Chapter Text
Every drawer, cabinet, and closet door in his room is open. Jisung has already searched here five times, twice in the kitchen, and once in each of his siblings' rooms. He’s asked his mother to check the kitchen and the living room, and he’s already pestered Jinsol, begging her to check her purse, just in case.
It’s no use; his contacts are gone.
Jisung doesn’t know how this could happen. He uses them daily, had them on as recently as last night, and he never misplaces them. Sure, the case is small, and his room is particularly messy now that he’s taken every piece of clothing out of his closet to try and put together an outfit for tonight, but it’s not something Jisung has ever lost. Not ever, and not now.
His mother’s head appears through the open door.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” Jisung says, frustrated. He sits down on the floor and starts looking under the piles of shirts and jeans again, as if the case might magically appear after checking there thrice.
“Okay,” his mother says, as calm and collected as ever. She pulls out her phone. “I’ll ask appa if he took them by mistake. Did you check the cabinet behind the bathroom mirror?”
“Yes,” Jisung says.
He does not add that even if Jisung’s father took his contact lenses, it would be of little help to know that now; he left early in the morning for a work-related trip he won’t return from until Monday night, and by then the party will have long since passed.
To be safe, and to keep his hands busy, Jisung goes to the bathroom to check again. He runs into Jinsol and Jiyeon, who are crowding the sink by washing their hands before dinner.
“They’re not here,” Jinsol says matter-of-factly. Jisung knows this, but he shoves her out of the way to check, just to spite her. “Yah, Han Jisung. I’m telling you, we checked here already.”
Jisung doesn’t bother answering her. He checks the cabinet, checks the drawers beneath the sink, checks every shelf, checks the first-aid kit. He’s about to yell out in frustration when Jiyeon tugs on his hand.
“Hyung,” he says. “Why can’t you just wear your glasses?”
He opens his mouth to reply, but Jinsol is faster.
“Jisungie is too proud to show up at that party wearing that,” she says, and her words drip with mockery. Not for the first time, Jisung wishes she had something better to do with her time than to torment him. “He has someone to impress.”
Jiyeon’s mouth curls into an ‘O’ shape. He looks at his brother, then his sister.
“I thought it was just Minho-hyung’s birthday party?”
Jisung exits the bathroom before Jinsol says anything else.
It’s not that Jisung doesn’t want to wear his glasses in front of Minho. He’s seen them frequently enough that he’s not fazed by them—Jisung wears them at home, and he used to wear them full-time up until middle school, so Minho is well acquainted with them. But this is the first time Minho is throwing a big party for his birthday, and it’s bound to be packed with people from Minho’s college, dance majors like himself, all of them cooler and more stylish than Jisung could ever be.
He doesn’t have much going for himself, but there’s a difference between looking regular and looking like a dork. And there’s nothing that makes Jisung look like a dork more than that pair of thick-framed glasses.
After losing another hour to searching to no avail, Jisung’s mother rushes into his room and announces that his father had, in fact, packed Jisung’s contact lens case by mistake. Jisung allows himself the entirety of five minutes to feel miserable over this, wondering how and why and why him, but then he looks at the time, and he decides it’s too late, now, to try and do anything to fix this.
He can go one night without his lenses. It’s not like there’ll be much for him to look at. All he needs to do is be there, keep to himself, and hopefully not stray too far away from Minho throughout the night.
That should be easy enough.
Jisung does wear his glasses as he puts three separate outfit options together, but he takes them out to try the clothes on. Jinsol agrees to help him choose, and Jiyeon is happy to join, though he might be the only person in this house who knows less about fashion than Jisung.
“Turn around,” Jinsol says when Jisung comes out of the bathroom in his second option. Jisung squints at her, and Jinsol rolls her eyes. “I wanna see how these suit you from behind—those jeans you wore before did nothing for your ass.”
Burning red, Jisung turns around. He swallows his urge to flip Jinsol off; they’ve done enough damage, with Jiyeon giggling to himself and muttering noona said ass over and over.
“Yeah, these are good,” Jinsol says after a moment. “As good as you’re gonna get, anyway. You really need to let Felix take you shopping, you know. Your closet is a cry for help.”
“Do you ever shut up?”
“Not when I’m doing you a favor,” Jinsol grins. “Now, makeup.”
“That’s fine, um,” Jisung takes a step back before Jinsol can get her hands on him. “I’m stopping at Felix’s on my way there.”
Jinsol’s smile widens. She nods.
“Alright,” she says. “Sure. He can fix you up.”
“I don’t need to be fixed up.”
With a laugh, Jinsol walks away from him, and Jisung fights against his instinct to chase after her and keep arguing, letting the conversation end for his own sake.
There’s an eeriness to standing outside of Felix’s house so late at night. He doesn’t normally go out alone after sundown; he rarely has an excuse to do so, and when he does, it’s with his friends, with Minho. He feels exposed, dressed up in the Jinsol-approved leather pants and dress shirt, and in the seconds between him ringing the doorbell and the door finally opening, he wills his heart to slow down before it beats out of his chest.
Felix opens up eventually, shuffling Jisung inside and up the stairs rather unceremoniously. Jisung barely manages to say his greetings to Mr. and Mrs. Lee, who wave at him from the living room, sitting on the couch and watching a movie.
