Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sun was hidden by the clouds.

It was already half-past five in the afternoon—the sun was yet to set, and it was bright around the campus. The seats scattered around the side of their university’s field were filled with students, either hanging out with their friends or burying their noses in their lecture notes.

Minho is walking on the side of the field. His lectures for the day just ended, and he’s now heading toward his dorm to cook himself some dinner. Changbin, his best friend slash partner-in-crime from another college, was walking beside him. He’ll probably leech off of Minho’s cooked dinner, not that Minho minds. Typical college students living on their own most likely live off of cheap takeout or instant food, but Minho was fortunate enough to come from a rich family that was able to give him more than just comfort for his daily life in the city. He isn’t selfish, so he just lets Changbin be. It’s not like he can finish all of the food he cooks on his own, and Changbin's offering to wash his dishes and pans as a courtesy for the free dinner helped Minho as well. It’s a nice give and take, even if Minho can see Changbin’s frustration trying to wash off the grease from Minho’s oily pans all night.

They walk side by side, Changbin holding up a slightly worn-out paper of his notes, reading over them to memorize some terms for his upcoming quiz tomorrow.

"At this point, I’ll memorize all the terms you’re saying out loud before you."

"Mean," Changbin playfully shoves him. "It’s not my fault you memorize quickly, you know. "Perhaps you can answer my quiz for me."

"I’ll make sure you fail if you do that. I’ll probably score just one point below the passing score out of spite."

"Shut up," Changbin mumbles. "You’re annoying."

"And you aren’t?"

"Let me study in peace."

"Your studying is disrupting my own peace."

"I will leave you here to wash all your greasy dishes—oh look, it’s Kim Seungmin."

Minho doesn’t have to look at the direction Changbin is pointing at. He already knows he’s there from afar, his own circle of friends utilizing their field to play sports or whatever.

"Looking all dirty while playing volleyball again?"

"Yeah, but at least he looks hot."

"What?"

"What do you mean ‘what?’ Have you seen the guy?"

"Yeah. Do you have the hots for him?"

"Not really, but I’m not blind."

Minho looks to his right, at the view of the field, and he sees the spawn of Satan right there. Seungmin has the ball, preparing to serve with the ball in his left hand and ready to hit it with his right. Their eyes meet as Minho walks, and they don’t break eye contact.

Seungmin’s eyes give him a challenging look, and he throws the ball from his left hand and gives it a powerful hit with his right hand, all while maintaining eye contact with Minho. The ball flew to the other side of the net, with a loud smack when Seungmin’s palm made contact with the ball.

Seungmin stares at him with a mischievous look and smirks, and Minho watches him with glinting eyes before they break eye contact.

Changbin is right, and Minho is not blind either.

"Changbin was right."

"Hmm? What did he say?"

"That you were hot."

"I thought we had already established that."

Minho huffs, pulling some of Seungmin’s hair that he was previously running his hand through.

"Ow!"

"You deserve that, narcissistic freak."

"It’s not narcissistic if you compliment me. And I can’t believe you admitted that because your best friend said so."

"He subsidizes everything I do. And you have to thank me for sneaking in an extra serving of the bulgogi earlier because Changbin wouldn’t take no for an answer when he asked if he could eat the one I set aside for you."

“I always express my gratitude. I’m not ungrateful."

"Never said you were," Minho laughs. "And you already have a big ego; I’m not inflating it anymore."

Seungmin sits up from lying down between his boyfriend’s thighs and turns around to face him. "You need to have more pride in me. I’m dating you."

"But does anyone apart from us know that?"

"Touchê."

The sky is already black.

It’s late, but the university is as alive as ever. A lot of students were still at the library where Minho came from, probably up to cram a deadline that was due before midnight. The university’s varsity baseball team was doing rounds using half of the field, and the other half was occupied by a few students. A few food establishments were open and were also filled with both students and employees of the university.

Minho has just completed some of his requirements; a few group projects and a few individual tasks here and there. Changbin had already left the library before him, probably because he was already tired and hungry and he might collapse if he didn't take a break. He’s learning something boring, probably taxes or business ethics. Minho’s not interested.

Minho had his A4 binder clutched in his arms because it was too big to fit inside his bag, which already had his laptop. His shoulders and back were starting to ache from all the fatigue accumulated from the day, and he was very much looking forward to collapsing on his bed to get some sleep.

Minho is a mechanical engineering student. He’s in his third year, and he isn’t enjoying the college experience so far. There was barely any time for other things, such as his personal life, and he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that some students enjoy joining organizations that are basically just extra work on their shoulders. He used to enjoy them before college, but joining organizations now when he’s already struggling to balance his academics and his athletic obligations is his biggest nightmare.

He lives alone, in a decent dorm room a few streets away from the campus. The dorm rooms that the university offered were too cramped, and he had to share them with someone he barely knew, and if he’s unlucky, he’ll have to tolerate terrible lifestyles and habits for a whole year or so.

His parents were well-off; they bought him a comfortably-sized and well-ventilated room while he lived in Seoul. All his expenses were covered by them, and he’s fortunate enough to live in a good space. All he had to worry about was maintaining the place, but that would be easy with Minho’s monthly allowance.

Another reason why Minho didn’t want to live on campus is because of his babies. His little brothers. The loves of his life. His cats.

He brought all three of them to Seoul for emotional support. He couldn’t look after them 24/7, of course, but he walks them during the night if he’s not tired and they have an automatic feeder. The quality of their lives mattered more than Minho’s, and he was totally fine with that.

As he walks his way home, he sees a familiar jersey. Maroon with black and white linings and prints—with the back saying "Kim, 09."

Kim Seungmin from pre-med, one of his institute’s volleyball players for the university’s sports week. He’s one of the people Minho will be playing against in the said sports week. He’s wearing contact lenses today, no rimmed glasses on his face, and sweat all around his neck and forehead. He’s playing alone, probably practicing his serves.

Seungmin probably felt his gaze, and he turned around to look at him. His neutral face morphed into a mad one the moment his vision landed on Minho. Minho holds back a laugh.

"Stop working so hard, Kim. The field and net would still be here tomorrow."

"Seems like you just finished studying. I don’t see how you’re in a position to say enough is enough."

"Academics and extracurriculars are different, Kim. But I see what your priorities are."

"You’re not special enough that beating you and your team would be my top priority." He hits a ball. "You have to work on that superiority complex of yours."

"I didn’t say anything about being superior. I’m just saying that you have your priorities."

"You got it wrong, then," Seungmin says, pushing his hair away from his face. "If we have different priorities, then you go ahead and study your ass off. Leave a man alone."

"Are you scared of losing?"

"I never lose."

"Doesn’t seem like it."

"Look," Seungmin drops the ball, irritated. "Both of us are obviously tired. You have something to do, I have something to do. Why don’t you leave me alone and do your own thing? I don’t know what it is that you’re desperately making me stop doing shit. Leave before I mistake that you want me to stop training because you want to get me alone all for yourself."

"Who’s full of himself now?" Minho teases, despite seeing Seungmin’s angry expressions. "I would not want to have a sweaty, dirty man all for me."

"You speak like you are not an athlete yourself."

"I’m not disgustingly focused on it, unlike you."

"You’ll regret it when your team loses."

Minho is already tired.

It was barely a few hours after noon, but the tiredness was already creeping into his skin.

It has been a busy week, they were halfway through their midterms period which means that their professors were already dropping a bunch of projects and papers that they have to accomplish, or else they would kiss 60% of their marks goodbye. Minho remembers the snarky facial expression of his Integral Calculus terror professor, handing out a group project that certainly wouldn’t be done within a two-week time frame. Minho felt a quarter of his nervousness from the project be lifted when their professor allowed them to have their own groupings because he would certainly not survive if he was obligated to work with the slackers of the class. Minho is hardworking and he doesn’t want lazy people to profit off of it, alright.

His week was bombarded with quizzes and worksheets, but he can manage. He already cooked up five days' worth of his meals last Sunday so he can just reheat them and not consume much time cooking every time he went home (in courtesy of giving Changbin a heads up that Minho wouldn’t be able to feed him for a week). He always double-checks his bag if it has his laptop charger because he couldn’t risk accidentally leaving it behind. It was standard behavior, but Minho had to be extra sure. He always had to carry a large bottle of water in his bag because it’s a hassle to take a break from working just to buy water or get some from the water fountains of the buildings.

All in all, it was stressful, but Minho can manage. Of course he can.

He steps out of the comfort room’s cubicle and washes his hands, then proceeds to wash his face to freshen up. The water from the faucet wasn’t cold enough to wake him up, but he paid it no mind when he was fortunate enough to land on a working sink. The faucets are either dysfunctional or the sinks were clogged half of the time.

He hears the door of the comfort room open, but he couldn’t really see it because of the water in his eyes. He continues to splash the water on his face until he feels a bag being placed right next to him. He turns off the sink and dries his face with his handkerchief.

Minho feels like his stress has been doubled.

“Oh, you’re here.”

“Hey yourself,” Minho replied. “What are you doing here?”

“This is a common restroom, you know,” Seungmin snickers as he unzips his bag. “I have to change into my jersey, or whatever.”

“Cool,” Minho leans back on the sink. “What’s your name again, Kim? Is it Mina? Min-ah?”

“It’s Seungmin,” he washes his hands and starts to apply his contact lenses. “Only my family calls me Min-ah, but if you’re planning to have a family with me in the future then… I guess you could call me that.”

“Gross,” Minho grimaces like he does not feel the tips of his ears getting warmer. “Save your lines for your long line of admirers instead.”

“I’d rather use them to someone who would surely not take it to heart.”

“A heartbreaker, I see,” Minho pauses, and then his mind immediately goes through the five stages of grief absorbing what’s happening in front of him. “Hey, what the hell are you doing—”

“Have you not seen a shirtless man before? You’re an athlete, you have probably seen a lot of shirtless dudes in the locker room or whatever,” Seungmin shrugs into his newly worn jersey, which was previously his uniform until he decided to change right in front of Minho. Minho can definitely see the amused look Seungmin has in his eyes the moment he sees Minho’s even redder ears, but he decides to ignore that.

“Why are you not changing in your locker room, anyway?”

“The locker rooms are on the other side of the field. The university’s main library is here, which happens to be the nearest building I encounter on the field when I exit on my own. I am not walking through the harsh sunlight of 2 in the afternoon just to get changed when I can get changed in here.”

“Is it necessary to change right in front of me when there are cubicles one foot away from you?”

“In case you didn't see, I have this large ass bag. The shelves in the cubicle can only hold your phone with its width,” Seungmin folds his uniform, then motions to his uniform’s slacks. “Do you mind?”

“What kind of question is that?” Minho whisper-screams, scandalized. “Of course, I mind, go change your pants in the cubicle like a normal person.”

Seungmin laughs, covering his bracey smile with his hands. “Okay, okay. Your wish is my command, your majesty.”

“Idiot,” Minho remarks. Seungmin enters a cubicle, and he hears him unbuckling his belt. Minho tries not to think about how small Seungmin’s waist is, which was incredibly obvious because he had to wear a belt or else his pants would fall down the floor. And it doesn’t help that he tucks in his uniform polo, making his waist even harder to ignore.

“You seem too complacent,” Seungmin says from the cubicle.

“Complacent about what?”

“Complacent about the upcoming games.”

“The games are not until a couple of months from now, and it’s not even counted in our marks nor does it count for a scholarship. There’s no use in giving too much effort when there’s really no real fruit,” Minho shrugs, even if Seungmin can’t see him. “And I have a life outside of being an athlete, you already know that.”

“Nerd,” Seungmin comments as he exits the cubicle, his previously slacks-covered legs now wearing jersey shorts with his player number. “You should come to play with me now, then.”

“Why? Do you already want to know my tactics beforehand so you can successfully block my strikes and receives? Loosen up, Kim.”

“You’re so full of yourself.”

“So are you.”

“You sure you don’t want to play with me? Don’t you want to know your opponent’s strategies? I’m sure your… engineering obligations can be held back.”

“No they can’t,” Minho snorts, imagining his neverending list of requirements to pass. “Why do you want to play with me so bad, anyway? You can’t resist imagining me in a jersey playing on the field with you?”

“I just want a foreshadowing of you losing before we get to the real thing.”

“Good things come to those with patience.”

“I can wait for you, then,” Seungmin chuckles. “Since you want to keep it a surprise so bad.”

Minho cracks a smile. Two can play this game.

“Good luck with your practice, Kim. You seem to need a little help on preparing for it,” Minho stands up from leaning against the sink, then proceeds to hold one of Seungmin’s hands and raises it to his face. “I can help you.”

Minho feels like a demon was possessed in his body because he really didn’t know what made him so confident in pulling this stunt—he brings Seungmin’s fingers in his mouth, biting one of his rings and pulling them out, and putting it on his own palm. He does it again and again until Seungmin’s hands are bare from any sort of metal. Seungmin immediately shuts up the moment Minho bit one of his rings, his eyes were wide and Minho is sure that he isn’t hallucinating seeing the shade of cherries in his cheeks.

Minho lets go of his hand and drop all but one ring from his own hand to Seungmin’s, smiling afterward. “Rings aren’t allowed when using the volleyballs that are the properties of the university, Kim. You’re welcome.”

Minho walks away and exits the comfort room, a smile on his face when Seungmin still stands frozen, and his smile grows even wider when he sees one of Seungmin’s rings in his palm.

Seungmin can survive with one less ring, Minho supposes.

Seungmin is insufferable.

It’s a well-known fact, especially to someone like Minho. He’s conceited and ahead of himself.

Minho is in his usual element, staring at his laptop and getting some work done. He’s sitting beside the field, on one of the open huts. It was cloudy that day so the heat wasn’t a problem, and Minho desperately needed a new environment to get his head clear. He has been on the different floors of the university’s main library and the private study areas within it too, and he has nowhere else to go. He does not want to work in a café or anything, so the field it is.

His laptop was charging from the electrical outlet of the hut—thank heavens there were electrical outlets scattered around the university, they were life savers. Minho is in an Indian seat as his body is hunched towards his laptop in front of him, doing his paper for his Ethics class.

You see, Minho is minding his own business. He likes to believe he’s good at that. He’s absorbed in typing in his essay, his fingers aggressively typing in his word processor software. He has been well-focused, not being distracted by the noise of the other students around even without noise-canceling earphones.

Seungmin decides that this would be the perfect moment to disrupt his momentum.

You see, Changbin is supposed to arrive a few moments later. He had classes and was going to hang out with Minho after because apparently Minho working encourages him to do the same. Changbin even promised to buy Minho some fruit tea from one of the university’s establishments, as a bribe for letting Minho teach him a certain math lesson that he wouldn’t get.

