Work Text:
Seungmin cleans Minho’s glasses, and it’s the biggest gesture of love, isn’t it?
He doesn’t even complain.
There are so many smudges, but he’s sitting patiently on the sofa trying to wipe them off with a microfiber cloth. Minho never bought into the whole anti-smudge coatings bullshit, but… maybe he was wrong. Maybe it’s not a complete marketing lie just to sell an overpriced product.
Seungmin’s lenses are way more expensive than Minho’s, and they’re always pristine. Maybe that’s why Seungmin spends so much time staring at Minho, because he sees him so clearly?
*
The night is beautiful, the sky clear, and Minho asks Seungmin about the brand of his lenses. Seungmin, as expected, remembers the name of the brand, the name of the line, and even the name of the coating. It’s UV… something. Minho quickly forgets.
They’re sitting in their Daewoo Espero, which Minho bought a year ago on a whim, mostly for the aesthetic of it and to have something to tinker with in his free time.
They rarely drive it, but today is the day, because they’re having a proper date, the first one since Seungmin got fired.
“Six weeks, and I still can’t find a job.”
“It’s not even that long.”
“It is long. You know it’s long.”
Minho doesn’t like that Seungmin can’t stop thinking about his stupid job—or lack thereof—even now. It’s really not that big of a deal. Minho doesn’t mind taking a few odd jobs on the weekends so that they can get by.
“I’m useless.”
“Don’t even think that.”
Okay, maybe Seungmin can’t do simple car repairs or fix people’s toilets, but that doesn’t mean he’s useless. Minho doesn’t know how to make him understand it, because no matter how many times he says it, Seungmin never gets it.
“You couldn’t even get new glasses,” Seungmin says, frustrated. “Because you have to buy me food. Like I’m a baby.”
“It’s you buying us groceries.”
“You know what I mean. It’s your money.”
“It’s our money.”
Seungmin doesn’t say anything, just grips the stirring wheel tighter, even though he doesn’t have to because the engine is off.
Minho suggested he drive today—as entertainment. Clearly didn’t work.
He thought it could maybe help because—come on—this car is great. It’s just perfectly old-fashioned, and inside it you can feel like you’re taken back to a time so light and carefree that nothing seems to matter.
Clearly Seungmin doesn’t feel the same way.
Minho grabs his hand and uncurls his fingers. “Let’s go out and look at the stars.”
Seungmin nods and gets out of the car without glancing at Minho.
And it’s only much later Minho realises that Seungmin uses the opportunity to look up to blink away tears. He only notices that when Seungmin stares and stares at the sky for so long that his neck surely must hurt.
He comes closer and sees how shiny Seungmin’s eyes are, almost as shiny as the surface of the lake behind them, reflecting the moon.
*
Seungmin takes over cooking now that he’s not working, and it’s… well, not disastrous. Usually. Minho praises him often, even though expressing his love like that doesn’t come easy to him. But Seungmin still feels useless, and Minho still feels desperate, so he’ll do anything that could help.
“Maybe I should move back in with my parents for now and find some job in Seoul,” Seungmin says one day as they’re eating dinner.
“I’m not letting go of you.”
“It’s not like I’m tied to you.”
It leaves Minho speechless. He freezes with a piece of meat between his chopsticks.
Seungmin covers his face with his hand. “Fuck, sorry.”
Is that what he thinks?
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
What did he mean then? Minho puts the chopsticks down, rubs his hands awkwardly and tries not to let it get to him. Seungmin is stressed. He’s going to give him some grace.
But Seungmin avoids looking at him, and Minho isn’t sure whether it’s out of shame or if he’s afraid he’ll slip again, say something even more revealing.
“Would you rather be somewhere else?” Minho asks slowly. It’s a stupid question, but he doesn’t know what else to say.
“No, I… I swear I didn’t mean it like that. I just… I don’t know why I said it.”
Minho looks down at the bowl of food that Seungmin made for him, at the grains of overcooked rice and unevenly cut vegetables, and decides to bury the sense of doubt somewhere deep inside his heart.
*
He has a dream that he’s about to have a surgery, but nobody wants to give him anesthesia, so he jumps off of the operating table and runs out of the hospital.
