Work Text:
when i think of the things i've done
don't matter how far i've gone
i'm always free to run home
—one direction, “don’t forget where you belong”
one.
Minghao moves to Seoul in the fall. It doesn't feel real, even as he says goodbye to his parents. He’s furiously blinking back tears because a part of him, the most insecure part, a small, tiny part deep down, wonders if he starts crying now if he'll never stop again. His mom brushes non-existent wrinkles from his freshly ironed shirt, tells him not to forget them; his dad rubs a fond hand against Minghao's recently shorn hair and, with the ever-present undercurrent of mischief that balances out his more serious wife and son, reminds Minghao to remember where he came from. Unsaid, but implied in the tenderness of their farewells, is the sentiment loud and clear: that he can always change his mind, that he can always come home, that this will always be his home.
(Later, Minghao won't remember the details of the day at all. Just the flicker of details like a film he had watched about someone else, how he was equal parts anticipation and nervousness about leaving the only home he had ever known for a country where he didn't even speak the language, his parents still waving and getting smaller and smaller as he walked further into the airport and left them behind.)
two.
Minghao thinks that Junhui must have the worst memory of anyone he knows, mistaking him for someone else completely the first time they meet and so amped up with excitement that his spit goes flying. Nor does he remember how, after the initial excitement dies down, for the next few weeks Junhui – who Minghao recognizes from the time he watched Ip Man 2 with his mom, lover of all things Donnie Yen – serves only as a polite and distant translator for Minghao, a stranger in a new country, while making no additional overtures for friendship. It’s baffling and lonely, and more often than not, Minghao finds himself tamping down the insecurities of I don’t belong here and I want to go home when he watches the room of boys, boys that he’s meant to befriend and trust, clamour over Junhui after practices, chittering and yelling in a language Minghao doesn’t understand.
(“Are you sure?” Junhui asks, just the two of them on a plane after cutting their group stay at the vacation house short for the survival show in China. It feels weird, just the two of them, after getting used to travelling in a pack like gazelles. “I don’t remember that.”
“I’m sure,” Minghao says. “We didn’t become friends until a month in. It was like I had to earn your trust or something. Remember?”
“I trust you with my life,” Junhui tells him earnestly, but also because he absolutely doesn’t remember and is still somehow teasing Minghao because Junhui is allergic to the sincerity attached to big feelings.)
Minghao doesn’t remember the exact turning point, but it must have been around the time that the boys started trying to make overtures in their clumsy, well-meaning ways: Soonyoung begging Minghao to teach him how to do airflares via finger dancing, an awkward lunch with a shy Hansol where they communicated solely in gestures and the limited English Minghao remembers from watching Sherlock Holmes. It’s not until Mingyu thinks to download a Korean-to-Chinese translator on his phone that communication becomes easier (“In my defence,” Hansol says mildly. “I wanted to hang out with you because I thought you were the coolest from the moment you walked in, but my parents also didn’t get me a smart phone until debut, so how was I supposed to have a translation app on a flip phone?”) aligning with his own slow but steady learning of Korean that he finds himself beginning to fit in, that Junhui starts gradually inching closer to Minghao in a semblance of friendship, so warm that Minghao finds himself questioning if he had ever really been absent at all.
(“It’s because my friend went home,” Junhui tells him suddenly, the night of Chan’s 21st – 22nd, Minghao has to remind himself, still not used to the concept of a Korean age – birthday, the man of the hour half-passed out from birthday shots between them as Junhui and Minghao try to wrangle him into bed. “I made a friend here who understood me, could speak the same language as me, and he left without telling me. I didn’t want you to be a friend who left, too. I know it’s stupid, but I just wanted you to know.”
Minghao isn’t quite sure what to say in response. He thinks back to his lonely early days but also to the kindness that Junhui has extended since, the patience and the friendship. So he says, “I trust you with my life,” as a callback but also finds that he means it.
“Oh wow, how embarrassing for you,” Chan mumbles, doing a very good impression of a limp fish between them.
“He’s right,” Junhui says cheerfully, adjusting Chan so he takes some of the weight off Minghao. “You must be so embarrassed right now!”)
three.
