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Seventy-seven evenings ago, Minho let himself in for the first time.
At the shop counter, Seungmin barely flinched. He was startled and mildly alarmed, but he figured it was best not to let it show.
“You undid the locking spell,” he said instead, flatly, as he pressed his lips into a firm line. The spell had taken him months to perfect—only others that he and Changbin had specifically given invitations to should have been able to enter.
The stranger across from him shrugged, a light and casual rise and fall of his shoulders. “It’s an emergency,” he told him.
It certainly didn’t sound like there was an emergency, but Seungmin kindly refrained from pointing that out. Maybe... the stranger was simply just a master at remaining calm in what he deemed was an emergency situation.
“What’s the problem?” he asked instead.
The stranger gestured briefly outside, past the doors that he’d just so breezily pushed open. “Got anything for healing a wounded stray?”
“What sort of stray?” Seungmin warily called behind him—against his better will, he’d already slipped into the backroom in search of the bandages and vials in question. He was mildly intrigued, and he couldn’t just not offer help.
“Er… cat?” The stranger unsurely answered. “Cat,” he repeated, with more finality the second time.
By the time Seungmin reappeared out front, his pockets were heavier, and he followed the other man outside. The stranger had a pretty face and gentle eyes, and was decked out in a seemingly harmless sweater and loose pants, but Seungmin had long since known better—if this man had slipped through his doors, then he wasn’t to be trusted, especially not right away. Seungmin was careful to keep multiple steps between the two of them as the man led him down an… alleyway. That was… not promising.
There was no sign of other life in the alley, let alone the injured feline Minho had described.
It was definitely possible that Seungmin was about to be duped.
But then they took a turn down another, even narrower alley, and hovering at the end of it was an amorphous and dark wispy mass. It vaguely resembled a black cat, he supposed.
“Oh, hell,” Seungmin muttered.
“Come on,” the stranger instantly replied. His tone of voice verged on a petulant whine, as if he had been expecting Seungmin’s reaction.
“I don’t deal with…” I don’t deal with you… your kind. Or cats that are not actually cats, Seungmin could have said, but he didn’t finish his sentence; he’d already left the undertones hanging in the air between them.
“Come on, Seungmin,” the stranger repeated. Nevermind that he knew Seungmin’s name, when Seungmin certainly hadn’t remembered providing one. “She’s still a cat.”
“No, it isn’t,” Seungmin brusquely replied.
“You’re all the same,” the stranger rolled his eyes. “But I’m surprised you haven’t gone running back the other way yet.”
“Well…” To be fair, he could hear the faint whimpering and mewling coming from the fuzzy floating shape at the back of the alley. They were telltale signs of injury, and Seungmin had never been one to abandon ship. But…
“I’m Minho,” the stranger provided, as if that made things any different. “And that’s Chalkboard.”
“Chalkboard? ” Seungmin found himself incredulously asking.
“She likes flattening herself against the ground sometimes. Like a fallen chalkboard,” the stranger—Minho—cheerily informed him.
“Um, okay,” Seungmin nodded.
Unfortunately, now that he had this… thing’s—cat’s—name, it actually had made him more compelled to stay. Damnit, he thought. Changbin would be furious, but maybe not if Seungmin didn’t let him find out about this endeavor.
“Look, just pass me what you brought, and I’ll do the rest,” Minho heaved a dramatic sigh, placing one hand on his hip and sticking out his other, an expectant palm facing upward.
Before Seungmin could really have second thoughts, he fished the bandages and small glass vials out of his pocket, setting them in Minho’s open palm.
“Thanks,” Minho turned to him, offering a bright smile. Somehow, Seungmin knew it was genuine, and it somewhat eased the instant regret settling in.
All within the next few moments, Seungmin watched as Minho unraveled a strip of bandage and stained it with the liquid in the vials, before murmuring something under his breath and stepping forward to wrap—if pressing gauze against an almost liquid shape could be described as wrapping—it against someplace that he could vaguely locate as the cat’s left hind leg. Then a zap of something electric shot through the air, and before Seungmin could even blink the thing (cat) was gone.
“All done!” Minho came walking back. “And you shouldn’t ever see her again.”
“Okay,” Seungmin said. He tried not to dwell on the specifics, like how the cat had definitely come from the underworld, or how Minho had definitely just done some dark magic with his healing materials. Oh well—the cat didn’t seem like a man-eater, he reasoned with himself. “So… you’re good now, right?”
