Archive of Our Own ^beta

1

Jisung wouldn’t say he’s a particularly quiet guy. Sure, he feels the weight of shyness on his shoulders when he meets strangers for the first time, and sure, on his off-days (which are few and far between) Jisung will be found curled up in bed rewatching some cartoon movies that make him feel like a kid again, all the pressures of boring adult life melting away through the cheerful blue skies and soft rustling meadow fields on the screen. 

But everyone makes noise. Jisung shakes his leg when he concentrates, which rattles his desk. He plays with the pen he’s using to scribble lyrics into a notebook. The pages are well adorned with the scars of Jisung crumpling the entire thing up in frustration then apologetically ironing out time and time again. Sometimes the pen flies across the room and falls onto the floor. Sometimes Jisung gets up off his creaky old desk chair and does some stretches in his room, groaning at the feeling of tight muscles being woken up after a long period of inactivity. Maybe he’ll open his closet, the heavy latch clicking, fumble around for a hoodie, drop a couple of hangers in the process and kick it closed again with his foot as he fights with the garment. 

Noises of life. The difference between a school corridor during exam season: silent with frantic pen scratching, the click-clack of the invigilator who always insisted on high heels, the infrequent stuttered cough. Against the silence of a school corridor during the evening: an empty silence that is oppressive, tugging at the ears to force them to listen to the lack of noise. 

They’re very different types of quiet. 

They’re unmistakably different. 

So pray tell: why are Jisung’s stupid, brain-dead roomates fucking on the couch? And why did Jisung ignore his gut telling him to put his headphones on and pretend he hears nothing because this is going to be a nightmare to work through in his brain? No, instead Jisung decided to just double-check that the rhythmic creaking and skin-slapping noises were something entirely innocent. Maybe they were playing some strange card game with slapping punishments? 

It was a long shot and Jisung couldn’t even pretend to be shocked to himself when he creaks his bedroom door open only for his eyes to fall in the wrong place: the full view of Chan’s shockingly pale ass cheeks canting rhythmically between Changbin’s spread thighs. 

Jisung only shuts the door with a long blink. 

The horrible noises of debauchery are a twisted soundtrack to Jisung unpacking the sudden knowledge that his roommates are fucking on the couch?! Because seriously, what the fuck. Chan and Changbin had been friends as long as Jisung could remember, and Jisung had always been included in that. They shared the three-bedroom apartment, and all of them mostly work from home, they’re not strangers to each other’s private lives or habits. 

Jisung knows that doing yoga always gives Changbin a boner (hilarious), he knows that drinking tequila makes Chan perform terrible rendition of Britney Spears’ hits at full volume (hilarious), he knows that Chan and Changbin will argue so much about the last chicken leg that they don’t notice Jisung swiping it from the bucket before it’s too late (hilarious and delicious). Knowing that his roommates are fucking? Not hilarious. Not even a little bit hilarious. 

Not even when Changbin whines, slightly mumbled behind the door, “I know you’re a senior citizen but you don’t have to fuck like one, come on - I’m going to fall asleep at this rate.” 

It probably would be funny in another context, Jisung can acknowledge that much. But all he can do is wince violently in horror at the sharp moaning and heavy couch-squeaking that follows. 

Jisung makes a very adult decision to compartmentalise the whole ‘Chan and Changbin are together probably’ thing to unpack at a later date when his ears aren’t being subject to the full cinematic experience. Out. He needs to get out. 

Tiptoeing with speed around his room, Jisung pulls on a pair of sneakers, pulls a beanie over his head, and stuffs his phone into his pocket. His entire body is just screaming to get out of the apartment so he doesn’t develop some type of deep-seeded trauma from having to hear anymore of Chan’s dirty-talk. His hand freezes on the doorknob, the sweat on his hands cooling horribly on the metal surface. His hand will smell like coins later. 

He has to walk past the couch to leave the apartment. 

Jisung lets out a silent scream and grinds his forehead into his door. He doesn’t want Chan and Changbin to know he’s there. Who knows who long they’d been going at it? Jisung only noticed when his airpods ran out of battery. What if they think he’s been listening? Jisung sitting in his room, being silent and listening in on his two friends having sex, not even realising that Jisung is right on the other side of the door. They’d think he’s a pervert.

Or even worse. They see Jisung, freak out and begin apologising for not checking if Jisung is home. Then Chan will cover his modesty with one of their animal-shaped couch cushions and start this whole big triade about respecting the communal living space and respecting each other’s privacy and his eyes will go all big and sad for making Jisung see their sex life without his consent. Not that he would give consent to get a front-row show, even though Chan and Changbin are perfectly handsome - it’s just not something that he’d want to see but maybe Chan and Changbin thought that too and now they’re a thing - okay. Deep breath. 

Sneaking out is a no-go. 

Jisung buzzes around his room as silently as his footsteps will let him, kicking dirty clothes out of his way so he can have adequate pacing space. He can’t just sit here and wait for them to finish - they’ll know he was here. If they’re together, then they clearly haven’t wanted Jisung to know for whatever reason (which is a little hurtful, but Jisung doesn’t have time to think about that right now), and Jisung really doensn’t want to have to sit down to have a ‘I saw you two fucking on the couch, now tell me more!’ conversation now or ever. He shudders at the thought. 

He needs to get out. There has to be some way that Jisung can leave the apartment and walk in through the front door in a couple hours time, pretending he was at the shitty studio space they rent out. 

A sudden draught catches Jisung’s skin, and goosebumps rise in their wake. Jisung takes a long, deep, patient breath to stop himself from screaming in frustration. He gets up, finds the rolled up t-shirt he uses as best he can the stop the cold air whistling through his shitty window. The latch never closes right, which is useful, sure, for when he wants to slip out in the middle of the night for a smoke, but apart from that the shitty fire escape has no purpose other than to freeze Jisung to death in the middle of the nigh-

Oh. 

Jisung knows it’s a terrible idea - but slipping on the metal, still wet from a mid-day drizzle, is preferable to hearing his life-long best friend call his other life-long best friend ‘ baby-girl.’ Jisung makes a note to double down on his therapy appointments. 

The latch doesn’t close when the window swings shut behind him. It never does. 

--

Minho didn’t hate his job. The kids are great and even if they don’t take the choreography seriously, it doesn’t really matter - their parents still throw money at him anyway. Every parent thinks their kid is going to be the next big dance breakout star and Minho doesn’t have the heart to tell them that most of their children can’t tell their right foot from their left ass cheek. Well no, Minho does have the heart to tell them that, but it wouldn’t be a wise financial decision, so he butters them up and pretends to be oblivious to the fact that his eyelashes are long and his body is toned enough to be masculine and alluring, but his frame is small enough to be approachable. 

Today he had to take over another trainer’s classes - this time it was an older group, so Minho actually had to do more than his legendary Baby Shark choreography. The burn in Minho’s thighs even as he lies on his bed on his laptop are a stark reminder that he needs to start heading to the dance studio to do some actual dancing before his muscles waste away. 

He had promised Jeongin that he would go to the gym with him this evening, but his body is aching enough as is and he doesn’t want to push it. So now… Minho has a rare opportunity to himself. It isn’t that Jeongin never leaves the apartment or anything, it’s more that Hyunjin seems to think that he pays rent or something and walks in and out of the apartment as he pleases.

Minho caught him ransacking his secret snack cupboard one day and chased him around the apartment with a buzzing razor. The apartment is… quiet for once. 

Minho, trying not to grin to himself in excitement, settles into bed. He hasn’t had the time to do this in a long time. He balances the laptop carefully on his thighs, punching in the name to his favourite site and desperately tries to find the video title he’s been dying to see. He daren’t do this with any of the others in the apartment - Hyunjin and Jeongin, despite their somewhat decent looks, had been raised by barn animals and apparently do not know how to knock before barging into a room - even the bathroom . Jeongin has seen far too much of Minho for either of them to be entirely comfortable with. 

He’s an adult man. He can enjoy whatever media he wants, and there’s no shame in it. It just isn’t something that Hyunjin or Jeongin particularly need to know about. 

Minho clicks the video once he finds it, sly grin carving its way on his face as the familiar tune plays out. He turns the volume up, knowing all too well he likely won’t get a chance like this for weeks. 

Huh. 

That’s strange - the intro sounds different this time around. Minho lifts the laptop to his ear, trying to distinguish what’s different. They definitely added something - drums? No - it sounds flatter than a drum… did they add vocals to it? Minho stares in confusion at the screen, then back to listening in at the speaker. Minho pauses the video and still the noises persist. He looks through his windows to see if any other tab is playing music. With a reluctant sigh as the muffled voice gets louder, he resigns that his neighbours are probably going to be loud tonight. The Kims next door always argue. If Minho weren’t such a kind soul, he would have made a complaint by now.  

Minho sighs, shutting his laptop and shuffles on his butt across the bed, too lazy and sore to actually stand up to put his laptop back on his desk. So he leans over the bed, sliding his laptop onto the table as his upper body hangs precariously over the edge-

Someone knocks his window. The flash of a face is enough to make Minho lose balance - his quick reflexes kicking in just in time to catch his fall in a handstand then right himself. There, looking back at him through his window, is a man, smiling bashfully. 

Minho flicks the latch. Ready to tell the guy to get his ass off of his fire escape or he’ll push him over the edge, but the guy cuts him off before he gets a chance. 

“I’m not a burglar!” 

Minho blinks slowly. “I know that. If you were a burglar I’d question your career choice.” 

“Huh?” The other blinks owlishly.

Minho raps on the window, making the boy starle with the loud sound. “What burglar knocks?” 

“Oh, yeah. That’s a good point. A polite one, maybe?” 

“What do you want?” Minho asks coldy. “I’m going to call the police if you’re not out of my sight in ten seconds.”

“I’m sorry - but I’m not here for anything weird! It’s going to sound really dumb, but… it’s just a small favour!”

