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“Seungmin,” Minho says, laying down on Seungmin’s pristinely made bed and wrinkling the covers. “How do the protagonists in your dramas know they’re cursed?”
The soft clatter of Seungmin setting down his pen filters into Minho’s ears. “I’m busy, Lino. Wait, what?”
“Like, are there rules? Tests? There’s gotta be some way people figure it out. No one just starts out believing in magic, that’s stupid.”
“Why?” Seungmin asks. Annoying. “Are you getting into screenwriting? I thought you’d try acting first.”
“Why do you need to know so much?” Minho settles against the pillows with his hands behind his head and closes his eyes. “Thought you were busy. Just tell me and I’ll leave.”
“No way.” Oh no. Seungmin’s tone is actually somewhat sincere. “Why dramas? Did something happen with Hannie?”
Minho scoffs immediately, then worries that was a bit too dramatic. “Hannie? If I wanted to know about his dramas I’d ask him.”
A push lands on his shoulder. “Move over.” Minho shuffles over enough for Seungmin to sit next to him on the bed, though he makes a face when he opens his eyes and sees a worried little puppy hovering over him. “If you wanted to know about dramas, you would be asking him. Why aren’t you?”
“Fuck off. Are you going to answer or not?”
Seungmin sighs. “Hyung… It depends on the drama. You know this is a popular trope, right?” He pauses and studies Minho’s face. Minho makes an ugly expression until Seungmin can’t bear to look anymore and says, “Give me a little more to go on.”
Nothing goes easily for him lately. Minho closes his eyes again with a sigh and rolls his shoulders, getting comfortable.
“Fine. Hypothetically, if I was cursed, how could I tell?”
“Minho-hyung, are you okay?”
Minho glares up at him. “If you don’t want to help, I’ll ask someone else.”
Seungmin smiles and shakes his head. “Fine. Have you disrespected your elders or dishonored your family lately?” He throws his hands up before Minho can actually sit up and strangle him. “No, not that. Did you eat anything that didn’t belong to you?”
“If that was it, Dwaekki would be cursed a million times over just by Iyennie.”
“Cross a bridge at midnight?”
“Why would I be out at midnight?”
“Did you leave a mirror facing the door? Were you whistling last night? Step on any thresholds lately? Clip your toenails at night? Wait, did you wash your hair on New Year’s?”
“No. No. How would I remember that? Definitely not. Maybe? You sound like my mom.”
“The reason someone’s cursed can be pretty ridiculous. And arbitrary.” Seungmin thinks for a moment. “It can be related to the curse itself…”
“Nice try,” Minho says, pointing an accusing finger at Seungmin. “What else?”
“Just putting it out there. You don’t have to tell me, but you should think about it. Lots of times the curse and the trigger are related. What made you think of this, anyway? I thought believing in magic was stupid.”
“It is.” Minho stares at the ceiling. “I just don’t have an explanation for this. Not one that makes sense, anyway.”
Seungmin slides down the bed to lie down next to him. It’s nice, just being quiet with him for a minute. Weirdly distracting.
“Whatever’s going on, situations that affect you this heavily don’t come from nowhere,” Minho explains. “They have causes. They usually make sense.”
“Is that how it works in your experience?” Seungmin’s tone is much too wry for Minho’s liking. “They don’t come from nowhere, but that doesn’t mean you always know where they came from.”
That answer sounds reasonable on paper. It might even be true. But it’s not fixable, and Minho really needs to fix this problem. Or at least make it go away and forget it ever happened. They’re practically the same thing. Still, Seungmin has given him some ideas, so it wasn’t entirely a waste of time.
“I guess so.” Minho pats Seungmin’s thigh. “Thanks, meongmeongie. If you tell anyone I’ll kill you.”
“I won’t,” Seungmin promises. “Not that you would.”
Minho sits up before turning to smile threateningly in Seungmin’s direction. He covers his face. Yet another win for Lee Minho.
Seungmin’s idea isn’t half bad. Between juggling his many jobs, Minho hasn’t had a lot of time to sit down and think about when everything changed, but he cuts half of his workout from the next day’s schedule and skips rice to compensate. Mapping out when and how he was maybe cursed is something that deserves his full attention.
Minho had enjoyed vacation when they’d finally been released from quarantine. He’d gotten to hug his parents, cuddle with his feline siblings, and eat well with his friends. He’d video called with Jisung a couple of times (and Jeongin, and Felix, and Hyunjin, and briefly Seungmin when Changbin was at the gym and he was having lunch), but he hadn’t felt any differently from usual. He’s always liked seeing Jisung’s little quokka face on his phone screen. That isn’t new.
When he’d returned to the dorm, Minho had gone to Jisung’s room first, but only because Jisung wouldn’t have been aware enough of the goings on outside his room to know Minho had arrived. Maybe it started then. Looking back, was the rush of overwhelming fondness in his chest when he saw Jisung—wrapped in blankets, watching Netflix on his phone stand, eyes a little red rimmed—his standard level of Jisung affection? It’s not like Minho isn’t fond of Jisung.
He’s sure his heart doesn’t regularly squeeze so tightly just because Jisung smiled, though. Not even if that smile is because of him. It’s an overreaction, no matter how cutely Jisung had struggled to extricate himself from his phone stand and blankets before half-running the two steps necessary to hug Minho, even though he’d still been wearing his outside clothes and Jisung was only in his shirt and underwear. Minho would have noticed if his heart always did something like that.
