Chapter Text
Minho shuffles nervously on the scruffy welcome mat, eyeing the nondescript taupe paint and curving gold number bolted to the door. 149.
He hasn’t seen his old friend Chan in over a year and a half. Even then, it had been a quick lunch at a spot between their two far-flung locations, jabbed in between obligations like a vaccination. There had been slurped ramyeon and clinked beer bottles, laughter piled up at the booth between them, fond memories dealt onto the table in neat Chan-approved piles.
It was always like that: quick, warm reminiscing, a real and bracing hug, and then a sprint in opposite directions. It’s been a long time since he’s slowed down for long enough to show up like this, with nothing dogging his heels, no distracting mental choreography, and no intention of speeding to an elusive finish line.
He's barely finished knocking before the door swings inward, and his childhood best friend is standing there, looking sleep-creased and joyful.
“Minho-yah,” he crows. “The prodigal son.”
“Channie,” Minho returns, fiendish.
“That’s hyung to you,” Chan says, eyes rolling as he grabs Minho into his embrace. They rock briefly on that welcome mat, side to side, holding one another tight enough to bruise. “Come in man, come in,” Chan welcomes, stepping back, crinkle-eyed.
“I was planning on it,” Minho quips. He steps across the threshold to find a hyper-organized foyer, rows of sleek black shoes and thick-soled high-tops, a coat-rack burgeoning with beanies and leather, and a delicate bowl of sweets on a high, spindly table. “It looks like a men’s lifestyle magazine threw up in here.”
Chan throws a raised eyebrow over his shoulder as he leads Minho further into the apartment.
“Thanks?” When Minho doesn’t respond, Chan adds, “blink once for compliment, twice for insult.” Minho’s lashes flutter, and Chan laughs. “I don’t know what I expected.”
They pass into a fancy but functional kitchen, well-lit and sleek. There’s a slightly incongruous living wall of plant cuttings and herbs inset next to the fridge.
“You seem to have settled in well,” he notes, tweaking a mint leaf.
“I mean, we’ve been here for over two years now,” Chan says pointedly, coming to perch on a high-backed chair by the dining table, balancing an ankle on one bent knee. There’s a pot of coffee on a central trivet, two identical slate grey mugs, and a plate of sugar-dusted lemon squares.
Minho glances from a runaway tarragon plant distractedly. “We?”
Chan’s face undergoes some small, controlled transformation. “Jisung’s living with me right now, remember?”
“Hm?” He comes to join him, easing himself down on an adjacent chair, plunking his phone on the table. “Jisungie? Don’t you two have totally opposite lifestyles?”
Chan smiles with the side of his mouth. “Not so much anymore, actually. He’s grown up a lot. And we work together, so it made sense to live together too.”
He nods. “I guess that explains the candy by the front door. Or has he grown out of that sweet tooth?”
“Pff, I wish,” Chan says. “He’s still a chocolate fiend. Spoils his appetite at the cafe down the road every other day. Speaking of which, do you want coffee? Or—Sungie keeps matcha in the cupboard as well, I think.”
“Iced coffee would be good.”
His mind wanders as Chan putters around the kitchen, fetching ice, digging for cutlery.
Back when they were neighbours, Jisung was Chan’s sometimes bothersome little brother, always skulking around their friendship hunting for a way in, trying eagerly to win their laughter, doing whole skits and songs, whining whenever he felt excluded. Churlish, childish, soft-shelled.
He was obsessed with critters, that’s what Minho remembers the most.
Minho would point out the little salamanders in the garden, the red squirrels darting into the hollows of trees, and Jisung would always gasp, crouching to turn slippery rocks over, or craning on stubby legs to poke and scrape at the tree bark with a favoured stick.
It was endearing. He loved Chan’s family, and he felt at home in their back garden. In many ways, Jisung was like his own little brother. But he hasn’t seen him in years. Last Minho had heard, he'd gone off to study music overseas.
“So how’s work?” Chan asks, settling back across from him with a tall glass of ice and a frosty metal straw. He pours the brewed coffee meticulously over top, and slides it across the tabletop. “I remember you were thinking of pivoting to choreo.”
He clears his throat. “I am. I mean, I did. Mostly.”
“Tell me what mostly means,” Chan says, taking a patient sip of his own brew.
“It means I’m not touring anymore,” Minho says slowly. “Mostly because I’m getting too old for it.”
“Don’t say that,” Chan groans. “What does that make me?”
“Also old,” Minho replies, sucking his straw into his mouth.
“Yah,” Chan gripes, but he's smiling.
“I’m still getting used to it,” Minho continues, a shade more serious. “I miss dancing on a real stage. I don’t miss idol politics though, even from the background.”
“Yeah, nah,” Chan says grimly. “It looks exhausting.”
“It was,” he sighs. “I prefer studio days. I like routine.”
“I know you do.” Chan smiles. “How long is 2TheStage on hiatus, anyway?”
Minho shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. I’m moving on from 2TS.”
“No shit?” Chan says, surprised. “I kinda thought it was your dream gig.”
Minho tilts his head, thumbing condensation from his glass. “It was. I don’t know. It was missing something.”
Chan’s eyes sparkle. “Love and companionship? Your best friend Chris?”
Minho makes a face, and Chan reaches out to scruff the side of his head, nearly managing to pinch a cheek. “Don’t mess with me,” Minho grits, jerking away, catching Chan’s tickling fingers. “I’ve been going to the gym every day for eight years.” It’s barely an exaggeration. Back-up dancing is gruelling work.
“Ohh, scary,” Chan taunts, releasing him. “You’re a tough guy dancer, huh? You should see Bin these days. All muscle.”
“No brain cells,” Minho says, automatic.
“Wow, when he’s not even here to defend himself?” Chan tsks. “You should try saying that to his face.”
