Work Text:
The morning started like any other.
Both of them sat at the breakfast bar, nursing their first coffees of the day as they mentally prepared themselves for work. Jisung scrolled aimlessly through Instagram whilst waiting for the caffeine to kick in, pausing every few seconds to shove his phone in Minho’s direction with a breathless, “Ooh, watch this.”
Across from him, Minho hummed tunelessly under his breath as he flipped through a magazine, the empty plates from breakfast still abandoned on the counter between them. In another ten minutes, one of them would wash whilst the other dried. Then they’d grab their coats and bags, argue over whose turn it was to buy groceries that week, and head off to work after a quick hug by the front door. To anyone looking in, it would’ve looked like perfect domestic bliss. The sort built over years. Comfortable and effortless in the way long, happy marriages often were.
In reality, they were just best friends.
They’d met in college almost ten years ago and clicked instantly, fitting themselves into each other’s lives with such ease that neither of them had really noticed it happening. Somewhere along the way, Minho had become as essential to Jisung’s daily routine as breathing or his beloved caffeine. He didn’t even remember what his life looked like without Minho in it any mire.
The letterbox rattled suddenly, the morning post clattering onto the mat.
“I’ll get it,” Minho said, already sliding off his stool.
Jisung only hummed absently in response, too busy watching an Instagram reel about yet another hobby he absolutely did not need to get into.
“Wow… This guy built a canoe in his garage,” he informed Minho. “Do you think we could build a canoe?”
“You don’t even know where the toolbox is,” Minho called back.
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
But Minho didn’t respond, sliding back onto his stool as he flicked through the stack of post. Bills were placed neatly to one side. Junk mail was discarded without a second glance. Eventually, only one envelope remained in his hands. Jisung looked up from his phone, eyeing the thick cream paper and elegant lettering across the front.
“Ooh,” he said immediately, pointing. “That one looks important.”
Minho turned the envelope over in his hands before breaking the seal with one finger, sliding out an equally expensive-looking piece of card from inside. His eyes skimmed over the writing.
Then he froze.
His eyebrows shot upwards slightly, lips parting in surprise.
“What is it?” Jisung asked.
“… A wedding invitation.”
“Ooh.” Jisung abandoned Instagram immediately, scooting closer. “Whose?”
“My boss.”
Jisung leaned over Minho’s shoulder to read despite already knowing the name wouldn’t mean anything to him. Minho mentioned his coworkers rarely, usually only to complain about someone microwaving fish in the office kitchen again, but that was about it. The invitation itself was classy as fuck. Cream cardstock. Gold lettering. Fancy enough that Jisung suddenly felt underdressed sitting next to it in his old threadbare hoodie covered in tiny stains.
Together with your guest,
Lee Minho is warmly invited to celebrate the wedding of
Jisung skimmed lower.
A reserved seat has also been included for your boyfriend.
We can’t wait to finally meet him!
He blinked.
Then blinked again.
“… Boyfriend?” he repeated slowly. “But you don’t have a boyfriend.”
Minho made a small noise beside him.
Jisung turned sharply.
Minho suddenly looked deeply interested in the table.
“Ah,” he said after a moment. “They mean you, Jisung.”
Silence.
Complete, devastating silence.
Jisung stared at him.
“What‽”
Minho finally looked up, already wincing.
“Okay, before you make that face-”
“What face?”
“The one where you look like your brain just blue-screened.”
“My brain has blue-screened!” Jisung squawked. “Why do your coworkers think I’m your boyfriend?”
Minho’s ears were turning pink now.
“It just sort of… Happened.”
“That is not an explanation.”
“At some point they started assuming,” Minho admitted, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck. “And then I didn’t correct them immediately because it felt awkward. Then too much time passed and correcting them became even more awkward.”
Jisung stared at him in disbelief.
“So your solution was just to let your entire office think you have a secret boyfriend?”
“I didn’t think they’d ever actually meet you!”
“You talk about me enough that they invited me to a wedding!” Jisung cried.
Minho opened his mouth.
Paused.
Closed it again.
Then he abruptly developed a severe case of verbal diarrhoea.
“Don’t worry about it,” he rushed out. “You don’t have to go. I’ll just tell them you couldn’t make it. That you were busy with something. They won’t care, I’m sure. It’s not a big deal. It’ll be fine.”
Jisung narrowed his eyes immediately. Minho only talked that quickly when he was panicking. He considered the situation for all of three seconds.
Free food.
Free party.
Being able to hold this over Minho for the rest of his life.
The choice was obvious.
“No,” he said. “I’ll go.”
This time, Minho stared at him like he’d suddenly sprouted an extra head.
“Jisung, you don’t have to-”
“No, I’m serious.” Jisung waved him off easily, already grinning. “It’ll be fun.”
“Fun,” Minho repeated flatly.
“Yeah. Your coworkers already think I’m your mysterious secret boyfriend. I can’t disappoint the public now.”
Minho made a sound halfway between a groan and a sigh.
“And,” Jisung continued importantly, tapping the invitation, “judging by this terrifyingly expensive invite alone, they’re absolutely going to go all out on the wedding dinner.”
“You’re agreeing to fake-date me for free food?”
“I’m agreeing to attend a wedding with my best friend and graciously support his increasingly ridiculous lie,” Jisung corrected. “The free food is simply a bonus.”
Minho stared at him for another long second before dragging a hand down his face.
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Probably,” Jisung agreed cheerfully.
The thing was, Jisung genuinely did think it sounded fun.
Minho’s office already believed they were dating, which honestly was hilarious enough on its own. He wanted to meet the people who’d looked at Minho talking about his long-term roommate and collectively gone, ah yes, boyfriend behaviour. Besides, it wasn’t as though pretending would be difficult. They already spent all their free time together. They cooked together, grocery shopped together, shared bills, shared blankets on the couch during movie nights, and hugged each other goodbye every morning before work. And sometimes when they got home from work. Other times for no reason at all, really.
Either way, easy.
Really, all they had to do was continue acting exactly the same.
What he didn’t notice, was the way Minho suddenly looked like the thought alone might kill him.
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆💐⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
In the weeks leading up to the wedding, Jisung found himself becoming increasingly invested in the whole thing. Far more invested than was probably normal for someone attending as a fake boyfriend.
At first it started innocently enough. A few Instagram reels. Some wedding outfit inspiration. Somewhere along the line, however, Jisung had apparently lost his mind entirely, because he now had a Pinterest board dedicated exclusively to wedding outfit inspiration that he updated on an almost hourly basis.
“Okay, but look at this one,” he said one evening, shoving his phone directly into Minho’s face whilst sprawled across the couch. “Tell me we wouldn’t look insanely good in matching suits.”
Minho barely glanced up from the laptop balanced on his knees.
“We are not wearing matching white tuxedos.”
“Coward.”
“We’d look like we were the ones getting married.”
Jisung snorted loudly.
“Well obviously not those ones,” he said, swiping to the next picture. “These.”
Minho looked properly this time. The suits were sleek and tailored, identical cuts with subtle differences in detailing. Elegant without looking too stiff.
“Hm,” he said eventually.
Jisung gasped.
“That’s not a no!”
“It’s not a yes either.”
An hour later, somehow, it had become a yes. Minho drew the line at identical waistcoats, however, insisting they should at least attempt to resemble two normal people attending a wedding together.
Pastel pink for Minho.
Mint green for Jisung.
Jisung thought they’d look cute together. Not cute in that way, obviously.
Just… Aesthetically pleasing.
Very visually satisfying.
“What about cufflinks?” Jisung asked a few nights later, led across the couch with his feet shoved into Minho’s lap. “I found a site that does custom ones.”
Minho glanced over the top of his book warily.
“We could get matching sets,” Jisung continued, already scrolling enthusiastically through pages of designs. “Like, mine could have your initials and yours could have mine.”
“Jisung,” Minho said carefully, “you do realise you don’t even own a shirt that requires cufflinks.”
“Then I can buy a new shirt.”
“You are,” Minho paused, eyeing him suspiciously, “strangely invested in this whole thing.”
“Well, if we’re going to fake-date, we may as well commit properly,” Jisung argued. “Imagine your coworkers finding out we’re frauds because our accessories weren’t coordinated.”
“I don’t think coordinated cufflinks are what sells a relationship.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Minho snorted, shaking his head as he returned to his book. Jisung grinned triumphantly at the reaction before looking back down at his phone, continuing his increasingly concerning deep dive into wedding fashion.
He was just having fun with it.
The whole situation was objectively hilarious. Minho’s coworkers thought they were dating, and now Jisung got to show up pretending to be Minho’s boyfriend for an evening whilst eating expensive food and wearing a nice suit.
