Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‘’Sungie, this is the second time this week,’’ Minho grumbled out, placing his phone on his pillow before plopping his head onto it, ‘’Can’t it wait?,’’

’’Hyung! But there’s a full moon and it looks so cool outside!,’’ Jisung’s voice squealed through the speaker.

Despite his groggy state, Minho managed to snort.

Jisung was so adorable.

The calls in the middle of the night… not so much, but Minho couldn’t bring himself to be genuinely upset with the boy.

By now he had gotten somewhat used to it. After all, it had been about two years now so how couldn’t he?

He still vividly remembered how Chan had dragged him along to one of his ‘gatherings’ – the guy knew that using the word ‘party’ was enough to scare Minho off - and abandoned him after introducing him to Jisung, a strange grin on his face and a thumbs up to Jisung.

The boy was about two years younger and a newbie in college but they had somehow hit it off. One thing had led to another and now Minho was stuck with a hyper-active kid with sleeping problems whom liked to call him at insane hours every now and then.

But that was fine.

Because it was Jisung.

‘’We’re people, Jisung, not werewolves,’’ Minho rasped out, trying really hard to keep the amusement out of his voice because he didn’t want to egg the younger on, ‘’And I’m pretty sure you should be asleep,’’

He closed his eyes again and listened how Jisung shifted and something fell on the floor with a thud and a soft, high-pitched squeal.

Minho rolled on his back and gripped the phone again, eyes drooping as he stared at the small beam of silver light peeking through his curtains.

‘’Don’t tell me you fell off the bed again…,’’

There was a silence and more rustling.

’’I will neither confirm nor deny that statement,’’ Jisung mumbled and Minho could already imagine the boy’s face turning red from embarrassment.

For someone so nimble and quick on his feet, Jisung sure was a bit clumsy. At this point Minho wasn’t even surprised anymore whenever the younger would walk into the same lamppost on the way to their favourite café almost every god damn time, or how the boy would accidently knock something over in Minho’s dorm as the younger chased one of Minho’s cats, or how he shut down his laptop without saving his document.

That one had happened too many times.

’’But back to the topic!,’’ Jisung chuckled, ’’It’s Friday night anyways. You can spend the whole of Saturday morning sleeping in. Just come out and stop being such a buzzkill,’’

It was really hard to say no, but the boy needed to learn that Minho couldn’t come running every time he called.

He did.

But it was time to stop spoiling the younger.

‘’I decline. Now, if you’ll excuse me, its three in the morning and I’m gonna go back to sleep,’’ Minho replied, proud of how steadfast he had sounded.

’’No no wait!. Please Hyung!, ‘’

Oh no.

Minho could freaking hear the boy pout.

’’I promise it will be the last time…’’

No no no.

’’Please? For me?’’

For fucks sake.

‘’Okay okay!,’’ Minho rushed out, facepalming himself for giving in so easily one again, ‘’Give me ten minutes,’’

Jisung practically screeched through the phone and Minho had to distance the device to protect his ears.

’’You are officially my favourite hyung! Chan, move over, you ain’t nothing compared to Min!,’’

Minho’s heart did a little loop but that was nothing new.

Just like the phone calls, he had gotten quite used to that feeling.

It did the same thing whenever Jisung would skip over to him at campus, or smiled at him with that adorable smile, or when he found Jisung knocked out in one of the studios at school, or when the younger would roll himself up in Minho’s blanket and turn into a human-burrito.

He had about a million more examples.

‘’Damn right I am,’’ Minho snorted, ‘’I would kick your ass to Antarctica if Chan still held first place,’’

’’Now don’t get cocky Mister. I can revoke that title any time I please and right now I don’t think you are being grateful enough,’’

Minho groaned, ‘’Don’t push it, cupcake,’’

A soft giggle came from the other side and there went his heart again. If Minho had to point out his absolute favourite thing about Jisung, it would be his giggles.

’’Sorry, sorry,’’ Jisung whispered out, ’’End of experiment,’’

‘’What experiment?,’’ Minho asked, heaving himself up and reaching for the little light on the nightstand.

Light flooded his room and he had to try really hard to keep a hiss inside.

’’Nothing, See you in ten then?,’’

Minho just hummed and with a little ‘bye bye’ Jisung hung up.

The lengths he went through for the younger…

He deserved an award.

Fifteen minutes later he was standing in front of Jisung’s dorm, eyes stinging from the fluorescent light in the hallway.

He was lucky Jisung lived just one dorm building away because he was pretty sure that one of his professors had once dropped the number of people disappearing near campus and Minho didn’t fear much, but that didn’t mean being outside at this time of night was something he liked.

Jisung, on the other hand, had a thing for taking random walks at night.

And how could Minho let the boy wander around on his own?

As much as he dreaded taking walks at weird ass times at night, he was glad that Jisung had gotten into the habit of calling him whenever the younger felt like going out.

From what Chan had told him before, Jisung had the habit of disappearing at night for as long as Chan had known him and not responding to messages, which had always ended up with the rest of his friends huddled in one room together, anxiously waiting for Jisung to get back.

Chan had informed him about one specific incident where he had gotten a call from a very distressed Jisung, the boy utterly lost after following a cat into an alleyway and having the feeling that someone was watching him.

Not that Minho was very confident in his fighting-skills but at least he stood a better chance than Jisung, the boy who basically drowned in Minho’s hoodies and more often than not looked like the wind could blow him away at any time.

If someone wanted to get to Jisung, they’d have to get through Minho first.

Very fucking dramatic but in his defence, he did do theatre back in high school.

He got pulled out of his thoughts when the door flew open and Minho didn’t even have the chance to say hi before Jisung threw himself at him, practically hanging off Minho’s neck.

Who was Minho to deny the boy his hug?

So he let Jisung almost choke him to death and wrapped his arms around the boy’s waist.

‘’Hey!,’’ the younger chuckled before finally letting go.

Minho didn’t and it left Jisung leaning back and giggling once more.

‘’This better be worth leaving my bed for,’’ Minho grumbled before smiling at the boy.

Jisung nodded frantically, a few locks of hair falling into his eye. The younger scrunched his nose and squinted his eyes in response and even though the boy didn’t look quite attractive like that, Minho thought he was the cutest. It was purely on instinct that Minho let one harm slip away from the younger and reached out to push Jisung’s hair out of his face, gently tucking it behind his ear.

For a second all he could see was Jisung’s eyelashes flutter and he couldn’t help but lean in a bit, trying to see those specks of ember a bit closer.

Then Jisung’s breath fanned his cheek and Minho’s heart was about ready to jump out of his chest when he realised what the fuck he was doing, but Jisung just stood there with sparkling eyes and a gentle smile, looking at Minho like he’s patiently waiting for the older to do something.

Minho was sure his mind was playing tricks with him so he backed off and let Jisung go. He was almost sure he saw the boy’s eyes dull for a split second before they came back to life, leaving Minho thinking that he was seeing things.

‘’Well,’’ Jisung started, almost beaming at Minho now, ‘’Let’s go!,’’

The younger spun around to close his door before skipping down the hall but Minho found himself frozen in place.

‘’Are you coming?,’’

He snapped out of it and turned his head to find Jisung near the end of the hallway, looking at Minho expectantly.

‘’I’m not going to wait for forever for you hyung,’’

Jisung was smiling sheepishly at him, but something in his voice sounded strangely ominous to Minho and the words sounded terrifyingly insinuating.

The next thing he knew, Jisung was next to him again and took his hand.

That was new.

It didn’t happen that much that he suddenly got hit by something new Jisung did but when it did, his body locked up and his heart raced like it needed to win some kind of contest.

‘’I was just kidding. I’ll always wait,’’ Jisung almost whispered, eyes sparkling as they darted across Minho’s face, almost like he was searching for something.

The older was left speechless at that because his brain thought it was funny to interpret it in probably a different way than Jisung had intended.

‘’End of experiment,’’ Jisung muttered under his breath as if it wasn’t meant for Minho to catch up on it.

He did.

‘’Okay, why do you keep saying that?,’’ Minho asked as he squeezed the younger’s hand, ‘’What experiment are you conducting?,’’

Jisung laughed loudly and shook his head, tugging Minho forward. The older almost stumbled over his feet but Jisung turned out to be a bit more sturdy than he came to know and tightened his hold on his hand, keeping him up.

‘’Not telling you because where would the fun be in that?,’’ Jisung giggled, ‘’I’m betting on you figuring it out yourself,’’

About ten minutes later Minho found himself sitting on a random patch of grass in the park next to campus with Jisung’s head on his legs and Minho’s jacket hung around the younger.

It wasn’t that cold outside but Jisung had complained about it right after they’d stepped outside so naturally, Minho had rolled his eyes and shrugged off his jacket, throwing it in Jisung’s face.

‘’Hyung, do you see those four stars lined up?,’’ Jisung asked, pointing up at the sky.

Minho looked up, squinting to see where the younger was pointing at exactly.

‘’Do you see it?,’’

The older shook his head and let himself fall on his back to relieve his neck. He squinted his eyes even more and did his best to follow where Jisung was pointing at and then finally he spotted three bright stars forming a crooked line.

‘’Oh! I see them,’’ Minho rushed out, feeling slightly giddy he had actually managed to find them in the mass of stars.

‘’Nice,’’ Jisung chuckled, ‘’And now, if you look at the second star from the top and go left, you should be able to see two more stars. Same goes for the right. Actually, imagine wings,’’

Minho didn’t quite see it. There were too many stars that all seemed to be as bright as each other and he had no idea which ones to focus on.

‘’This is impossible,’’ he sighed, letting his fingers run through the grass under his hands, ‘’I don’t know how you do it,’’

Jisung giggled and startled Minho by doing one full roll, ending up with his head laying on the older’s stomach now. Minho really hoped the boy wouldn’t end up on his chest because he would definitely hear how fast his heart was beating and question him about that.

But Jisung stayed where he was and Minho let out a relieved sigh.

In general, being around Jisung calmed him down and made him feel a bit doped-up but on the rare occasion, the severity of his ‘crush’ on the younger run over him like a train and left him the complete opposite.

A little breathless, a little shaky, a little too aware, a little too hot.

Like right now.

‘’By the way, I read this morning that there will be a meteor shower next week,’’ Jisung said softly, pulling his knees up, ‘’But of course we live on the wrong hemisphere and we won’t be able to see it,’’

A huff followed – something like a whine mixed in – and Minho didn’t even need to look at Jisung to see the disappointment on his face.

His fingers found the younger’s head and he ran them through Jisung’s hair, smiling at himself when he felt the boy moving his head to follow his hand much like Minho’s cats did.

He wondered how long it would take for him to explode. At this point he was one big ticking timebomb, ready to go off at any given moment.

‘’Cute,’’ Minho muttered, focussed on a particular tangle in the younger’s hair.

Jisung rolled his head to look at him and Minho groaned inwardly when the younger’s cheeks looked even puffier than normal now that Jisung was sending him a toothy grin.

But like always, he pushed it away and mirrored Jisung’s smile.

And as he saw Jisung staring up at the moon in wonder shortly after that, listing random facts about supernovas and black holes, Minho couldn’t help but fall in love a bit more.

If that was even possible at this point.

‘’You, my friend, are so hopelessly in love that it almost concerns me,’’ Chan snorted as he shook his head, ‘’I can’t believe Jisung himself hasn’t noticed it yet,’’

Minho stopped his chewing to glare at the older. Chan didn’t seem all that impressed and just shook his head, wiggling his brows while he was at it.

‘’I’m not in love with anyone,’’ Minho muttered, shoving another dumpling in his mouth.

As soon as he had walked into the food court about ten minutes ago, he had become the topic of conversation. It had started to annoy him because nowadays he couldn’t even greet his friends before they’d start interrogating him, keen on knowing every detail about his non-existent romantic relationship with Jisung.

‘’Just stop it. It’s so obvious that it’s painful for everyone,’’ Hyunjin taunted.

Minho let out a huff and let his chopsticks fall on his tray, shuffling closer to Hyunjin in a swift move to get the other into a headlock.

‘’I’m not in love with Jisung. Stop pushing it,’’

Hyunjin just giggled and made a futile attempt to free himself.

‘’Well, if you don’t make a move soon,’’ Hyunjin snickered, ‘’I might give it a shot. Jisung’s really cute and totally my type, honestly,’’

Minho froze for a second before he snapped his head back to Hyunjin, ‘’I think the fuck not. Stay away from my squirrel, you heathen!,’’

Then Hyunjin started laughing – probably catching everyone’s attention - and Minho figured he had fallen for the guy’s trap. He let his arms slip away and he let out a loud groan as he facepalmed himself.

