Archive of Our Own

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“Is that all? Is that… really all of it?” 

Jisung gawks, like he’s unable to believe that they really just loaded the last of Minho’s things into the back of the latter’s old, beat up Jeep. 

“Four years of your life in University, and that's it?” Jisung repeats as he turns to face Minho, awe still evident on his features, and all Minho can do is snort as he holds back a giggle. Jisung is being ridiculous and cute at the same time, which, after two years of friendship, he should really be used to because that’s just Jisung’s Brand.

“You're only saying that because you barely did any heavy lifting,” Changbin grunts as he leans against the vehicle, arms crossed over his chest while he gives Jisung an appraising look.

“Hey—I helped!” Jisung counters. “I carried a whole bunch of luggage.”

“You helped carry your own things,” Changbin points out, and Minho laughs because Jisung only huffs, unable to deny the accusation.

“At least I didn't make you move my stuff!” He argues, but Changbin is just shaking his head.

“Yeah, well, you're not the one moving back home so I don't know why you even have all of that luggage!” Changbin clicks his tongue and jerks his thumb towards the piled-on baggage at the back of Minho's Jeep.

“I have one suitcase,” Jisung points out. “A duffel, and one backpack.” He pauses and both Changbin and Minho have to give him pointed looks before he concedes, “Okay, and two boxes of miscellaneous items that I’m actually getting rid of, but—that's not a lot!”

“And yet, Minho has roughly the same amount of things with him,” Changbin says as he pushes the back door of Minho’s Jeep shut.

“That's my point!”

To be fair, Minho really doesn't have a lot of personal belongings accumulated throughout the years. He’s always been pretty careful about what to buy and keep, and every year when he goes back home for his break he never hesitates to discard the things he doesn't see much future use for – probably because he's always known not to set roots in Washington as he was always headed back home after graduation. That has been the assumed plan for as long as he can remember anyway, for him to finish any useful undergraduate pre-law, so he can work at his father's small, humble practise while attending a law school that's closer to home. He never really thought to break through his parents’ assumptions, considering he owes them his life, and all the luxuries and privileges that have come with it.

Minho shrugs, knowing that Jisung is just being melodramatic as he tends to be, and then he laughs as he reaches over, playfully tickling the underside of Jisung's chin until the latter is forced to set his jaw.

“Stop gaping,” he instructs good-naturedly. “Keeping your mouth open like that is just inviting bugs to settle down in your throat. Besides, not everyone is a hoarder like you.”

“Hey! I’m not a hoarder!” Jisung argues with a huff; Minho snorts, while Changbin straight up laughs, because while one could argue that ‘hoarder’ is too dire a term, Jisung truly does have a penchant for not throwing away things. 

Jisung, together with Felix, his roommate in the freshman dorms, had moved in with Minho and Changbin a year ago, after their last housemate had vacated the biggest room in the apartment after he graduated. Chris had agonised over the pros and cons of leaving, but ultimately he moved out of state because of a job offer. Minho still remembers helping the two of them move in, and gawking at the fact that Jisung still had with him old test papers and old photocopied notes dating as far back as his first term in university. Apparently Jisung keeps everything from notes passed around in class to freshman orientation pamphlets.

“We just asked a hoarder to move in with us,” Minho had joked with Changbin, and Jisung had gotten all uppity about it.

“I’m a nostalgic person,” he had argued then, using the exact same tone he’s using now. 

“Sure, if you say so,” Changbin snickers, and Minho laughs. “If we're done here though,” he pauses and gestures back to their apartment, “I’m going back inside for a bit more shut-eye.”

Minho nods and the two of them exchange a look, before the corner of Changbin's lips curl into a smirk.

“You two drive safe, yeah?” He says, patting Minho on the shoulder before the two of them exchange a rare, quick hug. “And don't be a stranger, Minho.”

“Oh, I don't know, I was planning on changing my name and going into hiding starting next month,” he answers impassively, but Changbin, used to him, just snorts and rolls his eyes.

Jisung, meanwhile, grins and holds his arms out. “Gimme a hug too, Binnie!” He announces only to be humorously waved off by Changbin.

“I’m gonna see you again as soon as next term starts, so you don't get one.”

“Come on!” Jisung whines, bouncing over and tightly wrapping his arms around a guarded Changbin on purpose. “I’ll keep Minho safe, don't worry!”

Minho laughs at their antics, doubling over when Changbin actually shoves Jisung off him after the latter makes a show out of giving him a loud, almost slobbery kiss on the cheek. “Just go, you two, sheesh!” 

It’s at this point that Minho makes his way towards the driver's side of the vehicle, and flashes Jisung a cheeky grin before he sticks his key to unlock the door – the automatic locks stopped working a year and a half ago and Minho has never felt motivated enough to get them fixed.

“We’ll call you on the road,” Minho tells him, rolling his window down after he closes the door. “And don’t forget to feed Popcorn,” he adds, referring to the white feline fluffball that he and Jisung had sort of adopted together almost a year ago. The name comes from the fact that the cat had originally been a part of an abandoned litter they found in a box near a movie theater, so the first thing out of Jisung’s mouth when Minho had asked him for a name was exactly what they ate at the movies.

The reminder is at least the fifth one he’s made in the last hour alone, but he mentally reasons that he can’t help himself – the cat is supposed to be mainly be under Jisung’s sole care now, but Changbin is the only one staying at their shared apartment throughout the entire summer break, and Minho knows that he isn’t the most mindful person when it comes to pets.

“Yes, don’t worry, Popcorn’s gonna like me best come fall, and Jisung is gonna call you to cry about it,” Changbin jokes, waving his hand dismissively. 

“Hey!” Jisung scoffs. “Take that back!” 

Changbin just shakes his head, laughing as he crosses his arms.

“Whatever,” Jisung huffs, shifting his weight from one foot to the other until Minho unlocks the passenger door from inside and he's free to climb into the seat. “I trust our cat, so—bye, 'Bin!” Jisung hollers, as both he and Minho strap themselves into their seats. “Don't be too lonely without us!”

“I welcome the peace and quiet!” Changbin shoots back, still waving.

And then Minho is turning the key in the ignition, and maneuvering the car out of its parking space.

Soon, Changbin is just a speck in the rearview mirror, and when Minho turns a street corner, he isn't even that at all.

“Pacific Coast, here we come!” Jisung announces with glee, and it's funny because they still have at least forty minutes worth of driving left to do before they actually exit into the highway.

The  road trip was actually Jisung’s brainchild.

“Minho, let's go home together,” he had said to Minho, the night when he'd finished the last of his finals. He was a little drunk because he'd attended an End of Finals party somewhere in Greek row with some friends. Minho was at the same party – because they always attend the same parties – but he was a little less drunk because four years of college had taught him how to pace himself, if not raise his alcohol tolerance – and so he was still sober enough to help keep Jisung upright while they waited for Changbin to pick them up.

He was in the middle of reading Changbin’s text – ‘im in the middle of a fucking date, bro. give me half an hr u’re lucky it’s a first date’ – when Jisung had brought it up. Minho had been taken aback; his mind was wired and set to make fun of Changbin’s sex life, and he had assumed Jisung, like he always does, would be on the same wavelength.

“Isn't that exactly what we're about to do?” Minho asked. “We just gotta wait for Changbin because neither of us should drive right now.”

“Come on Minho,” he slurred in response, all smiley and giddy as he draped himself against the older. “What I mean is—I’ve always wanted to go on a road trip with you,” he said, clearly not realising in the moment how oddly specific he's being. “And next year you won't be here anymore! I’m going to miss you soooo much, Minho—”

“Your parents literally live two blocks away from mine, Jisung,” Minho pointed out. “It's not like we're never going to see each other again.” Despite thinking that Jisung is simply making drunken, incoherent suggestions, Minho can’t help but smile in amusement anyway.

“It’s not the same,” Jisung whined; and it really wasn't, because while moving back home had always been Minho’s plan, Jisung had always been vocal about wanting to make his way to the East coast after he graduates. New York, maybe, hopefully, he’d always said. “You’re not going to be in school next year,” Jisung continued. “We're not going to see each other everyday anymore.”

The rest of the night was quite hazy in Minho’s memory – Jisung is a pretty clingy drunk, so he’s pretty sure that the younger had spent the next half hour clinging to him even as they sat together by the gutter, sharing a lonely cigarette stick, until Changbin arrived, and Minho had shoved the younger into the backseat of Changbin’s trusty Corolla. 

He had not expected to hear anything about the proposed road trip again, but the idea apparently remained, and Jisung had kept pushing for it, repeatedly extolling the virtues of driving home together versus a boring, plane ride home, until Minho finally caved. He even went as far as to plan a full Saturday movie marathon where he persistently showed Minho a collection of road trip films, from Road Trip (2000) (which, to be fair, dumb as it was, earned some laughs from him), to Thelma & Louise (1991) (“Not sure that’s the kind of ending either of us should be vying for,” Minho pointed out), to Crossroads (2002) (“You can’t go wrong wth Britney Spears,” Jisung jibed, to which Minho could only laugh, even as he sat still for an entire hour and half for the movie anyway).

Jisung would probably swear up and down that it was the movie marathon that convinced him, but the truth is that Minho was always set to say yes, anyway – he tries not to let Jisung know this, but the truth is that he never really could deny the younger anything.

“Let’s get coffee,” Jisung suggests now, as he and Minho make their way through downtown. “Let's get breakfast sandwiches, actually.”

Minho glances at him. “Why didn't you have coffee back at the apartment?”

“We only had instant,” Jisung answers, wrinkling his nose. “It's not like you had any, either.”

Minho laughs, because he's right; and then he reaches over and playfully ruffles the younger’s hair.

“Oi, I’m no kid!” Jisung grunts, quickly leaning away and patting his hair down.

“Sometimes you act like one,” Minho readily throws back at him, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, even while managing not to take his eyes off the road for a second.

“Excuse you, you aren't much more of an adult than me,” Jisung keeps arguing – very childishly, which completely contradicts the point he's trying to make, but Minho doesn’t flinch because he knows this is just Jisung being Jisung – in other words, he simply can't help himself.

“A degree certificate in Business Economics would beg to differ,” Minho calmly points out, 

“Graduation doesn't mean shit!” Jisung pointlessly keeps pressing the matter, fingers drumming against his thighs as he flashes Minho a defiant grin.

“Well, it probably doesn't if you're gonna graduate with a creative writing degree,” Minho comments, clicking his tongue. He's teasing – his tone is deadpan, but only because he's parroting what his own parents say about any liberal arts degree.

Minho isn't really disparaging Jisung's choice of degree major, and he should know it because Jisung knows him pretty well, but he plays along with a scowl anyway. “You wish you got a degree in creative writing,” he shoots back, only to huff petulantly when all he gets from Minho is humming, accompanied by a small, wistful smile. Minho doesn't like writing, so it isn't like he's actually jealous of Jisung’s choice of major, but Minho also wishes he could have studied something that he was actually interested in. Jisung knows this, because Minho told him, once. Minho tells him almost everything, to be frank, but he doesn't know if the younger realises this.

“Why would I wish that?” Minho finally answers, tone still steady and seemingly unaffected. “I get to work for my Dad – everybody's dream job, am I right?” He lets out a dry chuckle, and Jisung only sighs, reticent.

Having finally finished his four-year tenure in university, Minho is all set to move back home. Originally, his parents had arranged for him to get a flight back home, but in a moment of gracious generosity from them, they had agreed to let him drive back home – after staying an extra week in Washington, even after his commencement ceremony.

Jisung is looking at him with wide, concerned eyes, which makes Minho feel a little uncomfortable. He doesn't like worrying people, and he especially doesn't like worrying Jisung. He reckons that maybe he should stop with dry, self-deprecating humor if he wants to prevent Jisung from casting any more concerned glances his way, but he really can't help it sometimes.

“We just need to make a quick stop at the Salvation Army drop-off center downtown,” Minho says, an obvious attempt at steering the conversation away as they drive past an intersection right before the green light switches to yellow. “And then we'll go and get breakfast.”

%

Jisung still remembers the first time he had laid eyes on Minho – he supposes that most people would, since Minho has the type of face that regularly earns double takes.

For Jisung, it was the first day of his freshman year in high school. He had lived in the same school district all his life, so even most of the upperclassmen were familiar faces; that was probably another reason why Minho, who was standing by the lockers with a few friends, stood out even more. 

“Who was that?” He asked his friend, Seoyeon, who had been walking with him down the halls.

Seoyeon just looked at him with an incredulous expression, before shrugging her shoulders. “Some senior? Junior?” She laughed. “How the hell should I know?!”

That was pretty much the extent of Jisung’s interest in Minho back in high school. He did soon learn his name at least, and the fact that he was a junior, two years ahead of Jisung, but that was unsurprising given that Minho hung out with the school's popular crowd, and as it turns out everyone pretty much knew him even though he was (apparently) the new kid in town (having moved in from a neighboring district) just the year before.

Their paths never really crossed much over the next two years of high school; occasionally they would run across each other in school, and one time they'd even sat across each other in the library for an entire hour – but they never had reason to talk, so they didn't.

And then Minho graduated two years later, and that was that.

At least until Jisung graduated too, because during his third week at university, while he was in the middle of the Student Union with his Sociology 101 classmate (and at the time, potential friend) Changbin discussing assigned pair work, Minho just suddenly sat down in the seat across him and started picking at his order of french fries.

Needless to say, Jisung had been momentarily shocked into silence, clueless as to why a senior from his high school whom he’d never really spoken to before, was suddenly eating his food – he hadn’t even thought that Minho knew his name.

But then,

“Minho, that’s not mine,” Changbin grunted, looking weary, as if Minho wordlessly picking at his food was a regular occurrence. Minho, wide-eyed, immediately dropped the piece of fry he’d just picked up, and then he burst into laughter.

“Sorry,” Minho apologised, eyes unfairly sparkling even while he directed the apology towards Jisung. “I’m—”

“Minho Lee,” Jisung had finished his sentence without thinking, surprising both Changbin and Minho in the process.

“How—?” Changbin asked, brow furrowed in curiosity.

To his credit, it took Minho only a few seconds before realisation dawned on him. “You went to my high school,” he stated matter-of-factly, his lips quirking at the corners in amusement – a smile that Jisung (even though he obviously hadn't known at the time) would eventually become very well acquainted with. “Sorry,” Minho continued, “I don't think I know your name—but it's always nice to see familiar faces.”

“Jisung Han,” he introduced himself. “I went by Peter in high school though.”

He had no idea why he felt the need to clarify that when Minho just admitted to having no idea what his name was; it just gave Changbin ammo against him, because he'd gawked at Jisung, obviously trying to hold back laughter.

“Peter?!” Changbin snorted. “So you're Peter Han, from Neverland, where you never grow old?”

“Shut up,” Jisung grumbled; constant comparisons to the fictional character who never grew (insert teasing pause here, much to Jisung's chagrin) up was why he decided to forego his Western name once he set foot on college. “Everyone calls me Jisung now,” he insisted, while thinking that Changbin really shouldn't be one to say anything about growing in general.

“If he's Peter, then you can be a Lost Boy,” Minho had teased while he threw a conspiratorial wink at Jisung's way. “It fits.”

The comment had Changbin groaning, but it made Jisung laugh, which prompted him to gratefully push his basket of fries towards Minho. “You're free to have more, by the way.”

“Don't mind if I do,” Minho answered readily, right before he picked out the exact same fry he'd let go just a minute earlier. “To the start of great new friendships,” he said, grinning at Jisung and saluting him with a french fry.

Jisung laughed, somehow not doubting Minho’s words, even while Changbin groaned and shook his head with obvious exasperation.

“Why do I feel like I’m going to spend the rest of my life regretting this particular afternoon?” He sighed, helping himself to Jisung's fries as well.

Two years later, and Minho's words have easily been proven correct – and Changbin would argue that so has his.

“Are we there yet?” Jisung asks, the fifth time in the last hour. He knows they aren't there yet, but he likes repeatedly asking anyway – a deliberate go at annoying Minho who, in turn, is pretty much an expert at pretending to ignore Jisung whenever he's in this kind of mood.

Seungmin always says it's why the two of them get along so well – because they're the only ones who know how to tolerate each other's penchants for ‘deliberately acting like little shitwads.’ Seungmin's words, not his.

“You have eyes, check your surroundings,” Minho tells him.

Jisung hums, because he knows exactly how far away they are from the first stop of their trip – they literally just passed a road sign informing them of the exact number of miles left to their destination just three minutes ago, when they'd exited the highway.

“I’m hungry,” Jisung shares next, to which Minho actually reacts with a snort.

“You just ate a breakfast sandwich and two entire donuts,” he points out.

“That was over—” Jisung pauses so he can quickly check his watch for the time, “—three hours ago!” It has been almost four hours since they said goodbye to Changbin, and to be frank, Jisung was starting to get antsy. He always gets like this whenever he has to sit still for too long, which probably should have been part of their consideration when they'd decided on this trip.

