Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Their little arrangement comes out of a dare early freshman year of college.

The four of them are sitting in the library, trying to finish some stupid project for their required freshman course. Or, Seungmin is. Hyunjin and Jisung are too busy arguing, and Felix is alternating between scrolling through twitter and watching the two of them in amusement. 

Seungmin doesn’t know what they’re arguing about. He’s learned to block both of them out. They might as well just be saying “blah blah blah” with angry faces, with a smug face for Felix as he snaps a picture of them. 

He only starts listening when he hears his name. 

“Blah blah blah blah Seungmin,” is all he hears from Hyunjin. 

“Oooohhhh,” Felix says, grinning and giggling. 

“What?” Seungmin looks up and blinks. 

“Pfft, you’re on,” Jisung tells Hyunjin, who now has a smug expression. 

“What’s going on,” Seungmin asks suspiciously. 

Jisung takes a deep breath, runs a hand through his hair, and looks Seungmin right in the eye. “I’m dying,” he says, more serious than Seungmin has ever seen. 

“Oh my god,” Hyunjin says, rolling his eyes.

“I’m crossing things off my bucket list,” Jisung tells Seungmin, “and there’s one more thing I need to cross off. Will you help me with it?”

“I’m not killing someone for you,” Seungmin says. 

“No, no.” Jisung waves the thought aside. He reaches across the table and takes Seungmin’s hands. “Seungmin,” he says, once again staring into his eyes. “I need you to kiss me.”

Felix and Hyunjin burst into laughter. 

Seungmin pulls his hands out of Jisung’s grasp. “Very funny,” he says. 

“You didn’t seriously think he’d fall for that, did you?” Hyunjin laughs at Jisung, who’s grinning unashamedly. “I mean, come on.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jisung says. “I totally had him.”

“You didn’t,” Felix says. 

“Not even close,” Hyunjin says. 

“I’ve stopped listening,” Seungmin says. 

“Minnie, Minnie,” Jisung whines. “Be honest—out of the three of us, who would you kiss? I bet it’s me, right?”

“I’d rather kiss a wall,” Seungmin says. “Are you guys going to focus? We need to get this done. I have a bunch of other things I need to do tonight so we need to get it done now.”

“Only if Jisung can focus,” Hyunjin says with a smirk. 

“I’ll focus after Seungminnie gives me a kiss.” Jisung puckers up for emphasis.

“Fellas, is it gay to kiss your homies?” Felix grins. 

“I’ve gotten a kiss from everyone except you,” Jisung adds, looking at Seungmin. 

“I bet him twenty bucks that he couldn’t get you to kiss him,” Hyunjin says. “I’m gonna be twenty bucks richer in a few minutes.”

“Please, please, Seungminnie?” Jisung pouts at Seungmin. 

“I’m not kissing you,” Seungmin tells Jisung, making Jisung groan. 

“HA!” Hyunjin exclaims. “Pay up, loser.”

Jisung sighs as he sits back in his chair. Then he grins. “I left my wallet at home.”

Hyunjin shoves him, and Jisung almost falls off of his chair. 

“Purely unrelated, but did you know that kissing burns calories?” Jisung says. He wiggles his eyebrows at Seungmin. “Wanna try it out?”

“You calling me fat?” Seungmin counters, not even looking up from his assignment. 

“What?” Jisung blinks.

“Let’s focus, guys,” Seungmin says, changing the topic. “Hyunjin, I need you to—”

After that, it’s all business as usual, and they manage to focus long enough to complete at least one aspect of the assignment. 

When they’re finished, it’s around dinner time, and Felix yawns. He and Hyunjin walk out after bidding the others goodbye, with Hyunjin slinging his arm around Felix’s shoulders. 

“They are so fucking,” Jisung says, leaning against the table with his arms crossed as he watches the two of them walk away. “Or, if they’re not yet, then they will soon. I mean, childhood friends? Hello? There’s a bunch of repressed emotions and sexual tension that’s gonna come bursting out.”

He looks at Seungmin, who’s still gathering up his things. 

“Bet you twenty bucks they’re gonna fuck within a month.” 

“Pass,” Seungmin says. 

Jisung studies him for a few moments, frowning. “You okay, Minnie?” He tilts his head to one side.

“Fine,” Seungmin says. 

“You just look really stressed. Are you sleeping? And eating?”

“Yes, Jisung. I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

“I know, I’m just worried,” Jisung says softly, making Seungmin look up at him. Jisung gives a small smile. “I’m here if you need anything—you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” Seungmin slings his backpack over one shoulder and smiles. 

Jisung offers him a fist bump, which Seungmin accepts. Then they start walking out of the library together. 

“You know,” Jisung says, “kissing and sex are good stress relievers. If you’re ever interested.” He shoots Seungmin a smug smirk paired with a wink. 

Seungmin gives him a look. “Jisung, if I kiss you, will you shut up about it?”

“Absolutely,” Jisung says, grinning. 

Seungmin groans but then leans forward and presses a quick peck to Jisung’s cheek before he can think twice about it. 

“What the hell was that?” Jisung complains, pouting. “That wasn’t a kiss. That was something you’d give to a stinky, wrinkly, racist and homophobic relative after your parents keep nagging you to give them a kiss. That was not a childhood best friend kiss! Not to mention it wasn’t even on the lips.”

“You said you’d shut up about it,” Seungmin says. 

“Nah, I said I’d shut up about it after you kissed me,” Jisung says. “That was not a kiss.”

“What, are you expecting a full-on make-out session?”

“I mean, if you’re up for it!” Jisung grins again. “C’mon, Minnie, there’s no way you haven’t thought about making out in some dark corner of the library.”

Seungmin pauses, mostly because Jisung has a point. He has thought about meeting up with some secret lover and pressing them against the wall and trying to get away with as much as possible without getting caught.

Not that he’ll admit any of that to Jisung, though. 

“You’re thinking about it,” Jisung says, grinning as he points at Seungmin. “You’re totally thinking about it. Thinking about how you wanna kiss me so bad and then maybe throw me up against a wall and then—”

Seungmin cuts him off by grabbing him by the collar and dragging him into one of the aisles in between tall bookcases. There, he yanks Jisung towards him and kisses him right on the lips, for much longer and harder than he did a few minutes ago. 

He can tell that Jisung is caught off-guard from the way Jisung lets out a noise of surprise when Seungmin kisses him hard enough to bruise their lips. It’s because of that noise that Seungmin pulls back. Jisung gapes at him, his pupils blown wide, his lips a much brighter shade of red than a few moments ago.

Seungmin gazes at him for a few moments, then says, “So apparently that’s the only way to shut you up?”

Jisung blinks, then, like flipping a switch, he puts on that smug, flirty look from before. “But only for a few seconds. So I guess you’re just going to have to kiss me more often, huh?”

Seungmin rolls his eyes, and just like that, the moment is over, and that easy-going atmosphere is back.

“You know, I think we could really help each other, Minnie,” Jisung says, slinging his arm around Seungmin’s shoulders as they start walking out of the library again. “You’re clearly stressed and need some way to destress, and I need to prove to Hyunjin that I can get anyone to kiss me if I’m annoying enough, so why don’t we just put those two together, huh? I’ll offer up kisses any time you need to distract yourself. How about that?”

“No,” Seungmin says, rolling his eyes. 

Jisung pouts again. “At least think about it? Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?”

“Are you seriously trying to get me to kiss you again?”

“I mean, not gonna lie, that was really hot how you just sorta dragged me and almost threw me into a bookcase. Seungmin turns into Seungmo.”

Seungmin rolls his eyes for what seems like the fiftieth time in the past five minutes. “You’re insufferable.”

“And you’re into it,” Jisung says. “Think of it—we could have this weird friends-with-benefits thing. But with kissing. And absolutely nothing will change between us. We’ll just be two bros who occasionally make out. Felix and Hyunjin already do that, so why can’t we? Besides, isn’t college all about sexual and self exploration?”

“Maybe I’ll just punch you instead.”

“Softly, with your lips, because you’re into that.”

“No.”

Jisung sighs and unslings his arm. “Alright, alright. Just thought I’d make the offer. I’m gonna go hit the dining hall—I heard they’re supposed to have those fried mozzarella sticks. They’re terrible for you but oh so delicious. I think I’m gonna gain that freshman fifteen in like a week instead of a year like you’re supposed to.” He snorts.

“That’s really not healthy, Jisung,” Seungmin says. “If your weight is fluctuating that much—”

“Oh, shut up, I was kidding.” Jisung rolls his eyes. “Calm down, Mr. Pre-Med. I have a metabolism like a humming bird. Not to mention how I hit the gym now because unlimited access to the rec center is included with our dorm fees.” He pushes back his sleeve and flexes. “Gotta get swoll to get all the lads and the ladies and the non-binaries, am I right?”

“You’re so weird,” Seungmin says, shaking his head. 

“Exercise is really good for stress, too,” Jisung adds, pushing his sleeve back down. “Hit me up if you wanna go workout. I need a gym buddy since Felix and Hyunjin go together and I’m sick of third-wheeling. Seriously, you think they fuck at the gym? I bet they do it in the showers. Or in the hot tub when no one’s around.”

Seungmin squeezes his eyes shut, trying to get that image out of his head. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“You right.” Jisung gives him a two-finger salute. “See you later, Minnie. Good luck with all your smart person classes.”

Then, with that, he turns around and walks away, already pulling out his phone.

Seungmin shakes his head and starts to walk in the opposite direction, only to pause and look after Jisung. That image of Jisung with blown-out pupils and red, slick lips flashes in his mind again. He quickly shakes his head again to clear the image as he grips his backpack strap and hurries back to his dorm. 

It’s only until later that week, when he’s about to tear his hair out from the stress, to the point where he isn’t eating or sleeping, that he thinks about Jisung’s proposition. 

And it’s only after pacing back and forth across his room (thank god he has it to himself) for another hour, full of overthinking, does he finally pick up his phone. He calls Jisung without giving himself a chance to think about it further. 

“Wassup,” Jisung greets as he answers. 

Seungmin takes a deep breath. “Yes,” he says. 

“Yes?”

“Yes to your…proposition from the library.”

There’s a pause, and then Seungmin can practically hear the smile stretch across Jisung’s face. 

“Well, alrighty then,” Jisung says. “Want to start now?”

“God yes,” Seungmin says, the words practically bursting out of him. 

“Thought you’d say that. Give me five. I’ll be right over.”

Seungmin nods and shakily hangs up the phone. 

It’s like he blinks, and then there’s a knock at the door. He jumps, then stands, then fusses over his hair and his clothes—why is he wearing his old high school sweatshirt that’s falling apart at the seams and has stains on it? He wants to change, but he doesn’t want to keep Jisung waiting, and finally he just pulls the sweatshirt off and throws it on his bed before scrambling for the door. 

Jisung smirks at him the moment the door opens. He’s leaning against the doorframe, probably trying to look cool. 

“Hey,” he says to Seungmin.

“Don’t make this weird,” Seungmin says. 

“Alright, alright.” Jisung raises his hands in a surrender. “No flirting. Got it.”

“I mean…a little bit of flirting is fine, but like…don’t flirt with me like you flirt with everyone else.”

“And how do I flirt with everyone else? By being so smooth that they have no choice but to hand me their number?” Jisung wiggles an eyebrow while smirking. 

“Don’t act like your usual fuckboi,” Seungmin says. 

“You think I’m a fuckboi?” Jisung’s eyebrows shoot upwards. 

“Er—yes, but—I mean, no, but—”

“No, no, that’s a good thing!” Jisung says, grinning from ear to ear. “That means I come off as confident and effortlessly flirty and attractive! And, y’know, that I get some. A lot of some. Really, it improves my reputation instead of ruining it.”

“So you’d rather be thought of as some gross fuckboi instead of some dorky kid who stays in bed and watches anime all weekend and who only got his first kiss last year?”

Jisung puts his hands on his hips. “Are we gonna spend the night picking apart my multiple personas or are we gonna make out?”

“As long as you don’t have a fursona—” Seungmin mumbles. 

“I do, actually! It’s a quokka! Isn’t that cute?”

“Just—” Seungmin grabs him by the collar and drags him into his room. He slams the door behind them. 

“I love it when you manhandle me,” Jisung says. “It’s so sexy.”

“Oh my god, stop.” Seungmin quickly releases him, his face burning. 

“Oh, that was flirting, wasn’t it. My bad. It’s a habit. But at the same time I’m doing that thing where I keep talking to the point where it annoys you and you eventually kiss me to shut me up. When is that gonna happen, by the way?”

“Well, actually, I figured maybe we should settle some ground rules first. Like, how is this going to go?”

Jisung rolls his eyes. “Of course Kim Seungmin of all people wants to create guidelines for a make-out session.”

“I just don’t know how we want to do this!” Seungmin argues. “Like, how long do we make out? Are we okay with it escalating? Are we just kissing on the lips or is the neck fair game too? Can we get handsy? Can we take clothes off? I need somewhere to start.”

“Well, I don’t know…” Jisung scratches at the back of his neck. “Just…do what feels natural? And if you don’t like something, then say stop? And of course if you want something, then ask first, and don’t push if the other person says no.” His eyes dart to Seungmin’s. “That works, right?”

“I guess?”

“You just guess?”

“Alright, fine. That sounds good. We’ll just…go with our gut instincts.”

“Yeah.”

“Yep.”

They stare at each other for a few moments, neither entirely sure what to do next. 

“So, uh, wanna kiss me now?” Jisung asks. 

“Sure.” And yet Seungmin doesn’t move. 

Jisung frowns at him. “You’re overthinking, aren’t you.”

“It feels weird,” Seungmin says, wrinkling his nose. “Like, I’m about to kiss one of my best friends of ten years. Isn’t that weird to you?”

“You didn’t seem to have that problem back at the library. Where you grabbed me and almost threw me up against a bookshelf.” Jisung smirks. “Wanna try that now? Throw me up against the door? I can start talking your ear off if it’ll help you stop thinking so much.”

“I don’t want to kiss you just to shut you up,” Seungmin says. “That doesn’t seem right."

“Nah, don’t take it personally, people tell me to shut up all the time.” Jisung waves the thought away. “And I don’t even really listen to them. I just keep talking over them. It takes a lot more than just a glare to get me to—”

Seungmin takes the moment to grab his face and kiss him, cutting him off mid sentence. By the way Jisung smiles into the kiss, he knows that’s what Jisung was planning all along. 

Seungmin decides to kiss Jisung for a few moments longer, and he takes the time to slowly push Jisung backwards, until Jisung’s back presses up against the door. Once they’ve established some sort of rhythm, Seungmin is bold enough to gradually deepen the kiss.

Jisung sighs, his hands going up to Seungmin’s hair. He tugs on the locks a few times, and Seungmin hates how much that just spurs him on. 

By the time they finally break apart, they’re both out of breath, and Jisung already has that gorgeous look from before, with the blown-out pupils and red, shiny lips. Seungmin can’t stop himself from pressing one last quick kiss to those lips. 

“Done already?” Jisung asks, smirking. 

“Oh, that’s another thing!” Seungmin says, making Jisung roll his eyes. “How long are you supposed to make out for? Doesn’t it get boring after awhile?”

“I mean, we could always spice it up.” Jisung wiggles his hips for emphasis.

Seungmin’s face turns bright red. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that just yet.”

“That’s no problem.” Jisung puts on a bright smile. “Literally whatever you’re comfortable with. We could lay down, if you want, or keep standing.”

Seungmin blinks, his brain freezing up. “I don’t know,” he admits.

“That’s okay, let’s just stay standing then.” And then Jisung kisses him again, and Seungmin closes his eyes and sighs. 

It’s nice. It’s really nice, especially when they start getting into a rhythm. Jisung asks if Seungmin’s okay with him moving his hands a little, and after Seungmin says yes, Jisung starts running his hands through Seungmin’s hair and down his back and sometimes up again. The feeling is honestly therapeutic, and borderline hypnotizing. Seungmin feels all the tension and negative thoughts fade away, and soon only Jisung is left. Just Jisung, Jisung, Jisung. Seungmin could fall apart in his hands at this rate.

“This is nice,” Seungmin murmurs against Jisung’s lips, his eyes still closed. 

Jisung laughs softly, his breath hitting Seungmin’s face. “Yeah?”

“Feels really nice.”

“You can touch me too, if you want.”

“How? Sensually? I don’t think I can do that.”

“No, no, just…however you want. I’m down for anything, baby.”

Seungmin’s face turns bright red, and he finally breaks the kiss by pulling away to hide how shy he is. 

“What?” Jisung grins. “Are you blushing because I called you baby?”

“No,” Seungmin lies.

“Awww, baby, baby, baby~” Jisung singsongs, playfully poking Seungmin each time he says baby.

“Stop it,” Seungmin says without any heat, unable to keep himself from giggling. 

“Make me, baby.” Jisung sticks his tongue out at him. 

Seungmin kisses him again, but this one is cut short by both of them laughing. They end up resting their foreheads together, which somehow feels like the easiest thing in the world.

“Alright, I think that’s good enough for now,” Seungmin says.

“Aw.” Jisung pouts. “We had a good thing going, though, you sure you don’t want to keep going?”

Seungmin rolls his eyes and pulls away, though he’s smirking. “Nah, I have some homework I need to do. But I feel much better now. Thank you, Jisung. Really.” He smiles at him. 

Jisung smiles back, his whole face practically glowing. “Yeah, man, no problem. I’m glad you found something that works for you. Stress can cause you a lot of health problems if you’re not careful. Wouldn’t want you to get a stomach ulcer or some early gray hairs.”

“I know, Sung.” Seungmin’s still smiling. 

“Though, just saying, I’m not too opposed to the early gray hair…I think you could pull it off, to be honest.” Jisung playfully tugs on Seungmin’s hair for emphasis. “You’re gonna be one of those sexy dads with salt and pepper hair when you’re older.” He bites his lip.

Seungmin rolls his eyes once again. “Oh my god, Sung.”

“Again, just saying!” Jisung raises his hands in a surrender, then lowers them and punches Seungmin in the shoulder. “Alright, man. I think I’ll head out now. Hit me up if you want to do this again. Maybe next time we can go a bit further…” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Seungmin snorts. “Maybe. Maybe we can move to include the neck. Just maybe.”

“Oh, boy, the neck? Slow down, you’re going too fast already!”

Seungmin laughs at that, which makes Jisung’s grin grow even wider. 

“Thanks again, though, I mean it,” Seungmin says as he walks Jisung to the door. “You’re a lifesaver.”

Jisung shrugs. “What are friends for?” 

As soon as he says that, his happy smile seems to falter, and Seungmin thinks he almost sees pain flash in Jisung’s eyes. But then Jisung smiles again to cover it up so quickly that Seungmin wonders if he even saw it in the first place. 

They say goodbye, and Seungmin walks back into his room. With a huff, he sits back down at his desk and picks up on his assignments where he left off. 

For the first time in what feels like forever, he finishes all of his assignments and gets to bed at a decent time. And when he sleeps, he sleeps like a rock. 

Chapter Text

As nice as it is, Seungmin doesn’t expect to have to use his and Jisung’s stress reliever all that often. He likes to think that overall he’s good at managing his stress. It’s only in extreme situations when he can’t manage it, and that’s when he’ll call Jisung. 

But really, it shouldn’t be that often. He can handle this. 

Oh how wrong he is. 

He thought high school was stressful, but college is a completely different kind of stressful. At least in high school he was so busy that he couldn’t really think about how much he had to be stressed about. College, he finds, is more spaced out, which gives him all the more time to think about all the things he has to do and should be doing. 

