Chapter Text
In retrospect—Junmin should have known that he has always loved Kim Minjae.
september.
Junmin sees blood on Minjae these days more often than he would like.
Granted, Junmin has seen it on two occasions, and it’s been at least partially Sumin’s blood both of those times, but still.
It hurts to see Minjae still making his best effort to calm down everyone in the room, so seemingly out of touch with his own suffering while Junmin is cleaning the blood from under his fingernails with a wet tissue, picking up Minjae’s pieces while Minjae picks up everyone else’s. While everyone is chiming into an impassioned conversation over everything that just happened—Minjae’s sudden, seemingly delusional frenzy and Yujun’s potentially biblical catastrophe in the second floor bathroom—Junmin is stuck in his head replaying the conversation that he and Minjae just had outside, thinking of what he could have said that might have gotten Minjae to at least consider letting go of his stubbornness, just this once. Junmin is no stranger to seeing Minjae self-destruct in the name of committing to the bit, but he’s not the type of person to get entertained by rehashes of classic acts. It got old a long time ago.
(And yet here he is, tending to Minjae’s wounds, rinse and repeat.)
Junmin thinks of it the whole time. While Minjae recounts what just happened to him, Junmin recalls how he was crouched on the floor, saying anything he could think of, anything that could bring Minjae back to earth. All the rest of them knew that if anyone could, Junmin was the only one. When Yujun starts getting mean after Junmin suggests that Seeun had something to do with this mess, Junmin is thinking about why Minjae had responded with defensiveness to Junmin’s sincere attempts of affection, much more outward than their norm. When Junghoon walks out to run after Yujun, when Hyunwoo starts talking out of his ass about entropy, when Sumin reveals his secret and it makes Junmin more mad than it should make Minjae—all that Junmin can think about is his own frustration that everyone in the room is slowly bleeding Minjae dry, and yet he can’t be angry at any of them because it wouldn’t be happening if Minjae wasn’t letting them.
It isn’t really that new anymore. Junmin has resigned himself to this—to the fact that everything on his mind is Minjae, Minjae, Minjae—but he’s had to learn how to show it through his actions instead, because Minjae has a harder time reading those.
Junmin calls softly for him when the meeting’s over, in his own, nondescript way. He says they have something to discuss—which they do. Because Junmin had also been thinking about the way Minjae had let himself fall into Junmin’s arms after the worst of the storm was over, and all the words they’d said to each other in between. He hasn’t stopped obssessing over the harshness in Minjae’s tone when he told Junmin to lay off the sincerity—the kind of edge that MInjae’s voice only has when he’s pushing down things that lie deeper, things that make his heartbeat sound like a bass drum in Junmin’s ears. He wonders if Minjae is serious, or just scared; then again, it’s possible he’s both. Junmin certainly is.
Junmin’s always had that dreadful inkling that when he finally tells Minjae I love you, that Minjae’s answer would be, “No, you don’t”—and it stings, because that doesn’t mean it stopped Junmin from hoping it would be different anyway.
They go back and forth. Trying to recount each word is like a nauseous fever dream, swinging Junmin around a pendulum when he gets dizzy from being even on the mildest of the rides at a carnival. Minjae says that he’s lying, and then scoffs when he reads Junmin’s mind and realizes that he isn’t. Minjae brings up an old memory of theirs that neither of them look back on fondly, but only because Junmin forced his hand, and then Junmin has to apologize for things he only recently really thought about why he should be sorry for. Junmin devolves into this spiral of shame and regret, wondering if Minjae can hear how he mentally berates himself for always fucking with Minjae’s feelings, how this not very well-placed confession of his feelings could easily be taken as him just jerking him around, rubbing salt in a two year-old wound.
Junmin was less than kind to Minjae when gave him his heart on a silver platter, he knows. They’ve known each other since they were on the playground swings, and yet, somehow, Junmin can’t ever seem to get it right. Perhaps for too many of those years he’d conflated thoughts with feelings and blamed Minjae for not understanding the latter. They’ve always been on the same wavelength, but always for actions more than words; some might say that’s better than the reverse—but good is still better than a lesser evil. It makes it hard sometimes to know if Junmin is the person that Minjae trusts the most or the least.
(“You still trust me, right?”
“What?” Minjae says, his tone pleading, as if he never wants Junmin to ask him the question again. “Yes. Don’t even ask me shit like that, Park Junmin. Of course I do.”)
When they walk out of the old gym building, Junmin trailing behind Minjae in the woodsy passageways where there are no cameras to catch them, this is what Junmin clings onto. Right now—as it always happens with them—it isn’t clear to Junmin what they are after the conversation they’d just had, or if they’ve even transformed into anything new. He supposes it’s new enough that Minjae now knows what feelings Junmin’s harboring in his heart; it was nerve-wracking enough to finally say it, but much more daunting to let it sit, let it keep.
“Hey,” Junmin jogs to catch up to Minjae when they’re finally nearing the main courtyard, a little bit closer to signs of life. Junmin taps him on the shoulder, and Minjae turns around. “We’re good, right?”
Minjae looks up at him, not serious, but not soft either. He nods in the same way he does when Junmin asks him any other trivial thing, like everything packed into it is just as simple as sitting together for lunch, walking to the bus stop side by side, or sharing an earphone on the ride home. “Yeah.”
Junmin just nods back, returning a quiet smile. He hears Minjae’s heartbeat pick up the pace just a little bit, and he stares down at the tie of Minjae’s uniform, adjusted just earlier by Junmin’s nimble fingers.
“Junmin-ah,” Minjae says after a few seconds of awkward silence, snapping Junmin out of his entanced reverie. His eyes dart around the space, scanning the area reluctantly, before he decides to communicate with his thoughts instead, “Give me some time.”
Junmin doesn’t quite think of how to respond immediately, but Minjae seems satisfied nonetheless. He turns around to walk towards their main building without waiting for Junmin’s answer, and Junmin lets him go with ease.
It’s reassuring, even just a little. Junmin is thankful for that. Minjae has certainly been much more graceful to Junmin’s throwing of his feelings out into the open, and for the meantime—as long as they’re still good, regardless—Junmin can continue being whatever Minjae needs him to be.
august.
