Archive of Our Own

The moment never stops replaying in Minho's head. It flits across his eyelids like some memory of a distant life he can no longer grab hold of yet lives in the caves of his brain as if the moment needed to make camp there.

He wishes he had no such camps in his skull roasting like a marshmallow over a fire. It's stealing all his sense from him and making his fingers twitch in agitation.

Kim Seungmin is a sweet little dog. Kim Seungmin is also the naughtiest pup who would piss on the carpet or chew up the couch on purpose simply because he knows he'd get scolded and smacked around for it. Minho often loathes how much he secretly has a likeness toward canines.

Maybe just one in particular. No, not Chan. Everyone has a likeness toward him and it's impossible not to. It's that other one that tries to get away with as much as he can yet still woofs in glee when he's been caught in a snuff. For some terribly odd reason, it's that canine that makes him want to start kneading dough at the biscuit factory with his nonexistent cat paws.

A horrible affliction, yes. Quite possibly terminal if he went to the fondness doctor to find out just what is wrong with him.

It's partly due to Chan's bubble message and partly due to his own private, highly classified, and personal reasons that he chooses one Kim Seungmin to give him a quick smooch. A little for the fans and a little for himself. No, not the fans. Just for himself. Minho doesn't like being so selfish, especially for something as silly as a perceived stunt, but he will craft things toward his liking when he has the opportunity to do so. Anyone would if they'd been up on that stage reading that particular verbiage off a slip of paper.

One kiss. A peck on the cheek. Because of love, he has to remind himself. That's what the paper said anyway. It's more than Seungmin has ever given him and about the most Minho would tolerate in front of too many people.

He isn't much for outward displays of affection in the face of the public. It's preferred that his affections remain private and reserved for only those he wants and cares enough to share them with. Seungmin, on both he same and other hand, isn't much for outward or inward displays of affection when it comes to his Minho-hyung. He'll reluctantly accept it from others, maybe pretend that reluctant part, but he certainly gives a hard refusal when Minho is the one offering (or, at times, being playfully forced).

None of that particularly matters to him in the moment of his rather quick decision. Those sorts of thoughts only perturb and soak up his brain space when he's alone at night sulking about something or absolutely nothing. Yes, Lee Minho sulks about the dumb puppy who'll wag his tail and give licks to everyone else except for him. But he does it privately and quietly. No one needed to know about that.

All that really happens is Minho gets the advantage (or disadvantage) of receiving a kiss from someone of his choosing, and his mind immediately flies to the scooter man he wishes he wasn't so fond of. Warmth blooms in his chest when he realizes that Seungmin will have no choice but to go along with it. Well, he does have a choice, but denying something as simple as a cheek kiss is not something that Kim Seungmin would ever do. He'll pout, whine, and complain, yes, but he will still do it. Usually.

And if Minho wasn't so set on getting a little smooch from his dumb puppy turned scooter man who is still a dumb puppy, then he might have just let Chan smack one on him like he was so eagerly ready to just for putting the idea of a 2min kiss out into the world. That idea has been in the world and stuck in Minho's head for a long time now, but Chan jokingly promising such a thing presents him the easiest and best outlet ever in being questioned on why exactly he chose Seungmin in the first place.

Chan really should just get a kiss for the trouble. Another time, perhaps.

As completely expected, everyone gets a little rowdy when he voices his decision. Even the members get giddy and full of cute 'aww' when he says it. Chan especially seems overjoyed with the news. It's like he's proud of himself for having such a fantastic idea in the first place, and he should be proud.

Seungmin, however, looks a little less excitable about being chosen to give a sweet little kiss. Minho watches him throw his mini tantrum. The light stomp of his foot, the scrunch of his nose, and how he turns a slight glare onto the ground. He acts like Minho is asking him to get naked on the stage or let himself be groped in front of fans. Minho often finds these mini or even the big tantrums cute, but he doesn't think that of this one. No, it stings just a bit to see Seungmin throwing a fit over them sharing affection even if it is just an act he puts on.

It goes just as any interaction like this often does except this time, Seungmin has to scoot his ass on over like he's riding this noble steed of metal and wheel. Minho wants to laugh at the little basket for PuppyM, but his palms are starting to feel much sweatier than they were a moment ago. He knows his ears and neck are red because they always are, and he cannot believe he feels so anxious over something as stupid as a cheek kiss. Well, it's not really stupid.

It's just Kim Seungmin, he keeps trying to tell himself. The whole issue is that it's just Kim Seungmin.

There shouldn't be any 'just'. Kim Seungmin was never a 'just'. He's a whole amazing and beautiful person that Minho can't seem to let go of even though he's never had him in his grasp in the first place. They would never get a divorce no matter how many have been proposed over the years. It's just like Jisung said: today is their wedding day. Minho only wants his kiss.

They beat around the bush. Everyone beats around the bush when it comes to kissing a member on stage. There are rules to this. Doing it too quickly makes you seem eager. Taking too long makes people angrily impatient. Not doing it all makes you hateful and mean. Doing it too often stirs up controversy.

So, yes. They beat around the bush.

Half of it is this playful and necessary act everyone in the industry is achingly familiar with. Giggle and pretend like the world might be ending. The other half is them being genuinely flustered because they've never done this before. Awkward little limbs and shy movements. Be cute about it. Make people coo, excited, and let them stew in the anticipation of witnessing their fantasy for long enough before moving it along.

The problem is that this is Minho's fantasy too; it isn't just about the fans this time. He is genuinely having a panic in his chest about this. That's where most of his flustered and nervous state stems from: this is my fantasy and I have to act it out in front of the entire world with someone who doesn't even like to hug me. What a cruel world Lee Minho lives in.

Even the tease of bringing Jisung and jealousy into the mix is part of the act. Jisung telling everyone it's okay and shooting Minho that look with his small smile makes Minho just a little braver because Jisung knows. He knows what this is for Minho, what it means and how badly he's wanted something like this. Gratefulness fills up his awkward limbs. Jisung will always get things about him that no one else can.

Then it's time. It's time for them to really do it. They did their bit. They beat around the bush playing (or in Minho's case, really being) all mushy and shy long enough. It's like they have a time built in their cores for how long they do the act.

Seungmin leans in after saying that awful line of receiving so much love in this life time. Ah, if only he knew how much of it was coming from inside the hyung he's about to kiss. Minho hugs around his side to keep himself from spilling everywhere and scrunches his whole face up to hide away every single emotion on his face. The hand he has curled around his microphone brushes over Seungmin's chest as his side is crowded against.

Breath tickles his cheek and over his earlobe to send the slightest of shivers down his spine. Minho's heart is soaring. It's flying around in his ribcage dancing in circles and singing out all these confessions. It'd be terrible if he threw them all up. Minho would bite his lips to keep his heart's singing quiet, but he feels a nose touching his cheek that instinctively makes his lips curl.

A short puff of air over his skin startles him. He hears the loud smack of lips both next to his ear and through the mic at their faces, but he doesn't feel it. He doesn't feel the kiss that's paired with that sound because Seungmin didn't give him one. He didn't…give him a kiss. Just pretended to.

Minho feels so deflated and disappointed that the kiss he 'received' because of love was just a fake show that he almost forgets to react for the fans. He can't react for himself. He can't slump over, give Seungmin pleading eyes, or scold him on the spot for not doing it because everyone else thinks it was real. As far as everyone besides the two of them, it was real. Minho has to make them believe that even though the denial of such a simple thing makes his chest sting even more.

He jerks his body away from Seungmin like he'd do with anyone else. This nasty, grossed-out expression falls easily over his face and scrunches through his eyes. Seungmin pulls away with him, laughing at Minho trying to shake his 'kiss' off him and immediately grabbing for his scooter to scoot on away like nothing just happened. He's right to do that. Nothing did happen.

And as everyone around them cheers, coos, and goes crazy at the sight of a mere farce, Minho has to walk back to his seat swallowing down something entirely too heavy to fit down his throat. He's always swallowing things down, letting them sit in his stomach until they rot, or he pukes them out. That's how it goes. Minho keeps it all to himself just to stew until he hates the taste of it.

Privately, quietly. That's how he sulks. No one else needed to see something like that.

Minho wishes Chan wasn't one of the people cheering the loudest. He wishes Jisung doesn't purposely get in his line of vision to give him one of those big smiles that means 'hyung! You did it! Yes, finally!'. There was no doing. There was no finally. Jisung knows that. He can see it on Minho's face despite him hiding it and that's why Jisung's brows furrow before he rights himself again.

Most of all, Minho just wishes he hadn't picked Kim Seungmin. Not just for the kiss but everything. To be sweet on. To care too much about. To have fallen in love with. Things would make so much more sense if he hadn't chosen his silly little dumb puppy for any of those things.

And that's what keeps replaying. The kiss that never happened. The anxious joy that bled from his every nerve just to be swallowed up by a crowd.

That's what keeps flitting across his eyelids like some memory of a distant life he can longer grab hold of. His past life must have been grand if that Minho experience firsthand affection from a different Kim Seungmin. That's what lives in the caves of his brain as if the moment needed to make camp there, roasting like marshmallows over a fire. Seungmin could be like that: a roasted marshmallow. This ooey, gooey, warm ball of sweet fluff that just sticks everywhere.

All of that. It's stealing his sense from him and making his fingers twitch in agitation.

It's cyclical, not narrative. Minho cannot move past it. He cannot move past the falseness of a fantasy he thought would be fulfilled only for it to be destroyed. He cannot move past why Kim Seungmin would not give a simple peck to his cheek. He's done it before with the others. Minho has watched him kiss each and every other member on the cheek with or without fans present, yet all he can do is put on a show when it comes to Minho.

He even does it now, and he does it right in front of Minho's face and the entire world like they're spotlight wasn't also important to anyone but himself. Changbin smooches him on the cheek. He makes this big show about smacking one on Seungmin as they go down the line. Seungmin accepts it, laughs about it looking so smiley, and turns his head to give Felix a kiss too.

He's natural with it. He acts like kissing and being kissed by anyone but Minho is second nature to him, like he's hardwired for that but not for Minho. He can't understand. Minho can't understand why he's so undeserving while Seungmin would immediately move to do the same thing he refused with someone else.

It feels both violent and vast in his chest. He doesn't want those things right now. Today was about the fans and about them. Not about Lee Minho and his hopeless feelings for something that has and never will be real. Seungmin just proved that on stage. There wasn't a slot in the schedule for Minho to kick himself around, so he won't. Not here and not now.

He performs. Minho puts on his cute, quirky, and adorable self for the rest of the event, and he performs.

His dance always shone differently when he had something to be upset about, but it's only the pop of his limbs that show a bit of that off. Minho doesn't let it touch his face. He never lets something like that touch his face unless he's alone with the person who put that look there in the first place. No audience meant a far more vulnerable Minho. He knows where his masks are. He knows how to put them on and when it's safe to remove them.

No one moves differently around him. No one looks, touches, speaks, or acts differently around him on stage. No one hovers or shoots him concerned looks. Even they can't decipher when something feels wrong within him when he's hiding it away.

