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1
“Hyung…”
Minho hums in a half-attentive question, continuing his descent down Hyunjin’s throat as he stains the hot skin with nibbles and saliva. Both his thumbs are hooked into the comfy shorts Hyunjin pulled on ten or so minutes ago, and Minho seems just about ready to pull them off again, despite the fact that Seungmin is right outside the drapes of Minho’s bunk where Hyunjin’s currently all tangled up with his boyfriend.
“Minho hyung,” Hyunjin tries again, lifting his hands from the sheets to hover lightly against Minho’s sides in some sort of mute indication of what Minho can’t possibly read inside Hyunjin’s head. “I don’t think I… I don’t think I’m up for anything. Today.”
“Mmm?” Minho sort of says as he stumbles on his way, lips swollen and slick as he lifts his head in his confused attempt to read Hyunjin’s face. It would look a little funny if Hyunjin wasn’t stupidly nervous about… about disappointing him. “‘Not up for’? Are you hurt? Sore? Should I get anything?”
“No, I’m okay,” Hyunjin hurries to assure him, sensing Minho’s worry even before the older gets on his knees and elbows to relieve any pressure he might leave on Hyunjin’s - completely fine - body. “I’m okay, I’m just not… I just don’t think I want to. Tonight.”
Looking him over one more time is apparently enough for Minho to decide to believe him, since he leans down to kiss Hyunjin’s cheek and then the corner of his mouth, and that’s that. Hyunjin didn’t even get to utter the ‘sorry’ at the tip of his tongue.
“Okay,” Minho replies diplomatically, removing his limbs from Hyunjin’s body to lay down beside him and run some fingers through his hair as the only place of connection between them. It’s a sharp difference from having their bodies all pressed up against the other. Hyunjin thinks it might be too sharp. “What do you wanna do instead?”
“Maybe…,” Hyunjin starts, considering their options since it’s really not that late yet. On second thought, he doesn’t think he wants to leave the dorm. “Maybe take a bath? Do you think that’s okay?”
“I’ll text the guys,” Minho murmurs, and Hyunjin is grateful for it. They can shower at the gym, after all, now that they know ahead of coming back. He and Minho should be able to lock themselves away for a bit.
He’s not completely sure what’s up with him, but there’s something that makes Hyunjin want to curl up into a ball and pull the covers over his head. Taking a bath is probably considered the exact opposite of that in a way, he supposes, but he doesn’t think so himself. He wants to be enveloped in warmth, to feel comfortable and bare and hidden away. He doesn’t want to go through the trouble and inevitable discomfort of sex and cleaning up after, and he doesn’t want to put on appropriate outside-clothes and have to lift his feet one step more than necessary. He just wants some peace and quiet, he thinks. Maybe it’s the busy days leading up to these calmer ones. Maybe it’s not.
Only a couple of minutes later, Hyunjin’s more than a little surprised when Minho kisses his cheek - again - and leaves him standing inside the bathroom, closing the door behind him as he heads back out to the living area. Is he getting something? Where the hell did he go?
Undressing is routine and passes by quickly, and as Hyunjin watches the bath bomb dissolve inside the water he has nothing to do but wait. His phone is dead silent, no notifications reaching him, and he doesn’t really mind that. He just wonders where in the world his boyfriend went, and what is taking him so long.
He finally steps inside the warm water once the bubbles and soft colors have spread all over the tub, and lets the scent and sensation alike soothe him as he leans back against the porcelain and closes his eyes. It’s really nice, and Hyunjin’s glad he thought of this. He wishes he had more time - and privacy - to take long baths, but considering their lives and place of residence and all the circumstances it’s just… not possible, generally speaking.
(Where the hell is Minho, though? No amount of snack grabbing can take this long. No random conversation when Minho’s got his boyfriend naked in the tub waiting for him, either. Where did he go?)
Hyunjin decides to wait a bit longer, checking the time on his phone. It’s been at least fifteen minutes, but he’ll give it twenty. Then he’ll call. Or text. He didn’t mean that he wanted to be alone with his thoughts, he just… He just wanted Minho’s proximity, he thinks. He wanted to know that he wasn’t alone, despite feeling so weird. Did he actually say that, though? He can’t remember. What did he say to Minho in the first place? Did Minho say anything before leaving? Hyunjin can’t remember that, either.
He’ll text, he decides. If Minho doesn’t a) walk through the door or b) at least reply within the minute, he’ll call. Yes. He’ll call. Minho didn’t seem disappointed or upset when Hyunjin wasn’t in the mood, so he probably won’t think Hyunjin’s being clingy, right? Or indecisive?
… right?
hyung
where are you?
Hyunjin holds his breath, checks the time again. Two minutes. He’ll give Minho two minutes to reply before he calls. He can’t be expected to entertain himself with much else in here, right? Two minutes. That’s fine. He can wait. Probably just one and a half left. One and a quarter. Maybe one minute. Or even--
His phone vibrates in his hand, luckily making Hyunjin’s limb twitch outside of the bathtub rather than inside it, should he actually have been so unlucky as to drop it.
living room with yongbok
should i get you anything?
yes
you
please
To Minho’s credit, he must’ve dropped whatever he was doing and walked over pretty much immediately. Hyunjin’s tired heart does a little swoop inside his chest as Minho knocks twice before opening the door, peeking inside with an open expression that lets Hyunjin know that Minho doesn’t really know what he’s been summoned for.
