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The sunset over the cityscape painted the harsh lines of the buildings in soft pinks and oranges and drew long shadows across the courtyard, little patches of beauty between the daggers of blackness. Wind stirred the leaves on the concrete, dancing in what was left of the daylight, only to be scattered as a squirrel ran through the pile, dashing after whatever food it could scrounge up from the people who’d passed through earlier. Now they were all at home or out for some sort of entertainment, and the absence of witnesses made the fleeting sight all the more potent.
Hyunjin wished he had his watercolor kit with him. It was too dark to paint, but he would have tried anyway. No matter the quality of his phone camera, no photograph taken in the low light could ever do the scene justice, and memory was imperfect for capturing such ethereal visuals. He’d been sitting on the cold stone bench for fifteen minutes, trying to take in all the lines, the depth, the movement of the light that he would somehow translate into the flow of the paint across the wet page.
Eventually, as with all things, it came to an end.
The inspiration was still there, but muted, as the darkness brought with it all the things he’d come here to avoid in the first place. Hurt. Deceit. Betrayal.
Vindication.
His phone rang. Chan. Odd, considering his best friend knew that Hyunjin was on a date tonight. Had been on a date.
“Hey.”
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Chan said, his words quick and his tone high, almost melodic. “Can you stay with Seojun tonight?”
It was the perfect opportunity to lay out what had happened, explain why he was sitting alone in the dark thinking about his next painting instead of being attached at the lips to his date, but that would have taken far more energy than Hyunjin wanted to waste on the asshole. Instead, he said, “What’s wrong?”
Chan sighed, and it was easy to imagine him: back against something solid, eyes closed, hand carding through his dark hair. “He got into the house.”
Hyunjin shot to his feet, all thoughts of his cheating boyfriend gone in an instant. He paced down the sidewalk. “Are you okay? Is Minho okay? Where are you? Did you call the police? What did they say?”
Only Chan’s little huff of laughter stopped him from having a complete worry meltdown. “We’re fine, promise. And yes, the police are here now.” A little quieter, he added, “They’re useless, as usual, but at least it’s documented. Minho refuses to let either of us sleep here until we figure out how he got past the gate without there being any evidence of forced entry.”
“My key.”
Some sort of silent conversation must have happened on their side, because a moment later Minho spoke into the phone instead. “Stop beating yourself up. I can hear it across the city. Do you want me to pack anything for you? We’re heading to a hotel in the next ten minutes. Do not come home alone or I will put you in the air fryer.”
Hyunjin leaned against the nearest building, deep in its shadows. Even the nearest streetlamp didn’t reach him there. “A couple of changes of clothes and my art bag.”
Minho snorted a laugh.
“What?”
“You have art supplies ready to go at a moment’s notice, but not clothes. It’s just very….”
“Stupid? Careless.” Maybe he wasn’t entirely talking about his art bag.
“It’s very you.” Voices exchanged some indistinct words near him, and Minho said something back that he couldn’t quite make out, either. Probably he’d put his hand over the microphone. “I’ll send you where we’re staying. You’ll be safe?”
“I’ll be wherever you are. Seojun and I broke up.” And wasn’t that the understatement of the century.
“Shit. Okay. Okay. I’ll send you the hotel address. Meet us there. We’ve got to drop the babies off at Uncle Felix’s, but that shouldn’t take long.”
“Okay. Tell Chan I said to be careful.”
“What about me?”
Hyunjin smiled. It felt foreign on his face after the night he’d had, but somehow right that Minho had been the one who put it there. “You’re always careful.”
“See? Not stupid.”
*
The hotel was the sort that only people in Chan’s tax bracket could book on short notice: gleaming dark marble floors; soft, layered lighting coming from individually sculpted fixtures; a signature scent that was neither overpowering nor intrusive; and, most importantly, security that recognized him on sight. Chan he would have expected—his best friend’s face was associated with so many pieces of media and high visibility brands that it was basically impossible to avoid him—but Hyunjin was only a somebody in a very small niche of the world, and most of them couldn’t afford hotels like this. Which meant that they’d provided his identity to the staff.
He wondered whether Minho had approved of the Doberman-like man who checked his identification or if they’d gotten into a bodyguard-versus-rent-a-cop staring contest. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
He dragged his fingertips over the wallpaper as a staff member led him to the elevator, the nubbed texture reminding him of the silk scarf Chan had given him for Christmas a couple of years ago. It had been dyed in a spectrum of soft blues so that it looked a little different on him depending on how he wrapped it. He should have asked Minho to grab it; the chill in the air was almost enough to warrant a scarf, and it would have felt nice against his skin.
The elevator, tucked into a corner, was for the special use of only the top couple of floors, because of course Chan had booked a penthouse suite. He secured the key card in his wallet and used the ride to check his reflection in the mirrored walls. It had been long enough since the blowout argument that his face didn’t look so splotchy, and his hair was nicely wind-tousled in that way that his friends complained made him look unfairly like a model. Most days, the comparison made him laugh. On days like today, fresh from the worst date he’d ever had, he couldn’t help wondering whether being pretty hurt more than it helped.
He was barely two steps into the suite and had just managed to slip out of his shoes before Chan engulfed him in a hug. For all that Hyunjin could tower over him in a play fight, when he tucked his face against his best friend’s neck and took a deep breath, he felt far smaller. It wasn’t even the circumference of Chan’s biceps or the width of his shoulders; he simply radiated a warmth that Hyunjin wanted to melt into.
“Want me to kill him?” Chan said, lips resting near Hyunjin’s temple. “Minho knows how to hide bodies.”
Hyunjin laughed, fighting against the impulse to tear up despite not doing so during his actual breakup. Small mercies. “No, you need plausible deniability. Besides, I want to do it.”
Chan pulled away enough to call over his shoulder, “Change of plans. Jinnie needs the murder kit.”
Minho waltzed out of what was presumably the kitchen door, given the ridiculous number of beer bottles he had threaded between his fingers. Did the place come pre-stocked, or had they made a pit stop on the way? “Perfect. He’ll look better in the Domino mask anyway.”
“Hey!” Chan protested, though both ignored him.
“Are we expecting company?” Hyunjin nodded at the drinks.
“No, we’re expecting to all get really drunk.”
Which meant that Minho at least felt halfway decent about the hotel security. Hyunjin took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he attempted to fully extricate himself from Chan’s octopus grasp and succeeded by ninety percent. Chan’s hand resting on the small of his back was grounding, a reminder that his anger was allowed here, and so was his sadness. It didn’t matter where they were, but who they were. It struck him, not for the first time, how strange it was that their little trio had ended up that way.
The suite had a dining table, but they opted for sprawling on the luxurious red velvet furniture in the little seating cluster in the living room. The lights were dimmed, either by hotel design or pre-planning on his friends’ parts, and it left them with a breathtaking floor-to-ceiling view of the dark and sparkling city outside the window. Hyunjin took one corner of the small couch and folded his legs up next to him. He hoped Minho had packed some sweats for him to change into, but that required a shower first, and right now he was comfortable enough in the jeans and light sweater he’d worn on his date.
