Archive of Our Own ^beta

The assistant director lays the stack of scripts down gingerly, perhaps almost reverently. Minho folds one hand over the other and hopes it will be enough to hide the slight tremor that he can already feel setting in. His eyes scan the front page, before returning back to the title. There it is, bold black on stark white, all capitalised: RED STRING THEORY.

He blinks. He doesn’t quite know what he had been expecting, but this is not that.

Even as he pretends to go over the minimal information in front of him, the majority of his attention is focused to his right. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Jisung’s eyebrows rise. He waits for some sort of verbal reaction, some kind of cue he himself can go off of, but none comes.

The writer clears her throat, and Minho lifts his gaze to meet her smile, slightly tense with what must be nerves, on the opposite end of the table. “Lee Know-ssi, Han-ssi,” she greets, bowing her head at each of them respectively, “we are honoured to present you with the third draft of our original script today.”

The two of them nod in unison, as if rehearsed. Maybe, he thinks, considering all the times they’ve had to perform this move as a unit throughout the years, that description is more than fairly accurate.

“We are here to go over the main features of the project with you, before you start your own read-through. If you have any questions, either now or during the consideration period, we will be happy to answer them, and make amends to the script as required,” she says and, even though her delivery is extremely polite, Minho can only imagine how painful it must be for her, three entire drafts in, to utter these words.

Before Minho can come up with the right response to acknowledge and hopefully reassure her, Jisung speaks. “Is it a love story?”

The clearly unexpected question results in a brief display of discomfort that’s honestly a little funny to witness. Multiple pairs of eyes search the room, as they jump from person to person, obviously eager to gauge who will be the one to respond. To bell the figurative cat.

The writer eventually opens her mouth, but their manager beats her to it. “It’s a bromance, actually,” he says, hands splayed, palms-out. Almost mollifying.

Minho feels his eyebrows rise. “Bromance?” he parrots, tongue awkward around the word, half-convinced he’s heard wrong. “Romance?”

The manager smiles, shakes his head. “Our promotion strategy will somewhat lean into BL, but the end product itself will be strictly in the bromance genre. The relationship between the two main characters is platonic.”

At that, the writer’s carefully courteous expression cracks, only a little, but just enough to betray some dissension that remains unvoiced all the same.

Minho would like to take some time to examine it, figure out exactly what has gone down behind closed doors leading up to this moment, but his brain is still stuck on the manager’s words. His mind races to decode all of them. He feels a little dumb, in the moment. “BL?” he asks, and winces at the realisation that all he’s uttered so far is one question after the other.

“Boys’ Love,” Jisung explains, and the way his cheeks flush when Minho turns to him in surprise has his own neck growing hot.

Ah.

Right.

He’s seen the tag, scrolled past the category on a couple of their shared streaming platforms. For all the fictional content Minho consumes, he knows for a fact Jisung consumes even more. He supposes he shouldn't be startled by the fact that Jisung seems to be familiar with the abbreviation.

Still.

The writer looks between the two of them. Smiles that slightly nervous smile again, when she meets Minho’s gaze. “Shall I introduce you to the plot, then?”

Minho dry swallows, nods.

They’re here already, aren’t they? She might as well.

—

He purposely avoids looking at his backpack. Instead, he cranes his head towards the window, allows his eyes to go out of focus, and lets the smooth change in lighting hypnotise him, as the car rolls by streetlamp after streetlamp.

To be fair, he had known what he was getting into, agreeing to have this meeting.

Well, more or less.

The concept of being pitched a starring role in an idol drama opposite Jisung had sounded some alarm bells, which had only gotten louder upon hearing the explanation behind management’s motivations.

He knows, fully well, that any group’s main objective is to gain popularity and capitalise on it. Invest, grow, earn. Repeat ad infinitum.

He also knows, thanks to those incredibly thorough meetings that none of the eight of them ever truly asked for, that their international success does not quite correlate to their numbers in the South Korean market itself. That there is, to be kind, quite some room for improvement, on that front. That making key moves in the right direction is instrumental to their growth, on a national level.

What he had not been expecting was that said key moves would include going all in with the two of them as a unit. A pair, even. Main leads in a stab-in-the-dark of a project that feels more and more strategic with every second Minho spends thinking about it.

It’s not as much of a risk as one might think, one of the managers had said, during that very first conversation they’d had about it. When they’d sat them down and floated the idea of Minho and Jisung meeting with the production team, no strings attached. We have seen similar projects pay off, in the past couple of years. Careers have flourished, or even been resurrected, thanks to their respective dramas’ success.

When they had initially agreed, dubious yet naively excited about the idea of undertaking an effort like this together, Minho had, at most, expected a short, vanilla and safe-for-his-heart slice-of-life comedy.

Now, a thick bundle of scripts that might or might not revolve around a love story is mocking him from within his backpack, the upper corner peeking out through the half-unzipped front flap.

And Minho will have to read it. And sit through the undoubtedly torturous reactions the others will have to it. And discuss it with Jisung, who he might or might not have to act like he’s in love with — he suppresses a bitter laugh, which he promptly feels develop into a headache — and come to a joint decision that perhaps way too much will be riding on.

And then he might have to see it through, and have to deal with the consequences that will have on his emotional well-being, and promote it, and. Oh, God, the promo—

“Are you coming back to ours?” Jisung asks, and Minho is yanked out of his silent freak-out to turn towards him. He looks sleepy, blue light making his eyes squint as his phone rests in his lap. His lower lip seems plumper than usual, perhaps bite-swollen.

Minho takes a second to consider the question, before shaking his head.

Jisung hums lowly, nods. Doesn’t ask for an explanation. Minho likes that about him. He likes an entire laundry list of things about him, actually, but perhaps this is one of his traits that he appreciates the most.

He gives him a half-smile, a little something to express his gratitude with, and has it mirrored back without hesitation.

He breathes a little easier.

They don’t talk about the pitch, during the rest of the ride home. Every now and then, Jisung tilts his screen in Minho’s direction to show him the odd meme or cat video he stumbles upon during his endless scroll. Minho eagerly leans in every time, half to show interest, and half to get a whiff of Jisung’s shampoo in the process.

They bid each other good night, when the time is due, and Minho curls his hand around the strap of his backpack, feels the added weight of his brand new problem digging into his shoulder.

He can’t let himself read it tonight. Doesn’t think he’s in the right mindframe for it.

He won’t. He won’t.

—

FADE IN:

1. INT. APARTMENT — DAY

A hand hovers over an ALARM CLOCK. The time reads 06:44. Once it switches over to 06:45, the alarm goes off for a single beat, only to be immediately silenced.

From underneath the bed, we see two bare feet land on the hardwood floor.

From behind a man’s shoulders, we follow his path as he navigates the apartment. The decor is plain, except for the certificates that line the left wall of his bedroom. Multiple sports trophies sit on the shelves of his bookcase.

He turns the coffee maker on, already set up from the night previous.

He enters the bathroom, and stands in front of the mirror.

CLOSE UP: MYUNGSOO, early 20s, extremely handsome, looks bright and alert despite the early hour. He stares straight ahead for a couple of seconds, before lowering his gaze.

QUICK CUTS: Myungsoo splashing water onto his face. Toothpaste being squeezed out onto a toothbrush. The shower knob being turned. A towel rubbing dark hair dry. A closet door opening to reveal pristinely ironed clothes hanging inside.

INT. NEARBY APARTMENT — SIMULTANEOUSLY

A PHONE is lying on a nightstand. The screen lights up and an alarm goes off. The time reads 07:00. A hand fumbles over to press snooze. It takes a couple of tries to succeed.

07:05, snooze.

07:10, snooze.

By 07:15, the phone has slid to the far end of the nightstand. This attempt to hit snooze is followed by a loud, off-screen THUD.

From up above, we see a man lying face-down on the carpet. He groans. He groggily gets up on all fours to press dismiss. The alarm is finally silenced for good.

CLOSE UP: JOOWON, late teens, would probably be good-looking if his face wasn’t twisted up in misery. His hair is extremely dishevelled.

We follow as he stumbles through the messy apartment, decorated with various film and band posters.

He yanks the bathroom door open.

SPLIT SCREEN, as Myungsoo and Joowon go through the rest of their respective morning routines. Myungsoo moves smoothly, unhurried, as he zips his jeans up. Joowon violently brushes his teeth. Myungsoo pours coffee into a reusable coffee cup, while Joowon hurtles through his apartment, hopping into a pair of sweatpants as he goes. Myungsoo carefully checks himself in the mirror, as Joowon runs his fingers through his hair and pulls a backwards cap over his head.

Myungsoo swings the strap of his messenger bag over his shoulder, as Joowon grabs what looks like an almost empty backpack off the floor.

ELECTRONIC BEEPS sound simultaneously, as they both unlock their apartments.

Outside, Myungsoo, coffee cup in hand, stands in front of his apartment door to read the illegible notice stuck to it. Joowon hurries down the hallway.

The split screen converges into a single shot as Joowon runs into Myungsoo’s shot. He makes a late, unsuccessful attempt to come to a stop, but physically bumps into Myungsoo regardless.

COFFEE splashes everywhere, but mostly onto Myungsoo’s beige hoodie.

Myungsoo takes a slow look down at his ruined clothes, expression disgusted. He lifts his head to stare at the stranger at fault in disbelief.

Myungsoo, not afforded the time for a response, watches him run down the hallway, dumbstruck.

Myungsoo looks upwards, closes his eyes, and heaves a sigh. He unlocks his apartment.

QUICK CUTS: Joowon sprinting down the sidewalk, barely managing to hop onto the bus before the doors close behind him. Myungsoo pulling on a clean, black hoodie. Joowon, face tight, bodily squeezed between standing commuters. Myungsoo, briefly eyeing the digital clock on his car’s dashboard as he drives.

2. INT. UNIVERSITY HALLWAY — LATER

A finger presses a sequence of numbers on a vending machine. MECHANICAL WHIRRING and a CLUNK, as the machine spits out a can of coffee. Myungsoo reaches down to pick up his second dose of caffeine for the day.

The second he turns around, a speeding mess of energy bumps straight into his chest, sending both the can and a thin stack of A4 papers flying. Reflexively, his hands curl around the arms of the man who just crashed into him.

Myungsoo looks at him only to realise it’s the same person that managed to derail his morning, only a couple of hours earlier. His expression hardens.

Joowon’s eyes go round, visibly stunned. In an instant, his expression changes and his eyebrows furrow. He looks affronted.

WIDE SHOT: The two of them standing close in an otherwise empty hallway, Myungsoo still holding onto Joowon, and Joowon’s balled-up fists uselessly resting against Myungsoo’s chest. The expression on Joowon’s face looks absolutely stormy, visible even from his side-profile.

Time almost seems frozen, as they stare each other down.

CLOSE UP: In the little empty space between their faces, we see a portion of the display cabinet on the other end of the room. In the middle of all the university trophies on display sits a LARGE CUP. Two golden figures stand side-by-side on top of it.

OTHERWORLDLY CHIMES, as the jewels that decorate the cup shine with a glint that cannot be excused by the lighting in the hallway.

Myungsoo’s fingers tense around Joowon’s biceps.

Joowon’s hands press into Myungsoo’s hoodie.

Back to real time now, Joowon frees himself with an offended yank of his arms. Myungsoo suddenly stands straighter, and takes half a step back.

THE SOUND OF ROPE PULLING.

Joowon ignores him, as he squats to collect the papers he had been holding, prior to the incident. He pointedly does not look back at him as he stands up and makes his exit with a huff.

We count his steps, as his trainers hit the floor. Five steps away from Myungsoo, THE SOUND OF ROPE PULLING, once again, but this time more taut than before, as if about to break.

Joowon’s foot falters.

Myungsoo’s shoulders fall.

A loud THUD.

FADE TO BLACK.

—

Minho slips out of his running shoes and lets out a sigh at the sensation of finally taking his hat off, damp roots suddenly feeling cold as they’re exposed to the air-conditioned environment.

He walks into the dorm’s common area to find Jeongin sprawled out on the couch, in the exact same state he’d left him in. Or, well, he does seem to have made quite a bit of progress, to be fair to him; judging by the amount of stacked-up scripts on the coffee table next to him, he’s definitely made it way further into the series than Minho himself has.

“I’m back,” he announces, and earns himself a brief but bright smile as Jeongin twists his neck over the couch arm to greet him, before returning right back to reading. Minho tosses his keys onto the kitchen counter and taps the side of Changbin’s ass in the same motion. “Far left side of the top shelf, behind the leftovers,” he instructs, having no doubt as to what he’s raiding their fridge for.

“Aha,” is the triumphant response that quickly follows before Changbin stands up straight, chocolate-flavoured protein shake in hand.

“You can actually get those at the store yourself, you know,” he says as he walks towards his room, fingers already curling around the bottom hem of his sweater. It’s gotten sweaty enough that he’s practically itching to get out of it.

Changbin clicks his tongue. “Stolen ones taste better.”

Minho shakes his head. Allows himself to smile just a bit harder, at the sound of Changbin’s devious chuckle.

By the time he pops back out of his room, clean change of clothes and towel clutched to his chest, Changbin has not only migrated to the couch with his spoils, but he’s apparently already helped himself to a banana, as well.

He’s about to make another comment that he knows will do absolutely nothing to curb this behaviour, before he’s interrupted.

“This is like Semantic Error on supernatural steroids,” Jeongin says, face completely obscured by the script and voice quiet enough that he could very well just be talking to himself.

The realisation of how apt an observation that is amuses Minho. He might not have actually watched the drama himself, but he feels like he’s heard enough about it to have more than a general understanding of the plot. He realises that the parallel is right there for anyone with enough media literacy to draw.

And it’s in this moment exactly that yet another puzzle piece clicks into place.

