Work Text:
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment you realized Mingi loved you. You’ve tried, of course, on quiet nights where you’ve enjoyed nothing more than to reminisce about the one great love in your life and recount the steps that led to you discovering your whole world. But it was to no avail because, in the end, it seemed as if maybe he always had.
The first thing you’d learned abt Mingi was that he was a starer.
It started off simple. When the two of you were mere coworkers, it was nothing but polite eye contact as you’d converse. Nothing strange about it. Or at least, that’s what you’d tell yourself. When his eyes burned so intently into yours that you found it hard to finish your train of thought. When his gaze lingered just seconds long enough to feel the heat remain on your skin even hours after you’d parted. He was just polite, maybe someone with strong eye contact, but it wasn’t strange. It didn’t mean anything.
-
Then as the months rolled by things became not so simple. Eye contact turned into curious glances even when you weren’t talking. Glances that grew longer with time, until there were no breaks in between. This was trouble in itself, but when coupled with your steadily growing crush on the gentle giant with captivating eyes? This meant chaos, absolute havoc wreaked on your feeble heart.
“Mingi?” You called from across the table, a question in your tone.
“Hm?” His brows raised, expression neutral as if he wasn’t aware of what he was doing.
As the international PR manager, it was your job to ensure that the boys’ interactions, through social media or otherwise, met a certain standard, especially when it came to speaking English and respecting foreign cultures. Currently, you were helping Mingi with a few English lines he wanted to perfect before the start of their tour. However, that was becoming hard to do when you could concentrate on nothing but the pretty pair of boba eyes watching you.
“Why are you staring at me?”
His brows furrow, head tilting. “I’m not.”
It’s more of a question than a statement and you do everything you can to hold back the enormous sigh within your lungs. It’s not that you’re annoyed per se— and most times you wouldn’t even mention it at all— except this was getting worse. He was losing his subtlety altogether in exchanging for openly staring and it was something you simply couldn’t handle. Especially because, as much as you didn’t want to admit it, the feeling of his gaze, his eyes trained on you simply watching, noticing, was becoming addicting.
“You are, Mingi,” you argue gently, unable to keep the smile off your lips. You have been for the past five minutes. I saw you.”
Mingi purses his lips, raising a brow. “Are you sure you’re not staring at me? Otherwise, how would you know what I’ve been looking at the last five minutes?”
“I—“ You pause, the words dying on your tongue. How could you explain that his gazes ignite a blaze across your skin that rivals nothing else? That you feel it even when he’s not there? That it’s been impressed so deeply upon your subconscious that you’ve even begun to dream of his eyes?
You can not. So instead, you shake your head, returning to the document at hand.
-
However, it’s not until the two of you begin dating that you realize what staring really means. If you’d thought he’d been open and obvious about it before, you were wrong. But then again, you couldn’t really describe what he was doing as simply staring, could you? Not in the way his eyes swept across your skin, zoning in on any and everything you’d give him, soaking it up and saving whatever piece of information he could find out of it for later.
You thought you would hate it, feel exposed or scrutinized, but you don’t. There’s a certain comfort in it, a steady reassurance. More than just the feeling of being desired but of knowing that he’s curious about you, even still. His thirst for knowledge and hidden nerd tendencies were something that attracted you to him in the first place. And now, to be the object of such affection it’s safe to say you’re long past addicted.
“He really likes you,” Your coworker comments, a knowing smirk on her lips as she glances at Mingi across the room.
It’s an office party, something casual and laidback yet you still feel slightly uncomfortable. Even more so, trying to ignore the magnetic pull Mingi has on you. Your relationship isn’t a secret within the company walls, there’s no dating ban on the band or repercussions for you dating a member, as you technically don’t work for KQ, thus no reason to keep things under wraps. Still, that doesn’t mean you want to be obvious in a room full of people you see almost every day.
Only, try as you might your smile manages to peek through, your head dipping down bashfully before you question, “Yeah? What makes you say that?”
“It’s in his eyes,” She says simply, nodding her head in his direction and pulling your gaze to him. “He hasn’t stopped staring at you since the two of you walked in.”
