Work Text:
Mingi sat on the concrete curb on front of his dorm building. Headphones over his denim cap and his legs kicked out rocking in and out with the music playing in his ears. He decided to wear his red zip up because it was a little chilly outside. And maybe because Yunho said it looked good on him one time. But that was besides the point.
He was waiting for Yunho to pull up in his car and drive to the mall. And Mingi was starting to get a little antsy. Yunho said he would pick him up at 1:00pm and it was already 1:07pm. He knew there was nothing to freak out over. I mean, they had missed several movies because Mingi was over half an hour late to their hangouts. But that reassurance doesn’t stop him from fidgeting with this hoodie strings and shooting his head up at every car that passes by him.
Mingi had been looking forward to this hangout for the past week. He’s been fighting through all his boring, sleep-inducing, lectures and overbearing piles of homework just to get to this one day. Every time his program crashed, and he banged his head against his desk, Yunho’ sweet and reassuring face would soothe his mind and get him to push through. He’s always found Yunho comforting, which is why he needed this hangout. He’s almost embarrassed how excited he gets to see Yunho. But you can’t exactly be normal about a crush you’ve had since middle school. It was almost an instant crush once he first met Yunho. He was cute, funny, charming, what’s there not to love? And he’s only gotten better. At least that’s what Mingi thinks. Seeing Yunho grow up and into himself was a beautiful sight to see. And its been driving Mingi insane.
He hears the sound of gravel and perks his head up to see Yunho’s car pull around the corner. Mingi picks up his bag and throughs it over his shoulder. Yunho’s car rolls to a stop in front of him with the window rolled down.
“Why are you so late?” Mingi whined.
“It’s literally only by 10 minutes, calm down!” Yunho rebuttals.
Mingi hops in the car and throws his bag at his feet before slamming the door shut with a clunk. Mingi takes in Yunho’s appearance. His outfit is weirdly “preppy”-er than usual. He’s wearing his round rimmed glasses and a blue knit sweater.
“You just walk out of a coffee shop AU or something? What’s with the glasses?” Mingi teases.
“Oh shut up!” he says. “I had an interview for an internship today, so I wanted to look somewhat presentable.” He explains.
“Oh! How did it go?” Mingi asks.
Yunho sighs.
“That great, huh?” Mingi slightly chuckles.
“It’ll be a miracle if they take me.” They both laugh.
They both chat as they cruise down the street on their way to the mall. They talk about how happy they are that they finally found free time to hangout, complaining about how much homework their professors assign, new music from their favorite artists, business as usual. But the entire time they’re talking Mingi can find his eyes drifting to Yunho’s hands on the steering wheel. They look so elegant and so strong at the same time and his jewelry makes them look even better. He wishes he could hold them. Interlace their fingers together and twist his rings around his fingers. Mingi turns and gazes out the window, ashamed of the thoughts in his head. ‘Jesus Christ, Mingi.’ he curses himself in his head.
He’s pulled out of his mind by the jump of the mall parking lot speed bumps. They struggle to find a spot but eventually settle on parking directly in the middle. They hop out of the car and walk up toward the huge, grandeur entrance of the mall.
“Okay, I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry!” Yunho announces as soon as they feel the stuffy air of the mall.
“Me too! I think the food court should be over here.” Mingi points down the long bustling hall of the mall strip and they start maneuvering their way through the crowds of teenagers and families. Mingi leads both of them through the people but keeps looking behind to see Yunho falling behind, getting lost in the waves of people and, as per usual, being way to kind to move them out of the way.
“Here, take my hand.” He offers his hand behind for Yunho to grab. Yunho waits for a beat before grabbing his hand and they continue to march their way through the hall. Mingi cant help but think about how they look form the outside. Two boyfriends going out for a date to the mall. The thought makes Mingi smile to himself a little bit before mentally smacking himself in the face. The smell of the food court gets stronger the farther they walk. They finally turn down the hall with a massive, neon “FOOD HALL” sign marked over it. Its packed with people. Screaming kids, loud ass teenage boys and some clearly annoyed mall goers seem to fill every damn seat of the food court.
“Aw shit.” Yunho sighs.
“It’s fine, we’ll just lean against the wall or something!” Mingi suggests.
Yunho shrugs as they walk a little farther down into the heart of the whole mess. Its so loud and echoey that they have to basically yell into each other’s ear just to hear what the other is saying.
“What do you want to eat? I’ve been craving noodles ever since I woke up this morning!” Yunho asks as he leans towards Mingi’s ear.
