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1.
Every year, without fail, Minho was struck with the melancholy that only the end of yet another one of Earth’s trips around the sun could muster. It snuck up on him while he was living his life in blissful ignorance, going about his life in the same uneventful pattern as per usual, until suddenly, there it was: December.
Like the spider hiding in the corner of his bedroom, he didn’t notice the sadness before it was on his shoulder, weighing him down in time with the dark nights growing brighter with twinkling lights, and the restaurants began to offer couples deals for the holidays.
It wasn’t the busiest time of the year for him, mainly because few customers were looking for a wedding photographer who specialised in outdoor settings when there was a high chance of rain. And also because he didn’t partake in any of the festivities, nor did he care much for any of the many events he knew his friends were a part of. He didn’t celebrate Christmas, and had never been one for the markets, the christmas trees, or the blind dates some of his single friends threw themselves into in an attempt to not be single once New Year’s hit.
As expected, Hyunjin and Jeongin were nowhere to be seen in the apartment they shared with Minho and Chan, always chasing the next step on their Holiday Bucket List for the entire month. There was always a new Christmas-themed cafe, another tree to be lit, or more lights being hung somewhere they needed to experience together.
Minho didn’t have a list like that, but what he did have was a collection of photo albums that needed tending to. Having a hobby that somehow became your job meant having an extraordinary number of photos, which he ended up printing because they were too precious to keep only as digital files.
“I’ll stay home and help you with it, yeah?” Chan offered, as he did every year, when Minho emptied the box of photos he had taken and printed during the year.
Minho couldn’t help but be drawn towards him. Chan had no issues getting dates, and yet, there he was, alone with Minho, proposing to stick silly photos of their friendship into an album that would end up on the shelf alongside all the others.
“Then it won’t have to be so lonely,” he tagged on when Minho remained silent. “I mean, four hands are twice as fast as two, and I could make hot cocoa. We can make a night of it, you know?” He hovered at the foot of Minho’s bed as if he were trying to catch a glimpse of the many piles Minho had organized and gotten ready for the albums.
Not that Minho gave him the chance. These photos were more than just memories captured on paper. They were Minho’s true feelings, the way he saw the world, the progression of his year, and the permanent reminder that while the world moved on and people changed, some things remained constant.
Minho wasn’t a fan of the unchanging nature of his heart that unrequitedly belonged to Chan.
“No, it’s better if you don’t,” Minho replied half-heartedly. He didn’t look up to catch Chan’s eyes, nor did he want to. Looking at Chan when Minho was this affected by the time of the year wasn’t a good thing. It would just bring tears to his eyes and make Chan worry needlessly. “I have my own system.”
It was a weak lie. Even Minho would acknowledge that.
“And I’m not good enough at learning that you think I’ll be able to grasp this system?” Chan asked, persistent as ever, but that was one of his more enjoyable traits. He had many, but Minho preferred not to think too much about them for too long. “I’m a pretty fast learner, you know,” he added and leaned in a little further as if trying to catch a glimpse of Minho’s many photos.
“You’ll grasp it quick enough, I have no doubt about that,” Minho mumbled. Chan’s damned clever head was one of the parts he loved the most about him. He placed the final pile of photos on the bedsheet, looking out over them all, before peeking at Chan once more. “But that doesn’t change that my bed is single and there’s only room for me here. If you tried to settle in with me, there wouldn’t be space for the albums or the photos.”
Minho ignored that his second lie was even weaker than his first one.
“Mine is a double,” Chan quipped, and Minho glared at him. Chan held his hands up in defence. “I’m just pointing out the obvious, Minho-yah. We would both be able to fit in there,” he said, voice soft and bordering on seductive.
Minho had to tear his gaze away again, feeling like a gazelle on the savanna skittishly drinking from the river.
The casual speech and the sweet tone of his name caused Minho’s heart to skip a beat. His ears burned in embarrassment for still being so easy to fluster. It had been years since Chan had called him that for the first time, and their fate from being absent roommates turned into a promising friendship… and then, to Minho, so much more.
“Don’t call me that, hyung,” Minho said, hating himself a little. Chan didn’t know what Minho wanted to do with Chan, and that if they were in Chan’s bed, sitting close, sharing each other’s heat, no space between them, Minho would go insane. It would be so easy, too easy, for Minho to pretend it was one of his dreams and, well, Minho wasn’t going into Chan’s bed. “I’m not a child,” he added gruffly, finally looking up and instantly regretting it.
It had been weeks since Chan dyed his hair, practically months since coal black had been replaced with radiant blonde. The strands were nearly as long as Hyunjin’s, cut off right above his shoulders and framing his face so prettily. It suited him better than Minho had assumed when he first heard Chan mention his wish to change his appearance a little at the end of summer. The light hair made him look sexier, more handsome, and more intense, whereas the black hair made him softer.
It was pure torture to Minho, really, and half the pile he was trying to hide from Chan was pictures of him, shirtless, hair tied up in a messy ponytail, artfully disheveled in some of the photographs, hovering on the fine line between cheeky candids and artful erotica.
“Shouldn’t you be out with that guy?” Minho huffed, ignoring the twist in his chest at the mention of the guy Chan had been going out with. They met in the gym, bonded over dumbbells or some shit, and they had been on three dates… not that Minho was keeping tabs on them.
And if Minho had been sitting up, watching the clock wondering if Chan was even going to be home, or if he would try and sneak the guy into his room, if Minho’s heart had stuttered, calming down in relief when Chan came home early, kicking of his shoes and chatting with Hyunjin before he went to his room, well, Chan didn’t need to know.
Chan didn’t need to know any of it.
“Seungcheol?” Minho tried to go for an aloof, noncommittal kind of tone, but he wasn’t quite sure he succeeded. “Been a few weeks since you were out last,” he added, pretending to be highly fascinated by a picture of Hyunjin in a tophat and a feather boa slung around his shoulders.
