Work Text:
Jisung opened his eyes to the soft hues of warm lighting brightening up the room he was in. Well, it wasn’t exactly a room, but a set designed to look like one, with bookshelves lining the back wall and a recliner sat performatively in the centre of the floor. In front of him stood a film crew, documenting his reaction as he came out of his trance.
His head felt airy, like he’d been on the edge of sleep the whole time, and his right arm still felt impossibly light where it rested against his chest. It was a bit disorienting to be recounting the details of his past life one second and be thrown back into his current one the next. His heart ached a little from the story he had told.
When he recalled his past self, the memories came to mind unbiddenly and flowed into the air in the form of a wistful tale of loneliness and heartache. He saw the slight awkwardness on the faces of the crew and knew that it sounded every bit as heart-wrenching as it felt like in his chest.
Going back into the room where his friends sat, eyes flickering to him from the monitor that showed the chair he once occupied, they greeted him without much flare. Only Jeongin held a glassiness in his eyes that reflected the way Jisung’s own burned.
As Jeongin volunteered himself to go next, Jisung caught Minho’s gaze staring at him intently. It held none of the playfulness of the others’, like he could see right through every layer Jisung had built up around himself, straight into the core of his soul. He mouthed ‘are you okay’ with a serious expression, eyes catching on the slight shaking of his fingers. Jisung shoved them under the table as he sat down and nodded with a weak smile, taking the time to piece back together his fragile façade as Jeongin got situated in the other room.
After the shoot, when everyone split off into company cars to head back to their respective dorms, Jisung let the feeling between his ribs wash over him again. He was susceptible to influence. He knew this. And yet he still believed that everything he said under hypnosis was true. Maybe it was a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy – when it lined up perfectly with his current life like this.
It was true that he never felt truly cared for by his parents. It was true that he turned to music as a way to cope with the feeling and to soothe those who might feel the same. And it was true that in his pursuit to connect to people through his songs, he fell in love.
Minho sat beside him, scrolling through his phone as they drove through the busy streets of Seoul. His posture was relaxed, stable where Jisung’s threatened to bend and creak under the weight of his emotions. It was why, when the pressure got too much for him to bear, he sought out Minho’s grounding presence.
A workplace romance.
He wouldn’t be surprised if his past self also fell in love with sharp eyes, a broad chest and a gentle touch. A body that could take away every ache as easily as it could destroy him.
Jisung was quiet when they entered their apartment, wordlessly making his way to the bathroom to wash his makeup off. The reading stuck with him as he scrubbed his face, the words I was born to be loved circling through his mind. He would write a song about it, if only to remove the tightness against his heart, but he’d hate to be redundant.
As he wiped the last of the facewash off and glanced back up at the mirror, he was met with Minho’s figure staring back at him through the reflection. Jisung jumped a little.
“Jesus, hyung, you scared me.”
He reached for the towel, quickly drying off his face and turning around to look at him directly.
Minho approached him slowly, expression still unreadable as he took the towel from Jisung’s hands and deposited it next to the sink. His hands came up to gently hold Jisung’s hips against the counter, rubbing smooth circles over the fabric of his shirt.
“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours, Jisungie?”
“Just thinking about my past life,” Jisung admitted, hands following the familiar path to Minho’s shoulders. He tangled his fingers in the short brown hairs of his nape and once again thought of the young girl who gave so much love to the world only to never experience it for herself. He felt guilty for feeling so lucky to have not succumb to the same fate.
Minho’s hands trickled under the seams of his shirt to caress the skin of his sides, pulling himself closer into his orbit.
“What about it?” he asked with a quiet reverence that only ever found its way into the world when he looked at Jisung.
Jisung lightly squeezed his hands against the sides of his neck, matching his tone, “I was born to be loved.”
Minho watched his declaration carefully, taking in the way his breath shuddered on an exhale.
“And?” he questioned, lips a breath away from his. “Are you?”
The answer came easily from Jisung’s throat, “Yeah, I am.”
He felt it every morning when Minho cooked them breakfast and every evening when he tucked himself by his side, wishing him a good night with warm arms engulfing his frame. He felt it coming home with a scarf wrapped around him that had somehow migrated its way over from Minho’s neck and he felt it in the way a strong hand squeezed his thigh when his leg wouldn’t stop shaking during an interview.
But most of all, he felt it when Minho looked at him like this – with a fondness that could soothe over any wound and rip through every supernova erupting in his chest just to settle itself into the space between his ribs. And when they kissed, it was like they had crossed galaxies and lifetimes just to find each other, and Jisung finally felt complete.
When they pulled apart, Jisung could see the sentiment reflected in Minho’s gaze, a confirmation on the tip of his tongue, “I was born to love you.”