Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Come over.

Minho gets the text the night after Kibum left his apartment in a frenzied huff.

He’s splayed out on his couch, long and stretched, lazy as he’s wanted to be all day. And he considers just leaving the message open and read and not doing anything about it. He really considers it, because he’s been sitting here all day trying to figure out whether or not he should feel like shit for pressing down on the boundaries neither of them laid out.

It stings, somewhere deep, when Kibum spits his own words back out at him. More than it should.

He almost ignores the text. Lets his own stubbornness and frustration take over. If Kibum’s going to act like a child, the way he never does with anyone else, Minho can too.

If Kibum’s looking to get laid, he can wait, or find someone else.

I just wanna talk.

The second text comes in like Kibum knew what Minho was thinking.

And so Minho finds himself at Kibum’s door, actually nervous for what might be on the other side.

It smells good, but it usually does. Kibum’s cooking routinely makes the entire floor feel warm and amazing. It’s always like this when Minho comes over for the group dinner night, but he’s only recently come here on his own, and it wasn’t for a meal.

He knocks and there’s shuffling and clanging on the other side, and when Kibum pulls the door open towards himself he looks less composed than Minho’s used to.

“I didn’t know if you were going to come.”

Minho had sent a reply when the second text came in, just an okay. “I told you I would.”

Kibum steps to the side and he walks in and it’s entirely foreign.

He doesn't really look around when he comes over. It’s usually hazy, the back of his eyelids and Kibum’s floorplan and the color of his walls where Minho has him pressed up against when he pulls back to watch him breathe.

When he comes over for dinner nights he spends most of his time paying attention to the paintings on the wall and where his dogs are, and looking anywhere but the conversation happening with the others in case they ask him to participate.

And with other people or the distraction of sex the apartment doesn’t usually feel this empty. It could just be the night or the fact that Kibum is walking around in his sweatpants and fuzzy socks and looking small. His apartment is typically the most welcoming of anyone’s.

“Have you had dinner yet?”

The clock on the kitchen wall says it’s nearly 9pm. Minho had a late lunch. He went to the gym around dinner time. “I haven’t.”

“I made jajangmyeon.” If Minho could read Kibum’s expression, he might find nervousness. Despite what he told him last night, he’s not quite sure he completely understands Kibum. He can be a closed book in a foreign language, if he wants to be.

A smirk plays at his lips before Minho can stop it. “Proving you can make Korean food, are you?”

“God,” Kibum says, a little huff. “I’m trying to apologize, can you just get over here?”

He’s standing at his dining table big enough for five, and the noodles and vegetables are laid out like they are when the entire group is over, and Minho’s stomach rumbles lowly before he decides to sit down.

It’s not like a date, nothing like a date, but more like a date than the two of them have ever been on with each other. They’ll usually order takeout after an exhausting round or run to get fried chicken in between and eat it on someone’s living room floor before lunging at each other again, but this is different. It feels like breaking a rule, even though they’re not talking or staying or telling the others. They couldn’t be breaking a rule, because they can only sit in silence and focus on their meal. Minho wonders if Kibum’s had as difficult a time eating today as Minho has.

Minho only feels a little bit like he’s drowning here.

“Listen,” Kibum starts, boring holes into his plate like he’s expecting his food to come to life. “I was really immature last night and I shouldn’t have walked out like that. I always feel like a teenager around you and it drives me insane. And I’m sorry.”

Minho blinks. This is the second apology he’s heard from Kibum in the last two months and he knows Kibum’s perfectly capable of being a well-adjusted adult, but he also knows that he’s been disconnected from, and maybe undeserving of that side of him.

“I pushed you,” he finds himself saying. “I knew your ex was a touchy subject and I kept going anyway. I’ve been immature too.”

He knows it’s the truth because there’s no one he’d push the way he pushes Kibum. And it can’t just be because of what happened when they were teenagers and it can’t just be what happened two years ago and it can’t be just the sexual tension, but he doesn’t really know what it is.

He knows he’s not level headed enough to decipher exactly what it is. And he knows he would be level headed enough if it were anyone else but him. He doesn’t know what that means either.

Kibum sucks a deep breath through a little gap in the front of his mouth, like he’s gearing up. “I don’t like that you know me.”

Minho can feel the weight of the statement even if he doesn’t really understand it. Kibum continues.

“You see me, I guess. You know about my ex and you know how I feel about him, how I feel about dating, and you know exactly how to hurt me about it. And you know the stupid things I’m insecure about and the things I like and the things I hate. And you’re not my friend, and you said you’re not my friend, we’re just people who get each other off, but you still know me and you can tell a lot just by looking. That’s not really fair.”

It’s silent for a moment, and Minho can faintly hear the sound of another door in the complex’s passcode ringing and swinging open, and one of the dogs’ nails gliding across a hallway he can’t see.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just wanted you to know. Now that we were,” Minho pauses. He doesn’t know what they were. He doesn't know if this conversation is going to be the conversation. The one they should have had years ago. If Kibum even wants that. If Minho does.

“Fucking?” Kibum offers, a little bitter.

Minho’s chest aches. “We are friends, Kibum.”

The air is tense, for a moment. The black bean sauce starts to shine from sitting still.

“The thing with your ex was just something I’d wanted you to know for a while, and I didn’t know why. I figured you deserved some closure or something. But I see you nearly every day and we watch movies together,” he pauses. Licks his lips. “Kind of. We share meals together. I know what you’re doing all the time. Like I said, I know you. I think that makes us friends, at least a little bit.”

There’s more to say, absolutely. He’s done for now, though.

“I’m not mad that you told me about how he cheated. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I was.”

Minho nods. “Of course.”

“You just always know how to point something out that makes me feel,” he takes a deep breath and looks around the room like he’ll find the end of his sentence somewhere at the crook of the ceiling. “Like, you knew that I would be thinking about that. About the last time I let someone in and they hurt me. Sometimes it feels like you can read my mind. And I hate that. Even if we’re friends. I’m not there yet. I know I’m sort of an open book but I don’t really feel comfortable about it.”

Minho doesn’t really know what to say to that. It’s been way too long since Kibum’s even attempted to open up to him in any capacity.

“I’ll try to be less observant.”

Kibum smirks even though Minho thinks he probably could have said something way less stupid, and he looks down and Minho finds himself wondering what he’s thinking.

“I know you too, you know,” Kibum says. He sounds petulant, like he’s trying to prove something, like he’s been thinking of things since last night. But it isn’t malicious, it’s not rude, it’s not a jab.

Minho decides to humor him. “What do you know?”

“I know that you’ll come over if I ask. And that when you get stressed out you work out twice as hard as usual. And that you like jajangmyeon when it rains or when you feel like shit because your mom used to make it to make you feel better when you were younger.”

Minho didn’t know how Kibum remembered that. He must have said it in passing half a decade ago.

“I think that makes us even,” Minho says, picking his chopsticks back up and going for a yellow pickled radish. Kibum lets out a laugh.

“I know you don’t want to talk about what happened a few years ago,” Kibum mumbles, lips distorting the words like he’s picked up the habit from Taemin. He’s still focusing on his chopsticks. “And I don’t either but we should, probably. It’d probably be good to explain. Eventually.”

He nods in response and then they’re quiet again while they eat, but some of the tension has dissipated. They enjoy the meal and Minho doesn’t mind the silence, and it tastes like his mom used to make, so it fills a little hole in his chest he sometimes forgets is there. The hole you get when you grow up too quickly.

Minho helps with the dishes and they settle against the island in his kitchen, full and satisfied and content with whatever this is, this friendship.

And because they don’t know how to be friends and they don’t know how to be around each other, not really, Kibum speaks. “I know other things about you, too.”

There’s a lilt to Kibum’s voice. It’s deep, it always is, but it’s dark in a way it only really is when he’s looking for something specific. With all the frustration out of the way, all there’s left is all they really know.

He decides to humor him again, a bubbling good mood after being stressed out the entire day. “Like what?”

Kibum’s voice gets soft. It’s a little different from normal, but it’s impossible to tell how. “I know what you like,” he runs his fingers through Minho’s hair and waits for his breath to stutter. “I know what you look like when you’re turned on.”

Minho bites down hard on the inside of his lip. “What do I look like when I’m turned on?”

Kibum’s free hand falls and presses into the front of Minho’s jeans, palm pressing in hard. His heart’s been beating overtime since Kibum’s voice dropped, so he has to hide a whine in his throat when Kibum presses in. He’s not making eye contact, but he stares at Minho’s lips which he’s sure are bitten and raw.

“Well your ears turn pink. And your eyes get all wide. And your mouth hangs open like you can't help but to kiss me.”

And he can’t help himself but to kiss him, and it’s entirely different and exactly the same. It’s hard but there’s no malice behind it. It’s passionate and turned on but there’s no rush. For the first time it doesn’t feel like it’s going to crumble to dust between them.

Kibum doesn’t open his eyes when he wraps his arms around Minho’s neck and tells him to take him to the bedroom. He doesn’t look up when Minho drops him onto his bed or when he unbuttons Minho’s jeans and pulls him out. Or when he gapes at his cock like he’s surprised at the size of it.

Kibum pulls Minho down by his shoulders like he can’t wait for him to get down by himself, and hides his face in the crook of his neck, and he moans like he’s a live wire and he begs like he always says he won’t and Minho feels so far gone before they’ve even started.

And it slows down when Minho presses two fingers inside, wet and sliding, and Kibum is open like he’s done this already today, and his moan crackles in his throat like a dying firework and he stretches thin, toes curling, and Minho can’t look away.

