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1.
The first time Jisung mentioned marriage, they had been cooling down after a comeback rehearsal, for which he can barely remember at this time. He recalls having some sort of a lightning bulb moment, a revelation if you will, at the strangest occasion. Strange in its mundanity, at least; he was looking at Minho, sweat dripping and chest heaving as he wiped his forehead, and he couldn't help but think wow, I kinda wanna spend my life with this man – completely unprompted and unfiltered.
Naturally, he mentioned it to the man in question with a whiny “hyung, would you marry me if you could?” — he was joking, of course, even if the nervous fluttering in his chest suggested otherwise. Minho just ruffled his hair and crinkles his eyes, whispering a promise of acceptance if he was to “ask in a few years, we’re too young, too much to do,” and Jisung took it, breathed it in and stored it for later along with the lingering memory of Minho kissing his forehead.
Apparently, later is now. They’re older, definitely more grown, and Jisung stumbles and finds that his opinion on the matter hasn’t really changed. The agency they're allowed within their group and the company has definitely shifted with their more recent successes; while they’ve been awarded more legroom to make decisions, the few remaining restrictions have grown tighter in a way that could tightly suffocate him if he dwells on it for too long.
Jisung's fingers itch for something his heart aches for in turn. Something that is pushed to the forefront of his mind whenever he watches the makeup noonas twist their wedding bands off to wrangle their hair into shape; that something when their manager's phone lights up with an incoming call and he has to excuse himself from the room with a meek “sorry, it's my wife, I'll be just a moment.”
And Jisung knows he could have it all; already has the phone calls and is just missing the ring — a superficial representation of their relationship that could never quite encapsulate how they feel for each other. This, he reminds himself of, he doesn't need it, but he wants it like an adolescent girl does when she flicks through her mother's withered teen magazines for wedding inspiration. Like a man wanting to show everyone he has someone waiting in the wings for him.
From the amount of time he's spent sitting on it, it's no shock that when he ultimately confesses to Minho, it's an abrupt spillage of unfiltered mess.
“Hyung, would you marry me?” Jisung rushes out, refusing to look Minho in the eyes, not unlike the very first time.
Minho, lying on Jisung's bed, belly pressed down and book lowered, looks at him bewildered. “Like, now?”
“No, not now,” Jisung chokes out, dismissing him with a handwave. “In the near future.”
“Do you have a ring?”
“No, I'm just asking.”
“Hmm…” Minho ponders, expression blank. “Why?”
“Do I need a reason to want to marry you?”
“I guess not,” Minho says grimly, and the topic drops.
Jisung doesn't talk about it again, and Minho doesn't ask.
(A few months later, Jisung finds an acorn on his pillow, a story that later becomes infamous between them; though his heart still swells ten sizes as he winds his arms around Minho's torso before they sleep that night.)
2.
“Hyung,” Jisung starts like he has so many times before, “look. I think someone's getting married.”
They're out in the city today on a seemingly rare free day; their members scattering between home and their other friends. They'd usually take advantage as well — but Minho proposed a date, the first in a while after a long slew of schedules. Jisung wouldn't refuse him even if he wanted to.
Jisung, and now Minho, watch the bride and groom take photos in front of a church. It's a clearly western wedding, where the woman wears a beautiful white gown and the groom is fitted in a suit akin to the style they wear at award shows. It's food for thought — would Minho want a western theme? Or would he don a traditional hanbok, no longer drowning in it like Jisung last saw him at his very own coming-of-age ceremony.
Jisung turns to the other man and he is enraptured by the sight of the bride and groom walking down the stairs, hand in hand. He cocks his head, even contemplates poking his cheek to snap him out of the trance, but instead he lets his fingers twitch by his sides, longing to hold his hand like the newlyweds can with each other.
“Hyung, do you want to get married someday?” Jisung whispers tentatively.
