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"Consider the villain," a loud mrroww! cuts into his declaration, and Seokmin just hopes his pause is considered theatrical enough to wipe the grievants' apprehension, "vanquished."
Behind Seokmin, the villain rolls onto her back in satisfaction as the imposter Yellow pets her belly, not looking suitably vanquished.
"Omo," one of the complainants coos, "is that our little troublemaker?" she says referring to the villain, but Seokmin can see her eyes fixated on the imposter.
"She shall remain in our custody from now. The Rangers will make sure she'll repent for her sins," Seokmin still says, second poster child of his team for the occupational disease of needing all eyes to be fixated on him. He can understand how Junhui can be appealing. To the blind, maybe.
"Nonsense! We'll keep the kitten!" a grievant yells, affronted, despite them submitting a grievance against said agent of chaos, the fish-thieving villain, the random-missing-objects-that-are-of-no-practical-use-to-a-thief villain. The kind of thief that, if self-aware, would be ashamed to call themselves one. (It's how Seokmin deduced the identity of the elusive villain, put himself in the villain's shoes. Better than Junhui, he thinks, who probably made the connection through his infinite amount of experience wrangling kittens. Heh. Seokmin used his brain.)
Seokmin opens his mouth to yell something out that he's not sure about but would surely make him the centre of endless ridicule, when Junhui shuts him up with a pat to his shoulder.
"You can have her. Just be mindful of how you treat her," he says, depositing the smug brat into the cooing woman's arms. The asshole who tried to swipe at his eyes when Seokmin first reached out. As usual, Seokmin's natural hero-like disposition allows no tolerance for the evil. When he stares at the abyss, the abyss hisses back in animosity. He's two seconds away from hissing at the kitten when the woman looks at Seokmin with narrowed eyes.
"The kitten is in our custody now," she threatens, "Hungry Villain."
"I'm— I'm not—" Seokmin stutters, face full of wide eyes as he stumbles backwards from the sheer force of her accusation.
"The Hungry Villain? The Hungry Villain who stole various kinds of cooked rice from multiple kitchens of the entire city for a whole day while the Rangers were no where to be seen?!" a man provides the kind exposition, and Seokmin wants to squeeze his vital organs out of his body like a banana and die. Dr. Woo hadn't told him the experiment would make him lose control like that, back then.
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"Your weakness will be your undoing, Yellow. Find your strengths. They will guide you."
Seokmin turned into Hungry Villain shortly after that.
He still doesn't know what his weakness was supposed to be. But he turned back after he made a friend.
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"That was a villain's work," the imposter unhelpfully supplies, probably thinking it diffused the situation. It has not! Junhui could have just told them that Seokmin was not one of the most embarrassing villains that had plagued their city, 'defeated' by their weakest hero, humiliated himself in front of kids (parents had apparently found a penchant to featuring him in their kids' horror stories— The Hungry Villain eats kids who don't eat all their veggies!) and is in the beginner level simulations for all freshmen in the GOING Rangers Academy. Apparently, Junhui finds the thought of Seokmin being the punching bag to angry undergraduates really funny, because he doesn't follow up that statement with anything. Just does cat ears to a teen's waiting camera, and slides out of there with his signature Banana Slip!
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He sulks his way into GOING's team dinner, that they have with all twelve of them along with Dr. Woo every weekend, because while Seokmin, Seungcheol and Chan believe in the hoax of team bonding and the power of friendship, Dr. Woo believes in the power of strategic control of the superhero market. The three of them eventually do win over Dr. Woo, so the five slide power point presentation on all the upcoming heroes and all the new sasaengs they have to watch out for and all the fanservice they have to dole out is put on pause in favor of drinking themselves to death and annihilating each other at karaoke.
He sulks into his beer, as Joshua carefully sits beside him and methodically pats his head like he's a kitten who'd not survive without any. He sulks into his soju as well, wishing it was flavored. He sulks into his chicken as Junhui leaves to get to the bathroom, and when he gets up to go apologize for calling Junhui ugly inside his head the morning, Junhui returns back.
"Your mouth is going to be stuck in a permanent pout if you keep doing that," Seungkwan kindly points out, and he pouts more. The world is so mean.