He supposes he can’t blame his boyfriend. The time they’ve been official is still being measured in weeks inside Hyunjin’s head, and not months.
“I meant that I wasn’t up for anything involving your dick,” Hyunjin states, as clearly as he can, while Minho chokes on his surprised laughter in the doorway, “not that I didn’t want your company. Get in, Minho hyung. Don’t make me say ‘please’ again.”
“You sure?” Minho asks from the doorway, but he looks relaxed now. He didn’t exactly before, when he left, so Hyunjin thinks that’s a relief. It’s not like Minho has anything to be nervous about.
So Hyunjin nods, making a point of pulling his knees up to his chest and squeezing his long legs together to prove that Minho will fit, he just needs to undress and sit down first. Preferably, at least. It would probably be funny if he entered without taking his clothes off, but Hyunjin thinks that his boyfriend would regret that decision later.
It’s definitely not Hyunjin’s first bath with Minho, and they’ve showered together, too. Before they became intimate but also after, plenty of times. Not to mention the actual occurrences of said intimacy, of course, and overall he’s just seen Minho naked a thousand times. Maybe even more, if Hyunjin really thinks about it. They’ve shared a bedroom for years as well.
He doesn’t really know what makes him look away, is what he’s getting to, and play with the bubbles covering most of his own body while the older removes item by item and places them in a pile right next to Hyunjin’s. The water level ripples dangerously close to the edge of the tub as Minho settles down, but he moves with slow and practiced movements that make Hyunjin think they should be good.
“Is this better?” Minho asks when Hyunjin doesn’t really say anything, shifting until his ankles find Hyunjin’s and lock behind them, keeping their feet together when Hyunjin’s drawn-up knees won’t allow much else. “I thought maybe you wanted some space.”
“I did,” Hyunjin agrees, and then backtracks. Well, he did want space, but not… not like that. Not like how he thinks Minho thought he meant. “I just wanted to… be, if that makes sense. Just exist. Without really doing anything. Without having to dress up or clean up, just… Just exist, I think.”
“With me?”
“With you.”
Minho hums. It feels like he gets it. Like maybe he understands. He does know Hyunjin very well after all, there’s no denying that, even if it feels like they’ve been hanging out on solid ground up until a few weeks ago and now are seated in an airplane somewhere among the clouds; somewhere Hyunjin can feel disoriented and adrift despite knowing that he’ll eventually land again. It’s a little bit like that, at least. Like his body’s weightless and his head’s floaty whenever he’s with Minho and they’re being boyfriends.
“Hyung?” Hyunjin says softly a couple of long moments later, when silence has spread comfortably between them and he hopes he’s not disrupting it either through talking or the way he’s eyeing his naked boyfriend. “Hyung, can I…?”
Wordlessly, Minho beckons him over with a familiar hand and an even more familiar smile. The one that’s rapidly becoming Hyunjin’s favorite look on his boyfriend; the one that he hopes is because of him and him alone.
The water moves about as quietly as he does, but only for the short time it takes Hyunjin to glide into the spot between Minho’s parted legs, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips before turning around to settle with his back against Minho’s warm chest. He shifts slightly, finding that spot below the older’s clavicle that fits the bump that is Hyunjin’s head perfectly, and guides Minho’s lifted arms around his own middle in a proper embrace before the older can put them anywhere else. By his own side, for example, or over the edge of the tub. Hyunjin can’t have that.
“Always,” Minho assures him with a kiss to his temple, playing a bit with Hyunjin’s fingers right above his belly button. “You can always, Hyunjin-ah. Don’t be silly. Just let hyung do this for you.”
Hyunjin swallows down the lump inside his throat rather than replying, letting the way he instinctively nuzzles into the crook of Minho’s neck do the talking. He feels grateful. He feels welcome. He feels very well taken care of. He still doesn’t know if Minho knows the exact feeling that Hyunjin has such trouble describing, but he can ask about that some other time. It’s enough to have Minho next to him, around him, there with him. It’s far more than enough, honestly.
I love you, Hyunjin thinks, but he doesn’t say it. He hopes Minho knows, but he can’t muster the energy to say it right now. But he does. He loves him so, so much. An absurd amount, really, and Hyunjin sincerely doubts that any of that will change anytime soon.
I love you, he thinks instead, in the privacy of his own heart. Lee Minho, I love you.
***
2
It’s a running joke at this point - an inside joke, really - that Hyunjin never ate that much before wrapping Minho around his little finger and suddenly having his own private chef who makes sure to stuff him full on any given day, and that the difference is simply striking.
(There are other innuendos being made more often than not, of course, about just how well Minho stuffs Hyunjin full, but thankfully they don’t make Hyunjin blush anymore.)
