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Minho has been cooking for as long as he can remember.
His first memories, hazy as they are, are steam-filled fragments, the scent of red pepper flakes sharp against his nose, his mother’s hand covering his as she directs him to upend the spoonful into a boiling pot. The kitchen has been a place of comfort since he was in his teens and full of anger directed at nobody in particular; the sound of a knife against a cutting board, the repetitive motions of stirring a broth, all these ease the tension in his shoulders little by little until he is human again.
When he’d met Felix in his dance class at seventeen and seen how homesick the new kid was, he tried and perfected beef wellington, hoping that somehow it would lift the boy who embodied the sun’s spirit. Against all odds, it did, and that opened the floodgates for Minho— rather than having to turn over words in his mind, to reach out for a way to say all that he feels, he can cook it. Labor away in a kitchen until his arms ache and present his heart as a pat-kalguksu to those he loves most.
All this to say, Minho is not good at saying I love you. The people in his life have become well-accustomed to this, which Minho is eternally grateful for. They accept the stews he forces down their throats on sick days and the carefully made japchae he slips into their bags on busy ones in those words’ stead.
The problem, as usual, is Kim Seungmin. The bastard who managed to slip his way past Minho’s walls, who managed to get him to agree to one date, then another, then to agree to be his boyfriend. Who now, almost a year into this relationship, has Minho stress cooking because he can’t figure out how to say I love you.
He uncovers a pot, stirs, then covers it again. “I mean, really, it can’t be that hard to say. Right?”
Felix, over the phone, sighs. “I don’t know, hyung. Do you think it’s hard?”
Minho turns off a burner and takes a different pot off the fire. He drains the beef then rinses it with cold water. “I mean, I don’t say it often. But I can! I definitely have. I think, probably.” The beef now back on the stove, he begins to prep the ingredients for gimbap. “It’s just a few words, it can’t possibly be that hard.”
Sweet Felix doesn’t comment on the fact that it must be that hard, considering it warrants a panicked phone call at 10:00 PM on a Tuesday. “Right, okay, sure. Try saying it to me, then. I’ll start. I love you, hyung.”
Minho stops mixing the steak with the sauce. “What do you mean?”
“I mean just say it back. I love you, hyung.”
Really, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Felix holds lots of love inside of him and shares it with the world as if it were second nature to him. Minho hears I love you almost daily from Felix, he’s just never been expected to return the words. But he guesses 40 minutes into a phone call about how he struggles to say those words to his boyfriend of (almost!) a year is as good a time as any.
“Well— I mean, obviously, I— you know, I lo—,” he sighs, returning to mixing the steak marinade perhaps a bit more vigorously than necessary in hopes of distracting him from what he’s saying. “Love you, too,” he mumbles, rushed.
Muted applause came from the phone. “That’s definitely a good start, hyung! You’ll have it down in no time. I think—”
Minho’s attention is taken away from Felix when he hears his front door open and footsteps. Dori runs through the kitchen into the living room and Minho hears him meow.
“Oh, hi, baby,” Seungmin greets Dori.
Felix is still talking over the phone, something about practice. “Yongbok-ah, I have to go,” he interrupts, “but thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow at practice. Don’t be late or I won’t give you any food!”
As Felix says bye, Seungmin enters the kitchen, shoeless and holding Dori in his arms. Minho regards them for a moment before turning back to the steak, putting it to the side and beginning to prepare the eggs. “Kim Seungmin.”
“Hi, hyung,” Seungmin says. He carefully places Dori on the floor, watching him rub on his legs before running off to find his brothers. Seungmin returns his attention to Minho. “Is someone visiting?”
The egg now thoroughly beat, Minho moves to the stove and oils a pan to cook it in as he replies. “No, why?” Minho wasn’t even expecting Seungmin technically, although the younger did come over most nights, so he’s not sure who else could be coming over.