He supposes management wasn’t lying, with regards to how a successful project of this nature can propel a career in ways standard idol activities can’t. The blueprint exists. They’re just trying to catch lightning in a little bottle of their own.

Who knows? Maybe they’re right. Maybe the gamble will pay off. Maybe, one day, the general public will recognise Red String Theory with the same ease as they recognise the nation-wide (worldwide, even) phenomenon that was Semantic Error.

“What the hell’s Semantic Error?” Changbin asks through his mouthful of banana.

Minho huffs through his nose. Closes the bathroom door behind him. The shower manages to drown out the sound of Jeongin’s disbelieving reaction and undoubtedly long-winded consequential explanation.

—

The back of the chair lightly dips under pressure.

“Have you read it yet?”

He pops one eye open to see Jisung’s reflection in the mirror. He’s hunched over him, hands planted on either side of the chair, and the angle is just right to allow for a clear view straight into his suit jacket — he’s wearing nothing underneath.

Minho shuts his eye under the pretence of dutifully letting the makeup artist work on his eyelids. “Not really,” he says, only half-lying. He hasn’t really been able to get all that much further in, past the first couple of scenes.

“Me neither. I can come over, after we’re done. We’ll read it together?” Jisung’s proposal might have taken the form of a question, but Minho knows that tone well enough to recognise he’s fully expecting agreement.

“Sure,” he says, and has to remain perfectly still, even as the chair sways a little. Even as fingers gently comb through the hair on the back of his nape, nails softly scratching against skin in the process.

Though he might not be able to see it, Jisung’s smile is perfectly audible in his voice. “It’s a date.”

He’s gone before Minho is even done suppressing the shiver that runs down his spine.

—

Minho’s thumb unconsciously creases the corner of the page as Joowon and Myungsoo share a moment of unprecedented tenderness.

By this point in the story, about halfway into the script, they have not only figured out the rules of the curse that plagues them, but also pinpointed the culprit.

A throw-away comment made by the campus nurse had been enough to trigger Myungsoo’s conveniently expansive sports-related knowledge, and the main characters have now successfully connected the dots between their predicament and the local tale of the unlikely pair that had won the badminton doubles inter-university championship back in the nineties.

The one thing, and arguably the most important one, that the two have yet to work out, is how to free themselves from the forced proximity curse that binds them together.

On-page, Joowon lowers himself to the floor and slowly scoots backwards, until his back meets Myungsoo’s own. The characters share no dialogue. Outwardly, they’re both focusing on their respective textbooks. Through the writer’s lens, the relationship development takes leaps and bounds, as the comforting gesture alleviates the physical side-effects of the curse and emotionally brings them closer in one go.

Myungsoo’s characteristically taut shoulders miraculously relax against Joowon. Minho’s chest tingles.

“Hyung?”

He has to lower the script in order to acknowledge him. The view is simultaneously unnerving and delightful, with Jisung’s head resting on Minho’s abdomen, the weight of it perfect. Minho looks at his profile, the jut of his lower lip, the way his hair falls away from his face. “Hm?”

“Do you ever wish we knew each other in uni?”

At that, his stomach inflates with a surprised laugh that manages to jostle Jisung by extension. When he turns his head to look at Minho, it’s with wide eyes and a confused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, as if he’s unsure what they’re laughing about, but is eager to find out.

“Jisung-ah,” he says and softly cups the crown Jisung’s head. He steals a moment to feel how soft his hair is, and gives Jisung a second to potentially reconsider the question.

“What?” Jisung asks, clearly not getting it.

Minho smiles. “I’ve known you since you were sixteen,” he points out.

Jisung’s responding laugh is easy. They thankfully always are, it seems. His face scrunches up with it, lips pulling back to reveal his gums. And, even as Minho wishes he could revel in the sight for just a tad longer, the sensation of Jisung partially hiding that laugh into Minho’s shirt as he twists towards him is rewarding enough in itself.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Jisung uselessly protests through it all, and the admonishing smack of his palm on top of Minho’s stomach, light as it is, is cancelled out by the mock-whine of his tone.

Minho, never one to miss a prime opportunity when presented with it, decides to push it further. He curls his fingers, pets Jisung’s head as it nudges further into his hand. “We technically met in high school, didn’t we?”

Jisung’s mirth, blessedly, continues to unfold. “I was homeschooled!” he trills through his laughter.

“No,” Minho insists, amping up the absurdity for the sole purpose of getting to witness Jisung’s eyes trying to roll in disapproval, even as they’re almost entirely eclipsed by the strength of his smile. “I was there, hiding underneath your desk.”

“Hyung,” he complains, cheeks so round they must be hurting.

“It was really uncomfortable—”

“Stop—”

“Why do you think I sometimes get that random crick in my neck?”

“Hyung!”

By the time Minho has had enough of derailing Jisung’s wholesome musings, the laughter-induced tears that had made their way onto Minho’s shirt have almost completely dried, and Jisung’s body warmth has instead transferred to the left of him, running down the entire side of his body.

From shoulder to hip, Minho soaks up the physical contact, and does his best to act like he’s actually paying any attention at all to the words right in front of his face.

He doesn’t, as a matter fact, wish they’d met in uni. Their lives converged at just the right time, and in just the right place.

If it all brought them to this very moment they’re living right now, he thinks, then it must have been just right.

—

“Are you asleep?”

Minho remains still, keeps his eyes closed. “Yes,” he whispers back, and waits until he hears the soft drag of hair against cotton, feels the weight of Jisung’s gaze on his face. He luxuriates in the silence of the moment for just a little bit longer, before he finally lets his lips curl with the smirk he’s been suppressing.

Jisung huffs air out through his nose. Minho opens his eyes to the heart-aching sight of his sleepy smile in the dim light.

He readjusts his shoulder against the pillow, burrows further into it. The whites of Jisung’s eyes softly glimmer as he tracks the movement. In these hours, in the relative isolation that is his room, Jisung’s undivided attention on him feels different. Dreamlike. “What?” he eventually makes himself ask.

“What do you think?” Jisung responds with a question of his own.

He doesn’t have to add to it, explain what he’s referring to. Minho understands, and Jisung seems to know so.

Minho lets out a shallow sigh. “I think it’s good,” he says, “I think it’s a nice story.”

Jisung rolls over to his side, facing Minho fully now. He brings his hand up against his pillow, and lets his cheek rest on the back of it. “Nice enough for us to say yes?” he asks.

He mulls the question over, tries to weigh his thoughts against what he assumes Jisung’s expectation might be. “Maybe,” he settles on, in the end, and follows it up with, “what do you think?”

Despite being the one to initiate the conversation, Jisung takes a moment of his own to consider his response. “Maybe,” he echoes after a few seconds.

Minho nods. Keeps looking at him. Waits for something he cannot pinpoint, in the moment. It takes Jisung giving him a soft smile to realise he, himself, is smiling too. Maybe he’s the one that started it.

“It could be fun to share with you,” Jisung says, syllables lightly distorted by the way his cheek, pressed against his hand, squishes around the corner of his lips, “actor Lee Lee Know.”

Minho actively feels his smile grow silly, fond-stupid. Does nothing to stop it. “It could be,” he agrees, “actor Han Jisung.”

Jisung’s eyes slip shut as if in slow motion, syrupy-sweet, the look on his face immaculately content. Minho loves seeing him like this just as much as he loves all of him.

“We don’t have to make any decisions now,” Jisung says, the sound of his voice betraying the fact that he’s all of a sudden only moments away from sleep. Unsurprising, with the day they’ve had, and even less so, considering his uncanny ability to drift off at the drop of a hat, even in the most unconventional places. “We have a week left to think about it,” he adds.

“You’re right,” Minho says, and tries to calculate just how many seconds of wakefulness Jisung still has in him. Whether what he’s on the cusp of asking is going to be heard at all, or fall on entirely deaf ears. Whether it’s worth voicing, or better left unsaid.

He counts one, two, three, four—

His failing filter gets the better of him, eventually.

“Jisung-ah?” he whispers.

Jisung’s pinky twitches against the pillow. “Hm?”

“Do you wanna watch Semantic Error with me?”

It takes long enough for him to reply that Minho thinks he might have fallen asleep in the time it took for him to finish the question. He’s actually surprised to hear him mumble, “‘course I do.”

Minho smiles. “Okay.”

Jisung’s soft snoring starts up mere seconds later.

—

“Warning.” The word is spoken softly, voice warm and husky even through the distortion of the laptop’s speakers. “I’m going to kiss you in one minute.”

Minho simply cannot look away from the sight of that intense stare, the sheer amount of longing in it. It feels familiar to a degree that’s scary in its relatability.

“If you want to run away, do it now.”

Hidden inside the pocket of his hoodie, Minho’s hand balls up into a fist.

On-screen, the response comes not in the form of dialogue, but that of a kiss.

His lungs burn with the breath he’s been holding for the larger part of the scene. Next to him, Jisung lies entirely still. Minho would brave a sneaky peek at him, if only he could tear his eyes away from the kiss that ends only to start all over again, this time more passionate than before. There is nothing chaste about it, and nothing to remind him of all the stiff, tight-lipped kisses he has witnessed in dramas past — this one feels real, is real, the thrill of it so immersive it almost makes him forget that he’s watching a performance.

As absorbed as he is, he still can’t help but marvel at the actors’ guts, their commitment to the project; not only to be sharing such a real, intimate moment on camera, but to be doing it as male idols. He doesn’t know how they did it.

“We’re not kissing like that,” he thinks to himself, only to feel his face go beet-red the instant he realises the thought managed to break free from his brain and come out as a murmur.

Out of his peripheral vision, he sees Jisung turn his head towards him. On-screen, the action continues. Minho suddenly cannot get himself to focus on it, but keeps unseeing eyes locked on it regardless.

“There’s no kiss in the script, hyung.”

Minho almost decides to act like he hasn’t heard him. Like he, himself, never spoke out in the first place.

“Not unless we ask for a fourth draft,” Jisung goes on, the teasing smile clearly audible in his voice. He leans in even closer, close enough for Minho to feel his breath on his cheek and the rumble in his chest against his arm. “If you really want to kiss me so bad, we can definitely make that ha—”

“Han Jisung, I’m trying to watch the episode.”

Jisung hums out a tiny chuckle and withdraws back to his spot almost immediately, and yet entirely too late for Minho’s comfort. “Just say the word,” he says, readjusting against the headboard to make himself comfortable again.

Minho tsks, even as he actively tries to calm his heartbeat down. Even as he tugs the hem of his hoodie over his lap.

“I’m sure you felt the same way I did. Right?” the voice through the speakers says, and Minho lets out a sigh. Allows himself to pretend it was in response to the unfolding fictional drama.

—

EXCLUSIVE: Stray Kids’ Lee Know and Han Rumoured to Make Acting Debut in Upcoming Drama

In news that will certainly be exciting for fans of Stray Kids, group members Lee Know and Han are reportedly in talks to make their much-anticipated acting debut in an upcoming project.

According to industry insiders, the drama, tentatively titled Red String Theory, will be an original story revolving around an unlikely pair brought together by a mysterious curse. Though details about the plot, supporting cast or director have not been disclosed, the news is sure to be thrilling for fans of the popular group, as it promises a brand new venture for its charismatic members.

The rumour has yet to be officially confirmed by JYP Entertainment, as our sources indicate the project is said to still be in the early stages of development, but fans of the group and drama enthusiasts alike can expect to hear more details soon, as the finalisation of the deal seems to be on the horizon.

We await further announcements in the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned for updates as more information becomes available.

—

He has to hand it to management, the well-timed leak has yielded the exact results they must have been striving for: there might only be a mere 48 hours left to the consideration period, but with a fanbase as rabid as theirs, it barely takes a fraction of that time for enthusiasm to turn into the kind of expectation that cannot be turned down.

Minho finds solace in the fact that, privately, the two of them had already decided on accepting the project, even as he’s under no illusion that free will is a luxury he can be afforded.

The official announcement goes live on the company’s socials only minutes after they get off the conference call, the statement clearly cocked and loaded ahead of time.

When the notification for a new message in the group chat pops up, he taps on it to be met with a screen recording of a seemingly endless scroll through articles that carry his and Jisung’s names in their titles. Below the embed, Hyunjin’s caption consists of an array of shocked smileys, punctuated by a single party popper emoji.

His thumbs hover over the keyboard, but he finds he has no idea how to respond.

The sound of footsteps approaching his room serves as a welcome distraction.

“Hyung,” comes Felix’s voice, before the upper half of his body appears behind the door frame, “I’m going to the convenience store, do you want anything?” he asks.

Minho shakes his head. “I’m good, Yongbok-ah, thank you.”

He looks at him, awaiting his easy grin and exit, only to see him staring at his hands. Minho follows his gaze to discover a near-imperceptible tremor in his fingers — so slight he could barely even feel it before seeing it. He looks back up at him just in time to notice the there-and-gone furrow in Felix’s eyebrows.

Before he can even tell him not to worry in a way that hopefully manages to convince him, Felix smiles. “Do you wanna join me, maybe?” The tone of his voice is soft. It makes Minho smile back at him.

“Sure.”

He minimises the group chat and pockets his phone. He only takes it back out while standing in line at the till, when it chimes with the alert sound he’s assigned to only one person.

Finishing up in 10, I’ll come over, reads the message preview, and he pulls it down to quick-reply with a thumbs-up.

He sidesteps to grab a chocolate cream bread from the stand to the right, and tries to inconspicuously toss it into the basket Felix is holding. The failed attempt earns him a quirk of Felix’s lips, the creasing of his eyes.

“See, you did want something, after all.”

Minho smiles, tilts his head, says nothing back. They both know well enough that he’s not shopping for himself.

It’s all right.

—

The weeks and months pass by. Their regularly scheduled activities come and go. If it wasn’t for his private notes in the calendar app, Minho would maybe almost lose track of time, mess up his internal countdown to the date inching ever closer towards them.

