Chapter Text
When Minho walked into one of the small campus cafes, he didn't think the past would start giving him backshots. He just thought he could order a ham and cheese croissant, sit down next to Chan, who had bought sushi from a store a few doors down, and move on with the rest of his day.
That's not what the universe had planned for him today. Actually, he didn't even get to order his food before the past bent him over the counter.
"Is there an airport nearby, or is that my heart taking off?" Said a voice from behind him.
A voice that he hadn't heard in about one year, three months, one week, and five days. Not that he was counting. What he was doing was refusing to turn around and look at the guy that had made the last two years of his high school — not exactly hell, but annoying. One of the guys, anyway, but knowing him, his twin wouldn't be too far away.
It was sheer luck Minho survived his whole first year at Cherry Hills University without running into either of them. It was sheer misfortune that he would no longer know peace until he graduated.
"Hi, can I get a ham and cheese croissant, please?" Minho asked after the person in front of him walked off to go find a seat while their order was being prepared.
"Of course. Would you like that toasted?" The cashier asked.
"No, thank you," Minho replied.
"And that was everything?"
"Yes, it—"
"Actually, can I get an iced matcha with oat milk?" Said that voice again, this time it was a lot closer. In his peripheral vision, he saw his six-foot-one nightmare lean against the counter. That stupid grin on his face. His black short-sleeve matched the colour of his hair. Still as short as it had been the last time Minho had seen him.
"Uh… sure."
"Thanks so much," Sam said.
The cashier added Sam's order to Minho's, which Sam paid for with his phone as soon as they brought up the payment window on the register's tiny screen that faced the customers.
"You know, I thought that was you, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure," Sam said, following Minho as he took the receipt off the cashier and walked back to his table. "It would've been incredibly embarrassing if it wasn't you, but you know what they say… A guy just knows things when it comes to his soulmate. I could sense it, I swear."
When Minho took a seat at the table he'd left his things, he got to get a good look at Sam. Now that he thought about it, he grew taller in the year and a half that Minho went without him.
Okay, maybe he was being dramatic. It's not like he hated Sam. The affection from two people he hardly knew was a bit much, with Sam loading it on almost twice as hard as his brother. Hyunjin acted mostly normal around Minho. He was almost convinced that Hyunjin didn't have a crush on him sometimes. Almost.
"So you also know where I went to uni and followed me here?" Minho asked.
"What? No," Sam said, mock horror lacing his voice as he took the seat opposite Minho. "It was fate that brought us together again. Besides, you literally told me you wanted to go here."
Minho rolled his eyes so hard he really thought they were in danger of falling out. "Yeah, okay."
"Oh my god, I have to tell Hyunjin," Sam said, immediately pulling out his phone. "He's gonna freak out."
"Couldn't you guys have… I don't know, found another victim in the year and a bit we didn't see each other?"
"Probably," Sam admitted, running a hand through his short-black hair. "But again, fate brought us back together, so it doesn't really—"
He got cut off as their order was called out. Sam whipped out of his chair as if a starting pistol had gone off and walked over to pick up Minho's croissant and his iced matcha. Still one for being performative. Knowing him, he was going to take two sips before handing it off to Hyunjin, disguising it as kindness.
"One ham and cheese croissant for my beautiful Minho Lee," Sam said, flourishing the brown paper bag as he put it down in front of Minho with a grin. Actually, Minho was pretty sure it never left his face.
"I'm not yours."
Sam ignored that as he sat down, and took his first sip of his matcha, choking the green liquid down. "'S good."
"If you say so."
Just as Sam picked up his phone again to finish texting Hyunjin, warning him about the… situation, Minho heard a quiet gasp. When he looked up though, the shorter, nerdier, blonder version of Sam looked… composed. He would've been convinced that Hyunjin was composed if he hadn't stayed still as the sliding door of the cafe closed. Barely missing him and setting off some sort of alarm in the process.
That shook Hyunjin out of his daze and allowed him to walk over to the table where Minho and Sam were sitting as the door went back to normal. He dressed pretty much the same as he did in high school: jeans and a zip-up hoodie, topped off with the same pair of glasses he wore back in high school. The biggest difference was the length of his still-blond hair. Now, it was apparently long enough for half of it to be pulled into a small ponytail, presumably to stay out of his eyes.
