Archive of Our Own ^beta

Seungmin had talked to Minho five times, and five times only. He was pretty sure of it either way. He had spent the entire bus ride thinking about it, trying to recall it all and he had come to the conclusion that they had interacted in person five times. They never had a proper conversation by text either, and Minho didn't talk in the group chats.

Seungmin asked Hyunjin about it once, about why he kept adding Minho in all the group chats even though he never bothered to send even one message, to which Hyunjin simply shrugged and said that it would be weird to exclude Minho even though he hated group chats. Hyunjin also told him that if he really hated them, then he would just leave - and he had a point. 

So yeah, if he thought back to it: he had talked to Minho five times. Seungmin didn’t really count the times he saw him at a distance as interactions. When they had passed each other in the hall, they usually didn't even bother to exchange a look. They were in the same friend group but led very different lives. Still, it was crazy to him how they only had talked five times.

He still remembered the first time Hyunjin mentioned him. It was some time during senior year in high school, when Hyunjin finally got into his dream dance studio. After the first class, Hyunjin was already talking about how amazing and handsome Minho was. From then on, Hyunjin fell into what Seungmin called “the Minho hole”. Minho was basically all Hyunjin could ever talk about. It was always about what Minho did or said, and he was always texting him. If Seungmin didn’t know Hyunjin any better, he would’ve thought he had a crush on him. But Seungmin had known Hyunjin for most of high school and they did everything together. They were the embodiment of the stereotypical unrealistic best friends you see in the movies. Neither of them was really what you would call “popular” - after all, they both were gay kids in high school. Before Hyunjin, Seungmin didn’t really know what it was like to have a proper best friend or any type of long-lasting friend for that matter, and for the longest time, it was just the two of them. That was until Lee Minho came into the picture.

It wasn’t like Minho actually stole Hyunjin away from him. And Minho certainly wasn’t the only factor of it all. But Seungmin couldn’t deny that it was just easier to blame him. Seungmin was glad Hyunjin had found a safe place where he truly could be himself and have all the friends he always wanted - and he even found his first boyfriend there eventually - but he felt left behind. It was that kind of stupid feeling you get when you’re 17 and about to graduate and realize your best friend may not be your best friend forever. And it wasn’t like Seungmin had much to fall back onto because Hyunjin was not only his best friend, but he was basically his only friend. He couldn’t really blame Hyunjin for wanting more than one friend, and a boyfriend, and the life that he would’ve had if he wasn’t gay or society wasn’t rooted in homophobia and toxic masculinity - because he had the looks and attitude to be the popular kid everyone loved and admired. But what Seungmin truly didn’t understand was the appeal in hanging out so much with a guy that was two years older than him and was already in college. He didn’t understand the appeal of Lee Minho.

The first time Seungmin actually saw Minho was months after Hyunjin got into that studio and once his friendship with Minho was well established. Hyunjin had bailed on Seungmin at the last minute for movie night to see his boyfriend and told him that they could meet after his dance class the next day. So there he was. Small 17 years old black-haired boy, waiting for his best friend from across the street of the building. He later explained to Hyunjin that he waited at the other side of the street because he thought Hyunjin might be embarrassed of him, to which Hyunjin answered: “how can I be embarrassed of you when you’re the best part of me?”. And Seungmin held that quote dear to his heart for a long time and replayed it on his mind to reassure himself whenever he felt replaced by Minho.

He had arrived pretty early because he didn’t want to risk being late, and more importantly, he didn’t want to intrude in any conversation Hyunjin might have. So it was easier and better if he just came in early and hoped Hyunjin would see him right away before starting a conversation with anyone. Looking back, it was a pretty stupid plan because Hyunjin literally just had a class with these people and shared a dressing room with them - if he had a conversation with them it would start before going out and Seungmin being there wouldn’t change a thing. But at the time, it made all the sense in the world. And it’s when he was waiting from across the street that he saw Minho for the first time.

Of course, at first, he didn’t know it was Minho. Hyunjin had never shown him a picture of him and Seungmin never cared to look him up on social media. It was only when Hyunjin came out and talked to him, in such a friendly and close manner, that Seungmin realized who he was. Seungmin still remembered how their eyes met, right before Hyunjin came out of the dance studio. He still remembered how surprised he was by Minho not looking away. Seungmin didn’t like to lie to himself, and he knew he was a pretty weird kid and that sometimes he zoned out looking at people and didn’t realize they could see him as well. Usually, people would look away uncomfortable and he would feel so bad he wouldn’t sleep at night, or they would get pissed at him (which was totally understandable) and, again, he wouldn’t sleep at night. But Minho didn’t look away. He didn’t say anything. He just blinked. It was weird.

The only way Seungmin could describe Minho’s style was like the typical bad boy in a movie, but he wasn’t actually a bad boy. He wore a black leather jacket, tight skinny jeans, and a black shirt with a logo on it, and if he was a cliche, he would’ve probably been smoking and riding a motorcycle. (Hyunjin later laughed at Seungmin's comment and told him Minho would rather die before touching a cigarette. Seungmin didn’t really believe him. Minho looked like that type of guy.) And Minho was pretty. He was the definition of pretty. He was cute and he was hot, but more than anything: Minho was pretty. He had a fine nose that made a perfect angle with his marked jaw, and small but shiny eyes. He was literally like a sculpture.

He saw him from a distance once or twice after that, but the time Seungmin remembered the most was the dance showcase at the end of senior year. He remembered being so proud of Hyunjin, and totally mesmerized by Minho’s skills. That was also the first night he heard his voice.

Once the show was over, Seungmin was waiting outside the exit door for performers. He remembered that moment vividly, but not because of Minho. He remembered how broken he was, not because Hyunjin came out of that door laughing with all the group of dancers, but because once he saw Seungmin, his smile died down.

‘You didn’t have to wait.’

‘You always come to my house after performances though.’

Seungmin remembered saying those words with the biggest pressure on his chest. He remembered wanting to cry so hard because he knew. Hyunjin looked back at his group and then back to Seungmin.

‘I’m sorry, not tonight.’

‘Hyunjin!’

And that was Minho. Hyunjin turned to him, disregarding Seungmin’s presence.

‘You coming?’

‘Be right there!’ But Minho stood there, waiting. Hyunjin then looked back at Seungmin. ‘I’m so sorry. I promise I will make it up to you.’

To this day, Seungmin thought of that day as the first time (and only time to be honest) that his heart was broken. He saw his best friend break their tradition and walk away with someone else. He was the definition of heartbroken. He had a whole emo breakdown that night. Watched the saddest movies and listened to ‘True Friends’ by Bring Me The Horizon about a hundred times.

As Seungmin sat on the bus and remembered that night, he smiled and laughed at himself. It was so stupid. It wasn’t even that deep. His friend was just making other friends. He wasn’t going to forget about him and that night wasn’t a preview of what their life would turn into during college. But it was easier to see it that way now that he knew that Hyunjin wouldn’t go anywhere after that and that now they had more friends and it was okay if they didn’t spend every minute of their life together.

The next day, Hyunjin came to his house first thing in the morning with all kinds of candies and they ate and watched movies until 4 a.m., despite Seungmin’s parents yelling at them. Hyunjin did end up apologizing and used the excuse that if he didn’t go it would look bad and that he would have invited him but he knew that going out to a bar to drink illegally wasn’t so much his thing. But he apologized, and Seungmin was grateful for that. Plus, he knew perfectly that it wasn’t his scene at all. Now he realized that night could have been the first time he met Minho. And that would’ve probably changed everything.

He remembered asking Hyunjin if anything had ever happened between the two, or if he wanted to. At the time Hyunjin and his boyfriend (well now ex) had already broken up, and Seungmin just wanted to make sure in case. Hyunjin laughed so hard that Seungmin ended up laughing with him. He remembered thinking that he could deal with being replaced for a boyfriend, but not for a new best friend.

* * *

The summer before college was just like every summer before - because Minho left town to go on a trip with his friends. Seungmin had to hear Hyunjin talk endlessly about how cool that was and how he wished they could do the same later. Seungmin didn’t really understand the point of it because they already spend most of the time together either way so what would a trip add to it all? But for the sake of conversation, he agreed, and Hyunjin talked about it for weeks until the idea died down.

Both of them had graduated with good grades and they both entered their hometown’s best college – which was also Minho’s college. They were a couple of freshmen, and Minho was a junior. Seungmin thought at the time that maybe Minho would be embarrassed of hanging out with Hyunjin due to their age difference, but it wasn’t the case at all. In fact, during the years they were both in college, Hyunjin and Minho just grew closer.

During that time, Seungmin saw Minho around quite a lot on campus especially because they both lived in the dorms. At first, he thought he might get an advantage because Hyunjin and him would be roommates as they had asked during their application, but they later found out it wasn’t possible. Hyunjin ended up being roommates with Changbin, a sophomore majoring in music, and Seungmin shared rooms with Felix, a freshman majoring in programming.

Those two would turn to be two of their closest friends, but Seungmin actually met Minho before that. It was before Seungmin even knew much about Changbin other than his age, major and stupid jokes. It was before he met Jisung or Chan, and much less Jeongin. It was in October of freshman year, right before Minho’s birthday. Seungmin still remembered the bookstore Hyunjin dragged him into to find a book about god-knows-what for his mom’s birthday.

It was that kind of old bookstore you now only really see in TV Shows, with wooden bookshelves and that atmosphere right out of the 90s. Once they got there, Seungmin even compared it to the bookstore in the first season of You and Hyunjin laughed, but Seungmin genuinely didn’t trust the people at the counter. When he asked Hyunjin why they came to such an old bookstore and why they couldn’t just buy the book in a big chain or something (or dare he say the internet), Hyunjin said to him: ‘Sometimes books are cheaper in these kinds of places. Plus, Minho is right: chains suck and they make beautiful places like this disappear. We have to support them.’

Of course Lee Minho had something to do with them going to a bookstore where they would probably get kidnapped and locked in a cage in the basement by a psychopath. After all the things he had heard about Minho, Seungmin could imagine him actually being the psychopath. It wasn't so far off to think that he could have manipulated everything since the beginning to end up marrying Hyunjin, and Seungmin was his only obstacle. Seungmin would end up like Peach. It was at that exact moment that Seungmin realized for the first time that maybe binge-watching TV shows all night instead of getting the sleep he needed wasn’t the best for his brain. He still did it a hundred times afterwards though, but the recognition of a problem was the first step of getting rid of it. Of course, that had been the one and only step he ever made about it. Seungmin liked his TV shows. They gave him a reality he never had, and books had been that for the longest time, but once you’re in college and it’s essay after essay, there aren’t many brain cells left for reading.

As Seungmin had his epiphany about how watching TV shows at night instead of sleeping was actually bad for his health, he walked by the bookshelves not looking for anything in particular and he sipped on the milkshake Hyunjin had bought him to bribe him into coming with him to the bookstore. He looked around the sci-fi section and then looked into the thriller section. He liked crime novels but had always hated scary novels, he didn’t find any interest in them. Reality was scary enough for him to read about it. Books were meant to make you escape, not make you worry about finding a ghost in your closet. He didn’t know if there was a book about that because it sounded like it would suck. He didn’t know anything about that kind of book or movies, and he was okay with that. He liked sci-fi and fantastic shows, but that’s as far as he went.

‘I thought you hated scary things as much as Hyunjin.’

Seungmin jumped at the voice coming from behind him and he turned around to find Minho who didn’t move a centimetre seeing Seungmin’s reaction. All Minho did was smile lightly, proud of himself.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Seungmin once he realized what had just happened.

Minho extended his hand towards him as if waiting for a handshake. ‘I’m Minho. Lee Minho.’

Seungmin looked down at the hand and pushed it away, which made Minho smile. ‘I know who you are, Minho. You don’t have to introduce yourself like you’re James Bond.’

Minho laughed slightly and nodded. He then examined Seungmin from head to toe, squinting his eyes. ‘What was your name again? I mean Hyunjin told me to go find the guy with the white hoodie and brown hair, but I don’t think he has ever mentioned your name.’

‘Good. I don’t like people talking about me behind my back.’

Hyunjin had told Seungmin a bunch of stories about Minho being rude to others or pushing people’s buttons. And Hyunjin always laughed about it. Seungmin found it obnoxious.

‘So do you actually like scary things?’ asked Minho looking around the shelf. ‘Or are you a scaredy-cat like Hyunjin?’

‘It’s hard to be worse than Hyunjin. He can’t even watch Teen Wolf, and I’ve tried several times .’

Minho laughed slightly. ‘ Teen Wolf isn’t scary. It’s a bunch of shirtless 25 years olds pretending to be high schoolers. I don’t see the appeal.’

‘It’s actually much more than that. There’s mythology and they take inspiration from folklore tales, and have you watched season five? That shit's scary!’

Minho stared at him for a couple of seconds in silence, while blinking about a hundred times - which Seungmin would later understand was a habit of his. Minho just blinked a lot. ‘Again, I don’t see the appeal. I'd rather spend my time watching an actually scary movie.’ Seungmin couldn’t help himself making a face of disgust to which Minho raised an eyebrow. ‘You have a problem with scary movies?’

‘Yeah, they suck.’

‘What an award-winning argument.’

‘I know, thank you. That’s why I’m part of the debate team.’

‘Ok, then I’ll make sure to go see you.’

‘I’ll save you a seat.’

‘I like the front row.’

‘Sure, you’ll be in the perfect place to hear my acceptance speech for my award-winning arguments.’

Minho stared at Seungmin straight in the eyes for a couple of seconds before rolling his eyes and sighing. Seungmin could tell he was used to always having the last word, and he hated that kind of person. Again, he was obnoxious. 

‘Fuck your season five of Teen Wolf, go read or watch actually scary things like The Shining and then we can talk,’ said Minho crossing his arms on his chest. ‘I’m not gonna stand here and talk about this with someone that doesn’t know shit about what they’re talking about.’

‘Really?’ Seungmin smiled slightly. He was obnoxious and pretentious. ‘You’re really gonna recommend me Stephen King? The most mainstream thriller writer out there? And you’re not even talking about some underrated book of his. You’re talking about The Shining. Thought you would go a bit more indie and less basic, mister don’t-go-to-chains-because-bookstores-are-dying.’

‘The Shining isn’t basic, it’s a classic and a masterpiece. And so is the movie.’

‘Why would I bother reading the book and watching the movie when I can do just one.’

Minho groaned annoyed. ‘Because if you knew anything about cinema you would know that Kubrick’s movie is nothing like the book to the point Stephen King did his own adaption.’

‘Yeah… I think I’m just gonna stick to my shirtless horny teenagers.’

He didn’t like Minho. He didn’t like the way he looked at him. He didn’t like how used he was of being in control of the conversation. He didn’t like the cheeky smile he had every time he managed to make fun of Hyunjin. Minho wasn’t the typical bad boy; he was the typical pretentious douche who told his friends what they should or shouldn’t be. Seungmin didn’t like him, and he was pretty sure Minho didn’t like him back either.

After Hyunjin bought the book for his mom, Seungmin left the two friends alone with the excuse that he needed to study - which was technically true, but it also was an excuse to get away from them. He had always hated third-wheeling.

The next day, when he saw Hyunjin, he told him he didn’t really like Minho. It was a year of building him up in his mind without actually meeting him, and the first encounter had him coming to that conclusion. Hyunjin laughed as Seungmin ranted about how pretentious and obnoxious Minho was. Once he realized how hilarious it all seemed to Hyunjin, Seungmin stopped talking and asked him what was so funny. Hyunjin smiled at him amused.

‘Why do you think you guys had never met before?’

* * *

Hyunjin had given up on his two best friends ever getting along even before they met, and for the longest time Seungmin thought he was right. Ah yes, because Hyunjin had now “two best friends”. It wasn’t just Seungmin anymore. Minho was definitely there to stay. Even two years after Hyunjin and Minho meeting, Seungmin still expected him to go away at some point.

