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It starts just how you’d expect it to:
“For the last time,” Jeongin says, pinching away the incoming headache at the bridge of his nose, “I am not walking onto that stage in a Borat-style mankini.”
Jisung raises his hand, mouth falling open.
“No. Not even if you lend me yours, Jisung,” says Jeongin. “Especially not if you lend me yours.”
Slowly, Jisung lowers his hand, lips curving into a small pout.
Hyunjin sighs and crosses out the word mankini on the whiteboard behind him, bisecting the capitalized letters in red Expo. “You’re too close-minded, Jeongin,” he says disapprovingly. “All the most accomplished activists showed a little skin for a good cause, you know. Pamela Anderson went nude for the cover of an anti-fur PETA campaign.”
Seungmin furrows his brow. “Did you really just call a PETA campaign a good cause?” he asks dubiously. “Actually, don’t answer that. Did you just call Pamela Anderson an accomplished activist?”
Hyunjin fixes Seungmin with a grave expression. “Baywatch was a very formative part of my childhood,” he says.
“Honestly,” says Jeongin, “I’m a little offended that you all think I need a gimmick for anyone to bid on a date with me.”
“That’s not it,” Jisung says. “You don’t need a gimmick. You’ll just raise a lot more money if you have one.”
Jeongin frowns. “Okay, in the context of a charity date auction, those are literally the same thing,” he says.
“What Jisung is trying to say,” Hyunjin interjects, “is that gimmicks tend to fetch the highest bids. I mean, remember Minho’s outfit from last year?”
Suddenly, the air in the room changes, gets all thick and tacky with tension.
“Hyunjin,” Minho says in a deadpan, speaking up for the first time since they began this brainstorming session, “do I need to remind you about what happened the last time you brought up last year’s auction.”
Jeongin watches as the color drains from Hyunjin’s face. “Please don’t,” says Hyunjin. “I can’t keep coming up with excuses for my mom about why my clothes keep falling apart at the seams.”
Against his better judgement, Jeongin asks, “What was Minho’s outfit last year?”
Minho flicks his venomous glare away from Hyunjin and sweeps it across everyone else in the room. “If any one of you says a word—”
“He wore a maid costume,” Seungmin pipes up cheerfully.
Jeongin is taking a sip from his water bottle when Seungmin answers, and he does a literal spit take. He starts coughing uncontrollably. Jisung rubs uncertain circles against his back and says, “Does anyone know the Heimlich maneuver? I mean, I do — but the last time I tried doing the Heimlich on someone else, I ended up punching Hyunjin in the ribs.”
Minho frowns. “Do I even want to know what Hyunjin was choking on?”
“You wore a maid costume?” Jeongin asks, his voice coming out crumbly and high-pitched.
“I have pictures, if you wanna see them,” says Seungmin. Despite the wide-eyed, stiff-jawed glower that Minho directs at him, Seungmin’s voice is practically rapturous with glee. “I mean — do you wanna?”
“I,” Jeongin says, full control of his vocal cords still slipping uselessly between his fingers like sand, “don’t really care either way.”
Seungmin stares at him, the corners of his lips curling up at the ends like a comma, and Jeongin can tell that he doesn’t fully believe him. “Right,” says Seungmin.
“Changbin bet me thirty bucks that I wouldn’t do it,” Minho says, a defensive sheen to his voice. “My motivations were purely monetary. If anything, I blame the iron grip of capitalism.”
Jisung snorts. “I forgot about the bet. What did you end up spending the money on, anyways?”
Minho shrugs. “Had to buy new clothes for Hyunjin after Channie-hyung found out what I did to his other ones,” he says.
Suddenly, Seungmin shoves his phone in front of Jeongin. “Here,” he says unceremoniously.
Minho’s eyes go wide. “Seungmin, what the hell are you—”
Jeongin doesn’t hear the rest of what Minho has to say, because the sound of his own blood rushing to his ears pretty much drowns out every other noise in the room when he looks down at Seungmin’s phone and sees a photo of a flushed-face Minho. As promised, he has on a frilly maid’s dress that cuts off just above his kneecaps, which are bruised from… from praying, Jeongin tells himself. Yeah, that’s got to be it. Jeongin’s brains are going to ooze onto the floor if he believes otherwise.
Though, the real highlight of the photo has to be—
“Are those cat ears,” Jeongin says when his body finally remembers how to produce saliva again.
Minho lunges across the table in an attempt to grab the phone from Jeongin’s hands. Before he can reach it, Seungmin snatches his phone back and holds it high.
“Kim Seungmin,” Minho hisses. “Why in the world would you keep that photo.”
“Blackmail material,” Seungmin replies cheerily, locking his phone with a click. “Why else?”
Hyunjin leans over to Jisung and stage-whispers, “He’s practically asking to have the seams ripped out of his shirts.”
Minho leans back into his seat with a loud huff. “Fine. Whatever. You win,” he says, throwing his hands up in the air. “Yes, I wore a maid costume to the auction last year. And Changbin said he’d give me an extra five bucks if I wore the cat ears.”
“Sell-out,” Jisung whispers back to Hyunjin.
Hyunjin gives a solemn nod. “I can’t believe I used to think of him as someone with integrity,” he says.
“Hey, peanut gallery,” Minho snaps at them. “Do you two have anything you want to say to my face, or am I gonna have to wring it out of you myself?”
They let out twin squeals. Hyunjin tries to hide behind Jisung. Considering his height, he’s not very successful.
“How’re you gonna top your outfit from last year?” asks Seungmin, shit-eating grin plastered on his face.
“I’m not,” Minho says, firm in his conviction.
“You’re not?” Jeongin blurts out before he can stop himself.
Like some B-list horror movie, everyone in the room turns to face him at the same time, eyes wide with surprise. Jeongin blinks a few times, clearing the static from his vision.
“I mean,” Jeongin says, desperate to cover his slip-up, “I just think it’d be really funny, y’know? If you wore something like that again?”
“Funny,” Minho repeats, saying the word slow like syrup. “You think it’d be funny.”
Jeongin crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Hilarious.”
He thinks doubling down might have been the wrong decision though, because Minho starts smirking then, bent and crooked and soaked in honey. “Interesting,” is all that Minho says before he turns back to the papers in front of him. “Can we go over the budget again? I need to submit the budget request form to Student Government before the end of the day, and I don’t think they’re going to grant us $35,000 to book 30H!3.”
