Work Text:
Minho wakes to the sound of rain drumming on window panes and soft breathing next to him. It takes him a moment to clear the haze of sleep from his mind, to peel his heavy eyelids open and take in his surroundings.
The room is still dark, a pale sliver of dull light falling through the curtains, but it’s enough to illuminate the sleeping form next to him. Jisung is always pretty, always soft, but something about the way he looks when he’s sleeping takes Minho’s breath away. His hair is fanned out on the pillow, dark brown again and still silky to the touch, despite the many dyes and bleaches it’s gone through.
Minho resists the urge to card through it, doesn’t want to wake him. Jisung sleeps curled up, hands tucked under his cheeks, mouth slightly open. He drools a little like this, and his breath occasionally catches into a snore, and Minho thinks about how lucky he is to get to love him.
He knows he’s one of the few truly fortunate ones, to be able to love and be loved in return. That he’s privileged to have a supportive group, a supportive family, and the freedom to be with Jisung behind closed doors and away from cameras.
It still feels like too little, sometimes.
Minho isn’t really all that good at expressing his feelings. He trips up on honesty, chokes on confessions and hopes that his actions are enough to tell the people who mean the most to him what he struggles to say. It’s been getting easier over the years, to tell Hyunjin he’s doing a good job and doesn’t need to worry when he gets into his head. To reassure Chan that he’s doing more than enough, and that Minho doesn’t know where he’d be without him and his endless patience and dedication.
To tell all of them how much they mean to him, even if he can’t do big speeches or write them songs because he knows they will understand no matter what.
But then there’s Jisung.
And Jisung has always been the exception.
It’s not even that he has trouble talking to him. Jisung is the easiest person in the world to talk and open his heart to. He tells him he loves him almost every day, but. But.
But Minho struggles to find the words to truly encompass all of it, to dig to the depths of his feelings and lay them all out for Jisung to see. He doesn’t know how to express the enormity of his emotions because even Minho himself can’t seem to find the end of them.
It’s like this: Minho is nineteen, and just joined JYP, and there’s a boy, a few years younger than him, and he’s glaring at him from across the room. Minho has met many of the trainees here, has had people look at him in awe when they realise he’s been a backup dancer for BTS or when they catch the rumours of how quickly he completed the basics. He’s gotten some jealous glances from the side when Bang Chan throws an arm over his shoulder. Hungry looks raking up and down his body that he knows to stay away from. But he’s never gotten glared at like this.
He knows the other boys’ name, of course, because if you know of Bang Chan then you know of Han Jisung, the genius in the making. A boy who’s arrogant, who lashes out, who can’t seem to contain all of his talent in his body. A boy who sticks to his friends and draws up his shoulders in crowds when he thinks no one is looking. Minho is, though. And he’s intent on finding out why Han Jisung is glaring at him, curiosity sparking in his chest.
It’s like this: Minho is twenty, and he watches Jisung laugh at something Seungmin said, leaning on Hyunjin to keep himself upright. He has dark circles under his eyes, greasy hair dripping with sweat and bruised knees peeking out under ratty athletic shorts, and even under the fluorescent lights of the practice room Minho thinks he’s the prettiest person he’s ever seen.
Like this: Minho is twenty-one, and he finds himself crawling into Chan’s bunk at night. “I’m gay,” he whispers, hoping the darkness of their room conceals his shaking hands and bitten-raw lips. Chan draws him into a hug, bone-crushingly tight.
“I think I’m bi,” he says, and Minho hugs back, and they both pretend not to hear the shuddering breaths of relief they let out.
Months later, Chan finds him after dance practice, both of their chests heaving as they lean against the mirrors lining the wall. “Nobody would mind if you went for it, you know?” he says.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Minho lies, even though he’s tracking Jisung’s movements across the room, eyes lingering on the bit of skin exposed over the waistband of his sweatpants when he stretches. “And the same goes for you.”
Chan doesn’t react, but his cheeks flush pink and he drags his eyes away from Changbin, who’s beginning to fill out his frame.
Minho lies awake at night, staring at the ceiling, and thinks of pink lips and soft hair, of giggles and whispers shared at night and bright eyes that always find his, of heart-shaped smiles and tender hands, reaching for his own. His body feels too small for his heart, for the things that are unfurling out from it - a big bang of sorts. Feelings wrapping themselves around his bones like vines, tighter and tighter until what was left before them is indistinguishable from what is now. A house buried under ivy, only the poison is the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted.
And this: Minho is twenty-two, and Jisung came home to Gimpo with him. His parents love him, and his cats love him, and they’ve just finished bathing Soonie. Jisung is cooing over the cat, petting him with gentle hands, his nose is a little red because the antihistamines he took can only do so much and he’s been sneezing anyway.
