Work Text:
This shouldn’t be happening — Seungmin thinks a little too late.
By then he doesn’t have much room for letting his regrets take over him. Putting his senses to sleep deliberately, he lets himself float in the everso-comforting enclosure of Minho’s arms, his lips, and the way he draws breath from his own mouth, rendering Seungmin breathless. He wants to stay like this for a long, long time. Minho’s mouth is so warm, so purposeful, bearing all the decisiveness that Seungmin lacks when it comes to living in the moment until the younger is following along the pace he set. It’s so easy to give in.
“Here?” Seungmin gasps, finally pulling away. Minho blinks up at him, his pretty eyes sparkling with a tone of mischief. Familiarity is the hardest to wash off.
“Should’ve considered the place before putting your hand on my dick,” Minho deadpans, grinding into Seungmin’s palm as he leans forward for another kiss and it’s so easy to get lost in it.
However, it is hard to tame his anxiety. Despite being a prisoner of the same hunger, Seungmin finds it hard to relax. They work in a university for god’s sake; the place is full of professors— both ones he's close to and not—constantly running into the 2nd-floor break room for a coffee or a snack bar. This is the riskiest place to start anything at . But Minho— so, so sweet when he moans like this— has his tongue inside his mouth, bringing back memories he always forces himself to swallow. Being seen by other people cannot be worse than remaining unseen by Minho for three long months… right?
His fingers tremble where they are, pressed into Minho’s shoulder with a plea, but his daze and anxiousness rule so strongly that he becomes inconsistent in his motion. He is torn between pushing him away and pulling him closer. It takes him so long to reach a decision that the elder starts to pull away abruptly. Seungmin opens his eyes in question and finds their gazes locking. The intensity of the gaze directed at him makes him pink but he doesn’t shy away from it.
Minho breathes out a sigh. He probably doesn’t know exactly what this is about, Seungmin thinks. They never really discussed these things enough for either of them to know the other’s preferences and dislikes during sex.
As Seungmin stares at him in desperate question, Minho’s “ Are you okay?” almost escapes him. The want on the younger’s face matches the one within himself so perfectly. He is hesitant to break this bubble.
Seungmin stutters when he feels Minho is moving away. Immediately, panic rises in his chest— toppling over his charade like one wobbling piece of Jenga amidst the pile. Yet, stubborn as ever, he would be damned if he lets himself act on it. So instead of letting his hands reach out like he wants to, he stands still where Minho leaves him and watches the elder as he shuffles around the room with a searching look.
After a while, Minho pulls out a sign from behind the vending machine. “Coffee Machine out of order!”. With a grin, he finally looks up to make eye contact with the younger.
“This should do.”
Seungmin is not convinced but some fears have hands and feet. He is terrified to go back, to give up on whatever is to come. The way he had let the elder slip through his fingers all those months again haunts him still. Minho had called him selfish and Seungmin had always agreed to it.
So he nods, pushing out a smile matching Minho’s. The latter’s smile widens and he thinks that’s worth it all.
He will never let his friends know this but his first mistake was not listening to them in favour of trying to appear unaffected against Minho’s very apparent apathy. Ironic considering he was literally pitying Seungmin.
The elder had looked at him with emotionless eyes and Seungmin felt himself shake from the very core. There were half-packed suitcases next to him as he was working on putting away his belongings. Patches of their relationship that was him spread out in the room caught him in a crossfire of remembrance, pulling him apart with a striking dislocation. He paid half the rent, yet he felt like a misfit without Minho.
It had been so easy for Minho to decide he wouldn’t mind if Seungmin stayed that it was shocking. It was easy for Seungmin too because he did not spare more than a second to think about it. Give him an inch and he would take a mile. He is not usually impulsive, leaning more towards being collected and rational towards what he does. Yet when it comes to this one person he never ceases to take decisions that prove to be less than smart.
A prime example would be the situation at hand.
“Weren’t you being all fidgety about being walked into a while ago?” Minho asks once he has finally slid into Seungmin after a very hasty prep with some very limited supply of lube brought to them by Seungmin’s anxieties about not having essentials of all kinds in his wallet constantly. “Why are you being so loud now?”
Seungmin tries to answer the very moment Minho thrusts in again, hitting him right at the spot that makes pleasure curl up his spine, making him moan instead. He feels his pre-cum leak between their bodies but instead of being grossed out, he feels endlessly more aroused. His moan bounces off the walls as he grips Minho’s shoulder.
“That’s because- I-.. yo- hyung!” Seungmin’s fucked-out whines have always been music to the elder’s ears. Needless to say, he is quite enjoying the way he can’t even form a single sentence anymore. Right here, in between his arms, trembling like a sweet, sweet dream. Eyes screwed shut at the intensity of pleasure, Seungmin is fairly oblivious to the enormous amount of fondness being poured into him by the honeyed eyes that have been chasing his own dreams and nightmares.
“Because of what?” Minho taunts. Seungmin merely hears it, his mind feeling so far pushed back that he is not registering anything other than Minho’s arms, his dick pressed inside, and his lips that ghost Seungmin’s throat. When he manages to open his eyes he watches Minho, beautiful, beautiful Minho, with his eyes shut in exertion as soft moans spill out of him with each thrust. Seungmin feels his heart burst inside.
When he opens his eyes, his gaze is dark. He grinds into Seungmin again, and again, watching in delight the mess he is making of the younger. “Answer me Seungmin. Because of what?”
“Hyu-ngg… I’m— you’re so…”
Between being folded against the counter and the timely, purposeful way Minho snaps his hips into him, Seungmin can't really speak. Uncontrollable moans spill between his words each time he tries. His flexibility has gotten a little rusty over the past three months, his mind helpfully offers him as he struggles to keep his leg tucked around Minho's waist.
“Good?” Minho asks, not pausing in the slightest. The sounds they are making are so, so dirty, Seungmin pinks in embarrassment.
“Look here, Kim Seungmin,” With a particularly sharp thrust, hard against his prostrate, Minho yanks his attention back from the momentary diversion Seungmin was facing. Seungmin jerks with each motion.
“Hyu- ah- ah…” He wants to say yes. He wants to let the elder know how much he is enjoying but all that comes out of him are moans and whines.
And Minho. Fuck, he is really holding the whole of Seungmin’s weight with just his core and a single steady hand that hasn’t loosened its vice around Seungmin’s knee, to keep him still in this position while fucking into him without losing his rhythm. It’s too hot to even comprehend.
He is so, so close.
Minho taps at his mouth with his free hand, pressing Seungmin deeper into the edge of the counter. Grabbing his chin almost cruelly, Minho turns his face towards himself.
“Look at me when I’m fucking you,” he demands, voice strained. “That’s the least you can do, don’t you think?”
Seungmin blinks at him for a while. Minho’s gaze is fixed on Seungmin’s face as if committing his ruins to his memory. A pang of hope rattles his insides and he is too vulnerable to rationalise himself through it. Not to mention how gone he is right now. He presses his eyes shut again as a defence against his own mind.
“Please… Ple- please touch…me hyu… nngh….”
Minho presses closer, fucking in deeper, almost as if he was not even all the way in all this while. A garbled noise escapes Seungmin, long and so high on the pleasure it would be enough to make Minho come.
If he wasn’t a stubborn bastard, that is.
He grips Seungmin’s chin harder, almost bruisingly.
“Look at me Kim Seungmin,” He demands again yet it sounds like he is begging. Seungmin wouldn’t be able to tell anyways. “Look at me, look at me.”
Conjuring up the last bit of strength inside him, he opens his eyes again. His wet lashes make the world appear a little blurred out. Minho’s image is so smudged and yet he is so pretty, so beautiful like this. The beads of sweat on his forehead and the strong forearm that’s got his leg secure— It hurts to be in this position but they have tried ones far worse than this. They had even signed up for couple-yoga classes to make it easier.
“Good boy,” Minho whispers, sliding his hand down, down until he is grabbing Seungmin’s hard, weeping cock. A series of very lewd, wet noises add to the room when Minho pumps his hand around him a few times. He hisses out when Seungmin clenches around him, shocked at the sudden attention where he needs the most.
Minho's eyes darken while he watches the way Seungmin keeps squirming, whimpering so prettily. He's always been so sensitive.
“Feel good?” He wants to know, leaning forward to leave a kiss on his cheek. Then the other.
“Wanna come... Please…hyungie,” Seungmin begs, trying his hardest to keep his eyes open, to keep looking at Minho. Minho looks back at him, staring into his eyes with emotions that are too complicated to keep in. Or for Seungmin to read.
“Come if you wanna,” He says when he is done staring. He turns his face away with a very familiar lack of feelings. It immediately sets off some unknown alarm in Seungmin’s head.
"Don’t think I care if you finish or not.”
Seungmin cries out in protest when Minho stops touching him entirely. Then he grabs at Seungmin’s waist and begins fucking into him all over again with the singular goal of making both of them come.
There was a time when they had enough love between them to make them want to test the limits of certainty, to play around with boundaries. In the face of Minho’s dripping warmth, Seungmin enjoyed his faux meanness— his apathetic demeanour was hot to him and he would actively seek it out.
Now, he struggles with it. Hearing Minho doesn’t care about him during the only intimacy they can share is difficult. When Minho doesn’t spare him a single glance and simply dresses and leaves the breakroom like he is completely unaffected, it breaks something deep inside him. Like a reenactment of the day Minho had first shut the door to his face.
Yet.
At least it isn’t worse than when we did not talk for months. He writes in his diary later that night while trying not to think about how pathetic the sentence looks now that it’s on paper. His pen comes to a halt when he tries to strike it off. Instead, he writes a few more pathetic lines. What’s wrong with being honest to yourself anyways?
I will take it. He writes, stubbornly. Anything Minho gives will be clutched tight between his fist even if it makes him bleed.
So since then, he tries not to pay attention to the wanton need for more when Minho is done with him. He musters up the strength to stand up each time so he can leave before Minho. If he has chosen this as his path then he needs to be strong at least.
Things take a drastic turn from then compared to the stagnancy of the past months. It’s not like they completely go back to how they were before, no. It somehow evolves into a toxic cycle of fucking during work hours and then acting indifferent to each other’s presence at home. Almost as if some switch flips between them when they come to work. The tension that they carry at home gets doubled when they are around each other at the university until Seungmin folds against it.
He almost gets used to it, the gnawing anxiety each time their make-outs escalate to groping while they are nowhere near seclusion. Once he loses his senses to Minho’s touch though, it’s hard for him to remember much else anyways.
The only good part of this ordeal is how much more often he gets to see Minho all of a sudden. Being from the Physical Education department, Minho spends most of his time at the field or the sports hall. Seungmin on the other hand has classes all the way across the sports hall, at the Humanities building. Yet, these days Minho somehow catches him in their staff room, at the exact moments when Seungmin finds a pocket of time to be there.
It’s odd but it’s heart fluttering after so long of fighting to see a crumb of the elder despite being in the same establishment. Seungmin had gone as far as to peek at the ground during class hours to hopefully catch a glimpse of him. This is not to say he still doesn’t do that but it feels less like a stab wound and more like little treats that settle heavy at the pit of his stomach, reminding him of his predicament constantly. It’s moments away from the elder that Seungmin finds himself thinking the most about their situation.
“Kim-Seonsaengnim,” someone calls, breaking him from his trance. Seungmin looks up from his laptop to meet Han Jisung’s gummy smile as he shoves a cup into his hands.
Seungmin scrunches his brows at what looks like iced americano and then looks up at his colleague in question. “Are you treating everyone today?”
Han Jisung chuckles and then shakes his head.