Jisung, though, Jisung always sees it. Minho can't hide from him, and he never usually tries to because Jisung just knows things without Minho ever needing to open his mouth. They understand each other to the furthest extremes.

So yes, Jisung hovers. He gives him those eyes, those touches, the opportunities to smack his butt, and everything else the entire world has catalogued as them over the years. Soulmates were soulmates for a reason, and Minho will gladly thank whoever paired them up until his soul shrivels up into stardust or whatever. Love wasn't always romantic. It wasn't always consuming.

Jisung does all in his power to let Minho know that he both sees him and is there for him. Most importantly, Jisung tries to bring the happiness back to Minho's chest so he can enjoy a day that is meant to be enjoyed and not get so lost in hiding himself away. He manages well enough—he always seems to manage well enough. He finds his real smile and laugh again, not the pretend ones, and the day finishes as best as it can.

Things go fine enough that Minho could almost forget about what happened. If he just kept his eyes open, then no memories would be able to flit by. If he just turned off his brain when the lights of closing dimmed, then there would be no campfires or marshmallows roasting in his skull. He could do that. He can do that. Minho knows how.

Almost. It's always an almost with him, it seems.

They're still at the venue in their backrooms packing up their belongings and absently wiping over their bodies to rid themselves of the sweat, grime, and makeup. Minho is hungry. He's always hungry these days, and if he knows Han Jisung, then he knows they will be ordering takeout the second they return home. Minho would feel bad about eating all of that when he shouldn't be, but he also had a hard day today. Mentally taxing. He can treat himself into feeling better.

Bag slung over his shoulder, he's making his way over to the car parked and ready for him in the tunnel of the back entrance. Jisung is already there waving him over. There's noise behind him as he walks with his cap pulled down. It's a familiar sound that he heard rolling over the stage not even two seconds after Kim Seungmin denied him something so minuscule.

And here he is now, rolling up on his stupid scooter. Before he can even get passed Minho or into his line of vision, Chan steps out from in front of one of the cars with this wide smile and sparkling eyes. Minho wishes their leader was in the 'too tired, don't speak to me' sort of mood rather than the glittery one he's sporting now.

"Oh, my two lovebirds!" he swoons because Kim Seungmin is right beside him now and both of them are being blocked from continuing forward by an overly mushy Bang Chan. They both get their cheeks poked. Minho lowers his eyes with a frown pulling down the corners of his lips because they aren't lovebirds. They're nothing. "How was your kiss?"

Minho wishes he could hate Chan for calling them that. He wishes he could hate Chan for asking just a stupid question. He wishes he could hate Chan for ever sending that bubble message in the first place, but he can't. None of this is Chan's fault; he doesn't even know that Minho has pointless feelings. None of it is Seungmin's fault either. It's Minho's. Just Minho and his stupid heart.

"It was fine, hyung," Seungmin says. "Just another kiss."

Minho bites his lip. It wasn't a kiss. It wasn't anything, so how could it be fine? There must be something so wrong with him to be the only one to have never gotten a kiss from their puppy. Theirs, because Seungmin never did belong to him.

He raises his eyes again only to find Chan looking at him expectantly like he needed a verbal answer from both of them. Seungmin is looking at him too, though Minho only notices from the corner of his eyes. Chan still looks so glittery, so happy that they shared affection and that his silly joke was what may have sparked it. Minho doesn't have the heart to tell him it wasn't real. "Good, Chan," he answers.

And Chan just smiles even wider with a big sigh. "Yahh," like he was relieved about something. He attacks Seungmin first with a hug and kissy lips that aim right for his cheek. Minho watches. Of course he watches because he wants to understand but never comes away understanding.

Seungmin allows Chan to kiss him square on the cheek. There's no fight, no protest, grumble, or squirming away. He just sits there as Chan presses a big, fat, wet kiss to his cheek. It's hard enough of one that it makes that noise when Chan pulls away, and Minho just feels so heavy in his heart. Seungmin doesn't wrinkle his nose until he starts wiping off the kiss and scooting away. He doesn't get it. He really doesn't get it. Seungmin must be repulsed by the mere thought of him.

Minho is too busy biting on his lips and staring at something other than the wet side of Seungmin's face to anticipate that he's the one getting mauled next. The second Chan has arms around him, he tenses. Chan is supposed to hug him from behind; he knows this yet he doesn't always follow it. Minho tenses, squeezes his hands into fists, and scrunches every muscle in his face to brace for impact. There was no use in trying to get away. Sometimes he did want affection from his only hyung even if it did make his skin feel weird from time to time. Minho can't help it.

Chan presses a big, fat, wet kiss to Minho's cheek too. He does it just like he did to Seungmin, and Minho is having a hard time processing that the lips touching him now were just on Seungmin's skin. It feels nice. Chan giving him any sort of affection is often nice even if he doesn't want it, but it's not Seungmin.

The soft and warm mouth pressing on him doesn't feel like it would if it were Seungmin. Minho doesn't have warmth in his chest or flutters in his tummy. It's just on his skin. It might be okay that Seungmin never kissed him. Minho thinks he would have melted all over that stage or gotten too weak in the knees.

"Mwah!" Chan emphasizes when he pulls away. Minho gets a shiver in his spine because many things tickle all over him. Yes, it might have been good that Seungmin faked all that. He's trying to convince himself that is the case. "You guys are such cuties."

And Minho really can't hate Chan for anything. He never could. His hyung always has this way of making something brighter, even when Minho can't seem to do it himself. "Thank you, Chan-ah," Minho says quietly and gives his own quick peck to Chan's cheek to further his gratitude.

Chan must think Minho giving him a smooch is something special. It is. Minho doesn't do things like that often, this is Chan's second one from him today, but he's a little wanting at the moment. Chan giggles to himself with fingertips touching on where Minho's mouth had just been. So giddy all the time, even when he should be quiet and exhausted, just wishing to go home. "You sleep well tonight, Minho-yah. Maybe tomorrow someone will pick you for a kiss."

Minho offers a smile. It's the least he could do when Chan seems so happy. That isn't always the case. "You too, hyung. Give little Yennie a cuddle for me." Chan smiles back, all dimply, like he meant to do exactly that. Minho knows he will. Those two touch way too much behind closed doors and away from the lenses of cameras. At least some of them can have something special.

Jisung offers him this consoling look when Minho manages to make it to their vehicle without anymore run ins with overly bubbly cuddles or a certain scooter man. Seungmin would have stayed behind to make faces at him as Chan caught him in a kiss trap, and he tries not to wonder why he hadn't this time.

Minho doesn't say anything in the car. He watches out the window for the entire drive back to their dorm. Jisung doesn't say anything either. He won't until they're alone on the couch without a driver or manager listening to their words. But Jisung does hold his hand in the back seat. He holds onto Minho like a promise to never let him get lost in himself when he's trying to do all this hiding. His thumb traces over the bones in the back of his hand.

Minho focuses on that as everything beyond the window blurs into a messy blob of existence.

Jisung pecks Minho's cheek once they're through their door and secluded from the rest of the world. He plants it right where Seungmin should have, like he meant to make up for something Minho foolishly misses because he doesn't even know what having it feels like. It's not like when Chan does it, and it's not like what he thinks it would be like if Seungmin did it either.

A kiss on the cheek from Jisung is like a hug. It warms both his skin and this small part of his chest. Minho likes to think it's akin to sitting near a campfire but not close enough that he feels burned by the flames. Just little tickles, little fizzles of heat kissing him warm to keep him company. Like the smell of the smoke, they cling to him for a while until he can wash it away with something else.

Minho likes those. They make him feel less lonely even if being by himself is something he might want right now. Jisung would never let that happen.

"I'll order food, okay?" Jisung says, taking Minho's bag from him like he was a helpless man who just survived a war rather than something as childish as being denied a kiss on the cheek. Minho feels both foolish and ashamed that this has taken him over so much. "Why don't you hop in the shower for a bit? I'll handle everything."

Minho is the one who usually handles everything, but he thinks he can take a break tonight. Being babied isn't so bad. In fact, it's perfect if he's going to keep acting like one. "Thank you, Hannie."

Minho stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. He does that a lot these days, clothed or not, trying to find the ugly parts of himself that makes him so repulsive and unworthy of love. Some days he finds those parts. Other days he doesn't. He's always been wishy-washy about how he views himself. The parts he decides he loves often change each time he looks in the mirror.

Nude and wiped clean of all the makeup caked over his skin, Minho searches his face. Only his face because that's what Seungmin decided he couldn't handle touching. He looks and looks and finds too many things to hate. It must be one of those days where he doesn't have issue locating the parts of him that could bring such repulsion.

His ears don't sit right. His hair falls over his forehead weird. His eyes pierce too much. His nose is too straight. That mark on his nostril is a hindrance. His philtrum dips too deeply. His mouth is always open. His teeth are crooked. His cheeks are too chubby. His skin—his stupid fucking textured skin is too bumpy from all his acne scars. He might be soft but all Minho can see and feel is scratchy sand paper and a face he wouldn't want to kiss either.

It's no wonder their pretty puppy never wants to lick on him. Minho thinks he would gag if he ever saw the face staring back on him worn on another person standing in front of him.

Minho takes a deep inhale. It gets caught somewhere in his chest and comes out too shakily. His eyes have begun to water which again, is so juvenile of him. Feeling manic, crushed, and just so hateful he claps hands over his mouth as he begins to laugh at himself for how ridiculous this all is.

It's just fan service. It's just part of the job. It's just stupid feelings. It's just a cheek kiss. It's just Kim Seungmin.

But he was never a 'just'. To Minho, he is everything. Funny that Minho would end up the opposite. To Kim Seungmin, he's nothing.

The water is too hot. Minho wants it to burn. Maybe he can scrub or melt off all the parts he hates tonight. He can't do that. He might decide he loves those same parts in the morning, the next day, or even next week. Being wishy-washy is no fun.

Minho almost hates himself, but he almost loves himself too. He wishes that word didn't exist.

Containers litter their coffee table. Jisung ordered well. Some of Minho's favorites have made it into their spread, but Jisung also ordered in a way that aligns somewhat with how Minho has been eating recently. It's not all junk nor is it all boring simplicity either. A balance. Jisung wants to get his spirits up, but he also doesn't want Minho to fret over his diet.

Some containers are empty. Others are half full or close to being finished off, but Minho doesn't think he can stomach anymore. He ate. If he ate more than he should have, more than he allows himself too, then that's an issue he will deal with later. Some things just cannot be helped sort of like some hearts just cannot be fully chosen.

Almost though. They can be almost chosen. Minho knows what that's like. He's very familiar with almost.

Jisung is sitting. Minho is laying over the couch with his feet in Jisung's lap and an arm thrown off the side to idly draw shapes over the carpet. He's staring at a chip in the wood of the coffee table thinking that he feels a lot like that sometimes: chipped. He often wonders if some piece of him was stolen without his knowledge. That's fine. Whoever took it probably cherishes it more than he ever had when it was in his possession.

Jisung keeps talking. He's been talking ever since Minho emerged from his hateful shower with pink, stinging skin and baggy clothes that he hopes to stuff all his aches in. They always spill out anyway. People just don't know how to read them.

