Archive of Our Own ^beta

If Minho had to choose between staying on campus this summer while being so broke he could not afford gas to drive to and from his favorite I’m-broke-but-need-to-get-out-of-my-apartment spot overlooking the lake and going home to his high school job while having his mom ask him thirty questions every time he so much as glanced at his phone all over again, he’d still find himself waking up at six in the morning on a Saturday to slug on the familiar all-black uniform.

He knew what the other option looked like. The past two years he’d stayed on campus over summer break. He liked the idea of being on his own, away from his family, and when the majority of his classmates left their college town for home, it felt like he had every mile and every moment to himself. With the summer exodus leaving little business for local shops to service, though, jobs were scarce and Minho’s ability to fulfill his love of seeing a movie in the middle of the day with the entire theater to himself even scarcer.

So he packed half of his wardrobe and all of his food into his secondhand sedan and made his way back home.

Two years wasn’t that much time away from his bed and his father’s breakfast, especially when he stayed over on smaller breaks throughout the year, but as his first month back home since he was seventeen came to a close, Minho felt the dissonance of knowing and so completely not knowing a place all at once.

The creek of the second stair from the bottom remained familiar; the boxes of his belongings shoved into his old bedroom’s closet felt like someone else’s.

His parents had apologized when he told them he was returning home for the summer. They’d finally converted his old room to the at-home gym they’d always wanted. Minho didn’t resent them for that—his thighs probably thanked them for that, in fact—but he did have a constant reminder that he had his own home now, his own life, his own control. While that reality was usually a comfort to him, standing surrounded by cardio machines left Minho with a feeling of longing for simplicity he hadn’t realized was all that important to him.

The sound of “I’ll have a medium house to go,” however, brought Minho back to those years when his most burdensome worry was if Choi Jinyoung was going to work the same shift with him and how he was going to dodge the fifteenth request for them to go out on a date.

(just once, Minho gave in, during his junior year of high school. they went to an arcade, and Jinyoung made a show of letting him win every game. Minho politely shoved his winning tickets into his hands and left)

“Do you guys have wi-fi?” a customer asked just a few minutes before Minho was scheduled for a break.

He wordlessly pointed to the sign almost directly in front of the guy’s face that read “WIFI PASSWORD” and watched as realization flitted across his features. The guy gave a quick thank you before sitting down in the corner of the shop. If Minho had to guess, he was a tourist.

Minho’s hometown sat just outside of a popular fishing district. Beautiful views, fresh seafood, and an array of local businesses pulled people out of the city and into the sea.

The wifi customer, with his black beanie pulled down low and his “music heals” sticker on his laptop, looked like a fish out of water.

_______________

“You should invite Seungmin over for dinner tonight,” Mr. Lee suggested when Minho zombie-walked his way to the fridge the following morning. He had the day off, but his body still thought it appropriate to wake him up before eight.

How his father could already think about dinner when Minho’s stomach growled so immediately for breakfast, he wasn’t sure. “You could at least try to pretend you don’t love him more than me, you know?”

Mr. Lee handed Minho a plate of responsible fruit with a side of irresponsible sausage and syrup. “I feed Seungmin no more than once a week when you’re both back for breaks.”

“But you always buy better ingredients when you know he’s going to be here,” Minho complained around a franken-bite of melon, syrup, and sausage. “Let me guess. We’re having steak tonight?”

“Well, we’re not not having steak,” was Mr. Lee’s response, and Minho rolled his eyes but allowed a telling smile cross his face. He wouldn’t really have it any other way: Seungmin spent most evenings and more nights than was probably appropriate for middle and high schoolers at Minho’s house growing up. Seungmin’s parents worked on a fishing boat that stayed at sea for weeks at a time, and Minho’s parents, in finding out that his friend from school wasn’t eating home-cooked meals, adopted him when necessary and often when unnecessary. Seungmin’s own parents loved their son, loved Minho, too, but there weren’t enough days on land for them to build a relationship with a child going so rapidly through physical and personal changes in adolescence.

But Minho’s dad got to teach Seungmin how to shave and Minho’s mom taught him how to dance before Seungmin went to his first formal. And Minho got a best friend he missed dearly those first two years at college. Now having Seungmin with him on campus and back at home for the summer, Minho had an ease in his heart and in his mind.

“I’ll ask him,” Minho told his dad before pulling out his phone to text Seungmin.

“Ask who, what?” Mrs. Lee asked as she rounded the corner into the kitchen suspiciously on time.

“Seungminnie, dinner,” Minho’s father answered for him.

“You don’t have work today?”

“Nope,” Minho answered for himself this time.

“Any plans before dinner?”

Minho shook his head. “Probably just going to stay in and read.”

Mrs. Lee grabbed a piece of melon from the platter sitting on the counter. “You feeling okay?”

“ Yes , mom, I’m fine, just working this many shifts at work means that when I have time off, I don’t really want to be around anyone or come within a hundred feet of a coffee maker.”

Mr. Lee dashed across the kitchen and threw his body in front of the counter where their’s sat.

He started to whistle a nothing-to-see-here tune, and Minho barely heard the sound of his phone pinging with confirmation that Seungmin would come over later for the sound of his laughter echoing off the kitchen walls.

____________

“C-4.”

“Miss.”

“Are you sure you’re not cheating?” Minho asked as he tried peeking over the top of Seungmin’s Battleship board.

“How long have we been playing this game? Not once have I ever cheated.”

“Not once have I ever caught you cheating.”

“Not once have I needed to cheat to beat you.”

“Yah,” Minho admonished. “I’m only down 128 to 146. I’ll break even soon.”

“Sure, hyung, If you say so. G-8?”

“God dammit.”

Seungmin laughed while Minho contemplated why he didn’t try cheating more often considering just how frequently he was in this disadvantaged position.

He couldn’t remember if they ever consciously decided to make playing Battleship while nestled in the window bench in Minho’s room a routine, but it was winter break in seventh grade, when it snowed so hard that the power went out, and without a PlayStation to keep them occupied, that Minho’s dad dug out the box of board games from the closet under the stairs. Monopoly and Scrabble kept them busy that night, but it was only the round of Battleship they played while eating cold canned soup that stuck once the lights came back on and the snow gave way to spring.

Tonight, their stomachs were full with the delicious steak his father grilled and their minds just slightly wobbly with the wine his mother poured them.

Minho was once again reminded of that uneasy feeling of being home and not home, of having his parents cook for him like a child but drinking with them like an adult. Of being perched beside the window with Seungmin across from him but having a weight bench against the wall behind his head.

“If you tell me C-1 isn’t a hit I’m going to flip this entire board.”

“If you do that, you’re forfeiting, and I get the automatic win,” Seungmin declared with a challenging raise of his eyebrow. “Miss.”