“I’m starting to think you have some secret admirer out here,” Jisung says. “The deliveries are getting so frequent… Which teacher did you charm? Or perhaps—” His eyes widen comically, “No way… could it be a student?”
Seungmin scoffs, feeling himself redden.
“I don’t get deliveries every day,” he mumbles, staring down at the cup that’s wetting his fingers.
“Lies. You’ve been getting coffee every single day at some point and don’t think I don’t notice you getting mysterious lunch bags at your table on some afternoons. I just don’t know who exactly keeps it there. The coffee too— because whoever is doing it sends someone to deliver it… I don’t get the point.”
“What point…?”
He pouts, “Just if they like you they should at least leave some traces. Like a note or something.”
Seungmin sighs. His heart sinks a little upon the realisation that his life is not made for such excitements that Jisung is describing. Not anymore.
“I see you’re watching a lot of romcoms, Han-Seonsaengnim. I will ask Jeongin to recommend you some critically acclaimed films so that you can stop watching trash in your spare time.”
“Hey! Romcoms are not trash!” Jisung defends loud enough to turn heads. Seungmin winces and glares.
“You should return to high school,” He glares at the shorter man who just grins apologetically.
“I will get back to you on this later.”
He is putting away his lunch box when he catches sight of Minho entering the room. He has his eyes fixed on his phone as he walks straight to his desk and rummages through some papers. Seungmin tries not to stare as he prepares to leave the room for a walk around the campus.
Right as he is passing by Minho’s desk that’s right beside the exit, he hears his low voice vibrate in the space between them. There are a few other professors doing their own thing in the room but none of them are in their vicinity so Seungmin allows himself to give Minho a questioning glance. His heart races when he meets his sharp eyes, assessing him like a feline waiting to pounce on its prey.
“5th-floor bathroom in 10.” He says again. Low enough to pass off as a brief greeting yet with enough intensity directed towards Seungmin for his blood to immediately rush to his cheeks.
He does not reply. Just ducks his head in lieu of a nod and makes his way towards the staircase. It’s not like he did not expect anything but he is never prepared enough to face how easy it is for Minho to make propositions like this. Granted it was Seungmin who had made the first move two weeks ago. Granted that it was he who had leaned in for a kiss and he who had touched Minho over his pants first, almost out of instinct, the burning desire to make the elder feel good being a second nature he never quite shed from himself. It was not until that moment that he realised how much he missed it, feeling Minho twitch in his hold, the passion pouring out of his mouth and the way he would grope Seungmin in return, give back twofold of what he receives.
Their dynamics might be hanging from a strange string right now but no matter how mean Minho feels these days, his desire to give never ceases to make Seungmin lose his mind even if it is not exactly what he wants. His back has met with the wall now and he is willing to take anything Minho gives him. Pity, disinterest, hatred, sex; beggars can’t be choosers.
That’s the last thing he thinks of as he finds himself face-to-face with the deserted bathroom door that has become their frequent hideout. Seungmin is glad that they’re about to be separated from the rest of the hallway by it. The security of no one really barging in makes him less anxious on the days that they meet here.
Here within the filthy walls, he can pretend to commit to an act of worship. He can pretend it’s okay and the rest of the world is absent, and for a brief moment, Minho too probably wants him the same way he used to want him before Seungmin set everything on fire.
When Seungmin returns to his senses he is still here, leaning back against the closed door of the men’s room— his new reality. Minho is less perturbed about the situation, already zipping up his pants with incredible deftness as if he didn’t almost cry from the orgasm Seungmin had drawn out of him. He will never understand how the elder can regain his consciousness so easily when he is left in a pile of crumbles for even hours sometimes.
He has been trying to be strong these days though, so this much weakness is perhaps “uncharacteristic” of him now. Perhaps because it’s been a while since he has tried to overpower someone like Minho— Someone who doesn’t let you be without a fight. It’s always so interesting to earn his submission. Tiring but addictive.
Blearily, Seungmin looks up at the elder and lets himself feel satisfied at the way his hair is still askew along with his smudged eyeliner and the crumpled ends of his expensive dress shirt. Unconsciously, he lets his eyes follow the flush on Minho’s ears that has travelled down his neck, painting him a pretty red. That’s one thing Minho can’t take from Seungmin— the fact that he can still affect him like this.
“Something wrong?” Minho narrows his eyes at him once he’s done tucking his shirt into his pants.
Seungmin snaps his gaze away. “Nothing. Are you okay?”
The elder’s eyes widened at the question. “I’m fine….” He states, ears pinking adorably. “What about you?”
“Me too,” Seungmin replies, feeling warmth at the question even though he knows it’s probably out of courtesy since he asked one first.
He hears a scoff. “Are you sure? I don’t see you competing with me today.” He observes. “Thought we’re in an ongoing competition of who can undergo the walk of shame first.”
“There’s no competition,” Seungmin rebukes. It hurts to know Minho has started considering it a competition but even if it was, today is not the day he will dare to take a step so fast. His legs are shaking the same way they did that first time in the breakroom and he doesn’t wish to fall over like a newborn deer against the toilet floor and in front of his ex, thank you very much.
He feels Minho’s gaze on him for a while longer but he doesn’t look up from the spot on the floor. Then, he feels a hand on his head. Familiar and warm, Minho strokes his head once, twice, thrice— Seungmin feels crazy for counting but he can’t help it. Three, four five . His heart is beating harder than it did when he was literally having sex with this man a few moments earlier. His tangles unknot themselves on their own with nothing more than some strokes of Minho’s hand on his head.
Six, seven, eight—
“Take your time then Min,” he whispers low enough for his words to not echo in the encased place but loud enough for it to echo in Seungmin’s mind for the rest of the day.
There is only one place remaining in this world that would welcome him when he is at his rock bottom.
After work, he finds himself at a place that he knows as well as his own house, an address he seeks when he needs some peace, a place to run away while staying stagnant. Bang Chan.
Chan and he, in a way, share a similar fate of abandonment followed by learning to take care of their own selves in this world. The whole reason why he doesn’t bother Chan often is due to his desire to let the man live his life for himself. But today his feet had a mind of their own and he found himself in front of the elder’s door before he even knew it himself.
Seungmin has never known what it is like to have a family but with Chan, he feels something that would probably feel close to familial love. When the door opens to reveal his friend’s droopy eyes, his black beanie and his black outfit, Seungmin feels like breaking down into tears. He’s still so familiar, so unchanged in his welcome, in the way he immediately pulls Seungmin into a bone-crushing hug.
“Finally remembered your hyung?” Chan says, his voice is heavy with a smile.
Seungmin sniffs into his shirt, snuggling deeper into the embrace. “Yes. Make me ramen, I’m hungry.”
Chan chuckles, petting his head some more. Chan has never been the type to question him much so he doesn’t this time either and that’s a big reason why Seungmin finds so much comfort in him. “Staying over tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay baby,” He mumbles. “Must’ve been a long day.”
Seungmin breathes out an aching sigh. “Yeah.”
He is well aware that running away for the night without notice after having Minho’s cock down his throat, followed by dick-in-ass sex might not appear as ‘chill’ of him as he had vowed to be about the entire ordeal in the beginning. Minho has been so uncaring of it all that it makes Seungmin feel ashamed of even feeling all these unreturned, unwanted things.
Memories bleed through their dull apartment like the loss of a limb makes one bleed uncontrollably, preparing for a future that’s only one step away from death. Hopelessness echoes in their once lively living room. The best thing he could do to once again stop feeling like he is letting the tides of his deadly passion for the elder take control over his life was to run away for a while.
One night away from that suffocating apartment sounded like a good idea until Seungmin realises he no longer falls asleep on Chan’s bed in the same way he did before. Thoughts of all the things that happened ever since he left this place a year ago cloud him without mercy reminding him again and again of all the happiness he once had in the centre of his palm and then failed to gasp because he was never worthy enough.
The next morning when a staggering body enters the staff room, clearly sleep-deprived, Minho is the first to go forward and steady him in his stance. The stupid, stubborn boy tries to brush it off with the dust gathered over his shoulder.
“You weren’t home last night. Why?” Minho mutters, barely suppressing the ugly feeling in his heart that has been brewing since the previous evening which makes him want to snap at the younger. He wants to take the boy between his arms and shake him vigorously.
He doesn’t know why he hates the idea of losing sight of him but he does. It’s hard to shake off the insane possessiveness that plays with his insides at the sight of Seungmin. He hopes his narrowed eyes can keep everything out and away.
“Went to Chan Hyung’s,” Seungmin mumbles, clearly unsure why Minho is asking. As if the fact that he can care is unknown to him. It’s so annoying. Minho lets his scroll deepen.
“Didn’t you check your texts?” He asks before he can hold back.
Seungmin stills in his step. Minho holds his breath.
“No,” He hangs up his coat and then turns away.
Minho Hyung <(1) 9:27 pm>
finish the kimchi jjigae on the table
made too much on wednesday and i'm sick of it now
The truth is, Seungmin does receive notes from who Jisung calls his ‘secret admirer’. But he doesn’t have any face left to misunderstand the sender. Minho uses pink floral notepad pages and stuffs them in the lunchbox he makes almost every day. Seungmin has no idea when he does it because Minho leaves so much earlier than them for the morning practice that it is daring to even think he makes them himself. Yet, from the familiar taste of it all, he can always tell it can be no one but Minho even without his cranky notes about cooking extra and not wanting him to survive on americano in an attempt to save money.
In reality, though, Seungmin has no idea why exactly Minho cares. Is it some twisted way of letting Seungmin know he is being paid for sex so he doesn’t misunderstand? The thought makes him feel worse than he does after Minho leaves him at the end of each one of their… sessions. Yet he feels more and more inclined towards that belief because what other reason could he have to go through the trouble of keeping Seungmin fed? Especially when Minho acts like Seungmin is invisible at home. The only time he sees Seungmin is when he wants to and he leaves as soon as his needs are met. Testament to how easily discardable Seungmin really is.
At a moment of weakness, he ends up confessing some of this to his friends over their brunch on Sunday and instantly regrets it.
“What do you mean you have been sleeping with Minho hyung?” Hyunjin gasps. Jeongin simply shakes his head. The disappointment in his eyes has never ceased since the moment he had seen Seungmin walk into the room flushed up three weeks ago, knowing somehow it had something to do with his ex-boyfriend.
“Innie… I thought you were keeping the dog in check!”
“Hey! I have my own life! It’s hard to always keep an eye on him,” he narrows his eyes, “especially when they hide so well.”
Seungmin sinks deeper into his seat, shame flooding his body. It’s not like he doesn’t know why exactly his friends are disappointed in him. Yet he doesn’t know why he expected to be told it will be okay, craving some validation for an act that saves room for no mercy. The truth is, he has never been lonelier than he had been those three months sharing two separate spaces with someone he knew so well yet having to pretend he didn’t. Grief, Seungmin named his feelings once. Grief for someone two feet away. He was aching with all the love ungiven, all the love unreceived.
“It’s not easy,” He tells his friends, breaking the silence that fell between them, muddled with the weight of dirt, disappointment that soaked up the air like a manifestation of dirty laundry. Seungmin doesn’t have enough in him to wash away so he sleeps next to a corpse every day hoping to turn into one.
None of his friends look up but Hyunjin reaches for his hand silently, giving him a squeeze, reassuring, warm, not enough to fill up the hole in his centre.
“Why did you even break up,” Jeongin asks, frustration in his voice. Seungmin plays with Hyunjin’s fingers as he feels shame bubble within him when he recalls the reason, fresh in his mind. How is he supposed to explain that he had brought it upon himself?