“Minho!” He could hear from afar that Changbin was calling his name from a distance, quite in panic, so Minho looked in the direction of his voice, confused.

Unluckily for him, that’s the moment a ball hits him right on his face. Out of the blue.

Minho vaguely remembers protecting his beloved laptop shortly after the ball hit his face—if his nose is going to be broken, his laptop surely won’t. He winces in pain and clutches his nose, an eerie sensation is present in it, and Minho screws his eyes shut.

“Shit, Minho,” Changbin runs up to him and holds his shoulders like he was just not holding back his laugh from seeing his best friend receive a ball using his face. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Minho sarcastically answers. “I have a broken nose, of course I’m okay.”

Changbin at least has the decency to look apologetic, and he quickly closes Minho’s laptop and shoves it in his bag afterward. He gently prompts him to stand up, probably to lead him to a comfort room to see if anything’s wrong or to the godforsaken clinic. Minho feels a bunch of footsteps running toward him, but he doesn’t look at them.

“Are you okay?” Minho assumes this was one of the people running toward him.

“For fuck’s sake,” he mumbles under his breath, still clutching his nose.

“We’ll lead you to the clinic if you need to. I’m so sorry, one of our teammates spiked too hard and it landed on your face. We’re really sorry—”

“Just let it go,” Minho hastily says. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Please leave us alone now.”

“Are you sure? We’ll help you or anything—”

“I’m fine,” Minho gritted his teeth as he saw Changbin carrying his backpack. “Just let it go. It happens a lot, and I don’t really care. Go continue your game or whatever.”

The team seemed to shut up at that, but they still decided to bow and apologize a few more times to Minho. He brushes them off as he and Changbin leave the area.

“I tried to call you so you can dodge but I guess it was too late.”

“You think?”

“Sorry,” Changbin sheepishly says. “You sure you don’t need to go to the clinic or whatever?”

“It’s just a small hit, I’m not even bleeding. I’m more than fine.”

“How about ice?”

“I think I’ll appreciate that.”

“Okay,” Changbin smiles brightly. “I’ll buy you iced americano and I’ll ask for some ice for your nose. How does that sound?”

“Cool, but I’m not studying in a café. You better get that for takeout or something.”

“Of course, let’s go to the bleachers, I’m sure there won’t be any flying balls there.”

“Why would you phrase it that way?”

Changbin just laughs and continues to walk with Minho. He’s still wearing Minho’s bag, so now he looks like an idiot wearing two backpacks. Or maybe a cool boyfriend, except Changbin would be a terrible boyfriend because he’s too clingy, at least for Minho.

Minho feels someone burning holes at the back of his head, and he looks at who it is swiftly while they are making their turn.

Of course, it was him, staring at him with a blank expression on his face, like he did not just break his nose.

The culprit for Minho’s miserable state was Seungmin, who just received the ball that flew into Minho’s face. Probably because it flew so hard that it landed somewhere far and their teammates only found it now. There’s no one else.

Minho inevitably has a bruise on his face.

It’s not of a different color, Minho can just feel it whenever he touches his face. It’s also a pain in the ass to wear masks, but he would much rather endure a slight pain on his face than inhale a bunch of fine dust for a whole day.

Minho and his team finally started practicing—really, it wasn’t much of a pressuring thing and it was more about having fun. He’s playing with the other kids from the mechanical engineering college, a few people from his actual team, and some others that were playing just to relieve the stress from the day.

There were both Minho’s seniors and juniors, but it was still fun to play with them nonetheless. They were occupying a quarter of the field and some were even spectating them or lazing around them, waiting for some of their friends that were playing with him to finish up. Changbin was there as well, playing with Minho with the other team just to have fun.

“What time is it?” Minho places his hands at his waist and wipes his sweat with the back of his palm.

“4:12,” Changbin shouted as he went to his bag to check his phone.

“Ah, I’ll have to go.”

“Why?” A kid playing with Minho asked.

“Some quiz due at 6 in the night,” he shrugs. “I had fun! Thanks for playing with me.”

“Aw, that sucks, it was fun to play with you. Are you sure you don’t want to stay for a while? You still have like, more than one and half hours to go.”

“Nah, I’m good. I’ve been playing since 2 too so I think I already reached my quota.”

“Well then, bye Minho hyung! Let’s play again soon.”

“Sure, let’s play soon.”

Minho walks to the bleachers where his bag was and grabs his face towel to dry his face, neck, and back off. He winces as he forgot about the mild pain he felt when the towel hit his nose, but continued to dry off nevertheless. He wore his watch again and zipped up his bag, ready to take a cold shower when he got home to wash off the heat and accumulated sweat.

He swung his bag on one of his shoulders and quickly checked his phone for any notifications. There’s nothing new, thankfully, so he can focus on taking a shower and taking his quiz when he gets home.

“Pst,” a voice calls. Minho doesn’t look up from his phone, he assumes it was calling someone else.

“Lee Minho.”

Minho snaps his head up and abruptly stops in his tracks. He looks around and sees Seungmin standing near one of the gates in Minho’s University, which is, unfortunately, the one Minho uses. He’s holding an eco bag, one with the logo of the convenience store near their school.

He walks toward him. “What?”

Seungmin doesn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, he even looks like he’s hesitating. After a brief moment, Seungmin reaches for Minho’s free hand and slides the convenience store eco bag on his own. Seungmin touches Minho’s fingers and encloses them into the strap, then he lets his hand go.

“This changes nothing between us, and don’t think that I care for you.”

Seungmin purses his lips and lifts his hand to lightly brush over Minho’s nose, then he steps even closer to brush his lips over Minho’s temple just for a brief moment. Minho still stands still. Seungmin tilts his head down from Minho’s temple to Minho’s ear, then he whispers.

“It was an accident, but I’m not an asshole.”

And just like that, Seungmin walks away, his hands inside his pockets as he makes his way towards his building.

Minho takes a moment to come back to his senses, staring at the concrete sidewalk he’s on. His hand that Seungmin lifted still floats awkwardly in the air despite the added object in his palm. He takes a peek inside.

A cold compress pouch. A bandage that Minho does not need. Some fruit juices—some fruit juices? Minho is not sure why he needs fruit juices on his bruise.

Minho gives a small lopsided smile, and he holds the bag even firmer as he exits the university.

Minho’s hatred for Seungmin decreases by a quarter.

“Apparently Seungmin is the one who threw a ball at your face.”

Minho temporarily pauses from walking with Changbin. “How did you know?”

“News is going around. You know students, they love to gossip,” Changbin shrugs and clutches Minho's arm. They were on their way to photocopy some papers, and the printing shop was on the other side of the university. The library’s photocopy rates were too expensive and they would much rather walk a distance than spend some money that could be worth something better than photocopied paper. Seungmin and his team were playing on the field, as usual. “Some people just saw it was Seungmin who threw the ball.”

“Am I even surprised?” Minho breathily laughs. “That kid has some vendetta against me.”

“And you don’t? You hate him as much as he hates you.”

Definitely so. “Maybe if he wasn’t an asshole about sports week. Why is he taking that so seriously anyway? Sports week is for camaraderie, not ego-boosting.”

“Maybe it’s his rest, or whatever. Isn’t he a pre-med student right now? He must be stressed.”

“Everyone in college is stressed, Changbin,” Minho deadpans. “But I guess it’s a better stress-relieving activity than smoking or whatever some of our block mates do.”

“Mhm—hey, Seungmin is looking at you right now.”

“So what?” Minho retorts. “Let him be distracted that a volleyball also comes flying in his face so we’re quits.”

“Mean,” Changbin laughs. “This is why everyone thinks it’s getting heated between you two.”

“It’s fun feeding into random people’s illusions about us. They’re like strays who follow you around once you’ve fed them one time.”

“True, they all look weird trying to clutch on to a small piece of information about you guys. Then the stories spiral from there.”

“There should be more creative writing students in your university with how they act,” Minho laughs. He looks over the communication arts building from across the field, but unfortunately, his eyes land on Seungmin playing on the field. He’s not looking like what Changbin said, but he’s at one of the corners in this set’s position.

The referee blows his whistle and stretches his arm out to the side opposite where Seungmin is playing, and someone flips the scoreboard so the opponent of Seungmin’s team has an additional point. He’s still at the corner, and god only knows what went through Seungmin’s head the moment he pulled the bottom of his jersey and lifted it to wipe the sweat on his forehead, exposing his well-defined stomach, right in front of Minho’s view.

Minho almost trips on a small rock.

He is certain that his face is burning right now as he stares hard at the sidewalk, trying to avoid looking in the direction of the field again. His ears feel the hottest, and it’s definitely not because of the heat of the sun.

A couple of women walking behind Minho and Changbin swoon, and Minho could barely hold back from rolling his eyes. Of course, it’s fanservice.

He would be lying if he said that he’s expecting to be the only person who saw Seungmin’s little stunt, though.

Minho could see from his peripheral vision that Seungmin was once again looking in his direction, with an amused smile on his face.

God, Seungmin and his antics.

Seminars are never fun.

Seungmin is in an online seminar right now, it’s online because the speaker is apparently residing in another country. It’s a boring one, really, one about mental health because the guidance counselors of their university think that this was the solution to it.

He was supposed to be outside right now, together with Jisung, his roommate and best friend, but his schedule was unfortunately not free. Jisung is probably having the time of his life eating at an eat-all-you-can sushi restaurant that just opened last week, and Seungmin is here in their shared dorm, suffering in a boring seminar.

He can’t even multitask anything because it’s mandatory for their cameras to be open, and he was forced to be seated like Alice in that one scene in Alice in Wonderland.

He leans back on his chair, sighing as he scrolls through the participants' list for the meeting.

His eyes skim over some of the familiar and not-so-familiar names with the names of their colleges inserted before them, and he stops scrolling once he sees a familiar name.

Mc. Engineering - Lee Minho.

Seungmin perks up, and he changes the view of his meeting so he can see a lot of faces. There’s an overwhelming amount, a few selected students here and there from every college in their university. He stops when he sees Minho’s video.

Minho is at his home, and Seungmin assumes that he doesn’t dorm because his room structure is different. All dorms on the campus look the same, so Seungmin observes a bit more.

There’s a gray curtain behind him, and also a cat tower. How fucking cute.

A cat was sleeping at the top of the tower, then there was an awakened cat at the second tier. Its tail was wagging slowly, and it was licking its paw. Seungmin watches the cat, simply because he was more entertained by Minho’s cat than a boring seminar.

The second cat was orange and white, and it had a white nose. It was a bit chunky, and Seungmin is endeared. If it was possible to pet an animal through a screen, he would have probably done it.

Soon enough, the cat starts reaching for the curtain. He sees Minho move a little, probably to watch his cat behind him through his camera. Its claws were sticking to the curtain until it jumped.

The cat probably felt like Spiderman, hanging onto the curtain like it was a wall. Minho was watching the cat warily, more focused on the cat than the speaker in the meeting. The curtains were wobbling from the cat gripping it, and it slightly moved from one point in the curtain to another.

Then it fell.

Seungmin’s eyes widened, as well as Minho’s. Minho whips his head back and immediately closes his camera, much to Seungmin’s dismay. It wasn’t long before Minho’s camera opened again, but now, there was a familiar orange cat in his arms.

Minho was petting it, and Seungmin internally laughs at Minho being a cat parent. It was cute. The cat was cute. Minho’s cute.

Wait, what?

“Take a shot with the person to your right.”

Serim’s voice was loud, especially when she was right next to Minho and she read Minho’s Jenga piece from their drinking game out loud.

“Hey! That’s me!”

The junior dance just ended. It was a fancy party held by the central student council of the university just for the fun of it, and there was an afterparty for athletes like Minho.

There was no alcohol at the junior dance, only fancy food from catering and some iced tea as their beverage. Now that the athletes were in a more secluded place with no authorities in sight, there were definitely cases of alcohol going around. And drinking games, of course.

Chan, an alumnus who used to be an athlete and also one of the people who hosted this event, pours some liquor in Minho’s shot glass as well as Serim’s (for being the person he was to drink with). Someone also pours in some soda at Minho’s cup as a chaser, and both Minho and Serim take the shot and drink the chaser afterward.

There was no burn in his throat, thanks to the soda. Minho was already feeling a bit buzzed but not drunk, he was already at his fifth shot, after all. The person at Minho’s left starts to pull out a Jenga piece for his dare as well.

“Are you still okay?” Changbin shouts from the pool to Minho’s table at the side while holding up three of his fingers apart from his thumb and index. Minho throws him a thumbs up as a response.

The table they were drinking at was unnecessarily large to accommodate the number of people playing. There were athletes from almost every college and sport—almost everyone was there, and a lot of them were either playing by the pool or hanging around in the living room of the bungalow they booked.

While they were playing Jenga, some other athlete was also going around filling up everyone’s shot glasses to get everyone drunk. A lot of them were already red from the drunk flush, and some of them were not. They will be soon with how fast the athlete pouring drinks rotates around the table, though.

It was already Jiwon, a badminton player from another college’s turn. Unlucky for her, her Jenga block tells her to take two shots. She does, never the one to back down from a game. The Jenga tower was already a bit wobbly, a lot of pieces at the bottom were already taken.

This is where it gets exciting.

It was already Hyunjin’s, a friend of Chan’s from architecture, turn to take a piece out. He cracks his knuckles and positions his hand at the very bottom layer of the tower, where only the middle block remains to carry the entire tower. It was risky.

Hyunjin takes unnecessarily long to prepare, but he flicks the bottom block eventually, and the piece flies off the table but the tower remains upright.

A chorus of cheers erupted from the table, and some were hugging Hyunjin and applauding him. Hyunjin raises one of his fingers as he nods in victory. Someone picks up the block and reads the dare, or lack thereof, out loud.

“Free pass.”

A chorus of ‘boos’ followed afterward, then they already nudged the next player to pick a block.

Minho forgot that Seungmin was here.

He’s there, still in his junior dance attire, minus the coat, and a lot of the buttons from his polo were unbuttoned. He was already a bit red and sweaty, perhaps the reason why his polo was mostly unbuttoned and his sleeves were rolled up.

He rests his elbow on the table as he gently pushes a block, but the one he touched moved the entire tower.

“Touchmove!” Serim shouts, and Seungmin looks at her with a blank stare. He opens his mouth to protest, but he immediately shuts his mouth after.