Without a second thought, Minho grabbed a handful of the colored pegs he hadn’t yet touched because he apparently had the worst luck of any person on the entire planet and threw them against Seungmin’s chest.

“Hey! You’re such a sore loser,” Seungmin accused before throwing one single peg at Minho’s nose.

“What do you mean? I’m celebrating your win. This is,” Minho grabbed another palmful from his board, “confetti.”

The sharp ping of plastic hitting glass snapped Minho’s playful grin off of his face. Seungmin’s eyes widened as he examined the window for cracks or blemishes. Minho, sobered by his own idiocy, leaned forward to pick up the mess.

“Oh, did Mr. Park move?” Seungmin asked with his face still close to the glass. Minho’s bedroom sat over the living room, and from the window that was once opposite his bed, they could see into the neighbor’s front yard.

“Yeah, his son got a job in Japan, and he didn’t want to live in that big house all by himself, apparently. Dad told me about it around exam week, I didn’t even think to text you.”

“Does he speak Japanese?”

Minho shrugged, though Seungmin couldn’t see him. He assumed there wasn’t any damage to the window since Seungmin had his nose pressed against it and wasn’t in danger of falling onto the flower bed below.

“I guess he’s going to learn quick,” Minho replied aloud.

“I’m going to miss him. He always made the best black bean noodles, and I don’t trust this guy to even say hi to me if he’s sitting in those expensive-looking gravity chairs out on the porch when I leave tonight.”

“You’re not leaving, just stay here,” Minho suggested before he registered the rest of Seungmin’s words. “Wait. What guy?” He moved aside the Battleship boards, now neat and nestled into their box, and joined Seungmin against the glass.

“Someone’s moving in.”

“Mom didn’t tell me anyone bought the house,” Minho complained.

They watched as the aforementioned man carried three boxes stacked on top of each other into his house. The sun was setting, and Minho could only see black hair behind the topmost box. “What makes you so sure? Maybe there’s a super special, premium, delicious ramen recipe in the middle one.”

“Or maybe there’s a medieval torture device,” Seungmin offered.

Minho punched lightly at Seungmin’s knee. “How about we don’t actively imagine the new neighbor killing us in our sleep. If I have a nightmare tonight, I’m clinging onto you for dear life, Kim Seungmin.”

That got Seungmin’s face away from the glass. “Nice try, we’re both sleeping on the couches, remember? Your sleepy clinging can’t reach me on the other side of the living room.”

Minho changed tactics. “Okay, you got me on a technicality, but since I’m your favorite person--” Seungmin rolled his eyes but did not directly protest. “--in the world, you should use that imagination of yours to rewrite the story. What’s in the box?”

“‘80s porn magazines his ex-wife made him keep in the basement of his old house.”

Minho’s unexpected laughter overtook him, and he had to brace himself on an ab machine to not fall onto the floor.

“I hope I don’t dream about that instead,” Minho joked, but it was Seungmin’s serious “I hope that you do” that ultimately haunted his sleep that night.

“You showed up at my door shirtless with a wrench asking me if I called a plumber,” he explained over breakfast.

“And did you?” Seungmin smirked before a forkful of Minho’s eggs hit his cheek.

_______________

During Minho’s shifts at the coffee shop the following week, approximately eight hundred middle-aged men with black hair ordered their fragile masculinity’s requirement of black coffee. He tried imagining cardboard in front of each man’s face but ultimately decided it was impossible to know if his—his parents’?—new neighbor frequented his job.

He wouldn’t have cared, really, if it hadn’t been the case that not once since last weekend had he seen any sign of life in the house his bedroom window faced. The moving truck was gone, the gravity chairs were unoccupied, and the garage remained consistently closed. Minho asked his mom about the mysterious movers over dinner a couple of nights ago, but she didn’t even have the black-hair-porn-box details, so that was no use.

He wanted to get the awkward part out of the way—the small smiles and the small waves, the ‘hi. how are you?’s, the ‘nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?’—and to get straight to the holiday snack exchanging, hair ruffling, he-won’t-kill-me-when-i-throw-a-frisbee-into-his-house-by-accident parts. It had only taken a week for Mr. Park to come around to him, but Minho was a cuter and less demanding six years old at the time.

Minho considered writing Mr. Park a letter asking why his biological son meant more to him than the comfort and mental wellbeing of the makeshift one he did not ask for but ultimately acquired, but footsteps approaching the counter pulled him out of that impulsive thought and into the Thursday morning that it was.

“Refill?” Minho asked.

A new regular didn’t cause Minho nearly the same alarm as his new neighbor—the beanied wifi guy carved his place into the coffee shop’s clientele quietly and quickly, without fuss or fissure.

They already had a routine—Minho began preparing his latte as soon as he walked through the door, refilled his cup about an hour after his arrival, and served him a slice of cheesecake perfectly-thawed from the freezer an hour after that. If not for his lingering letter daydreams, he would have already had the second cup ready without either of them having to say a word, his usual predilection for conversation overridden by his work-time autopilot.

“Today, yes,” the regular answered.

“Isn’t it everyday, yes?” Minho asked with a chuckle. He paused on his way to the back counter and spun around. “Unless you’re a time traveler who doesn’t know you’ve already been here and that you ask for a refill every single day since that day you asked for the wifi password. And I just made you aware of your own timeline so the world’s going to explode or something.”

The regular cocked his head to the side and scrunched his eyebrows. “Uh, no? You didn’t work last Saturday.”

“Oh, yeah.” Minho shrugged.

“Now it seems like you’re the time traveler who isn’t aware of his own timeline.”

“This is just like that Spider-man meme.” Minho used the hand that wasn’t holding the latte mug to point at the regular and giggled when he pointed right back at him.

“I hate that I knew exactly what you were referring to.”

“I love it.” Minho finally turned around to finish making the refill. “So what happened last Saturday?” he asked over the sound of the steamer wand.

This time, it was the guy’s nose that scrunched. “Wasn’t nearly as sweet. It almost tasted like I was actually drinking coffee.”

“We do have drinks that don’t have any coffee in them at all, you know that, right?” Minho responded as he sat down the latte. “Do you remember who served you?”

“He was tall? Black hair? Kind of shaggy? You guys should really wear name tags...”

Minho’s unhelpful brain supplied him with the thought that his new neighbor was working at his coffee shop. Jinyoung, a more helpful thought, he said aloud. “I’ll let him know to go heavy on the syrup next time.”

He nodded, seemingly satisfied. “And you’re Minho, right?”

Minho raised an eyebrow. “And how would you know that? If we don’t wear name tags?”

“I asked the other guy—the Jinyoung guy—your name before I left on Saturday.”