Minho watches him with a look he knows Chan or Seungmin, or anyone really, would make fun of him for, but fondness bubbles in his stomach. His feelings threaten to choke him, drawn tight around his throat.
“I love you,” he blurts, and Jisung looks at him for a long moment, bottom lip caught between his teeth, eyebrows crinkled. As if he’s deciding what this means. Minho feels sick with uncertainty, until Jisung’s face blooms with a smile, and he shuffles across the floor to sit knee to knee, breaths mingling. “Is this the same sort of ‘I love you’ you say to Hyunjin or Felix?”
“I think you know it isn’t,” Minho whispers, and Jisung’s smile impossibly widens. He’s the sun and the stars; whole galaxies, and Minho almost finds himself blinded when Jisung leans in to kiss him.
-
Minho has a universe churning behind his ribs and roots growing through his nerves and he can no longer distinguish where he ends and they begin. It’s a little scary at times, to be so wholly devoted to another person, in those quiet moments when it’s just Minho with his thoughts.
Like right now, with Jisung sleeping soundly and the rain drumming a steady rhythm on the window, morning slowly creeping up. Minho traces the lines of Jisung’s face with his eyes, his gentle nose and soft lips, and the sharpness of his jawline.
He’s known Jisung is the one for him for years. Since the first time he looked at him and felt the tug in his chest that made Jisung write a song about cosmic dust, separated and drawn to each other.
And he knows Jisung feels the same, or he wouldn’t call them soulmates all the time, or tiptoe into his room when he inexplicably knows Minho just needs to curl into his chest and not think for a while. It’s just that sometimes, when the weather gets weird or they have a break from schedules, Minho feels like it’s not enough. Like he wants more, only that he doesn’t really know what that is. Or he does, he’s just afraid to say it.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Jisung murmurs. He still has his eyes closed, blindly gropes for Minho on the bed sheets. “What’s going on?”
Minho takes hold of Jisung’s hand, lets himself get pulled into his warmth, chest to chest with their feet tangling. He leans his forehead against Jisung’s shoulder, inhales the heavy scent of sleep and Jisung, and forces himself to relax. “Nothing you need to worry about, jagiya. Hyung’s just being weird.”
Jisung hums. “My hyung is always being weird.” His morning voice is deep, scratchy, and Minho’s pretty sure he’ll never get enough of it. Jisung cards his fingers through the hair at the nape of Minho’s neck and he melts into the touch, pulling a soft chuckle out of him. “You’re like a cat. You’d start purring if you could.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m not allergic to you, so yeah.”
Minho presses a kiss to Jisung’s shoulder through the fabric of his shirt and tilts his head to mouth along his neck. Jisung hums again, pleased. It doesn’t go further than that. As much as Minho loves pulling whimpers and moans out of Jisung, worshipping him as best he can, he also loves slow mornings like this one.
Jisung guides his head up, kisses him something soft and slow, lips tasting faintly of spearmint toothpaste. Minho sighs into it and pulls him closer. They trade kisses like that for a while, in some state between sleep and waking, close-mouthed and unhurried.
It’s only when Jisung prods at his lips with his tongue, that he pulls back. “We need to brush our teeth first.” Jisung groans in response, turns away and buries deeper into the blankets. “If you don’t want to make out with me I’m going back to sleep.”
Minho flicks him on the back of the head, earns himself a muffled yell of protest. “If you don’t want to brush your teeth so we can make out I’m making breakfast.”
“You’re luring me out of bed?”
“Yeah. And then I’m forcing you to brush your teeth, and take a shower too.”
“You’re evil.”
Minho grins. He stretches, yawns pointedly loudly, and begins to shuffle out from under the blankets. “I love you, I’ll wake you up when the food is ready.” He kisses the back of Jisung’s hand since it’s the only part of him that’s exposed, and leaves him be. Jisung’s already back asleep when Minho finishes dressing in shorts and one of Jisung’s hoodies and tiptoes out of the bedroom.
The dorm is quiet, which isn’t surprising. Hyunjin tends to spend free time in Jeongin’s room, and Chan and Changbin are paying a visit to the Seos. Minho takes comfort in knowing they’re alone right now. As much as he loves the other members, sometimes a little time two-on-two is all he needs to get away from his worries.
The first thing Minho does is brew coffee, both for himself and Jisung later on. He sets about making breakfast slowly, careful to not make too much sound. He knows he has the time to cook everything fresh, with Jisung being unwilling to get out of bed for a while anyway. After going through the fridge Minho starts preparing kimchi jjigae alongside a batch of rice. When the soup is simmering, he starts chopping scallions for pajeon and turns on the radio. It’s quiet enough not to disturb Jisung but keeps him a little bit of company while he mixes up the batter and begins frying it.
