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Yunho is fourteen years old when he first realizes that he is in love with his best friend.
They’re sitting on the edge of the rooftop at lunch, Yunho leaning his weight back onto both palms as his head tilts to the heavens. Eyes closed and dreaming of a certain freedom. At least when he’s not looking, he can pretend he’s anywhere else.
Transitioning from spending hours of most days at the playground with Mingi while their mothers chatted on a nearby bench, to kindergarten, then to cramming content after content in a cramped classroom was one of the toughest, if not toughest, changes that Yunho would name in his life.
But if a god does exist, then Yunho is grateful that some higher power had decided he would be granted the privilege to have Mingi with him. It would have been another sort of hell otherwise.
Mingi’s beside him, sipping grape juice noisily through the crooked plastic straw, legs dangling off the rooftop edge. Yunho cracks an eye open, lips parting to make some childish comment about Mingi being too damn loud, but the words don’t make it past his teeth.
A sliver of sunlight catches onto the frame of Mingi’s glasses, like fabric hooking onto a splinter. Mingi turns, and their eyes meet. Like an unravelling garment, Yunho feels the threads around his heart loosen. As if revealing something he had unconsciously tried to smother. As if setting something free. Pumping fuel and pressure into an old rocket, rusty engine smoking.
Mingi empties his juice box, and with a wide, familiar grin, shows Yunho his purpled tongue; a routine. He notices the stilling of Yunho’s breath. Says, “what?”
It’s not a grand event. Neither is it some cathartic revelation. Just a tiny “oh” that sits and lingers at the back of Yunho’s tongue. There’s a question that simmers in the subtle squint of Mingi’s eyes, a quirk highlighting that he’s curious, but not nearly curious enough to verbalize it by asking further.
Yunho is fourteen years old when he realizes that he is in love with his best friend. Wholly, breathlessly, and with sharp clarity, in love with Mingi.
He wonders if his pulse will ever stop accelerating, if the feeling will pass soon.
(And he doesn’t answer Mingi’s question. Leaves it curling in the afternoon breeze for many, many years to come.)
The verdict: It doesn’t pass.
Yunho can taste it at the back of his throat every time he catches himself staring at Mingi a little longer than what can be shaken off as a passing glance — the warmth that bubbles and rises, his heart that jumps and takes off running at the thought of Mingi knowing.
And maybe he does slip up once.
It’s a girl from his class. Soft spoken, a lovely smile, and Yunho hesitates in turning her down. He sees the hope flicker out of her eyes, makes his stomach churn oddly. She doesn’t press him for reasons, just gives him a small smile, and for that, Yunho couldn’t be more grateful.
Even after she leaves, he remains standing in the shade of trees behind the basketball court, staring up at the clear blue of the sky. It’s almost summer again, nearly four years since that fateful afternoon on the rooftop. When he closes his eyes, Yunho can still remember the tug and pull of his heart lurching into freefalling panic.
An arm slings over his shoulders, and there it is again — the familiar spike in his pulse. “You all right?” Mingi’s voice is low, quiet. “You’ve been out here for almost half an hour.”
“Were you watching me?” Yunho opens one eye to fix Mingi with what he hopes is a relaxed grin.
Mingi scoffs, and curls his arm into a headlock instead, squeezing a groan out of Yunho. “Yeah, from our classroom window, idiot. You said you’d be back soon so we could walk home.”
“Right, I left my bag up there.” The thought of scaling the stairs up to the classroom suddenly seemed terribly exhausting to Yunho.
In response, Mingi pulls off of him. For a moment, Yunho misses the warm grounding of the other against his back, but before he can say a thing, Mingi’s thrusting his bag into his arms. “Got you covered.”
“Dude,” Yunho swings the backpack over one shoulder, and bumps a gentle fist to Mingi’s arm. “You’re the best.”
“You’d better remember all the things I’ve done for you.”
In hindsight, Yunho should have seen it coming, but Mingi asks him about what happened while they’re in line for ice cream on the way home.
He toys with the idea of telling a lie, but it doesn’t sit well in his gut. So he just shrugs, says, “she confessed to me.”
“No way,” and Mingi sounds scandalized, which gets Yunho’s defensive side a little buzzed. Was it so unbelievable that someone would confess to him? “What did you say?”
Yunho gives him a wry smile, it turns out more like a grimace. “I apologized.”
Mingi hums, only questions brimming in his eyes. But to his credit, he doesn’t ask why.
Yunho decides to tell him anyway, a little later. Sitting on the plastic stools of the ice cream shop and knocking elbows over the small table, Yunho blurts out, “I like boys.”
There’s a short pause after that, almost as if time dances to a standstill. The regret bleeds slowly past the tight line of Yunho’s lips, but Mingi breaks the silence for him.
“Cool, me too.” Mingi grins at him as if Yunho isn’t staring, mouth open, with ice cream dribbling down the side of his wafer cone. “Any particular boy on your mind right now, though?”
This is it. Yunho feels as if he’s tethered onto a carousel underwater, sinking deeper while it continues to spin, round and round. With every second that transpires between them, Yunho’s heart climbs, buoys up and up, desperate not to drown.
“You.”
Mingi glances up, then. Finally meets Yunho’s eyes.
“I love you.”
See, confessing to Mingi is no stranger to Yunho’s daydreams.
He has thought about this exact moment so many times he’s lost count. He’s probably thought of every possible scenario. In his mind, he has told Mingi he loved him while they were in an empty classroom, on the rooftop, at the arcade, while they were over at each other’s home. But never — never like this.
Yunho has never thought about confessing to Mingi while they’re both crammed around a tiny table in an ice cream shop, knees touching beneath it. I love you, Yunho had said. So articulately, so naturally, so unapologetically.
In his head, the weight upon his chest would splinter and break into pieces once he’s finally said those words. It would be exhilarating; It would be freeing.
So why does the pressure only seem to become more suffocating?
Even as Mingi’s laughing and reaching across the table to tousle Yunho’s hair?
“Well damn, bro.”
Even after Mingi says “I love you too”?
There’s little time to dwell on feelings after that.
Their last year of high school passes in a mad flurry of cramming for university entrance exams, and endless doses of caffeine.
It’s only during the small pockets of lucidity in the dead of the night when Yunho gets to lean back and breathe in deep. He would glance across the dining room table of his house, or Mingi’s, and indulge himself by watching the rise and fall of Mingi’s sleeping frame over an open textbook. He would listen to the inhales, the exhales. Would wonder if he’d hear his heartbeat echo in the still air, if he just listened hard enough.
