Archive of Our Own ^beta

There’s mud on Jongin’s shoes.

It’s not unexpected. This has been the rainiest September Jongin can remember, the layers of fallen leaves becoming soggy on the sidewalks and the grass field of the neighborhood park turning to mud.

Luckily, it’s not raining this afternoon, but the sunshine is hot and Jongin can feel his shoes sinking deeper into the muddy grass every second.

He doesn’t really mind. The shoes are a crappy pair of trainers he’d used for dance practices until the heels had cracked and Jongin had gotten blood on them once (probably from that time Hyoyeon accidentally gave Taemin a bloody nose after he tried to sneak up behind her and scare her), so a little mud isn’t a problem.

The problem is that Jongin feels kind of conspicuous. Here, on the sidelines of the youth league soccer game, Jongin is surrounded by all kinds of soccer moms, from the sporty to the ludicrously well-manicured. There are a few fathers sprinkled into the crowd, cheering the kids on as they chase the soccer ball around the field, but Jongin is by far the youngest person on the sidelines. It makes Jongin feel like everything, from his graphic t-shirt to the mud on his shoes, sticks out like a sore thumb.

“Which one is yours?” one of the women standing near Jongin asks, smiling at him from beneath a baseball cap.

“Um.” He cranes his neck to get a better look at the field and points. “The one with the pink cleats, Sehun.” Jongin shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. “He’s not really mine — I mean, I’m his uncle and his dad had to work today so…”

“Oh, you’re Joonmyun’s brother,” the woman says. “I wondered why he wasn’t here today.”

“You know Joonmyun?”

The woman laughs. “All of us know Joonmyun. He’s one of the most active parents on the team. Top of the phone tree and everything.”

Jongin sucks his lower lip into his mouth, watching the clump of kids chase the ball. Sehun’s pink cleats make him easy to pick out, his face shining with sweat as he jostles the other players for a chance to kick the ball.

It’s good to see nephew smiling and having fun with other kids. Jongin had wondered, after Sehun’s mother had passed away over a year ago, if he would see the giggling, carefree Sehun again.

“He’ll be fine,” Joonmyun had assured him after another night of watching Sehun silently pick at his food, his face a sullen mask. “Kids bounce back.”

Jongin had hoped he was right, but it was hard to believe his brother when Joonmyun’s own face was so gaunt-looking, sleeplessness carving deep bruises under his eyes.

And Sehun had bounced back, slowly at first, and then by leaps and bounds. Joonmyun had tried to keep things as normal as possible, working from home most afternoons after school, driving Sehun around in the minivan instead of his usual sporty sedan, attending every single soccer practice and game.

Eventually, though, something had to give.

Joonmyun’s work had allowed him some flexibility in the wake of his wife’s death, but after a year, his superiors had begun making noises about whether Joonmyun was really committed to his job. Jongin had moved into Joonmyun’s house two weeks ago, before the start of the new semester and after Joonmyun had been put in charge of a new project at work.

“It’s nothing permanent,” Joonmyun had said. “They just want to know that I’ll put in the time. A year heading up this project will make sure I can stay at the company and after it’s finished, I’ll be able to work from home more in the future.”

Jongin moving in kills several birds with one stone. In exchange for not having to pay room or board, Jongin is going to act as a sort of nanny for Sehun.

Today is Jongin's first game with Sehun, and Joonmyun had left out a bag filled with everything from sunscreen to a canvas camping chair and a cooler, along with the minivan keys that morning.

“Oh yeah. These are for halftime,” Jongin says, digging the tupperware of orange slices out of the cooler.

“You can give them to the coach.” The woman cranes her neck, searching. “There he is. You can just give it to Minseok.”

Jongin is already looking where she pointed before her words sink in.

“Minseok?” he repeats, voice hollow.

“The guy in the white shirt and blue shorts. You see him?”

“Yeah,” Jongin’s mouth says, but he barely even notices that he’s still speaking.

That’s definitely Minseok clapping his hands and calling out to the kids from the sidelines, and it’s kind of stupid, because for a moment, Jongin’s world stops. The shouts of the parents around him dim, like he’s in dramatic movie, and everything but Minseok, his eyes, his hands, his smile, blurs.

“Everything okay?”

Jongin blinks. The volume goes up again, as if he’s accidentally stepped on the stereo remote, and Minseok turns away from him, facing downfield.

“Yeah,” he says, not sure how to pretend he hadn’t just frozen in place for half a minute but trying anyway. “I’m good.”

Unable to help himself, he risks another glance in Minseok’s direction. Minseok’s shoulders are broader than Jongin remembers, pulling at the seams of his shirt as he gestures at the opposing team’s goal, and that’s…

“I think I’ll just. Wait. You know, until halftime.” He makes a gesture that is supposed to look like waiting and only just misses smacking the hat off his own head.

The woman nods, eyeing Jongin curiously.

In an effort to avoid her eyes, he looks out at the field in time to see Sehun waving wildly at him, as though he’d only just remembered Jongin was there.

“Uncle Jongin!” he shouts, still wiggling his arms over his head. “Watch!”

His dark hair flopping against his forehead, Sehun charges at the pack of kids around the ball and manages to land a good kick, sending the ball rolling off over the grass.

Sehun’s squeal of happiness can easily be heard over the noise of the other kids and parents and Jongin waves his arms right back, running up to the sideline to cheer.

Further down the sideline, Jongin thinks he can feel Minseok looking at him. He probably heard Sehun call his name, and the thought of talking to Minseok again has Jongin’s stomach tying itself in knots. He wants the game to be over, so he can sneak off home and avoid the whole thing entirely.

On the field, there’s another round of screeching as Sehun’s team sends the soccer ball rolling into the other team’s goal. The kids tackle each other in their excitement, smearing mud on their jerseys and faces.

Jongin finds himself laughing in spite of the sickness rolling in his stomach.

It’s worth it, to see Sehun so happy.

⚽

The kitchen in Joonmyun’s house looks like something out of a magazine, with gleaming stone counters that reflect the light spilling in through the wall of windows overlooking the backyard and sleek, real wood cabinets reaching from floor to ceiling.

There’s magnets on the fridge, though, the make-your-own-poetry kind, and silly handmade ones holding up Sehun’s report cards and drawings, and the messiness that follows Joonmyun everywhere has enough things out of place that the kitchen feels lived in.

Jongin slips onto one of the bar stools sitting along the edge of the island and watches as Joonmyun prepares Sehun’s lunch for the next day.

After the excitement of the soccer game, Sehun had gone to sleep easily, drifting off in the middle of telling Jongin he wanted to dye his hair pink like the bunny suit on his favorite stuffed animal, Pinku-pinku.

Joonmyun got home from work a half an hour later, his footsteps creeping down the hall to peek into Sehun’s dark room. Jongin knows it must be hard for Joonmyun to miss things like bedtime and soccer games, and watching him pack up Sehun’s lunch so carefully, almost like an apology, makes Jongin’s chest feel two sizes too small.

Probably hearing the dogs wander into the kitchen after him, their nails clicking on the hardwood, Joonmyun glances up from the sandwich he’s making. “How was the game? Did the team win?”

Jongin reaches down to lift Jjangah into his lap, scratching at her ears as she gets comfortable. “Yeah, three to zip.”

Joonmyun portions out a dollop of peanut butter onto one of the slices of bread and begins to spread it. He’s still in his work clothes, the sleeves of his dress shirt haphazardly rolled up to keep them from dipping into the jelly and an apron tied around his waist to protect his slacks. “That’s a good start to the season. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.”

The kids had all converged on Minseok after the referee blew the final whistle, cheering like they’d just won the World Cup and trying to pour their water bottles over their coaches head like they’d seen people do with those big Gatorade buckets. Fortunately for Minseok, none of them were tall enough to splash further than his shoulders, but unfortunately for Jongin, that meant Minseok had ended up with a very wet shirt plastered to his chest.

That was right about the time when Sehun had dragged Jongin over to meet his awesome coach and Minseok had looked up at Jongin and smiled, and Jongin had basically died.

Well, no. He hadn’t died, but his heart had stopped beating for a second, which kind of counts.

Clearing his throat and his head, Jongin tells Joonmyun, “All the moms asked about you. I didn’t know you were the top of the phone tree.”

Joonmyun shrugs, pressing the two sides of the sandwich together and cutting it in half with the butter knife. “Sunyoung was always really involved with things like that and I wanted to keep it up, if I could.”

Shifting uneasily, Jongin tries to think of the right thing to say. Joonmyun talks about Sunyoung some now, but Jongin can’t help remembering the months when just the mention of her name could drain all the color from Joonmyun’s face. “They all think you’re really great, so, um. I bet you can be top of the phone tree next year too.”

Okay, so Jongin’s not that great with saying the right thing. He hopes Joonmyun knows what he meant.

Looking up from putting the sandwich into a specially shaped tupperware, Joonmyun smiles at him, laughing and grateful all at once. “Good.”

Jongin can hear Monggu and Jjangu wandering around the kitchen, sniffing for crumbs to lick off the baseboards and making their collars jingle. In his lap, Jjangah is watching the peanut butter jar intently and Jongin puts his hand on her collar to make sure she doesn’t make a leap for it.

“So.” He twists one of Jjangah’s curls around his fingertip, building up his courage. “Were you going to tell me that Minseok is Sehun’s soccer coach?”

“Is he?” Joonmyun attempts nonchalance and fails. Sighing, he sets the knife he’d begun slicing carrots with down on the cutting board and says, “Okay, I wanted to, but I thought you might refuse to pick Sehun up and I really needed your help.”

“I wouldn’t have done that!”

Joonmyun raises his eyebrows, because once back in high school Jongin had climbed out of a second story window to avoid seeing Minseok at post-game victory party for their soccer team because Chanyeol had startled him into spilling some spiked blue drink all down the front of his pants and Baekhyun wouldn’t stop calling him “smurf dick”.

Shoulders slumping, Jongin mutters, “It would have been nice to have some warning, that’s all.”

“It’s not like this is the first time you’ve seen him since he graduated. It wasn’t so bad, was it?” Joonmyun asks, and Jongin knows by the earnest look on his face that he wants an honest answer.

Jongin doesn’t really want to give an honest answer to that question because the honest answer is “yes”, so instead he says, “His girlfriend was there.”