“Open the dashboard,” Minho barks at him, not taking his eyes off the road, or his hands off the wheel; Jisung follows instructions, and his eyes widen when he sees a variety of their mutually favorite Korean snacks that they usually get whenever they actually feel like making the trip to the Korean mart closest to their apartment – which, unfortunately, is still a twenty minute drive away.

“When did you go to Maru Mart?” Jisung asks, rummaging through the snack pile and picking out a bag of spicy shrimp chips.

“The other day,” Minho answers. “When you and Felix met up with a few of your old dorm buddies—also, not that one, Ji. That’s going to ruin your appetite, and we're having lunch as soon as we get there.”

Jisung sighs, and considers Minho’s words; the chips are tempting but he knows that the older is right, so he listens and swaps the chips for one individually wrapped custard cake. The little snack calms him considerably, and he supposes that's why Minho had stocked up on them to begin with. The thought makes him smile – Minho knows him pretty well like that.

It doesn't take another half hour before they're pulling up in the parking lot of a beach side hotel somewhere in northern Oregon.

“Okay now you can ask,” Minho tells him, grinning sideways as he turns the engine off.

Jisung laughs, fingers already on the buckle of his seatbelt. “So— are we there yet?”

Minho starts with a soft giggle that grows into louder, boisterous laughter – Jisung knows that he isn’t even being that funny, but his smile gets bigger anyway, because he always likes when he manages to make Minho laugh freely like that.

“Come on, let’s go,” Minho says, chuckling still, and flicking Jisung’s forehead before he unbuckles himself from the driver’s seat and he pushes the door open.

“Ow!” Jisung reacts, pouting, even though he barely felt anything from the flick.

They only unload their overnight bags, and it doesn’t take long for them to check-in and get a room with two twin beds. The room smells somewhat funky, but Jisung supposes that’s fine for the cheap price they’re paying – it’s not as if they’re planning on spending much time inside anyway; the weather is nice – perfect for a day out at the beach, and both of them agreed to leave early the next morning because they had quite a long drive ahead of them before they make their next stop.

“Let’s eat at that place,” Jisung suggests.

“What place?”

“That seafood place we ate at during last year’s spring break,” Jisung says, snickering as he conjures up memories from that time. The entirety of their friend group had gone to the same beach resort town two years in a row for spring break – it was for this reason that Minho almost vetoed it as one of their stops, but Jisung convinced him otherwise. “You know—the place that had the big crabs? The one where Hyunjin discovered that he’s actually allergic to mussels—” 

The way that Minho holds back a snort doesn’t go amiss for Jisung, especially since Minho fails completely at it anyway, and ends up sputtering laughter. 

“Remember how blotchy Hyunjin got…” Jisung reminisces, chortling; it actually wasn’t funny when it was happening, but it also happened an entire year and a half ago, and Hyunjin has been living fine and healthy since then, so Jisung supposes it’s free real estate for humor at this point.

“I thought you and Hyunjin were finally done being complete assholes to each other,” Minho retorts.

Jisung hums; Minho had been the one to bring Hyunjin into their then burgeoning friend group. When he and Jisung were freshmen, Hyunjin worked part-time with Minho at a fancy restaurant downtown, where both of them waited on tables four times a week.

A month after integrating into their group – which then had only consisted of Minho, Changbin, their housemate Chris, Jisung and his dorm roommate Felix – Hyunjin had introduced them all to his roommate, Seungmin, just as he and Minho began a relationship that lasted around half a year.

He’s a nice guy – Jisung knows as much now, and he figures that Hyunjin has always been a nice guy, but something about those early days just had them constantly at odds.

Minho is right, though. He and Hyunjin had made peace long ago – but that didn't mean Jisung stopped taking shots at him every so often. He reckons that at least now he does it with genuine fondness. He takes shots at all his friends anyway, even Felix, with whom he has always gotten along with, and is probably his best, closest friend within the group, barring Minho.

“I’m not being an asshole!” Jisung insists, “I’m taking a stroll down memory lane!”

Minho snorts, and Jisung grins proudly at his own ridiculous logic.

“We've been on this trip for not even a day and you're already missing all our friends, is what I’m hearing here,” Minho teases.

“Hard not to when you're all I have for company,” Jisung naturally shoots back.

Minho scoffs and deliberately checks his hip against Jisung's, causing the latter to almost topple over the edge of the sidewalk they'd been walking down along.

“Hey!” Jisung fortunately catches his balance at the last second by flapping his arms around; unfortunately for him, the image must be quite a funny one because it only serves to set off Minho's laugh once more.

“I feel hurt Jisung—a full day hasn't even passed yet, and you're already missing everyone else when I’m right here!” Minho clicks his tongue and dramatically clutches at his chest. It’s all for show because Minho's eyes have a sly glint to them, and even though Jisung is on the edge of laughter himself, he manages to simply roll his eyes and childishly stick his tongue out at the older.

The truth is that there's no one else he'd rather be on this trip with other than Minho – it's not as if he'd gone around to everyone in their friend group, asking each of them to go on a road trip with him. Granted, they are the only ones who hail from the exact same corner of California, but there's more to it than simple geography. Things just come so natural with Minho, and even though both of them always ignore Seungmin whenever he tells them off about it, Jisung supposes that there's a reason why Seungmin has pointed out more than once that they're the only two people he knows who can make a larger crowd feel so alienated.

“You know they really did have humongous crabs there… at a decent price…” Minho considers out loud, steering the conversation back on the topic of lunch, which really just means he's agreeing but pretending not to, because he wants to be annoying and give Jisung a hard time.

“Great!” Jisung chirps happily, checking the map drawn on the town brochure he'd picked up earlier at the motel’s front desk. “I’m starving.”

“I swear, you have worms,” Minho comments, laughing as he reaches over to rub Jisung’s stomach.

“Uh huh—” Jisung laughs, flinching and swatting Minho’s hand. “And they're demanding to be fed, stat!”

%

They have a very long, very filling lunch even though they don't even make it to the restaurant they originally had in mind. Instead, they stumble upon a newly opened seafood restaurant right by the beach promenade, just ten minutes down from where they're staying. The place was offering half-off everything on the menu to celebrate their opening, which in turn had Jisung insisting on ordering everything he laid his eyes on.

“I take back what I said,” Minho had told him. “You don't have worms, you have a fucking anaconda living in your tummy.” He’d huffed in disbelief, but he didn't really stop Jisung either, even though he probably really should have, because despite his words, he knew well enough that the younger's eyes were capable of taking in a whole lot more than his stomach actually can.

Predictably, Jisung had needed help finishing all the food, and now Minho feels like he's really going to burst at the seams from being so stuffed.

The two of them have resorted to leisurely strolling along the promenade in an attempt to help their respective digestive tracts do their job more efficiently. It isn't so bad – in fact, it's even kind of nice because it's past 3 in the afternoon, the sun is downcasting, and Minho absolutely appreciates the feeling of the sea breeze gently whipping across his face.

“I can't remember the last time I felt this full,” Minho comments, picking his speed up when he spots a newly vacated bench; he elbows Jisung before completely breaking into a jog so he can claim the seats before anyone else can.

“There's one time that clearly comes to mind for me,” Jisung volunteers, grunting softly and rubbing his stomach when he lowers himself to sit next to Minho. “Remember when you cooked for my birthday last year—?”

“More like I cooked for Felix's birthday,” Minho automatically interjects. No one ever questions when any of them do nice things for Felix, because he's Felix and he gives off a kind of vibe that makes everyone want to do nice things for him. Jisung had whined about this in petty envy before, to Minho, which of course has Minho teasingly alluding to it all the time since.

“Sure,” Jisung huffs. “We should just say you cooked for Seungmin's birthday, then.”

“Just get to your point, Han.”

Technically, Minho had cooked up a feast for all three of them. It had been Jisung and Felix's combined idea for all of them to celebrate together – or rather, it had been Jisung’s idea, which he'd gotten Felix involved in because he knew that Seungmin (and the rest of their friends) would be more open to involvement if Felix was the one selling the idea.

Jisung's plan was to have a two-part birthday special, a dinner party for only their immediate group of friends, followed by a house party with an open invitation. Seungmin, predictably, wasn’t too keen on the second part of the plan, but (also predictably) he had caved under the mercy of Felix's pleading, puppy dog eyes. Changbin, on the other hand, had also been hesitant about it, not really wanting to clean up two nights in a row, but Jisung managed to convince him by promising bathroom clean-up duty for two months.

Minho, somehow, got roped into being in charge of the dinner party without even getting anything promised in return.

“Come on, Minho, you enjoy tinkering in the kitchen,” Jisung had pointed out, and it was true, because Minho was the only one who actually used their kitchen to cook. It was different when Chris was still living with him and Changbin, but after he left and Felix and Jisung moved in, pizza and Chinese take-out became more of a norm around the house, unless Minho had time to make a meal from scratch – which he seldom did, considering he was in his last year of university.

“Please, Minho—“ Jisung had begged and pleaded himself, not even bothering to use Felix as a front with Minho.  “You can make anything and I won't complain—you can make eggplant quiche and I’d gladly eat it!”

Minho had laughed because Jisung ate eggplants fine, as far as he knew. “I’m not sure Hyunjin would say the same,” he quipped, knowing that Jisung specifically chose the example because Minho’s ex had a well-known aversion to eggplants.

“Well it isn't his birthday so he doesn't get to complain,” Jisung said, laughing. “On his birthday, you can make guacamole or something,” he added, with Minho knowing full well that Jisung is allergic to avocados, as if that was going to make things equal.

Minho had laughed, but kept being elusive with his commitment to the dinner affair – at least until the day before they'd scheduled the dinner, and he had arrived home with bags of groceries. Jisung had lit up, and announced to everyone how glad he was that he wouldn't have to use up what's left of his pizza delivery coupons.

The truth was, as always, that Minho was always going to say yes. It was Jisung's birthday after all – and Felix’s, and Seungmin's – and despite Jisung downplaying it as Minho “enjoying tinkering in the kitchen,” they both knew that Minho truly loved to cook. He loved picking apart recipes he finds online, and coming up with new dishes in the process. During the two and a half years that he'd worked part time as a waiter, he had made good friends with the sous chef and various kitchen assistants who had let him in on more than a few cooking tips and tricks. Even the head chef had taken an interest in him eventually, having heard about his interest from workplace gossip.

Jisung asking him to cook was, in some ways, just as much for him. In the end he had prepared a deliciously generous four-course meal that took him an entire day to prepare – but he enjoyed himself, and he had the excuse of three of his closest friends’ birthdays so he didn't have to feel bad about wasting hours away in the kitchen, instead of working on his undergraduate thesis proposal.

“I ate so much that day,” Jisung comments, leaning back and stretching his legs out. “It was a wonder that I didn't get indigestion,” 

Minho snorts. “That’s partly because you were in the kitchen the entire time, taste testing everything before they were even finished cooking!”

“Excuse you, I was there as your assistant!” Jisung argues. “It was one-thirds my birthday dinner, and I needed to make sure the food was edible!”

Minho cracks up completely, and unable to string together a proper response, he instead digs his elbow deep into Jisung's side.

“Owwwwww—!” Jisung groans, and punches Minho’s arm in retaliation. “I said what I said!”

“You pretty much ate an entire pie before it was even done settling,” Minho points out.

“Well it was delicious!” Jisung huffs. “That was peach-pineapple, right?”

“No, that was a cobbler from the other time you pretended to be my assistant,” Minho groans. “I made mixed berry pie for your birthday.”

“Right—and blueberry cheesecake,” Jisung nods. “You really made a lot of food that day.” He pauses, and flashes a bright, toothy grin. “Your cooking's my favorite, Minho.”

Minho hums, and just silently appreciates Jisung's compliments. One time he had shared with the younger that he'd love to have gone to cooking school, and ever since then, Jisung has been pretty gung ho about his support for Minho whenever he prepares anything for him and their other friends.

“You only say that, because I’m the only one who actually cooks—Seungmin only knows how to make cheese omelette and fried rice, and it's been too long since you ate anything that Chris made, so you're pretty biased.”

“I mean—that's true,” Jisung agrees far too quickly, with laughter that makes Minho crack a small smile. “But there's a reason why I am—you should know I’m only friends with you because you feed me the most.”

Minho scoffs and shakes his head. “I should reevaluate why I’m friends with you,” he retorts.

But truthfully, one of the many reasons why Minho is friends with Jisung, is because not only does he make Minho feel like it's ok to wish for things that objectively he knows aren’t practical, he also makes Minho feel like impractical wishes can possibly come true.

It’s funny, Minho doesn’t really remember Jisung making any kind of impression on him back in high school. He’s sure that he at least came across the younger every so often because he at least looked vaguely familiar the first time Minho had come across him on campus, when he was hanging out with Changbin, who was already one of his housemates – and closest friends – at the time.

Either way, Jisung had certainly made an impression then, because when Minho next saw him, he didn't hesitate to come up to him.

It was a random Saturday evening, a couple of weeks after their initial run-in; Minho had a weekend off work because he had switched shifts with someone else because he had a study group session that he had assumed would run late. It didn't, though, so he had decided to entertain himself – a quick look at the Cineplex schedule had informed him that there was going to be a special screening of the remastered version of A Bug’s Life, which, until today, he maintains is the most underrated Pixar movie of all time. He didn't really mind watching movies by himself – in fact, he kind of preferred the type of peace watching movies by himself brought him, so between a night at the movie theater watching one of his childhood favorites, and coming home to deal with his roommates and most likely their girlfriends, it was pretty much a no-brainer.

But then he had spotted Jisung at the end of the ticketing queue, all by himself as well, and somehow, something about him had made Minho throw all his lonesome plans away.

“Hey you,” Minho greeted Jisung casually as he slid up next to the younger, as if they're already good friends who had planned to meet, instead of being only vaguely acquainted, with Minho technically cutting in line.

Jisung had looked up at his sudden presence, clearly surprised, but only for a second or two. “Minho,” he greeted back, with a bright, yet casual grin.

“Jisung,” Minho returned, saying his name out loud as if to prove that he remembers it.

It turned out that 1) Jisung wholeheartedly agreed with Minho’s feelings on A Bug’s Life, and 2) Jisung was by himself because he’d been set up with a blind date who flaked on him at the last minute.

They had spent the rest of the evening hanging out, their banter flowing pretty naturally, as if they'd actually known each other since high school, instead of just technically attending the same one for two years.

That night alone, Minho had learned that Jisung liked to mix peanut M&M’s with plain, buttered popcorn, which any other person would have probably found weird – which it was, but Minho didn't bat an eyelash when he watched Jisung do it. Instead, he agreed to share a bucket of popcorn, just as Jisung acted like it was perfectly normal when Minho asked for half Coke, half Mountain Dew for his order of a tall soda.

And then they had spent hours at the coffee shop across the Cineplex afterwards, debating the merits of all Pixar movies, and ranking them according to personal preferences; Ratatouille placed higher on Minho's, but otherwise their lists were practically identical.

“This is kind of eerie,” Jisung commented, but because he was funnily – cutely – sporting a hot chocolate mustache, it earned him an invitation to watch Minho’s collection of Top 5 non-mainstream animated movies the weekend after.

(“How old are the two of you?” Changbin had asked, surprised when he'd woken up to Jisung and Minho already glued to the couch the Saturday after, watching a movie that Minho can tell he couldn't even begin to identify. “Five?!”

Chris had joined then for a movie and a half after lunch, though. “This was my favorite growing up,” he’d commented about Balto, while Changbin did his best to ignore them until it was time to ask what they both wanted when it was time to order Chinese take-out for dinner.)

%

When Jisung wakes up early next morning, it's to the sound of faintly running water coming from the bathroom. A quick glance across the room, and Minho’s unmade bed tells him that the other male is already up and getting ready.

He checks for the time and finds that it isn't even 6 in the morning. He groans and buries his head under his pillow. He wants nothing more than to go back to sleep because it’s practically the crack of dawn, but he and Minho have a full day’s worth of driving ahead of them, and they had agreed to be on the road by 7.

“Hey—” 

Jisung pokes his head out from under the covers when Minho calls out to him. He grunts sleepily in response, blanking out and inadvertently staring at Minho, who only has a towel wrapped around his midsection, the cloth snugly hanging off the dip of his hips, while he dries his hair out with another towel. It’s not like it’s the first time  that Jisung has seen his friend half-naked – they’ve been living under the same roof for a year after all, give or take, so it isn’t a big deal at all. It shouldn’t be anyway, and yet Jisung finds his cheeks heating as his eyes trace the planes and contours of Minho’s torso, pausing at the scar on the right side of his abdomen that Minho once told him is from when he got his appendix taken out when he was twelve.

Jisung is only snapped out of his reverie with a snap of Minho’s fingers. “Hey—” Minho repeats; he's looking at Jisung strangely, but there’s a curious quirk at the corner of his lips – half a smile, or something like it that relaxes Jisung, even while it makes him feel embarrassed. “Take a picture,” Minho tells him.

“It’ll last longer, I know,” Jisung grumbles, finishing Minho’s sentence for him as he looks away and runs his fingers through his messy morning hair. “I don’t have time for pictures—gotta shower and get ready.” 