When it’s all over, Yunho can barely remember what had happened during the year. The past few months had been surreal, dreamlike. Waking, studying, collapsing into bed. Rinse and repeat. He turns his head from where he’s sprawled on the bed next to Mingi, staring at the ceiling.
“Can you believe we’ve graduated,” Mingi whistles, but it’s a tired little noise, scratchy from sleep deprivation.
“Yeah, can’t say I feel any more intelligent than I did at the start of the year, though.”
Even laughing is strenuous, and Yunho’s entire body aches from the effort of heaving the sounds out. He can’t stop, though, not when Mingi’s laugh pulls his whole being in and shakes him. Addictive, contagious, and Yunho wants nothing more than to be swept up in it.
“Are you going to stay in Gwangju?”
It’s quiet as Yunho ponders the question, turns it around and around. “No,” he finally says. He blinks, surprised by the burn in his nose and throat at the implications of the word. He turns to face Mingi again but finds that he’s already looking at Yunho. “I don’t think I want to stay. I’m thinking of applying to universities in Seoul.”
Mingi smiles, faint. “Same,” he murmurs, and Yunho holds his breath. “Let’s go to Seoul?”
Yunho swallows, trying to quell the hope in his voice, “together?”
And Mingi echoes, “together.”
University is an entirely different experience, but there’s familiarity in the ache that throbs, as if making a home in Yunho’s chest.
Despite having seen Mingi nearly every day of his life since they were five, toddling around their neighbourhood playground, then attending the same academies from kindergarten through high school, there’s something different about living together under one roof.
Something about the way Mingi looks, long limbs dangling over the side of their couch. The way he looks sitting at their dining table, drinking coffee out of Yunho’s mug.
Something about the way Mingi would glance up, grin at Yunho with absolutely no trace of apology, and say, “sorry, this is the last time.”
And Yunho, knowing it wouldn’t be, “sure.”
These days, Yunho gets home later. He’s thrown himself headfirst into his coursework and signed up for a couple of interest clubs to boot. The lesser time he has to face Mingi, the lesser his heart would have to hurt.
Because when it hurts, Yunho can’t breathe. It feels like fingers reaching into the cage of his ribs and curling around the lonely muscle, squeezing, squeezing, until he has to look away from the concerned furrow of Mingi’s brows.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just tired.”
“Please, eight hours of classes and then track? I’d be dead on my feet.”
Yunho knows he should walk away, but how could he, when Mingi’s arm draped across his shoulders is all he dreams of at the end of a long day? How could he, when every inch of his being fights to turn and smother his face against the side of Mingi’s neck?
So he doesn’t resist, and Mingi indulges him for a few minutes before he’s pulling away with a feigned groan of disgust because “damn, you have to shower right fucking now, you stink.”
“Fuck off.” But Yunho laughs, drops his shoe bag by the door and heads to the bathroom anyway.
Because a part of him looks forward to later, when he knows the door to his room would open, and Mingi would pad in dressed in pyjamas, his laptop balancing on one open palm, to climb into Yunho’s bed.
“Still scared of the dark?” Yunho would tease.
The half-hearted punch to his arm is what Yunho deserves after all.
Still, nothing holds a candle to the few weeks before finals were to begin.
In retrospect, Yunho should have expected it, what with them having gone through nearly the same ordeal for almost the entirety of senior year in high school. But even that couldn’t have prepared him for this.
This: Yunho and Mingi huddled together on their couch, clutching their notes, eyes bleary. Dozing off at odd times and gaining consciousness barely an hour later. Fuelled by panic, sheer willpower and the fear of failure alone.
Yunho wakes most times to find his limbs tangled with Mingi’s, unsure where one began and the other ended. When he shifts, just the slightest inch away from the other, Mingi would grumble, incoherent, his glasses skewed on his face, and curl his arm tighter around Yunho’s torso.
“I’m so stupid,” Yunho breathes into the apathetic silence of the dark, the living room lit by one standing lamp. “So stupid.”
Beside him, Mingi starts to stir.
Outside the window, dawn is breaking, colour bleeding into the night. Yunho draws in a deep breath, closes his eyes.
He’s still so in love.
On dreary Tuesday mornings, Yunho sits at the last row of his lecture theatre and listens to his professor speak of Newton’s laws.
Any object with mass exhibits a tendency to resist change; The greater an object’s mass, the stronger its resistance. The planets, too, do not escape this fate.
Scientists call it inertia.
Gravity keeps the planets in a slow dance around the sun, pulling each wanderer in and trapping them with an unspoken promise. Dreaming within the lull of inertia, these planets lose the will to break out of orbit, left to circle some greater light for the remaining eons to come.
Mingi doesn’t understand why Yunho would voluntarily put himself through an additional physics elective, when its basic required class for his degree was already hell personified. Yunho isn’t too sure why, either.
There’s just something about these planets that seem so lonely to him — abandoned to a certain fate. Almost as if he sees himself, drifting in nothingness, but always in the same, unchanging passage.
To what extent do the mechanics of the universe govern one’s fate?
The grey analogue clock on the wall above the couch makes a soft click as the second-hand stutters past four in the morning. Across the messy spread of papers on their dining table, Mingi leans back in his chair and stretches his arms out, groaning low. In the quiet, the sound is piercingly loud.
“Midterms suck,” there’s a muffled thump as Mingi lets both arms drop back onto the table, his face glum. It’s an expression that Yunho is all too familiar with. “Once this week ends, I’m clearing my schedule for a mini coma.”
“You say this as if you have a flourishing social life,” Yunho snorts, running a hand through his hair. He’s so tired that he doesn’t even recognize the pencil scribbles he’d made on his notes.
“Rude.” Mingi chucks a crumpled paper ball at him, and Yunho lets it hit him smack in the middle of his face. It unfortunately doesn’t do much in waking him up. “I have a flourishing social life.”
“We have the same friend circle.”
“And?”
“Trust me when I say none of us will be having plans after midterms.”
After a short, routine banter, Mingi declares that he’s dead beat and will no longer put up with the slander. He stands, and Yunho’s gaze follows the motions of Mingi’s body, the inclination is as natural as breathing.
“Not sleeping?”
Yunho tears his eyes away from Mingi’s, his heart beating so hard he hears the blood rushing in his ears. It’s a marvel that Mingi hasn’t found anything odd about his constant staring.
“Not now,” Yunho taps his pencil against his notebook and breathes out, as slowly as he can manage. “But soon.”
It’s in moments like these when Yunho feels the most helpless. He waits for Mingi to shrug and go to sleep, perhaps so he can finally pity himself in peace, but they say things don’t always go the way we want them to.
Mingi pads over and drapes his entire self against Yunho’s back, arms curling around his shoulders. It isn’t the first time he’s done that, but every time feels like the first. Yunho forgets to breathe, catches himself and desperately tries to placate the mad pounding in his chest.