They had new friends now though, so it was a blessing that Hyunjin was calling only one more person his best friend. Other than their respective roommates, they had met Jisung through Changbin because he was mentoring him as they were both majoring in music. He quickly became a friend of theirs and over time Jisung, Felix, Hyunjin and Seungmin became what Chan called “the fantastic four” - they were also the four freshmen of the group. And as for Chan, he was a senior but for some reason he was friends with Changbin and Jisung so he got integrated into the friend group as well.

Out of all these amazing people, why did Minho have to be the other best friend?

It was worth noting that they all loved Minho. Changbin met him even before Seungmin did. Felix and Jisung met him at his birthday party because Hyunjin invited them (at the time Seungmin refused to go to a club to celebrate an “asshole’s birthday”), and Jisung ended up becoming really close to him. And Chan knew Minho from before, which everyone saw as a nice coincidence and Seungmin just wanted to die because he didn’t think it was too much to ask for someone, anyone, that didn’t like Lee Minho.

Seungmin’s second full-on emo night was one day during the spring semester of freshman year. The day before, Seungmin, Hyunjin, Felix and Jisung had been studying in Seungmin’s room for finals, but one thing led to another and they ended up playing a game of truth, dare or drink. Jisung, being Jisung, asked Hyunjin to pick between Seungmin and Minho, and Hyunjin answered (and Seungmin could still hear it at a distance): ‘I can’t pick. They’re both my best friends.’

The night after that, Seungmin asked Felix to paint his nails black to see what it would look like and Felix even applied eyeliner on him, because Felix was an angel and supported even his emo breakdowns. He then played ‘With Ears to See and Eyes to Hear’ by Sleeping With Sirens - because he needed to switch up his emo songs. Felix didn’t like it though so Seungmin played the acoustic version, to which he ended up singing along to and crying while hugging a bottle of vodka.

That night Felix asked him if he loved Hyunjin as more than friends and Seungmin thought about it for a long time. He even answered that he didn’t know. And that question was on his mind for a while. But a week later, when Hyunjin and Jisung tried to figure out which one of them could make themselves look the ugliest by putting scotch on their faces, Seungmin figured out the answer to Felix’s question. No. He wasn’t in love with Hyunjin, he didn’t even like him that way. Hyunjin was his best friend, kind of like his soulmate, but what he felt for him wasn’t romantic love. For as much as he would die for Hyunjin, and hide everybody that he would murder, he wasn’t in love. However, Hyunjin was the closest thing he knew to love.

Seungmin had never been in love. He had liked a couple of boys before but it had never been anything but platonic, because of his shyness and because he didn’t think anyone had ever liked him that way. He was almost a sophomore in college and he had next to no experience with any guy or anyone for that matter. But he never felt like it was something missing from his life. He just hadn’t ever been in love and it was okay. But it explained why he was so attached to Hyunjin, because it was as far as he had gotten in terms of loving. Hyunjin was who he loved the most in the world and it hurt to know Hyunjin didn’t put as much importance to his love for him.

When he opened up about it to Felix right before the summer between freshman and sophomore year, Felix said something that would remain with him forever.

‘It’s not because he starts loving someone else that he stops loving you.’

And he replaced Hyunjin’s quote about being the best part of him with that. 

Seungmin didn’t see Minho for what felt like forever. After the conversation he had with Hyunjin after they first met, Seungmin was sure that Hyunjin did everything to avoid them meeting again. And it was weird because all his friends were friends with Minho as well. They were in the same group chats and the same friend group. But Minho liked the parties Seungmin hated, and Seungmin liked doing picnics to which Minho didn’t even bother making up an excuse not to go. Also, to be fair to Minho, he also was quite busy with his dance crew and he had other friends.

Seungmin met Jeongin at the beginning of sophomore year, when the younger was a freshman. Their rooms were next to each other and after the homecoming party at one of the fraternity houses, Hyunjin broke into Jeongin’s room convinced it was Seungmin’s room. And from there on, he was part of the group. And it actually took him much more time to meet Minho than the rest of the group because of how busy he was. He even met Chan first even though he had already graduated and had moved into an apartment of his own a thirty minutes bus ride away. 

It was somehow a relief for Seungmin to have someone in the group that didn’t like Minho, but unfortunately for him, once Jeongin did meet Minho, he loved him as well. Seungmin was starting to think he was the problem. Felix told him that he wouldn’t know because he never saw them together (because they never were together) and that maybe Seungmin held over his head too many grudges about things that weren’t even his fault. And he was probably right, but Seungmin would rather die than blame Hyunjin for his suffering - that wasn’t that deep after all.

Minho was pretty absent from everyone’s life during his senior year. Hyunjin was always moody because Minho kept ditching him because of work, or exams, or apparently his new girlfriend. Seungmin thought he finally had won the battle over Hyunjin. For a while, he expected things to go back to the way it was before Minho, back in high school, with candies and stupid movies, but now Felix, Jisung, Jeongin and Changbin (and even Chan even though he wasn’t in college anymore) were in the mix and he actually didn’t mind that much. It still hurt to think about how nothing would ever go back to the way it was before. But he was starting to let go of his unhealthy bond to Hyunjin, and that’s when he started to be happier. Hyunjin was still his best friend and he still loved him more than anything in the world, but that title wasn’t an excuse for Seungmin to close himself to everyone but Hyunjin anymore.

When he learned about Minho having a girlfriend and saw Hyunjin throwing a tantrum over it, Seungmin wondered if it would be the same if it was him. So he dated. It was a random guy from one of his classes with whom he made a presentation and they got along pretty well. It turned out he was bisexual and Seungmin thought he was cute so he asked him out on a date. Seungmin’s main interest was to see how Hyunjin would react to it but he also wanted to understand what it was like to date, to hold hands, to kiss, and to feel something other than friendship for someone. After a couple of dates, Seungmin genuinely started to like hanging out with him and he liked him, at least he thought he did. One could even say they became boyfriends.

But the guy was way more invested in the relationship than Seungmin, and even though Seungmin did like this guy and did care for him, he also cared a lot about his friends and they were his priority no matter what. Eventually, after a while, his boyfriend grew tired of carrying the whole “relationship” on his shoulders and Seungmin couldn’t really blame him for it. They never were official so they never had the need for a proper break-up. But by the last party of the year, where Seungmin saw him kissing someone else, he knew it was over and he was okay with that. He had his first romantic experience and he had proved that Hyunjin also got jealous if he had a boyfriend, so he was pleased. Hyunjin didn't throw a tantrum like he did for Minho. He just got drunk and cried to him for about an hour once, not long after Seungmin got more official with his “boyfriend”. Hyunjin told him all about how he felt like he was losing him, and that he could deal with losing Minho but not him. Seungmin was satisfied but it didn’t feel as good as he had imagined. He didn’t want Hyunjin to hurt. Ever.

At that same year-end party where he saw his ex making out with someone else, he did catch a glimpse of Minho for the first time in a long time and of his girlfriend as well. He also saw how there was a huge drama and they ended up breaking up in the middle of the party in front of everyone causing a scene. Seungmin never really knew why they broke up but as he got off at his bus stop, he promised himself he'd ask Minho later. Two years had passed but he was still curious about it. Hyunjin never told him what happened, and neither did anyone else, but he wasn’t so sure anyone but Hyunjin knew.

As he walked down the street, Seungmin was reminded of the second time he talked to Minho. It was during the summer between sophomore and junior year. According to Hyunjin, and to quote him, Minho was “going through something” that summer. Seungmin always assumed it was related to his break-up. The point was that during that summer, Minho dyed his hair for the first time and it was red. By the time Seungmin saw him, the color had faded and it was more orange than anything else. He kind of looked good (Seungmin wasn’t sure Minho was capable of looking anything but good) but he also lowkey looked like a carrot. Seungmin made a joke about it to Jisung who laughed so hard that he ended up telling everyone. Minho didn’t like the joke one single bit.

It was at the end of August and Chan and Minho were moving in together. They both had graduated and Chan didn’t like his first apartment all too much, and neither did he like living alone, so it made sense. So everyone was invited - better said, obligated - to help with the move. It was a hot summer day and Seungmin would’ve been hiding in his room back at home with the curtains closed and the AC on if Chan hadn’t personally texted him to tell him to come, no excuse accepted, not even funerals. By how Minho looked at him after his joke, Seunmin was pretty sure the funeral would be his.

It was going okay - well, apart from the carrot joke and the murdery look Minho was giving him. Seungmin would’ve said he actually thought he looked good to make the situation better but it would be too awkward, it was their second time meeting after all. And their friends didn’t fail to mention it.

‘Wait really?’ said Jisung loudly when Hyunjin mentioned it laughing at how awkward the two were around each other. ‘How the fuck is that possible?’

‘I’ve come to the conclusion it’s better to keep them apart,’ said Hyunjin, laughing at Jisung who was completely in shock and whose eyes were bigger than ever.

‘But you’ve known Minho for three years,’ said Jisung looking at the two standing at opposite sides of the room.

It wasn’t like Minho was a stranger to Seungmin, at least he didn’t feel like it at all and he was pretty sure Minho felt the same about him. He knew pretty much everything there was to know about him but he didn’t know him. They didn’t talk or hang out but he had seen him around campus a hundred times. They weren’t strangers but they didn’t know each other either.

‘Can any of you go get the pizzas?’ asked Chan entering the living room in which Hyunjin and Jisung were laying on the couch “unpacking” a box (but they had been unpacking it for about an hour) and Seungmin and Minho were just standing looking at them joke around.

‘Don’t they do delivery?’ pouted Jisung.

‘Are you gonna pay for the delivery?’ asked Chan, raising a brow. Jisung stared at him and then shook his head quickly as he started to actually unpack the box with Hyunjin. ‘It’s like five blocks away, can you go? We’re setting up the beds with the guys.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Minho, raising his hand. ‘But I’m taking your wallet to pay.’

‘Ok but don’t go by yourself, I ordered like six pizzas. I doubt you can carry all of that by yourself,’ said Chan as he handed his wallet to Minho before heading back to one of the rooms from where he heard the sound of something heavy falling to the ground.

Minho looked up at Seungmin and Seungmin looked at Minho, and they just stared at each other. If they had any complicity whatsoever, Seungmin would’ve mentioned how funny it was knowing that it was a similar situation to when they first saw each other. Seungmin wasn’t sure if it was funny or sad how three years later, there still wasn’t any progress at all.

‘I’ll go with you, Min-’ 

But as Hyunjin tried to get up, Jisung grabbed onto his shirt which made Hyunjin fall back down onto the couch.

‘Let them bound, Jinnie, they have to at some point. We’re all just a big loving family after all!’

By the way Minho stared at him, Seungmin clearly didn’t feel in the company of a family member. Or maybe yes. After thinking about it, he remembered some people in his family giving him that look when they found out he was gay. Still, he would’ve picked any day a homophobic boomer over Lee Minho. Plus, it wasn’t any kind of Lee Minho: it was the Lee Minho that was “going through something” to the point he dyed his hair. Was Minho going through an existential crisis at 22 years old? Did the existential crisis ever stop being a thing? Because Seungmin was 20 by now and he was running out of songs to be the soundtrack of his suffering, especially because Felix was pretty particular about emo songs. Once, after a failed exam, Seungmin tried to play the entirety of Collide With The Sky by Pierce The Veil and Felix didn’t like it too much. He did like The Black Parade though so that was a win, but he didn’t play it much so Felix wouldn't get bored of it and kept it for special occasions - or better said extreme existential crisis. Apart from Seungmin’s very rare emo nights and the times he failed exams, Seungmin didn’t really listen to more “aggressive” rock and he and Felix usually got along when it came to music, and Felix didn’t complain ever - he just wasn’t all about the screaming apparently. Seungmin needed it from time to time though. He didn’t know if it was his personality or if he had been conditioned to it at some point by society, but he always kept things to himself. And Seungmin wasn’t someone that had many issues at all but sometimes he just needed to let it go and listening to that type of music was his way of letting it go.

As they walked in silence side by side, Seungmin thought about what color he would dye his hair if he ever was “going through something”. He had had brown hair for a while now, changing shades and pretending it made a difference, but he liked it. He liked to keep it safe. He damn sure didn’t think he could pull off the carrot color like Minho. Sometimes he thought about going back to black. Maybe one day.

‘Can you fucking stop staring at my hair?’ said Minho after a couple of minutes, and it’s right there that Seungmin realized that while he was thinking of all the shades of brown he had gone through, he had been staring at Minho.

‘Sorry. Zoned out,’ said Seungmin. ‘No need to talk to me like that though.’

‘How else do you want me to talk to you?’ 

Minho didn’t even care to look at Seungmin as he said those words. It wasn’t so much the words; it was the intonation of hatred in his voice. He was looking straight as he hurried the pace of the walk and Seungmin was struggling to keep up. Minho wasn’t “going through something”, he was a moody asshole.

‘Can you stop running please?’

Seungmin had to stop to catch his breath. For a second, he thought Minho would leave him there. If it was the case, Seungmin was already planning on letting Minho go pick up the six pizzas all by himself and if he died buried under pizza, well it wasn’t Seungmin’s problem. But Minho did stop, and he turned around.

‘Why do you hate me so much?’

Minho squinted his eyes at Seungmin’s question and laughed slightly. ‘If you think I care enough about you to waste my time hating you… You think way too highly of yourself.’

Seungmin remembered Minho being pretentious and obnoxious, but not rude. ‘The fuck did I do to you?’

‘You’re the one that hated me first, so I don’t know why I would be nice to someone that already wrote me off when we don’t know each other.’

‘Well, we’re not exactly strangers.’

‘You don’t know me, Seungmin. Stop pretending you do. It’s annoying.’

‘You don’t know me either.’

‘I’m not pretending I do and telling your best friend that you’re a pretentious and obnoxious asshole. Or turning your whole friend group against you for no reason whatsoever.’

Those words made shivers go down Seungmin’s spine. He had never seen things that way nor did he realize that people cared when he spoke about the way he felt about Minho. And Seungmin barely talked about Minho to begin with. As much as Minho’s statement was harsh, it was technically an exaggeration of the truth. Seungmin had talked once to Hyunjin about Minho being pretentious and obnoxious, and it had been almost two years ago. And as for the rest, they knew he didn’t like Minho, he never cared to hide his feelings, but he never turned anyone against him.

‘You always make me look like the bad guy of the story,’ said Minho, a bit less angry, calmer. ‘I’m not the one you should be mad at. It’s not my fault Hyunjin got bored of you.’

Under the shock, Seungmin’s opened his mouth but not a single sound came out of it. It was summer and yet he felt his entire body shivering while Minho stared at him. Seungmin could see pure and true hatred in those small eyes. The shine he once saw when he first saw him wasn’t there for as much as Seungmin tried to look for it. It was scary, but he didn’t want to make him feel like he was in control so Seungmin stared back.

But then something changed, something shifted in Minho’s eyes and Seungmin didn’t understand why until he turned around and saw a black cat. Next thing he knew the scary Minho that had told him the worst thing anyone had ever said to him, had turned into a version of himself Seungmin had never seen before or never heard of from his friends. Minho got close to the cat, carefully put his hand in front of the cat’s nose and once the cat accepted him, Minho started caressing him carefully. The cat quickly started to pour to Minho’s touch. And Minho… Well, Minho had gone all soft. There was no better way to put it.

Seungmin took a step back though. He didn’t try to approach the cat, too scared to scare the cat or Minho - two of the same at the end of the day. But after five minutes of Seungmin just standing there, he was getting bored and the last thing he wanted to do was extend his alone time with Minho.

‘We should go get the pizza…,’ Seungmin whispered, kind of hoping Minho didn’t hear him so he wouldn’t get mad.

‘There’s a cat, Seungmin… The cat is more important than the pizza. Check your priorities,’ said Minho, not even looking at him. But he wasn’t being rude like before, he almost sounded… happy? Seungmin made a mental note to tell Hyunjin later to just give Minho a cat so that his “going through something” phase would come to an end.