Jisung talks and talks. Most of it is about the fanmeeting and the plethora of things that went on. None of his words have dipped into the territory Minho cannot stop thinking about and what he knows Jisung desperately wants to bring up. It will come up when it comes up. Jisung won't push, but Minho hardly throws things out there on his own either.

Hands keep toying with his ankles. Not his feet. Minho gets too ticklish there when people mess with them, so Jisung always settles on his ankles. His mouth doesn't really form any words back. Jisung isn't talking for responses or asking things he wants answers to. He's just letting his voice soothe Minho until he reaches a state where his words might eventually come out.

That always works somehow.

"Do you think I'm gross?" he suddenly asks. Jisung had been droning on about one of the performances, but he goes silent the moment Minho opens his mouth. "I know you're always honest, but I want to clarify that I'm asking for double honesty right now." Minho is still staring at that chip, still drawing fingers over the carpet.

"No," Jisung says simply. He squeezes on Minho's ankles like that could prove it. "Never in a million years, hyung. I tell you how pretty you are all the time, don't I?" Minho hums. Jisung does do that quite a bit, especially on the days when Minho doesn't and can't believe it. "Do you think you're gross?"

Minho wipes a hand over his cheek remembering all the times he's tried to scrub them raw to get rid of the texture. He'd done that a half hour ago. "Don't ask me that tonight," he answers because today is one of those days when he would say yes. Jisung understands. He always does. "Minnie didn't really kiss me." Just rip the band aid off. It's easier that way despite the sting. "Just pretended to."

Jisung lets go of his ankles. His weight shifts, and Minho turns to him just in time to get a hand up before Jisung can climb too far over him for a cuddle. "No," he says, but it's more soft plea. Jisung settles back into his original position without fight. "No, I'm sorry. I don't want to cuddle right now. My skin feels weird, and it just makes it worse."

Jisung finds his ankles again because that doesn't make it worse. His ankles are fine. Jisung gives him one of those small smiles that is still warm. He always has kindness in his eyes, understanding, when Minho says something like that. "Okay, hyung. You don't have to explain yourself." No, he doesn't, but he tries to with Jisung because it used to make him pout before he understood. Minho turns away from him to stare at the chip again. "He pretended?"

Minho nods slowly. He can still feel Seungmin's nose touching his cheek and the warmth of his breath as he hovered there. Not his lips. Never those. "Just stuck his nose there and made the kissy sound. That's all he did. I think the microphone blocked it." Minho has pretended to kiss someone before. He does it with Jeongin but that's because Jeongin asks him to. Everyone pretends with Jeongin just like Jeongin pretends with them. "It's only ever me."

Jisung squeezes his ankles. He seems to be done talking now. Minho's is the voice he wants to hear now, not his own, and he'll stay quiet until Minho can get most of it out. He just has to help him along sometimes, and it could be as simple as a squeezed encouragement.

"I don't understand, Sungie," and he really doesn't. "He hugs everyone. He cuddles everyone, holds their hand, kisses them…I mean, he's kissed your cheek plenty of times. I watch him do it all the time but never me. He never does any of that with me." He thinks anyone might feel horrid if they were the only one excluded from someone's affection.

Seungmin did hug him once. Only once. It was so long ago now that any normal person might have forgotten, but Minho never will. It might be one of the very few embraces he remembers every second of and can feel the ghosts of over his skin when he closes his eyes with excruciating focus. It's the same hug Minho has been clinging to all these years. The only one that ever really mattered to him.

There was too much crying. Everyone was crying, even Minho who hardly lets emotion like that slip through the cracks in front of others. He remembers crying in Chan's arms because that is one of the other hugs that seared itself into his skin but not nearly as much as the one Seungmin pummeled him with shortly after.

The teary face of that baby pup running toward him with arms already spread and outstretched to make all the room for him. Minho nearly fell on his ass with the force Seungmin slammed into him. Fingers clinging at every inch of fabric covering Minho's body like Seungmin meant to tear right through it all and make sure that it was a real, living person he was squeezing with warm skin, a beating heart, and breath. Minho hugged him back just as forcefully. He remembers his hands cramping when it was all over.

Seungmin buried in his neck hiccuping in breaths and spilling tears all over his collar. "Hyung," he cried, crushing Minho with more force than someone that small should have. "Minho-hyung, I missed you so much. I…I'm so happy you're back. Hyung, I couldn't do it without you here."

And Minho had missed him too. Nothing made him happier than hearing Seungmin choke out those words because they meant so much, even then. "I'll always be here," he cried back. "We did it, Kim Seungmin. We made it."

Minho recreates that moment a lot. When he can't sleep at night or he wants to tear all of his skin off, he recreates the feeling, emotion, and joy of the very real time when Kim Seungmin did want him. All of him.

"He laughs with me, talks to me, jokes with me, goes out with me, shares secrets with me, gets vulnerable even, but never those other things." It often tears him apart how loving and sweet Seungmin can be with him when it doesn't involve touch or anything physical. "Seriously, what is wrong with me?"

Jisung squeezes him again. "Nothing's wrong with you, Minho," he assures him softly. "Seungmin just shares his affection in different ways. I don't know why he excludes you like that, but it can't be for all the bad things you're thinking. You're still special to him. Minnie loves all of us in his weird way and that means he loves you too. He just loves you…differently, I guess."

Minho hates the sight of that stupid chip in the coffee table. It's making him feel all splintered. He was splintered before but that only makes it hurt worse. He scoffs as he turns his head on the couch to stare up at the ceiling.

"Yeah, or he just doesn't love me at all. It's probably just him tolerating my presence anymore." Jisung makes a disapproving sound. Minho wants none of it. "He kissed Yongbok. He pretended with me but kissed him like it wasn't even an issue. So sure, he just loves me differently, and it isn't like how he loves you guys."

"Well now you're just making things up," Jisung huffs. "Minnie does love you, and you know that. You can't pretend like you don't know that."

And he's right. Minho does know that Seungmin loves him. Anyone with eyes would be able to draw that conclusion, but Minho is the one who gets to feel it in his chest. It's there sometimes. Absent others. Minho struggles to find that warmth in times like this—times where Seungmin does something, or doesn't do anything, that convinces him he made that warmth up somewhere along the way.

It's just a flicker now. Minho can feel it trying to light right in his sternum. Maybe to help it along in catching, he brings fingertips up to rub at that warmth. His eyes close.

Kim Seungmin is such a sweetheart.

He does all these kind things and it doesn't matter if he wants to be a menace about it because Minho knows it's often genuine. Seungmin listens to what he says, he hears him and engages with him. He asks Minho out for a bite to eat, drinks, coffee, or just to go somewhere fun. He makes Minho laugh and laughs when Minho tries doing the same. He checks on him, brings him medicine or company when Minho feels sick, and comes to him when he's struggling too.

So yes, Kim Seungmin is such a sweetheart, and he loves Minho in some sort of way. It's apparent to him, especially when he goes looking for it in his chest. Minho just can't figure out why his love is different—why he gets it in moderation when the other receive more of it so freely.

"I'm not making things up," Minho comments. His eyes blink back open to find the ceiling. "Kim Seungmin loves me, he loves me not. It's different with me, and it hurts to think about, but it crushes when I see it in real time. When will I reach the last petal?"

Minho pinches his fingers in the air like he's plucking a flower for one of those stupid 'love me, love me not' games from his childhood. "I just want to pick the last one and know what the truth is." Minho has been plucking those petals for years now, yet he never reaches the end.

Jisung traces over his ankle. Small circles with his thumb before he taps right on the notch of bone. "Have you ever asked him?"

Minho blinks. He blinks some more. That isn't something Jisung has ever said before. They have a general script when it comes to this sort of thing and that isn't on the script. Jisung is supposed to empathize with me, fruitlessly tell him how beautiful and loved he is, then convince him Seungmin is just missing out on something grand. "What?" he asks.

Jisung taps on his ankle again. "Have you ever asked him what the truth is?" Jisung explains. Minho can hear the gears turning in Jisung's head like he too was confused as to why he changed the script. Uncharted words could be bothersome in the head. "Have you ever asked him why he excludes you or why he doesn't do physical affection with you?"

Minho really has never thought of that before. Not once has asking the source crossed his mind. He's always asking himself or asking Jisung these questions, but never Kim Seungmin. "Ask him?" His voice feels and sounds small as he says that. "I didn't know I could do that. I never realized…I can just ask him? Just ask?"

Jisung laughs at him. It isn't mocking or rude but small and huffed chuckles like he can't believe Minho didn't know anything about this. He didn't. He didn't know he could just ask about it.

"Of course you can," Jisung says. Minho lifts his head to look at him. The amusement is clear on Jisung's smile. So is the warmth, the fondness, and his wishes for Minho to just be happy about things again. "You absolutely can walk up to him and ask. You can ask anything. Why he didn't kiss you, why he never loves on you like everyone else, and you can even ask him yourself if he thinks you're gross. Hyung, why wouldn't you be able to?"

Minho doesn't know. He has no idea why he wouldn't be able to ask those things. All he knows is that he wasn't aware of that being an option before right now. No one had told him. No one had informed him that he could just ask a question he's wanting answers for. "Sungie," slowly because he's still thinking about all of this. "I didn't know."

Jisung's smile is a little lopsided. It looks as if he's apologetic for not telling Minho about this sooner. "Well you know now. You know that you can ask and that you can ask him."

"Are there any rules?" Minho has never done this before. He isn't sure how it works. How can he just ask? "Is there a rule that makes him give me an answer? Do I have to ask it a certain way?"

Jisung laughs a little more and reaches further up to squeeze on Minho's knee. His skin doesn't feel as weird with this new information. The touch is fine. "It's just talking, hyung. It's just normal communication with someone you talk to all the time. It's nothing different than how we're talking right now. There are just deeper emotions with the words you want to say and hear."

Minho feels like an odd sort of thing with his head lifted up and his mouth stuck open as he tries to process this all. Normal talking. That doesn't sound so bad. He knows how to do that, and he does it with Seungmin all the time. Why did he never think to ask before?

"And no," Jisung goes on. "There aren't any rules. Minnie doesn't have to answer you either." That makes him frown. "But you can ask. You can ask all your questions. Tell him how it makes you feel to be excluded. Not necessarily that you love him like you do or anything, but the hurt you have. Then you wait. If he wants to answer, then he will, but he doesn't have to."

Minho likes when there aren't rules because following them isn't always easy. He also hates when there aren't rules because then he can't anticipate or predict what the other person will do or say next. If Seungmin is not obligated to answer, then why should he ask any questions? Minho could say too many things, get upset about his questions, and end up standing there spilling all over without a response given back. That doesn't sound like something he enjoys.

"How can you tell if he'll answer them?" he asks. His neck is starting to hurt, so Minho drops his head back into the couch and keeps tapping over his sternum trying to ignite that warmth. "There's no use if my words just hover in the air without anyone to swallow them. I'll have to end up choking them down. Too much is already lodged in there to stuff any more."

