Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hyunjin wants to get lunch from one of the on-campus convenience stores, shooting a text to Felix that he would pick something up for him so could he please try and snag their favorite table under the big tree in the quad. Hyunjin will riot if he has to sit out in the sun and bake during the late spring heat. Why any of this involves Seungmin is anyone’s guess, and why Minho tags along is even more of a mystery. 

Seungmin and Hyunjin share morning classes on Tuesdays, and Hyunjin hates doing anything by himself. If he has to go to the convenience store for lunch he will drag Seungmin with him by the scruff of the neck if he has to. Usually, his friend doesn’t really complain, but Minho could tell that Seungmin is in a Mood today. Had seen it in his eyes when they’d walked past, and Seungmin glanced at him with this dead look in his eyes. Something’s happened, so Minho follows them to keep an eye on his friend. 

At the convenience store, Hyunjin leaves to find himself and Felix something to eat, telling Seungmin he was on his own despite having dragged him all the way here, but Seungmin just sighs as he storms over to one of the fridges and pulls out a bottle of iced coffee. 

Minho’s eyes are glued to his phone, holding it up in just a way that he can easily peek over it to Seungmin if he needs to. Arguably, he looks as if he’s just scrolling through social media. In reality, he’s looking for the trigger. Something has happened and that’s why Seungmin is in a foul mood, and Minho hadn’t paid attention to what that is. 

He figures out what it is at the same time Seungmin walks down one of the aisles stocked with magazines towards the front of the store, and he pauses when one of them catches his eye. Minho lowers his phone as soon as he’s figured it out, eyes instantly finding Seungmin, and he sighs when he sees him among a small forest of glossy pages. 

Figuratively tip-toeing his way over, Minho is only vaguely aware of Hyunjin two aisles over looking over the packaged food available while trying to decide what Felix would like. Seungmin is staring at one of the magazines so intensely, Minho would have thought he could light it on fire with pure force of will alone. “So, that’s why you’re so pissy,” he murmurs. 

Seungmin tears his eyes away from the magazine cover to look up at Minho. Then he looks back down at the magazine cover before, as if realizing what he’s doing, he turns away and pretends he hasn’t seen it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says through gritted teeth, coffee clutched in both his hands. 

Minho reaches out and plucks the magazine from the stand. Seungmin can’t help it, his eyes are drawn to it, and he watches as Minho flicks through it with mild interest. “I thought it was because of Felix. I know he won’t shut up about their new album dropping soon, but you’re usually pretty good at just ignoring him once he gets going,” Minho murmurs. He pauses on one page of the magazines, eyebrows raising in surprise. “Wow.” 

And like a starved dog, Seungmin can’t help his curiosity. “What?” He demands, grabbing onto Minho’s arm so he can tilt the magazine in his direction. He doesn’t know what he expects, maybe something unexpected, but Minho is just open to one of the photo spreads. 

“Jisungie looks good these days, huh?” Minho remarks. 

Seungmin’s eyes remain shamefully glued to the photo spread of Han Jisung—Han, now, as he’s professionally known. Minho is right. He does look good in a way he really shouldn’t, a way he doesn’t have the right to, but he’s famous now. His looks are carefully curated, and the white t-shirt and ripped black jeans look ridiculously good on him despite how mundane it is. Maybe because he looks oddly normal to Seungmin. He almost looks like he had back in high school, dumb headphones around his neck and all. It’s only his hair that stands out really, a shock of dark pink or maybe red. Seungmin doesn’t really know what to call it other than unique. 

He forces himself to look away from the magazine, telling himself that his racing heart is in anticipation of the caffeine he’s about to ingest. “He looks like a dork,” he snorts, “like always.” 

He takes a step towards the cashier only to pause when Minho says, “Seems like they’re pretty happy to show off his soulmark these days too. Or at least they don’t care as much.” 

The urge to turn around and snatch the magazine from Minho is strong, but Seungmin’s willpower is stronger. He hadn’t seen it although he knew exactly where it was. At this point, he’s just used to seeing it covered up. “Daring option,” he mutters under his breath. 

“Only for you,” Minho snorts. “You could show yours off a little more, you know. It’s not like anyone would ever guess your Han Jisung is the world famous Han.” 

“Don’t call him that.” 

“Why? It’s true. Even Felix knew about 3RACHA from Australia.” 

Clenching his jaw, Seungin spins on his heels and stalks back to Minho. He’s got this satisfied little grin on his lips as Seungmin approaches like he got exactly what he wanted. He doesn’t even flinch when Seungmin snatches the magazine from his hands. 

The younger man resolutely tries to ignore the picture Minho had been looking at. The white T-shirt was shorter than Seungmin had initially thought, not exactly cropped, but not long enough to cover the bit of his soulmark that Seungmin knows is on his hip. Even with the brief glimpse, no one would ever know what name was scrawled out on the skin there, not unless his stylists suddenly decided to let him perform without pants. 

He flips through the magazine, through the other pictures until he lands on Changbin’s photos. He shoves the magazine back into Minho’s face who dramatically pretends to be horrified by the onslaught. It doesn’t help. Seungmin’s chest still feels empty as he finally walks up to the cashier to pay for his coffee at the same time Hyunjin gets there. 

Hyunjin startles when he bumps into Seungmin and then blinks slowly as he takes in his tense body language. He doesn’t say anything, can tell by the way Seungmin presses his lips together that he would probably die a little on the inside if Hyunjin asks if he’s okay. Instead, Hyunjin dumps the handful of items he grabbed for his and Felix’s lunch on the counter and nudges Seungmin out of the way. 

“This is all together,” Hyunjin smiles at the cashier and pulls out his card. 

“You didn’t have to,” Seungmin mumbles after Hyunjin pulls his card out of the chip reader. 

His friend shrugs his shoulders, digging the coffee out of the little bag the cashier had put everything in. He presses it into Seungmin’s hands and smiles. “Don’t worry about it. I just wanted to do something nice.” 

“God knows Sourpuss over here needs it,” Minho teases as he walks up to them. He’s still got that cursed magazine in one hand. Seungmin can’t help but stare at it as he stabs his plastic straw through the top of his coffee. He watches in horror as Minho hands it over to the cashier and pays for it. 

“You read magazines, hyung?” Hyunjin blurts out as he watches Minho buy it. Minho didn’t read anything unless it was 280 characters or less and on Twitter. He might occasionally read a few textbook paragraphs for school too. 

“No.” Minho grabs the magazine and turns to Seungmin. Seungmin’s fixation on the magazine hadn’t escaped his notice. With a coy smile, Minho offers the magazine to him. 

Seungmin shies away from it like the magazine might set him on fire from the inside out if he gets too close to it.

Hyunjin snorts at Minho and jokes, “Really? You bought a magazine featuring 3RACHA for their greatest hater?” 

“I don’t hate them,” Seungmin replies automatically, it’s practically robotic at this point. It was a joke. A teasing title bestowed upon him by Felix who couldn’t understand how Seungmin wasn’t tripping over himself and completely obsessed with 3RACHA. Felix who apparently couldn’t understand the concept of different musical tastes. “I just don’t like their music. It’s not really my style,” says Seungmin. It’s the same explanation he always has because it’s true. 

Hyunjin hums, accepting Seungmin’s answer because he knows the kind of soothing R&B songs that Seungmin prefers. 3RACHA’s heavy beats and raps weren’t really his thing. Minho, on the other hand, cocks his eyebrow skeptically but at least lowers that accursed magazine to his side. 

“I just don’t like their music!” Seungmin insists when he catches Minho staring. 

“Of course,” Minho agrees dryly. Seungmin glowers at him in warning, eyes briefly flicking to Hyunjin before meeting the older man’s eyes. Minho takes the hint and quickly changes the subject. “Of course I didn’t waste my money on Seungmin,” he sighs in response to Hyunjin’s original question. “It’s for Felix.” 

“Oh, Lix will love it,” Hyunjin agrees. 

“Lix probably already bought one,” Seungmin adds. 

“Do you really think he’ll be upset if he gets another one for free?” Minho points out as he tucks the magazine under his arm. “My New Year’s resolution was to do something kind at least once a day, and this is it for me, so don’t expect anything else. Now, if you two are done, shall we be on our way?” 

As it turns out, Felix hadn’t bought that magazine yet although he had planned to, so it’s a welcome surprise when Minho gives it to him along with his lunch. 

“Oh, my God!” Felix doesn’t even touch his food as he flips open the magazine. He doesn’t even read it, Seungmin notes. He just flips to the photo spread and interview of 3RACHA, sticking his nose into the pages as if he were reading a fantastic novel and not just staring at pictures and reading short answers about their musical inspirations. 

Seungmin sips on his coffee and is grateful for the fact that he couldn’t see any of the photos by accident with the way Felix is holding it, not that his gaze ever travels that way. No. Never. 

“So, why did they randomly drop photos in a magazine?” Hyunjin asks as he leans over into Felix’s personal space to take a look too. He squints, trying to read the small text of the interview, but it’s too difficult with the way Felix keeps flipping back and forth between the different pages. 

“It’s not random,” Felix scoffs as if Hyunjin should know this. “Their new album drops at the end of this week. Friday.” 

“Oh.” Hyunjin scratches his chin. “Is that this week?” 

Yes, Seungmin thinks to himself. He knows all about that, practically has the date ingrained on the back of his eyelids and burnt into the forefront of his brain not because he liked 3RACHA but because Felix had been going on about it for nearly a month and a half since it was first announced. It’s going to be miserable, and Seungmin is grateful for the fact that it at least drops late on Friday because it will mean he gets a whole weekend of peace before Felix and Hyunjin inevitably blast the new album for the next few weeks at lunch. 

“Oh, wow, look.” Hyunjin reaches out to stop Felix from turning to the next page. “Han’s got his soulmark on his hip. That’s kinda hot.” 

“Where?” Felix practically buries his face into the magazine. 

Minho can’t help it when he glances at Seungmin, but the younger man has maintained a carefully blank expression. He just sucks a little more viciously on his straw, finishing up the last of his coffee. 

“Aw! Look at that,” Hyunjin coos, pointing to something else on the page. “They asked about his soulmate.” 

Seungmin freezes, eyes shaking as he listens to Hyunjin read out the short excerpt. 

“‘You’ve been showing off little bits of your soulmark these days. What kind of person do you think your soulmate is? Or what kind of person do you want your soulmate to be?’ And Han said, ‘I would hope my soulmate is someone who loves  music as much as me, and obviously loves my music, but more importantly I hope my soulmate is someone with a kind heart and sweet smile.’ Isn’t that adorable?” 

Seungmin accidentally sucks the straw into his mouth far enough that it hits the back of his throat. He gags, choking as he drops the empty coffee cup onto the table. Tears prick at the corner of his eyes as he begins coughing and he holds a hand up to cover his mouth, waving Hyunjin and Felix off when they both look up from the magazine to stare at him. 

“It’s nothing,” he chokes out between coughing fits. “Just an accident.” 

They turn their attention to Minho afterwards who couldn’t help but snort after listening to the interview too. “Sorry,” he apologizes, glancing at Seungmin. His friend is red faced, tears threatening to fall from his eyes, and it just makes him laugh harder. “The answer was just funny.” Seungmin kicks his leg underneath the table, and Minho really has to fight to keep the grimace from his expression. 

“I think it’s a cute answer,” Felix protests. 

“It’s generic as fuck,” Minho counters. Seungmin tries to kick him again, but Minho is ready this time. 

“Oh, whatever. You guys just hate them for no reason!” Felix accuses. It’s not something he actually takes that seriously, but he always falls back on that joke whenever Seungmin or Minho respond to his excitement in a remotely negative way. 

“I just choked on my straw,” Seungmin defends. “I didn’t say anything.” 

Felix turns his attention to Seungmin and seizes the opportunity to get his friend to say at least one positive thing about them. “Right? It’s a cute answer, right? It’s not that generic. I mean, how can he get specific if he hasn’t met his soulmate yet?” 

Seungmin opens his mouth and then quickly closes it again, glancing to Minho for damage control, but the elder is also quiet. This was a little bit awkward, but before Felix could pick up on it, Hyunjin managed to interject with a joking, “Yeah, how’s he gonna know if he hasn’t met me yet?” 

Seungmin has never been so glad for one of Hyunjin’s typically ill-timed jokes, and he awkwardly laughs along with Felix as he reaches out to right his empty coffee. “Right. I’m sure he’d be all over you the second he sees you,” Seungmin replies dryly. “Remember that time a celebrity started dating Hyunjin because he just fell in love with his good looks and charms at first sight? No? Oh, right because that will never happen.” 

“You’re such a hater,” Hyunjin sticks his tongue out at him. “And just wait. All I’d have to do is meet one of them. You know, the only impossible part about this plan.” 

“Right?” Felix sighs as he finally closes the magazine. “They’re having a meet and greet this weekend after the album drops, but good luck getting into that. Just trying to get tickets would be a shit show, and they’d all be bought up by bots anyway.” 

Hyunjin takes a sip of the soda he bought with his lunch before pointing a finger at Minho. “Like that guy? We should just ask Minho to try and get us tickets. He always manages to get tickets to their shows, remember?” 

Felix whirls around to Minho, scooting closer to the older man as he widens his eyes and puckers his lips into a cute pout. “Hyung,” he whines, and he doesn’t even have to ask his question before Minho’s sighing and pushing him back across the bench towards Hyunjin. “You’re so good at that stuff, hyung. I’ve never understood how you manage to get those tickets.” 

“He’s a bot,” Hyunjin insists. 

“I can try to get two,” Minho offers, waiting for their cheers to die down before he points at Hyunjin and says, “You’re not going though.” 

“Why not?” Hyunjin squawks. 

Minho raises his eyebrows at him and says, “Aren’t you supposed to be working on an end of the semester showcase, or have I forgotten something.” 

Hyunjin stares at him blankly for a moment before he’s hit by the sudden reminder. With a gasp, he brings his hands to his head and cradles it like he’s trying to soothe the headache he knows will be coming this weekend. “Fuck, I totally forgot,” he moans. “Thank god you remembered. My group mates would have been pissed.” 

“Oh.” Felix’s brief disappointment is replaced with hope as he looks back at Minho. “Well, you and I can go together, right hyung?” 

Minho smiles apologetically at him. “Sorry, Felix. I wasn’t planning on trying to get tickets because I couldn’t make it anyway. I’ve got something important to do this weekend.” 

After all these years of knowing him, Seungmin is still impressed by how easily and smoothly Minho can lie sometimes. Minho doesn’t have weekend plans. He almost never has weekend plans other than waking up and staying in bed, naked, until he eventually has to get up to make lunch before going back to bed, naked. And if he can’t spend his weekend like that then he’s done something wrong during the week. Seungmin knows this. He’s known this about Minho since he was in middle school and his mom sent him over to Minho’s house for a Saturday because she had to work, and Minho was the nice older boy who just started high school and sometimes babysat for her. 

So when Minho glances his way, Seungmin is ready to call him out for his lies and tell him to just go with Felix to the stupid meet and greet event. The words get lodged in his throat, though, and Seungmin is unable to get them out when Minho points to Seungmin and suggests he and Felix go together.  

“You want to send Felix to a 3RACHA meet and greet with their biggest hater?” Hyunjin asks skeptically. 

“I don’t—” Seungmin raises his voice to insist, once again, that he doesn’t hate them before quickly giving up with a sigh. It’s just the title he should bear proudly at this point. 

Unlike Hyunjin, Felix seems to have absolutely no qualms at the prospect of going together with Seungmin. He actually seems excited about it. “Seungmin, please? I can’t go alone! And this is the perfect opportunity to show why they’re perfect and amazing.” 

Seungmin shifts in his seat uncomfortably and wishes that he still had some of his coffee left over so he would have an excuse to not respond to Felix. “I—” 

“It’s decided then,” Minho interjects before Seungmin can finish his thought. “If we get tickets, Seungmin will go with Felix.” 

The young Australian cheers at the proposal while Hyunjin laughs at Seungmin’s expense and says, “Have fun. And try not to be mean to their faces.” 

Seungmin wants to say that it won’t be a problem because one, he’s not actually that rude, and two, he doesn’t plan on going away. “I’m not going to be mean to their face. I’m not rude,” he protests, never quite getting around to insisting that he’s not going to go either. “And, I mean, that’s assuming we even get tickets.” He glances at Minho meaningfully, but his friend just turns a smile to Felix. 

“When do they go on sale?” He asks sweetly. 

“Tomorrow at two,” Felix replies because of course he already has that shit memorized. “I’m ditching my sociology class at one just to make sure I’m ready for it.” 

“That dedicated, huh?” Seungmin remarks. 

“You’ve never ditched a class in your life. You wouldn’t understand,” Minho chides him. “You’ll drag yourself to class even if you’re sick and dying.” 

“No, I don’t,” Seungmin rolls his eyes. “I just don’t get that sick.” 

“I’m helping with the cause too,” Hyunjin volunteers with a raise of his hand. He looks at Seungmin and motions to him next. “You should help too. Between the four of us, someone is bound to be able to get two tickets, right?” 

Seungmin grumbles that there’s no reason to even try that hard while glaring at Minho, but the older man resolutely ignores him. Louder, he says, “I have an O Chem test next week I need to start studying for since I might be busy this weekend, so you’ll have to manage it without me.” He smiles at Felix when his friend pouts and silently begs for his help. “Sorry, Lix. The most I can offer is moral support.” 

Sighing, Felix folds his arms on top of the table and finally looks down at the convenience store dosirak Hyunjin bought for him. “I guess it’ll have to do,” he says morosely. Hyunjin pats him on the back while murmuring words of comfort that Seungmin could use himself right about now. 

He stares blankly down at the table as dread begins to claw its way out of his gut. God, this weekend is going to suck. 

The commute from campus to Minho’s apartment is busy although Seungmin manages to snag a seat on the subway before Minho when a high schooler he’d been standing in front of got up. Minho holds on to one of the handles above the seats and peers down at Seungmin as he flips through the study guide he made for his upcoming test. He invited Seungmin to come over after lunch, figuring that his friend would want to talk. Seungmin is more angry than Minho originally thought though. 

“Are you really that upset about going?” Minho asks. 

Seungmin doesn’t even look up from his notes when he replies, “What makes you think I’m upset?” 

“Well, normally you’re nice enough to offer me the first seat,” Minho points out. 

Sucking in a deep breath, Seungmin forces himself to look up at his friend and asks, “Do you want to sit down?” He strains to keep his tone friendly and prevent the frustration from coming through. 

“No,” Minho answers. “I’m good standing.” 

Seungmin huffs, wondering why he bothered to complain if he was fine. “I’m not angry,” he lies because he is just a little bit annoyed. “I’m just stressed because of this test next week. It’s my last midterm in O Chem before finals, and now I have to go with Felix to this thing over the weekend instead of studying.” 

“So, you’re stressed because of this test,” Minho says slowly, “not because you’re going to see Jisungie this weekend?” 

Seungmin looks up from his notes sharply, and the unhappy line of his lips make it clear exactly what is upsetting him, and it isn’t the test. “I can’t believe you, by the way,” he grumbles. “Since we’re on the subject. What the hell were you thinking?” 

“What was I thinking?” Minho snorts. “I was thinking that it’s been almost three miserable years since you last saw your soulmate or even talked to him. I was thinking maybe it’s time you guys see each other again.” Jisung and Seungmin practically grew up together, had known they were soulmates since they were old enough to grasp the concept, and somehow managed to remain separated longer than they ever did actually dating. And Seungmin is miserable. Minho knows he is despite all the effort he goes through to try and hide it. 

“He broke up with me!” Seungmin hisses. And he hasn’t said a word to Seungmin since, he thinks to himself. “Clearly he doesn’t want to see me anymore. Showing up to his fan meet seems very stupid and the exact opposite of what he wants.” 

“That’s not what he says,” Minho counters. “And how would you know what he wants? When was the last time you talked to him?” 

Seungmin presses his lips into a thin line and doesn’t respond. He answers Minho’s question without even uttering a word. Three years. Seungmin hasn’t talked to him in three years, hasn’t spoken a single word to him since the fight that ended their relationship. 

“And I suppose you talk to him all the time then?” Seungmin asks, meaning to sound condescending, but he just sounds desperately curious to hear about him. 

“Occasionally. When I find the chance. He’s really busy these days,” Minho says. 

“And, what? You talk about me?” Seungmin buries his nose into his notes. 

“No, Jisung actively avoids talking about you,” Minho tells him. Annoyed, Seungmin flicks his gaze up to glare at his friend again, opening his mouth to reiterate why the hell he thought he was doing Seungmin any favors by bullying him into seeing his ex if he ex doesn’t even want to see him but he doesn’t get the chance to because Minho explains, “I talk to Chan-hyung more often. We talk about it.” 

Embarrassed, Seungmin holds his study guide up to his face to hide behind. He doesn’t know what to think about Chan and Minho discussing his broken relationship with Jisung. “That’s…” He doesn’t know what he wants to say. 

“He worries about Jisung,” Minho tells him. “And I worry about you.” 

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Seungmin assures him, trying to get his turbulent emotions back under control. “I’m fine. I’m fine with the way things are right now.” 

“Are you?” Minho leans down and pulls the study guide away from his friend’s face. 

“I am,” Seungmin bites back. “Why wouldn’t I be?” 

“Because he’s your soulmate, and you’re his,” Minho says simply. “And you, more than anyone, should understand what that means.” 

“Tell him that,” Seungmin retorts harshly, fighting to keep his voice down because the train is crowded and he’s sure at least one of their neighbors is eavesdropping in on this conversation. “Music meant more to him than I ever did—” 

“I watched the two of you grow up practically,” Minho cuts him off. “Don’t give me that bullshit.” 

“Whatever.” Seungmin pulls his notes away from Minho’s hand and shoves his nose back into them. 

Minho lets him, staring down at his friend with a thoughtful expression. He’s quiet until the subway reaches the next stop, one more to get to Minho’s, and waits until the passengers have done their little shuffle as some get off and more get on. “Are you sure you really want to go to this thing with Felix? Chan will be delighted if you do, you know, but you don’t have to.” 

“Don’t have to?” Seungmin scoffs. “Is that really fair of you to say after you basically bullied me into being Felix’s babysitter?” 

“Just say you don’t want to then,” Minho goads him. “I’ll magically cancel my made up plans and go with him instead.” 

Seungmin takes a deep breath and lifts his gaze up to Minho. The older man cocks an eyebrow at him, waiting for Seungmin to just say he doesn’t want to go. He just has to say it, and Minho will cover for him. There’s a lead weight in his throat, though, and he looks back down at his study guide without a word. 

“That’s what I thought,” Minho murmurs quietly. It’s not teasing or mean, just an observation, a note that he was right to push Seungmin a little bit this time. He’s always been respectful of Seungmin’s boundaries and limits in this aspect, careful of the raw wounds that, three years on, Seungmin hasn’t managed to heal, but he’s also not one to sugar coat his words either. “You want to see him again.” 

“I don’t want to see him,” Seungmin denies automatically. “Felix just doesn’t want to go alone.” 

Minho reaches out to ruffle Seungmin’s hair affectionately. “It’ll be okay,” he assures him. “You only get, like, two minutes to talk anyway. Not even you can start a fight in that amount of time.” 

Seungmin laughs at Minho’s joke and tucks his notes away into his bag when the train slows to a stop at Minho’s station. “Right,” he agrees. “It…it’ll be fine.” What could go wrong in two minutes anyway? Seungmin’s pretty sure  they were unlikely to even say more than three words to each other. Probably just a “how’s it going?” and then Seungmin would take his autograph and leave like he actually cared to have it.

Yeah, fine. It would be fine. 

[1:04] lixie
minnie, where even r u? 

[1:07] seungmin
North library. Why? 

[1:07] lixie
u on the third floor in the usual spot? jinnie and I are coming. Gotta get set up.

Seungmin eyes the message curiously for a minute before promptly forgetting about it when the pull of getting his homework done brings his attention back to his laptop. He wants to try and clear out as much time as possible so that he can focus on this upcoming midterm. 

Less than ten minutes later, Felix shows up with Hyunjin in tow. He’s got his laptop tucked under his arm and a coffee in hand as he marches for the table Seungmin has occupied for himself. Seungmin catches one glimpse of them and then immediately starts gathering his textbook and notebooks he has sprawled out across the table, turning them into a neat pile to make room because if he doesn’t Felix or Hyunjin will inevitably shove something aside. 

Felix flops down in the seat across from Seungmin and sets his laptop on the table, flipping it open wordlessly. His expression is so serious, Seungmin would have thought he was gearing himself up for finals rather than trying to buy tickets to a meet and greet event. “This is perfect. The library’s wifi is the best,” he murmurs to himself. Seungmin raises an eyebrow at him, but Felix is too focused on his screen to notice. 

Hyunjin at least has the decency to greet Seungmin first. “Seungmin-ah~” He sings his name in an accent and sets down one of the two iced coffees he’s holding in front of Seungmin. 

He looks at the coffee and then Hyunjin, murmuring out a thank you as he eagerly accepts the free gift of caffeine. “Isn’t it, like, a little too early to be getting ready for this? Don't you have an hour or something?” 

“It’s never too early when you’re facing stiff competition,” Felix says in a sagely voice. His hands are already quivering a little even as he just holds them up in front of his keyboard. Seungmin can’t tell if it’s because of the caffeine or not. 

“Okay,” he says with a shrug. He certainly isn’t going to stand in Felix’s way. 

He pauses to take a sip of his coffee, and, as if this is the opening he’s waiting for, Hyunjin lunges across the table to snatch Seungmin’s laptop and drags it next to his own. “Hey!” Seungmin protests. “I’m doing homework.” 

“Your stupid calculus problems can wait,” Hyunjin assures him and then pauses as he stares at the unfamiliar keyboard. “Windows is so weird. How do you bring up a new tab? Where’s your command button?” He gives up on the keyboard and uses the trackpad to click on the new tab button on Seungmin’s browser. 

“Windows is better than the Apple OS,” Seungmin argues as he reaches across the table to drag his laptop back to his side. Hyunjin was clearly in the middle of trying to set him up to attempt for the tickets too, but Seungmin just closes out of that tab. Besides, Jisung liked Apple, so Seungmin, naturally, stuck to androids and Windows.

“Agreed,” Felix adds in Seungmin’s defense. “There are, like, no games compatible with MacOS.” 

Seungmin returns to his homework, expertly tuning out Felix and Hyunjin’s squabble over which operating system  is superior. He’s had years of practice by now, and it’s easy enough when these calculus questions require him to actually think. It’s not until they eventually drop the subject—with no real winner in the end as per usual—and Hyunjin addresses him again that Seungmin is briefly pulled from his focus to look at him. 

“So, does this mean Seungmin will actually have to buy a 3RACHA album for once?” 

“Why would I have to buy one?” Seungmin asks sharply. 

“Well, what else are you gonna ask them to sign if you show up without one?” Hyunjin rolls his eyes. 

Seungmin wants to reiterate that, again, this is all dependent on actually getting in, but he doesn’t bother. Despite giving it an honest shot on their own, they basically all know that Minho will come up with tickets somehow. Hyunjin will claim he’s a bot, Felix will call him a miracle worker, and Seungmin will wonder if Minho and Chan talked about him again when Minho asked him for tickets as a favor. 

“You should get it,” Felix says eagerly. He clamps down on his enthusiasm just a bit when Seungmin turns his bewildered expression to him. “Their teasers all sound great, and their style’s changed a lot since their debut. You might like them now. Plus, their B-sides are amazing. Especially now that they’re expressing their own individual styles with them.” 

Seungmin licks his lips and denies that his curiosity is piqued. He hasn’t listened to Jisung’s music in years. Not since, well, since they were on good terms because as much as Felix sang their praises and blasted their music at any opportunity, Seungmin always tuned it out, never paid close enough attention to determine if there had ever been a shift in their music. “Individual styles?” He asks, clearly sounding too curious because Felix brightens up and immediately pounces on his moment of weakness. 

“Yeah! Like Bang Chan is probably the most experimental. You never know what kind of song it’ll be when he writes it, and Changbin does a lot of, like, party anthem stuff—other things too, obviously,” he adds quickly because “party anthem” is definitely not the way to hook Seungmin. “And Han writes a lot of sappy and sad love songs.” 

Seungmin stares at his math homework without actually seeing it. “Sad love songs?” he repeats. It didn’t sound like Jisung at all. He liked love songs because Seungmin liked them, but he didn’t typically do sad anything. Seungmin always remembered his music as upbeat. Something that was easy to wake up to and always used to bring a smile to his face. 

“It’s, like, his favorite genre,” Hyunjin agrees. “You know it’s gonna be a sad ass love song if it’s got his name on it.” 

“They’re really good, though,” Felix defends. “Maybe you’d like it. You like that kinda thing, don’t you?” 

Seungmin isn’t paying attention because he’s already pulled up a new tab and quickly typed in “3RACHA Han Jisung songs” before viciously hitting the backspace button. No, no, he is not at all tempted to listen to any of those tracks, doesn’t want to know if their break up might have inspired one or all of the songs. Seungmin definitely isn’t tucking away that google search in the back of his mind to pull out again at a later time, preferably in the comfort of his own dorm where the only person who might hear him listening to his ex’s songs is his roommate. And Seungmin is pretty sure that Jeongin wouldn’t care. 

“Anyway, my point is you should give the album a listen,” says Felix. “You might like it.” 

“I—” Seungmin hesitates, staring down at the scratch paper he’d been using to solve his calculus homework. “I'll think about it.” 

Felix beams at him and cheers, “That’s all I ask, but also you will need an album for the meet and greet. Otherwise you’ll look super weird. And we are going. I’m sure of it. I can practically feel the ticket in my hand already.” 

“It’s digital,” Seungmin points out. 

“On my phone then!” 

Seungmin smiles at him. Felix is so cute sometimes. “There’s only ten minutes to two,” he says after glancing down at the clock on his computer. 

“Shit!” Felix sits up straighter, hands poised over his keyboard as he keeps tapping on his trackpad. Seungmin guesses he’s frantically refreshing his page to try and get in as soon as possible. 

Seungmin finishes up two more problems when Felix suddenly cries out, slamming his laptop shut before crumpling on top of it. He looks over the top of his own laptop to stare down at Felix, quirking an eyebrow at him. “What’s wrong?” 

“It’s already sold out,” Felix complains. 

Seungmin glances down at the clock on his computer, watching as the 2:00 ticks over to 2:01. “It’s been less than a minute,” he says. 

“I haven’t even loaded in yet,” Hyunjin squeaks. 

“Yeah, and they’re already sold out,” says Felix. 

“Well, then.” Hyunjin reaches out and quietly closes his Macbook. Clearly there isn’t any point now. 

Is that how popular they were now? Seungmin had an inkling, but never really saw it in action. He didn’t think that they would have any issue selling out their meet and greet, but he didn’t expect it to take less than a minute. He hisses sympathetically and leans forward to pat Felix on the back of his hand. “Sorry,” he says. 

“There’s still Minho!” Hyunjin exclaims. “Maybe he managed to get something.” 

“It was less than a minute,” Felix bemoans. 

Right on time, Seungmin gets a text from Minho. Picking his phone up, Seungmin presses his lips together when he realizes that all Minho texts him is a transfer to confirm the ticket is now in his hands. “Speak of the devil,” he mutters to himself. “Did you get a text from Minho?” He asks Felix. 

Immediately, Felix dives for his phone, holding it up to his face as he looks for a text from Minho. He squeals and lifts his phone up victoriously. “He got them!” He says. “Oh, my God. He actually got them.” 

“Bot,” Hyunjin mutters. 

Felix is already out of his seat, unable to contain his energy. He rounds the table to Seungmin’s side and pulls his friend into a hug. “My apartment. Saturday morning. We’re going to have so much fun together!” 

“Yeah,” Seungmin agrees, trying to fake his enthusiasm. “Fun. It’s going to be so fun.” 

He’s going to see Jisung. He’s actually going to have to face his ex. Swallowing down the nervous lump in his throat, Seungmin looks down at his trembling hands and clasps them together before Hyunjin or Felix can notice. Fun. Right, this would be fun. 

The rest of his week passes by in a complete blur. All of Seungmin’s plans kind of fell apart on him because every time he tried to execute on his plans, thoughts of Jisung would inevitably come up. The fact that he has to see him this weekend just ensured that his ex was all he could think about that week. He worries about what might happen. Would Jisung be happy to see him? Would he be mad? Maybe he would just pretend to not know who Seungmin is, treat him like any other fan, and Seungmin would come out just feeling angrier with his ex than ever. 

And with those thoughts would go the time he allotted for studying for his test is gone or no progress had been made on his homework. He can’t even try to squeeze in something Saturday morning before the meet and greet because he wakes up to a text from Felix telling him to get ready and come over as soon as possible. 

With a sigh, Seungmin bends down to sift through his drawers as he silently questions what the hell one wears to a meet and greet event. He should probably dress up, right? Not a suit and tie or anything, but maybe just something nice? It makes sense. Their fans probably want them to notice them, and dressing up is a good way of doing that, so Seungmin pulls out a ratty old pair of jeans he’s had since high school and an oversized black hoodie to hide himself in. 

Yeah, he thinks as he stares at himself in the mirror, this is perfect. Maybe Jisung won’t even know he’s there if he just pulls the hood up. 

Or, it would be perfect if Minho and Felix didn’t both stare at him in horror when he shows up on Felix’s doorstep. Seungmin thinks he could fight off Felix long enough for him to eventually give in and just let him do what he wants, but Minho wouldn’t let him go that easily. 

“What are you doing here?” Seungmin squints at his friend. 

“Uh, I got the tickets, and Felix wanted to make sure he looked cute,” Minho explains dismissively as he eyes Seungmin up and down. “What the hell are you wearing?” Seungmin wouldn’t even dress like this on a normal day. This is the kind of thing he wore at home where no one is looking, and Minho only knows because this is how he dressed when Minho used to come over and babysit him. 

“Something comfortable,” Seungmin responds. He hugs the hoodie around himself, digging his fingers into the long sleeves like he can already feel Minho ripping it off of him. “And loose in case I need to hide.” 

Minho places his hands on his hips and tilts his head. His expression is impatient, and Seungmin can tell he’s waiting for the younger man to just comply and take off this ridiculous hoodie. 

“Why would you need to hide?” Felix asks. He sounds concerned, reaching out to touch Seungmin’s elbow. 

“Do you even remember where you got that thing?” Minho asks slowly. 

Seungmin drops his head to look down at himself and—oh, yeah—he’d forgotten about that. It had been a birthday gift from Jisung a long time ago. He looks back up at Minho and curls his hands into the front of the hoodie. If he thought that was enough to get Seungmin to shimmy out of it he was wrong. “I didn’t know there was a dress code,” he sniffs. 

“I mean, there isn’t,” Felix admits. “But, I mean…” 

“You’re not going like that,” Minho finishes for him. 

“Why not?” 

