Chapter Text
“The walls are thin is what I’m saying, and the issue is other people live in this dorm too. They don’t want to hear what you and every girl in Seoul get up to every single night.” Kibum had now made his point about the issue that had been keeping him up. For weeks now. He folded his arms over his chest, satisfied. Finally he would get some rest again. Ever since Minho had turned twenty-one a month ago and discovered his dick worked, Kibum had not been getting any sleep. He was sick of it.
“Are you eavesdropping on me? Are you kidding?” Minho yelled in the only volume he seemed to have: LOUD. However, instead of looking mad like he normally did during their arguments, he turned red in the cheeks. Embarrassed.
Okay. Well. Kibum wasn’t a prude. He didn’t believe in pretending they weren’t hot and fucking people. He just wanted Minho to be quieter about it.
“Look you—“
“I can’t believe you heard me having sex!” Minho stalked off.
From the emotional state of his backside, Kibum could tell he had just hurt this stupid idiot’s feelings. For fuck’s sake. He had been eating . When Minho had returned home from doing whatever it was Minho did—who even knew—Kibum had thought it was a decent time to bring the matter up. No one was around but them. Obviously, this had been a mistake.
He put the dirtied dishes away and trailed down the hallway, rapping lightly on Minho’s door with his knuckles. They had shifted rooms around recently. Minho now had the big one on the corner to himself. It was why he was bringing chicks home to fuck instead of Jonghyun and Jinki. Those two were horny and staring at each other every night in the opposite room. Taemin could sleep through an earthquake. Meanwhile, Kibum were just trying to rest.
At the knock, Minho didn’t answer the door, but he was dramatic enough to leave it unlocked so Kibum pushed his way inside. Minho was laying on his belly on the middle of the bed, head turned away to the wall.
Kibum sighed and went over. “I barely heard anything. You’re blowing things out of proportion.” As usual. “What I did hear sounded fine. Like she was having a really good time. If that’s your issue.”
Minho groaned and buried his face in the crook of his elbow. “Get out,” he told Kibum. “Get out if you’re just here making fun of me.”
“I wasn’t—“
There was only so long Minho could keep his feelings inside, and Kibum knew that so wasn’t surprised when he popped up, once again yelling. “Okay! Don’t listen to me when I am…when I’m with other people. It’s not nice! Every time you do I get to do something you don’t like.”
Kibum wondered if this new rule meant he was also going to have to pretend he didn’t hear Minho jerking off alone in the shower every morning. “You could also try being quieter,” he suggested.
Blinking, Minho turned away again. “I didn’t know you could hear. Or I would’ve—I obviously wouldn’t have wanted you to hear.”
“Hence—“ Kibum said in the voice he knew Minho hated. “—why I told you in the first place. I would like it to stop.”
Minho climbed back in the bed. Tucking the blanket over himself now. “Stop, sure. Fine. You told me. Do you feel better about it?”
“Obviously, I do,” Kibum said, brow wrinkling, suddenly not liking the way this was going for him. He was the one inconvenienced! “It’s just the walls are really thin—“
“Kibum-ah, please.” Minho was clinching both fists tight. “Please go.”
Kibum realized this was going to be the cause of quite a rift between them, which he hated to admit he didn’t want. Minho was his enemy, but he would hate the awkwardness. This had been a miscalculation, and there was only one solution when Minho got like this. He needed to be treated like a five year old. A small creature consumed with fairness. Tit for tat. You touch me, I touch you.
“Next time I bring someone home you can listen in since obviously you’re mad about the fact that I know what you sound like when you come,” Kibum said. He could do a little production even. Really show off.
“What?” Minho flopped back over. His eyes were so round and wide and confused. “What are you saying?”
What was he saying? Who even knew. Kibum had learned though that you really couldn’t let Minho gain any ground or you would regret it later. He was just going to have to roll with the idea now.
“What’s fair is fair. Give me a few days. I’ll get back with you when I find a guy who’s into it,” he said, matter-of-factly. He did not bother double-checking Minho for a reaction. Instead, he marched out of the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.
To think, Kibum had simply been wanting to get some sleep. Now there were much more interesting things to do at night. The walls were very thin after all.