There were definitely worse ways to spend a Saturday.
Still, every now and then, Jisung would catch Minho looking at him strangely during these conversations. And every single time, Jisung would feel oddly restless afterwards without understanding why.
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆💐⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
When the suits finally arrived, Jisung nearly tripped over himself getting to the front door before Minho could.
“Careful,” Minho said dryly as Jisung hauled the enormous box inside before ripping it open with all the delicacy of a raccoon attacking a bin bag.
Jisung immediately thrust one of the garment bags at him.
“Go try yours on.”
Minho blinked.
“Now?”
“Yes, now,” Jisung said. “We need to make sure they fit properly.”
“They were literally tailored to our measurements.”
“Pleeeeeeeeeease?”
Minho stared at him for a long moment before sighing the sigh of a deeply tired man who had known Han Jisung for nearly a decade.
“Oh,” Jisung added brightly as Minho turned toward his bedroom, “don’t forget the cufflinks!”
Minho stopped mid-step. Slowly, he looked back over his shoulder.
“You actually bought those?”
Much to Minho’s obvious dismay, Jisung had in fact bought a new shirt specifically for the occasion. So, naturally, he’d also ordered the custom cufflinks.
“Look!” he said excitedly, already holding them up. “I even got them to add little hearts around the initials.”
Minho looked at the cufflinks.
Then at Jisung.
Then back at the cufflinks again.
“You’re insane.”
“You say that like it’s new information.”
Minho muttered something under his breath before disappearing into his room with his suit bag. Jisung grinned to himself, already pulling his own outfit out.
Truthfully, he was excited.
Far more excited than he probably should’ve been over fake-dating his best friend at some random wedding. But there was something undeniably entertaining about the whole thing. The coordinated outfits, the pretending, the ridiculous romance-movie energy of it all. It felt like stepping temporarily into somebody else’s life.
Besides, Minho cleaned up really well.
Not that Jisung spent much time thinking about that.
Usually.
Okay, maybe sometimes.
A few minutes later, Jisung finished buttoning up his suit jacket before stepping out into the hallway, adjusting one of the silver cufflinks as he went.
“Minho?” he called. “You decent?”
“Unfortunately.”
Jisung smiled before peering round Minho’s bedroom door.
Minho stood beside the bed, halfway through adjusting the sleeves, the tailored suit fitting him perfectly. His dark hair had fallen slightly into his eyes, expression caught somewhere between exasperated and resigned as he looked up.
“Oh,” Jisung said intelligently.
Minho frowned immediately.
“What?”
“You…” Jisung waved a hand vaguely. “You look-”
Beautiful.
Like the kind of man people wrote wistful breakup albums about.
“Like you should legally have to warn people before looking like that,” Jisung finished instead.
Minho rolled his eyes instantly, though the tips of his ears turned faintly pink.
“Shut up.”
“No, seriously,” Jisung insisted, still staring. “Your coworkers are going to take one look at you and think I’m winning at life.”
For one strange second, Minho went very still. Then he looked away abruptly, clearing his throat as he reached for his cufflinks.
“Your turn,” he muttered. “Let me see yours.”
“Oh, right, of course,” Jisung said, finally stepping fully into Minho’s room.
Minho looked up.
Blinked.
And promptly dropped the cufflinks.
They hit the wooden floor with a clatter.
“You okay?”
“‘m fine” Minho said immediately.
“Your reflexes seem to disagree.”
Minho shot him a flat look before crouching to retrieve the cufflinks, muttering something deeply unfriendly under his breath, before straightening back up to stand next to Jisung. Jisung, meanwhile, took the opportunity to properly admire the effect of their matching suits together in the mirror.
Okay.
Okay, wow.
He’d thought the outfits would look good individually, but standing side by side like this was something else entirely. The colours worked stupidly well together. Soft enough to complement each other without looking overdone, the pink bringing out the warmth in Minho’s skin whilst the mint green somehow made Jisung look less sleep-deprived than usual.
More importantly, Minho looked insanely attractive.
Like offensively so.
Jisung had obviously always known Minho was good-looking. He wasn’t blind. In fact he’d been genuinely irritated by it when they first met. But usually Minho existed in hoodies, loose sweatpants, or old college t-shirts with holes near the hems. Seeing him sharply dressed and tailored so perfectly suddenly felt-
He didn’t actually have the words for how it felt.
“You clean up nice,” Jisung said casually, because apparently his brain had abandoned him entirely today, and took half his vocabulary with it.
“You’ve seen me in a suit before.”
“Not like this.”
The words slipped out before Jisung could really think about them. For a second, neither of them spoke. Then Minho’s eyes flicked down slightly, gaze catching at Jisung’s throat.
“… Your collar’s folded weird.”
“Hm?”
“Come here.”
Jisung obeyed automatically, stepping closer without thinking. Minho reached out immediately, fingers brushing against Jisung’s neck as he adjusted the collar carefully into place.
The touch was brief.
Entirely normal.
Entirely innocent.
So naturally Jisung’s stupid heart decided to start behaving like it had just run a marathon. Seriously. Embarrassing behaviour from his own cardiovascular system. It was just Minho. Not like he was going to strangle him or something just because his hands were around his neck. No need for his fight or flight system to kick in like that.
“There,” Minho said quietly.
Jisung swallowed.
“Thanks.”
Minho’s hand lingered for half a second too long before dropping away. Then, as though suddenly remembering himself, he stepped backwards abruptly.
A beat passed.
Then Jisung grinned suddenly, unable to help himself.
“You know,” he said, leaning casually against the dresser, “your coworkers are going to lose their minds when they see us together.”
Minho made the mistake of glancing at the mirror again. At the two of them standing side by side.
Matching suits.
Matching cufflinks.
Looking very much like a real couple.
His expression did something strange for a split second before smoothing back out again.
Jisung didn’t notice.
Mostly because he was too busy wondering why seeing Minho dressed like this kept making his stomach flip over.
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆💐⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
The day of the wedding finally arrived, and Jisung was practically fizzing out of his skin with excitement, already four coffees deep.
This was it.
The moment he’d been waiting for.
Time to play the perfect fake boyfriend.
He was fully prepared to charm the socks off all of Minho’s coworkers and prove, once and for all, that he was the greatest fake partner in human history. It didn’t matter that the relationship was imaginary. His pride and dignity were on the line, which meant Jisung was taking the whole thing extremely seriously. Minho, meanwhile, seemed significantly less enthusiastic about the situation.
Jisung chose to ignore this entirely.
“Do you think your coworkers will like me?” he asked whilst styling his hair in the bathroom mirror.
“They already think you’re my boyfriend.”
“Exactly. I need to prove I’m worthy of the great Lee Minho!”
Minho stared at him flatly.
Jisung grinned before turning back to the mirror, attempting to flatten one stubborn section of hair.
Truthfully, he was having the time of his life already.
He adjusted one of his cufflinks proudly, the tiny heart around Minho’s initials glittering back at him.
“You know,” Jisung said thoughtfully, “I’m 100% sure we can pull this off. Your coworkers are definitely going to believe we’re deeply in love.”
Minho hummed noncommittally.
Jisung frowned slightly at the mirror.
Weird.
Before he could think too hard about it, Minho stepped forward suddenly, turning Jisung away from the mirror to face him.
“Your tie is a mess,” he said.
Jisung looked down.
“Oh.”
He never had been good at getting them to sit right.
“Stand still,” Minho muttered.
Jisung obediently went still as Minho stepped closer, fingers immediately moving to loosen the lopsided knot. This close, Jisung could smell Minho’s cologne faintly beneath the plain scent of the freshly pressed suit fabric.
It was… Distracting.
“What?” Minho asked suddenly.
Jisung blinked.
“Huh?”
“You’re staring.”
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“Well,” he said, making an exaggerated kissy face, “You not going to kiss your gorgeous boyfriend before the wedding?”
Minho’s hands paused mid-knot.
For one tiny, reality-warping second, Jisung thought he actually might. Then Minho tightened the tie slightly too hard instead.
Jisung gagged theatrically.
“Attempted murder,” he croaked.
“Come on,” Minho said, stepping back and giving his tie one final adjustment. “We’ll be late at this rate.”
“Not my fault you’re trying to commit spousal homicide before midday.”
Minho blinked.
Then snorted quietly as he reached for his jacket.
“You remember we’re not actually married, right?”
Jisung gasped dramatically.
“Wow. Okay. So that’s where you draw the line.”
“Yup.”
“You let your entire office think I’m your boyfriend for years, but husband is too far?”
Minho shook his head, already walking toward the hallway. Jisung followed after him immediately, still talking.
“And honestly, if anyone should be offended here, it’s me. Imagine finding out your fake husband doesn’t support your dreams.”