Because Minseok had been smiling at Jongin, peeling his wet shirt away from his chest while Sehun dragged Jongin closer (Jongin could see his nipples, god), and Minseok had actually started to say, “Jongin, hey — “

— when a woman, small and blonde, had come up and thrown her arms around Minseok’s neck. “You did so great, sweetie!”

That had stopped Jongin in his tracks, because sweetie???

An older couple had come trailing after the woman, the collapsible lawn chairs they had sat in to watch the game slung over the man’s shoulder.

“You did a great job, son,” the man had said, reaching out to shake Minseok’s hand. “Those kids will be going pro before you know it!”

“I’m just glad they had fun.” Minseok had smiled, tighter, more guarded than the one he had given Jongin earlier, and reached for the chairs. “Let me take those for you, Mr. Kim.”

“You’re such a gentleman, Minseok. And you spend your free time working with these kids!” The woman had clasped her hands together beatifically, looking at Minseok like he was perfection itself. “We might just come watch every game this season.”

Sehun had stumbled on his cleats then, still trying to pull Jongin’s weight forward and not quite managing it. Finally giving up, Sehun had flopped theatrically onto the muddy ground at Jongin’s feet, making them all laugh.

“Alright there, Sehun?” Minseok had said, crouching down by Sehun’s side with an indulgent smile.

Sehun had rubbed at his eyes, smearing mud on his cheeks. “Uncle Jongin is too big to pull. Dad says he eats too much fried chicken,” he had sighed, making Jongin’s cheeks heat. Suddenly, Sehun had sat up, as though remembering why he’d come over in the first place. “Coach Minseok, this is my Uncle Jongin.”

“Hey, Jongin,” Minseok had said, still bent down next to Sehun, and Jongin’s cheeks had gone from warm to surface-of-the-sun hot.

He had swallowed thickly (his mouth was so dry all of a sudden) and managed to croak out, “Hey.”

The woman had cleared her throat almost inaudibly and Minseok had straightened up, wiping invisible dust from his shorts.

“Jongin, this is Taeyeon, my girlfriend.” Taeyeon had smiled at him, pretty eyes crinkling at the corners, and Jongin had thought she seemed nice in spite of himself. “Jongin and I played soccer together back in high school.”

Jongin had waved awkwardly, arm moving jerkily. He had probably looked like a sweaty mess and there had been mud on his shoes and it really hadn’t been the moment Jongin had imagined when he pictured running into Minseok again. “Um. Hi.”

Sehun had saved him, then, tugging on the leg of his sweatpants and looking up at Jongin with his best puppy face. “Uncle Jongin, can we go get ice cream now?”

“Sure,” Jongin had said, grasping desperately at the life preserver Sehun had just unknowingly thrown him.

“With sprinkles? Please?” Sehun had pleaded, widening his eyes.

“Uh, yeah. Sprinkles.” Jongin had risked a glance up at Minseok. Taeyeon had her hand tucked in the crook of his arm and her parents were watching Sehun with the indulgent look of people who desperately wanted to become grandparents. Jongin barely managed to remember his manners. “It was nice to, um, meet you.”

Sehun had lead him off before anything else could be said, and Jongin had spent the whole ice cream trip in a daze, because Minseok had a girlfriend.

Joonmyun blinks in the golden light of the kitchen pendant lights. “What? Minseok’s girlfriend?”

Drooping even further toward the counter, Jongin nods. “Yeah, Taeyeon.”

“But — “ Joonmyun stops mid-sentence, mouth snapping shut on whatever he was going to say.

Jongin sits up, suddenly alert. “What?”

“Nothing. I just forgot they were together.”

Joonmyun is suspiciously busy packing the chopped carrots up and Jongin narrows his eyes. For all his business expertise, his brother has never been a good liar.

“Joonmyun — “

“Do you think Sehun will want a Fruit By The Foot or Oreos?” Joonmyun interrupts, holding one up in either hand. The set of his jaw says Jongin won’t be getting an answer out of him, no matter how hard he tries.

“Fine,” Jongin says, grabbing the Fruit By The Foot and opening it grumpily as Joonmyun packs away the Oreos in Sehun’s lunch box.

Joonmyun would tell him if it was important, anyway.

⚽

When Jongin goes to pick Sehun up from soccer practice that week, he’s more prepared.

He tries not to look it, wearing a worn t-shirt over the nice fitted jeans he’d pulled on in place of sweat pants, but it’s pretty hard to hide that he’s freshly showered with his hair combed.

With the choreography work for his final project in full swing, Jongin honestly can’t remember the last time he made an effort not to look like a slob. It’s worth it, though, because Jongin swears Minseok’s eyes linger a few seconds too long on his thighs when he bends down to help Sehun with his bag.

“Jongin!” Minseok calls, waving him over. Jongin tries to walk casually, like he couldn’t care less where he’s walking, but he still seems to get there too quickly.

Minseok pushes his hair back with one hand, a soccer ball tucked under his other arm, and Jongin forces himself to take a deep breath.

“What’s up?” Jongin mentally pats himself on the back for how steady his voice sounds.

“How was your week?”

Luckily, Jongin had tried to think of what they might talk about and had prepared an answer to this question while driving here. “Fine,” he says off-handedly. “Busy working on my final project for the end of the semester.”

“Dance, right?” Minseok asks, and Jongin is surprised that he remembers that, but it’s still on his mental script, so that’s okay.

“Yeah, just one more year left until I graduate.”

“That’s awesome.” Minseok flashes him a smile, wide and genuine, and Jongin shoves his hands into his pockets to keep himself from staring. “Do you play soccer at all anymore?”

“Um.” Jongin hadn’t thought of an answer to this question, but he can totally do this. He can be cool. “Not really?”

Minseok drops the ball under his arm onto his knee to juggle for a few bounces before catching it again. “That’s too bad. You were pretty good back in school.”

That’s… Jongin didn’t think Minseok ever really even noticed him in high school, aside from him being Joonmyun’s little brother. Jongin is not prepared for this.

“We should get together sometime, play some ball again.”

“Like, with a team?” Maybe Minseok was inviting him to join some kind of casual weekly game that needed more players?

The corner of Minseok’s mouth quirks. “I was thinking more one-on-one, actually.”

“Uh.” Jongin is really not ready for this conversation. Instead, Jongin is probably going to have a heart attack. “Sure?” he tries, and Minseok graces him with another incandescent smile.

“Why don’t you give me your number so we can set up a time later?” Unable to think of anything to say, Jongin just stares at Minseok until his smile falters slightly. “Or I can give you my number instead?”

Jongin’s hands give Minseok his phone without his permission and he watches, some kind of out-of-body experience as Minseok keys in his phone number. A few seconds later, he pulls his own ringing phone out of his pocket and silences it.

“Now we have each other’s numbers,” he says, handing Jongin back his phone. One of the kids on the team, a little girl with pink bows around each of her pigtails, is calling for Minseok, and Sehun is standing impatiently between them and the car. Jongin can almost smell freedom.

“I’ll call you,” Minseok shouts over his shoulder as he makes his way over to the little girl, and Jongin is left standing there, mouth opening and closing like a fish’s.

It’s… it’s nothing. Minseok has a girlfriend. He asked Jongin to play soccer, not to go out on a date.

“Uncle Jongin, are you okay?”

“What?” He looks down at Sehun’s concerned face, and manages what might be a reassuring smile. “I’m fine. Ready to go home? We’re having pizza for dinner.”

“Pizza!” Sehun crows, taking off toward the car. Jongin follows more slowly, trying to ignore the way it feels like his phone (the one with Minseok’s phone number in it) is burning a hole in his pocket.

⚽

“Joonmyun is at the top of the soccer team phone tree?” Chanyeol asks curiously. Somehow, Chanyeol is the one with his arms full of snacks while Taemin and Jongin browse the shelves, even though Chanyeol carrying a lot of things almost always ends in disaster.

Chanyeol is always offering to carry things, though, and sometimes Jongin just lets him. He’s had a long week of rehearsals, and his old back injury has been flaring up, and tonight is his night off of Sehun duty, so he’s trying his best to enjoy a night of gaming with his friends.

“Yeah, he’s really involved with the team and stuff, so that’s like half of what I do right now with Sehun.” Jongin adds a bag of cheese puffs to the pile in Chanyeol’s arms, the wrapper crinkling as Chanyeol tries to balance everything.

“So,” Taemin says, a liter of soda cradled in his arms like a baby as he leans down to look at something on the bottom shelf. “What you’re saying is: Joonmyun is a soccer dad.”

Jongin shrugs, inexplicably filled with a sense of foreboding. “Yeah, so?”

Taemin turns to look at him, his smile widening, which is never a good sign. “Only you’re doing everything he used to do so now — “

“Don’t —“ Jongin tries to interrupt, catching on a moment too late.

“— you’re a soccer dad.”

Jongin cringes as Taemin cackles, clutching the liter of soda to his stomach like this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Oh my god, you even drive a minivan!”

“Only because Clifford the Big Red Car died!” Jongin’s red SUV, a hand-me-down from his parents, had bit the dust last Spring in a dramatic billow of fumes, and Jongin had mourned its loss all summer. After he’d moved in, Joonmyun had generously given Jongin the keys to the (expensive, state-of-the-art, supermom-worthy) minivan and told him it was his for the year.

It runs, Jongin tells himself, and that’s what’s important.

“Jongin Kim, soccer dad,” Taemin wheezes, still laughing, and Chanyeol looks out from around a bag of pretzels, frowning.

“I think it’s nice,” Chanyeol starts to say, but he’s cut off by loud, nasal laughter one aisle over. “That sounds like Baekhyun. I thought he said he wasn’t free tonight?”

“We should ambush him,” Taemin says, finally distracted from laughing at Jongin by the prospect of a new target. “I bet he’ll scream like a little girl.”

Jongin shrugs, not really caring either way. Baekhyun exists to make everyone else’s lives miserable, but he also isn’t afraid to make himself the butt of a joke, so Jongin tries not to take the things he does too personally.

Except then he hears Baekhyun say, “Taeyeon, wait!” and the sounds of giggling and footsteps heading towards their aisle.

“Quick, hide!” Jongin hisses, dragging Taemin and Chanyeol down behind a display of Halloween candy. The packages in Chanyeol’s arms squish loudly as he tries to get out of sight and Taemin swears when Jongin accidentally steps on his foot.

