Archive of Our Own ^omega

Chapter Text

I know you wanted me to stay
But I can't ignore the crazy visions of me in LA
And I heard that there's a special place
Where boys and girls can all be queens every single day...

♪ 

Inside the TV, the world looks beautiful. 

Today on History Talks: The category is…

A disco ball catches the light in Minho’s eyes. 

Fingers snapping. Silhouettes cinched. Queens, that’s what they call themselves. The narrator’s voice melts away to…

“I’m going to show them how it’s done, honey,” says a—person? Minho doesn’t know who. All he knows is that he’s enchanted. A pretty person is on TV, dressed in a way Minho has never seen around town. To be fair, Minho doesn’t get around town much. Maybe there are pretty people out there, too. He wouldn’t know. He’s always in the backseat of his parents’ car, or he’s walking to school, or he’s walking back from school.

“Us queens need to stick together,” says someone on the TV, someone whose voice thrums deep. Deep like Minho’s father, a baritone register that Minho knows he will take the mantle of one day, even though he likes his voice the way it is right now. 

Sometimes, mama tells Minho about how growing up means changing, and Minho gets sad about it. She tells him his face will change, that everything will change, and that Minho will know what she means one day. 

One day, one day. Minho keeps hearing that phrase so often. It means nothing to him, because each day is its own world, its own discovery. Minho knows his voice is softer than other boys in his grade, but he knows that this won’t be the case for long.  

Still, with a voice as deep as Minho’s father, the person on screen is soft-looking. The other half to Minho’s softness, painted over with childhood wonder. 

Everyone keeps telling Minho to toughen up, but the person on screen—the queen on screen…she’s soft. Her face is sharp, and still she’s soft. Her shoulders are broad, and still she’s soft. 

She’s everything Minho wants to be. 

“Mama, who is that?” asks Minho, blinking at the TV with open-mouthed and honest adoration. Pretty colours and shiny things fill his vision. Sharp, long, bejeweled nails. Rouged cheeks and glossy lips. Everyone on screen walks around like living, breathing versions of the art exhibition on the field trip he went on last week.  

Minho didn’t get it, then, during that trip. He didn’t get the colours, overlapping onto each other until brushstrokes formed a shape. He didn’t get why pink and orange making the sunset was so special to Miss Harper, who wouldn’t stop going on and on about the ‘significance of the horizon’. 

Now, he’s looking at the screen, and he gets it. This feeling of seeing something and liking it—it’s special. 

The interviewer on the screen looks weirdly normal next to the queen, dressed in so much glitter that it overpowers everything else on screen. It’s the first time Minho realises that normal isn’t always better. 

“What would you say to someone looking to get where you are?” 

“Get where I am? Baby, queens don’t become, they be—”

Minho’s mother turns the TV off. 

“Don’t watch things like that,” she says in her strictest voice, the one that makes something uncomfortable tug in Minho’s gut. 

At 11, Minho’s mother is his best friend. They do everything together, which is why it makes him sad that she doesn’t want to watch the queens with him. They were pretty, weren’t they? Why would she turn the TV off? 

“Mama,” Minho says into the silence after the TV screen goes black. 

He’s confused. It’s TV time, which means both of them watch something they’ve never seen before together. Minho can make out the salty tang of popcorn, distinct in the air as she sets the bowl down on the coffee table. “Why can’t we watch that?”

His mother settles on the sofa and pats the space next to her. She brings out a deck of cards, calls Minho’s father to join them, and never answers Minho’s question. 

But Minho never stops wondering, anyway. 

♪ 

At 12, Minho doesn’t have a lot of routines in life. School feels like a whirlwind everyday. He’s learning things he didn’t know need to be learned. Why is there so much math? Suddenly, Miss Adams is telling the class about fractions. Out of nowhere, Minho’s dividing numbers by other numbers now. 

Minho wants to stand up and stomp his foot and throw a tantrum about everything that he doesn’t understand, because it just doesn’t stop coming. What do you mean plants eat sunlight? 

At 14, Minho is older and less confused about photosynthesis, but school isn’t any less a whirlwind.

“Minho, it’s 43,” says Jisung, snapping Minho out of his reflection. 

Minho and Jisung don’t know each other very well, until their paths collide in 9th grade. 

It’s typical. Fresh out of growth spurts, returning from a summer full of boredom, and at unease at the prospect of the new beginning that is high school, Minho and Jisung walked into these hallowed halls of learning with as much hesitation as anyone would in a new place full of unfamiliar faces.

For whatever it’s worth, Minho didn’t mean to grow fond of Jisung. It just kind of…happened. 

In his periphery, Minho can feel big, brown eyes blinking at him, insistent in their wait for a response.  

“What?” 

“The answer.” 

The thing about Jisung is that Minho has never had to put on his making friends with people personality with him.

Still, Jisung doesn’t falter. Jisung never falters. At every blink of Minho’s eyes, Jisung blinks back. 

The interest isn’t one-sided. 

Jisung has always captured Minho’s attention. Sometimes, it happens without Minho’s permission. When he laughs, his eyes crinkle shut. When he’s surprised, his mouth forms a perfect circle. He has a bright keychain hooked onto the front zip of his backpack. Over several months into his obsession with Pokemon, Minho would recognise a Dragonite charm anywhere. If Minho wasn’t shy, he would have already brought it up, but he hasn’t been able to come up with the words. 

It’s not just that. 

Jisung makes Minho…feel things. A weird, fuzzy feeling that starts in his stomach and travels upwards to fit strangely in his mouth. It happens every time they make conversation. On days he knows he’ll see Jisung, he finds himself checking how his hair looks in the mirror three times. He feels aware of his body when he walks into class, a spectator to himself. He feels the weight of Jisung’s gaze on him like it’s a real thing—if he reached out, he could touch. 

On days without Jisung, Minho feels none of that. 

So it’s weird, the effect Jisung has managed to have on Minho’s commitment to not caring about what anyone thinks. 

Even right now, as Jisung waits for a response, Minho finds his words stuck in his throat. 

Jisung blinks patiently at Minho. Miss Matthews sneezes up front, and someone goes God bless you. Not Minho, not Jisung. They’re alike in that way, but Minho wonders if Jisung’s reason is the same as Minho’s. Minho has been taught not to speak on behalf of God. 

The class returns to its relative silence, filled with the sound of pencils sharpening and scribbles over paper. 

“And the next one is D. 62,” Jisung says, and then winks as he points to his answer sheet. 

Minho’s mouth falls open, just a little. It’s not like this is a test, but most people are territorial with their answers when it comes to these in-class exercises.

And to Minho, who’s been stuck in the sidelines and watching all his classmates walk past him since he was 11, help given so easily, so consistently, is nothing short of shocking. Unnerving.

The strangest part is that Minho doesn’t even need these answers. He’s the best in class, which is a fact driven home by teachers who never have anything to say to Minho’s mother other than he’s a smart kid. 

Sure, he’s smart. But he’s been…distracted. 

Looking at Jisung, Minho can’t help but think of the time when they were showing Hocus Pocus at the town drive-through cinema. It was just last week. Minho hasn’t watched it, even though Hyunjin swears that it’s the best thing he’s ever watched since The Princess Bride. (Huh, Minho thinks. Maybe watching movies that aren’t from this century is a Californian thing.)

Either way, it wouldn’t matter which movie Hyunjin recommends. There isn’t much more than sermons, the news, and mama’s soap operas in Minho’s house. The TV is just another house of God. Watching it means being watched. Minho doesn’t remember the last time he sat in front of the TV all by himself. His mom’s always in the kitchen. His dad’s always on the sofa. Minho’s always in the middle. 

“Minho, are you good?” Jisung asks after Minho spends a few moments in what he assumes is open-mouthed silence. 

In the moment between one blink and the next, when everything becomes Minho and his thoughts, he remembers why he thought of Hocus Pocus in the first place. 

He walked past the lot where all the cars had gathered together. Families, friends, and couples bundled up together inside their own worlds as someone on screen cackled. Minho watched from the outside, just for a second, while he was on the way back from Bible study. 

The only reasonable explanation for Jisung’s strangeness, especially when it comes to Minho, is that he must be some kind of witch, straight out of that movie. A witch that makes you feel things you don’t usually feel and question things you thought were certain. 

“I’m good,” Minho says. “Thank you.” 

Jisung nods, but he looks like he has something else to say. Minho waits. 

“These problem sets suck,” Jisung says. 

Minho tilts his head. “You’re doing them so well, though?” 

Jisung’s eyes snap towards Minho, and they widen, just a little. Just enough that Minho wouldn’t notice it if Jisung didn’t have Minho under some kind of spell. Some witchy, crafty, devious meddling with his mind. 

The more rational part of Minho’s brain interjects. You notice the little things because you’re always looking at him, it says, not because he’s a witch.

Minho dutifully ignores it. 

“Uhm,” Jisung says, clears his throat. “I’m not good at these, really. To be honest, I used the method you did on your worksheet last week,” he admits, sounding a little sheepish. 

Minho feels a surge of that same something pass through him—that fizzy feeling, that nothing-everything, flightless and heavy-handed and reserved for Jisung, no matter how much Minho doesn’t want to admit it. 

Pop goes the can, and Minho’s thoughts spill over like they’ve been shaken around too much. Maybe Jisung’s not a witch, maybe Minho’s coming up with excuses, but Jesus. What is this boy doing to him? 

He’s making him use names in vain. He’s making him question whether school is really as bad as he makes it out to be. He’s making him feel things, and feel things, and feel things. 

Minho doesn’t have many routines in life. Slowly and steadily, Jisung becomes a routine. 

♪

Church is another one of Minho’s routines. 

Every Sunday, the day after Bible study, Minho walks 10 minutes from home, trailing behind his parents, and joins the town in prayer. 

Father Michael always takes too long to start, shuffling through the old, heavy book on the stand in front of him before he settles on something. Minho never knows what exactly he’s searching for, but he’s been taught to be patient, especially in the house of God. 

And so Minho waits. Hair brushed out of his eyes, hands clasped together in front of him, calves brushing against the wooden pew that the Lee family has practically stamped their names on. 

Father Michael clears his throat, and Minho’s lips move without much thought. 

Our Father, Who art in heaven. 

