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When Minho steps through the front door, he immediately gets a faceful of Kibum.
Kibum, who's staring at him, unmoving, cheeky smile on his face.
"Were you waiting on me or something?" That would be nice.
He gets no response.
"Okay.. will you stop looking at me like that? You're freaking me out."
Kibum stays silent, but his smile grows, and Minho looking away from it in discomfort is when he notices that Kibum's arm is held up in the air between them.
His eyes travel up the arm, then to his hand, then. Mistletoe.
Real mistletoe, not the fake plastic kind, by the looks of it. Why does he have that, why is he holding it up? Mistletoe is a Christmas thing, Christmas isn't for four months. Christmas.. mistletoe, what is that for again?
Oh dear. He's doing it again. He's being an asshole again.
Minho can't hold back a nervous laugh. "Kibum, it's August."
Kibum quirks an eyebrow. "It's above our heads. You have to kiss me."
This is ridiculous, so ridiculous, but Minho can already feel that awful feeling bubbling up in his chest. He doesn't need this, not tonight, he's had such a long day. He doesn't need this ever. And he knows that smacking it out Kibum's hand or whatever, that's exactly what Kibum wants, and giving in to just kiss him is worse.
So he tries to keep his cool. He tries so hard. "Kibum.. I'm tired. I'm not in the mood for this." Not like bargaining has ever worked on him, but Minho might as well give it a shot.
"Just one kiss?" Kibum gives his best puppy dog eyes. Minho feels like he's going to fall through the floor and just die. "It's mistletoe," he pouts.
"It's August," Minho feels the need to remind him.
"The rule applies no matter what." Kibum punctuates it by shaking the mistletoe and making stupid little kissy noises, so stupid, so fucking stupid, Minho can't take it anymore.
He shoves past Kibum and walks through the dorm as fast as he can. If he goes to his bedroom, Kibum will just follow him.
So Minho makes a beeline for the bathroom instead.
He can hear Kibum walking after him, asking him what's wrong, was that crossing a line, but Minho doesn't care. He shuts the bathroom door behind him, locks the door, stands against it and slides down until he plops on the floor.
He has no plans of getting up until Kibum goes to bed.
Liking him is bad enough—Kibum might not know it, but he is such a difficult person to like—but the constant teasing is worse. It's almost like Kibum knows how Minho feels, like he can read his mind, know just what to do, what to say to get under his skin.
It gets harder every week. Kibum came out as gay a month or so ago and Minho went to bed that night trying and nearly failing not to scream into his pillow at the implications. He feels crazy. He feels delusional enough. He feels—
"Minho?" His heart feels like it's going to jump out through his lips. "Minho, I know you're in there."
He'd rather jump out his bedroom window than speak to Kibum right now.
"Come on, I.. I wasn't trying to upset you, okay? Are you really that tired? I didn't know."
Minho lets his head fall between his knees, hands on either side of it. It hurts. This whole thing is giving him this massive headache, and he was tired enough, he was tired enough. He thinks maybe if he keeps quiet, Kibum will have object impermanence like a baby and just forget all this happened. Forget Minho's in the bathroom, forget that he exists at all. Fuck, Minho should've just kissed him and spared himself the trouble.
It doesn't work. "I'm sorry, dude. I thought it would be funny, I don't know." There's a pause where Minho doesn't know what Kibum's doing, guessing that he's thinking over his words to sound less like a dick, considering what a failure the first part was. "I'm serious, I really wasn't trying to upset you."
Then what? What part of this shouldn't be inherently upsetting, even if Minho didn't like him? The part where Kibum gets to laugh at the fact Minho kissed a guy, call him some reiteration of secretly gay, tell the boys about it in the morning.. for Christ's sake. Minho doesn't think he's the crazy one here, but is he, after all? Is that normal, is that okay? Do most gay guys do these kinds of things to one another?—if so, Minho's more than willing to stay in the closet for the rest of his life.
He's realized by now, though, that if he never speaks up, Kibum will just pester him until Jinki gets home, and then he'll have both of them on his ass. So he does speak up. Maybe he can get this over with, a few sentences and done, and Kibum will feel so bad, he'll never try a prank like this on Minho again.