He does get to say hi to Chan, finding him lying in bed with his arms behind his head as he listens to music. Felix is jumping from one side of the room to another, gathering all the make-up he owns in his arms, and Jisung escapes his line of motion by walking up to Chan.
“Hey there,” Chan says, looking at Jisung. He looks at him up and own, taking him in all of his dressed-to-the-nines glory, and whistles. “Look at our Jisungie. Who would’ve guessed you owned more than two pairs of pants?”
Jisung smiles, his face hot. “Hi, hyung.”
“You’re looking good,” Chan says, lying back down and facing the ceiling. “Where are you off to? Got a date?”
“Just Minho-hyung’s birthday.”
“So, yes,” Felix adds from afar.
Jisung turns to glare, not missing Chan’s amused smile, but Felix is quick to take a hold of him and shove him out of the room and into the bathroom, because the lighting is better here, Sung-ah and you always get distracted when Chris is here.
A truth and a lie. Jisung ignores him.
Felix sits him on a stool, angled in such a way that the light hits him best. He sits down in front of Jisung, on the edge of the bathtub, and doesn’t waste any time before getting started.
“I wish you’d let me do this more often,” he says, almost as an afterthought. He keeps Jisung’s face in place with a strong grip on his chin, and tilts him to his liking as he works on his base, then contour, then highlighter.
“I wish I knew how to do this myself,” Jisung says.
It’s admirable, he thinks, how much Felix knows about beauty, how easily he can work on a face like it’s a blank canvas.
He sits in silence as Felix talks about his day, his voice low and constant, keeping Jisung at ease. He moves through his tools quickly, getting his eyeliner right on the first try, perfecting his eyeshadow, adding a little bit of shine to his cheekbones, the inner corner of his eyes.
“So,” Felix says, adding what Jisung assumes must be the final touches. “Big night.”
Jisung shrugs.
“It’s just hyung’s birthday,” he mutters. “Not a big deal.”
Felix hums.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Felix purses his lips. Before Jisung can prod further, he tilts his head to one side, then the other, then lets him to entirely. “Done.”
Jisung takes a moment to look at himself in the mirror Felix hands him—a moment because it’s not easy for his eyes to focus without wearing his glasses, and a moment because he just looks good. This isn’t the first time he’s worn makeup, nor is it the first time he’s let Felix do his makeup, but there’s a new element here. The way it all comes together; his hair, mussed up carefully, the way the shirt falls on his body, a black, thin button-up, the slight shine of his black leather pants. The makeup is the final touch, Jisung thinks, making it all work. Making him feel not so much as if he’s playing dress-up. Making him feel real, and good.
And pretty. Jisung has come to learn that he particularly likes to feel pretty.
When he snaps out of his stupor, Jisung turns to find Felix doing his own makeup, standing close to the mirror over the sink. He works much faster on himself than he does on others, which Jisung can only guess is related to how aware Felix is of his own body.
Dancers. Jisung can’t seem to escape them.
He thinks, briefly, that it would have done him good to have Felix by his side on a night like tonight. Though not particularly close, Felix and Minho have hung out more than enough times to always be welcome at each other’s parties. It bonds two people for life, to be another person’s only two friends—to have been his only two friends. Before. Because Jisung has more friends now, of course, than just Felix and Minho. Of course.
The thing is that Felix is busy tonight. The show he was most recently on, a production at his university, closed recently, and he’s had tonight marked on his calendar for as long as he’s known he would be on the show. Cast parties are where it’s at, or so he’s relentlessly insisted.
Felix is talking, Jisung belatedly realizes. He’s finishing up the story of how the director is so into him, really, he is, did I tell you how his hand lingered on my arm? And it’s not that Jisung doesn’t believe him, but he’s heard this before, and he doesn’t think he can take another revival of Felix’s elaborate plan on how to bed this guy he likes.
Where all his confidence comes from, Jisung wouldn’t know. Felix is exactly like Jisung in many ways; they’re the same height, the same size in all clothing, they like mostly all the same things. Felix was born only hours after Jisung. He’s every bit as nineteen as Jisung is, every bit as much of a freshman. And yet he moves through the world like this—surely, confidently, like he’s done this all before.
And Jisung knows, because he knows Felix, that a lot of the time he’s just faking it. Felix acts like he knows what he’s doing even when he isn’t; he prefers it over Jisung’s strategy of staying frozen in place until he dies, and unlike Jisung’s, Felix’s way of facing the unknown works. It gets him places. It gets him on shows that rarely cast freshmen. It gets him invited to parties.
It gets him into boys’ beds. Because that, too, Felix has figured out long before Jisung. And that, too, he has mastered.
Jisung breathes in, breathes out.
He finds Chan lingering by the doorframe when he turns around.
“Staying in tonight, hyung?”
Chan shrugs.
“Yeah. I’m up early tomorrow—this kid is coming into the studio to help me with a guide I need to finish.”
He brushes his hands on his pants. Jisung processes what he’s said, and his eyes widen.
“That’s so cool,” he says. “Who?”
“Ah, you may know her, right,” Chan says. He’s walking back towards their room, so Jisung makes the quick decision to follow him. It’s not like Felix will need his help—or that he could be of any help at all to him. “Kim Jungeun, freshman. Ring a bell?”