He’s breathless and strained and strung up tight like he couldn’t move if he tried, and when he speaks it comes out as a whimper. “Minho, fuck me, now, please.”

Minho’s just as desperate and eager to listen, and he pushes inside and it feels like it did the first time.

Kibum’s body is searing hot and suffocatingly tight and he wonders if he’s ever in his life wanted anything more. Kibum makes him feel desperate, like he needs him to survive, and he doesn’t know what that means or what it makes him feel.

It occurs to him that Kibum might be thinking the same thing. Eyes crushed tight when they’re usually rolled back wide or hooded and sultry. They’re a little red around the rim and his chest is flushed and Minho pauses when he’s pushed all the way inside.

“Why did you stop?” Kibum’s breathing hard, nails digging hard into Minho’s biceps.

Minho waits until his eyes open. “You okay?”

They share the same breath for a while. He can’t read Kibum’s look.

“I’m fine,” he dislodges his claws from Minho’s arm to pull at the back of his hair. “I know we’re friends but can you at least wait until you’re not inside me to give a shit about what I’m thinking about?”

“Well I want to know if I need to stop.”

“You don’t. Can we please go back to when you didn’t care about me?” Minho doesn’t even try to pretend it was ever like that. Can’t even grace him with a rebuttal.

He huffs.

Kibim is frustratingly stubborn and Minho’s only just starting to figure out how he works, but he thinks he knows that the best way to get Kibum to feel comfortable is to let him call the shots.

“You’re ridiculous.” Leans down to run his teeth along Kibum’s ear. “Just tell me what you want, Kibum. What you want most right now. I’ll give it to you.”

Kibum maintains eye contact for a moment longer before scrunching his nose. “Can you not fucking…” he pauses, struggling with words. “Stare at me so hard? Emotional vulnerability and all that.”

Minho thinks back to what Kibum said earlier, about being seen by him.

And maybe Minho’s always cared about him but he’s never once known how to.

He sits back and pulls out and Kibum moans, frustrated and disappointed and high in his voice. “What’s wrong with you?”

And Minho takes one of his legs and folds it over his body, hands rough on his hips and his back and his shoulders, manhandling him so he’s laying on his front, cock pressed into the mattress, ass held up by Minho’s hand on his waist. He sinks down again, so his chest is pressed against Kibum’s back.

They never do this. Kibum pretends to be some sort of adventurous fuck but Minho can tell more than anything he loves coming caged in on his back. And eye contact had never been an issue, let alone a threat, but Kibum doesn’t seem to mind the change in position.

And Minho’s never pretended to like anything more than he likes being on face to face, with Kibum or anyone else. He knows himself and how much he likes eye contact and seeing what makes the other person tick. And if this will make Kibum tick, so be it.

“This better?” He whispers into Kibum’s ear, sliding his dick between his cheeks, a little tease just so he can see how badly he wants it.

Kibum whines. “Yeah.”

And it’s nice, so nice, having Kibum’s back pressed up against him like this, feeling the way he arches down and pushes his hips back finally finally onto Minho’s cock. The way Kibum struggles to hold himself up. The way his breath catches in his throat and how he presses the heels of his palms into his eyes like a cat in a bright room.

The rhythm is steady, only gets faster when Kibum’s knees slip on the sheets and Minho holds him up by his waist, and Minho comes first, teeth in Kibum’s shoulder, whimpering about how good he feels, how hot he is.

It’s almost painful how much Kibum clenches down when he follows after, collapses onto his stomach, trapping Minho’s arm underneath him.

It’s late. He doesn’t have to look at the time to know that. It was already pretty late when Minho came over, and it’s been hours, and the only reason Minho ever stays up this late is to fuck Kibum.

And Minho’s bone tired, because he hardly slept the night before, and they only recently had a huge meal, and Kibum pours off heat like a furnace, and is practically keeping his limbs hostage under his body.

He looks at the clock Kibum has by his bed. It’s past midnight.

Minho opens his mouth to say something, but Kibum speaks first.

“Friends would stay, right?”

Minho blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s late. And it’s dark. And it’s a while back to your place,” Kibum says, voice much smaller than it was before. Almost vulnerable. Minho tries not to let himself search for a crack in his words. “Friends can stay over. That can be a rule.”

So he stays.

--

Kibum almost forgets when he wakes up that the body slung over his is Minho’s, that he asked him to stay, that this is his room in his apartment and he can’t slink away to leave.

If he’s being honest, when he stirs in his sheets and pushes his nose into the crook of something he does hope it’s Minho. His mind is blank from the night before and all he can do is sink into a fantasy he’s constructed for himself over the course of several years. Minho’s arms heavy and hot around him.

And he lets himself sit like that, fading back into sleep until a dog hops up onto the bed and startles him. Making him realize that this isn’t some years old fantasy and this really is someone and this really is Minho and it really is because Kibum asked.

His eyes sting from the tears that turned into crust around his eyes, and after the initial shock, there’s dread.

Of course Minho’s seen him in the morning. They lived with each other for years and Minho has specifically dragged him out of bed on mornings where he would have rather hid under the covers all day. But this is different. Of course this is different.

That was a rule, wasn’t it? Don’t stay over.

Evidently, Kibum has no self-control. No self-preservation. He can’t let himself have because he knows he’s too selfish to let it end. He can’t be waking up in Minho’s arms after a decade of wanting to. They’re not anything, but this is too close to something that Kibum’s not sure he can let it stop.

It was like this with the sex. Dragging Minho into that room at that party months ago. Telling himself it was just once to get it out of his pent-up system.

He thinks he knows better this time. This time he can keep himself from wanting it more. He’s sure he can let it end. He just misses intimacy.

He almost feels guilty, then, for bringing Minho into it when he’s so unsure of what he deserves, so unsure of what he’s going to want tomorrow. So unsure of how to deal with his own emotions.

He couldn’t even help from crying last night when Minho fucked him, after showing Minho a tiny infinitesimal piece of his hungry heart. And Minho doing what he always does, looking to Kibum with complete understanding. Fucking him on his hands and knees, cradling him after, the way Kibum needed.

And asking Minho to stay, pathetically. Anxiety bubbles up in his chest, and then Minho hums and pulls him close, eyes closed and lips spread out into a smile. His legs slide against Kibum’s, hair soft and gliding against his. Minho puffs his chest out in a stretch and grips him hard by his waist. They’re both mostly soft against each other, warm and comfortable in the morning.

“Morning,” Minho grumbles, low into his ear. Kibum can hear the smile in his voice.

Part of him, a sick and twisted part, wants to stay like this in bed, rolling hips lazily until it gets to be too much. Minho in the morning might take a second to wake up, letting Kibum use his body as something to grind on, get worked up enough to start leaking onto Minho’s stomach. And Minho might be awake and hard enough to let Kibum ride him until they’re definitely too gross to leave without a shower and another round in there.

Another part of him, though, a much worse part, wants to roll out of Minho’s arms and cook him breakfast. Wants to insist he stay while he eats, let Minho use his shower and his towel and his body wash. And kiss him sweet until he leaves. A kiss that doesn’t lead to sex, or even a touch.

That’s only happened once before. Way before.

He’s hiding his face in the crook of Minho’s neck while he pushes both thoughts away. And Minho hums again, hands wandering farther down, and it seems he’s already made a decision.

“Since I’m here,” he says, kissing along Kibum’s shoulder. He’s turned enough that he’s laying flat on his back with Kibum on top of him, a mess of limbs. “Want to ride me?”

He tries not to whine. He’s so used to Minho saying things far filthier. Far more transparent. He’s used to this, he knows. This is small and inconsequential but it feels bigger. A new era of peace offering by way of sex.

Kibum manages a nod. “Yeah.”

And it’s a lot like last night, where Kibum feels too much like an open book that apparently only Minho knows how to read. It feels fucked up that only Minho has tried. He tells himself it’s sleep and overexertion and the fact that the last time Kibum rode him they had that stupid conversation, that one that shattered Kibum’s fantasy where he pretended not to care about any of this. Where Minho couldn’t see him at all.

Kibum rocks against him and grips his sheets and watches Minho’s face screw up tight. Watches Minho bite his lip and groan and knows exactly how much he’s enjoying himself. Knows what he can do to get him off like this, and what to do to tease him back down. And he tries, tries to hate him. He tries, tries to pretend. He doesn’t know when it got too hard to do.

And Kibum doesn’t make him breakfast after but Minho does kiss him goodbye. Sweet and soft and gentle and Kibum’s heart lurches so suddenly that he considers calling an ambulance.

He ends up calling Jonghyun instead for an excuse to get out of his house and clean himself up and stop thinking so much.

Jonghyun smells like citrus when they meet up for dinner, casual and smiling. He always smells like something musky or sweet, tilting his neck to entice.

The conversation doesn’t start until after the pork belly comes, giggling with soju and when Kibum’s already feeling loose and calm.

He’s in the process of not thinking about Minho when Jonghyun makes a face like he wants to say something.

“What’s going on?” Kibum asks, taking a spoonful of rice into his mouth.

Jonghyun shrugs. His voice isn’t particularly accusatory, no more than usual. “You’ve been hanging out with Minho a lot lately.”

Kibum swallows. “We’re friends.” It’s not a lie, officially.

His eyebrow raises anyway.

Back when Minho and Kibum had their fight a couple years ago, Jonghyun was the one that Kibum had confided in. Even before debut, Jonghyun was the one who Kibum came crying to or went to for advice.

So he knows everything, as much as Kibum really knows, which isn’t much.