But it all comes to a head when he gets stuck in a godforsaken group project. 

God. They’re all so dumb. Seungmin really can’t handle this. 

He has Jisung on the phone the moment he steps outside of the library on his way home from meeting with his group. 

Jisung picks up almost immediately. “Yo, yo, yo. What’s up?”

“You busy right now?” Seungmin asks, his voice tight with barely-restrained anger. 

“I’m never busy for you, baby.”

Seungmin blushes at that, but he’s come to the recent realization that Jisung calls everybody baby. Unfortunately that still doesn’t prevent the effect it has on him. 

Regardless, he can’t be a blushing mess right now. He still has homicidal rage boiling inside him.

“Great,” he says, “because we’re going to meet at my dorm and then we’re going to make out until my homicidal urges go away.”

Jisung laughs. “Oh, I am so down. You know I can’t resist whenever Seungmo decides to show up. Seungmo is so hot. He’s like my biggest weakness. Like my guiltiest pleasure. Y’know?”

Usually Seungmin would groan and roll his eyes, but for right now, he’s grinning. Jisung is so goddamn cheesy and weird. Seungmin can’t help but love him. 

“See you in five?” he says. 

“Sounds like a plan, baby,” Jisung says. 

They hang up, and a little more than five minutes later, they’re crashing on Seungmin’s bed, with Jisung on top. 

“So,” Jisung says, moving to straddle Seungmin’s waist. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Oh my god, I don’t even know where to start,” Seungmin scoffs. 

“Just let it all out.” Jisung takes the time to connect their lips in a series of brief, rushed kisses.

“First of all, I have to do literally everything!” Seungmin says in between their kisses. “And when I try to get them to do something—” Kiss. “—they don’t do it! So then—” Kiss. “—we’re way more behind than we should be, and—” Kiss. “—and I have to end up doing everything last minute on top of everything else I have to do—” Really long kiss that draws a little mmph out of Seungmin. “—and it’s just—GAH!”

Jisung grins into a particularly long kiss, where Seungmin is so aggressive that he turns the kiss sloppy and bruising. 

“They’re incompetent,” Seungmin growls against Jisung’s lips.

“Well, everyone’s incompetent next to you,” Jisung murmurs. “You’re fucking brilliant.”

Seungmin feels his face heat up, but he’s not sure if it’s from his anger or from his bashfulness. Regardless, he loops his arms around Jisung’s neck and kisses him until they’re both breathless. 

“But yeah, group projects are the worst,” Jisung says after they’re done kissing, pulling back just enough so he can gaze down at Seungmin through half-lidded eyes. He smirks. “Literally it’s just training you how to do everything yourself because people will inevitably let you down.”

“Well that’s depressing,” Seungmin says, trailing his hands down Jisung’s back until they come to a rest on his hips. “But yeah, they’re basically the biggest waste of my time.”

“How much is the project worth?”

“A hundred points.”

“That’s not too terrible.”

“Yeah, but I just know they’re going to profit off of my hard work and get a good grade.” Seungmin lets out another growl of frustration that’s quickly swallowed up by Jisung swooping in for another kiss. Seungmin closes his eyes for this one as he weaves his fingers into Jisung’s hair and tugs. 

“Though, I gotta say—” Jisung breaks their kiss with a little gasp. “If you get this fired up from every group project, I might have to arrange for you to have more group projects. This is like a quality make-out session for me.”

Seungmin snorts. “What, am I cute when I’m angry?”

“Try fucking irresistible,” Jisung says, only to turn bright red a moment later. “Oh, shit, I forgot no flirting. Sorry. I can’t help it. This whole thing is messing with my brain, man, like—” He quickly shakes his head to cut himself off and kisses Seungmin again before he can say anything else. 

Seungmin can’t help grinning into this kiss. He can practically feel the heat radiating from Jisung’s entire body, though his face is definitely the warmest. 

“Someone’s blushing~” Seungmin singsongs. 

“Can you blame me?” Jisung pulls back again. “You’re fucking hot, dude.”

Seungmin smiles. “You’re cute.”

Jisung makes this little strangled noise in the back of his throat and buries his face in the side of Seungmin’s neck. Seungmin laughs at that.

“You know, for someone who flirts with everything that moves, you sure do get flustered easily,” Seungmin says. 

“Oh, you’re one to talk! Baby!” 

Seungmin’s face and neck betray him by both turning bright red, and they burst into laughter.

Once their laughter dies down, Jisung nuzzles the side of Seungmin’s neck and sighs contently. He continues to stay there, and Seungmin just shrugs it off. While kisses are nice, sometimes cuddles are good too.

“In all honesty, though, I’m actually a baby,” Jisung murmurs against Seungmin’s neck. “Mmm, you’re so warm. I think I’m just gonna take a nap right here if that’s fine with you.”

“Go ahead,” Seungmin says, yawning. “A nap sounds nice.”

Jisung hums at that. “How are your homicidal urges?”

“Suppressed for now, thanks to you.” 

“Oh, good. Now I can sleep well knowing I don’t have to worry about you murdering me in my sleep.”

Seungmin snorts at that. 

Jisung grins, then presses a soft kiss to the side of Seungmin’s neck. It’s so simple, and yet it practically sends a jolt of electricity through Seungmin’s veins. He’s suddenly wide awake, every inch of his body alert and hyper sensitive to any kind of movement Jisung makes. 

Jisung shifts so he’s more or less latched onto Seungmin’s side instead of directly on top of him. He wraps his arms around Seungmin’s waist, and before long, he’s asleep. 

It takes Seungmin much longer to fall asleep. He’s still all too aware of Jisung. It’s not like he hasn’t cuddled with one of his best friends like this before—he actually was in the exact same situation with Hyunjin a week ago. So he doesn’t understand why he’s so hyper-focused on Jisung right now, and why he’s aware of every single tiny breath and movement. 

He figures it’s just leftover energy from when they were making out a few minutes ago.

Yeah, he thinks as he closes his eyes, that must be it. 

Chapter Text

Seungmin’s stress level is so much higher than he initially thought that he ends up making out with Jisung at least once a week, though soon it progresses into every other day. 

They don’t just make out, though. Sometimes Jisung listens while Seungmin rants, and sometimes they go for a walk, or go get food, or play video games, or watch a movie together. Seungmin supposes he can do that with Hyunjin and Felix too, if he wanted to, but for some reason, he finds himself more relaxed afterwards when it’s with Jisung. 

And, y’know, the kisses really, really help. 

It’s nice, hanging out and messing around with Jisung like this. In all honesty, Seungmin was worried that things would change between them after starting this, but those worries are gone. If anything, they’ve become closer than ever, and Seungmin loves it. 

The two of them don’t initially tell Hyunjin and Felix about it, since, according to Jisung, “They never told us that they were fucking—we had to figure it out! So give ’em a taste of their own medicine!! And, I dunno, I think it’ll be funnier to make them figure it out.”

Seungmin just snorts and says, “Alright, Jisung.” And that’s that. 

But one day, Seungmin finds himself telling Hyunjin about it on accident. 

They’re in Hyunjin’s dorm for a change, playing on their Nintendo Switches and sitting with their backs up against opposite ends of the bed frame. Their legs are absent-mindedly intertwined, which makes it much easier to kick Hyunjin when he hits Seungmin with a blue shell in Mario Kart. 

“Have you started on that essay for art history?” Hyunjin asks at one point. 

“I’m already done,” Seungmin says. “Finished it last night.”

“Dude, what the hell? It’s not even due until tomorrow.”

Seungmin shrugs. “Wanted it out of the way.”

Hyunjin hums at that. “I’ve been too focused on other stuff. Too much homework. It stresses me out.”

“Really? You don’t seem so stressed.” Seungmin smirks to himself, trying to otherwise keep a pokerface. “But I guess Felix is a good stress reliever, huh?”

Hyunjin is so surprised that he almost drops his switch, and he looks up at Seungmin with his jaw dropped. “You—what? What are you talking about?”

“Ha, eat my banana peels, you fucker!” Seungmin takes the opportunity to dump banana peels behind him and zoom past Hyunjin, leading the way to victory. 

Hyunjin groans and quickly finishes up his leg of the race, placing third.

“So?” Seungmin nudges Hyunjin with his foot. “You and Felix, huh?”

“Were we that obvious?”

Seungmin shrugs. “I wouldn’t have noticed it if Jisung hadn’t pointed it out. He had you two figured out within minutes.”

Hyunjin avoids eye contact, his face a noticeable shade of pink. “When…?”

“Oh, a week after school started.” Seungmin smiles and tilts his head to one side. 

Hyunjin groans again and drops his face into his hands. 

“Sooo…?” Seungmin nudges Hyunjin again and again, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face. “When were you gonna tell us?”

“God, you’re just like Jisung.” Hyunjin starts repeatedly nudging Seungmin back. “Maybe you two should fuck, since me and Felix are together.”

Seungmin turns bright red and starts sputtering. “What? No. Pfft, come on. That’d be—that’d be like…weird.”

“Oh my god!” Hyunjin points at him. “You two are already fucking!”

“We’re not!” Seungmin exclaims. 

“You so are!”

“We’re not!”

“You’re blushing! You’re all flustered! The great Kim Seungmin, Mr. I-Don’t-Get-Crushes, is flustered because of a fuckbuddy!” Hyunjin then gasps and quirks an eyebrow mischievously. “Unless? He’s more than a fuckbuddy?”

Seungmin picks up one of Hyunjin’s pillows and turns it into a throw pillow by chucking it at him. “We’re not fucking. We’re just making out every now and then. It’s a good stress reliever, okay? Plus he listens to me rant about wanting to kill my classmates, so it’s not just making out. Though I’ll admit that sometimes he encourages me by suggesting ways to hide the body.”

“Aw, you’re practically engaged.” Hyunjin puts a hand over his heart and makes a pouty face at Seungmin. 

Seungmin rolls his eyes. “At least we’re not as far gone for each other as you and Felix are. I swear you guys practically undress each other with your eyes whenever you’re in public.”

Hyunjin smirks, now completely unashamed. “Oh my god, Minnie, he’s amazing, let me tell you—”

“Nooooo—I don’t want to know the details!” Seungmin quickly waves the thought aside. 

“He literally knows my body better than I do and knows all the right places—” Hyunjin’s practically moaning the words. 

“Oh my god, stop!” But Seungmin can’t help but laugh as he kicks Hyunjin again. 

Hyunjin lets out one of his particularly giggly laughs that turns his eyes into adorable crescents. Seungmin just shakes his head at him, unable to suppress his own smile. 

“God, you guys are gonna be that couple,” Seungmin says. “But, in all seriousness, why didn’t you guys tell us? Why are you keeping it a secret?”

“I dunno.” Hyunjin fidgets with one of his silver bracelets on his wrist. “We didn’t want to make it weird, I guess. You know how friend groups are—the moment two of them start dating, it puts pressure on the other two to start dating too. And although Jisung would throw himself at any opportunity to date…I don’t know, it just didn’t seem fair to you guys.”

“Well, jokes on you, because me and Jisung kind of ended up together anyways.”

Hyunjin quirks an eyebrow again, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Oh? Is this a more serious arrangement than you led me to believe?”

Seungmin blushes and shoves at him. “No. It’s…we’re just friends. We’ve become closer, yeah, but I still like him as a friend.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say, bro.” Hyunjin snorts. “Though, I’m curious—do you just make out? Or do you do anything else? Anything other than talking about murder, I mean.”

“We do, actually. It’s really fun. It usually starts off with just making out, but we’ve started to go out and do stuff together, just the two of us.”

“That’s literally dating.”

“Well maybe it’s like that because you and Felix are never around.” Seungmin arches an eyebrow. 

“Maybe.” Hyunjin smirks. “How’d you even start this, anyways?”

“I’ll only tell you if you’ll tell me how you and Felix got together.” Seungmin smirks back at him. 

“Oh, that’s an easy one. We hung out over summer break and then got super close and then started messing around.”

“Wait, you guys have been doing this all summer?”

“Yep.” Hyunjin grins. 

“Wow.” Seungmin shakes his head. “Just wow.”

“So? You and Jisung?”

“Started after you dared him to kiss me. He wouldn’t shut up about it, so I did the only thing I could—kissed him to shut him up. Apparently he’s into that.”

“Are you sure you’re the same Seungmin? The Seungmin I know would have just punched him.”

“Yeah, but I’m trying to dial back my homicidal urges,” Seungmin says. 

“Oh, thank god,” Hyunjin says, rolling his eyes. “You really had me worried there.”

“But anyways. He then mentioned something stupid about how kissing is a good stress reliever, and then he brought up this crazy arrangement where we casually make out to destress, and then…yeah. I just went with it.”

“Damn.” Hyunjin frowns. “But Jisung isn’t even that stressed. I mean, not compared to you. Not to mention that he works out a lot. So why would he need another stress reliever?”

“I don’t know…he likes kisses, so…” Seungmin shrugs. “To be honest he never really talks about things that are stressing him out.”

“Well what do you guys talk about after you make out? Again, other than murder.”

“Um…” Seungmin thinks for a moment. “Just…classes and stupid stuff, I guess.”

“So basically you rant all the time and he just listens?” Hyunjin gives him a look. “Minnie. C’mon.”

“He talks! He talks way more than me!” Seungmin protests. “I swear that kid runs his mouth a mile a minute.”

“I dunno, doesn’t sound like that.”

Seungmin pouts a little, then starts to think about his and Jisung’s little make-out sessions. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that it is mostly just him ranting and Jisung listening. That can’t be right—surely he’s listened to Jisung rant too, right?

“Anyways.” Hyunjin stretches his arms over his head, groaning. “I’m hungry. Wanna go get ramen or something?”

“Sure,” Seungmin says quietly, still partially lost in his thoughts. 

Later on, after he’s gone back to his own dorm to finish some homework, he keeps thinking about how lopsided his and Jisung’s arrangement is. Finally, he just grabs his phone and texts Jisung.

Seungmo

Hey :)

Have any tests or big assignments this week??

Sungie

Oh heyyyy ;)

And ugh, don’t remind me T_T

Seungmo

Haha

I take that as a yes?

Sungie

Just one biggie 

In physics 

Tomorrow 

Kill meeeeee Dx

Seungmo

Wait, you’re in physics?

Sungie

Unfortunately

Biggest mistake of my life

I’m dyyyyyyinngggg

Seungmo

Why the hell would u take physics?! U hate science

And math

Sungie

I needed a science credit ok T - T

Seungmo

Bro 

Sungie

I hate to cut this convo short but

I should be studying rn

I even came to the library

It’s a real low point for me 

Seungmo

Do you need any help??

Sungie

Oh, nah

I’m good

Just gotta buckle down and study

But thanks tho <3

Seungmo

Ok…just lmk 

Good luck! U got this!!

Sungie

:’)

Seungmin frowns at his phone, then falls back on his bed and stares up at the ceiling. 

A few minutes go by before he gets up, grabs his wallet and keys, and walks out of the dorm. 

The campus coffee shop is closed this late at night, but the little convenience store isn’t. Seungmin goes in, buys a couple of energy drinks and brain food, and heads to the library. There, he finds Jisung sitting at a corner table with his head in his hands.

Seungmin walks up and presses the cold can of the energy drink to the back of Jisung’s neck, making Jisung yell, “FUCK!” at the top of his lungs before whirling around to look up at him. Seungmin gives him a cheeky grin. 

“Seungmin,” Jisung says. “What the fuck, dude.”

“Thought you could use some fuel,” Seungmin says, setting down his stash before sitting across from Jisung. He notices how Jisung keeps his head lowered and quickly wipes at his face before meeting Seungmin’s gaze. “Got some energy drinks and brain food. And I’m here to keep you company and to give you a little bit of encouragement if you need it.” He smiles. 

“Oh.” Jisung blinks. “That’s…really nice of you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“But I wanted to,” Seungmin says. 

Jisung gives him a grateful smile, and that’s when Seungmin realizes that his eyes are a little red and puffy. 

“How’s it going, anyways?” Seungmin asks. 

Jisung sighs and rubs at his face. “It’s going.”

“Is there a part you’re stuck on?”

“Oh no. No, I’m good. Just gotta really, um, go over it all just for good measure. Make it stick, y’know.”

Seungmin’s silent for a few moments, just watching Jisung.

Jisung doesn’t meet his gaze. “I’m trying,” he says softly. 

“I know,” Seungmin says. 

Jisung stares down at his notes for several moments, blinking rapidly. Then his lower lip starts to tremble, and he bites it. Seungmin just waits patiently, knowing it’ll all come out soon. 

“I just…” Jisung swallows. “I really need a good grade in this class because I’m basically failing, except I’ve been doing my homework and getting help on concepts I don’t understand but I’m still not getting it all and I just don’t understand any of it and I literally feel like the stupidest person in the world and—”

His voice breaks at the end, and he drops his face into his hands, finally breaking down completely. 

“I just can’t do this,” he chokes out. 

“Jisung, you’re not stupid,” Seungmin says gently. He moves his chair so he’s sitting next to Jisung and puts an arm around his tiny shoulders, which are trembling with each sob. “Physics is hard. Hell, I wasn’t even very good at it when I took it in high school.”

“But you still got an A,” Jisung whines. “You still passed the class! I can’t even do that!”

“That’s because I got loads of help,” Seungmin says. “And I spent literal hours every night trying to understand it. I broke down a lot when I didn’t understand it. Trust me, Jisung, you are not the only one who feels like this when it comes to physics, or any class, to be honest. You just need to spend more time and energy trying to understand it.”

Jisung shakes his head. “I don’t have time or energy. It just doesn’t come naturally to me. I want to give up.”

“Well…if it’s really stressing you out this much, then maybe you should drop the class. There are way better classes that you can take for a science credit. I’ve heard astronomy is pretty easy.”

“You mean it’s for stupid people. Like me.”

“No, I mean it wouldn’t reduce you to tears every time you try to study. You’re not stupid, Jisung. You’re not. It’s just that physics is really difficult. That’s it. I bet you could totally become a physics whiz if you really tried.”

“I am trying!” Jisung raises his voice without meaning to as he finally looks up at Seungmin. 

“Shh.” Seungmin pats his shoulder and glances around the library. “I know you are. Tell you what, I’ll help you study for an hour, and then we go back to the dorms and you get some sleep, yeah?”

“I’m not going to learn all of this in an hour,” Jisung says miserably. “I need to pull an all-nighter.”

“No, all-nighters never work,” Seungmin says. “You need to sleep. And you need to eat something. Here, have some protein.” He picks up a packet of jerky, opens it, and offers it to Jisung. 

Jisung sniffs but reaches out for some of the jerky. As he chews on it, Seungmin tugs his notebook closer to him. He scans the notes just to give himself some context, fully aware of Jisung watching him and still sniffling. 

Seungmin glances up at him and smiles, then gets an idea. 

“I think I know what’ll motivate you,” he says. “How about each time you get an answer right, I’ll give you a kiss?”

That gets Jisung’s attention. “Like, on the lips?”

Seungmin nods. “Kissing is a good stress reliever, like you’ve said.”

Jisung stares at him for a few moments more before grinning. “Hell yeah.”

“Good.” Seungmin grins back at him, then turns to the notes. “So, you’re learning about forces…”

They stay in the library for a little more than an hour, after all of the beef jerky is gone and Seungmin has kissed Jisung at least sixty times. Jisung is in a much happier mood when they walk back to the dorms, and he even grabs Seungmin’s hand and swings it as he walks. 