///
Seungmin knew they would break up from the moment he started dating Minho. With the weight of the shame he carried about himself and his upbringing, he did not think he would last long with the dazzling lights that Minho emitted. He had perfect grades, a perfect family, and a perfect upbringing while Seungmin had no name, no place, and was a rogue to the world.
No one pegs Seungmin as the romantic type. No one ever has and he is not particularly upset about it because indeed, he finds it difficult to love and be loved without the involvement of some kind of push and pull. To receive unconditionally makes his inside turn upside down, overwhelmed without possible expression. It makes him more stoic than ever and for more than half his life he was convinced he wasn’t made for love.
He doesn’t know if he had been right or wrong in his assessment of himself.
“You can tell me if you don’t want to be with me Kim Seungmin,” Minho had told him, sitting in the same living room where they had paused a movie to steal kisses only hours ago. Now, with their empty food containers and the dark screen of their shared television set. They bought it together only last month so that it would be easier to watch movies. Seungmin had been over the moon knowing they can finally have snacks without fearing spills on the bed. He was glad he could look at the way the sun fell on his boyfriend’s perfect face from their balcony. That day, however, was met with heavy pouring and sunless for the whole day.
He was so confused at the suddenness of the elder’s statement, he wondered if the sound of the rain was making things sound like what they were not. All he could utter was a “Huh?”
Minho had looked nervous, playing with his own hands. Seungmin had felt the violent urge to reach forward and engulf them in his bigger ones, hoping it would fix that expression on his face. The despair, the doubt. But he had hesitated– one amidst his many cowardly decisions that lowered them to their graves.
It did not take long for his heart to take it as a sign to rattle in fear. I did this — The thought came to him like a stab against a gushing wound even before he knew what it was.
“You don’t ever tell me things.” He says, looking up at Seungmin’s eyes. “I know we started with just sex but I thought something changed. You never act like it and it’s… It’s…” Minho looks conflicted on uttering his next words, eyes moving around the floor in silent pain. Then he shuts them up and breathes out, “It’s hurting me Seungmin.”
Heart in his hands Seungmin had stuttered through his rapidly closing throat, “I… don’t… tell you things?”
“No you don't,” Minho said, “Sometimes I feel like I barely know you.”
“I told you about work though… I told you about my student—” Seungmin fumbled, knowing full well how futile it was.
“That’s different!” Minho’s voice echoed off the walls. Seungmin fought off a wince, partly because he expected it when he saw the elder’s eyebrows drawn together. “It’s always work with you. Who are you outside work? I barely know a thing about your family, your friends. It’s almost like you’re hiding me while I am going around telling everyone about you. Am I the only one in a relationship, Kim Seungmin?”
“You’ve been this way since we returned from my house,” Minho continued, seeing how Seungmin was left speechless. He was adorning an expression so defeated Seungmin pressed his own eyes shut for a few minutes to look away from it. It was as if he had given up on all fights. “That one month was rough. You always looked so upset at my house that I cut my leave short. I tried to ask you so many times what’s wrong but you never tell me anything about it. Did you hate my family? Do you have commitment issues and it was too soon? This can’t work out without you telling me something !”
It clicked into his head almost instantly. He had tried so hard to hide parts of himself from Minho out of fear of being abandoned again. He was ugly and selfish, too protective. He had the audacity to be jealous of Minho who had so kindly taken him home for their summer vacations and introduced him to a foreign kind of love. He was green with envy watching the love the elder got at home, craving with no avail. And perhaps that was why he started keeping a larger distance between them when they returned. He felt unfit with his rugged edges. A misfit connected to a family so perfect. The long-lost words of his peers ring in his ears and he shakes in fear. He was probably abandoned for a good reason.
So he had uttered the words that drew a line once and for all.
“You’re right. This won’t work out.”
He doesn’t remember much of what happened after. Actually, he barely remembers anything that went on during those months. Like a robot on auto-pilot, he sat there and listened to the words Minho was saying but he processed none of it. Later he went to his room and the next day he went to work. He heard Minho had taken a leave. He returned home late, hoping they wouldn’t cross paths. He did the same the next day and probably the same again, again and again.
Monotony replaced their regulars. A few silent weeks later, Minho stopped participating in Seungmin’s game of avoidance and hide-and-seek and simply started treating him with a polite cold shoulder. Being treated like a non-existence had made Seungmin come to terms with the fact that it was finally over. No amount of regret will bring them back. So he swallowed his words, his apologies and pleas, burning them down with some strong alcohol in the suffocating confines of his room. Later he threw it all up into the toilet, praying and hoping Minho would be deaf to his pathetic shitshow.
“You know hyung would understand right?” Jeongin says, finally softened by the depth of the situation. “I don’t know him too well but I do know that he is one of the most understanding people out there.”
Hyunjin presses his head deeper into his chest where Seungmin sheds silent tears for the first time since they had broken up. It hurts so badly he feels like he’s been split into halves. “Were you scared of his reaction?”
He shakes his head against Hyunjin’s hoodie.
“I was scared of myself.” He chokes out. “...Of how much I would probably hurt him if I didn’t leave immediately.”
Seungmin is no hopeless romantic but he is romantic enough to know the fury of passion. He knows to bits and pieces what it means to be caught in tangles of something that not only twists against your own arteries but that of the one you love. It’s better to cut off the string before it gets too tight.
Even if it’s at the cost of his own self. Seungmin has been fated to lose a million things in life. At least one of them would be for a good cause.
Seungmin barely remembers his last coherent thoughts before Minho conveniently slipped his fingers into his ass with no warning, immediately brushing against his spot like a man on a mission, that bastard.
It’s just that Minho looked so gorgeous. Seungmin had forgotten that the elder decides to dress up during sports events instead of wearing the same old gym gear or the occasional dress shirts that he does the whole year. He had a purple satin blouse on, paired with trousers and a beret. Pearl earrings were glistening by his ears and his lips were a shade of red that he had never seen. Coincidentally, the first time he’s seen Minho, as a newly appointed professor it had been a similar event. An inter-university sports meet.
Today, their interactions have been charged since the very morning. Fleeting gazes have turned into a full-on stare-down each time they cross paths. At the end of the day, finally, when they met in the staff room, Seungmin was the one politely (or as politely as possible while checking someone out) pointing out how nice he looks and Minho, with his usual sharp tongue, posed him with a challenge. “Do you want to kiss me Kim Seungmin?” Seungmin gulped, taking a step forward.
“Maybe…”
“I don’t remember you being such a coward.” Minho had said, pulling Seungmin forward by his necktie and then they were kissing.
Getting out of their pants and loosening their shirts had come as a natural step from then on. As if they both threw away the idea of logic the second they started kissing. Before he knew it, he was thrusting into Minho, feeling again the tight warmth of his hyung and recalling back when this was easier, when he was allowed to do this often. He tried to commit his moans to his memory. He misses him so much.
“You’re- ah- so…so p-pretty hyung,” Seungmin had moaned into Minho’s spine, bunching up more of the expensive satin only to kiss him there. He watched as goosebumps rose on the skin and felt himself go a little feral. He didn’t even realise when he had come into the condom, so overwhelmed by the whole situation. Of having Minho like this.
This is why he is shocked when Minho begins to quickly struggle away from his gasp, and his dick, wincing slightly. Seungmin seems to wake up from a bit of a trance, realising they are done here. He quickly pulls out the condom and ties it up, before immediately aiming it into the bin.
But, to his surprise, they apparently are not done there.
“Why—,” He tries to protest but the first orgasm Minho had gotten out of him has seemingly only spurred him on for more. He waits no longer before switching up their positions and pushing him against the desk— Minho’s desk— until Seungmin is the one pressed forward, face-to-face with the papers that he would be worried about if they were his own.
“Y-your papers—” He tries to warn the elder but is answered with a smack on his ass which makes him completely lose that train of thought.
“That’s not something for you to worry about, puppy,” Minho mutters and Seungmin feels his breath at his hole. He shivers at the feeling. It is so embarrassingly vulnerable yet fills him with anticipation. He missed this. He doesn’t even remember the last time he had allowed someone to fuck him like this.
Despite his initial roughness, Minho sure knows how to make Seungmin ask for it. Brushing his lubed thumb around his entrance over and over again, as if they had all the time in the world as if this wasn’t the fucking staff room that they are about to share with their colleagues soon. His leisure punishes Seungmin who is suddenly overcome with a desperate desire to be filled. Once he gets Seungmin in his mercy, he slows down like they have all the time in the world.
He is shuddering, feeling overwhelmingly stimulated yet completely untouched. Even he doesn’t know when he had given up on being silent and started moaning. Begging .
“Hyung… Minho hyung please…”
He thought he could hear Minho’s menacing grin in his voice.
“Please what, Seungminnie?”
“Please…. Stop teasing,” Seungmin feels distraught with want, with the need to have Minho inside him. It’s embarrassing how much he likes being touched in this way. Perhaps it is because this hyung was the one who introduced him to the world of anal play that it feels like no one else will ever be able to do it like him.
He almost cries when he feels a finger enter him, finally. Finally . A sigh of relief escapes him as Minho begins to move. First slow, probably feeling up his tightness. Sometimes he pauses to go back to rubbing but it feels a little better now. Seungmin almost melts into the uncomfortable desk until he feels a second finger push in, this time moving at a faster pace from the get-go.
“Hyung,” he slurs out, so gone from so little yet the last of his ability to be embarrassed has faded. Now all he wants is to be close, closer to Minho.
“Mhm,” Minho hums. When Seungmin looks back at his face with his bleary eyes, he sees the elder staring at his own fingers as they disappear into Seungmin with deep concentration. It makes Seungmin get harder, and the need for release gets so much stronger yet Minho has not even touched him. Not even a brush against his prostate.
When he finally starts to touch him there, Seungmin is moaning louder than earlier, unable to hold back. Minho seems encouraged by it, going faster and faster, pressing against his sweet spot over and over again, until Seungmin has the urge to cry. When he goes to touch himself though, Minho pats his hand away.
With his fingers deep inside of him, Minho reaches below, brushing his thumb against his nipples. Seungmin did not expect it at all and the action draws out a gasp from him, face scrunching up due to sensitivity. He is still in that post-orgasm daze which makes him absolutely useless against anything Minho says and does. The elder takes this exact opportunity over and over again.
“Needy little Seungmin,” he taunts, “Always moaning like a bitch in heat.”
His words are rough and cruel, enjoying the helpless way in which Seungmin writhes, wriggles and begs for more.
“No... Ah... I’m…” Seungmin fumbles with his words, tongue getting looser and looser. Minho takes that opportunity to pinch his nipple and he immediately cries out in pain, in pleasure.
Seemingly displeased, Minho clicks his tongue. “Turn around,” he orders. But he doesn’t wait for Seungmin to do it. He flips the boy around in a single motion, pressing him against the desk, almost forcefully. Seungmin whines, looking up at Minho’s dark gaze with his own pleading ones and reaches out to touch the hand that was inside him. He needs it .
Minho looks down at his motion and then laughs at his face. “Stupid, cock–hungry dog,” He spits out. Seungmin would feel bad about it had Minho not immediately pressed him back into the desk. The younger barely saves his head with his elbows supporting him up when he feels his legs being raised up, up until he is vulnerable and spread out in front of Minho’s face once again. This time with his feet resting on the elder’s shoulders.
The position is strange but he is so aroused. He moans as Minho presses his fingers inside him again. Still two of them. Seungmin desperately wants more.