“You come climbing up the fire escape to invade my privacy by knocking on my window for a favour?” Minho asks incredulously. He immediately goes to push the window down to shut it, but the stupid thing always gets stuck when he opens it. This is why he rarely opens his window. God damn it. 

The stranger makes perfect use of his delay, hopping in place with the francticity of his words. “I climbed down actually- I’m your upstairs neighbour and I just need a way to get out of the building without going through my own apartment!” 

Minho finally manages to unwedge the part of the window that sticks, stops close to dismembering two of the boy’s fingers when he puts his hand there to stop it. “I’m warning you: I’ll go through your fingers if you don’t move them.” 

“Please! I can’t go through my own apartment, my roommates are fucking on the couch,” His voice rises to a whine. Minho could almost feel sorry for him - he has that injured puppy look to him that is almost endearing. Maybe if the boy was pleading with him like this in a club or somewhere then this would go a different way. 

Minho expects a fight when he pushes the boy’s hand out of the way, but he lets Minho clear the space to slam the window shut and pull the latch. The boy looks half-rejected and half-embarrassed. Minho shakes his head. He just stands there, looking through the window at Minho like an unwanted display window doll. Minho taps the emergency service number into his phone and holds it up to the window. 

The boy’s eyes go wide and he shakes his head, “I’m going! I’m sorry for the disturbance!” He shouts, muffled through the class. Minho catches the tendons of his neck struggling to reach the vocal demand. The boy bows heavily, almost at a ninety-degree angle, headbutting Minho’s window with a painful sounding thump and scatters away up the steps.

Minho, justifiably a little unsettled, shakes himself from staring out of the window, waiting for the squirrelly face to reappear, and pulls his curtains closed. With a mournful sigh, he gives up on watching his favourite cheesy drama and promises to himself that he will get back to it soon. He needs to know whether the mother-in-law survived the car accident orchestrated by a hit-man hired by her son. It might be mindless, but Minho is more than happy to turn his brain off every now and again. 

Minho greets Jeongin when he comes home later and shoos his sweaty butt off the couch and into the shower. Seriously, Minho rolls his eyes at Jeongin’s smirk, who raised this kid? Jeongin tells Minho that Chan was asking about him. Minho makes a note to find time to hit the gym some evening soon. 

True to his word, Minho runs into Chan at the gym some days later, and he greets him with a polite but genuine smile and gets one in return. Chan waves him over to the rowing machine and pats the seat beside him with a twinkle in his eye.

“You up for a set?” He asks. 

“The rowing machines are always empty, you know. You can come down to the gym any time to do them.” Minho sits in the offered seats and readjusts the weight to suit his still aching muscles. It’s a little lower than usual, he doesn’t want to hinder his muscles trying to recover from their previous exertion. 

“Is that right? The 2kg dumbbells are usually free too, just so you know,” Chan quips. Minho pushes Chan’s shoulder, breaking his gaze from Minho’s lower-than-usual weight. Chan’s demeanor rises with a laugh, still taking advantage of the distraction to break up his sets a little. “Usually you’re here a little later than this,” He says, awaiting a response.

“Yeah, Jeongin bought this new video game and he’s been up all night playing it. I guess he must have got a bad run because he woke me up shouting profanities at whatever poor motherfucker had the misfortune of being on his raid team.” 

Chan snorted. “He’s the teacher, right?” 

Minho hums. “Teaches elementary school.”

“Well,” Chan says, preparing to start his set. Minho follows suit, rolling his shoulders and stretching out his neck muscles, still a little stiff from sleep. “Let’s hope he doesn’t use language like that around the kids.”

“It would be funny though,” Minho muses. Chan, ever the saint, pretends not to agree and bites his lip. 

Minho knows Chan lives in his building, obviously - considering he’s using the building’s gym,  although he’d never enquired more than that. Chan had never asked either, and their mutual understanding for not needing to indulge in needless exchanging of information is why Chan is the only person in the entire apartment complex that he can stand (except maybe the other Australian). 

Minho always goes to the gym before dance, usually just getting in a quick workout to warm his muscles up for work - he never has time to properly stretch while he’s making sure his dance group don’t stick fingers up each other’s noses. Always the wee hours of the morning, and almost always empty. Until he started to notice the presence of a figure usually dressed in all-black who always seemed to be a decent portion into his work out when Minho arrived at 5am. 

A few chance encounters became a regular deal, and suddenly Minho and Chan exchanged names and were spotting each other as the only two people in the gym. It was an easy relationship. Not quite a friendship, but Minho liked Chan, even if only at a surface level. 

Minho hands Chan his water bottle, who thanks him with pained breaths. Minho always said that Chan pushed himself too hard, but apparently that’s the cost of having pacific-wide shoulders and the muscles to match. “Did you ever find out who’s been drinking your protein shakes?” Minho asks, noting that Chan was sticking to plain old water today with no hint of his usual shake sitting beside his discarded sweater and bag. 

Chan wet his hand with the water and threaded it through his hair to cool himself down a little. “Changbin insists it wasn’t him - but Jisung doesn’t work out, so I’ve been meaning to catch him stealing them. It hasn’t worked out yet, but I’m in it for the long game.” 

Minho hums, rolling his muscles out. The lower weights were pushing his muscles just right. 

“What about you? Did you ever get to the bottom of the face-mask dilemma?” 

Minho’s face turns into a snarl at that, making Chan laugh. “I know for a fact it was Hyunjin. Because he doesn’t live here and refuses to leave any of his own stuff in the apartment, he thinks he has the right to just go around using my stuff whenever he wants.” 

“You let him.” Chan points out. 

Minho waves him off. “That’s besides the point. He knows my face masks are off-limits.” 

Minho enjoys these catch-ups with Chan. Despite neither having faces to put to the names of their complaints, they’re fairly invested in these dramas. The protein-shake thief had been a months-long ongoing dilemma. It’s therapeutic to have someone to air all these minor grievances with.

“Oh,” Minho suddenly remembers. “Something really weird happened the other day,” Minho recounts the events of the other night. Chan found it much more concerning than he did however, and presses him as to why he didn’t call the police. 

“The kid looked like he was going to shit himself. A strong breeze would have sent him flying off the fire escape, trust me, even if he did try to break in I would’ve been fine.” 

Chan nods, a little unconvinced. “You and Jeongin are okay, right?” 

“Yeah. Jeongin finds it funny. I told him to keep his eyes peeled though.” 

Chan nods. His eyebrows are furrowed a little deeper than usual, like he’s thinking hard about something. Minho doesn’t ask, and Chan doesn’t tell - as is the wonderfully casual nature of their relationship. Minho thinks nothing more of it and moves to focus on his morning stretching, keeping an eye on Chan deadlifting from the corner of the eye. He is technically Chan’s spot after all. 

2

Twice. Seriously. 

Jisung pulls his airpods from his ears and tosses them onto his desk,sending them scattering over his laptop that he’d been glued to for the better part of the day. How does this happen to him? Did he anger his guardian angel or something? 

Jisung takes a bated breath, preparing for the worst, and creaks his bedroom door open - maybe they’re in one of the bedrooms. Maybe Jisung’s habit for listening to his music too loud has caused hearing loss and it just sounds like the noises are coming from the -

The fucking kitchen table. 

Jisung shuts his door as firmly as he dares to remain silent. He pulls his beanie over his eyes and presses hard. He’s seen Chan’s bare ass too many times to be healthy. Seriously. No amount of brain bleach can bring him back from this. 

Here’s the thing: this time it’s kind of Jisung’s fault. He had told them that he was going to be at the studio all day, he simply… didn’t go. He lost track of time completing a project earlier and figured he may as well just continue working from home today, he’d go to the studio tomorrow.

And Jisung definitely should have mentioned to them that he knew what was going on. It had been at the tip of his tongue every shared breakfast, every cramped Uber ride, every impromptu movie night. The eye contact Chan and Changbin hold is slightly too long to be normal, Changbin pokes at Chan a little too much. Hell, Chan even hugs him more than he does Jisung - even at that, it’s hardly PDA! For whatever reason, they’re keeping this a secret, and Jisung hadn’t had the balls to bring it up to them yet. 

It would be a whole thing. And Jisung hates it when things are things.  

A distinctive sound of Chan slapping Changbin’s ass followed by a watery moan snaps him from his thoughts and Jisung all but jumps through the window. 

He would be more than happy to light up and sit with his thin legs through the railings waiting for Chan and Changbin to finish, he could just lie low for a few hours, then walk out and act as though he only just came h0me - oh, you guys didn’t hear me? That’s odd. I just toed my shoes off, weird. But much to Jisung’s ongoing bad luck, it’s raining. And not even the mild Spring drizzle rain - the proper skin-splitting sheets of rain. Jisung is almost drenched from the seconds he’s been outside. He swears and pulls his hood over his head, even if it is too late to save his hair, it stops most of the cold water running underneath his thin tee. 

Up, he needs to go up. Who is it that lives above them… that law graduate and that guy who always gives Chan baked goods? Jisung has met them before, Chan introduced the two apartment groups at one of his birthday get-togethers, although Jisung didn’t keep much communication except genuinely cheerful conversations whenever they bump into each other in the stairwell or the elevator, they’re still friendly faces. 

Jisung climbs the steps up, hands running paths of water off the handrail.

To his relief, he sees the glow of a light indicating there is in fact someone home. Jisung, despite his eagerness, doesn’t go any faster, all too aware of how slippy the corrugated metal gets in the rain, especially in converse and their lack of grip. 

Jisung is so busy watching his feet that he doesn’t even realise the act unfolding within the bedroom before it’s too late and he all but throws himself back down the steps, the threat of slipping be damned.

Seriously?! Is everyone in this apartment building fucking right now? Did Jisung miss the memo? Is 8:00pm the optimum sextime or something? 

