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‘Do you have a date later or something?’ Minho meets Jeongin’s gaze in the mirror and grins brightly when he startles.
‘No,’ he says, still messing with his hair. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘You’ve been fixing your hair for ten minutes,’ he says. ‘You trying to impress someone, Iyen-ah?’
‘Shut up.’
If Minho is not mistaken, a faint blush creeps up Jeongin’s cheeks. How sweet.
‘All right, all right.’ He holds up his hands in fake surrender. ‘Curfew’s at ten. No hard liquor ‘cause we have dance practice tomorrow. Need condoms?’
‘I said shut up!’ He turns around and stalks to the doorway just to punch Minho in the stomach. ‘I’m not going on a date. I’m just hanging out with Seungmin-hyung.’
‘Then why are you spending ten minutes on your hair?’
‘I’m not,’ he sulks. ‘You’re imagining that. Go back to your own room and jerk off while listening to Han’s verse in HEYDAY or whatever it is you do all day.’
‘I have never done that,’ Minho says. At the back of his mind, an idea starts to take shape. ‘Where are the two of you going?’
‘Just coffee,’ he says. He holds up two hoodies and tilts his head. ‘Which one?’
Minho points at the blue one in Jeongin’s left hand. ‘You’re getting all dressed up for just coffee, huh?’
‘Unlike you, I like to look presentable when I go out into the real world.’
‘Ooh, he bites back.’ He runs a hand through Jeongin’s hair just to mess with him.
‘Hyung,’ he whines. ‘You’re so mean.’
‘My middle name,’ he says. ‘Have fun on your not-date.’
‘It’s not a date,’ Jeongin says. He throws the blue hoodie on to the bed and pulls on the moss green one instead, then goes back to fixing his hair.
‘That’s what I said,’ he says. ‘Your not-date. Your not-date with Seungminnie. You sure you don’t want me to bring you condoms? You know, just in case.’
‘Aw, Hyungie.’ He turns his head to fix him with an unimpressed look. ‘You bought condoms and never even got a chance to use them yourself? That’s so sad.’
Minho rolls his eyes. ‘Okay, fine, suit yourself. But if you get pregnant, Channie-hyung will be really distraught.’
‘Will you fuck off.’
He winks at him and walks away. He waits twenty-five long seconds, then he turns around and knocks on Jeongin’s door and pops his head inside again. ‘You know,’ he says. ‘You look great. Have fun, okay?’
He leaves again before giving Jeongin the chance to respond.
#
‘Seungmin-ssi.’ Minho greets him with a polite bow. ‘Good afternoon.’
Seungmin rolls his eyes. Just like Jeongin, he’s standing in front of his mirror. Unlike Jeongin, he’s grimacing to check his braces. He looks over at Minho. ‘What do you want?’
‘Why do you think I want something?’ he says. ‘Can’t I seek out the pleasure of your company?’
‘Now you just sound like you’re propositioning me.’
He wrinkles his nose at the idea. ‘Ew. No way. You’re not my type.’
‘You’re not my type,’ Seungmin shoots back. ‘Now tell me what you’re doing here.’
Minho drops down on Seungmin’s neatly made bed. ‘I heard you and Iyen are going on a date.’
Like clockwork, Seungmin’s cheeks turn red. He licks out at his lips and fidgets with his fringe, probably thinking he’s sly. Probably thinking Minho hasn’t noticed this thing the two of them have been dancing around for weeks. Months. Has it been years already?
‘Don’t know where you heard that,’ he says, but that beat of delay effaces whatever snappy insouciance he might’ve aimed for. Beginner’s mistake, really. Minho would never show his true colours like that.
‘Iyen told me,’ Minho lies. ‘Says he’s suuuper excited. I offered him condoms.’
Seungmin spins around and glares at him. He tilts his head, then lifts his leg and kicks Minho’s shin. ‘I get it now,’ he says. ‘You just came here to be an asshole.’
‘Yup,’ he says. ‘It’s in the contract I signed when Chan picked me to join you guys. I have to be an asshole every day or I’ll get kicked out of the group.’
‘You’ve been doing well at that.’
‘Kim Seungmin-ssi,’ Minho says, ‘are you complimenting me?’
‘On your expertise in rudeness? Yeah. Sure. I’ll give you an A+ for that.’