It’s probably a combination of all the smells that eventually get Jisung out of bed slowly toddling into the kitchen. His hair is a mess and Minho is pretty sure the sweatpants he’s wearing are his and Jisung is absolutely beautiful.
“Good morning.”
Jisung grunts in response and attaches himself to Minho’s back, wraps his arms around his waist. “We’ll never be able to eat all of this on our own.”
Minho flips the last pancake, satisfied with the crisp on it and cranes his neck backwards to drop a kiss on Jisung’s forehead. “We’ll just visit the other dorm later. Set the table for us?”
“Ugh,” Jisung grumbles before letting go and starts rummaging through the cupboards for bowls and plates. “I don’t wanna go out in this weather, though. Can’t we make them come here?”
Minho laughs. “Sure, baby, we can do that.”
He’s rewarded with a smile and a quick peck before Jisung finishes setting the table. Minho serves them both bowls of rice and jjigae, and Jisung pours them both coffee.
“Thank you for the meal,” he says and throws Minho a finger heart before digging in. Minho loves him so much. Jisung tangles their feet under the table and compliments his food, and Minho finds himself forgetting to eat in favour of watching him.
There’s something about the domesticity right now, the radio playing quietly in the background, the heat of the jjigae spreading through him, that makes Minho feel soft. Melted, almost. Galaxies churn, caught between his ribs, and Jisung looks up at him, nudges him with his foot. “Why aren’t you eating?”
He has a few corns of rice stuck to the corners of his mouth, and his lips are tinted slightly red and fuck, his hair is a mess and there are stains on his sweatshirt and Minho can’t imagine not spending the rest of his life with him. He knows that that’s what he’s been feeling weird about. The lack of a promised eternity, even if it’s just something they haven’t said out loud yet.
“Marry me,” he blurts. It’s eerily similar to when he confessed the first time, a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing because otherwise he’ll choke on it. The spontaneity doesn’t take away from the truth, it didn’t then and it doesn’t now. Minho wants to marry Jisung, in any way possible for them. Wants to spend every day with him, and wake up next to him to cook him breakfast and watch him eat. Wants to be able to look at him in public and think about how they’re husbands, how he’s Jisung’s and Jisung is his, no matter what the rest of the world sees.
Because maybe he’s not that good with words, and his feelings are too big for him sometimes, but telling Jisung that he wants to be his husband feels just about enough. He’ll work on vows to truly express it all because Jisung deserves to know everything, about the vines in his bones and the universe in his chest, but for the moment this will do.
Jisung drops his chopsticks. They clatter onto the table loudly and he stares, mouth open and eyes wide. “What?”
“Marry me,” Minho repeats. “Please. I want to be your husband, and I want you to be mine. I’ve been thinking about it for ages, but I didn’t know how to bring it up and really, this is probably not the best way to do this and I’ll get you a ring, but please. Please marry me.”
His hands shake, and his eyes feel suspiciously wet, and he’s just a little terrified at Jisung’s lack of response. “I know we can’t legally marry here, but maybe Chan can help us do it in Australia, or we’ll just do a ceremony for us, I don’t need it to be legal even if someday we’ll hopefully be able to actually do it here, and if it’s too fast for you we can be engaged forever basically, I don’t mind, I just want you to know how much I love you because it’s really fucking much and I can’t keep on going without you knowing-”
“Baby,” Jisung finally gets up midway through Minho’s ramble, cups his cheeks and shuts him up. “Take a breath. Of course I’ll marry you.”
“You will?” Minho’s definitely close to crying now. Jisung’s smile is brighter than any star in the universe. “Of course. Of course I’ll marry you, what the fuck.” He laughs, high and nervous, and Minho echoes it, before diving in to kiss him.
“I love you,” he says against Jisung’s lips. I love you, he presses into the kiss, a hint of spice from the jjigae on his tongue, but not too much because Jisung doesn’t like it. I love you, he thinks as he pulls back only to pepper Jisung’s entire face in kisses, laughs wetly and wipes at his tears.
“I love you,” he says again. Jisung grins at him, heart-shaped and so very lovely. “I love you too. So much. I had a whole song written and composed for this, you know? Even had a day planned and everything, but you just had to go and do it first, you silly man. I know how much you love me because that’s how much I love you.”
He kisses Minho again, forcefully, before pulling back and tearing off to his bedroom, leaving him sitting in the kitchen, happy and confused. “What?”
Jisung comes running back, slides to a halt in front of him and nearly slips on socked feet, gets down on one knee. “I was gonna propose soon,” he says. “I had such big plans, I was gonna be super romantic, what the fuck, man!”
