Archive of Our Own

As far as bad omens go, Chenle dripping rainwater over Jaemin’s doormat has to be one of the worst. It’s made of straw and has HELLO printed on it in a black font with flowers around it, but with the way Chenle’s standing it just reads HELL.

“I need to ask you something.”

“Hello to you too?” Jaemin offers dimly as Chenle pushes past him, kicking off his shoes and shaking out the rain from his hair like a dog. It drips down his face in icey rivulets, weighing down his neatly parted black bangs. There are deep bags under his eyes, purple and swollen like bruises. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Says you?”

“Touche.” Jaemin shrugs, then holds up his french press. “Coffee?”

“No, I like not undergoing cardiac arrest.” Chenle narrows his eyes and bites his lip and Jaemin doesn’t point out that he smells like rice spirits and cigarette smoke and that he’s never come to Jaemin’s apartment of his own volition, especially not at three a.m.

“Suit yourself.” Jaemin shrugs, then takes a loud, pointed sip, watching Chenle. Is either of them going to mention it? Or is bringing attention to it just going to make the situation worse? Jaemin doesn’t really feel awkwardness, but Chenle does, and when he’s shifty and uncomfortable like right now Jaemin feels some sort of twisted empath response. His fingers twitch to reassure him, to do whatever he can to make Chenle feel better, but it’s the sort of sharply tuned perception that Chenle has always resented.

Chenle hates being known, and Jaemin can’t help but want to know him. The irony is that it’s something Jaemin has only deduced through observation.

“I have a proposal to make,” Chenle starts, and it pulls Jaemin from his reverie, the quiet clink of metal against marble as he places the french press down.

“Oh Chenle,” Jaemin replies, slathering his performance with cheesy cuteness as he opens his arms wide. “I do.”

Chenle’s face of agony is worth every penny.

“Not that kind of proposal, you useless fruit." Chenle's hands wring the plastic material of his windbreaker, still dripping summer puddles over Jaemin’s hardwood floors and wrinkling the leather of his nice kitchen stools. “It’s about…. The Trip.”

“Our honeymoon?” Jaemin asks in a baby voice, index finger on his chin.

“No. You are so annoying.”

“Thank you.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.” Chenle’s face twists with reluctance, and only he, Jaemin thinks, can make an event dedicated to rest and relaxation sound like the title of a horror film. He’s not elaborating, so Jaemin watches him for a few tired moments before prying him open.

“So?” he prompts. “What about the trip?”

Jaemin’s things are still spilled out over the couch, snow gear he’d had to pick up from his mum’s place and far too many pairs of mismatched thermal skins. Why is it that they’re only gone for a week yet he feels the need to pack twenty pairs of underwear? Is this the true human experience?

“You’re not cancelling are you?” he asks, suddenly wondering if even that’s a good enough reason for Chenle to appear on his doorstep in the rain. “Chenle, my deposit.”

“No I’m not cancelling,” Chenle says, folding his arms. “It’s…” His face contorts again, but it’s a different type of twist to the usual he does when it’s Jaemin-induced. Jaemin blinks. When had he begun to notice the difference? Chenle’s fingers run over the edge of Jaemin’s marble counter. His hands are so small, and there’s a silver ring looped around his index finger that Jaemin knows for a fact had been a gift from Renjun three years ago. “I mean, aren’t you nervous?”

“Nervous about what?” Jaemin tries. “Planes?” Chenle shakes his head. “The snow?” Another shake. “Foreign countries?”

“Oh my god, Jaemin, Renjun,” Chenle says, “Renjun will be there.”

“I noticed.” Jaemin leans back, and lets his own fingers trace out the stem of his french press. He fiddles with the top knob for a moment. “Since he organised the whole thing.”

Chenle squints, and his face contorts again. It’s obvious he’s not getting his way, and subtlety has never been Chenle’s forte. It’s probably part of the reason why Chenle doesn’t like Jaemin very much: Jaemin’s life is filled with nothing but subtleties.

“I know you’re in love with him.”

And there go all of Jaemin’s subtleties right out the window and into the rain, splattering against the ground to shatter like a droplet against concrete. Jaemin lives his life walking precariously on a thin sheet of ice --Chenle enjoys doing cannonballs right into it.

“Okay,” Jaemin says, because he was tired before but he’s even more tired now. Chenle’s watching him to gauge his reaction, and Jaemin wonders what he sees. When Chenle bulldozes straight through like this, is it because he’s expecting a fight? Jaemin has never been able to work it out. “And?”

“And?” Chenle mocks, pitching his voice down several octaves. Jaemin rolls his eyes. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Doesn’t what bother me?”

“That he’s going to be there with-- with--”

“Mark?” Jaemin offers, lips twitching. Chenle swallows. For a split second, Jaemin almost considers saying it, but not only would it be blunt, it’d be cruel. “Not really. Should it?”

Chenle doesn’t answer. His face is still screwed tight.

“If the wind changes directions your face will be stuck like that.”

“Shut up,” Chenle says, still scowling. Jaemin smiles at him, patient. “I have a proposal,” he restarts.

“So you’ve said.” Jaemin takes another loud sip of coffee.

Deja vu.

(Meeting Chenle goes like this: Jeno and Jaemin went to high school together, Renjun sits next to them in their intro to biology class. Jeno is also sleeping with Renjun. It’s a casual thing between friends that Jaemin knows will end messily, but he’s twenty and too tired and caught up in his own problems to deal with it. Jeno brings Jaemin to lunch to make it not feel like a date; Renjun has his own equivalent.

“Chenle,” the guy offers. His hair is bleach blonde and wavy and makes him look younger than the sharp jut of his stubble-covered jaw suggests. He doesn’t outstretch a hand, just gives a little wave. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Jaemin offers, smiling the way his mother had taught him, and is cautious to keep his knees together so his thigh won’t touch Chenle’s where they’re pressed together in the booth seat. He smells like laundry detergent and sea-salt and his voice has a gentle lilt to it that suggests he’s probably an international student too. It’s awkward, to say the least, as Renjun and Jeno get caught up in their little definitely-no-feelings involved world and Chenle and Jaemin are forced to watch.

“So,” Jaemin starts as he leans over. “How’d he rope you into this?”

“Buying me hotpot,” Chenle answers, sipping his glass of water. “You?”

“Barbecue,” Jaemin answers with a flourish. Chenle laughs; it’s a nice laugh. Sharp, bright, loud, unashamed. All the things Jaemin wishes he could be.

They leave the cafe with Renjun and Jeno holding hands, walking into the rain, and Jaemin’s eyes drop to the point of contact like pressing into a bruise. The heartbreak grounds him, but he’s startled to glance away and find Chenle watching him. Together, they hang back by the entrance, both reluctant to get wet.

“What?” Jaemin asks, unnerved. He’s always the watcher, never the watched. He’s used to acting stupid every now and then but likes to remain quiet and observe more often than not, catching all the details nobody else will. But here Chenle is, a boy with bright blonde hair staring through him like glass.

“I couldn’t work you out,” Chenle admits, “but I think I get it now.”

Jaemin blinks, then says, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Unbothered, Chenle steps out into the rain with a shrug. It does nothing to dampen his fluffy hair, and he doesn’t so much as blink as droplets pelt against his cheeks and forehead. He turns to Jaemin.

“You coming or what?”

Renjun and Jeno are already miles ahead, and Jaemin hates the rain. He curses under his breath, holds his bag over his head, and dashes to catch up to Chenle, listening to his cackle the entire way.)

Chenle sits Jaemin down with a notebook that must be from his college days because it has MUSIC THEORY 3 written on its front and consequently crossed off with black marker. Jaemin remembers when Chenle had taken that class and complained about Baroque in the group chat for months. He wonders if he'd pointed it out if Chenle would get mad. Probably.

“I call it the Fake Dating Dilemma,” he says, flipping through the pages and opening up a double-spread. He’s written MEDIA in capitals, and underneath a bullet-point list with titles like To all the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Crash Landing On You, Pretty Woman in Chenle’s messy handwriting. “There are three problems that always arise in these situations.”

“The first is believability.” He flips the notebook over. “You have to take context into account. How believable is it to our friends that we start dating out of the blue without having mentioned anything to anyone?”

Jaemin is staring at a doodle of a PUBG gun Chenle must have done after getting bored writing this up. He doesn’t realise he’s meant to answer until he feels Chenle’s stare gauging through him.

“Not very,” Jaemin answers with a yawn, propping his chin on his palm. He checks the clock on his microwave. Thirty minutes until they need to leave for the airport if they want to make it through check-in and security in time. International flights are always tricky.

“Exactly. Can you focus?” Chenle flicks Jaemin’s nose, who whines, pouting as he rubs the spot. “Which is why we’re not going to show up holding hands with matching rings. We’re going to do this slow, authentic and natural, right under everybody’s noses. We’re just going to make this the start of our ‘thing’.”

“And once the trip is over?” Jaemin asks, eyebrow raised. “We keep going?”

“We reassess,” Chenle answers smoothly, and Jaemin is both horrified and impressed at how much he’s thought this through. “We need this now but if we cut it cold then we’re out of weapons the next time we have to go through something like this. Maybe we’re on again off again, maybe we’re just F-W-B. Who knows? Anyway.” He flips the page over again and Jaemin spots more doodles in the margin that make him smile. Chenle never has been good at focusing and taking notes, that’s why he’d always stolen Minjeong’s. Another detail Chenle would hate Jaemin for remembering. "The second problem is commitment.”

“Commitment?”

“How far you’re willing to go. Laying the ground-work. You always need to work out the rules and make sure nobody breaks them, because breaking them is when this stops working out for us. These are mine.”

Chenle turns the book on the counter so that Jaemin can read them.

“PDA fine, no pet names, no acting cute, no kissing unless absolutely necessary,” Jaemin reads. “Chenle I think you just described me as a person and then put a big red X over it.”

“No no I said PDA is fine,” Chenle counters, smearing ink on the page as he presses the point where he’d written it to prove his point. “See?”

Jaemin gives him an amused look. “Are you sure I’m the person you want to do this with? I feel like it takes away from dilemma number one. We’re not very believable as a couple.”

“That’s why we’re not a couple,” Chenle counters, and wow, he’s really thought this through. Must be all that gamer boy strategy coming to fruition. “I told you, we’re just going to be… a little flirty. A little romantic. A thing.”

“A thing,” Jaemin repeats, getting none of the emphasis Chenle can put into his words. He snorts. “Alright, what’s dilemma three?”

“What?”

“The third dilemma,” Jaemin reiterates. “You said there were three.”

“Oh…” Chenle rubs the back of his neck, then turns the notebook to the next page. The title reads: FEELINGS in big red letters. “The third isn’t really a problem for us.”

The first line of the page is messily scrawled with: the two protagonists always end up falling in love for real.

“And that’s… why exactly?” Jaemin asks. “Not that I am in love with you, but these things do tend to end poorly for the schemers. I’m curious to hear why we’re exceptions.”

“Well… for starters, we’re not characters in a movie. Duh.” Chenle rolls his eyes, swinging back and forth on the stool seat. “And… well. You know. You’re already in love with somebody else, that’s why it has to be you.”

Jaemin thinks it’s amazing that Chenle’s own lovesickness can singlehandedly force him to ask Jaemin to do something so ridiculous all while pretending like this is for Jaemin’s benefit. He resists the urge to sigh, or to blatantly point out that Chenle has been in love with Mark for years, and that if anyone knows how to spot a hopeless crush, it’s Jaemin.

“That’s the only reason?”

“I mean, this benefits both of us,” Chenle continues, sliding forward ever so slightly. “For many reasons.”

“You could’ve asked Jeno,” Jaemin offers. “Or Jisung. That would’ve been more believable. God knows Donghyuck would love doing something as stupid as this.”

“I told you, you have immunity to the third dilemma. That’s a main part of my choice.”

“Oh,” Jaemin says in realisation. “It’s immunity for both of us. That’s it, isn’t it?”

Chenle’s face scrunches in discomfort, and Jaemin knows it as the face he makes when he’s been perceived and isn’t enjoying it.

“Jisung and I would be too messy,” Chenle answers. “Donghyuck’s a wild card, Jeno and I have too much... history. You… well. Y’know.”

“You know…?”

“I’m the only one you’re not in love with,” Chenle says, and Jaemin feels the ice shatter all over again. “To some capacity.”

“Ouch.”

“What? I’m just being honest.” Chenle shrugs, hands in his pockets, but the movement is stiff. He feels bad, but he doesn’t want Jaemin to notice it. “It’s true.”

“I’m not in love with all of them.”

“I know. Just Renjun,” Chenle answers, pausing. “For now. You go through phases.”

“I--” Jaemin blinks. “What?”

“Well when we met it was actually Jeno I think,” Chenle muses, hand on his chin. “Then Mark, then Renjun, then Jisung, then Jeno again, back to Jisung, Donghyuck, Mark again, now Renjun. He’s held the record the longest. It’s kinda impressive when you think about it.”

“That’s not--” Jaemin’s stomach rolls over and he feels all the coffee he’d ingested last night after Chenle had left in his attempt to process the absurd situation resurface in his throat. “Oh my god.”

“I’m the only one you’ve never been in love with,” Chenle finishes. “And I find that offensive enough that I will now also never be in love with you. That’s why we’re safe from the third dilemma.”

Jaemin is still reeling from having his heart cut open and its contents spilled out over the kitchen island when he croaks out, “You think you won’t catch feelings because of spite?”

“Yes?” Chenle answers, like it’s obvious. “Jaemin, please. Look at me. I have no idea how you’re not in love with me, but it proves you’re immune to good taste. So we’re fine. I’m not going to waste my time pining over somebody that can’t recognise a whole snack in front of their eyes.” Jaemin stares. “...Not again, at least.”

“This is so…” Jaemin rubs his temples. “My god.”

“My god,” Chenle mocks, in that stupid gravelly voice he always does to imitate Jaemin like the little lyre bird he is. Jaemin glares. He hasn’t had enough coffee to deal with this yet. It’s six A.M for fuck’s sake. “Look, you don’t have to be dramatic. Every gay person deals with being in love with their friends at some stage or another, you’re just addicted to it at unhealthy amounts. It’s fine, I don’t judge you.”

“You’re a real saint,” deadpans Jaemin.

“And you have odd coping mechanisms, don’t try to turn this on me.” Chenle gives a cattish smile, smug, then relaxes, drumming his fingers over the counter again. “My point is, not having to worry about the third dilemma takes away the biggest problem that always arises, so that’s good. We can just focus on the first two.”

Jaemin flips back to the double spread pages of BELIEVABILITY and COMMITMENT.

“You haven’t even asked me what I’m okay with,” Jaemin points out, tapping Chenle’s list of DOs and DON’Ts.

“Because I know you’re okay with anything.” Chenle rolls his eyes. Touché. “Now let’s talk about timing.”

Chenle has a ten-square grid on the fifth page that has the date of each day away in the top corner with little bullet points on each one. He’s really thought this through --or must have gotten very bored. Jaemin is amazed, but his eyes keep lingering on the page that says FEELINGS, thinking about the fact that Chenle’s immunity only stems from the fact that he’s never really liked Jaemin.

Jaemin takes another sip of coffee.

Chenle steals the aux cord when they drive to the airport and Jaemin pays for long-term parking with a grimace. As payment for not only being his designated uber driver and agreeing to Chenle’s stupid petty jealousy scheme, Jaemin subjects Chenle to wait in line with him at Gloria Jean’s for a latte with three extra shots.

“Get used to it, Chenle, my little sweet potato,” Jaemin coos, slinging an arm around Chenle’s shoulder. “This is how being my boyfriend is, fake or not.”

“Okay first of all, I don’t think you’ve ever had a committed stable relationship so you wouldn’t know.” Jaemin pouts. “Second of all, not your boyfriend. Fake or otherwise. Third of all, I said no pet names.”

“If we under-commit we risk jeopardising believability,” Jaemin argues. “Do you really think anyone’s going to buy that I like you if I don’t call you my cute little funion?”

“What does that even mean,” Chenle balks, making a hurling noise. “If we break the rules we risk getting found out. It’s the balancing act.”

“But we need to be believable, like you said.” Jaemin presses a big wet kiss to Chenle’s cheek that makes him squirm. “So let me have fun.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you too, my quaint little cumquat.”

“How many of these do you have stored up?”

“About ten days’ worth.”

Chenle’s expression is that of somebody realising they’ve made a grave mistake. Jaemin grins.

They’re the first ones to the gate, save for Donghyuck, who through his job is a gold frequent flyer, and spends the entire time spamming the group chat with photos of him in the lounge with captions like ‘lol imagine if I get upgraded to business class too’. Chenle sends back a bunch of poop emojis, like a mature adult.

“Are we sure this is believable?” Jaemin asks for the umpteenth time. “I always saw myself with someone.. Older. Mysterious. Tall, dark and handsome.”

“How’s that going for you?” Chenle deadpans, and Jaemin pouts at him again. “Also we’re not pretending to be together-together. I told you. Just--”

“A little flirty yeah yeah.” Jaemin sighs and slings an arm over the back of the gate chairs, glancing around. Chenle is still replying to Donghyuck’s messages with strings of profane emojis. Jaemin strokes the nape of his neck out of boredom. Chenle’s scheduled their slow-burn winter fling to a perfect art like something Jaemin would expect from one of Mark’s romance novels. They’ll start simple, slow: Chenle will swap seats with Jeno so he and Jaemin can watch a movie together on the plane. They’ll offer to take the shared room with the king bed, and Chenle will frame it as if he just wants the biggest room. When they get dinner together, they’ll be tipsy and flirty, and rub their newfound spark in the faces of the settled down Mark and Renjun.

The last bit is more Chenle’s thing; Jaemin isn’t sure how he feels about the jealousy angle yet. For the most part, he’s pretty sure he agreed to this only because it had been three a.m and Jaemin isn’t very good at saying no to pretty boys.

Plus, getting to call Chenle pet names all the time to piss him off is an added bonus.

Jeno arrives third, but puppy eyes Donghyuck into taking him into the lounge as his guest, which works because Donghyuck is Donghyuck, and it leaves Mark and Renjun radio silent in the group chat while Jisung frantically asks which line he’s meant to be in. Poor guy.

“I can’t believe you left Jisung alone for the sake of spite,” Jaemin says, his chin hooked on Chenle’s shoulder watching the group chat scroll by. His own phone is buzzing in his back pocket, but he prefers this. “Such a scorpio move.”

“What on earth does that mean,” Chenle says, turning to face Jaemin so their noses are nearly touching. He’s never shied away from Jaemin’s flirting --even before this nonsense arrangement, when it was flirting for the sake of flirting and not whatever bad choice they’ve made here. “Also there’s no one around. You can be normal if you want--” Jaemin opens his mouth. “--Oh I forgot, you’re never normal.” He pouts.

“You’re so mean to me, my prickly lil’ sea urchin.” Jaemin pinches Chenle’s cheek. The skin is soft and smooth and stretchy. Jaemin has always liked Chenle’s elastic cheeks. “Don’t you wuv me?”

“You are so--” Jaemin grins, but whatever embellishment Chenle is going to give is cut off as he focuses on two people approaching instead. When Jaemin turns his chin, still hooked on Chenle’s shoulder, it’s Mark and Renjun. Mark has a backpack slung over one shoulder while Renjun has a wheelie and a tote bag, ever the organised artistic gay. It’s a nice print, a snow leopard over white cloth in nothing but black lines. Jaemin likes it, he wonders if it’s one of Renjun’s. Once upon a time, Jaemin would’ve known the answer to that question.

He sits up straight.

“Hey there,” Jaemin grins, and Chenle has this taut expression on his face before casually slinging a thigh over Jaemin. Alright, subtle enough --by Chenle’s standards, anyway. “Nice of you two to make it.”

“Well I’m not wasting that deposit,” Renjun jokes, and Jaemin grins at him. Renjun takes the empty seat to Jaemin’s left. “You two drove here together?”

“Why not? Someone had to give me a lift.” Chenle yawns, and Mark is still standing, distraught between the empty seat next to Chenle, his best friend, and Renjun, his boyfriend. Chenle looks at him, scratches his stubble and points at Renjun. “Your boyfriend’s over there.”

Mark relaxes with the explicit permission from one party and stops looking like someone answering a question on Jeopardy. Jaemin snickers, but Renjun just gives Mark a dopey smile as their hands find each other and Jaemin puts his own on Chenle’s thigh and feels them twitch. Chenle sits forward then, smoothing his hands over Jaemin’s. A casual, reassuring touch Jaemin isn’t used to from Chenle, but appreciates nonetheless. Renjun turns back around to ask something, but his voice dies as his eyes drop to where Jaemin and Chenle hold hands, then he smiles as if he’d seen nothing.

“Morning flights suck,” Chenle complains, stifling another yawn. “It’s my bedtime right now.”

Jaemin laughs (and also, tragically, relates. If there’s anything he and Chenle have in common it’s an inability to keep regular human waking hours).

“You can sleep on the plane,” Renjun says, unimpressed. “You do realise you two will have to keep daylight hours for the trip, right? The mountain closes by sunset.”

Jaemin and Chenle exchange eye contact and knowing smiles. Renjun doesn’t give an eye-roll or any sort of reaction Jaemin would expect, he just watches them, an odd look on his face.

“Oh man,” Mark speaks up, thumbing his phone screen. “Donghyuck and Jeno are getting hash browns in the lounge. I’m so jealous.”

“Tell them to grab us some,” Chenle pipes up, and removes his thigh from Jaemin’s to stand and round to sit next to Mark, stealing his phone. So much for pretending to have a thing, Jaemin smiles at the sight and lets it fall when he realises Renjun is watching him.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing, I just feel like I’ve never seen you awake this early before.” His lips curl in the corners. “Maybe this is a different Jaemin than what I’m used to.”

“I’m sexy in all forms of lighting,” Jaemin tells him, and there’s the Renjun exasperation he’s used to. Renjun pinches his bicep, and Jaemin yelps.

“Hopeless,” he mumbles, rummaging for something in his tote bag and pulling out a plastic water bottle. Usually he uses glass ones, but they're not allowed on planes. It's the sort of pedantic foresight that makes Jaemin smile to himself. Classic Renjun. “How did you end up getting leave from work after all that? Jeno mentioned you were having issues.”

It’s too early for Jaemin to suppress a wince, and he knows Renjun saw it, because something in his eyes softens. Part of Jaemin hates Renjun almost as much as he loves him, because he’s too observant, too dedicated, too considerate. All the sorts of qualities that pick through the layers Jaemin hides behind. Once upon a time they didn’t speak in these indirect terms; in fact, out of the sausage fest seven, Jaemin would almost argue they had been the closest.

That had been after Jeno, in hindsight, but before Mark. Somewhere in between, right after meeting Chenle and consoling a crying Jeno at McDonald’s at two in the morning. Then Jaemin had fallen in love, and so had Renjun, just not with him.

Jaemin had become a bad friend after that.

“Turns out my boss sort of begged me to take some time off,” Jaemin admits, fiddling with a piece of lint in his jacket pocket, running it between his fingers. He wishes he could remember how to talk to Renjun directly and not find out everything about one another secondhand, but it’s hard. “She called me a… hm… ‘workaholic’ I believe is the scientific term?”

“I’m glad someone called you out then,” Renjun says. “You always push yourself too far without someone pulling you back.”

Jaemin doesn’t know how to respond to that, never does these days around Renjun, which is part of the problem to begin with. He’s saved by a panting Jisung.

“Guys I hate airports,” he announces. They all laugh.

Donghyuck and Jeno meet them five minutes before boarding, and Donghyuck gleefully eats seven hash browns in front of them all while Jeno just smiles his innocent boy smile that can fool entire nations into believing that he’s not enjoying the torture too. They line up as soon as their seat numbers are called, and Chenle slides up to Jaemin.

“I gave Jeno a whole thing of Mentos to get his seat,” he mumbles into Jaemin’s ear, chin on his shoulder. “So you better woo me, lover boy.”

“Of course I will, my beloved bumblebee,” Jaemin coos, pinching Chenle’s cheek. Renjun’s too busy wrestling Donghyuck in front of them for the last hash brown while Mark, Jeno and Jisung bust their guts laughing to notice. “I can be a real Prince Charming.”

Chenle hums, a low, reverberating noise that Jaemin can feel when they’re close like this, almost like a purr.

“I’d believe that.”

“Oh you do? Because an hour ago you were reminding me I’ve never been in a stable relationship.”

To Jaemin’s surprise, Chenle grins.

“I like when you bite back,” he says simply, and goes to tackle Jisung for a piece of the hash brown Renjun had carefully portioned. Jaemin blinks as he leaves, dazed, and then beneath his eyeline Renjun holds up his own segment.

“Perfect sixths,” he announces, flustered from the public spectacle as Donghyuck writhes and moans on the floor. It’s a testament to the seven of them that they don’t bat an eye to his dramatics. Renjun holds the piece up.

“Not hungry,” he answers, but takes it anyway. “Chenle?”

Chenle’s eyes light up, and he comes over with his mouth open as Jaemin pops the small chunk between his lips. Renjun watches this with an unreadable expression, and when Chenle goes to rub it in Jisung’s face, smiles.

“Seems like you and I have a lot to catch up on, huh?” Renjun says wryly, elbowing Jaemin. “I’m glad you came.”

That surprises Jaemin, his eyebrows pinched together.

“Why wouldn’t I come?”

Renjun shrugs then, small shoulders lifting and falling in a single movement.

“I don’t know, maybe because you’re a workaholic?” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

The attendants check their tickets and passports once more, then Jeno and Chenle subtly swap stubs and Chenle double steps to catch up to Jaemin, winding an arm around him in the walkway. For someone who claims to hate touchiness, Chenle sure is touchy. Pretend or not, Jaemin isn’t sure how he feels about it. It’s so new. He and Chenle have always had the most timid dynamic out of the seven, for a multitude of reasons. Whether Chenle is pretending, or something about drinking coffee at three a.m and admitting their heartbreak had brought them closer together, Jaemin can’t say.

Once the seatbelt sign is off and they’re well on their way to Japan, Jaemin thinks oh god, this is really happening, and the butterflies of excitement kick in. Then Chenle, ever a stone causing ripples in Jaemin's pond, says, “Would you rather Iron Man or Spider-Man?”

Jaemin stares.

“You’re right, Spider-Man is the obvious choice.”

“Or,” Jaemin offers, “maybe we watch something more… cultured?”

“What’s not cultured about Spider-Man?”

“I mean… you know, Disney. Capitalism. Mass-production by a corporation with little artistic input designed to make as much money as possible.”

To Jaemin’s surprise, Chenle is smiling.

“You think I got time for morals, pretty boy? Sometimes fun movies aren’t good and that’s valid. I like switching my brain off.”

“I wasn’t aware you ever turned it on.” Chenle tugs Jaemin’s ear. “Ah ah aahh!!”

A woman in front of them turns around to glare. Chenle smiles at her, flutters his eyelashes, and lets go.

“Let’s make a deal,” he offers.

“Another one?” Jaemin mumbles. “I think I’m still recovering from the first.”

Chenle lets out a long breath.

“I pick the movie now, you can pick the movie on the way back.”

He says it so innocently, but Jaemin has spent years watching Chenle and knows he’s never innocent. Ever.

“Now if I agree to that you’re just going to find some way to get out of watching a movie on the way back. I don’t remember it on the planner.”

Chenle scowls, and Jaemin knows he’s right. Bingo.

“You pick the movie now and I pick a movie after.”

“Neither of us have the attention span for two movies.”

Touché.

"You pick the movie now and at some stage on the trip we will watch another movie since we’re sharing a bed and when that time comes, I pick. No arguments.”

