Chapter Text
“Hyung-ah,” Seungmin exclaims, pressing his hyung’s arm impossibly closer to his front with a satisfied wiggle. He has Minho’s limb in a tight squeeze, both arms cradling it like an emotional support plushie.
Minho feels his ears flush hot immediately, his body reacting before he can stop his heart from skipping a beat. It feels like he has been thrown into a cliché romcom TV series as the whipped male lead whom Jisung would definitely gush over.
He is positive that his ears must look a comical pink now, like a layer of blush has been dusted over his skin, courtesy of his dongsaeng’s antics. Seungmin never fails to notice how cute it is, and this time is no different. The quick turn of his head and the accompanying flit of his gaze over to his hyung’s head that stays for a few seconds too long is enough of confirmation for Minho.
It is currently the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, and the boyfriends are shamelessly huddled together despite the humidity hanging in the air. It is also a few minutes from midnight of September the 22nd, arguably the most awaited day of the year after Christmas Day, which explains Minho’s general tolerance for their proximity. At least that’s what the older boy convinces himself of.
Nobody shall find out that he would give anything to cuddle with his boyfriend like this on the daily.
In his usual self-conscious fashion, the dancer’s classic blinking habit kicks in. His thick eyelashes flutter dramatically over his cheekbones as a result of being emotionally assaulted by his partner’s aegyo and inevitably outing himself for being endeared by it.
Calm down, ears! Work with me.
Not to mention that Minho forgets to interest his lover with a response while fruitlessly struggling to regain his composure. He is aware that the whiney voice Seungmin had used to jog a reaction out of the older should yield some exaggerated distaste or at least a witty joke, but it’s hard not to let a genuine chuckle slip past his cool facade.
Minho gives up on acting unbothered as he makes the grave mistake of turning his head to the side, peering straight into dark brown irises.
Oh.
A short hitch in his breath like that of a hiccup cuts through the otherwise unremarkable night. Time seems to fade away into the dark night, becoming another quiet witness to Minho's avid staring.
Seungmin is throwing the cutest smile in his direction, armed with a fatal nose scrunch and an equally dangerous breathless chuckle. And Minho… Minho is simply the weakest soldier there is in the face of Kim Seungmin’s aegyo attacks.
Triple kill.
“Hyungie? You’re staring.”
“Uh?”
“What are you thinking about?” The question sounds innocent enough. It should be easy to craft a suitable response. And yet all that races through Minho’s mind are run-on sentences worshipping his boyfriend’s existence.
I’m thinking about how my heart is beating too fast now like it always does when you’re this close. I feel myself spiralling out of control, my tongue goes numb, my fingers tremble, and my mind spins with dizzying thoughts of how perfect you are. Oh, how beautifully breathtaking everything about you is. Your smile, your cheeks, your glasses, your eyebrows, your jawline, your hair, your collarbone, your wrists, your waist, your chest, and everything else I have the blessing of ever touching. Your heart, your kindness, your wit, your humour, your loyalty, your quirks. Everything, Kim Seungmin. I’m thinking of you like I always do. You are my galaxy.
Still, that would obviously be too intense of a confession for a pre-birthday present. How would he top this word vomit later?
So, Minho opts to keep this internal monologue a short-lived secret. Just for the next few minutes.
In his mind, the man is already planning to write an atrociously long-winded love letter for his boyfriend as soon as they get back to the dorm. As of now, though, he says this instead, “Hmm don’t you think that somewhere out there, in every other universe that we might exist in, I’d still be proudly singing about how much I love you?”
Seungmin evidently did not expect something as romantic as this to pour out of his hyung’s normally shy lips. It makes his chest fill with the same fluffy warmth of sharing toasted marshmallows and romantic confessions over a campfire. The usually well spoken man is stumped for a few seconds, chewing on the inside of his cheeks to curb the whipped giggle that threatens to bubble up.
He eventually settles for a simple yet sincere response, “That’s… oddly romantic, hyung.”
“Yah, you should cherish every poetic line I am saying for you under the stars tonight.” It comes out like a joke, but Minho means every word of it. He is ready to string together endless lines about their private story into paragraphs of his boundless affection for Seungmin.
Given the chance, Minho would gladly scrawl chaotic metaphors and whimsical cinema imagery into a special book titled Minho and Seungmin. He would fill the pages with every golden memory of them that refuses to leave his mind.