"There is always use," Jisung informs him. It sounds like he's informing anyway, like maybe Minho didn't know this either. He probably doesn't. "Letting Seungmin know that you're upset and feel down sometimes about something he does or doesn't do is useful. That means he'll know about it, be conscious of it, and maybe fix it if he doesn't want to give an answer. But hyung, I know Minnie, and you do too. If he understands or sees that you're really upset about it, then I'm sure he'll give you some sort of answer. You won't be able to know until it happens."

"Tell him," Minho repeats. His arm feels weird. It's still thrown off the side of the couch drawing shapes into the carpet. His fingers might be asleep. "Like when it's no touching time or you do something that makes me itch bad? I tell you no or that it isn't good, and you know to stop or fix it. Hannie, is it like that?"

"Yes, Minho. Exactly like that." Ah, and that's good. Minho understands that part. It makes more sense to him now. Minho could do that with Seungmin, yes. It's just about the things that make his skin crawl or have his head going all funny, so he could do that.

"Ask him. Tell him." It's reasonable. It's something Minho can do as long as he wants to do it. He does. He does want to now that he's aware it was an option. Minho sits up on the couch and feels an odd twinge in his shoulder. "You're right about this. Thank you for telling me. I'll go do it now."

Minho gets his feet out of Jisung's lap and onto the floor before he can be snagged back by incessant hands pawing to reclaim his ankles. "What? Hyung."

But Minho is already on his feet, up and about, walking over the door to go do exactly as he wants. There may not be rules for asking questions he wants answers to, but Minho has his own rules about himself. He knows these rules, and he follows them. Of course he does. He's obviously the one who made them.

"Hyung, wait," Jisung calls after him. Minho has to do it now because he said he would. If he doesn't do it now, then he'll either forget about it entirely or end up staring at his wall all night scratching at his stomach feeling antsy because he didn't go do it. His skin doesn't like when he does that. Neither does his brain nor Jisung when he notices Minho was scratching again.

Minho's hand is on the doorknob twisting the handle open when a hand scrunches up the back of his hoodie to pull him back. His squeak about it is normal. He doesn't like when people do that. Jisung knows that, but he did it anyway. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Jisung is quick to apologize, quickly releasing him and blinking sheepishly when Minho turns around. "I didn't mean you had to do it right now, hyung."

"I have to," Minho says, fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeve. "You know that. I'll scratch if I don't, and I said I would."

Jisung nods along as he rises on the balls of his feet. "I know, Minho. I do. You just…didn't put your shoes on first." Minho looks down to see his socked toes wiggling on the floor. Oh, shoes. Yes, he needs those. "And you're all muddled up. You know I worry when you go out when you're muddled."

"Muddled, mhm," Minho says. He does feel like that. All splotchy in some parts, prickly on others, and oddly cavernous in spots where he knows things are. He doesn't like going out when he's muddled either, but he said he would. Made-up minds usually trumped the fuzz over his skin. "I'm okay. Just need my things."

Jisung goes to get his things. He always knows where they are even when Minho misplaces them. His shoes get put on, tied properly, then Minho just stands there staring at the door. It never takes too long, but Minho was always quick with tying his shoes.

Jisung comes back. He gets a mask fixed over Minho's ears and pulled up to cover his nose. One of his ball caps gets shoved on his head, bill lowered, and tufts of stray hair tucked behind his ears. Jisung grabbed him his special jacket even though he has on a hoodie. It's just a denim jacket that he never gets around to buttoning up, but the pockets are deep and it keeps him warm when he's cold.

Minho blinks when Jisung takes his hand to fit a scrunchie over his wrist. It's one of those velvety ones, blue, with two triangles on the top to make it look like it has cat ears.

Minho has a few of these. He used to use rubber bands to snap on his wrist or play with in his fingers to also snap over his palm. Chan made him stop using them because he kept breaking his skin or cutting off circulation in his fingertips when he tangled it too tight. Hyunjin, however, was the one to find him these. They're softer. They don't break his skin when he snaps them too much.

"I don't need this," he states, keeping his hand hovering there in the air even when Jisung takes his fingers away. "Seungmin has fidgets for me in his room." Most of the members do. They all keep at least one thing in their room for him to mess with when he comes over in case he needs or wants it. Minho himself has a drawer of them by his bed. Jisung does too. Seungmin has an entire box of them in his closet. He has since the very beginning, though it used to be such a small collection.

"I know he does," Jisung counters and puts his hand back to his side for him. "It's for the walk over and back. I don't want you to scratch." Minho snaps it just to prove he won't use his nails. "Okay? Good now?"

One small nod and short grunt to show it's alright. Satisfied, Jisung lets him leave, but he lingers there like he didn't want Minho to go off alone.

Sometimes Minho counts his steps when he walks over to another dorm and sometimes he doesn't. It's never the same number either. It depends on whose dorm he is going to, how fast he walks, what shoes he's wearing, and whether or not he decides on walking straight or not. Walking in zig-zag patterns was okay on certain days.

Today is not one of those days. It's not a day that he counts his steps either.

Minho walks with his hands shoved through the pocket of his hoodie instead of his jacket so that he can snap his scrunchie or just rub on it. He's glad Jisung decided he should have it because Minho does want it now that he's on his way. He might have gotten huffy or really started scratching if he'd adamantly refused. That's part of why he says Jisung knows him so well. Sometimes he knows what Minho needs before Minho even realizes it himself.

Instead of counting, he's singing under his mask. It's soft enough that it blends in with the breeze. Any lyric of any song that he has ever heard or sung passes over the sheet music he reads in his head. Minho sings them all mismatched, out of order, and with short breaks when new words suddenly appear. He might even speak them aloud instead of sing like he decided he'd rather have a monologue than a production.

He tries not to look at anything mostly because they're distractions but partly because straying from what he's set on will allow unwanted things back into his head. Keeping them out is best when he walks. He'll get lost if he lets them creep in.

Minho always has to stop at the flower patch halfway to Felix and Seungmin's dorm though. He has to. It's the only distraction he'll allow when he's on a mission.

An abrupt halt of his feet, sharp turn toward the flower beds, and his eyes widening so he can see them all better. Minho sweeps his eyes from one corner to the other to see all the colors. When he's finished, an exaggerated nod and small hum. "I like the purple ones the best," he decides, the same thing he decides every time, and turns to continue on.

Their apartment building is different than Minho's. The layout is backwards and the front entrance is on the wrong side. Sometimes he gets confused when he comes in here, but the color scheme is different enough that he remembers he isn't walking up to his own front door.

Minho doesn't like riding the elevator alone. He never takes it unless he has to or there are other people with him. The possibility of getting stuck inside of it is less if there is another body beside him. Changbin will needlessly ride the elevator with him sometimes just to make sure Minho gets where he needs to be before going back to what he was originally doing. Minho likes that. He doesn't worry about the metal doors or falling when Changbin is there with him.

Stairs are a lot better.

Minho raps his knuckles on the door, hoping that he doesn't have to do it a second time before it opens. He should have texted Felix to tell him he was coming over so someone knew. He could have texted Seungmin too, but he didn't think about any of that until he was standing right here. Thinking can be so difficult sometimes. Minho will often choose to just not think unless it's about things he cannot escape.

Felix opens the door not even a second after he lowers his hand. That was very fast. It even makes him gasp a little under his mask with how quick someone was to answer. It's like Felix had been expecting him. He doesn't look shocked to see Minho standing there. His smile is too bright before he even gets a look at him, and he's already stepping to the side to let him in. Minho likes watching Felix's freckles. He feels like he has to keep an eye on them in case Felix stands under the water too trying to scrub them off when he hates them.

"Minho-hyung," Felix greets him. Warm. He's always so warm and cheery, and Minho is grateful that it always bleeds into him a little. "Hannie said you were coming. I was waiting for you. I know you don't like to wait at the door for too long."

Minho nods his head. Of course Jisung texted him. He just wanted to make sure Minho got here and that he didn't have to stand here long enough for feet to start bouncing. "Yongbokie-yah," he replies, fixing his cap so he can see him better. Minho hasn't stepped through the door yet. "You're sweet."

Felix releases the doorknob to put his arms out reaching toward Minho for the hug he tends to give him whenever they see each other. It doesn't matter how much they've seen each other that day or how stuck they are in each other's presence; Felix will always reach to hug him.

Minho's lungs tighten. He feels swirly in his stomach and his skin is still being weird, so he won't like the touch. "No," he says quickly, shaking his head and taking a step backward. "No, thank you. No, I'm sorry. We don't do that." It's all he has to say. Minho always tries to be polite about it even though he knows they understand.

Felix drops his arms. Minho is thankful that his smile stays in place and doesn't falter. "That's okay, hyung. Just imagine a good hug from me when you're ready for one." And that's sweet too. Minho imagines a lot of touch when his skin stop swimming uncomfortably just to feel all that he missed out on.

"Am I bothering you?" he asks, stepping through the door and making sure it closes behind him. Minho always asks that whenever he shows up at someone else's dorm, especially if it's unannounced. Being a hindrance is almost as worse as being unloved. "I'm not supposed to, but that doesn't mean I do."

Felix frowns at him. Minho notices he has his gaming headphones wrapped around his neck. "No, you aren't bothering," and that's a relief. "Jisung said you were muddled. Is everything okay? Or did you come for something?"

Minho's eye twitches a few times. He can feel it under his eyelid, and he hates when it does that because he gets nervous it might fall out. He isn't angry or hurt that Jisung said he was muddled. He is muddled. It's just a fact that Jisung shared to someone who was about to deal with the muddle. No, Minho's eye twitches because he doesn't like being muddled either. His body just does things without his say-so when he's like this. It can't be helped.

"Kim Seungmin," he says. That's the something he came for, and that something is not currently in his line of sight. "I need to talk to Minnie for a moment. That's all. I'm okay. Is he here?"

Felix points down the hall. "Yeah, he's in the shower right now." Minho nods and keeps standing in his spot. He never feels out of place when he visits the other member's dorms, but he's feeling a whole sort of things right now that do have him fitting a bit out of place. Felix tries to fix it. "Do you want to hang out on the couch with me until he gets done? We have some food in the fridge, and you left a couple of those smoothie drinks here last time."

Minho lingers on the headphones around Felix's neck. "Hm, I ate already. Not thirsty." Then he looks down the hall to where Felix had pointed. He knows where Seungmin's room is. He's been there plenty of times. "You were playing your games," he says absently. "You can play more. I'll go wait in his room."

"Alright, hyung."

His fingers trace over the wall as he walks there. The patter of water on porcelain and tile muffles through the plaster. Minho hums and hums, tugging his mask down under his chin without any cohesion of thought on what he is going to say.

Nothing has been prepared in his head. No words. No questions. No explaining. Jisung said there weren't any rules, so Minho has to act like he isn't searching for any regardless of if he likes rules or not. He doesn't know how to do this; he'll just let his mouth do something.

Seungmin's door is open. Minho pushes it open before stepping inside.