By the way, where the fuck was Chan?
"Minho hyung," Hyunjin greeted, putting his sushi on the table and taking the seat to Minho's left. "I thought that was you, and when I saw Sam, I figured it had to be. Way to fucking warn me." His last words were muttered to Sam loudly, not actually being quiet.
"I was literally in the middle of messaging you," Sam said, showing Hyunjin his phone and pointing to where he must've been typing his message. "Look, 'dude, Minho Lee is in the cafe I went into'… and I didn't get to finish."
"Pause," Hyunjin opened his sushi container. "Anyway, how have you been? I had no idea you went here."
"I was doing a lot better before your brother showed up and acted like no time had passed."
"Hey!"
"Sounds like him," Hyunjin smiled, then he looked up at Minho as he took a bite out of his first roll. "Do you actually want us to leave you alone? I get how this would be weird and overwhelming for us to just come and annoy you like we used to—"
"No, no, it's fine," Minho said quickly.
Some weird part of him missed having Hyunjin and Sam giggle at him every time he walked past, making comments about their hot senior. Ignoring Sam's comments on how Minho should become his Super Senior, it was a source of entertainment for him.
Which was because it didn't matter. He was allowed to have any relationship he wanted with his own friends or partners at the time, and the twins wouldn't seriously interfere with that. To Minho's understanding, it was just some hallway crush they made extremely obvious. Plus, he didn't wanna seem like an asshole, and surely now that time had passed, they'd calm down.
"Has he been diagnosed yet?" Minho asked, figuring he should start catching up on everything he'd missed in the last eighteen months. "With ADHD, I mean."
"Nah…"
They looked over to the guy in question, whose eyes were currently transfixed on something outside the cafe window. Typical. Once he registered the silence, he whipped his head back to look at the table. "'You talking about me?"
"No," Minho and Hyunjin said in unison.
For some reason, Sam accepted this. He took another sip of his matcha and grimaced as he swallowed it down.
"But I guess I've mellowed out. I don't know. College has changed me." Hyunjin smiled, and they left it at that. Especially as Minho finally saw another familiar face.
"Am I interrupting anything?" Minho's saviour — Chan said, taking the last seat at the table across from Minho. "Sorry I took so long, I decided I wanted a burrito instead."
"No, you're not interrupting anything. Please save me," Minho groaned.
"Hey, I'm Sam, Minho hyung's future boyfriend and his favourite Hwang twin," Sam held his hand out for Chan to shake. Tentatively, Chan shook it before unwrapping his burrito. "That's my brother, Hyunjin, I guess."
"You guess?" Hyunjin threw a stray grain of rice at him before turning to Chan himself. "Hey. He's lying, by the way. I'm definitely Minho hyung's favourite."
"Wait! You're not Minho hyung's boyfriend, are you?" Sam asked, genuine fear flickering across his face.
Chan almost choked on his burrito. "No," was all he managed to get out. Which was enough to calm the twins back down as he worked to swallow his current mouthful. "No, I'm not. I'm Chan. He just likes keeping me around because I help him with his music production assignments."
He narrowly missed a crumb that Minho may or may not have launched at him, giggling as he sat back up.
"Shut up, you know I like you for more than your Cubase knowledge," Minho huffed.
That's when the twins stayed quiet. Understandably so, since as far as Minho knew, neither of them studied music in any capacity. So why would they know literally anything about music production programs?
"Anyway, you guys are Korean too?" Chan asked through a mouthful of burrito. The twins nodded in unison.
"Yeah, our parents moved here before we were born," Sam said, not-so-subtly sliding his iced matcha across the table for Hyunjin to drink the rest of it.
"And how do you know Minho?"
Sam went to respond, but Hyunjin cut in — thank fuck, "We went to high school together, we're a year younger than him."
"Ah… that's it?"
"Yes," Minho interjected, glaring at Sam and Hyunjin.
The absolute last thing he wanted to do was give Chan a crash course on their history. If he could even call it history. It was more stupid hallway crush Minho entertained once in a blue moon that became competitive that they never got over. That's what he would call it.
"Our fate was sealed as soon as we laid eyes on him the first time," Sam sighed wistfully. Hyunjin giggled. Chan didn't know what to do with himself.
Minho wanted to die.