“Sure,” Minho says nonchalantly. “I’m not afraid of Seo Changbin.”
“No but, really. You should come hang out with us sometime. You can meet Felix! And Jeongin, the baby. I think you’ll really like them.”
“Felix is the boyfriend, right?”
Chan goes fantastically spluttery and embarrassed. “No, no. Uh—I mean. Not… really.”
“The hook-up then, whatever.”
“Minho,” Chan begs. “Pretend I never told you about that. It was one time. Well—two times.”
Minho’s eyes narrow, and his head tilts. He knows it’s the sort of expression that people always tell him is cat-like. “You wish it was more than that.”
Chan sighs. “Weren’t we talking about your life being sad and empty? Let me guess, you’re also not seeing anyone? Because you also treat your job like it deserves your full commitment?”
“Don’t put your sad little justifications on me.”
They stare at each other for a beat, then crack up at the same time.
“Of course I’m not seeing anyone,” Minho adds, picking through clumped ice with his straw. “Where was I supposed to meet people? On the road? At the company?”
“Yes and yes,” Chan says, reaching for a lemon square. “Loser. As if you don’t notice people throwing themselves at you. Eat these, they’re Lixie’s.”
Minho shoots him a pained look but accepts a baked good, pointing it menacingly at his friend. “Hookups are just easier.”
“Easier than what?” a new voice asks.
Minho looks over his shoulder, and whatever reply he was about to concoct melts from his tongue. He turns more fully in his chair to get a proper eyeful.
The Jisung standing in the kitchen doorway is unlike any of Minho’s memories.
He’s grown out of his awkward gawkiness entirely. His tousled hair curls at his nape, stylishly cut. He has what look like designer glasses perched on his nose, and he’s wearing a shirt that draws attention to both his broad shoulders and slight waist. When he catches Minho’s eye, he gives him a familiar smile—once sweet and goofy as a preteen, now totally disarming.
He’s horrendously Minho’s type. Like, embarrassingly.
His mind spins and spins until he can’t make out any singular thought in the chaos. His inner monologue is one solid, whirring thing.
“Been a long time since I had a proper bug sighting,” he says, trying not to sound as winded as he feels. He’s staring. He can’t help it. He’s looking at an apparition of the kind of pretty-eyed guy he’d approach in a bar, here in Chan’s nice kitchen, wearing little Jisung’s smile.
Jisung cracks up, pshh, and puts both index fingers up by his head—two little antennae. “Did you miss me, hyung?”
“I’ve been lost without you,” he deadpans. He can feel Chan’s eyes boring holes into the side of his face.
Jisung’s mouth quirks. He crosses his arms, and his chest and biceps yank Minho’s focus like a fish hook. Christ, he's built. He has the kind of physique that requires constant, diligent attention. “Is that why I haven’t heard from you in like five years?”
Has it been that long? It seems impossible, and yet here is a Jisung who is undeniably changed. Older, stronger, surer.
“I was playing hard to get,” Minho tries.
He’s rewarded with a delicate flush. “I think that only works if you’re on the same continent.”
He chews at his own smile to keep it contained, enjoying himself. ”You’re telling me it didn’t work?” he asks, pretending to be upset. “Jisungie?” Jisung scoffs, and tucks an unruly curl behind his ear. His eyes skitter away, shy. Minho pushes a little bit harder: “you didn’t miss me back?”
“Alright, you two. We all missed each other, how about that?” Chan interrupts.
Jisung’s face screws up, just like when he was fifteen. “I didn’t sign off on that statement.”
“No?” Chan asks, dangerous and simpering sweet.
“If anything, I miss, like—the absence of you. Silence. Waking up later than ten AM.”
Chan is too busy dragging Jisung into the crook of his elbow to care that he's being mocked. He puts his tricky fingers into the hollows between his ribs so that Jisung squirms and complains, always the over-reactor. In the chaos, his shirt twists, and Minho spies ink leading down below his waistband. Interest jolts through him, another stray fish hook. He feels wholly caught, wriggling on the line.
Their eyes meet despite Chan’s interference, and Minho nods down at Jisung’s ribs. “You have tattoos now?”
Jisung gives him another devastating, side-swept grin. “Just a couple. See how I’ve grown up, hyung?”
“I can see that.” They stare at each other. “No more onsens for you, hm?”
Jisung manages to wriggle out of Chan’s grip, and he shifts closer to Minho, hovering near his chair. This close, he can smell him. He’s wearing a woodsy and masculine cologne, the kind you might put on to impress someone. “Why, were you planning on taking me?”
They’re flirting. This is flirting. Him and little Jisung, the bug collector in his oversized gum boots. How is it possible that they’ve been speaking for maybe a minute, and Minho already feels that they’re moving too slowly? He wants to find the border where his newfound hotness ends, and see if he’s the same underneath.
“No need. You have a bath here, don’t you?”
“Hey, Jisung,” Chan interrupts. “Aren’t you going to be late?”
Jisung glances back at him, annoyed, then sheepish. “Uh—yeah. Oops. I’ll let you two catch up. It’s really good to see you, Minho-hyung. Oh, and—” His smile flares, then dims, abashed. “There are pudding cups for you in the fridge, by the way.”
Minho laughs, startled. “For me? Seriously?”
Jisung shrugs, and Minho’s eyes clatter down his body, chasing the movement. “I know you like them. Or, used to.”
“I still do,” Minho says. He holds his gaze, curious, steady, until Jisung's head ducks.
"I'm glad some things are the same," he says simply, and excuses himself, taking his tattoos and his long hair and his charming half-smile around the corner and out of sight.
As soon as he’s gone, Chan turns to face Minho and firmly says, “no.”
He drags his eyes away from the spot where Jisung just disappeared. “No what?”
