Chapter Text
Mingyu tries not to complain, tries not to be what he knows everyone thinks he is, spoiled and entitled and delicate, but on days like today, he would very much like to break that self-imposed ban.
Another debtor’s note has come, added to the growing pile on Hana’s desk. Or, rather, his desk, but he doesn’t think her office or anything in it will ever feel truly his. She was the one who ran the estate, who knew how to manage the fields and investments and staff; Mingyu was the governor’s son with an inheritance to pull them out of the debt her first husband had accumulated. Now, with Hana gone and Mingyu left to tend things, that debt has built anew, some from Hana’s gambling, some from Mingyu’s own frivolous spending when he did not yet know how dire things would become, but most of it the result of January’s storm, which took out the merchant vessel carrying the entire cargo of spices Mingyu had invested in.
It seemed a safe investment, exotic spices on the rise in popularity and price, but there can be no accounting for natural disasters. Many people lost income on that shipment, but only Mingyu lost everything.
“Sir,” Jihoon says, coming into the room without knocking, his expression agitated. “He’s here again.”
Mingyu straightens up, feeling buoyed by the mere thought of his caller – and then he checks himself. He is only a year out of mourning for his wife; the last thing he wants is to appear unseemly, if not for his own reputation then for his daughter’s.
“Send him in,” Mingyu says, turning to the mirror about the fireplace and fussing quickly with his hair and clothes. He wants to look presentable, even if there is no subtext to this visit. If there is one thing Mingyu has always done well, it is appearances, and he refuses to let that, too, fall by the wayside, a ghost of a life long lost.
“Should he be coming here quite so often, Sir?” Jihoon asks, pointedly. “People talk. A man of such standing calling near daily on a widower of … reduced means.” Jihoon’s polite side-stepping of Mingyu’s situation is appreciated, not that he pauses to give Mingyu a chance to acknowledge it. “People will begin to wonder, when he leaves so late in the evening some days, if he does not, perhaps, leave at all on others.”
Well, so much for tact.
Mingyu smothers the scowl he wants to level at Jihoon, turning instead to regard him neutrally, feeling even more annoyed when Jihoon stares evenly back at him, no doubt knowing exactly how Mingyu feels about the insinuation.
“Thank you, Jihoon,” Mingyu says, forcing his voice to passivity, the way he was raised to do. “If I have need of you, I will call you.”
“If he does not intend to make you an offer, as you know he cannot, then please do not allow him to call so often,” Jihoon says, ignoring Mingyu’s dismissal. “Think of Eunseo.”
“I think of nothing except Eunseo,” Mingyu snaps, his composure fraying just enough for his voice to raise to a point he shamefully considers shouting, the edges rough as he fills the room with sound. “But what would you have me do? Send him away? Tell the richest man in the county to stay away – snub him?”
“Divert him,” Jihoon counters, the tension in his voice rising too, though not as much, passionate about the topic they have skirted so many times and clearly deciding that today is the day to have it out – and no wonder; Jihoon has seen the ever-worsening state of Mingyu’s affairs too. “Tell him you need more space to grieve, tell him your heart died with Hana, tell him whatever you think will dissuade him forever,” he says firmly, too rational for Mingyu to refute. “Do not keep playing coy with his attentions when you know how it will be perceived; you have nothing to offer him and everyone knows it. He will never marry you and every day you entertain him your reputation suffers – and so does your daughter’s.”
Mingyu looks away, out the window to where he last saw Eunseo playing in the garden, swallowing his frustration. He can just see the edge of her dress, peaking out from behind the lavender bush where she likes to sit and draw, papers strewn about the grass carelessly.
She is too young to have her entire future decided by the incaution of her father – he knows that, and so he calms himself with deliberate steadying breaths. Hana always said that they were two of the same breed, that their daughter inherited Mingyu’s artistry, his dreaminess, his emotions, his brightness, and nothing from her mother. Mingyu disagrees; Eunseo is every inch her mother’s daughter when she tells Mingyu exactly what she thinks of things – her bedtime, the dinner on her plate, how the hug she just received was much too short – and Mingyu smiles every time he sees it. He smiles every time he sees Eunseo, her existence a balm to every ill that troubles him, reminding him again and again of what matters most.