Instead of answering, Minho turns to Felix and smiles charmingly at him. “Lixie, do you mind if Seungmin borrows some of your clothes? Just for today?”

“Yeah, sure.” Felix looks at Seungmin briefly before nodding his head. They’ve never shared clothes before, but Felix thinks his clothes might fit him. 

“You finish getting ready,” Minho says with a pat on Felix’s shoulder. Then he turns to Seungmin with a serious expression and seizes him by the arm. He adds, “I’m going to get this one cleaned up.” 

He drags Seungmin into the privacy of Felix’s room, closes the door behind them, and then whirls on his friend. Seungmin sinks down into the hoodie, proving that he is right. He can hide in this if he really wants to, and he really wants to hide from Minho’s judgmental gaze right now. 

“So, what exactly was the strategy? To try and go unnoticed this way?” Minho asks as he steps up to grab the hem of Seungmin’s hoodie, lifting it up to reveal a plain, white T-shirt underneath. He sighs. 

“I mean, I guess?” Seungmin admits. 

With a shake of his head, Minho heads for Felix’s closet, sifting through the hangers of clothes before bending down to open the drawers of his dresser. “Take it all off,” Minho orders him, “because I’ll tell you what, you’ll stick out like a sore thumb if you go dressed like that.” 

“But I don’t want to dress up,” Seungmin protests. He doesn’t want to look like he put in effort. 

“So dressing up like you plan to spend your Saturday alone in your dorm bed, crying over your ex and eating take out is the next best thing?” Minho asks in disbelief. “What do I always say about the way you dress?” 

Seungmin bites his lips and watches silently as Minho pulls out a pair of black jeans, wondering if he’d fit into them. Minho looks at him from over his shoulder, and Seungmin scrambles to pull off the hoodie. “That how we present ourselves gives off an impression on others,” he grumbles to himself as he lets the hoodie drop to the floor. 

“Yes, that’s why everyone thinks you’re a certified nerd because you love sweater vests and cardigans and for some reason you own more khaki pants than jeans,” Minho tells him. 

“They match well with everything though.” 

“So do jeans.” 

Frowning, Seungmin stares at Minho’s back as he sifts through the sweaters hanging in Felix’s closet. It’s spring. Isn’t it too warm for those? “I just don’t want to look like I’m desperate for his attention,” he protests. 

“And what do you suppose he’ll see if you show up looking like a pathetic slob?” Minho counters. “It’s not even about trying to impress him, I just don’t want you to look this pitiful in front of him. You know what screams ‘haven’t moved on?’ the way you’re dressed right now. You don’t have to dress to impress, let’s just make sure you don’t look like you’re still an emotional mess from three years ago? He certainly won’t look it.”   

Minho pulls out a cropped baby blue sweater that doesn’t look like it would be too warm. It’s cute and absolutely looks like something Felix would wear. When Minho turns around to show it to him, Seungmin gulps and nervously eyes the deep v-neck collar. It’s revealing. Seungmin lifts his hand up to cover his collarbone where he knows his soulmark is. 

If he wore that people would see. It’d be exposed and out in the open, and people were bound to notice a soulmark like his at an event like this. It’s pretty eye-catching considering that it’s Han Jisung’s name. That seems like a sure fire way to draw attention to himself. 

Noticing the way Seungmin rubs at his collarbone, Minho inspects the collar of the sweater before looking over his friend. “You can keep the shirt on,” Minho suggests. Showing off his mark might be a bit much. “Take off your pants and change into these.” He shoves the sweater and jeans into Seungmin’s arms, not even waiting before his hands move down to undo the fly of the younger man’s jeans, tugging them down his hips. 

Seungmin cries out in alarm, trying to reach down and stop Minho with one hand while holding on to the clothes with his other. “Stop! Stop! I can change on my own.” 

“I’m just helping,” Minho grins. He pulls Seungmin’s pants down to his ankles and helps him step out of them. Then he holds onto the blue sweater he picked out as Seungmin wiggles into the black jeans. They’re tight, and the hem stops a bit far from his ankles, but Minho nods his head in satisfaction. 

Once Seungmin is fully dressed, he grins and eyes his friend from head to toe once before nodding his head. “Better,” he murmurs to himself. The sweater doesn’t quite fit, stopping just short of the hem of his jeans and revealing a strip of the white shirt, but it would have to do. Regardless it was better than that awful hoodie Seungmin showed up in. Minho bends down to pick up the offending piece of clothing from the ground and folds it over his arm. “I’ll hold on to this for now,” he says. “You can come pick it up from me later.” 

“Okay.” Seungmin tugs at the collar of his shirt and tucks his chin to his chest to look down at himself. He’s still worried that his soulmark might be visible. 

“It’s fine,” Minho assures him as he smacks Seungmin’s hand away and straightens out his rumpled shirt. A hint of ink could be seen beneath Seungmin’s white shirt, but someone would really have to be paying attention to even notice, and the most it really revealed was just that his soulmark is there. 

Seungmin reaches up again and stops when he catches Minho glaring before he drops his hand back to his side. “So, I’m good then?” He asks. 

“Hm, almost,” Minho says as he leads Seungmin to the door and ushers him outside. “Felix! Where are your hats? I need a cute beret.” 

Seungmin isn’t much of a hat wearer and has never worn a beret in his life up until this moment. He feels ridiculous in it and is sure he must look ridiculous too, but he doesn’t dare touch it while Minho is standing next to him. 

They’re ready to go, standing by the elevator, when Felix pats his back pockets and gasps out, “Oh, crap. I think I left my phone on the counter. I’ll be right back.” 

Minho tells him to take his time before turning to face Seungmin after Felix disappears back into his apartment. “Oh, right,” Minho exclaims to break the silence. He reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out the new 3RACHA album, handing it to Seungmin with a benign, “I got this for you.” 

Seungmin stares at the foreign object and reluctantly accepts it when Minho offers it to him. “Thanks,” he says, holding the album awkwardly out at arms length. He totally forgot to pick one up for today. 

“If you make sure they don’t make it out to you specifically, you could probably sell their signed album for quite a bit of money,” Minho suggests. 

Seungmin perks up at the idea. Well, that seemed like a much better idea than stuffing it into the back of his sock drawer to be forgotten. Seungmin could make money and give it to an actual fan. 

“Did you listen to it, hyung?” Seungmin asks, tracing his finger around the corner of the box. 

“Of course I did. I always give their stuff a listen.” 

“Is it good?” 

Minho smiles in that way that his eyes turn into little crescents, and he says, “I like it. I don’t think it’s your style though.” He says the last part teasingly and Seungmin groans. 

“Hyung,” he whines petulantly.  

Minho looks at him and his smile dims a little. “Are you going to be okay?” He asks. 

“Why would I not be okay?” Seungmin rolls his eyes. “It’s just Jisung.” 

Just stupid Jisung with his stupid music and all his stupid fans. He would be fine. What could Jisung even do to him at this point? 

Minho’s lips remained stretched into a smile, kind but not enough to reach his eyes. “You know, I asked Chan-hyung not to tell Jisung that you were coming.” 

Seungmin startles at the confession and blinks at him. “Y-you told Chan-ssi to keep it a secret? Why?” 

“Because,” Minho smiles tightly, still thinking about the way Seungmin chose to address Chan, “I figured it’d be a nice surprise for him when you show up. Or, if you need to chicken out of this, he won’t know either way. Can’t really be disappointed that you don’t show up if he never knew you were supposed to come in the first place, right?” 

“I…”Seungmin clenches his fingers around the album in his hand. “Why would he even be disappointed by that?” He’ll probably be mad if Seungmin does show up. He knows what Minho is really doing though. He’s giving him a way out if he needs it. 

“I think maybe you’ll be surprised then,” Minho mutters back. “Look, I want you to go—seriously, I do—but I understand if it’s too much or you’re not ready.” He sighs like he can’t believe he’s saying that because it’s been almost three years. “I think it’s good for the both of you, but if you’re really just hurting while you’re there, don’t do it. Just leave, okay?” 

“You’re going to say it’s okay to leave after you trapped me into going?” Seungmin accuses. 

“Because I think it’ll be better than you think. I think you’ll thank me for this later because you miss him,” Minho replies. “But if I happen to be really, really wrong, which is unlikely, then just excuse yourself and leave. No one will be mad at you.” 

Seungmin looks down at his feet just as Felix steps out of his apartment with his phone in hand. He takes a deep breath and quietly says, “It’s just Jisung. It’s just him. I’ll be fine.” 

The elevator finally arrives as Felix steps up to them after slipping his phone into his back pocket. “Sorry,” he apologizes, “my phone was actually in the bathroom and it took me a second to find it. Are we ready?” He looks to Seungmin for an answer. 

Seungmin nods his head as Minho ushers them into the elevator. “Yeah,” he says, speaking to both his friends. “I’m ready.” 

He is ready, Seungmin tells himself as he sinks into his seat in the auditorium reserved for this event. He didn’t know how any of this worked, so when they immediately started performing their new title track on their new album, Seungmin lulled himself into a false sense of hope. Is that it, then? Just a mini concert? Seungmin could do that, just another faceless fan in the crowd. 

That confidence is quickly put to the test when they start performing the other songs off the album as well. Seungmin nods his head along to the beat and smiles as he watches Felix sing and cheer along with the music. He’s just happy that his friend is happy honestly. It’s easy enough to just cheer along and enjoy the performance. That is until they perform Jisung’s song. 

Seungmin doesn’t even need them to tell him that their Han wrote this song because Hyunjin was right about his style. All Jisung wrote these days were sad love songs. Seungmin attempted to listen to a handful of them in his free time, but hadn’t managed to get through any of them without tearing up. It felt too personal. Jisung clearly took inspiration from his own personal experiences, and Seungmin didn’t want to hear it. 

He doesn’t have a choice now. Trapped in the middle of the auditorium, he doesn’t have a choice but to sit there and listen to Jisung beautifully belt out the lines to a fucking break up song. 

He sinks down into his seat and tries to ignore it, tune it out the way he’s used to when Felix blasts their music over his phone, but he can’t. It’s so much harder when it’s live with the lyrics coming straight from Jisung’s mouth and everyone around him is singing along. 

Seungmin presses his hands into his stomach and bends over his legs. He feels raw and exposed, almost convinced that Jisung is looking right at him and so is everyone else. He feels accusatory gazes on his back although not even Felix spares him a glance. His chest tightens and his throat constricts, and he has to focus on taking slow deep breaths to keep himself from crying. He wouldn’t cry, not here of all places. 

He’s so focused on the task of not crying that he doesn’t even notice when that damned song finally ends. It’s only when Felix grabs his arm and pulls him out of his seat that Seungmin realizes it’s over. 

“C’mon!” Felix yells in excitement as he yanks Seungmin to his feet only to pause when he notices how wet Seungmin’s eyes are. Hesitating, Felix glances at the line quickly forming down by the stage before focusing back on his friend. “Are you okay?” He asks, reaching out to touch Seungmin’s cheek. 

“I’m fine,” Seungmin insists. His knees are weak, and his hands are quivering. Felix is holding onto him by the forearm though, and Seungmin hopes he doesn’t notice. 

Felix furrows his eyebrows in concern and cocks his head to the side. “You look like you’re about to start crying though,” he murmurs in concern. 

“What?” Seungmin sounds as shocked as Felix looks, reaching up with his free hand to swipe his fingers just under one eye. It comes away wet with a tear, and he quickly blinks them away. “No—I just—the song,” he stutters out, “it was…really sad.” 

Instantly, Felix’s expression morphs from concern to shock and then to a heart melting smile. “Aww, it made you cry? I told you he writes a bunch of sad love songs. I knew you’d love them!” 

Seungmin smiles weakly and doesn’t have the heart to tell Felix that he’s wrong. He doesn’t even like the song. He downright despises it. Despises that Jisung is using their broken relationship to write songs. Minho could have warned him about that if he had listened to the album already. Wiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt to make sure his eyes are dry, Seungmin contemplates taking Minho’s advice and excusing himself to go to the bathroom. He didn’t have to go through with this, and he already feels like he’s been stripped bare and left vulnerable from that performance, but Felix still looks a little concerned, and he’s forfeited rushing into line to make sure Seungmin is okay, and—and Seungmin just knows how much this thing means to him. 

Taking a deep breath, Seungmin slaps on his best smile and nudges Felix out of the seats. “Come on,” he encourages. “This is the part you were waiting for, right?” 

“Yeah, but—”

“I’m okay,” he insists. “I was just…surprised. You were right. I guess I liked it so much I cried a little.” 

They’re not the last people in line despite Seungmin’s delay, but they are pretty far in the back. It’s kind of terrible because Seungmin has to stand there, eyes flicking back and forth between Chan and Jisung sitting at opposite ends of a long table, interacting with their fans while he keeps finding weird reasons to hold his hand up to his face to hide. This darn strand of hair just won’t stay in place and these stage lights are kind of bright. He also has his back angled to them, staring at the wall rather than at them in case Jisung recognizes him the closer he gets. The wait is torture though. 

The only upside is that Jisung doesn’t seem to have noticed him yet because he’s too engrossed with all the other fans who take a seat in front of him because every time Seungmin looks over, his ex is leaning forward, eyes fixed on whoever is in front of him with the kind of attention Seungmin would have killed for a few years ago. Huffing, he blows his bangs out of his eyes and squeezes the album in his hand. Or maybe Jisung has noticed him by now, and he’s just choosing to ignore Seungmin. 

He was good at that. 

By the time they’re at the front of the line, Seungmin is hunched over, trying to hide himself behind Felix’s smaller frame, but Jisung still isn’t looking in his direction. Unfortunately, Chan is, and Seungmin blanches when he accidentally catches the older man’s gaze and ducks down further behind Felix. 

When one of the staff motions for Felix to step up next, he practically skips onto the stage and plants himself on the chair in front of Bang Chan. He wastes no time leaning forward and pushing his album across the table to ask for his autograph. 

Seungmin feels way too exposed at the front of the line now, the album providing no real shield against them, but when he risks a glance in Jisung’s direction again, he still doesn’t seem to have noticed. Seungmin isn’t sure if he’s relieved or annoyed by that. 

Felix’s two minutes are up too quickly, and the staff motions for the next person to step up as Felix moves down the line to Changbin, practically bouncing in his seat. 

In the meantime, Seungmin takes a deep breath and marches up onto the stage, his lack of confidence obvious in the way he keeps his head ducked down. He practically dives for the seat in front of Chan, hunching down to try and remain unnoticeable, but as soon as he looks up and catches Chan’s gaze, he freezes. No, he was not ready for this. 

“Seungmin-ah,” Chan greets him warmly as if they’re familiar with each other. A lump lodges itself in his throat. “Long time no see. We’ve missed you.” 

We. 

Chan said “we.” Seungmin can’t stop himself from looking down the table to Jisung again. The lump in his throat only gets bigger because finally, for the first time, he catches Jisung’s eyes, and his ex is staring at him like he can’t figure out if Seungmin is real or not. 

His mouth goes dry, and he forces himself to look back at Chan, bowing his head as he passes the album across the table to him. “Can you please sign this for me, Chan-ssi?” He asks quietly. 

The idol raises an eyebrow at the way Seungmin addresses him but pulls the album closer so he can autograph it. “You can call me hyung, you know,” he murmurs quietly as he peeks at the staff members trying to monitor everything. “We’re not strangers.”

No, he can’t, and yes, they are. 

There was a brief moment a long time ago that Seungmin had called him hyung but not anymore. It didn’t feel right. He always knew Chan more in passing than he ever did personally. Jisung used to talk about him all the time when he was a trainee and desperately trying to split his free time between Seungmin and his dreams. It was always Chan-hyung this or Chan-hyung that, and Jisung thought he was a great mentor and looked forward to working with him. 

Seungmin thought it was cute back then. He liked hearing about how much Jisung admired his hyung, was just happy to know that Jisung had someone who shared and understood his passion, but Seungmin had only really met him a few times, and the last time they saw each other was the day he and Jisung broke up. Seungmin bumped into him after he came storming out of Jisung’s little studio—red-faced, eyes wet from crying, and tear tracks staining his cheeks. When Chan asked him what was wrong, Seungmin glared at him and told Chan that he hated him. He hated him for taking Jisung from him, and then he’d left without another word. 

So, no, Seungmin really doesn’t think he’s got the right to call Chan hyung anymore. 

When Seungmin’s only response is to just stare intently at a spot over Chan’s shoulder without uttering a word, the idol eventually sighs and looks down at the album Seungmin pushed towards him. “Let’s see then,” he mutters to himself, spinning the marker between his fingers. “To our cute, little Seungminnie,” he says out loud while signing the album. 

Seungmin jolts in his seat, ready to protest because he just needs Chan’s autograph. How is he supposed to sell this if Chan’s autograph is specifically made out to him? But the words get lodged in his throat, and he watches quietly as Chan finishes up signing. 

Satisfied, Chan picks up the autographed album and hands it back to Seungmin. When he reaches out to take it. Chan tells him, “I was worried you might not come.” 

Seungmin freezes momentarily before hastily snatching the album from Chan’s hands. “I wasn’t planning on it,” he admits in a quiet mumble. 

“What changed your mind?” 

A hundred answers fly through Seungmin’s brain at once as the staff start moving again, ushering the fan’s down the line. Minho bullied me into it, Minho thinks I should see Jisung again, I want to see Jisung again. But he settles on nodding in Felix’s direction as he stands up from his seat and answers, “I’m today’s babysitter.” 

Chan laughs at his answer while already turning to greet the next fan. Seungmin sits down in the next seat, looks up at Changbin, and visibly relaxes. This is about the most comfortable he’s felt since he showed up, and he can’t really explain why because he barely knows Changbin. He was the last to join their company and group, and Seungmin had only seen him once in passing and never said a word to him until today. 

“Hello,” he greets. 

“Hi,” Changbin returns with an easy smile. There’s a little bit of recognition in his eyes but he doesn’t comment on it. He doesn’t ask if he’s that Seungmin or even make any hint that he actually recognizes him at all. 

Maybe that’s why it’s comfortable. Seungmin can just pretend that he’s any other fan. Changbin doesn’t ask him to call him hyung or make any comments about Jisung. He just smiles at Seungmin. When Seungmin smiles back it doesn’t feel strained or faked, just polite. 

“Your autograph, please,” he asks politely as he slides the album across to him. He can feel Jisung’s eyes on him even while speaking animatedly with Felix, but Seungmin doesn’t give in. He keeps his attention focused on Changbin as he uncaps his pen and signs his album. 

“What do you think?” 

Seungmin falters at the question, blinking at Changbin curiously. “What do I think about what?” He asks. 

Changbin cups his chin in one hand and leans on it, lips curled up in amusement. “The album,” he clarifies. 

“Oh.” The album Seungmin just listened to for the first time today. “It’s good,” he answers and means it. “It’s—it’s the first one I really listened to.”

“Oh, yeah?” He pushes the signed album back towards Seungmin. “Well, I hope you listen to us more.” 

“Yeah,” Seungmin agrees. He doesn’t know if he’s lying or not. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it because the staff is moving again, and Seungmin tenses up. That means he has to move. That means he has to sit in front of Jisung. 

He doesn’t move from his spot until the girl behind him steps up and motions for him to move. She tries to be polite, but Seungmin can tell just how impatient she is. Clearing his throat, Seungmin smiles at her apologetically and reluctantly vacates his seat and shuffles over to Jisung. He eyes the seat in front of him like it’s a death sentence before looking up to Felix who’s standing by the bottom of the stage waiting for him. If it weren’t insanely rude or there weren’t a bunch of eyes on them, Seungmin might have just walked past him, but he’s better than that. He prides himself on being better than his ex, so he sits down, takes a deep breath, and then forces himself to look up. 

Jisung stares at him with wide eyes, lips slightly parted, and it occurs to Seungmin that Jisung is surprised to see him here. So much so that he doesn’t look like he believes it’s really Seungmin in front of him until Seungmin shoves the album in his direction with a grumbled, “Sign, please.” 

Jisung snaps his mouth shut but doesn’t stop staring until he has to physically look at the album to sign it. Not a word is spoken between them, and while Seungmin can’t say he’s surprised, it feels like there’s a void in his chest always filling up with disappointment but never getting full. 

Jisung sets his pen down once he’s finished signing the album, but he doesn’t slide it back over to Seungmin. He folds his hands on top of it and looks back up at his soulmate, bottom lip pulled between his teeth. “You look really cute today,” Jisung blurts out. 

Seungmin is a little ashamed to admit that his heart skips a beat at that compliment, and he suddenly feels like they’re back in middle school or high school. Jisung dropped those kinds of compliments all the time as if he always had them ready in his head, but Seungmin knew he wasn’t that kind of person. Jisung isn’t capable of thinking that far ahead. And Seungmin would always respond with some snarky insult of his own. 

Jisung looks at him expectantly, but Seungmin doesn’t have it in him. His heart stutters, but it doesn’t give him the same rush it used to. It just leaves him feeling awkward and a little bit empty. Brushing his bangs from his eyes, Seungmin’s gaze drops down to the table as he holds his hands out, silently asking for the album back. “You look good too,” he says. “I like your hair.” 

Jisung’s smile drops just the tiniest bit, and he holds onto the album, refusing to give it over yet. “You would’ve yelled at me for doing this to my hair,” he jokes. 

“You’re not a student anymore,” Seungmin reminds him. “You can do whatever you want.” He’s still expectantly waiting for the album. 

“Will you stay behind after this?” Jisung requests. “Just for a little bit. Please?” 

Seungmin hesitates. Why would Jisung ask him to do that? “I…I can’t,” he replies, and Jisung’s expression drops. “I came with a friend.” 

“Friend,” Jisung deadpans, looking over Seungmin’s shoulder at Felix. He practically glowers at Felix, and Seungmin would have reached out to slap him if he weren’t so far away and if security wouldn’t have some choice words for him if he did it. 

“Stop,” he scolds. “He’s just my friend.” 

Jisung tears his gaze away from Felix to look at him again. “So then, can you do it? Just wait outside, and I’ll come get you and your friend as soon as this is over.” 

Seungmin stares at Jisung’s fingers, all adorned with rings and still folded over his album. He doesn’t remember Jisung being a huge fan of rings although he has always liked jewelry. Seungmin still remembers when they were sixteen and Jisung managed to sweet talk his way to his first piercing even though he technically wasn’t old enough while Seungmin lectured him that waiting two more years really wasn’t that long. He still let Jisung hold his hand when he got his first piercings and definitely didn’t encourage it by buying his first pair of earrings. He’s gotten more since then but none while holding Seungmin’s hand.

“Why?” He wants to ask but holds his tongue. He doesn’t really want to know. No, he’s downright afraid of Jisung’s answer. “If Lix doesn’t mind then—” 

“Great!” Jisung beams as if Seungmin hadn’t just laid out a condition for staying behind. He picks up the album and holds it out to Seungmin who sighs as he accepts it. 

Their fingers brush against each other when Seungmin takes it from him, shivering when their fingers touch. It’s like a jolt of electricity travels from his fingers to his spine, pleasant the way it should be between soulmates. 

In many ways, Seungmin is familiar with the sensation. He was used to the pleasant tingle since they were little kids and Jisung would touch his arm or hand just to watch all the goosebumps form over Seungmin’s skin, and Seungmin would always use the same trick to cheat at games, touching Jisung just to make him jolt and throw him off. Jisung would whine until Seungmin made it up to him with a kiss on the cheek and then his lips when they got older.

 Over time Seungmin built up a tolerance for it though, and stopped reacting as strongly to Jisung’s touch even though the pleasant sensation remained. It’s been three years though, maybe even longer considering how little Seungmin saw of Jisung near the end of their relationship, since he’s felt that touch, and it spreads through Seungmin’s body like wildfire. His breath hitches and pupils dilate, and his next move is very, very stupid. 

He reaches out to grab Jisung’s hand when his ex pulls away, half-lunging across the table to reach him because he missed this. He missed Jisung’s touch so much. 

It only occurs to him that he’s made a mistake when he hears a bunch of gasps behind him. Jisung looks surprised by his action but doesn’t say anything as the next series of events unfold too fast for Seungmin to even really process them. 

3RACHA’s manager rushes up to Jisung, placing his hands on the artist’s shoulders and bending down to ask if he’s okay. Jisung turns to tell him something, but Seungmin never has a chance to hear what he says because a security guard grabs him by the wrist and pulls him off stage. If Seungmin had been hoping to low lay he just failed spectacularly because there’s an entire auditorium of eyes watching him as he’s dragged off the stage and out of the venue. Seungmin only briefly catches Felix’s gaze before quickly looking back at his feet. 

The security guard shoves him outside, and Seungmin feels a need to defend himself to this man. He’s not some deranged fan. He’s Han Jisung’s soulmate and even though they might not have any relationship beyond that right now, surely this  response is a bit drastic. He never does get to say a single word though because the guard gives him a once over and then, as if it’s extra punishment, he plucks the signed album from Seungmin’s hands and then closes the door on him. 

For a moment, all Seungmin can do is stare at the closed door, empty handed and in total disbelief. Then he starts laughing, both at him himself for being stupid and desperate enough to grab Jisung like that and at the situation as a whole. He just got kicked out of a meet and greet he didn’t even want to be at in the first place. 

That laugh quickly morphs into a sad little sob, and he has to cover his mouth with a hand to muffle the sounds of his cries. Why was he even sad? He didn’t want to be there. He wipes at his eyes and tries to ignore the way his fingers still tingle with the memory of Jisung’s touch. It’s embarrassment, he rationalizes. All those eyes on him as he’d been led out for giving into a moment of weakness and vulnerability had been too much. He just made a fool of himself in front of more than just his soulmate. 

His phone vibrates in his back pocket, and Seungmin sniffs quietly as he pulls it out to check his message from felix. 

[2:32] lixie
Mini wth happened? Where r u? I’m coming rn

Felix’s nickname is cute, typing it out in English and everything. It only briefly makes Seungmins smile. 

[2:32] seungmin
No, you can stay. There’s a coffee shop a couple blocks from here. I’ll just be there.

[2:33] lixie
but what about u? 

[2:34] seungmin
I’ll just have coffee. Come when you’re done.

There’s still some part where they have to take pictures or something from what Seungmin remembers. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care anymore. He pockets his phone and trudges off in the direction of the nearby coffee shop and doesn’t check his messages until he’s ordered a coffee. 

[2:34] lixie
okay but we’re talking about this as soon as this is done

Seungmin closes the door of the bathroom, quietly popping the lock, as he stares at the message on his screen. What was there to talk about? No, what would Seungmin tell him? Felix saw what happened. He must have. What the hell would Seungmin tell him for why he did that? 

Shuffling over to the counter, Seungmin places his phone screen down on the counter and braces his hands on the counter and leans forward. He stares at himself in the mirror and frowns at what he sees. His eyes are still wet and red rimmed from a few stray tears, but why is he crying? Because of Jisung? Yes, is the short answer. 

Jisung affected him far more than Seungmin had anticipated. He figured that it would just be awkward and that his bitterness and resentment would keep his emotions in check. In retrospect, Seungmin probably should have seen Jisung’s compliment coming. He had just assumed, mistakenly, that Jisung would have been equally as awkward and bitter around him, but Jisung was never like that. He was always the first to give in and apologize whenever they bickered regardless of if he was actually in the wrong while Seungmin could hold onto his grudge for days. 

So the easy compliment really shouldn’t have been a surprise but Seungmin’s reaction to it had been surprising. He’d been thrown off his game since Jisung called him cute. His bitterness had quickly melted away, and, as always, Jisung got his hopes up with his request for him to stay behind with the promise that they could talk. Things hadn’t turned out that way though. They never do with Jisung, and the higher he raises Seungmin’s expectations the harder he inevitably falls, and Seungmin makes the mistake of getting his hopes up again. 

Stupid. He’s so stupid. 

His phone starts vibrating again on the counter, incessantly this time so Seungmin knows it’s a call and not a text. He eyes the device warily for a moment before he picks it up to see who’s calling. Minho’s name is at the top of the screen, and Seungmin doesn’t know what he should feel.

Surprised? No, Felix probably texted him.

Worried? If Felix texted him then he probably told him what happened and Seungmin doesn’t really know if he can take an actual person—let alone Minho-hyung—calling him an idiot when his brain is doing enough work for him. 

Picking his phone up, Seungmin clears his throat and tests out his voice by saying hello to himself in the mirror a couple of times. When he’s sure he doesn’t at least sound like a complete mess, he picks up the call. 

“Hello?” 

Minho doesn’t say anything at first, perhaps surprised that Seungmin picked up or trying to determine how he is by the tone of his voice alone. “Where are you?” Minho finally asks in return. 

Seungmin shrugs, leaning forward to examine himself in the mirror and trying to wipe away any more stray tears. “There was a Twosome Place nearby,” he explains. “I just got a coffee and now I’m waiting until Felix is done. Did he text you?”

He hears Minho take a deep breath on the other end of the line. “No,” says Minho. “I’ve been monitoring Twitter all afternoon. I saw you basically attack Jisung, and all the stupid comments flooding in about it.” Seungmin opens his mouth to protest because he did no such thing. “What happened?” Minho asks in as gentle a voice as he can muster. 

“I got kicked out,” Seungmin says sardonically.

“Yes, but why?” Minho asks. “Did-did Jisung say something to you?” 

Oh. Minho is worried that Jisung said something to upset him.  

“No,” he denies. “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just—we touched, accidentally, and—and, you know, it’s been three years since I—since—” Seungmin isn’t sure he’s stuttered so much since the last time he had to give a presentation for a project back in high school. More tears spring to his eyes, partly embarrassed by his inability to really explain himself and partly upset as he tries to put a word to the frustration he’s feeling. 

“Oh. Oh, my god,” Minho gasps quietly, and Seungmin is thankful that his friend understands. Only Minho would. He’d seen the way they used their touches as weapons against each other in playful ways and the way they’d do it for comfort. Everyone knew what touches between soulmates were like but Minho knew what they were like for them, and it’s just kind of a relief that Seungmin doesn’t have to finish articulating his thoughts because he can’t do it. 

“It was stupid,” Seungmin admits in a small voice. “I didn’t mean to, and then security just grabbed me, and yeah.” 

“Do you want to come over?” Minho asks gently. “We can watch a movie. I’ll make something to eat.”

“No—yeah,” Seungmin quickly changes his mind. “After Felix is done. I don’t—I mean the thing is almost over I think.” 

“Okay. Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m fine,” he insists. “I’ll call you when I’m on my way, okay?” 

“Okay.” Minho sounds reluctant but eventually hangs up when Seungmin pretends that Felix is calling him now. 

Once he’s off the phone, Seungmin goes back to examining himself in the mirror. All his previous hard work has been undone by the tears that have gathered back in his eyes after speaking with Minho, and he turns on the sink and places his hands beneath the water to wash his face again. 

Apparently the event was a lot sooner to being done that Seungmin thought, or he had just taken much more time in the bathroom than he anticipated because there’s a knock at the door while Seungmin is still dabbing his eyes with a wet paper towel, trying to reduce the appearance that he’d been crying. He’d been holed up here for far too long and his iced Americano is probably all melted and slowly turning to room temperature. 

“I’m almost done,” he says, feeling sorry for whoever needed to actually use the restroom. 

“It’s me,” Felix’s deep voice comes from the other end of the door. “I saw your coffee still on the counter and figured you were in the bathroom or something.” He hesitates a second before he asks, “Can I come in?” 

Seungmin balls up the wet paper towels and chucks them into the trash before he turns to open the door. “No need,” he says, smiling warmly at his friend. “I’m all done.” He notices the iced americano in Felix’s hand and gladly takes it with murmured gratitude when Felix offers it to him.

Felix eyes him carefully, trying to assess the situation. When Seungmin smiles at him, he relaxes just the tiniest bit and jokes, “You know, I’ve seen a lot of people fall in love with Han quickly, but not as fast as you did.”  

Seungmin wants to laugh, he really does, but it’s hard enough to just smile at Felix’s joke. He didn’t know a damn thing, but that isn’t really his fault. Felix wouldn’t know exactly how long it took Seungmin to fall in love with Jisung, and that’s the problem really. Three years and all the bitterness and resentment hadn’t been enough because Seungmin is still completely and undeniably in love with his soulmate, and this is why Minho sent him here. 

He covers his mouth with a hand and turns away from Felix as another sob escapes from his throat. Felix is immediately alarmed by his response, running around to cup Seungmin’s cheeks. His eyes are wide in surprise and he’s completely thrown off guard by Seungmin’s unexpected reaction. “I’m sorry,” Felix apologizes, wiping tears from Seungmin’s face. “I’m sorry, it was just a joke. I was just joking.”

“No, it’s not your fault,” Seungmin assures him as he tries to push Felix away with his one free hand. “It was…it was funny.” 

Felix doesn’t look happy or comforted by Seungmin’s reassurances though. “Why are you crying then?” 

Seungmin lifts up the hand holding onto his coffee, the cup wet from all the condensation, and dabs at his eyes with the back of his hand. He shakes his head and answers, “It’s complicated.” And Seungmin doesn’t even really know if Felix will believe it because it sounds so surreal even in his head.

“Okay.” Felix blinks at him expectantly, still running his thumb over Seungmin’s wet cheeks, and it occurs to Seungmin that he’s waiting for an explanation. 

“I—Can we talk about this some other time?” Seungmin requests in a strained voice. “Tomorrow over brunch or something.” He doesn’t know why he specifies it so much when he knows Felix is the type of person to hold him to something like this. He’s just desperate to get out of here, and if Felix knows he’ll get an explanation soon he’s less likely to hold Seungmin hostage. 

Felix eyes Seungmin up and down for a second before nodding his head. “You wanna get out of here?” 

“Yeah. I’m going to hang out with Minho for a bit.” 

Felix hums in understanding, knows that they’re old friends and as much as they squabble and bicker in front of him and Hyunjin that Seungmin will always go to Minho if he needs something. “I’ll make sure you get there,” he offers.

Seungmin smiles gratefully at him, making sure the last of his tears are wiped away before he lets Felix pull him out of the bathroom. 

Jisung completely ignores the sound of his name falling from his manager and Chan’s lips as he pushes open the back door of the auditorium and rushes outside. He looks left and right but it’s empty around the back side of the building, so he jogs his way down to one end as his manager runs out the back door after him. 

“Han Jisung,” his manager yells, holding open the door so that it doesn’t lock behind him, “get back here right now.” 

Chan comes out behind their manager as Jisung reaches the corner of the building. It’s not a particularly huge building, but it would still take a while for him to run along the entire perimeter to search for Seungmin. If Seungmin is even still around. He’s not exactly hopeful that he is after how Seungmin had left the venue. He peeks around the corner of the building, but there’s no one there either.

“Jisung-ah,” Chan calls for him, and Jisung finally turns to look at them. “You can’t just go running off like this,” the older man chides him gently as he approaches him. 