‘Well, let me get the pizza on my own then,’ said Seungmin. ‘Just give me Chan’s wallet.’

Minho shook his head. ‘Come caress him. He’s nice. He won’t hurt you.’

‘What if he has diseases?’

‘You can wash your hands before you put them back into your mouth, nose or eyes, can’t you?’

Seungmin still wasn’t too convinced. He didn’t hate cats per se. They were cute and all, but he just wasn’t a cat person. Better said, he was the definition of a dog person. He just loved dogs. He even kept a stuffed dog in his room. No shame in it. He wanted a dog but couldn’t get one yet so it made up for it.

‘You know... I’m more of a dog person.’

He saw Minho roll his eyes, laugh slightly as he shook his head and then look up at Seungmin. ‘You hate scary books and movies, and you’re a dog person. How the hell do you expect me not to hate you?’

Again, Seungmin was left speechless, not because he was being rude but because he was making a joke. Maybe. Was that a joke? Seungmin didn’t want to make whatever situation was going on any worse so he got down next to Minho.

‘You have to let him smell you first, kind of like your dogs. But cats are more particular though,’ said Minho and Seungmin did as instructed. Thankfully the cat did accept his presence and didn’t scratch his hand. The cat was soft, it was nice. Seungmin didn’t know if he was having a moment with Minho, but it was nice.

‘I don’t get how you can hate cats.’

‘I said I was a dog person, not a cat anti,’ said Seungmin while he smiled at how happy the cat seemed.

‘Cats are the best.’

‘Then get one.’

‘You get a dog before telling me what to do.’

‘Fair enough.’

Eventually, after a few minutes, the cat got bored of them and left, or maybe because he had smelled food or something, so they resumed their trip to the pizzeria in total silence. All Seungmin could do was think of what Minho had said right before seeing the cat though. Did Hyunjin really get bored of him? All this time he thought Minho was the problem, he thought that if Minho hadn’t shown up then Hyunjin and him would have stayed the way they were for the longest time. But maybe he was wrong. Maybe nothing could’ve stopped that. Maybe it hadn’t been Minho, it had been himself who drove Hyunjin away.

Seungmin was so into his head that he didn’t realize that they were back in Minho’s and Chan’s building until they were waiting for the elevator. He kept replaying scenes, and all the times he had blamed Minho for basically breathing. He felt bad. He felt awful. It was worse than when he zoned out looking at people and they screamed at him for staring. He was feeling sick. He was about to-

‘I’m sorry.’

Minho’s voice took Seungmin right out of his spiralling, and he looked at him confused. He wasn’t sure if he had imagined that or if it was real.

‘What I said about Hyunjin was stupid and… Not true. He didn't get bored of you. He loves you… A lot. Much more than what he loves me if that makes you feel any better.’

Seungmin was just confused by this point but he didn’t want to interrupt Minho - he wasn’t so sure what he could bring to the table either. Minho sighed.

‘I’m pissed at you for talking shit about me but… In the past two years, everyone has been telling me where to go or not go according to if you are going to be there or not, and I’m sick of it. And I know you don’t ask that from them. It just pisses me off how you’re seen as the angel and I’m the devil. But it is what it is, and it isn’t entirely your fault. Sorry for taking it out on you earlier.’

‘Y-You…’ Seungmin cleared his throat. ‘That’s why you weren’t around this last year?’

‘Part of it, yeah.’

‘I never said we couldn’t-’

‘I know,’ Minho interrupted him. ‘But we don’t get along, so I get why it’s uncomfortable for them, especially Hyunjin. I just wish they picked me instead of you from time to time.’

‘They picked you a bunch of times.’

Minho nodded slightly. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

They stayed in silence as the elevator opened its doors and they got in it. With the two of both carrying three boxes of pizza each, it was hard to fit and stay as far as possible from each other as they did the way down, but they managed.

‘I watched the fifth season of Teen Wolf by the way,’ said Minho, not even looking at Seungmin who was staring at him surprised. ‘It was like a year ago during exams, my brain was fried, I needed something to take my mind off everything. Just watched that season though. The first part was okay, but the second part was kind of shit.’

‘The second part is a hundred times better if you watch all the TV show-’

‘You’re out of your mind if you think I’m gonna watch all the episodes of that show.’

‘But the first part of the season is scary, right?’

Minho looked at Seungmin and blinked like a hundred times before saying: ‘Not really. No.’

They got off the elevator and as they waited in front of the door, Seungmin felt a warm feeling in his heart. Maybe all the resentment was finally gone. It was nice to think Minho had followed his recommendation - or whatever the hell you could call that first conversation. So he decided to give something back. Something small but meaningful. Maybe it would mean as much to Minho as it meant to Seungmin that he watched season five of Teen Wolf.

‘I like your hair by the way. It suits you well.’

‘I know.’

Lee Minho was impossible.

That night, the first thing Seungmin did coming back home was to look online for a pdf of The Shining and downloaded it to start reading. But he wouldn’t tell anyone about it until much later.

* * *

‘That’ll be 19 dollars and 50 cents, please.’

Seungmin took his wallet from his back pocket and took out a 20 dollars bill to hand it to the girl behind the counter who gave him 50 cents back. It reminded him of the third time he had spoken to Minho. It wasn’t so long ago but at the same time, it felt like ages ago.

Junior year had come and gone pretty smoothly for Seungmin. He started to bail more on his friends so that Minho could be with them more. He didn’t mind that much because his grades started to rise back up and he had time for other things like sleep. It was also fair to say that during that year, due to various factors, they didn’t do as much stuff all of them together. One of those facts was Hyunjin’s new relationship with a senior and his clear absence from the group. Jisung spent most of his time at Chan’s and Minho’s apartment, and Changbin was more focused on his studies than ever because he was in senior year. Even though he still saw them quite often, compared to how much time Seungmin passed with Felix and Jeongin, he barely saw them.

The only way Seungmin could personally summarize his life in junior year was: boring. He thought about joining Jisung and Changbin who went to most fraternity parties, but it took one party for Seungmin to know it wasn’t his crowd at all. Jisung and Changbin had always been more about drinking and partying than Seungmin. Although he could hold his alcohol pretty well, it wasn’t his thing.

Hyunjin spent most of his time with his boyfriend and his friends, but he tried to hang out at least once a week with Seungmin, which he appreciated quite a lot. But he was still worried about him, seeing how he had turned constantly dependent on his boyfriend and had turned every aspect of his life about said boyfriend. Seungmin even tried to set up an intervention and Jeongin created a group chat, but the conversation didn’t go anywhere. Minho complained about them making yet another group chat and Jisung said Hyunjin was in love and that they should let him be. So that’s what Seungmin did.

However, every time he saw Hyunjin all he did was talk about his boyfriend – the things he said, the things they did together. It seemed like Hyunjin didn’t care about anything else anymore. Seungmin was happy for him, he truly was, but something didn’t sit right with him. He wished and prayed for him to be wrong. But unfortunately, the talking turned into crying, and Hyunjin’s happiness turned into sadness.

By the last few months of Junior Year, Hyunjin was in love with what Jeongin described as “the most toxic person I have ever met”. Hyunjin was convinced he was being cheated on, and his boyfriend treated him like crap, yet he didn’t leave. Seungmin hated to see his best friend like this. He hated to see him suffer for someone that clearly didn’t deserve him. And Seungmin told him countless times that he deserved better, that he would find someone that would treat him the way he deserved to be treated. But Hyunjin always had the same answer: “but I love him”. A year had passed since then and Seungmin still hurt just to think about it. Everyone in the group had been worried dead about him but no one knew what to do. Every time they saw Hyunjin he seemed more and more drained, he didn’t dance anymore, his grades were dropping and the only thing that made him laugh was Jisung.

During that time Seungmin thought a lot about talking to Minho. He thought that if he and Minho joined forces they could manage to convince Hyunjin to leave his boyfriend. But he never did. He didn’t have much news from him either, mainly because Hyunjin didn’t talk about him anymore. He figured that he wasn’t “going through something” anymore because of a selfie Jeongin posted with him where he had gone back to brown hair. When he visited Chan, he saw Minho had adopted a cat, which made Seungmin smile but he didn’t say anything. Seungmin also finished reading The Shining and he was ashamed to say he actually liked it - it scared the fuck out of him but he liked it. He even bought a used copy at the bookstore where he had met Minho just for the irony of it, and also because he hated reading on the computer. Felix was so surprised to see him read it, or just read in general because Seungmin had given up on books a long time ago, that he mentioned it to Chan, and apparently Chan told Felix, who told Seungmin, that it was funny because it was Minho’s all-time favorite book. Seungmin felt weird to be reading Minho’s favorite book and it felt even weirder to think that during their first conversation Minho had recommended to him his all-time favorite book. Or maybe it wasn’t that deep. Still, when Felix told him about it not knowing why Seungmin had started reading it in the first place, Seungmin didn’t sleep that night thinking about how he should’ve talked about season three of Teen Wolf instead.

Hyunjin never broke up with his boyfriend. His boyfriend broke up with him. And for a long time, all Hyunjin did was cry and get drunk. It lasted all summer. Thankfully, he had his friends by his side. Jisung would always go out with him, Minho would take care of him while he was drunk, and Seungmin would support him when he was hungover. That’s how the summer passed. Heartbreak and heat. Hyunjin also hooked up a lot with random guys, which was a side of him Seungmin had never seen. Seungmin didn’t really get it but he never had sex so there were a lot of things about sex that he didn’t get either way. Eventually, the summer ended and Hyunjin seemed to be much better, but he wasn’t the same. Seungmin hoped that at some point his best friend would come back to the way he was before but something had changed forever in him. He tried to be okay with it because he knew that people got hurt and logically changed forever, but he regretted not having been able to protect him from all the bad in the world. Felix told him it wasn’t his role and Seungmin agreed, but it still hurt.

The third time he talked to Minho was a couple of weeks into his senior year. Even though Hyunjin was much better, he still wanted to go out all the time, and one of those times he convinced Seungmin to go with him. When Hyunjin let him know that Jisung was also coming, Seungmin complained saying it lowkey started to feel like third-wheeling whenever he was hanging out with the two of them and he told him they should be at least four because, with only three people, someone was always left behind. Seungmin hoped Hyunjin would push Changbin to come with them, but little did he know he was asking for Lee Minho.

When they were in line to enter the club, Seungmin noticed at the other side of the street none other than Jisung and Minho. He turned to Hyunjin with big eyes, demanding an explanation. Hyunjin just laughed slightly amused at his best friend.

‘What? You told me you’d rather it be four of us!’

Fuck you, Hwang Hyunjin. He thought it so hard, Seungmin was convinced Hyunjin might have been able to hear it. He couldn’t complain and Hyunjin knew it.

Minho and him weren’t on bad terms. They technically never were. There weren’t enough interactions between them to even have terms at all. But compared to before the last time they saw each other, they weren’t on bad terms. Seungmin didn’t think anything of Minho anymore. All the jealousy and resentment that had been once there had gone over time. They weren’t strangers but they didn’t know each other, and it was unfair of him to act like he did.

Minho just smiled slightly at him while Jisung hugged him as if they hadn’t seen each other in ages. Seungmin didn’t even try pushing him away. He was okay with Jisung’s hugs. However, when Jisung tried hugging Hyunjin, he pushed him away and Jisung proceeded to pretend he was offended pouting. But then Hyunjin hugged him by the back, head on his shoulder and arms around his waist. They waited in line for a while and Seungmin didn’t participate much in the conversation. He had been scared to third-wheel, but he was fourth-wheeling at this point. 

But Seungmin didn’t really mind. If he had really wanted to get involved in the conversation, he would’ve. Instead, he was more confused by Hyunjin’s attitude. He never really noticed before that night - at least that’s what Seungmin remembered now that almost a year had passed. Hyunjin was different with Jisung. He could tell just by the way Hyunjin laughed at his jokes, hiding his face on Jisung’s neck as he was still hugging him.

Felix actually asked once Seungmin why he was so jealous of Minho but didn’t care about Jisung. And he didn’t know how to respond, like most Felix’s questions. Even though Jisung was very close to Hyunjin as well, somehow he was different. He never really understood why. Jisung wasn’t here to replace him. Hyunjin didn’t act that way with either Seungmin or Minho. Hyunjin had never acted that way with anyone before, at least not that Seungmin could remember. Not even his boyfriends.

Seungmin was all up in his overthinking when he heard his friends (and Minho) talk about how much it would cost to enter the club. He never thought about that. Seungmin wasn’t used to going out to clubs or anything. When he went to parties, it was frat parties or the party was at someone’s house. Clubs? He remembered going once when they were younger back in high school, because Hyunjin wanted to try, and he remembered hating it. After that, he was done with clubs and as Minho was a club guy, whenever his friends went they went with Minho. And he was more than okay with that. But facts were: Seungmin had no idea he had to pay to enter a club and had next to no money on him.

So when they were in front of the guy that sells tickets and his friends (and Minho) gave the money and turned to him, he was speechless. He felt so stupid.

‘H-How much is it?’

‘20 dollars,’ answered Hyunjin. Seungmin could tell he was trying to be nice to him but he was pissed off as he was holding the line.

20 fucking dollars to get into a party he didn’t even want to go to? What was that about? Seungmin clearly didn’t have the money for that. He had 10 in his wallet and minus 100 in his bank account. Still, he could manage to pay with his credit card. He was getting birthday money either way, it was okay if he spent it on going out with Hyunjin to make him happy.

‘I’ll pay for him.’

Seungmin looked up at Minho who was already giving the cash to the guy and before he could say anything, Seungmin was already in the club with his ticket on hand. Jisung and Hyunjin basically ran to the bar to get their one free drink that came with the ticket while Minho followed them slowly. However, Seungmin forced him to turn around by grabbing him by the arm.

‘Why did you do that?’

The music was so loud he basically had to scream to feel like Minho could hear him.

‘Well, you didn’t have the money.’

‘I’ll pay you back.’

Minho shrugged. ‘You don’t have to. It’s nothing.’

‘I have 10 on me.’

‘I don’t want your money, Seungmin.’

‘I don’t want to owe you anything.’

Minho smiled slightly amused. ‘You don’t… Just leave it, okay? I have the money to pay and you don’t, and it’s okay. I mean it.’

Minho didn’t even leave him the time to answer, he turned around and went towards the bar. Seungmin followed him in silence. He wanted to pay him back. He felt bad about it. He hated to ask for money even to his actual friends, so how could he even sleep knowing Minho had spent 20 extra dollars for him? Seungmin complained about the price later and Hyunjin told him it was apparently some kind of exclusive club. Seungmin didn’t see anything special about it.

The night wasn’t anything special. Not at first either way. Jisung and Hyunjin were on the dance floor dancing, being chased by guys, but they stuck together. Seungmin had his first drink for free and then he had just enough to pay a shitty beer with his 10 dollars, and he enjoyed every sip of his only two drinks of the night while he sat on one of the couches near the bar. Throughout the night, several different groups of friends came to that couch and asked him if it was alright if they sat there - he always said yes. From where he was, he could keep an eye on Jisung and Hyunjin, but Minho was nowhere to be seen. Seungmin couldn’t deny he was curious about it, but he believed it was more because of boredom than anything else.

Things changed after a couple of hours though. When Minho came back and sat next to him with on hand a giant glass of a cocktail. It had two straws in it and seemed pretty huge to be for only one person, so Seungmin wondered if it was for him as well but he didn’t dare to ask anything. His drinks were long gone and the effect of the alcohol was starting to wear off, but it wasn’t enough for him to ask anything from Minho.

‘Hyunjin told me you weren’t big on strong alcohol, so I ordered a cosmopolitan,’ said Minho as he got more comfortable on the couch. ‘Hope that’s okay.’

‘I-It’s for me?’

Minho smiled amused. ‘Well, it’s to share. It’s actually cheaper to buy this than two separate drinks, that’s why.’