“Why the fuck — “ Taemin starts, not even bothering to keep his voice down, and Jongin slaps a hand over his mouth.

Through the stacks of candy bars, Jongin can just barely see Baekhyun at the other end of the aisle. He’s got something in his hand — a bag of candy? — and there’s a woman with him, tiny and blonde. Taeyeon.

“Baekhyun!” she says, obviously trying to sound stern, but her voice is bubbling with laughter. “Give it back!”

“I’ll give it back,” Baekhyun says, smooth and flirtatious, “but it’s gonna cost you.”

Beside Jongin, Taemin is struggling to get free, but Jongin has had a lifetime of friendship to get used to things like Taemin licking his palm and learned a long time ago how to use his slight weight advantage.

He’s distracted enough that he doesn’t hear what else Baekhyun says, though, and the next thing he sees is Taeyeon with her hand on the back of Baekhyun’s neck, pulling him down for a kiss.

In his surprise, Jongin over-balances slightly, knocking Taemin over onto the floor. The liter of soda rolls out of his hands, skittering over the linoleum tile, only to get tangled in Chanyeol’s feet. All of the treats Chanyeol had been holding spill out across the floor in an avalanche of junk food and Jongin barely manages to keep from knocking the whole candy display down with him as he falls on his ass.

Luckily, somewhere in the middle of all that, Taeyeon and Baekhyun must have disappeared down another aisle, the sound of their flirtatious laughter fading as they move further away.

“God damn it, Chanyeol,” Taemin says, beginning to push himself up off the tile.

“Hey! That wasn’t even my fault!” Chanyeol pauses in the middle of getting up to fix his hair in of the reflective surfaces of the shelving and Taemin sighs noisily.

“You’re opening the soda,” Jongin tells Taemin as they pick everything up. “You’re the one that dropped it.”

Taemin chucks a package of Teddy Grahams at Jongin’s face, but Jongin ducks just in time. “Only because you pushed me!”

“Jongin,” Chanyeol asks while carefully stacking Pringles tubes in his arms, “why did we just avoid Baekhyun?”

Jongin looks at the floor to hide his guilty face. “I just… didn’t want to interrupt his date.”

“Are you kidding me?” Taemin says. He’s opened the bag of cheese puffs and is eating them thoughtfully. “That was the perfect opportunity to get back at him for that time last year when he stole your phone and changed all your contact names to ‘Bitch, I’m Madonna’.”

“That wasn’t that annoying.” It had only taken Jongin ten embarrassing conversations and six months to get all the names back to normal. No big deal. “Come on, let’s just go buy this stuff so we can get home and start gaming.”

Taemin and Chanyeol follow him to the register, Taemin still grumbling and Chanyeol trying to watch his step, but Jongin isn’t really paying attention.

He just saw Minseok’s girlfriend kiss someone else.

No, that doesn’t really compute in Jongin’s brain. He tries it a different way:

Minseok’s girlfriend cheated on him. And it’s Jongin’s job as his friend to tell him.

Fuck.

⚽

When Minseok actually calls Jongin that weekend, Jongin almost doesn’t pick up. He’d managed to get away with brief hello-goodbyes at soccer practices but he’s not sure what he’ll do in an actual conversation with Minseok.

He wants to tell Minseok. He feels like he should, but at the same time, Jongin never wants to have that conversation ever.

Still, he can’t bring himself to ignore Minseok’s call.

“Hello?”

“Jongin? Hi, it’s Minseok.” Somehow, Minseok’s voice even sounds good over the phone, like Jongin can hear his hotness through the soundwaves. “What are you up to tonight?”

“Um. Nothing?”

“Would you want to play some soccer?”

Alone time with Minseok! pleads one half of Jongin, while the other half insists Tell him! You have to tell him what you saw!

“Actually,” Jongin says, thinking quickly, “my back has kind of been hurting me lately. You know, from all my dancing? So. I probably shouldn’t. Play soccer, I mean.”

“Oh really?” Minseok says, sounding genuinely sorry. “I hope you feel better soon.”

“Thanks.” Jongin mentally pats himself on the back for averting that crisis.

“What about dinner?”

Jongin blinks, his inner celebration stopping dead in its tracks. “What?”

“If you can’t kick the ball around at all, you should at least get out of the house. Let me buy you dinner.”

There’s a strange buzzing in Jongin’s ears, like a live electrical wire mixed with a cricket. “You, buy me dinner?”

“Yeah, does that sound okay? I’ll even come pick you up.” Minseok’s voice is coaxing, as if Jongin needs convincing, when in reality, Jongin has been dreaming of going to dinner with Minseok since he was fourteen.

“Okay,” Jongin hears his mouth say, even as his brain buzzes.

“Great, I’ll see you in a hour!”

The call ends, but Jongin doesn’t move, the phone still pressed to his ear.

“What just happened,” he asks his bedroom. From his place on the plush dog bed on the floor, Monggu looks up at Jongin with soulful brown eyes before flopping back down with a sigh, as though he finds Jongin hopeless.

“Yeah,” Jongin says, finally letting his cell phone slide down into his lap. “I know.”

⚽

It’s not a date.

Minseok comes to the front door and knocks when he comes to pick Jongin instead of waiting for him to come outside. He’s got a nice, sit-down type restaurant all picked out for them to go to. He even has a reservation, which Jongin realizes was really good planning because it’s Friday night and the place is packed.

But it’s not a date. Because Minseok has a girlfriend to take on dates.

Honestly, it probably would have been better to have just played soccer like Minseok had suggested in the first place. At least they would have had less time to talk while running around the field.

Except.

Jongin likes talking to Minseok. Once he’s had a chance to get the crickets out of his brain and starts holding up his side of the conversation, it’s easy. The restaurant isn’t too fancy, but the tables are spaced far enough apart that he and Minseok can talk to each other without having to strain to be heard.

“How’s your final project coming?” Minseok asks, after they’ve gotten their drinks and ordered. “Are you choreographing something?”

Minseok’s got a button-up on, a gray one with the collar undone and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and it’s… distracting. Jongin desperately tries to focus.

Thankfully, dancing is like, the one thing he knows how to talk about.

“Yeah, Taemin — you remember Taemin, right? He and I are choreographing a set together. People are always saying we look alike? So we’re doing a mirror image kind of thing, playing with copies and opposites.” Minseok’s expression has gone from interested to something else, his smile warm enough to light his eyes. Jongin feels himself flush and looks down at his lap. “So. Um, it’s going good.”

“And after you graduate? What’s next?”

“I guess I could join a crew? I mean, that’s kind of what I imagined doing when I picked dance as my major, but that was before Sunyoung, um,” Jongin swallows, because it’s been over a year, and it’s still difficult to talk about. He’s not sure things like that ever get easier. “I don’t think I want that anymore.”

Minseok had met Sunyoung, had been at Joonmyun’s wedding, and then at the funeral five years later. Jongin hadn’t talked to him much then, a little too young and below the legal drinking age to hang out with Joonmyun’s friends at the wedding, even though he’d been a groomsman, and too shell-shocked to speak to pretty much anyone at the funeral.

But he had watched Minseok dance with Sunyoung and make her laugh so hard her cheeks turned pink, before bringing her back to her new husband and pressing their hands together as he congratulated them, and after the funeral, back at Sunyoung’s parent’s house, Minseok had found Jongin sitting alone on the stairs and pressed a glass into his hand. Jongin had drank it without asking what it was, fingers numb even as the alcohol burned his throat, because Joonmyun and Sunyoung were going to grow old together. Jongin was going to spend Thanksgivings over at their house, watching their little family grow up until Sehun was taller than both of his parents, and Joonmyun and Sehun were supposed to be happy. They didn’t deserve this —

“You’re all going to be okay,” Minseok had said, refilling Jongin’s glass once and only once. “You know that, right?”

Jongin hadn’t known that at the time, hadn’t believed it, but Minseok had been so earnest, his hands so steady as he reached out to hold the wrist of Jongin’s free hand, that Jongin had nodded. And the crush that Jongin had had back in high school on star soccer player Minseok Kim had dug a little deeper, sprouted roots and burrowed inside him without his permission.

“Being on a team would mean a lot of travel, wouldn’t it?” Minseok says, giving Jongin a look from across the table that says he understands, that Jongin doesn’t doesn’t need to explain, and the tension Jongin didn’t even realize he’d been holding in his jaw drains away.

“Yeah, I’d probably be away a lot, and… I don’t know.” Jongin waves with his straw, trying to think of how to say that he doesn’t want to be gone and miss things. Things like the occasional nights Joonmyun gets off work early enough to watch So You Think You Can Dance with Jongin after Sehun has gone to bed, or the snacks with Sehun after school each afternoon that always turn into a mini tea parties with Sehun’s stuffed animals.

“I didn’t think I would regret not being able to see my little sister go through high school as much as I did. Being away from family is hard.” Minseok says, like he can read Jongin’s mind, and Jongin nods. “It’s definitely good to be home after being away at school.”

Their food comes then, and Minseok thanks their waitress and smiles, and Jongin tries not to notice that it’s not as nice as the smile Minseok had given him earlier.

Picking up his fork, Jongin asks, “How’d you end up back here? I remember you had that soccer scholarship when you left, but…”

Minseok pauses thoughtfully for a moment, swirling the liquid in his glass a few times before answering. “I love soccer. I always have, and probably always will. Playing in college was a great opportunity for me, but after a couple of years I realized I didn’t really want to play professionally. Making it my job, all the work and travel and politics, it would have taken the fun out of it.” Grinning up at Jongin, he adds, “Besides, I was a good midfielder, but I’m a better teacher. I know people hear seventh grade social studies and cringe, but I like to think my students have fun.”

Jongin’s seventh grade social studies teacher had been an old woman that wore dresses with puffy sleeves and smelled overwhelmingly of cats. He tries not to be too jealous of Minseok’s students.

“When a teaching position opened up here near my family, it seemed like a great opportunity to move back,“ Minseok says. The light hanging above their table casts a warm glow on the skin of Minseok’s bare forearms as he sets down his drink and starts in on his meal. “I miss playing soccer and being on a team myself sometimes, but coaching Sehun’s team is really great.”