It starts feeling real again on the day of the fitting.

The process is one they’re familiar with: sit still and look pretty, let people fret over your hair and makeup, stand still and be pliant, try your best not to flinch when the odd pin pricks your skin. It manages to lull him into a semblance of normalcy, until the moment they’re marched out of the dressing area and in front of the virtual strangers they’re going to be calling their team for the foreseeable future.

He stands by Jisung’s side through the entire round of introductions, parting with him only when the assistant director claps his hands once before ordering everyone back to their spots.

Minho obediently centres himself in front of the stark white backdrop and spares just one last look at Jisung, off to the side, so much like himself and yet so close to something different.

The loose-fitting clothes, the carefully executed no-makeup look, the backwards cap. This is the exact moment they start becoming visible to Minho: the edges of Jisung, and the beginnings of Joowon. When he offers him a smile — and this one is all Jisung, through and through, crystal-clear in the way it manages to get his heart thumping in his chest — Minho returns it right back.

“All right, everyone, let’s get started.”

Everything seems to happen sort of automatically, past this point. Despite the relative novelty of the process, the constant stream of directions being given makes it so that he barely has to think. He positions himself as instructed, patiently waits as the stylist comes over to fix his outfit just so, and easily falls into the rhythm of pose, shoot, assess, re-pose, as the disembodied voice of the assistant director rings out from behind the cluster of monitors on the other end of the room.

He’s herded back into the dressing area within a matter of minutes, and is only afforded a moment to rue the fact that he can’t watch Jisung’s fitting in turn, before the crew starts buzzing around him again, clothes and styling products in hand.

By the end of the session, he’s lost count of the amount of outfits he’s changed into. His only reliable estimate stems from how many times he passed by Jisung in the hallway as they alternated spots. About a dozen, he has to think.

“It’s very exciting,” he tells the camera, and the staffer holding it nods, silently encouraging him to go on. “Trying on all these looks, coming into contact with the characters for the first time,” he says and gestures in the general direction of the all-white stage behind him, even as he knows it’s mostly unnecessary. The behind-the-scenes footage they have already captured cannot be anything but extensive, considering the fact that there were barely any moments when he could not spot a camera trained on him out of the corner of his eye.

“What a cool statement, as expected by Lee Know-hyung,” Jisung comments through a grin. His hands are stuffed into the pockets of Joowon’s slouchy jean jacket, hair mussed away from his face in a meticulously dishevelled fashion. He looks so good. “I can’t add anything cooler to it. It was a great new experience for us, and I’m looking forward to the next part of the production process. We hope you will enjoy it as much as we will.” The smile on his face burns bright, effortlessly charming.

Minho turns back towards the camera, nods. He wonders when this video will go out. Whether it will be released much later into the future, or if it will be edited and uploaded within the next few hours.

He wouldn’t be surprised if the latter ends up happening, despite the former potentially having been the original plan.

With how critical this period is when it comes to securing funding for the project, he can’t think of many things more tantalising for sponsors than the buzz that budding actor Han Jisung, charisma practically oozing out of his pores, is going to generate.

He makes a mental note to check socials later tonight. Sets a bet with himself on just how many edits of this very moment he might end up finding.

—

The night that the others are busy packing for their upcoming week-long vacations, Minho bids them farewell in advance and heads to bed early, in preparation for the long day to come.

It turns out to have been the right decision, considering the first of several table-reads lasts well into the evening. By the time it’s over, the exhaustion he feels seems to be perfectly mirrored in Jisung — his slack shoulders, the depth of his breathing and the droopiness of his eyelids, heart-wrenching and yet sweet as anything.

His features soften once he notices Minho looking at him.

“That was awesome, wasn’t it, hyung?” he asks, head heavy against the backseat headrest. His smile looks dopey, satisfied in a way it can only be after a full workday’s worth of successful effort.

Minho can’t help but agree. Getting to work with the recently established cast and crew for the first time, bringing the script to life in a way that felt real, finally sinking their teeth into the characters that they are going to be embodying… It was an incredible experience. Even more so, to do it by Jisung’s side. To watch him live it. Thrive. “You did great today, Jisung-ah.”

Jisung beams, visibly grows pink in the glow of Seoul’s night lights. “I had to match you, somehow,” he says, and it takes everything in Minho not to reach out and touch him, squish his sleepy face between his hands, confess that there’s never been and will never be another person that will make him feel half-delirious with adoration the way Jisung does.

It’s a close call.

Instead, he simply asks, “do you wanna come over?” He mentally prepares a the dorm is too quiet, it feels weird, and rests a we can order your favourite at the tip of his tongue, just in case, just to feel safe, but it turns out that neither are necessary, as Jisung’s head flops onto his shoulder, easily nods the answer to his question against his arm.

Minho smiles, lifts a hand to ruffle Jisung’s hair and shamelessly allows it to stay there, after Jisung’s fingers wrap around his forearm.

He watches as the driver silently reaches for the centre console, taps at the navigation app to remove a single stop from their route. He lets his eyes slip shut, just for a little while, as the weight of Jisung’s head on his shoulder becomes just a tad heavier.

—

The intimacy coordinator is a short, tiny thing, a morsel of a woman. Her kind face brightens with a smile as she assesses them, the crows feet at the corners of her eyes creasing her skin.

“Considering you’ve been working closely together for years now, you two are several steps ahead of most of my clients, by the time of our first session,” she says, the tone of her voice calm and welcoming. “We will skip the introductory stage, as I doubt you need it,” she chuckles but briefly pauses, regardless, as if giving them a second to correct her, “so we'll go ahead with some physical exercises to get you warmed up.”

Minho nods. Even though he doubts said exercises are anything like the ones he’s familiar with, he feels inclined to trust her.

“But, before we start, we need to outline your boundaries. As I said, the purpose of this workshop is to discuss, explore, and establish your comfort levels and their limits. There might not be any explicitly romantic or sexual scenes in the project we will be working with, but we must ensure all acts of emotional and physical intimacy you collaborate on are within both of your boundaries,” she explains. “So. Are there any elements in the script that you feel uncomfortable about acting out with your partner?”

The question takes him by surprise. Considering the goal of this very session, he guesses he should have seen it coming and prepared an answer accordingly, but, in the moment, he simply draws a blank.

He looks at Jisung entirely reflexively. The puzzled expression he meets is so relatable it’s almost comforting, and yet it gives him no hints as to how to respond.

Brief, confused eye contact. Eventually, the edges of Jisung’s lips turn downwards, and the slight shake of his head is all it takes for Minho to copy him.

He turns back to the intimacy coordinator, exaggerating the gesture for her benefit.

When she lifts her eyebrows and smiles in response, almost as if pleasantly surprised, or maybe even amused, he feels a tinge of paranoia claw at his chest. Worries if he might be coming across as unconvincing or suspicious. If it’s weird that he doesn’t have a limit to set when it comes to Jisung.

He’s afforded no time to spiral. “That’s all right. We will move on to the exercises, and if you feel discomfort at any point in time, now or during the scenes we rehearse later on, always know you are encouraged to call for a time-out. We will work through any matter that might worry you as it comes up.”

They nod in unison and, when the action makes her chuckle, it only takes her explaining the first activity for Minho to get in on the joke.

They breeze through the mirroring exercise. After a few rounds of her quiet reminders to switch who’s taking the lead between the two of them, it’s far too long before Minho distantly realises she has fallen entirely silent.

Jisung now lowers himself onto the floor, and Minho privately marvels at the fact that he automatically knows which knee to bend first, a perfect mirror image of Jisung. He knows, intrinsically, when Jisung wants to move, and when he means to stop, seamlessly allowing Minho to lead. It dawns on him that he knows Jisung, because Jisung knows him. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

It’s only when Minho slowly raises his hand to match Jisung’s own that the reappearance of her voice reminds him there’s a third person in the room.

“This is a good opportunity to transition into the next exercise,” she says, gently, almost as if not wanting to intrude. It takes quite bit of effort not to flinch, regardless. “Feel free to maintain your current positions, if you wish. For this activity, your goal is to get as close as physically possible without touching one another.”

Minho’s eyes turn from her to Jisung — his raised eyebrow, the quirk of his lips — and then to their hands, suspended mid-air, reflecting each other. “Okay,” he says quietly, and starts to slowly reach forward after Jisung’s fingers twitch.

For such a short distance, it sure does feel like it takes forever to meet Jisung halfway.

And then, there it is. Everything converges down to the nearly eclipsed space between their palms. The sensation of Jisung’s body warmth pressing against his skin. He could easily bend his fingers, interlock them with Jisung’s own, but he’s not sure even that would be any more intimate than what they’re sharing right now.

He looks at Jisung the exact moment Jisung looks at him.

This time around, neither of them smiles.

A few seconds of silence, eye contact unbroken. Minho’s palm burns.

Then, the soft rustling of Jisung’s clothes, his shoulders straightening. Perhaps Minho is still affected by the previous exercise. Perhaps this is the way things always are with Jisung. Still, whatever the case, he feels his body react without his brain’s say-so, as he lifts himself up to echo the way Jisung rises on his knees.

Carefully, so carefully, so as to not let their hands touch as they eliminate even more of the distance between them. Face to face, chest to chest, kneecap to kneecap. All of Minho’s laboriously honed body control focused on following instructions that his heart is rebelling against. It just doesn’t feel right.

Not when Jisung is this close and getting closer by the second. Not when Minho can feel his breath on his chin.

Their noses almost touch.

Jisung’s eyelids flutter.

If Minho tilted his head ever so slightly to the left, if he leaned in just a centimetre further, if he could allow himself to be incredibly reckless for just a tiny second—

A spark of contact against the pad of his pinky finger.

Instantly, he knows it’s over when the all-encompassing silence that blanketed the room is broken by a gentle inhalation off to the right. “All right,” the intimacy coordinator says, slightly drawing out the word in what’s probably an attempt to make it softer. “You two did great. Let’s take a moment to discuss and decompress before we move on.”

It takes significant effort in order to lower himself back down slowly, when all his muscles seemingly want to do is go slack all at once. He folds his legs beneath his body, tries his best to control his heart rate.

He doesn’t dare look at Jisung for the first few minutes that follow.

—

“We will be ending our workshop rehearsals with a scene that once again calls for intimacy, but this time physical, rather than emotional.”

Several hours in and with his ribcage being host to a whirlwind of feelings all centred around nothing but Jisung, Minho nervously clasps his hands in front of his lap. He knows what’s coming. It’s probably the main reason they’re having this session, in the first place.

“In this scene, Myungsoo and Joowon have snuck their way into campus in an attempt to find clues that might help them with breaking the curse,” the intimacy coordinator says. “When the security guard on patrol almost catches them, they hide away in the janitor’s closet to evade him, and they end up finding themselves in a rather unconventional, suggestive position, as instructed by the script.”

She gestures towards the desk placed in the far corner of the room, the limited space it creates against the neighbouring walls.

Minho assumes she goes on to once again outline the goal of the rehearsal, stress the fact that they are encouraged to disengage the moment they feel discomfort. He thinks she asks them whether or not they need assistance from the script. His ears catch her words, but his brain refuses to process them. He simply goes through the motions, nodding or shaking his head whenever he deems necessary.

Next thing he knows, he’s got his back against the wall, and the room has fallen silent.

He swallows around nothing. Clears his throat. This is his cue, he thinks.

“I should never have listened to you,” he whispers as venomously as he can, trying his best to slip out of himself and into the character.

Jisung, half-perched on the desk serving as a pretend-shelf, cocks his head to the side. “So now it’s my fault?”

Minho squints, taps into Myungsoo’s ire further as he leans in. “Whose idea was it to break in like a couple of criminals?”

Jisung’s eyes widen in offence. “You said there might be something useful in the campus archives,” he says, slightly straightening up to meet Minho halfway, “I just said there’s only one way to access them.”

“And you threatened to do it alone if I didn’t agree,” he spits out.

“And I would have!”

They’re so close. The boundaries of the simulated closet around them practically feel like the edges of the very universe. “You know how dangerous it is for either of us to stray too far from one another. You would have fainted before you even knew it.”

“It’d be a risk worth taking, if it freed me from you even a second earlier,” Jisung responds, his lips in a perfect sneer, chest radiating anger-heat mere centimetres away from Minho’s own. It gets his blood pumping wildly in his veins.

“Fine,” he says, “have it your way. I’ve had enough of you.”

As he moves to step to the side, pretending to push the imaginary door open and make his exit, Jisung’s fingers wrap around his forearm almost tightly enough to bruise. He pulls him back so hard that Minho doesn’t even have to fake the stumble that makes him fall into Jisung’s lap.

He braces himself against the desk, transfers as much weight as he possibly can over to the leg that isn’t currently trapped between Jisung’s thighs.

It’s kind of futile, with the way Jisung is still holding onto him. Minho tries to breathe, fights against his grasp, uselessly wriggles only to find out it somehow makes the situation worse; he feels Jisung’s breath quicken in response, his quads going tight against Minho’s crotch.

Oh. Oh, no.

“Let me go,” he forces himself to recite, voice rising in volume. He pulls his arm back once more just for Jisung to follow through, not giving him an inch. They’re practically plastered together now, from their chests all the way down to the tangle of their legs.

“Be quiet—”

“If you don’t let go of me right now—”

“What are you gonna do?” Jisung asks, and the way he hisses the question out has Minho’s mouth audibly clicking shut. There’s fire in those eyes, a brand of intensity he’s never before been on the receiving end of. Not with Jisung.

It’s entirely novel. A little scary. Mostly thrilling.

Heat builds low in his gut.

“You gonna yell for help? Alert the guard to the crime you’ve committed?” Jisung forges on, tone mocking. “Not even your perfect grades could save you tonight.”