He has never been entirely sure of how much he loved Hana, or in what way, and he knows he does not love her memory now as perhaps he should, as a widower is expected to. He does know, however, that he loves Eunseo, and he does not want his own foolish heart to decide the fate of the person he cherishes most in the world, the one person he has sworn to protect and nurture.
Eunseo’s future must be protected, and if that means giving up the one person who makes Mingyu feel less alone these days then he will do it.
“You are right,” Mingyu admits, quietly, his gaze still on what little he can see of Eunseo’s dress, white against green and lavender. “It is selfish of me to let him call here when we both know nothing can come of it.”
“You are allowed to be selfish, Mingyu,” Jihoon says, surprising Mingyu and drawing his attention back to his butler. He looks pained, one hand resting on the tea table, fingers clenched, extended towards Mingyu but not actually reaching out to him. They both know the bounds of their roles far too well for that. “Just,” Jihoon says, his voice dropping, heaviness and empathy lacing it, “not in this way.”
Of course. Mingyu nods, holding Jihoon’s eyes as he does. Jihoon nods back, understanding what Mingyu does not say, trained by birth and breeding not to.
“I will bring tea,” Jihoon says, turning to go.
“Do not bother,” Mingyu calls, shaking his head. “He won’t be staying long enough for that.”
Jihoon makes no reply, but Mingyu is certain he heard; Jihoon’s senses are all disturbingly attuned. Mingyu is fairly convinced he is some kind of genius.
He makes one last check of himself in the mirror, though it doesn’t matter, though he has no reason to want to impress his caller, just because this, at least, he can control. When he sends Minghao away, he can at least know that he still has his looks to his credit, if nothing else can elevate him to anywhere near the businessman’s level.
It is only a few moments before the study door opens again, this time admitting a form Mingyu knows almost too well, the lines of it traced in his sketchbooks, a guilty release of tension from the day found in drawing the face and figure of the man before him.
Xu Minghao is tall, and handsome, and kind. When his eyes land on Mingyu, standing by the desk beneath the wide window, he breaks into a smile that lights his whole face, like the sun rising after the longest, darkest winter night. He moves with elegant grace to take Mingyu’s hand in his own, squeezing for a moment instead of shaking, the greeting much more familiar and intimate than business partners or even friends meeting.
That intimacy is precisely the thing Mingyu must kill.
“Mingyu,” Minghao says, his tone warm. His smile falters, then, his eyes searching across Mingyu’s face and his expression falling by degrees with each passing second. “What’s wrong?”
Minghao has always been able to read him well. Hana, he valued as a friend and confidant, a partner in every sense of the word, but no one has ever know him the way Minghao does; Mingyu supposes it is the result of having lived in each other’s presence since they were so young.
Mingyu shakes his head, drawing away, putting several feet of distance between them. Minghao lets him, watching but making no move to approach him when Mingyu crosses to the far end of the desk.
“I have a great deal on my mind, that is all,” Mingyu says, keeping his tone polite and formal. Minghao straightens up a bit, his perfect posture emphasized even more as he reacts physically to Mingyu’s verbal distance.
Mingyu wants to cross that distance, to tell Minghao that he doesn’t mean it, that he’s just being practical, but he can’t. He knows Minghao, knows he just wants to help, and if Mingyu asks then Minghao will give it.
If Mingyu asked Minghao to marry him, to take on all his debts, Minghao would do it out of service to a friend, disavowing his own family and inheritance in the undertaking by attaching himself to someone who, though born to his stature, has since been brought so low. Mingyu will not ask that of him, no matter how much his heart wants it; he is neither as foolish nor as selfish as society’s whisperers believe him to be.
“Is there anything I can do?” Minghao asks, obliging as always. His gaze drops to the clutter of papers on the desk, only for a second, the moment brief enough that Mingyu doubts he even meant to do it, but it steels Mingyu’s resolve.
“No, nothing,” Mingyu says, shaking his head firmly. “Simply matters of the estate I must attend to.”