Privacy is never something any of them have had standards about. They all shared most things and that included sights left out. If they wanted things hidden, then they hid them. Minho only acknowledges privacy when it's shut. He only knocks and waits outside of closed doors. That's his rule, and he thinks that sometimes he's knocking and waiting behind the closed doors of his own head.

Minho does not sit on beds that are not his unless he'd been explicitly given permission to. He thinks it's rude. Minho doesn't touch his own bed unless he's showered and changed into his pajamas first, therefore he shouldn't be sitting on Seungmin's bed. He is showered, yes, but he walked outside, he isn't in his pajamas, and Seungmin never told him he could sit there.

Chairs are different. Fun, swivel, gaming chairs are very different. Minho always sits in that when he's here. His legs aren't long enough to touch the ground if he sits fully in it, so he can swing them around as he spins around. The leather is nice and cushion bouncy. Seungmin never minds when he sits in his chair.

Minho only sits his butt on the front half of the seat so that he can touch the floor because it isn't time for swivels or swinging feet. He wants to look around first. The seat is warm.

Seungmin always has things on his desk that Minho will mess with. Not his computer, the keyboard, or mouse, though. Never those things. The screen is on and paused on a game he knows Seungmin likes to play a lot. Minho doesn't know how to play it nor does he know how to work any of the controls. He always gets a little crazy and twitchy in his fingers when the computer screen is on when he sits here.

The paused game always calls to him, like it was trying to compel him to try playing it or force his hands forward to mess with things. Minho gets too antsy like that because he wants to click on keys or move the mouse around. He's too curious not to, but he won't ever mess with Seungmin's game. They're too important to him for Minho to accidentally screw up or try to play a joke with.

Distracting himself from the pull of the computer is usually easy.

Minho just rolls himself away from it to inspect other things laying about. Seungmin always has a couple PuppyM key chains or small figurines situated in a circle like they were having a secret meeting. Minho will poke and prod at them, squeeze them a bit, and rearrange the order they were in just to itch something that isn't his skin.

Sometimes there is sheet music laying around. It could be lyrics, drawn out melodies and harmonies, or something he's toying on an instrument with. Minho likes looking at those, but he won't mess up the order. He tries not to read any lyrics Seungmin has written down either. Those seemed private until they were a real song.

Minho's favorite thing to mess with on Seungmin's desk is the Lego car he has put together. Felix bought it for him a while ago now—a birthday present or something. Minho doesn't know what kind of car it is or why it might be cool. He just likes that it has functioning wheels and that it's a built Lego set. Those are always fun, but he can't put them together himself. He gets too frustrated and lost in the instructions.

Minho drives the car all over the desk making sounds with his mouth. Back and forth. Back and forth. It drives over obstacles, runs right through the special PuppyM meeting, and even does a few flips through the air. Minho has slumped in his seat enough that his feet no longer touch the floor. He's kicking them around, making the chair swivel barely side to side as he drives this car.

"Hyung?"

Minho jerks the car over the desk at the sound of Seungmin's voice, quickly turning his head to find him standing in the doorway with a towel wrapped around his waist.

His hair is wet. Droplets slip down his nose and cling to parts of his chest even as Seungmin tries to cover most of his bare skin with his hands. Minho feels his ears redden as he closes his mouth. He didn't think about Seungmin taking a shower meaning that he would come in here with just a towel on. Waiting in his room wasn't the best idea.

But Seungmin doesn't look displeased or upset that Minho is sitting here. Just confused and maybe a little pink with his state of nude skin. "What are you doing here?" Not accusal. Again, it's just genuine confusion.

Minho turns back to the car to take it in both hands and bring closer to his chest for him to inspect. It feels like he's slumped further into the chair as he shrugs his shoulders. It's just talking. Jisung said it was just talking, so Minho can do this. But he isn't talking with just Kim Seungmin. It's more than that. "I have to talk to you."

He doesn't look, but he can hear Seungmin finally come fully into his room and shut the door before he's rummaging around in his dresser for clothes. "Okay. You didn't text me. Or call," Seungmin says from somewhere behind Minho. Still, he doesn't sound upset, so it must be okay that Minho came over. Sometimes he worries about that. "You usually do that if you want to talk, but you don't when what you want to talk about makes you itchy."

How perceptive he is. Minho is sure that means he does care to know something like that. He shouldn't be playing with the Lego car when he's muddled. He knows he shouldn't because he wants to pick at it when his body is being all weird. And there he goes picking at the pieces as Seungmin changes behind him. It's always the car door. It opens and closes, but only so far, and when Minho wants to pick, he wants the door to open wider than what the mechanism allows it to.

"Whoops," he lets out when the car door pops off just like it always does when he's picking at it and bounces on the floor. Minho stares at it trying to hide in the carpet fibers. Seungmin always fixes it. He does it without pouting, getting upset, or cold with Minho for messing with it too much. It isn't broken. Maybe that's why he never gets mad about it.

Seungmin throws his towel over to the corner where his laundry basket is with a quiet sigh. "Okay, what's wrong?" he asks. It's kind. The sigh was kind too, not one of those long-suffering ones that meant he wished Minho would leave. It sounds like Seungmin really wants to know what's bothering him so he can try to come up with a way to make it better, and not like he's growing bothered himself.

Minho just shrugs again. He's still staring at the Lego piece on the floor. "Just talking. It's just talking." Things might be wrong, yes, but this was just talking. Jisung said it was that easy.

"No," Seungmin answers firmly. "Something is wrong." Minho wants to call him a liar, but he doesn't because Seungmin comes into view beside him. He's on his knees and reaching for that Lego piece on the floor. When he gets it, he holds it up to Minho with his wet hair dripping all over his face and his pretty eyes blinking at him like he knows something.

"You're muddled," Seungmin states. Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong. It's just his body being funny. "You only show up unannounced when something is on your mind. You only pop off the car door because you're picking too much when something is wrong. You were picking. I saw it. Your head keeps ticking too, and that means you're upset enough to let it show."

That's so stupid. That's so terribly stupid that Kim Seungmin could know all of that without Minho even narrating it to him. "No I'm not," he says defensively because Minho always has his masks on. They only come off when he's alone quietly and privately sulking over the dog looking up at him with puppy eyes right now.

But Minho is ticking his head, he realizes. Things like this don't usually escape him. He knows what his body is actively doing at all times yet struggles a little more with describing how it feels or what it's being attacked with.

All it takes is him sitting there for a few seconds actively paying attention to feel the sudden and mild twitch of his head to the side. Immediately he tries to shake it away with a grumble. How long has he been doing that and why did Kim Seungmin notice? Minho already forgot that he can just ask. "Why do you know all that?" Jisung certainly wouldn't have told him.

Seungmin sighs again, taking the car from Minho's hands to set it and the car door back on his desk. "Because I pay attention, hyung," he confesses, and Minho doesn't know if that's something he should believe. It doesn't make sense. Seungmin moves away from him to dig through his closet. It takes only a moment for him to produce the box of fidgets he has and set them next to Minho for him to look through or at least distract himself with. "So, what's wrong?"

Minho takes the lid off. Seungmin has too many fidgets for him, and he feels his head tick again when he notices there are new ones he's never seen before sitting on the top. Minho has no idea where he finds them, why he buys them, or why he gets new ones for him. That flicker of warmth in his chest seems to burn a little hotter as he digs through the box trying to find something that will satisfy him.

Yes, Kim Seungmin does love him. Minho can feel it just through this box, but he's never felt it through Seungmin's touch. It's there again: almost. Almost loved and almost enough, but never quite there. It isn't outright rejection but incomplete selection. That seems to hurt far worse.

"Sungie said I can ask you questions and tell you things," Minho informs like Seungmin never knew this stuff either. He finds something crunchy in the box—a soft fleece square with sparkly pom poms on the corners. It has crinkly paper on the inside that makes noise when it moves or gets squished. Minho is very certain that it is a cat toy. He likes this one. "I didn't know I could do that."

Seungmin is still just standing there. Minho glances at him to find his head tilted to the side like either a confused or intrigued puppy, and he wishes he didn't like dogs. He wishes he didn't like how pretty those eyes are blinking at him. "Hyung, you do those things all the time," Seungmin says, confused. "You ask me questions and tell me things a lot. What do you mean?"

"No, different." Seungmin really shouldn't be standing there. His foot is hurt enough that he was a scooter man today, and Minho really wants him to not be standing anymore. "Can you sit down?" he asks, rapidly crinkling the fleece square in his hands to hear the noise. "Sit. I don't like it. You have an injured foot."

Seungmin laughs at his concern but takes a seat at the foot of his bed anyway with his legs folding up onto the bedding. "Since when do you care about my foot?" he jokes. Always. Minho always cared. "You laughed at me just this morning for scooting around. Is that what you're upset about?"

Minho shakes his head. "You fussed over me when I had to be carried and wheeled around." Minho didn't like the throb in his ankle when he sprained it. He didn't like having to sit in the wheelchair either and have everyone stare at him like he was dying either. Admittedly, he did like being carried around but only when it was right. Only when he wanted to be. "You helped me walk to the car a few times before I could put weight on it."

"That's because you were actually injured." Seungmin says it like his own very real injury did not mean anything. Like no one should care about it because it wasn't a sprained ankle.

"You are too," Minho argues. He even squishes the square in his hands several times to make it argue along with him. "The doctors said so. They know more than you."

Seungmin just offers a small smile and pinches his fingers repeatedly in the air like he had his own noisy square to be a nuisance about. "Okay, hyung," he decides. "You're right. I'm sitting now." He wiggles his toes to show he isn't standing on his poor foot. "So can you tell me what's on your mind?"

His mind. What a fascinating thing Minho's mind is. He would like to think so even though it being his own mind might make him biased, but Minho also can't understand how he works half the time either. He's both awed and appalled, intrigued and dismissive, and proud and repulsed all at the same time when he thinks about his mind and what makes camp there.

That kiss—the almost kiss. His mind is colonized by the moment. His memories linger, roast, and consume. Things are never passive memory as they live in his brain. He likes to refer to it as active occupation.

"My mind," Minho echoes. His hands clap together, hiding away his crinkly square from making anymore noise as he presses his palms tight from his fingertips down to his wrists. "I want everything to be a straight line. One long and straight line that begins and ends exactly where it's supposed to. Or several. Several of those lines that I can just choose from and start over again when I get to the end of one."

Seungmin is staring at him with furrowed brows and his mouth dumbly open like he wasn't understanding. Minho is just trying to explain his mind and what's there. Or what he'd rather have there, anyway. Straight lines were easier.

"I don't like circles. They just go around and around and make me dizzy. No starting or stopping. Always going." The circles are terrible. "I don't want crooked lines either. I can't see where I'm going next or where I was when I look behind me. Taking all those sharp turns and straying from the straight path makes me lost. I don't like being lost. It's hard to remember the right way if I'm lost."

"Minho," Seungmin starts with his hands raising to put placating palms up. "I don't really know what—"

"Straight. Lines." Minho tangles his fingers up to clasp his hands tight together. "No crossroads. I don't know which way I'm supposed to go, and I think I always choose the wrong one. No more drop offs either. I don't like going forward and suddenly tumbling over the edge because I thought it was the end but it was just a big hole. It's hard to climb back up."