Jisung freezes. He closes his eyes, sighs. Chan sits on his bed and looks at him curiously.
“That’s Jinsol-noona’s best friend,” he says. Chan lightens up.
“Really? Oh, that’s so cool. I didn’t know Jinsolie had friends in music! Does she sing, too?”
Memories of Jinsol beating his karaoke scores again and again throughout the years come to mind. Jisung shakes his head hard until they fade.
“No,” he lies. “She’s terrible at it.”
Chan looks at him for a second, then laughs. His whole body shakes with it, like he’s lighting up from inside. Jisung smiles. He can’t help it.
After a moment, Chan speaks up again.
“You should stop by, sometime,” he says. Jisung tenses up quickly, any traces of amusement vanishing from his body. “By the studio, I mean. It’s usually just me and this guy I met in class—we share the space. I think you’d like him. And we could use a fresh mind—”
“He’s not gonna join your cult,” Felix says, bursting into the room. He puts one arm around Jisung, pulls him close, and adds, “Stop trying to take him away from me.”
Jisung exhales, lets his body relax. He laughs, even.
Chan smiles, puts his hands in the air, and promptly drops the subject.
Felix is a blur of movement for a few minutes longer, as he finishes getting ready. Then, once he’s checked his outfit and his hair enough times, he waves his brother goodbye and drags more than walks Jisung downstairs and out the door.
The cast party and Minho’s house are in opposite directions, so they only walk together one block before they have to separate. Felix seems to be well aware of this, because he’s patting Jisung’s shoulder before they reach the corner, inhaling and exhaling wistfully.
“Guess this is it,” he says, dramatic, and Jisung plays along with a long, exaggerated sigh. “My Jisungie. Out into the world.”
Jisung laughs at his tone. Felix does this, acts as if he’s much older than Jisung. He gets it from Chan, most likely, as this is how their dynamic has always been. Jisung goes to them for knowledge, because they’re his more experienced friends, the ones who will know what to do, the ones with all the answers.
Minho has answers, too, but it’s not the same. Minho is cooler than Felix, cooler than Chan. And Jisung trusts him, would trust him with anything, no matter what, no matter when. But he finds that around Minho he’s—shyer, maybe, more easily embarrassed. More aware of the way Minho sees him, the weight of his eyes on him when they talk about serious things, when Jisung is vulnerable before him.
It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t have to.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Why,” Jisung says, blinking away heavy thoughts. “You think I can’t hold my own at some party?”
Felix smiles, equal parts teasing and kind.
“I know you can. I was talking about the whole not-seeing-shit situation.”
“Oh,” Jisung says, then deflates. He thought he’d been doing a better job at hiding it. He shrugs. “I’ll be fine. It’s just hyung’s house—I know where things are. Plus, he’ll be there, right?”
“Right,” Felix says. His smile tips all the way into teasing. “Minho-hyung will be there. He’ll keep you safe.”
Jisung glares at him. Heat crawls up his neck.
“I didn’t mean—” he starts, but it’s no use. Felix is laughing at him, at his own joke. Jisung just shoves him and focuses on keeping himself under control. “I just meant it’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Felix says, still giggling. He gathers himself, looks at Jisung more sincerely, now. “And you’ll have fun?”
He raises a hand towards Jisung’s face slowly, aiming for his cheek. Jisung smacks his arm and scoffs, embarrassed.
“Yes, eomma, I’ll have fun. Who do you take me for?”
“Yourself,” Felix says, quick. “Professional non-fun-haver.”
Jisung hits him again. Felix laughs. Again.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” he says, hands in the air. Jisung almost sees Chan in the motion. “I just want you to have a good time. You get a little too inside your head, you know? With hyung, and—well. You get it.”
To avoid saying anything he doesn’t mean, Jisung bites his tongue until it hurts. He breathes in, breathes out. Tries not to feel exposed under Felix’s too-caring eyes.
He nods. Felix grins.
Jisung vows, “I’ll have fun,” and he means it.
Jisung is not having fun.
The party is everything any party is, in that it’s loud and crowded and suffocating. The fact that it’s at a house Jisung has been to countless times since his childhood makes things both better and worse, because he knows where everything is, and he can’t help but fret over all the things that are not where they should be.
Minho is a very clean person. He’s organized, he likes things to be in place, he likes his home to be tidy. He doesn’t usually have many people over at once, and when he does, they’re all run through the same speech of please don’t break anything, or I’ll have to kill you. Which everyone takes seriously, not because Minho has ever had to kill anyone so far, but because they trust that he could, if he wanted to.
He holds that power over most people, Jisung has come to learn. At school, and now at college, people seem to fear Minho first, and like him second. It’s rather ridiculous, if Jisung is one to talk, but then his relationship with Minho has never been like any of their other friendships.
He digresses.
What matters is that despite his love for order and peace, Minho seems to be having fun. He seems to be well past tipsy, too, by the time he’s opening the door to let Jisung in. His face is flushed, smile feather-light and ever present on his face. He greets Jisung by the door with a hug.
His brain—his very sober, high-speed brain— glitches, freezes, restarts. Jisung is taut in Minho’s arms, because this has never happened before. Though he’s long since grown out of his disdain for physical touch of any nature, Minho has never been a hugger, especially not in public, not outwardly.
