Work Text:
“Hyung, where are the chocolate bars?”
“White paper bag under the register.”
Fifteen seconds. Thirty seconds. One minute.
“Hyung, the table outside asked for the check.”
Two minutes. Three minutes.
“Hyung, where’s the—oh my god.”
Minho startles, his gaze ripped from its anchor. Hyunjin is there, suddenly, pressing his entire weight against his side, ruining the one precious moment Minho had been looking forward to all morning. Hyunjin is there instead of manning the kitchen, cutting fruit for the salads, whisking more pancake mix; he’s there doing anything but what he’s getting paid to do. A reprimand rests at the tip of Minho’s tongue, but it dies in his mouth before he voices it.
Hyunjin is looking at him dead in the eye, amused, questioning. Minho sighs. He’s been caught.
“Hyung,” he says.
“I’m not having this conversation with you.”
“Minho-hyung,” Hyunjin sings. Irritating. Minho could strangle him over the counter.
“Don’t you have work to do? Dishes to wash?”
“Oh, that’s rich.”
“I’m taking my fifteen,” Minho lies right through his teeth. Hyunjin has the nerve to laugh in his face, and Minho could kill him. He could. There are many ways he could. A coffee shop is equipped with many options for a weapon. There aren’t many witnesses, either, no one to watch as Minho is pushed over the edge towards murderous madness save for the couple sitting on a table outside and—and—well. Him. The boy he’s been watching.
“You sure are,” Hyunjin says. He bumps his shoulder, a grin permanently sewn onto his face. “And what a way to spend your break.”
Minho says nothing, doesn’t look at Hyunjin any longer. His eyes are pulled towards the boy once again. It’s not like there’s anything else interesting enough to watch, anything that could compare to the deep concentration on his face, deaf to the world as he bops his head to the rhythm of whatever he’s listening to with those bulky headphones he always seems to be wearing. Not that Minho has kept count—he just really does wear them a lot. At least when he’s in the shop. Minho hasn’t had the chance to see him outside of it, after all. Not yet.
Not yet, he says to himself. He has said so to Hyunjin, too. He doesn’t anymore; he’s had enough of being laughed at and called a coward. He doesn’t need Hyunjin to understand that he’s not afraid, not of a boy with big, brown eyes and a smile bright enough to light up a nation. He’s not afraid, he’s calculating. Careful. Aware. And above all—a professional.
Han Jisung, his name. Minho has memorized the shape of each syllable, scribbled it onto enough paper cups that he thinks he could write it with his eyes closed. Han Jisung. A regular at the coffee shop since long before Minho started working there. A student, most likely majoring in something related to music, and transparently passionate about whatever it is that he works on while he’s in the café. Adorable, polite, mysterious, and maybe the prettiest person Minho has laid eyes on, and he has laid his eyes on plenty of beautiful people.
One of them stands right next to him, now. But Minho has seen enough of Hyunjin in a lifetime, enough that he can’t think of him as anything but the little demon voice inside his head.
He says just as much. Hyunjin laughs. He seems to be finding things very funny today.
“Are you gonna stare at him until you die, or are you gonna do something about it?”
“I’m gonna stare at him until I die,” Minho says, but despite all the resolution he paints into his words, he’s already moving before he finishes the sentence. Hyunjin snickers and Minho kicks him in the shin as he walks past him towards the coffee machines.
Seven minutes. It took Han Jisung seven minutes to finish his first cup of coffee, which means that in a perfect world, a Hyunjin-less world, Minho would’ve had seven minutes to look at his pretty face before pushing himself off the counter to pour him his refill.
It’s all part of the same routine. Minho works mornings every day from Tuesdays to Saturdays, tasked with the chores necessary for the shop to be up and running. He wipes every table into spotless perfection, makes sure the machines are clean and functioning, throws the first batch of croissants into the oven, and opens the register for the day. Hyunjin’s shift starts an hour before lunch, and until that time the pace of the shop is slow, easy, flowing to the tune of whatever music Minho feels like playing, more often than not drifting away from the pre-made playlists Seungmin, their boss, had made specifically for them.
It’s not his fault that he has naturally good taste in music. It’s also decidedly not his fault that every day without fail, he is a man on a mission: to impress the pretty music boy.
Hyunjin always arrives with enough time to get through his own set of tasks before he’s right by Minho’s side, pretending to do something useful with his time when, in reality, he’s looking forward to the arrival of their most loyal customer just as much as Minho is, if anything for his own entertainment. Minho has tried to shake him off, to get Hyunjin to stick to his work in the kitchen so he can go one morning without being pestered. Try as he may, there Hyunjin stands every morning, by his side, making his life a little more awful with each passing day.
If that’s the price to pay for being blessed with the way Jisung’s eyes pinch in concentration as he reads over his notes and puts both hands over his headphones, as if that will bring the music closer, as if that will make it sound different—and maybe it does, what does Minho know—it’s worth it. This is what he thinks to himself each morning as he goes to serve Jisung a refill of his drink. Whatever this is, this sense of normalcy brought to him in the form of a silly crush, Minho takes it in his stride.
The thing is that all things considered, one year into their daily interactions, Minho doesn’t know much about Jisung. He knows his name, of course, and that he’s the same age as Hyunjin, his junior by two years. He knows that his eyes are dark and round and that they sparkle effortlessly under the gentle lighting of the shop, he knows that his smiles are blinding and easy to earn, he knows that when he’s focused the world around him could just as well burn to ashes and he would be none the wiser.
He knows, too, that he asks for the same coffee every day without fail, a caramel latte with whipped cream on top. Terribly sweet for Minho’s taste, but then again, so is Jisung, if all that he’s learned about him after months of careful observation is anything to go by.