Minho could do this in his sleep. He knows he’s supposed to tune in and mean every word he says, especially when the words are something this heavy, but routine breeds comfort. Comfort makes Minho absent-minded. He could map the corners of this place like the back of his hand. 

When his parents first moved here, Minho used to jump every time the church bell sounded through the town, marking the arrival of a new hour. 

Now, though, the church bell is just another steady, thumping thing, beating in the background of Minho’s life. An alien heartbeat, surgically threading itself into Minho’s veins as it rings to signal the passage of time. Minho swears hours pass by faster now than they did when he was younger. When he was 5, the only thing he wanted was time to fly. 

These days, he’s barely holding on. His voice is an octave lower. His height is almost catching up to the boys in his grade. 

These are things Minho’s supposed to be proud of, and yet—he can’t help but feel like something’s wrong. Like a piece in him is being pushed the wrong way, like he’s an imperfect puzzle piece. 

Hallowed be Thy name. 

Minho ignores the familiar worry of not fitting in and casts his eyes up to the high ceilings of the building and wonders, not for the first time, if the fact that his voice isn’t as loud as others in this chorus matters. He hopes that his mother doesn’t notice the way he wavers, the way that he feels like he’s outgrowing this prayer, day by day. 

Is God something you can outgrow?

Thy—

Minho brings his eyes back down, letting them land on the row ahead of him and inadvertently catching the eye of someone he definitely didn’t know was here. 

—kingdom come. 

The first time Minho sees Jisung in church, it disrupts Minho’s routine. 

He falls behind the chorus, and his voice rings, discordant in the space between one line of prayer and the next. 

And in that in between, before the world moves on to its practised rhythm, Minho catches Jisung’s eyes and feels a spark of a strange feeling. A rollercoaster drop. Wind hitting his hair. Those dreams in which Minho takes a step into the unknown and falls, falls, falls. 

Kingdom come, says Minho’s voice, a beat too late. He clamps his mouth shut and turns his eyes to the floor when his mistake earns him a look from his mother, sharp enough that Minho can feel it. He doesn’t have to check to know the weight of her narrowed eyes; a reprimand, a routine. 

When his mother’s focus on him dissolves, Minho risks flicking his eyes back up and stealing another look at Jisung through his eyelashes. 

Jisung, somehow, is still looking at Minho, like he never looked away. Jisung’s gaze catches Minho off-guard, and the corner of his mouth lifts in time with Jisung’s, as they realise, perhaps, the absurdity of this silent conversation taking place while they’re both supposed to be six lines deep into prayer. 

Minho keeps looking at Jisung, and the church moves on to the next line, and the next. 

You okay? Jisung mouths to him. 

Minho blinks. Jisung waits, still so patient. 

Minho wonders if Jisung knows these words of prayer by heart. He wonders if Jisung isn’t saying them on purpose, or if he just doesn’t care enough to memorise the words. 

Minho blinks again, hoping that this expression is the answer Jisung is looking for. He’s too aware of himself to do anything more obvious or attract his mother’s attention back to him. Back to them. 

Minho hasn’t told his mother about Jisung. Why would he? Should he? 

Before Minho starts thinking too hard about it, Jisung smiles. A full blown smile, arresting in how bright it is. He nods at Minho and turns forward. The moment ends, and Minho is left trying to calm his heart as it attempts to beat out of his chest. 

Abruptly, Minho decides that he should tell his mother about Jisung. What’s there to hide? 

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

♪

Minho’s mother is really particular about family time. It’s practically mandated. 

Every evening, if Minho has no schoolwork he’s obviously swept up in, his only other option is to go downstairs and spend time in the living room with his parents.

They’ve let it evolve, this tradition. 

They used to watch cable and laugh together at the shitty movies and TV show reruns. Then, they used to read his mother’s favourite verses in a setup that felt like Minho’s Saturdays at Bible study. 

Then, they tried to play games together, but Minho’s father wasn’t interested and his mother never remembered the rules. She made up her own when something didn’t make sense. Minho was left trying to referee and cheerlead, all at once. It was exhausting. 

The game-playing didn’t stick.

These days, they watch whatever’s new. Mama always picks. Papa never disagrees. And Minho…

Minho has been slacking on family time. He used to be excited about it when he was younger, but school tires him out and his mother’s expectation that he show up and sit through yet another romance where the guy gets the girl has begun to feel like a curse. 

Minho isn’t one to be dramatic, but there’s nothing more soul-sucking than the silence that comes when the credits start rolling and nobody—not Minho, not mama, not papa—wants to make conversation. 

So these days, Minho pretends he has more schoolwork than he does to get out of family time. He buries his head in a book (a textbook that he always makes sure to have on hand in case of surprise visits by his mother) when he hears his mother’s footsteps approach, climbing up the stairs. 

Minho has only recently begun to wish he was allowed to close the door to his bedroom. 

It feels strange, to have this gaping, open window into his space bared for curious eyes to peek into. 

For all of its faults, one of the few times the open door rule works to his benefit is right now, when the sound of his mother coming upstairs isn’t muted. 

This way, he knows exactly when he has to rush back to the desk and put on his diligent student disguise. 

Like always, she greets him as soon as she gets upstairs. They make a little conversation, and Minho schools his face into something concentrated, something serious. 

He thumbs the page of his textbook, hunches over his table, and commits to selling this performance. 

His mother eventually leaves to change out of her work clothes. Before she goes back down, though, she hovers at the edge of his bedroom. Minho knows she’s waiting for him to close his book and come downstairs, but he flips to yet another page and apologises, citing too much homework for his absence during family time. 

Sometimes, the guilt eats him alive, making him pause his pretence and follow her downstairs. Sometimes, the guilt forces him to pretend that he’s younger, and everything is easier, and they’re watching shitty cable TV, bundled together on the sofa. 

Today, the guilt spares him. 

As soon as Minho confirms that she’s all the way down, he stands up and puts one earphone into his ear, shaking off the tension in his shoulders to get back to the other reason Minho doesn’t spend as much time downstairs. 

Relax your shoulders, a voice in the video he’s following along with instructs. Dance is all about finding your groove. 

Minho doesn’t know what that means yet. All he knows is that this feeling, the one that he gets when he manages to remember all the moves in the choreography after repeating it however many times these dancers on YouTube say let’s take it from the top, is a thrill—and it’s unmatched. 

Minho wipes the sweat collecting in between his brow, makes sure that his feet are light against the carpeted bedroom floor so as to not alert his mother, and learns a new set of movements. 

Last week, he tried a jazz routine. Although it was hard and it made him sore in places he didn’t even know it was possible to be sore in, the satisfaction of looking even somewhat like the dancers in the video led him to a simple conclusion:

Minho likes to dance. 

Minho’s even willing to go as far as saying that he loves to dance. 

This isn’t a new realisation, of course. 

Minho knew he loved dancing before he even knew what it felt like to love to do something. According to aunts and uncles alike, he was a hyperactive child, always on the move, always doing a two-step in public places, dancing to his own tune. 

Like all of the things Minho loves, dance isn’t easy. It’s even harder because his parents are—well. How should Minho put it? 

Ignorant is the word he’d use. Bigoted is what Hyunjin would say if he was on call with Minho right now. Hyunjin’s always quick to make cutting assessments of Minho’s parents—it’s why Minho always has to put on headphones when he calls, scared that he’ll be overheard and he’ll have to explain to his parents why his cousin is so motivated to cuss them out. 

It’s not like Minho disagrees with Hyunjin, but something stops him from criticizing his parents. Surely, they’ll grow better with time. Right? 

Minho’s mother has turned down his request to join dance class 3 times. 

Tried and tested, three is the limit. 

It’s a hard stop, even though Minho wants to ask one more time, see if she’ll change her mind. He knows that if he goes over the triple limit, she’ll hold it over his head like he just committed a crime. 

Besides, he knows she won’t change her mind. His dad isn’t even in the picture, because he’ll defer to mama, who thinks dance isn’t for boys. Real men don’t dance, Minho-yah, she always explains, despite the fact that Minho can still recall the glittery memory of dancers on TV, of queens —men, women, neither. They danced. They danced till they were breathless. They danced in public. They danced with pride. Why can’t he? 

Rhetorical question. 

He knows what it comes down to: his mother saying pride is a sin and throwing the rainbow coloured pamphlet that was left at their doorstep into the trash, his father praying for a friend of a friend of a friend’s gay son in hopes that he’ll find his way back to God, his mother holding 13 year old Minho’s hand tighter in the city when a group of boys wearing everything but pants walked by, the pastor’s sermon on love between a husband and a wife—and nothing else. 

There is nothing else. It’s either a wife and kids and a thousand acre plot purchased with the blood, sweat, and tears of his father, toiling to give Minho the education he thinks only America can grant him, or nothing. There is his mother’s love, or nothing. There is his childhood bedroom, or nothing. 

There is Minho, drinking the blood of Christ at the end of communion and thinking: Am I not your child? You died for my sins, so let me live. Let me go. 

Let me choose nothing. 

Dancing isn’t a sin, but this is what it comes down to. This, or nothing. 

At least for now, Minho chooses this.

Still, Minho dances in secret—because he loves it.

He’s been teaching himself the basics slowly, sneaking in instructional videos in moments that his parents are downstairs and he has time to move around, to lose himself, just a little, with one ear plugged into the music and the other keeping lookout for footsteps. 

He waits for these fleeting moments, when he can pretend that the living room doesn’t exist. The world becomes his room, the counts spilling into his ears, and the feeling of his socked feet sliding against the floor.  

He waits, because he loves it. 

Minho’s dedicating some time to footwork, today. The loose-limbed bounce accenting his moves—a remnant of last week’s jazz—helps him along this new pattern. He stumbles at the start. His socks get slippery and he has to stop, start over, stop, start over, and stop again. 

It’s a cycle, looping until Minho gets it right and moves to the next combination.

For all of life’s repetitions, dance never gets boring. 

Of course it would be nice if there was someone else, someone more experienced, letting him know if he’s doing the moves wrong, but the fact that Minho gets to teach himself how to dance means that this time, this skill: it’s his alone. 