Two weeks later, Kibum found a guy willing to carry out the plan. He informed Minho about this by walking into his bedroom late at night. Of course, he had to ignore the fact that Minho’s nightly entertainment was apparently staring at himself in a full-length mirror and making muscle poses.
There was business to settle, and he managed to ignore the terribleness that was Choi Minho’s pectoral muscles for the time being. “I will be having sex with Minsoo this Friday night at nine o’clock. You may make an arrangement to be in the dorm at that time. The others will be out so that is not a concern. Don’t be loitering out in the common space when he arrives. That would be awkward, and I don’t want to have to deal with it. Got it?”
Minho had thrown a towel around his shoulders and was poking through the items in his shower caddy, obviously ready to shower. He clutched the shampoo up against his chest, blinking doe eyes in response to Kibum’s speech. “How can you even say something like this so casually? What is wrong with you?”
“You know how deep I had to go in my phone contacts to make this happen? Don’t act like it’s not what you want.” Kibum didn’t even really like Minsoo that much. He was kind of a prick, but his past boyfriends and hookups either weren’t as keen on the voyeurism or had dropped out when he’d mentioned Minho’s name. It was mostly the second reason too. This Choi boy was a well-known menace.
“I didn’t ask you to do this.”
“No. You just cried about it to every single person we know.” Kibum wasn’t exaggerating either. The whole dorm knew about Kibum’s so-called eavesdropping. Jinki wasn’t even talking to him much because of Minho’s hurt feelings. There was no telling what Minho had told everyone had happened, but he was ruining Kibum’s reputation.
They were going to make things even.
“Look you’re hesitant. I get that. It would actually be better for me if you aren’t here.”
Minho poked his lips out. “So now you don’t want me around, huh?”
It was like dealing with a toddler. “What I’m saying is you can ultimately do what you want. I was merely telling you that your opportunity should you need one is this Friday.”
As he spoke, he stalked up to Minho and saw him visibly swallow at Kibum’s wagging a finger directly in his face. “But you listen to me, Minho-ya. After Friday, the whole thing is finished. You never get to complain about the incident again. You can’t even mention it. And you have to stop being weird towards me. Once we’re even things go back to how they were between us. Understand?”
Minho’s eyebrows bobbed up. “And how exactly were things between us?”
“You know!” Kibum gestured demonstratively, but Minho just made an are you serious face. He sighed with exasperation, annoyed he was going to have to say the words aloud. “You know like we will be friends again.”
There was only a slow nod from Minho. He eyed Kibum for a few seconds too long, and Kibum returned the gaze, gathering the feeling that Minho definitely had something to say. He just wasn’t certain if the emotion was still anger. It didn’t quite feel like it. It felt like something more raw than that. Raw and new. Eventually Minho blinked, glancing away, and Kibum felt a gasp of air in his throat. He hadn’t even been breathing.
Minho nodded a few more times. “Ah. Friends. Kim Kibum, this seems like the perfect exercise to get us back to that dynamic.”
“I could do without your sarcasm.”
Minho held the bathroom carrier in his hands. “I could do without many things myself,” he said, gesturing towards the door. “I have received your invitation. You may leave now.”
At the dismissal, Kibum found himself awkwardly meandering towards the exit, but before he stepped through the doorway completely, he did an about-face. “So are you going through with this or not?” he asked.
Now Minho was full-on grinning. Kibum did not like that, not at all. “Kibum-ah, that’s going to be the fun part, isn’t it? Just like I didn’t know you were there, you don’t get to know whether or not I will be listening to you have sex with this guy all night.”
“All night?” Kibum raised an eyebrow. “Is that like a request?”
Minho clutched the door in his hands. “Get out!” he said. Kibum lingered in the hallway once Minho had slammed the door in his face for a beat or two. Then he returned to his own bedroom, where Taemin was already passed out in his bed so he curled up into his own quickly.
As he laid there, palms under his head, staring at the ceiling, Kibum had the sudden realization about what that feeling had been earlier in Minho’s room. Their shiny eyes and shallow breaths. It was excitement.