Sweet, pretty, into sugary drinks. Minho wants to know more. The urge to get closer to Jisung, to take the empty seat in front of him and just listen and learn, buzzes insatiably under his skin, making him tingle all over.
“Minho-hyung,” Hyunjin calls, approaching him from behind and hooking his chin on the crook of his neck as he mans the coffee machine.
Brew espresso into the glass, add chocolate, foam the milk. Minho goes through the familiar motions and hums as his only response to Hyunjin.
“I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job,” he continues, and Minho would bite then don’t, but there isn’t any fight between Hyunjin’s words, so he doesn’t. “But I don’t think we’re supposed to put chocolate in caramel lattes.”
Minho hums again. Pour milk into the glass, top with whipped cream.
“I’m not making a caramel latte,” he says.
Hyunjin frowns. “Isn’t this for Jisung?”
The name rolls off his tongue easily, and Minho has to will himself to be normal when he feels his stomach tighten. Hyunjin and Jisung have interacted quite a few times, mostly when Minho was out sick or he just so happened to be taking his break when Jisung came in. They’re the same age, after all, and Minho assumes that must mean something.
Maybe Hyunjin is just that likable. Maybe Minho’s approach of watching from afar hasn’t been the most practical.
“It is,” he says.
“Jisung’s order is a caramel latte,” Hyunjin says a little too matter-of-factly, just enough to get Minho to break his focus and glare, still careful as he sprinkles cocoa powder over the whipped cream.
“I know that.”
“And you’re making—”
“A mocha.” Minho circles around the counter and catches sight of Jisung, stopping when he notices that he’s talking to someone on the phone, his voice unintelligible amid the mild tumult created by the ambient music and the whirs and hums of the coffee machine.
Hyunjin takes this opportunity to lean over the counter and still him with what Minho can only assume is supposed to be an intimidating glare. He doubts Hyunjin is aware of how much he fails at it, his face composed in a way that resembles the likes of a cartoon deer.
And Minho knows what he's going to say; that he shouldn’t change a customer’s order, that he shouldn’t even be pouring Jisung another drink because they don’t actually offer free refills, that he’s pathetic and all his scheming is going over the boy’s head because he hasn’t even looked at Minho for long enough to know the color of his eyes, never mind that Minho has spent his fair share of seconds trying to define the exact shade of brown in Jisung's own. He knows that Hyunjin, as deep of a romantic as he might be, is nothing if not professional. He knows, too, that Hyunjin has a bit of a thing for following rules and policies, which Minho doesn’t particularly share.
Then again, Minho isn’t fucking the boss. Hyunjin is.
“No,” he says before Hyunjin even speaks. “I don’t wanna hear it.”
“You’re paying for that,” Hyunjin says, even though they both know he was going to anyway. Minho might be many things, but he’s not cheap. This way, at least, he can tell himself he’s buying the guy he likes a drink. Whether the guy in question is aware of that is irrelevant by his standards. “And why make it different? He’s gonna notice.”
Minho shrugs. He pays half a mind to the way the tips of his ears tingle, warm. They’re probably a bright red by this point. He’s blessed to have let his hair grow long enough that his blush can hide beneath it. Hyunjin doesn’t need any more incentives.
“He won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he never notices.”
Silence, suddenly—the motions of the shop continue as they were, but Minho’s brain is drowned in static as he sees every emotion on Hyunjin’s face until realization dawns on him. His eyes widen in a way that would’ve been comical under any other circumstances, and Minho wills his face not to twist, swallowing the curse that rests at the tip of his tongue. If he remains reactionless enough, maybe Hyunjin will just drop it.
No such luck. Naturally.
“Hyung.” Minho senses amusement, surprise, and then something worse: pity. “Oh, hyung. You can’t be serious.”
Lips into a thin line, Minho resists the urge to turn around and check if Jisung is still busy. He also resists the urge to look for any possible exit, partially because he’s not one to run away from things, and mostly because he knows Hyunjin well enough to predict that he would chase him to the ends of the earth if that meant he could continue making his life miserable.
“How long have you been doing this? How do you even know what he likes?”
He shrugs again. “I just do,” he says. Hyunjin squints at him, not missing the deliberation Minho took in ignoring the first question. He doesn’t ask again. Minho takes the small victory.
“Is it always the same—what, he likes chocolate?”
Jisung likes chocolate, caramel, honey. He likes salty-and-sweet drinks, especially if the salty part of it comes from peanuts or pistachio. He seems to be neutral on most fruits and is definitely not fond of cinnamon, nutmeg, or pumpkin.
Hyunjin doesn’t need to know this, and Minho doesn’t want him to.
Upon a lack of response, he probes on, “Hyung. What’s your game here?”
“My game,” Minho echoes.
“Yeah, I mean,” Hyunjin waves his hands around, gaze wandering like it does when he’s trying to find the words he needs. Minho waits. “You know. Do you—is this your way to flirt with him? Because I’ve seen you talk your way into a guy’s bed before. This isn’t that.”
This isn’t like you, he doesn’t say. Minho hears it all the same.
And Hyunjin is right. This isn’t Minho’s usual strategy, because Minho doesn’t often require one. When they’re out together, it isn’t too hard for either of them to find someone to dance the night away with, and when Minho is feeling particularly greedy, when the heat of someone pressed against him in the foggy crowd of a club isn’t enough, when he wants to be taken home—he gets his way with ease.