It’s almost a little funny how much about their little superhuman-freak-gathering Minjae doesn’t actually know.
Half of it is because there are things Minjae just doesn’t need to know, and the other half is because Minjae thinks that the fact that he knows everyone’s thoughts means that he does know everything. Junmin, however, is the glaring antithesis of that belief, though he’s been doing it in a way that doesn’t burden Minjae with the knowledge of the things that would make the situation harder for him than it already is.
See, for the past few months, Junmin has been something of a bridge, a buffer between Minjae and these underclassmen he’s suddenly decided to take under his wing. Minjae asks Junmin to ‘watch over’ those other boys as if it’s low-effort and only entails an idle use of his super senses, and don’t get him wrong—Junmin is happy to do it—but the assumptions are simply untrue. Watching over them means sometimes having to listen in on their conversations, having to know their problems—even the benign ones—just in case anything more crucial is amiss, having to listen to them when they come to him asking about something they’re unsure about bringing up with Minjae. Because somehow, somewhere along the way, they’d all formed this collective delusion that Junmin was the group’s good cop; admittedly, though, Junmin certainly wasn’t doing it for them. Like most things, he was doing it for Minjae, because Junmin knows how badly Minjae can spiral when there are too many things on his plate at once.
Junmin’s not so sure now who he’s doing it for. Minjae, yes, of course—but trying to keep the rest of them in line has become a habit now, an instinct more than a choice. Junmin doesn’t know if that means he cares, but it’s certainly something different from the beginning, when he was simply obliged. Maybe it’s just because of how good of a mood Minjae has been in lately; perhaps Junmin is much more willing to go along with Minjae’s crazy, far-fetched schemes now that their machine seems to be miraculously well-oiled and working, all the cogs snapped firmly in place. Maybe it’s still a little selfish, because Junmin knows that Minjae wants to think that these kids are angels, and if the price to pay is that Junmin deals with the more devilish sides—then why stop?
They have a meeting early in the morning today, and Junmin’s surprised that most of them even showed up—but what he’s more surprised about is that Sumin, Jinsik and Junghoon are all hunched over on the floor, cooing at a box in Yujun’s hands, and Junmin recognizes about five breathing patterns in the room besides theirs that are distinctly non-human.
Junmin shuts the door, announcing his presence—and so it begins.
“Yujun-ah. What is that?”
All four of them look up immediately, and Yujun starts explaining with a smile, “Oh, hi, Junmin-hyung! So, someone left a box of puppies at our doorstep this morning, and we really can’t take care of them on the farm anymore, so I brought them here today to see if anyone would want to adopt—”
“You can’t have them here, Yujun,” Junmin says firmly, dropping his bag onto the floor.
Yujun, of course, protests. “Hyung, they’re behaved! And they’ll stay behaved if I tell them to be!”
Sumin glares at Junmin as well, hands coming around to cover the ears of the puppy he’s been petting. It’s a chocolate brown, not unlike Junmin’s own pet at home. “If Hyunwoo were here, even he would be saying you’re being a killjoy.”
“Look, I know, they’re very cute,” Junmin pacifies, before resuming his earlier tone anyway. Like the killjoy he is. “Put them away, and don’t talk about them—if you don’t want Minjae to get mad.”
(That… was an oversimplification. But it accomplishes the intended effect.)
Junmin reaches out to pet one of the puppies gently, and though Yujun pouts at him, he does listen. As Yujun stands up off the floor to leave the puppies somewhere else for the time being, Sumin narrows his eyes at Junmin in curiosity, Jinsik watches the puppies with sad eyes, and Junghoon keeps his ever-stoic face.
Yet—as harsh as Junmin knows he might’ve come off to an outsider—the people in this room do trust him. They move on from the incident quickly, recovering from the loss of cute baby animals like it’s nothing at all—because they’re not babies, damn it. Also, they know Junmin. They know that Junmin knows Minjae, and so when Junmin-hyung tells them not to do something, he means it. And it would be best to believe him, because he’s usually right.
(Does that make Junmin the bad cop, then? Did he mix that metaphor up in his head?
Scratch that, actually. Junmin is probably just whichever one is worse to be at any particular moment.)
“Hey, Junghoon-ah,” Sumin breaks the silence, not long after Yujun has left the room. “Wanna play a game?”
Junghoon shrugs, nodding agreeably. “What game?”
“Cham cham cham?” Sumin proposes. The rest of it goes about how one would expect.
Junmin sits back, waits for Minjae to arrive. He’d gotten a text earlier that Minjae was on the bus already, so it shouldn’t be too long. It’s a good thing Junmin arrived before him, with the puppy fiasco and all. See, this is the difference between the two of them when it comes to handling these kids: in a lot of ironic ways, Junmin and Minjae are on the opposite extremes of what they think it means to let them act their age. Minjae is too careful, too afraid of saying one wrong thing—and, yeah, considering how things started with their little group, he has every right to be. Junmin, on the other hand, doesn’t mind being a lot more blunt, calling them out and telling them off if he needs to. It may seem the opposite way on the outside, but that is exactly by Junmin’s design. He doesn’t need to be thanked for the role he plays in keeping their ship running even on old, broken parts. If he can make things easier for Minjae—and, fine, maybe for all of them—then that’s enough.
Yujun returns after a couple of minutes with a pout on his face, but Junmin doesn’t coddle, because he knows he can handle it. True enough, it doesn’t take long for Yujun to join his friends on the floor, laughing as he watches Sumin, Jinsik and Junghoon play a different game after getting bored of cham cham cham and slaps on the wrist. As Junmin watches, he thinks maybe he wouldn’t go as far as to say that he cares about them, but the light feeling that settles in his chest at the sight of them is nowhere near disinterest.