Jihoon calls a team meeting after practice one day, when they’re all sweaty and a little out of breath. He announces that he thinks it would be great if they stopped using English female diminutives in their future songs. It’s said like a question, but in the way that they all already know he’s made up his mind and no one would question him anyway.
“But what about ‘baby’?” Soonyoung questions, his brow furrowing with worry. “I like ‘baby.’”
“We can still use ‘baby,’” Jihoon tells him, rolling his eyes.
Minghao is very aware of the oft-expected performance of compulsory heterosexuality in East Asia, which is further amplified by half-listening to the findings of the latest outraged internet rabbithole Wonwoo’s fallen into. Between that and Hansol’s recent obsession with and inability to stop talking about the TV show Sense 8, he suspects that this may be what’s happened to Jihoon, too. Minghao himself has always been a kind of heart-and-soul kind of guy: a pretty face helps, but he’s always been prepared to have to steel himself to go against the grain for hypothetical love one day.
“Is it because we wanna be more open for gay people?” Chan asks, well-meaning but tactless.
“Don’t say it like that,” Jeonghan says, uncharacteristically taking a gentle route rather than the avenue that lets him make fun of Chan.
“Why? I’m cool with gay people. Even though I’m not gay,” Chan says.
“I saw you crossing your legs when Soonyoung tried on a crop top,” Wonwoo interjects in deadpan and not for the first time, Minghao thinks Wonwoo might be the funniest person he knows.
“I’m very dreamy,” Soonyoung agrees, draping himself all over Wonwoo who doesn’t even try to shove him off. “Can’t blame Channie for having good, thirsty taste.”
four.
Minghao likes the new dorm arrangements: Seungcheol and Joshua have both proven to be calm and lowkey floormates outside the chaos of work. With the new configurations, Minghao is glad that he still gets to see as much of Joshua as he used to, bonding over oversized glasses of wine and conversations that always skirt the edges of homesickness and nostalgia.
The new arrangement means that he also gets more opportunities to get to know Seungcheol, one of the people with the highest emotional intelligence he’s ever met. (“I just have so many feelings,” he had once said unironically to Minghao while staring off into middle distance with a clenched fist, and Minghao thinks he’s going to love him forever just for this.) Spending time with Seungcheol, contending with his softness and the gentleness he only shows the people he knows best, has tempered a little bit of the savage bite at the heart of Minghao, he thinks. It’s probably for the best.
Living on different floors doesn’t stop the others from dropping in to visit regularly, either: Mingyu and Seokmin continue to be fixtures in Minghao’s rooms, too. Sometimes Jeonghan and Junhui, usually separately; sometimes, Hansol drops by unannounced, too, almost a fixture these days and a warm reassurance at Minghao’s side that’s just as likely to sprawl out on the bed beside him and Joshua halfway through a movie as he is to sit on the floor while Minghao video calls his parents, unobtrusively scrolling Weverse and chewing at his nails.
Minghao doesn’t think Hansol notices that he worries at his own fingertips, that he’s ripped his cuticles, so he starts tucking their hands together, fingers interlocked; he’s not sure if Hansol notices they’ve been holding hands more often these days, either. Joshua does, though, and says there’s a show in America, his favourite one, where someone said that lacing your fingers together means you actually want to bang.
Later, after Joshua’s excused himself to go call a friend who lives back in the states, Minghao turns to Hansol to ask if what Joshua said bothered him at all. Hansol just shrugged, unfussed, and tells Minghao which TV show Joshua was talking about.
“It’s fine. I think he misses home,” Hansol says slowly, biting his lip as he thinks out what he wants to say, his hand still in Minghao’s. “His other home, I mean.”
(This is the moment, Minghao remembers, wanting to distract Hansol from chewing on his lip as the TV glow casts a strange light in the dark room. He tilts his head and leans in; he presses their mouths together. This time, Hansol definitely notices and gently kisses him back.)
five.