“Seunghyun,” Chan corrected, sounding slightly amused by Minho’s antics. “And, no, we kinda stopped seeing each other,” he revealed, and Minho looked up at him again. Chan’s smile was not even sad; if anything, it was a little regretful, but not something Minho could diagnose as being heartbroken. “We wanted different things - it wouldn’t make sense to keep going when there was no future.”
“Huh, yeah,” Minho said, intelligent as always.
“So it seems like I’ll be single for the holidays anyway,” Chan continued, not appearing to mind that at all as he kept his eyes locked with Minho for a beat too long. “I’ll have to borrow one of your kids to kiss for New Year’s,” he said teasingly, eyes crinkling with his smile.
“Who am I supposed to kiss then?” Minho forced out, a little strangled, still trapped in the way Chan looked with pale dyed hair.
He had feared it, the change, the way Chan would look different, how the shadows around him would bend differently, and how Minho would have to change the way he captured Chan with his camera, how the light about him would deflect, make him brighter, lighter, filling up the frame more than he already did.
Minho also hated it because the Chan in front of him would become different from the Chan he had captured in time, giving him new life within the ink on the glossy photo paper. It would mean Minho needed to take more candid shots of Chan where he wouldn’t notice, so Minho could capture the perfect picture of how Chan looked in his eyes.
More scattered pieces of Minho’s love immortalized in glossy paper and 2D smiles.
Chan caught him staring, and his lips spread into a broad grin, an undoubtedly sappy one-liner on his lips that Minho couldn’t speak up and cut off before it came to life.
“Aww, Minho-yah, don’t you wanna share with poor lonely me?” Chan teased, leaning dangerously closer.
“I’m serious,” Minho insisted and huffed, averting his gaze and busying himself with opening the first album he needed to fill out, the spine cracking under the movement. It didn’t do much to soothe the pounding of his heart and the burning of his ears, but it at least gave him the chance to escape. “Don’t call me that.”
Chan cooed at him, which only resulted in Minho’s ears burning hotter and his back curling further like a poor imitation of a shrimp as he tried to make himself smaller. For once in his life, Chan took mercy upon him and stopped before it got too bad and Minho needed to snap at him to stop toying unknowingly with Minho’s heart.
It wasn’t Chan’s fault that Minho was hopelessly, irrevocably in love with him. It was Minho’s, and it would be unfair to force Chan to deal with it - either by confessing or by snapping at him for not reciprocating Minho’s rosy heart.
It would be so easy to confess, to tell Chan, and see their friendship collapse under Minho’s feelings. It would be easy to let Chan see the picture Minho so carefully hid, candids captured with love, Chan’s smile, his soft looks, the crinkle of his eyes, the twists of his mouth, the slope of his nose, the light bouncing off his skin, and the shadows folding its arms around him.
It would be so easy to let the words fall from his lips like heavy weights, crushing all they had built between them for years: I love you.
Three little useless words. Minho’s biggest secret.
“Alright, Minho-yah,” Chan sing-sang, beaming at him. “Hyung will try to stop calling you that, but it’s not easy if you keep looking that cute,” he grinned, so bright it hurt Minho’s eyes.
He skipped out of the room, but not before closing the door halfway and granting Minho a bit of privacy to go about his task of hiding away another year of yearning between the pages of his photo album.
The floorboards creaked outside, announcing Chan’s departure from this end of the apartment. He likely went to the kitchen, the hour of the afternoon letting Minho know that Chan would soon get peckish as he usually did before dinner time. Since Minho was busy in his room and Hyunjin and Jeongin remained lost to the world of mall Santas, there wouldn’t be anyone there to stop Chan from emptying out the pantry in his search for a snack that could ruin his appetite.
“You don’t have to stop calling me that,” Minho whispered to no one but himself. “You’re going to get my hopes up,” he added bitterly, knowing Chan didn’t like him, didn’t love Minho as he loved him.
His eyes remained trained on the door a bit longer before he found the strength to tear himself away from it, his brittle heart breaking a little more.
In front of him lay 11 piles, one for each month, all images he had carefully selected and printed out, stored for the specific time, candids of his years, of his life.
A diary of images.
They were there to help him overcome the melancholy, to remind him that time has passed, but it hasn’t passed him by. They were proof of his lived moments, of memories he shared with his friends, his family, his cats, his parents, odd wedding cakes, and pretty flowers from his work, but most importantly, they told secrets he didn’t want anyone else to know.
He turned to look at the door one last time, reassuring himself that there was no one there, before he got to work, revealing all the pictures of Chan that miscellaneous photos from the year had covered up. There were several where the others were present, but the motif that repeated itself over and over again in the pictures was Chan.
There were countless. From his birthday, from spring, from summer break, from their camping trips to the mountains, from all the moments they had shared together throughout the year. Some of them were taken from awkward angles, as if Minho had struggled to keep what he was doing inconspicuous. In contrast, others had Chan posing for the camera, looking only at him as Minho captured him and stole his smile away to admire in the secret of his own bedroom.
Chan smiling, Chan laughing, Chan reading, Chan grimacing at a cup of coffee, Chan staring into nothing with headphones on, Chan teary-eyed with Dori on his lap watching a sad movie, Chan, Chan, Chan…
The newest addition to his collection was one taken the day after he had dyed his hair. It still required toning and looked a little too yellow for it to be natural, buttery and almost over-saturated in the sun, but it remained a photo Minho would treasure for a long time.
I love you, Minho mouthed the confession to the picture of Chan, spilling the words he knew he would never have the confidence to say. He was ashamed of himself for feeling that way towards Chan, who had been nothing but friendly with him the entire time they had lived together.
Chan didn’t like him like that, and soon Chan would find someone else because he was too perfect not to be loved, and then Minho could perhaps finally heal, and get his straying heart to understand that it was hopeless.
Chan was friendly, but never in a way that told Minho he felt the same way.
2.