“Hey,” Yunho rasps, after what seems like forever. A glance at the clock tells him it’s only been a minute. “You can go to bed first, you know. Leave the door open if it’s too dark.”
“You’ve been biting on your lip all night,” Mingi says, instead, voice low by Yunho’s ear. A shiver climbs up his spine, and Yunho hums, noncommittal. “What’re you being so nervous for? You and I both know you’ll ace the paper. Don’t exhaust yourself.”
At this, Yunho laughs, sharp and breathy. Oh.
“Soon better be soon.” Then Mingi’s warmth is gone and Yunho’s left sitting at the table by himself, clutching his pencil like it’s his only lifeline.
It’s almost comical, Yunho decides, how Mingi notices all the small things about him and yet, doesn’t seem to have a fucking clue what his biggest predicament is.
The only way for something to free itself from the gravitational influence of a massive body is when it travels fast enough to break away from it. Yet, the law of inertia has declared that any object with mass would not initiate change without a shove.
Yunho can only wonder what the escape velocity for breaking out of Mingi’s orbit would be; How his own heart, heavy with hope, and in all its reluctance, would ever achieve freedom.
(Or, does it even want to escape?)
“You can have my cassette tape player when I’m dead.”
Yunho’s sprawled across the dingy couch that came with their apartment, raising his head from where it’s lolling against the armrest.
It’s a pale grey, undeniably old with age and there was a period of a time (namely, when they first moved in) where they were concerned about possible mould issues. A year and a half later, Yunho and Mingi have decided that their money should be invested in better things (“Like ramyun,” Yunho had said, while they were pushing their grocery cart at the supermarket. And Mingi had nodded, tossing in a couple packs that were on sale, “agreed”).
“What am I supposed to do with it?” Scooting his body over to sit up, Yunho reaches for a cushion and cradles it to his chest, muffling a tired groan into the material as he flops down sideways, head falling into Mingi’s lap, and right over his music theory notes.
Mingi lets out an indignant little squawk but gives no indication of shoving Yunho off. Instead, he drops his hand onto the cushion that Yunho continues hugging close. Their fingers brush, and Yunho clears his throat to hide the quiet hitch in his breath.
“You can have my cassette tapes too,” Mingi eventually relents, head tipping up to lean against the back of the couch. “Then you’ll have something to play on it.”
“I think I’ll have to politely decline.”
“No one else deserves to inherit my baby, they wouldn’t love it like I know you will!”
“God, you’re such a dramatic hoe. You’re not going to die from finals,” Yunho clutches the cushion with his fingers, raising it to shove into Mingi’s face, snorting. “What if I die, too? Don’t place the burden of your dying wish on me, if it doesn’t get fulfilled, my spirit will wander the world forever. Restless.”
Mingi swats the cushion away, and they don’t move to pick it up when it drops onto the floor. “Who’s the dramatic hoe now?” Mingi scoffs, leaning over Yunho to pick up his mug.
It’s been hours since they’ve made their drinks, and Yunho can almost taste the unpleasant cling of cooled black coffee on his own tongue as Mingi takes a loud sip. From the scrunch of the other’s nose, Yunho can tell it’s terrible.
“Gross,” Mingi doesn’t even take a second sip to balance out the effort of picking the mug up. It must be awful.
“Make another one,” Yunho murmurs, his voice scratchy from the lack of sleep. He’s about to suggest they take a break when Mingi shifts his upper body forward and buries his face into the crook of Yunho’s neck. A low noise of protest bubbles from the back of his throat, and Yunho feels the heat crawl up to his face. Hopes that Mingi doesn’t look up and see how red his ears have become.
Mingi says, “let’s go to a café.”
“And spend six dollars on a coffee when we have all these instant coffee sachets at home?”
A smack to his stomach, and Yunho lets out a quiet “oof”, affronted.
“Yunho…”
“Why—”
“You’re too comfy,” Mingi interrupts, and as if to prove some point, he nuzzles into Yunho’s skin. Yunho feels like he might actually die. “If we stay home, I’ll never get any studying done.”
Yunho swallows, “sounds like a you problem.”
But of course they end up at the café across the street, dressed in their sweats and hoodies, huddled up around a table in the corner.
Mingi does, in fact, seem to be getting more revision done. Yunho, however —
— spends a significant amount of time instead studying the way Mingi’s lashes graze his cheek each time the other blinks. He thinks of reaching over to smooth out the small frowns that form between Mingi’s brows and curls his fingers into fists. Contemplates leaning across the table to nudge Mingi’s glasses back up the bridge of his nose each time they slip down.
Yunho doesn’t, though.
Right when he least expects it, Mingi glances up and meets his eyes. Yunho stills, the exhale caught in his chest. Then Mingi’s grinning at him, warm and easy. Contagious. The sides of Yunho’s own lips quirk up; He’s so devastatingly besotted. When Mingi lowers his gaze to his notes, his glasses slide down again.
Still, Yunho doesn’t reach over. His nails remain pressed into his palm, so tightly he can feel the white crescent marks.
He shouldn’t.
So Yunho just sits there, the tip of his pencil skimming mindlessly over the lines of his notebook as he lets his attention orbit one Song Mingi. Around them, time dances on and on, and the world continues to spin on its axis.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Yunho could get used to this.
Mingi’s been looking at Yunho strangely these days.
A small part of Yunho is terrified that Mingi has, in some way or another, unearthed his best kept secret and holy shit, he’s going to think it’s weird and stop talking to me. It’s a childish thought, but Yunho supposes that even after all these years, his heart is the only element of himself that hasn’t matured past that day on the rooftop.
That, and there’s just no way Mingi could have found out. Not when Yunho has been this dedicated towards hiding it the past two and a half years of them living together.
It’s not all bad, though.
If anything, something seems to have changed throughout their sophomore and junior years. It’s subtle, but Yunho’s sure something is different.
Mingi catches Yunho’s eyes more frequently, and when Yunho first realizes this, panic settles in his gut. But after a few more times, Yunho notices that Mingi never looks away, just stares, sharp and loud, right back at him, as if challenging Yunho to turn away — so Yunho doesn’t. Just grins, waits for Mingi to do the same.
Then there’s the exhilarating skim of Mingi’s knuckles to Yunho’s own while they bicker over who gets to have the last fried chicken, the dim yellow light of their apartment casting three a.m. shadows against the walls. The greasy grip of Mingi’s fingers around Yunho’s wrist, thumb pressing dangerously close to Yunho’s pressure point, dangerously close to Yunho’s traitorous pulse.
