Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Walking into the luxurious, vaguely hotel-like building along with the loud, vaguely squirrel-like boy he met outside the gates; Hyunjin is struck by the intensity of his nerves. What has he signed up for? Does he really think he’ll meet the love of his life here? At some reality show adapted from America? Without seeing them?

He takes a deep breath. Healthy skepticism is what this is. He’s being neurotic, it’s a habit of self-preservation, Hyunjin doesn’t want to set his hopes too high only to have them torn down. Again.

“Hyunjin-ssi!” Vague-Squirrel Boy calls his attention from the door, holding it open and gesturing for Hyunjin to follow him inside. “We’re not the first ones, there are people inside! Come on!”

When he rounds the corner, Hyunjin has to stop inside the hallway and marvel at the inside of the building which is somehow even more spectacular than the outside. Everything looks brand new, the windows are massive and he can even see a stretch of what must be a lake outside. The ceiling is so high Hyunijn has to lean his head all the way back.

“Hello!” another stranger approaches to introduce himself, freckles dusted all over his face. “I’m Felix! Oh, wait, my korean name is ‘Yongbok’, both are fine. You’re really attractive, by the way. I love your hair! What’s your name?”

Hyunjin blinks. “I’m Hwang Hyunjin. It’s nice to meet you, Felix-Yongbok.”

The freckled blonde in front of him laughs, and he’s so adorable that Hyunjin can’t help but laugh along with him. One second later, Felix has all but thrown himself over him, which isn’t something Hyunjin would usually feel entirely comfortable with, but he’s already so out of his comfort zone that it doesn’t really faze him.

“Hyunjin-ssi, over here!”

Both blonde boys turn their heads towards the loud voice, and Hyunjin quickly spots Vague-Squirrel Boy’s waving hand. He nudges a little at Felix’s shoulder before they head over together.

“This is Jeonginnie!” Squirrel Boy tells him (them?) while gesturing at a widely smiling boy that Hyunjin just knows is younger than him. He looks nothing like Felix, but he’s just as endearing. “He came here with Lixie! And over here on the couch are Sannie hyung and Soobinnie! Wait, how old did you say you were again?”

“I’m twenty-three,” Hyunjin tells him for the first time. “I was born in 2000.”

“No way, me too!”

Felix tugs at Hyunjin’s button-up shirt with a huge smile, when Hyunjin turns back to him dazedly. “Me too!”

“Same for me,” the tallest boy Hyunjin has ever seen even sitting down says from his end of the couch, and God, why are they all so cute? Who gave him those teeth? “I’m Choi Soobin, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Hyunjin replies with a smile, sensing that Soobin is even more nervous than he is, judging by his tense shoulders and fiddling fingers. “I’m Hwang Hyunjin. Have you been here long?”

He directs the question at both boys on the couch, who he assumes arrived first, and the one who must be ‘San’ shrugs a little with a small smile.

“Maybe ten minutes before you, five before Yongbok and Jeonginnie,” he says and his voice is a lot darker than Hyunjin would have expected. “I’m Choi San, ‘99 liner. Does that mean I’m the oldest?”

Everyone looks around the room, confirming silently before some of them nod in San’s direction. Hyunjin isn’t sure whether he’d prefer being the oldest on this side of the pods or not. He has no idea what to expect.

“I guess I’m the maknae, then,” Jeongin says easily. He looks like the kind of kid who isn’t bothered by all sorts of small, stupid things, the way Hyunjin is. “Even though I was born in February, it was in 2001. A whole two months after Soobinnie hyung.”

It’s as good of an ice-breaker as any as they laugh, and Hyunjin takes a seat on the floor simply to stop fidgeting on his feet and at least be a little discreet about it. It’s not even the whole camera thing he’s nervous about, or meeting these other people. Cameras stopped bothering him a long time ago and meeting new people is more often fun than not. But he’s not here for either of those things, and the reason that he is here may or may not be waiting on the other end of the building - where he won’t be able to go.

Hyunjin isn’t sure whether the lingering sensations in his stomach mean that he’s weakly nauseated or actually excited. He is sure that the brief warning before the hosts are coming makes his stomach turn over himself, however, when he distantly processes how they’re supposed to start off right away. Before Hyunjin knows what’s happening, he’s being ushered along as Felix sets off down the hallway with a tight grip on his hand, and then they’re lining up in front of one door each.

The knowledge of the cameras quickly turns intimidating once Hyunjin realizes that he can’t change his mind now. He can’t back out. He’s here for the entertainment of people all over the world, probably, because he’s foolish enough to hope that he might meet some stranger here who will somehow fall in love with him through a fucking wall. ‘Weird’ doesn’t begin to cover it, but Hyunjin can’t stop to wonder which word he would use to describe this surreal experience because in the corners of each eye, he watches Soobin and Felix move to enter one room each. Felix is practically bouncing inside, while Soobin looks like he wants to throw up. Hyunjin looks at the tall boy a little longer, urging him to look his way so they can share this daunting experience just for a heartbeat, but Soobin doesn’t. He’s braver than Hyunjin, because he steps right in and closes the door quietly behind him.

Here goes nothing, Hyunjin tells himself with a quick shake of his head. Then he presses the door handle.

***

“Hello?” someone asks, almost before Hyunjin has the door shut all the way. He’s too busy staring at the intricate, cozy space of the pod to properly sit and start talking. “Is there anyone there?”

“I’m here,” Hyunjin replies, automatically, because he might be overwhelmed but he’s polite to a fault. “Sorry, I’m just processing all of this. Or failing to, I guess.”

There’s a quiet chuckle on the other side of the lit circle in the middle of the wall, and Hyunjin freezes before sitting down once the other person settles down. He’s so on edge, and for what? He literally signed up for this.

“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” the person asks, and if Hyunjin isn’t completely mistaken, it’s followed by another nervous chuckle. Maybe Hyunjin doesn’t have to be as alone in this confusing situation as he originally thought. “I’m Changbin, by the way. Seo Changbin. What’s your name?”

“Hwang Hyunjin,” he replies easily, and as his eyes continue to dart all over the tiny room, they finally fall on a sketchpad and bunch of pencils on the small table in front of the sofa. It eases his mind instantly. “It’s nice to meet you, Seo Changbin-ssi. Or whatever we’re supposed to call this.”

“Likewise,” Changbin replies. Hyunjin thinks the other’s voice is surprisingly comforting. The way Changbin speaks makes him feel strangely more at ease. “May I ask how old you are? I don’t really like honorifics, but I don’t want to be rude. First impressions are kind of important to me.”

Hyunjin laughs nervously before he can stop himself. “Should I be worried, then?”

“Oh, God, no!” Changbin hurries to protest, stumbling a little over the syllables which makes his words sound very genuine. “I meant for me, I meant your first impression of me! I’m sorry, Hyunjin-ssi, I’m not usually this… flustered. I was born in 1999. I don’t know why I didn’t go first.”

Hyunjin smiles to himself. This Changbin and his rambles are kinda cute, now that Hyunjin’s nerves are loosening their deathly grip on his every limb. They’re definitely still lingering around him, but they’re letting up. His chest doesn’t constrict when he tries to breathe anymore.

“Don’t worry, hyung,” he says, taking his liberties. “I’m one year younger than you, then. That doesn’t seem too bad, right?”

“That’s not bad at all!” Changbin assures him immediately, and Hyunjin can’t help but laugh again. This is actually going a lot better than he thought beforehand. “That’s great! One year is nothing!”

Hyunjin giggles on as he scribbles on his sketchpad. Changbin may be only the first out of six (?) different people he gets to know in here, but Hyunjin knows his own memory and it’s not the most trustworthy one out there. He’s probably gonna need all the help he can get in separating these strangers without faces; at least in the beginning.

Seo Changbin, he writes at the top row and underlines it for no good reason. Then he starts taking notes. ‘99 line. Comforting voice. Forward but polite. Chuckle deep but nice.

***

When Hyunjin exits the pod after an hour with Changbin, he feels remarkably lighter than he went in. He can’t stop smiling, actually, partly in relief and partly because he’s had a genuinely good time on the first ‘date’, which he most certainly did not dare hope for in the beginning.

As he looks around the hallway, he’s met with faces probably equal to what his own must look like. Three doors down, Jisung is doing a rather funny dance by himself. On his left, Soobin’s shoulders have sunk about six inches and are almost level with Hyunjin’s chin. On his immediate right, Felix is shining brighter than any star Hyunjin can remember the name of. Jeongin and San are talking quietly but excitedly, already heading back to the common area, while Hyunjin has to come down from his out-of-body experience before he can even think about letting his legs carry him anywhere.

“Hyunjinnie!” Felix calls, beaming from ear to ear. “How was it? Wasn’t it great? I liked my date so, so much! He’s from Australia, too, same as me, can you believe it? What are the chances? His name is Chan, or Christopher, he said both works, and we talked mostly in English which might not be great for the viewers now that I think about it but he asked what would make me more comfortable and that’s definitely English and I didn’t want to lie to him so I told him that and then he switched to English and it was really nice! He was really sweet! How did it go for you, Hyunjinnie? Who did you meet? What did you think of them?”

Once Hyunjin is back on the sofa and has been talked into relaying every piece of the pleasant conversation he had with Changbin with constant supportive nods from Felix beside him, Jisung bounces into view again with a smile that could probably rival Felix’s from earlier.

“Did I tell you about my date? I didn’t, right? Did I tell you?”

“No, Sungie, you didn’t!” Felix squeals, as excited as Han “Vague-Squirrel Boy” Jisung, and Hyunjin is struck with the realization that even if things go to hell with Changbin - or any of the others - maybe he’ll at least earn a friendship or two out of this? That’s not too much to hope for, right?

“Oh,” Jisung moans dramatically, throwing himself over Hyunjin’s lap on the sofa with an over-the-top arm slung over his eyes. It would be funny if Hyunjin didn’t already relate. “I’m gonna propose next time I talk to him!”

Hyunjin’s eyes almost bug out of his head as he stares down at Jisung. Even Felix goes quiet in shock. Between them, across Hyunjin’s legs, Jisung sighs dreamily and smiles.

“His name is Minho,” Jisung chirps, apparently head over heels in love within just one hour, “Lee Minho, and I’m gonna propose to him, mark my words. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life, and he didn’t even judge me for it. He laughed, too. Also, he called me cute. Cute! Me! Can you believe that? And when I immediately blurted out how nervous and excited I was and apologized in advance, he was super nice about it. Didn’t judge when I told him about how anxious I get or anything, he really was super nice all around. Guys, I think I’m in love. The experiment worked. I wanna marry that guy. I’m gonna marry that guy.”

When Hyunjin goes to bed that first night, the sinking feeling inside his stomach is back. Because he doesn’t feel for Changbin what Felix feels for Chan or what Jisung feels for Minho. He doesn’t. Hyunjin doesn’t think he’s ever felt like that, and it scares him a little because he doesn’t want there to be something wrong with him that won’t let him feel those things for someone. Was it stupid going here while being this young? Should he have tried harder in the real world first, since Hyunjin apparently needs more time to catch feelings? What is Changbin thinking of him after that first meeting? What if he doesn’t want to talk to Hyunjin again and what if all the rest are paired up, too? Soobin was quiet but that telling aura was all but shining around him; he really liked his date, too. San was more vocal about it and definitely pointed out how weird his date had been - ‘Wooyoung’, if Hyunjin remembers correctly - but he seemed fairly smitten despite that.

Everyone did, except for Hyunjin, who was more pleasantly surprised than anything. It’s simply that he’d really hoped that he’d feel something more than ‘pleasantly surprised’, given everything this show was shooting for in the first place.

***

“Hello?” Hyunjin calls when he enters another pod the following day. This one is brighter, with pastel blues and yellows, and faintly reminds him of late spring. It’s nice. “This is Hwang Hyunjin.”

“Hyunjin-ssi,” someone says from behind that same bright circle decorating the wall between them. “Changbinnie talked my ear off about you yesterday. My expectations are high for this hour, then.”

His stomach lurches immediately. Oh, God. Does that mean Changbin liked him a lot? More than Hyunjin liked him? As much as Jisung and Felix and the rest enjoyed their dates? What is this new person expecting, exactly? Hyunjin is at least 98% sure he will let him down, regardless.

“‘Changbinnie’?” he chooses to concentrate on, ignoring the way his voice wobbles slightly. “You’re older than hyung, then?”

“A whole year,” the voice says lightly, as if he was smiling. Hyunjin wouldn’t know. “You can call me ‘hyung’, too, if you’d like. Or ‘Minho’, I don’t really care.”

Harshly, Hyunjin feels his heart halt abruptly inside his chest. If this man’s name is Minho, then he must be the person Jisung wanted to propose to next time. He’s not sure whether that knowledge makes him more relieved, because that means he shouldn’t put his hopes on Minho in the first place, or nervous, because he doesn’t want to mess things up for Jisung for a man Hyunjin doesn’t even know. And he doesn’t want to do it by accident, either. And yet, he has a whole hour to converse with the stranger on the other side of the circle.

“Alright,” Hyunjin says quietly, wracking his brain for what he’s supposed to do now. His first interaction with Changbin came relatively easy, with laughter and nerves on both sides. Minho doesn’t seem nervous, on the other hand, which makes Hyunjin even more nervous. “What do you think of the experience so far, Minho hyung?”

Minho makes a cute sound, as if he was talking to a child and faking being in deep thought instead of talking to a twenty-three year old for the second day in a row. A different twenty-three year old, but still.

“Meh,” the older says, and Hyunjin feels his eyebrows raise in surprise. That is not what Jisung was saying. Or does Minho just not want to reveal his feelings, to hurt Hyunjin or something? To not hurt him? “This place freaks me out a little, all these cameras. I guess I undermined how much I valued my privacy.”

“I can’t really relate, but yeah, I can see why you’d think so,” Hyunjin replies, as honest as he can. “It’s weird in here, isn’t it?”

“Hella weird,” Minho replies, and there’s some shuffling around before he speaks up next. “What did you mean by ‘you can’t relate’? You one of those clingy people who can’t stand being alone?”

Hyunjin shakes his head with a small smile for a whole ten seconds before he realizes that Minho can’t see him.

“I’m not,” he shares, still smiling a little. “I need my space, for sure. I was so relieved we didn’t have to share bedrooms, bathrooms are bad enough. I blame it on being an only child.”

“Really? Me too.”

“Yeah?” Hyunjin muses, and feels himself start to relax a little. Maybe Minho was kidding about those expectations? “Did you ever wish for siblings?”

There’s that humming sound again, the one that Hyunjin thought was Minho exaggerating to maybe-maybe not make fun of him, but it seems that perhaps he wasn’t. Hyunjin wants to slap his own face when he realizes he finds it kind of cute.

“Yes and no,” Minho finally replies, which makes it feel like an honest answer. “I wanted a younger sibling, never someone older. I suppose I wanted to feel needed, like I was someone they could turn to. It didn’t matter boy or girl, I just wanted someone to take care of, I think. To feel responsible for. I might have been the only child, but I’ve never been or wanted to be babied.”

In his light yellow seat, Hyunjin feels a little stunned. He knows the rules of the show, objectively, but he didn’t think Minho - or anyone - would open up to him like this, relatively fast. He believes Minho, and the time the older took to think before replying makes Hyunjin feel like he’s being serious about this. About their conversation and about Hyunjin. He feels a little warmer inside.

“Thanks for telling me that,” Hyunjin says softly. “It might’ve been a sore spot to press, since you said you didn’t have any siblings. I didn’t mean to bring anything back to the surface.”

“Oh, no,” Minho says, and somehow Hyunjin can picture him waving Hyunjin’s words off despite having no idea what Minho or his hand looks like, “don’t worry about it. I’ve accepted my fate. Also, I adopted three cats from shelters which fed into my ego pretty good, since we’re talking about it. I guess I’m here because they finally grew up and decided that they manage just fine without me around 24/7. ‘Need someone else to need me, now.”

Hyunjin smiles, in spite of himself. This is so stupid. Minho is half-engaged to Jisung, already. He shouldn’t be playing into whatever this is at all.

It’s just that Hyunjin can kind of see why.

“Do you think you’ll find them here, Minho hyung?” he asks, holding his breath and telling himself the question is a very general one, directed at the experiment as a whole and not Hyunjin in particular. It doesn’t matter what Minho replies; he’s just asking out of scientific interest.

“I think,” Minho replies, murmuring a little but not in a hesitant kind of way. In a secretive kind of way, as if Hyunjin isn’t supposed to tell anyone else outside of this room, “that there are some good chances, yeah.”

***

The following days are kind of blurry to Hyunjin, all melting into one another in frenzied questions from the others - mostly Lix and Jisung - concerning who went on dates with their guys - Chan and Minho, respectively - along with new voices and stories of people Hyunjin meet for the first time without truly meeting them. Wooyoung today had him laughing so hard he cried, but he doesn’t have the way about him that has Hyunjin weak in the knees. Well, he might have from how hard he made him laugh, but not in how he makes Hyunjin feel. Seungmin was the first - and only - one to be the same age as Hyunjin, which made him instantly more at ease and they had a really nice time. Hyunjin wouldn’t mind seeing Seungmin again, but he also doubts that he’ll ever look as starry-eyed over him as Jeongin does.

When his third date ended up being with someone named ‘Yeonjun’, Hyunjin struggled a little to find common ground until they finally landed on dancing. It turns out Yeonjun went to the same academy as Hyunjin did, only a year above and therefore without any real interaction between them. It still has them gossiping about teachers and classes and what was hard and what was fun and what they miss now that they’re in the real world, and Hyunjin definitely feels a mild kinship with Yeonjun, but the conversation doesn’t make him wonder if maybe he will find love in here, after all.

Also, it’s when he’s chatting with Yeonjun while writing simultaneously in his sketchpad - things like Choi Yeonjun and ‘99 line and dance academy and significantly deeper laughter than talk - that he realizes that he completely forgot to write things down while talking to Minho the day before. Yeonjun is still talking when Hyunjin turns the page back to the previous one, and finds that it’s been filled with doodles of flowers of various kinds, covering the entire page. Not one single word is written down from his page with Minho, and somehow, Hyunjin thinks that just might mean something.

***

After the initial six first dates, they get one date-free day to decide which people they would like to talk more to. It turns out that they can only keep ‘dating’ someone if the both of them have written the other down, which means that at least one person needs to have actively wanted to talk to Hyunjin more after whichever first impression he made, and Hyunjin needs to match his own answers to whoever that person might be.

The thought strikes him that it’s possible that no one will write his name down, and Hyunjin falls over sideways on his bed with a groan. How awful would that be? In front of the whole world, nevertheless? Instantly singled out and unwanted due to his actual personality, now that Hyunjin isn’t left wondering if people keep approaching him for his looks or not. He figures it would bring some kind of relief to not have to second guess things on that account, but maybe it would be worse to find that people don’t want to come back to him for him?

Or maybe Hyunjin just needs to stop overthinking this, because it’s not like he can do anything to affect the results either. Sure, he could write everyone down and that way improve his chances of a second ‘date’ with someone, but he’s not that desperate. Hyunjin just needs to be dramatic for a minute and then get a grip. It may be his first time inside this house and reality show, but it’s not his first time freaking out over something. He has a process; he just needs to remind himself of that sometimes.

After chewing his pencil down until it tastes disgusting and he realizes he’ll probably have to throw it away, Hyunjin heaves a sigh and presses the pencil down onto the rough fabric of the paper. He starts by writing all of them down, figuring he can think about them one by one, but as soon as he starts he’s crossing the first name over already.

Wooyoung is not a person Hyunjin can see himself falling for, marrying, or spending the rest of his life with. Wooyoung was hilarious and borderline unhinged in his jokes, and call him pessimistic, but Hyunjin doesn’t believe that Wooyoung is for him, in the same way that he doesn’t think Jisung is. They’d probably make great friends and Hyunjin isn’t opposed to that, but it can’t be the reason Hyunjin writes Wooyoung’s name.

So he crosses it over, and moves onto the next one.

Wooyoung and Yeonjun both are one year older than him - same as Changbin - and Hyunjin thought Wooyoung reminded him of Yeonjun from the day before in some strange way that he can’t really put his finger on. Talking to Yeonjun was pleasant, and he seemed really sweet. His voice rivaled Changbin’s and he asked Hyunjin lots of questions, and overall just seemed serious about the whole thing. Hyunjin likes that. Hyunjin respects that. But it didn’t make him feel anything stronger than that.

So he crosses it over, and moves onto the next one.

Seungmin is a harder nut to crack, so to speak, because Hyunjin really enjoyed talking to him and they quickly found a shared interest in photography and soft ballads alike. The conversation with Seungmin flowed easily and made Hyunjin feel as if they’d known each other for years, almost, which was an unexpected but welcome turn of events. He wouldn’t mind getting to know Seungmin better. He might not end up falling for him, but maybe it’s too soon to come to that conclusion after one date?

He leaves Seungmin’s name as it is.

Next is Chan, who Hyunjin can’t really wrap his head around, if he’s being honest with himself. Chan was incredibly polite and sort of warm towards him, which Hyunjin appreciates. He was also very attentive and remembered the things Hyunjin shared with him, as well as keeping the conversation flowing naturally. It was very nice, overall. The catch is that Hyunjin sort of felt like Chan was speaking on autopilot; asking and sharing things that he was supposed to, or something. Maybe it’s because Hyunjin met Chan last, and Chan thereby met him last, too. It made Hyunjin feel like their conversation wasn’t anything special, and that maybe Chan was like that with everyone. Which isn’t a bad thing, not necessarily. But Chan didn’t bring him any sense of overwhelmingly good things, either, so this weird gut feeling of Hyunjin’s might just be the tipping point, sadly.

He ends up crossing Chan’s name over, before moving onto the next one.

Seo Changbin. Hyunjin’s first ‘date’ - in a long time, too - who helped him relax infinitely in this whole mess Hyunjin got himself into. He wouldn’t say that he has actual feelings for Changbin, at least not yet, but… Hyunjin can’t stop wondering if maybe he could, later on. Talking to Changbin made him feel really good, honestly. About himself, about the older man, about the whole situation in itself. That has to count for something, right? If Chan’s bad luck in going last crossed him off of the list, then Changbin’s good fortune in going first might as well secure his spot on the next round of dates, too… right?

Hyunjin ends up leaving Changbin’s name, as well.

That only leaves Lee Minho, who Jisung has been swearing up and down all week that he’s gonna propose to. Jisung hasn’t said anything about the others staying away, specifically, or seemed jealous or mad after the others shared small pieces of their ‘dates’ with Minho, but… Hyunjin wonders if there’s a line, and if actively choosing to meet Minho again would be crossing said line. On the other hand… Hyunjin would only get to see Minho again if he wrote Hyunjin’s name down, as well. If Minho really is dead set on Jisung after one date, then so be it. If he’s not… at least Hyunjin wouldn’t bear the sole responsibility for it? And the more Hyunjin thinks about it, the more he finds himself leaning towards wanting to talk to Minho again, rather than ‘give him up’ this early on. He really liked the older, in that short hour they spent together. It’s so difficult to pinpoint exactly what it was that had Hyunjin’s heartbeat picking up, but it did, and multiple times as well. Maybe it was the alluring voice with which Minho spoke, that made Hyunjin feel like this conversation was for them and for them alone. Or maybe it was his flippant way of sharing vulnerable parts of himself in ways that didn’t make them sound very vulnerable at all, except Hyunjin felt like they might be if he tried to put them into his own perspective. Maybe it was simply that he made Hyunjin smile by the pure memory of their conversation even now, five days later.

Hyunjin’s hand might tremble a little, but he does write Minho’s name down.

Three down, three to go. At least one of them - Seungmin, Changbin, Minho - should have written Hyunjin’s name down, too.

Right?

Chapter Text

As it turns out, Seungmin, Minho and Changbin respectively all end up writing Hyunjin’s name down, since he’s set to meet all three of them on the following day. Apparently, the show intends on switching things up a little and having the participants meet all their dates in one day, as a ‘speed event’ of sorts, before another round of choosing followed by a set number of ‘dates’ with whomever they end up matching with after that.

Hyunjin has no opinion on this, really, but rather feels like his new motto since signing up for this experiment has been ‘alright, I guess’. So he opts not to think much of it, and rather take a moment of relief and even the tiniest bit of excitement at the prospect of talking to the other three again, even just these short twenty minutes. He’s almost surprised as he finds himself looking forward to it, a little, and maybe getting to know them even more further on.

He’s almost forgotten to consider who the rest of the people on ‘his side’ of the pods would potentially be seeing again, but luckily for Hyunjin and his short memory; Felix is keeping track of all of them. It’s rather adorable, actually, how excited the blonde boy seems to pair them up until everyone is going home with an engagement ring and pretty partner on their arm. Hyunjin doesn’t feel quite that optimistic just yet, but he doesn’t want to ruin Felix’s fun either.

“I’m seeing Channie hyung, Changbinnie hyung, and Wooyoungie hyung!” Felix starts off after jumping into bed with Hyunjin, where he retreated to collect himself a bit after breakfast and the results. “Jisungie is seeing Channie, Changbinnie and Minho hyung, of course.”

“Of course,” Hyunjin replies. Jisung’s already sworn to marry Minho, after all. It seems Minho isn’t completely off his track, even though he’s meeting Hyunjin as well.

“Jeonginnie is set to see Seungminnie and Channie hyung, and Sannie hyung is gonna talk to Wooyoung hyung and Yeonjun hyung. Soobinnie is only seeing Yeonjun hyung, but he seemed really happy about it ‘cause apparently he only wrote Yeonjun-ssi’s name down. Can you believe that? After all those dates, he knew immediately who he wanted and even though Yeonjun is seeing Sannie hyung, too, there’s no one else. Except you, Hyunjinnie! Who are you seeing? Did you write Yeonjun-ssi down, too?”

Hyunjin swallows.

He didn’t write Yeonjun down; that’s not what his palms are growing damp over. He’s happy for Soobin, and definitely impressed. He really hopes the taller will find what he came here for. The issue is that Hyunjin is seeing three people; who apparently aren’t seeing that many others. Both Minho’s and Seungmin’s names were only told once, through Felix’s tale, and if Hyunjin hadn’t written them down then Jisung and Jeongin might already be dead set on them. Is it worse to reveal that he’s seeing them, too, or to keep quiet about it and for people to figure out later?

“I didn’t,” he tells Felix, honestly, fingering at his cuticles. “I’m not seeing Yeonjunie hyung.”

“Oh?” Felix says, almost bouncing on Hyunjin’s mattress. “Well, who are you seeing then? Changbinnie hyung, right? Is there anyone else?”

Hyunjin nods before looking back at the sunshine boy in front of him. “Seungminnie, too. And… and Minho-ssi.”

Felix’s eyes grow wider than saucers as Hyunjin’s nerves rise to the surface. Is it really that big of a surprise that he’s talking to Minho again? Did he just offend Jisung or hurt his feelings? Is Felix gonna run off and tell him and Jisung will come back looking betrayed and upset and all Hyunjin’s chances of friendship with him will be gone? What about how Minho feels?

That’s a very good question, actually, Hyunjin’s brain takes the opportunity to remind him. What about how Minho feels? It probably doesn’t even matter how Jisung feels about Hyunjin or what Hyunjin does in regards to Jisung, because… because none of it will mean anything without taking Minho’s feelings into account. He wrote both of their names, too. Jisung may want Minho, but that doesn’t mean that Hyunjin is a bad guy by proxy. Even if his anxiety makes it feel that way, he supposes.

“Really?” Felix asks, still wearing that surprised look. “You’re seeing Minho hyung? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

Hyunjin makes a non-committal sound in response to that, simply because he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. ‘Surprise!’?

“Well, you’re also having three dates today, then, right?” Felix quickly recovers, taking Hyunjin’s hand in his and effectively ceasing the taller’s nervous fiddling. “That’s really exciting, Hyunjinnie! Do you wanna talk about it? Who did you like the most?”

In the end, Hyunjin does end up sharing what he can with Felix - he’s still feeling both cautious and uncertain - but it seems that Felix is mostly surprised that Hyunjin would take a liking to Minho rather than the other three, and they don’t talk about Jisung at all. The one ‘date’ Hyunjin and Felix have in common is Changbin, which actually doesn’t bother Hyunjin at all. He can definitely see why Felix - or anyone - would want to see the older again, and thinks it speaks to Changbin's character that he gave all of them the same impression. Hearing Felix talk about Changbin actually makes Hyunjin slightly happy for the both of them, in getting to know him.

Felix doesn’t have ‘dates’ set up with Seungmin or Minho, and Hyunjin doesn’t have them with Chan or Wooyoung. But it’s interesting to hear Felix talk about the other two anyway, and it sort of seems like Changbin’s personality is somewhat of a middle ground between Chan’s and Wooyoung’s, judging by Felix’s impression of the three of them. The freckled cheeks and bright smile has Hyunjin’s trepidation growing, at least, and before he knows it there’s a staff member knocking on the door and asking them to take five minutes before it’s pod time once more.

***

“Hi, there,” Minho calls as Hyunjin shuts the door behind him in the same pastel, bright room as last time. Almost involuntarily, he smiles, at ease immediately. “Fancy seeing you here. Or hearing, I suppose.”

“Likewise, hyung,” Hyunjin replies, sitting down and eyeing the piece of strange glass that separates them. Not even a shadow. “Are you surprised?”

Minho hums to himself, as the younger reaches for his pencils to start mapping out whatever comes to mind today. Maybe he should be more wary since he forgot to write things down last time, but… But he remembered, anyway. Doodling should be fine.

“Pleasantly, maybe,” Minho finally says, and wiggles around from the brief sound of things before they quieten again. “But I wrote your name for a reason, and I assume you did the same, no? Surprise, coincidence, fate… Aren’t they all the same thing?”

Hyunjin feels the way his eyebrows raise and his hand ceases the movement in his lap.

“No!” he protests with a laugh. “They’re not the same, hyung! ‘Fate’ means ‘destiny’ and that we’re meeting again because there’s some sort of higher power that intended for us to meet again, for whichever reason. ‘Coincidence’ means ‘random’ and that we could’ve ended up never talking again at all, and one conversation was all we ever shared. You can’t tell me those are the same thing, Minho-ssi.”

For a nerve-wracking moment, Hyunjin holds his breath as he awaits Minho’s reply. He hopes the older takes Hyunjin’s bantering for banter, and not him growing offended or attempting to offend Minho, in turn, but he can’t know for sure, now can he?

Then Minho laughs, and Hyunjin’s shoulders relax instantly as the smile returns to his lips. He never heard Minho laugh last time - not properly, at least - but is fairly certain the sound is one he would like to hear more of. Minho’s laughter resembles giggles more than anything, shrill and airy and easy, and it’s comforting. Hyunjin feels comfortable.

“I apologize,” Minho giggles, “I didn’t realize I was touching some kind of nerve. If I knew that you believed in that fatalist stuff, Hwang Hyunjin, I would’ve made sure to say that fate must’ve brought us together again. Especially if I’d known you would drop the ‘hyung’ for ‘Minho-ssi’.”

A burst of laughter breaks out of Hyunjin’s chest at the mock offense in Minho’s voice. He hadn’t even realized he did that. Trust Minho to pay attention to his every syllable.

There’s a warm feeling in Hyunjin’s chest when he speaks up next.

“I don’t,” Hyunjin tells him through the wall, because he’s not a fatalist by any means. “I’m a romantic, sure, but not a fatalist. You may still need to earn that ‘hyung’ back, however, Lee Minho-ssi.”

“A romantic?” Minho echoes, sounding vaguely intrigued from what Hyunjin’s limited senses can pick up. “Ah, Hyunjin-ah, I’m afraid I’m all done for, then. Romance is not my strongest suit, I fear. I’ll cook you all the food you may want at any given time, but I’ll never write poetry about you, no matter how much I end up loving you. I’m not programmed for that, unfortunately.”

Shock-still in his seat, Hyunjin fights to slow down his racing heartbeat in time with his furiously heated cheeks. Minho can’t see the physical reaction Hyunjin’s body takes to his words, but the camera can, and Hyunjin is embarrassed enough by the gasp he lets slip from his lips at the word ‘love’.

“What makes you say that?” he ends up asking, not really thinking his words through. A recurring theme in his conversations with Minho, it seems.

“What makes me say what?” Minho inquiries from the other side.

“That romance isn’t your strongest suit. Do you think romance is only pretty words wrapped in prettier melodies? Can romance not be cooking for the person you love, as an act of affection very much appreciated? Can romance not be honesty and straight-forwardness, using the words you have to let someone know what they mean to you instead of trying to cover them in codewords or metaphors that you don’t have? Can romance not be showing up and being there and actively caring enough about what someone has to say in a way that makes them feel like they matter, regardless of whether or not you’re physically together?”

Hyunjin’s chest heaves slightly as he finishes his little speech, and he wrings his damp hands together instead of smudging the graphite and paper beneath him. He doesn’t regret his outburst, not really, but he does wonder what Minho thinks of him now.

But Minho doesn’t say anything, and before Hyunjin knows it, there’s a knock on the door indicating that they have one minute left. His heart races uncontrollably inside his chest since Minho still won’t say anything.

“Hyung?” he calls, definitely nervously by the stillness from the other pod. “We have to go. Minho hyung?”

Gripping the sketchpad tightly, Hyunjin stands up from his seat and takes one slow step after another until he’s grabbing the handle. He would rather not leave without some sort of ‘goodbye’ from Minho, but he figures he might have to.

Right when Hyunjin closes his eyes and tries to steel himself to open the door and walk out from what might be his last conversation with Minho, he hears his name being spoken.

“Hyunjin-ah?” Minho calls for him, sounding almost breathless, as if he was already out of the pod but ran back inside. Hyunjin wouldn’t know.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

The smile stretches out over Hyunjin’s entire face so fast and powerful, he almost fears it’s going to get permanently stuck there.

“Yeah,” he replies. “See you tomorrow, hyung.”

***

The ‘dates’ with Seungmin and Changbin are both great, by any objective standard, and Hyunjin ends the day feeling infinitely lighter than he did when he woke up. He would be fooling himself, on the other hand, in case he didn’t admit to himself that the main reason for the jittery feeling inside of his stomach is the first ‘date’ of the day; the meeting with Minho.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Seungmin or Changbin, nor the conversations with them. And Hyunjin isn’t even sure that Minho contributed as much to the initial conversation as Hyunjin himself did, but even if he can’t fully put his finger on the exact reason as to why he’s feeling the way he does; he does know what he is feeling. Hyunjin does know that interacting with any of the others does not make him feel the way interacting with Minho does, and he takes a deep, steadying breath before setting his pencil down after writing only one name on the paper after this second round.

Maybe he’s being stupid, putting all his eggs in one basket as some would say, or maybe he’s doing the best he can. Choosing to see Changbin or Seungmin when he doesn’t feel as strongly for them as for Minho would be wrong, though, in Hyunjin’s opinion. It wouldn’t be fair; especially not if they actually like Hyunjin more than he does them. So Hyunjin is taking a page out of Soobin’s book, and staying true to himself. Soobin had said it was nerve-racking, when Hyunjin asked if what Felix said was true and how impressed he was if it were, but Soobin had also said that it felt like the right thing to do. He could only act in response to his own feelings after all, and they were all leading him towards Yeonjun and no one else. What Yeonjun’s feelings were telling the older was irrelevant, Soobin had said, because Soobin will never fully know them and can only act on what he does know. If Yeonjun chose to see all five others beside Soobin, then he was going to. If Yeonjun chose one person beside Soobin, then Soobin had still stuck out enough to make a difference. He didn’t need Yeonjun to be sure right away, Soobin had told Hyunjin with an adorable blush on his puffy cheeks; he just needed Yeonjun to be sure at the end. The destination is the important part; not the journey.

Needless to say, Hyunjin felt even more impressed after that, and decided that if Soobin could do it then so could he. At least with the help and support of Soobin doing it first. Actually crossing the other two names over had been daunting, despite that, but he did it. He hadn’t felt like promising Changbin or Seungmin to see them for the following days of dating, after all, and they hadn’t asked him for it, either. Not that Minho necessarily had to keep his word on that account, for that matter, but Hyunjin genuinely doesn’t think Minho would lead him on like that on purpose. He certainly hopes Minho wouldn’t, but he also doesn’t believe so.

***

“Good morning, Minho hyung,” Hyunjin greets when he opens the door to their pod for the third time. It isn’t theirs, per se, but it’s what he has come to refer to it inwardly as. “How are you?”

“‘Good morning’?” Minho scoffs, followed by a brief giggle. “It’s 1pm, Hyunjinnie. I’m having my second cocktail of the day. I cannot in good conscience tell you ‘good morning’ back.

Laughing instantly, Hyunjin settles down comfortably as he watches the wall between them and tries not to wonder too hard what exactly is on the opposite end of it.

“I’d say ‘good day’, but that makes me feel either 80 years old or like I’m Australian,” Minho continues. “I swear I’ve heard Channie hyung say it a couple times already. I think I’ll settle for ‘hello, Hyunjin, I’m doing well, how are you doing’?”

“I’m good,” Hyunjin smiles, already covering his open page in scribbles and patterns that were left unfilled for the shorter conversation they had last time. “I’m sober, but still good. It’s probably for the best since I’m the lightest light-weight you’ll ever meet. Definitely the lightest light-weight you’ll ever not-meet.”

“That intrigues me,” Minho reveals, sounding very much entertained from what Hyunjin can assume without seeing any kind of expression. “If you wanna order something, I’ll wait to suggest a drinking game for a bit more. I don’t mind if you get water though, I just thought it might be fun.”

Minho leaves his statement open without actually phrasing it as a question, which fascinates Hyunjin a little. Minho might’ve claimed to be unable to write poetry, but Hyunjin does think that the older has a way with words in spite of that.

A couple minutes later, Hyunjin has a large glass of water and a sweet-tasting cocktail on the small table in front him, ready for whatever game Minho had in mind. The salty chips he ordered will definitely help his fidgety habits, too, on top of that.

“You ever play ‘Never have I ever’?” Minho asks once Hyunjin deems himself ready, already crunching away on a potato chip. “I figured it was a good go-to.”

“I have,” Hyunjin replies, and feels his heartbeat pick up at the implication of what Minho might ask of him during the course of the game. They’re most likely playing in front of the whole world to see, but… Would that be enough to deter a certain kind of question? Does Hyunjin want it to? “Do you wanna start?”

“Sure,” Minho chimes, not sounding nervous in the slightest. When Hyunjin thinks about it, he’s not sure Minho ever sounded nervous. Huh. What a life. “I’ve never owned a dog.”

Hyunjin smiles, despite himself, before telling Minho that he’s drinking because he has, in fact, owned a dog. His family has, at least, but it counts.

“I’ve never owned a cat,” he quickly says, evening the odds out and proving that he remembers Minho telling him that the first time. “Do you wanna drink once or one sip for each cat, Minho hyung?”

“You’re cheeky,” Minho murmurs, sipping loudly. “I like that.”

Biting his cheeks to hide his growing smile, Hyunjin waits for Minho’s turn.

“I’ve never left the country,” Minho says next, making Hyunjin drink. ‘I have’ is all he says, still wary of giving anything away regarding his profession. Especially since Minho hasn’t outright asked about that, so Hyunjin figures he can put it off without a lie for a bit longer.

“I’ve never driven a car,” Hyunjin returns, to which Minho seemingly drinks. Hyunjin isn’t sure whether they’re good or bad at this, together, since they seem to complement each other rather than match. Or maybe that is exactly what ‘matching’ means?

So they go back and forth a bit, until Minho says that he’s never gotten a tattoo and Hyunjin hasn’t either. It’s the first time their answers are the same, but it still surprises Hyunjin a little that Minho points that out.

“Is that bad?” Hyunjin asks, having downed half his cocktail.

“Not in my book,” Minho replies. “‘Makes me more interested in you.”

When Hyunjin’s drink is almost finished, he realizes that the game will also be in a minute or two. He thinks that’s what gives him the courage to shift territories, just the tiniest bit.

“I’ve never been with a girl,” Hyunjin shares, stirring his drink slightly with the straw. “I probably could have, at some point, but I’ve never wanted to. So I’ve never been with a girl.”

“I have,” Minho tells him, not unkindly, before chuckling. “Three, actually. As a teenager. That’s what made me realize I was solely into guys. One or two could’ve been just the specific girl, right? But not three.”

“Why are you asking me?” Hyunjin giggles, light-weighted as he knows himself to be. “I thought I was ace before realizing that I only found the wrong guys. The ones who didn’t care even half as much as I would’ve liked them to, no matter what I did. Then there was one ex, who helped me realize lots of things. But he’s history now. Do you have anyone like that, hyung?”

There’s a short, quiet humming sound from the other pod, and it takes a moment before Hyunjin remembers that Minho does that. He giggles again. He can’t hear as well this time, but it’s still pretty damn cute.

“I don’t think so,” Minho finally replies, almost sighing. “I don’t think I’ve had an actual, serious relationship with someone who made me realize lots of things. I’m not sure why. But Hyunjinnie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry that the wrong guys found you,” Minho tells him, gentle enough to make Hyunjin’s breathing hitch. “They should’ve cared twice as much as you wanted them to, not less than half. No matter what you did with them or for them, you deserve to be cared for, Hyunjin-ah. I don’t know how they didn’t, to be honest. You make me wanna care for you everytime we speak. Whether it’s me or Changb--”

Minho abruptly cuts himself off, and Hyunjin tries to remember how to breathe again. Ceasing lung activity while under the influence probably isn’t good, he figures, but how can he be expected to function properly with the things Minho is saying to him?

“Why’d you stop?” the liquid courage makes him ask. “Hyung?”

“I was about to say ‘me or Changbinnie or Seungminnie or anyone else’,” Minho says after a long moment of probable hesitation, judging by his voice, “before remembering that… What they said this morning.”

“What did they say this morning?” Hyunjin presses on, despite the way his heart is jumping up and down between his throat and his stomach.

Minho is quieter than earlier, replying, but Hyunjin hears him anyway.

“They said that they didn’t have dates lined up with you, any longer. For these couple of days. I think they were disappointed. I know I would’ve been, but… But then, you must’ve written mine.”

Hyunjin downs the rest of the drink.

“I did write yours,” he agrees, “since we’re here and all. And I didn’t write theirs. I figured it wouldn’t be fair.”

“Why wouldn’t that be fair?”

“Because they don’t make me feel the way you do,” Hyunjin exhales, unsure if Minho even heard him, but it feels like a relief to say the words out loud either way. “I like both of them, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them again. But I didn’t want to ‘date’ them any longer because I didn’t mind seeing them again. At least not when I actively want to see you. It’s not the same, so it wouldn’t be fair. Soobinnie gave me the idea. He’s really smart.”

“Choi Soobin?” Minho laughs breathily. “The one Yeonjunie is proposing to today?”

“He’s what?!” Hyunjin shrieks, immediately, straightening in his seat. “What did you just say?! Is he really? Already? Oh, my God, it worked! Soobin said… Oh, it worked!”

“What worked?”

“Nothing!” Hyunjin all but yells, excited and relieved and so happy for Soobin that he doesn’t have the time to be nervous about the things he just revealed to Minho himself. “Oh, he’s probably gonna cry. Oh, I can’t wait to hear. Or see, afterwards. Oh, my god.”

It takes Hyunjin a moment to realize that Minho has fallen quiet again, but he’s too buzzed to fully consider why.

“Hyung?” he asks instead, fishing a little.

“Yeah?”

“What are you thinking?”

When Minho speaks up again, Hyunjin would bet money that the older is smiling.

“I’m just picturing what you would look like, Hyunjinnie,” Minho says, “on the day that you end up saying ‘yes’. If that’s how excited you are for someone else’s engagement, I can hardly wait to see your reaction to your own.”

***

Yeonjun does propose to Soobin that day, making them the first couple to get engaged. Soobin is still crying when he exits the pod and they all swarm him, immediately and probably too tightly, but he doesn’t brush them off. He just cries, mostly onto Hyunjin’s shoulder because he's the tallest one after Soobin himself, while Hyunjin smiles and pats his back and tells Soobin that he deserves this, because he does.

Soobin reenacts and retells what he can between the shuffling array of tissues supplied by Felix and Jeongin, as the rest of them coo over his splotchy cheeks and bunny teeth. He’s adorable, and no less so when crying with joy. When San asks how Soobin feels at the prospect of meeting Yeonjun, Soobin sways in his seat and Hyunjin grabs his arm out of pure reflex to help steady him.

“I don’t know,” Soobin stutters between fresh waves of tears. “I can’t wait to see him, but… But I haven’t seen him yet, and I’m pretty sure I love him anyway. So in a way, it doesn’t really matter. But I wanna hug him so bad.”

Soobin’s voice breaks, and so does Hyunjin’s will, apparently, because the tears silently leave his own eyes at the feelings Soobin has been harboring mostly to himself and is finally sharing with the rest of them, now that his struggles have paid off.

When he goes to bed that night, Soobin is still not back from meeting Yeonjun and Hyunjin frankly thinks that’s for the best. The experiment is so much more real all of a sudden, and even with only one person left for his own sake, Hyunjin finds himself with even more thoughts swirling around now than previously. Either things will go the way Hyunjin hopes they will with Minho and Soobin’s experience will be Hyunjin’s, before the week is over. Or Minho will decide that he wants Jisung, or maybe that he doesn’t want any of them and goes home solo. Maybe Minho would propose to Hyunjin, and Hyunjin would end up saying ‘no’.

He’s honestly not sure that he wouldn’t, and that scares him. But it would scare Hyunjin not to feel like he might say ‘yes’, too. He’s torn, and he’s pretty sure that if he’s gonna marry anyone in here he wants it to be Minho. But this place is not the entire world, and having a crush on Minho here might indicate marrying him for the wrong reasons and wind up getting divorced. Hyunjin doesn’t know that. No one knows that. It’s scary.

He ends up telling Felix as much when the blonde boy knocks on his door and crawls down next to Hyunjin, asking him how he’s doing since he withdrew so early, and it feels good to tell someone. It feels good to tell Felix, who is endlessly kind and unwaveringly optimistic, and even if Hyunjin doesn’t believe every word that comes out of his mouth, it definitely doesn’t feel worse than before.

“So you’re only seeing Minho?” Felix asks, making sure as Hyunjin nods. “But Minho is seeing you and Jisung, kind of like Yeonjun seeing San and Soobin?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin confirms. “And Minho hyung asked if it was true that I stopped seeing Changbin hyung and Seungminnie, and I told him ‘yes’, so he knows it’s only him.”

“He asked that today?”

“Uh huh.”

“So after the second round of choosing? He chose Jisung and you before knowing that?”

“... yes,” Hyunjin says, coming to that very conclusion himself for the first time. 

Felix hums a quiet ‘interesting’ under his breath that Hyunjin pretends he doesn’t hear, and asks about the rest instead since Felix is the omnibus on this side of the pods.

“Well, you’re only seeing Minho, and Soobin was only seeing Yeonjun,” Felix starts compiling them, “but I’m seeing Channie and Changbinnie hyung still, and Jisung is seeing Minho and Changbinnie hyung. Jeonginnie is still talking to both Seungminnie and Channie, like before, and I guess Sannie hyung only has Wooyoungie hyung now that Yeonjun is officially off limits. Between me and you, though, I’m rooting for Woosan. Isn’t that adorable? ‘Woosan’?”

***

When Hyunjin opens the door to see Minho the next day, his cheeks are still wet. The staff had asked if he’d like to postpone the ‘date’ and said they’d let Minho know and not to worry, but Hyunjin had already spent the entire day crying in his bed and felt like talking to Minho might help a little, even if he was going to be a mess the whole time.

“Hyunjinnie?” Minho calls as soon as Hyunjin shuts the door, and takes a seat on the floor this time, resting his head on the bottom seat of the couch. “How are we doing today?”

“Terrible,” Hyunjin croaks out, and then the tears are spilling over even before he knows it. “I’m sorry, I’m-- I’m a mess today.”

“Are you crying?” Minho asks, worry evident in his voice, which makes Hyunjin’s heart ache for comfort despite the cuddles from Felix most of the morning. “Hyunjin-ah, what’s wrong? What happened?”

Hyunjin laughs, wet and without humor, for no good reason. Shifting in his end of the pod, Minho’s voice is suddenly a lot closer than previously when the older speaks up again.

“Is it me?” Minho asks carefully. “Did I do something? Do you want me to go?”

“No,” Hyunjin tells him, completely miserable but not wanting to be alone either. “No, it’s not you, hyung. The staff pulled me aside this morning since my phone was blowing up, and… And they told me…--”

That sinking feeling returns as Hyunjin presses his eyes tightly shut in a desperate attempt to stop more tears from falling, but of course, failing to do so. He turns his face into the soft cushion to hopefully stifle his cries a little until he has composed himself enough to talk to Minho.

“What happened, baby?” Minho asks, lulling and careful as if talking to a scared animal. Which, Hyunjin figures, is what Minho is used to. “What’s happened? Tell hyung, let me help you, darling, if I can. I’m here.”

Hyunjin isn’t sure if it’s the pet names or the sweet voice or just Minho’s semi-presence that does it, but somehow he finds the words to describe the events of the morning to Minho anyway. He doesn’t know when he shuffles closer to the screen between them, but that’s where he ends up, retelling what was told to him by the staff at first and then his teary father through the phone.

He tells Minho how he was woken up and led aside to another, private area of the house where all of their personal belongings were, and that his phone has been ringing constantly for the past twenty minutes and that they didn’t wanna answer it for him, so they opted to come get him despite the rules of the show. No interacting with the outside world; they all knew it when they signed up, but Hyunjin is still grateful that they broke it this time. He wouldn’t want to return home without knowing, even if he’s more messed up in here right now than he would be under normal circumstances.

So he relays the sound of his father’s voice and the words he’d chosen to tell Hyunjin that his mother’s mother passed away hastily in her sleep that morning, and that it was very sudden but also painless, by all means. He shares tales from his childhood, with his maternal grandmother almost constantly present due to living down the street, and how Hyunjin has gone weeks without seeing her before but can’t imagine never actually seeing her again. He cries as he explains how sad he is that his grandmother won’t be there when he gets married or any other important moment he might have left in his life, and he confesses to Minho that he feels horrible about being stuck in this house instead of back home. It isn’t that he regrets coming, but rather that he regrets coming now. He barely knows what he’s saying, but it feels as if Minho understands anyway.

Minho, who probably doesn’t even talk one fifth of the amount that Hyunjin does, but that doesn’t matter. He says the right things; he asks Hyunjin to explain his feelings to make sure Minho doesn’t misunderstand since he can’t read his face or body language; he keeps up the pet names that came seemingly out of nowhere but make Hyunjin feel cared for even in this place of virtual strangers; he listens and makes those odd but comforting noises that tells Hyunjin that he’s still listening, and when he speaks actual words, it’s continuously with that same soothing tone.

Talking to Minho makes him feel better. It makes Hyunjin feel like it’s okay, being here where he shouldn’t be, and paired with his father’s reassurance to stay since he won’t make any real difference at home either way, he ends up staying. It doesn’t lessen the grief, certainly not, but it lessens the guilt, and Hyunjin figures that’s enough for now.

When that knock on the door comes, Hyunjin feels lighter than he did entering the pod. When Minho asks if Hyunjin feels a little better, Hyunjin nods before remembering that Minho can’t see that, and tells him ‘yes’. When Minho asks if Hyunjin will be okay seeing him tomorrow, Hyunjin repeats his ‘yes’, with more certainty than the previous one. When Minho tells him to take care of himself because otherwise Minho just might break in through one of the windows and see to it himself, Hyunjin actually laughs. It’s brief, but it’s genuine. It makes him feel cared for, by Minho.

When Hyunjin leaves the pod, drying his cheeks, only to hear the sobs of somebody else down in the common room, he’s quickly walking over to see what else might have happened this awful day. Except he’s barely into the doorway when Soobin grabs his hand, preventing Hyunjin from moving further into the room. Above Soobin’s shoulder, he can barely make out Jisung on the couch, sobbing heavily into Felix’s embrace. It’s only a moment until Felix’s wet eyes leave Jisung’s long enough to meet Hyunjin’s, instead, and his face twists into something painful before discreetly shaking his head in Hyunjin’s direction.

Just like that, the pieces fall into place. Hyunjin’s brain may be completely mangled after today’s events, but the sight before him would be telling to a blind person. Which is ironic, Hyunjin thinks, since they’re on Love is blind.

“He said ‘no’,” Soobin shares, quietly, still holding onto Hyunjin’s cold hand. For a brief moment, Hyunjin almost wonders if Jisung was the one saying ‘no’. But he couldn’t have been. “Jisung proposed today, this morning, in the earliest slot. But Minho-ssi said ‘no’. He’s been inconsolable for hours and postponed seeing Changbin-ssi. When he went to the bathroom, Lix told me that… That you and Minho are talking. So maybe…”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin breathes, guilt now returned in full and maybe even worse than this morning. “I’ll go. He shouldn’t have to see me. Thanks for telling me.”

Hyunjin turns on his heel and heads off in the direction of his own room before Soobin can say anything else - and before Jisung can spot him, most of all. He doesn’t think Jisung knows that Hyunjin is ‘dating’ Minho, but it probably won’t be long now. God, Hyunjin should’ve just told him straight away. At least after the second round, about only choosing him. Did he really think Jisung wouldn’t find out? That this wouldn’t come back to bite him? It’s his fault that Jisung is heart-broken right now, even if no one is saying it. Hyunjin knows it’s true. Jisung has never been anything but kind to him, and he was the first person Hyunjin met in this whole thing, and now Jisung is hurting because Hyunjin wouldn’t stop seeing the guy Jisung wanted to propose to on the very first day.

When Felix crawls into bed with him that night, Hyunjin’s pillowcases are all wet. But Felix doesn’t mention it, and only wraps his limbs around Hyunjin’s larger body as he trembles in Felix’s hold, and Felix shushes him kindly while caressing his back. Hyunjin hopes someone else is with Jisung right now, but he’s too selfish to ask Felix to go. Being the cause of Jisung’s heartbreak and losing his grandmother on the same day is just too much, and Hyunjin cries until he falls asleep, still tightly wrapped in Felix’s hold.

The feeling he had after talking to Minho is all but gone, and Hyunjin goes to sleep wishing desperately that he’d never come here in the first place.

Chapter Text

“Hyunjin?”

Seizing up immediately at the all too familiar voice calling for him outside his bedroom door, Hyunjin briefly considers pretending to be asleep instead of replying. He would much rather be asleep, in all honesty. But he also can’t avoid his actual life for much longer.

“Hyunjin, are you up?” Jisung tries again, sort of quietly but paired with a light knock. “You didn’t come for breakfast.”

Absolutely despising the tears immediately welling up, Hyunjin swallows and blinks until his vision is cleared again. Can’t he stick to embarrassing himself for just the one day? Why can’t he at least act like he’s a half-composed person after passing out for almost ten hours?

“I’m up,” he ends responding, mostly out of pure spite of the way he’s behaving. Like a child. “You can come inside, Jisungie, it’s fine.”

“You sure?” Jisung asks, although while cracking the door open to peer inside. He’s still in his pajamas, hair a little messy, and looking at Hyunjin with big eyes that are quite hard to tell apart from how he’s been looking at Hyunjin up until… well, how he ought to be looking at him now. “I know yesterday was… was really rough on you. Lix told me about the phone call and I barely saw you all day. How are you doing?”

Even before Jisung can finish his sentences, the tears are spilling over Hyunjin’s cheeks again and he puts his hands over his face to hide them. Jisung moves towards him immediately, but Hyunjin leans away from him when the smaller boy goes for a hug. The reminder of Hyunjin’s grandmother is certainly painful and fresh enough, but the worry coming from Jisung who probably still doesn’t know is just…

Hyunjin genuinely wonders for a second if he’s about to throw up.

“Should I get…?” Jisung fumbles, probably even more hurt at Hyunjin shying away from him, and God, Hyunjin just keeps making things worse, doesn’t he?

“I’m sorry,” Hyunjin croaks out, definitely still faintly nauseated from the never-ending guilt. “You just… you shouldn’t comfort me, Jisung. Not when I… Not when it’s my fault that--”

“That Minho hyung rejected me?” Jisung interrupts, reaching for and stubbornly grabbing Hyunjin’s much larger hand, pulling it away from his stunned expression to put into his own lap instead. “Hyunjinnie, I hope you realize that I don’t blame you in the slightest for that. Or Minho hyung. That was on me, I’m not mad at you or anything. I wish you would’ve told me you were seeing him so I could’ve gushed more about him earlier, but I get why you didn’t. Anyway, that’s not what I came here for. I came to bring you to breakfast or breakfast to you, either is good.”

Confused and definitely still shocked, Hyunjin wipes his wet face with his free hand before looking back at Jisung next to him, wide-eyed. Oddly enough, Jisung’s expression matches his words, and Hyunjin… can hardly believe it.

“You’re not mad at me?” he whispers, disbelief probably blatantly obvious in his voice. “But you said, on the first day, you said that…? And then I--”

“I mean, I’m a little disappointed that he said ‘no’, of course,” Jisung tells him, still holding onto Hyunjin’s hand with both of his own while pursing his lips a little in thought. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want a ‘yes’, but… But I should never have proposed in the first place, Hyunjinnie. I think I did it because it felt more and more like Minho wouldn’t, and like I didn’t have a choice. Which really aren’t the best grounds to start any relationship on, as Innie very helpfully told me last night. I think I was mostly upset about what a major mess I made, rather than not getting to marry him. So yeah, I don’t know if this was my best move, but it sure is one I made. I didn’t mean to hurt you in the process, though, Hyunjinnie. If I’d known you were falling for him, I’m at least 99% sure I wouldn’t have done it.”

Hyunjin stares.

“What?” he can’t help but blurt, still wiping at his messy face. “You would refrain from proposing to someone you wanna spend the rest of your life with because of some random guy you met who might also be into them? Jisung, you’ve known me for like a week! I’m glad I didn’t tell you if that would’ve held you back. You’re not here because of me, you’re here for you!”

For no valid reason what-so-ever, Jisung smiles back at him. Hyunjin wonders for a moment if he’s stuck in a fever-induced dream or something, or if he really just doesn’t know Jisung at all. Everything the shorter is saying is throwing Hyunjin off the negative spiral he’s been privately stuck in, and now that he’s apparently breaking out of it he feels completely thrown off his course.

“Aw,” Jisung grins, “you care about me!”

“Of course I care about you, I’m literally crying!”

Jisung bursts into completely unprovoked laughter, and then throws himself at Hyunjin until he’s toppling over onto his messy sheets with Jisung all over him. There are arms around his shoulders and Jisung’s giggles muffled by his mattress, and Hyunjin wonders how he could have gotten things so wrong.

“Let’s not be mad at each other,” Jisung tells Hyunjin through the fabric. “Like, ever. Let’s go have breakfast and get you cleaned up for your date, and then figure out how I’m supposed to fix the mess I’ve made of things with Changbinnie hyung. He’s already told me I’m a loser twice before this, I don’t know why I’m still seeing him to be honest. Let’s come up with at least three smartass comebacks, alright? I think I might need them.”

***

“Minho hyung,” Hyunjin greets as he enters the pod to talk to Minho after whatever mess yesterday was. He let Jisung pick his outfit and Felix braid parts of his hair, and the coddling while listening to Jisung’s whining about having to explain himself to Changbin had all been very nice, in all honesty. A change of pace. “How’s your day going so far?”

“I just exhaled in relief that you don’t sound as sad today, if we’re being honest,” Minho replies straight away, sounding like he did just that. “It would’ve messed things up if I told you I’d be breaking and entering and then didn’t follow up. What would you have thought of me then?”

“That you were a man of zero promises and would make a super bad partner, honestly,” Hyunjin dead-pans, before releasing his laughter. “So you got lucky this time.”

Minho breathes out a chuckle himself, but he doesn’t sound as light-hearted as he previously would have. Hyunjin almost holds his breath in anticipation as he tries to imagine what’s going on inside Minho’s head right now. Did yesterday change things for him? Was he going to end things with Hyunjin before realizing that he very well couldn’t because of the circumstances? Has he slept on the whole Jisung thing and changed his mind? Is he unsure of how to talk to Hyunjin because of how emotional he was yesterday?

“Minho hyung,” Hyunjin decides to begin, “I talked to Jisung this morning. I was afraid to do it last night, but he sought me out this morning and we talked. It was nice. I guess I’m just telling you because I don’t want you to walk on egg-shells or change anything about the way you talk to me after yesterday’s events. I also don’t feel like I’m about to burst into tears at any given moment, so just… don’t worry, I guess, if that’s what you’re doing. I’m not sure.”

“I was, a little,” Minho shares after a moment of silence. There’s the telltale sound of Minho shuffling around that Hyunjin has taken to trying to picture inside his mind, but since he doesn’t even know if their sides of the pods look the same, it’s basically an impossible task. Not to mention that he doesn’t know how Minho looks. “When you came in yesterday, all upset, I initially thought it was because of me. Maybe that’s selfish, I don’t… I don’t know. When Jisung proposed to me, I honestly knew the answer even before he finished asking. But this whole thing is so strange, and me declining his proposal could be a good thing from your perspective, but it could also be… Maybe you were upset that I was seeing him in the first place? Maybe you were upset that I hadn’t proposed to you yet, since people have started doing that? Maybe you felt like I’ve been leading you on, or both of you, or like I couldn’t make up my mind?”

Hyunjin holds his breath at the unexpected but genuine ramble from Minho’s side of the wall, and he honestly wouldn’t even be surprised if his heart had paused its beating inside of his chest so as not to miss out on even a breath Minho draws.

It works, because Minho definitely inhales shakily just a second later.

“We’ve talked about so many things,” Minho continues, and Hyunjin finds himself digging his fingernails into the cushion beneath him, “and yet, there are so many things I’m still wondering. I think yesterday was a wake-up call for me. Both in meeting Jisung and you. I came here with low expectations but a very strong hope of those expectations being exceeded. And they have been. You have exceeded them, Hyunjinnie.”

Hyunjin’s body fails him completely as he sinks from the couch down onto the floor, heart now inside his throat with the feeling like he might need to puke it out, and head thrown back onto the cushions to stare at the ceiling as Minho’s slightly stronger voice keeps talking.

“I’m almost ashamed to say this, but when you said that your sadness had nothing to do with me and everything to do with circumstances outside of this house, I was relieved,” Minho confesses, which Hyunjin doesn’t think could be an easy thing to say. “Those moments of wondering if you had decided you didn’t want to see me anymore were… That was worse than rejecting someone’s proposal. And I think that put things in another perspective for me.”

“What perspective?” Hyunjin all but whispers, but the way his face is turned upwards must help the mic to let his voice through. “Which perspective, hyung?”

The silence before Minho speaks again seems to drag out forever, and Hyunjin has to remind himself to take at least three breaths during it. His palms are so sweaty he hides them beneath his thighs.

“Remember what you said the other day about it not being fair to see anyone else because they didn’t make you feel the same way?”

“Yes.”

“I feel that, too,” Minho shares quietly, almost as if shy or scared to say it despite Hyunjin already having done so. Although, in fairness, that had been while slightly tipsy. “And yet…”

Hyunjin’s soul practically leaves his body.

‘And yet’... what? Is this it? This took a completely different turn, didn’t it? His jumbled thoughts are a bigger mess than ever and Hyunjin wonders why he’s so affected by this conversation and Minho in general and just… What is happening? Where are they heading?

“And yet,” Minho repeats, a little louder again as if his voice sways in turn with his confidence, “I can’t stop worrying that that might not be enough. For the real world. I don’t know if it’s my credit in myself or in you that’s wavering, but I just… I wonder if you’ll still feel that way if we leave this place together, and I’m one person out of billions instead of just six. I know that this experiment is created like this for a reason and I don’t regret coming here, or getting to know you, I just… I just think everything became very, very real all of a sudden. Which doesn’t have to be a bad thing. And I think it might even be a good thing that I wanna tell you about all of this, instead of pushing it down or pretending like it doesn’t exist. You make me wanna tell you these things, Hyunjin. And I think that means something.”

Hyunjin inhales a heavy, heavy breath, exhales it, and replies before he can get too in his head about it. Minho is clearly speaking from both his head and heart, so… he figures he should, too. 

“I’m glad you’re telling me this, hyung,” Hyunjin says, unmoving and staring at the ceiling in an attempt to ground himself and his spinning head. “I also think it’s a good thing, rather than keeping it to yourself. You said yesterday that it was important that I told you how I felt so you wouldn’t misunderstand, but I think that applies here, as well. I don’t want you to act like everything is fine and dandy if you’re having doubts or concerns. I want you to share them with me so we can figure it out. If there are things we can’t figure out, then better to find out now than later, right? But we won’t know unless we try.”

“That’s very true,” Minho hums from his side of the wall, softer than Hyunjin would have expected considering how tense the older sounded earlier. “You’re a smart little thing, aren’t you?”

“Sure am,” Hyunjin agrees with a chuckle, finally relaxing enough to sit up properly against the couch behind him. “I’m really glad you told me all this, genuinely. It makes me feel like you’re serious about this. And also, like you’re an actual person and not just a voice inside my head.”

Minho does giggle at that, which feels like a relief to Hyunjin who didn’t realize how much he missed the airy sound over the past two days without it. It feels like they’re making real, substantial progress towards the end goal of this show.

“I promise I’m an actual person,” Minho tells him, sounding like he’s back to smiling. “One that came here to be absolutely serious about this process. I like to joke around but I’m definitely ambitious beneath that, which I think is one of the first things people describe me as, honestly. A dumbass first but a driven one, later.”

“Oh, my god,” Hyunjin laughs. “This is great. You should tell me more about you, hyung. I did all the talking yesterday, after all. Besides being a driven dumbass, please tell me what one would get out of marrying you? Persuade me.”

(When Hyunjin goes to bed that night, he undoubtedly feels like Minho took his request to heart, since his mind won’t let up on repeating the words Minho had chosen or the images Hyunjin’s own mind had conjured up of what a life together with Minho would look like.)

***

When Hyunjin enters the pod next, it’s with the knowledge of a deadline hanging over his head. Beyond today, he has two more days - at most - of seeing Minho and making up his mind about where he wants this to go, and the same rules apply to the older. It’s nerve-racking, but so was entering the pods yesterday. And the day before, actually. Now that Hyunjin thinks about it, this entire experience has been nerve-racking, and the times when he’s felt most at ease are actually inside of this pod, talking to Minho.

“I didn’t scare you off yesterday, then?” Minho calls before Hyunjin has the chance to. “Was the promise of back rubs enough to keep you coming back?”

“Oh, for sure,” Hyunjin plays along, sitting down on the familiar cushions. “That and the Sunday brunches I seem to remember. What else could I ask for, you know?”

“Very true,” Minho agrees, before making that sound that Hyunjin still vividly remembers from their very first conversation. “There’s only one question remaining then, isn’t there? What would I get out of marrying you, Hwang Hyunjin? How would you persuade me?”

Hyunjin’s eyes widen a little at the request, not completely unexpected but throwing him off a bit nevertheless. He supposes it’s what he gets for teasing Minho the previous day, but being asked to persuade someone - Minho - into wanting to marry him is still… It’s a lot. What is he supposed to say?

He could go superficial and talk about financial stability or a certain piece of eye candy on Minho’s arm or how introverted he can be which significantly reduces the chances of Hyunjin’s eyes catching on anyone else, but… Can he really say those things? Does he want to?

“First of all, I’m really fond of animals,” Hyunjin decides to start off. A safe bet, right? “I love cats and dogs and bunnies and I’m always the friend that’s whining to go to those kinds of cafés instead of regular ones. Second of all, I have a really big heart. Too big. I cry so easily, from music and movies and other people crying. It’s a curse most of the time, but I’m coming to terms with that. Feeling everything is hard, but I also feel the positive things on really large scales. Thirdly, my friends tell me I’m a really good listener. I like being able to help people if I can, and if I can’t do anything to improve their situation then I’d still listen, because I think that that can help too, at least in my own experience.”

Hyunjin takes a breath as Minho stays quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“But I think it would only be fair to tell you the hard things, too, right?” he says. “Like how I’ve struggled a lot with my self-confidence and where my worth lies to other people. That I’ve spent so much more time away from home than I would have liked and kind of neglected relationships as a result which I really regret, now. Also, I can’t drive and I can barely cook, which by objective standards would make me a terrible spouse, probably.”

“Good thing my standards aren’t objective, then.”

Almost choking on his own spit, Hyunjin narrows his eyes as he wonders if he heard that correctly. Knowing Minho, though, he probably did.

“I can make up for that, though,” Hyunjin rambles, rather than following up on Minho’s words. “I’m really good at giving gifts. Like, the best gift-giver you’ll ever meet. If there was a God of gift-giving, they would have been passing that onto me. Whether that’s buying stuff people want or need or don’t know they want or need, or making original, personal gifts that some people appreciate even more; I’m your guy. So if you want genuinely happy birthdays for the rest of your life, hyung, you should snatch me up before someone else does because I’m a catch.”

Behind that annoying wall that continues to separate them, Minho laughs out loud.

“You bring forth a very strong case, Hyunjinnie,” he says. “Self-awareness is always a good thing. I would like for my remaining birthdays to be spent happily, I can’t deny that. If that makes up for cooking everyday, I’m not sure, however.”

“I’ll bring you take-out,” Hyunjin promises, not even thinking twice about it. “How do you think I’ve survived all these years? I know the best places and the best orders and you’d only need to say the word if you don’t wanna cook. And if you do feel like cooking, you wouldn’t have to worry about the dishes, at least. I may not have been raised to be a perfect creature, but I do know my manners.”

“What about cleaning?” Minho teases. “I haven’t heard a word on that topic.”

A grin tugs at the corner of Hyunjin’s mouth. How is Minho so perceptive?

“I’m somewhat of a mess, yeah,” he admits. “But what you see is what you get, which is a good thing, right? Consistency and all that. But with other people around I do keep myself in check. And if you were to ask me to do something, I honestly would most likely do it. I’m a people-pleaser. For better and worse.”

“You’re adorable, that's what you are.”

Caught completely off-guard, Hyunjin splutters a little. “Excuse me?”