Chan rolls his eyes. “Don’t even try. I saw all that.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
“You have a bath here, don’t you?” Chan recites, high and mocking. “Give me a break. You were giving him your whole routine!”
“I don’t have a routine,” Minho argues. “Every twink is different.”
Chan pinches the bridge of his nose. “You did not just call my brother a twink.”
Minho frowns. “You've seen him, right?”
“You can’t look at him like that,” Chan says clearly, leaving no room for argument. “You can’t have him. Discussion over.”
“Discussion pending,” Minho parries. “Shouldn’t I check and see if we’re compatible first?”
“It’s not about compatibility. I’m sure you’re compatible. But Jisung doesn’t need a hookup. He needs stability.”
“I’m pretty stable.” He pats his own thighs as if to prove it, and Chan makes a choked sound. “I’m fucking with you,” Minho laughs. “My love life's not that dire. I can be respectful.” But the sentiment does feel a bit misshapen in his mouth. Lie-adjacent, at best.
Chan gives him a searching look, head cocked. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“I haven’t seen him in a long time,” Minho says defensively. “I’m adjusting.”
“Adjusting to what? It’s just Jisungie.”
“No,” Minho scoffs, reaching across the table for his iced coffee and taking a pull. The ice is pleasantly numbing against his upper lip, distracting. “Jisungie is afraid of dragonflies and eye contact. He wears dinosaur underwear. That was a whole different guy.”
“He still wears dinosaur underwear!” Chan argues. “God, why am I telling you about his underwear.”
“Seems counterintuitive,” Minho agrees. “Boxers or briefs?”
“Minho,” Chan sighs.
“I won’t break your brother’s heart, Chan. If you say no, then it’s a no.”
“Thank you,” Chan says, relieved. He gives Minho a brotherly shoulder squeeze. “Usually I’d be all for it. You're my best friend, and I know Jisung likes you. But he’s been through some stuff while you were away, and I don’t want either of you getting the wrong idea.”
“Sure,” Minho says, fidgeting. Curious, and trying not to be. “Now that we’ve established who I’m not sleeping with, can we talk about something else?”
“Should we talk about idol gossip?” he asks archly. Minho pretends to gag, and Chan dissolves into laughter. “Ah, I missed you, Lee Minho.”
Minho is trying (laboriously) to turn over a new leaf.
Work is steady now, predictable in a way he actually finds himself enjoying. He likes his newfound sleep schedule, his sunlit studio space. He likes coming home to his cats every day. He especially likes having the opportunity to unearth his creativity from where he’d long since left it dwindling somewhere underground. It feels right, being in charge of his own days, deciding the shape of them.
Minho cold-calls Changbin and revels in his buffering confusion for a while before proposing (and later regretting) a joint workout schedule. He runs into Hyunjin at work, and finds that time has left him largely untouched since those early years in the same company, attending the same workshops, dancing their way to different corners of the industry.
He reconnects with other childhood friends, and they meet up for drinks and quick, commiserating meals as he settles into his life in one place, rotating on one sleek axis. He’s waiting to get bored. He’s waiting to feel challenged. He’s waiting for… something.
He calls Chan now, arms full of bulk cat food as he shoulders his way into his apartment. It’s still half-furnished after two years off and on here, never sticking around long enough to make it his own.
The line connects, clatters, and then a low voice greets, “hello?”
Minho pauses with his hand on the lock. “Uh—hello?”
“Hello!” the voice reiterates. “This is Chan’s phone.”
“… But this isn’t Chan.”
“Nope, even better,” the voice drawls. He can hear a faint plasticky noise, like someone chewing on a pen cap. The penny drops.
“Han Jisung,” Minho turns his smile into the phone. “Playing receptionist?”
“Minho-hyung?” Jisung says, sounding suddenly out of breath. “Wow, twice in one month. You’re spoiling us.”
Minho heaves the cat food onto his kitchen counter and gives his full attention to Jisung, his back to the cabinets, ankles crossed. “I keep getting the two-for-one sibling deal, so I think I’m the one who’s spoiled.”
“Well don’t say it like that."
“What? You don’t like to share?”
A huff of breath gusts over the line. “I forgot how much you like to tease me.”
Minho feels heat beginning to stain his ears. He tugs on one lobe distractedly. “You’re just so easy to tease.”
“Mm. I should really make it harder for you.”
“Oh?” Soonie wanders over and noses at his socked feet. Minho rubs absently at his flank with his toe.
“Yeah, I should begin a life of stoicism. Take a vow of silence.”
Minho laughs at the idea of it. “You wouldn’t last an hour, Jisungie.”
“You don’t know that! Maybe I’ve changed.”
“Oh, you’ve definitely changed. I’m not disputing that.”
“You think so?”
“Mm-hm. Your voice finally dropped, for one.”
Jisung’s breath ticks, unamused. “I am a grown adult, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“I noticed,” Minho says pointedly.
They breathe over the line for a tightly-pulled moment. “So…” Jisung starts. “As an adult. Y’know. Chan doesn’t decide what I do.”
“Right,” Minho says carefully.
“We don’t have to be a two-for-one deal, is all I'm saying. You could just…”
Minho’s heart feels large in his chest, imposing. “What are you getting at, bug?”
“God, bug. D’you know, until the other day, I’d almost forgotten you used to call me that?”
“Still feels accurate. Although you used to be a Roly Poly, and now you’re more like a Hercules beetle.”
Jisung laughs for real. “You’d better quit it with the bug talk, hyung, I’ll think you’re flirting.”
“Only you would think me comparing you to a beetle is flirting.”
“A Hercules beetle,” Jisung corrects. “The king of beetles.”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t have been getting so steamy. On Chan’s phone, no less.”
“Oh yeah,” Jisung says, bouncing back from whatever alternate phone reality they’ve been giggling into. “You called Chan, huh? Should I take a message?”