“I hope you mean the cat. She’ll be fine. And if you’re specifically asking about me, well—I don’t suppose you’d invite me in for tea time?”
Minho’s light tone suggested he was kidding. Yet Seungmin didn’t fail to notice how he had avoided the question.
He turned around, staring at the long cast of his shadow against the pavement. He could just walk back now, and that would be the end of it all. He didn’t know why he took smaller strides, leaving time for Minho to catch up, and he didn’t know why he opened his mouth, taking Minho’s joke seriously. “I’ll brew you something if you want.”
It wasn’t a direct invitation, but it was still an offer, and maybe that’s where Minho first misinterpreted the terms and conditions of entering Seungmin’s little enclave.
Then again, Minho hadn’t really been following the rules to begin with.
---
Sixty nights ago, Seungmin heard footsteps coming to a halt outside the door before it swung open and Minho stepped inside.
“No,” Seungmin said, setting his book on the counter and standing up. He was determined to make himself clear from the start this time.
One un-catlike cat was enough. If Minho was going to ask him for more vials, he would certainly, definitely, resolutely say—
“Oh, I thought I’d just come to have a chat,” Minho told him, sounding like over-friendly cashiers at the supermarkets before they asked Seungmin to sign up for their rewards card.
“It’s midnight.”
“And you’re still perfectly awake. Nice lighting in here, by the way.” There were warm fairy lights strung across the edges of the ceiling, and Changbin had helped lug in a few more non-carnivorous plants to liven up the atmosphere.
“Thanks,” Seungmin wryly replied. “I’d prefer if you knocked, at least.”
“Ah, but you heard me coming. Was that not enough of a warning?”
Seungmin tried very hard not to smile. The corners of his mouth tugged upward—as if being invisibly puppeteered—anyway.
Sensing Seungmin wasn’t going to boot him back out, Minho drew closer, stopping only when had ended up directly in front of Seungmin, resting his elbows on the counter. “Tea?” he wiggled his eyebrows. They were nice eyebrows. His eyes were nicer, though, but Seungmin really wasn’t looking anywhere at the other’s face.
“That was a one-time thing,” Seungmin replied, subtly pushing his chair out of the way to the side and inching a few steps back.
“That’s a pity. My mouth is already watering; is this how you treat your guests?” Minho jut his bottom lip out in a pout that was unquestionably for show.
“You’re not a guest,” Seungmin pointed out. “In fact, it’s probably best if you leave.”
“Last time, we had tea together at a table in the backroom. That’s where you keep most of your stuff, if you haven’t noticed,” Minho countered. “I think you’ve already leaked everything you could have possibly leaked to me.”
“I’m aware,” Seungmin replied. He was, in fact, painfully aware. That had probably been the dumbest idea he’d had since the time he and Changbin had brought back a talking plant. It had filled the front of the shop with endless annoying chatter for days until they’d taken some… special measures.
“And I’m aware that you’re aware,” Minho teased him. He sounded like a kid, and Seungmin once again reminded himself that Minho had broken through his doors.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Seungmin challenged back.
“Nothing, obviously,” Minho brushed off the question as if stupefied that Seungmin had even asked it to begin with. “What about coffee?”
“There’s a Starbucks a block down. I guess I’ll be seeing you out, then,” Seungmin told him, leaving his space behind the counter to meet Minho on the other side. He gestured towards the door, patiently yet anticipatory.
“Fine, fine. I guess… bye,” Minho frowned, unenthusiastically stepping back and away. The leaves of a hanging spider plant seemed to droop with his mopey behavior.
That was almost enough to make Seungmin retract his words, but he also felt slight satisfaction at wiping the devious smile off Minho’s face, at not caving into Minho’s expectations.
“Goodbye,” Seungmin replied instead.
The door swung open once again, and then closed, leaving only a gust of cold wind to circulate throughout the shop.
---
Forty-eight afternoons ago.
“I’m going to change that spell,” Seungmin said. “The one on the door.”
“Don’t lie to me, Seungmin,” Minho responded. Seungmin tried to refrain from rolling his eyes; of course Minho would somehow know it was a lie. The only person who’d breached his stupid spell was the man in front of him, and Seungmin wasn’t going to spend another series of weeks trying to craft a new one just for him only for Minho to—well, he would probably just walk through it again and open the door like nothing had changed, Seungmin told himself. He’d be better off spending his energy elsewhere.