“May I –”
Whatever Minghao was about to say is lost beneath a squeal of glee as Eunseo comes tearing into the room, shrieking her delight at the presence of her second favorite person – or possibly her third; Mingyu is honestly not sure if she prefers Minghao or Jihoon. Minghao always brings her presents, usually sweets or exotic trinkets, but Jihoon is the one who gives her a cookie every afternoon … then again, Jihoon is the one who bathes her, most nights.
Eunseo attaches herself to Minghao’s leg, clinging to him and chattering a mile a minute about her latest drawings and the ant hill she found this morning and the stain she got on her doll’s dress and a million other things, all of which Minghao listens to with rapt attention, managing to extricate himself after a few moments just enough to drop to his knees so that he can be at eye level with Eunseo. Eunseo takes this as an invitation to sit on his lap, wrapping his arms around herself to better secure her position, all without once pausing for breath.
Mingyu watches the two of them, Eunseo lit up with joy and excitement, Minghao nodding, oohing and aahing at presumably appropriate intervals, his delight nearly the match of hers as she cuddles against his chest.
Eunseo is only four, and she was but two when Hana died. Mingyu was not required to be in mourning past the first month, but, for him, the grief lingered for well over a year and he could not seem to shake it to engage fully in the world around him again until last summer. Eunseo has little memory of her mother, and never will. It would be so good for her to have a second parent about.
That parent will, of course, never be Minghao.
Even if Mingyu does marry again, it will not be to Minghao. Mingyu loves him far too much to burden him in that way.
“I am here,” Minghao says, speaking to Eunseo but looking up at Mingyu, garnering Mingyu’s attention once again, “well, I had wanted to ask your father before I asked you.”
Mingyu furrows his brow, unsure of what Minghao could possibly have come to say if his visit was not, as it usually is, an excuse for the two of them to sit in comfortable quiet and enjoy the company of someone neither has to explain themselves to.
“Tell me now,” Eunseo demands, tugging on Minghao’s shirt to get him to look at her again.
Minghao glances down at her, smiling reassuringly, before returning his gaze to Mingyu. He seems hesitant to say it, which piques Mingyu’s interest. Whatever it is, it can be nothing too horrible; Mingyu trusts Minghao.
“Go on,” Mingyu says, nodding his acquiescence. “What have you come to ask us?”
“Yes, what have you come to ask us,” Eunseo echoes, standing on Minghao’s legs so that she can tower over him and forcefully move her head to block Minghao’s vision.
Minghao wraps both hands around Eunseo’s tiny waist, holding her steady, and grins at her, Mingyu catching only the edge of the expression around Eunseo’s thick curls and sturdy little body. “Well,” he says, his tone somewhat sad, “I have a ship coming in today, but there is no one there to greet it, and I have no one to help me take inventory of it when it arrives.” He sighs, the sound very theatrical and exaggerated. “I was hoping you and your father could help me, but –” he pauses again, glancing at Mingyu with real hesitation in his expression, the exaggerated tone dropping from his voice, his intonation normal again, “if you are busy today, we can do it another time.”
“We have to help him, daddy!” Eunseo shouts, bouncing up and down in eagerness, her voice pitched to the manic excitement only children can achieve. “Daddy, daddy, please, we have to help Minghao with his ships!”
Minghao is watching Mingyu again, keeping Eunseo from falling from his lap easily but all his attention on Mingyu. His expression is one Mingyu has seen before, one that makes an appearance when Minghao offers Mingyu his hand out of the carriage when they go to town together, and when Minghao brings Eunseo gifts that Mingyu knows are particularly expensive – and, much longer ago, when Minghao used to sneak into Mingyu’s garden during lessons time to distract Mingyu with some fairy ring or swarm of tadpoles he had found. It is an expression that Mingyu knows means Minghao is hoping he is welcome but is not sure that he is. It is an expression that has always spurred Mingyu to do stupid things, foolish things –
Selfish things.
It is an expression that, in this moment, has Mingyu’s mouth opening and speaking the words “Of course we will” before he is consciously aware of making the decision to do so, Eunseo’s delighted scream ringing in his ears as he watches the uncertainty on Minghao’s face splinter and fade and give way to a smile Mingyu could spend the rest of his life staring at, memorizing, immortalizing.