Dance isn’t taught to him. He’s teaching himself. He gets to hold its contours in the palm of his hand. He gets to pick which routine he does. He keeps doing it, keeps watching himself in the videos he takes of himself on his phone, and keeps improving. Not because of obligation, or fear, or duty. 

He simply does it because he loves it. And that makes every scary, wild-hearted moment of this secret worth it. 

♪

Jisung comes to church every Sunday after the first time Minho notices him there. Sometimes, Jisung’s mother doesn’t even come with him, but Jisung never misses a week. Minho, who used to stick out like a sore thumb in the row that his family occupies, now has a companion that shares raised-eyebrow looks with him when the pastor stumbles a little too much over his words. He has a friend. A friend who makes funny faces at him when his mother isn’t looking. A friend who draws a giggle out of Minho in a place where laughter seemed wrong, unusual. Alien. 

“Minho,” Jisung whispers. “Can we get ice cream after this?” 

Minho wants to say yes. “I’ll…ask. I’ll be back,” Minho says, walking towards his parents from where he and Jisung were standing, off to the side, waiting to leave. 

The sermon is over and church is another chore completed when he reaches his destination and asks his mother, in the quietest, most non-imposing tone he knows, “Mama, I want to—” 

That feels wrong. Does Minho want to? Isn’t that a bit too strong? What if his mother says no? All Minho wants is to meet a friend outside of this fixed routine. 

“I want to get ice cream with Jisung if it’s okay with you?” he asks hesitantly.

Minho hasn’t had that many close friends before, and Jisung’s company is worth it enough to deviate from his routine and ask his mother for—for permission? Is that what this is? 

“Who’s Jisung?” she asks, shifting her focus past Minho to look where Minho just walked to her from. Minho turns around and follows her line of sight to find Jisung already looking at them, waving at Minho and his mother with a gummy smile. 

Minho’s mother sighs when Minho looks back at her. “Where are Jisung’s parents, aegi?” she asks. 

Minho doesn’t know what the right answer is, but the truth leaves him before he can come up with some kind of alternative. “His mother didn’t come this week.” 

“What’s his last name?” 

“It’s Han,” Minho says, a little confused, but not enough to question his mother. He knows better than to do that. 

She nods. “Hm. I’d love for you to go, but I need to meet Jisung’s parents first before you can, okay? And maybe Jisung can come over to our house once I get the chance to talk to them.” 

Minho opens his mouth, but his mother must read his protest on his face, because she cuts into his next thought, “I’m just doing it because I care. I don’t stop you from talking to him here or at school, hm?” 

Minho nods, resigning himself. He knows she won’t budge, and he isn’t in the mood to fight. Minho ends up feeling more tired than anyone else after disagreeing with her. 

The Lee family goes back home in silence, with a confused Minho in the backseat of the car. 

♪

Once is okay, really. But twice? 

“Mom, can you come pick me up an hour later? I just wanna get some of our chemistry group work done,” Minho says, holding his phone up to his ear. He bites the hangnail on his thumb as he asks the question. Jisung sits across from him, leaning back and staring at Minho as if he’s trying to decipher something. 

It’s a weird intersection, this dual attention. His mother’s presence feels probing, present even though it isn’t physical, and Jisung…

Ah, Minho doesn’t even know how to put it into words when it comes to Jisung. These days, you won’t see Minho without Jisung or Jisung without Minho. They’re officially friends. Best friends, if Minho’s reading this right. 

Jisung has managed to break down every single one of Minho’s usually so impenetrable walls. Minho’s quietness finds a perfect other half in Jisung’s waves of talkativeness. 

“Are you alone?” his mother asks, interrupting Minho’s absent-minded appreciation of the birthmark on Jisung’s cheek. 

Minho doesn’t know why, but he finds himself staring at it whenever Jisung talks to him. Minho has a similar mark on his nose, but he never thought it was beautiful. Those kinds of thoughts seem reserved for Jisung.

“No, Jisung is with me,” Minho says, catching Jisung’s eyes and sending him a little smile. 

Minho’s mother makes a thinking sound. “Why don’t you both come home?” 

Minho purses his lips. “We’re going to need to be in the science lab, mom.” 

“I’ll come pick you up soon then, Minho-yah. I think you both should just do your work during lunch tomorrow.” 

Minho suppresses a sigh and waits until she says goodbye to hang up. 

Jisung shakes off the refusal easily, but Minho can’t. 

About 15 minutes later, he sits in the passenger seat of his mother’s car and worries his bottom lip. 

Is it worth it to ask why? Minho weighs his options, thinking about how the weekend starts tomorrow. And if his mother gets mad at him now, he’ll have to spend two whole days stewing in guilt. 

Minho can’t shake the unease off. Jisung was so kind about it, too. He didn’t even scrunch his face up the way he usually does when something doesn’t make sense to him. He just took it. That’s not fair. 

With teenaged indignance running through his veins, Minho asks, “Mama, why didn’t you let me stay back with Jisung?” 

That was probably the wrong word choice. Fuck, Minho thinks. The thought splatters over his mind in Jisung’s voice, all loud and confident, syllabic explosion. 

Jisung swears more often than Minho does, but the habit seems to be rubbing off on him. Minho likes it. 

“Let you?” she asks lightly, interrupting Minho’s train of thought. “Aegi, I let you do everything.” 

“I didn’t mean it like that—” 

“No,” she says, her voice firm now, sharpened against the willing edge of Minho’s feelings. “Is that how you feel? That I don’t let you do things?” 

“Mama, no,” Minho says weakly. Minho’s mother never gets angry, but her disappointment, her annoyance, her frustration—all of it adds up to become a hook, digging into the centre of Minho. 

She adjusts her grip on the steering wheel. “I have never said no to you,” she says. “I want the best for you, Minho, that’s it.”

Minho doesn’t say anything. His mother continues. 

“You know how lonely it is at home? Your father goes to work, you go to school. All these other mothers have work stories and sons winning one competition after another…” 

Minho flinches at the jab, but his mother continues, “I stay at home. Ever since I left work, all I do is stay at home. I cook for your father, drop you off, pick you up. I do it because I love you, Minho.” 

No breaks. In fact, her words spill out even faster now. “Your grandparents always thought we were doing the wrong thing when we came to this country,” she goes on. 

And there it is, that voice shake. Minho stares at his clasped hands. 

“I know, mama,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.” 

For what? Minho asks himself. Does it matter? He just wants his mother’s voice to stop shaking the way it is right now. 

She continues. “Minho,” she exhales. “You don’t understand. How can you? You’re just a child. I know I might seem like the worst mother alive—”

“No,” Minho says, a little louder. 

“It’s okay, I understand,” she says, taking the right turn onto their lane. They’re almost home.

“I used to feel the same way when I was your age. Minho-yah, you don’t even know how much worse it could be. My mother never let me go anywhere. I only went to her friends’ houses and could never talk to people my age outside of school. I can’t even talk to her these days without her making me feel guilty for leaving her back home. You should be grateful I’m not like that.” 

Minho doesn’t really know what to say in response.

“I let you go out, aegi. You were at the mall with Jisung just last week,” she says. 

Eyes downcast, Minho bites his tongue. Behind the closed doors of his mind, where he hopes his mother can’t listen and God can’t overhear, he recalls last week. He went to the mall with his mother, and he saw Jisung, so he went and spoke to him for a total of 30 minutes, maybe. 

His mother wasn’t hovering, but she kept calling. I’m at so and so store, Minho-yah, she said in regular intervals, like she was keeping time. Minho knew by the time he received the fourth phone call in the span of 15 minutes that there was no choice—it’s only his mother’s waning patience, making him feel guilty for not spending time with her, or nothing. 

Once Minho got back to her, she’d bought him ice cream and asked him isn’t it better like this, when it’s just the two of us? 

Then, she asked him what Jisung was doing at the mall. 

“He works here,” Minho had said. 

Her hum had been disapproving then, just like it is right now. 

Now, Minho doesn’t have anything to say. She’s made sure of it.  

“It’s by the grace of God that we’re here. I want you to work hard. I don’t want you to get distracted,” she says. “I do it for your own good,” she repeats, one more time out of a thousand other times, as she pulls into their driveway. 

The ignition turns off. 

“You’ll thank me later, Minho.”

♪

Twice is okay. Minho has grown used to this routine. The third time, though? The third time makes Minho stop looking for justification. The third time makes Minho angry. 

“Minho’s a good kid,” Miss Matthews says to his mother, sitting across from them. “But he’s very quiet.” 

“I see,” Minho’s mother says, and Minho is struck, once again, by how odd all of this is. He’d like to have a word with whoever invented parent-teacher conferences. They’re just wrong. 

His mother’s speaking in English, for one, which she only does when she’s mad at Minho or when they’re at church. It’s even odder to be under scrutiny like this. He doesn’t know why his mother bothers coming for every conference, because no one ever has anything to say except Minho’s a quiet k—

“He’s been coming out of his shell recently, though,” Miss Matthews says with a smile. She leans forward, lowers her voice like she’s sharing a secret. 

Fuck. Minho knows what’s coming, and the guilt of it is washing over him. How is he going to dig himself out of this one? He’s still trying to learn to name this new, effervescent thing. There are feelings that he’s never felt before making a home for themselves in his body. It’s all so new. How does he justify what he can’t explain? 

“What do you mean?” Minho’s mother asks, angling her body forward too, like she wants to be in on it. 

Minho doesn’t like that. No, he doesn’t like it at all. 

“Minho and Jisung are quite close these days,” Miss Matthews says. “It’s nice to see Minho be more involved.” 

Minho’s mother exhales. “I see.”

“Hm,” she nods, and Minho likes her, he does, but this is supposed to be a discussion of his academic performance. What is the need for all this? “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile so much.”

When they exit the room, Minho’s mother is already at it. “I didn’t know you were so close to Jisung,” she says. 

Minho suppresses a grimace. “I told you,” he says. “He’s my friend. That's why he said he’d like to see me outside of school.” 

She’s quiet for a while. 

“Is that why you’ve been smiling less at home?” she asks. “Yesterday, you didn’t even want to watch a movie with me and your father. You barely want to sit with your family at church. Is it because you’d rather be with your friend?” 

The words strike Minho like a slap to the face. 