True to her word, when your eyes settle on Mingi he’s already watching you, dark eyes trained on you. Again there’s a yearning in them, mixed with that steady reassurance, and now knowledge as he picks up on your otherwise imperceptible cue that you’re ready to ditch this party and head home. So he nods once, excusing himself from the conversation he wasn’t paying attention to anyway and heading over.
Immediately, his fingers are intertwined with yours. His voice is soft as he leans in just a fraction and confirms, “Ready to go?”
You nod, barely noticing as your coworker slips away with a muted grin. But neither of you move just yet. There’s something in his gaze tonight that makes you pause, your eyes searching his as your heartbeat trips over itself in your chest.
Stars? Maybe? No, more than that. Because the way he’s looking at you makes you feel as if you’re the creator of the galaxies yourself. As if you personally had taken to painting the stars and moon in the sky. He looks at you in a way that makes your lungs quake. Like your value is an expense you, yourself couldn’t afford.
It’s something you’re not sure how to process, not sure you can. So instead, you simply squeeze his hand in yours and nod once more. “Yeah, let’s go home.”
-
It’s hard to tell when you realize Mingi first loved you, but even harder to count all the times you’ve caught him staring. And you should be used to it by now. Only, after spending over six months in another country, it seems you’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel his eyes on you. To really feel his gaze spreading little fires across your skin.
Like right now, curled up on the couch, barely two days after you’ve returned home— returned home to Mingi. Neither of you barely slept a wink the first night you got home, up all night talking and catching each other up on any and everything you could. And yes, he had stared then too but it’s different in the dark, less heavy when you can’t directly see his eyes on you.
So tonight is you feel it. Tonight as his gaze settles on you, you don’t even have to look up before the heat spreads across your skin.
“Mingi,” You drawl, still trying and failing to decipher the symbols written in ink on the pages of your book. “Honey, are you staring at me, again?”
His answer is immediate. His voice is raspy and sure. “Yeah.”
Your peek up at him confirms what you know, and his gaze doesn’t waver. You close your book, placing it at your side.
You’ve always prided yourself on your ability to decode ‘The Mingi Stare’. There are his adoring ones, where his eyes look a little softer than normal and his pupils grow a little wider. There are also his jealous ones (though never directed at you), where his gaze feels darker and his clenched jaw matches the narrowness of his eyes. There are his stares of awe, of longing, of humor, possession, protection, curiosity, and love.
But tonight, there’s something in his eyes you can’t quite decipher, something you’re almost sure isn’t due to being out of practice. It’s a sort of calm intensity that feels as if he’s speaking without actually talking, trying to communicate something maybe he can’t yet put into words. And it has you drawing closer to him, seeking out his warmth.
You don’t have to touch him before he’s melting, his breathing relaxes, and fingers looping with yours. His head falls, face pressed tight enough against the dip of your shoulder that his lips graze your skin. You give him a small shiver, smiling softly as one large arm comes to wrap around your waist.
“You smell good,” He says, muffled by your skin and you release a silent laugh. Trailing your nails down his arm, you watch tiny goosebumps rise in your wake.
“You,” You begin, turning and cupping the back of his neck to draw him closer before taking a giant whiff of his scalp, “You smell good too.”
You feel more than see him roll his eyes. A moment of silence passes as you count how many times the candle in front of you flickers and then…
“I really really missed you,” He says.
And as simple as it is, you know Mingi. The sigh he releases, the way his grip on you tightens, the plea in his voice. And suddenly, the unspoken message in his eyes becomes a lot more clear.
He had missed you, just as much as you’d missed him. And while as strange as it sounds, finally reuniting still doesn’t feel all that real, as if your company could whisk you away again at a moment’s notice.
So you reassure, “I missed you too, Mingi. I won’t leave again, I promise.”
And you mean it, you’d rather quit than leave him again, not for that long. You’re sure it won’t come to that, but if you have to you will. For him— for the both of you.
Then he’s holding his pinky up to you, meeting your eyes with his big, pretty brown ones as he waits for you to solidify your promise. You do, of course, the both of you taking pinky promises a bit more seriously than an adult should, only for his eyes to stay burning into your skin.
You can’t say when you realize Mingi loved you, or how many times you’ve caught him staring. But what you can say, what you do know, is that every time his gaze has lingered a little too long or his eyes have remained trained on you, you’ve been staring right back at him, realizing you love him too.