Chenle’s mouth twists, but he relents with, “Fine.” Jaemin lets out a cheer, earning another glare from the old woman in front. “But if you make me watch anything in black and white I’ll kill you.”

“You’re so uncultured, my god.” Chenle holds out an airpod and Jaemin takes it. Looks like Spider-man wins.

By the end it turns out neither of them have the attention span for even one movie; Chenle falls asleep, drooling on Jaemin’s shoulder, and Jaemin has to sit there staring at the screen trying not to fidget. It’s probably all the undiagnosed ADHD, but Chenle is so cute when he sleeps, baby faced and blissfully quiet, and Jaemin doesn’t want to ruin it, so he watches the movie all on his own and feels his own shitty sleep schedule catch up to him.

He wakes up when the seatbelt sign is turned back on, and they both listen to their own music through airpods as Jaemin looks out at the lights of Tokyo and feels that swoop in his stomach as the plane drops. The seven of them have been planning a trip like this for years, and the fact that they actually organised it is a feat of nature.

Jaemin has never been to Japan, and while all airports feel the same once they’ve collected their luggage at the carousel and he sees all the signs in various Japanese scripts, it hits that he’s actually in Japan, holy shit. Jaemin has no idea how he’d grown up in Korea and never thought to make the hop across.

His stomach bubbles with excitement and his toes curl. He knows Donghyuck, Jeno and Mark have been before, and Chenle’s travelled the world so he probably doesn’t care about one other country on the list. Renjun’s way too stressed about where they need to go to process it but Jisung seems to have the same curiosity Jaemin does, so they wander around together while everyone waits for the baggage to come out.

“Dude,” Jisung says, kicking down a toilet stall door. “The seats are heated.”

“This country is amazing,” Jaemin says seriously, and Jisung beams.

Renjun and Donghyuck take the lead of navigating everyone through the airport to get to the proper train, then Jaemin dumps his luggage in the little rack by the door and takes a seat. The carriage is mostly empty, so he picks the aisle. Apparently there’s free wi-fi even on the train. Awesome.

“Move,” Chenle demands, flicking his hands. Jaemin sighs and dramatically slides over so Chenle can take his precious aisle seat. He resists the urge to make a remark about it, slinging a leg over Chenle’s instead.

“Do you really think it’s even working?” Jaemin mumbles, chin on Chenle’s shoulder. His eyes slide over to Mark and Renjun one row up on the other side of the carriage, chatting about something in low voices he can’t make out. It’s not like they’re paying attention. “Maybe we’re… too subtle?”

It’s not something he’d ever thought he’d say in relation to Chenle. Chenle doesn’t even look up from his phone.

“I told you. Believability is key. We take this slow.”

Jaemin sighs, tipping his head back against the seat. Chenle finally looks up.

“Your boredom makes you frustrated,” he points out. “You just want the shock-value.”

Does he? Jaemin doesn’t know.

“You’re in this to be petty. I’m not.”

“Yeah?” Chenle goads. “Then why’d you say yes?”

“An act of charity.” Chenle pinches his thigh. “Ow!”

Their train slows to a stop at Ueno, and their hotel is a short walk from the station. At night, Tokyo definitely feels like a foreign city, with bright lights and neon Japanese signs and a crisp, bitter chill to the air. It’s not the muggy heat of an Australian summer, and Jaemin shivers as they walk, his thicker clothes packed into his luggage instead of his carry-ons. He should be used to cold like this from South Korea, but years in the Southern hemisphere have melted away his tolerance.

They’re only in Tokyo for the night. They have two hotel rooms connected by a door, both with two Queen mattresses inside and a single bathroom. It’s a paper-scissors-rock match for who gets to sleep alone.

Jisung holds up a fist then says, “You guys aren’t playing?”

Chenle, who’d been watching from the couch with an arm slung around Jaemin’s neck says, “Eh, paper scissors rock is too much effort. You’ll share with me, right Jaemin?”

“Sure.” Jaemin shrugs. “You’re small, so that’s a win for me.” Chenle tugs a strand of Jaemin’s pink hair. “Hey! You’re so violent.”

“You deserve it. We’re like the same height.” Chenle leans back, giving him a double chin. It’s funny; it’s the sort of ugly posture that Jaemin would never do, but Chenle doesn’t give a single fuck. Jaemin has always liked that about him. “Go on then. Winner gets the single bed.”

Donghyuck wins within a single round by throwing out scissors to Jeno and Jisung’s rock, then makes a noise so loud Jaemin is worried it might shatter the glass windows. Jisung sinks to his knees in defeat, and Chenle yawns, dozing on Jaemin’s shoulder.

“What does everyone want for dinner?” Renjun asks, walking in through the shared door while looking at something on his phone. “There’s tons of restaurants around.”

“No shit, it’s Tokyo.” Chenle leans forward, flipping through the room service menu on the coffee table in front of them. “Can’t we just hit up a seven-eleven? Maybe a Familymart if we’re feeling bougie.”

“I’m not eating something that’s fifty-percent plastic.”

“Has anyone told you that, emotionally, you seem like a white vegan?” Renjun comes marching over and Chenle quickly squeals in fear, ducking behind the couch and using Jaemin as a shield. “I’m joking I’m joking!!!”

“Now now,” Jaemin interjects, wrapping his arms around Renjun’s and tugging him down against his chest to stop him from attacking. “Let’s not murder each other on the first night. Save it for the second at the earliest.”

“Should we just wander and take a look?” Mark offers. He doesn’t even seem to care that Jaemin is practically swaddling Renjun on his lap right now, and that just makes Jaemin feel worse. He lets go, and Renjun slides right off. Chenle remains behind the couch, watching.

“Maybe ramen?” Renjun says, pulling out his phone again. “Or--”

“You’re such a planner.” Mark snorts, putting his hand over Renjun’s phone and clicking it shut. He slides onto the couch beside him. “Just feel out the vibes, man. It’s Tokyo. We’ll find something.”

“I’m starving,” Jisung says. “I’ll eat anything.”

“Me too,” adds Donghyuck. “I’m even down to try cannibalism.”

“Which of us would you eat?” Jisung asks, face serious.

“You know I’m torn between Chenle and Renjun. Renjun is actually healthy and won’t taste like Mountain Dew and instant ramyeon, and Chenle is rich. All that baby fat must be a delicacy.”

“I don’t have baby fat,” Chenle argues. Jaemin pinches his cheek to demonstrate as he talks, stretching it out. “Only muscle.”

“What’re we talking about?” Jeno asks as he walks out of the bathroom, toweling through his hair. It’s a testament to their friendship that nobody is bothered by his shirtlessness, and also that he can walk in on a conversation about cannibalism without batting an eye.

“Which of us would be the tastiest.” Donghyuck slaps Jeno’s abs and it makes a loud thwack. “Not you, obviously. Too sinewy.”

“Oh,” Jeno says. “I’d pick Jisung.”

“What? Me? Why?”

“Baby fat,” Jeno answers.

“That’s what I’m saying!” Donghyuck half-yells. Renjun bursts into laughter. Jaemin, quiet, just smiles and leans back, watching.

He’s missed his friends.

They do end up just feeling the vibes, as Mark had suggested, and it leads them to a traditional izakaya around the corner from their hotel, tucked into one of Tokyo’s numerous side streets that would feel seedy if it were any other city. It’s shoes off and bamboo mats, and they split three bottles of sake between the seven of them. Jaemin sits with Jeno to his left and Chenle to his right and tries to remember the last time it had genuinely been all seven of them anywhere at once, undivided attention and all.

He can’t remember. The answer is probably sometime back in uni, when Renjun and Chenle had that awesome sharehouse with the huge backyard and their housemate Dejun’s dog would run around while they fought over who got to hold her in their laps. It had all been so much simpler back then, when they had all been friends brought together by the strangest of circumstances and even though a group this large shouldn’t have worked it just did.

Before Mark got a book deal and fell in love with Renjun, before Donghyuck’s consulting job had him disappearing halfway across the world every second day, before Jeno dropped out and changed to a TAFE course, before Jisung moved to another state for the end of his degree, before Jaemin and Chenle had been the only ones left behind, and Jaemin felt himself slowly be buried in clinical placements.

“Can you pass the eel?” Jeno asks. Jaemin obliges, leaning over Chenle to do so. Chenle doesn’t so much as budge, letting Jaemin press against him, full body flush. Jeno gives a curious look but says nothing.

On the walk back, warm and pink from sake, they pick up bottles of god only knows what at the convenience store, and Jaemin is amazed that all he has to do to claim to be legal age is press a button on a screen. Ueno park is open until eleven, so they pick a spot underneath cherry blossoms that have bloomed early even though it's only February and argue about who would survive a zombie apocalypse. Jaemin, content as always, just smiles and lies on the grass, picking at stray pieces and drinking something fizzy and warm and definitely alcoholic from a can that has mangoes printed on it but tastes nothing of the sort, watching Chenle put Jisung in his place while saying that if he can’t even make it through a PUBG game, then there’s no way he’ll make it through an apocalypse.

By the end of the argument, he catches Jaemin staring at him from the ground. “What?”

“Nothing.” Jaemin shakes his head. “I like when you’re passionate. It’s cute.”

Chenle’s eyes narrow, and Jaemin’s grin widens as he realises their little agreement means Chenle has to sit there and accept Jaemin’s flirting at face value. Beside him, Jeno sips something with grapes on it.

“Does it taste like grapes?” Jaemin asks him, holding up his own can. There’s not a single English letter in sight. “Because I don’t know what this is but it’s at least seventy-percent alcoholic.”

Jeno snorts. “Try it.” Jaemin takes a sip and grimaces. “Yeah it’s kinda disgusting. Did I forget to mention that?”

It’s bitter and sour and Jaemin gags.

“Why does that taste like grape candy gone wrong?” He chases it down with his own sickeningly sweet drink. “We should’ve just bought fanta.”

“Soft drink is boring. Live a little.” Chenle holds out his own can. It’s bright green and has nothing but leaves on it. Ominous. But when Jaemin takes a sip, it’s subtly sweet --carbonated, still, but not too awful.

“Oh that’s not bad,” he relents, holding it back out. “What is it?”

“Green tea, maybe? Or aloe. I don’t know. Google Translate said something about leaves.” Jaemin waggles the can again. “Keep it, I know you like it more. I’ll have yours.”

“Oh,” Jaemin says, as Chenle leans forward to pick up the ominous mango drink, sipping from it without a grimace. “Thank you?”

Jaemin has never thought about alcoholic ambiguous green tea before, but he likes it. Each sip makes him warm, or maybe that’s just Chenle’s after-effect.

By the time they get back to the hotel everyone is wasted and exhausted. Eleven hour flights will do that to you, and even Jaemin is feeling tired enough to sleep before three a.m. Maybe. Being pushed back two hours because of the time difference helps, too.

It’s paper scissors rock for the two showers, though Jeno changes into pyjamas with dogs printed on them and smiles an innocent smile that Jaemin knows is smug as shit as he settles into his bed with Jisung, already done. Jaemin had been knocked out first which means he showers last, pouting on the bed in his boredom as he watches Jisung and Chenle argue over something meaningless.

“All yours,” Renjun interrupts, and Chenle cheers as Jisung gives a sulky look.

“Cheer up,” Jaemin tells him. “At least you’re not last. I probably won't even get hot water."

Renjun’s hair is wet as he sighs and lies on the bed next to Jaemin, smelling of rosey soap. Soft and gentle yet still managing to tear Jaemin to shreds. Renjun always smells good. Chenle gives him a lingering look Jaemin can’t make sense of, then disappears into the bathroom.

“So,” Renjun starts once Chenle has disappeared into the bathroom and Jisung has gone into the other room to yell at Mark to hurry up. “You and Chenle.”

“Ah.” Jeno sits up, putting his phone aside. “I noticed that too.”

Damn. Points to Chenle; subtlety really does work.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jaemin comments offhandedly, unsure of how he’s meant to respond. Does he admit to it, or… No, believability. He wouldn’t admit to it straight away, if it were true.

“You guys seem closer,” Renjun continues, eyebrow arched. “Are we missing something?”

“No way,” Jaemin says, sitting up, propping his head on his elbow. “We’re just… I dunno. Friends?”

“Only took five years,” Jeno jokes. Renjun laughs, but Jaemin’s smile feels taut. “I didn’t think you guys got along. You said you felt weird around him.”

“When you were sleeping together,” Jaemin whines.

“Oh.” Jeno at least has the sensibility to look embarrassed, scratching his cheek. “Well.”

“This group is so incestuous.” Renjun sighs.

“I think that’s just what happens with gays,” Jaemin tells him. “It’s the proximity theorem, we have such little variety. I’m sure we all share an ex or two.”

“I don’t think you and I do,” Renjun muses, tipping his head to the ceiling. “You’re the offender with the least charges. In the group and out.”

“Well…” Jeno voices, and he and Jaemin make awkward eye-contact.

“What,” Renjun says, half-laughing. “How did I not know about this?!”

“It was before your time,” Jaemin says with a dramatic, wistful sigh, rolling onto his back. “The good ol’ days. Puberty. School uniforms. The disabled bathroom on the third floor of the commons building.”

“We were horny,” Jeno says with a shrug.

“And very very gay.”

“I can’t believe neither of you have ever told me this.” Renjun is still laughing incredulously, and it makes Jaemin smile. “I really did not think Jaemin would ever cross the friendship line like that.”

“I’m very persuasive.” Jeno smirks.

“He came in three seconds."

Jeno throws a pillow at Jaemin.

“Yo,” Chenle tosses a damp towel at Jaemin’s face, which he fails to catch, thwacking against him. “Your turn pretty boy.”

“Sexy~” Jaemin flirts, whipping Chenle’s butt with the towel as he passes, then waggling his eyebrows. Chenle scowls at him, but lets him go.

The shower is tiny, built over a very small yet very deep bathtub. Since he’s last and no one is waiting, Jaemin indulges, letting the tub fill up and sinking into the hot water while playing music from his phone. It’s less relaxing than he’d hoped since he has to fold his legs up, but it’s nice to submerge after rinsing away all the airplane grease. His digestive system is still fucked up from preserved foods and high pressure, so he can’t imagine how Mark is feeling.

Jaemin tips his head, tracing out the flowers on the shower curtain. The bathroom smells like Renjun’s soap.

He pulls the plug, watching the water spiral away.

By the time he’s done with his bath, Jisung is fast asleep and Jeno is playing Wild Rift with only the bedside lamp on. Chenle is nowhere to be seen.

The hot water had only served to wake Jaemin up, so he puts on the hotel slippers and heads out, hoping to shake off some of the restless energy by exploring the place. He finds a vending machine in the corridor with cans of Boss coffee, and he uses his train pass of all things to buy it, rubbing his hands together like a fly as he watches the can tip down.

Jaemin can’t sleep without coffee, as antithetical as it is, and he lets out a small sob of relief when the cold drink hits his tongue only to pause when he spots a smokers area outside, and Chenle leaning against the railing, looking out over the city.

There’s no need for Jaemin to talk to him given how much they’ve spent together in the last day alone, but he’s always had impulse control issues.

“Hey,” he greets as he pushes the glass door open. “Where’d you get those from?”

“Vending machine on our way back from the park,” Chenle says, letting out a long smoky breath. “You were busy with Jisung looking at the gacha machines.”

“Man, they had espeon figurines. I wanted one so bad.”

Chenle snorts, taking another drag of his cigarette. It’s so unhealthy, but if Jaemin’s vice is caffeine then this is Chenle’s. Who is he to throw rocks in glass houses? Even if that’s all his and Chenle’s relationship ever seems to be.

“Renjun already asked about us,” Jaemin starts, itching to fill the silence. As much as Chenle can be so loud, sometimes, he’s also good at being eerily quiet. It unnerves Jaemin, unable to work out the dichotomy. “So did Jeno.”

“Damn we’re good.” Chenle grins around his cigarette. “What’d they say?”

“Nothing important, they were just curious. I kept it vague.” Jaemin leans with both elbows against the railing, looking up at the cloudy sky and the city beneath it. Tokyo is so huge, sprawling on for eternity, and they’re not even high enough to see past most of the buildings and train lines. "Believability and all that." He waggles his fingers.

"Hm," Chenle hums, voice gravelly from the lack of sleep and excess smoke. He exhales another cloud.

"Do you really think this is a good idea?" Jaemin asks, contorting his arms over the railing as he turns to Chenle, leaning forward. "I don't think Renjun and Mark give a shit." It's certainly not helping Jaemin, who isn't good at being petty like Chenle is, not on the surface. Too many ingrained manners, too much self-sacrifice.

"You'll see," Chenle says, patting the top of Jaemin's head patronisingly. Jaemin gives him an unimpressed look. "I never have bad ideas."

"Definitely not true."

"Yeah? Name one bad idea I've ever had."

"I--" Jaemin whines as Chenle cackles. "That's not fair. When am I ever around to hear your ideas?'

"Exactly." Smug piece of shit. "Not my fault you're a 'workaholic'--" he mocks Renjun's high-pitched voice. "--you could've been around if you wanted to."

Maybe it's the Tokyo skyline, maybe it's the caffeine, maybe it's the cigarette smoke. Jaemin isn't sure, but he's definitely breathless.

"I thought you didn't like me," he admits, and Chenle gives him a look that Jaemin refuses to meet, staring at a billboard advertising a skin care product with a pretty idol holding it up across the road. Silence hangs between them, thick and awkward, and Jaemin's impulse is to brush it off, make an excuse, get away before Chenle can tell him exactly why they'd never gotten along.

"Why would you think that?"

Jaemin blinks, startled.

"I don't know," he answers. "It's not like we ever hung out one-on-one before. We always needed a buffer."

"And you thought that was… because I hated you? Not just us, I don't know, never having a reason to get to know each other better?"

"Well when you say it out loud like that it seems so reasonable and makes me look stupid." Jaemin pouts.

Chenle huffs, lingering smoke going with it.

"You have so many issues, man," he mumbles, as if Jaemin isn't aware. "I've always liked you, I just…" His face contorts, uncomfortable with expressing emotions and being vulnerable. Jaemin grins.

"Come on, you can do it," Jaemin nudges. "Be honest. Show me your soft squishy centre."

Chenle rolls his eyes, grinding the cigarette on the railing to extinguish it, making a neat pile of ash.

"I just couldn't work you out," he admits, following Jaemin's line of sight from earlier and fixing his eyes on that billboard. Jaemin watches Chenle's face instead, the slope of his nose, the hard line of his jaw, the spots he’s missed shaving, the soft curl of his black hair. "Every time I thought you made sense you'd change again. I don't like things I can't understand."

And Jaemin can tell, because Chenle has a notebook filled with nonsense trying to reason something nonsensical. Everything is about logical reasoning and common sense, head above heart. Compared to Jaemin, who's never made a rational decision in his life and can't control his heart, they're quite the pair.

"I don't think I'm hard to understand," Jaemin says softly, following Chenle's gaze back to the billboard. His hands flex, fists curling and uncurling where they dangle over the railing.

"Is that a joke?" Chenle deadpans, eyebrows raised. "Nobody understands you. You flirt with all of us then go off the grid for months. You're in love with Jeno one day then Renjun the next. You once sat through an entire game of mafia as the cop without admitting to it for no reason other than to sow chaos."

Jaemin grins, because of course the last one is notable to Chenle, a competitive piece of shit that he is.

"What can I say, it's my Capricorn moon."

"I'll kill you."

"How?"

"Slowly," Chenle answers, not a single ounce of humour to his tone. "Excruciating."

"Oo, sexy."

"Or I can throw you off this roof right now." Chenle's lips are curled upwards, and in the dark Tokyo neon lights, he's more beautiful than usual. "Make a fried egg out of you on the concrete. Frame it as a suicide."

"Wow you've really thought about this," Jaemin muses, smiling back. "But we agreed no murder on the first day. Save it for tomorrow."

"Alright, then watch your back." Chenle stands up straight, then flattens to be perpendicular with the railing, stretching like a cat. So cute, Jaemin thinks, knowing Chenle would hate him for saying it aloud. Especially with nobody around. He walks back to the door, holding it out. "You coming?"

Jaemin smiles, double-stepping to follow him, and it isn't until they're back in their room that he realises he'd left the can of coffee on the railing, only a single mouthful missing.

(How they'd gone from seven ones to one whole seven is something Donghyuck had always said would be one for the history books, once they'd all grown up, done amazing things, and Donghyuck was president.

"Okay first of all Australia doesn't have a president," Renjun would argue, "and there's no way you're passing the citizenship test if you don't even know that, so you can't run for any form of government."

"Now I know you're a fine arts student because if you'd ever taken a government class you'd know I'm obviously going to be a beneficial dictator." Renjun had yanked his ear. "Ow!"

It's hard to pinpoint the anchor, the central force pulling them together. Had it been Donghyuck making the group chat, or Renjun forcing them into buying friendship rings, or maybe Jisung just wanting to finish their DND campaign? Whether the force of a single man or the will of the universe, they'd fallen together through fate or otherwise, and had remained that way for years.

Jeno and Jaemin had high school, Jeno met Renjun through classes and his bedsheets; Chenle was Renjun's friend from the Chinese Students Association, Jisung was a year ahead for his age and sat next to Chenle in French 01. Mark was on the basketball team with Chenle, and Donghyuck had been Mark's best friend from high school after transferring from Korea for year 12.

By all modicums of logic, the sausage fest of seven shouldn't have lasted as long as it has, they’d been brought together by Renjun’s long-winding D&D campaign (despite his reluctance to handle six players, Renjun had done it anyway, because he’s Renjun) and had stayed for something less tangible. Shoving seven hormonal across-the-LGBT spectrum barely-adult men into a single room would always end in disaster no matter how you looked at it, which is probably why they’ve all spent an inappropriate amount of time in each other’s beds.

But even when Renjun and Jeno had ended in tears and Mark and Donghyuck had a phase of pretending the other didn’t exist and Jaemin would come home to Chenle butt naked on his and Jeno’s couch and have no choice but to chat about the weather they always came back to a seven in the end, always sorted through their shit, always chose each other over their individual needs. And Jaemin always knows, instinctively, that he wouldn’t be half the person he was today without them, and he was only held together only by six pillars pushing against him, preventing him from falling apart.

“I told you man,” Donghyuck had said one night right after Jaemin’s twenty-third birthday, when he’d started his first residency and had a thing for Donghyuck’s sun-kissed skin and sense of humour, even though he was an asshole. He’d crashed on the couch Jaemin shared with his at-the-time roommate Karina, and his words were slurred together from too much soju. Despite feeling old and having accomplished nothing, Jaemin was warm and wasted, and hadn’t been able to stop his impulsive self from mumbling about how the seven of them shouldn’t have been friends for as long as they had. “We’re one for the history books.”

And although Jaemin had felt worthless and directionless and couldn’t imagine what he’d done in a past life to deserve six people’s kindness, let alone be associated with them, he’d agreed.)

They have half a day in Tokyo before the afternoon shinkansen Renjun is delegated with buying them all tickets for. Chenle gets his plastic diet when they shuffle to the seven-eleven downstairs to buy assorted packaged bread and onigiri for breakfast and sit across the two beds that Jaemin, Chenle, Jisung and Jeno had shared, discussing their plans before meeting at Ueno for the bullet train. Half a day is nothing to explore Tokyo, which is why they have a few extra days on the returning leg of their journey. Still, the group divides between two main activities. Half will stay around Ueno for Ueno park with its museums and zoo, and half want to check out shinjuku and shibuya and do some light shopping.

Jaemin and Jisung are both undecided. On one hand, Jaemin would love some Japanese streetwear, on the other, it’s not every day you can go to the Tokyo National Museum. Jaemin would be a hypocrite for calling Chenle uncultured and then not going to see one of the (allegedly) best history museums in Japan.

“I think I’ll go to Shibuya,” Jisung decides, leaving him on team Mark and Jeno. “What about you?”

Jaemin squints as six pairs of eyes watch him.

“You’re not going to Shibuya?” he asks Chenle.

“Nah.”

“You like shopping though.”

“It’s too much effort.”

Jaemin snorts. “Naturally. I’ll pick Ueno then.”

“Alright, then we’ll meet you three at the station by two. If you’re late--”

“You’ll castrate us?” Jeno finishes, smiling.

“Worse,” Renjun answers, folding his arms across his chest. “I’ll leave it up to your imaginations.”

“Aw you’re so cute when you want to chop my dick off babe,” Mark coos, pressing a kiss to Renjun’s head that Renjun melts under. Jaemin frowns, then feels Chenle nudge him. He covers it up with a smile.

“We should get going then,” Jaemin offers. “Lots to do!”

“Definitely. Especially if we want time for lunch,” Donghyuck agrees.

“Is food all you ever think about?” Chenle asks him.

“And sex.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“One-thousand yen everyone in this room right now is either thinking about food or sex.”

“Deal,” Chenle agrees. “Not counting Jisung because he doesn’t think.”

“Hey.”

“Alright. Well.” Donghyuck holds up his hands expectantly. “Jeno and Mark are definitely thinking about sex, so that leaves Jaemin and Renjun.”

“Hey what--” Mark tries, but Jeno just pats his head with a smile.

“I am pretty hungry,” Renjun admits sheepishly. Everyone turns back to Jaemin.

“What?” Jaemin had definitely been zoning out, head blissfully empty, resuming his watch post from the bed.

“You just ate, and you’re not thinking about sex, right?” Chenle grips Jaemin’s shoulders, forcing him to look at him. “Please Jaemin. You’re all I have.”

“Well that’s--” and now Jaemin is definitely thinking about sex, because he’s being told not to but when everyone keeps saying sex he keeps thinking about it and Chenle’s hands are warm and small and oh god this isn’t happening. He feels his face burn and he pointedly pushes Chenle back. “I was thinking about the museum.”

“Liar!” Donghyuck yells, holding out a hand. “I will now take that one thousand yen, thank you very much.”

Jaemin whines. “That’s not fair! It’s like telling me not to think about my grandpa being naked. As soon as you say it I’m thinking about it and I’m not happy doing it!”

“You let me down." Chenle shakes his head.

“You let yourself down by being in a room with seven men in their twenties and thinking our default state isn’t thinking about sex or food. Plus, Jaemin is always horny. He just likes to repress it.”

“Why did this turn into an attack against me?”

“Darling please.” Donghyuck slides down onto Jaemin’s lap. “You just bought me my lunch. I would never attack you.”

“I’m disowning this family.”

The room laughs; they call his bluff.

It’s cold out but sunny, leaving the sky a bright blue and Jaemin huddling into his puffy jacket with a cashmere scarf Jisung had given him for Christmas two years ago. Ueno is different in the daytime compared to night, no longer washed out neon but everything a soft shade of grey. It’s still bright and foreign; Jaemin had always imagined Tokyo to be something like Seoul given their proximity (and less than savoury history) but it couldn’t be farther from the truth. Where Seoul is broad roads and towering apartment blocks Tokyo is narrow streets and alleyways winding nonsensically between the old and the new. One moment, a sky-scraper, the next a shinto shrine and two-story house decorated with hanging plants and a small calico cat meowing on its fence.

It’s disorienting, but Jaemin likes it. A city that rarely sleeps and makes no sense is sort of his ideal, not like Australia with its neat, grid cities and curfews.

The park is larger than any of them expect, and more than once they have to stop while Donghyuck and Renjun argue over which way to go by looking at the maps posted around. Chenle just yawns, sliding a hand into Jaemin’s pocket.

“Your hands are so cold,” Jaemin coos, taking Chenle’s hand into his to blow hot air into it, then winding his fingers through it. “Better?”

Chenle nods, sleepy, his fingers intertwined through Jaemin’s. Renjun and Donghyuck stare at them, then go right back to bickering.