It hadn’t started out as a problem. Nothing had indicated to Minho that his infatuation with Chan would turn into something bordering on addiction. No, Minho’s fascination with Chan had simply started in a very natural way, steadily progressing into something he wasn’t quite sure he was in control of anymore. He had tried to shake it off, tried dating others, tried to get new hobbies and perspectives, but he always ended up back at Chan.
So, maybe he was as much of a willing participant as he was a prisoner of his own compulsion.
The fact of the matter was that Chan was pretty, beautiful, and gorgeous. He was fascinating to look at, unique, and captivating in ways Minho hadn’t seen before. He was appealing to the eye in every single angle, and Minho had taken advantage of having another flawless subject in front of him that commanded light to contour the lines of his face perfectly.
Chan even possessed the ability to make even the bluntest haircut look smooth and well-fitting, which was a feat in and of itself. Everything complemented Chan in ways Minho had never been able to capture before, and it was the foundation of an all-encompassing infatuation.
Except infatuation was short-lived, and Minho’s appreciation for Chan seemed to be immortal.
“You’re stuck inside your head again.” Chan nudged him with his elbow, and Minho rocked to the side as if there had been enough force behind Chan’s action to set him into motion. “Get out of there and come join the rest of us in the real world.”
“The real world is bleak,” Minho muttered and forced his mind back to the present, his vision focusing on the camera in his lap. “And I wasn’t gone. I was fixing the… exposure,” he settled on, though it sounded like a weak lie to his ears.
Chan glanced at him, but evidently decided against questioning why Minho decided to lie all of a sudden. Lying wasn’t something they did. Changed the subject, yes, averted the truth, 100%, but straight up lying? It wasn’t the way their relationship had been built. They trusted each other, kept secrets in a healthy way that didn’t affect them to the point of creating rifts, but Minho’s mood was plummeting, and Chan knew it.
Of course, he did.
Chan had always known Minho better than he had himself, seeing through Minho's defenses easily. He just didn’t know why Minho was lying, and even if he asked, Minho would never tell him.
“Exposure is very important,” Chan said with a raised eyebrow and nudged Minho again, bumping his shoulder against Minho’s and sending him rocking again. Only this time, Minho returned the nudge, a bit more forceful, and bumped into Chan hard enough to make him place a hand on the couch to stabilize himself.
Minho smiled weakly, proud of himself, and just that slight tug of the corner of his mouth was enough to have Chan grinning. It was annoying how perfect they were, same height, same temper, fitting in a way Minho had rarely fitted with anyone else. If only Chan loved him, then it would be perfect.
If only.
“Would you two please stop flirting?” Jeongin asked, arms crossed and brows drawn together in a tight frown. His cheeks were dusted with red glitter, matching the Santa hat Hyunjin had forced down over his head a couple of hours earlier when he had decided they were in need of an updated family photo with Kkami. “Some of us are trying to get this over with before dinner time.”
“We’re not flirting,” Minho quickly said, his cheeks heating up and his eyes instantly falling from Jeongin’s raised eyebrow and down to his lap again. Unlike Chan, Jeongin had caught on to Minho’s feelings instantly. “Chan is being annoying!” He yelped and pointedly scooted away from Chan’s side, throwing on an act of annoyance. “He’s glaring at me.”
“Glaring at you?” Chan repeated in disbelief. He shifted his entire body towards Minho, going as far as to lift his leg up on the couch as well, drawing Minho’s eyes down to the long expanse of exposed skin which his shorts revealed. Shorts in the middle of winter was a very Chan thing to do, one Minho hated, that made his heart spark to life the way it did.
What made it even worse was that Chan had annoyingly attractive legs.
“I’m looking at you fondly,” Chan claimed with a cheeky grin that might have looked a little flirty if you didn’t know him. “Fondly, Minho-yah, the way I’d look at a kitten.”
“A kitten? Where are my whiskers, then?” Minho shot back, fiddling with the settings of his camera, not knowing whether he was fucking things up in his attempt to keep from ogling Chan. “Your eyes are squinted, your mouth is a straight line, and you have a dead look on your face - that’s what a glare looks like when it’s coming from you.”
If Minho were lucky, Chan would take the bait.
“And who made you decide what my glaring looks like?” Chan asked teasingly and shoved Minho away with a grin, hook, line, and sinker, and Minho wailed, throwing himself to the side.
He made sure not to land on top of his camera as he complained loudly and dramatically about Chan having hit him, how he was mere seconds away from bleeding to death thanks to Chan. The sound of Chan giggles made it worth it all, Minho’s face not even hot from embarrassment, though his cheeks hurt from smiling too widely.
God, he loved Chan so much it hurt.
“Case in point,” Jeongin grumbled from the floor. His arms were crossed, and his eyes were squinted as he glared at the two friends on the couch. “Flirting.”
“Who’s flirting?” Hyunjin asked, entering the room with Kkami cradled in his embrace, the two of them dressed up in matching elf costumes, perfectly complementing Jeongin’s Santa. “Oh, you two,” he scoffed, as unimpressed as his own boyfriend. “Of course, it is.”
Like Jeongin, it hadn’t taken long for Hyunjin to clock how Minho was acting odd around Chan and put two and two together.
“No one is flirting,” Minho insisted and sat up properly, averting Chan’s attempt at reaching out for him and draping himself over his shoulders in an odd imitation of a hug. “Now, let’s get on with it before Jeongin reminds us about your dinner date later tonight.”
“Dinner date? You’re taking me on another date?” Hyunjin beamed, and just like that, Minho got his will, and Jeongin got to suffer a little for having called Minho out for flirting with Chan.
Minho was nothing if not secretive about his advances, and Chan was as unaware as ever about where Minho’s feelings for him started and ended.
Everything was as it was supposed to be. Minho, in hiding, and Chan, living his best life, laughing and giggling at Jeongin and Hyunjin posing for their new festive-themed family photo, dating dumb jocks, and writing music for a living.
Minho huffed and picked up his camera again to adjust the settings and get back to work.