"I'm actually hosting a party this Saturday. You guys should come," Chan said. "It would be great for Minho to have some friends there, considering I invite half the student body."
"No, they should not," Minho said calmly, taking one of the last bites out of his croissant. "And you don't invite half the student body, but it's still a lot of people."
"We'll be there if Minho will be," Sam said, ignoring Minho's glare. "But I have hockey practice in the afternoon, so depending on what time that finishes, we'll come over."
"You play still?" Minho asked, slightly surprised that Sam had stuck with it for what had to be more than ten years now, according to his math.
"Yeah, and Hyunjin still comes to all my home games 'cause he's the best older brother ever." Sam batted his eyelashes at Hyunjin, who scoffed and turned away.
"Only by a minute, stop making a big deal out of it," Hyunjin muttered, pushing his glasses up and downing the rest of the iced matcha. "And stop looking at me like that. You look stupid."
"We should go to a game, if not the one on Saturday, the next one," Chan grinned. "Have you been before?"
"No, and I don't plan on it… ever, actually," Minho said. Wholly unhappy with the fact that the guy who was supposed to be his best friend was entertaining them and their stupidity.
"Oh, come on," Chan laughed.
"I would score a hatty for you," Sam interjected. "I almost scored one last week. Two goals and two assists are basically a hatty. I could give you my spare jersey."
Ignoring the last sentence, Minho turned his head to Hyunjin, waiting for him to confirm if Sam was telling the truth or not. Judging by his face, Sam was actually telling the truth. As much as he didn't want to admit it, that was impressive. Even if it was a practice game against his teammates.
Probably. Minho didn't actually know all that much about hockey deeper than occasionally hearing about the Avalanche, usually when his dad put the game on the TV. Every April, with playoffs starting, Minho heard more, but it lulled as soon as the Stanley Cup Finals were over, even sooner if the Avalanche didn't make it.
Clearly, Minho had never cared for hockey, or any sport for that matter. He had enough fun locking himself in his practice room for hours with his piano.
"I would love to stick around some more and catch up, but I need to practice," Minho said, checking his phone. His practice room was booked starting in ten minutes, and he wanted to get as much out of it as possible, so… unfortunately he had to go.
"Piano?" Hyunjin asked. Minho nodded, surprised again that he had actually remembered.
"Aww, can I come?" Sam pouted, melting onto the table and reaching out for him as Minho got up.
"No."
"Then see you on Saturday night, Minho hyung," Sam said without blinking.
"If I must," Minho said, going to walk out, but remembering Chan was still sat with them. "'You coming?"
"Nope, my next class isn't for forty minutes," Chan said. "I need to send them the party details."
Minho was sure he was going to send them a lot more than the party details, but remembered it was Chan he was dealing with. There was nothing he could do in this situation.
There was a 'bye' thrown into the space between them before Minho walked out and threw his empty paper bag in the bin. He could feel two pairs of eyes on him as the glass sliding door shut behind him. Ignoring it, knowing he was just going to experience this until he got his degree. Again.
He couldn't wait to graduate and not have to babysit them anymore.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Five minutes later, finally, he was back in the practice room. This was the single place Minho felt he belonged. On the stage was still nerve-racking sometimes, considering his anxiety could flare up at any moment while he performed. But in the space barely big enough to house the piano, he felt at peace.
Which sounded a bit cliche every time he thought about it, so he tried not to think about it as he pushed the fallboard back and cleared his throat. Then he played the first thing he thought of to warm up — Mia and Sebastian's Theme from La La Land. Minho wasn't much of a crier, but he had to admit that even he teared up a little. Which was nothing in comparison to the wrecked sobs that Chan would not stop producing.
After that, he got started on the piece he actually needed to practice, which would eventually be his final for his ensemble class. That came with a lot more difficulty than anticipated, but honestly, that was expected, as he had only run through it a handful of times before then. This was exactly why he had booked the practice room. To practice until he couldn't get it wrong.
While, at the end of his hour session, he was still fumbling his way around it, but he had the start mostly down. There was no reason to worry right now anyway. He had the whole semester to learn the piece. Besides, it was thirty minutes long. There was no way he could perfect it in one day. Today was just getting a feel for the first third mostly. He would start breaking it down into digestible pieces next time. Whoever had booked the room after him was already waiting outside. Minho could see them in the corner of his eye in the small door-window.