“I could go for some noodles!” This was another thing he liked about Yunho. They basically have the exact same food tastes. They’ve never had to fight over where or what to eat. They’ve always been on the same page. Then again that could just be because wherever Yunho wants to eat Mingi will follow. As long as their eating together he can’t really be mad.
They walk over to an appetizing looking restaurant and wait in line for food. It feels like it takes forever since, for some reason, people still don’t know what Chinese food is. They finally make it to the front, ready to order their food. Mingi gets his wallet out, but Yunho pushes his hand down.
“No, no, no! don’t even think about it!” Yunho orders.
“But-“ Mingi starts, before Yunho puts a finger to his lips to teasingly shush him.
“No “buts”! I’m paying!” he reaches and hands the cashier the money.
They get their receipt and stand to their side to wait even longer for their food to be ready. But they can’t really be mad at the workers. They’ve worked in fast food before. They know how stressful a day like this can be. They lean against the little 3-foot wall that surrounds the table section. Yunho leans against Mingi, wrapping his arm around his shoulders. Which makes Mingi’s heart skip a beat a bit.
“What stores do you wanna got to today?” Yunho asks, still having to yell in his ear.
“I was thinking probably getting something from the anime store. I gave myself $40 to spend today, so I don’t know how much I’ll get. How bout’ you?” He throws the question back at him.
“That same store’s got new Valorant merch in, so probably gonna spend more than I should on that.” He jokes, followed by that beautiful laugh that Mingi loves to listen to so much.
“NUMBER 56!!” the cashier yells so loud it sounds like a yodeler on a mountain. They turn to each other and chuckle, knowing they each thought the same thing. They grab their food and start to walk to find an open table. Which ultimately leads to failure. There are open tables, but everyone seems to have a sheen layer of spilt food or something that looks like it will give them a disease. They settle for leaning against a wall of planters and holding their boxes of food in their hands. They eat their food and talk about some more stuff. How Yunho’s interview went. Horrible. Mingi’s grades. Could do better. The drama happening on campus after that campus couple broke up. You don’t wanna know. They scrape the bottoms of their Styrofoam food boxes.
“Holy shit that was so good.” Yunho groans.
“I felt like I was gonna burst halfway through, but I just couldn’t stop.” Mingi jokes, patting his stomach.
“So, Anime store?” Yunho asks. less like it’s a question but more of a command. Mingi nods and they start walking in the direction of the store. They’ve been enough times to know where it is without looking at a directory.
They walk into the store. Lined with massive posters of Demon Slayer, Naruto, and Chainsaw Man, Mingi’s favorite at the moment. They’ve got the Blue Exorcist intro playing on they TV displayed smack dap in the middle of the ceiling. The walls are covered in walls of figurines and plushies and every over-priced keychain you could think of. Yunho notices the Valorant merch and makes a b line for it, nearly missing a display. Mingi follows at a decent walking pace. Yunho’s eyes dart around the display not knowing where to start. He decides Hoodies are first. He flips through the hoodies hung on the wall, like flipping through stapled papers and filtering through all the basic logo designs. He gasps once he gets to a light tan jacket.
“They have they 2024 Champions Jacket!” He turns to Mingi, beaming with excitement. Mingi always loved watching him get excited over things. He loved watching his eyes sparkle, the way his cheeks popped out when he smiled. He loved seeing him happy.
“I’m gonna get it!” He says quickly grabbing the hoodie off the shelf and already cradling it in his hands like its his child and afraid he’ll break it. Mingi makes the mistake of looking at the price tag.
“It’s $95 bucks, dude!! Are you sure?!” Mingi questions.
“Yeah, well, I knew it wasn’t gonna be cheap. But I’ve got just enough to cover it. I’ll be fine!” He reassures Mingi.
“But I’ve got my stuff, you get yours now.” Mingi looks around the store and spots that they’ve set up a whole Chainsaw Man display. He’s immediately starts walking that direction and Yunho follows him gingerly. The display has everything You could want. Some t-shirts, keychains, pencils, and even some figurines. But what catches Mingi’s eye is the phone cases. One phone case in particular. It’s completely covered in “Pochita” stickers. Pochita being sad. Pochita being angry. Pochita sleeping. It’s so cute! It instantly captures Mingi’s heart, and nobody can pry it from his hands. Mingi likes to put up this front of being very cool. But deep down he’s always preferred the cuter things. He looks at the price. $20. Perfect.
Yunho notices the look on Mingi. Clearly very set in his purchase.