But before he can beg for it, Minho circles his mouth around his nipples and it sends him into a physical tremor. He throws his head back as a single tear escapes him. Being stimulated in so many ways after such a recent orgasm has always made him weak. Minho licks and bites at his chest, his mouth warm and wet and it’s so so messy. Combined with the way Minho has been constantly brushing against his prostate, he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold back.
He reaches forward, almost unconsciously to touch his cock, leaking and neglected. But the moment he touches his head and whines, Minho looks up at him with a sharp gaze. He lets go of his nipple with an obscene and unreal ‘pop’ and immediately pins his hand behind his back with his own.
Seungmin moans at the loss, at the power, at the strange feeling of being held back and watched.
“Ah… Hyung… Please…” He begs, but Minho only tightens his grip on his wrist and quickens his abuse at this hole. Seungmin cries his name… “Minho… Hyung… hyung... Please…” He needs just a single touch. Just a little more to be able to come. This unfamiliar edging has him dizzy and his head lolls to his side as he silently weeps.
“Be good, puppy,” Minho commands with a heavy voice. Seungmin keeps on begging, restrained beyond bounds. His elbow is aching with the pressure while he tries to keep his other hand as still as possible. Minho’s hands are smaller than his own but his own wrists are lithe enough to fit perfectly in the elder’s palm. It’s a delirious feeling of being overpowered in every way he thinks.
It takes a while for Minho to take mercy.
“Tongue out, puppy.”
Somehow, with time, Minho’s voice has gotten softer and softer. Or maybe Seungmin’s senses have weakened. Either way, it’s nice. Seungmin obeys him almost immediately, trying his best to keep his eyes open. Minho lets go of his hand too and Seungmin feels empty where there was a force against his wrist. But he doesn’t dare take it as a cue to move his hand. He keeps it where it was, despite the pain, despite the need to shy away from Minho who just looks at him, his own body, with an inexplicable hunger. Like he is going to eat Seungmin up. The thought makes Seungmin feel even more aroused.
“Please… hyung…” He wants to beg, once again but he is scared of defying the order placed on him so he keeps his tongue out until he feels drool dribbling down his chin.
“ You are the one who looks pretty, Minnie,” Minho says after a few moments of heated observation, unmoving, face coloured with awe. “So soft and obedient. My pretty little plaything.” He then reaches forward to brush his hair out of his forehead and presses a kiss. It is an act so tender that it doesn’t fit with the utter filth that they have been committing. Yet, it is probably the one kind of affection Seungmin has been hungry for the most. Minho looks at him with so much fondness, Seungmin wants to get the wrong idea.
He presses his hand on Seungmin’s tongue, toying with his mouth for a passing second before he seemingly changes his mind and presses at his tongue until Seungmin has gotten the hint to put it back.
“Do you want to come?” He asks. His fingers have long since stopped moving, staying just buried inside him, touching him where he feels the most yet painfully still.
“Yes… Please… Please hyung…”
“Beg a little more,” Minho’s tone almost mimics Seungmin's own.
“Hyung… make me come… please… only you can make me come,” Seungmin chants desperately as Minho once again begins thrusting his fingers inside him. Seungmin keens with each move– he has never been fucked like this.
“Yeah? Never been fucked like this huh?” Minho chuckles. Seungmin nods, without realising that his thought was spoken out loud. “Only I can make you feel like this, right baby?”
“Yes Hyung… only you, just you.”
When Seungmin finally feels a hand wrapped around his dick, he cries again. He is so, so sensitive and so needy.
Minho moves with practised deftness. Seungmin is wet enough for him to have an easy glide and aroused enough to come in just a few strokes.
“I’m… I’m coming…” He is barely able to warn. Minho’s permission rings somewhere in the background as Seungmin comes so hard, he feels lightheaded.
After catching up on his breath, he tries to stabilise himself by slowly picking himself up. He has this strange wish for Minho to help him with it and shakes his head at the absurdity of the desire. Once he is popped up, naked feet dangling against the desk, he suddenly feels like a child. Minho is already half-dressed, pulling on his trousers without sparing him another glance. Seungmin tries to reach out for him and holds a bit of his sleeve which makes Minho turn around but before they can talk, there is an announcement on the microphone, asking Minho to come to their field.
Seungmin wonders if he imagines the helplessness on Minho’s face. He probably did.
Minho steps into his space again, holding the younger by his shoulder. Seungmin wants more of that warmth. Then he leans forward and whispers into his ear,
“You were good today, Minnie. Clean up well. I’ll see you downstairs, okay?”
Seungmin thinks he nods but all he remembers is the sudden gush of emptiness he feels inside him when he hears the door close behind Minho. He breaks down into tears the moment the door shuts and wonders if he is broken completely.
His desired way of eliminating the complicated swirl of things he feels for the rest of the day and the next is by deciding to sleep with a different person for once. Perhaps he doesn’t really want Minho. Maybe he wants intimacy. Seungmin himself knows how fake that sounds in his own head but he doesn’t want to give up without trying. Anything to get rid of this constant emptiness.
At the back of his head, he knows how little this had worked in the past. He can predetermine how little it will work this time too. What he feels is a strange rage towards Minho and towards himself, a sadness that’s unlike the one he always carries because this one makes him irrevocably touch-starved. Each time he sleeps with Minho this feeling increases. He wonders if he is slowly poisoning himself to death like this.
It is also partly his touch-starved-ness that brings him amidst people, still dressed in his work attire. The lights at the club are bright enough for Seungmin to wish to hide away from them. Despite arriving voluntarily as a reprieve, he can’t seem to find any peace amidst the plethora of people around him. Running away from home has become second nature to him now. Somehow the tension in the apartment room has increased twofold since their recent developments. Minho’s ignorance hits harder, his gaze cuts deeper. It doesn’t help that Seungmin remembers every nook and cony of the house where they made a memory and it haunts him in his sleep. The closest thing to a solution is a stranger’s arms. Maybe if he slept with other people he would be able to forget.
As he circles the liquid in his cup absentmindedly, making no move to approach anymore, he feels a presence next to him. He lets his eyes move over the sharp features, glittery eye eye-makeup and a smile that breaks through them with a delicate charm.
“Here alone?” The stranger had asked, a voice so deliciously deep that it was immediately entrancing. Seungmin felt the tell-tale rush of being looked at. Of attention.
“Not if you’re willing to join me,” He says, a cheeky smile playing on his lips naturally. Inside his chest, his heart shakes. He hopes this is his ticket to a night of peace.
They make small talk and he learns the stranger’s name. Felix. He is a pleasant boy, a chef with his own restaurant in Itaewon. They mostly flirt, not getting too deep into life histories. It gets to a point where they even take a taxi to Felix’s very luxurious apartment and Seungmin thinks he is ready to forget.
Yet, it turns out, his luck is not that good. He was fine with making out, with the kisses on his face, even with the way Felix groped him and pinned him against the door. At one point he bit his cheek before laughing and it was absolutely fine. The moment his back hits the bed and he feels the stranger’s lips on his neck though, he tenses up. Understanding his discomfort, the man immediately looks up and gives him a smile before moving back to his lips. This was a little more comforting. Yet, Seungmin couldn’t help but feel discomfort raging through his bones, no longer able to relax.
The striking fear plays at the back of his head at his own behaviour. Minho has ruined everyone else for him.
Eventually, Felix pulls away, concern colouring his face. “You know you don't have to do this if you don’t want to right?” He says, kindly after feeling Seungmin tense up for the fifth time that evening.
“I do… I just… I don’t know,” He sighs, burying his face into his hands. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
That was probably the final confirmation and the boy completely pulls away, his weight getting replaced by that of a blanket. Seungmin expects him to leave the room at this point, hoping Seungmin takes it as a cue to leave too. Guilt consumed him at the realisation that he just ruined a nice person’s chances of getting laid tonight.
“You can go back to the club if you want,” Seungmin says, looking up at the ceiling. “I will pay for your taxi and then go home. It’s still early.”
“Or… we can just talk or cuddle or something,” the smaller boy suggests, “Unless, of course, you really want to go home. Because I don’t wanna go back.” Seungmin snaps his gaze at the guy who’s giving the sunniest smile he has ever seen on a man who just got blue-balled. The offer is tempting. His need for intimacy is so bone-deep that he doesn’t have the energy to be selfless or deny and he genuinely feels like cuddles could fix him. Even if it's not from the person he actually wants.
“Okay…” he looks away before pulling away the blanket to create some space beside him. “We could cuddle…”
“I would like that more than anything.” He grins.
Felix turns out to be an insanely good cuddler. Seungmin will probably remember him for ages. They exchange numbers so hopefully there will come a time when Seungmin can repay him for his kindness even if it's with a meal. Seungmin knew no one who had been fed an insanely good breakfast after a very failed one-night stand. Felix flashed a grin at him and said something about how he lives to break stereotypes. It was cheesy as hell but it made him laugh.
Seungmin is grateful to him for allowing him to stop thinking about Minho even if it’s for a very short while. For a very short while he had imagined meeting and falling in love again, to let himself open up and be vulnerable like this with someone who isn’t his fucking ex. Maybe he could start over with love again and perhaps Felix could be the one. Their start might not have been according to plan but it has been cute. They could fit.
But then the thought that Minho is probably at their shared apartment, all alone comes back to him.
“Would he even care?” Seungmin sighed out loud when he thought Felix was asleep. But the smaller boy had slurred out a reply,
“He would be stupid not to.” A smile had broken out on Seungmin’s face. He really wished he did not have to feel so many things about someone who cares less than a stranger.
It feels a little gross to wear the same shirt to work again but he will have to pay for his own cowardice.
After breakfast with Felix, he realised he was too late to stop by home. Not to mention he was kind of afraid of being trapped in a space with Minho after what he did. Logically, there is no reason to feel weird or guilty. They have both slept around after their break up. Since they decided to keep sharing a space after break up they have already been past their stage of feeling awkward about sleeping with other people as long as they keep them out of the apartment. But something feels strange and different now. Seungmin can’t decide if it was their sudden intimacy on the previous day or just the fact that it has been a while since he has stayed out at a stranger's place.
When he joined everyone in the staff room he was glad to find out Minho was still not there. Not really uncharacteristic of the elder since he often had classes every morning starting at seven. It’s one of the things that Seungmin hated towards the end of their time together because he used to wake up to empty coldness every morning, no longer any note or anything. Just breakfast wrapped up next to the microwave like a chore. The first thing Seungmin asked Minho to stop doing after their break up was leaving his food like that. He would rather cook alone than that.
The college cafeteria is not a common place for him seeing how his ‘secret admirer’ leaves him lunch almost every day and Seungmin is too attached to the taste to ask him to stop again. Minho is stubborn anyways. He will never stop unless he himself wishes to do so.
It is there that sees Minho for the first time since the actions of the previous day.
He was having lunch peacefully until he noticed the head of dark blue hair and sharp eyes that caught his eye almost immediately.
Despite the neutrality of his expressions, Seungmin can tell that he is not in a very good mood.
“Minho hyung, over here!” Seungmin flinches when Jisung yells from beside him. Just like he had feared.
“Why on earth are you calling him over?” He pinches Jisung’s thigh underneath the table to which the shorter boy yelps.
“Ouch lord— because he’s my friend?” Jisung looks exasperated. “Don’t punish me for the beef between you two???”
“What are we chatting about?” Minho says as he lowers his plate. Seungmin follows his motion with his eyes, feeling oddly tense. He knows he shouldn’t but he can’t help it.
“Nothing. This dude just has too many problems.”
“Hey!”
“Hah… tell me something new.”