“You should take my number,” Minho says, before he can think better of it. “And you should text me.”
“… Is that the message?”
“No, idiot, that was me flirting.”
“Oh,” Jisung says faintly. “Really?”
“Just text me,” Minho dodges. “We should be friends. Not two-for-one friends.”
“I would love to be your friend,” Jisung says, soft, stingingly earnest. “I’ve always thought you were very cool, hyung.”
“Oh?” He bites his lip, and looks out the window into the flat yellow sunlight. When he shuts his eyes, red blobs dance through the darkness. The faintest contact with something so impossibly bright, and his retinas can’t shake it. “Most people think I’m kind of weird.”
“You are,” Jisung thrills. “Cool-weird. Weird-cool. It’s a winning combo.” Minho’s cheeks ache from smiling. There’s a creaking sound on the other end of the line, a thump, and Chan’s voice tumbles into the room. “Wait, sorry,” Jisung says hastily. And then, with the receiver half-covered, he says, “It’s Minho.”
“Wow,” he hears, muffled. “That’s twice in one month.”
“That’s what I said!” And then Jisung’s voice comes through clearer, “bye, hyung. I’m passing you over.”
“Bye, Jisung. Keep in touch. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t,” he murmurs sweetly, and then Chan is on the line.
“Hey,” he says. “Sorry, I was in a meeting. Was Jisung bothering you for long?”
“Nah, not long,” Minho replies.
Privately, he wishes that Jisung had bothered him a little longer.
He receives a text two days later of every bug emoji in the collection. He’s reviewing choreo at his home desk with his headphones on, and he cuffs them off around his neck at once, pausing the video mid-jump, so all the dancers are motion-blurred. He stares at his phone and—there’s that helpless smile again. It’s getting ridiculous. Just a sliver of Jisung's attention seems to eclipse everything else, and he forgets himself.
🦋🐛🐜🐝🪲🐞🦗🪳🕷️🦂🦟🪰🪱
I think you have the wrong number
😠 how many other bugs do you know? should I be jealous?
you’ve gotten awfully bold in your old age
only when I reeeally want something
you know our courtship is strictly verboten
verboten huh
a respectable 6/10 weird on the minho scale. what did I tell you?
I think you told me I was cool and awesome and strong
pretty sure some of those were inside thoughts
guess I can read your mind
hmmm that could come in handy ;)
what ever happened to my friend’s shy baby brother??
I killed him. I reign supreme.
I heard you inherited his dinosaur undies
?????????
whyyyy would Chan tell you that
I’m going to Cain and Abel him
first it’s dinos, now it’s the bible?
what a complicated bug you are
btw he was trying to convince me you aren’t hot
…
and you disagreed?
you want me to tell you you’re hot?
you brought it up!!!
you’re hot, Jisung
thanks?
say it like you mean it
thank you, dear hyung, for the compliment
better
now give your hyung-nim a bow
🙇
actually can you not dom me when I’m not there to enjoy it in person
?????
:)
Minho is being so normal. Sure, their conversations all have a sort of volcanic undertone, nearly bubbling over and ruining everything, but it’s all over the phone, so it’s at a healthy remove. He’s not disobeying his friend’s rules, he’s not overstepping, he’s not even talking to Jisung directly.
Which doesn’t quite explain away his new habit of trawling his dongsaeng’s social media and saving photos for some indeterminable purpose. He scrolls through pictures of Jisung, upright and confident next to some other hotshot producers at the studio, abandoned americanos and sheafs of music spread out on the table in front of them. The corner of his mouth is hitched up, showing teeth.
And Jisung, looking up from a blurry board game with a look of cartoonish outrage on his face, surrounded by new and old friends. Minho spots Seungmin, Changbin, and someone who must be Felix.
Jisung, piggybacked across Chan’s shoulders, smiling wide and slack, the camera flash turning him to white gold.
Jisung on holiday, shirtless and glistening with ocean spray, wearing white drawstring swim trunks and oversized sunglasses. His hair was ashy blond then, peaking out from his backwards cap, and he's pouting and poking one cheek. Cool-weird.
He hovers for a long time on a closeup of Jisung at some kind of animal sanctuary, a gecko climbing up the collar of his shirt into the crook of his neck. He’s looking at the camera like can you believe this? His eyes are so wide, and his smile is so real. He looks just how he used to in his back garden, like everything good in the world could be distilled down to the tiny creature in his hands.
He has to put down his phone. He has to meal prep, work out, go to the bank. He has to leave Jisung alone. It’s no good for him to be pursuing nostalgia and attraction towards an inevitable dead end. Anyway, he promised Chan.
He swipes to kakaotalk.
did you eat?
The response comes within the minute:
I ate breakfast!
It’s 4 PM
so glad your clock works <3
don’t be a brat or I won’t bring you lunch
it’s okay hyungie
I’m a two meal a day kind of guy
you need nutrients or your brain will turn to sand
and then you will get fired
also you’ll be dead bc of the whole sand thing
nooo I will crystallize into glass
ok glass for brains
do you want to get sushi with me?
hmm
that’s a little bit too date-shaped I think
ugh
agreed
bring food to the studio if u want
chan can chaperone
how jane austen
you've read jane austen???
nah I don't really get it
why would I read about romance?
idk it’s an extremely popular genre
for lonely people
I like romance
I like real romance
oh yeah prove it
don’t tempt me, you little shit
bring me lunch please hyung
think of my brains. my precious brains.
I’m thinking about them
I don’t like spicy food
I know
remember when I put too much sauce in your buldak and you cried
no comment!!!
He picks up enough yangnyeom and kimbap for three, and ferries it all to the imposing building where his friends work. He looks up at the glasswork and steel and feels an impending sense of vertigo. The plastic ringed handles of the takeout bags cut into his fingers as he rides the elevator up to the twentieth floor, watching the green electronic numbers climb. He wrings the railing at his back with a clammy hand and swallows a wave of height-induced nausea.