The point is: right now, they’re calm, they’re happy, and the puppy crisis is averted well before Minjae arrives. Junmin fidgets with a keychain on his bag, watching the three of them with ease as they play around. Minjae should be here any minute, and so should Hyunwoo, and Junmin has a little chuckle to himself about the things he does for Minjae that Minjae will probably never know about, and doesn’t need to be burdened with. He doesn’t need to tell Minjae that they are all more resilient than he thinks, or that they’re all very aware of the tension between Junmin and Minjae (and love to gossip about it, too), or that Minjae clearly has a favorite among them even if he thinks he doesn’t (and that it isn’t Yujun, even if everyone thinks that it is). Maybe one day, when they’re all more ready to be a little less selfish, the two of them can look back on these trivial things and laugh; right now, though, things are good, and Junmin will do his part to keep it that way.
When Minjae arrives, Junmin can tell he’s in a good mood immediately. He’s wearing a bright smile as he sits down beside Junmin, raising an amused eyebrow at Sumin and Junghoon, who’ve moved on to staring contests while Jinsik and Yujun try to make either of them lose.
Junmin simply watches with him, content. He can’t read minds, but he can tell that Minjae’s already cooking up what to say to get everyone’s attention, wading through the endless ocean of his own thoughts, basking in the dopamine rush of his master plans.
“They’ve been angels all morning,” Junmin says idly in his head, just on the off chance that Minjae’s listening. (Junmin knows he probably isn’t, but that’s fine.) Out loud, he gently asks, “You good?”
“Yeah,” Minjae answers, seemingly snapping out of his own thoughts, turning his head to look at Junmin with a reassuring smile. Junmin nods in return. “Any of you know when Hyunwoo’s gonna get here?”
With one question in Minjae’s commanding voice, things kick into motion like clockwork. Minjae talks, they take turns, no one mentions puppies. Junmin suggests they continue their staring contest until Hyunwoo arrives, and Minjae agrees. Maybe it’s kind of nice, the two of them running this ship together. Junmin’s always been good at helping Minjae’s mind stay at ease.
july.
[Personal Messages - kim minho-hyung, Me]
kim minho-hyung
> junmin-ah
> u and minjae ok?
> text me back when u can, let’s talk a bit
[Sent 6:56 PM]
Junmin is surprised to see the notifications on his phone when he wakes up from having crashed on his bed after getting home from school, his eyesight still blurry as he blinks himself awake.
The clock on his phone reads 8:07 PM, about two and a half hours since he’d put in his earplugs and then collapsed into bed. Junmin was worn out by an afternoon full of studying, and Minjae hadn’t asked if Junmin wanted to go together on the bus ride home, so Junmin took the opportunity to go straight home and catch up on missed sleep. Something he certainly didn’t expect was to see messages on his phone from Minho—Minjae’s older brother who, frankly, does’t even like Junmin—asking him to talk. It’s as ominous a message that Junmin could receive from anyone, as far as he’s concerned, and it makes him shoot straight up in bed the moment he realizes.
For a moment, Junmin just stares at the notifications, reading the words over and over again. The most obvious thing that he can deduce is that there must be a specific reason that Minho is resorting to talking to Junmin—he never texts him anymore just to chat—and the fact that MInho is asking if Junmin and Minjae are okay means he either has reason to believe that they might not be, or reason to believe that Minjae himself isn’t okay, and Junmin could be a likely reason. What’s curious is the fact that, at least as far as Junmin knows, Minho is currently in the hospital—which means that Minjae visited him, which he never does. So something probably is wrong; Junmin starts running in circles in his head trying to figure out what it might be.
Junmin opens his thread of messages with Minho, the last messages before today’s being from February, when Junmin had greeted him on his birthday and Minho responded with a simple, ‘thanks, junmin-ah’. Junmin’s mind wanders as he types out a reply, still in the dark of his room and the silence created by his earplugs, trying to recount the long list of things that have happened over the past few months that definitely could have made Minjae buckle under enough pressure for him to talk about it with his sick brother, who he always goes out of his way not to inconvenience if he doesn’t have to.
[Personal Messages - kim minho-hyung, Me]
Me
> hi hyung
> sorry i just woke up
> minjae and i are fine. is something wrong?
[Sent 8:08 PM]
It doesn’t take long for Junmin to start falling more and more into concern. The two of them did have that argument after Minjae and Sumin’s last screaming match; those things usually resolve themselves with time, but Junmin is starting to reconsider now. None of what’s been happening in their lives lately has been usual, after all. Speaking of, it also hasn’t really been that long since Sumin was shot, either, and that definitely counts as something that Minjae would probably bottle up deep inside, carrying it around on his own no matter how much it weighs him down. There’s also the principal’s taunting, Choi Sumin continuing to put pressure on him, and, on top of that, his brother being sick again—so maybe it does make sense that Minjae would be on some kind of downward spiral.
Junmin clicks his tongue. He should be better at noticing these things; then again, it’s Minjae who smiles at him and pretends everything’s fine even when the world’s falling apart at his feet, and Junmin can’t keep blaming himself for that when Minjae still doesn’t seem to learn even after that exact tendency being the cause of his downfall two years back.
Junmin looks down at his phone again after a few moments of silent thinking, and there’s a reply from Minho right away.
[Personal Messages - kim minho-hyung, Me]
kim minho-hyung
> i don’t know, i was hoping you might
> he visited me earlier, which was already weird
> he seemed stressed
Me
> i’m guessing he didn’t say why?
> things at school are hectic but he acts fine with me
kim minho-hyung
> can i call you?
Me
> ok
Junmin barely has to wait one second before Minho’s Caller ID is showing up on the screen of his phone, and he takes out one of his earplugs before promptly accepting the call.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Junmin,” comes Minho’s voice on the other end of the line, muffled by static and underscored by the beeping sounds of hospital machines.
Junmin gulps down his nerves. “How are you doing?”
“Fine. Sleepy from meds, but that isn’t new,” Minho chuckles, his tone casual and kind, the way it always is with Junmin when they talk. At least at the beginning. “Are you sure you and MInjae are good?”
Ah, there it is. In all fairness, Junmin does understand that Minho has every right not to trust him, especially after Junmin broke his younger brother’s heart. Instead of being defensive, Junmin answers the question as politely and as honestly as he can.
“I think we’re good,” Junmin starts out—though with every second, he’s starting to doubt it more and more. Of course, that’s still not something he’s sure he wants to admit to Minho. “But I can ask him.”