The first coherent thought Jisung can put together is that it’s been years since the last time he and Minho hugged, sitting on a bed just upstairs in this same house. Minho had just found out that his parents, who lived in the city and only rarely came down to visit Minho at his grandmother’s, were getting a divorce. He’d been the saddest Jisung had seen him, and he hadn’t asked for a hug, but when Jisung offered it, all he could do was collapse against him, crying, angry and confused. They never talked about it, to the point that Jisung had forgotten all about it until now.
The second coherent thought that comes to mind is that Minho smells good.
It’s as good as cue as any to squirm out of his hold. Minho is smiling and Jisung sees, from this close, that he’s not drunk. He’s definitely more than a little tipsy, but more than anything he looks ecstatic. Happy.
“Happy you made it,” he tells Jisung as he shuffles him inside. He’s been shuffled in and out of places many times in the past few hours, Jisung thinks. It’s a little dizzying.
He doesn’t tell Minho that of course he made it, that he wouldn’t miss this for the world, partly because Minho knows and mostly because Jisung can’t risk earning himself another hug. Not while he’s this sober, this aware of his own body, his own feelings.
Dangerous territory. He breathes in, breathes out, focuses on his surroundings.
Everywhere he looks, there are people he’s seeing for the first time. He thinks he recognizes certain faces, certain names being yelled out, from Minho’s classes or Minho’s anecdotes, but they’re not people Jisung has ever spoken to or been perceived by. They all seem to know each other well, which puts him in the awkward yet familiar position of being the odd one out, but he figures it can’t be too bad. He’s trying to keep a positive attitude.
Judging by the way every room lights up in cheers whenever Minho walks in, they all seem to share a unanimous appreciation for him. So there’s something Jisung can relate with.
After the initial shock of noise and crowd and chaos, Jisung can feel himself relaxing, little by little. It helps that for the most part, the lights and the people all blend into a blur Jisung can’t tell apart. He’d been fearing that not being able to see would only feed into his anxiety, but he’s finding now that it’s something of a blessing in disguise.
Jisung doesn’t have to worry about looking lame, and he doesn’t have to worry about how people look at him, because—well, because he has no idea if people are looking at him. It’s a win-win situation.
He doesn’t realize they’ve stopped at a less crowded spot until Minho speaks up again.
“Where’s the rest of you?”
“What?”
Minho looks at him for a moment longer, his eyes full of—something. Jisung assumes. He really wouldn’t know. After a beat, he brings his hand up, dangerously close to Jisung’s eyes.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
Jisung freezes, feels his face heat up. He tries to push Minho’s hand away, but he resists.
“Fuck off,” he says, weak.
“How many fingers, Jisung.”
“Five,” Jisung says, because he’s not blind—the fact that the low lighting makes even this difficult is privy to him only. “Now go shove them up your butt, or something.”
Minho puts his hand back. He’s smiling that smile that says he’s thought of a joke, one funnier and ten times more disgusting than whatever Jisung had said.
“Later, maybe,” is what he says.
Jisung wonders if it’s the Earth he’s feeling split in half to swallow him—no. It’s just the bass of this song making his entire brain rumble. Good. It’s easy to focus on that and not whatever images Minho is trying to paint in his head before he’s even gotten a drop of alcohol in him.
Gross. Right? Minho is just being gross.
An arm falls around him with ease, and Minho walks with him to the kitchen. Jisung feels relief wash over him when he sees Minho start to work him a drink. He leans against the counter while Minho mixes and lets his gaze fall—well, nowhere.
A glass of whatever the hell arrives at his hand, and Jisung curls his fingers around it, focusing for a moment only on the pleasantly cold sensation of the drink against his palms.
“So,” Minho says, now pressed to his side. He nudges him. “The hell’s wrong with you, hm? Coming to my party blind. What, you didn’t want to see the birthday boy in all his glory?”
Minho’s fishing, Jisung can tell. He’s been doing that a lot more, lately, like he’s not flattered enough on the daily. For now, Jisung doesn’t give him the satisfaction, doesn’t say you look good, hyung or any of its variations. This gets a pout of Minho, which makes him smile in return.
Jisung asks, “How did you even know?”
And Minho says, “Please. Like you can get anything past me.”
There’s this tilt to Minho’s voice that Jisung finds funny, but also just charming—whenever he’s tipsy, his words curl at the ends like he can’t find quite the right way to get them out, like he’s relearning them as he goes. Jisung wonders if people find him charming, too, when he’s drunk. He hasn’t been drunk much in his life, only once or twice, but he’s gotten close to it more than enough times. Usually, he tends to go quiet, the more he drinks. It’s like his every sense is heightened, and there’s so much to listen to, so many things calling to his attention.
Three drinks in, what calls his attention is Minho. Not that he needs any alcohol for Minho to take up a considerable part of his thoughts and his perception, but this, too, is heightened. Like a light becoming brighter, a sound becoming louder.
Minho isn’t by his side anymore. After fixing Jisung his third glass of this nameless cocktail, he was stolen by someone Jisung vaguely remembers being introduced to as the former captain of Minho’s dance crew, now recently graduated. He’s tall and lean and pretty in a manly way that Jisung could never dream to be. In the middle of the room, lights and eyes on him, he moves Minho around like they’re following a choreography, and to know that they aren’t leaves a faint ache in the center of Jisung’s chest.