Jongin has stayed to watch some of Sehun’s practices and all of his games this season, and it’s pretty obvious that Minseok is a good coach, too. It’s rare to see one of the kids without a smile on their face when Coach Minseok is around, and when that does happen, Minseok is always there to find out what’s wrong.

There’s a wet spot on the tablecloth above Jongin’s plate, probably from the last time Jongin had picked up his glass to take a drink, and he reaches out to trace it with a finger. “The studio down near school offered me a job as a dance instructor. I was thinking something more like being a choreographer, but…”

“Isn’t that how most choreographers get started? And there’s nothing that says you can’t do both,” Minseok says, like it’s really that simple, but Jongin isn’t so sure.

He’s never been great at talking to strangers or in front of big groups, and that’s a lot of what being a dance teacher would be. Still, if it meant he could keep dancing every day…

He looks up, finger still tracing circles around the spot on the tablecloth. “Teaching, though? Me?”

“I’ve never seen you dance, but your soccer footwork was pretty amazing. And you never know until you try.” Minseok’s voice is playful, but his eyes are bright and perceptive, like he’s seeing more of Jongin than Jongin would normally put on display. “You might be a good teacher.”

Minseok’s eyes are the exact same shade of brown that goes gold in the light as the root beer barrel candies Taemin had gotten a five pound bag of one birthday, and he and Jongin had ate so many in one sitting that Jongin had been sick.

He feels kind of sick now too, with Minseok looking at him like that. He’s hardly had more than a few bites of his dinner, but his stomach swoops queasily, and Jongin’s shirt is suddenly too small, unbearably tight on his ribcage.

After what seems like a lifetime, Minseok glances down at his plate, not seeming to notice Jongin frozen in his seat on the other side of the table.

Jongin chews on his lip, torn. Under his fingertip, the wet spot on the tablecloth has almost dried, and Jongin scratches at it with a fingernail, screwing up his courage. The words almost stumble out of his mouth as he says, “You could, you know.”

Minseok’s head tilts questioningly, his fork halfway to his mouth. “What?”

“There’s a big program performance in November, and my final project will be on it. You could see me dance then. I mean, if you wanted.” Jongin is staring so hard at the tablecloth that he’s almost surprised it hasn’t caught on fire. He’s so intent on not meeting Minseok’s eyes that he doesn’t hear Minseok put his fork down and reach across the table.

“That sounds great,” he says, and suddenly, his fingers are on Jongin’s wrist. “I’d love to see what’s been keeping you so busy.”

The touch, Minseok’s hand still steady like Jongin remembered, but his own hand no longer numb with grief, practically burns. Jongin can feel his pulse throbbing in his throat.

But, while it’s true that Jongin has been busy with school, he’s also been avoiding Minseok because of what he has to (doesn’t want to) tell him. Jongin has liked Minseok since he was fifteen, likes Minseok more now than ever, but he can’t take this.

In a movement just shy of a flinch, Jongin pulls his hand back until it falls into his lap, fingers twisting together clammily.

“You don’t have to,” Jongin says, almost wishing he hadn’t asked in the first place because of the sinkhole widening in his belly. “It’s not ‘till the end of November.”

“I’ll be there, Jongin,” Minseok says, and Jongin finally meets his eyes. There’s something in his expression that Jongin can’t read, but for the first time, Jongin isn’t sure he wants to. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

⚽

The next time Jongin sees Minseok after Minseok took him out to dinner (there’s really no other way to describe it after Minseok insisted on paying the bill, Jongin has tried) is Sehun’s soccer game that weekend.

Taeyeon and her parents are there again, and Jongin tries to concentrate all his attention on watching Sehun sprint around the field with the kind of exuberance only a child can manage so he doesn’t have to see her with Minseok.

The other soccer parents know him now. They were predisposed to like him because of his relationship to Joonmyun, but Jongin thinks he might have won some of them over in his own right, if only out of pity. After they’d learned about his dance training, he’d been able to recommend several of the mothers a good studio for their kids to begin ballet classes, something which had apparently endeared him to them forever.

They surround him with conversations about things Jongin never thought he would learn about, like how to plan a week’s worth of food for a family of seven  and how to stretch out slightly-too-small shoes in the freezer, and Jongin feels himself relaxing the more they talk.

After the game is over, though, Jongin can’t really avoid Minseok any longer.

“Jongin, over here!” he shouts, waving Jongin over to where he’s standing. When he’s only a few steps away, Jongin notices Sehun and a few of the other kids on his team crouched over Minseok’s feet.

“Uncle Jongin, look!” Sehun clamors, tugging on Jongin’s pant leg but not taking his eyes off Minseok’s feet. “Coach Minseok’s cleats have a tiger on them!”

Craning his neck, Jongin can see that Minseok’s cleats are actually patterned with tiger stripes. Submitting to the kid’s examination of his shoes, Minseok gives Jongin a rueful look. “My sister,” he explains. “She got them as a joke, but it seemed a waste not to wear them.”

Jongin knows it’s funny, that trying to be normal means he should laugh and maybe tease Minseok a little about his cleats. Minseok looks so good, though, with his cheeks and eyes bright with laughter and his hair ruffled from his hands and the wind. Jongin’s heart twists, like an ankle turned just the wrong way, and all he can manage is a weak smile.

Minseok frowns slightly when Jongin doesn’t say anything, and he asks, “How was your week?”

“Fine,” Jongin says. “You know, busy.” Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Taeyeon and her parents watching avidly as Minseok is surrounded by his team. He reaches over and taps Sehun on the head. “Time to go.”

Sehun pouts on their walk back to the car, but he’s never been the type to throw fits, and soon enough, he’s buckled safely into his booster seat. Over the past couple months, Jongin has gotten used to driving the minivan, using the button on the key fob to close the sliding door as he gets into the driver’s seat and starts the ignition.

“Uncle Jongin?” Sehun asks, only a few minutes into their ride, and Jongin glances up at his reflection in the rearview mirror before looking back out through the windshield.

“What’s up?”

“Are you and Coach Minseok friends?” His voice is thoughtful, like he’s been pondering this question for awhile.

“Yeah, we used to play soccer together.” It’s not an untrue answer. In fact, at this point, it’s the truest answer Jongin thinks he can give anyone about his relationship with Minseok right now. “Why?”

Sehun kicks his feet, still in their pink cleats, up from where they dangle into the back of the empty passenger seat in front of him. “You seemed sad when you saw him earlier and dad says friends aren’t supposed to make you sad.”

Jongin thinks about Minseok’s hand on his wrist at the funeral, and again at the restaurant last week. About the impossible gold-brown of Minseok’s eyes, and the way Taeyeon’s fingers had slipped into the hair at the nape of Baekhyun’s neck when she kissed him. “Sometimes being sad isn’t someone’s fault,” he says eventually. “It just happens.”

Sehun is quiet the whole rest of the way home, his face solemn in the rearview mirror.

Later, when Jongin is tucking him in, Sehun looks up at him with the same serious expression.

“I want you to have Pinku-pinku tonight,” he says, holding out the stuffed animal. “He always helps me when I’m sad, so maybe he’ll help you not be sad.”

Jongin takes Pinku-pinku in his hands reverently. “You sure you’ll be okay without him for tonight?”

Sehun rolls his eyes, the seriousness from before wiped away in an instant. “I’m not five, Uncle Jongin.”

Looking down at his six-year-old nephew, Jongin suppresses a smile. “Thank you, Sehun. Now, it’s time to go to sleep.”

“‘Kay,” Sehun says, snuggling under his covers. “Will dad come tuck me in later?”

“Of course. He always does.”

Sehun yawns, eyelids already drooping. “Goodnight kiss?

Leaning down, Jongin presses a kiss to Sehun’s forehead. “Sleep well.”

Back in his own bedroom, Jongin stares down at Pinku-pinku. Pinku-pinku’s little bear face stares back up at him, the pink of his bunny ears soft under Jongin’s fingers.

After Sunyoung’s death, Pinku-pinku had gone with Sehun everywhere. The stuffed bear had even sat on the edge of the tub during bath time, but even after all that, he’s in pretty good condition.

More than most children his age, Jongin knows that Sehun understands sadness. What Jongin is experiencing can’t even begin to hold a candle to the grief Sehun has had in his life, and what he sees when he looks down into Pinku-pinku’s round, black eyes, is a reality check.

Jongin can fix this, unlike most of the hurts in the world. He’s just hasn’t been able to find the courage until now.

“Stop being sad,” Jongin repeats Sehun’s words to himself, lying back on his bed. The sinkhole is still there, gaping in his stomach, but Sehun is right:

When Jongin folds his arms around Pinku-pinku to hug the bear to his chest, it kind of helps.

⚽

“Come on, Jongin! A center-forward should be able to make a shot like that!”

Jongin huffs, picking himself up off the grass to go get the ball from where it had rolled, just past the far post of the goal. Minseok’s shout is like a time machine, taking him back to high school soccer practice, back when Minseok was the team's’ star player, the beautiful senior Jongin had admired from afar.

It makes Jongin laugh when he thinks about how much has changed since then. Of course, he still admires Minseok, but it’s from much closer now.

When Minseok had called to invite him out to play, Jongin had finally said yes, partly because he couldn’t make himself turn Minseok down again, and partly because, no matter how much he didn’t want to, he needed to tell Minseok what he’d seen.

One-on-one isn’t really Jongin’s game. He’s not used to playing defense, and Minseok is definitely in better soccer shape than Jongin. It had taken an embarrassingly long time for him to warm up, feet beginning to remember the smack of the ball against the inside of his shoes, eyes tracking the ball as it rolled across the grass.

It’s nice to be outside, though, after all the hours spent in the dance studio, and Jongin has always enjoyed soccer. The burn of air in his lungs as he sprints down field, the satisfying sound the ball makes against his shoe when it hits just right, sailing unstopped into the net of the goal.

Minseok is having fun too, laughing and throwing down some of his best moves so he can leave Jongin in the dust, trying to figure out what just happened. It’s everything Jongin ever wanted when he was fifteen. In fact, it’s everything Jongin ever wanted now too, except there’s something he has to do.

After this play, Jongin decides as he walks back down to midfield, he’ll tell him.

Minseok is sweating just a bit now, hair sticking to his forehead as he leans down to tug at his socks. They’re not knee-high ones, only going part way up his calf, but old habits obviously die hard.