When Jonghyun doesn’t respond right away, he continues. “We talked some stuff out, and we’re getting along. It’s nice. I think I like being his friend.”

He knows this is probably what he said last time.

“That’s what you said last time,” Jonghyun says. He’s pushing his sleeves up to his elbows like he’s prepared to have a real conversation.

“God,” Kibum huffs and rights himself in his seat. “You can tell me what you think about it but I thought you would be thrilled that we were getting along.”

Jonghyun gives Kibum a look and sets down his chopsticks, letting the metal clang against the table. “Of course I’m glad you’re getting along. It just came out of nowhere. You know I love him obviously , but I also know you and I also know that you have hardly spoken in years, and I just don’t want you to be jumping headfirst into something.”

“We talk,” he says, voice low. “We’ve talked! And we started talking more.”

“About the kiss?”

Kibum thinks about the kiss Minho pulled him into this morning on his way out the door, sweet and soft, gentle hand in Kibum’s hair before pulling back to go on his way. He thinks about the kiss at the party, the one that started this, more or less.

He thinks about what Minho’s toothpaste tastes like on his lips, how he exhales soft into his mouth. He thinks about the lip balm Kibum insisted he’d buy and how Minho will ask if it’s okay to kiss him after eating him out.

And obviously Jonghyun isn’t talking about that.

A bitter little memory. Chapped surprised lips and a scared gasp and a friendship crashing like a broken mirror in between them.

“Not exactly,” Kibum says. He tries to keep his voice loose in his throat. “But I really think it’s okay. We can probably move past it, it’s been like two years.”

Jonghyun doesn’t look convinced. He leans forward on his elbows. “I trust you, I just don’t want you to get hurt again. It tore you up last time.”

“I got over it.”

“Yeah, by hopping into a relationship with another guy,” he tips back his soju glass. “Who ended up being a total dick.”

Kibum realizes he walked directly into that one. “It’s not like that this time. I could start dating again, even.” Probably, he should say. Theoretically.

Jonghyun nods. “What about that guy you were sleeping with during promotions?”

“What guy?”

“Kibum,” he looks so unimpressed, Kibum thinks he might bore a hole through his head. “You showed up so obviously overcompensating your professionalism so you wouldn’t get caught sneaking around. But I know you, and I can tell these things.”

Kibum can hardly get out a retort before Jonghyun continues, holding his hands up in surrender. “I totally get if it’s none of my business, or if it’s a secretive thing, I’m just making sure you know I care deeply about you and I’m sorry it ended so quickly, because you were clearly enjoying yourself.”

He bites the inside of his cheek, a nasty habit. “How’d you figure it stopped?”

Jonghyun shrugs. “You started hanging out with Minho all the time. I didn’t know if you broke it off with the other guy because of that, or if you started hanging out with Minho more because you broke it off with the other guy. Either way.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, really. Everything he thinks he could say sounds like it would give him away. He figures he should think of something quickly.

“Do you think I should start dating again?” He’s almost hesitant. Doesn’t really know what’s going on in Jonghyun’s head. Even as his best friend he has difficulty navigating it.

Jonghyun gives him a little smile and picks his chopsticks up again. “Only if you want to, Kibum, I’m not in charge of you. But I think if you’re really over all that stuff from a few years ago, and you think you want to start dating someone again, I’d love to see you happy with someone who cares about you. I could help you find someone if you wanted.”

He bites back the urge to argue, to point out how hard that would be, how everyone who’s ever looked at him with adoration has turned back around with poison. How it’s scary enough to think about the fact that he could open his heart, even just the little piece that’s left from two years ago, and expect two people to want to be around him when he’s never been used to even one.

And above that, he sees Jonghyun in front of him who is offering an open hand.

He gets a twinge of guilt, only slightly different than the guilt he felt this morning, something he’s been feeling a lot more lately, for lying to Jonghyun. And to Jinki, and to Taemin. And to himself.

Kibum’s always been honest, as much as he’s been able to, but he’s always found it so difficult to parse out his feelings well enough to know what the truth even is, let alone come to terms with it.

And he thinks maybe he’s not opposed to dating again, if this is all just in his head and he actually is really over Minho and can keep himself from self-destructing.

He doesn’t know what holds him back from telling Jonghyun everything. Back when this was a real issue, Jonghyun was the person whose bed he crawled into teary and rejected and desperate to be held, knowing no one else would.

Maybe it’s that he’s grown up. Maybe it’s that he’s finally mature enough to figure things out on his own, deal with his own stupid drama and keep it from consuming him.

Maybe it’s that Minho’s there to hold him instead.

Or maybe it’s that they’d made this promise to each other not to let the others know. So that they wouldn’t worry or interfere or tell them it was a bad idea, because they knew it was. Even though they broke a rule, this one seems too big.

Kibum wonders if it’s still a bad idea. If he’s interested in being honest with himself, he hasn’t known the difference between good and bad in a long time. And maybe that’s what he has to figure out first. Maybe he has to try what they would call a good idea.

Jonghyun is picking at kimchi and zucchini, folding it into lettuce with one of the last pieces of pork.

The way he sees it, is that Minho makes him feel good. And he doesn’t make him nearly as angry as he used to, not as much as he has for the past few years, not as much as he did for the first few weeks. Not unless he asks to, or begs to, or pokes the buttons Kibum’s allowed him to.

And it’s not like before, when he was young and scared of getting hurt and fell in love with the first wide eyed boy who he’d worked so hard to get along with. It’s not like that at all.

He thinks he’s happy with this arrangement, then. He’s been sleeping better and getting along with Minho and hanging out with his friends more. It’s all a lot better than it was these past two years. So maybe he can humor Jonghyun, start seeing someone, get back out there, start being honest with himself.

If he were honest with himself he would realize that he’s nothing but a hopeless romantic, and that maybe someone could sweep him off his feet if he let them. Maybe he can have both.

“So you wanted to set me up with someone?”

--

The next time the five of them are together again it’s to discuss the repackage for their most recent album. Minho’s sitting at a long wooden table, as chronically early as the rest of them, an array of concept photos and song names and folders and strangers getting ready for the meeting to officially start.

He hasn’t had time to see Kibum yet this week, and he certainly hasn’t had the time to think about why he’s been feeling like something’s been missing because of it.

And he’ll know it’s more than just getting off, if he lets himself think about it. He’s done a deliberate job of not letting himself think about how he feels about it the entire time, beyond horny and angry and something he doesn’t have a word for.

There’s something there. Something pulls at him. For years, and stronger when they started doing this, and stronger the more they talked about it, and he knows distinctly that the pull is stronger than he wants it to be. Too strong for him to pull back on.

It really only hits him when Kibum walks in, and Minho isn’t annoyed or angry, and he isn’t imagining Kibum underneath him, jaw open and lips wet.

He just feels that pull.

He doesn’t know when it changed.

It’s almost frustrating in itself.

And Kibum smiles at him, and Minho can’t remember the last time he was on the receiving end of that smile.

Part of him wonders if this is what it means to be friends with Kibum, and the other part of him knows that that’s too dense a thought even for someone as deeply in denial as him. And so the meeting flies by in a haze, and he doesn’t know how to parse it all out, so he defaults to polite and professional while his brain takes in everything around him at once.

And this works for the entire meeting, up until the end where Jonghyun slips Kibum a piece of paper while they’re packing up. Minho hears him say something about Friday night and a great restaurant and a really nice guy, I’m glad you want to give him a chance, and Kibum dodges eye contact with Minho until they make it back to their rides.

“You should come over,” Kibum whispers when they slide into the van, fingers curled around his bicep like he’s coming onto a handsome stranger at a nightclub.

And it’s not the pull that Minho feels, not the same one he feels when he pulls himself out of Kibum’s apartment after a long and ultimately unproductive shower. Or the one that he feels when Kibum keeps kissing him after they finish, when they’re sweaty and sticky and done and their lips are red and numb and Minho hardly wants to pull out, much less let Kibum leave. It’s not that, a string connected right to the center of his chest.

He feels a fire, one he hasn't felt in a while, when he nods. He thinks about Kibum’s fingers curled around his bedpost, white knuckling it. High and desperate and needy.

The sex never stopped being good, or athletic, since Kibum asked him sweet and soft and teary to stay over. It never stopped being just as good and passionate and rough. But something shifted then and Minho wants to push it back.

He pushes Kibum back into his door. A flash of a memory: Kibum, tasting like sweet red wine and minty lip balm and anger and frustration and sweat.

Kibum pushes him right back, playful, something in his eye that he wouldn’t explain, couldn’t explain, not to Minho. Kibum would never explain anything to Minho, he’d never allow Minho to know him. It’s a bitter thought, almost. It tastes like tar. It tastes sweet.

Minho’s never been the more dominant of the two of them. It’s always been Kibum taking the reins. The lapels of Minho’s jacket. The loops on his belt. His hands in his hair, pulling and pressing and knowing how to touch Minho who doesn’t know anything back.

This is what it’s like being with Kibum. Constantly feeling like he knows more than Kibum wants him to and knowing less than he can afford to.

Kibum is gasping underneath Minho’s fingers, clawing at his sheets and biting at his lip like he wants to draw blood. He breathes hard like he couldn’t catch it if he tried, and he won’t look at Minho straight, and this is when Minho would usually let up. Pull out and push in. Slow down to speed up later.

He doesn’t stop when Kibum squirms and writhes and begs, voice breaking over half-formed syllables. He doesn’t stop when Kibum growls with bared teeth, that Minho, are you teasing me.

