Chapter Text
This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.
- Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping
Minghao wasn’t expecting for the plates to be what breaks him.
It’s not— It’s not just the plates. It’s the trip to go get the plates, it’s the coordination of the plates and Minghao’s tea set and the gold chopsticks that Sungho loves so much. It’s the way Sungho left the chopsticks. It’s the plates.
He can’t stop crying. He wonders if now that he’s started, he’s never going to stop. He wonders if the screams that are being pushed out of him are going to bother the neighbors. His knees knock painfully on the tile when he hits the kitchen floor and he wonders if the noise that comes out of him when he shatters the plate he was holding sounds like anything other than his lungs collapsing.
His hand is bleeding. It’s going to stain the grout. It’s not his apartment anymore. It doesn’t matter. The grout is stained in the bathroom too. It doesn’t matter. The plate set isn’t complete anymore.
He leaves the empty boxes in the kitchen. He calls and asks if Mingyu will come get them, the spare key is in the plant next to the door. He hangs up as soon as Mingyu says yes. There’s blood on his phone.
He leaves the plates.
“You didn’t answer your phone,” Mingyu says when he walks into Jeonghan’s apartment. “You didn’t answer your phone for a week.”
“I didn’t have anything to say.”
Minghao knows that it’s dismissive. He knows that. It falls out of his mouth anyway, the first thing he’s had to say in a week.
“Jeonghan has been out of the country the entire time you’ve been here,” Mingyu says gently as he sits on the couch across from Minghao. “Have you spoken to anyone?”
“I went to work,” Minghao says. He curls further in on himself, knees tucked to his chest. “Went to the shop. Talked to all kinds of people. Talked to Chan.”
“Minghao,” Mingyu says. Pleads, maybe, but Minghao doesn’t know what for. “There was blood on the kitchen floor.”
Minghao shrugs. “Cut my hand, it was fine. Sorry I didn’t clean it up. Did you get the plates?”
“No,” Mingyu murmurs. Minghao wants to scream, swallows it down. “They were all broken, Hao.”
Huh. Did he do that? Maybe he did. He swallows the scream again, but it claws at his throat, nails hooked in and pulling hard.
“Ah,” Minghao says. He hasn’t looked at Mingyu yet and when he finally does, it’s a mistake. Mingyu’s eyes are red rimmed. Minghao wonders if they ache like his do. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Mingyu says. “When does Jeonghan come home? Will you stay when he does?”
“Tomorrow, and yeah,” Minghao whispers. “That’s why I was trying to get everything packed, so I could put things in storage and not take up too much room.”
Mingyu sighs. “You know he doesn’t care about that. You don’t have to pay for storage, you can put stuff in my apartment if you really need to.”
“Seungkwan hates clutter,” Minghao says. He’s never noticed the pattern on Jeonghan’s carpets. Interesting. “So do you. It’s fine. Turns out he took a lot of our stuff anyway.”
Minghao hates the way Mingyu’s face sours for a moment before he wipes it blank again. He doesn’t like Sungho, never has. There’s blood on the grout in the bathroom. Minghao tried to get it out one day, but he couldn’t lift the stain. The red didn’t match the decor.
“So you have everything?” Mingyu asks. “You don’t want anything else?”
“No,” Minghao says quietly. “I don’t want anything else.”
Mingyu nods. “I’ll get the rest out, then. Get your security deposit back.”
“It would go to him,” Minghao whispers. “We paid it through his account.”
“I’ll leave it, in that case,” Mingyu says, almost like a joke. Minghao gives a half smile like it was. Mingyu gives a half smile like it wasn’t. “Do you want to do something? We can go out. It’s a Wednesday, the bar will be dead. Hansol’s working tonight.”
No. “Yeah, sure.”
The bar is dead. Mingyu and Minghao sit at the bar as Hansol takes inventory. Junhui is working too and he wipes the tables and chairs over and over again so he doesn’t have to come talk to them. Minghao bets that they’re spotless. He can feel Junhui’s eyes on him every now and then, but he doesn’t look back.
“Jeonghan’s glad to be coming home,” Hansol says cheerily. “This work trip has been hell on him. He’s been wanting to come home for the last week and it’s dragged by.”
“He was so excited, though,” Minghao says, confused. “He’s been looking forward to this for months.”
Hansol gives him a sad look. Ah, yeah. A week. Minghao gets it.
