minds, but the electrifying tension still made it difficult to know how to move forward. The playful gleam in his hyung’s eyes matched the wide smile on Jeongin’s own lips and it made it all seem like a play they were acting out just as a joke—that they could walk away from whenever they wanted—but the burning, fluttering feeling in his stomach said otherwise.

They sat like that, frozen, just for a bit, breathing in tandem.

“We're going home tomorrow,” Minho mumbled against his lips, closing his eyes.

Jeongin replied by leaning down into the crook of his hyung's neck, inhaling deeply. He smiled when he felt Minho shiver as his lips connected lightly with the skin of his neck.

He lifted his head carefully to face Minho again. He gave him a side-smile, happy that his flushed cheeks could be explained away by something other than the nerves he was feeling.

“It's okay? Hyung?" he asked.

Minho nodded quickly, but then laughed at himself, a blush fanning over his cheeks. “Mhm,” he confirmed.

“Okay,” Jeongin said, smiling down at him. There was something gorgeous about Minho that had always been there, but Jeongin hadn’t really paid it any mind until now. Not in this way, anyway. Sitting above him like this, though, everything felt different.

Minho laughed again until Jeongin finally decided to take the last step. He slowly leaned in, and pressed his lips against Minho's, muffling the laugh inside his friend's mouth. Jeongin felt how the other relaxed against him with a heavy blow of air let out from his nose before he responded by moving his lips to meet Jeongin’s in return.

A quiet sound escaped Jeongin when Minho’s hands moved up his sides—teasing over his ribs—to finally cradle his face, pulling him in closer to deepen the kiss.

There was something so strange about it, to feel his hyung’s hands move up into his hair and run down his back, his lips wet and hot against his and his tongue seeking Jeongin’s in the kisses.

“We won’t do this again, back home,” Jeongin mouthed against Minho’s jaw—Minho sitting with his head thrown back against the wall, breathing heavily as Jeongin kissed his neck and collarbones—and then pulled back half a centimetre from the kiss. He knew that it had been implicitly understood between them as soon as he’d lifted his hand to cup Minho’s cheek, but he wanted to repeat it anyway, just to be sure.

“I don’t care,” Minho smiled up at him, confirming what they both already knew. “I don't want to." He ran his nose up along Jeongin’s jaw and cheek, breathing over his skin as Jeongin affirmed his words by running a hand down the nape of the other’s neck, not entirely sure how far they could take it—whatever ‘it’ was—but still wanting to show Minho that he didn’t want it to stop either, not yet.

Jeongin dragged his hands over Minho’s neck and jaw until he was holding his face to pull him back in, closer, and Minho hummed into Jeongin’s mouth—half in understanding and half in approval—as Jeongin reconnected their lips to deepen the kiss again.

Jeongin grabbed onto Minho's head to press the older's face against his chest, and he couldn't hold back the quiet, breathy moan that escaped him when he rolled down his hips against Minho, the other breathing heavily against his collarbones, tracing his open mouth along his throat.

Jeongin reached down to sneak one hand up under Minho's shirt, teasing just a second by dipping his fingers down into Minho's waistband. Minho let out a quiet groan of anticipation into Jeongin's mouth, rolling his tongue against Jeongin's, urging him to go on with a sense of urgency that made the heat inside Jeongin swirl.

Then, cutting the air, Minho’s phone suddenly vibrated loudly on the bed, making both of them jump as the vibration was followed by a short, swishing sound next to Jeongin’s knee. They both looked down at it, their chests heaving and faces red.

The phone screen lit up, Jeongin just barely catching the message from ‘SKZ Chan-hyung’ flash on the lockscreen before Minho quickly flipped it over on the mattress like nothing had happened.

Minho huffed, licking his lips. “He can wait,” he said, his brow furrowed in a way Jeongin just couldn’t take seriously. Minho's chest was rising and falling heavily, and his ears were a clear red.

Jeongin laughed, both because of Minho’s face and out of embarrassment about the spell having just been broken.

Now they were just two friends—coworkers even, technically—with each other’s spit over their lips, the memory of what the other’s tongue rolled against theirs felt like, and a tightening, hot feeling in the bottom of their stomachs, Jeongin sitting on top of the other.

“Yeah,” Jeongin finally agreed, laughing again, getting ready for Minho to push him off so they could continue with the night like before, try to return to something normal. But his laugh quickly turned into a heavy exhale as Minho ran both his hands down his back to grab him around the thighs and lift him to press him closer against his stomach and chest again.

Jeongin didn't know if he was happy that they'd continue, maybe even take it steps further, but with the way he was feeling—the heat in his stomach and on his face impossible to ignore—he wished Minho's hands would return to explore his skin where they had just burned.

Minho held him firmly over the hips to make him roll against him—which Jeongin did, with enthusiasm and a quiet laugh-turned-moan—to move over his pelvis in a way which made Minho breathe heavily into Jeongin’s open mouth.