"You look like Seungcheol-hyung," and Seokmin smoothens his face immediately, settling on an empty smile with widened eyes. Dr. Woo doesn't laugh at that, seemingly busy staring into Junhui's phone, and okay, Seokmin would have honest to god deflated if Wonwoo didn't slap Minghao while exaggerating a laugh.
"Yah! I don't look like that when I pout!" Seungcheol yells, grabbing Seungkwan's collar, and Seungkwan pins him with a gaze that is equal parts confused and judgemental.
Okay. He's going to need to wash his face and head out now.
The final nail in the coffin is when he heads back from the washroom, and overhears a conversation happening between Chan and.. well. Everyone.
"Of course I pick Jun-hyung!" Chan's voice rings out, clear as water, and everybody chortles, "there's no way I'd pick Seokmin-hyung then!"
Now, Seokmin could wonder if the question was conditional, which it probably of course was, because Chan is not a person who would bad-mouth someone, and Seokmin at that. But all his tired brain could conjure up was "I'd pick Jun-hyung," over and over again. Chan is the only person in his team who always picked him, no matter what. They are partners. They are supposed to save the world together, holding hands, and all. They are each others' people.
Seokmin wonders, what tipped Chan over the edge.
"Min-ah, you look like you're about to pass out. Drink this," Dr. Woo hands him a glass full of water, and despite it not tasting like water, Seokmin diligently drinks it. Dr. Woo mutters a small good luck which Seokmin nods at, and makes his way to get Chan.
"Hyung, can we skip the date, tonight? You seem really tipsy and I don't wanna get caught by the police."
Seokmin freezes. Anything but their date. Nooooooooooo.
"But I'm fi—ne!" he doesn't burp, but it's a close thing, "Doing great, really. We should get. Get going. Get gwaaaing! Get it? I'm Amerinese.. Amerikese? Ame— 雨はとてもきれいです," Seokmin word-vomits everything out in one go, and frowns at his broken brain-to-mouth connection. Just like his and Chan's.
It's a tradition, at this point, for them to go out after getting drinks, vandalize the billboards with the faces of the other Rangers, to keep up appearances. Well, it's not vandalizing, not anymore. Chan had tried his luck convincing Seokmin into simply replacing the banners and billboards with ones having their faces on them, and fortunately for Chan, Seokmin's melting point can be achieved with even a gaze that is warm enough. Chan even folds the ripped banners neatly and deposits them carefully somewhere nearby, and they hold hands to share warmth and go back home to their shared apartment. It's not a date, but Chan had called them that once, whispered it into the crook of Seokmin's neck sleepily once, and it stuck.
Seokmin's favourite part is when Chan talks about his day, funnily. Between the two of them, the competition between the most talkative is fiercely close enough, but Seokmin always wins by a hair's margin. At night, however, the warmth radiating through Chan's palm spreads and flows throughout him like the blood in his body, and he thinks he could close his eyes and let Chan's warmth and his soothing voice guide him into the sky, even. Land on the sun and still be safe in their own little bubble of comfort Chan drapes them both in. He loves being Chan's person.
He still listens, because if Chan wanted to tell a brick wall about the very interesting honey galbitang he had that morning, he could have just picked Dr. Woo. Seokmin listens as Chan talks about his skirmishes with the evil bastard (code for Seungkwan), about his day at the dance studio with his hyung (code for Kwon Soonyoung), and about the newest Roaming Villain plaguing the tourists of Seoul who can only be defeated by a powerful rap about its merits and demerits. It's painfully mundane, a little bit boring, even, and Seokmin loves the semblance to the ordinary life they couldn't be a part of because of the oppressive responsibility they carry on their shoulders.
Sometimes he chases their stalkers back to their own home, when Chan's words sound heavy coming from his mouth, and Chan would pretend to swoon. Makes them slip on a banana peel right before they pass through their door way, and Chan would laugh at them, dragging Seokmin away.
Sometimes Chan would sit them down and hold his wrists and tell Seokmin how important he is to him, and how he can count on the GOING Rangers to be his forever.
