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1.
Minho knew that Chan was soft to everyone.
The older didn’t even try to hide it. If anything, it seemed to seep into every interaction he had with the members, settling into the spaces between casual talks and touches.
Chan was soft to his fellow Aussie, tickling his sides whenever he had the chance and ending every interaction with a fond pat on Felix’s head. Felix always leaned into it, smiling sheepishly before he could stop himself.
Minho understood. Chan loved loudly.
Then, he saw it when Seungmin knocked on the studio just to ramble and Chan just nodded earnestly despite having to work for fourteen hours that day already. It looked like Seungmin was having a bad day and because Seungmin didn’t want to be a bother, it already came as a surprise when Seungmin didn’t look around and just slumped on Chan’s side, not minding Minho who was sipping on his iced americano.
He saw it when Changbin shoved food into Chan’s lap because monster drinks won’t give him the nutrients he needed to survive and Chan lit up, making sure to thank Changbin every other five minutes.
He saw it in the way Hyunjin draped himself over Chan’s shoulders without asking, almost certain that he’d be welcome as Chan hummed to his ears.
He saw it when Jeongin cried because he made a mistake when they performed live but Chan did nothing but praise him.
Chan looked at his members fondly, always, and everyone seemed to know that.
Sometimes, Minho thought Chan looked at them like they hung the moon up the sky. Or that the sun rises to shine on them solely. It used to be embarrassing, really, and somehow, he found it completely normal too.
Which was why Minho hated himself a little for wondering what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of it. Not because Chan was unkind to him, because he was — Chan saved him seats when the movie night began, saved him a portion of the dinner when they decided to buy out, waited for him when his schedule ran a bit late, and looked for him in a room full of crowds.
The kindness was there. The fondness was there. Minho could feel it, but somehow managed to not see it at the same time.
Because whenever he looked up, Chan was already looking fondly at someone else.
The thought lingered longer than it should have.
It followed him through schedules, through practices, through meals eaten too quickly between meetings.
Maybe that was why, in the middle of dance practice, with Jisung and Changbin arguing over a move neither of them had gotten right, Minho found himself crossing the room before he could think better of it.
Chan looked up immediately with his smile appearing first, small and familiar, sitting at the corner of his lips. “What?”
Minho didn’t answer. Instead, he poked the strip of skin peeking from beneath Chan’s shirt that caused Chan to fumble a step back with surprise.
“Lino-ya,” Chan mumbled, a laugh gurgling inside his throat.
Minho couldn’t tear his eyes off Chan and desperately tried to cling to where Chan’s eyes were wandering.
“Hyung,” Minho leaned closer. He heard Chan’s breath hitch and he thought, good, that should happen. “You’re supposed to look at your dongsaeng fondly.”
He thought he made a point. Chan should definitely look at his dongsaeng fondly, welcome one with warmth and ease, and Minho knew Chan’s capabilities — Chan could do it.
For a second, Chan froze. It was brief and silent to a point that Minho was sure that none of the kids would witness it. But Minho did. He saw how Chan looked down and straight back up to his eyes. He saw how Chan bit the insides of his cheeks before forcing his eyes shut to open and gleam at Minho’s sight.
But Minho had spent years learning Chan, so, when Chan’s hand rose to the back of his neck, Minho knew that it was a nervous habit.
“I do,” Chan said quietly, and it felt like the answer came too fast.
Minho snorted not because he knew everything. It could be that Chan was predictable, because look at the man who did nothing but purr at each of them, or it could also be that he just knew Chan that well.
“No, not them,” Minho picked on Chan’s skin softly, kneading the folds he desperately pinched. Chan only blinked, confusion rushing up to his cheeks.
“Not them, hyung,” Minho repeated as he brought a finger pointing to himself, “Your dongsaeng. Me.”
He let the words hang between them and lingered a second longer than what used to whenever Minho spouted things like those. Chan’s eyes widened enough for Minho to notice and enough for Chan to notice that Minho had indeed noticed.
