Archive of Our Own

"When I think about the day Minho met Jisung," Seungmin begins, "the thing I remember the most is the look in his eyes. I knew then that it was the look of a man whose life had just changed." Dramatic pause. "You'd be forgiven for thinking it was the beginning of a beautiful story, right out of a drama, but… I wouldn't say it was love at first sight." He gazes off into the distance, perfectly wistful. Perfectly rehearsed. "No… it definitely wasn't love. It was something much, much worse.

"Can you believe it started with ramen, of all things?" he continues once the laughs have died down. "I can't believe how much I had to hear about that—I thought he was making it up. Then I thought he was losing his mind. And it only got worse from there."

The Ramen Thing

Minho had just settled into his seat on the train and pulled out his book when a flurry of motion caught his attention over at the closing doors.

"Nononono! Wait, wait! I'm here!" cried a voice, apparently attached to the sentient arm that was flailing in the rapidly-disappearing gap. The doors whooshed back open and a breathless man stumbled inside the carriage, holding up one hand in apology to the other passengers while the other steadied a piece of toast in his mouth. He mumbled a string of sorry! as he sidled past a group of businessmen and plopped down in the only space available: the seat directly across from Minho.

Minho scoffed and looked back down at his book. Running late with toast in his mouth? Please. What does he think he is, an anime character? People didn't do that shit in real life. Probably just a weeb that watched too many cartoons.

Still.

He was curious.

The words on Minho's page stared back at him for a few moments before his gaze drifted up, up, out of the book and across the floor without his permission. His eyes landed on a pair of Vans, a little scuffed, soles stacked to give the wearer at least an extra inch and a half of height. The laces on both shoes were tied in a strange shape that looked like a flower. Why would someone do that? This guy probably wouldn't have been late if he hadn't spent so much time tying his laces into flowers; another notch for the stupid column. Settled on the floor between the man's sneakers was a backpack, a couple of colourful keychains dangling off the zipper that swung with the movement of the train. One looked like a cat. Cute. But so what, Minho thought as he stared at it. Everyone likes cats. I probably like them more than this guy does.

His eyes drifted up. The man's knees were pressed together—again, like an anime character, so ridiculous—and he wore a pair of baggy dark grey jeans with too-big pockets on the sides, too low to make sense for carrying anything. Up again. One hand gripped his phone, thumb methodically swiping with the practiced ease of someone who spent too much time online. Minho found himself inexplicably pausing on those fingers. The man's nails were painted black, chipped and uneven from obvious biting. He wore a black hoodie, oversized like his pants and faded from wear—or maybe distressed is just in right now, Minho thought to himself. Whatever. It wasn't like he knew or even cared about fashion.

Up. The man's other hand held the piece of toast as he chewed it, but Minho wasn't looking at that. He was following the smooth slope of his nose, the black frames of the glasses that perched there, the furrowed brow of concentration as he squinted down at whatever was happening on his phone. The man's hair fell down across his forehead, tousled with such effortless style Minho couldn't tell if it was intentional or not. Had this guy spent as much time getting those subtle curls and flicks right where he wanted them as he had on his little shoelace flowers? Punctuality sacrificed in the name of fashion. Stupid.

Compelling, somehow.

Minho's eyes flicked down the stranger's face, just a little. He watched the roundness of the man's cheeks as he chewed his last mouthful of toast, then hyperfocused on a small mole on his left cheek. Unbidden, Minho thought about chocolate chip cookies.

The man reached down into his backpack and retrieved a plastic bag. As he brought the second piece of toast to his mouth, he chose that moment to make direct eye contact with Minho, and that was when Minho realized two horrifying things at once.

One, this was the most beautiful man he had ever seen.

Two, it wasn't toast.

It was never toast.

The most beautiful man he had ever seen was crunching on a slab of dry, raw ramen noodles.

And as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be eating, the man smiled at Minho, his lovely brown eyes crinkling in a way that set the butterflies in Minho's stomach careening out of control, slamming into his insides in a confused panic.

He continued to stare in disbelief as the man took another bite, then another. Then, doubting his own reality because what in the entire fuck, Minho glanced around the carriage at the other commuters, desperate to see if anyone else was seeing this, seeking some sort of reassurance that yes, oh my god, can you believe this guy is munching away on raw noodles right now? What the fuck?

But no one else seemed to have noticed. If they did, they didn't care; there were clearly so many other things worth worrying about that they couldn't spare so much as a thought for the culinary crime being committed right under their noses.

And then, just as Minho had convinced himself that he must be imagining the whole thing, the man reached back into the plastic bag on his lap. Unable to tear his gaze away, Minho watched as he pulled out a small foil packet.

Oh, no. Oh no. Don't make this worse don't—

The most beautiful man he had ever seen tore open the packet, tipped his head back, and poured the seasoning directly into his mouth like it was a shot.

Minho felt his mouth go dry. He wasn't sure if it was out of sympathy or horror.

The disembodied voice announcing the next stop cleaved his thoughts in two. Overcome with the urgent need to remove himself from the situation entirely, lest he say something (what that would be, he had no idea—but his brain begged him to do something), Minho launched from his seat before the train had even finished rolling into the next station. It was three stops away from where he needed to be, but it didn't matter—he needed to get out of this fever dream immediately. He needed to return to a normal world where hot people ate normal things. He needed to drink an entire bottle of water.

But as he hauled himself towards the doors, the stranger tried to catch his attention.

"Hey, uh," was all he managed to get out before a cough seized him.

Probably because you just ate raw noodles and shotgunned the powder! Minho thought furiously, burning with—what is that? Rage? Anguish? It was anguish. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. He stared desperately at the doors, begging them to open faster through sheer force of will as the stranger cleared his throat behind him, readying another attempt. There was nothing that could possibly be said, Minho thought, that would make up for what he just witnessed. The train slid to an excrutiatingly slow stop as if to torture him specifically. If only these damn doors would just—

"Can I give you my—"

The doors whooshed open.

Minho stepped out onto the platform and fled as though the flames of Hell itself were licking at his heels.

—

He talked about it for three whole weeks.

"The entire thing," Minho huffed as he jogged. "Bone dry!"

Beside him, Seungmin glanced at his watch. "Don't tell me he ate the seasoning packet, too," he said with the deadpan drawl of someone hearing the same story too many times.

"Like a shot," Minho confirmed, oblivious. "I just don't understand—"

"—how someone so attractive could do something so grotesque?" When his watch beeped at the mile marker, Seungmin slowed to a steady walking pace.

"See, you get it. Who does that?" Minho glanced over for reassurance as he matched the other man's speed. "Who does that, Seungmin-ah?"

Seungmin regarded him quietly for a few moments, in that way of his that means an Observation is coming. "Hyung, if you don't mind me asking," he said in a gentle voice, as though he had to move a sleeping cat and was afraid it would scratch him. "Have you… heard yourself?"

Minho stopped walking and blinked at him.

When he didn't receive a verbal response, which is in itself a way Minho responds to things that confuse him, Seungmin sighed. "Three weeks ago, you saw a guy. In your own words, 'the most beautiful man you had ever seen in your life'."

Minho leaned over to brace his hands on his knees and stretch out his back, grimacing. "Yes. And then he ruined it."

Seungmin lifted an index finger to discourage further interruption. "So you say. And yet here you are, three weeks later, still talking about it. Still torturing me with the same story."

"Because it was insane!" Minho reminded him, as if he could've had a chance to forget. He straightened and looked at Seungmin with genuine betrayal in his eyes. "I thought you were on my side. How could you."

"I am on your side, Minho-yah," said Seungmin. "I just think you're in love with the raw ramen guy."

Minho made an incredulous little sound through his teeth and looked away, the tips of his ears burning. "How could I possibly be—"

"Think about it for two seconds, hyung. You can't stop thinking about him. You can't stop talking about him," Seungmin pointed out. "You've also ordered ramen three times this week alone."

Minho pondered this for a moment, uncomfortably. So what if he'd been ordering a lot of ramen? It's one of his favourite foods. It's a normal thing to order.

"I think he crunched his way right into your heart."

"Goodbye," said Minho, and then he took off running at full speed.

The Squirrel Thing

"So, like I said," Seungmin explained patiently, again. "The teams switch who has the ball every time the defending team gets three of the batting team's players out during a half-inning. And remember, an out can happen if a batter strikes out three times, or the ball is caught before landing, a baserunner is tagged out, or forced out…"

Minho was doing a very convincing job of looking like he was processing all of that. He nodded when it felt appropriate, and made little affirmative noises like "mmhm" and "huh," and Seungmin continued talking animatedly and demonstrating with his hands to explain the thing he was talking about in more detail, which confirmed how good of a job Minho was doing. Lee Minho, Champion of Listening.

"… and the umpire will usually make a fist to signal an out. So now you know what to look for." Seungmin leaned forward expectantly on his elbows, hopeful that this time it sunk in, and that Minho was now baseball's newest, most informed fan.

Minho blinked back at him.

Seungmin slumped in his seat. "You still didn't retain a word of that, did you?"

Minho braced himself on the sun-warmed arms of his seat as he hauled himself up. "I'm going to go get us a beer."

The stadium concourse was sparsely populated at this point of the game, with a few other people milling around, some holding their overpriced food and others jogging to or from the bathroom. Minho didn't quite understand their urgency; it wasn't like they were missing anything. Glancing around, he spotted the signage directing him to the nearest beer vendor and started making his way towards it.

The man behind the little cart was far more jovial than Minho really had the energy for. But as a well-practiced Champion of Listening, he nodded along with the excited comments about the home team and was even able to add in an insightful Yeah, the umpire will usually make a fist. The man chuckled as he poured, shaking his head, and Minho watched the beer foam at the top of the plastic cups.