And he’s not, he would never. Swollen lips dragging across the soft inside of his thigh, Minho’s favorite patch of skin, he mumbles “You can come whenever you’d like, sweetheart.”

He does, just then, gorgeous, picturesque, crumbling in his hands, come landing across his belly.

Minho drags his tongue across to clean him up and Kibum is twitching and sensitive and kisses him deep, like he wants to drown him in it. Minho’s been drowning in it. Kibum is all over him, filling him up from the inside.

And when he pulls back to breathe, effortful like he’s the one who just came, he asks if Kibum can do it again, and he’s met with another look he can’t quite read.

Kibum’s eyes blow wide and Minho tries not to let his nostrils flare, and he kisses him again, and this time it’s like the first time. Not dark and sweaty and at a party, but delicate and half-shattered and on the precipice of a choice he’s not sure he’ll make correctly.

“Can you come again?” Minho repeats, even though he knows Kibum heard the first time. “If I fuck you, will you come again for me?”

A nod.

“Do you need me to give you a minute?”

Minho knows he asks more questions now. He’s always been cautious but even right now he wants to make sure this is what Kibum wants. There’s a swirl in his chest, something he’s self-aware enough to recognize as territorial but not nearly self-aware enough to analyze why, and it’s mixed with the knowledge that he cares, so much more than he’d like to. Even more so when Kibum asks him not to.

Fear that Kibum’s been treated with such little care that he has to ask for less of it.

But Kibum is used to it, at least, doesn’t shy too far away when Minho makes sure he can take another round or another finger or another kiss or a steady look in his eye.

“You’re good,” Kibum says, and his voice is breathy and deep and honest.

And Minho’s achingly hard and Kibum’s straining from soft and makes a pathetic little noise when he pushes in. Almost too tight and still rippling around him, Kibum digs his nails into Minho’s shoulders and holds him there, breathing hot against his neck, aborted gasps to stay still.

When he pulls back there’s a prick of a tear at the corner of his eye, and a hardened look determined to keep it in.

Minho doesn’t keep himself from using his thumb to wipe it away, or from kissing him slow to distract him. Tongue soft and sliding, teeth gentle on his lips.

“You can go,” Kibum manages to say, a little broken at the edges.

He does, slow at first, steady on his knees, hand settled into the dip in Kibum’s back. And the rhythm picks up steadily, and Kibum is still so sensitive that a tear actually breaks free before he can blink it away, and Minho kisses him extra hard to keep Kibum from clenching his teeth about it.

It’s quieter than usual, less of their typical filthy taunts and swears and begging.

Just Kibum’s broken voice calling for him by name and Minho’s low satisfied groans in response.

And Kibum’s moans go high and desperate when Minho gets close and fucks with purpose and wraps a hand around his cock and uses the other to push his chest into the mattress and twist at his nipple.

Seeing Kibum like this is what’s gotten Minho off on his own when they haven’t spent the night together, he could recreate it behind his eyelids, hear it in the white noise, spend forever in this moment when he’s coming and Kibum is close, and falls over the edge at the pulse of Minho coming inside him, flushed and completely taken.

They don’t say anything directly after, just listening to their loud hearts and heavy breathing and the absence of regret or guilt that they used to feel.

Minho’s close to falling asleep even though they haven’t eaten dinner, and they could probably shower or watch a movie, or make more rules just to break them. And Kibum speaks, and even though they couldn’t have finished more than fifteen minutes ago his voice is raw like he hasn’t used it in days.

“I should talk to you about something,” he says, and Minho feels the shift.

“Yeah?”

“Jonghyun is setting me up on a date over the weekend,” Kibum is mumbling a little, mouth too lazy to form words fully. “I doubt it’s going to turn into anything, but I just wanted to let you know.”

About a hundred questions run through his mind. Kibum answers a few before he gets the chance to ask.

“Not that you and I have ever been exclusive,” even though neither of them has been with anyone else since this started, “but I figured you should know. If I’m sleeping with someone else.”

Minho knows it’s logical, and he’d do the same thing if he were in Kibum’s position, and this makes sense on paper.

But they’re not on paper. They’re tangled in sheets. And things stopped making sense a long time ago.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he says, and his words feel bitter in his mouth, and he wants to kiss Kibum again, but harder this time, make him forget about this other guy. He knows why and also doesn’t know why at all.

And he rolls off the bed and almost doesn’t kiss Kibum goodbye, but he can hardly help himself not to. But he tells Kibum that he has plans, later, actually, which he hopes isn’t too obvious a lie.

He takes the long way back to his apartment.

--

Sanghun is soft-spoken and open and calm, and Kibum spends the entire date pulling at his stiff collar and staring at the corner of his mouth and smelling the tangy white wine that he would never spring for by himself.

It’s nice, he’s nice, and he says things that make Kibum laugh a real laugh, smile a real smile, and Kibum knows that if he’d been introduced to him years ago he would be blown away by him.

And of course it makes sense that he’s kind and easy to talk to, because of course Jonghyun knows just the kind of guy that typically charms the pants off of him.

So they have their dinner and Sanghun pays, and Kibum feels split down the middle, one half that wants to hold his hand and kiss him goodnight and the other half that wants to make an excuse and crawl away and he’s tired, exhausted, of not knowing.

Kibum is starting to wonder what’s been holding him back from something that leaves him happy on his way out. And part of him figures that it’s something intrinsic in him, something that will never be satisfied and will never satisfy. And a part of him that worries that he already is.

He pulls his car in front of Kibum’s apartment complex, and he’s looking awfully enamored, but there’s something that stirs in Kibum’s gut in response.

Sanghun makes sure no one looks and he asks, voice musical and soft before he leans across to kiss him, and Kibum is grateful and he’s happy, and he likes Sanghun, he must like him, there’s no reason he shouldn’t like him.

And his lips are just lips. They’re soft and they’re smooth. They’re not stubbornly chapped and rough and tingling plush against his. They’re thin and he tastes like he popped a mint in his mouth for this.

And that’s sweet.

Kibum kisses back and there’s nothing behind his eyes, and Sanghun’s hands are smaller than his, cool on his forearm where Minho would be running hot.

He pulls back, dizzy.

Sanghun is smiling sweet and small, eyes hopeful but different. It’s different.

“Can I see you again?”

And Kibum smiles and he nods and he says yes, because he’s nice and he should. Kibum had a good time and this is a good guy and he feels good about it.

“I had a really good time,” he says, fingers twitching like he’s nervous.

“Me too,” Kibum smiles, polite, tight, “I’ll call you, okay?”

He feels so good that he slinks out of the car and decides it’s not too late to take a long walk to Minho’s apartment, floating along sidewalks feeling something like he’s high off a first kiss.

He feels so good that he knocks on Minho’s door and sees his big eyes and big hands and set jaw and doesn’t even make it all the way in before he lunges at him.

Minho’s lips are chapped and sticky from rice he must have been eating, and his mouth is open and wet and hot and surrounds him.

And things have been different lately, in a stubbornly quiet and unknowable way. Kibum can’t put a finger on it, but he can put a finger in Minho’s mouth or down his chest or in between his legs. And Minho kisses him harder and rougher and something happens in his brain.

Dangerous.

Minho licks up his neck and it’s what he wants. His hands drag their hips together and it’s what he needs, feels like he can’t let this stop without giving something up, something that’s been building in him, something he can’t breathe without.

Minho kisses him stupid and he feels suddenly so aware of how he hasn’t been thinking at all lately. Just taking.

And Minho gives.

Minho gives him hickeys and Kibum takes them and he wonders why it helps him forget about the date, when the date was supposed to make him forget about Minho.

Minho gives him bruises on his hips from his fingertips and Kibum takes them and he loves them and he needs them.

The room feels like it’s burning up around them, and he couldn’t care less. Kibum still feels dizzy from the kiss with Sanghun, but nearly forgets his name. And he’s dizzy from the swirling in his head when he sinks down on Minho, hard and solid and firm underneath him. The longer he’s doing this the better it feels and the harder it is to stop.

He leans forward onto his elbows while he’s adjusting and Minho’s hands are on his thighs and he says low into Kibum’s ear, “how was your date?”

“It was fine,” Kibum says, bearing down and clenching his teeth.

Minho smirks and kicks his hips up and neither of them can hold back their moans. Kibum can’t keep holding back like this, lets himself let go.

“Are you going to see him again?”

He bites the inside of his lip. “Is this something friends do? You wanna hear about my dates?”

“Oh, you know how much I love gossip,” Minho says, voice tilted up at the end, “and I just want to know if I should be fucking you harder.”

“Now why would you need to do that?” He manages to keep his voice even, but his nostrils flare and his thighs stutter.

He’s flipped over onto his back, suddenly empty and aching and needy. And it’s a shocking loss, deep in his chest that hurts almost before Minho is on top of him again. His face is close and Kibum keeps fucking doing this, keeps letting the dull pounding behind his eyes escape in frustrated tears. It’s embarrassing and annoying and he doesn’t know why it keeps happening, let alone how to make it stop.

Kibum is so tired of not knowing what’s happening in his head, so tired of wanting nothing more than to let loose right into Minho’s arms. He let his instinct run him for too long and now it’s muscle memory to wrap around Minho and be held. His biggest muscles, his legs, his arms, his heart. A stubborn pull at the center of his chest.

He almost misses when he’s full again, the deep voice speaking into his ear, “I want to make sure you remember that I’m the best you ever had.”

And even if he didn’t know it weeks ago or months ago, of course the universe would play a sick joke on him: the best he’s ever had, the best he’ll ever have, is Minho.

This one thing that’s never been his, never will be.

