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It was a long, long walk back to tower three.
It was one of the things Ryan had never been able to stand about space stations—the obsession with building up. Station proprietors and designers did it so often that they probably didn’t think about anything else. Ryan could imagine it perfectly in his head— Oh, I’ve got an idea. It’s completely brand-new, it’s going to blow you guys’s minds. How about we put a tower on a space station?—and then his thoughts got away from him and he started thinking about top-floor clubs, and really good apartments, and the chance of an asteroid hitting one of those towers and knocking it clean off and killing everyone inside. He’d always stopped that worrying runaway train with the thought of You know, I don’t see why they don’t try building down every once in a while, and it was enough to occupy him until something else happened and he forgot the whole internal conversation entirely.
Well, he supposed there was one good and reliable thing about towers—they were always quiet, isolated, and reserved. They were far away from the commercial bustle of the main station sectors, and while Ryan had never seen the appeal…
Min could really use some peace and quiet right now.
They’d rented a room on the forty-second floor, and despite the dozens of elevators scattered around the place it was still a pain in the ass getting back. Min had hardly left the place once they’d got settled in there—which was a good thing, really, because that meant he could rest and relax as best as he could without having to worry about dealing with anyone else. Ryan, on the other hand, had made the trek back-and-forth so many times now that it was practically engraved in his mind—take the elevator up to the residential district, take the elevator up again to floor 42, walk down the hall, take a left, take another left—until before he even knew it he was standing in front of that nondescript door with that nondescript keycard wavering in his hand.
He always made a big show of swiping it through the card reader, the loud and obnoxious beeping sound reverberating throughout the hallway. Knocking felt a little too personal for something like this.
When he opened the door, the room was dark—just like it’d been when he left, and the only thing illuminating the space was the dull blue glow of the tablet in the corner. There was a quiet, strained clicking noise in the air. The tablet was casting empty shadows on the bedsheets, and then Ryan was slowly creeping around the edge of the wall until his fingers brushed the lightswitch and with a soft, delicate click-
The lamp on the far table blinked to life, and from his corner of pillows and blankets Min-Gi let out an annoyed grumble.
“Heyyyyy, Min,” Ryan said cautiously, giving him a moment to disentangle himself from the sheer amount of fabric surrounding him. “Still watching that trashy reality TV show I showed you?”
Min, who had started shivering a little the moment the blankets had come off, winced slightly. “... No,” His voice was low and gruff, the ghost of a chittering hiss lingering in the air, and the only thing that kept Ryan from worrying was the fact that Min was using one of his tendrils to hurriedly turn down the tablet’s volume (Ryan had already heard one of those familiar jingle transitions, and was already prepared to counter him on his flimsy defense, but he figured Min had put himself through enough today). “Also, why- Why would you even ask me that? You were the one who said it sucked.”
“Fair,” Ryan shrugged, taking a step forward and feeling the weight of the plastic bag in his hand grow stronger. “But when I was a kid, Luxury Cruiser Insider was one of the only things keeping me going when I could barely keep anything down-”
Min flinched, suddenly, letting out a strained little chirp that startled Ryan into silence. When he raised his hand, it was falling apart at the seams—loose tendrils stringing out from his wrist, stray wires poking through—and with a long and pained sigh he tenderly placed his cool fingers along his side like he thought it would help. It took a moment for the sudden flare of pain to fade—Ryan had seen it so many times before, when Min would have to stop everything just to make sure he didn’t pass out or collapse to the ground—and slowly, carefully, Ryan stepped closer until he was hovering right at the edge of the ruffled bed.
He waited patiently for Min to crack an eye open again. “Hey,” Ryan said quietly, trying hard not to startle him. “You want me to run one of the towels under the faucet again?”
For a moment, both of them were silent. Then, with a pained clicking sound that made Ryan wilt a little inside, Min nodded as carefully and as cautiously as he possibly could.