For example—Seungmin contemplated hiding in the storeroom until Minho decided he’d gotten his entertainment of the day and left.
“Okay,” he acknowledged instead. “Why are you here?”
“Visiting,” Was Minho’s nonchalant response. “I like it here. Nice atmosphere.”
“Okay,” Seungmin said again. His shop really wasn’t just for visits, but… Seungmin wasn’t sure how he’d get Minho out of his hands this time.
He went to go briefly check on a brew in the back instead. It was for someone’s dog—emphasis on it being an actual dog, not a floating dark shapeless mass—who’d somehow been attacked by a nest of angry hornets.
When he came back out, Minho was perched cross-legged on a chair.
Seungmin’s chair, to be specific. The chair he usually sat on behind the counter was now on the other side of it, its back against the wall between two tall potted plants.
“I’m soaking in the green energy,” Minho told him.
“Are you going to become a lightbulb next?” Seungmin rose to the bait; he couldn’t help himself. So what if he occasionally got bored in here and Minho was better company than empty space and plants that both talked and didn’t?
Minho laughed, and open-mouthed, high-pitched breathy giggle. It added something to the atmosphere—actually made it livelier, in a way the plants had failed to do.
“Sounds like a plan,” Minho agreed. “Here!” he declared, and the room… actually lit up, brighter than it had already been. And there had already been mid-afternoon sun filtering through the windows from outside.
“Party trick,” Seungmin noted, as the burst of light faded seconds later.
“Yeah,” Minho replied. “It’s too high maintenance to keep the light running. I still like the plants, though.”
“What are you really here for,” Seungmin finally broke composure.
“Aw,” Minho cooed, as if Seungmin was an aggressive animal he wanted to tame. “I really just wanted to visit.”
“Sure,” Seungmin said, and then retreated into the backroom again, exasperated, since he figured he might as well provide the other with drinks.
Five minutes later, they were sitting at the same table as before, located in the corner of the room amidst shelves and shelves of potent materials. Minho sipped from his cup, reclining lazily into his seat. He had a pleased expression on his face, and Seungmin felt a foreign feeling rise up in his chest when he realized it was because of the tea he had prepared.
Not for Minho. For Seungmin—and he’d just been generous and made double the amount.
“It’s getting better,” Minho abruptly began. “I’ve seen fewer and fewer of them out here lately.”
Seungmin didn’t have to ask who them were. Minho’s animals, or vague approximations of animals, that somehow kept crossing into this world when they should have been secured in dimensions away.
“That’s nice,” Seungmin said. “So do you… send them back?”
“Something like that,” Minho answered.
They fell into a thoughtful silence, and Seungmin snuck glances at Minho’s face as if he could discern the real meaning behind Minho’s so-called visit. Instead, he only found that Minho had long eyelashes and a captivating curve to his mouth that stayed even as he brought the rim of his cup to his lips and they parted to drink from it.
“See you later,” Minho told him when he left.
Seungmin didn’t ask when later was. He had a feeling he’d been seeing Minho soon enough again.
---
Soon enough turned out to be forty days ago, only a week later.
“I’m gonna need your help,” Minho was breathless this time, having just barged in through the door.
Seungmin looked wildly around the room as if Changbin was going to jump out from behind the rubber fig tree in the corner. Kim Seungmin, he reprimanded himself, when no Changbin magically appeared to do it for him. Was he really doing this again?
Yeah, he was.
Seconds later, they were hurrying out the doors together.
The creature in question turned out to be something much larger and indistinctly shaped like a cow. The underworld was having fun, Seungmin thought sardonically.
Minho didn’t have to tell him the animal’s name this time. Seungmin was already there, passing him the magic liquids.
As with before, Minho patched up the thing and sent it back to its stomping grounds. Then they returned to the shop, where Seungmin (reluctantly) began brewing some tea only for Minho to fall asleep in his seat halfway through.
Seungmin sat at the table for two, reading his book on infectious plant diseases while Minho snored quietly across from him. He had an itching desire to investigate—Minho was wearing a jacket too heavy for the fair spring weather this time around, and his pockets sunk with the weight of more than just empty vials and leftover gauze. Then his gaze was drawn to the dark circles under Minho’s eyes, and he felt a pang of sympathy strike him.
Minho had seemed to be hard at work setting the line between two worlds right again.
So Seungmin returned to his book, and let Minho have some probably much-desired rest.