It happens once, it happens twice, then it happens so many times that Yunho loses count (not that he’s complaining).
Yunho can’t help it; Every cell in him craves to always be in close proximity with some part of Mingi: an arm around Mingi’s middle, their fingers instinctively curling tight upon first touch, or Yunho’s head on Mingi’s shoulder. Because it’s not complete when Mingi’s not there.
In turn, Mingi returns Yunho’s new development with fervour. Fingers threading into Yunho’s hair, leaving fire simmering over his scalp. Placing a palm against Yunho’s nape. Leaning in to nose at Yunho’s cheek, warm breath ghosting by Yunho’s ear.
It’s excruciating, but Yunho can’t say it’s not all he wants.
Yunho’s chest brims, as if nursing a new kind of hope. Considering they’ve grown up together, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Or at least, that’s what Yunho thinks, because he finds out during a get-together with their friends that maybe they haven’t been as discreet as Yunho had thought.
“So,” a curious San hums, leaning forward to rest his chin upon his hands, elbows propped onto the table top. “Did the two of you finally decide to get married?”
Jongho looks up from where he had been scrolling through social media on the phone, his interest piqued.
“What do you mean?” Yunho laughs, arching a perfectly nonchalant brow. He hopes his ears aren’t red. Stealing a glance over to where Mingi’s queueing for their drinks, Yunho returns his attention to two inquisitive pairs of eyes.
“You two are being way too domestic these days.” San gives him a suggestive look, and clicks his tongue. “So I was wondering. Thought it was just me, but Wooyoung brought it up the other day. I’ve been tasked to confirm.”
“It’s a crime not to have invited us to the wedding,” Jongho adds, his expression so serious that Yunho can’t help but to snort.
“Oh no,” Yunho croons, instead, leaning back in his chair. “Sorry to disappoint, but you’ve all missed the wedding by quite a number of years. These are just aged, cultivated habits.”
Mingi, of course, chooses this exact moment to return. “Whose wedding?” He sets the tray of drinks down, then settles into the seat beside Yunho.
“They’re upset they missed our wedding, darling.” In a moment of impulsive bravery, Yunho drapes an arm across Mingi’s shoulders, earning a raised brow from the other. “But that happened quite a long time ago, didn’t it?”
To his credit, Mingi decides to play along. “A pity,” he agrees, and leans in to plant a fucking kiss to Yunho’s cheek.
Yunho sputters, “wha—”
Across the table, Jongho chokes on his americano, looking the most offended they’ve ever seen him. San merely whistles.
“But that’s fine,” Mingi continues, as if he hadn’t just sent Yunho into a severe state of gay crisis, “because we’ll invite them to our sixteenth anniversary. Won’t we, love?”
It takes a while for Yunho to regain his coherency, biding his time with a couple long sips of his drink. “Our sixteenth anniversary,” he eventually echoes, head still spinning.
“It’ll be a grand feast.” Mingi’s arm snakes over to wrap around Yunho’s middle, the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.
Yunho just hums and hopes the rest won’t catch onto how nervous he is.
“As long as the food is free,” Jongho rolls his eyes, attention sliding back to his phone, “I’ll be there.”
But Yunho can only remain acutely aware of the warm weight encircling his waist, and the remnant press of Mingi’s lips to his cheek.
Seven in the evening after their last final of junior year finds Yunho and Mingi seated on the floor of their apartment, in a ring amongst their friends.
The dining table had been pushed up against the wall to make space in the living area. There’s a faint, unidentified smudge revealed upon the cream carpet beneath the couch, when Mingi had attempted to drag the offending furniture off of it.
“Don’t tell me that’s someone’s load,” Yeosang had said, in an absolute deadpan, and Yunho had shot him a dirty look (“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know?”).
After a brief discussion with the group, Mingi had lugged the couch back onto its spot over the stain. They say that ignorance is bliss, after all. And if they can’t have ignorance, then feigned ignorance will have to do.
The hours pass measured in shots, and Yunho lets himself simmer in the pleasant buzz of alcohol, the tired throb in his limbs and the small ache in his lungs each time he draws in a new breath. Entire weeks of all-nighters have caught up with him, and he embraces the freedom with open arms and both livers.
“We’re going to be seniors next semester,” Wooyoung slurs, half his body melting into San’s lap as the other strokes gentle fingers through his hair. “Us,” he repeats, and Yunho has to concentrate extra hard to process his words, “seniors.”
“I’m not sure how I made it this far without an academic probation.” Mingi’s shoulder bumps to Yunho’s. He’s swaying, unsteady, and the red solo cup in his hand sloshes rum and sprite over the rim.
“Think about the student debt,” Seonghwa offers, decidedly more sober, though he looks like he’s about to go down any moment, if it weren’t for Hongjoong’s hand on his knee.
Hongjoong laughs, snagging up the nearly finished bottle of Bacardi and upending the rest of the liquid into his cup. “He’s right,” he muses, after a sip. “Imagine having to redo a semester when we’re already this deep in debt.”
Yunho’s about to say something, but in his eagerness, his flailing hand topples the empty bottle and it lands on its side with a heavy, muffled thump. There’s an extended moment of silence as everyone stares at the bottle, balancing a spin in the middle of their circle.
Jongho says, “we should play a game.”
And no one asks what game they should play, because Jongho’s eyes never leave the bottle the entire time he speaks.
Back in freshman year, Truth or Dare had been a party favourite. The mechanics are simple: spin the bottle, and whoever is in the odds will weigh their options between answering a (more often than not, scandalous) question, or performing a bawdy dare. All of them have participated in their fair share of these games, though it seemed only San had experienced the misfortune of being dared anything remotely obscene (when Yunho closes his eyes, he can still see San climbing onto a table for his striptease).
But the novelty of parties wore off quickly, and by the end of the first half of sophomore year, they’d arrived at the collective understanding that they would rather hole up in Yunho and Mingi’s apartment than show up to frat parties or risk pouring shots at someone’s dorm.
This night is reminiscent of new beginnings; Jongho spins the bottle, and they wait.
Yunho doesn’t even realize what’s happening until he hears Yeosang call his name.
“Huh?” He says, eloquent as ever, then he looks at the bottle, slim neck directed towards Mingi. Yunho flicks his eyes up, bewildered. “It’s not pointing at me.”
“Mingi picked dare,” Hongjoong supplies helpfully, his words falling one over the other. “Yeosang just gave him one.”
“Well?” Yeosang has a grin on his face, and it’s one that Yunho knows very well, even if all of them are currently drunk out of their minds. That grin never precedes anything good.
Yunho turns to face Mingi, none the wiser, and echoes, “well?”