“Alright,” Ryan gave him a pat on the shoulder before taking one of the discarded towels lying across the bed—it wasn’t like it would be easy to get replacements, and they were too nervous to try—and walked over to the little bathroom on the side to put it under the sink. He turned the dial for warm water and watched as the still mildly-damp towel softened, heating up in his hands. He waited until the water was hot—almost too hot, starting to sting his skin—before finally turning back to Min-Gi, and-
And he was looking at him not with apprehension, not with cold and indifferent hostility, but a soft glimmer of genuine thankfulness that still had Ryan stopping to breathe for a moment, even now. He had one eye still closed as he ran a shaky hand through his hair, trying to breathe through the wave of sheer discomfort he’d become all too used to as of late. Ryan watched as his fingers started to curl, shivering a little in the still, recycled air, and then suddenly—before he’d even realized he’d moved—he was standing right by his side again, pressing the warm towel into his other hand, and immediately and unceremoniously Min hugged it to his chest with a soft chirping whine.
For a moment, as he leaned back into the endless supply of blankets, Min was quiet. Then, after cracking open an eye all over again, “... Thanks, Ryan.”
“You got it,” Said Ryan softly, and then they were sitting in silence.
Well, Ryan gave him about five minutes to sit there in silence—hugging that warm and wet towel to his chest with only a hint of bashfulness, letting his slightly uneven breathing finally straighten out, the anxious background chittering drawing to a halt. According to Min, the stomach pain had started to get better (although with him, it was really more of a full-body-ache instead), but it was times like this that kept Ryan quietly doubting it. He’d been sick for weeks now. He could barely even remember the last time he’d managed to coax Min-Gi to step outside of their little rented room—god, was it five days ago? A week?—and even then he’d been exhausted the entire time, hardly able to keep himself on his feet, leaning ever so slightly into Ryan’s touch-
“... You brought something,” Min’s quiet and muted voice cut through his thoughts, and it was only then that Ryan remembered the bag that had used to be in his hand.
“Oh! Oh, uh, it’s just something I brought back for us for tonight,” By us, that meant Min—Ryan had been trying every possible trick in the book to find something that Min actually liked, or at least tolerated, eating. Today’s haul would thankfully be something simple. “It’s strawberry yogurt, nice and simple. Super easy stuff. I’m sure you’ll take it like a champ.” He scrambled back to find the bag he’d left somewhere by the door and fished out that little sealed carton with as much tentative hope as he could muster. “You- You wanna try it?”
He placed it into Min’s empty hand—the one that wasn’t still clutching at the towel, and the one that had half sprung into wires while they talked—and watched with a sinking heart as his trembling fingers curled, and his body tensed, and his already worried expression flickered with a touch of guilt. Min fingered it for a moment, reading the label, but even then Ryan could tell his heart wasn’t in it. “... Um,” Min started, those soft and thick eyebrows furrowing. “I- Maybe tomorrow, Ryan? I’m sorry, I’m just… I’m not super hungry right now.” He set it down onto the bed, shuddering, as if just looking at it had caused another wave of stomach pain to flare up in his body.
It had been like this for the past couple days. Ryan would bring something back— anything, just with the hope that Min would eat it—Min would say he wasn’t feeling hungry, and then his body would make it abundantly clear how much that wasn’t true. Min’s skin, human or not, was always cold and clammy. He shook all the time and could never get warm. He had aches that came and went without warning and kept him up for hours—all because he wouldn’t eat, all because he wasn’t eating what his body wanted, all because Ryan had-
“Hey, no sweat,” Ryan replied with as much of a smile as he could muster. “That means you gotta choke down the electrolyte drink without complaining, though. Seriously, somebody would’ve thought I was poisoning you or something with how much of an asshole you were being about it.”
Min let out a shocked, chittering hiss, and slowly Ryan began to feel the last of the lingering tension vanishing. “It’s because it does taste like poison! Seriously, Ryan, it’s awful!” He managed to shove him back a little with a shake to the shoulder, even if it was abundantly clear that Min was both significantly weakened and holding himself back. “Just because it doesn’t hurt as bad going down doesn’t mean it’s good.”
“Yeah,” And then suddenly the laughter was dropping from his voice—because Min-Gi had shivered again, his fingers curling in a way he was starting to recognize as pain, those soft dark eyes flashing. “Yeah, but- It’s something, right?”
For a moment, Min was quiet. Then, with a voice that shook just as much as his body, “It is. Thank you.”
It was all he’d ever wanted to hear.