“My dream,” Minho said flatly as he slipped his shoes on, “is arriving at this wedding without developing a stress-induced migraine.”
“Well maybe your husband wouldn’t stress you out if you were nicer to him.”
Minho paused halfway through reaching for the car keys. Slowly, he looked up.
“My husband,” he repeated carefully, “is incapable of surviving ten minutes without causing problems.”
“And yet you keep me around.”
He’d intended for the words to be taken lightly. Brushed off. But something in Minho’s expression shifted for just a second afterwards. Softened almost imperceptibly before he looked away again.
“Unfortunately,” he muttered, quietly enough Jisung wasn’t sure if he was supposed to have heard it, “I’ve grown attached to the problem.”
Jisung’s stomach flipped strangely.
He blamed the excitement.
Or maybe the excess caffeine.
Definitely nothing to do with what Minho said.
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆💐⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
The drive to the venue was filled almost entirely by Jisung talking. Minho, meanwhile, contributed mostly through the occasional hum, nod, or long-suffering sigh as he focused on driving. The satnav eventually guided them down a long gravel driveway lined with white flowers and fairy lights woven through hedges. As the venue finally came into view, even Jisung went momentarily quiet.
“Oh,” he breathed.
The place looked like something ripped directly from the romance movies he insisted they watch on a regular basis.
The main building itself was beautiful, pale stone and huge windows glowing warmly in the afternoon light, but it was the flowers that really caught Jisung’s attention. They were everywhere. Climbing archways, spilling from window boxes, woven around railings in thick cascades of white and blush pink.
“Oh, they’ve got money money,” Jisung muttered.
Minho parked the car beside several others already lined up neatly outside. He got out without waiting for Jisung, who immediately smoothed down the front of his jacket before hurrying after him towards the entrance.
Then, without thinking too hard about it, he reached over and slipped their hands together.
Minho physically flinched.
“What are you-” Minho started, visibly startled.
Jisung blinked at him.
“Boyfriends,” he said slowly, gesturing between them like he was explaining something obvious to a particularly confused child. “Remember?”
Minho stared at him for one long second.
Then his gaze dropped briefly to their joined hands.
Jisung suddenly became acutely aware of how warm Minho’s hand was.
“… Right,” Minho said quietly.
His fingers tightened around Jisung’s a moment later. And for some reason Jisung’s heart gave one strange, heavy thud against his ribs as they walked through the flower-covered entrance together.
It didn’t take them long to find the rest of the wedding guests. Or rather, for the rest of the wedding guests to find them. The second Minho stepped properly onto the terrace outside the venue, a chorus rose up from a nearby cluster of people gathered around tall champagne tables.
“Minho!”
“Finally!”
“There he is!”
And then suddenly they were surrounded.
Jisung barely had time to process what was happening before several pairs of unfamiliar eyes turned directly onto him, openly curious and unmistakably appraising. Beside him, Minho’s hand tightened fractionally around his own.
“So this is the mysterious boyfriend!” One man announced as he crowded into their space.
“Oh my god,” a woman beside him gasped immediately, grabbing Minho by the arm. “You weren’t exaggerating. He’s adorable.”
Minho instantly looked like he wanted the ground to open beneath him.
A blond man stepped forward before either of them could speak, immediately taking one of Jisung’s hands between both of his.
“So this is Jisung!” He said, voice far deeper than Jisung expected. “We’ve heard so much about you!”
Jisung’s brain stalled instantly. Obviously Minho must have spoken about him a fair bit for him to have been invited in the first place, but it felt entirely different to be confronted with that fact by a total stranger.
“… You have?”
“Oh, constantly,” someone else chimed in from behind him.
“He literally never shuts up about you,” another voice added.
Minho made a strangled noise somewhere beside him, visibly avoiding eye contact with every single person present.
Interesting.
“Well,” Jisung said carefully, trying very hard not to look too pleased by this information for reasons he didn’t fully understand yet, “hopefully only good things.”
The man holding his hand laughed warmly.
“He’s never said a single negative thing about you.”
“Yah!”
“Oh please,” he told Minho dismissively. “You’ve clearly been obsessed with this man for years. It’s romantic as hell.”
Dead silence.
Beside him, Minho’s expression had gone strangely blank in a way that suggested he was mentally preparing to fake his own death and flee the country. If Jisung was honest, part of him was enjoying this far more than he probably should have. Still, embarrassing Minho to the point of spontaneous combustion probably wasn’t the best way to spend the afternoon.
So, mercifully, Jisung took pity on him.
“Okay,” he said cheerfully, turning back towards the group before Minho could fully disintegrate, “which one of you can tell me more about the bride and groom?”
The tension broke immediately.
Several people started talking at once, voices overlapping as the conversation shifted away from Minho’s apparent years-long ‘obsession’ with Jisung.
Interesting wording, honestly.
Jisung decided not to think about that too hard right now. Instead, he focused on getting to know Minho’s coworkers properly, easily slipping into conversation with them despite the initial nerves. They were all surprisingly warm, the kind of people close enough to tease each other relentlessly but clearly care underneath it. At some point, Jisung also realised he was still holding Minho’s hand. And apparently Minho had no intention of letting go either.
Not that Jisung minded.
It was part of the act, after all.
Still, his thumb kept brushing absently against Minho’s knuckles as they talked, and every single time it happened Minho’s fingers tightened slightly in response.
By the time guests were finally called inside for the ceremony, Jisung had learned all about Hyunjin’s painting hobby, Chaeryeong’s older brother Changbin, Felix’s obsession with his hard-won ranking in Genshin Impact, and Chan’s bizarrely passionate love of something he called ‘chicken salt’. Something he was still waxing lyrical about as they settled into their chairs together.
The ceremony space itself was somehow even prettier inside. White roses were set around every row of seating, with huge hanging arrangements at the front. Sunlight streamed through tall windows at the far end of the room, bathing everything in warm gold.
It was almost painfully romantic.
Jisung shifted slightly in his seat, suddenly hyperaware of Minho beside him.
Minho’s hand remained loosely clasped with his own where it rested between them. And for some reason, sitting there surrounded by flowers and soft music and dozens of people celebrating love, Jisung’s chest started feeling strange.
The ceremony itself passed without incident.
It was beautiful in the way weddings usually were, full of warm smiles and watery eyes and what looked to be the father of the bride trying his best to keep a stoic face.
Jisung found himself surprisingly taken by it.
Maybe it was the atmosphere. Maybe it was the flowers. Maybe it was the fact that he and Minho were sitting close together, shoulders pressed lightly from start to finish.
Or maybe he was just a sap.
Beside him, Minho remained mostly quiet throughout the ceremony, though every now and then Jisung caught tiny shifts in his expression. Small smiles during the vows. Restrained amusement when the groom nearly put the ring on the wrong finger out of nerves.
It suited him.
“If anybody present knows of any lawful reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony,” the vicar announced solemnly, “speak now or forever hold your peace.”
The entire room collectively froze.
A deeply awkward silence settled instantly over the guests as everyone very deliberately avoided eye contact with one another. Somewhere nearby, somebody coughed. One bridesmaid snorted into her bouquet. Jisung bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself laughing.
A moment later the ceremony continued without interruption, much to Minho’s visible relief.
Finally, the bride and groom leaned in to seal everything with a kiss.
The room erupted into applause instantly.
Right beside him, Chan suddenly elbowed Jisung directly in the ribs with absolutely no restraint whatsoever.
“Ow!”
“Hey,” he stage-whispered loudly, nodding towards the newlyweds, “maybe that’ll be you and Minho one day.”
Jisung laughed automatically.
A little too quickly.
“Aha, yeah,” he said. “Sure.”
Except something strange twisted low in his stomach immediately afterwards.
Because for just one second, he pictured it.
Minho standing at the end of an aisle looking at him like that.
Soft-eyed and impossibly fond.
Waiting for him.
Jisung’s heartbeat stumbled hard enough that he almost physically flinched. He swallowed quickly, forcing another laugh.
Jisung didn’t dare look at Minho.
Mostly because he suddenly wasn’t entirely sure why the idea had made his chest ache in a way he wasn’t familiar with.
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆💐⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
“Told you,” Jisung mumbled smugly around a mouthful of perfectly seasoned roasted duck. “Fancy wedding. Fancy food.”
Next to him, Minho merely rolled his eyes, far more focused on cutting into his own food than supervising whatever nonsense Jisung was currently up to.
Which, as it turned out, was a mistake.
“So, Jisung,” a man Jisung now knew as Seungmin said casually from further down the table, wine glass dangling from his fingers, “we’ve heard so much about you from Minho it almost feels like we know you already.”
Minho visibly stiffened beside him.