It is only when he looks up and sees Jihoon in the doorway that reality comes crashing down. Jihoon’s disapproval is palpable, and, when Minghao follows his line of sight, Mingyu sees his head duck in his periphery, cowed by the look on Jihoon’s face.
“Jihoon,” Mingyu says, interrupting the one-sided staring match, drawing Jihoon’s attention and earning a reinforced version of that censorious stare directed at him. He barrels on regardless – in for a penny, and all that. “Please prepare the carriage and fetch Eunseo’s coat; it will be a bit chilly by the water.”
“I brought my carriage, actually, if you don’t mind using it,” Minghao says, sounding slightly apologetic, as though Mingyu could have any possible objection to Minghao’s exceptionally fine carriage.
“Just Eunseo’s coat, then,” Mingyu corrects himself. “We will leave –” He looks to Minghao.
“At once, if it suits,” Minghao says. “The Sparrow Queen will dock in less than an hour; we should be just in time to see her safely to harbor if we leave quickly.”
“I will put on my shoes!” Eunseo shouts, dashing out of the room. “I don’t need anyone to help me!”
The cry alerts Mingyu for the first time to the fact that his daughter had not been wearing shoes, despite spending all morning playing outside in the dirt, and, once he realizes that, he notices the trail of muck she has tracked inside. He notices also, with dawning horror, the dirt she has gotten all over Minghao’s very fine and fancy white shirt and pale linen pants. Her little footprints are all over his trousers, and her fingers have left dark smears up by his neckline, too high and close to the center for his jacket to cover.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” he says, mortified, staring at Minghao’s – he is staring at his chest. Mingyu looks up, at Minghao’s face, and finds that Minghao is looking down at his own chest, expression hidden by the fall of his hair.
When Minghao does meet his eyes, though, he is not at all upset or dismayed.
Minghao shrugs, standing smoothly, and laughs a little. “Children do tend to get dirty,” he says, humor in his tone. He looks down again and brushes unconvincingly at the stains on his shirt. Then, he looks up at Mingyu, his head still tilted down, the angle elongating his eyelashes. “I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a shirt, Mingyu? Since we are going to see to my investments, it would be a bit in poor form to show up like this.”
“Of course,” Mingyu says weakly. He has a sudden vision of Minghao in one of his shirts – too big on him, not by much but by enough that it hangs off of him in scandalous ways – and nothing else. He blushes at the thought, turning away to hide it and walking briskly past Minghao to the door. “I will just – I will go get you one.”
“Thank you,” Minghao calls from behind him, waiting in the study.
Mingyu moves quickly, taking the stairs two at a time when he reaches them, eager for a moment alone to collect his thoughts. When he closes his bedroom door behind him, he turns to face it and presses his forehead against the wood.
What the hell is wrong with him? He has been a widower for two years, yes, but that is no excuse to have those kinds of thoughts about his closest friend – his closest friend who is most assuredly not interested in him in that way. Mingyu has never even seen Minghao look at a man the way Mingyu looks at men; he has never seen him look at anyone that way. What chance is there that he would be interested in Mingyu, then, if none of the other young men and women who fill high society have caught his eye?
Not that it matters. Mingyu is far below Minghao’s station now, and there will never be anything between them but companionship. It is funny how, in their youth, Mingyu was the one who was so far out of Minghao’s reach, his family older and richer and more connected, his parents warning him not to grow too attached to that Xu boy because Mingyu was destined for a far greater match than that.
Oh, how things change. Hana had money when Mingyu proposed to her, had a family name older and better established than Mingyu’s own, but when her first husband, dead four months, turned out to have had mistresses she knew nothing about, when it came to light that her enjoyment of cards had nothing on his obsession with them, when all her finances came to ruin – Mingyu had married her anyway, determined to do the right thing by the woman he was convinced he could one day come to love. His parents had not been best pleased, but they had hope, then, that the money Mingyu brought into the marriage would be enough to turn the estate around, and it had … until The Heron went down, taking all their hopes with it.