Jisung doesn’t exactly resist when Chan grabs him by the elbow and gently pulls him back towards their manager. He does pout, though, whining at Chan. “But hyung,” he complains, “Seungmin was here. Seungmin came, and he promised to wait for me after this. We were gonna…” He’s not sure what he’s going to say. Talk? Make up? Make out? Jisung would have liked all three of those things, preferably in that order, but it doesn’t really matter anymore because Seungmin isn’t even here. 

“He’s not here,” Chan tells him gently with a shake of his head. “There’s no way security would let him loiter around after…” He trails off. He knows it was innocent, but the staff was just doing their job.  

Jisung’s lips set into an angry, upset line, and he pulls his arm out of Chan’s grip so he can march up to their manager. “Did you even know who that was?” He demands, pushing himself up onto his toes so that he’s eye level with him. It does very little to intimidate his manager though. 

“Who? The fan who grabbed you? Jisung—” 

“The fan who grabbed me?” Jisung gasps out. “That was Seungmin! Kim Seungmin. My—” He reaches for his pants like he might actually pull them down before thinking better of it. “Anyway, he’s not my fan! He’s my soulmate, and you threw him out of here!” 

His manager looks exasperated. “Jisung-ah, I don’t care if he’s your soulmate or your mother. He can’t just grab you like that!” 

“He didn’t grab me,” Jisung denies even though Seungmin had grabbed him. “It was—it was just the soulmate touch. You know how it is, don’t you hyung?” 

“And do you suppose that’s what everyone else saw?” His manager retorts. “Because I promise you they just saw a deranged fan who overstepped his boundaries. Besides, I thought you didn’t have a relationship with your soulmate.” 

Jisung opens his mouth to argue before snapping it shut and glaring up at his manager. Chan steps at that moment, placing one hand on Jisung’s shoulder and the other on the manager’s. “Hannie,” he coos patiently, “Jaebeom-hyung’s just doing his job. You know that.” It works because Jisung steps back, lowering his head down in defeat. He mutters that he’s going to go find Changbin-hyung before pushing his way past the manager to head back inside. 

Jaebeom sighs in relief and turns to Chan gratefully. “Thanks,” he says. 

Chan only shakes his head. “You shouldn’t talk to Ji like that,” he warns, trying to be diplomatic. “Especially not about his soulmate. He’s sensitive about it.” 

“I was just doing my job.” 

“I know, but you don’t have to be cruel about it either. What happened was a mistake on Seungmin’s part, but Jisung wasn’t hurt by it.” He was probably more upset that it had ruined everything else. He finally had a chance to talk to Seungmin again, and now that opportunity was gone. Even if security wouldn’t have let him stay behind, Seungmin wasn’t the type of person who would have. His pride had probably taken a hit too. 

“There are no exceptions for soulmates,” his manager tells him. “Jisung is an idol before he’s anyone’s soulmate.” 

Chan almost starts an argument because that is just not true. It’s almost true, but he just smiles tightly and holds himself back. “Trust me,” he says tersely, “we know.”

Chapter Text

Minho already has Seungmin’s hoodie in hand and doesn’t fight it when Seungmin trudges through his door and snatches it from him. Felix hangs by the door, holding it open with one foot as he looks between Minho and Seungmin with a thousand questions ready to burst from his chest. He’s quiet though, almost checking to make sure he’s okay to leave them, when Seungmin tells him to wait. He’ll change out of Felix’s clothes really quick. 

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Felix tells him. “Just bring them tomorrow morning when we get brunch.” 

Minho looks at Seungmin curiously, but the younger man is frozen in the middle of the hallway. Felix waves at them both and says that he’ll be on his way, making sure that he reminds Seungmin that he’ll text a place and time for brunch tomorrow before he backs out the door and closes it behind him. 

When the door is shut, Seungmin looks at Minho who stares at him with a raised eyebrow but shoos him off with a wave. “Change first,” his hyung tells him. “Then we’ll talk.” 

Without a word, Seungmin retreats into Minho’s bathroom and makes sure to take his time changing out of Felix’s uncomfortable clothing and back into his loose hoodie and baggy jeans. He folds Felix’s sweater and jeans carefully, placing the jeans on top of the sweater before changing their order three more times just to hide away from Minho a little bit longer. 

Eventually he has to leave the safety of the bathroom, and when he does Minho is already there to take Felix’s spare clothes in hand and place them into a bag for safe keeping. 

“After all that, you made plans to have brunch with Lix tomorrow?” He questions as he slips the clothes carefully into a plastic bag.

“He wanted to know what happened,” Seungmin explains. “I told him I’d talk to him about it tomorrow.” 

“Over brunch,” Minho finishes for him. He places the bag on the small table by the door where he keeps his wallet and keys so that it won’t be forgotten tomorrow. “And what are you going to tell him?” 

Seungmin sits on the edge of the sofa, hands in his lap and back straight. He looks like a child being scolded. Minho might be asking him what he plans on telling Felix, but Seungmin knows that he’s really asking him is what happened. “I don’t know,” he answers.

Sighing, Minho heads back for him and takes a seat on his sofa next to him. He crosses one leg over the other and places his hands on top of the cushion. “Have you considered telling them the truth?” Minho suggests slowly. 

“The truth?” Seungmin repeats like he doesn’t even know what the truth is. 

“Yes,” Minho says patiently. “The truth. That Jisung is your soulmate.” 

Seungmin smiles in disbelief. “How the hell am I supposed to say that? Who would even believe that? I’ll just sound like a crazy fanboy. Felix already thinks I fell in love with Jisung at first sight.” 

“So? People already think you are a crazy fanboy,” Minho tells him. He reaches out and tugs at the collar of Seungmin’s hoodie. It’s not loose enough to really show off his collarbone and his shirt is still in the way, but Minho’s intention is clear. “You’ve got proof enough right here. And at least if you tell them the truth you have an explanation. Besides, Felix and Hyunjin are your friends, and they should probably know. Because they’re your friends and they don’t know not to make jokes like that.” 

“I’m not mad at Felix for saying that,” Seungmin defends. “I just can’t believe he thinks I’m in love with him.” 

“Aren’t you?” 

Seungmin presses his lips into a thin line and looks down at his knees. 

“So, what actually happened?” Minho asks. “Why’d you lunge for him like that? It doesn’t seem like something you’d do.” 

“I didn’t mean to,” Seungmin stutters, his shoulders hunching down. He lifts a hand up to place a hand on his head and says, “It was…I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know. We just sorta touched by accident and—and I don’t know.” 

It’s not really an explanation, but Minho makes a noise of understanding anyway. “Ah, I see,” he says while leaning back against the couch to look at him. “Missed his touch, huh? I guess it’s been awhile though, so it’s kinda understandable. You were always so sensitive to his touch.” 

Seungmin’s cheeks are warm with a blush and he curls his hands into fists on his lap. “I’m not,” he denies. 

“You are,” Minho insists with a roll of his eyes. “You always have been. That’s why holding Jisung’s hand used to make you blush all the time.” 

“It didn’t!” He slams a fist against the seat cushion and turns to glare at Minho. 

The older man just cocks an eyebrow at him, and it’s enough for Seungmin to deflate. “Is that why you lost control of yourself over a touch?” He asks. 

“I…” Seungmin’s voice cracks before he trails off. 

“Oh, my poor Seungminnie,” Minho coos as he reaches over to wrap his arms around him to pull him into his side for a hug. “Are you okay?” 

Seungmin allows himself to be pulled into Minho’s side, tilting his head to tuck himself against Minho’s side. He reaches his own arms around Minho’s waist to hug him back and snuggles into his friend’s shoulder. “I don’t know—no,” Seungmin concludes. No, he’s not okay. 

“No?” Minho lifts up one hand to run his fingers through Seungmin’s hair. 

“I just thought it would be easier,” Seungmin mumbles into Minho’s shoulder. “I thought I could stay mad at him.” 

Minho’s shoulders shake as he laughs, the sound familiar and comforting although Seungmin still struggles to smile. At least it feels better knowing that the mood is a little lighter now. “Imagine you staying mad at Jisung,” he murmurs quietly. “You never could.” 

“I could,” Seungmin insists. 

“When you were really little,” Minho agrees. “And a little bit selfish. You never were mad at him for whatever he did though. You would get mad when he didn’t apologize to you first. And then, when you got older and started accepting that some things were your fault you could never stay mad long enough for Jisung to really worry. You loved him too much.” 

“It’s been three years,” Seungmin points out. 

“And you haven’t been mad for most of it,” Minho retorts gently. “You’ve been sad, and mopey, and petty—” 

“Hyung.” 

“What?” Minho laughs again. “It’s true!” He pets the younger man’s hair gently and sighs as he tries to figure out what to say. In the end, he decides to just apologize. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to turn into the kind of shit show it became. I just wanted…I just thought it would be good if you two saw each other again after all this time.” 

Seungmin pulls back and scoots away from Minho, eyes focused on his knees as he said, “He asked me to stay behind. After the stupid event or whatever. Jisung asked me to stay behind so we could talk and I—I did that thing again. The thing where I get my hopes up.” 

Minho frowns and asks, “Did you even try to stay behind?” 

“I got kicked out. I couldn’t.” Seungmin rubs at his cheek with the sleeve of his hoodie and refuses to cry again. “Besides, what’s the point? Even if I stayed it wouldn’t have mattered. He’s under contract, and he’s not allowed to date. No exceptions even for soulmates.” 

“Seungmin-ah…” 

“I’m hungry,” Seungmin announces suddenly. “You said you would make me food. What did you make?” He looks at Minho and blinks at him expectantly. It might have been a good act if Minho didn’t know him so well, but the older man throws in the towel for now. It wouldn’t do to peel back on old wounds when they’ve already been so harshly exposed like this. For now, Minho thinks it’s best for Seungmin to retreat and lick his wounds in private. 

Brunch with Felix turns into a full-fledged meeting when Minho sends a time and place to the group chat before Felix can that Sunday morning. They make sure to grab Felix’s clothes before heading to a place near campus that Minho liked to stop by sometimes in the morning. “Their toast is good,” he always said whenever Felix would stare at the sandwich in his hand curiously. 

Felix is already there by the time they show up, and Seungmin isn’t the least bit surprised by that. Hyunjin shows up ten minutes late with a coffee in hand, glancing between the three of them as he slips into the seat next to Felix. “So why the sudden Sunday morning lunch?” He asks after Minho gets up to place their order with the cashier.

“Brunch,” Felix corrects as he swipes Hyunjin’s coffee and takes a sip. Hyunjin’s initial annoyance quickly dissolves into giggles at the face Felix makes, and Seungmin sighs. No matter how many times he tries, the Australian just doesn’t like coffee, and Seungmin doesn’t understand why he keeps forcing himself to think differently.

Minho returns with a receipt in hand and places an arm over Seungmin’s shoulder. “Seungmin here has something he wants to share with you,” the eldest says as he squeezes his friend’s shoulders. 

Seungmin smiles tightly and stares down at the table top without saying a word. He can feel everyone’s eyes on him expectantly. Clasping his hands together on top of the table, he opens his mouth to speak but doesn’t know how to even broach the subject. How the hell is he supposed to start this? So he sighs and furrows his eyebrows together until Hyunjin accidentally raises the subject on his own. 

“Is this about Seungmin going viral on Twitter?” He asks as he pries his coffee out of Felix’s fingers. 

Seungmin pales at his question while Minho sends Hyunjin a very unfriendly glare. “I’m viral on Twitter?” He whispers before turning to Minho. “Did I go viral on twitter because of the…”

“No,” Minho tells him helpfully. 

“Sorta,” Felix adds less helpfully. 

Minho turns his glare to the Australian next, satisfied when both he and Hyunjin cower away from him. Then he turns back to Seungmin and snatches his phone when he sees the younger man trying to redownload Twitter. “You are not viral,” Minho assures him. “Don’t download Twitter. It’s probably better that you aren’t on it.” 

Seungmin used to use it back in high school because Jisung liked to send him funny tweets. Jisung’s old account hasn’t been active in years though, and Seungmin quickly abandoned Twitter when it longer served as a way to communicate with his boyfriend back then. Now he’s just desperately curious to know what is going on after his horribly embarrassing moment yesterday. 

“It’s being talked about in some circles,” Felix clarifies. 

“The circle of Han Jisung fans,” Hyunjin clarifies. “They hate you, by the way.” 

Seungmin covers his face with his hands and sinks into his seat feeling absolutely mortified while Minho hisses at Hyunjin that he is not helping. 

“What? I thought Seungmin didn’t like him anyway,” Hyunjin points out. 

“Hyunjin—” 

“He’s my ex,” Seungmin blurts out before Minho can finish scolding Hyunjin. His confession is initially met with silence. Felix just looks confused, and it’s Hyunjin who finally registers his words first, sucking down some coffee into his airways with a gasp and followed immediately by a choke. 

Hyunjin covers his mouth with a hand as he coughs, and tears prick at the corner of his eyes thanks to the burning sensation in his throat. “I’m sorry, he’s your what?” He chokes out between coughs. 

“He’s my ex!” Seungmin hisses, a note of hysteria coloring his voice. “Han Jisung is my fucking ex-boyfriend, okay?” 

Hyunjin coughs again, still trying to clear the coffee from his windpipe, and Felix’s jaw drops. “What?” The Australian shrieks before immediately quieting down when Minho holds a finger to his lips. 

With a sigh, Minho looks at Seungmin and mutters, “There were better ways to introduce that.”  

Staring at the table, Seungmin very soullessly says, “Haha, so funny story Jisung is my soulmate and my ex-boyfriend.” He turns his head to peer up at Minho. “There? Better?” He asks. 

“Christ.” Minho buries his face in his hands. 

Felix makes an odd croaking noise like he’s trying to ask a followup question but can’t find the words. Hyunjin, meanwhile, seems torn between believing this is some sort of elaborate prank, because what the hell does he mean Han Jisung is his soulmate, and believing that it must be real, because Seungmin isn’t the type to lie about something like this for fun. 

“This…this is a joke, right? No, I mean, this is real? You’re serious?” Hyunjin gapes at Seungmin. It seemed like a stupid lie to make up to explain what happened, but Hyunjin is also embarrassingly gullible. 

Minho holds his hand up to signal for everyone to wait a second as an employee walks over to them carrying a tray of toast sandwiches. She sets it down in front of them and tells them to enjoy with a practiced customer service smile before listlessly going back to her job. 

Minho waits until she’s out of earshot before nudging Seungmin with his elbow. “You should show them your mark,” he suggests. 

Felix perks up and clarifies, “Your soulmark?” 

As soon as Seungmin hears the term ‘soulmark’ he reaches for his collarbone instinctively. Hyunjin notices the movement and, in less than a second Hyunjin is out of his seat and sliding into Seungmin’s booth, almost shoving Minho out of his seat. His hand reaches for the collar of Seungmin’s hoodie, but he pauses before he can tug the neckline down. He looks at Seungmin who reaches up to grab his hand when Hyunjin hooks his fingers into his collar and asks, “Can I look?” 

Seungmin stares at Hyunjin and swallows down his anxiety. Hyunjin is nosy and he loves gossip, but he’s still Seungmin’s friend, and Seungmin trusts him with most things. Almost everything. Slowly, he uncurls his fingers from Hyunjin’s wrist and nods his head once to give his consent. 

Hyunjin is less frantic with his movements this time, slowly pulling the collar of his shirt away. Seungmin even helps him by slipping his arm out of his sleeve so that Hyunjin can pull the collar out further. He peeks down Seungmin’s shirt, spying the soulmark across his collarbone but it’s hard to really make out. He tugs on Seungmin’s hoodie harder, pulling the cloth as far from his body as it will get and leaning down to get a closer look.

Felix strains his neck like he can get a good look at Seungmin’s soulmark from there. When Hyunjin pulls back with a gasp, covering his mouth with both hands, Felix’s curiosity piques. “What?” Felix asks. “What’s it say? Is it actually his name?” 

With his mouth still covered, Hyunjin raises his eyes to meet Seungmin’s before he quietly slides out of the booth. Felix watches Hyunjin as he comes back to their side of the table and motions for him to get out and see for himself. 

Hesitantly, Felix slides out of the booth and slips in next to Seungmin who already has his hoodie pulled out so Felix can take a quick peek. It takes a second for Felix to actually make out the name of his soulmark but once he does he pulls back with wide eyes.

“Oh, my God,” he whispers out. 

“Yeah,” Seungmin agrees as he slips his arm back through the sleeve. 

“But is it really the same guy?” Hyunjin asks as he scoots over so Felix can slip in next to him again. “I mean, he can’t be the only Han Jisung around.” 

“No, but they’re also childhood friends,” Minho provides as he folds his arms on top of the table to lean against them. “The two of them have known they were soulmates for longer than they even knew what dating was.”

“How do you know that?” Felix asks.

“Seungmin is my childhood friend too, remember?” Minho reminds them gently. 

It dawns on Felix faster than Hyunjin, and he gasps when he realizes what Minho is saying. “Oh, my god. Han is your friend too?” 

“Of course he is,” says Minho. “How do you think I get things like tickets to their meet and greet? They’re literally impossible to buy.” 

“Oh, my god—”

“You actually—you’re not actually a bot.” 

“No, I am not a bot.” Minho agrees.

“So then—” Felix starts before abruptly pausing. He has a few fingers pressed to his lips thoughtfully and Seungmin can tell his thoughts are filtering through his brain faster than he can actually process any of them. “Yesterday when you lunged at him like that, that was because—” 

“I didn’t expect to respond that way,” Seungmin says quickly. “It…was a stupid mistake. I just…” He rubs at his collarbone and stares at the table. He’s the first to reach for the tray, taking his toast from the tray so he has an excuse not to talk. 

“But it was because you’re soulmates, right?” Felix whispers, and Seungmin can’t tell if he’s excited or horrified. 

He chooses to just take a bite of his toast which works because Felix’s thoughts don’t stop spewing from his lips. 

“Oh, my god, and that means the soulmark from the magazine shoot,” Felix covers his mouth with one hand and reaches for his hip with the other. Seungmin ducks his head down low and waits for it. “It’s your name there, right?” He squeals from between his fingers. 

Hyunjin sets his coffee down on the table with an audible thump before he leans back against the booth and tilts his head up. “And that interview about soulmates, he was talking about you, huh?”

“No.” Seungmin scowls. 

“Yes,” Minho intervenes on his behalf. “He was very much talking about Seungmin.”

“I don’t like music and I definitely don’t like his music.” 

Minho very pointedly chooses to talk to Felix and Hyunjin and not Seungmin when he says, “Seungmin has always admired Jisung’s artistry and he used to love his music. I still think he does—”

“I don’t!” 

“They were so perfect when they were little,” Minho sighs. “I kinda hated them for it. Their push and pull was always so balanced. Perfect soulmates, really.” 

Hyunjin’s gaze kept flicking back and forth between the two as they bantered before dropping down to the table after hearing Minho’s last remark. Perfect soulmates. Seungmin looks upset though, and Hyunjin swears he can practically hear the younger man grinding his teeth together. He parts his lips but pauses before the question on the tip of his tongue can be said. He doesn’t want to ask it. It feels too personal and mean, but Seungmin looks like he needs to vent, so Hyunjin, reluctantly, drops the bait. 

“If they were perfect, why did they break up?” 

“Because,” Seungmin spits out as soon as Hyunjin finishes, “eventually music became the only thing that mattered. I was extraneous. You try being second to your soulmate’s career. Besides, his company made it clear that there isn’t any dating allowed, not even an exception for soulmates, so he just stopped acting like I even existed.” 

“That isn’t true,” Minho defends gently like he knows he’s about to poke a sleeping bear. 

“It is true.” Seungmin squeezes his sandwich so hard the contents start to slip out, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. “How many missed dates? How many unanswered calls and texts? He changed his number and didn’t even tell me! The only time I could see him was if I went out of my way to bother him while he was working and even then he’d just ask me to leave most of the time!” 

Minho winces with each successive complaint, distinctly aware of just how many of each there were because, inevitably, Seungmin would turn up at his neighbor’s apartment on the verge of tears. “I think you’re misremembering some of that,” he tells Seungmin gently. 

“My memory’s fine!” Seungmin tosses his half-destroyed toast back on the tray and crosses his arms over his chest. 

The table is silent for the next couple of minutes before Felix works up the courage to ask if Seungmin is okay. 

“Fine,” he grumbles unhappily. So long as he never has to see Han again, Seungmin will be just fine.  

Seungmin frowns as he stares down at his phone like he can’t comprehend what this device even is. He’s been like that for at least a good five minutes, but Felix hadn’t been concerned about it at first, not even when he has to pull Seungmin closer to him to keep him from running into another group of students. He figures that it must be about school or one of his classes, but when they get in line at Felix’s favorite coffee shops on campus he catches a glimpse of Seungmin’s phone and notices that he’s not looking at his email. He’s looking at a KakaoTalk. Felix raises his eyebrows but looks away because he’s not nosy. He’s just curious.

“Everything okay?” He asks. 

Seungmin turns off his phone screen and drops it down to his side. His smile is tight as he answers, “Yeah. Fine.” He’s trying not to think too hard about the text he received while walking out of his chemistry lecture. Felix had been waiting for him to grab a coffee when his phone vibrated in his pocket, and he received a message from an unknown number. 

“Unknown” being a rather subjective term here. 

[9:56] 010-XXX-XXXX
Ddaeng-ddaengie I’m so sorry about the other day! Do you maybe still want to talk? My schedule is a little free on Thursday. We can go to that old restaurant by your place? I’ll even buy you kimchi-jjigae since it’s your favorite.

Those words are practically burned into Seungmin’s mind, and he can hardly just forget about it even as he tries to focus when Felix asks him what he wants. 

“What about a caramel macchiato?” Felix asks. “Do you think I’d like that?” 

“I think,” Seungmin pauses because he’s still thinking about that stupid message. He knows it’s Jisung even if the number was unfamiliar. No one else called him that, and the message just screamed “Jisung” all over it anyway, but Seungmin is stumped as to how he got his number and what to even say to that. 

Don’t call me that.

Wow, you’ll even buy me kimchi-jjigae. Must be hard with your paycheck.

No.

Sure.

“You should just get a smoothie,” he finishes once his brain has finally kicked back into action. “You hate coffee.” 

“But does a caramel macchiato taste like coffee?” Felix asks. 

“It’s got coffee in it, so yeah.” His fingers itch to pull out his phone again, stare at the message some more like an idiot, but he manages to focus in on Felix. “Why don’t you just accept that you don’t like coffee and that’s okay?” 

“Because it’s not okay?” Felix argues even as he plasters a smile on his face and orders a blueberry smoothie when the cashier motions for them to come up. “Hating coffee feels, like, childish.” 

“Childish?” Seungmin repeats. 

“Yeah. Like all adults like coffee. Or should like coffee,” Felix argues. 

Seungmin shakes his head, not understanding Felix’s logic in the least. “Not everyone,” he disagrees. He can think of at least one other person he knows who doesn’t like coffee and his thoughts are pulled back to the unanswered message on his phone. “It’s probably better for you in the long run. Caffeine can be addictive, and it can make you anxious. I know someone who doesn’t like it because it always made his anxiety worse.” 

“Who?” Felix looks curious, and Seungmin’s mouth goes dry as he turns away. That seems to be enough of an answer because Felix seems to catch on with a quiet “Oh.” 

“Look, I don’t want to pry or anything, but if you need to talk about it or anything, you can—I’m all ears,” Felix offers gently, kindly as his blueberry smoothie is placed on the pick up counter. 

Seungmin grabs it for him and offers it to Felix with an awkward smile as he replies, “No offense, but I don’t think I really want to talk to one of his fanboys about it.” His smile turns more genuine when Felix sputters and hisses that he’s Seungmin’s friend before he’s anyone’s fanboy, and anyway his favorite 3RACHA member is actually Bang Chan so Seungmin is wrong anyway. “Besides, it’s been three years. I’m…okay.” 

Felix winces at the mention of three years because he’s a 3RACHA fanboy and he’s probably well aware that they debuted three years ago. “So, was it, like, before or—” He gasps and then slaps a hand over his mouth when he realizes that he’s being too nosy. 

“Before,” Seungmin answers. “Right before. It was—yeah, well, he’s doing fine, so…” Damn he should have ordered a coffee. 

“Sorry,” Felix apologizes while playing with the straw of his smoothie. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be nosy.” 

Seungmin shrugs him off. “It’s okay. Celebrity intrigue or whatever,” he jokes. 

“No.” Felix sounds so serious that Seungmin’s smile immediately falters. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s an extra level of insanity to this whole thing. It’s just I’m sorry you’re going through this over your soulmate. It must be rough to be apart like that.” 

For a brief moment, Seungmin is flung back to middle school and all the promises they’d made to never be apart. He still remembers this one time when they’d written their initials together in sharpie on the underside of the jungle gym at the park they used to hang out at all the time. Jisung had wrapped their initials in a heart before promptly panicking because they’d “just graffitied public property and what if the police would hunt them down to arrest them?” while Seungmin had laughed at how ridiculous that would be. 

Their initials are probably still there. Seungmin doesn’t know though. He hasn’t gone back to the park in at least three years. 

“Being soulmates doesn’t mean you have to be together forever,” he ends up replying, voice dull. “It just means—it means…” Seungmin isn’t sure what it means anymore. Jisung used to say that it meant he was born to be Seungmin’s best friend, his partner, his boyfriend. Minho used to gag and tell them how disgustingly perfect they were together. Seungmin used to think so too, but neither of those feel quite right though. Not anymore. 

“Well, forget about it,” Felix says, jarring Seungmin from his thoughts. “Your test is tomorrow, right? You got your flashcards on you? I’ll help you study.” He holds his free hand out for Seungmin’s carefully color coded and organized flashcards before hurrying over to a table as soon as one opens up. 

Seungmin digs through his backpack to find those flashcards, all thoughts of Jisung gone as his mind narrows in on this test he has to prepare for. It isn’t until he’s back at his dorm room later that night that Seungmin even remembers that Kakao message because Minho sends him a message reminding him to sleep at a reasonable time because studying through the night would not help him. Jisung’s text is right underneath that, still unanswered. 

“I’m turning off the light,” Jeongin announces when he comes back into the room after brushing his teeth. He stifles a yawn behind his hand and doesn’t bother waiting for Seungmin to respond before he turns off the light and shuffles over to his bed in the dark. 

Seungmin stares at the message for a second longer before he finally opens it to type in a reply. 

[10:02] seungmin
Who is this? I think you have the wrong number.

Seungmin turns off his phone screen and sets his phone down on the bed. He doesn’t expect a reply, but as soon as he turns away from his phone it vibrates against his mattress. He flips back over embarrassingly fast and scoops the phone back up in his hands. 

[10:03] 010-XXX-XXXX
I’ve had your number memorized since the 7th grade when we first got phones, Minnie. I don’t have the wrong number. 

Seungmin bites down on his lip and denies the fact that his heart flutters in his chest when Jisung admits that he has Seungmin’s number memorized. It’s a small thing, but it makes him feel special if only for a brief moment. 

[10:03] seungmin
Oh. Jisung-ssi. I didn’t realize since you changed your number

Seungmin wonders if his fake surprise carries through in his text. Probably not. Jisung probably knows him well enough anyway. 

[10:03] 010-XXX-XXXX
Oof. Jisung-ssi huh?

[10:05] seungmin
Seems inappropriate for a fan to address you too familiarly

Admittedly, it takes Seungmin a couple minutes to find an excuse for the distant way he chooses to address Jisung. It’s not even a really good one, and Jisung is quick to call him out on the lie. 

[10:05] 010-XXX-XXXX
Seungmin-ah, are you even my fan? 

Seungmin stares at that message for longer than necessary and reluctantly concedes that Jisung has him there. He doesn’t respond though. He isn’t a fan of 3RACHA, but he’s always loved Jisung’s music. He’s always loved Jisusung’s love for music, so agreeing that he’s not really his fan doesn’t exactly feel right to him. 

[10:10] 010-XXX-XXXX
You never answered me tho. Thursday? You free? 

It takes Seungmin longer than it really should to not only come up with an answer but actually reply. 

[10:37] seungmin
If you really think you can afford it on your shit idol salary then be my guest. No pressure though.

[10:37] 010-XXX-XXXX
Don’t you worry, Kim Seungmin. I gotchu covered . 

It’s 6AM when Changbin gets up for the day. It’s not exactly a free day for them—they had just dropped a new album a week ago—but they have some time in the morning and evening between filming one show and appearing for a radio interview. There’s enough time before then for Changbin to hit the gym, so he rolls out of bed at exactly six when his alarm goes off and doesn’t expect to see anyone else in the kitchen. 

Except Jisung is there, putzing around in the kitchen and looking confused by the blender. 

“Ji?” He asks in confusion. Jisung isn’t the type to get up early if he doesn’t have to, and he didn’t expect to see their youngest until they were at the salon. 

“Hyung!” Jisung exclaims as he drops the lid of the blender and whirls around to face him. “Good morning.” 

Changbin glances down at the mix of ice, milk, powder and peanut butter in the bottom of the blender and raises his eyebrows. “Morning,” he returns. “What…are you doing?” 

“Ah.” Jisung glances down at the blender. “Making a protein shake?” 

“Aw, for me?” Changbin coos as he closes the gap to Jisung and pinches his cheek affectionately. “You didn’t have to.” 

“It’s not for you,” Jisung whines as he jerks his head away from Changbin. “It’s for me.” 

“You?” Changbin repeats. “What do you need a protein shake for?” 

“For the gym,” Jisung chirps. 

Changbin blinks in surprise. It’s not that Jisung never comes to the gym, but it’s never of his own volition. It usually takes a bunch of nagging from Chan and Changbin to convince him to tag along. Changbin can’t think of a single time where Jisung has voluntarily come to the gym with him until today. Changbin almost doesn’t believe him but when Chan finally emerges from his room at 6:30 ready to go, Jisung tags along with them to the gym. 

“So why the sudden interest in the gym?” Chan asks as he helps Jisung with the weights. Changbin is standing beside them, watching his form intently in the mirror as he lifts his weights. 

“Just figured I should keep myself in shape,” Jisung pants out. His eyes briefly flick towards Changbin and there’s a dull sense of jealousy when he sees the heavy weights he’s holding. Jisung feels like he’s lifting kid sized weights in comparison. 

“Staying in shape and bulking up are two different things,” Chan tells him. Jisung’s arms aren’t even something to sniff at. He’s got nice muscle definition, he just prefers to spend any free time he has lying in bed rather than hitting the gym with his hyungs. “Trying to impress someone?” The eldest teases. 

Jisung slumps down as he drops his weights to the ground and stares up at Chan with wide eyes. He laughs nervously and squeaks out, “Our fans, you know? Gotta show off for our fans.”

Chan cocks an eyebrow at his response and bends down to pick up Jisung’s abandoned weights and leaves to place them back where they belong. He ruffles Jisung’s hair when he walks back and tells him to go wash up. “We can talk about it at dinner,” Chan tells him.

“Actually, speaking of dinner…” Jisung says, turning his head up to look at his hyungs. “I know we were gonna get dinner together, but I, uh, I kinda made other dinner plans.” 

“With who?” Changbin asks. He’s still pulling his weights up, taking deep, controlled breaths. 

Jisung is quiet for a long moment before he answers in a small voice, “Seungmin…” 

Changbin drops his weights to his side and both of them look over to their youngest. Chan’s lips pull up into a sly smile when he mentions Seungmin, and Jisung knows he’s not going to hear the end of it.  

“You talked to Seungmin?” Chan asks with a glint in his eye. 

Jisung hums. “Yeah, just thought I’d see if he was willing to talk, and he said yes, so if you don’t mind after the radio show I…” 

“Of course,” Chan assures him before he even finishes. “You should go see Seungmin. Changbin and I can just have a dinner date for two.” He nudges Changbin when he makes a face at the suggestion. 

“Ugh. Gross. Don’t say it like that, hyung.” 

“What? You don’t want to spend quality time with hyung?” Chan coos at him as he reaches out to tickle Changbin under his chin. He pulls back when Changbin tries to bite his finger and turns his attention back to Jisung. “Anyway, you have fun with Seungmin, okay? Let us know how it goes.” 

Jisung beams at them. “Thanks, hyung. I will.” 

Or Jisung would if their manager didn’t rush into the salon while they’re getting dolled up looking haggard and tired as he announces that their schedule tonight has been expanded. He sits up in his seat while one of the stylists is working on his hair, staring at Jaebeom through the mirror as he rushes up to talk to Chan. “What do you mean our schedule is expanded?” 

His manager glances at him through the mirror and smiles apologetically. “Well, we got you booked for a Youtube interview too. Right after the radio show.” 

“Why?” Jisung whines. 

“Because you’ve just started your comeback,” Jaebeom answers with a raised brow. “Why? Is this unexpected for some reason?” 

“No,” Jisung denies quickly. Of course it isn’t. This is probably one of the busiest points in his job, and it was naive to think that nothing would be squeezed into any tiny amount of free time they had—and normally Jisung doesn’t mind! Really he doesn’t—but his plans tonight had been particularly important. “I just had something to do after the radio show tonight,” he mumbles. 

“Well, you’ll have to cancel it,” his manager says apologetically. 

Pouting, Jisung eyes his phone laying face down on the coffee table behind him and calls out, “Hyung.” Both Chan and his manager turn to look at him and he jerks his head towards his phone. “My phone. I need to text Seungmin—” He sucks in his bottom lip as soon as he accidentally lets the name slip, watching in the mirror as his manager’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “I need to tell him that I have to cancel,” he finishes miserably. 

Jaebeom grabs his phone before Chan can and shakes his head. “I’ll do it,” he assures Jisung. “You just finish getting ready, okay? It’s gonna be a busy day today.”   

The restaurant has been around for as long as Seungmin can remember. It was a place he and his parents would occasionally go to when his mom didn’t feel like cooking. Then it became his and Jisung’s go-to place for after school meals whenever they had extra money and for easy dates. They were actually more famous for their dumplings, but Seungmin always preferred their kimchi-jjigae. 

It’s been awhile since he’s last been here though. It had become such a staple in his and Jisung’s relationship that he hasn’t really come by since their breakup. There had been one time when Seungmin spent a weekend at home during his first year in college when his mom suggested they have dinner there. It had left an unsettling feeling in Seungmin’s stomach, but he hadn’t protested. It was just a restaurant even if it was filled with memories for him.

He cried over his bowl of kimchi-jjigae and denied that it had anything to do with his soulmate. Still, his parents avoided suggesting the restaurant ever since, and Seungmin hadn’t gone there since. 

Taking a deep breath, Seungmin pushes open the door and steps inside the restaurant. The middle aged owner smiles at him and exclaims, “Oh, Seungmin-ah. I haven’t seen you in a while.” 

He smiles at her with his hands stuffed into his jeans and does a cursory glance of the restaurant. It’s insanely busy, but many of the tables are occupied by her regulars. “I’m supposed to meet Jisung here,” he tells her quietly. 