He continues to push the block, knowing very well that this round of Jenga is going to end with him. He pushes the block gently in hopes that the tower won’t fall, until some asshole randomly screams and effectively startles Seungmin, knocking down the entire tower.

Seungmin’s jaw hangs open in shock as the tower falls and his hand holding his block hands awkwardly in the air. The entire table cheers and laughs, and Chan comes up behind him to rub his shoulders and laugh.

“You know the drill, Seungmin.”

Seungmin purses his lips in annoyance (fuck, who looks this good while being annoyed?) and tilts his head to the side for a second. He tilts his head backward as he opens his mouth.

Some people from the table whistle and some people from the pool emerge to watch the show.

Seungmin’s neck was so hot, for some reason, together with his defined jawline. Chan opens the bottle of liquor and starts pouring it slowly, directly onto Seungmin’s mouth.

“Ten, nine, eight—” almost everyone starts counting down.

“—seven, six—” Chan continues to pour into Seungmin’s mouth, and Hyunjin comes to hold Seungmin’s jaw open.

“—five, four—” Fuck, Seungmin swallows the liquor with his mouth open. Maybe it’s the liquor talking, but if Minho was not red from the alcohol prior, he definitely is now. And it’s definitely not because of the alcohol.

“—three, two, one!” Chan finally stops pouring the liquor and Seungmin finally sits up straight again, swallowing the alcohol and wipes his lips with the back of his palm. Some people were laughing at him, telling him that he’s used to taking shots like that, and Seungmin laughed with them.

Minho stands up and heads to an empty space to take a breather.

Damn Seungmin and his hot ass.

“Hey, you! What are you doing here?”

Here comes Minho’s breather.

“What are you doing here, Kim?”

“Just wanna take a break,” Seungmin shrugs. He reeks of his perfume and alcohol. “I am not taking a shot like that, ever again.”

“You seem to have fun with it, though,” Minho laughs as he leans against the wall.

“It was then. The alcohol is kicking in now and it’s not fun anymore.”

“Lightweight?”

“Not really,” Seungmin grumbles. “You try to have Chan-sunbae pour alcohol in your mouth for ten seconds straight.”

“I’d rather not.”

“That’s what I thought,” Seungmin replies. “Hey, what’s the name of your cat?”

“How did you know I have a cat?” Minho asks defensively.

“We were at the same webinar last Tuesday, and I saw your cats there. There was an orange one who fell.”

“Oh. That was Doongie.”

“Doongie,” Seungmin repeats. “That’s cute. What’s the name of the other one?”

“The one on top of the tower is Soonie if he’s the cat that you saw. There’s a gray one too, his name is Dori.”

“Soonie, Doongie, Dori,” Seungmin smiles. “They’re so cute.”

“They are. They’re my babies. My little brothers.”

Seungmin hums. “You think I can meet them?”

Minho looks at him and raises an eyebrow teasingly. “Inviting yourself to my house?”

“Only to see your kitties”

“That doesn’t make your argument sound better. It makes it sound worse, actually.”

“You’re the only one thinking that.”

Minho drags Seungmin to his house, anyway.

Seungmin is a quiet drunk, thankfully. Minho is not in the mood to take care of a crying person right now.

Minho stumbles upon opening his door with his keys and lets Seungmin enter. Seungmin wanders around Minho’s apartment, with just his small bedroom separated from his kitchen and living room.

Something warm brushes over Seungmin’s ankle, and he looks down and sees one of Minho’s fur babies meow up to him.

“Hi baby,” Seungmin squats and lets the cat smell his finger before petting it. “Aren’t you a cute one?”

“That’s Soonie,” Minho says as he removes his boots.

“Hi Soonie,” he continues to scratch the cat, and he looks upward to look for the other cats. There’s another orange one at Minho’s countertop, and Seungmin assumes that he’s Doongie. His vision also lands on a gray cat, one that he has never seen before, and his brain registers it as Dori. He’s at one of Minho’s foldable dining chairs right now.

Minho walks around to give Doongie and Dori some scratches before he goes to the fridge to grab a pitcher of water.

He pours two glasses. “Drink, to sober up.”

Seungmin gives Soonie one last scratch and heads toward Minho. He downed the glass of water, then removed his cardigan and placed it over one of Minho’s chairs

“Please don’t strip again in front of me unannounced.”

“I won’t. It’s just warm so I removed this.”

“Where’s your coat?”

“I left it with Jisung. He also had this cardigan in his motor compartment so I just left my coat with him and grabbed this instead when he left before the afterparty.”

Minho hums. “Do you want to change into something more comfortable?”

“Are you asking me to strip in front of you, consensually this time?”

Minho closes his eyes. “If you want to spend the entire time in a polo and slacks, just say so.”

“I’m kidding. If you’ll let me borrow something, I’ll appreciate it.”

Minho disappears to enter his bedroom, probably to find some clothes for Seungmin. Seungmin sits on his two-seater couch and lets his vision roam around, and he lightens up when he sees a chess board sitting on one of Minho’s shelves.

He was about to stand up until a piece of plastic landed in front of his face.

“We’re quits, then.”

Seungmin huffs and holds the zip lock bag that he received. It’s a sleepwear set, still sealed and unmoved inside the bag, and it also has tag prices. Red tag prices.

“Are you making me pay for these?”

“I’m showing you that they’re new and you can use them or whatever. Would you prefer to wear my jersey instead? People might think we’re friends. Or we slept together. Do you want that to circulate?”

“No,” Seungmin scrunches his nose. “But thanks!”

“The bathroom is there,” Minho vaguely motions at the plastic door beside his dining table. “Go change in private.”

Minho also changes into his comfortable clothes, removing his jewelry as well. He’s now in his loose shirt and pants, something that feels better than some slacks and a polo with a vest. He throws his dirty clothes in his laundry bag, and Seungmin also exits the bathroom in Minho’s (unused) clothes. He has his previous clothing in his hand, and Minho tells him to just leave them on the seat where he left his cardigan.

“You look decent, Seungmin-ah.”

He smiles. “You’ve never called me by my name before.”

“Why is that a big deal now?”

“Nothing. Your clothes are comfy, by the way.”

“I got them for sale at some random store. You can keep them if you want.”

“Do you have a matching one?”

“Do I have a—” Minho scoffs. “Why does it matter?”

“We could be matching, it’s cute.”

“It’s disgusting. I’d wear it better.”

“You look good in anything.”

That catches Minho off-guard. “Freak.”

“Mhm. Hey, you know how to play chess?”

“Did you snoop on my belongings? But yes, I do. It’s been a while, though.”

“Can you play with me?”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Seungmin blinks and tilts his head. He looks like a puppy, Minho thinks.

“Are you usually this insufferable when you’re drunk?” Minho stands up to get the board anyway. It’s dusty and a few pieces inside make some sounds as they collide against each other.

He opens the board and sets the pieces aside, and he looks at Seungmin who was watching him innocently.

“Sit,” Minho points at his carpeted floor on the opposite side of his coffee table.

“I’m not a dog.”

“What do you want me to say, then? Put your ass on my carpet?”

“You could have told me to sit more nicely,” he grumbles.

“Yeah, whatever. Can you even play Chess while you’re drunk, though?”

“Yes. It’s just for fun anyway,” he smiles. “I’ll play black.”

“Set up your own side.”

Seungmin is so normal. Not that he isn’t, but he just feels so real right in front of Minho as he sets up the black pawns on his second row. He’s covered up with Minho’s clothes, his hair that was styled earlier is now floppy and down, and he sits so comfortably on the floor like it’s not his first time at Minho’s place. Dori even crawls at his lap and snoozes off there, too. Seungmin is just there, existing, but it feels so normal that Minho couldn’t pinpoint what it is.

Seungmin’s face is still red, though less than earlier. They start playing with Minho making the first move, moving around his pawns before bringing out his horses and bishops. Seungmin is so focused, as focused as his drunk self would be, and Minho shouldn’t be that bothered by it.

Seungmin makes a little victory dance when one of his bishops eats Minho’s pawn, putting the piece beside the board. He’s absolutely wrecking Minho in this game, Minho’s pieces slowly losing their place on the board one by one.

It’s amusing to watch Seungmin dominating Minho in a logic game when he isn’t even in his best mental condition right now. His eyes are droopy, his face is flushed red, and he looks so fucking attractive smirking when he finally cornered Minho’s king. He’s so ridiculously attractive, maybe it’s the alcohol speaking again, but Minho doesn’t give a single fuck if he’s wrecked by Seungmin on his own chess board.

“You suck at Chess.”

“It was just your visitor’s luck.”

“What does that even mean?” Seungmin laughs as he helps Minho clean up his board. “You just suck, admit it.”

“Whatever,” Minho says under his breath as he places his board back on its shelf.

Seungmin leans back on Minho’s couch, still sitting on Minho's carpet.

“Are you tired now?”

“I’ve been tired,” Seungmin sleepily replies. “I had fun, by the way. Your babies are cute.”

“Who is your favorite?”

“Dori, he’s adorable.”

“Dori acts just like me, though?”

“No he doesn’t,” Seungmin remarks. “He’s way sweeter than you are.”

“Dori doesn’t let you stay over and borrow his clothes.”

“Still better.”

“Idiot,” Minho laughs as he sees Seungmin keep his eyes closed, looking like he’s sleeping. “Stand up, go to my bed. I’ll let you sleep there.”

“Are we sleeping together?”

“No. My friend stays over often and he just uses the pull-out bed. You can sleep there.”

“Okay,” Seungmin stands up and follows Minho to his room. He makes himself comfortable on the pull-out bed, and he knocks out almost immediately. Minho silently laughs.

“Night, Seungmin.”

Seungmin is already gone when Minho wakes up.

The pull-out bed was still out, but the blankets were neatly folded and the pillows were stacked. Minho gets up and heads toward his kitchen, smiling to himself as he sees the ibuprofen he left last night was already gone. His polo and slacks were gone too, but Seungmin left his cardigan. Strange.

Minho bites a smile back when he sees one of his post-it notes tucked under one of his many cat refrigerator magnets, one with an acronym of a “thanks” along with a number and a smiley face.

It feels like deja vu.

Minho looks for Seungmin—his first guess is at the field, as always, but he’s surprisingly not there. He wanders around the university, it’s his vacant period anyway, in hopes of stumbling upon a certain pre-medicine student.

Minho lights up when he spots Seungmin exiting his building with who Minho assumes as his block mate, chatting as they walk. Minho stands still at one of the benches as he waits for Seungmin to be left alone.

Seungmin continues to talk with his block mate until his eyes meet Minho’s. Minho tilts his head, and Seungmin bids his block mate goodbye and waddles over Minho’s direction. His backpack and hood bounce up and down as he walks in his direction, in a less crowded place.

“Hi.”

“Hey yourself,” Minho reaches out a paper bag with Seungmin’s folded cardigan to its owner. “You left this.”

“Oh, thank you,” Seungmin receives the bag and peeks inside. “I was hoping you’d invite me over again to pick this up, but this is fine too.”

“I will steal that cardigan from you if you’re complaining.”

“I’m not. But if that’s your way of inviting me again, then who am I to refuse?”

“You’re annoying,” Minho huffs. “Don’t go too close, people might mistake us as friends.”

“Are we not?”

“We aren’t.”

“That’s a shame. Can I treat you out, then? Let’s be friends.”

Minho abruptly pauses. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“You think I’m incapable of romancing you?” Seungmin places his free hand in the pocket of his hoodie. “If you won’t let me in again, then let me take you out. As a thank you for putting up with my drunk self, too.”

“… we’re eating seafood.”

They, in fact, did not end up eating seafood.

Seungmin is apparently allergic, and he suggested eating at Subway instead. Minho stares at him weirdly for attempting to bring him to such a fancy place for a supposed “thank you” meal, so now they’re eating awkwardly inside a sushi restaurant, with Minho being the only one eating sushi while Seungmin eats his KFC takeout.

“I thought you’re capable of romancing me.”

“I am,” Seungmin nods. “Our tastes just don’t match.”

“That’s a red flag, Seungmin.”

“We are working out our differences.”

“It’s really romantic how we’re eating different food inside a restaurant. The chefs are probably giving your dirty looks right now.”

“So what? They don’t know I’m allergic to seafood and I’m sure they’ll understand. They might even view me as a good friend for still accommodating you here despite my allergies.”

“You do know that there is sushi with no seafood, right?”

“What?” Seungmin drops his chopsticks. “There are?”

“Yes?” Minho looks at him weirdly.

“Don’t look at me weirdly! Why didn’t you tell me? You willingly let me look like an idiot right now while eating chicken.”

“So you do admit that you look like an idiot.”

“What the—Minho! This is serious.”

Minho picks up some rice from Seungmin’s plate, and shoves it in Seungmin’s mouth, effectively shutting him up from whining. Seungmin angrily munches, but he looks so annoyingly adorable.

“It’s not, and it’s okay. We can eat next time,” Minho nonchalantly says as he takes a bite of sushi. “By the way, do you like breasts?”

Seungmin chokes on the rice that Minho just fed him.

He scrambles to take a sip of his takeout soda to clear his throat, his face in a pinkish tint. “Why would you ask that out of the blue?”

It takes a moment for Minho to realize that he wasn’t being specific. “You’re eating a chicken breast from KFC, idiot. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Seungmin awkwardly blinks. “Oh. Well, I don’t necessarily like chicken breasts, but they’re good for protein and other stuff. I kind of have to eat them, y’know.”

“You and your athlete stuff,” Minho taunts. “Why won’t you eat some other chicken parts as a treat sometimes?”

“Chicken legs have less meat in them, even if I like them. So chicken breasts it is,” he takes a bite of his said chicken. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Minho shrugs. “Tell me if you’re done eating.”

“Sure?” Seungmin responds, and Minho continues his sentence when he realizes that he sounds like an asshole indirectly asking Seungmin to eat faster.

“What kind of coffee do you like?”

“Hazelnut lattes.”

“Okay. I’ll get you one later.”

Seungmin stops chewing. “Why?”

“Do you not want free coffee?” Minho remarks. Seungmin immediately shuts up and smiles.

Seungmin goes home that day with an iced latte in his hands, along with Minho’s name signed by the barista on his cup.

And if Seungmin’s roommate is wondering why Seungmin suddenly has a plastic cup as a coffee holder because he doesn’t want to throw it away, he doesn’t mention it.

Seungmin often finds himself at Minho’s house.

Just at night, whenever he and Minho were free. He’s basically living off of Minho’s pocket, but he makes sure to treat Minho at times. It’s a nice give-and-take setup.

Their relationship is weird. They’re friends, but it doesn’t particularly sound right. They knew each other’s schedules and habits, but they didn’t know each other’s basic details.