When the door dings open, Jisung is standing there with a caught smile, looking like the antidote to any fear Minho has ever had.
“Oh, hey,” he says, chipper. “I was just coming down to get you.”
“Eager, were we?”
“I thought you might get lost, actually. It's kind of a maze in here.”
Minho scans him up and down, taking stock: thick-rimmed glasses this time, fluffy hair, looped silver necklace over a long-sleeved t-shirt, and distressed jeans somewhere between shorts and pants.
“You look like an idol,” Minho blurts.
Jisung blinks, and then grins, leaning in to knock their shoulders together. Before Minho understands what’s happening, Jisung has gently pried the weight of the food from his hand.
“I work with idols a lot, so I’ve gotta keep up.” He smirks backwards at him. “I don’t remember you giving out compliments so freely as a teenager.”
Minho watches his profile as he strides ahead down the hallway. His jaw is just slightly shadowed with late-afternoon stubble.
“Who says that was a compliment? Maybe I’ve had enough of idols.”
“Well then you’ve come to the wrong place,” Jisung scoffs.
“I don’t know,” Minho hums as they round the corner, eyes dropping to Jisung’s tan calves. “Feels right to me.”
Jisung looks back at him, still smiling, innocent. “Good. I’m glad you came. You get to see where the magic happens,” he says, pushing a nondescript door to their left wide open.
Sound finds him before he can register anything else. A wall of mournful chords against a wide-blown electronic backtrack, grandiose and claustrophobic all at once. He hasn’t heard anything like it since Chan’s basement a decade ago. Unvarnished noise, dialled up to its breaking point, then released onto a glittering plateau.
“Look who I ran into,” Jisung announces through the musical firestorm.
Chan looks up from the monitor and his hyper-focus breaks into a grin. He presses a quick-fire series of keys and the sound trickles to a halt.
“Back for more already?”
He’s ruffled and familiar, headphones pulled down over a beanie which can barely contain his riot of un-styled curls. Tank top, basketball shorts, zip-up. He reaches out to bump fists, and Minho accepts with a wry smile.
“I’m trying this thing where I’m social,” he says as Jisung plunks food on the desk, working clumsily at the knot. Chan swipes it from him in a practiced move, and unravels it with ease. The smell of sticky sauce and fried batter fills the room.
Chan groans in approval. “I like social Minho.” He rolls a chair in his direction. “Sit down,” he orders.
“But that’s my chair,” Jisung complains.
“And Minho is our guest.” Chan is already dishing out chicken, cracking chopsticks, unrolling tinfoil wrapping.
Minho takes the chair, and seizes Chan’s distraction as an opportunity to raise an eyebrow at Jisung, gesturing to his lap in invitation. Jisung turns pink, and he leans on the desk instead, turning his head to squint self-consciously at the monitor.
“So what brings you to our doorstep?” Chan asks, oblivious.
“Day off,” Minho shrugs. “Jisung said you two hadn’t eaten. Thought I’d be a generous hyung.”
“Aw, he’s taking up charity work in his retirement,” Chan teases, passing Minho a styrofoam container. Minho passes it on to Jisung, and Chan tracks the movement curiously.
“I’m a philanthropist. I help the needy.” He reaches over and pinches Jisung’s thigh, and he lets out a dramatic yelp.
“I’m not needy,” Jisung hisses.
“Oh? I can practically see the sand leaking out of your ears.”
Chan looks between them. “Sand, huh? That would explain a lot.”
“It’s an inside joke,” Jisung mutters. He points greasy chopsticks at the both of them. “You guys get mean when you’re together. I feel like I’m ten years old again.”
“Have you guys been talking a lot?” Chan asks, reaching across to fetch a drumstick from the container in Jisung’s lap. It would be an innocent question if it came from someone less calculating than Chan.
“Just messaging a little,” Jisung replies. “Scheming about ways to knock you down a peg.”
“Oh yeah,” Minho agrees. “Mainly scheming. Snakes in the sock drawer, that kind of thing.”
Bizarrely, Jisung’s face lights up. “Oh wait! I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned Richard before. I have a baby lizard now, hyung, you have to meet her!”
Minho blinks. “Are we still making things up, or do you genuinely have a lizard named Richard?”
“I would never lie about my only daughter."
Minho tamps down a wild surge of endearment. “I can’t believe I go away for a few years and now you’re a single father.”
“I can’t believe it either,” Chan grumbles. “We have crickets in our pantry. Sometimes I find them outside of the pantry.”
Minho laughs. “Of course you do. Jisungie, you menace.”
He shrugs, filling his mouth with rice and veg. He’s painfully cute, in a way where it's clear he's not especially trying to be. Minho has the strangest urge to put his fingers to the round of his cheek, to feel his chewing from the outside.
“Lizard’s gotta eat. Hey, do you still have Soonie?”
Minho nods, mouth tugging into a smile that he can feel is a little dopier than the conversation requires. It’s just nice, is all. For him to remember. “I have three now. Soonie, Doongie, and Dori. My mom was taking care of them while I was on tour, but now I can have them full time.”
“You must be so happy,” Jisung croons. “You’re destined to be a crazy cat… guy. Man. Lord?”
“Pardon me?”
“The equivalent of a crazy cat lady. You know what I’m saying.”
Chan is busy cracking up. “Lord of the cats.”
Jisung laughs along. “Yeah, exactly. Lord of the cats. Can I meet them? Not to invite myself over or anything, sorry, I just really love animals,” he gushes.
“I know you do.” He has to fight not to call him baby. Aegi. Darling. Something that will dip even shallowly into his well of affection, which seems full to overflowing these days.