Minghao doesn’t know if he’s the first or sixth, or twelfth person Mingyu’s approached to try and convince into a contract renewal, but he’s not surprised when it happens–Mingyu has always worn his bleeding heart on his immaculately ironed sleeves that seemed to always be stainless despite his uncanny gift of spilling and breaking all material goods he touches like some sort of cursed reverse Midas.
Mingyu invites them out for a late night snack, Minghao and Seokmin. Even before the side dishes of kimchi and bean sprouts arrive, he’s already launched into an impassioned pontification about why they should renew as thirteen people, how they’ve got unfinished business, how they’re all better together.
Minghao doesn’t have to look over at Seokmin to know that his eyes are already shining with unshed tears from how moved he is by Mingyu’s impassioned monologue, already won over. He thinks about one of his father’s favourite cheeky phrases from his childhood about how his dramatics were wasted by not being in a movie, but how his presence in the film would have been a waste of the movie. He thinks fondly about how this is precisely why Mingyu is one of his favourite people in the whole world.
“We didn’t choose each other the first time around,” Mingyu winds down, looking each of them meaningfully in the eye. “But this time, I’m choosing all of you. And it would be my honour if you would all choose me too.”
“For capitalism?” Minghao suggests drily, if only to stop Seokmin from bursting into tears or rapturous applause in the middle of the restaurant. Maybe both at the same time.
Mingyu at least has the grace to look a little sheepish. “But really, also for love, right? Like, I don’t know how this fate stuff works, or if this even is fate or whatever you call it. But what I do know is that we work. We respect each other. We have fun. Why couldn’t we choose each other again?”
“Second life, second life,” Seokmin sings under his breath, leaning over to throw his arm around Minghao’s shoulders. “We even have a song about this already, it must be fate!”
There are some moments in life that Minghao wishes he could catch with both hands, hold and never let go of. Here, tucked into a booth with Mingyu and Seokmin after midnight and waiting for tteokbokki is one of them. “I’ll think about it,” he says instead, as if they all don't know what he’s already decided to do.
six.
Leaving everyone else behind for months in a different country feels strange – it’s an opportunity to learn and grow but there’s something daunting about being in a place he remembers as thinking to be his only home all those years ago, wondering why it suddenly feels so much like a liminal space. Despite his immense joy of seeing his family for the first time in years, the comfort of basking in his mother tongue and old habits, there’s something unfamiliar here, something changed, something he cannot put his finger on.
Junhui just stares at him blankly when he tries to articulate this on a video call, watching him try and stuff an entire pineapple bun into his mouth in five point four seconds during a short break in the shooting of his webseries – “Of course things have changed,” he says. “It’s been literal years, that’s how time works. You’ve changed too, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one?”
Minghao contemplates hanging up on him but doesn’t. He knows that this is Junhui’s version of comfort: grounding in reality, optimism for the future, perhaps a lukewarm roast snuck in as well. “Does it feel weird being back?” he asks instead, knowing that he’ll only have anywhere from thirty seconds to three more minutes with Junhui before he’ll have to run back off to work again. “Does it still feel like home?”
“I think you’re worrying too much,” Junhui tells him, brushing errant crumbs from his mouth. “Why can’t you have more than one home? And why does home have to be a place? You can make spaces to belong. You know, do that thing on the cover of the book from Dokyeom.”
(When he had found out that they were leaving, Seokmin had showed up at Minghao’s door and jokingly warbled out “Myungho, don’t leeeeeeeave me,” before bodily throwing himself at him and bursting into actual tears, his gift of a sketchbook squished between the two of them. He makes Minghao promise to use it and think of him while he’s away, and tells him that he’s found the perfect sketchbook because the cover – three English words — are all things he knows Minghao values and likes to do: Live. Laugh. Love.
“I do enjoy all of these things,” Minghao had agreed and thanked him sincerely. Later, Joshua had laughed until he was clutching his stomach when he had seen the sketchbook and explained the interpreted English meaning.
“He also gave Junnie one that says Dance like no one is watching in English, and Jun was confused because he told him that Channie’s always watching!” Joshua announces between peels of laughter. “Dokyeom is so cute.”
Minghao, also laughing, is charmed that Seokmin had bought this in earnest while thinking of him, and resolves to fill and cherish this very book.)