Jisung wasn’t sure who he saw doing what, but the brief flash of naked flesh and a pair of heads in contrasting blonde and black hair was enough to make Jisung snap his eyes shut, out of respect for their privacy but ultimately for Jisung’s own mental health. His therapist is going to pin him as a peeping tom at this rate, surely. 

Jisung contemplates going back into his room, even goes as far as to poke his head in and immediately decides he’d rather die of hypothermia in the rain. How have they not gotten a noise complaint at this rate? Jisung huddles into himself, squatting down on the cold metal to make himself as tight of a ball as possible. He considers lighting one up, but the rain would drown the embers immediately, and he’d rather not waste it. 

Jisung lasts an embarrassingly short time before his mild shivvers become full-body shudders, teeth clattering as his hoodie sticks to his skin, completely saturated in rainwater. He can feel it running down his face and dripping from his chin into his hoodie. 

Fuck it. He can deal with the crippling, cringe-inducing anxiety later. Jisung swallows his pride and descends the step, trying one more time for the apartment below him. The guy wasn’t… welcoming, but he didn’t outright call Jisung a criminal or anything, he at least gave him time to explain himself - maybe he would see his desperation this time around? 

The lights are off. With a trembling hand, Jisung raps the window. He knocks harder when there’s no response. Just when he considers turning around and gritting his teeth to bear the terrible sounds of his own apartment, a sudden light slices through the darkness when the bedroom door is opened. The overhead light switches on, and Jisung is surprised to see an unfamiliar face.

The face is sharp, young but defined. Apparently everyone in this apartment building has to be hot too… maybe that’s why everyone is having sex with each other.

The man, with an almost unsettling glint in his eye, lifts the latch and rips the window open, almost leaning out of the window entirely.

“Hi,” The man says.

“Uh, hi,” Jisung replies, “I’m sorry to intrude but uh-”

“You’re the guy who asked to come through our apartment last week, right? Minho-hyung told me to keep my eyes and ears peeled for you. He didn’t actually think you’d come knocking again.”

Jisung blinks. The guy is smiling at him. This is not the reaction he was really expecting, he seems almost… amused? 

“My roommates are having sex. If I could just get through and- it’s raining pretty heavy so I can’t just stand here - could I just-” The boy cuts him off with an eye roll, stepping away from the window and tilting his head in invitation.

“You can stay here if you want. I don’t care. Just don’t steal anything, I guess. Although Minho-hyung has a really ugly collection of ceramic cats, feel free to swipe them, you’ll be doing me a favour.” 

Jisung looks for a moment, doubtful that the other was being genuine, but the head just tilted impatiently and Jisung scrambles through the window, dripping water over the floor. 

“Shit. Sorry,” He says, trying to stop the water running off his body. An impossible feat. The other pulls him quickly though the room, shutting the window tight behind him and leaving him dripping in the hallway before he emerges from the bathroom with a pair of towels. The things are thrust into Jisung’s arms and he begins to fruitlessly pat his saturated clothes down. 

“The couch is pleather, so feel free to sit down if you want. I’m about to start a game,” the other leads Jisung to the couch, a hulking black thing that’s fraying in the corners. He sits down, picking up a controller and pulling his headphones on, but leaving the ear closest to Jisung free. 

“Oh,” Jisung says, letting himself be pushed onto the couch. He pats mindlessly at his clothes for a while, before deciding to lift the hoodie from his body. He fights with it, the wet fabric wrapping around all the wrong parts of his body like a particularly touch-starved octopus. Eventually, just before his breath would start to quicken from claustrophobia, Jisung escapes the fabric to the sight of an amused glance from the other. Jisung notes the loading screen on the television. 

“What are you playing?” He asks, lifting the heavy fabric of his tee from sticking to his skin. It thumps heavy back down, sticking there still. 

“Rainbow Six Siege,” The boy says. “Do you play?” He notes Jisung’s change of expression.

“A little. Not on console, though.”
Wordlessly, the other reaches over the arm of the couch and hands Jisung a well-loved controller. Jisung feels the weight of it, exploring the buttons and joysticks carefully, over the battery pack his finger catches something, he turns it over to find a slightly peeling sticker of a cat. 

“That one’s Minho’s,” The boy says, then holds up the back of his own, decorated with a little sticker of a fox, “And this one’s mine. Minho complained about my sweaty fingers.” 

“Efficient system,” Jisung smoothes the lifted part of the sticker carefully as the loading screen lifts to the menu, where the other quickly sets up the game into local multiplayer mode. 

“I’m Jeongin, by the way.” 

“I’m Jisung. Thanks for letting me in… being a stranger and all. It’s - I wasn’t expecting this.” 

Jeongin shifts, hooking a leg over the arm of the couch, getting into a comfortable position - but how that can be comfortable, Jisung is lost on. “I’ve seen you before getting your mail. You live with the Australian guy, right?” 

“Which one? The small blonde one or the wide one?” Jisung wasn’t sure that using their names as identifiers would be useful here.

“Wide one. The other one is brownie-boy.” Felix’s reputation is beyond what most people could ever hope to achieve.

“That’s Chan. Yeah. Him, Changbin and I started living together in college and I guess we never really felt a need to change the system. You know him?” 

Jeongin shrugs beside him. “Minho and him are friends or something. The opening gunfire draws Jisung’s attention to the screen and they fall into cooperative silence.

Jeongin’s victorious cheering is interrupted by the sound of a door opening and keys being deposited carelessly on the entryway table. Jisung’s stomach does loop-de-loops in tandem with the soft footsteps getting closer, and suddenly in walks ‘Minho’ - the guy whose window Jisung had knocked on last week appears through the threshold, shedding a raincoat and holding a pair of sneakers in his other hand. He’s trying to clean his glasses of rain one-handed, greeting Jeongin lazily before slipping his glasses back onto his face and regarding the scene for the first time. 

He blinks slowly. That’s the extent of the reaction. Then, a sinisterly sweet smile that has Jisung’s balls shooting up into his gut. 

“Yang Jeongin. Did you not hear what I said about letting strangers who knock on my bedroom window into the apartment?” 

“To do it?” Jeongin supplies sweetfully, face the deception of innocence. Jisung isn’t safe here, he realises. Both of these people are terrifying in their own right.

“Mmm, close. To not do it, actually.”  The coat is discarded on the arm of the couch, Minho stalking over to Jisung in a cat-like territorial manner. Jisung moves back until he can feel the cushioning of the couch give way and the knobs of his spin press painfully against the backboard. 

“He’s Chan’s roommate. That’s your gym-husband, right?” 

Minho regards the statement, looking over Jisung in a new light, eyes catching on the shirt vacuumed with rain to Jisung’s chest. Jisung awkwardly pulls it so it’s not outlining every nook and cranny of his form. Minho’s eyes catch his, dark and glinting. His face pulls into a handsome show of reconciliation. 

“He’s not my gym husband. But… on that note. Jeongin, you owe me ₩30,000. I told you they were having sex.” 

“I didn’t agree to that bet,” Jeongin argues whilst Jisung looks back and forth in shock horror.

“Don’t pull that shit with me. I told you I bet that they were on a date when Chan and Changbin went on a ‘underground rap tour to get a feel for the local scene’ and he was limping up the stairs the next day. And you said there’s no way that someone who works out to Ed Sheeran takes it up the ass.” 

Jeongin groans, writhing on the seat, eventually giving in and grabbing his wallet, tossing Minho the notes with a frown on his face. “I can’t believe you’d take money from me, a child-” 

“Oh, so when I call you a kid, it’s all ‘stop calling me that, I’m an adult, I pay taxes’ but when you do it, it’s fine?” 

“Yes,” Jeongin smiles hard, face splitting with the expression. Jisung notes the fond look on Minho’s face, barely schooled by a roll of the eyes. 

There’s something easily handsome about Minho. The shrap silhouette of his nose, the cat-like curl of the lips, Jisung can’t help but think how opposite those facial features are to his own. They’re so handsome on Minho, he looks sharp and defined, even as his wet hair keeps falling into his eyes.  But not even those thoughts can rip Jisung away from the sirens in his brain.

“You knew my roommates were together?” He asks, desperation lacing at his voice. Minho flops down between the two, feet landing on the coffee table. 

“I didn’t know - but I had an inkling.” 

Jisung blinks, completely lost. There is no way a stranger would have picked something so well-hidden up through casual gym-conversations that Jisung missed when literally living with his two friends. 

“How?” 

“Changbin works night shifts , right, and Chan just so happens to have trouble sleeping at night? So they have the same sleeping schedule? Chan pays for the studio rent even though both you and Chan apparently prefer to work from home, Changbin is the only one that I hear goes to the studio regularly. They eat out together a lot. I’ve seen Chan’s instagram - they’re always together on the weekends. And -  wait, didn’t they go to Sydney together?” 

Jisung’s mouth turns to chalk. He nods. “Changbin said he always wanted to visit… and Chan’s parents live there so it would be free accommodation…” 

“His - his parents live there? They visited Chan’s parents?” Minho’s face is brightened with humour, but underneath it, Jisung can see he’s blown away by Jisung’s lack of observational skills. Jisung can only nod. “Next you’re going to tell me they share a bed purely for saving money on the gas bill.” 

Jisung can only stare helplessly into the warm eyes telling him horrible things. Minho leans into Jisung in disbelief.
Jeongin is in fits of laughter, Minho trying to fight it off himself. They concealed it so well… Jisung had no idea. Minho’s words, however, are starting to make Jisung think that maybe they were just… weird. Like two guys who are just friends but also share a bed and spend time together and sometimes have sex if they need to. That’s it, right? People have natural desires, and neither Chan or Changbin have had girlfriends as long as Jisung can remember, so they’re probably all wound up. 

Jisung’s face is contorted into such a state that Minho can’t help but pat his head and coo. Jisung catches the hand on instinct, freezing under the sudden touch. 