He wakes up startled and cuddles into Seungmin on instinct. That, in turn, wakes Seungmin up. And Seungmin isn’t too happy about it. Minho—maybe naively—wants some comfort, but what he gets instead is a frown and a grumble.
Still, he tells Seungmin about his dream, maybe because he feels that he needs to legitimize his behaviour somehow. Prove that it wasn’t his fault, that he didn’t wake him up for no reason.
Seungmin seems half-awake. He mumbles something non-intelegible and attempts to pull Minho closer. He lacks strength, but Minho gives in and cuddles into him again.
It’s one of those rare mornings when Minho doesn’t have to wake up early, and it could be nice and peaceful, but he ruins it with his stupid dream. There’s still a frown on Seungmin’s face as he falls back to sleep, and maybe if Minho did something differently, it wouldn’t be there. If only he stayed quiet and let him sleep.
*
Seungmin has a bad coughing fit on Sunday.
How many of them does Minho miss when he’s at work?
His face gets so red, and tears spring into his eyes, and—what’s even worse—he stops Minho from coming closer with a gesture of his hand and turns away from him. He’s bent over, sounds like he’s about to throw up his lungs, and Minho can only stand there, looking.
*
Seungmin finds a remote job after two and a half months. Minho can’t remember his job title nor the name of the company for a good few weeks. But that’s okay, because Seungmin gets playfully annoyed with him when Minho forgets, and Minho likes to see him joking and in a good mood.
Having contact with people other than Minho and the store clerks has an obvious positive effect on him, too. Minho tells himself that it’s normal. Of course it’s normal. It’s not like Seungmin ever wanted to be a hermit—it’s his life circumstances that made him stuck at home, left to himself most of the time.
It’s not like Minho is not enough, like he’s lacking something.
Minho’s rarely at home at the same time Seungmin’s working, but once he comes home to find Seungmin behind his desk, smiling politely at some coworker through the screen. His voice is raspier than usual from all the talking.
Strangely, Minho thinks that he misses hearing his voice.
They talk all the time, don’t they?
*
Towards the end of August Seungmin says he doesn’t want any birthday gift this year, and that’s when Minho gets worried.
“You’re busy enough as it is,” he says.
As if Minho could ever be too busy to show him the smallest scrap of affection.
“I don’t have to buy you anything, if it’s about the money.”
“I just don’t want anything.”
Seungmin even leaves the kitchen to definitely end the conversation.
*
Minho slowly drinks his coffee—made by Seungmin of course, even though it’s his birthday, so the roles should be reversed. But Seungmin doesn’t like his routines disrupted, so Minho doesn’t try it.
He accepts the coffee and spends his morning in peace. In less than an hour he’ll leave for work, saying ‘goodbye’ and ‘love you’ before he goes. It still, after all these years, makes his ears and cheeks burn.
*
In the evening, he finds Seungmin sleeping on the couch. His sleepy, sleepy boyfriend, tired from all that work.
Was the fact that it was his birthday today so stressful? Did he think Minho would expect something from him? Good mood or a change of mind?
Minho wakes him up, and Seungmin seems embarrassed. Minho almost expects him to say something like ‘I was going to prepare something, but I got too tired’ or ‘took a nap while I was waiting for you’, but Seungmin only mutters that he’s going to shower, and then he’s out of Minho’s view.
*
A few days before Minho’s birthday, Seungmin gets a cold, and it’s scary. Not because it’s a particularly bad cold, but because it reminds them of what happened in spring. It’s like tip-toing on the edge of a cliff, not knowing whether the wind will blow you over.
The moment Seungmin gets a fever, he gets this strange look in his eyes. Like he’s far away or wants to be far away. Like he’s shielding himself from the outside world in this way. Like he signed this silent contract with the germs around him that if he doesn’t acknowledge them, they will leave him alone.
And the worst thing is that it’s Minho’s fault.
Seungmin barely even leaves the house and whenever he does, he’s wearing a mask, so it must’ve been Minho who brought some virus home. Minho isn’t sick, maybe because his immune system is better than Seungmin’s, especially right now, but it must have been him.
“It’s not your fault,” Seungmin says, but Minho can tell that he’s mad. Or scared. Seungmin defaults to being mad as a reaction to many intense emotions. He’s twisted like that, and Minho loves him even for it, but right now it’s an issue.
