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There’s a list somewhere in the world—most likely in Yang Jeongin’s beat-up diary—of all the stupidest things Jisung has ever done, from early kindergarten to the present day.
Sending his location to a stranger on Twitter in the name of getting fucked is, without a doubt, about to make that list.
In his defense, Valentine’s Day is depressing as shit when you’re single and you live alone. Jisung knows it’s nothing more than commercialised incentive to spend money—he knows that. But he also knows that he’s twenty-three, and the only person who’s ever bought him flowers is his mom.
(Don’t get him wrong, he really appreciated it, but it wasn’t exactly Instagrammable, wherein lies his problem.)
Jisung is aware of Minho in a sense that is the very vaguest of vague. They’ve never met, nor do they follow one another on any social medias, but his name has come up several times in Hyunjin’s rants, and the other members of his friend group—the ones who endeavour to leave their apartments more often than thrice a month—can speak about him with an element of familiarity that has always led Jisung to believe he was a pretty decent guy.
It’s only when he made the connection between the loser harassing him on Twitter and the Lee Minho of Hyunjin’s nightmares that Jisung began to wonder if he’d been led astray.
To be honest, the whole thing was pretty hilarious at first. Nothing interesting ever happens in Jisung’s work-from-home, convenience-store-dinners and Netflix-binging life, and so a stranger in his quote retweets arguing about Gojo Satoru’s fighting capabilities had come as a pleasant surprise.
After a while, though—sometime around the dorky hat comment—it’d just become annoying. Jisung didn’t even know this guy, for crying out loud. And all of his friends did , and none of them were coming to his defense. Like, really, was he supposed to just take that lying down?
Reporting Twitter user leeminho for harassment seemed like a bit of an overreaction, and blocking him made Jisung feel like he’d be losing , somehow, in their weird, one-sided fight.
He’d never been particularly good at witty comebacks, though, and he is also opposed to actually engaging in an online argument on a moral level. So his options were running thin—in the end, the block button was his best friend, and people are always talking about how fulfilling it is to curate your internet experience.
Only.. when Jisung actually visited Minho’s profile in order to banish him from his life altogether, he finally saw all the tweets that had been otherwise swallowed whole by Twitter’s debilitating algorithm. Tucked between snappy quotes and copious amounts of cat pictures, Jisung had stumbled upon an absolute treasure trove of pining , to some degree, that’d occured at times far too convenient to be just a coincidence.
Worse again were the butterflies that’d followed shortly after. The giddiness of a high school crush, budding feelings and the excitement of being told in hushed whispers that so-and-so likes you, so to speak, as he realised what was going on.
Let it be known that Jisung’s not a total newbie to the world of romance, but he is a newbie to dating men by virtue of his sexual awakening coming several years too late. All the crushes he’s had on girls over the years have simply been amplified desires of a purely platonic nature that he’d pursued because.. well, that’s what he’s supposed to do, right?
(Thank God for his last girlfriend, Jeon Soyeon, who’d looked him in the eye over dinner one night and asked “have you ever wondered if you might be gay?”)
(A shock to the system at the time, but Jisung owes her his life now. She knows this.)
The aforementioned stupidity stumbling onto the scene had happened not too long after Jisung’s decision not to block Minho, but to lust after him behind the protection of a private account instead. Suddenly, he stopped being so much of an annoyance and became a whole lot more endearing—there’s just something so dorky about how he acts, like he’s been throwing a ball at his crush during gym class this whole time to let them know he’s head over heels.
And Jisung’s an idiot and he’s gay and no man has ever liked him before and Hyunjin thinks his standards are deplorably fucking low.
But he has assured Jisung that Lee Minho— linos on Twitter—is not capable of axe-murder or other similar atrocities, and has also promised to beat his ass if he tries. It’s not much, not when Jisung examines his own ability—or lack thereof—to fend off a murder attempt, but it’s enough. And it’s enough because he’s an idiot and he’s gay and.. so on and so forth.
When he drops his address in Minho’s DMs and then shoves his phone as far under his pillow as it will go, it’s already after midnight. The sky is dark, the streets are still busy because the night is young, but it’s late , and Jisung’s still not totally sure about the protocol surrounding “pulling up” for the purposes of topping your internet crush.
Is there a curfew for this sort of thing? Should they set up a meeting time? Was Minho joking all along and is he now staring at his phone (and Jisung’s address) in a mixture of disgust and pity?
He gets up to clean anyways, because even if it’s a case of Minho having no intention of coming over until an appropriate time of day (or no intention of coming over at all), Jisung’s far too wired to sleep now. His blood feels like it’s been electrified, zapping back and forth between his heart and the tips of each finger and toe so that every connection with the world around him ignites sparks of adrenaline throughout his body.
And it’s really pathetic to be this excited about a potential hook-up, he knows this, but that’s between him and his God and the four walls of his room.
Jisung scrubs his bedroom first—he changes the bedsheets, cleans his bedside locker and fixes the curtains where they’d started falling down. He also considers arranging his closet a little, just in case Minho decides to go snooping through his clothes, but it’s around then that his phone vibrates with a reply, and Jisung is legally obligated to (1) tweet Minho’s response on his private account, and (2) ignore Jeongin and Seungmin’s replies because what do they know, anyways.
Minho is actually coming over. Minho wants to come over, and even though just that name alone would have put a frown on Jisung’s face barely two weeks ago, there’s still a certain eagerness fluttering around inside his chest.
Girls have liked him before, girls have desired him. But it’s never felt like anything but a hindrance, or like he’s been shoved in front of an audience and forced to perform. To Jisung’s knowledge, Minho is the first man who’s ever shown an interest in him, and for the first time in all his twenty-three years of life, being wanted comes not with a twist of dread in the depths of his gut, but with a fizzling excitement under his skin instead.
Jisung is about to move onto cleaning the bathroom when his phone vibrates again, and he looks back at where it’s laying on the bed just in time to see Minho’s username on the screen before it fades to black
He scrambles to snatch the little device up in sweaty hands. Face ID doesn’t recognise him at first, which is what finally makes him realise he’s been chewing a hole into his bottom lip this whole time.
linos
> Genuine question
> Would it be weird to come like
> Now
> ???
> Like would u rather i wait until a normal time or
> Just wondering
It takes a lot not to tweet that, too.
Jisung stands up from his bed so that he can pace, back and forth in a slow, half-circle around the discarded bedsheets he still needs to take to the laundry.
Would it be weird for Minho to come now? The fact that he’s asking probably means he wants to, but should Jisung tell him to wait until the morning? Should he pretend he’s not as desperate as he is so they can fuck in daylight, instead? Is daylight even sexy ?
He sits again, then stands back up, then crouches down close to the floor with his phone still in his hands. There’s a nervous tremour somewhere inside of him, this little itch that he’s been skilfully ignoring up until now, but alas, Han Jisung is a ball of anxiety at the best of times, so it was only a matter of messages before it caught up to him here, too.
What if Minho doesn’t like him in real life? What if he finds him gross? What if he figures out that Jisung has never slept with a man before and decides he wants nothing to do with him? It might not be axe-murder, but rejection is equally as painful.
He must debate for quite some time, because Jisung has already spaced out when his phone lights up again. He blinks out of his little daze, letting the screen come back into focus.
linos
> Also
> If you’re not up for it or you’ve changed your mind or even if you change your mind when I’m already there, please tell me
> Literally 0 hard feelings whatsoever
> I don’t wanna freak you out or force you into anything
> :)
A pause, and then..
> Omg that :) looked creepy as fuck on its own I’m so sorry
Jisung lets out a snort that surprises even him, his worry melting away into some weird sort of fondness. It’s the exact same feeling he’d gotten when he’d first happened upon all of Minho’s tweets about him—the giddy warmth, the budding excitement. All the little things that had come together to stop Jisung from blocking Minho and bring him here instead.
So, with the reminder of how he’d gotten hooked in the first place, Jisung stands up straight again on considerably less wobbly legs, feeling no longer like a physical manifestation of his own nervous energy and a whole lot more like an indie movie lead girl who’s going to be okay.
Or something.
strawberry ice cream enthusiast
> LMFAO
> no its cute lol dw
> immmm not doing anything rn so if u wanna come now u totally can !!!!
linos
> Excellent news because I was already putting my shoes on
> Give me like twenty ish minutes
> Thirty actually
> Thirty mins and I’ll be there
strawberry ice cream enthusiast
> thirty mins is just long enough for me to speed clean my apartment
> see u then!!!
linos
> See u :)
Jisung switches off his phone after that and tosses it onto the bedside locker. He feels a little calmer now, and like rearranging his closet is a bit insane even for him, which reassures him that his ability to exercise intelligent thought hasn’t vanished altogether.