He knows. He’s aware of the effect he has on people and doesn’t feel too bad using it to his advantage. His ways are different from Hyunjin’s; he’s more blunt, not quite into playing mind games or beating around the bush. He’s never had a problem making it known that he’s interested in someone, and he usually already knows from observation alone whether that person will want him back, which happens more often than not. He doesn’t shy away from batting his eyelashes or looking at the object of his interest in a way he’s been told is sure to make any strong man’s knees buckle. It’s not rocket science. Minho is attractive, and he knows how to work with that.
But this isn’t that. This is different.
Jisung is different.
“Hyung,” Hyunjin calls again, and Minho is pulled back to the conversation. He clears his throat, willing away the tightness around it, the two ghost hands curled against it that come with the realization that he has not felt this way about someone in very long, and he doesn’t even know Jisung, not enough to excuse how much and how often he thinks of him, how he’s always wanting more.
“Yeah,” Minho replies, a little breathless. If Hyunjin notices, he doesn’t let it show.
“You really like this guy.”
It’s not a question. Minho bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to hurt, then shrugs.
He looks back at Hyunjin and catches the teasing in his features melt into something softer, a gentle expression they only usually allow each other when they’re drunk and vulnerable. Hyunjin seems to search for something on his face, and Minho does his absolute best to remain unbothered. This entire conversation is lasting what feels like hours, but Minho reminds himself that that can’t be true, considering that the drink he’s holding is still warm.
As if reminded, suddenly, that he not only has a job he’s supposed to be doing but that he was in the middle of something before Hyunjin decided to psychologically poke at his insides, Minho turns around fast enough to make the wind crack. The conversation isn’t over, he knows, but Hyunjin lets him go, and it’s this small mercy that makes Minho think less and less about ways to get him killed to make his life a little more bearable.
It seems that he timed things correctly, because he turns to find that Jisung has finished talking on the phone and is once again sporting his headphones, moving lightly to what Minho can only assume is the beat of some song. He's zeroed in on the screen of his laptop, his posture slouching ever so slightly as he clicks and types and scrolls away, hands quick like he needs to get it all out of his system, like he’s chasing after the idea he’s working with, wanting to catch it and pin it down before it runs away.
In no more than a few steps, he crosses the distance between them. From up close, the sharpness of Jisung’s concentration and its stark contrast with the softness of his everything else makes something like endearment plant itself on the depths of Minho’s chest. He bites back a smile.
With the tip of one finger from his free hand, he taps on the side of the table, right next to Jisung’s laptop, with enough force to catch his attention but not enough to make him flinch. Minho has learned that Jisung gets scared easily, more than most people he knows, and this is only incremented when he’s focused on something like this, the edges of his perception blurring like all that exists in his world is the screen in front of him.
Sure enough, Jisung blinks, surprised, but doesn’t startle. He looks up from his laptop and the moment his eyes meet Minho’s, his face parts into an easy, blinding smile.
Minho wants to die. He wants this to be the last thing he ever gets to see.
Used to their routine by now, Jisung looks down at the hand that’s holding the drink for one split second, then back up. Minho wordlessly leans over to switch the empty mug on the table for the new one. He smiles again, more consciously now, as politely as he possibly can without letting any of his unfounded affection show.
He wants to ask—anything, really. What he’s listening to, what he’s been working on for the past handful of hours. Anything Jisung would be willing to give him. Minho shoves that urge back and it goes down his throat unwilling, bitter.
“Thanks,” Jisung mutters, louder than he normally would due to the restraint around his ears.
After one practiced nod, the same he would give any other customer and definitely not any more thoughtful, Minho turns around to return to his station. Hyunjin is, gracefully, pretending to mind his business, suddenly all too interested in the state of his nails. Minho prepares himself for impact, knowing Hyunjin will grasp and claw at him, drag him back into the kitchen, and force any information out of him in ways that could be judged by an attorney if Minho felt like taking him to court. He’s prepared for this, makes a list of everything he’ll think about while Hyunjin goes on and on about how unlike him this is, how silly and non-practical it is of Minho to develop a goddamn crush on a customer he knows next to nothing about—he’s prepared. Come what may.
A light shines on him when, not even halfway back to his spot behind the counter, a voice—no other than Jisung’s—stops him in his tracks. He sounds quieter, softer than before, when he says,
“This is really good.”
The reason for his more appropriate choice of volume, Minho finds as he turns around, is that Jisung has now removed his headphones. Drink in hand, he’s tilted towards Minho directly, looking away from his laptop for the first time since he sat down. Another wave of heat runs up the shell of Minho’s ears, and he’s helpless to it, rendered to watch and nothing more. Jisung takes another sip, eyes closed, and hums sweetly.
Minho hovers awkwardly, painfully aware of Hyunjin’s eyes burning holes into the back of his head. He doesn’t want this to end—the rare interaction, this bridge being built between them, so easy still to crumble.
Jisung opens his eyes not long after his second sip, and Minho thinks, for a second, that his face looks warmer. His eyes are nothing if not an invitation, but Minho doesn’t take it yet, only steps a few inches closer. The sudden reminder that he’s supposed to be working prickles inside him, a weak excuse to keep himself standing. He watches, and Jisung watches back.
“You make these taste better than anyone else in the world.”
Feeling the corners of his lips tug upwards, Minho tilts his head.
“I’m sure you say that to every barista.”
“Only the ones I like.”
Somewhere in the world, in a land far away from where Minho is now standing, Hyunjin is most likely observing this interaction and laughing in bewilderment.
Right now, all that exists is the space between Minho and Jisung, a few empty tables and vacant chairs. Minho can’t bring himself to care about anything else as he crosses this distance for a second time, his every step making Jisung’s smile impossibly brighter. From up close, the reddish tint to the curve of his cheeks is glaring, the only telltale sign of any nerves or hesitation. He would be the spitting image of confidence if it weren’t for it, the glimmer in his eyes almost a challenge.