Minho just laughs as he walks over to his bed where his change of clothes are all laid out, while Jisung finally forces himself out of bed, huffing and sticking his tongue out at Minho before he tumbles out of bed and he hurriedly makes his way to the bathroom.

It isn't the first time that he's been sidetracked by Minho’s beauty. Minho is Minho after all, and it's a widely known and accepted fact that he's been blessed with good genes. Even Chris, he's caught staring at Minho once or twice in the past, and Chris is a solid one on the Kinsey scale – one point seventy-five, at most, maybe. Minho is attractive, that's a given, but Jisung has long ago mastered the art of not being distracted by his looks. It normally isn't so hard because everything in general comes easy when Jisung is with Minho. From the teasing and the laughs (and this one especially means a lot, because back home every time he cracks a joke, the odds are always fifty-fifty, he either creates a massively awkward moment, or he completely brings the house down), to more down to earth conversations about school and work and life in general – when it's the two of them, nothing is ever off, or weird, or difficult. The first week they started hanging out, Jisung told him about the imaginary friend he (technically) had until he was twelve and way too old for imaginary friends; that was something embarrassing that he never really told anyone before, but Minho didn't even have to pry it out of him, because it simply didn't feel shameful when it somehow came up. (That's another thing, actually – their conversations take the weirdest turns, and every time it just feels normal.)

One time, he told Minho straight up, “I usually don't befriend guys who are better looking than me. It’s a personal rule of mine that I’ve kept for all nineteen years of my existence.” He had been joking, of course – well, mostly. Minho laughed anyway, so Jisung did, as well. “I’m making an exception just for you,” he declared, and then Minho had looked at him blankly for a quick second before the two of them burst into laughter at the exact same moment.

“You’re crazy,” Minho had told him, wheezing, but the delivery was made in a way that didn't make Jisung feel unhinged, but rather adored.

So yeah, he'll cop to the fact that Minho literally turned his head the first time he set his eyes on him, but he long ago got over that because there are a lot of other things that are great about Minho.

But maybe that's exactly what the problem is – Minho is a great guy, and he looks the way that he does, and he's Jisung's best, most favorite friend. Individually all of that is easy to deal with; except, even after only one day, this trip is already forcing Jisung to put all of these things together and, well.

What's he supposed to do about that now?

After Jisung is done getting ready, he drops off their room keys by the front desk, checking them out before he goes to meet Minho out in the parking lot. He finds the latter sitting on the hood of his Jeep, waiting for him, and ready with two cups of coffee and a box of donuts.

“Took you long enough,” Minho comments, hopping off and immediately offering him one of the cups. “What kind of shower were you taking there—?”

There’s a hint of innuendo in his teasing, which is normal for Minho, and is something that Jisung is used to, but it makes him blush anyway. So he grumbles in response and flips off his middle finger at Minho before snatching the drink from his grasp.

“You okay?” Minho’s tone softens, and even without looking, Jisung can tell that he’s doing that scrunchy thing with his forehead that’s pretty much his tell whenever he’s concerned.

“Just—” Jisung sighs and pauses, sniffing his drink and inhaling the warm and delicious smell of coffee before he answers. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s just too early. Thanks for this,” he says, smiling as he gestures with his drink.

Minho hums. “Yeah—the coffee here actually isn’t so bad, I was pleasantly surprised,” he says. “Want me to drive first, though? If you’re still sleepy.”

“Nope—!” Jisung pops his P, shakes his head immediately and moves towards the driver’s side of the car, hand reaching out for the door. “You drove the entire way yesterday,” he points out, smiling after he takes a sip of his drink – Minho is right that it’s pretty good for motel coffee, and that’s pretty fortunate for him because the caffeine is at least making him feel more like himself.

“Okay.” Minho shrugs; there’s still a shadow of concern on his features, but it disappears after a quick second, replaced with an impish grin as he reaches over and ruffles Jisung’s hair.

“Minho!” Jisung squawks, leaning away and attempting to put on a scowl, that completely disappears when he notices the sly expression that Minho has on. He laughs, and lightly kicks Minho. “Let’s get on the road, then!”

GPS has clocked the drive from the part of Oregon they’re in to San Francisco, at roughly twelve hours, more or less. Chris had moved there around a year ago, and had offered them his couch to crash on when they mentioned their little Pacific Coast jaunt, which is how and why they ended up marking him down as their second stop.

“Maybe we should make another stop before we drive on to Chris’ tomorrow,” Jisung suggests as they exit into the highway. 

“Yeah, maybe, but getting to Chris’ tonight means free food and lodging,” Minho points out with a chuckle. “Unless there’s somewhere in particular that you want to check out?”

“Right—” Jisung laughs, and practically halves an entire donut with a single bite; he nods and tightens his one hand grip on the wheel. He almost advocates for an unplanned stop, cost be damned. I wouldn't mind adding another day or two to our basically nonexistent itinerary, he almost says, because he really doesn't – he'd welcome it, even, because it would mean a few more days with Minho.

The thought gives Jisung pause; it makes him second guess himself, and it's an unusual feeling because if there's one thing that Jisung is always sure of, it's himself. He's always been well aware that he won't always make the right decisions in life, and he's made peace with that, which is why he never hesitates when he wants anything – at least, until now. Now, there's a split second when he wonders what Minho will think if he makes such a declaration, so he ends up biting his tongue much to his own confusion.

“You're right,” he repeats, finding himself simply agreeing with Minho. “Free food and free lodging trumps everything else!”

Minho clicks his tongue. “I figured you’d say as much.” He smiles and waves his phone at Jisung. “Been texting Chris—told him we’d get to his place some time tonight, and he told me where he keeps the spare key just in case we get in too late.”

“As if Chris ever goes to sleep before midnight!”

“Yeah, well, he’s gone full adult now Jisung, maybe he sleeps at… like. Nine.” Minho visibly shudders, and both of them, as usual, crack up simultaneously.

%

“...Driving down the one oh one, California here we coooome! Right back where we started from!” Jisung is belting along loudly to the song that's blasting out loud through the car speakers. Most of the time, Jisung is a pretty competent singer – he has a habit of just bursting out into song, especially when at home, so Minho (and all the rest of their friends) has been witness to many an impromptu mini concert. This time, he's almost off key, but it's clear that he's doing it on purpose because Minho had earlier ragged on the very obvious choice of Phantom Planet’s hit song for a road trip playlist.

Jisung, despite not coming up with (or even discussing with Minho) a more concrete itinerary (according to him, “the adventure lies in flexibility and spontaneity,” but both of them know that's just an excuse as both of them are too indecisive to be any good at planning ahead), had the time and energy to put together an expansive, three hundred track On The Road mix in his old iPod, which included songs that ranged from the likes of Weezer’s California Kids to The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction.

“The trick is having thematic songs mixed in with songs that we can both easily sing along to!” Jisung had explained after Minho had earlier chastised him (albeit playfully) about the contents of the mix.

“Come on, Minho!” Jisung pauses while singing mid-chorus so he can urge Minho to join along. He grins and reaches for Minho’s hand, their fingers naturally locking together as Jisung waves them along to the beat. “You know you want to sing, too!”

Minho purses his lips because he's trying very, very hard not to prove Jisung right, because of course he is. The corners of his lips are twitching, and it doesn't take much longer before he caves and,

“Californiaaaaaa, Californiaaaaa—here we cooooome!”

Minho is laughing as he loudly sings along, while Jisung waves around their clasped hands. He has to admit, as they cruise down the highway towards their home state, windows down and warm air whipping across their faces, that the song is more than fitting.

Not for the first time in their friendship, Minho wonders how different life could have been if he and Jisung had become friends in high school. It isn't like he had a bad time during those four years. He knew everyone – at least in his year – and everyone knew him, and one can even say that he was a part of the popular crowd, which meant he always got picked first in P.E. and he got invited to all the cool parties. Still, there's a difference between having friends and being friendly, and there's a reason why Minho knows where to draw the line. Sure, he has a thousand Facebook friends, but there are very few of them that he would willingly contact so they can catch up.

Jisung is different – truthfully, all the friends he’s made in university are different. He thinks he wouldn't mind keeping in contact with all of them – he's admittedly looking forward to seeing Chris again, actually. But even among that tight knit friend group, Jisung is different.  

Jisung, who laughs at the same jokes, and ponders the same stupid life questions; who enjoys the same kind of weird snacks, and takes his coffee the exact same way—who reads Minho’s moods, as well as Minho reads his.

“You're scarily alike, you know?” Changbin had sleepily grumbled at them one night, after he'd walked into the living room and he found the two of them marathoning old episodes of Man vs. Wild at 2 in the morning.

He doesn't understand what triggered Changbin to voice out his observation right at that moment, but it was probably telling, how he and Jisung reacted in the exact same manner – simultaneously hissing at Changbin to shut him up, only to crack up together in amusement at how synchronized they were.

It's the little things like that, that makes him wonder what kind of changes Jisung would have brought to his life, if they'd been friends much earlier.

When the song ends, and a Fall Out Boy song with a long-winded title he can't be bothered to remember starts instead, Minho falls into silence while Jisung's obnoxious singing makes way for a more subdued humming. For some reason, their hands remain connected, now just casually resting on Minho's lap. He considers pulling away, but Jisung's hand feels admittedly warm and cozy in his hold, so he doesn't do anything.

“This is nice.” The words easily slide off Minho's tongue before he knows it, and it takes him a couple of seconds to realise that they actually came from him, and not some disembodied voice.

“Excuse me?” Jisung finally lets go of his hand; his fingers wrap around the wheel instead, gripping tightly like he needs to hold onto something else to be sure he's still anchored to reality. 

It's kind of cute, but frankly, it just gives Minho more reason to regret opening his mouth.

“Sorry, should I have said that this trip really sucks instead?”

Jisung laughs, and Minho notices his grip on the wheel relax as he vigorously shakes his head. “No—” He grins. “I mean—yeah, it's nice! I know it's nice— more than nice! It's great, even, as all my ideas tend to be—” Minho has to snort at this, but Jisung just keeps going, “—but you very seldom actually admit things like that out loud, to my face, and— well. In your words, it's really, very nice.”

Minho huffs; Jisung is exaggerating, as he tends to, but his cheeks start to feel warm anyway. He leans against the open window, hoping that the wind will somehow help bring the flush down.

“Stop being overdramatic,” he berates Jisung, but the latter just laughs. “You're always making mountains out of molehills.”

“And you love me for it!”

Minho scoffs, but he knows that Jisung knows that he's right. Jisung is his best friend, and Minho reasons in his head that there's a certain kind of unconditional love that comes with the title.

They pull up for lunch and a gas refill somewhere before they cross state lines; Jisung orders a three-inch stack of pancakes with bacon on the side, and then he makes Minho share some of his cheeseburger and fries in exchange for half of his meal.

They switch places at the wheel afterwards, and one hour into the rest of their drive, Jisung's phone loudly starts ringing, cutting through a very intense, very detailed – if gross and totally pointless –  discussion that Jisung and Minho are having about bowel movement that was inspired by the literal shit Jisung took at the diner before they'd set off for the road again.

“Okay, hold that thought,” Jisung says, raising a finger while he grabs his phone from the dashboard; Minho only snorts because it was Jisung, not him, who had been in the middle of listing down his top five favorite ways of inducing number two for whenever he gets a little constipated. “Oh, it's Hyunjin!” 

Miinho’s eyebrows automatically shoot up at the mention of his ex-boyfriend’s name. He’s well aware that Jisung and Hyunjin have been getting along quite famously for a while now – he’s pretty sure it started at the beginning of the year. There was a definite shift, like they went from tolerating each other because they had the same friends, to actually being friends, and Minho has never really gotten the entire story out of either of them. All he knows is that he’d come back from a long weekend home, and the two of them were suddenly thick as thieves.

“What’s he calling you for?”

Jisung shrugs and presses the answer button, while Minho considerably lowers the volume of the car stereo.

“Hey, Hyunjin—” Jisung says through the phone line, and Minho listens with one ear while keeping the rest of his attention on the road. “Yeah, we just entered California around half an hour ago—Yeah? Yeah, sure. Just call Changbin, he’ll let you in.” 

Minho glances sideways, curious as to what’s going on and why Hyunjin is calling Jisung instead of him. Despite their breakup – which happened over a year ago anyway – Minho and Hyunjin have remained pretty close, and he would have thought that if something was the matter, he’d still get in touch with Minho first before Jisung.

“What’s happening?” Minho prods. “Put him on speaker—”

“Okay, sec,” Jisung agrees with a nod, and then through the phone receiver, “Hey, ‘Jin, Minho wants you on speaker, so I’m putting you on—”

“Hey!” Hyunjin’s voice fills the car. “How’re you two doing?”

“Fine,” Minho answers. “We should be at Chris’ in around 6 hours or so.”

“Say hi to him for me!”

“Will do—did something happen?”

Jisung laughs and shakes his head. “Jin, I think Minho’s worried because you’re calling me instead of him.”

Minho huffs, kind of annoyed, if not surprised, that Jisung completely read him perfectly. Through the phone line, Hyunjin cracks up mirthfully.

“Nothing’s wrong, Minho—Jisung just promised to let me borrow his guitar over the break,” Hyunjin explains.

“What do you need a guitar for?” Minho questions; Jisung snorts, and Minho can tell that he knows something he doesn’t. 

“He’s trying to impress some guy,” Jisung shares.

“Oi—!” Hyunjin squawks.

“Oh?” Minho snorts. “Don’t guys usually fall in line to impress you?”

Hyunjin huffs, and Minho can easily imagine the expression he’s sure to be wearing in that moment, like he’s taken aback or even straight up offended. The picture in his head makes Minho laugh, the sound of which makes Hyunjin audibly whine.

“I tried to impress you,” Hyunjin retorts crossly.

“Oof,” Jisung comments, and Minho lightly punches his arm.

“Well. That’s me—” Minho shoots back. “So that’s a given.”

“You’re so full of it,” Jisung remarks.

Hyunjin snorts. “And that’s just one of the reasons why the two of you get along so well.”

“Hey!” Minho and Jisung both snap unison, which begets them more of Hyunjin’s uncontrollable giggles.

“Anyway—” Hyunjin makes a clicking noise with his tongue, “I’m gonna go and call Changbin now before you two do that thing you guys always do.”

“What—?!” Minho and Jisung pose the question at the same time, and Hyunjin laughs even more.

“That thing,” he points out. “So, yeah—you guys have fun, and drive safely!”

“Bye!” Minho and Jisung holler together, and then there’s a clicking sound signalling that Hyunjin has ended the call. 

Jisung and Minho exchange a quick glance, only for Jisung to break eye contact first as he turns the volume up on the stereo once more. They spend half a song humming along to Sugarcult’s rendition of Melt With You, before Minho speaks again.

“You know anything about this new guy that Hyunjin is seeing?” He asks.

“I don’t think they’re actually seeing each other yet,” Jisung comments. “Hyunjin’s definitely working on it though—I think he mentioned that the guy is a guitar instructor at that one music store downtown.”

“Oh. Huh. Hyunjin going for a musician? That’s— huh.” Minho feels Jisung’s eyes on him, curiosity practically coming off him in waves. “What?”

“Do you care?” Jisung asks. “I mean—are you bothered that Hyunjin is going after this other guy?”

“What—?” Minho laughs. “What?!?” He repeats, continuing to laugh while he shakes his head. “I mean, I’m definitely curious, but why would I be bothered?”

“You seem awfully questioning.”

“I would have been the same if it was any of our other friends,” Minho points out, brow slightly furrowed in confusion as to why Jisung would even think this way. “Besides, Hyunjin’s dated a few guys since we broke up, Ji. I don’t really care if he does.”

Jisung hums, still seeming uncertain. “It’s the first time that he’s making the first move though.”

Minho laughs again. “Good for him, honestly. It really doesn’t bother me, Jisung,” he insists calmly. “Besides,” his lips curl up into a smirk, “Hyunjin’s never going to do better than me, so I’m pretty sure I’ll live my life just fine knowing as much.”

Jisung snorts. “You’re so full of yourself,” he repeats his words from earlier.

“They do say,” Minho glances sideways, and flashes a wide, shit-eating grin at him, “Birds of a feather and all that!”

Jisung hits his arm, and Minho breaks down into complete laughter, especially when Jisung narrows his eyes at him, and his lower lip juts out into a huffy pout.

“Hey, Minho—” Jisung’s voice suddenly shifts into a more solemn tone, which catches Minho off-guard.

“Hey, Jisung,” he returns.

“Why did things end with you and Hyunjin?”

Minho blinks rapidly – well, he hadn’t been expecting that.

Truth is: Hyunjin had been the one to break things off between the two of them a little over six months into their relationship. “This isn’t really working,” were his exact words. It had been a bit of a blow to Minho’s ego, but past that, he wasn’t really cut up about it. 

Hyunjin, together with Seungmin, his best friend, had already seamlessly integrated into their friend group by then, even more so because Seungmin had started going out with Felix a month before Hyunjin and Minho’s break-up, and things had started to get serious around exactly at that time – so things were a little awkward at first in group settings, and it took them a few weeks before Hyunjin and Minho got back to a more comfortable rapport. Once they got there, it was pretty genuine, however, and Minho has never really looked back to re-examine their relationship or the fallout thereafter.