Chenle’s hand stays in Jaemin’s pocket the whole way, and Jaemin is surprised at how much he enjoys it. Every so often he squeezes Chenle’s hand as he coos just to feel Chenle’s death-grip back, and it’s fun. Often, Jaemin’s flirting is just to rile someone up, but Chenle is forced into standing there and taking it. It means the bar for Jaemin to push is higher than he’s used to, providing more of a challenge to see how much he can get away with.

“Oh my god,” he says as they walk past the giant lake in the middle of the park, which has fucking swan boats on top. “Oh my god, Chenle, we have to go.”

“What? Ew.” Chenle grimaces as he looks out at the lake. “That’s so corny.”

Jaemin turns to him with the biggest puppy eyes he can manage.

“Please,” he tries. “Please. Chenle. Lele. Le le le le le le le, le le le, le le le--” he continues, saying each syllable to the tune of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.

“Oh my god fine,” Chenle relents. “We’ll go on the dumb bird boat.”

“Woo!” Jaemin throws his hand into the air in a fist pump, still holding Chenle’s. Chenle flops around like a limp doll as Jaemin drags him forward. “This is the anime classic. I want to do it so bad.”

“You’re such a weeb,” Chenle comments, but while the old Jaemin would’ve seen this biting remark as proof of Chenle’s dislike for him, he sees it in a new light now. There’s fondness in there, somewhere, hidden carefully under a careful mask of disinterest. It’s odd, Jaemin had never particularly taken Chenle as one to hide himself, but now it’s impossible not to see.

“Why are you smiling at me like that?”

“No reason,” Jaemin answers as they approach the dock and are ushered into a bright pink swan boat. “Here.” He neatens Chenle’s bangs.

“What are you doing?”

“A performance my darling.” Jaemin’s eyes flick to Renjun and Donghyuck who had opted out to watch instead, sitting on a park bench at the other edge of the lake. Jaemin steps down into the boat and holds out a hand. “You coming?”

It’s fun to paddle around the lake and argue with Chenle over who gets to steer and where they go. It’s cold out over open water, and every breath emerges in a fog in front of their face. They spot turtles and ducks in the water and let the boat stay still to watch as Jaemin coos, and even some of the pre-bloomed global warming induced cherry blossoms stretch out over the water, leaving rings of petals on the surface that are a soft pink.

“Isn’t this romantic?” Jaemin asks. “I’m such a good fake-not-boyfriend.”

“I guess so,” Chenle relents, staring at him strangely for a moment before looking away.

With their time limit done, they make it to the museum, which turns into Renjun, Donghyuck and Jaemin absorbing every piece of information while Chenle finds a chair in each room to sit on and nap.

“He’s so uncultured,” Jaemin sighs and tuts as he and Renjun examine ancient Japanese pottery. Renjun’s eyes are alight, taking in every single detail and examining it from every artistic angle he can. It’s one of those things Jaemin has always liked about him --so much passion, so much attention to detail.

“Hm? Oh.” Renjun glances away to see Chenle dozing on a black sofa in the corner of the exhibit. “Yeah well… that’s Chenle for you. Lazy.”

“I’d never noticed,” Jaemin admits as they walk together to the next piece, a cabinet filled with delicately carved chests inlaid with mother of pearl.

“That’s unlike you,” Renjun chuckles, and it makes Jaemin cock his head. He always feels quieter around Renjun, calm. It’s a version of himself he likes, and probably part of the reason why Renjun’s smile feels like a knife in his chest. “I mean... you’re always observant.”

The way Renjun knows Jaemin makes him shudder, even after all this time.

“I feel like I’ve always seen him, but I’ve just begun to notice.” It’s not a lie, it’s the beauty of their little arrangement, feeding into the believability aspect. Jaemin doesn’t have to pretend to be Chenle’s dedicated boyfriend, he just has to pretend they’re at the cusp of --something. And even if that something is far less romantic than they’re allowing the group to believe, it’s still something.

“Well I’m glad. I’ve always thought you two are alike in the strangest ways.”

“Really?” That surprises Jaemin. “How so?”

“You’re… hm…” Renjun mulls over his words, as thoughtful and considerate as always, never wanting to cross a line. “I think you’re both lonely and both very good at pretending you’re not. Maybe that can cancel out when you’re with each other.”

Jaemin is stunned speechless, no idea how to respond. He never knows how to deal with Renjun seeing him inside and out, and the way it deludes him into believing that Renjun could ever return his feelings. Jaemin’s heart tries to claw out his throat, but it’s forced back down when Chenle winds an arm around his waist.

“Can we eat soon? I’m starving.”

“You heard the baby,” Jaemin coos, pinching Chenle’s cheek.

“Yeah yeah, I’ll go find Donghyuck.” Renjun follows it up with something mocking and sharp in Mandarin that Chenle parrots right back, snarky, then wanders through the rooms behind them to find Donghyuck.

“What’d he say?” Jaemin asks.

“Nothing important or remotely mature.” Chenle leans his whole body on Jaemin. “You know, I’m not sure our arrangement works if you’re always looking at Renjun like he hung all the stars in the sky.”

“I-- I don’t do that.”

“You totally do. It’s kinda pathetic.” Chenle stares at him for a long moment. “You hate yourself so much you only want things you can’t have, huh?”

“What? No.” Jaemin blinks, rapidly, trying to find an argument. He comes up short. “Um--”

“Uh-huh. There, there, lover boy.” Chenle’s hand smooths through his, warm and solid and real. “Focus on me, remember? That’s the whole point.”

And with that simple command Jaemin finds it hard to do anything else, his heart still pounding from where Chenle had cut it open and his brain experiencing the grandpa naked dilemma all over again. Focus on me, Chenle had ordered, so Jaemin obeys, taking in his soft black hair and the gucci print of his hoodie beneath his puffy black coat and the silver ring around his index finger bringing a cool touch of metal between Jaemin’s hands. Chenle smells like the rose soap in the hotel bathroom and body wash and Jaemin inhales it the same way Chenle inhales nicotine, hoping it will slow the rapid pounding of his heart.

It doesn’t make any sense; when Renjun points out the hidden parts of Jaemin it’s warm and gentle, like coercing a wild animal out of its hole. When Chenle does it it’s fear-inducing and completely unexpected, like an icy gust of wind emerging from a tunnel. Then again, Chenle is loud where Renjun is quiet, sharp where he’s soft. Maybe it makes sense that the way they view Jaemin is so entirely different from the other.

They pick a ramen restaurant in the station’s underground and Chenle steals gyoza from Jaemin’s tray with fingers tracing patterns on top of his thigh. He finds it hard to care. Mark shows off his shinjuku finds to a smiling Renjun and Chenle drags Jaemin away to the bakery with him, where they buy more snacks for the train ride up to Nagano. Chenle gets a custard danish and Jaemin gets two red-bean buns and they tuck the neatly wrapped treats into the top of Chenle’s bag, his small hands careful not to squish them because Chenle can wrench Jaemin’s heart against the wall yet treat sugary pastries like a delicacy. He’s inconsistent like that.

The train has rows of three, so Jaemin gets to sit between Jeno and Chenle and feel that weird tension that’s always present whenever they’re near each other. Donghyuck was right, they are all constantly thinking about sex, and it should probably make them function a lot more poorly than they do. Jeno plays games on his phone and Chenle rests his chin on his palm and gazes out the window, airpods cutting him off from the world.

He catches Jaemin staring and turns.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Jaemin shakes his head. The countryside of Japan scrolls behind Chenle at three-hundred-and-twenty kilometres per hour in shades of green and grey and blue. “Can’t I just admire the artwork?”

“Ugh.” Chenle rolls his eyes, disgusted, and Jaemin even hears Jeno snort behind him, though when he turns his eyes are on the game, headphones in. Jaemin squints.

“I should have never given you permission to flirt with me,” Chenle says, and Jaemin realises that the double meaning behind that is only between the both of them. “You’re insufferable.”

“I’m starting to believe you like it,” Jaemin says, unsure of where this newfound confidence has arisen between them. Chenle’s lips twitch, and he returns to watching out the window.

Nagano is another sprawling train station but a much quieter city in comparison. It’s just as cold, though, and they have an hour to kill, too tired to do much more than camp out in Starbucks at the station, mooching off of free wi-fi.

Chenle takes out their pastries to split over coffee, cutting his danish in half and offering out towards Jaemin. He smiles, touched, and wordlessly holds out a red bean bun in return, watching the way Chenle licks powdered sugar off his thumb.

“I think we should make it in time for the rental place,” Mark announces from the seat beside Chenle. “So we can get going first thing tomorrow y’know?”

“So cute,” Chenle coos, pinching Mark’s cheek. Jaemin watches the gesture in silent contemplation. “Eager Canadian beaver.”

“The point of coming here is to board, so I’m gonna board, man.”

Chenle laughs and Jisung says, “I thought the point was a group vacation between friends?”

“Ew,” Donghyuck adds. Renjun hits him.

Mark and Chenle get into a rambling conversation about snowboarding that involves a lot of cooing from Chenle and Jaemin realises he’s a goddamn hypocrite, because Chenle looks at Mark like he’s holding up the moon and it makes Jaemin want to reach across the table and grab him by the chin and say, focus on me. He’s not used to the sensation all of a sudden, and the sheer intensity of it curls uncomfortably hot in his gut. He forces himself to look away, and finds Renjun looking at him. When they make eye-contact, Renjun offers a small smile and a wave. Jaemin tips his plate towards him to offer the last bite of danish and Renjun shakes his head with a knowing smile.

What a mess.

Their bus comes by five, and Chenle naturally wrenches Donghyuck out of his seat --which he lets go with loud, embarrassing dramatics-- before settling next to Jaemin.

“Keep doing this and I’m going to think I’m your favourite,” Jaemin teases, smiling.

“Don’t let your head get any bigger. Maybe you just have the comfiest shoulders.”

“My head will never live up to your size standards, my sweet cabbage,” Jaemin coos, cupping Chenle’s face to demonstrate. Chenle slaps his hands away.

Chenle does doze off on his shoulder once more and Jaemin lets him, making sure to stay still so as not to disturb him. He’s missing the view; the Japanese countryside is gorgeous and nothing like anything Jaemin has ever seen before. Quaint, traditional houses and sprawling rice patties give way to mountains and pine trees blanketed in a thick coating of white snow. Jaemin watches it fall between the wires of telephone poles with an awe-struck breath he can’t hold in.

Snow makes him think of crisp sunny Jeonju days turned to dreary Seoul winters, and the KTX line connecting his father’s countryside house to his mother’s highrise apartment. He loves Australia, and spends more time thinking in English than any form of Korean, dialect or otherwise, but he misses South Korea in the little moments when he allows himself to, spreading out enough to have the room to do it. Jaemin will always exists in pieces that way; part of him never left the cluttered Jeonju streets, part of him lies sleeping in a city that’s always awake, and part of him is rooted in the upside-down world of another hemisphere yet here in Japan, with a boy he can’t make sense of sleeping on his shoulder.

Maybe that’s why it’s good, then, that in his third home he found six people to keep his pieces altogether. He’d fall apart without them.

“Pretty huh?” Mark asks from across the aisle, Jaemin turning to watch him. His eyes are fixed on the window beyond Jaemin’s head, and Renjun is drawing something on his iPad, headphones in beside him. “Snow always makes me think of home.”

“Me too,” Jaemin agrees. Australia can import half the world in the form of brand chains and enough diaspora to fill out entire cities but it will never have snow. “Makes me miss Seoul.” He gives Mark a small smile. “Vancouver is still home, huh?”

Mark laughs nervously.

“It’s not like Australia isn’t,” he answers, and he turns to look at Renjun with a smile that makes Jaemin want to throw up. “Just… I dunno. Home doesn’t have to be singular. Hearts are big enough to exist in more than one place.”

“And stretch across entire oceans? Maybe.” Jaemin brushes a stray bang away from Chenle’s eyes, his eyelids fluttering in his sleep. “It’s a nice thought.”

“You say that like you don’t agree.” Mark laughs. “Where’s home for you, then?”

It’s hard for Jaemin to say. His tiny, empty aching apartment and his stainless steel french press doesn’t feel right, but when he’d gone back to Seoul for Lunar New Year last month he’d felt like a foreigner with his blue passport. The pieces of him are scattered around the globe, sure, but they’ve yet to find a place to dig their roots.

“Who knows? Maybe it’s this bus,” Jaemin jokes, smile widening when Mark laughs.

“You’re so weird, man.”

“Thank you.”

Their hotel is all Western-style lodgings, with a fake deer’s head (at least, Jaemin hopes it’s fake) above a large fireplace and thick rugs covering the carpeted floors. There’s a bar adjacent to the lobby, and Renjun collects all seven multi-coloured passports in order to check them in.

“Woah,” Chenle remarks, craning his neck to examine the high ceilings. “This place is awesome.”

“Right? I can’t wait to get smashed.” Donghyuck slings an arm over Chenle’s shoulders.

“I just want to get on the mountain,” Mark adds, and though he remains quiet, Jaemin agrees. He hasn’t been skiing since his parents were still together, which is… yeah. Been a while. Ski trips are the sort of things uni students can dream about and never afford --especially when going to Australia’s pathetic mountains isn’t worth the cost. They’d dreamed for years of being adults with stable enough incomes to afford the whole thing, and now they’re here. “So let’s hurry up and get our rentals.”

“Wah Canada, so impatient,” Donghyuck chides. “Tortoise wins the race you know.”

“Tortoise won’t be able to race if he doesn’t have a board,” Mark argues, huffing. He jumps from foot to foot. “I wanna gooo.”

“So CUTE!” Chenle coos for the umpteenth time, but Jaemin impulsively grabs Chenle’s hands.

“My fingers are cold, won’t you warm them my roasted yam?”

“That’s dangerously close to ‘sweet potato’, which you’ve used before.”

“But still different.” Jaemin smiles and forces their hands up together in a single gesture. Chenle relents and blows warm air over Jaemin’s knuckles. Despite the heat, Jaemin shivers.

“Okay we have three rooms,” Renjun announces, holding three paper cards with keys inside. “One bunk with a double, two singles, and a king.”

“Well you and Mark should take the King bed, right?” Jisung says.

“Man are you kidding? We see each other all the time,” Mark complains. “Let’s mix it up.”

Renjun smiles. “I agree. Let’s leave it up to chaos.”

Jaemin is impressed at how good they are at being a couple without ever acting like one. Too much exclusivity and they teeter over into disrupting group dynamics; this is just one of many ways they justify the seven remaining a seven, rather than five and two. In a way, it makes him feel worse. He wishes Renjun wouldn’t make friendship feel so easy.

“Well what does everybody want?” Donghyuck asks as they sit around one of the round tables in the lounge area, the three keycards in front of them in the centre like divvying up treasure. They go clockwise: almost everyone wants the double bed in the bunk room, save for Jisung who’s happy with a single.

Mark, next to Chenle with Chenle’s arm over his shoulders says, “I thought maybe Chenle and I can split the bunk or something. Weren’t we talking about sharing a room?”

Chenle’s expression is calm but frozen, taut in a way like ice that’s about to break.

“Actually, I thought Jaemin and I would share,” he answers, which startles Jaemin even though it had been a part of their plan since the start. “If the resident couple won’t take the King bed, I will. Well?”

Jaemin blinks, realising Chenle has turned to look at him.

“Hm? Oh sure, okay.”

“Now wait a minute,” Donghyuck interjects. “We can’t have that.”

“Why not?” Jeno asks, blinking.

“Because if these two share a bed they’re going to have sex and I will not let this incestuous family ruin my trip.”

Jaemin’s jaw drops and Chenle says, “That is so not happening.”

“No it totally is,” Donghyuck argues, “we already established everyone here is horny. At least if Mark and Renjun are having sex it’s a regular occurrence.”

“Do you really think none of us can last a single week without fucking?” Renjun asks, incredulous.

“We’re all scum. I’m overruling the request.”

“You can’t do that!” Chenle argues. “This is a democracy!”

“No this is a beneficial dictatorship and I am your supreme overlord and we have all been in each other’s pants enough to create the weirdest friendship dynamic in history. Let’s not tip the scales by having the two who hang out the least also fuck. It’s just wrong.”

Jaemin, despite himself, laughs. When Chenle glares at him he clears his throat instead, stifling it.

“This is so perverted,” Jisung says. “If they want the bed just let them. What they do in it isn’t any of our business.”

“Hey,” Donghyuck says, switching to Korean. “You listen here brat you respect your elders or else I’ll shove my foot so far up your behind--”

“You can’t talk to me like that!!”

“What’s he saying?” Chenle asks as he leans over to whisper in Jaemin’s ear, Donghyuck and Jisung continuing to have a Korean outburst in the middle of the lobby. Donghyuck has always said he’s better at insulting people in his mother tongue, and as he comes up with a colourful depiction of Jisung’s sweet elderly Grandmother and a pair of tiger sharks Jaemin feels he must agree.

“Nothing important or mature,” he responds. They smile at each other.

Renjun, watching this for a moment, turns and says, “Alright. Chenle and Jaemin can have the king bed, I’ll room with Jisung and the singles. Mark, Jeno and Donghyuck can fight amongst each other for who gets which.”

“We can arm wrestle for the double,” Jeno provides innocently with a very uninnocent smile on his face.

“No way in hell is that happening,” Mark mumbles. "Let's thigh wrestle instead."

“So then we’ll finally learn out of Mark and Donghyuck who topped and who bottomed huh?” Chenle teases, a sick smile of satisfaction on his face because he loves to torture others by bringing up their darkest secrets and putting them in the spotlight. Jaemin empathizes. “On the bunk bed of course.”

“That’s-- That’s so-- You--” Mark stammers. “Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute.”

“I take the top then,” Donghyuck answers coolly. They all go ooooohh, except for Renjun, who rolls his eyes.

“You guys ever consider that if one of us got like, chlamydia then we’d all have it?” Jaemin offers.

“Is this what you think about? Really?”

“Why?” Jaemin asks, sliding a hand onto Chenle’s thigh just to watch him suppress the urge to push it off. “Would you rather I think about you?”

“Oh my god Donghyuck is right,” Jisung blurts. Jaemin doesn’t grace him with an answer, just smiles an innocent smile that Jeno should be proud of as he leans forward to slap his palm over the King bedroom key, dragging it across the table.

“Shall we?” he asks Chenle, making a show of holding his hand out and holding the key up in his other. Chenle looks pale, but takes it.

They leave the group to their bickering as Renjun coddles Jisung to get him to the elevator, and Jaemin plays the part of Prince Charming and carries Chenle’s luggage up the flight of stairs to the first floor.

“You’re unbelievable,” Chenle tells him. “You enjoy this way too much.”

“I may as well get something out of it,” Jaemin responds, holding the door open for Chenle to enter first. “Though maybe you’re onto something with the pettiness thing. The look on Mark’s face when you refused to room with him was pretty good.”

Jaemin had said it in hopes that Chenle would agree, but he only kicks off his shoes and hums, flopping onto the king bed like a starfish. Against crisp white sheets his outline is so stark, the midnight sheen to his hair and his broad shoulders thinning down to a small waist where pale skin shows in a neat strip where his hoodie has been hitched up in the process. Chenle had been nineteen when they’d met, baby-faced and short and in desperate need of a second puberty. Jaemin always thinks he’s smaller than he is, when in reality they stand at the same height. It’s another dichotomy his brain struggles to reconcile.

“We should probably go down for our rentals huh?” Chenle’s eyes are shut, the exhaustion catching up to him in a way that softens his sharp outline. Jaemin is still so unused to spending time with him one-on-one and seeing his vulnerabilities. He doesn’t know how to process it, doesn’t know how to deal with the version of Chenle in reality that’s so very different to the one Jaemin had made in his head. It’s like a film reel overlay where the slides don’t match up, and Jaemin is watching each frame flicker through trying to make sense of the negative space. The more he understands of Chenle, the less he makes sense.

“I guess,” Jaemin replies, sliding into the space beside Chenle. The bed is large and soft and clean. They stare at each other in a parallel for a moment. “I don’t get you,” Jaemin admits.

Chenle doesn’t even question it, doesn’t search for the root of the thought or where it had come from, just smiles.

“Good.”

The rental place is across the road from the hotel, and staffed mostly by white expats who talk to all seven of them slowly then look shocked when they reply in fluent English. Jaemin watches Chenle give an unimpressed look to one staff member attempting to mansplain technical terms to Chenle, and hides a smile behind his palm as he wrenches his foot into a stiff ski boot.

Jaemin envies the soft-looking boots that Mark, Jisung, Jeno and Chenle sport, but he’d been raised on skis because his mother had convinced him it would be just like skates. Renjun, who’s never tried before, doesn’t want his feet to be taped down to a single thing, and Donghyuck claims to have been converted on a work trip with friends, but Jaemin is certain he just doesn’t want to be the stereotypical Gen Z boy who chooses snowboarding because it looks cooler.

“You can’t go as fast,” he explains to Chenle. “Like what’s the point? Where’s the thrill?”

“You realise I can do both, right? I’ll probably swap halfway through.”

“Oh, you're like, ambidextrous. But with skiing and snowboarding,” Mark says. “Haha.”

“Or bisexual,” Donghyuck adds. “He loves both equally.”

“Bi… bi-snow-sual. Biskixual. Bi…”

“There there, Canada, don’t hurt yourself.”

Chenle laughs, turning to Jaemin and asking, “How’d you go?”

Jaemin blinks.

“Fine. I’ll probably be very wobbly.” He holds his skis up for Chenle to examine, watching the way he runs his fingers along the edges.

“These are good all-rounders,” he commends, tracing out the wider tip and narrower body, but not as extreme as some of the ones designed for powder Jaemin has seen around the shop.

“I like the design,” Jaemin tells him. They’re black with neon pink lines streaked across them.

“You would say that.”

“Aesthetics are important.” Jaemin pouts. “That’s why you like me, right? Because I’m sexy.”

“Not as handsome as me,” Chenle flirts back, jutting out his chin with a smile that Jaemin mirrors. “But a close second.”

Donghyuck makes a gagging noise beside them, and Mark laughs. Chenle’s expression seems conflicted, so Jaemin smiles at them and slides his arms around Chenle’s waist, chin on his shoulder, just to feel the way he has to stop himself from pulling away.

They pack away their rentals and agree to meet for dinner in another hour. Chenle hogs the bathroom, so Jaemin wanders around the hotel, finding all the vending machines and facilities to offer. There’s a smoker’s area on the third floor mezzanine he makes a mental note to tell Chenle about, and of course the free-to-use onsen that will be a welcome relief after a day on the mountains. Jaemin is excited to see more of the base camp in the valley, and more of the snow.

They catch a bus into town and wander around in the cold arguing over restaurants. They end up picking another Japanese place --because they’re in Japan, duh-- and Jaemin tries not to focus too hard on Renjun choosing the seat next to him.

He fails. He always does, when it comes to Renjun.

Sake makes Jaemin warm and more impulsive than usual, and he can’t stop himself from staring. Renjun’s hair is half blonde and half black and it accentuates his long, vulpine face. The light of the restaurant is soft and golden and bronzes his skin while piercing through Jaemin’s, making him feel thin and transparent. It’s a side-effect of Jaemin’s existence; some days he feels so untethered it’s like a wind might come through to blow him away. Some days it feels like Renjun is that wind.

“Tomorrow,” Mark’s voice cuts in, tearing Jaemin from his thoughts, “I know I said I’d hang with you Chenle, but maybe I should help Renjun learn first?”

Jaemin turns, watching for Chenle’s reaction.

“That’s fine.” Chenle shrugs, indifferent. “Jaemin and I were thinking of going to Hakuba Forty-Seven rather than Happo-One anyways.”

“We were?” Chenle prods Jaemin’s thigh under the table. “I mean haha of course. Totally.”

“Really?” Renjun looks shocked. “Are you sure? I don’t want to get in the way of…”

“He’s your boyfriend,” Chenle says with that perfect mix of exasperation and disgust, waving his chopsticks towards Mark. “You can spend some time with him, you know, we’re not gonna judge you.”

“All you guys ever do is judge,” Renjun laughs, “but alright, thank you.”

“Oh my god,” Jaemin blurts, and the realisation hits him like an avalanche.

“What?”

“Um, nothing.” He gives Renjun a complacent smile, then stares at Chenle in this newfound realisation. Chenle meets his gaze and cocks an eyebrow. Jaemin just keeps staring.

Some stage after their plates are cleared away and they’re finishing off the last few dribbles in the sake bottles, Renjun excuses himself to the bathroom, and Chenle flops his giant head onto Jaemin’s shoulder because they seem to be magnets to each other at this point. Jaemin idly remembers this being in Chenle’s plan, but he feels as if that had been thrown away days ago in favour of this more natural flirtation.

“Tired?” Jaemin coos. Chenle only makes a noise halfway between agreement and disgust in the back of his throat. “Renjun knows?” he asks, quieter.

Chenle’s eyes open slowly, staring at Mark across the table, who’s busy explaining something to Jeno that involves a very creative use of chopsticks.

“Not here,” Chenle mumbles, sitting up. He gives Jaemin a slow, sleepy blink, like a cat proving they feel safe. Jaemin’s heart squeezes; Chenle is so fucking cute. “Kick on with me?”

It’s such an Australian saying it makes Jaemin snort.

“Why should I do that?”

“Because it’s not like either of us will sleep anyway.”

“You seem tired,” Jaemin points out.

“Is that a no?”

It isn’t, it never is. Jaemin doesn’t know how to say no, which is how he’d been roped into a week trip with all his ex-loves in a single room and some stupid fucking agreement with Chenle that he’s beginning to realise had only been another lie.

The group seems shocked when Chenle and Jaemin announce that they’ll stay drinking in the hotel lounge. Renjun asks, “Are you sure?”

Chenle waves him off, then slurs something in Mandarin. For the sake of the group, he repeats it in English, “We’re insomniacs anyway.”

“Ouch.” Jaemin pouts, but it’s not an untruth. Jisung makes them promise to get to their room on time, not cause any public indecency, and get an amount of sleep that’s more than zero while Donghyuck squints at them, suspicious. Chenle ignores him and winds an arm through Jaemin’s, leading him to the bar while everyone heads back to their room. Jeno stares at them for a long moment, but is pulled away by Mark.

“So,” Jaemin starts, antsy and impatient in that way Chenle has begun to make him feel. It’s like a gift-box being put in his lap and trying not to unwrap it; Jaemin wants to tug at the ribbons and peel the paper and see what gives Chenle his shape. “Renjun knows.”

Chenle sighs, settling down a tall bottle of sake that’s probably the fancy stuff because its label is elegant and golden. Jaemin really hopes that isn’t on their room tab; Chenle might have an over-paid job at daddy’s international insurance company, but Jaemin is still paying off his med school student debt.

“Let’s play a game,” Chenle suggests.

“Oh I’m not very competitive,” Jaemin tells him. “I think we should just talk.”

“It’s like truth or dare, but modified.” Chenle’s ability to bulldoze through as if Jaemin had said nothing is impressive. “Only truths. If you lie or refuse to answer, you drink.”

Jaemin’s lips twitch. “How will we know the other is lying?”

“Integrity,” Chenle replies, sticking out his chin. “Well?”

Despite himself, he smiles. “How does Renjun know?”

“I told him.”

“You told him,” Jaemin repeats slowly, watching Chenle lean back with his sake cup and a pleased smile. Jaemin matches his posture. “Why did you--”

“Uh-uh,” Chenle chides. “It’s my turn. Drink.”

“What? Why?”

“For getting too impatient. Did I forget to mention that rule?”

“You--” Jaemin sighs, knowing it’s a battle he won’t win. Chenle cackles, and Jaemin obliges. It’s really the sort of stuff that should be sipped, not downed in a mouthful. Feels like a waste not to enjoy it, but maybe that’s Chenle’s point. Jaemin swallows it all, sticks out his tongue, and watches Chenle grin at him.