He’s not exactly an expert at last minute hook-ups, but he’s pretty certain having his head screwed on right before letting anyone fuck him into his mattress is probably a good thing.
Once he’s bundled all the dirty laundry he can fit into the already overflowing basket in his bathroom, Jisung does a quick refresh in there which is another way of saying he sprays some air freshener and cleans the toilet. By the time that’s done, seven minutes have passed, and all the cleaning (which is admittedly more than he’s done in a while) has left him feeling gross and sweaty.
Although Jisung has never been topped before (even though Soyeon had offered once), he’s done some pretty extensive post-3am research, so he knows it’s important to scrub all the relevant areas until the uncomfortable body-contortion in his cramped shower has him feeling a little light-headed. He washes his hair with his nicest shampoo, uses a body scrub Seungmin had left behind several months ago, and then he shaves from head to toe before wondering if that’s an odd thing to do.
Jisung finds he does that a lot when it comes to how he analyses his own each and every move. He’s pretty certain he’ll be on his deathbed stressing out about whether or not the way he’s lying makes his chin look weird.
However, reattaching his body hair is not possible, so Jisung can only hope and pray that Minho doesn’t pay too much attention to any of him and get out of the shower before he can overthink anymore.
As he’s brushing his teeth and picking apart how his face looks in the mirror, wondering what he can and can’t change before Minho arrives and whether or not he’d cleaned well enough, there’s a sudden knock at his front door.
Yet again, Jisung had been so lost in his thoughts that he’d completely spaced out, and the interruption—a metaphorical record scratch if he’d ever heard one—startles the toothbrush right out of his hands.
Shit. Shitshitshit. Fuck. Shit.
Jisung scrambles to pull his clothes on—a t-shirt that’d looked a lot less ratty on the hanger and shorts that are freying around the seams. Had he really taken that long in the shower? He knows it’s his own fault for shaving on a tight schedule, but seriously ?
“Coming!” Jisung shouts, even though he’s not, and that was probably really weird and Minho is probably going to turn away and leave. He shoves his wet towel into the laundry basket, which now won’t close with everything crammed into it, and pulls on a pair of socks that he only realises under the fluorescent bathroom lighting are one red, one orange.
Shit .
His apartment has never looked as messy as it does as Jisung shuffles down the hall to answer the door. There’s dust in places he can’t reach, a stain on the hardwood floor from when Felix dyed his hair here, unfolded laundry on the couch that he’d forgotten about until right now , and Jisung himself feels—well, as un-put-together as he’s ever felt in his life, actually, but meeting new people tends to do that to him. His stomach hurts.
“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” Jisung says as he’s pulling open the door. “I was in the shower. Well—no, I was actually out of the shower, but—”
“Oh, hi.”
Minho blinks at him once, then twice, and the coloured plastic wrapping encasing the bouquet of flowers in his hand crinkles beneath his fingers when he shifts where he stands. He’s not dressed up, just some old sweats and a t-shirt, but he smells good, and he looks better , and he looks at Jisung like Jisung looks the best, which is doing something funny to his heart.
A beat of silence passes between them, before Minho holds the flowers out for Jisung to take. “I’m sorry they’re kind of ugly,” he says, “the only place that was open was the gas station, but I thought it’d be really scabby of me to come empty-handed, and, uh..”
He untucks a three-piece box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates from the pocket of his sweats, holding that out, too. “The gas station and seven-eleven, which has a shittier chocolate selection than you’d think.”
All of this is paired with one of the smallest, shyest smiles Jisung has ever seen. It’s a bit wonky, mostly straight but Minho’s lips curve inwards at the corners in this stupidly endearing way. There’s an element of apprehension in the set of his jaw, maybe nervousness, which makes Jisung feel less nervous, somehow, and brave enough to reach out and take the bouquet in one hand, chocolates in the other.
He doesn’t know much about flowers, so the appeal is in the colours and the fresh, pleasant scent, but Jisung feels himself smile when he peeks past the plastic and catches a dotting of white between the green.
“Daisies,” he says, “they’re my favourite.”
Minho’s smile widens a little bit. Relaxes. “Lucky for me, then.”
He takes his shoes off in the entryway and tucks them neatly against the wall, and then follows a few steps behind Jisung as he heads to the kitchen to find something that’ll work as a vase.
When his mom had bought him that bouquet a few years ago, he’d still been living at home, and she’d put it neatly in an ornate glass piece that he’d kept on his bedroom windowsill long after the petals had stiffened and the leaves had wilted.
The best he can do now, in his sparsely stocked kitchen, is an old ceramic jug with a chip in the rim and scratches on the handle.
“Thank you,” Jisung says, looking back at Minho as he arranges the flowers in the jug. For a gas station bunch, they’re gorgeous. “Now I feel bad, I don’t have anything for you.”
Minho shakes his head where he’s leaned against the doorway, arms folded comfortably over his chest. “No need, I’m just glad you like them.”
Jisung sets the jug by the sink, right next to the window where the sun will shine through. Then, he plucks the chocolates up off of the kitchen counter and pops them open.
“Share these with me,” he says. “One each.”
Minho joins him by the sink, taking the chocolate that’s handed to him. Jisung watches the way he unwraps the gold foil closely—Minho’s hands are smaller than his own, he thinks. His fingers are definintely shorter, anyways, but his palms are wider. Chan always says that Jisung has musician’s hands; long, slim fingers, nails neatly kept so that they don’t get in the way when he’s playing his guitar.
He used to be a nail biter, back before the word anxiety meant anything to him and the constant pit of fear in his stomach was something he thought was normal. Nowadays, Jisung’s got better coping mechanisms, and chewing on a rich ball of chocolate rather than his own fingers is far nicer, anyways.
“I love these bastards,” Minho mumbles, staring down at the empty wrapper in his hand. “Makes me feel fancy when I eat ‘em, just because they sound high-end.”
Jisung giggles. “No, I get that,” he agrees. “Eating a Ferrero Rocher is the equivalent of having your life together.”
“Right.” Minho’s lips quirk up in another one of those tiny, half-smiles. “I’m a real grown-up now.”
The chocolate residue is sticky on his gums when Jisung tries to reach it with his tongue. Minho folds the gold foil over once, twice, three times and then four and then five until it’s this tiny little square pinched between his fingers.
“How old are you, by the way?” Jisung asks.
“How old do you think I am?” Minho shoots back.
“Thirty-two?”
“Brat.”
There’s very little distance between them now, maybe less than there was a minute or two ago but it doesn’t feel quite as much like being backed into a corner as it should.
Jisung doesn’t feel trapped, doesn’t feel like he needs an escape route—and maybe that’s not a good thing, because Minho is a stranger who could be of any age other than thirty-two, but Jisung feels comfortable with him in a way that Jisung never feels comfortable with people outside of his group .
“I’m twenty-five,” Minho says, pulling Jisung’s focus back to him. “And you’re twenty-three. Hyunjin-ah told me.”
“Wow, I don’t remember giving him permission to air me out like that.”
Minho scoffs. “I didn’t really give him a choice. I wanted to know more about you.”
His voice is level, confident even, but his face betrays an element of shyness in the way his eyes are cast down, fixated on the little wrapper still nestled in his palm. Minho has long eyelashes, the kind that graze the tops of his cheeks when he blinks, and Jisung finds himself tracing over each one, the slant of his eyelids and then the slope of his nose, right down past the tip to his lips—fuller in the top, which cements itself in his brain as soon as he notices.
It’s hard to tell in the dim light of the kitchen, but it looks like there’s the faintest dusting of pink across Minho’s cheeks. It’s pretty— he’s pretty. He’s so pretty that Jisung feels like he’s been slapped, or like someone’s just grabbed a handful of his still-damp hair and shoved his head into a bath of icy water.
He doesn’t know how to be around pretty men , much less pretty men who like him, who wanted to know about him so much that they’d started asking around.
Hyunjin had never said a word about it to Jisung. He’ll have to hit him for it later.
“You could’ve just asked me, you know,” Jisung teases, but his voice is soft. “Instead of bullying me, that is.”