Hours passed. It had taken a little while for the energy drink to digest right, but Min had noticeably brightened after he’d gotten over the initial headache and lingering pains. He’d finally been able to get up for a little while—just to put on a change of clothes and run his hands under some warm water, looking for any kind of distraction to make the perpetual discomfort go away. Despite Min’s halfhearted protests, he’d eventually settled back down next to Ryan in order to finish the episode he’d paused ( which wasn’t even very good, and had super lackluster quality compared to the first season, and so on). Then they’d started another. And another, and another, until finally Min’s lingering complaints and snappy comments began to fade away, curling in on himself under the multitude of blankets he was under.
That was the problem.
Min wasn’t… Supposed to be like that. He had always been quiet, and always been withdrawn, and even at his most comfortable he’d never done anything even remotely as excitable as Ryan himself could be, but there was supposed to be a spark. He’d gotten to see it for the first time when he was messing around with his guitar, trying for a softer and sweeter melody than normal, and had watched as Min had relaxed—a soft sigh rattling in his chest, the remaining tension in his face going away, a lovely little smile forming that had made Ryan’s heart flutter for just a moment. And it had taken so, so long to be able to see it again—only after they’d finished locking the storage closet, and eating the first real meal he’d had in days, and bandaging the still-bleeding wounds scattered across Min’s body—and it was only really then that he’d realized just how much he’d missed it. When Min locked himself away, he shut that little spark down too.
He shouldn’t do that. He wasn’t supposed to do that anymore. He’d promised him, over and over and over again, that he’d never treat him like that ever again, that he’d make everything worth it, that he’d never leave Ryan’s side—but while he was physically here he was just… So, so exhausted. Putting himself through more pain than Ryan could even imagine. Putting himself through pain that, unfortunately, Ryan could remember himself accepting while locked inside the captain’s quarters with tears in his eyes and an anger in his heart.
Not this time, though.
So when they’d finished their fifth episode of the day, the credits rolling along to some obnoxiously catchy tune, Ryan finally put his hand down on the remote. The screen shut off with a quiet click, and yet Min hardly flinched—just kept staring, eyebrows creasing a little in surprise, before finally glancing over a little to look Ryan almost in the eye.
“Hey,” Ryan said slowly, carefully, his fingers brushing the very tip of Min’s hand. “How’s the headache feeling?”
“Oh- The headache? Um,” Min hesitated for one worrying moment too long before he gave him a cautious nod in response. “It’s doing better. Th- The drink’s gross, but it really does help,” He let out a soft sigh, face falling ever so slightly. “At least for a little bit.”
He looked up a little higher, their eyes meeting completely for all of a fleeting moment. “Um, why did you-”
“... Do you want to get out of the room for a little while?” Ryan suddenly blurted out before he could stop himself, the question burning on his tongue.
“Huh?”
“I mean- Do you wanna go out and do something? If you’re feeling up to it, of course,” Ryan was rushing his words now, talking over himself, his hands making aimless gestures in the air as if it would explain his own point better. “We could just go for a quick walk, get some fresher air. I hear they have a really nice arboretum on the top floor of the tower,” Even as he spoke, he could see the way Min was flinching in on himself—unsure, downcast, distrusting. “Come on, Min, you’re- You’re miserable in here.”
Min-Gi winced heavily, breaking away from Ryan’s gaze to stare nervously at the floor. “But- Ryan, it’s not…” He clenched his hands into fists, and there it was again—the fear, the shame, the way he could make himself so small sometimes like he was afraid he’d spring out and hurt someone if he didn’t. “I mean, I’m feeling okay now but what if- What if it gets worse out of nowhere and-” He let out a fearful, anxious gasp, one that tore at Ryan’s heartstrings no matter what he did. “I should just stay in, it’s safer that way. I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t,” It was only then that he finally looked up from the ground, those deep dark eyes flickering with a little something more. “... Right?”