Mingyu’s life has ended up in a place he never could have predicted, his father dead and mother moved away to live with her other son before Mingyu’s finances became so dire. She would help him if he asked, he is sure of it – if she can – but the shame of it stays Mingyu’s hand every time he goes to write the letter. His pride may be a luxury he cannot afford much longer, but he is not so desperate yet.
He is only very, very nearly that despairing.
He pushes away from the door, going to his wardrobe to find something for Minghao to wear. His hand goes to his lavender shirt, because Minghao looks wonderful in lavender, always has, and then he makes himself take a plain white one instead.
Mingyu cannot flirt with Minghao anymore – and that is what he has been doing, he knows, he can admit it to himself in the quiet of his empty bedroom. He has flirted, has encouraged Minghao to stay close, because the thought of losing him is too painful to bear. But now he must bear it.
Jihoon is right; there is talk, when Mingyu steps out to the parties he has grown to loath, when Minghao is attentive to him in a way he never is to anyone else, when Mingyu laughs a little too loud or allows his hand to linger a little too long at the small of Minghao’s back. There is talk, and if Mingyu does not check it back then there will be no one who will take him. He has little to offer, after all, besides his face and reputation, his family’s name, and, as the only Kim left in the county, the value of that name is tenuous at best already. Mingyu cannot afford to let his social value drop when any suitor he attracts will be taking on so much in the way of debt.
It is time for him to become serious about marrying again, now that the summer season, the courting season, has begun again in earnest, parties to dance at almost every night; he has put it off long enough. He must look to the future and the one thing he knows, as uncertain as every other aspect of his life is, is that his future is not Xu Minghao.
With resignation heavy in his chest, Mingyu turns to go back downstairs. This will be his last day with Minghao, his last chance to revel in his presence.
While he can, he will do his best to savor it.
~~~
Eunseo loves the docks, and Mingyu loves the way her face, her entire being, is lit up by the wonder of it all. He keeps a close eye on her, making sure she does not stray too far, but he is lulled by the knowledge that Minghao and Jeonghan’s attention is also on her, as well as by the warm sun on his back and the mug of cool cider in his hands.
Minghao is walking close beside him, his jacket shed some time ago beneath the heat of the sun. Mingyu’s shirt is too big on him, billowing around his sides, hanging loose at the collar, but he looks regal all the same. Minghao has always had an air of nobility about him, despite his family’s origin as traders from the north, and Mingyu doubts that anything he wore could make him look common or sloppy.
“Do you think Eunseo will like these?” Minghao asks, holding up a box of sweets for Mingyu to see. They are delicate, made mostly of crystalized fruits with chocolate in creamy brown and white laced across them in stunningly intricate patterns. They look delicious – and expensive.
“You don’t have to spoil her so,” Mingyu tells him. “You give her enough treats.”
“I like to spoil her,” Minghao protests. “I like to spoil you both, when you let me, and the pleasure is made all the sweeter for how rarely you allow it.”
Mingyu has no response to that, heat rising in his face at Minghao’s stare, so he looks away. No sooner has he done so than Minghao’s hand is in front of him, a chocolate held carefully between his fingers.
“Here,” Minghao says, “you should try one before Eunseo does, to make certain it’s appropriate for her.”
Mingyu looks over at him, at the length of his arm as he offers the sweet to Mingyu, at the tension in his shoulders, at the line of his mouth. The weight of the moment is abruptly very heavy, dragging Mingyu’s eyelids down, his focus on Minghao and Minghao alone. Minghao’s hand is steady, but his eyes are –
It is that expression again, the one that makes Mingyu do ridiculous things.
But this time, he checks himself.
“Minghao,” he says, quietly, realizing that they have stopped walking. They are standing very close, the passing crowd fencing them in, isolating them in this moment together. He feels warm, warmer than the day around him, as though Minghao’s proximity is a summer day unto itself, building a home in Mingyu’s veins.
“Strawberries are your favorites, aren’t they?” Minghao asks, his voice pitched low as well, something hopeful in it.
They are. Mingyu told Minghao that when they were six years old, and Minghao has brought him strawberries, in one form or another, at least once a summer ever since. That is why they are still his favorite – because they make him think of Minghao, of innocently stained shirts and giggling beneath the spreading oak, fists full of ripe red fruit.