“My turn~” he sing-songs, topping up Jaemin’s cup. “Why did you never fall in love with me? I felt left out.”

“Wow,” Jaemin remarks, “not holding your punches, are you?”

“Does that count as a question and you’ve skipped your turn?” Chenle rests his head on his palm with a cheeky smile. “It’s not as fun if we go easy on each other.”

Jaemin considers his options for a moment, then drinks. Chenle cries out in outrage, disappointed.

Jaemin wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and refills his glass. “Why did you tell Renjun?”

“Because he’s my best friend,” Chenle says almost bored, like the answer should be obvious to Jaemin, like Chenle isn’t this sharpened blunt boy that hides a maze of inconsistency behind pale skin and dark eyes. “And I don’t know, I guess he suspected something. He deserved to know. It’s not like I would ever try something but-- yeah.”

Jaemin hums, leaning back. The sharp, biting Chenle in his head misaligns with the soft, tipsy boy in front of him once more. The firelight is golden, but Chenle is cast in silver. Jaemin presses two fingers to his aching temple, but maybe that’s all the sake. Or the lack of sleep.

“Why’d you move to Australia?”

“Because my mother ran away and took me with her,” Jaemin answers, relieved from the stress of drinking. Is the first to puke the loser? “And then I stayed.”

Chenle hums, and the deceptively easy question makes Jaemin squint at him. Still, his impulsive need for answers surprises him, but Chenle is good at that. Jaemin is used to sitting back and getting all he needs anyway from observation alone; Chenle always makes him work for it, and it brings attention to the spaces in Jaemin’s mind he can’t stand. It’s like a twisted form of trypophobia, and he needs the holes filled or his skin will crawl.

“Then this was never about pettiness, was it?” Jaemin finally asks.

Chenle reaches for his sake cup, but Jaemin stops him, hand on his wrist.

“Chenle,” he says.

Chenle’s face twists.

“Renjun was so awkward about it,” he bemoans, mouth contorted like he’s tasted something sour. “I thought at first, maybe he was mad at me, but then I realised he blamed himself, and I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t be around him and Mark, constantly panicking, worried that Renjun would hate me or worse, do something stupid like dump Mark for my sake. It’s not like Mark would love me then, Renjun is all he sees, but still--” Chenle’s voice grows thick and his throat bobs. Jaemin’s fingers press into his pulse. “--He’s a considerate idiot like that. I guess it’s why you like him.”

Slowly, Jaemin lets go, and despite having broken no rules, Chenle drinks.

“So you asked me to pretend to be with you,” Jaemin says slowly, sorting it through his own mind. “For Renjun’s sake?”

Everything flips on its head when Jaemin looks at it from a new angle, like there had been a second camera at the location all along. Wanting to make two adults in a stable relationship jealous makes no sense, but wanting them to think you’re in a relationship so they don’t stress out about being the source of your loneliness? It feels no less ridiculous, but the seven of them don’t know how to be anything but. Of course Chenle has framed it all in the light of being spiteful and petty because he can’t show his vulnerabilities, and of course he picked Jaemin to help him. Jaemin, who benefits from the same lack of awkwardness, Jaemin, who’d fall for the jealousy misconception, Jaemin, who’s never known how to say no.

Jaemin, who is the only one Chenle has to pretend to love.

“It’s my turn,” Chenle mumbles. “Why didn’t you come to Jisung’s graduation?”

“I was busy studying.”

“Lie,” Chenle calls out. “Drink.” Jaemin sighs, doing as he’s told. “Now answer properly.”

The sake burns as it goes down, and Jaemin’s stomach begins to feel less and less okay.

“Because I felt like I didn’t belong,” Jaemin tells him. It had been three years ago and interstate; the group chat had made a whole trip of it, and Jaemin, who’d hated himself (and been in love with Mark at the time, though that’s neither there nor there, even if he and Renjun had recently made themselves official) had made no effort to get out of work or lectures. He’d regretted it after, of course, and now couldn’t recall the memory without wincing, hating the fact that he hadn’t been there. Still, sometimes Jaemin felt he didn’t deserve the things in life he’d been given, and so he acted accordingly.

“I’d always wondered,” Chenle admits. He must be getting drunk now, because his accent is loose and sloppy, and his words stick together in strings. “You care about us all so much, but you don’t like to care for yourself. It’s annoying.”

“Annoying?” Jaemin repeats, amused.

“Yes. You’re annoying.”

“And you wonder why I thought you didn’t like me.” Jaemin shakes his head, refilling his glass. The bottle is getting dangerously close to empty, and Jaemin is so drunk some of the sake sloshes over the rim of his cup. He giggles. Oops. “Why’d you leave Shanghai?”

“Because I was suffocating,” Chenle answers, eyelids drooping. “Why didn’t you and Jeno ever date?”

“Have you met Jeno? Romance is the last thing on his mind.” Jaemin shakes his head like an old man saying youth these days, pah. “Why didn’t you and Renjun ever date?”

“Because he’s like a brother to me, ew.”

“But Donghyuck was right, we’re all incestuous.” Jaemin giggles again.

“You’re so drunk.”

“Says YOU!” Jaemin points a finger at him. “Throwing glass into stone houses.” He pauses. “Wait.”

Chenle laughs so hard he snorts, doubled over the chair opposite Jaemin. Jaemin grins.

“One last round for fun?” Chenle proposes, glass raised. Jaemin obliges, and they intertwine their arms for their last mouthful, throwing it back. They don’t fill up their cups; rather the bottle and its last mouthful stands between them like a threat.

“Alright,” Chenle starts. “Why did you never fall in love with me?”

Jaemin freezes.

“You already asked that.”

“And now you’re way more drunk.” Chenle leans back and smirks, far too satisfied, and Jaemin is actually shocked. He prides himself on knowing people well enough to expect traps like this, yet he’d walked head first into it. “So let’s see if your answer changes.”

Jaemin’s mouth opens and closes uselessly like a door on a bad hinge. How is he meant to explain it to Chenle when his head is so foggy and inebriated it’s like he can’t remember how to speak in Korean or English? How does he articulate that Jaemin had been so fundamentally wrong about Chenle it makes him want to apologise, and that the thought of someone ever disliking him, of seeing past Jaemin’s quiet carefully constructed mask of perfectionism and loathing what's beneath it makes him so physically ill sometimes he couldn’t be in the same room as Chenle without wallowing in guilt and self-loathing. How can he explain that it had never been Chenle’s fault, not really, just Jaemin and his constant battle untangling the mess of webs in his mind that seek to work against him, so cruel that it cuts up his heart and hands it out to his friends like charity all in the name of self-punishment.

How can he explain that now, somehow, eight-thousand kilometres across the ocean, the sun shines in a way that illuminates Chenle in new light, and Jaemin would fall to his knees and grovel if it meant Chenle would forgive him and show him the way through the maze.

Jaemin can’t say any of that, doesn’t know how to, so instead he says, “Maybe I’ve always been in love with you, you’ve just never noticed.”

Chenle narrows his eyes.

“You’re lying.”

Jaemin wraps his lips around the sake bottle and drinks.

For the bus ride to Hakuba47, Jaemin puts his airpods in and his music library on shuffle. He has to, because every curve of the bus around the base of the mountains digs his seatbelt into his stomach and pushes two bottles of sake up his throat. He doesn't know why he'd thought drinking with Chenle on the first day would be a good idea, but then again, he supposes he's yet to say no to something Chenle forces him into.

It's funny how music can be a marker in somebody's life. The English rock band Jeno had made Jaemin listen to in high school, the Kpop Jisung had added to all of Jaemin's playlists when he wasn't looking, irritating meme songs Donghyuck would get stuck into his head by sending too many tiktoks, hip-hop Mark considered a form of cultural education, video game soundtracks from Renjun using Jaemin's laptop for D&D.

Jaemin listens to them all, looking out at the slush-covered rice patties and white snow fluttering over telephone poles. He remembers this song blasting the first time they'd gotten Jisung properly Australian-wasted and he'd puked on Jaemin's shoes, he remembers Jeno putting this album on repeat in high school so his parents couldn't hear them fooling around, he remembers sitting in Renjun's apartment with this one playing while Renjun poured wine into mugs and admitted that he was in love with Mark and that terrified him.

Memories are fickle things to Jaemin. Insomnia and an attention disorder forms a cocktail of something insidious that's prone to long, empty stretches of time in Jaemin's head, just more holes that hollow him out and make him wish he could fill them. Maybe he'll never get the lost days back, the ones spent in bed unable to get up, the ones in the darkness alone wondering how to do things without that spike of anxiety in his blood, but maybe that's okay. Jaemin still has the memories of all that's happened in between like scars that will never fade; the memory of pain is only proof of healing, after all.

He turns to Chenle beside him on the small rumbling bus.

"What sort of music do you like?"

Chenle looks at him, then takes an airpod out.

"What?"

"What sort of music do you like?" Jaemin repeats. Chenle is rugged up with thermals and his black ski parka, a neck-fleece that's patterned to put teeth where his mouth is when he pulls it up. He looks so small. "I realised I don't know."

Chenle blinks at him, then holds the airpod out.

"I like everything," he says, "wanna see?"

Jaemin takes it, tipping his head back and listening. Movie soundtracks, American pop songs, kpop that must be from Jisung and Chinese ballads, indie songs pulled straight from Triple J. Hip-hop Jaemin knows Mark always plays, eurovision hits Donghyuck and Renjun always argue about, theme songs from Jeno's favourite games. Jaemin smiles as he listens; he's always aware of how he's been shaped and changed by the people he loves, he forgets it's not a singular experience.

The song changes again, and Jaemin hums along.

"I love this song," he tells Chenle. It's been on his On Repeat playlist for weeks.

"I know," Chenle says, turning it up. "You were listening to it the other day, in the shower. It's a good song. What?"

Jaemin blinks. "What?"

"You're staring and smiling at me like a freak," Chenle says, eyes narrowed. "What?"

Had he? Jaemin raises a gloved hand to his cracked lips and finds it hard to wipe the smile away.

"Nothing." He holds out his phone unlocked. "Put your favourite songs on this playlist."

"What? Why?"

"Because I like new music," Jaemin answers. "And I have some catching up to do."

Chenle looks perplexed, but relents, tugging off his glove with his teeth to add more songs into Jaemin's music library like digging tattoo ink into his skin, leaving his mark.

Renjun had gone to Happo One so Mark and Donghyuck can help him with the basics, but the rest of them squeeze onto Hakuba47's gondola together. Jaemin is rusty, certainly, though Jisung isn't faring much better. Chenle and Jeno race ahead while Jaemin and Jisung find their footing again, plopped in the snow at the base of the chair lift and watching them come down.

"So slow," Chenle complains, slapping Jisung's butt. "Hurry up."

"You're speeding!" Jisung argues, pointing to the giant yellow signs that say SLOW planted in the snow.

"How'd you go?" Jeno asks as they shuffle into the line. They get split up two and two, and Jaemin watches his feet to stop his skis from colliding with Chenle's board in front of him.

"Rusty," Jaemin decides, tugging down his neck warmer to inhale fresh air. His lips are cracked on a good day, so the cold isn't helping. "You?"

"Was a good warm up," Jeno says, like he hadn't beelined down the run without breaking a sweat. Jaemin rolls his eyes, and braces himself for the chair colliding with the back of his knees as it swings around.

It's peaceful to watch the snow from up high, and take the weight of skis off his feet for a bit. Jaemin sighs peacefully at the clear blue skies and pine trees, swaddled in their white blankets.

He remembers being eight and still wearing mittens with no poles and having his mother point out fox and hare and bear tracks snaking between the trees. Looking at it now, he’s pretty sure they’re just human footprints, but it’s nice to pretend.

“Were you surprised I came?” he asks Jeno, switching to Korean. It’s always weird with Jeno in that regard; they’d grown up around each other in an English high school, but their parents would interact around them in Korean. Jaemin never knows which one to pick; the group had made English feel more natural, but sometimes the privacy is nicer, even if Donghyuck and Jisung understand, and Renjun knows enough to parse meaning. Sometimes, he knows, Mark gets discouraged hearing it, hating that it’s a part of his identity his parents had chosen to take from him --or free him from, depending on who you asked. Chenle just feels left out.

“Surprised?” Jeno repeats, blinking a puppyish blink. “No, not really.”

“I was wondering if everyone else was.” Jaemin folds his arms over the railing. “Chenle said…”

Jeno chuckles, so Jaemin glances at him sideways. “What?”

“You and Chenle I never saw coming, and now I owe Jisung ten bucks.” Jaemin is about to ask what, but Jeno continues, “Maybe the others thought you wouldn’t show, you’ve bailed on us enough times, but I know you. This was too important to miss, and you’re better these days. The isolation gets to you.”

Jaemin stares at Jeno for a long moment, then quietly says, “I’m sorry.”

“Hm? What for?”

“I think I’ve been a bad friend for the last… half a decade?” Jaemin’s eyebrows furrow together. It’s hard to keep track of time.

Jeno laughs, soft and deep and so familiar it aches inside Jaemin in tsunami-sized waves.

“You haven’t at all,” he replies. “You’re just too hard on yourself. All of us bail at one point or another. We can’t always be there for each other.”

“But I should’ve been--"

“I could’ve been there for you too, I know it’s been hard.” Jeno stares into the snow, black eyes turning white in the high contrast reflection. “Your sleeping issues and the overworking and the…”

“Ambiguous mental illnesses?”

Jeno’s lips curl up. “You could try a therapist sometime, you know.”

“And risk admitting I’m not perfect?” They both laugh, though it’s strained. “I’m working on it, maybe. This was a good step in… some direction.”

Jeno’s smile is content, and it makes Jaemin remember staying up until three in his bedroom at his parents’ house talking about boys and girls and the future, the two of them against the world.

“I miss you,” Jaemin admits. “I think.”

“I’m right here, Jaemin.”

“It’s not what it was and that’s my fault.” Jaemin can feel the distance he’s put between himself and everyone now, stretched out between them. They’d only been minute fractures, at first, but they’ve shaped into canyons. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t think it’s your fault,” Jeno muses, “we just hit terminal velocity.”

“Terminal velocity?”

“Well, no matter what you do, there’s always a limit to how fast a car can go,” Jeno explains, and it makes Jaemin snort. What a mechanic thing to say. “And once you accelerate to that speed, it’s hard to maintain it forever. It has to slow down eventually.

“That’s what happened to us. We were best friends for so long, it’s kind of only natural we’d drift apart. Humans need change too much. There was nowhere else for us to go. Plus, adult shit happens. I get it.”

Jaemin considers this for a long moment in the open silence of the mountain air, watching his breath fog up his goggles.

“But if conditions change,” Jaemin muses, “and you change some parts, it can reach that speed again right? Maybe even faster.”

Jeno’s smile crinkles his eyes. “I guess so.” He turns his face forward. “Maybe you should focus on other races though.”

Jaemin sees the suggestive way he looks at Chenle and scratches his nose in awkwardness. He hates lying to Jeno more than he hates bad coffee and rude patients, but telling the truth would somehow be worse. It involves too much: admitting his feelings for Renjun, Chenle’s feelings for Mark, his own naivete and Chenle’s backwards plan to make Renjun less uncomfortable.

“It’s not…” Jaemin tries, then frowns, unsure of how he can word it. “Is it weird for you?”

“Why would it be weird for me?”

“I--” Jaemin cuts off. “Have you ever cared about anyone you’ve slept with?”

“I’ve cared about every single one.” Jeno laughs. “That doesn’t mean I have the right to be jealous. You two are my best friends, I’m happy for you.”

“Man,” Jaemin remarks. “If you were even two-percent more petty I think this entire friendship group would fall apart.”

“Probably, considering I’ve seen everyone naked at least once.”

Jaemin’s jaw drops. “You slept with Mark?! WHEN?”

“After Jisung’s graduation,” Jeno answers with a smirk. “Guess you missed that one.”

Jaemin blinks. “He was with Renjun by then.”

Jeno’s smug, piece-of-shit smile grows.

“I can’t believe this.” Jaemin feels pale. “I have a bad episode for like, a month to five years, and apparently my friends are having threesomes behind my back.”

“You could too if you wanted,” Jeno offers, raising the bar as their chair lift reaches the exit. “But you have mad attachment issues.”

Jaemin is so speechless he falls off alighting from the chair and they have to pull the emergency brakes.

Absolutely humiliating.

They get lunch at a cafeteria at the base of the mountain. Chenle orders katsu and steals all the uzumaki and bamboo shoots from Jaemin's ramen, his parka over the back of his chair so he's just in his skin-tight thermals and the suspenders of his pants around his waist. There's ice on his hair from the holes in his helmet that Jaemin watches melt over time, turning into crystalline droplets that Chenle shakes away from his face while laughing at Jisung dropping an entire piece of sushi into a soy sauce dish, splashing it over his white fleece.

"You're staring," Jeno mumbles in Korean. Jaemin pouts.

They make it down the mountain in time to run for the bus, laughing at each other as Jaemin holds the door open for a lagging Jisung who'd slipped on the snow while Jeno mumbles broken Japanese apologies to the driver he'd learnt from Doyoung before they'd left.

They take the back row like popular kids in high school, still giggling together. The bus air is cold, but Jaemin feels so warm.

There's a shed outside to store rentals, and Jaemin moans when he unclips his boots, circulation returning to his feet.

"Is that what he sounds like in bed?" Chenle asks Jeno, smirking at Jaemin as he does. Piece of shit--

"Close enough," Jeno answers, tongue between his teeth. When Jaemin whines in offense, Chenle cackles. “Surprised you don’t know yet.”

Now it’s Jaemin’s turn to laugh at Chenle’s shocked face.

They take time quickly showering away the sweat before changing into yukatas for the onsen downstairs. Jaemin has been daydreaming about it all day; his everything hurts. Chenle leaves the bathroom with a deep V in his yukata, tied lazily around his narrow waist. It's a pale green with flowers printed across it, and even though it's nothing more than a generic hotel robe, it makes Chenle look regal.

"Your turn," he mumbles, collapsing face-first onto the bed. Jaemin laughs.

"Tired baby?" he coos, patting the back of Chenle's head. He grunts.

"Exercise is awful."

"I thought you were a sports gay."

"A very lazy one." Chenle slaps his hand away. "Hurry up."

Jaemin does, managing a quick rinse while listening through the songs Chenle had added to his most recent playlists. They're nice, gentle, soft, a lot of acoustic guitar and vocals, nothing at all like the sharp image Jaemin had once had of Chenle in his head.

He comes out in a pale blue yukata and runs damp fingers through his hair to slick it back into place. Chenle's eyes slowly travel the length of Jaemin's body, from his collarbones to his thighs.

"What?" he asks, self-conscious.

Chenle's smile is slow, and oh so very evil.

"Wanna have some fun?" he asks, propping himself up on the mattress, yukata hanging off his shoulder. His shoulders are always wider than Jaemin remembers, smooth pale skin stretched over pretty collarbones. Jaemin swallows. "Jisung will be here any second."

"Um, okay?" Jaemin tries, then Chenle stands, locking the door and curling his fingers through pastel blue flowers. "What're you--"

He throws Jaemin down onto the bed on his back and crawls into his lap, thighs straddling his waist. Jaemin's eyes go wide, and Chenle plants a hand beside his head.

"I'm beginning to believe I have people-pleasing issues," Jaemin croaks.

Chenle grins. "No shit pretty boy." With his free hand he holds up three fingers and presses his face closer. "Three, two--"

The last finger drops in silence as the door opens and Jisung says, "Guys are you-- MY EYES."

Chenle cackles, delighted as he pulls off of Jaemin in one smooth motion. Oh god, he hadn't been locking the door, he'd unlocked it so it would be open. From the other side of it Jaemin can still hear Jisung yelling about his ruined vision and non-existent chastity.

"You're evil," Jaemin says in realisation. "One-hundred percent, unironically evil."

Chenle's grin is sharp beneath lidded eyes, and he pads over to open the door where Jisung is writhing on the floor, cooing at him by calling him a baby and patting him with the bottom of his slipper.

Jaemin still feels pinned to the bed.

"You coming?" Chenle asks, holding the door open with one hand. Jaemin pushes the phantom of Chenle’s weight off of himself and sighs.

Downstairs, Jaemin pats Jisung's back until he looks less pale while Jeno scrolls his phone behind the curtained entrance.

"What did you do to him?" He nudges his chin towards Jisung.

"I have never done anything wrong, ever, in my life," Jaemin says.

"Uh-huh. Just don't puke in the water, Jisung. I want my deposit back."

They strip in the locker area, and Jisung says, "It's just like jjimjilbang."

"Gesundheit," Chenle tells him. Jaemin snorts.

"It's like, a Korean sauna," Jeno explains.

"Ah…" Chenle nods in understanding, then asks, "What's a sauna?"

"Like a bathhouse," Jaemin offers. "Or… I guess saunas are actually just those steamy rooms. So it's just a bathhouse…"

"English is terrible," Chenle comments with distaste. Jaemin laughs.

"Guys." Donghyuck's whiney voice echoes around the space as he pokes his head in from the entrance to the baths, privacy towel held over his junk to protect his modesty. "Please hurry up. I have a limit to how much third-wheeling I can tolerate."

Jaemin huffs, knowing that Mark and Renjun would not be remotely couple-y around Donghyuck, but follows him in regardless. They rinse off with bamboo buckets and step out into the cold, Jaemin shivering before submerging himself in the springs outlined by stones and those little bamboo water features he sees in anime all the time.

"It's a sōzu," Renjun answers from the other end of the spring, having noticed Jaemin staring. He always sees Jaemin, even when Jaemin tries to stay hidden. "A type of shishi-odoshi. It's meant to scare away wild animals from crops, but became an aesthetic feature."

"You know that off the top of your head?"

"Dude he googled it last night," Mark adds, sitting next to Renjun with an arm casually behind his back, innocent to anyone passing by but a statement of affection to their friends. “He’s not that smart.” Renjun pinches Mark’s ear. “Ow!”

“The nerve…” Renjun mumbles, crossing the water to sit on the other side of the spring closer to Jaemin like a child throwing a tantrum. He does his best not to stare, but the water is crystal-clear beneath the steam, and Jaemin has no impulse control.

He feels a hand land on his knee beneath the water, and pulls his eyes away.

“It’s really nice in the snow,” Chenle comments, his fingers tapping out a beat Jaemin doesn’t recognise on his skin. “I’ve only done an onsen in summer, but this is way prettier.”

Jaemin forgets how well-travelled Chenle is sometimes, but he’d noticed Chenle showing off all the stamps in his passport to Jisung at the airport.

“Yeah man,” Mark agrees, poking his fingers into a pile of snow next to his head. “It’s awesome. So relaxing.”

“It’d be more relaxing if you guys ever shut up,” Donghyuck states from the far corner, head leaning back against the rock with his eyes closed.

“Says you,” Renjun retorts, indignant. “When have you ever been quiet when we want you to be--”

They dissolve into their usual bickering, so Jaemin settles against the rocks in the quiet. Jisung and Jeno are having their usual summer romance in the inside pool, splashing water at each other one the other side of the glass wall. Renjun and Donghyuck are wrestling, earning stares from other guests in the spring, and Mark is still poking holes into the snow, laughing in delight when the heat from the water on his fingers melts the snow without him ever touching it.

He’s so cute, and when Jaemin’s eyes slide to Chenle he sees him staring, an unreadable look on his face. Usually, Jaemin would expect Chenle to yell about how cute Mark is, but he seems… sad.

“Hey,” Jaemin mumbles, nudging Chenle’s chin with two fingers. “Focus on me.”

Chenle turns, blinking, and he seems startled meeting Jaemin’s eyes. They stare at each other for a long, tense moment, and then something lands on Chenle’s head.

He looks up.

“It’s snowing,” he says, an expression of wonder on his face. It’s beautiful from the outdoor springs, with its zen garden decor and the heat of the water preventing the snow from being anything more than a welcome cool touch across their cheeks. Each drop evaporates into crystals upon touching the surface, and Chenle smiles up at it with child-like wonder. Jaemin forgets that Chenle hasn’t lived somewhere where it snows before, so it’s always a novelty for him.

A thick flake falls and lands on the tip of Jaemin’s nose, and he goes cross-eyed watching it melt off. Chenle laughs at him, as loud and bright as always even though everything around them is gentle and soft, and something equally as sharp digs itself into Jaemin’s gut, leaving a nasty scar.

They go to the base-camp again to eat shabu-shabu, Mark and Jisung fighting over the same thin strips of beef.

“Jeno LEEEEEEE,” Mark yells when Jeno swoops in to take it, dipping it into his pot with a satisfied eye-smile.

Jaemin continuously spins his own vegetables round and round the pot, mumbling, “Shabu shabu, shabu shabu,” to himself. Swish swish. When he finally takes a piece of carrot out of the broth, he realises Chenle is staring at him from across the table. "What?"

"You're a national treasure."

"Australia or Korea?"

"Both."

"International… sexy."

Gravely, Chenle leans forward across the table. "I want to dissect your brain and study it."

"Oh?" Jaemin smiles, not flinching. "I can think of easier ways to get inside me."

"Oh my GOD," Donghyuck yells. "Not at the dinner table!"

"You've said way worse though," Jeno points out. Donghyuck looks at him like he just killed his pet fish.

"Baby it's over between us."

"Shut up, Donghyuck."

"Make me~ you know I have no gag reflex~"

"How is this allowed?!" Chenle interjects.

"My country, my rules."

"What's your new country called anyway?" Jeno asks. "Hyuckworld?"

"New Dong Land," Chenle offers with a grin.

"Hey," Donghyuck holds a chopstick above his head like a dart aimed at Chenle. "To the gulag with this one!"

He gestures to Jeno.

"What? Am I your ex-lover or your prison warden?"

"Both, I can multitask. I'm very talented."

“Aren’t I the one multitasking and being talented?”

“Baby shhh, leave the thinking for the mastermind.” Donghyuck slides an arm over Jeno’s shoulder and coos at him. Jeno pinches his nipple, loud enough that it cuts off the argument Jisung, Mark and Renjun had been having.

“Being in public with you is humiliating,” Renjun says simply, then turns back to Mark and Jisung. Donghyuck doubles over in pain and Jaemin tries not to think so hard about why Jeno would know his physical weaknesses. It's a matter of self-preservation.

Chenle is watching Jaemin stir beef through the broth while humming to himself; he catches him and says, "Want some baby?"

Chenle's eyes flicker for a moment, and then he just opens his mouth. Jaemin coos and spoon feeds him, hand cupping underneath the meat to stop it from dripping onto the table or Chenle's chin.

"Y'all disgust me," Donghyuck says, so Chenle holds out a hand and pinches his nipple too.

They meet for the hotel breakfast in the morning once more, while arguing about which mountains to go to. It seems Mark wants to try Hakuba47 or Goryu but keeps looking at Renjun, unsure.

"I can go with Renjun," Jaemin offers. "My back's acting up anyway, it'd be nice to take it easy."

"Dude are you sure?" Mark asks, mouth a neat O.

"Yeah of course." Jaemin smiles. "As long as you're okay with that?" he asks Renjun. "You're probably sick of each other, right?"

Mark laughs, and Renjun smiles, pleasantly surprised.

"Sounds fun," he says. "Mark's a bad teacher anyway."

"Woah, hold on--" Renjun continues teasing and indignant Mark. When Jaemin looks over at Chenle, he's said nothing, focused on his bowl of congee.

“Is that okay with you, Chenle?”