“I said you’re adorable,” Minho repeats, voice hinting at that smile Hyunjin has yet to see for himself. “Did you know that you sound like you’re trying to convince yourself as you’re telling me all this? It sounds like you felt some kind of pressure and were like ‘damn I gotta impress him now’ and then said whatever came to mind, which is so fucking cute. Am I really making you this flustered through a wall?”

Minho giggles again, makes some kind of cooing sound, and Hyunjin highkey wishes the ground would swallow him up. How is he that obvious? It’s not like he wants to fool Minho or anything, but would it really kill either of them if Hyunjin maybe appeared just once to be slightly cooler and more chill than he actually is?

“Yes!” Hyunjin exclaims, because he sure is flustered now if he wasn’t before. “Heck yeah, you make me flustered, especially when you see right through both me and the wall! I want things to go well, hyung, don’t be mean to me. It’s not my fault that I’m like this.”

Fully aware that he’s pouting to hell and back, Hyunjin’s mouth keeps running away from his control.

“You’ve known forever that I really like you,” he all but whines, unlocking it properly, “and I kind of feel like the ball’s been in your court which I’m getting really sick of, hyung! I can tell you however many dumb things about myself as you’d like, but it’d still be up to you. Did you know that I thought you might propose yesterday? When you said all those things? And then you didn’t, which I mean, you shouldn’t if you aren’t sure, but it kind of felt like I shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought because why am I leaving this up to you? I could do it myself, couldn’t I? Jisung did it. But then again I couldn’t, because Jisung did it. I can’t ask you to marry me right after he does, because that would make it seem desperate and less genuine. But waiting is killing me! But considering proposing myself is also daunting, because I want that experience Soobin told us about afterwards! So yeah, I get flustered because of how much I like you, and there’s this deadline hanging over our heads now that I didn’t consider before but can’t stop thinking about now, because then the experiment will be over and I might never get to see you at all and then--”

“Hyunjin,” Minho interrupts, even knocking quietly at the wall of glass to indicate that he’s next to it and trying to catch Hyunjin’s rambling attention. “Hyunjin-ah. I apologize. I didn’t realize you felt that way. Can we talk about that?”

Releasing most of the air inside of his aching lungs, Hyunjin tries to calm himself down. He really didn’t mean to blow up at Minho, and didn’t see it coming, either. He’s been sleeping restlessly because of both stress and nerves, sure, but… He hadn’t realized he was this pent up. It’s not like he said anything untrue or specifically mean, but he also didn’t say things that he had been planning on. Why did he do that?

“Okay,” he mumbles.

Then he leaves his spot to take a seat on the floor next to the glass between them and leans against it on his side. More to put space between himself and the camera he’s been forgetting than to lessen the space between him and Minho, or at least so he tells himself.

“I didn’t mean to get your hopes up yesterday,” Minho says quietly, gently, as Hyunjin closes his eyes. “I’m really sorry if you felt let down, Hyunjinnie. My mind had been all over the place, too, and I didn’t mean to send any more mixed signals than necessary. But hearing you say that makes me wonder if I’ve been sending mixed signals for even longer, which has also never been my intention. I guess I assumed that me rejecting a proposal from the only other person I’ve been talking to would have been telling enough, but… But I never told you explicitly why I did that, did I?”

Hyunjin almost shakes his head before remembering that Minho wouldn’t see that either way. So he murmurs a ‘no’ instead, and rests his cheeks against the glass.

“I told Jisung ‘no’ because I already knew that if I was going to end up walking out of here with someone, I would want it to be you, Hyunjin,” Minho says, still in that same calming voice. “I knew that while all my conversations in this place have been great, only one person has made me want to stay when our time has run up, and that has always been you. I knew that while everyone here are more or less strangers to me, only one person has made me feel like they tried to understand and managed to accept me despite that, and that was you. You really could tell me a million dumb things about yourself, Hwang Hyunjin, and they would only lure me further in. I feel like the directors behind this show put you in here as proof that even someone like me could find the kind of love they barely believed to exist.

“I feel like talking to you, darling,” Minho confesses as Hyunjin fights against the lump in his throat, “has already changed me, long before properly meeting you. That time you lectured me on both fate and romance within five minutes genuinely changed my entire outlook on relationships. I guess that I should be slightly terrified if that’s the kind of power you wielded over me in such a short amount of time, but here we are. I keep coming back to you, Hyunjinnie, physically and in every other way. But it’s new to me, and I think that’s why I’m bad at expressing it. I’m sorry that hurt you. That was never my intention. And I think at this point, I’d spend however long it took to make it up to you, because I really can’t imagine anything more painful than walking out of here and never having another conversation with you.

“Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve been fiddling with the box containing my grandparents’ rings this whole conversation?” Minho decides to ask, as Hyunjin and his tears barely have the time to restrain themselves before falling over.

“You’re such a liar,” Hyunjin cries and laughs at the same time, emotions literally all over the place, instead of answering the question. “You told me you’d never write poetry and that you weren’t programmed for this kind of thing. You’re such a liar. Why would you ambush me like this.”

“I didn’t lie at that point in time,” Minho says, as if that doesn’t do things to Hyunjin’s distressed heartbeats. “If someone had told me before this that I would be saying what I am now, I don’t think I would have believed them. I told you you changed me. Within minutes, Hyunjin, as if it were that easy. It should scare me, but it doesn’t, because it’s you. Because you don’t scare me at all, darling, the only thing that does would be walking out of here never to meet you again. Do you believe me?”

Hyunjin does his best to hide what a mess the cameras are catching inside of his pod, but the ‘yes’ he responds with sounds wet even to his own ears.

“And do you believe me when I say that I have my grandparents’ rings right here?” Minho pushes, clearly not having forgotten about Hyunjin’s lack of reply to that.

“Yes,” Hyunjin ends up saying, staining his own cheeks immediately because… well, he can’t form a single thought inside of his head, but… but because this conversation is taking him somewhere he’s never gone before. “Yes, I believe you, Minho.”

“Then would you also believe me if I told you,” Minho starts, pausing for a second before picking his sentence back up, “that I just went down on one knee instead of crouching with my forehead against the glass, as I’ve been doing up until now?”

With no conscious motion what-so-ever, Hyunjin throws his hand over his mouth to stifle the sob that rips out of him at just what Minho is telling him, probably no further than half an arm-length away, and thinks he at least mostly succeeds in quieting himself down. Mostly.

“Would you believe me,” Minho says, shaky and soft and sweet, “if I told you that I would like to ask you to marry me, Hwang Hyunjin, and that I can’t bring myself to wait another second to do so? You’re the only person to ever make me want to ask, and I know this might not be the exact proposal you have been dreaming about because it started with me messing up, but I hope you’ll allow me to make up for many more mistakes for a long time, starting with this one. I can’t stop thinking about you, darling, and I haven’t since the first time you spoke to me. I can’t imagine what would make me happier than this. Than you. So what do you think, Hyunjinnie? Would you like to marry me?”

Chapter Text

Would you like to marry me?

The words echo around Hyunjin’s head, turning into a never-ending stream of marrymemarrymemarryme that is surprisingly hard to process considering this very scenario has been replaying in different versions inside of Hyunjin’s brain for quite a few hours in total during this past week. But imagining really hasn’t prepared him at all for the real thing, Hyunjin realizes, as he watches his trembling hands in front of him.

Which could be wearing a ring, he thinks. Minho’s grandparents’ ring.

Does he want that?

“Yes,” he whispers, instantly, mouth shaping the word even before he consciously decides to answer Minho.

His breath turns into an incredulous, joyful laugh as his lips stretch wide enough to hurt, but Hyunjin neither can nor wants to stop it from spreading all over his face.

“Yes,” he repeats, louder, because Minho needs to hear it. “Yes! Yes, I… Yes, I would like to marry you, Lee Minho. Yes, a million times, yes! Did you really… Did you really just ask me to marry you? Just like that?”

“‘Just like that?’” Minho repeats, sounding exactly as breathless and incredulous and happy as Hyunjin suspects he does. “Did you think this wasn’t the most nerve-wracking, gut-wrenching moment of my entire life or something? How many people do you think I have proposed to, Hwang Hyunjin?”

“I don’t know, but I really hope the correct answer is ‘one’.”

Beyond that obnoxious wall that separates them completely in all aspects but sound, Hyunjin hears Minho giggle again. Giddily, happily, a little surprised, like that way he did when they talked about fate. Or rather, when Hyunjin talked about fate. Hyunjin feels like a complete and utter sap, but he really can’t wait to hear that sound for… for the rest of his life, hopefully.

“Do you really want to marry me?” he can’t help but ask, sort of shocked and disbelieving and not really caring if he comes across as insecure or doubtful because he quite frankly can’t think that far. “You didn’t ask because I… because I went off a little, right? I wasn’t going to stop seeing you, hyung, I was just flustered, I--”

“I really want to marry you,” Minho interrupts, making an embarrassing amount of butterflies swirl around inside Hyunjin’s stomach. “You may not know everything about me just yet, Hyunjinnie, but please believe me when I say that I would never ask anyone to marry me out of guilt or pity. That’s not the way I would like a marriage to start off. I asked you because I truly, genuinely, really badly want to marry you. Like I said; you’re the only person who ever made me want to ask in the first place. Do you really want to marry me? It’s not because of the deadline or anything?”

Hyunjin’s lips part in surprise at the sort of unexpected question. Because of the deadline?

“Of course not,” he replies, a little baffled. “Hyung, I would very much like to marry you. I promise. I was awfully disappointed when you didn’t ask yesterday. That’s what made me so sure, though. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. If you’d ever do it. If I would ever do it. If I’d ever see you, I… Minho hyung, I really want to see you. And then marry you. Preferably in that order, but not necessarily.”

Minho chuckles again, still so terribly close and dreadfully far away.

“You’d marry me before seeing me?” he asks. “Really?”

“I mean, I agreed to marry you before seeing you,” Hyunjin smiles, almost bouncing in his seat as the words start sinking in properly. “With the full visual or without it, you’d still be you, hyung. So honestly, I just might.”

“I’d agree, but there’s this one thing,” Minho says, a little teasingly, which is how Hyunjin knows he doesn’t actually need to worry. “A wedding can take an awful amount of time to plan, right? It’s a whole process.”

Hyunjin almost hiccups in his hurry to reply. “Yes.”

“I don’t think I can wait that long to kiss you,” Minho says, as if Hyunjin isn’t one single breath away from passing out on the spot.

***

When Hyunjin is pushed onto the seat Soobin held after he got proposed to, he has surprisingly enough stopped crying. He’s just smiling now - like a fucking idiot, probably - but why on earth wouldn’t he be? as Jisung put it. Only one second later San is pushed down beside him, however, and Hyunjin is sort of grateful that the older decided to ask for a hand in marriage himself today so the spotlight could be shared between them. He thinks San is silently grateful, too, as hardly anyone of the other four can exercise any kind of patience and both of them are being asked a million questions at the same time.

Hyunjin meets San’s eyes before replying to the first one, and they shine with overwhelming emotion, but Hyunjin does feel better in knowing that they’re sort of in this together, even if it’s in a different and more serious way than they were before.

Then he relays through the best of his ability what had prompted the marriage talk in the first place; how Hyunjin had felt yesterday when he left with a twinge of his disappointment; how Hyunjin has been steadily falling for Minho since the very first date and known that there was something different about him; how Minho made his heart race and his palms sweat and his brain malfunction; how Minho had explained his side of things and apologized for disappointing him and then finally, finally, taken him through the most heart-felt proposal Hyunjin could have imagined.

Scratch that last part; he could never have imagined the things Minho wound up saying to him, actually.

It doesn’t take very long until the stylists are ushering San away, however, because he’s the first one out of the two of them to meet his… fiancé. The word is so unfamiliar that Hyunjin can’t even taste it as it appears in his brain, but that’s what Wooyoung is to San, and that’s what Minho is to Hyunjin. Minho is his fiancé. And Hyunjin is Minho’s.

So Hyunjin has no choice but to keep talking with most of the attention directed at him, now, and answering all the questions the others can come up with. Felix and Jeongin look almost struck with awe and want as they wallow longingly in how they wish they could experience a proposal before this is over, too. When Hyunjin throws the ball into their courts and asks whether they could imagine proposing and switching things around, Felix shakes his head almost as quickly as Jeongin nods.

“I couldn’t,” Felix says. “I don’t think I could properly articulate or remember everything. Like I could just ask ‘will you marry me?’, of course, but with all that build-up Minho-ssi and also Yeonjun-ssi did, I… I think I’d put too much pressure on it. I probably couldn’t do it.”

“But who would you want to propose to you?” Jeongin quips, daring as ever. “Channie hyung or Changbinnie hyung?”

Felix looks back at Jeongin before glancing at Jisung, wide-eyed and expectant, since both of them are seeing the two people Felix is. And Jisung is only seeing Changbin, as they are all very well aware.

“Channie,” Felix ends up answering, quietly but with an adorable blush to his freckled cheeks. Hyunjin and Jisung coo at him immediately. “I would say ‘yes’ if Channie hyung asked me. I really like Changbinnie hyung too, but I’m not sure if… if I’d say ‘yes’ to him.”

“Good!” Jisung bursts, quickly throwing his arms around Felix. “Leave him to me, I’m still working on it! He did call me an idiot yesterday after the whole proposal-rejection-fiasco with Minho hyung, but he settled for ‘fool’ today which means we’re making progress! If he asks you to marry him, Lixie, say no so I can hold it against him!”

“You’re so weird,” Jeongin tells Jisung with a grin, and Hyunjin is inclined to agree.

It’s sort of endearing though.

“I’d propose to Seungminnie hyung,” Jeongin then says, rather easily for someone younger and with the least dating experience (along with Soobin). “I could probably propose to Channie hyung, too, it’s not that, but I won’t because he sort of feels like a regular ‘hyung’. Like an older brother or an old friend. But I might ask Seungminnie hyung if he doesn’t get there first.”

***

Two hours later, Hyunjin is staring at his own reflection in the mirror and wondering if he should just stick his fingers down his throat and throw up already so he can get these nerves over with.

He won’t, obviously, because he’s learned the hard way to never ever do that. But the thought still strikes him, because that’s just how fucking nervous he is. He’s seeing Minho, like in real, actual life, in about thirty minutes. Minho is going to see him. For the first time ever. What is he going to think? Has he been imagining what Hyunjin looks like? Will he be disappointed or surprised or happy?

(Will he still want to kiss him?)

Hyunjin looks at himself with the well-trained eyes of someone who has spent far too much time analyzing every miniscule millimeter of his own body over far too many years. The stylists offered to doll him up, but Hyunjin declined. The stylists are there for a reason, sure, being educated and knowing their way around most aspects of beauty and objective attractiveness. But Hyunjin is by no means new to this, and he has watched enough people swat around him to make his eyes look this way or his cheekbones pop that way or his hair fall this way or his lips pout that way.

He can do it himself, and he would much rather do so. Which is why he locks himself up after his shower, and goes through the well-practiced motions despite the small tremor of his hands. Make-up is practically a must since they’re on an actual reality show, but he wants to keep things natural either way because he’s not dressing up for the viewers this time; he’s dressing up for the person who will - hopefully - see Hyunjin at his best and worst and least natural and most natural for many years to come. Minho is going to see him for the first time, and Hyunjin wants Minho to see him in the most transparent way possible. It’s a little scary, sure, but not as daunting as the knowledge that they will be meeting in the first place.

So he settles for a natural look without flashy colors or popping features, and parts his ashy blonde hair in the middle, pulling out one strand on each side of his face to frame it more properly. He places the tiniest amount of a sparkly pink eyeshadow onto his eyelids simply because he really likes the color and feel of it, and outlines his lips before filling them in with a subdued color only a shade darker than his actual lips. He keeps all of his piercings in, because he always does, and touches up his left eyebrow before examining his work. Okay.

Once satisfied, he moves onto the actual outfit. Hyunjin has long since decided on his favorite pair of black slacks - the ones he uses when he knows he’ll mostly be standing up - that hug both his thighs and waist really comfortably. The matching top was the hardest part, but Felix, Jisung and Jeongin were all given the opportunity to pick out one shirt each while he was showering, leaving them on the bed for Hyunjin to decide on later. They were the ones still wondering if they would be going through these motions or not, after all.

Now, Hyunjin has no idea who picked which piece of clothing, but he has to admit that those are some great choices.

The white, long-sleeved but open-shouldered button-up is an excellent alternative, he can’t deny. It was gifted to him long ago, but Hyunjin has worn it more than once due to the silky quality and light feeling of wearing it. Also, he likes showing a little skin from time to time, so sue him.

The second option is a black blazer, clearly intended to be worn without any sort of shirt accompanying it underneath, but… Hyunjin could do that. The buttons go all the way up, either way, and exposing his collar bones wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

The third piece of clothing is beige; a triangular short-sleeved thing that might be the most expensive one in his suitcase, despite everything, and Hyunjin feels expensive every time he wears it. Which hasn’t happened a lot of times, because there aren’t many occasions for it, but… Is this the occasion?

He ends up trying all of them on, doing his best not to mess up the rest of the look, and finally decides to go with the first one. He doesn’t want to scare Minho off, after all, and figures a shoulder or two would be his safest bet. Imagine if the older turns up in an entire suit, and Hyunjin decides to skip half of his and go bare beneath his blazer? Yeah, no. And what if Minho turns up in a suit and Hyunjin is wearing a short-sleeved shirt, no matter the price tag? He’d still feel - and maybe even look - underdressed. Fancy, silky shirt it is.

***

When Hyunjin has been led to and left by the massive sliding doors that are yet to part, his previous nerves escalate so quickly he seriously considers crouching down before he falls over. He’s never been this nervous in his goddamn life, and while he obviously hasn’t lived the longest one he sure has lived one full of nerves and anticipation. But absolutely nothing compares to this moment, where he’s supposed to meet the person he’s supposedly getting married to. Within like, a month. It’s insane.

Without really feeling any kind of regret at all; parts of Hyunjin still want to run away. That’s how nervous he feels. He doesn’t want to escape Minho as a person, but he desperately wants to escape this feeling. Swaying on his feet isn’t scary in itself, but it doesn’t do anything to calm him down, either. The stakes are so high. Or at least they feel like they are.

Abruptly and with no kind of warning what-so-ever, the doors part with a silent rumble and Hyunjin’s soul practically vacates his body. The anticipation and the nerves alike are killing him and he has no idea what will happen next or what that will mean for literal rest of his life or what he’s supposed to do now because nobody told him that part and the cameras are definitely capturing every panicked expression on his face and oh God the doors are open--

On the far, far end of the long, straight aisle-pathway-thing - with a tiny bridge and small canal of water running beneath it that’s clearly meant for the supposed middle of the aisle-pathway-thing - stands a person Hyunjin can barely make out in his swimming vision and slow processing of what’s happening around him.

His feet move slowly, attempting to get closer, because Hyunjin knows that the person must be Minho, but he’s simultaneously paralyzed by emotion and his body just won’t get him there any faster. But the person in front of him - Minho - is moving quicker than Hyunjin is, until he crosses the bridge himself as Hyunjin stares with a hand thrown over his mouth as the man almost breaks into a jog as he comes nearer.

The closer the stranger gets, the more Hyunjin struggles to contain his emotions. The hand over his mouth fulfills its purpose in shutting his embarrassing whimpery cries down as he blinks desperately to will the tears back where they came from, and it works somewhat, because as the person approaches him fully - where Hyunjin has frozen like a fucking idiot - he can definitely make out features more gorgeous than Hyunjin’s mind could have conjured up beforehand.

They haven’t said a word, and Hyunjin is still hiding around half of his face, but the man doesn’t need to introduce himself for Hyunjin to know that this is Minho. He’s probably a pinky or so shorter than Hyunjin - which really isn’t a lot - and probably broader than him, which suits Minho so well. His dark brown hair is almost cocoa - giving it a warm and comforting sense along with the tiny, parted curls over his forehead - and his eyes are practically the same soft-looking, inviting color.

Minho isn’t wearing a suit, but rather tight-fitting black jeans that hug him perfectly all the way to the sleek, almost flowing deep red shirt Minho has tucked into the front of said jeans. Thin collar bones are peeking out the slightest bit at the top of the shirt - elegant, Hyunjin’s brain somehow describes - before almost giving out again as Hyunjin’s eyes fall on the neat black choker around Minho’s neck.

He’s beautiful, Hyunjin realizes through his more-or-less out-of-body experience as he stares, wide-eyed. God, he’s beautiful.

“Hi,” the person in front of him says, eyes impossibly big on his face and a timid smile tugging at his beautiful lips. “Hi, Hyunjinnie.”

No sooner has Minho spoken before Hyunjin’s mind manages to puzzle together that voice with this face, because he’s never seen this pair of lips shape Hyunjin’s name before but he sure has heard that comforting voice speak it a bunch of times by now. This is Minho. This is the man who claimed that Hyunjin changed his entire perspective on love during the second conversation they ever had, and this is the man who lessened the pain and guilt Hyunjin carried that awful day not too long ago.

This is the man who asked Hyunjin to marry him, and this is the man Hyunjin unwaveringly said ‘yes’ to.

“Oh, my god,” Hyunjin all but sobs, fighting the way his face wants to contort as the truth finally dawns on him, “you’re real. Oh, my god, you’re… You’re really real, I… can’t believe it, I… Minho…--”

Before Hyunjin understands what’s happening, strong arms have enveloped him completely and are pulling him towards another warm body, and the comforting hand winding its way into his hair keeps him closely tucked against the skin of Minho’s neck. The choker tickles Hyunjin’s cheek, but the faintly fresh smell of whatever scent Minho uses distracts him.

“Don’t cry, baby,” Minho hushes him gently, and it’s almost surreal to Hyunjin how familiar that is - hearing Minho’s voice while not actually seeing him. This is Minho, he’s reminded of once again. “I’m real. I’m here. Don’t cry, Hyunjin-ah, you’re too pretty to cry. Why didn’t you tell me you were this beautiful, hmm? Can hyung look at you again?”

“I’m so ugly right now,” Hyunjin whines, completely overwhelmed and very reluctant to leave the safe space of Minho’s skin against his face. “I can’t believe this is the first visual you get of me. I’m so embarrassed.”

But then, Hyunjin changes his mind. Because against him and above him and all around him, really, Minho laughs. And in person, the sound is even more heart-fluttering than inside the pods, and Hyunjin doesn’t even stop to think about it before detaching himself from Minho’s neck to stand up straight because he has to see with his own eyes what Minho looks like when he’s laughing.

When he actually does, Hyunjin’s mind comes to a standstill and he can feel his own lips part.

Oh.

“Let me look at you, hmm?” Minho insists, eyes darting all over and still smiling, as if Hyunjin would be able to deny him. “God. I can’t believe your outside matches your inside. Oh, you’re beautiful. Ahh, Hyunjin-ah, you’re so…”

“‘So’?” Hyunjin barely dares to ask, hardly breathing out of fear of ruining the dreamlike moment they’re in. “What am I?”

Minho sucks his lips in as if contemplating for just a moment, before releasing them again with a breathy chuckle.

“I think I’m in love with you,” Minho murmurs, out of nowhere with complete disregard for Hyunjin’s incredibly fragile state of literally everything. “I mean, you’re… you’re absolutely beautiful, but I… you’re you. I don’t know how to properly explain it, I just… You’re you. You’re everything, you… You’re who I’ve been talking to and not-so-steadily falling for this entire time. It’s you, I’m just… I’m a little speechless.”

Predictable as ever; Hyunjin’s lip wobbles as he fights the urge to hide once again. Minho might be the one claiming to be speechless, but the one who actually is tongue-tied out of the two of them must be Hyunjin.

“You can’t just say those things,” he pouts, closing his eyes to restrain another batch of wetness but opening them again to look at Minho uncertainly while trying to figure out if this is actually happening to him right now. “I told you I cry all the time, hyung. And then you do this, in front of the cameras and the whole world. I’m a mess, and no one can deny it.”

Minho coos at him for a short moment, still looking at Hyunjin with the largest eyes the younger has ever seen on a real-life person, and the delicate choker moves for half a second.

“You’re perfect,” Minho tells him, voice soft and hands even softer where they reach to carefully wipe Hyunjin’s tear stains away from his cheeks with his thumbs. “You’re perfect, baby. I can’t wait to watch you ugly cry and wipe these tears away for the rest of our lives. I’m gonna take care of you so hard you’ll end up filing for divorce. That’s a promise.”

Taken by complete and utter surprise, Hyunjin laughs.

It almost bubbles out of him, in bursts, the kind of laughter that seems impossible to fully restrain. He’s still choking up, but not as much as before, and something about the flippant but light-hearted way Minho talks about their possible future together has Hyunjin’s shoulders become so much lighter he sort of feels as if he’s growing wings back there.

“Are you upset because you changed your mind and don’t wanna marry someone shorter than you, huh? Is that it, darling?” Minho teases, probably knowing full well that he’s not even close to the truth but still cementing that smile onto Hyunjin’s face just a little further.

Also, Minho’s thumbs are still gently caressing his cheekbones, mapping Hyunjin’s face out as they continue to drink each other in.

“You’re exactly how I pictured,” Hyunjin tells him, still stuck somewhere between laughter and sobs but at least finding the situation rather funny now. “I don’t know how, I didn’t think that much of it, I just… You couldn’t have been anyone else. You stepped out and I just knew it was you. You’re perfect, too, hyung. I wouldn’t change anything, you’re… you’re stunning, actually. Literally took my breath away.”

Hyunjin watches as Minho’s expression changes until he looks slightly taken aback, eyes growing even larger than before in some impossible way, perfectly sculpted eyebrows raising behind those soft-looking waves of hair, and lips parting to expose an adorable peek of teeth oh God--

“Can I kiss you?” Hyunjin’s brain decides to blurt for him. “I really want to kiss you, hyung. Would that be… Is that okay?”

“‘Wouldn’t be very fair of me to refuse you, now, would it?” Minho replies, a little quieter than before but also moving in closer until that small difference in height actually becomes near tangible.

Hyunjin agrees, but he doesn’t verbalize it, and settles for placing his hands carefully on Minho’s waist. Which is surprisingly small, he quickly realizes as his fingers practically reach halfway around Minho’s back. He likes that. He likes that Minho feels almost dainty beneath his touch, because that’s what he feels like inside Hyunjin’s heart, as well.

“Kiss me,” Minho whispers, dark eyes falling from Hyunjin’s own and down to his lips. “And when you’re done; kiss me again. And probably again, after that.”

Unable to wipe the - probably ridiculous - smile completely off of his face, Hyunjin leans in to press their lips together gently, slowly, because this kiss is the first one of millions, if he gets his way. He’ll have all the time in the world to kiss Minho breathless, senseless, boneless. He’ll have all the time in the world to let Minho kiss Hyunjin mad, too.

But this first - extremely memorable and even more special - kiss feels like relief to Hyunjin, who has been waiting and worrying for what seemed like actual ages there for a while. He revels in this kiss and in the way Minho’s nose feels resting against his; in the way their respective lips are built completely different and thereby matching perfectly beyond belief; in the way Minho holds him so gently as if afraid that he would break Hyunjin somehow.

Hyunjin doesn’t actually get the chance to kiss Minho again once he breaks the kiss to catch his breath, because Minho uses the hold on him to pull him back in and kisses Hyunjin himself. It takes the younger by slight surprise, and he thinks Minho can tell by the small noise that manages to escape him, but Hyunjin digs his fingers deeper into the small of Minho’s back to press the other closer to him. And it works, because suddenly Minho is the one with an adorable sound being released into the air between them.

The urge to open up properly and let their tongues tangle together and their mouths explore each other is certainly there, but Hyunjin hasn’t completely forgotten where they are and that all of this is being captured forever - or that his parents will probably see it, for that matter - and therefore, he holds back. He’s not sure if Minho is thinking down those same lines, or sensing Hyunjin’s slight apprehension, or just satisfied with what they’re already doing. Either way, Minho doesn’t move to deepen their kiss any further than Hyunjin does, even if they do end up trading more than those kisses Minho initially asked for.

It’s just that Hyunjin feels like parting from Minho would be physically impossible, and the knowledge that he has to return to his room without seeing Minho for at least two more days is making his stomach turn in on itself and therefore:

He leans into the touch when one of Minho’s hands slides into his hair, lightly capturing strands to lace around his fingers. He smiles when Minho does, probably just as unwilling to let go of him as Hyunjin is currently feeling, judging by how they’re touching practically everywhere by now. He kisses Minho back when the older dives in for the fifth, or maybe seventh time, and presses another kiss to Minho’s lips when it seems like the older is actually pulling away for good.

Minho blinks at him, as if trying to shift back into focus and the world that is still remaining outside of their kisses, but Hyunjin can’t close his eyes even for the singular moment it would take him to blink back. He can’t waste one breath of a second looking away when Minho is right here, finally in front of him, looking flushed and happy and with lips far more swollen than twenty minutes ago.

After a minute of silent albeit smiling looks shared between them, a sparkle of something awakens in Minho’s eyes. Before Hyunjin knows what’s happening; the man in front of him lets go of him only to fall down on one knee and whip a tiny, tiny box out. Hyunjin doesn’t need to ask or see to know what’s inside. Minho’s face tells him everything he needs to know, in case he’d somehow forgotten what Minho had told him twice in the pods.

He definitely sheds a tear or two - again - when he says ‘yes’ for possibly the last time, and watches the way Minho’s grandmother’s ring slides onto his own finger with ease.

Chapter Text

The second time Hyunjin sees Minho is two whole days later, when he has to physically restrain himself from running out of the front door with his suitcase and travel bag in tow at the sight of him already waiting by the gates. The sunrays fall upon him and Minho’s hair looks shinier than last time, and his skin almost faintly tanned compared to the make-up Hyunjin supposes the stylists had applied on the older for their first meeting. 

Minho is already smiling when Hyunjin approaches him, but it kind of feels like the smile stretches wider the closer Hyunjin gets. Minho is half-leaning onto a suitcase of his own - a similar red to the shirt he wore last time, Hyunjin thinks - with crinkled eyes and fingers fiddling with the handle as if he’s not quite sure what to do with them. Minho is looking soft today, and the vision of him has Hyunjin’s nerves ebb away one by one. The older’s hair is even curlier and bouncier than last time, almost falling into his eyes, and kind of rivaling the soft cotton of his baby blue cardigan tucked into comfortable-looking, washed out jeans.

Hyunjin wants to pounce. In the wrap-himself-around, cling-tightly-onto, cuddle-Minho-to-death kind of way. It’s nice.

As soon as Hyunjin is within reaching distance, however, Minho all but bounces in his step as he lets go of his suitcase completely to pad up to Hyunjin and, promptly, kiss him on the mouth.

It takes Hyunjin by surprise, but definitely a pleasant one. He didn’t expect Minho to just… kiss him, out in the open like this, before greeting him or anything. But it also makes Hyunjin’s heart race even wilder than earlier, at the thought of Minho having waited to kiss him since they last saw each other. Almost as if he couldn’t wait even one second longer. It makes Hyunjin feel wanted. It makes Hyunjin feel longed for.

“Missed you,” he says when Minho releases him a moment later, already back to smiling just as stupidly as he must have done when he appeared in the doorway. “Hi, hyung.”

“Hi, darling,” Minho wastes no time replying, even though he looks a little taken aback behind his own grin. “Missed you, too, I haven’t heard that voice of yours in forever. You got all your stuff? All ready to go?”

“I’m ready,” Hyunjin answers, going so far as to wave his hand between their faces until Minho’s eyes catch on the petite, sparkling diamond sitting securely on his finger. “I’m so ready I barely slept last night, in fact. If I pass out on the plane, feel free to wake me up.”

Minho makes no promises to do such a thing, and only laughs before taking hold of Hyunjin’s hand and lacing their fingers tightly together. Hyunjin briefly registers the fact that Minho’s hand is much smaller than his own - which is adorable - but honestly can’t focus on much else beyond the fact that Minho kissed him and Minho is holding his hand and Minho is leading him out the gates and opening the door to the backseat for Hyunjin to slide in first as the driver secures their luggage in the back.

It feels almost as surreal to leave the house as it did entering it, in some strange and unexplainable way, but it isn’t until the car has passed several streets that Hyunjin realizes that he forgot to immortalize the experience somehow. They’d been given their phones and other personal belongings back, and Hyunjin has a tendency to take pictures of all the places he goes because he’s nostalgic like that and his memory wouldn’t allow him to remember it all otherwise.

But when Minho somehow picks up on the change in his expression and asks what’s on his mind, Hyunjin only has to look at Minho for a fleeting moment before realizing that there is no way he’s going to forget this experience; pictures or not. Even if things don’t work out the way Hyunjin is hoping for right now, he will never forget about Minho. No amount of memories in the world could push these days completely out of his mind, and even if they somehow were to, well, then Hyunjin just needs to turn on the actual show and watch it all happen, doesn’t he?

“We’re going to the Maldives,” Hyunjin says instead, excitement picking up and probably evident through his voice. “I’ve never been to the Maldives. And now I am. With you. I don’t think I’ll believe it until we’re actually there.”

“That makes two of us, then,” Minho smiles carefully, searching, but relaxing visibly when Hyunjin returns it. “If I pinch you when we get there to make sure we’re not dreaming, will you promise to pinch me back?”

Hyunjin bursts out laughing, somehow even easier than he normally does, but it’s genuine.

“Yes,” he promises, still looking at the twinkle in Minho’s large eyes. “Anything for you, hyung.”

***

Once they enter the… suite? - bungalow? hut? - that they’re supposed to stay in for the next couple of days, Hyunjin has to take a moment to actually sit down in the armchair as he takes it all in. Minho doesn’t even make it past the doorway before freezing with an almost comical expression, and Hyunjin can’t really blame him considering Minho told him in the pods that he’s never left Korea before.

Which Hyunjin has - more times than he can count - but he’s never been anywhere like this. He’s never been to a place he’s inclined to describe as literal paradise on earth, and he has certainly never been to such a place with a fiancé on his arm.

“Wow,” Hyunjin breathes, looking around the beautiful space that’s supposedly theirs. “This is… Wow.”

“I feel like I’m dreaming,” Minho adds from the doorway, his open expression turning from the massive bed to the hint of a luxurious bathroom to the private pool next to the actual ocean through a pair of glass doors. “Is this because I stayed awake for the flight? Am I having a lucid dream? Hey, remember how you promised to pinch me? Do it right now, please. Now is the time.”

Hyunjin is so stunned himself that he can’t even laugh, and opts to stand up and reach for Minho’s hand. He inches the cardigan the tiniest bit upwards to nip at Minho’s wrist, and tries not to think too hard about the stutter in Minho’s breath at the action.

“Your turn,” he says instead, offering his own - bare, due to the heat - arm.

Minho pinches him back, more careful than Hyunjin would’ve guessed, and sure enough: neither of them appear to be dreaming.

“Guess this is really happening, then, huh?” the older says, eyes on Hyunjin’s and surprisingly looking a little softer around the corners. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course,” Hyunjin replies immediately, heart instantly picking up its pace. “What is it, hyung?”

“I’m a little nervous,” Minho shares, blinking a couple of times but still holding onto Hyunjin’s wrist. “Actually, scratch that, more than a little. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I don’t… don’t really know how to… how to act, I guess. So just tell me if I’m being weird or awkward and I’ll--”

“Minho hyung,” Hyunjin interrupts, trying not to cringe at the smile of relief that stretches over his lips as he finds Minho’s hands with his own and takes them properly before he can lose his courage. “I’m nervous, too. Don’t worry about it. I’m sure things will be awkward at some point, but… I mean, I always thought that was inevitable since I’m pretty awkward simply by myself. I can take the blame, if you want.”

When Minho chuckles under his breath, Hyunjin feels a rush of success inside his blood. It’s not even like he lied; Hyunjin is a mess and he just hopes that has gotten through to Minho by now.

“I’ve never lived with anyone before,” Minho shares, and he sounds so gentle it’s almost like he’s scared that that confession would chase Hyunjin away, or something equally silly. Hyunjin squeezes the older’s hands. “Not beside my cats, anyway. I couldn’t even tell you what to expect, but I suppose we’ll find out.”

“Sounds good to me, hyung,” Hyunjin promises, finding Minho’s wide eyes again. “I can’t wait to find out what living with you is like. Now and when this week ends. You did talk a big game in the pods, after all. I seem to remember ‘back rubs’ being one particular topic?”

***

As it turns out; going on vacation is exhausting. Or maybe that’s just the whole ordeal they’ve been through lately - separately and together - finally catching up with them, Hyunjin isn’t really sure.

What he does know is that he spent the majority of the flight sleeping, very much propped up against Minho’s shoulder but he’s a little too embarrassed to think about that yet, and despite that… they’ve barely done more than thrown their suitcases open on the floor and inhaled a bit to eat before Minho asks if he’s tired and Hyunjin just knows that he can’t lie his way out of this one. So he nods, a little bashful, but figures that if he’s gonna fall asleep again, the least he could do is ask Minho to do the same.

So he reaches out for Minho’s hand and pulls the older up and with him as he crosses the floor to climb onto the enormous bed, and pats the mattress beside him while trying really hard not to blush. He knows that they don’t have complete privacy just yet - cameras go off between midnight and 10am apparently - but they’re gonna be sleeping on this bed together for the next foreseeable future anyway so a nap shouldn’t be a big deal, right?

After looking at Hyunjin for a moment, who is silently peering up at his fiancé, Minho smiles towards the floor before climbing onto the bed himself. They settle sideways, just laying opposite each other without touching, but Hyunjin thinks he could get overwhelmed simply by looking at Minho.

The older has discarded his cardigan for the white tee beneath it, and the veins in his arms pop a bit as he shuffles around to get comfortable on the unfamiliar bedding. But he seems unwilling to look away from Hyunjin’s bare face, too, and lies there patiently, wordlessly until Hyunjin’s eyes close and his breathing evens out for the second time today. Minho doesn’t yet know what a testament it is to the comfort he brings, where Hyunjin is already falling asleep next to him. Hyunjin will tell him one day, he decides; maybe when all of this is over.

But napping during the day means a tougher time falling asleep at night, and the same goes for Minho who was peacefully snoozing next to Hyunjin when he woke up and took the opportunity to ogle him some more. This man that Hyunjin is supposed to marry. How long until that sinks in?

Midnight arrives and along with it the cameras and staff bid them goodnight, which feels like a relief just as much as it does a test. The only time they’ve interacted without being filmed were during the trip here, but that was still surrounded by staff and other travelers and drivers and god knows who else. They’ve never been completely alone, Hyunjin realizes with a jolt as he stares at himself in the bathroom mirror, and watches a flush creep onto his cheeks at the dawning realization.

What does that mean for the rest of the night? Maybe more importantly, what does Hyunjin want it to mean?

“Hey,” Minho calls for him, surprisingly enough from outside the glass doors. “Did you know that the pool glows in the dark? What kind of place is this?”

Hyunjin laughs, back to feeling at least slightly giddy, as he joins Minho outside to curiously peer at the small-pool, gigantic-tub thing that’s completely theirs and also very much glowing in the dark. A romantic or possibly seductive red, he assumes the color is meant for, but it does look inviting even if Hyunjin isn’t planning on getting it on out in the semi-open like this.

“This is crazy,” Hyunjin says, definitely incredulous. “With a private view of the ocean, too, I’m… This is insane.”

Minho hums a little in affirmation, before eyeing Hyunjin and his pj’s up and down for a minute. Hyunjin decides to wait, because he does want Minho to ask him. He’s not tired enough for bed and also not horny enough to make any advances on a person he really doesn’t know that well, but he would take Minho up on his offer of getting into the water for a bit if he were to ask.

“Wanna try it?” Minho settles for, still watching Hyunjin carefully where he stands about an arm-length away. “Unless you’re tired, of course. Or had something else in mind?”

Hyunjin swallows. Does Minho’s ‘something else’... imply what Hyunjin’s brain is implying?

“Let’s try it,” he ends up saying, an easily excited smile tugging at his lips. “We should change first since I don’t really fancy getting my pj’s wet but, yeah, I think we should.”

A couple minutes later, Hyunjin walks back out only to find Minho tugging the white tee over his head and flicking through his phone for a second in a pair of navy blue swimming trunks and not much else. Hyunjin is really glad that Minho’s back is half-turned his way, because the younger literally stops short as his eyes rake over Minho’s almost-naked body.

Hyunjin suspected at first glance that Minho was fairly broad, and can now confirm that he is because those shoulders and also his back are literally all muscle. Just the scrolling of Minho’s thumb has movements in his lower back drawing Hyunjin’s eyes in, and with it… As Hyunjin’s eyes travel further down, over Minho’s backside until they find his mostly exposed thighs, he almost short circuits.

Those have got to be the thickest thighs Hyunjin has ever seen in his entire life. Strong and firm and possibly broader than Hyunjin’s entire body and just--

Holy shit.

“Oh, hey!” Minho calls as he spots Hyunjin over his shoulder, putting his phone aside and turning to face him. “I was thinking about the snacks from earlier, should I get them? Which kind would you prefer?”

Hyunjin thinks he mutters something intelligible with a wave of his hand because there’s only one snack on his mind right now and it isn’t one Minho needs to leave him to get. But he doesn’t say that - thankfully - and tries not to shiver too visibly at the hand Minho lightly rests on his stomach as he passes Hyunjin by to sneak back inside. Oh, boy. This could be a long night.

When Minho returns with chips and cut fruit and water bottles alike, Hyunjin can’t help but smile. He’s already undressed to his own swimwear, debated and decided to pull his own shirt off too, stepped into the hot water and can’t help but allow the skipping of his heartbeat when Minho arrives with his hands full and his smile somehow even fuller.

“Impatient,” he teases, nodding in Hyunjin’s direction before crouching to place everything on the poolside by the back of Hyunjin’s head for him to reach. “Does Your Highness need anything else delivered?”

Hyunjin laughs and stops himself from splashing water at Minho at the last second, remembering the snacks he would probably ruin. “A fiancé would be nice. Does this delivery service have any of those, by any chance?”

Minho splutters for an adorable second before joining in on Hyunjin’s laughter, definitely having brought it on himself and most likely knowing it, too. But he doesn’t meet Hyunjin’s eyes just yet, which is what leads the younger to notice the sudden reddish tint to Minho’s ears. His heart clenches in his chest.

“It does actually,” Minho winds up saying, sitting down to smile bashfully at Hyunjin as he dangles his legs into the water. It doesn’t exactly help Hyunjin’s struggle to keep his eyes away from those thighs. “I’m afraid there’s only one available, though.”

“Hmm,” Hyunjin hums, turning sideways to rest his arms on top of the wet floor next to Minho. Not close enough to touch, but not very far from it, either. “Good thing I only want one in specific, then, right?”

It could be the light from inside the pool, or from the lanterns by the wall, or from the actual moon hanging over their heads. It could also be that Minho’s eyes simply sparkle. Hyunjin isn’t quite able to tell.

***

“You know, I texted my parents earlier,” Minho tells him a bit later, once they’re both situated in the water and crunching on chips between rounds of laughter and soft smiles and the dying need to touch each other but nerves still too tightly strung to actually do it. “And since we’re not actually supposed to talk about all this stuff yet, so you know, I didn’t.”

Hyunjin nods and pops another grape into his mouth. Those are the rules. Talking to his dad that one time had been an anomaly because of circumstances no one had foreseen when Hyunjin signed up, and he did call them before the flight but he has also refrained from ‘spoiling things’, as the staff had reminded him. Which is annoying as hell, but sure, he gets it.

“But it made me think about what meeting them would be like,” Minho continues, still smiling but Hyunjin senses slightly more apprehension coming on, “and while I know that they will adore you--”

(Thankfully, he ignores the way Hyunjin chokes on his grape and has to turn away to cough.)

“-- it made me wonder what sort of things they would want to know about you,” Minho finishes, smiling a little wider after Hyunjin has embarrassed himself for the nth time. “You know. All those things we haven’t really talked about?”

His choice of words makes Hyunjin smile, too, though, once he’s recovered from the grape. It’s true. They have been flirting a lot, and while he feels the genuine emotions of affection between them, it doesn’t fully make up for the lack of information and history and knowledge about the other. Hyunjin doesn’t know the sort of things about Minho that his parents do, or even his friends. Minho doesn’t know those kinds of things about Hyunjin, either.

“Where do you wanna start, then?” Hyunjin asks, only daring to move a little closer until his bent leg is leaning onto Minho’s because he wants to show Minho that he’s open to talking about it.

Minho’s soft expression doesn’t really change as he watches Hyunjin scoot over, but he does rest his hand over Hyunjin’s knee, caressing lightly in the water. It’s a relatively small action, but Hyunjin feels it all the way into his tingling fingertips. It’s nice.

“What do you spend your days doing?” Minho asks a moment later. “Tell me what a week in the life of Hwang Hyunjin looks like.”

The question feels like a statement on just how much Hyunjin has purposefully not mentioned in the pods, and it settles like an uncomfortable little bump deep in his stomach that he really wants to get rid of. He eyes Minho silently.

“I like to paint,” he tells the older with a small smile, who only looks at him encouragingly. “I think I told you that, but I do enjoy painting. And drawing. And photography, earlier. But I’ve only taught myself, in the trial-and-error kind of way, so I would really like to take classes and learn properly. I try to spend a short while every day doing it because I know it relaxes me. If I don’t have anything else planned that day, I could spend hours on it.”

“That’s lovely,” Minho murmurs, and Hyunjin is inclined to believe him. “I feel like I can sense how much you enjoy it just by hearing you talk about it. What else?”

Hyunjin hides his warming cheeks by reaching for the bottle of water and taking a long sip.

“If I’m home, I try to find the time to see my parents,” he shares, still not much more descriptive than what he said inside the pods but Hyunjin also knows that this is probably the moment where he will have to dive deeper into that. Which he wants to, but it’s… it’s hard. “And my grandparents, of course, but that’s… Let’s not talk about that. Yet.”

“Of course,” Minho assures him, squeezing over his knee before going back to stroking with his thumb. “We have time.”

Nodding, Hyunjin swallows a bit before returning to meet Minho’s watchful eyes. There’s a tension in the air between them that hasn’t been there before, and Hyunjin is fairly certain that Minho can feel it, too.

He doesn’t want tension.

“When I’m not home,” Hyunjin continues with a shaky smile, feeling the way he starts scratching at his cuticles beneath the water, “I’m usually in Paris. Or New York. Or London. Usually one of those three. And when I’m there, I walk down runways and do magazine spreads and all kinds of photoshoots.”

If Hyunjin wasn’t worried about the way Minho would react to this news, he thinks he would find it kind of funny to witness the way his entire face turns ‘o’-shaped. Clearly, Minho had not been expecting Hyunjin to model for a living, which most people probably would find insulting but Hyunjin only feels relief over. Even after meeting him, Minho obviously hadn’t imagined that for even a second, judging by how stunned he currently looks. This is good, Hyunjin’s mind tries out. It’s good, right?

“Wait, you…,” Minho starts, still the absolute epitome of shock, but he doesn’t look either elated or angry, which in Hyunjin’s book share the spot of the worst possible reaction. “Can you repeat that?”

“Okay,” Hyunjin practically whispers, before clearing his throat and forcefully loosening his shoulders a bit. “I’ve been working for a modeling agency for around five years now, since I turned eighteen. There’s been… a lot of ups and downs, honestly. It’s not an industry that makes you feel good about yourself, and I don’t think I want to do it anymore. I don’t want to spend that much time abroad and I don’t like the way other people look at me when they find out what I do. I don’t like the way it made me look at myself for a long time, either. That’s why I’m thinking about applying for art classes. Art has nothing to do with the beauty of the person behind it and everything to do with the beauty of the creation itself. I like that.”

Hyunjin takes another deep, shaky breath.

“But I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you before, hyung, because I know that all the traveling and the money are factors that most people want to consider before proposing to someone. Before even starting a relationship, probably. I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you and kept you in the dark about that, I--”

“Hyunjin-ah.”

Without even having realized it, Hyunjin must have closed his eyes somewhere during his little tale. But he realizes now, when he has to physically force his eyelids apart to look at Minho who just spoke to him in that strange tone. Minho, who is all but digging his fingers into the skin around Hyunjin’s knee.

“Yeah?” he breathes.

“Remember when I said that I thought I was in love with you?” the older asks.

Hyunjin’s lungs scream for air as he nods, not completely following.

“Do you remember what else I said?”

“You said that I was beautiful,” Hyunjin repeats, still feeling rather breathless but unable to look away from Minho’s intense gaze, “but you also said ‘you’re you’. And you said that…”

“That?”

Struck by the sudden urge to cry, the lump forming in his throat doesn’t exactly make speaking any easier for Hyunjin than it has been so far.

“You said that I was ‘everything’.”

Minho smiles suddenly, almost in disbelief and with a little puff of air, before reaching out to wrap around Hyunjin’s shoulders with one arm and his free leg with the other until he’s pulling Hyunjin towards him and they’re fully flush against each other. Both of Hyunjin’s bent legs are resting on top of Minho’s all of a sudden, and his hands land on Minho’s bare shoulder and chest, respectively, at the abrupt motion.

But Minho is smiling, and Hyunjin isn't quite sure what the reason is. Regardless, he’s not about to start complaining. He’ll happily let Minho hold him, honestly. Touching and being touched feels almost surreal at this point. Still.

“I was right,” Minho murmurs, damp locks and crinkled eyes and a finger running down the slope of Hyunjin’s jaw all making him appear so soft, “in all of that, as well as when I said that your outside matches your inside. Who could be this lovely but you, darling? Of course I fell for you.”

“Oh, my god,” Hyunjin whines, too emotional and sober to tease Minho back. “I’m gonna drown myself in this pool.”

“Don’t do that, baby,” Minho persuades him with a kiss to his cheek. “And don’t apologize, either. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I meant that we hadn’t talked about this, not that you needed to tell me about things that make you sad. I’m not upset, Hyunjinnie. And had I been, you should’ve ended this engagement right here because that would’ve been incredibly hypocritical of me, now wouldn’t it? I don’t remember telling you what I do, either.”

Truthfully, Minho makes a very valid point. Hyunjin hasn’t asked about Minho’s profession either, and the other hasn’t volunteered to share. It would be hypocritical of him to feel upset. But Hyunjin is still relieved that he isn’t.

“Thank you for telling me,” Minho continues gently. “I get why you wouldn’t want to talk about it. Especially in front of the whole world. But I’m glad you told me, especially if it was hard. Was it hard, baby?”

Silently but holding Minho’s gaze, Hyunjin nods. The topic of wanting to quit modeling to pursue art instead is one he’s barely mentioned to anyone before, because he hasn’t figured out how to say it without having to explain why he would exchange that very career so many people dream of to start from the very beginning in perhaps one of the most uncertain ones instead. It is hard to talk about. And it does make him sad, because he used to love modeling. Even if he can hardly remember what that felt like anymore.

“Can we talk about it another time?” he asks, because this isn’t urgent what-so-ever and the moment they’re in kind of feels like it is. Hyunjin’s angst can wait until they’re back in Seoul and have to attempt to figure out how to puzzle their lives together anyway.

“Of course,” Minho replies, reassuring him with another caress of light fingers over the bare skin of Hyunjin’s legs. “Whenever you want.”

“Thanks,” Hyunjin says with a smile, dragging his nails over Minho’s shoulder to watch the tiny lines appear and disappear for a second. “Can I ask what you do, hyung? I’m really curious.”

Minho grins at him. “Guess.”

Blinking in surprise, Hyunjin tilts his head a little as he tries to figure out if Minho is kidding or just teasing him. But the older seems expectant - waiting - so Hyunjin narrows his eyebrows at the challenge and indulges him.

“I think your caretaker instincts are too strong to ignore,” he chances, eyes flickering over Minho’s face in an attempt at reading his expression for any clues. “Do you work with kids?”

“No,” Minho denies, playing with Hyunjin’s earlobe for a second before moving onto his piercings. “No, not kids.”

“Animals?”

Minho laughs, a hearty chuckle that pulls at the corners of Hyunjin’s own mouth. Spot on.

“Am I that obvious?” the older asks. “Really?”

“Probably not to people you pass by on the street,” Hyunjin reassures him with a smile, “but to me? Yeah, kind of.”

Minho nods a few times before leaving Hyunjin’s ear to… boop his nose?

“Guess I’ll have to get used to that, huh?”

“Definitely, hyung,” Hyunjin replies, a little stunned by the nose thing but possibly even more stunned by the way Minho’s fingers are suddenly tracing… his mouth.

“I’m actually a veterinarian,” Minho shares, soft digits and dark eyes both zoomed in on Hyunjin’s slightly parted lips. “Not since very long, but I really like it. ‘Feels right.”

Hyunjin tries to keep his mind on the conversation at hand - he really does - but Minho’s touch is honestly incredibly distracting and he just--

“Yeah?” Hyunjin ends up murmuring under his breath. “You should do things that feel right, hyung.”

Minho hums lightly. “You think so?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin settles, thinking fuck it and throwing his caution to the wind. “All of them.”

It’s almost funny, the way Minho’s entire hand twitches where it ghosts over Hyunjin’s damp lips as the words sink in. Which makes Hyunjin grin, faintly, because that means that Minho is feeling affected, too. What a wonderful thing to have such chemistry with someone you chose without even seeing?

“Would it feel right to kiss me, do you think?” he pushes, nudging carefully at Minho’s hand until his thumb is back to resting against Hyunjin’s bottom lip. “You haven’t kissed me in so long.”

“I kissed you this morning,” Minho reminds him, definitely seeming a little stricken with the change of pace but doing nothing to alter it back.

“Mm,” Hyunjin agrees, separating his lips a tiny bit further until Minho’s thumb is suddenly right there at the opening of his mouth. “Like I said; so long.”

He barely has the time to capture Minho’s finger before the older makes a wonderful, needy noise somewhere deep in his throat and leans in to press their lips together forcefully. Minho’s thumb is definitely still lingering against Hyunjin’s mouth when Minho covers it with his own, and if that isn’t a sensation then Hyunjin doesn’t know what is.

“Sorry,” Minho says, abruptly, pulling away before Hyunjin can even reciprocate half as energetically as he would like to, “sorry, I really want to kiss you, it’s not that, I just…”

Hyunjin figures it’s his turn to feel surprised, and he’s genuinely feeling confused as well. Wasn’t this where Minho wanted to go when he started circling Hyunjin’s mouth?

“I thought about this earlier, I just… Sorry,” Minho apologizes again, but Hyunjin doesn’t even know what for. “I should’ve mentioned it.”

“Mentioned what?” he can’t help but ask, briefly wondering if he should be offended, but… Hyunjin doesn’t think that’s it, at least. “What is it, hyung?”

“It’s just that… that we’re still new to this, right?” Minho asks, palm finding Hyunjin’s cheek as the younger nods in confirmation. “All of it, but I think… I think the physical stuff most of all. I just thought that it could be helpful and… and nice, maybe, if we were more open about it. If you’d just ask me about whatever it is that you’re thinking of and I say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and I’ll ask you the same? Just to avoid misunderstandings or moving too fast because I think that we’re feeling so much at times but that… that doesn’t necessarily mean--”

“Yes,” Hyunjin interrupts, agrees, tightening his hold over Minho’s shoulder until his fingers are splaying out all the way across his skin. “Yeah, I’d really like that, hyung. No second guessing, just being honest with each other, right?”

Minho nods, paired with a small smile. Hyunjin watches him quietly and can’t help wondering if it’s actually possible to fall in love with someone in such a short amount of time.

“Anyway, I just wanted to bring that up,” the older says, moving his hand to toy with some strands of Hyunjin’s loose hair, “and not because I didn’t want to kiss you, because I really want to kiss you, baby. I meant mostly because of what comes after kissing, but I guess in other aspects, as well.”

“Okay,” Hyunjin mutters, because all this talk about kissing and what comes after kissing is quickly pulling him right back under, “So if I ask you if it’s okay to climb into your lap and make out with you for a bit, would that be a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?

“Oh, god,” Minho groans immediately, already tightening his grip over Hyunjin’s legs and hauling him closer. “That’s a ‘yes’, baby, fuck. I thought you’d never ask.”

Hyunjin takes a second to breathe his eager laughter onto Minho’s lips before capturing them with his own again, wasting no time in using his leverage on the older’s shoulder and chest alike to climb into Minho’s lap until he’s straddling him properly, quickly throwing his arms around the other to cling even tighter to him.

The water sloshes around them with Hyunjin’s movements, but they pay it no mind. The air is humid and warm as it is, and the top half of Hyunjin’s torso being above the water really doesn’t matter. Not when Minho’s bare skin against his is setting him on fire, anyway.

“Do you want hyung to touch you, darling?” Minho murmurs against Hyunjin’s insistent mouth, barely letting up long enough for Minho’s words to pass between them. “Anywhere you don’t want?”

“Touch me, please,” Hyunjin asks him, as prettily and sweetly as he can. “‘Got all this skin on display for you, hyung. It’d be a shame if you didn’t feel it up.”

“Jesus christ,” Minho moans instantly.

Hyunjin feels a smile tug at his face when Minho’s arms cover his back until one of his hands reaches into his hair to press Hyunjin’s face even closer and more accessible for Minho to devour, while the other stays on his lower back inside the water to push Hyunjin even further into the older’s lap.

The kisses themselves don’t start off as extremely different from the ones they shared the first time they met, but the situation certainly is. The complete privacy is of course one thing, but their half-nudity and Hyunjin’s very comfortable seat on top of Minho’s thighs are doing their respective parts, too. Not to mention this absolute insane spot in the world that they get to call their own for a few more days.

Hyunjin feels a little drunk off of it all, despite being completely sober. 

“I feel drunk,” he ends up actually mumbling, half an eternity later once he needs a break from the not-so-innocent-anymore kisses they’re sharing. He giggles as soon as Minho does when they suddenly clash teeth and breathe into each other’s mouths instead of actually making out. “Possibly high. I’ve never been high, but it seems like it would feel like this.”

Minho tilts his head backwards until they’re looking at each other again, and he just seems kind of dazed while also so fond of him that Hyunjin doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. It’s thrilling, he thinks, being right here with Minho, right now. It’s probably far more thrilling than most things he can remember experiencing before.

“Because of me?” Minho asks, far too quiet than Hyunjin thinks he should be talking. He’s fairly certain that Minho deserves to feel like he’s walking on clouds, actually, since that’s pretty much how he makes Hyunjin feel.

“Because of you,” he confirms, leaning down to take Minho’s face in his hands and kiss him again, deep and with purpose before letting his lips go while keeping his hands steady. “It could also be the magical pool, of course.”

Minho snorts, and Hyunjin can’t help but giggle and bring their lips together for another kiss. It’s like Minho really did lace them with drugs or something.

“Because you make me happy,” Hyunjin whispers between the kisses he continues to rain down onto Minho’s face - cheeks and nose and forehead and eyelids and lips - and God, he never wants to stop. “Because you make me feel safe. Because you make me wonder if love really is blind and if it’s possible to truly fall for someone in such a strange situation as this one. Because I’ll never forget the way you made me feel before you had even met me.”

Before him, Minho looks sort of awestruck, which is a look that suits him just as perfectly as all the others Hyunjin has seen on him so far. Work-mode probably looks gorgeous on him, too, if he were to guess. Truth is that the longer he looks at Minho, the harder it becomes to rip his eyes away. He’s actually guessing that the older has caught him over the course of the day, but Minho hasn’t called him out on it. Hyunjin supposes the staring is a side effect from the experiment, and maybe all the couples are doing it to each other.

Maybe Minho is doing it to him, too.

“If I told you I loved you,” Hyunjin hums, caressing Minho’s delicate cheekbones with the back of his fingers, “right here, right now. Would you believe me?”

(Maybe Minho is having a hard time tearing his eyes away from Hyunjin right at this moment?)

“If I told you I loved you,” Hyunjin continues, drunk and high and all other kinds of intoxicated by the way Minho won’t stop making him feel, “and that I’d marry you tomorrow if they asked me to… would you believe me?”

They’re so closely wrapped around each other that Hyunjin can feel the way Minho’s heart is practically beating out of his chest. He thinks Minho must feel Hyunjin’s own heart racing away, as well, but the thought strangely satisfies him rather than scares him.

“If I told you I loved you,” Hyunjin says, into the dark night and the paradise air and the shaky exhale from his fiancé with the stars in his eyes, “Lee Minho. Would you believe me?”

***

Surprisingly enough, when Minho ends up kissing the life out of Hyunjin’s lips while holding the rest of his body as if it were some fragile thing and pauses to ask if Hyunjin wants Minho to take him to bed - Hyunjin says ‘no’.

He’s not completely sure what comes over him, but he takes a moment to watch Minho’s dark, admiring eyes and kisses him for the thousandth time in maybe two hours before whispering his reply, and separating their bodies far enough to explain why.

“I think we should stop here,” Hyunjin admits.

“Of course,” Minho replies instantly, and Hyunjin believes him. But he doesn’t want Minho to think that Hyunjin doesn’t want him , because he certainly does. “Yeah, of course, Hyunjinnie, I--”

“It’s nothing bad, hyung, I promise.” Wide eyes look back at Hyunjin as if trying to figure out whether they messed up or not, but they really didn’t, and Hyunjin presses yet another soft kiss onto Minho’s rather plump lips. “It’s just… I just wanna…”

Minho waits this time, carefully resting a hand on the side of Hyunjin’s thigh still bracketing his. He seems reluctant to stop touching, and Hyunjin is inclined to agree. He doesn’t want that either.

“I just figured that we have time, right?” he asks with a small huff, but feels reassured when Minho nods firmly. “I’d rather we have… you know. This night to remember as the first one here, and the first time we said ‘I love you’ to each other. We don’t have to make all the memories at once, right? I want… I want more memories. And I want to make them for a long time. With you. We don’t need to rush anything, right? We’ve already rushed through a lot.”

Minho’s face softens impossibly further, and Hyunjin wonders just how much he’ll end up feeling for this man before all this is over.

“This is what I meant,” Minho replies quietly, secretively, eyes drinking Hyunjin in, “when I said that I can’t imagine never having another conversation with you. Now, don’t get me wrong, I could spend forever kissing you, probably, but I didn’t know that when I proposed to you. What I did know was that I wanted to hear you speak your mind and change my perspective on things I didn’t even know I was thinking. And here you are, proving my instincts right. There’s no rush, darling. Just wake up each morning and tell me which memory you have in mind and we’ll make it.”

“Yeah?” Hyunjin asks, probably overly emotional as usual as his voice wobbles. “Every morning?”

“Every morning,” Minho confirms, finding his hand and locking their fingers together until their engagement rings clink audibly together. “In sickness and in health, right? From this day forward.”

***

When Hyunjin falls asleep later that night, the clock is probably closer to what would be considered ‘morning’ rather than ‘evening’. But the cameras aren’t turning on for another few hours, and he figures that if he and Minho are sleeping then they’ll probably have other couples to film instead. Personally, he’d put some serious money on Felix and Chan being an audience favorite.

(He’d be lying if he claimed not to be seriously interested in how things are going for Jisung and Changbin, but judging by how completely overjoyed and also disbelieving Jisung had been when he returned and told them that Changbin had accepted his proposal; Hyunjin would bet he’s not the only one.)

But he doesn’t spend much time thinking about the other couples once he’s finally sensing sleep weighing his eyelids down, and decides to welcome the pleasant heaviness of it and Minho’s limbs thrown over his alike. Minho had fallen asleep first, but Hyunjin doesn’t blame him. The older had stayed awake for the flight and had a shorter nap earlier, and must have been exhausted as well.

True to his word, Minho had crawled into bed beside Hyunjin after washing up subsequently to the younger, and asked if he was up for cuddling (shirtlessly!) to sleep - ‘yes’ or ‘no’? Smiling like an absolute idiot he’s sure, Hyunjin had said ‘yes’ and beckoned Minho over for some slow, drowsy kisses before feeling the older steadily succumbing to his much needed rest. So naturally, Hyunjin asked ‘small spoon or big spoon?’ and happily turned over when Minho insisted on ‘big’, only to find that there’s really not much to complain about concerning Minho’s arm slung over his stomach and Minho’s leg nestled in between his - definitely longer ones - and finally, his warm and steady breath against the space between Hyunjin’s shoulders.

He could get used to this, Hyunjin quickly realizes, and falls asleep almost as fast.

With a smile on his lips, no doubt.

Chapter Text

Waking up next to Minho comes as a slight surprise to Hyunjin, despite all the time he’s spent thinking about this very moment. It seems like he turned over in his sleep, because they’re face to face beneath the covers when Hyunjin reluctantly opens his eyes, only for them to practically fly apart once he spots Minho right in front of him. Minho is smiling (his messy hair and heavy eyelids drew Hyunjin’s attention first) and then telling Hyunjin ‘good morning’, to which Hyunjin responds by shuffling closer to press their lips together in lieu of answering verbally.

Sadly, the clock has passed 10am and they have a couple of minutes at most before there’s a knock on the door and the camera crew wants to be let inside, and Hyunjin groans and hides beneath the blankets when Minho kisses him one final time before leaving to unlock the door. He can hear Minho making small talk with the staff and confirming that they can come inside for a bit, and it’s not like Hyunjin disagrees exactly, but… Couldn’t they have given him his first morning with Minho in peace?

“Hi, baby,” Minho greets him some bare-footed steps later, peeking his head into where Hyunjin is hiding from the cameras for the time being. “Wanna get breakfast? Or shower first, for some more privacy?”

Hyunjin huffs internally. Privacy would indeed be nice, but it’s not time and space on his own that Hyunjin wants. It’s time and space away from prying eyes with Minho by his side, not alone in front of the cameras. That’s not it.

So he answers ‘breakfast’, is rewarded with a kiss on the cheek, and ends up crawling into an armchair on their patio in the pajama shorts he slept in and one of the robes provided to them, and pouts silently while Minho laughs at him. Hyunjin knows that he can’t complain about the situation, and that he probably should feel grateful to sit here with a beautiful ring on his finger and an even more beautiful fiancé next to him, a gorgeous strip of turquoise ocean practically below his feet and a warm, tropical breeze all around him.

So he won’t complain. He won’t.

(It’s just that he really, really wanted to wake up slowly by kissing Minho lazily for at least half an hour before their stomachs would start grumbling and Minho would laugh because Hyunjin’s would surely start grumbling first and Minho would kiss his nose when Hyunjin would grow visibly embarrassed and Minho would probably feed him breakfast in bed because that seems like something Minho would do and then--)

“Tell me how to put that pretty smile back on your face,” Minho teases, reaching out to flick his finger against Hyunjin’s temple. “They’re gonna think you can’t stand me, baby. Please, help me out here?”

Hyunjin narrows his eyes, scoffing, and rubs his temple in an excessive motion. If Minho thinks using physical force will make Hyunjin pout less, Hyunjin will have him reconsider that notion quickly.

“Well, for starters, physical violence won’t do you any favors, Lee Minho-ssi,” he grumbles, lifting his foot from where he’d propped it on his seat to kick at Minho’s shorts-clad thigh. “If you think ‘tough love’ or the tiniest amount of pain improves your chances, then let me just say that you are sorely mistaken.”

Next to him, Minho’s grin only grows wider as he listens. He huffs out a small chuckle when Hyunjin’s foot connects with his leg, but grabs the younger’s ankle quickly and prevents Hyunjin from actually pulling his foot back from Minho’s grip around the slimmest part of his leg. Hyunjin tugs a little, just to see, but Minho’s fingers remain where they are and he places his foot down on Minho’s seat, next to the older’s thigh, instead.

“My apologies, Your Highness,” Minho mocks, similar to last night, scratching Hyunjin’s bare skin beneath his fingers almost absent-mindedly. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next time my fiancé looks like he wants to be carried out of bed bridal style instead of onto it, as I seem to remember the custom being. Should I feed Your Highness his breakfast instead, since he had to walk all the way out here?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin replies, fighting the furious blush that’s probably creeping onto his cheeks while Minho plays him as if they’ve actually known each other for years. “That might suffice, in the meantime. To make up for the previous wrong-doings, that is.”

Minho smirks, squeezing around Hyunjin’s ankle. “Sure thing, my love.”

Suddenly Hyunjin’s leg is being gingerly lifted and brought back to his own chair, as Minho stands up and lifts his own much closer while Hyunjin tries to stop his heart from pounding away so hard his microphone might catch it. Once Minho is seated right next to him, he promptly reaches for Hyunjin’s calves and - with some help from the younger who finally catches on - situates them until Hyunjin’s feet are planted in between Minho’s thighs and his legs all but stretched out over the armrest of his own chair and he’s sitting sideways.

The older lands a delicate hand onto Hyunjin’s mid-thigh, his touch warm and sort-of familiar, before reaching for the pieces of cut up fruits to bring to Hyunjin’s mouth, one by one. Minho’s grin hasn’t left his face, but Hyunjin thinks it’s less about him teasing and more about Minho feeling entertained now. He’s definitely a little miffed himself when the wet sweetness of melon brushes his lips, but not enough to stop the automatic reflex of parting his lips to take the fruit into his mouth, lips closing and briefly touching the fork as he pulls the melon off with his teeth.

Minho doesn’t say anything, and neither does Hyunjin as he chews. No sooner is he done than Minho has brought a strawberry for him next, which Hyunjin gladly accepts with a satisfied noise since strawberries are his favorites, after all. When he meets Minho’s gaze again, the older has dropped his grin in favor of a far more muted smile. But he’s still looking intently as Hyunjin obediently eats what he is given, which Hyunjin slowly registers as his chance of turning the tables.

“Minho hyung, can I have another?” he asks softly, keeping his lips parted despite the moist sensation of the fruits previously touching them. “Please?”

“‘Course,” Minho replies, almost on autopilot, as he watches Hyunjin’s lips for a far longer moment than necessary before reaching for another strawberry.

“Thank you,” Hyunjin croons before the item reaches his lips, and looks straight at Minho when he opens his mouth wider and envelops the strawberry to pull it off the fork.