“We could have a belated housewarming,” Chan suggests coolly. “The whole gang could come, if you’re down.” Minho notes that he’s gently diverting them from one-on-one time, and he cocks his head at him, knowing.
“Sure. I’m social Minho, remember?”
“Awesome,” Jisung says, grinning. He knocks his shoe into the side of Minho’s. “We’ll bring dessert.”
He’d lost touch with many of his old friends when he’d set out on the road, mostly sticking to benign text updates and long phone calls, keeping things light and normal however he could within a lifestyle that was neither of those things. As a result, he hasn’t even laid eyes on Seungmin in years. You wouldn’t know it for talking to him, though. He arrives first to Minho's housewarming dinner, and immediately makes himself at home in Minho’s armchair.
“I saw you on tour two years ago,” he drops.
“Oh?” Minho asks, still recalibrating to Kim Seungmin in his living room, enigmatic as always.
He bobs his head, looking around at the bare walls, the sparse gym equipment tucked in the corner. “I had business in Jakarta.”
“Fuck off, no you didn’t.”
Seungmin looks over, smiling with one thin corner of his mouth. “I caught day two in Seoul," he admits. "Someone in my cohort had an extra ticket.”
“Your cohort,” Minho repeats.
“I couldn’t help but notice that you weren’t there when I defended my thesis,” he says archly.
“I didn’t know you were in school,” Minho says. “I sort of thought you lived under a bridge somewhere dispensing riddles.”
“Only part time,” Seungmin says. “The pay is shit.”
Minho offers him a cider, which he primly accepts, and then sits on the coffee table. “And the rest of the time?”
“I teach a class on kpop.”
“No you don’t,” he repeats.
Seungmin smirks into his can. “This one is true. MUS 335: Idol Ambassadors and the Global Politics of Kpop.”
“So you came to see me as research?”
“I came to see my friend dance,” Seungmin says, wide-eyed. “And then I made an assignment out of it.”
“Unbelievable.”
“It was only worth five percent," he says, like that's the main sticking point here. "Anyway, half my friends are in the industry. Is it so surprising that it ended up becoming my field of study?”
“I always thought you would be a singer,” Minho admits.
“I do sing,” Seungmin shrugs. “Chan even put me on Spotify.” He says Spotify like an elderly man who’s just learned what it’s called.
It’s at this point that there’s a knock on the door, and Minho turns, still half-bewildered, to call, “It’s open,” in the direction of the entryway. “Kim Seungmin is telling me lies in here.”
“And the pope is Catholic,” a wry voice replies, Changbin shouldering his way in with Hyunjin in tow. The both of them are already noisy, shuffling into slippers and shifting brown bags of liquor in their arms.
“We thought you were dead,” Hyunjin informs him, collapsing lazily into the centre of the couch.
“You don’t call, you don’t write,” Changbin adds, plucking a bottle of soju from a bag, and then another.
“I’ve been busy,” Minho says.
Changbin immediately affects over-the-top disbelief, bunching up at the edge of the seat he’s only just taken. “That's your excuse? Hyunjinnie is a real idol, and look at him! He’s here!”
“I’m here too,” Minho says airily.
“I’m also here,” Seungmin adds, and Changbin gets his hand full of Seungmin’s collar without even looking.
“Chan missed you,” Changbin accuses.
“You can just say that you missed me, Binnie.”
“I didn’t,” he blusters. “I was enjoying an age of peace.”
Seungmin is contorting to try and free himself, pretending to bite at Changbin’s fingers. Minho does a double take. Probably pretending.
“You? Peace?” Hyunjin says. He shakes his head to himself in silent disbelief.
“And quiet,” Changbin says with relish.
Seungmin boos, and Changbin releases his collar to smack him once, bracingly, on the side of the neck.
“I’m back now,” Minho says. “I’m settling down.”
“Oh yeah? Who’s the lucky guy?”
“No guy.” He tries to ignore the way Jisung’s face flashes briefly through his mind. “I’m just tired of doing the same thing every day.”
“I thought you were travelling the world,” Changbin says.
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Hyunjin says, levelling a knowing gaze in Minho’s direction. “Touring is a marathon. You do it until you can barely stand, and when you look back you can barely remember what happened.”
“Poor rich and famous Jinnie,” Changbin teases, reaching grabby fingers towards Hyunjin’s cheek.
“Yah,” he complains. “See if I treat you to jajangmyeon next time.”
“I forgot my wallet!”
“You forgot your manners,” Hyunjin fires back.
“Knock knock,” a new voice says. By the time he looks over, Chan is already making his way into the apartment, trailing dongsaengs like ducklings behind him. “Turning Minho’s place into a schoolyard already?”
“We could hear you from the elevator,” Jisung says cheerfully. His smile zeroes in on Minho. “Hello Minho-hyung.”
“Hello Jisungie,” Minho returns. Jisung is dressed up. A nice, soft jacket with the sleeves rolled up, a well-fitting pair of jeans. He’s all dotted with glinting silver jewellery.
“Hello!” It takes Minho a beat or two to free himself from Jisung’s sticky gaze, and when he does, he finds the blond from Chan’s phone background holding a hand out for him to shake. “I’m Felix. Your friends talk about you all the time.”
Minho takes his hand. “They’re all compulsive liars.”
Felix laughs earnestly at Minho’s lukewarm joke. “I figured out that much, knowing these attention-seekers.”
With a pang, Minho realizes that he’s the new one to this group dynamic, not Felix. He offers him a smile. “How old are you, Felix?”
“Just turned twenty-five. I was born the day after Jisung, actually.”
Minho hums. “September 15th, then.”
“You remember my birthday?” Jisung asks from his new perch on the arm of the couch.
“As if you would let me forget it.”
“Oh?” Jisung says. “Then where have my birthday greetings been all these years?”
“Lost in the mail,” Minho tries.
“Compulsive liar,” Jisung mouths at Felix, and Minho laughs.