Maybe.
With a lift of his head, Minho asks him, "Funny? You think that's funny?"
Silence. Ah, he's trying my technique. Silence, until a plain and simple: "I dunno."
The real answer is that it's not funny. It isn't funny at all, and yet Minho feels so hysterical about all of this, he's afraid he might burst out laughing if he doesn't watch himself about it.
"It wasn't funny to me," Minho scoffs. "It just.. it annoyed me, and you knew it was going to annoy me. It was on purpose, wasn't it?"
Kibum agrees quite quickly. "Okay, yeah, I was. But I already said sorry, and I meant it, Minho."
As if. "You're going to do something just like this again in a few days, I already know it. Sorry doesn't mean anything to me."
Kibum cries out, "I won't! I didn't know it would upset you this bad, I wouldn't have if—"
"You do things like this all the time to me! I've never once laughed along. You already admitted that it's funny to you." Minho's nails dig into his knees. "And anyway, mistletoe over my head? Seriously?"
Again, Kibum is silent.
"Not even going to try to make a case for yourself?"
Kibum's voice sounds weaker than before, a tad bit more vulnerable, when he speaks again. "I've said everything that I have to say."
"So you're standing by it, the fact that you think it's funny to trick me into kissing you?"
Minho is starting to feel a little delirious, almost drunk off the absurdity of it all. Him sitting in the bathroom floor on the verge of tears with the door locked, over a mistletoe prank. This is exactly the kind of situation Kibum would poke fun at both parties in, if he wasn't one of them. It's so teenager, he might say. So dramatic.
"Well, I—" Kibum cuts off abruptly, pauses for a few seconds. Minho can hear his semi-labored breathing through the door. "Minho, come on. It's not.. like that."
Minho finally lets that laugh that's been building up in his chest out into the air. "How is it not? This is far from the first time you've tried to embarrass me like this."
Kibum splutters, "Embarrass you? How is it embarrassing?"
"Isn't it?"
Silence, maybe Kibum gathering his words. Maybe he finally walked away and gave up on this stupid shit. But oh, wait, no, he's back again, "Minho, you know I'm.. you know what I am. You can't say things like that. You can't call kissing a boy embarrassing."
If he thought the rest of this was ridiculous before, this is what makes Minho's head feel like it's going to explode from the frustration. It's hard to just say Kibum, I'm not homophobic, I'm just gay, or something along the lines of gay, and it's not like he can just come right out of the gate with that anyway, so he tries what he knows is a futile, "I don't mean it in that way—"
He's swiftly cut off, as he expected to be. "I'm being dead serious. I don't care how much I annoyed you, you know how homophobic that sounds. There's no way you don't know."
"I don't mean it in that way," Minho repeats, as if Kibum hadn't heard him the first time. "You literally just tried to make me kiss you, because you thought it was funny. How is that not embarrassing for me?"
"Minho, I— I can't explain. Really, I can't."
But Minho isn't done, "It's a dick move. If Jonghyun did that to a girl, you would call him a pervert."
Kibum lets out what sounds like a scoff. "Jonghyun is a pervert. And he absolutely would do that."
He almost gets away with ending the fight there, Jonghyun in Kibum's shoes a clear (and pretty funny) image in Minho's head, but wait, wait. No. "That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
"The point is.." Minho rolls his eyes. "The point is you're a dick! I already told you the point."
Kibum sighs. "Look, Minho, I apologized. I don't know what else you want from me at this point."
You, I want you. Oh God, don't say that, are you crazy? He groans. Maybe he is crazy. This is all crazy, but the show must go on, he supposes, "I want for you to stop trying to make me kiss you."
Kibum falls silent again. Really, Minho had no idea how easy it could be to make him speechless until tonight.
"Hello? Didn't you hear me?"
"Yeah, yeah. Fuck." His voice is all breathy. Minho hates it. Loves it? No, he hates it. "I'm just.. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I feel so bad."
"You should."
"I know! I know."
Perhaps this is where it ends. That seems to be the most preferable outcome here to Minho, now that he's somehow broken Kibum. Perhaps.. "Minho," Kibum calls out. Well, great.