“Jisungie?” Her smile wavers a bit. “I haven’t seen him in years, sweetie.” 

Yeah, Seungmin doesn’t see him around either, and he purposely showed up late just in case. He’d be damned if he sat around for thirty minutes just to get shown up again. Although Seungmin smiles, it feels like there’s a rock in his throat and a sour feeling in his stomach. He should have figured as much, but before he can turn to leave and salvage what little dignity he has left, someone in the back corner of the restaurant raises his hand and waves at Seungmin. 

Seungmin hesitates, wondering why a man he doesn’t recognize is waving him over. He squints at the stranger, giving him a once over as he realizes that he does know him or at least recognizes him. He’d seen him about a week ago at the fan meet. He grabbed Jisung’s shoulders as Seungmin was pulled out by security. The rock in the back of his throat only grows bigger. 

Smiling politely to the owner, Seungmin cautiously makes his way over. The man offers him a friendly smile when Seungmin reaches him. “Seungmin-ssi?” He asks as he motions for him to sit down. “I’ve never been here before. What do you recommend?” 

Reluctantly, the student sits down across from the man, making no secret of the way he eyes the man suspiciously. “Can I ask why you’re looking for me? Who are you?” Seungmin asks, trying to sound as polite as possible. 

The man holds his hand out for a handshake, and Seungmin grudgingly accepts it. “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced yet. I’m Jaebeom, 3RACHA’s manager.” 

Seungmin presses his lips together in a thin line. Why the hell is their manager here? Seungmin knows it was Jisung who texted him. There’s no way it could have been anyone else. “Why are you here?” He asks a bit too bluntly because Jaebeom’s smile drops a little. 

“I could ask you the same thing.” 

“Someone invited me to come,” Seungmin replies sharply. 

“Jisungie, right? Unfortunately, their schedule became more packed than originally intended tonight, and he couldn’t make it. He asked me to come in his place to deliver his message for him.”

Seungmin’s hands curl into tight fists on his lap. “His message,” he repeats in a deadpan. Jisung said he wanted to talk, but he wasn’t usually the type to have any sort of speech ready. 

“Look, Kim Seungmin-ssi, I understand the importance of soulmates. Their bond is unlike anything. Really, I know. My wife is—” He stops when he realizes that Seungmin didn’t really want to hear about his wife. “Anyway, my point is that I understand you will always have a special relationship with Jisung, but he’s still reaching the peak of his career right now, and it would serve him better if his soulmate could remain a…non-factor for the time being.” 

Seungmin’s breath hitches and it feels as if he’s just been punched in the gut. A non-factor. He doesn’t even know why it hurts so badly. He’d been a “non-factor” in Jisung’s life for years already. 

“Just for now,” the manager says as if it could make up for the callous way he asked Seungmin to essentially leave his client alone. “One day he’ll be in a better position for your relationship to bloom, but for now…” 

“For now?” Seungmin presses in a hoarse voice. 

“He would prefer it if you kept your distance and refrained from speaking on the matter. Your appearance at that meet and greet had been quite…inappropriate and—Seungmin-ssi?” He blinks up at the student when he abruptly stands up. 

Seungmin trembles with rage and humiliation, head ducked low as he stares at the table. He takes deep breaths and fights to keep himself in control before he finally answers, “That was a one off. I was only there because—” He scoffs because why does he even have to explain himself to this man anyway? “Anyway, I understand. You can tell your client that I don’t plan to come to any of 3RACHA’s events or whatever.” 

“Wait, Seungmin-ssi.” Jaebeom stands up as well to snatch Seungmin by the wrist before he can leave. “There’s the matter of your silence as well.” 

“Who would I tell?” Seungmin laughs at him. “Who would even believe me? Am I supposed to sign some kind of NDA for you or something?” 

“Well—” Jaebeom looks bashful like he really wanted to ask Seungmin to sign something for him. “It’s just a temporary thing. You’re his soulmate. Think of his career.” 

Seungmin is downright offended. His career? As if it hasn’t been the one thing on his mind whenever he thinks about his soulmate. As if he hasn’t always been the one in Jisung’s corner, encouraging him to pursue his love of music. As if it weren’t the thing that had gotten between them. He pulls at his arm, not hard enough to yank it away, but enough to make it clear that Jaebeom should let go. 

“A temporary thing,” he repeats once the man releases his hold on his wrist. “I’ve spent the past three years without him. Do you really think it’ll be hard to do for the rest of my life?” 

“Excuse me? Three years?” The manager blinks at him. 

Seungmin shakes his head as he pushes his chair in. His stomach is still growling because he thought he was going to have dinner, and he’s already thinking of what he should pick up on his way back to the dorms. “Just tell Jisung that I got his message loud and clear. Christ, I didn't even want to go that day. And, hey, you should try the dumplings here. They’re Han’s favorites.” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying or doing anymore, completely misdirecting his anger at the wrong person, but Jisung isn’t here and his manager is the only proxy he’s got. It’s just like with Chan three years ago, and Seungmin berates himself for doing the same thing over again, but it’s too late and the words are already out. 

And just like three years ago, he doesn’t wait for any kind of response. He just turns and flees out of the restaurant. 

Jeongin is lying in bed with his laptop next to him, watching Youtube, when Seungmin throws open the door to their dorm room. He hardly even reacts to his roommate’s dramatic entrance, only sparing Seungmin a brief glance as he closes the door behind him and leans back against it. “Hey,” he greets without pausing his video, “how was your date?” 

Seungmin freezes as soon as he hears that question and turns his stunned gaze to his roommate. Date? And his breath hitches when he remembers that he let slip that he was going to meet his soulmate when Jeongin asked where he was going. He’d been buzzing with excitement then, and it felt harmless. Jeongin didn’t ask who it was or any other follow up questions really. He’d just given Seungmin a sweet smile and told him to have fun. 

Up until now the anger had carried him back to the dorm, simmering in his gut and making his blood boil. Now, though, in the safety of his dorm room and Jeongin’s innocent questioning lingering in his mind his anger quickly fades away to be replaced with something else entirely, and he has to blink away the tears that immediately spring to his eyes. 

It’s enough of a shift for Jeongin to notice because his roommate quickly closes his laptop and sets it aside. “Hyung?” He asks tentatively, moving to slide off his bed, but he waits like he’s hoping Seungmin will laugh and tell him to get back to his videos. 

He sobs instead.       

“Hyung!” Jeongin sounds much more alarmed this time as he hops down from his bed and rushes over to where Seungmin has dropped into a squat to try and hide himself. 

It’s embarrassing. He feels awful and humiliated between being stood up, again, having to listen to Jisung’s manager, and now he’s crying in front of his roommate. 

“Should I—should I call Minho-hyung?” Jeongin asks as he hovers just above Seungmin. He doesn’t know if he should try to hug him or not. Seungmin’s never been a particularly affectionate person. He liked to pinch Jeongin’s cheeks and call his roommate cute from time to time, but he tended to duck and swat Jeongin away if he ever tried to return that affection. 

He’s never really seen Seungmin upset before either. Usually, he went to Minho when something is wrong, so Jeongin’s first instinct is to ask if he should get Minho.

“No,” Seungmin answers, fighting to get himself under control again. “No, I need—I need,” Seungmin pauses and holds his breath to keep another sob from escaping. It mostly works although it does nothing to hide the tear tracks staining his cheeks as he suddenly leaps to his feet. 

Wordlessly, he walks over to his desk and snatches up his backpack leaning against it. Jeongin watches as his roommate stumbles over to his drawer and begins pulling out seemingly random articles of clothing to stuff into his bag.

“Hyung—” 

“I’m gonna—gonna go to Felix’s place,” Seungmin tells his roommate as he zips up his backpack. 

“Lix-hyung?” Jeongin repeats.   

“Yeah.” Seungmin swings his backpack over his shoulders and hastily tries to scrub away any remaining evidence of his tears. He turns back to Jeongin and smiles apologetically. “I’m sorry for making a scene like that,” he says. 

“Don’t apologize,” Jeongin admonishes, scrambling to open the door when Seungmin walks over. “I’m just—sorry to hear that tonight sucked. I just thought, you know, that it would go better.” 

Seungmin bites back another sob, throat tightening as more tears threaten to cloud his vision. “Yeah,” he agrees, “I thought it’d go better too.” 

Jeongin tells him to text or call if he needs anything and walks him to the elevators even though Seungmin insists that he’s fine. “Let me know when you get to hyung’s place,” Jeongin tells him when his roommate steps into the elevator. “Otherwise I’ll call Minho.” 

“Okay,” Seungmin agrees, “I’ll text.” 

By the time Seungmin reaches Felix’s apartment, he totally forgets his promise to text Jeongin, but it’s not really his fault. His thoughts are kind of scattered and he really doesn’t think he can be blamed if it slips his mind.    

When Felix answers the door, he’s dressed in his pajamas and has a toothbrush hanging from his mouth. He’s evidently surprised to see Seungmin at his door, and he realizes belatedly that he probably should have given Felix some kind of warning that he was coming over. 

“Seungmin?” Felix mumbles around his toothbrush. 

Seungmin scrubs his hands over his face and struggles to meet Felix’s eyes, eventually settling on the bottoms of his checkered pajamas pants. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “I should’ve called or texted.”    

“It’s okay,” Felix gurgles around his toothbrush. He waves Seungmin inside before pointing to the toothbrush still in his mouth. Seungmin nods his head and shrugs off his backpack as Felix disappears inside his bathroom. 

Seungmin hears the sound of tap water running and shuffles over to Felix’s small sofa positioned right across from his bed in the small studio apartment, clutching his backpack to his chest. A few seconds later, the water shuts off and Felix comes out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He doesn’t say anything to Seungmin at first, quietly perching himself at the edge of his bed before reaching a hand out to beckon Seungmin over. 

Seungmin tosses his backpack onto the bed before climbing onto it with an apology on his lips. “I should’ve called you. I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“Don't worry. I said it’s fine.” Felix pulls Seungmin into his side, wrapping both arms around his shoulders and preening when Seungmin leans into his side. “Is everything alright?” He asks. When Seungmin only makes a non-committal noise,  Felix adds, “You don’t typically drop by unannounced this late at night.”  

Seungmin winces at the accusation. “I know,” he admits. “Tonight has just been…rough.” 

“Yeah?” Felix nuzzles his cheek against Seungmin’s, and the younger man is relieved he managed to stop his tears on the way here. “Did you get your exam scores back already?” Felix guesses. 

Seungmin smiles, amused by his innocent guess. “I did, but my grade is fine. Do you really think I’d bother you so late over something silly like that?” 

“Then what would make you come over this late?” Felix asks as he runs his fingers through Seungmin’s hair. 

“Well—” Seungmin starts and then stops. He’s not entirely sure how to explain what happened. No, he’s not sure he can get through an entire rundown of what happened. Instead he pulls out his phone and searches for the messages he exchanged with Jisung, lifting his phone up for Felix to see. 

Felix squints at KakaoTalk exchange and reaches out to bring the phone closer. He quickly scans through the messages before he pulls away from Seungmin to look at him. “Are those from…” Felix hesitates to say the name out loud.

“Jisung? Yes.” Seungmin turns off his phone and sets it down in his lap. 

“So…you agreed to go meet him tonight,” Felix concludes, eyeing Seungmin up and down carefully. “And I suppose it went…not great?” His tone pitches high at the end in a way that normally would have made Seungmin laugh if he were actually in the mood. 

“I don’t know if I can even say it ‘went,’” Seungmin snorts. “He didn’t even show up.” 

Felix winces like he can feel the painful mortification Seungmin experienced earlier that night. He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and chews on the soft flesh. His eyes dart to Seungmin before quickly dropping down to his lap as he says, “No offense—I mean, obviously I don’t know him that well or at all really—but Han just…he didn’t seem the type to me.” 

“He didn’t used to be,” says Seungmin, but the words are a bitter lie on his tongue. He corrects himself. “He isn’t. He just doesn’t know how to manage his work-life balance at all.” 

“Is that why you broke up?” 

Seungmin runs his finger along the corner of his phone and doesn’t answer right away. Three years and he’s over it by now. That’s what he always says, but Felix’s questions presses down on a particularly sore spot in his heart. He clears his throat before he speaks. “I wasn’t naive,” he denies. “I knew that Jisung’s career goals required some sacrifices, and I felt it back in high school. He’d get excused from classes so he could commit to his training, and I wouldn’t see him as much anymore. I knew that, but I accepted it because he loved music and he wanted this so bad and isn’t that what a soulmate is for?” 

He lifts his gaze up from his phone to look at Felix, searching his friend’s expression for any bit of approval, but the Australian just looks sad. Eyes full of sympathy as he stares back at Seungmin. He quickly turns his head away from him. 

“But it’s tiring for me too,” Seungmin protests. “I could accept limited time with my soulmate, but no time? That was asking for too much. And then this started happening. We’d make plans together, and then Jisung would just not show up because he had to stay late for practice or he had to finish up something at the studio, or sometimes he was so tired he would take a nap and just sleep through it.” 

Seungmin takes a deep breath and then releases it as a sigh. Admittedly this had been the first time Jisung sent someone in his place. His manager no less. Seungmin’s pride still stings from that one. 

“I mean, I was understanding at first,” he needlessly defends himself. “He was busy. I understood that, but my patience can only be stretched so thin. It’s like—I mean—he’d get my hopes up every time, you know?” Great. His eyes are wet again as he slowly loses the fight against his tears.  

“And then you’d inevitably be disappointed,” Felix finishes for him as Seungmin furiously rubs at his eyes. “Like tonight.” 

“It’d be better if he just ignored me altogether,” Seungmin argues. It would have made it easier to hate him at the very least. “I’d rather that instead of him pretending he cares.” 

“Don’t you think he cares?” Felix asks gently. “Why would he bother to text you if he didn’t? Especially right now. If he didn’t care he could’ve just ignored you, right?” 

Seungmin wishes that he had. 

“He sent his manager,” he says as he pulls away from Felix. “He was busy, so he sent his manager to tell me that I was unwelcome at any future events and that I should just wait until he’s in a better spot career wise.” 

“Oh.” Felix’s jaw moves but he doesn’t know what else to say. 

“Yeah.” 

It was mean. It was cruel even, and Seungmin wonders if Jisung has a grudge against him after their fight from three years ago. Seungmin wasn’t exactly kind back then, and he said plenty of things he regrets, but this still felt pointlessly cruel. 

“I’m sorry, Seungmin,” Felix tells him because he doesn’t know what else to say. “That sounds really awful.” 

Seungmin smiles tightly and opens his mouth to respond but pauses when Felix’s doorbell rings. He looks at the Australian curiously, but Felix raises his eyebrows at the sound of his doorbell going off again. Evidently, he hadn’t expected another guest to drop by either. 

“Uh, one second,” Felix says, leaning over to press his lips against Seungmin’s temple before clambering off the bed. Seungmin doesn’t even flinch away from the small display of affection. He might have even melted into Felix’s side if he hadn’t gotten up. 

It’s easy to see the door from Felix’s bed, so when he swings it open to see who else has come by, Seungmin is as surprised as Felix sounds to see Minho on the other side. 

“Hyung? What are you doing here?” 

Minho peers into the apartment, shoulders sagging when he spots Seungmin sitting on the bed. Then he smiles apologetically to Felix and slips inside. “Sorry. Jeongin called me because someone didn’t text his roommate back that he made it here alright,” he explains. “He mentioned that you were really upset, so he was worried when you didn’t call or text.” 

Seungmin tenses up and averts his gaze from Minho. He must know, or at least suspect, what happened then. Felix closes the door behind him, and Seungmin only tenses up further when Minho slips his shoes off and heads for him. Minho doesn’t sit down beside him unlike Felix who crawls back onto the bed beside him and wraps Seungmin up in his arms again. 

No, Minho stands in front of Seungmin, looming over him, and Seungmin shrinks down. He feels small under Minho’s unreadable gaze. 

“Did Jeongin tell you what happened?” Seungmin asks in a small voice. 

Minho sighs and his expression noticeably softens. “He told me enough,” he says. “He told me that you went out to meet your soulmate, and that he thinks it didn’t go well. He said you were crying.” 

Seungmin flinches away and sinks further into Felix when the Australian tightens his hold around him. Minho notices. He never misses these kinds of things, and he kneels down until he’s eye level with Seungmin. Then he asks what happened. 

“What do you think?” Seungmin retorts after a moment. “The same thing that always happens. He didn’t bother to show up.” 

Minho hangs his head with a sigh. “They just released an album, what the hell was he thinking?” Minho mutters mostly to himself. 

“That sending his manager in his place was a good idea,” Seungmin deadpans.  

“You’re joking.” 

“God, hyung, I really wish I was.” 

Felix coos sympathetically and guides Seungmin’s face into the crook of his shoulder as if to help him hide. “He said mean things to Minnie,” he adds. 

Minho arches an eyebrow at this information and turns back to Seungmin. “Mean things like what?” He asks. 

Seungmin shakes his head and turns his face towards Felix to hide from Minho’s curious eyes. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he mumbles into Felix’s skin. It was horrifying enough to tell Felix, but at least he was sympathetic. 

Well, it’s not that he doesn’t think Minho would be unsympathetic, he just knows that he won’t react the way Seungmin wants him to. So he keeps his lips pressed together and adamantly refuses to say anything while Minho’s gaze bores holes into his skin. That’s why he chose to come to Felix, not Minho, now that he knew about Jisung. He didn’t have to put up with Minho’s lecture or his constantly playing devil’s advocate. He could just seek pure comfort and sympathy, or so he thought anyway. 

When Seungmin stubbornly refuses to answer his question, Minho turns his attention to Felix instead. The Australian shrinks under Minho’s intense stare but stubbornly remains quiet at first. Unlike Seungmin who has known Minho and all his body language cues for years, Felix is less versed in reading his mood and quickly cracks under Minho’s intensity. 

“Jisung sent his manager to tell Seungmin to leave him alone,” Felix tells him quietly. 

“Lix!” Seungmin hisses as he pulls back while Minho sucks in a breath.

“So, Jisung sent his manager to tell you that he wants you to leave him alone?” Minho tries to keep his tone neutral but some of his skepticism must bleed through because Seungmin narrows his eyes at him. 

“You don’t believe me,” the younger man accuses. 

“I didn’t say that,” Minho denies. “I believe you, Minnie. What I find harder to believe is that Jisungie would invite you out to dinner just to tell you to leave him alone. Does that really sound like him to you? Are you sure his manager wasn’t just saying what he wants to say?” 

Seungmin groans and pulls away from Felix so he can reach out for a pillow to bury his face in. His friends look on with quiet concern as he muffles a frustrated scream into the pillow. 

“Seungmin—” 

“You always do this!” He cuts Minho off with another frustrated yell. His tone and volume is angry and loud enough that Felix flinches, and Minho places a hand on his thigh to comfort him. After all, he’s never witnessed Seungmin with such a lack of control. He always seemed to have himself under control, so seeing him lose it over the night’s events is jarring to Felix. 

“What do I always do?” Minho asks. Felix can’t believe how even he keeps his tone when Seungmin is yelling at him. 

“You always, always defend Jisung. No matter how shitty he is!” 

“Seungmin-ah, he’s my friend too.” 

“So, what? Am I in the wrong then? Am I always wrong?” Seungmin’s face is red and blotchy, and his vision is blurry with unshed tears. When Minho reaches out to try and wipe away his tears, Seungmin vindictively smacks his hand away. The older man frowns but drops his hand onto the bed beside him. 

He waits patiently for Seungmin to calm down, watching as his chest heaves from his pent up anger. Minho squeezes Felix’s thigh when he feels the Australian trembling beneath his fingers. Seungmin never really calms down though. 

He curls his upper lip up to bear his teeth and spits out, “You always liked him more.” 

That’s enough, and Minho stands back up on his feet. “Kim Seungmin,” he says sharply. Seungmin shrinks away from him, eyes dropping down to his lap and shoulders hunching down. Minho blinks at how easily Seungmin backs down, and he reaches out to cup Seungmin’s cheeks with his hands. “I am not taking sides,” he assures him. 

“You are—” 

“I’m not. I’m challenging your awful little mind goblins that tell you that your soulmate doesn’t want to see you.” 

“He literally said that though,” Seungmin grumbles. 

“Literally it was his manager and not him,” Minho retorts. “And you know better. Jisung absolutely adores you. He always has.” When Seungmin tries to protest, Minho pulls him into a hug and muffles whatever he intends to say into his chest. He shoots Felix an apologetic smile when he catches his gaze and slowly sways side to side. “He turns his attention back to Seungmin and asks, “Do you really want to hear that you’re right? Would it make you feel better to think that Jisung doesn’t like you?”              

“I don’t know,” Seungmin mumbles miserably. 

Minho feels a little bit of dampness on his shirt and he holds Seungmin closer for his sake. He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the night. He doesn’t try to defend Jisung any further or argue with Seungmin. He just holds his friend and rubs his back until Seungmin tires himself out and falls asleep.

Minho bites down on his thumb and leans against Felix’s bathroom counter as he anxiously wills Chan to pick up his call. Seungmin had long since passed out, and Minho had awkwardly asked Felix if he was okay with him staying the night as well. The younger man is nice enough to just smile and offer him the couch. He can sleep on the floor. Minho pats him on the head and suggests that he sleep on the bed with Seungmin—he’ll probably appreciate the comfort even if he’s already asleep—before he excuses himself to the bathroom for a modicum of privacy.  

Mercifully, Chan picks up right before Minho is sure that his phone is about to go to voicemail. “Minho?” Chan sounds tired when he picks up. “Do you know what time it is?” It’s a little late, so still too early for Chan to be asleep. 

“Well aware,” Minho snorts, mindful to keep his voice low and quiet. “Why? Are you still busy this late at night?” 

Chan hums. “Depends. We got back to our dorm not too long ago. Think Jisung and Changbin went straight to bed, but you know me. When the insomnia hits is when I get most of my work done, so am I busy? Nah. I don’t have to be. What’s up?” 

Sighing, Minho hangs his head and traces the tiles of the bathroom with his eyes. “I probably should’ve called Jisung instead, but…” 

“Jisung? Why?”        

“He and Seungmin were supposed to meet tonight, right?” 

There’s a slight pause on Chan’s end before he concedes that Minho is right. “We were supposed to have a fairly free evening for once, but another interview was added and, yeah. Ji had to cancel. He even went to the gym this morning because I think he wanted to look good,” Chan laughs to himself before sighing. Minho can imagine that he feels guilty about it even if it’s not his fault. “I guess Seungmin was upset about it, huh?” 

“Well…” Minho runs his fingers through his hair. Undoubtedly it would have upset Seungmin. It was the thing about Jisung that drove him nuts at the end of their relationship, but he probably would have at least been expecting it. He would have been able to bottle it away the way he always has. “Look, there’s no delicate way to say this, so I’ll be blunt, did Jisung send his manager to meet Seungmin for him?” 

He knows. He knows the answer and yet he can’t tell if Chan’s silence is because of guilt or shock. 

“What?” 

Minho’s shoulders slump down, but he can’t quite breathe a sigh of relief yet. 

“Jisung canceled. Why would hyung—hold on.” 

There’s a lot of shuffling and then the sound of the door creaking and then there’s another long pause before Minho hears Chan again. He sounds muffled like he’s holding his phone away from him, and it’s clear that he isn’t speaking to Minho.  

“Hey, you canceled tonight, right? With Seungmin?” 

“Yeah, I asked hyung to, remember?” 

Jisung sounds even more distant and faint, and Minho can only barely make out what he says. 

“Yeah, but are you sure? Did you, like, check?” 

“...Why?” 

Chan’s voice is clearer when he speaks this time. “So, are you saying that our manager met with Seungmin at the restaurant?” 

Minho opens his mouth to answer, but there’s a clear scuffle on the other side of the line before Jisung’s voice comes through loud and clear. 

“Hello?” 

“Jisung-ah.” 

“Minho-hyung.” Minho can hear the panic in his voice. “Please tell me Jaebeom-hyung did not show up to our canceled date. Please, please, please.”  

“You were supposed to cancel it?” Minho asks. 

“Yeah, but I was busy at the time and I didn’t have my phone on me. Hyung said—hyung said he would take care of it.” 

Minho curls his finger over the edge of the counter with his free hand and slips his eyes shut. “Did you check, Jisungie? Did you check your messages to make sure?” 

“I was busy! I haven’t had time to look at my messages today yet. I was gonna text Minnie tomorrow to apologize because we just got home and it’s late and I know he always goes to bed before 11 and I didn’t want to bother him and why would hyung lie about that? I mean, why would he—oh shit.” His rambling dies down into a quiet curse at the end, and Minho suspects that he’s just checked his messages. 

“Jisung, listen—” 

“Hyung,” Jisung whimpers before Minho can get a word in, “I messed up again, haven’t I?” He sounds small an vulnerable, and Minho imagines that if Jisung were in front of him he’d be peering up at the older man with wide, pitiful eyes. He’d looked at Minho that way the first time he and Seungmin had ever really fought. Minho can’t even remember what it was about. All he remembers is that Seungmin had given Jisung the cold shoulder for the rest of the day, and he’d come pouting to Minho unsure of how to make up with his soulmate. 

“No,” Minho tells him. “It wasn’t you. Your manager was the one who went out of his way to do this, and Seungmin knows that. He does, okay?”  

“Yeah, but—” Jisung briefly pauses before asking, in a quieter voice, “How is he?” 

“Sleeping,” Minho tells him. “He’ll be fine in the morning.” 

“What—did he say what happened?” 

Minho takes a deep breath through his nose. It’s quiet and dark in Felix’s apartment now aside from the light in the bathroom for Minho. He’s not even sure if Felix is even really asleep yet because he knows the younger man is a night owl before figuring that it doesn’t really matter. Felix already knows what happened. Hell, he’d been the one to tell Minho because Seungmin hadn’t wanted to tell Minho anything because he didn’t want to hear any kind of defense of Jisung’s actions. 

“Your manager,” Minho begins, “apparently told him that you were upset that he showed up at your event last weekend.” Jisung’s breath hitches in shock, but Minho presses on before he can start to protest or argue. “He also told Seungmin that you wanted him to leave you alone. For the sake of your career.” 

“What? I didn’t—I wouldn’t—why the hell would he say that to Seungmin?” 

“Well, presumably to protect you seeing as that’s part of his job.” 

“I don’t need protection from Minnie. He’s my soulmate!” 

That’s not what Minho meant but he doesn’t bother trying to elaborate his point. “Don’t worry. I talked to Seungmin. He’s…I mean, he’s upset,” understandably upset, Minho thinks, “but he knows that your manager was putting words in your mouth.” 

“Yeah, but what do I do now?” He knew Seungmin would probably be upset with him after having to cancel tonigh, but now he knows that his manager has made everything infinitely worse. 

“Jisung-ah,” Minho coos his name gently and affectionately, “listen, I—I’m proud of you, really, for trying to make plans with Seungmin, but you guys just released a new album. Of course you’re going to be swamped with work. You have to know that.” 

“We were supposed to be free tonight though!” Jisung argues. “And it’s been three years, and I just—I’m sick of this. I just want my soulmate back.” 

Minho can tell that Jisung is on the verge of tears, and he sympathizes with Jisung. But he also understands Seungmin’s point of view, and he can hardly disagree with Seungmin’s clear frustration. 

“I know, but just remember what pushed Seungmin over the edge three years ago,” he reminds Jisung. “It was this thing. Where you’d keep canceling all your plans with Seungmin. What happened with your manager isn’t your fault, but you can’t keep doing this to Seungmin either.” 

“What am I supposed to do then? I don’t—my schedule isn’t—” 

“You’re busy for now. I get it,” Minho interrupts him. “Just focus on your work for now, okay? You’ll be done promoting in, what, four or five weeks? The semester will be over by then, and Seungmin will have to go home for the summer. You’ll know where to find him, won’t you?” 

“Won’t that just make him angry if I show up at his apartment?” Jisung whimpers. 

“I hate to break it to you, but I think he’s already angry,” Minho laughs humorlessly. “Which at least means that you can’t make him any angrier. I think.” 

“That doesn’t exactly make me feel better, hyung,” Jisung deadpans. 

“I know, but you have to show him that you can follow through with your plans. That he can actually see you, Jisung-ah. He literally doesn’t believe that he’ll ever see you unless he goes out of his way to see you,” Minho tells him. “You can prove him wrong, can’t you?” 

“Yeah,” Jisung’s voice is small but he doesn’t sound like he isn’t confident. He just sounds hesitant, and it’s a far cry from the confidence he used to always have when it came to Seungmin. 

“You have to,” Minho insists. “When you have time though, okay? For now, just focus on your promotions. It’ll give Seungmin time to cool off too.” 

“Okay,” Jisung sounds a little less uncertain this time, and Minho smiles. 

It would be fine. They could still fix this. Minho had to believe that.      

Chan doesn’t interrupt or make any sort of comments as Jisung speaks to Minho. He just observes carefully and quietly as Jisung paces back and forth around his room, briefly diving for his phone before he returns to his pacing. He pulls at his bottom lip with his free hand as he speaks to Minho, a nervous habit of his, and when the call is finally finished Jisung stands perfectly still in the middle of the room with his head hung low. 

Chan stares at his back silently, a simmer of guilt in his stomach because he never knows what to say to Jisung in times like this. He never feels like he has the right words to comfort his youngest. 

He’s still searching for the right thing to say when Jisung lifts up the hand that’s still holding onto Chan’s phone and cocks it back with the intent to chuck it at a wall. Chan makes an alarmed noise in the back of his throat and lunges for Jisung, pulling his phone from the youngest’s grip before he could throw it at the wall. 

“Let’s not take our frustration out by breaking hyung’s phone,” Chan chides him playfully after securely pocketing his phone. 

Jisung drops his hand to his side and apologizes to Chan without sounding like he’s all that sorry for being a few seconds away from intentionally breaking Chan’s phone. 

Sighing, Chan steps forward and places his hands on Jisung’s shoulders as he coos his name. He turns Jisung around to face him and then promptly freezes when he takes in Jisung’s wet eyes and quivering lips. Jisung is quick to reach up to rub at his eyes though. He’s never been much of a crier in Chan’s experience. Even on days where he’s completely overwhelmed and worn down to the bone, he typically just retreats into himself and becomes reticent. Chan isn’t sure he’s ever seen Jisung cry, not even three years ago after his fight with Seungmin. He’d just been sullen and tired, quickly dismissing Chan when he came to check on the younger boy.    

“Sorry,” Jisung apologizes, blinking away his unshed tears. “I wasn’t going to—I mean—I wouldn’t have actually thrown it. I was just—I’m just—”

“What?” Chan prods him gently when Jisung falls silent. “You’re just what?” 

Jisung threads his fingers through his messy hair and tugs at it with a frustrated noise. “I’m just so angry because I’m so fucking dumb,” he grits out, pulling on his hair harder.

“Jisung!” Chan gently pries Jisung’s fingers from his hair before he can hurt himself any further. “You are not dumb,” he tells the youngest. 

“I am though!” Jisung insists. “I didn’t think they’d add anything else to our schedule tonight, and I didn’t check. I didn’t even check my messages to make sure Seungmin knew I couldn’t make it and he showed up!” Of course Seungmin is pissed. It’s the exact kind of thing Seungmin would be pissed about. 

“You were busy,” Chan reminds him. “We were busy tonight. That isn’t your fault.” Jisung looked as if he might fall asleep on his feet by the time they were finally herded back into their van and driven back to their dorm. He’s not surprised that checking his messages with Seungmin slipped his mind. 

Jisung doesn’t look convinced though. He just looks utterly defeated as he stares down at his bare feet. “I don’t know how long I can keep using that as an excuse every time I mess up with Seungmin,” he admits in a dull voice. 

“You didn’t mess up with Seungmin,” Chan assures him. “Life happens, and this job—” 

“I do though, hyung,” Jisung cuts in. “I have. All the time. That’s why he left, remember?” 

“Jisung—” 

They’re interrupted by a tentative knock on the door, and they both swivel their head to look as Changbin slowly cracks open the door and pokes his head in. His eyes are squinty with sleep, and his hair is messy from trying to sleep. Both Jisung and Chan fall silent as they stare at him while Changbin’s gaze flicks back and forth between the two of them. “I heard some yelling,” Changbin explains. 

“Sorry, hyung,” Jisung mumbles. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. I was just…” 

“Having soulmate problems?” Changbin finishes for him. When Jisung tenses up, he smiles apologetically and slips into Jisung’s room. “Sorry, I heard most of it though. Should I order in a late night snack?” 

Jisung groans, burying his face in his hands to try and hide his mortification that Changbin heard everything. “I’m on a diet,” he protests after Changbin suggests a snack. 

“One late night snack won’t add on that much weight, and you really look like you could use it,” Changbin points out. 

And that’s how, about thirty minutes later, they gather around the kitchen table with two boxes of fried chicken. Changbin had taken a drumstick and carefully wrapped a napkin around the bottom of the bone before handing it to Jisung. He hasn’t  done much besides nibble on one side, but he doesn’t have much of an appetite. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Changbin asks when he notices that Jisung’s gloomy demeanor won’t be dissipating any time soon. Chan chokes on his coke, and Jisung turns to stare at him. Changbin raises his eyebrows innocently and reaches for his own glass of coke, holding it with both palms because he curls his greasy fingers up and away to keep them from smearing all over the glass.

“Changbin,” Chan tries to hiss at him, but it’s difficult to sound intimidating or threatening when he’s currently choking on coke. 

“What?” Changbin asks. “I’m, like, the only one here who doesn’t really know what happened, so if you wanna talk it’s not like I can judge. I barely even know your soulmate.” 

“You met him,” Jisung grumbles under his breath. 

Changbin rolls his eyes and replies, “I hardly think a meet and greet where he barely said more than three sentences to me counts as ‘meeting him.’ Besides all I really got was that he doesn’t really like our music and that you probably didn’t want to see him.” 

Jisung sputters, looking outright offended. “What? Where did you even get that? I didn’t even say anything.” 

Changbin shrugs his shoulders and digs out a chicken wing from one of the boxes. “Kid looked terrified. And, no offense, but as an outside observer I always kind of thought you didn’t want anything to do with him.” 

Jisung looks stunned and then upset. “What the hell? You don’t even know what happened, hyung,” he snarls back at Changbin. 

“I know,” Changbin sighs. “Clearly I’m wrong, but you’ve literally never talked about him before. Not until this past week. I’m just telling you how it looked to me.” 

For a moment, Jisung is silent as he stares at his still mostly uneaten drumstick and lets Changbin’s words actually sink into his head. His chest feels a little heavy, and there’s a lump lodged in his throat because this honestly isn’t even the first time he’s heard those words. Seungmin once told him that he felt like Jisung didn’t want him around anymore, but he’d just dismissed his soulmate’s feeling at the time because he was wrong, and Jisung just assumed Seungmin knew that. It feels so much worse hearing it from Changbin too though. 