‘’See?! You are so easy,’’ the other laughed out, ‘’Man you should have seen your face! If looks could kill…,’’

‘’Yeah yeah we get it, I’m fucking in love with Jisung,’’ Minho hissed, ‘’Now shut the fuck up,’’

Chan and Hyunjin stilled and Minho was expecting more teasing now that he had actually admitted it out loud, but he saw his friends’ eyes dart from him to something behind him.

Or rather, someone.

‘’What are you guys talking about?,’’

Minho spun around and came face-to-face with the exact topic of their ‘conversation’, Jisung cutely blinking at him and his head tilted ever so slightly in curiosity.

Of course.

Things couldn’t get more cliché if you asked Minho.

Hyunjin apparently thought differently.

‘’Well, this guy here finally admitted to us that he’s in lo-,’’

Minho managed to slap his hand over Hyunjin’s mouth and successfully cut him off, just a string of muffled groans coming from the younger. Jisung still stood there, blinking in confusion as he shifted his weight to his heels and back and looking oh so adorable.

Minho should keep a tally and see just how many times a day Jisung made his heart do a loop-die-loop. It would be a pathetically high number, that he was sure of.

Hyunjin decided to lick his palm and Minho retracted his hand in disgust, ‘’Ew, what the fuck!,’’

Minho wiped his hand on his jeans to get rid of the moisture and Hyunjin just cackled as he swerved to the left to evade Minho’s hands and got up from the bench before sauntering off.

‘’Why is he such a four-year-old? Why am I even friends with that idiot,’’ Minho grumbled to himself, still rubbing his hand against his jeans.

Jisung broke out of his confusion and dared to giggle at Minho’s displeased expression, taking a step closer to pet Minho’s head.

‘’There, there,’’ the boy cooed, sounding much like he was talking to a child, ‘’No need to get upset,’’

And just like that, Minho felt his muscles relax and Hyunjin’s annoying antics were quickly forgotten. He let the boy pet him for a bit longer before he had had enough, gently swatting his hand away.

‘’Wait, don’t you have class on the other side of campus? What are you doing here?,’’ Minho asked as he took a hold of Jisung’s arm, tugging him down to sit next to him on the bench.

‘’We called it quits early,’’ the boy explained as he picked up Minho’s chopsticks and snatched a dumpling from Minho’s tray, ‘’So I’m probably going to the studio with Chan and Changbin later,’’

Chan seemed to get back to life with that and sprung up, knocking into the table and scrambling to keep his bottle of water from tipping over.

‘’I forgot my hard drive!,’’

And just like that, Chan sped off as well.

The guy would even forget his head if it hadn’t been attached to his body, not even kidding.

He snapped back to the boy sitting next to him when he heard Jisung hum under his breath, wiggling a bit and thereby brushing against Minho.

Minho had to try his best not to coo at the younger when he stuffed the dumpling in his mouth and chewed slowly, his hair falling in his eyes once again. And of course Minho couldn’t resist reaching out gently tucking it behind the younger’s ear. It was getting quite long and most people would call it unkept, but to Minho it was just right.

His hand lingered a bit too long but he had just caught sight of the dangling earring, his fingers finding their way to the piece of jewellery brushing Jisung’s neck.

Two delicate chains – one a bit shorter than the other – with a tiny sparkling star at the bottom of the longer one. Simple yet eye-catching. Very Jisung, if you asked Minho.

Minho noticed how Jisung had stopped chewing and he could feel the younger’s eyes on him as he gently traced the silver chain with the star with his fingers.

‘’Pretty,’’ Minho muttered under his breath, lingering a bit more before he slowly retracted his hand and looked at Jisung.

The younger was looking at him with those sparkles in his eyes again and Minho smiled when his eyes fell on the slight blush on Jisung’s cheeks.

‘’Thanks,’’ the younger replied almost inaudible before he turned back to face the table and continued chewing, the corners of his lips turned up slightly.

A comfortable silence fell over them after that, Minho leaning on the table to look at Jisung stealing the remaining dumplings.

He was sure that he was smiling like an idiot but he just couldn’t help it. Being around Jisung just felt right and warm and made him forget about everything he wanted to forget about for a moment. No stress about that paper he still had to write, no stress about having to make it to the end of the month with the lousy pay he got, no stress about his weird-ass dormmate whose room smelled nauseatingly sweet most of the time, etcetera.

Happy.

He felt genuinely happy when he was around the younger.

Minho had figured that out somewhere back in spring last year, if he remembered correctly.

Well, in hindsight he had known it for longer than that, but he stopped fretting about it after Jisung had showed up at his doorstep with two drenched kittens hidden underneath his denim jacket. Not only that, but Jisung looked like he had taken a swim with his clothes on as well and he had mud smudged across his face and in his hair.

He had kicked Jisung to the shower with a change of clothes. After that he had learned that Jisung had been on his way home from Felix’s place when he had heard distressed sounds near a drain next to a pond.

And being the sweet angel Jisung was, he had ventured down the muddy slope in an attempt to check it out, but of course he had slipped into the water.

However, he had still managed to fish the kittens out from where they had been stuck.

Why he had come to Minho instead of his own dorm, Minho didn’t quite get but he liked to think it wasn’t simply because Jisung knew he was a little bit obsessed with cats.

In the end, Minho had wrapped the boy up in about a dozen blankets to help him stop shivering – which he for some reason had still been doing even after the shower – before scrambling to make a makeshift bed for the two kittens.

And the epiphany that he was very much in love with Jisung came when the boy had finally stopped shivering after Minho had pulled him into bed, the younger snuggled up to him.

Minho had already been half asleep when he felt Jisung shift and grip the front of Minho’s shirt, slurring something about how he could only fall asleep fast when Minho was next to him.

Needless to say, Minho had been on the verge of tears as the younger dozed off in his arms, seemingly going to make a solid eight hours for the first time in weeks.

The next morning he had woken up to the whining of two kittens and Jisung’s hair tickling his nose and it was right then and there that he had noticed the shift. His head felt lighter now that he dared to admit he didn’t merely ‘like’ Jisung, the stress about the magnitude of his crush wasn’t this weight pressing down on his shoulders anymore.

‘’Hyung, stop smiling so creepily,’’ Jisung said and it was with a poke to his forehead that Minho snapped back into reality.

‘’I’m not smiling creepily,’’ He retorted, swatting Jisung’s hand away from his head, ‘’I was just… reminiscing,’’

The younger snorted as pulled one leg up on the bench as he turned his body. It made Jisung look even more like a squirrel than he normally did and Minho almost melted into a puddle.

‘’That makes you sound like an old man,’’ Jisung chuckled, ‘’Which you are though,’’

Needles the say, Minho had taken advantage of the boy being ticklish, not letting the boy go before making sure he was wheezing for air and eyes full with tears of laughter.

And maybe he had drawn attention to them by doing so, but the stares were easy to ignore when Jisung’s heartfelt laughter was all he could hear.

It was about two weeks later when Minho realised that he had missed that Jisung was more stressed than he gave away.

In his defence, Jisung could be one hell of an actor if he wanted to be and his normally skittish and loud nature masked any underlaying stress.

The boy complained about things all the time and more often than not, he flitted and scurried around like the squirrel he was. It wasn’t all that weird to find the boy complaining loudly about some kind of project even though he would ace all his stuff all the damn time, or how he would wiggle in his chair as he studied, or how the boy would sometimes zone out in the middle of a conversation.

Not weird.

However, Minho had tried to get a hold of Jisung for two whole days now but none of his calls came through nor did it show the younger had opened any of his messages.

Same went for the rest of the group of friends. Apparently, no one had really talked to Jisung for over five days – Minho’s heart did another flip after finding out Jisung had only stopped responding to him two days ago, some twisted pride making him feel special - but they’d been too busy to properly seek the younger out.

He should have known what was going on when Jisung hadn’t called him awake last week.

It only clicked once he had heard Chan complain about the insane high standards for their midterms.

’’The man is crazy. How can we make three complete tracks, all a different genre, featuring two other people, in less than five weeks?,’’

And if genius composer Chan was almost having a mental breakdown, you could safely say that the others taking the course were definitely having a mental breakdown.

So that’s how Minho had found himself prying the key into the door of Jisung’s dorm because he knew the boy was there but didn’t open up no matter how many times he knocked.

He had managed to track down Jisung’s roommate – a pretty nice guy he shared one of his classes with – and the guy had pushed his key into Minho’s hands, even before Minho had even asked about Jisung.

That had been telling enough.

After some clumsy stabs, he pushed the key in and unlocked the door, quietly stepping in and closing the door.

‘’Sungie?,’’

The dorm was almost completely dark except from a blue-ish light coming from his left and Minho could already imagine the younger propped up on a chair in front of his laptop.

And indeed.

As soon as he shuffled around the corner he saw Jisung’s back as the boy sat behind his desk, bulky headphones on and practically drowning in the fabric of his black sweater.

Minho could see the producing-program running and the cursor flitting around the screen and he could hear the boy almost growl as he opened a panel and changed some numbers.

Minho found himself frozen in place, his heart sinking as he felt the tension radiating from the boy.

He wasn’t a stranger to stress – he had locked himself up plenty of times to make sure he’d make his deadlines – but seeing Jisung like that always felt like it was worse than it probably was.

Suddenly, Jisung let out a shaky breath and gripped the mouse as he hung his head down. It lasted for a second before the boy looked up again and planted his elbows on the desk, burying his face in his hands.

Minho unfroze and walked over to the boy, gently taking his headphones off. Jisung flinched ever so slightly but came out of hiding, turning his head to look up at Minho.

And god did the boy look wrecked. The blue light didn’t really help either. It flushed out any remaining bit of colour on Jisung’s face and instead of that beautiful sun-kissed tan, the younger was pale, almost grey.

His eyes seemed irritated from either the lack of sleep or the excessive staring at the screen.

‘’Oh Sungie,’ Minho muttered as he turned the boy’s chair and crouched down in front of him, placing his hands on Jisung’s knees.

The younger shrunk in on himself but didn’t break eye-contact as he wrapped his arms around himself.

Instead of eyes full of mischief and wonder, there was a certain dullness that made Minho want to punch something. He could feel the boy tremble slightly and he didn’t know whether Jisung was cold or if it was just the stress of everything but based on the shaking pupils, he concluded the latter.

He wanted to say everything that was on his mind, tell the boy how worried he was and how it wasn’t healthy to lock himself up like that, but he knew Jisung. He knew that the younger needed to somewhat relax first before any of Minho’s words would really come through.

That reminded him of the first time he had encountered Jisung in the middle of some sort of meltdown, just a few months after knowing him. They – the ragtag group of friends – had decided to meet up on a Saturday evening to help Felix rearrange some furniture in the dorm because the boy suddenly was interested in fengshui and promptly needed to move his bed to the other side of the room.

It was stupid, they all thought it was stupid, but Felix had been so serious about it that they hadn’t been able to say no, plus Felix had promised he’d order them food from the new chicken place that opened up on campus.

Jisung had been on board right from the get-go – anything for his twin - but failed to show up at the promised time. Minho hadn’t thought much of it, just like everyone else – he’d yet have to see the day Jisung actually showed up on time or early - but five minutes had turned into fifteen, then thirty and all the way to fifty.

No response, phone going directly to voicemail.

And even though Jisung never showed up on time, he always picked up their calls.

Needless to say, Minho had reached max-freakout-status and the rest quickly followed and the whole purpose of why they had gathered at Felix’s had been lost in their panic.

They had spit up and in the end, Minho had found the boy curled up in a corner in his favourite recording-studio on campus, crying uncontrollably and looking terribly defeated.

It had freaked him out even more and he had almost scrambled to the boy to figure out what was wrong – still in his right mind to text the guy he’d found Jisung, somewhat okay? – but managed to calmly pull the younger out of the corner and into his arms.

A handful of times of similar situations followed and Minho could call him an expert on Jisung now, almost able to make step by step guide on how to get Jisung to stop stressing and out of his head.

He got pulled out of his thoughts when he the boy jolted, almost whimpering as he took a quick glance at the screen of his laptop. Minho really wanted to shut it but knew better than to do that – he didn’t want to add to Jisung’s poor state by potentially ruining any unsaved work – so he tapped the boy’s knee to get his attention.