They make Mingyu think of chances lost and secrets kept years after they ceased to matter, of Minghao’s laughter when they were caught in the rain in their best clothes and scolded for an hour over it, of Minghao’s hand warm in his as they ducked through the crowd at their first ball, slightly drunk on the excitement of it all and on, well, the alcohol. Strawberries make Mingyu think of the stream behind his childhood home, of his favorite book, of the dog he loved when he was ten, of every good thing he has ever known, because Minghao has been there for all of it.
When Eunseo was born, Minghao brought him a strawberry plant and helped him fix it in the earth outside her nursery, so that she could grow up eating its fruit like they did, and when they were done Minghao told him, with tears in his eyes, how happy he was that Mingyu had found the one person he would love for all his life, so stupidly unaware that, no matter how or how much Mingyu loved Hana, he had loved Minghao first, and day by day he was learning that maybe a heart could have more than one home but Minghao will always be the place Mingyu wants to come back to.
Strawberries are Mingyu’s favorite, yes, but not because of any tangible detail about them, not for their sweetness or their vibrant color; simply and purely and devastatingly, it is because of Minghao. It has always been because of Minghao.
Minghao is watching him, everything about him careful, from the wariness in his eyes to the distance he is holding the strawberry at, close enough for Mingyu to lean forward and take but far enough not to force it. Minghao has never, in all Mingyu’s life, been anything but careful, respectful, patient. Mingyu is the reckless one.
He proves it once again.
Slowly, he opens his mouth, still holding Minghao’s stare, drinking in the way Minghao’s eyes widen and his breath hitches, before a particular kind of warmth steals through his gaze. When he brings the candy to Mingyu’s lips, Mingyu imprints on his memory the barest touch of Minghao’s fingertips against them. Then, Minghao is drawing back, and the fruit is sweet on Mingyu’s tongue – almost too sweet, too heady, too much.
And yet not nearly enough.
The fruit does nothing to assuage the want in Mingyu’s heart, makes it worse probably, and Mingyu curses himself for a fool as Minghao’s eyes leave him, the sun beating down on them both, raising a flush on Minghao’s ears and neck. He is so beautiful, and Mingyu will never be rid of the longing he feels.
Ahead of them, her cheeks rosy with exercise and excitement, Eunseo is giggling atop Jeonghan’s shoulders, Minghao’s accountant a natural with children, it seems. Mingyu focuses on that, rather than on the cavern in his own chest. He will have time to contemplate it later.
“Do you think Eunseo would like to go up on one of the ships?” Minghao asks. His voice is very light, pleased with something, and when Mingyu looks at him, his eyes are alight. It is very distracting.
“Um, yes, probably. She would like that a lot, I think,” Mingyu says, nodding dumbly, trying not to stare too obviously at Minghao’s profile when he turns his head.
Minghao calls out to Jeonghan, who turns smartly and makes for the Red Bird, the largest of Minghao’s vessels. His hair is a bit disheveled from being out in the sun and running his hand through it over and over, falling into his eyes in a manner that is all too charming, a rare glimpse at a less composed version of Minghao, the version of him that Mingyu knows and loves best.
Mingyu walks in step with Minghao, following Jeonghan and Eunseo, but stops when he sees the figures clustered in the mouth of an alleyway, watching him.
His breath catches, nerves seizing him, and Minghao stops as well, his hand going to his side where Mingyu knows he keeps a knife concealed, his eyes scanning the street for whatever has disturbed Mingyu.
“What?” he asks, stepping closer, their shoulders brushing.
Mingyu shakes his head. “I just realized I have some business to which I must attend – now. You will keep Eunseo occupied until I return?” He tries to make his voice calm and unworried, not wanting to spoil the day or lead Minghao to believe that anything is wrong.
“Jeonghan has her,” Minghao says, his tone stiff but painted with a veneer of forced lightness, following Mingyu’s lead, his hand falling once again but his eyes remaining sharp. “Perhaps I can be of assistance.”
Mingyu would rather die than have to beg his creditors in front of Minghao. He shakes his head.
“No, it is a private matter.” He sees Minghao’s expression twitch and fall, then right itself, from the corner of his eye, his attention still largely on the men waiting for him in the alley.