Kkami was surprisingly well-behaved, sitting still and staring at Minho through the viewfinder as if he knew the truth of the entire universe. Minho was partly inclined to believe it and probably would have if not for the fact that Chan was dangling a piece of kibble above the camera to keep Kkami focused and in the zone.
The cats were also on their best behavior, or rather, were knocked out after a round of catnip on Minho’s bed.
Hyunjin eventually called for an outfit change, and the three models got up from the floor and vanished behind the door leading to Jeongin’s bedroom. It fell shut with a click, leaving Minho and Chan to their own devices in the living room, locked away from whatever was happening in the outside world.
Chan had pulled his phone out as soon as he was done showering Kkami with treats and wiped the corners of his mouth for drool per Hyunjin’s orders. He had also left behind the couch in favor of sitting in the winter wonderland of a temporary set Jeongin and Minho had put up while waiting for everyone else to show up again.
He wasn’t dressed up like Jeongin and Hyunjin, just adorning his casual clothes - shorts and a sweater, because while he was immune to the cold, he was still human. He looked cuddly, and Minho wanted to sneak his hands up under the fabric and see if he was as warm as Minho thought he was. Minho’s fingers were a bit cold, not enough to cause concern, but just enough that he noticed how stiff they had become.
The heat beneath Chan’s sweater could cure that. There was no doubt about it.
There had been a time when Minho had despised anyone who came too close to Chan, glared at the partners he had had, and their traveling hands moving appreciatively over his stomach and arms. Minho knew how built he was. Hell, Chan had trouble remembering he wasn’t back in Australia, where swim trunks were accepted as casual dress, and Minho therefore had firsthand knowledge of exactly how perfect Chan looked half-naked.
He had been to the gym with him, seen the weights he could lift, spotted for him when Changbin wasn’t there to do it. Beneath all his clothes, Chan was a work of art that Minho was itching to capture.
Just the thought of him, the ways the light would kiss his pale skin, the shadows of his muscles, the contrast of his soft eyes and silly smile with his built body made Minho’s ears feel warm.
It had taken Minho far longer than he was comfortable with to realize he hadn’t hated Chan’s partners for getting to see and feel the artwork Minho felt he was being robbed of. No, the issue at hand had always been Minho’s jealousy of them. He wanted to be them, to have what they had, but he couldn’t.
He wanted to be the one waking up to a soft, sleepy Chan, wanted to be the one dragging Chan to bed early, wanted to be the reason for the soft giggles Minho had heard on the other side of the wall. He wanted to be the focus of Chan’s attention.
But reality was ice-cold, and Chan wasn’t his for the taking, even though the countless photos he kept hidden and had plastered his albums with told another story.
Chan wasn’t Minho’s, and he never would be.
Without thinking, Minho raised the camera and snapped a quick photo of Chan without him noticing. In no time, the photo of Chan popped up on the laptop acting as his monitor, all in his cuddly glory, nose buried in his phone, a small smile playing in the corner of his mouth, as he sat in the winter wonderland.
Soft, perfect, and achingly beautiful.
“I love you,” Minho whispered as if sharing a secret between two friends. He looked at the monitor, Chan so far away, even if he was in the same room as Minho, even if it would take two steps for them to be in the same space. “It’s just that the real you can never know.”
“What did you say?” Chan asked, perking up from his phone. He was frowning, looking all adorable and confused, and Minho’s heart broke a little more.
Minho blinked, startled as their eyes met across the room. Time stilled, and Minho took a deep breath, his shoulders trembling from the effort of keeping them from showing how nervous he was.
Did you hear? Do you know I’m in love with you?
It wasn’t a question Minho would ever speak out loud and not one he expected to get an answer from, but the fear that Chan might have seen, that he overheard Minho whisper a confession to his photo made him mortified. He feared that Chan would ask about it, or show more signs than he did.
It would be easy for Minho to repeat the words, to yell at Chan that he loved him, to plead for Chan to love him back, but it was useless. As much as Minho might want it, Chan simply didn’t see him that way. So, with a bitter taste on his tongue, Minho swallowed the words back down.
“Nothing,” Minho answered, too late. “It’s nothing.”
Chan frowned at him, but Hyunjin and Jeongin burst through the door, Kkami at their feet, and they didn’t get the chance to talk about it further. And when they did, the picture of Chan was lost among the others, forgotten and hidden from anyone but Minho.
3.
Minho’s entire life revolved around love and his camera. As a wedding photographer, it was his job to capture love, the subtle glances, the private smiles, and the perfection of a match well made.
While Minho made his living from staged photos and preplanned perfection, he preferred candids. He liked lingering around while the couple was getting ready and enjoyed taking a couple of pictures as they planned their poses. He liked capturing that spark, that glimmer of adoration in their eyes that meant the people in front of him loved each other.
Of course, being a realist, Minho also knew not all weddings were happy. He had plenty of deleted pictures, grooms checking out the ass of the make-up artists, brides giving the groom’s brother a longing look moments before they walked down the aisle. Minho had seen it all, immortalised it all in pixels, the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly.
Minho wasn’t easy to surprise anymore. He had taken hundreds of posed wedding photos, captured actual weddings and vow renewals, and had even been flown out to Jeju once to capture a celebrity wedding, and had been hit on by an actor he hadn’t even known was gay. Minho knew how love looked - he knew what it was, how it manifested, how fickle, wonderful, and terrible it was, so he supposed he shouldn’t have been so surprised when he fell in love with Chan.
It had been relatively slow, a steady tickle of affection that grew into an avalanche, pulling the feet out from under Minho and burying him in pure unrequited love. One day, he had been fine with Chan, believing him to be one of his best friends, the next, he had taken a picture of Chan, staring at him through the lens of his camera, and realized he loved him.
Just like that.
“Wow, they look so in love.” Chan’s voice suddenly sounded, and the man himself appeared at Minho’s side, looking at the computer screen. Minho startled, having been so lost in his work that he hadn’t heard Chan at all. “You’re so good at that. Like, you wouldn’t even know it was super cold when you took those,” he said, leaning closer to Minho and placing his warm hands on Minho’s shoulders.