Seungmin nodded slightly. ‘Thank you… Again.’

They drank out of the giant cocktail, each at their own speed and time. A couple of guys approached Minho to dance with him, but he declined them every time. Seungmin didn’t want to ask why. Hyunjin and Jisung were still on the dance floor and seemed to have fun, so he didn’t quite understand why Minho was seating next to him. It wasn’t like they were having a very interesting conversation or anything of the sort. They were just sitting in silence and drinking.

‘Don’t you wanna go dancing?’ asked Seungmin, clearly under the influence of alcohol, because he would’ve never even dared to talk to Minho without it.

Minho looked up from his phone and looked at him confused. ‘You mean… with you?’

‘No!’ Seungmin shook his head quickly. ‘No, I mean in general.’

‘Oh…’ Minho shrugged. ‘I’m tired, I guess. Why don’t you go dancing?’

‘Because I don’t like dancing and I’m not good at it either.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘Because I want to be a supportive friend to Hyunjin.’ Seungmin looked back at Hyunjin who was laughing and dancing with Jisung. He didn’t understand how he wasn’t completely worn out by now. ‘But I don’t think it would even matter if I was here or not.’

‘So now you’re gonna be jealous of Jisung instead of me?’

Seungmin turned to Minho. ‘I wasn’t jealous of you.’

‘Yes, you were.’ Minho took a sip of the drink. ‘Are you in love with him or something?’

‘No, I’m not!’

‘Then stop being so jealous of everyone that is close to Hyunjin.’

‘So what? Jisung and Hyunjin are best friends now?’

Minho took another sip before giving what was left to Seungmin and getting up. ‘Not exactly. Now shut up and finish the drink.’

‘Why?’

‘We’re in a club. We’re gonna go dancing.’

‘Why in the hell would I do that? I suck at dancing.’

‘Because I want my money spent on something more than you sitting here and pouting.’

‘I’m not pouting, and I’ll pay you back.’

‘You need to learn how to have fun without Hyunjin.’

‘What do you even mean!? I always have plenty of fun without Hyunjin!’

But Minho was stubborn, and once he was set on something, there was no way to make him change his mind. So Seungmin finished the drink quickly as Minho grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him towards the “dance floor”. It was sticky under his feet, and it gave Seungmin a serious flashback to when he had tried it that one time with Hyunjin. It was disgusting. People were sweating all around him and he didn’t think there was enough alcohol to make him not notice the smell. The music wasn’t his favorite either. He liked acoustic music and bands and his soft pop, and occasionally his darker stuff, but not whatever they were playing there. As he struggled to find a position where he wouldn’t be touched by others, Minho was already dancing perfectly to the rhythm of the music. It only took a couple of seconds for Minho to start laughing at him. To be fair, he wasn’t even trying. Dancing was always Hyunjin’s thing, not his. People was always Hyunjin’s thing, not his.

‘Could you at least try?’

‘I suck at this! I told you!’

Minho rolled his eyes and before Seungmin could leave like he wanted to, Minho put his hands on his shoulders forcing Seungmin to follow his movement. All Seungmin could do was make steps at the rhythm of the music, and he could just tell Minho was getting embarrassed of him. One guy even approached Minho and asked him to dance. When Minho refused, Seungmin was a hundred per cent sure the guy insisted making the point that Minho deserved a better dance partner. And he was right. Seungmin sucked. Seungmin was good at singing at the top of his lungs and jumping around, but that was when good music was playing, not whatever this club had going on. 

Eventually, Seungmin pushed Minho’s hands away from his shoulders. ‘I’m leaving. I suck at this. I’m just embarrassing myself and you.’

Minho rolled his eyes again. ‘You just need to relax and let loose.’

Seungmin didn’t want to seem pretentious - not like others - so he didn’t say that there was no way he could relax or let loose with this music. Whatever genre it was, it sounded like white Americans trying to sound latino for some reason. It was mainstream. He used to mock his parents for not knowing who were the artists on the radio back in 2012, but now he had turned into them being only 21 – almost 22. He literally had no clue what was playing, yet everyone was dancing to it like there was no tomorrow. How could you enjoy music you don’t know in a club? Where you’re forced to touch sweaty and smelly people?

Yet, Minho tried. He had to give it to him. He tried for nothing though. And if Hyunjin wouldn’t have been focused on Jisung, he would’ve told Minho that he should just let it go. Seungmin was a lost cause. He hated clubbing. He hated the people, the smell, the music, even the drinks sucked.

‘You really wanna go, don’t you?’

Seungmin nodded, exhausted of it all. He wanted to go back to his bed, maybe talk to Felix - even though he was pretty sure he would be asleep by now - and just be warm, and not touching strangers and having awful music break his eardrums. 

‘Fine. Let’s go then.’

‘I can go back home alone.’

‘I rather go with you, just in case. And I have to work tomorrow either way, so you’re giving me a good excuse to bail on the two love birds.’

Before Seungmin could question him about that choice of words, Minho was already making his way to them. When he told them about it, Jisung didn’t seem to care one bit but Hyunjin was clearly confused. Seungmin thought he would be glad they were kind of, sort of, starting to maybe, possibly, get along. But he didn’t seem to be.

Once they were outside, Seungmin and Minho walked in silence to the bus station. Seungmin didn’t like awkward silences, and if there was any way to describe the silence between them it was with the word “awkward”. But he was too tired to even think about something to tell Lee Minho out of all people as they waited for the bus. Weirdly enough, Minho was the one to break the silence.

‘You really don’t know how to dance.’

‘I warned you.’

‘I thought that after all this time, Hyunjin would have taught you something, anything .’

‘His dancing has nothing to do with his club dancing skills though.’

Minho smiled. ‘He’s pretty great at both though. You guys base too much of your personalities on each other, it’s annoying.’

Seungmin frowned and turned to him, offended by whatever that was supposed to mean. He had no clue what he meant, but it did not sound good. ‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean? If I based my personality on Hyunjin then I would love to dance.’

‘You just balance each other out, that’s what I mean. It’s not because dancing is Hyunjin’s thing that you can’t enjoy it. It’s like you guys tiptoe around each other’s safe place to get along and not clash.’

‘So you want us to not get along?’

Minho rolled his eyes. ‘That’s not at all what I mean…’

‘We do share things.’

‘Not what it matters.’

‘Cause dancing and clubbing matters?’

‘To Hyunjin it does. What I mean it’s that you don’t have to be in this perfect balance all the time just because you’re best friends.’

‘Stop pretending like you know anything about my friendship with Hyunjin.’

Minho sighed as he got up from the bench - that’s when Seungmin saw the bus approaching, the one he was supposed to take. So he got up as well.

‘He always talks about you.’

‘He always talks about you too and I’m not making assumptions or talking to you as if I knew anything about how you are around each other.’

Minho stared at Seungmin in silence, and even though Seungmin hated his stare on him, he was glad Minho was quiet. He was too tired to deal with Lee Minho of all people making a judgement on his friendship with Hyunjin. Maybe he wasn’t the only one jealous here. When the bus stopped in front of them, Seungmin was surprised to see Minho get on it, as it led nowhere near his apartment. He followed him onto the bus.

‘What are you doing?’

Minho didn’t answer until they were seating next to each other at the back and the bus started again. ‘I’m not letting you go back home alone.’

Seungmin frowned, lowkey offended. ‘Why not?’ By now, he was 21 years old, he was more than capable of taking care of himself. But there was Minho yet back again with his pretentious attitude.

‘You’re tired. You’re gonna fall asleep and miss your stop.’

Seungmin didn’t really understand Minho’s logic but he didn’t waste more time trying to. He had heard enough from his friends to know that Minho was impossible to understand. So he kept quiet and sighed. After a couple of minutes of silence, Minho talked again without taking his stare off the bus window.

‘I’m sorry.’

Seungmin turned to him surprised. Lee Minho apologizing? To him? For a second time in his lifetime? He already thought the first time was special enough.

‘Wh-‘

Minho turned to him. ‘Last time I got mad at you for hating me for no reason and assuming things when you don’t even know me. And now, I assumed things about your friendship with Hyunjin and I shouldn’t have. It was hypocritical and stupid of me.’

Seungmin was left speechless, mouth open and unable to make any sound. He wanted to tell him that he wasn’t wrong. Seungmin and Hyunjin had always avoided fights, at no matter what cost. And it was true that if one of them was good at something, the other didn’t even try. They were so used to doing everything together they sometimes forgot the other wouldn’t be around forever to do something for the other. 

‘It’s okay…’

Minho nodded slightly and turned back to the window. Seungmin thought about how he had the most beautiful side profile he had ever seen. Minho was still to this day the definition of pretty, his features were more marked now and his face was less puffy. He had grown up a lot since the first time they saw each other. Both of them had.

During that trip, they didn’t speak much. Seungmin thought about asking about the cat, but he refrained from doing it. He was too tired to calculate what would be the exact best thing to say to Minho for him not to have a comeback. That was the thing about Minho, either he had a comeback or he didn’t care to form sentences of more than three words. Small talk. They both hated it. Maybe silence was better, even if it was awkward.

For some reason, Minho insisted on going with him to his dorm. ‘For nostalgic reasons,’ he said. Seungmin didn’t care enough to feel awkward about it. 

‘Clubs can be cool, you know.’

As they walked across the campus, Seungmin got surprised by Minho’s voice because he didn’t think he would make any effort to talk. ‘It’s really not my thing. Too many people, sticky floor, expensive as fuck, awfully bad music...’

Minho laughed slightly (at Seungmin, of course). ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were so specific about the music you listen to.’

Seungmin rolled his eyes. ‘Are you seriously telling me that you like that music?’

Minho shrugged. ‘I don’t have to like it. You dance to it and that’s it. It’s a club, not a concert.’

‘I don’t like dancing so if I don’t like the music, it’s a bit hard for me.’

‘What music do you like then?’

‘I don’t know… I like bands and stuff.’

‘Like Rock?’

‘Pop, rock… Yeah, that’s cool.’

Minho nodded but he didn’t say anything, and Seungmin thought that was the end of it. They walked in the hallway to his room, and that’s when Seungmin realized it was 4 a.m. He didn’t understand how he hadn’t passed out yet, and even more, he didn’t understand how Minho didn’t look one bit tired. It was probably because of the lack of sleep that Seungmin decided to finally say: ‘I read The Shinning by the way.’

Minho seemed surprised, as he blinked a hundred times as if he wasn’t really understanding. Seungmin got scared of his reaction but Minho actually smiled slightly. ‘Did you like it?’

Seungmin nodded. ‘It scared the shit out of me but yes… It was good… You were right…’

‘That’s like honey to my ears.’

Seungmin rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t hide a small smile. 

‘Did you watch the movie?’

‘I didn’t sleep for a week after I read the book, do you really think I’m gonna watch the movie?’

‘You need to.’

‘I already read the book.’

‘They’re so different. Masterpieces on their own.’

‘No thanks.’

‘You’re a coward.’

‘And I’m proud.’

‘Whatever.’

Seungmin smiled happily. By now they had been in front of his door for a while, yet he couldn’t bring himself to open it for some reason - maybe it was his lack of energy. But as he channelled all his energy in bringing his arm up to put his hand on the handle, Minho cleared his throat and put his hands on his front pockets.

‘There’s a place you would probably like… It’s a bar actually but they play a lot of rock and band music in general, it’s quite cool. They do different themes every night of the week and it’s a really cool place to hang out. You also have a bunch of queer people. It’s kind of the emo queer scene.’

Seungmin couldn’t help but laugh slightly at that comment. ‘Sounds cool.’

‘Maybe you could try going with someone else than Hyunjin.’

‘Yeah, Felix will probably be into that.’

Minho stayed quiet for a couple of seconds before he nodded. ‘Yeah, Felix is nice to hang out with. I’ll text you the address.’

‘Oh, you can just text it to Hyunjin or Felix if you want.’

Minho smiled slightly, but it seemed forced. ‘Yeah sure.’

‘Thanks for coming with me. You didn’t have to.’

‘Sure, it’s nothing…’

‘Say hi to your cat for me.’

‘And Chan?’

‘Yeah, him too.’

‘Glad, you got your priorities straight.’

‘Pizza still comes before cats though.’

‘You just lost all the points you made tonight.’

‘I made points?’

‘Well now technically you didn’t.’

Seungmin smiled amused and Minho made a step back before wishing him goodnight, and Seungmin did the same.

It took him at least an hour to fall asleep that night but he ended up sleeping all day the next day, to the point he didn’t notice when Hyunjin texted him about him leaving with Minho. That night, Hyunjin came bursting into his room asking for what had happened. Seungmin told him that nothing happened, which was the truth.

A couple of days later Seungmin got a message from Minho with the address of the place telling him they had a cool event that Friday. Unfortunately, Felix was busy that Friday because he had already planned on watching a movie with Chan. Seungmin thanked Minho for the address and told him he wouldn’t be going because of Felix. Minho opened the message as soon as he sent it but he never answered. Seungmin knew from Hyunjin that he usually was like that, so he didn’t think much of it.

* * *

Seungmin could only qualify his senior year as weird. The first half of it was quite okay looking back, but everything was changing way too fast for him to be okay. After a few weeks back, Hyunjin decided to move out of the dorms and his parents agreed to rent an apartment near the campus. Apparently, they thought it was a good idea because that way Hyunjin would get a taste of the real world before graduating and becoming a “real adult”. Hyunjin had other reasons but he went along with it. Hyunjin told Seungmin that with Changbin gone, it made more sense to move on as well, but Seungmin knew the real reason was that there were way too many things that made him think of his ex: the hallways, the classrooms, the cafeteria… Everything had memories. And Hyunjin was way better, one could even say he was over him, but it still hurt and Seungmin understood why he wanted to move on from the hurt.

He couldn’t deny that when Hyunjin officially moved out, Seungmin got really sad and had yet another emo night. But it was okay, now. It wasn’t the same. Things had changed and, yeah, Hyunjin wouldn’t be down the hall from him but he was still pretty close, and they would see each other all the time. All Seungmin could think about was how everything had changed and their bond wasn’t as strong anymore, and he cried about it for an hour. Felix told him it was healthier than before and Seungmin had to agree because he was happier since he “let go” of Hyunjin, but it still hurt to remember what they used to be. What he had planned to be an emo night turned out to be him and Felix laughing and singing at the top of their lungs to Hannah Montana.

Hyunjin moving out was the first big change. Or at least that’s what it felt like for a week. Truth was Seungmin spent a lot of time with Hyunjin, almost more than before. They would have sleepovers and stay up talking for hours. Sometimes Hyunjin got sad and cried before falling asleep convinced Seungmin didn’t hear him, but Seungmin knew. It ripped his heart apart to see his friend still broken over a guy that never deserved him in the first place. But Hyunjin did smile now, he laughed, and he seemed happier, and with time he stopped crying altogether. Once he talked about it with Felix and Chan when they were at his apartment and Chan said that it had been Hyunjin’s first love and that first loves always left a mark and changed you forever. Seungmin didn’t sleep that night wondering if he even was capable of that kind of love.

Just like Minho, Hyunjin went through a weird hair stage. He let his hair grow and dyed it blonde. Jisung laughed at him and all he said was that McDonald’s ad for fries: “tall, blonde and gorgeous”. Hyunjin laughed and replied that at least he was gorgeous.

Changbin started to work just like Minho and Chan, but Seungmin saw him way more often than the other two because he was always at Hyunjin’s place. That apartment was never empty and Hyunjin was never alone - the four main people to spend time there were Seungmin, Changbin, Minho and Jisung. It made sense after all. It became the place to meet, more than Chan’s and Minho’s apartment, which was cool because Seungmin didn’t feel like he was crossing boundaries, but he did miss seeing Minho’s cat - apparently he had two now.