Not wanting to keep them waiting any longer, he rushed to put everything in his backpack and left. As soon as he was in the elevator, taking him back to the ground floor, he pulled his phone out and checked his notifications.
(minholeesaurus): @samhwanghockeyplayer has requested to follow you
(minholeesaurus): @hyunjin.hwang has requested to follow you
He put his phone back in his pocket and sighed, knowing for a fact that Chan had given them his Instagram. At least he hadn't given them his number. He could be grateful for that.
Not that anything he posted on Instagram was extremely personal. Minho hardly used it for anything other than reels and occasionally talking to his friends. There was a single post on his profile, and it was a post of exactly two pictures from six months ago. The first slide was just of a cat that he and Chan had found after going out for dinner one night, and the second slide was of him with the very same cat.
Whatever, he would deal with whether he actually accepted them or not on Saturday, or probably Friday night. He had better things to worry about than the Hwang twins.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Letting the twins into his Instagram was a bad idea, and Minho was quickly filled with regret within twenty-four hours of accepting their follow request and following them back. In the past day, Hyunjin had sent him multiple posts of (admittedly cool) looking hangout spots and suggestions of visiting them together. It was either those date proposals, or a video of two animals with an attached message.
'Us'.
Minho had ignored all romantic intent in Hyunjin's messages, usually responding with some sort of that looks cool or they're so cute. Again, ignoring every single hint of them getting into or being in a relationship. Mostly because that wasn't as bad as the shit he was getting from Sam.
Reels of two hockey players play fighting and then going in for a kiss, sent with us if you played hockey. Videos of a pair of the most random inanimate objects sent with a 'me and you fr'. Or, the worst of them, videos of others that people made to be relatable then redirected to Minho's inbox. Videos of women screaming in fake agony over some random audio captioned 'i need him (inside me) So Bad'.
Those Minho definitely ignored because, well, what the fuck was he supposed to say? This was not reciprocated in the slightest. And no matter what he said in response to the other reels, the twins just kept sending more.
Even after Hyunjin had messaged him, a 'we're on our way, hyung <3', Minho got another reel from Sam in between them leaving and them making themselves and their arrival known. Or at least Sam making his arrival known, and Hyunjin just facepalming in the background.
"Minho hyung!" Sam called, even though the party officially started five minutes ago and they were the six and seventh people to arrive. There was no competition to be heard, the only noise other than light conversation was Chan's playlist playing off the speaker Minho got him for his last birthday.
Minho suppressed his sigh as Chan did nothing to suppress his own giggle, and the two of them stood up from their couch.
"I'll get you a drink," Chan said.
"Please do," Minho replied, watching as the twins made their way across the living room to him.
Sam grinned, sporting a leather jacket over a plain black tee, while Hyunjin had gone for a maroon denim jacket. Minho just wore dark jeans and a random sports jersey-shirt that he found at the thrift store a few years ago, with a blue hanky hanging from his left pocket. Sporting the number thirty-two, but with no last name on his back, he had no idea who number thirty-two even was. Oh well.
"Wow," Sam started, taking Minho in. Shamelessly checking him out. "You must be a magician, because every time I look at you, everyone else disappears."
"There is nobody else in your line of sight except for me," Minho said flatly.
"He was practising that the whole way here…" Hyunjin stage whispered, earning a shout of indignation from his brother. "But I'm glad you didn't encourage him."
"I would never."
"Jinnie, you're just jealous you don't have as much rizz as me," Sam said.
"Yeah, that's definitely it," Hyunjin rolled his eyes. "Anyway, how are you, hyung?"
Somewhere to the left of Minho, more people he didn't know showed up. Walking through his and Chan's front door with an assortment of drinks in hand. Oh, wait — there was Jisung. He knew that one. He didn't know the blond behind him sporting a Cherry Hills University… Baseball Team letterman jacket though, or the guy with a… literal dog collar on. Something tells Minho that the collar guy and Sam would get along.
"As good as I can be during the semester," Minho said, tearing his gaze away from the trio that had just walked in as Chan greeted them. Still holding Minho's drink. "Not drowning in homework just yet."
"I'm glad," Hyunjin smiled.
Realising a millisecond into silence that he was being a terrible co-host, Minho spoke, "I'm the worst host ever. Do you guys want a drink?"