Jisung swallowed his food before answering.
“Should I be worried?”
“Probably,” Seungmin said honestly.
“Yah,” Minho cut in flatly.
Seungmin ignored him immediately.
“He said you two met in college?”
“Yeah,” Jisung replied easily. “We shared a dorm room.”
That earned several interested noises from around the table.
“Oh my god,” Chaeryeong said. “You’re roommates-to-lovers.”
“So you’ve basically been living together for ten years now?” Seungmin interrupted smoothly.
“More or less,” Jisung admitted.
“And you’re not sick of him yet?”
Minho shot Seungmin a glare sharp enough to peel paint from walls. Seungmin continued undeterred.
“It’s pretty rare these days, right?” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Teenage sweethearts making it into adulthood and still being disgustingly in love with each other like you two are.”
Jisung laughed automatically. Except the strange thing was… Nobody at the table looked like they were joking. They all said it with the certainty of people discussing something obvious.
Like Minho loving him was simply a known fact.
The thought landed oddly.
Before he could examine it too closely, he leaned instinctively into the bit instead.
“What can I say?” he sighed dramatically, turning towards Minho and making a point of gazing at him like he personally hung the moon in the sky each night. “He makes it easy.”
Beside him, Minho abruptly stopped moving entirely. Jisung grinned, fully expecting an eye-roll or sarcastic comment in return.
Instead, Minho just looked at him.
Something Jisung couldn’t quite identify flickered briefly across his face before he seemed to catch himself. Then he cleared his throat abruptly, looking back down at his plate.
“Well,” he muttered carefully, “you’re tolerable, I guess.”
The table booed immediately.
“Psh, don’t even try that with us, Minho. You know what you’re like,” Chan said dismissively before turning back towards Jisung with obvious delight. “We’re not kidding when we say he never shuts up about you. It’s always Jisung this, Jisung that.”
Chaeryeong leaned forward eagerly.
“Honestly, I think I know more about you than my own brother at this point,” she confessed as she counted off on her fingers. “I know your favourite colour is green, your favourite food is cheesecake, that you love iced americanos, and that you have an Instagram reel addiction.”
Jisung blinked.
Slowly, he turned towards Minho.
Minho suddenly became deeply invested in buttering a bread roll.
“Oh, and the hobbies,” Hyunjin added immediately. “He’s always showing us the latest thing you’ve made.”
“He does?”
“Every time,” Hyunjin confirmed. “The pottery phase was especially interesting.”
“I only ever made one bowl,” Jisung protested weakly.
“And Minho showed us all the photos he took of it at least six times each.”
The entire table dissolved into laughter.
Beside him, Minho looked seconds away from climbing directly into the decorative floral centrepiece and never emerging again.
“It’s easy to see how proud he is of you,” Hyunjin finished warmly.
And there it was again.
That strange tight feeling in Jisung’s chest.
Because the thing was… Minho was proud of him.
Jisung had always known that.
Minho hyped up every ridiculous hobby phase he went through, no matter how temporary or questionable. He displayed Jisung’s terrible creations in their apartment like they were expensive art pieces. He listened patiently to hour-long rambles about things he probably didn’t care about even slightly.
Jisung had always just assumed that was normal.
That was what best friends did, right?
Except the people around this table clearly didn’t think it was normal at all.
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆💐⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
When the plates were finally cleared away, the atmosphere of the reception shifted. Music swelled through the hall, louder now that dinner had ended, and conversation naturally broke apart as people drifted away from the tables. Some headed for the free bar. Others flooded onto the dancefloor in groups.
The entire room glowed warmly beneath strings of fairy lights and candlelight. It was all perfectly romantic.
Beside him, however, Minho looked decidedly grumpy.
Jisung frowned slightly.
He wasn’t entirely sure when Minho’s mood had shifted, only that somewhere over the course of dinner he’d become quieter. More withdrawn. Still polite when people spoke to him, but distracted somehow.
Seeing Minho unhappy always made Jisung unhappy by default, stirring up an immediate instinct to fix it somehow. Usually that involved annoying him until he laughed. Tonight, unfortunately, Minho seemed resistant to even that. Jisung was just beginning to consider escalating to more drastic measures when the opening notes of a familiar song drifted through the speakers.
His eyes widened instantly.
“No way.”
The song was old. One of those ridiculously upbeat songs they used to scream along to together during college nights out after abandoning any pretence of responsible studying. Back then, it had practically been their anthem.
“Minho.”
No response.
Minho continued staring moodily into his drink. Jisung nudged him harder with his shoulder.
“Minho,” he repeated. “Hey. Listen.”
Still nothing.
“It’s our song!”
That finally got a reaction. Minho looked up immediately, expression flattening the second he recognised the music.
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
“We are absolutely not doing this.”
“We absolutely are.”
Jisung was already halfway out of his chair by this point, excitement rapidly overriding any dignity he still possessed.
“Jisung-”
“Come on,” he whined. “Please? For nostalgia?”
“We’re dressed too expensively for your version of nostalgia.”
Jisung waved that off dismissively.
Still, after another moment of relentless staring from Jisung, Minho finally sighed and set his drink down.
“You are actually unbearable.”
“And yet,” Jisung said triumphantly, grabbing his hand and tugging him upright, “you adore me.”
The words slipped out automatically. But for the second they left his mouth, Minho froze up again.
Jisung barely noticed.
Mostly because he was already dragging him towards the dancefloor with all the determination he could muster.
The second they reached the crowd, Jisung started laughing. Because despite all his complaining, Minho already knew the choreography too. Or at least the deeply terrible version they’d invented together years ago whilst drunk and sleep-deprived. The two of them immediately fell into the familiar movements, singing badly under their breath and bumping shoulders as they danced.
And just like that, the grumpiness finally disappeared from Minho’s face.
There it was.
That smile.
Small at first, then wider when Jisung crashed into a stranger by accident and had to apologise profusely.
Warmth bloomed triumphantly in Jisung’s chest.
Better.
That was better.
All too soon, the song began winding down.
Jisung laughed breathlessly as the final chorus ended, both of them slightly out of breath and clinging to each other for balance after their perhaps overly enthusiastic dancing.
Jisung was still holding onto Minho’s forearms as the crowd around them shifted and reshuffled for the next song. Then the DJ’s voice crackled through the speakers.
“And now,” he announced smoothly, “time to slow things down for all the couples here tonight.”
A collective cheer rose up around the room. And then came the unmistakable opening notes of a slow dance song. Jisung recognised it instantly. More importantly, he recognised the exact look of alarm that crossed Minho’s face.
Jisung didn’t even hesitate.
Smoothly, he slid his hands upwards from Minho’s arms to loop loosely around his shoulders instead.
“Jisung,” Minho started quietly, “we-”
“Boyfriends,” Jisung reminded him simply.
Like that explained everything.
Maybe it did.
Minho stared at him for one long second.
Close up like this, Jisung could see the faint flush still lingering high on his cheeks from dancing, strands of dark hair slightly mussed from movement. His eyes looked darker somehow beneath the low golden lighting.
Pretty.
The thought appeared in Jisung’s head so naturally it startled him slightly. Before he could dwell on it, Minho finally exhaled softly.
Then, slowly, his hands shifted too.
From Jisung’s arms…
To his waist.
The touch was careful at first. Tentative almost.
Like Minho wasn’t entirely sure he was allowed to hold him there.
Which was ridiculous.
They’d hugged thousands of times before. Jisung had practically used Minho as a human pillow during exam season in college.
This shouldn’t feel different.
And yet the second Minho’s hands settled fully against his waist, something in Jisung’s body tightened. Around them, couples began swaying gently beneath the fairy lights.
The music wrapped softly around them as they started moving together almost instinctively.
And that was perhaps the worst part.
How easy it was.
No awkward stepping on feet. No fumbling uncertainty. Jisung barely even had to think about following because somehow, somewhere along the line, he’d already learned Minho’s rhythm perfectly.
Or maybe Minho had learned his.
Their bodies fit together frighteningly naturally beneath the warm glow of the reception hall. Jisung became abruptly, horribly aware of everything all at once.
The firmness of Minho’s hands through his shirt.
The steady rise and fall of his breathing.
The faint scent of cologne lingering on his skin.
The way Minho was looking at him now.
Jisung’s heartbeat stumbled hard enough that he nearly missed a step, and Minho’s grip tightened instinctively.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
The thing was, Jisung wasn’t entirely sure anymore. What Jisung did know was that it had suddenly become very difficult to look Minho directly in the eye.
So instead, he glanced away.
Around them, the dancefloor falt almost dreamlike beneath the warm lights. Couples swayed together lazily to the music, bodies pressed close. Some rested their heads against each other’s shoulders. Others murmured quietly between themselves.
