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This is not how this moment was supposed to go.
It was supposed to be a lot more normal than this — with far less embarrassment and deafening laughter.
Mingi can’t help but stare at the laptop screen in horror, wondering how something that started out so simple turned into such a disaster.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“I mean, it’s as good a time as any, right?” Yunho points out with a shrug.
Mingi can’t really argue with that; and it’s not like he’s against the idea of telling the others about... well, them, but he still finds himself irrationally worried about it. Maybe it’s just because it’s only been a little over six months…
“If you really don’t want to do it I don’t mind — I’m ready when you are,” the blonde’s soft voice interrupts Mingi’s thoughts.
“It’s not that I don’t want them to know,” he rushes to assure his boyfriend, “I just…”
Yunho wraps his arms around him and plants a kiss to the crown of his head. “You get anxious. I know. I promise I won’t be upset with you for not being ready.”
“Still feels so new,” Mingi mumbles into the embrace, inhaling the comforting smell of mint and clean laundry that clings to his boyfriend seemingly no matter what.
The blonde’s soft chuckle reverberates comfortingly through Mingi’s whole body. His arms always have felt like home. Just one of the many things that inevitably made him fall for Yunho.
“Yeah, but also not at the same time — like, sometimes it doesn’t feel any different to how things were before.”
“True,” Mingi concedes. Honestly it’s a little embarrassing to think about, with how desperate I was back then. Eventually, after a few minutes of just standing there in his boyfriend’s embrace, he sighs. “Give me some time to think about it.”
Yunho kisses the top of his head again and squeezes him one last time before pulling back to look Mingi in the eye with that devastatingly beautiful soft smile of his and telling him, “As long as you need. Hyungs don’t leave for their trip for another few days anyway.”
Mingi reaches a decision as they’re tangled up together on the couch with some anime they’ve watched before playing as background noise a couple nights later. He quietly gets the blonde’s attention.
After Yunho hums to show he heard him, he tells him, “You know that thing you brought up a couple days ago?”
“About Seonghwa-hyung and Hongjoong-hyung’s Japan trip?”
“Yeah. I’ve decided I wanna do it. Tell them, I mean.” He doesn’t have to look up or turn around to perfectly see the way his boyfriend lights up — like a golden retriever puppy who’s been asked if he wants a treat — at the words.
“Really? You’re sure you’re ready?”
Mingi shrugs. “Not really — I don’t think I’ll ever be fully ready, but I think we gotta just do it. Rip the band-aid off, y’know?”
Yunho nods and pulls his boyfriend impossibly further into his arms, clearly unable to hide his joy. “I understand. Thank you,” he whispers into Mingi’s dark hair.
“Aish, don’t thank me for that,” the brunette complains, lightly smacking the nearest part of Yunho that he can reach out of embarrassment. The other man just giggles and squeezes his arms around him again, a silent gesture of gratitude and support.
Mingi wrings his hands in his lap, a habit he’s had for about as long as he can remember, lost in thought until Yunho calls to him gently.
“Hey.” His boyfriend smiles at him in that soft way that tells him he knows where his mind is at and makes it a little easier for Mingi to breathe around the anxiety that grips his rapidly beating heart.
“Hi,” Mingi replies, returning the smile with a shaky one of his own.
Yunho tsks kindly and immediately takes the brunette’s face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together — a gesture that has always brought them both comfort — and comfortingly rubs his thumbs over Mingi’s cheeks. It makes Mingi really want to kiss him. “It’ll be fine,” he reassures softly, “I promise.”
Then, as if reading his boyfriend’s mind, the blonde closes the small gap between their mouths in a gentle kiss that ends far too soon for Mingi’s liking. Still, it has the intended calming effect; he feels a little more prepared for the video call with their friends after that.
“I think I have just enough time to take a quick shower before the call starts,” Yunho says as he pulls back, glancing at the alarm clock on the nightstand beside their bed. His eyes find Mingi’s again and he gives him another quick kiss, smiling serenely when he pulls away. “Be right back.”
Practically the second Yunho leaves the room, his phone lights up with a text from the group chat; unsurprisingly, it’s from Wooyoung.
Wooyoung
I know we agreed on like fifteen minutes from now
But I’m booooreddd
Can we do it sooner?
Seonghwa
You’ve always been impatient
We just got back to our hotel, can you wait 5 minutes for us to get to our room?
Wooyoung
Love you hyuuuung~
Mingi’s heart skips a million beats all at once and his brain kicks into overdrive. Fuck, I did not prepare for this — what am I gonna do?!
He doesn’t have much of a choice but to stall for time until Yunho gets out of the shower. Great. Just my luck.
He sighs and hauls himself off the bed, hitting the button to accept the call as he drops into the chair. This is fine; I can do this. But with each additional familiar face that pops into view on the screen, Mingi’s nerve crumbles away until it becomes paper-thin.
Shit. I need Yuyu’s help. The blonde was supposed to do the majority of the talking anyway — it was his idea, after all — but now he’s busy and probably not even aware that the call has started and Mingi is starting to freak out.