Well, really, it was Chan's party. Minho just lived there, too. But he also supposed he should take care of the two guests he knew.
Sam laughed, "What do you have?"
"Follow me."
In the kitchen, Chan was on his phone, leaning over the bench and frowning at it. Minho giggled at him and went straight to the fridge, the twins in tow.
"Don't hurt yourself, Chan-ah," Minho hummed. "All right, we have beer… beer… some more beer…" He moved some things around. "More beer—"
"There are cruisers in the ice chest, and I'm pretty sure Jisung, Felix, and Seungmin — the three that just walked in — brought tequila and some other stuff," Chan said, looking up. "Also, you two don't have any allergies, do you? I'm just about to order pizzas, which should get here by the time the others do."
Hyunjin shook his head.
"Nope, I'm only allergic to being apart from Minho," Sam said.
"Oh my fucking god," Minho sighed, getting his own beer from the fridge before closing it. "Ice chest is this way."
Proving that he also wasn't allergic to rejection, Sam all but skipped along behind Minho and dug through the ice chest with Hyunjin until they both had pineapple cruisers in their hands.
"Didn't you have practice today?" Minho asked once the three of them settled on the couch again. One twin sitting on either side of him. The couch was big enough for around five people, but the twins had to sit by his side. Not close enough for him to tell them to get off, but close enough for them to be satisfied. Minho guessed anyway.
"Yeah, my team won. I carried. The usual," Sam said without missing a beat. "No hatty, though."
"Shame," Minho said plainly.
"It's because you weren't there."
"Yeah, I'm sure that was the problem."
"You never know," Sam shrugged, taking a sip of his cruiser.
With that, the topic of Sam's hockey career was dropped, and they took the time to actually catch up while finishing their first drinks of the night. Considering they didn't get to talk in the cafe before Minho had to leave for piano practice, it was only natural that they started now.
Hyunjin was majoring in accounting, which made sense since one thing Minho remembered from high school was the fact that he always saw Hyunjin hanging around with the accounting teacher — Miss Eastwood. On the other hand, Sam was majoring in some sports health course thing… his words exactly. It was probably just something to help him after he got drafted into the NHL. Whenever that was. Minho doesn't know how any of that stuff works, but Sam wants something set up just in case.
So Minho nodded along as the twins told him everything that happened in the year he was gone, and as he talked about his first year, he trailed off when he felt Hyunjin's fingers on the hand that wasn't nursing his now-empty can.
"Your hands are small," Hyunjin said, lifting Minho's hand so he could compare their hand sizes. Peering at them through his glasses. "Sam, look."
"It's okay, it's not like I was telling a story or anything."
The twins ignored him.
Sam took the can out of Minho's fingers, put it on the floor, and took Minho's other hand in his own. Mirroring his brother's actions.
"Aww, he's just a little baby," Sam cooed and Minho jerked his hands back into his lap. Both of them.
"Can you not?" Minho snapped. "You two are like six-two and five-eleven, so no wonder you have bigger hands than me."
"Angry baby," Sam muttered after a slight pause.
"Yeah, I'm leaving."
Minho lifted himself off the couch and walked over to Chan, who was at the mini DJ setup in the corner of their living room.
Presumably queuing up more songs, if the flicker of his eyes and the tapping away said anything. Plus, there was now a hard drive plugged into the laptop.
"What are you playing next?" Minho asked as Brent Faiyaz sang his last line.
"It's a secret." Chan winked before he pulled out his phone. "Pizza's here. Help me?"
Not like he was going to say no, Minho followed him to the door. Squeezing past a number of people he didn't know, including the two he saw walk in earlier with Jisung. That's when Railway started playing. Great, now anyone at this party paying attention to the lyrics would find out how much Chan loves being a bicycle.
Chan was giggling as he opened the door, but his face immediately fell as he saw how much the driver was struggling to hold the pizzas. With lightning speed, he pulled half of the boxes from the poor delivery driver, who thanked him profusely.
Then, she told him that there were more in the car. Before Minho could even offer to help her get them, as Chan walked his half to the kitchen, Sam teleported to his side.
"I got it," he said, not even waiting for an answer before making his way to her car. Hyunjin took the half the woman was already holding before following Chan, leaving Minho to stand in the door uselessly.
However, watching Sam try to carry twelve pizza boxes himself was a rather amusing sight, so in the doorway he stayed.