All this to say, he absolutely does not want to skip their date. But when Seokmin stops reminiscing, he notices himself leaning on Chan's sturdy shoulder, and he notices the blurred mess outside of the taxi's window that is their neighborhood.
"Hyung, lean on me for a bit," Chan's voice is soft, and his hair tickles Seokmin's nose from where he buries his face in Chan's head. Seokmin leans on him for a bit.
Chan buckles underneath his full weight, before toppling onto the side of the car. Seokmin giggles.
"Do you need some help with that, baby?" he says, gesturing to Chan's Seokmin-induced predicament, and Chan's ears pinken as he gathers strength and holds Seokmin properly, apologizing to the driver.
"No need," Chan grits out, and Seokmin shrugs and watches the car drive far, far, away, just like Chan's heart away from his.
"Hyung, I'm right here," Chan insists, "I'm right here. And I saw you overhearing what I was saying about you and Jun-hyung at the meeting," he ventures, and smiles a tentative smile when Seokmin nods sullenly, "And I stand by my answer, I'd still pick Jun-hyung," he says, a playful smile, and that's the nail on his stupid coffin, alright.
"Alright," he says, deciding to lean on Chan until they reach the apartment, "I think I get it," he says, and watches with slight satsifaction as Chan frowns. Good.
It continues well into the morning, when Chan nails another useless nail into the nailed-shut coffin. Chan does really like nailing things.
"I'm going to the studio," he says to Seokmin's sleepy grunt, "I made some hangover soup. And I'll be late. Jun-hyung is joining us from today, and we'll have to make him go over his schedule after the classes end. Take care, and don't do anything stupid," he says all of this really really quickly, and leaves before levelling Seokmin with one last look. Seokmin processes this well after he leaves, while sitting down on the couch with the hangover soup in his hands.
He's going spend time with Wen Junhui. It feels like the universe is playing one very small, but elaborate joke on him he doesn't want to be a part of.
Seokmin, all alone on a weekend for the first time in ages, feels the walls closing in on him, feels his insides churning, the ceiling crashing down on his head. There is the feeling of a full-body sneeze except it isn't him sneezing but the space he exists in itself, as though the universe itself had it's head buried in Seokmin's hair and is now facing the repercussions of it, before he simply drops down onto the couch, his field of vision suddenly dropping down to the level of Dr. Woo's when he's sitting.
And then the bowl of soup falls on top of him, and then it breaks into tiny pieces, and now Seokmin sort of gets the joke, and he wishes he wasn't the butt of it so he could fully appreciate it.
He doesn't have a hangover anymore, at least.
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Seokmin can see himself in one of the floor length mirrors they put in the living room facing them so that they could watch themselves leave through the front door in their Ranger uniform.
He's a rock. Would Chan cry upon seeing him? Would the only way for Seokmin to turn back be for him to be kissed passionately by Chan?
It wasn't like Seokmin wanted to turn into a rock. He did write it down on one of the stupid forms Dr. Woo made them fill, but because he had run out of all other interesting options five forms ago. Why does the doctor need such personal and often times, intrusive, information on them, anyways? Where does he find the time to go through so many of them? Did he get to the point where Seokmin wrote down "a threesome with mingyu and chan with jeonghan-hyung watching" for 'Dreams and Aspirations (If Any)' during one of his bursts of creative genius? Not that he was complaining. Dr. Woo was almost always right, except for the times he was horribly wrong.
Point? He didn't want to turn into a rock. He only wanted to deflate out of existence like a particularly unloved balloon, left alone to drift into the wind with no racket chasing after him.
He changes his mind soon after, because he didn't hate himself like that. He would've probably liked turning into a cat, so that Chan would have no choice but to acknowledge his incessant whining, but be accepting about it because he will be stabbed in his sleep otherwise. Terribly convenient for Seokmin.
Anything, but a rock. The lack of mouth and movement, he thinks, is his last (really this time) straw. The universe thinks he's a joke.
