Chapter Text
Chan thinks there isn’t much he wouldn’t do for his members. He tries to be earnest in his lyrics and stick to feelings he’s really felt and facts as much as he can, and the fact that they saved his life is an undeniable one. One he’s neither ashamed nor afraid to point out often, lest they forget how precious they are to him and how willing he is to do the same thing, and anything else they might ask of him, right back.
But right now, with a warm, tipsy Minho in his arms, he thinks to himself — this is where I draw the line. This I can’t do for him.
It all began like this: a late summer evening, riding the high of their finished comeback and tour, they had the day off. In the midst of the chaos that is their everyday life, a peaceful day off is a very welcome deviation to most of them. Everyone had decided to recharge in their own ways, Changbin and Jeongin assembling and subsequently trying out some new work out machine that’s inevitably going to be another forgotten clothes hanger in a month or so (but Chan will not tell them this, not right now, and probably not ever, because he is Chan). Felix had wanted to go shopping and Jisung was quick to volunteer company, Chan thinks for Felix’s sake as much as his own, seeing as Felix rarely enjoyed spending time alone and always went on about how much he missed them when he did. Seungmin had planned this day for a long time, and had booked a coffee making class he’d been looking forward to, while Hyunjin was more than happy to spend his whole day in his room, treating it as a painting studio. Minho offered company in a classically crude Minho branded way, but Hyunjin politely declined, or at least as politely as Minho-Hyunjin interactions go. Which is to say, Minho flipped off Hyunjin’s eye roll and they spent the rest of the couple minutes that it took for everyone else to decide what they were doing in amicable silence. Chan has yet to figure them out, but he’s amused to no end nonetheless.
That left Chan, and everyone reacted with differing levels of disappointed-not-surprised to his shy, predictable mutter of ‘dunno, I was thinking of finishing up a track I’ve been stuck on.’ After having deemed he’s been satisfactorily booed and made fun of, he disbanded the group and shooed everyone to their respective rooms. Easy.
Of course, the second he’d thought things were easy, he should’ve known life had a decidedly not-easy twist coming for him. Because there’s the thing — it should’ve been easy. And it would’ve been had it been anyone else sneaking up on him while he’s in his dark studio with noise-cancelling headphones on. There’s a warm hand on his half-bare shoulder, and since he doesn’t hear or feel the door open, or sense in any way that he’s being approached, he jumps a little even though the contact is pleasant and familiar. He pulls down his headphones and turns in his swivel chair enough to see a smirking Minho, presumably preening because he’d managed to startle him.
Minho, with his too-long hair that somehow makes him look even more like he just walked out of Leonardo’s studio right after David himself, who was actually just made as practice for the real thing — Minho, barefaced, in shorts and a t-shirt. This shouldn’t cause any sort of reaction in Chan aside from the usual fondness he feels upon seeing any of his members.
And yet there it is, again, the stupid telltale jump of his stupid ridiculous heart, and he tells it to shut up. It’s not worth it. Even if Minho is always there, just like he is now, with a bag of what is surely takeout dangling from his warm fingers because he knows Chan will have forgotten to eat dinner. Minho is there, just like he always is, doing things like taking out the trash from his little studio bin and replacing the bag quietly, filling up his water bottle while he isn’t looking, always with a headache pill in his backpack even though he never gets headaches. But Chan does, though, and so Minho is prepared. It’s always Minho, taking care of him like it’s nothing, like it’s easy as breathing. Chan knows he’s hard to handle, messy and complicated and frustrating, but Minho makes it feel like he’s easy to love, and that’s dangerous. Because he isn’t, because he messes up, always, and he’s bound to mess up again. He can’t bring Minho into all of his shit, Minho doesn’t need or deserve to be part of that. Minho probably doesn’t even want Chan remotely in the way Chan has wanted him for a while now. He reminds himself to forget it just as Minho opens his mouth.
“You haven’t eaten.”
The words are spoken factually, not accusatorially or questioningly, though Minho sounds a little weird, softer around the edges than usual. A few seconds later, before Chan gets to think about it, the plastic bag of takeout is set down onto his desk, right next to his mousepad. Chan doesn’t ask, because Minho will say he accidentally got an extra portion or something similarly ridiculous and fake, just to make it seem like none of what he’s doing is purposeful. Chan smiles up at him without even having to force himself to. (Easy. Scarily easy.)