“So…” Jisung hesitates before quickly shaking it off, “so then, what did you think happened? Three years ago, I mean.” 

“I mean, I know you two fought,” Changbin answers. It was a bit of an infamous incident at the company, and Changbin has heard it alluded to many times, but no one ever talked about the details. No one seemed to even know the details. Changbin looks at Chan who’s giving him this wary look like he’s just trying to warn him to tread carefully. “I assumed you broke up with him after that or during it,” Changbin admits. 

Jisung hunches down and finally takes a real bite of his drumstick but it doesn’t taste nearly as good as he remembers this place’s chicken is. He swallows down his bite before he says, “Seungmin was the one who broke up with me.” 

Changbin makes a noise of acknowledgement but doesn’t make any comment about Jisung’s remark. He takes another sip of coke and picks up another chicken and waits to see if Jisung will elaborate. He’s already made it clear that he’s here to listen if he wants. 

“He was upset with me because I would—I was neglecting him. I kept messing up. I couldn’t find time to spend with him.” 

“Because you were busy?” Changbin asks. 

Jisung’s jaw clenches after Changbin’s question. There’s that word again. That excuse. Busy, Chan nudges him under the table with his foot, and Jisung forces himself to relax. 

“Because he’s my soulmate and best friend,” Jisung corrects with his head ducked low. “I just assumed he’d always be around so I didn’t think—I didn’t even realize how flaky I was with him until he just decided he had enough and left.” 

“Jisung—” 

“And it just feels like the entire universe wants to keep me from fixing things with him,” Jisung cuts him off. “My career, my manager, I just—I don’t know how to fix it. I used to know, but I just don’t. And Seungmin is probably pissed after what hyung did.” He bites his lip and looks at Changbin. “Do you know what to do?” 

Changbin wipes his fingers off with a napkin and keeps his mouth shut. They quietly clean up their mess before breaking off into their separate rooms. Chan is reluctant when Jisung shuffles back to his room, but the youngest insists he’s fine before crawling into bed and silently crying into his pillow. 

When his door opens after a long stretch of silence falls in the apartment he assumes it’s Chan, but Changbin is the one who crawls into his bed and wraps him up in his arms. “I thought about it,” Changbin says. “What I would do if I were you.”

Chapter Text

The rest of the semester finishes without any further incident which Seungmin is grateful for. It had been hard to meet Felix’s eyes for a few days after he showed up at his apartment and had a full on meltdown. Thankfully, Felix never even mentioned the instance in passing, especially when Hyunjin is around, but he’s noticeably much more mindful around Seungmin. He’s careful not to mention Han in any capacity, and Seungmin actually hasn’t heard a 3RACHA song in months now. He hadn’t even known how often he was subjected to their music until he’s suddenly not, and he’s honestly not sure if he appreciates it or not. 

He doesn’t have to think about Jisung for the most part even though he had the gall to text Seungmin the day after he failed to show up to their date. He sent Seungmin a groveling apology and clarification that he did not send his manager to meet him and asked Seungmin to ignore anything his manager said. 

Seungmin told himself that he wouldn’t respond to Jisung. He would ignore him the way that his soulmate always ignored him, but by mid afternoon he caved and replied that he understood. Jisung was busy, which is at least true, and he tells him that it was okay, even though it wasn’t. He thinks it’s the end of that, except Jisung keeps texting him. 

He seems to make it a point to send Seungmin at least one message a day. They start off incredibly awkward with Jisung typically asking how Seungmin is doing, usually only to be shut out by a very curt ‘Fine’ before Seungmin stops responding to those kinds of messages altogether. 

Seungmin doesn’t like those kinds of messages. They feel fake and it isn’t at all how they used to text with each other. Maybe Jisung gets the hint or perhaps he just gets desperate enough for anything beyond Seungmin’s one word replies because he stops messaging Seungmin  half-hearted questions about his day and instead starts sending him little anecdotes about his life. 

Sometimes it’s just to complain about how tired and overworked he feels. Other times he likes to tell Seungmin about something funny that happened while he was working. It typically involved Chan or Changin, often both of them. And on rare occasions, he sends Seungmin small mp3 files. They’re never that long—never more than 30 seconds—just a small sample for Seungmin typically accompanied by a question. 

What do you think? 

Do you like it?  

He sends these things at all hours of the day, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes in the evening, often he sends these things during the unholy hours in the morning almost like he wants to make sure Seungmin can’t or won’t respond to them right away. It works though because no matter how many times Seungmin tells himself that he won’t respond he does anyway. 

He reminds Jisung to rest when he can because sleep is important and he indulges him with jokes when Jisung tells him a funny story. The only times he doesn’t respond are when Jisung sends him little snippets of whatever he’s working on. He never tells Jisung what he thinks about them, but he puts his headphones on every night and listens to them before bed. 

The only response Seungmin ever gives him is questioning whether Jisung was even allowed to share these things and making vague threats to leak them. Jisung doesn’t seem the least bit threatened and calls him out on the fact that Seungmin probably won’t even share those samples with his friends, so there’s absolutely no way he’d leak them to the world. Considering Seungmin hasn’t even told anyone he’s talking to Jisung again, he can’t exactly deny that his soulmate has a point. 

Well, he hasn’t told mostly everyone. He’d accidentally slipped up with his mom when he went home for the weekend a couple weeks before finals. It was his father’s birthday, and Seungmin had to go home to celebrate. Jisung was exceptionally talkative that weekend though, even passing along a birthday message to Seungmin’s father which he did not read aloud. He was in the kitchen helping his mom clean up when she demanded to know who was bothering him at this hour because his Kakao notifications kept going off. 

“It’s no one!” Seungmin lies while drying his hands off on a kitchen towel before reaching for his phone. He laughs at the stink eye she gives him, but insists that it’s nobody. “Seriously! It’s just Ji—” He realizes his mistake too late and he holds out the first syllable of Jisung’s name as he tries to think of a completely different one, but it’s too late. His mother’s eyebrows are raised in surprise and her lips are already beginning to stretch into a smile. “Jisung,” Seungmin mumbles quietly before ducking away. 

“You two are talking again?” His mother asks, following Seungmin out of the kitchen when he tries to retreat. “Did you make up?”   

“Um, not exactly.” 

It’s true. They haven’t exactly talked about The Incident, but clearly they’re on speaking terms again. When his phone goes off with another notification, his mom’s eyes drop down to the device like a hawk, and Seungmin quickly stuffs it into his pocket.   

“Well, tell Jisung-ah that he’s welcome to stop by any time,” his mom tells him. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. He looks so grown up and handsome these days.” She cups her face with her hands and sighs wistfully. Seungmin feels a twinge of annoyance at her behavior. 

“He’s busy,” he reminds her bitterly. “I don’t think he has time to drop by and see how you’re doing.” 

“Nonsense! There’s always time to drop by and see us.” 

Seungmin presses his lips into a thin line to keep himself from snarling. Right, he should be able to find time but he never does. That was the problem, wasn’t it? 

Aside from that though, Seungmin kept his messages private. He hadn’t even told Minho yet. Jisung sends him short and sweet “good luck on your test!” messages during finals week, and Seungmin doesn’t want to admit that it helps him through some of the more brutal ones. 

He and Jeongin say goodbye to each other for the summer after they move out of the dorms but with the promise that they’ll room again next year. Seungmin takes some summer courses to keep himself ahead of the game even though his mother insists that he doesn’t have to; she's proud of him, but it helps keep him focused between Jisung and his friends’ constant distractions. 

He has no classes today though, and he promised Hyunjin and Felix that he would hang out with them. Hyunjin wanted to go shopping, and Felix found a dessert cafe on Instagram that he wanted to try. Seungmin isn’t particularly interested in either of those things, but he didn’t want to hear their endless whining if he refused. 

Hyunjin said he would swing by to pick him up in the afternoon, and Seungmin makes sure that he’s dressed and brushed his teeth by then, but he can’t find his phone when the doorbell rings. 

“Seungmin-ah!” His mom calls for him from the living room. 

“It’s just Hyunjin!” He yells back while lifting up his pillows in case his phone is underneath it. “Can you tell him I’m looking for my phone?” He moves over to his desk to check it over for the fourth time while his mom answers the door for him. Unsurprisingly, his phone is still not on his desk, and Seungmin can’t fathom where the hell he put it. 

He hears Hyunjin pad closer to his room while Seungmin looks over his desk again—but slowly this time and with intent as if that was the problem. “Sorry, I just can’t find my phone. I don’t know where I put it.” 

“Have you checked on top of your dresser?” Jisung asks him. 

Seungmin freezes when he hears that voice, almost convinced that it’s the sound of a fever dream, but when he sets his papers down and turns around to face him, Jisung really is standing at his door. 

He’s got a smile on his face, but Seungmin can tell by the tense line of his shoulders and the way his arms are crossed over his chest that Jisung is anxious. He opens his mouth to ask him what the hell he’s doing here before promptly clothing it. Then he turns to look at his closet and repeats, “My dresser?” 

Jisung hums, watching Seungmin stalk over to it. “You always check the weather before you get dressed, right? Sometimes you forget it there.” 

Indeed, Seungmin spies his phone laying screen down on top of the dresser. He did have a habit of checking the weather before dressing appropriately and remembers setting his phone down on top of it now after he’d come out of the shower. Hesitating, Seungmin snatches the device up before turning back to face Jisung who still hasn’t moved from the door. 

This time he intends to ask Jisung what he’s doing here, but instead he says, “You can come in.” 

Jisung looks surprised by the invitation, and Seungmin quickly looks away. It’s not as if Jisung had never been inside his room before. He used to sleep over all the time, and they’d play games to decide who had to sleep on the floor that night because Seungmin’s twin size bed was just too small. When Jisung lost he’d just crawl into the bed with Seungmin when he was too tired and sleepy to fight back, and if Seungmin lost he’d just sulk and pout until Jisung offered to share the bed anyway. 

He takes one step into the room before pausing. The air between them is immediately awkward and not helped by the fact that Seungmin’s instinct is to stand at the other end of the room. Seungmin eventually shuffles over to his desk, collecting his worksheets and books and organizing his contents just for something to do while Jisung perches himself on the edge of Seungmin’s bed. He’s almost hovering more than actually sitting on the bed, that’s how far out he’s perched, ready to jump up at a moment's notice.

Once there’s nothing else to organize on his desk, Seungmin reluctantly turns to face Jisung. “So, what are you doing here?” He finally asks as he curls his fingers over the edge of his desk. 

Jisung sits up attentively, thighs pressed together and toes pointed inwards towards each other. He tries to smile at Seungmin, but it quickly drops when Seungmin doesn’t return his smile. “I had a free day,” Jisung explains. It’s sort of a lie. There were some things he was supposed to do today, but Chan had covered for him and said he’d come down with a sudden cold over the summer to get Jaebeom off his back. “So, I thought I’d come see you, since I wasn’t able to last time.” 

Seungmin tightens his grip around the edge of his desk. Part of him feels flattered, but there’s still a petty part of him that is sour because Jisung has to make it up to him in the first place. “Oh, today isn’t great for me though,” Seungmin tells him. 

“Yeah, your mom told me that you had plans today,” Jisung admits with a tight smile. 

The doorbell rings again, and this time it’s most definitely Hyunjin. 

“Yeah—” 

“But I was thinking, if it’s not too inconvenient, maybe I could just…tag along or something?” Jisung certainly doesn’t mean to talk over Seungmin, and he honestly can’t blame him when he barely whispered out that yeah. Instead his mouth drops open at Jisung’s suggestion and he stares at his soulmate as if he lost his mind. 

No. No, Jisung absolutely cannot just “tag along” with them. Is he insane? Seungmin just makes a choked sound though before he hears footsteps coming towards his room.

“Seungmin!” Hyunjin sings his name. “Lix and I got coffee this morning, so we’re both here. Are you ready?” He jumps into Seungmin’s room and holds his arms out only to eventually drop them when he notices Seungmin’s wide eyes. “What’s up with you?” Hyunjin snorts, eyes scanning the room and quickly focusing on Jisung. “Oh, hey. I didn’t realize you had someone over—oh, my God you’re Han Jisung.” Hyunjin covers his mouth with his hand and openly gawks at him.

Jisung lifts a hand up to wave, lips pulled into a smile before he seems to realize that this isn’t exactly a casual encounter. He quickly lowers his hand back down and glances at Seungmin for guidance. “Unless they don’t know…” He trails off. 

“They know about…”  Seungmin rubs his collarbone self-consciously.  

“Who are you talking to, Hyunjin?” Felix calls as he trails into the room after Hyunjin. He was side tracked by a short conversation with Seungmin’s mother. When Hyunjin suddenly grabs him, he yelps in surprise as Hyunjin whirls him around to face Seungmin’s bed. 

Jisung waves at Felix with another closed-lipped smile which Felix awkwardly returns before turning confused eyes to Seungmin. Seungmin only shakes his head and crosses his arms over his chest. “He showed up unexpectedly,” he explains. 

“I didn’t know Seungmin had plans with his friends today,” Jisung admits. “I thought I’d surprise him. I didn’t think about the fact that he’d have summer plans.” 

“Fair, actually,” Hyunjin says with a sagely nod of his head. “I mean, it’s hard to lure Seungmin out of the apartment most of the time anyway.” 

Seungmin glares at him, but Hyunjin doesn’t seem particularly intimidated by him. Jisung smiles like he appreciates Hyunjin’s joke though, his shoulders relaxing. “Well, if no one really minds a fourth tagging along, I thought I could come with you guys,” Jisung repeats his suggestion to Seungmin’s friends instead. 

“Of course,” Hyunjin agrees without a single thought. “I mean, as long as you don’t mind spending time with your biggest fan.” He nudges Felix in the side, but the Australian notices the way Jisung’s eyes flick over to Seungmin instead. He seems delighted by their acceptance, only to deflate when Seungmin pushes himself off his desk and quickly rejects the idea. 

“Of course not,” Seungmin hisses at Hyunjin before turning to Jisung. “You’re not coming with us.” Jisung’s expression drops when he hears the fierceness and finality in Seungmin’s tone. Felix almost feels bad for him. 

“Why not?” Hyunjin protests. “Don’t you want to spend time with your soulmate?” 

“Hyunjin,” Felix warns him in a quiet voice like he’s trying to make sure neither Seungmin or Jisung will hear him. “They’re,” and then he holds his hands apart to signify that they broke up without actually saying the words. Seungmin almost screams at them. 

“It’s not about that,” he denies. He points an accusing finger at Jisung and says, “You’re a celebrity. You can’t wander around wherever you want, especially not with three random people. Someone will see and then everyone will talk about it.” He can’t believe Chan let him out if he was this irresponsible still.  

Jisung hunches down lower and lower with each point Seungmin makes, lips drawn into a thin and unhappy line. “You're not some random person,” Jisung protests. “You’re my soulmate.” 

Seungmin’s mouth hangs open at Jisung’s response even though it’s not entirely unexpected. Jisung had a tendency to latch onto things that upset him even if they weren’t that important. “That’s not the point—” 

“I know what the point is,” Jisung protests, “but you’re still wrong about that, and it’s not like I haven’t thought about that. I have!”

“And?” Seungmin arches an eyebrow at him. 

“I’ll cover up,” Jisung protests. “I was planning—I mean, it’s not like I can wander outside without covering up on a normal day. Plus, Chan and Changbin hyung are running some interference for me today.” 

Seungmin furrows his eyebrows together skeptically. “Interference?” He asks.   

“Yeah, they’re out and about very obviously in public right now. If anyone’s gonna get chased around by paparazzi and tabloids, it’ll be them and not me.” 

“See?” Hyunjin insists like what Jisung suggested is actually sufficient. “It’ll be fine. It’s not like you’ll be featured as Han Jisung’s soulmate in Dispatch next year.” 

Seungmin glares at him because Hyunjin is being decidedly unhelpful, but he’s also typically impervious to Seungmin’s generally sour disposition and scathing remarks, so his glare does little more than draw an innocent smile from Hyunjin. Seungmin turns to Felix instead although he expects the Australian to beg to bring Jisung along in line with Hyunjin. Felix doesn’t seem as excited as Hyunjin though, and his focus has been on Jisung most of this time. He does glance at Seungmin when he feels his gaze on him. 

Felix shrugs his shoulders and adds, “I think it’s up to you. I mean, he’s your…” Felix goes quiet as he struggles to put a label on their relationship. Their friends? Exes? Soulmates? “You know him better than the rest of us,” he finally amends. 

Jisung turns to look at Seungmin, expression drawn into a pitiful pout when Seungmin glances down at him. He crosses his arms over his chest but struggles to actually look away from Jisung. He should tell Jisung to leave. It was sweet of him to seek Seungmin out, but this whole thing is just too risky. He is happy though. Jisung showing up at his apartment was an unexpected but very pleasant surprise and dismissing him so suddenly seems like such a waste of an opportunity. When would Jisung ever come back again? Maybe never if Seungmin told him to leave now. 

“Okay, fine,” Seungmin concedes, “just try not to draw attention to yourself.” 

“I won’t. I won’t. Promise,” Jisung insists. 

Jisung covers up by hiding his hair underneath a bucket hat and most of his face behind a mask. Seungmin stares at him because he still isn’t sure that Jisung doesn’t stand out because no one is really scared about catching a cold in summer, but people probably wouldn’t give him a second look anyway. 

“Damn, you still look good even like that,” Hyunjin admires. “That’s so unfair. Seungmin, you’re actually so lucky.” 

“Yeah?” Jisung visibly brightens despite the mask covering half his face. “Have you seen yourself? You’re handsome as hell.” 

“Stop,” Seungmin says sharply and glares at Hyunjin when he beams, “flirting in my face and let’s go.” 

“Jealous?” Hyunjin teases him. 

He glares at Hyunjin before tensing up when Jisung stands beside him. “Don’t be,” Jisung tilts his head towards Seungmin’s ear and speaks in a low voice, “You’re my one and only soulmate, you know.” He rests his hand on his hip, an innocent enough gesture, but Seungmin knows his soulmark is hidden there, and he quickly looks away. 

“Can we just go?” He asks impatiently. 

“Okay, okay,” Hyunjin links his arm with Felix and motions for the other two to follow him.

They march out of Seungmin’s room like some sort of tour group rather than some friends with Seungmin rushing them towards the front door in the hopes of avoiding his mother on the way out. She jumps up from the couch as soon as she hears the commotion though, and quickly makes her way over to see them all out. 

“Have fun,” she tells them, tapping Jisung on the shoulder when he walks by her. Pausing, he turns to face her with a polite smile on his face despite wearing a mask. She looks fond though, reaching up to help straighten up his hat. “Stop by again some time,” she tells him. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. We’ve got a lot to catch up on. And Seungmin is happy to see you, I’m sure.” 

He smiles nervously when she touches his cheek affectionately. “I hope so,” he says. 

“I know so,” she insists. “You know him, though, stubborn as a bull. He gets it from his father.” 

“I’ll try to come by more often,” Jisung tells her and he means it. 

“Well, only when you have time. I’m sure your job keeps you busy.” She smiles warmly at him but Jisung’s expression falters underneath his mask. 

“Hey, are you coming or not?” Seungmin yells at him. 

“Coming!” Jisung calls back before politely bowing to Seungmin’s mother. He scrambles to catch up to the others as the elevator arrives at their floor. 

The subway isn’t terribly crowded when they get on, but it’s crowded enough that there are no open seats available to them at first. Hyunjin gets lucky at the next stop when the woman sitting in front of him gets up, and he dives for the seat like he’s playing a round of musical chairs. When Felix pouts, he leans forward to wrap his arms around Felix’s petite figure and pulls him down to sit on his lap. 

Seungmin makes a face at their antics and asks, “How many stops?” 

“Eight,” Hyunjin answers. “Then we transfer to the green line and go another three.” 

At the next stop, a couple people on the other side of the cart get off, and Jisung nudges him to let him know. Seungmin glances at the two empty seats next to each other and thinks he would prefer to just stand, but Hyunjin raises his eyebrows and nods at the empty seats. “You should sit,” he suggests. 

With a sigh, Seungmin turns to head for the seats, stumbling when the train starts to move again. Jisung reaches out to catch him by the elbow. It helps Seungmin catch his balance, but his skin heats up beneath Jisung’s touch and he shivers, yanking his arm away instinctively. 

Jisung pulls his hand back too, stunned and hurt by Seungmin’s reaction to him. Guilt worms its way into Seungmin’s heart, but he’s quick to stamp it out, ignoring his friends’ gazes on his back as he plops into one of the seats with his arms crossed over his chest. Jisung takes the seat next to him, lowering himself down into the seat more cautiously like he expects Seungmin to lash out if he moves too fast. 

“Sorry,” Seungmin mutters once Jisung sits down. He rubs at the elbow Jisung grabbed, his skin still warm and tingly from the touch, and goosebumps line his arm. “I’m just sensitive now to—yeah—so I…yeah.” 

Jisung looks down at his hands and bites into his bottom lip. “Me too,” he admits.                      

Seungmin relaxes into his seat and glances at Jisung who’s still staring down at his hands. It comforts him that Jisung has the same problem, but he wonders why he is the only one that has to control it. 

Jisung is careful to keep his hands mostly to himself after that although he keeps close to Seungmin’s side, generally trying to avoid Felix and Hyunjin who can’t stop staring at him. It feels very much like the Jisung Seungmin remembers. For all his boisterousness and quick wit, Jisung was always shy when he met new people. He seems especially shy around Seungmin’s friends, occasionally glancing towards them when he feels their curious stares on him before ducking down next to Seungmin. 

Out of habit, Seungmin reaches for his hand to give it a reassuring squeeze before he catches himself and quickly withdraws his hand. They’re not strangers but it definitely feels like they are. 

Hyunjin leads them to a mall that Seungmin instantly dislikes. All he sees are department stores and other high end stores that they can’t afford. Well, he and Hyunjin can’t at any rate. He knows Felix comes from a pretty well-off family who are generous to their children, and Jisung is, well, Jisung. Seungmin isn’t exactly sure what his net worth is, but probably high would be his guess.     

“Why here?” Seungmin asks after Felix drags them into a department store. “No way you can afford even a plain white T-shirt here.” 

Hyunjin shrugs his shoulders and watches as Felix paws through a rack of shirts. Jisung is nearby, but at a different rack which he goes through more slowly. “It’s fun to look around, it’s near that cafe Felix wants to go to, and, if I’m lucky, Felix will buy me something,” Hyunjin reasons.

Seungmin rolls his eyes and mutters, “Ridiculous.” 

“Besides,” Hyunjin nudges Seungmin with his elbow, “isn’t your soulmate, like, filthy rich? You should ask him to buy you something nice.” 

“No, thanks,” Seungmin deadpans. He’s not the type of person to take advantage of his soulmate like that, especially when they weren’t on good terms with each other. 

At that moment, Jisung calls for him, and Seungmin turns away from Hyunjin to watch as Jisung approaches him with a couple of hangers in his hands. He holds one up to Seungmin, hanging the shirt in front of him. “It’s cute, isn’t it?” 

Seungmin isn’t sure if he wants to know if Seungmin likes it personally or if he’s just seeking approval for himself. Either way, Seungmin doesn’t even spare the shirt a quick glance. He just immediately digs his hand beneath the collar of the shirt to glimpse the price tag, blanching at how expensive it is. “It’s too expensive,” Seungmin remarks without answering Jisung’s question. He pushes the shirt away from him. 

Pouting, Jisung pushes the shirt against Seungmin again. “Don’t worry about the price. Do you like it?” 

Seungmin passes the shirt back to him with a tight-lipped smile. He answers, “I don’t like how expensive it is.” 

With a sigh, Jisung holds onto the hangers for a moment before he shoves the two shirts into Seungmin’s hands, pulling away before Seungmin can give them back. “Humor me!” Jisung calls to him before he ducks back into the racks of clothes. 

Seungmin sighs, unwilling to just drop the articles of clothing to the ground, especially with the price tags attached to them. His gaze slides over to Hyunjin who only shrugs and replies, “There’s nothing wrong with just trying some things on. You don’t have to buy anything.” With that he joins Felix and Jisung in the middle of the racks. 

In the end, Jisung bullies him into a dressing room with an armful of clothes, too many for Seungmin to even keep track of the price. He doesn’t even need to. He already knows that it’s already too much, but it’s difficult to right Jisung with his arms full of clothes when his soulmate pushes him into an empty dressing room. 

“I’m not letting you buy any of this,” Seungmin hisses. 

“Remember when you used to get flustered when I’d buy you a candy bar from a vending machine?” Jisung teases him. “Or kimbap from the street vendor on the way home from school. What’s wrong with one gift?” 

“One gift worth hundreds of dollars is not the same as kimbap,” Seungmin deadpans. “And it’s weird because we’re not—” He doesn’t complete his thought when Jisung’s expression visibly falls even beneath the mask. “Fine. Fine, I’ll try this stuff on. Whatever.” 

“We’re still soulmates,” Jisung points out quietly. 

Yeah, that’s true. Seungmin doesn’t agree with him though. He just swallows thickly and closes the door in Jisung’s face. 

It only takes Felix a few minutes to try on the sparse articles of clothing. He slips out of the dressing room with only a thin, summer cardigan in hand. Hyunjin is knocking on one of the other doors of the dressing room, goading Seungmin to open it and whining when the younger man resolutely refuses to. They briefly make eye contact, and Felix motions that he’s going to go back out with a smile on his face. 

He expected Jisung to be hanging around nearby, probably to help Hyunjin pressure Seungmin to actually come out and show off some of the pieces he picked out because Seungmin wanted none of this, but he isn’t even in the dressing room as far as Felix can tell. Stepping outside, he heads away from the dressing room, head moving from left to right as he scans the department store. Jisung isn’t particularly hard to find with his get up. Felix spots his white bucket hat before he even realizes that he’s staring at the idol. 

Jisung is bent over a glass case full of jewelry, looking like he’s examining something until a smartly dressed employee comes up to him with a small black bag in hand which she passes off to Jisung. Felix quirks an eyebrow at the interaction before hesitantly approaching the celebrity. 

“Seungmin’s still in the dressing room,” he says quietly to announce his presence. 

Jisung startles anyway, clutching the bag to his chest as he turns to face Felix. “Oh. Yeah, I figured,” he says. 

“I thought you would want to see him try on those clothes.” 

Jisung laughs at Felix’s suggestion, reaching out to pat the Australian on the shoulder before he remembers that they’re strangers and quickly pulls his hand away. Felix swallows at the action, feeling a bit starstruck. “Seungmin wouldn’t show me anyways,” Jisung says. “He’s probably not even actually trying anything on.”

“No?” Felix furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “Then what’s he doing in there?” 

Shrugging, Jisung hooks his pinky under the ribbons on his bag and muses, “Probably trying to organize the mess I gave him for the employees’ sake. And then if that doesn’t take long enough he’s just sitting there until he thinks it’s a reasonable time to pretend he’s tried everything on and come out.” 

“And why are you out here?” Felix asks. 

Jisung lifts his hand up to show off his little black bag. “I wanted to buy something.” 

“For Seungmin?”

Hesitant, Jisung slowly lowered the bag back down to his side, looking unsure of how to answer Felix’s question. It’s a simple yes or no, but his reluctance to confirm nor deny kind of makes it obvious. Felix isn’t sure why he’s more worried than elated. There’s like this weird dichotomy when it comes to Jisung. There’s the idol that Felix admires. The one that feels like he lives in a completely different world and who’s unapproachable. Then there’s the Jisung who is Seungmin’s soulmate, and maybe it’s unfair to put him in two different boxes like that, but Felix really likes one of them and isn’t sure how he feels about the other. 

“I don’t think—” Felix pauses to think about his next words. He doesn’t know their history all that well, so he doesn’t want to speak on their behalf or anything. “I mean, I’m sure you know him well enough, but I don’t think you’ll buy back his forgiveness like that.”  

They both look down at the bag in Jisung’s hand before the idol moves to try and hide it behind his back. “I’m not—I’m not trying to buy him back,” Jisung denies. “I’m just—I made Seungmin a promise once.”            

“About what?” Felix asks curiously. 

“We used to do this thing whenever we went out to eat or to just do something, you know. Whatever. If I paid one day, Seungmin paid the next time. That’s how we kept things fair and even. But when it came to gifts Seungmin was always too generous to me. He was really good at saving up money, so he always got me super nice things, but I never could. Not while I was training. So I promised him that after I got successful I’d be the one to spoil him. I just…never got the chance to.” 

“Seungmin?” Felix asks curiously. He’s always known Seungmin to be rather frugal. He was nice with birthday gifts and whatnot, but never anything extravagant. “Like what kind of gifts?”

Jisung’s smile shows through his mask with the way his eyes crinkle as he’s reminded of fonder memories. “He bought me my first guitar when we were fifteen. He saved up all his New Years and birthday money to get it for me. He also got me noise canceling headphones for one Christmas. God, I loved those things. I still have them.” 

Felix’s lips are parted mostly in surprise, but he nods his head to acknowledge him. “Really? Seungmin bought you those kinds of things?” He’s not even sure how someone would go about buying a guitar, but Felix had never quite been musically gifted. He just liked it. 

“Yeah, so I figure it’s my turn to return the favor. Even if Seungmin whines and tells me not to,” Jisung tries to lighten the mood with some teasing, but Felix’s expression never really changes, and his smile quickly drops. “You don’t think I should.” 

“Huh? What—I—no! Nothing like that. I just, uh.” Embarrassed by his stuttering, Felix lifts the cardigan up to his face to hide behind. It’s hard to talk to Jisung, and Felix isn’t sure if it’s because of his fame or because of Seungmin. “Look, it’s just…Seungmin doesn’t exactly present a great image of you as his soulmate,” Felix admits and then immediately feels terrible when Jisung’s expression drops. He quickly turns his head away, gaze dropping down to his shoes, and he adds, “He came over to my place after that…well, whatever the hell happened with your manager.” 

Jisung visibly flinches at the mention of the whole manager fiasco, and he quickly looks up and protests, “That wasn’t me!” He shrinks down when Felix startles at his strong response. “I mean, I should’ve—look, I didn’t send my manager to harass him. Why would I? I’m not trying to keep him out of my life. I’m,” he briefly scoffs like he can’t believe he even has to explain himself, “I’m trying to keep him in my life .” 

Felix opens his mouth, promptly closes it, and nods his head once instead. He can hear the bag in Jisung’s hands crinkle when he must have gripped it too tight. Felix crosses one arm over his abdomen and stutters, “I—sorry. I’m sorry. I, like, barely know you and that was unfair to say.” 

Jisung tilts his head towards him after Felix apologizes, eyes narrowing as he peers at the Australian curiously. He hadn’t expected Felix to apologize at all. “It’s…it’s fine,” Jisung replies cautiously. “I guess I wouldn’t expect Seungmin to say anything less. He’s—he’s been pissed at me for a long time.” Three years, in fact.   

Felix smiles tightly, awkwardly as they stare at each other for a second before he looks away first. He glances around the department store for a checkout counter that he can purchase his cardigan at and an escape route from this awkward conversation he started. He feels a need to at least offer Jisung a bit of comfort though. It would be pretty rude if he just walked away after accusing Jisung of being a bad soulmate. He’s still Han Jisung though, and Felix feels nervous and jittery in his presence like he had back at that fan meeting. 

“Look—I don’t—” The Australian mentally curses himself and the stuttering mess that he is as he clears his throat and tries again. “To be honest, Seungmin never said anything about you most of the time I’ve known him. He never really spoke much on the topic of soulmates at all, so I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything until a few weeks ago after that meet and greet.” He flinches at the memory, feeling guilty all over again for pressuring Seungmin to come with him. “We—Hyunjin and I, I mean—used to joke that he was 3RACHA’s number 1 hater. It was just a joke, but I had no idea how insensitive I was being. I guess in retrospect he probably never really hated you guys or your music. Maybe it was just too hard for him to listen to or something.” 

“Anyway! What I meant to say is just that he didn’t want to go. To that meet and greet, I mean. That’s what he said, but he still went, and I don’t think it was for my sake or anything.” He glances at Jisung and smiles wryly at him. “Maybe he just went anyway because he needed to see someone important.” 

Jisung laughs at him. It’s short and distinct, exactly how Felix remembers it from all the content he’s consumed, and it sounds genuine.”Thanks,” he tells Felix. “I appreciate the narrative even if it is a lie.” 

“I’m not lying,” Felix protests, stepping away from Jisung to head for the checkout counter he spotted earlier. “I didn’t know back then. He told me the day after because, well, he sorta had to explain what the hell happened, and a lot of things just make more sense in retrospect now.” 

Jisung falls into step beside him, bringing his bag out from behind his back to hold more gently by the ribbons again. He squints at Felix and says, “You know, I remember you from the fan meeting.” 

Laughing, Felix replies, “Do you say that to all your fans?” 

“No,” Jisung answers. “It’s impossible to remember most people, especially for me. I’m terrible at putting names to faces in a normal setting. I mean, aside from a few fans who come to everything, I never remember anyone. I remembered you because you came with Seungmin.” 

“I suppose that would make me more memorable being with your soulmate and all.” 

“I thought you two were dating,” Jisung blurts out. “I thought Seungmin brought you along to spite me or something.” 

“What?” Felix sputters in disbelief. 

Shrugging, Jisung says, “It seems like something Seungmin would do. And I was insanely jealous for, like, the five seconds I thought you were a thing.” 

Felix eyes the idol skeptically as he places his cardigan on the counter and flashes a smile at the employee there. Then he turns back to Jisung and asks, “Do you really know your soulmate that well?” 

“Ah, I see you’ve never been on the receiving end of Seungmin’s wrath,” Jisung jokes. “Well, let me tell you that guy can hold onto a grudge like he gorilla glued gum to the bottom of his shoe just to make sure it annoys him for an eternity, and he’s got one hell of a mean streak. Trust me, I’ve been on the receiving end of it a few times.” 

“So, what you’re saying is that you're the poor victim in this relationship?” There’s an amused tug at the corner of Felix’s lips. 

“Absolutely!” Jisung insists. “But it’s okay. Seungmin is worth it to me.”

Felix bites back a smile as he hands his card to the cashier. When he’s tucking it safely back into his wallet, he hears a quiet, “Thank you.” Looking over to Jisung, he sees the idol staring down at the bag in his hands before he elaborates, “What you said before about Seungmin wanting to see me. I really needed that. Our last fight was pretty bad. We’ve—it just was never like that before, and I’ve been terrified to reach out to him because I didn’t know how to anymore. I thought he still hated me.” 

Felix takes the bag with his cardigan with another polite smile before he turns to Jisung. “Seungmin doesn’t hate you,” he says. “Trust me. There was a kid in one of his classes last year that he legitimately hated because he belittled Seungmin once. I know what it looks like when he hates someone, and he’s definitely not like that with you.” It’s meant to be a joke, to help lighten the mood a little, and Felix can tell by the way Jisung’s eyes shift that it must work. He breathes a small sigh of relief. 

