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“Wonwoo Hyung!”
His name had been called in such a way that he knows Mingyu is absolutely terrified. It wasn’t a tone Wonwoo heard often, which he is of course thankful for, but given he heard no apartment-shaking crash from their shared bathroom or screams of pain from Mingyu, Wonwoo knows it wasn’t anything too serious.
“Wonwoo!” Mingyu cries again, this time accompanied by the sound of the bathroom door swinging open and his too large presence filling up the entryway to their shared living room.
Wonwoo doesn't even glance up from his laptop or acknowledge his roommate’s presence at all. He stays hunched over in his position on the floor, clicking sporadically within the photo editing app he has open.
“There’s a cockroach,” Mingyu says between pants. “In the shower.”
It’s a difficult task, trying to hide the smile that so desperately twitches at the corner of his lips. But Wonwoo somehow manages to secure his stoic expression. He can tell from his peripheral vision that Mingyu is half undressed, shirt nowhere to be seen and gym shorts slung sideways on his legs, given how the white racing stripe that should be along the outside of Mingyu’s thigh is running up his front of it. He must’ve tugged them back on in a hurry after he spotted the bug, Wonwoo thinks with an internal smirk.
“Hyung. Please.”
Mingyu doesn’t outright ask anything of him, but they’ve been groupmates and friends and roommates for long enough that Wonwoo knows what he wants.
“I don’t like bugs either, you know,” Wonwoo finally speaks up, saving the photo on his screen: a large nutmeg tree he had stumbled upon on his trip a few weeks back.
“But you’re so much braver than I am about it!” Mingyu pleads, scurrying over in a run that is more befitting of a little maltese than that of a 187 centimeter tall man.
With an over-exaggerated sigh, Wonwoo closes his laptop and finally looks at the other. Mingyu’s hair is slightly wet, half of it matted down and dripping down the side of his face. There are droplets clinging to the tan skin of his shoulder and chest too. Wonwoo takes a split second to treasure the image before him, a sight only he and few others will ever see. Despite his half-nakedness, Wonwoo finds the other so endearing.
“Fine. I’ll show you what to do this time. But the next time, you’re on your own.”
“Hyung!” Mingyu outright whines, bumping his damp shoulder into Wonwoo’s. The elder attempts to swipe off the water from the sleeve of his t-shirt in a crack at hiding his amusement.
“You need to learn. What will you do when I’m not living with you anymore?”
It’s a fair thing to ask, surely they won’t be living together forever. But Wonwoo doesn’t miss the way something flickers across Mingyu’s expression, like it’s an awful promise of something that Wonwoo is planning to do. It’s nothing like that, not at all, and the quick guilt that washes over Wonwoo has him springing to his feet and yanking along the other before he can reply.
“You just need dish soap and some water,” he tells Mingyu, sliding their hands together in a way that is all too familiar to them and leading him to the kitchen. It’s a brief trip and finger-lacing is not at all necessary. But also... it is. For Wonwoo, anyway.
Wonwoo fills up an empty spray bottle with water and a few pumps of dish soap, patronizing a pouting Mingyu by showing him each step with verbal instructions.
The younger mutters a few complaints under his breath but keeps it to a minimum because he knows Wonwoo. Wonwoo, who won’t hesitate to back off on helping in a teasing manner to draw out Mingyu’s discomfort a bit more: for more pleading, more whining, more confessions on how much he is needed.
Mingyu scuttles behind Wonwoo as they make their way back to the bathroom. Mingyu’s towel is discarded on the floor and his shirt is half hanging off the countertop. Wonwoo can feel the radiating warmth of Mingyu practically clinging to his back as he swings open the glass shower door ever so slowly.
A black spot darts out in front of his feet and Mingyu shrieks in his ear, hands clutching at Wonwoo’s sides, fingers full of his t-shirt and nails unintentionally scraping at his skin.
Wonwoo’s heart wallops in his chest and it’s true, he hates bugs too. But what he loves more is feeling needed. It has his chest rattling and burning in a painful yet beautiful way.
He sprays at the cockroach excessively with the soapy water and it doesn’t take long for it to begin convulsing on the now wet, sudsy floor. Once it's still for a few seconds and Wonwoo feels Mingyu’s grasp ease up on him, he swipes it up with some toilet paper and flushes it.
“See? Easy enough,” Wonwoo comments as he washes his hands quickly in the sink. Mingyu is still standing in the doorway, hands now folded and pressed up against his chest.
He looks younger like this, with his mouth twisted downward and shoulders curved inward and downward, his hair damp and eyes big. Wonwoo is so fond.
“I can’t do that,” Mingyu tells him, his shoulders finally relaxing and face softening into something more neutral but still a little… sad. “So you need to be around to do it.”
It’s said in a tone of jest, the way it’s technically a demand. But Wonwoo speaks Mingyu, he knows what’s really being said, woven into his childlike orders that make Wonwoo’s heart soar and cartwheel in his chest.
Stay here. I will.
Don’t leave. I won’t.
Never? Never.