Hours later, Minghao’s still thinking about Junhui’s words and crumb-covered face, irritated by the fact that maybe he’s not so wrong. Maybe home is in the way his parents, his mother still doting and his father still cheeky, will jump on hotel beds with him. It’s in the way that Seungcheol insisted they make a secret staff-free thirteen person KKT group called Proof of Life so that no one ever goes too long without checking in to give him the illusion that he’s not a neurotic papa bear, and Soonyoung keeps aggressively video calling to find out what he’s had for dinner and then immediately hanging up afterwards. It’s in the way that Wonwoo has been texting him about new teas they can try together, doing his very best to try and take an interest in Minghao’s hobbies, the two of them more than content to sit together in silence through the ritual of brewing new teas and sipping it quietly, side-by-side in uncannily cute matching headbands and sheet masks, secretly praying that no one catches them, lest a photo get uploaded to Weverse. (Minghao thinks that the most likely culprit would be Seungkwan or Mingyu, since they’re basically the same nosy person at the heart of it all; Wonwoo thinks it’s Seungcheol, the forever wildcard.) It’s in the way that Seungkwan set up a persistent reminder on Minghao and Junhui’s phones that neither have yet to figure out how to override about taking their vitamins, in the way that Hansol has been sending him a song recommendation every day at 5:20 in the morning.
It’s in the way that even Jihoon checks in, sporadically–he doesn’t video call, it’s not who he is since if he’s ever needed Minghao for something, he’ll historically have just flagged Soonyoung or Hansol to send along the message, or pass along his well wishes via Mingyu and Jeonghan’s frequent voicemails. He’ll text, though: emojis at weird hours or pictures of three empty styrofoam containers and Seungcheol’s right elbow; one time, a message at four in the morning that says Love is a place and home is a feeling, like he knows.
(“I hate to say it but I think you were right,” Minghao announces, the first thing he says weeks later when he goes to surprise Junhui on set, well aware that Junhui will have no idea what he’s talking about, not even when he’s reminded about the line of conversation.
For his part, Junhui just stares blankly at him: “Sorry, who are you?” he deadpans cheekily. Classic Junhui.
“And here I thought your acting would have gotten better,” Minghao offers drily with just the right amount of bite. He revels in the way Junhui lights right up at the familiarity of it all, surprised about how delightedly giddy he feels about this reunion. It's like seeing Junhui again inexplicably makes it feel like something inside him snapping back into place, how it feels so much like picking up where they’ve left off, like no time has passed at all.)
seven.
Days off are rare and precious, and Minghao knows that they’d all be lying if they said they hadn’t all been looking forward to this one day of peace. Despite all the excited chatter of plan making around him on how to spend this rare gem of an opportunity, Minghao thinks about how all he wants to do is nothing at all, revelling in the serenity of the quiet dorm, and so the afternoon finds Minghao sketching while curled up on the common room sofa under the window that gets the best sunlight, alone together with Hansol who’s dozing with his head on Minghao’s lap, stretched out like a polite corpse.
He’s not sure how much time has passed, but the light has certainly changed when he senses someone else in the room. Minghao looks up to see Seungkwan, who he didn’t even know had returned, having been uncharacteristically cagey about his day off plans, though Minghao’s pretty sure he already knows why.
“Myungho,” Seungkawn says. He pulls up Hansol’s legs to sit on the couch, dropping them back onto his lap like a humanoid blanket.
“Seungkwan,” Minghao replies with the same inflection, a fond smile ticking at the corner of his mouth.
Seungkwan looks like he’s trying to decide what to say next, his face doing something complicated. "I've been seeing someone," he finally announces.
The Minghao of yesteryear would have deadpanned I know, but much to his chagrin, he’s pretty sure that the years of living with all of them has softened some of his edges. Instead, he puts down his Live. Laugh. Love. sketchbook and looks at Seungkwan expectantly with silent encouragement.
"He's…a, well. He," Seungkwan continues. "I haven't told anyone yet. About the person. Or that other part, I mean."