When Seungmin finally emerges from the dressing room, Hyunjin looks absolutely exasperated by him, complaining that Seungmin hadn’t shown off a single thing his soulmate picked out for him. With a shrug, Seungmin glances around and notes Felix and Jisung’s absence. He blurts out a question about Jisung’s whereabouts before he can stop himself, hastily explaining that Jisung probably shouldn’t wander off on his own. 

“He’s an idol, not a five year old,” Hyunjin retrots. “I don’t think he got lost in the department store.” 

“You never know with him,” Seungmin mutters under his breath. “And that’s not that point.” He digs his fingers into his elbow and bites down on his bottom lip before he can say more. He’s just worried about Jisung blowing his cover, that’s all. It’s not that Seungmin is afraid he’ll step out of the dressing room and Jisung will be gone because something came up and he had to leave. 

“He’s probably just outside,” Hyunjin assures him. 

Sure enough, when they step out of the dressing room Seungmin spots Jisung almost immediately. He’s standing beside Felix. They’re speaking to each other and Seungmin is both relieved to see Jisung is still around and the smile on Felix’s face. 

Like he can feel his soulmate’s gaze on him, Jisung turns to him and catches Seungmin’s gaze. He waves the two of them over. Releasing a tense breath, Seungmin resolutely ignores Hyunjin’s curious stare as he marches over to them. He’s relieved. Seungmin is really relieved just to see Jisung is still there, but no one needs to know that, not even Jisung. 

Seungmin side-eyes Jisung when they step off the train at the station near his apartment. Felix waves at them before the doors close behind them, still needing to take the train a few more steps to get back to his own apartment. Hyunjin had already left earlier to transfer lines. Seungmin doesn’t know where Jisung lives anymore, but he’s fairly sure it’s nowhere near his parents' house. 

“You don’t have to walk me home,” Seungmin tells him as they take the escalator up to the street level. 

“I want to,” Jisung replies easily. He hops off the escalator first and offers a hand out to Seungmin. 

The urge to give in to temptation and hold Jisung’s hand is strong, but Seungmin clenches his hands into fists at his side as he hurries after Seungmin. 

Seungmin’s mother is absolutely delighted when her son returns with Jisung in tow and asks if Jisung plans to stay for dinner. 

“If you don’t mind having me,” Jisung replies as he tugs off the mask and hat he’s been wearing. He sets the black bag he’s been holding down on the kitchen table and runs his fingers through his greasy hair to freshen up a bit. “I’ve missed your cooking.” 

His mother coos, waxing poetic about how well Jisung’s grown up and how he’s still maintained that charming part of his personality. Seungmin tunes her out though as his focus narrows in on that accursed little black bag. 

He asked Jisung about it almost as soon as he spotted it in the idol’s hand back at the department store, but Jisung danced around the subject claiming it was something for himself. He hadn’t taken it out yet though, not even at the dessert cafe, and Seungmin is still semi-suspicious of it. 

“Minnie wouldn’t let me buy anything for him,” Jisung tells his mom. 

“Well, doesn’t that just sound like my Seungminnie,” his mother sighs. “Won’t let anyone spoil him.” 

“I don’t need anything!” Seungmin interjects when he’s pulled back into their conversation. 

“There’s nothing wrong with just accepting a nice gift every once in awhile,” his mother chides him. “Oh, but what is this then?” She points to the innocuous little black bag sitting on the kitchen table, and suddenly everyone’s attention is on the bag. 

“Oh, well, that’s—that’s, um.” Seungmin expects Jisung to claim it’s nothing, just a little something for himself, but he leans over to his mother and whispers something quietly to her. When his mother’s expression brightens at whatever Jisung tells her, Seungmin scowls and grows ever more suspicious of the bag.

“Oh, that’s lovely,” his mother tells Jisung softly, patting him on the shoulder. Then, in a louder voice, she says, “You look like a mess though, Jisungie. Why don’t you go get washed up before dinner?” 

Laughing self-consciously, Jisung pushes his sweaty bangs away from his forehead before picking up his bag from the table. Seungmin steps back so Jisung can slip by him before following his soulmate into his bedroom where he drops his bag off again before heading for the one bathroom in the apartment. 

When Seungmin follows him into the bathroom and shuts the door behind them Jisung blinks at him in shock although Seungmin quickly shrugs him off. I’ll help you wash your hair,” Seungmin offers before pausing to think about it. “Unless you wanted to take a shower.” 

“No,” Jisung answers, “I was just going to wash my hair.” 

For a moment after that, they both just stare at each other until Seungmin reaches up towards the hanging towel rack to grab a towel. Jisung arches an eyebrow at him when Seungmin approaches him and motions him to sit on the toilet and lean back against the sink. It’s a very familiar position for them to be in, and the corners of Jisung’s lips curl up into a smile as he listens to Seungmin’s silent directions. 

“When was the last time we did this?” Jisung muses while staring up at the bathroom ceiling. 

Seungmin grabs the detachable shower head and perches himself on the edge of the tub. “I don’t know,” he answers after turning on the water. He lets it flow into the sink for a short moment before placing his hand beneath the stream to check the temperature. Sure that it’s comfortable, he raises it up to soak Jisung’s hair, running his fingers through the dirty blond locks. 

Jisung’s tense body relaxes under the warm water, and Seungmin’s gentle touch, but Seungmin grins at his initial response to brace for the worst. Seungmin normally would run the water too cold or too hot on purpose just to tease Jisung, but he refrains from it today. 

“Seungmin being nice to me immediately?” Jisung teases him. “I must be dreaming. Oh, that feels nice.” Jisung sighs when Seungmin’s trimmed nails scrape gently across his scalp. 

“What do you mean? I’m always nice,” Seungmin retorts. 

“Right?” Jisung agrees without a fight. “My Seungminnie is the kindest.” 

Seungmin pulls his hand away and turns off the water, reaching out to dispense a couple pumps of shampoo into the palm of his hand. His heart feels a little heavy though. Seungmin isn’t always nice, especially to Jisung of all people, and his compliment sits heavy in his heart. It would have been easier if Jisung argued with him, pointed out all the times Seungmin had been unnecessarily cruel to him out of anger, but Jisung isn’t that type of person, and he had endless patience when it came to Seungmin and his flaws. It makes Seungmin jealous. He wishes he had that same sort of patience. If he did, maybe their relationship would be in a better place right now. Maybe their relationship would still exist. 

He lathers the shampoo into Jisung’s hair quietly, working his fingers in circles. He runs his thumbs along his hairline just behind Jisung’s ear, remembering how sensitive Jisung is there, and sure enough the idol shivers at the touch. 

The only time Seungmin breaks the silence is after rinsing the shampoo from Jisung’s hair and grabbing the conditioner. He makes a remark about how dry and damaged Jisung’s hair is. 

With a snort, Jisung replies, “Have you seen what I’ve done to my hair over the years? I think the company spends a small fortune just to pay for all the treatments I have to do so my hair doesn’t fall out.” 

Seungmin hums at his response. He doesn’t have any fancy or expensive treatments for Jisung’s hair problems, but he diligently works the conditioner into Jisung’s hair. 

The idol tilts his head back to look up at his soulmate and declares, “I know what you want to say to me.” 

Seungmin glances down at him and decides to humor Jisung. “What do I want to say to you?” He asks. 

“‘You should just keep your natural hair, Han Jisung. At least that way it would be healthy, and you look good with your natural hair,’” Jisung tries to imitate him. 

“You do look good with your natural hair,” Seungmin defends. He turns on the showerhead again and washes the conditioner out of his hair. “But I like this too,” he admits. 

Jisung’s lips tremble and he cautiously asks, “You do?” 

“Yeah. Light hair suits you. It looks good.” Honestly, Jisung looks good with anything, but Seungmin won’t ever admit that. 

He shuts off the water and briefly towel dries Jisung’s hair before urging him to sit up. He wraps the towel around Jisung’s head and declares himself finished until Jisung asks him if he’ll blow dry his hair too. 

Seungmin’s gut reaction is to tell Jisung to do it himself—he knows where the hair dryer is—and Jisung will pout at him while Seungmin laughs, but then Jisung really will do it himself. Seungmin isn’t quite over having an excuse to touch Jisung though. Maybe he should have taken Jisung’s hand when he offered it earlier. 

“Sure,” he replies before leading Jisung into his room. He sits him down in front of his mirror with all his skin care items and pulls the dryer from a drawer in his vanity. By the time they’re done, Seungmin’s mom is calling them down for dinner, and Seungmin momentarily forgets about the little black bag sitting on his desk.   

Seungmin’s father returns home just as Jisung collects his and Seungmin’s empty bowls to bring over to the sink. He freezes when he hears the sound of the door opening, and he glances to Seungmin who only looks up when his father walks in looking tired after a long day of work. He walks into the kitchen area when his wife calls for him.

“Honey, your dinner is right here. Come see who’s here to visit us!” Seungmin’s mother exclaims as soon as she hears the door open.

He follows the sound of her voice, primarily motivated by food although he is somewhat curious about their mysterious guest. When he steps through the threshold of the kitchen and into sight, Jisung grins at him nervously, still cradling their stacked bowls in his hands. Seungmin’s father pauses at the sight of Jisung in the apartment. His gaze briefly flicks over to his son, whose expression is carefully neutral, before moving back to Jisung. 

Tentatively, he smiles at Jisung as he places his backpack on the floor beside the table. “Jisung-ah, it’s been awhile,” Seungmin’s father greets him. It’s not a particularly warm greeting, but Jisung’s shoulders sag in relief anyway. 

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been really busy lately,” Jisung replies with a polite smile. 

“Jisung, just leave those in the sink. I’ll take care of them later,” his mother says, referring to the bowls in his hand. “Are you going to stay the night?” She questions as Jisung places the bowls carefully in the sink. 

Seungmin’s head snaps up at the suggestion and he meets Jisung’s gaze over the kitchen counter. It was something they used to do all the time, but Seungmin’s heart still skips a beat like the idea is somehow foreign to him. 

“Oh, not tonight unfortunately,” Jisung sighs. “I actually do have a busy schedule tomorrow. Have to wake up at 5AM.” 

“They really should give you boys more of a break!” She protests while Seungmin bites down on his tongue and hopes his disappointment isn’t too obvious. 

“It’s okay. I’m used to it by now,” Jisung assures her.

“You should probably get going then,” Seungmin suggests unhappily. “It’s getting late.” It was already nearing 7:30. 

Jisung’s smile drops but he doesn’t pout at Seungmin, trying to act cute. He stares down at the sink for a second before he forces a smile on his lips. It’s a self-deprecating smile—the type he always wore when he would make a joke at his own expense or became too self-critical. He used to do it all the time as a trainee, worried whenever his monthly evaluations were due or whenever he’d inevitably started hating his own work, convinced that his music wasn’t good enough. 

Seungmin absolutely loathes that expression and scowls as soon as it bleeds into Jisung’s countenance. He preemptively stands up from his seat, already knowing that he’s about to have an issue with whatever comes out of Jisung’s mouth. 

Apparently, Jisung can tell too because that smile briefly drops and he hesitates when he sees Seungmin stand up, and, for once, Seungmin thinks he might actually back down. But then the smile returns, and Jisung jokes, “Can’t wait to get rid of me, huh?” 

Seungmin’s nostrils flare when he breathes out and clenches his jaw together tight. Jisung is obviously responding to Seungmin’s suggestion that he leave soon but he still feels like there’s a double meaning to that rhetorical question. He thinks that Jisung is digging at him for that fight three years ago even though Jisung was the one who could never be bothered to spend time with him. 

Seungmin takes a deep breath to stop himself from going off on his soulmate in front of his parents. That would just be embarrassing, and there’s no doubt his mother would pull him aside later and gently chide Seungmin for his reaction. That was the most infuriating thing about having Han Jisung for a soulmate. Everyone just inherently gave him the benefit of the doubt no matter how many times he hurt Seungmin. It was never really his fault according to everyone else around him. Or that he should at least cut Jisung some slack. 

Even three years ago, before that fight, his mother told him that she understood his frustration, agreed that it wasn’t really fair to him, but encouraged her son to just talk to Jisung. His soulmate was probably stressed and busy and how could he know these things were bothering Seungmin if he never said anything and just stewed on it until he inevitably exploded? 

Incidentally, he didn’t heed his mother’s advice and had, in fact, exploded in Jisung’s face about his flakiness, but that’s besides the point. 

“I’m just saying that if you have to wake up that early tomorrow you should probably go home soon so you can get a good night’s sleep,” Seungmin explains slowly. “Weren’t you always complaining about how tired you are because of your schedule?” He pushes in his chair and heads into the kitchen, passing by Jisung to open the fridge and pull out a little glass bottle of Bacchus which he turns and pushes into Jisung’s hands. “You should try to be in bed by 10, and if you feel bad when you wake up tomorrow, drink this. It’s your day off today. You’ve got no excuse to be running on two hours of sleep tomorrow.” 

Jisung clutches the energy drink in both hands as his expression smooths out into one of mild confusion. “But I run on two hours of sleep all the time,” he protests. 

“Just because you do it all the time doesn’t mean you should,” Seungmin scolds him. “If you can get a good night’s rest, you should.” 

Jisung’s lips purse up into a little pout as he twists his hand over the cap of his energy drink in a way that threatens to open it. Then his smile returns to his lips, not the self-deprecating one that Seungmin hates, but the genuine one that has never failed to make his heart flutter. 

Right now is no exception, and Seungmin turns away from him when Jisung aims his smile in his direction. Undeterred, Jisung throws his arms around Seungmin while crooning his name, and he tenses up when he feels Jisung’s hands on his arm, his waist, sending tingles all over his skin as Jisung’s touch ignites an involuntary response in him. He tries half-heartedly to pull away but Jisung just pulls him in tighter. When Seungmin glances down, he sees goosebumps lining Jisung’s arms and remembers that he admitted to being sensitive to Seungmin’s touch too. 

“You know why it’s been so hard to get a good night’s sleep these days?” Jisung asks rhetorically, leaning up until his lips brush against the outer shell of his ear. That really sends a shock through his body, and Seungmin gasps at the touch. Jisung leans in closer like he intends to whisper a secret into Seungmin’s ear, and then, in a perfectly normal speaking voice so everyone can hear, he whines, “It’s because I can’t cuddle with you every night.” 

“Oh, my god.” 

Seungmin shoves Jisung away from him with a disgusted noise, ears turning pink as his parents both fondly chuckle at Jisung’s flirting. Seungmin is less amused. “Don’t say that,” he demands. 

“Why? It’s true!” Jisung insists. “I’d stay here if I could. Then I’d be sure to get some quality sleep.” 

“Jisung! Just—” But Seungmin sighs. He doesn’t have a retort to the idol’s behavior. 

“Seungmin-ah, why don’t you make sure Jisung gets home safe?” His mother suggests with an arch of her eyebrow. 

Seungmin turns to his mom with wide eyes, feeling betrayed by her suggestion. Jisung quickly jumps to his aid though, vehemently shaking his head. “Oh, no. My dorm is quite far, and I’d be too worried about him getting back home so late at night,” Jisung explains. 

“Oh, well aren’t you just a sweetheart?” She coles before looking at her son again and insists, “You should at least walk him to the station then.” 

Seungmin looks from her to Jisung who doesn’t protest against that suggestion. He actually smiles hopefully, and Seungmin sighs in defeat. “Okay,” he relents. “I’ll walk you to the station.” 

His parents are still at the table when they’re ready to go. Seungmin has to grab a cardigan from his closet, and Jisung remembers to pluck his bag from Seungmin’s desk. His father says his goodbye from the table, but his mother gets up to pull Jisung into a long and tight hug, only releasing him when Seungmin complains because Jisung needs to go home to sleep. 

The walk to the subway station is short, and Jisung hums a tune to himself along the way as he walks in step with Seungmin. Seungmin keeps his gaze off Jisung, but he pays careful attention to the song coming from Jisung, unsure if it’s one of his released songs, something he’s been working on, or just a random tune he thought up on the spot. He doesn’t ask though. 

When they reach the escalator leading down to the station, Seungmin pauses and turns to Jisung who hops up on the step leading to the descending escalator. He doesn’t step onto it and turns to face Seungmin. “I had fun today,” Jisung tells him. 

Seungmin glances up at him and his lips tug up into a slight smile. “Good,” he murmurs quietly. 

“Did you?” 

Sighing, Seungmin turns his head to stare at the couple of vending machines lining the wall next to the station. “It…it was nice to see you,” Seungmin admits quietly. “After the last two times.” 

Jisung winces, fingers curling around the ribbons of the bag. “Yeah, those didn’t exactly go as I’d hoped. I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “But it’ll be different from now on. I’ll make more time for you!” 

Seungmin shakes his head. “No,” he murmurs, “you don’t have to, Jisung. We—we’re not…you’re not obligated to anymore.” 

Jisung’s smile doesn’t waver as he reaches into the back bag and steps down from the escalator. “Maybe we’re not dating right now, but you’re still my soulmate, and I should—I want to make time for you.” 

Seungmin stares down at his shoes and isn’t sure if he really believes Jisung or not. He wants to, but he’s still too bitter from past experiences. He looks up when Jisung shoves a small, black velvet box under his nose. He eyes the item suspiciously before his gaze drops down to that little black bag which sways easily in the light summer breeze now that it’s empty. His eyes drop down to the box in Jisung’s hand before snapping up to meet his soulmate’s eyes. 

“What is this?” He demands in a guarded tone, even shying away when Jisung tries to push it into his hands. “You said you bought this for yourself,” Seungmin reminds him. 

“I did,” Jisung insists. 

“Then why are you trying to give it to me?” Seungmin complains, hiding his hands behind his back just to be difficult. 

With a sigh, Jisung quickly loses his patience with Seungmin and reaches out to grab one of Seungmin’s arms. It’s laughably easy for him to pull one of Seungmin’s noodle arms forward, pulling his soulmate closer as well. Seungmin stumbles forward with a small cry, and his attempts to pull his arm away are shockingly futile. See, Seungmin would neither classify himself as weak or strong, but he wouldn’t say Jisung is particularly strong either. It was never difficult for him to fight Jisung off if he wanted to, although Jisung typically released him when he did fight. Jisung’s grip on him now is surprisingly strong, and it’s honestly a struggle to even move his arm.

“When did you start going to the gym?” He gripes, fingers curling around the velvet box when Jisugn places it in the palm of his hand. He’s tempted to just not hold it, let it drop from his hand, but he’s not sure being difficult right now actually benefits him, and he’s worried about whatever is in the box. He suspects that it’s expensive, considering where Jisung bought it from, and he doesn’t really want to be held accountable for it if it gets lost or damaged. 

“Couple years ago,” Jisung answers with a cheeky grin. He pushes up the sleeve of his T-shirt and flexes his arm for Seungmin to see, laughing at the slack-jawed expression on Seungmin’s face. “Changbin-hyung always guilt trips me into going but I’ve been pretty bad about it lately,” Jisung explains as he tugs the sleeve back down. 

“Oh, yeah. I can definitely tell you’ve been slacking,” Seungmin snorts with heavy sarcasm coating his words. 

Jisung smiles smugly before his gaze drops down to the box in Seungmin’s hand. Naturally, Seungmin’s eyes follow, and he tilts the box in his hand. 

“Jisung,” he sighs, holding the box back out to his soulmate, but Jisung crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head. “Jisung, what is this?” He shakes the box a little, delicately, but it’s noiseless, and Jisung doesn’t appear particularly alarmed by his handling of the box. 

He tilts his chin up in a challenge and goads Seungmin with a, “Open it and have a look.” 

Seungmin doesn’t want to. He’s worried he won’t like what’s in the box, but Jisung won’t take it back and his curiosity is piqued. Just a little bit though. Sighing, Seungmin stares at the box in his hand for a moment before he places his other hand on top and carefully pushes it open. 

When he sees what’s inside his heart sinks and he bites down on the inside of his cheek. 

In stark contrast, Jisung looks absolutely giddy. “Do you like it?” He asks. 

“This is…” Seungmint rails off. Inside are two rings. Soulmate rings. Couple rings. They’re not the type of rings that complete each other because Seungmin hates those kinds of things, but they’re still two matching rings. Two rings that are obviously expensive by the small diamond embedded into the middle of the silver band. And if that didn’t give away the price, Seungmin is pretty sure the neat ‘Tiffany’ embossed into the inside of the box gives it away. “Jisung,” he sighs, lifting his hand up to rub his forehead like he has a headache even though he doesn’t. “What is this?” 

“They’re soulmate rings.” Jisung’s enthusiasm has significantly damped down when he realizes that Seungmin isn’t all that ecstatic about the rings. “You wanted them before, and I promised you I’d buy you a nice pair one day, remember?” 

Yeah, Seungmin remembers, and it momentarily touches him that Jisung not only remembered but actually followed through and bought them, but he’s honestly ignoring the glaring problem here. “I remember, but that’s—” He pauses when Jisung reaches up and takes one of the rings which he slips onto his ring finger. 

Soulmate rings were fairly common and popular among the general populace. Seungmin had grown oddly obsessed with them when they were seventeen and just officially started dating. A girl in Seungmin’s calculus class had unnecessarily criticized him and Jisung for not having one despite knowing they were soulmates for years while she showed off the ring her own soulmate gifted her. After Seungmin recalled the story to Jisung, he had promptly gone out and bought them a cheap pair of rings.

Seungmin lost his within the first three months because it didn’t quite fit. It was loose and always threatening to slip off his finger until one day it had without him noticing, and he couldn’t find it. Jisung managed to keep track of his although the cheap sterling silver eventually oxidized and turned a pretty unflattering shade of copper. After that, Jisung promised Seungmin a better pair once he had the money for it, and Seungmin threatened to find the most expensive pair he could find. 

Of course, they broke up about a year after that, and Seungmin had forgotten about that unfulfilled promise until now. 

“Those are for couples, Jisung. And we’re—we’re not—” a couple. The words are lodged in his throat. 

Jisung looks hurt by his comment before quickly shaking it off. He was well practiced in allowing Seungmin’s more hurtful words roll off him. He had years to perfect the craft after all. 

“We’re still soulmates,” he points out. 

Seungmin flinches when Jisung reaches up, but he just places one hand on the lid of the box while the other cups the back of Seungmin’s hand that’s holding onto it. Seungmin jolts and presses his lips together in a tightline when Jisung touches him. The idol gently pries his fingers away from the edge of the box, making sure they’re out of the way before slowly closing the box. Jisung keeps his hand over the lid—his new ring gleaming under the streetlights—and Seungmin digs his fingers into the bottom of the velvet box when he’s hit with the sudden fear that Jisung will take it back. 

“Then you don’t have to wear it yet,” Jisung says as he pulls his hands away. He smiles at Seungmin as he releases a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “If you wanna wait until we’re dating again then that’s fine with me.” 

Seungmin laughs humorlessly. “Pretty bold of you to assume that’s going to happen,” he mutters. 

Jisung keeps his smile in place and tells him, “Seungmin, I want you back. You’re my soulmate, and I’ve always known you were the only one for me. Ever since we were kids.” 

Seungmin drops his arms to his side, still clutching the velvet box in his hand. His heartbeat is racing, but he hopes Jisung can’t tell. He takes in a deep breath, and then another, before he in a monotonous voice he says, “You should think about your career first.” 

It’s an echo of the insensitive conversation with Jisung’s manager but also what Jisung told him three years ago. 

Please, Seungmin-ah. I’m trying to focus on my career . 

It’s also a bit of a low blow, but Jisung doesn’t let it get to him. Instead he hops back up the step to the escalators and turns to Seungmin as he steps onto the descending set. “I’ve already thought about it. More than enough if you ask me. All I’m thinking about now is you!” 

His response is actually sweet, and Seungmin’s lips pull up into a smile despite himself. It probably would have had a bigger impact if he didn’t say it while taking an escalator. Jisung waves at him as he disappears down into the station, yelling a quick good night. 

Licking his lips, Seungmin looks down at the box in his. “Idiot,” he mutters to himself. 

It’s almost a week before Seungmin sees Jisung again although the idol keeps in contact like he’s worried whatever good feelings between them might sour if he doesn’t. Probably because it would, but Seungmin still thinks he could do without the selca Jisung takes at the gym or the picture of the ring he sends. Seungmin is quick to tell Jisung that his gym selca is ugly and he didn’t need it but fails to respond to the other picture. He ends up just staring at the velvet box he kept on his desk, the ring still safely tucked inside. 

Minho had come over once since then to spend a weekend at home with his own family. He invited himself into the Kim home and barged into Seungmin’s room while he was studying. He perched himself on Seungmin’s bed and, before Seungmin could even look up or greet him, said, “I heard from a little loud mouth that you went out with Han Jisung the other day.” 

Seungmin paused and looked up before turning his head to stare at his neighbor. “Hyunjin?” He guessed. 

Minho shrugged. “Felix too but he seemed more concerned than interested in bragging about it.” 

“For the record, Jisung invited himself out with us,” Seungmin corrects him as he closes his work book and sets his pencil down on top of it. 

“But you were happy to let him come along,” Minho accused. Then, like a hawk, his eyes are inevitably drawn to the conspicuous black velvet box on his desk. Seungmin quickly noticed his wandering gaze but moved too slowly because Minho hopped up from the bed and reached out to snatch it before Seungmin could even move. 

Seungmin parted his lips to preemptively explain away that box. “That’s…” but he didn’t really have any explanation. Even if he had a lie ready to go, the second Minho opened the box to gleam the contents inside his eyes brighten and it’s like he knew exactly what he was looking at. As soon as he opened it, he closed it back up and set it down where he found it. 

“Looks like you’re missing one,” he noted with a sly smile. “Funny how I think I know where it is.” 

Jisung's call comes in late on a Friday night after Seungmin turns out his lights and slips into bed. His parents have already turn in for the night, and the apartment is dark and quiet. Seungmin falls half-asleep by the time his phone lights up and starts vibrating next to his head. 

Seungmin doesn’t even open his eyes as blindly reaches out for his phone, squinting one eye open to peer at the caller ID. He groans and swipes his finger across the screen to answer it. “Jisung, it’s late. Do you know what time it is?” 

“Ah. Did I wake you up? Sorry, I thought you might still be awake.” 

“I was about to go to sleep,” Seungmin lies. “Why are you still up?” 

“Working,” Jisung sighs. 

Of course. Seungmin should have seen that answer coming. 

“I have to turn something in to my bosses by noon tomorrow, but I’m struggling to get it done.” 

Seungmin sets his phone down on his pillow and rests his head comfortably on top, eyes slipping shut like he’ll be able to sleep this way. “Get what done?” He asks while stifling a yawn. 

“New song,” Jisung replies. 

“You have to turn in a whole song tomorrow?” 

Jisung hums in acknowledgement. “Just an instrumental, but still.” 

“You’re pulling an all-nighter aren’t you?” Seungmin mumbles into his phone. “Have you even started?” 

“Of course I have!” Jisung huffs. “It’s almost done, in fact. I’m just a little stuck on the hook.” 

“Yeah?” Seungmin’s phone is warm against his cheek, and it’s hard not to fall asleep between the warmth of his phone and Jisung’s gravelly voice. “Sounds like you have plenty of time. Maybe you should sleep on it and finish it in the morning.”  

“I have to be done tonight though,” Jisung whines into his ear. “I wanted to hang out with you tomorrow.” 

Seungmin squints his eyes open at that but he doesn’t respond other than just some light breathing. It’s enough to concern Jisung though. 

“Minnie? Are you still there?” 

“I’m here. I’m just…you need to get this done because you want to hang out, so you called me?” Seungmin snorts at him. “I can’t exactly help you.” 

“Hearing your voice helps me.” 

Seungmin groans in disgust. “Are you still at the studio? Go home already.” 

“I can’t! If I do, I'll just lie in my bed and stare at my laptop until I just fall asleep!” 

“You can come here if you want. Even if you stay to finish it there, how late will it be by the time you go back? It’s dark and already really late.” The invitation leaves his lips before Seungmin even fully registers what he said. He only realizes his mistake a minute too late and solely because of Jisung’s excitement. 

“Wait, really? You’d be cool with that?” 

“Well—” Seungmin couldn’t exactly take back the invitation now. That would be mean, and he can hear clattering in the background as Jisung no doubt already begins gathering his things. So instead of outright telling Jisung no, he tries to find another excuse for Jisung not to come. “I’m tired. I’ll probably fall asleep soon, so only if you think you can get here before that otherwise no one will be awake to let you in.” 

“Has your passcode changed since high school?” Jisung asks. “I still remember it if it hasn’t. I’ll be really quiet letting myself in.” 

Seungmin’s throat goes dry and he blinks. Jisung remembers? “No,” he says slowly. “It hasn’t changed.” 

“Then don’t worry about it. I’ll be super quiet! I swear!” 

Jisung and quiet are two things that rarely go together, but the idol hangs up on him before Seungmin can think of another excuse to discourage him. He doesn’t even make good on his original warning because he’s wide awake now, and wandering out of his room almost forty minutes later when he hears the faint sound of his door code being typed in.

The door makes a soft ringing noise that sounds piercingly loud in the quiet apartment, and Seungmin winces at the sound as he rounds the corner to the door. Jisung stumbles in blindly, tripping over some shoes and catching himself against the wall with a slam. It’s not like it’s intentionally loud but still. 

“My parents are sleeping,” Seungmin whispers. Jisung’s a little hard to make out in the darkness, but Seungmin can clearly see his silhouette, a backpack hanging off one shoulder. 

“Seungmin? Sorry, I just—” He’s reaching out blindly with his arms, eyes not having quite adjusted to the dark yet. 

Seungmin pads forward, reaching out to take hold of Jisung’s hand. They both pause at the touch initially until Jisung tightens his grip on Seungmin’s hard enough that he releases a startled gasp. Jisung uses the help to step over the threshold of the front door and shuffle closer to Seungmin. Seungmin feels the heat from his body this close, and his palm is still tingling. 

For a second they stand there quietly, not uttering a word between them. Seungmin quietly breathes in the same air as Jisung, focusing on the feel of his soulmate’s hand in his. Once the tingling starts to fade and Jisung’s hand just feels like a warm presence in his own, he turns and leads Jisung back down the hallway and into his room. 

Jisung’s steps are cautious and unsure, so Seungmin guides him there slowly until his eyes finally adjust to the dark apartment. They slip inside Seungmin’s room, and he makes sure to quietly close the door behind him, so his parents know not to bother him in the morning. He’ll be mortified once they find out Jisung snuck in late at night, but he’d like to deal with that once he’s actually awake and not half-asleep when his mom checks on him. 

He turns around when Jisung stubs his toe against his chair and curses quietly as he pulls out his laptop from his backpack, sets it on the desk, and opens it up. It casts a faint glow in Seungmin’s room. 

“Do you have everything?” Seungmin asks, pulling Jisung’s backpack off the chair and setting it on the floor so he can sit down.  

“Yeah.” Jisung smiles at him, face illuminated by the glow of his laptop as he slides into Seungmin’s desk chair. He slips a pair of headphones over his head that give Seungmin pause, reaching out to touch one of them. 

“I bought these for you,” he notes before he can help himself. 

Jisung glances at him, lips still pulled into a smile. “The ones you got died a while ago,” he replies. “But I liked them a lot, so I just went and got them again.” 

“Oh.” Seungmin pulls his hand away and glances at the program open on Jisung’s laptop. It looks fairly familiar. He’s seen Jisung work on music a handful of times, but he’s never really asked about it before. “I’m going to bed,” he says curtly, turning to crawl back into bed. 

Jisung stops him with a hand on his wrist and pulls his headphones off when Seungmin turns to stare at him. He offers the headphones out to Seungmin with a shy smile and asks, “You wanna listen before you go to sleep?”  

Seungmin stares at the bluetooth headphones for a second before releasing a long suffering sigh as he takes them from Jisung’s hands and fits them over his head. “Okay,” he agrees less-than-enthusiastically as he slips underneath his blankets again. “Let’s hear it.” 

Jisung grins as he turns back to his laptop, pulling up the sound byte to hit play. In all honesty, Seungmin doesn’t really remember what it sounds like, but he falls asleep to it with Jisung’s headphones still fit snugly over his head. 

Chapter Text

When Seungmin wakes up he doesn’t have those headphones on anymore, but he does feel someone’s presence beside him. The soft snoring in his ear immediately alerts him to the fact that it’s Jisung, and why the hell is Jisung even in his bed? Immediately, Seungmin presses his hands into his soulmate’s side and pushes him away, trying to force him off the bed, but Jisung’s got one arm stuck beneath Seungmin’s body and the other thrown over his waist. Their legs are also haplessly tangled together beneath the blanket. It’s much harder to dislodge him than Seungmin anticipated. 

“Jisung,” Seungmin complains, squinting his eyes open to glare at his soulmate. “Get off. The bed is too small.” 

The idol keeps his eyes closed, but Seungmin knows that he’s awake when he fights back, rolling closer to Seungmin with a whine. “There’s nowhere else to sleep,” Jisung points out. “You didn’t even get extra blankets or pillows. How could you expect me to sleep on the floor? Besides, we used to do this a lot, right?”

That doesn’t make it okay! 

“We’re not fifteen anymore. This bed isn’t built for two adults,” Seungmin complains. 

“Fine.” 

Seungmin stops pushing at Jisung when he unexpectedly seems to give in, except the next second, Jisung rolls them over so that he’s laying on top of Seungmin, squeezing the breath out of him as he wheezes and flails. 

“There? Better?” Jisung mumbles into Seungmin’s shirt. 

“Infinitely worse,” Seungmin replies breathlessly. He sprawls his arms out to the side and stares up at his ceiling. There is no point, he decides, in trying to fight off Jisung who has clearly worked on his body in the last few years compared to Seungmin. Fighting him off while he’s still half asleep doesn’t seem like a great path to success, and Jisung is right. They used to do this all the time. It’s not even uncomfortable despite his ex-boyfriend laying on top of him. Minho would tell him it’s because his ex-boyfriend is still his soulmate and there’s no changing that. 

“Did you even finish your work?” Seungmin asks. He definitely remembers Jisung sitting at his desk when he went to sleep, so Jisung must have just invited himself into his bed after that. 

There’s a pregnant pause before Jisung sits up with a panicked gasp. “My song!” 

Seungmin rolls his eyes. All that fuss and he didn’t even finish. 

Without much prompting, Jisung wiggles off of him and slides out of the bed, practically collapsing into the desk chair again as he impatiently taps at his keyboard to bring his laptop back to life. Seungmin takes a moment to stretch his arms out before he rolls over to stare at him. “Did you even work on it at all?” He asks with an arch of his eyebrow. 

“A little,” Jisung mumbles, avoiding eye contact. 