“You ready to checkout?” Yunho asks, smiling at the expression still plastered across Mingi’s face. Mingi nods, but the look slowly fades once he looks behind Yunho and starts chuckling as he cries “Oh no!”
“What?” Yunho whips around slightly concerned.
Mingi points to a stuffy on the shelf. A gigantic Pochita stuffy. Basically the size of his whole torso. Including its little chainsaw nose. Yunho starts to chuckle as he realized what Mingi’s predicament.
Mingi walks over and grabs the stuffy.
“And its soft, too!” he jokingly cries out. Yunho giggles to sound of Mingi’s whining.
Mingi doesn’t know what to do. He loves both the Phone case and the stuffy. He can picture the stuffy on his tiny dorm bed staring at him at his desk. Hugging it as he falls asleep, secretly wishing he was hugging Yunho. Mingi holds up the phone case next to the plushy. Looking back and forth between the two. How can the universe expect him to pick just one? After a long silence between the two. Yunho speaks up.
“Let me buy the stuffy!” He suggests. Mingi looks up to him in shock. Is he hearing this right?
“What?” He asks still unsure if he heard Yunho correctly over the blaring music of the store.
“Let me buy it for you!” he repeats. So he did hear him right.
“But, but your jacket! You’ve been talking about it ever since the sneak peek!” Mingi is genuinely concerned about this offer Yunho is making. He doesn’t want Yunho to spend money on him that he should be spending on himself. That jacket made him so happy. Why would he sacrifice it for him and his stuffy?
“It’s fine! It’s cheaper online anyway!” Yunho reassures him.
“You really want the stuffy. And honestly seeing how excited you got over it was…kinda cute.” Yunho slightly mumbles adjusting the jacket in his arms. Cute. Yunho just called him cute. Mingi can feel the flush running to his cheeks. But more than that he feels so touched. He was worried this was just a pity gift. But he should know Yunho better than that. Mingi feels like he might just start crying right then and there. Yunho takes notice and cant help but comfort him.
“Mingi, it’s okay!” he reinforces. Resting his hand on the others shoulder. Slightly giggling at his cute little pout. Mingi may be very touched by Yunho’s gesture. But as their checking out he can’t help but wish that Yunho was doing this as a boyfriend. As a gift for the man he loved most in the world. He wanted to be Yunho’s. The same way he washed Yunho was his.
…
Hours have gone by. Where they weren’t even going into any stores. They were just walking around talking. Mingi carrying his massive stuffy in his arms. The longer they stayed there the more and more people started to file out. And it was getting dark outside. They finally decide to head back to the car.
They’re walking through the lot when Mingi notices a shop on the outside of the mall that catches his eye. He squints his eye and sees a sign that reads “Bowl-a-Rama”. He pats Yunho and points to the alley. Yunho turns around and instantly agrees to Mingi’s idea. Yunho was always down to do whatever Mingi wanted to do. They enter the alley and are captivated by the 80’s inspired lighting and carpet, the arcade games off to the side and, most importantly the lit-up bowling lanes shining against the bright florescent lights above them. They walk up to the front desk with a bored teenager scrolling on his phone. Clearly there hasn’t been much business. The teenager looks up and jumps. They guess the teen was to busy on his phone that he didn’t even hear the robotic bell of the door.
“Oh, sorry. How can I help you guys?” the lifeless worker asks.
“How much is it for one game?” Mingi asks.
“$12 per lane.” The teen answers. Perfect! He’s got more than enough for a game.
“That’s perfect! We’d like to buy a game please!” He’s relieved to actually be able to buy something for Yunho. He knows Yunho doesn’t care about receiving gifts, but he wants to do something to pay Yunho back for the stuffy and honestly any excuse to spend more time with him. Mingi pays for a game and pick their shoes. they walk over and set down their stuff on lane 4.
“You ready to get your ass whooped?” Yunho teases. And the trash talking begins.
“You sure you wanna talk like that before you each shit?” Mingi shoots back.
“You are gonna slip and fall on every throw!” Even though Mingi hates it, he knows Yunho’s right. But they put their shoes on, pick their balls and start their game. They enter their names on the big screen.
“What’s your name gonna be?” Yunho asks, offering to enter their names for them.
“Just put my real name.” He says as he’s moving their balls to the rack. A beat goes by before he hears Yunho giggle from behind him.
‘what’s he trying to pull now?’
He looks up to the screen and see’s that he entered “Princess” as his name.
“You little shit!” He wails as he gently hits Yunho in the shoulder.
“What? It’s your real name!” Yunho teases, putting up his hands in surrender.
