Chapter Text
It was 2:23 a.m. and Minhyuk felt like his eyes were going to fall out if he stared at his phone any longer. He kept doing it anyway, because he was in that weird extra-dimensional space between Wednesday and Thursday where you felt untouchable. He knew that come Thursday morning—morning morning, post-7-o-clock morning—he would feel like someone had poured sand under his eyelids and regret being born, but. That was something Future Minhyuk would have to deal with.
Present Minhyuk, on the other hand, was fucking starving, so he swung his legs out of bed and crept out of his room, stepping on at least three pages of the stupid development study he’d given up on three hours ago. He swore the word myelination was etched into his brain at this point.
Ha ha. Kind of.
Kihyun’s voice slipped out from under his door as Minhyuk crept past. “Yeah. Yeah, I miss you too, hyung,” he was saying, voice soft and a little bit sad. Minhyuk could hear Hyunwoo’s voice, too, tinny with distance, an overseas murmur.
He paused, noiseless in basketball socks on kitchen tile, and listened for a third voice. The voice of someone who would maybe hook their chin over Hyunwoo’s shoulder and grin brightly enough to give Kihyun temporary blindness from, like, a million miles away, or wherever the hell America was.
A funny feeling stirred in his stomach. It wasn’t hunger, Minhyuk thought. He chewed his bottom lip and felt the kitchen-tile cold seep through his socks. Maybe something like loneliness. He blinked a couple of times, then stretched up on his tiptoes in pursuit of a Twix from on top of the fridge. The wrapper crinkled a little bit, and he winced, then slid the chocolate into the sleeve of his hoodie and padded back past Kihyun’s door.
“Give me a sec, I can get him,” came Kihyun’s voice, and Minhyuk froze halfway to his room. “No, it’s all good. He’s eating candy in the kitchen.”
Damn it.
Kihyun’s door opened and he appeared, clutching his phone, with his eye mask pushed up on his forehead so his hair stuck straight out like a roof. He raised an eyebrow at Minhyuk, who was still frozen, and gestured at him to come in with his chin. Minhyuk complied. His Twix crinkled as he sat down.
“Don’t eat on my bed,” Kihyun warned. “Hyunwoo-hyung has an announcement.”
“Oh good,” Minhyuk said weakly. “Me too.”
Kihyun frowned. Minhyuk cleared his throat. He reached for his sleeve.
“Don’t fucking say that you have a few Twix up your sleeve,” Kihyun said, but the corner of his mouth was deviant and got halfway to a smile before he turned back to Hyunwoo. “Hey. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Hyunwoo said, and then he went, “Hi, Minhyuk-ah.”
Minhyuk waved his Twix at him.
“We’re coming home for winter break,” Hyunwoo said, and Kihyun’s mouth dropped open a little bit, and Minhyuk’s brain dropped out of his head.
Minhyuk’s heart threatened to pound right through his chest even as Kihyun cradled his phone and laughed because we. Hyunwoo had said we.
As in, him and Jooheon.
Coming home. Next week.
Minhyuk unwrapped his Twix and took a bite. It tasted like cardboard and he dropped crumbs on the bed and Kihyun shoved him onto the floor and his thoughts yawed wildly between ow, my butt and Jooheonjooheonjooheonjooheon.
At some point, with his ass on the floor of Kihyun's bedroom, his mind stilled enough for him to register Kihyun saying, "bye, hyung, bye, see you soon, text me your flight details," and then hanging up, and then whispering "love you" to a black screen. Which was. Which was pathetic and whatever but it was also a depressing reminder that people could, like, do something about their crushes, and not live in perpetual uncertainty.
Schrödinger's crush. Schrödinger's Jooheonnie.
Future Minhyuk was so fucked.