“You asked him about me but didn’t ask for his own name?” Minho wondered, amused.

“Well, I wasn’t going to complain to his manager or something.”

“But you complained to me?”

“Wow, you are exhausting.”

Minho laughed so loud old man Yoo turned around in his seat to stare at them before pointedly ruffling his newspaper and continuing to read. Minho silently congratulated himself on establishing enough of a rapport with the morning time regular over the years for him not to scold him verbally when he sometimes forgot that he was at work.

“Okay, that was Jinyoung, I’m Minho. And you are...?”

“Han Jisung,” he replied with a confident smile.

“How long are you in town, Han Jisung?” Minho asked, resorting to his usual small talk repertoire. The likelihood that a customer would return once they’d told him all of their vacation plans was high. He wasn’t necessarily worried about that with Jisung, who sat at the same table, at the same time, everyday for a week, but the muscle memory prevented him from asking anything else.

Jisung took a sip of his rapidly cooling latte before answering, “A couple of months, just for the rest of the summer.”

It wasn’t uncommon for families to have timeshares or to rent extended-stay housing for the entire summer, but Minho didn’t expect for someone who chose to vacation next to the sea to stay inside his coffee shop all day drinking and eating sweets and wearing beanies.

“You’re going to get tired of the cheesecake,” he noted.

“Challenge absolutely accepted.”

“I wasn’t—okay, then.” Minho huffed out a laugh at the serious expression on Jisung’s face, such a contrast from the wide smile that settled there just moments before. “We’ll need to stock up on our syrup inventory, I guess.”

“Not if the Jinyoung guy takes any more of your shifts, you won’t.” Jisung looked at him with what seemed to Minho like a challenge in his eye, and Minho tried to keep up with his rapidly-changing tone.

“I’ll be sure he doesn’t.”

That seemed to satisfy him. Jisung nodded, grabbed his latte, and returned to his seat.

Minho ended up writing a letter after all.

Jinyoung,

Don’t skimp beanie latte guy out of his vanilla sweetener. Two pumps!!!!

Minho

____________

The next day Minho had off, he didn’t get a text from Jinyoung complaining that Jisung threw a poorly-sweetened latte in his face, so he buried his feet into soft sand and his nose into the book he’d neglected since starting back at the coffee shop.

Although the beach closest to his parents’ house was small, and the waves were small, and the likelihood that he’d see anything more exciting than fishing boats was small, the smell of salt and the breeze off the water was enough to keep him coming back to this spot year after year. Sometimes Seungmin would join him, and they’d pretend to know how to build sand sculptures and to know which of the dots lined in the distance belonged to Seungmin’s parents’, but more often, Minho came alone with a hat and a hope that he’d leave more relaxed than when he came.

The lake near his university’s campus was a poor replacement for this routine when he was away from home; Minho needed the sound of movement, of gathering and breaking and rushing back, to then gather and break and return once more for his mind to wander in that deliriously calm kind of way.

Today, he managed to read fifty pages and to nap for fifteen minutes aided by the sounds of the sea before he decided his cheeks and the tops of his knees were pink enough for him to make the short five minute trip back to his house. He drove on autopilot while his mind waded through the summer sun somewhere behind him.

And maybe that’s why he didn’t notice it at first.

He was halfway across the front yard before he paused, eyes flicking over to his neighbor’s porch.

There was a man with black hair and without boxes sitting in the gravity chair closest to the front door. His eyes were closed, his chin tipped back, not unlike the way Minho had just sat on the sand.

Minho took two steps to his right, ready to finally introduce himself even if it meant waking the man up, but the sound of a car door stopped him mid-stride.

Behind Minho, walking away from a car he’d had never seen parked on their street but which was always stationed in front of his work, was Han Jisung.

“Good news, Jisungie,” Minho heard the man say from the porch; the sound of the car door must have woken him. Jisung didn’t seem to notice Minho, with his wide-brimmed hat and oversized sunglasses, but he had no doubt that he was seeing latte guy: there was the beanie he pulled off just long enough to adjust his bangs before sliding it back on, the grey bag he always placed in the chair across from him, now slung over his shoulder, the wide eyes and the round cheeks.

Minho seemed unable to move, the steady assurance of seeing Jisung everyday colliding with the unsteady sight of seeing him ten feet away from his own yard kept him frozen.

“The Wifi is finally on,” the man who Minho could now assume was Jisung’s father finished.

“Oh thank God,” Jisung replied with a sigh that moved through his entire body as he slumped up the porch steps.

The sound of the screen door closing behind Jisung snapped Minho’s attention to the reality before him: Jisung spent every day at the coffee shop because his new house didn’t have internet. He wasn’t a tourist but a new resident; he wasn’t a new regular but a temp.

update on porn box man he texted Seungmin once he forced his feet to guide him inside, away from his mother’s questions and toward a much-needed shower. wait this is a longer story than i realized im just going to call you

Minho laid down across the weight bench in his room as if it were a comfortable bed to rest in while he talked on speaker to the phone lying on his chest. His arms dangled, fingers grazing the carpet in which he idly wondered if his parents vacuumed more often than he ever did.

“Now my curiosity is piqued,” Seungmin answered instead of a greeting. “What happened?”

“Nothing with him technically,” Minho clarified. “But with his son.”

“So it was his son’s porn?”

Minho dragged his arm up to the bridge of his nose and squeezed. “Seungmin, no. Focus for a second.”

“You’re the one who could have just told me what happened from the start, international man of mystery, but okay, go ahead.”

Minho first explained Jisung’s frequency at the coffee shop over the last couple of weeks and then described what happened as he got home today.

“So it’s a young family, but they didn’t know how to set up the WiFi?” Seungmin clearly judged.

“Young compared to Mr. Park and his thirty-five year old son, yeah, but Jisung’s close to our age, I think.”

“Oh, so what you’re saying is we should work on befriending the son, not the dad.”

“That’s not at all what I said.”

“Then why did this discovery require you calling me when I’m pretty sure we haven’t talked on the phone in approximately seven and a half years? A guy you already know is now your neighbor. Isn’t that a good thing? I don’t understand why you sound so weirded out.”

“It’s just—I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting it. Why is everything in this fucking town turned so upside down right now? It must be your fault. Everything was fine until you left for college, too.”

Minho could hear Seungmin sigh before he spoke, but his tone contained less annoyance than he steeled himself for.

“You’re Lee Minho, master of adapting and making the best of any situation. Go over there and formally introduce yourself. You know they’re home.”

Minho considered that for a moment. Seungmin was right: he wasn’t one to let any kind of hiccup stop him from getting what he wanted. Maybe he was just as unfamiliar with himself as he was with this town this summer. At least with the neighbors, he could see the changes--the mailbox was blue now, the swingset in the backyard, long since out of use, was gone, the wreath on the door was bright and inviting. Minho looked the same, did the same things, laid all his worries on Seungmin just the same, but something intangible kept him feeling out of control, unlike himself.