He holds Minho’s wrist, eyes locking with Minho’s, whose face has dropped into concern. Jisung gets up, folding the towels haphazardly, pretending that he can’t still feel Minhi’s wrist in the cup of his hand, or the millisecond of contact on his skull. He thanks Jeongin and Minho genuinely for their hospitality and bolts, hoping and praying that he has his wallet in his pocket because Jisung is planning to spend as long as possible in the studio before the security lifts him by the scruff of the neck and throws him out. 

Minho bumps into Chan in the lobby of the building. Minho has to take a double-glance to check that his eyes weren’t deceiving him. He had half convinced himself that the nocturnal man would burst into flames if he met the sun. Chan is signing for a parcel. He smiles at Minho, box under his arm when he notices him.

“Changbin got so mad playing Mario Kart that he managed to rip the controller in half,” Chan taps the box stamped with the Nintendo logo. Minho is just sorting through his mail, none too pleased about another urgent letter to Jeongin demanding he pay his phone bill. He closes his pigeon hole and locks it.

“Does Changbin have a day off today?” Minho asks, suspicious to see Chan awake in the land of the living. 

“Yeah, though I’m pretty sure he’s still sleeping.” 

“You two have anything planned? It’s a nice day,” He says. It’s a mundane conversation that Minho typically hates, but unlike with other strangers and acquaintances, with Chan it’s genuine. 

Chan’s smile is sickening. “There’s actually this music store that opened recently and they sell really nice and hard-to-get equipment. Changbin spends half of his time scrolling through their instagramming whining about the Naruto-themed synthesizers,” Chan ducks his head to hide a smile. “It’s a couple of hours away, so we never got the opportunity to go, but with both of us having time off today, I think I’ll drag him onto the train.” 

Minho fiddles with the envelopes, humming a little. Before the lack of response stretches too long, he decides to just bite the bullet. He’d never been someone to beat around the bush and he wasn’t about to start now. 

“You and Changbin are dating, right? Oh, am I wrong?” Minho notes the o-shape of Chan’s mouth. It quickly closes once Chan realises what he’d been doing. He blinks and tries to formulate a sentence for a few painful moments.

“I - Yes.” When he says it, the jitters are replaced with a thick blanket of calm, like he’d been fighting his entire life to contain it. “We are. But we’re not exactly… we’re not public about it yet. There isn’t much space for people like us in the rap scene yet.” 

Ah, right. That makes sense. 

“I guess I can relate, although dance is a little more accepting that what I imagine your area is. You two weren’t obvious or anything, if that’s what you’re twitching over-” Chan forces his free hand into his pocket. The tape on the box settling where it had been picked and prodded. “-I’m just good at reading people, is all. Your other roommate - Jisung - he must be good at keeping secrets.” 

Chan winces. 

“Um. He doesn’t really… he doesn’t know.” 

Minho feigns surprise. “Oh, that’s a surprise. You all seem really close, is all..” 

Chan looks ashamed, and Minho almost feels bad. But if he needs to feed the worm of guilt in Chan’s stomach so Jisung will stop breaking into his apartment, then so be it. 

“When we started dating, it was so new that we wanted to keep it as under wraps as possible. When it became obvious that it was working out, we tried to find the perfect opportunity to tell Jisung, but it never came. Then suddenly it’s been four years since first year of college and there’s no easy way to break the news without Jisung thinking - well,” Chan smile is thick with remorse. “Jisung’s mind runs away with him sometimes.” 

Minho, although yes, he is good at reading people, still can’t quite wrap his head around the fact that these two dunces thought that sleeping in the same bed and spending vacations together was being subtle , and by some twisted luck of dumbassery, Jisung was blind enough to fail to put two and two together. It’s a wonder that the trio hadn’t burned down the building yet.

When Minho waves goodbye to Chan as he steps out of the elevator, he misses how Chan’s expression furrows into something contemplative as the doors close like a moody curtain call. 

3.

Jisung is wrapped up in blankets, cocooned in the safety of faded IKEA sheets. The better part of his adulthood had just been pulled out from under him in the space of a painfully short and awkward conversation that Chan insisted - against Changbin’s vehement reubuttles - was long overdue. 

They were dating.

His two roommates are dating. And they had been since Changbin’s first year of college. Which was what, four-five years ago? Jisung feels dizzy. 

Maybe if it had been a simple conversation over beers and food then Jisung wouldn’t be as fuzzy-headed and his brain would have a quiet atmosphere to work through this breaking piece of information. It is a shit-ton to unpack. His two best friends had been living a double life behind his back - no, in front of his face for all these years and didn’t think to tell him until now? Sure, Jisung had guessed it when he literally saw them fucking twice , expected it even. But the anticipation of information doesn’t make its confirmation any less difficult to bear. 

He can get over that. He can. Jisung gets it, he had weeks of sleepless nights and tear-stained pillows when he was egging himself on to come out as bisexual to Chan and Changbin. He knew they wouldn’t care, they were good people who had expressed their discontent for the treatment of the gay community in the underground music scene with careful words and the inability to sit still in their sits. Jisung had steered the conversation there as a litmus test -  and apparently the other two had done the same to him. It was a difficult thing, coming out. Telling the wrong people could ruin their careers: believe me, he gets it. He can forgive them for hiding it, even if it stings a little. 

But they’re fighting. Jisung hadn’t heard Chan and Changbin argue before in his life, not beyond petty fights over chicken legs and whose turn it is to play as Kirby in Super Smash Bros. Jisung is surprised the windows aren’t rattling from the ongoing rising voices. He tries to block the sounds, but to no avail. 

They’re fighting. They’re fighting and it’s Jisung’s fault. 

Changbin wasn’t ready to tell him, and Jisung went and told him that he actually knew, that they didn’t check if he was home two too many times. The fight then devolved into who was responsible for checking if Jisung was home, then to whose idea it was to fuck in their shared living space, then more and more spools of past disettlemetns were unwound until Chan and Changbin were nose-to-nose shouting about who was the one to initiate the secrecy from Jisung after their first date all those years ago. 

Jisung’s brain doesn’t have the space or the safety it needs to work through his emotions with his ears twigging every word of the argument happening through the wall. He wants to go in, tell them to pull their dicks out of their asses and stop fighting. Jisung is upset that they waited this long, sure, but he understands, and there’s really no need to fight over it. But Jisung can hardly manage to catch his breath enough to fill his lungs, nevermind swoop in like a knight in shining armour. 

Jisung decides he needs fresh air when the sound of something being thrown at the wall precedes a louder exchange of hot words. Shakily, he fumbles with the latch. The true extent of his panic is drawn out by the stupid fucking latch that never fucking -

Jisung all but tumbles onto the fire escape, and he suddenly realises his mistake. At the other edge of the platform, through the window of Changbin’s bedroom, he has front row tickets to the fight. Chan’s red, tear-struck face, Changbin’s hands fisted in his own hair to hold himself back from breaking something. Jisung feels fresh tears blooming on his face. He hates fighting, he’s always hated fighting. The anger, the messiness of it all - it makes his head spin in awful ways. 

Desperately, he scrambles up the steps, knocking on Felix and Seungmin’s window. Felix would help him, Felix hates fighting just as much as he does, he has a ‘let’s just cuddle it out’ approach. He thumps and thumps and thumps on the window until the fat of his curled fist is red with impact. No one home.

Swallowing his pride and swallowing even more of his sense, Jisung returns to the all too familiar window, anxiety bubbling even more at the prospect of being turned away. They should turn him away. He’s almost crying and trembling like a leaf and he’s resorted to lamely slapping the window to catch someone’s attention. Jisung desperately wipes his red eyes, tries to make himself look less insane. He licks away the salt of sweat on his upper lip just in time for a face to flash on the other side of the glass and the window to lift.

“Am I going to have to put insect mesh on my window to stop you coming in?” Minho says in greeting. Jisung suddenly realises he needs to speak. All this time he hadn’t considered that he would have to actually say something. He can school his expression well enough, but forcing his breathing into something human for a significant period of time enough to say something semi-coherent seems astronomical in its reach right now. 

“Jisung?” Minho presses, voice a little softer. He leans closer, sharp eyes raking over Jisung, picking him apart. 

Jisung tries to say something, anything, but his chest just makes a weak wheezing sound, and whatever it is it must be enough to evoke pity in Minho, because then he’s being pulled in by the sleeve of his t-shirt. Oh - he’s in his pajamas. He didn’t even realise. 

“Brownie boy delivered us a loaf of banana bread this morning. I was about to have some,” He says in invitation, hand on Jisung’s elbow to steady him as he steps through the window. 

“Yeah,” Jisung gulps. “That sounds nice.” His voice is weak and pathetic, but Minho pays no mention to it. The window closes behind him and Minho is still leading him by the elbow to the kitchen, depositing him in a chair and fetching them both their plates. 

Jisung stares into the cup of steaming liquid in front of him. 

“It’s chamomile,” Minho tells him, his own cup steaming. “It helps you sleep or something. I’m sure it would help calm you down. Hyunjin drinks it every night.” 

Jisung isn’t sure who Hyunjin is, but he takes a careful sip, slurping it to try and cool it as it goes into his mouth. It tastes fine. Minho sits patiently while Jisung calms himself down, like this entire situation isn’t weird and invasive.

“I’m sorry,” He manages, “I tried Seungmin and Felix but they were out and I-I needed out.” It’s difficult to school his voice, but he manages. Jisung isn’t stranger to threads of panic squeezing his lungs and rendering his speech useless. He can fight it a little better now than he did when he was younger. It’s a long and arduous tolerance that’s built up over time. 

Minho makes a noise around a mouthful of banana bread. He rolls his wrist as he chews until he finally swallows. “You look like a deer in headlights more than you usually do. Maybe a rabbit stuck in the grill of a tuck is more appropriate?” He tries, eyes trained on Jisung’s nervous finger tapping on the table. Jisung stops. 