The grip on his forearm remains vice-tight, as his quaking leg muscles betray him. He unwillingly lets Jisung carry even more of his weight, and feels himself grow scarlet at the mortifying realisation that, if he can feel the way his cock twitches against Jisung’s thigh, then so can Jisung.

He looks at him with wide eyes beyond his control. Registers the brief reemergence of Jisung through the character and opens his mouth to lamely utter an apology, but finds that his voice won’t cooperate.

A torturous moment goes by where all he can do is just stare right back at Jisung. There’s something happening here, some thought process going on behind his eyes that Minho is not privy to, and he can’t decide if he actually wishes he could decode it.

He half-expects him to call for a time-out, only for Jisung’s expression to grow sharper again within a blink of the eye.

Minho feels lost, exposed and discombobulated.

If he’s supposed to deliver a line right now, he can’t for the life of him dredge it up from the depths of his brain.

All he knows is that Jisung burns warm against him, everywhere they’re touching, fire-hot. That his thigh drags against Minho’s cock as he ever so slightly readjusts against the desk. His heart beats in the roof of his mouth. He focuses a hundred percent of his energy into not whining.

Jisung’s chest moves against his own, heavy with each breath. “So be quiet,” he rasps, and Minho can’t, try as he might, confidently remember if the words coming out of Jisung’s mouth are the same as the ones written in the script they’ve been studying for weeks now. “You don’t wanna be found out, do you?”

Minho, shamefully, trembles. He offers a mute, dumbstruck shake of his head, and prays to a probably inexistent god that these past few minutes have been nothing but a cruel, tailor-made dream that his brain has decided to torment him with.

“All right,” comes the gentle voice that serves as a reminder of the person who has bore witness to some of Minho’s most embarrassing moments in recent memory. Of the very person whose very clear instructions he has gone on to entirely dismiss, against his own good. Against Jisung’s good. He comes crash-landing back into reality. “Well done, you two! Let’s take a breather and discuss.”

He closes his eyes shut tightly, and lets his shoulders sag as he wishes the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

—

He should apologise.

If he wasn’t a coward, he would.

And if he wasn’t an absolute mess for Jisung, an apology wouldn’t even have to be an act of bravery, in the first place. It could have been a simple hey, sorry about earlier, you know how it is, sometimes, between friends who have spent way too much time together, as well as the last near-decade living with other guys.

And yet.

He can’t get himself to utter the right words when he knows they would come with a bunch of asterisks. Unspoken conditions and explanations that he would have to tiptoe around.

He realises he’s been staring when he notices Jisung’s gaze alternating between Minho’s face and the nearly untouched meal in front of him multiple times in a row.

He blinks.

“You all right?” Jisung asks mid-chew, one eyebrow furrowed.

Minho shakes his head. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, blindly grabbing a bite just for something to do. When Jisung won’t stop looking at him with that unavoidable, worried expression, he adds, “just, long day, you know?”

He only has to withstand a couple more seconds’ worth of scrutiny before Jisung finally nods. “What do you feel like doing tomorrow?” he asks after a little while.

The honest answer to that is probably not one Jisung can handle. “I’ve been thinking about going for a hike,” he says and, despite his overwhelmed, cloudy mood, he has to stop himself from choking on a laugh at the way Jisung’s face goes perfectly blank, the beginnings of a smile instantly dropping from his face.

He downs some water, tries to clear his throat, and watches the way Jisung’s expression grows just a bit more desperate with each passing second. Like he’s hanging on, waiting for Minho to tell him he’s joking.

Only now does it honestly register with him that Jisung wasn’t just having idle small talk. He didn’t mean to ask what Minho’s plans for tomorrow are; he asked what their joint plans for tomorrow are. Their first fully free day in a while now — one of their very few fully free days in the near future, in fact — and Jisung without hesitation wants to spend it with him.

“Maybe in Inwangsan?” Minho says. “It’s not a difficult hike, and it’s very pretty, in the early morning. There’s a great book café along the trail.”

Jisung’s face eases up, little by little, as he seems to process the concept. “Is that the place you’d gotten that one chocolate croissant from?” he asks in the end.

Minho can’t help but smile. Yes, that was the place he had gotten that one chocolate croissant from, just a bit over three months ago, when all he had wanted was a coffee, but couldn’t stop thinking about the way Jisung’s eyes would light up at the mere sight of the expansive bakery section.

He’d been rewarded with just the right expression he had been hoping for, when he’d presented Jisung with his takeaway spoils.

“That’s the place.”

Jisung makes a show out of considering it, but ends up grinning all the same. “Okay, we can do that.”

—

He should’ve known, when Jisung floated the idea of rehearsing in their own time.

He should’ve learned his lesson, and seen this coming. Because if he had, he wouldn’t now have to deal with once again fighting to remain in character when all he can focus on is how exhilarating it is to be in simulated (yet entirely too thrilling) confrontation with Jisung.

He honestly doesn’t understand why this excites him as much as it does.

“Have it your way. I’ve had enough of you,” he spits out, and waves his arm out in pantomime. There is no door to throw open, here; when he reaches out, his hand hovers over the frame of his bed.

Jisung snatches his forearm up before Minho has the chance to withdraw it. This time around, his grip is mercifully — probably? — weaker, but Minho fights against it all the same, and meets just the right amount of resistance to have his reaction be as reflexive as possible.

“Let me go,” he says, letting his voice come out louder.

The twisted-up expression on Jisung’s face grows sharper. “Be—” He winces. “Ah, hyung, this isn’t— C’mere,” he says, and Minho isn’t afforded enough time to ask what he means before he finds himself repressing a squeak at the realisation that he's literally being manhandled.

The hand around his arm pulls, lowering him down towards the bed, while fingers hook around the back of his knee, urging it to bend outwards. He instinctively reaches out to brace himself against the mattress, but the action does very little to alter his position at all.

He blinks, uselessly looks down at his arm, trapped between their chests, and then back up at Jisung. Jisung, whose thigh he’s currently straddling.

The attentive look in his eyes is a far cry from the character he’s been embodying for the past hour or so, and entirely overwhelming to be on the receiving end of. “Comfortable?” he asks.

Minho is experiencing the greater part of the gamut of human emotion right now, but comfortable is not necessarily on that list. He’s unsure how to respond.

“Hyung?” The hand curled around his knee withdraws only to tentatively touch his shoulder blade.

He shakes his head. “Good,” he manages to choke out, “if you think it helps.”

The seconds it takes for Jisung to seemingly assess and eventually accept his reaction drag on and on. It’s almost too much to take, until he finally says, “okay, redo?”

Minho nods. Closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, in an attempt to centre himself. He’s got to find the character again. He’s got to anchor onto the script. Business. This is business.

When he flutters his eyelids open, it’s to the sight of a different kind of expression on Jisung’s face. That razor’s edge he’s come to expect at the corners of his eyes is missing. In its place is something undefinable, a muddled blend of emotions that somehow feels no less intense.

The interruption must have messed him up. It makes sense.

“Let me go,” Minho repeats, this time more passionately. He jerks his arm, hoping that the futile attempt to fight back will manage to pull the right reaction out of Jisung, put him back in the correct mindspace.

Fingers move up to his wrist, tighten just a little. “Be quiet—”

There he goes. “If you don’t let go of me right now—”

“What are you gonna do?”

Minho’s hand curls into a fist. With each erratic breath he takes, he can feel the way Jisung’s sternum expands against his own, their bodies in perfect sync. He wonders if Jisung has noticed it, too. If it makes his heart beat just as fast as his.

“You gonna yell for help?”

As Jisung’s grip infinitesimally tightens, despite Minho’s best efforts, something that mortifyingly borders on a whine climbs up his chest.

And right then, three events in quick succession: Jisung’s eyes widening, blunt nails digging into skin, Minho’s hips canting downwards. He chokes on a gasp.

Panic sets his muscles on fire.

In a burst of motion, he straightens his back out and makes to get up, scramble away from him, but is stopped in his tracks. He’s not sure what does it. Whether it’s the startled look on Jisung’s face, the abruptly loose loop of fingers around his wrist, or the barely-there touch against the edge of his thigh that gives him pause, but the end result is the same.

He looks down at Jisung with a million iterations of his much-belated apology forming a knot in his throat. His mouth remains mute.

“Hyung,” Jisung says, as his thumb traces its way up Minho’s veins, slides into his palm. There’s something heartbreaking in his eyes, but Minho is unable to define it, in the moment, is not brave enough to figure out if it’s understanding, pity, or perhaps something even scarier than that. “It’s okay.”

Minho has trouble believing him.

“It’s okay,” he repeats, his other hand slowly settling on Minho’s hip bone. If the touch is meant to come across as a gesture of sympathy, he would be inclined to say Jisung is failing.

His thoughts remain unvoiced all the same, as Jisung decides to move, stealing all the breath from Minho’s lungs. Because how is he supposed to react to Jisung’s hips rolling up to meet him? To the feel of what cannot be mistaken for anything but an erection pressing into the meat of his thigh?

Jisung’s searching eyes flit all over his face. Minho isn’t sure what they can probably end up finding other than shock, confusion, and possibly a spark of hope that’s much too revealing for comfort.

“Yeah?” Jisung asks, as if he can’t feel Minho’s maddeningly loud heartbeat in his palm.

The question is as vague as it is clear. Even as Minho might not know what exactly it is he’s being asked for, or what it is that Jisung is offering, he’s overwhelmed enough to be confident that he can provide it. That he’s eager to accept it.

He nods. Watches as Jisung’s chest deflates with a long sigh.

The hand on his hip tightens, before it urges him to shift. He succumbs to it, lifting himself up briefly as Jisung readjusts underneath him. When he comes back down, it’s to be seated square in the middle of his lap, his knees bracketing the ends of Jisung’s ribs.

Against him, Jisung feels hot. Hard.

The moment rings surreal.

Maybe it is. Maybe, all things considered, this is no more than a delusion. A dream.

“Do you want this, hyung?” Jisung asks, his voice suddenly no more than a rasp. Minho helplessly looks at him through eyes that have gone dark around the edges, his vision fuzzy. He understands he’s supposed to respond, but his mouth has gone numb. “You have to talk to me.”

With great effort, he curls his fingers around Jisung’s thumb, squeezes until he feels bone in an attempt to ground himself. A makeshift worry stone. He wets his lips. “Yeah,” he says, and marks down a victory as the crease between Jisung’s eyebrows softens out a little. Minho presses down against him for emphasis, exhales a shaky moan. “Yes.”

“Fuck.”

And this is how it starts.

He fails to make note of who sets them in motion first. He loses track of how many times he gives up control, perfectly pliant in Jisung’s hands, only for Jisung to hand it right back to him however many seconds later, before the exchange repeats anew.

All he knows is that he hopes Jisung’s grip on him bruises, so that it sticks to his flesh for the weeks to come. That he wants to feel it on bare skin, searing — maybe that will ensure his wish comes true.

He unceremoniously pushes down on the waistband of his sweatpants without thinking, and is hit with grief when the action displaces Jisung’s hand in the process, just for the emotion to be washed away by a different one, upon noticing the way Jisung’s eyes widen. He follows his gaze to his own underwear. To the clear outline of his cock through the stretchy material. To the telltale, dark spot of wetness crowning it.

Embarrassment douses him.

And then, a brand new feeling entirely, once Jisung groans out, “hyung,” and reaches out again, this time not to hold him, but to touch him, palm hot against his shaft, fingers curving over the tip.

Minho forgets how to breathe, as Jisung strokes him through his boxer briefs, up, down, up, down.

It’s torturous. Simultaneously way too much and nowhere near enough at all.

“Pull—” he tries to say, surprising even himself with how desperate he sounds, “pull them down, touch me.”

An unintelligible sound comes out of Jisung, who complies either way. Minho rises on his knees just long enough to allow Jisung to drag the waistband of his underwear down and hook it behind his balls. He seats himself back down with trembling thighs that cannot be trusted to support him, and feels his back hunch as Jisung does exactly what he asked him to do.

He loses himself, somewhere between Jisung stroking him like he knows exactly which buttons to push and looking at him with eyes that only stray from their task to seemingly catalogue every single change in his expression whenever he tries something new.

He snaps out of it, seconds or maybe hours later, to find himself pawing at Jisung’s shorts with a hunger he will never be able to put into words.

Jisung is generous, even with this. He lifts him up, makes quick work of getting rid of the layers that remain between them, and Minho—

Minho bucks under the unbearable pressure of want that has been sitting on his shoulders for the better part of almost a decade now.

Even as his brain screams at him to pace himself, take it all in, commit everything to memory because he’s likely never getting an opportunity like this ever again, he simply can’t find it in him to be prudent. The imperative need to feel Jisung against him consumes all thought, renders that scream to a mere whisper.

He leans down, all the way down, until it feels like he’s practically collapsing.

Until Jisung’s chest softly breaks his fall, and his arms loop around Minho’s back to secure him in place, safe. And, in return, Minho strips himself down to the truth at the core of him.

“Want you,” he confesses into the corner of Jisung’s jawline as he ruts against him, skin on skin, and he distantly wishes he’d had the clarity of mind to take both their shirts off first, before reaching this point. It’s too late, now. He recognises that.

Unaware of Minho’s anguish, Jisung holds him just a bit closer, pulls him in tightly enough to gift Minho the comfort of his heartbeat against his ribcage. He thrusts up against him with just the right timing, perfect even at this. “You have me,” he breathes out, the words scorching against Minho’s cheekbone.

Minho squeezes his eyes shut tight. Shakes his head.

If Jisung registers the action, in the flurry of movement, he makes no comment on it. Instead, he presses his nose into his cheek and, when Minho seemingly fails to get the hint, nudges him again. “Look at me,” he says.

Minho, feverish but eager to please, lifts his neck, withdraws just as much as is needed to establish eye contact.