“He can definitely wait,” Jeongin gasped out before he went back to seek Minho’s open mouth to dive back into the interrupted kiss. He pushed Minho back against the bed frame, steadying himself with a hand against the wall.

Minho hummed in approval as his head hit the wall with a bang, taking the breath out of him.

“Do you want to touch me?" Jeongin asked, leaning down over his hyung and pressed himself down against him, which made Minho keen.

“I am,” Minho mumbled, leaning back to welcome the kiss Jeongin offered, and dragged his hands down over the small of Jeongin’s back.

Jeongin laughed into Minho’s mouth. “No, like,” he slid the tips of his fingers down under Minho’s waistband, “I meant like—”

He stopped and quickly retracted his hands when he felt Minho jolt beneath him.

Minho pulled away slightly, and squinted up at Jeongin.

Jeongin swallowed.

They were boring their eyes into the other, both of their chests rising and falling quickly and their lips red and wet.

The second that passed felt endless.

“No,” Minho finally concluded.

Jeongin just stared at him, but allowed Minho to reach up and give him another kiss.

“We shouldn’t, we’ll regret it tomorrow,” Minho continued. 

Minho sounded sincere, and in all honesty it made Jeongin feel a bit hurt, but he knew it too, that the kisses they shared now were more than enough.

As Minho kept kissing him, Jeongin finally relented and kissed back. “You’re right,” he said in between the kisses, as they separated. “I don’t know what I was thinking. That was stupid, it would’ve been so awkward.” He tried his hardest to not sound disappointed, but it was difficult with the way his skin was burning.

Minho smiled up at him. “I know exactly what you were thinking,” he said.

Jeongin immediately punched Minho in the shoulder to hide his embarrassment when he heard the smug tone in his hyung’s voice and saw the smirk on his face, but then he snorted and reached back in for the kiss to continue. “Shut up, I’ll beat you.”

“Oh no,” Minho breathed, and Jeongin felt even more embarrassed about what it did to his insides. “You’re so mean, Ienn-ah.”

“I really will, hyung,” Jeongin repeated, but dove in for another kiss and pushed Minho’s head back so it hit the wall behind him, making his hyung gasp again.

“Okay,” Minho smiled, and draped his arms around Jeongin’s neck. “Do it tomorrow, though. I don’t think I’ll be able to fit it into my schedule tonight.”

Jeongin glared down at him, but with the way his heart was beating hard and fast in his chest and how he felt like he’d rather taste Minho’s mouth again than do anything else, he ignored his friend’s stupid joke and instead leaned down to kiss him.

As their kisses and touches continued—exploring the skin that was easy to touch, dragging their hands over the places that were covered in clothes—Jeongin made sure to ignore everything from the outside world. He didn't want any of it to interrupt the illusion they were sharing on the bed.

He made sure to ignore how he could hear the shouts of his brothers playing games a few doors away or his dad moving around in the kitchen downstairs, or the wind wisping against the bedroom window every once in a while, and he made sure to ignore the thought of their other friends—unknowing of everything—waiting for them back in Seoul.

Jeongin only wanted to think about the way Minho’s thighs were relaxing and tensing underneath him and how hot Minho’s chest felt against his, or how Minho gasped when Jeongin tugged at his hair or how he couldn’t stop himself from laughing into his hyung’s mouth between their kisses.

He didn’t want to remember that he and Minho would be going back home the next morning, leaving the night as just a memory to fade more and more every day.

The trees were quickly flashing past them outside the window, as the train ran across the Korean landscape, gently rocking both of them side-to-side in their seats.

Minho was looking out through the glass, resting his chin in his hand, hoisted up on the windowsill. There was no trace of emotion on his face, and there was no way for Jeongin to tell what thoughts Minho had lost himself to.

They were sitting across from each other in a four-person seat group, both closest to the window, a table separating them.

Jeongin was holding his phone in his hands, resting on top of the tabletop, scrolling leisurely through Instagram while throwing the occasional glance up at his hyung.

Jeongin badly wanted to know what was going through Minho’s head, because when he watched the other, his own head was immediately filled with a whirlpool of emotions and clashing thoughts, making him wade through every type of confusion that he could've ever imagined.

Maybe they would never be close and vulnerable with each other, soft and affectionate—physical—like they’d been in Busan. Jeongin doubted that they would, thinking of how just seeing the other members as soon as they got back inside through the door in Seoul would bring them back to the reality that the two of them had briefly forgotten the night before.

Jeongin felt certain that always having their friends around them to remind them of the friendship that they'd always had—just the two of them but also all eight—would make everything that had happened the night before seem strange and dreamlike, and Jeongin doubted that either of them would want what had happened the night before to happen again once everything was back to normal.

But even if he and his hyung would go back to always masking their love for each other behind rolled eyes and kicks to the thigh, Jeongin still didn’t regret anything that had happened between them since Minho had asked him to help him feed his cats.

But looking at his hyung across from him there on the train, he decided that most of it would have to stay behind in Busan.