Drinks in hand, he sipped a little off the top of each of them for easier transportation—what Seungmin didn't know wouldn't hurt him—and turned in the direction he'd come from. It was actually the wrong direction entirely, but it took a solid seven and a half minutes of aimless wandering for him to realize. Holding the lip of one of the cups in his teeth to free up a hand, Minho pulled out his phone and was about to text Seungmin and ask which section their seats were in when a sudden yelp stopped him in his tracks.

He'd have written it off as the shriek of a too-excited child had it not been immediately followed by a second, this one punctuated with a pleading stop!

It was the unmistakeable, desperate sound of someone needing help. Seeing no one else rushing to the victim's aid, Minho pocketed his phone and started jogging in the direction of the voice with both beers sloshing. He soon found himself at a dimly-lit alcove beside a set of restrooms, where he saw two children, no more than five years old—or maybe ten, Minho was bad with ages—that had someone literally backed into a corner, and they were laughing as they threw popcorn at their victim.

Minho wouldn't stand for this at all.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?!" he yelled, loud enough to startle the kids.

When they turned around to face him, he saw that the pers—, err, entity they'd cornered was in fact the home team's mascot.

It was an odd thing, seeing an oversized plush squirrel getting pummeled by snacks. The mascot suit had an exaggerated midsection that gave the wearer a comically round appearance, big pawed feet surrounded by a ring of popcorn on the ground, and a large tail that curled along the suit's back. Despite having at least two clear feet of height over its tormentors, the squirrel cowered, and had their paws up to protect their big, dumb, cartoonish head. But regardless of how absolutely ridiculous this whole scene was, Minho would not, under any circumstances, enable a bully. Or two very small bullies.

"I said," he repeated, staring the children down, "what the hell are you doing?"

"Stupid squirrel knocked over my popcorn bucket!" exclaimed one of them, pointing an accusatory finger at the mascot.

"I didn't mean to!" wailed the squirrel with the muffled voice of, apparently, an adult man. "It was my dumb tail, I can barely even see—"

The second boy raised a threatening fist. "You owe us a new one!"

"I'm sure the stupid squirrel didn't mean it," said Minho. "And it couldn't have been that bad if you've had this much popcorn left over to throw. Who taught you to be so vindictive and wasteful?"

Called out, the kid stumbled over his words. "I'm not—it was… what does 'vindictive' mean?"

"Did you think the squirrel was an easy target?" Minho continued, stepping forward with the two beers still in his hands. "Do you think it's cool to bully defenseless animals?"

"It's a man in there!" said the other boy with absolute conviction. "It's not real!"

"I'm real," added the squirrel, helpfully, and a little sadly.

Minho looked from one kid to the other. "What should I tell your parents," he said as both boys began to uneasily step away from the mascot, inching themselves out of the alcove without turning their backs to either Minho or the squirrel, "after you're arrested for animal cruelty?"

At that, both kids squealed and broke into a run, dropping the bucket and scattering what was left of the popcorn behind them.

"Get a job!" Minho yelled after them.

"We're literally nine years old!" one of them shouted back over his shoulder as they scarpered away.

A smattering of cheers from the stands filled the awkward silence the children left behind—someone must have just scored a goal in the baseball game, Minho thought. He turned back to face the squirrel and saw its shoulders visibly relax.

"Thank you, so much," it said, a relieved paw over its chest. "They overpowered me…"

Minho snorted out a laugh. "Aren't you supposed to have a handler?" As he said it, he took a step backwards out of the alcove to scan the vicinity for the employee who should've been managing this pitiful creature. How on earth did it get itself into this situation in the first place?

"He went into the restroom. I was getting worried… he's been gone a while. It's so hot in—" The squirrel reached up to remove its head.

"Hey, wait!" Minho said urgently, putting both beers down on top of a nearby trash can and rushing forward to hold the squirrel's head in place. "It was bad enough that anyone could've seen you getting beaten up by kids, and now you want to risk traumatizing more of them by seeing this cute little guy decapitating himself? Do you want to give people nightmares?"

The squirrel paused, giant stupid head slowly looking up at Minho; or at least, it looked like it was looking at him. It was a little hard to tell with those unblinking, starry anime-style eyes. "You think I'm cute?"

Minho startled at the sudden flirtation, his ears growing hot for some reason. "Don't get ahead of yourself. I'm just a sucker for an animal in distress." He dipped his head, searching for where he assumed the other man's actual eyes must be. "You good in there? Need me to get you somewhere you can take that head off?"

"Oh, that'd be great actually." The squirrel's whole demeanor brightened at the offer; an odd thought to have about something that looks like a sentient plush toy with a fixed expression. "There's a stairwell by the front gate that I was trying to get to when I bumped into those kids. Literally, apparently."

"You got it," said Minho, turning to lead the way. When the squirrel didn't immediately follow, he gave it a confused look over his shoulder.

He hadn't thought it was possible for this situation to be even more pitiful, but there it was: the squirrel was still standing in the alcove, head cast down towards the ground, looking for all the world like a pet that got left behind.

"I can't see very well," it admitted.

Minho felt his heartstrings actually tug, which was an inconvenient way to discover that that's something that his emotions are capable of doing in response to a person, and not a cat. With a sigh, he reached out and took the squirrel's soft, mittened paw in his hand. "Come on," he said, more gently than he meant to.

"Thank you," said the squirrel as it let Minho guide it out of its terrible hiding place. "This is so embarrassing. I just needed to pick up a temp job and they said it was a support role…"

When they reached the door to the stairwell, Minho wrenched it open and placed a steadying hand on the squirrel's back to guide it inside. He was given a bonk in the face from that stupid tail for his efforts as it squeezed past him. Minho followed, turning and facing the door as he gently closed it behind them.

"Ugh, thank you so much again," said the squirrel, voice becoming clearer. "You're my savior. I thought I was gonna die out there."

"It's—" Minho turned around and almost choked on his own gasp. "You?!"

With his squirrel head removed and tucked under his arm, Raw Ramen Guy blinked back at him in confusion. Then he pointed a paw to himself with a surprised "Me?" that was followed immediately by an incensed "You!"

Devastatingly for Minho, the guy was just as upsettingly attractive as he was the first time Minho saw him. His mouth went dry with the memory of the seasoning packet, as though his brain had determined that a Pavlovian response would be helpful. To make it worse, he felt an inexplicable feeling crackling through his nervous system—something that burned his insides, told him to leave immediately. Because here, right in front of him, was confirmation that the most beautiful man in the world (who eats raw ramen and swallows the seasoning) was not a figment of his imagination. He was, in fact, not only real; he was a round, fuzzy, headless rodent.

Maybe Minho was going insane, and this man was actually the second of the four horsemen of his own personal apocalypse. And I looked, and behold a pale horse (squirrel).

Without so much as another word, Minho turned, flung open the door and stormed out, letting it slam shut behind him. Miraculously, and apparently by the sheer power of his anguish alone, he managed to find his way back to Seungmin. He slammed his crappy little stadium seat open and plopped himself down on it; the arms, hot from the sun, burned his elbows. He didn't care. The little men on the field swung bats and hit balls and ran around with the audacity to not acknowledge his despair in the slightest.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Seungmin look over.

Minho stared straight ahead. "What," he muttered flatly, all joy gone from his life.

"Did you forget about the beer?"

The Freezer Thing

Minho had been having recurring dreams about squirrels.

Sometimes, in the dreams, he was having a completely normal day. He was grocery shopping, getting a haircut, going to the dermatologist; Dream-Minho completed his little tasks and looked up, and there he was: the Squirrel. He was the cashier, the barber, the receptionist, the dentist, the taxi driver. Sometimes he wasn't wearing the mascot head, and the most beautiful man in the world smiled at Minho in the body of a big fuzzy rodent, and then he reached up to his face with a mittened paw and crunched into a slab of uncooked noodles.

Sometimes, somehow, the dreams made even less sense. Dream-Minho was the lone survivor of a zombie apocalypse, running from a horde until he was yanked to safety in a dark alley by a mysterious figure and fell into the fuzzy arms of his hero. Or Dream-Minho was the mascot of the opposing baseball team, which seemed to be a rabbit, and he was rescuing the squirrel from some sort of elaborate musical number, picking him up and carrying him off into the sunset, and then they—

He'd woken up in a cold sweat from that one.

He hadn't told Seungmin about what happened at the baseball game. Why would he? After his friend had betrayed him by implying that he had a crush on a man that Minho had determined (for his own mental health) didn't exist, there was no way he could give him this kind of ammunition. He'd simply never hear the end of it.

Minho drifted down the aisles of the store like a boat unmoored, bobbing aimlessly among buy-one-get-one cans of soup. What had he even come in here for? Lee Minho's memory was good enough for him to live without lists, but for some reason he couldn't remember what he was supposed to be picking up. Tonight was his and Seungmin's monthly dinner, a tradition that had survived since their university days, and Minho had no idea what he'd said he'd cook.

He looked down at his basket full of instant ramen packets. Who put those in there? Weird. Turning down the next aisle, he figured he could just grab some mandu and go from there.

But that's where he was.

Minho stopped in his tracks. The most beautiful man in the world, not dressed as a squirrel, not eating raw noodles, was standing about fifteen meters away with another guy. An odd feeling coiled in Minho's gut—he recognized it as jealousy, then dismissed it just as quickly as it came because what the fuck why. The two of them were laughing about something, and, to Minho's dismay, the man he had been pretending wasn't real had the loveliest laugh he'd ever heard.

He watched with fascination as Raw Ramen Guy leaned over into the freezer to grab whatever it was that he and his companion(?) were talking about. The entire top half of his body vanished inside as he reached in, all the way to the bottom—his shirt rode up his back and Minho stared—and then his foot slipped, sending him tumbling in head-over-heels. His companion immediately folded in on himself with laughter and pulled out his phone to take a video. Raw Ramen Guy's legs kicked helplessly in the air and Minho thought he heard a muffled "Channie-hyung! Help!"