“We’ll all be glad to have him back,” Mingyu says with a smile. “You especially, lover boy.”
Hansol’s eyes flash with panic at the mention of his new relationship with Jeonghan, flickering over to Minghao like Minghao will shatter at the mention of love.
“I’ll be happy to have you both at the apartment,” Minghao says with a small smile. The tension falls out of Hansol’s shoulders. “Though I’ll gently request that we keep the common spaces unblemished by your, ah, affections, we’ll say.”
“Minghao!” Hansol yelps, smacking him on the shoulder with a towel. “Don’t— We’re not going to— Minghao!”
Minghao laughs, something high-pitched and surprised, and three heads whip toward him at once. Junhui is back behind the bar, his eyes wide, deer in headlights. Minghao smiles at him, small, closed mouth. Junhui smiles back, tentative, pulled tight.
“Jun!” Mingyu says, apparently having waited for Minghao to acknowledge him. “Good to see you. It’s been a minute.”
“A few months, I think,” Junhui says as he walks over. He bumps his shoulder with Hansol’s and takes over inventory. “Three or four. Hi, Minghao. I like your coat.”
“Thank you,” Minghao says with a small smile. “You look better in the apron than Hansol does.”
“Hey!” Hansol yelps again. “You come into my bar, diss everything about me, and still expect free drinks?”
“I’m drinking water, Sol, I think you’ll be okay,” Minghao laughs. Three sets of eyes on him again.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything to drink?” Junhui asks. “There’s tea in the back, I can make you some.”
“Isn’t that yours?” Hansol asks, tilting his head to the side.
“Yeah. I have plenty,” Junhui shrugs. There’s a light blush on his face, unbelievably kind. Minghao remembered the tea, would never have asked now, never asked before. Junhui always offered before he thought to ask.
“That would be great,” Mingyu answers for him.
When Junhui looks at him for confirmation, Minghao just nods. “Thank you, Jun.”
“I’ll be just a minute,” Junhui says before he turns to go.
“Jun’s way nicer to you than he is to me,” Hansol huffs.
“I’m sure it’s just because we haven’t seen each other in a few months,” Minghao says, patting his hand. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder or something like that. You see him too often for him to offer it to you too.”
There’s something on Mingyu’s face that Minghao is choosing not to think about. He pushes that thought down, just like he pushes down the thoughts about how Sungho explained that Junhui wouldn’t be coming around anymore. Junhui comes back with a plain white mug and sets it carefully in front of Minghao, waving away Minghao’s quiet thanks.
“If you hate it, feel free to let Hansol drink it since he wants to complain,” Junhui says with a smile. “I’m going to do the inventory in the back. Shout if someone actually comes in.”
Minghao doesn’t hate it. It’s good, Minghao is grateful. He hasn’t been able to make himself any, abandoned everything in the kitchen when he left, hasn’t bothered to get more. He grips the mug and leans his head on Mingyu’s shoulder, listening to the other two talk quietly, a stream of noise that settles him.
“Do you want to sleep at mine tonight?” Mingyu asks him later. Minghao’s tea is finished and the bar is still devoid of people. “Since Jeonghan won’t be back until tomorrow.”
“My meds and stuff are at his apartment,” Minghao says quietly. “It’s on the opposite side of town from you. It’s getting late, I might as well just go back and stay.”
Mingyu shoots Hansol a look that Minghao can’t decipher.
“Can I stay with you tonight?” Hansol asks gently. “Jun and I are going to close early tonight, probably in, like, a half hour. Then I can see Jeonghan right when he gets back, y’know?”
Minghao knows that’s not the reason that Hansol is asking. He’s not going to call him out on it because it’s Hansol and Minghao knows he means well.
“Yeah, you can,” Minghao smiles. “Gyu, you can go home if you want. I know Seungkwan got home a few hours ago.”
“Ah, yeah, he’s been texting me,” Mingyu laughs. “Are you sure you two are good?”
“We’re great!” Hansol says. He starts moving again, helping Junhui close everything out.
Mingyu stands up and hugs Minghao tightly. “Thank you for coming tonight. Please pick up your phone.”
“I will,” Minghao whispers, clinging back just as hard. He didn’t realize how much he just needed a hug until it happened. “Give Kwan my love. I’ll see you soon.”
“Promise?” Mingyu asks when he pulls back.
Minghao links their pinkies together to make Mingyu laugh. “Promise. Text me when you get home.”