Seungmin glares at Minho for a while but doesn’t say anything much, paying his attention back to his food. The “Beef” is not a new development. Everyone at uni always assumed Minho and Seungmin started off on the wrong foot ever since Seungmin started working there. In reality, they were just neutral, a sense of comradeship that comes with knowing they can handle each other’s humour perfectly. They had realised they were roommates and that comradeship developed into more. When they eventually started dating, they just decided not to let anyone know for shits and giggles. Seungmin did not have much problem but Minho seemed a very private person and he would probably dislike the jokes everyone would subject them to so he just never brought it up again. When people tried to set one of them up they politely refused and then went home to fuck about it.
Now that he thinks, that was probably not very healthy of them.
“Which reminds me— Seungmin… are you wearing the same shirt as yesterday?” Jisung, that fucking devil wants to know, almost innocently fires a fucking bomb in the middle of the lunch table. Seungmin immediately freezes.
From his periphery, he watches Minho pause midway through picking up some banchan. His attention remains stuck on Minho as the latter lets his chopsticks rest completely in favour of perching his head up on his hands and giving Seungmin a look that seems almost dangerous. Familiar. Seungmin snaps his gaze away with a start when he realises he is starting to imagine insane things like… Minho is jealous for him .
“Why are we talking about that…” He says, looking away from the elder. He starts stuffing more and more food into his mouth as if that would save him.
“Oh my god… did you get laid last night?” Jisung gasps, having the fortunate decency to lower his voice. Seungmin very much wants to die though.
Taking his silence as some kind of positive response, Jisung gasps dramatically. “You’re blushing! It’s true! Finally!”
“Shut the fuck up.” Surprise: Jisung doesn’t. He spends the rest of the time rambling on and on about how proud he is of Seungmin and the latter just wants the ground to swallow him whole. In horror and with morbid mortification he realises he still doesn’t want Minho to get the wrong idea. He doesn’t want the elder to pull away from him or misunderstand his honest devotion and as the seconds pass, he feels the need to prove it to him.
“I hope it was good Seungmin Sonsaeng-nim,” Minho says, simply, at one point. He looked so neutral, not a single hair out of place while Seungmin feels like his whole life is on the brink of end. Perhaps a normal person would feel pride at the thought of giving their ex the idea that he is no longer needed in his life. But Seungmin, stupid, loyal, Seungmin, feels desperate to let Minho know that none of it is true. Something about it feels so horrible like someone is pouring concrete over the pieces of them that survived to forever set in stone the distance between them. Minho doesn’t even look mad, it doesn’t matter to him in the slightest, Seungmin realises, watching the elder push food into his mouth as he scrolls through his phone as if Seungmin’s life was not of the slightest interest to him.
As Jisung rambles in the background, Seungmin feels the food turn unappetising. How is it that his craving for Minho haunts him awake and asleep, during daydreams and nightmares, and in every moment that he spends in their apartment room and yet it means nothing to the elder at all? How is it that Seungmin feels sad during late afternoons because that’s when they usually went on little dates and inconsolably upset when he is walking down familiar streets, when he is eating anything delicious and when he sees a stray cat, yet Minho remains as stoic as ever?
He realises that there is no catharsis to this pain, every moment in life is a reminder of what it was and what it could be if Seungmin was not the person he was. Tangibility does not mean anything unless it is Minho he is touching, he realised last night.
And as he watches his eyelashes flutter in a way that could inspire poems, he feels himself crumble a little more.
Seungmin needed to touch him, to feel Minho immediately. He did not know what kind of illness gave birth to such a desire he was distraught with the need. Enough to space out during class and lose his way in the hallways. When he found himself in front of the fifth-floor bathroom again, he decided there was no way out of this maze.
He sent a text. He would defend himself saying it was a moment of weakness, he would admit that he is nothing if not a beggar. It fills him with shame but that’s become a constant weight for him to carry. He just hoped he would be spared the rejection he feared.
Two hours later that thought went down the drain. Seungmin was almost convinced Minho wouldn’t reply. He felt shame and embarrassment so deeply that he decided to not even go near the staff room, lest he sees mockery in the elder’s eyes during some coincidental meeting. He had surrendered to the feeling of hiding forever, maybe going home to grab a passport and changing his location to some remote, untraceable place.
His classes for the day were over but he knew Minho had one at the end of the day so it was definitely unlikely for him to respond anytime soon. Seungmin groaned and moaned into the empty room with utter mortification.
With some crazy resolve, he had just opened his laptop and started looking up places where he could fuck off forever when he received a notification on his phone. He pounced on it like a teenager and did not have a chance to feel embarrassed about his behaviour because finally. Finally .
It was the beacon of hope. Minho responded.
Fifth-floor. Now.
“Getting fucked by two men in the same week— you sure live an eventful like Kim Seungmin,” Minho had says as he enters the bathroom. When Seungmin got there the elder still wasn’t there and he had spent a good five minutes panicking about being played until the voice finally echoes off the room. By then, he has calmed down a little, understanding the way he is acting is too unbecoming and mortifying, especially in front of Minho.
So he looks away, staring at the abandoned stain on the floor.
“Didn’t you have class…” He mutters. Then crunches his eyes shut, realising Minho is not supposed to know that he is still well equipped with the elder’s schedules. Even if it’s been a whole new semester since they broke up. It’s so stalkerish but he couldn’t help looking into the university website to procure it.
Thankfully Minho does not question that. Simply choosing to scoff at the room as he says, “You’re the one who called me.”
Seungmin wet his lip, trying to form a witty answer to it but the truth is he is so embarrassed, he feels his face burning and something stuck in his throat. He has no words that would save him from this situation he desperately called for himself.
“What did your one-night stand not satisfy you?” Minho mocks, words echoing against the walls until it makes a place in Seungmin’s mind. He realises he will just have to do what he came here for. There is no going back.
He slowly approaches the elder with determination and nervousness. Minho looks at him puzzled but doesn’t move away.
“Can you tell me what you are up to now?” He simply asks, eyeing the taller boy as he slowly slides down on his knees. This is the final message. He looks up at the elder, more for seeing his reaction than for permission and he is gifted with a knowing look, pinking ears peeking under his wavy hair. Satisfied, he reaches for Minho’s sweatpants.
The elder doesn’t protest. Seungmin can see his hands shaking as he plays with the waistband for a while before fisting the fabric. Then he looks up with a cocky resilience that he is definitely not feeling.
“Is this not what you want?” questions back in faux confidence. His need for some crumb of validation strikes and he swallows around it. “You always liked my mouth the most, Minho-ssi.”
Don’t you miss me hyung ?
“Why am I 'Minho-ssi' when we’re fucking,” the elder says. Seungmin can both hear and feel how affected he is just by Seungmin’s hand. It makes him feel a little more confident. “Did your stranger teach you a new kink?”
He looks up, straight at Minho’s dark gaze, trying his best to match his intensity.
“I did not sleep with anyone hyung,” He says, confident, truthful. Minho sucks in a sharp breath that Seungmin hears only because the room is so empty. “You have to believe me hyung. I… I did go back with someone but we did not sleep together.”
Minho doesn’t answer, only stares down at Seungmin in disbelief. The latter takes it as his cue to prove it to him .
With one swift motion, he pulls the elder’s pants and underwear down, now face to face with his half-hard dick. Seungmin is usually more patient but he needs this now so desperately that his head and hands are no longer cooperating. Despite the slightly odd hesitation to touch him again, from so close, he does not stop. They have done this before. Maybe not in the past few weeks but before. He remembers his skills well.
Spitting into his hand makes him feel a little grossed out but he can’t be bothered to grab for the lube in his pocket. He reaches forward to glide his hand around Minho’s cock. It earns him a gasp from the elder that worsens the hunger inside him. He is not really in the mood for extra foreplay and how much he needs this. Once he deemed Minho hard enough he wasted no time in taking him to his mouth.
Almost immediately he feels like sighing in relief. His head feels calmed with the weight on his tongue and the smell of Minho is familiar, safe. His touch is delicate at the back of his head and Seungmin breathes in as he takes him in deeper, deeper. Not even stopping when he feels himself almost gagging. His eyes sting with the stretch but he can’t stop. He doesn’t stop until he has the entirety of the elder’s cock shoved as far as he possibly can and then, and only then, does he finally go a little limp with relief. His shoulders relax and he simply tightens his mouth around the elder, holding him snug in his mouth.
“Kim Seungmin,” he hears Minho gasp. But he does not respond immediately, letting himself enjoy the dizziness, the sting, the intimacy. He did not know how much he needed this until now as all his thoughts have left him, effectively clearing away his head almost immediately.
When he finally moves, to feel the elder against his tongue, Minho moans out, the hand at the back of his head grips him tight, sending another bout of pleasure through his veins. In a way, it grounds him more and soothes him further. He could stay like this for hours, here kneeling in the men’s washroom in his workwear.
But Minho is not that patient. He has never been. Seungmin has never been able to cock-warm him in the way he wants without getting fucked within the first fifteen minutes. Now it is not much different. The initial plan indeed was to give some crazy good blowjob but now Seungmin feels almost dumb with pleasure.
“Move,” Minho grunts, but pairs it with some very gentle strokes at his head. Seungmin leans into the touch like a puppy. He looks up at Minho through blurry eyes and probably misapprehends the look in his eyes to be so fond. “We’re running out of time.”
Even his voice sounds soft. Maybe the whole world has softened for once, Seungmimn thinks.
He is stubborn in his act as he only keeps sucking at him a little, without moving much. It feels so good that he doesn’t want to, at peace with the thought of spending hours here, like this. But Seungmin has always been a giver, not as much as Minho but bringing Minho pleasure made him feel good too. He liked listening, being good, and giving what was wanted.
He realises though, moving on his own is going to be a herculean task in his present daze. Not the first time this has happened. Which is why he reaches back to place his own hand over Minho’s and looks up, pleadingly.
It doesn’t take Minho a lot to understand what exactly it is that he needs.
“Can’t move on your own baby?” He says, a little teasingly. But there is something else in his voice. A long-lost care. When was the last time he called Seungmin baby in that voice?
Seungmin is not allowed to recall as Minho immediately takes the weight, fucking into his face rough and fast, knowing what exactly gets him off, knowing too well what to do to make Seungmin lose his mind and battle his own orgasm. Today is that kind of day actually, one where Seungmin wants to let go of himself, not care at all.
At some point he feels the elder’s fingers slide down his head to hold the sides of his face, feeling the sides of his own dick inside his mouth. It’s so hot to feel Minho inside and out that Seungmin moans. Minho gasps at the feeling and presses deeper, drawing another moan.
Minho gets closer and closer to his release and Seungmin feels it in the relentless way he is chasing his own orgasm and Seungmin is happy being used like this. His jaw feels like it would fall off but he wouldn’t want anything else. When Minho comes down his throat he doesn’t even hesitate to swallow it all down. Minho has halted his motions now, pulling out but not pulling away. Seungmin rests his head against the elder’s thigh as he feels him stroking his hair again. He feels so at peace, he could sleep right now.
But reality demands something else.
“Who the fuck locked the door?” Someone yells, banging at the door to the washrooms. It’s only then that Seungmin realises the place. He also fearfully realises that he had himself forgotten to lock the doors. It was Minho who did it— probably once he had entered.
The thought that he had not expected this in any way makes him feel mortified. No one usually comes here. Why now, why today when Seungmin needs this the most?
Minho is kind enough to help him up and quickly wipes his face with some tissues. If Seungmin were to reach, he would say this is domestic. Yet Seungmin craves more when Minho moves away.
