Chapter Text
“And you, what is your relationship with sex?”
Jeongin’s eyes go wide as Hyunjin asks him the question. Five more pairs of eyes ogle at him and wait for his answer.
Jeongin looks at his friend group in the living room. Felix sits on Jisung’s lap, Hyunjin is leaning against his boyfriend Minho, and Seungmin sits next to him. It’s Hyunjin’s birthday party, or at least what they told him it would be, but it ended up being a ‘let’s-talk-about-sex' session.
And it’s ironically funny for Jeongin to talk about sex experience if you have, well - none.
“Me? I think- good? I would say normal?” he answers the question, but gets a weird look from Hyunjin in return. Minho just wiggles with his eyebrows.
“Yeah but like, are you like afraid of sex or are you the explorer type, or do you know already what you like and don’t like?”
“I don’t know” Jeongin laughs awkwardly, “I’m virgin so I can’t really know? But I think I’m fine with it”
That’s actually pretty much wrong, but they don’t have to know that.
Jeongin is horrified by sex. Just the thought of it makes him want to rip his insides out. Just the imagination of someone touching him in a way gives him the worst memories, the most painful flashbacks. Becomes suddenly aware of all the nights he spent crying on the bathroom floor. He wishes he could burn his eyes and mind, so that he can’t remember a thing.
On the other side, he tries to live with it, pretends how he feels is normal and learns how to cope with it. Jeongin likes to read romance books that contain so much subtle love. He likes to watch movies where the main lead protects and suffers for his girlfriend. Reads smut eventually, but then again only if it’s combined with fluff. He can’t even manage to listen to those catchy songs that mention sex acts – like Megan Thee stallion ones – because it gives him the shivers.
The convo wanders again to their own experiences and first times. The whole friend group talks about how they lost their virginity, share their body count.
“Wait, you’re not virgin anymore?” Jeongin’s face falls, as Seungmin is telling his side of the story.
He and Seungmin are very close; those types of friends that share every little detail. Went to school together, had the same classes. Even their mothers are best friends. But how could he never have mentioned to him about this important experience? They literally share with each other from stupid stuff to their darkest secrets.
“Oh well yeah, I forgot to tell you” his lips form a shy smile, as he looks down at his feet. “But yeah that was months ago. It just happened, you know.”
It just happened?
Seungmin meets Jeongin’s eyes and pouts as he sees the disappointed look in them.
“We should go clubbing tomorrow!” Felix suddenly suggests, and everyone cheers, because apparently, clubbing is fun. Clubbing is this and that, but Jeongin can’t know because he’s never been to one. He trusts his friends when they tell him it’s not that bad, but then again, he is horrified.
The thought of getting touched or kissed by stranger scares him, the whole hook-up concept doesn’t sit right with him. He had read on the internet that it’s probably a matter of time. Maybe I’m too young, he had thought, but then again his friends are only two years older than him, and have had it all.
Jeongin gets handed a bottle of Soju and drinks for the sake of the others. He gets overloaded with facts and education about what’s important for sex, like consent and safewords.
Seungmin, who sits still next to Jeongin, can sense the more the conversation gets dragged on, the more Jeongin feels uncomfortable. His body language pretty much explains it. How he hides himself on the couch makes Seungmin feel guilty about it. He carefully places a hand on his thigh, to which he gets a fond smile from Jeongin in return.
“So it’s really important that you take his dick not by your teeth but by your lips you know. Hollow your cheeks”, Hyunjin explains to Jeongin, and even gestures the motions with his hands. Jeongin just watches with a frown on his face, tries to smile but he is clearly not enthusiastic about it. The others just laugh or add another detail, to which Seungmin almost wants to step in and change the topic, but Jisung is faster.
Jisung shows off his bite mark made by Felix, and everyone gasps at it. It’s blue-greenish and big, the teethmarks are pretty visible.
Jeongin doesn’t know what to do with that info though and pretends to be interested. Honestly, this whole talk is getting on his nerves. Is there really nothing else to talk about? He appreciates his friends for educating him in the best way possible, but he wishes they would know how much he doesn’t want to know any of it.
“Innie, do you think 5 inches is average? I read it recently online that it is” Felix notes jokingly and again, the whole group stares at him with awaiting eyes.
“I don’t know” he chuckles, “I’m virgin hyung” the last part he whispers, raising his knees to his chest.
“Let me get a ruler!” Hyunjin yells, and jumps off from the couch to his room. It’s getting hectic; everyone just screeches and laughs loudly, as Hyunjin comes back with an actual ruler.
“Jeong-in!” he sing-songs, and throws the ruler in his direction. Minho gets his phone out in the meantime and holds it up to the younger’s head.