Jisung never really asked for details before either – he was the first one Minho had told when things ended, and he had only nodded quietly at first, taking a beat before he proceeded to ask, “You feeling okay about it?” Minho had nodded – maybe shrugged – and so Jisung had smiled, placed an arm around him and cautiously offered to take him out to see one of his favorite local bands live, and Minho had simply accepted. Jisung always knew that Minho wasn’t the type you pushed to open up, and funnily, that was a big part of why they communicated so well.

“Minho?” Jisung calls out. “Did you hear what I asked?”

He nods. “Yeah, uh—” He shrugs. “I guess we just didn’t really fit—? Like, we didn’t match well like that.”

“Like that?”

Minho chortles. “Not like that— we worked pretty well in that department, actually.”

“Augh!” Jisung winces. “I wasn't asking about your chemistry in bed!”

“Not just talking about in bed here—” Minho quips with a smirk.

“Generally wasn’t asking about your sex life!”

“You're the one whose brain went there!”

Jisung grimaces. “Okay, fair enough. Now I know—Hyunjin was great in the sack, I don't need information past that! It’s kinda weird now that I actually like Hyunjin.”

“You like Hyunjin!”

“Not like that!” Jisung groans.

“More of the that,” Minho sniggers. “You're the one all vague with the words here—aren't you supposed to be a Creative Writing major?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jisung waves him off grumpily, and Minho teasingly tsks in return.

They fall into a bout of silence as the playlist faintly playing in the background switches to the next song, and Minho knows that that's it. Jisung isn't going to further prod, and he can avoid talking about the old breakup if he wants to.

“So—yeah.” He exhales sharply. “Hyunjin and I are too different—in our interests, our habits, our outlooks in life… the only reason we lasted as long as we did was actually likely because—“ he laughs and wiggles his brows, “—we worked well in that aspect.”

From the periphery of his vision, Minho can tell that Jisung is looking at him intently, like he's considering a few more follow-up questions. In the end, he just smiles and nods – and then he loudly bursts into song as the chorus to Weekend Warriors by A Change Of Pace comes on.

At the back of his mind, Minho knows that he didn't really explain everything involved in the breakup, but he tells himself that Jisung knows as much as he needs to know.

%

They don’t arrive at Chris’ apartment until around 11 that evening – maybe closer to midnight, even. Unsurprisingly, Chris is still up, but Jisung is feeling pretty exhausted, and from the looks of it, so is Minho; they had spent all day on the road, after all, so it's no surprise that all either of them want to do upon arrival is to take a quick wash and simply throw themselves into bed – or in this case, onto Chris’ pullout couch, which he'd told them ahead of time they can have.

“Hello, Christopher, my man! My dude!” Jisung immediately flings himself onto Chris, arms wrapping around him when the latter opens the door for them. “Your favorite bros are here! You miss us a lot?”

Chris snorts, but he does encircle one arm around Jisung, patting him on the back before he pulls away.

“Hey—” Minho echoes from behind Jisung, he and Chris simply exchanging a casual shoulder bump as the oldest lets the two of them in.

An hour later, all the lights are out and Jisung is curled up on the promised pullout, already halfway down the road to dreamland.

The next thing he knows, he's being pulled back to consciousness by a faint shutter noise, and the couch mattress is shifting next to him.

“Delete that,” Jisung hears Minho say, his tone sleepy yet steely.

He gets curious, so he rolls around and slowly forces his eyes open; he stretches his limbs, and his arm hits Minho who is sitting up, soullessly glaring at Chris who is snickering to himself, his phone in hand.

“Should have set it to silent first,” Chris comments. “Sorry,” he adds, in a way that doesn't make him sound more amused than sorry.

“What’s going on?” Jisung mumbles, pushing himself up to a sitting position; he leans his head on Minho’s shoulder, and gently rubs his eyes open.

“Wanna see?” Chris asks, offering his phone to Jisung, who confusedly takes it. His blurry vision takes a couple of seconds to clear, but when it does, he finds that Chris’ phone gallery is open on a newly taken picture of him and Minho, both of them still asleep. Minho is laying on his stomach on one side, while Jisung practically takes up three-fourths of the already-not-very-spacious sofa bed, limbs splayed out like a starfish. One leg is thrown over Minho’s calves, while his opposite arm hangs off the side. Squinting closer, he can tell that despite Minho’s mouth being half open, he’s still looking quite serene and beautiful – Jisung, meanwhile, looks like some wacky cartoon character, jaw slack, and the dry spit on the corner of his mouth visible even in a low quality mobile picture.

“I look like crap,” he mumbles, immediately wiping his mouth with the collar of his shirt.

“Delete it,” Minho repeats, head leaning to rest against Jisung’s own, as he reaches to take the phone from him.

“Oh no you don’t,” Chris interjects, snatching the phone out of Jisung’s hold before Minho can actually claim it. “Sending it to every single group chat we all have together first—you can have breakfast while I get on that.”

Minho groans and falls back down on the pull out mattress, while Jisung wrinkles his nose, only to be met with the faint smell of freshly brewed coffee.

“You know what,” he nods, and runs his fingers through his messy, just-woke-up, nestlike hair, “breakfast sounds good, and that coffee smells heavenly.”

“Yeah? I prepared eggs and toast for you two freeloaders—but surely you can make your way to the kitchen on your own.”

Jisung gives him a lethargic salute, but before he can fully roll out of bed, he feels Minho pulling at the hem of his shirt.

“Hmm?” He looks back down at Minho, questioning.

Wordlessly, Minho holds his hands out and gives him an exaggeratedly pleading look which makes Jisung laugh.

“You can’t stand on your own?”

Minho’s lips curve into a thin smile, and Jisung snorts; nevertheless he does reach down after he manages to get up on his feet, applying a bit of strength to help tug Minho up with him.

Caffeine helps breathe life into both of them, and it's lucky that Chris knows exactly how they both like their eggs.

Jisung hasn’t really known Chris as long as Minho has – according to Minho, the two of them had met during Minho’s first year, when they had shared an introductory course to Asian Literature. Late night study sessions in Chris’ dorm room allowed them to get closer, and by the time an entire year rolled around, the two of them had been comfortable enough with each other that they were more than glad to avail of off-campus housing together with Changbin (who, Minho originally befriended at the Arts & Sciences library, where both of them initially had work study).

It had been pretty easy for Jisung to become fast friends with Minho’s entire crowd; Chris, specifically, he had gotten close with because oftentimes, whenever Jisung crashed at their apartment after some late night partying, Chris had been the one hauling their drunk asses home, not to mention the one helping him and Minho nurse their twin hangovers in the mornings after. That said, he’s sure that Chris has a whole arsenal of pictures featuring him and Minho that are way worse compared to the one he took of them that morning. He has a whole collection of embarrassing anecdotes too – in fact he has a whole slew for sure, featuring not only them, but all of their friends.

That's exactly what they spend talking about over breakfast – they recall every other ridiculous thing that they got up to back when they were all still together in school.

“Please,” Minho protests, interrupting Chris while he's in the middle of a story about Minho drunkenly marching up to his Art History T.A., and telling her that the only reason he got a C- on his midterm paper was because he had refused to go on a date with her. “I was totally valid, and she was a complete ass until the end—I barely passed that stupid course! As if it's my fault that I gave up on girls in middle school?” Minho is on a roll, but he's laughing, even as he gets heated while telling his side. “And then several months later, Chris unknowingly went on a date with her, and I accidentally shut the door on her face when she showed up at the apartment— oops!”

The three of them laugh together at the memory. Technically it isn't one for Jisung as he's only heard the story before because it all happened before he even set foot in university. So far, his entire college experience has been closely tied to Minho, but Minho and Chris taking a far flung stroll down memory lane is reminding him that not only did Minho have a full two years worth of college experience on his own, without him, but also that he's about to have two full years of the same thing. 

He's not entirely sure how he feels about it, so he forces himself to fully tune in as Minho moves on to recalling the tale of how he once caught Changbin about to have sex with his ex-girlfriend in Chris’’ car, of all places.

“What?!” Chris is laughing but he also looks comically shocked.

“Gonne be honest, I feel like you don’t really know half the shit your old car had been witness to, especially since you kept letting Changbin borrow it—” Minho cackles. 

“What the f—” Chris looks horrified, which makes Minho laugh more.

“Well you’ve left the car to Felix now,” Minho points out.

Jisung snorts. “Yeah, which means all the action it sees these days is between Felix and Seungmin,” he shares, cracking up, because he unfortunately knows a little too much about those two thanks to Felix's big mouth. 

Chris winces. “Please don’t tell me any more—Felix is like a little brother to me!” 

“This is why I don't let any of you borrow my Jeep, geez—you're all nasty,” Minho shakes his head. 

“You’ve let me borrow it a few times,” Jisung points out, right before he casually takes a big bite off his toast. 

“Yeah, but—” Minho turns to him; Jisung shrugs, a smug expression slowly and deliberately spreading across his features, that makes Chris burst into laughter, presumably when he realises what Jisung is implying. “You little shit! No way!” Minho's voice actually cracks, as he gives Jisung a horrified look.

“Yes way,” Jisung says, nodding as he chews on his food. He's exaggerating – the truth is he had a somewhat heated make out session with a date in it once, nothing more, but he’s kind of enjoying Minho's reaction, so he wants to push it as far as he can. “Joochan,” he clarifies, by actually dropping a name. “Third date.”

“Fuck off!” Minho groans, while Chris continues to keep laughing in the background. “I hate you.”

“Love you too,” Jisung shoots back, winking and even blowing him an air kiss.

“Geez,” Chris snorts. “The two of you never change.”

Jisung and Minho weigh their options for the rest of the day – go for all the obvious, fancy touristy activities, or just chill and act like locals taking a much deserved day off. 

Because it's the two of them, they keep going back and forth indecisively, at least until Chris points out that they aren't locals, so there's no point in acting like so – it's pretty obvious from the exasperation in his tone that he doesn't even get how the suggestion came to be. 

“So we don't seem like tourists, obviously,” Jisung points out. “Just because we grew up eight hours away—it's not like we're foreigners!” 

“Oh, that might actually be fun,” Minho interjects, eyes looking bright. “We can pretend to be foreigners who can't speak a word of English.”

In the end, typical of them, they decide to wing the rest of their day when Chris leaves them for work after lunch. It works out just fine, and Jisung is thankful for the city's decent public transport system.

They walk around town, not even really saying much to each other as they freely lead and pull each other into stores and places that catch their eye, like vintage music stores, and at one point even a pop-up photo gallery that they spend over half an hour queueing for only to finish the exhibit in no more than twenty minutes.

It's late afternoon, and they're just about to leave a cafe after having coffee and sharing a slice of cheesecake, when Jisung thinks he spots someone familiar.

“Hold up,” he tells Minho, tugging at the latter's shirt sleeve to get him to stop heading towards the exit.

“What?” Minho glances at him.

Jisung doesn't answer, which leaves Minho to follow as Jisung approaches someone who's waiting by the counter.

“Seoyeon?” He calls out, unsure. The last time he’d seen his old friend, she had brown hair that barely reached past  her shoulders, but this girl has bright red hair that cascaded down halfway through her back.

The girl in question turns her head, eyes growing wide when she sees who had called to her. “Peter!”

Jisung winces at the name because no one has called him that in a long while, that it actually sounds foreign to his ears now; beside him, Minho snickers.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, only to remember, as the words leave his mouth, that Seoyeon attends Berkeley, so it makes more sense for him to find her here, then for her to run into him. ”

“I should be asking you that,” she says, as if reading hood thoughts.

“Visiting a friend on the way home,” he answers with a grin. “Are you gonna be home any time—”

He pauses mid-question, when he realises that his old friend is too busy curiously regarding Minho.

“I know you,” Seoyeon directs at Minho before Jisung can think to introduce them.

Minho blinks. “I don't know you,” he calmly and bluntly returns, which just serves to make Seoyeon laugh.

“This is Seoyeon,” Jisung interjects. “We were in the same year in high school—Seoyeon, this is Minho.”

“Ah.” Minho nods in acknowledgment. “I was thinking you do look familiar. Nice to meet you.”

“Right, you were a couple of years ahead of me and Pe— Jisung.” She looks amused, and Jisung can tell that she has a lot of questions, but he isn't sure if he has concrete answers for all of them.

“Minho and I go to the same university,” he explains, before Seoyeon can ask anything. “We're driving home, but right now we're visiting a friend who lives around here.”

“Oh—will you be here for long?”

Jisung shakes his head. “We’re driving off tomorrow, actually.”

“Ah, well—” She nods, her lips curling up in a wistful smile. “I’ll be home for a few days in a couple of weeks though—we should hang out, get the old gang together,” Seoyeon suggests, to which Jisung finds himself readily agreeing. 

It's funny, he and Seoyeon were a part of the same friend group for years, throughout most middle school and all of high school. They used to eat at the same lunch table every day, and they hung out at the Dairy Queen close by for most days after school, but recently the most interaction they have comes in the form of Facebook likes and comments. The last time he'd actually seen her is getting close to a year ago, and even then it was just a five minutes run-in at the supermarket during Thanksgiving; she wasn't home for Christmas, while Jisung had spent New Year’s at Washington with his friends.

“Just a few days?” Jisung asks.

“Yeah—remember I joined this band?” Seoyeon asks; Jisung nods, because he's seen her post about it occasionally on social media – The Clovers, is what they’re named, if he recalls correctly. “We have gigs across the city throughout the summer, and I kinda got a job at this record store near campus, so—” She shrugs.

“That's cool,” Jisung comments, genuine with his compliment.

“Actually—” She glances at Minho, and then back at Jisung, looking like a lightbulb just got lit above her head. “We've got this gig tonight! You guys should come!”

Jisung exchanges looks with Minho, who gives him a noncommittal but open-minded shrug.

“It's only at some college party tonight,” Seoyeon admits, “but it should be fun if you guys have nothing better to do.”

Jisung nods. “Cool, okay—send me the details and we'll see?”

Seoyeon grins and gives them two thumbs up. “Yeah—” And then someone from behind the counter is calling out for “Laura? Two Iced Americanos and one Caramel Frappé for Laura!” and, “—oops, that's me,” Seoyeon informs Jisung who gives her a confused look. “You started going by your Korean name, and I started going by my Christian one,” she explains with a laugh. “Hope to see you guys tonight!”

Later, when Chris calls and tells them that it's looking like he's going to be stuck at work (“But— why?!” Jisung whined over the phone line, “It’s Friday night—who works overtime on Friday nights?!” “People who spend all of Friday morning catering to the needs and wants of their visiting friends,” Chris had returned. “Touché,” was Minho’s only contribution), Jisung and Minho easily agreed to take Seoyeon up on her offer.

“Were you close with her?” Minho asks while they wait around just outside a McDonald's where they'd just had a quick dinner; when Jisung had messaged Seoyeon to let her know that they were on for the night, she'd offered to give them a ride to the party. There's a strange edge to Minho's tone that Jisung can't define – and he isn't used to it.

“We kinda grew up together?” He answers with a laugh. “Back in grade school, we got paired up a lot, because our teachers loved to make us queue by height.”

Minho bursts into giggles, and Jisung knows he totally walked into that, so he simply laughs along.

“We haven't really kept in contact much after high school graduation though,” Jisung clarifies. “It completely escaped my mind that she lives in this area now, to be honest.”

“Her band any good?”

“Minho—” Jisung laughs. “I wouldn't know—guess we'll find out soon enough.”

“True,” Minho nods, and checks the time on his watch, which makes Jisung lean over to do the same – 8:20 PM, it says, which makes him hum softly. He and Seoyeon had agreed on half past eight as a pick up time.

“She was always into music,” Jisung says, rambling to get time to pass quickly. “I used to help her write lyrics back in the day—sort of. It was really more like I wrote some poetry that fit with a melody she composed, so she asked if she could use my words for the song. Cool, huh?”

“You know—I almost forgot about you telling me that you used to write for the school's literary magazine—” Minho pauses, but Jisung senses that he has more to say, so he waits. “Overall, that's kinda… cool.”

“Well—” Jisung laughs. “I made it cool.” He puffs out his chest, pleased when the corners of Minho’s crinkle prettily – whether it's in amusement or agreement, it doesn’t really matter to him. “Either way,” he continues, “you were the one who belonged to the in-crowd, Mr. Prom King.”

Minho snorts; the thing is that Jisung isn't even being metaphorical. Minho was literally prom king in his senior year. Jisung was even in attendance on the night he got crowned, there as arm candy to a junior he briefly dated as a sophomore.

“I made that entire crowd cool, is more like it,” Minho retorts, echoing Jisung's own blusterous tone and words from just a couple of minutes ago.

Minho is quick to ingratiate himself with Seoyeon and her two bandmates during the half hour it takes to get to the party venue, and not for the first time, Jisung finds himself in awe of the way Minho does that kind of thing easily. It isn't even as if Jisung is some kind of shy, shrinking violet who is bad at social situations – it's really just that Minho does it with the kind of finesse you wouldn't really expect from him.