As Hyunjin and Jisung start pitching an eerily well-rehearsed case to Minho about why they need late 2000s American electronic music duo 30H!3 to perform at their charity auction, Minho throws another nonchalant glance at Jeongin. Jeongin blinks quickly, mouth going dry as that photo of Minho flashes in his mind. He stares down at his nails, pretending to be absorbed with his cuticles. He doesn’t dare look Minho straight-on for the rest of their meeting — but he feels the other man’s sticky, sugar-rimmed stare on him the whole day, clinging to his skin like a sheen of sweat.
Fuck.
Sigma Kappa Zeta’s annual charity date auction usually draws in a pretty big crowd from every corner of the college — it’s not everyday that you get to watch a bunch of frat boys auction themselves off for philanthropy’s sake — but as a relatively new transfer student, Jeongin isn’t totally familiar with the ins and outs of the event yet. So, when Seungmin’s t-shirt starts peeling off his frame by itself as he explains the program to him and Hyunjin, Jeongin obviously assumes that this is par for the course.
“Ah,” Hyunjin says with a sympathetic sigh. He lifts the front of Seungmin’s shirt, which hinges halfway off its seams so that it hangs in front of his torso like a doggie door. “Looks like Minho-hyung got his revenge for the photo.”
Seungmin frowns at his suddenly untwining shirt. Then, he shrugs and glances over at the clipboard in his arms again. “Eh. Worth it,” he says.
“Speaking of,” Jeongin says, shielding the sun from his eyes with a cupped hand as he glances around the quad, “where is Minho-hyung anyways? Dress rehearsal starts in, like, two minutes.”
“Not sure,” Seungmin says, and that frown is back on his lips. He looks up from his clipboard to join Jeongin in his cursory search of the quad. When he flicks his gaze over Jeongin’s shoulder, he lets out a high, strangled sound from the back of his throat, likely the most uncomposed noise Jeongin has ever heard come out of his mouth. Then, he bites his bottom lip, just barely suppressing his grin.
“Well,” Seungmin says, “speak of the devil.”
Jeongin follows Seungmin’s eye line and sees — well, he sees the sharp and sudden bottoming out of his own sanity personified, is what he sees.
“Jeongin oppa,” Minho chirps in this syrupy, saccharine voice, twirling the ends of one of his pigtails around his pointer finger as he offers Jeongin a gummy smile. “Were you looking for me?”
Jeongin tries to say something (anything, anything). Instead, he finds himself raking his stare down Minho’s frame, eyes drinking in every frilly, pastel-printed detail with a hunger-serrated rapture. His long, chocolate-brown wig and the soft pink ribbons curled loosely around each pigtail are the first things he notices. He’s so taken aback by this one element that it takes him a moment to notice the rest of his outfit: a too-small button-up that rides up a little when Minho lifts his hand in a cutesy wave, a red and black tartan schoolgirl’s skirt that stops a sinful stretch of skin above his knees, and snow-white thigh highs that brush up against each other as he absentmindedly rubs his knees together.
(Jeongin finds himself wondering whether his knees are still scratched and bruised underneath his socks, if the schoolgirl innocence really is nothing more than a costume.)
Hyunjin breaks the stunned silence when he bursts into laughter, folding over in half. “Oh my God,” he wheezes out. “And here I thought Seungmin would be the most ridiculous-looking person to walk on that stage.”
Like the flip of a switch, Minho’s sweet smile flattens into an unamused line. “Are you asking to be next?” he asks in a deadpan, instantly dropping the slightly pitched up tone of his voice.
Hyunjin sobers up and shakes his head.
“Well,” Seungmin says, “even you have to admit that this is a little… much.”
Minho makes a dismissive tsking noise, clicking his tongue against the back of his teeth. “What, are you suggesting that it’s not worth it to go this far for charity? Are you trying to deprive these poor inner-city kids of their arts programs? Geez, Seungmin, how close-minded can you get?”
“Okay, well, that’s not—”
“Besides,” Minho says, interrupting Seungmin’s half-hearted rebuttal. He turns to Jeongin and tucks his palms underneath his chin, framing his face with his hands like it is a flower blooming from soil. “Jeongin likes it, doesn’t he?”
Jeongin’s throat feels like it is choked with dust and cobwebs, and he coughs to clear it. “Sure,” he replies, surprising himself with how steady his voice comes out. “It’s really… you’ll get a lot of bids.”
That impossibly angelic smile again. “I think you will too,” Minho coos. To Jeongin’s sheer, barely filtered panic, Minho drifts to his side and links their arms together. He squeezes Jeongin’s bicep, feather-light fingertips lingering on the surface of his skin as Minho trails a hand down his arm.
“You should go sleeveless more often,” Minho comments, almost absentminded in his approval. Jeongin can feel the cool fabric of Minho’s button-up wrinkle against his own bicep as Minho presses himself against his frame. “Your arms look so strong.”
Jeongin thinks he shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as he does, Minho gushing perfumed praises at him as he clings to his side like a high school prom date. He really shouldn’t be enjoying the sudden realization that Minho smells like cherries and cotton candy, that his lips are shiny with petal-pink gloss, that he’s wearing a glittering, blush-colored eyeshadow that makes him look like someone crushed a fistful of the setting sun between their palms and sprinkled it across his lids.
“Oh,” is all that Jeongin can manage to say, “thanks.”
Hyunjin pretends to stick his finger down his throat and mimics a retching noise. “Can you two stop flirting already? We have a dress rehearsal to go through.”
Jeongin sputters. “We are not—”
“Yeah, fine,” says Minho. He unlinks his arm from Jeongin’s, then blows him a strawberry-scented kiss. “Talk to you after the show, hunk.”
Again, Jeongin’s brain short-circuits before he can come up with the proper response to that. Luckily, Minho skips away — literally skips — soon after, going to greet a startled Chan who nearly drops the bottle of water in his hand at his appearance.
“Wow,” Seungmin says. He’s already back to perusing his clipboard, sounding entirely desensitized to the whole incident already. “He’s really something, huh?”
Jeongin swallows thickly as he spares one more glance at Minho. Minho catches his stare and greets it with a wide smile, then a star-sewn wink. Chan looks completely confused — but Jeongin quickly looks away, pulse pounding underneath his paper-thin skin.