The thing about senior year is that everything, for as simple as it might be, is overwhelming. Seungmin was starting to question what he really wanted to do with his life, and he started to get worried about what would happen to him and his friends. Jisung told him to go with the flow, while Felix was filling the room with internship applications, and Jeongin didn’t stop complaining about how they would all leave him behind. Seungmin spent most of the time with those three and they worked pretty well together. It was nice to have them around, but it made it all the more hard to think that in less than a year all of it would be gone. Seungmin was happy to be almost over with essays and finals, and stupid teachers, and the pressure he felt coming from everything and every one the second he set his foot out the door - but he was going to miss his friends a lot. He knew that they would probably remain friends, but it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be late nights studying until their eyes couldn’t take it anymore, or late nights drinking until blacking out. It wouldn’t be Felix making the right question at the right time, it wouldn’t be Jisung and his stupid ideas, and Jeongin wouldn’t be crashing his room 24/7 with the excuse that he could leave whenever he wanted because he lived right next door. They wouldn’t go through life together anymore - not like this anyway.

When it came to Minho, they were good. They were actually good. They didn’t talk or text or anything, (Seungmin didn’t really count Minho sending him links to rock songs completely out of context and him reviewing them just to be ignored as texting) but everything was fine. Seungmin didn’t avoid him anymore and as far as he knew neither did Minho. But they didn’t meet for a long time due to scheduling. It wasn’t awkward anymore. There wasn’t an unspoken hatred or resentment. They were genuinely on good terms. And after that night at the club, Seungmin liked to think they knew each other well enough to say there was a type of term between the two.

However, it took about 4 months for Seungmin to see him again. Which, considering, was a small amount of time compared to the other times.

It was at the beginning of December. Seungmin was swamped by exams and study sessions to the point he felt as if his brain was going to start bleeding through his eyes. So when Hyunjin texted him he needed to talk about something important with him and they should meet at his apartment, Seungmin saw it as a good enough excuse to stop studying for a couple of hours. He also told him Minho would be coming as well. Seungmin asked him if there was anyone else and Hyunjin said he only wanted to talk about it with his best friends.

Best friends. Yup. That still hurt.

Seungmin got there before Minho, much to his enjoyment. The apartment was a mess, which made sense knowing Jisung had spent the previous night there. Seungmin let himself in just like he always did, even though Hyunjin was busy in the kitchen making margaritas. His family had enough money to afford an apartment with a proper kitchen and a proper bedroom. Seungmin was jealous of it. One of the hardest things about Hyunjin moving was because Seungmin had imagined his entire life that after college they would still live together and go through life together. He told Hyunjin that when he moved, and he said he could give up on the apartment any time he wanted, that he would love to live with him. But it wasn’t the same. Living with Hyunjin wasn’t the type of fantasy he had anymore. It was weird. He didn’t really understand. His fantasy had been taken away but he didn’t mind that much. Maybe it had stopped being a fantasy a long time ago. And when he thought about it, he felt like crying.

‘Why are you making margaritas?’ asked Seungmin when he got in the kitchen, after leaving his stuff in the hall.

‘Why wouldn’t I be making margaritas? That is the question.’

Seungmin rolled his eyes. ‘You spend too much time with Jisung.’

Hyunjin didn’t answer. He seemed to be more focused on finding the perfect mix between the lemon, the Cointreau and the Tequila. ‘Minho is gonna get here in a bit. He told me he was running late because of work.’

‘Is that going well?’

Hyunjin frowned. ‘Minho’s work? Since when you care?’

Seungmin didn’t care. He was making conversation. But it made sense that Hyunjin was weirded out because for the past four years, every time Minho had been brought up in the conversation, Seungmin was rolling his eyes or saying mean things or ignoring the issue altogether. Hyunjin never asked about the club night again, mainly because there wasn’t much to say, and Seungmin never mentioned Minho’s messages - because there wasn’t much to say about that either.

‘I don’t… Just making conversation.’

Hyunjin nodded. ‘Yup, it’s going well. He likes it.’

‘I’m glad.’

Hyunjin stared at him in silence until he started laughing. ‘Never thought you would be glad of anything that included Minho's well-being but ok.’

He then changed the topic while he finished doing his margaritas, and by when Minho got there, Hyunjin had already downed his first glass and Seungmin was only halfway through his. He was a slow drinker. That was probably why he was so good at holding his alcohol. Minho didn’t look surprised in front of an almost drunk Hyunjin, and he didn’t express anything when he saw Seungmin. His face was a blank page. Seungmin was waiting for it. It didn’t have to be a smile; it could’ve been a frown or a look of hate. Seungmin wanted his presence to be acknowledged but Minho never even bothered to say hello before he went to the kitchen and brought a glass for himself. He sat on the armchair that was identical to Seungmin’s, while Hyunjin was in front of both of them sitting on the couch.

‘Let me drink at least one glass before you start up drama again please,’ said Minho as he poured himself a glass of Hyunjin’s cocktail. Seungmin wasn’t so sure it was meant to taste like that because he had never had margaritas before but it tasted good, so it was good enough for him.

‘Be quick then,’ said Hyunjin before grabbing the jar from Minho and pouring himself a second glass. Seungmin was about to say something, about how he should go slowly, but it was two against one, there was no way that could end up well – especially if Minho was on the opposite side.

‘Don’t tell me what to do, Hwang,’ said Minho rolling his eyes.

It was at that moment that Seungmin realized that he never had really spent time with the two of them at the same time. He never had really seen them interact with each other. Better said, Seungmin had never been alone with Hyunjin and Minho before. Maybe that time at the library, but it had lasted about 5 minutes - the time for Hyunjin to pay for the book. That was it.

For so long, Seungmin had only an idea of what their friendship was – constructed around what Hyunjin or his friends had told him. But he had never witnessed their moments of complicity on firsthand. And it was weird. But relieving. They had a whole different friendship to what Seungmin had thought. Minho wasn’t a replacement to Seungmin. He never had been. He wished he had known before. Because whatever friendship Hyunjin had with Minho, couldn’t be further from what he had with Seungmin.

Once the nagging, sarcasm and sex jokes were over and done with (to which Seungmin had no part in), Minho was also done with his first glass of margarita and so was Seungmin. That was the first time in the night that Minho acknowledged his existence, when he asked him if he wanted more. Seungmin just nodded. 

‘Me too!’

Minho rolled his eyes but still poured the cocktail on Hyunjin’s glass. Third glass. He was drunk. Not the bad drunk yet though. The good drunk.

‘So anyway why are we here?’ asked Minho, resting his back on the armchair once again. Seungmin felt weird at Minho using “we”. It was grammatically correct, and what anyone would say. It still felt weird to be a “we” with Lee Minho.

‘You know I like to see you as the angel and devil on my shoulders. And today, I need you to have a debate for me so I can think properly.’

At first, Seungmin thought Minho would be as confused as he was about it all, but instead, Minho just said: ‘Are you really calling me the devil right now?’

‘Never said you were… You’re the one that assumed it.’ Minho rolled his eyes. ‘But anyway, not the point.’

‘Then go to the point already. What the hell did you do now?’

‘Nothing! I swear!’ said Hyunjin, putting his hands up. ‘I literally haven’t done anything and that is important to know before I tell you anything.’

‘Ok, then tell us.’

Us.

Hyunjin took a big gulp of his drink and then looked at his two best friends - one staring at him right in the eyes and the other confused as ever. Seungmin was of course the second one. 

‘What if… Hmm…’ Hyunjin was way too hesitant to Seungmin’s taste. He just wanted him to talk. ‘Ok, so let’s say you start liking one of your friends, would you tell them?’

Seungmin felt his heart press against his chest, and he noticed Minho blinking a hundred times as he usually did until he smirked. ‘Is this your way to confess to me, Hwang?’

‘This is serious, asshole!’ Minho laughed and avoided the pillow that Hyunjin threw at him, merciless. Meanwhile, Seungmin was just confused. ‘Would you tell them or not?’

Both Seungmin and Minho answered at the same time, but their answers were the complete opposite. While Seungmin firmly said “no”, Minho said “yes”, and Seungmin could tell from Hyunjin’s eyes and smile that it was exactly what he was expecting. Minho turned to Seungmin and frowned.

‘What do you mean no? If you like someone, you tell them.’

‘Not if it breaks the friendship.’

‘What if he likes him back?’

‘What if he doesn’t?’

‘But what if he does?’

Seungmin wanted to proceed in the most cautious way possible - he didn’t feel that comfortable around Minho and he definitely didn’t want to lose the little points he had somehow gained during the night at the club. Most of the songs Minho sent him, he already knew them, and Minho never answered back but those messages were something he actually kind of cherished. However, he felt strongly about this. 

‘Liking a friend and actually doing something about it can end in two ways. Either the feeling is mutual, and they date, and everything is fine for a while, until they break up. Or, one of them doesn’t feel the same and it’s awkward. Either way, the friendship ends up going to shit.’

‘Yeah, well, everything ends at some point so might as well say things as they are. It’s better to let your feelings be known and like that at least you can move on if anything goes wrong. If you don’t, you will always regret it and wonder ‘what if?’.’

Hyunjin nodded slowly before he took a big gulp of his drink. They stayed in silence for what felt forever while Hyunjin was thinking how to say the next thing. ‘What if that person is in your friend group? Would you still tell them?’

‘That doesn’t change a thing.’

But Hyunjin didn’t seem to care so much about Minho’s answer as he stared at Seungmin, who stayed quiet until he shrugged. ‘In that case, I don’t think it’s so much about them being your friend or not… It would break the balance of the whole group and… Some people could get hurt.’

‘Well fuck them.’

‘Not if they’re your friends.’

‘You would never date someone just because they’re in your friend group?’

Seungmin shook his head. He had thought about it, back when Felix asked him if he was in love with Hyunjin. During that week, he thought about all the possibilities that could come out of him having that type of feelings, and he had come to the very simple conclusion that if he did, he wouldn’t do anything about it. Seungmin loved his friends more than anything in the world and even though he was trying to change and not hold on to things as much as before: he still didn’t want them to change. It was immature probably and stupid because things would change no matter what, but one thing was going through the changes life throws at you and another thing was causing them. So when he actually came to the conclusion he wasn’t in love with Hyunjin, he made a pact with himself that he would never date someone in his friend group. Seungmin felt strongly about promises, and that was a promise he did to himself.

‘So… What’s the conclusion?’

Minho shrugged. ‘I don’t know, dude, you need to figure it out yourself. And I,‘ he got up from the armchair, ‘have to go home to feed my cats.’

‘I thought you could spend the night. Can’t Chan feed them for you?’

Minho shook his head. ‘It’s not only that. I’m starting early tomorrow.’

And just like that, in a matter of seconds, Minho was gone. Hyunjin didn’t try to stop him either, probably because he was too drunk, or because they would see each other soon enough in any case. However, Seungmin was left with an unsettling feeling.

That night, when they were about to fall asleep, Hyunjin answered the question that had been on Seungmin’s mind during the whole evening. He told him about Jisung, about how he had been there so much for him and how at first he thought he might be confusing comfort with attraction - but it wasn’t the case. And Seungmin knew. He had had doubts for a while now, since the night at the club, between the laughs and the subtle touches and just how Jisung was brought up everywhere all the time. In a way, it felt like it had always been Jisung, and that’s exactly what Hyunjin told him as well. He told him about how he didn’t want to break the balance of the group and that he wouldn’t do it if it was only a stupid crush - but it wasn’t. He really liked him.

Seungmin asked him if he loved him and Hyunjin said he wasn’t sure. He tried to understand but couldn’t. Chan had told him that it took a while to get over your first love, so how was Hyunjin already falling for someone else? Maybe Chan meant it was hard to get over the pain of it. This whole situation just highlighted Seungmin’s feeling of not ever being able to understand love. But he was glad for Hyunjin, because there genuinely wasn’t a better person for Hyunjin than Jisung. He brought up something in him that no one else could, not even Seungmin. And it was okay. It was okay if he wasn’t Hyunjin’s soulmate after all. Because Jisung was.

Seungmin tried texting Minho that night when Hyunjin fell asleep but Minho never answered. He didn’t think much of it at the time, but as he stood in front of the cinema theatre, he felt stupid for not knowing. But then again, how could he have known?

* * *

If the first half of senior year was weird, the second half was even weirder. 

For the first few months, he barely felt as if he was living. With all the essays and exams, and trying to figure out what he would do next, Seungmin had next to no time to think about anything else. 

That was until one particular lunch at the end of February, where Hyunjin and Jisung were particularly all over each other. As far as Seungmin knew, Hyunjin hadn’t told Jisung anything yet but they were acting as if they were a couple already - playing with food and feeding each other as a joke. Hyunjin had sworn to him that even if he said something, nothing would change, but as much as Seungmin wanted to believe him, he could already see things changing. He didn’t want to be selfish, he genuinely wanted Hyunjin and Jisung to be happy, but he couldn’t help but feeling like everything was going out of his hands.

Later that day, Jeongin brought up the “Hyunsung” topic and Seungmin realized that everyone was very well aware of what was happening. But what changed everything that day wasn’t whatever Hyunjin and Jisung had going on, but more Jeongin’s comment on Felix and Chan.

‘Oh c’mon, you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed.’

But Seungmin hadn’t. Yes, they spent a lot of time together, but Seungmin spent a lot of time with Felix as well, and Hyunjin and Jeongin - that didn’t mean that something was going on. Once Jeongin made a list of all the reasons why he believed Felix and Chan were actually already dating, Seungmin asked him as a joke if he would be dating Changbin anytime soon. Jeongin laughed.

‘I’m actually dating Minho.’

Seungmin knew Jeongin inside out by now and he knew it was a joke - yet every time Minho was brought up he felt weird about it. Because not only Minho never answered his text that night when they went to Hyunjin’s place, but he actually never heard from him again - the music links had stopped after that day. Seungmin didn’t really understand why or what it meant, or if it really meant anything. He actually drunk texted him at the beginning of January, when he went to a party right before the beginning of the second semester. He asked him if they were okay, to which Minho just answered: “?”; and Seungmin pointed out that he didn’t send him songs anymore. He never heard back.

Seungmin was pretty sure he was reading too much into it, and while Minho wasn’t that relevant in his life, it still bothered him. At least he wanted to know if he had done anything wrong. He tried talking about it to Hyunjin, but he didn’t provide many answers. He just told him Minho sucked at texting. It wasn’t enough of an explanation for Seungmin, but he pretended it was.

After his conversation with Jeongin, Seungmin confronted Felix about the Chan situation. And for once, he did get answers. Felix told him that they weren’t together or seeing each other, but only because they had chosen not to, at least until college was over. Apparently, Felix had liked him for a while but everything had changed during junior year, because they started to spend way more time together. They both knew they liked each other and they had even talked about it before, but they both were aware that they were in very different stages of their life. Felix was just about to finish college and Chan had graduated almost three years ago. Felix explained to Seungmin that they both thought it was bad timing for them to be together even though they liked each other.

‘So you’re not together?’

Felix shook his head. ‘No… The timing has never been right for us, and neither of us wants to let a relationship get in our way of what we want professionally and all of that. So we’re waiting until we’re both ready.’

‘But what if the timing is never right?’

‘That’s okay… We love each other and that’s why we want to make sure we both put ourselves first. If the time never comes, then that’ll be okay because we will still have each other.’

Seungmin thought it was quite sad but he didn’t say anything and just accepted it. When he talked about it with Hyunjin, he told him he and Minho had been suspicious for a while but never asked out of respect for their privacy. One thing the whole Felix and Chan situation proved to Seungmin was that two friends could be having something (whatever it was that they had or didn’t have) and not change their group dynamic. So his whole perspective on that subject changed.

Seungmin started to notice more things after that. He noticed Felix’s smile every time he was with Chan, and how Chan’s eyes shined whenever he mentioned Felix - which was a lot now that he realized. He also realized that Felix and Chan did spend a lot of time together - way more than two friends would.

‘Isn’t that just dating?’ asked Jeongin once when they were having lunch just the two of them because Felix was with Chan, and god knows where Jisung and Hyunjin had gone.