“He did say that it wasn’t about you,” Minho says with a dry chuckle, and Junmin lets out a silent sigh of relief. “He said it was school, but you know him…”
Junmin grimaces at the vague lie. It’s definitely about everything that Junmin had thought of earlier, then; still, he’s not quite sure what he’s meant to do. “I can try to talk to him… he might shut down even more if he’s not really ready to talk about it, though.”
On the other end of the line, Minho sighs. “I know. But could you try to calm him down a bit, though? Just take him away from school sometimes, or, I don’t know, make sure he doesn’t work himself to the bone with whatever it is. You know how he gets.”
Junmin hums. “Yeah.”
“Look, we talked earlier, but Minjae’s stubborn.” Minho clicks his tongue. “He only really listens to you, so just… Just watch over him a little extra, or something. He’s worrying me. But, you know, I’m just his brother. You’re his best friend. What do I know?”
Junmin just nods, used enough to the passive-aggressive teasing. Petty or not, when it comes to Minjae—they both just want what’s best for him. “I got it, hyung.”
“Okay. I’ll hang up now, then.” Minho stays on the line for a few seconds more after that, the two of them sitting in silence while Junmin waits. Before he actually hangs up the phone, Minho decides to say, “Night, Junmin-ah.”
The line beeps before Junmin can say anything back, and he puts his phone down on the nightstand, sinking back into his bed.
In the comforting dark of his bedroom, Junmin takes a deep breath, and thinks. He starts to replay the phone call again and again in his head, alongside every recent interaction with Minjae, trying to ascertain if there’d been something he missed. It’s a lot more pressure all of a sudden, being told by Minho that Minjae only listens to Junmin, when even Junmin would say that most of the time, Minjae just doesn’t listen to anyone.
It is a strange dynamic with them, though. In some ways, Junmin understands where Minho’s coming from—because no matter how far down any of them try to bury the things that have happened in the past, it doesn’t change the fact that Minjae confessed his feelings, and Junmin turned him down. It didn’t break them, obviously, but that doesn’t mean that the aftermath wasn’t ugly, on top of everything else that was going on in Minjae’s life. Junmin can admit that he could’ve handled it better, could’ve made things easier for Minjae instead of ten times heavier. Junmin and Minho used to be fairly close—Junmin always came over to Minjae’s house, he always came along to the hospital when Minho started getting sick—so it was bound to happen. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth when he recalls, in perfect detail, the first time he’d taken the hint that Minho was putting distance between them after Junmin messed with Minjae’s feelings:
“Should I be thanking you, Junmin-ah? Because you finally made Minjae cry over something other than me?”
Junmin only stood there, stunned. Hurt. “That’s not true.”
“If you’re talking about the dog, think again. The fucking dog didn’t choose what happened. You, on the other hand, had every opportunity not to mock my brother’s feelings. I know I can’t stop him if he still wants to be friends with you, but I’m not going to hold back on you if you hurt him again. So either wise up, or stay the hell away if you can’t.”
Somehow, Junmin took the warning to heart, because Minjae and his brother are a lot alike. Even from the hospital bed, Minho exuded authority, with his level-headed voice and a no-nonsense look in his eyes. Junmin didn’t say it out loud then, but he promised that from that moment on, he’d do his best not to make Minjae cry again.
It’s still the same now. Junmin has made a lot of promises to himself about Minjae that Minjae will probably never know. Maybe he’s cheating a little bit, because he knows that it’s mostly because Minjae never brings up anything about that past confession, and so never gives Junmin any opportunity to break down his walls far enough to bring him to tears; that doesn’t mean Junmin ever stops watching over his best friend with more intention, mulling first over the words he says before saying them. It doesn’t mean they’re cheesy and affectionate—they’re still Minjae and Junmin, and a sense of normalcy for them entails lighthearted jabs and a healthy amount of challenge—but whenever Junmin senses a need for Minjae to be vulnerable with him, he does his best to accommodate. Of course, he still fails sometimes; now, he’s thinking that maybe he did fail that last time, when Minjae had fought with Sumin and Junmin tried to reason it out instead of letting Minjae feel his anger first. Junmin just can’t know with Minjae sometimes—and that’s what scares him. It scares him that he’s the one who should, and yet he’s getting calls from Minho on a random weekday evening telling him basically to do better, when he thought that everything was fine.
With another sigh, Junmin sits up slowly again, and takes out his other earplug before stretching his arms up, and then pulling the switch on his bedside lampshade.
He blinks to adjust to the harshness of the first onslaught of light, as well as the new barrage of benign sounds. He hears utensils clinking against plates from downstairs, engine noise and snippets of conversation from the cars that pass by the road, the low hum of the fan at the foot of his bed. He wonders if Minjae’s gone home now, too. He wonders if it would be weird to ask.
For now, Junmin decides it’s best not to confront Minjae about anything just yet, lest he get all defensive, shut down even more. It’s fairly soon after Choi Sumin’s defiant, stupid uprising-or-whatever-he-thought-he-was-doing, and the emotions between all of them are still running at an all-time high, so Junmin will give it some time, see what Minjae does—see if Minjae comes to him, or if not, just watch over him from behind like he always does. After everything that’s happened since the beginning of their school year, Junmin isn’t keen on letting Minjae spiral out of control on his own, whether he likes it or not. But first and foremost, Junmin will trust him—and if push comes to shove, he’ll be there to catch Minjae if he falls.
When the onslaught of noise in Junmin’s ears fades gracefully into the background, he picks his phone up again, and goes to text Minjae on their regular thread.
[Personal Messages - kim minjae, Me]
Me
> are u home already?
[Seen 8:23 PM]
Again, surprisingly, it doesn’t take long to get a reply.
[Personal Messages - kim minjae, Me ]
kim minjae
> yeah why
Me
> nothing just asking
kim minjae
> im not out late studying again if that’s what ur asking
Me
> hahaha ok
> dinner?
kim minjae
> [Photo]
> dad made spicy ramen
[Delivered 8:25 PM]
Junmin clicks his tongue, perplexed. Ramen is Minjae’s comfort food, and his dad doesn’t really cook anymore—at least not often as he used to. Things must either be definitely taking a toll on Minjae, or it’s just a happy coincidence. Junmin can only hope that they can figure it out with time.