He has half a mind to point out the fact that Minho isn’t actually eating anything himself, but he doesn’t, because Hyunjin is having far too much fun with this. Minho’s grip on his thigh has definitely tightened, which he doesn’t even know if Minho is aware of or not, and the older hasn’t looked away from Hyunjin’s - possibly messy - lips for a good while now as he opens up, bites down on, and swallows piece after piece of what Minho feeds him. It’s definitely starting to get to his head.

When Hyunjin is met with a grape slightly on the larger side, he only takes a second to contemplate ahead of breaking the skin of the grape before it has fully entered his mouth, and thereby making the sweet juices paint his lips instead of his tongue.

“Oups,” he mumbles, leaving the stain for just a second or two longer than necessary before flicking his tongue out.

There isn’t a doubt in his mind that one of the cameras is picking up on this whole exchange, but Hyunjin can’t bring himself to care. Instead, he slowly moves his tongue from the bottom left corner of his mouth to the bottom right, methodically continuing along the crease of his upper lip until he must be glistening with saliva instead of grape juice.

Minho’s nails are short, thankfully, and don’t really hurt where they’re digging small crescents into Hyunjin’s skin. When the younger inches his feet slightly forward to dig into the barely-there space between Minho’s thigh and the seat of his armchair, he can feel the way Minho’s leg tenses for a heartbeat before moving closer to Hyunjin’s own one, intruding on the older’s space but since Minho was the one actually hauling them over…

“You’re a real menace, Hwang Hyunjin,” Minho breathes, hand and fork still hovering in the air, “has anyone ever told you that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hyunjin deflects instantly, easily. Smiling angelically, if he succeeds. “You must’ve just missed, hyung. Pay attention next time, would you?”

A smile breaks out over Minho’s face as he’s being teased back, one that it seems like he’s fighting a losing battle against. Hyunjin’s heart skips a traitorous beat as he allows one to fill his own expression. This part comes so easily to them, and Hyunjin is grateful for it.

“Forgive me, Your Highness,” Minho apologizes breezily, still smiling, before dropping the fork back onto the table and reaching for Hyunjin’s face. “I’ll do better in the future.”

“I’ll hold you to that, Lee Minho-ssi.”

Minho doesn’t reply this time, but rather tilts Hyunjin’s head up by the chin through the hand he’s using to cradle it, and moves slowly enough for Hyunjin to understand what’s happening and decline before Minho’s lips meet his. He doesn’t decline, of course, not in the slightest, and revels in the firm, unhurried press of Minho’s rather dry lips against Hyunjin’s wet ones. Their faces are so close that Hyunjin doubts even those expensive cameras are picking up on the way Minho’s tongue discreetly darts out to lick at Hyunjin’s lips, himself, and the younger stays pliantly still in the hold Minho has on his chin.

Kittenish licks almost tickle him, making Hyunjin fight the urge to giggle purely by the sensation, but he restrains the impulse and lets Minho clean up the rest of the mess they made of Hyunjin’s mouth. The younger keeps his tongue inside of his own mouth, because he somehow knows that that’s not what this is about. This is Minho giving Hyunjin a small taste of his own medicine, and Hyunjin loves that. He’s also trying very hard not to think about which other scenarios that tendency might appear in, down the line.

When Minho seemingly deems him clean enough, he presses one final - slick - kiss onto Hyunjin’s mouth before releasing him. Hyunjin feels a little hazy, but he figures that’s okay. That’s what Minho wanted on some level, right?

“Delicious,” Minho murmurs, still letting Hyunjin rest his head on the older’s hand below his chin. “You taste so good, baby, made hyung want more.”

“Yeah?” Hyunjin asks beneath hooded eyelids, turning his face sideways as he feels a need for privacy coming on. “I was good?”

Minho eyes him silently for a moment before replying. Hyunjin wonders if the older can possibly be that attuned to him after such a short amount of time spent together.

“So good,” Minho assures him. Then he leans in and moves his hand from Hyunjin’s chin to the back of his head, lightly threading his fingers into the blonde locks.

Hyunjin breathes a small sigh of relief and falls forward until his face is properly hidden in the t-shirt covering Minho’s shoulder.

“The best, darling,” Minho promises in that soft tone Hyunjin adored even before he knew the face it belonged to. “Hyung couldn’t ask for anyone else. Wouldn’t want anyone else. Just you, Hyunjinnie.”

***

“Hey, hyung?”

Minho hums to indicate that he’s listening, docile where he’s sitting with his back turned to Hyunjin so the younger can properly cover him in sunscreen considering the unforgiving sun behind the parasol currently shading them.

“You know, we’re supposed to leave in a few days,” Hyunjin begins as he kneeds Minho’s shoulders carefully, “to start the whole ‘living together’ thing. At home. I was just wondering if I should come stay with you, if that’d be the easiest? Since you’ve been away from your cats for so long and everything. They offered one of those completely new places, too, of course, but I don’t really fancy one of those. But what would you prefer?”

Hyunjin moves further down to make sure the protecting lotion fills every inch of Minho’s skin, not taking any chances. Minho’s back is hot beneath his touch, and the older keeps making these small, content noises whenever Hyunjin uses slightly more force to dig his fingers in. It just gives him the perfect excuse to have his hands all over his fiancé, really.

“No new place,” Minho agrees, gasping a little when Hyunjin most likely manages to tickle his side. “Mine’s good, that’s… That’s really thoughtful of you, Hyunjinnie. But the cats will be fine with my parents, too, if you’d feel more comfortable at yours. You’ve got all your own stuff there, right? And not to assume too much here, but I’d bet your place is a lot nicer considering everything.”

“Define ‘nicer’,” Hyunjin argues, pinching Minho’s side again while he squeaks. Adorable. “Is it bigger? More expensive? So modern even I don’t know how everything works?”

Beneath his hands, Minho starts shaking with his giggles. Hyunjin smiles to himself in success because he really doesn’t want his career to be an issue or something Minho feels uncomfortable about, and he didn’t offer to live in Minho’s apartment simply out of the kindness of his heart. Hyunjin wants that. He’s spent more time away from Seoul than actually there for the past few years. Moving in with Minho really wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Probably not even a bad thing what-so-ever.

“We’ll stop by and grab some art supplies,” Hyunjin settles, already making plans. “Maybe some clothes, but that’s it, really. If I had to guess, I’d say I’ve spent more time abroad than in that apartment for the last couple of years, honestly. Even in Seoul, I’ve stayed with my parents a lot. I think we’d both be more comfortable in an apartment that feels like ‘home’ to at least one of us, hyung. Is that okay?”

“Of course that’s okay,” Minho replies, reaching behind him to find and squeeze Hyunjin’s propped up leg. “We’ll get you settled in first and then pick up the cats later. They’ll survive. ‘Got another baby to prioritize now, as you may have noticed.”

Hyunjin’s smile remains when he leans forward to press a kiss to the nape of Minho’s neck, happily noticing the small shiver that runs through the older’s body. He runs his fingers from Minho’s sides down to the taut muscles at the very lowest part of his back, and grins when he sees the way his own hands cover almost the entirety of it. Hyunjin’s fingertips are still ghosting Minho’s hips when he lays his palms against the smooth skin and digs his thumbs into the strained bottom part around Minho’s spine, only to find that his thumbs are actually touching.

“I have noticed, actually,” he coos, breath teasing over Minho’s protruding shoulder blades as the older stutters on his exhalation. “Your priorities are very much appreciated, hyung.”

Quickly throwing a look around, Hyunjin notices that the camera crew still aren’t back from their lunch break and decides to make the most out of that fact. He pushes further until Minho’s back actually arches a bit beneath his hands, and figures that that’s as good of a sign as any.

“Can I kiss your neck for a bit, Minho hyung?” Hyunjin murmurs against the skin behind Minho’s ear. “You look delectable right now. ‘Wanna see if you taste as good as you look.”

“Yes,” Minho replies, just short of a whisper. “Please. Kiss away. Wherever you want.”

Hyunjin can feel his own eyebrows raise in pleasant surprise, but even if Minho is actually being serious, Hyunjin wouldn’t. One thing at a time, and perhaps especially out in public like this.

So he shuffles closer until Minho’s naked back is leaning against his still clothed front, and Minho makes a quiet sound of gratitude at the support of his weight. His hand is still gripping Hyunjin’s leg, which is fine, and his back is still doing that sweet little arch due to Hyunjin’s hands working his muscles over. Minho is lovely. Hyunjin's fiancé is so, so lovely.

“How about here?” Hyunjin asks, using the height he has on Minho to envelop him and lean down to mouth at the spot where Minho’s neck meets his shoulder. He’s tense, but Hyunjin doesn’t blame him. He would be, too, if Minho teased him like this. “Is this good?”

“So good,” Minho says, instantly moving his head sideways to make room for the younger.

Hyunjin grins to himself before parting his lips and pressing an open-mouthed, wet kiss to Minho’s taut skin and reveling in the sensation for a second. Minho does taste as good as he looks, somehow. He tastes of the recent fresh shower with a hint of salty sweat from the heat outside, and there’s a slight scent of sun lotion around them but also of Minho’s faint cologne. It makes Minho taste like reality, like the present, and like something solid for Hyunjin to cling to, both physically and mentally. He likes it.

“How about here?” he repeats, leaving his spot for somewhere between there and Minho’s earring, going so far as to dart his tongue out to lightly lick between his parted lips against the older. “Is this good, too?”

“Yeah,” Minho whispers, somehow falling even further back into Hyunjin’s chest.

It forces Hyunjin to bend even more if he wants to keep teasing the same spot, so he takes mercy on his own back and noses along Minho’s jaw until Hyunjin’s lips find the front part of Minho’s throat and attach themselves quickly.

“And here?” he mumbles, probably mostly muffled by the slick kiss he’s working into Minho’s skin, hands now resting on either side of Minho’s hips and holding him firmly. “What about here, Minho?”

Somewhere above him - or maybe behind - Minho groans.

“Everywhere,” he replies. “Everything you do to me feels good, Hyunjinnie.”

It feels good to hear, too, Hyunjin has to admit. Minho’s confession makes him happy. Hyunjin isn’t sure what he would do with himself if he didn’t make Minho feel good.

“Good,” Hyunjin says, tightening his grip quickly in appreciation before releasing. “I’m glad, hyung.”

Then he figures it should be okay to push a little further, so Hyunjin’s opens his mouth a little wider until he can nibble lightly at Minho’s throat with his teeth, because there really aren’t many things Hyunjin doesn’t want to do at this point. Marking his little fiancé up feels pretty damn tempting, for one. Especially since Hyunjin knows that they’re supposed to meet the other couples later tonight.

“Tell me to stop,” he tells Minho, because he is aware that Minho might not want that, and that’s fine, Hyunjin gets it. But until Minho tells him as much…

He dives further in, letting go of Minho’s hip with one hand to circle his front instead and pull Minho closer against him, until Hyunjin’s hands are practically meeting with Minho’s waist in between. He makes sure to press a certain amount of kisses to the very visible area before nibbling again, and judging by the constant, breathy noises Minho is making; Hyunjin is free to keep going.

So he latches onto Minho’s throat properly, and starts sucking the skin lightly as if trying to pull it into his own mouth in that way that Hyunjin really hasn’t done to anyone for years but finds himself wanting to do with a surprising amount of desire, now. A quiet whine escapes Minho immediately, but he doesn’t otherwise move. Not until he lifts his free hand to find Hyunjin’s hair and tousle it completely, at least.

“Still okay?” Hyunjin asks, letting go of his work of art for a moment to make sure Minho hears him. “‘Yes’ or ‘no’, hyung?”

It takes a second, or perhaps two, but not necessarily because Minho is unsure. It could also be because he sounds like he’s catching his breath a little, or licking his dry lips.

“Yes, baby,” Minho tells him, fingers tightening briefly in Hyunjin’s hair before releasing and scratching at his scalp, instead. “Still okay. ‘Just want me to show it off later, don’t you?”

“Kind of,” Hyunjin admits, not really seeing a point in lying even if he feels slightly called out. “But is it okay?”

“‘s okay,” Minho repeats, before he’s suddenly - gently - pressing Hyunjin’s face back into its previous spot. “One might be enough, though, hmm?”

Hyunjin nods, understanding while also excited about the one, and allows himself another moment of focusing on the way Minho feels inside his arms and sounds due to the things he lets Hyunjin do to him, before getting back to work.

One hickey won’t kill anyone, right?

***

The makeup artists did their best to cover it up, Hyunjin notices to his own dismay as he sips his drink and ogles Minho who is seated with the other participants on that side of the pods a bit further down.

He feels a little childish concerning the pout he’s probably still sporting, but it’s not Hyunjin’s fault that the experiment is semi-working and that he doesn't want to part from Minho, now is it? And now - just because the producers ordered ‘reunions’ first and mingling later - Hyunjin has to strain his eyes to try and make out the purple-ish mark he left above Minho’s collar. It’s there, sure, but what’s the point if the others won’t notice it?

“Hyunjinnie hyung,” Jeongin teases from his right all of a sudden, bumping their shoulders together. “I know your man is handsome, but you’ll get him back, you know? Who knows when we’ll see each other again?”

“At the suit fitting,” Hyunjin dead-pans, because they do know. “But also like, on Tuesday, in Seoul, if you're free.”

Jeongin laughs. “I probably am, if you wanna hang out. Should we double date?”

“Sure, why not?” Hyunjin plays along, although slightly off-handed due to the way Minho’s throat moves as he sips his cocktail further down. “It’s not like we’ve dated each other’s fiancés, or anything.”

On his left, Jisung arrives all while laughing loudly before smacking his palm onto his leg where he sits down next to Hyunjin.

“I’ve dated your fiancé, too, baby!” Jisung exclaims to Jeongin’s absolute delight, both of them giggling away on either side of Hyunjin who has to admit that it’s a little funny. “And you've dated mine! You've actually dated both mine and Innie’s! Twice!”

“Yeah, well, you proposed to mine,” Hyunjin drawls, grin pulling at his lips as he teases Jisung lightly about it. “I think that means you lose. Baby. That might’ve helped me out, though, actually, so thanks? I guess?”

“Oh?” Jisung replies curiously, eyes wide as ever. “Did my failed attempt at wooing Minho hyung make him realize someone else might be more successful with you before he could get there?”

Hyunjin blinks. “No. No, that’s… No, he knew I wasn't seeing anyone else, it wasn’t that. He just said it gave him some perspective on the dates, and… well, lots of other stuff which ended with him proposing, actually. You can watch it later, I suppose.”

“Oh, you bet I’ll be watching it later!” Felix chirps, coming in hot and throwing himself at Hyunjin for a hug before settling down in an armchair opposite him with still vibrating legs. “How are you doing, Hyunjinnie? Does it feel right?”

Slowly - but firmly - Hyunjin nods. It does, maybe somewhat surprisingly. He’s not that surprised himself, considering he’s been into Minho from the very start, but he still can’t fully shake that nagging notion of ‘is this real?’.

“That's so sweet!” Felix says, bursting out into a massive smile that really does wonders for his face. Felix is just too fucking cute for his own good. “What about you two, Jisungie, Jeonginnie? Does it feel right to you?”

“From the start,” Jeongin replies first, nodding while he shares his experience with the older three. “I really liked hyung. Still can’t believe he said ‘yes', but I’ll be damned before I bring that up. It’s easy with Seungminnie hyung, somehow. I don't know how to explain it. What about you, Yongbokkie hyung?”

Felix visibly swoons in his chair, in that disgusting, over-the-top way that only people who are too in love to care about anything do. Hyunjin would envy him if he didn't already kind of relate.

“It’s amazing!” Felix bursts. “It’s so easy! Hyung makes me so comfortable and it just feels like we’ve known each other forever, and we have so many things in common it’s almost ridiculous. It’s been really good.”

“I’m glad some of us are having an easy time,” Jisung whines as he throws himself sideways across both Hyunjin’s and Jeongin’s lap. “Changbinnie hyung uses every opportunity to ask me ‘if I’m sure? like, really sure?’ about every little thing I want. I know he’s teasing me, but sometimes I wonder if there’s something else or if he resents me a little. What do you guys think? Is he gonna leave me at the altar because I proposed to Minho hyung first?”

“No,” Hyunjin and Felix echo as they reply at the same time. Even Jeongin - who barely ever dated Changbin - is shaking his head.

Hyunjin puts a comforting hand over Jisung’s.

“Jisungie, if he really resented you for that he wouldn’t have accepted your proposal. And he wouldn’t be here now, either. But I do think you should bring it up if it bothers you.”

“Yeah,” Felix agrees quickly, reaching for both of their hands to apply his own to the pile. “I’m sure Changbinnie hyung would want to know if you're feeling insecure about something. Wouldn't you want him to tell you if he was worried about anything?”

Jisung’s round eyes flicker between all three of them - even Jeongin who he must be watching upside-down - before sighing loudly and nodding in defeat.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he admits. “I’ll ask him about it. If he’s actually teasing but finds out it bothers me, he’ll stop right?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin replies, sure of his stance but wanting to sound kind above all. “And if he finds out that his actions bother you and still keeps on doing them, then that should tell you something, Sungie. You don't want someone who doesn't care about your feelings. Not as a husband, but not as anything else either. It goes for everyone. Take it from someone who learned that the hard way.”

From his spot across Hyunjin’s lap, Jisung blinks up at him in silence. Hyunjin figures he should smile in something resembling reassurance or light-heartedness, so he does, and Jisung does something similar in return. Then he squeezes Hyunjin’s hand, before he’s distracted by San and Soobin arriving as the final two.

Soobin looks like he’s floating somewhere above cloud 9, flushed cheeks and - to Hyunjin’s rather trained eye - swollen lips painting his adorable features as he stretches his long legs out in the chair. San looks like the absolute opposite, Hyunjin thinks as he hides his smile. He looks exhausted. Not in a bad way, necessarily, because his smile does seem genuine. He just looks a little… overwhelmed, might be the appropriate word.

Half an hour or so later, once they've briefly managed to catch up on these first two days out of the pods, a staff member tells them they're free to mingle as they please. No sooner has the sentence been finished than Jisung is bouncing upright and pulling Hyunjin along with him towards the other half of the participants, and Hyunjin doesn't even notice that Jisung brought Jeongin in his other hand until the younger boy nearly crashes into Hyunjin when Jisung sets off.

His focus quickly shifts towards Minho, however, who looks a little stunned at the sight of the three of them, but definitely mellows into a knowing smile when he zooms in on Hyunjin's face and their eyes meet. Hyunjin’s heart pounds. He’s never interacted with Minho in front of the others before. Cameras and staff, sure, but no one who would actually interfere or God forbid; ask them a question. How is that going to play out?

As Jisung drags them into the circle of people, Hyunjin realizes that Minho’s face is the only one he recognizes. Changbin must be here, and probably Seungmin, too. But the three who left to join Felix, San and Soobin must have been Yeonjun, Wooyoung and Chan. Even though Hyunjin absolutely could not say who would be who.

With a small jolt and significant amount of pure panic, Hyunjin realizes that these are the three people he actively chose to 'date’. Granted, he went for Minho relatively quickly, but still . Hyunjin might be used to attention, but not because of his personality. The way the two ‘stranger’s’ eyes widen slightly at the sight of him isn't the scary part, because Hyunjin has been on the receiving end of that look before. The scary part is wondering how weird this is going to get, and what Minho will think of it all, and if Hyunjin’s nerves will get the better of him and he’ll make a complete mess out of himself or not.

Jisung lets go of Hyunjin’s hand as he darts over to the man sitting on the far end of the couch and plops himself down into his lap. Changbin. Judging by the expression on the older’s face when Jisung arrives and plants a kiss on his cheek, Hyunjin seriously doubts that Jisung has anything to worry about.

No sooner is his hand free than another one, hastily growing more familiar to him, is tugging lightly on it instead and Minho is patting the seat between him and Changbin on the sofa for Hyunjin to sit down. There’s an annoying heat warming his cheeks, but hopefully the makeup artists did his cheeks as well as they did Minho’s throat.

“Hi, baby,” Minho murmurs once Hyunjin’s seated, still holding his hand with intertwined fingers and turning sideways towards Hyunjin’s - and the other’s - direction. “Kiss or no kiss?”

Hyunjin feels like a hopeless fool when his mouth stretches into a smile immediately.

“Kiss,” he answers - a little relieved that Minho stepped up and asked - while matching the low, private tone Minho kept. “Always ‘kiss’, hyung.”

He can taste the smile on Minho’s lips when the older leans in for a fleeting albeit sweet touch, and it’s still there when he presses another quick peck to Hyunjin’s willing mouth before sitting back up. Hyunjin appreciates the way their engagement rings rests against each other in his lap.

Then he mimics his fiancé’s movement and turns slightly away from Minho in favor of towards the others, since they’re supposed to mingle. Or whatever.

“Hyunjin-ssi?” asks a person who must be Seungmin, judging by the friendly sound of his voice and his arm around Jeongin’s shoulders over the back of their chairs. “I heard there were plans of a double date this upcoming Tuesday being made. Nice to meet you before then, I suppose. Again?”

Hyunjin nods while laughing quietly at Jeongin’s antics, and the youngest sure does look extremely self-satisfied in getting his way. “Seungmin-ssi? It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Excuse me,” Minho breaks in, teasing as ever when he catches Hyunjin’s eye. “I do not remember approving of going anywhere with Kim Seungmin. Do you know how obnoxious that person is, Hyunjin-ah? Are you really going to put your only fiancé through that?”

“Me?” Seungmin argues immediately, loudly but with a charming glint in his eye. Jeongin definitely seems to think so, at least. “Honestly, it’s a wonder to me how Minho hyung managed to score anyone in this place, not to mention two. I've never heard anyone complain that much in my life. How do you stand him, Hyunjin-ssi?”

A little stunned and at a whole loss for words, Hyunjin blinks for a moment before coming up with any sort of reply. The brief interactions he’d shared with Seungmin before had been nothing like this, and his banter with Minho is also completely new to Hyunjin. Is this the impression Minho has left on other people? Who might’ve spent more time with him? Why hasn’t Hyunjin seen it until now?

“That's true, actually,” Jisung decides to chirp in. “Changbin hyung said Minho hyung complained a lot about him, too. Isn't that right, hyung?”

“He did,” the person who must be Changbin agrees, only confusing Hyunjin further. “I don't even know where to start. I snored through the wall, I showered for too long, I was late for meals… Really, Hyunjin-ssi, kudos to you for putting up with his whining.”

Jisung and Jeongin both laugh, probably entertained by the exchange that they know very little of. Minho lived with Changbin and Seungmin during the whole time in the pods, which really are a great deal more days than Hyunjin has spent with him. They should know, right? Why doesn't he know?

“Jealousy is an ugly trait,” Minho tells them from beside Hyunjin, squeezing the younger’s hand briefly. “Stop trying to talk me down, please. It’s not my fault you both sulked over breakfast when you couldn’t see my fiancé anymore. And somehow, even the both of you managed to score a fiancé of your own. Kudos to them, if anything. I look forward to seeing if Jeongin will have kicked you to the curb before Tuesday, Kim Seungmin.”

Still unable to get a word in, Hyunjin’s eyes fall on Jisung who starts laughing even harder - especially when he sees the look on Changbin’s and Seungmin’s respective faces.

“There’s no point, boys,” Jisung says, grinning. “Minho hyung is brilliant. You’ll never win against him. Do you know how long he went to school for? On scholarship and everything? And now he nurses baby animals back to health. He’s a catch, and maybe especially if he calls you two out when you’re being stupid. Especially you, hyung.”

Jisung finishes with a kiss to Changbin’s cheek, and shrieks immediately after when Changbin sneaks a kiss onto Jisung’s mouth. Maybe to shut him up, maybe because this is their thing. Hyunjin doesn't know.

Hyunjin kind of feels like he doesn't know anything, actually.

“I don't wanna talk about Minho-ssi anymore,” Seungmin declares and looks pointedly towards Hyunjin again. “Hyunjin-ssi, what did you say you were doing again? I’m sorry, I don't remember, it’s been a while.”

“I do art,” Hyunjin replies, not even thinking twice about it because he has no desire of entering that mess and spilling it onto the table when he can barely tell up from down. Or his Minho from the real Minho, as it would seem. “What about you? I’m sorry, I don't remember either.”

Seungmin waves him off and tells a brief tale about a client he defended a couple weeks back and Hyunjin knows that Seungmin never told him that he was a lawyer because that would’ve forced Hyunjin to talk about his own profession, and he didn't do that until last night when he finally had Minho in private.

They take turns after that - Jeongin is in college, majoring in education; Changbin is in the music industry, writing songs for himself and others; Jisung works in programming and does IT-consults - until they reach Minho, who shrugs and says that he’s a vet, like Jisung said.

Rationally, Hyunjin realizes that Jisung knowing that fact about Minho is in no way anything to feel upset over. There was a point - or perhaps several - where Jisung wanted to marry Minho, which means that they must have learned things about each other for him to reach that point. Minho’s profession might have been a topic of conversation on all his ‘dates’, even, despite Hyunjin trying to avoid that topic for his whole stay. It’s not a big deal. Why is there a lump in his throat?

“Minho hyung!” Jisung calls, as if summoned, still with his arms around Changbin’s shoulders as he watches them. “This was your first time flying, right? What was it like? And what do you think of this place?”

Minho answers, relaying his experience so far, and ends up with his head resting over Hyunjin’s shoulder as he talks. It’s nice, Hyunjin will admit. He likes back-hugs, giving and receiving. But he doesn't fully like the way Minho and Jisung talk with a sense of familiarity and recognition that Hyunjin can’t imagine feeling with anyone except Minho. He knows it’s not fair, because he talked to Seungmin and Changbin for about 90 minutes in total, while Jisung and Minho had more than twice that time. He shouldn’t compare.

But he does, because Hyunjin is retracting into his nervous shell where he watches Seungmin and Jeongin whisper to each other as if they’ve forgotten the rest of them, and even Changbin seems pretty comfortable with the conversation around them and the remarks he’ll make here and there. Everyone seems comfortable except for Hyunjin, really.

Now, he is grateful that the attention isn’t on him. And it’s not like Minho is ignoring him all together; he literally draped himself over Hyunjin’s back and keeps playing with Hyunjin’s fingers between his own. It feels affectionate, and Hyunjin likes that.

He doesn't like the fact that he feels more and more like a pretty thing for the others to look at while they talk over his head. But he knows it’s his fault too. Changbin is taking part of the conversation and doesn't look very bothered by the way Minho and Jisung talk as if they’ve known each for a rather long time, and he clearly knows Minho himself. Hyunjin is just getting in his head about it. As usual.

“Hey, hyung,” he says the next time Minho falls quiet for a moment, and leans a little closer to the older, “I’m gonna go talk to Felix for a bit, okay?”

“Yeah, alright,” Minho murmurs back, turning his head to meet Hyunjin’s eyes a little searchingly. “Everything okay? Do you want me to come with?”

Despite everything, Hyunjin’s heart does a little cartwheel. “You don't have to, hyung, I’ll be fine.”

“That's not what I asked,” Minho tells him, squeezing Hyunjin’s hand again as he watches the younger's face closely. “I asked if you wanted me to come, baby. Not if I had to. You can ask me things simply because you want to ask, you know? You don't need another reason.”

Hyunjin swallows. The lump in his throat makes itself known again, and he’s not sure whether the relief or the guilt is the more prominent sensation. But he ends up nodding, because Minho deserves an answer.

“‘Yes’ because you understand or ‘yes’ because you want me to come along?” the older asks with a smile, lightly teasing. It makes Hyunjin’s own mouth twitch.

“Both,” Hyunjin replies, honestly, turning his gaze downwards as the bashful smile spreads over his face.

Most other trivial things Hyunjin has been feeling fade away when Minho’s lips graze his forehead suddenly, just the softest press of a kiss that almost hides the smile the older is still wearing.

“Alright, darling,” Minho murmurs against his skin, free hand coming up to curl around the side of Hyunjin’s face. “Lead the way then, hmm?”

***

When they’ve washed up and brushed their teeth and fallen into bed in their pj’s while enjoying the evening breeze through the glass doors, Hyunjin feels the kind of exhaustion he had felt inside the house, rather than the one from yesterday where he fell asleep several times during the day. The mental, emotional kind of tiredness from socializing and nerves and uncertainty. He’s glad the cameras are gone for some time.

He’s not sure, however, whether Minho actually wants to ask him something or if that's just Hyunjin’s anxiety making him overthink things, but the silence between them is a little too heavy to feel completely comfortable. At least to Hyunjin’s strung up body. Minho’s eyebrows do look slightly more furrowed than usual.

“Hyunjinnie?” Minho calls quietly, as if he read Hyunjin’s mind just now. He almost laughs. “Are you tired?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin replies, because he is, but also-- “and no. What about you?”

“A little,” Minho tells him, and his wide eyes look even larger in the moonlight than they do during the day. Hyunjin adores that. “Would a heart-to-heart be too much right now, do you think?”

Hyunjin feels his face shift in surprise. A heart-to-heart? About what? With the option of turning it down for now? What does that say about the content of whatever is on Minho’s mind?

“It’s okay, hyung,” he says, because Hyunjin is nowhere near closer to falling asleep now, that’s for sure. “What did you wanna talk about?”

“Tonight,” Minho shares, a little carefully. “And other things, maybe. I’m not sure. I can start, if you want.”

Swallowing, and then nodding, Hyunjin tries to steel himself. They’re not going to fight, right? Minho wouldn’t describe that as a 'heart-to-heart’, would he? God, he really doesn't want to fight with Minho. It’s inevitable, he knows, but still, he… The thought of it makes his stomach turn in on itself.

“You don't have to look so scared, baby,” Minho huffs, before giving him a small but seemingly genuine smile. “Should I turn around so I can’t look at you?”

“No,” Hyunjin protests instantly, “you can just hug me, hyung, come here.”

A moment later Hyunjin has been completely enveloped in his fiancé’s arms and is breathing onto his tee and the strong chest beneath, while he wraps himself like an octopus around Minho. Hyunjin is nervous. But he thinks Minho might be, too, if his racing heart is anything to go by.

“What did you wanna say?” he musters the courage to ask.

“That I love you,” Minho replies softly, despite his shaky tone, straight into Hyunjin’s hair while Minho’s fingers tremble against Hyunjin’s shoulder blades. “That I noticed you were kind of quiet tonight. That I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable somehow, and that I would really like it if you told me how so I’ll know not to do it again. I’m just barely starting to figure you out, Hwang Hyunjin, and there’s so much more I want to learn. If you want to tell me about tonight, I’d be very grateful.”

“Hyung,” Hyunjin whispers, squishing his eyelids together harshly at the obvious effort it must have taken Minho to say such a thing. The relief and guilt from earlier returns in full force. “You didn't do anything, it was just me being stupid and insecure. You don't have to apologize or--”

“I think I do,” Minho interrupts, holding him tighter for a second before letting go again. “I knew something was going on, but I didn't know how to fix it. So I didn’t. But I want to, Hyunjin, I don't want you to feel like I don't care. I care so much. Even if I can’t take all the bad things away, I want to try. I want to remove those I can. If you’ll let me.”

Surprising absolutely no one, probably, Hyunjin cries. Minho lets him, and holds him tightly until he’s gotten most of it out, and makes these small cooing, calming noises that Hyunjin really doesn't know if he’s ever heard before. From anyone. But it works, at least with Minho’s caring presence all around him, and he gives himself this out to release some of the tension inside of him before he explains it to Minho. It’s most likely for the best.

Then he tells Minho about how nerve-wracking it was to meet Seungmin and Changbin in particular, and how weird it felt to have them look at him for the first time and being reminded of the way people usually look at him, which he really hadn’t considered them doing since they actually ‘dated’ him, too. That’s the easy part, since it has nothing to do with Minho.

After that, he stutters through how bad it felt to realize that Minho and Jisung had chemistry, too, and that he was witnessing it with his own eyes for the first time. He makes sure to tell Minho that Hyunjin doesn't actually think the older did anything wrong or bad, but that it came as a shock for him which along with the already negative sensations only spiraled him further down.

When Minho whispers ‘okay’ and seems like he wants to say something more, Hyunjin hushes him because he needs to get this last bit out, too, if he’s ever going to. Minho only kisses his hair and tugs him closer, so Hyunjin supposes that he seems willing to wait.

And so he explains how horrible it felt once the thought struck him that he really didn't participate in the on-going conversation at all, and instead just sat there like a pretty thing for the rest of them to watch. Because they did watch, and so will the viewers, later. And it’s not like Hyunjin can stop anyone from looking at him, and he certainly doesn't blame anyone for looking because the whole show is so very strange in that aspect, but still, it…

It hurts even saying it out loud, but he does it anyway. Hyunjin doesn't want to be eye candy for Minho or anyone else. He doesn't want people to look at him and think that his visuals are what he brings to the table in question. He doesn't want people to look at them and think that Minho is with him because Hyunjin is a model and wow, how lucky is he? And he knows that these thoughts aren't all reasonably grounded, but they’re there anyway, and he tries to explain it despite how thick his throat feels and how the swooping in his stomach makes him want to throw up.

He wants Minho to be with him for him, and he wants everyone else to know that. It’s one of the main reasons he came on the show, and why it meant so indescribably much that Minho actually ended up proposing to him. He loves Minho, and he believes that Minho loves him, too. Maybe not fully, since they have so much left to learn. But he does believe that Minho loves the Hyunjin that he knows so far, in the same way that Hyunjin loves him. It's the best thing he can hope for, and if Minho says that he loves him then Hyunjin will be damned if he doesn't believe him.

So he nods and lets his tears stain Minho’s shirt as the older tells him just that. He listens to Minho murmur “i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you” until Hyunjin can hardly hear the thoughts inside his head anymore, and then he listens some more. He thinks Minho might cry, too, but he doesn't ask and he doesn't look. There’s just a feeling, based on the way Minho’s body moves in his hold and the way Minho’s voice doesn't sound like it normally does.

Once Hyunjin’s own body has settled down for the second time, he tries to answer Minho’s careful questions to the best of his ability. He doesn't know exactly why he feels the way he does, and he’s not sure how to find a solution that would make it go away, either. But he tries, and it feels like Minho acknowledges that. It feels like Minho cares. Hyunjin isn't sure what else he could ask for. This probably won't be their last conversation about this topic, but Hyunjin feels reassured either way.

When Minho asks if he should save his own insecurities for tomorrow or if Hyunjin would want to hear them now to take his mind off of things, Hyunjin takes a long moment to consider.

“Can you fall asleep tonight without getting it off your chest?” he asks, because Hyunjin would guess that he can do both options. “It feels unfair to get you vulnerable if we’re both already drained, but I would feel worse if I fell asleep and it kept you up, hyung. You decide. Both are okay.”

“Now, then,” Minho answers, pressing another kiss to the top of Hyunjin’s head. “Let's get all the sad things out of the way, hmm? Only happy things tomorrow.”

Hyunjin nods before untangling himself and hoisting his body up the mattress until they’re face to face again, and he can look at Minho’s lovely features for a bit. He reaches into the small space between them and takes both of Minho’s hands, brings them to his own mouth to kiss the older’s knuckles simply because he feels the urge to, and then puts them back onto the soft sheets. Still clasped within his own larger hands, of course.

“Tell me, Minho hyung,” he says. “What’s been on your mind?”

“You,” the older replies, smiling briefly before poking Hyunjin’s cheek. With his nose, since his hands are still encased in Hyunjin’s. It makes both of them release a little tension through their giggles. “Always you, darling.”

“What’s the problem, then?” Hyunjin asks. Still smiling, but as a genuine question. “Let me see if I can help.”

Minho darts his eyes between Hyunjin’s for a second before exhaling deeply, and Hyunjin is sort of grateful that he emptied himself earlier so he doesn't have the energy to worry ahead of whatever Minho is about to say now.

“I’m not sure there even is a problem,” he says, almost mumbling, which is how Hyunjin knows that Minho is actually affected by this, “just… It had nothing to do with you in particular, but then it sort of did. Do you remember what I said in the pods, that day you thought I was going to propose? About being one person out of six in there but out of billions out here?”

Hyunjin nods. He can't say that he’s been thinking about that specific part about everything Minho said to him that day, but he definitely remembers. “Yeah?”

“Well,” Minho says with a wry smile, “finding out that my fiancé is a literal supermodel didn't really help on that account.”

“... oh.”

But Minho smiles, a bit more entertained at least, at whatever expression must cross Hyunjin’s face. He feels a little stunned, but he’d also been sort of worrying that his career would affect Minho somehow, so…

“Tell me more,” he asks Minho, shuffling closer until their noses almost brush. “Explain it to me. Please. I don't want to assume.”

Indulging him; Minho does.

He explains how he may be older than Hyunjin but actually has less experience concerning lots of things, from more trivial matters like how an airport works to what feels like more important factors like how a relationship works. That Minho doesn't feel insecure or embarrassed about his education or profession or apartment or life, in general, but that he definitely worries about there being a mismatch between them that he won't be able to mend. That he has wondered what people will think when the show airs and someone must recognize Hyunjin - which is very true - and discover that same gap that Minho has.

Minho closes his eyes and shares that he doesn't know if he will be enough for Hyunjin, no matter how hard he tries or how much he wants to be. Minho will never be part of the life that has been Hyunjin’s for his entire adulthood, and he will never fully understand the issues Hyunjin has and in some parts still is struggling with due to that life.

When Minho starts apologizing for the way he’s unsure about the whole having/being-a-partner-thing and how he asks so much and how he wants Hyunjin’s reassurance and to know what he’s thinking and feeling all the time - in an increasingly wobbly voice - Hyunjin himself starts choking up and drops Minho’s hands in favor of throwing his arms around his fiancé instead.

“Minho, don't ever apologize for any of that,” he says, as a strangely fierce and almost protective feeling grows inside his chest. He holds Minho tighter, until they’re completely flush against each other. “I appreciate all of it so much. It’s so helpful and such a caring idea and it makes me feel like you value me and this relationship so much, and I hope I make you feel like that too, baby. Minho, I love you. I love you. I’ll spend my whole life proving it to you, if you’ll let me.”

Against him, Minho’s body goes unnervingly still. Until Hyunjin feels the dampness of his shirt clinging to chest, and realizes that Minho is probably feeling the same way Hyunjin did not too long ago.

“Don't cry, baby,” Hyunjin murmurs over Minho’s head hooked beneath his chin. Their positions have been reversed, but as soon as the words leave Hyunjin's mouth, he realizes that they are the same ones that Minho told him the first time they did this.

“No matter what my life had looked like up until now, chances are there are things you couldn't relate to either way and I can promise you that I will feel like that more than once when we actually return to our real lives, too,” he continues. “I can't speak for that gap, Minho, because it’s there, like you said. But I don't think you need to worry about it, hyung, because I don't think I wanna do it anymore. I think I’ll settle for ruining your apartment with all my paints and brushes and canvas and pencils and sketch pads and--”

Minho vibrates with his laughter before it escapes Hyunjin’s chest and the sound is audible between them, and Hyunjin thinks they’re both all the calmer for it.

“You’re gonna get so tired of me you’ll kick me out and put me back in my own apartment,” Hyunjin teases, tangling his fingers in Minho’s messy locks as the older keeps on laughing against him. “Wait until you find out I’m nocturnal and eat around the clock whenever I can. Also, with the right snacks, I’ll literally eat everything. If you want snacks, you might need to hide them from me, hyung. Oh, and I take really long baths, just a fair warning, and also--”

When Minho’s lips silence him, they're both still smiling into the kiss. Hyunjin’s hand is tightly wound into Minho’s hair, using his leverage to keep the older against him, and Minho’s hand falls onto Hyunjin's cheek, thumb finding his cheekbone immediately. They're good at this now, Hyunjin realizes with a skip to his heartbeat. They're good at kissing and good at talking and good at navigating their way around each other. They're good together.

Things might just actually work out.

Chapter Text

The following day is indeed spent without tears, and “only happy things tomorrow” as Minho had promised the night before. When the staff come knocking around 10am for the second time, Minho - kindly - shushes them away. Then he returns to share his body heat with the pouting fiancé he left in bed, and is profusely thanked through affectionate kisses for the next thirty minutes when Minho shares that they won’t be back before then.

They mostly spend the day sunbathing and napping in the shade and at one point, Hyunjin asks Minho to read aloud for him. Hyunjin never found - or took, maybe - the time to indulge in books the way he might have wanted to, but Minho brought a few to keep his mind off of things inside the pods, and so Hyunjin asks the older to read out loud on a complete whim.

Minho looks a bit surprised, but only for a moment, to his credit. Hyunjin finds out that his fiancé might have the most soothing voice in the world, and feels relaxed and satisfied through and through when he curls up inside Minho’s embrace - Hyunjin’s back to Minho’s chest - and scoots down so Minho will be able to read even as Hyunjin follows along. They go through many pages and Hyunjin feels a bit bad about not being outside to soak in the sun, but being propped up in bed like this allows them to actually cuddle without dying from the heat, and if Hyunjin had to choose? Cuddling Minho outranks tanning every time.

They have a late dinner outside by the water, and end up staying to even later hours while chewing on snacks rather than food. ‘Only happy things’ stays as a reminder for Hyunjin for most of the day, but he forgets all about it the longer they spend outside. Hyunjin simply grows too distracted by Minho’s giggles when Hyunjin shares stories from his childhood, and too entranced by the way Minho’s little teeth will peek out when he listens intently, and too enamored by the nodding and ‘oh-oh-oh’-ing Minho does when he remembers something they’ve already talked about.

For the first time, they prepare for bed while the camera crew is still hanging around. Still taking turns in the bathroom, Hyunjin decides to clean up a bit since his messy habits have managed to showcase themselves even in these two or three days. Hair ties and rings are all over the place and he really doesn’t want to leave any behind, since they’ve only got a little more than two days left. His clothes are also strewn across their living area, and he collects most of the items and half-heartedly sorts them into piles.

When Minho opens the door and the steam enters the living area, he waves to Hyunjin to come over. He almost dies on the spot. The cameras are definitely catching this. Do they think…?

“I’m done,” Minho tells him, sleeping shorts already on while he pulls a shirt over his head. “Your turn, darling.”

And of course. Of course Minho didn’t mean anything at all by beckoning Hyunjin over. It was literally the younger’s turn to wash up before bed. Why did Hyunjin’s brain bring him to the gutter that fast?

His shower may take slightly longer than previously, but Hyunjin doubts anyone will notice that. The staff have Minho to focus on now, and if they’ve left, then… Well.

When he leaves the bathroom, Minho is already in bed. Hyunjin literally stops short when he spots him; mostly hidden by blankets and half-dried hair falling over his face. Minho has one leg thrown over a pillow - since Hyunjin isn’t there yet, he supposes - and looks devastatingly soft and fluffy. The camera crew is nowhere to be seen, and Hyunjin is glad. He kind of… doesn’t want anyone to see Minho like this but him.

“Hi, baby,” Hyunjin murmurs as he climbs in next to his fiancé, quiet and careful not to wake Minho if he’d actually fallen asleep already. “Sleepy, huh? Long day?”

“’s the heat,” Minho mumbles back, cheek still pressed against the pillow as he folds into Hyunjin’s body when it surrounds him. “‘Got to my head. ‘So tired.”

“Aww,” Hyunjin coos, pressing a kiss to Minho’s damp hair and staying still while Minho gets himself comfortable against Hyunjin’s slightly taller body. “Let’s go to sleep, then, hmm? And see each other in the morning, instead?”

Minho nods into Hyunjin’s neck, and his breath tickles a bit. Not in an uncomfortable way; just enough to have goosebumps breaking out over Hyunjin’s bare arms. He likes having Minho this close. He likes knowing that the last thing both of them will be aware of before drifting off to sleep and also the first thing while returning from it will be each other. It’s intimate in a special kind of way, one that’s very different from kissing or holding hands or even just touching. It’s intimate in the same sense that a promise is, Hyunjin thinks. The weight of it is more tangible. He likes that.

***

On the second to last day, they end up renting jet skis.

Hyunjin has never been on one before, and neither has Minho, apparently. But they spot some other guests doing it while having breakfast, and Hyunjin only has to make the off-hand comment that ‘that seems fun’ before Minho is nodding along.

And it is, to Hyunjin’s absolute delight.

It’s surprisingly easy to get the hang of, and the ocean is kind enough to cooperate with them. Minho catches on quicker than he does, but that’s okay. Hyunjin is faster to learn how to use his pouts and whines and batted eyelashes than he is to learn the jet ski, but priorities. Minho easily settles down next to him to point and explain where he pulled and where he pushed to do whatever he just did, and while Hyunjin is definitely distracted by Minho’s bare arms bulging out of his life jacket, he also appreciates Minho’s patience.

Minho is incredibly patient, actually, Hyunjin has come to notice. Maybe it’s the care-taker instincts in him, maybe it isn’t. Either way Hyunjin cannot for the life of him relate even the slightest to the complaints Changbin and Seungmin had during that conversation the other night, but he feels better about that now. This is his fourth whole day with Minho, and it may not be the same, but he’s getting there. They’re getting there, actually. And Minho still hasn’t done anything beyond teasing him or maybe laughing at him once or twice, but always with a twinkle to his eyes.

Driving jet skis is an exhausting pastime, however, and Hyunjin is the one falling asleep after devouring his dinner on the second to last night. He remembers Minho’s wide eyes and abrupt giggles when Hyunjin caught himself mid-chew - cheeks puffier than Jisung’s, probably - and how he blushed at how stupid he must’ve looked. He remembers sharing dessert afterwards and Minho spoon-feeding him - “I don’t trust you not to choke otherwise” - and the sweet taste of the ice cream. He remembers Minho’s fingers in his hair and feet tangled with his, once he’d been steered into bed with heavy limbs, and then he remembers nothing.

He’d bet money on Minho remaining close to him for the entire night, either way.

***

On the last morning of their pre-honeymoon, Hyunjin wakes up well-rested but with something bittersweet aching inside of him. He doesn’t want to leave.

It’s almost ridiculous how quickly Minho catches on, but Hyunjin supposes that it might be written all over his face. Minho might even feel the same way, that could also be it. But when the older kisses his cheeks and nose and eyes until Hyunjin laughs and then resorts to chasing Minho’s lips with his own, Hyunjin forgets about his sentimentality for a short while, at least.

“Hyung,” he whispers when the knocking on the door sounds through the room. “I think we should make more memories today.”

Hyunjin isn’t sure if Minho’s eyes flicker over the younger’s face in surprise, confusion, or disbelief, but he figures it might be one of those three. Minho doesn’t reply - not verbally - but he does lift Hyunjin’s face by his chin to press their lips together one final time, and Hyunjin thinks there’s an edge to this kiss that wasn’t present in the earlier ones. Maybe Minho is remembering exactly what Hyunjin wants him to remember?

Then Minho skips out of bed as usual to let the crew in, while Hyunjin wallows in misery over not getting to kiss his fiancé silly for hours this morning either. What’s the point of being in paradise if you can’t spend it doing just that?

But it doesn’t take long for Hyunjin to realize that there is something different in the air about today, and that the overall ambience surrounding them is laced with something much heavier than before. It could be in the way Minho’s eyes hardly stray from him all day, or perhaps even more telling; the light touches Minho sneaks in throughout the day whether they’re eating or sunbathing or cooling off in the pool.

(It could also be the way Hyunjin takes every opportunity to stretch a little bit deeper or lean a little bit closer or… touch his lips. A little bit more often than even his usual habit allows.)

All in all, it’s really no wonder that one glass of champagne on their long-lasting dinner leads to another, or that Hyunjin agrees when Minho asks if he wants to take one final bath, or that Hyunjin has to hide his disappointment when Minho finds both swimming trunks and a shirt to enter the pool in and he reasonably has to do the same thing himself.

But the cameras are still rolling, so Hyunjin downs his third glass of champagne before setting it aside and leaning into Minho’s space as soon as he steps into the hot water himself, and wastes no time in mimicking their initial position from the first night. Minho’s hands are quick to feel the younger’s legs up where they’ve been placed over his lap, and Hyunjin leans in to press a kiss behind Minho’s ear while smirking as he feels the full-body shiver such a small action could bring forth.

“Seems familiar, doesn’t it?” he murmurs, teeth grazing over Minho’s earlobe.

Minho nods, collected, but his grip on Hyunjin’s mid-thigh tightens beneath the water. Hyunjin has no idea if a camera can catch that or not, but he doesn’t really care. He’s tipsy, he’s in love, and he’s in paradise. A little groping between fiancés never killed anyone.

(Even if it’s going straight to a global streaming service, right?)

“I seem to remember us getting even more familiar with each other than this, though, hyung.”

“I think you’ll have to refresh my memory, Hyunjinnie,” Minho replies, just as quietly although into the open air. “How familiar did we get, baby?”

Hyunjin takes the older’s words as an invitation, and collects an earring between his teeth to pull lightly one more time before leaving Minho’s side in favor of straddling him pointedly and sinking down on top of those marvelous thighs once more. Minho’s arms fly around him immediately - pulling him even closer to Hyunjin’s absolute delight - but it still takes him by surprise when Minho captures his lips and holds him steady with a firm hand on his spine.

Minho tastes of his own two glasses of champagne and the sweet dessert they ate earlier, but also like heat and promise and oddly enough… familiar. The shape of Minho’s lips against his is almost habitual to him now, and the thought of growing so intimately domestic with each other shouldn’t make Hyunjin’s heart beat as fast as it does.

In time with his heart pounding away, so does Hyunjin’s need to be touched. Minho’s arms around him are lovely, don’t get him wrong, but Hyunjin’s clothed back isn’t his most sensitive body part and not the one that can satisfy him right now, either. So he reaches behind him to find Minho’s wrist and pulls one arm downwards, until Minho’s hand is splayed out over his hip and the older’s fingers dangerously close to Hyunjin’s skin beneath his shirt swaying in the water.

“Touch me,” he breathes onto Minho’s quickly swelling lips, sensing that the explicit permission might ease things along. “It’s okay, hyung, please, touch me. I really want you to.”

Minho murmurs an ‘okay, baby’ right back, hand quickly slipping beneath the wet fabric and tugging at Hyunjin’s waist hard enough to pull him closer and maybe even bruise him up a bit. Hyunjin tries really hard to make sure the whimper that escapes him doesn’t travel further than into Minho’s mouth against his.

“Why’re you wearing this?” Hyunjin complains, pulling at the neck of Minho’s shirt before slipping his wet hand into Minho’s hair instead. “If the cameras weren’t around, hyung, I swear…--”

“If the cameras weren’t what, baby?” Minho repeats, covering Hyunjin’s lips with his own before the younger has a chance to respond. “What would you do, hmm? Tell hyung.”

Hyunjin squirms in his seat, which is, coincidentally, his fiancés lap. The rather small but definitely considerable rock of his hips against Minho’s has them both gasping into each other’s mouths, and everything feels so hot but Hyunjin doesn’t want it to stop. He wants the opposite, actually.

“I’d take it off so fast,” he pants, more or less into Minho’s mouth and hopes he’s still keeping the volume too quiet for anyone to catch. “‘Wanna feel you, hyung, God, I wish they weren’t here. ‘Want you so bad.”

Taking him completely by surprise, Minho unconsciously breaks the next kiss Hyunjin initiates by smiling widely. Although, in Minho’s defense, he tugs a lock of stray hair behind Hyunjin’s ear before leaning in for another one.

“Yeah?” Minho asks quietly, still smiling, sounding almost as if he’s… also surprised? “Will you tell me again, darling?”

“...that I want you?” Hyunjin all but stutters. He expected Minho to maybe groan or say the same thing back, but not… not look at him like that? “Of course I do, Minho, I… It’s all I can think about. This whole day, you’re all I’ve been thinking about. I mean, before today, too, but you know that, I just--”

“I just wanted to hear you say it again, Hyunjin,” Minho whispers, damp lips on top of Hyunjin’s already plump ones before the younger even catches the movement. “It just… just didn’t feel real the first time. I wondered this morning, but--”

“I want you, Lee Minho,” Hyunjin interrupts him, breaking apart until he can look Minho in the eyes and imprint the words behind the older’s eyelids, because that’s exactly how serious they are to him. “I want you so bad I feel like I can’t think straight. Which would be scary, if it weren’t you. I know I said ‘no’ that first time and I know that you haven’t asked since and probably waited for me to do it instead, so this is me being upfront about what I want, hyung, because you deserve that. It’s okay if you wanna say ‘no’ now. Like we said a couple nights ago; there’s really no rush. But if you ask me tonight what you asked me last time, my answer would change.”

Strangely enough, Hyunjin doesn’t feel ready to throw up due to his nerves and exposing himself to Minho like this. He actually doesn’t feel like he’s about to throw up at all. The realization only heightens the anticipation and exhilaration he feels about what the night might have in store for them, and while he certainly would understand if Minho were the one to decline this time, Hyunjin would be lying if he claimed not to hope that Minho feels the same way he does.

“Hwang Hyunjin,” Minho starts, throwing him off a little. “I wish you could feel what I feel for you right now.”

Minho’s lips part as if he’s about to say something else, but… Actually, maybe he does say something else, but Hyunjin just can’t hear it because his brain has short-circuited.

Instead, he interrupts Minho’s possible speech or his stunned expression or whatever it is Hyunjin can’t process at the moment, and just acts. He catches Minho’s face in both his hands and Minho’s lips on his own, crashing them together more forcefully than he has so far. Minho is surprisingly quick to reciprocate, and spreads his legs a bit for Hyunjin to settle down even closer against him, as their wet skin and wet clothes and wet lips are so tightly pressed together that Hyunjin doubts even a strand of hair could fit between them.

Hyunjin hears the faint mewling noise before he realizes that it came from him, which shocks another weak sound straight out of his body. He feels almost frantic with need, in a way he barely recognizes. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anyone this bad in his life, because none of them have ever made Hyunjin feel the way Minho seems unable to stop making him feel. Hyunjin wants more. Hyunjin wants Minho to want more, too. Hyunjin wants Minho to want him.

“Tell me to stop,” Minho suddenly says, imitating Hyunjin’s request from the other day, “anytime, Hyunjin, okay? Tell me to stop.”

“I won’t,” Hyunjin tells him without even having to think about it. “I’d tell you, but I won’t want you to stop, Minho. Please, don’t stop.”

Minho groans, and then attaches their lips again only to kindly part them when Hyunjin pokes at him to do just that. And it’s while Hyunjin busies himself with tasting the older from the inside out, that Minho’s fingers dip beneath the waistband of Hyunjin’s swimming trunks.

Hyunjin isn’t sure if his breath or his hips stutter the worst, but they both sure do. On complete instinct, he arches his back to allow Minho’s fingers to reach further down, which only pushes his hips deeper into the thighs beneath him. It’s all wet and slick below his elbows, but with how he’s pressing into Minho’s body there isn’t one part of him that feels cold.

“More,” he pants, arching further when he senses Minho’s touch following the movement. “More, more, more, more--”

“Schhh,” Minho hushes him gently, using his other hand - which Hyunjin has completely forgotten about - to caress his cheek again. It’s the third time or something, but Hyunjin isn’t about to start complaining. “Like you said, if the cameras weren’t around… But they are, darling. I’ll give you more if you want, but they’re still here. Should I touch you anyway?”

(It’s only now that Hyunjin realizes that Minho is continuously holding Hyunjin’s face to shield it from the camera.)

“Yes.” Hyunjin’s eyes are closed and he doesn’t know which expression his face has taken, but he means it. He hopes Minho can tell. “Maybe don’t undress me, but please touch me anyway. Please, hyung.”

Minho nods, understanding, and slips his whole hand into Hyunjin’s bottoms to properly grab at him while his teeth find Hyunjin’s lower lip and pulls. Not enough to hurt, but enough to bring Hyunjin’s desire to new levels. Definitely not doing wonders for the younger’s attempts at being quiet, that’s for sure.

Hyunjin would estimate that he lasts about five minutes with this sudden development, where Minho basically fondles this new part of Hyunjin’s body while treating the part he might know the best far rougher than ever before. He does his best in running his hands all over Minho’s chest and biceps and shoulders in return, but it’s not the same with the stupid shirt in the way. Needless to say, this is not going to be enough for him.

“Hyung,” Hyunjin calls, as quietly as he can but enough to grab Minho’s attention, “we need to go. We need to go inside, right now. The cameras, they… I…--”

“Okay,” Minho replies immediately, tucking Hyunjin’s face into his neck and cradling it with his hand. “Okay, baby, hold on.”

Before Hyunjin can realize what he’s supposed to hold on to, Minho’s hand is pulled off and wrapping itself around Hyunjin’s thigh, and then Minho is standing and it’s just sheer dumb luck that has Hyunjin’s instincts kicking in to wrap his legs fully around Minho’s middle. The water helps, of course, density and all that stuff Hyunjin doesn’t care about right now, but Hyunjin is still disappointed when Minho places him on the edge of the pool rather than carry him all the way inside. He makes a mental note to ask to be carried around another time.

Minho pulls away to reach for their robes, and wraps one around Hyunjin’s soaked clothes since only his calves remain in the water, and then another around himself. Hyunjin takes the moment at hand to look at Minho properly, and feels his heart ache inside his chest for some reason.

“You’re so beautiful that it sort of hurts to look at you,” he confesses, feeling a disbelieving smile pull at his lips. Has Minho been insecure about his looks, as well, when he looks like this? “Minho, you… Let me memorize this so I can paint it when we go home. You, in the moonlight, this moment. Just… don’t move.”

His lips part in stunned surprise, but Minho remains where he is and watches Hyunjin quietly in return. When the younger deems himself satisfied and stands up to pull Minho along with him, the older goes willingly. Hyunjin doesn’t take even one second to turn around or throw the staff a single look, but opts for the bathroom straight away and throws the door shut behind them once their wet feet have padded all the way inside.

“Shower with me,” he asks, breathless but too enthusiastic to feel embarrassed about that fact. Let Minho know just how much he affects Hyunjin. “We’re a few minutes off from midnight, right? Let’s wash up. Together.”

Minho smiles before he nods. But he laces their fingers together faster than Hyunjin can, and leans in to press a soft kiss to the younger’s worn lips before tugging him closer to the large shower with its seven different sets of drizzles. Minho is still smiling, however, and it’s contagious, and Hyunjin feels a smile of his own spreading across his face quickly.

“Why do I feel like this is even naughtier than what we did in the pool?” he asks, giggling but pulling at the knot of Minho’s robe until he can push it off his shoulders and toss it aside. “Nobody can see us, and yet…”

“And yet, maybe their imagination will fill in the blanks?” Minho provides, laughing under his breath as well.

Hyunjin’s strangely nimble fingers go for his own robe next, pulling it apart and throwing it to the floor. Then he looks at Minho, who is already looking at him. Minho’s cheeks are flushed and his eyes are crinkled at the corners and his chest is heaving slightly, but he doesn’t necessarily look nervous. He doesn’t look like he wants to run away either, which is a win by itself in Hyunjin’s book.

Actively trying not to overthink his actions, Hyunjin reaches for the hem of his own shirt and pulls it over his head, shaking his hair out a bit. When his gaze returns to his fiancé's, he finds that it really hasn’t changed. So Hyunjin goes for Minho’s shirt next - which is clinging for its dear life to his strong torso, more or less - and asks a quiet ‘Can I?’ before carefully removing it at Minho’s nod.

He swallows. How does Minho somehow look better everytime Hyunjin sees him? With or without clothes, Hyunjin’s fiancé is the epitome of the word ‘handsome’, and… And Hyunjin can only hope he isn't outright drooling, honestly.

“Bottoms next?” Minho asks softly, interrupting Hyunjin’s staring contest with his chest with a small smile that only makes Hyunjin’s heart pound faster. “Hmm?”

Nodding, Hyunjin takes a step closer, lining them up against each other until Minho’s hands come to rest on the younger’s hips and toy with the soaked fabric covering them. He releases a shaky breath into the air before tilting his face downwards instead, where he can nuzzle into Minho’s jaw.

“That was a ‘yes’, right?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin confirms, almost light-headed with want and grabbing onto Minho's shoulders for support. “Take them off, hyung. ‘Wanna be closer.”

If Hyunjin were the one initiating their actions so far, then the roles are reversing with every light touch Minho drags over his bare skin. Hyunjin can feel how the tension leaves his own body as Minho holds him with gentle hands, and he can also hear the sigh that escapes him when the sticky clothes are finally off.

They half-stumble into the large shower since both of them are pretty reluctant to let go of the other, and Hyunjin takes the opportunity to lean back against the cold tiles to clear his head a bit when Minho goes for the right settings. He still doesn't feel nervous, per se, but there is a tingling sensation inside of him.

“Still okay?” Minho makes sure, reaching for Hyunjin’s hand. “You good, baby?”

“‘m good,” he replies, squeezing almost out of reassuring habit. “Come back and kiss me, hyung. You're too far.”

Minho chuckles briefly before complying. There's a light spray of clean water above them that feels sort of like a summer drizzle rather than rain, and Hyunjin is grateful because that means that he can take pleasure in Minho’s wet mouth against his, and the easy slide of their naked bodies against the other, and the slick excitement of being held against a wall, without having to worry about drowning should he start gasping with pleasure.

The kisses are tentative at first; maybe not like that first day but slightly slower-paced than when they exited the pool. They feel like a warm-up of sorts, rather than the main event. Hyunjin’s blood thrums in his veins at the implication.

“Let me touch you,” he almost begs, hoping that Minho understands what he means since Hyunjin’s hands are already digging into the muscles of his back. “Please, hyung, let me make you feel as good as you make me. Please. Can I?”

“Yes, baby,” Minho promises against Hyunjin’s panting mouth, fingers digging deeper into the younger’s ribs. “I’m all yours. Only yours. Wherever you want is okay.”

Hyunjin moans, maybe loud enough for anyone still outside to catch it. He doesn't care. Minho just said he was Hyunjin’s. The rest of the world can go to Hell, actually.

“You too,” he murmurs, rushing to get the words out as his hands travel down Minho’s back and catch on his hips. “You too, hyung, exactly what you just said, everywhere, I--”

Maybe he should feel offended that Minho cuts him off with another press of plush lips against his, but Hyunjin doesn't. He only feels wanted, and he feels kind of… treasured? He feels like he means something important to Minho; something special that other people don't. He’s not sure whether it’s actually true or not, but he refuses to linger on that for now. For now, he’ll settle for the good, tangible things he definitely is feeling.

Satisfaction bursts inside his chest when Hyunjin slowly, carefully keeps one hand on Minho’s soft side and wraps the other around the older’s (not quite as soft) length, and Minho’s whole body shivers along with the quiet whimper that leaves him. It’s a heady rush; being the cause of such a reaction with one single touch, and naturally, Hyunjin is greedy for more.

“Why is your hand so fucking big?” Minho chokes all of a sudden, laughing a bit and making Hyunjin do the same. It mellows him up a little. Hyunjin really couldn’t say that Minho feels small inside his hand, not by any means, but he can imagine that the sensation is different. 

“It’s not my fault your hands are so tiny and cute, hyung,” Hyunjin teases, still tugging slowly but firmly at him. “Like the rest of you, I suppose.”

“Watch how tiny these hands are when they strangle you, Hwang Hyunjin.”

At once, both of them freeze in motion and stare at each other with wide eyes. Hyunjin knows where the heat in his own cheeks is coming from, but is Minho becoming increasingly flushed for that reason or because he’s embarrassed?

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry!” Minho splutters once he seems to realize what he just said, even going so far as to take a step back and out of Hyunjin’s reach. “Oh, my god, that's so inappropriate, I’m so sorry, Hyunjin-ah, I didn't mean--”

“You meant it as a joke,” Hyunjin states, through his slight confusion. “I teased you about your small, tiny hands and you teased me back in a very threatening but also really hot way. Is that not what just happened?”

Minho blinks at him, mouth still parted. “...wait, you thought that was hot?”

“Well, it’s embarrassing when you say it like that!”

“I’m sorry, I’m just in shock because I’m pretty sure I sounded like a serial killer!”

Hyunjin stares for another second - cheeks still furiously burning - before he bursts out laughing. He hunches over and giggles until he thinks he can feel tears springing up in his eyes, and then he laughs some more. At some point, Minho crouches in front of him and catches his eye, and Hyunjin’s giggles are renewed when he spots Minho’s flashing red ears but a grin back on his face.

“I’m sorry for laughing,” Hyunjin apologizes, even though he’s… still laughing. “I didn't mean to freak you out or anything, I just froze because that was surprisingly sexy of you to say even though apparently you froze because you thought I thought you were gonna kill me in my sleep. It’s kind of funny that your brain went to ‘oh my god he’s gonna think i want to kill him’ and mine went to ‘oh my god please choke me that’d be so hot’. Doesn't that capture our personalities perfectly?”

He’s sort of serious about it, but also finds it really funny, and apparently Hyunjin’s summary of what just happened is humorous enough that Minho starts laughing too. Hyunjin is vaguely reminded of the situation they're actually in when he hears a door close, and feels grateful that the cameras didn't capture this. Not because he’s particularly embarrassed, but because he feels closer to Minho now. Getting naked together and fooling around - for the first time - only for something weird to happen and solve that with laughter instead of crippling shame is a good thing, Hyunjin thinks. Like the rest of it. Like the rest of them.

“I appreciate that,” Minho tells him once their giggles are almost quieted down. “I wasn’t actually planning on choking you either to death or in the sexy way, so I’m sorry if at least one of those disappointed you. I was only teasing, like you said.”

“Aww,” Hyunjin pouts despite his smile, “I was beginning to look forward to it, hyung.”

“Oh, my god,” Minho giggles once more, reaching for Hyunjin's shoulder to push him lightly back towards the tiles with an instant huff. “Let’s agree to keep it in mind, okay? We’re not doing that tonight. That’s a ‘no’. Another time.”

Hyunjin can't help smiling back at his adorable fiancé. ‘Another time’. Hyunjin is so whipped.

“Okay,” he agrees, nodding as he watches how happy Minho looks, despite everything. “Sounds good to me, hyung. Although, that reminds me; what are we doing tonight?”

“I mean, I was gonna do you.”

Hyunjin laughs so hard that he figures sliding down the tiles until he’s on the shower floor might actually be the safest action, and does just that. He pulls his knees up and hides his face against them as he laughs, maybe more than the situation calls for, but letting his unrestrained giggles out either way because Hyunjin genuinely feels like he doesn't have a care in the world outside of this one moment.

“You’re so mean,” Minho complains, mirroring him on the floor, but grinning far too wide to actually mean it. “Here I am, trying to be all sexy, and you just laugh at me. Wow. Meanest fiancé in the world.”

“Liar,” Hyunjin accuses, far too entertained to stop smiling just yet. “You’re not trying to be sexy, hyung. You're trying to make me laugh, and it’s working.”

Minho looks at him in silence instead of answering, but the gentle downturn of his eyes tells Hyunjin that he’s right.

“You know I tense up,” Hyunjin continues, softer than before, “and you don't want me to be tense for this, so you're trying to make me laugh rather than rile me up any further than I already do myself. Am I wrong?”

“No,” Minho agrees after a short moment of silent contemplation and eyes flickering over the younger’s face. “No, you're not wrong.”

“Hah!” Hyunjin cheers quickly, scrunching his face and wiggling his shoulders a bit in mock victory. “I know you, Minho hyung. Who would've thought? I’m starting to see through you.”

“Didn't you always?”

Hyunjin’s lips part in surprise, because Minho doesn't look like he’s joking anymore. Light-hearted and easy, sure, but he’s definitely being serious to some extent as well.

“Hyung…”

“Never mind,” Minho smiles, reaching for Hyunjin's hands instead. “We didn't come here to talk, did we? We can do that for the whole flight if we want to. Get up, I’ll wash your hair for you.”

Having someone else wash your hair is always a pleasure, and Hyunjin has had it done to him many times before. But having your fiancé wash your hair with careful fingers and kisses pressed to your shoulders is something else entirely, and Hyunjin sort of wishes that Minho would do this for him everyday from now on. That’s how good it feels.

Once they've exited the showers and half-dried themselves up, Hyunjin practically vibrates with the effort it takes him to keep his hands to himself. What was he saying about Minho growing more handsome every time Hyunjin looked at him again?

“Hyung,” he murmurs, reaching for Minho’s hand and feels it easily lock into place inside his own, “hyung, can we…? Now?”

“Can we what, hmm?” Minho asks, stepping closer to put his free hand on Hyunjin’s naked chest. “What do you wanna do, darling?”

“Everything,” Hyunjin replies, quietly and probably more honest than he would like to admit. “Whatever you want, hyung. What do you want?”

“You,” Minho says, as if it’s the most obvious answer in the history of answers. He doesn’t sound mocking, but he does sound very, very truthful. “I want you, Hyunjinnie. I want you to keep looking at me that way you’ve been doing all night, until you can’t keep your eyes open anymore.”

Somehow, it’s that bit of truth and lack of teasing that does it for Hyunjin. Along with the second half of Minho’s reply, probably. Either way, he whines somewhere in his throat before tugging at Minho through their joined hands - indicating his urgency - and promptly pulling Minho behind him as he exits the bathroom to the living area outside. The room is vacated, as he had hoped and believed it to be, and Hyunjin heads for the bed immediately. 

“Ask me again,” he says, pausing by the bedside and imploring Minho with his eyes as well as his words, because Hyunjin meant it. “Ask me again, hyung.”

“I mean, I would,” Minho responds with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, “but I very well can’t take you to bed when you literally just took me here, baby, now can I?”

“Oh, my god, shut up,” Hyunjin snorts, laughing again, and he can barely keep up with his own body as it switches from viciously hot and bothered to weak-in-the-knees laughing. For the fourth time, or something.

In front of him, Minho smirks. Then he slips his hand out of Hyunjin’s grasp, raises an eyebrow, and pushes the younger onto his back on the bed as he gasps. If Hyunjin’s lungs didn’t just forget how to do their job, he’s pretty sure he would’ve made a sound that quite possibly could have traveled over the ocean itself. The towel around his hips falls loose from its knot, which seems to be practical since Minho lets his own towel drop to the floor as well.

When Minho climbs on top of him and uses his fucking thighs to spread Hyunjin’s own apart, his soul almost leaves his body right then and there. Minho’s elbows framing his face on either side as the older leans down to hover just a breath away from Hyunjin’s actual breath just might be enough to take him out, actually.