Seungmin shrugged, ‘Not really. They’re just hanging out.’

‘I bet they’re having sex. Why else would you spend so much time with someone?’

Seungmin didn’t agree with that. He spent a lot of time with his friends, even individually, and nothing had ever happened between them. But then again, Seungmin didn’t know anything about dating, and feelings, and much less about sex. He and his “ex-boyfriend” (if he could really call him that) had never gotten to that and if he was honest with himself, he had never really thought about it. He just thought that at some point it would happen, and it just hadn’t yet. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a crush on someone. Maybe he had been too focused on other things to care. And he didn’t regret anything. But it was becoming evident to him that he was missing out on something - dating, feelings, sex, and all of that.

When he talked about it with Hyunjin, he told him that it wasn’t that he was missing out, the opportunity just hadn’t come up yet and that it was okay. Seungmin thought about how easy it was for Hyunjin to say that when he had his first boyfriend when they were seventeen, to whom he had lost his virginity and from then on he had dated a lot of other guys and hooked up with more - because the opportunity always came up with him. Seungmin didn’t remember anyone liking him or taking interest in him, and he didn’t remember liking anyone, and for the longest time, he didn’t care. However, the curiosity he had felt in freshman year that had led him to the closest thing he ever had to a boyfriend was coming back to him.

That’s how he ended up going to the place Minho had recommended to him. He went with Felix, because he thought that if he put himself more out there, the opportunity would eventually come. And he actually loved the place, and it was one of the best nights of his life, which was strange because Seungmin wasn’t the type to go out. However, he was with Felix the whole time and all he cared about was to have fun with him. So going out to meet guys clearly wouldn’t work. He still thought about sending a text to thank Minho for the address, but he never did. Minho didn’t care anyway. He would answer if he did.

Maybe it was petty but Seungmin wasn’t going to waste his time on someone that didn’t care enough to answer a simple text. He didn’t want to have a conversation with him, he had never asked that from him, he had never asked anything from Minho. They were on good terms and that was it, it would never go further than that because they clearly weren’t compatible.

Seungmin didn’t really remember how, but when he saw Jisung and Jeongin the next day and started to talk about his night out, they ended up convincing him to sign up on a dating app. Jeongin told him that it wasn’t always all about sexting and that some people were genuinely looking to go on dates and finding a partner. Seungmin wasn’t so sure about the whole having a relationship thing, but dating in general and having a love life sounded good. However, it kind of hurt his self-esteem to realize all his friends were finding partners without any of these apps, but when he mentioned it Jisung made a comment laughing about how not everyone was Hyunjin. Seungmin could feel that there was some part of jealousy from Jisung, from the fact that Hyunjin was getting attention from others apart from him. But moving on from that comment, Jisung comforted him by telling him that he had used Tinder a lot in the past and was still using it from time to time, same as Changbin.

‘Sometimes you’re lucky and you meet people in real life, but meeting people online doesn’t make it less valuable. At least for me, it’s easier to open up to people if I know what they like first and it’s also easier to find people with your same interests in general.’

At first, he didn’t think much of it. Seungmin matched with a couple of guys but he wasn’t confident enough to start the conversation, and they didn’t make the first step either. He was constantly afraid of being lied to or straight up catfished. Jisung gave him a whole talk about how to detect catfishes, what type of dates were the best, and the excuses that worked to get out of them in case he felt uncomfortable. He even got what felt like a sex-ed class from him, which was weird to begin with but all the more weird with Hyunjin next to him looking at Jisung with lovey-dovey eyes.

After a week on the app, having meaningless conversations, Seungmin matched with someone that he had seen around on campus. He thought he was quite cute and knowing how he was in flesh and blood helped him when it came to the whole catfish fear. It also helped that he texted first, mentioning that he also had seen him around campus. The conversation was nice enough and they ended up exchanging phone numbers so it would be easier to talk. They even ran into each other in the cafeteria, and it was awkward, but Seungmin still managed to smile back when he waved at him. That night Seungmin got a text from him asking him out.

Getting ready for their first date was one of the weirdest yet funniest experiences ever. It made it even worse to know it wasn’t even his first date. Felix was telling him what to wear but changing his mind every time he would say “this is perfect”. Jisung was back it again with his sex-ed class, while Jeongin was telling him all the things he shouldn’t talk about. And Hyunjin was stalking the guy on every social media possible for the nth time. 

The date in itself was fine. The guy was cute and he was nice enough. Seungmin kind of got annoyed at him when he decided it was a better choice to make out than to watch the movie they had paid to watch. Seungmin actually wanted to watch that movie but missed on half of the plot because he had this guy’s tongue down his throat. He went back three days later with Changbin to watch it again, without telling the rest of the guys about it because he felt weird about worrying more about the movie than the guy he was on a date with. It didn’t seem like that was normal.

Nothing happened that night apart from an intense make-out session that Seungmin could say that he kind of enjoyed. It got boring after a couple of minutes, but it was the intention that counted. And he did like this guy. He was attractive. He could see himself having sex with him. And after that date, Seungmin realized that’s all he wanted.

So he did. It was on their second date. It didn’t feel forced or anything, but it wasn’t as nice as he had imagined it would be. It wasn’t like everyone said it would be. It was uncomfortable, and sweaty, over quickly, and Seungmin left that room not understanding what the fuss was all about. Felix told him they probably did it wrong and that first times could always be weird. He then proceeded to talk about his first time with Chan and how awkward it was, which let Seungmin know that they had slept together more than once but he didn’t say anything - maybe Jeongin was right after all. But Seungmin wouldn’t define his first time as awkward, it just wasn’t what he expected. He honestly hadn’t felt anything out of the common. Maybe he was broken. But then Felix told him that different people liked different things and maybe it just didn’t work for him because of position or whatever he said – at some point Seungmin stopped listening.

Truth was: Seungmin didn’t care. It was done. He didn’t regret it. The guy was a good person and he liked him, but he wouldn’t do it again. They saw each other one or two times after, but they only made-out - because Seungmin had gotten used to his way of kissing and he was starting to like it. He was sure that with more time he would get used to the other stuff as well and eventually come to like it, maybe he could communicate and figure out himself what he liked and what worked for him. But for as nice and cute as that guy was, Seungmin didn’t have the time or interest to stick around to find out, and he was pretty sure the guy felt the same. There just wasn’t the connection that there should be – regardless of if the sex was good or not.

A week after their last conversion by text, they ran into each other but they only exchanged a smile. Seungmin knew then that was the end of it. That night he got into Tinder for one last time for the fun of it because he was alone and bored - Felix was away at Chan’s, Jisung was spending the night at Hyunjin’s, and Jeongin was busy studying for once. And after a couple of swaps, he found Minho’s profile - which surprised him a lot. He couldn’t see why Minho couldn’t find someone in the good old fashion way, unless he only wanted one-night stands - that would make sense. Seungmin stared at the profile for a couple of minutes, the pictures, the description - of course he mentioned his two cats. He asked himself if he would date Minho. The first thing that came to mind was a big, enormous “no”, and it was solely because of the lack of texts. But if he took that away, Minho was pretty okay. He was pretty. Seungmin always thought about that whenever it was about Minho - how pretty he was. He thought back to the night at the club and he thought about how he actually liked hanging out with Minho, and how he had recommended him a place he now loved to go to. He thought about The Shinning and Teen Wolf’s fifth season. And the way he acted around cats and the links to songs he sent him for four months. Yes. Lee Minho was pretty alright. He now was just starting to understand the appeal - even though he still was a pretentious and obnoxious person that never answered texts.

So he swiped right, because when it came to it, now that he realized that Felix and Chan’s relationship didn’t change a thing in their friend group, and that if Hyunjin and Jisung ever decided to confess to each other it wouldn’t either, Seungmin could date Minho in a world where he answered texts.

And he didn’t think much about that swipe, because of course in real-life Seungmin would never date Minho, and most importantly Minho would never date him. That was until a couple of days later when he got a notification.

LEE MINHO
you shouldn’t be in those type of apps
you’re gonna get catfished

Seungmin stared at the messages for five minutes, speechless - mostly because it was very out of context and had totally forgotten about it. Not only he didn’t answer texts but he was telling him what he should and shouldn’t do? Maybe in those months of silence, Seungmin had forgotten just how much he was pretentious and obnoxious.

SEUNGMIN
you are aren’t you?

LEE MINHO
han jisung put you up to this didn’t he?

Out of pettiness, Seungmin decided to stop replying. Lee Minho could have a taste of his own medicine for once. But he did decide that he was done with Tinder, at least until the end of the school year, because he had better things to do like study and enjoy his time left with his friends. So he entered the app one last time before deleting it.

You have a new match!
Lee Minho

* * *

And just like that. Senior year had come and gone. 

Jisung cried after taking his last test, out of exhaustion. According to Hyunjin, he had barely slept all week.

They all met at Seungmin’s and Felix's room one last time, and all Jeongin did was complain and he even ended up crying drunk because of how much he was going to miss them. Felix kept repeating that they weren’t going anywhere, and Jisung kept saying that he would most likely have to retake his senior year.

Seungmin felt sad. Maybe the saddest he had ever felt in his entire life. It was harder than when Hyunjin left him alone to go have drinks with Minho. It was worse than when Hyunjin said for the first time he had two best friends. It was almost as hard as to listen to him cry at night about his ex. But he didn’t feel like crying. He didn’t feel like putting on emo music and painting his nails black. He felt like stopping time and enjoying what he had. 

‘You should tell him.’

Seungmin knew how out of context those words were, but he was sure Hyunjin would understand. Because they understood each other. Felix was helping Jeongin who was throwing up in the bathroom, and Jisung was sleeping with his head on Hyunjin’s lap while Hyunjin was stroking his hair. Hyunjin didn’t say anything, he just smiled and nodded. Maybe what he needed all this time was for Seungmin to give him his authorization out loud.

But for as hard as it was, Seungmin needed to stop thinking once and for all that everything would stay the same. He needed to learn how to let go of things. He needed to understand that you only hurt people more and push them more away by trying to keep them from changing and moving on. And truth was, he also changed. And change could be good. Because change brought him Chan, and Changbin, and Jisung, and Jeongin, and most importantly Felix. Change had even brought him Minho. And even with change, Hyunjin was still there.

As he laid on his bed wide awake while everyone was sleeping, Seungmin realized he wasn’t sad. He was overwhelmingly grateful. And he was scared. He was terrified.

It took them a couple of days to pack up everything. Hyunjin helped all three of them while Jeongin refused to help because they were abandoning him. Jisung kept repeating that he might have to retake the year, and Jeongin told him he would be praying for it to happen. Seungmin felt weird about going back to his parents’ full time with all his stuff, even though he knew it would only be temporary because he and Felix were already looking at places to move in together. (Teams that work together stick together.) And packing up the place he had spent most of the last four years of his life in felt weird. All the nights they had spent drinking or studying, or both. All his sleepless nights watching TV shows, and his emo nights, and his breakdowns. It seemed to be all gone and over with. It was weird to think that there was nothing Seungmin could hold on to about this place anymore. He could never go back. But weirdly enough, he was okay with that. Because the time in those dorms had been stressful, and it was studying, and writing essays, and watching Hyunjin go through his first heartbreak. He was okay with parting ways with that, even if it meant nothing would ever be the same.

The one last night they spent on campus, Jisung convinced them they should all go to one last fraternity house party. And by “all”, he meant “all”. Chan and Changbin met them there, and Seungmin knew Minho would get there at some point. He hadn’t seen him since that night at Hyunjin’s house and they hadn’t texted after the Tinder incident. Seungmin hadn’t even thought about him since because of all the essays and exams. But that night was the fifth time Seungmin had talked to him, and the reason why he was standing in front of a cinema theatre with two tickets in his hand waiting for someone that he didn’t want to text to confirm because he didn’t think they would reply.

Seungmin didn’t think much of that party, he would be in and out soon enough, even though he had set himself as a goal of enjoying a college party for once - it was the last one after all. So he drank more than usual, did some shots, didn’t drink as slowly, but he was still good at holding his alcohol while Felix was already drunk off his ass - that was probably because he wasn’t used to drinking that much. He left him alone with Chan because he didn’t feel like third-wheeling and he knew he would take good care of him. And it’s when he went to look for Jeongin and Changbin that he saw Hyunjin and Jisung making out sitting on a couch.

‘Finally.’

He didn’t know how or when he got there, but there he was, with a drink in his hand. Minho stared back at him after Seungmin had stared for a bit too long.

‘Didn’t know you talked to me now.’

‘If I remember correctly, you’re the one that never answered.’

‘I don’t answer pretentious douchebags.’

‘You’re talking to me now.’

Seungmin smiled slightly while Minho smirked. ‘You’re not always a pretentious douchebag.’

‘Should I take that as a compliment?’

Seungmin rolled his eyes and walked away, mainly because it was becoming weird to stand not so far from where his best friend was making out with his other friend. Minho didn’t follow him and Seungmin thought that would be the end of it. He had fun with Jeongin playing beer pong, and Changbin even convinced him to dance. And time moved too quickly to Seungmin’s liking. He didn’t like parties. He didn’t like going out. But he wanted to hold on to this moment forever.

He did run into Minho again - when he went to the second floor in hopes to find a bathroom, or just somewhere quiet. Yes, he loved being with his friends. But it was still a party, and Seungmin was still Seungmin.

‘Did you see Hyunjin or Jisung? Are they still exchanging saliva or something?’

Seungmin laughed slightly. ‘They’re with Changbin and Chan right now. And they’re done with the whole saliva exchanging thing.’

Minho stayed quiet for a couple of seconds, and Seungmin was way too drunk to even try to decipher what he was thinking. Minho was already impossible on a daily basis. If there was a secret to understanding him, it sure as hell wasn’t alcohol.

‘So you’re okay with them being together?’

Seungmin nodded. ‘It’s stupid to be against it. They’ve already been all over each other for the past year. And who am I to stop them at the end of the day? If they’re happy, it’s cool.’

‘So you changed your mind? About what you said at Hyunjin’s?’

Seungmin had changed his mind a while ago, when he understood what was going on between Chan and Felix - even though he still wasn’t really sure what they had going on. 

Seungmin shrugged. ‘Guess so.’

Understanding the conversation had nowhere else to do, he turned around and made a few steps. However, there was something he had been meaning to tell Minho and he was done with trying to text him. So he turned around. ‘I went to the place you told me about, by the way, and I really liked it… I’ve gone a couple of times now.’

Minho looked at him up and down, and then nodded. ‘Did you go with a tinder date?’

Seungmin laughed. ‘I went with Felix. I wouldn’t count that as a date.’

‘True.’

‘Why did you stop sending songs?’

The words left Seungmin’s lips out of nowhere, maybe due to the amount of alcohol going through his veins, but he didn’t regret it. He needed to know why for as meaningless as it was. Because he was sick of pretending that the fact that Minho was bad at texting was a good excuse. If it really was just that, then he needed to hear it from him. He just needed to know if he had done something wrong or not.

But Minho stayed quiet, blinking a hundred times like he always did.

‘I know it wasn’t much and didn’t mean anything but I don’t know… You left Hyunjin’s house in a hurry and I never heard from you again and this is so stupid because we’re not even friends but… Did I do something wrong? Did I do something to lose points or whatever?’

‘You talk too much.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘You’re talking too much right now. Maybe you should stop drinking.’

Seungmin rolled his eyes. There he was again telling him what to do. ‘Can you answer the goddamn question?’

Minho smiled amused, but then went back to being serious and sighed. ‘How can I put this?’ He paused for a couple of seconds and looked up. ‘I went through a shitty break up a couple of years ago, when you called me a carrot and all.’

Seungmin laughed slightly.

‘You looked good.’

‘I know.’

Seungmin rolled his eyes. ‘What does this have to do with me?’

‘The idea of you was safe. It was stupid as heck but it was safe.’

‘What do you mean by “the idea of me”?’