He takes a deep breath and tries to act normal. Which isn’t as difficult as he makes it sound, considering these are his best friends, but he’s too anxious about Yunho’s absence to let himself fully relax.
“Hey babe? Have you seen my…” Yunho calls casually as he walks into the room at that exact moment.
Naked.
Not even a towel around his hips.
Mingi’s heart drops to his stomach, all colour draining from his face as he watches his boyfriend look up to find their six best friends on the laptop screen.
Slowly, Yunho drops to the ground, and the brunette can see the tips of his ears practically glowing red from embarrassment.
Not that he’s faring much better, staring blankly at the screen as most of his friends burst into fits of laughter ranging from giggles to full-blown practically hollering and wondering where he went wrong in life.
Yeosang is the one to break through Mingi’s spiralling. “Well it’s obvious who tops, but you guys are using protection, right?”
The joke sets Wooyoung off all over again, practically diving out of frame with the force of his squeaking laughter. Even the hyungs can’t help but snicker at the angel-faced man’s deadpan delivery, though Seonghwa’s efforts to try and scold him are appreciated.
Mingi, meanwhile, wishes the ground would swallow him whole so he doesn’t have to be here.
“Isn’t it kinda presumptuous to say we know who tops?” San points out through fits of giggles.
Jongho shakes his head in mock seriousness. “Sannie-hyung, have you seen Mingi-hyung and Yunho-hyung when they’re around each other? There’s a reason Yunho-hyung calls him ‘princess’.”
“Oh my god,” Mingi mumbles to himself, his entire face feeling like it's on fire as he covers it with his hands. This has to be the most embarrassing thing fucking ever.
The sheer chaos of his friends’ teasing — Yeosang’s sly remarks, Wooyoung’s cackling, San’s giggles, and Jongho asking outlandish questions as Seonghwa’s mellow voice tries to calm them down — slowly fades into the background as his mind starts to repeat the memory of the exact moment Yunho walked into the room like a broken record.
Not the worst mental image to be stuck on, but the timing is less than ideal to put it lightly.
A comforting hand on Mingi’s shoulder startles him out of his silent dread and he looks up to find his boyfriend — ears still bright red — smiling softly at him before shyly greeting their friends.
“Oh hey it’s Mingi’s knight in no pants,” Hongjoong remarks with a smirk, ignoring how Seonghwa slaps his arm. “Nice of you to join us.”
Wooyoung manages to catch his breath long enough to go, “Boooo! That sucked!”
“Alright, alright, enough,” Seonghwa interjects before the two of them can start bickering. “Hi, Yunho. Good to see you.”
“So how long have you two been a thing without telling us?” asks Jongho, cutting right to the point.
Yunho rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “About… seven or eight months?” He glances at Mingi to confirm, who nods. “We would’ve said something sooner, but we didn’t want to make it awkward if things didn’t work out.”
“Not that this isn’t already awkward as fuck,” Mingi mutters under his breath.
The couple answers a few more questions that get peppered their way, like who was the first to develop a crush and which of them confessed their feelings — Mingi and Yunho, respectively — before getting to the point of what the call was supposed to be about in the first place.
“Anyway, enough about us,” Yunho says. “How’s your Japan trip going so far, hyungs?”
“Yeah,” Jongho agrees, mischief dancing in his eyes, “how’s the honeymoon?”
Hongjoong almost chokes on the coffee he was taking a sip of. That reminds me…! Mingi pulls his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants and opens up his text conversation with Hongjoong on KakaoTalk, quickly typing out a message while Seonghwa scolds the youngest for “saying such foolish things”.
Mingi can’t help but chuckle and be grateful he’s no longer the victim of Jongho’s troublemaking as he hits send.
Mingki
Did you do the thing you planned the trip for yet?
The older man checks his phone when he gets the notification and then finds Mingi’s eyes to give him a subtle shake of his head (after checking that nobody else is looking, of course).
Mingki
Good luck then
He’ll definitely say yes
Hongjoong smiles at his phone and then at Mingi before getting looped back into the conversation everyone else is having.
Hours later, long after the call has ended so that everyone can go to sleep, Yunho and Mingi curl up together under the covers of their bed and soak in the comfortable silence that envelops the room.
Well, mostly.
“Are you still sulking about the call?” the blonde teases fondly.
“...Maybe.” Yunho’s warm chuckle melts away a little bit of the brunette’s sour mood. “It’s just that it all went wrong,” he complains dramatically — as if he ever does anything any other way.
“Did it, though? I mean, we still told them, even if it went… not according to plan. Besides, they were gonna make all those jokes anyway.”
Mingi lightly punches his boyfriend’s chest, pouting. “Shut up, stop making good points and being right. I hate it when you do that.”
Yunho laughs and pulls the brunette in to his chest by the waist, locking him securely into his arms as he says, “I love you too. Goodnight, Mingi.”