Around them, music was still subtly playing. Jisung was still shouting and Changbin just locked Jisung in his arms. Felix practiced for the fourth time, maybe, and Seungmin was trying to pull Hyunjin off the youngest.
The room carried on. Yet Chan looked strangely frozen inside it. Then slowly, fairly, his gaze lifted and settled on Minho.
It was warm and unwavering, so startlingly that Minho wasn’t sure anymore of what he was trying to prove. Then Chan swallowed and looked away which only made Minho realize that it was always like that.
“Go practice, Lino-ya,” he muttered, leaving trails of crimson blooming on the tips of his ears.
Minho stared after him, unable to move an inch, wondering if maybe Chan wasn’t looking away because Chan didn’t want Minho to look at him.
2.
The thing about noticing something once is that it’s already impossible to not sit around and wait for it to happen again.
Minho tried. He definitely did. If he put his mind to things and goals, he was a hundred percent sure that he can do unimaginable things.
But this? He tried for a week. He tried not to think about the way Chan had frozen in place during practice, the way Chan’s gaze lingered for a fraction of second too long, or the way Chan immediately looked away when he notices Minho staring back at him in the mirror.
He tried hard, but the thought followed him anyway, and god it annoyed him. Not the incessant looking or the fondness or even the brief silence that came after Minho pointed at himself and declared himself the dongsaeng to be looked at.
It was the looking away,
Minho could understand many things about Chan. He understood Chan’s inability to sit still when someone else was upset. He understood the way Chan collected the members’ burden like they’re of his own, carrying them around until his shoulders went tight and his eyes turn glassy from exhaustion. He understood the way Chan laughed when things weren't funny to laugh at, just because someone in the room needed that sound. He just understood Chan in ways that not everyone does and it was okay.
But after thinking about it for so long, he just couldn’t understand why Chan looked at him like he deserved the world – warm, startled, almost caught – and looked just as fast away.
So, naturally, Minho lingered around Chan. He needed to know the truth. He needed to be looked at fondly. Come on, everyone got that from their leader!
He welcomed himself inside Chan’s studio as Chan immediately paused what he was doing and looked up at Minho.
Chan’s face softened immediately and opened his mouth to call him, “Minho.”
It was so soft that Minho could easily forget what he was doing there, but he paved and puckered.
“You look dead,” he said, blinking at the blush that crept on Chan’s cheeks.
Chan stifled a laugh. Something tired, breathy, sounding like it had been a day long enough for Chan to stay awake. “Thanks.”
Minho hummed and stepped further inside, dropping onto the couch without invitation. He could feel Chan’s eyes at him and Minho in turn watched Chan watching him. This had always been a thing, where Chan just takes his time to watch everyone and think of things that only someone who waited years to debut would know, and Minho expected it this time around.
Minho didn’t know if it was gratitude laced with fondness or was it something else completely.
But he wanted Chan to see him watching, and every time he starts to look back, Chan would look away.
It could have been his personal mission by now to determine, to look for answers, to satisfy his curiosity, and see, but he felt his eyelids grow heavier by the second. The stress from preparing for the next come back piled up and he for sure could use the couch to sleep.
He let his head fall to the back rest and closed his eyes.
“Hyung,” he called out to Chan softly. He wasn’t sure if Chan heard him. “Can I sleep for like five minutes?”
For a second, there was no answer. Only the muted hum of Chan’s computer and the faint sound of Chan shifting in his chair. Until, carefully, he heard Chan mumbling.
“Yeah.”
He expected Chan to say something else. Maybe a reminder that the couch wasn’t comfortable, or that Minho should go back to the dorms if he was tired so he could rest properly, or that sleeping for five minutes will only cause him headache.
Instead, Chan only lowered the volume of whatever track he had been working on, and Minho felt something inside him loosen.
“Wake me up,” he mumbled groggily.
“I’ll try,” Chan replied, his tone laced with warmth.