“What?” Minho asks, dumbfounded. He’s trying to find the words to respond with, but nothing feels adequate in the face of his mother’s insistence that Minho suddenly hates her, apparently.

Part of Minho can’t believe she’d even come up with the thought. 

It’s ridiculous, and wrong. 

Ridiculous because Minho hadn’t even entertained the thought of being with Jisung instead of being at home. He didn’t know he was allowed to think that.

Wrong because Minho loves his mother. He loves her when she’s next to him and when she’s away. He worries for her when she cries about how alone she feels. He wishes, all the time, stupidly, that he could fix everything that bothers her. 

Minho loves his mother. He fills up water for her, leaves it on the coffee table because he knows she wants to drink it before she falls asleep. He takes over the cleaning on days that he isn’t at school because he doesn’t like to see her hurt her back. He takes the garbage out because that’s her least favourite chore. He stays quiet when she complains, giving her the space to speak her heart. He listens, no matter what she says. Listens because—

Because he loves her. 

Because what else can he do? 

When Minho was 5, he tried to run away from home. For no reason in particular. It’s just what kids do, is what the neighbour who held Minho’s hand and walked him back home told his mother, whose face looked so scary to that littler Minho that he hid behind the neighbour and started crying. Mama, I’m sorry, Minho had wailed. 

His mother cried. She told him not to do it again. 

When Minho was 7, he did it again. 

His mother didn’t want to play with him and everyone kept ignoring him. Everything on TV was boring. Restless and left with nothing better to do, Minho walked out of the house. Minho still remembers walking aimlessly before his mother’s car was honking next to him, and the window was rolling down. 

Her shrill voice was loud when she yelled his name, unlocked the door, and gathered him into her arms. They went back home, and his mother cried, again. She yelled at him, told him that she was worried out of her mind. His father had kissed his forehead and told him to stop disappearing. Home is where you’re safest, he’d said. 

Minho didn’t run away again after that. Home was where he came back to, no matter what. He was tethered. Held in place by the promise of his parents’ grief if he did anything else. 

In some ways, Minho thinks he’s still trying to make up for running away. With every seemingly selfless, thankless act he performs for his parents—for his mother— he knows all he’s trying to say is sorry, sorry, sorry. 

If he apologies enough, maybe it’ll make up for the well of grief that seems inevitable. 

When Minho was 13, he was introduced to the world of creative writing—and he hated it. It was exhausting, making up universes and figuring out what words he should use to put them down. 

His first ever assignment was deceptively simple. He had to make a superhero up for English class. It was easy until he actually sat down to write, which led him to agonise over how hard it is to come up with something original. After fighting the temptation to rip off an entire cinematic universe, he had a plan. 

He wanted to be different, to make a villain his hero. He was convinced it was original until he googled it. 

And then Minho got home, and he saw his mother in the kitchen, putting a hand on her hip and standing over a steaming pot. Tireless, even when her body probably hurts with age, which seems to be showing its signs as Minho grows.  

Minho’s superhero ended up being his mother. 

He loves her. He really, really does. He still thinks of her as that superhero, especially when she swoops in and rescues him from having to speak for himself at the doctor’s office or when she turns a bad day upside down when they go on an impromptu grocery store trip and Minho ends up having more fun than he expects. 

All this love, duty, responsibility. All these threads, tying Minho to his mother, to her grief, to her pain, to her regret. He’s her confidante. 

All of this, and yet his mother thinks that it isn’t enough. 

“That’s not true,” Minho begins to say, but he’s interrupted by—

“Speak of the devil,” Jisung says with a smile, walking up to Minho and his mother with a woman in tow. Jisung doesn’t wait to envelop Minho in a quick hug. 

Minho’s slow on the uptake. Too aware of his mother standing to his left, he hovers his hand awkwardly over Jisung’s frame. 

Jisung notices how tense Minho is almost immediately, withdrawing his touch and pulling back to get a look at Minho. His eyebrows crease. 

Minho knows what Jisung must be thinking. Minho’s being weird. He shifts his weight from one leg to another. Usually, he smooths a shy, shaky hand down Jisung’s back during their hugs. He would hug back, at least. He’d say hi, Jisungie. 

Instead, Minho’s frozen. 

Jisung tilts his head. He searches Minho’s face like he’s trying to find something. “Are you okay?” Jisung asks, peering into Minho’s eyes. 

One look is all it takes. Minho knows exactly which memory is running through Jisung’s head, because it’s playing in his mind, too. 

Minho isn’t the most physically affectionate person. He’s used to hugs when he does something well and handholds when he’s crossing the street. He’s used to having his hair ruffled by his father for a second, maybe two, if he makes him proud. He’s used to understated gestures. More words, less actions. 

The first time Jisung touched him just to touch him, Minho jumped. It was a high five that lingered because Minho got too distracted staring at Jisung’s gummy smile, his bunched up cheeks. While Minho’s guard was down, Jisung brought their still-joined hands down in between their chests and pressed their fingertips together. 

The touch seared so deeply that Minho felt a shock travel through him, jolting him out of his slightly embarrassing trance. 

Jisung hadn’t let Minho pull away. Just a little wait, let me, hold on a second and Minho’s resolve to draw his hand back and restore their personal space had disintegrated. 

That afternoon, sitting in the corner of an abandoned classroom during lunchtime, Minho learned the shape of Jisung’s hand against his own. He learned that his fingers can wrap around Jisung’s wrist. He learned that Jisung’s fingers are longer, Minho’s fingers are wider. He learned the way his heart thump thump thumps in his chest when Jisung’s voice softens to call him cute. 

Even though it was just Minho’s hands that Jisung called cute, it felt like more. 

That was the day Minho realised he had a crush on Jisung. 

“I’m okay,” Minho whispers as the memory fades away, hoping that the words are just for himself and Jisung. 

They aren’t. Real life intervenes, and Minho catapults the truth of his revelation to the back of his mind. 

“I’m Eunji,” Minho’s mother says, her purse brushing against Minho’s arm as she takes a step forward and announces her presence. 

Jisung’s eyes shift from Minho slowly, almost like he has to force them to drag away. His head turns away after his eyes. 

Jisung’s mom takes the hand offered to her. “You must be Minho’s mother! My son won’t stop talking about yours, it’s so nice to finally meet you. I’m Hyejeong.” 

“I keep hearing that. They’re close, aren’t they?” 

Jisung’s mom nods, unperturbed. “They are! I’m so happy Jisung found someone who makes school fun. High school isn’t easy.” 

“Yes, yes. I’ve heard it isn’t easy for a lot of kids. My son is taking it well, though,” Minho’s mother says. “I imagine it’s harder for you. I heard at church that your husband is a bit of a stay at home father? I didn’t see him when you and your son came for the service.”

Minho wants to hide his face in his hands. He darts his eyes up to meet Jisung’s face and tries to put on his most apologetic expression, but Jisung simply shakes his head as if to say it’s okay. 

Jisung’s mother doesn’t seem surprised by the comment. She just laughs—more good-natured than his mother deserves, in Minho’s opinion—and waves her hand in dismissal. “That’s because I don’t have a husband,” she says. “It’s just me and Jisung.” 

Minho knows how to read in between the lines of his mother’s expression. He knows, at once, that she disapproves. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It must be difficult.” 

Jisung cuts in. “It isn’t! Eomma is the best,” he begins to say, but his mother puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“My little sprinkler,” she says, pinching Jisung’s cheek lightly. 

“Eomma,” he whines, pulling away and then dissolving into a giggle. Jisung’s mother follows, laughing along. 

Jisung makes it look so easy to laugh with his mother.

“Let the moms talk, yeah? Why don’t you both walk ahead of us?” she says, pushing Jisung towards Minho. 

Jisung’s hair flops when he nods his agreement. Minho doesn’t wait for his mother to say anything and begins to keep pace with Jisung. 

Still, he overhears the start of the conversation happening behind him.

“Thank you, Eunji, for your concern. I’ve been meaning to tell the ladies at church about Jisung’s father…”

The rest of the conversation bleeds away, because Jisung’s shoulder brushes against Minho’s. 

“You look worried,” Jisung says. “Don’t be worried. Is it because our moms are talking? I told eomma to be cool about meeting you because you’re my best friend and stuff, and I think she listened pretty well! I was worried she’d start spilling something embarrassing about me,” Jisung’s voice trails off into a nervous laugh, “but she didn’t. Thank you Jesus!”

That manages to shock a laugh out of Minho. 

“What?” Jisung says, narrowing his eyes at the shake of Minho's shoulders. It’s playful, his annoyance. Minho knows Jisung enough to be able to tell. 

“Trust me, my mom is the best.”

My mom isn’t, Minho chooses not to say. Would Jisung understand? He loves his mother, but she does things wrong sometimes. She doesn’t mean to. It’s…just the way she is.

It’s hard to explain. 

Their temporary peace comes to an end with the hallway. Jisung has to go off into the room on the right, and Minho has to leave. 

Bracing himself, Minho turns around and risks a look at the two mothers, who seem to be wrapping up their conversation. 

“You should come to church regardless, Hyejeong,” Minho’s mother says, her arms folded in front of her chest. 

A beat passes. Minho wants to grab his mother’s hand and drag her away, but he resists.  

“Alright. I’ll give it a try,” Jisung’s mother responds. 

“You should. I know it might not seem like much, but…the Lord will help you find peace in these difficult times.” 

Trying to tune that conversation out, Minho turns to Jisung. “I’ll see you at church?” Minho asks. 

Jisung tilts his head in consideration. “Sure, Minho. You’ll see me.” He pauses. “I’ll only come as long as you come! So no ditching,” he says, pointing a finger at Minho. 

Minho would laugh if the reason for the irony wasn’t standing right next to him, potentially eavesdropping. 

“I don’t really have a choice,” Minho mutters, half to himself. He keeps his voice low. “I’ll be there.” 

Jisung’s eyebrows furrow. He opens his mouth to say something. He must notice the panic in Minho’s eyes because he quickly shuts it. 

Minho shoots him a grateful smile, grateful for the unspoken understanding. Jisung waves it off, which seems like a simple gesture, really, but Minho knows that if he was in the privacy of his room he’d be hiding a giddy smile in his pillow. 