Minho handed him a beer before settling onto the other end of the couch. Rather than take the armchair, Chan pushed back the heavy custom-carved coffee table and settled on the floor in front of them, one hand curled around Hyunjin’s ankle. The extra beers went on said table along with a small box of Coco Pies that Minho had had tucked under his arm. Hyunjin knew without asking they were specifically for him, because Chan hated the marshmallow flavor and Minho was too badass for sweets.
“Food’s on the way,” Chan said. His gaze stayed on the window, but his thumb traced a light pattern over Hyunjin’s foot. He’d always been tactile, but this was enough that Hyunjin could tell the events of the day were bothering him more than he was letting on.
Hyunjin ran his fingers through Chan’s hair, returning the silent affection. “Tell me what happened.”
Chan started to protest, but Minho spoke up first. “He needs to know, hyung.”
When he didn’t immediately start talking, Hyunjin grabbed his hair and tugged his head lightly back so that he could see his friend’s face. “You literally pay him to keep you safe. You’d think you’d listen to him on occasion.”
“I do no—”
“Oh, you’ve done it now,” said Minho, his smile contrasting against Chan’s scowl.
Hyunjin released his grip and smoothed Chan’s hair down again, playing at consoling him. “Yes, yes, the trust pays him, it’s a return on investment, blah blah. Stop being so pedantic. You know exactly what I mean.”
“He used a big word, Channie. You know he’s serious.”
Wishing they were at home so he had a spare decorative pillow to throw Minho’s way, Hyunjin settled for unwinding from his position and giving the other man a shove with one of his feet. That only got an even wider grin out of him, and the situation probably would have devolved into an all-out play brawl if not for the current circumstances.
“The front gate was open when we got home,” Chan said finally, flopping his head back on the couch and looking between the other two despite the awkward angle.
“With my key.”
“We don’t know that.”
“But probably,” Minho confirmed. “I should have insisted on changing the locks when you realized it was gone.”
“I thought I’d just lost it.”
Chan’s jaw clenched. “If someone stole it from you intentionally, then they were using you to get at me, and I really don’t want to think about that right now.”
Minho leaned in and squeezed Chan’s shoulder, his smile softening into something rarely seen outside of the three of them. “We’ll talk state of the art security systems with electronic key cards and entrance logging tomorrow.”
“Fine,” Chan said with a sigh. There was a reason Minho had assigned himself the role of bodyguard and head of security when Chan had finally admitted that he thought he had a stalker. If left up to Chan, he’d probably still be sleeping with his door unlocked and letting in any stray who gave him the human equivalent of puppy dog eyes. “The front door was locked, but Minho figured out he’s been getting in through the window.”
“Been getting in? This has happened before?” Hyunjin’s voice increased in volume and tension with each word to match his suddenly racing heart.
A loud knock came at the door, and they all jolted upright. Hyunjin managed not to scream—barely—but his chest was so tight he thought he might pass out. Minho went to retrieve the food, and Chan moved up onto the couch, opening his arms so that Hyunjin slotted naturally into them.
“I’m sorry. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you yet. I know it makes you nervous.”
“It should make you more nervous. Getting a few fan love letters in the mail is one thing. This guy has been seven steps beyond that for months—almost a year. I’m not afraid for myself.”
Chan picked up Hyunjin’s hand with his free one, idly playing with his rings. “It does make me nervous, but I’ve always been able to shake it off, because I knew Minho would kick their ass. But that was before I knew they’d been in my bedroom.”
For the third time that night, Hyunjin jolted upright. “Your bedroom? Hyung, he was crossing lines before, but that’s—”
“Dangerous,” Minho said, returning with two of the biggest bags of takeout Hyunjin had ever seen. Apparently stalkers and breakups were hungry work. “He left a note on Chan’s pillow, just like the ones he got before, but it was….”
“Angrier,” Chan said, after a moment. “I’m not sure that’s quite right, but the wording felt stronger than before. Desperate. And there was a picture of me. Asleep.”
The horror must have been evident in Hyunjin’s expression, because once Minho’s hands were free of their dinner, he put one hand to Hyunjin’s cheek. “He’s okay, I’m okay, you’re okay. We’re not going back home until the police have finished their sweep and we’ve had the whole house flipped upside down to check for recording devices and any other ways he might be able to do nefarious things. Also that new security system I’ve promised Channie I won’t talk about until tomorrow.” He punctuated the statement by leaning over and kissing Chan’s forehead, then following it up with another on Hyunjin’s. “Eat. Drink. We’re officially tabling the subject for the night while we celebrate Hyunjin’s plot to eradicate—I’m sorry, never again see that sleazy guy he’s been dating.”
“He wasn’t sleazy.”
Minho and Chan shared a look, but it was Chan who said, “He was kind of sleazy.”
Hyunjin shoved both of them away from him without any real force, squeezing between them so that he could reach the Coco Pies. If ever there was an excuse to have sweets before dinner, he had it tonight. He stuffed half of one into his mouth and sighed around it before he mumbled, “Yeah, he kind of was.”
*
“I never liked him, you know,” Chan said.
“Yeah, I know.”
Copious amounts of food and a couple of beers later, Hyunjin was feeling loose-limbed and far less angry than he’d been only a few hours before. They’d pulled the story out of him slowly, not because he was trying to hide anything from them, but because there had been so many red flags leading up to tonight that he’d ignored. That Seojun had gaslit him into ignoring. And it turned out Hyunjin had been right all along.
Every time it felt like he’d been distracted, distant, always looking at his phone when they were together.
Every time he’d tried out some strange pet name on Hyunjin that felt like he wanted his boyfriend to be someone else.
Every time he’d gifted Hyunjin something that didn’t fit his style or interests.
Every time Hyunjin had found a picture of a naked man on his phone that wasn’t Hyunjin.
Which had been exactly one time, and that had been enough.
“I don’t know what I ever saw in him. No, that’s wrong. He was cute, and he paid attention to me. That was literally it.” Had he really sunk to those kinds of dating lows? This was the last time he was going to start a relationship with a stranger at a club. “I don’t know why I fooled myself into believing anything was still there. I’m not even sure I liked him all that much. Nine months I wasted on that asshole, and he had the nerve to be angry at me for breaking up with him.”
At some point the three of them had ended up squeezed onto the small couch together, Hyunjin smashed in the middle of the two more muscular men. It was the kind of closeness he always wished for, when he was out there in the dating market, and that had probably doomed him from the start. Who could ever live up to his best friends? They’d been together since high school, despite the three of them being in different years, and Hyunjin knew they’d be together for decades more to come. Maybe there would be a time when they’d have to move into separate places and live more separate lives, but he believed in the three of them even more now than he ever had—and there had definitely been some stupid levels of belief in their past.
