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Loving is easy. Showing his love is easy, too.
Minho pats Yongbok on the back when he cries, he lets Hyunjin wax poetic about his eyes and the slope of his nose and only pretends to stab him in the stomach once. He works out with Changbin just to see his smile when he sets a new personal record and jumps on Chan’s back for a little piggyback ride to hear his laugh. Jeongin says something snarky while Minho glows with pride, and Minho intertwines his fingers with Jisung’s so he can settle into the touch when he’s jittery.
Minho loves. He shows them. His love is easy for anyone with eyes to see.
He does not know how to love Seungmin like he loves the others.
Maybe the problem is that Minho doesn’t love Seungmin, which sounds cold, but it’s a sentiment Seungmin might return if Minho were to bring it up, out loud. It’s easy to call Seungmin stupid, easy to wave him away when Seungmin gives him his pleading puppy-eyes for one reason or another, and that can’t be love, because love for Minho is sitting in silence with Jisung when he needs it, or praying with Jeongin at night when the younger can’t sleep.
When Seungmin spends too long at vocal practice and comes back to the dorm with a sore throat, Minho wants to shout at him for being irresponsible. He wants to shove Seungmin in the chest when he shies away from Felix’s cuddles and roll his eyes when he does indulge Felix. He wants to berate Seungmin when Minho comes home to another new package in the entranceway that blocks Minho’s room.
This is not love, Minho will think as he brews Seungmin hot tea with honey to soothe his throat, this is nothing more than a chore.
The first ones Minho catches are not, surprisingly, Felix and Chan. It’s Seungmin and Hyunjin, sharing a long, innocent kiss together on the couch in their dorm’s living room. Hyunjin jumps back when he hears Minho walk in, but Minho has already seen.
“I’m telling Chan,” Minho blurts. He’s panicking a little, he thinks, but he knows nothing about his appearance betrays that. Seungmin looks a little dazed, a little lovestruck, like he wants nothing more than for Minho to get lost so he can go back to having Hyunjin pressed against him. It makes Minho feel – something. He’s not thinking about it right now.
Hyunjin wrings his hands together and doesn’t look Minho in the eye. “He knows,” he tells Minho, biting his plush bottom lip.
Minho still doesn’t know what he’s feeling. “Oh.” His eyes flicker between Hyunjin and Seungmin. Pretty, subtle flushes of red on their cheeks. Sheen, slick lips.
He hasn’t even taken his shoes off, which is perfect, because he needs to go. He pulls his mask back up onto his face and leaves the dorm without sparing them another glance.
They gather in the other dorm later that night at Chan’s insistence, even though Minho hadn’t said anything, and it’s then that everything is laid onto the table: Hyunjin and Seungmin; Chan and Felix, which is unsurprising, but still unexpected. He talks about what it means for them all, how he doesn’t want these new developments to change the dynamic of the group, can they just be happy and wish the two new couples well?
Everyone is happy for them all. Obviously. Minho loves them, how could he not want anything but their happiness?
He accompanies a restless Changbin to the gym an hour later and lets Changbin push him up against the lockers by the showers to kiss him breathless. Minho fists his hands on the collar of Changbin’s muscle tee to pull him closer. It’s ruthless, it’s bruising, it burns, it burns, and the misaligned pieces of Minho’s chest slide together. He never knew this was an option, that this – to have another one of the others pressed to his front, licking into his mouth and mapping his teeth with his tongue – was a possibility, but now it’s as if this is all Minho wants, all he ever needs.
But it’s different for Changbin, this is different from Hyunjin and Seungmin, Chan and Felix. Changbin, too, seems to have realized that they’re allowed this, that this is a choice they all have now, but it’s not Minho Changbin wishes he was kissing. How could he, when his heart has been Hyunjin’s all these years?
So Minho pulls away, suppressing a whine from escaping when Changbin leans down to nip at his collarbone. “You should tell him,” he says, voice raspy and quiet.
Changbin’s eyebrows furrow, face scrunching up like Minho just punched him in the stomach, and Minho wants to take his words back if it means he doesn’t have to see Changbin hurting so much. “Why would I ruin a good thing?” he whispers, breath ghosting over Minho’s heated skin. He brings his head up to Minho’s ear, licking the shell with the tip of his tongue. Minho gasps. “Don’t you want me, hyung?”