When Seungmin doesn’t reply, Minho finally deigns him a look. Seungmin looks— well, he looks soft. The sweater he’s wearing is one of Minho’s own, one that he gave the younger a few weeks back when they met for lunch and Minho saw that Seungmin hadn’t brought a jacket because he didn’t think it’d be this cold, hyung! It’s a few sizes too big on Minho, so it swallows Seungmin whole. Minho resists the urge to pinch his cheeks until he cries.
Seungmin smiles that puppy smile at him, oblivious to Minho’s sadist fantasies, and promptly makes them three hundred times worse. “Well, it’s just… this is a lot of food, hyung. Especially this late in the night.”
Caught, Minho turns back to the eggs, fighting down the blush threatening to rush to his ears. He hums noncommittally in reply, hoping Seungmin won’t push, then flips the egg over and turns off the burner. “You shouldn’t carry Dori around too much, you know. You’ll spoil him and then he’ll want to be carried everywhere and will you take responsibility then?”
He hears Seungmin laugh, coming closer. “I would, hyung. I think you would too, though, considering how often you let him bully me away from you at night.”
The blush he had valiantly been holding back immediately works its way up his neck and Minho cuts the next egg slice more aggressively than necessary. “That’s— it’s only fair! He was here first, you dog.” He refuses to look at Seungmin, instead beginning to prepare the seaweed for the rolls, but he can hear Seungmin giggle again and finally reach out to touch him, sliding a hand around his waist in a quick hug.
“Okay, hyung. Is there anything I can do to help?” He pulls away after a second, annoyingly aware of Minho’s hatred for distractions in the kitchen.
“If you think you can do it without burning my kitchen down—” Minho ignores Seungmin’s huff of indignation, “you can add this soy sauce mixture to the pot of beef on the stove.” He gestures to the small bowl on the counter next to him, continuing to spread rice onto the seaweed. Seungmin nods, doing as told and even stirring without Minho’s instruction; it seems as if the basic cooking lessons Minho’s been forcing him into ever since he found out the younger had burned instant ramen have been paying off.
“Is this kimchi-jjigae, hyung?” Seungmin is eying another pot on the stove, quickly covering the one he was stirring as he shifts his attention back to Minho.
Minho makes a vague affirmative sound as he focuses on the beef-to-carrot ratio in the gimbap. Changbin likes more beef but Hyunjin prefers lots of carrots and doesn’t really care for pickled radish. Jeongin will eat anything presented to him, so Minho saves his for last and makes sure to include lots of egg in Jisung’s.
“Oh,” he hears Seungmin say. “Can I have some now?”
Minho hums, trying to put just the right amount of spinach in Felix’s roll— he can usually get away with incorporating greens into Felix’s meals as long as he can’t taste it. He replies, mostly distracted, “I made it for you.”
Behind him, Seungmin goes silent. Minho scoops more egg into the roll and begins to roll the gimbap. Another few minutes pass, the only sounds the bamboo rolling mat and the cats playing in the living room. When Seungmin finally speaks, his voice is choked up and rough.
“Thanks, hyung,” he says, moving to where Minho keeps his bowls. Minho looks over, attention taken from the roll he’s cutting by Seungmin’s voice. He watches Seungmin carefully lift the lid of the pot, scoop some stew into his bowl, and close it again. Seungmin doesn’t speak again as he props himself against a counter, bringing the bowl closer to his face and just— staring at it.
“You know you can’t actually marry kimchi-jjigae, right? You’re staring at it like you kind of want to, I’m getting worried,” Minho says, turning back to the gimbap.
“True. But at least I can marry you, right, hyung?”
Minho does not drop his knife, but it’s a close call. Seungmin just— what?
“What?”
Infuriatingly, Seungmin doesn’t even look perturbed. He has the air of someone speaking about the weather, not someone who just brought up marriage to their boyfriend of less than a year.