What wouldn’t he give to be like that. To be able to let go so easily of his body, of his mind.
To be someone Minho would be happy to dance with.
Huh. His glass is empty. Jisung thinks he wants that to change, and so he turns around, eyes torn forcefully from the spectacle in front of him, and heads to the kitchen to make things right.
It’s harder to find everything now, both because he’s drunker and because he’s alone, but Jisung still manages to get his hands on a bottle of something. He doesn’t try to read anything off the label—there is not a chance in the world that he will be able to make anything out of the blurry nonsense. He unscrews the cap and the smell is strong and disgusting, and that’s really all Jisung needs to know that it will do the trick.
He’s pouring copious amount of the mystery liquid into his glass when someone walks in.
“Hey,” Jisung hears, and it’s not Minho who says it.
Jisung reminds himself that Minho is still dancing, most likely, and having what must be the most fun he’s had all night. Minho did not immediately stop what he was doing to follow after Jisung, because this is Minho’s birthday, after all, and there’s many people that came here to see him who are more fun to be around, more interesting.
At least Jisung didn’t bring his glasses. That would’ve been embarrassing.
He must have zoned out, and he realizes this only because the glass he was holding is now overflowing. Something cold and wet reaches his hand and Jisung startles, dropping the glass immediately. It falls on the counter with a loud clink, but it luckily doesn’t break.
Speaking of embarrassment.
“Wow, there,” Not-Minho says, now closer. Jisung would turn around to put a face to the voice, maybe a name, but he’s busy staring soullessly at the fallen glass, blinking once, twice.
One finger touches his shoulder and this gets Jisung to snap back into reality. He flinches away from the touch and finally looks at the person now beside him—ah. He does know him.
“Hwang Hyunjin,” he says out loud as the name comes to him. He feels stupid as soon as the words are out—he really has not had enough to drink to be acting like this. But he’s entirely out of his depth, and he doesn’t know any of the people at this party enough to be comfortable without Minho by his side, and being this aware that not having Minho close by makes him feel so alien is poking thorns into his brain.
He also can’t see a fucking thing, which proves to be more and more inconvenient.
Hyunjin is close enough that Jisung can see his face. He’s watching Jisung funnily, like he’s some sort of creature he’s seeing for the first time and not the guy that waits for Minho outside of the dance studio on occasion.
“Han Jisung,” Hyunjin says back, and Jisung relaxes only slightly. “You remember me.”
It’s hard to believe anyone would not remember Hyunjin. He has that face, after all. That body.
Jisung puts all of his efforts into not saying that out loud, and ends up just staying silent.
“Need some help with that?” Hyunjin goes on, nodding at the counter and the spilled drink.
“Um,” Jisung says. He steps back, watches the mess he’s made. He feels a little helpless and a lot like a natural disaster. “Yeah, I—I don’t know where anything is. Just wanted a refill.”
“What are you drinking? I’ll help you find it.”
“I…” Jisung frowns. “I don’t actually know. Hyung made it for me. Didn’t ask.”
Hyunjin looks at him, lips curling into a smile. Jisung wonders if he’s making that big a fool of himself or if Hyunjin simply tends to find things funny. Maybe it’s both. His smile is nice to look at, so Jisung finds that he doesn’t really mind.
“That hyung,” Hyunjin says. It’s sweet. His voice is sweet. “Well, do you like Campari? That’s what I’m having, I was gonna make myself another one anyway.”
He extends his arm and offers what little is left of his drink. Jisung takes a step closer, leans forward, but the smell is enough for him to wrinkle his nose and shake his head. He’s had enough Campari tonics in his life—a total of maybe five—to know that he’s better off without it.
“Maybe not,” he says. Hyunjin laughs and the sound makes Jisung’s brain glitch.
He’s cute. It’s not that Jisung didn’t know that, but here, now, standing alone with him for the very first time, his senses both numb and sharp and tinted by the drink he’s had—he’s cute, that’s all.
“Alright,” Hyunjin says, and he’s smiling.
Jisung hasn’t stepped back, so they’re standing considerably closer than he has been with anyone all night. Save for minho, of course, who always seems to find himself stuck right by Jisung’s side, no excuses necessary. Jisung doesn’t think about that now, doesn’t think about Minho in the dance floor, doesn’t think about Minho’s hands on somebody else’s shoulders.
Hyunjin is talking again.
“Do you remember what your drink tasted like?” Hyunjin asks. He’s taking his self-assigned mission to be Jisung’s bartender very seriously, it seems. “We can try to recreate it.”
“Hm.” Jisung tilts his head, tries to recall. The drink was sweet, it was strong, it was a little fruity. He doesn’t know how to put this in words that will be of any help to Hyunjin. He purses his lips, shakes his head again. “I don’t—know enough about alcohol, I think,” he says with a laugh, and he hopes the heat on his cheeks isn’t showing too evidently.
The song that’s playing is not one Jisung has ever heard, he doesn’t think, and it might very well be the same song that’s been playing all night. All he can process is that it’s loud—enough so to make his thoughts feel quieter—and so it meets the requirements to be a song that he likes.