“Thanks.”
It’s pointless to pretend like he’s eaten or even thought of it in the last few hours or so. Minho would be able to tell, and they’re way past those games anyway. Minho hums, and Chan notices his cheeks are dusted pink, just like—
“Have you been drinking?” Chan asks, sounding slightly too loud and incredulous to his own ears. Minho shrugs. The whole time his hand hasn’t left Chan’s shoulder.
“Yeah. Had a couple drinks with Lix and Hannie.”
And then, just as Chan is starting to feel the faintest nag of worry because Felix gets emotional when he drinks and it isn’t good for Jisung’s anxiety either—
“Both in bed, sleeping like babies. Made them have water and food. Had to sing a lullaby to Yongbokkie.”
Minho adds the last sentence after a slight pause, coupled with an eyeroll (albeit an incredibly fond one). It tears a laugh out of Chan. Again, he’s grounded and it’s easy as breathing. He blinks, hard, willing the feeling that’s currently squeezing his chest to go away.
“What are you working on?”
Minho asks, turning his swivel chair back so it’s facing the computer screens again, then replacing his hand on Chan’s shoulder. He adds the other one to Chan’s other shoulder, so now he’s standing behind Chan’s chair with both hands on his shoulders. No matter how much Chan tries to convince himself he shouldn’t allow this during sleepless nights wherein he torments himself and analyses every moment of his day, in the current moment it just feels so natural and comforting that he truly forgets to ponder the morals behind it. Instead, he leans forward to plug his headphones out and play the bits of chorus he’s worked out to Minho.
Minho’s hands move on his shoulders, massaging softly yet firmly, as he leans forward, presumably to see the screens better, though Chan can’t imagine how that’s making him hear any better. Slow chills unwrap along his spine as Minho gets a particularly knotted spot, and Chan lets out a breath of relief he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. He can feel Minho’s breath at the back of his ear, and for what seems like the hundredth time that night, wills his silly heart to calm down. Deep breaths, all that.
“That’s really good, Channie hyung,” Minho mumbles— huh, he’s a bit more drunk than Chan had thought.
Chan hadn’t even realised the clip had stopped playing. He lets out a breath. Then breathes in, slow and steady.
“Thanks, Lino.”
He means not just for this. Thanks for the compliment, yes, sure. But also thanks for the massage, for the food, for taking care of the kids while Chan spends sleepless hours working, for always taking the time to come check up on him. The weight of his feelings crushes his chest, but he doesn’t know how to express them. Doesn’t even know when the lines blurred between purely platonic feelings for Minho, one of his best friends, insanely pretty best friends, yes, he’d be blind not to have noticed, and whatever this right now is. Because this right now is making his life unnecessarily difficult, having him think maybe he’s got a heart condition with how much it’s been skipping beats. Minho’s hum snaps him out of his thought spiral, as Minho straightens up and Chan loses first the warmth of his breath, then of his hands.
“Sure. Eat.”
Minho takes a couple of steps back and plops into a swivel chair of his own, sliding close so their chairs are touching. He takes the food and chopsticks out of the plastic bag, movements precise and steady even while slightly inebriated, while Chan looks at the line of his nose. He wants to fix the strand of overgrown bangs that’s partly obscuring his view, but that’s so far off limits he gets dizzy just thinking about it. Minho opens the container and separates the chopsticks, then sets them on top of the food and pushes the whole thing just slightly towards Chan. It takes a couple of seconds for Chan to register it’s jjajangmyeon, his favorite, that Minho always nags at him for having too often because ‘it’s not healthy’ and ‘doesn’t have enough protein’ and ‘you have to die a natural death’ and whatever else. He looks from the food up at Minho’s face, a smile spreading across his own almost unwillingly.
“Jjajangmyeon, huh?”
He’s the one preening now, and he might be imagining the rosiness of Minho’s cheeks intensifying, but the flaming redness of his ears is unmistakable even as he tsks and scrunches up his face. Chan wants to bite his nose.
“Don’t push it, old man.”