Was this man's life a variety show? It was the only logical explanation; Minho whipped his head around to see if there was a hidden film crew. Finding nothing but deciding that he couldn't know for sure, he whirled back around and power-walked in the opposite direction. No way was he getting caught on camera. He flounced down the aisle furthest away from the nonsense, checked out in record time, and was back home before he could second-guess himself.

—

"You didn't go shopping today?" asked Seungmin from the table, bending down to tickle Soonie's chin. The cat mrrped as he did his best to convince him that he hadn't been fed, even though Seungmin knew otherwise.

Minho made a non-committal noise from the stovetop as he pushed around a combination of items from his fridge that could be considered okonomiyaki, if one squinted. "Had to work late."

"It's Sunday," Seungmin pointed out.

Minho flipped the pancake onto Seungmin's plate, then squeezed out some sauce in the shape of a grotesque little face on top and placed it in front of him. "You're Sunday."

Seungmin took a sip from his beer and set it back down on the table. His fingers lightly drummed the side of the bottle. "You feeling okay, hyung?"

"I'm always okay," said Minho as he slid into the chair across from him with his own plate. He was gifted a blessedly quiet few minutes without stupid questions while they ate in their usual comfortable silence.

But then Seungmin had to go and ruin it, which was basically his favourite pastime.

"You know," he said breezily between bites, risking his life, "you've been extra weird since you met your ramen guy."

Minho glared at him, chewing menacingly. He swallowed without breaking the eye contact and said, simply, "No."

"I mean, you've always been weird," Seungmin said, thoughtful. "But you're like… especially weird. It really feels like you have a…"

Minho reached across the table, picked up Seungmin's unfinished dinner, and took both plates to the kitchen. "Starve."

Seungmin leaned back in his chair, victorious and irritating. "It's really okay if you do," he said encouragingly. "What if he's your weird soulmate and you're denying what's meant to be? Have you seen him since?"

Minho froze a second too long—and that was a tell his friend was far too familiar with. Seungmin gasped with delight, which Minho felt should be illegal.

"You have! Excellent! Please ask him out next time," Seungmin said, joining Minho in the kitchen and nonchalantly taking his plate back so he could finish what was left. "That way," he mumbled around his last mouthful, "you can channel all your weirdness into a relationship and I can finally be free."

"Do you think Felix will miss you when you're gone?" Minho asked calmly as he flipped on the tap, having determined it would be better for everyone if he put his hands to use washing dishes instead of throttling his most cherished friend.

"Oh, he'll be gaming so hard he might not even notice. He's almost plat." Grabbing a towel, Seungmin dried the plates as Minho handed them to him, and then he turned to put them away in the cupboard behind them.

Wait—the cupboard! Minho's stomach dropped. "Don't—!" He all but twisted his ankle in his haste to stop Seungmin before he could open the door fully, but it was too late: a mountain of instant ramen packets tumbled out of the cupboard and scattered across the countertop.

Seungmin considered the scene, and then slowly turned towards Minho.

"Forget everything I said about it being a crush," he said solemnly. A single packet slid off the counter and landed on the floor with a pap as a final, personal insult. "You're obsessed with him. Oh my god."

"It was admirable how hard he tried to be normal about the whole thing, really. He was doing a terrible job. But then the bathroom thing happened," Seungmin says, and nods his head towards Felix. "Sorry again about your birthday, Lixie-yah."

Felix tips his head back with a laugh before waving his hand. "Oh, it's fine," he says. "It turned out great in the end, didn't it?"

"I do feel somewhat responsible for that one, actually," Changbin cuts in smoothly, as though the interruption wasn't rehearsed at all.

"Ah," says Seungmin. "So we're here because of you, then. It's all your fault."

Changbin holds both of his hands up in defeat. "Sure, blame me!" Beside him, Hyunjin reaches out to soothingly pat his shoulder. When the laughter settles, he continues. "Honestly, that was not Jisungie's finest hour. He was… how should I say this." He circles a hand in the air as if trying to summon the appropriate word, then brings it to his chin to rub thoughtfully, theatrically, before he finds one. "Stupid. He was stupid."

The Bathroom Thing

The bar was a new one for their friend group. Seungmin's roommate Felix's friend Hyunjin had a crush on a guy who worked there, and Felix had been talking for weeks about celebrating his birthday there as an excuse to get them to interact with each other. It was lively and colourful and the volume had increased with each free birthday shot, as had the inanity of the little games they'd been playing at the table. Minho wasn't normally one to care about what people thought of him, but being voted Least Likely to Listen had made Seungmin laugh a little too hard, and Minho had already determined how easy it would be to shave off his eyebrows in his sleep. Felix would help.

Minho's tolerance for social interaction had peaked twenty minutes ago. He'd excused himself to the restroom even though he didn't need to go, and the moment the door closed behind him and muffled the noise outside he'd felt the sweet relief of solitude. He was alone, and could recharge enough to be able to decide whether he wanted to keep going with his friends to their next location or call it a night and go home to his cats.

He braced his hands on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror. His eyes were a little red from the alcohol, but nothing too bad; he always held his drink pretty well and had already reached his self-imposed limit and switched to water. There would be no hangover for Lee Minho tomorrow: he'd be up bright and early for a run while his friends moaned and groaned in the group chat. Going home was sounding more appealing by the second.

But then movement caught his eye.

Something was shifting, barely visible behind the small gap under the stall door behind him; the stall that Minho could've sworn was empty when he'd entered. He froze.

Someone else was in here.

Minho followed the movement of the thing in the mirror until he realized, with nauseating horror, that it was a bare foot.

It retracted as though the occupant of the stall was perched above the floor and had only placed it down to steady themself. He heard a disgusted little noise followed by something bitter, grumbled under breath, that sounded a lot like, "Seo Changbin, when I get you."

Minho was faced with a choice. He could slip out of the restroom unseen, return to his friends, bow out of the rest of the evening gracefully and be tucked up with his cats before midnight. Or he could help a stranger, and put to rest the stupid idea that he's bad at listening—he clearly heard someone in need, did he not? Maybe he'd get a new friend out of it. Ha, that'd show them! Maybe he'd still be in bed by midnight, but with the satisfaction that he'd proved Seungmin wrong.

He made his choice. "Are you okay?"

The sudden, louder-than-expected sound of fabric rustling was not what he anticipated—and nor was the simultaneous, obviously startled cry of "Oh my god!"

"Why don't you have any shoes?" Minho asked, straight to the point. Because why the fuck would someone not have shoes in here.

"I have shoes," said the man in the stall, sadly.

Minho turned away from the sink and watched with a strange fascination as layers of toilet paper began to line the floor of the stall to form a makeshift rug. "Why aren't you wearing them?"

A sigh. "Because the heels broke."

Minho huffed out an incredulous laugh. "The heels broke?"

"Look," said the stranger, voice tinged with the beginning of a whine. "I'm having the worst day of my life. I'm really not in the mood for stupid questions from strange men in bathrooms."

It wasn't the first time Minho had been called strange in a bathroom, and probably wouldn't be the last. "I can't look," he replied flatly. "There's a door in the way."

"Thank you," came the equally flat reply. "I had no idea."

The two men fell quiet. A muffled bassline thumped from the other side of the door, filling the silence.

It was awkward.

"Do you need help?" Minho asked, leaning back against the sink.

The other man appeared to consider this for several seconds before saying, quietly, "I don't want anyone to see me."

"I'm sure I've seen worse," said Minho. "I won't tell anyone. I was thinking of going home anyway."

After another few moments of consideration, the man in the stall said, "Okay. But you can't laugh."

"Sure." Minho didn't mean for it to sound so amused. Honestly.

"I heard that!" the man wailed. "You're already laughing!"

"I'll leave you in here if you keep dragging this out," Minho threatened, not seriously. Unfortunately for the other guy, Minho's desire to help was rapidly being overtaken by his curiosity.

"Ugh."

A moment passed. Then two bare feet planted themselves, a little pigeon-toed, on the protective layer of toilet paper. There was another sigh, and then the door to the stall flung open. And there he stood: Raw Ramen Guy.

"I lost a bet," he said, wearing nothing but a wedding dress.

Minho's breath caught in his throat.

A pair of glittering shoes, heels indeed snapped and hanging on for dear life, dangled from one of Raw Ramen Guy's hands while the other clutched the hems of the flowing, layered skirts of the dress, holding them up off the floor. Unfortunately for Minho, who was just a man, this meant that the guy's bare legs were almost fully on display. There was a—fuck!—a garter on one of his thighs, the band of white frills impossible to ignore against the smooth, warm-toned skin, and Minho's eyes helplessly locked onto it. A thought, unbidden, followed by another: Minho could take that off with his teeth. How nice it would be to have those thighs wrapped around his head. What the fuck was happening right now.

"Oh, shit," said Raw Ramen Guy as he appeared to register that it was Minho he was looking at. "It's you!"

Minho wrenched his attention from the man's thighs to his face, which was his next mistake. Because on the way there, his eyes passed over—oh god, is that—let me just look at that real quick—and then immediately returned to confirm a large, bold tattoo that decorated the man's chest from the top of his right pec to his shoulder. And that chest, fuck, that chest was squeezed into a corset-style bodice with a heart-shaped neckline so low Minho could see the teasing swell of the muscles beneath, a chest he could bury his face in. (What?) The sleeveless design of the dress exposed the man's well-built shoulders and arms that Minho wants to feel wrapped around his own neck—hold that thought—and as his eyes dragged further down the man's body he felt—oh god no please no not now—his cock twitch at the sight of a diabolically narrow waist, surely laced tightly into the outfit, because how else would he look like that.