“It’s nothing. It’s actually a little stupid. I shouldn’t have come here - I’ll just-” Minho grabs his shoulder and forces him back into the seat. His hands dig deep. Jisung squirms under the eye contact, so unashamed and full-on. Too forward for Jisung the best of days. 

“Are you cold?” Minho suddenly asks. Jisung slaps his hand away from fingering the thin material of his tee collar, hand tickling his neck. “You have goosebumps,” Minho says, expression unreadable. He pokes Jisung’s bicep, making him jump in the chair.

Minho leaves and returns with a hoodie - oh. Jisung smoothes the familiar fabric, when it’s dropped into his hands but he doesn’t slip it on. It smells fresh and clean, like it had just been washed and he didn’t want to dirty it with his sweaty, shaking body. 

“Chan and Changbin are fighting,” Jisung feels like a child saying it but he feels like he owes Minho some type of explanation for essentially guilting him into letting him into the apartment. Minho stills, face a picture of guilt. “What? Why is your face like that?” 

“I told Chan that I knew they were dating. I didn’t mean to drag you into it, though. Your name just… came up.” 

Jisung, whose sanity had been hanging on by the barest of thread, snaps. He devolves into fits of mindless, hysterical laughter. Minho only looks on in horror. The forks clack against the porcelain plates with every heavy thump of his hand on the table, trying to school his laughter into something more manageable. 

“If you’re going to have a full-on psychological breakdown in my kitchen, can you at least leave my cups out of it-” Minho swipes the mug just in time before the vibrations send it toppling over the edge. Face hinting at amusement, he leans back in his chair, and Jisung can’t bring himself to feel uncomfortable under the steady gaze, too busy trying not to piss himself laughing. 

Eventually, Minho grows tired and kicks him in the shin.

“I just realised,” Jisung manages after a long calming-down process. “Chan and Changbin were in their room, I could have just left the apartment through the front door.” This, to Jisung’s delight, makes Minho laugh and - oh. Minho’s laugh is really, really nice to listen to. Jisung’s laughs die in his chest, he knows he’s staring at the scrunched up face and he can’t bring himself to stop until Minho’s laughter trails off into the air and Minho is leaning on his elbow again, chin perched on his palm.

“You’re stupid. Whose first instinct to leave their apartment is to go down the fire escape instead of the front door?” 

“I have something to tell you, actually…” Jisung says, voice ducking into a whisper. Minho plays along, playfulness in his eyes. “I’m spiderman.” 

Minho gasps, hand covering his mouth: a perfect rendition of every over-the-top cheesy drama show. “So your suit must be padded, then? I could hardly tell!” 

Jisung pulls a smug face, his brain taking a moment to catch the insult, “Hey!” He swipes at Minho, who avoids it easily.

“I guess I was so focused on avoiding the living space those other times, I was too anxious to go through it in case something happened, I dunno,” He rolls easily, feeling a lot better - especially with this banana bread because holy shit. Minho rolls his eyes at his eager demolition of the food, but he doesn’t feel judged, not even when his cheeks bulge. Minho opposite him feels little different than sitting with Chan or Changbin, something achingly familiar… but the sharp eyes and cat-like smirt, it’s new. It’s exciting. 

“The thoughts of facing your two long-term best friends when they’re mad makes you too anxious, but knocking on strangers windows from the fire escape doesn’t?” 

“Not as much, no.” 

Minho’s eyes glint. Lips quirking up into something meaningful. “Your brain is a strange place, Jisung.” 

“Says the one who lets the stranger knocking on their window into their kitchen and feeds them lunch.” The rebuttal slips out so easily, Jisung hardly recognised he said it. Minho holds his eyes, something filling the space between them. Jisung cleans off his banana bread and tries to pretend that the weird stomach-flipping thing is nothing more than excitement for actually tasting good food for once. 

Minho is starting to think that his upstairs neighbour, this Han Jisung guy, has some form of long-term brain damage that makes him act the way he does. He cannot believe that there are people like him walking amongst them without some type of cause for the reason that they are who they are. 

It’s enough that he finds himself thinking about the boy more often that he’d be entirely welcome to, even to the point where he sort of misses the folded hoodie he had left on his dresser should the boy arrive again. And he did, and now the hoodie is gone and Minho has nothing to blame as a catalyst for these thoughts. 

He’s so… different. He means neither in a positive nor negative way. No reasonable person would tackle an issue of being locked in their room by their roommates' public displays of affection by knocking on a stranger’s window to ask to go through their apartment to escape. And yet, this anxious boy has done it four times now. The priorities that Jisung’s concerns take is endlessly confusing to any reasonable person, a group which Minho is a proud member of. 

“What the fuck is it now?” Is how Minho greets the smiling face on his fire escape. There’s no malice in his voice, there might even be something edging worryingly towards affection. 

“You’re not going to believe it. I locked myself in the apartment and Chan and Changbin are on a date until probably ass-o’clock tonight.” Jisung slips in through the small space Minho had not intended to be an invitation in, careful not to knock the laptop under his arms. 

“By all means, let yourself in,” Minho says, letting him. Jisung only flashes him a genuine smile. 

Ever since meeting Jisung, Minho has seen him everywhere. Walking past the glass doors of the gym, fluffy hair peeking from beneath a beanie, wearing that stupid Supreme shirt and the same black sweats three days in a row. He sees Jisung rubbing his eyes at the bus stop, laptop hooked under his arm as he sets out to the studio when Minho is on his way to work. He sees Jisung sifting through his mail, scrunching his face up at whatever bills and junk mail he’s reading through. And yes, Jisung does open his mail and read it standing in front of the pigeon holes, getting in literally everyone’s way. Minho hates how much it amuses him, somewhere deep in his gut, so he does what any mentally sane person does, and suppresses those thoughts.

“Are you just passing through?” Minho asks, surprised to see Jisung actually head for the front door. Jisung’s hand freezes where it’s pushing on the handle, his lips in a beak of surprise. 

“Uh, yeah. I was actually going to head to the studio.” Ah, that makes sense. Minho thinks the heavy headphones around his neck look like a neck pillow. The ears of them reach the full of his cheeks. Minho gets the sudden overwhelming urge to pinch them. No, Jisung isn’t Jeongin, Minho can’t just go around pinching people. 

“Oh,” He says, realising too late that his voice gave away his reluctant disappointment. “I’ll see you around then.” He adds, trying to recover some semblance of control over the conversation.

Jisung chews his lips, looking between the door and Minho. Oh, don’t do it. Don’t do it, Jisung. 

“I can work here? I actually don’t think I even have spare change for the bus now that I think about it,” He laughs it off. Minho isn’t sure if he wants to rattle Jisung for being such an obviously poor liar, or kiss him silly for lying to cover the unspoken tension that Minho’s loose lips had drawn attention to. 

Minho shrugs. “Do whatever you want. It’s not like I had plans or anything…” He didn’t have plans, and the huge smile spreading on Jisung’s face lets Minho know that Jisung knows that too. 

Watching Jisung work is hypnotising to say the least. He had a lot of preconceptions about Jisung. He had this college-student air to him, despite only being two years younger than Minho. Like he’s still riding the high of moving away from parents for the first time, all fresh-faced and aggressively eager to explore the world. Jisung working is a glaring contrast to these conceptions that slide tackle Minho in the worst way possible.

Jisung working, hat discarded and huge headphones pushing the hair from his face, forehead exposed, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Minho can hear beats from the headphones, and although he notices little difference, he watches Jisung highlight a particular clip and add little things here and there fiddling with it almost obsessively. 

When Chan had told him early in their acquaintanceship that the three of them were musicians - rappers, Minho had taken it with a pinch of salt, thinking of smashing a few buttons on the laptop to make a lazy beat and filling the space with spoken word. But he was wrong. Jisung’s eyes are sharp, thin wrists poised above the keys, swift fingers expertly navigating the software and smashing out commands without second thought. 

Minho doesn’t look away when Jisung’s eyes lift from his screen for the first time in an hour. Minho doesn’t think about how Jisung doesn’t even look all that shocked to see him watching him, even if his cheeks dust with an attractive pink. 

“Am I distracting you?” Minho asks. 

“No, not really. I’m used to working with other people walking in and out of the studio anyway. I can zone pretty much anything out,” He says. He pulls the headphones off his head, ruffling his hair to fall back into place. Minho wouldn’t feel guilty even if he was disrupting Jisung, although the way the younger has to smooth the space between his furrowed brows to relax him tells him that Jisung is just fine. 

“Are you taking a break?” Minho asks, needlessly greedy when Jiusng stands up to stretch his old bones. The hoodie lifts slightly, revealing a tantalising slip of tan skin.

“I was just going to take a leak, but my eyes-” Jisung blinks comically, eyes going in and out of focus, “-I think I didn’t blink at all.” 

Jisung leaves and comes back, Minho still curled up on his chair, while Jisung goes back to the space on the couch. His tea had long gone cold, but he didn’t really make it to drink in the first place, he needed something to occupy his hands with in case he did something drastic like lean over and poke his finger through one of the many holes of the well-loved hoodie. Old and frayed, and Jisung settles into it without even a hint of shame at its state. 

“What do you do?” Jisung asks out of the blue. “Jeongin is a teacher, he told me that much.” 

Minho laughs at the wide-eyed expression following the statement. “I teach dance at a community centre not far from here. I ended up getting assigned the youngest groups, but it’s easy money. You’d be surprised how many attention-starved overworked housewives will slip you a tip if you tell them the things they want to hear about their children.” 

“Oh?” Jisung asks, amused. “Are they any good at least?”

“No,” Minho smiles. “They’re terrible.” 

“You seem pleased about it.” 

“It makes me feel better about my own talents.”

“And here I was expecting something like: ‘Oh, it makes me happy to see that they’re having fun!’ I should’ve known better coming from you,” He says. “You’re twisted.” Jisung’s brain catches up to his mouth, and his attempt to take back the insult only serves to make Minho’s eyebrow twitch in amusement. 