The sensation of being in a dream swirls right back in. Jisung is a dream. From his flushed skin and the dewing of his sweat, to the way he looks at him, intent and hungry enough to maybe even hurt from it, evident at the bunched-up corners of his brows.

“You’re so pretty,” he says, earnestly enough to have Minho’s heart hurting, “beautiful, hyung.”

He has no idea how to respond. No way to convey the duality of wanting to take his word for it and needing to chalk it up to the heat of the moment in the interest of self-preservation.

Even if he could, he finds the chance to speak would be stolen away from him anyway, when Jisung leans in to graze his lips against his jaw. When he follows the line of it all the way to the corner of his mouth. Presses a peck to it, somehow both tentative and firm.

Minho’s hips stutter.

His body goes taut.

He comes with a whine that scratches him up from the inside.

As he rides the feeling out, hoping against hope that it by some miracle lasts longer, prolonging the inevitable as much as possible, he lets Jisung’s erratic thrusts stimulate him to the point of feeling raw. He welcomes it, just as he welcomes the teeth that softly clamp around his lower lip the moment before Jisung bucks up once, twice, the moan that comes out of him almost musical.

Minho exhales, long and deep.

This is it.

That’s the only sentence banging around in his skull as he gives himself no more than ten seconds to collect himself and put his muscles to good use again.

This is it.

He extracts himself from Jisung’s hold and selfishly avoids his gaze as he straightens his clothes out.

He hears rustling, a sigh, and admits he’s being a coward even as he refuses to look back.

“Hyung,” Jisung says, something in his tone validating Minho’s instinct to flee, because surely nothing good can possibly follow up this opener, not under these circumstances. Regardless, Jisung continues, “I know we’d said—”

Minho cannot bear to hear this.

He’s so caught up in his dread that he only belatedly realises what it was that interrupted Jisung in the first place.

The single most annoying chime he has ever heard in his life has never before sounded this good, as it ricochets off the walls and makes its way across the entire dorm.

“The dryer cycle is finished,” Minho needlessly announces before jumping off the bed like it’s made of lava. He starts breathing again only after he’s closed the bathroom door behind him. He raises a hand to his chest, as if that’s going to do anything for his heart, only to pull it away the moment it makes contact with his shirt.

He looks down at his sticky palm with a sense of hollowness that renders him cold.

He’s going to have to do another round of laundry.

—

The first time they’d kissed had coincided with the first night he’d ever seen Jisung truly, genuinely drunk.

He’d gone pink really easy, really fast, his grins sloppy and limbs loose as he’d leaned in to eagerly accept every bite of food Minho had plied him with over the course of the night.

By the time they’d all safely gotten back home, Minho’s attempts at evening him out had, for the most part, paid out. Well-fed, properly hydrated and in a new, clean sleep shirt, Jisung had crawled into bed without much fuss, aside from demanding that Minho join him, after he’d straightened himself out enough to be verbal again.

Minho, not entirely sober himself, and always more than a little indulgent with Jisung, had agreed to his terms.

He’d slid under the covers, leeching Jisung’s body heat, the scent of his skin, and silently watched the slow blinks of his eyelids, heavy with sleep but still too stubborn to give in just yet. He’d smiled at him, stupid with adoration, because no other reaction had felt more fitting.

“So pretty,” Jisung had mumbled out of nowhere, and Minho would have been inclined to believe he’d been sleep-talking, if it hadn’t been for the spark of consciousness in the whites of his eyes. For the way he’d inched closer to Minho, hand sliding up the mattress to reach for his face, thumb gently pressing into the centre of his chin.

Minho had lay entirely still, save for his heart jumping out of his chest and into his throat.

“Hyung,” Jisung had said next, so softly it’d been more like a whisper, “are you happy with just being friends?”

Under any different circumstances, Minho would have probably thrown himself into a panic, at the sound of that question.

That night, in the low light of Jisung’s bedroom, held ever so gently and more than slightly inebriated, it had been scarily easy to slip into a sense of pained acceptance. He’d closed his eyes, their corners stinging with the understanding that Jisung had never been dumb. It had only ever been a matter of time, he’d thought. And that time had come. Jisung had seen through him, peeled back just enough of Minho’s flimsy front to find the truth of his feelings for him. Feelings that would not change, but would remain unrequited, all the same.

Minho had lied, then, for the sake of safeguarding the single most important relationship in his life.

He’d nodded.

He’d waited and waited for an indeterminate amount of moments, shaking like a leaf and too scared to open his eyes to see the relief undoubtedly taking over Jisung’s face at his response.

Jisung’s warm breath on him had been his only hint of him moving closer, until the thumb on his chin had caressed the edge of his jaw. Until Jisung’s lips, soft, gentle, had pressed up against his mouth. The corner first, then the other, then the centre of his top lip. Jisung’s nose had slotted alongside Minho’s own, stayed there for a few seconds even after the kiss had ended, the connection severed but still so close that Minho would have been able to jumpstart it, if he’d merely puckered his lips.

He’d foolishly looked at Jisung again the instant he’d withdrawn.

He’d seen the way he had studied his face, searching, from his eyes to his cheeks to his mouth and then back again, looking for something that Minho had not been able to figure out in the moment.

He’d noticed the slight downturn at the edges of his lips in the microseconds before it’d been extinguished, and feared he’d failed whatever test he’d been undergoing.

“Okay,” Jisung had said in the end, “I’m happy with just being friends, too.”

A sigh had rattled Minho’s lungs as he’d nodded again, consoled yet heartbroken at the same time.

He’d known. He had not been surprised. But, even as the confirmation had validated his assumption, wounding soft tissue that had always been raw, entirely vulnerable, it had also reassured him that things were somehow going to be all right.

If Jisung could live with the burden of acknowledging Minho’s feelings, Minho could live with the strain of loving someone in a way that would never quite be reciprocated in kind.

—

By the time he manages to brave stepping foot into his bedroom again, the sun has begun to set.

He returns to find Jisung is still there, sitting at Minho’s desk. He’s turned the chair around, directly facing the door. He snaps his head up and locks his phone the moment Minho crosses the threshold.

After a few seconds of merely looking at each in unprecedented, uncomfortable silence, Minho allows himself to be the first one to break. He tears his eyes away, eager to find anything else to focus on. His gaze uselessly flits around the room before finally landing to the left of him.

His throat constricts.

The sheets have been changed out. The bed has been made.

He does his best to control his next exhalation.

When he inevitably turns back to Jisung, he only manages to look at his shoulder. “There are leftovers in the fridge,” he manages to croak out, “I’ll heat up a plate for you?”

If Jisung’s face does anything of note during the time it takes until his response, Minho fails to notice because he simply cannot muster up the courage to see it. “Okay,” he says, eventually, and Minho doesn’t bother looking back after he nods and swiftly walks back out of the room.

He can hear the sound of his slippers following in Minho’s footsteps, either way.

Neither of them talks while Minho moves around in the kitchen, filling up the space with unnecessarily loud sounds as he pulls at drawers, pushes on buttons and clanks cutlery together.

Jisung sits on the counter stool, quiet and still. Minho, who can feel the weight of his eyes on him throughout the entire process, is mentally on dialogue scenario number eighteen by the time he finally turns around to slide his dinner over to him on the other end of the counter.

He grabs his own plate and sits down opposite him. Makes eye contact for the first time in the past hour and change. Braces himself and hopes for the best, as Jisung’s lips part.

“Do you really not wanna talk about—”

Minho cuts him off with a sigh.

No, he does not want to talk about what happened today. He does not want to go over the poor decision making that led to him coming all over Jisung’s shirt — he’s changed, he realises all of a sudden, or at least partially; he can still see the neckline of Jisung’s tee peeking behind Minho’s borrowed hoodie — the moment he kissed him.

Minho is torturously in love with him, and Jisung is kind enough to turn a blind eye to it for the well-being of their friendship. Minho knows, on account of them living in each other’s pockets, that theirs is the closest thing Jisung has to any semblance of a viable relationship, at this point in his life.

Things just got a bit muddled, out of hand.

That’s it.

He doesn’t need to be let down gently all over again. They’ve been through that once, already.

“We’re good, aren’t we, Jisung-ah?”

Jisung gives him a tight-lipped expression, remains silent long enough to have Minho stressing, before he finally nods. “We’re always good, hyung.”

Minho tries his best to take his promise to heart.

—

Jisung proves true to his word.

For the most part.

Things between them don’t necessarily get weird, but they don’t go back to exactly how they were before that day, either.

The first day of filming goes without a hitch, their collaboration just as smooth and easy as he would expect. They make it through the kick-off jitters together, Minho’s hand squeezing the tense muscles at the nape of Jisung’s neck, and Jisung’s responding smile warming Minho up from the inside out. They play off of one another beautifully, the end result not only gratifying on a personal level, but also managing to yield enthusiastic feedback from the cast and crew.

Jisung still cracks those silly jokes that have Minho laughing disproportionately loud, and Minho still grabs every chance he gets to treat Jisung to whatever little thing will make his eyes sparkle.

Most things that make up who they are to each other remain the same. It’s frustrating, therefore, to feel that something Minho can’t quite pinpoint has changed, leaving a vaguely sized and shaped empty spot in the connection between them.

It nags at him, day in and day out.

It leaves him hollow, in the lonely minutes-turned-hours that he spends in the quiet of his bedroom, as he tries and fails to fall asleep at a sensible time.

He’s roughly a week and a half into that unsettling sense of emptiness, before he finally realises what the cause of it is.

The dorm is surprisingly loud, considering the early hour. Minho can hear rock music blaring and the sound of things being tossed around before he’s even through the door.

When he makes it into the common area, it’s to find Hyunjin half-crouched over the kitchen island, a spoon barely dangling off the tips of his fingers and a displeased expression covering his entire face. Minho huffs a puzzled laugh and tells him a good morning that just barely makes it over the song blasting through the dorm, to which Hyunjin replies with a nod of acknowledgement, before finishing chewing.

Minho turns his head to work out what the source of the commotion is, to discover that both the music and the banging are coming from the direction of the bathroom. He doesn’t need to rack his brain to figure out who the culprit is, but it is perplexing to arrive to such a scene, regardless.

He’s never known Jisung to have this sort of frenetic energy in the early mornings. Nine out of ten times they’d woken up together in the past, he’d been so lethargic and slow to warm up that Minho had been practically one step shy of getting him dressed himself.

He realises that, since the filming phase started, this is the first time he’s come inside to fetch him, instead of waiting in the car. Wonders if this has been the status quo all along, and he just hasn’t been around to notice.

Minho feels Hyunjin’s discerning gaze on him before he hears him speak. “Everything okay?”

He turns back to direct a carefully blank face at his squint. Shrugs. “Yeah,” he simply says. Why wouldn’t everything be okay, after all?

Hyunjin raises an eyebrow that implies he doesn’t quite believe him but mercifully doesn’t press him any further, nonetheless. Or, at least, he doesn’t get the chance to do so, before the volume of the music suddenly going down distracts both of them.

“Have you seen my perfume literally anywhere?” yells Jisung through the closed door, his tone frustrated enough to betray the fact that he’s probably spent upwards of five minutes looking for it.

He watches as Hyunjin’s chest inflates with a deep, steadying breath. “It’s on the washing machine, dear,” he shouts back, surprisingly sing-song and amusingly long-suffering.

From inside the bathroom, the sound of things being tossed and slid around resumes briefly, before stopping altogether. “Thank you, honey.” The song goes back to playing uncomfortably loud immediately after.

He half-smiles, feels his eyebrows meet in the middle as Hyunjin shakes his head.

“Thank God you two have work to do,” he says, “I love him, but the longer he stays here, the crazier he becomes.”

Minho, unsure what he means but fairly confident he’s going to follow that sentence up with some sort of explanation, waits him out while he grabs another spoonful of his breakfast.

This time, when he does speak again, that same piercing look in his eyes from earlier is back, focused entirely on Minho. “I’m not used to him spending this much time at the dorm.”

At that, something uncomfortable lands to sit at the bottom of his stomach. The statement feels odd, both in semantics and in the way it’s delivered, as if it’s somehow Minho’s fault. Jisung has always been the type to enjoy his free time at his own pace, and on his own terms; that, Minho has found throughout the years, usually means inside, at home, replenishing his batteries while expending as little energy as possible.

Minho doesn’t see how any of that has changed, and he especially doesn’t see what he has to do with any of it.

Hyunjin offers no further enlightenment. If there are any useful hints on his face, as Jisung throws the bathroom door open with a (frankly borderline offensive) look of surprise, upon seeing Minho, Minho does not manage to catch it. All of his attention is on Jisung. As usual.

The conversation sticks with him.

It stays on the back of his mind throughout the entire day.

When he finally gets back home, almost late enough for everybody to be well on their way to sleep, the only person still hanging around the common area is Seungmin.

“Oh, it’s just you,” he comments, barely turning his head to greet him over the back of the couch.

Nudging his shoes against the wall with his toes, Minho makes a show out of going sour just in time for it to be noticed. “Just me,” he says, “guess the president stood you up, yet again.” He bends over to grab his water bottle out of the fridge and wastes no time in making a beeline to his room. “Sorry to disappoint you, Kim Seungmin,” he throws out in place of bidding him goodnight, unable to help himself.

“Just weird to see you coming home alone.”

His footsteps falter briefly enough to spare him any further discussion, but still long enough to be embarrassing.

He opts to delude himself into thinking they can pretend he didn’t hear. Refuses to look back at Seungmin, as he escapes.

It’s when he restlessly rolls over for the fifth time that the empty space in his otherwise modestly-sized bed starts to feel like the single most vast thing in the universe.

It’s then that all the deceptively throw-away comments click into place. That the sense of loneliness he’s been feeling suddenly makes complete sense.

The last time Jisung was here, he realises, was the day before the others got back from their breaks. The same day Minho allowed himself to follow the reckless whim that threatened to ruin everything.