“Let me ask Your Highness again,” Minho croons, looking far too damn satisfied for Hyunjin’s liking but it’s not like he can just do anything about it. “What do you want to do, baby, hmm?”

“Whatever you want,” Hyunjin repeats, because it’s true. “Whatever you want, hyung, I… I’m… Ask if you want, but just… Just do something, God, I…--”

Minho leans down to effectively silence Hyunjin and his whiny rambles, and the younger relaxes in the pure relief that Minho’s lips over his brings. Minho kisses him with force and with intent, but his knuckles over Hyunjin’s cheeks feel like the complete opposite. Hyunjin finds that he has got both arms and legs wrapped around his fiancé with no actual memory of getting them there, but no plans on removing them, either.

“You always taste so good,” Minho murmurs against his lips. “Should hyung find out if you taste even better somewhere else, hmm? ‘Yes’ or ‘no’?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin moans instantly, mind racing with possibilities. “God, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, y--”

Minho chuckles, even as he presses a few more kisses to Hyunjin’s half-open mouth.

“Got it. Hold on, princess.”

While Hyunjin practically blacks out at the next-level pet name, Minho easily rearranges the younger’s limbs so he can move down the younger’s body without being restrained, and Hyunjin’s hands find Minho’s hair rather than his back. Wet, dirty, open-mouthed kisses are being pressed to Hyunjin’s throat, and then his chest, and then above his heart, and then tickling his stomach, and then over his protruding hip bone, and then--

“Did you just call me ‘princess’?” Hyunjin gasps as Minho mouths down his left thigh, somehow keeping eye contact despite the increasingly lust-filled air. “Oh, my god, did you…?”

“Wait. Don’t tell me…”

Minho’s vibrates with his sudden laughter as his head falls onto Hyunjin’s thigh, hot breath tickling him in a different way from before. Hyunjin has to resist the urge to kick his legs and accidentally hurt him.

“I was just teasing, Hyunjinnie,” Minho says, stupid eyes sparkling up at him. “Because of the whole ‘Your Highness’ bit? Is this our thing now, I intend to tease you and you add another subject to the list of stuff you wanna try in bed?”

“Apparently,” Hyunjin huffs, even though it’s a little funny. He cards his fingers through Minho’s damp hair. “I’ll have you know, neither of those things have been on the cards for me before, though. I’m just as surprised as you are.”

“That’s sweet,” Minho coos, still smiling straight onto Hyunjin’s skin. “Exploring things together, are we? Making a list that’ll come in handy the next time I feel the need to wreck you?”

It’s exhilarating in a way that Hyunjin genuinely never could have imagined, to feel so happy and so turned on and also so filled with love at the same time. It’s exhilarating to watch Minho rest comfortably on Hyunjin’s thigh, their naked bodies lined up together without feeling particularly weird about it, and having a light-hearted conversation about their future sex life before they’ve barely even started it. It’s exhilarating to feel so comfortable with someone as Hyunjin does at this very moment.

“I think you should wreck me right now, Lee Minho,” he murmurs, smiling a bit simply because it’s already spreading across his face just from watching his fiancé. “You haven’t tasted all of me yet, for example. I believe I was promised more tasting.”

“Such high demands for someone who won’t get another ‘princess’ out of me tonight,” Minho tuts, sinking his teeth into Hyunjin’s thigh for a second until Hyunjin finally moans. “Will you put your legs over my shoulders, darling?”

“Oh, my god,” Hyunjin pants, whiplash-ed from all the pet names Minho keeps throwing his way. He’s barely used to the ‘darling’ in its regular setting. “Are you really gonna…? Oh, god. Oh, my god.”

“Not ‘God,” Minho teases, shuffling around as Hyunjin dutifully lifts his legs for Minho to get comfortable for what he’s about to do. “I’m just your fiancé, Hyunjinnie. One out of billions, remember?”

Hyunjin moans. His fiancé.

“That’s fucking right,” he mumbles, because that’s Minho’s hot breath tickling him at his most sensitive spot oh god-- “One out of billions, Minho. You said it yourself. There’s just one of you. And you’re mine.”

He doesn’t know what possesses him to say such a thing, despite how badly Hyunjin wants and also believes it to be true. But Minho makes a muffled noise against the skin of Hyunjin’s upper thigh, and some vague word resembling a ‘yes’ right after that, and then Minho’s mouth is leaving purposeful kisses trailing all the way to Hyunjin’s opening.

It isn’t long - a handful of wet kisses, at most - until Minho’s tongue is carefully starting to lick him open, and God, if the sensation doesn’t have all sorts of obscene noises leaving Hyunjin’s throat. It’s not like Minho is hurting him, or stimulating him to the brink of insanity, or anything like that. And still, Hyunjin hears just how gone with pleasure he actually is simply from Minho touching him like this for the very first time.

“‘You feeling good?” Minho checks in after another moment, turning his head to leave feather-light kisses on Hyunjin’s other thigh before eyeing him up. “‘s my baby doing okay?”

“So good,” Hyunjin pants in return, running one hand through his own hair and the other through Minho’s. My baby. “Please, don’t stop. You make me feel so good, hyung.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Minho hums a bit, as if thinking about something. Hyunjin’s mind can’t even begin to contemplate what it might be.

“‘Better give my baby what he wants, then, right?” the older asks, most likely knowing that it’s not even a question that needs to be asked. He just likes to tease, and Hyunjin isn’t sure exactly why he likes it when Minho teases him so much. But he does. “Should hyung try some fingers, too, hmm?”

Hyunjin nods. Hell, yes. Patience may be one of Minho’s strongest suits, but it’s always been one of Hyunjin’s weakest. In anything that wasn’t art, at least, but definitely not in bed.

One more kiss to his thigh and then Minho gets back to work. The constant switch between small, almost kitten-like licks just around his rim and the longer stripes over larger amounts of sensitive skin has him gasping for breath and pulling at Minho’s hair before he remembers himself, but Minho doesn’t complain once. He simply eats Hyunjin out like a man on a mission, which Hyunjin supposes he kind of is. He still considers it a win.

The first finger ghosts over Hyunjin’s opening a couple of times until he doesn’t tense up at the sensation anymore, and Minho seems to have been waiting for that judging by how he finally inserts it with some help from the lube that was graciously placed in a drawer of the bedside table even before they arrived. Having Minho’s finger inside of him rather than his own is different, because it’s less predictable and more exciting. Minho’s fingers are shorter than Hyunjin’s are, but his angle is better and also, Hyunjin’s fingers are almost unnaturally long. That doesn’t make Minho’s hands tiny by any means, even if Hyunjin might call them that for the rest of his life.

He’s not complaining right now, either way, with Minho’s tongue and index finger starting to work him open methodically. They work in tandem, and Minho’s other hand is digging into Hyunjin’s flesh real nicely, and the breaths that leave Hyunjin’s lungs are in no way steady. It feels amazing, but Hyunjin still thinks that the main course is yet to come.

“Can I have another?” he asks, making the effort of asking nicely because he honestly doesn’t know if he’ll survive it if Minho decides he really wants to tease him. “Hyung, two, please? Feels really good.”

“Of course, baby,” Minho murmurs once he retracts the delicious muscle from inside the younger, grinning a bit, lips stained with saliva. “Two fingers it is.”

The stretch is more discernible this time, but it still doesn’t hurt, thanks to Minho’s cautiousness in handling him. Minho seems to settle for sucking and nibbling at Hyunjin’s thigh again, while watching his face for reactions as he expertly pulls his fingers out of Hyunjin’s body before inserting them again. It feels better by the minute, and Hyunjin cries out loudly when Minho’s fingertips finally graze that spot inside of him.

Below him, Minho smirks. Devastatingly handsome fiancé, and all that.

“What’s this?” Minho asks, feigning innocence as he inspects the bruise he’s sucked into Hyunjin’s skin while ignoring the motion of his hand. “Anything in particular that made you release that pretty sound for me, baby?”

“Again,” Hyunjin pleads, fighting the need to grind his own hips until he gets Minho’s digits there himself. “Do it again, hyung, please, please, please…”

“Do what again?”

Hyunjin groans and turns his head into the pillow next to him. Minho is being difficult, but Hyunjin also doesn’t have it in him to ask for anything different. He doesn’t want Minho to behave in any particular way; he wants them to figure this part out just as they have the rest. He wants them to try things out and reconsider if needed, but mainly to do what comes naturally. He can only assume that Minho’s intentions in teasing him like this are similar to the ones from earlier, when he made Hyunjin laugh. Hyunjin assumes that Minho treats him the way he does for a reason, and that he will figure it out soon enough. In the meantime, he will trust Minho, because that’s actually surprisingly easy to do. If Hyunjin genuinely has doubts as to what’s happening, he’ll say so and he has complete faith in Minho to stop and that they’ll talk things over until they feel good again. But that’s a big ‘if’ in the first place, and Hyunjin is currently nowhere near it.

“Hey,” Minho calls, and Hyunjin realizes that the older’s actions have been paused. “Hyunjin-ah? Where’d you go, hmm? Did something happen?”

Hyunjin blinks against his blurry sight until he can zoom in on Minho’s half-raised body between his own legs, looking about ready to return to kiss his worries away; if those were something Hyunjin actually had.

“Just in my head,” he whispers, clearing his throat to speak up easier. “I’m okay, I promise. You can keep going, I’m just… I’m so impatient. ‘Trying to restrain it.”

Minho smiles slowly, carefully. “For me?”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin admits, because that’s it. “I really wanna tell you to hurry up because I’m not even this careful by myself, honestly, and I’m really impatient and I just wanna feel you right now, hyung, like… Like right now.”

“You’re pretty when you beg for me,” Minho tells him, a pleased smile still decorating his gorgeous face, as if that doesn’t go straight to Hyunjin’s head. “I don’t mind if you beg a little. ‘Bet you’d be really good at that, huh? Getting your way?”

Hyunjin moans rather than reply, because he really isn’t planning on confirming or denying that fact. He thinks he could willingly sign up for Minho having his way with him and driving him mad and maybe even edging him someday in the future, but he honestly doesn’t think that he can do it today.

“Not even this careful by yourself, huh?” Minho repeats, to which the younger nods. “Well, from now on you’re gonna be properly taken care of, darling, and if that requires us to work some patience up, I’m sure we’ll get there eventually, right?”

The way Minho phrases his words makes Hyunjin shiver, because there’s something about the way they make him feel cared for - “from now on, you’re gonna be properly taken care of, darling” - and the way they don’t imply any fault or weakness of Hyunjin’s but rather how they can tackle it together to work something out. It’s also the way Minho plainly states that they will be having sex for the foreseeable future, of course, because God if Hyunjin wouldn’t like that.

“I love you,” Hyunjin lets slip, unthinkingly but not regretting it either. “Minho, I love you. And not just because I really, really want to feel you inside me as soon as possible, but because I just… I just do. I love you.”

Minho looks at him almost like he did inside the pool that first time, with wide eyes and parted lips and sort of like he’s trying to pause reality just to stare at his fiancé. It gives Hyunjin a rush, sure, but in the all-encompassing and wholesome kind of way, and not like the way he felt just ten minutes ago. He can’t decide which one he’s enjoyed the most.

“Come here,” Hyunjin asks him, gesturing with his hands until Minho gathers himself and climbs back up Hyunjin’s body to press an instant, close-mouthed, heartfelt kiss to his lips. “I’ve been waiting for so long, I’ll wait another minute.”

Almost seeming surprised by his own chuckle, Minho places another kiss on Hyunjin’s cheek, and then the other one, and then his nose. Hyunjin’s face is all scrunched up once Minho returns to peck at his lips, and it makes the older laugh again. The sound resonates somewhere inside of Hyunjin’s ribcage.

“Do you really want me that bad?” Minho asks, sounding sort of disbelieving despite the smile on his face as he brushes some of Hyunjin’s hair aside. “There are no cameras to play it up for, you know.”

“That’s offensive, hyung,” Hyunjin huffs immediately, grabbing Minho’s wrist and ceasing the motion in his hair and successfully returning Minho’s gaze to him. “If you keep thinking I’m lying or something when I’m actually baring my soul to you, I’ll get upset for real. I can beg if you want, but I’m not gonna start lying to you now. You know you’re hot, I know you’re hot, so can you please finish up what you were doing or I’m gonna decide that this is enough and just take matters into my own hands and--”

“I love you, too,” Minho murmurs, peering down at him and effectively shutting the younger up. “I don’t think you’re lying, it’s just… You say all these things that I’ve never heard before, Hyunjin. I just don’t… You surprise me. Not in a bad way, but I still don’t know what to do. What to say. Maybe we should add that to the list of things to work on.”

“Yeah?” Hyunjin smiles, suddenly endeared in the middle of his lust-packed stupor. Figures. “You receiving compliments and some heartfelt dirty talk? I could probably make that sacrifice.”

Minho leans down towards the fingers Hyunjin’s got wrapped around the older’s wrist, and kisses his knuckles for a second.

“Thanks, darling, that’s very generous of you,” he murmurs against Hyunjin’s hand. “Would you like anything in return, perhaps? A little speeding up?”

Hyunjin barely groans ‘god, yes’ before his request is being fulfilled, and Minho kisses him one final time before pulling Hyunjin’s hand down with him and intertwining it with his own as he returns to his previous spot. True to his word, Minho starts exactly where he left off and lubes two fingers up before carefully pushing into Hyunjin’s heat, moving a little faster once those noises start tearing themselves out of Hyunjin’s throat again. Minho doesn’t seem to aim for his prostate, but he also doesn’t seem intent on avoiding it. The older’s crooked fingers will graze it on every other movement, and Hyunjin’s body will spasm briefly, and then he’ll be more relaxed when Minho carefully parts his fingers to stretch him further.

Minho presses another few kisses to Hyunjin’s hand to catch his attention before asking if three is good - ‘yes’ or ‘no’ - and then slowly, slowly near the final goal of his aggravating motions while Hyunjin writhes beneath him. Hyunjin may not have done this to himself for a few weeks now, but he’s pretty sure that while his own fingers are longer than Minho’s, they might also be slimmer. The stretch somehow feels wider than he’s used to, but at the same time… That could also be him being more pent up or have gone a bit longer than usual, he supposes.

He does end up begging for it eventually; not in the most desperate of ways but with an unrelenting stream of ‘hyung’ and ‘please’ and ‘want it’ and ‘want you’ and ‘pleasepleaseplease’ until Minho shushes him with a soft kiss and their open mouths breathing air into the other’s as Minho ever-so-gently slides into him at long last.

“Minho,” Hyunjin breathes, gasps, feeling his nerve endings light on fire with the pleasure coursing through him when Minho rocks into him languidly, so slowly that every millimeter is a separate sensation. “Minho, Minho, Minho, Minho, Minho. Hyung. Hyung, I’m… I…”

“You’re perfect, is what you are,” Minho sighs, arms caging the younger and nose brushing against Hyunjin’s. “Most beautiful baby in the world. ‘Can’t believe you agreed to marry me, Hyunjin. God, I’m in love with you.”

Unable to stop it, a dry sob finds its way out of Hyunjin’s body. He squeezes his eyelids shut because he really doesn’t want to cry now of all the times, even if it wouldn’t actually surprise him in the slightest. But he’s so overwhelmed, physically and emotionally. It feels like every cell inside his body is singing and burning and celebrating, like they all know that this is it, that Minho is it, that they’ve found the person they’ve been looking for and never have to let him go.

“Tell me I’m yours,” Hyunjin mumbles, not trusting his own voice and speaking directly onto Minho’s soft skin. “Tell me all of it. All of it, hyung.”

“You’re mine, darling,” Minho complies easily, peppering kisses wherever he can reach while he keeps moving in that unhurried, devastating pace that had Hyunjin’s mind clocking out long ago. “‘Want me to tell you all of it? What about our vows, hmm? Don’t you think I should save some of it?”

The word ‘vows’ has Hyunjin’s body twitching so hard he accidentally pushes Minho deeper through the leg he’s got hooked around Minho’s hips, and they both cry out at the abrupt motion and the rush of pleasure it brought. Hyunjin’s arms tighten around Minho’s middle as he holds the older close, and focuses on taking a whole breath before replying.

“Good answer,” he praises his fiancé, going so far as to kiss his cheek briefly before lying back down. “Tell me half of it. Please.”

More or less as usual at this point, Minho laughs lightly.

“You’re mine,” he repeats, gazing fondly down at Hyunjin despite how messy and vulnerable he must look right now, “but I’m yours, too, baby. I told you earlier. All yours, only yours. As long as you’ll have me.”

“What if I want you forever?” Hyunjin blurts, too caught up in their moment of hazy, affectionate pleasure to think twice about what he’s saying. “Would you give me forever?”

Astonishingly, Minho nods.

“For you?” he says, still moving slowly enough to have the fine hair on Hyunjin’s arms permanently standing up. “I can’t imagine what I wouldn’t give you, Hwang Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin is still staring, trying to figure out if there’s even a hint of a joke somewhere in there, when Minho ends up smiling again.

“You’re so sweet like this,” he comments, which inexplicably has heat rising to Hyunjin’s cheeks. “Who would’ve known, huh? Such a brat sometimes, but so good for me right now. Is it because you finally got what you wanted, baby? Are you happy now?”

“Shut up,” Hyunjin whines, probably blushing and everything. “Of course I’m happy now, hyung. I’d be a lot happier if you’d stop being so damn careful, though, it’s not like you’re gonna break me or anything.”

Minho raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Deciding that it’s too late to backtrack now, Hyunjin swallows and makes up his mind. Minho’s hips have suspended their actions - despite Minho still filling him up real nicely - so Hyunjin arches his back briefly until he can grind down in small, tight motions that has a pretty albeit choked sound leaving Minho’s face where it’s hovering over his.

“I just want more,” he breathes onto Minho’s parted lips, meeting Minho’s searching eyes with his own hooded eyelids. “I want all of it, hyung. I’ll know how much you care even if you’re less careful. I promise. You have to know how much I trust you by now.”

“I love you,” Minho whispers, still all but frozen above him. “That’s how much I care, Hyunjin.”

“I know,” he promises, even straining his neck to press another kiss to Minho’s addictive lips. “I know, hyung. I believe you. Please keep telling me, but I believe you already.”

Minho nods quietly, leans down for one more kiss, and then dives deeper to nuzzle his face down Hyunjin’s jawline to press a kiss right below his ear. He follows the slope of Hyunjin’s throat after that, pausing shortly before the stretch of his shoulder, and sinks his teeth in.

Hyunjin moans so loud he almost scares himself.

“Since you asked so nicely,” Minho hums against him, licking lightly at the same spot, “I’d better give you what you want, hmm?”

“Please,” the younger repeats, not knowing how many times he’s already said that word tonight but not intending on stopping, either. “Minho, please.”

“As if I could deny you anything,” Minho murmurs, and then he’s snapping his hips again.

The movement isn’t rough by any means, but it’s a sharp contrast to the slow and overwhelming millimeter sensations from earlier. This higher speed makes the drag of Minho’s body against his inner walls overwhelm him in a completely different way, because the feelings keep overlapping and he can barely process the rock backwards until Minho is right back where he started. And working his throat over at the same time, no less.

Hyunjin realizes that the noises he’s making are probably both loud and desperate, because he feels so good and he has no idea how to contain them. So he settles for throwing a hand over his mouth to stifle them and squeezes his eyes shut as he tries not to die with pleasure.

“What are you doing, hmm?” Minho suddenly asks, slowing down and rising onto his elbows to get a look at him. “Don’t be quiet on my account, baby, let it out. Be as loud as you want.”

“But hyung, I… I can be loud.”

Minho smirks, distantly reminding Hyunjin of a cat, or some other feline creature. One who’s got the mouse right where it wants.

“And who’d be complaining about that?” the older inquires, driving his words in just in time with his hips, making Hyunjin groan immediately. “Hm? Certainly not me, darling. Let hyung hear you. Show me how to take you apart next time, too.”

“Oh, my god,” Hyunjin whines, closing his eyes again as he gasps with increased pleasure from Minho’s increased pace even though Hyunjin is trying really hard to hold a conversation right now. “You’re some sort of sex monster, aren’t you? You’re going to kill me. Why are you so hot?”

“‘Just wanna know if I’m making you feel good,” Minho grins, before returning to the marks he must be leaving over Hyunjin’s neck and finishing his sentence there. “You’ll let hyung hear you, won’t you, baby?”

Hyunjin doesn’t reply, but he does cry out at the particularly sharp thrust that Minho seems to have aimed perfectly at the lack of answer from the younger, and falls back into the mattress to claw at Minho’s back again. He needs some sort of outlet.

The longer Minho’s hips keep rolling into him, the more Hyunjin starts wondering just how much sex Minho has had in life before this, because fuck this is incredible. There’s a rhythm and a fluidity to the older’s movements that Hyunjin can’t say that he’s used to, but it feels so good when he gets into it and realizes that Minho never fully leaves his body, that the motion against his walls is still rather careful, that the real thing is the force Minho puts into grazing Hyunjin’s sweet spot with, and that stimulation really hasn’t felt this good before. Hyunjin isn’t touching himself, and Minho’s hands are still holding him by the hair to leave Hyunjin’s neck bare for him, but the thought barely crosses his mind before he discards it. This is, quite literally, everything he wanted.

With new levels of pleasure comes new levels of volume, though, and the closer Hyunjin gets to that final point; the louder he becomes. He feels a bit bad because Minho doesn’t sound like this - possibly because his face is pressed into Hyunjin’s skin and not letting anything out into the open area around them - and also because Hyunjin isn’t sure that he ever sounded like this before tonight. He feels like he’s reaching another plane of existence, as cheesy and stupid as that may sound, but that’s what it feels like because he has never in his life felt this good before and quite frankly, didn’t know that he even could. Sex has always been good, yes, with partners and without them, but this is… How Hyunjin feels right now is another league entirely.

When Minho finds his prostate and nibbles below his jawline at the same time, Hyunjin cries out once more and ends up removing one hand from drawing blood out of Minho’s back to quiet himself down for a bit again. It’s for Minho’s benefit as well as his own, because it’s distracting and also because Hyunjin can hear how his voice sounds more wounded and wet by the second, despite not letting any actual words out.

It probably only takes a couple of seconds until Minho notices, however, and does exactly what he did last time. Slows down, returns so they’re face-to-face, trying to read Hyunjin’s expression despite the hand covering half his face.

“What did I tell you, baby?” Minho asks, almost provocatively little out of breath and sounding more coaxing than anything. “I want to hear you. Do you know how amazing you sound? ‘Keeps getting to my head.”

Hyunjin watches with wide eyes as Minho leans slightly to the left, resting his weight on one side to grab Hyunjin’s wrist with the other and… pull it above his head. He almost passes out on the spot.

“Is this better?” Minho checks, looking immensely pleased as Hyunjin dazedly retracts his other arm to give Minho that one, too. “Is this what you wanted all along? You could’ve told me that, love. I’ll help you if it’s hard.”

Sinking deeper and deeper into the sheets, Hyunjin’s chest heaves while he struggles to remember his breaths. There’s a dangerous burn to his eyes that he instantly tries to will away, rather than give in to it, and his brain feels so, so fuzzy. He’s completely stuck in this moment they’re in, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s never felt this good in his life.

“You’re so beautiful,” Minho tells him, exhaling weakly, drinking Hyunjin in with dark eyes. “God, you’re… I would say you’re like something my mind conjured up, but I don’t think it actually could. You’re out of this world, Hyunjin. Do you know just how lucky I feel?”

The burn intensifies. And then it spills over.

“I do,” Hyunjin whispers, closing his eyes as a few tears leave them despite his best efforts. “I know, hyung, I… Me too. Me too.”

He doesn’t think Minho notices at first, but is quickly proven wrong because Minho settles for a pace somewhere between the previous two but kisses Hyunjin’s cheeks instead of returning to his - probably bruised - neck. Minho’s lips taste like salt when they ghost over Hyunjin’s a moment later, but it doesn’t bother him. Hyunjin doesn’t mind crying as much if Minho wants to kiss his tears away, he thinks.

But the pleasure only increases as Minho works him over, and Hyunjin arches and shudders and tosses and turns in his fiancés solid hold on - and over - him. He’s never been tied up or anything like it, but he does like the way Minho’s hand feels over his wrists. It’s not like Hyunjin couldn’t move if he really wanted to, but he likes the implication that Minho wants him to stay a certain way and that Hyunjin simply gives him that. Nothing hurts and nothing feels scary; it just feels like Minho is embedding himself deeper into Hyunjin’s very core by the second. Physically, maybe, but definitely emotionally.

Hyunjin is almost there, not quite on the edge but feeling it building up within, when Minho kisses his forehead. He doesn’t know why that becomes the tipping point, but the absurd amount of pleasure that he’s feeling paired with the even more absurd amount of affection that he’s suddenly drowning in…

He can’t muffle his watery cry with his own hand this time, so he turns his head sideways, away from Minho’s face, to hide against the older’s forearm and stain his skin rather than the open air.

That first sob is quickly replaced by another, and then a third, and before Hyunjin can find the strength to stop himself, he’s openly crying despite how hard he’s been trying to keep it in. He can’t look at Minho, and his body is trembling with emotion, and the tears feel never-ending and so, so inappropriate.

“Hyunjin-ah.”

He squeezes his eyes tighter together, despite how it only makes the tears flow faster. He doesn’t hate how quick he is to cry a lot of the time anymore, but he sort of does right now. He doesn't want Minho to remember this. He doesn’t want to scare him or give him doubts or make him feel like--

“Hyunjinnie, baby,” Minho tries again, unmoving and gentle and patient God-- “What happened?”

Another sob tears itself out of his chest at that, and Hyunjin realizes just how sad and upset he must sound, even though that really isn’t it, but how can he explain everything that’s…?

“If I ask, can you tell me ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”

Hyunjin halts for a second. That’s a good idea. He can do that.

He nods.

“Thank you,” Minho says, wasting no time. “Should we stop?”

“No,” Hyunjin replies immediately. No, he doesn’t want to stop.

“Okay. Are you in any kind of pain? Does it hurt anywhere?”

Hyunjin shakes his head. “No. No, I’m… I’m okay.”

It seems like those were the two most important questions, because Minho unfreezes after the two initial answers and suddenly Hyunjin is being enveloped in arms around his back that hold him closely against Minho’s body, fully inside of his warm embrace. It’s actually much more preferable, and easier to hide his face like this, too. Also, Minho doesn’t seem freaked out. Hyunjin relaxes slightly.

“Are you feeling overwhelmed?” Minho murmurs, cradling the younger against him and nuzzling into his light hair. “You said you cry easily. Is this one of those times? You’re feeling a lot?”

Hyunjin nods even though the sobs start all over again, because who would Minho be if he didn’t figure that out already? God. Hyunjin’s heart aches in his chest and a watery laugh stutters out of him.

“They’re good tears,” he chokes out between laughter and tears smearing all over Minho’s front. “I’m embarrassed, mostly. They’re good tears, hyung, I’m… I’m overwhelmed. How did you know that?”

“Because I’m feeling quite a lot, too, darling,” Minho shares, fingers caressing over the top part of Hyunjin’s arm. It makes him feel small, but not in a bad way. “Why are you embarrassed? Or why are you overwhelmed? Is that question better?”

“Because I’ve never felt this good before,” Hyunjin admits, and he would be unsure if Minho heard him or not if it wasn’t for the small intake of breath the older draws. “Never, you just… I’m overwhelmed because you love me. You care so much about me and you make me feel so good and you make me so, so happy and every minute I spend with you makes me love you more and I never want this to end. Not this night, not this vacation, not us. I don’t want any of it to end, hyung. That’s how you make me feel, and it’s… It’s overwhelming. But not bad. I’m really okay.”

Minho holds him impossibly closer, kisses his hair, slows down his heartbeat.

“You’re really okay?” he repeats.

“Yes, I promise.”

Hyunjin isn’t sure exactly what it is that makes Minho believe him, but he’s relieved either way. He’s not sure he could continue what they’d started if Minho had started outright sobbing like that, or kept sniffling even after he’s mostly done, or kept those trails of tears running down his cheeks for a good thirty more minutes. But Minho slows things back down which lessens the crushing weight of sensations falling over Hyunjin until he feels more whiny and needy again, and when Minho smiles and tells him to ‘trust hyung, baby’, well, then Hyunjin does. The ‘hyung’ in question really hasn’t let him down so far.

He doesn’t this time either, when Hyunjin tumbles over the edge but doesn’t feel like he’s free-falling at all. He feels safe to let go, and he feels like Minho will catch him, and he feels like there might not be anything left of him that he wouldn’t whole-heartedly trust Minho with.

When Minho - panting and sweating and so, so beautiful - pulls out a minute or two later, Hyunjin still isn’t ready to let him go. The older barely has the time to fully slip out of Hyunjin’s body and reach for one of their towels before Hyunjin stops him and pulls him back, uncaring of the mess when he has much more pressing things to do.

“I love you,” he tells Minho, holding him close and kissing his swollen lips and relishing in the weight of him on top of Hyunjin’s body that feels unbearably right. “I’m in love with you. I was before but this was perfect and you are perfect and I can’t believe any of this just happened because it feels totally surreal and I barely know what I’m saying but that’s because of you anyway and I just… I just really love you, Minho. I really, really love you.”

“I really, really love you, too,” Minho replies, almost laughing at the assault and letting Hyunjin kiss and touch and say whatever he needs to say, apparently. “God, you’re incredibly cute, you know that? You know that I wanna do everything I can to have you like this for as long as you can imagine, right? If I could, I would give you the world right now, darling.”

Hyunjin laughs, still in the remnants of astounding pleasure and wondrous joy, and keeps giggling as Minho returns the favor and kisses him everywhere he can reach within Hyunjin’s hold on him. He’s vaguely reminded of what kittens or excited puppies do, and wonders if what they’re currently doing is the human equivalent of that. Drowning their favorite people in affection.

But then Minho drops one final kiss to his cheek and wrestles his way out of Hyunjin’s grip again, and Hyunjin strikes before he can second-guess what he’s about to do.

Minho looks stunned, is probably the right word, when Hyunjin sits up after him and pushes Minho down onto the bed - towel still in hand - before the older actually has a chance to start cleaning them up.

Hyunjin doesn’t need to get cleaned up, yet, is the thing.

To his credit, it seems like Minho catches on rather quickly. His eyes might be wider than ever, but he doesn’t complain when Hyunjin crawls on top of him, and he makes a lovely sound when Hyunjin tells him how good Minho looks on his back. The sound he makes when Hyunjin settles over his lap and takes him inside for the second time is far lovelier, however, and Hyunjin preens like a cat at the glorious attention from his fiancé who won’t so much as blink when Hyunjin gets to work.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he murmurs, and feels his heartbeat speeding up when Minho groans and grabs at his thighs, going so far as to press his fingers into the bruise he left there earlier.

It feels amazing.

“Really wanted to do this,” Hyunjin croons, continuing, as he sets a languid pace and revels in how good Minho feels inside him and below him and looking at him like that, “had a dream about it, actually.”

Minho almost chokes trying to get his question out. “When?”

“That first night after the hot tub.”

“Oh, my God,” Minho rambles, almost to himself. “Oh, my god, you are the sex demon, Hwang Hyunjin. What’d you say earlier? That. You’re that.”

Hyunjin laughs, reaching for Minho’s hands to lace their fingers together over Minho’s abdomen between them. His hips are still grinding down with sweet, sweet purpose, and Minho is looking more flushed by the minute, and Hyunjin feels so good that it’s almost like the previous round didn’t even happen. Or possibly, like they’ve gone a million rounds together before this. It just feels good. Don’t ask him to explain it.

“Tell me,” Hyunjin says later, once he has collapsed on top of Minho and they’re trading lazy kisses while their breathing starts slowing down again. “Where have you been all my life?”

Minho doesn’t miss a beat. “Waiting for you, I’m starting to think.”

Chapter Text

“Welcome home, I suppose.”

Hyunjin sneaks a kiss onto Minho’s cheek as he slips past the older in the doorway, entering Minho’s apartment for the first time with curious eyes and a smile already plastered onto his face. They don’t have to worry about cats escaping into the rest of the apartment complex, and Hyunjin pulls his suitcase behind him as he leaves his shoes by the rack to the side.

“Thank you,” Hyunjin replies softly, a little absent-minded as he looks around. But he feels happy. He feels good about this.

Minho’s apartment is… nothing he’s seen before, obviously, but also nothing particularly surprising to Hyunjin. The furniture and decor remind him of fall, with calm brown and beige and white colors all over. The ceiling is higher than expected, perhaps, and the space is very open and breezy. There are no walls separating kitchen from dining area or living room, and even though the same goes for Hyunjin’s apartment; his might be twice the size and is far too large for him in all honesty. Minho’s place feels cozy. It feels like an actual home.

Bookshelves surround the TV, filled with books but also what looks like comics and possibly photo albums. Cat toys are neatly placed into a large, knitted basket beneath the large windows, and the couch is a creme, soothing color which looks very inviting. There’s a dark, mahogany-colored table with six seats surrounding it and a vase of flowers on top of the tablecloth which Hyunjin has zero idea of whether they’re real or not, having survived these weeks without care. He sneaks a look into the kitchen only to spot a fancy coffee machine, humming in approval, and moving on since the kitchen isn’t his area of expertise anyway. 

“Can I look around?” he asks, falling back into his manners in this sort of strange situation. He may feel like he knows Minho by now, but people usually don’t move into their partners’ apartments after knowing them for approximately two weeks. And also, not immediately after spending too many hours to count on a plane.

“Yes,” Minho chuckles, taking Hyunjin’s suitcase out of his hand. “What am I gonna say, ‘no’? Let’s live together in my apartment, but you can’t move out of my sight?”

“Hyung,” he whines immediately, pouting a bit for show, “I don’t wanna be rude. This is your space. It’s different.”

“I know it’s different,” Minho agrees before pressing a quick peck onto Hyunjin’s pouting lips, “but it’s not ‘my’ space anymore. It’s our space, darling. At least for these upcoming weeks.”

Hyunjin doesn’t reply to that because he doesn’t know what exactly Minho is implying. He doesn’t think the older means that they won’t live together anymore after that. He probably means that they might stay in Hyunjin’s apartment, or get a new one? Right?

He nods a bit before moving further into the condo, spotting a couple of framed pictures of Minho as a child - presumably - in different locations and with people who must be his parents and grandparents. Some are of him with people who look his age. Friends? Cousins?

Hyunjin cracks doors open to a guest room and a supply closet, and then a bathroom far larger than he had anticipated. Minho has a bathtub and shower in here and the lights are dimmable. Hyunjin even spots a tray he would suspect is for resting books or a phone or snacks on, hinting that Minho probably enjoys baths. The tiles are black along two walls, which doesn’t really match the rest of the apartment but also doesn’t really matter since no one sees all of it at the same time. Hyunjin kind of likes it, actually. It gives the room an almost dramatic sense, and he has to respect that.

His heart picks up a little when he enters Minho’s bedroom, and he cautiously halts in the doorway. There’s a basket of cat toys in here, too, which makes Hyunjin smile. There’s a dresser but also a separate closet, two white nightstands on either side of the well-made bed, and a painting depicting a white seashore and soft blue water above the bed frame. It doesn’t look all that different from the place they woke up this morning, actually. The fairy lights along the frame is a nice touch, too, in Hyunjin’s opinion.

“What’s the verdict?” Minho asks, coming up behind him and resting his head on Hyunjin’s shoulder. “First impression?”

“It’s perfect,” Hyunjin tells him, smiling wider. “Everything suits you perfectly, hyung. I feel comfortable already. It’s really cozy here.”

Minho hums, tilting his head sideways until his breath is tickling Hyunjin’s neck. He doesn’t complain, but he does reach for Minho’s hand and pulls it around his own middle until they’re almost hugging properly. It’s nice. Also, if Hyunjin thought he wanted Minho close before, well… that was nothing compared to how he’s been craving Minho’s touch today, after getting his first real taste of what Minho touching him feels like. Their day of travel has been tiring for sure, but Hyunjin is grateful that the cameras have been off. He’s been so handsy he almost feared Minho would push him away there for a while, but he never did. Every touch Hyunjin has sought has been accommodated and delivered by his fiancé, who even held onto his hand as they left Incheon to smattering cameras Hyunjin had feared would be waiting for them.

(Their hoods and masks were on, obviously, and it’s not like Hyunjin is a celebrity or anything. But there are pictures being taken with and without his knowledge at times, and the airport is usually one of the more predictable bets. He’s pretty sure he heard his name being called once or twice, but Minho didn’t hesitate to let Hyunjin pull him along until they were safely inside a cab. And then he’d allowed Hyunjin to hide against Minho’s collar bones for a bit as they sat in silence, before confirming that everything was okay and that they’d go straight for Minho’s apartment and then to bed.)

“We’ll get you acquainted with every corner,” Minho promises, kissing Hyunjin’s shoulder through his shirt, “until it feels like home or you convince me to move out, whatever comes first.”

Hyunjin can’t help but laugh a bit. That settles his inquiry from earlier, then.

“Can I get acquainted with every corner of you first, hyung?” he asks, half-teasing but definitely half-serious. “I feel like I’ve got a head start on that, at least.”

He never receives an actual reply, but he does get Minho laughing into the crease of his neck before he’s being turned by Minho’s arm on his waist and pulled along into the bathroom. Washing up after this extremely long day feels like a relief after all that traveling, but Hyunjin would lie if he claimed not to feel excited about the prospect of taking his third shower with Minho, in approximately twenty four hours nonetheless.

Minho is still smiling when Hyunjin kisses him between shirts being pulled above their heads, and Hyunjin quickly learns that he’s not the only one feeling handsy after last night. Minho’s eager touch roams all over him until Hyunjin is mewling and asking for more, hyung, more even before the water is spilling over them, and even once it actually is, Minho doesn’t hesitate to throw him a wink before sinking to his knees in front of him.

As Hyunjin’s droopy eyes stare down at the large, somehow still teasing ones strictly fixed on his face, he still struggles with the idea of all of this being real. From the first time he saw Minho in person, to the way he feels mellow with sleepiness and alleviating pleasure alike because of Minho right now…

Hyunjin may be in his third unknown location in as many weeks, but the common denominator as to why his anxiety hasn’t acted up as he feared it would has definitely been Minho. Sure, he’s only brought Hyunjin this kind of pleasure for a very small part of that time, but the encompassing sense of comfort and security has been around from the very start, Hyunjin would dare say. And it definitely is right now, too.

***

When Hyunjin awakes the next morning, he has to take a moment to blink the sleep out of his eyes before taking an even longer moment to figure out where in the world he currently is. The creamy white walls are unfamiliar to him, along with the furniture he can spot, but…

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth immediately. Those kisses on his shoulders are anything but unfamiliar.

“‘Morning, hyung,” he greets the owner of the bed Hyunjin is occupying, voice probably relaying both his sleepiness and his smile. “What time is it?”

“Time to kiss you silly,” Minho mumbles with his lips never leaving the younger’s shoulder, before slowly moving up Hyunjin’s neck and raising goosebumps where he goes. “Do you know what it feels like to wake up to you practically naked, being here in my bed? Thank fucking God there are no cameras around today either, because Hyunjin…”

Minho trails off as his hand lands on Hyunjin’s bare waist, pressing into the soft skin. Another second has Minho’s tongue teasing at the skin below Hyunjin’s jaw, and, well… Hyunjin is only human. A human who has been pouting about not having one single morning alone with his fiancé for almost a week now, on top of that.

“Because what?” he asks, out of breath and clawing at his pillow simply from Minho waking him up by some kisses. “What’d you have in mind?”

“What don’t I have in mind?” Minho almost growls, sounding pent up but somehow also helpless against Hyunjin’s skin, and it’s… it’s hot, but it’s endearing, too. “You wouldn’t leave this bed if I got my way, darling. Better tell me what you have in mind, instead.”

Despite how turned on he actually is, Hyunjin laughs quietly. He doesn’t find the situation particularly funny, it’s not that. It’s just that he’s really, really happy.

“Hyung,” he says, planting his palms into the soft sheets to turn around, “what if I wanna unpack our suitcases and do all the laundry and get something to eat and go get my stuff?”

Once Hyunjin is face to face with Minho, he can both hear the scoff and see the smile coming from the older’s mouth. “Yeah, and what if I actually believed you?”

Hyunjin swats at Minho’s bare chest as he bursts into giggles. Minho quickly catches him by the wrist, wraps his own fingers around the thin bone, before bringing Hyunjin’s hand to his lips. Then he kisses each of Hyunjin’s knuckles while keeping eye contact, and well… The swooping feeling inside Hyunjin’s stomach isn’t exactly indicating anything bad.

“What if I said; let’s do all that stuff tomorrow?” he murmurs instead, delighting in the way Minho’s smile is visible even just by looking at his eyes. “Today is for more pressing issues. Returning the favor from last night, for example.”

Adorably surprised, Minho looks back at him with puzzlement on his face. Hyunjin isn’t sure whether to coo at his fiancé or tut at him. But Minho will learn about Hyunjin’s nature soon enough, he supposes. It’ll probably be fun getting him to that point.

“You don’t have to,” Minho tells him, “you know that, right? We’re not keeping tallies here. I didn’t do it so you’d do it back, Hyunjin, I did it because I wanted to.”

“And now that I’m not exhausted and can actually feel my legs; I want to.”

Hyunjin moves rather slowly as he puts his free hand on Minho’s shoulder to gently push the older onto his back, and grins as he follows the motion of Minho’s body until he’s sprawled half on top of his fiancé, only their underwear preventing all parts of their bodies from touching. His thigh feels ridiculously small, mashed between Minho’s, but that’s okay. Hyunjin will literally die before complaining about the size of them.

Their pace is slower than expected, Hyunjin thinks, but it does feel like they have all the time in the world purely by having one day. He takes his time to kiss Minho, both of them fully aware that this morning has been a long time coming, and the hands roaming over Hyunjin’s body leave brief shivers and soft moans and small grinds in their wake. Minho rests his hand on top of Hyunjin’s at one point, spreading his fingers until his own fit in between, and Hyunjin is reluctant to let go even minutes later.

But he does, because his lips are probably pinker and wetter now than they were before, and he smirks even as he kisses his way down Minho’s body until pausing at the waistband of his underwear and tugging at it with his teeth. Only to have it snap back onto Minho’s skin, of course, eliciting a soft gasp from Minho’s mouth. When Hyunjin asks him to take his only piece of clothing off, Minho curses under his breath before doing just that.

There’s a self-satisfied smirk on his own face, Hyunjin knows, but he can’t wipe it off. The power trip he finds himself on while knowing that he’s wanted like this is one thing, but the way Minho is looking at him just heightens it even further.

Still, he feels a bit mean as he takes his time even down here, the same way he did Minho’s lips. He can feel the way Minho’s thighs clench and unclench repeatedly with his probable frustration, and the whines and gasps Minho half-heartedly suppresses. Hyunjin can even feel the way Minho’s hand will tighten on the strands of the younger’s hair before remembering himself and loosening his grip once more. That’s what makes it so damn fun, though.

Hyunjin would estimate that he’s spent about twenty minutes driving Minho absolutely mad when the older finally speaks up, and Hyunjin has to sink back down to take Minho all the way into his mouth so he won’t blow his whole plan. In all honesty, Hyunjin could probably have taken his time even if his intention wasn’t to see how far Minho could be pushed and what he would do at that point. But wrapping his lips around Minho’s length, sucking lightly at the head, licking his way along his veins and the slit at the top, even working his way down until he can feel the tip grazing his throat before holding and getting used to it…

He almost forgets his whole plan. That’s how much he likes it.

It surprises him a tiny bit that he would feel that way since it’s been a while and Hyunjin’s body isn’t used to doing this, but the careful encouragement and gentle hands on him probably helps. Along with taking his time, Hyunjin would guess. But he also really, really likes it. It’s heady somehow, to know that he’s pleasuring Minho for the sake of bringing him pleasure. It has something hot coiling inside his own middle, something that makes him want to do better. To make Minho want this and want Hyunjin to do it for a long, long time.

So when Minho does tug lightly at his hair and calls his attention, Hyunjin has to take a moment to remember where he was going with this before replying.

“Baby, please…,” Minho pants above him, eyes burning into the top of Hyunjin’s head. “Hyunjinnie, I… Please, baby, come on. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

Slowly raising his head until he’s releasing Minho from the warmth of his mouth, Hyunjin wastes no time leaning down to press open-mouthed kisses onto the already wet, straining skin. Then he puts on the widest eyes he can manage and huddles his shoulders together where he lies between Minho’s gorgeous legs, and responds.

“But I’m having fun, hyung,” he pouts, looking straight at Minho’s almost stricken expression. “Do you want it to end already? Do you not like it?”

“Oh, my God,” Minho chokes, staring at him another second before throwing his head back onto the pillow to stare at the ceiling. “Oh, my God, you’re really trying to kill me. You’re going to be the death of me, I swear. Of course I like it, baby, do whatever you want, I… Yeah, do whatever you want. I’ll stay here all day if you look at me like that again.”

Despite his best effort; Hyunjin laughs. He rests his forehead against Minho’s soft tummy and laughs onto his hip bone, giddy with the knowledge that Minho might not even be exaggerating. Even if he is, his reaction would be humorous regardless. And it’s definitely enough for Hyunjin to consider his plan to be a success, and placing Minho’s hand back onto his head as he properly gets to work. Once he’s finished laughing, that is.

***

The next day is actually spent more efficiently - depending on how one looks at it - even if they still can’t keep their hands off each other. Unpacking suitcases takes time when you pause to sneak glances at how your fiancé looks bent over, and sorting and going through the motions of laundry is hard when you have to kiss someone every other minute. But they manage, and when the last machine is running Minho grabs his car keys as they head down to the garage and the camera crew leaves them for the day.

(Hyunjin has a serious battle with himself to not climb into Minho’s lap when he starts his SUV up, because fuck does he look attractive behind a steering wheel. Hyunjin’s mind definitely swirls with what he could get away with while remaining in his seat, but all thoughts come to a halt when Minho spots whatever expression must be on his face and bursts out laughing at him instead. Minho calls it payback for yesterday. Hyunjin huffs and reminds him that the older already got his payback, also yesterday. Minho only grins at that and settles for spreading his fingers over Hyunjin’s thigh as the car accelerates.)

When they start closing in on Hyunjin’s address, Minho tries not to let his eyes widen too much. But Hyunjin notices, because this part of Seoul reeks of money and he’d been prepared for this. So he lets Minho look as he grabs his now-empty suitcase, and then he pulls that along in one hand and his fiancé in his other one. It’s not like Hyunjin’s apartment is a penthouse or a suite or something, but they still ride to the 20th floor and enter through a passcode since the complex doesn’t have keys.

Hyunjin mutters a ‘please don’t judge me’ before opening the door, and proceeds to glare into the vast space as Minho cautiously takes it all in. The floor-to-ceiling windows along an entire wall is Hyunjin’s favorite part of the design, but Minho doesn’t walk up to them as Hyunjin himself did at first glance. The older looks around, as far as he can see from the entrance, but doesn’t say anything.

Hyunjin starts fidgeting. He wants to leave already. He wants to go back to Minho’s apartment.

“Bedroom’s this way,” he says, nodding in the right direction before bringing his suitcase along and throwing it open on the bed.

His bedroom is the only part of the apartment that feels ‘cozy’, if Hyunjin were to compare. He’s got fairy lights strung up, too, and keeps all of his art appliances in here. The room is big enough to fit his bed but also a proper workspace for his painting, and on free days Hyunjin sometimes barely even leaves this room. The en-suite bathroom helps, he supposes.

Packing the things he wants to bring is surprisingly hard, Hyunjin realizes, at least when he keeps getting distracted by Minho’s presence. It’s not like Minho is saying anything or looking upset or something of the sort, but Hyunjin just feels… tense. It doesn’t really feel like he’s come ‘home’. It feels like another momentary stop to wherever he goes next. Which is Minho’s apartment, where he wants to go, but it’s… He still feels kind of heavy.

“Hyunjin?”

“Yeah?”

Minho waits another second before stepping closer until they’re side by side, resting his hand on the small arch of Hyunjin’s back and looking into the empty suitcase, too.

“Wanna tell me what you’re thinking right now?” he asks quietly. “I really can’t tell.”

“I’m thinking that I don’t want to be here,” Hyunjin sighs, truthfully. “This room is the only one I actually like, but I still feel… uncomfortable, I guess. It feels weird to be here. It feels weird that you’re here, too. In my head, you’re… you’re the opposite of this place. You’re comforting, and you’re warm. I just feel cold here.”

“Does my apartment feel comfortable and warm, too?” Minho asks next, wrapping his whole arm around Hyunjin instead. “Or did you just not wanna say anything before?”

Hyunjin shakes his head. “I felt good there. I wanna go back, honestly. Can you help me pick some clothes out?”

Minho murmurs an ‘of course, darling’ against his cheek, kisses it sweetly, and then enters the walk-in closet without a word. Hyunjin doesn’t follow; doesn’t want to know what Minho is seeing or thinking while in there, so he settles for gathering his art appliances instead and placing them carefully inside the suitcase. He has the brief thought that he has no idea when he’ll go back here next, and figures that it might be for the best to bring everything he thinks he might want to use until then.

“Hyunjinnie?” Minho calls from inside the closet, just about the same time as Hyunjin thinks he’s done. “Can you come here, baby?”

Slightly apprehensive but mostly curious, Hyunjin joins his fiancé in the - practical, he must admit - space next to the bathroom. Minho is standing in the middle of the room, looking very much like a confused little bunny with his wide eyes and open mouth, and Hyunjin’s heart aches inside his chest. Oh, he’s adorable.

“Hmm?” he asks, looking around the room and Minho’s empty arms.

“I have absolutely no idea what to do with all of this.”

Hyunjin can’t help but smile, since Minho seems terribly confused upon the rows and rows of clothes from hundreds of photoshoots and endorsements and gifts and God knows what else. It’s a little insane how Minho’s incessant blinking and small front teeth peeking out can lift Hyunjin’s spirits as quickly as they do.

“I’ve never seen this many clothes in one place outside of a store before,” Minho admits, almost circling on his feet to take it all in.

“How much of it do you think I use?”

“How much of it can one person use?”

He can’t help it; he giggles a bit as he walks up to Minho and kisses him briefly, before taking his hand and walking them over to the dresser by the entrance that’s filled with clothes Hyunjin actually does use regularly. You know, like normal t-shirts and comfortable shorts and large hoodies and well-fitting track pants.

“This is where you wanna go, hyung,” he shares, pulling the drawers out to reveal the kind of clothes Hyunjin wears on days he’s not physically required to wear anything else. “I’ll go through the rest, but like, this is the only stuff I really need.”

Minho nods as his eyes scan the drawers, and he looks almost relieved. It’s kind of funny, and Hyunjin can’t help himself.

“You know, I did one shoot this spring though. The collection hasn’t been released yet, but I did it sort of like a birthday gift to myself. I’ve got most of those items in a special drawer.”

“Yeah?” Minho says, seeming slightly intrigued. Hyunjin smiles wider. “Why in a special drawer?”

He makes sure the smirk is as telling as it can be, and watches the shift in Minho’s expression when it dawns on him that he just played right into Hyunjin’s hands again. Minho blinks, and then he blinks two more times, and then Hyunjin strikes.

“It feels like the fitting place for a collection of lingerie, does it not?”

Minho just stares at him at first. Then he groans - loudly - and mutters about needing to lie down as he leaves in favor of face-planting in Hyunjin’s bed instead. It’s a good few minutes before he returns and mutely gets to work while the cogwheels seemingly continue to turn inside his head. Hyunjin would fear that he actually broke his fiancé, if he wasn’t busy sneaking looks at a focused Minho with that smile still pulling on his lips.

(The rest of the day is spent with Hyunjin dressing Minho up in both of their clothes, and he knows that the older is probably indulging him because of the difference in Hyunjin’s mood earlier. But Minho’s cheeks flush cutely when Hyunjin hums approvingly at a black button-up depicting a white hand holding two flowers, which coincidentally inspired Hyunjin to start drawing on his clothes after he got it about two years ago. Minho mumbles about them being lucky that he doesn’t have work for another week as Hyunjin carefully does his nails, and then sweetly follows Hyunjin’s instructions when he asks to do his make-up. And then they repeat the motions a couple of times. All in all, it’s really no wonder that Hyunjin can’t keep his hands to himself during the remaining hours of the day with how absolutely stunning Minho actually is.)

***

The next evening, they go see Hyunjin’s parents.

Hyunjin has a strange feeling that he thinks consists of around 20% happiness, 30% nausea, and 50% grief. He still hasn’t properly talked to his parents since his grandmother passed away, and he also hasn’t thought about that and her as much as he suddenly feels like he should have. He feels almost guilty for spending all this time with Minho inside their bubblegum pink bubble of new-found love and nothing much outside of it.

The guilt has lessened after he told Minho about it, though. They murmured softly in bed all morning about what Hyunjin’s family knew about the experiment (slightly more than they were allowed to, Hyunjin admits), and what he had told them about his plans of possibly pursuing art rather modeling (absolutely nothing, even though they had probably figured out that he didn’t enjoy it much anymore), and if they had a history of conflict concerning Hyunjin’s part and involvement in their family (they don’t).

So now he’s down to other measurements with guilt taking up close to 0%, even though Hyunjin does feel bad about being a mess himself when it’s reasonably Minho that should be nervous. He’s the one engaged to their only son without so much as a whisper of his existence before today, and the same goes for Hyunjin in a few days. But he can’t think about meeting Minho’s parents yet, because that would seriously have him spiraling.

Instead, he lets Minho kiss him softly as they park on the street outside of Hyunjin’s parents’ townhouse, and then he steals another one in return right after. Minho asks if Hyunjin feels okay (as okay as he ever will, Hyunjin thinks), then he asks if the older looks okay (which he obviously does, adorable in his straight cut jeans and oversized button-up and wavy hair), and then he asks if Hyunjin needs anything else before they go inside (he needs one more kiss and to feel their engagement rings clink together briefly).

Hyunjin barely makes it through the door without tearing up simply because it’s been so long since he visited last, and that was under normal circumstances. But he keeps his tears in check because his mother manages to do the same; even if that’s due to shock caused by the handsome stranger Hyunjin brought with him without any kind of thorough enough explanation, not to mention the camera crew. He suggests sitting down before they start talking about any of the things that’s happened lately, and his parents agree despite the surprised expressions on both of their faces.

(A text containing the words ‘I’m bringing someone’ really isn't much to go on, he knows, but since the cameras follow closely behind them and he wasn’t technically allowed to say much else… He’s glad no one is upset, at least.)

He does lose track of what he was going to say, however, when he looks at Minho sitting in his parents’ living room, kind and patient as ever as he waits for Hyunjin to take the lead and describe their situation in any way he would want to. But Hyunjin must look as lost as he feels, between his emotions and all the people who are here, because Minho takes his hand, squeezes it while raising his eyebrows slightly in quiet question, and Hyunjin can only nod and then listen as Minho proceeds to calmly explain where they’ve been and what’s currently happening.

It’s a very short, very watered-down version. But Minho does include parts of his proposal and the reasoning behind it, and the way it felt to see Hyunjin with his own eyes for the first time. He explains what will happen next, with the wedding about two weeks away, and how these initial two days in Minho’s apartment have been (again, a watered-down version).

But then he switches lanes, holding harder onto Hyunjin’s hand for a second as Minho makes slightly nervous eye contact with Hyunjin’s parents, and says:

“On a completely different note; what I wanted to say is that I’m so sorry for your loss. I know you must be grieving still and haven’t seen your son for a while and if you feel like it’d be more appropriate then I’d love to meet you some other time. Just say the word and I’ll leave, and you give me a call when you feel okay, Hyunjinnie, even if that’s not today. I know how strong the bonds of family can be. That’s why I offered your son my own grandmother’s ring.”

I love you, Hyunjin thinks as his eyes finally do grow watery despite his efforts earlier, because how could they not when this is the man who wants to spend the rest of his life with him.

I love you, Hyunjin thinks. I love you I love you I love you.

(He ends up kissing Minho’s cheek, right then and there, and when he turns back to his parents he can practically see the overflowing emotion in them, too. It goes unsaid that they immediately approve of him, and they ask more about Minho, and they ask what their relationship has been like so far, and they ask how they picture the future playing out, and other things that have nothing to do with the lingering sadness. When the crew start excusing themselves, Minho does too, but only to the kitchen to start prepping. Hyunjin’s mother throws an impressed look after him, and talking about Hyunjin’s grandmother feels easier somehow after the shared sense that someone else has actually joined the family. Hyunjin’s father only asks if Minho makes him happy, but it’s enough to get the waterworks flowing within him again. Hyunjin is dead serious when he replies that nothing has single-handedly made him this happy, in such a short time as well, and that Minho had him smiling through his tears even on the day Hyunjin’s father called, and that he really hasn’t stopped ever since.)

***

The next day means Tuesday, and lunch with Jeongin and Seungmin at a place near Jeongin’s campus, apparently, because while the rest of them were supposed to take this week off along with the previous ones, college doesn’t work the same way an actual employed position does. Not that Hyunjin would completely know considering his profession isn’t nine to five by any means, or demanded a degree out of him, but he gets the gist.

It’s a bit weird still, going places with Minho by his side - or actually going there inside Minho’s actual car, like in this scenario - because it feels like a prolonged vacation but also like their everyday lives are supposed to fit together now, considering they’re back in Seoul. Hyunjin likes being here with Minho, it isn’t that. It’s just very new to him.

It’s new to him to wake up to sweet kisses every day, and it’s new to plan out a whole day with someone. It’s new to go to a supermarket and do grocery shopping together, and it’s new to talk about possible dates they’d like to go on. That doesn’t mean it’s bad . Hyunjin just doesn’t know what to do with either his excitement or his nerves or his body, sometimes.

What feels less new by the minute, on the other hand, is the way Hyunjin and Minho are adapting to each other. Hyunjin feels how they pick up on each other’s expressions or thought processes faster than before, and sometimes Minho hands him the thing Hyunjin is searching for even before Hyunjin has explained what it is he’s looking for. Sometimes Hyunjin says the words Minho needs more prompting for; like how good it feels to get familiar in this domestic way, too, where they share a household, or how happy Hyunjin feels when he goes to sleep while counting Minho’s lashes and knows that he can do the same thing as soon as he wakes up.

They move differently now, too, in regards to each other. They cuddle up naturally without asking explicitly for it and kiss simply because they’re passing each other by while cleaning up. They learn that Hyunjin gets lost inside his head when he takes the time to start sketching again, and that Minho is incredibly focused when he’s cooking, and how they should best catch the other’s attention.

They learn that Seungmin and Jeongin are not like that. Seungmin and Jeongin bicker over every little thing, in a kind of endearing way. Both of them want to pick tables, and both of them want to guess what the other is going to order, and neither of them want to pay because “I paid last time!”, “No, I did!”. Hyunjin can’t relate at all, because… well, because Minho lets him have his way all the time, basically.

A stupid smile paints his face as he kisses Minho’s cheek, pretty much out of nowhere, but Minho only makes a small, pleased sound as he orders two iced americanos and two cheesecakes (one strawberry, one caramel). Hyunjin can’t decide which one he’d like the most, which Minho solves by splitting the cakes in two. Hyunjin also can’t blame Seungmin for the dirty look he throws their way, but he can beam and thank his own fiancé real sweetly.

The conversation quickly lands on Jeongin, who is doing worthwhile things with his time rather than lazing around and making out all day, even though Hyunjin might just like that better. He doesn’t know much about life in college himself, but Hyunjin listens intently as he plays with Minho’s fingers, and he listens even more closely when Minho asks about Jeongin’s studies and compares them with his own, providing a tip or two for Jeongin’s next cramming session. Seungmin doesn’t contribute much, which Hyunjin supposes might be due to knowing all of this already, but also because he apparently went to another school.

Jeongin asks if they’ve met up with anyone else, or friends and family, when he tires of talking about himself, and shares that they saw Changbin and Jisung the day before. Apparently, they’d gotten into a fight on their first day back which resulted in Jisung leaving Changbin’s apartment to go completely radio silent inside his own - which Changbin hadn’t even been to - but that they’d figured it out and were ‘quite disgusting, actually’. Seungmin leers at Minho and asks if you two lovebirds have gotten past that particular bump yet, to which Minho fixes Seungmin with narrow eyes and asks if Jeongin’s mother had asked Seungmin to move in with her upon their first time meeting.

It takes a moment for the words to sink in with the other couple, but Hyunjin thinks Minho has deserved that proud smile stretching across his lips. Especially when their eyes meet, and they both remember how Hyunjin’s mother had joked about wanting a Minho of her own to cook this kind of food for her, and that she sighed about remembering when Hyunjin used to look at her with the adoration he has for Minho, now. Hyunjin’s father hadn’t been as vocal with his approval, but he’d been delighted when Minho mentioned how much he enjoyed fishing and at the end of the night he had hugged Minho goodbye as well, after his son.

When they’ve bid the other couple and the camera crew goodbye and are headed back to the apartment with the mission of actually unpacking all of Hyunjin’s clothes and make actual space for them (the sentiment is exciting but the actual task is sadly boring), Hyunjin’s phone vibrates with a text from Felix asking if they’re free later in the week to meet up with him and Chan. 

“Hey, hyung?”

Minho hums in reply, fiddling with the radio as he waits for a green light. “Mm?”

“Would you wanna meet up with Felix and Channie hyung, too? Lix just asked me, sometime later this week?”

“Sure, baby,” Minho says easily. “At least none of those two has made it their life’s mission to get on my nerves.”

Hyunjin snorts, laughing a bit.

“You’re so dramatic,” he teases the older, pressing a finger to his side until Minho yelps. “You like Seungminnie. He gives you a run for your money and you like that. You may never admit it to him, but you can admit it to me, hyung. I promise I won’t tell.”

Minho doesn’t reply to that, but there’s a grin spreading across his face as he shifts to stare out of his window rather than back at Hyunjin’s knowing gaze. He presses the gas pedal harder than necessary, but Hyunjin only laughs as the car lurches into action at the green light. It feels like some kind of metaphor of their whole journey; the light turned green as they met and the speed with which they have moved since then has been faster than suggested. But Hyunjin kind of feels like he’s been smiling the whole way.

“Wanna postpone that unpacking a bit longer?” Minho asks, still grinning when he looks in Hyunjin’s direction for a second.

“What’d you have in mind?” Hyunjin shoots back, even though he’d probably take anything before unpacking his stupid clothes.

“We could go for a bit of a drive,” Minho suggests, probably constructing a route inside his mind as his eyes scan the traffic around them. “Doesn’t have to be long; just until we find a good spot to make out for a bit. Or we could actually drive and I’ll see if you’re a good enough co-driver to keep around. Your playlists will have to decide.”

Hyunjin looks at him, even though Minho is watching the traffic and not him. It doesn’t matter. Hyunjin will happily look at his gorgeous fiancé anytime said fiancé asks to make out with him. Especially in that black shirt, gray oversized cardigan combo that Minho put on today.

“Can we do both?” Hyunjin challenges, a crooked eyebrow meeting Minho when he throws Hyunjin a brief glance. “Drive first, bless other people with my amazing taste in music and men, and then stop somewhere I can climb onto your seat and taste some more of that cheesecake?”

“I knew you were a cheeky one,” Minho chuckles, steering right onto the highway. Hyunjin only laughs and hooks his phone up with the stereo.

***

The next day is for meeting Minho’s parents and bringing his cats back home, and Hyunjin can’t even tell which part he’s most nervous about. Minho’s cats mean the world to him and Hyunjin knows that he misses them, but it’s just as obvious that he loves his parents a lot. But similar to how Hyunjin hadn’t really been worried about whether or not his own parents would like Minho or not, the older doesn’t seem worried on that account either. Which Hyunjin doesn’t really get, since Minho has never brought anyone home before so how would he know but Minho argues that that is the exact reason as to why Hyunjin is in bigger luck. His mother has been nagging him forever, he claims, and will be quite literally over the moon when she sees Hyunjin. Who knows, maybe he’s right?

Hyunjin is definitely distracted when Minho tells him to close his eyes and wait, however, so he stays seated against the headboard as Minho leaves the room for a moment. When the older returns, he sits down by the edge of the bed with both hands behind his back and tells a confused but definitely intrigued Hyunjin to open his eyes. 

“What did you do?” he can’t help but ask, to which Minho just smiles angelically.

“I got my cute little fiancé a gift,” he teases, watching Hyunjin’s eyes grow wide in surprise. “Do you think he’ll like it?”

Hyunjin nods, feeling the cogwheels turn when he wonders when in the world Minho got him a gift? Haven’t they been practically attached to the hip since leaving the house? Hyunjin doesn’t think he’s done much without Minho’s presence, at least. Even when they’re not actively interacting, Minho has been within his metaphorical reach. What could this be?

“I’m sure he’d appreciate the sentiment,” Hyunjin replies, even though he’s smiling already. “Don’t tell him I said this, but he really loves feeling loved. Receiving gifts is definitely one good way of managing that.”

“Yeah?” Minho murmurs, tilting his head prettily. “Should I give it to him, then?”

“I think you should.”

Smiling wider, Minho retracts his arms from behind his back until he’s placing whatever he’s gifting the younger into his hands, and Hyunjin watches curiously as Minho removes his own hands and reveals a proper polaroid camera. It’s a thoughtful gift, Hyunjin realizes immediately. It’s to commemorate these precious days before they actually - supposedly - get married, and it’s a sign that Minho genuinely wants that. It also means that--

“You said photography was somewhat behind you,” Minho says, remembering that one short sentence that Hyunjin shared among a whole bunch of more useful information about himself in that same conversation, “but I figured this would be easier than drawing or painting whatever it is you want to save. Also, I can use this thing, too. With Your Highness’ permission, of course.”

“Lie down,” Hyunjin tells him, breathlessly and unreasonably excited. “You have to pose for me before I’ll allow you to use it.”

“A simple ‘thank you, hyung’ would suffice, but sure, I guess demands work, too.”

Hyunjin giggles, watching happily as Minho does lie down across the messy sheets, shirt rising up to expose a hint of his stomach above his sweats. He stands, pressing his legs against Minho’s dangling off the edge of the bed, and takes a shot straight from above. The picture is available a couple of seconds later, and Hyunjin smiles like a fool as he watches the Minho in the picture and the one smiling back at him from the bed. Minho looks comfortable, he looks warm, and he looks… delectable, actually.

“Don’t move,” Hyunjin urges impatiently, climbing onto the bed until he’s straddling Minho’s thighs and takes another picture with his own silhouette partly shadowing Minho’s body. “Actually, yes, bend your arm, like this--”

Minho may not have modeled before, and Hyunjin may not have taken professional photos before, but they don’t really care. Hyunjin knows the basics of how lights and angles work, and Minho’s facial structure makes it far easier than it should be to take pictures of him. He’s also very pliant, alternating between teasing through laughing or complaining, and indulges Hyunjin for the good half hour the younger stays focused.

Then the shirt slipping off Minho’s shoulder becomes too distracting, and his disheveled hair catches Hyunjin’s eye as well as his breath, and his shirt has risen almost to his chest and the smooth skin is just too inviting for Hyunjin to pass out on. He doesn’t put the camera aside, though. Instead, he sucks a bruise onto Minho’s elegant collarbone until the taut, purple mark is evident against Minho’s soft skin and pale white of his shirt, and then moves down Minho’s body until he can work another one into the plushness between Minho’s waistband and his belly button. He immortalizes both of them, in sensual close-ups and intimate full-shots alike.

Minho looks at him quietly when Hyunjin leans down on his palms on either side of the older’s head, before lifting the camera to his face to snap a candid shot of Minho as he looks in this moment, with eyes filled with promise and the marvelous shape of his mouth right on the brink of calling Hyunjin’s name. He drifts closer, letting the camera focus on Minho’s lips alone, and then he puts it and the outrageous amounts of printed photos aside.

Hyunjin is pulled down by the neck even before he can willingly return to Minho, but he can’t say that he minds. Minho wraps a firm leg around Hyunjin’s hips to haul him closer, and Hyunjin plants his forearms along the sheets to fit Minho’s face into his hands and then finally kisses him, passionate and pent up after staring at his gorgeous fiancé for so long.

“Hyung, you have no idea what you do to me,” he ends up confessing, eyes still closed as they breathe each other in. “You’re unbelievably gorgeous. ‘Can’t believe you’re mine. ‘Can’t believe I get to have you like this.”

“You and no one else,” Minho promises, and with an unexpected motion he removes Hyunjin’s right hand and guides it downwards, placing it onto his own chest and above the beating heart inside of it. “Can you feel what you do to me, Hyunjin-ah? Just by looking at me that way you do.”

“Liar,” Hyunjin whispers even though he believes him, kissing Minho open and fiery because he genuinely cannot get enough of him. “You just don’t want a repeat of what happened the last time you were in this position.”

Minho doesn’t reply, too busy keeping up with the way Hyunjin licks into his mouth and demands entrance, and then gasping once Hyunjin sucks lightly on the older’s tongue before moving on to pull at the plush, wet skin of his lips. Hyunjin has almost forgotten that he even said anything in the first place when Minho breaks their messy kissing and moves to mouth along Hyunjin’s jaw and nibble on his sensitive throat.

“There’s nothing you’ve done that I wouldn’t let you do again,” Minho says, making Hyunjin moan breathily from his words and his touch alike. “Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you, darling. Tell me how to make you happy.”

“I don’t have to,” Hyunjin replies, gasping and feeling grateful that he doesn’t even have to think for these answers to come to him. “You make me happy just by thinking of you, Minho. I’m happy because you exist. You don’t need to do anything. Just… just stay with me.”

Releasing Hyunjin’s skin from his mouth and falling back until his hair pools on top of the sheets, Minho looks at him with what Hyunjin can only describe as love. Affection, maybe. Adoration? Down those lines, and it makes his own heart feel like it could explode. In a good way. In the best way.

Minho’s hand lifts towards him, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, and then returns to weave their fingers together on top of Minho’s chest. Hyunjin likes that Minho reaches out for him, physically and emotionally.