As Hyunjin watches him, thinking, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and moving to the beat like it’s a second nature, Jisung thinks that he might really like this song. He lets himself sway slightly, too, and he feels Hyunjin’s eyes follow his every move.
They’re standing very close. Jisung doesn’t know how he got here. He doesn’t know what choices he made to end up here. But Hyunjin is standing close enough that Jisung can see him almost clearly, he’s standing close enough that his body warmth makes Jisung feel hot all over.
He wonders, for a moment, if Hyunjin walked into the kitchen knowing that he was there. He wonders if Hyunjin had ever really noticed him before tonight. The idea that someone could notice him, that someone could think of him, that someone could walk after him and follow him into a kitchen and get close enough that their bodies are almost touching and—
“I do,” Hyunjin says, suddenly. Jisung stops, looks at him, tries to remember what they were talking about. “I could probably tell what drink it was, if I could taste it.”
Jisung is about to say that ah, sorry, he already drank it all—but Hyunjin is so close, his voice is barely above a whisper, and Jisung can see even in the dark of the kitchen that he’s looking at his lips, and—oh.
“Oh,” he says.
He can’t hear anything anymore. There’s static where his thoughts should be, silence where there once was loud music. There’s Hyunjin standing right there, looking at Jisung like—like—looking at Jisung in a way he has never been looked at before. There’s Hyunjin, one of the most gorgeous people Jisung has met. And he wants to kiss Jisung.
And so, he does.
What little distance was left between them is bridged as soon as Hyunjin’s lips are on his, and Jisung finds that he quite likes the weight of Hyunjin’s body against him. He lets himself be cornered against the counter, lets his face be cradled, and Hyunjin’s fingers are slim and cold against his burning cheeks. He lets himself sigh as Hyunjin goes deeper, lets himself forget everything, forget even himself.
His hands have a mind of their own, and they roam over Hyunjin’s torso for a moment before finding purchase on his waist. He pulls Hyunjin even closer, wanting more, more, more of whatever is happening.
Hyunjin pulls back to breathe, but quickly dives down to kiss Jisung’s jaw, his neck, and Jisung feels delirious. He doesn’t like this as much as having Hyunjin kiss him on the lips, because as he throws his head back to give Hyunjin enough room, he’s faced with the empty room around them, the ceiling. With each thing his eyes land on he can feel his awareness return, his thoughts, his hesitation.
He twists slightly, a whine escaping him, and Hyunjin seems to take the cue. He quickly comes back up to meet Jisung’s lips once more. He kisses like he knows exactly what he’s doing, like he’s an expert. There’s no surprise there.
They find a rhythm, Jisung happy to let Hyunjin lead. As the adrenaline fades, he finds himself pleased to simply keep kissing him, only parting for air when necessary, letting his body take the wheel, his mind melting with each bite to his lips, each sound he gets out of Hyunjin.
Hours could have passed like this, and Jisung would have been none the wiser. He does remember, at one point, that he’s thirsty, but it’s not enough to make him stop. Jisung thinks he would let Hyunjin kiss him all night long if he wanted to. He can’t think of anything else he’d like to do, anything that would make him want to stop.
And then, suddenly, the light of the kitchen switches on, and Jisung freezes.
Hyunjin doesn’t seem to want to stop until he feels the tension on Jisung’s body, and he steps back with a frown. He’s been messied all over, his hair and his clothes and his spit-slick lips, and Jisung would love to bathe in the feeling it gives him to know he did that, but he can’t think of anything, right now. He can’t get his brain to work.
Minho is standing by the door of the kitchen. His eyes are fixed on Jisung.
When Hyunjin turns around, he straightens up like he’s been caught. He stutters, hesitates, and finally steps an entire foot away from Jisung. He’s bright red in the face. Minho is red, too, but for what reason, Jisung hasn’t the slightest idea.
The room isn’t silent—Jisung can hear the music, now, and it is still quite loud. But the three of them are standing frozen in place, and it’s not until Hyunjin speaks that the tension between them gives in.
“Hyung,” he says, hoarse.
Jisung did that. Jisung kissed Hyunjin until his voice was almost gone.
He wonders why he feels so wrong for it, now.
“Hyunjin-ah,” Minho says, still looking at Jisung. His voice is low, unwavering. “Jaemin was looking for you.”
Hyunjin turns his head to look at Minho, then at Jisung, then at Minho again. He looks confounded, drilled into place, but after a moment he startles into motion.
“Uh—sure,” he says, and his brows furrow a little. He looks at Jisung again. “Your drink…”
“I can help him with that,” Minho says, and his voice has turned colder.
Jisung frowns. What has Hyunjin done for Minho to sound so upset? But—no, Minho is still looking at him, so his anger must not be directed at Hyunjin at all. Something tightens in Jisung’s stomach, in his chest. He feels too drunk, suddenly, to be handling this situation.
Minho has never been mad at him before. Not like this.
Visibly affected by Minho’s tone, Hyunjin flinches, then nods. He bows his head and is out of the room without another word.
The light flickers, the floor spins. Minho is still looking at Jisung, and Jisung feels very cold.
“Hyung, I—”
Before he can say anything, Minho moves away from the door and into the kitchen. He walks up to the counter, a safe distance away from Jisung, and grabs a paper towel to clean the spilled drink Jisung had long since forgotten about. He puts the empty glass in the sink, and then he opens the fridge and pulls out a jar of water. He pours some into a new, clean glass, and hands it to jisung wordlessly.