“As you wish,” Minghao says, his voice still unhappy but not alarmed, trusting Mingyu to tell him if anything is truly amiss.
Mingyu hopes that his trust is well-placed; he does not want this interaction to go poorly, but he is also aware that the people he and Hana borrowed from so that they could invest are far from society’s finest and most upstanding individuals.
Mingyu waves Minghao on, and Minghao goes with clear reluctance, the crowd soon swallowing him up, leaving Mingyu free to walk over to where his creditors are waiting for him.
“You got our letter,” Haeseong says, no question in the words. Kyuchul and Ilsung stand behind him, both with arms crossed to further emphasize their physical bulk. The implied threat does not go unnoticed.
“I did,” Mingyu says, nerves building, well aware of the danger of his position. “And I will get the money to you, I just need a little more time.” If he has to, he will write to his mother, much as he does not want to, but it will take weeks for the letter to reach her, and weeks longer for her reply – with or without assistance – to come.
“We have been more than generous,” Haeseong says. “Sir.” He spits the word like it disgusts him. “We told you that you had two weeks to produce what you owe. That was two weeks ago.”
“You said three,” Mingyu counters, feeling a bit desperate, anxiety rising, as the other two circle behind him, boxing him into the alleyway. “You said three, Haeseong, I have a week left!”
“I don’t think I did,” Haeseong says, drawing a knife from his belt. Mingyu’s eyes go wide, tracking it as Haeseong lifts it to eye level, staring at Mingyu from behind it.
Mingyu startles as harsh hands grab him, trying to jerk away reflexively, but there is no give in their hold.
“Wait,” he chokes out, fear making it difficult to speak as Haeseong advances on him. “Wait, no, wait, I – wait! Wait!”
“Stop now or all three of you will have need of a surgeon,” Minghao’s voice suddenly bites out, sounding far angrier than Mingyu has ever heard him. “Not that they will be able to save you.”
Mingyu angles his head back, trying to catch sight of Minghao, but one of Haeseong’s thugs is in his way. Whatever expression Minghao is making, it must be intimidating, because Haeseong hesitates, his knife-hand falling – just an inch or two, but enough to telegraph his uncertainty.
“You have ten seconds to leave my sight, or I will begin taking pieces out of you,” Minghao commands coldly. “Ten. Nine.”
“You think you scare me?” Haeseong says, finding his courage somewhere and sneering at Minghao. He lifts his knife again, and, in the next moment, he is screaming, his wrist bleeding crimson all over the wall he has been thrown into, knife clattering to the ground.
Minghao is in front of Mingyu now, his own blade drawn, and as he whips around to glare at the two men holding Mingyu in place, both of them release him and step back, freeing Mingyu to stumble forward and catch himself on the wall beside Minghao, bracing himself above where Haeseong is now huddled on the ground.
Mingyu looks down, at Haeseong’s ruined wrist, and feels his stomach churn at the amount of blood leaving him. Haeseong looks up, meeting his eyes for only a moment, and then runs – he throws himself to the other side of the alley, away from Mingyu, with wide eyes, and stumbles towards the far end, his steps uneven but still quick, fear driving him to speed.
“Are you alright? Mingyu? Are you hurt?” Minghao asks, questions coming rapid fire, his hand gentle on Mingyu’s back. With his other hand he reaches up and brushes his fingers against Mingyu’s cheek, and that, more than anything, breaks through the shock Mingyu feels and makes him look up.
Minghao looks … as he always does. There is no violence in him now, no anger or fury, just the concern Mingyu is used to seeing, his knife already gone and nothing on his face but gentle worry.
His sleeve, when Mingyu’s eyes trace down from his hand, is speckled with red, but there is no other sign on him of what transpired – what he just did.
“Your shirt,” Mingyu says, feeling slow and dazed.
Minghao looks down. “I will replace it,” he says, reminding Mingyu that that is his own shirt, actually, not Minghao’s, and somehow that wakes him up, makes the whole situation snap into sharp focus, because this is Mingyu’s mess, his debts, his inability to pay them, his shirt, and Minghao has no place in any of it.