“I’ll stay with you,” Minho says, sealing the words like a promise with both of their hands pressing down on his heart. “I’ll stay with you, Hyunjinnie. If that would make you happy, then it would make me even happier.” 

***

Hyunjin feels like vibrating out of his own skin when they pull up on Minho’s parents’ driveway, and doesn’t exactly feel better knowing that every misstep he makes or whatever way of embarrassing himself he comes up with will be on tape and broadcasted globally. It’s cruel, he thinks. The world is a cruel, cruel place. He just wants to kiss Minho. That’s it.

“Do you think you’ll feel less nervous than this if we wait a bit or should we just go inside and get it over with?” Minho asks, teasing but also unbuckling Hyunjin’s belt and taking his hand. “Has the mess I made of you earlier already passed?”

Hyunjin huffs, but it turns into a burst of laughter. “Not entirely, no. I’m less tense than before, believe it or not. But you’re right, I probably won’t feel better. We should go inside.”

So they do, camera crew trailing behind them as Minho opens the door and calls for his parents, who come into view with happy expressions that quickly turn surprised, imitating what Hyunjin saw on his own parents' faces not that long ago. Here goes nothing.

“Mom, dad,” Minho smiles, pulling Hyunjin inside by their intertwined hands and pressing a quick kiss to the younger’s cheek, “this is Hyunjinnie. He’s really nervous about meeting you, even though I’ve been trying to explain that he’s the only person I’ve ever wanted you to meet. It’s a long story, how we got to this point, but I think the story will only grow longer from here, actually. Hyunjin, what do you think?”

I think you should have warned me in advance before throwing me under the bus, Hyunjin wants to say, or possibly I think you should have worked another orgasm out of me for this.

(Thankfully, he doesn’t say either of those things.)

Hyunjin gives a polite bow, because that’s what you do when you meet someone you want to impress (or even just to like you) for the first time, and breathes a sigh of relief when Minho’s parents mostly look at him curiously, not seeming very upset at all. God, he hopes Minho was right.

“Hello, I’m Hwang Hyunjin,” he introduces himself, struck by how different things were when they met his parents, but this is probably the way things were supposed to go. “It’s really nice to meet you both. Minho hyung has told me a lot about you. I’m sorry for… for the strange circumstances.”

“You didn’t answer my question, darling,” Minho reminds him, clearly finding this funny judging by the glint in his eyes, but he also runs his fingertips across Hyunjin’s ring. “It’s a long story, but don’t you think it’ll become even longer?”

“Of course it will,” Hyunjin answers, not even thinking twice about it. “You literally promised today that you’d stay with me, hyung. You can’t back out of that. Even if I embarrass myself.”

Minho giggles at his reply, reaching to press another kiss to Hyunjin’s warm cheek, and then Hyunjin looks up from the floor to nervously check what Minho’s parents are thinking.

“Is that my mother’s ring you’re wearing?” Minho’s father suddenly asks, nodding towards Hyunjin’s hand. He seizes up immediately. Does he think that’s disrespectful? Is it? Should he have taken it off before they came here?

“Yes,” he almost whispers, fighting the urge to hide his hand behind his back. “Yes, it is. Family means a lot to me and I know it does to Minho hyung, too, so it… Yes. It is, and it really meant a lot to me.”

He wants to close his eyes and pretend he’s somewhere else when Hyunjin realizes that he just rambled in front of Minho’s parents, God. He could’ve just said ‘yes’. He should have just said ‘yes’. He didn’t have to be so repetitive. Oh, God.

Minho’s father makes a humming sound - probably where that habit came from? - and it’s familiar enough to make Hyunjin gather his courage to meet the man’s eyes again.

“Good,” the older man says, breaking out into a smile. “I was afraid I might never see it again for a while, there. It looks good on you, Hyunjin-ssi. I hope you’ll wear it for a long time.”

Hyunjin’s shoulders are barely sagging with relief when he’s suddenly being hugged by the smallest person around, as Minho’s mother approaches him and puts her arms around him in greeting. He lets Minho go long enough to hug her back, automatically, despite the surprise.

“Don’t be nervous, Hyunjinnie,” she says a moment later as she lets go of him with a warm, achingly familiar smile. “I’m not worried about my son’s judgment. If he says it’s you, then it’ll be you. Welcome to the family, honey.”

The words ease Hyunjin’s worries instantly, and it’s only when he looks back towards Minho that he finds an obnoxious grin on the older’s face and groans inwardly as he realizes that Minho was right and he will be bragging about it later. Great.

Dinner goes well, Hyunjin thinks. Minho’s parents are kind and mostly listen, rather than ask follow-up questions or some of the harder ones that Hyunjin isn’t sure he’d know how to answer. Once the camera crew have got the footage they came for and leave, their conversation about Hyunjin’s family continues for a few more minutes before Minho’s father finally asks what Hyunjin does for a living. And Hyunjin doesn’t want to lie to them, he quickly realizes. He’d talked it over with his own parents the other day and felt like he had their support to switch lanes, and he’s gonna look things over properly with Minho sometime over the next few days.

But he doesn’t want to lie to Minho’s parents, so he smiles carefully and tells them the short version of the truth: that he’s been working as a model for the past years and doesn’t want to anymore, partly because he doesn’t want to travel that much but mostly because he doesn’t enjoy it like he used to. He swallows and squeezes Minho’s hand back and shares that he’s - they’ve - been looking into art classes since he wants to try that out, and that Minho has been helping him a lot.

Nervously, he adds that they don’t need to worry about him being unemployed or anything because he has jobs lined up here in Seoul over the next few months, too, and hasn't withdrawn yet without another solid plan in front of him. And they definitely don’t need to worry about finances, because--

“I don’t think we’re actually worried, Hyunjinnie,” Minho’s mother says while he’s fidgeting, throwing a look at her husband who nods in agreement. They both smile at him. “That’s very brave of you. I better hope my son would support you both financially and emotionally since he’s obviously planning on marrying you, but you don’t strike me as someone who needs help, honey. What sort of art do you do? I dabbled in painting myself when I was younger. Do you have any pictures?”

Hyunjin almost cries with relief - again - and explains how he’s been operating and switching focus over the years but thinks he’s settled on painting, too. Despite his protests and burning cheeks, Minho pulls his phone out and shows them Hyunjin’s painting of Minho with the moon and the ocean as his backdrop. It had been the first thing Hyunjin did once he picked the brush up again, and he went easy on himself by smudging features and softening contrasts. But he likes it, and there’s a tinge of pride hidden in all that bashfulness he feels.

(Minho’s parents seem impressed, at least, which is far beyond what he had hoped for.)

Catastrophe really only strikes an hour or so later into the evening, when Hyunjin excuses himself from the living room to lock himself in the bathroom and sniffle miserably at his own reflection. He tries not to freak out completely, since he’s not in the best situation to lose his mind right now, but it… It feels like disaster, Hyunjin can’t stop thinking, when he realizes that he must be allergic to Minho’s cats.

Things had been fine initially, since the three fluffy animals stayed out of the kitchen for most part of their meal. Only after, once they left for the living room and shared that space with all three cats and Minho grew increasingly preoccupied with petting them and cooing gently and waving them over until he was surrounded by all three, and then proceeded to hold Hyunjin’s hand or touch his clothes. And right next to him was Hyunjin himself, who had been cautiously excited about meeting Minho’s cats and taking them back to the apartment, but also felt the way his nose and eyes alike started running, and how there was a strange feeling inside his throat. He almost wondered if he was falling sick, but that doesn’t happen to Hyunjin like this did.

He doesn’t look like a complete mess, but it’s definitely visible. Hyunjin washes his hands carefully and lets the cold water run while splashing his face several times, which does help with the itching and the running for a bit. But there’s no escaping the knowledge that is dawning on him. How didn’t he know this earlier? Has he really never spent this much time around cats before in his life? Can people suddenly become allergic at twenty-three?

Another unbidden thought crosses his mind; one he’s almost ashamed of but can’t seem to fully ignore. Is this a dealbreaker?

When there’s a knock on the door a couple minutes later, Hyunjin wants to cry. How is he going to explain this? It’s almost certainly Minho coming to check up on him since Hyunjin literally won’t leave the bathroom, but how is Hyunjin supposed to live with making Minho choose between his cats or his fiancé, who is apparently allergic to said cats? No amount of medicine will allow him to live in the same apartment as three cats, right? Is one okay, which means Minho might need to choose one to stay with them? Will Hyunjin need to move back to his apartment? To live separately? Maybe Minho can’t see himself being with someone who can’t be around his cats at all? Or maybe--

“Hyunjin-ah,” Minho tries again, through the closed door. “Are you feeling okay? Do you wanna go home? It’s okay if you do, baby, we’ll go right now.”

The anxiety is so strong, and Hyunjin almost wants to laugh about how he’s reacting more violently to this than Minho’s parents’ approval. Physically, obviously, but also mentally. He has no idea how Minho will react, but it’s not like Hyunjin can hide it or fake anything. Pretend to be sick, maybe, but that would only prolong his suffering. Maybe Minho won’t care at all and Hyunjin is getting worked up for nothing? Maybe Hyunjin is just overreacting? It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Hyunjin,” Minho repeats, coaxing behind the wood separating them. “Talk to me, or I will assume that you’ve passed out and I will kick down the door. You don’t have to open, just let me know what’s going on, baby.”

“I can’t,” Hyunjin whines through the door, bringing the cold water to his eyes in an attempt to shock them out of tearing up. “This is a dealbreaker. You’re gonna ask for your ring back and you can’t have it. It’s mine now.”

Minho laughs a bit in apparent relief now that he’s received a response, and questions him immediately. “Hwang Hyunjin, what the hell are you talking about?” 

“I ruined it,” Hyunjin mourns, trying to sound like he’s joking even though he definitely isn’t. “You’re gonna kick me out for this. I’ll never get to hear those vows. And you won’t get to hear mine!”

“Hyunjin, I genuinely cannot imagine anything that would change things to that extent for me, and especially not in this past hour in my parents’ living room.”

It twists something inside of Hyunjin, to hear Minho sound so sure of his feelings and where he stands. But that’s only because he doesn’t have all the information, since Hyunjin is currently withholding the possibly biggest thing yet. He really shouldn’t put too much faith in what Minho is saying right now, because he doesn’t know the reason Hyunjin is seeking reassurance in the first place. God.

Hyunjin unlocks the door without a word, and Minho is quick to open it and look at him. Something on Hyunjin’s face must illustrate that he actually isn’t finding this funny at all, and he watches nervously as Minho’s face changes when he reaches that same conclusion.

“Tell me,” Minho repeats, reaching for Hyunjin’s hands and gasping when he feels how cold and wet they still are. He lifts them to his own mouth. “Hyunjin. Baby. My precious little love. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m sorry,” Hyunjin apologizes in advance, squeezing his eyes and his whole face firmly shut. “I’m sorry, Minho, I really didn’t know. I would’ve told you, I… I promise I didn’t know. I’m really sorry.”

“What didn’t you know, baby?”

“I’m…”

Hyunjin inhales slowly, exhales slowly, but his voice wobbles anyway.

“I think I’m allergic to cats.”

The silence that follows is one of the worst ones of Hyunjin’s life, he thinks. He’s not too worried about Minho not believing him, but the impact this could have on their relationship is… it’s too large and too intimidating to put into words.

“I didn’t know,” Hyunjin finally says, quietly, echoing and apologizing and unable to look at Minho’s face still. “I promise I didn’t know. I would’ve told you immediately when you mentioned your cats, I didn’t mean… I had no idea. I’m so sorry, hyung, I’m… I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel like… like I’ve tricked you or blind-sided you or… or like you have to-- have to choose, or--”

The tears finally fall down his cheeks the longer Hyunjin rambles on, because God he never meant for any of this to happen. They were supposed to get the cats used to Hyunjin and Hyunjin used to the cats, and then bring them back to where they actually live before Hyunjin came out of nowhere and turned Minho’s life upside-down. Minho adores his cats. He literally rescued all three of them from shelters and has hundreds of photos and videos of them in his phone and even more memories stored in his head, and he’s been looking forward to ‘completing the household’ and ‘having all his babies in one place’ and Hyunjin quite literally just ruined that.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, wishing Minho would let go of his hands so Hyunjin could hide away in them. “I didn’t mean to make you choose, I know… I know how much you-- how much you love them and I don’t… I don’t know what I’m saying or thinking, hyung, I’m just sorry, I’m really, really sorry, I didn’t want--”

“Okay,” Minho interrupts, removing his button-up to leave the shirt beneath before stepping closer. He releases Hyunjin’s hands to pull the younger flush against him, and lets Hyunjin’s tears soak Minho’s shirt instead of his own cheeks. “Okay, I get it, Hyunjinnie, I believe you, don’t worry. I’m not upset with you.”

“I ruined it,” Hyunjin repeats with another rush of tears leaving his eyes, despite knowing full well that an allergy isn’t something that he can control or somehow brought upon himself. That frankly doesn’t matter at this moment. “I ruined it.”

“You did nothing, baby,” Minho murmurs, holding him close, and Hyunjin doesn’t think he sounds upset. “Are you feeling okay? Do you think you need medication or to see someone?”

Hyunjin shakes his head. “It’ll go away, I think.”

“Okay,” Minho replies, gently running his fingers through Hyunjin’s hair. “Then I suggest that you and I go home, take a shower, and then we talk about this once you’ve realized that I don’t want your ring back, I’m not kicking you out, and that I’ll tape my vows to your eyelids if I have to.”

(Hyunjin cries harder, even though it’s thankfully mostly muffled by Minho’s shirt and broad shoulder.)

“You asked me to stay, and I promised to stay,” Minho reminds him, holding on. “I told you that the cats are fine here and offered to live in your apartment because it was true, darling. The cats are fine here, but I’m fine with you, Hyunjin. I need your presence to be happy, too. Let’s go home, yeah? Come home with me.”

Home.

It sounds nice, Hyunjin thinks. He really wants Minho to be ‘home’.

Chapter Text

“Hyung, be honest with me. What are you really feeling right now? Please don’t lie to spare my feelings.”

Minho sighs, settles deeper into the cushions around them on the couch and tugs Hyunjin’s body properly against him to rest his chin over the top of the younger’s head. Hyunjin hopes Minho won’t lie to him. It’ll probably hurt to hear Minho confirm Hyunjin’s fears, but he really doesn’t want Minho to put his feelings aside or have them backlash down the line. He’d rather take the hurt now than in six months.

“First of all, I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Minho says, and he does sound more troubled than Hyunjin can remember since meeting him face to face. It’s partly comforting to be reminded of the pods, in a strange way, because if they got through that, then…? “Both about the allergies and the tears. I’m relieved that you’re not as upset anymore, Hyunjin-ah. You haven’t apologized to me many times but it breaks my heart when you do. Especially since you’ve never had any reason to in the first place. I’m really glad you’re feeling better.”

Hyunjin bites his tongue from arguing, and takes another breath while he waits for Minho to continue.

“After that, I feel… sad, I guess. Disappointed.”

A heavy, heavy stone of a heart sinks inside Hyunjin’s chest. He’s always hated disappointing people, but the agony twists like a knife inside of him at the confirmation that Minho is affected to that extent because of him. It doesn’t exactly help that Hyunjin doesn’t know what to do to fix it. He can’t magically remove his allergies or pretend like they don’t exist. But removing himself from Minho’s life - or even his apartment - feels just as impossible. He hasn’t even considered that possibility since arriving here. Not before last night, at least.

“I would’ve really liked to have them here with us,” Minho murmurs atop Hyunjin’s head, and he does sound wistful. Sad. Disappointed. “I was looking forward to it. A lot. And knowing that I might never have that feels really… It feels like a loss. Like I’m missing out on this thing I was really looking forward to. But Hyunjin?”

Inside Minho’s warm embrace, Hyunjin nods. He doesn’t really trust his voice.

“I’ll get over it.”

Hyunjin stops, forgetting about his voice completely. “What?”

“I’ll get over it,” Minho repeats, nuzzling his face into Hyunjin’s damp hair. “If you had known all along and told me during our very first conversation that you were allergic to cats, it might have been a dealbreaker. You’re right. There’s a chance I would’ve discarded you immediately. But that was for the first couple of days I ever spent away from them, and it’s been weeks now. I’ve gotten used to it. And most importantly, that was before I fell in love with you.”

Minho’s voice fades into a whisper at the end of his sentence, but Hyunjin doesn’t think that makes Minho’s words any less true. And if Hyunjin wants his fiancé to believe him, then Hyunjin better give him the same benefit of the doubt in return. So he stays quiet, listening and processing, and hopes with all his might that Minho is being truthful but also that his opinion won’t change further on. It could.

“If I was going to let you slip out of my hands, it would’ve been on that first day,” Minho continues, still all but whispering, but the night is quiet around them and Hyunjin latches onto every word. “Not one minute afterwards. I’ve had years with my babies and like I said; they don’t really need me anymore. They’ve been wonderful company, but they have each other. And I have you, darling. I promise that this solution is better than the alternative. Scratch that, there is no alternative. There’s the two of us, and I’m sad about it right now, but it’ll pass. Also, it’s more likely that I’ll lock you up so you can’t escape until we’re officially married rather than kicking you out. Stupid.”

“You’re so mean,” Hyunjin complains, hiding away. “Calling me stupid for worrying about which love you’re gonna have to put aside because my body won’t work as it should. You shouldn’t have to, hyung. I feel really bad.”

Minho runs his fingers down Hyunjin’s back. “I know. Now tell me how you feel, baby. Besides ‘bad’. Or what ‘bad’ entails.”

“Guilty,” Hyunjin admits. He does. He feels awful about it. “I feel guilty. About abruptly making you choose between two things you love. I feel guilty for hoping that you’ll choose me, a person you’ve known for one month, over these three creatures who you’ve cared for multiple years. I feel guilty about the relief I feel when you actually say what I wanted you to say. I feel like I’ve taken something from you, Minho. Something you love. And I never ever wanted that, that wasn’t supposed to happen, I was supposed to make your life better the way you did mine, and I just… I ruined it.”

“Your unknown medical condition ruined an illusion I had in my brain,” Minho argues. “Hyunjin, it’s not like you’ve ruined my life or our relationship by doing something wrong. Do you think an allergy just magically erases all the things you have done to improve my life? Things you’ve done both knowingly and unknowingly? This was a setback, not a summary of the impact you’ve had on me. Baby, you know this. You know this.”

Hyunjin closes his eyes.

“I just didn’t mean to hurt you,” he all but whispers, not liking the way Minho has gone stiff at all. “I don’t want you to be sad and I don’t want it to be because of me and I don’t want things to be like this. I want it to go away. I want to see a doctor and try medication and make it disappear. I want to fix it.”

Minho’s chest moves as he breathes again, slowly and steadily, and Hyunjin would feel comforted by that alone if the older wasn’t completely silent. He tries really hard not to panic, actually, when Minho removes the limbs they’ve got tangled around each other to put some space between their bodies.

But then he looks at Hyunjin, at his absolute misery, and sighs with a tiny smile.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“What if it doesn’t work? How will you feel then?”

Hyunjin swallows. Yeah, he’d feel awful then. They both know it. But they don’t yet know whether it’ll work or not, do they?

“We’ll worry about that when it happens,” he decides. “I want to try to fix it. We can test things out first with visits and petting and changing clothes and washing hands and stuff. Maybe eventually take them home and try for a day? Maybe it’ll work if they don’t enter the bedroom? Do you think your parents would be okay with that?”

Minho decides that a kiss is the best answer, and Hyunjin doesn’t argue. He lets Minho pull him back against his body and sighs in relief when their lips touch. He knows that they didn’t exactly fight, and that this is a far stretch from ‘make up-sex’, but his mind places it into the same category anyway. Hyunjin knows that Minho was (is?) sad, and he knows that he’s still partially upset himself, but he also knows that they are able to talk things through even in that state until they land on some kind of solution.

“I love you,” Minho murmurs when they part, caressing Hyunjin’s shoulder blade with his hand. “I’ll love you no matter how this testing of ours goes. But I think I love you more now, for suggesting it. I think I love you more for every passing day, actually.”

***

When Hyunjin watches Minho emerge from the bedroom in white jeans and a light, yellow button-up two days later, he’s reminded of the first time they ever spoke and the space that felt like late spring. Minho looks soft, in a way that a person with those facial features really shouldn’t be able to pull off. But Hyunjin’s fiancé does, as he has everything else Hyunjin has seen him in, and the thin bracelets on his wrist look incredible against his sinewy forearms.

Chan and Felix can wait for a couple of minutes, right?

Minho is pocketing his wallet and keys when he spots the way Hyunjin is looking at him, and breaks out into laughter immediately. “No. Put your shoes on, Hyunjinnie, come on.”

“But hyung,” he pouts, walking up and pulling at Minho’s shirt until it leaves his pants far enough for Hyunjin to stick his hand in and feel the skin of Minho’s stomach. “I’m starved. I’m fading away into nothing. I don’t think I’ll make it down to the garage.”

“Hyunjin, we’re literally going for lunch. You had breakfast an hour ago.”

“But I can’t wait,” Hyunjin mumbles, grasping Minho’s waist in both hands from different sides of the shirt. “I think I need something for the road. Just a taste, hyung. Please?”

Taking Hyunjin’s neck into his hand, Minho brings their mouths together and kindly parts his lips when Hyunjin eagerly prompts him to. He even complies when Hyunjin walks them closer to the wall, until Minho’s back is flush against it and he’s gasping prettily into Hyunjin’s mouth as large hands hold him firmly.

But then Minho stops kissing him back, and it takes Hyunjin a second to realize and another to back up to see what happened. He’s only met with flushed cheeks and saliva-stained lips, of course, and a fiancé who grins as he removes Hyunjin’s hands from his body and tucks his shirt back into his pants.

“That was for the road,” Minho clarifies, looking pointedly towards Hyunjin’s shoes as the younger grumbles and puts them on. “We’re going for lunch and being social and getting today’s filming out of the way, and then, baby? Then we’re going back home for dessert.”

Minho’s fingers tease the rips in Hyunjin’s jeans the entire drive over, and the younger feels jittery even when he exits the car. But he’s also excited to meet Felix and Chan, and it seems that Minho is too. Not to mention the difference in how Minho talked about and described Chan compared to Seungmin.

Felix shines along with the sun when he bounces towards them on the street and hugs Hyunjin first, and then Minho, who looks taken aback but reciprocates it either way. Chan waves at them from the entrance of the restaurant, and throws an arm over Minho’s shoulders as he approaches, which looks like a more expected action judging by Minho’s grin.

“It’s lovely to see you again, Hyunjin-ssi,” he greets while Felix hangs onto Hyunjin’s arm. “How have you been? You’re at Minho’s place, right? How’s that been working out?”

“I’m good,” Hyunjin replies, locking eyes with Minho for a second and smiling even faster. “We’re good. Just last night he threatened to lock me in there until the wedding, which I think is a good sign. How have things been with you?”

Things between Chan and Felix turn out to be absolutely fantastic, Hyunjin quickly learns. He can practically see the heart-eyes as they look at each other - which happens a lot considering they’re sitting in opposite seats - and Felix has always struck him as smiley, but this is another level. It seems like Felix relies on Chan a lot, both in how he’ll switch to English to ask for a specific word he wants to use and then learn it from Chan and return to their conversation in Korean, but also how he physically leans into and seems to gravitate towards Chan whether they’re sitting or standing.

(Hyunjin wonders for the first time what he and Minho and their interactions look like to other couples, and what the viewers will think from what they see. It’s not that he’s worried; he’s almost surprised by how little he actually cares about that. It’s more of a clinical curiosity, an objective inquiry since Hyunjin really hasn’t seen himself and Minho like that.)

The camera crew leave before they do, and once Hyunjin and Minho are back in the elevator it’s actually been more than a couple of hours. For better and worse, Hyunjin thinks, because he was kind of looking forward to that dessert Minho had mentioned before they left, but he feels like he returns to the apartment as a new man after this fresh piece of information his life has been enriched by.

“I knew there had to be something,” he pants between kisses, struggling between pressing Minho’s mouth against his and his continuously racing mind. “I knew it, I seriously wondered how much sex you’d had in your life to move like that but it turns out… it turns out you dance. How could you not tell me that? Oh, my god.”

“Because I had so much fun watching the look on your face,” Minho replies, annoyingly, smirking as he leaves Hyunjin chasing after his lips. “It never came up, darling, what can I say? I don’t actually dance anymore, I told you in the car. It was fun seeing Yongbokkie’s studio, though. I didn’t think I’d remember the choreo to ‘Finesse’ after all this time.”

“Traitor,” Hyunjin grumbles. “Filthy, filthy liar. I cannot believe you would keep this from me. Do you even love me at all?”

Minho bursts out laughing, which is appropriate since the elevator halts and its doors open to reveal an elderly couple waiting to get in. Hyunjin’s cheeks burn as he bows and hurries out while they regard them suspiciously, but Minho only laughs as he pulls the younger along by the hand until they’re safely hidden behind their own door.

“Let me make it up to you, baby,” Minho purrs, pressing Hyunjin against the spot where these roles were reversed right before they headed out. “Let hyung show you just what he can do to make you feel good.”

Hyunjin’s head spins. He feels light-headed. He should probably breathe, actually.

“How would you like to top, Hyunjinnie?”

“‘s good,” Hyunjin squeaks, feeling Minho’s breath closing in on his neck. Everything is good right about now. “I’ll… I’ll do that. That’s fine.”

“Don’t worry,” Minho taunts, catching Hyunjin’s skin between his teeth. “I’m not expecting you to do the work, princess.”

Hyunjin’s responding moan is embarrassingly loud, and he’s pretty sure that anyone passing by the door would catch it. A very brief thought consisting of ‘that could feel really mean but it doesn’t?’ and ‘why do i like it so much?’ crosses his mind, but he decides to linger on that some other time. Some time when Minho’s firm hands aren’t guiding him into a bedroom first and a bed later, gently pushing him onto his back and climbing on top of him to settle down with one wonderful thigh on each side of Hyunjin’s almost vibrating body.

“Good?” Minho checks, guiding Hyunjin’s hands to the older’s hips which he holds tightly onto through his jeans. “‘Yes’ or ‘no’, darling.”

“Yes,” Hyunjin replies, and feels the way his own hands move when Minho immediately gets to work on his lap. “Oh, God, hyung, that’s… Oh. Oh.”

“Yeah?” Minho is smiling when Hyunjin stares up at him; a whole devil considering the way he’s currently gyrating in tight circles over Hyunjin’s crotch. His jeans are so uncomfortable. “Should we just do this and kiss for a bit, then?”

Hyunjin groans. He can’t really think about their options with the way Minho’s warm body is pressing down on him continuously, beyond the fact that he wants more. He always wants more when it comes to Minho.

“Closer,” he ends up saying, to which Minho leans down until their noses are touching. The pressure of his hips is different from this angle - more up and down than circles - but no less maddening. “Closer, hyung, even closer.”

“Wanna get out of these clothes?”

Hyunjin whines, nodding, and whines again when Minho gets off of him to actually get them out of their clothes. The older returns with a satisfied grin on his face and the half-empty bottle of lube in his hand, but Hyunjin reaches to pull him down before Minho can do anything else he might have had in mind.

“I like you so much,” he whispers, cradling Minho’s head and indulging in the pleasure of their hot bodies lined up together. “So much, Minho.”

“And here I’ve been thinking that you loved me,” Minho breathes back, tapping his fingers over Hyunjin’s bare shoulder. “You really weren’t kidding about feeling betrayed, were you, darling?”

“No,” Hyunjin smiles, teasing despite the truth surrounding them. “But I can do both, hyung. I love you because I’m in love with you. I like you because of who you are as a person. I would’ve liked you even without the other feelings.”

Minho looks at him silently for a moment, matching Hyunjin’s smile, but the younger isn’t sure if what he meant actually came across the way he feels it or not. He wants Minho to understand that Hyunjin admires him. That Hyunjin respects him. That Hyunjin would have felt comfortable around him in any scenario they could have met.

“This is one of those moments where I really don’t know how to respond,” Minho ends up saying, and when Hyunjin sneaks a look at Minho’s ears - as he’s learned to do - they’re adorably red.

He smiles wider. “Practice, hyung. No pressure.”

“Okay,” Minho laughs, far more nervously than Hyunjin thinks he should, but… But he’s precious. “Okay, well… Now I wanna say it back but that doesn’t seem very genuine. But I wanna say it because I get it. I think I know what you mean.”

“What do I mean?” Hyunjin asks quietly, encouragingly.

Minho leans down for a firm, close-mouthed kiss before replying just as quietly.

“That you love me in the romantic sense of the word,” he says, only slightly wobbly, “but even if you didn’t, even beyond that romantic feeling, you genuinely like my personality. Like if we’d met somewhere else without actively looking for… for this, we might have been friends. At first.”

Hyunjin bursts out laughing at the proud ‘at first’ Minho adds onto the ending of his explanation, looking incredibly pleased with himself both for getting all those words out but probably also for making Hyunjin laugh. As he should be.

“You think I’d fall for you either way?”

“I’m pretty sure I’d fall for you either way,” Minho tells him, “and then I’d win you over if I had to.”

“Aw,” Hyunjin coos, horribly endeared, “I’m kind of sad now that I won’t get that experience. I think I would’ve liked to be wooed.”

“I think so, too, princess,” Minho grins before going for another kiss, and Hyunjin quickly decides that he’s done talking now.

He lets his hands trail down Minho’s body, from his warm neck to his strong shoulders and narrow back, all the way down to the hips and thighs keeping him still against the mattress. He doesn’t know where the lube went, but he lets his fingertips wander until they’re grazing the area where Minho must want them most. The older’s skin is surprisingly soft, Hyunjin thinks, even here, and if Minho hadn’t already been vocal about his plans then Hyunjin would’ve probably asked him to climb higher up Hyunjin’s body.

Oh, well. Another time.

“Here,” Minho murmurs, and then the hand that isn’t teasing Minho’s rim is filled by said bottle. “You work me open and I’ll work on your neck, darling.”

And honestly? Hyunjin is increasingly grateful that he isn’t being touched below his neck, because Minho grinding his crotch into Hyunjin’s as the younger’s fingers carefully open him up is by far enough to have Hyunjin squirming beneath Minho’s delicious weight. He’s so sensitive; Hyunjin knows this. It’s been made apparent both in sexual settings and not, both by physical and emotional standards. But as their bodies grow heated enough to create a slick feeling as they move against each other, and Hyunjin’s throat is being continuously licked and bitten and sucked, and Minho starts making these lovely little noises once Hyunjin scissors his two fingers and flicks over Minho’s sweet spot on every other stroke… It gets to him.

“Will you sit up, hyung?” he asks, breathlessly, once Minho has had some time on both sides of Hyunjin’s throat. “Will you show me?”

“What should I show you, baby?” Minho murmurs with a wet, messy kiss to Hyunjin’s gasping mouth before placing both hands on Hyunjin’s chest and pushing himself up. “Would you like an appetizer?”

Hyunjin nods, lips parted and licking around them when they go dry as soon as Minho starts moving his hips again. Hyunjin doesn’t feel any specific pleasure from the two digits he’s got inside of Minho, but his fiancé certainly seems to.

“Remember when I said your hands were fucking huge?” Minho half-gasps, half-giggles as he pushes his hips down onto Hyunjin’s fingers. “Yeah, I was right. Holy shit.”

Hyunjin giggles, too. It’s been a week or so since their first round, and despite the time they’ve spent making up for the initial lack of physical connection; this is the first time they’ve switched. It feels good to know that Minho seems to enjoy this, too. They’ve spent hours learning each other’s bodies and buttons, and Hyunjin has gotten familiar with Minho’s prostate before, but not like this. Not with the promise of more and with Minho’s lithe body chasing his pleasure on Hyunjin’s slender fingers.

“Another one?” he asks once he thinks Minho might be properly spread open. It’s hard when he can’t see for himself.

Minho nods, stilling and groping at Hyunjin’s chest and shoulders with both hands as Hyunjin slicks three fingers up before carefully prodding at the muscle and slipping all three about halfway inside.

“Good?” he echoes Minho from earlier.

“Good,” Minho confirms, slowly grinding his hips back down until Hyunjin’s fingers are all the way inside. “Don’t move.”

Hyunjin doesn’t, letting Minho get used to the feeling and opts to lift his head until Minho catches his meaning and they’re kissing again, lazily and with no care in the world. Their mouths make this soft, slick noise every once in a while which has heat pooling in Hyunjin’s stomach, beyond what’s already there from Minho’s teeth playing with his lower lip as he distracts himself.

“‘Haven’t done this in a long time,” Minho shares, eyebrows knit together in concentration to stay relaxed despite the intrusion. “Months, if not more.”

“I’m honored, then,” Hyunjin murmurs, kissing Minho again and feeling him loosen up the slightest bit more at the gentle press of their lips. “You’re doing really well, hyung. Thanks for trusting me with this.”

Minho groans low in his throat, and then gasps as Hyunjin crooks his fingers slightly. He moves slowly; as slowly as Minho did that first night. Just letting Minho feel the shift of sensations as Hyunjin’s fingers almost leave his body, before just as slowly filling him up again. When he finds that spot once more, Minho’s hips shift downwards, as if trying to get him even deeper.

“So well,” Hyunjin repeats. “You feel so good around me, too.”

“Liar,” Minho whispers, making the younger smile.

“Well,” he amends, “I’m getting a sense of how good you’ll feel around other parts of me, at least.”

Minho huffs at that, breaking into a smile of his own, and then giggles breathlessly as he carefully works his hips around Hyunjin’s digits. He would take offense at the way Minho is laughing in this situation if Hyunjin didn’t feel his heart expand in his chest every time Minho so much as smiles. He’s so gone for this man.

“Alright,” Minho decides a few moments later, sitting up with Hyunjin’s fingers buried inside and reaching for the lube. “I’m done. Give it to me.”

“Hyung!” Hyunjin laughs, watching Minho throw him a grin and wink both before removing Hyunjin’s fingers by his wrist and pouring some lube into his own hand. When he wraps it around Hyunjin who gets his first taste of some real pleasure of his own, he can’t help but moan gratefully.

For someone who hasn’t done this very recently, Minho moves just as Hyunjin would advise him to. He situates himself comfortably, straddling Hyunjin’s middle and making a pleased noise as Hyunjin lets his hands splay out over the older’s hot skin, and lines himself up before slowly lowering himself onto Hyunjin’s length. His thighs don’t shake at all, to Hyunjin’s slight disbelief, but Minho’s eyes have fallen shut and his mouth dropped open as he takes him in bit by bit.

Hyunjin murmurs praises the entire time, torn between the pleasure and the affection and the gratitude he feels. He prefers to bottom, sure, but this experience is nothing short of breathtaking. Minho takes his sweet time, and Hyunjin does feel jittery with the urge to move because Minho’s walls are so warm and tight and wonderful around him, but he’s grateful that they’re doing this so distinctly on Minho’s terms since it’s kind of foreign to his body.

So he waits until Minho is all the way down, barely breathing and curling his fingers into Hyunjin’s middle, and then he waits some more.

“I love you,” he reminds Minho tenderly, with so much emotion inside of him for what was supposed to be a fun time, but Minho admitting that this is different for him really made Hyunjin pause. “You’re amazing, Minho. You feel amazing and you look amazing and you’re doing amazing. Tell me how it feels, love. How do you feel?”

“Good,” Minho admits, quietly but he sounds truthful. “It doesn’t hurt or anything, it’s just… weird. Since I’m not used to it. I feel really full, it’s like… I kinda wanna touch my stomach to see if I’d feel you there, too, ‘cause you’re so fucking big but I’m not gonna give you that satisfaction.”

Hyunjin laughs, but stops abruptly once he realizes that Minho feels the shift inside of him when he moans brokenly. But he doesn’t have the time to ask whether Minho’s okay or not before the older starts grinding his hips in tiny movements, most likely chasing a similar sensation. So he lets Minho take what he needs, go at his own pace, and reaches to remove a sweaty strand of hair from Minho’s eyes instead.

“It feels good,” Minho shares once he’s started to catch his breath, moving with less carefulness and more intent as he navigates the feeling of Hyunjin inside of him. “‘Feels really good, baby, you always make me feel so good. Kinda scared to lean back because you’re gonna poke my organs out, but beyond that…”

Hyunjin feels taken aback enough to break into another fit of giggles despite the hazy pleasure between them, because Minho just won’t let him catch a break but it’s also really, really lovely to have their same dynamic no matter what they do.

“Please stop,” he says, throwing a hand over his face as he laughs and feels Minho’s hand tangle its way into his other one. “It is not that big. If you’re saying this for my sake then I’ll tell you right now that it really isn’t working, because you’re exaggerating. I’m not even thicker than you.”

“That might be true, but you’re literally poking my prostate as soon as I even try to sit up,” Minho argues, and straightens slightly as if to prove his point only to moan immediately once he does. Hyunjin quickly uncovers his eyes. “Feel, here.”

Minho takes their joined hands and places them on top of his lower stomach, Hyunjin’s palm to his skin. Then he uses those incredible thighs to rise and drop himself back down, all while making Hyunjin the judge of whether or not he’s actually poking at Minho’s insides. Truth be told, Hyunjin feels his head spin when he realizes that there’s a physical difference beneath his hand depending on how deep inside Minho he is, even if it’s small and probably not at all noticeable by eye. Minho was right.

“Oh, my God,” he breathes, barely audible over Minho’s whines whenever he sinks back down, “hyung, that’s…”

“Yeah,” Minho agrees, pressing Hyunjin’s hand into his abdomen as he returns to those tight circles from before, making the younger release a surprised but definitely pleased sound in his throat. “Feels absolutely insane. I don’t think I’ll last much longer. I deserve a Nobel prize for lasting this long, actually.”

Hyunjin snorts, laughs, but most of all Hyunjin loves his fiancé.

“You’re really talkative,” he remarks, smiling up at Minho through his own gasps of pleasure. “You know, for someone who feels ‘insane’.”

“That’s the whole reason,” Minho argues, dropping himself down with enough force to have both of them cry out in the beginnings of ecstasy, before repeating the motion. “My filter doesn’t… doesn’t work anymore. I can’t think. I just talk. Don’t judge me.”

“I would never,” Hyunjin appeases him. “I wouldn’t dream of it. As long as you don’t judge me for crying.”

Minho groans loudly. “Fuck, you’re so pretty when you cry. When you feel good, I mean. When you feel pleasured to the point of tears. God, Hyunjin, you’re not real. What the hell are you doing to me?”

It doesn’t take long after that. Minho puts his dancer hips to impeccable work as he sets his mind to it, and somehow holds on long enough for Hyunjin to finish first. They make a complete mess out of each other but somehow spare the sheets, and Hyunjin blearily reaches for a blanket to throw on top of them after wiping the worst of it off. Minho seems totally spent, which is only fair since he did do most of the work, and Hyunjin happily lets his fiancé snuggle up to him with a sated little sigh.

“Thank you,” Hyunjin whispers, not sure if Minho has succumbed to a nap or not. “You’re incredible, Minho.”

He’s almost surprised to receive a hum against his sternum. “What are you even thanking me for? Having sex with you? Yeah, that was a real sacrifice.”

“Kind of,” Hyunjin smiles, pressing a kiss to the top of Minho’s head. “Mostly for being you. Thanks for being you, hyung.”

Minho hums briefly again, and Hyunjin thinks that’s all the reply he’s gonna get. Minho isn’t moving. Maybe he already fell asleep? From exhaustion?

(Three seconds later, Hyunjin learns that he didn’t.)

“Thank you, too, then.”

***

The following Monday, Minho goes back to work.

To Hyunjin it kind of feels like the end of the world, no matter how exaggerated that is. He feels awful when Minho kisses him for the last time before rolling out of bed way too early in the morning. He’s never had Minho kiss him for the last time before. He’s never had to say goodbye to Minho. The pods don’t even count, because Hyunjin barely knew what he was saying goodbye to at that point. But stumbling out of bed to attach himself to Minho’s back, refusing coffee because he’s gonna pout and sleep at least half of this day away, and throwing his arms and the blanket surrounding him around Minho as he goes to leave…

God, Hyunjin doesn’t want him to. He’s so clingy. He’s so needy. If he was actually awake, he’d probably feel bad. But luckily for Hyunjin, he’s not, and unluckily for Minho, his fiancé is adorable.

“Darling,” Minho tries for the seventh time, attempting to gently push Hyunjin away by his hands around the younger’s waist. “Hyunjinnie, baby, I have to go. I’ll be back. I’ll come back. The sooner you let me leave, the sooner I’ll return.”

“No,” Hyunjin whines, holding tight onto Minho’s shoulders and breathing him in. “If you never leave, you’ll never have to return in the first place.”

Minho chuckles, kisses his cheek, rubs his shirt-clad middle. Hyunjin wants nothing more than to pull him back into bed and smother him with drowsy affection.

“I promise I’ll come back,” Minho repeats, not sounding very annoyed at all, which Hyunjin thinks actually works to Minho’s disadvantage. If he’d sounded mad, Hyunjin wouldn’t have dared hold on. But he doesn’t. “Hwang Hyunjin, my precious little love, my darling princess, go back to sleep and I’ll be back before you know it. I promise. I love you. I promise.”

Seventh time’s the charm, apparently, because Hyunjin reluctantly retracts one millimeter movement at a time while Minho cutely cheers him on, and then presses a kiss to Hyunjin’s forehead before turning him around by the shoulders. Hyunjin barely blinks before hearing the door shut behind him, and pouts viciously at the knowledge that Minho left, even though a tiny part of him is glad that Minho didn’t make him physically watch the older leave.

Hyunjin sort of feels like crying, which he blames on lack of sleep and not at all on being a complete embarrassing mess of an adult human being. He doesn’t know if it’s awful that the sheets have gone cold, or if he should be grateful. He ends up tossing and turning for almost half an hour before he falls back asleep, face buried in Minho’s pillow and body tightly curled up. It’s almost two hours later when he wakes up anew, and immediately goes for his phone.

Minho has sent him four messages while he slept, and Hyunjin swipes with one hand while rubbing his eyes with the other one. He almost scratches his eyeball with his nail when he opens their chat.

morning baby

breakfast in the blue box in the fridge remember

text me when you wake up <3

Oh, Lord, that’s a mirror selfie. Of Minho looking buff in a black shirt. With a watch and his thick ass hands. And the sandy hair color Hyunjin had argued him into trying the night before since you’re leaving me tomorrow and i need something to distract me and just… Yeah. Hyunjin definitely won at life, in his humble opinion. No husband has ever been more husband than Hyunjin’s. Not that they're actually married - yet - but in Hyunjin’s mind they practically are. He doesn’t think it’ll change much between them. Which feels good.

Minho still sent him a very rude selca, however, but two can play that game.

i’m awake and i’m cold and i’m lonely :(

and i’m not leaving this bed until you drag me out of it

not even if i ask nicely?

Hyunjin squirms. Fuck, Minho is gorgeous. He’s so fucking gorgeous, actually. He doesn’t even look like he’s trying, he just… he just looks like that? Perfect? Oh, God.

The longer he stares, the more he squirms. He feels like what he’s sort of half-considering doing might be crossing some kind of line, but… maybe it isn’t? He doesn’t think Minho would mind. It’s the principle, though. They haven’t talked about that. Even though Minho decided to start sending him fucking thirst traps first thing in the morning. Jesus Christ.

you don’t deserve my whole face anymore :((((

you’re playing with my feelings and making the baby sad

let me guess,,,, you’re the baby

im baby <3

my baby <3

Hyunjin screams and throws his phone across the bed.

Eventually though, he drags himself out of the warm sheets and munches away a little less grumpily on breakfast while wondering just what he’s going to do to entertain himself all day. He doesn’t have to stay in the apartment, obviously, but Hyunjin really isn’t in any hurry to go anywhere else, either. Taking a long bath and doing skincare suits him perfectly and kills almost two whole hours, and then he lounges around the living area while absent-mindedly singing along to the playlist sounding from Minho’s speakers as he sketches idly. It helps that the cameras aren't really keen on filming this since they're boring now. Thank God.

It comes as a complete shock to Hyunjin when the door is being nudged long before Minho was supposed to be back, but faster than his mind can race away with one scenario after the other, the door unlocks and Hyunjin’s fiancé walks through it. It’s only 3pm, but Hyunjin is not about to complain.

He wonders if Minho is, on the other hand, as the older stops short after kicking his shoes off. Minho looks at him really strangely, almost as if he’d forgotten that Hyunjin would be here? Was he not supposed to? Why are Minho’s eyes so big?

“Oh, my god,” Minho says, still looking at a frozen Hyunjin up and down on the couch. “Oh, my God, you’re wearing my clothes.”

Hyunjin’s heart skips a beat. Fuck, he is. He was gonna change before Minho came back because he’s a little embarrassed about being caught in the oversized button-up Minho wore the other day and left over a chair, but… Well, Hyunjin missed him. And he needed clothes; the shirt was right there. Smelling like Minho, no less. There was no debate.

“... I’m sorry? I’ll go chang--”

“No,” Minho interrupts, abruptly walking towards him and groaning once he spots Hyunjin’s bare legs stretched out over the cushions. He runs hot, even while drawing; it’s not his fault. “No, don’t change, I… just need a moment. Or like, many moments. Can you stand and like… twirl? Please?”

Relieved and amused, Hyunjin giggles. Minho’s eyes barely even blink as Hyunjin puts the sketch pad on the table before stretching his legs out and rising to his feet, letting the mostly-buttoned shirt fall back halfway down his thighs. He is wearing underwear because he’s not lounging around naked, but he doesn’t think Minho can tell. It certainly doesn’t look like he’s wearing anything else.

Then he twirls, with all the poise and grace he can muster. Which is quite a lot, both considering Hyunjin did ballet as a child, but also from learning exactly how to move and position himself to show off different body parts along with actual pieces of clothing in the most attractive way imaginable.

“Fuck,” Minho all but hisses, eyes darting all over as if trying to drink all of Hyunjin in at the same time. “Oh, my God, let me touch you, baby, you look… Wow.”

“I’m not sure,” Hyunjin pouts, feeling the rushing excitement of victory inside of him by the way Minho is openly staring, “you did leave me this morning. Should you just come and go and touch me as you please? What about what I want, hyung?”

“I swear, I’ll quit my job to stay home right now if this is how you’re gonna spend the rest of our days.”

Hyunjin bursts into laughter instantly, unable to keep it off his face no matter how much he enjoys messing with Minho. He reaches for his fiancé, placing Minho’s hands around his middle before throwing his own arms around Minho’s neck until they’re properly pressed together and he can feel the rough denim against his bare legs. He can’t stop smiling.

“I’m never letting you out of here,” Minho murmurs, keeping a very intense eye contact that makes Hyunjin’s breath speed into tiny gasps. “Or letting you wear anything that isn’t mine. Fuck, Hyunjin-ah, what are you doing to me?”

“Making you quit your job, apparently,” Hyunjin grins, loving the way Minho’s mouth moves closer and closer to his own with every breath. “Are you so possessive of me that you’ll go through with that promise of locking me up? Wouldn’t that make you a very bad husband-to-be?”

“Call me that again,” Minho tells him, hands sliding down until they’re perfectly cupping Hyunjin’s behind, “and I’ll show you how possessive I can be.”

Hyunjin’s heart beats embarrassingly fast as his mind races at about the same speed, trying to come up with every possible scenario of how Minho is going to make him his. God, that’s hot. Hyunjin wants to belong to him so badly. He never wants to be anyone but Minho’s.

“Husband-to-be,” he whispers into Minho’s barely open mouth, reaching out to catch his lip between Hyunjin’s teeth and nibble slightly. “Would it be bad of me to say that I think I want you to be bad?”

“It probably would, yes.”

Hyunjin closes his eyes, pulling Minho against him by the neck. “Let’s be bad together, then.”

Their breaths mingle when Minho growls low in his throat, and next thing Hyunjin knows there are strong hands gripping his thighs and then he’s being lifted into the air. He yelps first and moans later, but is quick to wrap his legs around Minho as he’s being carried off into the bedroom. God, Hyunjin thinks briefly, he definitely wins at life.

(Hyunjin does end up asking later, how come that Minho came home early? He would’ve cleaned up his mess if he’d known. Minho looks adorably shy with his red-tinted ears in plain view as he admits that he missed Hyunjin too much. So much, in fact, that the nurses laughed at him and told him to go home since it was his first day back anyway. So he did, and found his breath-taking fiancé curled up comfortably in their shared home, in Minho’s clothes, and it really just drove the fact home that Minho didn’t stand one chance.)

***

Most of the week passes by like that, with Hyunjin’s sleepy self following Minho around in the mornings to cuddle in the hallway before going back to bed. Once properly awake, he stares at the selcas Minho has sent him and smiles at the ‘text me when you wake up <3’ that the older insists on. He paints and draws and figures out how to ride the subway from Minho’s apartment to Hyunjin’s parents’ house and he meets up with Jeongin at that cute place from before, just the two of them. Hyunjin misses Minho’s constant presence, but he’s getting increasingly used to it. Maybe this is how Minho has been feeling about his cats?

Besides, Hyunjin has come up with a whole project to busy himself with that keeps him excitedly preoccupied, and if Minho notices anything then he doesn’t bring it up. Hyunjin imagines that Minho is actually quite happy to come home to the younger in different variations of Minho’s own clothes, and that the quality time they spend together in the evenings almost make up for the whole long day.

When Friday comes along, Hyunjin actually has a shoot scheduled and drags himself out of bed the same time Minho does. He really can’t eat so soon after waking up, but he has some coffee and allows Minho to persuade some fruit into him, and lets Minho drive him to the studio because it seemed like he really wanted to. Hyunjin can’t help but ask him to come inside and say ‘hello’, and Minho looks absolutely terrified at first but nods his head a moment later.

As suspected, Choi Beomgyu trips head over heels at the sight of them, and barely has the time to embrace Hyunjin after a fairly long time without seeing each other before interrogating them concerning Minho’s presence. His eyes grow wide and he laughs in disbelief when Hyunjin proudly introduces his fiancé, but Beomgyu throws another appreciative look at Minho and congratulates them quickly before shamelessly asking Minho if he’d like to do the shoot instead of Hyunjin.

Minho flushes immediately and it’s so cute that Hyunjin can’t help but laugh along with Beomgyu before kissing Minho goodbye a handful of times so he won’t be late. The same second Minho is out the door, Beomgyu turns on him with a million questions that Hyunjin answers honestly only because he trusts Beomgyu completely and knows he wouldn’t spill the ‘secrets’ of their relationship until the show airs and the coast is clear.

It’s comforting, actually, to just talk about everything with someone who knows Hyunjin since years back and who he’s told most of his secrets to already. Beomgyu might be Hyunjin’s closest friend, even if he’d never admit it to the man himself. Beomgyu’s boyfriend Taehyun likes to complain about how everything gets to Beomgyu’s head, and he’s not exactly wrong on that account.

They do get to work eventually, and they work well together despite the months that have passed since they did this last. Hyunjin usually goes out for dinner or drinks with Beomgyu - and sometimes Taehyun - at least once a month, but for obvious reasons they missed out on this one. Working together comes with longer intervals, but Beomgyu instructs him with ease and Hyunjin poses naturally as the camera clicks repeatedly. 

It occupies most of their day, anyway, and it’s really good to see Taehyun approaching them around 8pm with a hug for Hyunjin and a smack to the head for Beomgyu and telling them to wrap it up, losers, everyone else are and why do they still need Taehyun to put his foot down after all these years? Beomgyu mutters but relents as they go through the pictures and realize that the footage is by far enough for today, and that Taehyun is right.

When they excitedly ask Hyunjin to follow them to dinner, he agrees without question. Beomgyu doesn’t ask about Minho, but he does send Hyunjin a pointed look that says ‘I’m not telling on you because I’m an awesome friend, but if you ever let slip to Taehyun that I kept this from him then this friendship is over and I will hunt you the fuck down’. Hyunjin smiles, makes a mental note to text Minho that he’ll be late once he’s changed, and walks back to the changing rooms as Beomgyu and Taehyun bicker and laugh behind him. It makes him happy to have that for himself, finally, after knowing those two for almost ten years. He hopes they can get to know Minho soon. He hopes they will look as stupidly in love in a few years as Beomgyu and Taehyun do now.

Just as Hyunjin pulls his own shirt over his head, he realizes that he should probably remove the make-up as well before heading out. His face has been caked all day and it’s smudging around his eyes, so it’s probably for the best. He sticks his head out quickly to ask if they’re okay to wait for a few more minutes, to which Taehyun assures him that there’s no hurry. But Hyunjin doesn’t want to keep them waiting, so he moves quickly as he washes his face and lotions it up with the products constantly in his bag, before throwing it over his shoulder as he grabs his jacket and returns to them.

It doesn’t occur to Hyunjin that he completely forgot to text Minho until much, much later.

So much later, in fact, that it’s only when he’s pressing the passcode in for Minho’s front door and entering quietly that he realizes by the look on Minho’s face that he definitely did not text his fiancé as he’d intended to.

“Where have you been?!” Minho exclaims immediately, gripping tightly onto the kitchen countertop as he bores his wide eyes into Hyunjin’s own ones. “Hyunjin, where have you…? Are you okay? Where have you been? Have you been drinking? Did you even remember the code to the entrance downstairs?”

“I’m fine, hyung,” Hyunjin replies uncertainly, because Minho is upset and Hyunjin can tell and he really doesn’t know how to do this. “The doorman let me in when I was about to call you. I know he’s really nice but you know I can’t remember his name for some reason.”

Minho continues to stare at him, and his face is somehow completely open while still unreadable to Hyunjin. He really can’t tell if Minho is angry, or if he’s disappointed, or if he’s worried to the bone. But he’s upset, and it’s because… because Hyunjin hasn’t contacted him all day.

He’s been so busy working and catching up with Beomgyu and then also Taehyun that he… didn’t shoot Minho one single text, Hyunjin realizes. And he was going to as they left but he didn’t, did he? He must have forgotten. And then he forgot about what Minho must be doing or feeling by himself in the apartment, because they didn’t talk about Minho because Taehyun or anyone else aren’t supposed to know yet because of the stupid contract.

Oh, he messed up. He surely messed up.

“The shoot went really well,” he starts explaining quietly.

Hyunjin feels unsure if Minho will lash out at him or not, and kind of scared that he might. Hyunjin really doesn’t know. They haven’t done this yet. This thing that people call first fights, that’s supposed to set the tone for the rest of the relationship. This thing that drove Jisung away and left Changbin completely ghosted, if Hyunjin remembers correctly. His stomach turns in on itself. He doesn’t want that. He really doesn’t want that. Fuck, he can’t even think about how much he absolutely does not want that.

“Beomgyu’s boyfriend, Taehyun, a friend of mine, came by and took us to dinner afterwards,” he continues as Minho looks at him intensely, quietly. “We do that when we’re all around, which isn’t that often, and I… I was going to text you but then my make-up…-- But then I forgot.”

Hyunjin almost whispers the final words as Minho continues to say nothing. He thinks maybe any action would be better than this, just so Hyunjin wouldn’t feel plagued by this uncertainty, but he’s honestly not sure.

“Were you worried about me?” he asks carefully, wringing his hands together and fighting to keep their eye contact despite how badly he wants to turn away and hide. “I’m sorry, Minho, I know I should’ve told you--”

“Yes, you should have!” Minho bursts, in one swift instant leaving the kitchen and walking up to Hyunjin and taking his confused face into both his hands. “It’s been hours, Hyunjin! Do you know how-- Do you understand how worried I was? What if you were drunk? What if you didn’t remember the address? What if your phone died? Do you even know my number by heart if anything were to happen? What if you’d gone back to your place and I would worry myself sick all night long? I baked two whole cakes! Just from fretting and to make my head stop spinning with one scenario after another! Two cakes, Hyunjin!”

“Why didn’t you just call me?” Hyunjin asks, blankly because he’s really confused. Minho obviously didn’t forget about him. What stopped him? “Hyung, I’m so sorry, it’s definitely my fault, I just… Why didn’t you call me? My phone is fine, I always bring my portable charger wherever I go. I would’ve come home if you’d asked me to, Minho. Why didn’t you reach out?”

Hyunjin hopes he doesn’t sound like he’s blaming Minho, because he’s not. Hyunjin changed his own plans after his own mind and completely neglected to let his fiancé who he shares a living space with know about those things, and that’s on him. He realizes that it's a simple habit after being single for so long, but… Minho must’ve known he could call, right?

In front of him, Minho swallows as he darts his eyes with uncertainty across Hyunjin’s face, who thinks that the older might not be angry after all, but Hyunjin genuinely can’t tell. He waits for Minho to reply, because what else is he supposed to say?

“Because I didn’t know if that was okay.”

Hyunjin’s lips part in surprise as he stares at Minho. What?

“I wasn’t sure if…,” Minho continues, not angry at all judging by the quiet and unstable sound of his voice, as Hyunjin listens intently, “if you weren’t back for a reason, or… or if that would’ve been over-stepping, or… or made you feel like I don’t trust you, o--”

“Always call me,” Hyunjin interrupts, feeling his brows furrow as the puzzle pieces slowly fall into place. “Minho. Always. You can always call me.”

Minho sucks in a breath through his teeth, then his lips, but he doesn’t reply as he gnaws at them.

“Hyung,” Hyunjin tries again, “nothing is worth you getting so worked up with worry over, that you end up baking two cakes. It doesn’t matter if I’m working or you have no idea what I’m doing. Reach out to me, Minho. I’ll reply when I can, otherwise.”

At once, the hands on Hyunjin’s face drop simultaneously with Minho’s open look, but Hyunjin reaches for the older’s wrists and takes his hands before Minho can stop him.

“I’m sorry,” Minho apologizes, closing his eyes. “I didn’t mean to ruin your night. Earlier or now.”

“Bring me some of that cake and we’ll call it even.”

Thankfully, there’s a tug at each of the corners of Minho’s lips, and he even opens his eyes to return them to Hyunjin’s waiting gaze. They’re soft now. Hyunjin smiles carefully.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you in advance,” he apologizes again, properly. “I should’ve let you know that I changed my plans to come back later than originally. I would’ve been worried sick if it were you, hyung. I’m really sorry.”

“Okay,” Minho whispers, nodding twice. “Can we eat some cake until it feels better?”

“Of course,” Hyunjin promises, giggling and then leaning in to press his lips to Minho’s forehead for a long moment. “I’m really sorry, hyung. I love you. I won’t do it again.”

“It’s okay,” Minho replies, leaning upwards until Hyunjin’s lips catch the older’s own rather than his forehead. “I know. I love you, too. And I’ll at least text the next time I feel like raiding the cupboards.”

Not too long after, they end up in bed with Minho’s layered lemon cake between them and a million questions from Hyunjin about how in the world Minho whipped this and another cake together, and if he’s always been a stress-baker, and if he only bakes while stressed or if he can be coerced even without the stress and on and on until Minho’s red ears have returned to their normal color and he’s laughing, too.

“Can you tell me a secret?” Hyunjin asks once the cake has been put aside and they’re on their sides, face to face on their own pillows. “I can go first.”

“Sure.”

“Remember how you said, that day after we met Chan and Felix, that…? That you hadn’t really… done that? In a long time?”

Minho smiles, but he doesn’t tease despite how shy Hyunjin feels suddenly.

“Yes,” he only says. “Several months, on my own. I probably hadn’t bottomed for anyone else in years.”

“I haven’t been with anyone at all in years,” Hyunjin rushes out before he can change his mind. He doesn’t know why he’s sharing that of all things, or why he’s choosing now to do it. And yet. “I just haven’t felt comfortable enough. You know about my ex, but that was over three years ago. There’s only been one after that, and it was also… at least two years ago.”

Quietly, patiently, Minho watches him as he waits for where Hyunjin is going with this. Their hands are lazily playing around, and Hyunjin watches as Minho draws circles in his open palm. It’s enchanting, in a way. It helps him focus in another.

“I’m just saying that…,” Hyunjin starts before taking another breath and exhaling. “It means a lot to me. I understand that it doesn’t to everyone and that we’re all different and there’s nothing wrong with that, not for you or anyone else, that’s not… I just wanted to say that being with someone like that makes me feel incredibly vulnerable and exposed, no matter what else I might say. It’s all true, is my point. You can call me a sex demon if you want, I see where you’re coming from and I’m not arguing on it, I just wanted you to know that… well, that I’ve never been like this with anyone else. I just wanted you to know that I’ve never felt even one tiny part of what I feel for you for anyone else. And now we’re days away from the wedding, and I can’t believe that it doesn’t scare me one bit. I also feel like you somehow already know all of this. But I wanted to say it anyway.”

“Maybe I do know,” Minho replies softly, clasping Hyunjin’s hand in both of his. “Maybe I know the feeling. Maybe I instinctually guessed as much that first time, or even the very first night. But it still counts as a secret. Thank you.”

Hyunjin smiles, a little grateful. He really doesn’t do much else around Minho, he thinks.

“What’s yours?” he asks quietly, as is appropriate when one talks about secrets.

“Tonight I wondered for the second time what I’m supposed to do if you change your mind,” Minho shares, a tiny, sad smile on his lips. “The first time was in the pods, as you might remember. What if you change your mind, Hyunjinnie? What am I supposed to do then?”

It’s a genuine question. Hyunjin can tell. Minho really worried himself so sick with different scenarios even after everything they’ve learned about each other so far, that he entertained the idea that Hyunjin wouldn’t want to marry him anymore, however brief it might’ve been. Hyunjin would feel offended, perhaps, if he didn’t know how easy that trap is to fall into. He did it himself at Minho’s parents’ house last week.

“Then you admit me to the hospital,” Hyunjin tells him with a firm look, “because that means that I’ve developed some kind of brain damage.”

Minho smiles despite the stupid answer, and Hyunjin hopes that it’s because Minho knows that it’s a stupid worry. Having it for the second time is definitely at least one too many, in Hyunjin’s opinion, but they’re so far into this now that it could easily have been the twentieth. He’ll take two moments of insecurity. Minho is human, as is he. There’s a million things that could’ve gone wrong when Hyunjin went quiet like that, and him getting cold feet is undoubtedly one of them. He would never, but it’s a valid concern to have for a fiancé who won’t return, Hyunjin thinks.

“I’ll stick around for so long that you’ll forget you even worried about that in the first place,” Hyunjin assures him. “We haven’t even looked into classes or scheduled a doctor’s appointment yet. See how dedicated I am? If you wanted a run-away bride, then I regret telling you that you picked the wrong person. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Lee Minho, but I can be a real clingy pain in the ass. It takes a special someone to willingly deal with that.”

“Aww,” Minho coos, smiling even wider. “You called me ‘special’. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had a crush on me, Hwang Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin laughs, quickly rolling over until they’re touching properly.

“Oh, I’ll crush you, alright,” he threatens, putting his weight on Minho and huffing incredulously when there’s absolutely no change on Minho’s grinning face. “God, you’re something else. Now, kiss me.”

Chapter Text

Hyunjin is surprisingly excited when he enters the expensive-looking boutique with his own mother in tow, but also Minho’s, chatting away behind him as Hyunjin quickly finds Jeongin’s eyes and is greeted by an enthusiastic wave from the younger, accompanied by two smiles from the people that must be his parents. There’s something pleasant in the air, Hyunjin supposes. Something like an impending wedding.

Or six.

Felix and San are seated on elegant chairs and already holding empty flutes of what Hyunjin supposes originally contained champagne, and behind them are two people Hyunjin would guess to be their sisters. He doesn’t see Soobin, but he can hear him talking and it’s only a moment before the tallest of them all appears from another corner of the shop with two women of his own in tow; probably his sister and his mother by the looks of them.

He doesn’t see Jisung, but somehow, Hyunjin isn’t all that surprised. That man never struck him as someone to follow the laws of time the way most other people do.

With the possible exception of Jisung, Hyunjin realizes that no one else has brought their fiancé’s family member, as the introductions are being made. He supposes that everyone’s parents probably can’t bond over their sons finally getting married the way his and Minho’s did over one single dinner, but he feels slightly embarrassed for some reason. He’s not exactly worried, because Minho’s mother had assured him that she would take all the pictures at the wedding and keep Minho’s suit forever and ever and that she would love to help Hyunjin pick his own out if he’d have trouble deciding, and that she felt complete confidence in Minho’s taste despite him bringing two men along.

The conversation had been a rather funny one, in the end, with Hyunjin’s own mother deciding that she had acquired a dear friend and an amazing son-in-law out of this whole ordeal. Minho had mostly laughed good-naturedly at his mother’s antics and exchanged knowing looks with his father, who had basically kept conversation with Hyunjin’s father all night anyway. It shouldn’t be this easy, Hyunjin had thought, narrowing his eyes across the table as Minho started playing with their feet hidden beneath it. It shouldn’t be this easy, he’d told Minho later, fearing that something awful was just around the corner, waiting to strike.

“It shouldn’t be this easy”, Minho had agreed, listening and understanding Hyunjin’s nagging worries. “It shouldn’t be this easy, but that doesn’t mean that it’s wrong somehow. It shouldn’t be this easy, but you’ve had hard times before, Hyunjinnie. If something happens, you’ll get through that, too. Maybe you’ll even help hyung keep up with you.”

Hyunjin scoffs. Damn Minho for always saying the right thing. The older might have been concerned about not being a poet or not romantic enough with his words, but Hyunjin frankly thinks that’s dumb. Minho is down to earth and honest and realistic. None of those words may be synonyms to ‘romantic’, but they sure do help a lot more to calm someone down or ease worries. Hyunjin doesn’t have to worry about whether or not Minho is lying to him, or if there’s a hidden meaning behind his words, or even what his words mean should they be covered in analogies or figure of speech that could possibly confuse him. Minho may be nervous or shy about it sometimes, but he’s definitely straight-forward. And Hyunjin loves that. He’d take a genuine ‘god, you’re beautiful’ over ‘my dearest petal, you are the loveliest flower in all of the gardens’ any day, and--

“Sorry!”

Along with everyone else’s heads, probably, Hyunjin turns to look at the entrance when Han Jisung barrels through it. An annoyed-looking woman and an even more annoyed-looking - probably older - woman follow behind him, but quickly school their expressions into more pleasant ones when they spot the camera crew all lined up and ready to shoot.

“I’m sorry!” Jisung repeats, hunched over and catching his breath while he waves at all of them. Hyunjin spots at least Jeongin and Soobin smiling along with him as they wave back. “I got the hour wrong, sorry, I… Whew. I thought we were going an hour later. Sorry. I’m here. We’re here, I mean. Everyone, this is my mom, and this is Changbinnie hyung’s noona. Please take care of us well.”

Hyunjin feels a weird sense of pride in his chest at the knowledge that Jisung brought Changbin’s older sister with him for this. Changbin’s parents are both with him, Hyunjin learns later, but his sister seems to really like Jisung from what Hyunjin can tell. He mostly chats with Felix and his equally sweet sister, and it’s not long before the two mothers Hyunjin brought are cooing over the other two as well. It’s very wholesome, Hyunjin decides. The bonding is almost inevitable, which he can’t help but appreciate considering their circumstances.

By the time Soobin leaves only to return in the first marvelous outfit of the day, Hyunjin’s heart speeds up with anticipation. He hopes the other five are as excited to get married as Hyunjin is. He hopes Soobin and Felix and everyone else can’t wait to go back home and tease their fiancés about how their jaws will drop through the floor once they see these outfits. He hopes everyone who has ever gotten married has felt like Hyunjin is currently feeling. He has actually started thinking that this will be the best day of his life, and Hyunjin has no clue how he’s supposed to survive the anticipation of the next couple of days.

It does help that he - they - has more things scheduled before Saturday, like the cake tasting tomorrow and picking out the flower arrangements on Wednesday. The preparations are just as rushed as the time they spent in the pods, in Hyunjin’s opinion, but he doesn’t really mind. He knows that Felix does, as he shared over text one night that he would have liked to take his time to make this wedding as perfect as it could be since he only planned on getting married once. Hyunjin had replied something along the lines of a suggestion to share that with Chan and highlight how important these days were for Felix, to make sure they did the best they could in this situation. Privately, Hyunjin had unintentionally realized that he considered the wedding perfect already since it was Minho he was getting married to and the rest were pretty insignificant details, but he figured that might not be the right thing to say.

When his phone vibrates in his pocket, Hyunjin takes a look around to make sure the cameras are on Jeongin’s parents as they gush over their son - and maybe even his fiancé - while Jeongin gets dressed. The device buzzes in his hand once more, as a reminder, before Hyunjin reads Minho’s name on his screen and quickly swipes the message open, grinning like a hopeless fool as he repeatedly scans the words he’s met with.

i can’t fucking wait to marry you

***

Despite Hyunjin’s reservations, the week flies by quickly, and before he knows how he got there it’s already Friday. The night was supposed to be set aside for a mutual bachelor party, but the showrunners decided to scrap that because of the pandemic. Hyunjin isn’t sure how Felix feels about that, but personally, Hyunjin prefers it this way. Now, all six couples can throw their own parties should they want to and invite whoever they like, and that way they can all have a night of their own. The strongest point besides having six celebratory parties instead of one, in Hyunjin’s opinion, is that there won’t be any cameras or crew and uncomfortable attention around to film them. In conclusion, he’s not upset about a missing bachelor party at all, honestly.

Especially not since he’s spending the night before his wedding across from his fiancé in the bathtub, snacking away and drinking sparkly champagne and making out in between in a very reminiscent setting of their pre-wedding honeymoon. There’s no wide ocean or starry sky inside the bathroom, but there’s Minho’s warm eyes and even warmer smile barely leaving Hyunjin’s face the whole time. It’s the budget version of how they spent those previous nights, and Hyunjin is secretly pleased with himself for coming up with this. Minho had given him free reins to plan whatever he wanted for tonight, and laughed heartily when Hyunjin pulled out the the over-abundance of cheap snacks and explained that their last night as fiancés will be spent the same way the first one would have been in another life; the one where Minho befriended and proceeded to woo him, for instance.

“Do you think I was the one doing the proposing in that life, too, hmm?”

Hyunjin considers the question, delighting in the way Minho’s fingers trail the wet skin of his long, stretched out leg between them. “No. No, I don’t think so.”