“Sorry,” had been Minho’s first word upon returning to consciousness. He rubbed his eyes and gave Seungmin a weary smile. Then he’d bolted straight up. “Wait, I’ve been asleep for a long time, haven’t I?”
“Two hours,” Seungmin had supplied.
“Oh.” Minho had sunk back into his chair. And then sat back up again. “I’ll see you around,” he had said, and swiftly strode right out of the shop.
Your hair is a mess, Seungmin had almost said, but what was he going to do after that, offer to fix it?
Minho was a stranger, really. Except nobody else had come to his shop four times, and certainly never just to visit.
---
Twenty-two evenings ago, Seungmin was in the back room when he heard familiar footsteps enter the shop.
Oh, no, was his first thought, because Changbin was out front and he would come face-to-face with Minho who Changbin was not expecting and who should not have been able to enter.
“Hi,” came Minho’s voice. It had a curious lilt to it, sprinkled with a hint of something mischievous.
Oh no, Seungmin thought again, and instantly booked it out front before Changbin could take offensive action.
Minho’s eyes lit up and his mouth curved up into a brilliant beam when he saw Seungmin, and Seungmin’s stomach did an odd flip-flop like there was a wispy grey cat inside him trying to get out.
“I’m here for more green energy,” Minho innocuously revealed.
Seungmin’s traitorous nose let out a humored snort. Next to him, Changbin spluttered.
“Um, let’s go to Starbucks,” Seungmin said, and without taking a moment to reconsider what he was doing, linked an arm through Minho’s elbow and steered him towards the door.
“Seungmin,” Changbin said, sounding very confused.
“Later,” Seungmin grudgingly replied, and then he and Minho stepped outside.
It was raining outside.
Maybe he should have noticed the water droplets staining Minho’s sweatshirt, or heard the ominous rumble of thunder that had sounded just moments before. Maybe he would have, if he hadn’t been so caught up in Minho’s eyes and his smile. Both were still radiant despite the grey clouds overhead.
They walked along the block below the underhang, and if Minho pressed into his side a little more than necessary just to stay out of the rain, neither of them mentioned it.
Instead of coffee, though, Minho pulled him past the Starbucks and down another block, where apartments had started to spring up and there was no overhang. Seungmin cast a drying spell—which he really could have done earlier—and Minho continued huddling into him as they set a brisk pace down the sidewalk.
Seungmin didn’t ask where they were going. He found out when Minho veered to the side and fumbled with keys in his pocket, unlocking the door to one of the apartments on the bottom floor.
Hesitantly, Seungmin slipped his wet shoes off and followed Minho inside.
“Homebrewed coffee is better,” Minho explained, setting to work in the kitchen. Seungmin sat awkwardly at the table, listening as the water boiled, the grinder clacked, and the brewer fizzled.
He glanced around the apartment. It looked incredibly normal; white walls interrupted by the occasional framed piece of abstract art, a sofa in the other room facing a television, and a view of the opposite apartment out the window.
There was a plant in the corner next to the sofa. It looked suspiciously like Changbin’s favorite rubber tree, except Seungmin squinted and tried to recall the one back in their shop and determined that Minho’s was taller. He almost laughed at the comparison.
A while later, Minho dropped into the seat across from him, pushing across a steaming mug. He hadn’t asked Seungmin how much sugar, or cream, or milk he had wanted, but after taking the mug up in his hands and blowing across the surface to cool it down, Seungmin took a sip and found the taste to be exactly how he liked it, with just a little sweetness and thickness to the blend.
“Thanks,” Seungmin said, wondering how he had really found himself here—in Minho’s apartment, which was apparently barely three blocks down.
“You made me tea,” Minho reminded him. “Multiple times.”
“Right,” Seungmin replied. Despite the liquid, his throat was dry. Horribly dry.
Sharing is caring, they’d used to say in elementary school. Seungmin didn’t want to think of his and Minho’s relationship as a children’s rhyme, but it wasn’t entirely wrong either. Minho cared for the strange nebulous animals that popped up every now and then, and now he seemed to care for Seungmin, too. Only because Seungmin had shared warm tea with him first, probably, but it was caring nonetheless.
“Who was that back there?” Minho asked.
“Changbin helps run the shop sometimes,” Seungmin told him.
“And we’re already off to great introductions,” Minho quirked a brow upward.
“That’s your fault,” Seungmin deadpanned, and then frowned. “He might want to change the locking spell, though. But—”
“It wouldn’t matter,” Minho finished. And then, with a sing-song in his voice, he continued, “Nothing can keep you and me apart, Seungminnie.”