Seungmin rolls out of bed and stands up, towering over his soulmate with his hands on his hips. Jisung sinks further down in his seat. 

“No,” he admits quietly. “I was taking my headphones back and got distracted!” 

“By what?” 

Jisung lifts his head up to give him a look. Oh, right. 

“I slept well at least,” he replies cheekily. 

Seungmin rolls his eyes. “Isn’t that due at noon today?” 

“Oh, fuck.” Jisung quickly turns back to his laptop and fits the headphones back over his head.  

Seungmin leans against his desk and watches for a few minutes as Jisung pulls a notebook closer to him, pencil in one hand, as he flips between multiple programs on his laptop. He’s quiet for once, actually focusing on his work, and Seungmin pushes away with a mumbled, “I’ll make you something to drink.” 

He’s not sure if Jisung even hears him through the headphones. He’s still humming to himself, head bobbing along to a beat Seungmin can barely remember but that put him to sleep last night. He comes back with a cup of coffee for himself and a mug of black tea for Jisung. He’s also cradling some bread in his elbow, raiding part of his mother’s purchase from Tous Les Jours the other day. There was a red bean donut among the various packages she brought home. One of Seungmin’s favorites, but he knows Jisung loves them too. 

Jisung pulls the headphones off and hangs them around his neck when Seungmin lays out the food and drinks for him. He’s normally a stickler about not eating anything in his room, but these are exceptional times, and he really doesn’t want his mom to find out Jisung is here yet. Because she definitely will. 

“I smell coffee,” Jisung sings as he peers into the cup Seungmin set down beside him and frowns at the black tea. He squints up at Seungmin with a small pout and asks, “Where’s my coffee?” 

Seungmin arches an eyebrow at him as he gently blows over his own hot cup of coffee. “You don’t drink coffee, remember?” It made Jisung anxious. 

“I do now.” Jisung makes grabby hands at Seungmin’s coffee. 

“Since when?” Seungmin narrows his eyes at him. Coffee used to make Jisung tremble, his stomach would cramp, and often his anxiety would spike. He avoided it like the plague although tea never seemed to cause him any issues. It was always coffee for Seungmin and tea for Jisung. 

“Since I had to learn how to keep myself awake on two hours of sleep consistently,” Jisung replies. 

That was…new. Seungmin feels both bitter and silly for just assuming nothing’s changed. Reluctantly, he sets his cup down on the desk closer to Jisung’s laptop before picking up the cup of tea instead. “You’re the best. I love you,” Jisung sighs as he claims the cup of coffee. 

Seungmin tenses up with the cup of black tea to his lips, and he glares down at Jisung who doesn’t even seem to realize what he just said. He probably doesn’t. It likely just slipped from his mouth without a second thought which both elates and pisses Seungmin off. He says it with such ease, like it’s a reflex more than a thought, and that makes Seungmin’s heart skip a beat. It’s like receiving a shock to his system to hear those words from his soulmate even though it shouldn’t be. Jisung has always been open and loose with his affection, dropping “I love you” at the littlest things Seungmin did—a smile, a laugh, a teasing insult. It never mattered. Jisung would say he loved him anyway—but he hasn’t heard that in years. 

And that’s what pisses him off. 

How could Jisung just say that? Seungmin didn’t want to hear that from his mouth. 

Seungmin pulls his cup away from his lips and sets it down on the desk before he can do something stupid and spill it. Once that’s safe, Seungmin turns to Jisung and snaps, “Don’t say that!” 

He’s way too late in his response though. When he turns to glare at Jisung, his soulmate is hunched over his laptop and his headphones cover his ears. He doesn’t even respond to Seungmin’s outburst because he hadn’t even heard. Seungmin would know. He tested those headphones out himself when looking for a Christmas gift. Seungmin couldn’t even hear the salesman trying to sell him the headphones even though he was standing right in front of him, and he immediately knew they’d be perfect for Jisung. 

Jisung only seems to notice that Seungmin said something when he glances up and sees Seungmin staring down at him. Jisung reaches up to pull one headphone off his ear and tilts his head up to him. “Sorry, did you need something?” He asks. 

Seungmin parts his lips and then turns away before he can repeat his previous outburst. He clears his throat and says, “Ah, no, it’s nothing. Just hurry up and finish. You only have, like, three hours to get it in.” Seungmin turns and picks up the cup of tea. He didn’t really like tea. “I’ll be right back,” he announces before Jisung pulls his headphones back on and he leaves the room. 

His mother finds him in the kitchen this time, fumbling with the expensive espresso machine she purchased for her husband a year ago although Seungmin used it more often than anyone else. He looks up at his mom as he fits his espresso puck on the machine and presses the button to brew a new cup of espresso. “Hey,” he greets, reaching out to pick up the black tea from the counter and offers it to her. “Tea?” 

She arches an eyebrow at her son but takes the tea, sipping at the lukewarm drink. As the warm scent of espresso fills the kitchen, she takes a deep breath before cocking her head and staring at her son oddly. “On your second cup already?” She asks. 

“What?” Seungmin turns his head to stare at her. He spills some milk from the streaming basket he’d been pouring it into with a yelp, and he rushes to grab some paper towels to clean up his mess. He belatedly realizes that his mother must have heard him the first time. “Oh, that wasn’t for...me,” he finishes quietly, realizing his mistake. Wordlessly, he throws out the milk-soaked paper towels and starts steaming his milk.

“It wasn’t for you?” She asks. “Who was it for then?” 

Seungmin quietly steams his milk before turning off and cleaning the machine. He feels the weight of his mother’s gaze on his back as he washes out the steaming basket and then grabs his new cup of coffee. He knows that he’s taking entirely too long to answer his mom, but he’s honestly busy both trying to come up with a lie and panicking. “For Dad,” he answers finally. 

“Oh, honey, your father left for work long before you even woke up. I could hear you talking to yourself,” she laughs. As she finishes her tea, she wanders over to the sink and sets the empty cup down in it. Then she turns and takes in her son’s pale expression and pauses. She catches on way too fast. “Kim Seungmin, who else is in my home right now?” She demands, expression turning stormy. She turns to walk out of the kitchen and investigate herself, but Seungmin quickly jumps in front of her. 

“It’s just Jisung!” He interjects to stop her. “Jisung is here.” 

His mother blinks at him. “Jisungie?” Seungmin nods his head. “Jisung is here right now?” He nods again. Then his mother crosses her arms over his chest and narrows her eyes. “And when, exactly, did he get here? And why are you trying to hide it?” She demands. 

“Last night,” Seungmin answers, “after you and Dad went to sleep. He called, and I invited him over.” 

“And you were hiding it because…?” 

Seungmin opens his mouth to answer before promptly snapping it shut again. The cup in his hands is burning his fingertips and palm, but he only tightens his grip around it. “I—I don’t know,” he replies. “I thought you’d be mad that I invited someone over so late.” 

“I mean, you shouldn’t,” she admonishes him, “but did you really think I’d be upset that you wanted to spend time with your soulmate? Especially when we’ve known him as long as we have. Jisung is always welcome here.” 

“I didn’t—I don’t want to spend time with him,” he protests. 

His mother’s lips quirk up into a smile at his response and she counters with, “Why did you invite him over then?” 

Seungmin groans, turning to the side to press his forehead into the kitchen wall. This, he reasons, is why he didn’t want to say anything. This teasing drove him insane. 

Sympathetic to his plight, his mother’s expression drops to a more serious one and she leans her weight onto one foot and cocks her hip out. “In all seriousness though, I’m glad you two are talking again. Really. But I can tell that it’s still tense between you two. Have you talked? About your relationship? Or that fight?” 

“No,” Seungmin answers. Sort of. Jisung had, at least, made it clear that he wanted this relationship, wanted Seungmin back, but they haven’t really talked about anything else. Especially that fight. 

“No?” She sounds surprised. 

“No, I mean, what’s there to talk about? We don’t have—we broke up, Mom.” 

“I know,” she says gently. “Is that what you want, though? To stay apart like this?” 

“No,” Seungmin answers quickly. He lifts his gaze up to the ceiling to keep any tears from falling and rapidly blinks them away. “I just…I want a soulmate. I want my soulmate. That’s all.”

“Oh, honey,” she coos, walking forward to wrap her son up in a hug. “You have a soulmate. You’ve always had a soulmate.” 

“Didn’t always feel like it,” Seungmin mutters bitterly. 

She pulls away from her son with a slight smile on her lips like Seungmin’s behavior is more amusing than anything else. “Sweetheart,” she croons, tucking his hair behind his ear, and Seungmin rolls his eyes because he knows she’s about to start lecturing him. “Life happens, and sometimes it gets hard to keep track of the important, steady things when there’s always new issues thrown on our plate.” 

“Mom, I know,” Seungmin argues. “I was always accommodating him, remember? It was—” 

“Yes, and so does Jisung, don’t you think? He knows better than anyone how much you gave up for him.” 

“Then why was he always forgetting or canceling our dates?” Seungmin grumbles. 

“Maybe you should ask him,” she suggests quietly, reasonably, and squeezes her son’s shoulders. “I can’t answer that for you, but I’d imagine he was probably tired and stressed and overworked. And he probably was pretty upset that he couldn’t spend as much time with his soulmate anymore.” 

"Then why did he always tell me to leave when I came to visit?" Seungmin accuses, turning away from the wall to glare at her. 

His mother raises an eyebrow at him. "Why are you asking me instead of him?” She challenges. When Seungmin presses his lips together in a thin, stubborn line, she sighs. “Do you honestly expect that he told you to go because he hated you and didn't want to be your boyfriend anymore?" 

"Yes." 

"Seungmin-ah, why would you think that about your soulmate? You jump to your own conclusions without ever talking to him about what’s bothering you.  That's why you used to fight with Jisung all the time, and he always had to come up with a huge speech to explain away your misconceptions.” She shakes her head and holds her hands out in disbelief. “Remember when he showed up with flash cards to explain that he didn’t have a crush on another one of your classmates because you got upset that someone gave him a love letter?" 

Seungmin blushes furiously. Yes, he remembers. It was so embarrassing he would never forget. "I was thirteen!" He defends. 

"Yes, and now you're twenty-one. What’s your point?" When Seungmin scowls at her, all she does is laugh and pat his cheek affectionately. “Honey, just talk to him. Nothing will work if neither of you know how to talk to each other.” 

“Okay,” Seungmin grumbles even though he knows they probably won’t talk about anything. Frankly, Seungmin doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to know the truth. And between the two of them Jisung was typically the one who wanted to discuss these things. Sometimes. Sometimes he outright avoided talking about it just like Seungmin, and he hadn’t brought up anything about the fight so far, so he probably didn’t want to discuss it either. 

He shuffles back towards his room with his coffee in hand after his mother tells him that she needs to run some errands and that should give them some much needed privacy. Seungmin grimaces at the thought of being alone with Jisung but nods his head in acknowledgement before ducking into his room. Jisung is still at his desk, so engrossed in his work that he doesn’t even notice Seungmin. 

Admittedly, Seungmin is still thinking about it a couple hours later. The things Jisung did back then, his absentmindedness and constantly canceling or missing their dates and his dislike of Seungmin in his studio, had never really been explained. Seungmin interpreted them as evidence of him growing distant from his soulmate and it made Seungmin more resentful as a result. But his mom is right. He would only know if he actually asked. Now isn’t a good time anyway. Jisung is still hunched over his laptop, trying to get this finished. 

Seungmin’s scrolling through Felix’s instagram and wondering if he should update his own beyond the three landscape photos he posted after Hyunjin convinced him to make one two years ago. Jisung lifts his arms above his head and groans loudly as he stretches them out. “I’m done!” He announces loudly, reaching down to pull off his headphones.  

Seungmin drops his phone to his side and sits up in bed to look at him. “Done?” He repeats. “Did you send it in or whatever?” 

With a nod, Jisung reaches out to close his laptop before pausing. He turns to look at Seungmin with a grin on his face and offers the headphones out to him. He laughs when Seungmin stays put on the bed and eyes the headphones suspiciously. “Do you want to listen?” He asks. 

Seungmin huffs and turns his head away. “I already listened to it,” he protests. He was half-asleep and hardly remembered it other than it was soothing enough to fall asleep to. 

“Yeah, but now it’s finished. Well, kinda finished. It still needs lyrics and then a guide and then a recording and then—” He jumps when Seungmin stands up and snatches the headphones from him. 

Seungmin grumbles at Jisung to please shut up as he fits the headphones over his ears. He places one hand on his desk beside Jisung’s laptop and leans against it before glancing down at Jisung. The idol smiles nervously at him before quickly turning back to his laptop to pull up his project. 

As the beat gives way to the soft sounds of a piano, Seungmin finds himself relaxing. There are no lyrics to give the song any specific feel, but the song still doesn’t exactly sound like the Jisung he remembers. It’s neither bright nor does it have a heavy beat he’s come to generally associate with 3RACHA. The song is just…nice. Relaxing. Seungmin can’t exactly find the words to describe it. It takes about all his self-control to stop himself from bobbing his head along to the music. 

When it’s finished Seungmin quickly takes the headphones off and pushes them into Jisung’s hands. He turns away only to freeze when Jisung asks, “What do you think?” 

Seungmin turns back to face him with a blank expression but his heart constricts painfully because he missed this. He misses this. Jisung always shared his music with Seungmin first, seeking his approval before anyone else’s. Seungmin used to be the only one who knew about and listened to his songs on Jisung’s SoundCloud because most of them had been meant for his soulmate anyway. It was just Jisung’s way of communicating. And then his company found him, recruited him, and gradually Seungmin lost that. Jisung stopped communicating to him with his music. Hell, he just kind of stopped communicating with him altogether. 

“What kinda song is it supposed to be?” He asks. 

Jisung blinks as he carefully tucks his headphones and laptop away in his backpack. “I don’t know yet. What kinda song do you think I should make?” 

Seungmin groans and, before he can stop himself or process his own thoughts, he complains, “Anything but another breakup song.” 

Jisung laughs humorlessly at his complaint. “You don’t like them?” 

“Felix and Hyunjin say it’s the only thing you make,” Seungmin mutters, trying to shift the blame elsewhere. “And I know you. I know it’s because of, well—” He swallows thickly after he falters, turning away from Jisung again. 

“Are you mad? That I profited off it or something?” 

Seungmin tenses up briefly before relaxing again because Jisung’s tone isn’t accusatory. He’s quiet and curious more than anything else. “No,” he denies. “You can do what you want. I just—” His throat tightens up and it momentarily feels like he can’t breathe. He can’t even get his words out. He doesn’t care that Jisung is making money off his break up songs. He cares because he doesn’t want to hear them. 

“I don’t—” Jisung stops and twists his fingers together. It’s an old, nervous habit of his that he still hasn’t broken evidently. “I just needed a way to process what happened. You never really gave me a chance to speak or defend myself before you left, so it was, like, the only thing I had to…well, yeah.” He’s still twisting his fingers together and actively avoiding Seungmin’s gaze. He clears his throat awkwardly and adds, “It didn’t really occur to me how often I did it though.” 

Seungmin feels frozen in place. His first instinct is to protest that Jisung is wrong. Seungmin gave him a chance to defend himself, but then he really only remembers yelling at his soulmate while Jisung sat frozen and shrunk down in his chair. He tries to remember if Jisung said anything more than a few stuttered words but he honestly can’t remember. Those songs were Jisung’s way of processing that, and Seungmin chose not to listen to them. 

He takes a couple of deep breaths and keeps his gaze on the wall opposite of Jisung. They should talk. His mom is right that they should talk otherwise their past will always be looming over them, and there’s no way they can continue forward with that burden on their shoulders. And Seungmin can talk. He’s moved on, so talking about this stuff will be easy. Should be easy. Seungmin could be impartial on the subject. 

Unfortunately, his tone is accusatory when he asks, “Why didn’t you want me to be around your studio if you still want me to listen to your stuff?” He swallows back his rising irritation as soon as he recognizes the attitude in his own voice. He wasn’t supposed to be like that. 

Jisung’s gaze snaps towards him, expression wary—worried that Seungmin will start a fight with him right then and there. “What?” He asks reflexively. 

Seungmin averts his gaze, quietly cursing himself for starting the conversation like that. Again. It wasn’t supposed to be like three years ago because Seungmin is over it. Before he can walk back the question and try again or apologize for his tone of voice, Jisung speaks again, and Seungmin quickly snaps his mouth shut and holds his breath to hear what Jisung will say. 

“It’s not like…” Jisung visibly struggles to find the right words, fearful of making a misstep with Seungmin. He looks up at Seungmin, briefly meets his soulmate’s gaze before quickly turning away again. “I didn’t mean to make you feel unwelcome there,” he says carefully.

“You told me to leave,” Seungmin retorts sharply. “All the time.” 

Jisung recoils, bringing his knees up to his chest as he turns the chair away from Seungmin. “All the time?” He echoes with his eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. He has a hard time believing that it happened all the time although he does remember dismissing Seungmin often when he did come. 

“Every time,” Seungmin replies stiffly. At least for the last six months of their relationship. He releases a breath and tries to keep his voice neutral this time to some success. “Why?” He repeats his question. 

Sighing, Jisung picks at the material of his jeans and replies, “I was busy and stressed.” There it is again. The busy excuse, but he doesn’t know what else to say. “We were getting ready to debut, and the company just had an endless demand for demos and completed songs, half of which they would just send back with a demand to change it, and they expected a turnover in less than twenty-four hours and—look—” Jisung digs his fingers into his knees. “Trust me, it would have been nice for you to hang out in the studio with me, but you were just distracting.” 

Seungmin takes a second for those words to sink in. “Distracting?” He repeats, sounding offended. 

“Yes,” Jisung laughs quietly, “very. Believe it or not.” 

Seungmin motions to Jisung and his desk, making a vague hand waving motion, and says, “You seem to be able to work in my presence just fine.” 

Jisung laughs again, hiding a smile behind his hand. It makes Seungmin more flustered than angry though, and he draws back this time. Jisung looks like he’s struggling to get his giggles under control, but when he finally manages he counters, “Yeah, well, it’s a little easier to not get distracted knowing that you’d probably have a few choice words for me if I tried to make out with you on your bed. Easier to work under those conditions, you know?” 

That only confounds Seungmin even more. Enough that he pushes away from his desk and pivots on his heels to face his soulmate. “What? You wanted to make out in your studio or something? That’s why you kicked me out?”

“I mean,” Jisung scratches his head awkwardly, “I don’t remember being that rude about it, but yeah, basically.” 

He wasn’t. He never is. Seungmin can admit that, at least. Jisung hadn’t ever just yelled at him to leave or pushed him out. He was never mean about it. Sometimes dismissive, sure, but he usually kissed Seungmin before telling him that he was really busy and could Seungmin just wait at home for him until he’s done? It wasn’t even remotely hurtful at first. It was just that, over time, Seungmin hated that he kept doing that. It felt like Jisung didn’t want him around. He hates that Jisung’s explanation is so reasonable because Seungmin had been furious about it back then. 

“It hurt,” Seungmin tells him in a whisper. “It hurt because I thought you didn’t want me around.” 

“Why would I ever want that?” Jisung tries to joke but he sounds more miserable than anything. “I’m kinda, like, totally in love with you. If you haven’t noticed.” 

Seungmin crosses his arms over his chest and stubbornly refuses to react to those words. He won’t. Absolutely not. But he feels his face warm regardless. “Didn’t always feel like that was the case,” he spits out. “Considering how many times you just ditched me.” 

“Well, that—that was because…because…” Jisung flounders at the accusation not unlike he had three years ago the first time Seungmin brought it up. 

Seungmin presses his lips together in thin and tight line to keep himself from saying anything further. Jisung said he never had a chance to defend himself last time, so Seungmin will give him plenty of time to defend himself if he wants. Not to be fair but just to prove a point. Jisung’s inability to answer coherently so far is basically proving his point. 

“Look, I know it’s not an excuse or anything, but it really was just that stupid things would come up last minute and I wouldn’t be able to meet you,” Jisung tells him. “And I get that you were upset about that, but what could I do? I couldn’t exactly say no if they told me to stay late and practice more. What was I supposed to do?” 

“You could have stopped making plans with me,” Seungmin retorts easily. “You could have turned me down whenever I asked you to get lunch or dinner since you were always so busy. It would have been better than a bunch of empty promises.”   

Jisung frowns at his response, expression turning sour as he stares at Seungmin in disbelief. “That’s not fair,” he whispers, speaking more to himself than Seungmin, but Seungmin hears him anyway. 

“Not fair?” Seungmin repeats. “To who? You? What’s not fair, Jisung, is having to give up your soulmate for the sake of their career!” 

“I never asked you to do that!” Jisung bites back. “I didn’t want that, Kim Seungmin. If that’s what’s not fair then at least admit that you did it on your own.” Jisung stands up from Seungmin’s chair so they’re eye-to-eye with each other, and Seungmin is honestly so shocked by the volume of Jisung’s voice that he just blinks at him in surprise. 

It’s not that Jisung can’t be loud—Seungmin knows just how loud Jisung can be—but he rarely raises his voice at his soulmate, especially in a fight. He had an unnerving way of keeping his voice low and even while Seungmin got worked up over something like he knew, or thought he knew, that shouting back would only make things worse. Except it doesn’t because Seungmin just stares at Jisung while much of his previous anger quickly dissipates in favor of confusion. 

“What?” Seungmin croacks out.       

With a sigh, Jisung briefly hangs his head before lifting it back up to look at his soulmate. “I know I wasn’t always the best soulmate when I was a trainee, but of course I always agreed to dates when I thought I had time,” Jisung says in a strained voice. “I missed you. We used to hang out all the time after school even if it was just to do boring shit like homework. I wanted to see you too, you know? And it killed me everytime I’d have to tell you I couldn’t make it because of more practice, more this or that, or worse when I fucking fell asleep on the train on the way there and…yeah. Took it all the way to the last stop and only got off because someone woke me up to tell me it was the last stop.” 

Seungmin gawks at him. “That’s what happened?” Jisung had just sent him an apologetic text that he fell asleep and asked if Seungmin was still at the restaurant. He said no, and when Jisung suggested they do something else, Seungmin left him on read, too upset to deal with him. 

“I was mortified!” Jisung defends. “I just—look, I don’t blame you for being upset. I know it sucked every time I missed something because it sucked for me too.” 

Seungmin recoils away from him, struggling to process what Jisung is telling him. It was one thing to be angry at him when he felt like Jisung was always ignoring him. It was something else entirely to discover that he hadn’t been the only one sorely missing his soulmate back then. 

“I get it if you don’t want to accept those as an excuse, but that's honestly all it was. And it’s not fair to blame me when unexpected work came up. I can’t predict those things, Seungmin, but at least I never gave up on us either.” 

Seungmin snorts at that and can’t help himself from glancing over his desk where the other ring is still sitting in the box. Jisung is wearing his own. Seungmin noticed last night when he held Jisung’s hand in the dark. The ring had been cool against his skin. 

“I didn’t give you up,” he denies. 

Jisung’s expression crumbles. “What? You just hate me now or something? You don’t love me anymore?” 

Seungmin’s gaze snaps from the velvet box to Jisung. “Don’t—” Seungmin chokes on his own words briefly because his voice is shaky and there are tears in his eyes threatening to spill out at any moment. It takes him a moment to get himself under control. “Don’t you dare,” he says in a more measured voice, but his throat still constricts as if he might still break out into a sob. “Don’t you ever question if I love you when I—” 

“You broke up with me!” Jisung accuses. “And even now you’re so… cold. What else am I supposed to think? You didn’t even give me a chance!” 

“What chance?” Seungmin snaps back. “Yeah, I was mad that day, but I’m not an idiot either, Jisung. You’re not allowed to date. No exceptions, remember? I was thinking about your career.” 

“Who asked you to?! Because I definitely didn’t. Seungmin—” 

“Yes, you did! And it’s easier this way!” Seungmin interrupts him. “Isn’t it? You can focus on your career. Practice as much as you want, as late as you want because you have no other commitments, right? And I don’t—I don’t have to be disappointed anymore.” 

A tense silence passes over them after that as Jisung stares at Seungmin who can’t meet his gaze and directs his eyes to the floor instead. Eventually Jisung moves, and Seungmin looks up as his soulmate bends down to snatch his backpack from the floor. Seungmin parts his lips to ask what he’s doing, but Jisung speaks first. 

“Well then, I sincerely apologize for being a disappointing soulmate.” He swings his backpack over his shoulders, missing the way Seungmin flinches away from him. “I didn’t mean to make things harder for you. I just wanted my soulmate to know how much I love him. I didn’t know that was such a burden.” 

“Jisung,” Seungmin starts as the idol storms over to the door, but he doesn’t pause or hesitate when Seungmin calls his name. “I didn’t mean—” But Jisung slams the door on him. 

Seungmin blinks at his closed door and a few moments later, he hears Jisung open the front door and leave. The apartment falls silent after that while Seungmin just stares at his door blankly before everything seems to catch up to him suddenly. He lowers himself onto his chair, hides his face in his hands, and cries. 

[ 7:21 ] minho-hyung
Ok. I’m home. Better come over now bc mom is already talking about going out with her friends

Seungmin pockets his phone and finally rolls out of bed because he knows Minho will ditch him if Seungmin doesn’t respond to him in a timely manner. He opens his door quietly and the sounds of his mother’s TV show filters into his room. He sighs knowing that he’ll have to pass by his mother on the way out.  

She returned home a couple hours after Jisung stormed out and had been visibly disappointed when she realized Jisung was gone. Seungmin only shook his head when she turned her questioning gaze to him. Seungmin didn’t know what to tell her. He didn’t want to tell her that he started a fight with his soulmate. Again. 

Steeling himself, Seungmin steps out of his room and quietly pads down the hallway into the living room where his mom is lounging on the couch. They briefly meet each other’s gaze, but his mother just smiles at him. Seungmin releases a breath and ducks away towards the front door. He’s in the middle of slipping into a pair of shoes when his mother calls for him. 

“Seungmin?” 

He lifts his head up as his mom slips off the couch and approaches him with eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “It’s late. Where are you going at this hour?” 

“Just next door.” Seungmin tilts his head to the right in the direction of Minho’s apartment. 

“Oh.” His mother looks relieved. “Is Minho home?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay. Don’t stay out too late.” 

Seungmin smiles at his mother and nods before he finishes slipping into his shoes and ducks out of the apartment. He knows the code to Minho’s apartment because Minho was often too lazy or too mean to open the door whenever Seungmin came over so his hyung could watch him. Minho gave up the passcode a long time ago and often told Seungmin to just let himself in. Seungmin rings the doorbell politely though, not knowing if his parents knew he was coming. 

Minho’s mother opens the door, and she smiles as soon as she sees him. “Oh, Seungmin-ah! Are you here to see Minho? He’s just in his room.” 

Seungmin returns her smile as she ushers him inside. He toes off his shoes as she slips into a nice pair of kitten heels and waves goodbye before stepping outside. 

Seungmin walks through the apartment comfortably, heading towards Minho’s room when he hears the older man call out for him. 

“Seungmin? Yah, Kim Seungmin, you better hurry. I need your help with something.” Minho’s loud voice easily carries through his closed door. 

Seungmin doesn’t hurry at all, shuffling over to Minho’s door and nudging it open with a foot. “Hyung?” Seungmin peers into the dimly lit room and locates Minho on the bed. He’s half lying on it, his legs dangling off the side of it while he lies on his back with his arms sprawled out on either side of him. He lifts his head up when Seungmin opens his door, catches a short glimpse of his neighbor, and flops back down. “Finally,” he grumbles and lifts one socked foot up in the air. “Hurry up and come take off hyung’s socks.” He wiggles his toes to be extra annoying and grins when Seungmin sighs. 

“Hyung, can you be serious?” Seungmin demands as he approaches the bed. 

“Am I being unserious?” Minho snaps back, shoving his foot into Seungmin’s face when he’s close enough. “I need these off. I’m being perfectly serious.” 

Seungmin knocks his foot away, and Minho huffs when it drops back to the ground. “You’re useless,” Minho complains. 

It’s not intended to be malicious or an attack on Seungmin, but the younger man momentarily tenses up, hurt by Minho’s words. He shakes it off although it takes much longer than it should for him to shrug it off, and he flops down next to Minho, satisfied when his neighbor yelps that Seungmin is crushing his arm. Minho presses his free hand against Seungmin’s shoulder and pushes him as he pulls his other arm from beneath Seungmin’s body. 

“Fatass,” Minho quips at him with a snarl on his lips. 

That insult hurts significantly less than the other one at least. 

“Alright, what do you want, Kim Seungmin. I came all the way home because you asked me to.” 

Seungmin hadn’t asked him to. He asked if Minho was at his parents' place, and he just knew something was wrong. Minho was annoyingly intuitive. 

“I got in a fight,” Seungmin admits. 

“What else is new?” Minho snorts. “What’d you get on Hyunjin’s case about this time? You know he’ll have forgotten about the whole thing by tomorrow, right?” 

“I fought with Jisung.” 

There’s a brief moment of silence, and Seungmin keeps his gaze resolutely on the ceiling despite feeling Minho’s eyes boring into him. He folds his hands over his stomach and braces himself for Minho’s response. It takes so long that Seungmin eventually caves into his own curiosity and turns his head to look at Minho just as the older man sits up on his bed. 

“Now how the hell did you manage that?” Minho asks. “Since when are you two talking again?” 

“I thought you knew.” 

Minho shakes his head. “I knew you hung out once. I didn’t realize you were on speaking terms,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Seungmin turns his head back to stare up at the ceiling again. He taps his fingers against his stomach awkwardly and presses his lips together in a tight line. Minho arches an eyebrow at him and waits until the silence is too suffocating for the younger man anymore.

“We’ve been texting,” Seungmin admits. “For a while now. Before we even hung out.” 

With a hum, Minho narrows his eyes at his neighbor and replies, “I see. So you’ve been talking for a few months now, and you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t tell anyone.” 

Minho takes a deep breath and looks off towards his door. Seungmin can tell by the purse of his lips that Minho is annoyed, so he tries to explain himself. 

“It was nothing,” Seungmin explains. “It was just…random shit. We didn’t talk about anything really.” 

“Mhm.” Minho doesn’t sound convinced, but he finally turns to look down at Seungmin again. “So what did you manage to fight about if it was nothing and you didn’t really talk about anything?” 

“Hyung…”

“What? Can’t I be mad that you don’t want to talk to me about your soulmate anymore?” Minho teases. “I feel left out here. You didn’t tell me about these texts or the fact that you hung out with him recently. I thought I was your best friend. Your childhood friend. You used to talk to me about Jisung all the time.” 

“I never talked to you about Jisung,” Seungmin protests. 

“Well, because you never needed to before.” Minho’s lips quirk up into a half smile before he waves his hand and motions for Seungmin to continue. “Anyway, tell hyung what happened then,” he encourages. 

Seungmin lifts himself up slowly to sit beside Minho as he draws nervous patterns into his neatly made bed. “Jisung came over last night,” he tells Minho quietly. 

“Seems like an odd time for him to come and see you,” Minho teases as he nudges his elbow into Seungmin’s side. “Doesn’t he know you go to bed insanely early like some kind of heathen?” 

“I invited him over.” 

Minho raises his eyebrows and blinks at Seungmin. “You did?” 

“Yeah, it was, uh—” 

“Nothing?” 

Seungmin scowls at him, and Minho relents that he’ll stop mocking the younger man’s words. Seungmin doesn’t believe him for a second, but he continues on without calling Minho out on that. “I don’t know why I invited him over. It slipped out before I could think about it.” 

“Maybe,” Minho leans forward into Seungmin’s personal space and taps him on the nose with one finger, “you actually miss your soulmate’s company and enjoy having him around. I know it’s a crazy thought, but it could be possible. Anyway, none of this screams the start of a fight to me, so what happened? Jisung did something that upset you, and then you yelled at him for it, and now you’re here to whine to me about it, so let’s hear it. What happened?” 

Hesitating, Seungmin turns away from Mingi and hunches down. His fingers dig into Minho’s sheet, and he startles when his neighbor reaches out to touch his shoulder.

“Seungmin?” 

Seungmin doesn’t shrug his hand off but he does lean away from him. “I wasn’t—he didn’t—” Seungmin stutters, still trying to come up with a coherent statement, while Minho moves his hand from Seungmin’s shoulder to his back, rubbing soothing circles into his shoulder blades. 

“That bad, huh?” Minho murmurs. Part of him wants to seize Seungmin by the shoulder and shake an answer from him, but Seungmin would only clam up on him if he tried. Minho is anxious though. He hasn’t seen Seungmin this reluctant since three years ago. 

“No, it wasn’t,” Seungmin denies before hesitating. “Well, maybe. I’m not sure. I don’t know.” 

“Kim Seungmin,” Minho says his name with an edge to his voice, but his hands never stop moving in those comforting circles, “calm down and tell hyung what happened.”    

It works because Seungmin inhales sharply and then holds his breath as he rolls his shoulders back and sits up straighter. Then he releases that breath and his shoulders hunch down with him, but when he speaks again his coherency returns with him. 

“I’m fine. Jisung was mad at me.” 

Minho pauses, his palm pressed right in between Seungmin’s shoulder blades, and Seungmin turns his head to look at him. It takes an embarrassingly long moment to process Seungmin’s confession and an even longer time to actually jump start his brain back into action. 

“I’m sorry, did you just say Jisung was mad at you?” He repeats. 

Seungmin nods his head with his lips pressed into an unhappy frown. 

“Which Jisung?” Minho clarifies. 

The younger man shoots Minho a confused look, eyebrows knitted together and his forehead creased. “What do you mean which one? The only Jisung there is to talk about,” Seungmin replies. 

“Han Jisung?” Minho scoffs in disbelief. “No, you must be mistaken, Seungmin-ah. Jisung doesn’t get mad at his soulmate. Ever.” 

“Am I not his soulmate then? Maybe this marks is a mistake.” Seungmin pulls at the collar of his shirt and glances down at his body. “It would certainly explain a lot of things,” he adds before a surprised yelp escapes him.

Using the hand still planted on Seungmin’s back, Minho shoves the younger man forward. Seungmin cries out when he falls from the bed, landing painfully on his knees and throwing his hands out to catch himself from falling face down. Minho sniffs and his expression is completely remorseless when Seungmin whips around to glare at him. 

“Hyung!” 

“Don’t ‘hyung’ me,” Minho snaps at him. “You’re being annoying and you definitely deserved it. I won’t have you slander my favorite pair of soulmates in front of me.” 

Seungmin blows his bangs out of his face and pulls himself back on the bed. When Minho threatens to push him off again, Seungmin swats at him to fend him off. “Are we even compatible?” Seungmin grumbles to himself.

Minho arches an eyebrow at him and replies, “More than you could ever understand.” 

“All we do is fight.” 

Minho squints at him and retorts, “You just like to start fights with him, Seungmin.” 