“Ready?” he says, straightening up as Jongin comes closer.

Jongin drops the ball between them. “That depends: are you ready?”

Smiling impishly, Minseok darts forward, trying to steal the ball right from under Jongin’s nose. Jongin, more wise to Minseok’s tricks than he’d been only an hour before, dodges him, kicking the ball right between Minseok’s legs.

It’s a pretty good move, with Minseok left facing the wrong direction and totally clueless about where the ball went, and Jongin uses the opportunity to charge off downfield at breakneck speed.

He’s so intent on the goal, already almost able to feel the pleasure of scoring thrumming through his body, that he doesn’t even hear Minseok until he’s right beside him. Minseok’s foot kicks out right in the middle of Jongin’s stride, knocking the ball just out of reach, and Minseok lets out a shout of triumph. A second later, though, he and Jongin are tumbling to the ground, legs so tangled up that neither of them can do anything except hit the grass hard.

“Ouch,” Minseok says, voice right in Jongin’s ear, and Jongin winces, realizing that Minseok had broken half of Jongin’s fall with his own body.

“Sorry,” Jongin says, still cringing even as he tries to free himself. They really are tangled up, though, and it’s hard for Jongin to get a solid footing on anything.

“It’s fine. My ribs probably aren’t broken.”

Head snapping up, Jongin quickly looks at Minseok to make sure he’s joking and freezes.

Minseok’s root beer candy eyes are too close, dark eyelashes glinting in the field lights. Jongin can feel Minseok’s breath on the skin of his cheeks, inhales and exhales that follow the movement of the chest beneath him, and registers for the first time that Minseok’s hand is fisted into the back of his shirt.

It must have happened during their fall, a last ditch attempt to keep them upright, but now, all Jongin can feel is the press of Minseok’s knuckles into the small of his back. Jongin’s own hands are somewhere on either side of them, pressed flat to the grass in an attempt to push himself up, but his arms refuse to move.

This close, Jongin can see the pink of Minseok’s lips bleeding into the slick red of the inside of his mouth where his lips are slightly parted, can see the faintest trace of stubble on Minseok’s chin.

When Jongin catches himself, forcing his gaze away from Minseok’s mouth, he feels the fist in the back of his shirt tighten, keeping him from moving away. Jongin’s pulse is like thunder in his ears as the breath on his cheeks gets closer, like Minseok is leaning in.

“It’s late,” Jongin says abruptly, using what little air he’s got left in his body. “I should go.”

Finally, Jongin’s arms do what he tells them, pushing him off of Minseok’s chest as Minseok’s hand falls away from his back. Their feet are a little more complicated, but Jongin stumbles away after only a few seconds of untangling.

He hardly even registers that Minseok is still on the ground as he hurriedly says goodbye because, holy shit, for a moment, Jongin had thought Minseok was going to kiss him.

The adrenaline seems to have hit him late, his skin practically vibrating as he begins to the walk home. His heart is beating double-time in his chest, and Jongin puts a hand over it, because it feels like any minute now, it might burst.

Jongin had thought Minseok was going to kiss him, but that couldn’t have been what happened. He was probably just trying to help Jongin up or something. Jongin needs to calm down.

It takes four laps around the block, but eventually, Jongin feels like his heart is going to stay in one piece and his skin has stopped tingling enough for him to go inside.

It’s only when Jongin walks through the front door and sits down to take off his shoes that he realizes he forgot to tell Minseok about Taeyeon.

⚽

“So like,” Jongin starts and then stops, staring up at the ceiling of the dance studio from where he’s sprawled on the floor.

He and Taemin have been rehearsing for hours, going over both of their choreographed pieces until Jongin got sick of looking at his own reflection in the mirror. Things are going well, though, and they had both decided they deserved a break.

“So like what?” Taemin makes a half-hearted attempt to throw his water bottle at Jongin, but instead it just rolls across the wood flooring until its path is blocked by Jongin’s arm. “Don’t start sentences without finishing them. Poor people do that.”

“I’m a college student. I am poor.”

Taemin lets out a snort of agreement, but when Jongin doesn’t continue, he kicks out a leg until he can poke Jongin in the side with his shoe. “So like what?”

Jongin rolls over so that his cheek is mashed against the cool, polished wood of the floor, and tries again. “You know how I do all of Sehun’s soccer stuff now?”

“Yeah, you’re Super Soccer Dad Jongin Kim. What about it?”

“Sehun’s coach…”

“Is he a total jerk or something? Does he pick on Sehun?”

“No.” Jongin really doesn’t want to tell Taemin, not after how much he had teased Jongin about Minseok in high school, but he has to tell someone. And Taemin, for all his bad qualities, is actually a pretty good best friend, so…

“Remember how Minseok went away for college with that soccer scholarship?”

With the eye that isn’t blocked by the floor, Jongin can see Taemin sit up, eyes narrowed. “Yeah, so?”

“Well, he’s back now.”

“And?” Jongin closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the realization dawn on Taemin’s face. “Wait.”

Maybe, if Jongin wishes very hard, the floor will swallow him up so he can stop having this conversation.

“Are you saying you’re a soccer dad and Minseok Kim is the coach?” Taemin asks from above him, and smacks him on the back accusingly. “How could you keep this from me?”

Jongin cringes. “By just… not telling you?”

“I once watched all six hours of the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice because you were in mourning after Minseok agreed to go with someone else to his senior prom. He didn't even turn you down, because you never asked him! It made no sense but I was still there for you!”

“I wasn’t ‘in mourning’,” Jongin sputters, rolling over so he can sit up and defend himself. “I just wanted to relive a great classic with Colin Firth!”

Taemin grabs him by the collar of his sweatshirt, eyes intent. “I earned this, Jongin, by paying years of friendship dues. Now tell me everything.”

The grip Taemin has on his sweatshirt is strong enough that Jongin doesn’t think much of his chances of making a break for it, so he resigns himself to his fate, and tells Taemin everything.

“This is perfect!” Taemin says once Jongin is finished, releasing Jongin’s sweatshirt so he can clap his hands together in glee. “Now you can realize your teenage wet dream of having Minseok make you his wife, and we can stop hearing about how much Baekhyun worships the ground Taeyeon walks on. Everyone goes home happy, just like in Pride and Prejudice!” Taemin frowns. "Only not really, because you might be a Jane, but then Taeyeon would be Mr. Darcy?"

“I can’t,” Jongin sighs, not even bothering to argue with the rest of what Taemin said.

Taemin’s face falls. “You can’t? Why not?”

Flailing with his hands, Jongin tries to explain, “We’re friends! I don’t want to ruin that by telling him his girlfriend is cheating on him.”

Scoffing, Taemin says, “If you really were friends, you’d tell him. And Baekhyun too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Taemin gives him a look that says Jongin knows exactly what he means, and Jongin pulls the cuffs of his sweatshirt over his fingertips to have something to do with his hands. “It’s just… It’s not like it was back in school. I know him better now, and I really, you know…”

“Like him?” Taemin supplies, eyebrows raised.

Jongin ducks his head until his chin is covered by the collar of his sweatshirt. “I don’t want to tell him and then have it be the only thing he can think of when he sees me.” Hearing how that sounds, he quickly adds, “I know that’s really shitty of me to say — “

“It is really shitty,” Taemin agrees. Jongin’s shoulders slump. “Look, I know Minseok has a girlfriend, but from what you’ve said about how you’ve been hanging out, I think he likes you too.”

Jongin opens his mouth to disagree, but Taemin holds up a hand to silence him.

“Bottom line, though: I’d want to know,” he says. “And if I found out one of my friends knew and didn’t tell me…” Taemin lets the sentence hang meaningfully.

Jongin slumps back down onto the floor, a puddle of misery. “Do you think Baekhyun knows?”

“Probably not. Baekhyun’s an asshole, but not that big of an asshole.”

“Yeah.” The look on Baekhyun’s face that night in the grocery store, happiness without a shade of guilt, flashes through Jongin’s mind, and the weight in his stomach sinks even deeper.

“Just sack up and tell him. Both of them. Let the chips fall where they may. ” Taemin flicks him in the ear almost gently before flopping back down onto the floor himself. “Hmmm, chips,” he says thoughtfully to the ceiling. “I’m hungry.”

⚽

“What the fuck is up?”

Baekhyun has been answering his phone the same way for as long as Jongin can remember, and he’s so used to it that he doesn’t even flinch at Baekhyun’s nasally voice cutting through the speaker on his phone.

“Hey, Baekhyun. It’s Jongin.”

Jongin doesn’t have to see the eye-roll to know it’s happening when Baekhyun says, “Yeah, I know, I have caller ID. So I repeat, what the fuck is up???”

“Uh.” Jongin wanted to do this in person. It would be better if he did it in person, where he could see Baekhyun’s face and Baekhyun could see his face, and it would have all that in-person-faceness serious conversations are supposed to have, but Jongin had also almost chickened out before he even pressed the call button, so he thinks this might be all his courage can handle. Joonmyun had used his day off to take Sehun to the movies and so Jongin at least has the house to himself.

Just sack up and tell him. Taemin’s advice pops into his mind, and Jongin sucks in a breath and starts talking before he can lose his nerve.

“Taemin, Chanyeol and I were at the store a couple weeks ago and we saw you there.” Jongin can practically hear Baekhyun raising his eyebrows through the phone. “With Taeyeon, I mean.”

“Oh,” Baekhyun says again, but this time in a completely different tone. He sounds some strange mixture of smug and unbelievably happy. “She and I’ve been seeing each other for awhile now, actually, but we haven’t really been telling people because — “

“Did you know — “ Jongin interrupts, unable to listen to Baekhyun sounding so happy any longer. He grits his teeth. “I saw her with Minseok too. At his soccer game. With her parents.”

For literally the first time Jongin can remember, Baekhyun is silent.

“Minseok said that Taeyeon was his girlfriend, and I. I thought you should know.”

There. It was done.

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Jongin repeats, confused. Baekhyun doesn’t sound angry or surprised, or any of the other things Jongin had imagined before he called, and it has him caught off-guard.

Baekhyun sighs, a noisy gust of static in Jongin's ear.