Slowly Chenle looks up, giving a languid shrug. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

There’s something out of place in his voice; Jaemin and Renjun exchange knowing eye contact, while Mark slaps Chenle’s shoulder and makes him promise to teach him half-pipe. Chenle laughs, calling Mark cute and pinching his cheek, and Jaemin feels as if he’d imagined it, but--

“Then this sounds fun,” Renjun admits, smiling. “I feel like I haven’t hung out with you in ages, Jaemin.”

“That’s because he’s a ghost,” Donghyuck pipes in. “Only exists if you really believe.”

They laugh, but Jaemin’s smile is taut. The comparison is a little too on the nose.

Chenle finishes breakfast before the group and heads up to get ready, Jaemin leaves his coffee with three mouthfuls to go to follow him under the guise of him having the only key to their room.

“Are you alright?” Jaemin asks, because Chenle is usually so fluid and relaxed but right now there’s a line between his shoulders that cuts across Jaemin’s vision. He can’t unsee it.

“Um, yeah?” Chenle arches an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Has Jaemin misunderstood him again? Or…

“I mean I thought… Should I not go with Renjun and leave you with Mark?”

“It’s fine. I’m a grown-up, aren’t I? He’s my best friend.”

“Are you convincing yourself or me?”

Chenle lets out a slow breath and turns to Jaemin, searching his face.

“I just don’t get you,” he mumbles. “I can’t tell if you’re selfish, or selfless.”

Jaemin blinks, taken aback. “What?”

“Are we splitting up for Renjun’s sake?” Chenle asks. “Or mine, or is it yours? I’ve seen the way you look at him. You can hardly stand being near him it hurts you so much, so why--”

Jaemin swallows, feeling like there’s a fist around his heart. He hates the way Chenle can see through him like that, when Jaemin spends so much time masking every scar and imperfection with a careful layer of complicitness.

“Maybe I’m trying to build a tolerance,” Jaemin offers. “Maybe he’s my friend first.”

“Maybe you hate yourself,” Chenle counters, snide, his voice matching Jaemin’s in pitch to mock him. “Or maybe you’re really selfish.”

Jaemin’s eyebrows furrow together, and something like irritation flickers through him in a short, sharp hot burst.

“Don’t,” he warns. “I would never. Renjun would never.”

“Of course you’re more worried about his honour than your own.” Chenle rolls his eyes while rummaging around for his thermals. “Your stupid hopeless crush is the one place you’re consistent.”

“What’s your problem?” Jaemin asks, hurt and indignant both, frowning. “Everyone already believes we’re-- something, or whatever. One day isn’t going to change that.”

“Nothing’s my problem,” Chenle answers, sing-song like a bully in the schoolyard with a saccharine quality to rile Jaemin up. It works. “I just think you’re a hypocrite.”

Jaemin’s hands clench, and he steps closer to Chenle, meeting his eyes. Maybe if he was less broken he could learn to be more firm, push Chenle against the wall and corner him and ask him what the fuck his problem is. As it stands, Jaemin is hesitant, unsure. Chenle doesn’t so much as flinch, and Jaemin finds himself faltering, stepping back as Chenle turns on him and corners him. The air is hot and thick like the steam of the onsen, and it curls in Jaemin's gut in a solid weight. This feeling is one he knows, because it's always been between him and Chenle like a ball and chain. It’s the tension of two people trying to work each other out, a constant game of placing pieces on a board, wondering how to stop themselves from playing too much. Chenle can be petty and unashamed, and that terrifies Jaemin; if he plays too many pieces, he’s afraid Chenle will knock them all away.

He braces himself against the wall; for what, he doesn't know. A scathing remark? Another tug at his heart to put it under a microscope and dissect it? No, Chenle is never so delicate; always brute force. Slam it against the wall, make shapes out of the blood smear it leaves behind.

Then Chenle grins and says, "I like it when you fight back. It's more honest."

Jaemin inhales then, still waiting for something he doesn't recognise. Then Chenle's phone pings with the telltale notification from their KKT group chat, and he pulls away. Jaemin remembers to exhale.

"We should get ready," Chenle says conversationally, like he hadn't dug his claws into Jaemin's chest, like there isn't a thick cord of something unspoken around their throats. Jaemin opens his mouth, wanting to untie it, but he doesn't know how to. His mouth shuts.

"Right," he says, far-off. Chenle watches him enter the bathroom and shut the door with a click.

The hotel is so close to Happo-One they don't have to get a bus; Renjun and Jaemin can just walk, skis over their shoulders, feet killing them.

"Should've taken the bus."

"Yep." Jaemin wrenches down his neck-warmer to relieve some of the heat. "Definitely made better life choices."

Renjun laughs in between gasps for breath, and for once it doesn't ache inside Jaemin. He's too distracted, thinking about the way Chenle had pushed him back into the wall, his eyes a solid force all on their own.

They settle into the chair lift in relief. Renjun is so small he has to sit further forward so his feet can reach the footrest. It's so cute.

"What do you think those tracks are?" he asks, pointing at a trail leading between trees.

"Hm, bears?"

"I think they're nearly extinct here." Renjun laughs. "Maybe something smaller?"

"Maybe it's Mark checking up on you." Renjun hits him. "Ow!"

"Don't be weird," Renjun chides.

"Maybe he's a werewolf."

"I think I would've noticed that by now."

"Rabbit then.”

"Bear, human, werewolf, rabbit. Very consistent size estimation."

Your stupid hopless crush is the one thing that's consistent.

Jaemin winces.

"What?"

"Just remembered something embarrassing," Jaemin says. "You know like-- something…"

"Cringe?" Renjun offers, Mark's canadian accent around the word and all. It's interesting, the way they've shaped each other. "Me with anything that ever happened during uni."

"We weren't that bad."

"Every single day I relive that time Donghyuck yelled out my phone number in the quad," Renjun says, "and Jeno naked in the South Lawn fountain. And Chenle taking me to the wrong building so I entered the wrong class, and Jisung throwing up at that bar, and you hitting on a professor because you thought he was a student--"

"Okay we were pretty bad," Jaemin amends. "But it was fun!"

Renjun smiles. "Guess so."

"You stuck around, so you must have liked it, Renjeon."

"Renjun," Renjun corrects without thinking. They grin at each other.

Jaemin teaches Renjun with the same tricks his mother had, holding their poles out horizontally to maintain balance and going in slow, snaking lines down the easier runs. It really is a welcome relief to take it easy and relearn the baby steps himself; his back injury from speed skating when he was eighteen thanks him for it. It’s funny, the way things like that carry on all the way through adulthood. Grown-ups, Jaemin thinks, are just children with a lot more scars.

They eat tonkatsu around noon with their boots loosened up and Renjun pulls out his phone to show Jaemin his latest artworks like there isn’t months of lost time to make up for. Jaemin can’t pinpoint when between Jisung’s graduation and Renjun and Mark moving in together that his heart had fixated on Renjun just to spite him, but he can feel it stretched between them. Renjun is so kind and gentle, pretending like Jaemin hadn’t hurt him, and it makes Jaemin frown. He wishes it was as easy as it used to be around Renjun, like it is with Jeno, but Renjun has always been too observant. Jaemin can show a mere corner, and he knows Renjun will guess the rest of the page. Too much risk.

His mind flits to Chenle. If Jaemin shows a corner, Chenle will tear the whole damn book in half to read the rest of the page.

“Earth to Na?” Renjun teases, a small smile on his face. “You zoned out there.”

“I always zone out,” Jaemin mumbles, stabbing his chopsticks back into his bowl.

“Donghyuck was right, you really are a ghost.” Renjun laughs, but there’s an edge to it.

All-in-all, Jaemin hadn’t been lying to Chenle when he’d said Renjun is his friend first, and the exposure therapy is good. Jaemin had first thought distance would make his feelings go away, but now he sees that it had turned it all into pining and fantasies. Seeing the real Renjun in front of him, small, beautiful Renjun with his gorgeous full-body laugh and black-and-blonde hair, reminds Jaemin that even if he is a ghost, Renjun isn’t, and his feelings are just fantasies that will never come to fruition, because they inhabit different worlds.

It’s a nice epiphany to have.

Jaemin and Renjun can be some of the laziest of the group, so they head back to the hotel early to save their aching muscles and hit the onsen. The hotel room feels empty without Chenle in it; Jaemin wonders when he’d begun to notice how much space Chenle fills.

The whole group is banned from talking about work while on vacation, so Renjun and Jaemin relax into the hot water and chat about meaningless things instead. Old memories from uni, their thoughts on the latest Baekhyun album Mark and Donghyuck had shoved down the GC’s throats, what they want for dinner. It’s so easy to be tangible around Renjun, and that’s why he’s so dangerous.

Jaemin has some precious alone time in the hotel room while Chenle is in the onsen, so he showers and cleans his face, wondering if he should jerk off while he has the chance then deciding he can’t be bothered. He flops onto the bed to catch up on the tiktoks Donghyuck had sent at lunch, then watches youtube while his mind wanders. Jisung messages him to ask if he wants to play cards in the lounge, so Jaemin grunts and forces himself to get up while Donghyuck, Jeno, Jisung and he play spoons.

“Mark and Renjun want their alone time~” Donghyuck sing-songs, rolling his eyes while sipping a glass of wine he’d ordered from the lounge bar. It’s happy hour, apparently, but Jaemin is still recovering from the sake two days ago. If he squints, he can recall what the bar had looked like after sunset when it was empty and the fire was roaring, Chenle sitting across from him in a cushy lounge seat saying why did you never fall in love with me? Jaemin blinks the memory away. He’s having trouble, lately, keeping Chenle out of his head. Maybe it’s because their relationship feels so novel --Jaemin’s impulsive, addicted personality is forming an attachment.

On second thought, he will order that wine.

Donghyuck wins by cheating and Jeno wrestles him into the rug by the fire to make him admit it, then they split up to grab more layers before braving the cold. There’s a western-style pub they’ve decided on to break up the continuous Japanese meals, which means pizza for five and two burgers for the lactose intolerant Donghyuck and Mark. Chenle seems quieter today, continuing to yawn, but he reaches over to steal Jaemin’s fries every now and again.

“Sleepy baby?” Jaemin coos, rubbing the nape of Chenle’s neck, then pinching his cheek. His skin is so soft --the pros of youth. Chenle grunts but says nothing, not slapping Jaemin’s hands away as he continues to pet him like a cat, and eventually feels Chenle lean into it.

So fucking cute.

Everyone is already exhausted, their bodies not used to so much continuous exercise, and that lull in the middle of every trip starting to hit them. Jaemin and Renjun aren’t so bad, considering they’d taken it easy, and Donghyuck rarely runs out of energy. They grab another round of drinks in the lounge while everyone else heads up for some good old fashioned introverted alone time.

Except when Jaemin gets back to his room, it’s empty and the lights are off.

He knocks on Renjun and Jisung’s door.

“Have you guys seen Chenle?” he asks, craning his neck to see Jisung behind Renjun, playing on a gaming laptop alone while screaming into a headset. “I guess not?”

“He’s not in your room?” Jaemin shakes his head. “Maybe the onsen?”

Jaemin doubts it, frowning, but apologises for disturbing them nonetheless while stalking away.

“If I was Chenle,” he mumbles to himself in satoori with a cutesy voice. “Where would I hide?”

In hindsight, the answer is obvious; Jaemin passes an ice cream vending machine on the third-floor mezzanine and thinks, ah.

It’s deja vu from that crisp Tokyo night; Chenle leaning on the railing gazing out over the mountains and pine trees. It’s cloudy today, and the snow flutters down in gentle drifts. Still, there’s a gap in the clouds where the moon illuminates the valley, making it feel so huge. It feels like Jaemin could walk forever and never escape the snow and forest; he loves it.

“It’s freezing out here,” Jaemin says, and Chenle turns with a cigarette between his teeth, squinting into the halogen lighting behind Jaemin. “You’re gonna catch a cold.”

“Colds happen in winter ‘cuz everyone’s in close proximity to each other, not the temperature.” Smart-ass. Chenle grunts at something on his phone screen, but it’s WeChat, everything in Chinese. Jaemin folds himself over Chenle’s back, partly to be annoying, partly for warmth.

“Who’re you texting?”

“Kun,” Chenle answers, and doesn’t shrug Jaemin off. Maybe he appreciates the warmth too.

"Kun like Dejunnie's housemate?" Jaemin asks; Chenle nods. He hadn't known he and Chenle were close, but there's a lot about Chenle he needs to catch up on.

Chenle exhales a smokey breath.

"How was today?”

“Fine,” Jaemin answers, and Chenle gives him an unimpressed look from the corner of his eyes. Jaemin smiles into Chenle’s shoulder. “Don’t give me that, I’m not as hopeless as you think.”

“I don’t think you’re hopeless.” Chenle peels away to put his back to the railing, him and Jaemin face to face. “Not all the time, anyway.”

“And here I thought you were actually going to compliment me.”

Chenle grins, exhaling a puff of smoke into Jaemin’s face. He coughs and stumbles back, and Chenle pulls out his phone again.

“Hey,” Jaemin whines, placing his hand over Chenle’s phone. “I thought we’re meant to be focused on each other.”

“Like you’ve ever focused on anything in your life, pretty boy.” Chenle accepts the challenge nonetheless, sliding his phone into the back pocket of his jeans and slinging an elbow over the railing behind him while the other moves his cigarette up to his mouth. It’s so effortlessly attractive it makes Jaemin’s mouth dry; what happened to the cute blonde with all the baby fat? Ground down into a man with too much stubble and too many scars. “You’re the one that never stays on one thing. Always inconsistent.”

He prods the centre of Jaemin’s chest, and then his hand just lingers there. Jaemin smiles at him.

“I think you like it,” he flirts. He doesn’t know where the confidence comes from, but when Chenle is soft and sleepy like this it’s easy to fall into. “You like the challenge, my baby sprout.”

“Half of these endearments aren’t even cute.”

“No? But you are.”

Chenle’s hand is curled into Jaemin’s t-shirt beneath his jacket now, twisting the nike logo across it.

“You’re full of shit,” Chenle whispers, meeting Jaemin’s eyes. Chenle is so pretty, all dark eyes and smooth skin and strong brows, illuminated by the faintest white light behind them so that that snow looks like stars in his eyes. Chenle has always been pretty, but Jaemin feels as if he’s only just begun to notice. It’s funny how attraction works like that; the more you see of people and all their ugliness, the more beautiful they become.

“Jaemin,” Chenle says, voice gentle, coaxing something out of Jaemin he'll never get back. Then, Chenle kisses him.

Jaemin doesn’t have time to process it, his chapped lips meeting Chenle’s soft ones and all the heat that floods between them. Then as quickly as it had started, it’s over, and Jaemin licks his lips, always too dry, embarrassed, confused, and somewhat ashamed. He hasn’t brushed his teeth since this morning. Chenle should’ve warned him.

“I thought you said no kissing unless absolutely necessary.” Jaemin is still blinking the spots out of his eyes.

“Yeah? Well, you did a damn good job of making it feel necessary,” Chenle mutters, and his eyes fall on something over Jaemin’s shoulder. Jaemin turns then, and sees a startled Renjun turn bright red through the glass door before scuttling away.

“Ah,” Jaemin says, and his stomach twists into knots. He licks his lips, again. Still too fucking dry. He’d only felt Chenle’s mouth for the briefest of seconds, but it had been soft and warm, wet in that way that always surprises Jaemin whenever he kisses someone. He’d tasted like cigarette smoke. “I think you’re overreacting.”

“Hey, I’m covering up your bleeding heart pretty boy.” Chenle pokes Jaemin’s chest again, and this time it’s enough to push him back, stumbling. He brings his fingers up to his lips to feel over the cracks. “Let’s go back inside before he thinks we’re fucking out here or something.”

“Isn’t that what you want him to think?” Jaemin’s lips twitch. “He’d believe you’re over Mark then for sure.”

“And tarnish my dignity?” Chenle’s voice goes high-pitched, affronted. “Donghyuck will never let us hear the end of it.”

Despite himself, Jaemin smiles. “True.”

They step back into the warmth shivering, so Jaemin wraps his arms around Chenle, rubbing his palms up and down his biceps. Renjun is getting ice cream from the vending machine, pointedly staring at the glass with a red face like he hadn’t caught them kissing mere seconds ago.

Chenle calls out to him in Mandarin. Renjun glances up at them from the stairwell, uncertain. Jaemin gives him an innocent smile.

“I’m not that tired,” Renjun replies in English, holding up the häagen-dazs that comes spitting out of the machine. “Jisung wanted dessert, so.”

“But it’s past your bedtime old man,” Chenle teases, a casual arm slung around Jaemin’s waist. His fingers circle around Jaemin’s hip bone, and the lingering cold from outside makes him shiver. Renjun’s eyes drop to follow the movement, and he flushes pink again.

He says something in rapidfire mandarin.

“Don’t be gross,” Chenle tells him.

“I didn’t mean to um--” Renjun stutters, looking at Jaemin and then away. It’s cute how shy Renjun can get. “--I just wondered if you found him I’ll um. Go now.”

Chenle says something, again, in Mandarin.

“Hey,” Jaemin whines. “I’m right here.”

“Don’t be gross,” Renjun retorts, glaring at Chenle before flashing them both a smile, a quick goodnight, and scurrying down the stairs. Jaemin cranes his neck to watch him go.

“Hey.” Chenle pushes up against Jaemin, pressing him into the stair railing. Jaemin blinks, Chenle’s nose against his own. “Focus on me, remember?”

He feels like he could fall over backwards into the stairwell at any minute, wondering what Chenle would find in the wreckage.

“Careful my cute dolphin calf,” Jaemin coos. “You’ll make me think you just want to kiss me again.”

Chenle steps back with a scowl.

“Don’t be gross.”

For the third day Mark is happy to babysit Renjun again, who expresses he’s a bit more confident after Jaemin’s makeshift lessons. Chenle switches to skis, and Jaemin asks him to go with him to goryu.

“Me?” Chenle points at himself, blinking.

“Do you not want to come?” Jaemin tips his head. “I figured we both hadn’t tried it. It’d be fun.”

In truth, part of Jaemin lingers on Chenle feeling as if they’re not playing their part convincingly enough. He thinks about the quick, stiff Mandarin exchange on the stairwell and wonders if it’s his fault. The other part is that Jaemin simply wants to spend the day with Chenle --it’s his newfound addiction, or so he tells himself. Jaemin wonders if, after the trip, Chenle will slip through his fingers again. It’s terrifying how much he doesn’t want that.

“I wanna come too,” Jisung whines, and Donghyuck hits his arm. “What?”

“You’re so dense…”

“Of course you can come baby,” Jaemin coos, pinching Jisung’s hamster cheeks. “Anyone else Team Chenle?”

“I’ll third wheel for Forty-Seven.” Jeno jerks his thumb at Renjun and Mark at the end of the breakfast table, where Renjun is laughing as he thumbs a grain of rice away from the corner of Mark's mouth. “It’d be fun.”

“Well I can’t let you suffer alone, my warden and lover.” Donghyuck slings an arm around Jeno’s shoulders as Jeno sighs.

“Why do I feel like I’m the one in prison?”

“Poetic, isn’t it?”

Across the table, Jaemin finds Chenle’s eyes and smiles.

On one of their first chair lifts for the day, split up with Jisung being chatted to by a very enthusiastic Japanese man with Chenle and Jaemin in the chair behind them, Chenle asks, “Wanna make today really fun?”

“I think you and I have different ideas of fun.”

His mouth is covered by his balaclava, but Jaemin can see that Chenle is grinning from his curved eyes through his goggles.

“Jisung is oblivious,” Chenle says in that blunt way he always does with… well, not just Jisung. It’s how Chenle is. “Let’s see how much we can get away with.”

So it becomes something of a competition. Jaemin rarely partakes in such things, but Chenle finds a way to ignite that Leo spark in him, he supposes. They hold hands waiting in the ski lift line, Jaemin resting his chin on Chenle’s shoulder too. At lunch, Chenle crawls into Jaemin’s lap and Jaemin holds up his chopsticks, a clump of teriyaki beef pinched between them.

“Say 'ah', baby,” he coos, and Chenle narrows his eyes but obeys. Jisung is still staring at his phone. Bless his heart, the poor kid.

At some stage it becomes less about disgusting Jisung and more about pissing each other off. Well, Chenle tries to piss Jaemin off, but when he pinches both his cheeks Jaemin only giggles, pleased to see this more playful side of Chenle. He’s the one that can’t stand when Jaemin intertwines their fingers together and gives his cheek a big wet kiss.

“Oh my GOD,” Chenle stands up, bumping their cafeteria table and pointing a finger at Jisung. “Does nothing bother you?”

“What?” Jisung blinks, then looks at where Jaemin wraps his arms around Chenle’s hips and makes kissy noises up at him. “What would bother me?”

“This. Us. Me and Jaemin?”

“Why would you two bother me?” Jisung returns to looking at his phone screen. “If you wanna be gross, go for it. I know the rest of the group would be annoying about it, but I don’t mind.”

Chenle falls back down, stunned into silence, and Jaemin bursts into laughter. Here Chenle is trying to piss Jisung off, all while forgetting that Jisung is the one who’s seen their fake relationship the most, and is too kind to give much of a shit.

It’s too fucking funny. Chenle flicks Jaemin’s nose to make him stop, but he only laughs harder.

Jaemin is expecting Jisung to confront him about the whole thing when they're partnered on the ski lift, but instead they play chopsticks. Jisung has always been open and easy like that, it makes Jaemin smile.

“No dad with a shotgun routine about me and Chenle?” he asks. Jaemin has always been close to Jisung, but Chenle is closer. Whether it’s Jaemin’s intangibility or their being in closer age or what, Jaemin doesn’t know, but it’s one of Chenle’s many qualities that leave him envious. “I’m shocked.”

“Ew, why would I care?” Jisung wrinkles his nose over the top of his neck-warmer. So cute; Jaemin coos. “Chenle’s the one more likely to hurt you, anyway. He can have the shotgun talk later.”

Jaemin laughs, bursting out of him with a sudden might that almost terrifies him. Jisung isn’t wrong; Chenle is sharp and brash and dangerous and Jaemin is impulsive and fragile. They’re a horrible match, even if they’re faking it.

“I’m just happy you’re putting yourself out there,” Jisung admits, folding his arm over the railing and scraping snow off his board with his fingertips. “Even if you have bad taste.”

“I do not have bad taste,” Jaemin mumbles, puffing out his cheeks. “Chenle is cute.”

“So are tigers. Doesn’t mean they won’t eat you.”

“Maybe,” Jaemin concedes with a grin, cuffing Jisung’s ear. “Though he’s not as cute as youuuu.”

“Yeah yeah.” Jisung bats away Jaemin’s pinching fingers with practiced ease. “Don’t make your boyfriend jealous.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Jaemin answers smoothly. “It’s just a thing.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” Jisung gives him a disbelieving look, and Jaemin remembers a time where Jisung’s cute face and contrasting voice used to give him a sexuality crisis because Jaemin hated himself enough to thirst over a college kid who didn’t know how to sort whites from colours. Now, Jisung is like the younger brother he’s never had, and Jaemin hates the state border that separates them because he’s bad enough at being a person to his friends that live within a reasonable distance. “Future boyfriend? Potential boyfriend? Schrodinger’s boyfriend?”

“You’re so disrespectful,” Jaemin mumbles, and it makes Jisung laugh. “Who taught you to be so rude?”

“Not you, you weirdo.” Jisung pokes Jaemin’s shoulder just as the safety bar is raised before they alight, Chenle bent over two poles to take the weight off his feet just ahead.

“So slowww,” he calls, pushing forwards and bashing his poles together so they resonate with a metallic twang. “Let’s goooooooo.”

Jisung sighs, scrambling to get his other foot on his board to keep up. Jaemin laughs.

They get back to the hotel before the others who, quote unquote, missed the hourly bus because Donghyuck was being too annoying. Jaemin snorts at Renjun's text in the group chat, then tosses his phone onto the bed as Chenle comes out of the bathroom in his yukata.

"Coming or not?" he asks Jaemin, that same deep V down the smooth plane of his pale chest. Jaemin locks his eyes upwards and follows Chenle downstairs in a trance.

The onsen is as relaxing as always, and even with two days left Jaemin has already decided he’s going to miss it. Chenle and Jisung nerd out over games Jaemin doesn’t play as he zones out with Chenle’s hand on his bare thigh. Jaemin is not sixteen years old. He does not need his body to overreact to fingers tracing circles on the inside of his thigh.

However, Chenle seems to be doing it without realising, and all Jaemin can think about is how soft and warm his mouth had been in comparison to the hard and bitter cold around them on that balcony. What’s wrong with him? The list is endless, but Jaemin has had a taste of something he wants more of, and he doesn’t even know if it’s okay to want.

By the time the others get back covered in melted snow and bickering, Jaemin, Jisung and Chenle are all dry and warm and relaxed, sitting in the lounge with a round of beer Jaemin had opted out of, watching youtube with an airpod in as Jisung and Chenle play Genshin Impact.

Eventually that grows boring to him too, so he sighs and readjusts, petulantly tugging Chenle into his lap so he can watch. Chenle doesn’t protest, letting Jaemin wrap his arms around his waist as he screams at Jisung to heal them mid-fight. The game is brightly coloured and confusing to watch so Jaemin tucks his chin on Chenle’s shoulder and shuts his eyes instead, inhaling. He smells like the hotel soap with an undercurrent of sulfurous onsen water; it’s not Renjun’s flowery cologne or soft shampoo, but Jaemin likes it all the same.

For dinner Renjun researches street food towards the centre of town, and they brave the cold and snow in the darkness to head towards a large transparent marquee filled with outdoor heaters and food trucks. Jaemin and Chenle split yakitori and okonomiyaki and takoyaki on cardboard trays with wooden toothpicks, laughing over Donghyuck’s reenactment of missing the bus as Jaemin thumbs away bonito flakes from the corner of Chenle’s mouth every time he laughs and his wide smile brings attention to it. Chenle doesn’t so much as bat an eye at this, but Renjun, across the picnic table and cuddled next to Mark under the heater, does, watching with a curious expression. Jaemin smiles at him; hesitant, Renjun returns it.

“Want any dessert?” Chenle mumbles once they’ve finished, one thigh slung over Jaemin’s to keep him extra warm.

“I’m okay.” Jaemin winds his arms around Chenle’s waist to hear the crinkle of his padded jacket as he adjusts to be more comfortable. “You’re sweet enough for me, my little gumdrop.”

Chenle rolls his eyes, ignoring him, and Jaemin buries his face in the material of Chenle’s puffy jacket to hide his grin. It’s soft.

After they’ve filled up on street food it’s off to the outdoor skating rink for the tickets Donghyuck had booked earlier in the week through hotel reception. It’s incredibly pretty; a flat oval of ice surrounded by strung up fairy lights and more food trucks with the mountains and pine forests looming in the background. Jaemin follows the telephone pole tracks with his eyes, an arm permanently slung around Chenle’s waist as he zones out.

“Jaemin,” Chenle says.

“Hm?” Jaemin turns to look at him, his silver skin illuminated gold beneath the lighting.

“I asked what size you are,” Chenle says, “for the rentals? Tsk, honestly.”

Jaemin offers his shoe size to the attendant, then asks, “Have you ever skated before?”

It’s the tiny details about Chenle Jaemin slips up on the most, and also the ones he wants the most. His relationship with Chenle has always been polite and amicable, if not distant --it’s the little things that create all these hairline fractures that Jaemin wants to fill out and make the whole thing more real.

“Maybe when I was a kid,” Chenle mumbles, and he seems embarrassed. It’s cute. He doesn’t like not being good at things, and it’s an edge of perfectionism Jaemin can relate to. Except where Jaemin can count his losses and choose apathy to numb the sting, Chenle can’t dull down his competitive flames. “Have you?”