“I don’t—” 

“You do!” Minho insists. “And I don’t know why you’re so insecure about your relationship with him because that’s why you always pick a fight with him.” 

Seungmin opens his mouth to argue that Minho is wrong. He doesn’t, but one sharp look from the older man is enough to cow him. “Can you blame me?” Seungmin scoffs instead. “People have always liked him—loved him even. Now he’s got a bunch of fans, and I’m just—” He bites down on his tongue before he says something that really pisses Minho off.

“You’re just the only one that ever mattered,” Minho finishes for him. “And you know it. If Jisung knew you would break up with him right as he was getting ready to debut, do you really think he would have kept on his course? He would have quit a long time ago.”

“We fought about that fight,” Seungmin says just so they can move on to a different subject. It feels like a silly thing to say, and Seungmin expects Minho to laugh at him. 

He doesn’t. 

“Okay.” He sounds a little bit confused. “Why?” 

Seungmin shakes his head and thinks of his mom. “All those things I used to get mad at Jisung about, I thought maybe I should ask him why.” 

The corner of Minho’s lips curl up into a sly smile, and his eyes glint. Seungmin knows Minho is in the mood to tease him. “Kim Seungmin asking his soulmate reasonable questions instead of just assuming he knows everything? Are you alright?” 

“I think I’ll just go home,” Seungmin announces as he slides off the bed. 

Minho lets him stand up before he reaches out to hook his fingers in the back of Seungmin’s collar and yanks him back down. Seungmin flails and knocks his head against Minho’s shoulders. “So,” Minho wraps his arm around Seungmin’s shoulder and tucks him in close and tight to his side, “what did you learn? Were you right and Jisung just didn’t love you anymore?” 

Seungmin takes a deep breath and refuses to answer him. 

“Or did you learn that you were wrong?” Minho presses him. 

Seungmin leans away from him, but Minho still keeps him close with his arm around his shoulders. “I was wrong,” Seungmin admits. 

“A shocking admission,” Minho replies dryly but rewards Seungmin by removing his arm from around his shoulder. “But how did this result in Jisung being mad at you?” 

Now freed, Seungmin scoots to the side away from Minho but doesn’t attempt another escape. “I told him I broke up with him because I was thinking about his career, and then he yelled at me, and now I don’t know what to do.” 

With a sigh, Minho lifts a hand up and pats Seungmin in a way that is somehow simultaneously condescending and comforting at the same time. It’s as if he’s trying to comfort Seungmin but he can’t suppress his penchant for teasing his neighbor. “You know exactly what you should do,” Minho tells him. “Or you wouldn’t feel so guilty about it. You just don’t like to.” 

Seungmin swats Minho’s hand away from his head and huffs. “It’s not that I don’t like it,” he denies. “I’m just…scared.”

“Scared of what? Jisung?” Minho laughs at the thought. He waves Seungmin off when the younger man glares at him for not taking this seriously enough. “Just apologize. You want to anyway, and it’ll make you feel better.”  

It’s true. Seungmin knows that it’s true, but it still takes him almost an hour of opening and closing his Kakao chat with Jisung to actually do it. Minho doesn’t press him on the issue, making Seungmin a cup of coffee when the younger man asks for one although he’s sure to level Seungmin with a judgemental look for the request. He spends his time while Seungmin delays texting Jisung complaining about anything and everything that comes to mind starting with his mother’s taste in dishware. It’s Minho though, and it’s too much to actually absorb, so Seungmin doesn’t even try and instead focuses on the last conversation he had with Jisung. 

Jisung had texted him two days ago to complain about how his hyungs were dragging him to the gym when he had been trying to sleep. Seungmin stares at those messages while biting down on his bottom lip, missing the way Jisung talked to him like that. Because that’s the real issue. It’s not like Seungmin can’t apologize, he’s just scared that even if he does Jisung will still be mad at him. He kind of has a right to. Seungmin hasn’t been very kind to him. 

[ 9:00 ] seungmin
I’m sorry.

Seungmin’s immediate instinct is to turn his phone off and throw it to the other side of the room, but he can’t before he already sees a little check mark appear next to his message, indicating that Jisung read his message. Or at least opened it. He holds his breath and waits to see if Jisung will reply to him. He didn’t expect Jisung to be so fast. He usually isn’t. 

[ 9:01 ] jisung
you wanna meet at the park? 

Seungmin doesn’t need to clarify what playground Jisung is talking about. He already knows. He shoots back a quick reply to Jisung that he’ll be there as he stands up from Minho’s bed while the older man is still in the middle of ranting about how coffee is not an appropriate late night snack.

“I gotta go,” he announces, cutting Minho off mid-rant. 

“What?” 

“I gotta go,” Seungmin repeats. “I’ll see you later.” 

“Hey!” Minho yells at him as Seungmin sets his cup of coffee on Minho’s desk, a bit of it sloshing out onto his desk, and scrambles for the door. He doesn’t get up to stop him though, watching from the bed as Seungmin shoulders open his door and rushes outside. “You’re welcome,” he grumbles with his arms crossed over his chest. 

The playground is closer to Jisung’s childhood home than his, so Seungmin needs to get moving now. As soon as he’s outside of Minho’s apartment, he turns towards the elevators before doubling back towards his own apartment. He doesn’t even take his shoes off as he rushes towards his room, ignoring his mother’s cries of protest when she sees him trouncing through her home in his dirty shoes. 

He rushes into his room and beelines for his desk, snatching the velvet box he’s been keeping on top of it like some kind of trophy. When he runs back through the living room, his mother is on her feet, hands on her hips and glaring at her son. 

“Seungmin, where are you going! And why are you running around in your shoes?” 

“Out! I’ll try not to stay out too late. Love you, bye!” Seungmin waves at her before slipping out the door before she can think to stop him. 

The park is a small playground with one little jungle gym with a slide and a swing set with only two swings. It was the place Jisung and Seungmin used to play at all the time when they were kids, just two best friends growing up together. It was back before they even understood what soulmates were; they just knew that Seungmin had Jisung’s name on his shoulder, and Jisung had Seungmin’s on his hip, and if Jisung touched Seungmin the wrong way the younger boy would yelp at the shock and hit him, and Jisung would cry because it hurt. 

It was a time when Seungmin was less self-conscious of his soulmark, showing it off with little care and sometimes even with pride in the warm summer weather when he preferred wearing tank tops and shorts when he went out to play. 

Seungmin still remembers one time when Jisung became upset with him because he felt that Seungmin’s soulmark was in a better spot than his and, for Jisung, that was simply unfair. His solution to that was to slip out of his shorts behind the slide after Seungmin came down. Most of his soulmark had still been covered by Jisung’s underwear, but it was visible and that was good enough for Jisung’s dim, five-year old brain. Or it had been until another little girl who had been playing at the park spotted Jisung in all his pantless glory, paused, and then cried. 

Jisung’s mom rushed up to them after noticing the commotion, and Seungmin stared as she yanked Jisung’s pants back up while yelling at her son that he couldn’t just take off his pants. Jisung collapsed to the ground and started wailing amid threats that his mom would take him home right now if he didn’t stop. Seungmin had to sit down next to him and pull him into a hug, holding him like that for a long time until Jisung eventually calmed down. 

It’s also the same playground where he and Jisung had scribbled their initials on the jungle gym when they were a little older and had a better understanding of what it meant that they were soulmates. 

When Seungmin arrives at the park, it’s late and too dark for anyone to be out playing although the playground is still well lit by the street lights planted around the perimeter. It’s quiet and empty when Seungmin arrives, no sign of Jisung anywhere. Seungmin’s chest tightens and his heart drops to his stomach as he pulls out his phone to check for any new messages from Jisung, but there’s nothing new. Just Seungmin’s last text to let Jisung know that he was on his way. 

Maybe he just lived a little farther away from this place than Seungmin now. Or maybe he just couldn’t make it for some reason or another. Seungmin hates that ugly thought for wriggling its way into his brain, but Seungmin can’t deny that it’s a very real possibility. 

“Seungmin? Is that you?” 

At the mention of his name, Seungmin whips his head to the side to stare at the jungle gym. Jisung stands underneath the main platform, leaning out to peer at Seungmin. He visibly relaxes when Seungmin turns to face him and reaches up to pull his mask down under his chin. “Oh, thank God it’s you,” he murmurs. 

Seungmin releases the breath he’s been holding, relieved to see Jisung there. He’s here . “Who else would come here at this time of night?” Seungmin snorts. 

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Jisung replies with a shrug. “A couple teenagers came about twenty minutes ago to smoke on the slide. Pretty sure it was their first time because I thought they were dying.” 

Seungmin crosses his arms over his chest and glares at his soulmate. “You should have stopped them,” he scolds.

“And blow my hiding place? No, thanks. I was lucky enough they didn’t notice me. And they panicked on their own. Left within five minutes and threw out the rest of their cigarettes.” 

Well, Seungmin supposes he can’t exactly blame Jisung for keeping quiet under the jungle gym in that case. It’s probably for the best that no one else knows he’s out anyway. Seungmin stuffs his hands into his pants pocket, fingers moving along the edge of the velvet box he stuffed in there and tilts his head to the side. “You got here awfully fast,” he notes. “Do you still live nearby?” 

“No.” Jisung shakes his head and leans against one of the blue poles holding up the jungle gym. “I, uh, was just around the area when you texted.” 

Seungmin frowns at his answer. “Why?” 

Jisung laughs nervously and shrugs. “Oh, you know. I went back to the dorm when I was still a little bit upset, and Changbin-hyung got on my nerves, so I yelled at him. Then Jaebeom-hyung came over to go over our schedule, and I kinda picked a fight with him too.” Jisung pauses to tuck a few loose strands of hair behind his ear. “Chan-hyung yelled at me for being a brat after that. Rightfully so. And then I just sorta ran away.” 

“Like a real adult,” Seungmin drawls and immediately regrets it when Jisung flinches. It was just instinct to tease him. 

“Yeah, well, I guess I haven’t exactly finished growing up yet,” Jisung replies. 

“You’ve grown up fine,” Seungmin reassures him, trying to make up for his previous blunder. “I’m surprised they aren’t blowing up your phone.” 

Jisung reaches for his back pocket where he stuffed his phone and laughs a little more freely this time. “Oh, they are,” he replies. “I’m just keeping my phone on silent this whole time.” 

Seungmin lets that statement thoroughly sink into his brain before he blinks. Jisung replied to him so fast though. “You read my message real quick though,” he points out. How did he even know Seungmin texted him if he silenced his phone in an attempt to ignore his colleagues? 

“Oh, yeah, well I was already opened to our texts when yours came in,” Jisung explains. “I was trying to figure out how to apologize to you for yelling earlier.” He reaches up to tug at his earlobe, another nervous laugh falling from his lips. 

Seungmin’s throat constricts at Jisung’s confession because of course Jisung was already trying to find a way to apologize. It was such a Jisung thing to do. “Why…” Seungmin swallows down the lump in his throat. “Why would you try to apologize to me? You…you had a right to be mad.” 

“Yeah, but you were mad too and yelling at you probably didn’t help. I wasn’t expecting you to apologize first. You didn’t have to. I mean—”

“Jisung,” Seungin interrupts with a small sigh. “I am sorry. I don’t—you’re not a disappointing soulmate and I’m sorry for making you feel that you were.” In many ways, Jisung is too good for him. He was always good to Seungmin or at least he tried to be.

“But I disappointed you a lot,” Jisung says with that smile Seungmin hates. “Didn’t I? Because of all the practices and work and the career I chose, right?” 

Seungmin looks away because it’s hard to deny Jisung’s accusations. There’s a lot Seungmin resents about Jisung’s career and all that it ever entailed. There’s a lot of things he wished could have been different about those times, but Seungmin wouldn’t have ever asked Jisung to give up his dreams for his own personal happiness. It was part of the reason he broke up with Jisung in the first place because that day he showed up to Jisung’s studio and Jisung immediately tried to push him back out. 

Please, Seungmin-ah. I’m trying to focus on my career. 

And, in that split second, Seungmin figured he would make that easier for his soulmate. 

“It was rough,” Seungmin admits because it would be unfair not to acknowledge it. “But you love what you do, and that’s important to me too. I’m happy for you, Jisung. Seriously,” he adds when Jisung snorts. “I’m just…sad, I guess, that it didn’t work out for us. Sometimes you just have to make sacrifices.” 

“I didn’t want to sacrifice you though,” Jisung protests.

“But you did,” Seungmin replies. For once he doesn’t sound accusing or bitter, finally achieving that calm composure he never had when it came to Jisung. “You had to, and it wasn’t always your fault. I get that now, so I’m sorry about that too. I guess I didn’t think it would be so hard to support you, but I am happy. You’re doing something you love. Something you’ve always loved.” 

“I loved you too,” Jisung blurts out. “I still do. What about that? Why can’t I have my soulmate back if I still love him too?” 

Seungmin opens his mouth and then closes it because he has no words. He turns his face away from Jisung and thinks about his conversation with Minho. Licking his lips, Seungmin braces himself to look back at his soulmate and says, “I want to ask you something.” 

Jisung leans forward with bright eyes and says, “Anything. You can ask me anything.” 

Startled by his enthusiasm, Seungmin draws back and clears his throat. “I just wanted to know if—if you could go back and do this all again, would you? Would you still want to be an idol?” 

“No,” Jisung answers before Seungmin even finishes his question. He doesn’t bother thinking about it or maybe he had thought about it a lot. So much that he already knows his answer and why. “No, I wouldn’t. Knowing I’d lose you? Now way—ow!” Jisung flinches back and clutches his arm after Seungmin steps forward and punches him there. It’s not a particularly hard or vicious strike, but it catches Jisung off guard, and he gapes at his soulmate. “What the hell was that for?” He squawks. 

“That’s the wrong answer!” 

“How is there a wrong answer?” Jisung sputters. 

“Because,” Seungmin draws back from him and crosses his arms over his chest, “I said there is, and that’s the wrong one. You’re not supposed to say that.” 

Jisung squeezes the part of his arm Seungmin smacked even though it doesn’t even hurt anymore and considers his words for a moment. “So, if that’s the wrong answer then what’s the right one?” Jisung asks. “Just yes? Yes, I would do it all again?” 

Seungmin hesitates before nodding his head. “Yes,” he replies. That is the right answer. 

Jisung doesn’t seem satisfied with that answer though. “So what? The right thing to do was to give you up to pursue music?” He mocks. “Seungmin, half the reason I even liked it so much was because you did. You always listened to my stuff. You liked it. Now you won’t even listen to it, right? Your friend told me. Felix. He said that you don’t like our stuff— my stuff—anymore. He jokes that you hate us.” 

“I don’t—” Seungmin begins to protest before cutting himself off with a sigh because he doesn’t really see the point of trying to explain himself. 

“What part about losing you is right then?” Jisung insists. “Because I don’t get it.” 

It’s not as if any of this even matters or means much of anything. It’s hypothetical. Seungmin doesn’t tend to enjoy dealing with the hypothetical, but he’d allowed his curiosity to get the best of him, and Jisung is taking this far more seriously then Seungmin expected. 

“I’m not saying it is,” he denies. It wasn’t the point, but it was what Seungmin was curious about. Minho was right, as he usually is when it comes to hist stupid childhood friends. “That wasn’t your fault anyway,” Seungmin smiles at the scowl on Jisung’s expression. Clearly, the idol either doesn’t agree or doesn’t believe him. If only Seungmin had a little more patience with Jisung, their break up wouldn’t even be a point of contention. 

“Seungmin-ah,” Jisung calls for him with a crook of his finger before he turns and ducks underneath the jungle gym’s main platform. 

Seungmin glances around the empty park and then follows him, side-stepping the blue pole Jisung had been leaning against to duck underneath the platform. Jisung is lying down on the spongy, rubber material that covered the ground around the park, hands tucked beneath his head. Seungmin stands for longer than is necessary before the hunched position he has to maintain so he doesn’t bump his head on the platform becomes too uncomfortable, and he sits down. 

“You remember this?” Jisung jerks his chin up towards the platform. 

Seungmin tilts his head up towards the platform. Right now it’s too dark to really see anything about the outline of the platform, but Seungmin doesn’t have to see it to know what Jisung is referring to. He knows on the bottom of that platform is their initials marked up with a sharpie.

“Of course,” he replies easily. “Don’t tell me this is why you came all the way out here after you fought with everyone.” 

Jisung laughs at him, head knocking against his hands. “That’s exactly why I came here,” he admits.

“Seriously?” Seungmin wrinkles his nose. “It’s just a doodle.” 

“It’s our doodle,” Jisung insists, attributing importance where there really is none. “And, I don’t know, I like it. It reminds me of happier times.” 

Seungmin presses his lips together in a tight line and turns his head away. Jisung doesn’t elaborate any further, letting that statement hang in the air between them while placing the onus on Seungmin. It takes the younger man a long stretch of uncomfortable silence before he finally musters up the courage to break it. 

“Is that your way of saying that you’re unhappy?” He asks. 

“Nah.” Jisung shakes his head and pulls one hand out from beneath his head to reach out for Seungmin. He makes a little grabby motion until Seungmin finally scoots close enough that he can reach out and grab it. 

It still tingles a little, but it doesn’t affect him as much as it once did. Mostly, he focuses on the cool metal of Jisung’s ring against his palm again, and the velvet box he grabbed before coming here feels heavy in his pocket. Reluctantly, Seungmin scoots himself over until he’s side by side with Jisung, stretching his legs out before leaning back to lie down next to his soulmate. There’s still a bit of space between them, and Seungmin shies away when Jisung attempts to move closer.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m unhappy,” Jisung elaborates. “There’s just…other things I still want.” 

Seungmin swallows down the lump in his throat. He gropes the box in his pants pocket but he doesn’t try and pull it out. Not yet at least. 

“Seungmin…” 

He turns his head when he hears the way Jisung speaks his name so hesitantly and meets Jisung’s gaze. As soon as their eyes meet, Jisung quickly turns his head away to stare up at the jungle gym again. Seungmin squeezes Jisung’s hand and feels the shiver that travels up his soulmate’s arm. 

It helps Jisung regain some of his confidence though, and he takes a deep breath before trying again. “Can I ask—I just wanted to know what it was that day…what did I do that set you off?” Jisung stutters with his gaze still fixed on the jungle gym. “I mean, I know what you were upset about. I get it. All those things that were annoying you, I mean.” 

“What’s not to understand about that?” 

“It’s not that I don’t understand,” Jisung defends. “They just…I mean, I understood your anger, but I didn’t expect you to break up with me. It didn’t—” Jisung struggles to articulate his thoughts, but he doesn’t have to because Seungmin already knows. They were all grievances that Seungmin would get angry about but just that, and Jisung could handle Seungmin’s anger. He has for years.

Seungmin takes a deep breath and presses himself into the ground, half-hoping it might just swallow him full. It’s difficult to admit, but Seungmin doesn’t really look back at that memory with much anger anymore. Instead, he’s overcome with embarrassment and some regret.

“I wanted to talk,” Seungmin says half-truthfully. It’s only a half-truth because Seungmin was angry and upset at the time and probably would have started an argument either way. “But you said you didn’t have time. You were busy at the time. You wanted me to leave even though I just got there.”

Jisung furrows his eyebrows together, thinking back to that day and what he was doing before Seungmin showed up. It’s not very clear to him. Only the fight has remained sharp in his memory of the time, but Jisung knows that things had been hectic back then. Changbin was still new, and there had been tremendous pressure on him and Chan to produce more, produce something better, produce the whole album because that’s how their company wanted to market them. 

“Things were crazy back then,” Jisung murmurs. 

“I know.” Seungmin squints at the platform like he might be able to make out their initials there if he just focuses hard enough. He takes in another deep breath, his chest expanding as he inhales. “You told me that you were trying to focus on your career and asked me to leave, so I did.” 

Jisung swallows and repeats, “So you did.” 

“I thought that’s what you wanted,” Seungmin argues. 

Jisung opens and then closes his mouth before sitting up. Seungmin’s hand drops from Jisung’s grip, and Jisung turns to look down at him with an expression that Seungmin can only describe as flabbergasted. If not for the serious atmosphere or the plummet in Seungmin’s mood, he might have laughed at the dumb look on his face, but all Seungmin can manage is a small smile. 

“You thought that’s what I wanted?” Jisung repeats, voice pitched high into a squeak. 

Seungmin shrugs his shoulders and tilts his head back to stare at the platform, avoiding Jisung’s gaze. “I figured I was getting in your way,” he admits. “I felt like I wanted more than you could give, so I just thought it was better to end things. The fact that I was already pissed at you just made things easier.” 

“So you would do it again?” Jisung repeats. “Break up with me again? Or, I guess you just like things as they are since it’s easier.” He doesn’t sound particularly upset or angry with Seungmin. Rather he sounds defeated, bringing his knees up to hurt them to his chest. 

Seungmin presses his hands into his stomach, trying to keep himself calm and fight down the wave of nausea. “Jisung…”

“Do you prefer things this way?” Jisung asks. “Is it better that we don’t have a relationship with each other?” 

Snorting, Seungmin turns his head away from Jisung and then slowly pushes himself up into a sitting position as well. He doesn’t say anything at first and when he turns to face Jisung he finds his soulmate staring at him. “What kind of stupid question is that?” He asks with a nudge to Jisung’s side when he remains quiet. “I’ve known you my entire life. I’ve known you were my soulmate almost my entire life. Of course I don’t prefer things this way. It’s just…” 

“Easier,” Jisung drawls. 

“Tell me it isn’t,” Seungmin challenges. “You don’t have any commitments outside of your job. Isn’t that easier for you?” 

Jisung doesn’t deny it. He turns his head away, and Seungmin thinks he got his point across but then Jisung says, “Easier doesn’t mean better, Minnie.” 

Seungmin stretches his legs out and leans back against his hands, staring down at the toes of his shoes as he knocks them against each other. Jisung hugs his knees to his chest tighter and rests his chin on top of them. They sit in a silence that is comfortable despite the fact that the two of them are still walking on thin ice around each other. 

Eventually, Jisung scoots closer to Seungmin until their hips touch. From the corner of his eye, Seungmin notices the way Jisung keeps casting furtive glances at him but pretends as if he doesn’t notice. At least until he can’t stand that miserable, kicked-puppy look on Jisung’s face. Seungmin shifts so he can sit up without leaning back against his hands and reaches out to grab Jisung’s hand. Jisung startles at the touch, turning to face his soulmate, although he doesn’t pull away from his soulmate.                

“Are you okay?” Seungmin asks. 

Jisung turns his head away to stare out ahead of him, eyes searching the dark for nothing of note. He takes in a shaky breath and replies negatively. 

“Why not?” 

Jisung snorts, blinking back some tears that well in his eyes. His voice is still controlled when he speaks though, giving away nothing. “Why would I be?” He replies, refusing to meet Seungmin’s gaze. He laughs again, humorless and full of dread. “It feels like you’re trying to break up with me again which I know is stupid because we’re not dating, but—” Jisung attempts to yank is hand away from Seungmin, but his soulmate holds onto his hand tight. 

Seungmin even reinforces his hold by grabbing onto Jisung’s hand with both of his and pulls it over his lap with enough force that he jars Jisung, and their shoulders knock against each other. Jisung is tense beside him although he slowly relaxes the longer Seungmin holds onto his hand, tracing gentle fingers over the back of Jisung’s hand along his bejeweled fingers. 

“I’m not breaking up with you,” Seungmin assures him with a barely contained laugh. A ridiculous number of rings adorn Jisung’s fingers, but it’s not difficult for Seungmin to find one particular ring, and he runs his fingers along the smooth band. 

“I know,” Jisung sighs. “You can’t even if you wanted to because we’re not dating—” 

“Jisung,” Seungmin interrupts, still petting the ring on Jisung’s finger. “I don’t—look.” He sighs and hangs his head a little. “I…I’ve liked seeing you the past couple of weeks. It’s…made me realize how much I miss you.” Seungmin missed Jisung since the day they broke up, but he could deny it back then. Seungmin denied and denied for years, and he thought he could keep up the denial for the rest of his life if he really committed to it. But then Jisung had nudged and pushed his way back into Seungmin’s life, burrowing himself in places Seungmin thought he had fortified and protected. 

He can’t deny it anymore because the few hours after Jisung stormed out on him had been the loneliest hours Seungmin experienced in awhile. He had been with Minho too, and he still felt lonely with his best friend. 

“But it’s easier,” Jisung mutters. 

“I don’t prefer it though,” Seungmin replies. 

Finally, Jisung turns his head to look at Seungmin, eyes bright and shining as he stares at his soulmate. “So then—” Jisung leans over into Seungmin’s space, so close that Seungmin can feel the warmth of Jisung’s breath against his skin, but he doesn’t shy away from it. 

“Seungmin,” Jisung pauses to swallow, “don’t give me false hope.” This time when he pulls his hand from Seungmin’s grip, it slips free without much resistance. 

Seungmin’s chest tightens at the pitiful plea, and he presses his palms against his thighs. “Jisung—”

“I get it. I know I didn’t exactly make things easy for you, and I’m sorry for that. I really am.” 

Seungmin moves first because he knows he has to. Jisung is still close enough that all Seungmin has to do is turn his head and lean in and their lips touch, their noses bumping against each other. It’s not really a kiss—just a touch of lips more than anything—but Jisung shuts up and closes his eyes anyway.  

Seungmin pulls away quickly, cheeks flaming with a blush, but doesn’t account for Jisung following after him. He leans forward to chase after Seungmin’s lips until they lose their balance. Seungmin tips back first with a little cry and reaches out to grab hold of Jisung on instinct to catch himself, but only ends up dragging Jisung down with him. The elder takes it in stride, bracing his hands on either side of Seungmin’s head and pauses before dipping down for an actual kiss this time. 

It’s much less awkward. In fact, it’s alarmingly familiar as it probably should be. Although their official relationship might not have lasted that long, but kisses had never been rare between them. Pecks on the cheeks or forehead kisses were common growing up, and they just transformed to gentle kisses on the lips over time. 

So Seungmin doesn’t respond with shock when Jisung kisses him. He responds the only way he knows how—by cupping Jisung’s cheeks and kissing him back. Jisung’s lips are warm and soft against his. 

After Jisung pulls back he shifts himself over to straddle Seungmin, taking a deep breath as he takes in the sight of his soulmate beneath him. Seungmin’s hair is splayed out against the ground, lips parted as he sucks in a couple breaths, and his eyes are half-lidded. 

“Should I ask what that kiss was for?” Jisung asks, lifting a hand up to hold onto one of Seungmin’s still caressing his face. He looks hopeful, and Seungmin’s heart aches as he runs his finger along Jisung’s cheek. They’re still full—cute—but he doesn’t look as young as he had three years ago. He’s grown into himself. 

“My mom’s right,” Seungmin murmurs, “you grew up well.” When Jisung furrows his eyebrows together in confusion, Seungmin laughs and drops the hand that Jisung isn’t holding onto. “Handsome,” he clarifies. “You’ve grown more handsome.” 

Jisung narrows his eyes at him, but his lips twitch—a clear sign that he’s pleased by the compliment although he’s trying to hide it. “Seungmin, what?” 

Seungmin struggles to sit upright, and Jisung shifts back to give him space. He catches Jisung’s gaze once he’s upright, only to flush when Jisung flashes him a smile and says, “You grew up even cuter.” 

“Stop.” Seungmin shoves him, but it doesn’t deter Jisung in the slightest nor does it stop the smile that spreads across his lips when he hears Jisung’s compliment. 

Cute had always been Jisung’s favorite word to describe him no matter how many times Seungmin protested. Jisung is only a week and one day older than him. Seungmin thought it was weird to be called cute, especially given that Jisung always had more of the baby face between the two of them. It never stopped Jisung though who called him cute and always likened him to a puppy, and he knew it was fine because despite all of Seungmin’s protests he couldn’t help but smile anyways. 

“I love you smile,” Jisung would tell him. 

“I miss your smile,” Jisung says now, squeezing the back of Seungmin’s hand. 

The smile drops almost immediately, and Seungmin gently untangles his hand from Jisung’s. For a moment, they’re engulfed in an awkward silence until Seungmin musters the courage to speak first. “You…want to date again,” he murmurs, remembering their conversation at the subway station.   

“I—” Jisung hesitates. “I want anything with you,” he says, so pathetic and desperate. “I mean, I want that too. I want to be your boyfriend again. I want to take you on dates again, and spoil you because I can now, and kiss you in greeting, but I’m okay with just soulmates. Or friends even. I mean, we’re childhood friends still too, right? Just anything besides this cold war thing. Whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want?” Seungmin repeats, hunching down when Jisung grins and nods his head eagerly. It feels like a lot of pressure to choose what their relationship should be—if they should even have a relationship—and Seungmin isn’t sure he can really make that kind of decision because, “I’m scared.” 

Jisung’s smile falters at the confession and he shifts forward, reaching up to cup Seungmin’s cheeks. “You’re scared? Of what?” He asks. 

“Jisung, listen, I miss you. I really, really do, but I don’t want to—I can’t do this again. Not if it’s going to be like it was three years ago.” Seungmin tilts his head, leaning into Jisung’s touch. “Believe it or not, I don’t actually enjoy being mad at you all the time. If we try this again, I want—things have to be different this time.”

Jisung opens his mouth and then promptly closes it, casting his eyes down as he thinks. When he’s ready he lifts himself up on his knees, holding himself steady with his hands planted on Seungmin’s shoulders, and clears his throat. Very seriously, he says, “Kim Seungmin, I can’t promise you that those things will never happen. I can’t promise that there’ll never be a date that gets cancelled because of stupid bullshit or that we’ll be able to see each other whenever because I’d be lying to you if I did. But I can promise that I’ll be better this time. I won't make the same mistakes twice and—and I’m willing to compromise if you are too.” 

Ducking his head down, Seungmin butts it against Jisung’s chest to hide from his sincerity and shakes his head. “What about that no dating rule?” He grumbles. 

“They don’t really care as long as you don’t get caught,” Jisung replies. “And something tells me you probably aren’t going to be updating your Instagram with date night pictures when you haven’t been bothered to update it in years.” 

Seungmin pulls back and narrows his eyes at Jisung. “You're the liability,” he retorts. 

“I am not! I know how to keep a secret!” He sits back on his heels and averts his gaze when Seungmin stares at him. “I mean, important ones. The really important ones.” Jisung laughs nervously and peers at his soulmate shyly. “So, anyway, does that mean—” He yelps when Seungmin shoves something in his face. Blinking, he reaches up to take the item from Seungmin and stares at the little velvet box cupped in his palms. 

For a brief second, he feels like a complete and utter idiot. After all this, Seungmin is still rejecting him? But then the younger boy holds his hand out and grumbles, “Put it on for me.” 

With a laugh, Jisung lifts the lid and takes out the matching ring, tossing the box carelessly to the ground. “Alright, princess,” he agrees. 

Seungmin briefly snatches his hand back when Jisung reaches out for it and mutters, “Don’t call me that again.” 

Still grinning, Jisung holds his hands up in surrender and corrects himself, “Alright, puppy.” 

Seungmin sighs and reluctantly places his hand back in Jisung’s, suppressing a shiver when he feels the cool metal band slide along his finger. It’s heavier then the shitty pair Jisung had bought back in high school, but it’s snug around his finger. Seungmin lifts his hand up, fingers pointed down, and wiggles them just to test it, but the ring doesn’t move. 

“What do you think?” Jisung asks. 

“I don’t know. It’s too dark and I can barely see it.” 

“Yah, Kim Seungmin.” Jisung sounds exasperated. 

Seungmin just laughs at him, reaching out to pull Jisung closer for a kiss. “Do you need to go home tonight?” 

“I should,” Jisung replies. “But I can stay out late. And I’m hungry anyway. Want to get a snack?” 

“Is that a date?” 

Jisung hums in reply. “I believe I still owe you a bowl of kimchi-jiggae.” 

Minho is late to lunch on the first day back for the semester, backpack hanging off one shoulder as he checks the group chat one more time. Felix and Hyunjin had been chatting all morning, coordinating a time and place to eat for lunch while Seungmin and Minho had remained quiet. He finds them at their usual table under the shade of the big tree in the quad. Felix and Hyunjin’s conversation carries quite a distance, and Seungmin sits next to Hyunjin, quietly sipping on an iced coffee while going over a syllabus. 

Minho rolls his eyes at the sight of them. 

“You two are so loud,” he complains as he approaches, dropping his backpack onto the ground and sliding onto the bench beside Felix. He reaches across the bench and snatches the packet Seungmin was reading out of his hands. “And you’re a loser,” he snides, tossing the syllabus to the ground. 

“Hyung!” Seungmin cries out. 

“And you’re late,” Felix points out. 

“I’m not late. I told you one of my classes runs a little bit later than yours,” Minho answers. 

“You haven’t said a word in the groupchat,” Hyunjin retorts. 

“Did I not?” Minho blinks at him innocently before something else catches his attention. He turns to Seungmin who raises his eyebrows and takes another sip of his drink. Seamlessly switching targets, Minho rests his chin in his hand and leans forward. “You know, you suddenly went quiet over the summer,” he notes. 

“I had summer school,” Seungmin deadpans. “And Felix went back home, and Hyunjin doesn’t want to hang out unless it’s with Felix.” 

“That is not true—” Hyunjin sputters.

Minho hums as his eyes drop down to Seungmin’s hand. “Nice ring, by the way,” he comments. “Looks expensive.” 

Seungmin quickly withdraws his hand away from his coffee cup as if he’d been stung by a bee, shoving it into his lap as he pales. It doesn’t help though because Hyunjin and Felix are both like little piranhas, and they perk up at the slightest hint of gossip. 

“What ring?” Felix asks, already standing on his feet and leaning over the table. 

“Nothing,” Seungmin says sharply while trying to fight off Hyunjin when he reaches down to grab Seungmin’s hand. 

“Did you and Jisung finally make up then?” Minho asks him. 

“We’re fine,” Seungmin grits out over Hyunjin’s gasp and Felix’s squeal. 

“That’s so good to hear!” Felix says. 

“What’s that mean though?” Hyunjin asks after finally relenting in his quest to see the ring Minho mentioned earlier. “Fine like you stopped hating him fine or fine like you sometimes kiss fine? Oh, my god. Are you dating Han Jisung?” Hyunjin at least has the decency to whisper the last part, but Seungmin shies away from the predatory look in his gaze. 

“Hopefully the former,” Minho adds. “I walked in on them once making out and, wow. They’re like inexperienced teenagers.” 

“I hate all of you,” Seungmin grumbles with very little venom behind his voice. 

“I’m fine with that,” Minho says coolly. “Just as long as you’re not saying it about your soulmate anymore.” His lips quirk up into a small smile when Seungmin’s do, and he reaches across the table with one outstretched hand. Rolling his eyes, Seungmin places his hand into Minho’s and squeezes tightly. “You’ll have to tell us what happened,” Minho says. 

“Some other time,” Seungmin replies. “I have a date tonight.”