Minghao can’t help but tilt his head questioningly in Hansol's direction, who’s pretending to be asleep
Seungkwan rolls his eyes. "Of course he knows, Vernonie doesn't count."
"That's rude," Hansol says, eyes still closed, but the smug pull at the corners of his lips takes the heat out of his words.
“Thanks for telling me,” Minghao says, reaching over to squeeze Seungkwan’s hand in encouragement. “Why did you want me to know?”
Seungkwan rolls his eyes. “Because I know that everyone assumes. About me. And they’re not wrong, but it’s not true until I say it’s true, right?”
“Right,” Minghao agrees, trying to give him space to continue.
“And I know that the two of you make it work and I want to make it work with him, too, I think. So I just wanted you to know,” Seungkwan says.
“We’re not together,” Minghao says, gesturing at Hansol, who nods in agreement. “Not like that, anyway. And that’s how we make it work.”
“Don’t you want to be though?” Seungkwan presses. “Myungho. Eissa. The loveliest man in the world. Veronie is my best friend, my everything. But we all know he’s never going to do better than you.”
Both Minghao and Hansol laugh at that. “What about this guy? Is he not the loveliest man in the world?”
“He calls me for no reason except to say hi and that he was thinking of me,” Seungkwan says, in the way that sounds like a complaint but is so secretly fond. “Who does that?”
“You do that to Mingyu all the time?” Minghao can’t help himself, falling back into familiar patterns. “You do that to me all the time!”
Seungkwan bristles. “Yeah, but I don’t want to smush my face up against your faces. Not like that, anyway. It’s different. You guys are my family. Also, the development that I want to smush my face against his face. Is that normal?”
Hansol opens his eyes at that, craning his head to peer at Seungkwan. “The guy you’re seeing also wants to be your friend,” he says. “Isn’t that the way it should be? Isn’t that a good thing?”
Seungkwan points an accusatory finger at Hansol. “You! Whose side are you on here anyway?”
Hansol laughs, fearless in the way that can only come from being Boo Seungkwan’s decade-long favourite. “Yours, of course. Always yours.”
This seems to mollify Seungkwan a little bit.
"Tell me about him," Minghao offers.
Taking a deep breath, Seungkwan begins. This time, it’s less frantic, more anecdotal, as little by little, he invites Minghao into this corner of his private life. It’s steeped in unconditional trust, a corner of the universe for just the two of them and a half-awake Hansol, as the afternoon sun shifts into an early evening glow. He’s such a good story-teller, Minghao loves that about him and could listen to him talk forever but would never tell him that to his face.
Deep down, Minghao thinks that Seungkwan might know that already anyway.
“And another thing,” Seungkwan says, winding himself up again. “He texts every night before bed to say ‘Good Night’ because he says we should never go to bed angry. Like…what is that? If I never went to bed angry, I would never sleep again!”
“You don’t sleep enough,” Minghao tells him.
“He doesn’t sleep enough,” Hansol agrees.
“I slept a full six hours on Monday!” Seungkwan argues.
It’s Thursday.
eight.
"Can I come in?" Jeonghan asks. Without waiting for a response, he sidles through Minghao’s bedroom door with an arm theatrically covering his eyes.
Minghao and Hansol exchange a confused glance, Minghao from the bed and Hansol on the floor. "What are you doing?" Minghao asks.
"Just wanted to make sure you're both decent,” Jeonghan says. “You know, in case you're–" and at this, he pulls his arm away from his eyes to make a lewd gesture with both hands while also dropping unceremoniously onto Minghao’s bed, his legs narrowly missing kicking Hansol, who doesn’t even notice, in the head. “My babies, I am bored. Please, entertain me, a helpless old man. What are you doing?”
Minghao angles the cover of the book he’s been re-visiting so Jeonghan can see it, an old Chinese novel, one of his favourites.
“What’s it about?” Jeonghan wants to know.
“It’s about two regular people, living different but parallel lives, but building a connection because of it. Like, soulmates I guess.”
Jeonghan hums, his disinterest in books at odds with his genuine curiosity about the interests of his loved ones. “Are you enjoying it?”