(And he’d seen the moment one of the hunters had stepped forward to threaten him, and he’d seen the moment Min had lashed out—powerful, unstoppable, a raw force of nature let loose—and instantaneously he knew the frightening little show he’d put on to scare him had been absolutely nothing. Min was letting out this horrific chittering shriek that echoed off the walls and caused every single one of those yellow-jacketed bastards to whip around in shock, their grips on their electrical prods and laser rifles and big buzzing saws going slack, before he was knocking them to the floor. He was moving so quickly he could hardly see him, a shadow of dark shiny limbs and vaguely human visage, and even though he could tell immediately that he wasn’t in it for the kill Min was snarling and spitting like he would’ve ripped every one of their throats out in seconds-)
“Min,” Ryan said softly, placing a gentle hand on Min’s shaking fingers. “Min, you’ve never even raised your voice at me once since we got here. It’ll be okay, I promise,” Unconsciously, he could feel his thumb running soothing circles on the back of Min’s (almost warm enough to be real) hand, and it was all he could do not to think about the gesture too much. “Besides, there’s never a lot of people up at the gardens in these kinds of places anyway. Mostly because they’re, like, too busy being down at the concourse like everyone else.”
He could still feel Min’s hand trembling under his touch. “We don’t have to if you’re not feeling up to it,” Ryan repeated, a sliver of nervousness poisoning his insides at the thought that Min—who’d come so far and was trying so hard, and at any moment could decide it was all too much—would only end up regretting it. “I just wanted to get you out of the house, man. I-” His throat seized up a little, a burst of vulnerability crackling into his voice before he could squash it down. “I… I know it’s hard. But I always feel a little better when I do it.”
For a moment, Min-Gi did nothing but stare worriedly into his eyes, and his fingers—cold, soft, and curling underneath Ryan’s hand—tensed slowly in that thoughtful way he always did. Then, finally, with a lingering hint of uncertainty, “... You’ll keep an eye on me, right?”
“Of course,” Ryan said, squeezing his hand a little. For everything that had happened, it was one of the easiest and comforting things he’d ever been able to promise him, because he knew it was true.
Because- Because Min wasn’t dangerous. He was strong, sure, but he was woefully incompetent at being threatening and could never fully get the tremor out of his voice and smiled so softly when he was happy that it made Ryan’s heart flutter. He was stupid, and blunt, and couldn’t speak his mind to save his life or Ryan’s, but- But he was trying so hard now. He was scared and frightened and sick —so, so sick, one that left him shivering and crying out with a gentle chirping whine, something that Ryan could never fully make better no matter how hard he tried—and he needed help right now. He wanted help right now. He wanted, as far as he could ever know, to be around Ryan right now .
When was the last time someone had wanted him like that?
From the moment he opened the door for him, Min blinking in the artificial lighting for the first time in days, he didn’t leave his side once.
It was only five minutes later that he started having second thoughts.
It had taken longer than he’d wanted to to find an open elevator, and especially one that went all the way up to the top floor. They’d had to wait in a small crowd for a little bit for their turn to ride, and by the time they’d finally snagged a car bound for the arboretum they were forced to share it with five other people—the kind of close-quarters contact that Min, who’d been in hiding for the past couple months, literally could not have dreaded more. He’d stood stiff and still by Ryan’s side the entire trip—then leaned into him, then held his hand in an anxious grip, then finally buried his face into his shoulder with a soft rattling noise from deep inside his body. It wasn’t like he was… Considering anything, or having to fight some kind of temptation to lash out, this was just how Min-Gi acted when he was upset. He was just overwhelmed and shy and getting a headache again. He was just hurting, like he’d been since the beginning, and not…
The cheery ding! of the elevator reaching its final destination snapped Ryan out of his own thoughts, and the way Min perked up a little the moment the doors opened instantly had him feeling guilty for even considering the idea of him doing something like that. They stepped outside, taking in a deep breath of humid air, and for a moment—just a moment, nothing more—Min almost looked like he was starting to relax.
Then one of the last people in the elevator bumped into him while passing by, and Min was huddling against his side all over again.
“Ok, well, maybe the pavilion tends to be a little bit crowded,” Ryan whispered over to him, as Min-Gi ran a hand over his eyes and through his hair with a slightly pained grumble. “But it’s a lot quieter when you get out there. Let’s go find, like… A map or something, yeah?”