Wait. 'You?' Minho? Him?

"Me?!" he choked, his voice coming out several octaves higher than intended. "You!"

"Me?!" The man in the dress pointed his broken shoes accusingly at Minho. The sparkles caught in the restroom's godawful lighting and sent little stars dancing across the tiled walls. "You left me in the stairwell in that damn squirrel costume! I could've died!"

"You—" Minho started, and found himself rendered speechless by the ridiculousness of the whole scene. This was surreal. He was standing dumbfounded, and frankly a little turned on, in a bar's hideous bathroom on his friend's roommate's birthday with the hot nameless stranger that had been occupying his thoughts for months standing before him in a wedding dress. This was undoubtedly weird for them both. What did Minho even want to say to this guy anyway, now that they were faced with each other? You are so hot and so strange I haven't been able to stop thinking about you? Holy shit you look incredible in that dress? Can I take you home?

The distant music thumped on.

As the man waited for him to respond, Minho found that the ferocity was dying in his throat. What came out instead was a quiet: "You ate raw noodles like toast."

The corner of the man's mouth twitched upwards as he lowered his accusatory hand, as though the tension was leaving his body entirely.

"Wow." He cocked his head with genuine curiosity. "Have I been on your mind since then?"

"Why would anyone do that?" Minho asked, stupidly, instead of answering.

The man's fist holding up the dress relaxed its grip a little. "Ha. I was running really late and it was all I could grab on my way out," he admitted. "You were staring at me so hard I just… I kinda thought you were into me." He shrugged with a small, self-conscious laugh. "I tried to give you my number when you got up but you ran so fast…" An idle thumb traced some of the beading lining the edges of the dress.

"You swallowed the seasoning powder."

"Hey, don't knock it 'til you've tried it," offered the man. "Do you always stare at strangers?"

Minho scoffed, just a little. "Only the weird ones."

"What? I'm not weird. I'm normal. You're the weird one," Raw Ramen Guy said, and then paused. "You're the Hot Subway Scowler."

Minho blinked at him. Did he hear that right? Had this guy been talking about Minho to his friends for months, nickname and all? "Have I been on your mind, too?"

"Maybe."

As if his friends had been summoned by his thoughts, Minho's phone pinged. A quick glance at the flurry of messages in the group chat informed him that they wanted to move to a new location and were beginning to ask questions about Minho's absence, with some rather creative suggestions about why he was taking so long in the restroom. None of them were even close to accurate.

Well, okay. A couple of them might have been. Minho's ears felt hot.

"My friends are about to leave," he said, pocketing his phone without replying.

"Wait! I can't go out there like this," said the other man. "But my friend—the asshole who got me into this mess—works here. I know a back door we could use."

We? "Okay," said Minho. "Then go that way. No one will see you."

The man's entire face drooped, his eyebrows a perfect upside down v-shape, mouth a pretty pout. "I thought you were going to help me? I can't even—I can't put these broken shoes on. I can't walk."

How could a grown man look this pathetic and attractive all at once? His pleading eyes practically shone, boba pearls in the bathroom's shitty lighting. Not for the first time in front of this strange, compelling creature, Minho's heart tugged.

Then he had an idea.

He stepped forward. "Put your arm around me and hold on," he said, and bent to slide one arm behind the man's knees, the other around his upper back, and—too easily—lifted him completely off the floor.

"Oh!" exclaimed the man, immediately looping both arms around Minho's neck as he was picked up, offering no resistance at all. "Oh, you're like, strong-strong."

Fuck. Minho hoped like hell that the man couldn't feel how his cock was filling out just from holding him in his arms—a boner was truly the last thing he needed right now. As he turned, they caught sight of themselves in the mirror and Minho really didn't mean to pause, honestly, but. He did. Because it looked kind of really hot. Ridiculous, but hot. He was carrying the man's entire body weight effortlessly, and the man… he fit there comfortably, naturally, as if Minho was supposed to be holding him like this. It just worked, somehow. The fact that he genuinely looked good in a sparkling white dress that showed off both his muscles and his laced-in waist was simply a surreal bonus. As if to draw more attention to their appearance at the cost of Minho's rapidly vanishing dignity, the man playfully kicked his feet in the air.

"Ha, we look good, don't we?" he laughed. "This is not how I thought my night was going to go." And then Minho watched in the reflection with slow-motion dismay as the man's gaze drifted down towards the unmistakeable shape of his pants. "Oh."

"Let's get you to safety," said Minho quickly in a terrible attempt to distract him, and then the next part just slipped out in his effort to be smooth and casual and cool, "princess."

He felt more than heard the man in his arms inhale a sharp little breath, and Minho lost all hope that neither his hard-on nor the slip had gone unnoticed.

But the man didn't say anything about either of those.

"Jisung," he said.

"Okay," Minho replied. "I'm Minho." Please don't mention the boner I have from this.

With one arm still hooked around his neck, Jisung slid a hand to Minho's chest and patted lightly, which felt entirely too tender for how badly Minho wanted to throw him down somewhere and fuck him stupid. It was a dangerous thought. Minho was learning a lot about himself today. "Thank you for saving me once again, Minho-ssi. Don't abandon me this time."

Minho swallowed. "The back door? Where's the back door?"

"Oh, it's this way, down the hall," Jisung gestured with his foot towards the only door of the restroom, which—

—which was terrible timing for Seungmin to open it.

Minho froze. Seungmin froze. His hand remained where it was, stilled on the half-open door.

From somewhere in the depths of the bar, the song Pony by Ginuwine was playing. Minho was absolutely certain that whatever emotions were playing out on his face told Seungmin everything he needed to know.

"That's fine," said Seungmin, stone-faced. "I'll tell them you're busy." He turned calmly and eased the door closed behind him.

"We have to go," said Minho with a new urgency that made all of his limbs feel jittery.

Jisung looked at him curiously. "Did you know that guy?"

"Unfortunately," Minho replied, grimacing. "And I am never, ever going to hear the end of this. I may need to start a new life." He kicked open the door of the restroom and whipped his head around, desperate to put as much distance between this scene and his friends as possible. "Where—"

"To the left," said Jisung, reading his mind, clinging a little tighter. "Just push down on the bar, it'll put us out back!"

The green light shone above the emergency exit, a luminous beacon of hope; Minho sprinted towards it with Jisung in his arms. He lunged for the door and all but crashed into it, ready for safety, ready for relief to course through his veins, spilling them both out into the alley behind the building. Finally—

WIIIIII-WIIIIII-WIIIIII-WIIIIII-WIIIIII-WIIIIII-WIIIIII-WIIIIII-WIIIIII-WIIIIII!

"What the fuck!" Minho almost dropped Jisung in fright as the alarm pierced the air, every single hair on his body standing on end like a startled cat.

"Oh shit, sorry," said Jisung sheepishly, clinging more tightly as though he thought Minho might throw him. "I forgot that would happen."

Minho's instincts told him to run, so he did, as best as he could while supporting Jisung's whole weight, and he managed to get them down the next alley without being spotted by too many people out enjoying their evening. The shock of the blaring alarm did, at least, frighten his boner into submission. Small blessings.

"I'm putting you down," Minho said as he caught his breath, beginning to dip Jisung towards the dirty concrete beneath them.

"Nononono!" Jisung stuttered immediately, tightening his hold around Minho's neck. "My feet! No shoes!"

"Oh my god," Minho groaned in exasperation, righting himself and shifting his grip. "Do you expect me to carry you all the way home?"

Jisung appeared to genuinely consider it. "Well—"

"Call a taxi. My arms are dying."

"Do you see pockets in this thing?" Jisung prompted, a little bitterly. "I don't have my phone on me."

Oh, for fuck's sake. Minho adjusted his hold again, attempting to both reach for his phone and maintain his grip on Jisung, who pulled back to look at him curiously.

"Do you want me to…"

"Yes, ugh," Minho grunted. "It's in my back pocket, left side."

With his left arm hooked around Minho's neck for security, Jisung shifted in his hold, which, tragically, pressed the bare part of his chest (where the tattoo was, oh god) against Minho's own. He snaked his right hand around until Minho felt it slide across his ass towards his pocket.

His cock felt it, too. Goddammit.

Jisung grabbed Minho's phone and settled back into position, a little too comfortable already. He tapped the screen awake and was greeted with the sight of three cats and a lot of push notifications.

"Aw, are those yours?" he asked, practically cooing.

"Yes," Minho said, and definitely did not imagine Jisung meeting his cats, petting them, waking up in his bed with them curled up around their tangled bodies. His mind may have stayed in the scene a few moments longer than it should have.

"Was Seungmin the guy in the bathroom? Why does Felix owe him money?"

Minho was going to kill all of his friends. "The taxi, Jisung?"

"Right." Jisung closed the waterfall of group chat notifications and swiped over for the app.

Thankfully it was only a couple of minutes until their taxi pulled up, and Minho was grateful that the driver either truly did not care, or the scene of a man carrying another man out of an alley, bridal-style and barefoot in an actual wedding dress, was simply not the strangest thing he'd seen that night. Either way, no questions were asked, and Jisung babbled out an address as Minho bundled him into the back of the car. He clambered in after him with absolutely zero grace, accidentally kneeling on the edges of the dress as Jisung shuffled across the seat. Jisung yelped and tugged the fabric out from under his knees, gathering it towards himself protectively.

"Careful! I have to get this back to Changbin's sister in one piece." He adjusted the skirts over his lap and attempted to smooth them down, but the layers of frills and lace made it impossible, and it kept puffing back up.

Minho grumbled and reached for his seatbelt as the car pulled away. "Do I even want to know?"

Jisung tipped his head back with the groan of a man who didn't want to Explain a Situation, squeezing his eyes shut. As he waited for an actual response, Minho stared at the long line of his exposed neck. Thought about pressing his mouth to it.