“I love it, it’s one of my favourites.”
Jeonghan takes the book from Minghao’s hands, squints at the cover that’s in a language he can’t read. “Have you read it?” he directs the question at Hansol.
“I’m going to, but it hasn’t been translated into English yet,” he says, not looking up from his phone.
“Why English, you nerd?”
“I only read novels in English,” Hansol replies, as if this explains everything. “Non-fiction in Korean, novels in English.”
Jeonghan raises an eyebrow but has learned not to press when it comes to Hansol’s specific quirks. He turns his attention back to Minghao. “So it’s a romance?”
“No,” Minghao says, amused. “Just people connecting on a deep level, you know?”
Nodding, Jeonghan looks deep in thought for a moment. When he speaks again, he’s slow, deliberate: “I have a theory about soulmates. I think you have more than one in this life. It’s just people you feel drawn to, people you have a connection to.”
Minghao thinks about this. It’s like Mingyu’s idea of fate bringing them together, but maybe more concrete. Grounded. Real. “Like us?” Minghao asks. “Mingyu said we were all fated.”
“That sounds like we didn’t have a choice,” Jeonghan says. “And didn’t we choose each other, at least this time around? I think a soulmate is someone you can connect with and I think it keeps us from ever getting too lonely. Sometimes it’s romance. Sometimes it’s friendship. And sometimes it’s a little brother who I won’t even make fun of for carrying two pairs of fingerless gloves in a backpack even though that is definitely something deserving of being made fun of.” He directs that last part to Hansol to draw him back into the conversation. Jeonghan hauls himself up from lying on Minghao’s bed to lean over the side and smack a loud kiss to the side of Hansol’s head who scrunches up his face but doesn’t otherwise protest.
“We see through you,” Hansol tells him. “You’re just looking for someone to have your back when you become the first straight man on earth to marry two guys.”
That startles a laugh out of Minghao: Hansol has always been oddly passionate about ensuring there’s no identity erasure so he’s definitely said what he means with his unprompted teasing attack.
Jeonghan just smiles, a sly, pleased little thing, taking it in stride. “You mean they’re going to marry me, I’m a catch!”
“As one of your many alleged soulmates, I guess I have no choice but to support you and wish you every happiness,” Minghao adds.
“If only all of my soulmates were this loyal and supportive,” Jeonghan agrees, dramatically throwing his arms around Minghao as they both go crashing back into the bed, laughing in a tangle of limbs.
nine.
Minghao supposes he shouldn’t make fun of Junhui’s love for cooking, since Junhui really is very good at it and Minghao will shamelessly angle to benefit from Junhui’s new hobby of food experimentation at any given chance.
He’s invited over to Junhui’s dorm again for hotpot, with the caveat that his floormates, the moochy Aquarian trio, have caught wind of it and have already invited themselves to join their dinner. (Minghao had never been a big believer in astrology until the time Hansol had presented him with detailed birth charts for all thirteen of them two months after debut. “You’re a scorpio sun and aquarius moon, I’m an aquarius sun and a scorpio moon,” he had told Minghao excitedly. “I think we’re gonna get along really well.”) Junhui says it like it’s a huge imposition, but Minghao knows him well, knows that he doesn’t mind, that to Junhui, food really is love.
Somehow, Minghao has forgotten that Junhui’s and his dormmates have latched onto a four-person Snoopy dining ware set, an inside joke that they don’t even share with the rest of the group, but Chan offers Minghao one of the coveted bowls and uses a styrofoam bowl instead – You’re our guest of honour, he says with gusto, which prompts Seokmin to add all of Minghao’s favourite foods to cook first and Hansol to serve him ramen before anyone else.
It’s been ages since Minghao’s squeezed around a table in the dorm like this, a family dinner not at a restaurant or while on a working vacation. It’s nice, elbows bumping and quiet slurping and showers of compliments at Junhui for the feast, all mixed in with casual conversation – Seokmin’s not-so-secret crush on one of the Guinevere understudies, the next season in a beloved Netflix series, how Chan and Hansol’s Mandarin classes are going.