Because right now he’s helpless. He does, of course, make Seungmin teas and cooks him a broth and makes sure that he eats despite his throat hurting. He turns an air humidifier on and even tries to say something supportive that lands flat and feels as empty as the look in Seungmin’s eyes.
*
Seungmin works throughout the entirety of his illness because he’s scared he’s going to get fired again. Thankfully, his fever doesn’t get very high, and thankfully he works from home, but it’s still unfair.
Minho leaves the house each day with a heavy heart, after checking if Seungmin has everything that he could ever need within a hand’s reach. He makes sure to cook the night before, so that Seungmin can eat something warm and substantial during his lunch break. He checks if any medicine has to be refilled. He does all the household tasks he could possibly think of.
One day he came home just to see Seungmin taking out the trash, and he thought he was going to die of fury, both at Seungmin and at himself for not thinking forward. He knows his boyfriend well; he should’ve foreseen that.
*
‘You don’t have to treat me like I’m a baby’ echoes in Minho’s mind as he drives to the warehouse he works at. Seungmin said it to him after that trash incident, and since then Minho’s been trying so hard to do things for him as inconspicuously as possible. But it’s difficult to suddenly reverse the roles in a way Seungmin wouldn’t notice. He may be a bit oblivious sometimes, but he isn’t stupid.
Minho continues to take out the trash each morning and wipes the floors squeaky clean and makes sure that there’s not a single crumb left on the counter or on the kitchen table, but Seungmin never calls out his sudden obsession about cleanliness again.
Minho also makes sure that their coffee machine is always filled with coffee beans and enough water, even though it appears Seungmin hasn’t been drinking any coffee lately.
*
Winter passes in a flash with no more illnesses. Minho has been living with this faint ghost of anxiety for the last few months, with this fear that Seungmin would get sick again and that everything would be over.
What could be over? He doesn’t know.
Seungmin’s job? His wellbeing? Their lives? Their relationship?
He’s well aware of the pointlessness of his worries.
But Seungmin said—he said that he would go away if he didn’t have a job. Why is Seungmin’s job the thing that’s keeping them together? Maybe it’s Minho who should be looking for a better job, a better paying job? Something that would give them more freedom, too. Maybe he should sell the house, and maybe they really should move to Seoul. But everything is so expensive there, so how would they even afford it?
*
Minho gathers the courage to raise this subject with Seungmin one day.
Seungmin doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t. He doesn’t even give Minho any good arguments or reasons. He says that his life is here.
Well, he is a creature of habit.
So is Minho just a habit? Are they together because it’s convenient? Many people do that, right? They get together because they don’t want to be lonely, and they stay together because they want to have babies and a family. And they don’t want to get divorced because it’s too much of a hassle, and because then they would be lonely all over again.
*
Minho tells Seungmin that he loves him and waits for his reaction.
“What’s gotten into you?” Seungmin side-eyes him.
It’s embarrassing, but Minho can’t even say anything. He can’t joke about it. This time, he can’t. And he doesn’t have any other defence mechanism, so he stays quiet, feeling exposed and incredibly stupid.
Seungmin quickly realises that something serious is going on. He turns around to fully face him, puts a hand on his arm, and says, eyes wide open, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Minho doesn’t want to know what Seungmin’s seeing on his face to warrant this reaction. Minho’s not a crier, and his eyes are perfectly dry, and he imagined he looked perfectly normal making his love confession, but apparently he did not.
“I know you love me. Why would I not know that you love me?”
Something warm settles in Minho’s chest. And like candyfloss, it twirls and gets bigger and bigger and fills him with sweetness.
*
Minho makes Seungmin coffee—the biggest gesture of love he can think of.
Well, it’s an obvious exaggeration. It’s the biggest gesture of love he can think of right now.
But he thinks of all the ways he could make Seungmin feel loved often, and he carries them out if only it’s feasible. Other things stay buried in his mind for the time being.
Because he would want to take Seungmin on a proper vacation. Somewhere with good air where maybe he would finally stop coughing so much. With views so pretty they would distract him from any negative thoughts. Or many negative thoughts. Or some negative thoughts.
Anything that would help.