[Personal Messages - kim minjae, Me]
You reacted with 😮: [Photo]
Me
> eat well
kim minjae
> thanks
> u?
Me
> going downstairs now
> smells like curry
kim minjae
> mm
[Delivered 8:27 PM]
Minjae doesn’t send anything more after that, and Junmin lets it be.
(Part of him wants to give in—to just ask if Minjae’s okay, ask him if he needs someone—if he needs Junmin. God knows Junmin would be there in a heartbeat. Maybe that’s what he should have said back then instead; now, Junmin just has to deal with the consequences of only finding the courage to open his heart a couple of years too late.)
Junmin gets out of bed, follows the scent of food. He’ll be fine for now, as long as he knows Minjae is home, safe and sound.
june.
Junmin can hear the sound of his own heartbeat pounding within his chest, sending thunderbolts through his whole body in sync with the low rumble of the washing machine.
It’s only a few minutes to midnight, but both of Junmin’s parents are asleep, hadn’t even noticed when Junmin opened the gate and rushed on his bike to pick Minjae up. Minjae’s in the living room, still too shell-shocked to speak, eyes glued to the news channel in the dark while Junmin tries to collect himself in the laundry room, even if it’s ripe with the sharp, iron scent of blood.
Junmin’s eyes sting with tears, but he looks up to the ceiling, clutches at his chest to hold them back. He has to keep things together for both of them. Minjae is basically already starting to shut down.
“Shit,” Junmin whispers to himself when a tear slips out of his eye against his will, and he braces himself on the washing machine, face scrunching up in frustration. He can hear the sound of the news anchors on the TV that Minjae’s obsessing over. He can still smell the blood mixing with the detergent he’d thrown into the machine half an hour ago. He can still hear Minjae sniffling every now and then, and every single time, Junmin goes back to the memory of how he’d even found Minjae in the phone booth, shaking and crying and school uniform stained red. Junmin pounds at the lid of the washing machine in anger, overwhelmed. No matter from which angle Junmin tries to think of this—all of it just serves to break his heart.
But Junmin needs to be the rational one of the two of them right now. He has to blink back his own tears and think this through instead of doing something rash out of panic, which he’s pretty sure is what Minjae is doing right now the longer he watches the news and nothing comes out about a student found dead at their school. Fuck—dear fucking god. Minjae found Choi Sumin lying on the floor after literally getting shot. Twice, with a fucking gun. This is absolutely crazy, it can’t be fucking real, there’s no way things like this are just happening to them and there’s no one for them to even turn to for help—
Through the door, above all the background noise, Junmin hears Minjae sniffle again. He’s hit with the reality of how helpless they both are in this moment—how really little Junmin can do to help Minjae cope with the pain.
Junmin takes a deep breath, and then takes out the tin of candies in his pocket and pops one into his mouth, the plain flavor of sugar taking the edge off the hyperosmia and the sickening way that Junmin can almost taste the scent of blood on his tongue. The entire experience since Minjae called him on the phone has been a sensory fucking nightmare, but it’s the least of their problems. Right now, Junmin just leaves the washing machine in the laundry room to do its thing, and decides it’s about time to get Minjae away from the late night news and into the shower or even just into bed, stop him from digging deeper and deeper holes to crawl into in his mind.
When Junmin swings the door of the laundry room open, he still sees Minjae sitting there, the back of his head still unmoving as the news anchor drones on about the state of affairs in Yeouido. He’d stopped sniffling since he heard the door open, but it doesn’t worry Junmin any less; he can still hear how Minjae starts to breathe heavily through his mouth instead, nose too stuffy and probably as red as his swollen eyes. Junmin walks over to the couch, stands at MInjae’s side, only touches him on the shoulder when he’s sure Minjae sees him in his peripheral, just so he doesn’t flinch.
“We should turn that off and go to bed, hm?” Junmin says gently, hoping that his voice is soothing enough. He’s never really been good at comforting people, Minjae included.
Unsurprisingly, Minjae doesn’t answer. Instead, his eyes still stay glued to the TV screen—anyone who couldn’t hear the patterns of his heartbeat, his breathing, could’ve mistaken him for being basically asleep. The only response that Junmin gets is when Minjae leans forward, reaches for something on the table, and then hands it to Junmin behind him before resuming his earlier position.
It’s Junmin’s menthol inhaler, he realizes pretty quickly as he takes it into his hand. Before he can try to coax Minjae into going to bed again, Minjae explains, “You’re eating candy. Sorry about the blood.”
So much for Minjae not noticing.
It’s par for the course with them, Junmin supposes, as he walks around to sit beside Minjae at the other end of the couch. They know each other too well—and it goes beyond a lot more than just the fact that they’ve been friends for a lifetime. It’s also that Junmin can constantly hear Minjae’s heartbeat and Minjae can choose literally anytime to read Junmin’s thoughts, and it’s in charged moments like this that Junmin remembers just how much they care for each other in these small ways.
For a couple of minutes, Junmin watches the TV with Minjae, side by side in silence. Minjae’s wearing one of Junmin’s loose t-shirts that Junmin took straight out of the dryer before throwing the bloodstained uniform into the wash, and for a moment, Junmin just wants to reach out to him. Hold him safe and tight like earlier, when Minjae threw himself into Junmin’s arms like it was the last lifeline he had. So much of Junmin feels helpless right now, no matter how much he tries to tell himself he can be what Minjae needs—because even with every strange thing they’ve gone through together before, nothing has ever been as shockingly unprecedented as this. What they’re left with is what little comfort Junmin can possibly offer with just his company, silent but constant, in front of the same nighttime news and beside him on the same springy couch.
“It’s getting late, Minjae,” Junmin tries talking to him again, keeping his voice as gentle as he’s capable of. “You should wash up, try to go to bed.”
It’s still futile, to say the least. Minjae’s eyes don’t leave the bright light of the TV screen.