The face Jeongin expresses is pure panic, looking like he doesn’t know what to do with it.
“Hyung” he whines smiley, because it’s a little embarrassing. “Fist it!” cheers Felix, and the others start to sing along.
Jeongin’s cheeks are rosy when he measures 5 inches with his thumb and pointer finger, to which he then wraps his fist around the ruler. “Happy?”
Everyone just laughs again, pointing at the younger panicked expression. It’s getting slowly overwhelming, his skin feels itchy.
Jeongin sees Seungmin approaching him and taking the ruler away from his hands. “Okay guys, that’s enough for the kid” he tries to joke and almost gives the ruler back to Hyunjin as Felix snaps it from him.
To Jeongin’s horror, Felix ends up wanting to force him to shove it in his mouth.
And it’s Jeongin’s last straw, because it’s almost as if he is humiliating himself. It’s as if he is confirming how frightened and disgusted he is by his own fears. He hopelessly looks at Seungmin, begging him to do something about it.
“Felix!” Seungmin suddenly yells, and the room falls silent. His voice sounds angry, not enjoyable. “Don’t you see he is uncomfortable?”
Felix’s face falls and his eyes snap from Seungmin’s to Jeongin’s face. “What?”
“Look” Seungmin pushes Hyunjin and Minho out of the way and grabs Jeongin’s wrist to hold it up in the air, “he is shaking, what the fuck Hyung?” Everyone takes a step back and watches Jeongin with big eyes.
Jeongin, the boy who is actually trembling in distress, disgust and solitude. The boy who can’t understand himself for his own reactions, just because he had a traumatic past. The boy who fears nobody is going to believe and stick to him if they know the truth.
Seungmin sits down next to the younger and takes his hand in his. He searches in his face for something, Jeongin isn’t sure what. He just tries to hide behind his own bangs, making himself believe no one can see through him in the way he thinks of himself.
Then, after a couple of beats, he asks, “Are you okay Innie?”
It’s the calmest and yet sweetest thing Jeongin has heard the entire evening, to which his heart swells at it. He realizes just then how hard he has been breathing. Suddenly, he wants to get away from everyone and simply stay with Seungmin.
Jeongin just manages to nod, since he thinks the tears in his eyes would betray his voice.
“Let’s go home” Seungmin decides and gently pulls Jeongin to his feet.
The rest of the group looks at them with shock and confusion. Felix steps forward as the duo moves to the door. “Jeong-“
“No” Seungmin hisses instead, while he slides into his shoes, and then glares at everyone. “Read the fucking room next time. Y'all have gone too far long ago.”
Seungmin doesn’t mind slamming the door shut behind him. Hand in hand, he drags Jeongin to his car. He sighs as they sit, and starts the car.
Jeongin is silent throughout the whole drive. Millions of thoughts and regrets shoot him in his mind, which he can’t stop spiralling about. He looks over to Seungmin, who’s occupied with driving.
“Can I sleep over at your house?”
Seungmin blinks for a few beats and nods. He looks over to Jeongin for a moment with a genuine smile. “Of course you can, aegi”
Seungmin hands him at his apartment a fresh set of sleeping clothes and a towel for the shower. The two end up meeting each other in the hallway 40 minutes later.
“I take the couch and you the bedroom” Seungmin says and Jeongin shakes his head. He steps closer to the elder and looks him in the eyes. “I don’t think I can really sleep alone tonight.”
They end up together under covers, Jeongin in Seungmin’s arms. Jeongin hates the touch of people, hates to be close to someone, but Seungmin is an exception. Seungmin is an exception for everything, because he simply is Seungmin.
“Do you wanna talk about today?” the boy asks quietly, reaching for Jeongin’s fluffy hair. Jeongin nuzzles in his shirt and thinks about it.
“No…if it’s okay for you”
“Of course” Seungmin smiles, and pats his hair in slow strokes. Jeongin’s hair reeks from Seungmin’s apple-scented shampoo, which Seungmin likes to smell. He holds the younger closer by his middle and pushes some hair strands away from Jeongin’s forehead.
“Hyung” he suddenly calls, his voice sounding unsure and small. In the dimmed lights, Seungmin can’t decipher his facial expressions. “Can you kiss me?”
Seungmin’s brain cuts circuits, or better explained, his heart suddenly picks up pace. He lets go of Jeongin and pushes himself on his elbows. “What?”
Jeongin doesn’t answer, just waits. Shuffles a little closer and rests his head against Seungmin’s chest.