Minho could only smile, small and unseen, and let himself sink further into the cough,
The room settled around him like a blanket. Warm monitor light, quiet breathing, the familiar smell of Chan’s studio – musky, detergent, something faintly metallic from too many electronics running too long, and Minho thought he could stay awake longer.
He really did. His mission was important, after all.
Important enough that he had followed Chan into his studio like a stray cat with too much pride, that he had spent the whole week thinking about Chan’s eyes and the exact moments they stopped meeting him, and important enough that he should have been able to keep his eyes open.
He lasted maybe thirty seconds and the last thing he heard before drifting off was the soft creak of Chan’s chair.
When Minho woke again, he did not move immediately. It was a habit, letting his consciousness return before his body decided to admit it. He let his eyes stay close and breathing stayed even. For some reason, the studio was quieter than before. There was no clicking, no typing, and no music, but the low hum of equipment remained.
Minho wondered, briefly, if Chan had fallen asleep too as there was no way that the guy would leave the studio just like that. But strangely, he felt warm.
He ruffled on the couch until he felt something heavy draping over him. It didn’t take him so much to realize what it was. For some reason, he knew why it happened and how it happened.
He sniffed a bit and remembered Chan — how his clothes felt so much larger than he was, how his hoodies always looked too big until Chan wore them and suddenly they fit, how his scent always clung to the fabric, leaving him dizzy to memory.
A trace of detergent and a faint tinge of cologne. Never coffee, but sometimes, Jisung’ americano spills on Chan’s pants.
He should have opened his eyes. Made comments about how Chan was babying him. Said something relatively mean to stir the air till it’s normal again.
But he stayed still because somewhere along, he felt that Chan was close.
Minho just knew it before he heard anything. Before the floor creaked under Chan’s weighted footsteps. Before the rustling of the fabric settled.
There was a shift in the room, something careful and held back, like Chan was not trying to disturb the air around, and that made Minho keep his breathing even.
He looked pathetic, maybe? He was a grown man pretending to be asleep just to hear conversations settling in between. A grown man who just wanted to know what Chan looks like when he thought nobody could see him.
It was a mission, a goal, and something that would for sure give him satisfaction, so when he felt a finger brushing over his forehead, tucking his fringes back to his ears, he knew he had to fight the urge to give in and lean.
He didn’t have to look as the memories replayed in his head. Chan was looking at him. Maybe like the way he was looking adorably fond of Felix or the way he looked at Jisung as if the younger took away the shape of the loneliness that kept him still. Chan was looking at him and all he really had to do was open his eyes and see.
“Why are you like this?” Chan whispered.
Minho didn’t move. Not at first.
For a moment, he wondered if Chan expected an answer. If the question was meant for him and not someone that Minho couldn’t see, or if it was just something that slipped off Chan’s head as he let his tiredness grow from his lack of sleep.
The room stayed quiet and the fingers that hovered started to linger with finger pads pressing on his skin and nails scratching him lightly. He slowly opened his eyes and saw a figure crouching over him with lights faint but bright enough to make sense of who that figure was.
Chan peered down at him with a soft smile framing his lips. The beanie he had on now off his head as his short fringes swayed with his movement. A finger still ran through Minho’s scalp and in that room, he felt nothing but to be cared for.
He once thought that Chan was strong-willed. The guy didn’t debut for years and watched every trainee do what he always wished for himself. He never let anyone see him break a front. He was reliable. He knew the answers to everything. He was assertive.
But god, Minho knew that Chan was ardent too. He immersed himself for long hours in the studio because he wouldn’t bear the guilt if they wouldn’t get the applause they dreamt of. He was the last to turn around, the last to take a bite of the food, the last to leave, but also the first one to beat himself up for the disappointment he bore.
Minho thought Chan didn’t want to be seen, but if anyone ever did, Chan would break. Two things could happen at the same time. Chan could be courageous and emotional at the same time.
Chan could love him fervently but still pull away when he noticed Minho waking.
“You’re awake,” Chan muttered, too soft for Minho’s liking.