“You’re the best, Minnie, you know that?” 

Seungmin smiles at him. “Happy to help.”

The next day, Seungmin waits outside the engineering building, holding a couple of fresh cookies from the coffee shop in a little paper bag. Jisung walks out a few minutes later, looking exhausted. When he sees Seungmin waiting for him, though, his whole face lights up, and he runs to him and throws his arms around him, nearly knocking both of them over.

Once they’ve regained their balance and have stopped laughing, Seungmin asks, “How’d it go?”

“I knew more than I thought I would, thanks to you.” Jisung grins at him. “I actually feel pretty good about it. Who knew your study technique would be so effective?”

Seungmin laughs, and as they start to walk to the dining hall together, he offers Jisung the cookies. 

“Fresh chocolate chip cookies, as a reward,” he says. 

“I love you.” Jisung immediately takes one of the cookies and takes a huge bite out of it. It makes his cheeks even chubbier, and Seungmin can’t help but laugh. God, why is Jisung so cute?

“Love you too,” Seungmin says, and Jisung makes this happy little squeal.

A week later, they’re at Seungmin’s dorm when the test results come out. Jisung literally screams when he opens it on his phone, which is unfortunate for Seungmin, since Jisung was laying right next to him on his bed. 

“I GOT AN EIGHTY NINE!” he yells.

Then he grabs Seungmin’s face and kisses him right then and there before breaking off and jumping off the bed, where he sings and dances around the room, and Seungmin can’t help but laugh. 

Chapter Text

“So,” Seungmin says one day at lunch with Jisung, “I might have accidentally told Hyunjin about our…arrangement.”

Jisung looks up from stuffing his face with udon noodles, then shrugs. “That’s cool, dude.”

“Really? I thought we were keeping it a secret.”

“Nah, I just wanted to see if they would notice.”

“Ah. Well, if it’s any consolation, I also got him to confess about him and Felix.”

Jisung looks up again, his eyes wide. “Whoa, what? For real?”

“Yep.” Seungmin grins. “Get this—they’ve been ‘messing around’ since the beginning of summer break. They just made it official once school started.”

“Oh my god, what!” Jisung’s jaw drops. “You know what, I knew there was something different about them when we hung out that one time for your mom’s birthday over the summer. They were wayyy too touchy-touchy.”

Seungmin snorts. “Yeah, well, you nailed it, man.”

“Why’d they keep it a secret, anyways?”

“Apparently they didn’t want to put pressure on the two of us.” Seungmin rolls his eyes. 

Jisung snorts. “Oh, how thoughtful of them. Jokes on them though, we’re messing around too. And not because the two of them are messing around.”

“Yeah, honestly.” Seungmin grins, and they change the topic. 

“By the way, I was thinking of dyeing my hair,” Jisung says. 

“Oh? What color?”

“Blond.”

Seungmin hums at that, studying him. “That would look good on you.”

“You think so?” Jisung grins. “I’m just bored of basic hair, so I want to try something new.”

“Yeah, man, you should do it. I know Felix and Hyunjin dye their own hair, so you could get them to help you with it.”

“Oooh!” Jisung points at him. “We should all do that! We should get together one night and just dye our hair!”

“What? All of us?” Seungmin says. “I don’t know, man, I don’t think I could pull off another hair color.”

“What are you talking about? You so could.” Jisung swats at him. “Like a honey color. Or…ooh, purple. Or even black—wait, no. No black. That wouldn’t be fair to my poor heart.”

Seungmin snorts at that. “How about we just focus on dyeing your hair first and then we’ll save me for another time. Fair?”

“Yeah, that’s fair.” Jisung grins. “I love it when it’s all about me.”

Seungmin laughs at that. 

They manage to rope Felix and Hyunjin into it, and they all congregate in Felix’s dorm room late one Wednesday night to help Jisung dye his hair. Felix turns on his bluetooth speaker, the one that lights up and changes color in-beat to the song, Hyunjin brings some booze, and of course Seungmin brings his homework.

“This is niiiice,” Jisung says when he saunters in. “All four of us, all together again, just like old times. Thank you, Felix and Hyunjin, for refraining from doing the nasties long enough for us to hang out.”

Felix blushes while Hyunjin throws a stuffed animal at Jisung. 

“For the record, I totally called it,” Jisung says, grinning. 

“He totally did,” Seungmin agrees without looking up from his art history textbook. 

“Yeah, well, you and Seungmin are messing around too,” Felix says to Jisung, but he’s smiling. 

“We are, we are,” Jisung says. “Who knows? Maybe one day we can all trade off and just be in one happy polyamorous relationship.”

“Nope, Felix is mine,” Hyunjin says, and Felix laughs while swatting at him. Jisung and Seungmin share a knowing look as Felix leans into Hyunjin’s side. 

“Alright, alright, I’ll back off.” Jisung raises his hands in a surrender. Then he collapses in Felix’s fancy gamer chair. “Alrighty, I’m ready to change up my look!”

Felix moves him from the gamer chair to a stool instead, and puts a shitty towel around his shoulders. Then he gets started on applying the bleach, while Hyunjin chooses the music, and Seungmin starts pouring the shots. 

Despite how much they tease each other, it really is nice to be able to hang out like this. Seungmin laughs at how Jisung dramatically lip-syncs to some of the songs, and how Felix does some ridiculous dances before downing a shot, while Hyunjin hypes them both up. It’s a good atmosphere, full of laughter and friendship, and—oh god, when did Seungmin get so cheesy? It must be the booze talking.

Finally, Felix finishes putting all the bleach in Jisung’s hair, and Jisung can’t help bouncing on his little stool.

“Aw man, I’m so excited,” Jisung says. “How long is this supposed to stay in?”

“Not longer than thirty minutes.” Felix checks the box. “How blond do you want it?”

“Blond. I’m turning myself into a K-Pop idol.”

“Or a lemon,” Seungmin says. 

Jisung sticks his tongue out at him, and Seungmin just laughs. 

Of course, Hyunjin and Felix can only control themselves for so long, and soon they’re trading little kisses here and there, and each kiss is getting longer and longer, to the point where they’re full-on making out.

Jisung and Seungmin exchange glances, silently agreeing.

“Alright, well, it’s been fun, but I just remembered an essay that’s due at midnight, so, better scoot,” Jisung says, standing. 

“Oh—” Felix breaks away from Hyunjin with a wet pop that makes Seungmin gag. “Make sure you rinse out all the bleach in the shower! Use that special shampoo we bought and don’t style your hair for a few days!”

“Will do. Thanks for helping me, guys!” Jisung grins and waves goodbye, though the two are already lip locked again. Jisung rolls his eyes and drags Seungmin out of the room. 

They end up at Jisung’s dorm, where Jisung’s roommate for once isn’t there. Seungmin waits while Jisung jumps into the shower to wash out the bleach, then they crash on Jisung’s bed together. 

“I didn’t know you put up stars on your ceiling,” Seungmin says, laying on his back. 

“Makes it feel a little bit more like home,” Jisung says, slinging his leg over Seungmin’s. “Plus…it’s pretty.”

He switches off his bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. The stars on his ceiling start to glow. It’s too dark to really see anything by it, but it’s still pretty. 

“You know you can get some of those projectors that put whole galaxies on your ceiling?” Seungmin says.

“That sounds cool, but unfortunately I am broke.”

“Birthday present.”

“You sure you can get me that by next week?”

“Christmas present.”

Jisung snorts, and suddenly Seungmin is giggling, and he can’t stop. He blames it on the few shots he did. Jisung starts to giggle with him, which makes Seungmin laugh harder, which then makes Jisung laugh harder, and soon the two of them are clutching their stomachs and laughing their heads off. 

When their laughter finally dies down—though they still giggle here and there—Seungmin lets out a sigh as he stares up at the ceiling. He can feel Jisung’s eyes on him and knows for a fact that Jisung’s face is less than an inch or so from his. 

Before Jisung can move to kiss him, though, Seungmin says, “You know, laughter is a good stress reliever too.”

Jisung pauses, then sighs as he takes Seungmin’s hand. He laces their fingers together. “You’re totally right,” he says. 

“And hanging out with friends,” Seungmin says.

“And getting tipsy or blackout drunk,” Jisung says. 

Seungmin snorts. “Yep, that helps, too.”

Jisung giggles to himself; Seungmin suspects he’s tipsy, too.

“I really like the blond hair,” he tells Jisung. “You can totally pull it off.”

“You think so?” Jisung sounds so shy. So small. 

“Definitely. Are you going to keep it for awhile or change it up?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Jisung sighs again. “I’ve been thinking of being a bit experimental. Might try every color of the rainbow and see how it looks.”

“That would be cool. It would really damage your hair, but it would be cool.”

“I think I could pull off a shaved head, if it came to that.”

Seungmin snorts again, grinning at the image. “That might be the one look you won’t be able to pull off. You freaking love your hair.”

“Not as much as Hyunjin loves his! Have you seen how much he babies those long, luscious locks?”

Seungmin laughs. “Long, luscious locks? What are you, a shampoo commercial?”

“Admit it—that’s the perfect way to describe his stupid hair!”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Hell no!” Jisung protests. “I would not be able to stand my hair that long. No way.”

“You could pull that off too, though,” Seungmin says. 

Jisung snorts. “How about we all grow our hair out together, huh? All as long as Hyunjin’s. We can even coordinate how to flip our hair in unison.”

“Pass,” Seungmin says with a giggle. 

“I know you don’t want to dye your hair, but I think you would look really good in like…pink, or purple, or red. Oo, cherry red.” Jisung snaps his fingers. “That would look hot.”

“Are you flirting with me?” Seungmin teases. 

“Hell yeah,” Jisung says without shame. 

For some reason this makes Seungmin laugh again, and soon the two of them are back into another laughing fit. Only, this one is cut short by Jisung’s roommate coming in and flicking on the light, blinding the two of them. 

The two of them go rigid as the roommate stops in the doorway. He just stands there, staring at them, while the two of them stare back, completely unsure of what to do. 

“Sup, dude,” Jisung says eventually, just to break the ice. 

“Sup,” the roommate says, now giving Seungmin a weird look. 

Seungmin decides that’s his cue to leave. He clears his throat and sits up, quickly releasing Jisung’s hand. 

“I’ll, uh, see you later?” Seungmin says to Jisung without looking at him. 

“Yeah, sounds good,” Jisung says quietly. 

Seungmin gives a curt nod, then gets up and leaves the room. He feels the roommate’s stare on him the whole way out. 

*

Jisung decides to go all out with his outfit the following day, making sure to show off his new hair by styling it and parting it in the middle. He also pairs it with some eyeliner, glittery black jewelry, a loose shirt tucked into tight black skinny jeans, and some killer black combat boots. Hyunjin and Felix gush over his look at lunch, and Jisung thrives under the attention.

Seungmin, on the other hand, stays silent. He’s too busy thinking about the fact that his heart keeps doing somersaults every time he glances at Jisung.

It must be the hair. Yeah, it’s definitely just the hair. He just think Jisung looks nice, that’s all. 

But even as he tells himself that, he starts thinking that it might not be just the hair.

Chapter Text

The following week is Birthday Week, as Jisung dubs it, so they decide to lump his, Felix’s, and Seungmin’s birthdays all into one outing at a bowling alley with an arcade and laser tag. 

But when they gravitate towards their usual duos, Jisung instead latches onto Felix and loudly says, “Felix and I are on a team!”

Hyunjin blinks in surprise, but then grins and loops his arm through Seungmin’s. “Bold choice, choosing Felix over Seungmin like that. Seungmin’ll kick your ass in everything!”

“You’re on!” Jisung points at him. “Losers have to pay for food!”

“Are we really going to make them pay for their own birthday dinner?” Seungmin mumbles to Hyunjin.

“Hell yeah, because I’m gonna kick Jisung’s butt,” Hyunjin mumbles back with a grin. 

“We can hear you, you know,” Felix says. 

“Bowling first!” Jisung declares. 

It turns out that they’re all terrible at bowling, but they have fun anyway and even turn it into a competition to see who can be the absolute worst at the game. Somehow, Seungmin loses at being the worst, and Jisung is the one who wins.

“So technically I’m actually the winner because I’m actually good at bowling, and you just suck overall,” Seungmin says. 

“Nope! I’m the winner! You lose! Ahahaha!” Jisung loves to get right up into Seungmin’s face about it, and Seungmin can’t help leaning away while laughing. 

“Winners” get to chose the next game, so Jisung chooses laser tag. Seungmin suddenly regrets wearing his light-blue pullover, which is brighter than everyone else’s clothes under the blacklight. Jisung, naturally clad in all black, points at him and laughs.

“Sucker,” Jisung says. 

“Watch your back, Han,” Seungmin says, smirking. “I’m coming for you.”

The thing is, Seungmin is good at laser tag. And the odds are even more in his favor when the bored referee lets his red team go into the arena first. He and Hyunjin immediately head to the second level, which overlooks the first, and position themselves in the perfect sniper corner. 

Hyunjin immediately goes after Felix once the game starts, and Seungmin watches from above in amusement as the two of them spend the whole game circling each other and laughing when one of them shoots the other. 

He also watches as Jisung goes off on his own and somehow manages to team up with a band of little kids on his team, who single out other players and gang up on them to get the highest points. Seungmin decides to take out Jisung every single time he tries to shoot someone, rendering his gun useless for a few seconds. Jisung pauses the first time and frowns at his gun, wondering if it’s broken, but when it happens a second and third time, he finally looks around. Seungmin ducks down behind the railing, but he thinks he’s too slow. When he peeks out a moment later, Jisung is gone. 

Seungmin grins to himself, knowing Jisung is going to try and sneak up on him. In the background, Felix squeals when Hyunjin sneak-attacks him from behind a partition. Seungmin smirks and snipes a couple of kids, just to get some points as he waits for Jisung. 

To Jisung’s credit, he doesn’t go around the one partition that Seungmin thought he would. Instead, he goes right up to the one against the railing, where he waits to shoot Seungmin’s gun until the moment when Seungmin leans out to snipe someone else. 

Seungmin catches on immediately and turns to shoot Jisung back, but Jisung has hidden behind the wall. He only pokes his head out to stick his tongue out at Seungmin, who tries to shoot him but misses. 

Jisung darts out a few more times, each with a different silly expression on his face, and Seungmin can’t help but laugh. When he fails to hit him each time, though, he calls out, “You can’t hide forever, Han!”

“Try me!” Jisung sticks his tongue out at him again. Seungmin shoots at him, but then Jisung decides to do a somersault and rolls behind another partition, despite that being against the rules. Seungmin snorts in amusement as Jisung rolls to another partition, slowly getting closer and closer. 

“Are you humming the Mission Impossible theme?” Seungmin asks. 

“Pfft, no,” Jisung says, now right on the other side of the partition that Seungmin has been hiding behind this entire time. He waits for a beat before whipping out onto the side that Seungmin is on. “Say hello to my little friend!”

Seungmin shoots him without hesitation, and Jisung dramatically clutches his chest as his vest lights up white to show he’s been hit. 

“Oh, no, you got me,” Jisung gasps, then falls forward into Seungmin’s arms. 

Seungmin can’t help laughing, saying, “Oh my god, why are you so dramatic.”

Jisung grins, then immediately shoots Seungmin in the back when his vest comes back to life. 

“Never let your guard down, baby,” Jisung says, drawing back and winking at him. 

At that moment, the game ends, and the referee comes on over the speakers to tell them to kindly leave the arena. Jisung makes a show out of blowing off the imaginary smoke from his gun, pretending to twirl it like a revolver, and then holstering it. It doesn’t really work considering the gun is massive and has all these wires connecting it to his vest, but Seungmin laughs at the attempt. 

“I totally won,” Jisung says once they’ve put away their vests and are walking out to the scoreboard. 

“Oh, totally,” Seungmin says. 

“I kicked your ass.”

“Uh huh.”

“Totally annihilated you.”

“You sure did.”

Jisung grins at him, and Seungmin grins back. 

(For the record, Seungmin placed first on the scoreboard between both teams. Jisung placed second to last.)

They play in the arcade for a few hours, during which Jisung gets lucky and wins an insane amount of tickets from one of those spin-the-wheel games. He and Seungmin spend a solid fifteen minutes looking at all the prizes, but in the end he opts for a giant Hamtaro plushie and a handful of cheap candy. Seungmin gets a yo-yo.

“I’m gonna name him Hannie,” Jisung announces as the four of them walk out of the arcade at one o’clock in the morning. He hugs his Hamtaro plushie.“He’s gonna be my partner in crime from now on. And also my cuddle buddy at three in the morning when I get extremely lonely and end up crying myself to sleep.”

“Well that got depressing real fast,” Hyunjin says, sucking on a lollipop. 

“Did you have a good birthday party otherwise?” Seungmin asks Felix and Jisung. 

“Hell yeah!” Felix says, grinning from ear to ear. “Did you?” 

“Yep.” Seungmin smiles; he hasn’t had this much fun in ages. 

“We still have to go out for dinner on all our birthdays,” Jisung says. “And we gotta get cheesecake for me, and a chocolate cake for Felix, and some boring cake for Seungmin.”

“I think cupcakes sound nice,” Seungmin says. 

“Cupcakes it is.”

On the days of Jisung and Felix’s actual birthdays, all four of them do just that. Though, after dinner, Jisung begs all of them to stay in and watch a movie with him. Since Jisung’s roommate is weird, they end up crashing in Felix’s dorm room, where Felix and Hyunjin inevitably end up cuddling. Jisung takes one look at the two of them and snuggles up to Seungmin, who’s too sucked in to the movie to mind. 

For Felix’s birthday, Hyunjin and Felix inevitably go off on their own after dinner, leaving Jisung and Seungmin to their own devices. 

“Birthday sex, best sex,” Jisung tells Seungmin when they’re walking back from Felix’s dorm. 

Seungmin squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head, trying to get that image out of his mind. “You have no class, Jisung.”

“You love it,” Jisung says, grinning. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you something…”

Seungmin looks at him, his eyebrows raised. Jisung’s staring at the ground, his shoulders hunched together. 

“I was honestly too shy to ask you last night, but…” Jisung kicks a pebble out of the way. “Can I get a birthday kiss? Er, a belated birthday kiss?”

Seungmin blinks at that, then smiles. “Of course you can.”

Jisung looks up with wide eyes. Once he realizes that Seungmin is being genuine, a huge smile spreads across his face. 

“Really?” Jisung asks. 

“Really,” Seungmin says. Then he leans forward, cups Jisung’s face gently, and kisses him.

Jisung makes this happy little sound after they pull away, and he can’t help bouncing on his feet. Seungmin grins at how happy he is. 

But then, of course, Jisung gets bold. 

“Can I have a series of belated birthday kisses?” He rocks back and forth on his feet hopefully. 

“Right here? In public and everything?”

“Pfft, there’s no one out.” Jisung waves the thought away, and he’s right. They’re on the sidewalk outside the dorms, under a streetlight. The sky is clear and the weather is pleasant. It’s the perfect night, in Seungmin’s opinion. 

“Oh, alright,” Seungmin says. 

Jisung’s entire face lights up at that. “If I knew how easy it’d be to get you to kiss me, I would have started bugging you about it years ago,” he says as Seungmin cups his face again. 

Seungmin just shakes his head again before kissing him. “Honestly,” he says in between a kiss, “I’m kind of surprised it did take you this long to bug me about kisses.”