“New plan. You come over, and we’ll watch a movie with my world famous batch of popcorn.”

“It’s household famous at best,” Seungmin made sure to clarify before agreeing to be there in ten.

_______________

“Thanks, by the way,” Minho whispered as they laid on the living room couches that night, popcorn and shadows cast from the porch light from Jisung’s house having fallen onto the rug. He remembered when they were kids and the thought of staying up late watching movies and falling asleep on the couch was the most thrilling one. Seungmin always bet Minho’s dad two dollars that he would stay up later than Minho, and never once was that true.

So Minho wasn’t surprised when Seungmin answered “What for?” that he sounded tired, more tired than Minho felt.

“I don’t know. Never changing. You’re always you, even when you came to school and became way more popular than me, you were still just Kim Seungmin.”

“I did not get popular--”

“Just,” Minho interrupted. “Thank you. I don’t know how else to say it, I just want you to know that no matter what unexpected shit is thrown at me, I can always count on you, and I love you for that.”

Seungmin sat up and walked over to Minho’s couch, enveloped him in a hug that neither of them would have wanted if it wasn’t late and dark and quiet.

“I love you, too,” he whispered before squeezing Minho’s waist and returning to his couch.

Seungmin was still Kim Seungmin, and maybe that meant he was still Lee Minho, and that this was still his home, and, if he allowed himself to hope hard enough, this summer wouldn’t feel so foreign after all.

_______________

“Welcome,” Minho greeted over his shoulder to the small bell ringing above the door. He was rearranging the small fridge under the counter, but he didn’t need to be facing the voice to know who just asked for a vanilla latte.

He whipped his neck around so quickly that he fell backwards onto the floor.

Jisung laughed openly before Minho’s glare snapped his mouth shut. The puff of his cheeks, though, couldn’t hide that he was still making fun of him.

“What are you doing here?” Minho asked to redirect the attention off of him and his blunder.

Jisung looked confused. “I come here everyday. I order the same thing everyday. You make me the same thing everyday.”

“You have WiFi now, though?” Minho replied without thinking, without considering just how much he shouldn’t have known that.

“Uh...”

“Didn’t know you had a stalker on your hands, did you?” Minho tried joking with a half hearted chuckle. Jisung only looked more confused, his eyes widening to an alarming degree. “Okay, I don’t know why I said that.”

Minho stuck out his hand.

“Hi, I’m Lee Minho, and I live next door to your new house, and I heard your dad tell you the WiFi was finally on yesterday.”

Jisung ignored his hand. “What?”

“Weird coincidence, right? We got home around the same time yesterday, but you didn’t notice me.” He took his hand back and crossed it with his other arm in front of his chest. “Not a stalker, I promise.”

“Not a time traveler, not a stalker, and not just my favorite barista but also my new neighbor. Got it.”

Minho scratched at the back of his neck. “Yeah, so, I assumed you weren’t going to be hanging around here anymore.”

“You’ve got a lot to learn about me, neighbor,” Jisung said with an attempt at a cool, nonchalant lean against the counter. He was trying too hard, but Minho wanted to ruffle his hair rather than punch him in the arm, so he allowed it. “I still like the coffee. I still like the barista. I just won’t spend four hours and all my money on cheesecake for the rest of the summer.”

Minho’s mind blanked momentarily from just how easily Jisung could catapult compliments at him even though they’d only had one real conversation before this one. He steered them back toward joking, where he was most comfortable.

“And here I thought you told me you’d never get tired of it. Now I know you’re not a time traveler, also not someone who is being stalked, my new neighbor, and a liar. Got it.”

Jisung sighed a sigh Seungmin would be proud of. “Still as exhausting as ever, I see.”

“Yah, you started it!” Minho protested.

“That was you! Can you start making my latte, please?” Jisung asked with just as much exasperation.

“Oh, right.”

Minho turned from the counter to the sound of Jisung’s laughter.

_____________

Somehow, despite Minho and Jisung now both knowing they lived next to each other, Minho only saw Jisung when he was at the coffee shop. He never spotted him in the yard, driving to or from the house, or through any of the windows (not that he was looking, but when the lights were on and the night was dark, and Minho walked through the house after work, he sometimes saw that across the yard, in the Han’s living room, there were framed pictures on the walls and trophies on the mantle). Minho’s concern with meeting Mr. Han was replaced with his concern  that the house was protected by some invisibility spell.

So when Mrs. Lee called Minho down from a workout he could now complete in the comfort of his own bedroom, and he walked down the stairs to see Han Jisung, fit with his usual beanie and an unusually warm flannel with the sleeves rolled up, standing in his living room, Minho stopped abruptly on the creaky stair, the bottom half of his body willing him forward while his upper half clung to the banister.

Minho blinked twice before Jisung finally said, “Uh, hi.”

“Hi,” Minho returned, still trying to process the reality where Han Jisung was in his house.

“You weren’t at work today,” Jisung noted matter-of-factly.

Minho crossed his arms over his chest. “Did you come here to complain about your latte again? I can’t fire Jinyoung, you know that, right?”

“I didn’t even get a latte today.”

Minho stepped down, peeked around the staircase and out the window that faced Jisung’s house. “Is it snowing out there? What freak catastrophe has warranted this change of events? Did you find something on the menu that tastes even more sweet than your usual?”

Jisung shook his head. “I didn’t get anything at all. When I saw you weren’t there, I just turned around and came here.”

Not for the first time, Minho stood staring at Jisung, wondering why he was able to say that so directly, so sincerely, without even a hint of embarrassment. He was caught between wondering if Jisung had no idea what he sounded like and suspecting he knew exactly what he sounded like but simply didn’t care.

“If you think I’m going to make you coffee in my personal kitchen at eight in the morning while I’m dressed in gym clothes and unshowered—“ The smile that spread across Jisung’s face rerouted Minho’s thoughts “—you are absolutely right, follow me this way.”

Luckily, his mother’s refusal to buy overpriced chain coffee even if her son did work at one such place meant that Minho placed a large mug on the island in front of Jisung just a few minutes later. “I don’t have a steamer wand here, so this isn’t really your regular order, but I made it sweet enough that you shouldn’t be able to tell there’s coffee in there.”

Jisung took a tentative sip and sighed. Minho wasn’t used to feeling worktime satisfaction here, but he inflated with pride in the middle of his kitchen regardless.

“Aren’t you going to make something for yourself?”