“You’re running your hand through my hair, hyung,” he whispered in return. He focused on Chan biting his lip and the subtle trembling of his lips.
“Did that wake you?”
Maybe the thing with trying to un-notice everything he began to notice was that every single thing that didn’t have meaning began to have one. Maybe the thing with all the confusion was that it was meant to happen one way or another. Maybe the thing with Chan was that he thought no one would notice, but Minho already began to.
“Can we please go home, Channie-hyung?” He begged, pleaded almost.
Chan’s fingers stilled, nestled softly in between the strands of his hair. Minho could feel the contemplation between settling and pulling, and for a second, Chan looked with eyes that didn’t tell Minho anything.
Minho watched the realization hit the older. The nickname; the question involved.
The way Minho said it with no intentions of dropping Chan home. He said it to ask Chan to stop trying to survive the night alone — to share the darkness with him, no matter how dim the light was.
He had a mission. He wanted to be looked at fondly. He wanted to know why Chan always chose to look away. He had to catch Chan and keep it his.
But slowly, it didn’t matter anymore.
Chan looked away as his hand dropped from Minho’s hair, disappearing into the pocket of his hoodie and nudged at the running computer.
“I still have work to do,” Chan said and began to move back his chair in front of the monitor.
Minho pushed himself back up and braced the handle of the chair. He didn’t need Chan to listen, he just had to make a point, and he’d force Chan if he needed to.
“We all do,” he said firmly, and pulled Chan to his front, “But we rest because that’s what people do, Chan. That’s what you should do too.”
Chan didn’t answer and snapped shut. Minho expected excuses after another, but didn’t hear any. Only Chan’s eyes on him — this time a bit still, one that didn’t fray past him.
I’ll finish this one. You go first. I’ll follow. Go home, Lino.
He knew it all. It wasn’t even the first time this happened. He waited to hear that amidst Chan’s eyes on him. He was ready to fight and drag Chan.
But settled between them was Chan nodding, embarrassment stretching from his neck to his cheeks.
“Okay,” Chan nodded and whispered. “Okay, Minho.”
Chan cut the gaze, leaving Minho still watching.
As Chan turned the computer off, Minho realized something.
He probably knew so much of Chan — about how Chan hated the smell of coffee that he’d literally jokingly ask Jisung to breath away from him because he smelled too much of espressos or how Chan would sleep hungry instead of cooking himself ramyeon late at night because why would anyone eat that much sodium? He knew so much of Chan just like all the kids do, but no one knew Chan like this. One who looked long enough, watched enough only to look away and never back.
He didn’t understand and he wouldn’t try to, at least for now.
Chan could look away all he wanted and Minho would leap in harmony because Minho had seen it all.
Chan always looked at him fondly, just that he looked away right after.
That would be his next mission. For now, it was to push Chan to sleep.
3.
Minho was nothing but committed.
If he said he would do something, he totally would. One time, he said he’d learn how to cook, and he did, to a point of searching through the online stores just for a handful of cookbooks, and multiple trial feeding with Jisung that already begged for his life just for Minho to stop. If he decided to learn a choreography he saw on the internet, he’d play it for hours until his body remembered it better than his brain could. If he decided to feed his cats at a certain time, even if he was already on his bed, he’d get up. Ten kilometers of running was no problem. Pulling Chan from being glued to his office chair in the studio was a walk in the park — all he had to do was flutter his eyelashes or use brute force, nothing in between.
And if he decided to catch Chan looking away — well, Chan should have known better to become interesting.
It mostly started as an accident.
They were in the van after their long schedule for the day, quiet in the way they always were after too many hours under too many lights. Felix had fallen asleep on Hyunjin’s shoulder. Changbin was scrolling on his phone with brightness too high. Seungmin had earbuds in, face angled toward the window, and Jeongin was half-listening to Jisung whisper angrily about something he claimed was important enough to discuss at one in the morning.