“Shall we show them?” Mingi’s eyes are dark, and Yunho thinks of blackholes. He wants to drown in them, be drawn in and held captive in the place where even light cannot escape. Mingi’s palms are warm when they smooth under Yunho’s thighs, making his breath hitch. Mingi nudges him up, and Yunho wobbles, rising distractedly to his knees.
“Show them what?” Yunho can barely hear anything over the insistent ringing of blood in his ears, the sound of his heart pulled by high tide, slamming against the shore of his chest.
Mingi’s arms wind around Yunho’s thighs, and with a firm tug at the backs of his knees, he pulls Yunho into his lap. “I’m going to kiss you,” Mingi murmurs, their faces so close that Yunho’s eyes cross when he tries to look at him.
Yunho breathes out, “oh,” then Mingi’s lips are on his, warm and full and absolutely real.
There’s something otherworldly about kissing Mingi, Yunho finds. Like tracing uncharted stars in a sea of constellations; Like mapping out new craters in the curve of Mingi’s back. If it weren’t for the taste of rum on Mingi’s tongue grounding Yunho to a distant reality, he thinks he would have completely lost his mind then.
Still, Mingi doesn’t stop, and Yunho clambers to settle more adamantly into his lap. He’s gravitating closer, and closer — planets pirouetting around the sun; a satellite caught in a stray trajectory, bound by Newton’s law of inertia. Mingi is magnetic, he takes and takes, but he keeps giving, and Yunho is dizzy from the high, drunk off of the proximity.
Kissing Mingi is a page straight out of Yunho’s dreams, but no amount of fantasy could have ever prepared Yunho for this. The tease of Mingi’s teeth against his lower lip; The grip of Mingi’s hand against his nape. Them, skin melding to each other’s as they cram mouth to mouth, breaths so warm Yunho’s convinced there’s fog between them.
Then Mingi bites down, and Yunho groans in spite of himself. He wrenches away, chest heaving as his ears burn, an instant giveaway of their colour. Mingi’s staring back at him, face flushed and lips kiss-swollen, wet with spit.
The sight has heat curling in Yunho’s stomach, and he looks away, now profoundly aware of how he must mirror Mingi’s current state.
Around them, their friends have exploded into chaos: yelling, whistling, and Wooyoung is screeching I knew it, I fucking called it but all the cacophony slowly ebbs away until it’s only white noise and static, because Mingi hasn’t turned away from him.
Yunho is terrifyingly sober, and from the way Mingi’s gaze remains fixated on him, Yunho knows the other is as well.
(The kiss is all he thinks about that night.)
Given his track record, it’s no surprise that Yunho doesn’t ever bring the kiss up with Mingi.
But it doesn’t stop him from thinking about it all the time. It takes all of Yunho’s self-discipline to redirect his gaze away from Mingi’s mouth when the other is talking, and closed fists to resist the urge to reach out and brush a thumb against Mingi’s lower lip.
“…and sentenced to a hundred years in a prison on Jupiter.”
Yunho snaps his head up with a sudden realization that something is very strange about the conversation. “Wait, wait.” Jupiter? Prison?
Mingi leans against their grocery cart, a brow raised, and waits.
“What are you talking about?”
“Glad you finally decided to tune in,” Mingi drawls, and gestures vaguely to the shelf beside them. “I’ve been trying to ask you which we should get, but you’re miles away.”
“Oh,” and Yunho makes a face, apologetic. He lets his eyes drift, scanning through the different kinds of ramyun, a finger tapping idly against the side of the cart. “Whatever’s cheapest?”
Mingi laughs, and rolls his eyes, reaching out to grab a couple packs, tossing them into their cart. “Should’ve known better than to expect a definite answer.”
“Yet you ask every time,” Yunho gives the cart a push, shoving the front of it right into Mingi’s ass. He makes a noise, offended, and bumps the cart back, dangerously close to giving Yunho an erectile dysfunction.
“Deserved,” is what Mingi retorts when Yunho gasps and pulls his hands away from the handles to shield his crotch.
They continue this way, exchanging snippets of banter between them every few minutes as Yunho rolls the cart along the aisles, letting his mind run away with itself, staring uninterrupted at the back of Mingi’s head while the other picks things off the shelves.
Since the house party, Yunho has caught Mingi returning his gaze a number of times. And always, when he least expects it. He wonders if Mingi remembers what happened; They had been wasted after all, but from the way Mingi’s been paying attention to him, Yunho’s almost sure Mingi remembers.
Yet, they don’t talk about it. There’s an unaddressed tension that brews in the air between them, and even though it doesn’t seem to affect their dynamic, Yunho’s painfully aware that something exists. Something that begs to be hauled out into the light. Something that begs to be picked apart at the seams. Something that begs to be acknowledged.
Later, while they’re standing at the cashier’s, Yunho’s watching the items as they’re scanned one by one when he catches onto something.
His chest tightens, and he has to breathe out a little slower, a little quieter. Yunho turns to Mingi — he’s holding his phone in one hand and scrolling through social media. Yunho’s heart stumbles, and nearly trips up out of his mouth.
Mingi’s only picked the things that Yunho likes. (Mingi doesn’t even eat cheese unless it’s pizza).
A nameless emotion wells up within him, like a shadow swallowing light into height. Yunho thinks about the old rocket he’s closed himself into all those years ago — the one with the rusty engine and dark smoke. The one he’s launched into perpetual orbit around Mingi.
It hiccups in deep space and accelerates a little faster.
Ask any senior in university and they’ll tell you: The only variant of insecurity that upends the notorious Finals Anxiety is the sort you’re faced with on the edge of graduation and unemployment.
It’s no different for Yunho. The last few months of university are spent balancing between polishing up his portfolio, clocking in hours after classes at the architecture firm he’s interning at, and meeting his friends at the café at ridiculous times to plan their graduation trip.
“It has to be grand,” Jongho insists (not that anyone’s against that, they just hadn’t expected the amount of effort that needed to go into outlining a grand trip). “We can’t just hop on a plane and wing an entire two months.”
“Yeah,” Hongjoong says, with absolutely no emotion at all. His eyebags are nearly at his chin, and Yunho notes, albeit after a couple of hours, that Hongjoong’s lip hadn’t left his straw once, even though his cup is void of beverage. “But what we’re not going to do is write up a two-month long timetable.”
Wooyoung’s noise of disgust succeeds in abducting everyone’s attention. “How’s that any different from having classes?”
“This is different,” Jongho’s brows furrow, a hint of exasperation in his voice. Yunho pretends he doesn’t feel like Jongho’s looking at all of them like they’re idiots. “This is fun.”