“Yeah,” he manages to croak out. “‘Something’ sounds about right.”
To Jisung’s dismay, Jeongin does not get on that stage in a mankini. Instead, he’d gone for a white tee with the sleeves cut off and tight black skinny jeans. It’s not particularly provocative, but it’s a little more skin than he’s used to showing, and a few people in the audience let out joking wolf whistles in response. He gets a fair amount of bids (not nearly as much as Hyunjin, maybe, but he’s been told that no one in Sigma Kappa Zeta’s history has ever beat the amount of money that Hyunjin tends to bring in with these date auctions), and this is satisfaction enough for him when he steps off the stage to join Jisung in the front row.
“No fair,” Jisung says in a whisper — or at least as much of a whisper as he can manage. “How’d you raise more money than me?”
Jeongin frowns. “Maybe because the first thing you said when you got on the stage was ‘What’s up bitches, a ten has entered?’”
Jisung hums dismissively. “Nah, that can’t be it,” he says.
“Honestly, I’m just glad that’s over with,” Jeongin says, fidgeting nervously with the hem of his shirt. “It’s kind of humiliating, having people bid actual money for a date with you.”
“Eh. I like the attention. I think we all do, secretly.” A grin carves into Jisung’s face as he stares at the stage. “Some of us more than others.”
The audience erupts into cheers and wolf whistles as Minho struts onto the stage to Todrick Hall’s “Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels,” skirt swishing from side to side as he flips a pigtail over his shoulder.
“Are we even allowed to play this song?” Jeongin asks over the blaring audio of Todrick singing about how he gives “cunt, cunt, cunt.”
Jisung shrugs. “Chan told me his first choice was WAP,” he says. “I’d say this is a pretty good compromise.”
Minho rests one hand on his hips and uses the other to wave girlishly at the audience. His eyes lock with Jeongin’s in the front row, and he blows a kiss straight at him. Jeongin thinks he might melt into the seat of his metal folding chair. Just congeal into a puddle of blood and bone for the janitors to scrape off later.
“Alright, alright,” Seungmin announces into his microphone, trying his hardest to quell the raucous audience. “Let’s calm down. We only have this stage rented for another hour. If we go past our allotted time, I’m splitting the overdue fee between all of you.”
The crowd laughs — but based on the dead serious expression on Seungmin’s face, Jeongin guesses that he hadn’t been joking.
“Here we have Lee Minho, a senior computer science major. He says that he enjoys dancing, cooking, and—” Seungmin sighs and glances up from his cue card. “Minho. I can’t read that at a public event. I’ll get expelled.”
Another burst of laughter from the audience. Again, Jeongin’s pretty sure he hadn’t been joking.
“Let’s start the bidding off at $20. Do I hear $20?”
As the auction kicks into gear, Jisung leans over to Jeongin and whispers, “Dude. Minho is making the weirdest eyes at you right now. Whose Coke did you piss in?”
“I — what? No one’s.” Minho, as Jisung had implied, is staring at Jeongin with a surprising amount of intensity. Jeongin quickly looks down at his lap, feeling his cheeks flush warm from the heat of his gaze. “I mean… you’ve known him for longer than I have. Is he trying to tell me something or what?”
Jisung makes a noise of consideration in his throat. “That’s either his horny face or his ‘they’re serving tostones at the dining hall and I will murder you if you take the last one’ face.” He pauses. “It’s 50/50, really.”
As Jeongin desperately searches the recesses of his memory to try and figure out if they are, indeed, serving tostones at the dining hall today, Jisung snorts in amusement. “Who knows what the hell is going through his head? Maybe he’s trying to get you to bid on him.”
Jisung says this jokingly, but the suggestion makes something click into place in Jeongin’s brain. As they’ve been talking, the auction has ramped into triple digits, hitting $100 at a rate that would rival even Hyunjin.
“$120,” Jeongin blurts out before he can stop himself. He grabs the paddle that Jisung had been playing with from his lap and shoots it straight up in the air.
Seungmin is so taken aback by Jeongin’s bid that he nearly drops his microphone, producing a screeching feedback noise from the speakers. Minho looks surprised too, his usual composure rippling as he blinks at Jeongin.
Quickly, Seungmin gathers himself again and says, “We have $120 from bidder number 23. I think this might be the first time in Sigma Kappa Zeta history that we’ve had a member make a bid — but I don’t see any reason why this shouldn’t be allowed, so… $120. Do I hear anything above $120?”
“$150!” a voice calls out from within the audience.
“$175,” Jeongin counters immediately.
“$200,” the same voice rattles off.
Jeongin raises his paddle once more and says, “$300.”
Jisung lets out a choked noise from beside him.
“$300,” Seungmin repeats, disbelief tinging his voice. “$300 for a date with a man who once tried to take an online test for sociopathy and crashed the website with his responses. Do I hear anything higher than $300? Going once… going twice…”
The whole audience seems to hold their breath, waiting to see if anyone challenges the bid. The stretch of silence swells, swells, swells, then pops as Seungmin bangs his gavel against the stand.
“That’s a date with Lee Minho, sold for $300 to a man who literally lives across the hall from him.” Seungmin shrugs. “Hey. The things some of us will do for charity, huh?”
The crowd breaks into a confused, hesitant applause. Minho offers everyone a curtsy before sashaying off the stage and making his way to the seat beside Jeongin. “$300, huh?” Minho whispers to him, raising an eyebrow.
It’s only then that the weight of Jeongin’s decision hits him. He feels his breath stutter in his chest, a sudden wave of panic cresting over him. “I,” he says, “am just really passionate about donating to the arts.”
Minho laughs. It’s not the breathy, feminized giggle that Jeongin expects, but his actual laugh: a giddy, stop and start burst of glee that twists Jeongin’s insides. The effect isn’t as harsh as seeing Minho in a skirt and makeup - but it makes something carbonated bubble up his esophagus, sugary sweet as it scrapes his throat raw.
“Of course,” Minho says. He links his arms with Jeongin’s again, and Jeongin can feel Minho’s pulse thrumming strong and steadily against his own hummingbird heartbeat. “So, I assume you’ll be paying during the date, Mr. Moneybags?”
“Whatever you say.”
Minho laughs again — but God. Jeongin has never been more serious in his life.