Junmin sighs, not too loud. He’s going around in circles in his mind, trying to think of what more he could possibly say. He wonders how it would to Minjae right now, if he’s listening—all of these jumbled thoughts, being thrown around in random directions like a broken tennis ball machine, nowhere near actual, articulate sentences that anyone would actually say. Minjae did tell him once that yeah, it’s usually messy, I don’t really get to wait before anyone’s formed something coherent before I hear their thoughts as they come—and Junmin wonders what Minjae would make of the way Junmin’s thinking now, much too panicked and forlorn for his own liking. Junmin tries to shake his head, snap himself out of it. If Minjae notices, he doesn’t say anything.
After a few more minutes of relative silence—the TV droning on with no news from Sunny Side, the washing machine still going in the background, the piece of candy in Junmin’s mouth melting into something small—Junmin tries again. “Minjae.”
“Ten more minutes.” Minjae finally answers, and Junmin, surprised, sits up straighter on the couch, listening intently. “There has to be something. If there’s nothing in ten minutes, I’ll do what you say.”
Junmin nods. “Okay.” That’s reasonable enough. He’s just glad—overjoyed, even—that Minjae had finally answered. Junmin feels the tears prickling behind his eyes again, a byproduct of the strong, sobering relief he feels just from knowing that Minjae’s still here. Even just a little bit. Junmin knows very well how hard it must be for him to keep holding on.
They watch the TV again for a while, though Junmin glances more at Minjae than at the news anchor. A minute passes, and then two, three, four—Junmin picks up on every time that Minjae’s heart picks up pace, every little sniffle that Minjae tries to hide. The part of Junmin that knows he shouldn’t make Minjae cry is contending with the part of him that maybe just wants him to, instead of Minjae having to hide his distress from Junmin like he wasn’t sobbing into his shirtsleeve not even two hours ago; then again, he knows it’s a long shot, even now, to coax Minjae into so much as a hug, or anything else just to be close. Junmin has never been big on skinship, but he knows that Minjae does well with someone else’s presence, another human being’s warmth. Junmin doesn’t want Minjae to feel alone—but there’s only so close that he can get before Minjae just starts shutting him out completely.
Two more minutes pass. Junmin isn’t really looking at the clock, but Minjae seems to be. After the long bout of silence, Minjae is the one who speaks up, surprising Junmin when he finally turns to look at him and asks, “Do you think he’s dead?”
Junmin opens his mouth, but no words come out. What is he supposed to say to that? It’s the question he’s been avoiding thinking about the whole night, all in the name of trying to stay sane for the both of them until they can figure this out when the morning comes, and when Minjae just throws it in his face like that—Junmin freezes. He wonders what Minjae’s hearing right now if he’d resorted to reading Junmin’s mind, the longer they go without a real answer. He has no idea what he thinks himself. He wants to believe this is all just a dream, that maybe it’s some sort of twisted trick, that there’s no way one of their schoolmates is dead—shot dead—just like that. It’s not possible. And though the fact that nothing’s on the news could mean something much more twisted, it could very well mean that everything’s fine, that tomorrow is a new day and everyone’s okay. Junmin doesn’t know what to think; he wasn’t there. He can’t say that Choi Sumin is dead. He refuses to.
“Let’s go upstairs, Junmin-ah,” Minjae says after a few more seconds of no answer. His ten minutes aren’t up yet, three left on the clock—but he stays turned away from the TV this time, looking only at Junmin with sunken eyes. “You must be tired, too.”
Junmin sucks in a breath, but chooses not to answer. All he gives is a slow nod, before reaching for the remote on the coffee table to turn the TV off, leaving them in silence with only the living room lampshade light where they stay for a few more seconds in silence, until Junmin finally stands up.
“You should go and take a shower. I’ll get a towel and some clothes you can sleep in.”
Only when Minjae is in the bathroom, shower running and light peeking from below the door into the dark hallway, does Junmin exhale heavily, all the stress of the night catching up to him, all at once.
As he’s laying out old pajamas on his bed for Minjae to find later, trying his absolute best not to completely break down—Junmin hears the soft sound of the washing machine ending its cycle, clear in his ears. He pads down the carpeted steps to go and tend to it—anything, anything else that can distract him until the limbo of this nightmare is over.
When Junmin is in the laundry room again, the strong scent of metal mixed with detergent hits him like a truck all over again, dizzying and dissonant. He shuts the door behind him, opens the washing machine door, throws Minjae’s uniform vest into the open dryer and checks if all the blood’s washed out of the sleeve of his shirt. It isn’t; not completely. Junmin clicks his tongue in frustration, shuts the door of the dryer with just the vest in it, and presses Start. He grabs a washboard, a basin and the scrubbing brush for the shirt, snags the gallon of bleach without thinking, and gets to work.
Junmin is beyond dizzy when he opens the bleach container and starts scrubbing away, but he’s slowly starting not to care. All of his emotion goes into brute-forcing this stain out of Minjae’s clothes, never mind trying not to thin the fabric out too much in too many places. Junmin goes back to earlier in the night again; Junmin’s bike hitting the ground, he and Minjae yelling at each other in that telephone booth, Minjae holding on so tightly after falling into Junmin’s arms, hiding his face in Junmin’s back on the way home. Junmin scrubs the stain harder—it won’t seem to go away. Junmin’s fingertips start to burn the same way his nose does, but he needs to get it out. Every last bit of it. Every last bit.
So Junmin scrubs harder. More forcefully, more vigorously, until there’s tears coming out of his eyes again and he knows exactly why. He knows that it’s because Minjae has lived a substantial portion of his life surrounded by death at all sides—and it’s always this liminal waiting, the Schrödinger’s grief of it all. Junmin has never known how to make it easier, because no one does, and having to watch Minjae completely shut down—whether it’s in a hospital waiting room or in front of Junmin’s TV—no less than breaks Junmin’s heart, makes him wonder if he could’ve protected Minjae from this. If he’s capable of protecting Minjae at all.
Junmin scrubs at the same spot, over and over. He knows that it would look perfectly immaculate to the normal, naked eye, if not a little bit crumpled in that one spot—but his eyes always show him the nittiest grittiest parts of everything, and the scent of blood still refuses to be drowned out even if he’s getting lightheaded from the bleach.