Minho sighed. ‘You know when you are a kid and have a stupid crush on someone you don’t really know? And you create this whole idea of who they are and what it would be like to be with them? But then of course it turns out to be wrong and even though it’s something you created on your own in your head it still hurts. Because that bubble you created in your head breaks… Well… After my breakup, I guess I compensated by crushing on someone that I thought was safe, someone that felt safe, but then… You broke my bubble by basically saying you would never date me. And I don’t take rejection well to begin with. But you didn’t do anything wrong, you just broke my bubble bu-’

‘Wait. You have a crush on me?’

Minho stayed quiet as Seungmin tried to understand what had just been told to him, not even sure he had heard right. How could Lee Minho of all people have a crush on him? People didn’t have a crush on him to begin with, and certainly not people like Lee Minho. Lee Minho was the popular pretty guy that could have whoever he wanted. Lee Minho was Hyunjin’s best friend. He was the guy with the black leather jacket that looked like he could smoke and ride a motorcycle. He was the guy that liked cats and horror movies too much.

‘It was fun to piss you off, and I always thought you were kind of cute but mainly the pissing you off part. And then the club happened and… I thought that it could actually turn into something, which was stupid because you rejected me then, so I should’ve figured.’

‘When the hell did I reject you? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I wanted to go to the bar with you.’

Seungmin wished for a time machine to be invented right at that second so that he could go back and understand what Minho meant. He only remembered Minho recommending the place, not asking him out. But it somehow explained the songs. Minho wanted to let him know he liked that type of music as well. But it had never even crossed Seungmin’s mind that he should be going to that place with Lee Minho. It didn't cross his mind he would go anywhere with Minho.

‘I-I didn’t realize… I’m sorry.’

Minho shrugged. ‘Nothing to apologize for. You would’ve said no either way.’

Seungmin couldn’t deny that. If Minho would’ve been upfront about it, he probably would’ve replied with “ why ”. And that was exactly the word that was going through his brain at that moment. Why?

‘You don’t know me… I mean… We don’t really know each other.’

‘I know.’

‘Then why?’

‘I mean… Maybe because of the same reasons you swiped right on Tinder.’

Seungmin opened his mouth to answer but no coherent word ever came out of it. When he swiped right, he had thought about how he wouldn’t mind dating Minho. Because Minho liked cats and horror movies, and Minho watched the show he recommended to him, and he recommended his favorite book of all time to him. But Minho didn’t answer texts, and he was pretentious and obnoxious, and he stole his best friend away. Hyunjin. Did Hyunjin know about this? Did Jisung know? Did anyone know about it? Was he just being an asshole to Minho while everyone knew Minho had a crush on him? 

Was he supposed to apologize? When did the crush start exactly? Was it when they went for the pizzas? Seungmin thought the dog person thing and the carrot hair comment were Minho’s biggest deal-breaker. That crush was stupid. But then he thought back at him going back home and downloading The Shining, and going his way out to buy a copy not at any bookstore but at the one they had met. And he thought about how pretty he thought he was. Maybe Seungmin had also had a little crush on Minho for a while. Because why did it hurt so much when he stopped sending those links? Why did he care so much? 

‘But I mean…,’ said Minho after watching Seungmin freak out in front of his eyes for a couple of seconds. ‘It’s nothing, you know? Nothing to freak out about. Just a little stupid crush.’

Seungmin nodded slightly, still trying to process everything. Minho’s feelings, and apparently his as well. Or maybe he didn’t crush on Minho. Maybe it was just the alcohol. Yup. That made sense. Everything was Jisung’s fault and his way of always wanting to go to parties. This was the exact reason why parties were bad.

‘Ok… Then we’ll leave it at a little stupid crush then.’

Minho nodded and Seungmin made a step back. He wasn’t so sure he had a crush on Minho. He wasn’t so sure about anything at this point. All this time he had been told that he and Minho could never stand being in the same room together. And now he was asking himself if he had a crush on him. But even if he did, it didn’t really matter. Because Minho was still pretentious and obnoxious, and he still didn’t answer texts. That was a huge deal breaker for Seungmin.

Part of him didn’t want to walk away but the other part of him knew it didn’t mean anything. He was Minho’s rebound crush; it wasn’t an actual crush. If Seungmin were to crush on Minho, it would be real and more for him to handle. Minho was exactly the type of person one must never fall far.

‘I’ll see you later, I guess.’

Seungmin turned around one last time and started to walk away until he heard Minho clearing up his throat.

‘There’s this old cinema theatre…’ Seungmin turned around to Minho. ‘And they’re putting on The Shining tomorrow afternoon. If you feel like going. It could be cool.’

All rational thought left Seungmin head as he nodded slightly. ‘O-Okay.’

‘I’m asking you out, by the way.’

‘I know.’

‘To a scary movie.’

‘I know.’

‘Cool.’

‘Cool.’

Their argumentative skills had definitely worsened since the first time they met. A lot had changed since then. And probably at the time, they weren’t meant to be in the same room. But Minho had changed, and so had Seungmin. And change could be good. Because change had led one right to the other, and now Seungmin had something to look forward to.

* * *

Five times.

Those were the number of times Seungmin had talked to Minho before their date.

If he counted the messages, and the times they had crossed each other’s paths, it would amount to way more. Five seemed small for how present Minho had been in his life in the past 5 years - yet fitting. 

The bookstore. Chan’s apartment. The club. Hyunjin’s apartment. The party.

Five times.

He stood in front of the cinema theatre with two tickets on hand thinking about how they never really confirmed anything. Minho sent him the address later than night (or morning?) and Seungmin thanked him, but Minho never replied. Why did he never reply? Minho could perfectly be standing him up right now and he was waiting like an idiot. 

Good thing was that it was an old cinema theatre and not many people came here, especially in the middle of the afternoon, and Seungmin hadn’t mentioned anything to anyone. Felix was hungover and he didn’t really know how to tell Hyunjin. He almost told Changbin but opted not to. So if Minho did stand him up, no one would ever know about it but them two.

Maybe the whole thing was a joke - a very elaborated joke. Minho’s revenge for the carrot hair comment two years ago. That made much more sense than Lee Minho liking him. And even if he did show up and did have a crush, Seungmin didn’t think much would come from it because he was nothing but a rebound crush and they were complete opposites.

But at least it came full circle.

Chances were that Seungmin would have to deal with Minho in the future, because they were bound for life because of Hyunjin, but it would probably be different now that college was over. If they barely saw each other in the past five years, they weren’t about to see each other more now. So Seungmin saw it as a way to close a chapter. Started with the book and closed with the movie.

‘You bought the tickets already?’

Seungmin got surprised by Minho’s voice coming from behind him and turned around. Minho just blinked at him.

‘I thought you wouldn’t come.’

Minho frowned. ‘I asked you here. You shouldn’t have bought the tickets. I was gonna buy them.’

Seungmin shrugged. ‘I owed you money either way, from the club.’

‘I told you I didn’t want you to pay me back.’

‘I just did,’ said Seungmin, giving him his ticket. Minho sighed and took the ticket from Seungmin’s hand. 

‘Next time, I’m buying,’ was all Minho said before entering the cinema theatre.

The room was almost empty, which Seungmin liked. There was only an old man in the second row, a couple of old ladies in the back and a man in his 30s sitting in front of them. Even though he would rather be around more people watching his first scary movie at the movies for comfort, he didn’t feel like embarrassing himself either. This was okay.

He followed Minho to seats in the middle row, and when they sat together Minho turned to him to make sure everything was good. Seungmin nodded and right after the lights went down. 

‘You’ll see, it’s a masterpiece.’

Seungmin could only think about how the hell he was going to cope with getting scared by everything without screaming. If it was Hyunjin or Felix, or anyone else, next to him, he would ask if it was okay to grab their hand in case he got scared. But it was Minho. And they were on a date.

As he watched the camera follow a car driving through the mountains and the opening credits, Seungmin asked himself why people went to the movies for dates. It was stupid if you really thought about it - at least for a first date. You didn’t talk to the person, you barely saw them, but maybe that was the point of it all. Maybe a movie date was the “intellectual” equivalent to making out with someone in a club.

Seungmin didn’t like either.

Even if it was a scary movie, he actually wanted to watch it. He didn’t want to focus on someone putting their tongue down his throat. He looked at Minho for a second wondering if he had any intentions of doing that, but he was so into even the first few minutes of the movie that Seungmin guessed he wasn’t. He liked that. Not that he didn’t want Minho’s tongue down his throat at some point, but he didn’t want their first kiss to be in front of a little kid making his finger talk with a weird voice.

First kiss.

That was a weird thought. Seungmin never really thought of firsts with anyone. He never cared before. Maybe he did like Minho after all. 

The movie wasn’t as scary as Seungmin had thought, but it was drastically different to the book and Seungmin wasn’t so sure how he felt about that. Minho never even tried to put his tongue down his throat, but he did let out a laugh every time Seungmin overreacted to anything. Seungmin did end up grabbing his hand without realizing it by the end of the movie, but Minho didn’t say anything, and it only became uncomfortable when the screen turned black and Seungmin realized what he was doing. 

He let go of Minho’s hand without a word and they left the cinema together in silence until they got back to the street.

‘So? What did you think?’

‘It’s too different from the book.’

‘I told you it was different! But it’s a masterpiece on its own.’

Seungmin shrugged. He really wasn’t sure how much he had actually liked the movie. What he certainly wasn’t sure about was how much he liked Minho. He was pretty. Somehow in the last six years, he had gotten even prettier - and when he first saw him, he swore no one could be prettier than him.

They stayed quiet for what felt like ages. All Seungmin could think was that after this everything would be more awkward because of course this date wouldn’t get them anywhere. Who went on a first date to the movies either way? Truly an awful idea.

Seungmin could leave now and nothing would change in his life. He wouldn’t get into a relationship with Minho, and everything would go the way he had planned - moving with Felix, finding a job and be happy. No relationship had ever been in Seungmin’s equation when it came to planning his life. No Lee Minho.

‘I thought you would have more to say.’

‘I-I do… I just… Need to take it all in,’ answered Seungmin avoiding his stare.

Minho nodded. ‘Seungmin if you don’t like me then that’s okay. No one is forcing you to do anything.’

But that was the thing. Seungmin didn’t want to leave. He wanted to give whatever this was a chance. For the first time in his life, he wanted to give Lee Minho an actual chance.

‘I-I’m not good with this whole dating stuff and I’m worse with feelings so I don’t… I think I do like you, but I really don’t know. I’ve never been in a relationship and no one has ever really liked me, honestly, I mean… Not in the way you do, I guess. People don’t have crushes on me, and I don’t have crushes on people. So I’m not used to this and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, and you have had experience from before so it’s even more pressure to… Do it right, I guess.’

Minho smiled slightly. ‘You’re doing okay. You don’t need to figure out everything by the first date, you know. This doesn’t need to lead to a relationship or whatever you’re imagining right now. Just let it happen, I guess.’

Seungmin nodded, scared to have said something, anything, wrong.

‘Are you taking the bus home?’

‘Hmm… Yes.’

‘Ok.’

Without further ado, Minho started walking in direction of the bus stop and Seungmin followed without saying a word. The bus didn’t take long, and Minho got in it even before Seungmin – it was worth noting Minho didn’t live anywhere near Seungmin’s parents. But he shouldn’t be surprised. It had happened once before.

The bus was quite full so they didn’t have the chance to sit. Instead, they were one next to the other, grabbing onto the bar while being pushed around by all the people around them. It wasn’t helping that it was summer, and it was already hot as hell, and everyone was sweating and smelly. But for as much as the physical part of it was already bad enough, what made that trip even more uncomfortable was Seungmin not knowing if he should say something. He didn’t realize he zoned out looking at Minho until he turned his head and looked at him. He didn’t frown. He didn’t question why he was looking at him. He looked at him dead in the eye.

Some things never change.

It was a bit frustrating how unbothered Minho was 24/7. Seungmin felt as if there was nothing he could do to make him have any type of reaction. But that was also what made him somewhat attractive, and pretty. Minho was so pretty. He had a pretty nose and pretty eyes, and prettier lips. Seungmin didn’t quite understand why Minho had a crush on him and how it had happened but he could live with it. He could live with Minho liking him and looking at him that way.

Let it happen.

So that’s what Seungmin did. He emptied his head of all thoughts and leaned slowly towards Minho, waiting for the impact of their lips. But it was way faster than he thought. It took him a couple of seconds to notice that Minho had leaned in as well and was actually the one that made their lips connect. It wasn’t a “tongue-down-your-throat” type of kiss, it was much more sweet. It reminded Seungmin kind of the way his “ex-boyfriend” kissed him - but better, a hundred times better.

They were in the middle of a bus full of sweaty people and there were probably a couple of homophobes there, but Seungmin didn’t care and neither did Minho. It was their moment. It was their first kiss.

Once they got off the bus, Minho stared at him once again and Seungmin thought he would say something about the kiss, which he would hate because he felt it was so out of line and stupid and embarrassing. Why did he do that? He didn’t want to kiss at the movies but he did want to kiss in a bus full of people? What the hell was that logic?

‘Are you gonna tell me what you thought about the movie or not? Because your comment was quite anti-climatic after four years.’

Seungmin smiled relieved and proceeded to explain his views on the movie. They discussed it for about fifteen minutes. Seungmin made them take a long way home but Minho never realized because he didn’t know the neighborhood and he didn’t know where Seungmin’s parents lived either. During those fifteen minutes, it was mostly Seungmin talking and Minho rolling his eyes at his critique or contradicting him. By the time Seungmin realized he was in front of his childhood home, he also realized they had been disagreeing for fifteen minutes over a movie. Maybe that was a bad sign. Maybe it meant they just weren’t meant to be, and they weren’t even meant to meet just like Hyunjin had said back in the day.

‘I have a bunch of work next week, but do you want to go out for dinner the week after?’

Seungmin nodded without even thinking about it. Of course, the answer was yes. He did want to see Minho again and he didn’t want to wait a whole year ever again.

* * *

Seungmin liked Minho.

He liked the way he kissed him, and his small gestures that meant everything. He liked how considerate he was. He liked going to the movies with him and watching TV shows together even though they almost never shared the same point of view. He liked taking the bus with him. He liked going to the rock bar with him, and even sharing his emo nights with him. He liked when they were on the phone for an hour whenever they didn’t see each other – Seungmin had given up on text conversations. He liked talking to him about his days and hearing about his.  He liked hearing Minho talk about cats or his job or anything really. He liked the way their hands fit together. He liked how pretty he was all the time - it only took Seungmin a couple of weeks to realize Minho always looked pretty, no matter what. He liked his jokes and his sarcasm. He liked it when he stared at him and blinked a hundred times.

It wasn’t only that Seungmin liked Minho, but he liked what they had. He liked their relationship.

The first few dates went better than Seungmin could ever imagine - he honestly still didn’t think it would lead anywhere. But being with Minho was something he liked from the beginning. 

On their second date, they had laid out ground rules, because the truth was that the two of them dating was a bit more complicated than just two ordinary friends - mainly because they weren't friends. They were from the same friend group and yet knew next to nothing about each other. They weren’t even close to being like Hyunjin and Jisung. So they agreed to not tell anyone about their dates for the time being and not involve any of their friends until they figured out if it was something worth mentioning.

However, that summer Hyunjin fulfilled his longtime dream of going on a trip with a friend - that friend being Jisung. They weren’t friends anymore actually. The night of the party, Hyunjin told him about his feelings, and it turned out Jisung had liked him since freshman year but never had the guts to say anything. (Seungmin asked Minho if he knew anything about it and of course he knew.) They booked planes tickets out of nowhere and the next day they were gone, even though everyone told them it would break their two-week-old relationship. Hyunjin said that it was a need to celebrate somehow Jisung officially graduating, and Jisung said that they already knew the worst of each other so it wouldn’t change a thing. And he was right. After spending almost every day together in the dorms, by now, they all knew each other inside and out - except for Seungmin and Minho.