“Taeyeon’s parents aren’t my biggest fans. I mean, we both know I’m awesome, but some people don’t know how to appreciate true quality. College dropout, struggling musician with a crappy day job. I get it,” Baekhyun says, his voice light, like none of this bothers him, but Jongin thinks it sounds a little forced. “When they first found out we were dating, they tried to stop it and so Taeyeon asked Minseok to… help.”

Jongin opens his mouth and shuts it again, unable to think of anything to say.

Oblivious to Jongin’s crisis, Baekhyun goes on, “You know, Minseok’s the perfect pretend boyfriend. A little older, a teacher, good with kids. He’s a parent’s wet dream basically. Definitely good enough to get her parents off her back until she has enough saved up to be able to move out of their place and in with me. Then at least they won’t be able to stop her from seeing me.”

“So,” Jongin says at last, still trying to process. “She’s not cheating on either of you?”

“No. Fuck,” Baekhyun says, finally sounding frustrated. “She’s — she’s important, Jongin. I don’t want her to go away just because her parents don’t think I’m good enough. I mean, you’ve known me a long time, and let’s face it: I’m not. Not for her. But she likes me anyway.”

“No, I,” Jongin has to stop and take a breath, because for some reason it suddenly feels like he’s been punched in the chest by a cannonball. “I get it. I just didn’t know. About Minseok helping out.”

“Wait, is this about your puppy love crush on Minseok? Is that still a thing?” Baekhyun's tone of self-deprecation has been replaced a kind of unholy glee that Jongin knows only too well.

He can’t stop his voice from cracking. “O-Of course not!”

“Oh my god it is!” Baekhyun sounds like a shark that smelled blood in the water had a baby with a gleeful child on Christmas morning and its completely horrible. “Remember that time when he lent you his water bottle during soccer practice and you didn’t even drink out of it because you didn’t want your first kiss with Minseok to be an indirect one? God, you were so much fun in high school.”

“It’s not like that. Minseok and I are just friends, like you and me,” Jongin says, scrambling to explain. “And I was doing that friend thing. Where you tell each other stuff. Important stuff. You know.”

Baekhyun snorts obnoxiously. “There’s no way you and Minseok are friends like we’re friends. But as long as we’re doing the friend thing where you tell each other important stuff, you should know that one of the reasons Taeyeon asked Minseok to help this thing is because he’s gay.”

“What?” Jongin presses the phone harder to his ear and blinks his eyes furiously, like that will help him hear better, because obviously, he must be going deaf.

“Yeah, you know how straight guys do things like give each other suck-jays — “

“Ugh,” Jongin says, gagging. “Please don’t call it that.”

“And then say “no homo” after because they’re super straight?” Baekhyun continues as if Jongin had never spoken. “Minseok is totally the opposite of that.”

“What?” Jongin’s knees give out, just like that, and he only misses landing on the coffee table by inches.

“He’s super, homo. Just like you.” Baekhyun sounds entirely too pleased with himself, and there’s a ringing in Jongin’s ears, quiet now, but getting louder with every second.

“Jongin,” Baekhyun says after a few moments, and Jongin realizes he’s just been frozen, breathing loud enough to be heard over the phone line.

“Yeah?” he manages to croak. Slowly, he tries to uncurl his fingers from where they’ve been clenched into a fist in his lap.

“Seriously, thank you.” All the teasing has gone out of Baekhyun’s voice and his sincerity almost makes Jongin want to cry, which is stupid, because Baekhyun is stupid and Jongin should know better than to take him seriously.

“Uh huh.”

“Okay,” Baekhyun says, and the asshole actually has the nerve to sound amused at how unresponsive Jongin is. “Go mouth-breathe like the fucking dude from The Strangers on someone else’s phone line.”

“‘Bye,” Jongin hears himself say automatically, even though Baekhyun never says it back, and drops his phone on the floor.

⚽

“There you are,” Joonmyun says, when Jongin finally gets back to the house.

Once he’d managed to get his legs back under himself, Jongin had decided to take a walk, hoping that the dusk air would help clear his head. The streetlights have long since come on and Jongin had begun being able to see his breath as the nightly autumn chill had started to seep its way under his jacket.

Joonmyun is dressed in a button-up under a cardigan tucked into jeans, casual wear for him, but his hair looks like Joonmyun has been running worried fingers through it and his face is relieved. “I tried to call when we got back, but you left your phone here. I was worried.”

Back in school, the three year age difference between Jongin and Joonmyun had seemed much wider, and they had had different sets of friends, different interests. Minseok, closer in age to Joonmyun, had been Joonmyun’s friend first.

“Did you know? That Taeyeon wasn’t really Minseok’s girlfriend. That’s why you were so weird when I first mentioned it.”

Joonmyun bites his lip, and Jongin can tell immediately that he’s guessed right. “I did know but — It wasn’t my secret to tell, Jongin.”

Joonmyun is using his reasonable voice, the one that used to infuriate Jongin when he was younger because it made him feel like Joonmyun was an adult talking down to him. Jongin toes his shoes off roughly, not even bothering to try and hang his coat back on the rack. “Well, someone should have told me instead of letting me look stupid.”

Joonmyun shakes his head, which only makes Jongin angrier. “Minseok would never think you were stupid, Jongin — “

“But he did,” Jongin interrupts, and dimly, he’s glad that Sehun isn’t in the room to see this. “Stupid enough to believe Taeyeon was his girlfriend.”

“Jongin — “ Joonmyun tries to stop him, but Jongin is already gone, shutting himself in his room without another word.

⚽

Jongin isn’t optimistic enough to think he can get through the end of the youth soccer season without really talking to Minseok.

For Sehun’s sake, he tries to keep things as normal as possible, picking him up from soccer practices and games with smiles and vague greetings, but avoiding any real conversation. Joonmyun had managed to take the afternoon of Sehun’s last game off so he could be there, but Sehun had looked up at Jongin so hopefully that Jongin had come to the game anyway.

It quickly became obvious that not only was Joonmyun at the top of the team phone tree, but basically all the soccer moms were in love with him. Jongin was so busy laughing at Joonmyun’s red face, torn between flattered and embarrassed, that he barely had a chance to look in Minseok’s direction until after the game. Sehun was there then, so overjoyed at having his dad at one of his games again (“and Uncle Jongin!” Sehun made sure to screech in Jongin’s ear when he leaned down to give Sehun a hug) that he was almost inconsolable. He had run around in circles with a few of his teammates until they were too dizzy to stand, and Jongin had scooped up Sehun before he ended up on the ground.

“I think it’s time to go home,” Joonmyun had said, smiling softly at Sehun and making his excuses to the other parents still gathered around him. Worn out from all the excitement, Sehun was asleep in Jongin’s arms before they even made it to the car.

“Oh shoot,” Joonmyun had said, suddenly stopping in his tracks. “I forgot to say hi to Minseok.”

“I can get Sehun into the car while you go back to talk to him, if you want,” Jongin offered, not completely selfless.

Joonmyun had given him a suspicious look, but agreed, setting back off across the grass. Keeping his back to the soccer field, Jongin had gently placed Sehun in his booster seat and buckled him in. Sehun’s face was slack with sleep, and Jongin had brushed some hair away from his nephew’s face fondly.

“Minseok says hi, by the way,” Joonmyun says later, as the car rolls into the garage.

Jongin makes a vague sort of sound, hurriedly getting out of the car so he doesn’t have to answer. He can feel Joonmyun looking at him like he wants to say something else, but, to Jongin’s relief, he doesn’t.

Jongin ignores Minseok’s phone calls too. He honestly never thought he would live to see the day when he sent one of Minseok’s calls to voicemail, but just the thought of hearing Minseok’s voice gives Jongin that too-much-candy feeling, queasy enough to make him hold his stomach until it passes.

Then, one night after Sehun has gone to bed and before Joonmyun has come home, Minseok shows up at the front door.

“Hi?”

It’s cool enough out that Minseok’s breath hangs in a little cloud before disappearing, and he smiles at Jongin through it. “I figured you can’t screen my call if I don’t call and instead just show up at your house.” He holds up a DVD case hopefully. “Movie night?”

Minseok isn’t dressed as formally as he had been at dinner, or in athletic clothes like Jongin is used to seeing him at practice. He’s just wearing jeans and a shirt, but the dark collar of his coat draws Jongin’s eyes to the skin of Minseok’s throat, the jut of his Adam’s apple, the line of his jaw

Jongin’s own throat swallows around the burst of adrenaline that’s flooded him at the unexpected sight of Minseok.

“Um,” Jongin says, licking his lips to try and buy some time. “Tonight? Tonight’s not… good.”

Minseok’s hopeful face falls, and his sigh is a little puff of steam that dissolves between them. “If it’s about what happened the other night while we were playing soccer — “

“Nothing happened,” Jongin cuts him off, because Jongin would know if something really had happened thanks to his brain replaying that moment (the shape of Minseok’s mouth, the way their legs had tangled together, Minseok’s hand fisted in the back of his shirt) whenever his concentration starts to drift. “And that’s not it anyway.”

“Then what?” Minseok practically demands. His small mouth pulled is into a frown as he tries to understand. “If you would just tell me what I did, I’ll try to fix it.”

Jongin is still holding onto the doorknob, the night air flooding into the house through the open door. The grip he has on the knob is starting to hurt, but he’s afraid if he lets go, his hand will start shaking.

“I know,” Jongin forces himself to say, and it’s like even saying the words leaves a bad taste in his mouth. “About you and Taeyeon.”

Jongin thought there might be a moment of catharsis when he finally told Minseok, a release of pressure, something. Instead, it’s like he’s just thrown off all his armor. He feels somehow smaller and more hurt than before.

The cold air bites at his bare feet as the silence gapes between them, and Jongin shivers.

“Oh,” Minseok says at last, almost an exact copy of the one Baekhyun had given him on the phone. He looks relieved, like a great weight has been taken off his shoulders. “Good, then — “

“Was it on purpose?” That unnamed feeling that’s kept Jongin from wanting to even see Minseok’s face for the past few weeks is boiling inside of him, spilling over like a bowl left too long in the microwave, and the words pour out of his mouth before he can stop them. “Taking me to dinner, and playing soccer with me, and — and when you touched my wrist — Did you think I just wouldn’t care that you said you were with someone else?”