There is some truth to it, of course. In both senses of the phrasing, funnily enough, but there sure is. Hyunjin isn’t a person who eats, per se, doesn’t devour several portions in one go or a whole plate in two bites. Chan and Jeongin, for example, are people who eat. Changbin eats a lot these days too, since he properly started working out. But Hyunjin doesn’t, never really did, because he just doesn’t have that kind of appetite and eating at certain times of day doesn’t sit well with him and when other members hit the gym he spends hours sitting down to draw instead.
He wonders if he should reevaluate that, though. Ever since they parted ways when one dorm became two, Minho and Hyunjin have been meeting up practically every day and one of their standard go-to’s is late night walks and the inevitable snack. Sometimes Minho feels like driving and Hyunjin will gaze at the night sky through the open window while Minho hums along to whatever’s on the radio - MC’ing keeps you up to date with most releases, as they’re both aware - while they go for McDonald’s or a nostalgic diner on the other side of the city.
Eating isn’t fun in itself, and it’s not usually something Hyunjin looks forward to or plans his meals for or has any specific cravings in regards to. Eating with Minho, though?
That’s definitely something that ticks all those boxes.
“What are you getting?” Minho asks as they walk side by side, fingers brushing and hoodies ghosting and their voices hushed enough to only be for the two of them. “It’s not that late. We could eat.”
“Mmm,” Hyunjin replies, figuring he’ll decide once they reach the supermarket down the block from their building. “I could take a bite out of you, probably. You used my shampoo again, didn’t you?”
Minho’s laughter isn’t that loud, but it echoes in Hyunjin’s ears anyway, makes his fingers twitch with the need to fit Minho’s in the spaces that are so clearly there for the other to fill. Everything Hyunjin lacks, Minho has, as far as he’s concerned. Everything Hyunjin isn’t, Minho is, and everything Hyunjin desires, Minho possesses. They fit like that, like two people who might need to spend lots of time together to figure out what works in order for them to stay together for a long time. Luckily, that’s exactly what they’ve been doing.
“I don’t steal and tell, dearest,” Minho claims, the prettiest smile Hyunjin knows on the prettiest face Hyunjin knows as they wander down the street and listen to the cars driving off in the distance. “I thought you’d know all about my tendency to dislike attention by now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hyunjin taunts immediately, bumping their shoulders, “since you’re obsessed with getting attention from me, hyung. You crave my attention. I might even call you ‘addicted’, honestly. It must have been very hard for you since we got placed in different dorms, having to seek me out like this.”
“Hwang Hyunjin, you have no idea.”
He stops walking.
Minho only realizes a moment later, having to turn around and take a step back to stay close considering the way Hyunjin’s feet simply… stopped moving. Of course he knows Minho misses him, the same way Hyunjin does. Of course he knows the reason Minho sleeps over without any verbal agreements, the reason Hyunjin’s phone chimes almost daily with exchanged words and plans between them, the reason there are five toothbrushes in both dorms. Of course he knows; he’s too attuned to his boyfriend not to know. And yet.
“What?” Minho chuckles in surprise, reaching out to caress Hyunjin’s cheek masked as brushing something from his hair. “Why are you looking at me like that? You’re the one who said it.”
“Well, yeah,” Hyunjin agrees, still looking at his boyfriend like that, most likely, “I just didn’t think… Well, I didn’t think you’d admit it that easily, I guess.”
“Don’t tell me I’m too boring for you now,” Minho teases lightly, still thoroughly entertained and shifting on his feet in a familiar way that tells Hyunjin that the older rather wishes they were in private about now. He decides to let his own smile through. “Should I play hard to get? Even though we both know you’ve got me so tightly wrapped up I couldn’t even move my eyes in another direction if I tried?”
“Stop,” Hyunjin laughs, smacking Minho’s sturdy chest half-heartedly and then… letting his hand linger there, he supposes. “You’re making it sound like I’ve tied you up in my basement or something. Just say you’re obsessed with me and go.”
Minho grins, blinking with both eyes and he takes half a step closer, all up in Hyunjin’s space. He wonders for a brief second what an outsider passing by would think, but he currently doesn’t care enough to move away from his boyfriend either.
“I’m obsessed with you,” Minho says, hushed but clear, delight shining in his glimmering eyes as his fingertips scratch the waistband of Hyunjin’s jeans, right by his hip bones. “You’ve made my heart warmer. Your eye mole is enchanting. You always come running when I ask you to. You make me enjoy the simplest of tasks more than I otherwise would’ve.
“I’m obsessed with you,” Minho repeats, lowering his voice even though Hyunjin’s holding his own breath so as not to miss a single word. “You should stay in my room every night. You should take someone else’s and have your space right next to mine. Your mere presence brings me so many small pleasures even if you’re not paying attention to me.
“I’m obsessed with you,” Minho echoes, imprinting the words in Hyunjin’s mind and heart alike, making his fingers tremble against the collar of Minho’s hoodie as he clings onto it. “Hwang Hyunjin, are you listening? I’m obsessed with you. Do you hear me? Every day, every night, every second of every minute. I’m obsessed with you. Should I not be?”
I love you, Hyunjin’s weighted head and light soul chants helplessly as Minho regards him calmly, gently, knowingly. The same way he always does.