He stares at the ceiling and his mouth is busy on Minho’s, and he lets himself imagine that it is. Just for one moment. That Minho is the best he’s ever had and that he would get to keep that. That he’s the best Minho’s ever had too, and they can keep doing this forever. Fucking and staying and being friends, and being together.

And it’s not something he’s let himself want, even for a single moment, since the last time.

Kibum, so young but exactly the same. Scared and young and filled to the brim with a feeling he’d never let himself feel before, for someone he’d never dream of touching the way he’s dreamed of. Two years ago he would have never expected to be so familiar with Minho’s sheets and ceiling and warm skin and hot breath and sharp nails.

Unearthing those thoughts takes so much effort that Kibum wonders if they ever went away in the first place.

There’s no turning his brain off anymore.

So he digs his heels into Minho’s ass, presses close, makes him moan. Kisses him harder, like he should have for two years, like he’s never regretted it a day in his life, like he wishes he could have ever said anything. And it’s all too late now, and he takes it out on Minho’s back with his nails, and his neck with his teeth, and drags the best orgasm out of him that he can muster.

It starts at the base of his neck, crawling all the way down his spine, feels it shatter across his nerves, feels Minho shake around him, inside him, and they don’t always come so close together but the more intense it is, the less time seems to pass in between while Minho uses him to chase his own.

He loves that oversensitive itch that he scratches, that only Minho knows how to scratch.

And they collapse like that after minutes or hours and Minho tells him to stay, because they’re friends, and this time Kibum doesn’t run.

He doesn’t know how not to run, and he’s going to have to learn one day, but he knows this.

--

Kibum comes over after the second date with Sanghun and calls Minho over after the third date with Sanghun, and he doesn’t know why he expects the dates to stop. Like he expected the dates to stop last time, years ago, with the guy that dated Kibum for a year after a surprise kiss and complete silence and a hazy period where Minho was stuck trying to figure things out all on his own.

And Minho pushes him against desks and countertops and doors, and Kibum drags him to beds and couches and takes him apart with his mouth and his hands and there’s a pressure there that he knows they both can feel.

The pressure is everywhere, all around him, incomprehensible and massive, like it’s important, like he should be doing something about it other than getting off.

It builds and it builds and it bursts when Minho opens his own door, and Kibum is standing at his doormat a little damp from rain and smelling like someone else’s cologne and with hair tucked behind his ear where it never is. And he’s had hands and lips on him and Minho is only just recognizing this feeling as something green and ugly, and he’s starting to hate it.

Kibum doesn’t pounce on him immediately the way he sometimes does. He takes off his jacket and hangs it across the back of a chair, and he reclines on Minho’s couch, and he’s long and lean and beautiful, and sometimes Minho is just as angry as he was at the beginning.

“How was your date?” He asks, sliding next to him, pulling Kibum’s feet onto his lap, getting the question out of the way.

And Kibum answers the way he always does, “it was fine. He was nice.”

“You guys have been on, what?” Minho pauses, like he hasn’t been counting. “Four dates now? Getting kind of serious.”

He watches Kibum’s lips press into a hard little line. And when he does, Minho looks down at his ankles peeking out from under his pants, thumb running across the patch of skin there.

“Yeah, I guess.”

It’s quiet for a moment before Minho gets the nerve to ask what’s been on his mind for weeks.

“Do you like him?” He asks like he isn’t afraid of the answer.

And something flashes across his face and Minho follows it like he can still see right through him. He says, “I think so,” like he’s not quite sure it’s true, or maybe he’s not quite sure what Minho wants to hear, or he’s not quite sure what’s more important.

“Well do you think you guys are like,” he pauses to search for a word that doesn’t sound juvenile, but lands on “boyfriends?”

Kibum rolls his eyes. “I don’t know, Minho, I’m not a teenager anymore.”

Of course he’s not, because if he was a teenager, he’d be sneaking into Minho’s room, biting his lips and wringing his hands and turning his world upside down.

It’s like the thought permeates the room, because Kibum shifts and Minho knows his jaw has clenched, and the entire apartment is thick with tension.

“You should probably figure that out,” he says, softly, playing with the damp hem of his pants now.

Kibum slides closer, hand on Minho’s arm. “We haven’t talked about it, but I don’t really think it’s anything. It’s only been four dates.”

It occurs to Minho that Kibum has no idea the effect he has on people.

A kiss can knock someone out for two years, a fuck could ruin him for life, and Minho can’t imagine what it would be like to have Kibum, there in his hands, actually his, only to have him slide away like he never was.

“Have you slept with him?”

His gaze is steady. “No.”

“Are you going to?”

“Jesus christ, Minho, is this an interview? I came over to fuck you, not to talk about how likely I am to sleep with some other guy.”

It strikes a nerve.

“Are you seriously that single minded that you can’t realize that you’re going to have to make a choice between the two of us eventually? I’m not going to be able to keep being the guy you sleep with after going on expensive dates with a guy who wants to be your boyfriend.” Minho’s chest hurts, almost, but he continues. “This concerns me too, and it concerns him. Not just you.”

Kibum’s eyebrow flickers down, quick like he’s been threatened. He’s still close, legs tossed over Minho’s lap, face inches away like this is just foreplay to him. And then he pulls away, because that’s what he does, pulls away and stands from the couch and asks questions he’d know the answer to if he could see what everyone else does. “Why would he want to be my boyfriend?”

And that question is so, so moronic that Minho doesn’t even know how to process it. He stands too.

“Of course he would, why else do you think he’s going out with you?”

Kibum blinks. “I don’t know, the same reason you are, I guess.”

Minho thinks that might be true, but not in the way Kibum seems to have convinced himself.

He also ignores Kibum’s wording. Or his lack of specification. The idea that Minho is going out with him, like they’re not just fucking and absolutely nothing else, even though there’s so much swirling around them.

And he doesn’t know exactly how to say what he’s been feeling, because it’s been up in the air for so long, and he hates not knowing what Kibum wants, and he’s tired of waiting to be told. He’s always been a hopeless romantic and Kibum is standing right in front of him with his heart open again and Minho doesn’t want to fuck it up this time.

Kibum is right there right now with a set jaw and hands in fists by his side and he’s also right there two years ago with big wide eyes and a breathless I’m sorry, this was a mistake.

“I don’t know what I want right now. Isn’t that allowed? I thought that’s what this was for.” Kibum’s voice is high and tight like he’s actually asking for permission. And Minho’s never been patient with him but there’s something in his voice that makes another little piece of Kibum click in place.

Minho’s starting to learn why Kibum gets defensive over things he can’t wrap his head around. He doesn’t like being cared about, doesn’t know how to be cared for, and it’s too foreign.

And he wants to remain level headed, but that’s foreign with Kibum too.

“God,” he breathes deep through his nose. “Do you think it’s fair to drag other people in before you figure it out? Or before we actually talk about why we’re doing this in the first place?”

“You’re the one who wanted things to change,” Kibum says, voice low, like he’s embarrassed.

Minho’s heart nearly gives out. “I wanted things to change because I couldn’t keep hating you forever! You want to just go on hating me, back to normal? We were miserable like that.”

“Minho, you dumbass, you have to know that I never hated you!”

Kibum says, loud, thundering, it like it’s obvious, like he hasn’t been avoiding him and picking fights with him and telling him he’s hated him for two years. Like they weren’t perfectly fine as friends who made each other’s hearts stutter until Kibum kissed him and ran away, cut Minho out of his life like he should have never been there to begin with.

Like Kibum hasn’t been redressing himself with a scowl on his face, like Minho couldn’t taste the hatred on his tongue those months ago.

“Why wouldn’t I think you hated me?” His head is starting to hurt. He hasn’t had a fight like this with Kibum in too long. And it’s all the more confusing now. “You had no problem letting me think kissing me was some monumental mistake. That you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.”

It’s sick that this is the first time they’ve ever even mentioned the kiss.

Even just digging the words out of the layers of dirt and grime and betrayal and hurt, unearthing it takes a monumental amount of effort. It feels wrong, like digging out a time capsule years too soon or decades too late. It feels like it has nothing but gunpowder and matchboxes inside. He feels the blow of it even before Kibum lights the match.

He lights it quick, it doesn’t even look like he’s prepared for him to speak before he does, exasperated.

“And why the hell would I have kissed you in the first place if I wasn’t in love with you?”

There’s a beat of silence before Kibum continues, but it lasts forever in the vacuum of his apartment. He can’t hear the beating of his heart or the mighty crack in Kibum’s voice or the rain beating against his balcony. Not a thought in his head.

“Why the hell would I have stayed if I made a fool of myself by kissing someone who clearly didn’t want me back?” This time, his voice is broken and burned, and Minho is so many things he can’t describe.

His brain short-circuits and he blinks and Kibum’s pushing past him and Minho is tired of not reacting quickly enough and letting Kibum fall through the gaps in his fingers, so he grabs him by the arm, noticing his sleeve is wet with tears and not rain.

“You can’t just leave every time you’re afraid, Kibum,” he says, softly, throat raw and voice thick. Like the tension in the room has sucked everything out of him. Fire and ash blowing everything away.

“Who says I’m afraid?” Kibum breathes it, dead silent and booming loud. “I know how this ends. I’m ready for it.”

“Yeah? How does it end?”

He gestures, hands waving between them. “This stops. You go back to being disgusted by me and I go on dates with a guy who says he likes me until he decides he doesn’t anymore. That’s how it works.”

“You can’t decide that!” Minho’s exasperated and out of breath. “Why do you think you know how other people feel about you? Why are you trying to convince me how I feel about you? You never even asked, you never even tried.”