“I was a speed skater in Korea,” Jaemin admits. “Before I moved.”

“Woah, what? That’s awesome, what the hell. How good were you?”

“Ranked second in Junior nationals.” Jaemin smirks before he can stop himself. “Then I had an injury and the ice sports scene in Australia is. Well.” He shrugs.

“You don’t miss it?” Chenle tips his head.

“Not really.” Jaemin misses so much he’d only burn himself out holding onto it all. He isn't like Chenle and his eternal flame; Jaemin is nothing more than a lump of wax and a wick in comparison. But when he's next to Chenle like this, it's like he can lean into his warmth. "Maybe a little."

"You should teach me," Chenle insists, as if Jaemin has ever said no to him. As if he'd ever want to. "I need to beat Jeno."

"In what competition?" Jaemin asks, amused.

"I just need to. To make him sulk." Chenle wraps his fingers around Jaemin's wrist, and his eyes curve with his smile. "Is that a no?"

"Never, my sweet custard bun."

"These are getting weaker, Na.”

"Or maybe you're just starting to like them.”

Chenle laughs, bright, beautiful, loud like always. He doesn't deny it.

As far as skating goes the group as a whole is a mess. Jeno is steady only through merit of figure skating lessons he’d taken when he was twelve --something only Jaemin knows, naturally, because anyone else in the group would hold it against him. Donghyuck and Jisung look like baby giraffes trying to stand, but cliche Canadian Mark holds his own and Renjun's, laughing with two hands in his.

Chenle is, well, Jaemin doesn’t know what Chenle is like. He won’t let go of the barrier.

“Chenle,” he coaxes, “it’s more fun if you actually move on the ice.”

“I’m good right here I think,” Chenle squeaks, ankles wobbling side to side as he hugs the edge. “Standing still can be fun too.”

“Chenle,” Jaemin tries again, and pries one of Chenle’s hands off the ledge to intertwine his fingers through it. Jaemin is wearing fingerless gloves, and his fingertips brush through the cashmere material of Chenle’s own gloves to revel in their softness. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I--” Chenle makes a face, though his other hand holds tight. “I don’t not trust you, it’s just--”

“I’ll take care of you,” Jaemin promises, and he means it, holding out his hand. “The same way you’ve taken care of me.”

Chenle barks, a startled thing that rumbles out of him.

“When do I ever take care of you?”

“Haven’t you been doing it this whole time, my doting egg-tart?” Jaemin grins and nudges his free hand forward again. “An excellent fake not-but-almost boyfriend.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Chenle lets out a slow breath, and equally as slowly, his other hand lets go of the barrier and falls into Jaemin’s. He leans a lot of weight onto Jaemin’s arms, but Jaemin keeps him steady. “Are you gonna move or what, pretty boy?”

“Are you ready for me to?” Jaemin counters, indifferent to Chenle’s smarmy attitude. He looks unsure for a moment.

“Yeah, okay.” Chenle melts like ice in the sun, and Jaemin grins at him, skating backwards in slow loops as Chenle wobbles, dragged along. A chunk of shaved ice makes him stumble and he yelps as he falls forward into Jaemin’s arms.

“I gotchuuuuu~” Jaemin sing-songs, helping Chenle rebalance as they skirt along the edges. They pass a fallen Donghyuck on his ass for the umpteenth time who yells at them as they pass, laughing together. Minutes pass, and Chenle’s grip grows less panicked, less firm, his weight easing as he trusts in Jaemin to guide him. They skate around and around and Jaemin even does a few easy lay overs and quick moves to impress Chenle as he laughs at him in delight. Jaemin grins as he leans on the railing beside Chenle, breathing out foggy clouds in the cold and the comfortable silence.

“Okay I admit defeat,” Chenle says, leaning his head on Jaemins shoulder and shutting his eyes. White snowflakes dust his black hair and lashes. He's beautiful, but that's not new --not anymore. "Skating is fun."

"See? Told you to trust me." Jaemin adjusts Chenle's bangs, committing the way Chenle blinks up at him to memory. Slow and trustworthy, like a neighbourhood cat that's stopped biting Jaemin's fingers every time he reaches out to pat.

"Hard to trust someone that's crazy. Never quite know when you're lying."

"I can't lie to you," Jaemin says, and it's true too. He cranes his head up, watching clouds pass over the moon. "You always see through it."

"That's because I'm used to pretty boys and their pretty bullshit." Chenle brings his fingers up, curling them through the hem of Jaemin's jacket. "Have lots of practice."

"With who?"

Chenle looks up, blinking.

"You," he says, "duh."

And Jaemin doesn't know why, but he shivers, and he's sure Chenle sees it too. The knowledge that Chenle has always watched him, right since the start… Once upon a time, Jaemin wouldn't find the notion pleasant.

But now?

"Always knew you were obsessed with me."

Chenle rolls his eyes, pulling away. Jaemin feels like he can breathe again.

"Really, Lele, surprised you had all that time to play lie detector while watching Mark."

"I'm not always watching Mark," Chenle scoffs. "I, unlike a certain loser, know how to keep the hearts out of my eyes."

Jaemin knows they're spending too much time together, because he knows that's a lie. Where Jaemin is polite and distant, Chenle keeps his vulnerabilities behind a careful mask of warm smiles and amiability. It's the same language, if only a different dialect --it's easy enough to spot the similarities when you put the effort in.

"Besides, I'm getting over it." Chenle exhales slowly, like pieces of his heart are leaving with it. Bit by bit. "He told me, yesterday, that he wants to propose."

Jaemin blinks at that, eyes snapping to Mark and Renjun skating with their hands together at the opposite end of the rink.

"Oh dear," he says. Chenle arches an eyebrow.

"Going to object, pretty boy?" he teases. "Slam the church doors open and all?"

"What? No!" Chenle laughs, and despite himself Jaemin finds a smile forming. It's nice to joke and talk about the pieces of themselves they don't show others, but have learnt to spot in one another. "I meant that like, 'oh dear, I feel old'?"

Chenle cackles, though doesn't disagree. He hums.

"Well we've got a while yet. Mark gets ahead of himself."

"He is quite the romantic."

"All that homo-erotic poetry," Chenle agrees, and they snicker. "He's worried that Renjun will say no because he's a neo gay or whatever. Anti-tradition."

"Then Mark is an idiot," Jaemin says, watching them skate together with a smile. Mark holds their hands up to let Renjun spin beneath his arm and they laugh. "He should know Renjunnie is an absolute sap by now, surely."

"I said the same thing."

"With less kind wording, I'm sure."

"Maybe." Chenle's lips twitch. "He did say he wants a lot more money and confidence first, but he thinks Renjun is forever, which anyone with two eyes could tell him. He asked for my 'elitist rich person taste' once he can afford a ring."

It's funny, the way it's something Renjun would say about Chenle. Him and Mark really have shaped each other.

"Best man, hm?" Jaemin leans back on the barrier. "You're a total cliche."

“Ugh I know right, going to stand out front of his house with signs and take cringey, stalker cam-corder videos of him like Love Actually.”

“Actually, technically he was in love with the bride.” Jaemin stares. “Does that make me--”

“I’m the best man here. Don’t steal my thunder.”

“Sorry sorry.” Jaemin laughs and holds up his hands in surrender. Chenle laughs and presses his forehead against Jaemin’s shoulder.

“Does it hurt?” Chenle asks.

“As blunt as always,” Jaemin mumbles, shutting his eyes. He feels it where he always does, that pressure in his chest. “Not as much as you’d think.”

Maybe Jaemin has always been bracing himself for impact, or maybe he’s learnt how to cope. Maybe he’s found other things, newer ones, to distract from the pain.

“That’s good.” Chenle exhales. “It’s like a bruise, y’know.”

“Can’t say I do.”

“When you have a bruise,” Chenle explains, “you should always press into it as hard as you can.” His fingertips push against Jaemin’s sternum, right over his heart. “That way, when something knocks into it by accident, it won’t hurt as much.” He looks up at Jaemin, gold lights reflected in dark eyes. “Pain always hurts the most the first time around. Then, you adjust.”

Jaemin’s throat feels thick.

“Is that medically proven?”

“You tell me, Doctor Na.”

“Careful,” Jaemin mumbles, steadying Chenle’s laughter by holding the outside of his arms. “Renjunnie smells work talk from a mile away.”

“Let him,” Chenle says, defiant. “He doesn’t scare me. Twink.”

Jaemin laughs. He can feel it now, that pressure in his chest, the way his happiness for Mark and Renjun presses into the bruise by accident. But with Chenle here, laughing his bright, musical laugh, it doesn’t seem to sting anymore. He’s learning to adjust.

“Always so fearless,” Jaemin mumbles, tracing out Chenle’s jaw with his thumb before he can stop himself. Too impulsive. Chenle’s eyelashes flutter.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Of course it isn’t.” Jaemin laughs under his breath, though it’s strained. “I’ve always admired it in you. Always envied it.”

“The great Mr. Perfect envied me?” Chenle asks with mock shock. “I can’t believe it!”

He cackles as Jaemin rolls his eyes.

“I’m not perfect,” he sighs, “you know that better than anyone.”

“Maybe,” Chenle agrees, giving Jaemin a secretive smile. It makes sense for Chenle to be so fearless, because it makes the world hurt less; Jaemin spends so much time tip-toeing on ice that the slightest crack feels like a fractured bone. Chenle dives headfirst through it all and learns to cope. “You’re not as bad as you think, though.”

“Oh?” Jaemin tips his head. “Is that a compliment?”

“Absolutely not.”

“No no no that was definitely nice. That was praise.”

“Me? Praise you? Never.” Despite his words, Chenle is grinning, hands planted no either side of Jaemin’s hips as he presses him into the barrier. “I take it back.”

“You can’t take it back now, my pretty songbird. It’s mine forever.”

“Give it back, then.”

“Make me.”

Their noses are nearly touching, now, and Chenle’s smile is so smug.

Somebody skates up beside them, and Jaemin hears a voice call, “Jaemin--” but then Chenle is kissing him, and he forgets how to react.

“EW!” Donghyuck screams, and once again Jaemin is left in a daze as Chenle pulls back to grin at Donghyuck, breathless. Renjun, beside them, who had called Jaemin’s name, is wide-eyed. “IN PUBLIC?”

“I think I got it,” Chenle mumbles to Jaemin, then pulls away with a grin as Jaemin just. Stares. “What? Nobody was watching ‘till you screamed.”

“That is disgusting.” Donghyuck sticks out his tongue. “I never want to see Jaemin kissing anyone, ever, for the rest of my life.”

“It is rare,” Renjun agrees, then laughs. His ears are red.

“Yes, well…” Jaemin rubs the back of his neck, looking for an excuse. Where his friends have had old habits of being messy and exhibitionists he’s always kept his pathetic sexual escapades behind velvet drapes. Chenle, like in all other things, seems to enjoy flinging Jaemin’s curtains open and letting in the sunlight. “...What were you going to ask?”

“I was just going to say Mark and Jeno are going to have a race if you want in.” Renjun gestures over his shoulder as Chenle and Donghyuck continue bickering over nothing. “We have a few minutes left. I’m ref.”

“Mm that’s okay, leave it to the resident fire moons. They wouldn’t like me winning anyway.”

“Spoken like a true Leo.” They grin at each other.

“You guys know astrology isn’t real, right?”

“That is something an aquarius moon would say.” Jaemin clicks his tongue at Chenle. “Always thinks your perspective is the right one… tsk tsk.”

“Wow Jaemin,” Renjun teases. “Must be getting serious if you know his birth chart.”

“What? No,” Jaemin argues. “I know everybody’s charts. I’m an excellent friend.”

“Oh?” Chenle taunts. “So I’m not special?”

“Well, that’s--” Jaemin glances around, suddenly feeling cornered and panicking because of it. Liking Chenle before was easier, because the feelings weren’t real then. Now they’re tangible and delicate in their newly formed state, and Jaemin has never done well with vulnerability.

Oh dear. So he’s admitting to it.

“Are we racing or not babe?” Mark calls out, waiting impatiently from the other end of the rink.

“Coming~” Renjun calls, skating away on wobbly knees as he laughs. Donghyuck mumbles something about being homophobic and latches onto Jisung as he careens past. Chenle cackles at them, leaning against the barrier with curved eyes.

“What was that for?” Jaemin asks.

“What was what for?”

“You know what.” Jaemin narrows his eyes and pokes Chenle’s waist, who bursts out with a sharp laugh. He’s ticklish, right. Jaemin knew that already, but facts about Chenle feel different, now, somehow, as they nestle in his palms like cupped water.

“Can’t a guy kiss his fake not almost boyfriend?” Chenle jokes, and something heavy like lead sinks down Jaemin’s throat to nestle in his stomach. He’d thought each time Chenle has kissed him he’d taken something from him, but Jaemin had been wrong --Chenle had buried a weight inside him instead. “Earth to Na?” Chenle tips his head, and his expression seems concerned. “You okay?”

“Fine.” Jaemin smiles, dipping his hands into icy water to smooth the cracks over wet clay. It feels so delicate, so moldable, but he’s afraid of Chenle’s fire making it solid and watching it disintegrate in the kiln. “I think I’m gonna go get ready. Need to go the bathroom.”

“Jaemin,” Chenle says, a hand gripping Jaemin’s sleeve. He frowns, at first, then he lets go. “I’ll meet you by the lockers, then. Later.”

“Later,” Jaemin promises, and skates away.

They head back to the hotel together laughing and causing the bus to shake with it. Jaemin watches the base camp disappear up the mountain with snow and pine. Chenle grabs his pack of smokes from their room and heads up to the mezzanine before Jaemin can nag; for all that Jaemin is usually self-sacrificing, he just doesn’t feel like experiencing the pain of following once more.

So he goes to sit in the lounge, because the room smells like cigarette smoke and the hotel soap and Jaemin’s chest is too heavy to deal with that now. Downstairs, things are a little clearer and crisp, and he sits by the fire on his phone like the distance between here and the mezzanine might make the weight in Jaemin’s chest any lighter. It doesn’t. He closes his eyes and thunks his head back and wonders how he’d manage to fall for the one fucking person he’d thought he’d never fall for.

Jaemin is used to the pain of unrequited love more than anyone, but this one is different. It’s newer. It stings. He hasn’t learnt to adjust yet.

“Thought you might be here.”

Jaemin blinks as Renjun takes the seat opposite him, squinting.

“Did you need something?”

“Not at all.” Renjun chuckles. “Just wanted someone who knows how to use an inside voice. The others are playing super smash right now.”

“Ah.” Jaemin has been at enough makeshift hangouts-slash-gaming-tournaments to know how that goes down. “Not joining in?”

“I’m too bad at it. And I can’t stand not winning.” Renjun sighs, throwing his legs over the armrest of the chair. He looks so small. “You okay? You seem…”

“Fine,” Jaemin lies, then smiles. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Things.” He pretends to grow interested in the floral upholstery of his seat, picking at the embroidery seams like they might come undone. Renjun, opposite, does the same thing to Jaemin.

Renjun’s smile is knowing. “You can talk about it, if you want to.”

“I really don’t.” Jaemin shuts his eyes. “It’s complicated.”

“It can’t be that complicated. You like each other, don’t you?”

Not at all, Jaemin wants to say, because Chenle has been in love with Mark ever since they’d met, and Jaemin had been in love with Renjun until-- well, he’s not sure if it’s ever stopped. Not sure if he knows how to stop loving one person just to like another. Chenle consumes him, a wildfire that’s caught Jaemin off-guard, and Renjun feels like the river Jaemin plunges himself into to survive even though it will drown him. Loving Renjun is familiar to Jaemin, he’s adjusted to the pain. Loving Renjun is easier to escape to, then confronting whatever Chenle has sparked inside him.

“There’s lots to consider,” Jaemin says, barely a mistruth. The whole thing being fake, because Chenle is in love with Renjun’s future fiance, is certainly a lot to consider. “Me being a disaster, for one--”

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Renjun scolds. “How can you know you’ll fail if you won’t even try?”

“My track record is quite telling.”

“Your track record is irrelevant,” Renjun snaps. “Have you dated Chenle before? No. So how do you know it won’t work? I think you’re a total catch. Chenle would be lucky to have someone as considerate as you.”

And oh, how that aches inside Jaemin. How it stings like burning fingertips pressing into a bruise right over his sternum. It hurts.

“Maybe you should’ve dated me then,” Jaemin says, because he’s feeling self-destructive and impulsive, and the pain loosens his tongue. He stares at Renjun from the corner of his eyes. “If I’m so palatable.”

Renjun’s shocked face is one of guilt, and although Jaemin wishes he could feel the satisfaction of finally inflicting some pain back, it doesn’t feel any good. He sighs, sitting up straight.

“I’m sorry,” he apologises. “I didn’t mean--”

“I did consider it, you know,” Renjun admits, and it stuns Jaemin into silence. Renjun chuckles, though it’s strained. “Once upon a time. After Jeno but before Mark. You were into him too, back then, I think. It made me so jealous.”

“I--” Jaemin goes wide-eyed and thinks, Renjun knows? Of course he knows, he’s Renjun. Renjun, who saw the way Chenle looked at Mark, who dog-ears the corners of Jaemin’s pages, who babies Jisung but calms down Donghyuck, who encourages Jeno and loves Mark. Renjun has always been sensitive, emotional, attuned --and Jaemin has always known this, because he’s always loved him for it. Why, then, does it feel like a dagger in his heart, to realise that Renjun knows. Renjun has always known.

“Jaemin,” Renjun says, like he can read his mind. “We’d be terrible together.”

“...What?”

“We’d be awful.” Renjun laughs, now, and it’s beautiful. It always is. His birthmark hand covering his mouth as he does. “You and I we’re too… careful. Too cautious. We work as friends because we respect each other’s boundaries but-- look at us. You hid from me for months and I just let you because I didn’t want to hurt you and that’s… that’s not how relationships should be.

“Mark… he pushes me, he centres me. When I’m too tightly strung he loosens me, and when he’s too fiery I calm him down. I take care of the concerns of the present while he looks forward and drives us to the future. We work because we understand each other, not because we’re similar. You and I… we’d just be too afraid to hurt each other, too delicate, and that’s not what love should be like. It should hurt as much as it heals, because you should shape one another and form newer things. Better things.

“Honestly, neither of us could even make a move on the other we’re so timid.” Renjun giggles to himself, shaking his head. “I didn’t really realise it, until now. I thought giving you space would help you move on. I thought giving you what you’d want was the best way to help you but-- that’s not it, is it? You’re just like me, Jaemin, you need a good shove to get out of your head and away from your anxieties to try new things. I’m never going to be brave enough to do that for you, with or without Mark.”

Jaemin lets out a slow, shaky breath, shutting his eyes.

“Wow,” he commends. “That was quite the rejection.”

“I think you needed to hear it,” Renjun says, and although he looks unsure of himself, Jaemin watches his resolve harden in real time. “We both did. I’m never leaving Mark, Jaemin.”

“I know that.” Jaemin squeezes his eyes shut tighter, like it might help take away from the mix of mortification and pain. “It wasn’t-- I don’t want you to.”

“Good, okay, good… I really. Phew.” Renjun slumps with relief. “I really didn’t want to have some dramatic confrontation about that.”

“I’m not an idiot or an asshole.” Jaemin rolls his eyes. “Just a hopeless romantic, I suppose...”

“Yeah, I have a type in that regard.” Renjun offers a small smile. “But I think you missed my point, earlier, about needing to be pushed.”

Jaemin remembers Chenle in the same seat Renjun is in now, smirking at him over a bottle of sake, prying his fingers into Jaemin’s ribcage to tear open the pieces of himself Jaemin often keeps shut.

“I didn’t miss it.” Jaemin turns to watch the fire. “I’m just strongly choosing to ignore it.”

“It’s scary, isn’t it?” Renjun asks, laughing. “When people like us get pulled from our little burrows of safety. To people like Mark and Chenle, pain is just-- it’s nothing. It’s expected. It hurts you and I a little more.”

“It does,” Jaemin agrees, and his hand curls over his chest. “It really, really does.”

“But that’s the thing, Jaemin. The world can’t be enjoyed from a burrow. And you can learn to share your pain with people who know how to weather it better.”

“People that aren’t you?”

Renjun laughs. “People that aren’t me, yes.”

Slowly, Jaemin turns to take Renjun in, his two-toned hair and his soft, pretty smile. The light of his brown eyes with the fire reflecting inside them. Even with the flames Renjun feels so soothing, and that’s the truth how Jaemin realises he’s right. He’s always right. Renjun is familiar to Jaemin the same way Seoul feels --he longs to go back, but the truth is it isn’t his home anymore. And even though that hurts, that’s life. Shit goes wrong and changes and doesn’t work out and you move on and grow and learn to live with the scars left behind.

“What if Chenle causes that pain?” Jaemin asks. “The way he adores Mark, it’s--”

“Don’t even try to argue right now that people can’t experience different emotions at once,” Renjun interrupts. “Love changes over time for everyone at different rates. You should know that better than anyone. Stop trying to run from your own feelings, Na.”

“God,” Jaemin bemoans, slinging a hand over his face. “You sound like Chenle. I thought you said you weren’t a pusher.”

“I’m not, but I’m learning to be. Somebody has to do this for you before you find some way to ruin it for yourself.”

“It’s not like I’m the sole person in this!” Jaemin argues. “Chenle is an idiot too!’

“True,” Renjun agrees, laughing. “But he’s ten times more stubborn than you are. I’ll leave that end for Jeno and Jisung and Kun. Subtlety never works with Chenle.”

“Believe me, I’m well aware.”

Jaemin shuts his eyes and feels the hand pressing into his bruise alleviate, then, the stinging durning to a dull ache. When he pokes and prods at it, it doesn’t hurt as much as that first time.

He adjusts.

Renjun stands with a sigh, stretching cutely and rolling his neck.

“I’m going to go back before Hyuck and Jeno kill each other or end up fucking again.” He holds out a hand. “Want to come or want to lament here in peace?”

“I’m good where I am right now, I think. Even if you’re trying to push me out of it.”

When Renjun smiles, Jaemin manages to return it.

“Suit yourself.” Renjun’s eyes fall on something over Jaemin’s head, and he swivels to meet it, spotting an unsure Chenle frozen at the bottom of the stairwell. “We can tag team.”

Renjun walks past Chenle and says something Jaemin can’t hear. Chenle opens his mouth, then shuts it, grumbling into the collar of his hoodie. Renjun laughs at him --that, Jaemin does hear-- then disappears upstairs. Chenle approaches the fireplace with uncharacteristic timidness, hands in his pockets.

“Hey,” he greets.

“Hello my sweetness,” Jaemin coos, making grabby hands that Chenle ignores as he takes the seat Renjun once had. He smells like nicotine even over the woodfire smoke. “How was your cancer inducing?”

“Very relaxing.” Chenle’s lips twitch. “How was your life-ruining crush?”

“About as romantic as ever.” Chenle smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Jaemin wants to change that. “Actually, he rejected me flat out.”

Chenle’s eyes widen. “What?”

“He rejected me,” Jaemin reiterates. “Told me he’s never leaving Mark and we wouldn’t ever work together so I should get over myself.”

“You’re joking.” His mouth hangs open. “He knows?”

“Of course he knows, he’s Renjun. Honestly, I’m an idiot for thinking he wouldn’t.”

“Jesus.” Chenle slumps with a long, slow breath. “How do you… are you okay? I mean…”

“I’m fine.” His concern makes Jaemin smile, touched. “It’s not like he doesn’t reject me everyday already. In a way, it was quite cathartic to hear it from the horse’s mouth, or however that saying goes.”

“Then… I’m glad?” Chenle offers, mouth twisted in confusion. “Sorry, though, I didn’t mean for this to…”

He trails off, Jaemin is just startled he’d even bothered feeling apologetic. Not a very Chenle move.

“It’s okay. It would’ve happened eventually.”

“Or you would’ve fallen in love with someone else.”

Jaemin smiles. “Or that.”

“Who’s next in your future do you think?” Chenle teases. “Mark? Donghyuck? Maybe back to the vintage classics like Jeno.”

“Donghyuck was a phase I will never relive.” Jaemin shudders at the thought. He looks at Chenle. “Maybe I’m done being in love with all my friends.”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“Why not? People change.”

“Maybe, but your heart will always be too big.” Chenle laughs, as Jaemin just watches him do it. He’s so pretty like this, in the firelight, with his soft, curly black hair and crunchy sweats. “And you love being a cliche.”

“That’s true,” Jaemin agrees, just to hear Chenle laugh again. Falling for the person you’re pretending to date, though --that’s the biggest cliche of all. Jaemin shuts his eyes. “We should head back and sleep. I’m exhausted.”

“Probably,” Chenle says, though neither of them move. They both watch the fire with open eyes until the smoke makes Jaemin’s too watery. He yawns, stretching, physically and emotionally burnt out both. He’s not used to Chenle being quiet, but maybe he could learn to be.

He certainly wants to.

The newfound feelings make Jaemin squirm, so he stands and holds a hand out to pull Chenle up. Once he’s standing, Chenle still doesn’t let go, clinging onto Jaemin’s fingers with a sort of hesitancy Jaemin isn’t used to seeing in Chenle, but is learning to spot. Whether it’s romantic or not they have a new level of intimacy, now, and it’s cute to see Chenle uncertain of how to navigate it. Refreshing to know their reformed relationship isn’t confusing to Jaemin alone.

Chenle yawns then, pressing his sleepy face to Jaemin’s shoulder as he leads them back to the room. He’s so fucking cute. They take turns brushing their teeth and washing their faces, Jaemin changing into pyjamas and sliding under the doona.

“I’m surprised you didn’t play smash with the others,” he admits, breaking their comfortable silence. Chenle hums, snuggling down into the pillows. So cute.

“Didn’t wanna,” he mumbles, “wanted to hang out with you.”

The honesty catches Jaemin off-guard, and while his first instinct is to say something to ruin the mood, he decides not to. He hides his smile in the dark and strokes Chenle’s hair instead, waiting for sleep to claim two insomniacs. Chenle always brings dichotomies like that around with him, but it’s okay. Jaemin is learning to live with them.

For the second last day at Hakuba they decide to go to Hakuba47 together. Jaemin and Chenle meet the others for the buffet breakfast downstairs and get ready in a comfortable silence Jaemin isn’t used to. Chenle plays his music from Jaemin’s bluetooth speaker and Jaemin adds the ones he likes to his recent playlist and they settle into this new shape they’ve formed.

They sit on the bus together and Jaemin ignores Donghyuck’s jokes just to piss him off and joins the others in laughing at him when he boils with frustration. Chenle rests his head on Jaemin’s shoulder and Jaemin feels him shake with his laughter as Chenle tugs off Jaemin’s glove to play with his fingers. The air is cold, but Chenle’s hands are smooth and warm, so Jaemin doesn’t pull away.

It’s a nice, relaxing day of Chenle, Jeno and Mark racing ahead as Jaemin chills out with Jisung and Renjun behind, Donghyuck taking an even, middle-ground in the pack. Jaemin plays I, Spy with Mark on the ski lift, and waits in line with Jeno for udon. It’s all easy, comfortable, familiar, and Jaemin wonders how he could ever deprive himself of his friends when they’re what make him feel real.

Renjun had been right; Jaemin hides from pain, and he knows now, that these six idiots have the capability of hurting him so deeply it terrifies him. But that’s what it is to love someone and be loved by them in return. Jaemin can’t run from that; he needs it too much.

(The deepest truth of Jaemin that Chenle wishes to know so badly is this: he is an amalgamation of the people he loves. Jisung’s wonder and Renjun’s sensitivity and Mark’s optimism and Jeno’s conscientiousness and Donghyuck’s sense of humour. Jaemin is nothing but fragments brought together by the sealant of his friends. There’s Chenle now too, of course, though Jaemin isn’t sure what he takes from him other than a few songs on a spotify playlist; but he’s excited to find out.)

