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“Candles!” Chan shouts.
Jisung stares at his teammate, his words registering slowly through the syrupy filter of alcohol.
Jisung doesn’t mix well with wine.
His parents are beer and soju people, so it was rarely in his home growing up and by the time he was of drinking age, he simply followed their lead. Then he met Felix who invited him to Australia for a summer and introduced him to his sisters and mum who had a penchant for wine nights and he realized the lack of wine in his life was a blessing in disguise.
When his tongue gets wine-soaked, it decides to release every thought in his head regardless of how sober Jisung carefully tends to his secrets and feelings like a pile of tinder. Do not catch. Do not ignite.
But Felix had a bunch of leftover bottles of pinot noir from his catering gig and they were all going to spoil and so everyone was gifted a bottle at game night and there was Minho, bright and warm, staring at Jisung like a box of matches.
“What did you say?” Seungmin asks, disgruntled and a little irritated.
They’re playing Taboo. Jisung has to give clues to his team so they can guess the word on his card, but he can’t say the actual word out loud. In this case, the word is candles.
“If Minho wanted to have a nice night in, maybe he’d light these,” Jisung repeats for Seungmin, words slurring only a little bit.
“Candles,” Chan says again, frustrated when Jisung doesn’t flip to the next card immediately.
“Good job.” Jisung gives him a thumbs up.
“Jisung, please flip to the next card,” Chan urges. He looks like he’s one second from launching himself from his side of the couch and over the coffee table where Jisung is sitting. He clumsily flips to the next card.
He squints. The words are a little blurry and his mind blanks trying to think of a good clue without giving the word away. His gaze goes where it always wants to and lands on Minho who is already looking back at him, eyes bright and expression amused. He’s smiling. A little bit. His smile is small but Minho’s smiles never have to be wide to land like a rock in Jisung’s chest.
He blinks back into focus as a thought crosses his mind. He points to the sky in revelation.
“Minho loves to do this every year! Usually in the spring or summer.”
“Taxes!” Felix guesses.
“Babe, you’re not on his team,” Chan hushes with a gentle smile and then says, “Fishing!”
“Are we going to ignore that Minho is guest starring in all of these clues?” Seungmin cuts in.
“Can you focus?” Chan chastises, with an edge to his voice that only comes out during game nights.
“Jisung, Chan guessed the word,” Changbin adds, kindly flipping the next card over.
“Don’t help them!” Hyunjin cries.
Jisung is sandwiched between them. The three of them are on one couch and Seungmin, Chan, and Felix are on the one across from them. Jeongin is sitting between Seungmin’s legs on the floor, not commenting on the commotion even though he technically is also on Jisung’s team.
And Minho is just. He’s sitting there all alone on the loveseat. Jisung knows he could fit on it with him. They usually do. Except everyone insisted not only could they not be on the same team but for some reason, but Chanbing had tugged Jisung between him and his boyfriend with a woah there big boy when Jisung tried to stumble toward the love seat anyways.
It’s fine though. Jisung took the redirection like a champ. Mainly because sitting diagonally like this from Minho makes it easy to look at him all the time. Even when he’s reading the next card he still has the beautiful contour of Minho in his peripheral vision. It’s so wonderful. Constant. Warm.
“Bright like Minho’s smile,” Jisung offers, unable to keep the stupid grin off his face.
“What?” Chan snaps at the same time Felix yells, “Sunlight!”
The buzzer goes off a moment later.
“Count that,” Chan demands when Jisung gives him the thumbs up for guessing correctly.
“Felix isn’t on your team,” Hyunjin pipes up.
“This is ridiculous,” Chan mutters and waves a defeated hand. “I’m trading him.”
It takes Jisung a second to realize Chan is talking about him.
“Hey!” he says, delayed but then realizes if he’s traded he’ll be on Minho’s team. “Ok.”
“Minho, we’re teammates now,” Jisung says.
“Is anyone else–” Jeongin elbows Seungmin before he can finish his sentence.
Minho just smiles and reaches over to grab the stack of cards.
“My turn,” he says. His ears, Jisung notices, are red.
────୨ৎ────
After a harsh loss, Jisung takes Changbin’s gentle advice and steps outside onto the apartment’s balcony to get some fresh air. Actually, Changbin had been suggesting Chan to get some fresh air after his entire face turned red with exertion during the final round where Jisung failed to guess a single card correctly and Seungmin seemed to be guessing poorly on purpose while Jeongin sat and disassociated through the whole endeavor. At least Jisung tried.
But anyways, Felix dragged Chan to their bedroom to talk, so Jisung stepped out because it was good advice even if it wasn’t meant for him. Jisung’s wine bottle was almost empty and his whole body was beginning to feel like the insides of a hand warmer.
He leans over the balcony’s railing and lets out a long breath, savoring the cool night air on his skin, privately admitting to himself that he may have drank slightly past his limits. He’s so focused on trying to get the world to stop spinning that he doesn’t realize he’s no longer alone until there’s a little noise behind him. He turns.
It’s Minho of course.
He slides the balcony door shut again, hovering there under the balcony’s one dingy light. For a moment, they just stare at each other in silence. Jisung’s body somehow grows warmer than before, tingles shooting up and down his spine.
“It’s dark out,” he says for lack of anything better to say.
“Here,” Minho says and then bares his teeth.