Kibum’s hair is mussed up like Minho’s already had his hands through it. He looks defeated, and Minho realizes there’s so much he doesn’t understand. He looks small like this, hurt and tired.

“Because I’m not stupid, Minho! Because the alternative is that I’ve spent two years ruining the only thing I’ve ever really wanted. I don’t know what you want, but I know you deserve so much more.”

Minho doesn’t know what to say to that. He feels full and empty and vindicated and hurt and he wonders if he’s ever wanted anything other than Kibum. If he’s ever wanted to know anything more than he’s wanted to know him.

He’s never been good at it either. He never knew if Kibum wanted someone to chase after him, never knew if he was even the person that could. Minho was always too busy fighting back to listen or understand.

And maybe Minho’s done his fair share of running away or fighting back, but he’s tired.

He doesn’t really know what he wants, other than one thing: “I don’t want you to leave again.”

And Kibum’s lips curl around a frown, tips of his ears hot and red and Minho wishes he could just crash forward to take him in his arms instead of standing here in his apartment like an idiot.

“I think you were right.”

He wonders if Kibum’s ever said that to him. “When?”

“When you said that I should figure out what I want before I drag other people into it.” A tear falls and lands on hardwood floor.

It’s today and it’s also two years ago, and Kibum is dropping a bomb and leaving him in the rubble but this time instead of shock and confusion, it’s something else.

Maybe Minho should figure out what he wants too.

What he wants, beyond taking Kibum into his arms and kissing him until he’s okay, until he stops hurting, until they both do. What happens after that when it’s just the two of them, and there’s no one else, and they can’t distract themselves from talking by fucking, even if it feels good?

So he nods, and he takes Kibum’s elbows in his hands to pull him in and he kisses him again. Kibum lets him. Opens his mouth and breathes hot and slow and final. His lips are salty and they’re bitten, and they’re raw, and Minho has to remind himself that he should, has to, break away, that this is crossing a line.

He wonders if there are any more to cross.

And Kibum goes but his jacket stays, wet and hanging across the back of Minho’s chair, and he doesn’t touch it.

--

Kibum does a whole lot of nothing for a while. It’s something Taemin notices, tentative and kind of sweet in the way that he is, checking up on Kibum like he’s not checking up on him.

His relationship with Taemin has always been this light and warm thing. A sweet rivalry born only from respect.

He wonders again what it would be like if he fell into that room with anyone else in the group. Anyone else in the world. It would be easier than this.

Taemin has a broad smile and he brings Kibum bland and half-burned baked goods because he notices that Kibum has been working and working and thinking and not blowing up their group chat or texting Taemin directly at all hours.

He’s there when Kibum opens his door, smile wide and bright and already walking in with a plastic container and going on about how “Jinki came over and helped me out but I didn’t tell him that they were for you, just that I didn’t want to fuck them up. He was pretty busy anyway, I think he was in the middle of a Jonghyun thing.”

Taemin stops to give him a pointed look.

It’s small but Kibum smiles.

“Thanks Taemin,” he says, and means it.

And Taemin sits himself down in his designated spot and turns on a dance competition show they sometimes watch together, and holds out what might be a chocolate cookie and could also very well be anything else. Kibum takes it and bites it and it’s not bad.

Taemin doesn’t push, because he’s not like that. He’s never been overbearing, and even though he’s always been frustrating, he’s never elicited any of what he’s felt from Minho.

Kibum doubts anyone has made him feel the way Minho has.

He’s hardly processed what Minho’s told him, too preoccupied with the things that he let slip after years of keeping it buried. But some of it comes through: the fact that Minho feels something. He doesn’t know why. Isn’t ready to accept that yet.

“You’re thinking really loudly,” Taemin says. “I feel like I can read your mind.”

Kibum snorts. “Yeah? What am I thinking about?”

Taemin considers for a moment before speaking. “Probably whatever you and Minho fought about. Or whatever this guy is doing with his hair,” he says, pointing at some poor dancer with gelled spikes like it’s 2007.

“How do you know we fought?”

“Well Jinki was saying how Minho’s upset about something and won’t say what it is. Always at the gym and stuff. Basically he’s been in a shitty mood since you started being in a shitty mood,” Taemin tucks his feet onto his chair with him.

“So?”

He shrugs. “You guys are all over each other lately and now you’re not. I figured he told you he loved you or something and you ran away.”

That stings. Kibum smacks him almost as a reflex. “Fuck you,” he manages to say but can’t really defend himself any further.

“Was I right?” Taemin’s face lights up comically.

“Of course not,” he turns to stare directly at the screen. “For so many reasons, starting with the fact that Minho would never tell me something like that.”

He doesn’t think about the fact that Minho had said something about how he felt. It’s blurry in his brain, he wasn’t ready to hear it. He’s not ready now.

Taemin looks more self-satisfied than Kibum thinks is strictly appropriate given how much he feels like his entire life is crumbling around him. “I’m a lot more observant than you guys seem to think. I’m not the clueless teenager anymore that I was years ago. And also you guys are bad liars.”

Kibum lays his hand on his chest, aiming for disbelief. “I’m not lying to you.” Right now, he tacks on.

“Yeah, not right now,” he says. Kibum considers the possibility that Taemin can actually read his mind. Taemin points at a fading bruise on his clavicle he hadn’t bothered to cover up. “But if I asked you where you got that old hickey, you’ll either lie and tell me that Sanghun gave it to you, or you’ll lie and tell me that it wasn’t a hickey.”

He purses his lips. He often finds himself at an impasse with Taemin, knowing he’s too clever to be lied to, but flying so far under the radar that it doesn’t seem that way.

There’s a moment where Kibum doesn’t say anything, and Taemin doesn’t push, and it’s nice. 

“Why would you think that Minho is in love with me?” He tries not to draw attention to the way his voice cracks.

Taemin makes a show of rolling his eyes. “Sometimes I’m genuinely surprised by how dense you are with this kind of stuff. I’ve known you guys for basically a decade, and I’m pretty sure he’s loved you the entire time.”

He clenches his teeth. He’s not sure he likes love guru Taemin. “That’s stupid.”

“You’re stupid,” Taemin says back, no malice. “You’ve loved him too. You’re just a control freak and you don’t like it when you don’t know what people want from you. And don’t say you’re not a control freak, because you know it’s what makes you such a good performer, but it’s also why you never date anyone. Because you think that romance is some sort of game where one person always has power over the other one, just because they know how they feel.”

Kibum considers for a moment. He ignores the fact that Taemin is the one who’s finally getting through to him, which is both frustrating and relieving. Taemin’s always sort of understood him on some level. Every member of the group has gotten him in their own way. Each of them have made Kibum feel a little more whole.

He thinks that may have something to do with the fact that he’s always trying to dig himself empty. Take out the parts he doesn’t like and replace them with indifference and a need to control his image.

Because that’s so much of what being an idol is. He has to have complete control over how people see him, because fucking up once could cost him his job. And he’s had to become skilled at hiding pieces of himself to keep him safe and also make it look like he’s not hiding anything at all.

And then these people are here with him, warm and inviting and present and persistent , and Kibum can’t escape them. And they love him too much to care about the pieces he’s dug out.

Except one of them. One person who might be able to see him and miss the parts he took out. Who might make him want to piece himself back together.

He doesn’t know if it was an effect of growing up, or of being an idol, or of pushing himself harder and harder while he trained and learned. He doesn’t know if it was the first boy he kissed who broke his heart, or even the guy who cheated on him. He doesn’t know if it was the fact that he saw Minho for the first time and wanted it to be easy and it wasn’t.

Or the fact that it’s still not easy.

They’re quiet and Kibum’s grateful, and he kind of wants to tilt over to lean on Taemin’s shoulder. Taemin would let him if he did. But his brain runs too fast to do anything but sit and stare glassy-eyed at the screen. 

He still hasn’t explicitly broken their third rule yet.

“Can I run a hypothetical by you?”

Taemin raises his eyebrow. “Yeah, sure, I can pretend you’re running a hypothetical by me.”

“I’ll take it,” he says. He takes a deep breath. And he launches into a not-at-all hypothetical retelling of the entire story. Of meeting Minho and thinking he was this beautiful thing, and having it immediately shot back in his face, and how this guy he thought was so wonderful was actually his exact opposite. And Taemin makes a face but says nothing. He lets Kibum tell him about how their childhood rivalry ended and that thought sneaks back, tricking himself into thinking that maybe Minho was what people wrote books and poems and lyrics about.

And Kibum tells Taemin that after years of hating him and years of falling for him, in some miraculous decision he wishes he could blame on alcohol, Kibum kisses him. It’s short and it’s sweet and Minho’s lips are chapped and open and when Kibum pulls back his heart falls out of his chest and burns through the floor, because Minho looks confused and terrified and Kibum read it all wrong, he must have.

So he goes back to ignoring Minho and hating him and making excuses. And he dates other guys who treat him like shit, and he wishes every one of them was Minho. And after two years of digging himself out and burying himself somewhere else, in some miraculous decision he actually can blame on alcohol, Kibum kisses him again. And this time Minho kisses him back. And they don’t talk about it because neither of them know how to and neither of them want to, and also because Kibum has spent two years and also his entire life digging himself up and burying himself far away.

It works for a while because they have rules that they set up and then they break every single one. And Minho finds the pieces of him that he’s buried someplace else and he tells Kibum why it wouldn’t be bad to stuff it back inside.

