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Minseok doesn’t look over when the door opens. He doesn’t need to – he can tell that it’s Jongin by the way he leaves the lights off. Minseok keeps his eyes on the sky as Jongin carefully picks his way across the rooftop to where Minseok is lying on a throw blanket.
“Hey,” Minseok says as Jongin settles down beside him. “How’d you know I was up here?”
“Well first off, your shoes were on the rack and your jacket was on its hook,” Jongin says. He holds up a hand, just barely visible in the faint ambient light from the surrounding buildings, and begins to count off using his fingers. “Second, your comlink was on the table. And third, the dogs were obviously fed and exercised. And yet you were nowhere to be seen.”
Minseok laughs, reaching up to catch Jongin’s hand in his own. Their fingers twine together easily, and Minseok drops his arm so their hands are resting on Jongin’s thigh.
“How did you know I hadn’t run off into the night?” Minseok teases.
“Please,” Jongin says, and Minseok doesn’t have to look to know he’s rolling his eyes. “As if you would.”
“You’re right, I’m too madly in love with you to run off.”
“Gross,” Jongin groans. When Minseok glances over, though, he can see the way Jongin’s lips curve up into a smile.
Minseok is considering how much he wants to kiss those lips, and whether said kiss is worth the effort of moving, when Jongin asks, “How was your day?”
Minseok decides the kiss can wait and says, “It was good. I only had one existential crisis instead of the usual five.”
He means it as a joke, but Jongin immediately makes a concerned noise and untangles their fingers so that he can prop himself up to get a better look at Minseok.
“What’s wrong? Are you having trouble at work? Is everything okay?”
“Nothing’s wrong, work is fine,” Minseok rushes to reassure him. “I’m fine, I promise.”
Jongin continues to hover, eyes concerned, and Minseok’s chest aches. Because Jongin knows. He knows that Minseok wasn’t fine before. He knows how hard the move out here had been; how Minseok had spent his nights sleepless, tossing and turning to the rhythm of his doubts and worries. And so he watches Minseok, and comes up to the roof to check in on him even though he knows Minseok will be back down before long, and worries.
“Hey,” Minseok says, reaching up to brush the bangs out of Jongin’s eyes. “Your elbow’s gonna hurt if you keep jamming it into the concrete like that.”
Jongin huffs out an exasperated laugh but complies with Minseok’s implicit request. He lowers himself back down onto the blanket and uses the motion to tuck himself under Minseok’s arm. He then proceeds to curl himself against Minseok’s side, head on his chest. Honestly Jongin’s too large to comfortably cuddle like this, but Minseok isn’t about to tell him that.
Once he’s settled, Jongin asks, “So how many caffeine-deprived zombies did you have to fight off this morning?”
“A lot, but it wasn’t too bad,” Minseok says as he begins absentmindedly carding his fingers through Jongin’s hair. The motion is as much for his own benefit as Jongin’s, but the satisfied noise Jongin makes has a smile tugging at Minseok’s lips. “It was busy, but once I got into the swing of things it was actually pretty fun.”
“I can’t believe,” Jongin mumbles into the fabric of Minseok’s shirt, “that you can go to work at five in the morning and call it fun.”
He doesn’t say, I can’t believe you quit your job at Kimco to work in a coffee shop. He doesn’t say, I can’t believe you insisted on moving across the continent for this. He doesn’t say a lot of things – things that Minseok probably would say in his shoes. Things that Minseok has certainly been thinking. And for that Minseok doesn’t think he will ever stop being grateful.
“It’s not so bad once you get used to it,” Minseok says around the lump of emotion in his throat.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Jongin says with feeling, managing to get a somewhat-choked laugh out of Minseok. The conversation lapses into comfortable silence and Minseok breathes deeply, closes his eyes for a moment, and then once again turns his attention to the stars.
Minseok often wonders if he ever would have worked up the courage to quit Kimco if Jongin hadn’t gotten an offer for a position at an observatory in one of the smaller coastal cities down south. Or if Jongin would have seriously considered the job offer if Minseok hadn’t also been thinking of leaving Kimco. If maybe, had the timing been a little different, they would still be in the capital, going about their lives just as they had for the past three and a half years.
But the timing had been too perfect to ignore. And so Jongin had made the leap from sludging through basic research assitant work in the wake of his graduate program to truly starting his career. And Minseok had burned his own career to the ground – in its place finding freedom so heady it was terrifying.
“You can hardly even see the stars tonight,” Jongin says suddenly, catching Minseok off guard and unceremoniously jerking him back to reality. Unaware of Minseok’s surprise, Jongin continues, “There are too many lights nearby. Doesn’t seem worth it to freeze your ass off for such a poor show.”
“It’s not even cold,” Minseok retorts, even as he moves his hand away from Jongin’s head to begin rubbing lightly along his bare arm. “And the light pollution isn’t that bad. There are still a decent number of stars visible. More than enough for some simple stargazing.”
“You know, when I showed you the telescope that first time I had no idea I was creating a monster,” Jongin grumbles. But the undertone of happiness in his voice belies his gruffness. It’s no secret that Jongin is delighted that Minseok has discovered his own love for the stars and become an avid stargazer over the past few years.
“If only you had picked up my love for coffee, too,” Minseok replies mildly. Jongin shudders in response and Minseok laughs, earning himself a smack on the stomach.
“Coffee is one thing I don’t think I’ll ever pick up, sorry,” Jongin says. Minseok can imagine his grimace.