“Innie”, Seungmin sighs, and lays back on the bed, “Just because they were talking about experience, doesn’t mean you have to build up one too so suddenly just to feel included.”
It’s cute the way Jeongin is now visibly thinking about it; the way he picks Seungmin’s fingers and traces the outline of his digits. Like when kids do, Jeongin takes in holds Seungmin’s hand with both of his hands.
“But they were making fun of me” he whispers. Seungmin immediately shakes his head. “No aegi, they weren’t. And even if they were, you have to know that you deserve to be loved and respected for the way you are, for the things you like and don’t like”
Jeongin’s head snaps up and even in the darkness, Seungmin can see his wide eyes staring at him. Just then, a tingling feeling builds up in him as he remembers a specific conversation.
A few days ago
“Min, can I ask you something?” Seungmin hears him say and hums in his mic. He hastily presses on his controller to surpass Jisung’s character in the game.
“Would you kiss Jeongin if you were strangers?” Jisung asks and Seungmin chokes on his own saliva. Seungmin’s character smashes against a wall and he loses.
“Come again?”
“Would you kiss Jeongin-“
“No I got that, but why would you ask me that?”
He sees the game restarting and Jisung’s avatar waiting for him to press the start button. Seungmin gives in and the screen loads.
“It’s just- theoretically speaking, y’all would be perfect for another, you know” the elder speaks into his headset, “I can’t really imagine you with someone else or he with anyone else. But it’s just you know each other for too long to be something”
Do they really?
“You mean it?” Jeongin asks now, and Seungmin gets brought back from his flashback. He nods at first but hums a beat later, because he remembers Jeongin can’t see him. He longs for Jeongin’s hand and drags him over to his chest again.
Seungmin is warm; Jeongin likes to feel his body temperature balance to his. He wraps his arms around Seungmin’s waist while he cups Jeongin’s jaw. “Do you still want me to kiss you?” he asks in a low voice, but there is an anticipating excitement lingering.
Loving Jeongin got harder, more painful yet tantalizingly sweeter in the past months. Like every time Jeongin wakes up in Seungmin’s bed after a late-night studying session at his cozy apartment. It gets more unbearable when he sees that the younger is already in the kitchen, preparing a simple breakfast which even he can’t fuck up for the both of them. It gets impossible to let go when Jeongin turns around and shoots him a lopsided grin, says, “Morning, Minnie~” in that sing-song lilt of his and tacks on a stupid insult or quip or tease.
And Seungmin can’t help to call him Innie, Aegi – his baby – because that’s what he wishes him to be deep down.
It fills him with a sickening contentedness when he is able to hold him so close and so tender, but not being able to press his lips against him.
Seungmin’s breath hitches as he hears Jeongin’s yes and shuffles even closer.
His first kiss had been with a girl he met in middle school whose name he couldn’t remember. Her lips had been a little sticky with her chapstick, and she had leaned over and kissed him lightly on the last night of summer camp. It had only lasted a second, and when she’d asked him how it was, he hadn’t been able to lie to her. Weird, he had said, and then cringed and apologized. They had laughed it off and parted ways.
Kissing Jeongin is definitely weird, but that is where the similarities end. His lips are soft and are hovering awkwardly afterwards, like as if he isn’t sure what to do after the moment of contact. Hell if Seungmin knew. Books and movies had it all wrong, he is sure, because nobody ever talks about what happens afterwards. Nobody told him, how loud and intense your heart suddenly beats in moments like these. Jeongin practically took his hand and flung them off the cliff. Now what?
Seungmin forces his eyes back open.
The sight of Jeongin in front of him makes his stomach fall and knot tighter. The corners of his lips are fondly raised, his lips are parted. The string of saliva sparkles a little and Seungmin can’t stop to wander his gaze all over Jeongin’s face.
Jeongin realizes he doesn’t want to get kissed by anyone else. Not only because Seungmin knows him so well. Seungmin knows by heart how his brain works, can read his thoughts, remembers every detail of him. Why would he prefer anyone else if Seungmin is there?
Jeongin feels Seungmin’s lips getting pressed again against his, then a few, constant small pecks follow after. He isn’t sure if it’s the soju that makes him suddenly feel so happy or if it’s just the taste of Seungmin in his throat. Whatever it is, he doesn’t want to stop.
Seungmin ends up confessing and blurting his heart out to Jeongin. Jeongin cries, it’s a mess. Seungmin kisses every tear on both cheeks. Then they sleep like babies, but in love.
Seungmin is gonna wait for Jeongin, is going to wait for anything he wants to build up. He wants to take care of the boy, show him the real love he deserves.
To answer Jisung’s question, yes, Seungmin would kiss Jeongin.