They both laugh and giggle at the dumb joke before Mingi speaks up.
“Okay, I get to pick your name then!” He moves to the warn down keyboard and types in Yunho’s name. “YuYu”
They start the game and Mingi is doing mediocre at best. Yunho has him beat by at least 20 points. Despite Mingi losing so hard, he can’t help, but trash talk the whole time.
“You’re gonna fall~” Mingi chants from the side.
“Says the guy with 15 points after 6 rounds!” Yunho counters.
Mingi’s really enjoying this. Laughing and joking with Yunho. He feels like he can breathe with Yunho. Yunho creates a little bubble around him that heals him like medicine. His laugh always reminds him of a warm cup of tea. His jokes always make him laugh. His teasing never hurts him. When he’s with Yunho he feels so full. Like someone’s wrapped him in a cozy blanket. And the best thing he do with these thoughts is keep them inside. Hidden away in a treasure chest that he hopes Yunho will find and say those magic words “I love you, too”. But he’s learned from all the years of knowing him that he’ll never love him the same way Mingi does. So, he’s contempt with just keeping Yunho here and admiring him from a far.
Their game wraps up with Yunho taking the win. What rubbed it in was him getting a strike at the very end. Mingi cups his head in defeat as Yunho chuckles to himself, Satisfied with his victory. Yunho sits next to Mingi and starts taking off the bowling shoes. Mingi grabs his stuffy and hugs it as he looks out the window. it’s almost completely dark outside. It must be about 8:00pm now. Yunho finishes taking off his shoes and sits back up to look at Mingi. It’s a little quieter. The only sound coming from the muffled 80’s music over head and the distant pings of arcade games. Mingi feels Yunho staring at him, so he looks back at him and gives him a smile. Yunho smiles back and takes a deep breathe before patting Mingi’s leg and getting up. Mingi can tell that Yunho wants to say something, but he can’t quite make out what it is. He wont press it because he’s worried if it’s something bad.
“Hey.” Yunho speaks up.
“Is that a photo booth?” He points a finger toward the entrance. And sure enough there is a tall metal box with stock photos of young faces framed in white boarders.
“You wanna take some?” Yunho nods his head furiously. Yunho has always had this obsession with taking pictures with people. He loves to remember small moments he’s had with friends and always said that he needs pictures to show his grandkids.
They grab their stuff and shuffle into the booth closing the curtain behind them. Squeezing their bags and Mingi’s giant plushie into the tiny, cramped box. They choose a 5-photo strip and move their bodies, so their arms are wrapped around each other, and they hold up peace signs.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Click.
“Now smile really big!” they both squeeze their eyes closed and give the biggest smiles they can. Baring teeth and all.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Click.
Mingi tries to think of an idea. Trying to think quickly as the machine starts beeping. He then feels Yunho move. And a warmth against his cheek.
Click.
Yunho pulls his lips off Mingi’s cheek and looks to see his reaction. Mingi stares at Yunho shocked at what he just did. His mind is working overtime trying to think of what to do, what to say.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Click.
Something. Anything.
Beep.
‘Fuck it.’
Beep.
Mingi cups Yunho’s neck and brings his lips to his. His lips feeling as soft as they imagined.
Click.
To Mingi’s relief, Yunho leans into the kiss. Running his hands through the back of Mingi’s dark hair. He kisses him gently. Like he’s afraid to break his lips. Mingi’s heart is racing a million miles an hour. His mind is in shock of the whole situation, but he can’t help but continue to give into the feeling of Yunho’s touch that he has craved for God knows how long. They pull away from the kiss and take a breather. Their hands still running through each other’s hair. Mingi looks into Yunho’s eyes. He wants to cry. Overwhelmed with happiness. Relief. He rests his head on Yunho’s shoulder.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you to do that.” Mingi mumbles into his sweater.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that.” Yunho whispers with a chuckle, petting Mingi’s hair. Mingi lifts his head up to meet Yunho’s gaze.
“Does this mean you like me?” He whispers, looking at Yunho. The other chuckles. Like it’s an obvious answer.
“Yes. Well, ‘I love you’ is more accurate.” He brushes the front of Mingi’s hair.
There it is. The magic words.
“I love you, too” Mingi can feel the quiver in his voice. Yunho pulls him into another kiss. Sweet, like Mingi always imagined.
After that day, they kept those photos close to them. Mingi pinned it to the cork board near his desk and Yunho kept them in his wallet. It was special for them. That they got their first kiss on camera. That they got such a special moment frozen in time forever. An everlasting minute they know will linger for the rest of their lives.