“You were intimidating,” Jisung replies, then loops his arms around Seungmin’s neck to better kiss him. “You still are. Sorta.”

Seungmin smiles into their kiss at that. 

It’s not one of those eating-each-other’s-faces-off sort of make-out session, like the ones Seungmin has always seen heterosexual couples doing in public. It’s sweeter than that—though he’s realized at this point that all of Jisung’s kisses are sweet—and they just take the time to enjoy a longer kiss than usual. 

Afterwards, when they pull back, Jisung smiles up at him and says, “Thanks man, you just made my birthday wish come true.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I wished some knight in shining armor would come sweep me off my feet and kiss me.”

Seungmin snorts. “You think of me as a knight in shining armor?”

“Well—” Jisung takes a step back to look at Seungmin’s clothes. He smirks at the sight. “I guess this works too. King of Hearts, maybe?” He tugs at Seungmin’s favorite hoodie, a grey sweatshirt with a red heart stitched on the front.

“Now you’re definitely flirting.”

Jisung just grins unashamedly. 

“So!” he says brightly as they start walking again. “What should we do for your birthday? Have even more birthday kisses?”

Seungmin grins. “That sounds good to me.”

“Yay!” Jisung takes his hand and starts swinging it, a skip in his step. 

When Seungmin’s birthday does come around, it’s a bit quieter than Jisung and Felix’s, but he prefers it that way. All four of them go out for dinner, and Hyunjin and Jisung tell the staff that it’s Seungmin’s birthday. Seungmin shoots the two of them a death glare as the staff gather around him to sing at the top of their lungs, drawing the attention of the whole goddamn restaurant. Despite the fact that they will probably be dead by the morning if Seungmin has anything to say about it, Jisung and Hyunjin laugh pretty shamelessly. 

He has to admit, though—the free dessert is almost worth that public humiliation. 

Of course Jisung tags along to Seungmin’s dorm afterwards, and they watch a movie together while cuddling (and occasionally making out, obviously).

The movie’s almost over when Jisung yawns and snuggles into Seungmin’s chest. 

“Happy Birthday, Seungmin,” he mumbles sleepily. “Y’know, you’re gonna be a really good boyfriend. Whoever ends up with you is one lucky person.”

He sounds almost sad, and Seungmin glances down at him, surprised at the sudden change in emotion. 

“And you deserve to get pampered with all the hugs, kisses, and attention from whoever you end up with,” Seungmin says softly. “If they don’t treat you like you deserve the world and more, I’ll personally kick their ass.”

Jisung giggles at that, his eyes already drooping closed. “Love you, Minnie…”

“Love you too, Sungie.”

They fall asleep.

Chapter Text

A week or so later is Homecoming week—who even has Homecoming in college? Seungmin thought they left that bullshit in high school. But apparently this campus’s football team is one of the best in the area, and they bring out record amounts of people each year, which means more revenue for the school, so of course the school has to be the biggest slut for them and give them everything they want, including a state-of-the art, brand-spanking new stadium that’s ONLY used for football. 

Jisung listens to Seungmin rant about all of this in amusement over lunch, his head propped up on his elbow, a lazy smirk on his face as he watches him.  

“Wow,” he says when Seungmin finishes. “Didn’t know you would ever call our school a slut, but I guess there’s a first for everything.”

“How else would you describe them? They practically throw themselves at that stupid football team.” Seungmin huffs and stabs at his salad. “You’d think that they’d give some of that money to the arts department or even the science department, but noooo. It’s used for sports. It’s just like high school and I hate it with a passion.”

“Dude, you were literally on varsity baseball in high school. You were one of the dudes the school was slut-dropping for.”

Seungmin waves the thought away. “That was only for two years. After that I joined drama club and did musicals and choir and all of that was way better than baseball.”

“Not what I remember~” Jisung singsongs, giving a cheeky grin. “I remember you always being like I miss baseball, meh, meh, meh and shit. Why’d you quit again?”

“I missed the sport, I didn’t miss the team,” Seungmin says. “There’s a difference. And I quit because I fucked up my shoulder the summer before junior year, so I couldn’t play anyways.”

“Ah, that’s right.” Jisung grins again. “But anyways. They’re having a whole bunch of cool activities this week because of Homecoming! I heard they even have a dance on Saturday. Apparently no one actually goes to the dance because it’s lame, but I think we should check out some of the other stuff. Like the bonfire on Friday.”

Seungmin sighs. “Pass.”

“Aw come on, please? This’ll be better than high school, because no one gives a shit about anyone else and it’s all about getting drunk or high. We can just hang off to the side in our own group of friends!” Jisung reaches across the table and grabs onto Seungmin’s arm. “Please? Please? Can we enjoy the cliche college experience a little? Please?”

“Is this gonna be a thing that you bug me about until I give in?”

Jisung grins. “Maayyybeee…”

Seungmin snorts and rolls his eyes. “Fine. But only if you get Hyunjin and Felix to come.”

“Pfft, easy.” Jisung waves the thought away. “They’re way easier to convince than you. That’s why I always try to convince you first.” He grins. 

Turns out it is way easier to convince Hyunjin and Felix. They agree without hesitation, and suddenly Seungmin is completely roped into going to some stupid school function. 

But Jisung is so excited about it that, for once, Seungmin doesn’t dread being social for one night.

However, a few hours before the bonfire, Felix texts their group chat to tell them that he’s not feeling well, so he won’t be able to make it to the bonfire. And of course, that means Hyunjin is going to be at his bedside 24/7, feeding him chicken noodle soup and watching cartoons with him and putting a cold washcloth on his forehead. According to Felix, it’s nothing more than a bad cold that just makes him feel icky, but Hyunjin acts as though he has the plague. 

Right after that conversation in the group chat, Jisung texts Seungmin. 

Sungie

So…

Does this mean no bonfire? :(

Seungmo

Yeah, sorry man 

Sungie

:((((

that’s ok 

What r u gonna do instead

Seungmo

Idk probably start on this essay, then go to bed

Sungie

Oh

Seungmo

Wbu?

Sungie

Idk

Ngl I was really excited 

Now idk what else to do

You sure you don’t wanna go?? Just for a little??

Pls??

Seungmo

Idk man…

I’m not really feeling up to it 

Sungie

Aw :(

That’s ok

Don’t wanna guilt trip you

See u monday?

Seungmo

I’m sorry :’(

But yeah, see u monday :)

Sungie

Have a good weekend <3

Seungmin lowers his phone onto his chest and stares up at the ceiling. He feels like shit. But in all honesty…he woke up not having the energy to really go out and socialize. Hanging out with his friends is fun, but sometimes he likes to just stay inside and watch movies and go to bed early. 

He really feels bad about Jisung, though. He’ll have to make it up to him. 

An idea pops into his head, and slowly he starts to smile to himself. 

Luckily, he knows how to make this better. 

*

The following night, Seungmin knocks on Jisung’s door. He shot Jisung one quick text telling him that he’s coming over only about, oh, two minutes ago. Jisung opens the door dressed like he usually is on a Saturday—with bedhead, a bare face, an oversized shirt, shorts, and socks with crocs. Basically, the complete opposite of his usual E-boy look on the weekdays when he’s trying to impress someone. 

He squints at Seungmin like Seungmin just woke him up, and Seungmin can’t help laughing at the sight.

“You ready?” Seungmin asks, grinning. 

“No,” Jisung says, still squinting at him. “What should I be ready for?”

“You’ll see.” Seungmin holds out his hand. “Come on.”

“Are we getting food?” Jisung takes Seungmin’s hand anyways.

“You’ll see.” Seungmin starts tugging him down the hall. 

“Are you gonna keep saying that or what?”

Seungmin grins again. “You’ll see.”

Jisung snorts at that, finally smirking. He starts to swing their interlaced hands, though, now gaining a spring in his step. 

Seungmin leads him out of the dorms and down the path that leads behind their building, where there’s a little courtyard up against a line of trees that mark the edge of their campus. In this courtyard is a bunch of gas fire pits, which are rarely used due to the fact that everyone forgets they’re there. Seungmin walks over to one, sits on the cushioned bench from the patio furniture set, and pats the empty spot next to him.

Jisung sits next to him, looking around at the courtyard. “I didn’t know they put up fairy lights,” he says, gesturing to the string of lights that wraps around the courtyard. They’re already lit, casting a soft, golden glow around the area. 

Jisung looks back at Seungmin and smiles. “They’re pretty.”

“They are,” Seungmin agrees before reaching forward and turning on the gas fire.

Jisung raises his eyebrows, now starting to catch on. 

“I felt bad about the bonfire,” Seungmin says, “so I figured I’d make it up to you with our own little bonfire. I know this isn’t quite the same, but…I don’t know, I thought this was more of our style.”

Jisung stares at him with a dropped jaw and eyes so wide that the light of the flame flickers in them. He looks so unbelievably cute and soft like that that Seungmin can’t help but smile fondly at him. 

“I even brought snacks,” Seungmin adds, pulling out a bag he hid in between the patio furniture prior to getting Jisung. “We’ve got marshmallows, Hershey’s, and graham crackers for s’mores, then some chips, and some cookies, and some beef jerky—in all honesty I just raided the convenience store on campus. But I’ve got it all! Oh, and I smuggled in some tiny wine bottles from Felix but maybe we shouldn’t drink those out here where people could see us.”

Jisung is staring at him with an unreadable look on his face. 

“And I brought my bluetooth speaker that we can play softly if we want and—” Seungmin begins.

“I love you,” Jisung says. 

Seungmin blinks a few times, his face turning bright red. “Uh, what?”

“What?” Jisung’s eyes go impossibly wider, as if he just realized what he said. Panic crosses his face before he laughs awkwardly and shoves Seungmin’s shoulder. “You know what I mean! I love you—man! You’re the best—uh—bro!”

“Oh.” Seungmin laughs with him, though in his head, the only thing that’s floating around in there is an endless string of ?????????????? “I love you too, man.”

“Yeah.” Jisung laughs again and quickly turns to the fire. Seungmin turns away too, the string of ??? now doubling in size.

Before it can triple, though, Jisung says, “Honestly this is better than the bonfire ever could’ve been because this one has s’mores.” He nudges Seungmin playfully, a smile on his face.

Seungmin grins at that, and the ??? string disappears. It’s just Jisung. It’s just his best friend, Jisung. He can relax and enjoy himself. 

“Oh, I’ll make all the s’mores you could ever want,” Seungmin says, pulling out the ingredients. 

“In that case, I’ll choose the music!” Jisung pulls out the bluetooth speaker and pairs his phone. He turns on some Day6, which makes Seungmin look at him in surprise. “Your favorite band, right?”

“Yeah,” Seungmin says, though that’s not exactly a secret. His entire room at home is full of Day6 posters, as well as their entire discography. In the dorms, though, he decided to limit himself and only brought two posters and his top three favorite albums for decoration. 

“Sweet, mine too!” Jisung grins. 

Seungmin snorts at that. “Yeah, right. You’re just saying that.”

“They’re one of my favorite bands, how ’bout that.”

“Fine, I’ll give you that.”

Jisung giggles—Seungmin’s heart does a little flip at the sound—and then they turn their attention to toasting marshmallows over the fire. Turns out that they have completely different opinions on how to toast a marshmallow. Jisung likes them toasted lightly golden, where the outside is slightly crunchy while the inside is all melted and full of gooey deliciousness. Seungmin just likes them burnt. 

“How the fuck can you eat that?” Jisung laughs as Seungmin lifts his marshmallow out of the flames. It’s completely black on one side. “That’s practically a piece of charcoal, dude!”

“It’s tasty,” Seungmin says, biting into the marshmallow right then and there, without even taking it off the stick or adding the chocolate and graham crackers. He ends up getting marshmallow all over his face, which makes Jisung laugh at him. 

“You’re weird,” Jisung says through giggles. “Also, you got a little…somethin’ right there.” He gestures at his face. 

Seungmin wipes at the stickiness, but he just makes it worse, and Jisung laughs at him. 

“You’re a mess,” Jisung says. 

“I thought I brought napkins.” Seungmin pouts as he rummages through the bag, all to no avail. 

“Nah, just use your sleeve.” And Jisung does just that—he uses his hoodie sleeve to wipe off the marshmallow off his own face, and Seungmin stares at him like he’s insane. 

“Dude,” Seungmin says. 

“That was a joke,” Jisung says. “Now I’ve gotta do laundry.” And yet he laughs anyways.

Seungmin snorts and finally just rubs at his face several times, which eventually gets some of the stickiness off. 

They sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, where Jisung hums along to the music playing. They roast more marshmallows, though one time, Jisung gets creative and sticks the piece of chocolate in the marshmallow before roasting it. Seungmin hums in appreciation when the chocolate melts inside the marshmallow. 

Eventually, Jisung asks, “By the way, where’re Hyunjin and Felix?”

“They went back home this weekend,” Seungmin says. “I think they’re actually gonna tell their families about their relationship.”

“Oh, for real? That’s cool.” 

“Yeah, I think everyone is going to be really happy.” Seungmin smiles to himself. 

“Yeah, good for them.” Jisung smiles too. “I can’t wait until I introduce someone to my parents. They’ll be so excited. They keep telling me, ‘Jisung, when are you going to bring home a nice boy or girl? When are you going to get busy on that, huh?’ And then I’m always like, ‘I’M TRYING MOM!’”

Seungmin laughs at that. Jisung’s impersonations of his parents’ voices is hilarious. Jisung in general is hilarious. 

“And then they’re like, ‘oh but we don’t want you to end up all alone,’ and I’m like, ‘GEE THANKS MOM WAY TO RUB IT IN!’” Jisung is grinning as Seungmin laughs loudly at his antics, even clutching his stomach from laughing so hard, and Jisung chuckles to himself too. 

After their laughter has died down—which takes a few minutes since they keep giggling even after the effect—Seungmin says, “My parents just want me to study and get good grades and if I happen to get a boyfriend out of it, then that’s fine with them.”

“Fair, fair. Wow.” Jisung leans into Seungmin. “We really have some great parents, huh? They’re all so accepting.”

“They love us.” Seungmin smiles as he leans into Jisung as well. “Not to mention how we all have like four sets of parents because of how all of our families lived near each other.”

“I like Felix’s parents the best, not even gonna lie.”

Seungmin snorts at that. “Yeah, Felix’s parents are fucking hilarious.”

Jisung grins at the memory, and for a few moments, they just fall silent and watch the fire, still leaning against each other. Seungmin thinks, that if Jisung put his head on his shoulder, and that if he put his arm around Jisung’s shoulders…it would truly make this moment. He honestly wouldn’t even have a problem with it. If anything, he wants it. He really, really wants it. 

He wants Jisung. 

Right as Seungmin blinks at that realization, Jisung gasps and sits up, nearly scaring the shit out of Seungmin. 

“Hell yes!” Jisung turns up the song that’s playing. “This is one of my favorites from them, hands down.” 

Seungmin blinks, completely unaware of what Day6 song is playing for once. But as he listens, he recognizes it in an instant, and he smirks. Congratulations. 

“I love the message behind these lyrics, to be honest,” Jisung says. “You’d think it would be a ‘congratulations on finding love, I hope you’re happy’ kind of song but instead it’s just like ‘congratulations you fucking bitch’ and I think that’s beautiful.”

Seungmin lets out a bark of laughter at that. “It’s fucking awesome. They’re fucking awesome.”

“Hell yeah.” Jisung grins again, then listens to the song for a few moments before starting to sing, right at the bridge before the first chorus. 

Seungmin swears his world stops right then and there. Sure, he’s heard Jisung sing before, but this…this is different. There’s something about Jisung’s voice that just strikes a chord in him, and he’s completely captivated by it. Jisung’s voice just fits the song so well that it’s mesmerizing, and Seungmin can’t help but stare and listen as Jisung sings along. 

Jisung sees Seungmin staring and stops singing to shove Seungmin playfully and say, “What? Why you lookin’ at me like that, huh? I’m not butchering your beloved Day6, am I?”

“The exact opposite, actually,” Seungmin says without missing a beat, and Jisung blinks in surprise.

“Oh,” Jisung says, clearly not expecting that. He just stares back at Seungmin for a few moments, and Seungmin glances away, waiting for the right moment in the song. 

When the second chorus hits, Seungmin starts singing, and he sees Jisung’s face soften with awe at the sound. If Seungmin were so bold, he’d say that Jisung seems as captivated by Seungmin’s voice as Seungmin was with his. 

After a moment, Seungmin nudges Jisung, which seems to snap Jisung out of his trance. 

“Come on, don’t leave me hanging,” Seungmin says with a grin. 

“Nah, man, I’m fine just listening,” Jisung says with a grin. 

Seungmin gives him a look, but then the rap part hits, and Jisung practically launches himself into it. 

Another loud laugh bursts out of Seungmin as Jisung starts rapping, bringing out the hand gestures and facial expressions and all the charisma, totally embodying that verse. Seungmin even hypes him up a little bit, mimicking his gestures back at him and saying, “Ay, ay, ay.”

Jisung grins at him, his eyes sparkling more than Seungmin has ever seen, then points at Seungmin right as the verse switches to the chorus. 

Seungmin grins back at Jisung as he sings along to the last chorus, and this time Jisung humorously sways along, even closing his eyes, lifting his arm, and moving it from side to side like he’s at a concert or something. Though, he does cup his hands around his mouth and sing the whooaaaa’s in the background before resuming the same dance movements. 

During the last few lines, though, Jisung surprises Seungmin by singing with him, and it’s like a bolt of electricity shoots through Seungmin. He had no idea their voices would sound so good together—so perfect together—but they do, and he’s addicted. He wants more of this sound, just more, more, more.

The song ends, and Jisung lets out a whoop and grins at Seungmin.  

“Ooo, I got chills, man,” Jisung says. “Imagine if we did a cover of that song or something. It would sound so cool.”

“It would,” Seungmin agrees, smiling. “I think our voices fit together really well.”

“Me too.” 

For a moment they just grin at each other, and even when they both realize they’re staring, there’s no awkwardness. They can just exist comfortably together, unashamedly, and Seungmin thinks that’s a rare and beautiful thing. 

They sit out there talking and eating more junk food and singing along to more songs for another few hours. When they finally clean up and head back to their dorms, Seungmin can’t stop smiling to himself. He holds Jisung’s hand like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and he thinks that maybe, recently, it has become the easiest thing in the world. 

The only thing that’s different this time is that they don’t kiss at all that night; maybe it’s because they don’t even need to anymore. That duet is proof of that. 

The duet.  

Seungmin crashes on his bed after he’s said goodnight to Jisung and stares at the ceiling for a few moments. Then a grin spreads across his face as he remembers the duet, as he remembers that feeling from singing it with Jisung. 

He falls asleep smiling and thinking about it, his heart feeling like it’s going to burst out of his chest. 

Chapter Text

Midterms arrive shortly after, and suddenly Seungmin is drowning in all the studying he has to do for his classes. 

He can’t focus for the life of him in his dorm room, so he goes to the library instead. Unfortunately, the place is full of other students trying to cram for their exams, and he ends up going between the three floors for fifteen minutes just trying to find a tiny, quiet corner to himself. After that initial hiccup, he sits down and starts to study. 

He’s not even halfway done with studying for chem when his phone buzzes. He ignores it. Then it buzzes again, and again, and again, and he finally takes it out just to off the vibration. 

He stops when he sees the text spam from Jisung. 

Sungie

Yo yo yo 

How many midterms u got 

This is a serious question 

Pls respond 

Seungminnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

???