I love you, Hyunjin thinks, in the soft lulling waves of his own heart. Lee Minho, I love you.
***
3
“Hyuuuuuuung,” Hyunjin drawls, flopping around on his boyfriend’s bed while said boyfriend laughs and puts his weights in their designated corners of his room, now that his workout has been completed. “Please. Just for a minute. Come here?”
“One second,” Minho tells him, entertained as he makes a show out of fixing every little thing until they’re symmetrically lined up and Hyunjin suspects his saliva is making its way out of his mouth as he watches. “I’ll be right with you, baby.”
Hyunjin whines, rolling on his side dramatically. ‘Right with you’ isn’t ‘with you’. Sigh. Every second he has to watch his freshly worked out boyfriend rather than touch him is pure agony, frankly. Almost as pure as the agony inside his own muscles after joining Minho last time, but that’s another story. One Hyunjin wasn’t about to repeat very quickly, since that last time coincidentally sparked some plans inside his mind. Plans involving Minho right here on his bed, preferably on his back where Hyunjin gets the full view, but on his bed in any position would suffice, really.
When Minho returns to his full height and looks at the younger with mirth and amusement all over his face, Hyunjin decides he’s had enough. Minho needs to be taken down a notch, and Hyunjin knows just the way to go about it.
“Bed,” he enunciates, patting the tragically empty mattress beside him, “now.”
“Bossy,” Minho states, but he grins as he obeys and crawls onto his sheets, sitting cross-legged beside the younger as the fabric of his t-shirt sways across his chest. The blood thrums in Hyunjin’s veins.
Without so much as another word, Hyunjin lays both hands flat over Minho’s pecs in order to push him down, on his back, where Hyunjin has more leverage. It’s just that--
That Minho doesn’t fucking budge, the little shit, face open with glee as he steels himself and Hyunjin has to release some of his desire in a throaty groan at the way Minho’s so fucking strong, he’s so buff, so wide, so broad, so sexy that Hyunjin genuinely fears for his own brain cells and how they will ever be able to focus on anything else ever again. And worst of all?
The difference is so tangible between them and Hyunjin genuinely feels like he’s got noodles for arms as they go slack, completely useless despite being in decent enough shape, but he’s just got nothing on his boyfriend and that fact is so insanely hot that Hyunjin doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. Minho holds him down sometimes, sure, manhandles him a bit into position when Hyunjin’s too slow or taunting him, both in sexual settings and outside of them. But while Hyunjin’s sanity slowly seeps out of him as Minho uses his strength to restrain him - both to the point where Hyunjin genuinely cannot move or simply reminding him that that’s where he could end up - it often comes with one large downside.
He can’t actually see Minho in most of those positions. He can’t admire the muscles rippling beneath his skin, can’t drool over the pretty veins popping out, can’t sink his teeth into Minho’s body because he honestly doesn’t possess the brain capacity to consider doing anything else. He can’t do those things when Minho presses his face into a pillow or bends him over a fitting surface or grabs his jaw and makes Hyunjin look at him.
God, Hyunjin’s so turned on just remembering why he’s here in the first place.
“Did you want something?” Minho coaxes, deceivingly soft for someone who clearly knows what he’s doing and why. “Hmm, sweetheart?”
“Lay down,” Hyunjin replies, embarrassingly breathless already. Minho’s hooded eyes directed straight at him often have that effect. “Please. Hyung, on your back.”
“Why?” Minho asks, sugar sweet and wrapping his own hands around Hyunjin’s wrists.
Fuck.
Minho’s fingers circle them so perfectly, the light squeeze just enough to remind Hyunjin of the power his boyfriend holds even here. He could bruise Hyunjin so easily, it really wouldn’t take much, and he knows this because… Well, because how else was he supposed to quench his curiosity but to ask Minho to discover where he could leave his marks and where he couldn’t? They both know the canvas that is Hyunjin’s body by heart, at this point, and it serves their relationship well if anyone were to ask.
“Lay down,” Hyunjin repeats, urging his boyfriend with his words and eyes alike to listen to him, “hyung, for me? ‘Wanna see you.”
“‘For me’,” Minho echoes with a familiar smile. “One of these days, I’ll finally grow immune to that.”
“You won’t,” Hyunjin tells him, and gasps in delight when Minho willingly goes the next time Hyunjin pushes.
He wastes no time guiding Minho’s arms above his head, watching happily as his biceps bulge out of the sleeves of his t-shirt. Hyunjin quickly crawls on top of the older, hovering closely as he grasps the hems of the shirt to pull the fabric up, up--
Minho lets a pretty gasp escape him when Hyunjin’s eager mouth connects directly with Minho’s abdomen, the strain of well-developed muscle and the softness that is Minho too inviting to pass out on. He nips gently at the unmarred skin, and kisses the part that is marred with tenderness, and even sucks lightly on the tiny portion between Minho’s belly button and the waistband of his underwear.