“What?”
“God, Changbin-hyung is gonna laugh at me, I’ve been so stressed out about this, I’ve literally been working on this for months, you know?”
“Jagi, what?” Minho says again. Jisung sighs, shakes his head. Smiles. “I love you. I was going to ask you to marry me in like, three weeks.”
“Oh,” Minho says. The words take a moment to sink in. Explode in his chest, the creation of a whole universe’s worth of galaxies. A second big bang, really. Jisung nods. “I’m sorry for ruining that?”
Jisung lightly slaps at his knee and pulls out a small box from behind his back. “No, don’t worry, this actually makes it so much easier. We’re still going to go out and do that, I booked the restaurant and it’s really too expensive to pass up, and I’m gonna do the whole thing like I planned. I’ll just already know the answer.”
“As if I would’ve said no.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t nervous,” he grins, opens the box with hands just as shaky as Minho’s feel. “So. I’m obviously gonna marry you, but will you marry me?”
The ring is a silver band, almost plain except for a small dark red stone set in the middle. It’s gorgeous. Minho looks between it and Jisung, the heart-shaped smile still in place. He nods towards the box in his hands. “It’s a garnet, it symbolizes commitment and devotion or something. I forgot, but that’s what I mean with it.”
“I love you. Of course I’ll marry you, too,” Minho slides out of his chair to kiss Jisung. It’s a lot more forceful than before, and kind of wet with tears, and he’s so happy he could explode. Jisung loses his balance, pulls Minho with him until they both topple over, and yet they don’t break the kiss until Jisung pulls back and gasps for air, grinning.
Minho mirrors it, unable to do anything else. “I’ll get you a ring too, for when you do your official proposal.” Jisung’s face is lit up with joy, and Minho basks in it, watches as Jisung slides the ring out of the box and onto his finger.
“You’re getting yours in three weeks,” Jisung says. “I just wanna make sure it fits.” And it does, perfectly. Minho kisses him again. And again. He kisses Jisung stupid before they realise their food has gone cold, and then he kisses him some more. He has a universe or two in his chest, and a lovely, lovely man to kiss and the world feels alright with the knowledge that Jisung will be his husband.
-
It goes like this: Minho is nineteen, and Jisung is seventeen, and he holds his hand and taps out the baseline, and his heart jumps from something more than anxiety. He’s nineteen and Jisung is the first to hug him when he gets eliminated, who finds him back in the dorm and curls around him when they both pretend they don’t hear the other crying.Minho is twenty, and Jisung is eighteen, and they’re both tired to the point of delirium, exhausted from schedules and Jisung is laughing at something that is not at all funny, and Minho wants to drown in the sound of it.
Minho is twenty-one and Jisung is nineteen and he frowns at his notebook, scribbling down lyrics and then crossing them out, and Minho wants to kiss the frown off his face, smooth out the wrinkle between his brows and remind him that he’s a genius.
Minho is twenty-two and Jisung is twenty and shivering, shoulders drawn tight and fingers restless, and Minho pulls him in, folds himself around him and wishes he could keep Jisung safe inside of his body, protect him from the world outside.
Minho is twenty-three and Jisung is twenty-one and they squeeze each other’s hands to the point of pain while telling Jisung’s parents that they’re in love, because that’s what it is, and Minho nods when Jisung’s brother makes him promise to keep him safe.
Minho is twenty-four and Jisung is twenty-two, when Jeongin knocks on his bedroom door and asks how he knew to take his chance with Jisung and Minho loses his breath when he talks about him and realises that Jisung is the one for him.
Minho is twenty-five and Jisung is twenty-three when Minho tightens his tie around his neck and kisses him before they make their way down the aisle together, an improvised thing because they can’t have more than this, not right now. He reads out his vows, after months and months of trying to put into words how important Jisung is, and at the end they’re both crying too hard to see more than blurry shapes. He dances with Jisung and watches his friends twirl each other around, and he gets to fall asleep next to his husband, happier than he ever imagined himself being.
Minho gets older, and Jisung follows right behind, and he doesn’t stop falling in love a bit more every day. Like plants grow and the universe expands, so do his feelings. When Jisung smiles nervously next to Chan and Changbin when they talk about starting their own company; another vine grows along his aorta.When he comes back from military service and Jisung organises a get-together, small enough to be comfortable, and then doesn’t detach himself from Minho’s side for the rest of the night, a galaxy glows into existence.
He wakes up to the sound of rain against window panes and soft breathing next to him, and Jisung is asleep, curled up with his hands under his cheeks, the first grey streaking through his black hair, and the ring on his finger digging into his skin. Minho knows Jisung is his soil, without which he couldn’t thrive, and the black hole at the centre of his universe that he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to.