Oh wait u probs have your phone off 

ha, nerd 

But seriously bro

Seungmin can’t help shaking his head and smiling to himself before texting back. 

Seungmo

Don’t you have some studying of your own to do?

Sungie

He lives!

And nah. Wingin that shit. 

Only have like one actual midterm anyways 

Where u at?

Seungmo

Where do you think lol 

Sungie

sweet, be there in a sec ;)))) <3

Seungmin shakes his head again, trying not to let his smile turn into an idiot grin, while his heart is already leaping with giddy excitement at the thought of seeing Jisung. He turns off the vibration and then sets his phone face-up on the desk. 

Jisung finds him ten minutes later, though Seungmin spots him first due to the bright new color of his hair. Jisung dyed it orange only a few days ago, and Seungmin deliberately did not pay much attention to him when he did it, since the realization that Jisung could apparently pull off any hair color was not so easy on Seungmin’s poor heart. He just told Jisung that he looked like a pumpkin and laughed at the pout Jisung gave him in return. 

Who is he kidding—no hairstyle on Jisung is easy on Seungmin’s poor heart. Especially not the lemon one or the pumpkin one. He low-key dies every time Jisung changes his hair.

Seungmin quickly shoves these thoughts away, determined not to let them distract him too much. There will be time for psychoanalyzing himself later. Preferably after midterms. 

Jisung grins at Seungmin when he walks up, two drinks in his hand and a paper bag tucked under one arm. 

“Look at this hardworking boy,” he says, setting the coffees on Seungmin’s table. “So sexy.”

“Shhh,” Seungmin hisses, pointing to the sign nearby that says, 3rd Floor—No talking!! Serious studying ONLY!!

Jisung sticks his tongue out at him and plops down into the chair across from him. He pushes one of the drinks towards Seungmin, whispering loudly, “Fuel.”

“You didn’t have to,” Seungmin whispers back. 

“I wanted to,” Jisung whispers with a smile. “Payback for when you saved my ass in physics.”

“What do I owe you?”

“One hot, steamy make-out session.” Jisung winks. 

Seungmin blushes, and someone from a nearby table hisses, “SHHH!”

“Oh, shush yourself,” Jisung shoots back.

Seungmin snorts and turns back to studying. He’s aware of Jisung doing his own studying as well, except Seungmin is the subject. 

“Study, Jisung,” he whispers, smirking. 

“Boo,” Jisung says, and someone shushes him again. He spreads his arms defensively to them, then slouches back in his chair and pulls out his phone. 

Seungmin thinks that Jisung is finally settling down, but then his own phone lights up. He glances at it, noticing it’s a message from Jisung. 

He looks up at Jisung, who’s smirking at him as he waits for Seungmin to answer. Seungmin rolls his eyes before picking up his phone and checking the text. 

Sungie

I brought you cake pops

Seungmo

Really?

Sungie

Yep yep 

I had this plan of dangling one in front of your face to get your attention BUT 

I think opening that bag here will get me shot 

tOo NoIsY blah blah blah 

Guess I’ll just have to feed them to you later ;)

Seungmo

You’re flirting again 

Sungie

Honestly who can look at you and NOT flirt with you

Seungmin arches an eyebrow at Jisung across the table, and Jisung grins shamelessly. Seungmin just snorts and shakes his head again. 

Sungie

Love youuuu minnieeeee

Seungmo

Ok I have to study now 

Behave yourself 

Sungie

Yes daddy 

Seungmin gives him a swift kick under the table, right in the shin, and Jisung yelps loudly. Cue the death glares from the rest of the hardcore students. Jisung waves them off while reaching down to rub at his shin. Then he shoots Seungmin a pouty look.

Seungmin just shrugs and goes back to studying. 

Jisung does behave after that, though he just scrolls through his phone and goes through various sitting positions while Seungmin stays in the same spot the entire time, studying intently. 

Soon, the sunlight slants through the window and turns orange, and other students pack up their things and leave. Seungmin glances up when one walks past him, then looks back down at his chem notes. He looks at how much he has left to do and tears fill his eyes before he can stop them. 

There’s so goddamn much to do. 

He reaches up and rubs at his eyes, refusing to cry out of stress right now. 

“Hey.” Jisung’s voice is so soft. “I think you need a break. You’re gonna fry your brain like this.”

“I’m fine, I just need to finish this one section,” Seungmin says. 

There’s a brief moment of silence before Seungmin hears Jisung’s chair push back. The next thing he knows, Jisung’s soft hands are pulling Seungmin’s away from his face. Seungmin looks up at Jisung, who’s leaning across the table, and Jisung gazes back in concern for a few moments before leaning forward a little bit more and pressing his lips to Seungmin’s. 

Seungmin lets his eyes flutter shut as Jisung kisses him. It’s a soft and sweet kiss, and it’s longer than Seungmin expects, but he’s not complaining. 

When Jisung pulls away, he smirks at Seungmin. “You’ve got this,” he says. 

Seungmin blinks at him, right as some sort of…emotion shoots through his chest. This emotion isn’t unfamiliar to him—it’s been happening more often now whenever he’s around Jisung, really ever since the bonfire and their little duet. Usually he ignores it to the best of his ability and only really pays attention to it when he’s laying in bed at night and staring at the ceiling and wondering what Jisung might be thinking in those moments too. 

Right now, though, he doesn’t have time to dwell on it—and he’s not sure if he wants to—because soon Jisung’s winking at him and withdrawing back to his chair. Jisung picks up his phone and starts scrolling like nothing happened. 

Seungmin quickly goes back to studying, though he finds that he still can’t focus. He’s too busy thinking about Jisung and how his entire chest is swelling with warmth. 

Eventually, he decides, fuck it, and closes his notebooks. 

Jisung looks up as Seungmin stands and starts packing his stuff. “Did you finish?” Jisung asks, blinking those big, beautiful eyes up at him. 

Seungmin smiles at him. “Yeah. I’m finished. I feel pretty confident now, actually.”

Jisung smiles back, his eyes now crinkling and sparkling. 

“Wanna head back to my dorm and watch a movie?” Seungmin asks, slinging the backpack over one shoulder. 

Jisung’s eyes widen hopefully. “Really?”

Seungmin nods, still smiling. 

“Hell yes!” Jisung jumps up. “Can we order food, too?”

“Of course,” Seungmin says. They gather up their empty coffee cups and the still-full bag of pastries and start heading out. “What do you want to eat? You pick, and I’ll pay.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to—”

“It’s only fair. You paid for the coffee and pastries, I pay for dinner.” Seungmin shrugs. 

Jisung studies him for a few moments before grinning. “Well, I’m not going to turn down the opportunity for free food. What college kid does that? I am so in the mood for sushi.” He slings his arm around Seungmin’s shoulders like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“Sounds like a plan,” Seungmin says with a smile. 

Jisung continues to grin at him all the way back to Seungmin’s dorm.

*

All through that week, Jisung is waiting outside for Seungmin after every single one of Seungmin’s midterms. Seungmin doesn’t know how he does it, since he doesn’t remember telling Jisung his schedule, and doesn’t Jisung have classes of his own he has to go to?

Jisung waves the questions aside each time until finally Seungmin stops asking them. Then Jisung hands him whatever pastry he has that day and they move on, talking about safer things, like how the test went, or what test they have next, or what they should eat for lunch. While they talk, their hands naturally find each other, like they’re meant to be intertwined at all times.

Seungmin doesn’t want to admit it, but that emotion shows up every single time he sees Jisung waiting for him. And each time it does, it gets stronger and stronger, until it never goes away at all, and he finds himself thinking about it and Jisung almost every second of the day. 

That’s when he realizes—maybe now is the time to start psychoanalyzing himself.

Chapter Text

Past

Jisung’s on the ground, tears streaming down his face. He knows he’s too old now to cry, and that the other kids will probably laugh at him and call him a crybaby, but he can’t help it. The scrapes on his knee and his hands are too painful not to cry about. 

He sniffs and wipes his nose with the back of his hand as he takes a closer look at the scrape on his knees. There’s dirt and little pebbles from the asphalt stuck in the wound. The sight alone makes him queasy, and he quickly looks away before he can puke. 

He needs to get up and go back to his house. He needs to pick up his bike, which is laying awkwardly a few feet away from him. But it hurts to move. He’s not sure if his wounded knee will support him entirely. 

He’s being a baby. He’s being such a baby. It’s just a scratch. It’s not like he broke his leg or something. 

Jisung winces and wipes at his nose again before looking at his bike again. He needs to get up. 

As he starts to move, though, a nasally voice cuts across the sidewalk. 

“Did you fall?”

Jisung turns bright red with embarrassment and with panic, knowing that one of the neighbor kids just found him. He’ll never make a friend here now. This kid will see how much of a wimp Jisung is and tell everyone else. They’ll all laugh at him and then—

“Here, let me see.” The voice is much closer now, and then the neighbor kid crouches down in front of him. 

Jisung goes rigid.

The neighbor kid lets out a low hiss at the sight of the scrape. “Oh, that looks like it hurts. Are you okay?”

He looks up at Jisung, and his expression is so genuine that Jisung blinks several times in surprise.

It takes him a few tries to speak, but Jisung manages to say in a small voice, “I’m fine.”

“Wow, you’re stronger than me, then,” the neighbor kid says with a smile. “I’d be screaming and crying by now. Is it just your knee that you scraped?”

Jisung pauses before shaking his head and slowly showing his hands. 

The neighbor kid lets out another hiss at the sight. “Ouch. Here, I have some water. We can use it to clean out the dirt. It might sting a bit.”

He pulls a water bottle out of his backpack and untwists the cap. He glances up at Jisung one last time as if to be sure. When Jisung just gulps, he slowly pours the water over Jisung’s hands. 

Jisung winces at the sting, fresh tears welling up in his eyes. But the water washes away the dirt and some of the blood, which makes the scrapes look considerably better than they were a few moments ago. 

“Okay, now for your knee,” the neighbor kid says. “You okay?”

Jisung manages to nod, though he’s already tensing. This one is going to hurt. It’s going to hurt so much, and he’s not going to be able to stop himself from crying—

The neighbor kid pours the water on Jisung’s knee, and Jisung lets out a little whimper. The sound immediately makes him cringe and look away. 

“It’s okay, almost done, almost done…” the neighbor kid says gently. “There! Done! Now we just need to dab at it a little—maybe with some soap, just to make sure it’s completely clean—and put some medicine and a bandaid on it. Then you’ll be as good as new!”

Jisung just sniffs, swallowing the lump in his throat. 

“I can help you back to your house, if you want,” the neighbor kid says. “Or my house, even. It’s closer—it’s right there, actually.” He points at the house that they’re sitting in front of. “What’d’ya say?”

“Okay,” Jisung says in a small voice.

The neighbor kid smiles and puts his water bottle in his backpack. Then he offers a hand to Jisung. 

Jisung looks at it fearfully for a few moments before slowly reaching out and taking it. He lets the neighbor kid help him to his feet, where he wobbles on one leg, since he can’t put any weight on the wounded leg out of fear of the wound stinging more than it already does. 

“We can come back for your bike,” the neighbor kid says. “Let’s head inside, now.”

Jisung nods, and he starts hobbling up the driveway of this kid’s house, with the kid’s help, of course. 

“What’s your name, by the way?” the neighbor kid asks.

“Jisung,” Jisung says in a small voice. 

“Jisung,” the kid repeats with a smile. “I’m Seungmin. You’re new, right? Just moved in a few weeks ago?”

Jisung nods. 

“You must need some friends, then.” Seungmin’s smile widens. “Do you want to be friends? I can introduce you to the other kids in the neighborhood. There’s just two—Hyunjin and Felix. They’re really nice—I’m sure you’ll like them! And then we can go to school together and you can play with us at recess and sit with us at lunch!”

Jisung gawks at him, shocked at how nice he’s being. “Really?” he asks.

“Really, really.”

“But…you just met me. You sure you want to hang out with the weird new kid?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t sure.” Seungmin smiles at him again. “Everybody needs a friend. It just so happens that you get three instead of one! Isn’t that cool?”

Jisung starts to smile at that. “Yeah, that is pretty cool.”

Seungmin’s smile stretches into a grin, and they reach the front door of his house. He opens it and calls out, “Mom! I made a new friend! He needs some bandaids and some snacks, asap!”

Jisung turns bright red at that, but when Seungmin giggles, Jisung can’t help laughing with him. 

*

Present

“Ow, fuck!” 

Jisung shakes his hand out, wincing at the sting in his finger. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck—”

“You okay over there?” Seungmin arches an eyebrow at him from where he sits on his bed.

“Oh, yeah, just peachy.” Jisung sticks his bleeding finger in his mouth and gives Seungmin an innocent smile. 

Seungmin snorts and sets his book aside. He gets up to go over to where Jisung is sitting at Seungmin’s desk. “What’d you do?”

“Paper cut,” Jisung says around his finger. “’S not that bad.”

“Your reaction begs to differ.” Seungmin holds out his hands. “Come on, let me see.”

Jisung pulls his finger out of his mouth and quickly wipes it on his shirt, making sure it’s not all slobbery and gross. There’s a decent cut in his pointer finger, way worse than a usual paper cut.

Seungmin snorts again at the sight. “What the hell did you do? That’s way thicker than a normal paper cut.”

“It’s more of a cardboard cut? Y’know, the really thin cardboard from like cereal boxes and stuff?” Jisung gestures to the cereal box on Seungmin’s desk. “It’s not so fun when your food fights back.”

Seungmin grins at that. “Hold on, I have some bandaids.” He reaches for the top drawer of his desk and opens it, where there’s a box of bandaids. He pulls the box out, selects one of the smaller bandaids, and unwraps it. 

Jisung watches with rapt attention as Seungmin carefully wraps the bandaid around his stupid cut. His heart is in his throat, suffocating him. It’s pounding so hard that he wonders if Seungmin can hear it. 

“There.” Seungmin finishes bandaging Jisung’s finger and smiles at him. “All better.”

“No, no,” Jisung says. “It needs one more thing.”

“You’re right.” And then Seungmin plants a soft kiss on Jisung’s finger without hesitation. “Now it’s all better.”

And now Jisung resembles a tomato. There’s also a high-pitched scream in his head. It takes him several moments to process it and hope that that scream really is just in his head and not out loud. 

Seungmin grins at him again, then retreats to his bed. He picks up his textbook and starts reading like nothing ever happened. 

Meanwhile, Jisung’s finger is pulsating with warmth, and he has to stop himself from hugging his hand to his chest in an attempt to preserve the memory of Seungmin’s little kiss. 

Maybe it’s the shock still talking, or the sudden rush that comes from the kiss, but something gets him thinking. Gets him thinking about all the times Seungmin has taken care of him, like the very first time they met, and how they immediately became friends afterwards. In all the times Jisung got hurt during their childhood together—whether physically, or emotionally after getting his heart broken—Seungmin never hesitated to immediately comfort him and take care of him.

He was always there for him.

Seungmin must feel Jisung looking at him, because he glances up at Jisung, smiles, and then looks back at his book. 

Jisung smiles softly to himself as he looks down at the bandaid on his finger again. 

Yeah, under all of that sarcasm and feigned indifference, Seungmin has always been so caring and considerate. It’s one of the reasons why Jisung loves him. 

Wait—what?

*

Past

Jisung’s ranting about something to Felix and Hyunjin, the kind of rant where he gets so excited that his entire face practically glows, and his eyes widen to the point where they look like they’re going to fall out of his head. He starts gesturing wildly too, which just emphasizes his crazy expressions as he talks, and Seungmin can’t help but grin as he watches him. He has no idea what the hell Jisung is talking about, but it’s entertaining just to watch him. 

That is, until Jisung gestures a little bit too much, and suddenly his hand is flying back and smacking Seungmin right in the face. 

Seungmin jerks away out of instinct, shocked, while there’s this high-pitched wail that he hopes isn’t coming from him. 

“Oh shit,” he hears Felix say; Felix has been learning swear words lately, so of course being the middle schooler he is, he takes every opportunity to use them. 

“Oh my god, Seungmin!” It’s Jisung who’s wailing, then. “I am so sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Seungmin says, because it is fine—that is, until blood starts trickling out of his nose. 

Jisung lets out another wail and rushes at him, his eyes now full of panic instead of that excitement from earlier. “Oh my god, I made you bleed—”

“It’s okay, Sungie,” Seungmin says, pinching his nose. His voice now sounds even more nasally than usual. “I’ll, uh, just go to the nurse’s office. No biggie.”

“I dunno, man, that looks pretty bad,” Hyunjin says, his arms crossed as he watches the blood slip between Seungmin’s fingers, pool in his palm, and then trickle down his arm. 

“Shit, Sungie must’ve hit you really hard,” Felix says. 

“It was an accident!” Jisung whines, and now he looks like he’s on the verge of tears. 

“I know, I know,” Seungmin says, gesturing with his non-bloody hand to reassure Jisung. “It’s okay. Accidents happen. I’m just gonna go to the nurse, though. Tell the teacher where I went, okay?”

“Absolutely!” Felix nods, while Hyunjin just flashes him a lazy thumbs-up. 

Seungmin starts to walk away, but has only taken a few steps when Jisung falls in beside him. Seungmin glances at him in surprise. “You don’t have to come with me, Sungie.”

“I want to,” Jisung says seriously. “I’m so sorry, Seungmin. It really was an accident—”

“You don’t have to apologize, it’s okay.” Seungmin smiles at him. 

Jisung doesn’t seem convinced. He falls silent though while they walk to the nurse’s office. The nurse doesn’t help much other than offer Seungmin a roll of thin paper towels to staunch the blood and the tiny bathroom in her office where he can clean himself up. She tries to shoo Jisung out, but when Jisung refuses to leave, Seungmin says to the nurse, “I asked him to come with me, if that’s okay with you?”

The nurse purses her lips. “If he’s not hurt, then he should be back at class.”

“It’s recess right now, ma’am,” Seungmin says. “He’s not missing anything. He can leave when recess is over, if the blood hasn’t stopped by then.”

Jisung puts on his biggest puppy-dog expression possible, and the nurse sighs but relents. 

Once she leaves, Jisung drops the expression and now looks more like a kicked puppy. “I’m sorry,” he says again. 

“There’s nothing you need to apologize for,” Seungmin says. 

Jisung glances up at him. His eyes are glistening with tears again, and his lower lip is trembling. He bites it, then lowers his head again. 

“Why are you beating yourself up about it?” Seungmin asks.

“I don’t know, I just…” Jisung wraps his arms around his stomach, making himself look impossibly small. “I don’t want you guys to hate me and ditch me.”

“Why on earth would I do that?”

“I hit you and gave you a bloody nose—anybody would be so mad at me.”

“Well, I guess I’m not just anybody, then.” Seungmin grins.

Jisung glances up long enough to flash a shy smile, then looks down again. “I guess you’re not.”

“Besides, it was an accident,” Seungmin says. “And it’s happened to me, too—I’ve gotten too excited and accidentally elbowed or smacked someone in the face like that before. Once, at baseball practice, I swinging around a bat in the dugout and hit another kid in the stomach. So, trust me, it happens to the best of us.”

While he’s talking, Jisung lifts his head and is brave enough to hold Seungmin’s gaze for a few moments. After Seungmin finishes talking, Jisung smiles at him, and Seungmin smiles back. 

“Oh, hey, look—it’s already stopping.” Seungmin pulls the paper towel away from his face and shows Jisung the lighter splotches of blood. “See? Nothing to worry about.”