Seungmin knows that Minho vacuums his house every Saturday, then he brings his clothes to the local laundry shop after. Seungmin doesn’t know when Minho's birthday is. Minho knows that Seungmin is dismissed early on Tuesdays and Fridays, but he doesn’t know what Seungmin’s favorite color is.

They’re weird, but they work. They don’t need to know, because it’s already comfortable like this, with Seungmin practically living in Minho’s space in silence. It’s simple.

Right now, both of them are studying. Seungmin is studying at Minho’s coffee table while Minho studies at his dining table, both working in silence. Minho doesn’t even bother greeting Seungmin whenever he arrives at his apartment unannounced, and Seungmin doesn’t bother asking Minho if he could use one of his fuzzy bunny house slippers around.

Soonie lays sleeping on Minho’s coffee table just beside Seungmin’s scattered notes, dozing off peacefully. His cats grew accustomed to him as well, sometimes affectionate and most of the time ignoring him. It was better than them scratching up Seungmin’s legs and arms. At least they liked him, in a weird sense.

Seungmin stands up to grab some water. He walks to Minho's small kitchen area where his refrigerator and dining table are, and he notices something about Minho’s hands as he jots down notes from a video he’s watching on his laptop.

“Are your hands bisexual?”

Minho pauses the video on his laptop. With his right hand. He writes using his left.

“What?”

“Are your hands… bisexual?” He repeats. Minho stares at him incredulously.

“You mean ambidextrous?”

“Oh, yeah,” Seungmin embarrassingly says as he scratches the back of his neck. “Yes, ambidextrous. Or whatever that is.”

“Yes, I’m ambidextrous…” he trails off as he looks back to his laptop. “I’m more comfortable doing most activities with my left hand, but some are more comfortable with the right. It depends.”

“That’s cool,” Seungmin nods.

“I’m ambidextrous and… I’m also bisexual, if that matters.”

Minho said it so casually with his voice growing smaller. Seungmin pays it no mind—if Seungmin had a puppy tail, it would be wagging right now. “That’s awesome. I’m pansexual, too. If that matters.”

“Cool.”

Seungmin grins. “Cool.”

The smell of chicken fills Minho’s apartment.

His apartment’s ventilation sucks, so the windows and the door are wide open, or else his apartment will feel like an oven for the rest of the day.

Seungmin’s not particularly busy today, he’s just lazing around. He’s not even doing anything at Minho’s place, he’s just there because he feels like it. He already passed his current papers and answered his pending quizzes, and he didn’t feel like playing volleyball today.

(That was half a lie. The idea of being in Minho’s bubble with the smell of a home-cooked meal lingering around sounds more tempting than being stuck in a field with the sun out while being sweaty.)

Seungmin finds a couple of chicken packs in Minho’s freezer. Both were large chicken legs, and Seungmin would be lying if he said that there wasn’t something fluttering in his chest when he remembered that Minho asked him about chicken parts before. What a romantic guy.

He’s cooking something today, and Seungmin knew better than to meddle with him when he’s in the kitchen. When he saw Minho performing his Mise en place routine, Seungmin immediately stood up from his couch to grab Minho’s apron with a small cat embroidered at the front pocket to wear it on Minho.

Minho freezes as he feels Seungmin drape the front part of the apron from behind. He puts Minho’s head through the top part and folds the bottom of the apron up, so the tie can go around Minho’s waist. He carefully brings his hands in front of Minho’s waist from behind to tidy up the fold, looking somewhat like a back hug. He drags his fingers on the fold until it reaches back to the tie, and his nimble fingers tie a pretty bow behind Minho.

Minho turns around to face Seungmin with his ears in the faintest shade of red, and Seungmin smiles at him. A soft, sweet one.

“That’s the least I can do.”

Seungmin pats Minho’s waist as he goes back to the couch like nothing happened, and Minho takes a second to recover from Seungmin’s antics.

Minho continues to cook Seungmin’s favorite food, the pan sizzling up and the sauce was simmering right after. It feels awfully domestic, even if Seungmin is just lazing around.

After half an hour, Minho calls Seungmin and tells him that the food is ready. Seungmin sets up the table as Minho sets the pot in the center of the table.

“Thank you for the meal,” Seungmin grins at Minho. Minho just hums in reply.

They eat in silence, not really needing to talk—it was comfortable, it felt normal. Seungmin happily munches on Minho’s chicken, and Minho thrives on Seungmin’s satisfied face as he devours Minho’s meal.

Seungmin cleans up the table when they are done, and Minho already brought out two tupperwares from his cupboard to scoop out some chicken for their packed lunch tomorrow. Seungmin washes the dishes as he hums a tune, and Minho lets the chicken in his tupperwares cool off before refrigerating them so Seungmin can take it home later.

Seungmin has never slept over, aside from the first time he went over when he was drunk. Minho didn’t really mind, it’s not like Seungmin had bad sleeping habits, Seungmin just never really asks. If anything, it’s Minho who has terrible sleeping habits.

It wasn’t long before Seungmin was already giving his last scratches to Soonie and Dori, and Seungmin had already closed one of Minho’s tupperwares and put it in his bag.

“Good night, hyung. Thanks for the meals again.”

Minho has the request at the tip of his tongue, ready to spit out, but he didn’t dare to do so. You can stay the night. He hesitates as Seungmin is already at his door, tying up his Converse, and he heaves a sigh and just brushes the thought off.

“Mhm. Don’t die on your way home.”

Seungmin nods. “I won’t.”

If Seungmin and Minho’s mutual friends notice that they have the same meals in the same brand of tupperware more often than not, they don’t mention it.

Not like anyone has ever noticed.

민: I’m home and safe, hyung :)

Dori is making biscuits on Seungmin’s chest.

It’s a cute fucking sight, Minho’s fur baby being so comfortable and happy with Minho’s other… not baby.

Seungmin is lying down on Minho's couch, his legs dangling from the side of the couch and his upper body propped up with a pillow on the other side of the couch. He was typing something on his laptop, but Dori was in the way, and it’s not like Seungmin has the heart to shoo the comfy cat away from his chest. The paper can wait.

“Hi, baby,” Seungmin coos as he runs the back of his finger between Dori’s ears. “The bakery is busy today?”

Minho just woke up from a nap. He exits his room with his tousled hair and he’s rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He pulls out one of his dining chairs and sits on it—it’s not like he can sit on his couch that was currently occupied.

“Why do you have so much cat-themed stuff?” Seungmin quietly asks from afar.

“The reason is quite literally in front of you.”

“No other reason?”

“They’re the prime reason. They’re like the beginning step or whatever. I love my babies, I adopted two of them from cat websites. And from there, my algorithm started showing me a bunch of cat-themed advertisements for random things. So I started buying some of the things I see, and apparently, portions of the profits go to kitten shelters and stuff. They’re cool.”

Seungmin nods in understanding and gently smiles. “You have a kind heart.”

“I’m kind enough to feed you often.”

“That too. But I think you’re really nice.”

“I’m glad you think so. At least I’m not feeding you for nothing.”

Dori stops kneading Seungmin’s chest, and he sleepily lays down on him instead. His purrs stopped, but Seungmin picks up Dori’s front paws and plays with him.

“Dori has mixed toe beans. How cute.”

Minho doesn’t respond, opting to watch Seungmin play with Dori instead. He makes him do a little dance, just some wiggles side to side, Seungmin clearly entertained by Dori.

Something flutters inside Minho’s chest.

Seungmin has wiggled himself into Minho’s space, not too prying but Minho knows he’s right there. Something shifted when Seungmin finally met Minho’s cats, albeit drunk, but it’s not unwelcome. How could Minho view him as an athletic rival when Seungmin has been nothing but kind to his babies, and also painfully sweet with Minho working around the house. It’s not even his obligation to vacuum around the living room area nor accompany Minho to the laundry shop while carrying his other basket but he does. Without a complaint, without a bat of an eye. Without Minho commanding him.

Seungmin cleans up after their meals, and Seungmin drops off food often. He tells Minho about some of his stressful anecdotes in his pre-med life, and he also listens to Minho talk about his terror professors and nightmare block mates. Seungmin knows Minho’s schedules, and even when Changbin drops by so he doesn’t accidentally meet him in the apartment and be caught up in awkward conversation on why he was there. Minho buys Seungmin lattes, and Seungmin uses up Minho’s kitty-themed memo pad to leave some random note before he leaves.

There’s no label so far, not even a simple friendship, but they’ve gone past the mark to even care about it. It’s just Seungmin and Minho.

“What are Doongie and Soonie’s toe beans?”

“You go look at them yourself,” Minho huffs. “It’s better when you see them than me explaining it.”

“I will, soon,” Seungmin answers. “Beans are so cute. They’re so soft.”

“They are.”

“What if I started calling you ‘beans?’”

“Me?” Minho was caught off-guard. “Why, though?”

“You’re like a cat. You act like one. Y’know, sometimes prickly but you’re actually so soft. And your hands are smaller than mine, they look like kitty paws.”

“Our hand size difference is not that big—”

“Come here, then. Let’s see.”

Against his will, Minho stands up from the dining room to kneel beside Seungmin lying on his couch. Seungmin lets go of one of Dori’s paws to raise it to Minho, and Minho begrudgingly places his hand against Seungmin’s, clearly seeing the size difference.

“It’s cute. Your hands are so small,” Seungmin folds the excess parts of his fingers to fold over Minho’s fingertips. “Kitty paws. ‘Beans’ suit you.”

“Why would you even have a nickname for me when we aren’t even friends?”

“Oh, you think we’re already past the friends stage?” Seungmin slightly shifts his fingers so they can entwine with Minho’s own. “Okay that, I’ll think in that way too, the same as you do. We’re dating, Lee Minho.”

“Sure, Kim Seungmin.”

Things with Seungmin have been comfortable, but Minho cannot deny the way how something inside his chest flutters more when Seungmin brings up their entwined hands and kisses Minho’s, a lovesick smile on his face.

They’re not just Seungmin and Minho anymore.

They’re now Seungmin and Minho, boyfriends, and Minho likes how that title rolls off of his tongue. It feels right.

Seungmin starts to keep some of his clothes in Minho’s apartment.

Just a few shirts here and there, just so he can change into them comfortably whenever he drops by. Minho made space for his clothes in his closet, and he also brought out a new toothbrush for Seungmin to use.

Minho finally asked Seungmin if he could stay the night, and Seungmin would be a fool to decline. He eagerly nodded with a smile on his face, excited to finally sleep within Minho’s vicinity again. As official partners this time, too.

Seungmin sleeps on Minho’s pull-out bed, with Minho complaining that his own bed was too small for two people. Seungmin, albeit dejected, agrees and follows Minho’s suggestion. He sleeps comfortably on Minho’s sheets, the smell of his fresh laundry detergent fills his nose as he gets carried to his dreams.

When Seungmin wakes up, the sight of Minho’s bedhead greets him first thing in the morning. He looks so painfully adorable, his eyes barely open and his sleep shirt is wrinkled.

“Good morning,” he mumbles. “Slept well?”

“Mhm. Good morning.”

Minho gets up shortly, walking over Seungmin’s legs that were in the way. He opens the door of his bedroom and leaves it open for Seungmin, and he starts working around to get some breakfast. It was really just bread and fruits, but Seungmin appreciates it anyway.

Seungmin notices the abundance of cat-themed items at Minho’s house. It’s not like he hasn’t noticed them before, but he feels like he keeps seeing new things with cat designs on them. Minho has a couple of cat print umbrellas in his umbrella stand by the door, he has so many refrigerator magnets of them, his apron had a cat embroidery—there’s so much, and Seungmin is painfully endeared. What a softie.

“There are towels in the cabinet inside the bathroom, just go pick one if you’re taking a bath. You can use everything there.”

Seungmin gives him a two-finger salute as he takes the last bite of his sandwich and heads toward the bathroom to take a bath. Minho swats his hand in response, not lifting his vision from his phone as he was checking his emails.

Minho has a lot of good stuff, a lot of them were mild products from a nature-friendly store. Seungmin loved the smell of Minho’s lemon-scented shampoo, and he grins at the thought of a lingering smell of something so Minho was going to be near him all day as he uses it up.

It doesn’t take long before Seungmin emerges from the bathroom to get dressed, and Minho follows him suit. He gets dressed and combs his hair, almost ready to leave the apartment. He’ll just wait for Minho to finish taking a bath so he can bid his goodbyes and thank yous because his classes start earlier than his and they couldn’t go to the university at the same time.

Seungmin sits on his made bed, his hands on his knees as he patiently waits for Minho. His bag was already at his feet, ready to be carried. He looks around Minho’s bedroom in boredom, and he sees a small purple bottle on Minho’s study table.

He stands up and picks up the bottle, and he uncaps it to smell it. It’s Minho’s perfume, it’s a white musk scent according to the label, and Seungmin likes how calm it smelled.

“Snooping around my stuff?”

Seungmin turns around and he sees Minho, freshly out of the shower wrapped in a towel and his hair dripping. “I’m just curious. I like your perfume, by the way. It smells nice.”

Minho goes through his cabinet to grab some clothes. “Do you want to use it?”

“Sure, I want to know what it’s like to smell like a bunch of dizzying flowers all day.”

It was a lie. They both know it. Minho lets Seungmin spray his perfume anyway.

“I’ll get going, thanks for letting me stay over and for the breakfast, Beans,” Seungmin cups Minho’s face and tilts it down to press a soft kiss on his forehead. “Good morning.”

Seungmin goes through his day smelling so much like Minho, his scent all over his body, and he would be lying if he said he didn’t like being reminded of Minho’s calming presence all day.

It’s Seungmin’s practice day.

He’s with the other volleyball players from the pre-med team, just playing around. Their coach wasn’t around, today felt like doing leisure more than practicing, in all honesty.

Seungmin pulls up his jersey shorts and lowers down into a semi-squat position and rests his hands on his thighs, ready to receive the serve of the other team. His sweat was already making his hair stick to his face, barely being lifted off by his hair band.

The person serves, and the ball flies to the side at Seungmin’s right, and his teammate receives it. The opposing team passes the ball back to them, and someone from Seungmin’s team tosses the ball. Seungmin hits the ball with his forearms back to the other side.

It was a laidback game, which Seungmin could enjoy. The sun wasn’t out today, and Seungmin enjoys the cool breeze of the air as he plays.

The game continues smoothly, one team scoring one after the other. It was a close game, but enjoyable nonetheless.