Jeongin lifts up two coat hangers. One holds a blue and white striped button-up and the other holds a slim turtleneck in mustard yellow. “Which one?” he asks.
Minho hums contemplatively. “The stripes are going to make you look bloated,” he says. “That shade of yellow looks like the personification of untreated gonorrhea.”
Jeongin considers the two tops for a moment. Then, he hangs the turtleneck back up in his closet. “Stripes it is,” he says, shrugging the shirt off its hanger and laying it out on his ironing board.
Minho props his chin up on his hands, leaning forward as he examines Jeongin. “What’s the occasion?” he asks. “Did your filthy rich uncle finally kick the bucket and leave his inheritance to you?”
Jeongin carefully smoothes the shirt out with his hands, shrugging. “Nah,” he says, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible. “I have a date later.”
“Oh?” Jeongin is too busy fiddling with the settings of his steam iron to look over at Minho, but he can already picture the sly grin on his face, a sliver of real rapture slipping out in the excitement of this shared joke of theirs. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
Another shrug. Maybe Jeongin is afraid that if he speaks too much, something raw and garbled will spill out, a kernel of sincerity nestled deep within this charade they’re acting out. “No one special,” Jeongin says. “I don’t know her that well yet.”
“Yeah? Well, what’s she like?”
Jeongin tilts his face towards the ceiling, pretending to be deep in thought. “Honestly?” he says, his heart pounding heavy in his chest when he looks Minho in the eyes. “She seems kind of easy.”
Minho doesn’t even flinch at Jeongin’s gaze. Instead, his lips twine into a kittenish smile, almost in challenge. “Really?” he says, his tongue curling tight around those two syllables like ivy on stone.
“Yeah,” Jeongin says. He feels a little like his lungs are growing two sizes too big for his ribcage, but he keeps going anyways. “Like she’d let any guy stick his hand up her schoolgirl skirt as long as he paid for dinner.”
Minho wrinkles his nose up in a surprisingly convincing display of disgust. “A schoolgirl outfit? Tacky,” he says.
Jeongin swallows hard. “Yeah,” he says, “but she makes it work.”
Before either of them can say anything else, the door creaks open. “Minho,” Seungmin says in a flat voice. “Why are you in my room. Oh my God, why are you sitting on my chair. Did you remove all the screws or something?”
Minho waves a dismissive hand in the air as he pulls himself out of Seungmin’s rolling office chair. “Relax,” he says. “If I wanted to vandalize your personal property, I’d do it while you were in class.”
“Okay,” Seungmin says slowly. “That still doesn’t answer the question about why you’re in my room.”
“Hey, it’s Jeongin’s room, too,” Minho says. “I’m just helping him get ready for his date later today. You should’ve seen the godawful turtleneck that he was about to leave the house in.”
Minho taps two fingers to his forehead in a salute as he makes his way towards the door. “Bye, Jeongin,” he says, nonchalant. “Maybe I’ll see you later tonight?”
As Minho closes the door behind himself, Seungmin gives Jeongin a disbelieving stare. “You aren’t actually going on that date with Minho, are you?”
When Jeongin shrugs this time, he really is at a loss for words. “I mean,” he says, “I did pay $300.”
Seungmin squints at him, as if he’ll understand Jeongin’s thought process better if he looks at him for long enough. “Aren’t you straight?” he asks. “I mean, I know your wardrobe suggests otherwise, but…”
“It’s not a real date,” Jeongin says, brandishing the iron in his hands in a defensive stance. “It’s just a joke.”
Seungmin looks unconvinced. “Does Minho know that it’s a joke?” he says. “Because I’ve seen what he’s wearing to the date, and I really don’t think he knows.”
“What,” Jeongin says, suddenly and minutely aware of the heat radiating off the iron, “is he wearing to the date?”
Seungmin stares at Jeongin, considering something. Then, he shakes his head and says, “Yeah, no. You got yourself into this mess. No way am I helping to dig you out of it.”
Jeongin is so preoccupied wondering what Seungmin means by this that he nearly runs the iron over his own fingers four times in the span of ten minutes. Maybe Seungmin has a point.
Forty five minutes and one meticulously ironed shirt later, Jeongin knocks on Minho’s door.
“Coming!” Minho calls out in a muffled voice.
Jeongin doesn’t remember much else about the next fifteen seconds or so: one moment, he’s checking his phone for any new notifications (nothing, except for a cryptic text from Seungmin reading, “Good luck.”) — and the next moment, he looks back up to have the air sucker-punched out of his lungs.
“Hi, oppa,” Minho greets, staring up at Jeongin from long, fluttering lashes. “Did I keep you waiting for too long?”
Minho has on a comfy-looking, oversized sweater the color of a just-ripe peach, the top tucked into a white pleated skirt that stops just above his kneecaps. His brown wig isn’t parted into pigtails today; instead, it trails loosely down his back and shoulders, bangs clipped back loosely with neon butterfly pins. He has on thigh highs again, but the tops are scrunched cutely today, and they lead down to a modest pair of black Mary Janes.
The outfit isn’t even half as ridiculous as the maid or schoolgirl costumes. In fact, it’s strikingly normal — and the fact that this, too, makes Jeongin’s heartbeat pulse in his throat makes a slice of panic lance hot through his body.
“Hi,” Jeongin says, feeling like someone just stuffed his tongue full of cotton balls when he speaks. “No, you’re — you’re right on time.”
Minho smiles at that, teeth looking impossibly white against his glossy pink lips. “So, where are we going for our date today?” he asks.
“Uh, well,” Jeongin says, “how do you feel about games?”
Minho’s smile goes devilishly sharp, a sweetness turned sour. “Oh, you know me,” he says. “I love playing games.”
Jeongin doesn’t actually have a car, so he borrows Seungmin’s in order to drive Minho to an arcade near campus. (See, Minho actually has a car, too, but Jeongin thinks he prefers it like this, having Minho trail baby pink polished fingernails up and down his thigh as he keeps a pale-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and makes desperately choked conversation about finals.)
They’ve gone to this arcade together before — but neither of them are particularly fond of video games. So, while the other members of their house hunted zombies and competed in cart-racing games, Jeongin and Minho were used to blowing their money on crane games. There’s something of an added pressure today, though, as Minho clings onto Jeongin’s arm and makes an off-handed remark about how he just adores the stuffed orange cat perched tantalizingly on top of the pile of prizes in a particular claw machine, pouting prettily all the while.