Jisung hasn’t made a peep about sleeping over since. The times that Minho had asked about his after-work plans, he’d always been met with some vague non-response that he hadn’t had the courage to probe into.

Things between them aren’t necessarily weird, except they are.

Because how else can Minho feel about the realisation that all the time they’ve spent together in the last week and a half, with all the characteristically easy interactions that had assuaged Minho’s paranoia, has always been outside, in the company of others? Never at home. Never alone.

He grabs at his spare pillow — Jisung’s designated pillow. Clutches it to his chest. He sticks his face into it, only to smell the overpowering scent of his detergent, and nothing else. He tosses it aside.

Sleep finds him way, way late, in a bed that’s entirely too big for him and, evidently, not a safe place for Jisung. Not anymore.

—

Minho decides to try, regardless, partially hoping Jisung will help him prove himself wrong.

He scrolls through the animation studio’s page, stopping at the post he’d been looking for. He does his best to nonchalantly angle his phone just right, and internally counts seconds while the video plays.

He’s reached seven, when the chair next to his own creaks. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches, silently triumphant, as Jisung slowly leans into his personal space.

“What episode is that?” he asks.

Minho tilts the screen further in his direction, raising the volume by two clicks. “Eight,” he says, and lets the rest of the preview play out before adding, “we’re two episodes behind.” They’d last watched episode six in Minho’s bedroom, with Jisung’s head on his shoulder and Minho’s fingertips drawing invisible circles on Jisung’s forearm. That had been before.

Jisung hums. The video autoplays from the beginning, but neither of them makes a move to withdraw, or cut the moment short.

They sit in brief silence before Minho says, “we have an afternoon shoot tomorrow.” He gives Jisung a chance to connect the dots on his own, but ends up having to force himself through the rest of his plan, after Jisung remains suspiciously quiet. “We’ve got enough time to catch up tonight.”

For the first time in the last however many minutes, Jisung turns to look directly at him. Minho returns the gesture. Jisung’s eyes are wide, his lips slightly parted in question. “Like, at your place?” he asks and, though Minho gets the distinct sense that they both instantly realise how silly a question that is, Jisung doesn’t attempt to compensate for it.

“Yeah,” Minho responds, tightening his grip on the phone as it threatens to slip. He suppresses the urge to wipe his palms against his trousers. The stylist would be mad at him. “Unless you don’t want to.”

Jisung’s mouth remains distractingly o-shaped. “No,” he says, “I do.”

Minho, though not entirely willing, gives him a second to rescind, or ask for a raincheck. When Jisung doesn’t, he lets himself nod. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

They spend the rest of the day bickering in-character. It’s a nice, welcome change of pace, with all the scenes they have lined up sitting comfortably on the lighter, buddy-comedy end of the spectrum. Minho doesn’t have to think too much, as he simply rides the flow of their chemistry.

It’s easy. Fun.

The mood sticks around while they pack up, keeps them company throughout the ride back and well into dinnertime. Jisung sneaks several dips into Minho’s sauce, and smiles, all conciliatory, as he picks out peppers from his own meal and transfers them onto Minho’s plate, instead.

“That’s not the same,” he mock-scolds, “you weren’t gonna eat those, anyway.”

“Ah, you won’t even let me do a nice thing,” Jisung says through a picture-perfect pout that splinters into an unrestrained laugh the moment Minho shakes his head in admonishment.

They watch both episodes back-to-back. At the halfway point, he realises they’ve gotten so close to each other that he can feel each expansion of Jisung’s ribs against his own. Going against the code of the unconscious, magnet-like attraction that seems to bind them, he purposefully sinks further into the mattress, and lets himself bodily press into Jisung, little by little.

Maybe Jisung is right not to trust him, any longer. Maybe his greed has gotten too big even for him to control.

Still, surprisingly, the action doesn’t break the spell they’ve been under all day. Instead of inching away, creating some space between them, at the sudden intrusion, Jisung only leans into it. He wedges his shoulder between Minho and the mattress, silently steals half of Minho’s pillow for himself.

Minho luxuriates in the contentment of everything miraculously slotting right back into place, until the ghost of bad decisions past comes back to haunt him, roughly fifteen minutes before the end of episode eight.

“I wish they’d just get together, already,” Jisung complains at the screen, and the sigh that comes out of him is heavy, exasperated.

Minho scoffs. “No way.”

Jisung twists against the pillow, looks at him with a crease between his eyebrows. “What?” he asks, almost petulantly, as if offended by the fact that Minho disagrees with him.

He shakes his head. “She needs to stop coming back to him, until he gets his shit together.”

Jisung’s frown gets turned up to eleven. “She loves him,” he says, “and he loves her back, even if he’s a flawed character.”

“He’s a mess,” Minho insists, fully aware of the fact that being uncharitable with Jisung’s favourite character isn’t getting him any extra points. “And she needs to start acting in her own best interest.”

“People don’t really work like that,” Jisung says, and the sudden change in his tone from stubborn to something south of serious has Minho’s emotions tilting on their axis.

He recognises they’ve abruptly stepped into dangerous territory, even as he can’t quite pinpoint the nature of it, what the rules are, where the landmines lie. Naively, foolishly, he decides to forge on, hoping that forcing the playfulness will wrangle them back out of the woods. “Well, they should.”

He fails.

He can see it in Jisung’s eyes, hear the cogs inside his head turning as he deliberates whether to say the thing he clearly wants to say. For a very, very long moment, Minho experiences dread.

In the end, Jisung, apparently, concludes on not sparing him. “I’m in your bed, right now.”

In the background, the episode plays on.

Minho can’t hear a word of it, over the deafening sound of his heart beating in his skull, the ear-ringing mortification of being called out in such an intimate, inescapable setting.

Because, truthfully, him scheming to have Jisung back in his bedroom after what happened the last time he was here is not, in fact, Minho acting in his own best interest. But Jisung isn’t some two-dimensional character in a bad romance-laced, fantasy anime. He means things to him that Minho couldn’t find the time to fully express if afforded a hundred lifetimes.

“That’s different,” he says through a tight throat.

Jisungs looks at him, and looks, and looks. It scares him, to theorise about what he’s seeing.

In the end, though, it turns out that whatever he finds has him drawing ever closer, bit by bit, until the tip of his nose grazes Minho’s own. Until their lips meet, almost timidly at first, as if Jisung thinks Minho might pull away.

He doesn’t. He kisses him back, breaking his own heart a little and proving Jisung’s point, in the process.

People really don’t work like that, he thinks, as he parts his lips for Jisung, lets him take what he’ll have. He loses track of himself in it, and the only thing that manages to ground him is the sudden sensation of his frantic heartbeat against Jisung’s palm, warm on the side of his throat.

That’s what does it, he thinks. That’s what pulls both of them back to reality.

He watches Jisung’s eyes slowly slide open as he withdraws, hazy, at first, lazy to focus, and then all at once intense. Minho feels, for lack of a better word, like he’s being studied. He waits for what feels like aeons, until Jisung finally says, “yeah,” his voice low, tone undefinable, “I’m sure you’re right.”

He lowers his head onto Minho’s shoulder, snuggles close as he turns back to face the screen.

Minho couldn’t remember what it is that Jisung just agreed with if his life was on the line.

He shakily buries his nose into Jisung’s hair and watches as the pixels alternate colours and form shapes that he’s entirely incapable of processing.

—

Things, once again, change.

They do so gradually enough for the shift to be unnoticeable, for a good while.

The jokes remain the same, as do the quiet, easy moments, and the bursts of energy that start off playful and veer into mock-flirtation.

In front of the behind-the-scenes camera, Jisung curls a hand around the nook where Minho’s shoulder meets his throat and praises his acting prowess with a smile. At the craft services table, he hand-feeds him a bite of his marmalade-stuffed croissant and intently watches as he eats it.

“You’re cute,” Minho says once he’s done chewing, the statement reflexive.

Jisung tilts his head, smiles with his eyes. “You’re cuter,” he responds, and Minho would quip back with a that’s my line, if Jisung leaning in to wipe peach marmalade right off the corner of his mouth didn’t instantaneously render him dumb. Jisung pops his thumb into his mouth, a flash of pink as his tongue flicks out, and gives him a spectacularly self-satisfied grin before he’s out of dodge faster than Minho can process.

It goes like this, on and on and on, all of it teetering on the very edge of normal; the sort of interactions the eight of them aren’t exactly strangers to, and actions Minho himself would do, if the right mood struck.

Minho goes with it, allows himself to grow complacent like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot.

He lets things simmer as Jisung’s casual touches go from an arm around his waist while they’re hunched over the reference monitor to fingertips running up and down the top of his spine during movie night with the boys. He convinces himself that there’s nothing necessarily weird about receiving the odd peck on the cheek every now and then, while each kiss migrates further to the side each time, until it’s Jisung’s lips pressing softly at the tender underside of his jaw, a quiet good night rumbled against Minho’s back.

The sense of danger only sets in two weeks later, when it’s much too late for him to safely manoeuvre out of it.

On a night that feels just like any other, with one of Jisung’s favourite, brain-rotting reality shows playing on the TV as they take advantage of the empty dorm with take-out on the couch, Minho willingly steps into what he will later come to consider a trap.

He surreptitiously reaches out to steal some of Jisung’s soda, only for his plan to be foiled.

Jisung snatches the can up and holds it away from him with a smirk.

Minho could act fast, prove that he’s quicker or even play dirty, but his meal has left him feeling heavy, and the easy mood of their dinner date has him loose-limbed, soft around the edges. “Come on,” he complains, “I only wanted a sip.”

Jisung tilts his head, looks at him pointedly.

“Two, at most,” he laughs, as his fingers curve over Jisung’s kneecaps, the thin cotton of his sweatpants. He’s not above begging.

“Tell me you love me, first.”

Superficially, the delivery is playful, supported by the quirk of Jisung’s lips.

Minho tries to match his tone, even as he knows he’s going to fail before he even starts. “You know I love you.”

The response doesn’t satisfy. The atmosphere shifts. Jisung looks at him, focusing on one eye and then the other. “Tell me, anyway.”

The skin on his face grows tingly, as his chest constricts. “I love you,” he says, with none of the playfulness of a grown adult acting cute for a treat, and all of the graveness of a man tearing out a piece of his heart and presenting it as an offering.

It works. Not in that it earns him a sip of a fizzy drink Minho doesn’t even really care about to begin with, but in that Jisung exhales slowly before leaning all the way in, until he’s kissing him, soft and sweet, stealing Minho’s breath and short-circuiting his brain in one go.

“I love you, too,” he says against his lips after they separate, punctuating the sentence with a quick, last peck. He’s smiling as he draws away but stays closer than they were before. “Now, open up.”

Minho, thrown off and kiss-hazy, obeys. He parts his lips, only narrowly managing not to startle at the sudden chill of a can being brought to his mouth, and dutifully drinks up, gulp after gulp.

Jisung doesn’t say good boy, but Minho still feels like he does, all the same.

Artificial cherry just barely manages to cover up the taste of Jisung’s kiss, as Minho’s fingers carelessly bunch up the worn material of Jisung’s sweatpants.

—

The final week of production approaches faster than he had been expecting.

They film the last scenes in Seoul in a bit of a shared daze, as the realisation of how quickly time has flown dawns on both of them.

Minho wakes up, drags Jisung’s sluggish body through their early morning routine, puts on the skin of a character he already knows he’s going to miss by the end of all this, and gets to work.

At nighttime, he gets drunk on the privilege of bearing witness to Jisung’s stuffed cheeks and sleep-heavy eyelids in the privacy of his bedroom, and being the one to know what it’s like to go loose, perfectly content in Jisung’s arms, with his lips tracing soft goodnights against the nape of Minho’s neck.

The day before the flight to Busan, they go through the very last of the campus interior shoots. He journeys through all of Myungsoo’s feelings for Joowon in a dizzying, out-of-order zigzag: guilt over the way he’s too quick to snap at him, something akin to adoration for the boy he’s beginning to know, hatred as their personalities clash.

Through it all, Jisung remains perfectly on-pitch, the ideal partner to act off of. Minho couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone but him, with that fire in his eyes, and that bashful smile that is swiftly extinguished by professionalism even when he fumbles a line.

He comfortingly squeezes Minho’s palm as they enter the closed set for the last scene of the day.

It’s a tiny space, providing just enough room for the two of them to squeeze into and the camera operator to get the right shot. As soon as they start rolling, the effect that had taken over Minho during that intimacy coordinator session sets in all over again. Despite all the preparation, everything feels brand new. The world he knows shrinks down to fit into the dimensions of the fake closet they’re in.

Jisung becomes the only other person to exist in the entire universe.

Minho focuses on him, the veil of animosity he’s draped himself in, the feel of his body against Minho’s, and the bruising grip he’s got on his wrist.

Later, after everything is over and done with, Jisung is still holding onto him, way more gently but no less secure, as he locks the dressing room door behind them. Minho leans into the wall for support his trembling legs refuse to offer, while Jisung kisses him stupid with his hand down Minho’s jeans.

“Starting to think you like me being angry,” he says hotly, the words being delivered almost like kisses down the column of Minho’s throat.

Minho, so needy he’s shaking with it, leaves his filter on autopilot as all he can focus on is thrusting into Jisung’s hand. “I like you always,” he pants, shockingly unable to be embarrassed about it, in the moment.

Jisung recaptures his lips in a kiss that he smiles into, radiant. He rewards him by stroking faster, switching up the angle, his thumb brushing against the tip with every pass.

He’s about to come humiliatingly fast, he thinks. Right now, thanks to nothing but a handjob and the feel of Jisung’s fingers around his wrist, his teeth bluntly locking around his lower lip in the faux-safety of their dressing r—

A light bulb goes off, terrible and scarily thrilling all at once.