It’s nice, being known by Jisung. The butterflies in Minho’s stomach love when Jisung remembers, notices. At first, it was unusual. He thought Jisung wanted something out of him. Test answers or some other, secret, hidden thing. Maybe it’s a dare, is what past Minho had thought, trying to make sense of Jisung’s continued interest in him.

Jisung’s attention to detail, his attention to Minho, rivals every interaction Minho has had before Jisung. Minho thinks it’s charming that Jisung remembers—little things, big things, things that Minho doesn’t even recall sharing. One time, Jisung told Minho to stop being annoyed because he could tell by the sound of his breathing. 

“I’ll be there,” Jisung says to Minho as their mothers catch up to them. It takes less than a minute for Jisung to be whisked away by his mother, leaving Minho with a weighted stare digging holes into the side of his neck. 

“Mama,” Minho begins to say, “What did you—”

“You didn’t tell me that Jisung was being raised by just his mother,” his mother says accusingly. 

Minho’s response is instantaneous. “I didn’t think I had to?” 

Her eyes narrow, and the disapproving look she gives him feels like a dart well on its way to the bullseye. “I hope you aren’t learning this attitude from your new friend,” she says, “God knows how kids are raised in…”

Minho’s face must be doing something, because the end of that sentence doesn’t come. 

Instead, Minho’s mother searches his face. 

“Just try not to let Jisung influence you too much, okay?” 

Fuck it, Minho thinks, and asks. “Why?” 

The fight disappears from his mother’s expression. She comes close to him and ruffles his hair, and Minho’s thrown off-kilter by the familiarity of the gesture, the comfort in the routine, and the simple, unchanging fact that keeps stumping him: Minho loves his mother. 

“Because you’re a good kid,” she says. Minho hears what she doesn’t say—Jisung isn’t. He wants to ask why. He should ask why, but she’s smiling, looking away. They’re walking out, stopping to greet one of the moms from church. 

The moment has passed, but Minho’s feelings are stuck. Part of him isn’t surprised. He always knew his mother would be weird about Jisung’s family, so he never shared too much. In some roundabout way, he thought that would protect Jisung. 

Another part of him, wide-eyed, young, hopeful didn’t know his mother was capable of such—

“You’re doing a good thing, being close to Jisung. His mother seems very…different-minded.” 

“What?” Minho asks, hoping that she salvages herself. 

She exhales, turning the key to start the car up. “You’re too young to understand, Minho-yah. A home without a man and a woman is not a proper home.” 

Minho scoffs. 

His mother turns to look at him, her gaze sharp enough that Minho nearly flinches. “Did I say something wrong?” 

Such judgment. He didn't know she was capable of such judgment. She shakes her head when Minho mumbles his response. She doesn’t realise her hypocrisy. She talks about Jisung, his poor mother, his hard life. 

Helpless in the passenger seat, Minho feels little. He feels displaced, taken all the way back when he was 11 years old, in the living room, about to read from his mother’s most prized possession—her decade-old Bible. It’s still somewhere, tucked away in a drawer, dusty from disuse. 

Minho spends less time in the living room these days, but he still remembers how that Bible looked. It was pretty in the way only old books are, with a red spine and golden lettering. The weight of it is a familiar phantom in Minho’s hand, and the words come easily. 

Repetition led to familiarity led to comfort, and here Minho is, ready to spin the words of gospel into a shield.

Minho could easily interrupt her and say Do not judge, or you too will be judged. It would be her fault, after all. Over many after-school evenings, she made him recite the Book of Matthew until he knew it front to back. 

It doesn’t matter that Minho hasn’t touched a Bible in the last however-many months. He still knows. He knows exactly how she’s betraying the scripture she swears by. 

For the first time in Minho’s life, he’s mad at her. Really mad. Jisung is a good kid, too. Jisung’s mother is kind, and she doesn’t deserve unwanted pity. 

Minho takes a deep breath, and finds himself split between two ends. The good kid. The angry child. 

Minho would point out his mother’s hypocrisies, but he doesn’t want to ruin the peace in the car. He doesn’t want to make his mother sad, despite the fact that his heart burns with how she keeps hurting him, these days. 

Minho fumes in silence until his mother pulls into their driveway.  

♪

Minho and Jisung are skipping Bible study today. 

“You think if we were back home—”

“Home?” Minho asks. 

Jisung turns to look at Minho. “Ah. I forget that you were born here, sometimes,” he says quietly, almost to himself. 

“Born and bred, baby,” Minho says with an exaggerated southern drawl, teasing a laugh out of Jisung. 

“Shut up,” Jisung says mid-giggle. His laugh begins to peter away into the quiet. 

Voice lowered, Jisung continues. “I meant like…if we were in Korea.”

“Ah.”

“I know you’ve never been, but pretend with me?” 

Minho smiles. He knows this game really well. It’s one of Jisung’s favourites. “We’re playing if roulette already?” 

“Yes. Pressing questions like mine don’t wait for answers,” Jisung says, and then tugs at the seam of Minho’s shorts. “Tell meeeeee. Do you think we’d still know each other? If we weren’t here, right now.” 

Minho tilts his head as he considers it. Another life, outside of this place that he calls home. “I don’t know,” he begins to say, immediately interrupted by Jisung clicking his teeth. 

“Minho,” Jisung whines, stressing the first syllable the way he does when he wants Minho to commit to the ‘fantasy of if roulette’. 

Minho would never admit it, but he loves this game, and he loves the wacky scenarios they’ve painted with it before. If Jisung was anyone else, Minho would be annoyed. 

But this is Jisung. There are a few truths in the universe, and his soft spot for Jisung is the biggest one. 

That weird, fizzy feeling—Minho has a name for it now, but he doesn't dare say it out loud. He keeps it in the recesses of his mind and wonders if God can hear his thoughts. He hopes not. 

“I think so,” Minho says as Jisung stretches his hands out behind him. “I think we’d know each other.” 

“I’d probably call you hyung,” Jisung says. 

Minho’s heart flutters in his chest. “Really?” 

Jisung hums. “Yeah. I mean, I used to call every slightly older guy I was comfortable with hyung, you know?” 

Minho deflates. 

“But like,” Jisung interrupts Minho’s brooding, “I think it’s become less of a routine thing these days. I don’t have to call anyone by anything but their first name over here…” Jisung pulls at the skin of his bottom lip. “But I still would. Call you hyung, that is.”

Minho’s heart accelerates. Distantly, a car whizzes by; 80 on a 60. 

“You still should, you mean,” Minho says, deflecting with something easy. “I am older than you, after all.”

“Barely older—” Jisung begins. 

“Older by a year,” Minho cuts in. 

Jisung drags his eyes away from the distant spot in the sky they’ve been focused on and turns his body to face Minho. 

“That is such a lie,” Jisung says, pairing his words with a smack to Minho’s shoulder. Minho lets out an overly loud ow in response. 

“Is not,” Minho replies, his lips curling at the satisfaction of having Jisung’s attention. The stars are pretty, but Minho can always look at them later. Jisung, though. Jisung gets more beautiful everyday. 

The stars are beautiful, but they’re millenia old. Jisung changes every day, and Minho hasn’t gone a day without discovering a new side of him. 

Minho wishes he could hit pause. How can he preserve the way that 16 year old Jisung’s eyes sparkle? The way he sits back with no tension in his shoulders—the other half to Minho’s keyed up strings. The way his fingers, uncalloused before, have begun to wear grooves and dents from a new fixation with the guitar. 

“It is,” Jisung says, folding his arms in front of his chest. Ah, and the best one of them all—the exception. The one that hasn’t changed at all: the way that Jisung responds to teasing. 

Minho taps a finger against Jisung’s scrunched up nose. “I’m older by a year. It’s why your mom trusted me enough to drive us here,” he says, snatching his hand away when Jisung’s tongue darts out in an attempt to lick Minho's finger. 

“Yeah, see? You’re a baby,” Minho says with a laugh, exaggerating his movement as he holds his hand far away like it's on the run from another surprise lick. 

“You’re a baby,” Jisung says, “and you’re distracting me from our very important thought exercise.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Minho says, settling his hands back down on his own lap. “I guess I should have more respect for my dongsaeng, huh?” 

Jisung shakes his head, but a smile continues to play on his face. “Exactly. You need to respect your youngers,” he says, waggling his finger.

“Huh. I thought I was supposed to respect my elders—”

“You thought wrong,” Jisung lilts, rearranging his limbs and extending his legs out in front of him. The movement draws Minho’s eyes to the bandaids pressed into those knocked-together knees. 

“Does it still hurt?” 

Jisung notices where Minho’s looking and sighs. “It was just a fall, Minho. I swear I’m fine.”

Minho begs to differ. Jisung was bleeding when he tumbled off the bicycle and scraped his knee against gravel, just because Minho insisted that they need to hurry. 

Jisung’s hurt, and Minho feels responsible. 

Jisung fills Minho’s silence. “I’m healing,” he says, wincing slightly. “You worry too much. Which, I guess, brings me back to my point. I’d want to call you hyung, even in that other universe where I’m picky.” 

Minho feels his ears getting hot. 

“I’d make the cut?” he asks. 

He already sees this alternate version where Minho stores all the visions that seem too good to be true. Would life be better, all the way on the other side of the world? Minho doesn’t know what it’s like, but he thinks about the place his parents came from often. Mama tells Minho that harabeoji and halmeoni don’t live in the city, that they live somewhere further away. She tells Minho stories of cats that used to live in the family home, and vacations in Jeju. 

“Yes. It’d probably be a whole thing,” Jisung says. “I’d graduate you to hyung status.” 

“You mean I’d let you call me hyung,” Minho says, indulging in Jisung’s fantasy game some more. “Or are you forgetting are-we-friends-gate?” 

Jisung groans, covering his face with his hands. “Don’t remind me,” he whines. 

“What was it you said?” Minho continues. “Minho. Stupid question. No pressure, please don’t answer if you hate me. In fact, don’t tell me if you hate me. Ahhh. What the hell. Why is this so hard? We’re friends, right?” 

Jisung groans louder. “Why do you have my nervous monologue memorised?” 