Minho laughs, a combination of nervousness and relief in the bubbly little sound. “I’m not great when it comes to pretty guys,” he reasons. “Sorry for bullying you, though. I’m just glad it worked.”
Jisung wants to grab Minho by the face and kiss him stupid. He wants to thread his fingers through his hair and tug, wants to see his eyes flutter closed and his lips part and he wants to see more of that delectable blush spread across his face.
Jisung doesn’t do any of that, because Jisung is notoriously clumsy, and knowing him, he’d bash their foreheads together before their lips ever got to touch.
Instead, Jisung takes the last chocolate from its spot in the container and begins to unwrap it. With the foil discarded, he places it between his teeth and looks up at Minho. It’s not so easy to speak with his mouth half-full, but Jisung does his best anyways.
“Split this with me?”
Minho visibly gulps.
There’s a certain hunger in his eyes when he leans in, but Jisung’s flutter closed before they get too close, and all he can feel is the barely-there ghost of Minho’s lips against his own as he bites down on the chocolate between his teeth and splits it clean in half. He lingers for a few seconds, even after Jisung has closed his mouth around his own half and started to chew, but pulls back again just a split second before Jisung opens his eyes.
“Was that really corny?” he whispers around a mouthful of chocolate. It’s sticky again, but his mouth is filled with spit. His head is filled with static. “I feel like that was corny.”
Minho is watching him like a damn hawk, no longer chewing but following the movement of Jisung’s jaw so intently that he might as well be mimicking each bite. When Jisung swallows, Minho does too. When Jisung smiles, Minho lets out a laugh that sounds like it’s been punched right out of his chest.
“You’re gonna kill me,” he says, quiet. Disbelieving, almost. “You’re gonna kill me, Jisung-ah.”
Jisung twists his fingers together, tipping his head to the side. “Kiss me before you go?”
There are a plethora of things Jisung doesn’t know about Lee Minho—he doesn’t know when his birthday is or where he’s from, doesn’t know how many siblings he has (if any) or if he’s got more than one cat. He doesn’t know his address or his phone number, and he couldn’t pick his car out of a parking lot even if he tried.
But he knows, probably better than he’s ever known anything else in all his years of life, that Minho kisses like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, and he knows in that exact moment how it feels to be wanted without the hand-in-hand concern for the fact that he’s not so sure if he wants back.
For the first time ever, Jisung is pretty goddamn certain he wants back.
Minho backs Jisung up against the counter when their lips meet, caging him in with one hand braced either side of him. His mouth is soft, experienced in how it slides so seamlessly against Jisung’s own, which has suddenly forgotten everything its ever learned about what it means to kiss.
Jisung’s hands hang lamely between them, unsure of what to do, but his body reacts like it’s been hooked up to an electrical current and shocked with enough force to kill him and then bring him right back to life.
Distantly, in the back of his mind, Jisung thinks about how this is the first time he’s ever kissed a man. Closer to the forefront of his brain, there is the cloudy realisation that he’ll never kiss another one again, because nothing will ever compare to how it feels to be kissed by Minho.
“You can touch me, baby,” he says softly, straight into Jisung’s useless, parted mouth. “Is this okay for you? Is everything alright?”
Jisung has barely registered the fact that Minho has stopped kissing him until that point, and he’s suddenly breathing like he’s never breathed before. He blinks his eyes open. “Why’d you stop?”
Minho laughs, so soft, so devastating. His fingers graze Jisung’s hips through the thin material of his shorts. “You were just standing there,” he says, still all gentle and sweet, “I wanted to make sure. I wanted—”
“I’ve never kissed a man before.”
“—oh.”
The silence between them shifts from comfortable to something a little more stilted. Jisung thinks about Jeongin’s diary, the list of stupid things, and he knows in his heart that if that brat were here now, this would make the top spot.
His heartbeat picks up—not in an excited, about-to-be-kissed kind of way, but in more of a dread-filled, hunted-for-sport kind of way that turns the pleasurable warmth of being pressed against the counter into the rabid terror of a caged animal.
He fucked up—of course he fucked up, because Han Jisung has never done anything in all his life but fuck-up. His entire existence is a vicious cycle of building up to each and every failure, followed by the subsequent licking of his wounds that’s going to sting ten times more with a bunch of fresh flowers to stare right back at him.
There’s an apology somewhere on the tip of his tongue, right there beside the fading taste of chocolate, Minho’s spit and the sourness of the Han Jisung-typical catastrophising that ruins the moment each and every time. But any “sorry” he could’ve offered dies before ever taking shape because suddenly, there are no hands either side of him. Instead, there are hands on his face. Warm, careful hands, cool against the heat of his cheeks.
“Hey,” Minho says, firmer now. “Hey, ‘Sung, don’t look at me like that. Don’t look so scared, god. You’ll give me a heart attack.”
Jisung’s eyes come back into focus. He stares at Minho who’s already looking at him so intensely, neat brows knitted together in a worried furrow that makes his lungs ache.
“I’m sorry,” he says, because he still feels as though he should. “Sorry, I just—I made you uncomfortable, right? I fucked up. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t—”
“ Jisung .”
Minho gives his cheeks a little squeeze, not enough to hurt but enough to shut him up. “Jisung,” he repeats, “you didn’t fuck up. You didn’t make me uncomfortable at all . I’m not uncomfortable. I’m just—I was surprised, that’s all.”
Jisung sniffles. He’s not crying, but he feels a bit like he could. “I shouldn’t have told you,” he says. “I probably look like an idiot now. Like a loser.”
“No.” Minho adamantly shakes his head, squeezes Jisung’s cheeks again. “No, you’re not a loser, Jisung. And I’m glad you told me. Now I know that I just have to make it extra good for you, huh? Gotta set the bar high.”
Jisung laughs wetly. “You already have.”
When Minho kisses him again, he’s smiling, and he swipes his tongue carefully over Jisung’s bottom lip and slips it into his mouth as soon as Jisung lets him. They both still taste like chocolate and each other, the smell of Minho’s cologne is sharper up close but not nauseatingly so. Even though they’re mostly of a height, there’s something about the extra inch or two that makes Jisung feel smaller than he’s ever felt before.
Once Minho drops his hands from his cheeks back to his waist instead, the feeling multiplies.
“You’re so cute here,” Minho mumbles against his mouth, squeezing at Jisung’s middle through his shirt. His hands are firm, fingers deliberate like they each know exactly where they want to touch.
Jisung has never been held quite like Minho holds him, has always been the one fumbling to grab at waists and tripping over apologies when his knuckles graze unexpecting ribs instead.
“‘M not,” he replies instinctively, kissing at the corner of Minho’s mouth and then his cheek, his jaw. Jisung feels like he’s buzzing from the inside out, anxious and excited and turned on already, which is so embarrassing that he hopes he dies . “I’m—”
Minho takes one hand off of his waist to grab Jisung by the chin, wrenching him back with a firm grip until their eyes meet. Minho’s got such big eyes, expressive and round and so dark that it feels like staring out at the pitch black sky. The blanket of night under which they’ve come together, weeks worth of stupid Twitter interactions culminating into strong fingers pinching him with enough force to feel , but never to hurt.
“You are,” Minho argues. “You’re so cute, Jisung. So pretty all over.”
Jisung averts his eyes because he can’t duck his head. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah, I do.”
The third time they kiss, it’s a little more dangerous. There’s more tongue, more teeth, and Minho uses his grip on Jisung’s chin to tip his head whatever way he wants, to lick into the furthest corners of his mouth until his knees start feeling like they won’t hold him up.
There’s a pain somewhere in the base of Jisung’s spine where he’s still pressed against the counter, but it’s dull enough for him to ignore. Dull enough for him to chase Minho’s lips when he pulls back instead, crash their mouths together as they pant and gasp and try to catch their breath.
“You taste like chocolate,” Minho says. He sucks Jisung’s bottom lip between his own, bites down until Jisung whimpers and then lets it go. “You taste—”
“You taste like me,” Jisung says back. A string of spit connects them when he pulls apart, his hands slide up over Minho’s shoulders to clasp behind his neck. “Bedroom?”
“Please.”
Minho makes a joke about how he’d carry him there if only he knew where Jisung’s room was, and Jisung makes a joke about how his apartment is so small that he’d figure it out soon enough. When they detach from one another, his skin feels cold in the places Minho had touched; empty. There are finger-shaped indents on his hips that will likely last for days, and finger-shaped indents on his jaw that he wants to last forever.