Mingyu calls out his goodbye to a busy Hansol and Junhui as he goes, Hansol locking the front door behind him. Minghao picks up a broom, wincing at the way it hits his hand, bandaged but still tender. He pushes it down and starts going behind Junhui as he wipes the tables again.
“You don’t have to help, Minghao,” Junhui says, eyes wide. “Go sit down, please. We’ve almost got it, it’s okay.”
“It’s fine, Jun, nothing I haven’t done before,” Minghao says. It’s true—Minghao worked here until a few months ago when Sungho asked if he would change jobs to not be out so late. “Unless the sweeping procedures have changed for some reason.”
“No, they haven’t, but still,” Junhui laughs. He still takes the broom from Minghao gently, a soft hand on his shoulder nudging him back toward the bar. “Seriously, go sit.”
Minghao laughs but lets Junhui take over sweeping from him, too tired to fight with him about it this time. The tables really are spotless.
When Hansol and Junhui are done, Minghao follows them out the back door, Junhui locking everything behind them.
“Goodnight, you two,” Junhui says with a nod, turning to walk in the other direction than Hansol and Minghao are going. “Get home safe.”
“You too,” Minghao says softly. He and Hansol are mostly quiet on the way home, a companionable silence that doesn’t weigh Minghao down. He’s grateful that Hansol hasn’t asked questions, wonders how much Jeonghan told him. Jeonghan doesn’t know much anyway, Minghao supposes. They broke up, Minghao needed a place to stay. They broke up, Minghao is sad. Normal things.
Minghao unlocks the door to Jeonghan’s apartment, both of them hanging their coats by the door and leaving their shoes in the rack. It’s late, past 11, and they’re both still quiet as they go through their evening routines. Hansol already has things on Jeonghan’s bathroom counter. It makes Minghao smile. It makes Minghao have to ignore the hooks at the corners of his mouth that tug up, up, up, the kind of smile that hurts.
Minghao settles into bed in the guest bedroom—his bedroom for now—and listens to Hansol pad around and shut all of the lights off before going into Jeonghan’s room for the night. The apartment is quiet. Minghao swallows his meds and waits for sleep to come.
When he wakes up early the next morning, he’s disoriented, because there’s someone else in the apartment and he’s about to call out for Sungho when— Oh. That’s not— He’s not— He’s in Jeonghan’s guest room and there’s no one waiting for him at home, there’s no one—
Hansol opens the door quickly, crawling into bed next to him. Hansol holds Minghao while he screams, holds him while he falls apart, holds him while he curls into himself and tries not to let it kill him.
Jeonghan comes home to find Hansol and Minghao asleep in the guest bedroom, Hansol curled around Minghao, protective. Minghao blinks awake as Jeonghan opens the door, smiling softly when Jeonghan crawls onto the other side of the bed and laces his fingers with Hansol’s over Minghao’s hip when Hansol stirs.
“Hi,” Jeonghan says softly. “Didn’t expect to get to see you both right away, but I’m happy about it.”
“Welcome home,” Hansol murmurs, still not quite awake. “Is it already noon?”
“It is,” Jeonghan says. “We should go get lunch. It’s beautiful out.”
“Aren’t you jetlagged, Han?” Minghao asks. “You can go to sleep.”
“I’d rather be up with you two,” Jeonghan smiles. He’s tired, Minghao thinks it shows in the corners of his eyes, but he’s genuine. “Nobody I’d rather reset my body clock with.”
Hansol laughs, sitting up and nearly hauling Minghao up with him, making Jeonghan laugh too. “Give us a minute to get dressed and we’ll go.”
Jeonghan pulls Hansol down and kisses his forehead gently before nudging him toward the door. “You’ve got clothes in my closet, babe.”
Hansol smiles as he leaves, infinitely pleased with himself, and it makes Minghao a bittersweet kind of tender. Hansol has been in love with Jeonghan for years, he deserves to have clothes in his closet now. It still hurts to watch anyway. Minghao hopes that it won’t for long, but he’s afraid that it really will.
“Hey, honey,” Jeonghan says as he sits up. He brushes Minghao’s hair back from his face, trying to finger comb it into place. “How are we feeling today?”