“So. You and Minho—wanna fill me in on that?” Seoyeon asks Jisung when, at the party venue, he opts to help her and the band set up on the makeshift stage that the fraternity hosting the party had set up in their backyard. Jisung had also been a part of the multimedia club back in high school, so he knew a little about setting up amplifiers and speakers; Minho however, has absolutely zero know-how in the area, and had excused himself in favor of doing party rounds – Jisung doesn't doubt that Minho has already found people to mingle with.

“What do you mean?” Jisung asks as he plucks at the fat strings of Seoyeon's bass guitar, checking if it's in tune, before handing it back to her.

“I see him on your SNS a lot,” Seoyeon points out. “Well, relatively a lot, considering you post on Instagram maybe once every other month.”

Jisung laughs – half of the time, he genuinely forgets his own SNS accounts exist. Most of his social media presence appears in the form of features on his friends’ accounts.

“We’re friends,” he tells Seoyeon, although as the words leave his mouth, he immediately thinks that it doesn't sound completely right, so after a beat he amends his answer. “Best friends.”

“Oh? So you aren't together or anything?” Seoyeon squints at him. “Because Jules kinda expressed interest.”

Jisung looks over his shoulder, towards Julia, the band’s front woman, who is preoccupied with setting up her guitar pedals.

Jisung feels something churn inside him, but he simply shakes her head at Seoyeon. “Minho wouldn't be interested,” he says. “If you know what I mean—sorry,” he adds, despite not really feeling apologetic.

“Maybe Jay’s his type, then,” Seoyeon says, laughing; this time she's referring to their drummer. “I think they both took a liking to him.”

Jisung can only chuckle, even though the exchange is starting to make him slightly uncomfortable. It’s strange because it isn't the first time people have tried to get to his friend through him. “Yeah, I guess Minho’s got that kind of effect on people.”

When Jisung finally separates from the band so they can do the final prep for their set, he goes off to search for Minho. As he predicted, Minho is already surrounded by people, most of them cheering for him to win as he competes in what seems to be an almost finished round of beer pong.

Minho only has a single cup left on his side, and Jisung could tell that his cheeks are flushed; opposite the table, his opponent has two left, but it's Minho's turn, and just as Jisung manages to squeeze his way to the front of the crowd, everybody erupts into cheers because Minho manages to sink the ball into one.

The big, burly guy wearing a sweatshirt with Greek letters who is playing against Minho groans loudly. He picks up the cup nevertheless, and, after fishing the ball out, downs the alcoholic contents in one go while Minho smirks proudly.

“Yo!” Jisung greets him, slapping him across the back to catch his attention.

Minho turns, and Jisung thinks that his entire face lights up at the sight of him.

“Kiss for luck,” Minho tells him, and Jisung gapes – he wonders if Minho is already that drunk. He's used to Minho having higher tolerance, and he was away from him for barely half an hour, so surely that isn't enough time for him to get absolutely wasted.

“The ball,” Minho clarifies, laughing, probably at Jisung’s mystified expression. “I was asking you to kiss the ball,” he explains, giggling as he holds the ping pong ball close to Jisung's lips. “For luck.”

He's still confused, but Jisung quickly does as requested anyway, and the next thing he knows, Minho is tossing the ball across the table, sinking it right into his opponent's remaining cup.

The crowd erupts into cheers, and Minho pumps a fist into the air right before falling happily against Jisung's side.

“Minho. You drunk?” Jisung asks, laughing even as he readily catches the older.

“Buzzed,” Minho admits, all giggly.

“Not fair,” Jisung pouts, just because he can. “We’re supposed to rock-paper-scissors who gets to be drunk and who gets to be the designated dr—sober person.”

Minho cackles. “Neither of us are driving, so—” he grins and shoves his last cup of beer from the game into Jisung's hands. “Drink up!”

In the background, they hear the band finally announce the start of their set, which excites Jisung enough to pull at Minho's hand so they can head back closer to the mini stage.

Their first song starts with a sweet, vaguely familiar melody; Jisung naturally bops his head along to the music, but it isn't until Julia starts singing the lyrics of the first verse that it dawns on Jisung that he actually knows the words.

“Shit!” He practically yells into Minho's ear. “This—it's—this song! These words—my lyrics!”

Seoyeon didn't really play with a full band back home, so he's only really heard this song played raw, acoustic and without a full band arrangement. He hadn't even thought that Seoyeon would keep the song in her catalogue, or that she'd play it with her band.

He fully turns towards Minho, and is met with the older looking at him with bright, sparkling eyes filled with pride.

“This is so cool!” He yells excitedly.

Minho laughs. “You make it cool!”

Jisung laughs, jumping around in tune to the beat of the song.

He thinks that he and Seoyeon have grown apart so quickly, and so easily over the last two years, but ultimately, it's kind of nice that it turns out they still have a piece of themselves connecting them to each other. He supposes that's just how friendships evolve when you grow older; it's kind of the same with Chris – just a year apart and already they have vastly different priorities, but at least they still have all their accumulated memories together.

Jisung glances at Minho – and he thinks about how, at the end of the day, things are likely going to be the same for them. And it should be fine, because they're the two of them, and it's inevitable that even apart, they'll find something that'll connect them to each other.

But then Minho looks back at him, grinning in that way that always makes Jisung feel that they have a way of communicating that's all their own, he wonders if shared memories will be enough.

%

Minho collapses against Jisung's side, head mildly throbbing as the two of them sit on the edge of the sidewalk in front of the Sigma Delta house. (Or something like that; there's a third letter, and Minho can probably turn and try to make out all the Greek letters emblazoned on the side of the house, but he's tired and it really isn't worth the effort.)

The two of them are waiting for Chris, who is a saint and agreed to pick them up after they realised that Seoyeon and her bandmates had a flat that didn't require them crossing the Bay again.

“Here,” Jisung offers him his newly lit cigarette – menthol infused, Minho realises, after taking a drag and allowing smoke to fill his lungs. Neither of them usually go for menthol cigarettes, so he assumes that Jisung bummed it off someone else at the party. Probably when he was on the phone with Chris. He exhales carefully, through his nose, and then he hands the stick back to Jisung, who smiles at him in a way that Minho thinks he can only describe as fond. Then again, he's also currently intoxicated, so what does he really know?

“Reminds you of old times, doesn't it?” Jisung muses, flicking excess ash off the end of their shared cigarette before he takes a hit off it.

Minho chortles, because Jisung is right – it feels more than familiar, him and Jisung like this, too drunk to make it back home on their own, passing a single cigarette back and forth to help themselves sober up even a little, while they wait for any one of their friends to pick them up.

Chris had gotten stuck with the responsibility a few too many times back in the day, even before Jisung was even in the picture.

“Yeah—I bet Chris missed this the most about college,” Minho jokes, snickering as he stretches his legs out in front of him.

Jisung snorts and falls back against Minho. “How long before Chris gets here?” He asks.

Minho shrugs, plucking the cigarette out of Jisung’s fingers so he can have his turn again. “It's almost 2AM, so I’m sure the traffic won't be bad—he’ll probably be here in around 15 minutes.”

“We should talk about where to go next,” Jisung hums, giggling as he pokes a finger through the smoke rings that Minho expertly puffs out.

“Hollywood,” Minho suggests, only half-joking. “How about Santa Barbara—?”

Jisung shakes his head. “Did I ever tell you that I almost went to college there?” He chuckles. “I even attended some pre-freshman orientation. I want to go somewhere else—how about Nevada? Vegas! Let's go to the Strip!”

Minho laughs, unable to figure out if Jisung is kidding around. He probably isn't, at least not in the moment – they're both drunk, after all. “That's not on the way home.”

“So? It's not that far a drive from here—we can take a detour!” Jisung inhales deeply. “I wouldn't mind an extra day on the road,” he admits, his voice suddenly small and uncharacteristically quiet, as if he's somehow shy about the revelation.

“What do people even do in Vegas apart from gamble?” Minho clicks his tongue, deciding to humor Jisung. “Because roulettes and high-stakes card games don't really appeal to me.”

Jisung laughs. “We can go see light shows,” he suggests. “I think the Backstreet Boys have a residency there right now–?”

“Since when were you a Backstreet Boys fan?” Minho laughs and gives him an incredulous look.

“I’m not,” Jisung snorts. “But it would be fun, maybe, to catch a show—or not. Any show would be fun, really!”

Minho hums noncommittally; as usual, even though he's acting like he needs convincing, he's all set to say yes – it's Jisung, after all.

“You know what else people do in Vegas?” Jisung asks.

“Hm?”

“Get married,” Jisung shares, with a deadpan expression that Minho would normally be proud of (Jisung learned from the best after all – him ), if the answer didn't catch him completely off-guard. “People have five-minute weddings in Vegas,” Jisung continues, his blank facade slowly breaking, as he begins to crack up. “Officiated by the King of Rock n’ Roll himself! Let's go to Vegas and have Elvis marry us, Minho!”

This time, Minho literally almost chokes on cigarette smoke, Jisung just laughing as he takes the almost finished cigarette butt from him,  only to put it out by stubbing it out under the toe of his right sneaker.

“Vegas isn't cheap, asshole,” Minho spits out in between coughing fits.

“Well—” Jisung continues laughing. “It was just an idea!”

Fast forward to sixteen hours later: they do end up close to Las Vegas. 

To be more precise, they end up checking into a motel somewhere just outside of Vegas, lucky enough to nab the last free room before management turns off the bright, neon sign advertising ROOMS AVAILABLE. 

They should be exhausted, considering the full day they had before; but Chris had let them sleep in a little, and ultimately had even cooked a deliciously hefty brunch for them before seeing them off. Minho and Jisung had also split the eight hour drive between the two of them, while consuming at least two and a half bottles each of energy drinks on the road (Jisung’s idea) so that they'd be up and awake at night – Jisung was – is – seemingly super intent on experiencing some kind of night life. 

The original plan is to save money by getting cheap, overnight accommodations before blowing their money on slot machines and expensive shows they may or may not find themselves in the audience of.

Except, while Minho waits to receive their room keys from the bored looking teenager manning the reception, Jisung picks up one of the gaudy looking pamphlets stacked on the front desk.

“Minho, look—” his eyes light up with interest as he shows Minho the To-Do List he finds in the inner flap. “Maybe we should just stay here,” Jisung muses. “Some of these seem interesting—and cheap. Minho, they have not one, but two— two! Specialty museums! In a town with a population of—” his eyes skim the brochure until he (presumably) finds the correct information, “—1,200, and they have a potato museum. What do you even display at a potato museum—strangely shaped spuds?!”

“That list is very misleading,” the receptionist interjects in a droll tone, and both Minho and Jisung turn to look at her; she just shrugs and offers no further explanation.

“Whatever,” Jisung says. “Locals never have an appreciation for the weird crap their hometowns offer—I’d probably say the same thing about where I—“ he looks at Minho, and grins, “—we grew up.”

“That spud museum is a single room gallery with potatoes and potato stamp art made by kids at the local daycare,” the receptionist grumbles. “Most people just sleep here and spend the rest of their time in Vegas,” she adds, tapping another stack of brochures – Cheap Fun in Sin City!, the front reads.

Jisung laughs and ignores the gesture. “At least going to see it will be a story to tell. Plus we'll save money this way! We’ll probably end up broke if we spend tonight at the Strip, and by tomorrow we'll have no choice but to drive home nonstop.”

Minho, as usual, is quick to see his point, and he chooses not to point out that Vegas was Jisung’s idea – albeit a drunk one – to begin with.

“We can't do half of that list until tomorrow,” he observes.

“Then we do the night stuff—” Jisung laughs. “What the fuck, wow—they have two mini novelty museums, and just one casino? This side of Nevada?!”

Minho nudges him; his father's brother had gambling issues, so he grew up not too keen on the idea anyway. “We’ll make do with one. You see one slot machine, you've seen them all?”

Jisung snorts. “I don't think that's how it works, but it'll be fun—and cheap! Cheap… ish.”

Between the two of them, they end up blowing almost a hundred bucks – in change – at the slot machines. Afterwards, they catch the featured show, which is basically some hack magician performing awkward magic tricks while his assistant – inexplicably dressed as a burlesque girl – simply circles him.

“Jeongin can do card tricks better than this guy,” Jisung comments, referring to the freshman their group had adopted, after he started working with Hyunjin at the restaurant where Minho also used to part-time. Minho simply laughs in agreement. “I dare you to volunteer the moment he asks for audience participation.”

It doesn't get to that point, however, because Minho drags him out of the badly lit building before it does.

“Minho, it's barely 9, I don't really want to turn in yet,” Jisung complains.

“It was starting to get really stuffy in there,” Minho comments.

“I could've seen the guy make you disappear,” Jisung sighs dramatically. “I was looking forward to that trick.”

“No you weren't,” Minho tuts. “You would have missed me far too much anyway, if that happened.”

He expects a quick rebuttal from Jisung, but it never comes, which draws a weird reaction from Minho that he has to consciously push back down.

“I thought of something,” Jisung declares, clearly steering the conversation towards a different topic. It makes Minho feel even stranger, but at the same time relieved. 

Jisung throws an arm around Minho's shoulders, falling silent as he looks around, clearly navigating their surroundings in his head. It doesn't take long, mostly because it's looking like if you take three turns in this town, you end up right back where you started.

“I think the last full show started half an hour ago,” Minho comments as he stares up at the movie theater standing in front of them. The marquee displays the title of some French film – he doesn't really understand why they're showing that, instead of some current blockbuster hit, or even an old classic, but he decides not to give it too much thought because this town is certainly looking and feeling more and more quaint, the longer they spend exploring it.

“Please, I would fall asleep not even halfway through the movie anyway,” Jisung says with a shake of his head. “No—come on. I noticed something when we walked by earlier.”

His hand reaches for Minho's, fingers slotting perfectly through his in a way that makes Minho wonder why he's been so conscious of these little things recently.

He follows as Jisung leads him around the building, straight into the alleyway next to the theater where the latter pulls down the fire exit ladder.

“I had a friend who worked at the Cineplex back home, and we used to hang out on top of the building a lot,” Jisung reminisces while gesturing for Minho to climb first. “It was a cheap hangout place because it was free.”

“I—” The ladder creaks loudly even when Minho does nothing but reach for it, which doesn't really help his prevalent fear of heights. “I don't know, Jisung… What even is up there?” He turns, just to be caught off-guard by how close Jisung is standing to him.

“It’s okay,” Jisung urges him, hands squeezing his shoulders in an act of comfort. Jisung isn't exactly the fearless type, and they both know it, but his button eyes are shining even in the dark, reassuring Minho somehow. “It’s not that high.”

Minho mutters profanities under his breath, but he grips the ladder anyway, pulling himself up and doing his best not to look back down as he hurriedly climbs to the rooftop in record time.

Jisung is more careful, taking his time in following Minho.

“Damn,” Jisung whispers, once he reaches the top, and he catches a glimpse of the view available to them from up there – at least that's what Minho assumes, because he needs time to hype himself up before joining his friend by the edge. “Minho—you can see Vegas lights from here,” Jisung tells him, motioning for him to move closer.

“Uhhh—“ he hesitantly takes one step closer before erupting into nervous giggles; he knows he's being silly, because it isn't as if he's just going to tip over and fall. “Okay,” he says, moving closer only to almost jump in surprise when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

He uses it as an excuse to stop, fishing his phone out to check who’s messaging him. “Oh, Ji—” He grins excitedly when he opens the notification. “Changbin sent Popcorn pictures in our group chat!”

Jisung perks up, and motions at him with both hands. “Come over and show me then!”

Minho groans, tempted to have Jisung pull his own phone out himself; in the end he does inhale deeply, gathering enough courage to move all the way to where Jisung is. 

“Here,” he says, handing his phone over to Jisung who starts to coo as he scrolls down the pictures Changbin sent.

“Our baby is the cutest,” Jisung declares fondly. “But hey, at least Bin’s looking like he's been taking care of her responsibly—but oh! He even had Chaeyoung over! That little shit, is he using our baby to gain brownie points with her?!”

Minho hums, ignoring Jisung's natural use of “our” like he always does; he finally lets himself take in the sight from where they are. It's not exactly breathtakingly amazing, or even the most beautiful view he's had the pleasure of seeing, but it's unexpectedly pretty enough, with Vegas city lights sparkling from a distance, considering how middle of nowhere everything about the town feels to Minho.

Something constricts in his chest as he stares at the view; at first he thinks it's his fear acting up, making him nervous as usual, but there's something else mixing with it, luring his usually dormant anxiety closer to the surface.

“Hey—” Jisung interrupts his thoughts as he casually – all too familiarly – slips Minho's phone right back into his jeans’ front pocket. “What's suddenly on your mind?”

“What do you think?” Minho asks back, weight shifting from one leg to the other. 

Jisung lets out a soft, but prolonged exhale. “You're thinking,” he starts, leaning against the railing, “that you're going to miss Popcorn a lot once you're back home—that you're going to miss me a lot when you're back home.” He smiles slightly, continuing with a voice so quiet that it would have been inaudible if Minho and Jisung weren't standing so close to each other. “You're also wondering what would happen if you turn your life around, and you try to actually do what you want with it, instead of what you're expected to do with it.”