From a distance, Seungmin could spot a familiar blob of hair. Minho’s walking with Changbin at the side of the field, talking with each other. Seungmin could see Minho’s familiar navy blue hoodie on top of his uniform, and when Minho looks in his direction and smiled at him, Seungmin does the same. Minho gives a small thumbs up from below, not lifting his hand, and Seungmin smiles even brighter at him.

He returns to the game, shouting “mine!” when a ball was heading toward his way. He spikes a ball that was heading his way and the ball lands quickly on their opponent’s ground, no one was quick enough to receive it. One point for Seungmin’s team, then.

It wasn’t long before the light gray cloud-covered sky turned into a darker shade of gray, and rain drops soon found their way to the ground. Some students were scrambling off the field to find shade, and Seungmin’s team together with their opponents started packing up too.

“Man, I didn’t know it was going to rain today. I wish we played longer.”

“Things happen,” one of Seungmin’s teammates said. They're all currently running to the benches before the rain gets even harsher and the field will be muddy, covering the top of their heads with their hands. A bunch of his teammates grabbed their bags and headed toward their locker rooms to change. Seungmin is still behind, throwing the ball they used into the volleyball cart. The field was getting wet with the rain real quick, the soil turning into mud that sticks to Seungmin’s shoes as he ran toward the benches.

Damn it, Seungmin thinks. I didn’t bring an umbrella nor extra shoes today.

Seungmin finally reaches the benches and he pauses when he sees an object right on top of his duffel bag. It’s not his, but the small cat prints scattered all over the transparent umbrella’s canopy. It was familiar, something he’s definitely seen before, and it was of no doubt that it was his boyfriend who put it on there. Maybe that’s why he saw Minho walk by a few moments ago.

Seungmin bites back a smile and grabs his bag and Minho’s umbrella, then he goes to their locker rooms to change.

He gets out of his wet jersey and changes into his hoodie, toweling his hair that got damp from the rain after. Some of his teammates were still in the locker room, stuck because they didn’t bring an umbrella with them and they had to wait for the rain to subside before leaving.

Seungmin wears his duffel bag on one shoulder and opens Minho’s umbrella with his other bag, the raindrops splashing on the canopy clearly through the transparent material. He grabs his phone from his bag and snaps a quick selfie with the umbrella, sending it to Minho and dialing his number afterward.

“Hello?”

“Hi Beans,” Seungmin is sure Minho could see his smile from the call. “Thanks for the umbrella. I didn’t know it would rain today.”

“I didn’t know either, I just had a feeling,” Minho nonchalantly says. “Are you heading home now?”

“Home as in my place or yours?”

“… whatever you want.”

“Not yet, actually,” Seungmin laughs. “I have a biochemistry class at five, so I’ll still be stuck here. How about you?”

“I just got off of one of my classes, then I have a meeting in a few. I won’t be home in a while.”

“That’s fine. Do you want me to drop off some coffee for you? Or hot chocolate?”

“That would be nice, thank you,” Minho replied. “You can keep the umbrella, by the way. I still have a lot at home.”

“I was half-expecting you to tell me to never bring umbrellas again so you can keep giving me one or eventually offer to pick me up,” Seungmin jokes.

“I will stop giving you umbrellas and let you be soaked in the rain if that’s what you want.”

“I’m kidding, Beans,” Seungmin laughs. “I’ll text you if I’m outside your building. Stay warm.”

Seungmin does bring Minho a cup of hot chocolate, and a ham sandwich on the side. So your stomach won’t be empty, Seungmin whispers as he hands them to Minho when they meet in one of the corridors of Minho’s building. Minho warmly smiles and pats Seungmin on the head, and also whispers a small ‘thank you’ as he goes on his tip-toes and presses a soft kiss on Seungmin’s temple. Seungmin smiles so hard, then he cups Minho’s face and leans in for a real kiss.

The weather might be cold, but warmth fills their chests.

Changbin is Minho’s best friend.

They are in the same year, albeit in different courses. Minho is in mechanical engineering while Changbin is in accounting.

They met in high school, though they weren’t close back then as they are now. They were in the same club, they knew each other’s existence, and they just naturally grew closer to each other when they realized that they were transferring to the same university for college. They applied and enrolled together, and eventually spent most of their vacation time together because of familiarity.

They’ve known each other long enough, and Changbin knew very well that Minho was lactose intolerant. Changbin was so weirded out by the fact that Minho barely ate ice cream with him, despite knowing that Changbin always treats himself to ice cream after an exam.

He’s currently with Jisung, an architecture student, inside the university’s on-campus café. They’ve met because of some mutual friends from their colleges, and they eventually hit it off when they got to know each other better.

Changbin sips on his frappe as he sees Minho enter the café, his wired earphones were out as he heads to the counter. The café wasn’t too busy so he immediately got to order, and he spotted Changbin as he went to the side to wait for his order.

“Minho!”

“Hey, Changbin. And hey… Jisung?”

“Yes, that’s right. Hi hyung,” Jisung waves.

“What are you two doing here?”

“Just lazing around, we met on the way here so we just decided to go together,” Changbin answers. “What about you?”

“Just wanted to grab some coffee before heading to class,” he shrugs.

“Come sit,” Changbin pulls out a chair beside him and pats it. “I’m sure Ji wouldn’t mind.”

“Don’t mind me, go ahead,” Jisung comments as he fiddles with something on his laptop.

“What’s your course, Jisung-ah?”

“Architecture,” he replies. “I’m in my second year.”

“How is it so far?”

“It’s fun, but also really time-consuming. There are so many plates to do.”

“I see. I’m glad you’re having fun. There are tons of people who don’t enjoy what they’re studying, and it honestly makes studying feel worse.”

“I agree,” Changbin butts in. “Some kid from my class was not interested in accounting at all. Now they’re still confused about how to prepare financial statements, I feel so bad for them. A lot of us barely pass on a normal basis, but I know it’s ten times harder for them.”

They continue to chat for a short while before Minho’s name eventually gets called by the barista.

“One hazelnut latte for Min,” she calls out.

Changbin looks at Minho weirdly before Minho stands up, leaving his bag and phone at their table to pick his drink up.

As Minho was picking up his drink, his phone that was on top of the table lit up, notifying a text message.

Mina.

Changbin raises an eyebrow. Mina from the mechanical engineering badminton team?

Changbin couldn’t see what the message was, the phone offering a simple “sent you a message” for the preview because his phone was locked and Changbin can’t snoop in. Before Changbin even gets to lean in and have a closer look, Minho was already back, holding a paper cup, with a latte written on the side along with “Min.”

“Dude, are you okay?”

“What do you mean?” Minho asks as he sets the cup down to grab his backpack. “I’m fine, yeah.”

“You do know that lattes are like, milk with a bit of coffee and not the other way around, right?”

“Yes?” Minho answers, confusion with a bit of weirdness lacing in his tone.

“You’re lactose intolerant, remember?”

“Oh,” Minho purses his lips. “Yeah, right. I just wanted to try this now.”

“You’re going to regret it when you blow up the toilet later,” Changbin whispers as he covers his mouth from Jisung, who is currently munching a cheesecake. Manners, you know.

“I know the consequences of my actions,” Minho brushes him off. “I’ll be fine. I’ll get going now, I’ll be late.”

“But Minho—”

“Byebye, Changbin. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye Minho..?” Changbin confusedly replies to the air as he watches Minho exit the coffee shop.

His bubble of confusion was immediately popped when Jisung tapped his shoulder and showed him his laptop, a recorded meeting playing.

“Hyung, this is what I’ve been talking to you about. You know Mr. Park, right? He wanted us to answer his questions in English, then my blockmate accidentally said ‘Italian’ instead of ‘italic’ while he was answering. Absolutely no one fucking noticed it and it’s hilarious. I think the fact that no one laughed made it so much funnier.”

Jisung rambled as he pressed his spacebar to play the recorded meeting, but Changbin was sidetracked in seeing Seungmin in the same meeting. He knew that Jisung and Seungmin were roommates and best friends but he didn’t know they shared a class, but what throws Changbin off even more is the fact that Seungmin’s background was so familiar.

He had his camera on, and a clothing rack and a curtain were behind him. Changbin swears he has seen that clothing rack before, and he gets even more baffled when he sees a wandering cat walk behind him. Changbin’s confusion with Minho and his confusion with Seungmin’s background creates an unending loop of question marks in his head, not understanding anything happening.

Changbin laughs with Jisung when he pauses the video pretending like he saw Jisung actually wanted him to watch, several questions lingering at the back of his mind.

changbin: help what do i reply to this

minho: why are you asking how to flirt with a person i don’t know
minho: just say what feels right

changbin: what feels right is me not replying at all

minho: you’re grown, you should be capable of flirting
minho: bye changbin, i have to walk my dog

changbin: ???
changbin: you mean cat?

Minho leaves him on read.

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

“Right now?” Seungmin asks.

“No, tomorrow,” Minho retorts. “Of course it’s right now.”

“I’m down.”

Minho knows he’s not been on his best behavior recently.

He has been stressed. His midterms are coming in faster than a train, and it, unfortunately, brings along a bunch of requirements to pass. He has always been busy, but the pressure increased ten-fold.

He has yet to do his weekly vacuum cleanings and he barely managed to remember to do his laundry or else he’ll have to come to class in an incorrect uniform and he might be sanctioned. He has been so preoccupied with his academics, and it’s really taking a toll on him.

A bunch of his stuff was on his dining table (he insists on doing stuff there than on his actual study table in his bedroom because the lighting is better), scattered around. He is currently working on making a prototype of an elevator on a piece of illustration board, and he has been working on it for days. He’s tired and he just wants to finish the damn thing.

There were bags in his eyes and he was aware that he was getting crankier. There are various cuts on his hands from building his prototype as well. Changbin knows how to manage a stressed Minho so he kept his distance for a while, letting Minho do his own thing and they’ll eventually talk about it when Minho is done.

He has barely talked with anyone, for the sake of keeping healthy relationships. Until Seungmin enters his apartment unannounced (he already knows Minho’s passcode), takes off his shoes, and greets him as he is cooking something for dinner and his lunch for tomorrow too.

“Hi, Beans,” Seungmin greets warmly. Minho doesn’t acknowledge him as he usually does, he just continues to do his work around the kitchen.

Seungmin’s semi-aware of Minho’s state. He knows that Minho is getting a lot busier these days and they don’t have that much time to do boyfriend stuff. Seungmin understands, it’s not like he’s not a college student as well. He just exists around Minho’s apartment, around his space. He likes being around Minho, even if they aren’t particularly doing anything.

Seungmin didn’t get a packed lunch from Minho starting Tuesday. It’s already Friday tomorrow, and while feeding Seungmin isn’t Minho’s responsibility, Seungmin still feels mildly upset about it.

Minho barely talks with him during the week. But that’s okay, Seungmin lets him.

Minho tells Seungmin off for wearing his shirts.

“Why are you wearing that?”

Your shirt? I just like it. It smells like you—”

“You don’t even do the laundry.”

“What?”

“You don’t even pay for the laundry. You keep adding your dirty clothes that were originally mine in my own laundry basket. Do you know how expensive laundry is? And you keep adding clothes to my load. You wear my clothes then let me wash them.”

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t notice it before. I’ll split the bill with you now—”

“Forget it. It’s not like you’ll pay for my previous expenses too, freeloader.”

Minho apologizes, and Seungmin understands.

He really does, because he has been freeloading off of Minho’s kindness. Helping him carry his laundry and washing his dishes wasn’t enough, and he acknowledges that. He’ll be better, he’ll be a better boyfriend to Minho.

He swears to god and tries his best to understand him, until Minho starts shouting at him for the second time this week. Seungmin can only handle so much.

“What are you doing?” Minho frantically says as he sees Seungmin moving his prototype from the dining table to the coffee table, the contents haphazardly moving around. His eyes are in panic, and Seungmin nearly drops the entire thing from Minho’s sudden outburst.

“Hyung, I’m just moving this here. Since we’re about to eat and all, we need some space in the dining—”

“Did I let you move my prototype?”

“No?” Seungmin says, confused. “I just moved it because we need space.”

“Why didn’t you ask me first?” Minho angrily points at the prototype. “That thing is going to fall down in one wrong move. It’s fucking hard to build that, Seungmin. Don’t make me do it all over again because of your stupidity.”

“My stupidity?” Seungmin offendedly points at himself. “I’ve been trying to help you around. You don’t even fucking talk to me, how was I supposed to know that the thing is fragile?”

“You could clearly see it was fragile.”

“Maybe if you actually talked to me and told me things, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. The thing is not even broken, hyung. What’s so hard about saying a simple ‘don’t touch my project’ to me, huh?”

“It takes common sense—”

“ You won’t even talk to me since Monday or whenever. Did I do something? You’re always busy but you still talk to me. What’s so different now? Why are you so agitated by my presence now?”

Minho doesn’t respond.

“That’s what I thought.”

Seungmin grabs his bag and leaves Minho’s apartment, the simmering of the chicken he’s cooking filling the silence.

Minho could say that he deserves it.

In hindsight, Minho should have seen it coming.

He went out to buy Seungmin some coffee and pastries as a peace offering for his neglect of him for the past week. He already wrote a short letter to him to go with the box of pastries as well, ready to make up with his understanding boyfriend. He was in a good mood, his favorite songs playing in his earphones as he made his way to the university’s café, ready to make his purchase.

He pushes the glass door open and the smell of coffee immediately greets him even through his mask. He removes one of his earphones from his ears and fetches his wallet from the pocket of his pants, and he is about to fall in line until he sees familiar faces at the café.

Jisung was there, at the same exact spot he was when he spotted him with Changbin before. Except there’s no Changbin this time.

The table is round and Seungmin is sitting across from him, a cup of tea on his side and there’s a slice of strawberry cake between them. Jisung does not have his laptop this time, it’s just him and Seungmin.

Seungmin seemed to be ranting about something, his eyebrows were furrowed and his lips were forming into a little pout. Jisung listens, nodding every now and then, and Seungmin continues to talk and talk.

At some point, Jisung picks the fork up from the cake’s saucer and takes a bite from the cake. He takes another portion of the cake using the fork and brings it up to Seungmin’s lips, nudging it against him, and Seungmin shuts up from his rant.

“Eat,” Jisung mouths. Seungmin opens his mouth and Jisung feeds him, Jisung cooing at him after when Seungmin angrily munches on the cake. They both pause for a moment before they suddenly burst into laughter.

Minho is not laughing.