"What."
He can hear Kibum slide down the door to sit opposite him. "Can I explain myself? Like, for real?"
Minho huffs. "I thought you already did?"
"I kinda, uh.. lied."
Ha! Caught you red-handed. Minho can't say his curiosity isn't peaked. "Of course you did."
He can see Kibum in his head right now, the roll of his eyes and exhausted tilt of the head. "Will you please just answer the question?"
Fine. Fine, so they can get this over with already, so Minho can go to bed. "Go ahead."
"Okay." Kibum takes a deep breath in and back out. "Okay, so this is.. this is really embarrassing. And I'm sorry, I'm really sorry for all of it, and I feel so bad about it, it's like.. I don't know what to do with myself."
Minho scoffs. "Will you get on with it already?"
"Will you be quiet and let me speak?"
Minho listens.
"I just.. ugh. Ugh, I hate this. I hate that I'm even telling you all this, and you can hate me all you want, really. I mean it. And I can't say sorry enough, and I.. yeah, I really do need to just get on with it, huh?"
Kibum sniffles.
"Well. Fuck it, I guess. I like you. Like, I.." He chuckles, wavering just like his voice. "I really like you."
Oh?
Oh.. shit.
Kibum's blissfully unaware of the mild panic Minho's in the middle of, but that's okay, because it means Minho gets to hear more of all this. "And, so.. well, I told Jinki, because you know I tell him everything, right? And he told me he had this feeling you might like me back, and I guess I just kind of ran with it."
He takes another deep breath in, back out. "And I get how bad it makes me look now, you know, having the privilege of hindsight and all that, and I know I've said sorry like ten times now, but I really really can't stress it enough. I need to get over you already, yeah?
"Because you're straight. I mean, I know you are, all of you are so painfully straight. Well, except Taemin, maybe, he doesn't seem to really like either gender right now? So who knows. He might be my last chance at a gay friend in this group."
Minho has to hold in a laugh at that.
"And looking back on it, even just ten minutes ago, I act so shameless, and so.. just. I'm sure, for you, it's like, borderline harassment at this point, you know? Or, I know, I guess." Kibum sniffles again, a little louder now. "And I never meant for it to get so bad under your skin. I'm not trying to embarrass you, okay? If anything, I'm so into you, I'm embarrassing myself, and.. and I need you to say something already before I have a heart attack or something. Even if you think it's mean, even if it'll hurt my feelings, just. Anything, Minho."
Minho, personally, kinda feels like he's dreaming. Like the second he opens his mouth to say something back, it'll snap him awake, and he'll jolt upright in his bed, covered in sweat, vowing to himself to never let anyone know he just saw all this.
Kibum knocks on the door, voice now softer. "You with me in there?"
Minho just blurts out the first thought that comes into his mind: "I seriously thought you liked Jonghyun."
He gets another shaky laugh for that, Kibum sounding like just such a mess. "I used to, just a little—can you blame me?"
Minho doesn't get it like someone more into that type would, but he understands regardless. Jonghyun's kind, he's charming, he's handsome. Would probably be a hell of a lot better boyfriend than Minho.
But Jonghyun isn't gay, not as far as either of them know, and Minho is, in some way, and. It's easy to tell Kibum now, now that Minho knows it's reciprocated.
"Jinki was right, anyway. I like you too."
Kibum's quiet for a moment. He's hardly ever quiet for very long.
"Minho, if you're fucking with me, that's not funny."
"Whuh—" He blinks. Kibum's impossible, that whole speech of his just to call Minho a liar. "Do I sound like I'm fucking with you? No, actually, do you really think I would do something like that?"
Kibum laughs, but it's strained, stressed. "I'm just covering my bases!"
"I'm being serious!" Minho looks into his lap. "I like you. Like, a lot."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"Yeah, man."
"This is kind of crazy."
Minho sighs, looking at the door in his peripheral as if he can see Kibum through it. "I know, right?"
"No, I mean, no one's ever liked me back before."
Every individual bone in Minho's spine straightens at once. He feels like he's just gotten whiplash. "No one, ever?"