“Why wouldn’t I?” Minho asks simply. “Ah, and then you ran away before I could even answer,” Minho says with a giggle, poking a finger into Jisung’s side. “Let’s be honest, Jisungie. I’d have to graduate you to you can now call me hyung status.” 

Jisung bends his body away from Minho’s poke. “Ouch. You’re so rude,” he complains, rolling away from Minho, throwing his body into the grass until the gap in between them increases. 

When he comes to a stop, his hair has a piece of grass stuck in it, and his eyes are wide. “I could be brave if I wanted to be,” Jisung says grumpily, pointing an accusing finger at Minho like he’s ready to fight.

Minho’s eyes get stuck on how messy Jisung’s hair has become with the tumble. “You can call me hyung, Jisung,” Minho says, watching surprise bloom on Jisung’s face like it’s his favourite show. 

“Really?” Jisung asks. “Even though I don’t really call anyone hyung anymore?” 

Especially because you don’t call anyone hyung anymore, Minho doesn’t say. “Of course,” Minho says with a shrug. “We don’t always speak in English, so if you want…” 

Jisung’s eyes remain wide, a little spacey like he’s thinking about something deeply. 

“You know, you really look like a bug when you do that with your eyes,” Minho says with an amused huff. 

Jisung blinks, snapping his open mouth shut and tilting his head. His hair flops to one side with the movement. “What?” 

“Yeah,” Minho says, rolling in the grass and tumbling until their knees brush against each other, until the gap in between them is non-existent once again. 

Minho pokes the underside of Jisung’s thigh and wonders if he’s see-through. Is his desire to touch, to be close, to lie down right here as clear to Jisung as it seems to Minho? 

Minho opens his mouth to complete his half-spoken thought, but his phone vibrates in his pocket. “Shit,” Minho mutters under his breath. His back goes stiff. 

Jisung notices. “Your mother already?” 

“Mm,” Minho hums, taking his phone out and picking up the call. 

“Minho,” says her tinny voice, pressed flush against Minho’s reddened earlobe. 

Minho turns his face away from Jisung. “Hi, mama. Is it okay if I spend another hour…?” he trails off, softens his words.

“Of course,” she says, her voice warm as it falls into Minho’s ear. Minho exhales in relief. “Who are you with?” she asks, and Minho brushes away the urge to make an excuse. He doesn’t even know why he feels so guilty. There’s nothing damning about spending time with Jisung. 

“I told you, I’m with Jisung,” Minho says. 

“Ah,” his mother responds. There’s something in her tone, then, and Minho hears the sound of something sizzling in the background.  

“What?” Minho asks. He pulls his phone off his ear and checks the time. 8:40. It’s way past dinner time. She’s usually not in the kitchen right now. 

“Nothing,” she says, sounding short. “I made beef wellington tonight.” 

“Aw,” Minho says. “I wanted to have some, too.” He keeps his tone light and wonders how his throat isn’t clogging up with all the things he doesn’t say. Why are you making me feel bad for nothing? Why do you call every few hours? Why can’t I think without worrying that you can hear everything? 

Jisung’s palm settles over Minho’s shoulder, leaving a soft, barely-there squeeze. The tension in Minho dissolves, if only in the space in between this soundless moment and the next interruption. 

Something clangs on the other end of the call. “Well, you should’ve stayed home, then,” she says. Minho thinks it’s supposed to be something teasing, something light. It feels like a reprimand. 

“Okay,” she says, not waiting for Minho's response. “See you soon, Minho-yah.”

Minho hangs up the call and looks up at the sky, watching a star twinkle until it goes blurry. Can you hear me? 

“Hyung,” Jisung says, cautious and slow. 

Minho blinks and brings his focus back down to earth. Heaven can wait. “Yes, Jisungie.” 

Jisung exhales. “Are you okay?” he asks, tucking his knees close to his chest. The picnic blanket under them scrunches up under Jisung’s body. 

Minho syncs his breathing to Jisung’s inhale, exhale, inhale. “I’m okay,” he says, ignoring the dense weight that lives inside him, right atop his chest. The fear that the future will be the same as the present. 

It’s a permanent fixture, at this point. Minho imagines this fear dangling its legs over the edge of everything he feels. It feels bigger by the day, weaving itself into Minho’s life, this love, the whims of his heart. 

Minho realises, then, that Jisung called him hyung. He tears his eyes away from the piece of grass he’s pinching in between his index and thumb and brings his gaze to Jisung. 

When Minho catches Jisung already looking at him, those eyes widen again. “Look at you,” Minho coos, reaching out to ruffle Jisung’s hair. 

Instead of resisting it, Jisung does what he always does. He leans into the touch, outward with his affection. How is it so easy for you, Minho thinks. He’s everything Minho hasn’t been allowed to be so far. 

In this private moment, he feels one reckless, weightless moment of peace, sunbeam-warm against his fingertips. 

Minho knows what he feels for Jisung. He’s scared of it, but he knows it. And sometimes, when Jisung’s face goes blank with contentment the minute that Minho touches him, Minho thinks that Jisung feels the same.  

Jisung wouldn’t be scared. Jisung isn’t scared. Nothing fazes him. Minho’s wariness, Jisung’s recklessness. Worthy opponents.

Maybe that’s why his mom acts so weird about Jisung. He’s an anomaly, out of place in Minho’s world; built on quiet exchanges and pats on the back and silent dinners. A burst of colour—unusual, inviting. Minho’s little extraterrestrial. 

Minho thinks back to wondering if Jisung is a witch and takes it back. 

Jisung isn’t a witch, he’s an alien. He arrived in his flashy UFO, crash landing into Minho’s life and redefining every small thing, every mundanity, until Minho learned to name feelings that he didn’t even know he was allowed to feel. 

Minho’s hand travels down Jisung’s cheek, and Jisung nuzzles into it, unaware of the adoration running through Minho’s veins. 

Jisung’s eyes are still slightly wide as they assess Minho. 

“Bug,” Minho says, out of nowhere.

Jisung starts. “Huh?” 

“You were staring, bug.” 

Jisung blinks a Minho-number of times. A slight blush rises on his face, and Minho’s thankful for the moon. Without her light, he wouldn’t be able to see that subtle pink and learn that Jisung liked that. 

“Uhmmm…” Jisung’s mouth opens and closes, like he can’t choose which word he wants to say. 

“Cute,” Minho murmurs. “You like the way bug sounds,” he notes, more of an observation than a question. 

Air leaves Jisung’s nostrils with a whistly squeak. Minho giggles and begins to gather the water bottles and the snack wrappers around them. He doesn’t want to leave, but the weight of his phone in his pocket is a reminder that he’s on a time limit. The more he waits, the more of his mother’s guilting sessions he’ll have to sit through. 

Jisung shuffles a bit next to him. “Hyung,” he says, and his voice is suddenly so solemn that Minho drops everything to meet widened brown eyes. 

“You’re good?” Minho asks, searching Jisung’s face. He watches Jisung gulp, fidgeting with a loose thread on the hem of his shirt. He rolls it in between his fingers, back and forth and back and forth. 

Jisung clears his throat. “I wanted to tell you that…you mean a lot to me,” he says. “I…” he exhales, and it hits the night like a stone skipping across water. “This place would suck without you.”

Minho feels his eyebrows furrow. “I…” This seems serious, so he responds in kind. “I feel the same way, Jisungie.” 

“I want the best for you,” Jisung says quickly, like the words are spilling out of him. “You deserve good things, you know?”

It’s Minho’s turn to stare at Jisung, wide-eyed, stunned into silence. 

“And—it’s just that…” Jisung’s voice cracks. He clears his throat and reaches over Minho’s lap to grab a water bottle. Minho watches Jisung’s throat bob as he tips his head back to drink it down. 

Minho isn’t sure he manages to avert his eyes before Jisung’s gaze is on him again. 

“I’m trying to work up the courage to tell you something,” Jisung says. “And it’s hard. Because sometimes I think you know—sometimes I think that you get it, but other times…” 

Something familiar tugs in Minho’s heart as he listens to Jisung’s words. The nervousness, the dilemma. The fact that Minho sometimes catches Jisung looking at him with so much feeling that it would be clear even if Minho was blindfolded. 

Some part of Minho knows what’s coming, and still—there isn’t a force in the world that could prepare him for the weight that lifts once Jisung says it. 

“Here goes nothing,” Jisung says, setting his shoulders back, looking at Minho with his head held high, exactly how he always should. “I’m gay, Minho-hyung.” 

Minho blinks. He doesn’t know what hits him first—the I’m gay or the Minho-hyung.  

“Me too,” Minho says, but his voice is a whisper, nowhere near as loud as Jisung’s. 

Jisung’s mouth falls open. “What?” 

Minho reels. Oh, he just said those words out loud. 

“Minho, what?” Jisung asks, pulling Minho’s attention back to him. “What do you mean me too?”

“I’m…you know,” Minho says, filling in the quiet that follows Jisung’s question. He waves his hand in the air, hoping that it’ll convey what isn’t coming out of his mouth. I’m gay, too.  

Minho bites his tongue. If he says it out loud, the thought will leave his head and it’ll become real. Realer than it already is right now, blossoming into something shared.

“You’re gay?” Jisung asks, his voice coated with disbelief.  

Minho nods. He still can't say the word. He tries, though. He really, really tries. Jisung is so brave, and Minho wishes he could be the same, but the sound seems stuck in his throat. 

When he tries to force it out, the only thing that leaves is a strange-sounding croak, not that different from the army of frogs ribbit ribbit ribbit ing in the distance.

Jisung’s hand arrives over Minho’s, his warm palm soothing against the icy burn of this conversation. It’s everything Minho wanted and the one thing he’s been running away from. 

All that avoiding, and for what? Jisung is looking at Minho like he’s salvation, even though Minho feels like everything but. 

Minho feels like he needs to look over his shoulder, check to see if someone overheard. He feels like he should take his phone back out of his pocket and make sure he actually hung up the call with his mother. What if she heard? What if she’s on her way here? What if Minho goes home and no one opens the door? What if—

“Minho-hyung,” Jisung says, his voice softer now. When did Jisung come so close? Minho can smell the mint in his breath from the gum that he never stops chewing. “Breathe, baby.” 

Minho’s breath hitches. The words fall over him like a bucket of cool water, spilling over his brain to wash away the hot, sticky night. 