After seven embarrassing attempts, Jeongin finally secures the cat plushy and triumphantly brandishes it at Minho. The delighted look on his face is bright and raw and so incongruently Minho, that Jeongin nearly falls over when Minho leans forward and presses a kiss to his cheek. He smells sweet, candied, and Jeongin feels the sudden urge to carve a cavity into his own teeth. So, after a game of Skee-Ball that neither of them particularly enjoy and a round of shooting terrorists that Minho probably enjoys a little too much, Jeongin suggests that they go get a bite to eat.
This is how Jeongin ends up sitting across from Minho as he takes dainty sips from a strawberry milkshake, occasionally digging a pinky into the mountain of whipped cream and sucking the sweetness off his finger, and this is how Jeongin starts coordinating the details of his own funeral.
“You know, I still can’t believe you spent $300 just to buy me a milkshake and an overpriced stuffed animal,” Minho says.
He licks excess whipped cream off his lips, and Jeongin tries desperately not to follow the movement of his tongue. “It was for a good cause,” he says, as if it had been his undying charitable spirit that had moved him to raise his paddle that day. “Besides — I had a nice time today.”
A small smile creeps onto Minho’s face. It is so suddenly sincere, so devoid of mischief or venom, that Jeongin can’t help but stare. “I had a nice time, too,” he says. “I’m a little surprised, though. I didn’t think you were… open to this sort of experience.”
I thought you were straight, is what that translates into. Jeongin had thought this, too. But he thinks about the lightness he feels in his chest when Minho laughs — and he means Minho, not the infantilized, strawberry-scented version of femininity that Minho is impersonating — the flutter of anticipation sparking deep within his core when he thinks about doing something like this with him again, both of them in jeans and a t-shirt, both of them stripped of their excuses — and he doesn’t know for sure whether he likes men, per se, but he thinks that he might like Minho.
But Jeongin doesn’t say all that. Instead, he shrugs and rests his chin in his hands, idly stirring a straw through the dregs of his own milkshake. “Yeah, well,” he says, “I’m always down to hang out with my bros.”
And this, Jeongin thinks, was the wrong thing to say — because Minho’s forehead crinkles, lips quirking into a displeased frown. “Right,” Minho says, suddenly sounding sullen as he spoons a glob of whipped cream onto his straw and shoves it past his lips.
“I mean,” Jeongin says in a rush, “Not that I only see you as a bro. It’s just, it’s hard for me to not see you as one, even considering… all the other ways I see you.”
Minho sighs. “It’s fine. You don’t have to explain yourself to me, you’ll sprain a muscle.” He stares down at his slowly melting milkshake, that almost imperceptible frown still on his face. “I just feel a bit stupid right now.”
Jeongin feels a cold, bracing fist squeeze around his heart. “Don’t,” he says. “Please don’t. I meant it when I said I had a good time today. And not just because of the… y’know. The outfit and the makeup and all that. I just — I don’t know.”
Minho glances up at Jeongin, brows knit in contemplation. “What are you so afraid of?”
“A lot of things,” Jeongin says with a weak laugh. “But mostly you.”
Minho’s lips twitch in amusement at that. “That’s silly,” he says. “I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
“I know,” Jeongin says. “I think that’s the scariest part.”
Minho blinks. Then, he laughs. “You’re a strange kid, Jeongin. Really, really strange,” he says, sounding impossibly fond.
He scoops some more whipped cream into his mouth. Jeongin watches as he gets some on his chin, just below the swell of his lower lip. “Ah,” Jeongin says, tapping his own chin. “You have a little bit of…”
Minho frowns and wipes two fingers across the bottom of his chin, missing the whipped cream by inches. “Here?” he says.
Jeongin snorts, unable to contain his laughter. “No, it’s sort of…”
His voice trails off as he leans forward and swipes his thumb across the glob of cream. Suddenly, Minho grabs his wrist and brings his thumb up to his mouth, licking the whipped cream off. Jeongin feels a hot twist of arousal in his abdomen as Minho’s tongue curls warm around the pad of his thumb, eyes going half-lidded when he sucks.
Minho lets go of Jeongin’s wrist, gives a deceptively innocent smile, and says, “Did I get it?”
Jeongin, feeling like his throat is about to crumble into dust, swallows hard. “Yeah,” he says in a low, hoarse whisper. “Yeah, you got it.”
Jeongin’s voice seems to surprise Minho just as much, because his ears darken into a pink blush that matches the rest of his get-up. “Uh, right,” Minho says, a stammer threatening to rip through his words. “That’s good. Thanks.”
“Hey,” Jeongin says, a sudden surge of confidence cresting in his chest. “Wanna go back to my place?”
Minho rolls his eyes at this — likely because Jeongin’s place is technically also his place. But when Minho says, “Sure,” he’s smiling, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he tries not to show it.
Seungmin is sitting on the couch when they come back. “Good to see you both made it back alive,” he says, not even bothering to look up from the book in his hands. “How was it?”
“Fine,” Jeongin stammers out at the same time that Minho says, “None of your business.”
Seungmin looks up just in time to see Minho pulling Jeongin by his hand to the room he shares with Chan. His eyes flick down to their interlocked fingers, and he furrows his brow. “Don’t give me any details,” he says. “Just let me know if I should deep clean the inside of my car.”
Jeongin flushes. “We didn’t—”
“Yes, Seungmin,” Minho deadpans as he pushes the bedroom door open. “Sure. Because we definitely nutted all over your car. Just jizz city up in your 2014 Honda Civic.”
“It’s the 2017 model, actually,” Seungmin calls out as Minho pulls Jeongin into his room and closes the door behind him.
Minho leans his back against the door. Then, he blinks up at Jeongin, the irritated creases in his forehead smoothing into something more like nervousness. It’s strange, because Jeongin doesn’t think he’s ever seen him exude an emotion other than 1) varying levels of disgust or 2) vague sadistic amusement. And Jeongin thinks, God. If Minho looks nervous, then what the hell must Jeongin look like?
“Hi,” Minho says, finally snipping the tension strung between them.
“Hi,” Jeongin says.
Minho raises an eyebrow. “Are you going to just keep standing there, or…?”