Minho's breath hitches before he can tamper it down. “I've never thought about it much. Didn't seem in the cards for me,” he answers honestly, in shivering monotone.
“Why not?”
Minho sighs and tears his eyes away to face the ground, absent-mindedly kicking a chunk of gravel beside his shoe. “You know what we are.”
“Mm, but,” he mumbles, knocking his knuckles against Minho's, “it's legal in the States. Australia, too. Chan could officiate. We could take the kids, call it a holiday.”
“...Too many eyes. Maybe one day, but I don't need a piece of paper and expensive jewelry to know I love you.”
“I didn't think you did.”
He's a bit bitter, truthfully, though not at him. Never at him. He understands — they're in the same boat, a pair of peas in the same pod, and many of their members will one day experience the same dilemma with their future loved ones. However, Jisung's always been a dreamer – it comes with being an intense creative, and he can't help but think and secretly hope a life together in peaceful matrimony is still hidden in the deck they were handed at birth.
In some ways, he's just like Minho, made of the shards he's dropped of himself that Jisung picked back up over the years. He doesn't need the physical proof, but when anxiety kicks into overdrive, a reminder when reminders are scarce is treasured. With their lifestyles, there are only so many treasures that money can't buy.
(Not long after this, Minho starts messaging Jisung links to local stores with pairs of matching clothing, two by two, different but the same. They buy them, of course, and proceed to wear them in events and livestreams, and behind closed doors they call them couple clothes — because they're a couple and if they can't have rings, there's always infinite shirts.)
3.
Minho's become… sweeter, Jisung notes. Almost cuter.
Not that Minho hasn't always been cute; he has a certain charm surrounding him that's never failed to make Jisung a little bit weak in the knees, like he's sixteen and seeing him for the first time. But Minho's touch has been lingering on his skin longer, snuggling just a little bit closer when they can steal moments alone.
Jisung is hopelessly endeared, always has been for this man, and while the urgency he experienced a year, two years before to lock it down has been tampered, he still finds himself tracing the base of his ring finger in barely contained melancholy.
He values his independence in a way that feels odd compared to his fellow members; he likes the way they cling to him, revolve around him and each other like bees in a well-functioning hive. He likes the attention, but he likes the time alone when he’s able, and he thinks that’s why he and Minho click into place. There was no awkward dance in an attempt to respect each other’s space, but after so much time in each other’s orbit, time spent with each other was just as rewarding.
It’s late, close to midnight. They got off easy after a whole day of back-to-back interviews; ordered takeout as a group before everyone sequestered into their own rooms in ones or twos. It’s liminal, almost, the way the room feels suspended in time – the atmosphere hovers around them like a bubble, Minho’s arm around Jisung’s waist and the latter’s head on his shoulder, holding each other close like it’s the last time, knowing they’ll have to separate in the morning.
It’s moments like these where he feels it the most. He’s not even that attached to the idea of marriage itself, but after a lifetime of being told it’s the closest you can be to someone, that one day someone will present themselves and you’ll think oh, so this is why the authors and poets write with such tenderness in their penmanship, why every popular song on the radio is about love and sacrifice — he craves it, that near religious devotion to another.
He still doesn’t think this necessarily rings true, but he’s greedy. If this is how the rest of the world views commitment, well he wants to be the most damn committed version of himself.
“Hyung,” Jisung prods, “if I took you to a courthouse tomorrow, would you marry me?”
“I recall you asking something similar a while ago,” Minho responds, despondent.
“Just answer.”
Minho furrows his brows and breathes in, the way he does when he’s found deep in thought. Jisung can number and place the lines that appear on his forehead off by heart just from how long, how many minutes or hours he’s spent staring at him. The brief feeling of Minho cinching his waist with his fingertips naturally does not go unnoticed.
“Why do you want to get married?” Minho asks, his voice soft and uncharacteristically low.
“Would it be too much to say I want you in every way possible?”