Minho sat near the back, head leaned against the seat, arms crossed over his chest, and Chan was a seat away. The older was far enough that Minho should not have been aware of him and his little movements, it was close enough that Minho found himself anticipating.
That was beginning to be the problem lately with Chan. He had started becoming an itch beneath Minho’s skin. A movement at the corner of his eye. A question that kept sitting beside him, nudging him for any answers that Minho would either act on it by coming inside Chan’s studio uninvited and beg him to leave, or force Jisung to listen to him rant about everything else but the oldest.
He always felt it before he was able to see it. Again and again. The weight of attention laid on his shoulders, and he had to keep his eyes on the dark window.
The city slid past them in streaks of yellow lights, reflecting faintly against the glass. Most of the people in the van were visible there if Minho looked and squinted enough: Changbin’s bright phone screen, Jisung’s busy hand, Felix’s sleeping face, and Chan.
Chan turned slightly in his seat. Minho glared hard to look at him through the reflection, until he had his breath hatch, seeing Chan looking at him the way he was.
It wasn’t direct at all; not obvious. It wasn't enough that anyone else would call it anything other than a passing glance.
But Minho knew better now.
He knew it the first time he saw it, the times that followed, and most especially now that it became a habit before they could both remember that it was supposed to be hidden.
Minho waited before he turned his head and Chan looked away just as fast. His gaze snapping to his phone, thumb swiping across a black screen that had not even lit up yet.
He could have snapped his head back to the window but the sight of Chan held him still. Chan’s jaw tightened, holding the secrets firmly between, his shoulders squared, firm against the leather seats, and he couldn’t help but feel his mouth twitch.
He kind of knew it. He kind of expected it — Chan wasn’t hard to read at all.
But if Chan wouldn’t want him to see, Minho wouldn’t force any.
So, he looked at the window, attempted to stare at the red lights that spread against his cheeks, and felt a gaze so familiar yet strange at the same time. He had to trust himself not to turn and look for what he already saw. He had to trust Chan, and when he lingered enough at the reflection that told him more than what his eyes met, Chan stared, feverishly, speaking more than what his mouth could, and Minho conversed.
He shifted slightly and turned, facing Chan who had his eyes wide, and closed just as fast.
It set strangely in his chest — heavy for him to bear, but heavy enough to keep him warm.
Chan loved looking at his members and probably thought of them as the people who saved him from a hole he didn’t think he’d want to get out of. Chan looked at them fondly, always did in every chance he got and in every way he could. Chan loved looking at them without secretly wishing for them to look back.
Because every time Chan wished for a person to look back, he’d turn away, afraid of someone understanding what was inside them.
For the first time of his neverending pining of witnessing Chan looking at him fondly, he stopped wishing for Chan to look at him, he just wishes Chan would be courageous to stop looking away.
+1
Anyone who had been with Minho long enough knew how stubborn he was. When he set his mind to something, he’d bleed himself dry to achieve it. People didn’t always understand that about him and he didn't want to be understood too.
He could be strange and unnatural, but he left his passion on each footstep, marking without being territorial.
Everyone knew that. The kids, and most especially Chan.
He thought it would be easier when Minho stopped trying to catch him. For weeks. He had grown used to the sudden turns, the sharp glances through mirrors, the small, knowing tilt of Minho’s head every time their eyes nearly met. Minho had always been dangerous when he became curious — too quiet, too observant, too willing to wait until the truth walked itself into his hands.
Minho stopping should leave Chan with relief, but it did the opposite.
Because Minho no longer turned quickly when Chan looked at him. He no longer raised an eyebrow when Chan’s gaze lingered too long. No longer chased Chan’s eyes across practice rooms, vans, backstage hallways, and dimmed studio screens.
He just let him.
And somehow, being allowed to look felt more terrifying than being caught.
Chan didn’t know what to do with it. He was calculating; he tried hard to know things before they even happened. He was a huge planner, and he’d strive to make structure in everything he does.
But Minho was someone he didn’t plan about.