He tries to kill the small ugly feeling that was building inside his stomach. Seungmin was covering his mouth as he laughed, a habit of his that Minho always noticed, and he hasn’t seen him smile that bright ever since last week. Minho feels his eyes twitch as he feels the ugly thing in his stomach grow.

They’re best friends, Minho convinces himself as he turns around and leaves the store. And you’re being an asshole boyfriend. He can be comforted by his friend. These are the consequences of your own actions.

He exits the café, no latte or treats in his hands, and Minho swears he sees Jisung look straight into his eyes before he turns around.

Minho drops a whole box of cake and a large cup of hazelnut latte in front of Seungmin. Out of spite.

“This is yours,” Minho points at the large box of cake and the coffee with a blank face.

Minho sent a short text to Seungmin telling him to come to his apartment, and there he was. Seungmin was seated awkwardly at Minho’s couch, not moving around or making himself comfortable like he usually does.

“Don’t go around letting random people feed you cake,” Minho monotonously says. “I am not running to an emergency room when paramedics call me from your speed dial when you get poisoned.”

For a second, Seungmin was very confused by Minho's sudden actions, but the shade of cherry on the tips of Minho’s ears was very telling of what his intentions were. His face and voice might be blank, but his ears never lie. Seungmin smiled brightly in realization, his eyes turned into crescent moons and he hid his smile behind his hands. He recalls his hanging out with Jisung who, ironically, was listening to him rant about his Minho hyung over cake. And now the Minho hyung in question was getting jealous.

“Are you going to spoon-feed me too?”

“What are you, a child?” Minho retorts as he grabs a knife and some plates from his kitchen. “You can feed yourself. I am not your babysitter.”

“But I am your baby, am I?”

“You will be reborn as a baby when I stab you with this knife.”

Minho sits beside Seungmin on the couch and brings out the cake from its box to cut it. “Wow, not even a traditional ‘I’m sorry, baby, here’s a cake as a peace offering?’ Aren’t you a romantic, Minho hyung?”

“I think this is an ‘actions speak louder than words’ scenario.”

“You’re right because you’re all bark and no bite,” Seungmin laughs. “So many threats but you’re all soft inside.”

“Don’t provoke me when I’m holding a knife one foot away from you, Seungmin-ah.”

“See? All threats and no action. It’s okay, though, I understand the Minho love language by now. Maybe I should thank Jisung for—”

Seungmin is cut off when Minho drops the knife to his coffee table, turns to face him and grabs his neck from the front, and pulls him toward him to land a kiss on his damn annoying mouth, effectively shutting Seungmin up. Seungmin’s eyes widen when Minho pulls away, and absolutely no words are rolling off of his tongue.

“Bring up trying to thank Jisung for taking you out on a date and I will make sure to buy he never asks you out again.”

Minho looks back at the sliced cake and brings one to a plate. He takes off one bite-sized piece and nudges it to Seungmin’s lips, coaxing him to eat it while having a teasing glint in his eye. Seungmin eventually opens his mouth and munches on the cake that Minho fed him, trying to get over how fucking hot his hyung is, and how he’s lucky to be dating him.

“Is there icing on my lips? Stop staring.”

“If there was, I would have probably kissed it off of you already.”

Seungmin rests his head on Minho’s shoulder. “And you do know we still have to talk about this whole—” he flaps his hand over the cake and coffee, “—miscommunications thing, right?

“Of course. I can’t run away from you.”

“Good.”

Minho and Changbin are on their way to eat some lunch from a restaurant off-campus. The food from their cafeterias wasn’t their particular taste today, so they just agreed to eat outside. Minho didn’t cook the night before because he didn’t feel like it, so now they’re just eating out.

They’re chatting as usual, about some small anecdotes about their morning classes or a rant about their terror professors, until Minho sees a running Jisung toward them. Minho drops his smile immediately.

(Even with Seungmin reassuring him that Jisung was just his best friend and was probably interested in someone else, Minho still has a one-sided beef with him. He is only a man, after all.)

“Hi, hyungs!” Jisung pants as he halts from running in front of them. Minho and Changbin slowly stopped walking, too.

“Hey Ji,” Changbin greets. “What’s up?”

“You guys seem to have somewhere to be so I’ll make it quick,” he still pants. “Are you dating Seungmin?”

“Me?” they answer in chorus. Changbin snaps his head at Minho and looks at him weirdly. Fuck.

“Why do you ask?” Changbin asks Jisung instead.

“I have a feeling he’s dating someone. He’s barely home anymore and he just ranted to me about someone who apparently wouldn’t talk to him and I feel like it’s a significant other that I don’t know about. And now he just brought half a cake home which was apparently a gift to him and he didn’t even want me to touch it. He’s not mentioning any names so I barely have any clue apart from the fact that they’re probably a hyung.”

Changbin hums in response. “Why did you approach us, then?”

“Right!” Jisung clasps his hands together. “Are you not dating Seungmin, Changbin hyung?”

“Me?” Changbin surprisingly points at himself again. “Why me?”

“Well, Seungmin texts often and I think I saw a glimpse of the contact name of his significant other. He’s smiling like an idiot so it’s pretty safe to assume that he was texting them. The name was ‘bins,’ I think? It was in hangul, bin was the first character then s was the second, and I think the only ‘bin’ who’s remotely related to Seungmin is you. Through me, of course.”

Changbin is baffled. So is Minho.

He gapes like a fish and looks silently at Minho who has a ‘please help me respond’ look on his face. Minho couldn’t think of a good response, either.

“Are there no other Bins that Seungmin knows?” He casually asks. “Changbin gets no bitches, I assure you. He’s off the table.”

“Hey!” The bitchless man in question offendedly exclaims. “I do, for your information.”

“Is it Seungmin, then?” Jisung butts in.

“Unfortunately not,” Minho internally scoffs at the ‘unfortunately.’ “Maybe it’s some other hyung? Sorry Ji, I don’t even talk to Seungmin often. I have no clue who it is.”

“That sucks, but it’s okay,” Jisung shrugs. “Do you have any idea who it is, though?”

“There’s Jung Subin, he’s in our year. I’m not sure about his course, but I saw him at a webinar somewhere,” both Jisung and Changbin look at Minho with curiosity. “It may be him, I don’t know. He’s the only other Bin I heard of.”

“Oh!” Jisung snaps his fingers. “Now that you’ve mentioned it, I do remember him commenting on Seungmin’s posts on Instagram.”

“He’s also from pre-med, I think? That makes more sense,” Changbin adds.

“You’re right! Why haven’t I thought of this before? Thanks, Minho hyung.”

“You're welcome, Jisung-ah,” Minho gives a sickeningly sweet smile. They’re so gullible. “I’m glad Seungmin is getting around. Maybe they could pull his sweaty ass out of the field for once.”

“I forgot you guys are rivals, honestly,” Jisung laughs. “But yeah, he plays too much but I can’t really blame him. Relieving the pre-med stress, you know?”

“The sports week is in five weeks,” Changbin suddenly mentions. “It’s really close!”

“Five weeks is a long time,” Minho sarcastically said. “It’s not even a serious competition.”

“Everyone would be waiting for you two to be neck-to-neck in the field, anyway,” Jisung shrugs. “Both of you are good players.”

And liars, Minho mentally adds. “I’m sure it’ll come around.”

“Better start practicing now too, Minho,” Changbin jokes. “Seungmin is way too serious for his own good.”

“I’ll manage. It’s not like I’ll be willing to practice playing volleyball without our captain’s go signal, anyway.”

“That’s nice,” Jisung comments. “I’ll get going now, I’ll bug Seungmin about his significant other soon.”

Jisung is so, so wrong, but Minho prefers that, anyway.

Seungmin is occupied with his actual significant other, right now.

Seungmin presses Minho’s body gently against the lockers, cradling the back of his head with his hand so his head wouldn’t collide harshly with the metals as Seungmin kisses him, slow and deep.

Seungmin pulled him inside the locker rooms when he passed by, and now he’s kissing the soul out of Minho, a little secret of their own to bask in. Hidden by the locks of the doors and Seungmin holding him tenderly, Seungmin’s lips move gently on his own. Minho would be a fool not to kiss back, so he does, letting his arms loop around Seungmin's neck as he pushes him closer. It’s heated and full of want, and a tint of possessiveness from Minho as well.

“Fooled Jisung earlier that you were dating a Subin,” Minho whispers as Seungmin pulls away.

“What? Why?”

“He was suspecting that you were dating Changbin, out of all people. So close yet so far. Apparently, it’s because of how you saved my contact, or whatever.”

“So you suggested I was dating someone else?”

“They wouldn’t know the truth, anyway,” Minho pulls Seungmin closer again. “They wouldn’t know you’re mine.”

Minho closes the gap between them, and Seungmin kisses him feverishly, full of desire. Seungmin cups Minho’s face and leans even closer.

Minho barely talks about anything romantic, but when he does, it’s always so smooth like a snake is creeping up on Seungmin’s back, something so unexpected but will keep you on your toes anyway. Seungmin loves it, Seungmin craves it.

As Changbin said, the sports week was near.

The alumni coaching the mechanical engineering team started calling them up and actually practicing with both the men’s and women’s teams. Minho has been home less often as Nayeon, their unofficial coach, has been holding them back. Volleyball is something that Minho enjoys, but he can’t deny that it gets suffocating when it’s being done under pressure.

Minho is at the field, together with a bunch of the volleyball players from college. Nayeon teaches them some techniques in making a more powerful serve and how to predict how a ball will land from the other side, and they all have been learning.

Minho’s training schedule was Wednesdays to Fridays. Because of the upcoming sports week, the admins of the university started making the players reserve the field on certain days so their training days won’t crash. Wednesdays to Fridays were the only days that Nayeon seemed to fetch, but that’s okay. Minho feels like he would pass out if he started practicing the whole week for a competition that’s not even graded.

Seungmin has been visiting less because of the same reason. It’s not like he hasn’t been frequently playing even months before the sports week because playing is his hobby, but his training time has been doubled as well. The pre-med volleyball team’s coach rented one of the university's Institute of Physical Education’s gyms, so they have a more private space to train in. And also because the field is already fully booked by the other colleges.

Minho and Seungmin have been talking less, but this time, they already knew it was coming and they still make an effort to hang out during the weekends. Both of them are exhausted, the accumulated stress from both their academics and the stress week getting in their veins.

“Hyung, my thighs hurt.”

“Did you not warm up?” Minho lifts his head from his pillow to look at Seungmin, who was lying down on the pull-out bed.

“I did, but it still hurts. My back hurts too.”

“Okay, come up here.”

Seungmin removes the blanket off his body and carefully moves up to Minho’s bed. Minho opens his arms with his blanket as an invitation, and Seungmin lies within his arms, snuggling up to his chest. He lets Seungmin snuggle up for a moment before reaching out to his side table’s drawer and pulling out some pain relief patches, gently coaxing Seungmin to lie on his stomach.

Minho presses on one of the areas behind Seungmin’s thigh, and Seungmin yelps.

“Ow!”

“So this is where it hurts?” Minho nonchalantly asks as he peels one of the patches to stick it on Seungmin’s thigh. “Does it hurt on the other side as well?”

“Yes,” Seungmin says from being buried in Minho’s pillow. “But please don’t poke it again, it hurts—ow! What the hell, hyung?”

Minho poked his other thigh again out of spite. He holds back a chuckle before sticking another pain relief patch on it, rubbing it soothingly afterward.

“You okay, Min-ah?”

“I’m fine,” Seungmin slowly turns around and sits up. “Thanks, Beans.”

“Take off your shirt.”

“Trying to get me naked on your own bed in return for the favor?” Seungmin teases, but he immediately shuts up and stops Minho’s hand when he sees it approaching his thigh violently. “Okay, okay, sorry—but why?”

“I’ll add some of these,” Minho waves the pack of pain relief patches, “on your back. Isn’t it hurting?”

“Oh, yes it is,” Seungmin reaches for his back and tugs his shirt off in one swift motion. He turns around and his hand wanders along his back, trying to find the spot that hurts the most. Minho mentally thanks the heavens that he’s facing Seungmin’s back right now because he’s sure Seungmin will tease him to his grave once he sees Minho’s visibly red face from staring at Seungmin’s disturbingly broad shoulders. Minho is only a man, after all.

“Here,” Seungmin turns around for a moment to grab Minho’s hand and helps him (gently) push against the spot where it aches the most. “You feel the lump?”

“Yeah, I do,” Minho responds as he places another one near his shoulder. Seungmin turns around when he feels that Minho is done, and he smiles widely, grabbing one of Minho’s hands and kissing the back of it.

“Does your body hurt too, Beans?”

“My back too, actually.”

“Do you want a massage?”

“Will it not hurt your own if you try to strain your body more?”

“I’ll manage, it’s more of hand movement than a thigh one, anyway. Is that fine with you?”

“Of course.”

It’s like Seungmin and Minho are not rivals at all, with them helping each other out with their sore bodies that were the fruit of them practicing for the same competition. Neither of them care about winning in sports week, it has been pushed back at the very last bullet of their priorities, but they still have to participate in it anyway.

Minho would rather be here, napping with his beloved boyfriend in the comfort of his own home while smelling like a bunch of grandpas with the pain relief patches all over their skin, than practice under the scorching hot sun.

Minho comfortably held Seungmin within his arms letting the soft lull of his air conditioning unit fill the silence.

He decides to break that.

“Min-ah?”

“Hm?”

“Do you like my teeth?”

“Yeah, I think your tits are pretty great.”

Minho looks at Seungmin weirdly.

“Teeth, idiot. You’re going to take Dentistry after you graduate pre-med, right?”

“Oh, you’re right. I am. And to answer your question, I think your teeth are cute. You have cute bunny teeth. Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re going to take Dentistry and I don’t want to seem like I don’t have nice teeth when my boyfriend is a dentist-to-be.”

“Don’t worry about that, Beans. I think you’re as incredibly pretty as you are now. And I’ll do your teeth for free if you think they’re not nice.”

“Okay, thank you,” Minho hugs Seungmin tighter.

“I’ll also do you, if you—”

Their peace is disrupted after a few hours.

Minho wakes up from their nap and he freezes when he hears his front door open. Seungmin is right between his arms so there’s one possibility on who it is, really.

“Minho hyung?”

Damn Seo Changbin. Seungmin stirs awake from his nap and blinks sleepily at Minho. Minho whispers to him a soft “keep sleeping” as he kisses his temple and gets off his bed.

Minho opens his bedroom door just by a bit and sees Changbin, so he squeezes himself through the door and shuts it immediately once he exits.

“What do you want, Changbin-ah?”

“Sorry hyung, did I wake you up?” Changbin sheepishly rubs the back of his neck.