It took a couple of minutes of Minho gently tracing circles over the boy’s knees with his thumb – moving to the side of his thigh every now and then - before Jisung stopped trembling and unfolded himself, a tell-tale sign that the boy was too tired to keep up any kind of barrier.

‘’We were worried Jisung,’’ Minho found himself whispering, ‘’You just disappeared on us,’’

Jisung squeezed his hands and bit his lip. Minho noticed that the younger’s lip was a bit more swollen than usual, clearly because of the boy’s nervous habit and his heart clenched again.

He reached up and softly tapped the corner of the younger’s mouth, ‘’Don’t do that,’’

Jisung let go, now fiddling with his hands in his lap. The younger would always do that when he subconsciously needed comfort – contact – so Minho gently pried at his hands and held then in his own, noticing how cold they were.

They sat there in silence as he tried to get Jisung to calm down. It seemed to work when the boy cleared his throat after about five minutes.

‘’It’s not working,’’ was all Jisung whispered, his hair almost covering his eyes as he hung his head down, ‘’It doesn’t sound… right,’’

Minho wanted to ask the younger why he hadn’t called, why he hadn’t asked for help when he had promised to do so last time things had turned out this way, but he figured it would sound accusing to Jisung even if Minho didn’t mean it that way.

Instead, he took a deep inhale and got back on his feet, gently tugging the boy up and out of the chair. Minho could hear the boy’s knees crack – giving away how long he had been sitting in the same position - and he had to try his best not to wince.

‘’Did you eat dinner?,’’ he asked the younger, dragging Jisung behind him to get to the light switch.

He could let go but it felt wrong and Jisung’s grip on his hand was so tight that he was pretty sure the younger wouldn’t even let Minho go. He flipped the switch and when he turned back to Jisung, the boy looked a little more livelier now that the warm light was on, but it was a small comfort.

It was on complete impulse that he reached out and cupped the younger’s face, carefully swiping his thumbs over the boy’s cheekbones.

He heard Jisung let out a soft sigh before closing his eyes. Minho found himself smiling as Jisung leaned into the touch and he saw the younger’s shoulders relax.

The younger shook his head and stepped away from Minho, the latter’s hands slipping away. Jisung suddenly laughed nervously as he ran a hand through his hair, ‘’Sorry for not responding. I had kinda lost track of… everything?,’’

Minho let out a sigh and poked the boy’s forehead.

‘’You should be sorry,’’ he muttered, wrapping his arms around the boy to hug him close, ‘’God I feel like I age ten years every time you do this,’’

He felt Jisung grip onto the back of his shirt, dropping his head on Minho’s shoulder.

‘’I know. I’m sorry,’’ the younger whispered and Minho felt his breath fan the skin on his neck.

As they stood there, Minho realised how much he had missed Jisung. He hadn’t seen him for days and it was now that he was hugging the boy that he understood that he had missed being close to the younger, how much he missed hearing his voice and hugging him and his chubby cheeks and-

‘’Hyung, your heart is beating really hard,’’ Jisung sighed, pressing even closer.

Minho was sure it was only making his heart beat even harder but he chose to ignore it, just like Jisung’s statement.

‘’How about you shut down your laptop and go take a shower? We’re going out for dinner after that,’’ he said as he pulled away.

Jisung nodded and finally lifted his head again. The dullness was now almost gone and Minho was about to cry when the boy smiled shyly at him.

Then he saw the boy fiddling with the hem of his sweater. He feared that Jisung was still too on edge, but that fear vanished when Jisung suddenly placed his hands on his shoulders before leaning on the tips of his toes ever so slightly.

And then Jisung suddenly left the most feathery little kiss on his cheek before sinking back to his feet.

Minho was stunned. Absolutely baffled.

‘’T-thanks,’’ the younger stuttered, hands falling away from Minho’s shoulders.

‘’Yeah,’’ Minho whispered, focussed on the younger’s eyelashes as he blinked, ‘’Sure,’’

Jisung gave a sharp nod before speeded off to the bathroom – grabbing some random clothes off his bed on the way there - and shut the door with a loud bang, startling Minho back to reality.

Still, it took the sound of the shower running for Minho to realise what the fuck just happened.

Jisung, Han fucking Jisung had just kissed his cheek.

It was stupid how Minho felt his face heath up now that his brain was exaggerating the touch of Jisung’s lips on his skin – it had barely been there, but semantics – like he was some ten-year-old who’d never had such contact before.

Half an hour and one Jisung-induced meltdown later, Minho was walking down the street with Jisung practically hanging off his arm. It made him a bit more anxious than it normally would’ve, but that wasn’t his fault. Maybe it was, but it was Jisung’s fault.

Minho glanced at the younger and Jisung didn’t seem to be stuck on his previous actions and leaned against him as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

And it was, but it somehow felt like the boy was gluing himself closer than ever before. However, that was probably just wishful thinking on Minho’s part.

They had been silent as soon as they had left Jisung’s dorm until the boy suddenly spoke up.

‘’How did you get in?,’’ Jisung asked as he turned his head to look at Minho, cheek squished against the older’s shoulder.

Cool.

Totally not adorable or something.

Minho let out a questioning hum and snapped his head back to look in front of him, convinced he was going to get a heart attack if he didn’t.

Jisung tightened his hold on the older’s arm, ‘’How did you get into my dorm?

The question was expected but what was Minho supposed to say? That he had lowkey freaked out and ran around campus to find Jisung’s dormmate? How he had embarrassed himself by running into a glass door he had expected he needed to push instead of pull? That he had been close to tears of relief when he had sprinted up the stairs to Jisung’s dorm with the key in his pocket?

‘’Wait, did you have a key? We only have two?,’’ Jisung spoke, interrupting his train of thought, ‘’… Do you have a key? Did you replicate it? Don’t tell me you’re some kind of stalker? Oh my god! If that’s the case I really need someone to slap some sense into me,’’

What the boy meant with that, Minho didn’t know and frankly didn’t care.

‘’I’m not a stalker,’’ Minho huffed before lightly swatting the boy’s head with his free hand, ‘’I tracked down your dormmate and he threw the key in my face as soon as he saw me,’’

’’I tried to get him to fucking stop working for a few hours but he won’t listen to a measly dormmate. Time to send the big guns’’

Jisung chuckled before letting out a long sigh, ‘’Of course he did… he kept bothering me for days,’’

‘’Not bothering, caring. I wasn’t kidding when I said we were worried,’’

‘’Can we not talk about it right now? I had lowkey forgot about it now that you’re here and I’m suddenly very hungry,’’ Jisung whined, rubbing his cheek against Minho’s shoulder again, ‘’Where are we going anyways?,’’

Minho found himself smiling after hearing he somehow had managed to make Jisung forget whatever he had been locking himself up for.

‘’Well, I so happen to know this exquisite establishment that I recon would be quite lovely to escort you to,’’ Minho replied, trying to sound as posh as possible.

Jisung’s eyes lit up for about two seconds before he deflated again, face morphing into fake annoyance, ‘’It’s the seven-eleven, isn’t it?,’’

‘’It’s the seven-eleven,’’ Minho deadpanned.

Jisung giggled as he shook his head. Minho didn’t miss how Jisung’s shy smile turned into a beaming grin before he straightened out his face and held his chin up a tad bit higher.

‘’Well then, good Sir,’’ Jisung spoke up, eyes almost back to sparkling like usual, ‘’It would be a pleasure to have you accompany me. Please lead the way to this exquisite establishment,’’

The boy let one of his hands slip away from Minho’s arm and to his hand instead. Minho shot an eyebrow up, ready to ask what Jisung was doing, but then the younger slotted their fingers together.

Minho jerked his hand back on instinct – and maybe because his heart skipped a beat – and almost elbowed Jisung in the face while doing so.

The younger’s eyes grew before they narrowed, his gaze now on the stones of the sidewalk.

There hung an uncomfortable silence that grew thicker the more seconds passed and Minho could see the boy shrink into himself once more, hands balled in tight fists and lip trapped between his teeth again.

Shit.

Minho had not intended to react that violently, neither had he meant to cut off all physical contact with Jisung and he chastised himself for reacting the way he did when he wanted nothing more than to hold hands with the boy.

Jisung was most certainly not in the right place for such a hard rejection right now.

‘’It’s the one near the corner right?,’’ the boy suddenly rushed out, voice strained with uncertainty.

Minho managed to give stiff nod and even though Jisung wasn’t looking at him, the boy got the answer and stalked away.

He thought he heard Jisung whisper ‘’End of experiment’’ again and this time it sounded shaky and dejected.

The poor boy looked so defeated – arms almost wrapped around himself - that Minho felt the guilt instantly. It’s not like didn’t want to hold hands, but he had just been caught off guard. Which was really stupid because it wasn’t something new, but the feeling of the younger’s lips on his cheek was very much still occupying Minho’s mind.

By now Jisung was a good seven meters ahead of him and Minho could see him shrinking into himself the bigger the distance got.

So with that, he sped up his walk and took a hold of Jisung’s hand as soon as he was close enough. The younger stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at him, eyes blown wide in confusion.

Once again, the older acted on complete impulse and leaned forward, placing a soft kiss on Jisung’s temple. He heard the younger’s breathing still and his own heart was suddenly up in his throat.

‘’Come on,’’ Minho whispered as he retreated, gently tugging the boy forward.

Jisung nodded and hung his head down and for a second Minho was afraid he had screwed up again, but then he saw the younger smile ever so softly.

The uncomfortable feeling up his throat was gone and before he knew it, Jisung was back to clinging onto him, humming softly to himself as they made their way down the street.

And maybe, Minho might’ve let go of the boy’s hand at one point to swing his arm over his shoulders, pulling Jisung a bit closer.

And maybe, Jisung might’ve sneaked his arm around the older’s waist, gluing himself to Minho even more, going as far as gripping onto his jacket and mumbling something about how the older

Minho’s heart did many flips that night.

But that was okay because he might’ve ended up falling asleep with Jisung snuggled up to him, a random documentary about the milky way still running on his laptop.

Two weeks.

Two weeks and the nightly phone-calls had been back in full swing again, even more frequent than before.

Minho was cold and tired but of course he was standing in a park in the dead of night, looking on as Jisung had himself latched onto a tree. The fifth one, actually, but whatever.

Still five too many in Minho’s opinion.

‘’You are so weird,’’ Minho muttered to himself as he saw the boy move from the fifth to the sixth tree, chuckling as he introduced himself to said tree before hugging it enthusiastically.

Sometimes he was concerned for Jisung’s sanity, they all were, but that was just Jisung. At this point he was somewhat used to it. However, that didn’t mean that some requests weren’t surprising.

In his sleepy state, he had wondered if he had heard the boy correctly when he had almost screeched through the phone that he had just finished reading an article about ‘The mental benefits of becoming one with nature’ and that it was absolutely essential to go hug trees at a little over two AM.

Of course Minho had tried to deny the boy and hang up on him, but it wouldn’t be a normal night if he didn’t cave in. This time surprisingly easy, even to himself. Blaming the fact that Jisung had started reaching out for the older’s hand more frequently now - actively clinging onto him with every opportunity - was the way to go.

Minho had heaved himself out of bed for purely selfish reasons this time. With night came a more impulsive version of Jisung and Minho gladly indulged the boy when he was asking for cuddles or other forms of comfort.

‘’Hyung!,’’ Jisung whisper-yelled, catching Minho’s attention – was that the eight tree? – as he waved him over, ‘’Join me. It’s really nice!,’’

God did Minho adore Jisung’s child-like antics.

Because Minho knew he was too serious most of the time, he was always too focussed on moving forward, too stuck on the future to let himself live in the present for too long, forget about the past.

So maybe that was one of the reasons he liked Jisung so much. With the boy, he felt okay to let go and do stupid things like seeing who could stuff the most marshmallows in their mouth, or playing some random videogame with the loser having to call a random number and pretend to be the pizza-delivery guy, or hug trees in the middle of the night.

Tree number nine.

This was getting ridiculous.

‘’Sung, lets head back okay?,’’ Minho spoke up, checking his watch, ‘’It’s almost two-thirty in the morning,’’

Jisung let out a sigh as he let the tree go, waddling over to Minho with his arms flopping next to his side, pouting while doing so. Minho chuckled and ruffled the boy’s hair once he was close enough. Oddly enough, Jisung didn’t swat his hand away – the older knew Jisung didn’t like it when people messed with his hair – neither did he complain about Minho wanting to go back.