So it must have started when he first saw Jisung again after the short break. He had a really normal break! None of the stupid stuff Seungmin brought up happened while he was at home.
Minho lifts his head and grabs the pillow out from it so he can smother himself instead, catching his hair for a moment and wincing. He’s turning into Dori these days.
He pauses in the act of dying.
From the moment Dori heard Jisung’s voice during their call, he’d jumped directly into Minho’s lap and purred so loud Jisung could hear it the whole time. Minho prides himself on having met a lot of cats, but he’s never seen anything like the way Dori loves Jisung, even when he’s not physically present.
Seungmin’s advice rings in his ears. Is this… a sign?
Minho looks upside down at the photos of Soonie, Doongie, and Dori he has taped to the headboard. “Did you infect me?” he asks softly, staring at Dori’s devious face. “Did you get your crush on Hannie all over me when you shed on my sweater?”
Dori’s picture doesn’t answer. How typical.
“Hyung.” A hand shakes Minho’s shoulder and startles him awake, but he doesn’t have the energy to do anything more than blink in confusion as Jisung’s wide eyes swim into view. “Hey. Were you waiting for me?”
Minho sits up and takes a swipe at his eyes. “Yeah,” he says through a yawn. “How’d it go?”
“Good, good, good. Sky-Hi-san’s track is really cool, nothing like anything else, it’s amazing.” Jisung gushes a while longer, but Minho is increasingly less aware of the words as he zones out, staring directly ahead. Jisung is wearing his shirt tucked into his jeans today. They must have done a video call with Sky-Hi at the studio.
Minho reaches up and pokes Jisung’s stomach.
“Ah!” Jisung stumbles back and crosses his arms, a little frown over his face like a storm cloud. Cute.
“I’m glad it was fun,” Minho says. “Will you play it for me?”
Jisung sizes him up. “You weren’t listening, were you?”
“I was, I was.”
“Lino…” With a sigh, Jisung steps forward and puts a hand on the back of Minho’s head, tipping him forward until he faceplants into Jisung’s stomach. Minho circles his arms around Jisung’s waist, but it’s too small to hold comfortably like this, so he settles for squeezing Jisung’s ass and making him laugh. “Stop it. Do you want a nap?”
“Just took one.” Minho pointedly squeezes again, not moving an inch.
“Stop. I mean it!” He never means it. “Finish this flying squirrel video with me, then.”
Minho reluctantly takes his hands off Jisung’s ass to make room for him on the bed. “I’ll fall asleep,” he whines as Jisung changes into comfortable clothes.
“So I’ll wake you up after.” Jisung sets up his phone on the stand and looks expectantly at Minho, who only takes a second to remember that he needs to open his arms and legs so he can hug Jisung from behind. As soon as he does, Jisung settles close with a barely-audible noise that sounds so pleased Minho’s chest aches.
So he’s definitely cursed.
The nice thing about Chan is that he waits a while to pry. It’s not that he’ll never do it—he’s somewhere in the middle if Minho were ranking the members by how nosy they are—but Chan has the patience to see if you’ll go to him first.
When Minho falls back over the arm of the couch after invading Channie’s Room, all Chan does is take off a headphone and ask, “You good?”
“Fine.” Minho doesn’t volunteer anything further, so Chan adjusts his headset and gets back to work. The urge to see how long Chan can hold out before curiosity gets the better of him is just too good to pass up. Minho opens his choreography assignment and starts editing it on his phone; he’ll give Chan until the battery dies to see if he’ll break.
Editing is a ruthless way of cataloging every tiny mistake Minho makes, which is no help to an already sour mood. When he hears the rustling of Chan turning around to look at him, Minho pretends he doesn’t, concentrated on the bend of his wrist. He was too tired last night, but there’s no time to redo it. Minho forces the hollow pit in his stomach to fill before he looks at Chan, who raises an eyebrow and tilts his head a little.
Minho raises his eyebrow back. They stare at each other for a while. When Chan blinks, Minho tosses the phone into his lap so he can sit up and cheer.
“Feeling better?” Chan asks with a laugh.
Minho wants to hate that he’s smiling about this, but it’s hard. Chan’s annoying that way.
“I feel worse. Not because I won, because you’re smiling.”
Chan moves to sit beside him on the couch, which is never a good sign. It’s rare that Minho is in the position of feeling mildly threatened. He responds entirely out of self-defense.
“Do you ever feel like Yongbokkie cursed your dick?”
This would have been so much better if he’d thought of a way to get Chan to take a drink before he said it, but Minho is pretty satisfied with the spluttering he gets. Chan can’t even do that ridiculous little giggle of his—he’s too shocked.
“Do I what?”
“You heard me,” Minho says, unable to keep the undercurrent of glee from his voice. “Have you ever been lying awake in bed thinking about how Yongbok totally cursed your dick?”
“Are you asking because you think he cursed yours, because—”
“No! Gross. Yongbokkie? That’s your thing.”
Chan leans his head back to stare at the ceiling, an anguished expression on his face. Minho reaches out and pats his thigh.
“If not Felix,” Chan says slowly, “then who?”
“I didn’t say it was a person.”
Chan gives him a look that is unfortunately fair. The instinct to cover things up remains, but when Minho opens his mouth, the truth comes out; it must be opposite day. “Hannie.”
“Oh.”