“Yeah? I’m twisted?” He sets his cup down on the coffee table, leaning menacingly over to Jisung, who tries to press himself into the crease between the couch cushions to escape the pain coming his way. 

“Please don’t hurt me,” He whimpers. It’s adorable, the faux-fear on his face. Even more so when it turns into something more real when Minho reaches under the couch to pull out a sock - normally he curses Jeongin for his terrible homekeeping habits, but right now he makes a note to give him an extra chicken drumstick as thanks.

“Open wide, Spider-man.” 

It isn’t enough when Jisung and Minho fall into an auspicious fight of gentle kicks and reserved elbows, it isn’t enough when Minho presses Jisung to the couch and sits on his chest until there’s small hands slapping at his thigh to let him breathe. It isn’t even enough when the fighting settles and they’re sitting with their sides pressed flush against each other, the tail of laughter and happiness in the air dissolving into placidity, like the foam of a pour of soda settling into the sugary carbonation, rendering it finally drinkable. 

The laughter settles, and all of the unspoken emotions that Minho had been desperately ignoring are highlighted in its gentle absence. It is so unlike Minho. He isn’t a cold person, no matter what people initially think, but that’s the thing: he takes a while to defrost. With Chan it was weeks of almost daily run-ins, with Jeongin it was months of the younger pestering him through a mutual friend, to hang out. 

The speed of which his icy exterior naturally fell around Jisung was strange, uncharacteristic. Jisung, the weirdo who climbs fire escapes, had taken a part of Minho that was hardly himself and shone it under a light. 

It doesn’t frighten him, but it does surprise him, the magnitude that he wants to kiss Jisung at this moment.  It does frighten him a little however, that Jisung’s eyes keep flitting down to his lips. The chase is fun, the heart-hammering is exciting, but the thought of it being real (even as a slip of hope) is enough to make him dizzy.

Okay. Jisung is losing his mind. It’s official. 

Because he’s been endlessly pacing around the apartment all day, much to the chagrin of Chan who is trying to focus on vacuuming the floor. Eventually, Chan gives up, pulls the plug and flops down beside Jisung on the couch. 

Thankfully, the awkward air had cleared. It had to be a whole thing, as things like this tend to be, but none of the three wanted to go much into it, so it had been quick and painless as possible. The two had never wanted to deal with the awkward conversation of having to sit Jisung down and explain to him that they were together, and had been for quite some time, so rather, they decided the best way to allude Jisung into the relationship was to try and simply… not hide it.

They didn’t account for two things:

1. Chan and Changbin are the least PDA people on the planet. Seriously. Jisung walked in on them holding hands in the kitchen this morning and they tore apart from each other like they’d been burned. So these two airheads were no more prone to skinship or doting words with each other in Jisung’s presence than they were to Jisung himself. 
2. The small hints, the bed-sharing, the date nights, all of these things that maybe a normal person would have picked up on, went right over Jisung’s head. Jisung’s brain didn’t work on the same unwritten social rules and parameters as most people’s and works in a horrible combination of twisting its own fallacies and tales to the point where Jisung has to call his friends just to double-check that they don’t hate him. Jisung's brain works on rules of its own volition, not caring for any hints given to him. Obviously Jisung would miss every single one of these small hints, not even regarding them as anything odd or out of place. 

It was a mixing pot destined for confusion, and it’s a wonder that none of them saw it coming. Gratefully, the dynamic didn’t shift. Chan and Changbin had been a spit away from falling to their knees and begging Jisung for forgiveness over the entire ordeal, which would have been amusing if the image hadn’t been so utterly terrifying. 

“What’s eating at you?” Chan asks, pretending to be put out that Jisung has interrupted his least favourite chore. Not that he’d been doing a great job of it anyway. 

Jisung, brain live-wired, turns to him with fierce intensity, “How do you know if you like someone a normal way or in a different way?”

“Well, do you spend a lot of time together - wait, who are you even talking about? You’re working on that Latin mix for a song, you’ve hardly left the apartment,” Chan presses.

“It isn’t important. I haven’t made a new friend in so long that I don’t even remember what it feels like.” 

“You met Felix and Seungmin, though,” Chan points out helpfully. Jisung wants to rip the vacuum bag open and empty the contents over his head to mask the lovely kind expression on his face.

Jisung groans into his hands, Chan patting his shoulder awkwardly. For someone that was terrible at navigating comforting people and doling out advice, Chan was always much more eager to do so than Changbin. 

“I didn’t want to kiss Seungmin or Felix!” He cries into his hands. For lack of any better way to vent his frustration, he grabs a couch cushion and screams into it, kicking and thumping his feet on the floor. In the back of his mind, he distantly hopes the noise travels and disrupts Minho. It’s his stupid fault, after all. 

Chan takes the cushion from him when the screams die into normal breathing, filling his lungs with whatever aged molecules had been brewing in the thrift shop they bought the couch set from. 

“I think you know the answer already,” Chan says sadly. “I hope it works out, you’re a good guy. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

“Oh, gross.” Changbin appears behind them, face twisted in disgust at Chan’s words. Chan frowns at him. 

“Did I say something wrong?” 

“You need to stop watching all those shitty romance dramas, hyung,” Jisung groans, reaching out to Changbin. “Do you have any sage advice for me?” 

Changbin takes his hand, meeting his eyes seriously. “If it goes badly and you kill yourself in a heartbroken passion, forward me next month’s rent in advance.” 

His friends are the worst, he decides, and spends the rest of the day in his room, twisting the cord of his headphones into knots and untying them again. A bad habit, since he’s worn the rubber coating down on so many headphones in his years of composing, but it’s better than biting his nails which is the only other option. 

Jisung knows he likes Minho. He has a terrible habit of crushing on people he first meets - but this one feels different. He isn’t a stuttering useless mess around him, he feels the opposite. Minho’s presence somehow soothes him as well as makes his heart jackhammer behind his ribs. Like a rolling boil on a still cold soup, it’s promising something which isn’t yet fulfilled. But it could be. If you left it on the stove for a little longer, broiling away, it could be. Jisung would like that. 

He finds himself thinking of Minho a lot. Not necessarily replays of their interactions, like the penetrating gaze that pins Jisung’s heart to his spinal cord, or the way Minho pushes his bangs off his face, or the way Minho had wanted Jisung to stay , almost as if he enjoyed his company or something. He thought these things, yes but more: Jisung thought of what could be. He pictured getting his ass kicked at Mario Party, smelling the distinct fruity scent from the fabric softener on all of his clothes, not just his meticulously ironed hoodie, even chancing spending time with Minho outside the apartment. 

Minho seems like a person with a surprisingly thoughtful mind. One of the silent philosopher types that Changbin seems to think himself as. Jisung has a treasure trove of thoughts inside his brain always threatening to spill out and sometimes they do, endless rambling about niche topics he’d spent hours watching videos on in the wee hours of the morning. Most people find it annoying, but something tells Jisung that Minho would be able to keep pace with his nonsensical philosophies, even have some pre-ordained opinions of his own. 

He never claims to be good at picking up social cues - most fly right over his head - but Jisung couldn’t be imagining the way Minho’s posture sagged like a lifeless balloon when he realised that Jisung had only been intending on passing through. Minho had sat silently, watching Jisung work. He noticed it ever-so-slightly out of the corner of his eye, but it takes a lot to distract Jisung from his work, and even Minho’s tempting presence had only just nabbed his attention after his eyes started to go dry. Jisung felt the electricity on his tongue, all the built up tension between them as the time ticked by. It was there: a living, breathing, swell of something . Jisung had almost kissed him, and something in the dark, sinfully optimistic parts of Jisung’s brain supplies: he almost met you half-way.

Fuck it. 

Jisung was the type of guy to cry at animated movies. To shake so bad his bones clatter when speaking to a group of more than five people. To get caught up in his own brain sometimes he has to etch all his thoughts into music just so he can pass into comatic sleep. To overthink his songs so much that he ends up hating everything he makes, relying on Chan and Changbin to give him unbiased  feedback because he can’t trust his own brain most of the time.

But Jisung is also the guy that sings karaoke the loudest, no matter how many aunties are watching. To forget his lyrics on stage in some grimy basement and do nothing but laugh it off and start the next cypher without a moment’s pause. To climb down the fire escape and knock on some random guy’s window to find a safe route to exit the building, three times no less. 

Fuelled by a sudden wave of confidence, Jisung tugs on a pair of sneakers, pulls the familiar well-loved sweater from its crumpled spot on the floor and struggles with the latch on his window, eventually pulling himself out and finding his wind with the mottled metal under the grubby soles of his converse. No longer a space of relaxation and late-night smokes - the fire escape has a newfound promise of adventure, of confidence, and maybe all of it is baseless and overly brazen - but great things never came to those who didn’t reach out to take it, right? 

The steps are a little more familiar - lift his hand from the rail after the third step to avoid the split metal that slices a thin, bloodless wound into the palm of his hand, avoid the second-last step which bowes awkwardly under his weight. Then he’s there: Minho’s bedroom is like a parallel world that Jisung can open up with a rap of his knuckles.

Minho is there. This should knock some reality into Jisung, but rather, it spurs him on. The sleep shorts riding up to show tanned, defined thigh muscles. Nothing about Minho could surprise Jisung at this point, there’s no telling what else he has hidden under his sleeve. Minho catches the movement in the window before the rapping of his knuckles, rolling his eyes in a way Jiusng knows is affectionate, only pretending to be put out by the overwhelming effort of lifting himself from lounging on his bed, kicking papers and notebooks to the side without second thought. 

“Hey,” Jisung smiles, positively giddy.

“Hey yourself,” Minho leans against the frame of the window. “I’m busy, by the way, before you jump in to distract me all day.” 

“Busy doing what? Lying in bed? Scratching your balls?” It doesn’t hurt even a little when Minho thumps his arm, even though it could.  