“You’d marry me if I asked, right hyung?” Seungmin punctuates the statement with another bite of stew, maintaining eye contact with an increasingly flustered Minho. He can feel blood rising to his ears and knows there's no use trying to hide it.
“Why would you—”
“‘Cause you made me kimchi-jjigae.”
Minho scoffs. Ridiculous. “I’ve made you kimchi-jjigae before, fool. What’s so special this time, huh?”
This makes Seungmin smile. “Exactly. And you made it today, too, which I’m thankful for. Thank you, hyung. Will you marry me when I ask?”
A strangled sound escapes his throat. Kim Seungmin is, and likely always will be, an anomaly. He’s made kimchi-jjigae before, and he made it today because— well, he hadn’t been expecting Seungmin, but they’ve gotten into a routine. On slower days at his work, Seungmin sends him random cat videos he finds on that clock app, blowing Minho’s phone up until he’s forced to respond. Today, however, he’d only gotten two cat videos at the very beginning of his shift, which means that Seungmin’s job had been particularly grueling that day and he’d likely come home exhausted, and Minho already had old kimchi he’d been meaning to use. It hadn’t been much work to make the stew, anyway, and Minho knew Seungmin would be coming by later anyway hence: the kimchi-jjigae. He knows Seungmin is grateful, revels in the puppy smiles he gets when Seungmin notices something Minho has done for him, but a marriage proposal? That’s new. And unexpected, considering the whole “struggles to verbalize affection” thing.
“Kim Seungmin. I haven’t even told you—” he stops. There is no good way to say this. Or, there probably is, but none that Minho is willing to say, at least. It’s fine. Seungmin was joking, anyway. He turns back around to the gimbap, cutting neat, even slices.
“Haven’t even told me what, hyung?” Seungmin asks.
“Nothing.” He finishes packing up Felix’s roll and starts slicing Jeongin’s.
“Hyung.” He hears Seungmin move from the counter to the sink, placing his bowl in and moving next to Minho again. “What haven’t you told me?”
Minho sighs. He could tell Seungmin to drop it, and he would. He may be annoying on good days, but Seungmin is infuriatingly respectful of Minho’s boundaries. If he really didn’t want to talk about it, he wouldn’t have to. They would finish dinner, go to bed, and Seungmin would let Minho bring it up if he ever wanted to.
But… Minho does want to talk about it. That’s where the issue lies: Minho wants Seungmin to know he loves him, because he does. Minho loves Seungmin, as maddening as it may be, and he wants Seungmin to know.
So, instead of shutting him down, Minho puts the knife down and turns to face Seungmin. He can feel his neck turning hot again. This dog was going to be the death of him, love of his life or not.
Seungmin looks at him expectantly. “Hyung?”
“I don't know how to tell you I love you,” he says, rushed and low. “I mean, I’m sure you already know. Or at least, I hope you do? I don’t think I hide it very well, according to Changbin. And Jisung. And Fel— whatever, the point is, I think it’s obvious but I don’t know how to say it, and I’ve been practicing but I can’t say it yet and I don’t know why you would want to propose to someone who can’t even say I love you.” He finishes out of breath, his face definitely red.
For a terrifying moment, Seungmin just stares. Then he smiles. “Oh, hyung. I love you, too. You didn’t have to say it for me to know.”
“I know that! It’s just, I should be able to say it. Right?”
Seungmin tilts his head. “I’m not sure, hyung,” he says. “But I know you said it just now. And I know you show me every day. Like when you make me kimchi-jjigae after a long day, or pack me lunch every day during finals week.” He’s still smiling. “Isn’t that enough, hyung?”
Minho doesn’t know either, to be honest. Kim Seungmin is weird, different, and likes to make himself unpredictable to Minho. But Minho likes that. As long as Seungmin knows… well, isn’t that enough?
So he nods, plants a quick, barely there kiss on Seungmin’s cheek, and turns back to the gimbap. “You’re staying the night, right? I made you lunch for tomorrow.”