“No?” Minho repeats, an entertained smile spreading over his face as his eyebrows move in surprise. “What makes you think I wouldn’t? After already having fallen for you and fought so hard to win you over, nevertheless. Why wouldn’t I propose to make sure I could keep you forever?”

“I think you would,” Hyunjin agrees, smiling, because it’s not about that. “That Minho would probably have done a lot to prove himself already, so I don’t see why he wouldn’t do this. I just think that that Hyunjin would have wanted to prove that he loves his Minho, too. If one person takes all the initiatives, maybe they’d end up doubting the other person’s feelings. Hyunjin wouldn’t want Minho to doubt his feelings. That’s why he’d propose first. It would be important to him to establish how much he loves Minho, in return. To express this act of love for him.”

Wordlessly, Minho reaches his hand out. They’re both smiling when Hyunjin takes it and lets Minho pull him into his lap, until Hyunjin is hovering over him and leaning in to fit their earnest mouths together. Minho holds him as if he doesn’t plan on letting go, and he kisses Hyunjin as if each kiss was the last.

They don’t kiss in the desperate, “if not now then when” kind of way. They kiss in the savory, “if i had to let go of you now i might actually die” kind of way. Hyunjin feels it in his tingling bottom lip when Minho soothingly licks over the spot he just bit down on, and Hyunjin feels it in his beating heart when it presses against Minho’s collar bone. It’s nothing they haven’t done before, but it’s the first time they’re together for the last time as fiancés, because by this time tomorrow, Minho will be his husband. And Hyunjin will be Minho’s. In front of God and the guests and the whole actual world; Hyunjin will vow to love Minho for the rest of his life, and Minho will vow the same thing back.

If that doesn’t put a rare kind of force into Hyunjin’s actions, then he doesn’t know what would.

He clings closer to the welcoming body in front of him.

“I’m glad that Minho has a Hyunjin of his own to love him that well, too,” Minho murmurs once their kisses start slowing down, messy and breathy as they may be, “because I’m not sharing mine. Not even with another Minho.”

Hyunjin bursts out laughing immediately, feeling his lip catch on Minho’s teeth but not minding as his head drops between his shoulders while he laughs. His arms are still resting over the top of Minho’s shoulders, and the older’s hands remain firmly on either side of Hyunjin’s rib cage. It’s a very intimate embrace - while being naked, nonetheless - but the bright bath bomb and the shaking of Hyunjin’s shoulders and the smile on Minho’s face bring a different kind of intimacy, which almost outdoes the other one.

“Now you’ve got me thinking of all the lives and the universes and the other Minhos out there,” the older complains, teasing Hyunjin about his sentimentality, probably. “What if some of them made stupid choices that led them somewhere else, huh? To someone else? How are all the Hyunjins going to fix that?”

“Hyung,” Hyunjin laughs, meeting Minho’s eyes again while thoroughly entertained by how the older’s mind can just take any given thing and go along with it. “I’m sure the Hyunjins that need to step up for their Minhos to find them will do so. Speaking of balance of initiatives and all that. Don’t worry about the other Minhos.”

“I’m not worried,” Hyunjin’s fiancé tells him, sounding slightly sobered up from the champagne and the laughter as his fingers curl into Hyunjin’s skin, holding him tighter. “It’s just that my heart breaks for every single version of me that doesn’t end up with you.”

***

Hyunjin is still in his robe and face mask when he decides that he can’t take it anymore. He’s going to lose his damn mind. He needs to talk to Minho. Right now. He doesn’t care that his mother and the camera crew and the stylists are waiting for him to unlock the door. He’s getting married and so much of the road leading up to it hasn’t been on his terms, which he has minded at times and sometimes not, but… But God, he needs to talk to Minho one more time. No one else gets it, anyway. Just one more time.

He throws himself over the futon of his changing room - or whatever he’s supposed to call it - on his stomach because why the hell not, and then he presses Minho’s contact. As he stares at his phone waiting for the older to pick up, he presses the ‘facetime’ button, too. Hearing Minho is certainly good enough, but seeing him is better.

“Hi, darling,” Minho greets him a moment later, grinning through his own front camera as he sits down on the chair in front of the massive make-up table, if his room is anything like Hyunjin’s. “I heard someone was being a bridezilla and locking everybody out. That wouldn’t happen to be you, by any chance, would it?”

Hyunjin snorts, hearing it turn into an instant giggle. Minho smiles back at him.

“I think my mom is offended,” Hyunjin shares, feeling his nerves beginning to settle already. “She asked to be let in even after I turned away the staff, but I said ‘no’.”

“Why’d you do that, hmm?”

“I don’t know,” Hyunjin mumbles, a little embarrassed since Minho seems perfectly fine. What the hell is he freaking out over? “Why’d you accept my facetime call? You know seeing me before the ceremony is bad luck, right?”

“It doesn’t count if it’s through a screen,” Minho tells him, already knowing that if Hyunjin actually believed in that stuff he wouldn’t have tried in the first place. “Besides, I’m still in my robe, too, so it’s fine.”

Hyunjin hums. That’s true, he can see the collar of Minho’s bathrobe if he looks closely enough. He must have just come out of the shower. Minho’s hair looks damp and some strands are starting to curl. Hyunjin has no idea if that’s good or bad, since he doesn’t know what Minho will look like the next time Hyunjin sees him. When Minho stands by the altar and the marriage officiant and waits for Hyunjin to join him.

His palms grow sweaty.

“Aren’t you nervous?”

“Of course I’m nervous. How many people do you think I’ve gotten married to, Hwang Hyunjin?”

Even before Minho can finish his sentence, Hyunjin is laughing quietly again at the reminder of their conversation after Minho had asked Hyunjin to marry him in the first place. It’s a reminder of how much further they’ve gotten from that incredibly uncertain part of their journey, but also a reminder of how much of themselves they shared that early on. Of how much Hyunjin felt for Minho even before meeting him in person, which probably plays into why he’d be satisfied in hearing Minho’s voice through the phone, too.

“I feel like I could throw up,” Minho says, and his chuckle does sound nervous now that Hyunjin is searching for it. “We’re getting married in, like, an hour. But I pretty much felt like this before I got to see you for the first time, too. The nervousness is nothing compared to the excitement. I’m excited to marry you, Hyunjinnie, believe it or not.”

“I’ll believe it only because I feel that way, too,” Hyunjin decides. “I definitely didn’t before, but the excitement overrides the nerves this time, thank God. I don’t even know why I’m nervous in the first place. Call me naive, hyung, but I’m not actually scared that you’re going to leave me at the altar. Maybe that’s stupid, I don’t know. But it’s true.”

“If it helps,” Minho replies, impossibly fond even through the speaker of Hyunjin’s phone, “I’m not scared that you’ll leave me alone up there, either. So we can be stupid together, at least.”

Hyunjin smiles, feeling his nerves settle further. But he was telling Minho the truth. Hyunjin believes that Minho loves him and is serious about marrying him. He wouldn’t even know where to begin with the evidence to present his case, but he knows that it would end with the warm feeling inside Hyunjin’s chest that appears whenever Minho kisses him awake or tugs him closer or whispers ‘i love you’ because the older is too emotional to say it out loud.

“I know I told your parents why I decided to ask you to marry me,” Minho says, breaking Hyunjin out of whatever lovesick ogling he was probably busy doing, “but do you remember why I really felt myself wanting to marry you?”

“Tell me, hyung,” Hyunjin replies, feeling his body physically react to Minho’s words as he grows hotter with the rapid pumping of his blood. “Why did you want to marry me?”

“Because I could never imagine having a final conversation with you,” Minho replies, similar to what he’s said before. Hyunjin considers it to be a massively heart-warming thing to tell someone, honestly. That their mind and personality and way to express themselves can make someone feel that way. That Hyunjin could make Minho feel that way. “Even in the pods, I couldn’t see myself heading in a direction that was leading me away from you. I wrote your name first every time.”

Hyunjin’s voice is shakier than he’d like it to be, but steadier than he dared to hope for when he replies.

“You really were just as gone for me as I was for you, and I had no idea, huh?”

“You literally built your own little spot inside my brain,” Minho says quietly, almost secretively, as if anyone outside their doors would be listening in on their conversation. “I think about you all the time, darling. You’re always there, since the first time we talked. In the back of my mind or in the front, it can vary a bit, but you definitely have a permanent residence inside my mind. It’s like you’re a completely separate entity within me, different from all the other parts of my life. I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s what it feels like.”

“You’ll have the rest of our lives to explain it to me,” Hyunjin tells him. Matter of factly, because that’s what it is. There’s no way this wedding isn’t going to be the highlight of Hyunjin’s literal life. “Minho hyung?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I can’t fucking wait to marry you, either.”

***

Hyunjin feels a striking flashback hit him while he fidgets restlessly behind the large doors separating him from everyone else attending this wedding. It’s just like the first time he met Minho in person, except this time his nerves aren’t of the vomiting kind. They’re of the butterflies-fluttering-throughout-his-body kind, which he’s grateful for. He’s wearing all white. He can’t throw up. And he won’t . He’s putting on a smile that’s at least 70% genuine and 30% ‘fake it ‘til you make it’, and then he’s walking down that aisle thing until he’ll be able to touch Minho when he reaches out for him.

It’ll be fine. It’s gonna be fine. Hyunjin isn’t clumsy usually; he probably won’t stumble today either. Or he’ll grow weak in the knees once he sees Minho and fall over. Who knows? Not Hyunjin. But it’ll be fine. It’s fine. He can do this. He knows what he’s going to say. He feels okay saying it in front of the cameras, he thinks. He’ll probably forget them, though. It’s fine. This wedding is about Minho and him and Hyunjin doesn’t care what the future viewers will see or hear or think. That’s months away. It’s fine. It’s just him and Minho and the wedding officiant lady who they met earlier. They haven’t even invited a lot of friends because of the hassle of everything, and it’s a rather small ceremony with those few friends and their families gathered close to where Minho is supposedly standing.

Hyunjin knows how this is supposed to go. They practiced. He willingly volunteered to walk down this stupid aisle because it would look ‘better for the show’ if they went separately rather than together, whatever, it’s fine. He walked down it fourteen times before having breakfast, and Minho waited for him every single time. He will this time, too. And Hyunjin won’t stumble just because this is the fifteenth time. It’s fine. He can do this. He can walk, he knows how to walk. He knows how to walk. It’ll be fine.

He hears the sound he has learned to recognize as his cue as instrumental music flows through the venue, and immediately tenses up. Oh, God. It’s time. They’re expecting him. Minho is expecting him. Their parents are expecting him. Beomgyu and Taehyun are expecting him. The camera crew who have been following them around and witnessing all sorts of things are probably expecting him, too. Okay.

“You just have to walk,” he pep-talks himself quietly, rubbing his sweaty hands together as his heart beats furiously beneath his suit. “You know how to walk. You’ve walked so many times, Hwang Hyunjin. You’ve walked down fucking runways for Paris Fashion Week. You can do this. Just walk, and then keep walking until you reach Minho. Like last time, but don’t fucking stop and have him run up to you. Last time, but better. You can do this. Just walk. It’s not even Fashion Week; it doesn’t matter how. Just walk.”

The music keeps playing, and Hyunjin has no idea whether he technically missed his actual cue or not because he was too busy murmuring to himself, but it’s fine. It’ll be fine. The music won’t stop until he’s reached Minho either way; that would be terribly awkward for the people responsible for literally everything except getting married today. That’s their problem. Hyunjin’s problem is getting his feet to move, and then his legs, and then the rest of him.

He closes his eyes. He inhales shakily; holds it. He exhales slightly steadier; drops his shoulders. He wrings his hands and the ring that’s already on his finger. Okay.

Okay.

He presses the handles until both large doors are swinging open, and Hyunjin takes a moment to hide his hands behind his back because maybe that way no one will see how badly they’re shaking. Another deep breath, hands hanging in almost-fists by his sides again, and the realization setting in that Minho is up there and he’s--

Oh.

Hyunjin’s feet move on their own accord - probably hastier than they practiced but he doesn’t care - and his eyes won’t leave Minho for one single heartbeat as Hyunjin makes his way down the aisle and watches Minho’s beautiful face carry the most beautiful smile and there are sparkles in his beautiful eyes and he looks beautiful in his black-and-white suit and happiness looks so beautiful on him and God, that’s the man Hyunjin is marrying, isn’t it?

Minho seems like he can’t quite stay still; he’s ducking his head and shaking his head and smiling and sighing and laughing and looking and looking away and then looking again and he… he gives the impression of not knowing quite what to do with himself as he moves his weight from one foot the other, forced to wait where he stands and unable to practically run up to Hyunjin like he did the last time they went through something similar.

‘Unable to run up to Hyunjin like he did the last time.’

Hyunjin’s carefully styled hair brushes his forehead, and that’s how he knows that he sped up slightly further. He needs to chill, probably, but how is he supposed to do that when literally nobody on earth has been so close to marrying Minho as he is right now. He can’t chill. He can barely stop himself from power-walking down the stupid thing, and he wonders if this is how Minho felt crossing that bridge that Hyunjin never even reached. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters apart from the rush of breath that leaves Minho as he reaches for Hyunjin’s hands at least six steps too early, and immediately fits his fingers into the spaces between Hyunjin’s when he can.

Minho looks halfway to crying, Hyunjin thinks, judging by the sheen over the older’s eyes and the trembling puffs of air that leave his lips. But he looks happy. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Hyunjin’s as they position themselves like they were told, opposite each other and holding hands and drawing nervous breaths that giggle out of them. It’s a good minute before Minho’s eyes move to examine the rest of him; from the exquisite golden crown above Hyunjin’s eyes to the thin but matching chain over his bare collarbones; from the straight shoulders of Hyunjin’s jumpsuit to the sort of deep V-cut where his shirt should’ve been, probably, had their mothers not giggled tipsily and ensured him that he looked marvelous just like this; from the sheer band holding most of his hair back and framing his face to the snug, golden chain exposing his narrow waist.

It gives him a chance to watch Minho, in return, who is so handsome that it kind of hurts Hyunjin’s heart to look at him. Wondrously enough, he doesn’t look as different to Hyunjin as Hyunjin himself probably does to Minho. The older’s sandy blonde hair is parted over his forehead, carefully styled to fall just shy of his eyelashes, and his make-up is almost non-existent because Minho is just that gorgeous. His black shirt and black jacket could’ve made them look like night and day, probably, if it weren’t for the white neat tie and white elegant boutonniere and white twin cuffs of Minho’s shirt. Little details that Hyunjin has complete confidence that Minho himself picked out - because Minho has an eye for these things - and he must’ve known that Hyunjin would go for white. And even if Hyunjin had gone traditional; they still wouldn’t have worn similar suits because Minho is just that intuitive, evidently. And he’s beautiful, God. Hyunjin has never seen anyone with intense facial features quite like Minho’s, and something about him still screams ‘classical beauty’. Maybe it’s because he’s handsome in the undeniable way; in the striking and memorable way.

“Hyung,” Hyunjin ends up saying under his breath, because he really can’t help himself. Minho’s wide, animated eyes are quick to return to his. “You look incredible. Beautiful, actually. I think you made me forget my vows.”

“I think you just made me add an hour to mine,” Minho laughs in reply, swinging their joined hands slightly, “so maybe it’ll even out?”

The ceremony itself feels like it’s moving too fast, Hyunjin thinks, because he can barely keep up with the words the officiant is telling them. But it’s also moving slowly; too damn slow because Hyunjin doesn't want to waste another second to declare Minho his husband. But he can’t, because there’s this semi-religious part and then there’s the traditional part and then they’re supposed to say their vows, and then it’s finally time for the officiant to ask if Hyunjin will take Minho to be his lawfully wedded husband and for Hyunjin to say ‘I do’. They’ve barely gotten started on the traditional part when he silently starts reciting the points of his vows again, because they feel far more relevant as Hyunjin looks at Minho’s beaming face than whatever the officiant is saying about the history of marriage and its values.

Hyunjin doesn’t care about the values of people who got married at the beginning of time for every reason imaginable except love. He doesn’t even care that it’s objectively crazy to marry a man he has barely even known for two months. He’s past that. The only thing on Hyunjin’s mind is letting Minho - and as a consequence of the setting; the whole word - know how much the older means to him. And he has a lot to say.

Finally, the kind-looking woman between them declares that the grooms have prepared vows to share with each other and the guests, and Hyunjin’s heart races in anticipatory excitement as she nods in his direction, indicating that he’s to go first. He quickly returns to meet Minho’s waiting gaze, and they burst into giggles at the same time, probably from nerves and happiness alike.

Hyunjin holds tightly onto Minho’s small hands, only his thumbs over Minho’s knuckles as the older’s palms are resting practically enveloped within Hyunjin’s hands beneath them. He takes a deep breath. Then he breaks into another round of foolish laughter, watches Minho smile softly back at him, and takes another. 

‘Here goes nothing’, was it?

“I’ve realized that there’s a word that comes to mind when I think of you and us and the future I imagine us having,” he begins, feeling his smile practically burst through the corners of his mouth with how wide it is. “That word is ‘devotion’. I feel devoted to you, Minho. I feel affection, I feel loyalty, I feel passion, I feel… I feel dedication and enthusiasm, and I feel it all simultaneously. I feel it sincerely. This is supposed to be the most monumental moment of any person’s life, but I feel like I’ve already had mine. I feel like it may have passed in the blink of an eye, when you said to call you ‘hyung’ or ‘Minho’, since it didn’t matter that much to you. If I had to pick one moment that changed the trajectory of my life for good, it may have been that one.”

Minho’s lips part sweetly, and the smile has almost faded from his face as he listens to what Hyunjin has to say. Not in an upsetting way, just in that focused little pout with slightly furrowed brows he has when he’s concentrating on something. Hyunjin adores knowing these things.

“About an hour ago, just before the ceremony,” he says, watching Minho’s dark eyebrows raise slightly in surprise, “I asked you when you knew that you wanted to marry me. But I didn't tell you when I knew, so I'll do that now.”

Breathe, Hyunjin reminds himself. Go slow. Don’t forget. Make it count.

“I think I knew that I wanted to say 'yes' if you proposed after that conversation about my grandma,” he tells Minho, feeling the beginnings of emotional tears cloud his vision but ignoring them completely. He didn’t actually think he’d get through this part without crying, anyway. “That meant so much to me and I could feel how badly you wanted to break through a window but you refrained, thank God. That was the moment I first knew that I wanted to marry you.”

In front of him, Minho looks like he wants to say something really badly, but he doesn’t. He settles for a faint smile and a squeeze of Hyunjin’s hands, and blinks a couple of times in that way he does when he’s focusing really hard. God, Hyunjin needs to be his husband now.

“But the moment when I knew that I wanted to spend every single day of the rest of my life with you was when you cooked for me for the first time,” Hyunjin continues, definitely wobbly in his voice. He holds tighter onto Minho’s hands so he won’t start swaying as he recalls the memory. “You said 'hi, darling' when I came back to the apartment after stopping by the supermarket, and you smiled at me quickly before returning to stirring something heavenly-smelling. You didn't complain once when I went straight up and attached myself  to you, but kissed my cheek and asked if I’d found my way back home. Then you fed me and let me cling to you all night because I was feeling shy for some reason. In verbally expressing my gratitude, and what I later realized was a lot of emotions. And I think you noticed, but you didn’t push. You just asked if there were more things that would make me feel at home in the apartment, and if I wanted to check out the neighborhood the following day, and if I'd mind starting that playlist you heard me listen to in the bath previously.”

Truthfully, Hyunjin has no idea if Minho even remembers that night the same way he does, or if it meant anything specific to him compared to the other nights. But it doesn’t matter, because these are Hyunjin’s vows to Minho and if the older didn’t already know then he has to know now.

“I want every day for the rest of my life to be like that,” Hyunjin says, in a breath that speaks of both incredulous laughter and impending, joyful tears. “I want it so bad, Minho, I've never wanted anything more than how fiercely I want that. It's almost stupid how far I've fallen for you and while I can definitely remember what life was like before meeting you, I have absolutely no desire to go back to that. I thought I was happy enough by myself, but Minho... I could never be as happy without you as I've been beside you. You make yourself come across as nothing special, but you don't get it. You don't understand that I’m the luckiest person alive because there’s no one else like you and somehow, you decided to love me.”

Breathe.

“So my vow to you, Lee Minho,” he continues, unable to hold back the evidence of his emotions anymore as they stream down his face but hopefully without messing up his make-up, “is to remember that feeling every single day, and try to the best of my ability to make you feel the same way in return. You deserve nothing less and I want to be the one to give it to you so badly. Spending my life with you would make me the happiest person on earth, and there is nothing I want more.”

Breathe, he repeats inside his head, laughing wetly again at how he’s so damn sensitive that he can barely see Minho in front of him anymore. Maybe that’s just as well.

“You know how I started calling you ‘love’?” he asks, relieved when Minho murmurs a choked ‘yes’ rather than nod. “I call you 'love' because that's what I feel when I look at you, Minho. It comes so naturally that I don't even think about it half the time. I hope you like it because it would be a genuine struggle for me to stop at this point. I just text you and think ‘i love you’ and I see you and feel this overwhelming emotion inside of me and I hear your voice first thing in the morning and know that I'll never want to be awoken by anything else ever."

Embarrassing hiccups start working their way up Hyunjin’s throat, and he laughs about that too because he can’t even be bothered to fight them either. What kind of wedding would this be if Hyunjin wasn’t an absolute mess? He’s fairly sure he’d be a mess on a stranger’s wedding, honestly.

“On a spring-like summer day,” he recalls, describing the feeling of the room where he first encountered Minho but also the actual season they were in, “I engraved your name in my heart for the first time. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now. It wasn’t the permanent mark you’ve left on me at this point, but more of a gentle, caressing motion through the way your voice alone made me feel. And little by little since then, your impact on my very being has only been made far more indisputable. Little by little, I’m starting to like what you like, and I start to dislike what you don’t like. Little by little, I’m starting to like certain sides of me more than I did before, because you like them. Because you love them, even. And just by loving them and loving me, you’re teaching me how to do the same thing.

“They say that the hardest thing in the world is for a person to win the heart of someone else,” Hyunjin says, grateful that his vision is improving and allowing him to see the glassy shine in Minho’s as he listens, unmoving. “Thank you for wanting to be a part of mine. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of yours. I think my favorite place is inside your heart, Minho. I want to be there always. I vow to keep you safe in mine. I promise that I’ll hold you warmly, and protect you, and share every bit of happiness I have to make you smile, too. It may not be the largest amount of happiness all the time, but I wish it to be certain. I hope you’ll always come to me when you’re in need of it, and know that I may not hold the power to make you feel overjoyed, but that I will do everything I can to make your burdens lighter than they initially were.

“There are a million reasons why the world is a warm and wonderful place, and I don’t want to feel cold because of the reasons that it isn't,” he tells Minho, hoping beyond hope that what he means is coming across in the right way. “The world may not really love me that much, and I may not really love myself that much, but…--”

He chokes.

Hyunjin chokes, feeling the tears rush out of their canals as his voice breaks and he has to tuck his lips in to restrain the inconvenient noises that want to leave him. He almost made it.

But Minho loves him, Hyunjin reminds himself. That’s why he’s saying this in the first place. That’s why he’s baring his insecurities for the world to see, and sharing things that haunt him still. It’s because Minho knows, and Minho cares, and Minho loves him despite the ghosts that Hyunjin brought along with him into the older’s life. And just like it didn’t feel fair to keep the bad things out while describing himself to Minho as they were getting to know each other, it doesn’t feel fair to pretend like there aren’t bad things in his life today either. The point isn’t that Hyunjin or his life is perfect now because he’s getting married. The point is that Minho knows that he isn’t perfect, and Minho loves him anyway. Hyunjin may have a hard time accepting certain parts of him or things he’s done or felt, but Minho doesn’t. That is the point.

He just needs to get to that part, too.

“But I feel how much you love me,” Hyunjin all but whispers, praying through his tightly shut eyes that Minho is close enough to hear it even if the microphone can’t. “How much you care. I’m starting to get used to receiving love like this, and it… It feels like a dream to me. You love me. Someone who is really nothing special. You love me, Minho, and I…”

Breathe, he repeats. Breathe.

“... and I feel privileged,” he finishes the sentence, opening his eyes despite the dampness to see Minho’s absolutely beautiful, definitely emotional face in front of him. There are lines streaking his cheeks, too. “You may not be my first love, hyung, but you are my last. And I want to be yours. So I vow to love you for as long as I can love anything. Until the end, I will love you. You’re the last person I’ll ever love, but the first one who showed me what love really meant.”

Breathe.

“I once read that the ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand,” Hyunjin says, “and that the Inuits had a hundred words for snow. And I know I keep repeating myself but I just wish I had a thousand words for ‘love’, but all that comes to mind is the way you move against me while you sleep and there are no words for that.”

Breathe. Almost there.

“So I vow to love you, Lee Minho,” he tells the man he calls his fiancé for just another couple of minutes, and Hyunjin laughs again despite the tears because he doesn’t know what else to do with all his happiness. “And I vow to cherish you, because you're the best thing that's ever entered my life, and because loving you makes me hope that I'll never have to live a life without you in it again. I've never thought about it this way before you, but... you make me love being loved. You make me love loving you. Thank you. Thank you so much for giving me all the things I’ve been dreaming of, and for showing me all the things I didn’t even know I should have been wishing for. Thank you for letting me love you. Thank you for being you, Minho. And thank you for loving me.”

They’re both crying when Hyunjin finishes, but he feels light and giddy, too. He doesn’t think he forgot anything, and he’ll just tell Minho later if it turns out he did. He’ll have forever to tell Minho all the things he wants to tell him. It’ll be fine. It will.

“Darling,” Minho laughs incredulously under his breath, dropping Hyunjin’s hand for a second to wipe at his own cheeks, “what am I supposed to say after that?”

“Whatever you want,” Hyunjin promises, as he quickly laces their fingers together again when Minho’s hand returns to his. “Or nothing. You can tell me later, too, hyung. I just want to marry you.”

“Oh, my God,” Minho says breathlessly, shutting his eyes firmly as his hands grow weaker in Hyunjin’s hold. “God, I wanna marry you, too. Give me one second, please. I just need one second.”

Hyunjin squeezes again, holding tighter. He’s not letting go. He’s not letting go of Minho.

“Just look at me, love,” he promises, voice hushed and eyes only on Minho. “It’s just you and me, anyway. If I could do it without choking myself to death with tears, you can, too, right?”

Minho laughs quickly again, and opens his eyes to meet Hyunjin’s waiting gaze. They look at each other silently for a moment, and Hyunjin is in no hurry and can only hope his expression conveys that. He’d probably need some time to get his bearings back after hearing Minho’s vows, first, too. And if they’re taking too long, well, then the showrunners can cut this part out. Hyunjin really couldn’t care less. He knows Minho feels pressured already by the pure expectations on him of writing and sharing vows in front of the guests, but probably simply for Hyunjin, too. Minho is definitely better with his words than he thinks, but nerves have nothing to do with that and he has had trouble repeating ‘i love you’ back once or twice when his emotions have been running high. It’s not a bad thing. Hyunjin wishes that Minho understands how honest he was about Minho not having to say anything up here.

But then the gorgeous man in front of him takes a deep breath, and Hyunjin smiles wider in what he hopes is encouragement. Minho doesn’t have to do this, but he can. And Hyunjin hopes that he will, for both their sakes. His curiosity has been killing him all week.

"I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is that I want to say to you today, because as I told you from the start, I’m not good at this.” Minho speaks up, and says exactly what Hyunjin expected him to say. But he’s still looking back at Hyunjin with those wide, pretty eyes, who can’t help but smile. “But I want today to be good, for your sake, Hyunjin. Better than good. I want a lot of things for you, and I figured that that would be as good of a place to start my vows as any, right? Because everyday for the past few weeks I’ve been waking up next to you and wondering what I can do to make you smile today. I just want to see you smile, darling. Every day I wish to see you smile. When you're struggling I want to go and comfort you, and when you're already happy, I want to make you even happier. That's why my first vow is to continue making you smile, so please don't go anywhere and just stay by my side so I can do that.”

Oh, this is hard, Hyunjin quickly realizes. He wants to reply immediately. He wants to ask if Minho even heard his vows at all, because what in there implied that Hyunjin would ever go anywhere? And he wants to promise Minho that he won’t, because literally nothing could persuade him to stray from Minho’s side now. But he can’t do those things, because he’s not the one speaking right now, and he already watched Minho struggle to restrain himself and now Hyunjin just has to suck it up and do the same.

“You said once, early on, that you feel like I do so much for you, to accommodate and please and humor you, and that you want to do those same things for me,” Minho continues, and he’s a little steadier on the voice now as he repeats what Hyunjin said in bed that night he found out about his allergies. “But the truth is that I don't care about milestones or memories or which flavor cheesecake in the same way you do. I care, sure, but mostly I just care about you. So many things make you happy and I love doing all of them for you. I love that your whole face lights up when I bring ice cream home. I love that you gasp cutely when I say 'i love you' first. I love that you're so excited about making memories with me and sharing experiences to immortalize together.

“But it's not like that for me,” Minho says, as Hyunjin forgets how to breathe. “I don't care that much about those things beyond the fact that they make you happy. I just want you to be happy, Hyunjin. And I’m so grateful that you are the way you are because I don't know how this would have worked if both of us were the same, but we're not and that's why I love you so much. Because you bring so much joy and comfort and a million other things to my life in a way that no one else could have done. And I’m so grateful because I genuinely would have missed out on all of it if I didn't have you. But I do. And that's why the only words that came to mind for this were 'thank you'. I feel so thankful for you, darling. You’re the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Embarrassingly, Hyunjin cries again even before Minho has the chance to. He blinks frantically to not miss one half of a second of this moment, and a tiny part of his brain is actually grateful that this is currently being filmed from several angles. He’s never wanted to keep anything so bad; except for the man himself in front of him.

“I know that vows are supposed to be about promises, and swearing things to each other,” Minho continues, slowly enough to enunciate the words he has memorized and allowing Hyunjin’s overwhelmed mind to process them. “But when I tried to actually figure out what I wanted to say to you today, Hwang Hyunjin, I only felt gratitude. I want to say 'thank you'. For countless things, but I’ll settle for a few since I'll have the rest of our lives to tell you the rest of them, right? I want to say thank you for always being honest with me.”

Breathe, Hyunjin reminds himself again. Breathe.

“From the very start, you told me how you felt, both concerning me and everything else. The bad things and the good things. And I didn't know then that all of it was true, but I hoped. And standing here today, I know that that hope wasn't in vain. I also want to say thank you for trusting me. With you. With your thoughts and feelings and fears and hopes. With your body and your mind. I’ve wanted to be there for you so many times and I want to thank you for allowing me to, even in the beginning. For letting me in and accepting my attempts at gratitude. Will you hold my hand for the next one?”

Hyunjin laughs in surprise, considering he already is. He’s probably gripping Minho’s hands way too tight for comfort, actually. Maybe that's what Minho meant in the first place, considering the lop-sided smile on his face. Some blood circulation back. Hyunjin isn’t sure he can provide that.

“I want to say thank you for letting me pay,” Minho shares, and that definitely comes as a surprise to Hyunjin. Not the thing he would have guessed that Minho would mention? “I know that’s a small and stupid thing, but you never argue on it. It’s frankly idiotic of me to even think that it matters which one of us is paying for stuff, but you just let me because you know that it does. You know that I was worried about that gap and you know that I like to feel needed and you know that I want to take care of you, so you just let me. And it’s silly, I know, but you indulge me anyway. Just to make me feel better. And that’s why I’m mentioning it today, because it doesn’t feel like a small thing anymore when I know that you consistently go out of your way to make me feel better. So thank you, Hyunjin. Pride may be a stupid thing, but you value mine anyway.”

They’ve never talked about that before.

The closest conversation they’ve had about finances was probably the one at Minho’s parents’ house, and Hyunjin obviously pays without issues when he’s been by himself but when they’re together, Minho has taken that initiative and Hyunjin has… let him, just as Minho said. Exactly as Minho said, actually. He’ll order things he likes and buy stuff he sees on a whim and treat Jeongin whenever they meet - and Hyunjin went all out for the suite tonight, in all fairness - but they’ve never talked about the fact that Minho reaches for his wallet first and sweetly asks Hyunjin to grab a table as he orders and ushers the younger ahead to pack up their groceries. And Hyunjin hasn’t argued on it, because Minho’s right. Those things don’t really matter to Hyunjin, but they matter to his fiancé.

When Hyunjin searches Minho’s eyes, a little speechless, he notices the way Minho’s smile has faded almost completely. He must be gearing up for something.

"You felt almost... ethereal to me, in the beginning,” Minho says, as if that doesn’t have Hyunjin’s insides swooping dangerously. “Like you were something far beyond the reach of my world, and that feeling just grew stronger whenever we spent time together. In the pods, it felt like you spoke of love and romance and fate in ways I’d never heard, and you told me about travels and insecurities and not knowing how to drive a car. It felt so good talking to you, but I was also scared. Not all the time; especially not once I actually talked to you. But after, in private, when I tried not to think about whether or not I was too mundane for you.”

Breathe, Hyunjin.

“And I didn't even know everything then - I mean, I still don't, probably - but there was something about the way you made me feel that had me thinking 'regular people don't get to experience this'.”

Hyunjin is not breathing.

“And I stand by that,” Minho states, and he’s not crying but his voice quivers and he looks almost pained as he tries to get his meaning across. “Even though I’m starting to learn that you're a human being the way I am, and that it doesn't matter how you look or what you say or which things you have experienced and that none of these things barely match my own life, because none of that matters to you. Because you make efforts everyday, Hyunjin, to make me feel comfortable and you do it without question or doubt. I’m so glad and relieved that I shared my own insecurities with you because you know now and you're so considerate and you care so much, Hyunjin, you... you care so much.

“I feel it when you won't let me leave in the mornings and when you smile as soon as I walk through the door,” he continues, and Hyunjin watches as Minho’s eyes glaze over at the same rate Hyunjin’s heart is expanding. “I feel it when you ask how my day was and how I want to spend the evening. I feel it when you want to help in the kitchen and mix that focus as you're learning with sneaking glances at me when you think I’m not looking. I feel it when you ask when would be a good time for me to visit your parents and that they've been asking about me, and when you check which time would suit me to come with you to the doctor's. I feel it when you share your own fears and worries with me, and I feel it when you touch me as if you never want to let go.

“I feel it multiple times every single day, darling,” Minho says, as if both of them wouldn’t be swaying where they stand if not for the hold of the other. “This thing that I didn’t even know was possible for me to feel in the first place. This thing that I thought was for fairytales and children's movies. This thing I want to call 'love', but I’m not sure that covers it. It doesn't cover what I feel for you, Hyunjin. And despite everything that's telling me not to assume or take anything for granted, I do think you feel just as much for me as I do for you. Which shouldn’t be humanly possible, but you make me feel like it is.”

Breathe, Hyunjin chants inside his head. You can’t reply. You can’t jump him. You can’t make him lose his nerve. Just listen and breathe. You know how to breathe.

“I barely believed it at first,” Minho says, on the same track of telling Hyunjin things he’s never heard before because Minho has been hinting at this, sure, but he’s never gone this far and Hyunjin wasn’t prepared what-so-ever. “When we met, I just… found myself hoping that this was love. That I somehow could make it into love if it wasn’t already. And then I thought that that must be wrong, because surely love just is without being forcibly created. You either feel love or you don’t, right? But the more I thought about it, and especially once we were finally set up to see each other, I realized that I would probably try really, really hard to keep this love if it ever seemed to go away. Because it is love that I feel for you, Hyunjin, and I don’t want to take even the slightest risk of losing that. I want to keep loving you, and I want you to keep loving me. And I can’t imagine taking for granted that we’d just magically remain as disgustingly in love as we are right now for all of eternity. I think that’s the part of love that takes work. Actively and consistently wanting to feel like this probably demands the creation of love from time to time, or at least the creation of the right settings and environment for love to continue to thrive and to grow. And I realize that this doesn’t sound very romantic at all, but you… you said that romance can be using the words that you do have to let someone know what they mean to you. So that’s what I’m trying to do.”

You’re doing it, Hyunjin wants to scream, but he’s not sure he could due to the enormous lump inside his throat anyway. You do it all the time.

"When I look at you,” Minho murmurs, finally letting his own words get to him judging by his trembling hands and open expression, “especially today, I really think 'i'm doing the right thing, choosing and walking this path'. I am so thankful and honestly relieved that you can do such a thing simply by existing next to me. I hope you'll want to choose and walk that path with me forever, darling. And I vow to always reach a hand out for you, and to remain by your side as long as you’ll have me. I vow to spend the rest of my life with you, Hwang Hyunjin, because there has only ever been you.”

Breathe, Hyunjin repeats desperately as Minho’s tears trail finally down his cheeks. Breathe breathe breathe breathe breathe.

“No one has mattered the way you matter, and no one has meant what you mean. No one has made me feel the way you do, and that was true within a week of getting to know you. I can’t properly describe how you make me feel right now, or when I heard your vows, or when your eyelashes flutter when you fall asleep. I lack the words to fully explain what you are to me, and I'm sorry for that. You should know. But you agreed to marry me on the premise of letting me make up for my mistakes for the rest of our lives, and I can only hope that that was as true as everything else you’ve shared with me.”

Hyunjin doesn’t realize that he’s crying himself until a teardrop dangles on the bridge of his nose before falling all the way down to the floor. He’s a little jealous.

“I love you, Hyunjinnie,” Minho says, silent tears moving down his devastating face. But he doesn’t sound sad. He sounds like the opposite of sad, actually. “I loved you yesterday and I love you today and I will love you tomorrow. I'll repeat it every morning and every night if you want me to. I wasn't kidding when I said that my heart breaks for every version of me that doesn't end up with you. No one could love them better than the way you could. I would want to belong to you always even if I lived a thousand lives, and I would want you to be mine for all of them. So I vow to remember the other versions of me, and to pray that they find their way to their versions of you. I'm not sharing you, darling. I'm too selfish for that. 

“But I hope,” he continues, an almost pained expression that doesn’t mean pain at all as Hyunjin listens, “that the Minho who feels just as unsure as I do on how to express his love when you do it so well, is comforted by the knowledge that his Hyunjin loves him just the way he is, too. And I hope that the Minho who has loved his Hyunjin for years and years and years already, has done it well enough that I'm right to hope to achieve his level someday, too. And I hope that the Minho who had to survive losing his Hyunjin for any reason finds his way back to him, because I don't know how that Minho manages to get out of bed in the morning.

“So I vow to remember them,” Minho says, and Hyunjin wonders if the older’s expression remains the same because his own tears are coming so fast that he has no chance of studying Minho for himself anymore, “and to remember how lucky I am to live this life with my Hyunjin, and to remember to let you know that I would never trade places with any of them. It’s not enough by any means, but I love you, and I want to love you, and I want you to love me. I want us to love each other in the best and only way we can, and I want us to do it forever. One life isn't enough for the time I need to love you, Hyunjin. It’s not. But it’s what I have, so I vow to love you well enough in this life to make the universe create reincarnations of us in order to let me love you the way I need to until the end of time. I'm not sure that’ll be enough time to love you either. But I vow to anyway, because I'm so in love with you that one lifetime couldn’t possibly express all of it.”

“Remember how you asked if I would give you forever?” Minho asks, a finality to his voice that lets Hyunjin know that he’ll be free to kiss Minho soon and then pass out the way his body is screaming at him to do. “I would, Hyunjin, in a heartbeat. And I will. That's my final vow to you today. I'd be a fool not to give you ‘forever’ when I should be asking you for it myself.”

*** 

“Hyunjin,” Minho murmurs, muffled and quiet and only half-heartedly protesting, “Hyunjinnie, baby, we can’t--”

“I know,” he agrees quickly, stealing another kiss, because Hyunjin does know that they’re the main attraction for hours to come and can’t just hide away in a seemingly empty corner of the venue, but… “I know, I promise, ‘just need a minute. I just need to be alone with you for one minute. Please?”

Minho grins immediately, pulling away to tuck Hyunjin’s hair behind his ears before looping the chain around his waist into Minho’s fingers to tug him back in. Minho kisses him like he just needed the excuse, honestly, and not at all like he cares about the guests.

“My polite little husband,” Minho smiles against Hyunjin’s panting mouth, and the younger hears the squeak that leaves him before he can stop it. Oh. “If you knew the treats I have in store for you once we’re properly alone, darling…”

“Again,” Hyunjin urges quietly, pulling at the collar of the jacket of Minho’s wedding suit until he’s properly wedged between the wall behind him and the older in front of him. “Again, hyung, again, again, again--”

“My husband,” Minho whispers, kissing Hyunjin’s upper lip wet with their shared saliva, and then his lower. “My beautiful husband. My stunning husband. My perfect, polite, precious husband who I’m gonna love forever and ever and ever and ever. You can’t divorce me for taking care of you anymore. I won’t allow it.”

The younger would snort or scoff or something similar if he wasn’t already busy, occupying his mouth by seeking entrance to Minho’s until his gasp is swallowed by his husband and Hyunjin is drowning in the sensation of being wanted, wanted, wanted. Of being desired and loved and treasured. Of Minho keeping him as close as possible and indulging him and kissing him hard as if he was physically dependent on the air inside Hyunjin’s lungs to sustain him.

Hyunjin thinks he might just give him all of it.

“‘Never divorce you,” he manages after retracting his tongue into his own mouth in order to speak. He can still press messy kisses to Minho’s plush lips, though. “You’re stuck with me. No take-backs. You’ll be my husband for the rest of your life, Lee Minho. And maybe the one after that, too.”

“Thank you,” Minho whispers, tracing Hyunjin’s spine with one hand and jaw with the second one, as their lips move against each other. “I’ll make the most of it, darling.”

Hyunjin still thinks he should be the one saying his thanks as the evening goes on, so he makes sure to whisper it onto Minho’s skin with every kiss he sneaks to the older’s hand or cheek or lips. He makes sure to whisper it, and Minho smiles fondly whenever he looks at Hyunjin, who ends up smiling back like a fool until someone interrupts their dopey love-hazed smiling contest and they have to turn their attention elsewhere for a bit.

There’s a lot of pent-up energy inside Hyunjin’s body, which he tries his best to contain as they mingle and receive well-wishes and gifts and while everyone waits for the food to arrive. It probably takes a whole hour to eat due to all the conversation and different dishes to get a bite of (and of course, pausing to kiss his husband every other minute). The cake that comes after is massive and Minho inspects it closely, but it tastes like heaven and Hyunjin doesn’t think even a missing cake would have brought him down today, honestly.

They’re set to exchange wedding gifts of their own after that, which Hyunjin feels incredibly excited about. He has no idea what Minho has been planning, and he’s zipped his own mouth tightly shut not to give anything away himself, but he’s still surprised to feel his heart beating away this fast when the time comes.

Minho’s gift is so thoughtful that Hyunjin nearly cries, but he contains himself with great amounts of self-control and also the fact that he’s cried a lot of them out today already. A slide show is definitely not something he would have guessed beforehand, but it makes perfect sense when he’s handed the physical album of the polaroid pictures they’ve been taking, and the same pictures are blown up against one of the walls for all the guests to see.

Hyunjin opens the photo album with his breath in his throat, and is met both with dates and a line or two beside every polaroid in there. He’s surprised, to say the least, when Minho gives small commentary to the large photos that sometimes coincide with what he’s written in Hyunjin physical copy and sometimes doesn’t, for the sake and context of everyone else who are seeing them for the first time. But Hyunjin is flat out shocked to realize that the first photos aren’t from their impromptu photoshoot in bed at all. The first photo is of Hyunjin on his side, in Minho’s bed with his hair falling everywhere, smiling contentedly with closed eyes as he’s set to spend the first night of many inside Minho’s bed.

‘The first of many’, which is what Minho has written inside the album. Presently, his fingers squeeze close to Hyunjin’s knee as he explains to the guests when the picture had been taken and why. ‘You weren’t lying’ is written next to the second one, which is a picture of Hyunjin grinning widely as he sets them up for dinner with the takeout he ordered on that very first day where they didn’t even leave the apartment. Good thing he’s behind the counter, since Hyunjin is pretty sure he was only wearing underwear with that t-shirt.

There’s a set next, of Hyunjin with his head inside the washing machine looking for stray socks; of Hyunjin looking seriously confused as he’s pulling clothes out of his suitcase that he probably forgot he’d brought in the first place; of Hyunjin face-planting over the bed due to the exhaustion of having to do actual tasks. ‘You belong here’ is what the ink in the middle says, but Minho doesn’t say that. Instead, he teases about how much Hyunjin looked like a lost puppy and his wide eyes and grabby hands as he asked for help, which he probably can’t even argue with.

Some of the pictures Hyunjin himself took comes after that, evidently having been presented with the camera by then, and Minho has put two in the slide show but five in the album. When Hyunjin looks closer, he almost blushes. The ones included on the big screen are the first one, with Hyunjin standing above Minho as they smiled at each other, and the second is one of the poses Hyunjin had him strike while he was straddling him. Minho chats about his ungrateful husband who was so pushy when he got his hands on the camera, but Hyunjin is too busy staring into the album at the bottom half of picture-Minho’s face and the bruise on his collarbone to listen. ‘Should’ve handed it over sooner’, Hyunjin reads above the pictures. ‘You make me love feeling loved, too’ is written below them.

On it goes, from pictures Hyunjin has taken to pictures he has willingly posed for, to pictures he had no idea existed. His jaw drops open when he spots pictures from today, until Minho laughs and gives a shout-out to his mother-in-law for helping him out. Hyunjin’s mother waves with the biggest grin on her face as Hyunjin stares, speechless, before returning to the pictures in front of him. Minho hasn’t had the time to choose favorites or write anything for these, he figures, but he appreciates seeing them anyway. He knows there’ll be an abundance of footage of this wedding, but Hyunjin really appreciates these moments being captured with the same camera and in the same way that the previous ones have been. It feels like a ‘full circle’ kind of thing, except the circle is barely a crescent. They’re young. They’re barely getting started. And if that wasn’t enough, Hyunjin’s husband has vividly declared that he intends to love him for centuries. The only circle that could be argued for is that of the show; except that won’t be complete for another few months either.

Not much later, Hyunjin goes to prepare himself to deliver his own gift. He’s not as nervous as he was earlier, and thinks that maybe he can escape the pep-talk this time. This isn’t that big of a deal. He doesn’t feel very pressured or like he has expectations of some kind on him; it isn’t that. The camera and staff said their goodbyes and wished them luck once the wedding ceremony ended, and they won’t see them until it’s reunion time so he’s not even being filmed. Hyunjin thinks this will be fun actually, he’s just not sure how Minho will react. But Hyunjin has another trick up his sleeve anyway. He doesn’t really think Minho will be disappointed with his gift(s).

So he grabs the microphone he practiced with this morning and double-checks that everything’s okay with the music and sound, and then returns to the large room filled with wedding guests and colorful drinks and celebratory ambience. His eyes zoom in on Minho immediately, and his husband’s eyes instantly glue onto him as Hyunjin saunters down in Minho’s direction, microphone in hand and wide grin on his face.

This will be fun. Minho asked him to sing for him just yesterday. It’s not the same thing, obviously, and Hyunjin is by no means a professional singer with years of practice or vocal lessons, but he has a decent enough voice and he loves this song and he noticed Minho humming along to it in the bath just last night. As good of a sign as any, right?

The song starts playing, and Minho’s eyes widen as he probably recognizes it, or maybe just because he’s getting it, but Hyunjin only tilts his head and starts singing along to the first verse of Taylor Swift’s ‘Lover’, simply because it’s the perfect song for this occasion and possibly also for them.

He masks his nerves by putting on a little show for the people watching him who Hyunjin certainly isn’t looking back at, and grins as he steps behind Minho’s chair and pulls at his tie to make Minho follow him with his eyes. Hyunjin sways slightly while he sings the words he knows by heart, and is both pleased and relieved to see a bashful smile work its way onto Minho’s lips as the shock fades.

Perfect.

It seems fitting, to Hyunjin, as his mouth shapes the words: ‘Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?’. That’s what Minho feels like to him; a completely new and almost ground-breaking addition to his life, but so familiar and comforting that Hyunjin almost wouldn’t have believed their vows after just two months, had he witnessed them for another couple in the same seat. But then the chorus follows, and Minho’s smiling face is mouthing the words along with him, and Hyunjin misses a word or two because he’s too busy smiling back at his husband.

For the second verse, Hyunjin stands up and pulls Minho sideways by his tie, before dramatically sitting down and draping himself sideways across the older’s lap to cradle his face as a heated blush paints Minho’s cheeks. He probably didn’t expect Hyunjin to get handsy in front of both their parents, in his defense, but Hyunjin isn’t all too worried about that. His parents know he likes to sing, and it’s not like he’s doing anything inappropriate. They’re fully dressed, Minho’s arm is slung around his back and the other over his knees, while Hyunjin has one hand on Minho's shoulder and one messing up his hair. He doesn't feel weird. Stranger things happen at weddings, he’s sure. And Minho looks equal amounts surprised and embarrassed, sure, but he definitely looks happy.

So happy, in fact, that Hyunjin rises to his feet and pulls Minho along with him - by the hand this time - as they reach the second chorus, and he tugs his dutiful husband into the middle of the room with him. Minho was a dancer; he can’t have stage fright. He isn’t even the one singing. And literally everyone, including the two of them, are at least tipsy by now. Hyunjin’s worries are long gone.

He smiles so wide his cheeks kind of hurt as his voice testifies to taking this man to be his for the second time today, and he definitely swears to being over-dramatic and true to Minho for the rest of their days. Minho’s eyes are kind of glassy, Hyunjin notices as he feels a hand reach for his free one, and he wonders if he was ever really worried about how Minho would react to being sort of serenaded. It’s not like Hyunjin is putting on some kind of big performance, but he thinks they both prefer this. It feels intimate and genuine to be close to Minho and sing about how the rest of their lives could be, and as the end of the song nears Hyunjin can’t be bothered to wait any longer.

The background vocals of the instrumental song is still playing when he steps closer and presses his lips to Minho’s, and it isn’t long before Minho’s fingers are tangling themselves into his hair and gently holding him steady and immovable where he stands.

Hyunjin feels unreasonably happy, or maybe his happiness is actually quite reasonable. He just doesn’t recognize the experience himself, as he kisses his favorite person to the notes of one of his favorite songs on what will definitely be one of his favorite nights of his entire life.

When the music fades away, he distantly notices someone who must be Choi Beomgyu cheering loudly, and he breaks the kiss by groaning into Minho’s shoulder instead. There’s a round of laughter behind him, and another round of applause, and then the music is steadily playing again and Minho is gesturing for Hyunjin to dance with him.

They’ve been practicing a couple of nights this week, and Hyunjin is lucky to have married an actual dancer who can pick up on movements and pace and rhythm faster than the instructor could explain the basics of a wedding waltz, pretty much. They’d spent maybe half an hour giggling as Minho swayed him this way and that before the instructor waved them off and declared them in absolutely no need of him, and Hyunjin silently thinks he may have just wanted to get rid of them and their lovesick gazes. Truth be told, Hyunjin prefers waltzing around alone in their apartment with sudden and hilarious moves from Minho than this formal thing they’re supposed to do, but whatever. He’s had his fun, and he catches his mother wiping at her eyes as his father laughs good-naturedly, and Minho’s tickles at the small of his back are almost ignorable.

He receives another adamant, meaningful, lasting kiss before the second song ends, and then Minho is bowing with a glint in his eyes as he thanks him for the dances but he has another partner to woo, too. Hyunjin watches with a soft smile as Minho kisses his hand and proceeds to head straight in the direction of his mother - who is definitely also crying, oh okay - and Hyunjin hastily averts his eyes to go find his own.

He dances with Minho’s mother, too, and knows he’s doing a worse job than Minho was previously but the kind woman in front of him seems happy regardless, and she tells him how lovely the ceremony had been, and how wonderful the reception, and how happy she is for the two of them. Hyunjin thanks her profusely and feels teary-eyed again when Minho finds him two dances later, right when the music changes and Hyunjin can hook his arms behind Minho’s neck and sway with him rather than focus on steps and other annoying things.

It’s late when Hyunjin decides that he’s had enough, and he leans his head on Minho’s shoulder for a good twenty minutes rather than speak and suggest they leave. He doesn’t want to leave before Minho feels ready to, because they’re only getting married once. But Hyunjin’s night isn’t over simply because the reception is; he decided that weeks ago. And truthfully, he thinks his husband shares that sentiment.

Minho finally does ask if he feels ready to go, and Hyunjin whips his head up so quickly that Minho spends a minute just laughing at him, basically. He has a half a mind to sneak out and save them lots of time, but he doesn’t think he could convince Minho to do that even if he tried. So they say their goodbyes, and tolerate the catcalls and shouts, and thanks everybody for coming and putting up with the weird circumstances up until now, and then Hyunjin is all but dragging his husband behind him as he heads for their coats and the overnight bags they brought.

When Hyunjin has removed his headpiece and checked for his phone and whatever else and deemed himself ready, he’s the one being pulled along as Minho sets a brisk pace and hails them a cab faster than Hyunjin could’ve said the word ‘husband’. He laughs openly, widely, as Minho’s rather invisible hand uses a significant amount of force to tug Hyunjin against the older for another kiss, right there on the street, and then drags him towards the cab that’s stopping by the sidewalk as Hyunjin smiles and wonders if it’ll stay permanently on his face from now on. What could ever make him stop smiling, now that he gets to call Minho his husband?

Nothing, Hyunjin is pretty sure. Minho gestures eagerly for Hyunjin to get inside as the holds the door open for him and Hyunjin drinks him in for another moment before placating his husband and taking a seat. He gives the driver the name of the hotel they’re spending the night at, and giggles as Minho’s hand lands over his thigh and seems intent on staying there for the rest of the ride.

I love you, Hyunjin thinks, watching the lights and shadows play tricks on Minho’s face as they drive through the night. They don’t make him look any less handsome, that’s for sure.

I love you, Hyunjin thinks, placing his own hand over Minho’s.

“I love you,” Hyunjin whispers eventually, unable to hold it in any longer.

Minho doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t have to. Hyunjin knows that his feelings are reciprocated. He thinks he might’ve known even by the look on Minho’s face, actually.

Chapter Text

“Hyung?”

“Yes, husband?”

Hyunjin bursts into giggles immediately, too high on the wedding ceremony and reception alike lingering in the back of his mind to do anything but just that. Minho reaches for him and puts an arm around his shoulders to pull Hyunjin against the older, kissing his temple as Hyunjin automatically leans into him.

“Sorry if this is too much,” he murmurs into the open collar of Minho’s dress shirt, tasting the salt on his skin in the process. “I got excited and then I just… went all out.”

“Nothing’s too much for your wedding night, baby,” Minho chuckles, kissing the top of his head. “Don’t worry, Hyunjin-ah. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Into the warm skin against his face, Hyunjin nods. Okay.

“Well,” he changes gears, because he’s trying really damn hard to hold himself back from biting into Minho’s throat already, knowing the satisfying noises the older makes whenever Hyunjin does just that, “considering you apparently had some plans of your own, do you mind if I give you the second part of your wedding gift first? Because I’m actually not sure I’ll be alive to do it afterwards.”

“Sure, darling,” Minho promises with another chuckle. “Should I go wash up first?”

Hyunjin nods again, before standing back up and pressing five or so very urgent kisses to his husband’s lips before letting him go. The suite is massive, and he hasn’t even admired every corner of the place when Minho opens the door and hot steam exits the bathroom and curls the ends of his hair up. Hyunjin feels warm all over just by looking at him.

He brings his entire bag into the bathroom with him, teasing Minho about how Hyunjin doesn’t trust him not to spoil the surprise otherwise, while Minho scoffs and pushes him into the bathroom while telling him to ‘hurry up, then, before I threaten to break down yet another door’.

Hyunjin’s heart slowly speeds up in his chest as he takes his time, washing up diligently before drying himself off and lotioning as per his routine. It really only starts pounding away once he opens up his bag, and pulls out item by item as he tries to figure out where to set the bar, but also which items he feels in the mood for. He’s actually never done this for his own sake before, but vaguely wonders if he should have. He feels good, looking into the mirror as he prepares himself physically and mentally for Minho’s reaction. He feels better than good, honestly. He feels attractive, and he feels enticing, and maybe even as far as ‘seductive’.

He’s reminded of why he wanted that photoshoot in the first place, truth be told. And why he was so pleased with his choice afterwards, because he’d felt almost irresistible even watching the photos back himself at the end of the day.

But in this moment, where Hyunjin is dolling himself up for his husband, on their wedding night, at lengths he’s never gone to for anybody, and knowing and choosing and anticipating doing it for Minho; he’s even more grateful to himself for arguing his agent into letting him do that shoot in the first place.

When Hyunjin deems himself ready, he takes another long moment just to stare at himself. His palms are sweaty and there’s a sheen over his throat, as well, but he can’t help but love what he’s seeing. He could have gone further, probably, but similar to how he prepared for meeting Minho for the first time, he finds himself wanting to stick relatively close to the way Hyunjin looks for the majority of his everyday life. It feels like a test of sorts; both in regards to Minho’s reaction and to how much Hyunjin himself actually likes someone else seeing him like this. He’s not working right now, and it doesn’t feel the same. This is real. This isn’t the fairly globally acknowledged fashion model Hwang Hyunjin he’s portraying.

He’s just Hyunjin right now. He’s the same person who was greeted by a soft “Hi, Hyunjinnie” as he met the man who fell in love with him without any idea about this part of Hyunjin’s life. He’s ‘Hyunjin’ right now, but he’s also the same person Minho refers to as ‘darling’ and ‘baby’ and the occasional ‘princess’, because all the sweet and tender pet names are referring to the way Hyunjin is when he feels most like himself.

He hopes Minho will call him all those things tonight. He hopes Minho will call him ‘husband’, too, with the way Hyunjin gasps unexpectedly simply by the thought of it. He wants all of it. He wants Minho to keep showering him with love and affection, and he wants it tonight but also for all the nights to come.

He’ll start with ‘tonight’, though.

His heart is all the way up in his throat when he grabs the doorknob, and he releases a half-hysterical giggle despite the sobriety that’s been steadily sneaking up on him. God, he’s really doing this. He’s really doing this. And Lee Minho better lose his damn mind if he knows what’s good for him and his marriage.

“Hyunjinnie?” Minho calls from the massive space outside of the bathroom, and Hyunjin giggles some more from the pure nerves and exhilaration inside of him. “Why are you laughing like that? Did you fall and hit your head? Should I be worried?”

“Yes.”

“What?” Minho exclaims immediately, and as he moves around Hyunjin realizes that Minho probably assumed that Hyunjin’s ‘yes’ was in regards to having hurt himself, and not Minho’s other possible reasons to worry.

Oh, well.

“Hyunjinnie, baby, wha--?”

Minho pulls the door open, and Hyunjin barely collects himself enough to drop his hand from the doorknob in time to school his face into something resembling a seductive smirk, rather than uncontrollable laughter. He senses that one may be slightly sexier than the other.

It’s definitely humorous, on the other hand, to watch the way Minho’s jaw drops to the fucking floor as he lays eyes on his husband, all dressed up and pretty in the promise of a second wedding gift. Hyunjin only started the night off by innocently singing that he’s taking Minho to be his lover; this other half is for proving it.

Minho isn’t even seeing everything, because Hyunjin ended up pulling a white and oversized dress shirt over himself before deeming himself ready. He’s sure it’ll come off soon enough, but he couldn’t quite take the idea of walking out the way he was, all the way over to the enormous bed Minho was probably lounging on in wait in that bathrobe he’s wearing. If he’d known his husband would be rushing to the door, Hyunjin might have left the large piece of clothing in the bag, but alas, here they are.

So Minho might not see everything, but Hyunjin only buttoned a few of the buttons and it was haphazardly at that - maybe on purpose, maybe not - and he knows that his thin clavicles and everything above it are showing, along with everything below the skewed hem of the shirt.

Hyunjin also knows that Minho’s eyes are darting all over the place, because the older really couldn’t hide it even if he tried, and when Hyunjin takes a stride or two backwards in order to let Minho look at him properly… Minho looks.

His long, bare legs are thoroughly scrutinized even though there’s literally nothing different about them today - apart from a little discreet posing, possibly, but Minho won’t even notice that - and Hyunjin sees the moment Minho’s wide eyes zoom in on his matching thigh garters. They’re white - of course, as is appropriate on a wedding night - with lovely flowers in almost sheer lace spreading over the smoothness of Hyunjin’s thigh. They look incredible against his skin - still sun-kissed from their vacation - in Hyunjin’s personal opinion, and Minho seems inclined to agree. One band is pulled slightly higher than the other, because it looked a bit more scandalous like that which made Hyunjin happy while examining the difference.

When Minho reaches for them, almost absent-mindedly, Hyunjin slaps his hand away.

“Not yet,” he admonishes, taking another step back as the smile on his face grows further. “Look first, touch later. I need to know that my husband actually likes his wedding gift, before granting him anything else.”

“If I like…?” Minho repeats, groaning as his face morphs into an almost pained expression, but letting his eyes travel up Hyunjin’s body. “Holy shit, baby.”

“Better,” Hyunjin preens, reaching behind him until he’s resting his palms flat over the gigantic double vanity and can expand his limbs properly. Much better.

The uneven hems of the shirt dangle over the top of Hyunjin’s thighs, covers his crotch and stomach, and opens up again over his breastbone. It’s enough to hide lots of things, sure, but not enough to hide the matching choker in white lace, intricate detailed flowers all over, or the thin, leathered one above it. The top one looks rather simple in comparison, but there’s a tiny metal heart at the front that looks very pretty as it is, but it also looks somewhat like an invitation.

Minho seems to be at a complete loss of words as he processes this, and Hyunjin stays silent as he watches. He’s in no hurry; he has all night, but he has lots of other nights, too.

In front of him, Minho gulps audibly as he finally catches on to the extremely delicate, necklace-looking golden band resting in the middle between Hyunjin’s collar bones, with twin lines decorating the top of his chest before disappearing behind the fabric of the shirt that is growing increasingly hotter by the second. It’s getting really hot in here, actually. Hyunjin is sort of regretting not putting his hair up entirely for that reason alone.

His hair doesn’t look that different from during the ceremony, probably. Hyunjin showered and dried it and the main difference consists of the tiny decorative bands and jewels he braided into it rather than tying most of it back. The blonde strands are still framing his face - very similar to the first time they met, actually - and it’s wavy in a thankfully mostly effortless fashion on his account. His hair has grown longer over the summer, almost reaching his shoulders, but he hasn’t decided whether or not to change it yet.

He went easier on the make-up than he’d first intended, but maybe that was also Hyunjin’s restlessness setting in. He’s just not a patient person, and his hands quite literally shook in anticipation as he tried to paint his features to perfection. He’d pushed through the eyeliner but skipped the eyeshadow almost entirely after that, and mostly filled in both his eyebrows and his lips in respective colors to make them pop. Truthfully, Hyunjin had sucked his lips in and nibbled on them a bit before that, too, until they were plush enough for his liking. The tricks are there to be used, after all.

“God, you’re… Hyunjin, you look like a dream, baby, like an actual dream. What the fuck.”

“Yeah?” he replies, watching Minho slowly step closer as the older watches him in turn, trying to deduct if he’ll be told off again or not. It sends a rush of something powerful through Hyunjin. “You’re not mad I stole your shirt again, husband?”

Minho makes a strangled sound way down in his throat, clenching his fists as if trying to decide whether to chance it again or not now that Hyunjin is back within his reaching distance.

“What’s mine is yours,” Minho chokes out, still struggling to let his eyes stay for too long on any one place of Hyunjin’s body. “I’d give you everything, Hyunjin, but when you look like this, I… I’m afraid you’ll have to take it yourself because my body is genuinely shutting down.”

Hyunjin giggles again, feeling his face soften with it. Minho’s gaze does return to him when the easy sound fills the space between them, and he looks almost out of breath. He also looks ready to absolutely devour Hyunjin, to his sizable satisfaction, but like he’d probably hold off if Hyunjin wanted to play with him some more before that.

That’s the deciding factor as to why Hyunjin doesn’t want to hold him off anymore, though.

“Touch me,” he tells Minho, smiles, and detects the exact moment that the words fall into place for his husband. “What’s mine is yours, baby. I belong to you properly now. Come show me.”

And it’s not like Minho is an overly jealous person, or cares which emojis Hyunjin sends his friends or how he’s gotten used to the way Felix in particular is often touchy with him. Hyunjin doesn’t think that Minho is generally worried about Hyunjin’s intentions, either. Not much before today, but definitely not now after literally marrying him. And yet, he watches his words push the exact button he’d been hoping to reach as Minho almost growls with need before going for it, hastily stepping up into Hyunjin’s space and circling his slender body wrapped in Minho’s shirt with both arms and proceeds to kiss the life out of him.

The counter digs into Hyunjin’s back, but he doesn’t much care about that. He has his hands full with getting his arms out of Minho’s hold on him, and then getting his arms on Minho himself. He throws them hastily around the older’s shoulders, hauling him in until Minho’s mouth is so fervent on his that Hyunjin ends up bending backwards as Minho pushes, pushes, pushes, and Hyunjin is holding onto him partly so he won’t lose his balance and partly because he can’t imagine letting go.

Minho’s arm moves further down his body, leaving one tightly holding Hyunjin’s waist and the other roaming to touch his back, the arch at the bottom, the outline of his hip turning into thigh, and finally stopping as Minho’s strong hands catch onto the flimsy fabric decorating his thigh. This is the lower one out of the two garters, Hyunjin knows, but it still stings when Minho catches the fabric between his fingers before pulling it off Hyunjin’s skin and releasing it as it snaps back into place.

Hyunjin whimpers, straight into Minho’s mouth as it keeps his own open and panting, and he moans similarly when his husband repeats the motion with another delicious stinging sensation. He was mostly serious about belonging to Minho, in the privacy of Hyunjin’s thoughts, and he would really like it if Minho wanted to show him just to which extent he intends to make Hyunjin his. He’d be disappointed if Minho didn’t, honestly.

He lifts the leg with the scandalous garter and another man’s hand on it, and locks it around Minho’s hip in what he hopes is a straightforward enough action, and is rewarded with a pleased noise leaving Minho’s mouth and entering his own within no passing time at all.

“Take me to bed,” Hyunjin pleads, digging his fingers into the fabric covering Minho’s back as he clings to his husband as tight as he possibly can. “Minho, please, I don’t wanna wait any longer, please please please--”

“I love you,” Minho says, out of nowhere and with his other hand trailing down Hyunjin’s body to grab his other leg at the request from the younger. “I love you, I love you. Hyunjin, I love you.”

“Show me,” Hyunjin repeats, closer and closer to begging because he wants nothing more than he wants Minho in this moment, and if he didn’t know better he’d say this want was actually a physical need. A craving of some kind. “Take me to bed, make me yours, show me how much you love me. Show me how no one could love me better than you, hyung.”

Supported by the arms he’s got thrown around Minho, Hyunjin holds on for his life as the older makes a low but almost pained sound, and proceeds to hoist Hyunjin’s thigh up Minho’s body until it’s matching the other one, and then he stands back up and takes a cautious step which does not result in either of them tumbling to the ground, thankfully. Minho finds his balance - because of course he does - and Hyunjin grabs at his husband despite having to move slightly so Minho can see where he’s going - they’re not in the apartment anymore - but there’s a delectable neck within Hyunjin’s reach and it is not getting unmarked out of this night.

Minho lays him down on the ridiculously comfortable bed not very long after that, and honestly, Hyunjin doesn’t care about his initial plan anymore. He had a vague idea of teasing Minho for a bit, of climbing on top of him and making him watch, of only touching on Hyunjin’s command rather than Minho’s own whims, but Hyunjin quickly realizes that he can’t wait that long. It would have been fun, but he can’t make himself force Minho’s hands away now that they’re already on him, and he can’t bring himself to demand that his scrambled, lovesick brain should take such initiatives. Maybe later, he decides, or maybe he’ll just repeat the outfit another time. It doesn’t matter. Not right now.

“Unwrap me,” he tells Minho instead, arching his back and pushing the buttons against Minho’s chest as he goes for the older’s robes and hastily pulls them off. “You haven’t seen all of me yet.”

Minho makes a noise that sounds vaguely like despair, but with the way he’s murmuring ‘beautiful’ over and over into Hyunjin’s gasping mouth already, the younger doesn’t feel very worried. He feels Minho fumbles with the buttons of his own shirt, messily thrown together as they were in the first place, and it’s almost like Minho has to rip them apart before detaching himself from Hyunjin’s face and rising to his knees to pull the fabric apart until practically nothing is covering Hyunjin anymore.

He’d skipped out on the actual underwear, partly because of the tiny fear of being ‘too much’ and partly the fear of potentially ruining any underwear he’d find appropriate for his wedding night anyway. The tasteful golden chains, however, fall in elegant lines over his torso even while lying down, and they look so pretty around his waist and top part of his abdomen. They’re a bit cold still, which is part of the reason Hyunjin finds himself fighting for breath every now and then, even though his incessant husband is probably the main reason.

His incessant husband is staring, Hyunjin quickly finds, and he seems very hesitant to actually touch the thin bands decorating the younger and carefully drags his fingers alongside them, rather than actually touch. It’s a striking difference to the way Minho pulled at the garter without any trace of doubt, but Hyunjin can appreciate both. He twists as he turns sideways to reach for the final piece he’d stuffed into the nightside table while Minho showered - the piece he knew he’d be wearing - and whimpers when the cold chain tickles his side and Minho’s featherlight fingers are quick to follow in their wake.

But then he lies back down, fingers clasped around the last decorative item of the night, and holds it above his mouth as if waiting to blow his hands open.

“One more thing,” he tells Minho, who is listening intently but watching him even closer. Minho’s laser focus is on, and the knowledge makes Hyunjin’s toes curl. “I thought I’d let my husband put this on. Do you think he would? For me?”

“Divorce him if he doesn’t,” Minho replies, and Hyunjin would laugh if Minho didn’t sound dead serious about it.