“I cleaned,” Jisung says, nudging his bedroom door open with his hip. It’s as he left it, tidy for the most part as long as Minho doesn’t look at anything too closely. Or inside his closet. “But if you see mess, you’re not allowed to point it out.”
Minho walks Jisung backwards towards the bed, eyes scanning over the room. “Is that a dirty t-shirt under the desk?”
Jisung smacks his chest. “Get out of my house.”
His back hits the mattress a second or two after that, and Minho wastes no time in crawling over him, slotting himself between Jisung’s legs that part so readily to let him in. His body is known to act on its own sometimes, clumsy and easily led and growing towards the people he loves like a flower to the sun. Daisies by the windowsill, blooming under the glow of the fairy lights in his room.
“Pretty,” Minho says, sitting back on his knees. Jisung’s legs are draped over his thighs, the material of his shorts bunched up around his hips. His skin prickles when Minho smooths his hands over it, sparks that travel up his spine and might make him arch, maybe, if he had a little less self-control.
“No, you,” Jisung mumbles. He’s hard in his shorts just from the kissing, and from the feeling of Minho sitting between his legs. “You’re so pretty.”
Minho ducks his head a little bit. His hair falls over his eyes, loose and floppy and shiny when it catches the light. “Stop. I’m a giver, not a taker.”
Jisung grins. “We’re in a great position, then.”
They kiss again, and then again, and then Minho moves to his neck so he can nip and suck at the sensitive skin just below Jisung’s ear. “Do you mind if I leave marks?” he asks.
“The more the better,” Jisung breathes.
Maybe it’s something got to do with the fact that Minho is the first man who’s ever kissed Jisung like this, but there’s something about his lips on his skin that feels unlike anything Jisung has ever experienced. He’s soft until he’s not, and his teeth seem to know all the right places to be, the right amount of pressure with which to bite, the razor sharp line between good pain and bad.
This is what my girlfriends have always wanted , Jisung thinks to himself, because even with a beautiful man in his bed, his brain will never truly turn off. This is what I was supposed to do.
He’s a squirming mess by the time Minho’s tongue is swiping over his neck for the last time, a sweet apology for the bruises that’ll be there come morning. He mumbles something to him, then, maybe another pretty or something to that effect, but the blood rushing from his brain to his traitorous dick is too loud, and Jisung doesn’t quite catch what he says.
“Gonna look so good when you wake up,” Minho mutters, splaying his hands out over Jisung’s thighs again and then sliding them up into his shorts. “I’d kiss you all over if I didn’t need to fuck you, like, ten minutes ago.”
Jisung makes a noise, something like a whine and also like a laugh. “I’ve never..”
“That’s okay,” Minho says. His thumbs press into the tender flesh of Jisung’s inner thighs. Pervertedly, Jisung wishes he’d leave some marks there, too. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, okay? If you just want to kiss, that’s okay. If you don’t want to go all the way, that’s okay. Shit, Jisung, if you wanna stop now , that’s okay. Okay? I don’t want to push you.”
Jisung has been staring at Minho’s hair this whole time, at the point of connection between two strands of his bangs because eye contact is not easy, but looking away would be just as weird. That being said, he can feel Minho’s gaze on his face, searching and sincere, watching for any kind of discomfort or any signs that Jisung might want to stop.
It’s a lot—for a hook-up, anyways, it’s a lot. Or maybe Jisung is just used to things feeling rushed when he falls into bed with someone. A few hours of chat at a bar, kissing that’s never felt quite right, anxiety in places that he still struggles to reach.
Soyeon used to joke about how wired he’d get before they had sex, then joked about it a lot less after that one question that’d changed everything.
Although she’s over it now and one of Jisung’s very best friends, he often associates the idea of intimacy with guilt and apprehension and the urge to withdraw—the wait, no, nevermind that Minho is looking for in every crease of his face.
But he won’t find it, because it’s not there, and Jisung’s never wanted anything quite as badly as he wants this and them and now . He wants to feel what it’s like to be taken apart and pieced back together, wants to know how his body reacts to being touched in ways his own hands can’t replicate. Jisung wants to feel good, wants to make Minho feel good, and not just regular good but good enough that he can’t take it. Good enough that his thighs shake and his voice cracks, good enough that he’ll think about Jisung long after they’ve parted ways and returned to two strangers on opposite sides of a screen.
“‘Sung,” Minho whispers once the silence has stretched on for a moment too long, “you still with me, pretty?”
Jisung sucks in a breath. “I want it,” he says, “ten minutes ago.”
Minho breaks out into the sweetest smile. “Okay. Then let me give it to you.”
He takes his time working Jisung out of his shorts, kissing him on the lips and the cheek and the tip of his nose until they’re off and discarded somewhere on the floor. There’s a wet spot on the front of his boxers, right where his cock is straining against the fabric, but before Jisung can try and cover himself up in embarrassment, Minho takes his wrists and pins them together over his head with an ease that makes Jisung twitch.
“Just from a little kissing, huh?” Minho teases, swiping his tongue over his bottom lip. “You’re stupid cute, Jisung.”
Jisung shifts his hips, mortified. “Just stupid.”
Minho laughs. “And funny.”
For some reason, he trusts Jisung enough to release his grip on his wrists, and for some reason, Jisung doesn’t dare move his hands from where they’re still folded above his head.
The window across from his bed is open a crack, just enough to keep them anchored to the outside world through the sounds of the night carrying on in the streets below. There are noises everywhere, albeit distant, and yet the most interesting thing to Jisung’s ears is the way Minho hums when he hooks his thumbs under the waistband of his boxers, slides them down as far as his thighs, and stares directly at his cock like it’s the first time he’s ever seen one.
“Do you have to look at me like that?” Jisung asks, voice barely above a whisper. He feels so exposed, left only in his ratty t-shirt and mismatched socks. Minho is still fully-clothed, which is as embarrassing as it is devastatingly sexy. “You have a dick too, I assume. It’s nothing new.”
With a snort, Minho eases Jisung’s boxers down further, tapping him on the thigh to lift his hips and maneuver his legs just right until he can pull them off altogether and toss them away to join his shorts.
“How observant of you,” he says. When he shifts closer, almost deliberate, the outline of his erection grazes the sensitive skin of Jisung’s ass. “Yours is just pretty.”
“Dicks aren’t pretty.” Jisung squeezes his eyes shut. “You’re just being a tease.”
Minho mmphs in acknowledgement. Agreement, maybe, but he doesn’t say anything else, and Jisung’s eyes are still closed so he can’t be certain because—for the sake of his sanity—he’s decided to block Minho’s face out for as long as he can.
He’s all sharp lines and clear-cut shadows, thick brows and fluttery lashes and a mouth that says so much even when it’s not saying anything at all. His shitty Twitter icon doesn’t do him justice—fuck, even the picture Changbin had provided is but a scratch on the real thing. Minho carries himself with equal parts unwavering confidence and endearing docility, intermittent flashes of shyness or bashfulness , even, that make Jisung’s chest tighten and his stomach lurch.
It’s very difficult to keep someone like Minho in focus, especially when you’re naked from the waist down and stupidly fucking hard from nothing but a messy kitchen kiss and a few hickies.
When Jisung squirms on the bed, Minho hushes him in the same way one would hush a fussing kitten.
“I’ve got you,” he says, low and careful, and one hand finds Jisung’s waist while the other reaches out to trail a feather-light line along the underside of his cock from the base right to the leaking tip.
Minho swipes his index finger over the slit, swirled in sticky pre-cum that he drags back down to where he started. Jisung has never been touched with such a methodical approach, like each ghost of Minho’s fingers is perfectly carried out to make him go insane before they’ve even started.
He trembles, his hips bucking up involuntarily against Minho’s wandering hand. “Please,” he says, even though he’s not sure what exactly it is he wants.
Minho seems to understand, anyways.
His hand is still dry when he curls it around Jisung’s cock, but he’s wet enough that that only lasts one, maybe two careful flicks of Minho’s wrist. He’s so slow with it, so taunting and relaxed, like he’s got all the time in the world to watch Jisung’s resolve crumble.
“You’re sensitive,” Minho remarks, palming at the head of his cock. “You’re all twitchy.”
Jisung, whose hands have not once left where Minho had left them above his head, turns to the side, face buried in his bicep. “Shut up.”