"It's so stupid," Jisung said eventually, to the ceiling of the car.

Minho watched as the lights of the bar district painted Jisung's beautiful profile in greens and pinks. "I just saved you from the worst day of your life," he reminded him. "You can at least tell me why I needed to."

Jisung's head lolled to the side to look at him, eyes roaming his face. Minho swallowed, unsure what he was searching for.

"It was my birthday yesterday," Jisung said after a moment, looking ahead again. "I got a little sloppy after drinking and was complaining about being single. My best friend got sick of it and said that if I could get someone's number that night, he'd pay for the first and second date."

"And if you failed?"

Jisung looked back at Minho and then gestured wordlessly to the wedding dress.

He had him there. "You took quite the risk," Minho observed.

Jisung tipped his head back against the seat once more and snorted out a single, humourless laugh. "I was really confident."

Lights and shadows danced across his collarbones. He let his head fall to the side to stare out of the window, and Minho watched his chest rise and fall with his breath. The ink on his skin stood out, bold and attention-grabbing even in the darkness of the car. Minho wondered if it had hurt when he got it.

"Someone turned you down?"

"I ended up being too shy to ask anybody," Jisung admitted to the window.

An odd feeling coiled in Minho's middle. The idea of this gorgeous, captivating man not having enough confidence to ask somebody out made him feel strange for some reason, especially since—to Minho's slowly dawning guilt—he'd apparently tried to give Minho his number earlier that year. Had Minho's noodle-induced horror knocked his confidence?

He swallowed. "I'd have given you mine."

When Jisung looked back at him this time, Minho looked away, down at his own lap. He tucked his hands between his thighs, unsure what to do with them.

"Yeah?" There was genuine amusement, maybe a little disbelief, in Jisung's voice. "Where were you when I needed you last night, huh?"

Minho rubbed his thumbs over each other awkwardly. "Sitting at home still thinking about the guy that ate raw ramen on the train, I guess."

Jisung chuckled. "Wow. And there was me thinking that guy hated me."

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

The quiet that followed felt strangely heavy.

"Happy late birthday."

Jisung made an amused little sound that was mostly air. "Thank you."

Now it was Minho's turn to stare out of the window. The city continued to crawl by until the taxi turned down a side street and the colourful lights of the bar district fell away, giving over instead to the occasional too-bright streetlight that Minho had to squeeze his eyes shut against. From his pocket, his phone buzzed.

Kim Seungmin

Enjoy your evening 🍜

me

Fall off a cliff

Minho paused, his thumbs hovering over the keyboard.

me

Check in on my cats on your way home first

"I have other tattoos, you know."

Minho whipped his head towards Jisung, only to find him looking right back, and smirking. "What?"

"I saw you staring. You're not subtle. Neither was your—"

The driver cleared his throat as he slowed the car to a stop outside an apartment building. Jisung hurried out a thank you, then paused with his fingers hooked in the door handle.

"Ah," he said. "Minho… would you mind…"

Minho blinked at him until Jisung held up a bare foot and wiggled his toes. Oh right, this guy and his lack of shoes. He huffed out a laugh as he opened his own door and stepped out. "Sure. Thanks for making me feel less bad about skipping the gym today."

He made his way around to the other side of the car and opened the door—when did he become so whipped, he doesn't even know this guy!—and Jisung gazed up at him expectantly. His bangs fell across his eyes to give him an unnecessarily sultry look, and at this angle Minho could see right down the bodice of the dress, his gaze landing helplessly on what he could only call cleavage. Oh, he was in trouble. Both of them were, probably.

As they rode the elevator up to Jisung's floor, Minho had the slowly dawning realization that this whole thing perhaps could've been physically easier if he'd just given the other man a piggy back when he initially offered to help. Would that have been less… weird? Intimate? Helpfully, his brain then conjured up the idea of Jisung's body pressed against his back, every inch of that torso touching him, his legs wrapped around—oh, they're here already?

"This is me," Jisung announced when they reached his door. He punched a code into the keypad and reached down for the handle, flicking on a lightswitch as they entered.

Once they were fully inside, Minho lowered Jisung to the floor of his apartment's entryway with an exaggerated noise of complaint.

"Ah, solid ground!" Jisung sighed as soon as his feet touched the floor, stretching his arms above his head with an unnecessarily filthy groan as if the whole situation had been physically taxing for him.

"Oh, don't act like you didn't love all of that," chastised Minho, not unkindly, as he rolled his shoulders.

Jisung curled a piece of hair behind his own ear and looked at Minho coyly. "No, you're right, I did. I kept having dreams that the hot, angry stranger from the train swept me off my feet and carried me home."

Minho's stomach did a funny little thing. "Huh," he mused, relieved to hear that he wasn't the only one whose entire mental state had been rearranged that day. "I've been having recurring dreams about squirrels—"

"I was joking."

"Oh," said Minho. "So was I."

Jisung tried to force down a smile before he drew an arm across himself, right hand fiddling awkwardly with the beading of the bodice at his waist. He glanced off to the side, near Minho's hip. "I have thought about you, though."

Minho followed his gaze to the wall behind him, finding nothing.

"And it was really kind of you to help me tonight," Jisung continued. Minho watched as he traced his thumb over the same little bead again and again. "You didn't have to derail your whole evening for me, but you did, and that was really nice of you. So." He looked up then, but as soon as their eyes met he averted his gaze.

"You didn't derail anything," Minho reminded him gently. "I said I was thinking of going home anyway."

"Going home is still a plan," said Jisung, and then his hand stilled, as if he needed to focus fully on his next words. "Do you… still want to?" He risked another glance at Minho. "Go home, I mean?"

Minho swallowed. "No."

"Okay," Jisung said, holding the eye contact this time. "That's good."

Somewhere in the apartment, the sound of a clock ticked its way into the charged silence between them, counting down the timer they'd been running on since that damn bathroom. But if Minho was really honest with himself, it had probably started on the train, all those months ago.

"Jisung," he said, keeping his voice level. "I think I might have to fuck you."

Jisung drew his lower lip between his teeth. His eyes dropped to Minho's mouth, just a flicker, then back up. "I think I might want you to."

Another tick of the clock. Then another.

Jisung surged up at the same time Minho dipped his head; their mouths crashed together when they met in the middle, open and desperate, tongues pushing, breath catching. Jisung slid his hands up to the back of Minho's head to deepen the kiss, fingers gripping his hair as though kissing him was the only thing keeping him alive. Minho's hands seized Jisung's waist, fuck, then slipped down to his ass, cupping it through too many layers of satin or silk or lace or whatever the hell this damn thing was made of. He used that hold to pull their bodies together and Jisung went willingly, closing the gap; Minho felt the other man's already-hardening cock press against his own and almost bit his tongue at the sensation, overcome with want, want, want, even more now that he knew how badly Jisung wanted it too. He pushed forward, slamming the other man against the wall. Jisung's head snapped back, breaking the kiss to take a gasping breath.

Oh, shit. Minho pulled away just enough to search Jisung's face for signs of pain. "Are you o—"

"Yes," Jisung interrupted, using his hold on Minho's head to pull them back together, feverishly licking into his mouth. Against him, Minho felt Jisung's legs open and obligingly slid one of his hands down from his ass, under his thigh, encouraging him to lift it. And Jisung did; dress be damned, he hooked that leg around Minho's and—oh god—moaned directly into his mouth.

The sound made Minho feel frenzied; he pulled out of the kiss so that he could reach down and feel his way under the dress, eager to get his hand on the bare thigh he'd seen an hour ago that had, quite frankly, been haunting him ever since. He pressed wet, fervid, open-mouthed kisses across Jisung's neck as his fingers blindly separated layers of fabric, then pushed up under—wait, shit, that's not it: he still only felt satin. He tried again, reaching lower to where he thought the hem was, got his fingers underneath it, then—goddamn, what are these, sequins? He made another attempt, only for his small fingers to slip between the gaps in the lace. Minho tried to pull his hand away. When the fabric came with it, he tore his mouth from Jisung's skin and looked down.

"Need help?" Jisung asked, following Minho's gaze to where his fingers were caught in the dress.

"No," replied Minho, wrenching his hand free. As he did so, there was the unmistakeable sound of ripping.

Both of their heads snapped up to look at each other.

"I'm sure it's fine," Jisung said, impressively dismissive, with only the smallest hint of concern. "I'll just—" He used his grip on Minho's head to pull him forward, reconnecting their mouths and kissing him between the few words he was able to get out. "I'll—" A slide of their tongues. "Get someone to—" He pulled back only to encourage Minho's head down to his neck demandingly, gasping as he felt his teeth latch onto the delicate skin. "Fix it—oh, fuck."

Minho had managed to get his hand beneath the dress and was sliding his palm up Jisung's leg. Against him, Jisung writhed at the sensation of Minho's hand on his bare skin, at the way his fingertips pressed into the muscle, at the—oh.

Minho's fingers had discovered the garter.

"Fuck," he breathed into Jisung's collarbone. "That's so hot." With a roll of his hips, he pushed his body further against Jisung where he was pinned against the wall; it provided the other man enough support to be able to wrap both of his legs around Minho's waist. Minho's other hand, which had been caging Jisung in on the wall beside his head, immediately went to the underside of his other thigh, beneath the dress. Jisung hooked his ankles at the small of Minho's back for stability and moaned, a delicious, desperate sound.

As his fingertips dug into the frills of the little band of fabric, Minho attempted a thought. "If this was just a stupid bet," he mumbled into the freckle at the juncture of Jisung's neck and shoulder, "why did you put this thing on, where no one would know?"

