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Out of all things Minseok came to expect to find in the debris of Sehun's parties: Kim Junmyeon was not one of them.
And yet there Junmyeon sat, on the broad arm of the leather couch, his gaze wandering the chaos brightly lit by ceiling lights. Minseok watched him picking up the occasional object to inspect before setting it back down again—or adding it to a trash bag resting next to him, tied to his arm. It was too contemplative, Minseok thought as he let the door click shut and took off his shoes to step into slippers pulled from his backpack, as if the post-party scenery was an exhibition and Junmyeon its curator.
He slid every window he passed wide open. Air still cool with moonshine and city lights filled the room and made Minseok shiver. When he looked back over to the couch, his presence had been noted, and a small breeze was tangled in Junmyeon's hair. It was longer than Minseok had ever seen it, almost covered his ears, a soft frame for his round face.
"Is it 5 AM already?" Junmyeon asked.
Not one reason came to mind why Kim Junmyeon would wait for him—but since he'd waited, he was Minseok's guest now, even if uninvited. Minseok would take as good care of him as he would of the apartment. It wasn't the worst mess he'd seen, would barely require more than an hour or two of cleanup, unless the bathroom had something more to offer. He willed away the small sting of disappointment and followed the last of the warm, stuffy air towards the kitchen, kicked an empty bag of snacks aside on his way.
Junmyeon perked up when it spilled, abandoning the trash bag for what had to by now be stale tako chips. His scent was too bright. This late at night, it should be rounded, dull, worn rather than thorny and kindling, easily seeping through Minseok's mask.
"Where's Sehun?" he wondered aloud as he rescued the rice cooker from a forest made of plastic bag clouds and sticky bottles that needed emptying into the sink before he could go about measuring and washing rice.
"Left with Jongdae." Junmyeon seemed happy to answer, and Minseok found him leaning in the doorway when he turned to look over his shoulder. Gentle curiosity sparkled in his eyes, and Minseok couldn't quite figure out if he was wearing lipstick, with the way he was carefully fitting the octopus-shaped chips into his mouth, one by one. "You're not sleeping with Sehun anymore?"
Minseok laughed, pulled on gloves and began to clean out the sink, scooping confetti out into a bowl. "I haven't had sex in years." He knew what people who'd met him in his mid-twenties, too flirty and far from settled into himself, assumed of him and rarely bothered to correct them. Almost ten years later it served to keep the wrong kind of person away.
Where Junmyeon fell, he couldn't tell. In this regard ahead, he'd often kept his distance—whether judgmental or protective of himself, Minseok had never figured out—and he doubted past Minseok, reckless and desperate for connection with himself, would have wanted to know. As it stood, Minseok had never flirted his way into Junmyeon's bed, and had never gotten close to trying.
Junmyeon didn't acknowledge his answer, or maybe it was lost in the crinkle of the chips bag, the water rushing to fill the sink with hot water, Minseok's heartbeat that now sat heavy, thunderous, traitorous in his throat.
He busied himself with gathering, sorting and stacking dishes, collecting chicken bones in the biggest take-out box, clearing the kitchen table and chairs. The kitchen, too, was underwhelming, but the floor was sticky, and the fridge turned out to smell slightly icky, and held enough eggs for two. He took them and turned to Junmyeon who still stood in the doorway, seeming deep in thought. Minseok lost the invitation to eat breakfast together later to a sharp prickle of curiosity. "You didn't go home with him this time?" he asked.
"Ah," Junmyeon said, flustered enough that he ran fingers covered with chips dust through his hair that fell back into its place, no more ruffled than before. "Not today, I didn't."
Minseok felt like he'd pried enough, but he'd wondered where Kyungsoo and Junmyeon stood for the longest time. In all the time he'd known Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo hadn't shown interest in anyone, and Minseok was sure repeated one-night stands couldn't be counted as a sign of interest. However rare they were—it had become somewhat expected in their circle of friends to realise Junmyeon and Kyungsoo had left at the same time, and more curiously: together.
A hand cupped his elbow, fleetingly and hesitant enough that Minseok didn't drop the bowl he was washing. "You should come to my place to clean someday," Junmyeon said.
His cheeks shone under the fluorescent kitchen light that outlined every one of his scars, the sparse stubble, and he pressed the tip of his tongue into the corner of his mouth briefly enough that Minseok could tell he felt apprehensive.