Minho's lips press together thinly, and he takes a small step away from Jisung; he wonders how long the younger has been wanting to bring that up – and then he realises that this is Jisung, and this is him, so the answer is likely to be: for as long as Minho has been wondering exactly that.

“How do you know what I want and what's expected of me isn't the same?”

“Minho,” Jisung grunts as if he just posed a very stupid question.

And it is, probably, considering this is Jisung, who knows him well enough not to be easily confused by Minho’s deflection tactics. 

“Jisung,” Minho returns, but Jisung doesn't say anything, he just looks at Minho, letting the metaphorical ball remain in his court. Minho hates it; it's true, he does have aspirations that are different from his parents’ assumptions, but he doesn't want to be a walking Asian-American cliché – the type who acts like he's trapped by expectations. He refuses to make that his story, especially since his mother and father have always been good to him. He's smart, anyway, and personable, which means he'll do just fine in any area he chooses to pursue, and he's more than happy to do whatever he needs to do to make his parents proud of him. “What do you want me to say, Jisung?”

The younger male shrugs. “Whatever's on your mind—all external factors notwithstanding, what do you want for yourself?”

Minho looks down – he wonders what good it would do him, lying to Jisung, and the obvious answer is absolutely nothing.

“It would be nice to be running my own restaurant in ten years,” he finally admits softly. “Or at least running my own kitchen.” This is a dream that he's only really allowed himself to think about in brief, passing moments, and it's definitely not something that he's ever really voiced out loud to anyone.

“I figured,” Jisung says, because of course he did. “Or, well, I thought it would be something like that anyway—like when you were still working at—what was the name of that restaurant again?” He chuckles. “At Harper's—your job was waiting tables, but you used to always talk more about what was going on in the kitchen!”

Minho wrinkles his nose; sometimes it's uncomfortable how well Jisung knows him – rather, he doesn't know how it makes him feel, hence the discomfort.

“And,” Jisung keeps going, “you're always the happiest when you're feeding all of us, Minho—you haven't done it these past few months, though.”

Minho chuckles bittersweetly. “Been busy trying to graduate.”

“Yeah, but—do your parents know something else makes you happier?”

The answer is, of course, no – except it's really more because Minho has never bothered to be open with them about his personal interests. Frankly, being able to explore those interests had been part of the beauty of going to school a thousand miles away from home. 

He shrugs in response to Jisung.

“Minho—I’ve met your parents,” Jisung says pointedly. “They’ve always been super supportive of you, so the only reason I can think of, as to why you refuse to be honest with them is because— well.” He pauses, and stares at Minho, as if to make sure that Minho is alright with being called out on his well —bullshit.

So Minho meets Jisung's gaze, and offers him a small nod.

“It's because you know that if you try, and you end up failing, then you only have yourself to blame,” Jisung finishes, the truth in his words resonating far too well with Minho.

The thing is: it's true that making his parents happy gives him a certain kind of simple joy and fulfillment – Minho learned early on in life that's just how it is when you do things for other people (or, living creatures in general – this is why he started regularly donating to the World Wildlife Fund when he was only 12). When you do things for other people, just the act of trying is enough, but when you start doing things for yourself – somehow, the stakes become higher, and the only welcome endgame is success.

“It's—” Minho winces, because he hates admitting to fear. “It’s scary.”

“Sure it is,” Jisung nods. “But when did you, of all people, ever let that stop you?”

Minho stays quiet, allowing Jisung's words to sink in. The corners of his lips curl up into a small smile, and he nudges Jisung, who actually laughs good-naturedly while clapping Minho's shoulder. His laughter effectively diffuses the tension surrounding them, but sharing that much at once, even if it is with Jisung, makes Minho feel vulnerable, which makes him feel antsy.

“You want a stick?” He mumbles, feeling inside his jacket pocket for a lighter and cigarette; he isn't a heavy smoker, and he only normally lights up after drinking when he wants to sober up, but that's because it helps him calm down whenever he starts feeling even remotely out of control.

“To share?” Jisung asks, even though he doesn't really need to – they always share. Minho shrugs and places a cigarette between his lips, while Jisung stares at him with wide, shiny eyes as he attempts to light it up. “Minho—”

“Yeah?” Minho glances up, a bit annoyed because his lighter looks to be out of lighter fluid because it keeps only mildly sparking.

“I want to share something else.”

Minho only has time to spare him a very brief questioning glance, before Jisung is plucking the unlit cigarette stick off his mouth, replacing it instead with his own chapped lips.

Minho thinks he should probably be more shocked than he actually is; sure, he feels a momentary jolt of confusion when Jisung starts to lean in, but by the time their lips meet, it's as if he was more than ready for it. Jisung actually seems more surprised at his own action than Minho is, because he freezes momentarily; it's Minho who reaches up first, hand resting against Jisung's neck, his thumb caressing the skin under his ear carefully, exactly where he knows Jisung is ticklish.

As expected, Jisung moves away, giggling; Minho smiles, and whispers, “Relax,” even though he hadn't even been the one to initiate anything.

And Jisung does exactly that – he loosens up, exhaling quietly, before he looks up at Minho, his trademark self-assured grin back on his face. He wets his lips, and then he moves in again, this time, he's more confident in the way he moves his mouth against Minho’s, lips parting, tongues meeting, teeth nipping; it's hard to tell who’s leading who, so Minho gives up trying.

He's never really allowed himself to wonder how it would feel to kiss his best friend, and as everything else around them fades into the background, and Jisung – the way he feels to his touch, warm skin underneath his fingertips, and the way he tastes on his tongue, vaguely reminiscent of the grape-flavored candy he was chewing earlier – becomes the only thing that Minho is acutely aware of in that moment, he realises why he never did.

As well as he knows Jisung, as easy it is to say how much they match and fit together, there was no way he could have imagined how good, how right, how perfect kissing Han Jisung would feel.

They don't stop.

Well, they pause, at least – in fact, they pause several times for air, each time both of them just getting more desperate and eager to get back to kissing each other, until they lose track of time, and Minho – or maybe it’s Jisung, because at one point it becomes really hard to tell their thoughts and actions apart – brings up maybe at least attempting to go somewhere more private.

The walk back to where they're staying is quiet, as if they both think that talking will somehow erase or undo some kind of spell. Instead they walk close to each other, hips occasionally bumping, back of their hands purposefully grazing against each other. Each touch – accidental or otherwise – feels charged, excited.

Once they get back to their room, the first thing Minho does is pull Jisung towards him again, eager to have their mouths on each other as soon as possible – actually, maybe it's Jisung who pulls Minho towards him, fingers hooking through his belt hoops, moaning sinfully through his mouth as soon as the gap is closed between the two of them.

It's hard to tell who makes the first move this time, because even in this they're perfectly in sync.

“What are we doing?” One of them asks at one point, amidst their mutual hurry to rid themselves of their clothes.

“Don't you want to?” The other asks, pausing, a nervous tremble easily heard in his tone.

“I do. I want to—I want you.”

The way the words are said is firm, with no room for second guessing. Soon enough there's no room for anything else anyway, but instinct, and feeling, and giving in to each other.

Everything about Jisung feels both comfortable and electrifying at once, and Minho has no idea what to make of that.

%

Jisung wonders if he should feel more weirded out than he does – or more awkward, at least, because nothing has really changed.

They ended up sleeping in the day before, both of them refusing to move from the bed until it was at least ten past noon; granted, they had initially woken up earlier – maybe even hours before noon. Neither of them had opted to bring up the fact that both of them were naked in bed upon waking up, and instead they’d wordlessly gravitated towards each other, sharing body heat and easily being  lured back into deep, comfortable sleep. And then the phone rang – at 12:10 PM, exactly, and Jisung remembers this because he’d mentally cursed at himself for choosing such an obnoxious ringtone as he forced himself to reach for his phone so he could answer it. 

The obnoxious caller happened to be Changbin – letting them know that the cat tree Minho ordered right before they left for their trip had arrived, only to proceed to whine about how he had absolutely no clue how to assemble it; Minho had snatched the phone away from Jisung, mumbled something about learning to read instructions, and then went on to abruptly end the call. The conversation had effectively woken both of them up anyway, and soon enough Jisung’s hunger was letting itself known through the loud rumbling of his stomach.

The rest of the day had gone smoothly – after a hefty brunch at the one diner in town, they were finally able to go through the town brochure’s checklist, the top of which had been the two mini novelty museums that had sparked Jisung’s interest. Like the bored teen receptionist had warned them though, they truly were nothing special – Jisung and Minho made sure to take pictures of everything, though, because that much was luckily allowed. (The highlight of the potato exhibit was supposed to be a spud that resembled a butterfly – Jisung wasn’t sure he saw the resemblance, but he and Minho took selfies with it in the background anyway.)

Afterwards, they had gone back to the movie theater where the same French movie from the night before was having a matinee showing – it turned out to be a French horror film, which Jisung surprisingly enjoyed because he was actually unable to guess the twist. Quite a feat, considering these days, he’s usually able to tell what’s going to happen by the end of the movie after just the first thirty or forty minutes. (Seungmin really hates seeing movies with him because of this; Minho is the only one who actually seems proud of this little skill he’s developed.)

Afterwards, they decided that it was too late to get started on the road, so they ended up losing more money to slot machines; Jisung also tried to convince Minho to volunteer for the magician once he started his show – but it turned out that he only had the stage three nights a week, and instead they ended up having to watch an out-of-town comedy duo that according to Minho he recognised as the ones who were checked into the room a couple of doors down from them.

Overall, Jisung feels like they got their time and money's worth out of the detour – at the very least, they came out of it with stories to tell, and that was all he had more or less expected from it.

Except—

Except he had sex with his best friend, and he doesn't know which part of the story that fits – or how it fits – and neither of them had brought it up since.

So Jisung thinks that maybe things should be weird, or awkward, or tense, but it's none of the above. The two of them are just being the two of them, which feels good, because that's how it always feels between the two of them.

Right now, Minho is trying to get a hold of Seungmin, while Jisung has his turn at the wheel.

“He isn't answering,” Minho says, frowning; he turns and looks at Jisung and holds his hand out. “Give me your phone—maybe he'll answer if he sees it's you calling instead of me.”

Jisung snorts. “Or maybe he'll hit the reject button even faster,” he points out, laughing.

Minho appears to consider his words for several seconds, before joining in the laughter. “Okay,” he agrees. “You have a point there.”

He tries again with Seungmin, this time putting the call on speaker; Seungmin's ringback tone – Mandy Moore’s Cry – immediately fills the car.

“He really set this song as his ringback,” Minho snickers. “What year is it?!”

“You don't even want to know how many times he and Felix watched A Walk to Remember last month,” Jisung comments. “Felix kept bawling every time—one time, Hyunjin and Jeongin were over too, and they roped Changbin and me into watching as well, and—”

“And together your collective tears nearly flooded the apartment?” Minho teases; Jisung just huffs because maybe his eyes welled up a little. “Where was I during the multiple viewings of this—?“

Jisung is about to explain that this was when he kept pulling all-nighters at the library so he can work on his undergraduate thesis, but he gets cut off by a soft clicking sound indicating that Seungmin has finally answered the call.

“Hey!” Jisung chirps in greeting before Minho can say anything.

“Jisung—?” Seungmin asks, sounding understandably confused because he likely expected to hear Minho on the other end. “Minho?”

“Hey,” Minho chimes in. “You home?”

Seungmin hums. “Yeah—you two still on the road?”

“We are, and we’re going to be passing through your city in—” Minho glances at Jisung, who shrugs, but proceeds to compute the hours in his head.

“Approximately 3 hours,” Jisung supplies.

“Uh-huh, and—?” Seungmin responds, like he has no idea where Minho and Jisung are going with this, even though they've all been friends long enough that Jisung is sure Seungmin at least has an idea.

“Can we crash at yours tonight?” Minho bluntly asks, grinning cheekily in a way that makes it fortunate Seungmin can't see him through the phone line.

“Depends—what do I get out of it?”

Jisung laughs. “The amazing pleasure of our company!’

Seungmin clicks his tongue. “You're supposed to be selling me on this, not trying to get me to hang up on you.”

“Aw, Seungmin, come on!” Jisung argues. “You know you love us!”

“What he said,” Minho echoes in agreement.

There's a pause, below soft rustling is heard on the other end, followed by a loud, exasperated sigh – which Jisung is sure Seungmin did on purpose. “I’m staying with my sister over the break,” Seungmin begins, “so I’d have to let her know, but yeah—okay, I’ll see you guys tonight.”

Minho laughs. “Your sister loves us anyway,” he retorts. 

“That's because she met you guys, like, once—” Seungmin huffs. “But yeah—I suppose she’d be fine putting you guys up for a night.”

Jisung hasn't always gotten along very well with Seungmin; part of it was because Seungmin was brought into the group by Hyunjin, so he supposes some of the weird tension between the two of them had spilled over to him and Seungmin. It didn’t help that they had completely opposite approaches to life – Seungmin liked clarity and organization, while Jisung had a more come-what-may approach to everything. Furthermore, while he and Hyunjin mostly just ignored each other’s existence with only the occasional shady, passive aggressive remarks about each other thrown out there, Seungmin and Jisung actually constantly butt heads over the smallest things, with each and every biting comment made directly at each other.

Felix and Seungmin had sparked pretty early on into Seungmin’s integration into the friend group, and the former’s bright idea at an attempt to get to know Seungmin involved asking him to tutor Felix in his College Algebra course – very much to Jisung’s chagrin.

“I took AP Algebra in high school—I’ll help you not fail,” Jisung had quickly volunteered after Felix told him what he did. He wasn’t sure how he was going to find time to help his friend in between his own classes, work study, and all the college parties he very much wanted to continue going to, but at the time he really wasn’t a big fan of having Seungmin around much more than necessary. 

“Not failing isn’t the sole point!” Felix had argued, laughing as if he was treating Jisung’s half-assed offer as a joke. 

“What’re the other points then?”

“Not failing and spending time with Seungmin—the point is hitting two birds with one stone!”

Jisung didn’t know why he even asked, because he knew that was what his friend and roommate wanted to happen; truthfully he had lowkey hoped that Felix would be too embarrassed to admit to his plan. He should have known better, because of course, even in this – even in supposedly sneaky attempts to get with his crush –  Felix would be earnest and honest .

So Seungmin had ended up spending a lot of time in Jisung and Felix’s shared dorm room, and at first it was okay because they mostly would just grunt and nod at each other. Eventually, however, Seungmin reached a point where he became comfortable enough in their room that he started telling Jisung to pick up after himself because his side was a complete mess. This easily ground at his gears, and soon enough, he and Seungmin were having a few too many petty squabbles.

“What do you see in him?” Jisung asked his friend once, only to be met with surprise and confusion on Felix’s part.

“What do you mean?” Felix asked, and it was frankly somewhat frustrating how clueless Felix had seemed, because Jisung was pretty sure it was obvious what he meant. “Seungmin is cute—sweet, supportive, helpful. He listens to people so well, but he also doesn’t mince words when he wants to be heard. It’s easy to smile when I’m around him.”

Jisung really didn’t get it then, but Felix was important to him, so even while grumbling, he resolved to at least try to get along with Seungmin for his roommate’s sake. (And okay, that resolve didn't stop him from constantly complaining to Minho every time Seungmin was over for “tutoring,” but the older just humored him, and laughed each time, and told him that Seungmin had his merits, which he found strange because as far as he could tell, Seungmin could stand Minho about as much as he could stand Jisung – barely at all.)

“Why do you hate me so much?”

It was maybe around two months after Felix and Seungmin officially became boyfriends, that Jisung bluntly asked Seungmin this question.

Seungmin had come over to Felix and Jisung’s room, early as usual to meet his boyfriend, while Felix was stuck at a group meeting that was running late. Jisung had been tempted to tell him to come back later, but he wasn't really that kind of person, so he let him in and allowed him to wait over at Felix's side of the room.

Not even ten minutes passed before Jisung had decided that he couldn't stand the tense silence, and he allowed the question to slip off his tongue.

“Huh?” Seungmin looked up at him, confused for maybe a total of one second or two, before he answered simply. “Because—I’m Hyunjin's best friend, and you're Minho's… whatever. Best friend, too, I guess.”

“That doesn't even make sense.” Minho and Hyunjin had broken up by then, but they still constantly hung out, especially after work because they still had the same shifts at Harper's. Occasionally Minho would even bring Hyunjin along to parties he and Jisung went to – it was a little annoying because he and Hyunjin were still weird around each other, then, but there certainly was no bad blood between any of them.

Seungmin shrugged. “Also you have really annoying habits—like would it kill you to actually put your dirty clothes in the hamper instead of the floor?”

“Hey! It's my side of the room!”

“You asked,” Seungmin said simply.

Jisung sighed. “I don't hate you,” he said quietly.

“I don't actually hate you either, Jisung,” Seungmin returned. “I think maybe it kind of just became a habit to rag on you.”

Jisung snorted. “You have really annoying habits, too.”

“Touché.”

“I think Felix would like us to actually be friends,” Jisung pointed out.