Oh? Oh? Is that relief he hears in Chan’s voice? Minho doesn’t know what to do with that.
“I know that we were focused on avoiding drama at all costs,” Chan says, fixing Minho with his serious eyes, “probably for too long, but things are easier now. I also know we all got a lot of speeches about giving up everything to become idols, but love is important. The group is important. Both of those things can and should coexist. If you want to work things out with Hannie—”
“Work what out with Hannie?”
Chan falls silent, staring at Minho as though he’s a wounded animal. He should know by now that look only makes Minho want to wound back.
“You don’t get it,” Minho says, voice sharper than he really means it to be. “It’s not normal. It’s not—” he makes a vague gesture in the air between them, “—all that.”
Each word from his mouth has Chan’s thin brows climbing higher, but he lets Minho finish the thought, silence ringing between them for a moment. Minho could’ve kept going if not for the way his chest has tightened; he has to shut up or he’ll run out of breath.
“It’s normal,” Chan says, voice full of overwhelmingly misplaced empathy. Minho is vaguely nauseated by it. “I promise, it’s—”
“A love curse,” Minho cuts in, refusing to entertain whatever mush Chan is going to spew at him because he doesn’t understand the situation. “I’m pretty sure it was Dori.”
Chan stares at him in confusion this time. “What?”
“Can cats shed love germs? I don’t think it’s impossible. They have all sorts of abilities we might not realize because we don’t know how to speak with them.”
“Lino…” Chan pinches the bridge of his nose. He might actually be speechless. Minho supposes that’s a fair reaction. It’s not the most believable thing in the world, and if he didn’t have proof, he would think it was insane too.
The fact that it’s understandable doesn’t change that Chan won’t be much help to him until Minho can find a way to impress upon him the serious nature of the situation. With a sigh, Minho heaves himself off the couch and pats Chan’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, I’ll figure it out. Forget I said anything.”
“Minho, wait—”
He shuts the door on whatever Chan is trying to say. They’re just not working with the same set of facts yet.
Minho stops at the convenience store on the way home, even though it’s technically out of his way. They’re out of rice at the dorm, but he’s too lazy to go all the way to the grocery store, so whatever the convenience store has should be enough for him to throw some chicken breast on top of. There’s a new flavor of tea, so he gets a few of those too, just to try them.
His arm gets tired right around the other dorm, but Minho finds himself hesitating outside for the first time. More and more, he finds himself second-guessing things he does with Jisung that used to seem totally normal.
Then again, it’s not like he does this just to see Jisung. He doesn’t even see Jisung half the time. It’s just because he’s tired.
Minho pushes the discomfort from his mind and lets himself into the building. The elevator ride seems twice as long as normal, but the couch in the living room feels as familiar as his hometown friends. He’s already laying down by the time Changbin turns his head enough to realize Minho is there and take out his earbuds.
“Hannie,” he calls, “your sleepy cat is here and I’m allergic!”
It’s bad luck that Changbin’s home. Hyunjin and Chan don’t bother to call him out anymore. They allow him to recover his strength and leave in peace without feeling the need to inform the rest of the dorm that he’s arrived. Changbin’s always excited to see him, though, and even more excited to share.
“What’d you get?” Changbin asks, poking his head over the back of the couch.
Minho opens one eye to glare at him. “Food and drink.”
He hears the click of Jisung’s door opening. “Well? Did you pet him?” Jisung asks from the hall, his voice coming closer and closer.
When his footsteps near the couch, Minho slams his eyes shut again. His fingers curl against his palms when Jisung scratches Minho’s head.
“Hi, hyung.”
“Hi.”
He leans his head up a little, so Jisung pets him some more, laughing under his breath. Resigned to his fate, Minho opens his eyes. Jisung’s smile is pretty even upside down. Gross. If this is how Dori feels whenever Jisung comes over, Jisung is banned from Minho’s house from now on.
“Tired?” Jisung asks. “I just woke up.” It’s 4pm, but the laws of time and sense don’t affect Jisung’s sleep schedule.
“Exhausted,” Minho answers. “I walked from the JYP building to the convenience store. Had to stop here. It was an emergency.”
Jisung ruffles his hair before pulling away, laughing when he sees his handiwork in full. “Here, sit up.” Minho sighs, greatly inconvenienced by the interruption, but heaves himself into a sitting position. He can feel his hair sticking up, but he does nothing to fix it as Jisung walks around to the front of the couch and leans over Minho to comb his hair back into place.
“Couldn’t let you go out like that,” Jisung says, smoothing Minho’s hair down one last time. He blinks slowly up at Jisung. Between one blink and the next, Jisung laughs. After the next he’s gone.
“You really are tired, Lino-hyung. Go lay in your bed.” It sounds like Jisung is making himself something to drink. Not water, since he still has that fridge in his room. Coffee?
Minho throws his head back and groans. “I have to make chicken.”
“So go make chicken.”
“I’m sleeping.”
He doesn’t realize Jisung’s come back from the kitchen until cold fingers tickle him under his chin, making Minho jump. “Hey!”
“Go make chicken, hyung.”
Is that all Jisung has to say these days? Get out, go home, go make chicken? Something sour twists Minho’s stomach. He lifts his head and reaches for the bag.
“Yeah, alright.” Minho doesn’t look back as he goes to put on his shoes. He has no idea why this is making him feel weird. It’s nothing different from how their conversations usually go on these little stops. It’s weird that Jisung came out to greet him at all. You’d think Minho’s curse would be satisfied with the attention.