"If they keep learning, you'll need a new secret language to talk shit about them," Seokmin says around a large mouthful of greens, his eyes crinkling up with mirth.
"Mandarin's literally the most spoken language in the world," Chan says primly, his cheeks stuffed full with ramen. He’s practically vibrating with happiness from the food. “So not so secret.”
"We can still talk shit about you,” Minghao points out to Seokmin. He winks so that there’s no mistaking this for gentle teasing. “Unless you’re secretly learning it too?"
"Nah, Junnie taught me all the important parts already." Seokmin ticks each item on his fingers: "I love you; sorry, I don't speak Chinese; Where is the bathroom; the words to the song ‘Moon Represents My Heart.’”
Minghao turns to Junhui, who’s grinning around the chopsticks in his mouth, looking like a proud walrus. “You couldn’t teach him a song from our lifetime?”
“It’s the perfect song,” Junhui says solemnly.
“Moon Junnie represents my heart,” Seokmin blurts out, looking very pleased with himself, egged on by the delighted high-five Hansol offers him for this nonsensical joke.
(Wonwoo once declared in an interview that Junhui's love language is food. When Minghao later points out that food isn’t considered one of the five love languages, Junhui just looks him in the eye and pointedly says I love food, first in Korean, then again in Mandarin, and one more time in English for good measure.)
ten.
“So you and Veronie,” Soonyoung says to him, left alone backstage for a rare moment, dolled up first for once and waiting for everyone else to get made up and mic'd up.
“So me and Veronie what?” Minghao asks, looking up curiously from his phone.
“If the two of you break up, you can’t be weird about it, okay? Like you can’t leave or anything. That’s a rule. I know where you live, I will absolutely steal a military plane to get you back, but I will also lock you out of your Instagram account. Or get Wonwoo to do it.”
“I’d do it, too,” Wonwoo agrees, previously unnoticed by Minghao, in the least threatening voice, possibly due to his mouthful of banana. He flashes a peace sign and wanders off, banana peel in his other hand.
Minghao raises an eyebrow, both surprised and not surprised that Soonyoung and by extension Wonwoo know–it’s not like they’ve been explicit or overt about anything. Hiding in plain sight, Seungkwan had called it, referring to how the two of them hold hands just as much now as they did before, how they still go to museums and restaurants together. Rather than respond to Soonyoung’s weirdly specific threats, he asks him how he knew, what gave them away; were they obvious?
“No, I’m just a genius detective and nothing gets by me,” Soonyoung says cheerfully.
Minghao raises his other eyebrow, too, in disbelief.
“And I just know you both really well,” Soonyoung amends.
Minghao finds himself laughing at that, a little taken aback by the blunt honesty that Soonyoung is always quick to offer. “I promise whatever happens, we’ll put the team first,” he offers.
Soonyoung seems a little soothed by this. “Good,” he says. “That’s what he said, too.”
“You talked to him about this already?”
“Yeah,” Soonyoung says. “I told him it would make Jihoonie cry, which seems like a suitably horrifying threat.” He doesn’t say anything else for a long moment.
“And…?” Minghao prompts gently, because sometimes this is just the way Soonyoung is.
Soonyoung sighs. “And…I just. This team is all I have, okay? I want us to succeed. We need each other to do that. This works. This fits. We all…belong together.”
“You don’t need us for that, you know that, right?” Minghao says gently. “You can succeed on your own. And one day you’re going to have to.”
“I know,” Soonyoung says, and it’s not arrogance, it’s just a fact. “But I don’t want to. Not yet, anyway.”
And that’s it, Minghao realises, this is it right here. This is the path he’s chosen for himself, the people that he and Soonyoung and Hansol and the rest of them choose over and over again. Because the people he chooses, back in his hometown and in a dorm that’s no longer packed with thirteen sweaty and hopeful trainees and in his bed and backstage, here, with Soonyoung tucked against his arm: this is home, this is where he belongs, these are the people who choose him right back.
This is a feeling that’s big, too big and warm to name, especially here backstage at a music show, the feeling that he’s exactly where he should be.
“Me too,” Minghao says instead. “Me too.”
[end]