"Hyung, hey. Just slow down—"

"You give me all of the ones I don't like," Minho realizes at the moment. Seungmin is just blinking at him, and Minho starts crinkling his toy again as he thinks about what he just decided. "Yes, you do. I've decided you do. I didn't know that before just now. It's…I am following my straight line, but then you show up, erase the path, and draw your own wonky ones that keep getting me muddled."

Seungmin starts slumping. It almost looks like hurt on his face beneath all that confusion, but Minho isn't trying to hurt. He's just explaining. He's just telling Seungmin about his mind.

"You make all the crooked paths, the drop offs, the crossroads, and these big circles. I get lost in there. I get tired, scared, confused, and I don't know how to get out. I just eventually fall down and have to try again." Seungmin is standing up for some reason and walking over to him even though Minho told him to sit down. His foot. "I get upset when you do that in there. I don't like it."

Seungmin comes in front of him with this frown on his lips and a much bigger furrow in his brows. He bends a little at the waist to get level with Minho. A pat on the head would be okay. Minho thinks that's fine enough when he's muddled, but Seungmin doesn't pat his head. He never has. "Minho, I don't understand what you mean by any of that. If I'm doing something, then just tell me so I can fix it, but you'll have to explain it better for me."

"Kim Seungmin, I am getting off track," Minho huffs out. He is, and it's a miracle that he even noticed. He'd fault Seungmin for asking about his mind, but Minho focusing on his mind in general rather than what has made camp in it was not the intention of any of that. Letting his mouth do something doesn't always work because it likes to do whatever it wants. "Why didn't you kiss me?"

Seungmin falters. He falters so hard that his eyes bulge, he takes a step backward, and his mouth keeps opening and closing around absolutely nothing. No words leave his lips. Hardly even any sounds. Kim Seungmin looks like Minho does when he forgets for a moment that he does in fact exist and has to go through an entire system catalogue to remember how people who exist behave.

In any other scenario, Minho would have and has pointed and laughed right in Kim Seungmin's face for making an expression as dumb as the one he's wearing now. Minho would, but he asked a question. He asked a particular and important question that he wants an answer to.

"What?" is all Seungmin can manage to say. It's sort of an answer but answering a question with another question is not right. It just makes another circle in Minho's head, and he doesn't like those.

"You didn't kiss me," Minho states, tapping his cheek in case Seungmin forgot. He might have forgotten and that's why his face is doing that. It makes sense. It didn't mean as much to him as it meant to Minho. "You pretended. Why?"

Seungmin closes his mouth with a tint to his cheeks. He falls back on his butt to sit on the floor with his hands on his knees as he stares at something off to the side. Minho doesn't look at what it is. He likes staring at Seungmin instead. He does that a lot.

"Hyung, I'm so confused," he says quietly. His hair is so wet. Minho wouldn't like that on his forehead. It's fine that Seungmin is sitting on the floor too because that means he isn't standing on his foot. "Are you upset about the lines not being straight in your head or because of a silly stage thing?"

Seungmin recognizing that he is upset in the first place is a good thing. Seungmin realizing that Minho might be upset because of the not kiss on stage is also a good thing. Jisung said so. It means he might give him an answer instead of remaining silent. Minho thought an answer would be given quicker. Him having to wait longer is not a good thing.

"Both," he says. It is both. Minho is upset about both of those things and both of those things have to do with Kim Seungmin. Crinkling his noisy square in his fingers is not fixing either of them like he wants it to. "The lines aren't straight because of you. The kiss wasn't real because of you." He isn't blaming. He's just stating. "I want to know why."

Seungmin takes a deep breath and whooshes it out. His lips are half pouted outward as he rubs fingers on his temples. Minho wonders if the lines in Kim Seungmin's mind aren't straight either. They could be circles, but he thinks they might just be a pile of unfinished lines all gooped together. Minho doesn't like those either. He has to dig through them all when that happens and puzzles frustrate him.

"Well, I don't know what I'm doing to mess up your straight lines," Seungmin eventually says. "I didn't realize I was erasing them and drawing my own patterns that you don't like. I'm sorry about that, hyung. If you want to explain it more later, then maybe I could understand better so I can fix it."

Minho doesn't care about his lines right now. He didn't come here for his lines, and he hadn't meant to even talk about them because no one understands his lines. They don't need to either. It's a Minho-mind thing that only Minho has to worry about. He just wishes people would stop going in there and messing them up. It's really only Seungmin who ever does that, but others have managed as well.

Minho shakes his head. He doesn't feel it ticking anymore. Either he just forgot he was doing it or something made it go away. "The kiss part. I came here for that. The lines don't matter, and it isn't anything anyone can fix except for me. Why?" Jisung never told him how to ask questions, just to ask.

Seungmin shrugs and looks off into some corner again. "Hyung, I don't understand why you're so upset about this," he mumbles. His eyes are lowered, pretty lashes resting over cheekbones. Minho wishes he could feel them tickling his neck as Seungmin rested there in an embrace. Even if he hated the feeling, he'd still like to know it and decide for himself if he hates it. "It was just a stupid stunt for the fans. A kiss for them. People fake those all the time."

Minho throws his crinkly square on the ground both to show his frustration and because he's tired of the noise it makes. Seungmin glances at the poor square now on the ground and watches Minho's hands like he was scared he would start scratching or hopeful that he'd grab something else from the box. Neither. Minho just balls his hands over his thighs because he isn't supposed to scratch.

Kim Seungmin doesn't get to say that. How dare him. It wasn't a stupid stunt nor was it a kiss for the fans. Yes, people fake those all the time, but Seungmin only ever fakes with Minho. No one else. None of that is fair.

"No it wasn't," he grumbles back. That was a terrible answer to hear. "It was a kiss for me. The note said, 'because of love,' and I got to pick. I did. It was my kiss, for me." Seungmin is staring up at him with that confusion again and a frown. Minho points his finger at him uncaring that his head is ticking again. The ticking is a lot better than scratching.

"I picked you because I wanted you to kiss me. You were supposed to kiss me. You didn't. You just faked it." Minho feels a little wet inside, like there's something flooding through his skull to snuff out all the camps of memories stuck in his brain. It's never been fake to him. "You always fake it or just don't do it in the first place. It's always an almost, and I can't figure out why you won't give anything to me."

Seungmin raises his eyes to meet Minho's stare. Whatever face he's wearing is confusing to Minho. Kim Seungmin looks wet too. Maybe his skull also got flooded with something. Minho thinks he sees disbelief. He thinks he sees wounds, aches, and a guilt he can't understand the meaning of. Seungmin starts hugging his knees to his chest with a small shake of his head. Why is his frown so big?

"No, Minho, I do," he argues, but it's too soft to sound like a real refute. "You can't say that. I do give you things. I give you a lot of things, and I don't—"

"No," Minho grumbles again. He's so grumbly and wet right now because it hurts. It all hurts. Slamming his fist over his thigh in frustration hurts too but not like it does deep in his chest or squiggling over his brain. They're like wiggly worms with spikes, and Minho hates those too. All they do is prick at him and munch on his insides when he wants to be left alone.

"You don't kiss me. You don't hug me, pat my head, hold my hand, pet my arms, squeeze my legs, or do anything at all involving touch. Not with me." Minho taps his finger on his thigh with everything he lists off. "I watch you do those things with everyone else and wonder what has to be so wrong with me that I can't get the same even when I ask for it. I did ask for it. I even used my words." Those can be so daunting sometimes.

Seungmin shakes his head again. It's firmer this time. His fingers curl over the material of his pajama pants, and he looks a lot wetter now. His eyes have gotten so shimmery and misted in only the last few seconds. Minho thinks he looks like a scolded puppy staring up at him like that and not the kind of scolded puppy Kim Seungmin likes to be.

It's strange to him. Minho isn't scolding. He's just asking and telling like Jisung said to. He has no idea what Seungmin could be so upset about.

"Hyung, it's not like that," Seungmin says. He's speaking so softly now but his voice wobbles like that's wet too. "There's nothing wrong with you. It's just different when it's you. I don't…or I can't…I don't know."

Different. It's different when it's Minho. Seungmin doesn't touch him or give him touchy love because it's different when it comes to Lee Minho. That difference means there is something wrong with him despite Seungmin trying to be nice by saying there isn't. Minho knew that; he just can't figure out what the wrongness is.

"I try to find it," Minho says quietly. Looking at a watery and upset puppy is making him itchier than normal, so he stops looking. Watching his nail try fruitlessly to scratch at himself from over his sweats is a better sight. He isn't scratching any skin. This should be fine for now. "I look at myself all the time and try to find what you're so repulsed by, but I just can't find it. Even when I scrub myself raw and laugh at my stupid reflection, I can't find it."

Seungmin makes this choked sound. Minho doesn't look at him. He doesn't wait for those sounds to turn into words either because Seungmin hasn't really been saying a lot of anything. He speaks yes, but he isn't saying.

"I'm pretty sometimes. I feel that. Hannie tells me so much. I felt pretty all day until you saw something on me that made you not want to kiss me. That means I'm gross too. But you kiss the others. I can't understand. It hurts all over when it's like that. I don't like being gross when you're the one looking at me."

Minho is caught in a circle. Around and around he goes. No starting or stopping. Always going forever and ever keeping him so dizzy. The circles are terrible. This one seems to be just heaps of word vomit. That tends to happen when he stuffs too much down his throat and swallowing any more is impossible.

"Hannie just says you love me differently but that doesn't mean anything either. I try to remember in my chest what it feels like when Kim Seungmin loves all of me. You used to, I think. It's there sometimes. An ember. A poor ember that I have to nurse all on my own because you just almost love me now. Almost. Almost…not at all. I can't decide because it changes all the time."

Circles and circles. Drop offs, crossroads, and jagged lines. He wants it straight. Beginning and ending. It's harder to get lost that way.

"I don't like being lost. I don't like being muddled, alone, gross, and scared. I don't like almost either because I don't almost love you. I want Kim Seungmin to love me like I love him. I can't stuff it down anymore."

Minho feels crooked all over. His voice keeps coming out weird. He can't really see his finger scratching on his clothes anymore because he's all blurred. Wet. It isn't just his insides that are wet anymore; it's his face too. Minho doesn't like crying when the tears aren't happy just as much as he doesn't like being muddled. It's too embarrassing to be seen like that. Being perceived while his insides are showing is just as bad as him scratching.

"I'm leaking," he wobbles out.

Seungmin isn't saying anything. Minho can't look at him. He's pawing at his eyes like he meant to rip them right out to get all this wet off and away from him. Too many things came unstuck from his overstuffed throat. He's leaking everywhere, and he leaked things that were supposed to stay inside. It's all pooled around him now for everyone to look at. Minho can't swallow it back down.

"I'm bothering you," he suddenly announces. Minho asked his questions, and he told his things. Though he did not get any answers, he really wants to leave. Waiting for them to come isn't something he can handle right now. There isn't a single straight line in his head. "You're supposed to say when I do that. I'll go now."