“Unfortunately my job requires me to actually do some paperwork every now and again. I know, you’d think running around after a class of rugrats would be work enough but apparently not. Did you need to pass through?” Minho is already stepping aside, and Jisung takes his familiar position of ducking his head through and letting Minho pull him through the threshold by the sleeve of his sweater, hand tight to stabilize him. It can’t just be his imagination that Minho’s hand stays there a little longer than necessary. 

The canvas of Jisung’s shoes crease when he toes them off without untying them. He doesn’t want to tramp dirt into Minho’s apartment. Minho lets go of his arm to let him pull the shoes off and kicks his head in the direction to discard them. He sits heavily back on the bed, hair flying up like a crow’s flight when he bounces. 

“I came here for a different reason,” He says.

“Oh?” Minho’s eyes sparkle teasingly. “Did you need to borrow some flour, neighbour?”

“As if you have flour.” 

“We do!” Minho argues, “We bought it after binging the Great British Baking Show and convinced ourselves we were going to go into some type of high-tension passive-aggressive baking competition with Felix.” 

“Really?” Jisung blinks, a little surprised at Minho’s choice of media. 

“I say ‘we’ - but it was entirely Seungmin’s idea. The tension, apparently, being sexual. Not that that airhead realised it, I had to tell him that he was blindingly in love with that Australian guy. You’d think such a heart-eyed romantic would be able to see what was right in front of him but no,” Minho pulls a face, “Your own fiancé has to point it out. So the flour has been sitting in that pantry for the better part of three years.” 

Jisung’s stomach plummets into the rocky shores. “Fiancé?” Is all his stupid, infatuated heart can focus on.

Minho has a curious face in response to his turmoil. Like he’s testing his reactions, dipping his toe into the waters. “Yes, I thought you knew, it’s not like it’s a secret. Me and Seungmin were engaged for almost a year.” 

“O-oh. I’m sorry,” Is all he can trust himself to say, something ugly and green growing in his guts. 

“Don’t be-” Minho says, like having an ex-fiancé was no big deal at all, “The only reason we didn’t break up earlier was because neither of us wanted to back out of the competition. There’s no harsh feelings. We’re going out for mimosas next week.” 

“That’s...nice.” 

Minho’s face is smug . He lifts himself from the bed, puffing his bottom lip into an exaggerated pout, cooing at Jisung in a babying voice. 

“Aww… is Jisungie jealous?” 

The green monster growls at the mention of its name, feeding on it until Jisung can only splutter out a hasty, “Shut up!” And it comes out just as juvenile as it sounds. Minho laughs and before Jisung can start willing the floor to swallow him up, Minho’s hands find his cheeks. Sure, he might be pulling at the baby fat like he’s a rice cake, but his hands are still on his face . 

“You have nothing to be jealous of, it’s not like we’re together anymore.” 

Why did he have to phrase it like that? Like he knows that Jisung is unbearably jealous that Seungmin got there first, and here Minho is, acknowledging the greed and emphasising his availability to Jisung? It’s almost as if he wants Jisung to know he’s single, like he wants Jisung to take advantage of it. 

Before Jisung can even begin to question himself - because he knows that if he gives his brain a second to think, he’ll talk himself out of doing absolutely everything, he does something beyond reckless.

He encircles his hands around Minho’s wrists, keeping him in place enough for Jisung to bring their lips together. The kiss lasts only a moment, Minho’s delicate lips, more plush than Jisung had expected, perfect and warm beneath his own bitten-raw ones. In that moment, he understands the fireworks, the butterflies, the somersaulting stomachs that Changbin writes in all his sickly ballad songs that never quite make it out of the dusty files of his laptop. 

He could stay pressed against Minho forever, the heat radiating from his body is tanning Jisung’s skin an impressive pink. That is, until… Minho isn’t moving. 

Jisung pulls away, horror only growing at the expression on Minho’s face.

Oh fuck. 

Oh fuck. 

Not only did Jisung totally invade Minho’s privacy six-ways from Sunday by constantly rapping on his bedroom window from the fire escape - now he’s kissed him. Jisung has just gone and proven himself to be the most manipulative peeping-tom of all time. 

Minho’s throat bobbing in a swallow jerks Jisung into the present and he jumps back, trying to avoid the spinning world around him. “Holy shit. I’m sorry I - it was an accident. I mean - it just happened, I didn’t mean to. I shouldn’t have done that - I’m sorry-” The elongated silence from Minho, who hadn’t even blinked, sends him further into a spiel. “I’m sorry. I really am - fuck. I wasn’t like, perving on you or anything, it just happened - that’s not making it sound better is it?” Jisung’s laugh is borderline hysterical, but its sharpness is cut off with Minho’s silky voice which is constrained between his lips.

“You kissed me.” To Jisung, it stings. It’s accusatory, and it’s true. Jisung just climbed through his vertical neighbour’s bedroom and kissed him . As if it isn’t enough, as if Jisung’s juvenile hope hadn’t been crumpled enough, Minho seems to blink back to life and push his bangs out of his hair, holding them there like he had just ran a marathon with fatigue etched into the crevices of his beautiful face. “You kissed me,” He reiterates, like he’s trying to come to terms with the awful fact himself. Like he’s trying to roll the words in his mouth to taste the extent of their acidity only to spit it onto the ground in disgust. “I don’t think I can handle you, Jisung. You’re too much for me-” 

Jisung cuts him off with a hand. Minho shakes his head and tries to continue, but Jisung can’t listen  any more. He grabs his shoes and tries to hoist himself through Minho’s window with equal parts haste as grace to try and save whatever scrap of dignity he has left. His jeans catch on the latch and he falls onto his hands, metal indenting his palms in their criss-cross markings of Jisung’s failure. 

Distantly, he hears Minho calling out for him, reaching out and tugging on his thread-thinned sweater, but he can’t bear to hear the expanded version of his rejection, the abridged version is enough explanation. 

Jisung was too bold, too brazen, too anxious, too strange, too peculiar, too ambitious, too incomptant, too happy, too sad, too interested, too distracted. Jisung’s entire personality swung on a pendulum between two extremes, neither tolerable nor particularly likeable. He should have known. He should’ve seen it coming. Minho was so obviously out of his league, to even think  that he had a chance with Minho was beyond embarrassing, and he’d gone and pushed his humiliation into Minho’s own mouth.

It hurts more than Jisung had anticipated, because really, deep down he kind of believed that Minho had liked him back. He’d managed to manipulate himself - if he’s capable of that, what other relationships in his life are constructed in his brain? It’s overwhelming. Worse than the heartache is the humiliation. The embarrassment of thinking he was enough to shoot his shot. 

When he struggles through his window, he immediately finds Chan in the living room, watching some shitty reality TV program which is brainless enough for Jisung to pretend to watch as Chan tugs him into an encompassing hug and kindly doesn’t mention the snot staining his shoulder or the dampness of his tears.

1

Minho is a big enough person to admit that he’s a huge idiot. And Jeongin is a big enough person to remind him every thirty-five minutes. 

When Jisung had high-tailed out of his apartment, Minho had tried to call out to him that he wasn’t finished, that he needed to explain himself but somehow the fight died in his stomach and all he could do was ignore the jabbing pain of the window ledge in his gut as he balances on a fulcrum half-out of his window, watching Jisung’s teary-eyed figure bolt up the steps and disappear through his own window. He cursed himself for not shouting, not trying harder, and had almost pulled himself through the window. Then he made the grave mistake of looking down. 

He spent the rest of the day with his curtains closed. The view of the neighbouring apartments only served as a reminder that he lived on the sixth floor. 

He’d been anxious to run into Chan. Part worried that Chan would chew him out for hurting his roommate so much, part hopeful that Chan would be able to relay his apology for his words. Minho speaks sometimes without thinking, and poor Jisung had heard the wrong thing at the wrong time and couldn’t bear to wait three seconds for Minho to explain himself. 

Surprisingly it isn’t Chan who finds him. A key turns in the door and Minho waves a hand from the couch in greeting, only to have an empty carton of milk (that Jeongin was supposed to take to the trash chute on his way to work, the asshole) lobbed at his head. He swears and spins around, ready to beat Jeongin into a flatbread  - but it isn’t Jeongin. 

“Why the fuck do you still have a key?” Minho asks, grabbing the carton and throwing it back at Seungmin, who dodges it easily. 

“You never asked me for it,” He says, like it’s on him.  

“I had to pay to get a new key cut for Jeongin.” He narrows his eyebrows, all the more perturbed when Seungmin walks over to him with his familiar stormy cloud above his head. Oh, here we go. 

“I don’t even need to say anything, do I? You know exactly why I’m here.” 

“You miss my dick that much?” Minho shoots cheerfully. Seungmin raises a thoughtful brow and examines the length of his pinky finger.

“No, I can’t say that I do.” 

Minho grabs a couch cushion and hits Seungmin’s stomach hard enough for him to fall beside him on the couch. They settle into a silence too comfortable to be normal between exes. With a genuine sigh, Minho kicks his legs onto Seungmin’s lap, using him as a footrest. Seungmin considers Minho’s feet with a face of disgust but ultimately decides to say nothing. 

“I fucked it up a little,” Minho admits reluctantly. Seungmin hums.

“It’s in your nature,” Seungmin says with an innocent smile. Minho glares. Seungmin has long grown immunity to his icy looks, but the message is there. 

“Are you here just to make me miserable? Didn’t you do that enough in the good ol’ days?” 

“Jisung is hurt.” The change in tone is swift. The tension in the air suddenly palpable. If Minho wanted he could probably reach out and tie it into little bows and knots, like Jisung does with the cord of his headphones when he’s concentrating hard. Seungmin shouts for his attention. Always so goddamn loud. “Fix it.” 

“I will.” 