But Seungmin actually enjoyed getting to know Minho. At first, he struggled to understand him, and eventually he gave up - that’s when everything started to go more smoothly. They spend most of the summer together even though they had agreed they wouldn’t let it be “a thing” before telling Hyunjin - but it was hard talking to him when he was somewhere travelling with his boyfriend.

So even though they spend most of the summer together, Seungmin and Minho tried their hardest to not cross a certain line. They wanted to figure out if they could be together or not before telling anyone, but they didn’t want to start dating without Hyunjin’s approval – or at least without him knowing about it. Seungmin didn’t mind because at first, he wasn’t sure he was willing to be in a relationship. He was still trying to figure himself out and what he would do next with his life, and it probably wasn’t the best moment to jump into a relationship.

It took a couple of weeks for Seungmin to realize that he did want to be in a relationship with Minho, and he was sure Minho felt the same. But neither of them was ready for it yet, they just knew it would eventually come, maybe. While Seungmin was struggling with, well, everything, Minho was still struggling with issues from his last relationship. He did eventually ask about the break-up and Minho told him she had cheated on him with a friend of his from his dance crew. He didn’t talk much about it but Seungmin could tell he had been really affected by it and still was.

They tried to keep what they had as casual as possible for as long as possible, but the dates and the nights spent together multiplied after a couple of weeks. The no-sex-until-we-tell-Hyunjin rule went out the window one of those nights. And this time Seungmin did like it but it still wasn’t it. It took everything from him to talk about it with Minho, but he listened and they figured it out together - it got better after that. That’s when Seungmin realized they were already in a relationship whether they wanted it or not, but neither of them ever said anything.

Chan eventually found out about them because he found them cuddling on Minho’s bed one morning. And even though he promised he wouldn’t tell anyone, by the time Seungmin got back to his apartment, Felix was giving him a weird look and he just knew Chan had told him. It was kind of a relief because now Seungmin had someone to talk to. And so that night, he put some music on and they talked all night about it. Seungmin didn’t realize how much he liked spending time with Minho until he told Felix all about it, and Felix listened to every detail – because after all this time, Felix was still an angel.

He told Jeongin not long after, with Minho’s permission, and it almost cost him his life because he choked on his food as soon as Seungmin told him. But Seungmin wanted to tell him. He felt bad already about leaving him behind - even though Jeongin had brought so much of his stuff to their apartment that he was already basically living there. The first thing he did after surviving choking on his chicken was joke about how he really should date Changbin then. They eventually decided to tell Changbin as it seemed stupid for him to be the only one (that wasn’t travelling somewhere) to not know. Changbin was surprised but he didn’t ask many questions about how it happened and just told them: “I’m happy for you guys I hope you don’t kill each other”. 

Seungmin wondered if he was happy with Minho, but for once it didn’t take him long to figure out the answer. He wasn’t happy. He had yet so much stuff to figure out and the fact that Hyunjin didn’t know yet was eating him alive, but Minho made him happy. That, he was sure of.

Eventually, Hyunjin and Jisung came back. Hyunjin had finally dyed his hair black again, which was funny because Seungmin did the same during the summer. They organized a meeting the day they got back at Minho’s and Chan’s apartment and they ordered pizza - and paid delivery this time.  Seungmin had never been so nervous around Hyunjin before and it took Hyunjin about five seconds to pick up on it. They had agreed after a long fight - their first fight - that Minho would be the one to tell Hyunjin. Seungmin argued that he was friends with Hyunjin first and he had the right to tell his one and only best friend. Minho argued that if he wasn’t the one to tell him, Hyunjin would murder him for even touching a hair of Seungmin. It made sense but Seungmin felt sad about now being able to tell his best friend about his first relationship, something he strangely cared so much about.

In a fun (not so fun) turn of events, no one told Hyunjin. He figured it out all by himself. All it took was for Chan to ask Seungmin to bring more napkins and for Seungmin to not hesitate about what drawer to open. With only that, Hyunjin figured out Seungmin had been in that apartment several times and it took him five seconds more to connect the dots – maybe because Minho and Seungmin weren’t as subtle with their looks as they thought.

Hyunjin didn’t speak to Minho for a week after that. Minho pretended he didn’t care, but Seungmin could tell he did. Seungmin even told him maybe it was better to split up and Minho simply replied: “What’s done is done.” It hurt. He expected something else. But he couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to be without Hyunjin, so he didn’t judge him and moved on from it.

After a week, Seungmin managed to meet with Hyunjin, because just as Minho had anticipated, Hyunjin wasn’t pissed at him - he was just mad at Minho. Even though his best friend tried to avoid the topic almost all night long, they needed to talk about it. Of course, a lot of margaritas were involved in it - he had gotten much better at his margaritas with time. 

After so much drinking Hyunjin eventually said, ‘I’m just scared that he will hurt you and I could never forgive him for that.’

‘Maybe he won’t.’

‘C’mon, no relationship ever ends well,’ said Hyunjin, and Seungmin could see that darkness that had been in his eyes ever since his last relationship. It wasn’t about Jisung, because he was happy with Jisung, but he was still hurt. ‘It doesn’t bother me that you’re dating and I don’t want you to break up because of me… I just don’t want you to get hurt.’

Seungmin smiled slightly because he knew Hyunjin’s feelings were sincere, but he didn’t have the heart to tell him he had been hurt before. Hurt didn’t always come from relationships, just like happiness and fulfilment didn’t only come from them either. Hyunjin always had this idea that Seungmin was always happy because he didn’t deal with relationships, but truth was he had to deal with his unhealthy attachment to him and that had brought him enough hurt.

‘You know… If I had known this is what it would take for you to stop speaking to Minho, I would’ve dated him much sooner.’

At least it made Hyunjin laugh, but then he looked at him full of nostalgia and love.

‘Are you happy?’

Seungmin knew how to answer that for once. ‘He makes me happy.’

Hyunjin smiled and then rambled about how they had grown up so much and they weren’t teenagers anymore and it felt weird sometimes because he still felt like one. Seungmin had to agree, he didn’t feel much different from when he was 17, apart from having much healthier relationships with everyone. Maybe that’s what growing up meant: realizing all the issues you have and trying to fix them while you gain more by the day. Being a kid in high school that had no awareness of anything was much simpler, but Seungmin would never go back to those times.

The day after, Seungmin saw Minho and something had changed in the way he even said “hello”. He later found out that Hyunjin had texted him that same morning. The text read: “Don’t make sex jokes ever again or we’re done.”

After that their relationship went even smoother because there was no “secret”, no one else to tell. Of course, they fought from time to time and clashed with each other, but overall, they had a good relationship – at least he thought so, but he didn’t know much about relationships. But in case, Seungmin spent more time with Minho than without.

And he liked him a lot. Every time he saw his face that’s all he could think about: how much he liked him. It wasn’t that he was pretty anymore. It was so much more. It was everything about him. He liked him so much sometimes he felt as if his heart was going to implode.

Minho told him he loved him after a year of dating - when Seungmin agreed to help him pick a third cat to adopt. It was subtle and spontaneous, to the point Seungmin almost didn’t realize what he had just said. He asked Felix if it was a big deal and he was surprised they had never said it to each other before because they were clearly in love, and “lowkey married”. 

For a long time, Seungmin had asked himself if he was even capable of love. Once he started dating Minho, he forgot about it. So maybe what he felt wasn’t just liking, it was loving. It took him a while to process it and ask himself if he really was in love. He always thought that once he would be, he would know. He even asked Hyunjin if he thought he was in love with Minho. Hyunjin laughed so hard saying it was such a ridiculous question because of course he was in love.

It was weird that it was so obvious to everyone but him. But eventually, he figured that maybe he was in love. It made sense. He didn’t really understand what love was or what it should feel like, but it seemed fitting. He tried telling Minho, especially because after that first ‘I love you’, Minho kept saying it all the time – at this point it had turned almost into a synonym of “thank you” and “goodnight”. But Seungmin seemed incapable of saying it. He beat himself up for it because the last thing he wanted to do was to make Minho sad or think he didn’t love him back. But he did. He truly did. 

One day, they were out for launch and in a moment of silence, Seungmin told him he needed to tell him something but not a word left his mouth when Minho looked up at him. And then he laughed slightly.

‘I know, Seungmin. I love you too.’

Seungmin stood still for a few seconds while Minho kept eating his ramen as if nothing had happened. This time Seungmin was the one blinking a hundred times.

‘H-How?’

‘I can tell.’

‘Isn’t that a bit pretentious?’ said Seungmin, a bit frustrated that yet again he hadn’t been able to say it - but at the same time relieved.

‘We established I’m pretentious like six years ago, Seungmin.’

And just like that the frustration was gone, because Minho knew and it was enough for him. Seungmin would tell him one day though, because there was no one that deserved those three words more than Minho.

When he told Hyunjin about his incapability to say ‘I love you’ all he did was laugh (again) and say: “We've been knew. You've never said you loved me in all this time.” He wasn’t wrong. But Seungmin had never realized before he mentioned it.

Everything stayed pretty much the same for a while. Seungmin started working and was living the domestic life with Minho even though he was still living with Felix, and he saw Hyunjin whenever he could. It came a point where between work and them both being in committed relationships, seeing each other was more difficult than before, but they still saw each other all the time. They also tried to meet up as a group as often as possible.

Seungmin was right in senior year. It wasn’t the same. And sometimes he got sad about it and got nostalgic thinking back to those days. But they were still in his life and he was grateful for that. They were still going through life together. Just in a different way.

A year and a half into their relationship, Jisung proposed to Hyunjin jokingly with a doughnut, and even though it was a joke, Hyunjin said yes. And somehow that was enough for them to be engaged.

Felix and Chan finally started officially dating two years after graduation. They moved pretty fast, which made sense after five years of being in an unofficial relationship, and out of nowhere, Seungmin was left without a roommate. With Felix and Chan moving into a brand new apartment, Seungmin and Minho fought for Jeongin to take over the free room in their respective apartments, but he ended up choosing Minho - it was a way nicer apartment to be fair.

Seungmin felt at a loss thinking that he might need to move back to his parents’ house or find an apartment alone, until one day Minho said as if it was the most natural and normal thing to do: “you could always move in with me and Jeongin.”

Of course he had thought about it. It would make sense for him to move in. But he wasn’t so sure they were ready for it yet. They spend most of their free time together, but they always had the choice to be alone. Seungmin argued that he didn’t want to live with him just because it was practical. He wanted to move in when it would be the right time. Minho told him it was his choice.

Seungmin didn’t understand how he could take such a serious matter so lightly. He tried talking about it with Hyunjin who told him that they had been together for more than two years so of course it made sense. But it didn’t make that much sense to Seungmin mainly because he was afraid that changing things would break them, and he didn’t want to lose what they had. Most importantly, he didn’t want to lose Minho.

That was around the time that Hyunjin and Jisung got married. It was a nice and small summer wedding at a park. It was a beautiful day, and everything turned out beautifully. Minho was Jisung’s best man and Seungmin was of course Hyunjin’s - seemed fitting. Once they made a whole speech reminiscing of their relationship, and they said ‘I do’, and Changbin cried all of the tears he had, Seungmin stayed at the altar looking around while everyone moved on to the party.

‘You know they say the best man and the bridesmaid always hook up at weddings. So technically, if there are two best men the rule would be for them to hook up as well.’

Seungmin rolled his eyes and smiled amused at Minho’s comment as his boyfriend got to his side.

‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Minho after a couple of seconds of silence. ‘Is it about moving? Because it really isn’t that deep.’

‘How come everyone moves so much faster than us?’ asked Seungmin facing Minho.

‘Well, you’re terrified of change for once.’

‘Hey! I’ve gotten better!’ 

Minho smiled, amused, and then shrugged. ‘We’re not that slow. These guys knew each other from before. And even if we’re slower, what’s wrong with that? As long as we’re both on the same page and have the same goal, then it’s all good.’

Seungmin nodded slightly just as Minho took his face in between his hands to comfort him. ‘What if it changes everything?’

‘Moving?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, at some point you will need to change. You can’t live with your college roommate all your life. If you want to live alone, then that’s cool. I get it.’

Seungmin looked down just as Minho caressed slightly his cheek. ‘What do you want?’

Minho shrugged. ‘I’m happy at the moment.’

‘That’s not my question.’

Minho sighed. ‘Well, I asked you to move in for a reason.’

‘You didn’t ask. We need to work on your question asking, this is a recurrent issue.’

Minho laughed and took a step back, putting his hands away from Seungmin. ‘I just don’t see the point in making a huge deal over this.’

‘But it is.’

‘Seungmin, we’re already together all the time. If you move in, we’re gonna live together. If you don’t, you’re still gonna be at my place every time I’m not at yours.’

‘I don’t need you to be practical, Minho. I want you to tell me you want me to move in.’

‘Do whatever you want, Min. It’s your life, not mine.’

Seungmin let out a big sigh, getting frustrated. ‘I hate it when you get like this.’

Without saying more, Seungmin walked away towards the party but Minho stopped him by grabbing his arm forcing him to turn around.

‘Yes, Seungmin, I do want you to move in. And if I believed in marriage, I would want to marry you. I do want a life with you, but not if it’s not what you want. These are stuff that I want, not that I need. And I know you struggle with change so I don’t want to pressure you ever. But of course it’s something I want, but I don't need it to be happy. All I really need are my cats, not gonna lie.’ 

Seungmin laughed slightly and looked at the group at a distance as he felt his eyes tearing up. He took a big sigh and looked at Minho.

‘Lee Minho.’

‘Stop, Seungmin, I told you, y-‘

‘I love you.’

Minho smiled brightly. ‘I love you too.’

The next day, Seungmin was packing his apartment. He didn’t have nearly as much of an attachment for this one as for the dorms, but it still did something to him - especially because he wouldn’t be living with Felix any more. At least he still had Jeongin though.

He left most of his stuff at his parents, stuff that he hadn’t used since college but hadn’t managed to leave behind - like his emo CDs, because of course he had the CDs, how else would he listen to emo music? Minho helped him with everything and spend the night with him in his childhood house, making fun of all the stupid stuff in his room. Seungmin told him about how he spent a lot of his time in senior year hating on him and all Minho said was that he had been living rent-free on his mind since forever. He wasn’t wrong.

Sometimes he would lay in their bed and look at Minho sleeping, and he beat himself up for having taken so long to be with him. He spent so much time resenting him and hating him for no reason. If only he had seen him for what he was since the beginning, he would have avoided being so hurt by everything all the time. It wasn’t only about their relationship, but about Hyunjin. Sometimes he wished someone had told his old self to get over it and try to actually get to know Minho. 

He got sad about it, about having met Minho at 17 but started dating him only when he was 22. When he mentioned his thoughts to Hyunjin, all he did was stare at him in silence for a couple of seconds that felt eternal.

‘I agree that you didn’t give him a chance but if you had… You would’ve hated him regardless. You both were so different back then, that’s why I kept you apart and I was right to at the time. But you changed… that’s why it works.’

You changed that’s why it works.

After that conversation, Seungmin replaced Felix’s “it’s not because he starts loving someone else that he stops loving you” by “you changed that’s why it works”. Because Hyunjin was right. 

Seungmin was 25 now. He had worked on not being so affected by change, but it took him 25 years to realize that change wasn’t something to endure, but something that was good. Change wasn’t pain. Change was relief. Change was growing up and realizing you might not always watch movies all night with your best friend. Change was realizing that your best friend is probably not always going to be your best friend. Change was opening up to new people. It wasn’t only that change could be good. Change was Lee Minho. And Lee Minho was good. So change was good. And Seungmin might not have Minho forever just like he might not have Hyunjin forever, and Felix, and Jeongin, and Jisung, and Chan, and Changbin, but that was okay because he had them now and the memories he had with them were something that nothing could ever change. 

Sure, people staying the same was great. But changing with people was better. People staying through the change was way more meaningful. And some people always stayed.