“You did well,” he pats his head again before pushing him into a bathroom stall. “Stay here. I’ll deal with whoever’s outside.”
Seungmin nods, a little dazed, a little majorly craving Minho’s hand back on his hair. But the door shuts again. He feels himself sobbing as silently as possible wishing desperately that he did not start this.
Actually no… maybe he wishes they never broke up. The very centre of all his cowardly mistakes.
Their messing around comes to a temporary halt before exam season hits teachers with as much of a truck as students. Especially academic teachers like Seungmin who have to set papers, guard halls, settle answer scripts, grade them and make merit sheets. As an English teacher, the work is twofold because there are too many students who not only major but also minor in English and related subjects. There are other Literature professors to divide the work with but it is never easy even with such arrangements.
It is this time when Seungmin is at the edge and all thoughts leave him as he only hyper-focuses on understanding answers, and perspectives and grading them accordingly. That is always the hard part. He knows that opinions in literary theories are vast and self-perspectives vary from person to person and he refuses to be one of the boomer teachers that hold back scores based on their personal opinions and the extent of their own knowledge. He knows his students have the potential to know more things than he does and he pours himself over each paper with as much objectivity as possible. This leads to an endless fight with time. Yet, he is nothing if not determined.
The living room becomes more swamped with books than it has ever before and Seungmin gets just generally crankier. He understands that he is snapping at people a little more than usual like the time he yelled at Jeongin for messing up his coffee order when they went out to grab breakfast. But the younger understood it after he apologised profusely and paid for his coffee for the next morning.
It wasn't the same for Minho though. But in Seungmin’s defence, they haven’t spoken properly at home for so long that he did not expect it and thus, he was completely defenceless in his own habitat.
“Why are you dying?” Minho questions casually as he enters the living room. Seungmin is so endlessly jealous of him. Not only are there fewer students in the PE department but most of their examinations are practical based and they have only two written papers each year. They are very much science and maths based so their answers are more logical and direct. While Minho could manage with keeping his work at work, Seungmin had to carry his piles of papers home every day along with books from the library relating to relevant examination topics.
At first, he ignores the elder, choosing to focus on the very confusing analogy a student has provided about a cross-connection between Frankenstein and The Tempest. But it is increasingly annoying since Minho does not stop buzzing around him like a mosquito and he genuinely cannot hold back. He is not even paying attention to what the elder is saying.
“Minho-ssi can you please fuck off?” He blurts out as he aggressively types out a search. It is only when the room suddenly grows a little too silent that he decides to turn around, the venom in his tone hitting a little too late.
Tentatively, he turns around and feels shocked to his core seeing Minho standing right behind where he was sitting on their couch, wearing an apron, holding a knife and looking at him with a sharp gaze.
He gulps. “W-what?”
“Not only are you being rude to someone looking out for you while you are literally starving but you also forgot how to respect your elders. What’s with this new habit huh?”
Seungmin actually doesn’t know. Perhaps it’s a coping mechanism his senses have decided for him but these days he keeps referring to Minho more formally. He knows it annoys Minho and somehow that makes him want to keep doing it. He doesn’t grace that question with an answer though.
“I don't need you to look out for me…” Seungmin chooses to say. He gulps at the scary way Minho is looking at him but doesn’t let it faze him. Minho has been this way before when he has been distracted with too much work and it makes his head buzz with anticipation knowing what could possibly come next.
“I don’t think you know exactly what you need right now,” Minho chuckles dryly. Seungmin holds his breath as Minho walks around the couch and is instantly in front of him. He leans down towards his face, making Seungmin Instinctively sink back into the couch. The elder presses a hand by his head, caging Seungmin between his body and gaze.
Minho looks beautiful. He usually wears light makeup to university but at home, he is always puffy and glowing in his bare-faced glory. It is the best version of Minho, in Seungmin’s opinion and it has been a long, long time since he’s seen him like this, so close.
With some belated nervousness, Seungmin feels them threading on some invisible boundaries in their present position. They have never been so close at home and Seungmin feels like he has no power left to reject the advances of the elder.
“I know exactly what you need, Seungmin,” He whispers. He distantly registers the weapon in Minho’s hand being rested against their coffee table and then feels pressure against his waist. Minho holds him there with force and Seungmin has no choice but to succumb to it, forever weak to proximity from Minho.
Minho perhaps wanted a quick fuck. Something nasty to burn off the steam between the two of them but Seungmin was determined in his decision to not have an orgasm and for the first time, he had voiced something he wanted. Minho instantly folds, almost like the person who was so mean and concerned about his own self was a completely different person. Seungmin ends up carrying a bit more control in the situation. After Minho opens him up, He sits the elder down and climbs on his lap.
“I’ll get too sleepy if I cum,” he explains although Minho did not ask him to. He looks into the elder’s eyes as he works Minho’s dick inside him in slow motions, just to ease himself up a little more. “I have to finish this bundle today.”
Minho breathes out, face flushed. He’s still wearing his apron and he looks so sexy, Seungmin resists the urge to bite him down.
“Brat. Stop talking about work,” he says, earning a giggle from Seungmin. He lets the boy on his lap work on his own accord. He does not protest when the younger turns around mid-way and then goes back to slowly taking Minho inside until he was buried so deep inside that it was physically hard for him to not move.
“Please don’t move,” Seungmin pleads, reading his mind without even looking at him. “I… I think this will help me focus. Please .”
Minho feels embarrassed at how easily he feels himself resolving to give in. He simply rolls his eyes at Seungmin’s back but does not move even as he feels like he will die if he doesn’t. He has no right to. This is a consensual arrangement and he would hate to push boundaries he wasn’t sure of. At least not more than he probably already has.
Somehow, it pleases him to be useful. Seungmin asked for this after all. And he will always give him whatever he wants. Always.
As Seungmin works on his papers, slumping into Minho in his bliss, Minho holds him by his waist and presses kisses against his shoulders. He hates how despite how close they are, he feels them to be miles apart.
This was a bit of a bad idea from the get-go. He doesn’t know what came over him. All he knows it one moment his menacing students come up to him telling him about a maid cafe theme stall for their class and the next thing he knows he is agreeing to wear a fucking maid dress.
His male students, of course also wore dresses with him, to stand in solidarity and that was a little reassuring but it was not the only reason why he agreed to wear a dress himself. The truth is, Seungmin really likes the idea of dresses and skirts. He never got to explore it, growing up in a conservative house but during the short time with Minho, the elder had introduced him to his own collection of pretty skirts and expressed the desire to fuck in such clothing. Seungmin had been wanting to try something since then but he never got the chance to after their break up. When he finally got the chance to do so, he did not want to give up on it just because he is no longer with Minho.
And well… There’s also the thing where he wanted Minho to fuck him in it. Although, the dress is not really sexy enough for any of that since they are in an educational institution and have a meter of decency. It’s of a modest length, falling below his knees with a mass of lacy frills. It’s rather simple with a square neckline and the apron part is attached to the dress. They went against pairing stockings because it was getting too much so they just paired it with black shoes. No other accessories although some people did wear lacey chokers and pretty headbands. Seungmin was a little interested but he did not try to get some himself. He will explore his extended desires in the safety of his own house.
Overall, he likes the experience. He feels good that he gets to wear it in public. Surprisingly, no one really makes fun of anyone and he is hit with more compliments than he had expected. Times have changed a lot since he was young.
Still, he spends the whole day being a little jittery. He doesn’t even leave the stall at all, too mortified for anyone to see him like this despite the good response and the overall good-feeling. Many people have come here though. Jisung especially has eyed him for the twenty whole minutes that he spent there. But he was not being silly and in fact, told him he looks good. Oddly, the praise was very uplifting. Which is why he let the shorter boy take a picture of him. He knows he will regret it at some point but now he is too busy anticipating the presence of one certain man.
It’s stupid because he is the one who has been actively hiding from Minho ever since what happened at home. It felt so close to… tenderness that he felt like running away from it, scared of getting hurt again. Logically he knew there was nothing to hurt or run away from because he is perpetually at a distance from Minho even in their closest moments. Yet, he once again took to finding loopholes to escape the elder. Minho hints at his avoidance in his notes with his lunches that suddenly become so frequent that Seungmin doesn’t even have to go to the cafeteria. It is strange and he is confused whether to let himself soak it in or let the pull up his walls against it. So he does a mix of both. He avoids Minho but finishes his lunch and washes the box every evening, a silent display of compliance. A crumb of desire left astray.
It is stupid to expect that Minho would chase him around. He has never been a chaser anyways. It’s been Seungmin. The chaser and the one who runs away. The reason why they crumbled at the fact of the first hurdle.
The sun sets but he doesn’t come. Seungmin actually convinced himself with enough logical reasoning to give up. He doesn’t know why he feels this disheartened, still. When all the students eventually leave to change, he stays back to clean up the room. Orange evening pours in and he stares out through the window. There is still a crowd on their ground but a smaller one. The evening stalls are slowly being put up. He could change and go there and pretend he isn’t being eaten alive, he thinks.
He is so lost in just spacing out that he doesn’t register the presence of someone in the room until he hears a low whistle.
“Damn Kim, you know how to dress up.”
Heart beating in his chest, he turns out at the sound of the voice he has been anticipating for the whole day. Minho stands in front of him, wearing a little smirk. But that’s not the only thing. Seungmin almost gets a stroke when he notices that he is wearing a fucking police attire. Although he doesn’t know how much those form-fitting jeans are supposed to resemble that of a police officer and not a stripper perhaps the theme is not exactly just that because he even has a bunny headband on his head. When he understands what he’s supposed to resemble, he breaks into giggles.
“They couldn’t find a better way to make you Judy?”
Minho’s chuckle reverberates through the room as he shuts the door behind him. “Do you know a better way?”
Seungmin narrows his eyes and pretends to think. “Actually this is just fine,” he admits. “Looks like from a modest strip club. Fits you.”
Minho scoffs and Seungmin shifts his eyes back to the window. He isn’t sure how to take the first step. This is how far he can go without freaking out. Seungmin in a dress was perhaps the only thing they had vaguely discussed when they were still together and although it was initially an exciting thought, he is not sure if Minho would find it a touchy topic or how he feels about the same concept now.
Suddenly all the thoughts hit him at once and he wants to back out. His confidence lowers significantly.
“I should go get changed,” he mumbles, snapping out of his daze. “You should too you look silly.”
But before he can actually leave, Minh is grabbing his arm— firm and strong— and pushes him against the wall, effectively caging him.
“Is that what you want, baby?”
Seunmin gasps at the sudden attack on his senses as Minho essentially pounces on him. His back hits a wall, caging him with no escape. Minho seems to be taking insane pleasure in how pink he gets at the simple act and he presses a warm hand on the man’s cheek to marvel at the dazed expression only he can bring out. Seugnmin melts against it, letting it happen.
“I…” He looks away, feeling warmth blooming on his cheeks. It’s so annoying that he keeps losing his speech when he is with Minho. The elder caresses his face for a bit before removing his hand and a whimper escapes Seungmin.
Then, his mouth is on him. Minho kisses him with a fervour that tugs on every single one of Seungmin’s heartstrings because this is so close, so close to how they used to be. Minho’s kisses were always like this when he felt particularly loving. At the height of his love, he was intense and Seungmin loved it like a drowning person loves the sea.
“Hmm?” Minho leans away to look at Seungmin’s face, so flushed and pretty. Lips swollen and so enticing. When Seungmin finally blinks up at him, so adorably, he doesn’t let him breathe for another second without kissing him senseless, once again.