Memories of a Kimchi Jjigae that nearly turned into a kitchen disaster, of them staying up at the younger man's dorm to finish up with the lyrics to their duet, and of Mondays and coffees that wormed its way into Seungmin's list of Things That Make Me Happy.
Seungmin would probably want to paint the cover with his favourite baseball team emblem, and a mic stand, and cute cartoon puppies, and his favourite song lyrics. And Minho would gladly let his boyfriend fulfil every artistic vision he has on their book.
It'd be the perfect proposal gift...
Ah.
“Will you stay and be my curtain call,” is a line that pops into Minho's head. He plans to write it down in his love letter tonight and present it to Seungmin in private, after the group cake-cutting tomorrow evening. He doesn’t miss the connotation of a proposal behind the poetic line, and he also does not plan to change the phrasing of it in his letter. Everything comes from his heart after all.
Maybe he secretly hopes with every inch of his being that Seungmin will catch on to his hidden message and say yes.
As if on cue, his boyfriend's mellow voice pulls him out of his thoughts, “Of course. What else do you have? I’ll memorise every line of your poem, hyung.”
Oh. He’s flirting back. Dangerous, Minho’s mind whispers. He needs to keep this lighthearted before it makes his chest explode prematurely into celebratory fireworks.
“Hey! I’m supposed to be the romantic one tonight,” Minho bumps his shoulder against the taller man’s chest, drawing a good-natured huff from him in response.
“Whatever, hyung. It's my turn now,” Seungmin declares before following up with, “You know what my biggest dream is?”
“Hmm…” Minho brings his free hand up to his chin, tapping for dramatic effect, “Does it have to do with falling in love with me?”
‘Well… close, though not exactly.”
“Ow!” Seungmin rubs the sore spot where his hyung’s elbow dug into his arm. Minho thinks his boyfriend deserves it for teasing him like this. He skillfully extracts his arm from the chokehold that his boyfriend had over it mere seconds ago, and folds them across his chest.
“You have a bigger dream than that? And here I was trying to be all soft and lovey dovey for you, little snail.”
“Tch. Hyung! Listen to me-”
“What, Seungmo?” Minho keeps his gaze level, his eyes narrowed intentionally to convey his scrutiny. There it is again — their tactful bickering behind which hides the immense love that both idols hold. A love so sacred that they didn’t dare to utter in the presence of outsiders. Love, only known by the two of them.
“My dream… is to stay with hyung in every universe.” Seungmin hears his hyung’s playful protests slow to a halt. A strange stillness settles over them like a hypnotic spell cast over both men, rendering them speechless for a while.
Seungmin takes it as a sign to continue, “It doesn’t have to be us dating, you know?” Minho shoots him a quizzical look. What riddle is Seungmin trying to spin now?
“I mean, yes, I will love you in every universe. Just that, we don’t have to kiss in front of everyone, or sing loud praises about the other’s eyes in song lyrics or roundabout interview responses. I just dream of us finding each other every time. No matter what. In every universe.”
“Sounds like a sappy drama you’d cry about.” A soft smile stretches across Minho’s face. As Seungmin takes a long look at his hyung’s face, he sees a hint of something deeper swimming in his misty gaze. It’s heavy and somewhat abstract, difficult to put a name on despite Seungmin’s above-average command of the language.
Longing? Wistfulness? Pensiveness? Or simply… love?
“Hey! It’s sweet,” Seungmin insists while paying no mind to how naïve it makes him sound.
“It is.”
“See?” Seungmin lets a smug expression bloom across his features. Minho secretly thinks it looks absolutely adorable, but keeps the thought to himself. Cute.
What he does manage to reply with isn’t too far off though. “You’re always sweet. I love that about you.”
Seungmin feels his heart stutter traitorously. “Hyung… you can’t just say that out of nowhere.”
“Oh, right. I should seal it with a big birthday kiss, eh?”
“Hyung!”
“Will you let me kiss you?”
“Here?” Seungmin blinks, surprised by the sudden boldness. It isn't often that Minho entertains the idea of kissing in public, much less initiate it.
There’s a well-placed tree, larger than the rest, behind them. The dense cover of leaves rustle gently with the breeze. The grass is slightly wet from that evening’s rain. Some cicadas are clicking a distracting rhythm in the faraway background. There’s no light pollution from the city, making the moon stand out starkly in contrast to the midnight sky. Apart from the two boyfriends and nature, the long winding road is thankfully empty. No cars in sight save for Minho’s one parked by their picnic mat.