He's on the five thousand and twenty sixth sheep when Chan arrives, earlier than his estimated twenty five thousand. Seokmin wants to hold his breath, only able to see Chan's torso and crotch from his field of vision, which then subsequently magnifies into the latter as Chan moves closer and screams. Seokmin wishes he could warn him about the broken glass, but Chan seemed to gather himself within a time span of thirty seconds and glean enough from the mess that is the couch. He drops down onto his knees, cleans everything up with surprising efficiency, and then levels a stare at Seokmin. Or what has become of him.
"You're a villain. You kidnapped hyung, didn't you?" Chan says, circling the couch with his hands behind his back, "No, Chan-ah. This is just like that movie where two people switch bodies with each other. Are you a villain who switched bodies with hyung so you could infiltrate our base and defeat me, the leader, GOING Red?" he laughs, a mocking little thing, "You failed to consider that you cannot move in this state, haven't you? Rookie mistake."
Seokmin admires him a lot.
"Well well. I have just the solution for you," he says, dialing someone on his phone, "Hyung, come take care of this villain while I go find Seokmin-hyung," and then he hangs up.
Oh wow. He's going to have to leave, now. No passionate kiss. Could Chan just not keep him? Does Chan want to get rid of him this badly?
"Channie only calls me when it's about work these days," a voice sullenly floats into the room, before finding it's place on Chan's shoulder.
"Hyuuung. I told you I'm busy these days. And I came to the team dinner just yesterday!" Chan defends, and Jeonghan just hooks his chin on Chan's shoulder and holds his arm.
(Seokmin wishes.)
"You don't even have time to grab a drink with hyung alone anymore. Why is there a giant rock on your couch?" Jeonghan drones, fixing his eyes on Seokmin. Chan pouts, but explains everything, and Jeonghan just nods and pats Seokmin on the head. Chan follows Jeonghan's side and does it too, for some reason.
(He wants more. He wishes and wishes.)
"I figured you're the only one with an expertise in... this," Chan says, gesturing to Seokmin's form as a whole, and Jeonghan nods, a little brighter after Chan finally complimenting him.
"Of course! I'll keep him for a while," Jeonghans declares, and Seokmin feels relief thrumming in his.. pores? When he realizes he's not going to be left alone to turn into dust as Chan goes on his quest or whatever.
"Don't just stand there, help me get him into my car!" Jeonghan says, and Chan pouts that he was going to do that anyways, before holding Seokmin by his torso, Seokmin able to hear the comforting metronome of Chan's heart. The warmth he can imagine clearly follows him to the car, and Chan carefully deposits him on the front seat and drags the seat belt over him as a final act of kindness before he whispers a behave! to Seokmin and leaves. Seokmin lets go of the metaphorical warmth to welcome the chill. He can't even see anything outside except for the sky.
"Aigoo Seokminie.." Jeonghan-hyung mumbles, reaching out to pat Seokmin, "what have you do now?"
What has he done now, indeed.
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When Dr. Woo first picked him up, Seokmin had fallen in love with him. Accustomed to loneliness like it were his own lover's body, his heart had undone it's shackles from it and immediately jumped to the first beacon of kindness in his life.
The second time Seokmin had fallen in love, is when he had seen Soonyoung nestle his head in the crook of Jeonghan's neck, with Jeonghan running his fingers tenderly through his hair. He had fallen in love with the kind of easy love that seems to exist everywhere in the world, had tried to shower people with so much of it so it doesn't slip away from his grasp, not after he had finally found a way to keep its presence constant in his life.
The third, and final time he had fallen in love, has been when Chan had promised to be the kind of presence that he wouldn't have to fear slipping away from him, be the love that is constant, if Seokmin had felt the same. Seokmin had laughed and laughed and clung onto Chan the whole night. Chan hadn't been there when he woke up in the morning, but he'd been tucked in and the curtains remained closed and there had been hangover soup on his bedside table.
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"Watch this," Jeonghan says, playing Top Ten GOING Yellow Moments in 2024 on his phone, propping the phone up on a stand so that it's in Seokmin's general field of vision. It makes his soul lighter, if only a little. "Best team player amongst all the Rangers! His unstoppable charisma and impeccable chemistry with every single one of his fellow Rangers is the reason why he remains on top!" rings out, and the audio pauses every two seconds, and Seokmin feels a little less alone, even if Jeonghan had deemed him too old and creepy to want to cohabit with ddoljjongie. Seokmin supposes he couldn't even if he wanted to, because he was simply too large.