After a while, he stops. He doesn’t know how long he’s been doing this anymore, but his fingertips are rubbed raw and his heart is racing inside his chest. Junmin stops completely when his left ear starts to ring, and he braces himself again, against the basin he’s standing over, the tears stinging his eyes. It takes a while, but when he’s calmed down a little more, he drains the water in the small sink and wrings the shirt as dry as he can, holding it up in front of him to see the fruit of his efforts.
Junmin forces himself not to zero in, to tune out the overwhelming assault on his senses like he would in any other situation. He forces himself to believe that the blood is gone, that the low rumble of the dryer in the other corner is just that—a low rumble. He tries to listen a little farther, and upstairs, the shower seems to have stopped running. He should probably get back up there now. He has no idea how much time has passed.
Junmin swallows down the rest of his tears, shuts his eyes tight to will them away. Minjae’s uniform, still the slightest bit damp, is clutched close to Junmin’s chest as he brings himself back to some semblance of fortitude. Right now, it’s what Minjae needs the most. The rest can wait until later.
When Junmin returns to his bedroom, he finds Minjae sitting up on the bed against the headboard, staring at the wall. He jumps the tiniest bit when Junmin opens the door, which Junmin apologizes for quietly as he walks in with Minjae’s shirt on a hanger and goes to leave it on the clothesline out on the balcony. He can feel Minjae watching him from behind as he stands out on his balcony, sighing against the warm spring air. Junmin’s lucky that it’s dark in the room; it hides the puffiness of his eyes, the reddened skin on his hands after spending too much time soaked in bleachy water. He finishes hanging the shirt up fairly quickly, and when he peers back into the room, the digital clock on the nightstand reads 12:51 AM.
“I’ll go get a sleeping mat,” Minjae says flatly when he sees Junmin walking back into the room.
Junmin tries his best not to click his tongue. “No. Stay there.”
“I’m not sharing a bed with you.”
Junmin just blinks. How are they even arguing about this right now? “Then I’ll sleep on the floor. It’s fine.”
“...”
“Just stay there,” Junmin says firmly, trying not to sound too harsh. “You look like hell. You should get some rest.”
Minjae doesn’t agree wholeheartedly, but he doesn’t protest, either. He just continues staring at the wall again—and really, at the deepest core of Junmin’s heart, he wishes he could just hold him, safe and tight, an embrace saying everything he can’t bring himself to say.
Instead, Junmin just reaches out awkwardly, until he gets to place a soft hand on Minjae’s shoulder, rubbing gentler patterns into his back than they’re really used to, but Minjae doesn’t shrug him off. Quietly, and even if Junmin isn’t sure he believes it himself, he reassures, “It’s gonna be okay.”
Minjae exhales shakily after hearing those words, and Junmin lets go shortly after.
Junmin drifts off to sleep quicker than Minjae does, but he’s sure they both spent hours just sitting awake in silence, watching the shirt on the balcony dance in the wind.
may.
“Ta-da!” Minjae beams confidently as he gestures at the spread of food beneath them, a feast sitting on the stone table at one of the over-the-top gazebos, the ones that Junmin usually makes fun of at the park when they come. “I chose the spot with the least people, so you could be somewhere quiet for once.”
Junmin rolls his eyes. “You know that doesn’t work for me as well as it does for you, right? I can hear up to 5 kilometers away.”
Minjae starts to pout, and Junmin can’t help the smirk that forms on his lips.
“Yah, Minjae,” Junmin smiles, watching Minjae’s sulky face, a familiar warmth blooming in his chest. “I’m just kidding! Don’t get so red!”
Junmin’s birthday still isn’t for a few days, but he’s glad that Minjae—even in spite of… everything that’s apparently been going on under the rader—made the effort for him, cheesy as it may be. Junmin thinks he’s incredibly lucky to even have someone to call a best friend. Someone like Minjae, even, who’s made Junmin loyal by example. Someone who’s stayed by his side through the good, the bad, and the worst.
Of course, after Junmin’s teasing, Minjae continues to sulk. “You’re unbelievable, you fucking suck!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Junmin apologizes quickly, gently reaching for Minjae’s wrist to get him to sit with him on the bench, side by side. He bumps their shoulders together afterward, as he takes one of the skewers from the bountiful spread in front of them, not paying much attention to what it is. He can tell it’s fishcakes when he goes to poke it teasingly at Minjae’s face, but he’s more concerned with watching Minjae’s reaction. “This is perfect, okay? I like it. Thank you.”
Minjae rolls his eye at his antics, but he lets Junmin feed him a bite anyway. Junmin takes his own bite after, and they talk comfortably as they eat, enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of the park.
Minjae himself seems much happier today—Junmin is glad that them spending time together still has that effect, no matter the tension between them these past few weeks. They don’t talk too much about Minjae’s new, risky side quest with their school’s much-too-polished new principal, and Junmin doesn’t bring it up, no matter how many burning questions he still has. What’s important is that Junmin isn’t clueless now, that he can be there for Minjae if he needs it, even if Minjae doesn’t know that he does. Especially when he doesn’t know. Even beyond the fact that Junmin is basically indebted to him—Minjae managed to save both their asses when they got busted for the schemes they were pulling at his old delivery job—Junmin has always been willing to carry some of the extra weight on Minjae’s shoulders, to at least share the burden if he knows it can’t be taken away. It’s been that way since he met Minjae as this brooding kid at the playground, to the time that Minjae told him about his powers after reading Junmin’s mind and figuring out that he had them, too, to the time that Minjae’s brother started getting sick, to the time their family fell into debt—up until now. Even after the… confrontation that they had, when all of Junmin’s words froze up in his throat and he managed to break Minjae’s heart in one moment after just barely managing to hold it together at the cracks for years. Junmin stands by him, because Minjae—against all odds—does the same.