“You did, but you’re here now, so just say what you want.”

“I was wondering if you’d like to go eat out? Since you’re stressed with training and all, I figured that you would maybe want to eat out to destress.”

Minho hums and rubs his eyes. What a good offer at a totally terrible timing. “Sorry Bin-ah, I think I’d rather sleep in today.”

“Are you sure?” Changbin furrows his eyebrows and puts his fingers against Minho’s forehead. “Are you sick?”

“I’m not, my body just hurts and I’d like to rest. We can eat another time.”

“Are you a hundred percent sure? Even sushi?”

Minho bites his lip. He’s tempted, so tempted, but it’s not like he can ditch his boyfriend sleeping in his own room alone. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Oh, okay then,” Changbin’s shoulders slump. “Let’s eat out some other day. Hope you feel better, hyung.”

“Thanks, Changbin. I’m sorry we couldn’t go out today.”

“It’s fine. Rest well,” he pats Minhos’ head. Minho nods.

Minho waits for Changbin to exit his apartment before returning to his bedroom, mainly to eliminate the risk of him opening his door and Changbin unintentionally catching a glimpse of Seungmin in Minho’s bed.

Minho awkwardly leans back on the wall and waits for Changbin to leave, and Changbin just stares at him.

“Well?” Minho starts. “Are you not going to leave?”

“I was planning to just laze around here if I can? My roommate’s having a breakdown and I’d like to leave him alone temporarily.”

“Uh,” Minho looks around. “Can you not stay… anywhere else?”

“Why? You have something to do?”

“Something like that.”

“Oh, okay then,” Changbin stands up from previously sitting on his couch. “I’ll leave. Thanks, hyung.”

Changbin walks up to Minho who was leaning against the wall beside his bedroom door, probably trying to hug him before he leaves, but Minho’s reflexes move quicker. Regrettably so.

Minho immediately holds his bedroom doorknob, and Changbin raises an eyebrow at his sudden movement. He fucked up.

“Hyung?”

“I just almost fell, haha,” Minho awkwardly laughs. Changbin doesn’t buy it.

“Are you hiding something?”

“I’m not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why do you keep asking me if I’m sure?” Minho whines. “I am. I just woke up and my brain’s fried but I am sure of what I’m saying.”

“Okay,” Changbin cautiously says. Minho drops his hold from the door knob.

Until Changbin jokingly but abruptly reaches for the doorknob but pauses before he actually does, and Minho already has Changbin’s wrist under his grip. Changbin looks at him with wide eyes.

“You are hiding something,” Changbin laughs in disbelief and amusement. “I can’t believe it! What is this secret of yours that you’re hiding from me, out of all people.”

“Nothing. Go away, Changbin.”

“Not until you say what it is.”

“It’s hidden for a reason,” Minho snorts as he pushes Changbin away from the door. Changbin nearly trips from the shoes lined up by the door.

“You will know soon. Goodbye for now.”

“But hyung—”

“Byebye, Changbin-ah.”

Changbin was pushed by Minho out of his door together with his boots so he can tie his shoes outside, but Changbin catches a glimpse of white sneakers by Minho’s door.

Something that Minho would definitely not own.

Minho and Seungmin were supposed to eat out today.

It’s only two weeks before sports week, and they wanted to spend some time together before being locked in a bunch of practice sessions for the rest of the time before the sports week starts.

Minho is currently waiting for Seungmin in a nice Korean restaurant somewhere away from their university, both of them craving some Seolleongtan and some street food. Minho sits at the restaurant, thumbing through the menu, and looking at some things he and Seungmin can order.

It’s a Friday, so there are more people than usual. A few friend groups are eating at the restaurant here and there, and some people who were also on dates like Minho. Minho’s coach already called the training off for today, and Seungmin is planning to escape training.

After roughly ten minutes, Seungmin comes inside the store, panting. He clutches his chest, trying to catch his breath as he walks toward Minho’s table.

“Hi, hyung. Sorry, I’m late.”

Minho pushes his glass of water toward Seungmin in response. Seungmin pulls out the chair in front of him and sits, then proceeds to drink some water.

“I couldn’t—is that my phone?”

Seungmin’s eyes are wide as he stares at his phone laying on top of the table, right next to Minho’s. And also the reason why he was late for his date.

Minho hums. “Yes, it’s yours. The security guard at your building called me earlier while I was walking and gave this to me because he thought it’s mine.”

“Oh, thank god, I thought I lost it. I was looking for it for the past hour, in all the classrooms I’ve been to for the day. It’s also the reason why I’m late, I couldn’t tell the time while I was searching for it and I couldn’t give you a heads up, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry,” Minho picks up his menu again and hands one to Seungmin. “The security guard thought it was mine because apparently, I’m the one in the lockscreen.”

Seungmin’s cheeks flush. “It puts me in a good mood. Don’t look at me like that.”

“You see me practically every day, what’s the need to make me your lockscreen so you can be in a good mood?”

“Beans,” Seungmin leans back on his chair and whines. “I am romancing you. Please let me be.”

“I am not flattered,” Minho teases. “Try harder.”

“What, do you want me to set a photo of us kissing as my lockscreen instead?”

“You’re disgusting,” Minho immediately drops his smile and grimaces. “I thought we’re supposed to be a secret, why am I suddenly on your lockscreen? People are going to catch on.”

“Let them catch on, I’m not ashamed of having you as my boyfriend,” Seungmin grins as he touches Minho’s nose. “But in all seriousness, if you want me to change it, I will.”

“You do you,” Minho shrugs and he calls a waiter right after. “I don’t really mind.”

Seungmin watches Minho order, and also says his own after Minho was done. He also moves his chair closer to Minho’s side and slips his fingers between Minho’s, and also rests his head on his shoulder.

Things with Minho are comfortable, and Seungmin appreciates it.

Sometimes, he might feel like wanting to kiss Minho in front of everyone they know just so they can realize that both he and Minho were off the table, but he can wait. There’s something so secure about being inside their own bubble that Seungmin wants to cherish for longer before they eventually decide to break the news to everyone, anyway.

Changbin is a nosey man.

Minho has known that ever since they met, but it gets increasingly obvious now that Changbin knows that Minho is hiding something from him.

Minho has left his phone unattended. He left his apartment for a while to buy some eggs to add to his bibimbap, and he didn’t even bother to bring his phone with him. Now it’s laying on the coffee table, right within Changbin’s reach, so he does. It’s not locked because Minho just left his Spotify open, and Changbin has access to it.

Right when Changbin held Minho’s phone, a text came in. It’s from ‘Mina.’ Bingo, Changbin smirks.

He opens the text message.

민아: Hi
민아: Are you cooking dinner?

Yes

민아: :D
민아: What are you cooking?

Just some bibimbap with eggs

민아: That sounds good
민아: I know you always leave me some but please don’t forget it today <3
민아: I’m coming over again, I miss your cooking

Changbin raises an eyebrow. Maybe it was Mina who had Minho over when he visited, especially if Minho feeds her often. Changbin was still confused on why Mina’s name is spelled differently on Minho’s phone, the ‘n’ was misplaced. Maybe it was because Minho was keeping her a secret.

You know I always do What time are you coming over?

민아: Just the usual time
민아: When Changbin leaves
민아: He’s there right now, right?

He is Don’t worry, I’ll still save you some

민아: Thank you :)

Changbin frowns. Minho really is keeping Mina from him, and even planning to go around Changbin’s schedule. He decides to ask about Mina’s badminton practice, just in case he gets something out of it.

How was your practice today, by the way?

민아: You’re acting like you don’t like putting pain relief patches on my back every night
민아: ㅋㅋㅋ
민아: It was okay, it was tiring as usual
민아: Coach made us run 8 laps for our warm-up ㅠㅠ

That must suck But I guess running fast helps with catching the shuttlecock

민아: Shuttlecock??
민아: Focus on cooking, hyung ㅋㅋㅋ You’re mistaking me for someone else
민아: I’ll wait for it <3
민아: See you later

Double fuck.

Changbin fucked up.

Apparently, this person was not a badminton player. But still an athlete. Changbin is now confused, his original lead on Minho’s mystery person was immediately debunked.

And on top of that, this person is a man. A younger one, at that. There is no other reason why this person would refer to Minho as hyung apart from the fact that he’s a younger man.

Changbin furrows his eyebrows, he’s confused. Right when he’s about to try snooping in Minho’s gallery, he hears footsteps approaching the door, so he immediately deletes his recent conversation with Seungmin and locks the phone.

Minho enters the apartment with some eggs in a plastic bag, and he looks weirdly at Changbin because of his still position. Changbin tries to innocently smile at him like he did not just snoop on his phone. Minho resumes cooking in his small kitchen as Changbin tries to make himself comfortable on the couch.

He lets his stare linger at Minho’s back as he works around the kitchen. Changbin tries his best to think of who his person might be because he’s just nosey like that. He wants to know who it is and why Minho was so adamant about keeping him a secret.

It’s almost like Changbin doesn’t have his own secret significant other right now, one that he got only recently.

He guesses that it’s only fair.

The sports week finally arrived.

Classes from this week were minimized to give way to this event as if the athletes weren’t called at random times during their classes to train for the past week.

It’s already the last day, which means this was the peak of the games. It was already the semi-finals and finals of all the sports—basketball, badminton, board games, swimming, football, and of course, volleyball. Over the past four days, the central student council already organized which college is going against which to advance to the next rounds. For the men’s volleyball team, there were only four colleges left to compete in the semi-finals: mechanical engineering, information and communications technologies, education, and pre-med. Of course, the mechanical engineering and pre-med team would be there, and it’s already obvious who are the two teams going to be left for the finals game. People still anticipate watching the semi-final games, though. It’s just the morning, the semi-finals are held this morning while the finals are held after lunch.

It’s Minho’s team against the ICT team.

The set starts smoothly with the ICT team being the servers, and Minho’s teammates receive the ball well. The ball easily goes back and forth, between the net, until a player from the ICT team receives the ball too hard that it goes outside the court—Minho’s teammates were shouting at their designated player at one of the corners to not receive the ball so it lands outside, and it does. The referee whistles and the scorer gives the mechanical engineering team one point.

The ball is on Minho’s team now, and it was now Jungmo’s time to serve. He throws the ball up and hits it with his right hand. The ICT team receives it, some players tossing it and the others hitting it to reach the other side of the court. The game goes on for a while, not anything heated happening. The ICT team was leading with 3 points, and it was only a matter of a few more points before they reached the set point and won the set. The game continued and the ICT team already had 24 points while the mechanical engineering team had 23.

The ball is in Minho’s court again, and Woobin was the designated server this time. He’s a freshman, so he hasn’t been around for long, and Minho wasn’t too agitated that he made a serving error, ultimately making the ICT team have another point and win the set.

The two teams took a quick water break and switched sides, and the game continued smoothly. Minho serves first for this set, the sound of his palm hitting the volleyball resonating in the open field where they’re playing from the impact. The game is on a best-of-three rule, and the mechanical engineering team wins the second set with a four-point lead. They switched again and they played, their scores were only one point apart with Minho’s team leading. They have to win this round or else the other team might have an advantage of winning the fourth set if they win this round.

The third round ended with a 26-24 score with Minho’s team winning, thankfully. They advanced to the fourth round, and they had to win this one to win the game and move to the finals. The fourth round still has 25 as the set point, so they had to score 25 before the other team did.

Changbin is sitting on the front benches with Minho’s belongings with him, shooting him two thumbs up with a wide grin. Minho grins in return as he goes into their team position on the other side of the court.

This round was more intense than the previous rounds.

The ICT team had more freshmen than seniors so they were at a disadvantage, even if a lot of them were tall. The referee whistles, meaning that the set has started, and Seungkwan from Minho’s team starts to serve.

The ICT team receives it well and passes the ball back to them, prolonging the game, until one of the freshmen from the ICT team receives the ball too low and it hits the net, the ball landing on their side. The game resumed and Minho’s teammates were now starting to play intensely, their hits becoming more powerful, making the ball land faster. The ICT team was having a hard time receiving the ball quickly, which made them lose points fast. The game ends when Jungmo spiked the ball on his way and it landed quickly on the other side of the court, the player from the other team was too late to receive it even when he kneeled. The crowd cheers as Jungmo makes his winning point, and Minho’s head huddles up for a group hug with Nayeon, their coach.

The ICT team still huddles up with their coach and their coach was reassuring them. The crowd for Minho’s team was doing their chant for the players while waving their mustard yellow cheer balloons, the color of their college. Minho walks back to the benches to wipe off his sweat as Changbin pats him on the back, congratulating him.

“The ICT team were full of freshies,” Changbin comments as Minho downs a bottle of water.

“Yeah, they still did pretty well though. They wouldn’t be in the semi-finals round if they weren’t.”

“Good job, Minho-ya,” Minho turns around and sees Chan, sitting right beside Changbin as he gives him a thumbs up. “You were great.”

“Thanks, sunbae,” Minho bows.

The crowd stood up and left as the bleachers were being filled with the students from education and pre-med. Changbin and Minho leave shortly as the players for the other semi-finalist teams arrive, and he gives a little ‘fighting’ hand gesture when Seungmin meets his eyes from the other side of the bleachers. Seungmin smiles at him in return.

Minho has a lot of time to rest since after the semi-finals round ends for the men’s volleyball team, the women’s volleyball teams will play next for their own semi-finals. It’s only 8:30 in the morning, and the finals won’t start until 12:30. Minho asks Changbin if he wants to watch this semi-finals round of pre-med and education, and he agrees. Minho sits in one of the seats in the bleachers and watches the game, or more specifically, his hot volleyball player boyfriend from pre-med.

Seungmin’s team wins, of course. They didn’t even need a fourth set because the pre-med team won all of the first three sets. 25-17, 25-21, and 26-24.

It’s already noon. Minho had already eaten lunch earlier so he still has some fuel inside his body, and he also heard from Chan that the finalists for the women’s volleyball were the College of Architecture and the College of Chemical Engineering. He stayed back to watch all the games, claiming that he’s making the most out of his ‘sick’ leave that he filed for this day from his work.

The volleyball side of the bleachers was already filled, and some people were already standing or sitting in the stairway. The other half of the field was occupied by the football team, and they also had a lot of spectators from various colleges, not only the students supporting their own colleges that were playing.

Nayeon rounds up Minho’s team and discusses their strategy for the game. Their positions from the semi-finals were the same as their positions now, and Minho was the one to serve first. The referee whistles to let the players go to their respective positions, and Nayeon wishes them luck for the last time.