"Shit," Jisung panted. His cock was hard where it was pressed against Minho's lower stomach. "Maybe I…" He trailed off as Minho dragged his mouth across the expanse of bare skin of his upper chest and over to his tattoo, pressing a fresh series of little bites there. "A-ahh. Maybe I thought it looked good on me. And you—ah." He wrapped his arms around Minho's neck, then lower, clutching at the fabric of his shirt where it lay across his broad shoulders. "You know it's there, though, don't you?"

Minho's hips jolted forward unintentionally, and Jisung's head hit the wall again with a filthy-sounding whine before he rolled his own hips right back. Oh, they were on borrowed time, and it was getting shorter by the second. "I know I have to get you out of this thing before we completely ruin it."

Jisung nodded. "Yes. Yes, please. My room is—wait."

Minho pulled back to look at him, but his eyes immediately fixated on his mouth: Jisung's lips were wet and kiss-swollen, and Minho wanted to feel them wrapped around his cock. If not tonight, then… well, he shouldn't get too ahead of himself. He lifted his gaze to Jisung's eyes, big and brown and… shy? Is this guy getting shy when they're already both so hard, pressing themselves against the wall in his apartment hallway?

"Can you, um, carry me there?"

Oh. Well.

"I just met you," Minho said, dipping his head to growl the words against Jisung's neck, "and you want me to carry you to your bed and throw you onto it wearing a wedding dress?"

"Okay, one," Jisung replied in a more confident tone, matter-of-factly, "I never said 'throw.' You said 'throw.' And two…" One of his hands made its way into the hair at the nape of Minho's neck, pulling his head back up so that he can speak his next words against his mouth. "You actually met me months ago, and you've been thinking about me ever since."

Minho darted forward to catch Jisung's bottom lip between his teeth. Jisung breathlessly laughed against his mouth before gasping at the feeling of Minho's hips driving into him one more time, like a promise.

"Hold on tight, then," said Minho, and Jisung obligingly pressed his thighs against Minho's waist and gripped his own wrist where his arms were looped around his neck. Sliding his hands to support Jisung's ass (holy shit), Minho stepped back from the wall with Jisung clinging to him like a horny koala.

Minho's instinct was to keep kissing him—it was becoming increasingly obvious that they both really liked that, and were shockingly good at it—but since he had no idea how Jisung's apartment was laid out, let alone which way his bedroom was, he instead hooked his chin over Jisung's shoulder to give himself a better chance of transporting them both there without a stumbling or dropping incident.

Jisung appeared to read his mind. "Make a left," he advised. Minho took a few steps before Jisung made a strange, strangled little sound of confusion. "Wait! It's on the right, sorry. I forgot I'm backwards."

"Is anyone else here?" Minho asked extremely belatedly as he turned in the right direction. He gave a quick scan of the dim apartment but didn't see any signs of life; if anyone else was here, they were either entirely too used to this sort of thing, or traumatized.

"No," Jisung said. "My roommate's at work—he's the one who made me wear this. He'd probably have a full-on conniption if he saw how my night was turning out."

"Mm," said Minho as he approached a partially open door that he assumed—hoped—was the correct one. "You can thank him tomorrow."

Jisung pulled back in his arms to regard him. "Yeah? That's a big promise from a guy who ran away from me. Twice. Oh—!"

Minho used Jisung's back to push the door open and blindly stepped inside the bedroom. Jisung had the presence of mind to call out to what turned out to be a voice-activated ambient lighting setup—nice—that bathed the room in a deep blue from a strip around the edges of the ceiling. It was enough for Minho to clearly see the bed, unmade and covered in clothes and at least two plush dinosaurs, and make his way towards it.

And then, with absolutely no fanfare or warning of any kind, he dropped Jisung onto it, tyrannosaurus rexes be damned. The noise Jisung made as he hit the mattress and bounced was far more salacious than Minho expected, and he instantly fell to his knees and started crawling over Jisung's supine form. He absolutely had to get his mouth back on this man. Do other things with their bodies. Ruin him, hopefully.

"Oh, I liked that way too much," Jisung confessed. He wriggled underneath Minho, twisting his arm in an attempt to reach the back of the dress. "Help me out of this thing before I have to figure out what kind of lies to tell about what happened to it."

Minho obliged immediately, grabbing Jisung by the shoulders and unceremoniously flipping him over. He batted Jisung's fingers away from the zipper (huh, a zipper, not a laced corset at all) and grabbed it himself, pulling down to reveal Jisung's—oh, hello—smooth, muscular back. Jisung shimmied his way out of the dress, rolling over and kicking it away as Minho shifted to allow it to drop off the side of the bed; and then Minho experienced several feelings all at once.

"Oh," he said stupidly, as his eyes dragged down Jisung's completely bare torso and settled on his middle. "Your waist is just… like that?"

"You're wearing too many clothes," Jisung complained instead of replying, as though having broad shoulders and a tiny waist wasn't driving Minho insane. He reached up to pull at the hem of Minho's shirt with no small hint of impatience.

But Minho was frozen: no sooner had he accepted the absurd proportions of Jisung's body than he registered the presence of another tattoo, even bigger than the one on his chest—oh god it looks so good—stretching all the way from his armpit, down his ribs, to—

—a pair of faded, well-worn, evidently cherished pink undies with a green waistband, kind of like a watermelon.

Jisung, realizing he'd lost Minho completely, rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you expected me to have lacy white panties to match."

"I didn't not think that," Minho offered, full of conflicting thoughts. The garter was right there, ridiculously sexy; but so was the underwear, which was not.

Petulantly, Jisung pushed himself to a sit and tugged Minho's shirt up. "If they're so upsetting to you, take them off! Take all of this off, c'mon!"

"Big demand from someone who got carried around like a princess all night," said Minho as he relented regardless, pulling his shirt over his head. When he wrenched it fully off and went to lean back down over Jisung, he paused. "What?"

It was Jisung's turn to be stopped in his tracks, gazing up at Minho with the look of a man that wanted to be ruined. Like he'd let Minho do whatever he wanted: eyes half-lidded with an interesting mix of bashfulness and desire, cheeks flushed. Minho's cock twitched impatiently at the sight as though begging him to stop stalling. Jisung dropped the eye contact to take in Minho's body before placing an appreciative hand on one of his pecs, his fingertips tracing the shape of it with a surprisingly tender touch.

"I like it when you call me that," he admitted. "I liked it the first time, too."

"Princess?"

Jisung nodded.

"Mm, okay," said Minho agreeably. "Noted, princess. What other names do you like?" He dragged a hand down Jisung's side, hooking his fingers into the elastic of that god-awful underwear. The action made Jisung shudder, then snapped him back to urgency.

"Ah, fuck! Whatever you want to call me when I make you come!" He started grabbing at the button on Minho's jeans, fumbling as he tried to unhook it.

Why had Minho decided on jeans tonight, of all things, officially the world's worst pants in which to get a boner? He hadn't anticipated any of this—he'd been ready to cut out early, abandon his friends and go home to bed, completely unaware that the man consuming his thoughts was about to derail his night. Not that he was actually complaining. If anything, he certainly did abandon his friends, and he went to someone's bed, so. He was technically still on track. He made quick work of his own fly and Jisung's hands were on him immediately, pushing inside his pants and underwear before Minho had even slid them over his own ass.

"Okay, wow," he said with a huff of laughter, as though he wasn't equally as eager.

"I want to feel you," Jisung explained as he clumsily helped him remove his remaining clothing. Minho noted with a thrill that Jisung's eyes widened at the sight of him. "Oh shit, yeah. Okay."

"Fair is fair," Minho stated as he tugged Jisung's underwear completely off. The man beneath him raised his hips to allow it, and Minho took no small pleasure in tossing them over his shoulder. Hopefully as far away as possible.

He smoothed a hand down Jisung's thigh and slipped it under the garter. Part of him wanted to leave it there—an interesting thing he'd discovered about himself, honestly—but it had to go. Another part of him really wanted to use his teeth. But that would be inappropriate, right? He hesitated, then slid the band down with his hands; Jisung lifted his leg far more elegantly than Minho expected, and it made the heat inside of him curl, burn a little hotter. Once he had it completely off, Minho paused awkwardly.

"Aren't I supposed to throw this to a group of single guys?"

Jisung laughed. "Yeah, don't you see them all watching?"

Minho started to turn his head when Jisung batted at his arm.

"This isn't our wedding, Minho."

Minho threw the garter over his shoulder. "Could've fooled me," he said, the tips of his ears burning.

And then there they were: fully naked, acutely aware of said nakedness, and clearly wanting each other bad. Jisung dragged his eyes from Minho's cock to his face right as Minho did the same.

Jisung bit his lip.

And then they were just mouths and hands grabbing and biting and dragging and pressing wherever they could reach; Jisung writhing on the mattress as he was pushed into it, Minho driving his hips down to drag their cocks against each other. With a gasp, Jisung snaked a hand between their bodies to grab them both, then immediately retracted his hand to spit in it and try again, curling his fingers around their lengths. When Minho felt that contact, he made a noise he didn't know he was capable of making: a strained, desperate thing that made his face burn.

"Yeah?" Jisung breathed, hot against his ear, as he steadily moved his hand.

"Yeah." Minho would've agreed with anything at that point, he thought. Jerking them both off, bungee jumping, whatever. He pressed his mouth to Jisung's neck and sucked, grazing teeth, enjoying the feeling of Jisung bucking underneath him. Jisung adjusted his grip to focus on Minho; Minho's hips jolted of their own accord, and he helplessly fucked into Jisung's fist.

"Shit, I love how you feel." Jisung pressed his cheek against Minho's head where it was buried in his neck, and his words were caramel, smooth and thick with sweetness. His other hand dug into Minho's shoulder, keeping their bodies close. It felt so good—too good too quickly, actually.