The force of their makeout session made Seungmin slip considerably so Minho attempts to raise him into his lap. However, that becomes an aborted mission as the moment his hands touch the back of Seungmin’s thighs, they only slide upwards at the lack of obstruction. Higher and higher until he is right below the younger’s briefs. The dress had ridden up considerably with Minho’s thigh between his legs but the feeling of his hands made Seungmin aware of just how exposed he is. Minho places his hands on Seungmin’s ass and draws his hips closer and they both moan in unison at the friction against their dicks.
Mingo is not satisfied by just that though. He keeps touching Seungmin, making his legs shake with sensitivity and his arousal spikes. The whole time they don't stop kissing and all of Seungmin’s moans spill uncontrollably between the two of them. Cold fingers brush against his warm inner thighs until they reach his leaking cock, bound inside his briefs. Seungmin breaks from the kiss to arch back, head hitting the wall, exposing his neck. Minho presses a kiss at his pulse point before he whispers,
“You look like a doll, darling. Do you really want it to go to waste?”
“No…” he mumbles.
“No, what?” Minho pushes, playing with his waistband while mouthing at his neck. Seungmin almost passes out at the intensity of the feeling. Just the fact that he is dressed like this and Minho is touching him still has him wanting to melt away.
He feels confused and says the first thing that comes to his mind. “No… hyung.”
“Wrong answer,” Minho chuckles. Seungmin opens his eyes to stare at the elder with a question but Minho only gives him a grin. “I’ll let you go because you’re finally getting over your Minho-ssi phase.”
Seungmin blushes at the reminder. It wasn’t a phase. He just said it a few times to rile Minho up but stopped when he realised he loves the familiarity of calling him hyung. Regardless, it has been embarrassing.
Minho grabs at his underwear, finally having had enough. He begins pulling it down slowly and lowers himself as he lowers the clothing. Seungmin feels Minho’s breath travelling down his legs as the elder eyes his bare thighs hungrily. When he stands back up, he wastes no time in grabbing his leaking cock.
“So wet,” Minho whispers, looking right at Seungmin’s eyes and the latter shudders.
“Hyung…” he sighs, like the fire in him is finally finding space to burn. “Please touch me.”
Minho is shocked by the sudden confession. It’s arousing at the same time it strikes his weak, weak heart. Seungmin will never stop being the death of his well-being.
“Shit. Okay, baby.” He would tease for longer but he can’t. Not when this is the first time he has said that in so so long. It hasn't been so long but it’s almost like Seungmin hasn’t called him hyung in so, so long. That alone drives him crazy and he presses his hand harder against the younger’s growing erection. Seungmin whines, clutching the wall behind him. He is so easy to unravel, so beautiful, Minho always wants him like this. Always, always . With that thought, he dives in to press their lips together, kissing the squirming boy again, hoping all the words in his throat can transfer like this.
When Minho has effectively gotten rid of his pants, he goes back to digging his fingers into the soft flesh of Seungmin’s ass. It is fascinating how much the younger wriggles and squirms with the smallest bit of pressure. He then grabs the boy’s bare hips below the dress and pulls him forward, roughly.
A moan is ripped from both their lips as their cocks meet each other’s bare thighs. Seungmin almost falls over into Minho’s arms.
“Don’t fall, baby,” He says, rubbing his thigh against Seungmin as the younger, almost passing out with the pleasure of seeing the other man so gone .
That’s how they fuck, rutting against each other while Seungmin is pressed against the wall. Minho, who is usually good at hiding his own reactions, is failing drastically today as the friction of Seungmin’s soft thighs is unbearable. The younger is trying his best to pleasure him back and it is so cute that he could just come in seconds. His fingers dig deeper and deeper into his waist as he feels the fabric of the dress flopping around, sometimes brushing against his cock making him lose his mind.
Seungmin is losing his mind to this feeling. When he opens his eyes to look at the way they are pressed together, he moans realising Minho is basically controlling his movements. He is making Seungmin use him to get off and doing the same for Seungmin. It is a delirious feeling being held and controlled like this like he’s nothing but a toy at Minho’s disposal.
“Who else will fuck you like this baby? Tell me,” Minho asks, breathless with the exertion of their act yet never stopping his punishing pace.
“No one… hyung… yo-you’re… so good,” Seungmin can barely talk, it’s a chore at this point.
“You dressed so pretty for me, right?” He questions. He keeps asking these things that Seungmin is barely able to reply to. And he keeps mouthing kisses on his cheeks, licking at his lips. Seungmin stiffens as he feels himself getting closer and closer.
“Hyung should get you more dresses so you always dress like this. You look the best like this.”
“Nnnng…Please…” Minho sets an insane pace all of a sudden, so much so that he is feeling the wall slide against his back now. He wants to come. He needs to. But before he can whine some more, Minho takes the hem of the dress and tucks it into his mouth, shutting him up.
“So pretty,” he rubs his thumb against his cheek, “So pretty with your mouth stuffed.”
Seungmin will lose his mind if he doesn’t come immediately. Luckily for him, Minho is not faring better.
“Wanna come with hyung baby?” He asks and Seungmin nods with his face scrunched up, moth filled up. A pretty, pretty view. Minho leans forward to kiss away the tears stuck to his lashes.
“Come for me Minnie,” he whispers and Seungmin comes almost immediately, the thought of belonging to Minho still is a feeling that pushes him to his edge the same way it did before.
Once he is down from his high, he is genuinely so lightheaded he slumps onto Minho’s shoulder helplessly. Minho pushes him back with an arm, keeping him in place as he ruts onto his thigh relentlessly, no doubt chasing his own orgasm. Seungmin writhes and squirms with oversensitivity both at his thigh that’s so wet and sloppy now and his dick that inevitably rubs against Minho’s. But he likes it, loves it. So he holds up until Minho is done, cum painting his own thigh, matching with the mess he left against Minho’s and with that, he reaches for the nearest bench to take a seat.
Minho follows him and stands in front, pressing a warm hand on his shoulder.
“You okay?”
Seungmin nods, unable to speak. In fact, he is so, so tired that he just abandons all reservations and presses his face into Minho’s chest. This is the first time Minho has been so, so sweet to him throughout, he notes, almost absentmindedly. That thought suddenly makes him cry.
“Sleepy?” Minho’s voice is still soft. Like before. Seungmin hates the fact that he will never be on the receiving end of it again. Even the fact that he wishes for it makes him sad.
“Mhm… warm,” he mumbles as tears pour out of him again, as usual. In moments he is crying in Minho’s hold. He is so, so warm. He is Seungmin’s home yet he doesn’t see it. Pathetically, he feels the grief pour out of him uncontrollably as Minho pats his back.
He says nothing. Just pats his back.
Unfortunately, they suddenly begin hearing the noises of people approaching. Seungmin’s heart fills with fear but not one of getting caught as much as it is of Minho leaving again.
What has to happen will happen, though. Minho slowly pulls him away, his face looking troubled with questions. He freezes for a moment while looking at Seungmin’s face. His expression is filled with so much horror that Seungmin gets conscious, wondering how ugly he looks.
“What?” he asks, self-conscious. He begins wiping his face with the back of his hand, drawing the wetness away furiously. Minho probably thinks he looks ugly.
“Get your clothes on,” he tells the elder, voice hoarse, as he stands up and locates where his briefs are lying on the floor. It feels a little gross but he has clean clothes and he will clean up when changing so he cringes as he puts them on again. Minho too gets a move on and quickly pulls up his pants and fixes his clothes. Seungmin doesn’t wait. He refuses to see his back again. So he is the one who leaves first this time. But the coldness stays. The wish to be stuck in Minho’s arms will maybe stay forever.
Seungmin thought that was it.
He tucked himself back into his clothes— his pants and shirt, not the dress. For the dress, he decides, he will bring home, and wash it before returning it to the rental company they got it from. He tries to be as calm about it as possible but on the inside, he has been dying of mortification about it.
Well, at least he is not crying anymore. Seungmin feels a little embarrassed now that he has cried in Minho’s arms like a fool. Fear ignites within him as he wonders if Minho will no longer want to sleep with it now that he knows Seungmin is still pathetically hung over him. It’s a strange thing to fear the very thing that is destroying him whole.
He doesn’t really roam around the carnival or the stalls, deciding to just go home. This will stay for another day so he won’t miss out on anything important. The whole day’s weariness weighs him down and sex was extra straining on top of that. He needs a shower, some very salty food and sleep.
Once at their apartment, he twists the key without much thought. He does not think Minho would be home so early.
Yet, when the porchlight lights up, Seungmin is terrified at the sight of Minho sitting there, leaning against the wall beside the shoe rack. He looks visibly agitated.
Seungmin has spent so long trying to calm down after Minho’s absence that seeing him again so soon makes him wary, and his eyes water again. He doesn’t know where this intense sadness roots every time they are done having sex but today it is somehow so much worse.
He breathes in and then out, calming himself down so when Minho looks up at him with those upset eyes, he doesn’t see the same man he saw a few hours ago, looking so ruined and pathetic.
His anxiety rises when he sees Minho stand up, a purpose in his stance as he approaches Seungmin, trying to cover the small distance between them. Unwittingly, Seungmin winces back before he can hold himself back. A storm brews within him as he wonders if Minho is going to end whatever little they have together now. It may be a carcass, a haunting memory but Seungmin has been clutching pieces of the elder too close to it to let it be snatched like this. He feels like a child. Seungmin hates it. He would run away to escape it.
He doesn’t know what kind of expression he is displaying but Minho suddenly widens his eyes. He stops in his steps, arms hanging by him.
“Kim Seungmin,” He whispers. It rings against Seungmin’s ears like he is yelling. He feels his eyes water and he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. Why is he crying so much today? It’s just another day when they fucked around at work, another moment when Minho is probably going to make him comply with the touch of his hands. Seungmin wants that. So why is his throat closing up?
He reaches his hands up to wipe his cheeks, relieved when he finds it still dry.
“Is something wrong?” He winces at the way his own voice cracks.
“You tell me Kim Seungmin,” Minho says. But he is gentle like he is talking to one of those stray cats he feeds. “I need to know what’s wrong.”
“I… nothing is wrong,” He chokes out. Contradictory statements, out in the open. Minho fists his hands and Seungmin stares at them. His fists are tiny but his veins are popping out with the force. He looks like he is hurting himself. He feels an aching need to reach forward and uncurl the fist, asking Minho to stop. But in the same way, he did not dare to do the same thing months ago, he doesn’t this time as well. He will remain a coward forever in his Seungmin fashion of constancy.
“Kim Seungmin,” Minho pleads, eyes searching for his face with a look so devastating it breaks Seungmin some more. What is he doing? He thought he stopped Minho from hurting then why is he looking at Seungmin with so much hurt? What did he do wrong again?
“Please tell me what I did to hurt you. Please Seungmin,” Minho says, no begs . His voice breaks and in moments, Seungmin witnesses something that becomes his last straw. Minho’s face scrunches up and tears escape his eyes.
It makes Seungmin feel so horrible, he immediately grabs the doorknob. Yet, he can’t move, he can’t move away from Minho. He can’t leave him like this, not again no.
“I’m sorry hyung,” He says. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Do you want us to stop?”
“S-stop?” Minho stutters through his eyes, his eyes rounded with confusion “What are you talking about, Seungmin?”
“You realised I’m pathetic and don’t want to- to sleep with me because- because I still…” Seungmin pauses, feeling his throat clog up. The words are at the tip of his tongue, yet he can’t say it. He can never say it because Minho will leave him again. He has been the most guilty of one thing since he met his hyung and that is he is like the parasite that clings to the host plant and runs it dry. Seungmin keeps making Minho sad and yet he is scared of the moment Minho will decide to choose a path he can’t follow.