Minho stops one step short and looks at the empty seat in front of Jisung’s, then back. His nerves are on fire, his skin electric. Jisung is as oblivious as any normal person would be to the effect this little conversation is having on Minho’s entire mental and physical well-being, and he wishes to keep it this way. He wills himself to calm down, goddamn it. He feels like a teenager.
This isn’t like him. Minho is cool, collected, and calculating. Minho knows how every interaction he has with people will play out before he even engages. Minho doesn’t get surprised by things, especially not by people. He doesn’t feel a thrill in meeting anyone new, in stepping out of his comfort zone, in exploring uncharted territory.
Jisung smiles at him, still, and Minho feels helpless.
“Join me?”
“Aren’t you busy?” Minho asks, nods towards his laptop. “Working?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Against his better judgment, Minho smiles.
“Fair enough.”
Jisung gestures to the empty seat again, and Minho concedes. The urge to look back towards his station one last time goes purposefully ignored; Minho doesn’t need to give Hyunjin the satisfaction of acknowledging his presence. He doesn’t hear any whistling or muffled laughter from behind his back, so he can only assume—hope, pray—that Hyunjin has either given up and gotten back to work or that he’s decided to be the friend of the year and let Minho have this.
The coffee shop buzzes with the low hum of conversation, the clinking of cups, the hiss of the machines; the familiarity of the sounds wraps around Minho like a warm blanket, giving him the confidence he needs as he sits across Jisung and returns his glance. Dark, round, bright eyes are on him, open and inviting, his curiosity exposed and unashamed.
The world continues to move, but it all falls to silence. Minho vibrates under Jisung’s undivided attention. A small, hidden part of him screams and sings—finally.
Now, the talking part, Minho knows. He’s had his share of it after a handful of years working service jobs. He’s polite and well-rounded in how to leave a good first impression on strangers, and the years upon years of attending parties and corporate events with his parents as a child have left a permanent imprint on him. He barely hesitates before aiming for small talk. This, he can do. The safe path. Something he knows.
Jisung is twenty-two, he’s lived in town for much longer than Minho has known it, and he’s a Music Production and Sound Engineering major. All of this Minho knew, but there’s something about re-learning it from Jisung’s own words. The thrill of knowing this, knowing more. Jisung is happy to give pieces of himself away to Minho like they aren’t strangers, only tied together by the give-and-take of caffeinated drinks. Minho feels comfortable, the way he would when talking to a life-long friend. He finds himself giving parts of his own life away, too, and he finds that this doesn’t scare him or make him nauseous in the way exposing himself to new people usually does.
He doesn’t dare voice this, not even to himself, but the truth is that he knew it would feel like this—talking to Jisung, being close to him like this. He knew from the very first moment he set his eyes on him that eventually, life would bring them together, that they would be sitting like this, and that it would all feel so easy.
He knew, right from the start, that getting to know Jisung would be unlike anything Minho had ever experienced before. He doesn’t allow the thought to terrify him, lets all of it go, only holds onto the small satisfaction he gets from knowing he was right.
They do small talk until they run out of it; Jisung talks about his classes, his latest projects. Minho tells him he’s been curious about the songs he’s been working on, with enough of a teasing tilt to his voice that Jisung doesn’t feel pressured to show him just yet, but enough genuine interest that he promises he one day will. He talks about his assignments and mentions the classmates he’s worked with most, two students a little older than him that Minho remembers seeing a handful of times, always sitting around Jisung, heads close together as they worked from the same laptop.
Your boyfriend brought his boyfriends, Hyunjin would normally say when the group occupied the table Jisung frequents. They’re a quiet bunch, the other two boys with energies similar enough to Jisung’s own that Minho can see why they get along as well as they do, which is evident even from an outsider’s perspective. Jisung is more talkative when they join him, not as submersed in his own virtual world, only one ear cupped into his headphones so he can engage in conversation while he works.
It’s during these afternoons when Jisung has company that Minho gets to see more of what he’d been so desperately craving; Jisung’s laugh, the look on his face when he comes up with a joke, the way his eyes focus as he listens to someone else speak, the way his entire being lights up when he’s talking about something he’s passionate about.
Jisung having friends around only confirmed the worst of Minho’s suspicions; that he’s lovely, charming, and pleasant to be around. That Minho would kill to sit with him and talk to him like that, to get to see it all from up close, first-row seats to the firework show that is Han Jisung.
Of course, it also happens that during these afternoons Minho exposes himself beyond his regular, shameless self. Because Jisung bringing friends along does nothing to stop him from following along with his routine, and no matter how many people are at that table—and it’s never more than the same three, he’s come to notice—Minho will wait until Jisung has finished his drink, he will pour him a new one, and he will bring it to him, free of charge.
This has not gone unnoticed by Jisung’s friends. One of them more than the other, the shortest of the pair, never fails to look straight at him whenever Minho brings Jisung his carefully and thoughtfully prepared second drink.
I didn’t know this place had refills, he said the first time, his voice equal parts curious and mocking. Minho looked him dead in the eye, never the one to back down from a challenge. Can I get one, too, please?
Sorry, he deadpanned. We’re all out.
As he walked back to his station that day, Jisung’s friend laughed hard enough for the sound of it to haunt him for days, a terrible addition to all the teasing he already received from Hyunjin daily. Still, Minho thinks, to this day, that it’s safe to say that Jisung remains blissfully oblivious. It’s a wonder how he hasn’t noticed, at least not enough to point it out. He might just be that distracted, his mind always half-occupied with whatever project he’s working on.