‘Nice.’ He shifts on to his side and gives Seungmin a once-over. ‘Lose that shirt,’ he says. ‘You have this white crewneck, it’s oversized. Go with that one. And a cardigan.’
‘Did I ask for your fashion advice?’ he asks, but he crosses his room to open his wardrobe and sift through his colour-coordinated stacks of clothes. He pulls out the tee Minho suggested and a black cardigan, then pulls off his shirt to change.
‘You didn’t,’ Minho says. ‘But I’m offering it freely out of the kindness of my heart. You know how you can repay me.’
‘I’m not sucking you off,’ he says. He runs a hand through his hair to fix it again after the clothing change.
‘I wouldn’t want you to,’ he says. ‘I have standards, thanks.’
‘Yeah?’ He tilts his head. ‘Jisung is out of your league, Hyung. He deserves someone real nice.’
‘I can be real nice,’ he says, because he is an idiot. They’re not here to talk about any possible feelings he may or may not have for Han Jisung. That’s his co-worker. Nothing more.
‘Can you now?’ Seungmin asks. ‘How nice are we talking?’
‘Nice enough to offer you condoms for your date.’
Minho loves watching Seungmin blush. It’s so entertaining. He feels like a zoologist observing his favourite pet monkey after offering him a nice, shiny apple.
‘It’s not a date,’ he hisses. ‘He doesn’t—we’re not—’ He closes his eyes and exhales slowly. ‘I do not need your condoms. I doubt they’re big enough to fit me anyway.’
‘Ooohh,’ he cackles. ‘Seungmin-ah, I know you’ve seen my dick. Why are you pretending you’re packing more than me?’
‘I hate you.’ He pinches the bridge of his nose and makes an ommm sound like he’s meditating. ‘Everything I know about your penis I have learned against my will. Now go bother someone else.’
#
Minho runs his fingertip through the leftover cake batter on the bottom of the bowl and licks it clean, then fixes Felix with a glance. ‘You think the babies are ever gonna kiss?’
‘Me and Jisung?’ he asks, tongue flicking against one of the beaters. ‘We might, yeah. You jealous?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘It’s okay, Hyung,’ Felix says. ‘I’ll kiss you. All you have to do is ask.’
He rolls his eyes at him and casts a look into the oven. ‘I meant Seungmin and Iyen,’ he says. ‘The ones classified babies for age-related reason and not just by virtue of being the whiniest people alive. You know?’
Felix smiles brightly at him. He licks at the beater. ‘Uh-huh,’ he says. ‘I know. Why are you asking if they’re gonna kiss?’
Minho drops the licked-clean bowl into the sink and flicks on the water. ‘You haven’t noticed?’ He squeezes a dollop of washing-up liquid into it. ‘How they behave around each other?’
Minho finds it very hard to believe that anyone with eyes hasn’t noticed how touchy they are. How they have all these inside jokes. How Jeongin won’t allow physical affection from anyone except Seungmin, and how Seungmin is still shy about seeking it out. They are both, actually, quite shy people, which makes this entire thing so much more endearing. He feels conflicted about it. On the one hand, it’s like watching his child have sex. That’s an extraordinarily off-putting thought and he would rather drink bleach. On the other hand, they’re his kids and it’s so adorable watching how they’ll fluster around each other. Jeongin fidgeting with his hair and Seungmin spritzing on cologne and both of them denying that this is a date. Probably they’re not even lying. Most likely, neither of them has used that word and they’re both wishing desperately that this would be a date but not brave enough to ask if that’s what it is. Playing it safe instead. Rejection hurts so much, Minho knows that, and he wouldn’t wish it on either of them.
They deserve each other, is the thing. They deserve to figure this out and hold hands when they want to. They deserve to figure out how kissing works.
‘What d’you mean?’ Felix asks. ‘How do they act? Do they act different?’
Wow. And Felix is usually so emotionally entuned. Maybe it’s different for him. Maybe physical affection doesn’t stand out so much because he so openly craves it, too. Seeks it out. Hugging is normal to him.
It’s not so normal to Minho. He knows it’s not so normal to Seungmin and Jeongin either.
He shrugs instead. ‘I dunno,’ he says. Not his secret to share. ‘Not really, I guess. I guess I was just thinking about it.’ He scrubs the bowl and empties it of soap water to dry it off. ‘You and Jisungie, though? For real?’