“And this is our maknae,” Chan’s saying, holding the youngest upright by his shoulders like a proud parent. “Yang Jeonginnie. The best of us.”
“Ah, hey,” Jeongin says, smiling shyly. “You should let him form his own opinion, hyung.”
“Jeongin,” Minho greets. “Felix. Please eat all the takeout I ordered.”
“Gladly,” Jeongin beams. The last of them orbiting the table find their spots, and tuck noisily into the pile of food and drink, passing around shallowly filled glasses.
“You didn’t cook for us, hyung?” Jisung asks, his mouth half-full.
“Did I cook for eight people after work today? No. It’s not Christmas.”
Jisung hums, accepting a cup of soju when Felix passes it his way. “I miss when you used to make food for me after school.” He remembers those evenings, when Chan would have to leave Minho’s early for some extracurricular or other, and young Jisung would look wet-eyed and pathetic until Minho offered him something to eat.
Minho looks up at him, cobwebbed in nostalgia, and before he knows it he’s saying, “I can cook for you if you want. Do you still like dwaeji galbi?”
Jisung looks startled, lowering his cup from parted lips. “Really?”
“Really. I’ll even bring mealworms for Richard.”
Jisung’s eyes dance. “Better not mix up those two containers.”
“I would never do that to Richard.”
Jisung sticks his tongue out. Minho mimes snipping it off.
“Are you a good cook, Minho-ssi?” Jeongin asks politely.
“Just hyung, please,” Minho says, busying himself with dishing up his own food, arranging banchan over his steaming rice. “I’m not bad. Kind of rusty, now.”
“Eh, I don’t think you ever really lose those skills though,” Felix says, waving the thought away.
“Oh yeah, you’re the baker, right? Lemon squares?” He points at him with a spoon. “You’re good.”
“He’s dangerous,” Chan interjects. “My sugars are through the roof.”
“My guinea pigs,” Felix says, smiling deviously, even putting down his chopsticks so he can steeple his fingers like a movie villain.
“Jisung must love you.” Minho says, mostly to see Jisung’s head snap in his direction. He still has the most expressive body language. He could spot him in a stadium full of people. “He’s the biggest sugar addict I’ve ever met.”
“I don’t know, do you love me Sungie?” Felix croons, cuddling into Jisung’s side, kneading at a muscle in his thigh.
Jisung yelps and squirms, pushing him feebly away. “I’ll love you more if you leave my legs alone, please and thank you.”
“Sensitive?” Minho asks innocently.
Jisung gives him a look. “It was leg day yesterday,” he says defensively.
“Ah. I forgot you work out now,” he lies.
“I don’t blame you,” Changbin says. “He’s got so little to show for it.”
“What the hell?” Jisung exclaims. “Why am I catching strays?”
All three of his hyungs exchange an amused glance.
Chan prods him in the side. “You’re too easy, Sung. Scoot over.”
For a while they settle into eating and easy conversation, and he learns that Felix has his own travel show, and Jeongin is in fashion. Entertainers, the lot of them. Figures.
It’s warm and nostalgic, being around his childhood friends, but he can also feel himself lagging behind a little. All of their dynamics evolved while he wasn’t looking—all of their scattered points of connections and unfamiliar references have braided a complicated pattern while he was away.
He can’t believe it’s been so long. You don’t realize how far you’ve run until you’re tasked with retracing your steps.
“You and Jisung seem close,” a voice beside him says.
He startles, glancing over to find Felix smiling closely at him, eyes bright. His guests have clumped off into groups post-dinner, laughing over an anecdote Changbin is over-performing, piling dishes away despite Minho’s complaints, rigging up some racing game on his nearly forgotten gaming console.
“We’ve known each other for a long time.”
He nods, looking out at the chaos. “Since the Bahngs took him in, right? I’ve heard he was a real handful back then.”
Minho scoffs, feeling strangely protective. “Heard from who, Chan? You know it’s a hyung’s job to say that.”
“True,” Felix laughs. “But it's not just Chan—Jisung always tells me I'm lucky I met him after he figured out how to be human.”
“Oh." He pulls up short. How could anyone resent a version of themselves who was trying so earnestly to be seen? “I guess I never thought Jisung was that hard to understand. He was young, and he was trying to find a way to fit into the world.”
Felix looks surprised by his candour. “That’s pretty sweet.” His smile starts to unfold. There’s something sort of mesmerizing about it, like watching a flower grow in real time. Minho can see clearly why Chan is smitten.
Minho shrugs, feeling his ears start to burn as they do so often these days. “I’m a sweet guy.”
“Despite all the stories I’ve heard,” Felix teases.
“What did I say? Don’t believe anything these rats tell you.”
“Minho-yah,” Chan says, throwing an arm around Minho’s shoulders, heaving himself into his side on the couch. “Are you bad-mouthing us again?”
“Of course not.”
“Good,” Chan says, easily placated. “Hey, I’m proud of you, you know?” Minho can smell the faintest edge of beer on his breath, and he laughs in disbelief.
“Hyung,” Minho starts.
“No, I’m serious.” He pulls him around so they’re face to face. “You’ve always been the guy who puts his all into things. And I know, for a while, that was 2TS. But I’m glad you’re building something else now.”
He meets Chan’s eyes. It’s more than the alcohol—he’s having one of his rare bouts of clumsy sincerity; his expression is soft and strange.
“Something like what?”
Chan shakes his shoulder. “A home? A social life? This is the third time I’ve seen you in two months. I thought we had become once a year friends. Which I got, you know? I’m just glad I was wrong.”
“Hey, how can you say that?” Minho pretends to complain, deflecting. “I’m loyal, you know?”
Across the room, he catches Jisung’s eye. He’s already looking over at them, his expression openly curious. It’s gotten hot with all of them crowded together in here, and he can see that the wisps of hair at his nape are slicked to the skin.