“Ah, I’ve been wondering about those two,” Minho says, his mouth a thin line as he remembers, willing his ears to stop burning. “Seem like a pretty tight pair.”
“Yeah,” Jisung breathes through a laugh. “They are. They’ve known each other since—uh, high school, I think? Maybe longer. Kind of took me under their wing after Chan-hyung TA’d for one of my classes and offered to help me with an assignment I was struggling with. Can’t shake ‘em off, now,” he says. He feigns indignance, but his tone is warm.
Minho briefly wonders if Jisung knows he’s smiling as he talks about his friends. It’s the most endearing thing he has ever seen.
“Right,” he says, and he feels the honey dripping from his voice. “I get that.”
Jisung looks over Minho’s shoulder to somewhere far behind him, and his smile grows wider, amusement shining through. Minho decidedly does not turn around.
“You do, huh.”
“No. No, I don’t,” Minho backtracks. “He’s looking right at us, isn’t he.”
Still looking past him, Jisung brings up a hand and waves. Clattering resounds from somewhere close to the counter and Minho closes his eyes, throws his head back, and represses a groan with all his force and might. Jisung laughs, and Minho looks back at him to find he’s laughing at him. A soft little thing, airy and light.
“He seems intrigued,” he says. “Hyunjin, I mean.”
“Yeah, well,” Minho clears his throat, gets his act together. “This is quite the show we’re putting on. He doesn’t get to see something like this too often.”
“What, you sitting down to sweet-talk customers?”
Minho scoffs, burning bright. “I’m not sweet-talking you.”
Jisung blinks at him, pretty long eyelashes and pretty brown eyes and everything pretty. He brings his drink up to his lips once again and takes a sip, letting the taste linger as a grin curls around his features. Minho might be in love with him.
The thought, ridiculous as it is, startles him enough that he forgets what they were talking about until Jisung puts his drink back down and says,
“Could’ve fooled me.”
His eyes are on Minho, never leaving him. If it weren’t for the incessant tapping against the table and how his leg is bouncing under it, Minho would think he’s got this entire situation under control. Even with these little glimpses of nervousness, he thinks Jisung is doing a much better job than he is at keeping himself together.
They move on from the topic of school to Minho’s anecdotes, practiced tales about his life at the café. Minho mentions Hyunjin multiple times, Jisung taking each as an opportunity to press for more information on their relationship, as he puts it. Minho wastes no time in clarifying that they’re friends, thank you very much, and that he wouldn’t go beyond that if they were the last two people on earth. Jisung laughs at that, too.
“You seem pretty close,” he says, entirely disregarding Minho’s false disdain.
“Yeah, well,” Minho digs his fingernail into the eroded edge of the wooden table, shrugs, smiles. “Working forty hours a week side-by-side will do that to you.”
“Right,” Jisung says, nods. “He likes you, though. Hyunjin. It’s hard to pass his vibe-check. He’s a pretty good judge of character.”
Minho squints.
“You know Hyunjin,” he states.
Jisung scoffs. It’s not the reaction Minho was expecting. He wasn’t expecting Jisung to know Hyunjin to begin with, not beyond the customer-employee dynamic he’d thought. It makes him feel a little out of his depth, knowing that he’s the one who knows Jisung less in—the entire world, apparently. That Jisung knows most of the people in Minho’s life better than he knows him.
“We went to school together,” he explains, and it’s an ice-cold reminder to Minho that he hasn’t been in town for longer than a couple of years. “Middle school, then high school. We—well. We hated each other, kind of, for most of it. But then he dated one of my friends for a while and we had to learn to be civil with each other, and then it just stuck and we ended up getting along even after they broke up.”
“Huh,” Minho says, absorbing all this information that he would have loved to know before jumping head-first into conversation.
He’s going to kill Hwang Hyunjin. He turns around and finds him staring; glares at him only as long as he needs to for the message to go through. Hyunjin straightens up, eyes wide, and turns on his heels, retreating to the kitchen in a matter of seconds.
The interaction brings another laugh out of Jisung. Minho turns back around right in time to catch it, his face blooming openly with the light of it. He feels it in his own skin, the vibrance of Jisung’s happiness, how infectious it is.
The conversation flows effortlessly after that, punctuated by more of Jisung’s easy laughter and the back-and-forth of anecdotes. Minho is too busy keeping his head overwater, holding onto the remains of his composture as it weakens more and more with each smile Jisung gives him, to even notice how much time has passed.
Blessedly, the coffee shop remains empty enough that he never needs to peel himself away from Jisung’s table, with Hyunjin handling the two or three customers that come in easily and without any need for help. Minho’s willing to let him keep all of today’s tips as a way of thanking him—and a bribe, too, to keep his mouth shut. He knows better than to expect Hyunjin to keep this a secret from their boss.
Absently, Minho thinks Seungmin could never blame him for taking the liberty to do this; sit and chat with a customer for what feels like hours, definitely the better part of his shift, without feeling any guilt. He thinks he’s made it abundantly clear how much he respects Seungmin and how he values his job and duties. He also thinks he’s earned it, having been the one to man the shop on his own one too many times when Seungmin dropped by and made himself busy dragging Hyunjin to the back of the shop and exploring him in ways Minho wishes he knew about in a lot less detail than he does.
So, whatever. Sue him for wanting to indulge in being the object of Jisung’s attention for one afternoon. Minho finds himself caring less and less about it with each step they take further into the conversation, drinks long-forgotten, the world fading at the edges beyond their table.