A few were kissing.
Jisung’s stomach flipped violently.
His gaze darted back to Minho almost instinctively. And suddenly a new thought crashed into him with horrifying force.
Should they be doing that too?
The panic arrived immediately afterwards. Because if they were supposed to be convincing boyfriends, surely dancing awkwardly three inches apart wasn’t exactly helping the illusion.
Should he move closer?
Should he kiss Minho’s cheek maybe?
Should he-
And then his brain betrayed him completely by realising something far, far worse.
He could do it.
That was the problem.
He could lean in right now and kiss Minho and he didn’t actually think he’d hate it.
Not even a little.
It would just be a kiss, right?
People kissed all the time.
Friends kissed sometimes.
Probably.
Jisung’s pulse thudded unevenly in his throat. Slowly, carefully, he looked back up at Minho again.
And immediately froze.
Because Minho’s gaze had dropped.
To his mouth.
Just for a second.
But it was enough.
Heat flooded through Jisung so fast it almost felt dizzying. The air between them suddenly felt too thick. Too close. Minho’s hands tightened ever so slightly against his waist.
For one terrifying moment, he genuinely thought Minho might lean in.
That he might lean in.
But then Minho blinked sharply, like he was snapping himself awake, and his eyes lifted again immediately.
No.
No, that was ridiculous.
Everybody already believed they were dating. They’d clearly sold the illusion by now. Holding hands and dancing together was one thing. They absolutely did not need to go that far.
Relief washed through Jisung instantly.
Followed immediately by something that felt weirdly akin to disappointment. Which was frankly a deeply concerning development that he didn’t have the mental capacity to parse right now.
When the song finally came to an end, Jisung’s lips still thoroughly unkissed, Minho leaned in slightly towards him. Close enough that Jisung could feel the warmth of his breath near his ear.
“I’m going to grab drinks,” Minho murmured quietly. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Jisung nodded immediately. Or at least, he thought he did. Truthfully, his brain still felt vaguely disconnected from the rest of his body after whatever the hell that had just been. Minho gave his waist one final absent squeeze before stepping away into the crowd.
The loss of contact made Jisung feel cold for some reason. Maybe he was coming down with something? He’d have to make a point of remembering to check they had medicine in the cupboard when he got home.
He stared after Minho for a beat more before finally forcing himself to move toward the edge of the dancefloor instead, trying very hard to ignore the fact his heart still hadn’t returned to a normal rhythm yet.
Seriously.
One slow dance with your best friend should not have the ability to psychologically destabilise a person this thoroughly.
The edge of the dancefloor was slightly quieter, guests gathered in smaller groups beneath the hanging fairy lights whilst music continued softly in the background.
That was where he spotted Chan midway through conversation with a younger man Jisung hadn’t met yet. The guy had bright ginger hair and sharp fox-like eyes, dressed impeccably in a dark suit with emerald coloured accessories that identified him as one of the wedding party.
“Oh, hey, Jisung!” Chan greeted immediately the second he noticed him approaching. “I was just talking about you.”
That somehow felt ominous.
“This is Jeongin,” Chan continued brightly. “But we all call him Innie.”
Jeongin offered his hand politely.
Jisung shook it.
“Nice to finally meet you,” Jeongin said, smiling slightly. “I’ve heard an unreasonable amount about you.”
“Apparently that’s a common issue tonight,” Jisung muttered.
Chan snorted loudly.
“I was just saying how perfect you and Minho are for each other,” he continued cheerfully.
Jisung nearly choked on absolutely nothing.
Chan, oblivious to the growing disaster unfolding internally inside Jisung’s ribcage, carried on regardless.
“He’s got this reputation at work for being kind of a grumpy sod,” he explained. “Like, don’t get me wrong, we love him, but that man does not enjoy people in general.”
“Chan,” Jeongin warned mildly.
“What‽ It’s the truth!”
Jisung laughed weakly.
“But the second he starts talking about you…” Chan continued, expression softening slightly. “I dunno, man. It’s like he glows.”
Something about it made Jisung’s skin itch.
Because Chan said it so casually. So matter-of-factly. Like everyone around Minho had apparently spent years watching him love Jisung without Jisung ever noticing it himself.
“You should see him after you call sometimes,” Jeongin added unexpectedly. “It’s so disgusting it circles back round to endearing.”
“Right? He gets this stupid little smile.”
There was another announcement from the DJ somewhere in the background, voice carrying loudly over the music, but Jisung barely registered a word of it past the sudden ringing in his ears.
“You’re serious?” he heard himself ask weakly.
Chan looked genuinely confused by the question.
“Oh, yeah,” he said easily, like this was the most obvious thing in the world. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person more in love than Lee Minho.”
Jisung’s breath caught.
Around them, guests were suddenly gathering closer to the dancefloor again, excited chatter rising throughout the room, but it all felt distant now.
“I’ll be honest,” Chan continued with a shrug, “I get kind of envious sometimes. I’d count myself lucky if I ever found someone who loved me even half as much as Minho loves you.”
The words landed directly in the centre of Jisung’s chest.
Heavy.
Pleasant.
But terrifying.
Because suddenly every strange moment from the entire evening came crashing together at once.
The way Minho’s coworkers spoke about him.
The stories.
The soft looks.
The hand-holding.
The way Minho always let him close.
The way he’d looked at Jisung during the slow dance.
Like-
A roar suddenly erupted somewhere behind him.
“THREE!”
Jisung blinked hard, startled from his spiralling thoughts.
“TWOOOO!”
“ONE!”
Jisung barely had time to process what was happening before something collided directly with his chest.
Instinct took over immediately.
His hands flew upwards automatically, catching the object against himself before it could hit the floor.
A burst of floral perfume flooded his senses.
The room exploded.
Cheering.
Whooping.
Laughter.
Jisung looked down slowly.
And found himself staring at an enormous bouquet of white roses and lilies clutched tightly against his chest.
“Jisung?”
He turned sharply at the sound of his name. Minho stood a few feet away holding two champagne glasses, frozen completely still. His eyes were locked onto the bouquet in Jisung’s hands. For one strange suspended second, neither of them spoke.
Then the crowd around them collectively lost their minds.
“KISS! KISS! KISS!”
“Oh my god!”
“It’s fate!”
Jisung’s face burned instantly.
Minho still hadn’t moved.
He just kept staring at Jisung with an expression Jisung couldn’t decipher at all. Something caught awkwardly between disbelief and something else. Almost wistful.
The chanting only grew louder.
“KISS! KISS! KISS!”
Around him, people were laughing and cheering, Chan practically wheezing against Jeongin’s shoulder beside him, but all Jisung could focus on was Minho standing a few feet away, still staring at him.
At the bouquet.
At him.
Still holding those two champagne glasses.
Jisung swallowed hard.
This was fine.
Totally fine.
They were fake dating. They’d danced together. Held hands all evening. A quick kiss for the crowd wouldn’t exactly be shocking. And he’d already acknowledged earlier that he was capable of it without it being a problem.
If anything, the thought sent nervous heat spiralling through him so fast it made him dizzy.
Minho finally moved.
Slowly, he stepped forward through the noise and laughter surrounding them, setting both champagne glasses carefully onto a nearby table without taking his eyes off Jisung once.
The cheering immediately intensified.
Jisung’s pulse thundered painfully against his ribs.
Then Minho reached up.
His hands cupped Jisung’s jaw gently.
For one impossible moment, it actually looked like Minho was going to kiss him properly.
Jisung thought maybe he would let him.
Then Minho tilted at the very last moment, lips brushing against the corner of Jisung’s mouth instead.
Not quite his lips.
Not quite his cheek either.
Somewhere in between.
The room erupted around them instantly.
Jisung barely heard any of it.
Because Minho hadn’t pulled away fully yet.
His hands still cradled Jisung’s face, eyes dark beneath the golden reception lights as they flicked once, involuntarily, towards Jisung’s mouth. And suddenly Jisung realised with absolute horror that if Minho kissed him properly right now, in front of everyone, he didn’t think he would stop him.
In fact, Jisung was realising a lot of things very quickly now.
Firstly, Minho’s lips were impossibly soft.
Secondly, there was apparently a very specific spot beside the corner of his mouth capable of short-circuiting his entire nervous system on contact.
And thirdly, perhaps most alarmingly of all, he wanted Minho to do it again.
The realisation hit him with all the grace and subtlety of a car crash.
Jisung stared at him, suddenly acutely aware of every tiny detail all at once. The faint pink flush high on Minho’s cheeks. The softness in his eyes. The fact he looked almost as affected by this as Jisung felt.
Which made absolutely no sense unless…
Oh.
Oh no.