Hyunjin will get back to that half of Minho’s body later, he decides.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he can’t help slip, Hyunjin practically moaning as he works his way up Minho’s body along with the bunched up fabric in his hands, until Minho pulls it completely out of the way and Hyunjin sighs in gratitude. “Minho, you’re so… You’re unreal. God, you’re beautiful.”
“You’re making me shy,” Minho laughs quietly, but he doesn’t ask him to stop so Hyunjin doesn’t. He holds Minho in both hands instead, resting his head right in the middle as he kisses Minho’s sternum softly, fingers rubbing the defined muscle below his armpits. “What’s gotten into you, Hyunjinnie?”
“Not sure,” Hyunjin replies, even though it’s mostly muffled since he’s mapping his way towards Minho’s stiff nipples one kiss at a time. “You’re just irresistible, Minho, God, look at you… I’ll never get enough, fair warning.”
Hyunjin feels the rumble of Minho’s laughter inside his chest before he hears it, and he feels the approval deep inside his own. It isn’t very long before Minho’s hand tangles itself inside Hyunjin’s hair, just holding him close as he does his thing, and Hyunjin feels like purring.
They don’t do this a lot, but Minho’s breath stutters every single time and even though the older really isn’t participating as actively as Hyunjin is, their actions feed into his strength kink perfectly. Every bite he takes across Minho’s pecs leaves their own tiny mark, and Hyunjin can’t help the happy moan when he reaches the very palpable line drawn on Minho’s body where his chest ends and the rest of him begins. Hyunjin’s nails run across Minho’s left side while Hyunjin’s mouth busies itself with his right, because not one fleck of skin will be left untouched tonight, Hyunjin will see to that.
The fingers in his hair tighten when Hyunjin closes in on a rosy pink nipple, but Minho still doesn’t direct him in any particular way. He mostly gasps when Hyunjin’s skin touches his, and sighs softly when slick saliva pools in Hyunjin’s mouth before staining Minho’s body instead. Gorgeous, nonsensical breaths of ah ah ah’s fill the air as the first nipple fills the gap between Hyunjin’s lips, and he sucks as lightly as he can because this is about Minho but it’s also about taking Minho apart, the way only Hyunjin has ever learned.
He moans, head spinning with arousal. No one else can have Minho. Ever. Hyunjin feels like catching fire at the thought, and channels it into straddling a deliciously thick thigh to grind against while his own stomach meets the bulge in Minho’s sweats. The older’s hips buck up into him on instinct at the touch, and Hyunjin gladly lets them, taking a second to smile before getting back to the task at hand.
“So gorgeous,” he repeats, running the tip of his tongue over Minho’s little nub as his hand splays across his boyfriend’s other side, kneading firmly because he can, because Minho is moaning out loud now due to all the stimulation, because he’s perfectly putty in Hyunjin’s hands and the grip of his own is loosening inside Hyunjin’s hair. “‘Taking it so well, Minho, you’re so good for me, letting me play with your body like this. I don’t mind if you come, baby, you’ll still let me play, right?”
“Oh, God,” Minho groans, hips chasing the friction that Hyunjin’s lower stomach allows him as soon as he raises his hips. Minho has to work for it, and Hyunjin sort of loves that. “You’re such a menace. ‘Gonna kill me.”
Hyunjin giggles, somewhere between genuine amusement and satisfying power. It’s an exhilarating mix, truly, one that only Minho has ever brought him. There’s no one else Hyunjin has felt this connected to, has trusted this deeply, has touched this selflessly. There’s only Minho, has only ever been Minho. Hyunjin may have many years left to his life, but there will never be anyone like the person below him, focused on Hyunjin with everything he has, always. He could never love anyone the way he loves Lee Minho, Hyunjin knows. It’s the same feeling as when he tries to imagine himself doing anything but music, or being anyone other than who he is. There’s only this, only him and only Minho. Quite frankly, Hyunjin finds any other possible outcomes to his life to be completely ridiculous in comparison.
“Hyunjin,” Minho calls, as earnestly as in prayer, the sound of Hyunjin’s name the sweetest hymn of them all, “Hyunjinnie, I… I--”
“It’s okay,” Hyunjin assures him, flattening his palms in comfort and kissing the beat of Minho’s precious heart beneath his lips. “Minho, I know.”
Minho sighs a tiny ‘okay’ in reply, visibly deflating as he melts into the sheets. He’s so precious that Hyunjin sort of feels like crying, straining to kiss Minho’s jaw just to distract himself before covering his boyfriend’s perfect body with his own. He really could stay here forever, working those sweet sounds out of the person he loves until both of them are drunk, high, soaring on it. He could. Hyunjin thinks he would, should Minho ask him to.
I love you, Hyunjin’s body sings, from the melody of his own heart. Lee Minho, I love you.
***
4
Injuring his hand is - full transparency - so much worse than Hyunjin could have anticipated before actually doing it. He knew it’d be a bother but after being cleared to perform for the scheduled concerts, he hadn’t really given it a lot more thought initially.
Until he realized that he couldn’t paint. He couldn’t draw. He couldn’t use his utensils or write his damn signature without cramping up. He couldn’t get dressed without a whole hassle and showering was even worse. Frankly, it sucked.