Kibum isn’t known for making good decisions and he’s not known for being level headed, especially around Minho, but he makes bad decisions and has emotional outbursts anyway. And he’s never in his life considered what he might want outside of what he can provide for other people. A performance piece or a bragging right or a good fuck.

And Taemin listens the entire time, and Kibum loves him for it, but he also wishes he would just interrupt him with some stupid quip so he wouldn’t have to go on for this long.

“Hypothetically,” Taemin says, finally, after Kibum is out of breath. “Have you told him any of this?”

“Not exactly.”

“Hypothetically you’re stupid.”

“Hey!” Kibum smacks him again, right on his thigh. He ignores Taemin’s yelp. “I’m just… worried.”

He hasn’t ever really said out loud how afraid he was of getting hurt by Minho. The last thing he needs is to feel like a coward on top of everything else, but he knows that that’s it. That Minho has been one of the best things that’s ever happened to him, this bright and shining thing that he’s never really deserved. And if he just pushes him away it won’t hurt. If he never makes any decisions about it, never hopes, it won’t hurt when it doesn’t work out. Because of course it couldn’t.

And Taemin is quiet for a moment, considering and thoughtful, and sometimes Taemin looks like this right before he’s about to say something incredibly stupid.

“Kibum, have you ever considered that you’re not opposites like you think you are? You’re honestly exactly the same.”

He hadn’t.

--

It’s a long handful of weeks preparing for their comeback. Minho throws himself into the work: he writes and he records and he gets his hair redone and he doesn’t think about Kibum. He doesn’t think about if Kibum wants him to come running after him romantically in the night, like he’s in a drama. But he doesn’t know what Kibum wants, and he figures he should figure out what he wants, too. After days and months and years of actively not thinking about what he could possibly want, if he let himself have it.

It will sneak up on him in the middle of the night. Minho lays on sheets that Kibum has laid on and stared at his ceiling that Kibum has stared up at and thinks why the hell would I have kissed you in the first place if I wasn’t in love with you?

And things start to click into place. Things that have never made sense start to. Minho finally lets himself think about them, and he finally tries to figure out how it makes him feel too.

Maybe this whole time being with Kibum has been dangerous because it was always going to be like this. Always high-stakes and passionate and confusing and either going to end in something big and meaningful or something that burns itself to the ground. All they’ve ever been able to do is make big tides and wait for them to crash.

He thinks about meeting Kibum and not knowing how he made him feel. He remembers being confused and young and stubborn. He remembers being angry for a long time until he wasn’t anymore. He remembers wanting to be around him all the time, he remembers having dreams that he would try desperately to ignore in the morning.

He remembers Kibum coming into his room and laying a soft hand on his cheek and pressing tentative soft lips on his, and running away and never coming back.

And he remembers two years of learning a lot of things about himself all alone.

Part of him hates it. Part of him has hated Kibum for so long that it just became something easy to do. It was easy to hate him and it was harder to try and understand him. Listening to Kibum’s body when it begs for something that he doesn’t have the words to say. Listening to the way his breathing slowly evening out when he falls asleep curled up on his side, naked and warm. Listening to the things that make Kibum pull away.

Part of him thinks that it had to be like this. Any kind of relationship with Kibum was always going to be impossible to navigate.

If Kibum had never kissed him, nothing would have ever happened. Kibum was moving out and he would have distracted himself, and he would have dated other people, and Minho would go on with a stone in his chest with no way of understanding what to do with it.

If Kibum had never left, nothing would have ever happened. Minho didn’t know himself well enough to even realize that this was something that he wanted.

If Kibum had never kissed him again, nothing would have ever happened. They could have gone so long pretending like they were happy and letting the others believe it too.

So Minho’s not mad anymore. It all had to happen for him to end up tangled in his sheets, thinking about how much he misses him. After all this, he misses Kibum’s mouth and his body and his brand of shampoo and the way he apologizes by making food and confesses by tearing his heart out from his chest and leaving it right there, even if he’s too afraid to come back for it.

He misses all of this but he doesn’t push. One thing he knows is that Kibum can’t be pushed. One thing he wants to do well, if this is going to become anything other than the shit storm it’s turned into, is to try to understand. And let things happen.

And for the first forty-eight hours he spends his time checking his phone for a message and thinking about checking his phone for a message. After that, he spends his time in the gym with Jonghyun, and spending all the time he would typically be spending with Kibum with Jinki, and actually not checking his phone until he’s back in bed at night and can’t help it.

Jinki doesn’t ask very many questions. He makes Minho food and doesn’t ask why he’s not in the mood for jajangmyeon like he usually is when he’s doing poorly.

He throws himself into putting together the pieces that Jonghyun and Jinki have been laying out: their sleepovers and their gentle touches. He calls Taemin at odd hours to talk about how oblivious they’ve all been.

He wonders what it’s like for it to be easy like that.

Jonghyun spots him at his weights and waxes poetic about the things Jinki says to him. And Jinki comes over to watch movies and remarks on every romantic thing like he’s been feeling that way as well.

And Minho wants so badly to be able to say yes, me too. I’m in love too. Kibum tells me things he doesn’t tell anyone else and I feel whole when we’re together and torn apart when we’re not. He wants to and he thinks in another life maybe he should, but he never says anything like that. Kibum isn’t his the way Jonghyun and Jinki are each other’s.

A text comes in eventually.

Can I come over?

Different from the text on their last fight. Telling Minho: come over because I want to apologize. This is a question. Kibum is asking for permission.

He wonders if Kibum is sitting by his phone with a stuttering heart for a response the way Minho has been. He’s sitting on his couch and staring at Kibum’s jacket that he hasn’t moved.

There’s no follow-up this time, either, no clarification. They both know what they have to talk about.

He responds, a million different ways in his head before typing out two words: of course.

And there’s a piece of him that kicks back that he shouldn’t sound so eager. And another piece of him that doesn’t want to tone his feelings down anymore. If Kibum is going to come over and see him, he’s not going to keep himself from doing exactly what he wants.

From all their hookups, Minho’s perfectly aware of how long it takes Kibum to drive over. So when there’s a knock on his door after hardly five minutes, too soon for Minho to fully panic, he’s sent into a tailspin.

He’s seen Kibum, but they haven’t spoken or really acknowledged each other. Kibum has looked sorry and preoccupied for weeks and Minho did the same. So Kibum standing at his doorstep with his sleeves pulled over his hands, looking smaller than he did when he left, makes Minho ache something fierce.

“Hi,” Minho squeaks out.

“Hi,” Kibum says. He clears his throat. “I was over Jinki’s. I figured if you didn’t want to talk or something I could stay over there but… I’m glad you said I could.”

The first response his mind gives him falls out of his mouth before he has time to consider if it’s the right thing to say. “I thought you were the one who didn’t want to see me.”

It doesn’t come out quite as mean as maybe it would have meant before. Back when they were so used to being hostile that they didn’t know how to not be. But it also stings on its way out. It’s truer than he was intending.

“Yes well, I,” he takes a deeper breath, eyes scanning the apartment. “Wanted to talk to you about that. Can I come in?”

Minho steps aside, lets himself feel hopeful, doesn’t let himself feel anxious about the state of his apartment. The amount of time he’s spent running from his own thoughts haven’t exactly translated to keeping his place spotless. Kibum slips off his shoes and pads in past the threshold like he’s worried it’ll collapse around him.

And he sits down at the couch he sat on last time, where he had his feet across Minho’s lap, except this time he’s reserved. Curled in on himself. He looks young like this.

They’re both young, to be fair. They’ve known each other for so many years but in the grand scheme of things, they’re basically kids. It’s weird, because Minho feels like he’s had enough thoughts and feelings for Kibum to last several lifetimes.

“I stopped seeing Sanghun,” is what Kibum says first. Even just the name kicks hot jealousy into his bloodstream. Good to know that's still there. Kibum continues. “Immediately, really. I told him sort of how I was feeling and he understood.”

Minho nods. He doesn’t really know what to say. “That’s good. That’s probably what’s best if you’re confused.”

“I’m not confused anymore, I don’t think,” he says, voice lilting up at the end like a question.

Minho doesn’t really know what to expect. They hardly have experience in conversations like this. Not with each other, anyway. So maybe this is it. A gateway for them to pretend that they’re adults who know how to talk about their feelings rather than run for them for as long as they’ve known each other.

Kibum’s voice is raw and his sweater drowns him and Minho wonders if Kibum will let him offer tea. He supposes there’s only really one way to find out.

“Do you want something to drink? I have the tea you like.”

Kibum nods and they patter over to the kitchen and they wait for the kettle to boil and it feels an awful lot like they enjoy each other’s presence. Both of their unique silences keeping each other company.

“I’m sorry. You asked me to stay the other week and I left anyway,” his voice comes out in short bursts.

“It’s okay,” Minho says, and he means it, because clearly they both needed to work through a few things.

“But I want to tell you why,” he says, emphatically, and waits for Minho to nod. “I’m not really used to just letting myself be happy. And I was starting to feel happy with you, and then I sort of freaked out because it seemed like you were starting to feel happy with me too. And that never ends up well.”

Minho blinks, struggles to breathe. “Why not?”

Kibum’s feet shuffle on the floor while he stirs honey into his tea. He gathers his thoughts and Minho is learning that he has to let him. Kibum has to let him in. This isn’t going to work if they have to force their way inside each other.