Because Chan’s words came crashing violently back into his head.
I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever seen a person more in love than Lee Minho.
And somehow, impossibly, the more horrifying revelation was the one arriving directly afterwards.
Jisung might be in love with Minho too.
Not just attracted.
Not just curious.
Not just caught up in the wedding atmosphere and fairy lights and champagne and romance.
No.
This felt older than that.
It was discovering the answer to a question he hadn’t realised he’d been asking for years. Because suddenly every part of his life rearranged itself into a completely different picture.
The shared apartment.
The grocery shopping.
The movie nights tangled on the couch.
The casual affection they’d shared for ten years.
The way Minho always reached for him first in crowded rooms.
The way Jisung instinctively searched for Minho in every space he entered.
None of it felt platonic anymore when viewed from this angle. It felt like standing too close to one of those optical illusion paintings and then suddenly seeing the hidden image. The problem was, Jisung wasn’t entirely sure how he was supposed to survive with this information now living inside his brain.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur. At some point Jisung lost track entirely of how many people congratulated him on catching the bouquet. Apparently this was a much bigger deal than he’d previously realised. Every few minutes somebody else appeared beside him with another teasing comment.
“Looks like you’re next!”
“You’d better invite us when you and Minho finally tie the knot yourselves.”
“I’ve never seen Minho look happier than he does around you, honestly.”
And every single time, Jisung laughed weakly and tried not to visibly unravel in front of them.
It would have been easy to blame the champagne. Easy to shrug this entire bizarre emotional spiral off as the result of alcohol and wedding atmosphere and one stupidly intimate almost-kiss.
But Jisung knew that wasn’t it.
The problem was far worse.
The problem was that his entire life had flipped upside down in the space of a single evening, and now he didn’t know how to look at any of it the same way anymore. Because yes, he’d always known he and Minho were probably a little closer than most best friends.
Maybe a lot closer.
They lived together. Cooked together. Shared clothes. Hugged constantly. Fell asleep tangled together on the couch during movie nights with alarming regularity.
But Jisung had always just… Accepted it.
They were different.
That was all.
Two peas in a pod. Two puzzle pieces cut from the same weird shape.
Minho had simply had a Jisung-shaped gap somewhere inside him, and Jisung slotted into it so naturally that he’d stopped noticing it years ago. Likewise, Minho seemed to fit around Jisung’s chaos effortlessly, grounding him in a way nobody else ever really could.
They simply made sense together.
But now?
Now Jisung was being forced to re-examine the entire landscape of his own life through a completely different lens.
Every interaction suddenly looked suspicious.
Every touch lingered differently in his memory.
Every soft look.
Every lazy domestic moment.
Every time Minho had taken care of him without being asked.
Jisung felt like he’d spent ten years staring at a painting upside down only for someone to finally turn it the right way around. And somehow the most nightmarish part was realising that he’d wandered through all those years completely oblivious, never once recognising that he was hopelessly in love with the person he’d built his entire life around.
Because now that he had realised it, the truth seemed almost painfully obvious.
Of course he loved Minho.
Who else did he text first whenever something funny happened?
Who else could calm him down with a single look when his thoughts got too loud?
Who else knew exactly how he took his coffee, which songs made him emotional, or how to coax him gently out of bad moods without making him feel embarrassed about them?
Who else had become so deeply woven into the fabric of his everyday life that imagining a future without them felt less like loneliness and more like missing a vital organ?
It had always been Minho.
Every single time.
Jisung had just never stopped long enough to examine why.
Maybe because he’d never needed to before.
Minho was simply… There.
Constantly beside him through every phase of his life, so familiar that Jisung had stopped noticing the shape of his presence entirely. Loving Minho was as intrinsic as breathing. He was home.
And now, sitting beneath soft wedding lights with the ghost of Minho’s almost-kiss still burning beside his mouth, Jisung felt something inside himself shift permanently into place.
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆💐⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
The reception hall had emptied considerably over the last hour or so, the earlier chaos mellowing into something quieter. Several guests had already disappeared upstairs, abandoned champagne glasses left in their wake. The dancefloor was thinner now too, occupied mostly by couples swaying sleepily together beneath the dim golden lights. Jisung sat near the edge of it all turning his half-empty champagne glass slowly between his hands, thoughts spiralling too loudly to properly follow the conversations around him.
“Hey.”
He looked up immediately.
Minho stood beside him, tie loosened slightly at the collar. He looked tired now in a delicate sort of way, dark hair slightly messy from dancing and long hours beneath warm lights.
Pretty.
The thought arrived automatically this time.
No panic attached.
“It’s nearly midnight,” Minho said quietly. “I’m starting to flag a bit.”
Jisung huffed a small laugh.
“You? Tired? Impossible.”
“Hm. Well either way, I’m thinking of heading up to out room.”
But Minho hesitated.
“Unless… You want me to stay down here with you a bit longer?”
The offer sent warmth through Jisung’s whole body.
Because Minho meant it.
Of course he did.
Minho would probably stay awake until sunrise if Jisung asked him to. The knowledge felt unbearably precious now that Jisung finally understood what sat underneath it.
“No,” he said quickly before he could think too hard about any of that. “It’s fine. I think I’ll call it a night too.”
He tipped back the rest of his champagne in one go for courage. Or maybe self-defence.
Minho nodded easily, holding a hand out automatically to help pull him upright from the chair.
Jisung took it without thinking.
Together, they made their way slowly through the reception hall saying their goodnights as they went. Hyunjin yelled something about letting him know if they needed help with ‘wedding planning,’ which Minho pointedly ignored.
Finally, they stopped beside the newlyweds’ table.
The groom looked exhausted but blissfully happy, whilst his new wife had apparently reached her limit entirely and was half-asleep against his shoulder.
“Congratulations again,” Jisung said warmly.
“Thanks for coming,” the groom replied sincerely before grinning tiredly at the two of them. “You guys are ridiculously cute together, by the way.”
Minho was quick to nod his thanks and direct them away.
A few minutes later, they finally escaped into the sanctuary of the hotel lobby. The relative silence after hours of music felt almost startling. Neither of them spoke as they stepped into the elevator together.
The doors slid shut.
And then, immediately, Minho let go of Jisung’s hand.
The loss of contact hit embarrassingly hard.
Jisung’s stomach dropped straight to his feet.
Oh.
Right.
Of course.
They didn’t have to pretend anymore now that nobody else was watching. The sting of it settled heavily as silence filled the elevator. Minho leaned back lightly against the wall beside him, seemingly unaware that he’d just accidentally shattered Jisung’s entire nervous system.
Or maybe he was aware.
Jisung honestly couldn’t tell anymore. After all, he’d realised tonight that he wasn’t as good a judge of their interactions as he’d always thought.
The elevator hummed softly upward.
Beside him, Minho looked even more tired than he had back in the reception hall.
And suddenly Jisung was struck by the overwhelming, desperate urge to take his hand again anyway.
He managed to quell said urge. But only by curling his hands tightly into fists at his sides until his nails bit painfully into his palms. The elevator dinged as they reached their floor.
Minho stepped out first, fishing their keycard from his pocket whilst double-checking the room number printed on the little paper sleeve. Jisung followed quietly behind him through the dimly lit corridor, exhaustion and champagne and emotional devastation leaving his thoughts feeling heavy and sluggish.
The silence between them felt different now. Jisung hated how conscious of Minho he suddenly was all the time.
When they finally reached their room, Minho pressed the keycard against the lock.
A soft click sounded.
The door swung open.
Jisung had barely stepped one foot inside before he heard Minho swear quietly under his breath.
“… Fuck.”
“What is it?” Jisung asked automatically before properly looking up.
Then he stopped too.
“Oh.”
One bed.
One large bed sitting directly in the middle of the room.
For a moment neither of them moved.
Then Minho cleared his throat awkwardly.
“I can sleep in the armchair.”
Jisung frowned immediately.
“Don’t be daft,” he said automatically. “We’ve shared a bed loads of times.”
“Back in college,” Minho pointed out carefully. “That was years ago, Jisung.”
“What difference does that make?”
The words came out sharper than Jisung intended.
Minho blinked slightly.
And suddenly Jisung realised, with embarrassing clarity, that some small newly-awakened part of him felt genuinely hurt by the idea that Minho didn’t want to share a bed with him anymore. Because before tonight, sharing a bed with Minho had never been an issue.
There had never been hesitation.
Never awkwardness.
They’d spent entire nights tangled together during college winters because the heating in their dorm building barely worked. Fallen asleep shoulder-to-shoulder on couches during their movie marathons. Shared hotel beds during trips without even thinking about it.
Minho had always reached for him naturally in his sleep too.