Jongin can’t explain the rest of it. That he feels humiliated at not being in on the joke, that Minseok took all of the feelings Jongin had for him and made them seem like nothing. He tries, but it’s like the words are too big, made out of hard shapes that clog his throat.

On the other side of the threshold, Minseok’s eyes have gone wide and Jongin can see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows quickly. “It wasn’t…” He reaches out a hand toward Jongin like it might hold an explanation, but his palm is empty. “I didn’t want to lie to you. I just felt like I needed to keep my promise.”

The fingers of Minseok’s outstretched hand are almost close enough to brush his chest, and Jongin steps back, out of reach. Minseok lets his arm drop back to his side limply.

“Of course,” Jongin says, stomach rolling with familiar nausea. “It’s great that you keep your promises. Taeyeon and Baekhyun are really lucky to have a friend like you.”

Minseok opens his mouth, the fog of his breath shallow and halting, but no words come out. His dark eyes are stark against his ashen face, and even his lips have lost their color.

Jongin’s eyes are stinging, and the lump in his throat is starting to ache. He wants this conversation to be over. His voice sounds like it’s coming from a mile away instead of out of his own mouth when he says, “Um, so, I’m really busy with school and stuff and I… I really don’t want to see you right now.”

“Okay,” Minseok says hollowly, and when Jongin glances up at him, already moving to close the door, there’s a devastated look to Minseok’s face that he doesn’t understand.

The closed front door stops more cold night air from coming into the house, but even when he’s back in his bedroom, curled up under his comforter with all three dogs cuddled around him, Jongin is still freezing.

⚽

The next day, Jongin skips his classes, but puts on his baggiest sweatshirt and sweatpants and drags himself to the dance studio, because if he doesn’t show up, he knows Taemin will hunt him down anyway.

Taemin is already stretching when Jongin comes through the door. He looks up from where he’s holding downward-facing dog. “What’s up?”

Jongin shrugs, shucking off his sweatshirt and dropping it in a pile by the wall. Taemin hisses in a breath through his teeth, and Jongin knows the whole thing must be written on his face. “You told him, didn’t you?”

“Can we just,” Jongin swallows, throat sore from how little he slept the night before. “Can we just rehearse?”

Taemin eyes him almost warily. “Sure.”

Jongin can feel Taemin keep watching him as they finish stretching, but he tries to ignore it, and by the time they’ve gotten deep into perfecting the footwork in one of the more complicated sections, he feels a bit more like himself.

“Do I need to kick his ass?” Taemin asks, the next time they stop for a drink of water. “Because I will. I mean, I’ll try. Minseok was pretty buff back in high school, so like — “

Jongin laughs, in spite of himself. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

He’s not, and he knows that’s obvious to anyone looking at him, but Jongin also knows the only thing that will make him feel better is dancing.

He nods at Taemin. “Again?”

“Yeah.” Taemin walks over to restart the music. “And this time don’t put in so many body rolls. It’s tacky.”

“You like it,” Jongin says. It’s an old argument of theirs, and Jongin is grateful for the familiarity of it. He rolls his hips and grins at Taemin salaciously while Taemin gags.

“No, I really don’t,” Taemin insists, and then the beat drops, and Jongin’s mind goes blissfully blank.


⚽

Sehun lingers in the kitchen that day after they finish their after-school snack.

“What’s up?” Jongin says, ruffling Sehun’s hair.

“Do you want to have a tea party with me?”

Jongin’s afternoon plans had mostly involved snuggling up with his dogs and eating a whole box of pop-tarts while marathoning all the episodes of Dance Moms that are saved on the DVR, so it doesn’t seem right to say no to Sehun.

Jongin does his part by filling up the teapot part of the way with water and grabbing some cookies, and by the time he comes in to Sehun’s room, Sehun already has everything else mostly set up. After a lot of begging, Joonmyun had gotten Sehun an actual porcelain tea set for his birthday last spring, and Sehun takes meticulous care of it, the cups and saucers set carefully around the low table in the corner of Sehun’s room.

“Pinku-pinku can sit here,” Sehun says, placing the pink bear on Jongin’s lap after Jongin puts the tea pot down and takes his seat. Sehun gives Pinku-pinku a meaningful look, like they’ve had a talk and Pinku-pinku knows what he’s supposed to do, and Jongin has a feeling he knows why Sehun asked to have a tea party.

Right when they’ve gotten to drinking their “tea”, Joonmyun appears in the doorway. Sehun practically jumps out his chair, only just remembering to set his delicate cup back down on the table.

“Daddy!” Joonmyun scoops Sehun up into his arms as Sehun chatters about his day and pulls at the tie around Joonmyun’s neck until it begins coming undone.

“Do you think you and Uncle Jongin might want to help me with dinner?” Joonmyun asks, once there’s a lull.

“Yes!” Sehun shouts, wriggling with excitement, but when Joonmyun moves to put him down, Sehun frowns. “Welcome home kiss!”

“Of course,” Joonmyun laughs, loudly smacking his lips against Sehun’s forehead. “Don’t forget to clean up your tea set before you come to the kitchen.”

Jongin makes his way over to Joonmyun as Sehun starts cleaning up.

“They let you out early?” Jongin says, and realizes he’s still holding Pinku-pinku when Joonmyun looks at the bear and smiles.

“Yeah, four hours off for good behavior.”

They both watch Sehun in silence for a moment. He’s handling the cups so, so carefully, and humming some song to himself that Jongin doesn’t know as he puts things away.

“You talked to Minseok?” Joonmyun asks, voice low enough that Sehun won’t be able to hear.

Jongin stared at himself in the studio mirrors enough to know what Joonmyun had seen to make him ask that question, but his fingers still tighten around Pinku-pinku involuntarily. “Yeah.”

Sighing, Joonmyun reaches up to undo his tie the rest of the way. “I’m sorry. You were right. You’re my brother and I should have told you.”

“It’s fine,” Jongin says, because what happened isn’t fine, but being angry with Joonmyun won’t change anything. “Minseok should have told me too.”

“It’ll be okay,” Joonmyun says, reaching out to give Jongin’s shoulder a comforting squeeze, and then Sehun is bounding over to take Pinku-pinku out of Jongin’s hands and lead them both to the kitchen.

⚽

By the time Jongin’s performance rolls around, he’s so deep into dancing that he’s almost forgotten what happened.

He hasn’t forgotten, because no matter how much he practices, Jongin can’t dance all the time, and there are still those few hours when he lays down to rest and his mind brings up Minseok.

It’s lucky that most nights Jongin is too tired to have trouble falling asleep, or to remember his dreams.

In the end, all that doesn’t even matter, because the performance is perfect.

All the hours of work that he and Taemin have put in together, the years of classes and bruises and pushing themselves past their limits, have finally culminated into the ten minutes they spend on stage that night. The moves he’d practiced so many times pour out of him, suddenly fresh and new, like he’s never done them before, and Jongin knows, right down to the marrow in his bones, that he’ll do anything if it means he can dance for the rest of his life.

Afterwards, one of Jongin’s dance instructors comes up to him with tears in her eyes and tells him that their performance was one of the most honest expressions of the search for individuality that she’s ever seen, which is — Jongin wouldn’t have put it like that, but it’s not far off from what he and Taemin had intended, and the idea that someone got it, understood what they were trying to say, is pure euphoria.

Joonmyun and Sehun bring him flowers (“Big stars get flowers!” Joonmyun had said when Jongin had looked at the bouquet like it might bite him) and a bag of chips to snack on (“Food is better than flowers,” Sehun had said matter-of-factly, reaching up to grasp Jongin’s hand with his smaller one. And then, “Uncle Jongin, will you teach me how to dance like you?”), and Jongin is so happy he feels like a hot air balloon, so full he could burst.

Except… well, the performance is almost perfect

Because there’s a moment, when he and Taemin have finished dancing, beads of sweat sliding down the small of his back as the crowd roars and claps and screams their names, and Jongin looks past the blinding stage lights, out into the audience, and thinks he sees Minseok’s face.

⚽

As usual, it only takes four hours for Chanyeol’s birthday party to turn into a complete shitshow. Jongin’s wondered a lot over the years what it is about Chanyeol’s birthday in particular that seems to bring out the worst (or maybe just drunkest) in his friends, and it's probably a combination of things. Taemin, for all his ridiculousness, is actually the best beer pong player Jongin has ever heard of, and can have his opponents downing their ten solo cups of beer in under ten minutes. Baekhyun is always trying (and usually succeeding) to get everyone to do body shots, and once the body shots are done, he starts trying to get people to dance on tables. And thanks to a dare back in sophomore year, they had all found out Krystal could shotgun a beer in less than ten seconds, which means that at least a couple times each party, someone tries to race her and loses.

All of these things, helped along by Chanyeol’s birthday being near the end of the semester, when everyone is in dire need of a way to let off steam, are like a ticking time-bomb of chaos waiting to go off.

Jongin had thankfully avoided being roped into being Taemin’s partner for beer pong at the beginning of the night (Chanyeol, as the birthday boy, had been awarded that honor), and was instead sipping a beer and watching as Baekhyun changed the party playlist to play the shots song on repeat instead.

Amid the noise of the party, Jongin hears someone clear their throat next to him.

Taeyeon is watching Baekhyun too, a bemused look on her face. “He really likes shots, doesn’t he?”

“Always has,” Jongin says, remembering the time Baekhyun had attempted a power hour with Tequila instead of beer. He had been disgustingly hungover for three solid days and still, to this day, says it was worth it.

Taeyeon smiles up at him almost tentatively. “Baekhyun told me what you did. You’re a good friend. He needs good friends.”

Jongin fiddles with his cup, not quite sure what to say to that. “Baekhyun’s um, he’s my friend too, I guess?”

On the other side of the room, Baekhyun is a man in his element, screaming “IF YOU AIN’T DOIN’ SHOTS, GET THE FUCK OUT THE CLUB” to a group of people Jongin has never met before.

Taeyeon laughs. “He also told me about you and Minseok — “

That asshole, Jongin was definitely going to kill him, or put gum in his hair, or —

“Don’t punish him too much. I kind of forced it out of him,” she says apologetically. “And Minseok really did me a favor, he’s a great friend.”

Jongin can feel his hand tense at the mention of Minseok, his jaw tightening. All the relaxation he’d felt only a moment before is suddenly gone.