It would be easy to interpret his tone as hostile, but Jeongin knows that this is just Minho’s way of extending his hand out. An invitation, a request. So Jeongin places his hand in Minho’s, letting himself be pulled in.
Jeongin takes a few steps forward, closing the distance between them. He tucks a loose strand of hair from Minho’s wig behind his ear, then lets his hand cup Minho’s cheek. “Can I kiss you?” he asks. His voice is almost a whisper, as if Seungmin will hear if he gets any louder.
Minho’s smile is lazy, satiated. “Please,” he says.
Jeongin starts to lean forward, and he watches as Minho’s breath catches in anticipation — but he stops himself before their lips can make contact, and he cringes inwardly. “Um, I’m sorry,” he says. “If this is kind of bad, I mean. I’ve never done this before.”
Minho’s eyes go wide. He looks unamused. “Yang Jeongin,” he says in disbelief. “I’ve seen you sucking too many poor girls’ faces off at parties to believe that you’ve never kissed anyone before.”
Jeongin feels his face heat up. “That’s not what I meant,” he says. “I was saying… never, like, with a guy.”
Minho scoffs. “Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s really not that different from kissing a girl,” he says.
“I know that,” Jeongin says, and he does. “But it feels different. Psychologically?”
Minho stares at him. Then, he sighs. “Okay,” he says, cradling Jeongin’s cheeks in his hands. “I’m usually not in the business of preserving bicurious men’s rapidly waning heterosexuality — but you’re lucky I like you so much.”
He leans forward, recovering lost distance. Jeongin is hit with that sugary, perfumed scent again, like dessert, like an indulgence. “How about this,” Minho says in a whisper. “How about you just pretend I’m one of those girls you bring home on the weekends? The ones you think I can’t hear you fucking late at night?”
Jeongin feels a wave of embarrassment wash over him. “You — you can hear that?” he sputters.
Minho smirks. “You’d be surprised how much I know about you, Jeongin,” he says. “So, how about it? I at least look the part, don’t I?”
Jeongin swallows thickly. “Well,” he says. “If you were a girl… there’s this thing I like to say.”
He tucks his fingers under Minho’s chin and tilts his face up slightly, so that his eyeshadow glitters in the light. Jeongin places his other hand on the curve of Minho’s hip, rubbing small circles against his waist with his thumb. He leans in a little, breathing in cherries and cotton candy, and he says, “I am the luckiest man in the world.”
Minho blinks rapidly. His ears flush red, and the color travels down to his cheeks, his neck. “That is so corny,” he says, his voice stretched as tight as a rubber band.
Now, as he feels Minho’s skin turn hot underneath his fingers, Jeongin can’t help but smirk. “Girls seem to like it,” he says.
Minho’s lips part open as he stares up at Jeongin with big, wet eyes. “What else do girls like?”
“I’ve been told I’m a pretty good kisser,” Jeongin says.
Minho raises an eyebrow. “No wonder you have such an ego,” he says.
Still, when Jeongin leans forward, the movement stuttering a little from nervousness, Minho doesn’t flinch. Instead, he drapes his arms over Jeongin’s shoulders and presses his palm to the nape of his neck, stitching their skin together. Jeongin kisses him, licking candy-scented gloss off soft, pliant lips — and it does feel just like kissing a girl. Jeongin feels a pit of frustration curl underneath his skin, and he finds himself prodding his tongue deeper into Minho’s mouth, desperate to taste him past the lip gloss, desperate to taste Minho.
As Jeongin grazes his tongue along the roof of Minho’s mouth, Minho makes a small, breathy noise. He grasps the hairs at the back of Jeongin’s neck, nails digging deliciously into the delicate skin. When they pull away from each other, Minho’s lips are more red than pink, lip gloss licked away to reveal the thin, swollen skin underneath.
“What do you do next?” Minho asks. “When you’re with a girl?”
Jeongin licks his own lips, tasting Minho’s sugar-sweet gloss all over again. “If I think she’ll let me,” he says, “I ask if I can touch her.”
Minho curls his fingers against the nape of Jeongin’s neck. Jeongin can feel his pulse pounding through the thin skin of his wrist, a telltale sign of anticipation. “And what do you do when she says yes?” he asks.
Jeongin feels his own heartbeat speed up, matching Minho’s erratic pulse. “Well,” he says, “something like this.”
He leans in and kisses Minho again, deeper this time, and he runs a teasing hand up Minho’s bare thigh. He rubs the pleated fabric of his skirt between his thumb and his forefinger, then finally slips his hand underneath. His breath catches in his throat when he hesitantly reaches for Minho’s cock — and feels it straining against lacy fabric, not at all the cotton briefs he’d been expecting.
“Holy fuck,” Jeongin says in a hoarse whisper against Minho’s lips. “Are you wearing…?”
“Yeah,” Minho says, biting back a moan when Jeongin experimentally strokes the outline of his cock between two fingers. “I — I wanted to look pretty for you.”
Jeongin exhales harshly, continuing to palm Minho through his lace panties. “Well, you look pretty,” he says. “You look really fucking pretty.”
Minho whines softly. Jeongin can feel the lacy fabric grow wet with precum, and this makes his own cock twitch in his pants.
“Can I eat you out?” Jeongin asks suddenly.
Minho lets out a surprised noise, half-moan, half-gasp. “Jesus Christ, Jeongin. You can’t just—” He lets out a stuttering laugh, unable to finish his sentence.
“Why not?” Jeongin says. “Girls say I’m good at that, too.”
Jeongin hadn’t thought it was possible for Minho to get any redder, but he does. “I’m starting to think you’re making up all these rave reviews,” he says.
Still, Minho is the one who pulls Jeongin onto his bed with him, shyly biting his lip as he fidgets with the hem of his skirt. Jeongin stares down at him as he lays on the bed, his long hair fanned out underneath him like a halo. “Holy shit,” Jeongin breathes out, running his hand up and down Minho’s thighs in awe. “I really am the luckiest man in the world.”
Jeongin brings his hand up to Minho’s stomach, pinching the pilled fabric of his sweater between two fingers. “Can I…?” he asks, gently pulling up on the sweater.
“Yes,” Minho says. “Please.”
Jeongin takes Minho’s tucked-in sweater and rucks it up to his chest — and he feels himself go light-headed when he sees the peach-colored bralette that just barely covers up his nipples. “Did Victoria’s Secret have a sale or something?” Jeongin croaks.