He'd seen the video plenty, so he knows the fan favorite pairing in his team involving him is him and Wonwoo. Dr. Woo had advised him to be particularly closer to Joshua, but Seokmin didn't want to play the 'other man' between him and Wonwoo. He always hated love triangles.
Ultimately, it was Chan he hung out with the most, because Chan had sought him out as many times as Seokmin had.
Jeonghan stays in all day, much like he does every day. Soonyoung visits and Jeonghan leaves the room and they do Jeonghan-Soonyoung things he'd rather not think about, and then Jeonghan comes back, and then he changes the video from Pregnancy Reveal By A Cis Male: Rise Of A New Villain In Japan? to something less riveting, like Jeonghan's lego videos.
Seokmin should be happy, on all accounts— Jeonghan is a great one-sided conversational partner, and he pats Seokmin on the head with his sweater paws, and sometimes Seungkwan barges into his room and complains about Soonyoung to Seokmin because Seungkwan prefers a one-sided conversation with him in control, and while Jeonghan just nods in understanding while Seungkwan complains, the fond smile he sports defeats the purpose and makes Seungkwan feel distinctly worse after on. Two days later, and Jeonghan and Seungkwan start speaking for Seokmin as well, playing his role, because one-sided conversations are only good if the other party visibly agrees with everything they say. Wonwoo says it's not murder if Minghao tries to carve him into a flower, because human rights do not apply to him anymore.
Jeonghan is artwork made of melted crayon, hues bleeding into each other until it all melds with the house he resides in. He grows sharper when he speaks, when he interacts with anything living, and Seokmin can slowly feel himself growing out of that category as time passes. An official notice is released explaining (falsely) his absence from GOING activities, and while he is never alone throughout it all, the lack of Chan in it makes his soul feel a little bit more hollow every passing day. Chan is vivid and constant like his spray paint Seokmin had used as Dokyeom while he was off vandalizing with Mingyu (leaving the Kim Mingyu bill boards alone as homage to their temporary alliance), enduring the ravages of time, still persisting.
"Hyung," an uncertain voice rings out into the emptiness of the room, one of those nights where Jeonghan goes out for drinks with Seungcheol with the door unlocked because he trusts Seokmin to keep watch, "Hyung are you— Oh," his eyes narrow.
His hair is unkempt, the silver of his strands bleeding into dark brown at the roots. He's wearing Seokmin's oversized hoodie, so the sleeves now hang over his fists like like cat paws, and Seokmin's entire being lurches for the first time in forever.
"You. Jeonghan-hyung will get the truth out of you soon," Chan says, finally, and sits down cross legged facing Seokmin, "you can't resist him forever," unable to keep quiet in the face of charged silence.
"I don't know what you did to him but— tell me what you want. I'll give you— anything," he says, a touch desperate, and Seokmin wants to scream I don't know why but I want you!
Chan sighs.
"You look like you belong here," he redirects, accusatory, right when Jeonghan appears, looking at the scene with a raised eyebrow. Chan gets up, facing Jeonghan.
"I thought you were torturing him for information?"
"He's a tough nut to crack. But no villain can withstand my Special Attack: Killing With Kindness!" Chan looks sceptical, "Well, if we're so untrustworthy, why don't you have him back? Maybe your fearsome intimidation tactics will terrify him into submission."
"I don't intimidate my opponents," Chan laughs, "That is not how GOING Red works. I change them."
"This is why the villains hate you the most," Jeonghan says, tone akin to Seungkwan's, and Chan pins him with a look of indignation.
Seokmin hates this so damn much. He wants to be the center of Chan's attention!!!!
"And I don't need The Rock Villain. You can keep him after it's all over," Chan says, and his watch buzzes red, and he takes off from the door, not without wishing Jeonghan and Seokmin a good bye. Seokmin feels weirdly formless for a while, before the weight of his conscience settles back in his soul.