…and since Hyunjin really isn’t the best or most subtle in hiding his emotions, the others quickly picked up on his mood. Felix and Jisung hurried to start practicing Hyunjin’s signature so they could fake it for him when he needed a break, Seungmin and Jeongin were always on stand-by and kept an eye out when he fiddled with his shirts or jackets, Chan and Changbin fed him the second Hyunjin sighed and tried to stretch the muscles out. All of them on the right side of overbearing, fussing enough to be cute and helpful for however long Hyunjin wanted/needed them to. He appreciates it.
But then there’s Minho, who never takes things on quite the same way most other people do. Nothing new to Hyunjin, of course not, but it’s still a reminder of how weird and entertaining Minho can be when he wants to. How he can make sure to put a smile on Hyunjin’s face when their members take care of the more basic tasks, and leave the ‘important things to the professionals’, as Minho so happily stated the other night.
The ‘professional’ thing clearly being stealing all of Hyunjin’s luggage right out of his hands - or room, even - to carry them all so his ‘fragile little baby won’t hurt himself any further’ or knocking Hyunjin aside with a firm hip bump while Minho reaches for whatever Hyunjin was getting and teases him about ‘needing hyung to help’ and ‘my baby thinking he’s so grown up he can do everything by himself’ and honestly… honestly teasing him even before Hyunjin can ask for help or fail with whatever he was attempting.
And that’s a relief, Hyunjin thinks. He doesn’t really want to fail or hurt himself further. It’s entertaining to see Minho hurry over to do everything Hyunjin might have been planning on doing because they’re just that attuned to each other now, and it’s kind of nice to have Minho fussing and doting and being playful just from simply seeing Hyunjin around. Injuring himself is a million times better with a boyfriend trying to prevent him from repeating it and making sure he’s smiling until the discomfort passes.
So Hyunjin’s boyfriend kisses all around the weird fabric of the cast, up and down, down and up, thanking it for taking care of his silly baby who is too clumsy for his own best, admonishing the frail body beneath it who won’t care for Hyunjin the way Minho needs it to, how the older has to up his game until he’s big and strong enough to prevent anything similar from ever happening again, how Hyunjin is so cute when he’s pouting, how his lower lip jutting out is just adorable, how he needs hyung to look out for him better, maybe hyung should just never let him out of his sight again, maybe--
The list goes on, Minho being as relentless as ever, until Hyunjin is shaking with giggles beneath his boyfriend, on his back and completely pinned where Minho’s got one firm thigh on each side of him while paying his casted hand all the attention in the world. Minho rather sounds like he’s talking to his cats back at his parents’ house and not in a hotel room with his allergic boyfriend on the other side of the world, but alas, that’s just the familiar consistency of Minho’s personality.
“Hyung--”
“Be quiet,” Minho tells him, knees squeezing Hyunjin’s ribs for a second while he huffs through his laughter, “we’re having a moment here. Be patient.”
“You and my injured hand?”
“Don’t diminish our feelings for each other,” Minho insists, pressing his mouth to each fingertip in chaste kisses, “this hand and I have been through a lot together.”
Hyunjin lets his unoccupied hand fall across Minho’s bare thigh and tease right at the hem of his shorts. Minho is surprisingly soft to the touch considering what he looks like, Hyunjin would say. Even the bulging muscles of his thighs are smooth beneath the fine hairs, and Hyunjin admires them as much as he appreciates them. Like most things concerning Minho, to be completely honest.
“Is that so?” he indulges his boyfriend. “Like what?”
“Well,” Minho states, lips chasing the skin of Hyunjin’s forearm before returning to the cast, “it’s the first hand I ever held in that way that really counts. It’s the prettiest hand I’ve ever laid eyes on and I don’t want it to cheat on me with other ugly hands. It also belongs to my favorite person in the whole world so I might be biased. Don’t trust me, but I’m right.”
“I trust you,” Hyunjin whispers anyway, as if Minho wouldn’t already know as much. As if Hyunjin doesn’t remind him with the truth of it most of the days that pass them by. “Someone who says such pretty things wouldn’t lie to me, right?”
“Hyunjin-ah,” Minho replies, cautiously placing Hyunjin’s injured hand across his chest before leaning down to press their lips together with the heat of his body warming Hyunjin inside and out, “none of the things I say are as pretty as you are. But if you’re this pretty and this real, hyung’s words should be too. Right?”
There’s no time to reply with the way Minho’s hands and thighs hold Hyunjin steady where he lays, kissing him just as carefully as he did his injury mere moments ago. As gentle, as tender, as loving as with every part of him. There’s a reason Hyunjin trusts him, after all.
I love you, Hyunjin thinks, in the quiet calm of his own heart. Lee Minho, I love you.
***
5
Minho doesn’t often pace or lose his cool, but it happens to everyone at some point. Hyunjin’s seen it before even if Minho isn’t the first to let anxiety get the better of him, because he’s only human and they live stressful lives in the end. So stressful that forgetting things is easy - too easy - and an item forgotten at a random hotel in Japan isn’t the same as an item forgotten at his parents’ house. It’s not as easy to get back.