Minho gets his feet back on the ground and stands up with this wonky feel up his limbs. His fingers keep jabbing his eyes as he furiously wipes at them while struggling to pull his mask back over his mouth to muffle the whimpers he knows he'll start making soon. Again, his mouth tends to just do whatever it wants. Especially when he's stuck in circles.

It isn't very far. Minho's wonky limbs and feet do not shuffle very far from that chair before he's stopped. It's not a forceful stop, more of an urging him to stay.

Fingers grab the very bottom of his denim jacket. Minho doesn't like when people grab on his clothes. He doesn't like when they yank and tug on his clothes either to get his attention or keep him from going somewhere. Normally he would squeak about something like that, but Seungmin doesn't do it the way Jisung had earlier.

He doesn't tug or yank. He doesn't hold Minho in place either to make him struggle against the force of going forward. No, Kim Seungmin just lightly pinches the denim enough that Minho can feel the brief resistance of someone not wanting him to go. It's a quick motion. Seungmin pulls away just as fast as he'd done it.

Minho felt it anyway. His wonky feet stay right where they are standing on the carpet. It was an almost—an almost touch. Minho would like someone to erase that word from his head.

"You never bother me, hyung. Don't go," Seungmin pleads from the floor. He's grown so quiet, so weepy. Minho is having trouble discerning whether it's him making those saddened sounds or if it's the puppy huddled on the floor. "How…how does Lee Minho love me?"

That's a good question, he thinks.

Minho thought about it for a long time when the warmth of Kim Seungmin in his chest started feeling different than the ones he had from all the other members. This warmth sparked, roared, lingered, and consumed. No one else's did that. There are so many different types of love, and Minho thinks he's felt all of them at least once in his life. It's just one in particular that always flickered when it was Kim Seungmin.

"Romantic," he decides. There aren't any chips on Seungmin's door as he stares at it. Just solid, strong wood. "Like couples. The kind where you kiss on the mouth just because you want to and sharing spit is good. Deep love. Real love. Not almost love. It's sticky, gets everywhere, and never seems to leave you, but it's okay because you always want it to be there. It tastes sweet. It feels sweet. Hm. Yes, that one is right."

It's all a little fuzzy. He thinks foggy too. Muddled isn't a good feeling but it's a great word to describe a lot of things that go on with Lee Minho. Especially when one Kim Seungmin is involved.

He knows there's a sharp intake of breath behind him that comes right back out as this stuttered cry. He knows he has a similar reaction to the one he just heard when blurry arms and hands bubble into focus at the corners of his vision. His shoulders tense, his skin prickles, his lungs collapse inward, and everything around and inside of him bristles like he could somehow turn himself into a cactus to ward off predators trying to come anywhere near him.

There's a shout readying itself in his throat. It rises there as his entire body freezes in defense, fear, and preconceived nasty rot when those arms encircle him. Minho gets trapped in a tight hold. Arms are around his biceps, fingers curling into the denim at his sides, and solid warmth pressed to the entire back of him. A nose pokes his nape, then a forehead that just rests there as he's squeezed.

Touch. Real touch.

That shout building in his throat never leaves. It fizzles out and dies right where it was born just like all the tension through the rest of his body. No sound, no pokes. This isn't almost—it's real. Minho thinks he's falling to the ground not because it hurts but because he's melting. His knees aren't working, and he's melting. Those arms don't let him seep all over the floor.

Minho is muddled. He's muddled and that means he doesn't want to be touched except for where he says it's okay to.

Seungmin is touching him.

Kim Seungmin is touching him in several places while Minho is muddled and not wanting to be touched all over.

He's muddled, he's being touched, and Minho doesn't feel like tearing his own skin off.

Kim Seungmin is hugging him when he's not supposed to be, and all Minho can feel is warmth.

"What is this?" he whispers aloud, dumbfounded. He's staring down at Seungmin's arms across his chest with nothing in his head. No lines, circles, zig zags, drop offs, or crossroads. There's just nothing. It's all gone. The muddle is still there. He can feel it creeping along the shadows but his skin isn't weird. His body isn't being weird either. He feels…quiet.

There's no desperation to jolt away and say he's sorry or 'no, thank you'. He has no shivers to suppress or feel crawling up the knobs of his spine. The tickles don't find him, sneak through his pores, or claw at his insides like they mean to eat him up. It's just warmth—sticky warmth that's getting everywhere and doesn't want to leave. It's just like the love Minho explained. He doesn't want to get rid of this either.

"What is this?" he whispers again. He's not asking Seungmin to explain why this hug isn't making him want to go poof; he's asking himself. Minho has never liked this much touch when he's muddled but all he wants right now is to live inside of it. "All the noise went away. Why am I not itchy?"

"Minho-hyung," Seungmin says so softly at his nape. It feels wet there, like Seungmin was using him to dry his tears. All of this should be making him terribly squirmy or inconsolable, but it isn't.

Minho gasps out this sound that hurts as it leaves him. "Kim Seungmin, you're touching me," as if he'd only just realized that something that never happens is currently happening. It's not an accusal or him blatantly pointing it out as a grave error, but Seungmin must think that's what it is.

There's apology on his lips as he starts pulling away, and Minho gasps even more pained than he had the first time. "Put it back! Put it back!" he pleads, frantic over losing the one thing that's made it all go quiet. Seungmin tightens his hold again, murmuring that apology anyway, and Minho finds the fingers curled into his sides to cover with his hands. "Good touch. It's the good kind."

Seungmin nods. Then he moves his face into the side of Minho's neck to rest there. That doesn't make him itchy, squirmy, or bristled either. Everything is still just so quiet. Minho can hear himself breathe. He can feel wet lashes fluttering over his skin just like he said he wanted to know, and he can decide now that he doesn't hate it. It tickles. It tickles on his skin and in his stomach, just not in that bad way. It's…nice.

"Minho," so soft again. His voice tickles on his skin too. "I didn't want to kiss you on that stage." That's not a good thing to say. Minho doesn't like it. If he was still stuck in that circle, then he might have said as much. "Not on the stage, in front of cameras, fans, or even the other members. I don't want to kiss you when it's like that. I want to kiss you when it's just us."

The quiver in his lips is not something he can control. Minho tries to bite it down because he whimpers when he wobbles, and he's trying hard to listen. It's easier when things aren't noisy in his head. "Just…us," he says slowly so that it comes out right.

Seungmin nods again, turning his nose into Minho's neck with a deep breath. "Just us," he repeats. "Because it was real for me too, okay? Or, I wanted it to be real, but I only like the real things to be between who they're meant for. If I was going to kiss you, then I'd do it right. I can't do it right on a stage, and I can't do it right if it isn't just us."

Seungmin must be the one caught in a circle now because he just keeps talking.

"I was scared that if I did give you a kiss on the cheek, that I wouldn't be able to pull away when I was supposed to or that I wouldn't be able to act like I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have. I might have fallen right on my ass on that stage too if I'd given you a kiss. You make me weak in the knees a lot, and I'm not good at handling that stuff. Especially in front of an audience."

A puddle. Kim Seungmin thought he might have melted all over the place in a stupid puddle if he kissed Minho on that stage. How silly that Minho was thinking the same thing as a way to convince himself that everything was okay.

"I actually am always scared around you," he confesses. Minho tugs his mask back down just so that he can frown. "It's why I don't touch you. Not because I don't want to—I always really want to, and not because you're gross or something is wrong with you. You're so beautiful, Minho. I don't like when you try to scrub it all off.

It's because I'm scared to touch you. Things feel different to you, and I am just so terrified that you won't like what it feels like when I touch you. I don't want my touch to make you itchy, muddled, or your skin to feel weird. I'd hate myself if that's what my physical affection did to you, so I just decided to take that possibility away."

Minho starts rapidly shaking his head. That's not right. "No, no, no," he says with every shake, jostling Seungmin around. "You did it all wrong. It feels different when I want the touch. The absence, Minnie. The absence makes me muddled when it's you. I itch and feel weird because you left me out of it."

Seungmin squishes Minho in his arms so tightly that he almost squeaks just because he can feel the embrace on his lungs. It's still good though. Still good. His neck is getting nuzzled like Seungmin wanted to live there now that he's taken in the real estate, and Minho shivers only because it tickles.

"I'm so sorry, hyung," he whispers to him, sounding weepy again. "It wasn't supposed to be like that. I didn't mean to make it that way. I was trying to not hurt you. I just didn't want to see you squirming away every time I tried to touch you because touching you is something I want to do always. It would have hurt me if things were like that, but it hurts me not to touch you too."

That's curious. Minho tries to turn his head to see Seungmin, but it's a little hard to manage that with the position they're stuck in. "Ask," he says, "you just ask if you can touch when you want to. I'll tell you if you can. Hannie said asking is just like talking." Then, "how come it hurts? Does your skin feel weird too?"

That makes Seungmin laugh. It's just a puff of air over his neck that makes his nose wrinkle because everything is ticklish there. Seungmin seems to keep the prickling part of tickles away. "Not weird, no. Just warm and tingly," Seungmin answers. "Um, you make my insides all giddy. I always try to hide it because I thought I was supposed to."

Minho wrinkles his nose some more. "Well, that's silly. Giddy insides feel good most of the time. You don't have to hide those. Sharing them is a lot more fun, just like sharing the nice touches."

"I know that now." And Seungmin pulls his face out of Minho's neck to press the tip of his nose against his cheek. It feels like that memory that's been consuming him all day. It feels like almost again. "I've never almost loved you, Minho," Seungmin says so sweetly. "I just loved you in different ways because I thought I wasn't allowed to love you like this—like how you're asking me to love you now."

Seungmin kisses his cheek. It isn't fake. It isn't pretend. It isn't for any fans or a silly stunt on stage. It's real, it's for them, and it's because of love. His chest is catching fire, right in his sternum. There's no little ember anymore. An uproar of loving flames has replaced it.

Minho shudders the moment puckered lips touch his cheek. That mouth sears him, makes him all sparky and these zips to run up and down his spine. His eyes close as he absorbs the shape and print of real love, not almost love, on his skin. Seungmin lingers there like he was trying to make up for the kiss earlier and give Minho two. He lingers, pulls away with that big smack of lips, and props his chin over Minho's shoulder when it's all done.

"Was that okay?" Seungmin asks. He sounds nervous. Minho is just standing there with his eyes squeezed shut, a whole bunch of sudden heart burn, and tingling skin. The good kind—the kind that would have made him fall all over himself on that stage. He can feel Kim Seungmin's love. "Did I do it right?"

Minho nods. He nods, nods, nods until he starts to grow dizzy. He's nod happy because his chest is happy and that means he's happy. "Yes, yes." Even though Minho doesn't know what the right way is for being given a cheek kiss, he knows how a right one feels. None of them have ever felt like the one he just got, so it must be right. It must. He's got the giddy insides right now, and he keeps wriggling in place because everything on him feels fizzy.

"Off, off," Minho starts repeating with a shake of his shoulders. He doesn't stop repeating it until Seungmin takes the hint and releases him. His face is pulled into something concerned when Minho gets turned out like he was already afraid he'd done something wrong, but that isn't the case. Minho just wanted to be able to hug him back.