He snorted a laugh at the memory, causing the other two to give him twin questioning looks. Hyunjin just snuggled more into Chan’s shoulder, tucked his feet under Minho’s legs, and said, “Just thinking about our pact. I’m so glad we were stupid together.”
“You’re drunk,” Minho poked his side.
“Barely. And tell me I’m wrong. The trust—”
“My whole career,” input Chan.
Hyunjin waved a hand at him as if that was irrelevant. “Channie’s noble heart and stupidly good financial sense.”
“Stupidly good lawyer,” Minho corrected.
“Let me be sentimental,” Hyunjin said with a pout. When Minho rolled his eyes and gestured for him to proceed, he said, “Things like tonight happen, and I start to wonder whether I’m just stupid when it comes to reading people, but putting my dumb faith and last won to my name into a bucket with the two of you is the best decision I ever made. So I’m not always wrong about people.”
Minho curled his hand around Hyunjin’s calf. “Obvious conclusion: you’ve been dating other people when you should have been dating us all along.”
Hyunjin broke into giggles. Maybe he was tipsier than he’d thought. “God, that would make things so much simpler. We’d need a bigger bed, though.”
“I need a new bed anyway.”
The tone of Chan’s voice made Hyunjin sit up and look at him, the laughter dying away at his friend’s expression.
“Sorry, I didn’t—I don’t want to bring us back down.” He brushed the hair back from Hyunjin’s face and gently tugged him back to his shoulder. “I just can’t stop thinking about the fact that he saw me in my bed. Asleep. Naked. And I just….” He shuddered hard enough that Hyunjin felt it. “I don’t think I can sleep there again.”
Hyunjin threaded his fingers through Chan’s, and a moment later Minho’s was wrapped around both of theirs.
“I’m changing bedrooms with you, for a start. Let that fucker break in again and see if he likes what he finds. And that means you have to let Hyunjin help you decorate in the new space.”
Hyunjin nudged him with his foot. “Why do you make me decorating sound just as dangerous as you catching the guy?”
“Because it is,” the other two said in unison.
The resulting laugh as Hyunjin tried to shove both of them away ended with him caught in a tight hug between them.
*
When they eventually drifted off to their separate bedrooms, Hyunjin pulled his watercolors out of his art bag and made a valiant attempt at capturing the scene he’d wanted to paint earlier that night. It was terrible, as he expected, but there was something satisfying about getting it into his sketchbook anyway. It was right that a shitty night made for a shitty painting.
With his watercolor sketchbook sitting open to dry, he pulled out his larger mixed media sketchbook and his favorite pencil. It took only a few moments before his hand was flying over the page, the lines appearing without much conscious thought. He could have erased, but he left any stray lines as a badge of his commitment, giving the piece a slightly grubby look that was appealing right now. As the drawing took form, it became three people standing in a circle, their arms wrapped around each others’ shoulders in solidarity. The figures barely resembled him and his friends—he was no photorealist—but he didn’t care.
Two tries at capturing the true beauty in his life in the face of awful things happening. Someone else might call them failed attempts, but Hyunjin already knew both would end up framed and hanging on the gallery wall in his bedroom.
Or maybe in Chan’s new bedroom.
The knowledge that someone had been in their house, had seen his best friend in such a vulnerable position, set his teeth on edge. He couldn’t even fathom how Chan must be feeling right now. How could he sleep? Could he even sleep?
A glance at his phone confirmed it was late, but not so late that they couldn’t manage a decent night’s sleep—particularly since Chan had gotten his manager to clear his schedule for the week. He took a quick shower and changed into the lounge clothes Minho had picked, did a half-assed job of towel drying his hair, and then padded down the hallway to the room Chan had taken. The light was still on, so he only knocked lightly before pushing the door open.
“Hey, do you—”
His mind came to a screeching halt, unable to process the information in front of him. The king-sized bed was set up on the right wall, the whole of it illuminated by the combination of a sconce over the headboard and the nightscape outside the large windows. Minho and Chan were on the bed together, close, with wide eyes that had darted his way the second the door had opened. For a second, he thought that Minho had had the same thought, that Chan might need company and comfort to be able to sleep.
But the hand under Chan’s shirt and his kiss-swollen lips told another story.
“Shit. I’m sorry. I—” Hyunjin turned to go.
“Wait.”
He stopped automatically, his body taking over where his brain suddenly no longer functioned.
“Will you look at us? Please?”
He might have found the strength to keep walking, to go straight back to his room and crawl under the covers and not face the world for a long time, but Chan sounded upset, maybe even in danger of crying. Why would he need to cry about this?
Hyunjin slowly turned back, and it was harder than it had ever been to make eye contact.
If Chan sounded upset, Minho looked it, his face stricken in a way that Minho rarely showed. He was the most reserved of the three of them, the one who took the longest for new people to understand and read, and probably the one who felt the deepest. Hyunjin was perfectly aware that he was sensitive and prone to dramatics, but that expressiveness was more external than internal. Minho tended to be the opposite, so if he appeared distraught then the truth was probably even deeper.
They had pulled apart while his back was turned and were no longer touching, but there was a closeness to the way they sat on the bed. It shouldn’t have been surprising. They were all three always like that, leaning into each others’ orbits like it was purely physics and impossible to resist. Now they looked like two magnets being held apart by some sadistic force, and the knowledge that force was him made him physically ill.
It was enough to make his mouth work again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were—”
“We aren’t.” Chan cringed and then amended, “We weren’t.”
“We weren’t hiding it from you,” Minho said, his voice far calmer than his face. “Today was just…emotional.”
“I wasn’t sure I could ask you, after everything. But you have to know how we feel about you.”
“Channie.” Minho’s tone was softer, but chiding, as if Chan’s statement had been some major revelation and not truth integral to their lives.
“Yeah, of course I know. And you can always ask,” Hyunjin said automatically, desperate to get them back onto familiar ground so that he’d feel less like he was going to vibrate right out of his skin. “You're my best friends. I know you'd never let a relationship come between us."
“Hyunjin-ah,” Minho said, and this time the name was a caress, something saved for those rare moments when he was feeling sentimental or needed to make sure Hyunjin didn’t mistake his sincerity for sarcasm. “You know that’s not what he means.”
Hyunjin swallowed even though his mouth was dry. Did he? Did he know what Chan was really saying, if not that they were and always would be best friends? There was a part of him that tried to shut down that line of thinking, that reminded him he’d broken up with his boyfriend of nine months only a few hours before and that he was emotionally fragile because of it—but it wasn’t true. He was angry at Seojun’s betrayal but not broken up by it. In some ways, it was a relief to be done with him, so that he never again had to wonder if he was really seeing red flags or just being dramatic.
“We’ve been talking about it for a while,” Minho continued, taking over the silence the way he had the lax security at Chan’s house. “But we didn’t know how to bring it up. We want you to have the things you want, too. The people you want. We’re not entitled to you…even if we did have you first.”