The discussion carries on, and Yunho takes the opportunity to catch Mingi’s eye from across the table. He raises both brows in silent communication, and the sides of Mingi’s lips quirk up. At least Yunho’s not the only one who would murder for an extra couple hours of sleep.
Mingi’s tapping his fingertips on the table now, showing Yunho an almost childish pout. Yunho’s gaze shifts on its own accord, as if he hasn’t got the slightest control over his heart (spoiler alert: he really doesn’t), to fix upon the full curve of Mingi’s lips.
Then there’s a faint buzz in the front pocket of Yunho’s hoodie, and he latches onto the excuse in a matter of seconds, fingers reaching into the pocket and curling around his phone.
There’s no way any planning is getting done tonight
tell me about it.
Idk why Jongho insists on a meeting literally every day
Like bro we love u too but can I sleep first
Yeosang is straight up sleeping on the table rn
That should be me???
Yunho bites down on his lip, trying to muffle a snort.
why else?
he’s abusing our love for him
but sentiments are mutual.
at least we submit our thesis next week so we’ll feel less like death
Get me out of hereeeee
“No offense, Jongho…” It’s San, and Yunho looks up from texting Mingi to see that San is nearly in tears. “But it’s almost two in the a.m. and we are dying. Bitches are barely coherent. It’s me, I’m bitches. Can we resume discussions after we’ve finished our thesis?”
The silence that falls over the table comes close to deadly. It goes without saying that Jongho is the baby of their friend group, and within all of them exists a soft spot for him, so they’re content to go along with whatever Jongho wants most of the time.
Except, perhaps, now.
The panicked little squawk that leaves Jongho’s lips may very well be the sweetest sound that Yunho’s heard all day.
“My thesis!” Jongho’s eyes have widened so comically large that Yunho hears Seonghwa’s amused exhale of breath from the other end of the table. “Fuck, I forgot about that shit. I haven’t revised my final draft!”
“Great time to start,” Seonghwa pushes his cup towards the middle of the table and scoots his chair back — an indirect dismissal. “Let’s put this trip planning off until we all have our shit together.”
Yeosang quips, “not a good finish line, that’s never happening,” but it doesn’t stop him from being the first to book it out of the café.
Later, while they’re walking back to their apartment, Mingi hooks an arm around Yunho’s and drags him instead into the convenience store a block over.
In all honesty, Yunho just wants to go home, get into his pyjamas and fall into bed. It may be a Friday night, but there’s nothing worth celebrating when he knows he’s got his hands full for the weekend editing the final draft of his thesis.
Then Mingi’s grinning at him, eyes tired but sincere, and Yunho’s resolve falters. Mingi says, voice rough from the day’s tribulations, “snack?”
And who is Yunho to resist?
(They make it through to graduation. They all do, and years down the road, when they look back, all of this will merely be a hiccup from the past.)
“When do you have to meet Mingi at the station?”
Yunho leans over to look at the mug that Jongho’s showing to him. It’s decent looking, crafted of white porcelain with a splatter of abstract line art on the front side. He’s doing some last-minute present-shopping for his mother and Jongho’s decided to tag along to help.
Mingi had agreed to meet Yunho at the station after he’s found his gift so they can catch a train back to Gwangju. They’re visiting family before hopping over to Busan for a day, to finally see the beaches they’ve only seen pictures of, then flying to Osaka where they would reconvene with their friends to commence their graduation trip.
“There’s still time, train’s at two,” Yunho murmurs, turning the mug over in his hand for inspection. It would be the perfect gift, but knowing his mother, she already owns an entire shelf of mugs, and his gift would either drown in her collection, or earn him a long nagging session about buying useless things. “And nope, my mom’s a mug hoarder.”
“Why don’t you just buy her flowers and call it a day?” Jongho grumbles, replacing the mug onto the rack and moving further down the aisle to check out some funky metal straws.
“They’re expensive, useless and die fast,” Yunho recites in a monotone, running a hand over his face. It’s been a while since he’d had to think this hard. “Not my words, my mom’s.”
Jongho just makes a strangled noise from the back of his throat and pulls out his phone. “Time to put our degrees to good use, then.”
“You want me to build her a house?”
“Not your architecture degree,” Jongho beckons Yunho over, slanting his phone towards him so they can look at the screen together. “I meant our degrees in Google.”
It’s not difficult to single Mingi out from the crowd.
Standing nearly a head taller than most commuters, Mingi’s quite the sight to behold (“You’re just biased,” Yunho remembers Yeosang saying, sometime in their sophomore year, “he can do no wrong in your eyes.” And Yunho had agreed, with absolutely no hint of hesitation, “maybe”).
Mingi waves, and Yunho’s feet move in his direction, as if spellbound, bewitched.
“I was hoping you’d get here earlier so we could get doughnuts,” Mingi holds up a paper bag, the familiar Dunkin’ Donuts logo printed on it, slightly creased from the undoubtedly rough handling.
Yunho raises a brow, unable to swallow the laugh that spills from his throat. “Then what’s this?” He reaches for the bag, peeling the sticker off the folds to peer inside. He’s about to lift out a sugar glazed ring when Mingi slaps at his hand, making him yelp, indignant. “Are you going to pull a ‘you can look but not touch’ on me? If I don’t put it in my mouth right now, I will go feral.”
“Be my guest,” Mingi hisses, cradling the paper bag to his chest as he narrows his eyes at Yunho. “This is for our one-and-a-half-hour train ride. I’d rather you go feral now than when I’m stuck in a train cabin with you right next to me.”
It’s not like Mingi’s wrong, so Yunho tampers down his sulk and grabs him in a headlock instead. “Whatever. Give me a minute, I’ll get kimbap from the convenience store.”
The train ride passes without issues, except for the throb of Yunho’s heart in his chest when Mingi shifts in his sleep, and tilts to rest his head against Yunho’s shoulder instead of the window. Now that, Yunho believes, is a crisis at its peak.
He tells himself he’ll only take one glance, but Yunho has yet to look away from studying the flutter of Mingi’s lashes when their train slows down at Gwangju-Songjeong station.
Mingi opens his eyes, head still on Yunho’s shoulder, and says nothing at all.
So Yunho speaks instead. Wets his lips, oddly nervous, murmurs, “we’re here.”
For a moment, the silence is loud. Like a bubble that expands and envelops, stealing the both of them from the rest of the world. Passengers are shuffling down the cabin aisle, luggage wheels clicking as they’re rolled towards the door. Yunho searches Mingi’s face for some sort of answer, even when no question had been asked.
Then Mingi’s grinning at him wide, his eyes so alive that it renders Yunho breathless. Mingi says, “let’s go home.”
Let’s go home.