Jisung looks down at the glass. He takes it, but he finds that he’s no longer thirsty.
“Drink,” Minho says, still. “You’ll want to die in the morning.”
I want to die now, Jisung doesn’t say. He drinks the water and it goes down his throat cool and unforgiving. It washes away the lingering taste of Hyunjin, and Jisung doesn’t mourn it.
Minho is still facing the counter, looking down at his hands like he doesn’t know what to do with them. His breathing is slow and measured, and Jisung recognizes it from all the other times he’s seen Minho try to control his emotions, try to keep himself from blowing up at someone.
He hasn’t the slightest idea why Minho is so upset. It feels wrong, to see him like this, to not know what caused it. To have the acid feeling that this might all be his fault.
“Hyung,” he tries again, his voice a little unsteady. He wants to reach out, but he stays still, not wanting to make things worse, to cause Minho to shove him away.
He’s expecting Minho to tell him what’s wrong, to yell at him, to at least look at him.
What Minho says is, “I didn’t know you liked him.”
It takes a second for Jisung to realize he’s talking about Hyunjin. His frown deepens.
“What? I don’t,” he says, but it sounds a little rough, a little defensive. He amends, “I mean—he’s nice, we haven’t really talked. He was just—we were—I don’t like like him.”
He doesn’t even know why he’s explaining himself. Minho surely has never had to explain himself to Jisung in the many, many occasions when their places were switched. And there have been many; the line of people wanting to make out with Minho at parties is all but endless.
“He is nice,” Minho says. His anger seems to be dimming down to something entirely different, something that horrifies Jisung even more. He looks sad. “He’s a good guy. It’s okay if you like him.”
“I don’t,” Jisung says, and he feels himself grow frustrated. Why is Minho even here? Why isn’t he where he belongs, back at the center of the party, basking in everyone’s unrelenting attention? “I don’t like him. He was just here, and we were talking, and then we kissed. That’s—that’s all.”
Minho doesn’t say anything to that. Jisung wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.
Silence stretches between them, and Jisung sighs. he’s tired, all of a sudden. He doesn’t know how late it is. There’s the hint of a headache nursing in the back of his head, and it’s not unexpected; he’s been forcing his sight for hours in a dim-lit place where everything is too bright and too loud.
He wants to lie down. He was supposed to spend the night, that was what he and Minho had agreed on. He’s about to ask Minho if it’s still okay for him to stay when Minho suddenly turns to face him, ears still red, eyes still unreadable.
“Your glasses,” he says, sudden, and then he hesitates. After a moment, he goes on, “I asked Jiyeonnie to bike them over. ‘Cause I know you can’t see jack shit without them.”
Jisung’s eyes widen, and if his face was hot before, it is now catching fire.
“Hyung—”
Minho walks up to him. He materializes the glasses out of seemingly nowhere, and Jisung can’t focus on anything for long enough before Minho is putting them on him, hands careful as of handling something fragile. Even after withdrawing his hands, Minho stays close, eyeing him all over. Now that Jisung can see him, he focuses on each and every detail of Minho’s face that his eyes can catch, down to the slight pout he sports and the ghost of a frown.
He’s studying Jisung, his eyes, his lips. He places two fingers on his chin and tilts his head up. Jisung lets him.
He gets like this, Minho, from time to time. Jisung doesn’t know what’s gotten him this distraught, but at least he seems to be less and less upset with each passing moment.
Anger is replaced by something that looks a lot like confusion, and then eventually by evident exhaustion. Minho looks like he’s holding back a yawn, his eyes dark and tired. Jisung feels it in his own body, too, the bone-deep fatigue.
It looks like Minho’s battling against himself, trying to decide on what he wants to say. Jisung waits patiently, looking once again at every aspect of his face that he hadn’t been able to appreciate until now. His makeup, how prettily he’s done his hair.
Finally, Minho says, “Stupid.”
It startles a laugh out of Jisung. Minho grins, like he’s proud.
“Why,” Jisung says, smiling. Tension keeps dripping from his body, leaving place for something warm.
“You can’t just walk around blind,” Minho says. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. Jisung shrugs, trying his very best to act like he’s not embarrassed. “Your brother told me you lost your contacts. Is that why you left these at home?”
Jisung shrugs again. Words fail him.
“Stupid,” Minho says again, and it’s sweet. Gentle. “These look just fine. A little silly, sure,” he teases, and Jisung fights back immediately. He kicks Minho’s shin without any force and pouts. “But they’re cute. You look cute in them.”
Silence stretches. This is another thing Minho does from time to time. He tells Jisung nice things like it’s nothing, he calls him cute, calls him pretty. None of his other friends really do that—except Felix, maybe, every now and then, but not like that.
It doesn’t weigh the same, Jisung thinks, when other people say it. Minho’s words will always weigh more.
“Thanks,” Jisung manages to say.
He doesn’t want to look at Minho for a moment longer, and yet he doesn’t dare look away. It’s strangely fragile, this intimacy they’ve just built. Jisung is afraid that the moment the bubble bursts Minho will remember he was upset with him. “For asking Jiyeonnie to bring them. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, well,” Minho says, and it’s his turn to shrug. “That kid’ll do anything since your parents got him that bike. And I paid him in cake, so.”