By all means, it’s messy work. He has the most stubborn, most hypervigilant and yet adrenaline-seeking, most distrustful person in the world as his best friend—but Junmin likes Minjae like that. Because that Minjae is also conscientious and smart and at his core, he maybe cares a little too much, no matter how good he is at pretending that he doesn’t. He is the person that’s here, celebrating Junmin’s birthday because Junmin is the only person to whom Minjae will admit that he likes birthdays, and perhaps also a little because he does care about Junmin. Never mind their little fights—Minjae smiles at him with a mouth full of candied sweet potato, his eyes so bright that no one would be able to guess at everything that he’s been through, everything he’s still going through now.
“Do you want ice cream?” Junmin asks eventually, when they’re nearly done with most of the food. The convenience store is only a few paces away, and Junmin isn’t really waiting for answer, already standing up to go and get some dessert for them both.
“Yah, what do you think you’re doing?” Minjae asks with a frown, not letting Junmin past him and out of the gazebo. Junmin is about to protest, wondering what was so wrong about what he’d just said—but then Minjae just pulls out his own wallet, slaps it into Junmin’s hand. “I said dinner was on me. Go.”
Minjae lets Junmin pass after, though he notably avoids Junmin’s gaze. Junmin just shakes his head fondly as he walks the short distance to the convenience store where Minjae had gotten most of their food, heart feeling light as he listens to the soft sound of Minjae’s own racing heartbeat, clear as day even as he walks away.
“Welcome,” comes the greeting of the convenience store worker as Junmin walks in, and he makes his way quickly to the counter, opting for the soft serve from the machine.
“Hello. Two chocolate ice creams, please.”
“Cone?”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay. ₩2000.”
Junmin flips open Minjae’s wallet to get the bills—it’s really not a huge amount, and he wouldn’ve been happy to pay—but what Junmin sees inside stops him a little bit in his tracks.
It’s the polaroid photo that Minjae had in the little clear slot below the pockets for cards. Minjae’s wallet is new—something his dad had gotten for him for his own birthday, not that long ago—and the photo is a stark contrast to the clear and sharp edges of the makeshift frame. The picture itself is a little faded around the edges, and there’s dirt smudged around the white border of the film. What takes Junmin by surprise is what’s in the photo; it’s one that Junmin only now remembers he must have taken himself, the memory resurfacing and hitting him like a freight train.
It’s of Minjae, Minho, and this little, white dog in Minjae’s arms. Minmin, because Minjae and his brother liked stupid names like that. Junmin was quite fond of the dog, too, but it was Minjae and Minho who really played with him the most in the hospital gardens where he’d taken up residence after running away from wherever he came from. The dog’s fur was stained a dirty, off-white from being outside all the time, but neither of them cared. He was rough around the edges—but also the most carefree, joy-filled thing in Minjae and his brother’s lives at the very worst of Minho’s illness. Junmin remembers taking the picture on a particularly sunny day, one of the ones when Minho was feeling well enough to go outside and Minjae and Junmin got to come home early from school.
Junmin glances behind him, out the see-through glass of the convenience store door, at the slouched-over form of Minjae at the gazebo, waiting for Junmin to get back.
“Sir.”
It was one of the hardest times in Minjae’s life when Minmin passed. (When Junmin learned about it, he regretted ever making fun of that dumb name.) Minho wasn’t awake to witness it. He wasn’t doing well. At the time, though Minjae never said anything—Junmin knew that Minjae was scared he’d lose them both in one go.
“Excuse me, Sir?”
“Oh, god, sorry,” Junmin snaps back to reality. His eyes are glassy, and his voice shakes; the worker behind the counter gives him a confused look, holding two ice cream cones out in front of him, and only then does Junmin remember to take the bills out of Minjae’s wallet, put them onto the counter, and then take the ice cream and be on his way. He manages to do so in an acceptable amount of time, and soon enough, he’s walking back to Minjae, doing his best to blink up at the sky and dry his eyes.
He needs to stop thinking. He doesn’t want to spoil the contentment in Minjae’s eyes by bringing up something that Minjae has never brought up again after the fact, just because he’d accidentally seen the picture in his wallet. As far as Junmin thought he knew, Minjae had thrown away everything related to the dog and those few months that Minho was unconscious at the hospital, but apparently not. And Junmin knows how much pain Minjae carries in his heart from the memories of that. Junmin was there.
“Hey. Here you go.”
Junmin tries his best to sound normal when he gets back and hands Minjae his ice cream cone and his wallet back, but his voice still ends up coming out with a somber edge.
Of course, Minjae notices. “Thanks… is everything okay?”
Junmin doesn’t think. “Yeah, of course. Move over.”
Minjae agrees to it easily, scooting over to Junmin’s previous seat so it’s all less precarious, and soon enough, they’re eating ice cream in silence. Junmin controls his expression so Minjae isn’t tempted to read his mind, and as far as he knows, it works well enough.
Being Kim Minjae’s best friend—it’s hard, it’s a rollercoaster, it’s been painful all these years. To be his best friend is to care about everything that Minjae cares about, and it is no small feat, what with the intensity with which Minjae pours love into lovable things. And to be Minjae’s best friend is to also be the very subject of that intensity—even if it’s in Minjae’s impulsive, misguided ways and his stubborn devotion without regard for danger.
“Minjae,” Junmin says after a bite of ice cream, not really knowing everything he means when he says, simply, “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Minjae says with a nonchalant shrug, likely assuming it’s for the ice cream, all the food.
Maybe Junmin is overthinking this. Maybe it was just a photo—something Minjae just couldn’t be bothered to replace, something he doesn’t really even look at when he mindlessly takes out bills for tteokbokki or the bus fare. But Junmin also remembers confronting Minjae about the dangerous game he’s playing with Park Seonghwa—and seeing the old photo in his wallet made it feel much more real when Junmin remembers Minjae telling him why he was doing it. Who he was doing it for. Junmin remembers that he loved them, too. Loves.
(Because Minjae loves them. And if there is anything that Junmin has done in his life—he has loved Kim Minjae. Loves.)
Junmin makes a promise to himself, right then and there—to protect Minjae at all costs, and to do much, much better than he has so far.
The ice cream is sweet, and Minjae smiles the whole night. Junmin deems it a success in his endeavor; tomorrow, he will give his best once more.