The house hasn’t changed at all since Yunho had moved to Seoul four years ago. There’s the clear vase sitting in the middle of the dining table, the same painting of a jetty that hangs above the couch. There’s his mother, wearing a familiar-looking sweater as she stands in the kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand.
She puts the glass down with a small noise of surprise, arms opening just in time to catch Yunho as he hurls into her. “My god,” she wheezes, completely thrown off guard. “What a baby.”
All these little things make this place home, but most of all, it’s home because Mingi is still here. Standing in their kitchen laughing, throwing his arms around him and his mother, hijacking the family reunion.
“I got you citron tea concentrate,” Yunho mumbles, voice thick with unshed tears.
Mingi, ever the angel, dutifully picks the bag up from the table and passes it over to Yunho’s outstretched hand.
His mother merely pulls a tissue from the box and touches it gently over Yunho’s eyes. Sighs, “I already have a jar of it in the refrigerator.”
“Are the two of you dating?”
Yunho nearly spits out his water, eyes wide as he whips his head up to stare, bewildered, at his mother. “I— mom, what?”
“Mingi,” she simply says, swirling the wine in her glass.
After they had dropped off Yunho’s things, Yunho had followed Mingi home for his reunion. Mingi’s parents had welcomed him like their second son, and Yunho left with his ego more well-fed than it had been in a long time.
Gwangju feels like an old photo that Yunho had left in the back of his closet and forgotten about, but now that he’s back, every street echoes under his feet with familiarity. On his way home, he’d passed by the ice cream shop where he had first said “I love you” to Mingi. When he looked inside, his chest squeezed, as if prying a distant haunting up from the gaps between his memories. Yunho doesn’t think he’ll ever forget that day.
Now he’s catching up with his mother around their dining table, but no part of himself is prepared to discuss his suppressed feelings.
A pause, then, “no, we’re not.”
“Oh, baby.” There’s an added softness to his mother’s eyes when she reaches across the table to rest her hand over Yunho’s. “You haven’t told him yet?”
Despite the initial uncertainty of everything, Yunho came out to his mother a few weeks before finishing high school. She had pulled him into a hug that night and apologized for letting him go through it alone for so long. “Remember,” she had said, “to love is to be brave. You just have to be a little braver than the rest, that’s all.”
“Not yet,” Yunho takes the opportunity to steal the wine glass, finishing the rest of it in one long gulp. “But it’s a work in progress.”
“A work in progress,” the sides of her lips quirk up as she slides the bottle of wine over, tipping it into the empty glass with a practiced tilt. “When you succeed, I’ll be the first to know?”
Yunho smiles in spite of himself, thinking of a certain boy and the mole beneath his eye. “Of course,” his breathing comes a little easier after that, almost as if the promise has set his feelings, once directionless and suspended in air, into concrete and stone. “You’ll be the first to know.”
“Good.” His mother laughs over the rim of the wine glass, gaze fond. “Drop me a text when the two of you arrive in Busan? I have to go back to work tomorrow, so I can’t see you off.”
Later in bed, while Yunho’s on the phone with Mingi, he realizes that Busan is the first trip that the both of them will ever take together. The knowledge trembles in his veins, setting off an excitement that climbs up his spine, one vertebra at a time.
Yunho nearly kisses Mingi out of pure adrenaline when he sees him waiting at the bus terminal with a bag of kimbap in his hand.
“I love you,” he says around a mouthful of seasoned rice and tuna, cheeks full.
Mingi merely rolls his eyes and starts to walk towards the ticketing counter. “Say that again when I’m not giving you food.”
Oh, if only he knew. But Yunho decides it’s better to let him have the last word, at least this time.
The ride is long, but there’s a sort of nostalgia to sitting beside Mingi on a bus, shoulders touching while dawn breaks outside the window. The sun rising as if tripping over itself and spilling light across the sky, staining everything in a warm, golden glow.
“Damn,” Mingi’s voice is low, barely audible, but Yunho hears him anyway. How can Yunho not, when Mingi is all he wants to listen to? “I wish we could see this at the beach.”
“We can,” is what Yunho says, the words tumbling out of him, because he would give Mingi the entire universe if he could. “We can see it tomorrow.”
Mingi nods, head tipping back to rest against his seat as a pleased smile ghosts his lips. “I love you,” he says, clear and simple.
And Yunho can’t be more grateful that Mingi’s eyes are closed; He wouldn’t have been able to look him in the eye and not kiss him after that.
They barely make it for the next sunrise, but watching the changing of colour palettes in the sky is an entirely different experience when they’re both feeling two kinds of breathless.
Yunho’s bent over at the waist, palms resting over his knees as he pants from their unanticipated bout of morning exercise. Mingi has all but collapsed onto the stone staircase leading down to Haeundae Beach, long legs stretched a couple steps down.
The air is placid, but still cold from the gentle transition into spring. A curl of fog wisps from Yunho’s lips when he exhales, lowering himself to sit beside Mingi. “I think,” he murmurs, voice inexplicably loud in the five thirty a.m. silence, “I finally understand why they say something doesn’t have to be loud, to be memorable.”
“What other examples are there?” Mingi’s looking at him when Yunho slides his gaze over. The sun has almost fully risen now.
“Shooting stars,” Yunho says. The way you laugh so hard you don’t make a sound. The skim of your knuckles to mine. How my heart breaks and heals in alternate breaths whenever you’re close to me like this.
Then there’s the familiar squint of Mingi’s eyes, the one that means Mingi’s still waiting for Yunho to say something else.
So Yunho obliges, averting his gaze. “Love.”
“Love,” Mingi echoes, near reverently. The word rolls off of his tongue perfectly, as if it were made to be said by him. It falls from the cup of Mingi’s lips, waiting for Yunho to lean in and drink it up. Ignites Yunho’s already burning heart. “A love that makes absolutely no sound at all.”
The muscle closed in Yunho’s ribs twinges at this. It’s painfully accurate, like Mingi’s just thrown a bullseye.
“So,” at least Mingi doesn’t give Yunho too much time to simmer in the afterburn. “What do you think will happen now that we’ve graduated?”
“Capitalism?” Yunho breathes out a quiet laugh, scuffing the heel of his sneaker against the rough stone of the staircase. “We become corporate slaves? Attempt to achieve financial stability?”
A shove to Yunho’s shoulder, almost tipping him off balance. “All I’m asking is for you to not make adulting sound more depressing than it already is.”
“I’m honest.” (But is Yunho really? Debatable.)
Yunho doesn’t think much will change after graduation. They’ve had this conversation before, but they were only freshmen then, crammed against the side of their couch playing The Sims on Yunho’s laptop.