“See you tomorrow?” he asks.
“Bye!” Jisung calls, already mostly down the hall. Minho looks back, surprised that he’s so far away, but Jisung has already disappeared, along with any hope of Minho catching one last glimpse before he leaves.
Keeping the curse to himself and hoping it goes away only lasts a few days. Minho can only keep his brain occupied for so long, especially when confronted with Jisung day in and day out.
Jeongin finds him sitting against the wall, waiting for everyone else to finish with photography. Minho only notices he’s there when Jeongin waves a hand in front of his face.
“What?” Minho asks, unable to pretend that he’s anything other than exhausted.
“Hi.” Jeongin shuffles close enough to press their shoulders together. “Wanna nap?”
“Maybe.” He doesn’t move. “Do you?”
This time, Jeongin bumps his shoulder into Minho’s to make his point. “I want to figure out what’s up with you.”
Minho can’t help smiling. Jeongin’s blunt approach to things is refreshingly sweet.
“How’s that going for you?”
“You’re definitely avoiding something.” Jeongin hums. “Someone, probably. You only fuck off this hard when you’re sleeping or avoiding someone.”
“I don’t avoid people,” Minho argues.
“You never lie, either.”
Minho wraps his arms around Jeongin as a form of revenge. “Not about how much I love you, Yen-ah. Never that.”
They wrestle a bit after that, but neither of them really have their hearts in it, so no one wins. Minho is satisfied that Jeongin’s hair looks a bit ruffled when they settle down.
Minho has already told so many people. What’s the harm in telling Jeongin?
With a sigh, Minho confesses: “I’ve been cursed.”
“Oh, it’s a curse?”
Minho turns to stare at Jeongin. No one has believed him so readily yet. “Definitely.”
“That’s a relief.”
Something in the vicinity of Minho’s heart twists, though he reminds himself that’s only a phantom sensation related to some weird brainwave he doesn’t want to think too hard about.
“Why?” he asks, preparing to attack Jeongin again if he acts out. “Was I being weird?”
“You’re always weird about Hannie-hyung.”
Every other thought flies out of Minho’s head.
“How did you know it was him?” There’s nothing funny about this anymore. Minho runs through Jeongin’s words in his head again, but they make less sense the second time around. The weird responses he’s been getting to this issue have started to get under his skin. “And what do you mean, ‘always’?”
“You know.”
No, Minho does not. Why does everyone keep assuming he knows things that aren’t even true?
Jeongin sighs and makes a vague, repetitive gesture with one hand. “Your whole thing is being weird about him. Since forever?” Jeongin studies Minho’s expression. “What were you talking about?”
“You first.” Minho is done avoiding this question. Chan’s reaction was one thing, but Minho actually respects Jeongin. For both of them to act this way is too suspicious to ignore.
Jeongin laughs like he can’t believe Minho is serious. “I don’t really know how to explain to you that you’re in love with someone.”
“I wouldn’t call it that serious,” Minho argues. Wait, he didn’t mention what the curse was. Or did he? “It’s only been a couple weeks.”
There’s a weird look on Jeongin’s face. Sympathetic, maybe.
“Hyung. Are you okay?”
Obviously not, but it seems Jeongin isn’t going to be much help with that.
“I’m fine,” Minho says, dismissing the conversation altogether. “Just a weird mood, I guess.” He gets up to go bother the others before Jeongin can make any more faces at him.
Jeongin follows him back, but Minho is prepared for that. He enters the green room and makes a beeline for Felix, flopping down onto Felix’s back to look over his shoulder at whatever Switch game has caught his attention this time.
Jisung is in the corner, singing a song Minho only vaguely knows. Minho doesn’t realize he’s smiling as he listens until a few moments later, when Jeongin lands an unrestrained spank on his ass and startles him out of the moment.
“Punk,” Minho calls, not even bothering to look over his shoulder and see what Jeongin is doing.
“Who raised me?” Based on where Jeongin’s voice emanates from, Minho guesses he’s settled into the corner of the couch.
“Chan-hyung,” Minho calls back, loud enough that Chan can’t pretend he didn’t hear just because he has his earbuds in. “Discipline your son.”
“Good job, Yen-ah,” Chan says absently.
Minho slumps.
“You should sleep,” Felix says, briefly reaching back to pat Minho’s shoulder. He’s used to this by now. “I’ll wake you.”
With no other excuses left to him, Minho finally takes the advice and naps.
It takes a while of uselessly locking and unlocking his phone screen that evening before it occurs to Minho that he hasn’t asked Changbin. Not that Changbin looks very wise in the photo currently serving as his wallpaper, but that’s deceptive.
“Minho-hyung! Why’d you call me?”
“I’m bored,” Minho lies, staring at the ceiling. He’s laying upside down on his bed, legs crossed, wishing there was anything on the ceiling for him to count. Even cracks would do. He’s tried turning off his brain over and over again, but the stubborn thing won’t shut down.
“Go do something fun,” Changbin encourages. It sounds like Changbin’s in the middle of something, but it’s hard to tell what. He should’ve video called. Too late now.
“Don’t wanna do anything.”
“Don’t wanna do anything but call me?”
“I accidentally hit your name and I’m too lazy to hang up.”
“I’ll tell Channie-hyung you meant to call him! He’ll be so happy,” Changbin teases in a high, whiny voice, “he’ll have to come give you a big hug.”
