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Felix had sat himself on Changbin's lap. This would be a great deal less abnormal if Chan's lap was not right there, unoccupied, and if its owner did not look like he was about to dislocate his own jaw from clenching it.
Changbin did not want to be here. He had half a melody that refused to reach its conclusion running through his head, a groupmate who was too busy glaring holes in his side to be of any use, and a shit-stirring, irritating, beautiful menace snuggled smugly between him and his computer.
"Well I'm done. I'm going home. You coming?"
Changbin nearly turned to look and answer, before realising the question wasn't for him. Obviously. Felix wriggled himself more comfortable, one hand lifting to brush idly at the sleeve of Changbin's t-shirt. His ears started to burn as he felt him shake his head.
Chan had too much self-control to storm out, but Changbin nearly flinched at his exit anyway. He waited a few minutes, still tense, taking every ounce of willpower not to slap Felix's hand away or– or something worse. Something unfixable. He took deep, slow breaths and willed himself to relax.
"I wish you wouldn't use me in your games, Yongbok-ah. It's unkind."
It was Felix's turn to flinch, but Changbin couldn't have predicted the way he scrambled off his lap and stood staring, wide-eyed and frightened looking.
"Hyung, oh my god, no. Oh, no no. It's not like that, Binnie-hyung, I promise."
He looked so concerned, pretty eyes scanning Changbin's face, hands half raised in an aborted gesture toward him.
"He's not actually mad. It's… we um…" his ears turned pink, and Changbin wanted to pinch them and also for the ground to open up and swallow him whole. "It's a… a game, a joke, I–"
"You can just say it's a sex thing, Lix," Changbin heard himself say, voice impressively neutral.
Felix groaned, high pitched and embarrassed, and hid his face in his hands. He peeked through his fingers, adorable as an ice-pick through the ribs.
"I'm sorry," he squeaked out. "It… he knows I used to have a crush on you, it winds him up. Only a little bit, you know, he'd never actually be mad over something like that. It's just," his tongue poked out onto his lip, and he swallowed. "Hot. Fun."
He looked mortified. Miserable. Pink cheeks and pink ears that he clutched restlessly in his little fingers, eyes shining in the reflection of the monitors.
"Jesus, I need to– please just forget we ever had this conversation, I'm gonna go bury myself now, love you, bye."
He scrambled to collect his things and raced out the door of Chan's studio. Changbin sat down in his chair, the unfinished melody still running through his head, swirling through the words used to have a crush and the image of pink ears covered by perfect tiny hands. He looked at the unopened, off limits bottle of gin with its fading sharpie message for what felt like an age, before he sighed and reached for his phone.
Most Beloved Handsome Lino Hyung
22:57 come and be weird at me
22:59 channie's room
23:02 please
It took about ten minutes, but soon a sweaty Minho pushed through the door and collapsed on the sofa behind him. He briefly took the snapback of his head, ran a hand through his hair, and then replaced it.
"What ails you?" He asked, kicking his feet up onto the back of the sofa and taking a swig from his enormous water flask. "Writer's block?"
Changbin let his head thump back against the headrest of the chair.
"Yeah. But, also."
"Also?"
Changbin needed to say it or he'd burst. He needed to say it to someone who wasn't Felix, or Chan. He felt stupid, like a child needing comfort, because what was it really, in the grand scheme of things.
"Felix sat on me. And Chan got grumpy, and left, and he said– Yongbokkie said–" he cleared his throat. Stared at the ceiling so he didn't have to look at Minho's face. "He said he does it on purpose. Because it winds Channie-hyung up. Because he knows he used to have a crush on me."
There was quiet, for a moment.
"Well, that's fucked up."
"Kind of. It's not to actually make him angry, it's. Um. You know. Fun, apparently."
The chair spun round unexpectedly and Changbin found himself at the end of Minho's hard, uncompromising stare. He was still upside down, one hand resting on the seat of the chair where he'd pulled it round.
"Are you trying to tell me Lix non-consensually involved you in his and Channie-hyung's weird sex games?"
Changbin cringed, and Minho's eyes widened.
"Wow. Wow. I am seriously starting to wish there was something other than water in this flask."
Both of them looked longingly to the gin bottle that stood above the computer, before deciding numbing the spirits in the moment wouldn't be worth the consequences. Minho's eyes turned back to him, studying a little longer. When he spoke again, his voice was soft.
"You're uncomfortable."
Changbin shrugged.
"Do you want me to talk to them? I'm sure I can make them squirm more than they've made you."
Changbin huffed a little laugh.
"It's not that, so much. I, um. He said he used to have a crush on me."
It was Minho's turn to snort.
"Half the world could have told you that, Changbin-ah. He wasn't exactly subtle," he said, playing with his glasses.
"I know. But it made me, I mean, sometimes I wonder if maybe, if I'd figured it out sooner, if I'd got there first, do you think he might–"
He cut himself off and looked at the floor. The shame of it threatened to overwhelm him. It wasn't the wanting, he could live with that. It was this presumption, this arrogance he held. Because he couldn't help thinking it. Chan had taken so long, he'd kept Felix waiting. And Changbin had had all that time, there had to have been a moment, a period of time before Felix had known Chan was a possibility, when he could have– done something. Changed it all, made it turn out differently. He hated himself for thinking it. He needed desperately for someone to quash it.
"Oh. Oh Changbin."
The pity in Minho's voice was too much to bear, and he dropped forward to bury his face in his knees. After a few seconds, a hand landed in his hair, petting gently, scritching at his scalp. With typical bluntness, Minho told him exactly what he'd expected him to.