“I don’t really drink caffeine all that much.” Minho grabbed a pitcher of cold water from the fridge and filled up a water bottle from the drying rack next to the sink. “I should probably hydrate. Well, you interrupted my workout, so I’m not that thirsty, I guess.”

Jisung eyed him critically. “Don’t fish for apologies, hyung, it doesn’t suit you.”

“Who said calling me hyung suited you?”

“Didn’t you tell me just yesterday that you’d speak comfortably with me since we’re neighbors now? Even though I was telling you about the weather and hadn’t mentioned formalities at all? You just randomly blurted it...”

“Well, I didn’t say anything about you, though. You waltz into my house—“

“Your mom let me in, technically.”

“—you demand coffee—“

“You brought up the coffee, I didn’t even ask for it directly.”

“—now you’re calling me hyung.”

“That last part is correct.”

Minho blinked at Jisung, trying to understand why he didn’t want to ban him from this town for good.

“Do you want to go for a walk with me?”

Jisung grinned behind his mug, satisfied. “Sure.”

_____________

“I present to you, a grand tour from a local.” Minho gestured around him with a graceful sweep that turned quickly into him flapping his arms into Jisung, who protested loudly enough for him to feel almost sorry. “You can’t get this anywhere else, so be grateful for this opportunity.”

Jisung bowed in between their driveways. “Yes, hyungnim. I will be eternally in your debt.” He grabbed Minho’s hand and pressed his lips softly to the back of his palm.

“Ack!” Minho complained. He yanked his hand back to his side where he could rub the feeling of Jisung’s kiss on his jeans while he asked, “Why did I get the weirdest neighbor imaginable?” to the sky.

“You started it. You’re always the one who starts it.” Jisung stood up, looking nowhere near as embarrassed as Minho thought he should have, and shrugged.

And since Jisung allowed another moment that would have been more awkward with anyone else to pass by them like the dots in the distance of the sea, so did Minho. He motioned for them to continue walking down a street in which he spent his childhood riding big wheels, his adolescence huffing away from his parents, and his adulthood driving back and forth to university. Jisung patted the mailbox to his house affectionately as they gave Minho’s street an entirely new purpose.

Minho, unable to let it go and unable to let the silence stretch on for too long, asked how Jisung could know he “always” did anything when they’ve only known each other for less than a month.

“Well, I did you see you for like four hours a day, seven days a week at first, which is more time than some people see their closest friends now that we’re not in high school, so I think I have enough data at this point. I know you mouth along to the lyrics of every song that comes on the radio at the coffee shop, that you smile widest at customers who are shorter than you, that you blink three times when someone asks a dumb question—like when I asked about the WiFi password that one time. And you always cut me a bigger slice of cheesecake than you give to Mr. Yoo.”

“He’s old, he needs to watch his sugar intake, I don’t know why he thinks he can have cake for breakfast—“

“And that you show that you care about people with small gestures rather than lots of words,” Jisung interrupted.

Minho eyed him suspiciously. “And you talk a lot.”

Jisung grinned, but not his usual prouder-than-is-appropriate smirk. He looked more sorry than anything.

“Ah, sometimes I don’t know when to shut up once I get comfortable around someone, my bad. I’m not pretending that I like, know everything about you or something, I was sometimes bored working on my summer class stuff when I was there everyday and so I’d just peek over to the counter and you were always working—which, thank goodness it was you and not Jinyoung—and it was just obvious when you were in a good mood or not because of--” he motioned between his eyes, “--but even when you blinked three times at every person who came in the door you still gave me that huge ass piece of cake, which was really nice, so I thought maybe moving here wouldn’t be so bad because there was someone close to my age who seemed cool and now I won’t stop fucking talking because I’m worried I’m annoying you yet I keep annoying you and I’m sorry.”

Jisung gulped in air while Minho consciously decided not to blink, to instead soften his eyes and place a hand on Jisung’s shoulder.

“You’re just as obnoxious as I am, I promise. We match.” Jisung’s relief made its way through his body, and Minho realized that his new friend could be obvious with his feelings, too, sometimes. “How about this. If you can beat me to the stop sign, I’ll let you tell me all about the classes you’re—Yah! That’s cheating!”

Jisung won, if because he started early or if because Minho didn’t feel like running that fast or that hard after he’d already worked out or if because he already knew he’d want to hear Jisung talk about stilled lake water, he wasn’t sure.

_____________

An hour later and they were sat on the curb outside of Minho’s favorite vendor. While they ate fish buns and drank cold juice and watched as tourists paid ridiculous rates to walk down a pier that offered them nothing but a view of the water they could have gotten on the shore, Jisung told him of his summer calculus class, every course he took his freshman year, his plans for the upcoming fall, and most importantly, that they went to the same university.

“I know we ruled out time traveler theory but are you sure we didn’t know each other in another life and we’re fated together like in Goblin?”

“Are you about to tell me I killed your sister a century ago and now you hate my guts?”

Minho and Jisung stared at each other with false-tension as they both fought off giggles. With their knees knocking together as their shoes rested in the gravel of the road, it became clear to Minho that he’d never looked at Jisung this up close before, so often a counter between them. He hadn’t noticed there was a chip on one of his front teeth and that the yarn on his beanie looked worn.

“Don’t you get hot wearing that thing?” Minho asked before taking another bite. “I thought for sure you were a tourist at first because you looked so unprepared for the weather.”

“Ah, that.” Jisung readjusted his hat. In the brief moments Minho saw him without it, he didn’t see any visible reason why Jisung would want to hide his hair. “I’m so attached to wearing it that I think I just ignore any discomfort at this point. I develop habits easily. Ordering the same thing at the coffee shop, wearing the beanie, wanting to talk to you even though you were kind of intimidating. I take comfort in rituals, I guess.”

“We’ll come back to the intimidating part because that’s hilarious, but hasn’t moving been weird, then, since it’s breaking all of your habits?”

Jisung shrugged, as he seemed to like to do. “Not really. I just found new ones.”

He made it sound easy.

With the crash of the waves into the legs of the pier, with Jisung beside him and the taste of fish buns on his tongue, Minho started to wonder if this--warm days and warmer cheeks--could be just as easy, too.

_____________

Kim Seungmin:
we should go out

Lee Minho:
after all these years, you’re finally confessing to me? Kim Seungmin, you’re so obvious, I’ve known that you’re in love with me since the moment you met me

Kim Seungmin:
I take it back I don’t want to go out and I don’t want talk to you ever again

Lee Minho:
STOP you love me ): that’s why you confessed : ////

Kim Seungmin:
i don’t hate you at BEST on a GOOD DAY

Lee Minho:
okay im going to assume today is a good day since you’re trying to hang out. there’s approximately two things to do in this town, what were you thinking?