“Make our future house,” Mingi had been wearing Yunho’s hoodie that night. Pale yellow, one of Yunho’s favourites. The hood is up, and Yunho only realized quite a while later that Yunho had been playing with the strings of the hoodie for the longest time. “A fancy one.”
“There’s a difference between our future house and our dream house.” Despite that, Yunho hadn’t protested, and by the end of the hour, their future dream house had a pool in the backyard, a second floor and a guest room dedicated to each of their friends.
“Damn,” Mingi had said, after a fitful bout of two-sided staring, “we’d better be raking in those big bucks for this.”
Considering how well they’d both performed at their internships, it’s no surprise that Yunho’s received an offer to continue full-time at the architecture firm, and Mingi has accepted an apprenticeship at the music studio.
For a long stretch of time, they don’t speak. The murky spill of the sun has cleared up to make way for blue, a stray wink of diamond here and there as the low tide climbs tiredly up to shore, not quite awake yet.
The world stirs slowly, and Yunho has never wanted a moment not to pass so badly. He could sit here — elbows knocking with Mingi, the length of their thighs pressed tight for warmth — for the remainder of eternity.
If only it were an option.
Mingi lets his shoulder bump to Yunho’s. “Do you think we’ll be happy?”
“I really doubt anyone has an explicit answer to that. But as long as it makes us happy in this moment,” Yunho stops, fiddles with a button on the front of his coat, “I think we can just follow where our heart leads us. The next part will come when it’s due.”
“You must listen to your heart most of the time.”
If only he knew. Yunho laughs at the absurdity of it all, knows that Mingi will just assume he’s amused. He says, “I suppose… most of the time.”
“So, there are instances where you don’t.”
A brief pause, trembling caution, “yeah.”
“Which one?”
Yunho just hums. Shrugs, hopes nothing in his actions gives him away. “The instance hasn’t passed. I’m working on it.”
Mingi scoffs, but he doesn’t push it. The line of his lips tightens, as if consciously swallowing prospective questions. “Must be some ground-breaking stuff.”
“Very ground-breaking stuff.”
(Visiting Oryukdo takes them to the jarring edge of Busan.
There’s something about the mystifying blue of the ocean that pulls on Yunho’s heartstrings; The rock islands sit, brimming in the water, each one some distance away from the other. Wistfully close, but just out of reach.
“They must be lonely,” is the only thing Yunho says when they’ve finally climbed the steps to the summit of the viewing point.
A lilting breeze flickers past them, gently combing his bangs over his eyes. Yunho’s so captivated, his chest swelling with oddly misplaced emotions. Staring at the slits of ocean between each rock island, completely mesmerized.
Maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice the way that Mingi stares, instead, at him.)
If anyone were to ask, Yunho would say that twenty four hours in a day isn’t enough. Especially not when it’s hours spent with Mingi.
The sound of a beer can opening lures him back into reality, and Yunho turns to see Mingi struggling to twist the ring of the can off.
They’re at Gwangalli Beach, even arrived earlier to make sure they would get a spot with the best view of the bridge. Between them are a six-pack of beer and fried chicken from one of the shops lining the beachfront (“That’s what people do in Busan,” Mingi had insisted, while they were looking up places to go the previous evening, “they crack some beers and have chicken along the beach”).
Mingi is beautiful in the drape of night, with the light of lamp posts sloping off of his silhouette. Yunho can barely breathe, only now achingly aware of his own cowardice. If time is sand and his hands are sieves, then Yunho has let too many years spill from clenched fists.
At this time tomorrow, they will be with their friends in Osaka, and tonight will merely become another strike in Yunho’s tally of lost chances.
There’s a tug in Yunho’s heart that throbs with an abrupt sense of urgency. As if demanding now. Coaxing him, urging him, telling him it’s time. Before them, the sea has settled down, worn from the bustle of day. Not a wave, not a froth, as if allowing Yunho centre stage.
Loving someone becomes muscle memory — This, Yunho learns the long, lethargic way.
There’s the hitch of his breath whenever Mingi leans in: To whisper, to reach for something, or simply just to be close. The hum of Yunho’s yearning echoing frantically in his veins. A burst of feeling, white hot and blood bright.
There’s the traitorous squeeze of his heart in the cage of his ribs, now battered and bruised from how desperately the lone muscle had been hammering at its confines over the years.
There are the words that sit, unspoken but perfectly refined, at the tip of Yunho’s tongue. Words that have rested at the end of every sentence, waiting to be said, patient and bold. Words that Yunho thinks have earned the right to finally, finally be sieved through the grit of his teeth.
And if Yunho doesn’t set them free tonight, then he can’t be sure if there will ever be another time when he will.
“Hey.” Yunho doesn’t look up, his gaze vignetting as he stares at the glass gleam of the water. The thrum of his pulse sings up to his ear; He wonders if Mingi can hear it too.
Mingi hums, “yeah?”
“What would you do if I told you that I’ve been in love with you for a long, long time?”
It’s an odd hour of the night. The air is still, not a breeze stealing into the moment. Yunho turns. Waits, and the world is quiet, holding its breath with him.
Mingi leans in, kisses him dizzy.
Then softly, with a smile in his voice, he murmurs, “I would want to know exactly how long.”
It’s as if the world waltzes around them in slow motion, every colour of light within distance blending into one warm halo that surrounds Mingi’s head. How long? Yunho thinks it’s a difficult question that doesn’t quite have a definite answer. He would say it had been since they were fourteen, but something inside him knows it’s been longer than that.
So he reaches up to curl his fingers into the lapels of Mingi’s coat — as if holding the sky, the universe, as if holding the entirety of space and time — and draws Mingi close enough to fit his jaw into the cradle of Yunho’s palm.
“Too long,” he breathes against the corner of Mingi’s mouth, an endeared smile quirking at his own as the other attempts to chase Yunho’s lips. “But this I know: I will be in love with you for an even longer time.”
Yunho’s never really believed in a love that rushes up roller coaster tracks, a love that sparks a rocket into its launch, a love that tears the air from his lungs and leaves him gasping and his adrenaline spiking. Love to Yunho is a rowboat on a still lake, the calm and gentle rock from one side to the other. Love is the affirmation of a hand in his while time indulges in a lazy drawl, like space debris dozing within a distant planet’s sphere of influence.
So when Mingi laughs, Yunho’s heart stutters in its mad, accelerating drive out of Mingi’s orbit; Slows into a helpless drift. But it’s not lonely anymore, because now Yunho knows Mingi has been orbiting around him just the same.
“Jung Yunho,” Mingi says, exasperatedly fond, “you’ll never be rid of me.”
Desperate, powerless — like binary stars under inertia.