"'Scuse me," Sam said, watching every step as he made his way back over the threshold. "Hot pizzas coming through."
Minho thanked the delivery driver one more time before she got into the car and drove off. Only then did Minho turn around and join the others in the kitchen.
Like some sort of drill sergeant, Sam was checking the pizzas and sorting them into piles by what toppings they had. Chan offered to help, to no avail as Sam shook his head, still sorting.
After a few moments, Sam spoke up to the mini crowd that had gathered at the mention of food.
"Hawaiian, meat lovers, pepperoni, margherita, what looks like another vegetarian option, and a single capricciosa," Sam said, pointing to each of the piles of pizza as he spoke. "Thank you, Chan hyung, for the food," he said, and everyone repeated his words in staggered sentences, and Minho swore Chan's ears turned slightly pink.
"Does anyone else want a drink?" Hyunjin called, sticking his head in the fridge and pulling out what people called out to him. Minho let everyone have their first choice of pizza — there was a lot there — and walked over to Hyunjin to help him with the drinks.
"Which one's yours?" Minho asked.
"None, I'm going back to the cooler, but I thought since Sam is handling the food, I should get the drinks."
Always one-upping each other. Speak of the devil, he turned around and looked at Minho. The older sensed he would've spouted some nonsense, but his mouth was full of pizza — thank fuck. So, Minho started taking the drinks out of Hyunjin's hands and handing them off to whoever wanted them.
"So much effort into pizza sorting. Are you trying to impress me or something?" Minho teased.
"Puh-lease," Sam said after he swallowed his mouthful. "Not everything I do is to impress you, just most things. I'm experienced with uh… pizzas, and sorting them, so it only made sense for me to take the lead."
Minho blinked at this revelation. Sam didn't work at a pizza joint… did he? Surely he would've brought that up by now.
"I have every single Good Pizza, Great Pizza achievement," Sam grinned, and Minho was reminded that he never should've had expectations. Good or bad. High or low. Because no matter what, Sam defied those expectations in the weirdest ways. "That game is peak. I don't care what anyone says." Without waiting for a reply, he all but skipped his way to the cooler — probably to get another pineapple cruiser.
"Your brother is weird," Minho said as he and Hyunjin grabbed their pizza, being the last two to serve themselves.
"You're telling me," Hyunjin replied. "I'm way less weird, by the way. You wouldn't have to deal with as much weirdness if you picked me."
"True," Minho agreed, throwing an empty box into the now overflowing recycling bin. "But I could also find someone else and not have to deal with weirdness from either of you."
Before Hyunjin could say something that matched the slight indignation in his expression, Sam cut him off. All the way from the lounge room.
"Felix Lee?"
As they couldn't hear anything else after that, the two of them made their way back to the lounge. Though Hyunjin's eyebrows furrowed in something that looked like thought.
They walked in to Felix and Sam dapping each other up, and as if on cue, Sam turned to Hyunjin and spoke, "Do you remember Felix? He used to skate at Eldon Ice Arena too."
Hyunjin started at who Minho assumed to be Felix, the guy that brought tequila, as Chan had said. He was crazy pretty.
"I wasn't blond back then, if that helps," Felix chuckled. "I was a figure skater first, then I joined your peewee team for a few months. Probably the worst forward under thirteens had ever seen."
It clicked, and Sam laughed from his place on the couch as the two of them immediately started catching up. Minho let them be, making his way to the cooler and grabbing a drink for Hyunjin, given he was caught up with Felix, and Sam, who'd inserted himself back into the conversation.
"—Don't even play anymore. It's just Sam now." Minho heard Hyunjin say. He handed him the pineapple cruiser before sitting on the couch. As far away from Sam as possible. "Thank you," Hyunjin said, his cheeks heating up. Probably, it was hard to tell in the dim light.
Sam just scooted until he was inches away from Minho, anyway. Because, of course he did. He just ignored him in favour of finishing his pizza.
"Are you any good? You must be if you still do it, right?" Felix asked.
"I mean, yeah," Sam shrugged, and Minho almost fell off the couch because there was no way Sam "Hockey Player" Hwang was being humble in front of him.
"This is the one thing you get to brag about," Hyunjin protested. "Stop being humble."