Kim Seungmin:
karaoke, first

Lee Minho:
im on the edge of my seat

Kim Seungmin:
bar second

Lee Minho:
really mixing it up now we’re going in reverse order

Kim Seungmin :
i thought we could pregame before karaoke at my place

Lee Minho:
you really do have a master plan. what brought this on? everything okay?

Kim Seungmin :
yeah, im just antsy. ready to be back at school already

Lee Minho:
since you’re so popular :/ not interested in just hanging out with me :/

Kim Seungmin :
now that you mention it, no. i thought we could invite felix and woojin and you could ask jisung to come too

Lee Minho:
i’ll pretend not to be offended since i haven’t seen them in months. idk what he does for fun but ill ask him

Kim Seungmin :
you two are together everyday at work and he comes to your house everyday you have off and you’ve never talked about his interests? are you that self-centered?

Lee Minho:
we talk about him all the time just not about like partying stuff. stop overanalyzing me, asshole. ill text him and let you know

Minho, despite his confidence over text, quickly replayed his most recent conversations with Jisung to dismiss the doubt Seungmin planted. He knew that Jisung studied creative writing, that his mom ate too much sugar while she was pregnant with him and that it was his running theory as to why he liked cake so much, that he could speak English and has an older brother that lives with his girlfriend back in his hometown.

He took a deep breath: Seungmin was wrong. He was also just kidding , he reminded himself before opening his mostly empty chat with Jisung. They spent so much time talking in person that they didn’t text much.

Lee Minho:
do you have plans for tonight?

The typing bubble appeared immediately, and Minho smiled wondering what Jisung was doing with his phone so readily available in his hand.

He’d showed up at Minho’s house that morning after nine, a time they didn’t ever agree upon but which became like an appointment all the same. He couldn’t stay longer than downing his cup of coffee required before having to help his dad with some sink problem. Minho didn’t remember Mr. Park ever complaining about that house, but every other day Jisung seemed to tell him about something that needed renovating or, like in the case of the supposedly horrid blue tile in the bathroom, needing demolished. Though he hadn’t said it aloud--and he didn’t plan to; that, he was convinced, would make it sure to really happen--he worried that the Han family would move again because of all of the trouble.

And then what would he do?

The routine of his days before Jisung asked for the WiFi password were lying at the corners of his memory, taking a long and restful sleep. He only knew now of days laughing so hard he hurt his hip falling off the couch, of mootly trying to remember old calculus lessons since Jisung was the one who ended up teaching him something he didn’t know before, of saccharine smiles and sour candy.

Han Jisung:
i do now. what are we doing?

Lee Minho:
drinks and karaoke?

Han Jisung:
you’re speaking my language

Lee Minho:
oh, well, i’m happy you’re fluent bc if you want to have fun and don’t want to be swamped by tourists, these are your only options. technically it was seungmin’s idea, though, so you can thank him instead of me

Minho stood in front of his closet while he waited for a response when Jisung didn’t immediately start typing. He didn’t bring all of his clothes from his house to his apartment in college, but he equally didn’t bring everything from his apartment then back home for the summer, so what remained draped over the boxes in his bedroom were the worst of what he wore in high school—salmon colored button downs and too-tight jeans. He eyed a simple white three quarter sleeve tunic when his mother knocked on the wide open door.

“What’s up?” Minho asked when she leaned against the doorframe instead of asking her usual set of unprompted questions.

“Just wanted to make sure everything was okay. You haven’t been home alone in weeks, so I was worried you fought with Jisung or Seungmin.”

Minho grabbed the tunic and a pair of black jeans he hoped still fit and shook his head. “No, we’re all going to go out tonight, actually. I might just sleep at Seungmin’s if that’s okay?”

“You don’t have to ask permission now.”

Mrs. Lee smiled fondly at her son.

There were many things Minho didn’t have to do now, like tell his mother more than she absolutely needed to know. When this room was filled with posters and dirty laundry, she knew what he had for breakfast, how much homework he had, how many times he’d rewatched his favorite movie that month. Now that he was away from home, she could only know him from what he chose to share, which wasn’t much. It only occurred to him now, seeing her look at Minho like he was fifteen again, preparing to go out with friends and have a sleepover, that the discomfort he felt at the beginning of this summer was what she’s felt for two entire years.

“Can I ask you something else, though?”

Her face brightened; she nodded.

“How do you merge two friend groups together without it being awkward?”

“Have you not introduced Jisung to Seungmin yet? I assumed whenever you both left the house that you were going to hang out with him.”

Minho looked at his feet, like he’d been caught sneaking sweets after dinner. They’d made a habit, one of Jisung’s many habits, of taking a walk on his days off. Sometimes they got fish buns; sometimes they walked along the shore. Today he thought he’d show Jisung his old middle school before the sink problem pulled the plan away from them both.

“Uh, nope. I stop by Seungmin’s after work most nights. There just hasn’t been a reason for them to meet yet, but we’re all going out tonight. Jisung’s really nice, so I think it’ll be fine, but I’m still slightly worried Seungmin will hate him for some reason.”

“Seungminnie can be like that sometimes.”

Minho hummed. “And Jisung can be... loud sometimes.”

Mrs. Lee contemplated the concern before answering, “I wouldn’t assume there’s going to be conflict. There’s no reason to work yourself up over something that might not happen, and if tonight doesn’t go as well as you hoped, learning just what makes them uncomfortable around each other can help you to know the best way you could all hang out again.”

“Mom, you’re smart,” Minho replied dumbly.

“You are too, sweetie. Trust yourself a little more.”

And so he did. Or, he tried.

Jisung agreed to meet at Seungmin’s house at six, but he didn’t want to come alone; apparently his best friend from university, Hyunjin, lived in the next town over. Minho tried not to feel jealous, to be smart about this. Minho was introducing him to several new people at once. He should be allowed to bring a buffer, too.

When, by the time they were all ready to leave for karaoke, Hyunjin had his head in Seungmin’s lap and his feet draped over Felix’s thighs, and Woojin offering to feed him his mix drink through a straw, Minho allowed himself to relax.

Or, he tried.

“You okay?” Jisung whispered as they all piled into an uber. He was squished into the door with Jisung sitting half on his lap.

“Yeah, why?”

“You’re more quiet than usual. I’m used to you never shutting up.”

Minho banged his shoulder into Jisung’s back. “You shut up.”

“I’m kidding, Jesus, why are you so bad at taking a joke?” Jisung tried rubbing at the spot, but he couldn’t quite reach. “Seriously though, you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, I promise. I’m just happy everyone fits so well together.”

“Hyunjin likes you,” he confessed more quietly.

“Everyone likes me, Han Jisung, I’m not surprised.”

Jisung rolled his eyes. “Who said I like you?”