“And if I don’t?” Minho gives the base of his cock a squeeze, once again not quite enough to hurt, but—well, maybe it hurts a little, but in a good way. In a full-body shudder kind of way that has Jisung bracketing his knees either side of Minho’s hips, tensing with the urge to pull him in.
Minho squeezes again. “Use your words, Jisung-ah,” he drawls. “If I don’t shut up, what’re you gonna do?”
Jisung whines, low and stuttered. Clawed out of the pit of his chest. “I’ll cry,” he says, blinking his eyes open just a crack. Minho is staring at him, all feline in his slow blinking and tilted head. “I’ll really cry.”
Minho laughs. “Sounds like a treat to me.”
Despite this, he lets up on the squeezing, returning to slow, thoughtful strokes that leave Jisung shaking from head to toe. It’s not like jerking himself off, where he shoves a hand down his shorts and fumbles all quick and erratic until he’s made a mess of his fist. No, Minho jerks him off with some sort of fucking.. purpose. Like this feels good for him even though all he’s doing is sitting there.
Before long, Jisung’s hair is stuck to his forehead with sweat. He’d closed his eyes again at some point, maybe a second or two after he’d opened them because looking at Minho is just too much . His knees are digging into Minho’s hips, vicing him there between them, tense one moment and trembling the next.
“I—I’m gonna cum if you—if you just keep..”
Jisung’s breath hitches when Minho twists his hand just right. It’s still so slow, so fucking slow , and yet something about the steady build has brought him far closer to the edge than frantically fucking his fist ever has.
Minho digs his thumb into the slit of his cock and Jisung jolts, his hands finally jumping from their place over his head to shoot down and grab at Minho’s wrist instead.
The coil in the pit of his abdomen is pulled tight enough to snap. The corners of his vision are a little dark.
“Too much?” Minho asks, suddenly sincere.
Jisung whimpers. “I almost just blew my fucking load all over your lap.”
Minho splutters out a laugh, and even though Jisung’s just been thrown over the verge of an orgasm only to be snatched back to safety at the last possible second, he starts laughing, too. They giggle together in their little spot on his bed, Minho’s fingers still curled around his cock and Jisung’s fingers still curled around his wrist.
There’s a warmth between them. When Minho leans down to kiss Jisung on the lips, sweet and chaste, they melt right into one another.
“Do you have lube?” he asks, using his free hand to push Jisung’s bangs back off of his face. “And condoms. I don’t—I forgot to bring some.”
“How irresponsible of you,” Jisung mumbles, though he’s still smiling ear-to-ear. “In the top drawer. Here, I’ll..”
He goes to sit up, reaching blindly back in the direction of his bedside locker. But Minho beats him to it, and he takes his hand off of Jisung’s cock for the sole purpose of slapping his wandering fingers out of the way and telling him to lay back down.
Jisung lets out a huff, but complies nonetheless. “Bossed around in my own home.”
Minho nods solemnly, leaning over him. “Things that are smaller and needier than I am tend to bring that out in me.”
It’s spoken like a tease, definitely a joke, but Jisung still feels his cock twitch in interest and Minho, the asshole that he is, sniffs the reaction out like a goddamn bloodhound. His lips curl upwards at the corners, dangerous and sharp. When he sits back a bit, he’s got a single condom slotted between his index and middle fingers and Jisung’s well-loved bottle of strawberry lube tucked inside his fist.
“Did you like that?” he asks, depositing the condom on the bed. Minho flicks the lube open and squeezes the bottle hard, milking the last dredges out of the bottom. “You like this , clearly.”
Jisung bumps his knee into Minho’s hip again. “Sue me. I jerk off sometimes.”
“Yeah?” Minho discards the empty bottle and warms the lube up between his fingers. “You ever finger yourself before?”
Embarrassment curdles in Jisung’s chest. He looks off to the side, eyes finding the tattered Bon Jovi poster pinned above his desk. It was a gift from his mother, something to put up in his home to celebrate finally moving into his own apartment. Jisung’s gaze shifts to the window instead. The last thing he wants to think about right now is his mom.
“Maybe,” he says, wriggling his hips. “Once or twice.”
Minho hums. “Cute.”
He shuffles back a little bit, creating enough space between them for him to reach down between Jisung’s legs and press his lube-coated fingers against his hole. It’s cold, enough to make him shiver, but Minho is so gentle—he starts steady, circling his middle finger around the tight ring of muscle like he’s trying to coax Jisung into relaxing, into loosening up enough to let him in.
“I’ll go easy,” he promises, his other hand finding Jisung’s thigh. He flattens it out, his palm pleasantly warm. “And slow. And if you need a break or you need to stop, I want you to tell me. Okay?”
Jisung nods his head, but Minho gives his thigh a light pinch.
“Okay?” he repeats, insistent.
“Okay,” Jisung whispers, nodding again.
The first stretch hurts, same as it always does when Jisung does this alone. He’s never quite mastered the technique, even though Hyunjin says there’s no technique for shoving your fingers up your ass. When Jisung does it, his fingers don’t reach the right places—they’re long, but they’re clumsy, and his wrist gets cramped and he shakes too much for it ever to feel that good.
Minho, though, goes about opening him up the same way he’d gone about jerking him off—thoughtful. Calculated, almost. It still stings, still makes him want to pull away, but Minho seems to know exactly when to stop and when to push forward again. He watches Jisung’s face, the rise and fall of his chest, the nervous shift of his hips.
He gets his middle finger in as far as the last knuckle and leaves it there, giving time for Jisung to adjust to the intrusion.
“You’re—tight,” he says, sounding almost surprised.
Jisung huffs out a laugh. “Thanks,” and then, “you can—you can move.”
Minho does as he’s told, brows furrowed, bottom lip pulled between his teeth. In trying to ignore the initial pain, Jisung elects to focus on his face instead, which is much easier to look at when Minho’s not staring back.
He looks good like this, honey-golden under the fairy lights and focused, like fingering Jisung open is the most important thing he’s ever done. Jisung thinks about cracking a joke, something-something you’re not dissecting me, here , but before he even opens his mouth, the tip of Minho’s finger just ghosts past his prostate and Jisung swears he sees stars.
The gasp that tears its way out of his throat makes Minho stop, wide-eyed for all of point zero three seconds until he realises what he’s done and then the world’s worst, most shit-eating grin replaces the concerned ‘o’ shape his mouth had been in before.
Jisung shakes, reaching out to grab at Minho’s wrist again. Minho catches his hand and laces their fingers together instead.
“There it is,” he hums, grazing the sensitive little nub again and again and then one last time before he pulls his finger almost all the way out and then slides another in alongside it.
It hurts—Jisung whimpers, squirms on the bedsheets like he’s trying simultaneously to get closer and to get further away. Minho brushes his thumb over Jisung’s knuckles, hushing him again.
“You’re doing so good for me,” he says softly. He spreads his fingers, crooks them just right to bump Jisung’s prostate again but he doesn’t abuse it—which is probably for the best, actually, because Jisung is hard and leaking and the balloon of arousal in the pit of his stomach is so close to bursting that he’s suddenly afraid to breathe.
“Feels good,” he hiccups, squeezing Minho’s hand. “F—Feels so good, hyung.”
Something flashes across Minho’s face, his fingers stilling inside of him for a split second before returning to their slow, careful drag in and out and in and..
“Say that again.”
Jisung blinks at him.
Minho scissors his fingers, bringing their joined hands up to his mouth so he can kiss the back of Jisung’s. “Call me that again.”
Ah. “ Hyung .”
When Minho slips his fingers out of Jisung, the emptiness is almost unbearable. What sweetens the loss just slightly, however, is the desperation with which he tugs his shirt off over his head and then yanks his sweatpants down as far as his thighs. Once that’s done, Minho reaches out to take hold of Jisung’s hand again, and their fingers slot together.. nicely. Like that’s how they’re meant to be.
Minho is as hard as Jisung is, maybe more so, and he’s big , and Jisung swears he clenches around nothing at the sight alone—the mental question of will it fit and the louder, needier answer of he’ll make sure it does .
“You’re so fucking cute, Jisung-ah,” Minho mutters, wrapping his hand around himself for a few quick, jerky tugs. Minho’s thighs tense, thick and strong and a little like Hyunjin’s, actually, which makes Jisung wonder if Minho has ever danced.
“Hyung’s cuter,” he says, arching his back just right. His t-shirt sticks to his skin, wrinkled around the collar from where Minho had been attached to his neck. Jisung reaches down to tease at his own cock, fingertips gliding over the tip with an embarrassing amount of ease. “Hyung’s so cute.”