“When, hyung? Every moment you spend here wallowing in a pool of self-pity of your own making, Jisung is up there actually feeling heartbroken. Felix has been streamlining the poor kid so many brownies that he’s probably going to need rolled out of the apartment at this stage.” 

The image isn’t even funny enough to make Minho snort. Instead he stares morosely at the ceiling, above which he can picture Jisung wrapped up in a pathetically thin blanket, curtains shut and trying desperately to work away the pain. He’s probably sitting on his laptop day to night, eyes stinging red from lack of sleep just to distract himself. To prove something to himself. 

“How do I fix it, Seungminnie?” He asks genuinely. The softness and vulnerability takes Seungmin aback momentarily, but he reaches out for Minho’s hand, threading their fingers together. 

“You’ll figure it out,” He says, unhelpfully. Minho wishes they were together again so he could have the satisfaction of breaking up all over again.

“You were always better at this shit than me.” Neither were good at it, but that is between the lines. Seungmin snorts at this, taking his leave before Minho accidentally does something drastic like compliment him. 

“I’m sure if you match his energy or whatever then it will work out. Bye!” He sing-songs in parting. Minho almost asks him to take the milk carton out, before he hears the tell-tale sound of Seungmin kicking it across the linoleum. Asshole. 

Minho can’t believe he’s doing this. 

The metal from the railings cut into his skin with his white-knuckle grip. The rain slices his skin into ribbons. Minho is stupid. He’s a colossial fucking moron. 

Thirty-thousand miles below him, the concrete is laughing at him, beckoning him to slip on the poor grip of the metal flooring and go parasailing to his demise. It would be so easy - a harsh enough breeze and Minho is sure he’ll take off into the sky. 

Every step he takes is heavy, pressing his weight as firm as possible onto the watery steps, desperately trying to keep his centre of gravity as low as possible. 

Minho is going to die. He’s going to die and it’s going to be all Jisung’s fault for worming a way into Minho’s heart with his wide-toothed smile and his expressive eyes that project his feelings the size of dinner plates and his rambling mouth and how he makes liking him so annoyingly easy. Actually no, scratch that. This is all Kim Seungmin’s fault. If that asshole was capable of giving Minho a straight answer for once in his life then Minho wouldn’t be climbing up the fire escape to Jisung’s apartment in the middle of a rainstorm like some shitty drama-show climax. 

Note: leave a note in his bedroom scrawled with ‘Kim Seungmin did it’ so Minho can pay him back for making his life hell from the afterlife. The thought of making Seungmin’s life difficult even after his death gives him just the amount of energy to pull himself up the final step, and then there he is. The window is in front of him, rain pounding against the glass, Minho’s silhouette blocking the rain, letting the droplets race down the glass to puddle at the lip of the ledge. 

He taps tentatively at Jisung’s window. It’s a stupid idea. He should have just gone to the apartment like a normal person, or asked Chan for his phone number! Normal things! Whatever Jisung has, it’s infectious, because Minho decided that the fire escape was a better, more pointed method of getting his feelings across. He’s going to fucking die. 

He knocks again. No response. He cups around his eyes and tries to look into the room, the reflective nature of the stripes of rain making it difficult to make anything out - oh. 

There he is. 

Minho’s heart does something that physically hurts inside his chest. Something in his lungs decides to stop giving him air, like Jisung is enough to keep him alive just by watching him with his giant satellite headphones tapping away at something on his laptop. His leg is shaking on the ground, bare feet rolling an empty can of soda around on the floor. Minho taps a little louder until he’s slamming his hands on the glass hard enough to make it wobble. 

Eventually, Jisung lifts one of the headphones, and Minho bangs again. This time Jisung almost jumps out of his seat, swivelling around on his chair. He sees Minho and his shock only registers for a brief second before he’s battling with the latch and forcing the window open. The heat from Jisung’s room hits Minho’s face like a punch. 

“Hyung?” 

“You’ve never called me that before. I’m - Jisung it’s just -” Mimho digs his fingers desperately into the wood of the ledge so hard his nail splits. “How the fuck do you do this it’s so high.”

Jisung looks horrified. “Are you afraid of heights?”

“Yes.”

Jisung grabs him by the front of his t-shirt and all but yanks him into the room. “You’re an idiot! Who goes up a fire escape when they’re scared of heights!”

Minho falls to his knees and presses his forehead into the comforting ground. He could kiss it. He won’t - but he could. He laughs weakly into the ground only for it to come out as horrible scratching noises. He realises that his adrenaline is plummeting, hands shaking and chest struggling to adjust to the terror Minho had just experienced. 

Jisung is there, awkwardly patting his back and reassuring him with nervous ‘there-there’s. Minho is trying not to die and Jisung is sitting him up against the side of his bed and handing him a half-empty can of soda ‘for his sugar levels’. Minho takes it, and he takes the towel that Jisung fetches him too. Minho doubts the effectiveness of the brownie Jisung brings him, but he takes it anyway. Whether through the sugar, or the distraction of Felix’s baking, Minho’s breathing evens out and he settles into normal human breathing again. 

“You’re stupid,” Jisung reiterates. 

Minho can’t take himself seriously enough to argue even if he tried. Minho only laughs, a relieved puff of a thing, but Jisung turns to him, eyebrows taut.

“What were you thinking doing something like that? What if I wasn’t here and you had to climb down again?” Minho freezes. He’d have to look down. Down. Down. “Yeah. That’s my point.” Jisung grabs the towel and attacks Minho’s hair until it’s standing up on its tails. He laughs, but it sounds hollow and the sound makes Minho want to smash his head against a wall for being the cause of it. 

“I thought it would be appropriate,” Minho says. 

“For what? For scaring yourself shitless?” 

“No. Seungmin basically set me up to it, so blame him.” Minho doesn’t feel a shred of guilt for throwing Seungmin under the bus. Although he’ll continue to pay off Seungmin’s tab for their mimosa afternoons when he isn’t looking. Jisung’s face only falls more, and Minho suddenly realises how this must feel for Minho to saunter into his room like this so carelessly and begin to crack jokes about his ex-fiancé.  

Jisung is toying with his nails, avoiding looking at Minho - and Minho feels like the shittiest person on the planet for putting that horrible expression on Jisung’s usually cheery face. Taking a long breath, Minho decides to just get it over with. He can’t deal with it a moment longer.

“Jisung, when I said what I said, it came out wrong-”

“It’s fine. You don’t need to explain yourself.” 

“No. I know how it sounded, and I really need to explain that it isn’t-”

“Hyung. Please,” Jisung’s face is twisted into something ugly with humiliation. “We can forget about it, okay?” The little wobble of his lower lip is the final straw. Minho leaps forward, grabbing Jisung by the shoulders, his towel still hanging limply over his head like a heavyweight boxer after a round in the ring. 

“This conversation is never going to go the way I want it to with your fat mouth interrupting me, so I’m just going to say it. I like you, okay? When I say that you’re too much to handle I meant that you were too much for me to handle without wanting you. Too much for me to bear seeing you leave. Do you understand now? Or do I have to say it again?” Minho shakes Jisung rather aggressively. 

Jisung blinks, like he’s lightheaded. Minho holds the back of his head gently, in case he did shake too hard. It takes Jisung a heavy couple of minutes to form a response, of which Minho waits impatiently for, stomach about to take leaps and bounds out of his goddamn throat. 

“Okay.”
“Okay?!” Minho grabs his cheeks and pulls them lightly, “What does okay mean?” 

“Ah! That hurts! I don’t know!” Minho just sits there, glaring at Jisung, until his face softens at the man in his palms. Wondrously, Jisung’s face begins to melt into a smile so bright that Minho feels the cheeks shift beneath his palms. Minho can’t help but stare. It draws him in, and Jisung is giddy to lap at the attention. The air shifts, the smiles fade, and then their eyes are flickering down to their lips. 

The question is spoken wordlessly, and as slow as the world shifts on its axis, they lean in press their lips together. This time Minho is prepared to move. So he does.

He leads, and he feels Jisung’s surprised intake of breath whenever he plays with some light suction on his bottom lip. It is an active kiss, lips moulding and fitting against each other in a clumsy dance. It’s perfect. Even if Jisung has to wipe a small trail of drool from the corner of his mouth when he pulls away. 

“If you learn how to use the front door, I might just treat you to a date. If you want to, that is,” Minho says softly, a poorly concealed grin on his face. Jisung smiles tenfold, brightening up the room where the heavy rain cloud blocks the sun. 

“Mimosas?” He pokes Minho’s ribs, making the older swat his fingers away.

“Mimosas are ex-fiancé privileges only. If you want to fast-track to that position, by all means we can go for mimosas.” 

“Coffee works,” Jisung agrees, trying not to flush at Minho’s implication. 

Minho is tempted to thread their hands together, but decides against it, settling for stretching his muscles and heading to the door, saying something about going to his own place to get some dry clothes but Jisung’s hand shoots out and stops him from opening the door.

“Yeah, you don’t want to go out there.” Minho blinks in confusion. Then in disgust. “I guess something about Train to Busan got their sex drive going crazy.”

“On… the couch? They know you’re here, right?” 

“I think now they just don’t care.” 

Minho pats Jisung’s shoulder in sympathy. “I guess we’re stuck in here.” 

Jisung nods, eyes darting around the small messes in his room. Minho hardly noticed the slight disarray, nevermind judging it, but he can hear Jisung’s mind going on overdrive. Minho gets behind Jisung, arms around his waist and clumsily walks him to his desk, waddling together like penguins until he’s forcing him down into his chair. 

“Show me what you’re working on, will you?” He asks, pulling Jisung’s ridiculous headphones on. Jisung flushes a little, but his eyes explode with brightness as he starts rambling on about which track Minho would like the best, detailing the work he’s done for each of them alongside what type of lyrics he’s thinking to match the tone of the song. 

Minho can hardly pay attention to the music, too focused on the elation on Jisung’s face and he thinks that yeah, maybe he would climb up another balcony or two for Jisung.