His nose stops bleeding completely a minute later, and washing off all the dried blood takes another minute. He and Jisung are walking out of the nurse’s office right as the bell rings to signal the end of recess, and they head upstairs to the classroom together. 

Later, after school, Jisung goes over to Seungmin’s house with a plate of freshly-baked cookies.

“This is to make up for hitting you and giving you a bloody nose,” Jisung says when Seungmin answers the door. 

Seungmin grins. “Unnecessary, but I accept. Here—you want some soda? My mom just went to the store.”

The two of them end up sitting on Seungmin’s front porch, eating cookies and drinking soda. They talk and talk until the sun is going down, and Seungmin’s mom is calling him in for supper. Seungmin starts to get up, then pauses and looks back at Jisung. 

“Wanna stay for dinner?” Seungmin asks. 

Jisung’s face lights up at that. “Oh! Sure! Let me run home and ask my mom, first.”

He runs home, and Seungmin waits for him out on the front porch. A huge grin spreads across Seungmin’s face when he sees Jisung running up the street a few minutes later, grinning and shouting, “SHE SAID YES!”

Jisung ends up staying over at Seungmin’s house for hours, but it goes by so quickly that it feels like minutes. When Jisung finally does have to leave, Seungmin wishes he could stay longer. Wishes that he could stay forever. 

He tells Jisung this, and Jisung looks like he’s going to burst with happiness. 

“I wish I could stay forever, too,” Jisung says. “If I could hang out with you and only you forever, I’d be okay with that.”

“Me too.” Seungmin smiles at him. “But I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning on the bus?”

“Yeah.” Jisung grins. “It’s so far away!”

Seungmin laughs at that and waves goodbye as Jisung starts walking down the front steps of Seungmin’s porch. 

“See you soon, Jisung,” Seungmin says. 

“See you soon, Seungmin.” With another bright smile and a wave, Jisung turns and runs home.

*

Present

It’s a Monday night, after dinner.

Jisung’s ranting about something to Felix and Hyunjin as they walk back to their dorms. Seungmin’s walking a bit behind Jisung, listening in amusement as Jisung raves about this new anime to Felix. He has no idea what the anime is about, but one of his favorite things about Jisung is when he goes on these passionate rants. Seungmin swears he could listen to and watch these rants of Jisung’s forever.

That is, until Jisung’s hand flies back a little too much, and he smacks Seungmin right in the face, and Seungmin jerks backwards in surprise.

“Oh shit!” Felix laughs. 

“Oh my god!” Jisung exclaims, whirling around. “Seungmin! I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

Seungmin opens his mouth to reply, but something about this moment just seems so funny that he ends up letting out a bark of laughter instead. And once he starts laughing, he can’t stop. 

Felix grins, while Jisung’s staring at Seungmin with wide, confused, and hurt eyes, like he secretly thinks Seungmin is insane while also feeling immensely guilty for hitting him. 

Then Seungmin’s nose starts bleeding, and for some reason, that just makes Seungmin laugh harder. 

“I think he’s five seconds away from a mental breakdown,” Hyunjin states from off to the side, his arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. 

“Yeah, I’m starting to get concerned, too,” Felix says, still grinning at Seungmin while his eyes clearly say, what the fuck?

“Sorry.” Seungmin giggles a little as he pinches his nose. “I just had a sense of deja vu.” The sound of his nasally voice prompts more giggles.

Jisung frowns, but then Hyunjin grins. 

“Oh, yeah, like that one time in middle school when Jisung hit you in the face and gave you a bloody nose,” Hyunjin says.

“That was an accident!” Jisung exclaims, his face turning bright red.

“I know, I know, it’s just funny how things repeat themselves.” Seungmin grins at Jisung. 

Jisung doesn’t look convinced, but then Hyunjin nudges Felix and gives him a knowing smirk while jerking his chin in Jisung’s direction. Felix seems to understand immediately, because he says, “Oh, shit! I forgot I had an essay due tonight that I haven’t started on. Better go work on that!”

“Jisung, why don’t you help Seungmin with his bloody nose, hmm?” Hyunjin adds, draping his arm around Felix’s shoulders. 

“What?” Jisung blinks and turns to them, but the two of them are already walking away. 

“Sorry about your nose, Seungmin! Bye!” Felix calls, before he and Hyunjin hurry off, the sound of their giggles echoing on the empty sidewalk. 

For the record, Jisung does come back to Seungmin’s dorm and help him with his bloody nose, though he’s profusely apologizing the entire time. 

“I’m sorry I’m such a klutz,” Jisung says. “I should have been paying more attention, I’m so sorry—”

Seungmin has already told him that he has nothing to apologize about twenty times now, but Jisung is still too caught up in his guilt and embarrassment to process it. So, Seungmin switches tactics. 

“Kiss it to make it better?”

Jisung blinks at that, his next apology already dying on his tongue, leaving his mouth hanging open. 

“Well, maybe not now,” Seungmin adds, since he’s still covered in blood. “But…later? On my bed? While cuddling?”

Jisung gapes at him for a few seconds more before he snaps out of it by giving Seungmin a flirty smirk. “Kim Seungmin, are you flirting with me?”

“Hell yeah,” Seungmin says, and the two of them burst into laughter. 

“Screw it,” Jisung says, grabbing Seungmin’s face. He kisses Seungmin right then and there, not caring that there’s still literally blood trickling from Seungmin’s nose. Jisung pulls back after a few moments, and he has that excited glow to his face again, the same one he had when he was ranting a few minutes ago. He looks so unbelievably adorable and beautiful, and Seungmin smiles so widely at him that his face almost hurts. 

“That was a little too borderline disgusting for me so we’re gonna wait until it’s stopped bleeding before kissing again,” Jisung says. 

Seungmin wants to snort at that, but he knows that probably wouldn’t be a good idea right now, so he just nods instead. 

“That’s fair,” he says. 

His nose stops bleeding about five minutes later, and once he’s cleaned up, he crashes on his bed with Jisung, who wastes no time snuggling up to him and kissing him. 

“Sorry about your nose,” Jisung mumbles against their lips.

“It’s really okay,” Seungmin replies in between kisses. He lets his eyes slide shut, content to just focus on the feeling of this moment more than anything else. And right now, he feels like he’s on cloud nine, though nowadays he supposes he always feels like that when he’s around Jisung. 

“I promise it won’t happen again,” Jisung says. 

“Aw.”

Jisung makes a noise of confusion and pulls back. “What?”

“That means you’re not going to go on those rants of yours where you gesture that wildly anymore.” Seungmin finally opens his eyes to look at Jisung and pouts at him. “I love it when you rant like that.”

Jisung blinks a few times, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “You do?”

“Yeah, honestly. You get so into it that I can’t look away. I just kinda want to keep staring forever.”

Jisung lets out a breath like Seungmin just knocked the wind out of him. He blinks a few times again and tries to speak, but no words come out.

Seungmin grins at how flustered Jisung is and adds while quirking an eyebrow, “Can you kiss as passionately as you rant like that?”

Instead of answering verbally, Jisung surges forward and kisses Seungmin like his life depends on it. Seungmin can’t help grinning, and the moment he does, Jisung pulls back.

Looking Seungmin right in the eye, Jisung says, “You bet your ass I can.”

Seungmin laughs so hard that he can’t even kiss Jisung properly after that, so they end up having to lean back for a few moments. But then Jisung starts to giggle at how hard Seungmin’s laughing, which then makes Seungmin laugh harder, and soon they’re just laying on the bed, laughing their heads off together.

Eventually, their laughter dies down, though it takes about ten minutes of off and on giggles. And when they do settle down, Jisung reaches out and idly strokes Seungmin’s arm, a distant but happy look in his eye. 

Seungmin takes the time to just study Jisung, to finally study that emotion he’s felt so often when he’s around him. He thought it was just a passing fancy, just a short but intense crush, like he once got on both Felix and Hyunjin when they were kids. But he was wrong. He was so, so wrong. 

He knows he was wrong because the feelings aren’t going away; they’re always there, even when Jisung isn’t around. And even though sometimes his heart pounds with excitement when he thinks of or sees Jisung, he also feels calmer around him. Like he’s finally made it home, and he can just breathe and relax. Like he can be completely vulnerable with Jisung and not worry about scaring him off by what he reveals.

Ironically, though, what really made him realize that this was something more serious than just a silly crush was when Jisung smacked him in the face, almost like he was smacking some sense into Seungmin. And also smacking him back to the past, to an extremely similar moment. 

A moment where the two of them truly took the first step in becoming closer, and have been gravitating closer ever since. 

A moment where Seungmin started to fall in love with his best friend Han Jisung, little by little. 

Seungmin smiles at the realization, and Jisung smiles back at him.

Chapter Text

“Oh, hi, Sung!” Felix grins when he opens the door to his dorm. “How’s it—”

Jisung walks past him into Felix’s room and falls face-first onto Felix’s bed.

“—going,” Felix finishes, then giggles. He flops down onto the bed next to Jisung, laying on his side and propping up his head on his elbow. “Just let it all out, bud. I’m here for you.”

“Seungmin is an idiot,” Jisung says, his voice muffled by Felix’s comforter.  

“Oh, we been knew,” Felix giggles again. “But don’t tell him that. He prides himself so much on being the smartest out of all of us.”

“He’s smart, but he’s so dumb.” Jisung rolls onto his side so he can face Felix. “But I guess I can’t blame him ’cause I’m the dumbass who got us into this situation to begin with.”

“The friends-with-benefits-but-with-kissing situation?”

“I’m guessing Hyunjin told you?”

“Yep.” Felix grins. “I was wondering how you got Seungmin to agree to that.”

“He’s surprisingly easy to nag into giving kisses. Which is the problem.” Jisung lets out a huge sigh. “For him, they’re just kisses now. They’re nothing huge. He just gives me kisses whenever I ask without much thought anymore. But for me…they’re everything.” He hates how small his voice gets near the end of that. He groans and covers his face with his hands. “I’m in love with a fucking dumbass.”

“So he has no idea how you really feel?”

“Of course not. He’s Seungmin. I’d have to spell it out for him to get it.” Jisung peeks over his hands at Felix. “You’d think he’d at least catch on after I’ve been asking for kisses all the damn time instead of only when one of us is stressed. Not to mention how I literally hold his hand and compliment him and ask for cuddles—and one time I literally blurted out the L word to him in full seriousness—but he seriously just thinks it’s dudes being bros.” He groans agains.

“Have you ever thought about it?” Felix asks. 

“What.”

“Spelling it out for him?”

“Pfft, I don’t have a death wish, Felix.”

“So you’ve never thought of confessing at all?”

Jisung sighs and lowers his hands again. “Of course I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it a lot, actually. I just…I don’t know. I don’t want to get rejected again.”

Felix doesn’t respond, but Jisung knows what he’s thinking about. He’s thinking about the time he rejected Jisung and when Hyunjin rejected Jisung years before that. Each one stung in their own way, but Jisung truly thinks that Seungmin’s rejection will hurt even more than the last two. It’ll break his heart in a way that he’s not entirely sure he’ll recover from. At the very least, it’ll end their friendship. Jisung doesn’t want to let years of friendship go just because his stupid heart got in the way of things. 

Felix reaches out and takes Jisung’s hand, making Jisung lift his eyes to meet his. 

“I seriously think you should consider telling him,” Felix says softly. “I think it will go better than you expect.”

Jisung shakes his head. “I don’t know if I can do it, Lix.”

“What’s your alternative? Suppressing your feelings for years and years?”

“Yep, that’s what I’ve done so far.”

Felix gives him a look. “How is that better than confessing and potentially getting rejected?”

“Because at least by suppressing my feelings, I get to keep him in my life,” Jisung says. “But if I confess and ruin everything, we won’t be friends anymore. Not to mention that it’ll literally tear our friend group apart. No more outings with all four of us. No more Hyunjin, probably, since Hyunjin will side with Seungmin without hesitation. And then you’ll side with Hyunjin because he’s your boyfriend, and then that leaves me all on my own again.”

“Jisung—”

“I don’t know what I’d do without Seungmin at this point,” Jisung says. “Or you. Or Hyunjin. You guys are like my family. I can’t risk losing you.”

“Seungmin won’t abandon you,” Felix says. “He’s not that kind of person, Jisung.”

“I’m just not brave enough.” Jisung sighs, his heart sinking. 

Felix doesn’t say anything for a few moments, his lips pursed as he thinks of a solution.  Jisung picks at a loose thread on Felix’s comforter, knowing full well that Felix won’t be able to think of one. Jisung’s doomed. He was doomed the moment he nagged Seungmin to kiss him that first time in the library. 

“What if…” Felix tilts his head to one side, his eyes distant as he thinks to himself. “What if…you asked him to do a couples costume with you for Chan’s Halloween party?”

Jisung snorts. “What.”

“I’m just trying to think of an easier way you could confess.”

Jisung pauses from picking at the loose thread, considering. “Wouldn’t doing a couples costume be too blunt?”

“Isn’t that what you’re going for?”

Jisung snorts again. “Good point. But I don’t even know what couples costume I could do. Every time I try to google ideas, it brings up something so inherently heterosexual that I have to bleach my eyeballs afterwards.”

Felix grins at that. “Oh, I know. I wanted to be a sexy cat, so I’m going as a sexy cat. Then Hyunjin’s going as a sexy vampire.”

Jisung snorts. “Those are the most cliché costumes I’ve ever heard of.”

“I never said they were good! All I know is that we’re both going to look hot as fuck.”

Jisung grins, then starts thinking to himself. “I kinda wanna go as something sexy. Maybe that’ll get Seungmin’s attention.”

“You gonna dye your hair again?” Felix reaches out and ruffles Jisung’s orange hair. “I feel like you could open up a lot of options if you did a certain color.”

“I want to do blue next,” Jisung says. “I wanna get Seungmin to dye his hair too, but he won’t let me.”

“Maybe he will if you come up with a costume that works with that hair color. What color are you hoping for?”

Jisung blushes. “Red.”

“Ooooo.” Felix grins, and Jisung turns a deeper shade of red. “That would look so hot.”

“I know, right.” Jisung rolls onto his back and groans. “Let’s be honest though, he’d look hot in any hair color.” He sighs. 

“Hmm, couples costume ideas for red and blue hair…” Felix thinks to himself. “I’ll have to do some research.”

“In the meantime, I’m gonna hide here for the rest of the day.” Jisung rolls over onto his back and closes his eyes. 

Felix laughs as he pulls out his phone. “Fine with me, bud. We haven’t really hung out lately.”

“Yeah, you’ve been too busy with your boyfriend and I’ve been too busy with my not-boyfriend.” 

“Almost-boyfriend,” Felix corrects with a grin. “Trust me, we’re gonna find you a hot couples costume, and then we’ll plan out how to create the perfect conditions on Halloween during Chan’s party, and then you’ll confess. And then, if you play it right—which you will—the two of you’ll be able to slip away into one of the bedrooms and, y’know, get sexy.” He wiggles his eyebrows playfully. 

Jisung opens one eye to peer at him. “You…really think that’ll happen…?”

“If Hyunjin and I have anything to say about it, then yeah.” Felix laughs. “I’m your wingman, bro.” He punches Jisung’s shoulder softly. 

Jisung can’t help smiling, while his heart leaps with excitement and fondness in his chest. “I love you, you know that?”

“I do, but it’s always nice to hear.” Felix smiles before flopping down onto the bed and snuggling close to him. “But what would be even nicer are some Jisung cuddles.” 

Jisung laughs and wraps his arms around him while throwing one leg over him as well. “Funny! I was just thinking the same thing about some Felix cuddles!”

“Cuddle and eventually fall asleep instead of doing homework?”

“Hell yes.”

And so that’s exactly what they do. Jisung falls asleep with a smile on his face, his heart pounding with hopeful excitement. 

Maybe…maybe he will be able to confess to Seungmin after all. 

*

“Wow, Minnie…no offense but you look like shit.”

Seungmin scowls at Hyunjin. “Wow, thanks.”

“Homework kicking your ass, as per usual?” Hyunjin plucks an eyeshadow palette off the shelf to get a better look at it. 

They’re at the grocery store—just the two of them, for once—looking for makeup for Hyunjin’s costume for Chan’s Halloween Party. Hyunjin texted Seungmin earlier, begging him to keep him company, since Felix was busy. Seungmin jumped at the opportunity, just because he needed someone other than Jisung to talk to or else he was sure he’d go insane. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with Jisung. He just…can’t exactly rant to him about…certain things.

“No, it’s not that,” Seungmin says quietly, picking up a tube of lipstick and studying it. He wonders if Jisung could pull it off, then blushes when he realizes that Jisung probably could. Now his mind is running wild with all the ideas of what Jisung would look like in various lipsticks. Seungmin quickly puts the lipstick back on the shelf and turns to Hyunjin. 

“I think I’m falling for Jisung,” Seungmin blurts. 

“Then get up?” Hyunjin grins and looks up, only to realize that Seungmin is serious. His eyes go wide. “Wait, hold on. What?”

“I know, I’m surprised as you are,” Seungmin says with a groan. 

“I never said I was surprised,” Hyunjin says, holding up a finger. 

“You—what?”

“Yeah, dude.” Hyunjin snorts. “You do realize that Jisung has had a crush on all of us at one point? And that you’re the most recent one and probably the one that’s lasted the longest?”

Seungmin stares at him. “What?”

Hyunjin’s eyes go wide once again as he stares at Seungmin. “You seriously don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?”

“Oh my god, Jisung really wasn’t kidding when he called you dumb.”

“He did what?” That stings, actually. Especially coming from Jisung. Seungmin thought Jisung of all people was the most impressed by Seungmin’s intelligence. But apparently not. 

“I mean, he meant you were kind of dense,” Hyunjin says quickly. 

“Not helping.” Seungmin turns away. His eyes fall on the stupid lipstick again, and he grimaces. He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Jisung for days now, to the point where he isn’t really sleeping. He just stays up and stares at the ceiling, his mind running circles about cute, sweet, hilarious Jisung. His cute, sweet, hilarious Jisung. 

He’s not yours, his mind always reminds him. 

Seungmin sighs. He’s exhausted. He’s love sick. 

Hyunjin’s watching him for a few moments, one eyebrow raised. Then he sighs and says, “Okay, I’m going to tell you something, but you didn’t hear it from me.”

Seungmin snorts and looks at him like, seriously?

Hyunjin looks dead-serious. Especially as he glances around, like Jisung might be hiding behind the mascara or something. Then he leans in and says in a low voice, “Jisung has literally been in love with you since middle school.”

Seungmin gapes at him, his eyes bugged out of his head. He probably resembles a fish at this point, but that doesn’t even cross his mind. He’s too busy thinking about Jisung—Han Jisung? His Jisung?—being in love with him—The Kim Seungmin? Impossible. Jisung isn’t exactly subtle about his emotions. Seungmin has always been able to read him like an open book. 

So, Hyunjin must be teasing him. 

Seungmin shuts his mouth and gives Hyunjin a look. “Ha, ha. Very funny, Hyunjin.”

“What.” Hyunjin blinks at him. 

“I think I would know if Jisung had been in love with me since middle school.” Seungmin lets out a scoff as he looks at the eyeshadow palettes. He needs to figure out his own costume for Chan’s Halloween Party. Like every single year, he has zero ideas about what to go as. Maybe he’ll pull out his old baseball uniform and go as a professional athlete again.

“Would you, though?” Hyunjin screws up his face to make the most skeptical expression possible. 