“Minho,” Hyunjin finally speaks up after watching his boyfriend turn his suitcase upside-down and inside-out for the third time, “it’s really not a big deal. I promise. Come sit down.”
“It has to be here,” Minho mutters, grabbing his backpack one more time to roughly search its multiple pockets. Again. “It can’t-- It has to be here. There’s no way…--”
“Hyung, I’ll make you another one.”
Minho scoffs, frowning even harder as he glares into his backpack. Hyunjin wants to sigh, but he doesn’t because he fears that might stress Minho out further. He doesn’t want that. He wants to comfort his boyfriend, but he knows that that task is easier said than done if Minho doesn’t actually want to be comforted.
“I can literally have an identical one out in a week,” he says, as calm and pleading as he can. It’s really not a big deal. He’s not upset. Does Minho think he’s upset? “It’s okay, hyung. I know you didn’t throw it away or something. Frankly, I’m surprised you’ve kept it for this long in the first place. It’s just a silly thing.”
“It’s not a silly thing,” Minho argues immediately, throwing his backpack into the corner before sitting down with his back against the bed, planting his face in his hands. “I can’t believe I lost it. I don’t lose things. I don’t know what happened. I sweeped the room before leaving and it was empty. I don’t--”
“Schhh,” Hyunjin hushes him, crawling over the mattress until he’s on his stomach behind Minho, leaning over the edge of the bed to nuzzle his face into his boyfriend’s below him.
He throws both arms around the older for good measure, and exhales in relief when Minho lets him and leans into the embrace. He wants to be comforted, then. That’s good.
Hyunjin holds on tighter.
“I’m sorry,” Minho says quietly, tilting his head into Hyunjin’s arm as his hands fall onto his legs not to prevent his speaking. “Of course I didn’t throw it away. I’d never do that.”
“I know.”
“It’s not silly,” he insists after that. “You made it for me. I made a whole fuss about that bracelet and how badly I wanted it and you made one just for me and I’ve always taken care of it and put it aside for the gym or the shower or a performance so I wouldn’t risk ruining it. And now I lost it. In Japan of all places. It’s gone. I’m not getting it back.”
“I’ll make you a new one,” Hyunjin tries to reassure his forlorn boyfriend, kissing his slightly broken-out cheek. Minho’s been stressed with all his schedules lately; Hyunjin knows that. It happens. “An identical one or whichever you want. It’ll be good practice for me. I think I’m forgetting how to make them.”
“It’s not the same,” Minho says quietly, and it’s hard to argue with that.
It isn’t the same. It won’t ever be the same, because that bracelet was sort of special. Hyunjin knows that, knows that it meant something kind of important to both of them. It’s not the first gift Hyunjin’s ever gotten the older, but definitely one of the first ones since they became official. More than that, it’s one of the extremely few public things between them, which is something that’s been slightly bothersome at times. Maybe to Hyunjin especially, who found the secrecy a lot more exciting in the beginning and the inevitable daily parting to be anything but just a few months after. It’s always made him ridiculously happy to see Minho wear the bracelet to official schedules, on a posted selca, whenever they’ve gone out together.
It does make him sad to see it go so abruptly, but it’s not the end of the world. He doesn’t mind making a new one, he doesn’t think Minho lost it on purpose and he clearly cares, and most importantly; he hasn’t actually lost Minho. Hyunjin could probably take quite a lot of losses as long as Minho remained by his side. More than he would without him, that’s for sure.
“It’s not the same,” Hyunjin agrees with another press of lips against the bumps beneath them, and then another one, “but neither are you. Neither are we. It’s been a long time since then, Minho. Maybe a new bracelet would be our version of renewing our vows, hmm? Lots of things have changed since then and we’ve made it through all of that and we’re still here, together. Is it that different?”
“Hwang Hyunjin,” Minho says, an achingly wet smile apparent even through his voice alone, “are you seriously proposing to me after I just lost something that meant a lot to you and am sitting on my bedroom floor being a mopey mess about it?”
“I love when my boyfriend’s being a mopey mess.”
“You’re silly,” Minho whispers, but he finally turns his face until their noses are bumping and Minho’s dry lips are brushing Hyunjin’s lonely ones. “You say silly things to comfort me. Why does it work?”
“Because I’m the best boyfriend you’ll ever have,” Hyunjin tells him sweetly, “and also the only one, so please appreciate me. I’ll be your silly boyfriend forever, Minho hyung. No matter how many bracelets you lose along the way.”
Unbelievably, Minho laughs. Only shortly, a sort of abrupt and very quiet thing, but he does. It counts. Hyunjin succeeds in comforting him and that’s really all that matters. The bracelet definitely doesn’t as long as Minho is okay.
I love you, Hyunjin thinks, with the conviction of his own heart. Lee Minho, I love you.
(As it turns out, the bracelet was not lost to a random hotel in Japan. It got stuck between two of the pockets of Minho’s backpack, in a hole that wasn’t supposed to be there, and Minho finds it the following morning long before Hyunjin can put in an order for the proper components to make a new one. Relief floods them both, sure, but Minho looks tangibly less upset than he did last night. Hyunjin pats himself on the back for a boyfriend-job well done.)