Several days later, Jeonghan asks him this: "What did Chan do?"
He said he doesn't want me.
"But he's looking for you day and night?"
He went to get drinks with you and Joshua yesterday.
"You idiot," Jeonghan says softly, and promptly turns on the news. Changes the channels until they land on a local broadcasting station, and Seokmin can clearly read, right at the bottom, the number of posters of the other Rangers that have been replaced by Seokmin's, only. Some of them vandalized too, in yellow and red spray paint that spells JUSTICE WINS, and idea Seokmin had come up with when they were hot-blooded and fully fired up to defeat all injustice in Seoul.
Oh. He must be doing this with someone else now.
"No," Jeonghan says so firmly and exasperatedly that Seokmin worries he's been swapped by Jeonghan's evil twin, "He's moving on."
What does he mean moving on—
"Listen. It's been so long since I've had you now," and Seokmin agrees, fixated on Jeonghan's chin where a beard was starting to show, "With no conclusive answers. He thinks if I failed, he wouldn't stand a chan—"
Channie wouldn't give up on me just like that.
"Why not? He has us. He has no reason to keep holding on."
It's because— because. I need Chan— and he knows that, so—
"Does he, though? Seokmin-ah? Does he know you need him?"
Ah.
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Seokmin sprouts legs.
"Whoa. Ahahaha hahahahahaha hahahaha wow.." Jeonghan says.
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"Hyung. I know you guys know where Seokmin-hyung is. I've heard you guys talk about hanging out with him last week," Chan says, when Jeonghan calls him on his phone telling him he'd finally found Seokmin, "He just doesn't want to see me anymore. I get it. I don't see why you have to force him to be with me," Chan voice wobbles, and it might just be the bad reception, but Seokmin thinks Chan is crying a little.
Seokmin does a little tap dance in worry. Half of his thighs are out too, which puts a weird sort of strain on them whenever he walks, but since Seokmin cannot talk, he figured running all around the house is the next best thing.
Chan does show up, for all he talks. Gasps and runs his hands all over the rock of portion of his now-body.
"Hyung! You managed to get him back!" he looks at Jeonghan with a sort of begrudging admiration, and Jeonghan just shrugs, chin fully shaven.
"It was pretty easy."
Chan walks back with a skip in his step, Seokmin in tow. Chan rests his palm on top of Seokmin as he also skips along, but he doesn't cry out of happiness like Seokmin had expected him to. It makes something inside his feet itch. Chan doesn't ramble about his day, or weeks either. Seokmin feels weirdly off-kilter, so much so he stops skipping. Chan matches his pace, raising an eyebrow but not questioning out loud.
Seokmin's room is neater than he had left it. Chan must have stress-cleaned. It makes him happy.
"I'm sorry you have to do this," Chan finally says, and Seokmin feels like ants are running inside his legs, "you can take your stuff and leave, tomorrow. I'm sure you didn't want to come back," Seokmin shakes his right foot frantically, and taps it on the floor. Taps it twice more, emphasizing just how much he wants to be here.
Chan barks out a laugh, shaking his head. "When I promised to be there for you forever, why did you laugh at me?"
Seokmin falls down and makes a heart with his feet, a display of sorrow.
"I thought you just didn't believe me, so I wanted to prove it to you. I tried to prove it to you every day, but you disliked it so much you pretended to be a villain to get out of my hair."
Now he's just putting words in Seokmin's mouth, twisting the knife. He knows Seokmin doesn't like being painted the villain. Chan is trying to make Seokmin hurt on purpose.
But Seokmin can't do anything about that, so he shakes both his feet in Chan's direction vehemently, before he falls over backwards and finds himself unable to get up. He should've joined Seungcheol and Chan during their lower-body training.
Chan helps him up, cradles his— head? and looks at Seokmin's highly-detailed anime eyes. He needs to tell Chan—
The air around him seems to sneeze again, and Seokmin feels his legs buckle, and then—
His heart drops down and lands on one of his knees. It's still beating.
Chan puts on his Ranger gloves and picks it up, equal parts shocked and reverent and a third mysterious emotion that overwhelms Seokmin, and deposits it in a bowl, which Seokmin registers as the same hangover soup bowl that he had dropped on himself held together so that it's now eighty percent tape, and then puts it in their refrigerator to return to Seokmin.