Being caught, at least, would give him somewhere to put the blame. Minho may have a sharp tongue, but the guy also had a sharp sense. He was quick with his eyes, quiet when immersed with his questions, too good at finding things people did not intend to show him.
If Minho caught him looking, he could always say that Minho was just moving too fast. Because Minho had surprised him. Because Minho had always been impossible to hide from.
But this was different.
This was Minho standing in the middle of the practice room, sweat darkening the collar of his shirt, hair sticking to the side of his face, one hand braced on his hip as he listened to Hyunjin complain about the timing of a turn.
This was Minho knowing Chan was looking and doing nothing about it. No return of gaze. No raised brow. No smug little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
He only stood there, letting Chan look at him from across the room like it did not cost anything — allowing Chan to look at him any moment and every chance.
The thought was so dangerous that it pushed Chan to look down immediately. Suddenly, his shoes were interesting. The tape marks on the floor. The empty water bottle nearby Felix’s foot. Anything except Lee Minho, who had somehow become the most difficult thing in the room to look at but the only thing that Chan wanted to keep looking at.
He blinked when Jisung called his attention, teasing him for lacking sleep that he ended dozing off during practice. He blinked again when Changbin threw a folded towel at Jisung for teasing Chan because Changbin always felt bad that Chan made three times more effort than anyone out there just to make sure that their comeback will go smoothly. He blinked again when Felix beamed up at him and ran to him, tackling his side. He blinked again when Jeongin passed a full water bottle at him. He blinked again when Seungmin nodded at him as a form of recognition that hey, man, you’re a kid just like us. He blinked again and again when Hyunjin screeched to demand for five more minutes so Chan could rest.
He was good at things — being busy, being needed, being the person with answers, with corrections, with hair ties, with extra mints, and reminders for everyone to stretch before they injure themselves trying to prove a point.
He was good at loving loudly when the love had somewhere safe to go, so he smiled before he could stop himself and nodded. He cherished being surrounded, being noticed, and being adored in littlest ways.
And he found himself looking at Minho who was just watching all of them with the faintest curve of amusement on his mouth.
Chan didn’t mean to — looking at Minho felt like something he had to prove — but that was a lie more than anything else because he always meant to. He had always meant to look at Minho because it already became natural as counting the members in a crowded room. As instinctive as checking if everyone had eaten. As inevitable as turning toward the music when it starts to play.
Only with Minho, Chan had learned to take it back quickly before it became too obvious. Before it became unfair. Before Minho saw too much and decided that Chan had no right to look at him like that.
Chan knew that Minho had already seen and it was what made it unbearable.
Minho had seen him in the studio, tired and unguarded, hand tangled in Minho’s hair like he had forgotten the distance they should put in between. Minho had seen him in the van, reflected in the glory of the dark glass looking with nowhere to put the weight and drama of it. Minho had seen him look away again and again, and somehow, instead of pulling the truth out by force. Minho had simply stopped chasing.
He was used to Minho chasing — boy, the guy was one of the most passionate men he had ever witnessed, and Chan couldn’t help but think otherwise.
Chan thought it was mercy because maybe Minho thought he wasn’t good with confrontations. He just was better with demands. Demands gave him instructions; mercy only left him with himself wondering.
The music started and he let his body move through the beat he created and remembered for he slept through it like a dream.
He watched the sharp line of Minho’s shoulders as he hit the beat. The tilt of his chin. The precise control of his body. The way he made difficult things look casual and casual things look untouchable.
Fondness rose in Chan’s chest so suddenly that it almost hurt. There you are, he thought though it didn't make full sense. There you still are.
Minho had always been there the whole time — laughing with the kids in the room, in the group, in Chan’s life. Still, Chan responded to him like a discovery, like a relief, a recognition, as if he was coming home to a place he had no right to claim, and the song ended.
Everyone broke formation and Chan forgot to look away.
Minho was breathing hard, head slightly lowered, one hand pushing damp hair back from his forehead. He said something to Felix that made Felix laugh, then turned towards the mirror where they eyes met.