Minho poked both of his hands into Jisung’s sides and wrapped his arms around his waist before Jisung could writhe himself out of Minho’s lap.

He didn’t move his arms, and Jisung didn’t admit to liking him, and none of the others questioned why Minho spent the rest of the car ride smoothing his hands over Jisung’s back.

_____________

“Please welcome to the stage, Australia’s pride and joy, and the nation’s brightest smile that ever existed, Lee Felix!”

Glued to Woojin’s side, Felix seemed unable to decide between blushing furiously into his hyung’s chest and grabbing the microphone that Woojin held out to him.

The applause erupting from the room propelled him forward, finally.

As Minho watched Felix rap an American song he’d never heard before, he was reminded, as he often was, just how much he missed his high school friends who scattered across different universities after graduation. He reminded himself to text Changbin back and to tell Woojin before the night was over that everything he taught him about calculus was wrong .

They used to spend Saturday nights in karaoke rooms when they were too young to have any other options for fun away from their parents. Minho was more interested in learning the choreography to each song behind whoever was singing, but he held onto those memories tightly; tonight, the dissonance wasn’t so strong. Jisung and Hyunjin felt like they were always meant to be here rather than the new additions they actually were.

“Who’s next?” Seungmin asked, though there didn’t seem to be a choice. He handed Jisung the microphone and quickly chose a song before Jisung’s protests could have an effect.

Seungmin tried picking one that would embarrass Jisung, Minho was sure of that, but when Jisung rapped along and then sang along and then belted along flawlessly to Seungmin’s choice, it was Jisung who jumped in victory so rapturous that he fell down onto the couch and into Felix’s drink.

“How are you so good at everything?” Seungmin complained at the ninety-nine score on the television.

“I suck at drinking games,” Jisung confessed, and Seungmin’s mumbled noted made Minho choke on his latest sip.

“One time fall semester,” Hyunjin told them, “we were at a party, and Jisung suggested we play flip cup--”

“No! Not this story, spare me, please these are my new friends, and I like them much more than I like you.” Jisung leapt over Minho’s lap and tried but failed to force Hyunjin’s mouth shut.

“--and he told me later he thought flip cup was a game where you throw cups over obstacles like fucking miniature monster trucks.”

Jisung hid his face in his hands while they laughed hard enough that Minho was grateful the room was soundproof.

“And then,” Hyunjin tried continuing around his spiked giggles, “he was so bad at it and had to drink so many times that he threw up on the guy who was flirting with him all night.”

“Stop, I’m still sad he hasn’t talked to me since,” Jisung grumbled into his palms.

“That reminds me of that time hyung--”

Minho glared at Seungmin so fiercely that his best friend sighed and changed course.

“Okay, if you’re not going to let me tell that story, you have to sing.”

“Fine,” Minho conceded. He pretended not to hear Seungmin agree to tell Jisung about the story later as he chose his song, and he’d also have to pretend that he didn’t feel such immediate regret at having put these within fifty yards of each other.

He ended up forcing Woojin to sing a 2PM song with him so his voice was mostly drowned out, but that didn’t stop Jisung’s soft “you sounded good, hyung” from heating his cheeks more than any of the alcohol he had that night.

And he did have too much.

By the time they got to the bar, Minho had to down two glasses of water and spend two straight minutes with his head on the table while Jisung alternated between rubbing his back and playing with his hair before he could agree to play a game.

He sat up with renewed clarity as he held five fingers out in front of him.

“Never have I ever dated someone at this table.”

“Hyung, you’re starting off too strong,” Felix lamented before putting down his thumb. Seungmin put his down, too.

Hyunjin’s eyes widened. “Oh, this is so informative since we’ve all just met. What’s the Cliffnotes?” he asked.

“Felix is too nice, and I was too far gone.”

“Seungmin is too straightforward, and I was too nervous.”

“They’re both better off as friends,” Minho finished, and the table laughed, even though he didn’t understand why his truthful assessment of the most awkward spring of his life was that funny.

Jisung went next. “Never have I ever been a hyung to someone at this table.”

Minho and Woojin both yelled at their outnumbered same-aged friends, as if they were all at fault for not being born just a few years later.

Woojin, probably fearing for his own chances at winning, banned ‘at the table’ questions from there forward. Luckily for Minho, he hadn’t changed a tire, locked himself out of his apartment, been stood up by a date, or blacked out from drinking too much.

Once the second round began, Minho and Felix had the most fingers still up.

“Never have I ever been pulled over by a police officer.”

“Why does everyone keep targeting me?” Felix complained while placing down his pointer.

“You’re the most innocent one, once we try to get the real dirt out of everyone, you’ll be the last one standing,” Woojin explained.

“Well, we can start that sooner rather than later, then,” Jisung declared. “Never have I ever hooked up with someone I wasn’t dating.”

Shock traveled around the table when Felix and Seungmin both lowered their fingers.

“With each other?” Minho demanded to know.

“No, we did date, dummy, remember the question,” Seungmin replied. He pointed in between himself and Felix. “It was unrelated to that. And I told you about that guy, hyung, don’t act so surprised.”

Minho did vaguely remember a story about a party for new communications majors and hesitant kisses in the corner of a kitchen. It wasn’t the steamy tale the others were probably imagining, but Minho wasn’t going to tell them that, especially when he had no idea of the context of Felix’s story.

“Wow,” was the only thing Woojin seemed able to say. Blushing was the only thing Felix seemed able to do.

“Okay, you two are learning way more about us than we’re learning about you, this is unfair,” Seungmin complained.

Hyunjin, sensing a challenge, didn’t hesitate to start his turn. “Never have I ever pretended to like something just to see a cute boy more often.”

Curiously, no one moved, and when Hyunjin noticed that Jisung in particular still had two fingers up, he reached over and forced one down.

“Yah, no, you can’t decide for me, that doesn’t apply to me, no, no,” Jisung rambled while fighting Hyunjin off.

“You’re lying to yourself and ruining the sanctity of this game,” Hyunjin huffed as he sat back in his chair.

“One, Minho knows I don’t like the taste of coffee, and two,” Jisung looked over at him, “I said he was handsome, not cute, and that’s just an objective fact” and then back to Hyunjin, “you asshole.”

“Like that makes a difference,” Hyunjin said around a giggle. “You’re welcome, Seungminnie.” They clinked their shot glasses together before prompting Felix to go next.

Jisung peeked over at Minho’s reaction while Felix thought about his turn.

“I told you everyone likes me,” Minho whispered teasingly next to Jisung’s ear. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

Jisung shoved him back into his chair, and Minho shoved him into Hyunjin, and Hyunjin shoved Jisung back into Minho, and when the third round didn’t shove the worried look off of Jisung’s face, Minho realized this was the first time Jisung couldn’t allow an uncomfortable moment to just pass them by; Jisung was docked and anchored in his distress.