Seungmin looks him right in the eye. “Yes, I would. He’s not exactly subtle. Plus, I know him. I can pick up on whatever he’s feeling or thinking just like that.” He snaps his fingers. “So, that’s why I can say with full conviction that he just thinks of us as chill friends.”

His heart sinks at that, because if he’s right (which he always is), then that means his love is unrequited and that it’ll be all the more painful. 

Seungmin can handle it. He thinks. He’ll just…throw himself into his studies. Make excuses to Jisung about how he can’t hang out. Distance himself until the feelings go away. And then they’ll be friends again like nothing ever changed. They’re good like that. 

Though, he has to admit, he’ll miss Jisung’s kisses. He’ll miss everything about Jisung.

“What if you’re wrong?” Hyunjin says. 

“I’m never wrong.”

“You’re human,” Hyunjin scoffs. “It’s not going to be the end of the world if you’re wrong one time. Besides, wouldn’t you like to be wrong about this?”

“Of course I would,” Seungmin shoots back. “But I don’t want to get my hopes up only for them to get crushed.”

Hyunjin steeples his fingers together and takes a deep breath. “Okay. But hear me out. Have you ever considered maybe being vulnerable for once in your life and possibly confessing to Jisung?”

“No,” Seungmin says immediately, his stomach pitching at the thought. “No. No, no, no. Me confessing would just ruin everything me and Jisung have going. No.”

“You won’t ruin anything,” Hyunjin says, rolling his eyes. 

“I’m already ruining everything by catching feelings!”

“Just confess. Tell him how you feel! I’ll even help you out. I’ll be your wingman. And Felix can help, too! We’ll both be your wingman! We’ll make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“You can’t make sure that nothing will go wrong. You already know it’ll go wrong. Because you know Jisung doesn’t feel the same way. It’ll just make everything uncomfortable.”

“Okay, but what if—”

“No, Hyunjin.” It comes out a little more forceful than Seungmin means for it. Hyunjin blinks in surprise, then immediately starts pouting like a kicked puppy, and Seungmin sighs. “I don’t really want to talk about this anymore. Can we please talk about something else?”

Hyunjin pouts at him for a few moments more before sighing. “Fiiiiine. But if you ever need a wingman, I’m your guy. And if you ever need an exact date and time, well…Chan’s Halloween Party is probably your best bet. Just saying.” He shrugs and raises his hands in a surrender. “Alright, I’m done nagging you about it.”

“Thank you,” Seungmin says with a snort. 

“Have you thought about what you’re gonna go as?”

“I dunno. Maybe a dead baseball player. Paint a small, half-dome piece of styrofoam like a baseball, stick it to my forehead to make it look like I died via baseball to the head, and voila. Cheap Halloween costume done.”

“No. That’s lame. That’s literally what you go as every year.”

“Yeah, because it’s a classic!”

They start bickering like they always do, with Hyunjin insisting Seungmin should go as something sexy, like a mailman or something, while Seungmin argues passionately for his iconic dead baseball player costume. 

For a moment, Seungmin forgets about Jisung and his stupid feelings and the horrifying thought of confessing. For a moment, it’s just him, his childhood best friend who’s practically his brother at this point, and some stupid, meaningless conversation. Life is simple, life is good. And Seungmin is good at arguing.

But as he and Hyunjin finish buying their makeup and head out to the car, his mind starts drifting again, now filled with endless possibilities. 

What if he confessed? What if Jisung felt the same way? What if they started dating for real afterwards? What if everything turned out okay?

Seungmin doesn’t want to admit it, but he wants more than anything for his love to be requited. He wants to get that happy ending with Jisung. 

But he hasn’t lived this long with his heart intact for nothing. He never takes chances. He never puts himself into the position where he could get hurt. This is his routine, and he’s good at it. 

But maybe…maybe just once…it would be worth it. 

Jisung would be worth it. 

By the time Hyunjin pulls into the parking garage back at school, Seungmin’s mind is made up. 

He’s going to tell him. 

Chapter Text

“Hey, so, uh, what do you want to be for Halloween?”

“Appreciated.”

Jisung lets out a laugh at that; it’s even funnier when he realizes that Seungmin is dead serious. “Already done, man. I appreciate you.”

Seungmin snorts at that. “Thanks, Sung.”

“But seriously. What were you thinking of going as?”

“Don’t know yet.” Seungmin flips through his textbook, chewing on his lip. “But I’m leaning towards a dead baseball player.”

Jisung can’t help snorting. “You mean the one you go as every single year?”

Seungmin looks up at him, his eyebrows raised. “What’s wrong with it? It’s a good costume!”

“Nothing’s wrong with it!” Jisung says. “It’s just…maybe you’d want to go as something else for a change.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno.” Jisung reaches back to scratch at the back of his neck. You can do this, Jisung, he tells himself before taking a deep breath. “I was just…thinking and I thought it would be fun to go as Team Rocket this year.”

Seungmin frowns. “From Pokémon?”

“Yeah!” Jisung’s heart is beginning to pound. Oh, god, he really hopes his face isn’t turning red. 

“But…how would you go as two people?”

“See, that’s where you come in.”

“Oh.” Seungmin raises his eyebrows, looking surprised. “You wanna do a couples costume?”

“Yeah!” Jisung says again, and this time, his voice comes out as a goddamned squeak. He quickly clears his throat and prays to whatever all-powerful beings are out there that Seungmin didn’t notice that change in pitch. “I was thinking we could totally pull it off, y’know, with me with blue hair and you with red hair and then both of us in crop tops and either tight leggings or a skirt. I’m definitely wearing a skirt. We’d be so hot, dude. Power couple."

“I guess.” Seungmin looks skeptical. “For some reason I always thought Team Rocket was a brother and sister, though.”

Jisung snorts so hard that it’s almost disgusting. “What?”

“Yeah, I don’t know where I got that from. But are they a couple instead?”

“Y’know—” Jisung quickly clears his throat before his voice turns squeaky again. “It was never made clear, but I mean, there’s enough sexual and romantic tension between them that they might as well be.”

“Oh.” Seungmin blinks. 

For a few moments they just gaze at each other, neither one of them really sure where to go from there. 

Jisung’s heart is pounding so hard that he’s sure Seungmin can hear it. At the same time, he’s thinking, now??? Do I tell him now?? 

No, it’s too late now. He’s waited too long and now this silence is turning awkward. 

Jisung quickly clears his throat one more time and says, “I just thought it would be fun. I figured, since Hyunjin and Felix are doing sexy costumes, why can’t we do the same?”

“Are you going to dye my hair, then?” Seungmin smirks. 

Jisung smirks back. “Depends. Are ya gonna let me?”

“Oh, sure.” Seungmin sighs. 

“Really?” Jisung’s voice comes out as a squeak again, but at least this time it’s an excited one. “You’re really gonna let me dye your hair red?”

“Sure, what the hell.” Seungmin grins. 

Jisung lets out a whoop and throws both hands in the air. “FUCK YEAH!”

Seungmin laughs at that and swats at Jisung, who is completely unashamed. Thank god they’re in Seungmin’s dorm and not at the library. Otherwise Jisung would have been shot by now. 

“Wait, wait.” Jisung realizes something else and quickly drops his hands as he becomes mock-serious. “Do you mean I can dye it permanently or temporarily…?”

“Whichever one you want.”

“FUCK YEAH!” Jisung’s back to throwing his hands in the air. “Oh man I am so gonna permanently dye your hair red and you’re gonna look hot as fuck man and you’re gonna make everyone around you drool and drop their pants at the same time.”

“Oh my god, Sung.” Seungmin covers his face with his hands, but he’s laughing. 

“I’m not wrong! And I’m gonna take care of the costumes and the makeup so you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about any of it!” Jisung’s grinning from ear-to-ear because oh god it’s really going to happen oh god he’s gonna do a couples costume with the love of his life oh GOD it’s happening!!

“You’re just gonna make me look pretty?” Seungmin grins cutely, looking so adorable that Jisung’s heart clenches. 

“Pretty and cute and hot, all at the same time, because you’re capable of it,” Jisung says, reaching out and patting Seungmin’s cheek. 

Seungmin turns bright red right then and there, and Jisung can’t help laughing and poking his cheek, saying, “What is thisssss, are you blushing?”

“Pfft, no.” Seungmin just blushes harder and pushes Jisung’s hand away.

“Aww, look at little Minnie blushing over making people drop their pants, awww.” Jisung leans closer to him, still grinning

“Sung, I swear to god—” Seungmin grins, leaning back and away from Jisung. But Jisung, being the little shit that he is, keepings leaning towards him, finding it amusing how flustered Seungmin gets when Jisung is all up in his face. Besides, it’s all for fun. This is just part of their dynamic and has absolutely nothing to do with Jisung’s true feelings. Nope. Not at all. 

Suddenly, though, Seungmin lifts his eyes to Jisung’s, and they both go rigid, now realizing how close they are, how there’s a hairsbreadth between their noses and how Jisung’s practically in Seungmin’s lap. Jisung knows he should pull back, due to the fact that his heart is pounding even harder now and that his own face is burning up, but he’s stuck. Seungmin is just so captivating.

His eyes go to Seungmin’s lips, and he swears he hears Seungmin’s breath catch. 

Jisung jerks backwards, his eyes wide. Seungmin is redder than Jisung has ever seen him, and his chest is rapidly rising and falling.

“So, uh.” Jisung runs a hand through his hair and turns back to whatever he was doing at Seungmin’s desk. “Um. How’s Friday to dye your hair? I could ask Hyunjin and Felix to come over too. It’ll be fun!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Seungmin clears his throat and swallows. “Sounds good.”

Jisung tries not to notice, but there’s an obvious tension between the two of them after that. 

*

Before Jisung knows it, it’s Halloween. He’s standing in front of his mirror on the back of his door, anxiously tugging down his skirt. Technically, James from Team Rocket doesn’t wear a skirt, but Jisung wanted to wear one anyways, mostly because he knew he’d look good in it and wanted to catch Seungmin’s attention with it. 

But in all honesty he didn’t know the skirt would be this…short. 

He does have black booty shorts on underneath, but the skirt only goes about two inches past his (nonexistent) ass. If he even thinks about leaning over a little bit, he’ll basically flash everyone. 

It’s fine, though. Halloween is the time to be somewhat slutty anyways. 

Jisung just hopes Seungmin will notice. 

With a sigh, he fusses with his freshly-dyed blue hair one last time before grabbing his makeup bag, phone, and keys and walking out the door. 

Right as he steps into the hall, he puts on a mask of confidence, because there is no way in hell he’s going to let anyone else know that he’s nervous about this costume. Might as well flaunt it. Fake it till you make it, right?

He goes to Seungmin’s dorm, where he takes a deep breath before knocking on it. Then he puts on his flirtiest smile and waits. 

“What’s up—oh.” Seungmin’s eyes go instantly to the skirt the moment he opens the door. Jisung can’t help grinning at how Seungmin’s eyes practically bug out of his head and his mouth falls open. The skirt was not a mistake after all. 

“My eyes are up here,” Jisung says, still grinning like the flirty little shit he is. 

Seungmin’s eyes practically snap up to Jisung’s, now widening like they’ve been caught doing something they shouldn’t. 

“Like what you see?” Jisung winks at him.

Seungmin turns bright red, almost to match his new cherry red hair (which looks so hot. Jisung almost had a heart attack when Seungmin stepped out of the bathroom after showering and blow-drying it last night.).

“I can see you’re having fun with this,” Seungmin says.

“Hell yeah, not every day I get to wear a slutty costume!” Jisung gives a little twirl just to show off. “I get to wear a crop top and a mini skirt and thigh-high boots. I’m living right now.”

“You pull it off really well,” Seungmin says, and Jisung swells from the praise.

“And you’re going to pull it off well too!” Jisung prances into Seungmin’s dorm, where he sets his makeup bag on Seungmin’s desk. “Take a seat,” he orders as he rummages around for the things he’ll need. 

Seungmin sits down in the chair in front of the desk. “I already put on some BB cream and powder,” he says.  

“Awesome.” Jisung smiles as he pulls out his eyeshadow palette. He also pulls out his phone and connects it to Seungmin’s bluetooth speaker, just because he knows there will be an awkward as fuck silence while he does Seungmin’s makeup.

Seungmin holds perfectly still as Jisung does his makeup. He holds so still that Jisung honestly wonders if he’s even breathing. He also seems very determined to look straight ahead, though every so often when Jisung turns away to get a different brush or color, he notices when he turns back around that Seungmin’s eyes are on his toned stomach. 

Jisung tries not to smile about it, but he can’t help it. It feels good to finally be admired by the one he has admired for so long. 

“Excited?” Seungmin finally asks. 

“Hella,” Jisung says. 

“You look excited. Are you planning on drinking?”

Jisung snorts. “Of course I’m planning on drinking, it’s a fuckin Halloween party, man.”

“Just don’t go too hard,” Seungmin says. “Don’t want to drag your drunk ass back to the dorms.”

He’s smiling as he says this, so Jisung grins back. 

“Nah, I won’t go too hard,” Jisung says. “Something tells me that I’ll want to remember this night.”

Seungmin’s eyes dart to his, almost in panic. 

“Almost done,” Jisung says, applying some eyeliner. “You have really pretty eyes, you know that?”

“Not as pretty as yours,” Seungmin says without missing a beat. His eyes get that panicked look in them again, like he didn’t mean to say that.

“You would know, since you’re determined to stare at them and only them.” Jisung gives him a wink as he finishes the eyeliner and turns away to get the mascara. When he turns back, Seungmin is blushing. 

“Your costume is very flattering, okay!” Seungmin blurts. 

“I know.” Jisung smirks as he tilts his head to one side. “But it’s nice to hear from you anyways.”

Seungmin blinks a few times before looking away shyly. 

Jisung snorts and adds some mascara and some lip tint to Seungmin before pulling back for good. “Alrighty! All done with makeup! Now for your hair—”

Ten minutes later, Seungmin is stepping out of the bathroom, this time in full costume, which is a white crop top with a big, red R on it, black gloves, and some white pants. His red hair slicked back, giving a perfect view of his (stupidly gorgeous) face, now brought out to its full potential though Jisung’s superb makeup skills. 

Jisung can’t help grinning the moment he sees him. 

“You look hot, man,” he says. 

“Sorry I didn’t wear a skirt,” Seungmin says, fidgeting with the edge of his crop top. “Kind of out of my comfort zone.”

“Dude, it’s all good.” Jisung gets up from where he was sitting on Seungmin’s bed. “You still look hot.” He pokes the exposed part of Seungmin’s stomach, and Seungmin grins. “Ready to go blow people away with how hot we are together?”

“Hell yeah,” Seungmin says. 

“After one selfie,” Jisung says, pulling out his phone. They pose, and after snapping a few pictures, they head out together. 

(And Jisung immediately sets one of those photos as his background after taking it)

*

By the time the two of them pull up fashionably late to Chan’s house, the party is in full swing. Jisung can’t help feeling a wave of nausea as he sees the colored lights flashing  in the windows. As the two of them walk up to the front door, he starts tugging down the edge of his skirt again. 

“Hyunjin says he and Felix are already here,” Seungmin says, checking his phone. He looks at Jisung, smirking. “Ready?”

“I was born ready,” Jisung says, trying desperately to put on his mask of confidence once again. 

Apparently it works, because Seungmin’s smile widens. Jisung smiles back, remembering the whole reason he wanted to go to this party to begin with. If he plays it right, this could possibly be the best night of his life. But one mistake, and it could be the worst. 

He’ll have to take that chance. 

So, they step through the front door together, both of them full of nerves and hope.

If only Jisung knew ahead of time what the night would bring. 

*

Seungmin fumbles with the key in one hand, trying to prop up Jisung with the other. Jisung groans and slumps against Seungmin, making Seungmin yelp as he’s caught off-guard by Jisung’s sudden weight. He ends up dropping the keys, much to his annoyance. 

“You’re so warm,” Jisung slurs from where his cheek is resting against Seungmin’s shoulder. “You’re like…like a, um…heater. Mm, yeah. You’re my portable heater.” He giggles at that and says, “Sexy, sexy portable heater.”

“That’s nice,” Seungmin says, now trying to support Jisung and reach for the keys. 

By some stroke of luck, he manages to grab the keys and not drop Jisung. He unlocks his dorm and helps Jisung inside. 

He guides Jisung to the bed, where Jisung sits down heavily. Seungmin waits to make sure that Jisung can stay sitting up on his own before starting to take off Jisung’s thigh-high boots. 

“Ooooh, clothes coming off!” Jisung exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. He then loses his balance and falls over on the bed. His legs kick upwards at the same time, nearly smacking Seungmin in the face. 

“No, no, clothes stay on,” Seungmin says, tossing the boots aside as he scrambles to stop Jisung from taking his clothes off. 

“Mmm lame,” Jisung mumbles, but then he giggles as he settles down on the bed again. 

Seungmin lets out a sigh and pushes a stray piece of red hair away from his face. This was not how he wanted his Halloween to go. 

“Seungminnie,” Jisung whines, reaching for him with little grabby hands. 

“Huh?” Seungmin takes Jisung’s hands.

“I’m sorry I messed up,” Jisung says.

“You didn’t mess up,” Seungmin says, sighing again. “You just got a little carried away.”

“I was s’pposed to tell you,” Jisung slurs. He sniffs loudly. 

“Shh, that’s okay, you can tell me later.” Seungmin leans over him and brushes his sweaty hair out of his face. 

“I was gonna tell you tonight, though,” Jisung says. “It was gonna be special. I had this whole plan. But—” he hiccups, his lower lip trembling. “—I fucked up.”

And then he bursts into tears. 

“Oh my god,” Seungmin says, totally not expecting that. 

“I’m sorry,” Jisung whimpers, covering his face with his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Seungmin says softly, laying down next to Jisung and gathering him into his arms. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to apologize.”

Jisung tries to say something, but it’s unintelligible, so he ends up just burying his face into Seungmin’s chest. Seungmin starts rubbing his back as Jisung sobs into his shirt, probably getting makeup and snot all over the white fabric, but Seungmin doesn’t really care. It’s just a shirt. He’s more worried about the fact that Jisung is literally sobbing his heart out. 

He’s seen Jisung drunk before, and Jisung is never really the sad drunk. If anything, he’s the weird, giggly drunk who does stupid things and will literally wander off if someone isn’t keeping an eye on him. 

But this is even weirder than usual drunk-Jisung antics. Seungmin knows how to handle weird drunk Jisung. He’s not entirely sure how to deal with depressed drunk Jisung.

Fortunately, though, he doesn’t have to figure it out, because Jisung passes out about five minutes later. Seungmin does a double-take when Jisung suddenly goes quiet, but Jisung’s just sleeping. 

Seungmin immediately lets out a sigh, his entire body deflating and sagging with exhaustion. That party was a nightmare. Reminds him why he doesn’t even like parties. 

Worse, he didn’t get to tell Jisung how he really feels. But he guess there will be time for that later. In a way, he’s kind of glad he didn’t end up confessing, because he doesn’t know if Jisung would even remember from the way he was downing drinks at the party like there was no tomorrow. 

There will be other chances. Or, y’know, Seungmin could just never tell him. There’s always that, too.  

He knows he should probably get up and wash off the makeup and maybe change into something more comfortable, but he’s exhausted after dealing with drunk Jisung. 

So he just stays where he is, holding Jisung like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and falls into a peaceful sleep. 