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“How about you tell me how Felix asked you to be his boyfriend?” Jisung asked, grinning so cheekily that Seungmin actually rolled his eyes.

“He didn't tell you?”

Jisung shook his head. “I think he feels awkward talking to me about you—which is another reason why we should try this,” he said, gesturing between the two of them.

“Well—” Seungmin chuckled; he nodded his head slightly and Jisung realised that for the first time he could remember they were actually on the same page. “I actually asked him. Sort of.”

“What?!” Jisung had gawked, genuinely surprised because Felix had always seemed a lot more proactive in pushing things forward between the two of them.

“Things were going so slowly, and it was stupidly frustrating,” Seungmin explained. “I mean we started out wanting to do the friends thing at first, but after a while it was just silly because we both knew we liked each other, and—“ he had laughed, and there was something so fond in the way he did it that Jisung knew right then, despite their differences, that Seungmin was going to do right by this friend and roommate. “—I just asked. I told him I liked him and that I wasn't seeing anyone but him, and that it was silly to keep just being friends if we both knew what we really wanted. And then I asked him if he wanted to be my boyfriend—” Seungmin laughed. “I’ve never done that before. The few times I dated in high school, they asked me. Felix easily makes me do things outside of my comfort zone, because he is my comfort zone.”

Back in high school, Jisung was never shy about asking people out; he was always the type to go after people – and things – that he wanted. And yet, Seungmin's words rang true and relatable to him, for some reason.

(The following semester, they ended up – and this was a hundred percent pure coincidence – in the same Introduction to Philosophy class, where they actually chose to do the final project together. That was, quite possibly, both the worst and best thing to happen to their friendship. 

Jisung always jokes that they forged their friendship through Seungmin's nagging, which he swears is tougher than any trial or tribulation that can be likened to fire.

Seungmin always tells him he's an idiot, but Jisung really came out of that semester knowing him well enough to detect the laughter behind his eyes every time.)

Seungmin informs them that he won't be home until late in the evening – definitely not before dinner, at least – because he has long-standing plans with a few of his friends from high school, and neither will his sister because she's going to be working late.

“I’m sure you two can entertain yourselves for a while without me,” he’d told them, before following-up with the location where they can find his sister's spare key. (One of the potted plants on the patio has a false bottom, apparently.)

Despite being shameless enough to sweet talk their way into free accommodations from their friends (if you could even call it that, because Jisung doubts that Seungmin, or even Chris for that matter, would), they apparently have enough tact left between the two of them not to crash at Seungmin's sister's place while neither of them are at home. Seungmin is right, anyway – they're expert at finding things to occupy themselves with; this entire road trip has been a testament to that, Jisung would say.

“How much would it take for you to get on the ferris wheel?” Jisung asks, staring up at the massive amusement park ride in question.

Unable to quickly decide how they wanted to spend their afternoon, they'd written down every suggestion they could think of, before randomly choosing one through drawing lots. This is how they end up with a late afternoon at the Santa Monica Pier, taking stupid, off-center pictures as they walk around, using obnoxiously ugly color and effect filters on them before sending them to their friends, most especially to Seungmin, specifically.

(“What am I supposed to do with these pictures?” Seungmin responds at one point. “What am I supposed to do with your existence?!”

“Wish you were here,” is what Minho responds with, complete with not one but three heart-eyes emojis, much to Jisung's entertainment.)

“Wouldn't really take much,” Minho answers Jisung’s question, carefully unfeeling in his tone, except for the slight quiver in his voice that Jisung detects. “If you get on the rollercoaster, I’ll get on the ferris wheel.” His gaze settles in Jisung, his eyes smiling yet posing a challenge, as he sips on the tall grape slushie the two of them are sharing.

Jisung laughs because he knows Minho is banking on his own cowardice – Minho's fear of heights is much more pronounced than his own so Jisung would be okay on a ferris wheel, but he’s pretty bad with instances that involve either not being able to set his feet in something solid, or anything that involves having him do 360-degree turns while up in the air.

“I’ll do it,” he says anyway. He’s been on this particular ride before, when he and his friends had driven up for their senior cut day. Granted, that was two years ago, but the point is that he survived this ride – he's sure he can do it again.

“No you won't,” Minho hastily argues. “No. You won’t!”

“Yes I will!” Jisung insists, laughing. “Come on—I’ll do both, if you do them with me.” He pauses, tilting his chin up confidently. “I dare you.”

Minho, if you catch him in the right mood, is even worse than Jisung is at turning down challenges – and Jisung, by now, has perfected the art of identifying the subtle shifts in Minho's mood. Case in point: the way the corners of Minho's mouth twitch the moment Jisung says the magic words easily tells him that he's won, and he's about to get his way.

Thirty minutes later, however, as the park attendant helps them into the coaster, and makes sure that they're all locked and buckled in, Jisung wonders what exactly he thought he was winning here.

Jisung screams throughout the entire ride, while Minho sits practically frozen next to him; he keeps calling for his Mom, his Dad, his older brother — he's pretty sure he yells Minho's name a few times as well, as the coaster loops full circles.

“I don't want to die!!!” He cries out, knuckles white from gripping the safety handles a little too hard. By the time the road slowly comes to a stop, Jisung is feeling like his spirit has completely left him, and all that remains is the shell of his body.

The two of them stumble out of the car together, leaning on and clutching at each other so that neither of them collapse due to wobbly knees.

“Fuck,” Minho hisses under his breath, and he sounds so out of it – a very rare occurrence for him – that Jisung almost wants to laugh, except his throat feels pretty hoarse from all the screaming he just did, and nothing comes out save for a very weak chortle. “Why did I say yes to that again?” Minho grunts.

“Because…” Jisung trails off, at a loss for words because whatever reason he had for making the suggestion to begin with has obviously gotten lost somewhere along one of those crazy coaster turns.

Minho looks into the distance, and Jisung realises that he's staring at the ferris wheel.

“Can we save that one for later?” Minho asks, and even though Jisung knows he won't have any problems with that one (he's looking forward to it, even), he's quick to acquiesce with a nod. “Okay, good,” Minho exhales, sounding pretty relieved.

They resume walking around the pier, and this time, they take their sweet time doing so. They meticulously check and explore almost every stall and store that they pass, and Jisung is well aware that for Minho, it's more about putting as much time as possible between himself and another ride that will require him to get at least six feet off the ground. For him, however, he simply wants to enjoy as much of the afternoon with Minho.

It's one thing  to be taking pictures constantly on their phones (which they were both pretty bad at, anyway), but when Jisung spots the photo booths lined up right by the walkway that leads you to the kiddie rides, he quickly pulls Minho towards them.

“Oh? You wanna do the kid rides?” Minho teases, playfully petting his head. “Pretty sure you still fall under the height requirement.”

Jisung flips him the bird, before laughing and pushing him into one of the empty booths. He did this with his high school friends two years ago, and he still has his copy tacked up on his bedroom wall back home; he has photobooth pictures with Felix, Seungmin and Hyunjin, as well, taken on a whim when the four of them had hung out at the carnival just earlier that year. That one was tacked up on the fridge back at their off-campus apartment. Weirdly enough, he’s never done this with Minho.

They make funny faces every time the booth cues the next photo snap, and when the print comes out it's ridiculous because even without talking beforehand, they're completely in sync for almost every shot – cross-eyed for one, double peace signs for another.  The only take where they're doing different things is the last one, where Jisung has his eyes closed, and his round cheeks puffed out, while Minho is just looking at him.

Something inside him flutters, and he thinks that he wants to figure out what that means, but he doesn't know how to start, or if he even has time to. 

Jisung is more than familiar with the concept of butterflies in his stomach – his high school friends used to tease him for crushing on people easily, but he didn't care because every time he felt that sweet exhilaration of attraction to someone, he never hesitated to shoot his shot. At the end of the day though, the butterflies were always very quick to fly away, which had resulted with him ending up with a string of brief, non-serious relationships. 

It was never like that with Minho. With him, Jisung had always felt calm and comfortable and right, and even now, he doesn't think he can compare the stirring in his stomach to butterflies. He thinks it's a feeling that's always been there, a soft, pleasant hum that he's gotten used to over the years, that he never thought to notice it until now, and maybe that's why he has such a difficult time deciphering what it means.

They're shoulder to shoulder when they finally queue for the ferris wheel. Minho keeps inching closer to him with each step they take towards the front, and when it's their turn to get into one of the pods, their hands are tightly clasped together, and Jisung's heart is thumping distractingly against his rib cage.

Minho gasps softly when the ride lurches, and it slowly starts to turn. Jisung squeezes his hand, noticing that Minho now has his eyes tightly closed. 

“Minho—” Jisung whispers out of instinct; he's not sure that he even has anything to say – it was as if he simply needed to say the name in that moment.

Minho only hums in response, and once again, Jisung is struck by how beautiful his best friend is. The sun had started to set while they were in line for the ride, and now the horizon was a deep mix of orange and purple, and the way that the light is hitting Minho's features at just the perfect angle has Jisung deciding that he really wants to kiss Minho again.

It was just like this the other night, on that rooftop in Nevada, and Jisung had gone for it then, so there really should be nothing stopping him from doing it again.

“Minho,” he repeats, this time in nothing more than a whisper. “Don't open your eyes.”

And then he moves in until their lips brush together, feather light at first, except Minho is quick to respond, parting his mouth against Jisung's, and naturally deepening the kiss in the process.

Jisung can feel Minho smiling into the kiss, and knowing that this is making Minho happy has Jisung’s chest threatening to explode; and then he wonders if Minho can feel his happiness as well.

He's hit with something that Seungmin once said to him, more than a year ago now, about how he's able to be braver and more outgoing than he normally is when he's around Felix, because his boyfriend lends him enough comfort to allow him to do things that he usually wouldn't. Jisung had understood, had related , in a way that he didn't really know how to explain before, but he thinks he's starting to get it now.

It's the simple fact that Minho is his comfort zone. It was only confusing because he and Seungmin had always been opposites – where being with Felix had allowed Seungmin to approach things more positively and spontaneously, being with Minho allowed Jisung to feel calmer, and more settled; so much so that he's never even really noticed or realised this before.

Minho makes me stupid, he jokes in his head, only to laugh and giggle right into the kiss he's sharing with his best friend.

And maybe it makes sense that he's finally seeing the light now, when in a few months the two of them are going to be living in different states, at least a thousand miles away from each other.

Fuck, he thinks, because even though he had survived eighteen years of his life without Minho, just the idea of that, now, is a very scary thought. 

“Minho—” he repeats yet again, practically out of breath as he breaks away from the kiss.

“Yeah–?” Minho returns, eyes fluttering open, even as his lips chase after Jisung’s own with a soft whine.

“I like you,” he says, because being honest and straightforward is something he can still take pride in. Jisung has always bravely reached for things – for people – he wants, and even though, in a way Minho has always felt like his, he isn't about to leave that to chance, because he isn't actually stupid. The words don't feel enough, though, so with an airy chuckle, he shakes his head. “Scratch that,” he amends. “I think—actually, I’m pretty sure— I’m in love with you.”

%

When Minho first met Hyunjin, the latter was the new guy at work, and the manager had assigned Minho, who started working there at the start of his second year (when he realised that he was going to be around food while making so much more in tips at even just a few nights a week, compared to any work study placement that the university had to offer), to show him the ropes.

His entire first week, he shadowed Minho closely, and he did so even after their shifts were over; he casually invited himself to Minho’s plans with his friends, which would have probably been annoying, but Hyunjin was like a cute little puppy wanting to please. His friends – Jisung aside – took to him pretty quickly, and, well, Minho has always been quite fond of cute baby animals, after all.

Hyunjin was interesting in that he easily went back and forth between putting up a confident front, and being completely transparent with his self-consciousness, and that genuinely made Minho want to know more about him. And so, three weeks into knowing each other, Minho simply asked him out on an official date.

It was so simple and straightforward that it was practically a non-event – they bumped into each other by the lockers at work right before their shift, and Minho went, 

“Want to see a movie with me this Friday?”

Hyunjin had lit up completely and proceeded to nod eagerly. “I mean, yeah—sure,” he said, after clearing his throat, and trying to to tone his expression down to a more nonchalant one. 

“Cool,” Minho shot back, grinning because Hyunjin was really amusing to him. “Let's work details out later.

And then both of them had to start work, and that was it.

The date itself also went pretty smoothly; Hyunjin was a lot more relaxed – or at least a lot better at appearing relaxed. He was also a lot more aggressive, because by the night's end, much to Minho's surprise, he had been the one to go in for a kiss.

For a while, the two of them worked; once they became exclusive, Hyunjin slowly and naturally opened up to Minho, and Minho loved it – he enjoyed all the ways in which Hyunjin revealed his caring and thoughtful side, and it amused him to learn even about his inherent pettiness, and his penchant for excessive dramatics. 

But that was the thing with Minho – he always enjoyed the beginning parts of a relationship. He liked the thrill of the chase, and he revelled in the settling down. Except after that comes the part where things actually settle, and all the ways in which he and his previous boyfriends are opposites and don't work, become more of a hassle than an endearment. This was why most of his relationships ended in six months or less. 

Considering that, the fact he and Hyunjin made it to seven was probably proof that Minho liked him a lot. Besides, in the end, it wasn't even Minho who ended things like he usually does, but Hyunjin.

“Why?” Minho had asked after Hyunjin did it, because while he wasn't really feeling disappointed or surprised, it was still a bit of a blow to his ego.

“You know why,” Hyunjin answered, his expression looking hurt, yet resigned.

“I’m sorry,” Minho said, because Hyunjin, of course, is right. “We’re too different—we don't fit in all the right ways.” His words were blunt, because Minho has never believed that beating around the bush helped anyone, but his tone was soft and apologetic because he really did care about Hyunjin. Still, it was probably not a good sign of his character that this wasn't the first time he had delivered this speech in some form. 

They sat there, in Minho's Jeep, not saying anything for a while before Hyunjin finally brought up the fact that it was getting late, and expressed that he would be completely grateful if Minho were to drive him home.

So – when Minho had explained to Jisung that the reason why he and Hyunjin broke up was because they didn't match well, it was the absolute truth.

What he didn't tell Jisung was what Hyunjin had said, right when Minho dropped him off, his tone laced bitterness that no one would expect from Hwang Hyunjin, of all people.

“Not everyone is going to match with you so perfectly in the way that Jisung does, Minho—and it's not fair of you to make people feel that this is what you expect from them.”

Minho had gawked, genuinely shocked for once in his life. He'd seen the breakup coming from a mile away, but he couldn't have predicted Jisung being brought into it.

“I didn't even mention him,” Minho snapped, sounding more heated than he intended, because he thought Hyunjin was being ridiculous and unfair. “Jisung is my best friend— nothing more. I never asked you to be anything like him.”

“No—Minho, I have a best friend too and—“ Hyunjin had let out nervous laughter, and then he balled his fists, which by then Minho knew was his way of gathering courage and chasing away his anxiety. “Look, just consider this—how do you think it feels, seeing you and Jisung so in sync and compatible—so complementary—on the regular—and then have you tell me straight to my face that the reason you've been so distant is because— we don't fit right?”

Minho blinked, at a loss for words. “I’m sorry”  were the only ones he could think of, and they were stuck on his tongue because they sounded played out in his head.

Hyunjin exhaled shakily, and then he broke out a small smile. “We still work together, and our shift gets the most tips, so I don't think either of us should change—and we have all the same friends now—I know they were yours first, but…”

“I’m not going to make them choose me over you, Hyunjin,” Minho assured him, because that was the least he could do.

“Okay—” Hyunjin made a relieved noise, and this time, his smile reached his eyes, somewhat. “So I’ll be fine. We’re good—don't worry, okay, Minho?”

“Hyunjin—” Minho began, because even though Hyunjin was technically the one to break things first, it didn't feel right to be comforted by his ex when most of the fault was clearly on his part.

“No, really—” Hyunjin interrupted his interruption. “This is why I’m ripping the bandaid off now, so we can still actually try and be friends.” He paused, and sighed. “And I’m sorry for what I said about Jisung,” he mumbled, and Minho almost chuckled, because only Hyunjin would be this apologetic about voicing something he truly felt. “I guess now I can try and work on being his friend, too.” He smiled, sad but hopeful. “Just give me a week or two—a month at most, I swear— to be bitter, and then we’d be great.”

Minho let out a sad chuckle. “Thank you, Hyunjin,” he said, and he truly meant it.

He didn't want to acknowledge whatever jealousy Hyunjin was implying with regards to Jisung – moreover, he didn't want to touch whatever truth there might be in Hyunjin's original statement about Minho's own expectations, so he completely pushed it all to the back of his consciousness.

Now though, he can't help but recall the words – and he can't help but wonder if maybe they're a part of why he hasn't really gone out with anyone for more than two dates after Hyunjin.

“It’s late, why are you out here by yourself?”

Seungmin's voice cuts through Minho's thoughts, effectively surprising him and making him almost drop the lit cigarette balanced between his fingers.