“Did I ever tell you about my first ever kiss with a guy?” Minho shakes his head. “I was a teenager. It was my best friend from childhood. We’d been inseparable for years, and I liked him so much, and this was before I had started training to be an idol, so I had a lot more time to hang out with him and a lot less fear about it. Not no fear, but less. And he kissed me in my room while we did our homework and it scared the shit out of me. And he finished his work and he went home and he changed his mind about me and I never changed mine. I thought about him for years and it still hurt. And that’s how it’s always gone. Every time I put myself out there and I get something back, they change their mind, and I never know when it’s going to happen.”

Minho thinks about it for a moment. Kibum’s instinct to run and hide. Born out of this notion that if he waits around that he’s the one that’s going to be left behind.

And Kibum is here telling him this, and there’s pleading in his eyes, so clearly hoping Minho will understand where he’s coming from. And he does.

“Did I ever tell you about my first kiss with a guy?” Minho asks, searching.

Kibum blanches but shakes his head.

“I wasn’t a teenager, I was older. I’d kissed girls before and I’d dated girls before and I’d slept with girls before, and it was all fine. I was private about my life and that was fine. And this guy was my friend for a while, and I just couldn’t get enough of him, and he was so different from me. I’d never met anyone like him in my entire life. And I thought I had sort of figured myself out by that point, and then he kissed me like it was nothing, and it turned my whole life upside down.”

He and Kibum are both just standing in Minho’s kitchen, and he feels like he’s back there again. He’s been feeling like that a lot lately.

But he has to give himself credit. There’s so much that has changed. He drops his attempt at vagueness.

“And I probably wasn’t ready back then, it wouldn’t have become anything. I was way too scared and I didn’t understand so much, and I get now why you left. And I get why you left again. But I don’t want you to leave anymore.”

Kibum’s expression is unreadable. He nods slowly. “I don’t want to leave anymore either.”

“You don’t have to,” Minho says. He wants, so much, to say more. But Kibum speaks again.

“I was talking to Taemin,” is how he starts, and neither of them can help cracking a smile. “And you said just now that we’re so different, and I always thought the same thing. I used to tell Jonghyun all the time, before debut even, that you and I were just too different, and he would always tell me that we were exactly the same, and I didn’t really believe him all those years because it felt like he was just saying it so that I would try harder to get along with you.”

Minho’s smile persists. “That sounds like him.”

“I know! But Taemin pointed it out too, and I think that they were right.” Kibum glides back to the couch, looking a lot brighter, a lot more like a weight has lifted off his shoulders. More comfortable than he’s seen him look in years maybe. “And I don’t remember if I’ve said this before, but you’re a really loyal person. And really passionate, and truly smart. And you’re also completely hardheaded and stubborn and I know I’m the same way.”

“That checks out,” Minho says. “It’s kind of amazing that you were in love with me back then, knowing all of that.”

Kibum doesn’t respond right away but he doesn’t break eye contact. His hands play at the edge of his sleeve wrapped around the handle of his mug, tension hanging in the air. What was supposed to be a quip is heavy around them.

“I never stopped, really.”

Minho’s glad he’s sitting down when Kibum says it. Even if he was thinking, or hoping, he wasn’t truly expecting it.

And so Kibum keeps going. “I was scared back then when I kissed you the first time, but I didn’t stop loving you. And we started doing this, hooking up, and I thought I’d gotten over it, and I wanted to so badly. Because, well, I didn’t want it to matter to me if you changed your mind and didn’t want to do this anymore. But it didn’t stop. Ever.”

Minho has to reach out and touch him. Kibum is out of breath and a little defensive and Minho has a hand on his waist and another on his cheek before he even registers moving. They’re close and Kibum’s shaking and this is another moment, Minho thinks. Another time Kibum is laying his heart out on the table and pretending like it’s okay if it stays there.

“What if I don’t want to change my mind?” He swallows. “What if I love you too?”

Kibum’s face melts just a little under his hand but it doesn’t relax completely. “Do you?”

He doesn’t even have to think about it. The truth comes out in a tumble.

“I think I’ve loved you for a long time. For an insanely long time. But what was it that you called me? Completely hardheaded?” His head pounds and he wants to hear Kibum laugh or move or do something other than sit and watch his heart beat loud enough to shake the room.

“To be fair I also called myself completely hardheaded,” Kibum says, finally letting his smile reach his eyes. “I did absolutely convince myself you would never want me. I think I might still be afraid you’ll change your mind.”

And Minho’s heart chips just a bit at the thought.

And he’s still learning what to say, and he’s still not great at it, and he thinks later he’ll ask Kibum what kind of thing he’d like to hear, but he also knows that the only thing he wants to do is kiss the fear right off his lips.

They surge together, crashing in, gravitational and slow and it feels like the first time and it feels like the last time. Just the thought of there being a last time makes him push harder. He says the things he’s always wanted to say like this.

I love you.

I missed you.

I need you.

I won’t change my mind. I couldn’t possibly.

Kibum’s lips turn up under his, cheeks flushing, pulling back and smacking a hand on Minho’s chest. “Shut up, you’re so cheesy.”

“You love me,” Minho says, and he pulls Kibum back into him, and it’s so easy this time. So easy to let Kibum have him and be had by Kibum. It’s easy to say you love me and know he does. “You can’t take it back.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” Kibum says. It’s teasing and it’s genuine in the sweet spot they’ve decided to live in.

And they kiss and Minho has his fingers stroking Kibum’s cheek, and he turns into them like a flower following the sun.

And Minho could have it like this, ending it like this, collapsing on his couch, both so exhausted from running from each other. Some kind of reprieve from the thing they’d spent all their time doing instead of loving each other.

But of course loving Kibum make him want him more.

Of course Minho takes Kibum in his arms and pulls him into his chest and kisses him like he never has to stop. And he drops Kibum onto his bed like he’ll always have a spot there. And he unwraps him like a present, and his heart beats so far out of his chest it’s a surprise he’s even upright.

And suddenly he’s not; Kibum’s dragged him down with him, on top of him, caging him in.

Kibum tastes like the same toothpaste and smells like the same shampoo and Minho has missed it so much, wants to drown in it. He kisses Kibum’s fingers and his palm and all the way up his arms. He bites Kibum’s ear and runs his teeth along his collarbone and runs his lips along his chest, kisses his nipples.

Minho runs his tongue along the dip of his hips and memorizes the way he whines and shifts, tries arching into his mouth for more, for anything.

He figures he was a goner the first time Kibum ever begged for him. He should have known right then that there was no one else he could possibly want. And when Kibum moans and begs and groans in frustration, cock tickling Minho’s cheek, he knows that there was no way he’d come back from this unscathed.

With Kibum underneath him like this, he can’t help himself but to push his legs apart, nuzzle underneath him and slip his tongue and fingers against him like it’s the thing he missed the very most. He promises he could suffocate down here and be happy about it. Because Kibum is dizzyingly receptive, and unabashedly loud, and pulls Minho up by his hair when he’s wet and hot and hard and three fingers deep.

Kibum looks at him like this, spread out, hair fanned and looking so much different than the other times, and time stops, and they just look at each other, and after everything he doubts anyone else has had the privilege of seeing Kibum quite like this. Can’t decide whether to be grateful or angry that no one else has loved Kibum enough to be loved back.

His fingers dance over Minho’s chest like they’re logging through a map, and they’re together again, and they’re both too stuck in this moment to bother closing their eyes. Minho pushes inside him, slow and hot and suffocating and Kibum’s face cracks into pleasure, and it’s the best thing Minho’s ever seen.

They arch close and Minho bottoms out and he brushes Kibum’s hair out of his face only to watch it crumble, crashing.

Minho’s about to ask if he’s okay when Kibum has both hands on his jaw, crashing their lips together, fanning tears on both of their faces. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Kibum smiles, watery, breath hitching when he collapses back into the mattress. “I’m going to cry and it’s going to be embarrassing.”

“Okay,” Minho says.

“Fuck me until I’m crying for a less embarrassing reason, Minho.” His voice is a little raw. “Please.”

Minho smirks and kisses him again, this time wet and hard and with closed eyes. He pulls a leg over his arm and lets his other hand rest on Kibum’s neck. And he’s learned all these things that drive Kibum crazy and he wants to utilize all of them. He plans to for a long time.

They’re loud and Minho can’t stop chanting Kibum’s name and running his hands across his entire body, feeling the way he sparks up electric at his touch. The way he groans when he presses down on his wrists and ankles and hips. Kibum begs, and Minho’s glad it was always bullshit that he said he never would.

It builds fast, pent up and desperate, the both of them.

Minho has a tongue on Kibum’s calf when he tells him he’s getting close. That Kibum’s perfect and he’s never gotten to say it before. That he knows Kibum wants Minho to come inside, to fill him up, that he’ll do anything Kibum wants.

They’re both strung out and Minho comes first and more tears slip from Kibum’s eyes and Minho can’t breathe but he kisses them away anyway. And he’s so sensitive that it starts to hurt, but he can’t imagine pulling out with Kibum as close as he can tell he is.

He lets Kibum rock his hips and touch himself and bite his fingers and pull Minho’s hair because he likes the way Minho crumbles for him at the touch. He comes like a vice grip with a shout and a death grip on the roots of Minho’s hair and his vision goes blurry for seconds or minutes or hours.

They’re tangled together, shining and sweaty and exhausted and in complete stupid consuming and overwhelming love.

Minho knows Kibum’s half asleep when he says, almost to no one, “no more rules.”

“Just one,” Minho says, watching Kibum’s head on his chest.

Kibum breathes. “What’s that?”

“Don’t leave.”

Kibum is almost too asleep to respond with words, but he does take Minho’s hand and lace his fingers through. He whispers: "I couldn't possibly," and he squeezes. And he doesn’t let go.