“Bad, I think,” Minghao admits. “Woke up and forgot. Broke down when I remembered, that’s why Hansol was in here.” He pauses for a minute as it settles in, the panic making his breathing kick up faster, because “wait, fuck, sorry about that, oh god, it made you uncomfortable, didn’t it? I won’t do it again—”
“Minghao,” Jeonghan says firmly, but it’s still soft. “It doesn’t bother me at all. He’s your friend. If you needed that comfort, I’m glad you were able to get it from him. I know that… I know that he would have gotten upset with you, but I’m not, just like Hansol wouldn’t be upset if the roles were switched.”
“But I—” Minghao cuts himself off. He’s still trying to wake up, get himself together. “He’s your boyfriend.”
Jeonghan hums. “He is, and you’re my friend, and you’re his friend, and we’ve all known each other for years. And, no offense, but Hansol is down horrendous. Not even your pretty face could get around that.”
It makes Minghao laugh, startled, but Jeonghan is right. There’s nothing wrong with it. Minghao knows that objectively, he knows that Sungho’s rule about his friends doesn’t apply anymore, he knows that Sungho was weird about it in a way that Minghao’s friends aren’t.
Still. Knowing and believing have always been very different.
“There you go,” Jeonghan says when Minghao evens out his breathing. “You calmed yourself down really well. Good job, Hao.”
“Thanks, I think,” Minghao says softly, sadness weighing in his chest. “I’ve been trying. It’s not going great.”
“Entirely fair,” Jeonghan says, lacing their fingers together. “You’re still above ground, though. That’s a win.”
“But I broke all my plates,” Minghao whispers. He hates that he’s starting to tear up again, but he doesn’t have any plates anymore. He doesn’t have any.
“I have plenty of plates for the both of us,” Jeonghan says kindly, a little too knowingly. He talked to Mingyu. Someone had to, Minghao certainly hasn’t. “You can use any of my plates until you get more. I even have the ones that are basically bowls, you know the ones.”
“The pasta plates,” Minghao says. “Yeah, that’s good. Those are good plates.”
“Mhm,” Jeonghan hums. “Let’s go to a restaurant with plates. Sit down and everything. Is it okay if it’s just the three of us?”
“Can we invite Mingyu?” Minghao asks tentatively. Minghao owes him a group lunch at the very least.
“Of course,” Jeonghan smiles. “I’ll call him while you get dressed. Meet us in the living room?”
Minghao nods, turning to the dresser when Jeonghan shuts the door softly. He’s dressed and brushing his teeth in the guest bathroom when his phone buzzes.
Mingyu: thanks for inviting me, hao :)
Mingyu: see you in a bit!!
Minghao smiles. It hurts.
Jeonghan finishes telling everyone about his work trip right as their food comes and Minghao is grateful for the break. He’s been going to work, sure, but it’s not like he has to have sustained conversation with people ordering their coffee. The closest he got was talking to Seungcheol about his vacation next week and that was only ten minutes. Last night, he let Hansol and Mingyu do most of the talking, barely said three words to Hansol when they got back.
They let him get through the meal before they ask.
“So, uh,” Mingyu starts before he falters. “Fuck, I’m just going to ask. How are you with everything that, uh, happened?”
“You can say the break up,” Minghao says quietly. He’s staring resolutely at the table in front of him. “We broke up. He broke up with me. You can say it.”
“How are you with the break up?” Jeonghan asks. “Have you heard from him at all?”
“He texted me when he finished getting his stuff from the apartment,” Minghao says. “Yesterday. That’s why I went over. He took most of it which I guess is fair. He made most of the money.”
“That’s not—” Hansol says, but he cuts himself off and takes a breath, composing himself. “Okay. That’s fine, we can get you new things. No big deal. How are you feeling?”
“Like garbage,” Minghao says with a wry laugh. Mingyu’s hand slips into his, an anchor. “It hurts. I knew— I saw it coming. It wasn’t exactly out of left field, but I’d hoped I was wrong. I wanted to be wrong. Turns out, I wasn’t, and he’d been planning long enough to get a new apartment before he even said anything.”
“How did he, um, do it?” Mingyu asks gently. Minghao realizes that yeah, all Minghao told Mingyu and Jeonghan was ‘we broke up, I got kicked out of the apartment.’ That’s pretty vague.
“In about two sentences,” Minghao says. His voice is flat. He can’t do anything about it. “He came home from work, saw me on the couch, and said ‘Minghao, I’m leaving. I don’t love you anymore.’” Jeonghan sucks in a sharp breath. “For a while, he wouldn’t answer any other questions, but I guess I pissed him off enough to get him to talk. In short, I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t giving him enough, he didn’t want to be with someone he didn’t think was attractive or interesting, he doesn’t remember why he fell in love with me in the first place because he doesn’t see anything in me now. You know how it is.”