Minho groans, snatching the condom packet up and tearing it open with his teeth. Jisung’s pretty sure he’s only ever seen people do that in movies and maybe the more artsy porn he’s watched over the years, but he’s also pretty sure it’s the hottest thing that’s ever happened to him and—fuck. He’s gonna think about it forever.
He watches like a hawk while Minho one-handedly rolls the condom on, slicks himself up with leftover lube, and then hisses through his teeth as soon as the head of his cock is pressed to Jisung’s hole. He doesn’t push forward yet, doesn’t dare move until he looks Jisung in the eye and gives his hand another squeeze.
“You’ll tell me if—”
“If I want to stop,” Jisung finishes, nodding his head. He dips his index finger into the sticky mess of pre-cum smeared on his t-shirt, thinking idly about how he’ll have to change after all this and then wondering, as if now is the right time to get lost in his thoughts, if Minho will stay once they’re done.
Maybe he’ll want to leave right away. Maybe he’ll shower first, and when Jisung takes his turn to clean up, he’ll make his escape. Will it hurt to look at the flowers in the kitchen come morning? Will he kick himself for the rest of his life for allowing a Twitter stranger to knock him off his feet after one night in one another’s company?
Minho kisses Jisung’s knuckles again. Once, twice. “Are you still with me?” he asks softly.
Jisung blinks up at him and feels overwhelmed. His first kiss and his first time—half of it, he supposes, because his real first kiss lives in 2013 with a girl whose name he can’t remember and his real first time resides somewhere a few years later, rushed and sloppy and empty, when he thinks back on it. Is this what sex is? he’d asked himself afterwards, curled up in bed late that night. Is there something wrong with me?
But with Minho, there are feelings Jisung doesn’t even know well enough to name. Pleasure not yet felt, ground not yet tread. The want inside of him is all-consuming, the tremor in his very core that aches to be held and kissed and fucked and maybe also to be cleaned up after all is said and done. To be tucked into bed, to wake up next to someone who probably likes their coffee a little different than he likes his.
“How the fuck did we get here?” Jisung blurts out, because there is a list somewhere out there of all the stupid things he’s ever done, and it grows longer every day. “How did we—you were just some guy in my phone. You just—”
Minho bites his lip, but it doesn’t do much to suppress the giggle that squeezes its way out anyways. “Do you really want to talk about that now?” he asks. “Because, like.. we can , but I should probably put my dick away first.”
Jisung opens his mouth to speak, then closes it, then opens it again, but the only thing that ever comes out is a bubble of laughter that grows from deep inside of him like daisies from the dirt. Minho raises a brow, but it’s only a matter of seconds before he’s laughing, too.
“Topping you was supposed to fix you,” he teases, head tipped lazily to the side, “don’t go insane on me just yet.”
Jisung grins at him, wiggling his hips. “No promises there.”
Minho leans down to kiss him, then, maybe for a plethora of reasons Jisung won’t ever understand, but maybe also to dull the ache that shoots up his spine when he finally presses his hips forward and slowly slips inside.
It’s not like his fingers, and it’s certainly not like Jisung’s fingers, either, which he’s pretty sure will never satisfy him again now that he’s felt Minho opening him up. No, Minho’s cock is bigger, and the whole thing just feels different , and Jisung is once again left comparing right now to the last time he had sex, or the time before that, or the time before that, or..
“Hurts,” Jisung whispers, tense from his shoulders right down to where his knees are still clamped either side of Minho’s hips. “It’s—it hurts.”
“Do you want to stop?” Minho asks immediately, stilling over him. “We can stop if you want. We can—”
“Shut up.”
Jisung sticks his free hand out and covers Minho’s mouth, though he’s clumsy with it and ends up shoving two fingers past his lips instead. When Minho bites down on the intrustion, they both share a smile.
He waits patiently while Jisung adjusts. Jisung’s hand has shifted, away from Minho’s mouth to cup the side of his face instead. He leans into it, eyes fluttering closed. “Take your time, pretty,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good,” Jisung mumbles, “I was hoping to make you come instead.”
They laugh again, shoulders shaking, eyes squeezed shut and hands squeezed together. The pre-cum is drying tacky on Jisung’s shirt, his hair is sticky with sweat. Minho looks like a million fucking bucks between his legs but the squeaky way in which he laughs is so contrastingly stupid and so dorky and Jisung feels so, so greedy—wants to keep him here forever. To himself.
“You can move,” Jisung says, a little far away from himself as he tries to commit each crinkle by the corner of Minho’s squinted eyes to memory. He does that when he laughs—squints, that is, and scrunches his nose up like the joy is too much for his face to handle.
Minho looks like he wants to ask if Jisung is sure, but understands with nothing more than a nod that he is , and finally pushes his hips forward again.
The slide is tentative, the pain is dull. Jisung does the best that he can not to squirm, but he knows he still does, because Minho’s face is terribly telling and it twists up every time Jisung shifts his hips and inadvertently sucks his cock further inside.
His patience is astounding, though. His grip on Jisung’s hand is so tight that his knuckles are pale. When the skin of his hips is finally pressed flush to Jisung’s ass, Minho lets out a sharp sigh.
“You’re—fucking hell, ‘Sung. You.. fuck ..” He tips his head forward, his hair falling to cover his eyes. He’s shaking a little bit, by the looks of it, maybe a combination of arousal and the strength it’d taken to go so excruciatingly slow for nobody’s sake but Jisung’s own. “You’re so tight.”
Is that a good thing? Jisung’s brain asks. “Hyung’s just big,” is what his mouth says instead.
Minho groans, his palm sweaty where it’s still pressed to Jisung’s, and when he pulls out just an inch or two, the wet squelch where they’re connected is obscene. Jisung’s thighs are trembling, thrown lazily over Minho’s so that his hips are lifted just slightly off the bed.
“Can I fuck you now, ‘Sung?” Minho asks, almost hesitant, like there’s a chance in heaven, hell or somewhere in between that Jisung is going to say no . “Please?”
This time, Jisung is the one to pull their joined hands in, and the sweetest, softest whimper spills right out of Minho’s mouth when Jisung kisses the back of his hand.
“Fuck me, hyung,” Jisung whispers to his knuckles. “ Please. ”
The first slap of skin against skin is almost deafening, but everything after that is barely audible over the sounds of their own panting, the moans and the whines and the way Minho swears every time his hips collide with Jisung’s ass.
He mumbles praise to him, speaks it like a prayer, lets it drip from the tip of his tongue like honey into Jisung’s waiting mouth. The stretch of his cock is no longer painful but right instead, snug and unfamiliar and splitting him open, carving out a carefully crafted spot for itself inside of Jisung who’s pretty certain he’ll never be the same.
Minho leans forward, burying his face in Jisung’s shoulder, and Jisung lets go of his hand so he can grasp at Minho’s back, clawing at him with freshly painted nails and scarring smooth, pale skin a brilliant shade of pink with each downwards drag of his scrabbling fingers.
“Fuck, baby,” Minho sobs, nipping at Jisung’s neck, sucking new marks that’ll fade quicker than the ones he left before. He’s sloppier now, both in the way he moves his mouth and the way he thrusts his hips. It hadn’t taken him long to get to this point, but then again, that’s probably for the best. Jisung wouldn’t have lasted anyways.
Minho braces his hands under Jisung’s thighs, hitching him higher so that he can fuck into him at an angle. The tip of his cock drives into his prostate over and over again until Jisung is a whining mess, until he’s certain he’s drawn blood from Minho’s back with how he clings to him.
“R—Right there—!” he yelps, hooking his ankles together behind Minho, heels digging into the curve at the base of his spine. “Feels good, hyung, feels—feels so good.”
There will no doubt be indents of Minho’s fingers on Jisung’s thighs come morning—oval-shaped bruises that smart under a light pressure, the kind of faraway pain that’ll only come to him when he sits with one foot tucked beneath himself and he’ll feel it then. He’ll remember this and them and how fucking bizarre the whole thing is. How unwilling he was in this moment to even entertain the thought of letting Minho go when there was a point in the still-tender past where just his stupid profile picture was enough to piss Jisung off.
“Pretty boy,” Minho gasps, his breath hot against the sensitive strip of skin just below Jisung’s ear. “You’re so pretty, Jisungie, you’re so—you’re perfect. You’re so—”
Minho’s speech slurs, high-pitched and whiny and he stutters every time he fucks into Jisung, every time Jisung clenches down around his cock and pulls the sweetest sounds out of the depths of his chest.