Another time, Hyunjin might have laughed at the possessiveness, which he knew to be an attempt at a joke and absolutely not a joke whatsoever. They belonged to each other, always had. But it had never been this.
It had never been stolen kisses behind closed doors when Hyunjin hadn’t even known they were talking about it.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. He’d lost track of how many times those words had come out of his mouth. “I just—I need—”
Chan raised up on his knees as if he was going to get up and come to him, and Hyunjin unconsciously took a step backward. He hadn’t realized he’d done it until Chan froze, the hurt in his eyes as painful as a punch. Minho didn’t stop his steady gaze at Hyunjin, and now that his expression had settled into something calmer, more expected, it was far easier to look at him than Chan.
“You need time to think,” Minho said with a nod. “It’s okay, Hyunjin-ah. Springing this conversation on you was never the intent. We—” He paused and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, eyes flicking toward Chan. “I need you to know that it’s never been only about me and Chan. It’s always been about you, too.”
Hyunjin nodded back, though he wasn’t entirely sure what he was agreeing with. Every part of him was screaming, but none of him was unified or could even understand what the parts were trying to communicate. He needed to get out of there. He needed space. He needed a dark place with a soft pillow to cry into.
He needed a hug, but he couldn’t have that, because the people who would have given it were sitting together on Chan’s bed and trying not to look like they’d been kissing only minutes before.
Without another word, he turned and left the room, closing the door gently behind him. He didn’t run, didn’t make a sound, and once he was inside his room with the door closed, he at least had the satisfaction of getting three of the things he needed.
*
It had taken a feat of strength never before seen in their household for Hyunjin to leave his room the next morning, but since the bathroom was in the hallway and not attached to his room, he had little choice. He tried to avoid looking at himself in the mirror, knowing just how pitiful the sight would be, but his swollen red eyes and down-turned lips were nearly enough to start him crying all over again.
The worst part was that he didn't even really know why he was crying. He was overwhelmed, and that was part of it, and not an insubstantial part. There was embarrassment mixed in there, too, because he knew, without a doubt, that he'd made a fool of himself the night before. He wasn't used to feeling that way around Minho and Chan. He thought they'd already faced down all their most mortifying moments together, but he'd obviously been wrong.
And this one he was facing alone.
He pulled his hair back from his face and made himself go through the steps of his morning routine, trying to ignore the swoop of his stomach when he saw just how carefully they had packed everything for him. It was stupid that his best friends knowing his skincare regimen made him want to tear up again. He was never going to get rid of those splotches on his cheeks if he didn’t cut it out, and he was never going to be able to face anyone, much less them, if he didn’t look somewhat put together.
Someone knocked at the door, and he jumped so hard he nearly splattered his moisturizer all over the bathroom wall. He pressed one hand to his chest, trying to calm his pounding heart as he braced himself for what voice would come. Though it hardly mattered; he wasn’t ready to see either of them.
“The police are dropping by in a few minutes,” Minho said without preamble, his voice muffled by the thick wood. “They may want to talk to you. I didn’t want you to be surprised.”
Hyunjin leaned against the countertop and stared at himself in the mirror. He looked almost normal, so maybe he wouldn’t sound how he felt—unmoored, unsure, afraid of hurting and being hurt. “Okay, thank you.”
The carpet was too plush for him to hear the retreating footsteps, but he counted them down anyway, trying his hardest not to imagine Minho joining Chan in the kitchen, sides pressed together as they made breakfast. Or Chan’s arms going around Minho’s neck teasingly as he laughed at the other’s sarcasm and half-hearted attempts to pull away from the affection. Or the way they both looked at him when he entered the room, like something had sparkled and grabbed their undivided attention.
Hyunjin closed his eyes, as if that could block out his imagination. Even if it could, it wouldn’t have mattered, because nothing in his head was actually imagined. It was everyday life, if a bit idealized compared to the deadlines, travel schedules, and long days that generally made up Chan’s life. His own calendar was significantly more open, with most days being made up of sessions in the corner of his bedroom that was an art studio or journeys for inspiration. Sometimes those trips let him tag along with Chan, at least partly. Minho had done a lot of that since naming himself Chan’s bodyguard, soon after the stalking had started. Maybe it wasn’t an official position, but it had made them all feel better. Sure, Chan’s company had protection with him during official activities, too, but they wouldn’t take a knife for Chan the way Minho would.
He got dressed in jeans and a shirt he didn’t recognize—maybe one of Minho’s—and forced himself to act as normal as possible as he joined his friends on the other side of the suite. He could hear more than two voices, and it loosened something in his chest to know that he’d have a buffer for this first meeting. God, why did it feel like he was going on a blind date instead of sitting down with his best friends of fifteen years?
Two police officers had come, and Hyunjin had the impression one outranked the other just by the posture and the fact that only one of them sat. They looked up as he came into the room but didn’t address him with more than a perfunctory bow. Chan smiled at him, a tentative thing, and Minho only locked eyes with him and didn’t look away until one of the officers asked him a question. Hyunjin settled in the chair farthest away, the one against the window so that he could lean his cheek against the cool glass and gaze down at the city while the others talked. It was already bright outside, but they were facing south, so the sun didn’t blind him. On the contrary, it did interesting things with light and shadow, and he should have appreciated the resulting colors down in the city below, but he couldn’t concentrate.
“You checked the cameras?” Minho asked. He and Chan were sitting separately, which was good for Hyunjin’s sanity but meant that Minho’s posture and expression came across almost hostile. Chan and Hyunjin always softened him; maybe the arrangement was on purpose, in this case.
The officer who was still standing swiped at the tablet in his hand and read aloud, sounding bored, “Both external cameras showed signs of tampering, one being disconnected from the power entirely and the other tilted so that it no longer captured the walkway. Cameras from neighboring homes and businesses have been pulled but are still under review due to the long window of time.”
“What do you mean?” Hyunjin asked, surprising even himself by speaking up. “I was home until almost five.”
Chan and Minho exchanged a look before Chan said, “He was in my bedroom.”
Hyunjin blinked at him, then looked at Minho for some hint of what they were talking about. He already knew the guy had been in Chan’s bedroom, that he’d taken pictures while Chan was asleep and—
Hyunjin gasped and slapped a hand over his mouth as if that could belatedly stifle the sound. “He took pictures while you were sleeping and you think he stayed there. In hiding? That he was there after you left and while I was home alone? Oh god, I’m going to be sick.”
He leaned forward in his seat, elbows to his knees, and cradled his face in his hands. It wasn’t that the guy taking pictures while Chan was sleeping wasn’t already horrifying. That was the most horrifying. But it was a finite event, something that happened and was over, just like every other time the creep had dropped off notes or keepsakes. To think he was in the house, lingering, probably watching…he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel safe being home alone again.