“You can, Jisung-ah,” Minho murmurs, leaning down to bury his nose in the crown of his hair. “You already have me.”
Minho falls asleep like this, lips pressed to his scalp. Jisung knows it won’t be the last time.
4.
It becomes an almost-joke, a running gag, after this moment. Jisung talks about marriage more often, even in front of the cameras when he’d normally keep his thoughts closer to his chest.
Minho makes an offhand comment about how the octopus they’re handling for a cooking show looks like Jisung. Jisung holds it and proposes, like it weighs nothing, making Minho laugh. Jisung smiles.
He ramps up the ante. It feels as if they’ve grown closer, even though he didn’t think that was possible. They flirt more in front of STAY, they make more suggestive jokes and comments, they shed more skin off their backs in the name of content. Jisung calls Minho his husband on a Chan’s Room stream, says they ‘haven’t signed the papers yet’, and Minho merely follows his lead even though he’s left every past pseudo-proposal suspended in air. Minho calls him jagi like he always has, but they’re closer now. Of course it means more now.
Jisung asks again during the filming of some group livestream amid promotions for The Sound, if he recalls correctly. Minho laughs along with everyone else, and he thinks he’d like to record it to add to their next title track. He’s possessive enough to show him off to their fans, he’s yours now but he will always be mine foremost.
The months flurry past, characterised by ripples in time such as these. Three more comebacks fly past. Jisung writes a love song and asks Minho to duet it with him, feeding STAY a bullshit answer about how he thought it suited the elder, knowing they’d be smart enough to read between the lines.
They buy a pair of matching bracelets in Jeju Island, and they become so intrinsically tied to him he actually weeps into Minho's neck for a beat when the first one snaps. Jisung keeps the beads, but Minho buys them two new bracelets months later.
He doesn’t ask again, though. Jisung can feel Minho tracing his ring finger sometimes when they hold hands in private, and he’s content with that, until Minho isn’t.
5.
“If we were to get married one day,” Minho asks out of the blue, “how would you want to do it?”
“In what way?” Jisung questions.
“Like, what you said a few years ago. Going to Australia and such.”
“Ah, well… I guess I didn’t think that far ahead?”
He’s lying. He might as well be that sixteen year old girl with her wedding scrapbook.
“I think you would look pretty in a hanbok,” Minho says after a brief pause, “I like you in blue.”
“Mm, we could match.”
“We'll have to go when it's not hot.”
“And– and we could host at the Botanical Gardens in Sydney, the one Channie-hyung took us to. We could rent it out and have a private ceremony.”
“Would have to make sure the flowers aren’t toxic for my brothers.” Minho pokes his nose.
“Of course. We’ll have someone take care of them while we’re busy.”
“Not just anyone. We’ll make Seungmin do it.”
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”
“He should be honoured.”
+1
Jisung isn’t surprised to find the ring box in the underwear drawer.
He knows Minho is fully capable of hiding things, both physically and within his mind-palace, even when his face betrays him so often. He knows, and even without Minho present in the room with him, he knows Minho wants Jisung to see his intentions, his devotion hidden in plain sight.
Jisung’s face flushes, and he’s giddy – drunk on the feeling of finding something he wasn’t supposed to see even though he most definitely was.
He won’t tell him though, not yet. He’ll wait for Minho to return from the studio, kiss him silly before he reheats last night’s leftovers and ask about his day. He’ll wait in bed, a gift under the covers, as Minho picks out a pair of boxers to sleep in as they pretend they have any shred of innocence between them left. He’ll study Minho’s face closely like he has so many times before, as he spots the ring box, try and fail to steel his expression into a normal, nonchalant one as he brushes his fingers against the second one — a deep maroon velvet box carefully placed beside Minho’s own royal blue.
Jisung will make a silly comment and Minho will full-body laugh, the sound wet in his throat. He won't propose yet, but it's there. Something to look forward to.
He can hardly wait.