“Yes,” Minho answers, too quickly. He does, he wants Changbin so badly, and his heart does something weird, clenches up and tightens, because he wants Hyunjin, too, and Chan, and Yongbok, and the rest of them.
Even Kim Seungmin. Especially Seungmin, because the truth is, Minho has loved him the longest. When Seungmin comes home from vocal practice with a sore throat, Minho wants to shout at him to take better care of himself because he can’t stand to see Seungmin unwell. He rolls his eyes when Seungmin finally indulges Felix’s cuddles because Minho knows Seungmin just likes to be difficult, and Minho loves that about him. He wants to berate Seungmin for buying new things instead of telling Minho what he wanted so Minho could buy them for him.
And Minho wants – he wants. But that’s selfish, to want them all so close, to covet them so near to him when they already have each other. And that’s not what Changbin means, anyways.
If Changbin wants Minho like this, lips on his and hands roaming down his body, then Minho will gladly give it. Because he loves them, and this is just another way to show it.
The regular hookups between him and Changbin do nothing to quell his want for all of them. If anything, it gets worse, which Minho could have predicted, but he still wants whatever Changbin will offer, and Minho will take what he can get.
Seungmin is leaning on the doorframe just as Minho is getting ready to sleep. His eyes zero in on the bite mark over Minho’s nipple, and Minho feels his ears get hot as he lifts his bedsheets to cover himself. “What?” he asks, irritated. That’s all he is these days, it seems – short with everyone, easy to rile up, insatiable with a desire that suffocates him in its growth.
It doesn’t phase Seungmin, though. Very little does. “I heard you and Changbin hyung earlier,” he tells Minho.
They hadn’t bothered to be quiet because they thought they were alone. Minho should’ve known one of them was going to come back early, just as Minho did when he watched love bloom on Seungmin and Hyunjin’s faces a month ago.
Minho’s longing is a monster gnawing at his fleshy insides.
“Sorry,” Minho responds, clipped and short.
Seungmin stands there for a moment longer before humming tersely and leaving. Minho hears Seungmin’s bedroom door shutting closed lightly.
He buries himself under his covers and wills the coils around his heart to unspool.
Chan has called another dorm meeting. Minho wishes he’d faked being busy.
Changbin’s hand is in Seungmin’s, and Jeongin’s is in Hyunjin’s, but Seungmin and Hyunjin are still looking at each other like they did the day Minho caught them kissing, and Changbin is looking at Hyunjin the same way, and –
This is just the way it’s going to be from now on, Minho realizes. Every few months there will be another “important announcement” where they’ll gather in one of the dorms, someone will be holding someone else’s hand, and Minho is going to have to pretend there are no desperate tears stinging behind his eyes. Maybe next time it will be Jisung and Hyunjin – God knows how attached they are at the hip already – or maybe Jeongin and Seungmin since they’re so close they might as well be married. Chan and Changbin have been eyeing each other more than usual lately too, Minho has noticed.
And Minho will be left, alone with his monster and his barbed heartbeats – too complicated and too confusing and too difficult for the threads of gold woven between the rest of them.
Someone sneaks under his covers later that night, and Minho would mistake it for Jeongin because of the scent of their hair if not for the knowledge that Felix is the only one who ever does this with Minho. His hair smells like Jeongin’s shampoo; Minho remembers that they like to share.
He lets Felix make space for himself against Minho’s front, his hair tickling Minho’s chin. “Should I get Channie?” Minho whispers to the top of his head.
He feels Felix shake his head. Minho hums and wraps an arm around his back to pull him closer. They lie in silence for what must be ten minutes, and Minho would think Felix fell asleep if he didn’t know the rhythm of his breaths by heart. He lets Felix cuddle close to his chest, lets Felix take what he needs from Minho’s warmth.
“I like Changbin hyung,” Yongbok whispers into Minho’s skin.
Minho should have known it wouldn’t even be every few months – apparently he only had to wait a few hours. They all have a little too much love to give.
Minho squeezes Felix even closer and ignores the stinging tendrils around his heart again. “Tell him,” he says. He seems to be saying that a lot lately. Maybe he always will be.
“I can’t,” Yongbok says back quietly. “Because I like Jisung too. And Hyunjin. And–”
“Yongbok-ah,” Minho interrupts, petting the back of his head rhythmically. It works in soothing Felix, and he feels the younger untense his shoulders. “Tell them. Just tell them.”