Chapter Text

Jisung wakes up with nothing but a splitting headache, and he groans. He wants to just snuggle back up to his stuffed Hamtaro plushie and sleep for the rest of the day. Or maybe for the rest of eternity. He doesn’t have any memory of last night whatsoever, which he knows is probably a bad sign. He probably embarrassed himself like he always does when he’s drunk, and he doesn’t really want to live with the shame the day after. 

As he snuggles back into his plushie, though, he realizes that it feels way more lifelike than he remembers. 

His eyes fly open, and he finds himself in bed with none other than Kim Seungmin. 

He makes some sort of choking sound and jerks away from him, which wakes up Seungmin. 

“Oh, shit!” Seungmin scrambles for the trash can under his desk, and he shoves it at Jisung. 

He ends up smacking Jisung in the face with it, and Jisung lets out a loud whine as he holds his nose. 

“Oh, shit!” Seungmin says again. “Jisung! Are you okay? I thought you were going to puke so I just grabbed it and shoved it at you and—”

“I’m fine,” Jisung says, though getting hit in the face with a trash can did not help his hangover headache whatsoever. He rubs at his eyes. “Just…in pain.”

Seungmin lets out a groan at that. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ll live.” That’s kind of a lie, but it won’t kill anyone. 

“Okay…”

Jisung flops back on the bed, on his back, making sure to keep some space in between him and Seungmin. But it’s a shitty narrow dorm bed, so that’s basically impossible. 

The silence that has fallen over them is suffocating. At first, Jisung doesn’t understand why it’s so uncomfortable, but he figures it out pretty quickly. It’s not that difficult to put two-and-two together. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, wishing he could just curl up and die. Why did he have to get drunk last night? Why couldn’t he have taken it easy on the drinks? Why did he have to make a fool out of himself, in front of Seungmin of all people? 

Why did he think it was a good idea to confess last night?

No wonder Seungmin isn’t speaking to him right now. Jisung probably said something he shouldn’t have, and this is Seungmin’s way of rejecting him. 

It stings, and suddenly Jisung has to swallow the bile that rises in his throat. 

“I think I’m gonna go home,” he says, sitting up. The room spins when he does that, but he refuses to lay back down. 

“You are?” Seungmin sounds surprised. 

“Yeah. I just…need to be alone right now.” Jisung takes a few moments before getting up and out of the bed completely. He stumbles a bit, and Seungmin reaches out to help him, but Jisung flinches away from him. 

Jisung doesn’t look at Seungmin as he crouches down to grab his stupid boots, blinking away tears. This costume was a mistake. What used to be his pride and joy is now his shame as he has to walk back to his dorm like this. It takes the walk of shame to a whole different level. 

“Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?” Seungmin says. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Jisung waves the thought aside and wipes at his nose with the back of his hand. “I’m just…gonna go.”

“Okay.” There’s a note of concern in Seungmin’s voice, but Jisung ignores it. 

Jisung straightens up, quickly wipes at his face, and fixes his hair as best he can. He doesn’t look at Seungmin at all, even if he can feel Seungmin’s eyes on him. 

“I’m, uh.” Jisung clears his throat. “I’m really sorry about last night. I hope we can still be friends after…all of that.”

“Of course we can,” Seungmin says. 

Jisung glances at him and gives him the briefest of smiles that doesn’t reach his eyes whatsoever. Then he quickly turns and lets himself out of Seungmin’s dorm. 

The moment the door shuts behind him, he can’t hold back the tears anymore.

He ends up crying all the way back to his dorm. 

*

Seungmin texts Jisung later that day to really make sure he’s okay, but Jisung doesn’t respond. Seungmin figures he’s probably sleeping off his hangover, so he doesn’t worry about it too much. 

He waits until Monday, when Jisung has had all of Sunday to recover. They usually go and get lunch together, so Seungmin texts him after his morning class.

Seungmo

Morning! :)

Want to go get lunch??

Sungie

sorry, don’t feel so great

Seungmo

Lol still hung over?

Sungie

no, sick

must’ve caught something 

Seungmo

Oh no!

Want me to break you some soup or something?

You can come over and we can watch movies 

I don’t care if you get me sick

Sungie

thanks but I just want to sleep. 

Seungmo

Ok

Just let me know if you need anything

<3

Jisung doesn’t respond to that, which Seungmin thinks is kind of weird. He also can’t help thinking that something’s off, though it’s easy to misinterpret texts. Jisung is probably just out of it because he’s sick, which is why his texts don’t have the energy they usually do.  

Seungmin shrugs it off and goes to lunch.

*

Seungmin doesn’t really hear from or see Jisung for the rest of the week. He thinks it’s weird. It’s really weird. How can he go from spending almost every waking minute with Jisung to spending none at all? Romantic feelings aside, it hurts Seungmin’s heart. He misses Jisung a lot.

But he figures Jisung is just really sick. It’s almost flu season, after all. Maybe he caught a really bad strain. If that’s the case, though, Seungmin wants to take care of him. He wants to bring him soup and tuck him into bed and watch cartoons with him all day. He doesn’t care if it gets him sick too, because he knows that if it were the other way around, Jisung wouldn’t hesitate. It would take a full team of doctors in hazmat suits to keep Jisung away from a sick Seungmin, and even that is questionable. 

So, at the end of the week, Seungmin shows up at Jisung’s door with some of the best chicken noodle soup he could find. 

When Jisung answers the door, he looks surprised to see Seungmin there. He also doesn’t necessarily look happy to see him. 

“Oh,” Jisung says. “Hi.”

He doesn’t sound sick. And even though he doesn’t really look good, he doesn’t look sick either.

Seungmin hesitates only for a split second before he holds out the soup with a smile. “Chicken noodle soup,” he says. 

“Oh.” Jisung takes it, frowning. “Thanks?”

“It’s to make you feel better!” Seungmin smiles. 

“Oh. How…thoughtful.” Jisung seems almost hurt and disappointed by that, but he stares down at the bag to avoid Seungmin’s gaze. 

Seungmin doesn’t really know how to respond, so he just asks, “How are you feeling, anyways?”

“Fine,” Jisung says stiffly. “You?”

“Well, I’m not the one who’s sick, so I’m good.” Seungmin grins. 

Jisung frowns. “I’m not sick either?”

“Huh?” Now Seungmin’s frowning too. “But you said you were.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, on Monday, when I texted you about lunch?”

Jisung’s eyes widen at that, and he mutters a curse under his breath. “Oh. Right. I, uh, felt sick on Monday.”

“I thought you felt sick all week,” Seungmin says. “You weren’t responding to my texts.”

“Yeah, because you kept acting like things were normal,” Jisung says. “Like nothing ever happened.”

Seungmin frowns, now totally confused. “What do you mean?”

“Seriously?” Jisung looks at him in disbelief. “You’re that dedicated to pretending like it didn't happen?”

“Like what happened, Jisung? Are you talking about the party, when you got drunk?”

“Yeah, and then I blurted out my feelings for you and you rejected me and you acted all distant in the morning?”

“What?”

Jisung’s eyes go wide again, this time with a look of panic. “What do you mean, what?”

“You…” Seungmin gapes at him. “That didn’t happen, Jisung.”

Jisung stares at him, his mouth hanging open. “Bullshit.”

“No, seriously. You didn’t…say anything like that. And I didn’t…I just—” Seungmin can’t even form coherent words right now. He’s too busy trying to figure out their miscommunications. 

“You just got really drunk and I carried you home and then you started talking about something that you had to tell me,” Seungmin says eventually. “Then you started crying. Like really, really crying. Like, I’ve never seen you cry that much. It was…kind of weird, to be honest. And then you started apologizing a lot. But then you passed out and didn’t wake up until morning.”

Jisung stares at him. Seungmin stares back in concern, trying to figure out all of the different emotions in Jisung’s gaze. He can only make out horror and a little bit of something that looks like nausea. 

“I didn’t confess,” Jisung whispers eventually, half to himself. 

“No,” Seungmin says in a small voice. “You didn’t.”

Tears are filling Jisung’s eyes now. “But now I just did.”

There’s a beat before Seungmin realizes what Jisung said. “Yeah,” he says, his heart starting to pound, but this time with something like hope. “Yeah, you did.”

Jisung…likes him back? He really does like him back?

Usually Seungmin would be thrilled, but Jisung looks so heartbroken in that moment that he isn’t sure how to react. It’s almost enough to make him think he should follow the script that Jisung has created and that he should reject him, even though he knows that’s not what he wants at all. 

“I’m…I’m gonna go back inside now,” Jisung says in a small voice, swallowing thickly. “Um. Thanks for the…for the soup.”

“Jisung, I—” Seungmin reaches out to stop him, but Jisung’s already turning away. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about fucking everything up.” And then Jisung shuts the door in Seungmin’s face.

Seungmin just stands there for several moments, not quite sure what just happened.

The words were right on the tip of his tongue. He should have said them. Why didn’t he say them?

“I like you, too,” he whispers to the empty air. 

*

“So, uh.” Felix exchanges a glance with Hyunjin before looking at Seungmin, who’s absent-mindedly picking at his food. “What’s up with you and Jisung?”

“Don’t ask,” Seungmin says. 

“Did you guys fight?” Hyunjin asks. 

Seungmin drops his fork and reaches up to rub at his eyes. “Not exactly. There’s…there’s just been a miscommunication.”

“A miscommunication?”

“It’s a long story. But…basically Jisung doesn’t think I like him back and I don’t know how to tell him.”

Felix and Hyunjin stare at him. 

“Wait, he confessed?” Felix asks, his eyes wide. “He really confessed?”

Seungmin nods, his eyes on his food. 

“And you rejected him?” Hyunjin’s brow furrowed. 

“Not…not exactly but—”

“How do you ‘not exactly’ reject him? Did you just not respond or something?”

“I—I tried to respond, but—”

“But what?” Hyunjin’s eyes are boring into him.

“He ran away,” Seungmin says. “He shut the door in my face because I didn’t really…say anything? But I was caught off-guard and I was still in shock and he misread the situation and thought it was me rejecting him. And now it’s just one big mess.”

“And you didn’t, I don’t know, knock on the door and tell him then?” Hyunjin’s staring at Seungmin like he’s insane. 

Seungmin shrinks into himself slightly. “No,” he say in a small voice. 

“What the fuck, Minnie?” 

“It was an accident!” Seungmin blurts. “I didn’t mean to hurt him—”

“He’s been holed up in his room for days on end and won’t even respond to either of us,” Hyunjin says, gesturing to him and Felix. 

“It was an accident, I swear,” Seungmin says. 

Felix puts a hand on Hyunjin’s arm and shoots him a look that says, back off. Hyunjin sits back, though he still looks annoyed at Seungmin. 

“I think you should really try talking to Jisung,” Felix tells Seungmin. “He’s…taking it really hard.”

“But I didn’t reject him,” Seungmin whispers, partially to himself. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, but he doesn’t know that,” Felix says gently. “So…you two should take time to really talk and say what you mean and what you feel. I think it’s a conversation that’s long overdue.”

Seungmin nods, and thankfully that’s the end of that conversation. 

*

Somehow, Seungmin gets Jisung out of his room. They decide to go to a neutral location, aka in Seungmin’s car at a lookout nearby.

Seungmin can’t help noticing how terrible Jisung looks, and how it’s entirely his fault. He hates miscommunications, and he really thought he was better than this. He’ll have to seriously make it up to Jisung. Like, more than he’s ever made up anything in his life. 

Jisung doesn’t speak the entire drive up there. He just stares straight ahead with his arms wrapped tightly around himself. Seungmin wants to reach over and take his hand—he just wants to touch him in some way to let him know that he’s there for him—but he doesn’t know how well Jisung would react to that right now. 

So he just focuses on driving. And he thinks of what he’ll say as he drives.

By the time they get up there, Seungmin has his entire speech somewhat planned out in his head. It still takes him a couple of minutes of uncomfortable silence to figure out how to begin, though. His heart is practically in his throat, and the palms of his hands won’t stop sweating. He wipes them on his pants before taking a deep breath. 

“I’m sorry,” he says to Jisung. 

“I get it,” Jisung says quietly. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“No, you don’t,” Seungmin says. “I messed up. I messed up so drastically and it caused you so much pain and I don’t know how you’ll ever be able to forgive me for that, but that’s okay, because I don’t know how to forgive myself either.”

Jisung looks uncomfortable, and Seungmin sighs before closing his eyes to compose himself a little bit. It’s better, he thinks, to just get right to it and not confuse the point of the matter any longer. They’ve both wasted enough time and words.

“I like you,” he says. “As more than friends. I’ve liked you for awhile, but I didn’t know if you felt the same way, so I wasn’t sure how to act on it.”

Jisung frowns and looks at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No,” Seungmin says. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

“How did you not know I was in love with you? Literally the entire planet knows at this point.”

“Was?” Seungmin repeats in a small voice, his heart sinking. 

“Am,” Jisung corrects. “Am in love with you.” He sighs and looks away, blushing. “I’ve been in love with you since middle school.”

“So I’ve heard,” Seungmin says with a small smile. When Jisung looks at him in surprise, Seungmin shrugs. “Felix and Hyunjin both intervened to smack some sense into me. I guess they’re sick of us dancing around each other too.”

“They’re ones to talk,” Jisung mutters. 

“I guess…” Seungmin begins, then sighs and reaches up to run a hand through his hair, which is already fading out to pink. “I know I was oblivious, but in my defense…you tell me you love me a lot and you flirt with me a lot. I thought it was just our thing as friends. It was just something we did. Not to mention how we literally started making out just as friends, and that didn’t even make things weird between us.”

“Dude, we literally act like a couple more than most couples I know,” Jisung scoffs. “I quite literally looked you right into the eye when we had that campfire and told you I loved you. And then I also asked you to be part of a couples costume with me ‘because we would look so hot together.’ Like—dude. Come on.”

Seungmin can’t help smiling at that. “You did say ‘no homo’ literally right after you told me you loved me, though.”

“Gay panic.” Jisung waves the thought aside. 

Seungmin snorts at that and says, “Well, full homo, I love you, Jisung. More than just a friend.”

“Gay,” Jisung says. 

Seungmin lets out a laugh, and Jisung starts to smile. 

“I deserved that,” Seungmin says. 

“Hell yeah you did,” Jisung says. “Now are you going to kiss me or what?”

“Are you feeling particularly stressed right now?”

“I only feel stressed when you’re around.”

“You should really cut out major stressors in your life.” Seungmin’s grinning. 

“Oh, believe me, I wish I could.” Jisung grins back. “You’re the reason I have to dye my hair so often, because I’m actually covering up grey hairs already.”

“No, don’t dye your hair, grey hair is so sexy, ahaha.” 

“Would you just—” Jisung grabs Seungmin by the front of his shirt and yanks him towards him. Seungmin can’t help grinning right before their lips collide, and Jisung can barely hold back his own smile. But both of them trying not to smile ruins the kiss, and eventually they have to pull back a little bit so they can just gaze at each other. 

“I love you,” Seungmin says, reaching out to cup the side of Jisung’s face. 

“I love you, too,” Jisung says, his voice barely above a whisper. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that. I never thought I would hear you say it.”

“Then I’ll say it every single time I think it, now, because you deserve to hear it. Though, I will warn you, I’ll probably just end up telling you it every second of every day.”

Tears well up in Jisung’s eyes as his lower lip trembles. “What the fuck, dude, you can’t just say that.”

Seungmin grins and kisses Jisung on the forehead as he pulls Jisung into a hug, made somewhat uncomfortable by leaning over the middle console. Jisung buries his face into the crook of Seungmin’s neck, already sniffling. 

“I love you,” Seungmin murmurs, closing his eyes tightly. “And I really want you to be my boyfriend.”

“I want you to be my boyfriend, too,” Jisung says, his voice slightly strained from the tears. 

Seungmin smiles, then laughs softly and says, “Okay, okay, I think we’ve cried enough, yeah? Come on, where’s that beautiful smile that looks like the embodiment of sunshine itself?”

“Does love make you poetic? What the fuck?” But Jisung giggles as he pulls back, still sniffling and wiping at his eyes. Seungmin helps him out by brushing away a few tears with his thumbs. “I know it’s kinda gross now that I’m all wet and snotty, but…can I have another kiss, now? Like, a really romantic one?”

Seungmin doesn’t even hesitate from cupping both sides of Jisung’s face and kissing him, probably more passionately and sweetly than he’s ever kissed him before. And even though he wants to smile, he wants to kiss Jisung more, so that’s exactly what he does. 

He kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, and even after what feels like forever of doing nothing but kissing Han Jisung, he still thinks he could go for another eternity. 

Eventually, though, they both pull back, out of breath, and rest their foreheads together. 

Jisung’s smiling, and as the seconds past, he starts giggling to himself. 

“I still can’t really believe it,” he says. “Like, you have no idea how happy I am right now.”

Seungmin grins at that. “Based on how happy I am right now, I think I might have an idea.”

Jisung grins so widely that his eyes crinkle up, and he nuzzles his nose against Seungmin’s. “Want to make out here for awhile or go back to campus and make sure everyone knows that we’re together? Because I don’t know if you know, but I plan on showing you off to anyone with eyes.”

“Only if you’re okay with me doing the exact same to you.”

Jisung makes this happy little noise in response, and Seungmin laughs and kisses the tip of his nose. 

“I love you,” he says. 

“And I love you,” Jisung says with a giggle. 

“But I like the go-back-to-campus idea,” Seungmin says. “I think some cuddling is in order.”

“Hell yes. Though, I’m warning you now, as your official boyfriend—oh my god I’m your boyfriend holy shit—I am going to be as clingy as hell. I’m gonna be like a leech.”

“Fine by me,” Seungmin says. “Fortunately, I have plenty of blood, and my body is always making more. So I promise to take care of my sweet little leech and to not put salt on you.” He smiles. 

“You’re so fucking weird and I fucking love it,” Jisung says. 

Seungmin laughs and kisses Jisung one last time before sitting back in his seat and turning on the car. The drive back is infinitely better than the drive there, because Jisung turns on the radio and sings along to every single song, and Seungmin gets to hold his hand across the middle console the entire time. 

He doesn’t tell Jisung this just yet, but he’s also thinking as he’s driving back and glancing at Jisung happily singing his heart out with the windows rolled down, that if this is what his life is going to be like, then he can’t wait to share every single moment of it with this man. 

Jisung catches Seungmin staring at one point and sticks his tongue out at him before saying, “What? Never seen a man so gorgeous before?”

“What, a man? No, a blueberry,” Seungmin says. He sticks his tongue back out at Jisung. “You’re a blueberry.”

“Well, then, you’re a cherry.” Jisung’s trademark shit-eating grin makes an appearance. “Does this mean I get to pop your cherry, hmm?”

Seungmin almost drives off the road, and Jisung’s laughter probably echoes around the whole world. It resonates in Seungmin’s world, that’s for sure. 

“Maybe,” Seungmin says once he regains control of the car (and his heart). “Solid maybe.”

“That’s a yes.” Jisung grins. 

Seungmin sighs, but he’s blushing as he admits under his breath, “That’s a yes.”

“I heard that.”

“Did not!”

“Did too.”

“No way you heard that over the music and the wind.”

“Oh, but didn’t you know? I can read your mind now.”

“What? No fair! Why can’t I read yours?”

“Because I said so, ha.” Jisung sticks his tongue out at him again. 

Seungmin’s only comeback is to stick his tongue back out at him, and the two of them laugh and laugh together.

Yeah, this is the beginning of a beautiful life together. 

Seungmin can’t wait to enjoy every single moment of it. 

Fin.