There was a polished placard in the very middle of the pavilion, but that meant trekking through a whole crowd of tourists looking eagerly on—so after a moment of reassurance, Ryan reluctantly left Min standing by a lamp pole to check it out. The gardens were… Smaller than he’d anticipated, which was disheartening, but eventually he managed to pick out a little corner of the map that looked relatively isolated—it was where they had that obligatory little pond-waterfall-mist contraption, so hopefully the eager photographers and tourists he’d seen lurking around would be put off by how damp it was—and by the time he turned around, already nervous to get back to Min and get going, he was…
… Crouching, on the edge of the crowd, his fingers brushing the petals of a little potted flower.
He looked startled the moment Ryan approached him—jumping a little, fingers reflexively curling, just barely able to stop himself from crushing the poor flower in his hand. Min glanced up at him, and there was a distinguished glint of sheepishness there in the way his eyebrows furrowed. “Oh, uh… Sorry,” He said softly, moving to stand. “I just- This one smelled kind of nice? Like, I don’t know what to call it, but…”
Ryan, after a moment of watching Min stare at him with poorly hidden curiosity, crouched down to touch the flower himself. He was immediately overwhelmed by the sharp and spicy scent that came from its burnished red petals, and it took everything he had not to sniffle or blink tears out of his eyes. After composing himself—as best he could, at least, knowing full well that Min must have seen the momentary flicker of surprise on his face—he turned back and confidently replied “That’s cinnamon.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Ryan tried to rub an eye as subtly as he could. “That’s cinnamon.”
A thoughtful look flashed across Min’s face—quiet, gentle, and increasingly familiar the longer he spent with him. “Cool,” He said softly, words barely a whisper, before fleetingly glancing back over to look Ryan in the eye. “So, um, where to?”
Where to ended up being a longer walk than he’d thought. From a distance the gardens had looked small, and compared to the sprawling cosmopolitan metropolises downstairs they were, but the paths through the deep purple ferns were long and winding. The trail he’d paved in his head was gone almost immediately. They kept bumping into other people—a photographer trying to get a good shot of some bright red spiky fruit that had given them a dirty look, a small family whose youngest child had accidentally crashed into Min-Gi’s leg and caused him to freeze, someone chatting blithely on their tablet who had nearly stepped on Ryan’s foot—no matter where they went, and Min was looking more tired by the moment, and- God, he wasn’t going to be able to salvage this, was he? He’d finally convinced Min to step outside and this happens? No wonder he just wanted to stay inside their room—it was quiet, and peaceful, and for a good portion of the day was without Ryan, because who the fuck would want to be around Ryan when this was what happened whenever he took control-
“... Ryan,” There was a tug on his sleeve as Min’s gentle, curious words cut him out of his violently crashing train of thought. He shakily glanced over to find Min staring transfixed at a little shaded overhang at the end of one of the paths—wreathed with mist from a nearby pond and faintly glowing, quiet and eerie—and before he could even begin to speak Min was softly saying “The waterfall you were talking about. That’s it, right?”
For a moment, Ryan couldn’t open his mouth. Then, with the hiss of a sprinkler as background noise, he took in his first shuddery breath of warm and misty air. It’d been so long since he’d been anywhere that humid that he’d practically forgotten how it felt, the condensation leaving his skin and hair just ever so slightly wet and fogging up his glasses, and then he was breathing again, and again, and again just to take it all in.
There was a bench pressed up under the overhang, completely isolated from the rest of the garden.
“... You wanna sit down?” Ryan asked, and for the first time since leaving the room Min gave him a tentative but real smile.
The bench was… Wet, to put it mildly. Ryan grimaced as the droplets of water soaked through his pants and jacket almost immediately, while Min was absently running a finger through the puddles to distract himself. Min didn’t seem as bothered by it—he even tried pressing his damp hand to his chest once or twice to see if the warm water had the same soothing effect as the towels—but for Ryan he could only just barely keep the grimace off his face. It only got harder when he started to notice the floating bits of leaves and soggy algae that were peppered all over the bench, the same kind of stuff that had clearly been accumulating for a long, long time in the pond, and then Ryan was forcing himself to look at the informational placard across the wall instead, and-
… And it was too far away to read, shrouded in shadow, and he was about to give up until Min suddenly perked up a little. “Hey, Ryan, listen to this.”