No warning, no nothing to give Minho a second to play it cool.
“H-huh?” Minho choked, intelligent as ever, his brain close to short-circuiting with how Chan’s hands were stroking over his shoulders.
“And the twinkling lights,” Chan continued, blind to the electric sparks jumping from Minho’s head and the minor meltdown he was having. “You made it look so dreamy. Now, don’t show these to Hyunjin or he’ll want you to recreate them with Innie,” he teased and reached over Minho, pressing his warm and firm chest up against Minho’s back.
He was cased in, drowning in that smoky-sweet vanilla perfume Chan only used on special occasions, the heat of him seeping into Minho’s skin. He could feel all of him, feel the dip of his muscles, his strong arms, Chan’s words practically spoken into his ears.
“I mean, if I am ever getting married, I would want it to be in the summer,” Chan muttered, voice soft and smooth. His hair tickled Minho’s temple, making it hard for him to think, to breathe. “Warm, sunny, all green. I love your summer pictures the most, you know. Remember the Jeju wedding, the pictures by the sea? Yeah, that’s the kind of wedding I would want.”
Minho wondered why he had chosen to work in the living room and why his own room had seemed so annoyingly quiet earlier in the day.
Though, to be fair, Minho was also wondering what his own name was.
“Oh, what’s this?” Chan stopped, and the pure surprise in his voice made Minho return from the small astral projection he had been in the midst of undergoing. “That’s me!” He exclaimed, sounding pleased. “Wow, Minho-yah, I look really great here!”
Minho blinked, focusing on the picture he had taken when he had gotten home from the job, half frozen and about to quit the whole business of wedding photography so he would never have to deal with bridezillas ever again. It was a simple picture, Chan reading, the lamp over him bathing him in golden light, a blanket over his feet, and his hair shining like a halo around his head.
It was stunning, like a painting with the fuzziness of the light, the muted warm colors, and the simple motif. Something serene and nearly holy in the way Minho had captured him. Like an iconograph, Chan, the saint of lost wedding photographers’ hearts.
“You’re so talented,” Chan praised, and Minho’s poor brain swam around inside his skull, drunk on the smell of Chan, on the feeling of him so close.
“I love you,” Minho whispered, words escaping him before he could stop himself.
“What?” Chan said, his tone strained and a little odd, and Minho felt a little like he had gotten a bucket of ice-cold water to his face.
“I love you in that picture,” Minho corrected, voice just on the wrong side of shrill. He slammed the computer closed. “I mean, it’s great. Going to put in my portfolio if I ever decide to drop the wedding biz,” he rushed, more than a little breathless.
“Oh,” Chan said, and to Minho’s deranged brain, he almost sounded disappointed as he moved away, releasing Minho fully from his spell. “Well, let me know so I can collect royalties,” he joked with a soft wistful smile. “Anyways, just wanted to hear if you needed a snack? I’m going to the convenience store.”
“Nah, I’m good,” Minho replied, a little strained and his mind in complete mental lockdown. “But thanks, hyung.”
“Any time, Minho-yah,” Chan said, eyes crinkling with his smile as he slipped into the hallways. A rustling of his shoes and jacket followed before Minho heard the door close, and he exhaled sharply.
“You utter, idiotic moron,” Minho hissed at himself, slamming his head down into the table. “The fuck is wrong with you?” He muttered and gathered enough courage to open the computer again.
Chan, in all his perfect glory, was still there, waiting for him.
“I do love you,” Minho whispered apologetically to the picture. “I really do,” he promised the photo before sitting up and saving it in another folder, making sure Chan wouldn’t find another one of his hopeless love confessions once he got back.
+1
Chan was in a chatty mood, talking about this and that, none of it important. It didn’t stop Minho from listening intently as Chan led him through the streets. Around them, the city was bustling with life, having come alive during the early evening hours as Chan had taken Minho out for dinner. They had eaten pho, Chan’s persistent obsession, but Minho didn’t mind. He enjoyed pho as much as Chan did - he was just better at hiding it.
Also, he took his without the soapy herbs, thank you very much!
The lights were bright, the air cold, and the first snow of the year crunchy beneath their boots. Minho had already gotten three of his booked brides trying to move their appointment up so they could get a few photos taken before the snow vanished, meaning this would be the final calm day Minho had in the upcoming week.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Chan noted and glanced over his shoulder at Minho, a slight furrow in place between his brows.
His hair was free for once, the beanie stuffed into the pocket of his brown wool jacket. It was unzipped, because of course it was. Chan was immune to the cold, unlike Minho, who was buttoned all the way up and was starting to feel a kink settling in his neck due to him trying to act like a tortoise retreating further into its shell.
“I ate too much,” Minho said, which wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t the reason why he was absentminded. He was as he always was: weighed down by the season and the happy twinkling light and more ‘date’ night offers, this time from his favorite food delivery app. The betrayal stung more than Minho was willing to admit. “It was too delicious.”
“Right?” Chan laughed and slowed down enough to fall into step beside Minho. He bumped his shoulder into Minho’s, setting a leisured pace, never straying too far from Minho’s side and already keeping them touching in one way or another.
Their shoulders, the backs of their hands, sometimes even their shoes ended up too close to each other. Minho was thankful that he wasn’t as clumsy as Jeongin, or he would have ended up tripping at some point.
“I can see why you’ve gotten so obsessed with it,” Minho said, his voice muffled by the awkward angle he was trying to keep his chin in so he didn’t freeze. The collar of his coat offered very little warmth, but it was better than nothing. He had been an idiot when he didn’t bring his own, not considering Chan’s penchant for taking a stroll once he was done eating. Minho had thought it would be a quick run to eat, and then right back.
Chan, observant as ever, caught onto his discomfort.