Odd, but he blamed it on the younger’s lack of sleep.

It didn’t take a lot to drag Jisung back to campus, the only disruption was when they had stepped into the dorm building, only to find out that the dingy elevator had called it quits, meaning they had to take the stairs and Jisung had complained about being too tired to get all the way to the fourth floor.

With a bit of tugging and promises of movies sometime this weekend, the boy let Minho drag him up the stairs. However, just as Minho was trying to pass the second – and thereby his own – floor, Jisung let go of his hand and stumbled out of the staircase.

‘’Jisung,’’ Minho whisper-yelled as he followed the boy out, ‘’This isn’t your floor,’’

The younger shrugged and came to a stop in front of Minho’s door, leaning against the wall as he rubbed his eyes. Almost like a little cat if you asked Minho.

Cute.

Unfortunately it didn’t last long.

The boy pushed himself off the wall with his hip and reached out to Minho, hand slipping into the older’s pocket.

‘’What are you doing?,’’ Minho rushed out as he held his breath, trying to ignore Jisung’s fingers grazing his leg.

‘’What do you think I’m doing? I’m inviting myself for an impromptu sleepover,’’ Jisung rolled his eyes, mischievous smile on his face as he continued digging through Minho’s pocket.

Not even a second later the boy wrestled Minho’s keys out of his pocket, eyes sparkling with victory.

‘’Hell no,’’ Minho deadpanned, ‘’I won’t get any sleep if I let you in. It may technically be Saturday but I don’t have time to sleep the day away,’’

Jisung didn’t seem to be all that sympathetic about it and turned his back to him, prying the key into the keyhole, ‘’Hyung, I’ll promise to keep my mouth shut,’’

That… wasn’t it. Well, it was partially, but that wasn’t it.

Sure, Jisung had slept over plenty of times but it had gotten significantly more difficult for Minho the more time passed. He was quite used to waking up with the younger sprawled over him, drool somewhere on his shirt and one of his limbs numb from Jisung cutting of the circulation with his weight.

What he couldn’t get used to was how the boy would blink in slow-motion as he woke up, or how he would smile shyly after noticing Minho was already awake and watching him wake up, or how the boy would either whisper a sweet ’’Good morning’’ or flat-out yell at him for staring and calling him a creep, or how Jisung would sway as he stumbled out of bed, or how he would almost trip because Minho’s sweatpants were too long for his legs…

Just to name a few things.

But Jisung was already in, leaving Minho behind in the hallway and the older knew once the boy was in, there was no way he could bring himself to kick him out.

So he shuffled inside with a small sigh.

‘’Hyung, I’m taking a shower and stealing your clothes,’’ the younger announced before disappearing out of the small living room.

‘’Sure,’’ Minho yelled after the boy as he shrugged his jacket off, ‘’Because you asked so politely,’’

There came a dismissive hum from his bedroom and then he heard his closet door slam shut, followed by the sound of the bathroom door locking.

Minho was glad that his dormmate had been gone ever since Thursday because even though the guy was very chill, he was sure the slamming of doors would’ve woken him up and let’s just say that his dormmate hated getting woken up.

Plus, the guy didn’t seem to like Jisung very much.

Weird guy.

How could someone not like Jisung?

He dragged himself to his bedroom, slipping out of his clothes like some snake dropping its skin and making his way over to his closet.

Showering could wait. He wasn’t going to take one at three in the morning when he had taken one right after dinner.

As he rummaged through his clothes for minutes, he noticed how his favourite shirt was missing and for a split second he feared that he had lost it or that it was in the laundry. He let out a groan as he pulled out a pair of sweatpants and slipped them on before making his way to the bathroom.

The shower was running but he knocked anyways, ‘’Sungie?,’’

A muffled ‘’Yeah?’’ came through the door and he heard the shower getting turned off.

‘’Have you seen my t-shirt? The striped one? Black and green?,’’

It was suspiciously quiet and he was about to repeat the question when he clearly heard the younger chuckle, ‘’Black and green? No idea,’’

‘’How do you mean, no idea?,’’ Minho replied, genuinely confused, ‘’It’s the one I wear all the time. You were even there when I bought it,’’

Another suspicious silence and then he heard Jisung hum something again. He waited and waited for the boy to respond but suddenly the bathroom door opened, revealing Jisung with his hair still damp and clad in the exact shirt Minho had asked him about.

For a second he questioned his vision but then the younger grinned at him.

‘’You snake,’’ Minho gasped, narrowing his eyes.

‘’it’s obviously a dark navy and azure blue,’’ Jisung pointed out, eyes glinting again.

Minho was about to call the boy colour-blind when he saw Jisung’s eyes wander over him and growing wider.

He followed the boy and remembered he wasn’t wearing a shirt. His first responds was to flush but when he looked back up, he saw Jisung’s head turned to the side, biting his lip again and a hint of red on his cheeks.

A wave of bravery made him take a little step closer to the boy, putting his hand against the doorframe and using the other to tilt Jisung’s chin upwards.

The younger looked properly panicked and blinked rapidly, his lips set in a straight line and face on fire.

‘’Is there something wrong cupcake?,’’ Minho managed to taunt, leaning closer until their noses were almost touching.

To be honest, Minho’s heart was hammering violently against his ribcage. He had never been so bold and he just wasn’t a very flirty person by nature. Sure, the occasional wink here and there was his trademark – Jisung had whined at him to stop doing that on multiple occasions now – but that was it.

Plus, Jisung looked even more gorgeous up close.

His eyelashes seemed even longer and eyes even prettier. Alluring was more like it. They were dark but getting a good look showed him that there were specks of a lighter brown around his pupils.

‘’Oh no, what happened to my Sungie?,’’ Minho continued, fake concern dripping from the words, ‘’Cat got your tongue sweetheart? Need me to help you find it?,’’

It seemed to snap the younger out of it and a hand landed on Minho’s chest, Jisung letting out an annoyed huff as he gave him a push.

‘’M-move,’’ the boy stuttered as he tried to get Minho to back off.

But the older wasn’t going down that easily.

He let his hand slip away from the younger’s chin and gripped Jisung’s wrist instead, stopping him from pushing by pulling him towards him.

By now they were so close that if any of them moved, their lips would touch and in the midst of Minho’s fake bravery, his mind came to a grinding halt at the realisation that it would be so easy to lean forward just a little bit more and kiss the boy.

Jisung didn’t seem to detest the closeness, if the way his muscles relaxed and breathing against Minho’s lips slowed was anything to go by.

And Minho found himself moving ever so slightly before he realised what the fuck he was doing.

He managed to divert his lips and landed a quick peck on the boy’s cheek instead.

Jisung let out a squeal and managed to free himself from Minho’s grip before ducking under his arms, running off to the living room while screeching a string of profanities at Minho.

His voice was too high-pitched and Minho knew the boy didn’t mean what he was saying. Flustered Jisung came with nonsensical rambling so he knew things were fine.

Something was tugging at Minho’s shirt. Or more precisely, someone.

And he knew exactly who that someone was but Minho was tired and didn’t want to open his eyes even though he could hear the birds already chirping outside.

He silently wished the younger would get the message but who was he kidding? Still, he tried to keep his breathing slow and not twitch when he felt the boy’s fingers graze his side, hoping Jisung would back off if he thought Minho was still asleep.

The tugging had now evolved to a finger poking his arm, soft but clear whispers of his name close to his ear.

He managed to keep it up for a couple of seconds more – how was the boy able to poke the exact same spot every time? – before a weight flopped down on his, effectively making him groan.

‘’I knew it!,’’ Jisung chuckled, ‘’You suck at acting,’’

Minho smiled despite the insult – for a former theatre kid it was - and the inability to take deep breaths, keeping his eyes closed because he wasn’t ready to get attacked by the light coming in through the windows or Jisung’s dishevelled hair and puffed up cheeks, ‘’I don’t know what you are talking about. I’m clearly asleep,’’

Jisung giggled and Minho sucked in a sharp breath at the sound, hating how the boy’s voice sounded a bit raspy and strained but still so light and airy after waking up.

The younger shifted and now lay completely on top of Minho, head laying on his chest and legs tangled together. Minho was glad he was still hazy from seep because he was sure he would have freaked out otherwise.

‘’Hyung, I got the results back from my midterms,’’ Jisung whispered out, voice muffled.

Minho peeled one eye open before he reached out and let his fingers run through the younger’s hair, ‘’Yeah? And?,’’

Jisung looked up and giggled again, poking the older’s obvious double-chin from trying to look down at the younger, ‘’Almost full marks,’’

‘’Of course cupcake,’’ Minho smiled, letting his head fall down on his pillow as he closed his eyes again, ‘’You stressed out for nothing again,’’

He heard a huff and Jisung shuffled up, his head now tucked away in Minho’s neck and one leg swung over his stomach. The younger’s arm had ended up across his chest, hand laying on his shoulder, ‘’I wasn’t stressed out,’’

Jisung’s breath fanned his neck and Minho almost jumped out of his skin. Instead he reached over and pulled the younger closer by his waist, ‘’Whatever floats your boat Sungie,’’
There was another huff and then nothing except for the younger’s breathing slowing down and muscles relaxing.

It took Minho a couple of minutes to noticed how his throat was screaming for water and how the circulation in one of his arms was getting cut off by the younger laying on top of it, but no way in hell he was going to move any time soon. It was comfortable and Jisung seemed to have dozed off again.

And when he heard the younger mumble some incoherent words and gripped his shirt a little bit tighter, Minho was sure there was no better way to spend his morning than this.

It was a month later that the soft spring weather had made way for an uncomfortable heath, the stones on the pavement making it at least a hundred times worse by reflecting the heath from the sun back up to their legs.

Things were always worse in the afternoon and even though everyone knew that, Minho had managed to drag Jisung out of the comforts of his airconditioned room. It took him the promise of free ice-cream but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

To be honest, Minho hadn’t really wanted to leave as soon as Jisung had opened the door and cool air had come rushing out of the room – he really needed to invest in an aircon too – but he had been bored and dying to do something that wasn’t the usual movie and take-out.

So here he was, sweating away in his flimsy t-shirt and basketball shorts, regretting not listening to Jisung’s plan of hanging out in his dorm.

There really weren’t any good points to this. Horrible idea. All he wanted now was to get back and take a shower and go live in his fridge.

Well.

There was one tiny little good thing about the situation and that was Jisung in a sleeveless top and ripped denim shorts. Another good thing that came with summer was that the boy’s slightly tanned skin became almost a golden brown and made him glow even more than he already did.

Minho was aware he had been staring at Jisung and not paying attention to the iced americano in his hand, but Jisung was being his clumsy self again and struggled severely to keep his melting ice cream from dripping onto his fingers.

At some point the boy had started to waddle with his legs apart and back slightly bend over and as funny as it was, Minho couldn’t ignore how the pastel-green of the melting mint-choco contrasted beautifully with Jisung’s skin.

To make matters worse, in one of their recent nightly adventures Jisung had demanded for Minho to dye his hair. It was supposed to be a strawberry blonde but neither of them were experienced when it came to the job and so they had left the bleach in for a bit too long. As a result, the younger’s hair was now a golden platinum and Minho was glad it turned out that way.

Long story short; Jisung look good. Really good.

Especially with the sun beating down on him.

Minho looked on as the younger slowed down until he almost came to a stop, so incredibly focussed on his ice cream that he hadn’t even noticed.

‘’Sung, we could just go find a bench or something,’’ Minho snorted, finally remembering the drink in his hand and taking a sip, ‘’You look ridiculous,’’

The younger turned his head and gave him a sly smile, ‘’Why have you been staring at me when I look ridiculous then?,’’

Minho almost choked on a sip of his americano. Straight to his windpipe.

‘’Because you look stupid with your ice cream. Are you a four-year-old? Why do you struggle so much?,’’ Minho retorted, ignoring the mischievous glint in the younger’s eyes.

Jisung shrugged, ‘’Doesn’t explain why you have been staring ever since I opened my door,’’

‘’I don’t know what you’re talking about,’’ Minho coughed out, ‘’Maybe the heath is getting to you,’’

The younger laughed loudly and continued walking, ‘’End of experiment,’’

Minho felt utterly defeated and called out but right when he took a step again, Karma seemed to hit and Jisung tripped over his own feet right in front of him, his ice cream cone catapulting out of his hands.

The younger let out a shriek and managed to catch himself with his hands before crashing onto his back.