The atmosphere grows more comfortable as time passes, and Minho feels his heart rate return to something mellow. The anxiety that had been gripping at his chest tightly slowly undoes itself, and in its wake, all that’s left is a warmth he doesn’t think he’s ever experienced before.
He’s listening intently as Jisung retells how he once got lost on his way to campus and had to take three trains to get back—and it hits him, suddenly, without any warning: it’s the first time in a long time that things have felt so simple to Minho. He’s not acting, not measuring the tone in his voice, the sharpness in his eyes. He doesn’t think he’s even flirting, not in the way he would when trying to catch someone else’s interest; he’s not putting on a show with practiced smiles and doing the things he does when he wants to make his way into someone’s bed, the things he knows tend to drive other people just the right amount of crazy.
He doesn’t even know, not really, if Jisung is looking for the same thing he is. They’re just talking, and it could be nothing more than that; any minute now, Jisung could remember what he was supposed to be working on, he could dismiss Minho with a polite smile, and that would be it. He’ll walk away from this table with a new friend and a dull but easy-to-ignore ache in his chest, and his life will be a little better and brighter than it was when he clocked into work that same morning.
That’s not what he wants, of course. What he wants is for Jisung to never stop talking. He wants to remember the exact sound and tilt of his voice, his tone, the way it curls around his every word. He wants to memorize his laugh and all its different colors. He wants to stay this close to him for hours and days, maybe even closer, if Jisung will allow it.
This isn’t a surprise to him—it’s dizzying, yes, the strength of his affection, never experienced before, but Minho already knew that. He’s been aware of the ridiculous intensity of his crush on Jisung for months. He has accepted and surrendered to it.
But the idea, the knowledge that Jisung could not want him in the same way, and still Minho would be happy to keep him in his life—it’s terrifying. It makes his blood run cold, freezes him in place. He’s suddenly too aware of the weight of it all, a faint ringing in his ears, a bitter taste in his mouth.
You really like this guy, Hyunjin’s voice like an echo bouncing off the walls of his mind, chasing after him, inescapable, permanent.
This isn’t like you.
“Are you okay?”
Like resurfacing from underwater, Minho takes a breath. He blinks at Jisung, then smiles. His entire face is burning.
“Yeah,” he says. “Go on, I’m listening.” Liar, says the voice, not quite Hyunjin’s anymore. He wills himself to calm down.
Jisung looks at him in a way that tells him he was done with his story already, his eyes carrying just the right amount of worry, the right amount of intrigue.
“You sure you’re alright?” he says, and his voice is smaller, now. Oh, no, the voice. No, look at what you’ve done, and it’s right. Minho watches as something like doubt, like insecurity, flashes through Jisung’s face. He wants to rub it away, make it disappear forever. “Am I—I’m not keeping you, right? I mean, we’ve been talking for—” he looks at his laptop, clicks once to make it light up, and his eyes grow wide in a way Minho finds painfully adorable. “Oh, wow.”
Minho looks at the clock hanging by one of the walls. Minutes have turned into hours. He wouldn’t have noticed if Jisung hadn’t pointed it out.
“Yeah, wow,” he says. He laughs and hopes it doesn’t sound too breathless. “It’s okay, Jisungie, don’t worry.” The nickname flows out easily and the way it makes Jisung lighten up makes Minho’s chest catch fire. “It’s a slow day, anyway. If it wasn’t for you I would’ve died from boredom already.”
Jisung grins. “Well, we wouldn’t want that,” he says. “Who’s gonna make me these amazing drinks if you’re gone?”
“I’m sure there are other good baristas in town, Jisung,” Minho says. “Hyunjin’s pretty okay with coffee, too. Not as good as me,” he adds, louder, just for the sake of it. He doesn’t even know if Hyunjin’s listening. He doesn’t quite care.
“Well, yeah,” Jisung says, looking down at his empty mug, then back at Minho. “All the other baristas wouldn’t make my drinks as interesting as you do, though.”
Warmth spreads until it bursts. Minho perks up an eyebrow, feigning innocence, ignoring the alarm blaring inside his head, and brings up a hand to rest his chin on top of it.
“Oh? How do you mean?”
Something terrible happens.
Jisung leans in, his body tilted over the table, his face suddenly so close to Minho that he can almost feel his breath against his face as he whispers the next few sentences.
“You’ve been experimenting, haven’t you, hyung,” he asks—says, his voice low and conspirational. Minho is too busy trying to stay alive to even notice the sudden yet intentional use of the honorific. “Trying to surprise me?”
Caught off guard, Minho opens his mouth once, hesitates, closes it again. He doesn’t understand how they got here, Jisung up in his personal space, all hints of shyness or doubt gone without a trace. He’s looking deep into Minho’s eyes like he can see right through him, and it’s enough to tilt the world on its axis.
But then Minho remembers himself, remembers who he is, remembers that he’s nothing if not a good fucking flirt. His lips curl into a sweet smile, the most dangerous in his arsenal. He shrugs.
“Experimenting,” he echoes, feeling the taste of the word in his mouth. His tone is honey and caramel, and the effect it has on Jisung is immediate. “Me? Never.”
Jisung braves through it, the slight hints of fluster in his smile enough to fuel Minho further. Neither of them back down, in too deep now to even consider it.
“Really,” he says, asks, Minho doesn’t know. “So I assume you had nothing to do with all the different flavors I’ve been getting every day?”
Minho’s smile persists, but it melts into something different. He resists.
“You knew.”
“Took me a while,” Jisung admits. “And then it took me a little longer to realize no one else around here was getting creative drinks for free. Or any free drinks at all,” he adds, and gives Minho a knowing look.
Minho falters.