Gentle touches roused him from his panic enough to part his fingers and see that Minho and Chan were crouched at his sides. Minho’s hand curled over his outer thigh, grip just strong enough to be reassuring. Chan had Hyunjin’s wrist in his grasp and gently pried his hand away from his face so that he could hold it instead.
“We don’t know for sure,” Chan said softly, his thumb tracing over Hyunjin’s knuckles. “That’s why they’re looking at footage for the whole day. But even if he wasn’t there, we know better now what he’s capable of and can be more careful. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“That’s my line,” Minho said, nudging Chan’s shoulder with his before looking at Hyunjin and saying dryly, “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Hyunjin laughed, and it was a little wet around the edges, but he managed to keep the tears at bay. The emotional tailspin of the last eighteen hours was really starting to weigh on him. “I’m supposed to be comforting you, hyung.” He put his other hand over Chan’s. “This psycho can’t have you.”
We’re not entitled to you…even if we did have you first.
The officer on the couch cleared his throat. “The property is cleared, so you’re welcome back inside at any time.”
Minho squeezed Hyunjin’s leg one last time before standing up. He pointed to the coffee table where a handful of manilla folders rested. “Are those my files?”
The other man nodded though his expression was strained. “Copies of the whole case file, everything back to late last year. Though I can assure you my people are giving this their utmost attention. Any independent investigation is unnecessary and may actually hinder—”
Minho waved away the guy’s condescending tone. “If I decide I need to go behind your back and figure this out, believe me, you’ll know it.”
With a little amused eye roll just for Hyunjin, Chan stood up, too, and placated Minho’s annoyance with a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, officers. I appreciate everything you’ve done and continue to do. You’ll let me know once you have an update on the security footage?”
In the time it took for him to usher out the cops, all of Hyunjin’s anxiety returned tenfold, and it was all he could do to stay in the chair and not run back to his room. Last night’s confusing conversation was one thing, but when combined with the new information about the stalker’s whereabouts the previous day, he thought it was probably a miracle he hadn’t curled into a fetal position and gotten stuck that way.
Minho picked up the folders and waved them in Chan’s direction. “I’ll make sure Manager-nim has these and then head over to the house and make sure they haven’t left it wide open.”
“You’re leaving?” Hyunjin said, and he hated how small his voice sounded.
“No,” Chan said in that tone he rarely used but that meant he was going to get his way. No one could resist that voice. “Stay for breakfast, Min. We should talk.”
“Yeah,” Minho said, and Hyunjin could feel his eyes even if he refused to return the gaze. “I need more coffee anyway.”
*
The atmosphere around their morning meal was as different from dinner the night before as Chan’s music was from American bluegrass. They sat around the small round dining table this time, chairs oriented so that they were equally spread around it. No one was too close to anyone else, no one was touching. The few times they’d brushed elbows while getting everything situated or bumped knees under the table, it had barely gotten a quick “sorry” and then they’d ignored it.
And Hyunjin had a feeling it was entirely for his benefit.
He poked at his rice with his chopsticks. He’d taken a couple of bites, but he hadn’t tasted much, and he was afraid of adding fuel to his already-roiling stomach. “I’m sorry,” he said, when he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “I made things awkward, and I didn’t mean to. I was just…surprised.”
“Surprised at what, specifically?” Minho asked. His appetite didn’t seem affected, but his mood certainly had been. Hyunjin just didn’t know if it was because of what had happened the previous night, the cops, or the fact that he wasn’t out there fixing the house right now.
“I didn’t know that you two were—” He gestured between them.
Minho snorted a laugh, and it wasn’t the amused kind. “Of course that’s what you meant.” He looked at Chan. “Do you want to take this or should I?”
Chan wadded up his napkin and tossed it at him. “Behave. Last night when you walked in was the first that had happened. We’d barely been kissing for a minute—”
“At least ten.”
Chan grabbed Minho’s own napkin just so he could crumple it up and throw that, too. “It isn’t that we haven’t wanted to, but we were waiting.”
Hyunjin wasn’t stupid. Despite how flustered he’d been walking in on his best friends making out, how confused he’d been, how crushed he’d been that they hadn’t told him, he’d understood there was more to it. More than just being worried that he’d gotten his feelings hurt. They were a unit, the three of them, so of course there was more to it. He knew at his core that they would want his buy-in, that they wouldn’t want him to feel awkward about it, that if the relationship made him uncomfortable they might even stop. For his sake.
“Waiting to tell me.”
“No, Jinnie, we were—” Chan laughed, and Minho raised an eyebrow at him as if to say see why I’m being grouchy? “We were waiting for you. I didn’t think we were subtle about it.”
“We weren’t,” Minho said dryly.
“You said you want me to have the people I want, too.”
Minho scowled. “Last month I told you that you deserved better than that creep Seojun, but that if you were happy with him then I could try to be happy for you.”
“You’re a good friend!”
“I also said I’d take you on as many fancy dates as you want, if that was the bar. Not hard when the bar’s in hell, by the way. And I’d take you on the not-so-fancy really special ones, too, the ones where I’d get to watch your eyes crinkle around the edges when you laughed or wipe away your tears when you cried at something silly and sentimental.”
“You’re…a really good friend?”
“He’s not that good of a friend.”
Minho threw back both of the napkins and looked ready to start throwing food, too, if Chan hadn’t shifted in his seat enough to catch Minho’s hand and thread their fingers together. It was a true spectacle of nature just how quickly their scrappy alley cat friend turned into a cute, pampered kitten with one soft touch and one—admittedly beautiful—smile from Chan. Hyunjin couldn’t even say this was the first time he’d witnessed such a thing. He had even been the one smiling and touching on occasion.
Chan turned that smile on him. “We want you to have everything you want, Jinnie. Everyone. We just wanted a chance first to ask if those people could ever be us.”
“He has stupid amounts of feelings for you. It’s kind of nauseating, really.” Minho’s eyes had been fixed on the table where his and Chan’s hands came together, but he looked up at Hyunjin at that, a hint of a smile touching one corner of his mouth. “I like you a normal amount. A normal non-friend amount.”
“You’re…in love with me?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Minho glanced at Chan and then amended his answer. “Maybe.”
“And not in a friendly way?”
“God, yes!” Minho said, his laugh some mixture of disbelief and probably frustration. “I love your stupid dumb face, and so does Channie, and we only kissed last night because we were happy you’d finally ditched your worthless boyfriend and we might finally have a chance, and we got a little worked up about it.”
Now that it was out in the open, that he finally got it, he could admit that maybe a little of his nighttime crying jag had been for the loss of something he’d never really consciously considered beyond teenage crushes. If he was honest with himself, he’d never wanted to consider it for exactly the reason it had upset him—how it would feel to be the person left out of that equation.
But what they were offering didn’t have those kinds of bounds, did it?
He was trying to think of the words to explain his racing thoughts in a comprehensible way when his phone rang. He debated ignoring it, but he didn’t want to risk missing anything that could be relevant to Chan’s case. He pulled it from his pocket and stared at it for several seconds before he looked up at his best friends in the entire world with an apologetic expression for the shitty timing.