Jisung stares. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you a light.”
Jisung’s own words catch up with him. His smile is like sunlight.
“Hah,” he says but it comes out weak and Minho dims a little.
“It was funny,” Minho says, his voice a little stilted, delayed like he’s not sure how to say it. “Your bit inside.”
“It wasn’t a bit,” Jisung blurts and then turns back toward the balcony, looking out at the dark sky. He tries to gather his courage, boozy and fragile as it is. “I’m sorry.”
Minho comes closer, hands lining up beside Jisung’s on the balcony railing. They’re still not looking at each other. The night is cloudy and smoggy so there are no stars to speak of but they look up at the dark expanse anyways.
“It’s ok,” Minho says quietly. He doesn’t even ask what Jisung means.
Minho deserves better.
Jisung hasn’t been a good friend lately. This is the first time he’s seen Minho in weeks. It’s the longest they’ve been apart since they met last year. Hyunjin introduced them at a fundraiser for his dance team and they’d hit it off and hung out every day for a month, solidifying the most intense and important friendship Jisung had ever had in his twenty four years of existence.
And then Jisung ruined it.
The friendship became more. Everything became more. He didn’t know what to do except pull back, claim to be busy, spend more time at the gym with Changbin, more time in the office with Chan, more time online with Felix. So busy that he no longer had time for Minho.
Jisung isn’t a wine person. Felix, of all people, knows it. They spent that summer in Australia tipsy and honest. There wasn’t anyone who knew as much about Jisung as Felix did, the strange and odd parts that only alcohol could induce him to share. That was until meeting Minho who draws out all of the strange and quiet parts of Jisung just by existing near him. Being in his presence is its own type of intoxication. He wants more all the time and he doesn’t know how to keep it to himself.
He might have gone even longer avoiding this ultimate confrontation if it wasn’t for Felix who’d lured him over with the false promise of a quiet night in and bottles of wine that would spoil if Jisung wasn’t there to drink them with Chan and him. The wine should have been a sign of something sinister. Because their whole friend group was there at Felix and Chan’s apartment. Game night, Felix said cheerfully when Jisung walked in. Surprise!
He’d wanted to strangle Felix for a moment when he realized it meant that there was Minho, sitting on the love seat, nursing his own glass of wine looking mildly relieved when Jisung walked through the door. Jisung couldn’t leave then, couldn’t make an excuse, could only take the neck of a wine bottle and guzzle it down nearly in one gulp. He hoped it would instill him with enough courage to not spill his guts all over the love of his life while he gave him a shy but cautious look as they settled in for a round of Taboo.
Jisung swallows. Tries to figure out how to put any of that into words.
“I’m actually not very good at Taboo,” is what he says.
Minho hums.
“But you usually win.”
“I’m usually on your team,” Jisung says.
“Felix had a lucky streak tonight.” Minho shrugs. Felix, typically the weak link at game night, had been on fire. Jisung suspected he swapped his own bottle of wine for grape juice.
“It has nothing to do with luck. You just…You understand me like no one else does.” He tries to temper the shaking in his voice so it sounds less like he’s about to cry, but he’s not sure he achieves it. “You always have. And I…”
Jisung bites his lip and takes a deep breath. He can feel all the heat traversing through his body suddenly find a home in his chest, trying to create a blockage from his heart to his throat to the tip of his tongue.
He pushes through it.
“Hyung, I really like you.”
“I like you too,” Minho says.
“No hyung, I really like you. I knew when we met that I’d like you for a long time and I want you to stay in my life… forever.”
“Forever, huh?” Minho says and Jisung still can’t turn to face him. He doesn’t want to see the expression on his face yet. He wants to get it all out. At least once. Minho deserves to hear it.
“Yes,” he says. “I know I’m not always easy to be around.”
It was true in his previous relationships. He was forgetful but passionate, prone to low moods and temporary fascinations with new hobbies and trades. He was clean but not tidy and sentimental about everything including napkins and bar coasters and waxy bakery bags.
He had a habit of holding on to things physically, and when they were gone, the memory of them stayed with him still. Every day, all day he carried those memories and thoughts and feelings around with him whether he wanted to or not.
A gentle pressure on the crook of his elbow halts his thoughts. Jisung lets Minho tug him so they’re facing each other, but he still can’t manage to make eye contact, letting his gaze sink to Minho’s plastic sandals.
“Hey,” Minho says softly, the same tone he uses when trying to coax his cats out from under his bed. There’s another gentle pressure under his chin as Minho presses up with his fingers. Jisung resists for a moment longer before finally looking up at Minho.
He’s smiling. Widely. Not the small forceful thing but the full expanse, lighting the entire night sky with it. Jisung is sure to burn.
“Who said I want easy?” Minho asks, and he was teasing before but now he’s earnest, even through his grin.
“You say that now,” Jisung says weakly but it’s hard to remember what he was saying at all, only that Minho is looking at him so sweetly, and Jisung has missed him so desperately.
“Yes,” Minho agrees. “I’m saying it now. I’m saying I want it all with you, Han Jisung. Now, tomorrow, forever.”
“Hyung, I mean romantically, I really-”
“Jisung.”
Jisung’s mouth snaps shut.
“I know, baby. There’s a reason I’m always on your team,” Minho says softly and then leans forward and kisses him.