"Felix came to a foreign country and became a bit infatuated with the first handsome older boy who was kind to him. I don't think it was anything more than that, and honestly I don't think it ever would have been."
It hurt. Changbin knew it would, this was exactly what he'd wanted, it was why he'd asked Minho, because he knew he'd never lie to him or skip around the hard bit with platitudes. He'd take a knife and drain the poison out swiftly and without mercy. But still, a knife is a knife is a knife, no matter how much love it's wielded with. A thumb stroked his ear, cruelly gentle.
Changbin was trying to think of something to say, a way to move the conversation forward somehow, to convince Minho he was okay, really, to go home and let him work and start getting over it, when his phone rang.
He nearly laughed out loud when he saw the caller ID.
"Hyung," he answered, trying very hard not to sound like he was about to cry.
"Ah, Changbin-ah. Felix, um…"
Chan sounded uncomfortable. Good, a mean little part of his brain hissed, at least neither of them wanted to be having this conversation.
"It's fine, hyung."
"It's not. He said you were worried we were fighting. I'm sorry we scared you. Felix was going to call you himself but he threw the phone at me, he was too embarrassed." There was a high pitched squeak and then low, fake crying noises in the background. When Chan spoke again, his voice was fond. "I am also embarrassed, but apparently I'm braver than he is."
Changbin loved him so much, and he needed to put the phone down.
"It's fine, just don't– please don't do it again?"
Warmth covered his hand as Minho laced their fingers together and squeezed.
"We won't, I promise. But I just wanted–" he coughed awkwardly. "You know I would never– I mean, I don't, like, see you as a threat. Or anything. It's never been like that."
He clutched Minho's hand tight enough to hurt as his eyes filled.
"Yeah. I know."
"Okay, good, I just wanted apologise, and clear the air a bit. I didn't want you worrying about it. You still working?"
He covered the speaker to sniff.
"Yeah. Trying to, anyway."
"Well don't stay up too late. We can always look at it together in the morning."
"You're one to talk. Night, hyung."
He hung up without waiting for the response and squeezed his eyes shut. The tears didn't fall; he didn't let them.
"Hyung loves you so much, you know that, right?"
It was impossible to tell whether Minho meant himself or Chan, but it didn't really matter. Both were indisputable, neither solved the problem.
Minho tugged on his hand, pulling him out of the chair to land clumsily on top of him on the sofa. Changbin let him press his face into his chest, let him stroke through his hair.
"It baffles me sometimes," Minho said quietly, "Just how full of love you are. I think it's why your tits are so big, there's nowhere else for it to go."
It startled a weak laugh of him, smothered into Minho's sweaty practice t-shirt. The hand in his hair dropped to press into his neck, massaging a knot out without mercy. It hurt, but it was a good hurt this time. He let himself be tortured for a little while before speaking up.
"How can you be sure you'll love Jisung forever? How do you know it's worth the wait?" He asked.
Minho hummed, and the hand on his neck smacked lightly, then left it cold.
"I can't be. I don't know if you can ever be sure of anything. But I want to be, and I think that matters more, don't you?" He said. "I'm not saying you can get over him with sheer willpower or whatever, but it would be a lot harder to hold onto hope with Jisungie if I didn't know he was in it as deep as I was. I think accepting that it's never going to happen will help. But then you've just got to wait, really. Which is shit."
"It is," Changbin agreed. "I wish I could flick a switch and not love him anymore."
"Do you? Really?"
Changbin pushed his face further into Minho's armpit.
"No," he whispered. "But I wish I wanted to."
"That's a start. Hey," he said, and Changbin summoned the effort to raise his head and look at him. Minho took his face in his hands.
"Don't torture yourself over this," he said seriously. "It's not your fault, and you aren't, I don't know, betraying them, or whatever it is you might be telling yourself. You're a good friend."
Changbin shrugged his shoulders into Minho's arms, which made him grip his face harder, pushing his cheeks into a pout.
"I mean it," he threatened.
Changbin tried to smile, and found it less difficult than he thought.
"I love you, hyung."
Minho raised his eyebrows, looking mischievous, then pursed his lips and leaned in. Changbin let him get a centimetre away before they both collapsed into tired laughter. The door beeped open behind them.
"Uuhh, should I be jealous?" Jisung's voice carried through the small room, a little scratched with fatigue.
"Extremely." A hand landed heavy on Changbins ass, making him grunt into his laughter. "We're gonna run away and open the world's gayest gym."
"You don't like the gym."
"Your mum likes the gym."
"That doesn't even make sense!"
He couldn't see, but he heard Jisung approach and felt one of Minho's arms extend out. Automatic and instinctive, two magnets drawn together.
"Hyung said you were still working, that you were finishing a song?"
Changbin pushed himself off Minho with a groan, and Jisung hauled his boyfriend up after him.
"Let's go home and eat chicken instead. My treat," Minho said, brushing Jisung's messy hair off his forehead. "I'm sleeping over at your place tonight."
His gaze was adoring, defenses softened by the hour and the exhaustion. Jisung tipped his face into his touch like a sunflower to the morning sun. It hurt a little, to see them have what he couldn't, but it was a soft hurt, tempered by love.
"Hyung too?" Jisung asked, looking to him for confirmation. He nodded and set about shutting the computers down, collecting his jacket and his bag.
"What about the song, though? You wanna try with it tomorrow?" He said as they wandered down the corridor toward the lift together. It was late enough that noone was around, so Minho laced their fingers together, and then after a moment reached back for Changbin's hand too.
"It's alright," Changbin said, Minho's rough palm warm in his. "I think maybe this one stays unfinished."