They go all the way up to the peak to take tacky photos together of Donghyuck flinging snow at people and Jeno wrestling him into the ice. Jaemin happily encourages Mark to do some sappy gay ones of him kissing Renjun’s cheek with blue skies in the background and then Renjun steals his phone and insists on the same from him and Chenle.

“From one couple to another~” he calls.

“We’re not dating!” Jaemin and Chenle yell in unison, but Jaemin is still surprised to feel Chenle’s lips press to his cheek all the same.

“Oh,” Jaemin says, then goes very very still.

“Jaemin?” Chenle waves a hand in front of his eyes. “Earth to the alien?”

“I think you broke him dude.” Mark giggles. Jaemin’s finger just raises to poke at his own cheek. “Jaemin can’t handle cute shit.”

“I was only doing what the director asks,” Chenle insists, piece of shit that he is. He smiles at Jaemin. “Hello? Anyone in there?”

“What?” Jaemin tunes back in. “Huh?”

“You really did break him,” Renjun agrees, and the three of them laugh. Jaemin smiles, then joins in.

It’s getting late, however, so with the impromptu photoshoot done they decide to ski all the way down to the base, a usual race getting started by somebody as Chenle and Mark take off yelling and Jaemin hears Jeno sigh beside him.

“I am so tired,” he remarks.

“A Taurus sun could never keep up with all these fire signs,” Jaemin agrees. Jeno shoves him.

“Shut up.” He takes off with another sigh that makes Jaemin laugh as he follows, Jisung right behind them. It’s so fun to be here, messing around with his friends, Jaemin grins to himself beneath his neck-warmer as he thinks it. He’s happy.

That’s when Jaemin gets hit in the back of his knees and barrels forward.

Falling down while skiing is disorienting, Jaemin decides. His neck hurts from whiplash, his legs are strewn about, his feet stuck where his skis are embedded in the snow, and most of all, his knee hurts like a bitch.

“Dude,” Jisung says, stopping and taking off his board. “Are you okay?”

“What just happened to me?” Jaemin asks, squinting up at the sky.

“Someone just took you out, they were going so fast and out of control…” Jisung looks down the mountain with a grimace, then kneels to unclip Jaemin’s skis. “Can you stand?”

“I think so.” Jaemin does, but his knee wobbles. “Oh dear.”

“We’re nearly at the base, c’mon.” Jisung manages to take both the skis and his board as Jaemin hobbles down the mountain. It hurts, a lot, but he bites his lip through the pain to stop himself from crying. His knee is not okay, and Jaemin is no physio, but he’s studied medicine long enough to know that he’ll be lucky to come out of this with his ACL intact. Shit, Jaemin cannot do work with a fucked leg. He’s screwed.

“Are you okay?” Jeno asks, running over as soon as he sees Jaemin limping. “What happened?”

“Wipe out.” Jaemin sits down and winces as he does. His knee doesn’t like to be bent, apparently. “Ow.”

“Shit dude. Do you reckon you broke anything?”

“It doesn’t hurt that much,” Jaemin mumbles. “It’s hard to tell without looking at it.”

“Let’s get back to the hotel then,” Mark suggests, and he and Jeno help Jaemin hobble over to the bus stop where Donghyuck, Chenle and Renjun quickly melt with concern. Jisung retells Jaemin’s thrilling conquest of getting a hit and run by an uncoordinated boarder as Jaemin insists that he’s fine. He really can’t handle pity.

“Well there’s no way you’re skiing tomorrow, then,” Chenle tells him, unexpectedly parental.

“Wasn’t planning on it, my little lollipop.”

“How do you still have the mental capacity for bad pet names?”

“Laughter is the best medicine.” Chenle rolls his eyes as Jaemin grins at him, shuffled into his bus seat. “I’m fine, Chenle, really. Been worse.”

“Clearly, if you’re still being a bastard.” Chenle sighs, flicking Jaemin’s temple. “Idiot. You need to be more careful and pay attention to your surroundings.”

“Would it help if I said I was too busy daydreaming of you?” Chenle flicks him again. “Hey!”

“That makes it worse, even though understandable. I am incredibly handsome.” Jaemin opens his mouth. “Sexy~” Chenle interjects, mocking his tone of voice before Jaemin can even say a thing. He shuts his mouth.

“You’re so mean to me. I’m injured, Chenle, I’m crippled. Are you really going to kick a man when he’s down?”

“I should do worse to you for being so careless. Honestly, Jaemin.” Chenle clicks his tongue, and Jaemin smiles, delighted at this more caring side of Chenle. It’s not a side Jaemin has been on the receiving end before, but he likes it. It’s cute.

Renjun and Jeno help Jaemin with carefully taking off his heavy ski boot, and then he rolls up his pants to survey the damage. The back of his knee is already swollen, which is a welcome relief, because it means Jaemin’s ACL probably survived.

“Seems like a sprain or a spasm,” he diagnoses. “A brace and some ice and rest and I’ll be good as new.”

“Thank god.” Chenle looks pale. “Overseas surgery is expensive.”

“Well it’s not like you’d be paying. I’m insured.”

“Of course you are.”

“We can order room service to save you the walk,” Renjun suggests, cutting off Jaemin’s retort. “It’d be nice to have a night-in anyway.”

“Definitely,” Mark agrees, slinging an easy arm over Renjun’s shoulder and kissing the side of his head. Jaemin smiles at them. Cuties. “My liver can’t handle anymore sake, bro.”

“Your liver wouldn’t have a problem if you would stop letting Donghyuck rope you into drinking competitions.” Renjun sighs, long-suffering, but his hand raises up to fiddle with Mark’s fingers affectionately all the same. “Are you sure you don’t want to see a physio?”

“I’ll live.” Jaemin waves him off. “I’ll try and ask the front desk for some ice and elevate it.”

“I’ll help,” Chenle offers, and helps Jaemin to the elevator then forces him to stay on the bed while he hunts down an ice pack. Jaemin wiggles the pillows so his leg is above his body, then squirms when Chenle comes back with an gel pack to slide under his knee. So cold.

“You going to last on the mountain without me tomorrow?” Jaemin asks. “Mark and Renjun and no buffer or the high-power shielding of my pet names?”

“Ha-ha,” Chenle deadpans. “I’ll find a way to survive.” He gives Jaemin a sideways glance that Jaemin can’t quite decipher, then says, “Need help hobbling to the onsen, old man?”

“Heat probably won’t be good for it.” Jaemin sighs, upset to waste the opportunity. “Do you think any group has done a ski trip and ever survived without an injury?”

“Nope.” Chenle unhooks his yukata from the back of the bathroom door, slung over his arms. “Better you than me, though.”

“Yes you’d be much more unbearable,” Jaemin agrees, and Chenle’s teasing smile turns to a frown as he throws a pillow from the couch at Jaemin’s head. “Hey!”

“If you stand up while I’m gone I’ll be able to tell!”

“Literally how?” Jaemin asks, but Chenle is already gone, leaving him to the empty hotel room. It’s already depressing. Jaemin’s knee is throbbing and the ice pack is burning and the silence makes his ears ring. FOMO makes him itchy, and he hates the idea that Chenle is downstairs, naked and wet, and Jaemin can’t even enjoy it a little.

Okay, maybe this is getting worse than he’d thought.

He’s debating coming clean and telling Chenle that the third dilemma is a dilemma for a good reason when the door opens and he and Jisung come through laughing together. Right, well… Jaemin isn’t going to bring Jisung into this, and he’s definitely not making excuses for himself or being afraid of how Chenle will react.

“I’ve come to save you from Chenle,” Jisung announces as he flops on the bed beside Jaemin. “And boredom.”

“Much appreciated,” Jaemin coos, pinching Jisung’s cheeks. Chenle just rolls his eyes and says he’s going to shower.

The other four soon follow, and they clutter Jaemin and Chenle’s room together while setting up mario kart on the room’s TV and ordering in room service. It’s cluttered and chaotic but Jaemin doesn’t even have to stand up once as Jeno wordlessly refills his water bottle for him and Chenle hands him napkins to wipe his fingers and Mark sits at the end of the bed careful to avoid touching Jaemin’s knee with every bite of nigiri as Donghyuck gives them all a lecture on why it’s one butt and not two. It helps take away from the pain. Jaemin will never stop being grateful.

Later, as the room empties out, Chenle crawls onto the bed and holds out a green tea haagen-daz.

“Feeling any better?”

“Aches a little less.” Jaemin gives Chenle a grateful smile as he accepts the offering. “This is my favourite flavour.”

“I know.” Chenle smirks. “Right next to strawberry.”

“Shut up.” Jaemin tries to push Chenle but fails as he wriggles out of the way, cackling. Jaemin pouts. “I hate strawberry.”

“I know that too.”

“I never told you that.”

Chenle arches an eyebrow. “We’ve known each other for over half a decade, Jaemin. I know you don’t like strawberries.”

“Yeah but--” Jaemin licks his lips, Chenle picking at the doona sheet beside Jaemin’s ankle. “--I didn’t think you cared.”

“Haven’t we already had this chat, pretty boy?” Chenle’s lips twitch in the corners, tipping his head to the side. His soft, black hair hangs with it and Jaemin’s chest compresses. “I’ve always liked you just fine.”

“You said you didn’t understand me,” Jaemin counters, and thinks of Chenle dripping in his kitchen beside his french press. Had that only been a week ago? It feels like so much time has passed and so much has changed. Chenle dissecting Jaemin’s heart on the counter to poke at its contents versus the Chenle of now with his soft bangs and soft hoodie, cupping Jaemin’s heart so gently in his palms to feel each beat. “What changed?”

“Don’t be dense,” Chenle chastises, clicking his tongue. “Isn’t it obvious? You started making sense.”

“Nice rhyme. Spending too much time with Mark and his poetry?”

“Now, see? I know you’re trying to distract from the conversation because it started feeling too real for you.”

Jaemin licks his lips. “Well I learnt my tactics from the best.”

“No, I’m much more of a master,” Chenle teases. “I never even let the conversation get close.”

“Glad to know you’re self-aware.”

“Among other amazing things.”

“Such as humble.” Chenle shifts on the bed, accidentally brushing Jaemin’s leg as he does so. “Shit.”

“Oh fuck, sorry.” He draws back instantly as Jaemin winces. “Did that hurt?”

“Don’t worry about it. It was an accident.”

“So it did hurt.” Chenle laughs and Jaemin winces again, this time for other reasons. Has he truly become so transparent? “I’m sorry.”

“Make it up to me by kissing it better?” Jaemin asks in a baby voice, lips pursed together. What he doesn’t expect is for the way Chenle obliges by folding over, pressing a soft kiss to the inside of Jaemin’s knee. Jaemin gulps. “Ah...”

“What’s wrong, Jaemin?” Chenle asks, smiling like the smug little bastard he is. “No comeback? No retort? No flirting or awful pet name? ‘What changed’?”

Jaemin hates Chenle’s impression of him. Really, he does.

“Nothing, I just--” Jaemin clears his throat, voice thick. He can feel Chenle’s breath fanning over the skin of his knee, and it’s so sensitive his leg twitches. “I suppose you still catch me off-guard, sometimes.”

Chenle huffs over Jaemin’s skin. He shivers.

“Good,” Chenle says, then draws back. “I like to keep you on your toes.”

“I’m on my back right now, though.”

“I will gladly injure your other leg, Na.”

Jaemin waggles his eyebrows. “Sexy.”

“I take it back. I do hate you.”

“No you don’t get to take it back. Not this time, Zhong.”

“Is that a challenge?” Chenle crawls forward on the bed ever so slightly, cautious of Jaemin’s knee this time around. “Don’t make me kiss you again, pretty boy. Third time’s the charm”

Jaemin’s breath hitches, and he’s hit with the distinct realisation that he’s made a grave mistake.

Stop trying to run from your own feelings, Renjun had told him, but Jaemin doesn’t know how to. When Chenle is soft and placid like this it almost fools Jaemin into thinking that this-- this thing, is more real than they’d intended for it to be.

But if it’s real then it can hurt him, the prop knife made tangible as it plunges into his chest and makes him bleed. Chenle is brash and impulsive and stubborn and blunt and Jaemin is so so so afraid of the bruises that could leave on his skin.

Yet, he’s also Chenle who is soft and kind-hearted and optimistic and brave, who looks out for Jaemin in the oddest of ways and smiles and laughs at all of his jokes, even the bad ones. Chenle who Jaemin used to once look at and feel intimidation, now he sees only… someone cut into the same shape.

Once upon a time, Jaemin had thought they were different, because they couldn’t tesselate --now he just understands they’re not so straight-cut and clearly defined. They have other ways to complement one another, even where they’re different.

“Chenle,” Jaemin manages, and his voice is weak but his heart feels brave. “You should probably stop doing that.”

Chenle blinks. Stares. Tips his head.

“Doing what?”

“Kissing me,” Jaemin manages. “It’s--” he laughs, a strangled noise. “--You’re going to hate me for this, but it turns out the third dilemma really does happen even for us.”

Watching realisation settle over Chenle’s expression is strange. First he blinks rapidly, then he relaxes and his mouth goes slack into a neat circle.

“Oh,” he says.

“Yeah,” Jaemin agrees. “Sorry.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, hands curling into fists to brace himself for the blow. It never comes.

“Well that’s good then,” Chenle says, breaking the thick silence. Jaemin dares to open his eyes. “It was a bit insulting that you’d never fallen for me.”

“You are so--” Jaemin laughs as his heart splinters a little. “--Was this your master plan all along? Flirt with me to confuse me into falling for you just so you don’t feel left out?”

“Maybe.” Chenle is still smiling as he crawls forward, but Jaemin reaches out with a hand to hold him back. Does Chenle think he’s kidding? Jaemin can’t afford any more fun and games or he’s going to feel a pain he won’t be able to adjust to. He’s done pining after boys who can’t love him back, and he can’t imagine how it will feel to have the pretend version but not the real thing. Chenle looks down at his hand and frowns.

“Chenle, I’m serious,” Jaemin warns. “I don’t want you to hurt me.”

At that Chenle softens, slumping. His hair hangs forward with his head, and then his shoulders shake with laughter.

“Um.. what?”

Chenle just keeps laughing, and laughing, and continues until he’s wiping tears from his eyes and holding his stomach. Jaemin is… confused. He knows his feelings are pathetic, but he didn’t think Chenle was cruel.

“Chenle, wh--”

“Remember how I said I understand you better, now?” Chenle asks. Dumbstruck, all Jaemin can do is nod. “I used to think you were selfish, before. Ghosting everyone and never showing up to anything. I thought it’s because you didn’t care.

“Then I thought it was because you were selfless, maybe. Because you didn’t want to get in the way of Renjun or something, or at the very least you thought you were saving us all from your own company. But I worked it out this week. You’re just stupid.”

“What?”

“You’re just stupid,” Chenle repeats. “You’re an idiot, like the rest of us. Your medical degree and internship and good looks make us all thing you’re sooo smart and charming but you’re just as stupid.”

“What are you--” Chenle pushes away Jaemin’s hands when he weakly attempts to stop Chenle from crawling into his lap, straddling him. “Chenle.”

“Did you really think,” Chenle asks, voice soft and low, “I kissed you just for the hell of it?”

“Um--” Jaemin’s voice cracks as he shirks into his shoulders. “Partly?”

“See? Idiot.” Chenle cups Jaemin’s cheeks with both palms, forcing Jaemin to look up at him. The ceiling light creates a golden halo around his head, and Jaemin thinks he's the prettiest boy Jaemin has ever seen. “Focus on me, Jaemin, and you’d learn I don’t do things I don’t want to.”

“I know that,” Jaemin manages, though it’s strained. He shuts his eyes. “But I’m not-- I don’t know how to--”

“I know,” Chenle murmurs, sliding his hands over Jaemin’s heart. He smiles. “Not used to it being requited, huh, pretty boy?”

Jaemin inhales then, and he’s sure Chenle can feel it, the way his chest swells.

“If you’re fucking with me right now,” Jaemin says, “I’ll kill you.”

“Sexy,” Chenle mocks, then leans in.

His mouth is as soft and warm as it had been the first time, the second, Jaemin’s own as dry and unprepared, his throat swollen with feelings and fear. This time, however where Jaemin is used to Chenle drawing back, for his publicity and artificiality, Chenle surges in instead, licking the seam of Jaemin’s lips and undoing the threads one by one.

“Chenle,” Jaemin sighs, using one hand to cup the side of his chin. Chenle pulls back slowly with dazed eyes, flushed pink up his neck and across the bridge of his nose, panting. “You--?”

“Yeah,” Chenle breathes out, then giggles. “Guess we should’ve seen this one coming.”

“Probably,” Jaemin mumbles, and leans back in for another kiss.

Chenle makes a pleased noise in the back of his throat that Jaemin wants to taste more of, tucking Chenle’s hair behind his ear as he pulls him closer with fingers along his jaw. Chenle’s fingers curl in Jaemin’s shirt as he does, adjusting to accommodate the angle, and Jaemin’s thighs squeeze together as the pleasure of Chenle sucking on his tongue becomes overwhelming.

He still feels self-conscious of his dry lips and the fact that he has stubble and how he hasn’t brushed his teeth since this morning, but Chenle’s lips are soft and insistent and Jaemin drowns himself in them. He keeps pulling back every now and then to make sure it’s real, to look at Chenle and his dark eyes and the way his eyelashes will flutter open before he leans in towards Jaemin’s mouth. It should terrify Jaemin more than it does --everything that this means for their past and their future-- but Chenle’s kisses are sweet and addictive and Jaemin finds it hard to care about anything more than that.

At some stage Chenle draws back to regain his composure, and Jaemin blurts, “Well. That happened.”

“Thanks, I didn’t notice.” Chenle’s lips are swollen from Jaemin’s teeth and his pale skin is flushed a pretty shade of pink. He’s breathing deeply, biting his bottom lip as his curious fingers slip under the hem of Jaemin’s tee. He shivers. “God you’re so hot... It’s annoying.”

“Talk about mixed signals.” Jaemin grins at Chenle’s eye roll. “You’re not too bad yourself.”

“What a flatterer.”

“It’s why you like me,” Jaemin flirts. “Maybe.”

“Definitely not the reason.” Chenle sighs in content exhaustion, nuzzling into the crook of Jaemin’s neck. So cute. Jaemin coos and brings a hand up to stroke his thumb over the nape of Chenle’s neck, feeling rather than hearing his pleased hum when Jaemin’s nails scratch through his scalp.

“So there is a reason?”

“Maybe.” Chenle presses a kiss beneath Jaemin’s ear which makes his breath hitch from sensitivity. “But you’re not in the cool, king heads group so I gotta keep your ego down and your head small.”

“I see I see…” Jaemin mumbles, his wandering hands sliding into Chenle’s back pockets. Chenle’s response is a careful nip of teeth along Jaemin’s neck that has him making an embarrassing sound he hopes Chenle doesn’t tell anyone about. “Chenle.”

“You’re so hot,” Chenle reiterates, palm smoothing down Jaemin’s abdomen and nails raking over his snail trail, dangerously close to the hem of his pants. “I didn’t… I don’t like, have anything.”

“So you didn’t plan this after all, then--”

“Yeah yeah.” Jaemin grins in delight as Chenle sighs against the marks he’s left over Jaemin’s throat, pulling back to blink down at him. “It caught me by surprise too. Happy?”

“Over the moon.” Jaemin kisses the tip of Chenle’s nose to watch it wrinkle. “I don’t either. I have an irrational fear of having my bags checked and looking security in the eye as they hold up a sex toy and a bottle of lube and ask me its purpose.”

“Wow, we’re such losers. What kind of man goes on vacation and doesn’t think he’s gonna get laid?”

“Us?” Jaemin offers, he licks his lips. “It’s probably a bit late anyway. We don’t have to rush.”

“We only have one night left in this room until we’re sharing with the others,” Chenle bemoans. “If you keep kissing me like that and don’t get me off I’m gonna die.”

Jaemin laughs, some horrible mix of turned on and fond as he pinches Chenle’s cheek. Chenle slaps his hand away.

“We’ll work it out.” Jaemin is still turned on even now, unhelped by Chenle sitting over his problem area. “I’m sure we can steal from the others.”

“That’s genius.” Chenle grins. “There’s no way Jeno goes somewhere and doesn’t expect someone to throw themselves at him. We can rob him.”

“...Somehow,” Jaemin finishes, wondering when they’ll have the chance for a heist. “Or like, just buy it at the pharmacy tomorrow? I want a brace anyway.”

“Also smart. See? Now that’s why I like you.” Chenle smiles into the next kiss he gives. Jaemin mirrors it. This time, when Chenle pulls back, he pulls off completely, and Jaemin whines at the lack of warmth and weight in his lap as Chenle rolls to the space beside him, then props his head up on an elbow. God, he’s so hot. Jaemin is screwed. “How good in bed will you be with a busted knee?”

“Where’s the fun in spoiling the surprise?”

“True,” Chenle concedes. “Jeno never told me.”

“You asked?”

“I was curious.” Chenle pulls a face and avoids eye contact, and Jaemin knows he has to be delicate about these things, because Chenle doesn’t like being pried apart, but he’s so delighted at the prospect of Chenle being curious about Jaemin long before they were close. “You were a mystery, remember? I wanted to solve you.”

“And that included hearing about my horrible seventeen year old sexcapades? Wow.”

“Maybe…” Chenle mumbles, indignant. Jaemin’s grin grows. “I totally want Jeno in the divorce if this doesn’t work out, by the way.”

“What the hell? He was my friend first.”

“Yeah? And I called dibs right now. You gotta respect the rules of dibs, Jaemin.”

“You are so--” Jaemin’s nostrils flare and Chenle cackles. He reaches across the bed at Chenle, who deftly dodges out of the way by scrambling to stand. “Lele, come here. Lele. Come.”

He beckons but Chenle refuses, shaking his head.

“Just stand up and get me-- oh wait.”

“Your parents will never find the body.”

“I’d like to see you try, Na.”

Jaemin does manage to get him, if only by lunging across the bed and digging his fingers into the hood of his jumper. Chenle laugh-squeals as Jaemin tugs him onto the bed, and then he’s lying on his back with his hair fanning out all around him, breathless. He’s so beautiful.

Jaemin leans down to steal a kiss, because he can do that now. For two insomniacs, he has a feeling it might take a while for either of them to sleep, but not for the usual reasons.

Jaemin wakes up overheated and sweating with a quietly snoring Chenle curled up in his arms.

God, he’s so fucking cute, and Jaemin has always been weak to cute things, so it’s no surprise Chenle has become an achilles heel. Thinking about having made out with him the night prior makes Jaemin’s chest inflate, but not in a way that presses down on any bruises. It’s all warm, soft, happy. There’s no fear or panic about what this might mean for their friendship --their group has survived the explosive test of Mark and Donghyuck’s catastrophic summer break-up, after all-- and very little apprehension of how Chenle might hurt him.

It should scare him, Jaemin thinks, that Chenle sees him so easily, that he knows how to make him bruise, but it doesn’t. Chenle may be blunt, yes, but this only means his edges are soft.

“Good morning,” Jaemin greets as he watches Chenle stir, puffy eyes cracking open and squinting into the light.

“Ugh, what time issit?”

“Around eight?”

“And you’re already insufferable?”

“Only for you, my sweet sugar plum.”

Chenle sighs, so Jaemin kisses him, because he can do that now. Chenle’s chin prickles against his skin from stubble and his breath tastes a little odd, but Jaemin doesn’t care.

Chenle’s hand cups Jaemin’s cheek as fingers tangle through his hair, and Chenle pulls back with his teeth along Jaemin’s bottom lip to say, “We should probably go downstairs and have breakfast with the others.”

“Probably,” Jaemin agrees, and leans in for another kiss.

They do make it downstairs, if only because their phones won’t stop buzzing with group chat notifications and Chenle’s stomach growls mid-kiss. Mark, Jisung and Donghyuck have already headed back to their rooms to get ready, so Jaemin and Chenle walk in on Renjun and Jeno having a quiet discussion over two cups of tea.

“Nice of you two to join us,” Renjun quips, narrowing his eyes as he looks at Jaemin, then Chenle, then Jaemin again.

Now Jaemin had been smart enough to check for hickeys before they’d left, and knows there’s no way they can tell that anything had happened. Still, Jeno snorts to himself while digging a teaspoon into an egg tart.

“Not going up the mountain today?” Jeno asks. “Usually you’re in a rush.”

“I thought I could stay in with our sick and injured.” Chenle jerks a thumb at Jaemin, who blinks at him in surprise. He did? “I’m tired anyway. It’d be nice to have a day off.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Jaemin says. “I can handle a day alone.”

“You had to hop to breakfast.” Chenle snorts. “Besides, you wanted a brace, right? Someone has to carry you to the chemist.”

Jaemin pauses in realisation, then says, “Ah, right.”

He wriggles a little in anticipation and Chenle rolls his eyes, which is rich coming from the person with the least subtlety in the world. Renjun and Jeno exchange eye contact but gratefully, are the only two in the whole group who dare to say nothing.

“...Right,” Renjun stands, his teacup now empty. His smile is a little too sharp for Jaemin’s liking. “Well, we should probably get ready too. We’ll let the others know. Is your knee feeling better, by the way?”

“Very much so.” Jaemin offers him a smile. “I’ll be back better than ever in no time.”

“So long as you don’t injure it further.” He gives Chenle a cutting look, the grabs his key to leave. Jeno sighs and follows.

“Well, so much for hiding it,”

“How could we hide it?” Jaemin asks, amused. “We purposefully shoved it in their faces all week.”

“True, I guess we set ourselves up for that.” Chenle’s face twists in discontent as he slings an arm over the back of Jaemin’s chair, fingers circling his shoulder. It’s such casual, comfortable intimacy that Jaemin’s heart flutters like Chenle didn’t have his tongue down his throat ten minutes ago. “We just have to brace ourselves for phase one.”

“Phase one?”

“The phase one that happens with all of us anytime we get together,” Chenle explains. “The worst phase of all.”

Somehow, Jaemin knows exactly what he means.

“Ah,” he says, “the phase where everyone makes fun of us.”

“Yep.”

“Yes, that is going to be annoying...” Jaemin leans back in his seat and remembers the way the group chat had bullied Mark and Renjun for weeks after their little announcement. The way Donghyuck never let anyone forget about him walking in on Jeno with a hand down Jisung’s pants --the way Jisung never let Donghyuck forget the same thing happening to him with their positions swapped. Even Jaemin had his stint of complaining in the group chat about Chenle butt-naked on his and Jeno’s couch and he’s Jaemin. Hell, they still make jokes about Mark and Donghyuck. “Well, we can just stay subtle, then. At least until the end of the trip.”

“Right,” Chenle agrees, “the trip where we purposefully made ourselves not subtle.”

“But it’s real now,” Jaemin counters. “So we go… back a step?”

“This is confusing, ugh.” Chenle rubs his temples. “I need breakfast.”

So they eat eggs and toast and bacon served at the buffet then head back to their room with their fingers intertwined. Jaemin can’t stop looking down at where their hands are conjoined and giggling, and Chenle rolls his eyes every single time like he knows exactly why. He probably does; he’s always read Jaemin well.

With their room door shut, Jaemin licks his lips and leans in for a kiss, but Chenle stops him with a hand over his lips.

In his other, he holds up a room key.

“How did you…?”

“I’m impatient.” Chenle shrugs. “Jeno wasn’t paying attention.”

“No wonder you played a rogue in D-and-D. When did you even--”

“That’s not important. What’s important is, pharmacy now or later?”