“I’m not exactly sure what happened with you two but he talked about you some, and I don’t think he would have wanted to hurt you.” Taeyeon looks at him sidelong, like she knows something she’s not saying, and Jongin likes her more than he thought he would, but this really isn’t something he wants to talk about with her.

“Taeyeonnnnn,” Baekhyun suddenly whines, worming his way through the crowd of people to find her. “Come do a body shot with me! Girlfriends are for body shots, and that’s you, girlfriend.”

He grins at her, and she grins back, both of them so happy Jongin can hardly stand to look directly at them.

“That’s my cue,” Taeyeon says to Jongin, before letting herself be dragged off toward the kitchen.

After that, Jongin doesn’t really feel like being at the party. Instead, he grabs his coat and begins to wander toward home. After their parents had moved away to Florida for their retirement, Jongin had been glad Sunyoung and Joonmyun still had a house in the neighborhood he grew up in. It’s only a short commute to Jongin’s college, and most of his friends are still nearby, either with their parents or renting places of their own.

Jongin’s walk home takes him past all the familiar landmarks, the playground where Jongin had beat Taemin at a swing-jumping contest, the best sledding hill for snow days, the ballet studio where Jongin had first started dancing. He’s surprised when he walks by the high school and sees the field lights still on, but as he walks closer, he can see a lone figure dribbling a soccer ball.

Minseok is in long pants and a winter coat, but he can still move pretty quickly, darting to the left of the goal before nutmegging an invisible defender and curving the ball into the far upper right corner.

Jongin smiles when he hears Minseok cheer for himself, imitating a large crowd as he jogs over to retrieve the ball. He goes silent, though, when he turns around and spots Jongin loitering by the sideline.

Soccer fields are big. Jongin remembers having to run suicide after suicide up and down this field during high school practices, the grass never-ending beneath his cleats, and the way he would almost have to squint downfield to get a good look at the opposing teams’ goalie before the start of a game.

Right now, he and Minseok aren’t even standing a full field-length apart, but the distance stretches out between them like stretched bubblegum waiting to snap.

“You came to my dance thing, didn’t you?” Jongin asks, unable to take the silence.

Minseok lets the ball fall out of his hands and back onto the ground. “I wasn’t sure when I’d have the chance to see you dance again.”

Jongin wants to ask Minseok what he thought, why he didn’t come find Jongin after the performance and tell him then, but he already knows why, and asking just to hear Minseok say it seems stupid.

“I took the job,” he says instead. “The one at the dance studio. I’ll only be teaching one class a week until I graduate, but after that, they want me to go full-time.” Jongin had wanted to tell Minseok as soon as he’d taken the job, because Minseok was the one who had really made him feel like it was something he could do, that he might be good at.

“That’s great,” Minseok says, his mouth curving into something resembling a smile for the first time that night. “I’m glad you found something you want to do.”

Minseok’s got a hat on too, Jongin realizes, a dark stocking cap that covers the tips of his ears and presses his hair down against his forehead. Jongin glances around, feeling the cold wind whip through his own hair. “It’s a little cold for soccer.”

“There’s no snow, though.” Minseok shrugs, one foot kicking at the grass. “And I had some things I needed to think about. This helps me clear my head.”

Another one of those silences stretches out between them, several soccer fields long and Jongin is about to give up and leave, when Minseok says, “I didn’t mean to make feel like I was just playing with you, or something.” Jongin’s head snaps up, making him meet Minseok’s eyes without his permission. Minseok looks so contrite that Jongin can’t help but listen to what he has to say. “I wanted to help my friend and have you too. I didn’t think about what it would be like for you. I’m sorry.”

It’s pretty genuine, as far as apologies go, but Jongin still isn’t satisfied.

“It’s just — “ He wrestles with himself for a moment, trying to decide how much to tell. “I’ve liked you for a long time, you know? And when I found out, I felt stupid. Like you thought I was stupid or that I was the kind of person that would…”

Minseok shakes his head, his face full of regret. “When I was with you, I forgot all about pretending to date her. I wanted to date you, and all that stuff I did… just seemed natural.”

For the first time in weeks, Jongin thinks about that night on the soccer field, Minseok’s knuckles pressed to the small of his back, the brush of their chests against each other as they tried to catch their breath, and doesn’t feel like an idiot.

Minseok hadn’t been playing with him. The knowledge is like the weight of a giant textbook being taken off his chest.

Minseok goes on, “I like Taeyeon as a person, but not like that. And her parents?” He blows out an exasperated breath. “Baekhyun is welcome to deal with all that.”

Baekhyun had looked so happy with Taeyeon earlier that night that Jongin thinks he would say the parents were worth it, in the end.

Minseok is smiling at Jongin again, this time a real smile instead of the shadow he’d showed before, and Jongin blinks, feeling his cheeks begin to heat for no reason.

Taking a step closer, so he’s only an arm's length away, Minseok says, “I liked you for a long time too, you know. Maybe not the same way as now, but,” he grins, “I thought you were cute. I remember, you used to wear your hair longer, so that it got in your eyes sometimes, and you’d always try to blow it out of your face. And whenever you were thinking really hard, you’d press your fingertip right here.” The tip of Minseok’s index finger meets the fleshy part of Jongin’s lower lip, and Jongin lets out a tiny gasp at the touch.

“You like me?” Jongin whispers doubtfully, and Minseok lets out an incredulous laugh.

Lifting the finger that had been touching Jongin’s lip, Minseok moves his hand down to cup Jongin’s chin and tilt Jongin’s head down towards him.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time, Jongin,” he whispers, and presses a kiss to Jongin’s stunned mouth.

Jongin’s gasp is louder this time, a puff of warm air between them, before he kisses Minseok back, pulling him close enough that their coats rustle together as they move.

Minseok’s lips are everything Jongin imagined as a teenager, warm and soft, and the hand on Jongin’s jaw holds him in place while Minseok kisses him more thoroughly than Jongin’s ever been kissed in his life. This feeling Jongin’s having, like his skin is made of Pop Rocks, or like he’s just swallowed a roll of Mentos and a liter of soda, must be what people mean when they talk about seeing fireworks.

He hears himself hum contentedly when Minseok scrapes his teeth across the spot on his lower lip that he’d touched earlier, and feels Minseok smile against his mouth. He could definitely get used to this.

Eventually, they have to stop kissing, if only because Jongin realizes they can’t keep kissing for every second of the rest of their lives.

It takes Jongin a few seconds to catch his breath, and Minseok runs his fingers down Jongin’s throat to play with his collar. He’s practically beaming, Jongin realizes, radiating happiness just like Jongin probably is, and Jongin never thought it would feel so incredibly good to know he wasn’t alone in this.

“Come on,” Minseok says, tugging on the strings of Jongin’s coat and making Jongin’s hood shrink up around the back of his neck. “Let’s play some soccer.”

Minseok’s mouth is swollen pink and Jongin bets his looks just as bad. “What, right now?”

Minseok is already walking away, though, toward the ball he’d had with him when Jongin first stepped onto the field.

“What’ll I get if I win?” Jongin calls, and Minseok turns to smirk at him, eyes sparkling wickedly in the field lights.

“Guess you’ll have to find out. That is, if you can win.”

“Famous last words,” Jongin taunts, breaking into a jog so he can catch up to Minseok.

He can’t wait to find out.

⚽

The first soccer game of the spring season is just as muddy as the one in the fall. They hadn’t had much snow during the winter, and weather seemed to be trying to make up for it with rain almost every afternoon.

Jongin looks down at the mud on his shoes. Minseok had made him throw out the old pair with the cracked heels when he found out there was a hole in the side of one of them that got Jongin’s sock wet any time it rained, and it seems like a shame to get the new ones dirty.

At least this time, Jongin doesn’t feel so out of place. The soccer moms had accepted him back into the fold easily, though he’d had to field a few questions.

“When will we see Joonmyun again?” one of the women, Zitao’s mother, asks. “Not that we don’t enjoy seeing you too, Jongin dear.”

“It’s okay,” Jongin laughs. “I know I’m… not Joonmyun. But he should be back next season.”

On the field, the kids are practically covered with mud, and pretty gleeful about it, sliding into puddles whenever they have the chance. Sehun’s cleats have so much mud on them that Jongin can’t even see that they’re pink anymore.

The referee blows the final whistle only a few minutes later, and Jongin walks over to Sehun quickly. He’s been a soccer dad for a whole season, and he can tell that unless he steps in, the whole thing is a mud fight waiting to happen.

“Uncle Jongin?” Sehun asks, while Jongin is using the wipes from Joonmyun’s Mary Poppins bag to clean off the worst of the mud from Sehun’s face.

“What?”

“Is Coach Minseok your boyfriend?”

Jongin glances over at where Minseok is doing the same thing for some of Sehun’s teammates. His hands are filled with dirty wipes and he’s got a smudge of mud on the edge of his jaw, but the kids standing in front of him are looking at Minseok like he hung the moon. Jongin knows the feeling. “Yeah, he is.”

Sehun seems to think on this for a bit. screwing up his face while Jongin scrubs at a stubborn spot on his nose. “Okay,” he says at last. “Can we go get ice cream?”

Jongin laughs, ruffling Sehun’s hair affectionately, even though it's flecked with mud. “Sure.”

“Can Coach Minseok come too?”

Stowing the dirty wipes in the small grocery bag Joonmyun had provided, Jongin rises from his crouch. “Why don’t we ask him?”

The other kids have all found their way to their parents by the time Jongin and Sehun make it over to Minseok, and Minseok holds up the armful of dirty cloths, laughing.

“I’m not sure this is what people mean when they talk about mud wrestling,” he jokes. Jongin holds the plastic bag out and Minseok puts his handfuls of dirty wipes inside.

Sehun tips his head back to look at Minseok. “Do you want to come get ice cream with us?”

“I don’t know,” Minseok says playfully, moving slightly so he’s standing right at Jongin’s side. “I only eat ice cream with chocolate sauce. Do you think they’ll have some there?”

Sehun rolls his eyes. “They have everything, Coach Minseok, so will you come with us? Please~”

Minseok slides his fingertips over the hollow of Jongin’s palm, and Jongin can feel the heat rising to his cheeks, because Minseok is holding hands with him, right there on the soccer field.

“Absolutely,” Minseok says, and Sehun squeals with joy, before taking off across the field toward the minivan.