“No, Jisung-ah, the—,” he desperately tries to warn, even as he knows he’s reached the point where it’s way too late for it, “the clothes, the—”

He’s on the very verge of ruining his costume. The stylist is gonna know, she’s gonna know and she—

The microsecond that Jisung seems to disappear for has Minho’s stomach dropping, until he realises the reason behind it. He looks down. The sensory lag takes a while, as his brain tries its best to catalogue everything.

The sight of Jisung’s eyes, big, doe-like, fixated on Minho’s face.

The sting of his thumbs pressing into his hip bones.

The warmth of his mouth, hot around his cock.

Minho’s heart seizes. There’s no verbal warning that he’s capable of offering, now, just a hushed whine as he comes down Jisung’s throat.

He whites out.

Afterwards, Jisung doesn’t ask him if he wants to talk about it. Not this time. He just kisses him, lets Minho taste himself on his tongue, caresses his sweaty hair out of his face as he watches him recover.

He would fear it, this unexpected calm, if it weren’t for the fact that Jisung ends up in his room, all the same. If it weren’t for him almost presumptuously crawling right into the middle of Minho’s bed, tossing the spare pillow aside, and making himself comfortable in the crook of his neck.

Minho clings onto him extra tight, regardless. Just for safety.

—

The hotel suite they’re going to be calling home for the next three nights is testament to how successful the production’s bid for securing a proper budget has been.

He walks through the hallway, peeking into each unnecessarily large room along the way, and thinks that whatever they’re charging is worth it, as long as it gets Jisung’s body positively buzzing with excitement at the sheer level of luxury.

Even the floor-to-ceiling windows don’t manage to faze him, surprisingly enough, his acrophobia taking a back seat as he can’t help but marvel at the way the early morning sun bounces off the warm-toned wood and makes Jisung glow honey-golden.

He watches him jog into the bedroom, haphazardly drop his duffle bag onto the floor and hop onto the singular, king-sized bed. He tests the bounciness of the mattress with a grin on his face, until the sight on the opposite side of the room steals his attention away.

“Wow, hyung,” he exclaims, eyes shining brightly in the sunlight, “it’s so beautiful, isn’t it?”

Minho steps through the threshold, leans up against the doorframe, and lets Jisung believe he, too, is staring in awe at the panoramic view of the Gwangan Bridge and the ocean below. “It really is,” he says.

—

Filming on location manages to capture a certain magic that Minho hadn’t quite felt up until this point, even with how extraordinary this entire venture has been all along.

There’s just something about embodying a character in his native environment that makes everything feel all that more real, even if the scene revolves around something as mundane as walking home after class.

This is the reason, he assumes, that he goes through the whole day with the threat of a tear at the corner of his eye.

Or maybe it’s the fact that there are under seventy-two hours left on this journey, at least as far as shooting is concerned.

Maybe it’s a combination of both.

Whatever the case, all of Myungsoo’s feelings ring just a tad sharper within Minho, today. He rolls his eyes harder, at Joowon’s bravado. He laughs louder, at the over-rehearsed jokes that still somehow land as if they’re brand new. He feels his heart beat faster, as he watches Joowon through Myungsoo’s eyes, trying to pinpoint the exact moment his boyish smile managed to start tearing his walls down brick by brick.

Hours later, he gets himself underneath the covers emotionally raw and with a hiccup lodged at the back of his throat.

After today, he has no doubt that tomorrow’s solo scenes are going to hit all that much closer to home. As Myungsoo will be navigating the streets of Busan alone, lamenting the newly-established freedom from the curse he’d been trying so hard to break, Minho will be thinking about what the completion of this undertaking will mean for himself.

When the red string in the form of this project that ties him and Jisung together is finally cut, how will Minho be able to deal with returning back to reality as he knew it?

His brain goes abruptly silent at the feel of two arms being wrapped around his back.

“Tired,” Jisung mumbles as he gathers him close, sleepily enough that it’s not entirely clear whether it’s a statement or a question.

To be safe, Minho simply hums in agreement that could merely come across as acknowledgement. Me, too, he thinks, in more ways than you can imagine.

Jisung lifts his chin, making room to accommodate Minho’s face in the hollow of his throat. “So sleep,” he says.

Minho snuggles in closer, determined to soak up as much of this reality as he can, while he can still afford it.

He closes his eyes. Sleeps.

—

He’s unsure as to what wakes him up, at first.

It can’t have been the alarm, given the fact that the sun hasn’t even broken across the horizon yet, the room as dark as it can possibly get with the skyline’s nightlights shimmering through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

It’s the way his body moves, unbidden, that does it. It’s the telltale, gentle pressure against his tailbone. The quiet groan behind his ear as he arches his back just right to feel Jisung’s cock against the cleft of his ass.

The arm around his waist tightens.

He’s almost, almost conscious enough to let fear take over, at the realisation that Jisung is no longer asleep either, but the feeling doesn’t get enough time to set roots in. Jisung silences it entirely, with a purposeful roll of the hips.

“Jisung-ah,” he whispers, even though he doesn’t fully know whether he means to follow it up with an apology or a plea.

Jisung splays his hand across Minho’s stomach, uses the leverage to draw him in closer, bodies pressed together. “Yes, hyung?” he says, voice gravelly with disuse.

If he expects Minho to actually respond, he must know he’s making it an impossible task for him, with the way he reaches down to palm him through his boxer briefs.

Minho twitches. Thrusts into Jisung’s hand only to greedily shift back against him in a wave that has both of them moaning. It’s addictive, being able to feel, first-hand, without any room for doubt, that Jisung wants him.

To whatever degree, and even if it’s not in the exact way Minho, himself, needs him.

He still wants him. At least enough to grind against him with intent, hard and undeniably fever-hot even through the layers of underwear separating them.

Minho reaches behind his back, shoves the top of the comforter away and clutches at Jisung’s hip bone. He tugs, hoping that he’ll be given what he needs without having to ask for it, and sighs in contentment as Jisung readily grants his wish.

Thankfully, Jisung’s hands are off of him strictly for the amount of time it takes for both of them to be stripped naked. Until it can be skin-on-skin, Jisung’s bare chest along Minho’s spine, his hand pressing into his pubic bone, his cock slotting against his ass like it was tailor-made for it.

Minho gasps.

He rolls his hips again, hungry to feel Jisung’s heat drag against his hole, catch on the rim.

The hold on him grows vice-like. “You sure?” Jisung asks tightly, as if there is even the slightest chance in hell Minho could ever say no.

He would take him now, any time, any place, under any conditions at all.

“Fuck,” Jisung breathes against the back of his neck, “okay, give me just— We need—”

And, no, Minho will do just about anything for him, with the exception of letting him go, even if it’s for a good reason. He wraps a hand around his forearm just in time to stop him from getting away.

He pulls him down again, drags him close. He can’t bear the thought of separating with him for that long.

“Hyung,” Jisung says, his tone almost chiding, and Minho doesn’t need to twist around to know he’s gone wide-eyed.

It’s okay. He’s not gonna push any of Jisung’s hard lines to get what he wants, but he’s not about to let himself suffer, either. He shakes his head. “Too far,” he simply justifies, and whether Jisung understands what he means or not, he never quite finds out, because neither of them manages to utter a single coherent sentence after Minho spreads his thighs and reaches back to pull Jisung’s cock through them.

He more feels rather than hears Jisung moan, as Minho crosses his legs tightly, locks his ankles together.

He digs his fingers into the meat of Jisung’s hip. “Like this,” he says, breathless, and physically urges him to thrust.

The initiative pays off.

With each move, he luxuriates in knowing just how wet Jisung gets for him, the evidence clearly felt between the tops of his thighs, at the back of his balls. The friction is just right, perfect, every thrust dragging against his perineum in a way that sets him alight from the inside out.

He has just enough presence of mind to angle his head so that he can satisfy his greed. The sight of Jisung’s face twisted up in pure, unadulterated pleasure is a thing to behold: his eyebrows knitted together almost aggressively, his cheeks tight, his lips pulled back, revealing his teeth, as he pants through his mouth.

It’s like an electric current goes through him, the moment Jisung lifts his eyes to meet his own.

“You,” he says, as if the word stands alone, capable of carrying the meaning of a full sentence. Minho can’t decode it, certainly not in this state, but he can’t help but fixate on it. He wishes the tinge of awe he thinks he detects in Jisung’s tone was real.

“Me?”

The answer to his question comes as a kiss, strained due to the angle but bone-melting, all the same. The arms around him secure him even closer against Jisung’s body. The pace picks up. The fire building up in him grows and grows, its flames fanned with every consecutive thrust against nerves that long to feel Jisung from the inside, too.

He moans around Jisung’s tongue. Tenses his muscles as much as physically possible, desperate to help him get there, the more frantic his pace gets.

It only takes one, two, three more thrusts, before he finally has Jisung practically growling into his mouth, tightening up against his back, spilling hotly between his legs and painting the sensitive skin of his thighs wet.

And that’s exactly what throws Minho over the edge.

He arches, a brief moment in suspension, before the tension snaps with a crack. He comes the exact instant Jisung’s fingertips skate by his navel on their way to wrap themselves around his cock.

Minho spasms, drawing inwards. He mourns the subsequent loss of Jisung’s kiss, but doesn’t get the chance to grieve as Jisung curls along with him.

“Could have been doing this so much sooner, if you just…” Jisung mouths against his cheek, his voice audibly wrecked. He doesn’t finish his sentence.

Minho shuts his eyes tightly as he simply shakes through it all.

Teeth softly bite down on the edge of his jaw, and he wishes they would break skin, high definition cameras be damned.

—

The second time he wakes up for the day, it’s actually because of the alarm.

Minho blindly reaches for the nightstand, dismisses the alert with a practised flick of the thumb, and lets his phone fall onto the mattress.

Next order of business: he cranes his head, forces his eyes to adjust to the morning light, and lets his hand travel up the bare expanse of Jisung’s defined back until it nestles into the soft mess of his hair. He ruffles it, gently scratching at his scalp until Jisung finally stirs, protests the wake-up with a groan that’s muffled into Minho’s chest.

“Time to get up, sleepy,” he says, unable to stop himself from smiling when Jisung cracks an eye open to half-heartedly glare at him.

“Don’t wanna,” he grumbles, and he sluggishly crawls up the bed only to flop back down, nose-first into Minho’s neck.

Minho huffs, pets his way down Jisung’s head and curls his fingers around the base of his skull, massaging it in soft pulses. “We gotta.”

Another disapproving groan.

“At least let me get up, first,” he tries to bargain, no stranger to Jisung’s early morning struggles. He attempts to roll him off of his body, but ends up discovering that Jisung is not quite the dead weight he had originally assumed he was.

Jisung lifts his head, levels him with a far more conscious-bright look than Minho had been prepared for, and pouts. “Kiss tax,” he says, before he leans in and expectantly purses his lips.

Minho’s heart is still raw. His body tingles everywhere Jisung had touched him, less than two hours ago. He’s weak, and a fool. He leans up to kiss him.

Jisung’s lips press a smile against his own before he easily rolls over, granting Minho freedom that he now doesn’t really wish he had.

He gets up, regardless.

“Wake me up when you’re done showering,” Jisung says, his words barely audible through the pillow he’s face-planted in.

Minho hums.

—

The solo scenes are a race against the clock, but they eventually manage to get all the shots they need without running out of light.

They even have time to spare.

Despite the overall glum mood of the scenes he had to film, Minho packs up with a pep in his step, satisfied with knowing he’s done a good enough job to have played a part in making sure everyone goes home early today.

He asks the driver to make a pit stop at one of the patisseries he’s bookmarked, and walks out of it with a significantly lighter wallet, in exchange for a hefty, bow-bearing bag that leaves the car smelling of chocolate.

He smiles at his reflection in the hotel lift’s mirror.

He slowly pushes the door to their suite open, but finds that the only person being surprised today is himself.

He quietly follows the sound of conversation down the hallway. Stops right outside of the bathroom.

“…that’s why I called you, isn’t it?” Jisung asks, just barely discernible over the running tap of water.

“You didn’t need to call,” says the voice that Minho now recognises as Changbin’s, coming through the speaker phone. Minho nearly relaxes. He didn’t know quite what he’d assumed was going on, paranoia getting the best of him, but he’s about to make his entrance official when Changbin’s serious tone makes him halt. “You already know what to do.”

Jisung groans.

“Moan all you want, but you two need to talk,” Changbin says, with all the sternness of a friend who’s provided the same bit of good advice over and over and over again. “Or you’re gonna end up hurting each other.”

Minho feels his heart painfully jump in his chest.

“I know,” Jisung says, sounding defeated.

“You do know. So don’t let this go any further. Talk.”

Minho… wants to disappear. In the cacophony of thoughts making a mess in his head, that’s the one that prevails. The loudest. The numbest.

“It’s just so easy,” Jisung’s voice manages to somehow cut in through the deafening noise, his words ringing, “being this close.”

A heavy sigh comes through the speaker. “Han-ah…”

Minho doesn’t want to hear a single syllable further.

He clutches the bag handles, fingernails digging into the meat of his palm.

He turns around and makes his way through the suite as quietly as he had come in. He turns the handle, slips out the door.

He disappears.

—

Minho isn’t even fully sure what he’s so broken up about. It’s not like he has unveiled some conspiracy, or realised he’s been deceived.

He really hasn’t.

His feelings for Jisung have been a shared secret between the two of them for years now. They’ve both been living with it and had to carry it on their shoulders, each with a different degree of difficulty, ever since.

And he knows that Jisung loves him, even if not in the way Minho loves him.

And that’s fine. Wonderful, even. A gift in its own right.

The fact that some lines got blurred, crossed, lept over, shouldn’t be messing him up.

Jisung said it himself: they’re close. Close enough for Minho’s heart to be entirely too vulnerable to its wants, and for Jisung’s needs to be so pressing that they can’t be reasoned with, in the heat of the moment. It makes sense.