Felix sniffles. “It can’t be that easy,” he murmurs.
It isn’t, Minho thinks. “It is if it’s you,” he tells Yongbok, and it’s true. Anyone who isn’t in love with Yongbok gets there eventually. Minho has known since he and Felix held each other, right after their debut was announced, with all of the happiness and excitement in the world.
He is so, so easy to love, with his freckled shoulders and wide eyes. Minho suddenly feels dirty next to him, feels red next to Yongbok’s sunshine white.
“Just tell them,” he repeats, and his heart falls into an abyss.
It starts with Hyunjin and Seungmin, Chan and Felix, Hyunjin and Seungmin and Changbin and Jeongin, and it goes like this: Changbin and Felix, discreetly holding hands on the couch in the practice room; Hyunjin and Jisung, giving each other pecks on the lips and giggling afterwards with flushed cheeks; Chan biting Jeongin’s earlobe playfully, and Jeongin not swatting him away –
And it goes on, and on, and on, and Minho watches with a fondness so potent, it begins to drown him. It’s so potent, Minho starts to wonder if it’s fondness at all instead of some other, uglier thing that he has no right to feel.
But Minho is good – he watches, and he’s quiet, and he smiles, and every night he begs the universe for their happiness.
There is a pit at the bottom of Minho’s stomach these days.
It’s endless and heavy, and it weighs him down until he’s snappish and crabby, until he halts dance practice to yell at Jisung for a mistake so small, most people would have missed it.
His own outburst makes him freeze, and he realizes that he’s not the only one. The rest of them have turned their heads towards him, a few of them taking worried glances at Jisung, whose expression shutters closed.
The pit grows sharp edges. Minho wants to throw up.
He rushes out of the room and to the staircase, skipping stairs until he reaches the roof. They’re not allowed on the roof, but Minho has long since learned to pick the lock. At first, it was a neat party trick he could show the other trainees. Now, it’s his secret hideout.
Not secret enough, he supposes when he hears the door open and close behind him. He turns to level a glare at Seungmin. “Can’t you tell when someone wants to be left alone?” he spits, even as a part of him sings, Come closer, you’re here for me, please stay.
Seungmin ignores him, but doesn’t come any closer. “You’ve never yelled at Jisung before,” he says flatly.
The sun is out today. Sweat beads on Minho’s neck; he grits his teeth. “I know that.”
Seungmin’s brows furrow. “What’s your problem recently?” he asks. Not accusatory, only curious. “You’ve been–”
“Save it,” Minho interrupts, mouth drawn in a tight line. “I’m going home,” he tells Seungmin, even when all he wants is to go back to the practice room, tell Jisung he’s sorry a hundred times, and hold him for the rest of the day.
But Jisung has six boyfriends to do that for him, and Minho has no place there.
Minho swallows, ignoring the glisten of sweat on Seungmin’s forehead, the concerned pout on his peachy lips. “Tell Chan he can run the rest of practice without me today.”
He brushes past Seungmin and doesn’t look back when he leaves.
No one approaches Minho in his bedroom, and it’s for the best, Minho tells himself. There will come a day when he no longer hurts with all of this – he just has to hold out until then.
Of course, the one who doesn’t give him a chance to breathe is Seungmin again, as he barges into Minho’s room and slams the door behind him. Minho shoots up from his bed and scowls until Seungmin says, “Dinner’s ready.”
“I’m dieting,” Minho shoots back. He’s not. Their comeback isn’t for another three months.
“Stop lying,” Seungmin hisses, shocking Minho into silence. He watches as Seungmin begins to pace in front the door. “I’m going to start talking, and you’re going to listen, okay?” he orders, frustrated.
Minho wants to refuse, but Seungmin sounds stressed, so he stays silent. “The rest of them are chickenshit because you’re so –” Seungmin runs a hand through his hair, looking for the word, “– prickly.”
Minho bristles as his chest clenches, but Seungmin goes on. “You’re so weird. You lie all the time for fun, and no one ever knows what the truth is with you anymore. You never say what you mean or cover up what you do mean with a stupid joke, and it makes them unsure. They’re scared, hyung. But I’m not.”