He turns his cupped hand in Minho’s direction, and watches him lean on one elbow to carefully pry Hyunjin’s willing fingers open with his free hand. It’s a very small piece, in all honesty, but it had to be in order to match. Hyunjin’s heart pounds frantically inside his chest as he watches Minho’s face change from anticipation to surprise, then to that thing close to despair, and then to a hunger that’s cemented by the harsh line of Minho’s jaw and a shaky puff of air being released between them.

Minho takes the tiny, delicate pendant into his slightly trembling hand, and Hyunjin would reach up and take it if that wouldn’t ruin the whole thing. So he doesn’t, and he touches Minho’s bicep gently with one hand and lets the other splay over the older’s ribcage as Hyunjin leans his head further back in order for Minho to reach the leather choker with the tiny heart.

It takes a moment longer than it would have in another setting, but not longer than it would have taken Hyunjin himself inside the bathroom. He feels relief, mostly, when the clasp closes and the pendant is secured against his throat. He feels exhilaration at what he knows it must look like to Minho. He feels happiness strongest of all, though, when Minho barely brushes his skin with how carefully he touches Hyunjin, all while staring at the tiny ‘M’ now dangling over his body.

“Mine,” Minho whispers, not possessive in the slightest. He sounds wondrous, if anything, as if it were phrased as a question.

“Yours,” Hyunjin promises, tilting his head sideways to press a kiss to Minho’s fingertips.

***

As would be expected, they make some sweet, sweet love after that. That’s how Hyunjin refers to it inside his head, anyway, when he remembers how Minho touched him and kissed him and spoke to him. Apart from when he heard Minho’s vows, it’s probably the most loved Hyunjin has ever felt in his life. They were both teary-eyed as they neared their first destination of the night, and Hyunjin did his best to swallow all the lovely sounds - which he knew Minho would hate to hear echo around the room - down into his own throat instead, and when they kissed after it was impossible to tell the exact reason why their lips tasted faintly of salt.

But a bath and almost all of Hyunjin’s hard work stripped off his body later - and of course, the snacks - he’d found the energy and frankly the desire to go through with his initial plan after all. He didn’t bother putting everything back on again, but the leather choker never came off in the first place and Hyunjin finds that that one item goes a long way, actually.

He’d caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and felt his blood thrum with how debauched he’d looked; messy hair all over the place and lip liner smudged despite the label that said ‘waterproof’. The mark of his lover and husband decorating his neck. It made him happy, though. Imagine not looking debauched on your wedding night. Minho certainly does, considering the countless bruises currently decorating his skin from wherever Hyunjin could reach.

It’s just that Hyunjin clearly overestimated his own energy levels while pushing Minho on his back in a very fond flashback to their first night, which they’d gone about in a similar fashion, and while Hyunjin does appreciate the displeased sounds Minho keeps making when Hyunjin tells him to keep his hands to himself and watch, he’s starting to remember how achingly wonderful it feels whenever Minho does the work and Hyunjin can just lie back and take, just trust Minho to make him feel good and revel in the pleasure when he unmistakably does. That’s very hard to do when you’re grinding your hips yourself, chasing the burst of gratification that comes with hitting the right spot and having to focus on keeping rhythms and other things. Hyunjin may have a bunch of toys somewhere in his dust-collecting apartment, sure, but those don’t feel any pleasure what-so-ever regardless of what he does. Hyunjin has to focus on himself and Minho now, and while he definitely can if he puts his mind to it… He’s just not sure that he wants to anymore.

“Hyung,” he whines, sinking further and further down by his hands until he’s leaning over Minho, close enough to kiss. “Hyung, I…”

“‘s okay,” Minho murmurs, daring to tangle one hand into Hyunjin’s locks and making a pleased sound when he’s not being swatted off. “Should hyung do the work, baby? Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin relents in, eternally grateful that he didn’t have to say the words himself. “Please, Minho.”

He plants his arms on either side of Minho’s face and kisses him in relief, hips coming to an almost-stop as they focus on the connection of their mouths for a minute. Minho’s nails scratch lightly at his scalp, but it’s enough for goosebumps to break out over Hyunjin’s naked back. He mewls helplessly.

“It feels good, doesn’t it?” Minho asks, shuffling around somewhere below Hyunjin in order to move his legs, probably. “‘Did so well, baby, you look stunning like this. ‘Wish you’d see yourself.”

Hyunjin senses the exact moment that Minho’s feet are planted into the mattress, because suddenly there are movements inside of him that Hyunjin himself is not initiating, and oh the way that--

“Let hyung take care of you, darling,” Minho persuades him, kissing the corner of Hyunjin’s parted lips while sliding experimentally in and out of him with this new angle that feels fucking amazing. “Take care of you like no one ever has, isn’t that right? Isn’t that why you married me, baby?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin can only repeat, over and over, letting Minho kiss the other side as well before Hyunjin allows his limbs some rest and tucks himself completely into Minho’s neck and chest, “yes, yes, yes.”

The action has his hips falling even further down, the natural arch of his back changing the angle again but there’s only three strokes, probably, until Minho finds his sweet spot anew and cradles Hyunjin against him as he cries out with pleasure. It feels good to have Minho moving inside of him like this, obviously, but it feels good to be completely surrounded by his husband’s body, too. It’s indescribable; the way Minho’s arms feel around his damp back as they keep him closer than Hyunjin could have managed on his own. It’s unspeakable; the way Hyunjin’s mind spins with how much he wants to be Minho’s, wants to belong to him completely, wants the world to know. It’s impossible; the way Hyunjin kind of wants to stay right here forever, wrapped up in Minho in every way imaginable, and never have to feel anything less than what he’s feeling at this very moment.

Hyunjin reaches his peak before Minho, because he always does, and because he thinks sex is its best after he’s already gone through one orgasm. The overstimulation after two isn’t quite as pleasant but it’s definitely not painful, and Minho groans loudly at the difference in tightness around him but also probably at the lewd noises coming from Hyunjin’s mouth. He can feel Minho release not very long after, and presses wet kisses to his husband’s neck as Minho presses him into his skin, but also catches his breath.

No sooner has Minho’s chest stopped heaving before he’s tugging lightly at Hyunjin’s hair until he gets the hint and returns to line their mouths up again, sighing contentedly against each other as their bodies calm down from their highs. Hyunjin doesn’t feel calm for very long though, considering the suggestion Minho throws his way that has him blacking out for a second or four.

But Hyunjin nods, and he only grimaces a little as his shaky limbs detach themselves from Minho’s long enough to have the older slip out of him and move up Minho’s body at the quickest pace he can produce right now. Hyunjin isn’t quite sure what to expect because he’s never done this, but he’s definitely not scared and it sounded like Minho really wanted to. It’s probably for the better that he’s already had two orgasms wrought out of him, because Hyunjin is pretty sure he would’ve felt more nervous if they hadn’t been. But he’s already hazy with pleasure as it is, and he trusts Minho with his life, and if the older thinks that this will make him feel good then who is Hyunjin to argue?

So he climbs up the bed and consequently, Minho’s gorgeous body. His knees are nearly touching the bedframe when Minho gently stops him with one hand on each side of his thighs, and Hyunjin leans forward to grab it with his hands instead. He’d felt properly clean again after their bath, but he definitely does not right now. But also… that’s exactly what Minho had referred to when outright asking to ‘lick him clean’, wasn’t it?

“Perfect,” Minho assures him, and Hyunjin spreads his legs a little wider when Minho starts to tug him down. “Don’t worry, princess, you weigh nothing. Sit down for me. Sit down for your husband, yeah? I’ll make you feel so good, baby.”

True to his word, Minho does. Being eaten out is always a luxury, Hyunjin thinks, but he’s never done it like this before and definitely not after actual sex rather than a meticulous shower. But Minho asked him to come here, and Hyunjin is too gone with pleasure and affection for Minho to refuse him, and now he’s here and honestly? It feels fucking incredible.

He tries to stay still for Minho because he figures that might be the most helpful thing to do, but he is sensitive after two previous rounds even if the first one was probably two or so hours ago. But Minho doesn’t push him away when Hyunjin carefully grinds down on his tongue, and he doesn’t complain when Hyunjin twitches after Minho’s nose touches his perineum just so and he almost shouts in pleasure and sensitivity and feels the absolute need to chase the same sensation.

It feels incredible, and there’s not much left inside of Hyunjin when he weakly spills into his own hand, and it’s only made more apparent when he struggles to heave his body to the side and collapse next to Minho rather than on top of him. Minho doesn’t kiss him and Hyunjin doesn’t ask him to, but he doesn’t ask for anything else either because he can’t form such intricate thoughts right now. He just takes what Minho gives him, and lets his husband pry his hand open to clean it up, and lets him gently, gently wipe Hyunjin down after the mess he’s made of him, and lets him tuck Hyunjin beneath the heavy blanket despite how much he’s been sweating, and holds him closely tucked into Minho’s chest.

Hyunjin falls asleep like that, but not before urging Minho to ‘tell me again, please’, and he doesn’t specify what it is he wants to hear repeated because he’s not sure which out of the things Minho’s told him that he would like to hear, but that also means that everything Minho tells Hyunjin makes him happy, and he buries himself deeper and deeper into the body and the person so familiar and dear to him as he succumbs.

He falls asleep, and it’s no wonder because it’s really late and his body has been through a lot. But he catches Minho’s murmured words of affection anyway, and ‘baby’ and ‘darling’ and ‘princess’ are all cherished, but ‘husband’ is Hyunjin’s favorite word in the entire universe after ‘Minho’, and the only words on his mind as he drifts off and prays that some higher power hears him, are ‘thank you thank you thank you thank you’.

Chapter Text

Hyunjin snaps a photo, then another.

And then one more, just for good measure, before tapping the screen until his chat with Minho is right there, tiny numbers proving just how sickeningly newly wedded they actually are.

(It’s been forty-five minutes since Minho’s ‘omw baby’. An eternity.)

hyunggggggggg

why can’t i hear your footsteps in the hallway yet

where are youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

:(

No reply for a full second. Luckily, Hyunjin knows just what to do.

you better be stopping to get my ice cream that you so conveniently forgot yesterday

Still no reply. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

well joke’s on you cause i bought it myself today <3

tsk 

what a lousy husband i have who won’t even get me ice cream when it’s ON THE LIST!!!!!!!

remind me why i married you again lee minho-ssi

first you forget my ice cream and now you’re ignoring me

or you’re late

which isn’t a whole lot better

all jokes aside though

i WILL throw a tantrum if you’re not here within five minutes

ily drive safely <3

Luckily, it only takes about thirty-three seconds.

“‘Remind me why I married you again, Lee Minho-ssi’?”

Hyunjin doesn’t even try to restrain his giggles as he throws himself off the couch - hearing his husband shuffling around in the hallway - and rushes into their bedroom while slamming the door shut behind him. He definitely doesn’t restrain his giggles after that.

“‘Think I’m scared of a door, Hwang Hyunjin-ssi?” Minho asks from behind the wood, voice full of dangerous promises. Hyunjin’s heart pounds. “Remind me how many doors I’ve already threatened to break down because of you? Do you think this one is any different because it’s in our apartment?”

“I just think you should remind me, hyung,” Hyunjin laughs from his side, practically feeling the warm weight of Minho’s body against his back despite the door separating them. It probably shouldn’t feel this normal to talk to Minho without seeing him so long after they filmed the show, but it sort of does. It doesn’t faze Hyunjin at all. “It’s been a really long time since we got married, after all. Are you already starting to take me for granted? Is romance truly dead?”

“It’s been two months, darling,” Minho murmurs against the door, twisting the doorknob once as Hyunjin’s breath rattles along with it, “along with five days and approximately two hours. We’ve been married longer than we haven’t, remember?”

A somersault makes its presence known inside Hyunjin’s stomach at his husband’s words. He knows that. He’s the one who pounced with insistent kisses the same second that he’d officially been Minho’s husband for longer than he hadn’t. While knowing him, sure, not counting his entire life, but… Life before Minho is quickly becoming more and more irrelevant for Hyunjin every passing day, actually. Lots of things have changed since then, apart from just knowing Minho. Hyunjin has a real estate agent coming to look at his useless apartment next week, and he has been checking his emails every day in search of an official admission confirmation that has to come. He also has a significantly larger circle of people to message at any given time for any given reason, which he must admit is another nice addition to his life. He has lost friendships because of his job before, directly or indirectly, and it feels good to know that he’s officially going to stay right here for the foreseeable future. Here as in Seoul; here as in Minho’s apartment.

Their apartment, he reminds himself silently. It’s their apartment.

“You’re not laughing anymore,” Minho notes. “Unlock the door so I can kiss you silly, silly. That’s what you’re thinking about, isn’t it?”

“You’re so annoying,” Hyunjin whines, hiding his laughter at being found out but absolutely not his grin. “You think you can just come back here when it suits you, make all these demands, chase me off into the bedroom--”

“--here we go again--”

“--and then you want me to kiss you! Did you even bring my ice cream? What makes you think you deserve a kiss, Lee Minho-ssi? The absolute nerve!”

“Hyunjin, unlock the door or I’ll literally eat both tubs myself and then you can run away from your evil husband all the way to your little convenience store and get whatever you want and then we’ll see if I let you back in--”

Hyunjin throws the door open, immediately glaring at Minho’s knowing, victorious eyes.

“Remember when you said I was the meanest fiancé in the world?” he demands, stomping his foot in the process. “Well, guess who’s the meanest husband in the world? It’s you! That’s blackmail! I don’t wanna watch the show with you anymore!”

“Sucks for you,” Minho promptly tells him, and Hyunjin pouts and glares with his crossed arms as Minho’s envelopes him. God, he’s so warm and comfy. And he smells like heaven. Best husband in the world. “I told you I’m keeping you forever, baby. ‘Haven’t even gotten started yet. Be a good husband and sit down on the couch so I can get today’s kissing quota in, yeah?”

Hyunjin grumbles a little, to make a point, but they’re quickly switched for surprised gasps as Minho’s lips latch onto his neck and he stumbles backwards while pushing the older away. It’s the principle! Minho already teases him enough. Hyunjin has to stand his ground sometimes.

“No kissing until there’s ice cream in my hands. It’s the house rule, hyung. I don’t make the rules. I just abide by them, as should you.”

Minho snorts. Probably in regards to the rules in question, proudly displayed on the refrigerator. Hyunjin doesn’t remember whose ideas it was anymore, but it was probably his. Or maybe it was Minho’s, in his attempts of getting Hyunjin to regard the apartment as his, too. As their mutual home. He doesn’t remember, but it doesn’t really matter. There’s a regular lined paper from a notepad Minho had lying around that’s been steadily filling the rows with house rules. Some more serious than others, sure, but it did help Hyunjin get more comfortable with the idea of having some input into their actually cohabitated living space.

The list of rules basically looks like this, if Hyunjin focuses on remembering most of them:

- No going to sleep angry. Both parties are responsible for fixing bumps in their marriage.

- No waking Hyunjinnie before 9am unless he has schedules (except for goodbye kisses).

- Hyunjinnie can ONLY be awoken through kissing.

- Art supplies stay in the guest room ART STUDIO Guest Room ART STUDIO!!!! when not being actively used.

- Always text when plans change!!! Always!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Always text when suspicion of plans being changed but someone forgot the above rule ❤️

- NO TEASING ABOUT FORGOTTEN RULES BE NICE ABOUT IT.

- Hyunjinnie needs his favorite ice cream in the freezer at all times. No ice cream, no kisses.

- Hyunjinnie needs to start plucking his damn hair out of the shower drain.

- Husband privileges revoked until further notice. NOTE: ‘Husband privileges revoked’ means no sex. Cuddling is always allowed. Cuddling privileges can’t be revoked.

- Hyunjinnie is in charge of dinner two days a week. Three, at most. And he can’t use a single knife without hyung’s permission.

- Hyung isn’t allowed to flick foreheads because it HURTS.

- ALWAYS ANSWER WHEN PARENTS CALL. SOMETIMES CALLS ARE ACCEPTED INSTEAD OF SWIPED AWAY AND NOBODY WANTS A REPEAT OF THAT. NOBODY.

- ‘I know’ doesn’t count. Hyung has to say ‘I love you, too’ for it to count.

- Hyung needs to focus on other things besides how much he loves his husband sometimes in order to leave the house. It doesn’t mean that he loves Hyunjinnie less than on the weekends.

- Hyung has to remember all the other Hyunjinnnies out there and that his is the best one and to be very grateful for him!!

- Hyunjinnie has to remember that he’s stuck with this hyung for the rest of time and that he must be nice to him ❤️

“The rule says that the ice cream needs to be in the freezer, darling. Not in your hands.”

Hyunjin frowns. That’s probably true, actually. He didn’t think of that.

“Now, come here,” Minho insists, pulling Hyunjin back in until he can plant his lips over the younger’s and Hyunjin feels the playful fight drain out of him. Why would he deprive himself of this? “‘Missed you, Hyunjinnie. And then you send me those pretty selcas of my pretty, pretty husband and won’t let me kiss him. Let me kiss you, baby. Just for a bit.” 

And because Hyunjin abides by the house rules - only for that reason - he’s nice to his hyung and gives Minho what he wants. They’ve kissed enough by now for Hyunjin to know that when Minho licks his lips like that, it means that he wants entrance to Hyunjin’s mouth, but when the older tilts his head like that, it means that he wants Hyunjin inside his own instead. He’s also learned that the way Hyunjin’s knees go weak when Minho touches him is very useful since it evens their slight height difference out, and that Minho makes these sweet, pleased noises for every breathless one that leaves the younger.

They’ve also kissed enough for Hyunjin to know that he’ll never want to kiss anyone else.

“Ice cream,” he whispers after a minute since Minho isn't really letting him go. “Hyung, ice creeeeaaaaam, ice cream, ice cream, ice cream!”

“God, you're annoying,” Minho tells him, but he’s laughing and tugging a smiling Hyunjin into his neck, too, holding him close. “I love you. I haven't told you today.”

Hyunjin clings closer to his husband. “You haven’t.”

“Well, I do,” Minho promises into the younger’s hair, “and I’m telling you now. I love you. I missed you.”

“I thought I was annoying?”

“I love you when you're annoying.”

“Aww,” Hyunjin coos, utterly delighted. “I love you when you're annoying too, hyung! Look at you, being all sappy! Minho in that show preview wouldn't believe his eyes.”

Hyunjin’s husband laughs against him, body shaking with it, before finding the younger’s shoulders and pushing him away gently. Hyunjin sneaks another kiss onto Minho’s cheek before taking his hand and simply pulling him along into the living area.

He’s been awfully tempted all day to just press ‘play’ on the file containing the first draft of the show, since it has been sent out to all of the participants in order to gain their feedback before airing it. But it was sent four hours ago and that's a long ass time to resist temptation, just because your husband has a 9 to 5 occupation.

But Hyunjin managed, even if the reason was mostly that he’s really curious about Minho’s reactions to everything as well. There's no reason to wait any longer though, with yesterday’s leftovers already heated before Hyunjin got bored and started blowing Minho’s phone up. And now both his husband and his ice cream are where they should be; within Hyunjin’s immediate proximity.

“Are you nervous?”

Hyunjin pauses, looks away from his laptop to meet Minho’s amused eyes as they throw pointed looks at the younger’s extremely restless leg. Oh.

“I am, a little,” he relents. It’s true. He’s not very keen on watching either of their dates with the other participants, honestly. Hyunjin doesn't think he will overthink stuff the way he would have previously, but he’s not sure. “Honestly, I don't know how I’m supposed to watch you and Jisung. Like I know everything already, but…”

“But you knew when you felt upset after that first time we met, too,” Minho reminds him softly, reaching to squeeze the nape of Hyunjin's neck. “I’d tell you to skip those parts if I didn’t genuinely think it would be a topic for the reunion later. Isn’t it better to watch and ask me whatever you wanna ask until it feels better? Just the two of us?”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin agrees, leaning into the familiar touch. “It is better this way. But I’m still nervous. I don't think you’d be overly excited to watch Seungmin propose to me, either, even if I declined.”

Minho scoffs, opening his wide eyes properly.

“Are you kidding? I’d record that shit and send it to him annually for the rest of his life! A rejection from my husband would put him in his place, all right. I’d pay real money to watch that.”

It’s a lie - Hyunjin knows it’s a lie - but it makes him laugh quietly regardless. Minho and Seungmin’s relationship is so weird and nothing like any he’s seen before, and most often he’s either busy chatting away with Jeongin or the two of them just stare as their husbands bicker for no apparent reason.

But then Seungmin and Minho hung out alone once, and Minho claims that he was utterly deceived but Hyunjin has witnessed his husband have lunch with Seungmin through the lawyer’s photographic evidence once or twice, ever since they learned that they literally worked in the same neighborhood. It’s sweet, Hyunjin thinks. Weird, but sweet.

“You can close your eyes,” Minho promises, back to kind as he leans in to press a kiss to Hyunjin’s temple, “and just listen. Or you watch it on ‘mute’. Whatever. I can tell you what’s happening.”

“Thanks,” Hyunjin smiles, because he knows Minho is right. Both about having to process it somehow before he’s expected to talk about it in front of cameras, but also about sort of half-heartedly watching through his fingers the same way he does horror movies.

He insists on putting it off while they have dinner, though. The laptop is firmly turned away as he pays attention to what Minho’s day was like, and shares what Minho’s mom had said when she stopped by earlier after having lunch with a friend, and complains about Felix and Chan being all the way in Australia right now. There’s nothing special about today, and yet there’s a tiny swooping feeling inside Hyunjin’s stomach anyway. It’s probably from thinking about the show for the past hours, or possibly how far they’ve gotten since then. Something like that. Something that has Minho looking even more handsome than he did yesterday.

He squeals happily when Minho pulls two tubes of ice cream from the freezer after starting the dishwasher, and finally hooks his laptop up to the TV and tries to ignore his rising nerves as they settle down on the couch.

“God, you--” Minho groans, pulling at his arm until Hyunjin topples over the older, quickly maneuvered and tucked into Minho’s shoulder. “Stay. You're not allowed to chew your nails off over the keyboard, Hwang Hyunjin. You've got your husband, you've got your ice cream, what else do you usually ask for?”

“A blanket.”

“A blanket,” Minho grumbles, reaching for the fluffy one over the armrest and throwing it over the younger, face and all. “There you go. Husband, ice cream, blanket. Hyunjin 101.”

He laughs instantly, pulling the fabric away from his face to grab at his waiting tub of ice cream in Minho’s hand. His husband isn’t wrong, after all.

“Husband, tiny animals, scary kitchen knives. Minho 101.”

“In that order?” Minho laughs, entertained and not arguing.

Hyunjin nods and takes the first spoonful as Minho leans over him to press ‘play’.

The show starts off with an introduction of the rules and their purpose, which Hyunjin supposes makes sense since global watchers may have seen the other versions, but he’s not sure the Korean audience has. There are brief flashes of the episodes to come, he supposes once he sees a wedding venue but also an outdoor space by the ocean that looks a whole lot like the one they used to sunbath on. And make out, maybe. But there are no flashes of them or anyone else, as the hosts enter a familiar-looking house before the pods start flashing by.

The participants finally start arriving after that, San and Soobin first on Hyunjin’s side and Seungmin and Changbin first on Minho’s. The rest of them trail in two by two after that, along with short solo introductions as to why they applied in the first place.

Hyunjin cringes so hard as his own face pops into view on the large screen, even if it’s mostly due to the nervous laughter he hears coming from his own mouth, accompanied with words that sound like ‘a little skeptic’ and ‘yes, i’m hopeful’ and ‘i guess time will tell’. Minho doesn’t say anything, but he does groan at the sight of his own face while Hyunjin watches attentively instead. Minho looks amazing on TV, if he may say so himself. He looks gorgeous. Stunning, even. Hyunjin would easily have picked him out if they had to (in reverse) date on looks only.

Minho says words like ‘not really expecting much’ and ‘isn’t this cheating?’, but there’s an extremely charming smile painting his handsome features and Hyunjin cringes even harder but he sort of feels like he’s falling in love all over again.

Having Minho the way he has now is one thing, but seeing the person he fell in love with while they fell in love is something he doesn’t think he was prepared for. Is anyone prepared for that?

They quickly move onto showing first dates after that - Hyunjin never sees himself with Yeonjun or Minho with San, and he doesn’t keep track of anyone else - and in his personal opinion, they’re showing him and Minho but also Jisung and Changbin a lot. In these constellations and the opposite ones. Hyunjin thinks he sees some sort of parallel between how Changbin managed to ease his nerves, and how Minho seems to ease Jisung’s. There’s lots of laughter and trembling hands and stuttered words on his and Jisung’s part alike, and Hyunjin would definitely have written Minho’s name again if he were Jisung. He would’ve written Changbin’s, too, though. Jisung and Changbin talked so much on their first date that they didn’t notice the knocking until someone actually opened the door, he learns.

But they both tense when Hyunjin watches himself enter that bright-looking pod, and then he sees Minho enter the exact same one on the other side of the wall. Watching your first meeting with your now-husband is weird, Hyunjin thinks distantly. It’s so weird.

“Liar,” Minho whispers as Hyunjin watches screen-them with wide eyes. “You don’t need space. You don’t know what space means. You’re actually the clingiest husband on earth. I can’t believe you lied to me like that.”

“Me?” Hyunjin immediately argues as their first conversation progresses. “Look at you! ‘I don’t like to be babied’, you said. Liar! You’re the whiniest baby ever. Do you know what happens when I tell you ‘no’? You regress to about three years old, hyung, that’s what happens.”

As the conversation continues, Hyunjin can’t help but ask something he spent a long time wondering afterwards.

“Did you mean me?” he shifts around to ask as the show moves on to Felix and Wooyoung. “That thing about ‘some really good chances’?”

“Mhm.”

Hyunjin blinks.

“No, like, did you…,” he tries again, a little stunned. “Did you actually think about me that way?”

“Mostly, yeah,” Minho tells him, and Hyunjin can’t really see why the older would lie about it. They’re already married. “I’d only met you and Jisung and felt like that was far beyond a decent start, but I didn’t say it to him. I said it to you.”

Hyunjin’s stomach does another somersault. Yeah, okay.

The episode ends with all twelve of them writing names down to set them up for the next round of dates, and Hyunjin almost falls off the couch when he sees everyone write his name down. All six of them. Minho grumbles something about ‘i knew they were liars, all of them’, which quickly turns into surprised laughter when he sees Hyunjin’s internal struggle next; writing everyone down one by one and crossing half out in a very obvious display of feelings. It’s a little funny, Hyunjin will admit. Even if he feels a bit bad. On the other hand, Minho wasn’t lying about writing Hyunjin’s name first, so he counts it as a win either way.

“Pause,” Minho calls as the next episode starts off right away, re-capping everything as Hyunjin scrambles to pause the video. “Can we just talk about one thing?”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin replies, sitting up properly to see where Minho is going, “sure?”

“It’s just…,” the older says, a little thoughtfully as his eyes flicker between the Hyunjin next to him and the one on the TV. “You didn’t say anything about modeling to me during the show and you said that you weren’t comfortable talking about it. You replied ‘art’ at that reunion thing, too, when Seungmin asked about it. But you told the showrunners in that introduction thing, which I assume was because you couldn’t lie about it. But none of us on my side saw you and wouldn’t have recognized you either way, and no one clearly did later, either. Did Yongbok and the others know?”

“No,” he answers truthfully. “No, just the staff from the initial interview, pretty much. I weaseled my way out of it otherwise. Hyung, I’m sure you’ll see me talk to everyone within the next--”

“Okay, baby,” Minho assures him, leaning to kiss his forehead. “I was just curious how deep your little deception went. That was my first question.”

Hyunjin looks at him curiously, expectantly.

“The second one is: will you show me?”

“Show you what?”

Minho’s smile is lop-sided, a little teasing, but amused.

“Oh, me while I’m modeling?” Hyunjin finally catches on. “Like, you wanna come with me to the shoot next week? Yeah, that works.”

“No, not all of that, just… just pictures you like,” Minho explains, reaching to tuck some of Hyunjin’s hair behind his ear. “Spreads you’ve saved, maybe. Just show me what the world will be missing while I keep you right here.”

Easy as ever, Hyunjin giggles instantly. There’s a really warm, really pleasant feeling spreading through his body. Of course Minho only meant well, was only curious, only asked where the limits of his comfort goes. Of course.

“Well, when you put it like that…,” he teases, leaning in to kiss Minho’s hand fleetingly. “I’ll go get some tomorrow, okay? I have a hard drive. And spreads, for that matter. We can look tomorrow.”

They start the second episode after that, and Hyunjin feels slightly less nervous than he did before the first one. It starts off by learning who you matched with, and Hyunjin doesn’t think he can spot any actual disappointment on anyone’s face. Not compared to the relief, at least. He remembers fearing that none of them would pick him, and he’s pretty sure he wasn’t the only one with those kinds of thoughts. It’s kind of sweet to see so many excited expressions and wide smiles instead.

When screen-Hyunjin meets Minho this time, it’s for that conversation that he remembers the older mentioning in his proposal. They talk about fate versus coincidence, about Hyunjin being a romantic, and finally about what romance is. Or Hyunjin talks, rather, and he grows agitated as the cameras only show him as he talks and then waits for some kind of reaction from Minho. But there’s nothing, and he knows this, he was there, damn it. He wants to see what the hell Minho was doing in there, too busy to reply, apparently. He was seated comfortably and laughing as Hyunjin said ‘Lee Minho-ssi’, probably wiping sweaty hands on his jeans as they moved repeatedly over his thighs, but that’s about it.

(Maybe Minho just wanted to draw people’s attention to those delicious thighs. That could also be it, come to think of it.)

“Hyung--” he starts, insistent on finding out what was going on, but is quickly shushed as Minho nudges him to look at the screen instead.

And look Hyunjin does, because the producers aren’t showing Minho until suddenly they do, sitting up and balancing his elbows on his thighs as he twists a tiny black box that Hyunjin recognizes very well in his fingers. Screen-Minho hastily turns around at the insistent knock on his door, and Hyunjin watches with a dry mouth as then-Minho hurries to call for then-Hyunjin before leaving, making sure that they’ll “see” each other again.

Hyunjin’s hand is still over his mouth, detaining his loud gasp, and there are goosebumps all over his skin as he realizes what he just saw. The screen cuts to Seungmin and Jeongin talking about their families, and Hyunjin doesn’t have control over one single muscle in his body as Minho tugs him back in with a firm kiss to his wrist.

“‘See what I meant about not letting you go later than that first day, darling?” Minho asks, and Hyunjin embarrassingly chokes up.

It was true. Minho may have brought the box containing his grandparents’ rings to all of his dates, Hyunjin has no idea. But he hasn’t seen it on any of the other dates. And he hasn’t seen any of the other participants bring one either. Yeonjun proposed early, but not this early. No one fiddles with their future engagement rings on the second time talking to somebody. No one except for Lee Minho, at least.

They see another brief solo interview with all of them after the other dates of the second round, and watch Hyunjin explain why he chose to only write Minho’s name this time. He only tells the cameras what he’s about to tell Minho later, but it still makes Hyunjin’s heart flutter. He did the right thing. Minho laughs in his interview when somebody asks if he always plays with his engagement rings on second dates, and he lets his incredulous smile and consistent shake of his head speak for themselves as response.

There’s their drinking game after that, and Minho’s comment about seeing Hyunjin’s face when he is proposed to. Present-Minho makes a similar comment about finding out soon enough, which makes present-Hyunjin laugh bashfully. No surprises there. He cried, and he knows Minho would have figured as much. But present-Hyunjin cries when he watches Yeonjun propose to Soobin in this second episode and third date, and he tears up again when they meet for the first time. He doesn’t cry as much as Soobin does, thankfully, and Yeonjun looks quite teary himself. Minho doesn’t cry, but that’s no surprise. He’s not generally a crier, Hyunjin has learned.

But the episode doesn’t end there, because there’s a teary image of Hyunjin himself looking back at him through the screen a bit later as Hyunjin listens to his choked up self explain why he’s upset. It’s been a few hours since he learned about his grandma, but he literally only left the safety of his bed for this interview and the bathroom, and then later to go see Minho. But before Hyunjin can watch that super interesting interaction…

Minho meets Jisung.

Dread rushes through him as he watches Jisung enter a pod Hyunjin has never been inside himself, and he’s fiddling with a navy blue box of his own and looking incredibly nervous while Minho seems as content in going about his day as for all his previous dates. The older doesn’t look like he has any clue as to what’s about to happen, but Hyunjin does. Hyunjin knows that his friend is about to propose to his husband, and he sucks a breath in so hastily that it gets stuck in his throat and he coughs.

“Hyunjinnie--”

“I’m okay,” Hyunjin says immediately, because it’s fine. He knows Minho will say ‘no’. He knows Jisung will regret it later and that he’s happily married to Changbin right now. He knows that. It’s fine. “Let’s just get this over with. Hug me and get it over with.”

To his credit, Minho does everything Hyunjin asks him to. He always does. Not that Hyunjin outright asks for an abundance of things, but Minho does all the things that matter and most of the things that barely do, too. Hyunjin asks for a hug and Minho reels him in, both arms enveloping him and holding him tightly against his husband’s body, both a sharp nose and soft lips against Hyunjin’s skin. Minho cradles him almost as if afraid that Hyunjin will try to escape, which he obviously won’t. But it’s nice to feel wanted anyways.

Jisung’s nerves are obvious from the very start, even greeting Minho, and Hyunjin watches apprehensively as the younger walks around the small room and how Minho catches onto the fact that something is different about today as Jisung rambles on about their previous dates, stuttering and shaky as he describes to the best of his ability how good he feels whenever he talks to Minho. Hyunjin can’t blame Jisung or anyone else for feeling that way, he supposes. When he thinks of Minho, he feels comforted already. But it’s nothing short of awful to hear someone else talk that way to the person you love.

The actual proposal bit hasn’t progressed very far when Minho stands up and walks over to the glass wall between them, knocking to catch Jisung’s attention the same way he will catch Hyunjin’s approximately two days later, by his calculations. Jisung looks shocked and sort of like he’s about to cry when Minho calmly asks where Jisung is going with this, and if he’s sure about it in the first place.

“Minho hyung,” Jisung tries again, hands trembling, “I said on the first day after our first date that I was going to ask you to marry me, and I’m a man of my word. You instantly put me at ease and you listened to me and you understood me and there was a connection there and--”

“Sungie,” Minho interrupts gently, and Hyunjin breaks into tears at the same time screen-Jisung does. They both know that tone without ever hearing it before. It isn’t the one of someone overjoyed to be proposed to. “If you’re really asking what you claim to be asking, then I’m sorry to tell you that my answer is ‘no’. I’m glad that I could make you feel that way and I agree about feeling a connection there. But it’s not enough for me, Jisung. I can’t tell you ‘yes’ when I feel stronger for somebody else. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone. Don’t you agree?”

It’s unclear whether Jisung agrees or not, because he hides his face in his hands rather than reply. Hyunjin’s heart hurts so bad. Silent tears trail down his cheeks as he tries not to imagine how horrible Jisung must have felt, with the cameras locked onto him and everything. Hyunjin can’t bear the idea of having proposed to Minho and have him say ‘no, you’re not enough for me, there’s someone else’. He genuinely cannot imagine anything more painful than that. And he knows that it’s not exactly like that for Jisung, but he doesn’t know if the Jisung in front of him on the TV is fully aware of that.

“I’m really sorry, Jisungie,” screen-Minho repeats, leaning with his back against the wall and facing his door, staring at the ceiling. Hyunjin honestly wouldn’t want to be in his place, either. He’s so grateful that he rejected his own oversupply of suitors before he got to this point. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I hope the next person you wanna give your heart to doesn’t. I hope they feel honored to receive it, instead. I’m sorry.”

The scene cuts, and before Hyunjin can pause or take a decent breath he’s seeing his own face again. He’s clearly been crying, and the audience knows why. That’s a sort of relief, actually. And also why he’d been open about it in the first place.

Screen-Hyunjin takes a seat on the floor, resting against the couch, and the camera switches to Minho as he enters his own pod, definitely not looking as calm and cheerful as he had while entering the date with Jisung. But screen-Hyunjin doesn't know that, thank God. He does cry, though, when Minho calls his name and asks how he’s doing.

It’s sort of strange to Hyunjin to watch the way screen-Minho’s entire body language changes as he learns of Hyunjin's misery, as he reaches out for the wall and takes two hesitant steps over before swallowing and asking if it’s his fault that Hyunjin is upset. It’s also not very strange at all, because he knows Minho now and he knows that that's a very Minho thing to do. He smiles a little at the sight of screen-Minho’s obvious relief when he learns that he can stay.

Watching his now-husband comfort then-Hyunjin in the ways he can - the first slip of pet names, the quiet questions, the calming presence - makes Hyunjin forget about the thing with Jisung. He thinks screen-Minho has all but forgotten, too, because he seems very focused on listening and keeps scratching absent-mindedly at a tiny crack in the glass wall.

But just as then-Hyunjin and also now-Hyunjin start feeling better, screen-him exits the pod and walks out only to realize that someone else is crying now, and the short but impactful conversation with Soobin is included before screen-him hurries off.

“Oh, my God,” Minho realizes next to him, “you didn't know.”

Hyunjin blinks, twisting a bit to catch sight of Minho’s face. “Didn’t know what?”

“About Jisung and--,” Minho says, a little stunned, “I wanted to ask but it didn't feel like the right time and you had just started smiling again, but then this…--”

“Then I found out that Jisung’s misery was my fault,” Hyunjin concludes. That is indeed what happened. “He didn't know I was still seeing you, because I was scared to tell him. If I had been honest with him, none of this would have happened in the first place. It’s my fault. He might not blame me, but it's still my fault.”

“Hyunjin, it’s not your fault.”

“It is my fault!” he argues, sitting up, because what he just said is true. That could have changed things. “I could have prevented all of it.”

Minho glares at him, jaw set. Hyunjin glares back, because Minho isn't always right. He thought a lot about this while it was happening.

“I could have prevented it, too,” Minho tells him, matter-of-fact. “I didn't have to write his name down the second time. That was after taking the rings out the second time I talked to you. Should’ve been a clear enough sign for me, don't you think? I could have started that date by telling him that I couldn’t see him anymore. But I didn't.”

Hyunjin glares harder. Fuck, Minho is right.

“It’s Jisung’s fault, too,” Minho continues, staring him down despite the guilt floating around the living room. “It wouldn't have happened if he had restrained from proposing in the first place. He probably shouldn’t have done that, in hindsight. Maybe it’s Changbin’s fault for not showing Jisung how serious Changbin was about him all this time. You know they were mostly joking around and sharing anecdotes up until now. He might have changed things, too.”

Minho is right, Hyunjin realizes. He hadn’t put the scenario in that perspective. He never thought about Changbin at all in this messy equation, and he’s never actually seen the way they all interact with each other before. He assumed that Minho was with Jisung the same way he was with Hyunjin, but that’s not entirely true. He’s not sure if he assumed that all the other couples would be the same way he and Minho were, but it’s become very clear that they weren’t. Every couple has their own charm, their own vibe, and he shouldn't compare. It’s basically impossible not to, but… but Minho has a point.

“I don't like you,” he tells his husband, pouting automatically when Minho laughs at him. “Not at all, actually. Hand me my ice cream back.”

“Sure thing, baby,” Minho chuckles, tucking him back in and kissing his forehead as if Hyunjin were his actual baby. Oh, well. “Let’s watch something else, okay?”

It’s about an hour later - since they've watched an entire episode of Hyunjin’s drama - when Jisung texts him, and Hyunjin doesn't feel as surprised as he would have assumed beforehand.

okay well that was A LOT

how much did you watch

just the first two

you?

same

had a full-on mental breakdown bc im stupid

binnie hyung keeps repeating it but like,,, Fond

tell me im stupid like a normal person hyunjin

i proposed to your husband

at least he wasn't my husband when you proposed to him

also you're not more stupid than the rest of us

minho hyung said it was changbin’s fault

if he’d seemed more serious about you he could have prevented the whole mess

FUCK OFF HES RIGHT

BRB

okay but wouldnt that have made a boring show though

personally i think you and i spiced it up with the salt of our tears and our longass makeup breakfast the next morning

Hyunjin laughs. Jisung is great, and his marriage is great. Not as great as Hyunjin’s marriage, obviously, because none are. But he’s a good friend. And he makes Hyunjin feel like he’s a good friend, too.

did he take the blame

he says lee minho shouldn't worry his pretty little head about his marriage

sounds to me like he wants a piece of your husband too hyunjinnie

my man clearly has good taste in men

he even dated you !!

blocked and reported❤️

***

“Babe?” Hyunjin calls, giggling to himself while Minho gets dressed after his shower. “This is your last chance to back out.”

“Why would I back out?”

“Because you're too young to die,” Hyunjin teases, flipping through the magazines. “And too handsome, for that matter.”

Minho scoffs, coming into view behind the corner and immediately understanding what his husband is playing at once he spots the piles of evidence of Hyunjin’s modeling career. Along with the laptop, of course. He did say there was a hard drive. And Hyunjin also said he’d show his husband today.

“Oh, God,” Minho groans. “I’m not ready for this. Let me grab something to drink first. ‘Pretty sure I’m gonna need it.”

“Me too!” Hyunjin shouts behind him, hurrying to scramble all his stuff together for maximum effect.

He thinks this could be really fun, actually. He doesn't have all his photoshoots saved like this, but he’s got most of them. The rest were lost somewhere between luggages and airports and moving houses and then not memorable enough for him to insist on having another copy. But the ones he really likes are stored on the hard drive as well.

The sound of bottles clinking has Hyunjin looking towards the kitchen, and he laughs as Minho comes into view with no less than four bottles of soju and two small glasses. He graciously places one bottle in front of Hyunjin and then proceeds to take the other three for himself.

“Should we start from the beginning or the one that will be published the same week as the show?”

“‘Same week as the--’,” Minho repeats, grumbling, pouring his first glass and downing it instantly. “Ahh, what the hell, show me the shoot that’ll have crazy people knocking on my door within a few weeks. It’s not out until the show is?”

“Yeah, my agent pushed on that,” Hyunjin grins, eyeing his jittery husband up and down. “Maximum cover and all that. And it didn't really matter to me, so. Here we are.”

Minho nods, very much looking like he agrees. Hyunjin takes that as a sign and puts the computer in Minho’s lap, pulling the pictures up. They have a space-y look to them, with bursts of colors and some attitude on his own face, and Hyunjin laughs in delight as Minho absolutely stares. The older’s mouth falls open, fingers tightly grasping the bottle of soju, and then he’s leaning forward to look more closely at the screen. Hyunjin supposes he can't blame his husband. This was a good one.

“You…,” Minho mutters, flicking between the various pictures. “Is that a skirt? Why’s there a glov--? That’s your stomach!”

“It is,” Hyunjin confirms, grinning widely. “What do you think the lingerie pictures will be showing?”

“I’m not talking to you. You're disturbing my quality time with my husband.”

Hyunjin scoffs before laughing. Wow.

He grabs some of the more recent magazines while Minho keeps pressing the back and forth buttons on his laptop, and wonders if he should just… throw them at his husband, more or less, or start off with the ones that are more recent and where he sort of looks like he does now. There’s a difference between twenty-three and twenty, after all. At least on Hyunjin’s face. And Minho is twenty-five, so it might be a bit weird to see the ones where Hyunjin’s eighteen, too.

(Yes, he might be overthinking it.)

“This is the one I shot with Beomgyu,” he finally tells Minho, taking the laptop away from him as the older stares unblinkingly at that picture with the skirt. “Look! You knew me here!”

“You're so pretty,” Minho murmurs, staring at this new set once the laptop is back in his grasp. “How are you so pretty? Why are you so pretty?”

Hyunjin only laughs.

“And why do you always have random things in your mouth?” Minho exclaims as he zooms in on that particular one, with the smaller photo dangling from between his teeth.

“That's not what you were saying the other night, hyung.”

His husband pretends not to hear, but Hyunjin sees the tugging at the corner of his mouth anyway. It helps that he knows to look for it.

It makes something warm and pleasant swirl inside his stomach to watch Minho devour every single picture of him with his attentive eyes, and sometimes even reaching for the magazine with his fingertips. Hyunjin starts off with the latest ones, where he’s blonde, before moving onto his natural black that he kept for a long time before that. There’s one shoot they dyed him red for, which has Minho choking on his drink as he notices but thankfully not ruining anything. Hyunjin laughs so hard he cries as Minho’s face goes almost as red as Hyunjin’s dye job, while his husband goes completely speechless instead.

There’s another shoot from when Hyunjin was blonde last time, and some pictures with pink spray dye that he was actually quite fond of, now that he’s reminded of it. Minho’s eyes stay on them for a long time, but he only shakes his head when Hyunjin asks why. He remembers that shoot with mixed feelings, because it was the first time he heard outright mean comments about him looking too feminine or even ‘girly’. Whatever that even means. Hyunjin is and has always been male, the same way clothes are always clothes and make-up is always make-up. And he liked those photos a lot. He liked how soft they made him look. How kind and sweet and pretty.

“People talked about these,” Minho eventually says, “didn’t they?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin replies, surprised. “Why’d you ask?”

Minho nods to himself, still watching the pink closely.

“I remember seeing these before,” the older says, to Hyunjin’s even bigger surprise. “Something about the pink and looking like a woman, right? Some shit like that?”

It’s Hyunjin’s turn to nod. That’s true. It was less than two years ago, and he’d been abroad for a bit and returned to Korea for some jobs and found that the public wasn’t too fond of him leaving for bigger things. He honestly hadn’t thought anyone cared what he did or not, but quickly learned how wrong he was when unwanted comments were left on his social media accounts and random numbers would call his phone. Those things don’t bother him a whole lot anymore, but they did at first. And for quite some time after that.

He didn’t think Minho would know about that, though.

“Do you know how brave you are?” Minho asks imploringly, confusing Hyunjin even further. “I don’t think you do. Do you?”

“What do you mean?” Hyunjin ends up asking, feeling his breathing slip slightly as Minho sits up properly and pulls him in for a firm kiss.

And he stays like that for a bit, letting Minho hold his face in his palms and warm Hyunjin’s lips with his. Brave. Is Hyunjin brave? He’s not sure he’s ever thought down lines before. It takes a bit of courage to succeed in the career path he chose for himself, sure, but is that the same thing? Is that what his husband means?

“How many of those people could ever be as successful as you are, baby?” Minho wonders out loud, dark eyes holding Hyunjin’s curious gaze. “You’re quitting a career at a younger age than most people finish their education at, and you’ve accomplished so many things during the years you devoted to it. And then you go on a dating show, semi-public figure as you are, and you still give so much of yourself that poor little me stood no chance, darling. And you already know what you want to do next, and I already know that you’re gonna excel at that, too. And I know it hasn’t been easy, but you’re still remarkable, Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin has definitely never thought of it that way before. Quitting modeling has been associated with insecurity and anxiety and more often than not a concern of whether he’s actually stupid. No sane person would do that. He’s good at it, he’s at the top of his game, he’s sought after, he’s young. Quitting has always felt like the easy way out for him, since he first started considering it. He never thought it might make him brave.

“You care about labels and what’s expected of you,” Minho continues softly, “but not enough to let it stop you from following your heart. If you want pink hair or long hair or to shoot lingerie, then you’ll do it. The evidence is right here. If you find the person you feel serious about and want to pursue something with, you’ll drop everyone else the second they don’t matter as much. You feel everything so deeply and yet you’re not afraid to show anyone that you do, no matter what they think of it. You’re so brave, Hyunjin. I haven’t been around for most of it, but I’m still so proud of you. And I’m really proud to be your husband.”

“I don’t like you tonight either,” Hyunjin whines as soon as he feels the tears well up in his eyes and hears the tell-tale sign of Minho’s fond laughter. He face-plants against Minho’s chest. “I love you, but I really don’t like you, Minho. I’m proud to be your husband, too, fuck, I can’t believe you just said that.”

“What do you have to be proud of me for, hmm?” Minho teases.

Well, little does he know.

“You feel comfortable loving me now,” Hyunjin says contentedly, snuggling further into the older’s familiar body. “You don’t stutter when expressing your feelings anymore, and you have replies when I get sentimental. You take me on surprise dates and you call my dad to help him through the dinner he wants to surprise my mom with. I know you struggled with getting used to it all, and we went so quickly, too. Not to mention how open I’ve been with everything. But you’ve always loved me, and now you’ve learned how you wanna show it. I’m really proud of you, hyung. And I will happily keep calling you ‘my husband’ long after you’re tired of hearing it.”

“Will you keep saying it even if I never tire of hearing it?”

“I will,” Hyunjin promises, and seals it with a kiss.

They look through the rest of the magazines after that, mostly containing earlier photo shoots that have Hyunjin laughing at how childish he looks and Minho cooing at how cute he is. But it’s a little nostalgic, and Hyunjin is a sucker for that, and it’s fun. It feels kind of like closure, too. Like Hyunjin is sealing this part of his life off on a good note, remembering why he started and why he enjoyed it in the first place.

They move on to the third episode after that, however, and it starts off with Jisung doing an interview where he says basically the same thing Hyunjin remembers him saying that very morning about proposing for the wrong reasons. After that it’s Jisung and Felix messing around as they dress Hyunjin up for his next date with Minho, which is very heart-warming in Hyunjin’s slightly biased opinion.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see this look before now,” Minho mutters. “You never wear braids at home. Do I need to call Yongbok over from Australia to get a braid on you?”

“Yes,” Hyunjin giggles. He doesn’t have that kind of talent. He’d sit still if Minho wanted to give it a go, though.

Screen-them have their date right after, and they talk about the previous day and how real everything feels now. Minho admits that he sees where Hyunjin was coming from concerning the whole ‘i thought you were gonna propose’ bit, but they both laugh as Minho starts selling himself in with lots of points that are more true than screen-Hyunjin thought they would be. They get to see Jisung and Changbin’s next date after that, which is kind of nerve-wracking despite knowing where they eventually end up. But Changbin is hurt that Jisung proposed to Minho, and Hyunjin can’t blame him. He’s not sure he would have found it in himself to keep seeing Minho if the older had proposed to Jisung. He doesn’t think he could have, actually. His anxieties and worries are too prominent for that.

But Changbin agrees to see him, and he knows what happened because Minho came out of the rejection looking awful and he’d ended up telling the others. Still, Changbin listens quietly as Jisung explains, and he doesn’t seem very keen on hearing Jisung’s teary apologies. ‘You’re still here’, Changbin says, ‘and that means something to me. I can’t say that I feel okay about all of it, but I think I believe you. And I want to keep seeing you, Sung. If you want to keep seeing me, we’ll wait and see where we end up, won’t we?’

It’s sweet, and Hyunjin is about to say so when he spots San walking into a pod looking nervous as hell and with a black box in his hands, and before he knows it, he’s watching intently as San and Wooyoung get engaged as well. It’s a shorter proposal than Yeonjun’s, and probably shorter than Minho’s too, but San says everything that needs to be said and Hyunjin tears up again because that’s what San does as he tries to explain how happy it would make him if Wooyoung said ‘yes’. Which he does, of course, and they get to witness the other two meeting for the first time after that. Hyunjin is growing more inclined to like this show than he has been in a long time, honestly.

After that and two solo interviews with the engaged couple, Hyunjin spots his own face again as he’s heading back into the pod. Jesus Christ. Minho laughs at him while Hyunjin cringes, because now Minho can actually see how flustered he indeed was during this meeting.

“Aww,” the older teases, “you’re not such a terrible spouse anymore, Hyunjinnie! You know a few dishes and you haven’t crashed the car yet! Character development.”

“Shut up,” Hyunjin tells his annoying husband. “I’m emotionally vulnerable and you’re laughing at me. Now and then. Watch yourself freak out in a minute instead.”

“You were right about the gift-giving, though,” Minho continues, ignoring him completely. Hyunjin almost blushes.

Then he sits through the life-altering experience of Minho proposing to him - for the second time, no less - and he doesn’t even try to hide his uneven hiccups this time. The Hyunjin on the screen is openly crying against the glass, looking like he’s trying to wish it away by focusing hard enough, and nodding his head before remembering that that doesn’t help Minho very much.

Minho doesn’t tease him about this, at least. He just hauls him back in and holds him close, and Hyunjin sees how truthful then-Minho was in describing what he was doing, and there are definitely rings on display this time rather than kept in the box from before. Minho’s words hit him just as hard this time, Hyunjin thinks. He’s heard the older’s actual wedding vows and everything, but there’s just something about this that… Maybe it was because Hyunjin wasn’t expecting it. Maybe Minho wasn’t entirely expecting it either. But the footage is so raw, and the screen is prettily split between Hyunjin and his cheek against one side of the glass wall and Minho with his forehead against it on the other side. Even as Minho kneels ‘properly’, he’s leaning into the wall, to Hyunjin’s surprise. As if trying to remain as close as possible.

“I didn’t know you were right there,” Minho whispers, and Hyunjin doesn’t think his husband is crying but he’s definitely affected. “I couldn’t make myself move away after walking up to knock, but… But you’re right there. Thank God I didn’t know because I would genuinely have gone through with all those door threats. Or that one in specific, at least.”

It makes Hyunjin laugh, despite how wet it sounds, and he fumbles for Minho’s hand until he can bring it to his lips and kiss the twin rings adorning his husband’s ring finger.

“I love you,” Hyunjin breathes, holding the evidence of their devotion to each other against his lips. “Thank you for proposing. I mentioned that I wanted that experience and you immediately delivered beyond anything I could have hoped for. Thank you, Minho. I love you.”

“I love you, too, darling,” Minho replies quietly, probably muffled by the top of Hyunjin’s head as usual. “I’m just glad it lived up to your expectations, honestly. It does look pretty sweet from this angle, I have to admit.”

It does. There’s no music, no interruptions, no screen cuts. It looks like raw footage from their respective cameras, and even more raw emotion being expressed in their respective pods. And when screen-Minho finally asks those words Hyunjin had barely dared to imagine - the gentle and nervous ‘would you like to marry me?’ - he finds himself holding his breath as he waits for screen-Hyunjin to crack and let the tears flow as he starts nodding again.

But Hyunjin never gets there because the episode ends just like that, on the awful cliffhanger of Minho’s unanswered proposal, and then the credits start rolling. He feels a little miffed, and Minho starts laughing at the unexpected anti-climax, but then Hyunjin realizes that they must be sort of popular for the producers to cut it this way.

Huh.

They let the next one roll immediately, just as Hyunjin suspects the viewers will probably want to later on as well, and there’s the mandatory recap and entire proposal again before screen-Hyunjin stutters out his ecstatic ‘yes’, over and over, and present-Hyunjin laughs incredulously as he twists in Minho’s hold until he can throw his arms around his husband and press their lips together. He can still hear them in the background - can hear Minho saying that he can’t wait to kiss him - and Hyunjin pushes his husband into the cushions with the force of his present kiss. He doesn’t know exactly why romance and their romance gets him going like this, but by God it does. Hyunjin’s body is set afire at both the memory and actual sight of Minho wanting to marry him, and knowing that Minho has gone through with it and genuinely intends to love him for the rest of their lives makes his hands tremble. Hyunjin is lucky. He’s so lucky.

Once they eventually part, Minho has to rewind a minute or two of stuff they should probably be watching, and lands on their respective solo interviews immediately after the proposal. Hyunjin isn’t sure which one of them looks happier, even though he’s definitely the one wiping tears out of his eyes. They get to see Minho return to that part of the house and the cheers and hugs from the rest of them, and Hyunjin catches a tight embrace between Minho and Chan, where the older says something like ‘I told you he’d say ‘yes’, Minho. Of course he would’. Hyunjin’s now-husband and then-fiancé does let a watery laugh out into Chan’s shoulder at that.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t pick you?” Minho asks with a sort of strange tone.

“Yes,” Hyunjin replies truthfully, because he didn’t think so until after that conversation where Minho had rejected Jisung and Hyunjin had thought he might propose to him. That was the first time. “I thought it was sort of 50/50 between Jisung and I, since you didn’t see anyone else. It didn’t cross my mind before finding out about Jisung’s proposal.”

Minho hums, playing a bit with a strand of blonde hair.

“Do you see it now?” he wonders next, as their time in the pods come to an end on the screen.

“Yes,” Hyunjin repeats, just as truthfully. “Yeah, I see it now.”

Watching themselves meet for the first time actually isn’t as enjoyable as the dates, because Hyunjin cringes so hard at his own behavior. Can he stop crying for one damn episode? No! He can’t even walk down the stupid pathway! And as soon as Minho is done laughing at him while he hides his face in his hands, the older starts groaning about his own behavior instead, which does make Hyunjin feel a little better.

“I’m stuttering,” Minho whines, “why am I stuttering? This is so embarrassing. No one can ever watch this.”

“Shut up,” Hyunjin tells him, because it’s actually a bit sweet if only he’d stop crying.

It’s not that Hyunjin regrets it or thinks he would’ve expected himself to keep it together, because the situation was frankly insane and he’d been very emotional for the moments leading up to this one, too. He’ll give himself another round of tears. It’s just that it’s so embarrassing to watch and he’s relieved when he watches himself laugh at Minho’s silly words about divorce and how pretty Hyunjin is, and even more relieved when they kiss softly and can’t embarrass themselves by any further talking. For some reason, Hyunjin doesn’t feel weird at all about watching himself kiss Minho for the first time. It’s a strange thing, of course, because no one catches that stuff on tape. But this show has, and Hyunjin has never seen himself kissing another person before, but he’s glad because he wouldn’t want to immortalize a kiss anyway if it wasn’t with Minho. And this is only the first one.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Minho says smugly, “because I know this is sweet and emotional and all, but--”

“-- but we look good together,” Hyunjin finishes, giggling a bit at the revelation. He’s seen the footage from the wedding already, obviously, but still, this is…

“We do,” Minho acknowledges, kissing behind Hyunjin’s ear and making him shiver. “‘Looks almost as good as it feels, darling.”

Hyunjin doesn’t reply, but he silently agrees. It’s evident that they’ve been waiting for this kiss for a long time, but also very obvious that they’re in no hurry since they plan on kissing a lot more later on. Minho’s lips fit perfectly to Hyunjin’s and it’s visible even though the cameras aren’t zooming that far in, and Minho’s body fits just as perfectly in the palms of Hyunjin’s hands. And even watching them now, he remembers how warm he felt where Minho touched him and the comforting feeling kept spreading to the rest of his limbs.

He laughs when screen-Minho grins and goes down on one knee again, only to place the delicate ring on Hyunjin’s waiting finger. Minho laughs when screen-Hyunjin tears up again, and it’s overall really nice to watch the way they fall deeper in love through every scene.

The episode ends with Jeongin proposing to Seungmin, just as he’d said previously, but Hyunjin’s mouth falls open when Seungmin exclaims something along the lines of ‘but I was gonna do that!’ and pulls his own tiny box out. Minho laughs heartily at the predicament and Jeongin’s excited ‘I got there first!’, and the pair on the screen ends up laughing about it, too. Hyunjin can practically feel the hearts coming out of his own eyes. God, they’re adorable. And they’re even more adorable while meeting up before the episode ends, where Seungmin goes eerily quiet and surprisingly emotional as Jeongin hugs and laughs at him. They look sweet together, and knowing the couple now; they are.

(Not as sweet as Hyunjin and Minho, though.)

***

Hyunjin pulls the show up next on the following evening, wet hair falling over his face as Minho finishes cleaning up the kitchen. Normally they’d go see Minho’s parents tomorrow - Sunday and all - but since the couple had other plans they’d been today instead, and washing up is mandatory after Hyunjin sees the cats. But he’ll easily take it in order to make this work, and it’s a huge relief that his allergy meds have helped him tremendously since he got them prescribed. They haven’t tried bringing the cats over yet, but Hyunjin has spent one whole weekend in Minho’s parents’ house - cat-sitting with his husband - without dying, which he counts as a win and a step in the right direction. As long as they stayed out of Minho’s old room and Hyunjin could sleep in peace - from the cats, at least - things had worked out better than he’d dared to hope for. So while the plan is to eventually bring them back here and leave the bedroom door closed at all times, they’re not quite there yet.

Once Hyunjin is properly seated and he’s got his husband and his ice cream and his blanket - Hyunjin 101 - they start up the next episode. Minho is obviously not allowed all three of his signifying objects: his husband is by far enough and Minho will simply have to find appropriate time for the other things. Again, Hyunjin doesn’t make the rules. He simply obeys them.

Episode 5 revolves heavily around the remaining two couples, where Chan proposes to a sobbing Felix at first and they barely speak at all while meeting and instead Felix’s tears grow more contagious than anticipated, and then Jisung proposes for the second and much more successful time. There’s a tiny smile on Minho’s lips, Hyunjin notices, as they watch Jisung’s relief when Changbin keeps him waiting a tiny bit longer than necessary before accepting. Hyunjin is honestly impressed by the faith Changbin has in Jisung, even though it’s clearly been rewarded and proven to have been the right choice. But he’s genuinely happy for Jisung, and texts him a whole bunch of hearts along with a teasing ‘better luck the second time around <3’ to which Jisung flips him off before sending a heart back.

They watch Changbin and Jisung meet up after that, and to Hyunjin’s utter surprise, no one cries. Not even him. There’s lots of laughter though, and Jisung makes a comment along the lines of ‘hey, you’re even shorter than me!’ that has Changbin fake-glaring and moving to walk back out before relenting as Jisung reaches for him with hurried apologies, and then they laugh some more. It’s surprisingly wholesome, Hyunjin would say.

There are solo interviews with all of them after that, about how they feel about the experiment so far and their expectations for the rest of it, and Hyunjin laughs as screen-Minho smiles foolishly at the question and the obvious imagination behind his eyes, but Minho laughs once screen-Hyunjin comes on with a similar look, so they even each other out. They’re just both equally gone for each other, Hyunjin thinks. How lovely is that?

The couples have arrived in the Maldives next thing they know, and Hyunjin is reminded of how absolutely exhausted he was. There’s a brief clip of them napping together, which has Minho cooing out loud, and then of them drowsily getting used to moving around each other before having dinner outside. It looks like something out of a movie, Hyunjin thinks. A rom-com maybe, or some sort of feel-good chick flick. It looks easy and fun, and he actually remembers it like that as well, despite the strange circumstances.

It turns out Yeonjun and Soobin fell asleep together, too, but spooning and with Soobin’s large frame inside Yeonjun’s arms. It’s absurdly sweet - much like Soobin, honestly. Hyunjin would text him as much if he didn’t think Soobin would be too embarrassed to ever reply. San and Wooyoung get in the hot tub and basically don’t leave it for the rest of the night, which, valid. Jisung and Changbin end up outside in the shade, snacking and talking about one of their never-ending topics, while Chan and Felix naturally massage each other’s shoulders and backs after the long flight. Hyunjin snorts. Why didn’t he think to ask Minho to do that?

(He quickly coos at the sight of Seungmin and Jeongin also napping on the bed, hands clasped together and knees bumping where they lie mirroring each other. Again; absurdly sweet. Minho just laughs at him.)

The trip continues in episode 6, and immediately starts off with the very vivid scene of Minho feeding him fruits. Hyunjin wails dramatically and hides his face against Minho’s chest because he knew there were cameras there, sure, but having to see these things himself is far more embarrassing than he could have imagined. Minho is clearly entertained enough to let him stay there for a bit, but then the older nudges at him to keep watching, and Hyunjin begrudgingly does. The cameras aren’t actually picking up on any sounds - thank God - but there’s no mistaking the fluid that dampens Hyunjin’s lips or the way the tip of his tongue sneaks out to lap it up afterwards. The video is zoomed in enough to make sure their bodies are in the frame and not much else, but Hyunjin knows that they’re the center of the scene even before screen-Minho kisses him firmly.

“Such a tease,” his husband murmurs against him, and Hyunjin can’t find it in him to argue. It’s pointless. He was being a goddamn tease, and he enjoyed every second of it. “You’re lucky I like you too much to tease you back. ‘Not sure you could take it.”

Hyunjin shivers with delight.

“You should try me,” he replies huskily, “later.”

“Sure thing, princess.”

Minho keeps nibbling on his sensitive skin a bit longer as they watch on, but he stops once the reunion thing starts. Hyunjin watches with sorrowful eyes as the hickey he left on Minho’s throat is practically invisible. Sigh. On the other hand, Minho looks just as incredible as Hyunjin remembers him doing, and he almost laughs at how hard he’s staring at his fiancé while sipping aggressively on his drink. Minho does laugh, to no one’s surprise. There’s a bit of conversation on both sides, where Hyunjin obviously remembers their banter about dating around and Jisung’s slight insecurity, but the similar conversation happening not too far away is still a bit startling. It’s Wooyoung who worries about being ‘too much’ for San, who he feels is the complete opposite and that they feel strongly for each other but they’re also very different.

Hyunjin can relate to that. He thinks Minho can, too, judging by the sympathetic look on his face as he listens. But it’s Yeonjun who is the fastest to reply and ease Wooyoung’s nerves a bit, and Changbin isn’t far behind. Which might be unexpected, since he’s basically the topic of the conversation Hyunjin was participating in, but he supposes that he can’t blame Changbin for not knowing that. He wonders how they will be talking about this episode.

No matter how hard he tries not to, Hyunjin studies himself and the interaction around him closely once he comes over and joins Minho, along with the other two couples with the other two people he ‘dated’. Coincidentally. But they don’t talk much as they watch, because Hyunjin feels quite satisfied with the conversation they had in bed after and he thinks Minho does, too. And there’s been one more later on as well, come to think of it. But watching the whole thing confirms the fear he’d had about the way Hyunjin himself would come across, but in all fairness it basically erases the fear he’d had during the actual interaction. Hyunjin doesn’t think that the other guys know Minho better than he does, and he doesn’t think that Minho has acted differently with Hyunjin from getting to know each other up until now. He’s changed, sure, but so has Hyunjin. They’ve changed together, he thinks. They’ve shaped themselves in ways to make them fit better, but through loosening up knots rather than twisting themselves further.

They fit well from the start too, in Hyunjin’s humble opinion.

Minho does ask how Hyunjin feels once the reunion thing starts wrapping up on the screen, and the younger’s ‘I’m good’ is entirely genuine. He is good. He’s better than good, honestly, but it gets his sentiment across. He figures some people might see him the way he’d feared - pretty, quiet, spineless - but he knows Minho doesn’t think of him that way, and neither do the other people involved because they’re literally all friends now. Hyunjin doesn’t think he thinks of himself that way, either. Not most of the time, at least.

It turns out that the fight Jisung and Changbin had had probably started on this night, when the couples are shown returning to their own spaces and it doesn’t take long before Jisung brings his insecurities up and Changbin seems a little offended that Jisung doesn’t seem to get how much he likes Jisung and how wrong the younger is, and it spirals on and on until the cameras leave while Jisung is locked in the bathroom and Changbin sits outside, head in his hands. Hyunjin realizes that he never knew that they argued here, and how absolutely horrible it must’ve been to stay for longer and then travel back together. He wonders if Jisung left for his own place immediately. He wonders if Changbin even knew, could even get a hold of him if he tried. He wonders how they solved it, because they clearly did at some point.

He’s also extremely relieved that that didn’t happen to them, and thinks some vulnerable tears are much preferable to a shouting match. But he knows people work differently, and that there’s nothing wrong with that. He just wishes none of his friends had to go through that at all, and on camera for the whole world to watch, too.

It turns out that San falls sick before the episode is over, which none of them knew of either. Hyunjin feels awfully bad for him, and Minho seems to as well, but it’s sort of heart-warming to watch Wooyoung dote on him and never stray from his side, too. Hyunjin can’t think of many worse places to catch a fever than in a tropical resort with camera crews all around and one almost-stranger constantly present, but… It probably wouldn’t have been as terrible if Minho had doted on him, in all honesty.

“On the day I fall sick,” Minho says, clearly on the same train of thought as Hyunjin is, “just know that I won’t be lifting one single finger and will be expecting my husband to take care of me and follow every request until I’m nursed back to health.”

“Deal,” Hyunjin laughs, “as long as your husband can expect the same in return.”

“Deal,” Minho seals with a kiss to his cheek. “‘In sickness and in health’.”

They go through the seventh episode too, since it should be the last one before returning to Seoul. Hyunjin would be lying if he claimed his heart didn’t flutter at the sight of them over these days, evidently growing more comfortable with each other but also closer, physically and emotionally. There’s a clip of Minho reading to him as they’re cuddled up inside, another of Hyunjin’s fingertips running over Minho’s forearm as they sunbathe outside, and another of them giggling like children over dinner and a conversation that isn’t included. But they look so, so happy, and Hyunjin’s heart swells as he falls further into Minho’s body and feels the older’s arms tighten around him immediately, so connected to each other’s movements by now. There’s clips of them jet-skiing after that, and Hyunjin’s absolute exhaustion afterwards that had Minho smiling softly and guiding him around all night, whether that meant feeding him dessert or moving him from dinner table to bathroom to bed. There are clips of the other couples acting similarly, of course, but Hyunjin doesn’t quite linger on those.

Then the last night arrives, and Hyunjin can tell just by the way they act through-out the day before even having dinner. He’s literally pulling the tricks out one by one, and screen-Minho’s eyes keep sticking to him, and present-Minho finally breaks and laughs about how he’d feel embarrassed but how can he blame himself for looking when Hyunjin looks like that, and that he’d do it all over again most likely. Hyunjin admits that it’s a little amusing, but there’s something warm blooming inside of him as well. He can practically feel the tension when they eye each other over dinner, almost daring the other to finally make a real move, and he smiles bashfully at his obvious disappointment when screen-Minho comes out wearing a stupid shirt.

“You’re so obvious,” Minho tells him, a smile of his own in his voice, “and I love that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Minho confirms. “‘Feels like you really want me. And you have no idea what it feels like to have someone who looks the way you do look at me like you want to devour me whole. Biggest self-confidence boost ever.”

Hyunjin bursts out laughing at the back-handed compliment, but he secretly thinks he understands what his husband means. Hyunjin has felt that way, too. Many times, actually. Minho is nothing short of gorgeous and he knows it - should by now - and he regularly uses it to his advantage. But the way Minho looks at him when he’s really looking always gets Hyunjin’s heart two steps closer to cardiac arrest, because Minho really isn’t joking around. And that’s so hot.