“Okay,” Seungmin dryly responded. His heart was beating faster, though, but at least he was sure his face betrayed nothing. He knew that Minho’s abilities had to do with magic he and Changbin didn’t dabble in, but Seungmin hadn’t yet found an instance of Minho exploiting his powers.
Anyway, now Minho was just fooling around with his words, and—
“Hey, want to stay the night?” Minho casually asked.
And that’s when Seungmin almost choked on his coffee.
Seungmin found out that for Minho, staying the night actually just meant staying up late into the night.
First, Minho had led him to his room, all the while Seungmin’s thoughts had been running haywire, wondering if he should clarify what they were actually going to do but—
Minho had just wanted to show him his real cats. Three of them, all curled up in separate cushions along the wall, bodies rising and falling gently as Minho surveyed the room with a soft smile on his face.
Maybe Seungmin could better understand why Minho had wanted to help the shapeless cat that one night, and then all the other strange creatures afterwards.
Next, Minho insisted on teaching him how to bake some butter cookies, instructing him the whole way through, all the way until Seungmin was pressing cat face shaped cookie cutters into dough and both wondering and determinedly not wondering what he was doing here.
It was the rain. Just waiting out the rain, which had grown into a pounding storm overhead, even though Seungmin could get back to his shop with the help of a drying spell in just minutes.
Okay, so he wasn’t going to fool himself with that reason.
They snacked on the cookies when they finished. It was completely dark outside now, and the cookies were warm and made Seungmin’s stomach satisfied in a way his and Changbin’s usual and bad cooking didn’t (try as they might, spells couldn’t fix the way neither of them had a knack for making food).
By the time Minho suggested a movie, though, Seungmin had already formulated a half-assed excuse to get back and take care of materials he was working with in the backroom. The easy smile that had remained on Minho’s face through the evening finally dropped, then picked itself back-up, yet nowhere near as whole.
“Maybe another time, then?” Minho asked.
“Yeah,” Seungmin replied. The rain had subsided, and he stepped back out onto the streets.
“See you,” he said, and he knew, despite it all, that he still would.
He just wasn’t ready to surrender all his trust, fall asleep in Minho’s place just yet, even after Minho had already done so back in his shop weeks ago.
And… now… maybe he should have stayed, Seungmin thought as he trudged back, because he owed Changbin a long explanation.
---
The next time Minho comes is today.
Now, at four-thirty in the afternoon. Three weeks of radio silence and of Seungmin being far-too aware that Minho lives so close by, and Minho finally steps past the door inside his shop, before promptly fainting in a limp puddle on the ground.
Seungmin panics a little. He rushes forward and shakes Minho’s shoulders. No response, but he checks for a pulse and that exists, at least.
Into the storeroom. Thankfully, he’d prepared more mixtures of the healing nature in case Minho had come back to enlist his help with another one of his so-called strays. It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d have to use this for Minho himself, though.
He forces the liquid down Minho’s throat, then lugs him up the stairs in the back to the second floor, into his own apartment above, where he lifts him onto his bed because his couch is lumpy.
There’s an irony in that, probably. Seungmin hopes Minho doesn’t mind.
And then he waits.
Seungmin has never felt more relieved than when Minho wakes up, two hours later. He sits up on Seungmin’s bed and then frowns a little as he takes in Seungmin, on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest and his laptop balancing on his kneecaps.
“How do you feel?” Seungmin sets his laptop down.
“Is this your room?” Minho has the guts to at least grin a little, which must be a good sign.
“Yeah,” Seungmin says. “Now answer the question.”
“Pretty good. Now, at least,” Minho tells him. “And even better news—we shouldn’t see any more animals here that don’t belong.”
“That.. is good,” Seungmin agrees. He has a feeling Minho had done something that took a lot of energy out of him in order to deliver such news, but he supposes it’s in the past now.
The air hangs between them stiffly.
“I can leave now,” Minho eventually says, when Seungmin doesn’t speak up again.
“No, wait—rest,” Seungmin immediately demands. “Until you actually feel okay.”
Minho laughs. It’s a little loud, but it’s genuine, not forced. “I am fine. You don’t have to worry anymore, okay?”
“I—yes, okay,” Seungmin finally replies.
Minho grins even brighter. Then he steps out of the bed, blankets discarded, and opens the door.