So why is he hurt?

Minho doesn’t quite have the emotional sobriety or energy required to answer that question right now. Doesn’t think he can take being as brutally honest with himself as he needs to.

And so that’s why he forces his mind silent. He shuts down, internally and externally, in an attempt at self-preservation.

He wakes up on the far side of the bed ahead of the alarm, and gets ready without making a peep. He lets Jisung get up on his own, and responds to his questions and statements with non-committal hums. He tries his absolute best to ignore Jisung’s looks of increasing worry and suspicion, and convinces himself that the quiet car ride they share is a good thing. A safe thing.

Jisung bursts that bubble in the middle of them having their make-up done.

“What time did you come in last night?” he asks, his tone perfectly neutral.

Minho catches his eye in the mirror opposite, and instantly wishes he hadn’t. “I don’t know,” he says, choosing to focus on the foundation brush right in front of his face, instead, “late.”

“Yeah? What were you up to?”

He hates this. “Some of the crew went out for drinks and they invited me with.” Not a lie, technically. He did stumble upon them, on his pitiful zombie-walk out of the hotel lobby. They ended up appreciating the desserts he’d picked up, even though he’s sure they would be best enjoyed sober, and not as a hangover cure.

Jisung lets him wallow in the terror of several long seconds of silence before he clicks his tongue. “Okay.”

He doesn’t for a second allow himself to believe he’s off the hook.

He’s proven right the very second the make-up team exits the dressing room.

“What’s wrong?” Jisung asks, with that look in his eyes that leaves no room for question as to whether he’s going to be satisfied with a non-answer.

Minho, despite knowing better, lies. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Jisung exhales out of his nose, obviously frustrated. “Stop that.” He takes a step closer, and Minho fights against every single reflex not to take a step back. “If this is about what I said yesterday—”

He doesn’t know what Jisung is referring to. Surely not about the phone call he’s not even aware Minho overheard. If there’s something else that Minho failed to register, possibly take offence to, he’s entirely out of the loop. Regardless. “We don’t have to talk about any of this,” he says, certain that he doesn’t need to define what this is. They’re firmly on the same page of a matter he’s ill-equipped to discuss, at the moment, and he can feel it.

“Clearly, we do.”

Minho shakes his head. “It’s fine. Things happen. We don’t have to have a talk, I get it.”

Jisung tilts his head to the side, gives him a humourless smile. “What are you saying?”

Does he need to have every single word painfully fished out of his throat one by one? “We’re just close,” he says, “these kinds of things happen, it’s easy.”

Jisung’s eyebrows disappear beneath his bangs, his eyes go wide with what might be either disbelief or affront. “Easy?” he asks, as if the word offends him. As if he wasn’t the one to use it, in the first place.

Minho sighs, lifts his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I’m easy. You’ve done nothing wrong, it’s just me.” He lets his mouth run, when he sees Jisung inhale, unwilling to give him the chance to say anything more that he likely won’t be able to handle hearing. “Once we get back, everything will be normal, I just need some time.”

A knock on the door. “Ready for last looks!” the voice behind it yells.

He grabs the chance, runs with it. “Let’s get to work,” he says, swiftly bypassing Jisung to the exit.

“Lee Minho—”

He turns the handle without letting himself hear the rest of it.

—

64. EXT. ROOFTOP — DUSK

CLOSE UP: Myungsoo’s face, warmly lit by the sunset as he looks in the far-off distance.

The sound of a CREAKY DOOR CLOSING and APPROACHING FOOTSTEPS, until someone comes to sit next to him, off-screen.

WIDE SHOT: Myungsoo and Joowon, sitting next to each other on the rooftop, facing the setting sun, like they used to.

Myungsoo smiles faintly, as he lets the moment pass.

Myungsoo finally turns to look at Joowon, and huffs upon seeing Joowon’s gently teasing smile.

Myungsoo is visibly at a loss for words, clearly not understanding why Joowon would choose to be here with him, instead of doing all the things he lacked the freedom to do while they were bound together.

Joowon shakes his head.

CLOSE UP: Joowon’s hand reaching out to slowly lay his fingers on top of Myungsoo’s own.

Myungsoo looks down in surprise, and then up at Joowon’s face again.

—

That’s not what Jisung says.

“I like you, hyung.”

Somewhere in the background, someone rapidly rifles through a bunch of pages, the sound of paper being turned over extremely loud in the otherwise silent set. Still, no one calls for a cut. The cameras keep rolling, as Minho simply looks at Jisung in surprise.

“I like that you’re weird. I like that we’re different,” he continues, his eyes just as warm and gentle as his touch is.

Minho has nothing to say back, no prepared lines to rely on, with the script suddenly being entirely irrelevant to the action that is taking place. He can only concentrate his focus on Jisung’s achingly sincere expression, the way it makes his heart beat hard and fast inside his chest.

“You’re not easy. We’re not easy. I like that. Whatever red string brought us together, it doesn’t matter.” Jisung leans in, just a little closer, curls his pinky around Minho’s own. “We don’t just happen to be close. I’m here, with you, because I want to be.”

“J—” Minho’s tongue stumbles around the name, “Joowon-ah.”

Jisung gives him a smile. “Will you let me?”

Minho, at the intersection between Myungsoo’s unprecedented loneliness and his own self-inflicted agony, finds that he can’t do anything but nod.

Jisung’s responding heart-shaped grin renders the world brighter, then. “Good,” he says, and maintains the eye contact just long enough for Minho’s throat to go tight with bubbling emotion, before turning to face the sky. Minho follows his cue.

The sun is painting the overhead clouds in shades of purple and peach-pink, as it’s nearly completed its journey past the line of the horizon. Joowon’s confession has soaked up every little bit of the remaining light, wrapped each word in warm hues that reflect the candidness of his emotions.

Night approaches.

There will be no other takes, after this one.

Myungsoo and Joowon’s last ever shot will be of them, sitting side by side, embraced by the vivid mural of sun rays softly piercing through clouds. A perfect nod to the sunsets they’ve shared throughout the series, and a promise for the ones they’ll share in the future.

Minho lists to the left, lets his shoulder rest against Jisung’s arm.

He closes his eyes, relishing in the moment for however long he can.

Seconds or maybe hours later, he hears the call he’d known was coming but was never fully prepared for, regardless.

“Cut!” Commotion, behind them, as crew jargon fills up the set. “That’s a wrap on String! Great work, everyone!”

As people celebrate the completion of a job well done, he and Jisung fall into a hug that Minho cannot be confident in pinpointing who it was initiated by.

All he does know is that Jisung gathers him securely in his arms, presses his mouth against the corner of his cheekbone.

“Let’s talk,” he says, quietly but no less firmly, “no running away, this time.”

Minho exhales, digs his fingers into Jisung’s back. “Okay,” he whispers, afraid to say more, scared what his mouth might say without his permission, and what the hot mics might capture.

He remains in quiet anticipation until they’re back in their own clothes, and holds Jisung’s charged gaze until he absolutely can’t stand to, anymore, with the space between them in the backseat of the van feeling simultaneously vast and non-existent.

He has to actively remind himself to breathe through the shakes as he washes the make-up off, as Jisung sits him down on the bed and stares at him expectantly, tells him to explain.

Minho takes a quivering breath. He wishes he’d had a script prepared for this. “I really didn’t mean to,” he swears, “but I overheard your conversation yesterday. Over the phone.” Jisung briefly closes his eyes with a sigh that he manages to rein in just in time for Minho not to completely lose his nerve. “I’ve known you know and that you don’t feel the same way since that night in your room — after all the makgeolli, I don’t even know if you remember.”

Jisung looks at him, crosses his legs beneath his body and leans in. “I do. I was there. Do you remember?” he asks.

At this question, what else can Minho do but nod dumbly? Obviously, he does. That’s the whole issue, isn’t it?

“What did I ask you, then?”

“You asked me if I could be happy with just remaining friends,” he says, the words sounding weird even to his own ears. His lips are numb.

Jisung lifts his eyebrows. “And how did you respond?”

If Minho were being a hundred percent, brutally honest, he would tell him that he’d responded with a lie. That he felt a piece of his heart break in real time. “I said yes,” he replies and, if Jisung’s memory serves him well enough to remember that Minho hadn’t managed to actually speak at all, in that moment, he mercifully saves him the embarrassment of being called out over it.

“Why?”

What a question.

Because nothing could have properly prepared him for that conversation. Because he didn’t want to scare Jisung away. Because he loves him too much to let his love for him jeopardise their bond.

“Because you didn’t feel the same way and I didn’t wanna ruin things between us,” he says, in the end.

“Hyung, who—” Whatever sudden frustration breaks out of him, Jisung tamps it down fairly quickly. It’s an effort, Minho fleetingly realises, upon noticing the way the knuckles of his interlocked fingers have gone white, as they rest in his lap. “What happened then?”

To say he’s not enjoying this painful play-by-play of one of the most scar-tender nights of his life would be an understatement. Still, he lets Jisung guide him through it, all the same, trusting, hoping that Jisung has good reason for revisiting it. It feels oddly cathartic, being able to finally talk about something he’s kept so close to his chest, shared only with himself for years. “You kissed me,” he says, breathless, “and then you told me that you would be happy with just remaining friends, too.”

Jisung looks at him intently, nods. “Ask me why.”

A beat. Minho swallows around nothing. “Why?”

This time, when Jisung speaks, he does so quietly, slowly. He enunciates every single syllable with care. “Because you didn’t want to ruin things between us.”

It works. Minho absorbs each word as it’s spoken, feels them seep into his skin and reverberate inside him.

He looks all over Jisung’s face. The steady gaze fixed right back on him. The slight part of his lips. The bead of sweat at the end of his sideburn.

He tries to align the things he thinks Jisung is trying to tell him with his memory of that night, and make sense out of the overlapping image they create. His mind races.

“Hyung,” he says before scooting closer, “come here.” Minho numbly watches as Jisung unclenches his hands to softly curl them around his own, thumbs pressing into the backs of Minho’s hands. “I knew. How could you not know, too?”

Minho, so overwhelmed he’s dizzy with it, is almost sure he understands what Jisung is asking, but still doesn’t trust himself with requesting a clarification.

Thankfully, Jisung readily provides. “That I’ve been in love with you all along.”

The sigh that comes out of him dislodges a thorny weight that’d been stuck inside his lungs for what’s felt like years. It leaves him lightheaded, weak enough to list forwards.

Jisung catches him easily, warm palms gently cradling his jawline. He holds him upright, as he looks at him with soft, wide eyes.

“I didn’t…” Minho utters, unable to follow through. He didn’t know. He couldn’t even have begun to let himself imagine, let alone believe.

“I see that, now,” Jisung says. He brushes the pad of his thumb across Minho’s cheekbone, and gives him a moment to breathe. “You know, for such a smart person, you’re very dumb.”

Minho feels himself pout. “I am.”

He would almost feel that Jisung is laughing at him, if his grin wasn’t as bittersweet as it is, if the way he was holding him wasn’t this impossibly tender. “It’s good that you acknowledge it,” he says, and soothes any remaining sting away with a kiss that Minho eagerly melts into.

He blindly chases after his lips, when Jisung withdraws, and opens his eyes to find him still close, but looking at him intently.

“Let me try again,” he says. “Hyung. Are you really, genuinely happy with just being friends?”

Minho curls his hands around Jisung’s forearms, feels his heart beat wildly in his chest as it pleads with him to get it right, this time around. He shakes his head. “No.”

The smile Jisung gives him is a slow one to form, but incredibly sweet when it finally gets all the way there, bunching his cheeks up with joy. “Me neither,” he says.

He barely lets Jisung finish his sentence as he pulls him close, demanding to taste the refusal that sounds like a promise first-hand, honeyed on his tongue.

Minho kisses him. Jisung kisses him back.

—

The large screen behind him slowly fades to black, as the last notes of the song Chan had pulled from the depths of his project vault (it will be a perfect fit, he’d said, smiling ear-to-ear, after your boyfriend lyrically spruces it up a little) play out over the stylised text.

Applause breaks out at the official confirmation of the drama’s title, and cheers fill the room when the fade-in text reveals the premiere date, only two months away from now.

Minho stares out at the sea of people through eyes trained to withstand the strain of rapidly flashing lights, and smiles as a myriad of pictures are taken, capturing the moment from every possible angle.

He dutifully nods as he listens to the director express his pride over the piece of art they have collectively created and, when his monologue takes a turn towards praising his main leads, Minho sneaks his arm behind Jisung to excitedly tickle the small of his back.

Jisung looks at him out of the corner of his eye, and smiles that smile of his that’s reserved for the moments when Minho is being a menace in public. Minho grins at him, winks. It only makes Jisung’s fondness visibly grow, even as he lightly shakes his head.

“Lee Know-ssi,” says the MC, dragging his attention back to the event they’re actually here for, “how about you? Please give us a few words for the teaser we just watched, and for the drama we are all anticipating.”

Minho eagerly bows his head, before lifting the microphone to his mouth. “What to say about this series?” he muses, as if he hasn’t been coached on exactly which points to hit during this presentation a million times over. He looks over to the side of the stage, and lets his gaze bypass each and every manager, crew and cast member, before it inevitably lands right back on Jisung’s shining eyes. To hell with scripts, he thinks. He smiles. “First of all, it’s a love story.”

The crowd erupts into an enthusiastic roar, as the sound of dozens of camera shutters going off at the same time becomes near-deafening.

And, still, even in the middle of it all, the only thing that truly matters is that Jisung bends his elbow, reaching behind his back to find Minho’s hand.

The only thing he cares about is that Jisung’s fingers lock around his own, pinkies twisted together. A sweet gesture, hidden in plain sight.

Everything else falls silent, pales in comparison, monochrome against the vivid technicolour of the man next to him.

As Jisung smiles, Minho smiles back.