"You— you wanted to—" and Chan gathers him in his arms, and okay, he's finally tearing up a little. Seokmin wants to cry with him really really bad, but Chan starts talking and he can feel his heart racing from inside the refrigerator, and he cannot start comprehend anything but Chan's voice.
"I was— hyung. When I first met you, you were so lonely and sad so I thought— I was the same as you, back then. I thought if I held onto someone like you you'd always do it back," he confesses to the quietness of their apartment, "I wanted so badly to be needed by someone— I'm sorry, it was selfish of me but I couldn't— You grew to become family after that— and you were my person and I believed you felt the same but then you decide to—"
Seokmin gets his left arm back, because he needs it to cradle Chan's chin and wipe the tears running down his cheek.
"It could've been anyone for you, right? I thought you'd grow to want me if I showed you I wanted you too, because it could've been anyone for me as well, but then I started to feel like I couldn't imagine anyone else and thought you'd feel the same if I showed that. Because that's how it started, didn't it?"
Seokmin gets his entire, heartless, torso and right arm back, and his neck hurts from the weight of the stupid rock. Chan holds onto the stone with both hands to ease the pressure, and this is what love is, isn't it? Seokmin falls onto Chan, wrapping his legs around him.
He gestures to his heart, out of the refrigerator, now safe and sound and beating and alive in his chest, and then to Chan's own. He does it again and again, and Chan beams.
"Okay. I don't think I get all of it, but I'll wait until you get your head back."
Seokmin mimes a kiss with his fingers, and Chan tilts his head, confused.
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"What did you pick Jun-hyung over me in?"
"They asked if who I would go undercover to a cosplay convention to defeat the Catboy Villain with—"
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Chan is by his side endlessly, helping him hold onto the heavy rock whenever it gets too much for his own shoulders. Seokmin draws hearts on Chan's sexy shoulder with his fingers, spends his time learning the foot sign language that Mingyu and Minghao had developed just in case, and goes on his dates with Chan while Chan flies them to the tall Pink Ranger bill boards, because Chan thinks it's okay now that Seokmin can't scream. Jeonghan and Soonyoung end up eloping, and now they travel the world while saving everyone they come across. Seungcheol loses his hair and Seungkwan makes fun of him despite being in the same predicament, both of them claiming the extreme influence of the Receeding Hairline Villain they had volunteered to defeat. Junhui and Seungkwan visit with their kid (The Mpreg Villain had been taken custody by the government, now working for the healthcare sector under the condition that the government grants all rights to queer people) and Seokmin reflexively tries to bow as an apology, except he ends up toppling down every single time and falls on his knees and Jun laughs a lot and suddenly they're okay. Their attempts to get Joshua in a nursing home keep getting thwarted, as he had switched sides and become the elusive Elusive Villain after he and Wonwoo had broken up. Vernon insists that Dr. Woo had retired to his luxury penthouse in Busan, but Seokmin believes he's still looking out for them in his own way, right here, in Seoul. (He stares at the little white marble ball that Seungcheol had given him, revealing that it was Dr. Woo, expression as though he'd bitten into a lemon, after Seokmin had almost cried when they couldn't find Dr. Woo's whereabouts, but he had been excited at the though of seeing eye to eye with the doctor, because he couldn't have just picked him up by his shoulders when he was still human.
(Throughout it all, Chan tries relentlessly to find ways to turn his head back to normal.
"You wouldn't love me if I were a rock? :(" is typed on Seokmin's phone multiple times, and Chan always insists he does, but he also wants Seokmin's face back because his shoulders aren't what they used to be anymore.)
Seokmin tastes the luxury of obtaining human rights for half-human beings, a gray-haired Wonwoo falling to his knees. He tastes the feeling of Chan's success like it's his own, when he gets casted in an MNET dance survival show, right after the defeat of the Evil Editing Villain.
Two years later, Seokmin tastes forever in his mouth when he wakes up with Chan's lips on his.
He doesn't even have morning breath.