So Minho spent the rest of the game—it only took five more questions for Felix, of all people, to lose and for Woojin to look like he was going to demand at least five stories from him before they went to sleep tonight—with his head on Jisung’s shoulder, his arm slung around his waist, and when Seungmin offered the couch, his bed, and the guest bed once they got back to his house, Minho asked Jisung quietly if he wanted to take the guest bed with him. Seungmin just as quietly agreed, so they were able to make it upstairs without oohs or ahhs.

“Is Hyunjin going to be okay down there, you think?” Minho asked after changing into the pajamas Seungmin offered them.

“I’m pretty sure he already has a group chat with every single person he made eye contact with tonight, so yeah, he’ll be fine.”

Once the lights were out and only the chatter from downstairs floated its way past the sound of the air conditioner, Minho turned towards Jisung.

“It was a dumb idea to play that game, I’m sorry Seungmin wanted to so badly.”

Jisung turned to the middle of the bed, too, and Minho felt relieved that he seemed more comfortable in the dark. “It’s not his fault. Hyunjin is just the devil.”

Minho chuckled. “People say that about Seungmin, too. I know I said it in the car, but I’m really happy you all got along. I was actually worried there’d be a bunch of awkward silence or something.”

“No, I felt bad for you hyungs that we were so loud.”

“It was fun. I always have fun with you, Jisung. You’re actually the only reason I haven’t hated this entire summer.”

“You’re only admitting that because you’ve been drinking,” Jisung replied. “And because Hyunjin made it weird at the bar.”

“I’m admitting that because I want you to know,” Minho admitted. He could only say it now because it was dark, but it was true with or without what happened tonight. “But we should talk tomorrow, too.”

Jisung started to turn over in response, but Minho reached for him, kept him in place. “Stay here,” he requested.

And Jisung did.

________________

Seungmin, the gracious host that he was, allowed the smell of breakfast to gently rock Minho awake the next morning. It was either the sound of his stomach growling or the whine he let out when he realized just how dehydrated he was that woke Jisung.

“Good morning,” he rasped out.

Minho watched him sit up and stretch, eyes still closed and hair a mess, unrestrained by the beanie that lay next to the bed.

“Did you sleep okay? You look half-dead.”

“Mmhmm,” Jisung answered sleepily. “You didn’t kick me or try to stab me in my sleep, so yeah, I think so.”

“Is that what you expected of me, I’m offended.” Minho pouted. “And here I was ready to tell you that you look really cute in the morning and that I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to figure that out..”

Jisung stared at him with his mouth hung open, his crooked teeth peeking below his top lip. This reversal didn’t feel as odd as Minho expected: he liked being the one to surprise Jisung for once.

“Come on.” He pulled the blanket away from Jisung’s waist. “Let’s get breakfast and then we can go for a walk.”

Minho headed for the bathroom, where his clothes and a shower waited for him, with Jisung still sat on the bed, bewildered, as a habit formed itself in real time, like everything else he knew to be true had to step just slightly to the side to make room for this new ritual.

He adapted quickly as the morning drew on. When Minho fed Jisung the bites of peppers he didn’t want, he clapped happily without blushing; when Minho grabbed his hand and steered them toward a pier on the other side of town, away from the boats and the bobbers, Jisung squeezed the fingers interlaced with Minho’s as if to say me, too; I’m here with you, too .

They sat down on the end of the pier, touching from shoulder to ankle, and looked out at the sun rising over the water.

He wouldn’t have guessed two months ago that he’d not want the chilly air of the fall to come again. Jisung was coming back to school with him--this wasn’t a summer fling of a teen movie, self-contained in its perfect but untimely season--but he’d miss seeing Jisung’s eyes shine anytime they neared the water; he’d miss the smell of salt on them both.

“I hope you know that I meant what I said last night,” Minho began. Jisung dropped his head on Minho’s shoulder, and the feeling of the yarn on Jisung’s beanie running across his neck told him that he nodded. “I never really told you, but the beginning of the summer kind of sucked for a lot of reasons, and now it doesn’t suck for one single reason—god, I’m so bad at this, you should have just let me get it all out when I had alcohol in me, maybe then I wouldn’t sound so ridiculous.”

Jisung lifted his head and pulled on Minho’s sleeve so he’d turn to him. “You don’t sound ridiculous, and you’ve said so much already with the way you’ve taken care of me this summer—“

“I didn’t do anything, you’re the one who helped me, I was so out of it, and—“

“Hyung, listen. I never really told you either, but I was terrified of moving here, even if I was just going to be going back to school anyway, leaving everything I’ve ever known was hard, but you made me feel so comfortable, and--well, it’s not even just about that. You could have ignored me for two months, and I still would have liked you.”

Minho giggled at the now-familiar bluntness of Jisung’s confession. “Me, too, probably.”

“You have a thing for guys who order cheesecake?”

“Yeah, Mr. Yoo and I had a thing last year, I’ll tell you all about it later.”

He sputtered a laugh. “Gross. Now you are ruining it.”

“Sorry. Let me try again.” Minho interlaced their fingers together once more. “Jisung, you’re kind, probably way too nice to me, and funny, and maybe the cutest person I’ve ever seen--stop laughing, I’m serious--and I would really, really like to take you on a date, like a proper date where there’s no coffee and we get dressed up and say cheesy shit to each other and I kiss you at the end of the night.”

“And here I thought you were going to kiss me now.”

Minho stilled, scanned Jisung’s features for the joke or the jab, but all he saw was the determination right before Jisung leaned forward and brushed his lips sweetly against his own.

The rush of the waves on the shore behind them was no match for the crash of affection across Minho’s body and across his mind.

He pulled back only when the sun and the tide had risen and Jisung’s smile stretched wider than the sea.

_______________

“Dad, meet Lee Minho, my boyfriend.”

Minho bowed in the Han living room. Somehow, this was his first time inside of his new neighbor’s house since the summer began.

“It’s nice to meet you, sir,” he greeted more formally than he hoped this first meeting would go.

“How good are you at assembling?” Mr. Han asked instead of saying anything else that Minho might have expected.

“Um, I have…put things together before? My dad makes furniture, so it has be in my DNA, right?”

He could feel Jisung bite back a laugh beside him, but Mr. Han seemed to like his answer.

“I have one more box to unpack. Help me put together this desk.”

“Yes, dad,” Jisung answered for the both of them, placing his arm around Minho’s waist and a quick kiss to his cheek.

_____________

Lee Minho:
it was a desk. there was a desk in the box

Kim Seungmin:
now that it’s your boyfriend’s dad, i’m glad it wasn’t porn

Han Jisung:
that makes three of us

________________