He answered the call. “What the fuck do you want, Seojun?”
*
“I can go back to his place,” Hyunjin said, wringing his hands as he paced the length of the suite and back again.
“Absolutely not. I don’t care if he’s fixated on Chan or not. There’s still someone out there who could mean you harm, and I don’t want you going anywhere without one of us.”
“You’re going somewhere without one of us.” Hyunjin poked Minho in the chest with one finger only to have it be captured in the older’s grasp.
“I have hand-to-hand combat training and can pick the lock on a pair of handcuffs with the tool I have hidden in my boot.”
“It’s fine.” Chan had been pretending that cleaning up from breakfast was just as important as the discussion, but Hyunjin knew he needed to be doing something with his hands to stay calm. Now that thing was dropping a hand onto the back of each of their necks, like they were a pair of pups and he was keeping them focused on learning a new trick. “Seojun can come here, bring whatever he needs to bring, and then get out. I’ll be here if Jinnie needs backup. You go get the new security system sorted so we can go back home. And burn my sheets, if the police haven’t taken them for evidence.”
Minho lifted Hyunjin’s hand and held it to his cheek, so briefly that Hyunjin could have missed it, and then he twisted in Chan’s grasp to kiss him. That, too, was quick, and when Minho left them behind to finish getting ready, Chan’s stunned look made Hyunjin giggle.
“What? You’re allowed to kiss him.”
“I don’t want to make you any more uncomfortable than I’ve already made you. I know you’re not ready to give us an answer.”
Hyunjin slipped a little closer, and Chan’s hand naturally slid from his neck onto his shoulder. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable.” At Chan’s incredulous expression, he added, “Really. I was surprised and upset. I’m still…processing. But I was never uncomfortable, hyung. You’re my people, no matter what.”
He kissed Chan’s cheek before he stepped back and wandered into the kitchen to make sure they had some drinks stocked. If he knew anything about his ex, it was that the guy wouldn’t just drop off a box of Hyunjin’s things at the door and leave, however optimistic Chan wanted to be about it. He would want to come in and sit down with drinks so he could try to talk his way out of the hole he’d dug for himself. It wasn’t the first time, but it was officially the last time he’d share air with the asshole. He might as well make it as painless as possible by humoring him until the end.
Minho walked in as he closed the fridge. He still had the folders, and he pulled one from the stack and placed it on the kitchen counter.
“I thought those were for Chan’s managers.”
“They are,” Minho said, blinking at him innocently as he patted the spare file. “This one is for the private investigators I’m hiring at the end of the week if they haven’t found the asshole.”
Hyunjin tried and failed to suppress a smile. “Not going behind their backs, huh?”
“Not yet. And after I do, I’ll be sure to tell them. Loudly and in the press.”
He kissed Minho’s cheek. “Be careful and hurry back.”
Minho looked like he was trying not to show how pleased he was with the kiss, simple as it was, which meant he was very pleased. “I’ll have my phone. Call me if you want me to come back early and kick his ass. It’s not too late to pull out the murder kit.”
“Neither of us would look very good in an orange jumpsuit.”
“The cops can’t catch a humble stalker. They’d definitely never catch us.”
*
Seojun was still pretty. His features weren’t as delicate as Minho’s nor his shoulders as broad as Chan’s, but Hyunjin wasn’t so biased that he couldn’t recognize why he’d been attracted to the man in the first place. His hair was dark and straight, silky to run his hands through, and it framed sharp eyes, a rather small nose, and lips that smirked too often but had smiled exactly the way Hyunjin had wanted on the night they’d met. Seojun’s looks had been the spark, the thing that had drawn them together so they could start the thing they’d had. Hyunjin could be far kinder to himself about the beginnings than he could about the middle. That had been a mess of supposed misunderstandings and near breakups, heated conversations and mediocre makeup sex.
He could be a little stupid when it came to relationships; this morning’s breakfast conversation was case in point.
Today Seojun was dressed in apology blue, because Hyunjin had once told him that it suited his complexion, and he’d leaned hard into it ever since. Funny how he hadn’t realized that until now.
“Hey, baby.” He had a bag slung over one shoulder, but it wasn’t nearly big enough to hold the quantity of things he’d proclaimed needed returning.
“Don’t call me that.” Hyunjin stepped back and gestured for him to come in, not because he actually wanted it, but because it would hopefully avoid causing a scene that would result in calling hotel security to remove him from the premises. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Aww, come on. Don’t be like that.” Seojun caught Hyunjin’s wrist as he entered, tugging him past the doorway that led into the kitchen and into the living room with its wall of windows. “Damn. Must be nice living off idol money.”
Hyunjin followed along before pulling his arm away as gently as he could manage. This was Seojun’s way. They’d argue about something—usually something Seojun had done or said—and Seojun would try to convince Hyunjin he’d misunderstood. But first, he’d toss in some insignificant comment that he knew would push Hyunjin’s buttons just to start a dumb fight, all for the purpose of blaming him for overreacting to the one and proving to him that overreaction applied neatly to the other.
And it had worked. Repeatedly. No wonder Minho had tried to convince him he could do better. If only he’d learned sooner.
“You can put the bag there,” he said, pointing to the coffee table and pointedly refusing to engage in the petty fight. Seojun knew very well that he had invested in Chan’s production business early on and that any money he made from royalties now was part of that deal. It was a very stupid deal forged as teenagers that Chan should never have upheld, but Chan was good people like that. “Is that everything?”
“Come on, Hyunnie.” He drew the name out, pronouncing it more like the English word honey, and while it had always mildly annoyed him, now it made his skin crawl. “Let’s sit and have a drink, talk about last night. You didn’t let me explain before you ran off.”
“Fine.” He would have been more annoyed if he hadn’t expected this. “We’ve got water, banana milk, protein shakes—”
“Coffee?”
Hyunjin almost raised an eyebrow. Seojun had always said he hated coffee, but maybe that was another of his acts, and he’d just forgotten which part he was playing today. “Sure. It’ll a take a minute.”
He expected the man to follow him and use the captive time to try to charm his pants off, but instead Seojun plopped onto the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table, which had probably cost more than the man’s whole apartment. “I’ll just stay here and enjoy the kind of views that ten million won a night gets you.”
Not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth, Hyunjin escaped to the kitchen and took a minute fiddling with the espresso machine before he figured out it was the kind that took pods, just not the kind of pods they used at home. He found a stock of those in one of the drawers, the appropriate mugs in the right-hand cabinet, and got everything brewing without much trouble.
He leaned against the counter as he waited, eyes catching once again on the folder that Minho had left behind and smiling in spite of the current test of his patience. Out of curiosity, he flipped open the front cover and scanned the police report that was on top. It was nothing he didn’t know, just details of the first time Chan had gone to the police, after Minho and Hyunjin had convinced him that no, this level of obsession was not just a fan being a little expectedly feral. They’d done some investigation, but there wasn’t much for them to do with some letters and odd presents being left in places fans shouldn’t be accessing. It was nothing as invasive as this latest incident, but criminals always started somewhere.
