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Seungmin isn’t ashamed he’s never kissed anyone. At his age, he knows it’s unusual. Maybe it should bother him—but it doesn’t.
It was a choice. One he made when he decided to pursue singing seriously. Everyone knew the rules: idols didn’t date. Not publicly, not early in their careers. Later, maybe—if you were successful enough. And even then, it had to be secret. He knows people who’ve made it work. Quiet hookups between trainees. Set up with idols from other groups, people who already knew how to keep their mouths shut.
But Seungmin’s never been good at hiding.
When it comes to love, he’s loud. Halfway won’t cut it. He wants everything—the ache, the devotion, the soft, everyday kind of love. Good morning. Goodnight. He doesn’t want the kind of love that tucks itself away. He wants arguments and quiet touches, fierce loyalty and full presence. Someone who won’t flinch when he says what he means. Someone who won’t ask him to dilute it, or wait until no one’s watching. The kind of love that burns low and steady—like coals in winter, not the spark of a match.
It’s a lot. He knows that. But so is he. And he’s not going to give his heart to someone who won’t meet him there—fully, honestly, without hesitation. It’s the only way he knows how.
He thinks maybe he’s come close before. Back in school, maybe. Pretty girls at parties, all pink nails and pink lips, laughter curling at the edges. But it never happened. And then it didn’t matter. He debuted. There was no point in getting close to someone he’d only have to leave.
If he’s going to fall, he wants to fall hard. Wants it to matter.
Maybe that’s foolish. Maybe it’s naïve. But it’s his, and he intends to keep the promise to himself.
Minho doesn’t know any of that.
He knows Seungmin is stubborn. Knows he doesn’t drink much. Rarely flirts. Doesn’t mess around like some of the others do. But he doesn’t know this part—the part that waits. The part that wants something real.
So when Seungmin says it—“I’ve never kissed anyone”—and Minho laughs, Seungmin lets him. He doesn’t explain or offer an excuse. Just shoots him a dry look, calm and unbothered.
“Wait—are you serious?” Minho says, eyebrows raised. “Shit. Hey. I’m not trying to make fun of you, okay? I thought you were messing with me.” He really does look apologetic. Seungmin makes a mental note of it. The next time he needs a favor. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s—yeah. It'll happen when it happens, right?”
“You’re gonna pull a muscle, hyung.” Seungmin smiles, and means it. “I don’t mind.”
“You, uh—” Minho’s eyes are red. So is his chest. Seungmin doesn’t say anything, but it’s cute. So much about Minho is just so cute, even if he’d never admit it. “Is there a reason, or…” He trails off.
There is another reason. One Seungmin hasn’t figured out how to name out loud.
Why haven’t I kissed anyone? Two hints: he’s sitting in your seat. He’s wearing your clothes.
Loving Minho isn’t exactly the sweeping epic of romance he imagined for himself. There’s no rush of heat, no blaze to get lost in. In his dreams, it had always been loud—clear and all-encompassing. He’d fall, and someone would fall with him. They’d burn together, bright and undeniable.
But with Minho, it’s different. The fire never catches like that. It stays low, quiet. A heat that simmers just beneath the surface, steady enough to survive, but never enough to spread. It doesn’t ask for anything. It doesn’t go out, either.
With Minho, it’s hopeless.
He doesn’t mind. Not really. Because it doesn’t change the way he feels. He loves Minho now. He’ll love Minho later. Something else he refuses to be ashamed of.
And it’s enough, mostly. Enough to be close, laugh at his jokes and know his rhythms. Rest his cheek against the soft skin of Minho’s neck when no one’s looking. To memorize the little snuffling sounds he makes in his sleep he wants so badly to kiss from right from his mouth. He doesn’t have all of Minho, but he has a lot of him. And he’ll take what he can get.
That’s the thing about the kind of love Seungmin believes in. The kind he’s saving himself for. It isn’t owed. It isn’t earned. It just is.
“Dunno,” he says. “Just haven’t really been making the time for it, I guess.”
“Yeah. That’s…yeah. Okay.” Minho rubs his ear. “Cool. I mean—of you, I guess. It’s not easy to…you know.” He gestures vaguely. “Give that up.”
“Are you having a stroke?”
Minho goes even redder. His blush creeps down to his chest. “I’m—ugh. Say another word and die.”
“It’s okay if you’re embarrassed. It’s kind of a weird topic.”
“I’m the one embarrassed?”
Seungmin raises a brow. “Are you saying I should be?”
Minho huffs, his chin going all wrinkly. See? Cute.
“Shut up, Seungmo,” Minho mutters, like a schoolyard bully saying a name just to see if it stings. If Seungmin didn’t know better, he might think Minho was pulling his metaphorical pigtails.
“Thank you for being so nice about it,” Seungmin says, deliberately. Minho holds his gaze for a second before looking away. “I mean it. I think you’re sweet.”
“I just mean—it sounds kind of weird to me.” Minho pauses. Apparently, the floor is fascinating. “How someone wouldn’t kiss you.”
Seungmin blinks, slowly. “What do you mean?”
Minho rubs the back of his neck. “Just—like. Statistically.”
“Statistically?”
“You’re, like…objectively good-looking. Like, beautiful or whatever.”
Seungmin’s eyebrows shoot up. “Thanks? I think?”
Minho looks like he wants to disappear. “It’s…yeah. Haha.” He actually says haha. Seungmin doesn’t know what to do with that.
Almost like like nervous, like—
“Are you saying you’d kiss me?”
Minho’s head snaps up. “What? No—I mean. Not no. Just. That’s not what I said.”
“But it’s what you meant?”
“No! I meant—it’s weird no one else has. That’s all. I mean—I wouldn’t not—” Minho breaks off, dragging both hands over his face. “Oh my god.”
Seungmin smiles. “Relax, hyung. I’m flattered.”
Minho groans into his palms. “Forget I said anything.”
“I don’t think I will.”
Minho glares at him between his fingers. Seungmin resists the urge to tease him more. He loves when Minho gets so mad his front teeth poke out, but now isn’t the time. He wants answers.
“You’re annoying.”
“No, I’m beautiful.”
Minho chokes. Actually chokes—makes a startled, half-strangled sound and shuts his mouth like he can undo the last five seconds by sheer force of will.
Seungmin reaches out and catches his wrist. Tugs him a little closer. Minho doesn’t resist. That’s another thing Seungmin will pick apart later. Turn it over. Look for patterns.
Minho is warm beneath his hand. Solid. His pulse flutters against Seungmin’s fingers, barely there but real. He presses a thumb against it, just to feel it more clearly.
“It’s okay,” Seungmin says, soft and certain. “I would kiss you too, hyung.”
A startled, hiccupping sound escapes Minho. His eyes are wide, catching the flicker of the paused TV screen—faint blue light skimming across his face in fractured shadows. For a moment, he looks unmoored, like the world has slipped sideways and left him behind. Hope flares in his chest, a fragile, fluttering thing.
Hungry, it says, Yes.
Maybe.
You didn’t say no.
This part, there’s no script for. No training. Only the sound of their quiet breathing, and the feeling he’s been holding back for years. He lets his hand drift up, fingertips grazing the back of Minho’s neck only to find warm skin, the faintest shiver.
Seungmin’s fingers brush against his hand—warm and callused, still. The world flips over as Minho links their fingers together. It feels syrupy and slow, the way time stretches for love and death. His heart flares in his chest, quiet but sudden, like a flame catching too much air.
Seungmin isn’t sure what comes next. But for once, he feels like maybe he won’t be waiting alone. Maybe the flame’s already done what he wouldn’t let himself.
He grips Minho’s hand back, and burns.
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