And that's when they started bickering, and Minho could tell all the memories of them doing the same thing were flooding to the forefront of Felix's mind. That's also when Minho found out both Sam and Hyunjin got in on scholarships, athletic and academic respectively.
If Sam was good enough to get in on scholarship, maybe Minho would have to make it to one of his games. Just to see. He'd confirm with himself whether he would actually do that when he wasn't two-and-a-half beers deep. Which wasn't a lot, but he needed to be rational when making decisions like those.
Soon enough, more and more people joined the conversation. Chan's crowd meshing with Minho's, and soon, all twenty-or-so people were in the lounge room chatting it up while Felix and Chan poured everyone shots. Apparently, Felix, Jisung, and the collar guy — Seungmin — were in a polycule. Seungmin played baseball, hence the jacket Felix was wearing, which made more sense since a few moments ago he'd said he only dances. The collar, however, was because Seungmin lost a bet he made with Changbin. Who Minho had seen around, given that he was doing music too.
To Seungmin's chagrin, Changbin had to miss tonight's festivities to take care of his sick boyfriend. Because — and Minho quotes — "he's whipped as hell".
Seungmin's words, not his.
"Sounds familiar," Hyunjin said from the floor space directly in front of Minho. Not looking at him, but still giggling as he leaned against Minho's leg.
Minho had half a mind to move his leg and watch Hyunjin fall on his side, but that would be a bit extreme, so begrudgingly he let the younger lean on his leg. That's when someone pulled out two packs of Uno, and the real party started.
By the time Hyunjin got up and walked to the kitchen, Minho wasn't sure how much time had passed. He was too busy talking to Chan's friends to keep track of the time. The one thing he does know is that Jisung, Felix, and Seungmin had all now followed him on Instagram, and he'd followed them back.
Maybe this was why Chan enjoyed throwing parties so much. Maybe he loved his friends becoming friends with each other, like some sort of friendship cuck.
Minho giggled at the thought as he walked up to Hyunjin, and he didn't even realise he did it out loud until he turned his head away from the sink to look at him. "What's so funny, hyung?"
"Nothing," he hummed, throwing his beer can into the recycling bin. One more beer can in a sea of… even more beer cans. And glass bottles.
"Bye, Minho and Hyunjin! It was nice meeting you!" Luna — a violinist who was in the same ensemble class as Minho — called, waving at them as she and two of her friends walked towards the door. The two friends in question waved to Minho and Hyunjin, and they yelled their goodbyes too.
"I ordered an Uber for Sam and me already," Hyunjin said. "It's five minutes away. Sorry, I would stay longer, but I've got assignments to do tomorrow, and I'm sure Sam does too."
"You don't have to apologise, I get it," Minho assured him. It was pushing midnight, so no wonder people were filtering out slowly. Two people from Minho's ensemble class last year were the next two to go, another one of Chan's slow, sultry tracks being the background music of their departure.
"I'm gonna break the news to Sam."
Hyunjin chucked his last bottle in the bin before walking right up to his brother. Minho didn't follow, but it was clear Hyunjin told him they were going soon, given Sam's whining, "No… but I'm having so much fun."
"I know, I know, I'm the worst brother in the whole wide world for ordering an Uber."
"I didn't say that."
"Look, it's here in one minute," Hyunjin showed Sam his phone screen, who was yet to get up from his spot on the couch. "Come on."
With a whine, Sam let Hyunjin lift him up. The two of them bid their goodbyes to the handful of people left, and Minho felt obligated to see them out. Make sure they got to the car safely. It was a treacherous journey of a few metres, after all. Mumbling something about his Uber rating, Hyunjin made his way to the car pretty much as soon as it pulled up to the curb, not before he threw Minho a smile, thanked him for the party and waved goodbye.
Sam, however, did not share the same sense of urgency or care for his brother's Uber rating. Instead, he didn't even step outside before he turned back around to look at Minho.
"No goodbye kiss?" He asked, pouting.
Minho blinked at him. "Get out of my house."
For some reason, he just giggled, "Okay, hyung. I'll message you tomorrow, probably."
"Please don't."
"I will."
"Do your assignments, Hwang," Minho called as Sam turned around and walked the few metres to the Uber waiting at the curb.
"I will. I'm an excellent multitasker."
With that, he got into the car, and the door slammed shut behind him.
Finally, silence.