His pace is bruising now, erratic. Gone are the thought-out flicks of his wrist or the expert way in which he’d fingered Jisung open. This is different, an entirely new feeling of desperation just oozing out of him, out of every messy kiss to his neck and every keen under Jisung’s scratching down his back.
“I—I’m gonna cum,” Jisung warns, head pressed back against the pillow, back arched into where Minho is leaned over him almost protectively, like some sort of human shield between him and the rest of the room and everything but what sits between them. “I’m not—I’m—”
Minho shushes him, peppering kisses down the column of his throat, over his adam’s apple and into the dip where his collarbones meet. He takes one hand off of Jisung’s thigh, reaching to wrap it around his cock instead, jerk him off with an almost comedically little amount of coordination compared to what he’d had before.
“Cum for me, baby,” he says, grinding deep on the next thrust. Jisung feels like he’s going to black out. “You did so good. So, so good.”
Jisung’s orgasm hits him like a fucking train, knocking the air right out of his chest. He knows Minho follows barely three seconds after because he feels the way it racks through his body, the way he tenses up over him and bites down on Jisung’s neck. His hand stills where it’s still wrapped around Jisung’s cock, fingers twitching. The sound Minho makes when he cums is so pretty—Jisung wishes he could record it and play it back again.
They cum together and then come down together, panting against sweaty skin, searching hands soothing over a scratched back and bruised thighs. Minho whispers careful words of reassurance when he slides out of him, silencing Jisung’s whimpering with a kiss when the emptiness makes him feel a bit like he’s been winded.
“Was it okay?” Jisung asks anyways, because he feels like he should—because he used to, every time he slept with a girl whose face would screw up all weird when she answered. Sure, it was fine , or I need to get going, but thanks.
Minho makes a similar face to the ones that are burned deep in Jisung’s brain. Jisung holds his breath.
“Was it okay ?” Minho repeats. He’s still sitting between Jisung’s legs, hair sweaty and sticking up in all the wrong places. His chest is flushed, rising and falling a little quicker than it should as he eases out of everything they’ve just done. When he catches Jisung staring, Minho folds his arms a little self-conscously over his soft tummy.
“Quit looking at me like that,” he scolds, but it’s weak. “Did you not enjoy it? Was it not good for you? I—”
Jisung kicks Minho in the thigh, which is the only place he can reach in their current positions. “No, that’s not it,” he says, shaking his head. “I just.. overthink. Everything. And this was my first time with a guy, and I just.. I don’t know. I want to make sure I didn’t disappoint. Wanna make sure that you’re not just telling me I was good because I was actually really bad.”
Minho blinks. “Are you serious?”
Jisung kicks him again, looking away. “No, I’m rambling nonsense for the good of my health.”
They take their time cleaning up, silent but not uncomfortably so even though Jisung’s question remains in the air between them. Was it okay? An unanswered concern, heavy enough to settle in the pit of his stomach alongside the ache in his lower back as he drags himself to the bathroom.
Minho, just as he’d done when he got here first, follows.
“Towels are in the cupboard, use whatever products you want—none of them are expensive.” Jisung shuffles where he stands, trying to ignore the wet slide of lube dripping down his thighs. He’d pulled his shorts back on for the walk, but they’re wet between the legs and he’s eager to get them off. “Uh, I do have a hairdryer if you want to use it, but I bought it in Japan and it needs an adapter, so it’s kind of shit. And—”
“It was amazing,” Minho says suddenly, interrupting Jisung’s jumbled train of thought. He’s leaning against the doorframe again in that relaxed sort of way he had before, like he’s got all the time in the world and more to speak his mind. To eye Jisung up and down like he’d not just complained about Jisung doing the same to him.
This time, it’s Jisung’s turn to blink at him. “What?”
“You,” Minho clarifies, “were amazing.”
The bathroom is a little cold, because the tiny window above the toilet doesn’t close properly and Jisung’s landlord refuses to fix it. He hugs his arms to keep in the heat.
“Took you long enough and amazing is the best you can do?” he teases, but the insecurity in his voice is dwindling nonetheless. “So were you. For a Twitter stranger, anyways.”
The corner of Minho’s lips twitches upwards, something a little amused, a little shy. “I’m not really a Twitter stranger. Not techically, I mean.”
“Knowing of you through my friends doesn’t count,” Jisung points out.
Minho pouts. “I feel like it should.”
Jisung still feels sticky and gross. There is sweat in places there’s never been sweat before. Briefly, he thinks about the fact that Minho hadn’t commented on all the shaving he’d done, and then decides he’s glad for that.
“Don’t pout at me like that,” Jisung says, “makes you look dumb.”
“I was going for cute.” Minho pushes himself off the doorframe and brushes past Jisung, further into the bathroom and towards the shower which is probably still damp from Jisung using it.. however long ago that had been.
There’s a short pause, and then Minho glances back to look at Jisung properly. “I’m serious, by the way,” he says, suddenly soft and sincere, back to that bashful way of speaking from earlier that’d wound its way around Jisung’s heart like barbed wire. “You really were amazing, Jisungie.”
“ For a Twitter stranger ,” Jisung repeats, chewing on his bottom lip.
“My Twitter crush,” Minho corrects. “That’s what Jeongin-ah calls it, anyways.”
Jisung lets out a snort, but he feels warm inside, and maybe also a little stupid for worrying so much about how well he’d performed in bed because it doesn’t quite feel like it matters. Not right now, at least.
“You’re a dork,” Jisung says, stepping out of the bathroom. “Don’t take too long. There’s cum and lube everywhere in these shorts and I only have one shower.”
Minho, clearly keen to prove Jisung’s point, salutes him as he goes. “Yessir.”
The walk to the kitchen once Jisung finishes his turn in the bathroom is weirdly kind of scary. The last time he’d hooked up with someone—a music major friend of Changbin’s—he’d hoped with everything in him that she’d leave while he was washing up, and thanks to whatever God keeps an eye on him from time to time, she had.
And unadded him on Kakao afterwards, but.. that’s besides the point.
This time, the fear that Jisung feels in the ten, maybe eleven seconds it takes to get him down the hall is quite the opposite. He longs to round the corner and see Minho still there, damp hair and a borrowed t-shirt draped over his shoulders, bent at an angle to get a closer look at the gas station flowers Jisung hopes will never die. He wants to offer him tea, or maybe food, if he’s hungry. He wants to ask him if he wants to stay that night. If he wants to do this again.
The kitchen is empty when Jisung reaches it, cold and quiet and dimly lit, because the bulb overhead needs to be changed. He’d expected it, but it still hurts, this quick stab through the chest that is as painful as it is silly, because the whole point of a hook-up is the sex, and Minho was never obligated to stay.
Jisung looks around, sighing quietly to himself. He’ll have to block Minho on Twitter or something once he gets into bed, if for nothing else than the sake of his own sanity. He knows it’s his own fault for letting himself hope for more—Jisung is a romantic, at the end of the day. A romantic who’s never had the chance to be one before, and now that his world is just starting to open up for him, he supposes it makes some sad, pathetic sort of sense that he’d latch onto the first person who gave him the time of day.
He reaches out to flick the kitchen light off so that he can retreat to his room and change his sheets again, when suddenly, there is a ghost of fingers against his waist. Jisung yelps, whipping around to face Minho , who’s looking at him with just as much, if not more surprise spread across his face.
“Christ, Jisung,” he breathes, “you scared the shit out of me.”
Jisung makes a noise. “ I scared you ? You came up behind me!”
Minho laughs. “You make it sound like I was sneaking around!”
“You might as well have been!”
The fear and disappointment in Jisung’s chest slowly but surely begins to melt away. He swats Minho’s hand off of his waist so he can start searching the kitchen for something quick and easy to make—an excuse, really, to keep him here as long as he possibly can now that he knows he still has him. As fucking crazy as that may sound.
“Where were you?” Jisung asks, face buried in a cupboard. “I thought you’d gone home.” I’m glad you didn’t.
“Looking at the pictures you’ve got framed in the living room,” Minho says honestly. He joins Jisung by the counter, leaning a little closer to him than he needs to be so that they’re in one another’s bubbles once again. “Not snooping. Just looking.”