Mingyu shoves Minghao away, angry, suddenly, coming down off of the high of anxiety and fear. Minghao stumbles back, surprised, and stares at him.
“That was not your place,” Mingyu snarls, shoving him again. Minghao lets him, and that only drives Mingyu’s anger further. How dare Minghao rescue him, as though he is helpless, and then stand here and allow Mingyu to scold him like an unruly child? How dare Minghao get involved in Mingyu’s affairs at all? How dare Minghao – how dare he – how –
Mingyu does not even know what he is angry about, and he can feel the realization sapping the heat from him, but he doesn’t want it to. He wants to be angry. He wants to be furious, because otherwise he will be terrified and he is so, so sick of being afraid.
“Get the fuck away from me,” Mingyu spits, and he pushes him again, Minghao’s back hitting the side of the alley, but Minghao still does not fight him. “Who do you think you are to get involved in my affairs?” Mingyu demands, wanting a response, needing some kind of fury from Minghao too, some sign that he is not the only one who is angry and afraid and unhappy.
But Minghao just stands there, watching Mingyu fume, watching him rage ineffectually, his expression calm and understanding, not even the slightest sliver of ill will written on him anywhere.
Mingyu wants to hit him.
“You’ll regret it,” Minghao says, finally speaking, his voice bringing Mingyu up short.
Mingyu stares at him, breathing heavily and only noticing it now, his chest heaving. Minghao shakes his head, but otherwise does not move.
“You don’t mean to lash out at me,” Minghao says, softly and surely. “You’re shaken; you are allowed to be shaken after being threatened like that. I’m shaken too.”
He lifts one hand, then, slowly, to hang in the air between them. In the light that falls between them, slanting into the space allowed by the shadows of the buildings at both their backs, Minghao’s hand shakes with the slightest of tremors. When Mingyu looks up, meets his eyes, Minghao grins, self-deprecating but warm.
“I’ve never threatened anyone before,” he says simply. “I actually never thought I would have to.”
He didn’t, though – he chose to get involved to protect Mingyu. Mingyu feels that horrible anger-fear-wanting – and of course it comes back to wanting, with Minghao, it always does – churn inside him again, at the reminder.
“It isn’t your place,” Mingyu says, the words half-choked. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
“I know you don’t carry a weapon, Mingyu, and I wasn’t about to let them hurt you,” Minghao says, as though it really is that uncomplicated. “And –” he hesitates, but only for a second, and then his voice is bolder, his gaze firmer as he looks evenly at Mingyu, “it could be my place … if you wanted it to be.”
Mingyu is nothing but wanting.
But he will not allow Minghao to sacrifice this – not for him, not when Mingyu knows he could never offer Minghao enough, never be enough, never make Minghao happy the way Mingyu is desperate for him to be. The specter of Minghao’s future happiness is the only thing that stays Mingyu’s tongue, either from lashing out or, more unforgivable, from accepting the offer he thinks Minghao might be making.
“They are not your debts to pay,” Mingyu says, heavily, exhaustedly, the fight bleeding out of him quickly now that he makes no move to stop it. Minghao opens his mouth – to protest, to make his intentions more clear – but Mingyu does not let him speak. “I want to see my daughter,” he says, turning to the mouth of the alley.
Minghao says nothing. He pushes away from the wall in silence and, maintaining that silence, comes to stand at Mingyu’s side, keeping pace with him when he leaves the alley with shuffling steps.
Mingyu knows that Minghao is staying close deliberately, likely afraid to stray too far lest Mingyu fall over from lingering shock, but he is too tired to care. He is too exhausted to deny himself the comfort of the way Minghao’s arm brushes against his own every few steps, the way Minghao’s fingers skate across the back of his hand.
Tomorrow, Mingyu will care about propriety, about his reputation, about drawing clearer boundaries with Minghao so that he does not slip and ask accidentally for what he knows Minghao cannot afford to give and would anyway. Tomorrow, he will do that; he has denied himself enough for today.
For today and today only, when Minghao’s hand touches his own yet again, the pressure of it barely there, an invitation with no expectation, Mingyu allows himself to touch back, to take it, to hold it –
To pretend.