“That’s fine,” Minseok says around his laughter before quieting. After a moment he continues, “I really am glad that you taught me to notice the stars, though.” He pauses again, considering his words. “It helps a lot when I’m worrying about something, to come up and spend some time looking at the stars, and just kind of, I don’t know, re-focus.”
“And that’s why you came up tonight? Because you were worrying about something?”Jongin prods gently.
Minseok hesitates. It’s not that he minds letting Jongin know about his troubles, but Jongin has already shouldered so much of Minseok’s burden. When Minseok’s father disowned him that morning when Minseok turned in his resignation letter, Jongin had been waiting outside the company building to help Minseok pick up the pieces. And when Minseok had finally broken down about a week after the move and cried until he could barely breathe, Jongin had been there to hold him and tell him everything would be okay.
“Yeah,” Minseok finally says. “Nothing important, just the usual things.” He stops, takes a breath, lets it out slowly. “I don’t think I made the wrong decision leaving Kimco, and I’m glad we moved here. I like this city and I like my job, but sometimes I still just feel kind of lost. So I just thought, I don’t know, it’s kind of stupid.” He laughs and brings his arm up to run his hand through his hair. “But I mean, you spend all day making maps out of the stars, so I thought that maybe if I looked at the stars for a while it would help me find my own kind of map. Or something.”
“That’s not stupid,” Jongin insists. “As you just pointed out, it is literally my job to make maps out of the stars. Besides, people have searched for themselves in the stars for as long as history can remember.”
Minseok hums, noncommittal. He knows he’s erring on the side of melodramatic, but he can’t help it. Even though logically he knows Jongin is right, he still has a hard time convincing himself that his thoughts are anything but silly.
“One day Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly,” Jongin says when Minseok doesn’t make a further reply. His voice is soft, as if his mind is drifting. “A butterfly fluttering around as he pleased, happy and unaware that he was Zhou. Then he woke and came to his senses, and became Zhou once more. He didn’t know whether he was Zhou dreaming a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must certainly be a distinction. This is called the transformation of things.”
Minseok freezes, the breath catching in his chest. The skin at the base of his neck, just between his shoulderblades, begins to tingle, as if the butterfly inked there has awoken and started fluttering its wings.
The sensation is offset by the sudden fullness in his chest, a swell of emotion that builds until Minseok feels like he might explode. He had only discussed the tattoo with Jongin once. Just once. And yet here Jongin is, with the entire verse memorized. All because Minseok had mentioned it – because it was important to him.
“You said that you got the tattoo because you hoped that the life where you worked at the company was a dream,” Jongin says while Minseok is still trying to remember how to breathe, “and you wanted to remind yourself that one day you would wake up. Well, now you’ve woken up, and you’re the butterfly realizing that all along you were just dreaming you were a man. It’s like–” Jongin makes a frustrated noise, the words not forming quickly enough to keep up with his thoughts. “Like– you’re changing from one to the other, this is the transformation of things. Things are changing, so of course you feel lost. I mean, if I was a butterfly and suddenly realized I’d been dreaming I was a man I’d be pretty lost too.”
Minseok can’t help himself – he snorts out a laugh. “I don’t think that was quite what Zhuang Zhou meant, but I’ll take it,” he says. “Thank you.”
“Always my pleasure,” Jongin says. He twists so that he can grin up at Minseok, and Minseok’s heart gives a pronounced thump.
“I love you so much,” Minseok blurts out before he even realizes it – all the emotions he’s felt since Jongin came up to the rooftop all at once converging into a tidal wave that he can no longer hold back. “I just, I love you so much. You know that, right?”
“Of course I do,” Jongin says, his expression softening from the playful grin into a gentle smile. “Although I will admit, it was shaky there for a bit at the beginning.”
“Don’t remind me,” Minseok groans. “I was head over heels and I thought you hated me.”
Jongin, brat that he is, just laughs and cuddles closer.
“Hey, you have tomorrow off, right?” Jongin asks after he’s resettled and Minseok’s arm is once more wrapped around his shoulder.
Minseok pauses, considering what day it is, before replying, “Yep, I have Saturday off this week.”
“Gonna play football in the morning?”
“I was planning to,” Minseok says. Finding a recreational group that got together on the weekends and just kicked a ball around for a bit had helped a lot, back when they had first moved down here. Having Saturday morning football had put a bit of routine and normalcy back into Minseok’s life when everything else felt like it was always one step away from falling apart. “I’ll probably be back before you get up, though. Why?”
“I was just wondering if you wanted to take the dogs to the beach after you get back,” Jongin says.
“Sure,” Minseok agrees easily. Access to the beach is a definite bonus to their new home. One of the many perks that even months later they’re still discovering. “That sounds great.”
“Awesome,” Jongin says. Then he pulls away from Minseok and sits upright. “Are you done stargazing for now?” he asks, looking down at Minseok with puppy dog eyes that would give his two actual puppy dogs downstairs a run for their money. “It’s seriously cold out here.”
Minseok laughs and hauls himself upright, trying not to wince as his body protests from well over an hour of lying on concrete.
“You wouldn’t be cold if you had, you know, put on a jacket,” he points out. Nevertheless, once they’re standing he makes sure to wrap the throw blanket around Jongin’s shoulders.
“Who needs a jacket when I have my lovely, amazing husband looking after me?” Jongin asks as he wraps the blanket more tightly around himself.
“Gross,” Minseok says, echoing Jongin’s own words from earlier. This time when Jongin smiles down at him, Minseok doesn’t hesitate – he reaches up and kisses him.
“Come on,” Minseok says when he pulls away; his hand on Jongin’s shoulder and his heart content, once more at peace. “Let’s go inside.”