Minho rolls his eyes. Jeongin thinks he might want to shoot back with a dry retort — but Jeongin pinches one of his nipples through the thin fabric of his bralette, and he lets out a high-pitched gasp.
“Wow,” Jeongin says, licking his lips. “So sensitive.”
Minho frowns. “You know, you’re doing a lot of talking for someone who just asked to eat me out.”
And oh. Jeongin likes seeing Minho flushed and overwhelmed and losing his grip on himself — but he thinks he likes it when Minho is telling him what to do, too.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jeongin says, reaching his hands under Minho’s skirt again. He flips the front up to reveal peach-colored lace panties, the color and patterning matching his bralette. As he predicted, the front has a wet spot of precum, and Jeongin rubs his thumb against it now.
Minho groans. “Stop being such a fucking tease,” he says, and the sudden severity of his voice has makes Jeongin shiver a little.
He obeys, tucking his thumbs under Minho’s underwear and pulling it off. (A shame, considering how prettily his cock strained against the lacy fabric.) It’s his first time seeing another guy’s dick up close like this. Jeongin thinks he must make a face, because Minho scoffs and says, “You’re not gonna turn to stone if you make eye contact with it.”
Jeongin blushes. “I know. It’s just—I didn’t think—”
He can feel himself starting to ramble, a habit of his when he gets nervous. Thankfully, Minho must notice it too, because he fists his hand in Jeongin’s head, and the sudden action cuts Jeongin off, making him hum needily. “Didn’t you say you wanted to eat your noona out?” Minho asks.
Jeongin full-on moans at that. Oh, god. He was discovering a lot of new things about himself today.
With an almost embarrassing obedience, he lets Minho pull his face forward. Jeongin presses a few open-mouthed kisses to the inside of Minho’s thighs first, working his way up. Then, he gently lifts one of Minho’s legs and presses it against his torso, practically folding him in half. He blows a warm gush of breath over his hole, watching as Minho squirms around him. Then, Jeongin presses his tongue flat over his hole and licks a long stripe up his perineum, a satisfaction fluttering in his chest when Minho lets out a high-pitched gasp.
Jeongin takes the noise as added encouragement, alternating between flat-tongued licks, fucking into the hole with the tip of his tongue, and blowing cool breaths over the puffy skin. Minho groans every now and then, tightening his grip in Jeongin’s hair. “Fuck,” he wheezes out. “You weren’t kidding when you said you were good at this, were you?”
Jeongin can’t tell which he likes more — the cold, barbed wire commands, or the panting, arched back praises. Either way, he finds himself reaching a hand down to palm at his own cock through his pants as he continues licking at Minho’s hole, pulling away every now and then to press bruising kisses onto the sensitive skin of his thighs.
“God, you are making your noona feel so good,” Minho says, the compliment almost coming out as a purr. Jeongin is sure that Minho can see him stroking himself through his pants, and this makes him feel flushed and hot. “You like eating your noona out, don’t you? You like it so much that you’re getting yourself off to it?”
Jeongin moans as he licks up Minho’s taint again, and Minho lets out a harsh, breathy curse in response. “You’re doing so well. So, so well. If you keep it up I might even let you fuck me.”
It is like Jeongin’s heart leaps up to his throat, he is so taken aback by the statement. He lowers himself to Minho’s hole again, sticks the tip of his tongue in and starts fucking it in and out, slowly ramping up in speed.
Minho groans. “Yeah? You like that? You like the idea of fucking me in my tight cunt?”
If Jeongin wasn’t so preoccupied, he’d probably respond with a vigorous nod. Instead, he keeps fucking his tongue into Minho’s hole, only stopping when Minho tugs up on his hair. “There’s lube and condoms in the second drawer,” Minho says, jerking his chin towards the bedside table. “Show me why those girls you bring back to your room can’t keep quiet, yeah?”
Again, Jeongin isn’t the most composed when he scrambles over to Minho’s bedside table — but he just stuck his tongue in a dude’s asshole, and he’s pretty sure his dignity was thrown out with the bathwater a long time ago.
When Jeongin comes back, he stares down at Minho for an awkward amount of time before realizing that he has absolutely no idea what he’s meant to do at this point. Does he just… slather lube all over his dick and stick it in? Isn’t he supposed to loosen Minho up first, or something?
Minho must sense his trepidation, because his lips quirk into an amused smile as he looks up at Jeongin. “Haven’t you ever fingered a girl before?” he says, jerking his chin towards the bottle of lube in Jeongin’s hand.
Ah, Jeongin thinks. Yeah. He could do this. An asshole was basically a vagina, right?
Jeongin squeezes some of the lube onto his fingers. He’s a little alarmed by how cold it feels, and he thinks he probably should’ve considered this before circling Minho’s rim with his finger. Minho gasps at the cold, thighs instinctively coming close together.
“Sorry, baby girl,” Jeongin murmurs. The nickname is a vestigial reflex, and Jeongin doesn’t realize that he’d said it until a few seconds later — but by then, Minho has let out a surprised whimper, lips parting prettily as he lets out puffy pants of breath. Oh. That was new.
Jeongin pushes his finger through the ring of muscle, crooking it slightly as he thrusts in and out. “How’s that feel, baby girl?” Jeongin says, hovering over Minho’s squirming body as he fingers him. “Feel good?”
Minho reaches up and clutches at Jeongin’s shirt. “Feels really good,” he moans. “Need more. Please.”
Jeongin swallows hard — because who the hell is he to deny him of that?
He drizzles more lube onto his fingers and sticks a second digit into Minho’s hole. He must hit a sensitive spot, because when Jeongin curls his fingers like so, Minho lets out a loud, needy noise, eyes squeezing shut as he keeps his death grip on Jeongin’s shirt.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Minho starts rambling, almost incoherent. “Right there. Just like that.”
Jeongin imitates the positioning that had made Minho keen. ”Like that?” he says. “You like it when I finger your pussy just like that, baby girl?”
“Yes, oh god,” Minho gasps out. “Please. I need you to fuck me now, please please please.”
Jeongin breathes in, sharp, quick enough to leave himself light-headed. “Yeah, okay,” he says, his voice scratchy. “Okay.”