For a second Minho wanted to scream in his face how he had deserved it – which he really hadn’t – but the laugh died on its way out when Jisung rolled on his side and curled up, a string of cuss words filling the air.

Minho rushed over and crouched down next to the boy, getting a hold of his arms and heaving him to sit up.

‘’Are you okay?,’’ he asked, noticing Jisung squirming and flopping his hands.

‘’Fuck no,’’ the boy whined, sounding like he was on the verge of tears, ‘’My hands hurt,’’

Minho let his eyes wander to the younger’s hands and saw angry red scratches on his palms. He winced and took a hold of Jisung’s wrists to stop him from moving before gently turning his palms up.

The boy wiggled his fingers as if he was trying to distract himself from the evident pain.

Upon closer inspection, Minho could see dirt imbedded in the scratches and he figured that cleaning it out was going to be one hell of a – painful - job.

And it was.

As soon as they had gotten back to Jisung’s dorm, the boy had tried to wash his hands by himself but never came far, claiming the water hurt too much and retreating his hands with a hiss every time he made an attempt.

Soap hadn’t even been in the picture yet.

‘’Come on Jisung,’’ Minho sighed as he adjusted the temperature, ‘’I’ll try to be as quick as possible,’’

The younger mumbled something but still shuffled over to Minho, slowly holding out his hands. Minho took a hold of his wrists and pulled him closer to the sink, ‘’If you kick me I’m never buying you ice cream again, got it?,’’

Jisung huffed before nodding.

Then in a swift move, Minho tugged the younger’s hands under the stream, letting it flow down from the boy’s wrist to break up the water. Much like expected, Jisung hissed and tried to pull his hands back but Minho held a firm grip, making sure the most of the dirt was gone before turning the tab off.

‘’Please kill me,’’ Jisung whined as Minho patted his hands dry with a clean towel.

‘’Stop being so dramatic you baby,’’

Minho threw the towel on the counter and patted the free space next to the sink, telling the boy to sit there before making his way out of the kitchen and to the bathroom. He knew Jisung had some disinfecting gel somewhere – he had made Jisung buy some with how accident-prone the younger was – and after pulling open a couple of cabinets and some digging, he had found said gel together with a handful of band aids.

When he walked back into the kitchen he almost cooed as he saw Jisung trying to somehow wiggle his way up onto the counter, groaning as he slid down again.

Minho hadn’t taken into account that Jisung couldn’t really use his hands at the moment.

‘’Need some help there?,’’ he laughed as he dropped the stuff in his hands on the counter before moving in front of Jisung, trapping the boy between himself and the counter.

‘’What do you think,’’ Jisung sassed, looking adorably pissed off, ‘’Can’t we move this to the couch or some-,’’

Minho cut of the boy by lifting him up - one arm wrapped around his waist and one under his thigh – and Jisung let out a weak yelp, wrapping his legs around Minho’s waist and scrambling to get a hold of Minho’s shoulders, only to hiss and retract his hands as soon as the fabric of the older’s shirt came in contact with his palms.

It took less than two seconds for Minho to deposit the boy on the countertop and as soon as Jisung was steady again, the boy elbowed him in the ribs, ‘’A warning would have been nice!,’’

He could, but he had gotten the exact reaction he had expected so why in heavens name would he warn the boy?

Though he did find it difficult to laugh at Jisung when the younger clung onto him, trapping Minho between his legs. It was a very compromising position and it was slowly driving him crazy, but he kept telling himself to get his mind out of the gutter.

He managed to give the younger a dismissive wave and leaned to the left to get the gel, planting his elbow in Jisung’s thigh while doing so because the younger refused to let him go. Of course the boy let out another screech and swatted at his arm.

Minho snorted and leaned back up, pointing to the younger’s legs, ‘’It’s your own fault,’’

‘’Why must you hurt me so?,’’ the younger gasped dramatically, ‘’I thought you loved me!,’’

Oh he did.

But he had to divert his attention elsewhere to keep himself from blurting that out. To be fair, he couldn’t have asked for a better opening to potentially tell Jisung just how much he loved him but for some reason he had never actually planned on doing something about this ‘crush’ he had.

He knew it was stupid to give up before even trying, but it had never occurred to him that it would lead to anything. From the beginning he had convinced himself that he was just Jisung’s friend – best friend – and that was it.

Stupid.

Because he had started to notice that Jisung would turn shy and fidgety around him more often lately. The boy’s seemingly platonic touches and flirting now seemed to be a rare occurrence, replaced by hesitant hugs and evasive eyes whenever they were too close.

He would have to think about what he was going to do a bit more later. For now he poked the boy’s cheek and motioned for him to hold out his hands.

‘’The worst is already over but it will still sting a bit,’’

Jisung nodded and let his hands fall in his lap with his palms up, squeezing his eyes shut.

As if that was going to help or anything.

Minho tried to be as careful as he could possibly be when applying the gel, freezing every time Jisung’s soft complains turned into sharp hisses.

In the end it took about ten minutes – way too long – to make sure the boy was fine and just as Minho was going to ask the boy to release him now, there came a teasing whistle from their right.

‘’Next time let me know so I can find a place to crash at beforehand,’’

Minho didn’t even bother to turn his head to look at Jisung’s dormmate, neither did he bother to explain so he let out a long sigh and hung his head, ending up leaning against Jisung’s chest.

However, he felt Jisung perk up and moving his arms, ‘’No No! We weren’t… we aren’t… I ju-,’’

Jisung got cut off with a loud laugh, fading out before a door slammed closed.

The stressed response of the younger was something Minho hadn’t expected because most of the time, Jisung did a good job of fending off anything remotely embarrassing with sassy remarks or implied blackmail.

It was when he looked up again that he caught Jisung snapping his head away, obviously staring at Minho before the older looked up.

And he was just about to comment on that but then the younger finally decided to let him go before scooting over the counter until he could slip off without bumping into Minho.

‘’Let’s watch a movie!,’’ the boy yelled, voice unsteady as he looked Minho in the eye for a split second.

And as Minho watched Jisung’s face flush once again, giving him a little smile, he figured that maybe it was time to ask the boy out.

Chapter Text

Easier said than done.

Minho had never resonated with the saying more than now, even when he had already made up his mind weeks ago.

‘’You are thinking too much,’’ Hyunjin sighed, nudging Minho’s side with his toes, ‘’Hey, look at me loser,’’

The older groaned and wished the couch could swallow him whole. He shouldn’t have come to Chan’s place to ask for advice, especially after it had been Hyunjin opening the door.

‘’I’m with Hyunjin on this one,’’ Chan added from the old armchair in the corner, hanging upside-down as he played with the wrapper of his candy, ‘’The ‘thinking too much’ part, not that you’re a loser,’’

‘’Thanks for the clarification,’’ Minho grumbled, ‘’Almost misunderstood you there,’’

Hyunjin now straight-up dug his foot into Minho’s stomach, ‘’Stop with the sarcasm otherwise I’ll kick you out and make you figure it out on your own,’’

It was Chan’s dorm, but whatever. He wasn’t going to challenge Hyunjin on that.

‘’Now, what’s the plan of action?,’’ Chan inquired as he let himself slip from the chair before doing a weird roll on the floor, ending up right in front of the couch.

Minho let out another groan and melted into the couch more, if that was even possible at this point.

‘’That’s the problem, I have no plan of action,’’

Not that he hadn’t tried to come up with something, but this just wasn’t his thing. Most of his inspiration had come from those stupid romantic movies they aired around Christmas and they sucked.

No way in hell he was going to buy Jisung flowers or something because he knew from experience that the boy wasn’t capable of keeping anything alive for longer than a week – that lizard he had back in middle school was the only exception, or so he had been told – so he wasn’t going to waste his money on that.

Writing him a letter was out of the window too because that was way too impersonal. It was tempting, just noting down everything he wanted to say and just shove it into Jisung’s hands but as much of a coward he was, he really couldn’t do that. It felt about the same as asking someone out through at text.

And he most certainly wasn’t going to make a big thing out of this.

In the end he had slapped himself out of it because he was just going to ask Jisung out, not propose to him or something. Plus, he realised he had conveniently forgotten the possibility Jisung would say no.

So simply asking the boy out it was.

But how was he going to do that without making a complete fool out of himself?

‘’Just go up to him and ask him out,’’ Hyunjin suddenly spoke up, not looking away from the phone in his hands, ‘’It would do the trick just fine,’’

‘’I don’t see a problem with that? You’re making a big deal out of this, unnecessarily so,’’ Chan added.

Minho knew he was blowing this out of proportion, he knew he just had to walk up to Jisung and ask him out.

But knowing didn’t mean he was ready for that.

‘’Yeah, but no,’’ Minho whined, ‘’You don’t get it,’’

Hyunjin let out a dramatic sigh and finally let his phone drop in his lap before turning to Minho, ‘’Oh, I do get it but just trust me on this one,’’

He would if it wasn’t for the fact that Hyunjin could never be sure it would be fine.

‘’Minho, what is the worst that could happen?,’’ Chan chimed in, ‘’Jisung saying no? and then? Will the world stop spinning? Will the sun stop rising?,’’

It seemed like his friends didn’t get how much he liked Jisung…

‘’Yes,’’ Minho deadpanned.

Hyunjin let out something that sounded like a mix between a groan and a shout, running his hands down his face, ‘’Oh my god! Why are you like this?,’’

Chan sighed and patted Hyunjin on the knee before turning to Minho again, smiling his signature sympathetic smile.

‘’Listen. I understand it’s scary, that you rather stay like this than losing what you have,’’ The oldest of the three said, ‘’But sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone Minho. You’ll never know what the outcome is going to be if you don’t at least try. And we all know what kind of person Jisung is and that he values you too much to leave you in the dust, even if he doesn’t like you in that way,’’

‘’That’s also a problem though,’’ Minho sighed, ‘’What if he doesn’t like me but feels compelled to say yes? You know he’s selfless like that,’’

Chan gave him the most disgruntled look Minho had ever seen and he felt himself shrink ever so slightly.

‘’Hold on, now you are just assuming things. What happened to honest communication?,’’

Minho chose to stay silent because he knew Chan was right. He hated it how Chan was always right.

‘’Well, you better figure what you’re going to do quickly because we are leaving in ten,’’ Hyunjin spoke up as he looked at his watch before heaving himself up from the couch, ‘’And there better be some progress after tonight otherwise I will personally force both you and Jisung on a Ferris wheel and jam the door so you guys can’t leave and need to wait for the firefighters to come rescue you,’’

Minho shivered at the idea, ‘’You know we both hate hights, you demon,’’

‘’Exactly!,’’ Hyunjin laughed, ‘’Maybe it will crumble your walls down completely and make you confess in the middle of your fear of dying and leaving without ever having told Jisung you love him,’’

Why was he friends with Hyunjin again?

It was about half an hour later that Minho found himself in a packed dorm room from one of the girls in his year, a welcoming bottle of beer numbing his fingers from the cold. He honestly didn’t know the name of their host for tonight or how the invitation had extended to them, but he wasn’t complaining.

It wasn’t too busy and the music was actually pretty decent and not too loud. Still, he’d rather be doing something else right now.

Minho didn’t really like going to parties, but the majority of his friends did. After all, everyone had mostly met each other in the middle of drunken dares and uncoordinated dance-battles.

But that was mostly Chan, Felix, Hyunjin and Jeongin though.

And as expected, Hyunjin and Chan had abandoned him as soon as the door had closed behind him and he swore he had seen Jeongin and Felix coming out of the kitchen with a big bowl of mysterious liquid in their hands.

Reminder to himself; Don’t drink the mystery liquid.

Seungmin, Changbin, Woojin and himself liked to be a bit more in control and actually talk to people and not wake up with a major hangover the next morning.

He knew that Changbin and Woojin would probably be around the living room, talking to each other and maybe pulling a random stranger into their conversation. He hadn’t seen Seungmin around yet but he knew he had to be here somewhere because Hyunjin had promised him something if he came.

Minho didn’t want to know what that something was.

The music changed and Minho realised he had been standing in the little hallway for way too long now and he took a sip of his beer before stepping into the living room.

The place was bigger than he had expected so he assumed the girl had put down some serious money to get one of the fancier accommodations the University had to offer. Minho couldn’t relate. The place was lit just right, dark enough to give a somewhat sensual vibe but not too dark to make you squint to find the people you were looking for.

By now he had seen about everyone around accept for Jisung.