Jaemin stares at the key, calculating. It’s at least a ten minute walk, twenty if he’s limping, so that’s forty minutes of travel time. Fifteen to twenty just to work out what they’re looking at since everything is in Japanese, and there’s no guarantee it will even have what they want because they’re in Japan. Conversely, Jeno’s room is just across the hall.

Jaemin takes the key. “Give me five minutes.”

He hobbles out the door as he hears Chenle laughing, then scouts around the hallway quickly. It’s dead quiet, everybody out on the mountain by now since it’s long past ten. Jeno must be gone by now, so Jaemin quickly crosses the hall and opens the room door despite the fact that he’s doing nothing wrong.

Well, to anybody who’s watching.

Inside, he flicks the light on, and a voice says, “So that’s where my key went.”

Jaemin, like any mature adult, screams. Donghyuck, lying on the bunk bed, also screams.

“Why are you--” Jaemin gawks. “Why are you guys still here? It’s nearly eleven!?”

“Says the guy that just broke into our room.” Jeno snorts, but he’s playing a game on his phone, not even looking up at Jaemin. “We missed the bus ‘cuz Donghyuck took too long showering.”

“Hey I was having some much needed me time,” Donghyuck argues, which makes Jaemin and Jeno grimace simultaneously. “Surely Mr. Flamingo over here should be the one we question.”

“A gay joke was the best you could do?”

“What? No, it’s because you’re standing on one foot, idiot.” Jaemin looks down.

“Oh, that’s much funnier.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I have my key back now?” Jeno holds out a hand so Jaemin tosses it at him. He catches without looking away from his phone screen. “If you’re here to steal snacks Mark ate them all last night.”

“I’m not here to steal anything!” Jaemin lies. “I just.. came.. to… give your key back?”

Jaemin hears the tell-tale music of a PUBG death as Jeno looks up at him from the top bunk, his face blank and unimpressed. The rustle of nylon and polyester as he shifts in his ski pants to look at Jaemin harder.

“Say it,” Jeno tells him.

Jaemin stands on his one foot at an impasse, face twisting in conflict as he calculates it again, gaze flicking from Jeno to a curious Donghyuck on the bed below him. Then, he thinks about Chenle waiting for him on the King bed in the room across the hall, and the decision is easy.

“Condoms?”

“Second pocket in my suit case.” Jeno flops back down onto the bed, smiling. “Lube’s in the first.”

“Oh my god I knew it,” Donghyuck says. “I fucking knew it.”

“Yeah yeah another ten bucks I’ll never get back.” Jeno sighs, tapping at his phone as he queues up for the next game.

While rummaging through Jeno’s suit case and finding a manner of horrific things Jaemin will take with him to the grave, he says, “Why do you always bet against me?”

“So I’ll be pleasantly surprised when I lose.” Jeno gives a puppyish eye-smile. “Don’t hurt your knee any more.”

“Remember not to use any teeth,” Donghyuck adds.

“Yeah, always use protection--”

“And it’s okay to cry after but not before.”

“I’m leaving now. Bye.” Jaemin slams the room door behind himself rather forcefully. He sighs, long-suffering. So much for subtlety.

“Good news and bad news,” he announces to Chenle.

“Oh my god? Was he out already?”

“What? No. I got it.” Jaemin holds up the bottle of lube and a packet of condoms that he knows will fit just fine because he’s all too familiar with Jeno’s dick which is an awful trail of thought Jaemin doesn’t want to go down right now when Chenle is sitting on the bed in front of him. “Bad news is, turns out Donghyuck hasn’t left yet so he knows for sure.”

Chenle winces, then grimaces. Jaemin can relate.

“That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” Chenle makes grabby-hands. “C’mere.”

Turns out sex with a busted knee is just fine when Chenle sucks your soul out of your body for you. Really, Jaemin should not be so surprised that such an irksome mouth would translate into prowess in the bedroom, but he’s still starfish on the bed blinking stars out of his eyes while Chenle gets the lube.

He’s a bit insatiable, but Jaemin is willing to live with that. They take a break to shower and then cuddle on the bed while watching Love Actually, which is Jaemin’s promised pick gone. He knows they’ve both seen it, and while he’d been tempted to watch something to actually educate Chenle, he also knows Chenle loves this movie, so he’d offered it up just to watch Chenle beam.

They do hobble to the pharmacy laughing in the snow as Jaemin slings an arm around Chenle’s shoulders for ‘balance’ and Chenle laughs every time they nearly slip on the ice. They find a brace but no lube and condoms so Jaemin is grateful for his own impulsive nature and also for Jeno’s whorish ways.

He’s looking up edible fruit baskets to send Jeno as a thank-you gift when Chenle slides an arm around his waist and presses kisses over Jaemin’s shoulder where he knows for sure the marks of teeth are left behind. Jaemin can’t stand teasing, so he locks his phone shut, turns on the bed and pins Chenle down. Laughing up at him, Chenle grins, and Jaemin is certain that he’s giving Chenle everything he wants right now, but he can’t quite find it within himself to care.

Jaemin is leaving pretty purple marks on the pale skin of Chenle’s thighs when Chenle checks his phone and says, “Everyone will be back by now.”

Jaemin sighs, and Chenle shivers as he does. He’s so sensitive, but it isn’t until sleeping with him Jaemin realised just how much. He wants to abuse this knowledge more, but his boner is already withering.

“What? No sneaky last-minute round? Your refractory period is like two seconds and other people vaguely in the same building is what gets you to stop?”

“No.” Chenle tangles his fingers in Jaemin’s hair, inhaling. “I never said that.”

By the time Jaemin’s balls have emptied out to have nothing left in them other than dust, Chenle is straightening out his own bangs in the vanity’s mirror and looks as normal as any other day. Jaemin, conversely, has hair sticking up to the ceiling and looks like he’s been mauled by a giant squid.

“I can never be seen in public again,” he realises, sitting on the bed in defeat.

“If Donghyuck knows they all know,” Chenle says, unsympathetic as he buttons up his shirt. “You’ll live.”

He pulls down the collar of it to reveal a nice purple bruise on his collarbones, clicking his tongue in distaste.

Jaemin says, “See? I’m polite. You can hide those.” Conversely, Chenle had left a hickey right beneath his ear, for God and everyone.

“Oh?” Chenle turns, arching an eyebrow. “You didn’t seem to have any complaints about it in the moment.”

Of course Jaemin didn’t. Chenle was hot and kissing his neck and it felt so good. Blood flow had left his brain and cancelled all future thoughts hours beforehand.

“That’s because I can’t say no to people.”

“Just people, huh?” Chenle crowds closer, and Jaemin feels like a small mouse being cornered by a cat in alley, but in a like, totally sexy way. “No special weakness for me?”

“Well,” Jaemin croaks, and thinks about Chenle dripping on his doormat, and Chenle smoking with the Tokyo skyline behind him, and Chenle at eighteen with blonde hair and bad roots. “That’s classified.”

“Uh-huh.” Chenle leans in for a kiss just as someone knocks on the door, and Jaemin smiles into it, wrapping a hand around Chenle’s neck with the knowledge that nobody else has a key.

“STOP FUCKING IN THERE AND COME PLAY SPOONS,” Donghyuck yells, certainly going to earn them a noise complaint. Chenle groans and pulls back, swinging the door open.

Donghyuck yelps, scrambling to catch himself as the door he’d been leaning against gives way, he rights himself in the doorframe.

“Hey there,” he says. “I lost rock paper scissors and neither of you have answered your phones all day. Have you heard about our lord and saviour Jesus Chr-- Woah.” He gives Jaemin a wide-eyed look. “--You really let Chenle do whatever he wants to you, huh?”

Jaemin, still shirtless on the bed with Chenle’s signature across his skin, sighs.

“Hello Donghyuck,” he greets. “Fun day on the mountain?”

“Just beautiful. Bad visibility, though. And it rained which always sucks. Who topped and bottomed? I need to know for our omegaverse chart.”

“What’s omeg--”

“Do not ask that,” Chenle quickly interjects. “You do not want to know.”

“So young, so naive.” Donghyuck sighs wistfully. “So, spoons?”

They do agree, if only because they have some silent agreement to act natural and hey, they came here to hang out with their friends, not fuck the whole time and make everyone else feel awkward.

But then Chenle sits on Jaemin’s lap while they play which is great, because Jaemin totally cares about his friends when that’s happening, yeah. Donghyuck was right, they are all way too horny. Some part of Jaemin’s rational brain is desperately shaking its cell bars to tell Jaemin that he loves his friends and they’re important to him, but Chenle shifts in place ever so slightly and Jaemin thinks, damn it.

“Are you doing that on purpose?” he mumbles into Chenle’s shoulder, hands around his waist.

“Doing what?” Chenle asks, the picture of innocence when Jaemin knows he’s anything but, wriggling again. Motherfucker.

“I don’t know what you’re saying but I know it’s gross,” Donghyuck interrupts, which is good, because Jaemin’s horny brain starts to recede at the sound of his voice. “Who invited the two rabbits?”

“Haha, what? I’m the only rabbit here.” Mark looks up from his hand with a confused smile. “Their zodiacs are dragon and snake, dude. Which I’ve always been mad jealous of by the way, ahaha. Way cooler.”

“Oh my god you’re so stupid,” Donghyuck says. “Him, Renjun, really? Over all of us? I really thought you and I had something.”

Renjun glances at the circle in confusion.

“The only thing we had is glandular fever when you caught it from Doyoung and gave it to me by spitting in my lunch because I told that hot TA you were silver in League.”

“I can’t believe you would bring that up…”

“Wait, is that how I got mono?” Mark’s eyes go wide, and he hits Donghyuck’s arm. “Dude, what the hell?”

“What? I didn’t know you two were fucking back then. It’s not my fault!”

“It’s probably mine,” Jeno interjects, putting a card down as Chenle picks it up. “I don’t think Doyoung is the one who gave you glandular, Hyuck.”

“Oh my god,” Jisung blurts. “Jaemin was right.”

“I was?” Jaemin asks, confused but also pleasantly surprised.

“Please, none of you ever get an awful S-T-I or we’d all get it,” Jisung begs, particularly aimed at Jeno. They laugh, and Chenle takes his opportunity to quietly reach for his spoon. Jaemin notices him, because he always notices Chenle, now. Can barely focus on anything else. He takes a spoon to follow suit, and when Chenle turns over his shoulder to grin at him, Jaemin sneaks in a quiet kiss too.

They go to an Izakaya in town for their last hoorah in the mountainous wilderness, and Chenle spends the whole night playing with Jaemin’s fingers underneath the table. The one-butt-two-butt argument gets restarted, so Chenle tugs Jaemin into the onsen by eleven, an hour before it closes at twelve.

It’s empty, and Jaemin’s swelling has gone down so he’s not going to waste his last opportunity --he paid to use this so he will use it so help him God. He picks a locker and pulls his shirt off, stopping once he realises Chenle is leaning beside him, biting his bottom lip as he watches.

“Can I help you?”

“No, no, please, continue.” Chenle’s eyes rove over Jaemin’s back, which has been stinging from scratch marks all day. “I’m quite comfortable.”

“I’m sure.” Jaemin glances at the doorway once just to be careful, then presses Chenle against the lockers for a soft, slow kiss. “Want me to give you a strip tease, my sugar cane?”

“Oh no, what a shame, I didn’t bring any money.” Chenle curls his fingers through Jaemin’s belt loops, smiling. “I’ll have to make it up to you some other way.”

Their kisses are slow and cautious since they are in public, but Jaemin does find a way to pull back and finish undressing, rinsing himself off and grinning as he watches Chenle trip over his own pants in an attempt to finish getting naked and follow through the curtained doors.

The outdoor spring is beautiful at this time of night, lit up only by the moon and stars making the snow glow silver as Jaemin sinks into the steaming water with relief, his knee marked by the compression brace he’s had on it all afternoon. Jaemin runs his fingers over the ridges beneath the water, pouting. Ouchie.

He hears the telltale ripple of water as Chenle sinks in by the steps, then paddles over to Jaemin, a hand smoothing over his injured knee like it might heal him. Maybe it does.

“Hi,” Chenle greets.

“Hi,” Jaemin replies, licking his lips as Chenle’s hands slide up from his knee to his thigh to his abdomen. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I haven’t tipped you for your excellent stripping performance earlier,” Chenle continues, lips along Jaemin’s jaw. “Name your price?”

“This is just plenty,” Jaemin says, hooking Chenle’s chin around so he can kiss him. Chenle sighs into it, making a pleased noise in the back of his throat as Jaemin kisses him softly, sweetly. “No public sex in places that could get us kicked out and homeless for a night,” Jaemin warns.

“Noted,” Chenle mumbles, but kisses him again all the same. He scrambles through the water to sit in Jaemin’s lap, which he’s beginning to think Chenle might have a bit of a thing for. Either that or he knows Jaemin has a thing for it, but maybe Jaemin only has a thing for it because Chenle does? This stuff can get so confusing, and Chenle in Jaemin’s lap kissing him with tongue in the steam is not doing anything for the degraded state of Jaemin’s brain. “Do you reckon Mark and Renjun have made out in here too?”

Yeesh, boner-killer. Jaemin pulls back.

“I try not to think about it,” he deadpans, squinting at Chenle. “I, unlike certain people, keep my brain away from thoughts about Mark’s dick.”

“No no me too,” Chenle argues, licking his lips as his hand gets brave underneath the water. “I’ve found newer fantasies.”

“How many times have we had sex today? And you still want more?”

“Get used to it, lover boy.” Chenle laughs into the crook of Jaemin’s neck. “I’m young and virile.”

“All breedable, no submissive.”

“Maybe if you worked for it harder hey--” Chenle squints at him. “Who taught you that meme?”

“Donghyuck. Tiktok is a horrid place.”

“I can’t believe he would damage your fragile, old-man mind like that.” Chenle coos and pats Jaemin’s head. “My poor baby.”

“You? Babying me?” Jaemin smiles in delight. “My god, you’ve got it bad.”

Chenle rolls his eyes. “Yeah yeah lap it up. I’m feeling generous.” His hand strokes through Jaemin’s hair as Chenle sits up and looks at him. And Jaemin looks back. And even in the darkness of the night and the low light of the outdoor lamps, Jaemin knows they’re seeing each other for the first time and also the five thousandth.

“Hi,” Jaemin says again, just to watch Chenle smile.

“Hi,” Chenle returns. He’s the most beautiful boy in the world. Jaemin traces out the curve of his cheeks beneath his grin, following the arch of his cat-like eyes above his brows, the slope of his chiselled jaw. “Having fun?”

“You’re beautiful,” Jaemin tells him, and watches Chenle blink at him, stunned. He draws back off of Jaemin’s lap, clearing his throat with a hand over his face. “Wait, what? Are you flustered? Did I finally get to you?”

“No,” Chenle argues. “You just-- caught me by surprise.” He glances at Jaemin shyly, and it’s a newer side to Chenle that makes Jaemin’s whole chest inflate. “It feels different when you say it.”

“Why, because it’s true?” Jaemin grins as Chenle turns his face again, muttering under his breath. “I mean it, Chenle, I’ve always thought you’re beautiful.”

“Says you.” Chenle pokes Jaemin’s chest, pushing him back. “Mister Handsome and Charming and Perfect.”

“Soon to be Doctor,” Jaemin flirts. Chenle pokes him again. “Ow.”

“You’d make a better trophy wife.”

“Is that a promise so soon?” Jaemin grins as Chenle rolls his eyes. “Even before Mark and Renju-- ow.”

Jaemin is rubbing his chest where Chenle poked him again, hard enough to bruise.

“You’re an idiot,” Chenle says.

“You like it,” Jaemin counters, feeling confident.

He doesn’t disagree.

The bus from Hakuba back to Nagano leaves their hotel around ten. Jaemin and Chenle squeeze in one last round in the bathroom before Chenle slips and chips a hole in the tile.

“MY DEPOSIT,” Jaemin shouts, sinking to his knees in despair as the shower pelts over his head like dramatic rain. Chenle just laughs.

They agree not to tell the others about it for now, and meet everyone in the lounge to hand their keys in as Renjun checks them out of their rooms. They wait for the bus outside with Jaemin curled around Chenle’s back, and Donghyuck spends the whole time looking at them with disgust in his eyes.

“If you guys fuck in a shared room I swear to god--”

“What?” Mark turns from where he and Jisung are watching youtube together. “Dude, don’t be weird.”

“What’s between your ears, Mark? Wind? Renjun could do so much better.”

“For the last time, Donghyuck, you are not my bitter, long-lost ex-lover.”

“Yeah but you hate it so I’m going to keep doing it, Jun-Jun.” Donghyuck squints at Mark, knocking against his skull lightly. “Hello? Anyone in there?”

“You are so annoying.” Mark laughs as he pushes Donghyuck off. “Why would Jaemin and Chenle fuck? You’re the dumb one.”

At that, the whole group pauses and just looks at Mark. Even Jaemin.

“Mark,” Jeno says. “They’ve been fucking for the last thirty-six hours.”

Mark blinks, then turns to Jaemin. “Word?”

“Babe, he has hickeys.” Renjun laughs under his breath. “What did you think those were?”

“He has what?” Mark’s eyes go wide on Jaemin’s neck. “Aw, man. I so didn’t notice haha.”

“They’ve been flirting like the whole trip. They made out at the ice rink!”

“Bro when my head is in the race it’s in the race…” Mark trails off. “I mean like, congrats guys, forreal. Is it serious or…?”

“Yeah what’s the flavouring?” Donghyuck asks. “Are you on-again-off-again in love but won’t admit it tortured star-crossed lovers like me and Jeno, or boring and already married like Mark and Renjun?”

Jeno shuts his eyes and sighs.

“Well, we’re…” Chenle looks to Jaemin like he’s hoping he’ll say it.

“It’s just a thing.” Jaemin shrugs, then smiles. “We’re in no rush.”

“Yeah,” Chenle agrees, and their fingers find each other. “Just a thing.”

“I soo call dibs as your best man though Chenle, dude.”

“What the hell?” Jisung argues. “That’s so unfair. They’re not even official?”

“Hey, respect the rules of dibs, Andy Park.”

“Mark has a point,” Chenle says, smug. “Dibs can’t be disrespected.” Jaemin narrows his eyes. “But we haven’t even had our first date yet, so you guys can cool your jets.”

“Oh?” Jaemin arches his eyebrows. “Is this you asking me out?”

“What? No, this is me dropping hints for you to do it.” Chenle pokes Jaemin’s chest right where he’d left a bruise last night. It doesn’t hurt. “I’m upper class, Jaemin. I need to be wined and dined by a gentleman.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for when we’re home,” Jaemin promises, and smiles as he leans in for a quick kiss.

“EWWWW,” the group groans in unison, except for Jeno, who smiles at them.

“That felt like, illegal,” Mark says, “haha.”

“This is Mark and Renjun all over again,” Donghyuck bemoans. “Adjusting to something that feels wrong.”

“But that’s what makes it so right,” Jaemin tells him, wrapping his arms around Chenle’s waist and pouting. Chenle sighs, but no makes move to push him off. Victory.

“Bro how’d this even happen?” Mark asks, delighted, and Jaemin laughs at the thought that he’d once believed that Chenle would ever attempt to make this man jealous. That Mark could even be capable of it. “Like, y’know, details.”

“It…” Chenle turns to Jaemin, and they share a knowing smile. This is something that will stay between them and the thing they’ve built from their own broken pieces. “...Just sort of happened.”

“Aw that’s even more romantic.” Mark giggles. “Cute.”

“Yes yes they’re very adorable,” Renjun grumbles, tugging Mark’s sleeve. “The bus is here, we can go now.”

“Renjun, are you jealous?” Chenle calls, delighted. “Can’t handle being the number one resident cute couple?

“No,” Renjun says, too quickly to be anything other than defensive. “You just said you’re not official so you can’t compete.”

“Oh my god you so are.” Chenle laughs like New Years came early and he’s collecting red envelopes like training cards. “I’ll happily call Jaemin my boyfriend right now if it means you lose.”

“Who would even be judging?” Renjun argues. “And if they were who’s to say you win!”

“Oh oh I know this one!” Mark clicks his fingers rapidly. “Babe, your aries sun is showing. Did I get it right?”

Despite being a fire sign, Renjun melts.

“Yeah yeah whatever.” Mark grins and pulls him in for hug, kissing the side of his head. “I just think, you know. We’re cute too!”

“Yeah but you’re old news.” Donghyuck slings an arm around Jeno and Jisung, pulling their heads together. “Which one of us wants to make this group all couples no fun, huh? Huh?”

“Not happening,” Jeno and Jisung say in unison, pushing Donghyuck off of them. Then, they high-five.

“Do you think if we got on the bus right now they’d even notice?” Jaemin asks.

“Probably not,” Chenle says, circling his fingers around Jaemin’s wrist. “Let’s go before it leaves.”

Jaemin laughs as Chenle tugs him along, forever trapped in his current.

The shinkansen is as fast and scenic as it had been the first time, even if Japan’s fields are overcast by grey clouds and blanketed by slush and snow. Chenle naps while sharing an airpod with Jaemin, leaning on his shoulder as Jaemin runs his fingers through Chenle’s air.

Back in Tokyo they do what they’ve been doing best all week as a group: eat. They check-in to their last hotel closer to Shinjuku and hit up a tempura place to stuff themselves full. Their hotel rooms are two-and-two again, and somehow ends up with both the ‘resident couples’ sharing the double beds in one room, while Jeno and Donghyuck share the other with Jisung living the life of the youngest on top with a whole bed to himself.

“Why does this feel like a terrible double date?” Renjun jokes as he and Jaemin peruse things to do with their last day tomorrow on Renjun’s iPad while Mark and Chenle watch NBA on Mark’s laptop.

“Don’t make it weird,” Jaemin chides.

“It’s one way to keep you and Chenle’s hands off each other,” Renjun continues teasing. “Who knew deep down inside you were insatiable?”

“We’re not talking about this Junnie,” Jaemin sighs, then pouts, “it’s still too soon.”

“Liar.” Renjun’s eyes narrow, and Jaemin thinks he’s probably right. Now, when he looks at Renjun, all he sees is his best friend. It’s funny how much things can change overnight. Part of Jaemin will always be in love with him, but the rest is too rational to waste-away like that. “You’re always such a cryptid about everything. I can’t believe it took me five years to find out about you and Jeno!”

“Typical of a fire sign to hold that grudge.” Renjun pinches his ear. “Ow!”

“Typical of you to keep everything to yourself.” Renjun sighs, forever suffering. “At least now I can rest easy knowing you’re probably telling Chenle something about yourself instead of letting it rot.”

Shyly, Jaemin smiles.

“Worried about me?”

“Always,” Renjun agrees, which catches Jaemin by surprise. Renjun laughs at his expression. “You’re good at hiding, but Chenle is better at finding you. I never considered that you two would end up together, but it makes sense. I’m happy for you, Jaemin, really.”

“Jeez, we’re not even official.” Jaemin pushes Renjun with faux bashfulness. “Says the fiance-to-be.”

Renjun bites his lip then, glancing at Mark at the other end of the room laughing loudly with Chenle.

“Promise me you won’t let him pick an ugly ring,” he whispers.

“What? You know?”

“Of course I know, it’s Mark. He’s so obvious. He spent ten minutes comparing my fingers to yen coins at lunch yesterday ‘because he could’.”

“Oh my god,” Jaemin says, “when did we get so old?”

“Scary, isn’t it?” Renjun leans back while laughing, and it’s beautiful. He’s always been beautiful, but it doesn’t hurt anymore. “Next thing you know we’ll be researching retirement villages and maybe Jeno will be in a committed, exclusive relationship with someone.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Some things withstand the sands of time.”

“Very wise.” Renjun laughs, and when he looks at Jaemin he’s still smiling. “But I guess you’re right. Some things really can be indestructible.”

For their last day before their late-night flight, they go to Meiji Jingu. As central as it is, its popularity makes it no less beautiful, especially when snow dusts its pine trees and tall torii. They pay a couple hundred yen to leave wishes at the shrine, and Jaemin snaps photos of Chenle looking out over the frozen pond when he isn’t paying attention. He’s so beautiful, and Jaemin flips through his phone gallery with a grin on his face knowing that Chenle is all his, now.

After that it’s Renjun’s instagram pick: Shimokitazawa with its hole-in-the-wall vintage stores and narrow winding streets cresting over hills. Jaemin and Chenle separate from the group to go into a store where they try on stupid vintage hats together and laugh in the mirror as they take pictures, then wait in the winter sun for Donghyuck to buy a coat as Jaemin buys them hot bubble tea to share. Beneath the table, Chenle finds Jaemin’s fingers to fiddle with, complaining about the cold as he buries one hand in Jaemin’s jacket for warmth.

“Want to know my ring size?” Jaemin asks.

“Very funny.” Chenle pinches the skin of Jaemin’s ring finger, but it doesn’t hurt. He huddles closer. “Thought you weren’t the commitment type.”

“I could say the same for you. But if I was a fake almost but not boyfriend before I may as well be a real almost not one now, right?”

“If you say so.” Chenle’s tone is dismissive, but he’s smiling into his scarf. So fucking cute. Jaemin can’t imagine how he’s meant to want anyone else anymore; Chenle set Jaemin on fire and the smoke consumed him because he let it. He can’t see it any other way, which is terrifying, yet as much as Jaemin is used to vulnerability around Chenle, he may just keep that to himself for a little longer.

Their last dinner is at a pricey sushi place, because they have to celebrate somehow. They get smashed on overpriced sake and Jaemin holds up his phone to take a group selfie.

“Say cheese everyone!” he calls, and the group obliges. The resulting shot is what he’d come to expect: Chenle’s default half-assed smile, Renjun next to a beaming Mark, Donghyuck pulling a face as Jisung side-eyes him beside a regularly smiling Jeno while Jaemin holds up a peace sign in the front.

Yeah, perfect. Jaemin makes it his lock screen.

Chenle tries for a quickie in the hotel bathroom but fails when Jisung drags him out by the hood of his jumper, and Jaemin laughs to himself alone in the shower and gladly spoons Chenle in bed to make it up to him.

Then, just like that, their trip in Japan is over, and Jaemin is waking up at six to make it to Narita on time as a frantic Renjun makes sure they have everything, standing in front of security by eight, staring at the line in front of him that marks the threshold of no return.

Jaemin doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to leave this novel country with is beautiful snow and delicious food and interesting sights. Even more than that, he doesn’t want to go back to Australia so he can drown in work and disappear again. Coming here had felt like taking his first breath after months of drowning, and he’s scared of what the water will bring once more.

“Jaemin,” Chenle says beside him, cocking his head. “You alright?”

“I don’t want to leave,” Jaemin says, and means for it to sound whiney and childish but it sounds far too real instead. “I’m not ready to go back.”

“Mm, vacation do be like that.” Chenle is smiling, but his eyes are curved like he understands. “Who knows, though, it’s been a while. Maybe things have changed back home too.”

Home, Jaemin thinks, and gazes forward to where Renjun, Mark, Jisung, Jeno and Donghyuck argue as they shuffle into the line. Jeno notices, raising his eyebrows and gesturing for Jaemin and Chenle to join them. Jaemin’s hand tightens around the strap of his bag, feet rooted in place from fear, so it’s Chenle who steps forward first.

“You coming or what?”

He outstretches a hand.

“Yeah,” Jaemin agrees. “I’m coming.” He smiles at Chenle as their fingers intertwine, basking in the radiance of Chenle’s returning grin. He looks up to face their friends. “Let’s go home.”

(“Wait.” Renjun says, holding up a hand to stop the group. “Why did I just get an email about not getting our security deposit back?”

Jaemin and Chenle exchange a knowing look.

“Oops.”)