He pulls his fingers out of Minho and starts unbuttoning his pants. He is already half-hard from… well. From kissing Minho, from eating Minho out, from fingering him until he can’t speak properly anymore. From Minho in all his forms, whether he’s covered in lace and scented like strawberries or curling his fingers tight in Jeongin’s hair, like a vice, like an anchor.
After rolling the condom on, Jeongin squeezes lube into his palm and warms it up between his hands. He looks down at Minho, at his swollen lips and mussed up wig and the bruises already forming on the insides of his thighs. He reaches his free hand under Minho’s skirt again and flips it up. His breath catches in his throat when he sees that Minho is hard too, even harder than Jeongin. He hadn’t even been touched aside from the occasional light palming, yet his cock is already red and curved against his stomach. The thought that Jeongin had done this to him, using nothing but his tongue and his fingers—
He wraps his hand around his own cock and starts jerking himself off languidly. Curiously, with his other hand, he trails a finger from the base of Minho’s cock to his head. It twitches from the attention, and Minho muffles a moan against the sleeve of his sweater.
“Fuck,” Jeongin says, speeding up his strokes as Minho writhes underneath him, trying so hard not to make too much noise. “You’re so… fuck.”
Minho detaches his teeth from his sleeve, a string of spit connecting the fabric to his lips. “Please,” he keens. “Please just fuck me already.”
Jeongin almost wants to keep teasing him — but with how good Minho looks splayed out underneath him, red and desperate from the tips of his ears to the head of his cock, Jeongin doesn’t think he can hold back anymore himself.
When he finishes lubing himself up, he lines his cock up with Minho’s hole and presses his head against the rim. Then, he props Minho’s legs up against his own shoulders, nearly folding him in half again, and pushes in. Jeongin groans as Minho envelops warm around his cock, and Minho lets out a similarly needy noise.
“Fuck,” Jeongin says in a strained voice. “Your pussy is so fucking tight. Like it was made for my cock. Like you were made for me to use.”
Minho moans as Jeongin starts thrusting into him, hips snapping into his every time. Jeongin slips a hand under Minho’s sweater and traces his fingers across the lacy trim of his bralette. “So pretty,” Jeongin murmurs. “My noona is so pretty for me.”
Jeongin’s experience fucking people with vaginas seems to translate surprisingly well to anal, if the noises that Minho makes are any indication. Still, he isn’t used to just how tight Minho is, and he can tell that his rhythm is a little all over the place.
He is about to stop and suggest that they change their position when Minho presses his palm to the nape of Jeongin’s neck and leans forward to say, “Wait, wait. Let’s switch. I want to try something.”
Jeongin blinks, a little confused — but he obeys and lets Minho push him down so that his back is against the mattress (he probably obeys a little too readily, really). Minho pulls his sweater over his head and tosses it to the side, so that he is wearing nothing but the bralette, skirt, and thigh high socks. Jesus. Jeongin thinks he might’ve been a Tibetan monk or something in his past life, because there’s no other explanation for why else he’s being allowed to have a view like this now.
“Sorry, babe,” Minho says as he squeezes lube onto his palm and starts jerking Jeongin off. “You put in a good effort — but I think I’d rather be the one setting the pace.”
Jeongin thinks he would be more offended if Minho wasn’t currently rubbing his palm on the head of his cock, smearing lube and precum down the length of his dick. Then, Minho is carefully climbing over Jeongin’s body and hovering over his lap. He lines Jeongin’s cock up with his hole again and slowly sinks down on it, hissing as he does so. Jeongin groans too, hands reaching up to grip Minho’s waist to guide him as he rides his cock.
“Fuck,” Jeongin says as Minho starts speeding up, letting out whiny noises each time their hips meet. “God, your cunt is so tight. Makes me feel so fucking good.”
“Yeah?” Minho says, keening when he slams back down on Jeongin’s cock. “You like it when your noona rides your fat fucking cock? Like it when I fuck myself like this?”
“God, yes,” Jeongin groans, pressing his thumb into the hollows of Minho’s waist. He takes one hand and reaches for Minho’s cock. Minho makes a surprised noise that turns into a moan when Jeongin starts jerking him off, using his precum to make the slide easier.
As Minho keeps riding him, Jeongin can feel a telltale pressure coil tight in his abdomen. “I’m going to—” He cuts himself off when Minho slams down particularly hard on his cock, littering his vision with stars for a moment.
“You’re going to what?” Minho says, almost taunting. “You’re gonna cum?”
When Jeongin nods, Minho speeds up, starts riding him even faster. “Then cum,” he pants out. “Cum inside of me. Knock me up, yeah? Fill your noona up with your cum.”
And that’s all the permission Jeongin needs before he’s spilling hot inside the condom, Minho sitting flush on his cock. While he’s still inside of him, Jeongin starts jerking Minho off again, stroking him at a desperate pace. It doesn’t take long before Minho is shuddering and crumpling forward, cumming all over Jeongin’s shirt.
“Oh,” Minho says when he finally catches his breath. “You’re welcome for fixing your terrible shirt.”
Jeongin snorts as Minho lifts himself off of his cock. After Jeongin pulls off his soiled shirt and disposes of the condom, Minho wraps his arms around Jeongin’s waist and presses their skin warm against each other. Minho doesn’t smell like cherries anymore, just sweat — but Jeongin breathes in deep anyways.
“Next time,” Minho says, sounding like he’s stifling back a yawn. “I wanna fuck you.”
Jeongin thinks about the noises Minho had made when he fingered him and hit just the right spot, how good he must’ve felt to sound like that — and, okay. He’s not entirely opposed to the idea.
But he doesn’t say that. Instead, he says, “Next time?”
“Mhm,” Minho says, looking up at Jeongin. He still has the wig on, but it’d gone terribly askew as they fucked, and it barely covers the front of his hair now. He looks a little ridiculous, but Jeongin thinks he might prefer this to the polished outfit he’d had on earlier. “Next time.”
Jeongin feels his lips stretch into a wide smile. “Okay,” he says, pulling Minho’s wig off and tousling his hand through his real hair. “Next time.”
(“Guys. You didn’t actually fuck in my car, did you?”
“Oh. When?”
“Y’know. The day you went to the arcade together?”
“Yeah, of course not. We didn’t fuck in your car that day.”
“Cool, cool. I just wanted to make — wait. What do you mean that day?”)