The machine hissed behind him and the hot liquid spurted into the waiting cup while Hyunjin kept flipping the pages, getting more and more on board with Minho’s private investigator plan as he saw how little real progress there had been. He’d known that was the case, but it was one thing to hear his friends complain and another to actually see the pitiful legwork that had been done to help Chan. He wondered if it would have even gotten this much attention if Chan hadn’t been someone rich and famous.
The last couple of pages started with the previous day’s report, and Hyunjin hesitated with the corner of the paper pinched between his fingers. He could see the paperclip on the next sheet and fully expected that it was a copy of the photograph Chan had received, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to see it. It was already bad enough that the picture had been taken in the first place, and then it had to be added to a government file for theoretically anyone in law enforcement to see, and now Hyunjin was just poking around for fun? Despite his near panic attack that morning, it hardly even mattered how he felt when it came to this.
He almost stopped there and closed the folder, but something prickled at the back of his neck—not quite a sixth sense, but a feeling all the same, and he turned the page.
It was the picture.
The picture.
It was a naked man asleep with his back to the camera, and Hyunjin had seen it before. He hadn’t realized who it was, with the indistinct angle and hidden features, but he’d seen it and assumed it was evidence of Seojun cheating on him.
The naked man that Hyunjin had seen on Seojun’s phone—it was Chan.
His bare feet hit the carpet, and he stumbled into the living room, but Seojun was already gone. He spun around almost wildly, checking every angle to make sure the psycho he’d been dating wasn’t hiding somewhere, waiting for him, but no. Hyunjin wasn’t the one he wanted. The dim hallway seemed impossibly long, and the closed door at the very end that should have been a barrier between Chan and danger now kept Hyunjin from seeing what was happening.
With shaking hands, he pulled out his phone. Minho picked up on the first ring, and Hyunjin didn’t wait for a greeting. “Seojun is the stalker. Call the police. I can’t let him hurt Chan.”
“Hyunjin don’t—”
He hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket, the movement far smoother and calmer than the roiling sea that was his brain. His feet moved without any real plan, taking him down the hall to glance into each open room as he went. He’d kept his door closed that morning during his emotional crisis, so Seojun had to have opened it, looking for Chan. He crept up to the last door and pressed his ear to it. There was mumbling on the other side, but the privacy offered by the suite also blocked him from hearing anything substantive.
He knew he shouldn’t. That he should wait for the police, or Minho, or do anything other than go inside. Chan wouldn’t want him to put himself in danger, preferring to take that burden on himself.
Which was exactly why he was going to do it.
He pushed open the door.
Seojun turned to him, an unnatural smile stretching across his face. Alone, it would have been creepy but paired with the knife he was holding to Chan’s neck, it was the single most terrifying thing Hyunjin had ever seen. “Hey, baby. I wondered when you’d figure out I never cared about you for a second. How could I when Chan-ah was here?”
Chan opened his mouth to say something, but the second a sound came from his mouth, Seojun pushed the tip of the knife hard enough that a single drop of blood beaded on Chan’s neck.
“You don’t want to hurt him.” Hyunjin wished he was the kind of person who could sound confident and strong in the face of danger, but his voice trembled as much as his body.
“Of course I don’t.” Seojun tightened the arm that was looped around Chan’s waist, tugging him so that his back pressed more firmly against his chest. The blood dripped down the blade and onto his fingers, but he didn’t appear to notice. “I want him to listen. I gave him gifts and letters and fucking songs I wrote in his honor, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. I knew he was the sort of man that needed to meet in person before he would really hear me. But you can’t just walk up to someone like him.”
He needed to clear a path for Chan to make a run for it, if the opportunity came. Hyunjin knew that Seojun didn’t pose a danger to him so long as Chan was in the hotel, and he could use that to his advantage—that, and the fact that he knew how Seojun’s mind worked, how he did what he wanted, took any dissenting opinion as incorrect, and twisted every word to fit his personal narrative. Hyunjin just needed that narrative to work in his favor for once.
He took a step into the room, not toward Seojun and Chan, but in the opposite direction, toward the little velvet settee that was pressed against the floor-to-ceiling window. “You wanted him to notice you, so instead you got me to notice you. That makes no sense.”
Seojun made a disgusted noise. “You noticed me because you’re simple. All it takes is a smile and a few flattering remarks, and you’re tripping over yourself to get on your knees. Chan is more complex than that. I didn’t need you—I needed information.”
He shouldn’t care what the asshole had to say, but the criticism struck deeper than Hyunjin liked. Which was exactly what Seojun wanted, so Hyunjin let him have it. Let him see his hurt expression and how it made him pace in agitation. “Don’t call me stupid. Why do you do that? Do you think it makes you look good in front of Chan?”
“He knows exactly how you are,” Seojun said, nuzzling his cheek against Chan’s temple. Chan’s eyes squeezed shut, suffering through the forced affection without moving enough to prompt another threat of injury. “Needy and possessive. You hang onto him like he’s the only thing in your life that matters and you just expect him to follow along like an eager little puppy. But he’s not a dog. He’s a wolf. How could he ever think of you that way? That’s not how people like him work. He needs someone who can match his strength. Not some sycophant who can’t even pay his own bills.”
“That’s not what this is. He’s my best friend.” Another agitated step, punctuated by a hand running through his long hair, a nervous gesture Seojun hated.
“Is he? Because you don’t talk about him like that. Not even close.”
Hyunjin stilled. If he hadn’t already started to sort through his feelings for Chan, the targeted comment would have set him off. He grabbed the decorative pillow from the settee and threw it, not at Seojun and Chan, but in a directionless, dramatic way. “Stop it! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Seojun took a step forward, pressing Chan’s knees against the mattress as the two of them faced him. The bed was between them now, but the important part was that Hyunjin was no longer blocking the exit. A few more steps to the left and Chan could get around the door and out of the room, maybe even pull it shut between them.
Now Hyunjin just had to figure out how to communicate to Chan that he should take the out.
“You think I didn’t notice?” Seojun’s tone was eager, the way it always was when he got Hyunjin in a corner, when he knew he had almost won the argument. “Every time you brought him up, your face would change. You’d light up like a Christmas tree, all stupid multi-colored flashing lights and shit. You really don’t hear yourself, do you? No wonder you never realized I didn’t actually care about you.”
“Then what was the point?” Hyunjin tensed his face muscles until his eyes started to water. “If I’m so stupid that I can’t even see how desperately in love I am, what could I possibly tell you that mattered?”
Chan made a noise, but thankfully Seojun couldn’t read him the way Hyunjin could, and he only laughed. “Are you kidding? Your obsession was better than I ever hoped. I thought I would get access, maybe a few details, but you gave me everything. I never would have known he sleeps naked without you, so thank you.”