Jisung, who fell somewhere in the middle of the pro-party anti-party spectrum.

He was prepared to find the boy flitting through the room, going from acquaintance to acquaintance and maybe go as far as talk to someone he didn’t know after a drink or two.

He was also prepared for Jisung to somehow find him and to tug at his shirt after a couple of hours to ask to get him home because as much of an extrovert Jisung seemed to be, the boy would get drained by being around too many people for too much time rather quickly.

Minho liked to think of the boy as a sprinter – great at short bursts and short distances, quite incapable of doing marathons unless properly trained.

However, he wasn’t prepared to find what he did when he had tapped Jisung on the shoulder after finding him in the crowd, talking to Seungmin and Hyunjin.

Seungmin and Hyunjin wiggled their brows at him as soon as Jisung spun around, the boy going from looking startled to elated in less than a second.

‘’Hyung!,’’

A quick scan told Minho that Jisung had clearly dressed to impress and boy was Minho impressed.

Everything went quiet for a bit and all he could hear was his blood flowing through his ears.

Jisung’s hair had gotten a bit longer again and instead of it messily sticking up at weird places, it was styled down in smooth waves with one side pinned back and to the side of his head.

The younger was wearing a light blue, flowy blouse with the two top buttons undone, showing his collarbones. A delicate golden necklace made up of three chains in different lengths and a small pendant – once again a star – dangled from the longest chain hung from his neck, fitting just right in the gap that had been created. It looked suspiciously like the one Minho had lost a couple of months before…

Minho didn’t have to look all that closely to see that Jisung was wearing one of his favourite jeans. Black and tight-fitting, of course, just cutting off right above his grey slip-on vans.

When he looked back up he saw the boy’s eyelids seemed to sparkle ever so slightly when the light caught it and his lips were definitely more pinkish than normal. Minho was almost sure his eyelashes curled up in a way they normally didn’t and that they were lightly framed by a dark line.

‘’Are you wearing… make-up?,’’ Minho wondered out loud.

Jisung bit his lip and stared at him for a couple of seconds before nodding.

‘’Yeah. Felix kinda forced me to but I think I like it?,’’ the boy smiled shyly, eyes filled with muted excitement.

Minho was a bit lost.

He had never really thought Jisung was particularly pretty – more just, cute? Adorable? Squirrel-like? – but he looked outright stunning right now. Really, really pretty.

So much so that Minho spaced out as his brain short-cut.

Did he like it? Did he hate it?

No, Jisung looked beautiful but he had never in a million years thought the boy would even wear make-up. But that was probably just Minho never even considering it because he realised it made his heart race a bit faster.

‘’D-does it look weird?’’ Jisung suddenly rushed out, breaking Minho out of his stupor even though his voice was barely audible and the older caught him bringing up his hand up to fumble with the pendant, ‘’It looks weird doesn’t it? I told Felix it wouldn’t look good, but he kept saying it did. But it doesn’t, right? I probably look really stupid,’’

The boy looked properly nervous and maybe a bit scared, eyes darting over Minho’s face as if he was trying to find even the smallest hint of what was going on in the older’s head.

‘’See? You don’t even know what to say… It’s okay to tell me I look weird but if you laugh I will literally cry,’’

Minho felt his heart drop seeing Jisung go from being so shyly exited to upset. It ruined the look.

‘’No Sungie, it just threw me off for a bit,’’ Minho finally breathed out, ‘’You look good, really,’’

Jisung looked at him like he had just grown a pair of horns and Minho couldn’t help but snort, ‘’What?,’’

‘’Really?,’’ Jisung asked, looking at him expectantly.

‘’What?,’’

The younger ‘’Does it really look good?,’’

Minho felt the urge to coo at the boy but Seungmin grinning behind Jisung’s back withheld him from doing so. Instead he reached for the boy’s hand and held it loosely.

‘’Yes Jisung,’’ He confirmed as he intertwined their fingers, noticing how Jisung took a quick glance at their hands before looking back up with an almost unnoticeable wash of red over his cheeks,’’You look beautiful,’’

Jisung let out a long sigh as if he had been holding his breath the whole time before the corners of his mouth tugged upwards, ‘’You’re not just saying that to make me feel better? You’re being honest?,’’

‘’Of course I am,’’ Minho smiled, ‘’But to be completely honest, you look good either way. With or without make-up,’’

The music faded out just at the right moment for Minho to hear a soft giggle leave Jisung’s lips.

‘’Maybe I should do it more often?,’’

It had come out more like a question than anything else, like he was asking Minho if it was okay for him to do that. And as endearing as that was, he didn’t need Minho’s – or anyone’s – permission.

‘’Whatever makes you happy cupcake,’’ Minho replied, ‘’As long as you remember that you don’t need to make yourself look prettier than you already do without,’’

From the corner of his eyes he saw Seungmin fake-gagging and Hyunjin grimacing while sending him a double thumbs-up.

But he wasn’t really paying attention because Jisung was almost glowing now, his smile stretching from ear to ear and eyes shining brighter than Minho had ever seen before.

‘’Thanks hyung,’’ the boy whispered as he moved to hug him, burying his face in Minho’s shoulder.

Minho smiled and turned his head to place a soft kiss on the younger’s temple.

‘’Anytime sweetheart,’’

‘’Oh hyung! I made myself prettier for you, but I was afraid all night that you would still find me hideous. Please tell me how pretty I am if you truly love me,’’ Jeongin squealed, covering his face with his hands.

Felix reached out for Jeongin’s hands, bringing them up to his chest, ‘’My beautiful flower, you are the most beautiful of all! But nothing can compare to your natural beauty. You make the flowers in my castle’s gardens look like diseased twigs. You outshine the moon and all the stars with how blindingly bright you smile. Nothing compares to the joy you bring to my dark and lonely soul. Please let me become your loving husband,’’

‘’My love, you flatter me so,’’ Jeongin replied, ‘’But my father won’t allow it. After all, you’re a jester and I’m a prince. We can’t be together,’’

The youngest let out a fake cry and pried one of his hands away from Felix’s grasp to wipe away a non-existent tear.

‘’Don’t cry, sunshine. Let’s elope and never look back. We’ll ride off into the sunset and built ourselves a homely cabin in the middle of the forest where we will grow old together and love each other till the end of days and after that,’’ Felix said gravely, cupping Jeongin’s face.

Jeongin placed his hands over Felix’s and closed his eyes, ‘’Yes my love, let’s do that. I will pack my belongings as soon as possible. We can leave in the dead of night when my family is asleep,’’

The two pretended to kiss and that’s when the giggles turned into full-blown laughter, Felix and Jeongin doubling over before ending up on the floor.

‘’I’m going to tie the both of you up and transport you to Alaska, only to make sure you guys freeze to death before heating you back up in the microwave before feeding your decomposing bodies to the animals,’’ Minho growled, trying very hard to escape Seungmin’s arms as they kept him hostage on the couch.

These fuckers.

He needed new friends.

He hated them.

All of them.

They deserved to go to hell.

One-way ticket.

He’d gladly sell his soul to make that happen.

‘’Chill Minho, it was just a creative re-enactment,’’ Hyunjin wheezed from the armchair in the corner of the room.

It had been a week and they were still going on and on about whatever Minho had said to Jisung at the party and he was really getting fed up with it. They were supposed to help him and stuff, not mock his sincere attempt to make Jisung feel better.

‘’I wish death upon each and every one of you,’’

‘’Hey, leave me out of it!,’’ Felix shouted, ‘’If any, you should thank me for making your Jisung look all pretty. I know you liked it more than you let on!,’’

Minho groaned, ‘’Did not,’’

‘’Oh come on! The whole night you looked at him like you were about to bang him right the-,’’

Minho managed to wiggle one arm free and slap his hand over Seungmin’s mouth, ‘’We are so not going there,’’

The rest just laughed even louder than they had so before and Minho really wanted to skin them alive.

‘’Okay kids, stop it,’’ Woojin interrupted, ‘’I think that has been enough. Let the boy breathe,’’

Minho liked Woojin.

Woojin was nice.

Woojin could stay.

He didn’t with death upon Woojin.

‘’On a serious note though,’’ Hyunjin said, still wiping the tears from his eyes, ‘’I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jisung smile so much,’’

Seungmin finally decided to let Minho go and the latter let himself melt into the couch and Jeongin was quick to move and jump on top of them, luckily missing Minho’s stomach.

‘’Yeah, it was almost getting creepy,’’ Seungmin added, ‘’This was also the first time Jisung didn’t beg to dip out after an hour or two,’’

Minho had noticed.

Of course he had noticed.

In a normal setting, it was already hard enough not to notice Jisung. No matter what he was doing or what he was supposed to be doing, Minho found it difficult to ignore the younger. When he said he noticed every little thing Jisung did, he meant every little thing.

From how the boy would scrunch up his nose whenever he was tying his shoelaces, to how his handwriting would turn sloppy whenever inspiration hit and his hands weren’t fast enough to keep up with his brain, or the little twitch in his eye whenever he hadn’t slept enough and someone interrupted whatever he was saying…

And those were just every day – sober - examples.

The non-sober examples were how Jisung had smelled like that one cologne he had gotten from Chan for his birthday a couple of months back, or how his nails were perfectly clipped and maybe a tad bit longer than most people would normally like, or how his eyebrow shot up ever so slightly when he couldn’t hear what someone had said over the sound of the bass, or how his eyes would shift to Minho every time he laughed.

That whole night consisted of memories like that and he had to admit that he couldn’t quite remember anything else that had gone down, accept how he and Jisung had stumbled back to Jisung’s dorm, Minho inviting himself in because he had been so tired and how his tipsy ass had somehow managed to remove Jisung’s makeup after the boy had already been half asleep on his bed.

His thoughts got interrupted by loud thumping on the door, the pattern giving away who it exactly was.

‘’Speak of the devil,’’ Jeongin cackled as Hyunjin threw himself out of the armchair, almost skipping to the door.

As soon as it was open, Jisung came waddling in with his arms full of stacked pizza-boxes and about five plastic bags hanging off his arms.

Minho thought he heard him say hi but it sounded like a muffled huff and as adorable as it was to see the younger try and balance everything in his arms, it was cruel not to help him out and seeing as Hyunjin was laughing with the doorknob still in his hand, Minho shot up from the couch and stalked over.

He quickly took a couple of boxes out of Jisung’s hands and came face to face with the boy smiling sheepishly at him. Changbin and Chan were standing behind the boy, clearly amused and waving at Minho, but Jisung caught his attention again by tapping his leg with his foot.

‘’Thanks hyung,’’ the boy smiled, ‘’At least someone here is nice enough to help,’’

Hyunjin laughed even harder as Jisung gave him some serious side-eye, clearly not offended at all.

‘’Sorry, but your suffering brings me joy,’’

Jisung managed to kick the guy in the shin before walking to the table, dumping everything without much care, Minho following his example but with a bit more caution.

‘’There’s our pretty princess!,’’ Felix yelled as he suddenly came crashing into Jisung, almost tripping the poor boy, ‘’You took forever! I’m so hungry,’’

‘’Shut up,’’ Jisung hissed as he pried Felix’s arms off of him, ‘’If you call me that one more time I won’t be your twin anymore,’’

Felix let go as if the boy was suddenly on fire and looked properly upset by the threat. Which he surely was because if there was one thing Felix took pride and joy in, it was the fact that he and Jisung were merely hours apart in being born.

‘’You can’t do that. We’re platonic soulmates, you can’t just revoke my rights as your twin whenever you want,’’ Felix pouted.

Minho snorted as the two bickered over what their rights exactly were and choose to ignore them as he pulled a couple of bottles of soda out of the plastic bags, making sure everything was neatly stalled out before announcing that there was food.

All it took for the two of them to stop was for Minho to push a slice of pizza in Felix’s and Jisung’s hands, effectively diverting the attention from each other.

‘’So,’’ Woojin started as he stuffed the last bit of pizza crust in his mouth, ‘’How was everyone’s week?,’’

Seungmin snorted and threw his paper plate on the table, ‘’We saw each other two days ago, why are you asking about our week?,’’

Chan shuffled closer and gently swatted the boy’s arm, ‘’He was just being nice so just tell him how your week was,’’

What followed after that, Minho wouldn’t be able to tell because Jisung had tugged at his shirt and shoved his phone into his hands.

‘’What is this for?,’’ the older asked as he was trying to decipher why he was looking at a barcode.