Resurfacing, Minho meets Jisung’s eyes and forgets how to speak at the sincerity he finds. He notices that his hands are shaking where they’re trapped, clasped together under Jisung’s palm. Jisung’s thumb swipes over Minho’s knuckles, back and forth and back and forth until the paranoia disappears. 

For a moment, Minho is relieved. He isn’t alone. God, he isn’t alone. He’s never been alone. Take that, he thinks. This isn’t nothing. It’s terrifying. It’s the beginning. It’s everything. 

“We’ll be okay,” Jisung says, sidling up close, close, closer, until he turns to face away and drops his head on Minho’s shoulder. Minho wishes he could keep him there forever. He wishes going home wasn’t the inevitable end of tonight. 

Then, Jisung says it once more, “We’ll be okay.” 

♪

If Minho’s mother didn’t like Jisung before, she certainly wouldn’t like him now. 

Senior year is boring. Minho and Jisung were never too worried about the school part. They’re in all the same classes, and where Minho finds himself blanking, Jisung steps in and explains. Jisung has grown to love subjects like Literature and History more than Minho, and Minho has grown to love Jisung more than life itself.

It’s a well-oiled machine. For every math problem that Jisung seeks Minho’s help for is a novel that Jisung summarises for Minho because he doesn’t like the required readings. 

“Who cares,” Minho groans, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palms after they go over symbolism in The Great Gatsby for what feels like the thousandth time. “They’re taking the fucking fun out of reading,” he complains, not bothering with lowering his voice, because they’re studying at Jisung’s place tonight. 

“Better than exponential functions,” Jisung mutters, flipping over to the next page and swiping at highlighter off Minho’s side of the table. 

The movement draws Minho’s eyes to Jisung’s eyelashes, fluttering prettily with every blink. It’s hard not to stare, especially when Jisung isn’t aware of the attention he always pulls out of Minho, especially when he looks away. 

It’s always easy to look at Jisung when he isn’t looking back. 

It’s even harder to look away now, though, because Jisung recently dyed his hair. No one at their high school spared his electric blue makeover a second glance, but Minho had stopped in his tracks—mid-hallway, mouth hanging open—when Jisung showed up to school yesterday sporting this new look. 

“The blue suits you,” Minho blurts out once his staring session adequately scrambles his brain. 

Jisung looks up at Minho through his lashes, and Minho’s breath catches. 

At 17, the most adventurous that Minho’s been with his look is a pair of bright red shoes and a recent decision to let his hair grow out, just a little bit. For the most part, Minho’s just Minho. 

Jisung at 17 is a whole other story. He’s pretty. A beacon, funneling all of Minho’s attention towards him. A far cry from the 14 year old that Minho first became friends with. Even behind the closed doors of his mind, Minho’s guilt won’t stop him from admitting that Jisung is growing up to be so handsome. He’s filling up his frame, all widened shoulders and capable hands. His style is always changing—all black one day, something pink and fluffy the next. Minho’s personal favourite was a jacket Jisung wore last winter, white and soft to the touch. It gave him an excuse to run his hand down the length of Jisung’s arm, to keep touching without worrying about how he comes off.  

Jisung wears rings that he finds in thrift stores that he drags Minho to and necklaces from his mother’s collection. Where there’s Jisung, there’s something shiny. 

Minho tries to branch out sometimes. Jisung tells him that he’s stylish, stressing that he really likes how Minho dresses when he dances. He wears t-shirts and hoodies in all the wacky ways that the dancers in the videos he grew up watching did. Having a single arm in your sleeve and another out is great for circulation, and even greater, apparently, for attracting the boy you have a crush on’s attention. 

Jisung’s socked foot arrives to poke at Minho’s under the table. 

Minho jumps. “Lost you there for a moment, hyung,” Jisung says. “But thank you.” 

Minho forgets about his previous train of thought and watches Jisung bring a self-conscious hand up to his hair to run it through his strands. Two of the shorter ones fall back into his face, framing full cheeks and rounded eyes perfectly. 

“It really suits you.” 

“Flirt,” Jisung replies, but a blush sits on his cheeks. 

Minho clears his throat, trying to push down the million other compliments he wants to drop in Jisung’s lap. It’s true, he’s flirting. It’s also true that Jisung is just beautiful, and there isn’t a world in which he’d be quiet about it. 

It doesn’t ever stop being true, though—the flirting bit. If Minho was braver, Jisung would be his. If Minho was another person, Jisung wouldn’t be able to walk down the street without everyone in town knowing that Minho loves him, Minho loves him, Minho loves him. 

“What made you want to dye it, though?” Minho asks, pushing his book away. Deal with it, Jay Gatsby. 

Jisung sets the pink highlighter held between his fingers down, and says, “I thought…um. That it would be pretty?” 

He sounds nervous. Minho is more endeared by it than is probably normal, but he’s long past the point of pretending that the things he feels for Jisung are normal. 

“It is,” Minho affirms easily. 

“And also I like that I’m probably the only person in a 100 mile radius with blue hair,” he says with a laugh. “It, um. Fits. Makes me feel like I look the way I feel.” 

Minho hums, trapping Jisung’s ankle between his two feet under the table. “Like, you feel blue?” 

“No,” Jisung shakes his head. “Well…it’s impossible not to feel blue sometimes. But it’s more that I feel like I stick out either way, blue hair or not.” 

“Ah,” Minho says. A few-years-old thought floats back up to his mind. “Like an alien.” 

Jisung’s eyes light up. “I…wow. Yes. I was just thinking that, but I thought it’d be childish if I said it, but yeah. I—” 

A knock sounds through the room, and Jisung’s head turns towards his door. 

“Hi, honey,” Jisung’s mother says from outside the door. “I wanted to let you guys know that I picked dinner up on the way home. Come eat if you’re hungry.” 

Jisung slides off the chair and goes to open the door to his bedroom. “Eomma, you didn’t tell me you were back home,” he whines, pushing the door fully open. 

“Hi, eomeon—” 

“Minho-yah. I told you to call me Hyejeong,” she says, narrowing her eyes for a moment before she reaches out to ruffle his hair. 

Minho huffs. “It’s disrespectful,” he says, narrowing his eyes back. “You can’t expect me to give up my values like this. What if you’re just testing me?” 

He gets a good-natured eye roll in response. “I’m not here to play mind games. I’m not testing you. Promise,” she says. 

Jisung snickers. “Okay, okay. Let’s go eat. I think this is my hundredth time witnessing this conversation.” 

“Not my fault!” she lilts, turning around and signalling them to follow her to the kitchen. “Your best friend is too much of a gentleman.” 

“I’m really n—” Minho begins. 

“He is,” Jisung interrupts. “My prince charming,” he says, pretending to swoon once they come to stop. He nearly falls into Minho’s arms, and Minho scrambles to catch him, putting a steadying hand on Jisung’s shoulder. 

From where she’s watching, Jisung’s mother clears her throat. “Can we eat, or should I wait for this romantic movie to end?” 

Jisung chuckles and steps away, squeezing around Minho’s wrist once before he rushes to help his mother set the plates. 

Minho’s ears burn as he follows suit, and he hopes that his slowly growing out hair covers up the proof of how much Jisung managed to fluster him with something as simple as a touch of a hand. 

While they eat, Jisung’s cheeks are stuffed full with food when his mother breaks the comfortable silence in between the three of them. “So…are you both doing your big city weekend trip?” 

Minho swallows his bite of sushi. “Um, my mother still hasn’t…said anything.” 

Her face flickers with something before she nods. “You asked her?” 

Minho worries his bottom lip. “I did,” he says. It was hard, asking to visit a city 200 miles away with Jisung for an entire weekend. But the promise of spending 48 (and then some) uninterrupted hours with his best friend won him over, so he braved it. His hands shook and his mother asked him a million questions, but he did it. 

“All she said was we’ll see.” 

“Hm. I don’t see why she’d say no,” she says, sitting back in her chair and folding her arms in front of her. “Let me know if you need me to talk to her, okay? A grad trip is a big thing.” 

“Ah…mmyesah,” Jisung says through a mouthful of food. “M eomma’ll cohmince yuhs.” 

“Huh?” Jisung’s mother says. “What did those words even mean?” 

“He said my eomma will convince yours,” Minho says. 

Jisung nods repeatedly, giving Minho a thumbs up, and swallows his food. “Also, hyung didn’t do anything for his 18th birthday, so we have to go.”

Minho waves his hand. “That’s all the way in the past. What about your 18th? Much more important things to consider.” 

“Hey,” Jisung and his mother say together. 

Minho raises his hands in surrender. “Woah.” 

“It’s not much more important,” Jisung says. “Your 18th was supposed to be, like—”

“Yeah,” Minho says, not wanting to get into it. He still can’t erase the realisation that his mother would rather make a day about herself than let Minho do something fun for what was supposed to be a milestone age. “It’s okay. My cousins got me a cupcake at night.”

Jisung’s mother shakes her head. “I just don’t understand why Eunji didn’t let you sleep over. Why would you want to go to a random cousin’s house on your birthday?” 

“Hah,” Minho laughs wryly. “I think a sleepover is asking for too much.” 

“We’ll fix it,” Jisung says, “I’m going to get you a real cake on our trip that your mother will let us go on.” 

Jisung looks so determined when he says it that Minho can’t find it in himself to squash the hope. 

Minho and Jisung are back upstairs when a hastily-folded brochure, shoved deep into the bottom of Minho’s backpack, falls out and onto the floor. 

It’s a likely enough thing to happen since Jisung always helps Minho pack up his bag when his unofficial-but-not-really-unofficial curfew approaches, but Minho can’t help but feel like he’s been caught doing something wrong when Jisung swoops down to pick up the bright blue coloured paper from the floor. 

Minho goes very still, frozen in his indecision. Should he shut this down while he’s ahead or let Jisung in to this stupid, hopeless dream? 

Jisung makes the decision for Minho. His eyes scan the text slowly. 

To his own detriment, Minho has the brochure memorised so well that he knows exactly what part Jisung pauses on when he looks back up to meet Minho’s eyes. 

Minho expects to see surprise, or affront, or—worst case scenario—disgust. But Jisung, sweet, unpredictable Jisung, is a book that Minho knows how to read better than most, and the only thing written on his face right now is…excitement?