It's a big hug. A huge one, even.

Minho throws his arms around Seungmin's neck and clings to him like he wants to catch his chest on fire too. That isn't anything he has to worry about. He can feel the same flames licking over Seungmin's chest like he's been nursing his own ember this entire time too. Their cheeks mash together. Their faces are both so wet. Seungmin is crushing his rib cage with fingertips curling at him.

It's just like the time Minho always remembers—that hug from years ago he's been recreating day and night for just a spark of something. He has it again. He has it now. Seungmin isn't the only one who can ask to touch; Minho can too. He can ask for this whenever he wants it because he knows Kim Seungmin will give it to him.

"You're allowed," Minho says, though most of his breath is getting choked out of him. He doesn't hate the feeling. He welcomes it. "You're allowed to love me in all the ways, not just the ones you thought were safe or that you were supposed to. And I can say when I want things. It's just like talking. So again. Another one."

"Okay, Minho," giggled into his cheek before lips find him again.

Seungmin peppers smacking little pecks all over the side of Minho's face. Some are light. Some are deep and linger. Others are wet. They all tickle. They fizz, make him laugh, and draw up all this sticky love clinging to him everywhere. Minho feels like he has popcorn popping all over his skin. Little bursts of heat that snap and pop with each kiss he gets.

It's wondrous. He just feels everywhere, and Minho never knew it could be like that. He never knew that something so simple could mean everything. Words, touch, and love—they were a triangle with pointy corners; Minho didn't know how to connect the ends before, but he does now.

When Seungmin decides that Minho has been assaulted with enough peppering and popcorning of cheek kisses, he pulls away just to look at Minho. Minho decides he can look too. Seungmin's eyes are a little red, a little puffy, but they're also shiny with so many things. Good things, he's sure because Seungmin looks as happy as Minho feels in his chest. He likes his chest right now; it's holding many good things.

Though he has some dried tracks of tears down his face, Kim Seungmin is smiling. Not one of those toothy ones. Just a smile on his lips that does turn toothy and grows real big when Minho stares at him long enough. He probably looks exactly the same.

Minho doesn't really know what people who are in love are supposed to do all the time, but he knows what he wants to do right now. He doesn't know how it ought to feel, what the right way is, or when if there are rules on when he can and can't do it. He just knows that because of love, they get to kiss on the mouth just because they feel like it.

Minho feels like it.

There's a split-second of confusion on Seungmin's face when Minho nods his head with an affirming hum. It turns into what would have been a head tilt if Minho hadn't awkwardly set his hands on Seungmin's cheeks. He squishes those cheeks to get his lips to pucker, and it's really only then that Seungmin's eyes suddenly grow wide with understanding while his face turns a rosy pink.

Minho is glad. He's glad that Seungmin understands and holds the back of his head to help him out because he has no idea how to kiss someone on the mouth. They didn't teach you that in school unless you hung out behind the bushes where the teachers couldn't see and liked girls. Minho didn't do either of those because he used to be scared of the scratchy bristles on those bushes and girls.

Seungmin doesn't pull him in like the twitch in his fingers suggests he wants to. He just holds Minho and waits for him with his cheeks all squished and his lips pouted out. What a ridiculous sight that is. It makes Minho want to kiss him even more, so he does.

He presses forward with his eyes squeezed shut until their lips touch, then he just sort of leaves them there for a moment. It's soft, warm, a little wet, and bubbly. Minho makes extra sure to smack his lips before pulling away and quickly blinking his eyes open. Well, that didn't feel so special. It wasn't wondrous or fascinating. Still good, but not like he thought it would be.

Seungmin is staring at him with this amused fondness and glittery hearts in his eyes. Minho blinks some more. "Kim Seungmin, did I do it right?" he asks. If anything, Seungmin just melts a bit to look at him even fonder.

"Oh, hyung," he sighs, like Minho was either an idiot or a sight to behold, and he pulls him back in.

Oh. Oh. Yes, this is a kiss on the mouth.

Minho doesn't mean to, but he might squish Seungmin's cheeks a little too hard because this one does feel special. It's fascinating and wondrous, good, and still not like he thought it would be—it's so much better than anything he could ever think of.

Soft, warm, a little wet, and definitely bubbly. Fizzy too. Minho doesn't feel like popcorn is popping off his skin but like he is the marshmallow roasting over that fire instead of his memories. He's getting all crisped on the outside like he needed to be blown off because he's caught the liking off the flames. His insides are gooey, sticky, and just getting all over the place. If someone squished him right now, then he might ooze out too much warmth. It's dizzying.

It's so dizzying that Minho just sort of stands there with his eyes closed and his mouth stuck open swaying on his feet when Seungmin pulls away. The arm around his waist steadies him as do the fingers curled in the hair at his nape. A thumb pets over his skin. "Hyung?" Seungmin whispers.

"I'm tingling," Minho says, and it feels like the words traveled from some distant land rather than his mouth to reach them with how faint they sound to his ears. Minho is tingling, yes. All over the place.

Seungmin laughs at that and shoves a quick peck to the corner of his mouth. Minho is so startled by the suddenness of it that he blinks himself back to reality too quickly as he's swaying that they both nearly topple over. Catching them both and feeling Seungmin tense momentarily has him remembering a very crucial thing.

"Kim Seungmin," he gasps out. "You're standing. I said you have to sit down. Your foot."

"It's fine, hyung," Seungmin assures him. Even rubs on his back like that could make everything better. Minho likes being touched by him. It isn't as prickly as he feared it might be. "But look, I'm sitting down. See?" And Seungmin plops back onto the foot of the bed with his legs coming up to appease him. His touch doesn't leave. It just travels to rest on his hips.

"Your face is messy," Minho comments. His own face feels messy too. Puffy, dried with tears, and maybe a little logged with snot that didn't quite start leaking out. "I will get wet tissues to help, and I will come back. We can fix our faces. Is that okay?"

Seungmin nods with a small smile creeping over his lips. He squeezes Minho's hip twice before dropping his hands, and Minho still feels quiet even without it. He's still warm, still right, and not so muddled. His chest keeps bubbling with flames. They don't hurt; they just keep him tightly wrapped in love that isn't almost. It's real.

"Yeah, Minho. That's okay."

Tissues belong in the bathroom. Sometimes it's okay to keep them on the coffee table or have some in your room, but Minho thinks they belong in the bathroom. That's where he finds them. He's humming to himself. Not broken melodies or jumbled up words, just a tune that feels right in the moment as he wets some in his hands.

Felix is in his doorway when Minho comes out. His headphones are on his head now, not his neck, but one side of them is moved off his ear so he can hear things around him. There's a smile already on his face when Minho spots him. It's a soft one though there are hints of concern in his eyes. Minho stares at him with wet tissues balled in his hands.

"Hey, hyung," Felix greets him. "Doing okay now? Better, maybe?"

Minho thinks. He thinks some more. His hat is skewed on his head and his mask might have a couple wet spots, but he isn't jittery like he was when he first came here. It should be alright for him right now. Feeling it could sometimes be better than just imagining.

Felix lets out a soft 'oh' when Minho walks forward to take the offered hug from earlier. Minho keeps his arms out so no wet tissues get where they shouldn't be, and Felix gives him a light hug. Arms go around his shoulders with hands rubbing on his back, and Minho feels like purring instead of arching his back or scurrying away. Everything is so warm now.

"Yes, thank you," he says when Felix pulls away to look at him with mild surprise. It usually takes all night into the next morning for Minho to stop feeling so muddled. "It's quiet up there now. Not so muddled anymore."

Felix nods, looking genuinely pleased to hear news as good as that. "What are you guys doing in there?"

"Crying," Minho says flatly. Felix looks a little less pleased with that. Then Minho shrugs like crying wasn't important. "And kissing."

Felix's eyebrows shoot up so fast that Minho wonders if they might fly off. He isn't sure if that could really happen, but it could. "O-oh," Felix stutters out with his mouth dropped open. "Um, okay. Is it…are you having fun?"

"Mhm." And Minho turns around with his wet tissues in hand to go back to where the flames roar so that they can fix their faces.

Seungmin is still cross-legged at the foot of his bed. He's all smiley for some reason, and Minho feels like that too. Seungmin takes Minho's hat off for him, slips the bands of his mask from his ears to remove that too, and carefully pulls his special denim jacket from his arms to fold and set at the end of the bed. Minho doesn't need those things on anymore. It's nice to be able to have his warm tickles roam freely over his body without them.

They clean each other's faces with gentle dabs and wipes of the wet tissues sometimes dripping water droplets in places they shouldn't be. Seungmin asks if Minho ate and showered. Minho asks if Seungmin ate too because he already knows he showered. It's simple. It's straightforward. There aren't any circles in his mind or any of the other things he doesn't like.

"Hyung?" Seungmin whispers. He's dabbing a tissue at the corner of Minho's eye as he holds the edge of his jaw. It's nice like this.

"Yes, Kim Seungmin." He hums it out. He feels really hummy right now so that means he's going to hum. It's like purring when he's content, when things are safe, and when he isn't getting lost in places he doesn't understand. Minho enjoys when he gets to hum.

"Do you want to, um…uh…"

Oh, Kim Seungmin is trying to ask him something. Minho will listen, and he will answer. Even if he doesn't know how, he will try to give one. There aren't any rules about this sort of thing. Jisung said so.

"Would you like to sit on the bed with me? Right in the middle. You can sit in my lap if you want, and you can play with the car or have your box of fidgets in case the words start to struggle. I can hug you. I can hold your hand, pat your head, rub your arms, squeeze your legs, and kiss you when you'd like me to."

Minho blinks a whole lot.

"Um, you can tell me more about the lines in your head. You can tell me the things I do that get you muddled, upset, and how I mess up those lines. You can ask and tell me things, and I'll try to answer the best I can and figure out how to fix some of the things I do that aren't so good. Maybe you can say how you want or need me to love you so that we both can understand and not get so stuck in hurt anymore."

Seungmin sounds like he's in a circle again.

"And I can, uh, I can tell you things too. I can tell you all the things I like about you and point out all the parts I think are pretty—all the ones I want you to feel pretty about too because none of it is gross. I can tell you how I want and need to be loved too. Just because we do love a little differently doesn't mean we can't love at all. And when it's time for bed, you can stay here if you want, or I can walk you home and tell you that the purple flowers are my favorite too."

The moment never stops replaying in Minho's head. Not the almost. That one didn't matter anymore. It's the real one that flits across his eyelids, but it isn't a memory of a distant life he can no longer grab hold of. Minho can grab this one. It's right in front of him. It still lives in the caves of his brain as if it needed to make camp there, but Minho likes this one. He'll allow it to stay, steal his senses, and roast like a marshmallow over a fire.

"Would that be okay, hyung?"

He likes that it's sticky. He likes that it gets everywhere, and he likes that it never seems to leave because he does always want it there. It tastes sweet. It feels sweet. Hm. Yes, this one is right.

"Yes, Kim Seungmin. That sounds so lovely."