Jisung had once woken up practically melded to Minho’s chest after an all-night study session and neither of them had thought anything of it.
But now suddenly there was caution.
Minho was drawing lines around himself that had never existed before.
And irrationally, stupidly, Jisung hated it.
“I really don’t mind-”
“No,” Jisung interrupted immediately. “You’re sleeping in the bed.”
Minho blinked.
“We’re both sleeping in the bed and that’s final,” Jisung huffed, already stomping across the room towards the overnight bags the hotel staff had brought up earlier. He knew he sounded bizarrely offended about the entire thing.
Which, in fairness, he was.
Because it turns out, discovering he was in love with Minho had also unlocked some deeply possessive, deeply unreasonable part of his personality that took one look at the idea of Minho voluntarily distancing himself and immediately went-
Absolutely not.
Behind him, the room stayed quiet for a second.
Then Minho simply sighed softly.
“Okay.”
If he was surprised by Jisung’s outburst, he didn’t show it. Instead, he moved calmly towards his own bag, unzipping it to retrieve his wash bag and a change of clothes.
“Did you want to shower first?” he asked after a moment.
Jisung hummed in vague agreement, still trying unsuccessfully to smother the strange hot burst of hurt and frustration twisting around inside his chest.
It felt unfair somehow.
Minho had spent years letting Jisung close without hesitation, letting him invade every corner of his life without complaint.
And now suddenly, Minho was acting careful.
Without another word, Jisung grabbed his clothes and disappeared into the bathroom before he could say something even more emotionally revealing and humiliating. The second the door clicked shut behind him, he sagged against the sink.
“This is bad,” he whispered to his own reflection.
His reflection, unfortunately, offered no useful guidance.
Jisung looked terrible.
Not physically. Physically he actually looked annoyingly good thanks to the expensive suit and carefully styled hair that had somehow survived most of the evening. Emotionally, however, he was convinced he looked like a man currently being hunted for sport by his own feelings.
With a groan, he turned the shower on as hot as possible. Maybe near-scalding water would burn the yearning directly out of his system.
Ten minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom wearing his soft sleep clothes and with slightly damp hair, feeling marginally more composed.
That feeling lasted approximately five minutes.
Just until Minho returned from his own trip yo the bathroom.
Gone was the fitted suit and pastel waistcoat.
Instead, Minho stood near the bed in loose grey sweatpants and an old black t-shirt, hair slightly damp and mussed where he’d clearly run his fingers through it.
Jaw-droppingly attractive in a completely different way than before.
Jisung’s stupid heart lurched so hard he half-expected it to fall out of his chest and onto the plush carpet at Minho’s feet.
“You okay?”
No.
Absolutely not.
“Yep,” Jisung lied instantly, voice cracking slightly halfway through the word.
Minho’s eyes narrowed just a fraction. But thankfully, mercifully, he didn’t press.
Instead, he simply pulled the covers back and climbed into bed beside him.
“You sure you’re okay with-”
“Yes.”
The answer came out almost aggressively fast.
Minho paused briefly.
“Okay. I’ll, um… Get the lights.”
He rolled onto his side to flick off the lamp beside the bed, plunging the room into darkness.
But afterwards, he didn’t turn back around. He stayed facing away instead.
Jisung glared at the back of his head.
It was ridiculous, he knew.
Completely irrational.
Minho wasn’t doing anything wrong. He had absolutely no way of psychically intuiting that Jisung had spent the evening progressively realising just how hopelessly in love with him he was.
Still, being shut out like this made something sour twist unpleasantly in Jisung’s chest.
So, childishly, he turned away too.
Fine.
Whatever.
He’d sleep.
Except sleep stubbornly refused to find him.
Jisung shifted again.
And again.
He punched his pillow into a different shape.
Tucked the duvet tighter beneath his chin.
Untucked it again thirty seconds later because now he was too warm.
Then he rolled onto his back and stared angrily at the dark ceiling.
Beside him, Minho remained infuriatingly still.
How was he sleeping already?
Jisung rolled over again with a frustrated sigh.
A few seconds later, Minho’s sleepy voice drifted through the darkness.
“If you’re going to keep rotating like a rotisserie chicken,” he mumbled, “maybe you should sleep in the armchair.”
Despite himself, Jisung snorted softly.
“You’re awake.”
“No thanks to you.”
“… Sorry.”
Minho shifted slightly beside him.
“It’s fine,” he said quietly. “What’s wrong?”
Everything.
“You ever realise something about yourself so late that it makes you feel like an idiot?” Jisung asked before he could stop himself.
The room went still.
Completely still.
Minho stopped moving entirely.
When he finally spoke again, his voice sounded much more awake than before.
“… What do you mean?”
Jisung swallowed hard against the sudden tightness in his throat. Good question, honestly. One he didn’t entirely know how to answer without potentially detonating both their lives. So naturally, Jisung did what he did best under pressure.
He deflected.
“Minho…” he said quietly into the darkness. “Why do your coworkers think I’m your boyfriend?”
Beside him, the mattress shifted faintly.
“I already told-”
“And I want the truth this time,” Jisung interrupted softly.
Silence.
Jisung could practically hear Minho stop breathing beside him.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Minho said eventually. “I swear. They genuinely did just assume.”
Jisung waited.
“And then…” Minho exhaled shakily somewhere beside him. “Yeah. It felt awkward to correct them.”
Another pause.
Longer this time.
Jisung’s pulse thundered painfully against his ribs.
“Especially when…” Minho stopped abruptly.
Jisung turned his head slightly on the pillow to look at him properly. Even in the darkness, he could make out the tense line of Minho’s jaw.
“Especially when what?” he asked carefully.
Minho laughed once.
Soft yet miserable.
“Especially when I liked it.”
The words hit Jisung like a physical blow.
Beside him, Minho finally looked over too.
“I liked them thinking you were mine,” he admitted in a voice barely above a whisper. “That’s the truth.”
Jisung’s heart stuttered violently.
“You never corrected them,” Jisung said slowly.
“No.”
“For years.”
“No.”
“And all this time-”
“… I’ve actually been in love with you?” Minho finished quietly. “Yeah.”
Jisung stared at him in the darkness, feeling like his entire body had stopped functioning correctly.
“How,” he asked weakly, “did I not notice?”
Minho’s expression twisted painfully.
“I didn’t exactly try to make you notice.”
“Still.”
“You trusted me,” Minho said simply. “And we’re best friends. I didn’t want to ruin that.”
The words lodged directly in Jisung’s chest. Because suddenly he could see it so clearly. All the ways Minho had loved him carefully instead of selfishly.
Quietly instead of greedily.
Never asking for more.
Never pushing.
Just staying beside him year after year, wanting him silently.
“That’s…” He laughed shakily. “That’s genuinely insane behaviour, by the way.”
Minho huffed out a soft laugh.
“I know.”
“No, seriously. You just let me climb all over you for ten years while secretly in love with me?”
“You climbed all over me before I had a say in the matter.”
“That’s fair.”
Silence settled again.
“And it… Never bothered you that…” Jisung swallowed hard. “That I didn’t feel the same?”
Minho let out a slow breath at that, slumping back against the mattress as he stared up towards the ceiling.
For a moment, he didn’t answer.
Then he laughed softly.
“It… Well.” He rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I mean, it was difficult sometimes, I guess.”
Minho kept his gaze firmly fixed anywhere except Jisung’s face as he continued.
“But even if all I ever got from you was friendship… It was enough for me. And if I indulged a little in the fantasy of us being together around people you were never going to meet…” Minho huffed another small laugh. “I figured it wasn’t hurting anyone.”
His fingers twisted in the blanket between them.
“It was nice. Playing make-believe.”
Then he paused.
Expression tightening slightly.
“No. That’s not really right either.”
Slowly, Minho looked over at him at last.
“It wasn’t make-believe for me,” he admitted. “Everything I told them…” Minho’s voice dropped quieter still. “That was all real.”
The room felt impossibly still.
“They’re right, you know,” Minho said with another faint, helpless laugh. “I do never stop talking about you. But that’s because… I never stop thinking about you.”
The words landed so gently. And still somehow shattered straight through Jisung’s ribcage.
“Even for a second.”
Jisung stared at him in the dark, feeling almost dizzy from the sheer enormity of being loved like this.
Not casually.
Or halfway.
Completely.
Years of devotion packed into every word.
Minho had never asked him for anything in return.
He’d loved Jisung all this time with no expectation of being loved back. Perfectly content to stay at his side however he was allowed.
The thought made Jisung’s chest ache so fiercely it almost hurt.
“You idiot,” he whispered suddenly.
Minho blinked.
“… What?”
Jisung laughed shakily, eyes stinging unexpectedly.
“You absolute idiot.”