Jisung emerges with two dusty packs of instant rice and glances at Minho. “You were definitely snooping,” he says, and when Minho sticks his tongue out at him, Jisung does it right back.
He has a half-empty jar of kimchi in the fridge that joins them and their rice at the kitchen table, as well as takeout chicken from last night that needs to be eaten before it goes bad. Minho makes some sort of smartass joke about how he would’ve worn a tux if he’d known there was going to be fine dining, and Jisung threatens to squeeze him into his graduation suit if he doesn’t shut up and eat.
It’s already after three a.m. when they sit down. The streets are still busy though, because Jisung’s apartment is directly over a hot sushi spot that seems to be the go-to for drunk people on their way home from the bars.
“I like sushi,” Minho says when Jisung explains this to him. “I went to Kyoto on an exchange when I was in high school and there was a sushi place just down the street from where my host family lived. Pretty sure the staff knew me by name by the time I had to go home.”
Jisung laughs a little. “I was in Kyoto last summer,” he says. “Solo trip. Went into debt over my hairdryer and, like, thirty keychains. It was nice, though.”
“It is.” Minho shoves a hefty chunk of kimchi, rice and chicken into his mouth. “Would it be super sleazy of me to say I’d love to take you there again?”
Yes , Jisung goes to say, but his stomach does something really stupid inside of him and all he manages is a weird little noise instead, head ducked, cheeks hot. He stuffs a bite of kimchi into his own mouth and chews it like it’s done something against him.
“I’ll take that as a maybe,” Minho muses. The smile is almost audible in his voice. He sticks his foot out under the table and grazes their ankles together, and Jisung presses back because he feels like it. Because he craves closeness all the time and today is the first chance he’s ever had to take it without being afraid.
They eat slowly and in comfortable almost-quiet, interrupted only by the noises outside and Minho asking where Jisung keeps his cups when he gets up to grab them drinks. Jisung watches him move around the kitchen, glowy and golden under the light, shuffling across the tiles with careful footsteps so as not to spill the glasses of water that he’s definitely overfilled.
Minho makes a face at Jisung once he sits back down across from him. “You’re staring,” he says.
“Do you wanna stay the night?” Jisung asks, then regrets it, then stops regretting it almost immediately when Minho smiles all lazy and sweet, leaning back in his chair with a cat-like stretch of his arms.
“Do you want me to?” he asks, brushing their ankles again.
Jisung moves his foot, stepping lightly on Minho’s toes. “I asked first.”
And, like, seriously, he’s not entirely sure what had possessed him to do that, or what’s continuing to possess him and his mouth and the movement of his foot under the table. But Minho is looking at him with a certain fondness in his eyes that makes Jisung think he—or whatever higher power has control of him right now—might be doing something right.
“If you clean up the laundry, I can sleep on the couch,” Minho offers.
Jisung scoffs. “You were just inside of me and now you wanna sleep on the couch ?”
Minho laughs at him, squints and scrunches up his nose and lets the joy of it all take over every inch of his soft-lit face. “Touché,” he says. “Back to your bed it is.”
When Jisung opens his eyes the next morning, blinking through the brightness of his bedroom, the first thing he notices is that Minho is already awake next to him, holding his phone just centimetres away from his face.
The second thing he notices is that they’re close . When Jisung shifts his legs under the covers, Minho’s are slotted between them, and the skin of their bare ankles are warm where they’re pressed together because Jisung’s wearing shorts and Minho’s borrowed sweatpants don’t quite fit.
“You’re going to go blind,” Jisung murmurs in lieu of a good morning.
Minho flinches, turning to face him. “And deaf, probably,” he says. “You snore. A lot.”
They shuffle shoulder-to-shoulder to Jisung’s kitchen once he’s mustered up the strength to leave the warmth of his bed. Minho comments on the hair dye stain on the floor, which he says hadn’t caught his eye last night seeing as he was otherwise occupied. He also comments on the laundry piled on the couch again , but never gets to say anything about the dust before Jisung jabs him in the stomach and tells him to shut up.
The kitchen smells a little like left-out kimchi from the dishes Jisung had elected not to wash before getting into bed. He opens the window to air it out, and then stops for a moment to admire the way the sun hits his flowers.
“They look even better in the daylight,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at Minho, who’s dutifully gathering up their dirty plates from the table to bring them to the sink. “I haven’t had flowers in years.”
“That’s a crime, Jisung-ah.” Minho frowns, a genuine frown that’s almost funny, because it’s just flowers, but Jisung has butterflies all the same. “Pretty boys deserve flowers.”
Jisung cocks his head to the side, smiling a bit. “Maybe I should get you some, then?”
Minho looks positively stunning with a blush.
Breakfast consists of toast and jam, and Jisung learns that Minho likes his coffee black and unsweetened like some sort of psychopath , but it is undeniably different to his own sugar-with-a-side-of-caffeine concoction, and that feels weirdly nice.
There is, however, the unasked question hanging in the air between them as they go about their morning of what comes after this. Jisung drags his feet, because he knows once he takes his last bite of toast, the moment is as good as gone. The curtains will close, the screen will fade to black. Minho will thank him, maybe, and then he’ll head on his way and Jisung will melodramatically lament the loss of his hook-up-from-heaven for probably the rest of his life.
He wonders if his friends will ask about it, or if they’ll plug their ears when he tries to spill the details like they always do when he takes to drunkenly complaining about the fact that his gay-awakening had purposefully avoided him for so long that his life is practically over .
The double standards are crazy, he thinks, because if he has to listen to another word from Hyunjin pining after Jeongin in no family friendly terms, he might just go crazy.
“I’ll do the dishes,” Minho says once their plates are clear and their mugs are empty.
Jisung wants to grab his wrist and ask him not to—not yet—but instead, he smiles and says, “thanks.”
The draught from the open window brushes against his skin, leaving trails of goosebumps in its wake. Jisung hugs his arms, staring down at the spot on the table where his toast and jam and sugary coffee had just been.
“I think I’m a little insane,” he says once Minho has his back to him. “I really thought you were annoying, like, not that long ago and now— now I don’t even want you to leave. I’m, like, trying to think of reasons to make you stay. Are you handy? My closet door is a little loose. I don’t even have the right tools..”
He trails off into an awkward laugh and looks at Minho, who’s stopped washing dishes for long enough to look back at him. At first, Jisung is scared to zero in on his face—the potential disgust or discomfort he might find, the look of oh, I fucked up sleeping with this one the little demon in his head is convinced will be there.
But Minho is smiling again , like he seems to do a lot and like he wants Jisung to die or something because it makes breathing harder every single time.
“That is a little insane,” Minho muses. “Is it worse that I’d be happy to look at your closet door if you want me to?”
Jisung laughs again, somewhat more at ease, and closes his eyes. “You can’t,” he says, “I didn’t clean the inside.”
Minho finishes with the dishes and joins him at the table again, easing himself back into the chair that Jisung’s brain has dubbed his now, because he’s sat in it twice, which is more than what can be said for anyone else who ever comes by here because Jisung’s friends are animals who like to eat everywhere but the kitchen table.
“I really do like you,” Minho says softly. “Even though I know I bullied you on Twitter—I am sorry for that, by the way. Genuinely.”
Jisung sits up a little straighter. “It’s okay,” he laughs. “It wasn’t annoying for that long. Now it’s just funny, and, well.. I got something good out of it, so..”
Minho props his elbow up on the table, resting his chin in his hand. “So did I,” he says, “and.. I mean, if you want , I’d really like to keep that good something going. Or if you just want me to fix your closet door and go, well—”
Relief pools in Jisung’s chest. Relief and excitement , something bubbly inside of him at the fact that Minho wants more too, and at the fact that, for the first time ever , Jisung wants to give it. He wants to give himself—to Minho, to this ; sitting at his kitchen table, eating breakfast together and doing the dishes and making silly small talk against the background noise of people living their lives on the streets below.
And maybe it’ll just be sex and whatever this is, this after that lives in its own weird plane of existence so far detached from who Jisung was yesterday morning and who he’ll be tomorrow. But maybe that’s okay, too.
Maybe it’ll all be okay.
“Fuck the closet door,” Jisung says incredulously. “I would definitely like that. I’d like.. this. More of this.”
He gestures between them and Minho laughs. “Only if you come to my place next time,” he says, “so I can cook you an actual meal.”
Jisung makes a face at him, but he laughs too. “I’ll break the graduation suit out, hyung,” he replies. “Just for you.”