Before he could even give him a proper answer, Min-Gi was already going. “Moon algae is native to the second moon circling the fourth planet in the Cyana star system. It comes from an environment where nearly all of the endemic life consists of highly adaptive flora. It’s name originates not from the fact that it is geographically found on a moon, but because of how it only grows in dark and moist conditions to reflect how its typical climate consists of long, warm nights. Upon closer inspection, moon algae will…”
The placard kept going—for a while, actually—but after a certain point it wasn’t the words on the sign that kept Ryan’s attention anymore. It was the look on Min’s face—quiet, thoughtful, and maybe even calmer than he’d seen in weeks—doing nothing but staring up at collections of algae on a rock wall, gray and speckled and literally nowhere near as interesting as Min’s voice was making it sound. They sat there for a long, long time in the shade of the little overhang. It was long enough for the damp spots on his pant legs to start to tentatively dry, and for Ryan to space out a little staring at the ceiling (Maybe, just maybe, there was a song in the works here. This place was all about flowers and nature and pretty shit like that, right? Maybe he could even start it off like… We could stay and watch the flowers bloom, but none of them as good as you- No, no, that was stupid and cheesy and terrible and-)
He was broken out of his own thoughts by a soft, annoyingly charming chuckle, and with a huff Ryan whipped around to see-
Min-Gi, looking over at him, his gaze finally broken from the weird gross algae. There was a smile on his face, wavering a little, but what really struck him was the glimmer in his eyes—the happy one, the one he got when he was finally letting himself enjoy something instead of shutting the feeling down—as he watched Ryan shake himself back to reality. It was… Soft. It was so, so soft.
… How long had he been looking at him like that?
“Sorry,” Min whispered, and for the first time Ryan noticed the hint of raspiness in his voice. “Sorry, I- You just had a really funny look on your face.” He was still sitting upright on the bench, leaning up against the rock wall, but- But now he had a knee pressed to his chest, arms wrapped around himself like it was suddenly cold again. He was smiling, but shaking a little, and then Ryan was reaching forward before he even knew what he was doing and-
“You’re feeling sick again, aren’t you?” He managed to force out (And why did he feel so, so guilty? Min had agreed to it, sure, but it was still so hard to imagine somebody— anybody—going through something like this for- For Ryan, of all people). Ryan’s trembling hand eventually came to rest on Min-Gi’s forearm, flinching a little at the soft shivers that were already starting to return. “Let’s go back. We- We can go back, Min. You could have just told me you weren’t feeling good, I wouldn’t have-”
“I know,” And then, his expression full of the same hesitance that had spread throughout his body, Min dislodged a hand from where it’d been loosely clutching his side to place it onto Ryan’s worried fingers—if just for a moment, if just to let him know he wasn’t trying to hide this time. “I just… I didn’t want to make us leave so soon, you know?” He chuckled again, nervously, a soft sigh rattling in the air. “But, um, we should probably start heading back now. I’m… I’m tired.”
And in any other situation, in any other context, Ryan’s response would be But we hardly even did anything—don’t you want to live a little? But the moment Min stopped speaking Ryan was already getting to his feet, holding a hand out, his mind lingering on the soft and cool feel of their fingers together. Again, Min hesitated to reach out and take it—he wondered if he would ever feel fully confident doing it, or if that sweet shyness was something inherent to Min-Gi, shapeshifting alien or not—but eventually he did, and Ryan pulled him up, and felt Min settle into place right by his side.
He hadn’t let go of his hand.
And he didn’t, throughout their entire walk back through the gardens. They’d stayed longer than Ryan had thought—obviously the big vast windows to space never changed, but the interior lights had been dimmed to provide a simulation of a sunset—and the paths were quieter on the way back then they were coming in. It was shaded enough to stick by a line of shadow pouring out from the fancy blue-fronded trees, hanging haphazardly over the path, and he could tell it was a place Min was a lot more comfortable being. The grip on his hand had slowly begun to relax, his footsteps less stiff, until finally they were stepping out of those twisting trails into a much more sparsely populated pavilion lit by the fading lights of the arboretum.
They were ten steps from the elevator when, suddenly, Min gave a small tug on his sleeve.
“... Ryan?”
“Yeah, Min?”