“Idiot, do you think B and S are near each other in my contacts?”
“Aw, hyung, just idiot? No death threats? Are you okay? I’ll come over if you want.”
Minho holds the phone a little away from his mouth and yells into it wordlessly. When he puts it back to his ear, Changbin is laughing. “Did that help?”
“Not really.” Minho puts the phone on speaker and lays it down on his chest. “Changbin-ah, what would you do if you were cursed?”
The one thing Changbin can always be relied upon is to take this kind of question seriously, even if it sounds silly. “What kind of curse?”
“Uh. A feelings one, I guess.”
Changbin hums. “Probably something embarrassing.”
“What? Why?” Minho scoffs to hide that he’s laughing, covering his mouth so Changbin won’t hear.
“If it’s feelings related, pretty sure you’ll have to do something embarrassing to get rid of it. If you don’t, it’s not really a curse, is it? Just a weird thing that happened.”
When he puts it like that, it sounds a little bit less silly. Minho returns to staring at the ceiling. “That sucks.”
Another hum. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?”
Minho rolls his eyes. “Yep.” Throwing his arm over his face, he sighs. “Can you just breathe on the phone for a bit?”
“Yeah, hyung.” Changbin even has the grace not to laugh at him. A true friend, though thinking the words themselves make him feel gross. “I’m right here.”
The idea of doing something embarrassing bounces around in Minho’s brain for a while, but it’s not exactly a narrow field. He’s grown less shy about many things over the years as an idol, but that still leaves a list long enough to give him a headache, so he throws himself into work instead. Oddinary is dropping in just a few weeks. Minho has plenty of available distractions.
He loses his ability to sleep, but he knows how to push through. It mostly involves a regimen of calorie counting and caffeine intake, which is how Minho finds himself staring muzzily at the convenience store’s cold drink section, trying to plan out the next few days. He just needs to make it through those. Worrying about the days after that is a task for future Minho.
After taking far too much time just to watch himself blink slowly in the reflection on the door, Minho gathers as many kinds of cold brew as he can and hopes he won’t get bored. Between these and a steady stream of americanos during the day, he’ll be fine. It isn’t the first time he’s wrestled with sleep. He just wishes it wasn’t for such a ridiculous reason this time.
Minho’s drinks quickly weigh down his arm. By the time he’s nearing his building, he’s transferred the bag three times, and his eyes are stinging. The front door to the other dorm calls to him like a beacon. He could take a break in there, right? It’s not like anyone would mind.
He’s entering the elevator before he really makes the decision. Minho’s feet carry him reliably through to the other dorm with very little input from his brain, but he stops in front of the door, remembering the last time he dropped by.
It’s stupid to feel this way. They all have the passcodes to both dorms because they’re always welcome. That’s how it works. How Chan wants it to work. Minho has never questioned his welcome with Jisung before, but he’s never acted so weird around Jisung, either. Does Jisung feel it? Is that why he wants Minho to leave the moment he’s spotted?
Slowly, Minho turns on his heel. This was a nice break. He doesn’t need to go inside. If he heads home now, he won’t have to do a real work-out today. That’ll lift his spirits.
Felix heads immediately to physical therapy after the three of them finish for the day, but Hyunjin lingers, going over the part of Charmer that’s been bothering him for days.
Though he’s tired enough as it is, Minho sets down his bag and sits at a safe distance, watching Hyunjin practice. He lets Hyunjin get through it twenty times before speaking up, just to make sure he isn’t interrupting before Hyunjin has the chance to correct it on his own.
“You’re not technically fucking anything up,” Minho says, leaning back on his palms. “It’s just how you’re hitting.”
Hyunjin takes a long drink from his water bottle. “Okay. How am I hitting?”
“Too hard.” Muscles aching, Minho stands up. “You don’t need to fall so far to either side, or you’ll have a hard time switching directions.” He demonstrates the way Hyunjin sways, over-extending a little further to each side than he needs to and jerking into place so he doesn’t lose the beat. Minho repeats the move with more control, keeping himself centered at the core as muscle memory takes over.
Hyunjin watches and nods. “Thanks, hyung.” Minho is pretty sure he won’t take the advice, not in the long run, but it’s nice that Hyunjin is at the point where he’ll thank Minho for a comment like that rather than spurning it altogether. That’s the only reason Minho bothers saying it, though he knows Hyunjin will put too much of himself into the performance no matter what Minho tells him.
It’s just how he is. Heart, sweat, and tears on his sleeve, no matter how much Hyunjin tries to deny it.
“How do you stand it?” Minho asks as he sits again.
“What?” Hyunjin asks as he continues to practice. Though he sways a bit less, he hasn’t quite figured out how to adjust his feet to compensate.
“Feeling everything so much all the time.”
Hyunjin nearly trips, then gives up on practice in favor of their conversation. He grabs his water and shuffles over to collapse cross-legged in front of Minho.
“Lino-hyung, is that really you? If you’re an alien you have to tell me. Legally you have to.”
Minho rolls his eyes. “If you’re not gonna answer, I’m leaving.”
“No, no, don’t.” Hyunjin downs half the water before he speaks again. “I just don’t know what you want to hear, I guess.”
The answer would be nice, but Minho can admit it’s a difficult question. “Just… Try.”
Hyunjin sighs and takes another sip of water. His hair is half stuck to his face and half sticking up like a kitten fresh from the bath. Minho forces himself not to laugh.