"Why are you here, Junmyeon?" Minseok asked. Why not be with Kyungsoo.
Junmyeon drew back, left enough space between them to fit their decade of loose acquaintanceship into. "You're the only one I know who's—" he began, before holding onto the counter, pushing up on his toes and shaking the thought off. "Actually, I've been wanting to talk to you for a while."
"You've been avoiding me," Minseok replied. Not just lately, ever since they first met.
This close up, Junmyeon's scent cut even through the cloying smell of the dish soap. Minseok lifted an arm to blot his temples dry, shook his head when the action had brushed a strand of hair into his eyes.
"About that," Junmyeon said with a sigh that echoed in Minseok's heart, then leaned forward on the counter. He smiled up at Minseok, a small but unabashed smile, when he caught Minseok's eyes following the sound his fingernails made tapping against the counter. "It's complicated—you were complicated. For the longest time, I couldn't tell which end of the self-discovery process you'd come out of."
"I wasn't complicated, I was a mess," Minseok corrected.
Junmyeon hummed, crossing his arms to rest his head on them. "You were a surprise," he continued. "And when Sehun came out, you wouldn't leave his side for years. Remember the time I got his name wrong? I thought you were going to bite my head off. I've never seen you so furious."
Minseok felt his gaze on him, and he looked over from the glass he was rinsing, struck by their proximity, by Junmyeon's hand now resting close to his elbow. Their usual state of sharing an orbit without touching.
"Sehun needed you more than anyone else, in the same way you needed to do this for him, and yourself."
Minseok winced at a distant acquaintance reading him this well, and yet—there was a curious serenity in being known, known by Junmyeon. "I was repenting, I think," he admitted. "It was nice to centre someone else's struggles, to be found worthy of leaning on."
Junmyeon nodded, then sought his gaze. "Back then, it felt . . . inappropriate, to tell you I was in love with you."
Minseok felt like he'd walked into a wall of ice, his lungs and mouth full of snow. "I had no idea." Junmyeon's head was turned away now, and he barely resisted the temptation to scoop soap bubbles onto his soft hair and watch them pop and seep away like sea foam on a shore.
"You weren't supposed to," Junmyeon told him. "It was barely anything. You were so far away, and I used to have a gift for wanting whom I couldn't have."
"Like Kyungsoo?"
"Caught me there." When Junmyeon laughed, it sounded practiced, dry. "I envy Kyungsoo, you know? He's the least lonely person I know. But—"
This time, his hand found its way onto Minseok's arm, in a touch so delicate it had the weight of sunlight.
"—we both want what we can't have. Except—Kyungsoo, he never runs out of patience. He might just wait for you until the end of time."
This time, Minseok did lose his grip on the plate he was washing. It shattered into the water, cleanly broken apart into three pieces by the lip of the iron pot it had made contact with. He hoped it hadn't been anyone's favourite.
Next to him, Junmyeon sighed and reached past to pick out the shards. Their gazes met when Minseok grasped his wrist, wet pink plastic against the white of Junmyeon's shirt.
"Should you be the one to tell me this?" he asked.
"No," Junmyeon admitted, "but I'm tired." His wrist relaxed in Minseok's grip, and the rest of his body seemed to follow, only a blink of an eye away from melting into exhaustion. "He won't say a word as long as he thinks you're dating Sehun. He probably wouldn't say anything if he knew you were single either."
The kitchen was so silent every wisp of a thought escaped Minseok's grasp. The knowledge of Kyungsoo's quiet, secret feelings pressed small and cold into the side of his own, not quite a flame, not quite an ember. After all, he, too, had been avoiding Junmyeon.
"I won't sleep with him anymore," Junmyeon interrupted. His face had lost all semblance of softness, and his eyes were bright with detached determination. "Please consider his feelings."
Minseok was glad for the mask hiding his half-heartedness when he agreed, and even more glad for the rice cooker demanding attention. With how firm the line of Junmyeon's mouth turned, and with how little room for doubt he'd left that his interest in Minseok was one of the past, Minseok knew of one more thing besides Junmyeon's collection of trash he'd have to sort into the recycling bins later: the sliver of hope he'd carried in his heart.