***
+1
Hyunjin isn’t sure exactly what it is that comes over him, but there must be something. Something in the way Minho’s lips part and both his eyes blink rapidly in unison whenever anything interesting happens on-screen, something in the way he hums and gasps automatically as the movie progresses, something in the way he snuggles further into Hyunjin’s arms and holds their intertwined hands tightly even though he claimed not to care which movie Hyunjin chose.
There’s something, something special and calm and secret that surrounds them and leaves Hyunjin holding his breath more often than not when he looks at Minho and really thinks about how much he loves him. How much the older means to him, how happy he makes Hyunjin, how he makes every task easier to take on and every burden easier to bear. They know each other so intimately and so closely and so lovingly, and they care for each other in the exact same way. Hyunjin doesn’t think he fully understood that love does feel like his poetry books described it and other people’s art made him feel it. He understood it in theory, but not completely. Not in the way love is meant to be understood, he thinks.
“Minho?” he murmurs, as soon as the credits start rolling and Minho’s wide eyes tear themselves away to twist in Hyunjin’s embrace until he’s pretty much in the younger’s lap. “Minho, I love you.”
To Hyunjin’s great pleasure and warm rush through his body, Minho almost looks confused. As if he doesn’t already know. As if he hasn’t known for years. As if he could still be surprised by the fierce need inside of Hyunjin to drown his boyfriend in his overwhelming feelings all caused by him.
“Minho,” Hyunjin says again, the word his lips most enjoy shaping, “you know that I love you, don’t you? Even if we don’t say it all the time? You know, right? You know that I love you more than I ever have?”
Minho takes one more second to look at him weirdly, and then he softens. Even melting into Hyunjin’s body, where he fits perfectly and should stay all the time.
“Yeah,” he confirms, quietly but steadily, as if he does know. “Yeah, I know that, Hyunjin-ah. It’s the same for me, love. I know that. Do you know the same, though?”
“Yes,” Hyunjin says easily. Because it is. Their love is so easy. “You’re the same you’ve always been, hyung. You say ‘I love you’ when you tuck me in at night and feed me when I zone out and pull my head to your lap when I need the rest. Like you’ve always done. I know you, Minho. I just feel like I’ve… Like maybe I don’t do enough or say enough for you to feel it the same way I do. Does that make sense?”
“I think so,” Minho says with a small frown, “but it’s not true. Of course I know, Hyunjin-ah. You love me so well. You always have. You’ve always seen me, accepted that person. You say I’m the same but I’m not, not really. I’m not the person I was when we first got to know each other. I wanna believe I’m better, though. I always want to be better.”
Hyunjin’s heart aches as he runs his fingers down Minho’s stunning face, catching on his jaw.
“I love that about you,” he admits, letting his mouth run freely. “I love that you inspire me, that you motivate me, that you being you makes me a better version of me. I love that you made me better from the very beginning when we were strangers, and I love that you accepted that and helped me when you had all the knowledge and I had none of it. I feel like I’ve always loved you.
“I didn’t fall for you quite then,” Hyunjin supposes, even though he was young and foolish and had the earth’s largest crush on his now-boyfriend, “but I loved you so quickly, hyung. You were meant to be here. With us and with me. You belong here. You belong with me, now, forever. I love that I can barely remember life before I knew you. I love that I have a million pictures of us, alone and not. I love that we’re spending the best parts of our lives together and sharing the most memorable moments through similar experiences.
“I love that you’re here,” Hyunjin presses, not daring to blink as he wills Minho to understand what he’s saying. “I love that you exist. I love you.”
“Hyunjinnie, baby, I--”
“I love the moles on your nose,” Hyunjin interrupts, smiling when Minho makes a face at being interrupted and smiling wider when he sees the blush overtake him, “and I love the bracelet you still wear. I love the comfort of your body being near even if it’s not touching mine. I love the way you smile first thing in the morning when you wake up and see me. I love that clinginess isn’t too common for you but you’re letting it through these days, trusting me with those feelings rather than ignoring them. I love that you pick up on the second ring whenever I call. I love that you’re doing things for yourself and still update me on how you’re doing and how you’re feeling.
“I love you because you’re so unapologetically you and I can’t imagine what sort of ‘me’ I’d be if I didn’t know you,” Hyunjin explains before placing his hand across Minho’s mouth when he’s about to say something before Hyunjin’s finished. A low ‘hmph’ of protest makes him smile, but at least Minho doesn’t bite him.
“Hush,” he teases, “I’m almost done. Don’t say anything back, Minho, just listen. Just hear how much I love you. How much I’ve loved you since I’ve known you and how much more you make me love you each day. I wouldn’t be this happy or content or self-assured if you didn’t love me, but you do, so I am. I am better because you love me, and I love you so much more because I know that you’re good and that you’re good for me. I’m not scared to love you. I’ve never been. Because I know, Minho. I know that you love me whether you say it in words or actions or at night or in the middle of our schedules. I love you. I love your love. I love the way you love me. And I absolutely adore the privilege of being loved by you.”