His voice is fond, like it always is when he talks about Jiyeon. As if he’s talking about his own brother—as if he’s ever had a brother of his own.
Neither of them says anything more.
It’s so late at night that it’s almost morning when Jisung and Minho find themselves lying on their backs in Minho’s bed, staring at the ceiling, so tired yet so awake. The party ended a long time ago, and Jisung is wearing the pajamas Minho always lets him borrow. They smell of fabric freshener and the coconut-scented shampoo Minho has recently switched to.
Jisung isn’t trying very hard to fall asleep, and he doesn’t think Minho is, either. They haven’t talked much, both too tired and drained, but the silence hasn’t turned uncomfortable, not like it was back in the kitchen.
Now, in the safety provided by the darkness of Minho’s bedroom, Jisung revisits that moment. The click of the light switch, Minho by the door, Hyunjin on him. Hyunjin’s lips, Hyunjin’s unashamed want.
What must it feel like, Jisung wonders, to want something and be able to just take it.
Absently, he lifts a hand to his lips and touches softly, the tip of one finger barely grazing where Hyunjin had kissed him. The taste of Campari and lime tonic has long since faded, but the tingling sensation remains.
It had been nice. Hyunjin was every bit the great kisser he looked to be. Jisung was a pretty decent one, himself, if reviews were anything to go by—but Hyunjin had been great. It had felt intoxicating, unexpected, like an adrenaline rush that just kept hitting him, wave after wave.
But then—he’d felt so stupid, right after, knowing that Minho had seen him, that he was so upset afterwards, for reasons still incomprehensible. Knowing that Minho had gone out of his way to make sure that Jisung would be comfortable, and all the while Jisung had been hole up in his kitchen, making out with his friend. On his birthday.
His hand movement catches Minho’s eye, and he turns his head to look at Jisung.
He watches him for a beat, then says, “He’s nice.” Jisung feels like it’s the hundredth time he’s heard those words from Minho tonight. Like it’s not clear, he clarifies, “Hyunjin. He’s a nice guy.”
Jisung never doubted that. He’s not sure why Minho is bringing it up. Jisung would never assume that someone Minho is friends with is not nice.
“He is,” he says, just to say something. “You keep saying that, hyung.” And then something sparks in Jisung’s brain, and oh no. Could he—could Minho— “Do you like Hyunjin? Fuck, is that why you got so weird? Oh, hyung, I’m so—“
“I don’t like Hyunjin, Jisung-ah,” Minho says, frustration clear on his voice. Jisung feels like he’s drowning a little, having been on the receiving end of this tone of Minho’s voice more times tonight than he has ever in his life.
“Okay,” he says, feeling small. Then, quieter, “I’m sorry.”
Minho looks at him once again, blinks.
“Why?”
Jisung purses his lips, looks at the ceiling. He feels dangerously fragile, right now. He’s always been more prone to crying when he’s tired.
“Because,” he says, and his voice wavers. “I feel like I ruined your birthday, and I don’t even know what I did. Whole time I’ve just been trying to be cool so your friends would like me, and I feel like I messed up, but—hyung, isn’t this what normal people do at parties? Drink and act recklessly and kiss strangers?”
He breathes. The air trembles on its way out. He looks at Minho, finally, and Minho looks back.
He looks sad. Jisung wishes he would stop that.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Jisung-ah,” Minho says, and when he tries to smile it looks so forced that it strikes straight at Jisung’s heart. “Really, you’re fine. I was just—surprised, is all. I couldn’t find you, and—yeah. You didn’t ruin my birthday. I promise.”
Jisung sniffs. He’s not crying. He won’t.
“Okay,” he says, swallows hard. “So, we’re good?”
Minho closes his eyes for a brief moment, breathes slowly. He nods. His smile looks a little lighter.
“Yeah, Sung-ah, we’re good.”
He says it like he means it, voice feather-light. He turns on his side, facing Jisung fully, and it’s a cue for Jisung to do the same. They look at each other in silence, for a moment, and Jisung is not sure who’s going to give in to sleep first. Minho looks every bit as exhausted as Jisung feels, the long night behind them weighing on him, dragging him down.
At one point, Jisung’s eyes must fall closed, because he can’t see Minho the next time he speaks.
“Don’t try to look cool for anyone,” Minho whispers. “You don’t need it.”
Jisung holds his breath, keeps his eyes closed.
Through a yawn, Minho adds,
“You’re my favorite out of all these losers, anyway.”
And then he’s out like a light.
Jisung hears Minho’s breathing smoothen and deepen, his chest rising and falling with the motions, his face washed of any emotion—there’s no trace of the sadness, the anger, even the happiness.
Like this, Minho looks younger. Almost like the kid Jisung met all those years ago and vowed never to let go.
He turns Minho’s words over and over in his head, tries to commit them to memory. You don’t need it and you’re my favorite—but mostly I was just surprised.
Before the grip of sleep finally anchors him under, Jisung decides that he doesn’t want to be the type of person that surprises Minho like that, not again, not if it will make him feel this upset, this unsettled.
Minho has never been keen on surprises, after all.
Jisung doesn’t think he is, either.