Did he mess up? Did Jisung think it was weird—he’s thought it was safe to assume that to whatever extent he had noticed his advances, he hadn’t been creeped out by it enough to call him out; that if he had, he wouldn’t have invited him to sit, wouldn’t have kept him entertained for the better part of two hours. Now, however, unable to translate Jisung’s tone into anything at all, he hesitates. Thinks that maybe this was Jisung’s way of telling him to drop it, to let him down easy. That it was fun, for a while, but now it was too much.
His mouth begins to shape around an apology before Jisung beats him to it.
“It’s fun,” he says, and any words Minho was thinking of die in his mouth as Jisung’s face warms with a gentle blush, impossible to miss from up close. “Exciting. I think I might like the surprise drinks more than my actual order.”
Minho bites on the inside of his cheek until it stings. Okay. So he’s awake.
“I guess I wanted to keep things interesting,” he says, his smile melting into his words. “Gets pretty boring around here. Lonely.”
Jisung’s eyes fly all over his face as if committing him to memory. Minho doesn’t shy away from his stare, no matter how intense; he thrives off of it, lets it move him.
“Well,” Jisung says, his voice barely over a whisper, a teasing glint in his eyes that balances out the tenderness of his tone. “Consider me interested.”
Feeling his heartbeat drum in his ears, Minho looks Jisung in the eyes and does not let his gaze wander. He’s asphyxiatingly aware that the little self-restraint he has left will not be enough to hold him back from doing the one thing he’s been thinking of since Jisung first waltzed into his life.
The tension between them stretches thin, like a thread that could break at any moment, and Minho holds his breath as several unnamed emotions dance in Jisung’s eyes. He waits for him to do something, to say something, wills the moment never to end even if he feels like he can’t breathe, like he’ll die under the weight of his desire.
A few seconds pass by, and whatever Jisung is thinking of saying, he ends up keeping to himself. All he does is lean back, retreating from Minho’s space.
Minho does not think of how empty and cold everything feels without Jisung’s warmth near him. Minho doesn’t think of anything at all.
“How long have you known?” he asks, partly out of curiosity and partly to know whether he’s still able to speak at all. Good for him. He hasn’t died yet. Great.
Jisung tilts his head, thinking.
“A month? Maybe two,” he says. His eyes are distant as if trying to recall the exact moment. Minho smiles at him. It shouldn’t be possible for a human being to be this cute.
"Why didn’t you say anything?”
A shrug. Minho thinks he sees Jisung’s blush deepen, but none of it shows in his voice.
“I don’t know,” he says, his voice honest, even sheepish. The mere thought of it makes Minho’s heart kick up its pace. “At first I really thought it was just a thing around here, but then one day I came in and you were out, so Hyunjin took my order, and—nothing. And then I guessed it was something you did around here, until Changbin-hyung—you know Changbin, right?”
I didn’t know this place had refills. Can I get one too? Enough laughter to chase Minho for days.
Yes, Minho knows Changbin.
“Anyway, so—hyung pointed it out, asked me how I hadn’t noticed before, and then I started paying attention and realized I was the only one here getting refills and, well—yeah. That was, I don’t know, two weeks ago?”
Minho hums. “That’s about ten whole days you could’ve brought it up.”
Jisung doesn’t shy away from his gaze, but his face is reaching comical levels of flushed. A small, rotten part deep within Minho feels the thrill of knowing he’s getting to him, finally beginning to break through his resolve. He wants to go a step further, wants to make Jisung stutter, to catch him off guard, too. Wants to know what Jisung looks like when he’s not pretending to be braver than he is.
He doesn’t push. Jisung gets there on his own.
“Yeah, well,” he starts, clears his throat. He still hasn’t looked away, his eyes anchored onto Minho’s, dark and endless. “The longer I kept thinking about it, the harder it was, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
The shrug Minho gets in response falls so short of nonchalant it almost makes him giggle.
“You know,” Jisung repeats, and Minho wants to say that no, he doesn’t, if only to make Jisung spit it out already. He feels like this tangent they’ve taken has lasted hours, can’t believe only moments ago they were talking about things as trivial as each other’s favorite candy.
Minho tilts his head, blinks. Jisung bites down on his lip, staring at him for a long moment before he continues,
“It’s just—it’s not every day you get to ask out the hottest guy in town.”
The silence is so sudden Minho fears he might have gone deaf, all thoughts and predictions muted and replaced only by a faint ringing in his ears. Jisung has the decency to look embarrassed, though Minho could not for the life of him explain why. He’s trying to catch up with everything that’s happening when Jisung laughs, ashamed, and drops his head on his hands like he’s trying to hide away.
“That’s not how I meant that to come out,” he says.
He groans into his hands. Minho forces himself to remember how to speak.
“No,” he says, and his voice is strained from shock, but it gets Jisung to raise his head and look at him, so he keeps talking. “No, I liked it. Hottest guy in town. Got a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
Jisung has defeated the human limits of blushing. Minho thinks he might go past the natural red and turn purple. His eyes are wide and he’s scanning Minho’s face for any hints of—rejection, maybe. Minho wants to tell him that he won’t find any.
“You—can I get a do-over?”
Minho laughs. Jisung’s face, his eyes, his mouth; even like this, ashamed beyond himself, looking like he wants the earth to swallow him whole, he’s every bit as pretty as he was when he was still feigning confidence.
“Okay,” Minho concedes, nodding. Holding back another laugh, he puts his arms up and mimics the motions of a film slate. “Take two. Action!”
They stare at each other for one quiet second, but Jisung is quick to catch onto the bit, his body relaxing and an easy smile returning right where it belongs. He takes a deep breath, rolls his shoulders, straightens up, and looks into Minho’s eyes.