Felix winks at him. ‘As if,’ he says. ‘You’d disembowel me if I got anywhere near him.’
#
He considers lying in wait for their return, but ultimately decides against it. Jisung texts him to ask if he wants to come over and watch Ponyo with him, so Minho shoots back a simple, dignified no before he packs a handful of cookies in a Tupperware box and makes his way to the other flat.
The next afternoon, though, he’s done playing nice. He knocks on Jeongin’s door and calls out ‘hope you’re decent!’ before he barges inside. ‘Morning, Iyen-ah.’
‘It’s two thirty,’ he says flatly. He looks well-rested. He looks… happy? Or is Minho reading into things?
‘Since when do you know how to read a clock?’ He brandishes the plate with chocolate chip cookies in his hands. ‘Yongbokie and I baked last night.’
‘Fuck you,’ Jeongin says. He breezes towards him and steals two cookies from the plate, immediately shoving half of one into his mouth.
‘You eat like a dog,’ Minho says. ‘No manners.’
He says something with his mouth full.
‘Come again?’
He swallows and sticks out his clean tongue. ‘I saw an open tab of puppy play porn on your phone, like, last week.’ He breaks off a chunk of another cookie. ‘You want to fuck me, Minho-hyung?’
‘Absolutely not!’ he says. Why did he leave that open? ‘You’re, like, twelve. Ew.’
Jeongin snorts. ‘Hannie-hyung is only 148 days older than me.’
‘And what a difference those 148 days make.’
‘Oh?’ He tilts his head and slowly pushes another piece of cookie into his mouth. ‘You wanna fuck Hannie-hyung? Want him to bark like a dog for you?’
Minho almost throws the plate with cookies in his face. Fortunately, ‘mean’ is not his only middle name. He is also suave, poised, and very imperturbable. ‘Speaking of barking during sex,’ he says. ‘How’d your date with Seungmin go?’
He chokes on his cookie. Minho doesn’t know why the question surprised him—he walked into that one with open arms.
‘My—it wasn’t a date!’ he insists. ‘We just got coffee and went to this record store downtown. It wasn’t, like, a big deal. Why are you in my business about this?’
‘That sounds real romantic,’ Minho says. He puts the cookie plate down on Jeongin’s desk and sits down on the chair. ‘You pay for his coffee?’
‘Of course I did,’ he grumbles. ‘Doesn’t mean it was a date.’
‘And did you kiss?’
Jeongin shuts his door and locks it. He curls up on his bed and pulls his legs against his chest. ‘We didn’t,’ he says. He rests his cheek on his knee. ‘Why are you being so stupid about this? It’s not like—’ He wriggles his hand. ‘Whatever. You’re dumb. Why would I take advice from you?’
He takes a bite of a cookie. ‘My advice is,’ he begins, ‘and I know you totally didn’t ask for it, but I think you should kiss him next time.’
‘What if—’ His eyes go adorably wide when he blinks rapidly. ‘He probably doesn’t—I mean—why would he—’
‘He does,’ he cuts him off. ‘He wants you to kiss him real bad, Iyen-ah.’
He gets up from the chair and grabs the plate with cookies. He puts down two more for Jeongin, then turns around and leaves his room.
Nothing more to say, really.
You can only lead a horse to water and all that.
#
When it finally happens, he notices immediately. He looks at everyone else to see if they’re going to say something, but none of them do. He wonders if they don’t realise, but that’s—weird. How couldn’t they? It’s so obvious.
Seungmin is giggly all day, for fuck’s sake. He keeps touching Jeongin’s arm and Jeongin keeps stealing glances at him and shyly fussing with his hair.
It’s true that they’re not being obviously affectionate in the way that Felix usually is. They’re not draped all over each other, but it’s still there. It’s still so blatant. Their thighs pressed together and Seungmin absentmindedly playing with Jeongin’s long fingers and Jeongin resting his head on his shoulder. Small gestures. Brief touches.
It’s sweet. It’s nauseating.
They don’t call attention to themselves. And then—if you think about it, nothing much has really changed. They were always like this. That close. Just the two of them against the world.
And finally they bridged the tiny gap between friendship and romance. That’s why Seungmin smiles all day. Nothing else could make him smile like that. Only Jeongin.
Of course they’d get there eventually.
Minho never really doubted it.