“Yes, here; under the stars, in the middle of nowhere with no eyes to witness it. All for me.”
“What are you even saying, pabo hyung?” Seungmin tries to shift the topic away from getting kissed under a tree he doesn’t yet know the name of, in the middle of god-knows-where. It’s not like they’ve never kissed before. But something about the quietness of the night and the openness of space around them makes it even dreamier than he expects. The half-eaten puddings on the mat look especially interesting now. It's his hyung's favourite brand.
Minho probably picked them out from the convenience store down the street from their dorm and saved it just for today. Just for Seungmin, he quickly realises.
“I’m a fool only for you, Seung,” Minho quips. He lightly bops a finger on Seungmin’s tall nose, smirking as the younger man chokes on a laugh.
“Ew, don't touch my face like that. Your hands are all sticky!”
What Seungmin doesn't say is just how much he loves it. His heart might just explode at any moment.
Minho cocks his head to one side, as if to say like what?
The singer almost coughs up the pudding in his stomach (not that that is possible) from how nervous he gets. Ugh, how is hyung so handsome without any makeup on?
“It’s so… soft. And affectionate,” Seungmin mumbles. “Unlike hyung,” he adds, of course, just to make the whole situation less embarrassing for himself.
“Serves you right for being such a pretty puppy.”
Seungmin wastes no time in firing back, “Are you drunk, hyung?” Thank goodness for his quick thinking skills. Seungmin has always been particularly good at deflecting cheesy pickup lines.
“What, no? Why?”
“Your cheeks are all red, you look a little crazy, and you’re saying all sorts of nonsense right now,” Seungmin points out, quirking a judgemental eyebrow.
“Oi! Don’t call your hyung crazy,” Minho tut-tuts, effectively taking the bait. Ah-ha!
The dancer proceeds to puff his chest out for comical effect, hoping to pull another cute smile out from his dongsaeng.
It works, of course it does. Seungmin always smiles so prettily when it’s just the two of them.
He’s lucky, oh-so-lucky, to have Seungmin staring into his soul like it’s the only thing he needs to breathe. With the twinkling stars peering from up above, witnessing his rare instance of gentle loving, Minho thinks this is the best birthday present he can ever plan for his man.
Minho breaks the silence this time around, “Do you want to kiss or not?”
“Do you really have to ask, hyung,” Seungmin whines. He has half a mind to glare into Minho’s eyes, but that’ll make him lose his resolve to play hard-to-get right now. Something about Minho’s deep gaze just disarms every last ounce of willpower in Seungmin. It is undeniable that Seungmin is at the mercy of his hyung’s endless charms. Aish, Lee Minho and his annoyingly handsome face. Seriously.
“Well, if you don’t want me to ask, can you take off those darn glasses before I crush them between our faces?”
Seungmin lets out a proper laugh at that, caught off guard by the directness of the statement. “Wow, hyung. What a tasteful way to put it.”
“Shut up. Kisses or no, Kim?”
The younger man doesn’t waste a second to toss his (very expensive) glasses onto the mat.
Just as I thought, Minho smiles.
He takes a careful second to cup both hands by Seungmin’s neck, thumbs brushing just below his ear. It elicits the slight shiver he had expected from his boyfriend, along with a quiet whimper from having been touched at his sensitive spot.
Perfect.
Then, Minho lets his eyes droop closed, breath slowing to take in shallow puffs of night air. With each second that he leans closer, he feels the racing of Seungmin’s warm pulse under his skin, bleeding warmth and affection into his fingertips.
Mine.
It’s easy to let their lips meet. Neither is it a forceful crash of lips, nor is it simply a gentle meeting of skin to skin.
It feels inexplicably like more than just a gesture. There is the harmony of hungry lips slotting against an inviting warmth, the soft presses seeking permission to take things further, then the salty wetness of saliva mixing.
It tastes like a hint of peach pudding and pure bliss and it’s all they could ever ask for in this universe.
Their universe.
“What a lucky man you are, Kim Seungmin,” Minho sighs as they pause to take a breath. His puppy eyes shine ever so bright at this angle.
And what a lucky boyfriend I am.
“Happy birthday, Seungminnie.”