“Are you cold?” He asked and was already removing his scarf, robbing Minho of the chance to say it wasn’t an issue. “Here,” Chan muttered, and folded the scarf in half.
Suddenly he stood right in front of Minho, their eyes locked.
“It’s not too bad,” Minho said weakly, but he didn’t have it in him to protest, not when Chan was right there and willingly offering some of his addictive and tender care. Minho was like a pitiful little flower, blooming only under Chan’s attention.
“No need to be cold, Minho-yah,” Chan said, wrapping his scarf around Minho’s neck, covering him in his scent and the soft wool.
It was handmade, crocheted by Chan’s hands during those 3 months where his interest shifted from music to yarn before returning to music. It was just a simple pattern, several rows and back-and-forths, Minho had watched him painstakingly go through, counting each row out loud as if he was afraid he would lose count.
“Thank you,” Minho muttered, peering at Chan over the woolen brim of the scarf. “I’m much warmer now,” he added, just so he could see Chan smile widely, looking proud of having made Minho warmer.
He was so close, a perfect distance to learn over and use the few centimetres he had on Chan to place a soft kiss on his lips if they were something, instead of nothing, of course.
“Let’s go see if the lighting is prettier over the river,” Chan decided, and Minho didn’t even think about the consequences agreeing would have for him. “You wanted to take some more pictures, yeah?”
Minho wanted to curse, still cold and still hopelessly in love, but he brought his camera ‘just in case,’ and Chan knew perfectly well Minho liked getting glimpses of all the small but important moments for his photo diaries, which happened to include pictures of the first snow.
“Yeah,” Minho agreed, feet following Chan all by themselves as the other man kept walking.
Near the river, it would be colder, and he wasn’t dressed for that, but since Chan wasn’t bringing it up, Minho assumed it was him being overly nervous due to the two of them being on their own. They had been dancing around each other, both of them a little awkward after Minho’s idiotic, almost-confession a few days ago.
This day had been the first where they felt normal, the first day they both seemed to settle into their old patterns. Minho wanted to stay like that a little longer, to live in the foolish dream of this being a date, of Chan showing off with his favourite restaurant, of Chan wanting to prolong their time together by taking them to see the romantic lights at the river, of Chan following Minho home… where the illusion would break as they would head to different bedrooms, no goodnight kiss shared between them.
It wasn’t a surprise that Chan was right about the lights. Knowing him, he had planned their outing, researched it all, and ensured that by the time they reached the river, the night would have settled comfortably over them. The city was like a light on the opposite bank, bright as it stretched across and was reflected in the river’s surface.
Minho’s fingers itched to pull out his camera and capture the way the trees danced in the night sky, the light pollution making the stars invisible.
“Go ahead,” Chan said, smiling at Minho when he wasted no time conjuring his camera from his bag. “It’s why we’re here, remember?” He tagged on and Minho loved him a little more.
Chan never minded being second to Minho’s camera, never minded when he was ignored while Minho would try and focus on a small detail, living through the lens of his camera before anything else.
Minho’s movements were quick, yet still careful as he pulled the camera from his back. He didn’t want to drop his expensive camera on the ground accidentally. It wasn’t the one he usually worked with, but one he saved for special occasions and moments of spontaneity. It suited the camera better, and the results he got when shooting candids were always better than when using his professional gear.
Others claimed they couldn’t see the difference, but Minho knew it was there. Within the photos, there was a special tactile sensation which he could only replicate with this camera. And mostly with Chan as the model.
Only Chan.
He dropped the strap around his neck and pried off his gloves, the cold suddenly less prickling now his mind was focused on the light shifting and the dark shadows of the trees. After stuffing the gloves into his pockets, he held up the camera, looked at the world through the viewfinder, and exhaled. His shoulder sank, his lips parted, and Minho pressed down on the button, a quick flicker indicating that reality had been captured.
The first photo wasn’t anything special. It was just something to get him into the mood of shooting whatever caught his fancy without overthinking it.
Chan trailed after him, a couple of feet worth of distance between them, calm and clearly content with observing Minho do his thing. Whenever Minho stopped to take a photo, so did Chan. He remained close by, but not enough so that he hovered by Minho’s side, never once giving off the impression of being impatient. It didn’t take long before he started talking again, lending his voice to the soundtrack of Minho’s passion for photography.
They stayed like that for a while, Minho watching the world through his camera and Chan talking about music editing programs, until Minho found a particularly good spot. He settled in, grumbling under his breath as he tried to get the shot he wanted.
It took a few tries, and it was only when Minho looked at the screen, smiling, that he realized Chan had gone quiet. Minho turned his head, his camera lifting up the moment he caught sight of the other man.
Chan had found a lamp post to lean against, watching Minho rise from where he had been crouched on the ground, trying to capture the way the moon was visible through the leafless branches of a tree.
The camera clicked, capturing Chan forever.
The flash going off alerted Chan to what was happening, and he rolled his eyes before looking away, still shy of being the center of attention. For the next photo, Chan waved with his hand still stuck in his pocket, and Minho’s heart squeezed tightly in his chest. Chan was smiling, soft and bright, and he looked so happy, so… in love that Minho almost believed it to be true.
That Chan loved Minho back, that the unsaid words between them were the same. But Chan wouldn’t date others if he liked Minho. He wouldn’t hide his feelings either, because while Minho was a coward, Chan was anything but.
Minho lowered the camera and glanced at the display. Chan was a worthy muse, Minho decided at that moment, though there had never been any doubt. Chan was made for Minho’s eyes, and Minho was born to ensure he captured as much of his essence as he could in pixels on a screen he could turn into ink dots on a piece of paper.
“Minho-yah,” Chan whined and kicked off the lamppost, strolling towards Minho. “Let me see,” he requested and tugged at Minho’s sleeve the moment he was close enough to touch. “I made a stupid face, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t make a face,” Minho reassured breathless, pulling away and putting some distance between them. Chan released him without a fuss. “I can show you when we get home.”