Kibum cackles. "I'm being so serious."
"Not one guy you've ever liked in your life wanting to date someone like you is way crazier than me liking you back. I hope you realize that."
"Oh, whatever." Kibum groans. "You're talking like you're in a drama or something."
"Okay, Kibum? I've waited months for this opportunity. Just let me have it."
Minho, deep in his heart, wants to be annoyed, but he's laughing and so is Kibum. It's so hard to be annoyed right now, it would just take that much more energy out of him—it's easy to sit here and spit out corny lines, laugh at each other.
Kibum settles down eventually. "Will you open the door now, you moron?"
"Yeah, yeah. Give me a second."
By the time Minho's gotten to his feet and opened the bathroom door, Kibum's already standing in the frame, waiting for him, goofy smile on his face.
Before either of them can get so much as a word out, a door opens down the hallway with a creak, and Taemin's head pops out of it.
Kibum's eyes widen. "Yah! Were you eavesdropping?"
Taemin breaks into a grin. "This is the most entertainment I've gotten in this dorm in years."
Minho sighs, at a loss for words. Kibum isn't. "We've only lived here for two years, Taemin."
"Still counts."
"Will you go to bed?"
"When you two shut the hell up and let me!"
Minho finds his words at just the right time. "Taemin, come on. Just go lay down. We have this sorted out, okay?"
Taemin's grin widens even further. "I know." What a little shit.
Then there's silence, and then the silence turns into a staredown, Minho and Kibum looking down the hallway at him expectantly, and Taemin looking right back at them without a thought in his head and a care in the world.
It goes on for near thirty seconds before Kibum's had enough. "Well?"
"Okay, fine, I'll go to bed. With earmuffs if I can find them. Because you two are so fucking loud I'll never get a wink of sleep without them."
Taemin not just shuts the door behind him but slams it. "Goodnight!"
Kibum rests his hands on his hips, shaking his head. "He's got such an attitude these days, what's his issue?"
Minho dares to reach out and touch Kibum's shoulder, pleasantly surprised to not be pushed away like he half-expected to be. He rubs it in circles, slow. "He's just going through his rebellious phase. He'll get over it."
Kibum hums, still staring vacantly down the hallway like he sees something there that Minho doesn't. "Hey," he says, whipping his head back around to look into Minho's eyes. "Guess what?"
Minho knows where this is going, but he feigns ignorance anyway, just for the sake of it. "What?"
A smile begins to grow on Kibum's lips and he yanks the mistletoe out of his pocket, dangling it up in the air between them. "You have to kiss me now."
"Oh, what was that earlier? I was acting like I was in a drama or something, is that what you said—"
"Minho," Kibum whines. "Just do it, kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me."
Minho would pretend to think it over, give a real award-winning performance, but he's ninety-nine percent sure that Taemin's still eavesdropping and if Kibum keeps whining, Taemin will tell Jinki and Jonghyun he heard suspicious noises from Kibum and Minho in the hallway and they'll never live it down. So Minho listens, and he kisses Kibum underneath the mistletoe.
In their conversation, in their heads, whatever it may be, the two hadn't heard the front door open, nor had they heard Jinki and Jonghyun coming down the hallway. The two only hear them when Jonghyun drops his bags on the floor and says,
"No. Way."
Minho pulls away (even as Kibum tries to fight against him doing it) and feels a sudden pang of fear in his chest at the look on Jonghyun's face. Almost betrayed.
Jinki just chortles. "Ha. You owe me, how much was it?"
"No, that's not fair!" Jonghyun raises a finger up into his face, eyebrows furrowing. "You know something I don't, I know you do. I didn't even know Minho liked boys, how was I supposed to know this would happen? You know what, I'm not giving you the money.."
Minho's dragged out of the immersion when Kibum snorts, rests a hand on his cheek and diverts the attention back to him.
"Hey. I think we can just leave them in the hallway and they won't notice."
He's probably right. Oh, fuck it. Minho grabs Kibum's free hand and grins, pulling him down the hallway and right to his bed. They don't need to put up with this shit anyway.