‘’Tickets,’’ Jisung beamed back, wiggling cutely once again as he continued chewing before leaning back against the couch.

‘’Okay…,’’ Minho replied, moving to sit cross-legged, ‘’What for?,’’

The younger seemed too occupied with his pizza to answer and Minho was about to ask again but Jisung was suddenly humming to himself – like he did when he was eating something he liked – and Minho didn’t have the heart to interrupt the boy.

So he leaned back against the couch as well and looked on as Jisung wiggled, finding it incredibly endearing. Everything about Jisung was – he had established that a long time ago – and he had reached the point where he was about to burst out into tears whenever the boy completely dropped his walls and became so relaxed that all his weird little antics came out.

‘’Like what you’re seeing?,’’ Chan snorted in his ear, jabbing Minho’s ribs with his elbow.

Minho didn’t even bother to fight it and just nodded without looking at the older. Jisung was struggling to cut off a string of cheese and was clearly distressed as the distance between his mouth and the slice of pizza grew, but not yet giving up and using his fingers.

‘’Then go for it,’’ Chan whispered before disappearing again.

The rest of the evening the words kept swirling in his head.

Then go for it

He should.

He knew he should.

And he would.

Because it turned out the tickets were for that one band Minho was a fan of, the younger complaining about getting up at around five am the previous morning to make sure he had a shot at getting them.

Also because Jisung hadn’t moved from his side all evening, clinging onto him and glaring at anyone who had even dared to suggest the younger would let Minho breathe for a second.

He would, because at the end of the evening, Jisung had shyly kissed his cheek again before disappearing into his dorm.

‘’Come on, it’s gonna be fun!,’’ Jisung squealed as he dragged Minho up the stairs to his floor, ‘’I got one with cats!,’’

Minho could barely keep up with the boy, stumbling and tripping but somehow keeping himself up – credits to Jisung’s grip on his hand – as they went up.

‘’Jesus Sung, slow down,’’ he mumbled, more to himself because the younger was clearly too excited to listen to him.

And finally they reached Jisung’s floor. However, the tempo didn’t slow down and neither did Jisung’s rambling about how long he had waited for Minho to finish class.

An hour.

Jisung had spend a whole hour sitting on the floor in front of Minho’s lecture hall, tripping over his own feet as soon as Minho had stepped out because his leg had grown numb from sitting cross-legged against the wall.

People had chuckled and rolled their eyes and Minho had to admit that Jisung screaming his name for everyone to hear before stumbling into him had been a bit embarrassing, but it had all been fine when the younger had beamed at him.

‘’Oh! And you’re not leaving until it’s done okay? It needs to be done otherwise I can’t sleep,’’

Minho nodded absentmindedly as they reached Jisung’s door, the boy hastily jabbing his key into the keyhole before tugging the older inside.

Jisung hastily stepped out of his shoes and speeded off to his room, returning just as Minho had plopped his bag on the couch. The boy happily waved a box around before dropping to his knees in the middle of the room before opening said box and turning it, dropping the contents on the floor.

Puzzles.

If there was one thing Minho hated with his whole heart and soul, it was puzzles.

How anyone could enjoy the pain that was searching for the right piece in the mass of odd shapes?

But apparently Jisung was one of those people who enjoyed just that, so much so that he had spend an insane amount of time waiting for Minho and dragging him to the dorms.

‘’Sung…,’’ Minho started as he watched in horror as the boy spread the pieces out, ‘’I really don’t li-,’’

He cut himself off when Jisung looked up at him all excited, eyes sparkling like they often did.

Oh boy.

With a sigh, he shuffled over to the younger and slowly sat down, feeling a bit better about having to spend the next couple of hours keeping his temper in check when Jisung did another happy wiggle and told Minho he was the best before turning his attention back the pieces, carefully turning them the right way up.

Minho let out a short huff and slid closer, helping Jisung organise the pieces.

‘’I didn’t know you liked puzzles?,’’ he found himself saying as he looked for the pieces with straight sides, getting more an more frustrated the longer he stared.

Jisung chuckled softly and shook his head, ‘’I don’t. Not really, but the cat reminded me of you and I thought you might like it,’’

One beat.

Two beats.

Three beats.

‘’So you dragged me over here to do this while I detest puzzles,’’ Minho replied, one eyebrow shooting up as he stilled, ‘’and you don’t even like puzzling?,’’

It had sounded a bit harsher than he had intended and that became clear when the younger flinched and took a sharp inhale.

Minho knew he had definitely sounded too harsh when Jisung hung his head before shrugging, something he did when he was upset.

‘’Sorry,’’ Jisung muttered, ‘’I just… wanted to do something else? We always watch movies or something like that and I have noticed that you aren’t even interested in half of them but still watch with me anyways,’’

Minho was annoyed, yes, but it melted into the floor and his heart swelled at the idea of Jisung brainstorming about something to do that wasn’t watching crappy science fiction movies or stupid rom-com drama’s.

‘’So I though that maybe you’d, you know, like doing something…,’’ the boy trailed off, shrugging again and still looking down as he twirled a puzzle piece in his fingers.

The older reached out and took a hold of the boy’s hands, gently prying the piece out of his hands and dumping it with the rest before shuffling closer until their knees were touching.

Jisung seemingly refused to look up and Minho wondered how things had taken such a sad turn all of a sudden. It was probably his fault by killing the younger’s excited attempt with just a sentence, so he had to fix it.

‘’Sungie,’’ he started off, ‘’It’s okay,’’

The younger shook his head and tried to pull his hands away for reasons Minho didn’t understand. However, the older made sure Jisung’s didn’t get the chance to do so and held on a bit tighter.

‘’Hey, it’s okay,’’ Minho rushed out when the boy tried a bit harder, ‘’Why are you suddenly so upset about it?,’’

He tugged at Jisung some more in an attempt to get a reaction and the younger ended up almost in his lap before he decided to speak up.

‘’I’m stupid,’’ was all he muttered, slightly pissing Minho off by shrugging again.

‘’Okay stop it. You’re not stupid so don’t say that about yourself,’’ the older sighed out, reaching for the younger’s cheek and guiding his head to look at him, ‘’There’s nothing to get upset about. I may not like puzzles but I think it was really sweet of you,’’

Subconsciously he let his thumb trail over the younger’s cheekbone, happy to hear him elicit a satisfied hum.

He was happy to see that Jisung seemed to light up again but the fact that the younger’s mood had dropped so easily worried him and he needed to reminded himself to figure that out later.

But for now, he let himself smile and lean forward to place a kiss on the younger’s forehead.

About half an hour later, the puzzle had been stored away and Jisung was happily providing Minho extra information about the documentary they were watching. It was about London’s secret service back in the eighties and even though Minho wasn’t all that interested – Jisung had been right about the fact that Minho couldn’t care less about half the things they watched – the younger was talking so animatedly that he found himself enjoying it a bit more.

But to be honest, he didn’t really care what they did or how interesting it was for Minho because in the end, it was Jisung that made it worth while by either being all excited or focussed, distracting the older by how his eyes lit up and the adorable noises that left his mouth when something impressed him.

If you had told Minho a couple of months ago that he’d found himself whipped for one of the loudest, childish and talented kids in college, he’d call you crazy.

But he was the crazy one for being wrapped around Jisung’s little finger. The definition of ‘whipped’. Still, he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

At some point, the second documentary had started playing but Jisung deemed it boring – not even to him – and let himself fall to the side, ending up laying in Minho’s lap and turning his head to look up at him.

‘’Hyung,’’ the boy whined, dragging the word out.

Minho rolled his eyes but smiled anyways, his fingers ending up carding through the younger’s hair once again.

‘’What?,’’

Jisung pouted and the older already knew that he was trying to charm Minho into doing something for him, the way he made his eyes bigger on purpose confirming it.

‘’I’m hungry,’’

Ah.

There it was.

Minho pretended not to understand the underlying question, ‘’Okay? So?,’’

The younger whined again and rolled on his back, squishing his own cheeks – that was also very much on purpose and Minho hated him for it.

‘’Food?,’’ he mumbled, blinking rapidly.

Minho had to stop himself for giving in again and looked back at the tv, ignoring Jisung altogether. Surprisingly, Jisung managed to deal with it for a minute or so before he sat up and blocked Minho’s view by climbing into his lap, facing him.

‘’Make me food, peasant!

Apparently, Jisung was too obsessed with getting Minho to make him dinner to notice he was actually straddling the older because Minho was sure the younger would’ve flushed if he had.

‘’Peasant?,’’ Minho managed to reply, ignoring his heart staring to hammer against his ribcage, ‘’For someone so desperate to get some else to make dinner, you sure are being too disrespectful,’’

Jisung burst out laughing and threw his head back and Minho had to look away in order to stay sane.

‘’Sorry sorry,’’ the younger giggled, ‘’Please make me food?,’’

Minho wasn’t quite listening to the boy, occupied with trying to ignore the warmth radiating from Jisung and the way the boy shuffled over his thighs to get closer. Somehow Jisung took his silence as an attempt to get him to try harder because suddenly the younger threw his arms around his neck, effectively making Minho look back at the boy.

‘’Oh grand master of dishes, please do me the honour and let me indulge myself with your other-worldly skills in the art of cooking,’’ Jisung spoke, face all serious but then his nose scrunched up and he was laughing again.

And right then and there, Jisung looked like how Minho imagined angels looked like.

It was oh so cliché and cheesy and Minho was almost mad at himself for thinking it, but there was no way around it.

No way around it.

No way around Jisung.

There was no way around Jisung.

There was no way around the butterflies in his stomach, the tingling of his skin, the flash of hot as Jisung’s fingers grazed the back of his neck, the feeling of the younger’s body shocking ever so slightly as he tried to come down from his laughing-fit, the way his heart sped up as Jisung’s eyes turned into cresants.

There was no longer a way around it.

‘’God, I’m so in love with you,’’

Minho had sighted it out without thinking and only after the younger abruptly stopped laughing and snapped his head down to look at him – eyes blown wide - did he register what he had said.

Oh.

Fuck?

‘’W-what?,’’ Jisung stuttered out, looking like a deer caught in the headlights, ‘’I don’t t-think I heard you correctly,’’

Needless to say, his grip on the younger’s hips grew tighter and he was conflicted about whether to let the boy go and make something up or to stay right where he was and spill the beans.

Months and months of running away from the inevitable had now caught up with him out of nowhere, throwing him out of this rather comfortable space he had locked himself in.
And that scared him.

But in the back of his head he heard Hyunjin and Chan, telling him over and over that he just had to go for it.

And combined with memories of Jisung turning into a stuttering puddle of embarrassment whenever he did try to flirt, he had made up his mind.

‘’I’m in love with you,’’

It had come out as a whisper but steadfast, leaving no room for discussion or second-guessing.

He had expected his heart to slow down after getting that off his chest, but it did quite the opposite. The previous bravery and feeling that things would be fine were gone in an instant and his mind started telling him every bad thing that could – would – happen now that he’d told Jisung.

Silence.

Jisung was completely silent and Minho didn’t know what to do when all he saw was the boy blinking blankly at him as if he didn’t understand or struggled to process the information Minho had just provided.

Was it too late to add the ’’It’s just a prank bro,’’?

Even more silence.

Okay, now it was definitely too late.

Minho could feel and hear his heart going crazy and the blood rushing through his veins, a very odd feeling that made him quite nauseous. And he was scared that he had just fucked things up now.

But Jisung’s previous blank expression suddenly morphed into pure joy.

A part of him felt relieved and he let out a long sigh, relaxing already.

In contrary to what he had made himself think, Jisung was looking at him how he looked at the stars at night and his heart went mayhem behind his ribcage.

Minho was nothing compared to those beautiful clusters in the night sky, he was nothing compared to the wonders of the universe.

But Jisung still looked at him like he would choose Minho over colourful galaxies any time.

"Fucking finally...," Jisung almost squealed, throwing himself forward and hugging Minho.

What?

Apparently his silence had given away his confusion because Jisung giggled right next to his ear before pulling back, beaming back at him. Minho could feel the younger’s fingers lock on the back of his neck and even though his heart had been racing before, it calmed down by the gesture.

"You have no idea how obvious it was. I was on the brink of asking you out first because waiting for you to proclaim your undying love for me was fun at first, but it was starting to get quite frustrating actually," Jisung sighed, throwing is arm to his forehead to add some dramatics but the little mischievous spark in his eyes not going unnoticed by Minho.