“Well, why are you up?” He shakes his head, and takes a long drag off his stick before putting it out. It's only halfway done, but these days he usually only smokes when sharing with Jisung, so he isn't used to finishing one by himself anymore.

“I just finished my video call with Felix,” Seungmin says, trying to sound casual, but even just under dim, orange lighting, Minho notices the pink that spreads across his cheeks. He thinks it's sweet, that even after a year and a half of being together, just the mention of his boyfriend still makes Seungmin blush. “And then I saw the light out back was on when I went to get something to drink,” he continues to explain as he goes over to sit next to Minho on the steps of the back patio. “It's 3 in the morning, Minho.”

“Couldn't sleep,” he answers simply.

It should have been easy considering how tired he is. It has been a very long day, and between driving all morning, and a full afternoon and half evening at an amusement park, Minho is understandably pretty beat.

But then Jisung has also left him with something huge to think about, and that's what is keeping him wide awake at fuck o’clock.

I’m in love with you, his best friend had said to him, while they were suspended in the air, at least a hundred feet above ground. Minho's heart had started beating at an insane taste, thundering so loudly and aggressively against his chest in a way that it had never done before. He'd like to say he wasn't sure if it was because of Jisung's words, if because the view from where they were was terrifying as fuck – he'd even like to say that maybe it was both. But truthfully, if he was going to be a hundred percent honest, then he'd say that it was definitely more the former than the latter.

And then Jisung grinned at him – cheeky and confident, as usual – and placed a sweet peck on the corner of Minho's lips, before he pulled away and simply held Minho's hand for the rest of the ride, occasionally ooh-ing and aah-ing at the scenery that Jisung, unlike Minho, wasn't afraid to enjoy.

It was clear that it had been his way of letting Minho take his time with his response, and Minho appreciated it – just as he appreciated everything else about Jisung.

“Where's your other half?” Seungmin asks.

“Sleeping like a log,” Minho answers immediately, not even questioning Seungmin's use of ‘other half’. The image of how he left Jisung in the guest room that was set up for them – curled up against a pillow, jaw slack, and spit drooling at the corner of his mouth – flashes in his head, and he's unable to hold back a fond expression from forming on his face.

“You're smiling weirdly,” Seungmin tells him. “It’s kind of creepy.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Minho grumbles as his cheeks heat up.

“It’s my house,” Seungmin points out. “Where am I supposed to fuck off, to?”

“You mean it's your sister's house,” Minho counters.

Seungmin glares in response, which makes Minho laugh. A lot of their mutual friendship is built on biting remarks and good-natured ribbing; granted, there was a time in the beginning when it was obvious that he was nothing more than an actual irritant in Seungmin's life, but Minho would like to think that their dynamic has positively evolved since then.

“Something has happened,” Seungmin says out loud, clearly not wanting to continue arguing pettily with him. Something in his tone clues Minho in that Seungmin is making an observation about Minho, and not talking about himself.

“Something happens all the time,” Minho keeps being cheeky anyway, because Seungmin is always fun to rile up.

Seungmin rolls his eyes. “I should just sleep instead of prying,” he groans.

“You should,” Minho agrees.

Seungmin huffs and throws his hands in the air, and then he proceeds to get back up on his feet 

“No—wait,” Minho sighs, smiling apologetically and tugging at the bottom cuff of Seungmin's pajama bottoms to get him to sit again. “Just spit it out—what you were saying.”

Seungmin clicks his tongue as if disapproving, but he does lower himself once more next to Minho. “Something happened,” he repeats. “Between you and Jisung.”

“Huh?”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Seungmin clarifies. “Just—the two of you are even more annoyingly in sync than usual and that's saying a lot. Even my sister noticed it when we were all catching up earlier.”

“I don't know what you're talking about?”

“Of course you do.”

And, well, Minho both does and doesn't. A case could probably be made about how they kept finishing each other's stories when they had sat down and updated their hosts earlier about everything that has happened in their trip so far, over late night pizza and beer, around the kitchen island. It's just that all of it felt natural to Minho – all of it was nothing new to him and Jisung, because they always did that, even before. But Seungmin is also right, because while it all seems the same, something also feels different.

“We had sex,” Minho shares, deadpan and matter of fact, and it's definitely funny, the way Seungmin reacts, coughing and sputtering after he nearly chokes on his own spit.

The night that happened is an easy marker to make, but frankly, something has been shifting right from the moment they first drove off, with Changbin’s tiny reflection waving at them in his car’s rear view mirror. Minho just isn't sure how to explain it.

“Not in this house I hope? Not on my sister's bedsheets?!” Seungmin looks absolutely horrified.

“No,” Minho laughs. “It was the other night.”

“Oh—nice to know?!” Seungmin winces.

Minho, meanwhile, keeps laughing. “You said it yourself—something happened!”

“I didn't say to go into detail!”

“That was far from detailed, Seungmin. If you want some actual details, I can tell you all about this thing that Jisung does with his t—”

“No, shut up! I don't want to hear it!” Seungmin hastily interrupts.

“Are you sure, because—”

“I’m sure,” Seungmin hisses, and Minho's laughter doubles. “Whatever,” Seungmin sighs. “No one's really surprised—took you two forever to get together, it was kind of frustrating for everyone in your orbit.”

“We’re—” Minho cringes, “We're not exactly together, together.”

Or – he wonders now – are they? They haven't exactly talked about it, despite all the kisses they've shared since then. 

“Are you for real?” Seungmin sniffs. “Could've fooled me—but then, the two of you? You always acted as if you were together together, anyway.”

“Did we?”

And Minho thinks that maybe that was it – with Jisung, he strangely felt settled from the get go. They were immediately completely comfortable with each other, like they've known each other so well for years. There was no thrilling chase, no slowly unwrapping each other and getting to know what makes the other tick – and yet, despite all that there was never a dull moment with Jisung. 

“Don't play dumb Minho—your weird thing with each other was why I could barely stand either of you when you were still dating Hyunjin.” Seungmin tuts. “My best friend deserved better.”

Minho looks down, because, well – fair enough. “Yeah, he did— does,” he agrees.

Seungmin shrugs. “But, look—or, well, listen, because I’m only going to say this once, and if anyone ever hears about it, I’m going to deny it, but—you're both great—okay, let me try again because that sounded like a reach,” Seungmin laughs, “but you're both good people, and good friends—it just so happens that you're good for each other more than anybody else. You've always very annoyingly belonged to each other, and even Hyunjin has long realised and accepted that anyone who attempts to get between that is courting disappointment.”

“Wow—” Minho's breath hitches as he allows Seungmin's words to set in; and then he smirks. “You just called me and Jisung great.”

Seungmin groans. “You’re insufferable.”

“Love you too, Seungmin.” Minho snickers as he throws an arm around his friend's shoulders; and then, after a beat, softer and almost inaudible, he adds, “Thank you.”

“Hey, Ji, wake up,” Minho says as he gently attempts to shake his best friend awake. “Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!!” He keeps repeating himself, each time using a more annoying tone than the last, just because he can.

Jisung stirs, but then he tries to turn around to face the direction away from Minho, while grumbling under his breath. “It’s too early.”

Minho laughs. “It’s past ten. Come on—Seungmin’s sister made pancakes.”

Jisung sighs, and rolls over onto his back. “Why do you sound so fucking bright and chipper—what time did you even turn in last night?”

“Oh?” Minho furrows his brow, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Woke up around 2? Well—maybe half past? Some stupid spam text came in, and my phone was on max volume because I’m a dumbass—anyway, you weren’t here.”  

“Oh.” It hadn’t occurred to him that Jisung could have noticed that he’d slipped out in the middle of the night. “Around 4, maybe? I needed time to think.”

Jisung nods, slowly pulling himself up to a sitting position. He looks at Minho, eyes droopy, hair all over the place, and Minho smiles because he thinks that even like this – maybe even precisely because he’s like this – Jisung is still the most adorable boy in the world.

“I figured it was something like that,” Jisung admits. “Which is why I didn’t go looking for you.” He pauses, and then he lifts his chin so he can look at Minho squarely. “Well—?”

“Well?”

“Your thoughts,” Jisung says plainly. “Did you get them worked out?”

“Hm, maybe—” Minho answers, a playful and teasing smile tugging at the corners of his lips; There’s a nervousness in Jisung’s expression that makes him want to play with him a little – that, plus he’s maybe a little anxious himself.

“Minho.” Jisung says his name, all quiet and solemn. “Are you still not ready to talk, or—?” He sighs and pushes his blankets off himself. “Let’s have those pancakes, then,” he says, quickly breaking out into a toothy grin instead, despite the hint of frustration in his eyes that don’t escape Minho.

“Okay,” Minho agrees, even as he grabs Jisung’s wrists. “But let me tell you something first, yeah?”

Jisung looks up, meets his gaze, and offers him a small nod while shaking off Minho’s hold – only so that he can link their fingers together instead. “Talk, then.”

“Minho smiles and squeezes Jisung’s hands. “I’m in love with you too, Jisung. I think—I’ve always been in love with you,” he states. “I just never sat down long enough to let myself realise it, because acknowledging my feelings would have meant keeping it a secret from you—and I never wanted to keep secrets from you. I probably wouldn’t have been able to.”   

Jisung’s grin keeps stretching wider the entire time that Minho is speaking. “You wouldn’t have needed to keep it a secret, though,” he says after Minho finishes.

“Of course I did, because—” He laughs. “Seungmin told me that in a lot of ways we’ve always acted like a couple, and I guess—I guess I was content with that. I’ve never felt that settled and happy with anyone, but I did with you, and my subconscious probably felt like messing with that wasn’t a good idea. If I dealt with my feelings, I probably would have been scared to lose you.”

Even now, he thinks, it’s because he’s scared – because they’re both scared, that they’re finally acting on these feelings that neither of them faced before. This is why the subtle shift had occurred that moment they drove off together; because it was the beginning of an ending, and that was the last thing either of them wanted.

“Minho—” Jisung laughs. “That’s stupid —geez Minho… fuck! I guess I turn you stupid too, huh?”

Minho narrows his eyes at Jisung, who shakes his head with exasperation.

“I asked you this before, and I’ll just ask again—when did you ever let fear stop you?”

“The entire last two years, apparently,” Minho answers. 

For several seconds Jisung just stares at him, and he stares back, neither of them refusing to break eye contact. 

“Fair enough,” Jisung agrees, eventually, laughing hoarsely while shaking his head.

He looks so happy, and relaxed, like all tension and worry has left his body, and Minho thinks about how in love he truly is with his best friend. He remembers someone telling him once – Chris, probably, in all his Philosophy major glory – about how oftentimes what you want is simply right in front of you, it’s just that humans are instinctively blind to what they already have. 

And so he makes his move, going in for a kiss and sighing when their lips meet, both of them smiling and giggling in between soft smacks. Minho toys with Jisung’s fingers, and he thinks about how they really are a pair of idiots, because they could have been doing this all this time.

“You taste like toothpaste,” Jisung comments, grinning as he playfully pulls at Minho’s bottom lip with his teeth.

“And you taste like morning breath,” Minho retorts, moving away while wrinkling his nose and sticking his tongue out.

“Yeah, but you love my morning breath.”

“Not really,” Minho snorts. “But I do love you, anyway.”

When they finally drive back to their hometown late at night, they decide to order burgers at a local fast-food drive-thru, and instead of driving home, Minho takes Jisung to a nearby lookout point that everyone from their high school pretty much knows as some kind of make-out point.

There’s only one other parked car at the spot, which they ignore in favor of scarfing down their greasy dinner, sitting side by side on the hood of Minho’s Jeep, while Jisung’s On The Road playlist faintly blasts through Minho’s car speakers.

“People usually go here to make out, you know,” Jisung teases with a drawn out exhale after they’re done with their food. “Or—have sex.”

“Are you trying to proposition me?” Minho snorts as he gathers their combined trash in one paper bag.

“Yes Minho—Kiss me, ravish me, take me!!” Jisung declares loudly and dramatically, prompting Minho to clamp a hand over his big mouth.

“I won’t be able to if you don’t shut up.”

Jisung laughs, and then he actually bites Minho’s palm, which has the latter quickly drawing his hand back,

“Boy! Calm your horse teeth!”

Jisung grins, and playfully snaps his teeth at him, and he looks so silly, but Minho cracks up, as usual.

“Heh.” Jisung smirks, and then, in the blink of an eye, he’s able to plant a quick peck on Minho’s lips. The gesture catches Minho in surprise, and he blinks rapidly, otherwise frozen. “Ah, you’re cute when you don’t know what hit you,” Jisung teases, reaching up and pinching his cheek.

“Shut up—” Minho says, swatting the younger’s hand away, only to immediately go in for a proper kiss right after, his tongue licking into Jisung’s mouth as he gasps when it’s his turn to be surprised. He doesn’t freeze like Minho did, however, and is instead quick to react, giggling as his own tongue pushes back, eager and clearly pleased because this is obviously the exact outcome he had been angling for.

“Minho—” he says, pulling away after a while, breathless and in dire need of air. “Minho,” he repeats, inhaling deeply, and placing a hand on Minho’s chest to keep him at bay. “What happens next?”

“What do you mean what happens next?” Minho laughs, and reaches for Jisung’s hand. “I figured that we’d kiss a bit more, maybe?” He jokes, already leaning in once more.

Jisung grins, evading Minho’s lips, but planting a sweet kiss on his cheek instead. “I meant—after that. This. After tonight. You and me.”

It’s Minho’s turn to inhale, and gather his bearings; this time he completely moves away. “We have a couple of months to figure this out, don’t we?”

Jisung hums, and Minho lightly nudges his side. 

He’s been thinking about this, as well, of course – his own future has been a constant thought at the back of his head the entire past year, but even more so the last few days after Jisung himself had brought up Minho’s dreams in comparison to what he thinks is expected of him. 

“I never told you this, but—”

“Hold up,” Jisung clicks his tongue. “You have another secret? What happened to not wanting to keep secrets from me? I’m insulted!”

Minho laughs because he knows Jisung is mostly joking. “It isn’t a secret—it’s just another thing that I consciously made myself not consider,” he explains. “You know they love me at Harper’s, right?” He’s talking about the restaurant that he worked at for a couple of years before quitting halfway through his last year of college.

“Everyone, everywhere loves you,” Jisung snorts.

“Sure, if you say so—” Minho grins. “Anyway, I never told you this, but the Chef there actually offered me an apprenticeship once—well, not exactly an apprenticeship, but he said I can work in his kitchen if I wanted to, and that I can work my way up to an official apprenticeship under him if I do well.”

“Really?” Jisung’s eyes widen. “And you never considered this before?”

Minho looks down at his hands. “I’m considering it now.”

“Are you sure?” Jisung is looking at him in disbelief. “I don’t— really?! What do you think will your parents say?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Minho admits. “I’m sure there will be some disappointment, but—” he exhales, “I’m hoping they understand. I’ve never gone against them, I’ve always done everything that I thought would make them proud, because I’ve never had reason to do otherwise.”

“Now you do?”

“Well—if I stay here and work at my Dad’s firm, I’m locking myself down to a stable career that I feel very lukewarm towards, and I’m going to be—” He glances at Jisung, but just as quickly averts his eyes, “—far away from you. If I work at the restaurant, I’ll be working my way towards a goal that I actually care for, and, well, I’ll be with you—”

“And Popcorn,” Jisung interjects, probably just because he can.

“And our beautiful baby Popcorn,” Minho agrees, for the first time referring to the cat as collectively theirs out loud. “I put it together like that in my head and it should be a no-brainer, right?”

Jisung smiles encouragingly. “You know, if I thought that you really wanted to be a lawyer, I wouldn’t care if we were a thousand miles apart—I’ll be done with school in two years, and we can make it work in that time. But—” He sighs and gently butts his forehead against Minho’s shoulder. “Like you said, if you put it together like that, then it should be a no-brainer.”

Minho nods quietly and circles his arm around Jisung’s small waist, pulling him closer until they practically melt into each other. 

Once again, Minho thinks about how strange it is that they spent so much of their formative years living so close to each other, only to not really connect until they were on the verge of adulthood. He wonders if maybe that’s part of why it was so easy with Jisung – they connected so fast because they were actually making up for two decades worth of friendship. It’s a foolish idea, but maybe what Jisung said was right – they do make each other stupid.

Most of their friends think that Minho and Jisung clicked hard and fast because of the way they easily fall into banter, or the way they like all the same things. Changbin insists it's because they both love to make his life hard, while Seungmin likes to say it's because they're two of a kind in their obnoxious ways. (Chris just accepts it as a fact of life, while Felix glorifies it as destiny or whatever.)

Jisung would probably admit that those things are a part of it, but if you ask him, he would probably say that this is what the most beautiful thing in his friendship with Minho is: the way they can sit side by side for seems like hours, in uncharacteristic silence, and not have it, for any minute or second, feel awkward because a lot of the time, they don’t really need words to understand each other. 

Minho, of course, would agree.

Case in point: this is how they stay for a while, quietly sitting side by side, on the hood of his parked Jeep, under a beautiful night sky, watching as lights from the town they both once called home twinkle like stars from a distance – Minho makes sure to snap a mental picture that he can keep in his memory forever.

fin.