“You still what?” Minho whispers, his voice shaky, choked on his own tears.
Seungmin presses himself deeper into the door, clutching at the doorknob behind his back like life depends on it. Maybe if he held it hard enough he could be transported to a different world where this is not happening. Where Minho is not two seconds from finding out just how pathetic he really is.
“I’ll leave- I’ll go ,” He whispers although his feet have formed roots on the floor below.
Minho’s eyes, however, fill in horror. Something similar to the way he was looking at Seungmin earlier. He no longer acts meekly but he swoops forward in one go as if Seungmin will slip away any moment and grabs his arms, tight, so tight.
“NO!” Minho yells, shaking Seungmin in his grasp. It burns where he touches. Seungmin never wants it to stop. “ Please stop fucking leaving, Kim Seungmin. ”
“ I am the one who leaves?” Seungmin says, this time his cheeks wet. He can feel his tears of pain, of anger, of words unsaid, pouring out of him. In fact, the ugly rage inside him chooses this moment to raise its ugly head. Minho’s care feels wrong for all the things he has been making Seungmin feel for all this time. Who is he to stop Seungmin when he is finally deciding to do him a favour ?
“You are the one who leaves!” he spits, feeling back to all the times Minho left him alone moments after they were done fucking, making him feel his lowest each and every time. “I left once but you keep leaving again and again!”
“You’re the one who broke up with me, Kim Seungmin.” He reminds him. Seungmin burns more and more.
“And I regret it every single moment!”
Minho’s grasp on his wrist loosens as Seungmin slides down against the door. It felt cathartic to be able to say that, feeling the ugly pain he clutched onto for so long has finally left him. And he feels defeated, beaten, done. He will take whatever Minho tells him now. This was the last bit of his sanity.
Minho slides in front of him, mirroring him in the amount of despair on his face. Yet, through the glistening of his teary eyes, he sees an ember of hope. Then, something warm touches his face.
“Do you mean it, Kim Seungmin?” He asks, softly, as if in disbelief.
“It doesn’t matter,” Seungmin says, looking down at his hands. “I hurt you first and I feel like you’ve been hurting me but there’s nothing I can do about it because I did it first.”
Minho holds his face between his hands and Seungmin’s tears are not wetting the elder’s fingers. It feels so good, so tender, so loving. He wants to believe it is something. That ember of hope inside of him that Minho still wants to be with him, ignited the moment he uttered his confession and how he can’t help but scramble for crumbs of confirmation.
“You’re right,” Minho agrees. But he leans his face so close to him that it feels like he is denying everything. “We’ve hurt each other. And we can stop now. You hear me Kim Seungmin? We can stop the pain now.”
“I don’t know how to. I just… I regret everything hyung.”
“Me too, Seungmin,” Minho says, pressing their foreheads together. “I have regretted every single moment of the past three months. I was angry at you, I still am. I hurt you on purpose a few times too because I was angry. I am so sorry. I have been horrible to you.”
“You’ve been horrible,” Seungmin admits. Not knowing what else to say in the face of such a sudden confession.
“I was so angry I wanted to kill you. I wanted to kill you and then kill myself when you said you wanted to break up. You are so insufferable, Kim Seungmin.” Minho sniffs, his eyes glittering like the brightest star in the sky is lodged in them. “I wish I knew you were being stupid.”
“Why didn’t you kill me then,” He says. “Maybe then I would come to my senses.”
“I should’ve,” Minho scoffs. “But I couldn’t because I loved you. I love you.”
“Me too,” Seungmin breathes out. Feeling so much lighter. Like the weight of the world is being lifted off his shoulder and he is finally sinking into some kind of hazy, happy place that you only find at the end of find. “I love you so much hyung.”
But this is life. This is very much life. He knows because Minho’s heart is beating under his hands. This is life and Kim Seungmin is allowed to love Lee Minho.
“We still have to talk about something, Seungmin-ah,” Minho says, later in the evening when they have both changed into more comfortable clothes. Minho forced Seungmin to wear his shirt and Seungmin forced Minho to wear his in retaliation. Now, he looks so cute in Seungmin’s oversized pyjama shirt that he just wants to kiss and cuddle him forever.
Cuddling with Minho again feels like a dream. He makes the younger sit on his lap as he cards his fingers through Seungmin’s hair.
“About what?”
“I know I’ve been hurting you all this time... When we had sex. Some of it was out of spite too but… not all… I want to know why you cried earlier today.”
“Ah, that…” Seungmin looks down. He doesn’t know if admitting to it will do any good now, especially when he finally has his world in his arms again.
“You won’t lose me if you tell me,” Minho reads his mind almost, lifting his face with a hand to make their gazes meet. The elder stares at him with so much sincerity that Seungmin starts trusting himself as an extension. “I am not that selfless. Not as much as you.”
“Shut up.”
“No, I think I’m right. And we will have to work on both of our issues a little more; especially yours… but that’s a thought for another time. For now,” Minho brushes Seungmin’s hair out of his eyes, “Tell me what kind of asshole I’ve been. I do know that you have been icky about public sex. Was it that?”
“Yeah but… I got used to it pretty fast.” Seungmin admits. “It was easy with you and also… the times at the bathroom were not very scary.”
“So was it that fear today?” Minho asks, rubbing his back, “I’m so sorry baby. I figured you don’t like it so I started calling you to the bathroom but… I lost it a little today.
Seungmin shakes his head. “It wasn’t that. I also did not think about it much today… maybe public sex grew on me…”
“Nonsense. We are never trying it again. Plus, it’s not like I like it anyways,” Minho sighs. He looks apologetic. “That was mostly it honestly. I just wanted to make you uncomfortable but it not only felt horrible knowing you hate it but I hated it too. I’m so sorry Minnie.”
“It’s okay…” he looks down. “But the other thing…”
“Tell me, baby,” Minho urges, a determination on his face. “If you still want me to, I will apologise to you for the rest of my life.”
“No hyung I…” Seungmin wets his lips, not knowing how to go about it. Being honest about his feelings has never been his forte. Neither has it been Minho’s. But the sincerity he is receiving right now feels like it needs to be returned.
“I… I hated when you were too mean…” He says, looking away. “I don’t know why… because I did like it before…”
Minho’s expression changes to something complicated but he quickly manages to steel himself. “Good to know I deserve to die. Tell me more.” He sounds like he is joking but Seungmin can feel the depth in them, the reflection he is already starting on. So he reaches for Minho’s free hand and kisses him there, hoping it will calm him down. Maybe he shouldn’t but he is somehow already starting to forgive him.
After all, this is all he wanted. It hurt so much because he was constantly reminded of what they used to be. Now that he has it back, does it even matter? Maybe he is blinded by love but Seungmin believes in second chances.
“I think I needed some after-care… I think.” He admits, slowly. This is a new word to him that he found when he was trying to desperately look up why he always felt so sad after they had sex. He is not even very sure what it’s about. His first time was bad enough for him to completely forget about it and Minho has been his only long-term sexual partner. “I mean when we had sex when dating we always did it at home and then cuddled but I think… I really wanted that. It also made me feel a little… unwanted.”
Minho’s face falls like something is sinking into him. Seungmin hates it but maybe this is a small price to pay for a better future together.
“I knew it wasn’t possible and it made me angry that I wanted you so much more after we were so close only moments ago. And it made me a little upset.”
“Fuck,” Minho presses his head into Seungmin’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry baby... Fuck… I think I know exactly what you mean fuck…”
“It's okay, hyung,” Seungmin pats his head.
“No, it’s not!” Minho whips his head up so fast. He looks broken and so conflicted. “I left you alone the first time because I couldn’t look at you like that knowing you’re no longer mine… but that’s why you… you started leaving too and I thought… I thought you…”
“It’s okay hyung.”
“I thought you did not want me that close anymore. That made me so much more mad that I decided to make it into a competition… It was me all along. I’m so sorry baby. So sorry.”
Minho looks vulnerable and so hurt, it hurts Seungmin’s heart. His own pain is a fading thought in his heart now anyways so why must Minho suffer because of it? He holds the elder’s face between his hands and kisses him square on his lips.
Minho returns it. He melts against Seungmin’s lips and things feel right. Like things have finally fallen into place.
When they part, Seungmin presses their foreheads together and makes a promise.
“We can’t undo the past hyung,” he mumbles, “I made mistakes and so did you. We’re even. I forgive you if you forgive me for always running away. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Weirdo,” He had commented as he watched Minho staring his naked body down in the shower. Ironic since he was not faring much better. Being in public made them less prone to get completely undressed which makes this the first time in months that Seungmin is properly seeing Minho in his full glory.
“You’re one too. Eyes up here,” Minho snaps his fingers in front of Seungmin’s eyes and he looks away shyly.
Other than that, things did not really escalate during their shower. Minho had insisted on washing Seungmin and his hands did not stray in places for much longer than necessary. Seungmin did not protest because he loved the endless love being poured into him. He almost falls asleep when Minho washes his hair. It is a delight to love and be loved.
“Tch… you want me only for my services,” Minho replies. Seungmin realised he said that out loud but did not refute it.
“You do it willingly though,” Seubgmin says, thoughtfully, “You were the one making lunch and ordering coffee and you’re the one scrubbing my back.”
“Yeah and you were so dense that you still did not get that that was my cry for help,” Minho says. His voice sounds different. “If I was good to you… maybe you’d want me back.”
Seungmin turns around to see the vulnerable look on Minho’s face as the elder continues, “Even I didn’t know… Every time I cooked during these three months, I cooked for two and every time I ordered coffee I ordered for two. I didn’t know how to give it to you until you let me get a little close and I just… I had to take the chance to squeeze more and more of myself into your life. I hated looking at your life like a bystander.”
Seungmin breathes out shakily, realising what exactly he almost lost because of his stupidity. He holds Minho’s hand and looks into his eyes hoping his own confession can be sent through his gaze.
“You don’t have to anymore. I’m right here and I will stay.”
Seungmin would’ve liked to say they ended the night on that kind of a soft note but the truth is, they are indeed no less than horny teenagers trapped in 30-year-old bodies.
After showering, Seungmin feels effectively wiped off of all the memories of the past months for the night. Maybe it will return again but not today. Today he feels loved. Things escalated from 1 to 100 very fast today and it would take him a while to digest this but that doesn’t mean he is not happy. They have more to talk about, more to sort out. But today, he is over the moon.
On that note, he crawls onto Minho’s lap instead of changing as he had initially planned. Minho pauses in between his skincare routine, still in his own bathroom. A knowing look shines in his eyes.
“Needy again?” He teases but he immediately abandons whatever product he had in his hand in favour of holding onto his boyfriend.
“We should consummate,” Seungmin proposes, feeling embarrassment hit as soon as he utters the word. Minho giggles at him but his arms tighten.
“Sure Mr.19th century.”
“Fuck off!”
“Not so soon,” Minho giggles and Seungmin yelps as he gets lifted off where they were sitting at the edge of the bed.
His back gets slammed against the full-body mirror attached to Minho’s wall that Seungmin has missed so much. That itself is enough to immediately get him hard. One thing he loves more than Minho’s ability to manhandle him is being forced to watch himself getting fucked by Minho.
“How is your flexibility?” the elder whispers in his ears, making Seungmin shudder in his hold. He whimpers softly when he feels him leave kisses down his neck.
“I never left yoga class,” he says, knowing that would be enough. Minho looks at him with a devious gaze, making a delicious heat travel down his spine.
“Spectacular.”