There were also some commentators from other colleges, ready to narrate the game.

Minho stands in the middle of the line outside the court with the volleyball in his hands. “Number 10, Lee Minho, getting ready to serve.”

The mechanical engineering students cheer for him as he dribbles the ball twice, making eye contact with the players from pre-med to determine who he’ll throw the ball to. He aims at Hyeongjun, the player at the front and on Minho’s right—Minho throws the ball with his left and gives a strong hit with his right, the ball flying towards Hyeongjun and he tosses it up. Minho quickly runs back to his position in the back as the pre-med team passes the ball back to them, his teammates receiving it once.

“Koo, Jung, Kim, Boo, Kim, Song, Lee—” the commentator mentions whoever receives the ball.

The ball goes back and forth until Kino from the pre-med team gives a particularly strong receive, Minho’s team running towards the ball to receive it. Jungmo tosses the ball and Seungkwan pushes the ball too weakly for it to go to the other side, and Minho comes to toss the ball again—a mistake on his end. Seungkwan locks his eyes on the ball that Minho tossed and hits it so it goes to the other side.

“Violation by number 10,” the commentator whistles.

The referee blows his whistle and makes a gesture about a violation since Minho’s team received the ball more than three times. Seungkwan gives Minho a pat on his back as the referee tosses the ball from the mechanical engineering team to the pre-med team.

“Number 3, Kang, is now preparing to set the ball.”

It was now Kino’s time to serve. He holds the ball with his left hand and swings his right hand back and forth, trying to gain momentum before he actually hits the ball. He hits the ball and the ball flies over the net, and Moonbin receives it well. The ball flies over the net a few more times until someone from the mechanical engineering team receives the ball too weakly that it lands on the net, and then it lands on their side of the court.

As the first set goes by, a lot of points that the pre-med team accumulated were from errors from Minho’s team. It was only a matter of one more point before the pre-med team won the game, with a score of 24-22.

Seungmin was the one to serve this time. He dribbles the ball before serving it. He was already starting to sweat with how the sun was already so harsh, together with all the movement from the sport. Jungwoo from Minho’s team receives the ball well. Minho crouches as he rests his hand on his thigh, his body lowered but he is still ready to receive the ball when it comes to his direction.

“A strong receive by number fourteen—”

Minho sees the ball going in his direction so he immediately puts his hands in a receiving position and hits the ball precisely, the ball going to the other side of the net. “—received by number ten!”

Mingyu from the pre-med team receives Minho’s hit, then Woobin comes to receive the ball from Mingyu. He attempted to spike the ball but it was too powerful that the ball landed outside the court, making the pre-med team win for this set. The side of the pre-med team’s crowd cheered and shouted, clapping and some were initiating on doing their cheer. “And… outside! The Pre-Med team wins this set, with a score of 25-22.”

They switch places in the court, Minho’s team going to their respective positions on the other side of the court. Subin from pre-med was the one assigned to serve now, and Minho barely hides his urge to snort when he sees his face. He’s at the farthest point in the court before he decides to take a few running steps forward and serves the ball. Moonbin from Minho’s team tosses the ball high up, and Seungkwan attempts to spike the ball, but his spike was immediately received by the players of pre-med. Minho receives the ball, but Seungmin comes to block his attempt, making the ball fall to Minho’s side of the court.

The scores for the second set are 18-17 now, with Minho’s team leading. Seungmin’s team was incredibly good with blocking the engineering team’s receives, the ball was mostly in Minho’s court with how quickly they were blocked, but they still manage to score when the pre-med team makes violations.

“Number 10, Lee Minho from Mechanical Engineering, dribbling the ball. He’s dribbling, he’s dribbling, he’s running—”

It was Minho’s turn to serve again, and he does the same trick as Subin—he takes a small boost by starting from the farthest point in the court and running to hit the ball, but Seungmin immediately receives his serve. “Received by Number 9!”

“Mine!” Woobin shouts when he sees Seungmin’s serve coming in his direction. He tosses the ball and Moonbin comes to spike it, and the ball moves too fast for Seungmin’s team to receive. Another point goes to them. Minho high-fives Moonbin’s hand as he moves back to his position at the back.

Minho figures out that Seungmin’s team’s strategy was to block the ball as much as they can, compared to the ICT team who had mostly tossing and spiking as their strategy. It was easy for Seungmin’s team to execute blocking because most of them were either tall or had long arms.

The second set ends with Minho’s team winning, with a score of 25-21. Minho high-fives some of his teammates as they gather around for a short break before the third set starts. Minho takes a big gulp of water as Changbin hands him his towel to wipe his sweat off. He pants and sits on the bench to catch his breath, along with his other teammates.

“You’re doing great, Minho!” Changbin, the idiot that he is, shakes Minho’s shoulders to hype him up. Minho tries to glare at him, but Changbin only laughs at his state. “You’re going to beat Seungmin’s ass, you can do it.”

“Of course, I can,” he cooly replies. He places his elbows on his thighs as he continues to catch his breath, the view from his bench was the pre-med team’s bench. Seungmin was also downing his large water jug and he puts the jug down as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

A bunch of spectators swoon as Seungmin does his old using-his-jersey-to-wipe-off-his-sweat-so-he-can-also-flash-his-abs trick, and Minho barely holds back a laugh. He’s used to Seungmin’s antics now, he’s not flustered by them anymore. The crowd was visibly not. Cue the swooning girl clutching to her best friend on the bleachers.

It was not long before the referee gathered the players around the court again. The crowd cheers as Serim subs for Moonbin in Minho’s team, because Moonbin had leg cramps during their timeout. Minho’s college cheers for their team by doing their chant while hitting their cheering balloons together. When their cheer ended, the students from pre-med also started cheering and doing the chants for their college, everyone was clad in a sky blue shirt with variations of designs of their college logo. Some big drums were at the very back of the bleachers, the drummers playing them to keep the anticipation up for the game. It’s a bit deafening now, but Minho is enthralled with the number of people watching him and his team play. He loves the feeling of it.

Minho is the designated setter in this set again, so he lifts the ball and hits it as hard as he can with his left hand. Being ambidextrous had its perks.

“A perfect serve by Number 10!”

The ball comes in Subin’s direction, but he blocks the ball near the net. Jungmo comes to toss the ball backwards so another player can receive it. Woobin attempts to spike, and his attempt was successful. Mingyu serves the ball from the other side and Minho comes to spike it just like Woobin, but his attempt was tossed by Kino and then was received by Hyeongjun. The ball goes back and forth—Seungmin makes a particularly strong spike, but Minho runs and kneels to receive the ball that was quickly falling and was on the verge of falling on the line of the court. The crowd cheers for a short while but is immediately toned down as Jungwoo makes a receiving error, making Seungmin’s team earn one point.

“Close call! Good thing Number 10 caught it, the game goes on!”

The game continues as it gets more heated, Minho receiving the ball well even when it’s on the verge of reaching their court’s floor really quickly. His college cheers for his name whenever he survives a risky receive and it boosts his ego more.

The scores were now 23-23, tied. They had to reach the 25-set point and also have a two-point lead for them to secure this round. Some of the crowd were already standing in anticipation, their arms crossed and some had their hands clasped together.

“And now, our setter is Kim Junji. The game is getting intense, with a tied score of 23. Let’s see who will break the tie.”

Junji from Seungmin’s team is the setter, and he serves it well. Serim comes to receive it, passing the ball to the other side efficiently. Minho’s ears were starting to get weary of the continuous drums that were playing that got intense whenever a team scored a point—he was starting to get tired, but he could manage. He blames it on the harsh afternoon sun.

The ball was thrown to their side, and Minho tried to block it, but he made an error. The referee blows his whistle as the scorer adds another point to Seungmin’s team. 24-23. One more point by the pre-med team and they will win this set.

The ball is being passed from one team to another again until Seungmin does a sharp strike and the ball falls in Minho’s court. Minho’s knees were warm from the friction despite having knee caps on while sliding down in hopes of receiving the ball. The side of the crowd supporting the pre-med team cheers even louder as the team huddles up and celebrates their victory for this round.

“Is this going to be a winning strike from Number 9… Number 10 missed! Team Pre-Med wins this set with a 25-23 score! The Pre-Med team is now leading the game with two wins while the Mechanical Engineering team has one win.”

“Sorry,” Minho tiredly says as his team also huddles up.

“It’s okay, Minho-sunbae!” Jungmo exclaims as he rubs Minho’s back. “We’ll redeem ourselves. The pre-med team is too good.”

The team gives encouraging pats and rubs to each other, but Minho was already feeling the exhaustion creeping up his skin. He tries to do breathing exercises to catch his breath faster before the next set starts.

There’s a little ice breaker segment, the commentators initiating some games. The scores were shown on a screen that was set up by the central student council, and it temporarily switched to a camera of the audience. The camera pans to the crowd, the students cheering whenever they were seen on the screen through the camera.

Soon enough, the camera has a little popup gif, and Minho laughs at the student council’s antics. Of course, no one but them would think of something as ridiculous as a kiss cam in the middle of the game’s timeout. The camera wanders along with the crowd and stops abruptly at a random pair of college students, who was teased by the people around them. The girl kisses the other guy on the cheek.

The camera roams again, and Minho took all his willpower to not burst into loud laughter when the camera points at an unsuspecting Changbin and a flustered Chan. Right beside him.

Changbin looks horrified at the screen and then looks at Minho, then he whips his head to Chan the moment he sees Minho laughing at him and not helping him. He’s panicked, and so is Chan, but Minho sees Chan visibly take a deep breath and he decides to give Changbin a small peck. On the lips.

Minho is equally shocked as Changbin, because hell, even a kiss on the cheek or the nose would do, but Chan decided to go full-out. The camera switches to another angle and proceeds to find another victim, the last one before they resume the game.

“What was that?” Minho teasingly asks Changbin, who was red down to his neck.

“I don’t know! These stupid student council activities are so—” Changbin babbles out. Minho is laughing so much at his friend’s misery, and Chan is just sitting there, his ears in a fiery shade of red.

It wasn’t long before Minho and the other players were called up again. Minho goes to his position, in the front line on the left, and waits for his other teammates to follow. He rested his hands on his thighs again, ready to receive even if Mingyu was still playing around with the ball instead of preparing to serve it.

“We’re back to the game, folks! We’re in the fourth set with Number 6, dribbling the ball. This would be Kim’s last year to play as he’s graduating! Will this be the last set of the game with Pre-Med taking the crown, or will the Mechanical Engineering team turn the tables and have two wins to tie with their opponents? Let’s see.”

Mingyu raises his left hand with the ball and curls his fingers into a fist on his right and swings the ball to Minho’s side. Serim receives the ball and Subin tosses the ball from Serim. Kino hits the ball with his wrists but Minho effectively blocks it.

The drums get louder again and the crowd cheers. “Blocked by Number 10! One point to the Mechanical Engineering team!”

It’s Seungkwan’s turn to serve the ball, and he does it flawlessly. Seungmin receives the ball and hits it back to the Mechanical Engineering team’s side. Jungmo tosses the ball and Jungwoo hits it back to Seungmin’s side.

Hyeonjun receives the ball but he hits it backward, and Seungmin attempts to save the ball. The ball lands outside of their own court before Seungmin could catch it, making Minho’s team have an additional point.

“Number 20, preparing to serve the ball,” the commentator mentions as Woobin was getting ready. Woobin serves the ball strongly but Seungmin receives it. The ball goes over the net a few more times before Jungmo fails to receive Subin’s spike.

The crowd cheers once more, the students from Pre-Med screaming as their team scored their first point for the set. The ball goes back and forth between the two teams again, before Serim attempts to spike the ball after Minho tossed it, but it was too low and it landed on the net.

“The Mechanical Engineering team is getting serious—no more slacking off based on their expressions. This set is their only chance left of having another set that they can win and hopefully take home the trophy.

“Song, Kim, Boo, Lee, Kim, Lee, Kim— Lee Minho fails to block the ball!”

The Pre-Med team keeps getting even more points. They’re now leading with a four-point lead and are three points away from winning the entire game.

“Lee Minho, do not block the ball!” Nayeon shouts from the benches. Minho shoots her an ‘okay’ hand gesture in return.

“Lee Minho!” Changbin’s voice was unsurprisingly loud, effectively startling him, even in an open space filled with people. “You can do it!”

Changbin is aggressively jumping around, and Minho laughs at him. The Mechanical Engineering crowd was quiet, a lot of them standing up and anxiously biting on their fingernails. Minho could even see some praying.

The game resumes, Seungmin’s team scoring one right after Minho’s team earns one. The four-point gap was maintained, and they were only two points away from winning.

In all honesty, Minho feels like they’re about to lose. Not that he’s pessimistic, but the gap was quite large and the opposing team can easily block their receives. And Minho knows from the bottom of his heart that Seungmin’s team has been practicing forever, and they’re all way too good at blocking and serving. He’s not bitter from it, he’s far from it, knowing that Seungmin could finally be fulfilled after practicing for so long. He worked way too hard, way more than Minho could admit that he did, and he deserves the win. He deserves his hard work to pay off.

And there it is—Seungmin’s team scores another point, courtesy of the man himself, and his team huddles up around him. The cheers were deafening, almost everyone from the Pre-Med college was standing up and cheering. Only one more point.

Subin serves the ball. Seungkwan receives it. It’s a familiar song and dance, the two teams passing the ball. Minho feels his knees burn even more whenever he kneels to save the ball before it hits the floor.

Minho receives the ball, and Kino tosses it—and Seungmin spikes the ball again. It landed on Minho’s court, and everyone was shouting and cheering now.

He won the game.

His team huddles around him and the drums get impossibly louder. “Winning strike by Number 09, Kim Seungmin! Congratulations to the Pre-Med team for winning this year’s men’s volleyball competition. Pre-Med won this set with a 25-19 score, with a 3-1 win ratio. Congratulations again, and good job to the Mechanical Engineering team too for working hard and making it to the finals!”

All the ear-piercing sounds of the commentator, drums, and the crowd fall onto deaf ears and Seungmin shines so brightly and meets Minho’s eyes. Minho smiles at him, a proud one, and Seungmin’s smile grows even wider. He brushes the arms around him off as he runs toward Minho, his arms wide, and Minho catches him in his arms and twirls him around.

A chorus of gasps was heard from the crowd, but neither of them paid attention to it.

Minho still has his hands on Seungmin’s waist as he carries him, smiling so brightly. Seungmin cups his face and leans down to kiss him square on the lips, right where everyone can see.

Seungmin may have won the trophy for the game, but Minho also has his own trophy right within his arms.