Chan should have moved. He knew the steps by heart. All he had to do was look away, smile at someone else, check the speaker, and pretend that the moment had never existed. But Minho didn’t turn around and he couldn’t move either. He didn’t trap him, did not chase, did not question.
He only looked back through the mirror, quiet and steady, as if he had all the time in the world to wait for Chan to decide — whether to look away or stay.
Chan couldn’t do anything but had his breath caught in between his throat and let Minho watch that.
And for some reason, Minho’s expression changed. It wasn’t smug, teasing as if he was victorious. It was softer, careful, as if Minho knew exactly where Chan’s first instinct would take him and was telling him, silently. That he did not have to run this time.
Chan’s finger curled around the hem of his shirt and the room continued around them. Jisung was screaming, Changbin locked his neck again, Felix slumped against Hyunjin, Jeongin complained at Seungmin for slumping over him with his sweaty shirt.
The world gave Chan every excuse to look away, but this time he was a bit braver. He heard his chest thump against his ribcage, begging to be let loose. His gears ran to get answers. His sweaty palms found comfort on the cotton that hung loosely on his hips.
Minho just stilled, a response to the words that Chan was silently screaming for, and found the answer to a question that he stopped asking out loud from Chan.
Chan felt the heat rise up his neck, across his cheeks, to the tips of his ears. It was terrifying, and nothing, and it was only looking, and it didn’t mean anything, and everything at the same time — but he stayed anyway.
He stayed as if he was waiting for Minho.
Come here. Stay with me.
Minho quickly turned around and paced in front.
His hand twitched toward the back of his neck out of habit, but he forced it down. He forced himself to stand there with all of it visible — the embarrassment, the fear, the fondness he had been folding small for so long he did not know what shape it would take when opened.
When Minho stopped in front of him, he was close enough that Chan could see the sweat clinging to his lashes, close enough that looking away now would be obvious. Close enough that staying felt like a confession.
Minho’s mouth curved slightly and muttered, “There.”
His throat felt dry and itchy. “There?”
Minho’s eyes searched his face, seeing bits of him that didn’t run. “I knew you could do it.”
“What do you mean?” He questioned as he let out a breath that shook like a laugh.
Minho’s smile softened. Liar, it said, but chose not to say it out loud.
Instead, Minho reached up and tapped two fingers lightly against his chest, right where his heart was beating too loud and fast to be ignored.
”You’re supposed to look at your dongsaeng fondly, remember?” Minho reminded. The line came back to him all at once.
Practice room. Music. Minho’s finger against his skin. Heart worn on his sleeves. Your dongsaeng. Me.
Chan remembers looking away then and every time after. Now, Minho was standing in front of him, asking the same thing he had asked for before, only this time, Minho knew Chan had been doing it all along.
That Chan had been looking at him fondly — overly at that. That Chan never intended to, but had to choose between professions and secrecy.
Chan looked at Minho properly this time, fully, letting every careful, hidden thing in his chest rise to his face. The fondness. The want. The fear. The relief. The love he had.
And Minho received it though his eyes widened and his mouth parted. Minho received it the way he finally, fully understood what Chan had been taking back every time he looked away.
His voice came out barely above a whisper. “I do remember.”
Minho did not move and neither did Chan.
For once, Chan did not search for an escape; did not look to the floor, to the mirror. The speaker, and the safety of someone else calling his name. For once, he stayed, he looked, and didn’t take his feelings away.
For once, he let himself be seen, and Minho smiled at that.
”Aren’t you so fond of me, Channie?” Minho queried, letting his forehead touch Chan’s shoulder, hiding his face from Chan’s eyes.
Chan could hide all he wanted and Minho could too, but all Chan ever had to do was peer at the mirror surrounding to see Minho’s lips trembling to fight the sigh.
I am overly fond that I’m afraid my eyes would no longer lie. For when I see you, I feel full. For when I see you, I have so much to give. For when I see you, I want you to see me too.