“I know, I know,” Chan laughs. “I think I forgot how violently loyal you are because, for a bit, it wasn’t me you were following around.”
“I’ve never followed you around,” Minho says, exasperated.
“It’s okay, man. Every duo has a leader and a follower.”
“You’re baiting me,” Minho accuses, holding up a punishing fist.
Chan laughs, grabbing his hand. Paper covers rock. “It’s a love language.”
“Here here,” Seungmin pipes up, clearly eavesdropping.
“I’m glad you invited us, man,” Chan says by way of ending the conversation, clapping a hand over Minho’s thigh as he gets up, doubtless to go check on someone else.
“You invited yourself,” Minho reminds him.
Chan winks over his shoulder. “And I’ll do it again.”
Minho shakes his head, feeling wild, giddy laughter building in his chest. He takes a burning sip of his drink to keep it contained. He has to maintain some kind of mystique. He looks for Jisung again, compulsive, and finds him stripping his jacket off and folding it over the back of a dining chair.
His shirt is loose in a way where it pulls easily with movement, floating around his waist. Minho tries to look away but can’t. He stares until his eyes burn.
“I make a really good flourless chocolate torte.”
“Hm?” Minho asks, his brain taking a jumbled few seconds to catch up.
“It’s Jisung’s favourite,” Felix explains. “If you ever want to curry favour.”
Minho looks at him sharply. “Why would I need to do that?”
Felix snorts. “Well, I don’t think you need to do much. But a romantic gesture never hurts.”
His stomach drops. Is he being that obvious? “You have the wrong idea,” Minho says, strained.
“Yeah, okay.” Felix smiles sympathetically. “Totally. No romance. Friendship torte.”
“I don’t need a torte at all,” Minho says, baffled.
“Sure,” Felix says, patting his knee.
“Hyung-ah,” Jisung says, materializing at their side. He’s eyeing the stretch of leg that Felix had just touched. “Can I meet the cats now?”
“Oh—uh, yeah. Of course. They get overwhelmed by a lot of company at once, so I put them in my room.” He nods to Felix, who appears to be fighting laughter, and pushes up off the couch to lead the way to his bedroom. Jisung falls into step close behind.
“I get that,” he says. “I also get overwhelmed by a lot of company at once.”
“Ah, so that hasn’t changed?”
“Nope, still a shut-in at heart,” Jisung replies easily as Minho turns the doorknob to a chorus of meows. “Oh!” He crouches at once, offering Doongie his hand. “Hello boys!”
“Gentleman,” Minho greets. “That’s the middle child, and he has a complex about it. That’s Dori, the maknae.” He gestures towards the cautious tabby by the foot of the bed. “He’s a flight risk. And you know Soonie.”
“Hi baby,” Jisung coos as Soonie rubs his face into his ankle. “I missed you.” He makes a small, tremulous cry, and Jisung makes a sympathetic sound in return. “I’m sorry I haven’t seen you in so long, Lee Soonie. Your father was keeping us apart out of jealousy.”
Minho smiles, feeling like a faucet has gone on somewhere in his chest, turning cool uncertainty to warmth and bubbles.
“Slander,” he argues. Jisung looks up at him, soft focus, made extra small and non-threatening by his folded-up posture. Minho puts a hand on top of his warm head.
“You’re supposed to pet the cats,” Jisung informs him.
“They get my attention all the time.”
“Oh, and now it’s my turn?” Jisung asks, half his focus on Dori, who is creeping curiously closer. Jisung gets down flat on his knees, making himself even less threatening. “Do I get treats too?”
“You want some churu?”
“Tempting,” he jokes, making an array of colourful, unfiltered faces at whichever cat captures his attention from moment to moment. “What flavours d’you have?”
“Mmm. Salmon? Scallop, I think. Chicken.”
Jisung pretends to consider it. “No New York cheesecake? I think I’ll take chin scratches instead.” He tilts his head up to look at Minho, who pinches his earlobe.
“Scratch your own chin.”
Jisung tsks, looking down at Soonie as if commiserating. “He’s still such a tsundere, huh? After all these years.”
Minho crouches down to start administering butt pats to Dori. “I could do this instead,” Minho offers. “If you bring me your butt.”
Jisung snorts. “You shouldn’t use your cats as a flirtation device, hyung. It’s not right.”
“Nah, they’re up for it. I had them sign a contract.”
Jisung cracks up for real, triggering Minho's laugh in real time. “Did you dip their little paws in ink?”
“Yeah. Made a real mess of my last apartment. Lost my damage deposit.”
“But gained three exceptional wingmen,” Jisung says, holding Doongie’s paws up so he’s balanced on his haunches. He mewls in protest and Jisung lets him down at once. “Sorry, sorry baby.”
“He’s a drama king,” Minho says, smoothing a hand down Doongie’s back, and then, tentatively, doing the same thing to Jisung. He’s emanating heat through his thin cotton shirt. “Like I said, he has a complex.”
Jisung looks up at him shyly, and he realizes all at once how intimately close they really are. Minho keeps trying to steer straight through choppy waters, and somehow still ends up washed up on Jisung’s shore, again and again.
“We should get back,” he murmurs, and Jisung’s bottom lip juts out just a little. He nods anyway.
“You’re the host,” Jisung agrees. “You should go greet your public.”
“I want to stay here,” Minho confides. Dori brushes against his fingertips.
Jisung smiles fondly down at the cat trio, now complete, and then at Minho. “Me too.” He cups Soonie’s face, giving him a light parting squeeze, and stands up. “But we’re being social.”
“Ugh,” Minho groans.
“Come on,” Jisung says. “The cats will still be here when you get back.”
“But you won’t,” Minho grumbles as they leave, and for both of their sakes, Jisung pretends not to hear him.