“So it was a stupid face,” Chan sighed, shaking his head. He still looked amused, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You always take pictures of me, but you never let me see them. I have to look like an idiot in half of them.”
Part of Minho wanted to agree, play a joke on it like they often did, but it didn’t feel right to play pretend. They didn’t lie, that had never been them, but lately… lately both he and Chan lied a lot.
“No,” Minho muttered, turning the camera off. He couldn’t let Chan see the picture, knowing full well what he had captured; Chan all alone in a puddle of light. Like a revelation, perfect in the light from above, smiling at the unseen moon, perfect, divine, and out of reach.
“Minhoooo,” Chan whined, still pretending to be playful even though his eyes carried a hint of sadness. “You used to let me see your pictures all the time,” he said, shaking his head and pulling away. His body was stiff, closed off in a way Chan rarely was around Minho.
“Yes, but-” that had been before Minho fell in love with Chan, before every single picture he took was a small and brokenhearted confession.
“Yeah, yeah.” Chan waved Minho’s aborted reply away, his smile still in place. For once, it felt as fragile as glass. He turned away before Minho could say anything. “There should be a small cafe down this way,” he said and started walking away from Minho, the wind playing with his hair.
Minho wished he could call out, could stop him, could just tell him what he felt so they could move on, but he couldn’t. Because he loved Chan, loved him so much, he would rather have him like this, as a friend, than lose him. So, predictably, Minho followed Chan, minutes dragging away slowly as Chan slowly returned to normal.
Eventually, Minho’s fingers grew stiff from the cold, and he found a bench facing the river to sit down on. Chan ran to get them coffee, or rather, coffee for Minho and hot cocoa for himself. He wasn’t gone long, settling down beside Minho in mere moments and handed him his feeble to-go cup of overpriced coffee.
Their thighs were touching, and Minho’s breath hitched as Chan’s heat seeped into him.
“Are you cold again?” Chan asked, and Minho shook his head, holding his coffee tight. Chan was so damn nice, caring about Minho even as he was being an idiot, and ruined the mood. “Alright, but promise to tell me if you are,” he said, voice a little too careful.
“Yeah, yeah,” Minho brushed him off and focused on his camera in his lap. He fiddled with it, shuffling through the photos he had taken, but was constantly drawn back to the pictures he had gotten of Chan.
Next to him, Chan pointedly kept his eyes far away from the screen on Minho’s camera, the little sliver of air between them stiff and awkward. Chan looked deep in thought, almost like Minho felt.
Minho wished he could just confess, that the words would be easy to say, but they remained stuck in his throat as he kept staring at Chan, kept staring at the man who had somehow become the center of his world.
He looked pretty, lit from above, his platinum hair shining in the light from the lamppost, more so than Minho had words to describe, and he sometimes wished he possessed the same endless vocabulary as Jisung so he had more ways of complimenting Chan. Pretty was too simple a word, but perfect felt lackluster when he couldn’t add more to it.
Minho huffed a breath and shivered, only registering it when Chan shook his head and sighed.
“Come here,” Chan said, and was already swinging his arm around Minho’s shoulders and tugging him closer. “Don’t be a stranger,” he added, angling Minho’s head till it was tucked in under Chan’s. “And don’t pretend you’re not cold. I can feel you shivering, Minho-yah. Drink your coffee, and we’ll go home. The others should be back by now as well.”
Something within him stirred, and instead of protesting Chan’s care, Minho indulged himself and melted into Chan’s side. If he nuzzled into his side as well, leaning all of his weight onto Chan, then no one had to know, and since Chan pretended not to notice, Minho didn’t feel ashamed about it.
They sat like that for a long while, sipping their beverages, while Minho shivered and Chan rubbed his shoulder to ease the warmth back into his body. Minho didn’t know why neither of them made a move to stand up and get moving, go home and into bed, but he didn’t dare question it.
“What’s up?” Chan asked after a while, the continuous caress of Minho’s shoulder pushing him closer and closer to the edge. “You seem to be lost inside your head lately.”
“Just busy,” Minho said, the half-lie bitter on his tongue. “You know, weddings and winter snow go hand-in-hand. It’s romantic,” he added, trying to ignore the way his body was singing pressed close to Chan.
“Oh,” Chan said, a hint of disappointment in his voice. “I mean, that’s good, isn’t it? That means you’re making money even in your slow season.”
“Yeah,” Minho said, eyes falling to his lap where his camera was lying, heavy and filled with guilt. “I suppose it is,” he muttered, staring at the screen. His fingers twitched as he turned to look at Chan, who was facing the river. “Do you really wanna see the picture I took of you?”
Minho wasn’t sure why he was asking, but it felt like the picture was hanging between them, the stone in both their shoes digging into their skin and making what would have been a perfectly lovely evening painful.
The way Chan turned to him, eyes a light, and his smile honestly made it worth it though.
“Yeah,” Chan nodded, his ears a little red from the cold. “Please,” he said, eyes falling down to the camera in Minho’s lap.
It only took a flick of his fingers to make it start up again, the screen coming alive. With a few clicks, Minho was back at the photos he had taken, flickering through them carefully.
His heart hurt a little as he reached the one he had taken of Chan, the one where he was smiling at Minho, happy and brighter than the light around him. It wasn’t the most incriminating of the pictures Minho had taken of him, but it was still obvious how much Minho loved him, the way he had captured him, the softness and affection Minho’s eyes applied to him.
“Here,” Minho said, turning the small screen so Chan could see it better. “As you can see, it’s not stupid.”
Chna was silent as he watched the screen, and Minho watched too, wondering if Chan could see, if he would know.
“I don’t look like that at all.” Chan eventually broke the silence. “You always make me look so pretty, but I’m not.”
“You are,” Minho protested, more than done with Chan’s insistence that he looked horrible. “It’s a camera, I can control the light, the exposure,” he added, eyes narrowing down the photo, wondering briefly if Chan was half blind. “But I can’t change how you look, I can’t make you prettier or uglier. Like that’s why people hire makeup artists.”