“I spend a lot of time thinking about things,” Hyunjin says, choosing each word with care. “Alone with my thoughts. I’ve been trying to write in my journal, even if I don’t say much. It’s like a conversation with yourself to look back on later. Ignoring how I feel won’t make it go away, so finding a safe time to be alone and process everything is really important. Confronting that stuff head on. It doesn’t mean that I’ll react to it well or handle it well, but that’s the best anyone can do. Keep going even when it’s overwhelming.”
Hyunjin’s life in a nutshell. Sometimes Minho wishes he were so easily motivated. Someone telling him ‘you can’t’ doesn’t have that big of an effect on him; either Minho knows he can, he’s sure he probably can, or he knows he can’t. The opinions of most people just sort of bounce off of him.
Not everyone, though. Not his family’s opinions. Not the opinions of his friends. The people that matter can cut him to the quick, but he tries to seek out those that never will.
If he can’t figure out how to get rid of this curse, it might be more manageable to handle knowing Jisung’s feelings on it. Manageable and mortifying in equal measure. Just imagining that conversation makes Minho want to run.
“Grit my teeth and run at it full speed?” Minho asks with a grimace.
“Yeah, basically.” Hyunjin laughs. “I don’t believe in you, but I hope you feel better soon.”
“What’s that worth, half a hwaiting?” Minho asks, taking Hyunjin’s hand when he offers to help him get to his feet.
“Hwai,” Hyunjin teases. Minho grabs for him, but he’s already darting away, headed for the door before Minho can catch and punish him for it.
Minho stays in the practice room. No one else needs it until early morning, and he’s not going to sleep even if he goes home, so why not? His version of gritting his teeth and running at full speed is to try choreographing something about it. Hyunjin talks a lot about expressing his feelings through movement, but that’s never been why Minho loves dance. That’s an aspect of it, certainly, but it’s nowhere near as large a percentage of what makes it fun for him as it is for Hyunjin.
He makes it about twenty minutes before giving in and hunting down a playlist of Jisung’s music, as small as that selection is. Minho is aware that none of these songs are based in experience, but the way Jisung gets sentimental over the things he watches makes him hopelessly fond anyway.
Though he’s never tried to dance to these songs before, it feels right for his mood. Right for his new shared obsession with Dori, this curse that’s made it impossible for him to hang out with his best friend without overcomplicating things. It’s easier to be close to Jisung this way. Is this what Stay feels like all the time?
He should record this—if only to save some of it for later, maybe for an assignment or two—but it feels too personal. Private. The way he moves to Jisung’s songs is too intimate to be given to his professors, meant only for the dead of night, alone, with most of the lights off. Like this, Minho can see his body without really looking at his face. The person who moves with such precise, embarrassing emotion in the mirror is nothing more than a shadowed silhouette, someone Minho can write off when dawn comes.
It’s unclear how long Felix stands in the doorway before Minho notices him. When he does, he freezes in place, arms slowly lowering to his sides as he watches Felix in the mirror.
“Hyunjinnie said you’d be home soon a few hours ago,” Felix says, coming inside and shutting the door behind him.
Minho should probably drink water. He can feel the sweat running down his back. He probably looks worse than Hyunjin at the end of a long practice. Grabbing water from the fridge also gives him the opportunity to hide his face and try and get his shit together.
‘Close’ starts again on loop, probably for the 50th time that night. Minho winces at his water bottle and turns the music off.
“Hyunjin’s not my keeper and neither are you,” Minho says, harsher than he means it. He sighs through his nose. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“I’ll survive.” Felix’s voice is dry and much too close. Before Minho can duck out of the way, he’s trapped in a back hug.
Better than a front hug, at least.
“Gross,” he says softly.
Felix snorts. “I’d have to wash up again anyway after walking here. I’m not afraid of a sweaty hyung. What am I, a coward?”
While Felix is a lot of things, ‘cowardly’ doesn’t make the list. Minho allows Felix to tug him down into a sitting position on the floor. Maybe Jeongin is right and Felix has bone-melting powers, or other kinds of magic that make you want to give in to his incessant need for skinship. Whatever the reason, Minho allows Felix to hook his chin over Minho’s shoulder and settle into a back hug again. They’re facing away from the mirror. Probably a deliberate move on Felix’s part.
After thirty seconds of silence, Minho’s skin starts to crawl. “Alright, who nominated you for this.” Despite the question, his inflection is flat.
“No one, exactly. Not one person. It’s not like anyone said I should hunt you down.”
Minho gives a dramatic sigh. “But…?”
“I’m not the only one that noticed you being weird, and you’ve talked to most of us by now. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out the rest.”
“This sucks already,” Minho informs him. “Can we skip to the part where you’re satisfied with my progress?”
Felix hums. “Depends. Have you made any?”
“Lots.”
“Hyung, you had Hannie’s love song on loop.”
“It’s a good song!” Minho knows it’s all gone to shit when he realizes just how loud and defensive he sounds, echoing through the darkened practice room. “It’s a good song,” he repeats after clearing his throat. “Fit the vibe I wanted.”
“The vibe being Hannie and love songs?”
Minho sulks, feeling trapped. “The vibe is my business.”
“Channie’s really worried about you,” Felix says, stabbing a knife into his back. “Jeonginnie, too.” And twisting it. Minho sees how this is going very clearly now.