“Can…” He trailed off for a moment, letting out a quiet huff and an even quieter hiss. It was only then that Ryan noticed what his eyes were focused on—a stand in the back, with the last couple visitors of the day milling about, the fluorescent lights glimmering from across the pavilion. “Uh, I know I wasn’t feeling hungry earlier, but maybe… We can try something now?” There was a tiny blue flush sprinkled over his face, something Ryan could hardly see in the dimmed lights but made his heart flutter regardless. “I just… I want to try something while I still feel good about this.”
Ryan blinked at that far-away stand, and felt a smile begin to curl on his face. “... You want to try frozen yogurt?” He couldn’t keep the laughter out of his words. “Like, almost the exact same thing I offered to you earlier?” And yet, without even having to give him an answer, Ryan already found himself starting to lead Min across the pavilion. “Okay, sure. I mean, it’s basically just ice cream but with more fruit flavors and a weirder texture but- You’ll like it, I think you’ll like it, and…”
(Ten minutes later, they were down the elevator and walking back to their room. Ryan was already half-finished with his selection of chocolate pineapple, while Min was a little more hesitant. He kept picking at it, balking at some of the chunks of fruit he could see, and whenever he took a tentative bite they seemed to get smaller and smaller each time.
“I told you you shouldn’t have picked strawberry,” Ryan offered, watching as Min took a break to lean against the wall—his head must have been pounding from the elevator ride down—and take what barely constituted as a bite from the cup of icy pink in his hands. “When you said you wanted to try something I didn’t think you meant… The exact thing from-”
Min-Gi shook his head rapidly, then winced at the sudden movement. “No, it’s not that,” He said softly, kindly, those thoughtful eyes twinkling. “It’s just… Um… It’s really sweet. Like really, really sweet,” He took another tiny nibble, and it took everything Ryan had not to laugh at the way his face creased up. “Like, I-can’t-take-another-bite-or-I’ll-get-sick sweet.”
“Oh,” Sometimes it was hard to remember that, for Min, it really had been that hard—all of this was new. He’d never had someone to take him out to a garden before. He’d never had someone to buy him a scoop of frozen yogurt when he got too nervous to order it himself. He’d never been able to walk out in public in the first place, and even though he’d had his parents it clearly hadn’t been enough, because what else other than sheer deprivation would lead him to cling to Ryan like he was the missing piece he needed?
… Did he want him to be?
“Uh, I get it,” Ryan eventually forced out, blinking rapidly up at Min’s gentle but tired eyes. “Once when I was seven my sister dared me to eat three packaged pastries in a row and I threw up. It was like seventy-five grams of sugar in one go or something like that. So, um, yeah. It’s not just you,” The reassurance was as clumsy as he could possibly make it, but despite everything Min’s eyes glimmered even more—amused, disgusted, relieved—and after a moment he gathered the courage to ask. “Does it at least not taste like sawdust this time?”
“It doesn’t taste like sawdust,” Min said with a tiny smile on his face. “I promise.”
He’d almost breathed a sigh of relief when Min playfully added “It tastes like wet sawdust.”
“Everything tastes like sawdust to you!” Ryan barked, not even caring in the moment that he was shouting it across the entire hall. He only barely threw a punch at his shoulder, the touch feather-light and harmless, but when Min flinched a little anyway he immediately switched to slinging an arm around his shoulders for support. “I add seasoning, it tastes like sawdust. I take it away, it still tastes like sawdust! I order it with half the ingredients taken off, and it tastes like sawdust! Come on, Min, what do you want me to do!”
Whatever Ryan was expecting to come from Min-Gi next, it wasn’t the soft and simple “... This. Keep doing this.”
When he wasn’t able to respond right away—too busy trying to calm the sudden pounding of his heart before Min could hear—he watched as he sank a little farther into his side with a quiet sigh. “I just wanna say thank you, Ryan,” He said, voice wavering ever so slightly with a tone that bordered on finality. “Thank you for everything.”
“Don’t thank me yet until you’re feeling good enough to chow down on a whole buffet,” Ryan, despite the lightness in his words, was as serious as he’d ever been. “Okay? Wait until we get there. Then you can thank me.”
It was going to work. It had to work.
“Okay,” Min-Gi nodded slowly, in the midst of his headache—and stomachache, and chills, and every bit of pain he’d gone through for this, for Ryan—and leaned against him, close enough for him to hear the tiny shivery rattling in his chest. “Okay.”
It would work.
They would make it work.)