Hyunjin couldn’t have tempered his reaction to that if he’d wanted to. He gripped the arm of the settee to keep himself from launching across the room. “Someone being comfortable in their own skin isn’t an excuse for breaking into their bedroom and staring at them you sick motherfucker.”
Seojun only laughed harder. “Always so dramatic. God, it’s such a relief that I don’t have to pretend to like you anymore. You did me a favor finding that picture on my phone. Don’t pretend it’s something dirty now when you already recognized it for what it was—another man in my life.” He stroked his hand over Chan’s stomach. “Chan-ah understands why I couldn’t see him until now.”
“I introduced you to him!” Hyunjin wished he had more pillows to throw, more props for his theatrical fit that only felt half fake at this point. “We literally went to dinner together. He’s seen you multiple times.”
“Hyunjin—” It was the first actual word out of Chan’s mouth, cut off by the sharp tug of Seojun’s hand on his torso.
“You don’t have to placate him, baby.” The term of endearment sounded even worse when directed at Chan than it had at Hyunjin. “I’m not surprised he doesn’t get it, even after I’ve explained. I’m surprised he figured out the truth at all, to be honest. He’s not a big picture thinker, not good at putting together context clues. He even saw a picture of you and didn’t realize. Imagine seeing you, someone he’s deluded himself into thinking could love him…seeing your beautiful body and not realizing it was you.” His lips twisted. “Poor little Hyunjin. I almost feel sorry for you. How did you manage to figure it out?”
Hyunjin thought of Minho’s file, how a private investigator wouldn’t be necessary now, because the crime had solved itself. Hyunjin couldn’t even really claim credit for that. It was true that he wasn’t the smartest or the strongest in their trio.
His eyes flicked toward the door, to their only hope of getting out of this unscathed, and then back to Seojun without reacting.
No. He was the most dramatic, and sometimes that was all he needed.
He crossed his arms and huffed, yet another mannerism his ex had professed to hate. “You’re forgetting something, Seojun.”
Minho sprang into the room, immobilizing Seojun’s knife hand with a twist of his wrist before the man had time to react. He shoved Chan onto the bed, breaking him out of the attacker’s grasp before he forced Seojun face first onto the floor. He squeezed his wrist even harder, and the knife dropped silently to the plush carpet. Minho kicked it away, and it disappeared under the bed.
Hyunjin made a sound that was almost a sob as he finished what he was saying.
“Chan isn’t the only one I talk about like I’m in love with him.”
*
The door had closed behind the police and paramedics thirty seconds ago, but it hadn’t clicked that they were alone again.
Minho had, unsurprisingly, taken up a defensive position in front of Chan, on his feet and facing the front door, as if the cops were one minor fumble away from Seojun coming back to finish what he’d started. He probably wasn’t wrong. He was also shaking and trying to pretend that he wasn’t, but Hyunjin could see it.
Hyunjin, on the other hand, hadn’t been able to stop moving. He’d pulled all of Seojun’s contact information from his phone before leaving the device in the kitchen while he grabbed bottles of water for everyone that no one actually drank. He’d gotten pillows from his bedroom to prop behind Chan on the couch and make him more comfortable as the paramedics had sterilized the cut on his neck. He’d told the story of his discovery and his distraction techniques three times in succession, ignoring the increasingly intense looks from his best friends as he described how he’d put himself in danger. He’d finally settled—if it could be called that—next to that giant window once again, watching as the ant-sized version of Seojun and the police got into the waiting squad car and drove away.
“Please,” Chan said, and then broke into sobs.
Minho and Hyunjin immediately rushed to either side of him on the couch, wrapping their arms around him and pressing in close. Hyunjin’s tears joined Chan’s, and if Minho’s eyes didn’t stay entirely dry, that was between his face and Chan’s neck.
The shadows had stretched into the room before Chan was able to speak again, and he did so without allowing either of them to pull away, arms locked around their waists.
“Let’s go home.”
*
The last throw pillow had taken the longest to arrange, because no matter where Hyunjin put it on the bed, it felt out of balance. Finally, he’d tossed it onto one of the chairs he’d positioned in the corner and decided it would do for now. The seating area had been a last-minute addition anyway, and Chan would have to forgive his lack of attention to detail there. They’d probably never use it anyway, but it added an intimate air to the space that Hyunjin found appealing.
No trace of what had once been Minho’s bedroom remained now. The walls had been painted, the new four-poster bed had been placed against a different wall, and the minimalist decor had been replaced with an entire gallery wall of paintings and a tasteful number of trinkets in strategic places around the room, enough to look good but not so much that it was a pain to keep dusted.
He stood with his hands on his hips, surveying his work, until a pair of arms slid around him, the accompanying chin resting on his shoulder. Even without looking, he would have known it was Chan from the way his weight pressed into his back. Chan liked to cling in ways that their other boyfriend did not, all loose limbs and casual affection, where Minho’s every touch and grasp had a purpose, an endgame.
“Please tell me we get to move in tonight.”
“So impatient,” Hyunjin said, barely holding back a laugh.
“Not my fault you teased me with a custom-made bed and then made me wait a month to actually use it.”
“Oh yes, because you’ve so disliked your time in Jinnie’s bed.” Minho sauntered into the room, running his hands over the finalized placement of the décor without moving anything. He knew better by now.
“That is not the point.” Chan released Hyunjin in favor of starting his own exploration of the room. He’d seen it as it was coming along, of course, but it was the first time all three of them had been in it together since Hyunjin had started the finishing touches.
“Oh, what exactly is the point?”
“That it’s ours,” Hyunjin said, even though the question hadn’t been intended for him. The other two turned to him, matching questions in their eyes. “I didn’t decorate it just for Chan.”
And even though the thought had been in the back of his head for weeks, he didn’t realize how true it was until the words were out of his mouth. The lush area rug under the bed was to protect his feet from that first morning shock of cold hardwood floors. The staggered shelves along the west wall and strategically placed scratching posts let Minho’s babies enjoy the room with them. The heavy velvet curtains kept everything from prying eyes and allowed Chan to sleep even during the brightest parts of the day.
There were three chairs in his little seating cluster.
Three sets of king-sized pillows.
Three toothbrushes in the adjoining bathroom.
Minho reached him first, pulling him into a kiss that took his breath away, and not because he hadn’t been prepared. He’d learned that dating Minho was always a surprise, but that he wasn’t always oblivious to the man’s overtures when he knew what to look for.
Chan, as had been typical since they started officially dating, came toward him with an open smile, answering the question even before he spoke. He slid an arm around each of them before stealing his own kiss. “Ours,” he agreed. “We should turn your old room into an art studio.”
“It would match the paint that’s already on the hardwoods.”
Hyunjin poked Minho’s chest in weak protest, though he couldn’t hide his pleased smile. “Okay, but only if we remodel that one together.”