"A-ahh," Minho moaned into Jisung's pulse. "I want—" His arms were beginning to tremble where he braced himself above the other man, partially from holding himself up but definitely mostly from how good Jisung was making him feel, how that hand moved so expertly as he pumped, as though he already knew just how Minho liked to be touched.

"You want something else?" Jisung asked, his voice low, like a secret. His hand slowed, and it was maddening.

There were definitely words Minho wanted to say. Something about where he wanted Jisung's hands, his mouth, his ass—but none of those words were happening. The best he could manage was a breathless noise of agreement.

"My mouth?"

Oh, so he was a mind reader. That's good, Minho thought, without really thinking. That's convenient. He nodded, his hair brushing against Jisung's cheek, then rolled himself to the side—only to be immediately startled out of his dreamlike state by the tinny-sounding roar of the plush dinosaur he'd landed on.

"You spook easily, huh?" laughed Jisung as he propped himself up on an elbow. God, his smile was hot. Minho wanted to bite it.

"What about it?" He wrenched the soft toy out from underneath him and tossed it blindly into the same void Jisung's underwear hopefully disappeared into. Regaining a small fraction of his somewhat fragile composure, he scooted himself further up the bed so that his shoulders rested against Jisung's pillows.

"Nothing," said Jisung sweetly, rolling over to plant a path of open-mouthed kisses down Minho's side to his hip, contact that set Minho's skin alight, before shifting his body down. "I think it's cute. Like a cat."

Minho drew his knees up to allow Jisung to move in between his legs, and the sight of him settling between his thighs with his beautiful mouth just centimetres away from his cock was almost enough to make Minho come on the spot, completely untouched. Fuck, he wasn't going to last long once they got going, he knew. But instead of anything sexy, or provocative, or teasing, what he said was, "I like cats."

"Oh, me too," said Jisung, as casually as if this were a first date conversation at a coffee shop. He wrapped a hand around the base of Minho's leaking cock, leaned in. His lips were so, so close. "What else do you like, baby? Tell me."

Baby. He said it so easily.

On the first date.

Wait, this isn't a first date. They just met, didn't they? In a bathroom. After Jisung had spent most of the year prancing through Minho's thoughts, crunching raw ramen on trains, hiding around corners in a squirrel costume—oh, oh—his mouth, his mouth—

Minho blinked himself back to awareness and looked down to see Jisung's perfect pretty mouth around his cock; felt his tongue slide up his length, his fist moving steadily to build a rhythm. Minho's eyes rolled to the ceiling and his hand was suddenly in Jisung's hair, holding him in place, fingers gripping tight.

"I like—ahh," Minho gasped. "I like this."

Jisung's delicious little noise of satisfaction rumbled against Minho's cock. He lifted his head, adding firm pressure with his lips as he slipped off and then swirled his tongue around the head, lapped at the slit—Minho felt Jisung's breathless smile as he did it—and then he was back on him fully, taking as much as he could into his warm, exquisite mouth. Minho squeezed his eyes shut, stars bursting in the darkness that could have been afterimages of the lights around the ceiling, but he knew they weren't. Hissing through his teeth, he clenched one fist in Jisung's hair while the other clutched helplessly at the bedsheets. Before he knew it, the wet, filthy sounds filling the room were joined by his own soft, high little noises of pleasure, and he couldn't find it in himself to stop them.

Jisung's free hand pressed into Minho's thigh. When he glanced down his body at the other man, Minho found that he was looking right back at him through one opened eye. With the confirmation that Minho was watching, Jisung closed it; he bobbed his head, hollowing his cheeks on his way back up, and then—oh—that's Jisung's hand sliding down to cup his balls. As soon as Minho felt that new sensation his hips jerked, and Jisung popped off with a breathy laugh.

"Too much?" he asked, wiping his mouth. His lips and chin glistened. Hot.

Minho threw an arm across his eyes, his chest heaving as he caught his breath, willing his body to calm down. "Not enough."

There was a different pressure on the mattress as Jisung shifted, and the next thing Minho felt was a leg being slung over his waist as Jisung settled down on top of him. "Yeah? How about this?" Lifting himself just slightly with his thighs, Jisung's ass brushed against Minho's cock.

It was a very dangerous tease.

"You're asking far too many questions," said Minho, peeking out from underneath his arm. Unfortunately for him, the sight of Jisung straddling him with his hands braced on Minho's stomach, his own arousal positively beyond obvious, was a torpedo to what little composure he had left. "Jisung," he continued, voice level. "Tell me you have stuff within arm's reach. If I'm not inside you in the next five minutes I'm going to explode."

"Oh, good," said Jisung, oddly light for someone about to be fucked into the stratosphere. "We want the same thing. In the drawer." He nodded his head towards the little table beside the bed, blessedly within the desired radius.

Clumsily, Minho reached over and wrenched the drawer open, stretching just enough to be able to blindly feel around inside without depositing Jisung onto the floor. His fingers grazed a little foil packet and his brain immediately conjured up a not-at-all helpful memory: train, crunch, seasoning, dry. His eyes snapped to Jisung, who was grinding on his waist in slow, teasing circles.

"What?" he asked with concern, freezing in place.

Minho pulled the object out of the drawer and held it in front of his face, preparing for the worst.

It was a condom packet. Because of course it was.

"Oh, thank god," he said, and continued rummaging around.

Jisung's expression turned to confusion. "What did you think it was?"

"I don't know!" Minho lied. His hand landed on a bottle—huh, feels like the same brand he likes—which he pulled out and tossed onto the bed. "Forgive me for thinking you might have a ramen seasoning packet in here!"

When the words landed, Jisung rolled his eyes dramatically and gave Minho's stomach a playful slap. "Oh my god. What kind of pervert do you think I am? Shit, I make one bad breakfast choice when I'm running late and you hold it against me for—"

"Open yourself up for me," interrupted Minho.

"—ever." Jisung stared at him, dumbfounded. "Huh?"

Minho gestured to the lube, which had landed near Jisung's knee. "Assuming you've prepped," he said, confident that Jisung had heard him correctly.

Flustered, Jisung picked up the bottle and tried to start at least three sentences at once. "Of course I—I mean, I didn't expect… When I—" He cleared his throat. "The dress. I just… you know?" He flicked open the cap and let it dribble onto his fingers without argument.

Minho couldn't help but huff out a small laugh, utterly endeared. "I know." Whatever Jisung's plan or hopes for his evening had been, Minho was just glad that it was him here, in his bed. He gave Jisung's thigh a small, reassuring pat, then a final firmer one just shy of an actual slap. "Hurry up."

"God, okay, okay." Jisung reached behind himself. Then he paused. "Can you, uh." When Minho merely blinked back at him, he made an exasperated sound from the back of his throat at the ceiling and tried again. "Do you want to watch?"

"I do."

"Shit, that's hot. Okay." Jisung took a deep breath, and then spread a palm on Minho's stomach to steady himself as he inserted the first slicked-up finger. The little noise that slipped past his lips once it was inside went straight to Minho's cock.

As Jisung fingered himself, Minho became unable to tear his gaze away from his face; the way his pleasure was astonishingly clear in every flutter of his lashes, every bite and curl of his lip, every sharp hiss through his teeth and the soft little whine that followed. Minho watched, and watched, and wanted. Without so much as a thought, his hand found its way to Jisung's cock, flushed and leaking, and wrapped around it, as desperate to touch him as he was to see him react. Jisung's mouth fell open as he gasped and pushed down harder on his own fingers, and it wasn't long before Minho simply couldn't stand it any longer.

Still transfixed by Jisung's face, he clumsily felt around on the bed for the condom. As soon as he found it, blood rushed to his ears; he saw Jisung's perfect mouth form the words need you, and the packet slipped from his fingers.

"I'm trying," he said in response, gripping the foil with more force than he meant to and tearing it open.

Jisung withdrew his hand with a little sigh and shifted back to grant Minho access to his own cock. "Want me to put that on for you? You seem to be having some trouble with your hands."

"Ah, shut up," Minho grunted, not seriously. "I'm having you trouble. You're trouble."

"Good one," Jisung replied through a lopsided smile. He watched with genuine interest as Minho expertly and quickly rolled the condom over himself, then offered him a raised eyebrow that seemed to say, You've had a lot of practice, huh?

Minho, saying nothing because he liked to be a little mysterious, drizzled a bit more lube onto himself. Jisung shuffled his knees on either side of him to position himself over Minho's cock; Minho placed his hands on his hips to guide him. As Jisung began to slowly, carefully ease himself down onto it, he inhaled sharply, just once, and let the air slowly leave his lungs. He kept going. Minho watched, felt himself disappearing into Jisung's body, and his voice caught in his throat.

"A-ah," he groaned, more breath than sound. "Fuck, Jisung."

Jisung paused to take in a shuddering breath of his own. "Ah, I should've fingered myself more," he said with a small laugh. "It feels so good. You feel so good."

"Yeah?" Minho brushed a reassuring thumb on the jut of Jisung's hipbone, and didn't think about the easy intimacy of the touch. "So do you. You're taking me so well."

Biting his lip, Jisung resumed lowering himself until their bodies were flush. They both took a moment to adjust, and then Jisung tentatively rolled his hips. Tested out the feeling of having Minho inside him.

"Oh, fuck," he said quietly on an exhale, as though Minho wasn't meant to hear it.

"Feels good?" Minho asked, his hands still resting on Jisung's hips. It certainly feels incredible to him; it's frankly astonishing he could even form a thought.

"So good." Jisung tossed the hair out of his eyes to look at Minho more clearly, confidently, and rolled forward again with intention. "Oh, fuck."

A moan slipped past Minho's lips this time, and he rocked his own hips up to meet him; Jisung set their pace, airy little sounds tumbling out of his mouth with each movement. Minho wanted to swallow every one of them, wanted to see what other noises he could get Jisung to make. His hands slid down to Jisung's thighs and he felt them quiver under his touch. When he then slipped them further back to grip his ass, trying to pull them even closer together, Jisung threw his head back.