“I may have told them too much,” Minho admits.
Felix squeezes him around the middle. “Like…?”
It feels stupid to say it now. He’s said it so many times, but it’s the first time Minho’s confidence has wavered. Still, it’s not like he has anything better to say, no explanation that makes more sense than this one.
“Dori cursed me on vacation and now I can’t stop thinking about Jisung.” When he says it like that, it sounds even worse. “I know how it sounds, okay? But I’m not making it up. No one just grows this many feelings overnight. No one wakes up one morning just totally—” Minho chokes on the next words, mortified at having to say them at all, “—in love with their best friend. The only logical conclusion, however illogical it sounds, is magic.”
Felix doesn’t reply for a while, though he does hold Minho tightly in the interim. Minho can’t tell if it’s meant to comfort him or if it’s preventing him from escape. Felix doesn’t need to do the latter; the fight’s gone out of Minho at this point. He would challenge anyone to last more than a minute in Felix’s hold without surrendering.
“You’re right,” Felix says slowly.
Minho blinks, sitting up straighter. He’s right?
“People don’t just wake up one morning in love when they weren’t before, not usually. Not real love.” Minho wants to give him a suspicious glare, but there’s no good angle for it. “They might think they do, though.”
There it is.
“Have you ever been in love before?”
I’m not in love now, Minho wants to snap back. He bites down on his tongue hard enough to wince.
“No,” he admits after a lengthy pause. “Never.”
“So new feelings might sneak up on you.” Felix rubs his cheek against Minho’s shoulder. “Isn’t it possible you were feeling this way before, but you realized it all at once and it was a bit too much to process?”
“No,” Minho lies again, just to be contrary. It’s not that the situation is impossible, it’s just not what happened. Not to him. “Emotions don’t sneak up on me.”
“But it’s new,” Felix argues, firm in his own way. “If you think back instead of looking ahead for a little while, maybe you’ll find a pattern you didn’t know to look for.”
Dwelling on emotions isn’t a regular pastime for Minho. It’s not that he doesn’t feel things, or even that he doesn’t feel them deeply, but wallowing? It’s not his style. Replaying memories over and over will just make you remember them poorly. It won’t change any outcomes.
But Felix is good at this stuff. He’s a little too in touch with his emotions, but there’s no one better to take advice from when it comes to figuring out his feelings. Minho stares at a fixed point in front of him until the whole room blurs and thinks about what it would mean if Felix was right.
It would be easier not to notice. Between the group dynamic and the uncertainty of their lives for the first couple years after debut, if he had noticed any weird feelings about Jisung, it would have been safer to save them for a later date. Like a time capsule in the back of his mind that became a ticking time bomb, ready to go off in the event that Minho felt safe enough for it to trigger.
Jisung has always been cute. He’s always been fun to be with, even if they’re not talking or even looking at the same screen. Minho could sit silently in a room with Jisung and still have a good time. Is that love? He’s always been a jealous person, possessive not just of lovers but of friends. Is it so strange to be overwhelmed with satisfaction each time Jisung reminds him that they’re soulmates? Is it love that makes Minho believe it?
Of course he’s always loved Han Jisung, but in love with him? It doesn’t need to be love just because he watches what Jisung likes to eat and matches his preferences to Jisung’s whenever they go out, for so long and so well that Jisung forgets what Minho’s tastes are altogether. Love doesn’t have to mean pressing fourcuts between the pages of his favorite books, sticking them to the headboard next to the photos of his cats and on the edges of the mirror. Just because seeing Jisung in new clothes or wearing new earrings or with a new collar makes Minho’s palms itch with the urge to touch and squeeze—
The point is, none of that stuff has to be about being in love with Jisung.
But it is.
Minho slumps further back against Felix, nearly taking them both to the floor. “Ugh.”
“Ugh?”
“I did all that and magic isn’t even real?”
Felix laughs and squeezes him again. “Love’s a little magic when you think about it.”
Finally, Minho gathers the strength to wiggle out of Felix’s grip, hopping to his feet and holding out his hand to drag Felix up with him. “I’m not saying that,” Minho curtly informs him.
“You don’t need to,” Felix says, absolutely beaming. He’s so cute. It’s offensive. “Doesn’t make it less true.”
After a much needed shower, Minho checks the time: just past three in the morning. There’s a good chance Jisung will still be awake.
🐰 이민호
asleep???????
He haphazardly throws clothes on while waiting for Jisung to text back. Thankfully, he’s gotten a little better at replying, so long as he’s watching something on his phone and sees the notification.
🐿️ 한지성
not until i see every picture of the nano chameleon
🐿️ 한지성
they’re so small they’d fit on yongbokkie’s fingernail
🐿️ 한지성
you could get like FIVE on soonie’s paw hyung
Minho can’t help grinning down at his phone as he exits the building. Jisung’s developing a bit of a lizard obsession.
🐰 이민호
could not
🐰 이민호
soonie would eat them before i got to three
They go back and forth like that for the few minutes it takes to jog over to the other dorm and ride the elevator up to Jisung’s floor. When Minho lets himself in, he does so quietly, not sure if Hyunjin is asleep by now. He might have crashed at Minho’s dorm. It’s not like he stopped to check.
Jisung barely looks up when Minho slips inside his room without knocking. “You can’t just let Soondoongdori eat the tiny chameleons,” Jisung whines. “They’re babies!”