Seungmin watches him with eagle-eyes. There’s no sign of wincing at each step or a limp in his gait, and he doesn’t look like he’s going to suddenly collapse again.
Slowly, he gets up and follows.
“I’m hungry,” Minho declares. “And now it’s time to make good use of your kitchen.”
---
After that, Minho stays the night.
It’s just sharing a bed, but Seungmin drifts off warmer than usual, and wakes up even warmer when Minho is now sprawled out, an arm hugging Seungmin’s chest.
Seungmin slowly pries himself out of Minho’s grasp and the fuzzy warmth in his chest is still there.
Minho may be right that the animals are back where they belong, but there’s still one left, waiting to be satisfied.
Soon, Seungmin tells himself. Soon.
---
The next day, Minho enters Seungmin’s shop uninvited carrying a large potted plant—also uninvited—in his arms.
It’s a small dragon tree, leaves pointy and striking and proud. Seungmin doesn’t bother asking why or how, and instead lets Seungmin Minho hmmm and ha as his gaze wanders around the room, before he finally ends up setting it next to Changbin’s rubber tree, allowing some berth for the leaves.
When Minho stands up now empty-handed, he suddenly appears quite nervous. “I have a favor to ask,” he starts, shifty-eyed.
Seungmin warily regards Minho’s fidgeting fingers. Minho won’t meet his gaze, either.
“What is it?” he apprehensively asks.
“Let me show you something,” Minho finally says.
“Sure?” Seungmin answers, more confused than anything else.
Whatever Minho wants to show him lies outside, down a block and then in an alleyway, and then into another alleyway, and then…
“Oh,” Seungmin says. “But I thought…”
“The other animals wanted to go back home,” Minho explains. “Chalkboard, I think, is attracted to me, though—she keeps coming back.”
“Okay…” Seungmin slowly says. The blobby cat shape has more energy this time, slinking towards them with a light-footed vigour. Up close, it looks even more like some amalgamation of vapors, but Minho grins at the sight and Seungmin tries not to step away.
He’s also not sure where Minho is going with this.
“Anyway,” Minho continues. “I just thought you should know. That if you ever see her she’s just minding her own business. I might let her come hang around my apartment sometime, you know?”
Seungmin doesn’t really know. “Yeah,” he says, regardless.
“That’s not what I wanted to do,” Minho frowns. “You don’t seem to be amused at all.”
“Should I be?” Seungmin isn’t amused but he isn’t scared; he’s just baffled by what he doesn’t know is going on.
“See?” Minho sighs, as if talking to himself, and then Seungmin feels hands slipping into his own, pulling him face-to-face with Minho and tugging him back out the alleyway.
Minho’s ears are burning red, Seungmin immediately notices, when he allows his gaze to settle. That, and pink is creeping up Minho’s neck from below his sweater. This amuses him, actually, and he is about to point it out when Minho opens his mouth instead.
“I figured I should ask you for something to help with a problem I’m having,” Minho says, sheepishly. Seungmin’s hand is lifted up, pulled towards Minho’s neck as if he wants to scratch it, before Minho realizes halfway and drops their joined hands back down. “The cats are attracted to me, but there’s someone else I was hoping would be charmed by my amazing self too.” He flutters his eyelashes dramatically as if to undermine the seriousness of his tone.
Seungmin stands there frozen for a moment as the words sink in. His pulse skyrockets and he’s glad he doesn’t flush as easily as Minho seems too, but he’s not sure whose palms are sweating, either, or how long it takes him to reply.
“I... I am,” he says.
Tense shoulders drop, relieved. Minho’s hands tug him closer, his usual confidence returning as he looks up at Seungmin with a self-assured grin.
“Good,” he says, and then clears his throat and averts his eyes. “By the way, was that tea that I smelled when I walked in earlier?” Minho asks. His mouth trembles a little at the edges, though, an anxious undertone to it as if he still can’t believe what Seungmin just confessed to.
Maybe he needs some assurance.
“Want to find out?” Seungmin replies, and feels his own eyes widen alongside Minho’s at how direct he had been with his implications.
Yet the words are out there now, and he’s left captivated by the way Minho’s smile grows tenfold and his eyes crinkle at the corners until Seungmin feels himself grinning uncontrollably too.
The smile is subdued but still ever-so-present when Minho leans forward and Seungmin lets his eyes fall shut as Minho confirms that yes, Seungmin had been drinking green tea with a hint of honey and lemon before he walked in.
---