"Yeah," he gasped out, nodding enthusiastically. "Grab me there."

"You like that?" asked Minho, who liked that very much himself, through gritted teeth. He dug his fingers into Jisung's cheeks, felt the flesh give beneath his touch. Gripping him like this, Minho could feel how their combined rhythm moved through Jisung's body. He hoped his handprints would remain there for days.

"A-ah, yeah, fuck," Jisung whined, his eyes squeezed shut. "Fuck me harder."

Minho did not need to be told twice. He planted his feet to give himself more leverage on the bed, and then fucked up into him, holding him in place on his lap to strike deeper. Jisung jolted forward with a cry, spreading his hands on Minho's chest to keep himself upright. It felt obscenely good; Minho realized with an impressive amount of clarity that he could come at any second—and he certainly wanted to—but he didn’t want to be done just yet.

"Get on your back," he ordered.

Jisung obeyed immediately without question, easing himself off of Minho's cock with a sharp intake of breath. Minho ached at the loss of his warmth, quickly shifting on the bed to make room for him to take his place. Jisung flopped down, already boneless, his body shaken loose with pleasure. He watched Minho reposition himself with a smile playing on his lips.

"You're so hot," he observed dreamily, his arms splayed on the pillows above his head. He was already pressing his heels impatiently into the small of Minho's back.

Minho, who was never quite sure what to do with a compliment, kneeled between Jisung's thighs and took in the sight before him: Jisung breathless, pliable, waiting. "You're beautiful," he said, and it came out much quieter than he meant it to. He ran his hands all along the tops and sides of Jisung's smooth thighs appreciatively before sliding them underneath, pushing up.

"Fuck, Minho," Jisung said, a little desperately. "I need you so bad."

Minho's breath hitched at the sound of his own name in that tone, on those lips. "Good." As he lined himself up, Jisung took the opportunity to indulge in a diabolical roll of his hips, inviting him—as if Minho needed the encouragement. He wasn't about to complain about the show, though. God, that waist.

"Don't stop until you come," Jisung instructed.

"I won't."

With that, Minho sunk back inside. Jisung arched his back and groaned, tipping his head against the pillow. Minho stared at the long line of Jisung's neck as he began to thrust, transfixed; he watched as that lovely mouth hung open and more of those airy sounds tumbled out. He quickly discovered, to his own personal delight, that when he drove his hips into him faster Jisung's noises got much louder.

Shit, this wouldn't take long at all.

"Ah, Jisung," Minho panted, pushing the other man's legs up until Jisung hooked them over his shoulders. "You feel so fucking good." He didn't usually have much to say while fucking someone's brains out, but he couldn't seem to help himself. Jisung had to know.

The new angle had Jisung clutching desperately at the sheets. "You feel so fucking good, fuck," he rasped out as he let Minho take, take, take. "A-ah, fuck, yeah, yes—harder."

"I'm going to—"

"Do it!"

The unbearably hot sight of Jisung wrapping a hand around himself had Minho slamming into him relentlessly, and it was only a second or two later that he came with a shuddering groan. Jisung cried out and spilled across his own stomach with Minho's cock buried deep inside.

Minho was definitely seeing stars this time. After several moments, he blinked himself back to awareness; the first thing he saw was Jisung's heaving chest, glistening with sweat, his tattoos practically glossy with it. The second thing he saw was Jisung's face as he rolled his head to look up at him, dazed and utterly, blissfully fucked out. Minho's brain took a snapshot. You'll want to think about this one later.

"Wow," Jisung breathed, his voice skirting the edge of bewilderment as he carefully lowered his legs from Minho's shoulders, as though he'd had an out-of-body experience. "That was, uh."

Minho felt himself smile. "Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah.” Wow, good words. Gripping the base of the condom, he slowly pulled out and tied it off, grateful a trash can was close enough to the bed. While he was leaning over, he grabbed a handful of tissues from the bedside table and made a first pass at cleanup. Jisung's stomach was a mess. It was pretty hot.

"Hey," Jisung prompted as Minho worked. He'd barely moved since he'd come—apparently his ability to function had been completely fucked away.

Minho felt more than a little proud of himself at the thought. "Hm?"

"Turns out I do have to thank stupid Binnie after all. Augh!" Jisung dragged his hands down his face in a show of anguish, but when he pulled them away and flopped his arms down on the bed, he was smiling.

"Oh nooo," drawled Minho in monotone, throwing the tissues towards the can and missing entirely. "You just had the best sex of your life because you lost a bet. How terrible."

"Oh, presumptuous," Jisung chided, knocking his ankle into Minho’s side. "I never said that."

"Okay." Minho seized Jisung’s ankle loosely—he squealed and pretended he wanted to escape—and leaned down to cage him in between his elbows. "Guess I’ll be leaving, then."

Jisung draped his arms around Minho’s neck. "Nope, I won’t allow it," he said quietly against his lips, and then kissed him.

When they parted, Minho rolled to lie along Jisung’s side and threw a tired arm across his chest, tucking his head under his chin. He heaved a sigh of contentment. Didn't let himself think about how easily this stranger seemed to understand him so quickly, how they'd so effortlessly slipped into the sort of comfortable softness that, for Minho, usually came with an actual relationship.

What was this?

"Mm, just think," Jisung said, sounding far away as he patted Minho's shoulder. "If you hadn't run away from me on the train earlier this year, we could've been doing this way sooner."

In response, Minho turned his head and nipped at Jisung's chest. Jisung yelped and bucked under him, but Minho had him trapped. "That's your fault. You had to go and be weird and off-putting, didn't you?"

Jisung gave Minho's arm a light smack. "Hey, I said you were the weird one! And I didn't hear any complaining about being off-putting anywhere in the last, like… thirty minutes." He twisted his head to peer down at Minho, the corner of his mouth curling up in a far-too-knowing little smirk. "You seemed to like all of that quite a lot, actually."

"That's enough out of you," said Minho, and then he leaned up to kiss him before he could tell any more lies.

—

Minho was not, in fact, up bright and early for a run the next morning.

He was awake before Jisung though, and figured he’d make himself useful by brewing them both some coffee. Carefully, he extricated himself from underneath the other man’s slumbering form and padded to the kitchen, noting that the roommate appeared to have not come home last night. Interesting. As the coffee maker gurgled to life, he had a quick perusal of the cabinets to see if there was something he could make for breakfast. He snorted when he found the packets of ramen and continued his search.

While no one was awake in the group chat, one glance at his notifications when he woke up had been enough to inform him that he was indeed the hot topic of the evening; he'd put his phone face down when he saw the preview of Seungmin's message: Everyone please ask Minho-hyung how his ramen was tomorrow ♡

"Minhooo," Jisung whined as he materialized behind him, bleary-eyed and soft from sleep. "Blowing my back out and making me breakfast? You know how to treat a guy."

Minho placed a box of cereal on the little kitchen table. "I don't know what you're talking about. This is just for me."

"Rude," said Jisung as he retrieved milk from the fridge and slid into a chair.

Minho smiled to himself when Jisung clearly winced as he sat down, and turned to pour their coffee. He'd been spoilt for choice with the apartment's eclectic mug collection: Coffeesaurus Rex and one bearing a garish Australian flag with Gay'Day, Mate in rainbow text had been easy choices. Minho didn't usually stick around for the morning after, and it felt so domestic. Nice. Completely normal.

He almost dropped both mugs when he turned back around.

Jisung, maintaining direct eye contact, was pouring cereal directly from the box into his open mouth. Without swallowing, he reached for the milk with his head tipped back, twisted off the cap, and began to pour it in on top.

No. No! Minho stared, frozen to the spot. The steam from the coffee curled in the air indifferently, doing absolutely nothing to obscure the horror unfolding before him. The most beautiful man in the world, the best lay of Minho's life—he is insane. Minho could have excused the noodles, really, but this…

Jisung made it maybe three more seconds before he burst out laughing and shot almost the entire contents of his mouth across the kitchen.

"Your face!" he spluttered once he could get words out. He clapped a hand over his mouth to try to hold in the rest of its contents, milk dribbling down his chin, tears pricking his eyes. "What do you think I am, some sort of alien? Get me a bowl!"

Seungmin, blessedly, is almost done.

"When Minho asked me to check on his cats… that was the last I heard from him," he says. "Those poor kids, abandoned by their father. Our lives forever changed."

Minho kicks out at him. Seungmin recoils but remains unfazed, his notes fluttering from his fingers and landing in the flower arrangement in front of them.

"Why do you guys have to make it sound like we died?" asks Jisung from Minho's other side, slinging an arm around him to present a united front. "We're right here."

"Sometimes I can still hear their voices," adds Changbin, wistfully, as Hyunjin cackles and rocks his chair back.

"I guess that's soulmates for you," Seungmin says. "Who'd have thought he'd manage to find someone as weird as he is? Not me, although I'm glad he did. May you both enjoy a lifetime of stupidity together."

Changbin jabs a fond elbow into Jisung's side. "And thank you for choosing to wear a suit today, Jisung-ah. Not that you didn't look great back then."

"Augh!" Jisung whines, jabbing him back.

"And on that note," Chan says through his smile, standing and reaching for his champagne flute. "It's an honour to be here to celebrate your union, guys. We love you both, I promise."

"You're lucky we invited any of you," says Minho, pointedly placing his left hand down over the knife of the table setting in front of him.

Spotting the movement, Jisung wordlessly reaches over to place his own hand over the top of Minho's and gently guides it away. Minho turns to him, failing to keep the corners of his mouth down, and the smile Jisung gives him in return is the loveliest thing he's ever seen. The matching rings on their fingers glint in the light.

—

Later, Minho discovers the garter.