“They can’t all be babies,” Minho argues. Fuck, is he still smiling? It’s hard to stop. This is the first time he’s seen Jisung since Minho realized he’s absolutely obsessed with him and it has nothing to do with his cat. “Those are my baby brothers, should I let them starve?”
“I’ll feed them other stuff!”
“You’re the one who wanted to put chameleons on Soonie’s paws in the first place,” Minho points out, moving the now empty phone stand from Jisung’s bed and onto the floor.
Once that’s been done for him, Jisung sits up to pout at Minho, his face a bit puffy from how long he’s been lying down. He starts to explain why his idea remains better than anything Minho has to say about it, but Minho isn’t really paying attention. He’s had about six hours of sleep in the past 48 hours and watching Jisung’s mouth is a task that consumes all of his focus.
“Hyung? Lino-hyung? Lee Lee Know, are you listening?”
Minho blinks. “Yes,” he lies, mostly out of habit. “Look, I actually came because I needed to talk to you.”
Jisung half-laughs. His smile should be illegal. “It couldn’t wait ‘til tomorrow? Not that I mind, but you look super dead on your feet.”
“It really couldn’t,” Minho says as he hops onto the bed next to Jisung. Even sitting knee to knee, thigh to thigh like this makes his face feel hot. There’s no way he could wait and risk having this kind of reaction to Jisung with anyone else around.
“‘Kay.” Jisung pats Minho’s knee, sending a minor jolt through him. “What’s up?”
Minho stares at him, trying to find the words or at least figure out how to start. Surely he can’t just say hey, I’m kind of in love with you. That would be weird.
The longer he waits, the more Jisung’s smile fades, his eyes darting around Minho’s expression like it will tell him what Minho can’t quite say. His mouth stays open just a little, full lower lip a taunt Minho isn’t coherent enough to resist.
He’s always preferred action to words. Confession twisted in knots on his tongue, Minho sways forward and kisses Jisung instead, trying to convey everything he’s forgotten how to say in the way he cups Jisung’s face, passing love from his mouth to Jisung’s.
Minho expects Jisung to freeze, or maybe even to push him back and ask for clarification. He’s shocked and pleased in equal measure when Jisung melts instead, fingers catching on the front of Minho’s sweatshirt as he kisses back, a little clumsy but definitely not hesitant. One kiss turns to ten before Jisung turns his head to gasp, hot little breaths puffing against Minho’s cheek.
“Did… Didn’t you want to say something?”
Minho smiles and bites carefully at the line of Jisung’s jaw, appreciating the shudder that rolls through him in response. “I think I’m getting the message across.” Minho kisses Jisung again, this time pushing his tongue between Jisung’s lips. The muffled whimper he gets back makes his hand tighten where it’s fallen to the nape of Jisung’s neck.
With such an enthusiastic response, it’s easy to get carried away, nudging Jisung back until his head hits the pillow before sliding a hand up his inner thigh to make room between his legs. Minho settles over Jisung with a predatory sense of satisfaction, watching his throat bob as he swallows, pleased by the way his legs tighten around Minho’s hips.
“Is it—um, you like me?” Jisung stammers out, closing his eyes as soon as he says it, like he can’t bear to look at Minho while he answers.
It’s a shame he can’t see the smile on Minho’s face. This works perfectly. If Jisung says it first, Minho isn’t scared at all. “Yeah, Jisungie.” Minho ducks down and kisses the hollow behind Jisung’s ear. “I like you a lot.”
“Oh,” Jisung breathes, neck arching just a little. He’s so sweet. “Cool.”
For some reason, that’s what breaks him. Minho tries to hold back, but he can’t stop himself laughing, abs tight as he rolls them over so that Jisung is on top of him and Minho can just hold him.
“Is it?” he teases. “How cool is it, Jisung-ah?”
“Shut up,” Jisung mumbles, arms trapped between them. He’s so precious Minho’s chest feels too small for the size of his heart.
He hums, hand gently rubbing up and down Jisung’s spine. “Is that all you have to say to me, Han-ah?”
Whatever Jisung says is so muffled in Minho’s shirt that it’s unintelligible. Minho carefully twists his fingers in Jisung’s hair and tugs his head up, smiling again at the little sound Jisung makes in the back of his throat. He’s very responsive. On another night, Minho is going to spend hours testing that.
“I couldn’t hear you,” Minho says, voice soft and as innocent as he can make it. “Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”
Since he can’t move closer without Minho letting go, Jisung bites down on the air in clear threat. Sensitive baby. Jisung’s face softens after that, eyes warm.
“I like you a lot too?”
Minho laughs. “Is that a question or an answer?”
“An answer!” Minho lets go and allows Jisung to tuck his face under Minho’s chin and hide. “Don’t be so mean.”
Privately, he thinks Jisung likes when he’s this kind of ‘mean’, but just this once, Minho decides to listen. “In that case,” he says, dragging his hand down to squeeze Jisung’s ass, “I should’ve kissed you sooner.”
“Yeah,” Jisung agrees, pleasing Minho with his petulance. “C’mon, hyung, you took forever. What were you waiting for?”
He knows Jisung is only teasing, but it feels even sillier now, to have jumped through so many hoops when the conclusion was in front of him the whole time. Minho sighs and holds Jisung tighter.
“It was probably a curse,” he jokes, content with the warm weight of Jisung on top of him. Suddenly, Minho feels like he could sleep for days. “Good thing I figured out how to break it, right?”