Because who loved someone this much and just silently carried it around for years? Who talked about a person like they worshipped the very ground they walked on, and still convinced themselves friendship was enough?
Minho opened his mouth uncertainly.
Jisung didn’t let him speak.
“No,” Jisung said as he reached up, pressing his fingers gently against Minho’s lips before he could speak again. “My turn.”
Minho went completely still beneath his hand.
Jisung’s pulse hammered violently in his throat.
God.
He was really doing this.
“All of this today…” he started shakily. “The wedding. The matching suits and stupid cufflinks. The fake dating thing. The way your coworkers talked about you. The dancing. Even that damned bouquet.”
Minho’s eyes stayed fixed on him, wide and shining. And suddenly Jisung understood with painful clarity that Minho genuinely hadn’t expected anything in return tonight.
“It’s…” Jisung swallowed hard. “It’s forced me to confront something I was apparently too stupid to realise before. I… I love you too, Minho.”
Jisung felt Minho stop breathing beneath his fingertips.
And suddenly all the panic melted away.
“I think I probably have for a long time,” Jisung admitted weakly. “I just… Didn’t know that’s what it was.”
His laugh trembled slightly.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to catch up.”
For one endless second, Minho simply stared at him. Like the words physically refused to process. Then something in his expression cracked open entirely.
Relief.
Wonder.
“Jisung…” he whispered.
Jisung barely had time to inhale before Minho moved. One hand slid gently against the side of Jisung’s face, thumb brushing cautiously along his cheek like he couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to touch him this way.
“Can I kiss you properly this time?”
The question nearly destroyed him on the spot.
Because even now, Minho was asking.
Still careful with him.
Jisung laughed shakily, already leaning closer.
“You really think you need to ask permission after I confessed like that?”
Jisung wasn’t entirely sure who closed the distance first. Just that one moment he had a clear view of Minho’s dazzling smile, and the next it was colliding against his own.
Jisung melted instantly.
Honestly, there was no dignity left to salvage at this point. He kissed Minho back desperately, one hand tangled tightly in the front of his shirt whilst his entire soul dissolved into glitter.
And the thing was, it felt right. It felt familiar.
If you’d asked him even a week ago how he’d feel if Minho kissed him, he’d have scoffed in your face. Told you about how weird and awkward it would be. But he would have been wrong.
So very, very wrong.
Jisung had compared them to puzzle pieces before, but now he truly understood it. The way Minho’s plush upper lip slotted perfectly against his own fuller lower lip, both of them instinctively chasing the movement of the other like they’d practised this a thousand times already in some parallel universe where they’d gotten their shit together sooner.
Jisung felt dizzy with it.
With him.
How had he missed this for so long? How had he spent years wrapped around Minho without recognising what this feeling actually was?
It felt embarrassingly obvious now.
The evening had been full of discoveries already, but as each piece of clothing came away between them, and the distance closed, Jisung discovered more.
He discovered the noises they both made when the other touched them just the right way, in just the right place.
He discovered how sensitive Minho’s neck was as he peppered kisses along it, the muscle there jumping every time Jisung’s mouth lingered too long against it.
He discovered how easily he bruised, pink marks blooming beneath Minho’s wandering hands and teeth.
And Minho discovered things too.
That Jisung shivered whenever fingers traced slowly down his spine.
That praise made him melt almost instantly.
That if Minho kissed him deeply enough, thoroughly enough, Jisung forgot entire sentences halfway through saying them.
Jisung lost track of how much time passed entirely.
And when Minho finally sank into him, he discovered just how different sex was when you truly loved the other person.
How each thrust became something sacred, how he felt joined together with Minho not just in flesh, but in something more. Something that belonged only to them.
The way that Minho looked at him, an expression of disbelief still warring with the obvious affection on his face threatened to turn him into mush.
Like Minho still couldn’t quite believe this was real.
Like he kept expecting to wake up and find this had all been another one of those little fantasies he’d carefully hidden away inside himself for years.
It did terrible things to Jisung’s heart.
Because even now, wrapped together in tangled sheets with flushed skin and kiss-swollen lips, Minho was looking at him with the same awed tenderness people reserved for miracles.
And somehow all of that impossible affection was directed entirely at him.
When Jisung finally came apart beneath him, all that existed was Minho.
The lingering scent of the cologne he loved so much.
The sound of his breathing breaking unevenly against Jisung’s neck.
The almost desperate tenderness in every touch that followed.
Minho kissed him everywhere he could reach. Across his flushed cheeks, the corner of his mouth, his jaw, his throat, lingering against skin already marked lovingly by teeth and lips alike. Jisung felt him trembling slightly by the time he finally followed after him, burying his face briefly against Jisung’s shoulder with a broken sound.
Careful, composed Minho finally unravelling in his arms after years of holding himself back.
Jisung threaded his fingers weakly through Minho’s damp hair, still trying to catch his own breath as Minho gradually settled against him again.
For a while neither of them spoke.
They simply existed there together beneath tangled sheets, foreheads pressed together. Outside the curtains, the night had deepened fully. The distant music from the reception had long since disappeared, the only thing left the steady rhythm of their breathing.
Jisung could’ve stayed like this forever.
Eventually, once his heartbeat had stopped racing a million miles a minute, he spoke.
“Minho?”
“Mm?”
“Does this mean…” Jisung swallowed against a smile. “We’re actually boyfriends now?”
Minho lifted his head just enough to look at him properly.
Even exhausted and rumpled and half-asleep, the expression on his face showed just how completely gone for him he was.
“Han Jisung,” Minho murmured softly, thumb brushing lazily along his waist beneath the sheets, “I am never letting you go again for as long as I live.”
Jisung felt himself grin helplessly.
“Wow,” he whispered. “That sounded vaguely threatening.”
“I mean it affectionately.”
“Mm. Possessively affectionate.”
“Correct.”
Jisung laughed quietly before tugging him closer again, burying his face against Minho’s shoulder.
And true to his word, Minho didn’t let him go for the rest of the night. They drifted in and out of kisses and laughter beneath the hotel sheets, rediscovering each other over and over until the sun rose.
𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆💐⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ
When they finally made their way down to breakfast after a shared shower that had taken significantly longer than either of them had originally intended, the majority of the wedding guests had already filtered through the hotel restaurant.
A few stragglers still lingered over coffees and plates of pastries though.
“Morning, lovebirds!” Chan called the second they entered the room, immediately dragging over two extra chairs to their table.
“Morning,” Jisung yawned, voice rough with exhaustion as he shuffled towards the table beside Minho.
He’d barely slept at all.
Mostly because Minho had seemingly decided he needed to compensate for years of missing out.
Sleep had not survived the experience.
Chan narrowed his eyes immediately.
Then he gasped, pointing at Jisung.
“Oh my god. Minho you devil!”
Jisung blinked slowly.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your neck,” Jeongin answered calmly over the rim of his coffee cup.
Jisung frowned instinctively.
“My neck?”
Felix made a noise halfway between a laugh and a choking fit.
“Oh my god, he hasn’t noticed.”
Minho, beside him, suddenly looked extremely pleased with himself.
Slowly, cautiously, Jisung reached for his phone and flipped open the camera app.
Then froze.
“Oh, you absolute bastard.”
Dark purple marks bloomed visibly across the length of his neck and collarbone, peeking shamelessly above the neckline of his shirt.
Meanwhile Minho remained entirely unbothered by the scandalised look Jisung shot him. In fact, if anything, he looked even more smug.
“You think that’s bad,” Minho commented mildly as he reached for his coffee, “you should see the rest of him.”
Jisung nearly dropped his phone directly into his orange juice.
“MINHO.”
“What?” Minho asked innocently.
“You can’t just say things like that in public!”
“I absolutely can.”
Jisung stared at him in open betrayal.
This was not the same man who’d spent years quietly yearning in silence. This man had evidently tasted reciprocated affection once and instantly become unbearable.
“You are literally the worst person alive,” Jisung informed him.
Minho just hummed softly before reaching over without warning, fingers sliding around the back of Jisung’s neck as he pulled him forward into a kiss. Deep enough to leave Jisung breathless almost immediately, his brain short-circuiting completely as Minho kissed him like he genuinely did not care who was watching.
By the time he was finished, Jisung was flushing furiously, staring at him in stunned silence whilst the entire table reacted with a mixture of joy and thinly-veiled disgust.
Minho pulled back just enough to look at him properly, eyes shining with amusement.
“What?” he asked softly. “I’m allowed to do that.”
The sentence itself was simple.
Casual even.
But Jisung still heard the silent word lingering at the end of it anyway.
Now.
I’m allowed to do that now.
And judging by the way Minho was looking at him, he planned on taking full advantage of it forever.