He takes brisk strides forward, pushing Minho’s chest, and Minho lands with his back on his bed. Seungmin hovers over him with a determined look on his face, straddling Minho’s hips as he leans down. Minho wants to cradle him between his palms. “I know you,” Seungmin says lowly, warm breath hitting Minho’s chin. “I know you were fucking Changbin because you thought you were doing him some sort of favor by being available when Hyunjin wasn’t, as if Changbin hyung wasn’t dying to take you out to that restaurant you couldn’t shut up about.”
Minho blinks quickly; no, that wasn’t how it was between him and Changbin, because Changbin always looks so damn sad afterwards – because of Hyunjin. Not because Minho never let Changbin stay the night in a sorry attempt to protect himself.
He opens his mouth to tell Seungmin this, but the younger barrels on. “I know you’ve been pulling away from Yongbok as some sort of ‘favor’ too, because you think he’s being too clingy with you when he should be spending time with his boyfriends.” Seungmin groans and wrinkles his nose. “Hyung, he’s been trying to confess to you, and you haven’t let him.”
“That’s not–” Minho tries.
Seungmin slaps a hand over his mouth before Minho can finish. “In fact, they’ve all come up to me at some point. ‘Seungmin, I like Minho hyung so much, what should I do?’” Seungmin says, imitating Jeongin’s worried voice. “Or, ‘Ah, Minho doesn’t like me like that, but I wish he did.” Chan’s faux-nonchalant voice this time. Seungmin scoffs. “Don’t even get me started on Hyunjin and Jisung. All they do is talk about you and cry about you. Jisung has been in tears all day.”
Minho’s mouth shuts closed underneath Seungmin’s palm. There’s no way any of them would cry over him. Seungmin presses closer, and still, Minho wants more. “They’re all too scared to tell you because they – we all think you wouldn’t feel the same, because we all love you a little more than you might love us,” Seungmin says, voice cracking.
Minho’s eyes widen as Seungmin takes a deep breath. “But I’m not scared anymore.” He breathes again, bottom lip trembling. “I don’t – it was you first, you know,” Seungmin starts. A few tears drop from the corner of his eyes onto Minho’s cheeks. Despite his bravado, his voice shakes. “Before Hyunjin, or Changbin, or any of the others. It was always going to be you. And you never noticed because you were too busy thinking we – us – were somehow impossible.” Seungmin sniffles. Minho remains frozen underneath him. “I can tell you think that about the others, too. Even though they all want you so much. I want you so much, hyung, and you have no idea –” He hiccups, catching his breath. “I love you, I love you so much, I do. And I know you’d never let this come between us, because I know you, but I just needed you to know –”
He’s cut off by Minho flipping them over with his legs so that their positions are reversed. Any breath Seungmin had gets knocked out of him by the action, and he lies under Minho, wide-eyed and teary, and braver than Minho could ever be.
It’s Minho’s turn to slam his hand down onto Seungmin’s mouth as he speaks. “You talk so fucking much,” Minho says. He feels Seungmin’s breath hitch under his palm. “You talk all the time, and I never, ever get tired of it,” he continues. He can feel his arms trembling. “I trip over your packages every day on purpose to see you laugh. I drink your coffee every morning because you make it exactly the way I like it in a way no one else can. I thought I hated you for years because it was easier than–” Minho bites his bottom lip, and looks at himself in Seungmin’s glossy eyes, “–it was easier than admitting I love you when I thought you – or anyone else – would never feel the same,” he finishes breathily.
Minho is tenser than he’s ever been in his entire life, and his shoulders shake, but he’s not crying – he only cries when he’s sad. But Seungmin’s tears flow down into his hairline, and when Minho finally lifts his hand from Seungmin’s mouth, the younger wraps his arms around his neck and pulls Minho down. Minho crashes on top of Seungmin, his face in the crook of Seungmin’s neck, and Seungmin holds him tight.
“I hate you,” Seungmin mumbles into his ear, “we could have been having way more fun these past years if you only saw yourself the way we see you.”
Minho sniffles. He’s not crying. “What, have we not been having fun?” he says back into the smooth skin of Seungmin’s neck. He buries himself there, inhaling the scent of Chan’s petrichor shampoo and Hyunjin’s jasmine perfume, mingling together to become something unique to Seungmin. He presses a soft, tentative kiss there, grinning when he feels Seungmin’s pulse jump before lifting himself back up, only to dip his head down again towards Seungmin’s face.
The pit in his stomach sprouts a carnation, red and beautiful and watered by the way Minho finally lets Seungmin press their lips together, warm and tender.
They smile against each other. The carnation blooms.