What?

"Y-you...," Minho stuttered, "You knew?,"

Jisung nodded, shifting a bit as he giggled again. And if Minho hadn’t noticed the light wash of red over his cheeks, he would’ve thought that the younger had known exactly how this was going to play out.

‘’How?,’’ Minho wondered out loud.

The younger nervously bit his lip and tilted his head, ‘’Hyunjin told me a couple of weeks back,’’

Oh.

Wow.

Minho didn’t really know how to feel about that. Should he be grateful, should he free his schedule to make time to skin Hyunjin alive?

‘’Stop frowning,’’ Jisung chuckled as he poked his forehead, ‘’Don’t be mad at Hyunjin. He prevented me from having a lot more sleepless nights worrying about pining after one of my best friends,’’

It was then that the words settled and oh God.

Jisung liked him as well.

And had known that Minho liked him for weeks now.

Jisung had totally played him.

He was shocked that the younger had it in him to do so and he had to admit he was slightly upset by that.

"You fucking knew and never said a word?,"

Jisung nodded again - this time a bit more apprehensive – as he pulled his sleeves down over his hands, flopping them around at his side.

Cute.

"Not only that, but you pretended not to notice and thought it was funny to make me suffer when we could have skipped all of it? Do you have any idea how much it sucked thinking I was pining after one of my best friends?,"

Jisung’s smile turned into an unsure grin as he leaned back, "Sorry?,"

Minho laughed, a rush of pure relief and joy overwhelming him, "Oh hell no cupcake, a simple sorry isn't going to cut it,"

Jisung had had his fun, now it was Minho's turn.

"I think you can come up with a more... satisfying way to apologize,"

Minho roughly pulled Jisung closer by his hips - earning him a surprised noise as he slipped his hands under the hem of the younger’s shirt – before letting his eyes wander over Jisung's body. He made sure to be as obvious as he could be before meeting the younger's eyes again.

They were blown wide and Jisung flushed bright red, lips parted in - what Minho assumed - shock.

"What? I was just going to say that you owe me at least three coffee-runs whenever I ask for it," Minho smirked, tilting his head and raising one eyebrow.

Now Jisung was almost as red as a tomato and quickly hid behind his hands and Minho knew he had successfully turned the tables.

"Oh, I see. Was my little squirrel thinking about something... less appropriate?," Minho chuckled, squeezing Jisung’s hips, "Never thought you were like that Jisung,’’

The boy squealed rather oddly, "S-shut up, asshole,"

"I'm still your hyung,’’ Minho taunted, leaning forward to reach Jisung’s ear, ‘’You better show me some respect baby boy,"

Jisung let out a high-pitched sound and dropped his head to Minho’s chest, making a real effort to shrink and hide. Minho was a bit surprised by the response, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t like it.

"Sucks, doesn't it?," Minho snorted.

Jisung squealed again and planted his hands to his ears, "Fucking stop it! Please,"

And for a second Minho thought that, maybe, he had gone too far. But as he let his hands slip from the younger’s waist and gently pried Jisung's hands away from his ears, he didn't miss the sudden onset of goose bumps on the younger's arms, nor the sharp inhale or the way Jisung softly gnawed at his lower lip. To test his theory, Minho leaned to Jisung’s ear again.

"Beg some more baby boy," he whispered lowly.

Jisung let out something that sounded like a mix between a mewl and a moan, clearly startling himself and he slapped his hand over his mouth.

That... Was hot.

"Noted," Minho snickered, prying Jisung’s hand off his mouth.

And the younger blinked at him slowly, lips once again in a pout and face on fire.

Minho didn’t really know how it happened but suddenly he found Jisung’s fingers clamped down on the hair on the back of his neck and his own arms tightly wrapped around the younger’s waist, their lips pressed together.

It was rash and anything from sweet but it was tantalising nonetheless, enough to sent Minho’s mind into overdrive and the urge for more setting him on fire from the inside out.

He was aware that he had been rather aggressive with prying Jisung’s lips apart with his tongue – a muted noise emitting from the back of the younger’s throat – but he didn’t dwell on it when let him.

Minho found himself practically on fire and with a weird tingling in his brain and it left him reeling, making him sneak a hand under Jisung’s shirt and press his thumbs into the younger’s sides. Jisung responded by lifting himself up ever so slightly and leaning in closer, tugging at his hair.

And then suddenly, Jisung was gone and Minho got pushed back into the couch.

It was only then that he noticed the burn in his lungs and how dangerously close his hands had wandered to the younger’s ass.

Jisung seemed as much of a mess as he felt, lips too red for it to be normal and glistering with a slight wet sheen, eyes glazed over and definitely heaving for air.

A chuckle bubbled up from Minho’s chest and it seemed to break the spell, Jisung grinning shyly at him.

‘’You look like a tomato,’’ Minho laughed out, feeling quite euphoric, ‘’No wait. A strawberry,’’

‘’Why strawberry?,’’ the younger shyly asked, fiddling with Minho’s shirt.

Cute.

‘’Because strawberries are sweet and so happen to be my favourite fruit,’’ he chuckled, adding a wink because he knew Jisung hated that.

Jisung huffed and held his hands to his own cheeks before breaking eye-contact.

‘’Fuck me," the boy muttered under his breath.

Well…

"Gladly,"

"Hyung!,"

‘’So, when are we going to tell them?,’’ Jisung asked, not even looking at Minho as he sipped his drink.

Minho squeezed the boy’s shoulder as he rearranged his arm and tugged him to the left to prevent him from running into a pole on the sidewalk, one that had been there since forever and they had passed a million times already.

‘’we’re not going to tell them anything,’’ he deadpanned, looking up at the sky and hoping it wouldn’t start raining until they were inside.

Jisung stopped, tilting his head as he looked at Minho in confusion but after a couple of seconds, his eyes screamed mischief again and they continued walking.

‘’Ooooh, I like your way of thinking,’’ Jisung chuckled, ‘’Let’s see how long it will take them to figure out,’’

‘’No Jisung, that’s not what I meant,’’ Minho snorted, ‘’I meant to say that you have the honours of telling them,’’

‘’Why me? That’s not fair!,’’

Minho laughed, ‘’If I remember correctly, someone here still needs to make it up to me,’’

The younger let out a whine and dared to pout at him, gripping onto his jacket for good measure.

‘’Oh no cupcake, that’s not going to work,’’ Minho huffed, already feeling his resolve starting to crumble.

But Han Jisung wasn’t Han Jisung if he didn’t go all the way to get whatever he wanted.

‘’Hyung…,’’ the boy whined, blinking rapidly and cheeks puffed out, ‘’I already said I was sorry. Please don’t do this to me!,’’

Minho ended up telling the guys as they met up for lunch.

Turned out no one was surprised.

The response was lacklustre to put it nicely and even though Minho hadn’t appreciated their friends to make a big deal out of it, he was slightly disappointed.

They had gotten a few unimpressed nods, a couple of relieved sighs and a handful of ‘’Finally’’-s and that was it.

He had hoped they would have been a bit more happy for them or something. This was nothing like how he had expected things to go.

But on the plus side, him and Jisung could comfortable take place at the table without anyone trying to embarrass them.

‘’Now that we got that out of the way,’’ Seungmin spoke up after a couple of seconds of silence, ‘’The Aussies need to get their shit together as well,’’

‘’Oh we have. What makes you think we don’t?,’’ Chan taunted, narrowing his eyes as he pushed another spoonful of rice in his mouth.

Felix choked on something and flushed red.

Needless to say, the rest of lunch was spend on trying to get the two to spill the beans and even though Minho wished they could shut up, he couldn’t help but smile as Jisung was number one interrogator, not letting go of Minho’s hand even though he was getting quite worked up.

In the end, Felix had caved in after Jisung had threatened him once again with his status as twin.

One month.

These fuckers had been already dating for one month and never bothered to tell anyone about it.

The rest of lunch was full of shouting and fake cries of betrayal, Jisung taking it the worst and turning mute, melting into Minho’s side like he had been told he could never have cheesecake ever again.

‘’They totally stole our spotlight!,’’ Jisung wailed as he stepped inside, immediately sinking to his knees before letting himself melt into the floor.

Minho snorted and closed the door and stepped over the younger – not without stepping on Jisung’s back lightly – before making his way to the couch, slipping his jacket off and throwing it over the armrest.

‘’When you’re done lamenting the lack of sexually tinted innuendos and privacy-invading questions, get your ass up and help me feed the cats,’’ Minho yelled as he walked into the kitchen, trying his best not to scoop the boy up himself and pinch his cheeks.

Mentioning his cats did the trick just fine and he had barely reached the kitchen or he heard the boy’s feet patter on the floor before he appeared next to him, wrapping his arms around Minho’s waist and peeking over his shoulder to watch him fill the three little bowls.

Minho found himself smiling like an idiot when he felt Jisung lean on the back of his shoulder, muttering something about how he was going to take revenge on Felix for not telling him he had a thing for Chan.

‘’Stop moping and help me out for once,’’ the older interrupted, tapping Jisung’s arm to signal him to let go, pushing two bowls in the boy’s hands after he had done so.

They spend way too long locating his cats and keeping them from each other’s bowls – one ended up in the kitchen, the other in the living room and the other in Minho’s bedroom – and when they returned to the kitchen with the now empty bowls, the older remembered something.

‘’I’ve been meaning to ask,’’ Minho spoke up, taking the bowls from Jisung’s hands and placing them back in a corner on the counter before turning to the younger, ‘’What was up with your whole ‘end of experiment’ fase?,’’

Jisung stilled for a second before he leaned against the counter, arms folded as he tapped his own arm.

‘’Well…,’’

The boy’s eyes darted all over the room and Minho was convinced that he was hiding something and if there was one thing Minho didn’t like, it was not being in the loop.

And puzzles. But he had been over that already.

‘’Out with it cupcake,’’ Minho demanded, caging the boy between his body and the counter.

Jisung instantly flushed and looked away, doing his best to evade Minho’s eyes. The older wasn’t having it and gripped his chin, directing him to look back. After a very lame stare-off, Jisung caved in and relaxed.

‘’I may or may not have been testing to see if Hyunjin was telling the truth?,’’

And it instantly clicked.

Every single time Jisung had said it, it was right after he had seemingly made a move. Minho had been telling himself he had been imagining things but the younger just admitted he hadn’t.

It didn’t upset him as much as he would’ve thought and he laughed, Jisung’s light giggles mixing in after a couple of seconds.

‘’We are so stupid,’’ Minho croaked out, cupping the younger’s cheeks.

So stupid.

Instead of talking like adults, they had handled it like a bunch of kids.

But that didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter because they had gotten where they wanted to get in the end.

It didn’t matter because Jisung was right in front of him, glowing like Minho had grown to love more than anything else and wasn’t going anywhere if Minho had a say in it.

‘’A wise man once told me that you shouldn’t call yourself stupid,’’ Jisung stated as a matter of fact.

Minho groaned, ‘’Shut up,’’

Jisung eyes suddenly screamed ’’Make me and the older didn’t hesitate to, pulling the boy’s face closer and slotting their lips together.

It might’ve have only been a day since Jisung was officially his boyfriend, but Minho was sure he loved the boy with everything he had. He had so for a long time and Jisung had admitted he had too and Minho couldn’t ask for anything else.

He didn’t want anything else.

Didn’t need it.

As long as he had Jisung, other things seemed irrelevant and unnecessary.

It was dramatic but he was head over heels for the boy clinging onto him and giggling as Minho leaned back.

He was head over heels for the spark in the boy’s eyes and the puffy cheeks, the boy who made him feel alive in ways other people or things had never really managed to do.

And as Jisung dragged him to the couch to watch yet another boring documentary, he realised how lucky he was to have the boy.

He hated to admit it, but if Chan hadn’t dragged him to that party ages ago, he’d never have this.

‘’What are you thinking so hard about?’’ Jisung yawned as he snuggled closer, eyes drooping as he did his best to keep watching this cheetah running after a deer.

‘’I was just thinking I need to buy Chan a drink sometime,’’ Minho offhandedly commented.

But it fell on deaf ears as he noticed Jisung had fallen asleep, his arm laying in Minho’s lap and head tucked away in his neck.

He smiled at the sight and adjusted the boy in his arms before placing a little kiss on his temple, leaning back and closing his eyes afterwards.

‘’Sweet dreams Sungie,’’ he whispered as he pulled the boy a bit closer.

‘’I love you,’’