“Minho-ssi,” he says, solemn, and the honorific is enough to bring a giggle out of Minho. “I may not know your last name, and I may not know your background, but I want to know the way into your—stop laughing!”
Jisung leans over to smack him lightly, but Minho can’t help himself, his entire body shaking with the laugh that courses through him. It seems to be contagious, because Jisung can’t keep his serious act for much longer, dropping his head and laughing, too. Minho doesn’t know how long they’re like that, only stopping when his stomach hurts.
“You looked funny,” he explains, breathless. He bites down on his lip in an attempt to get himself back together, but a giggle escapes him again when he and Jisung make eye contact. Jisung pouts.
“Funny,” he whines. “This isn’t supposed to be funny, hyung, this is—I’m trying to woo you!”
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Minho says, putting his hands up. Most of his laughter has subdued but his smile lingers. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to stop smiling after this.
Jisung’s fake offense doesn’t last long, either, and then they’re just two fools smiling at each other in silence, time forgotten. Even this, the quiet—it’s nice. Easy.
Minho is starting to take the hint that everything with Jisung might feel easy.
Maybe it’s because of this, because they’ve been talking for longer than Minho has held a conversation with anyone in months, because he wants to keep having longer conversations with Jisung than with anyone else—for whatever reason, for a number of them, he doesn’t hesitate when he asks: “What do you want, Jisung?”
His words measured, his tone gentle. Jisung doesn’t run.
Looking at Minho like he’s been waiting to do that his entire life, like it’s the only thing he ever wants to do, Jisung says,
“I want you, Minho-hyung.” Careful. Sincere. Naked. “You’re fun, and you’re gorgeous, and I’ve been meaning to say this for a really long time, anyway, but I was too scared that I was reading into it the wrong way and then I wouldn’t be able to come here anymore and honestly, losing you and your coffee would’ve been way worse than just keeping it all to myself, but now I’m pretty sure you might want me, too, so—so, yeah. If you’ll have me.”
Minho’s face hurts from how much he’s smiled this afternoon, his cheeks numb from so much laughter. He can’t help himself when the words bring a grin out of him bigger than he’s ever felt himself smile. He nods.
“I want you, too,” he says. He wants to say it again, and again, and again, if only to see Jisung light up at the sound of it, the sight close to the sweetest, most beautiful thing Minho has ever seen.
Jisung exhales like he’d been holding his breath for years. His entire body sags with relief and the smile that blooms next is the brightest he’s had all day.
“Good,” he says. “Okay. Great.”
“Great,” Minho says.
“Great.”
Silence once again, but only for a moment, and then—laughter, again. So, so much of it. Laughter so strong and vibrant it brings tears to their eyes again, and Minho’s chest aches with the thought that he doesn’t think he’s ever felt like this.
This isn’t like you, the voice, again. Not mocking anymore, not teasing or haunting. A soft, gentle thing that Minho thinks sounds a lot like himself. This is different.
New, unexplored territory. The sound of Jisung’s laugh, the shape of his smile, the trace of his name, the glint in his eyes that gives his feelings and thoughts away, the way he leans into Minho’s space again and again like he can’t be far from him now that he’s discovered the feeling of being so close.
This is different. Jisung is different.
Minho inhales, exhales. His entire body is warm like never before, and he embraces the feeling; the first few hints of spring, the song of Jisung’s voice, the music of his happiness. He fears he might grow addicted to it, to the way he burns in his closeness, to the way his entire being shapes against his like it had been waiting, aching to find him.
This is unlike Minho—falling without a parachute, letting himself go. Liking and craving and desiring. Looking at the boy in front of him and wanting to open himself up, expose himself raw, let Jisung dig in until he finds whatever it is that he’s looking for, until he’s satisfied, and then some.
It’s terrifying, among other things. That he would bare himself to someone he knows so little of, that he would want that. That he can look at Jisung, now, across the table, and know that he will give whatever Jisung wants of him, all of him, his uncensored self, his truth and entirety.
This isn’t like you, the thought echoes, lingers.
No, he thinks. This is better.
sung
7 May 2023, 03:10
hyung
minhohyung<3
7 May 2023, 03:10
I swear to god Jisung
If you're still in that fucking studio
sung
7 May 2023, 03:12
just listen
https://soundcloud.com/0000hjs/closer
sung
7 May 2023, 03:16
well?
is it good????
omg ur totally crying arent u
minhohyung<3
7 May 2023, 03:16
…
If I'm not kissing you within the next 15 minutes
you'll see me on the news tomorrow morning
sung
7 May 2023, 03:17
!!!
already omw
jisungie
7 May 2023, 05:51
just got kissed silly hehehehehe
changbin hyung
7 May 2023, 07:32
alright
channie hyung
7 May 2023, 10:11
thanks for the heads up…?
minho hyung
7 May 2023, 18:34
I'm so in love with him I might vomit
jin
7 May 2023, 18:45
do it in the kitchen so we can get the day off
(im happy for u hyung ily)
minho hyung
7 May 2023, 18:49
Noted.
I love you too
sung
25 Jun 2023, 14:59
hyung
how come u havent taken me 2 a coffee place yet
wouldnt it be poetic
minhohyung<3
25 Jun 2023, 15:00
Well
You see
I don’t know how to say this…
sung
25 Jun 2023, 15:00
oh no
is that where u take ur secret other boyfriend
hyung how could u do this
minhohyung<3
25 Jun 2023, 15:00
Stupid. No
Sung I…
I don’t really like coffee
sung
25 Jun 2023, 15:01
im sorry WHAT