Chan is so fond he might actually burst. Instead, he takes the chopsticks and digs in, grin not leaving his face even as he takes his first bite, even as he mumbles about how he’s only a year older than Minho anyway. Minho sighs, seemingly content to lean on his chair sideways and observe Chan eating like a little wildcat. It makes him self-conscious. Then he remembers his manners.
“You want some?”
Chan raises his loaded chopsticks towards Minho and accidentally launches a noodle right on his shorts. Some sauce splatters onto his bare thigh, and Chan has a brief yet exquisitely vivid image of licking it clean. He slaps himself mentally. Just as he’s about to profusely apologise, only partly for spilling the noodles, Minho picks up the stray noodle and slurps it up. Chan scrunches his face as the apologies die in his throat. Gross.
“Apparently I’m having some whether I like it or not.”
Chan laughs, because Minho is smiling, really smiling, in the honest way he seems to only save for them, his cats, and his friends and family. He then stops abruptly, because Minho is wiping the sauce from his thigh and bringing his thumb to his mouth, and Chan can’t let himself watch that without feeling like some kind of creepy perv, not with all the thoughts that are threatening to swarm his head. He focuses extra hard on his jjajangmyeon instead and takes a big bite. Then focuses on just chewing and breathing and not looking like an alien trying to emulate human behaviours. Damn it, this should be easy.
“Channie hyung.”
Chan feels like he’s been struck by lightning from the sheer force Minho’s tone hits him with. He doesn’t remember hearing that kind of intonation from Minho virtually ever, aside from maybe an exaggerated version when he’s trying to be extra greasy on purpose to gross Hyunjin out. Eyes saucepan wide, he diverts his attention to Minho. Minho, who’s looking at him with some kind of intention set in his gaze, the kind of determination that Chan recognises from their dance practices, when he keeps getting something wrong and is set on getting it right this time. Chan doesn’t know what to do under the weight of that gaze. He’s never been in this situation before, and he’s starting to think he might have finally overworked and underslept enough to be hallucinating. He has half a mind to pinch himself as Minho tuns his chair so that they’re straight across from each other. Their knees bump. Chan sets his food down on the table and swallows hard. His throat is so dry it makes a clicking sound.
“Channie hyung.”
Minho repeats in that same tone, and Chan is going to spontaneously catch fire any second now, he’s so sure of it that he frantically thinks about the fact that he’s not actually sure how to use the fire extinguisher that’s collecting dust in the corner of his studio. Minho will probably know how though, because Minho knows these things. Minho knows everything. Speaking of Minho, he stands up, takes the smallest step he’s ever taken, and puts his hands on Chan’s shoulders. He looks at him straight on. A deer in headlights, Chan is helpless to do anything but stare back.
“This okay?”
Minho asks while nudging Chan’s knee with his own, and Chan is five seconds away from either laughing hysterically or floating away like a helium balloon. He definitely isn’t hungry anymore, actually the jjajangmyeon is sitting heavily in his stomach, like it wants to come back out. Intelligently, he just nods before his brain has fully processed the question. Is what okay? The food? The fact that Minho’s visited him? The fact that Chan can barely remember how to act like a functioning person?
It turns out to be precisely none of those things as Minho nods to himself and fucking straddles Chan in two agile movements. Chan blinks approximately ten thousand times, his hands going up to hold Minho steady automatically, even as he produces a garbled sound that gets him a huff of a laugh out of Minho.
“Cat got your tongue?”
Minho asks, preening again, hands moving a little higher so they’re at the base of Chan’s neck. He’s so close and so gorgeous that Chan looks away from his eyes for a second to give himself a breather. Bad idea, because his lips are right there, and if Chan doesn’t get his bearings right now there’s going to be serious trouble.
And that’s what gets us into the current moment, Chan with his arms full of Minho, everything seemingly so easy and so hard all at once.
Unlike Minho, he’s feeling fully sober, all the worries he’s ever had about not being good enough, capable enough, easy enough, coming back to the forefront of his mind, increased by tenfold. He tries to compensate for it by giving all of himself to the people he loves, unconditionally. But right now, with a warm, tipsy Minho in his arms, he thinks to himself — this is where I draw the line. This I can’t do for him. This I can’t do to him.
“Wait.”