“You must’ve brought one of those without me noticing,” Chan teased, and Minho poked him in the side with his elbow. “Sorry, sorry,” he laughed, looking up briefly to smile at Minho. “It’s just… I look so special in your pictures. You capture more than just me, if you get what I mean. Like, I didn’t know, perhaps I expected it to look like your wedding photos, but it doesn’t.”
“No, because they’re staged,” Minho replied without missing a beat. “It usually takes a lot of time to make them relax and be themself. You… you’re different. This is a candid,” he muttered. “I just looked up at you and snapped a picture.”
“A good picture,” Chan said and squeezed Minho’s shoulder, his arm still resting around Minho. The movement caused Minho to press down on the bottom, changing the image on the screen to the first picture he had taken, the one of Chan staring at the moon, perfect and divine in a cold, mortal world.
“Oh.” Chan exhaled slowly upon seeing the picture. “I look completely different here,” he said, and Minho glanced at him, the frown between his brows confusing. “How do you do it?” He asked, eyes still on the photo. “How do you make me look so… perfect? I mean, if that is how you see me, I don’t-”
“I love you,” Minho blurted, voice cracking as the confession escaped him, slippery like soap between his palms. “That’s why… shit,” he cursed and stared wide-eyed at Chan. His expression was mirrored on Chan’s perfect features. “Please, forget I said that, I-”
“You love me?” Chan asked, looking back at the picture that was a small confession on its own, something like understanding blooming on his face. “Wait, is that why you don’t want me to see your pictures?”
“I- Chan, please,” Minho said, not sure what he was begging for. Oblivion, a time machine, for Chan to confess his own secret crush, just something that would stop Minho from feeling like he needed to jump into the river and swim to Argentina or something.
“Me, too,” Chan stuttered, glancing between the camera and Minho. “I love you, too.”
Minho’s heart squeezed tightly in his chest.
“No, you don’t get it, I don’t love you like that,” Minho protested, shaking his head, because of course, Chan would misunderstand, sappy idiot that he was. Minho wasn’t Hyunjin, who came home drunk and confessed his undying ‘bestie’ love to anyone sitting still long enough to be caught by him.
“How do you love me then?” Chan asked, his tone taking on a somber note. “Minho, please look at me,” he begged and pressed himself closer to Minho, almost desperate in the way he tried to keep Minho from leaving.
“I don’t love you like a friend. I love you more than a friend should,” Minho confessed, staring blindly at his camera in his hands. “I- fuck, Chan, I’m so in love with you it hurts. Just look at that stupid photo - it’s so idiotic how much I love you, and I thought it would go away, but it’s just gotten worse,” he rambled, the words refusing to be held back.
It was like glitter on the floor, scattered everywhere, now it had gotten the chance to stick to everything, and Minho couldn’t stop.
He didn’t want to stop. Something about that moment felt like the universe coming to a standstill, the calm before the storm, and Minho so desperately wished he could stay in it for a bit longer so he wasn’t forced to be faced with Chan’s rejection.
“I can’t look at you without hurting, can’t breathe if you’re too close, and, fuck, I can’t breathe if you’re too far away,” he rambled on and on. “I want to be with you all the time, I want to take pictures of you all the time. I don’t even mind you snoring,” he huffed, feeling more and more pathetic the more words that spilled out of him. “And if that is not love, I don’t know what is. I am a mess, and it’s so difficult looking at you every day, wanting to kiss you the moment I see you, and that stupid picture-”
Chan’s hand slipped under Minho’s jaw, wool prickling at Minho’s skin as his head was tilted upward, Chan’s cold lips pressing against Minho and efficiently halting the flow of words.
It was a soft kiss, chaste and sweet, nothing more but a press of lips against lips. It was over too soon, and yet it turned Minho’s world upside down. It was like a lightning strike, an earthquake, a whole avalanche dragging Minho down with it.
“It’s not a stupid picture,” Chan murmured, his lips brushing against Minho with each word. Minho stared wide-eyed back at him, his breath escaping him in a quiet exhale, trapped between Chan’s mouth and his own. “And I am irrevocably in love with you too, Minho-yah- You don’t have to panic about it.”
“I- I don’t believe you,” Minho whispered because it was too perfect, too planet aligning, too fairy tale-like if Chan liked him back. “What about Seungcheol?”
“Seunghyun,” Chan laughed, eyes shining like diamonds this close. “And I’m a little slow on the uptake, and it took me three dates with him to realize I kinda rather would be with you. Always you,” he said and shrugged, his eyes flickered down to Minho wetting his lips. “And you can call Jisung. According to him, I’ve been in love with you for ages, and he is ‘fucking tired’ of dealing with lyrics where I wax poetically about your eyes and lips.”
“I don’t have special eyes,” Minho muttered, thinking he was fairly average. “Or lips.”
“You’re very wrong about that,” Chan said, eyes still stuck on Minho’s mouth. “And I do actually really love you. A lot.”
“I also really love you a lot,” Minho echoed, and as if inspired by Chan, his gaze travelled down to his plump lips, daydreaming of the moment they would meet again. He hoped it wouldn’t be too long. “I mean, even your snoring is adorable, so-”
“Shut up and kiss me,” Chan laughed, and for once, Minho was more than happy to shove the melancholy and doubt to the side and oblige.
With a soft sigh, he leaned in, capturing Chan’s lips again. It was familiar in a way Minho’s dreams had never been able to make it feel like, soft and welcoming, warm in contrast to the freezing winter around them, but also so undeniably right.
“I will need to see that photo album of yours,” Chan muttered against Minho’s lips, the camera squashed behind them. “I have a feeling you’ve gotten some better pictures saved of me.”
“And I’ll need to read your lyrics, so you can tell me which ones are about me,” Minho countered, the rest of what he wanted to say silenced against Chan’s lips.
Minho didn’t mind. He could nag him about it later when going through all his rose-colored photo albums housing his love for Chan.