“What the fuck?” Hansol whispers. Minghao can see where Jeonghan is gripping at Hansol’s knee like he’s trying to keep him calm. It’s the reaction he was expecting from Hansol. “God, Minghao, I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve any of that.”
“Eh,” Minghao shrugs. His shoulders ache with it, tight as they are. “I wasn’t perfect. It’s not like I didn’t give him a reason to think those things. It’s not like I didn’t ask him what he thought.”
“It was still horrible of him,” Jeonghan says quietly. “All of that was unbelievably and unnecessarily cruel. He didn’t have to say it. No one deserves cruelty.”
Minghao thinks that it’s for the best that he didn’t tell them everything. He doesn’t imagine that they would take it well if this is how they’re reacting to the basics. Hansol is already gritting his teeth and Mingyu’s grip on Minghao’s hand is on the wrong side of too tight. Jeonghan looks unnaturally poised, face set in a hard line.
“Say whatever you will about how he did it, it’s done,” Minghao says with a wave of his free hand. Jeonghan frowns. “It certainly left no room for argument. He’s gone, I’m alone again. It’s time to figure it out from here, I guess.”
“I’m worried about how calm you are while saying that,” Mingyu says.
“Do you want me to start sobbing in this restaurant?” Minghao asks with a laugh. “I will if you want me to, but I’d rather not.”
“Please don’t,” Hansol says quickly. “I want you to cry as much as you need to, but it’s easier if we’re home.”
Minghao gives Hansol a sad smile because he’s the only one that’s been at home with him. Hansol is the only one he’s cried with. He understands more than the others that crying is a whole affair right now, a full body spectacle. This restaurant has pasta plates. It’s not exactly the most appropriate place for the ‘body collapsing in on itself’ type of weeping that Minghao feels simmering in his chest.
“Maybe we should have this conversation at home, in that case,” Jeonghan says. “It’s our apartment, you can cry if you want to and however else that song goes.”
Minghao flinches at ‘our apartment’ and doesn’t bury it well enough. He loves Jeonghan, adores him for the way he so readily accepted Minghao entirely moving in with him, but there’s something wrong about hearing ‘our apartment’ from someone who isn’t Sungho. It’s a little too wrong for this pasta plate establishment.
Mingyu nods and flags down their waiter for the check, handing him his card quickly like he’s trying his damndest to get them out in five minutes or less. He manages it somehow and they make the walk back to Jeonghan’s apartment, Mingyu staying close to Minghao like he’s afraid that Minghao will drift away from him. He could also be afraid that Minghao will step into traffic. Same result, Minghao supposes.
When everyone is settled in the living room, Jeonghan-brewed cups of tea in hand, they ask Minghao again. How is he feeling about the breakup? He doesn’t say what he’s really feeling, which is that he feels like Sungho clawed into Minghao’s soul and tore it to shreds, like he’s one pull away from unraveling like a poorly knit sweater, like each breath takes everything from him.
He says “awful, really.”
He feels like Sungho wasted two years on someone who he could never love. He says “I feel like I wasted two years on someone who didn’t want me.”
He feels devastated that he had no chance of ever being enough. He feels devastated that he can see how clearly Sungho wanted Minghao to be more than he’s capable of. He says “it sucks to think that maybe I could have done more.”
He feels like the grout was freshly stained and he didn’t even get a chance to try to clean it. He says “I really loved the home we made, it’s hard to have that disappear.”
He feels like he won’t find someone who loves him like Sungho did, right up until he didn’t. He feels like if he can’t keep someone in love with him, it’s not worth it to try to get someone to fall in love with him in the first place. He says “I hate being alone like this when I thought I wouldn’t be again.”
He feels like he saw the texts on Sungho’s phone. He says “he was gone a lot toward the end, I should have seen it coming.”
He tears up. He doesn’t cry. He can’t cry in front of them when he can’t even tell them what Sungho told him as he walked out.
Sungho was right. He shouldn’t have ever bothered in the first place. Minghao can’t even cry right.
His nightmares betray him. When Hansol and Jeonghan climb into the guest bed with him that night, he cries. It rattles in him, shakes him, unmoors him. Jeonghan holds his bangs back while he vomits.