What’s also extremely hot, Hyunjin quickly learns, is the way the producers have filmed and orchestrated their kind of filthy make-out session in the water. The initial shot is from their sides - a couple of meters away in some resemblance of privacy - and Hyunjin can clearly see how tightly wrapped they are around each other. If he squints, he can even testify to their kisses growing more heated and passionate than what they’ve shown previously. Minho’s hand does indeed come up to hide Hyunjin’s face from the camera, even if screen-Hyunjin didn’t realize it for quite some time, and there are no exchanged words to be heard, thankfully.

He still squirms a bit in his seat at the vivid images and sort of fresh memory.

The cameras finally get the hint, it seems, because later they’re being filmed from the entrance to their bungalow-thing and they turn into silhouettes instead, with the sort-of visible shoulders and back of Minho’s head covering most of Hyunjin’s body in his lap. Nothing inappropriate is shown - even though it’s definitely looking suspicious despite their clothes - and not a word they said is heard. There’s some sort of romantic music playing in the back, actually, and Hyunjin genuinely wonders if the producers have slowed their kisses down at one point or if they really look that sensual. They look incredible, honestly.

“Babe?”

“Yeah?” Minho murmurs in reply, eyes still fixed on the screen.

“We’re so hot,” Hyunjin declares, staring at the screen and the fingers he’s combing through Minho’s hair and the strong arms tightly wrapped around his own body. His body temperature is definitely rising, watching them make out like this and also knowing what came after. “I know we agreed that we look good, but hyung…”

“Yeah,” Minho repeats, making a breathy noise against Hyunjin’s ear that his whole body tensing up in… anticipation. “Still not as good as actually touching you, but… Yeah, we look amazing. This is really hot. I wonder if they got more.”

Hyunjin groans, swats playfully at the older’s arm. He agrees, but he doesn’t really want a sex tape in anyone’s hands. Possibly not even his own, he’s not sure. But it’s mixed feelings of relief and longing that washes over him when the camera cuts and they show the other couples’ last nights for the remaining bit of the episode, and the part where they left the tub and Hyunjin stared at his fiancé in the moonlight and their eager steps inside are all missing. They’re probably somewhere, but not included in this draft, at least. Though maybe that’s for the better.

Watching himself make out with his husband definitely gets Hyunjin a little hot and bothered, and it’s not long before he ignores the show and turns around to drape himself over Minho instead, who is thankfully quick to catch on.

“Baby wants a reminder, does he?” Minho murmurs as Hyunjin’s lips easily find his bared neck, and he winds his fingers through enough strands to keep the younger’s head there. “They missed out on a lot, didn’t they?”

Hyunjin nods fervently. They sure did.

“If we can’t watch it,” Minho suggests, his other hand sneaking down to find the hem of Hyunjin’s shirt, “maybe we should recreate it, hmm? Test those taste buds out, see if you taste just as good tonight?”

“God, yes,” Hyunjin moans, already pulling away to stand and leave the living room behind them. He grabs Minho’s hand immediately. “Let’s go, come on. ‘Take me to bed’, was it?”

“So pushy,” the older teases, grinning as he very pointedly, very unhurriedly rises and slows Hyunjin’s pace down as he tries to reach the bedroom. “What was that thing you said about being teased back, hmm? ‘Later’? Isn’t that right?”

Hyunjin halts, swallows. Oh, he did say that. And he vividly remembers not thinking he could take Minho’s teasing on the night they’re both recently reminded of, but it’s been a while since then and Hyunjin has done many, many more things with his husband. He’ll probably survive this time. Probably.

“Lead the way, darling,” Minho tells him with a kiss to Hyunjin’s knuckles and a crooked eyebrow above a promising smile. “Let’s get you out of those clothes.”

Yeah, Hyunjin silently agrees. Let’s.

***

Watching the remaining episodes is somehow even weirder, because some of the content has been filmed here, in the very apartment they actually live in. Hyunjin thinks that things have been thrown around somewhat, for whatever reason, and Minho agrees when he voices that inquiry. He’s pretty sure they went out with Seungmin and Jeongin before Chan and Felix, since he has a vague memory of a text convo in the car, and he doesn’t know why the producers threw those things around. But they did, Minho confirms it, and the more they watch the more it dawns on Hyunjin that they’re showing Minho and himself in more ‘neutral’ settings and effectively putting off the meeting with each other’s parents until the second half of the ninth episode, even though they got that over with pretty quickly.

Instead there’s footage of Hyunjin getting used to the apartment, there’s a brief interview where Minho explains about the polaroid camera and his plans which has Hyunjin swatting at him again, and there are double dates with the other two couples included as far as their lives during those weeks went. There’s a bit where the cameras followed Minho to work for an hour or two, and Hyunjin remembers his demands to go there before the camera because otherwise it wouldn’t be fair, and as always, he got his will through. Meeting both of their parents comes after that, and it isn’t until Minho wonders out loud if they seemed too in love to fit into each other’s families that quickly that Hyunjin makes a mental note to ask the others if the same thing happened to them.

But eventually, there is footage of the emotional visit to the house Hyunjin grew up in, and lots of Minho’s explanation as to why he’s there in the first place is included. His heartfelt words about the meaning of family are there as well, and Hyunjin has to pause and remind both himself and Minho of how much that meant to him and how sure he felt in that moment that he would never love anyone the way he loved Minho.

“I’m glad,” is all that Minho whispers in response, “because neither will I.” 

Before the ninth episode is over, they go to visit Minho’s parents as well. Hyunjin wants to die when he notices the obvious signs of his nerves, and is wrestled back into his sitting position when he tries to crawl down and hide beneath the blanket.

“Don’t you dare,” Minho laughs as he crosses his arms over Hyunjin’s abdomen and holds the younger’s wrists tightly, basically putting him into an invisible straightjacket as Hyunjin twists fruitlessly. “I literally just went through this same thing. You’re watching this.”

“You were so mean,” Hyunjin complains, thrashing uselessly against Minho’s strong arms. Sigh. His husband has the best arms, even if he’s mean. “You just left me to fend for myself. I stuttered. It’s bad enough I had to live through it the first time. I hope neither of our parents ever watch this show. They’ll never look at me the same.”

“Anyone who watches this show will become hopelessly endeared with you, darling,” Minho replies, not missing one beat. “And both of our parents already are. My mom literally comes here to see you, specifically. I told you the very first night that she’d adore you, and she does. I won’t accept objections on this.”

“Mean,” Hyunjin repeats, obviously lying through his teeth, “mean, mean, mean.”

His complaints aren’t very much appreciated, because Minho presses pause as the ninth episode comes to an end and then proceeds to manhandle Hyunjin until he’s obediently lying down across the cushions, both wrists firmly restrained by Minho’s capable hands. It’s not a position completely unfamiliar to him, after all. Which might explain the automatic grin on his face.

“You’ve been a real brat lately,” Minho tells him, as if Hyunjin doesn’t already know it. “Is there a particular reason for why you crave more attention than usual, darling? Please enlighten me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hyunjin tells his husband in return, who really should be pleased enough that he’s staying still where Minho put him.

“You’re getting worked up,” Minho announces, as if narrating this thing that isn’t being filmed, contrary to lots of other things they’ve done. “You like watching us, don’t you, Hyunjinnie? You like watching hyung fall harder for you.”

Hyunjin exhales shakily in lieu of replying, but it’s answer enough for his husband who reads him pretty much flawlessly these days. Minho chuckles briefly before leaning down to taste Hyunjin’s smile, and he hopes it tastes as magical as the older’s does. Minho keeps most of his weight to himself, since his knees and forearms are steadying him over Hyunjin’s rapidly increasingly excited one. But he keeps his lips on the younger’s, and that’s enough to leave Hyunjin satisfied for now.

“Maybe you should teach me a lesson, Minho hyung,” he murmurs as soon as he gets the chance. “D’you think that would help with my brattiness?”

“Mm,” Minho hums against him, biting into Hyunjin’s bottom lip until he gasps, “I think I should, yes. You’re so sweet once I get it all out, baby. So pliant and polite. All ‘please’ and ‘hyung’ and teary eyes.”

Below him, Hyunjin moans. It’s true. He is pliant and polite once the rest of it falls away and he lets Minho take the reins, and he really likes that. He thinks Minho likes it, too, if he’s to trust his husband’s words. Which Hyunjin does, because Minho hasn’t actually lied to him yet. Not about sex but not about anything else either.

“Will you stay here if I tell you to?”

“Maybe.”

“If I promise you’ll get to come eventually?”

Hyunjin groans. That’s where Minho’s going with this. God, okay. No more watching the show tonight, then. But he nods, feeling the fight start to drain out of him already. It’ll probably hit him at full force again later, once Minho properly denies him, but he’ll stay for now. He’ll stay.

“Perfect,” Minho indulges him with another kiss. “I love you. Love you when you’re bratty and love you when you’re sweet. I always love you, darling.”

“Hyung,” Hyunjin whispers, trying really hard not to throw his arms around his husband to prevent him from leaving for the short while it would take him to get whichever items he has in mind. “Minho, I…”

“Schh,” he’s being hushed immediately, and Hyunjin lets the comforting sound sweep over him along with Minho’s breath over his own damp lips. “I know, baby. I know. You love me, too. You like to be taken care of. You trust me. I know, Hyunjinnie. I’ll never forget.”

Hyunjin feels his eyes grow wet for no good reason at all, other than the fact that Minho’s words are all true and now he doesn’t even have to say them. He just has to stay, like the older said, and then Minho will take care of him the way he always does. Minho literally knows him inside and out by now, and it’s so good. The sex is, but Hyunjin just feels so damn good in general through the pure knowledge that Minho knows him better than anyone else and that he loves him better than anyone else, too. He knows all the good things and all the bad things and he still says things like he’s proud to be Hyunjin’s husband and that Hyunjin is brave and that he loves Hyunjin regardless of anything. Of course he feels good.

After a final kiss and the swift brush of air as Minho leaves the room, Hyunjin is for some reason reminded of the one time he didn’t wait for Minho’s all-clear and moved far too eagerly for his own good. No matter how quickly Hyunjin wants to feel his husband all over, there was one incident where he simply didn’t have the time to wait for Minho’s already slick fingers to somehow get a new bottle open before deciding to go for it anyway.

Which he definitely shouldn’t have, all things considered, and regretted very quickly once the tears of actual pain sprung from his eyes and Minho’s distressed voice echoed in his ears. There may have been some slight panic on both sides and a million thoughts raced through Hyunjin’s mind as he curled up, letting Minho’s careful hands and wide eyes inspect the potential damage. But when Hyunjin fearfully asked if it looked bad Minho had assured him that it didn’t, and he sounded calm enough for Hyunjin to believe him. ‘No blood’, Minho had promised as Hyunjin’s stomach turned. ‘It looks completely normal, darling. You did so well pulling off. Do you want to see a doctor?”.

Hyunjin absolutely did not, and Minho agreed on the condition that Hyunjin tell him immediately if the pain didn’t pass. But it did, as Hyunjin was instructed not to move a single muscle while his husband got a warm, damp cloth to clean him up with and then some soothing gel for the sting. A strict rule of no similar interactions for another week, and then Hyunjin had finally gotten what he craved in the first place. He remembers some frustration since the ache had disappeared already by the next night, but Minho was unrelenting. Which Hyunjin supposes he can’t blame his husband for, and he hadn’t. He appreciated it. Mostly.

“Hyung?” he calls, settled when Minho comes back into view a moment later. “Can we…?”

“Can we what, darling?”

He squirms a bit, stretching and twisting over the cushions beneath Minho’s watchful gaze. He likes when Minho looks at him, but he likes when the older is too close to look properly, too. He likes most of the things Minho does around him, actually.

“I’m good,” he says quietly, trying to blink the dawning haze out of his eyes. “I’ll be good, hyung. ‘Wanna be good. ‘Not bratty anymore.”

Minho’s features soften immediately as he walks up to the couch and kneels beside it, smiling gently as he traces Hyunjin’s flushed skin with his fingers. He makes a low sort of cooing sound, which Hyunjin is pretty sure his husband uses at his workplace to calm the tiny animals down. It’s fine, though. He definitely feels like purring every now and then when Minho touches him like this.

“Hyung left you for a little bit, and that’s all it took, hmm?” the older murmurs, still looking at Hyunjin with those fond eyes. “God, I’m so weak for you. Tell hyung what you want, baby. What does Hyunjinnie want?”

“Hyung,” Hyunjin replies, because that’s the answer. “‘Want hyung. Everywhere. Always.”

***

They eventually get around to the wedding episodes, which is where the show ends apart from the reunion episode they’re scheduled for further down the line. Maybe it’s because the weddings were the most recent, or because Hyunjin has watched their footage religiously already, or because he feels like he knows what to expect here in comparison with the first few episodes. Either way he doesn’t feel very nervous about this part.

The tenth episode starts off with wedding preparations and lots of solo interviews about where the participants stand and how they feel and how these couple of weeks have been and if they’re having second thoughts and if they think their partners are having second thoughts and on and on and on. Nobody says so outright, but Hyunjin thinks he can spot some worried faces. Jisung is one, Changbin another. Soobin seems hesitant on taking anything for granted, but he clearly has nothing to fear from Yeonjun’s beaming face.

“We’re so gross,” Minho says when screen-Hyunjin’s sparkling eyes come into view while he gushes about his wedding outfit and how he can’t wait to see Minho’s. “If I wasn’t in this relationship, I would hate it so much.”

Hyunjin topples over laughing, instantly recognizing what his husband is saying. They’re so gross. There hasn’t been one single interaction where they haven’t been smiling and staring at each other with love-sick gazes, pretty much. Hyunjin thinks it’s partly the timing, because they have kept many things private. But they’re also stupidly in love, even before getting married, and Hyunjin would envy himself so hard if he wasn’t actually himself. He’d be so bitter watching this single, honestly. He might be even if he’d seen it with a partner who wasn’t Minho.

“Can you believe we’re actually worse in real life?”

“No,” Minho replies, chuckling as he watches himself silently recount the different parts of his vows. “No, I can’t, actually. What could be worse than this?”

“Well,” Hyunjin starts listing off, “there’s no ‘princess’ or ‘babe’ in here, for once, and they have no idea about the amazing sex we have, and they don’t know how quickly we’ve settled every disagreement, and there’s nothing that showcases how good we are at relying on or reassuring each other, and--”

“Okay,” Minho interrupts, pulling Hyunjin in for a kiss to shut him up as well. “We’re disgusting and the other couples will hate us at the reunion. Is it bad that I find that pretty hilarious?”

Hyunjin laughs and shakes his head. No, that’s pretty funny, too, actually. He wouldn’t want Minho or their relationship to change for the world.

What’s also really amusing is watching the way all six engaged couples go about preparing for the impending weddings, because there are some notably obvious differences in personalities there. Felix seems really worried about getting things right and whether they will be perfect or not, while Chan seems kind of oblivious to that and satisfied in letting Felix take the lead. Which Felix doesn’t like - Hyunjin knows - because that made him feel like Chan didn’t care. But that’s insider information and isn’t included in the show, and neither is the conversation that solved it.

Seungmin and Jeongin bickered the whole time, over everything, and they’re so cute to watch. Hyunjin laughs every time one of them scoffs, and Minho laughs every time the other one side-eyes them. They’re great, even though it’s a wonder they agreed on enough things to actually produce a wedding. But there’s lots of compromise and giving and taking, which Hyunjin finds sort of admirable. They’re the youngest pair, which shows sometimes, but they’re also very mature and haven’t had a serious fight, as far as Hyunjin knows. And he thinks he would know if one had occurred, considering their close friendships.

It turns out that Wooyung and San bickered the whole time as well, although with slightly less successful conversations and solutions than the previous two. Wooyoung actually left the cake testing for reasons Hyunjin suspects has nothing to do with the actual cake testing, but since they ended up getting married too he figures they must have solved it somehow. They’re probably the pair he and Minho have the least contact with, even though he’s not sure why.

Yeonjun and Changbin bear matching expressions of exasperation and endearment on their respective wedding preparations, simply because their respective fiancés can’t seem to decide on anything. It isn’t a matter of Yeonjun or Changbin disagreeing with the other two; it’s that there’s nothing to disagree with because Jisung can’t choose between the four types of cakes in front of him and Soobin can’t pick which flower arrangement he likes the most even after two hours. Minho grumbles about leaving them there eventually because isn’t getting married the point of the wedding anyway, but he laughs begrudgingly when Hyunjin innocently asks if Minho would really walk out on him - in front of the cameras and with no way home?

“I’d only leave Kim Seungmin on those grounds,” he decides, “but not you, darling. Wait, I would probably leave Seo Changbin-ssi, too, come to think of it.”

They watch themselves after, and can’t help the giggles as they are clearly the first pair completely on the same page and going through these motions flawlessly. Hyunjin is a sucker for flowers and takes the lead on that, explaining the meanings he’s looked up and remembers and mumbles about what would suit the color palette best, and he ends up asking Minho to choose between two which Minho does for the simple reason that he noticed Hyunjin eyeing the pink one rather than the blue. They switch for the cake testing, which is Minho’s area, and Hyunjin happily tastes and hums and listens before picking one of the two choices Minho suggested to him. It turns out the cameras caught Hyunjin smiling at his phone at the suit fitting as well, and there’s a clip of him giggling as he walks down the aisle for the first time and Minho waves at him to hurry up. There’s lots of sweet memories very dear to him in this episode, and he thinks Minho shares the sentiment.

Chan and Felix get married later on in the episode, and Hyunjin cries like a baby because Felix is his baby and he’s really not doing very well up there. Chan looks extremely torn between giving up on his vows and comforting his soon-to-be-husband or continuing, but Felix tells him between hiccups that he’s fine, keep going so Chan does. Felix’s vows are a little difficult to apprehend because the poor thing won’t stop crying, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Chan is crying as well when they’re finally declared husbands and free to kiss.

Yeonjun and Soobin get married as well, and Hyunjin quickly realizes that he will probably keep crying until all of these are over. Yeonjun loves Soobin so much and he did it so quickly, and Soobin still did it even quicker. There was never any debate on these two ending up together, and the romantic in Hyunjin adores that. He really likes Yeonjun, but mostly after seeing the way he is with Soobin, who Hyunjin considers a very dear friend. Yeonjun nags and corrects and keeps an eye on Soobin the way most relationships probably don’t work, but it’s what makes this one work because Soobin is somewhat of a walking disaster and it’s so endearing and he’s so fucking cute and there’s just something about the way Yeonjun looks at him that tells Hyunjin that the older will never let anything happen to the tall, bunny-like creature he’s promised to love. And Soobin thinks the world of his now-husband; there’s no mistaking it whenever he comes up in conversation.

Minho kisses his wet cheek before starting the next and final episode once the tallest couple has left their venue, and then again before settling back down and wrapping Hyunjin inside both the blanket and his husband’s arms. Four weddings to go. God help him.

Seungmin and Jeongin are next - with the shortest vows Hyunjin has heard so far - and yet the brightest faces out of all of them, completely devoid of tears. Jeongin vows to keep Seungmin on his toes so he won’t go losing any court cases, and Seungmin vows to keep wiping the drool from Jeongin’s face as he falls asleep on long nights by his computer. Theirs is a special kind of relationship, one Hyunjin doesn’t think everyone watching will understand or fully appreciate. But he knows that the two appreciate each other, and he has an endless amount of faith in them.

After that comes San and Wooyoung, and Hyunjin sort of steels himself because this is the wedding he knows the least about due to not seeing the other two a whole lot, but it also might just be the most memorable one. Minho knows, too, but his hand still twitches when the officiant asks Wooyoung if he will take San to be his lawfully wedded husband, and Wooyoung says ‘no’.

But San doesn’t look very surprised, and he doesn’t cry, and the explanation comes quickly when Wooyoung follows his ‘no’ by claiming that he wants to do this correctly, and he thinks that this process has gone by too quickly for him to do that. He thanks San for all his patience, and for being so understanding, and he says something about hoping that San will still want to see him like he promised yesterday, because Wooyoung does love him. He just doesn’t know how to love him in a way that he feels will work yet, and he wants them to figure that out before getting married. Wooyoung cries, and Hyunjin doesn’t blame him. It must have been terrifying, and it’s not like they could back out of the wedding at that point considering the show and all.

It’s a relief to Hyunjin to be able to relax in the knowledge that they stayed together and are together and live together and have plans on staying that way. He thinks they could make it work, and not getting all the way there in two months really isn’t anything to be ashamed of. He thinks they should be proud, actually. He’s gonna message both of them after they finish watching, he decides. 

“Do you think we’re last?” Minho asks as Wooyoung walks out and San remains by the altar, watching him as he goes.

“I don’t know,” Hyunjin replies honestly, “Jisung and Changbin are bigger wildcards than us, right? Are they saving them for the potential drama? It feels kind of obvious how ours went.”

“Taking me for granted, now, are you?” Minho teases, tickling his side briefly as Hyunjin shrieks. But he knows he’s right, and Minho knows the same thing.

It turns out that Jisung and Changbin are next up, and Hyunjin’s heart does a large skip when he realizes that he and Minho are actually last. That makes them the most anticipated couple; the one the showrunners are sure people will be waiting for. Damn.

This wedding is more emotional than the previous ones, or at least one could argue for that. Both fiancés end up crying, during their own vows and the other’s, and they both talk at length about their hardships and fights and wrongdoings. It’s a stark contrast to what Hyunjin knows is coming after, in his wedding, but that doesn’t make the words any less impactful. It takes guts to say these things in the first place, but saying them in front of everyone is a whole other level. He’s really impressed, but finally breaks once Jisung chokes out something similar to ‘thank you for loving me even when I’ve given you many reasons not to’, and he can see the genuine gratitude in Jisung’s teary eyes. Changbin does as well, considering how he waits until Jisung has finished up before throwing his arms around him despite the officiant mumbling how it’s not time for that yet.

“They did well,” Minho says quietly, almost to himself, but Hyunjin nods along anyway. “They did really well. Don’t tell them I said that.”

“Of course not,” Hyunjin laughs, wiping his tears. “We can’t have Changbinnie hyung think you care about him or his marriage.”

“Absolutely not.”

The next scene after Jisung and Changbin have walked out hand in hand is one that has Minho bursting into loud giggles while Hyunjin closes his eyes and wishes for death to come claim him. It’s a shot from outside his door, right there at the venue, and his mother is explaining that Hyunjin locked them out and that she’s not sure what’s going on. The cameras roll for a bit while nothing happens, but eventually Hyunjin unlocks it and lets them in and there’s a timestamp that lets everyone know that he kept them waiting for twenty-seven minutes. 

To his great relief, at least nobody filmed him giving himself a pep-talk before walking down the aisle. There’s the venue with a few rows of guests; their families and closest friends and their plus-ones. He spots Beomgyu and Taehyun who cheered loudly all night, Yeji and Ryujin who cried and hugged him tightly after the ceremony, and Daehwi, Sanha and Bomin with their partners further down the line. Minho’s friends are on the other side; he manages to catch Jungwoo, Seungkwan and Bin along with some childhood friends that Hyunjin’s only seen in pictures so far. He found it kind of sad that the participants couldn’t attend each other’s weddings, to be honest. He would have really liked that. Hyunjin would have liked to have them present for his wedding, too. But what matters most is the way Minho and his nerves and his radiant smile wait for the music to start and the doors to open, and there’s a slight delay due to Hyunjin and his mantra of ‘you know how to walk’ but eventually, he catches sight of himself. They’ve already seen this a bunch of times, had wasted no time to ask for this specific footage or to receive it, but Hyunjin doesn’t think it’ll ever get old.

“‘Couldn’t believe my eyes,” Minho whispers as they watch the distance between them grow smaller and smaller. “You’re stunning rolling out of bed in the morning, Hyunjin. This is ridiculous. Most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.”

“Hyung,” Hyunjin whines quietly, not wanting to break the spell but a little flushed by his husband’s words. “Take a look at yourself, please. Hardest thing I’ve ever done, trying to keep walking and not just run up to you.”

“I would’ve caught you,” Minho replies. “‘Wouldn’t have let you go again. Happiest day of my life, darling.”

“Mine too.”

The ceremony itself is cut fairly short, but Hyunjin’s eyes grow wider and wider as he realizes that their vows have barely been cut at all. And they must be the longest ones out of all the weddings they’ve seen, unless other couples’ vows actually have been edited, but these seem to go on forever even in this actual draft of the actual show. Hyunjin hasn’t repeated his vows since the wedding took place, but he feels fairly confident that every single word he said has been included. He also feels fairly confident that the same goes for Minho’s vows, with the only exception of the money bit being taken out. But it doesn’t matter that Hyunjin has seen this at least fifteen times before, because he still cries when he watches himself try to explain just how much Minho and his love means to him, and he cries even harder when Minho attempts to do the same.

He’s being hushed and comforted by his husband, sure, but Hyunjin’s tears find their way out regardless. Screen-Minho says that ‘there has only ever been you’ and he cries because it’s true. It feels true when he’s reminded of all the other versions of him and of Minho and of them too, and it feels true when his Minho says that he wouldn’t trade places with them for anything. Hyunjin’s cries are mixed up with both hiccups and laughter when they reach the end of Minho’s vows, where he outright states that one life isn’t enough for the time he needs to love Hyunjin. It’s such a monumental thing to say, and it renders him speechless even now.

Minho laughs against him when the officiant has to clear her throat since they won’t stop kissing once they’re given the go-ahead to do so in the first place, but she’s smiling and the newlyweds on the screen are smiling and Hyunjin wonders if he’ll ever feel that kind of happiness again. He’s not entirely sure his body could take it.

The episode and the show as it currently is ends that way, and Hyunjin thinks it couldn’t have ended better actually, in his very biased opinion. He and Minho walk down the aisle together, arms linked and laughing faces constantly turning to look at the other. Their loved ones are cheering and wiping tears of their own, the sun is shining outside, and Minho catches his jaw to pull him for another deep kiss as soon as they’re officially out of the venue.

The final shot of the whole thing is just that; Minho and Hyunjin kissing, silhouetted by the sun and wearing their wedding suits, smiling widely into the first few moments of the rest of their lives.

“And they lived happily ever after,” Minho finishes, perfectly accurate.

Hyunjin sort of feels like he just witnessed a whole fairytale.

Chapter Text

“So, everyone!” the hosts turn to the twelve of them, their smiles just a tad too wide to be completely genuine, in Hyunjin’s sort of trained opinion. “As you well know, the viewers have been sending loads and loads of questions in regards to how you’re all doing, how you felt watching the show, how you’re planning your futures, all those intriguing topics!”

Nods appear from all corners of the set, where the six couples are sitting on fancy sofas on each side of the hosts. They’re small enough to have Hyunjin all pressed up against Minho’s left side in order to leave space for Chan and Felix on his other side, and he’d guess that Jeongin feels pretty tightly squeezed between Hyunjin’s husband and his own.

He’s not sure whether the couples on the other side are looking better or worse on that account, since they have slightly more space but that’s only because Wooyoung is comfortably seated on San’s lap rather than have both of them squished between Changbin and Yeonjun.

“Let’s start with where you’re all at right now, shall we?”

A murmur of agreements, and then the hosts are gesturing for Chan and Felix to begin and probably go from there. Hyunjin listens despite knowing almost all of it already, and he can’t help smiling at the happiness and giddiness of the pair beside him. Felix eagerly talks about going to Australia together and properly meeting each other’s families, and how good it felt to be there for a few weeks and settle into their life as ‘newlyweds’ with their loved ones close by. Chan picks up from where they returned to Seoul and got a new apartment together and how moving in and living together has been like, and so on.

The hosts thank them and throw meaningful looks at Hyunjin who automatically looks at his husband. Minho is already looking back at him - obviously - and they break into stupid giggles at the same time. Where are they at, exactly?

“We’re good,” Hyunjin says, but Minho scoffs immediately.

“Just ‘good’. What would you change, then, darling?”

“Well, you talk a lot in your sleep,” Hyunjin laughs, “and you forget to buy my ice cream sometimes. That’s it, I think.”

Minho snorts, laughing along with him. There really aren’t many more things for Hyunjin to complain about in this relationship, and they both know it.

“What would you say, Minho-ssi?” the next question lands, and Hyunjin licks his dry lips as he waits.

“I’d say that I’ve never been happier, honestly,” Minho replies, not missing a beat nor the eye contact with his husband. “We’ve figured out how to deal with Hyunjinnie’s allergies and that was it, I think. He’s perfect. What do you want me to say?”

Hyunjin has to tuck both his lips in to restrain himself from 1) kissing his husband or 2) blurting an ‘I love you’ right here. The hosts coo and at least four of their friends make gagging noises, but Hyunjin doesn’t cringe one bit. He knows it’s true, and he knows that Minho is saying it because it makes Hyunjin happy to hear. And he succeeds, of course he does.

“Well, what have you been up to since the wedding?” someone asks, and Hyunjin rests his head over Minho’s shoulder as he listens.

His husband breezes through how Hyunjin moved in with him, how they discovered his allergies and had to work that out but that the cats are all staying with them now, how they split watching the show into parts and talked the events through, how they’re looking for a bigger place but aren’t in any hurry because it will be the one they spend many years in, how they invite both pair of parents for dinner every Thursday and usually go for brunch on Sunday’s, and on and on. Short mentions of how Hyunjin’s life looks like now, and how grateful he is for it. And how grateful he is for Minho.

“We went abroad when the show was released,” Hyunjin fills in when Minho looks at him for any further details. “An actual post-wedding honeymoon, I guess you could say. Our social media accounts skyrocketed while we were away and it was pretty fun to watch, and since the whole show dropped at once we could upload some posts while on the trip, too, which was nice.”

“Speaking of social media accounts,” the lady picks up rather than passes the ball onto the next couple, “it seems like the two of you are fairly popular with the fans! Have you given your followers some thought?”

“Uhm,” Minho says, a little confusedly. “No?”

Seungmin and Jeongin snort beside them and Minho quickly glares at the younger two, but it’s all in good humor. They’ve been keeping things sort of low on their accounts just as a precaution ahead of the reunion chapter, but after this one airs in a couple weeks there shouldn’t be any issues in posting literally whatever whenever.

The hosts say something about returning to that later and they move on to Seungmin and Jeongin, who bicker in who gets to explain what and then over the other person explaining something wrong and then over nitpicking on words and then they kiss. As usual. Changbin and Jisung are on the hosts’ other side and explain how things have calmed down for them and that they cringed a lot and had felt kind of bad watching the show back, but felt really good about learning to communicate and understand each other better now. They’ve always been good at talking in general, Hyunjin would testify to that, but they've learned how to talk about the hard things now, too.

Wooyoung happily brags about how good things are between them while San nods along, arms tightly wrapped around Wooyoung’s middle and head over his shoulder the same way Hyunjin has been sitting. The hosts tease them about there being more questions for them in particular and not too spoil too much already, so they don’t and Wooyoung assures them how deeply in love they are and the amazing sex they have and how he couldn’t imagine spending his life with anyone but San. All points have his husband smiling, but maybe the last one especially.

Finally, Soobin lisps and stutters his eager way through describing how they’ve had it since getting married, and Yeonjun mostly hums while playing with the younger’s ear. They’ve moved into a new apartment, too, same as Chan and Felix, and apparently adopted a hedgehog of all things - his name is Odi, Soobin tells them seriously - and also Soobin’s noona seems to be head over heels for Yeonjun. Maybe more than Soobin is, he laughs, and Yeonjun only laughs along. He looks completely infatuated with Soobin, and Hyunjin genuinely can’t blame him. He thinks Yeonjun might be the happiest person here, outside of Hyunjin’s own marriage.

They quickly move on to questions from the people who have been watching the show after that, as they’ve been told most of this reunion episode will revolve around. They’re free to ask the other couples questions as well, but mostly just expected to talk and discuss over the inquiries from the audience. 

“Ohh, this is a fun one!” the lady says, looking around the room before reading from her card thing. “Was there a couple any of you thought would be ‘endgame’ straight away?”

“Soobinnie and Yeonjunie hyung,” Hyunjin replies, not even speculating for one second. “Definitely. Soobin knew immediately and Yeonjun hyung was the first one to propose. And what surprised me was the speed of it all, not the events themselves. They were endgame from the start.”

He smiles at the somewhat surprised couple, and Yeonjun smiles widely back at him while Soobin looks a bit taken aback. But eventually he smiles, too, and his teeth are back oh God and Soobin simply has the most adorable teeth ever. After Minho, that is. 

“I’m not sure if I’m speaking for anyone else right now,” Chan states from their end of the couch, “but from my point of view during the pods, during that meet-up at the resort, and also after meeting up in Seoul, it seems to me like Minho and Hyunjinnie are the obvious answer. Maybe that’s only because I got close with Minho so quickly, but… My answer would definitely be them.”

“That’s interesting,” the man co-hosting intervenes before Hyunjin - or Minho - can reply to what Chan just said, “because I didn’t feel that way personally through watching the show. Could there be different views on Hyunjin-ssi and Minho-ssi’s relationship depending on which part of the house you lived in?”

“I guess,” Felix answers, looking thoughtfully at Hyunjin’s probably surprised face with his tiny smile, “but I only agree somewhat. I think Hyunjinnie wasn’t very outspoken concerning his dates while in the house, so I didn’t really lean this way or that initially. But I didn’t doubt them for a second after the proposal, and it made a lot more sense to me while watching the show and the dates they had. I think Hyunjinnie and Minho hyung learned a lot from each other, and I think they grew together and I think they liked doing that. And as I watched the show, I definitely watched them fall in love. Neither of them interacted with other participants the way they did with each other. Minho hyung brought up his ring on their second date and Hyunjin was only met with silence. How was he or the rest of us supposed to know how serious Minho was about him? Of course things would have been different on the other end.”

Hyunjin doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he stays quiet although squeezing Felix’s hand back when a tiny one sneaks it way into his. Minho thankfully removes the spotlight from them by stating that he would’ve said Seungmin and Jeongin, as soon as Seungmin stopped moping about Hyunjinnie not being interested anymore, which earns him a vicious glare from Seungmin and instant laughter from Jeongin.

The hosts ask if there was a couple they doubted after that, which is a far more intriguing question probably but also a much more difficult one. Hyunjin doesn’t think so; there’s no one that comes to mind. He can see all of them glancing around the room but no one speaks up, so maybe they’re on the same page.

“I guess I’ve doubted my own relationship the most,” Wooyoung finally says, sighing a bit and sinking further into San’s arms. “Which was helpful in a way, and really sad in another. But we’ll probably get into that, too. There’s no other couple that comes to mind, though.”

“I think I can relate to that,” Jisung speaks up, throwing a meaningful glance at Wooyoung and then at Changbin beside him. “I was really insecure about where my relationship with Binnie hyung was going, too. Where it would end up and how we would get it there. But not anymore, and no other couple, either. So pretty much what Wooyoungie hyung said.”

“That brings us to our next question!” the lady bursts, and Hyunjin is struck by the pace of this thing. He gets that there’s going to be one episode of maybe an hour, but they can cut, can’t they? Are they really going to speed through everything until they’ve got little more to work with? “You’ve all watched the show, seen yourself with your partners and others, seen your partners with others, seen other couples… What are your impressions of each other? What do you guys think of each other’s relationships?”

The space goes dead quiet, and Hyunjin understands why. What are they supposed to say? Are they expecting someone to go ‘oh I wish I was in their relationship instead of mine’ or ‘their relationship seems really weird and I want no part of it’, or…? That’s a weird question, isn’t it?

“Let me rephrase that,” the man says, probably because of the lack of replies, “and we’ll go the whole way ‘round, but let’s start with Soobin-ssi and Yeonjun-ssi this time. What’s everyone’s impression of their relationship? Any differences or similarities from your own? Do you think they will last? Is there anything you’ve been wondering about?”

“I think they’ll last,” Jeongin answers after a contemplative moment, looking at the tallest pair with their long legs stretching out in front of them. “Actually, I’ll swallow my own ring if they don’t.”

Seungmin protests immediately, screeching and pouting, but it makes Jeongin and the rest of them laugh. It’s a good ice breaker, and soon enough Felix and Wooyoung and Jisung are chiming in their agreements. Hyunjin figures he’ll wait since he already sort of said his piece, and Minho mostly smiles serenely as they listen. San and Wooyoung are next and Hyunjin takes the opportunity for that one, remembering how he felt as he watched them on the show.

“I think there are both similarities and differences in mine and hyung’s relationship compared to San hyung and Wooyoung hyung,” he says, because that’s what he feels. He hopes he will get it across correctly since the attention is on him now. “I remember watching the show and seeing Wooyoungie hyung being nervous about all the differences between you guys and not knowing how your personality would work with that. I’ve felt that. I think Minho hyung has felt that way, too.”

Beside him, Minho nods just as Hyunjin suspected he would. He said as much in his vows, after all, and this is bordering on one of Minho’s largest points of insecurity.

“And I know that you struggled with that, as everyone knows who’ve watched the show, probably,” Hyunjin continues, watching the couple nod along as he talks, “but I think what strikes me about your relationship is exactly the fact that the two of you may have had the hardest journey, and you’re still sitting here today, married like the rest of us, but by staying true to yourselves and doing it the way that felt right to you. I’m really impressed by you. I’m sort of proud of you, too, honestly. That was a really brave thing, deciding not to go through with the wedding despite knowing about the show and how it might look. But you did it, because it was right. And I think you’re here today, married and in love, because of that. I’m not sure I could have been that brave. I’m really impressed.”

Minho puts his arm around Hyunjin somewhere in the middle there, he didn’t really notice, but he’s grateful that his husband tucks Hyunjin back against him with a kiss to his temple and a tiny ‘love you’ that their mic packs probably don’t catch. San and Wooyoung look a little sentimental on their end of the couch, and thank him quietly while Hyunjin waves them off.

Yeonjun and Changbin say some nicely phrased words as well, and Hyunjin knows that the three couples on that couch have hung out quite a bit so he’s not that surprised. He is a little, though, when the turn skips to Jisung and Changbin and it turns out that Hyunjin’s husband has some carefully chosen words to say about those two. Hyunjin can almost hear the silence that settles across the staff and camera crew since this is probably prime content, considering their involvement with each other inside the house and all.

“If I’m to take a page from my darling husband’s book,” Minho says, easily charming and eliciting laughter all around, “I’d like to say that I’m very proud of Jisungie and Changbin, too. I don’t envy you one bit for having your fights and struggles and worries all out in the open like that, and yet, here you are, probably stronger than ever. We’ve spent lots of time together after the show and honestly, every time I see you guys I’m more convinced of just how good you are for each other. Maybe that’s why you clashed kind of harshly at first; you fit really well so you hadn’t worked the kinks out yet. But you have now, and you work really well together. I still don’t envy you, though.”

Changbin laughs incredulously and mutters something under his breath, but Jisung looks genuinely grateful for Minho’s words. They haven’t really talked about it in those terms, but Hyunjin privately suspects that Jisung has been worrying about what the viewers will think of him after his ‘mistake’ in the pods and his fights with Changbin and how they never really hung out the four of them within the frames of the show. He might even have been worrying enough to go check on social media, come to think of it. Minho putting his foot down and stating what he genuinely thinks of Jisung and Changbin after watching their journey and them getting married will probably ease both Jisung’s and the audience’s minds. That feels good to Hyunjin, and he presses a quick kiss to Minho’s jaw for his troubles.

Pretty much every couple has things to comment on regarding the youngest couple and their relationship, and it’s basically all laughter and ‘I don’t know how they make it work but they do’. Hyunjin sort of agrees, but he also knows that Jeongin and Seungmin have been very united and like-minded on things that actually matter. It’s just that not all things do, and they have a lot of fun together. If anything, Hyunjin understands why Changbin says that he’s jealous that they’re always on the same page. Whether they actually seem to be or they’re bickering, both of them always appear to know which one it is. They match really, really well.

Hyunjin draws a shaky breath once he realizes that it’s their turn, and his palms grow a bit sweaty as he looks around to see who will be the first to speak up. Or maybe the only one to speak up, what does he even know?

“I think…,” Felix says, smiling widely at the two of them. “I said a lot already, so I’ll keep it short, but… When I watched Hyunjinnie and Minho hyung on the show, I couldn’t help thinking that ‘this is what love could and should be’.”

Hyunjin swore that he wouldn’t cry; that he would finish this journey on a good note. But he was never good at controlling his tear ducts, and his eyes readily glaze over as Felix’s words sink in. ‘What love could and should be’. The romantic in Hyunjin loves loves loves that, but the more logical part of him wonders… ‘What love could and should be’. Is theirs the kind of love people long for? The pure, unconditional kind? Love in its most delicate form? Is this… that?

“I couldn’t have said it better, Lix,” Changbin agrees, and Hyunjin catches Minho swallowing and finding his own, larger hand as everyone turns their attention in Changbin’s direction. “I can’t say that I never had any worries about Sungie’s feelings, ‘cause I did. But they quickly disappeared once I saw with my own eyes the way Minho and Hyunjin love each other. From meeting up with them and seeing them interact, sure, but every final trace of my insecurity washed away once I saw the show. The way you two approached everything had me thinking ‘why didn’t I do that?’, ‘why didn’t I ask that question?’, ‘why didn’t I share the bad things along with the good?’. It could’ve saved me a lot of trouble to tell Jisung that I favored him the most, or that I shut down and go quiet when I’m scared to say the wrong thing. I wish I would’ve tackled it better. Like either of you. Like the way love could have flourished, even if it did regardless.”

“Yes,” Jisung chimes in, nodding along with his husband as he explains some of the things the cameras didn’t catch. “I told Hyunjinnie right after the whole rejection spectacle that I wish he’d talked to me about Minho hyung, but I never blamed him for not doing so. We barely knew each other, and he still tried to spare my feelings. He still wanted Minho to pick the person for him, whichever one of us that was. And I just can’t imagine what love could be more pure than that. Isn’t that the definition of ‘unconditional’? Hyunjinnie fell for and went for Minho hyung without knowing if his feelings were that reciprocated or not. We know now that they were, but in the house… He wanted Minho to pick him, sure, but not at the cost of whatever mine or even Minho’s feelings towards me were. Really knowing him now, I think all of Hyunjinnie’s love is pure and unconditional, actually. But I also think Minho hyung is reaping the largest benefits of that.”

Hyunjin is just about to reply something probably nonsensical, because what, but then--

“Most of the time I personally believe that I’m the happiest person on the planet,” Yeonjun says, smiling at him kindly, before Hyunjin’s scrambled mind can fully process Jisung’s - or even Changbin’s - words, “but then I’ll randomly remember the look on Minho hyung’s face when you walked down the aisle. I think that one moment might sum up your entire relationship.”

There’s a snort from somewhere, Hyunjin doesn’t know, because he’s laughing in disbelief with even more wetness than his eyes can contain. None of these people have said anything along these lines before. Traitors.

Of course, when he looks at his husband there’s a knowing smile and fond eyes already on him. Minho laughs when Hyunjin attempts a pout, and tugs him into his shoulder for a moment to kiss Hyunjin’s temple as he hides from the cameras for a second. He’s just getting himself together. He’ll be fine.

“And that would be a correct assumption,” Minho plays along, laughing good-naturedly as most of the others around Hyunjin do as well. “That was peak happiness and I’m glad you all know it. Wait until you see all the drafts Hyunjinnie’s been saving up, though. There’s a lot.”

A person who sounds suspiciously like Seungmin snorts loudly, but Hyunjin laughs in defeat as he sits back up. It’s true. He’s been holding back on all his happiness an awful lot, to be honest. He can’t wait to throw it in the face of every single person in the world.

He bows his head politely towards the other contestants, really not sure what to reply but remembering that the other couples hadn’t replied very extensively either. It should be fine. Minho does the same, still keeping Hyunjin’s body close to his own, and it feels okay. It feels good. Hyunjin isn’t about to argue the words that have been spoken, even though nothing could have prepared him for them. ‘What love could and should be’, for example.

“Just one more thing!” Jeongin hurries to say just as they’re about to move on to the final couple, and all heads turn towards the youngest participant to listen while he locks eyes with Hyunjin and his husband. “I just wanted to say that I’m really happy for you. I know you were both skeptical walking in, and… And I think maybe that was good. Healthy. Helpful, even. You’ve been so real and truthful and open about everything, and I really admire that. Especially you, Hyunjinnie hyung. Your heart is on your sleeve all the time and you’re so brave for that. And I’m really glad you’ve found hyung who knows to treasure that. And you. To treasure you. It just makes me happy to be around the two of you, that’s what I wanted to say. And I’ll never say it again, for the record.”

Minho ends up laughing, naturally, but Hyunjin throws both arms around Jeongin and squeezes him in a tight hug as the youngest squeals loudly. But he also throws both arms around Hyunjin in return, and Seungmin is smiling fondly at his husband and a little teasingly at Hyunjin. Only a little, though. Hyunjin supposes his own husband isn’t that far off.

They finally move on to Chan and Felix after that, and Hyunjin wishes he could say something about how precious their relationship and their personalities are, but he’s still wiping remnants of his tears away and can’t really form the right words to do the other couple justice right now.

Changbin and Jisung step up again though, talking over each other as they’re both eager to coo over Felix and admire Chan, and it’s really funny to watch honestly. San interjects after that and tells everyone that he’s really grateful to Felix for reaching out and checking in on them but also him personally after the not-wedding they had with the cameras, and that he really is the kindest soul San has met. The other ten participants apart from Felix himself all loudly agree on that while the man himself blushes beneath his freckles, and Chan tugs him closer while smiling broadly. Yeonjun highlights what a relief it was to have Chan in the house when all of them were overwhelmed at one point or another, and that he really had a way with words to soothe every worry of his but also the other participants. He mentions that it couldn’t have been easy to be the oldest and the one everyone turned to for advice, but that Chan managed it so spectacularly that it almost seemed like he’d never done anything else.

Minho hums along before agreeing loud enough for everyone to hear and Hyunjin knows that he’s mostly referring to that scene the camera caught right after they got engaged, and probably also to the moments leading up to that. He knows that Minho doesn’t rely on anyone by pure default, but that he’d shared his nerves and fears with Chan just like Yeonjun must have had. Hyunjin also knows that Chan is a sweetheart, and a supportive one at that. Hyunjin is happy to know him, and he’s even happier for his husband and his friendship with the oldest of them. And also for Felix, sunshine personified, to find a partner such as Chan who would never try to dim his light and rather wants to enhance it further.

“Okay!” the hosts exclaim, clearly wanting to get on with it and with eyes flickering between each other, the monitors and their cards. “We have some more questions that need answering! Do you guys have any special couple routines? And did these come about naturally or was there anything particularly hard about your new married life, compared to before the show?”

“Well, we had one large topic of discussion,” Soobin is fast to reply, very seriously, while Yeonjun groans beside him. “Hyung wants to brush his teeth after breakfast, but I need to brush mine first thing when I get up! I can’t imagine not brushing that morning breath away as quickly as possible.”

“While I can’t imagine walking around with orange juice or ham between my teeth all day,” Yeonjun adds, side-eyeing his husband. “Evenings are fine ‘cause brushing after eating or drinking coincides with brushing last thing of the day so it works for both of us, but not the mornings. This is a daily discussion. I’m so sorry you all had to hear this.”

“Sannie pours his milk before his cereal,” Wooyoung quickly throws his husband under the bus, “like a damn sociopath. I feel your pain, Yeonjunnie.”

Soobin and San throw each other understanding, sympathetic looks while their husbands lean back over cushions to do the same behind them. It looks very funny, and Hyunjin can’t blame anyone for laughing.

The couples all share parts of their routine after that, with Seungmin getting McDonald’s after every exam and Jeongin’s mom having them for bibimbap after every won case. Chan and Felix watch dramas for an hour every evening where no talking about anything else is allowed, and Changbin and Jisung have deadlines for all their household tasks because otherwise they’re mostly left on their own. Minho mentions their weekly Thursday dinners with their parents, but also their tendency to watch animated movies whenever one of them has had a rough day. Soobin confirms that they do that, too, and that Odi has finally been allowed to roam around by his husband’s grace, but he cannot come on the couch. Wooyoung plays with San’s hair and discloses that they always have breakfast in bed on Saturdays, and that he’s in charge of vacuuming as soon as San does laundry, since Wooyoung got the colors mixed up once and isn’t allowed anywhere near that machine since then.

Soon enough, another question arises concerning whether they’ve had fights and how those went, to which no one seems particularly keen on answering. Fights are a completely normal part of life, Hyunjin knows, even if he absolutely despises them. But that doesn’t make them any funnier to talk about or tempting to share with other people.

But he also figures that couples like Changbin and Jisung or San and Wooyoung have had too much of their fights on display already, and he sees the way the hosts start eyeing the opposite couch when nobody voluntarily speaks up, so Hyunjin does before he can change his mind.

“We’ve had one ‘real’ fight,” he says, watching Minho nervously because his husband didn’t actually say anything and might not want him to share, but Minho nods sort of encouragingly during Hyunjin’s tentative pause, “and then a bit of miscommunication, mostly. I forgot to tell hyung I was staying out later than expected and he got worried, that sort of thing.”

“The ‘real’ fight we’ve had,” Minho fills in, still calm as ever, “was actually pretty recent and ended with Hyunjinnie leaving to get some space at his parents’ for a bit. I called Chan hyung, so he knows most of it. And my mom. But then we talked it out over the weekend and we both apologized and neither one of us really wants a repeat of that, I think.”

Hyunjin nods, agreeing with his husband’s words. That’s exactly what happened. And more, obviously, but he doesn’t want to explain to the whole world how something had shattered in Minho’s eyes when Hyunjin loudly exclaimed that he doesn’t want a baby and that he probably never will and that Minho shouldn’t pressure him into that or just assume things about him without asking, and how cold and horribly betrayed Minho had sounded while asking when he had ever taken liberties that Hyunjin wasn’t comfortable with, before saying that Hyunjin just might have considered telling his partner that he didn’t want kids earlier, and then an added remark regarding how many additional things Hyunjin has been keeping from him beside his profession and his refusal to have kids.

It had all hurt so much and there was an overwhelming amount of guilt to top it all off, because Hyunjin hadn’t even thought about this topic before since it’s never been on the cards for him personally and he knows that there’s truth to Minho’s words and that he has every right to be upset with him, but there was also the reminder that neither Hyunjin nor anyone else should feel pressured into having kids that they’ll be responsible for for the rest of their lives, and he has every right to refuse them, right? Even if… even if that breaks Minho’s heart and ruins his future?

There’s a sick feeling in Hyunjin’s stomach even now, thinking back on it, and he takes a long swig of his water as the hosts turn elsewhere to listen to another couple’s drama instead. The night certainly hadn’t ended as badly as it had been in the middle of the blow-up, but Hyunjin knows that he won’t ever forget it. It’s easily the worst night he’s had since meeting Minho, including the one where Hyunjin’s grandmother passed away and Jisung’s sobs echoed in his ears. He’d gone to his parents’ house, explained through the tears what happened and how Minho was wrong, and then almost instantly turned around and explained how he was wrong because of course Minho of all people shouldn’t have to give actual children up? For him? Who on this planet could have stronger paternal instincts than Hyunjin’s husband, who clearly married the wrong person because Hyunjin is now going to hold him back from all that because they can’t fucking compromise on a child.

He’s not sure whether the distance helped or not, but the input from his parents did. Ice cream and tea were a must, of course, and Hyunjin nearly cried again as his dad quickly headed out for his favorites while he buried himself in blankets and let his mom run her fingers through his hair. They’d wanted him to sort out his own feelings about children first, prior to meeting Minho, and then settled that Hyunjin was mostly afraid of all that responsibility and absolute impossibility of ever changing his mind or backing out. Which is valid, he’d been told and had to agree with, but also reminded that that line of thinking has been stemming for years. Deciding to have a child with Minho wouldn’t be exactly like what Hyunjin had pictured with some faceless stranger. This is his husband. Hyunjin trusts Minho with his life and he would certainly trust him with a child, too. Random people trust him with their beloved pets every single day. Minho could literally shoulder any responsibility Hyunjin could throw his way, and Hyunjin had to admit that being a parent didn’t seem quite as intimidating if it’d be alongside Minho.

And he’d explained all that and more once he’d been driven back and his tears were soaking Minho’s shirt, but made sure to also tell his husband that Hyunjin still doesn’t know. He’s not sure. He can’t be a parent if he’s not sure, and Minho can’t ask him to be. Meanwhile, Minho had explained that he felt blindsided - even if that might be wrong since it’s not like Hyunjin’s mind has changed from some previous conversation - and like there must be some secret reason as to why Hyunjin won’t trust him enough to tell him these things, and that he must be doing something wrong. Minho must have been doing some unknown thing to make Hyunjin feel like he can’t be open about things and that realizing that hurt and then quickly spiraled into blaming Hyunjin for keeping secrets rather than blaming himself for not being safe enough for Hyunjin to share with voluntarily, and then on and on and on until Hyunjin couldn’t tell which tears were his and which were Minho’s and that they might need to talk their relationship through further before bringing this discussion back up again.

They’d started that by the next day. Whispered apologies still filled the space between them and Hyunjin’s cheeks were still streaked with wetness when he fell asleep, and Minho’s brows were furrowed in his sleep when Hyunjin saw them in the morning and he’d had to wake his husband up from some sort of nightmare that had the older gasping and quickly tucking Hyunjin’s surprised face into Minho’s own body to hold him closely. More apologies followed after that and a promise to pick this conversation back up after figuring out how they reached this fight in the first place, which they managed during the course of the day. The actual parenting conversation came the next weekend with Hyunjin voicing his doubts and being very clear as his dad had instructed, and Minho reminding him that he married Hyunjin for Hyunjin and not for whichever hypothetical creatures might have come along with that, whether that be human children or pets. He explained that he was disappointed but understood how it’d never been brought up before, with both of them being naively secure enough in their own mindset to never think it warranted a discussion. Which it usually doesn’t after a few months, Minho pointed out. This conversation probably comes further into a relationship normally.

Hyunjin’s guilt has barely lessened, however. It’s at the back of his head and bottom of his stomach most of the time, and it’s there now. Maybe if Minho reminds him for the next ten years that he’d take Hyunjin over children any day, he’ll end up believing it. He believes it now, most days. But it still feels like Hyunjin is taking something away from his husband, or that he might be in the future. He doesn’t know. That’s the whole thing; he doesn’t know. And Minho had said that it was okay not to know, that they’re still young enough to have plenty of time to consider it, that Hyunjin is twenty-three for another month and already making enough massive life changes to last him until thirty, that their own parents were significantly older than they are now when they had their one single child. He’d said lots of things that helped, that Hyunjin believes, but he can’t help but wonder if he’ll have to worry about some tiny part of Minho resenting him forever if he ends up never wanting kids.

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Minho murmurs, almost straight into Hyunjin’s ear during the disguise of throwing an arm over his shoulder. “Again?”

He nods, pursing his lips. He doesn’t want to, but it’s inevitable once it’s brought up. Never mind the fact that Hyunjin himself was the one to bring it up.

“What do you need me to say this time?”

“That you…,” Hyunjin swallows, turning away from the cameras and leaning the side of own face against his husband’s. “That you won’t hope I change my mind and then resent me if I don’t.”

“I’m not hoping you’ll change your mind,” Minho hums in reply, nose tickling Hyunjin’s cheek somewhat. “I’m hoping you’ll come to a decision that feels right to you and that you’ll let me know once you do so I can support you, whichever it is. I’m hoping you don’t feel pressured by my selfish assumptions and understand that you’re the most important thing in this world, Hyunjin. I’m hoping that one hour of misguided words on my part doesn’t erase all the other hours I’ve spent trying to show you how much more I love you than everything else combined. I’m hoping that you know, deep down inside, that I will never resent you for anything. I think too highly of you for that. Taking something seriously doesn’t make me think less of you, baby. It puts you even higher up there.”

Rendered speechless both due to the lump in his throat and something else - slightly less tangible - has Hyunjin embracing his husband properly and pressing a kiss that doesn’t relay his gratitude whatsoever into the nape of his neck. It’s far too quick and shallow for his liking, but the cameras are still rolling and this is probably ‘bad’ enough. But he has to do something to show how much Minho’s words mean to him, because they do. Because they’re true, because Minho will say it however many times Hyunjin asks him to, because Minho loves him. He does. That’s why Hyunjin genuinely fears that Minho would give things up for his sake - like his actual cats and hypothetical children - and also why he fears that Minho might love him too much for his own good. And that’s exactly what he’s told his husband and why Minho knows to ask for how to ease Hyunjin’s mind at any given time and then proceed to do exactly that.

Minho’s following kisses are plenty, insistent, enough to have Hyunjin giggling within the blink of an eye. Enough to have the rest of the room blink at them and at least half of the participants tease as well, but hopefully they didn’t interrupt anything. Hyunjin remains tucked away for one more moment before sitting back up and leaving a soft kiss on Minho’s lips, ignoring the hosts making ‘ohh’ noises somewhere on his left. He’s already kissed Minho plenty in front of all the viewers. One more is nothing.

“Speaking of the lovebirds that are frolicking right here in the studio,” the lady says once the previous topic is fully left behind. “Not to say that anyone else isn’t, but we have already established that Minho-ssi and Hyunjin-ssi are quite popular with the viewers! Any ideas as to why?”

“Because their live-action foreplay in the Maldives was broadcasted,” Seungmin deadpans, shocking a laugh out of most of them, Hyunjin himself included. That is true. It turned out that only San and Wooyoung made out apart from them. “That probably did it.”

“Uhm,” Jisung inserts, even raising his hand pointedly, “have you, like, seen them? If I had known just one person in that marriage was a supermodel, I’m not sure which one of them would’ve been my guess.”

Minho blushes immediately, despite the make-up, and Hyunjin laughs heartily at the surprise and embarrassment on his husband’s face at the compliment. The very valid and honestly factual compliment, honestly. Jisung is absolutely telling the truth, and Hyunjin knows that Minho’s angles are nothing short of spectacular because he’s coerced his husband into quite a few homemade photoshoots by now. If anything, he’s mostly pleased that someone other than him is saying these things.

“Personally,” Felix injects, saying his piece, “I think they have such a large fanbase because they post the cutest things on a sort of regular basis, and I smile everytime they post and interact for the rest of us to see. I think that’s a large reason for their follower count. And I think Woosan are next because they post the opposite of cute. Or at least their own version of cute.”

The entire studio falls into easy laughter at that, probably all very well aware of the more… explicit posts the most recently married couple publishes. Nothing too racy, obviously, but innuendos and emoticons and photos with a hand here or lips there. A bit more skin. The sort of photos only Hyunjin’s polaroid camera sees, basically.

“Speaking of supermodels,” the lady annoyingly enough points out while they’re having a good time, “we have gotten a few questions concerning the show’s very own renowned high-end model. Hwang Hyunjin-ssi, the viewers are a bit confused as to why you’d let them know about your profession, but keep it from the other participants. Including your own fiancé, perhaps? Did he even know before you had him all snared up?”

Hyunjin’s lips part as his heart drops to the bottom of his stomach. He’d known this was coming, but… But when she made it sound like that, and the topic is sort of sore still since the fight they had a few weeks ago, Hyunjin feels a bit taken aback and a lot sick. And very put on the spot. He catches a disapproving frown on Changbin’s face and how Jeongin is already about to speak, but none of them and not even Hyunjin himself gets there first.

“With all due respect,” Minho eyes the woman levelly, “that’s kind of offensive, even if that was the phrasing of one of the actual questions. I’m sure everyone in this room very much understands that no one on this show has been ‘snared up’, as you so eloquently asked.”

The ‘even you’ at the end of his sentence goes unsaid, and the lady’s neck is remarkably more similar to her red dress at the end of Minho’s comment than it was previous to it. Hyunjin’s heart still isn’t exactly where it’s supposed to be, but it’s beating semi-regularly again and he’s grateful that Minho wasted no time stepping in. Even putting his foot down in a way Hyunjin himself probably wouldn’t have.

“If those questions are concerning that meet-up at the Maldives,” Seungmin says, addressing the hosts and their cards, “I literally said that I didn’t even remember if Hyunjinnie and I talked about our professions during those dates. I mentioned it for some but not for all, and I’d bet the same thing applies to most other people sitting here as well. When the topic came up then and there, he mentioned art, which is exactly what he’s doing.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Seungmin continues, turning towards Hyunjin himself with a smile tugging at his lips, “but you have an actual exhibition coming up pretty soon, don’t you?”

“I do,” Hyunjin replies quietly, unable to restrain a smile of his own. That’s true, and he’s giddy as hell about it. Nervous, sure, but mostly excited. So excited he’s been bouncing more than he’s been walking this past week since he found out about it. “It’s my first one.”

“I didn’t know that!” Wooyoung exclaims from the other side. “Time and place, please. I’ll call both of us in sick if I have to.”

Just like that, the mood changes and Hyunjin feels relieved enough to sort of reply to the question, now that it’s out there. Minho’s hand over his helps, too, obviously.

“I’ll let you all know,” he promises first of all, nodding in Wooyoung’s direction before looking around, knowing that he’s really only told Seungmin and Jeongin so far since it’s only been a week. “But to clarify and address some of that confusion, I told the viewers because some of them might already know by seeing me so I didn’t really see any point in saying anything else. The main reason I didn’t tell the participants is because I didn’t come on ‘Love is blind’ for the potential future spouses to know that someone on our side has a model career. I felt like that might’ve skewed the results, and why would I risk that not only for myself, but also for everyone else? I’m not saying that anyone in here would pick their spouse solely based on knowing such a fact about someone, but I also didn’t specifically pick the one dating show completely without looks as a factor for nothing. I’ve been judged enough by the way I look. I didn’t want my future husband to do the same.”

Complete silence falls over the room as Hyunjin’s tiny speech comes to an end, and he feels his chest heave a little by the mostly emotional effort. He also feels Minho’s fingers in between his own, although he doesn’t remember how they got there in the first place.

“And also,” Hyunjin tacks on, just for good measure, “I told my fiancé within the first hour of us finally being alone. The very first.”

“And what did your fiancé tell you, baby?” Minho asks, fond smile already on his face when Hyunjin turns sideways to look at his then-fiancé, now-husband.

“He told me that it would’ve been incredibly hypocritical of him to be upset with me for not telling him sooner,” Hyunjin remembers, and so does the growing warmth inside of him, “since he hadn’t told me about his profession, either. He also told me that I should’ve broken the engagement then and there if he had been.”

“In conclusion,” Chan says a bit unexpectedly from their left, “there are plenty of things that happened outside of the cameras and for nobody’s sake but our own, since so many things were anything but private. Which we all knew, but I’m sure we can all understand Hyunjinnie’s reasoning, right?”

Nods and murmured agreements follow around the room, untying the final knot inside Hyunjin’s stomach. Maybe it’s stupid, but it feels like the other are on his side. They seem to understand, at least now after hearing him explain, but Seungmin spoke up before that, too. And it may be a touchy topic, but Hyunjin believes that Minho’s words during their argument were founded in insecurities and not how he genuinely feels most of the time. It’s natural to have doubts, and Hyunjin does sometimes, too. But the house rule said ‘no going to sleep angry’, and they’d both been dead set on avoiding exactly that. Hyunjin may have left but only after claiming to need some hours of space and that he would be texting before coming back, and Minho had seemed regretful already when Hyunjin had closed the door behind him. Everyone says things they don’t mean eventually. There’s a reason the saying goes ‘in the heat of the moment’. Outside of the awful moment, Minho has never held this against him and he clearly doesn’t now. That’s definitely good enough for Hyunjin.

He can feel the hosts beginning to round them up and ask some final, more light-hearted and less personally offensive questions. Wooyoung and San along with Changbin and Jisung had definitely gotten the worst of it while Hyunjin was too busy hiding in his husband’s arms, and paired with the dig on his sort-of lie, he supposes there really isn’t that much more drama to touch on. It’s probably blatantly obvious that the whole Minho - Jisung thing isn’t even a thing and that they’re all close friends, with all four of them in happy marriages and happy friendships and no hard feelings. It’s only been around nine months since they stepped into the pods for the first time, but nine months is still a decent amount of time to spend in a relationship.

Hyunjin isn’t sure when they will officially step out of the ‘newlywed’ bubble, but he knows that they haven’t yet. He thinks that it would be nice for things to stay the way they currently are as well, and he sees no reason why they wouldn’t if that’s what Minho wants as well. And remembering Minho’s vows and that bit about creating love and the right settings for love to keep thriving, Hyunjin isn’t worried in the slightest. The only thing that worries him is occasional, and overall he’s far less worried and anxious these days than he was a year ago. It’s largely thanks to his husband, probably, but Hyunjin is also very proud of himself for not renewing his contract and actually applying to art school instead. His classes have been paying off well, too, and he’s very secure in his decision. He is looking forward to that exhibition at the end of the semester, and he feels the pressure but he also believes that he can handle it. The pride in Minho’s eyes does help, though. And his tiny but never-ending kisses certainly do.

The whole kids thing will be put off for some time, and that feels like a relief to him. It would be nice on one hand to just decide one way or another now and be done with it, but it’s also nice to feel like he can think about that later and won’t have to make any decisions for years if he doesn’t want to. Hyunjin is convinced that Minho will want to stay married to him either way, and hopefully his husband’s mind will gradually lean towards the possibility of never having children if Hyunjin’s mind never ends up leaning towards wanting them. That’s his only worry, his occasional one, but he reminds himself to bring that up with Minho when he does get anxious, now that the conversation has been opened. The first time it came up had mostly contained Minho’s disappointment and Hyunjin’s fear, but it’s not like that anymore. 

Two months isn’t an extremely long time, but it’s the time Hyunjin needed to know that he would want to love and be with Minho for his whole life. It’s certainly enough for him to start smiling at the visual of Minho with a baby bouncing on his leg or sitting on his shoulders; of pushing a stroller down the street and having picnics in the sun; of showering this creature that would be raised through equal parts him and Minho with love and affection and tenderness. Hyunjin thinks Minho would thrive off of being a parent, would be perfect for the role, would love and cherish his children fiercely. Their children. The process may be a long one for the two of them, but it exists. Even if Hyunjin decides on his thirtieth birthday, it’d probably be a year or two or more before something comes out of it. Time during which he (they) could back out if he really, really felt the need to.

But he probably won’t, if Hyunjin were to guess. He’s not as scared anymore. He can smile as he imagines it now, even if he doesn’t want to bring the topic back up. His fear has turned into worry, but that’s also a step forward. It’s not like he wants to be scared. If he ends up never having kids, it should be because he thinks his life would be better without them. It shouldn’t be out of fear. Hyunjin doesn’t want it to be out of fear, at least. And he knows that’s what Minho meant by ‘supporting whichever decision he comes to’, because they’ve talked about it now, and Hyunjin fully believes that Minho doesn’t want him to be scared either, and also understands that fear doesn’t just come and go. It won’t magically disappear. Minho’s own fear about not being enough clearly hadn’t.

It stings a bit to think about, because Hyunjin wants their lives to be perfect. But he realizes that that’s unrealistic, and has settled for being grateful that most things are perfect and that they’re working on the rest. It’s a relief to know that Minho understands fear and needs reassurance too, because he really doesn’t seem like it 99% of the time. But Hyunjin knows his husband almost all the way through by now, and even if their life isn’t always the enchanting fairytale he’d prefer it to be, Hyunjin is convinced that it wouldn’t have been with anyone else either, and definitely not on his own. If life with Minho feels like a fairytale three hundred and fifty days a year instead of three hundred and sixty five, Hyunjin will take it with no complaints. There hasn’t been anywhere near fifteen bad days anyway, in these nine months, and Hyunjin would consider himself lucky even if these nine months were all he had. 

Being with Minho makes him feel lucky. It makes Hyunjin feel lucky and happy and privileged; all the things he’d said in his vows and more things that he hadn’t. Minho didn’t and probably still doesn’t understand that he’s all Hyunjin wants, and that he could never be less than exactly what Hyunjin needs. The cameras caught him saying that Hyunjin was the luckiest person alive, and he is. He gets to love Minho. He gets to feel how much love Minho holds for him. There is no doubt in his mind that no one could love him better or in the exact way that he needs besides Minho, and Hyunjin wants nothing more than to be the person Minho deserves in return. ‘Idolize’ probably isn’t the right word, but he adores Minho. Hyunjin thinks the world of his husband, and he hopes and believes that he’ll always remind Minho of that fact. Every day for the rest of their lives, he’ll remind him.

Hyunjin isn’t awfully religious or spiritual, but he hopes that there’s a life after this one simply because he wants to love Minho for that one, too. He doesn’t really believe in the multiverse or other dimensions, but he hopes that they exist simply because he wants to love Minho in those, too. Hyunjin considers himself a romantic and not a fatalist, but he hopes that something more powerful and all-knowing than pure chance brought them together. Something like destiny. Something that already knew they were meant to be.

Regular people don’t get to experience this, Minho had said at their wedding, and he was probably right. What love could and should be, Felix said just today, probably equally true. The romantic in Hyunjin is inclined to believe so, because there is no way that another person has ever lived and proceeded to love somebody else more than the way Hwang Hyunjin loves Lee Minho. He’d been skeptic, neurotic, pessimistic even, walking through those doors. But Hyunjin walked back out with the love of his life, who will remain exactly that for the remaining lives Hyunjin will live as well. Hyunjin walked out with the epitome of love welcoming him into his arms and his life and his heart, and Hyunjin has never been more grateful for anything in his life.

He supposes his only contender in terms of loving someone must be his husband, and Hyunjin might just accept defeat one day. Minho did vow to love him well enough in this life to make the universe create reincarnations of them in order to let him love Hyunjin the way Minho needs to until the end of time, after all. Hyunjin might admit that his husband has got a good head start on him, but not yet defeat. He wakes up every morning loving Minho more than the day he did before, and Hyunjin’s heart smiles when it pictures how it must feel to wake up in ten or fifteen years, when he can’t even fathom loving Minho more than he already does.

And yet, Hyunjin will wake up tomorrow and prove himself wrong, just like he did this morning. And yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that…