“Hyung,” he says, surging to stand up. He leaves the brochure on the bed, its bright yellow text standing out like a dare: APPLY NOW TO THE CENTENNIAL PERFORMER’S DANCE SCHOLARSHIP. 

Jisung grabs Minho by the shoulders. “You have to apply. You’re applying, right?”

“Uh—”

“Hyung,” Jisung says, his voice an octave deeper, the way it gets when he wants to say something weighted and serious. 

Minho sighs. “I want to,” he says, soft enough that the admission is for Jisung’s ears only. 

Jisung’s hands are warm on Minho’s shoulder. “You should. God, hyung. You’re such a talented dancer.” 

Minho scoffs. “Bug, what do you know—”

“I know enough. I know so much about music, but you—hyung, music moves for you. You think I watch you practice just because?” 

Minho shrugs. 

“Silly,” Jisung tuts, smacking Minho’s shoulder lightly. “I watch because you’re a performer. And you’re this good with no training.”

Jisung exhales. “I know you feel it too, Minho. You belong on a stage,” he says. 

“I…” Minho feels at a loss for words. “Thank you, Jisungie. I—really like it. Yeah. Dancing means the world to me. But doing it after high school—don’t you think it’s…?”

“Don’t I think what?” Jisung tilts his head. 

“Unrealistic,” Minho says, grimacing as he remembers his already-submitted college applications, all of them for science programs. Pre-med, then med school, then this, then that. Minho’s mother had it all planned, and Minho was too tired to fight it. 

“There’s nothing more real than how much you love dance, Minho,” Jisung says, his eyes searing right into Minho’s. Minho tries to look away, but he can’t. Jisung’s holding him captive. It surprises Minho, even though it shouldn’t. Jisung cares, he always does. 

“I’ll need to submit an audition tape,” Minho says. “I don’t know how—how I’ll get to film…”

Jisung takes one of Minho’s hands in between both his palms, holding him until the touch grounds Minho back down, stopping his brain from running haywire about everything that could go wrong, everything he can’t do, everything that makes this hard. 

“Easy,” Jisung says. “I’ll film it for you. On our trip.” 

Minho’s mouth lifts in a half-smile. “Ah. Did I just find myself a cameraman?” 

Jisung huffs. “Baby, you don’t even know the half of it.” 

Minho raises his eyebrows. 

“I’m going to be the stage mom slash supportive best friend of your dreams,” Jisung says, bouncing on the balls of his feet and nodding repeatedly. “And I will make sure that you film this audition if it’s the last thing I do.”

It’s easy, then, to just believe in Jisung. Jisung makes believing easier than it’s ever been. 

Who knew faith could be so simple?

♪

Exams pass, summer vacation begins. It’s weird, but Minho feels like that was the easy part. Studying is reliable. You do it, and it gives you the result you seek. Countless practice papers and a thick stack of flashcards later, exam season is already a fading memory. 

What comes after—this part isn’t easy. Minho and Jisung applied to some of the same schools, but they don’t discuss it much. Minho’s mother made sure most of Minho’s applications were sent to schools in the same state, and Jisung…

Well, Minho doesn’t really know. He doesn’t know where Jisung wants to go, but what if it isn’t Missouri? What if it’s somewhere too far for Minho to drive? What if Jisung leaves, and Minho can’t follow because he’s too busy being tied down by obligation? 

That’s the hard part, and Minho’s brain is already counting down, assuming the worst. 

It’s already the end of June. 

The one thing that Minho always hated about summer is that it’s slippery. A blink, and a month has passed. Ice cream runs with Jisung, family time with his parents, college acceptance letters. Minho’s grateful he got in, but part of him still has his heart set on a dance audition he hasn’t even filmed.   

The end of summer feels like the least of his worries, though. First, he needs to be able to go on the grad trip with Jisung. 

It’s 10 days to Minho and Jisung’s grad trip weekend when Minho makes his final appeal to his mother. 

“Mama,” he says, twisting the fabric of his sleeve in between his fingers. His back digs into the kitchen island. She’s cutting an onion, half-distracted by the drama playing on her phone when she hums to show that she’s listening. 

“About the trip with Jisung…” he trails off. 

She sets the knife down and turns to face Minho. 

“It’s coming up and Jisung was asking me to confirm if I can make it,” he says, pasting as neutral of a smile he can muster up on his face even though his heart is beating out of his chest. He’s prepared for the worst—for her to say I know what you feel. For her to ask him to leave and never come back. 

Minho feels like he’s up on the stand as she tilts her head, staring at him curiously. “Are you nervous about asking me, aegi?” 

“Um,” Minho has to manoeuvre this properly. It’s a minefield, rigged to make him take the wrong step, miscalculate, trip over himself. 

Minho chooses sincerity. “Yes. Jisung’s my best friend,” he says, pouring all the emotion that lives inside him into his voice. “It would really mean a lot if we could celebrate high school finishing together.” 

Minho nearly slumps with relief when his mother’s face softens, just a little. A few beats pass, and she asks, “You’ll be safe?”  

“Yes,” Minho says, as firm as he possibly can. 

“And…don’t go anywhere you shouldn’t, okay?” 

“Okay, mama.” 

“Promise me. I won’t be watching, but God will. He can see everything. Don’t let yourself stray, Minho-yah.” 

“Yes, mama,” Minho says, feeling the pit in his stomach grow more hollow. If asking her something this simple was this hard, how is he ever going to ask for more? 

“Okay,” she nods. “Hyejeong called me as well. She told me you'll both be safe, and that’s all I really worry about, aegi. As long as you’ll be safe, you can go.” 

Minho’s mouth drops open on a silent gasp. “Really?” 

She returns to her onion cutting. “Yes, really. Don’t say I never let you do what you want, hm?” 

Minho bites his tongue and says, “I love you. Thank you, mama.” 

“I love you too, Minho-yah.” 

Minho waits until he walks 10 steps away. He goes up the staircase slowly, waiting to be called back. He waits before he enters his room, keeping an ear out for an actually, Minho-yah, I changed my mind…

Nothing comes. There is just the distant sound of a knife against a cutting board, of Minho’s joy thrumming in his veins. 

Holy shit. She said yes. 

“She said yes?” Jisung repeats the next morning, way too loud for Bible study. To be fair, though, he’s only here because Minho texted him COME TO BS NOW I NEED TO TELL U SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT. All caps, because this is the kind of news that calls for it. 

About 30 minutes after Minho’s text, Jisung had shown up with a bottle of ice water pressed against his temple, panting like he just ran a mile. Barely anyone in the makeshift classroom batted an eye.

The one thing Minho loved about summer is how everyone stopped caring. 

Slowed down, holiday-lazy, barely anyone even shows up to discuss the Bible anymore. Everyone’s just here to fuck around. 

“She said yes,” Minho confirms. 

Jisung squeals. “Oh my god. Minho, this means…we’re going to fucking St. Louis,” he whisper-screams. 

Aunty Kim still manages to hear him, and Jisung mimes zipping his mouth shut when he earns a cleared throat and sharp glare from her. 

“If we could all turn to Genesis 1:26…” she says, pointedly staring at them. Minho pretends to flip his pages until she stops paying attention.  

Jisung pulls out his phone from his pocket and begins typing. 

bug 

Today 09:47

WE’RE GOING TO FUCKING ST LOUISSSSSSS

i’m so excited 

we have to plan our outfits 

you’ll let me pick for you from your closet right? 

rhetorical question I’LL SNEAK IN AND DO IT IF U DON’T

omg I’m so excited i would be screaming if teacher lady didn’t have it out for me 

we’re going to film ur dance audition when we go ok???? 

AHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

ur driving us???????

Instead of getting his own phone out, Minho watches the text bubbles on Jisung’s screen and nods. 

Jisung’s face lights up. 

Minho genuinely didn’t think he’d be driving, but one newly gained license and a beat-down Ford Explorer offered to him without hesitation led him to the conclusion that Jisung’s mother trusts him far too much. 

Minho takes his phone out. 

Minho 

Ur mom’s car 

bug

her baby?????

how did you even convince her !!!!!!????

Minho 

No no she’s lending us the explorer 

bug 

BUT STILL!!

this is going to be so fun 

i swear you guys have secret conversations without me 

but it’s cool i like it 

you get along with most of my family 

are u trying to win my hand or something 🔍

Minho ignores the way his heart stutters in his chest at the meaning behind Jisung’s words. Always, he types, and then backspaces. Btw I love you, he types, and then backspaces. 

Minho 

I get along with everyone yes 

I’m a shining personality 

Wait actually  

I get along with everyone except uncle eric 

bug 

that’s true baby you’re my shining light 

and FUCK UNCLE ERIC!!!!!

homophobic ass 

the fact that u don’t get along with him means ur a green flag 

Minho puts his phone face down on the desk he’s sharing with Jisung and suppresses a giggle. A little laugh still escapes him, though, when he meets Jisung’s eyes, full of mirth. 

Jisung’s foot knocks against Minho’s ankle under the table, and the sneaking worries of senior year cease. 

Where they’re going after this, what Minho’s going to do with his future, what Minho wants to do with his future—everything pauses. He’ll worry about all that later.

♪

Minho wakes up 2 hours earlier than he usually does on the day of the trip. He’s excited. He barely slept the entire night. 

bug 

Today 12:26

Hyung 

Don’t forget ur toothbrush 

Minho 

thanks, jagi 

Minho sends the message and throws his phone back on the bed. He goes back to making sure he has enough pairs of socks in his backpack. Then, he freezes. Did he really just—

He picks his phone back up and checks his chat with Jisung. 

Ah, he really did. All those dramas his mother watches have finally infiltrated his common sense and turned him delusional. Jagi, really?

Before he can even consider backtracking, Jisung’s text bubble appears on screen. 

bug

hahahsherheyy

okay 

i’m very chill and dignified right now 

Attachment: 1 Image 

does ur jagi look cute enough for the trip?

Minho lowers the brightness on his phone just in case his mother sneaks up behind him to ask what he’s smiling at his phone about, and stares at the selfie Jisung just sent. 

And then he stares some more. 

Minho 

Your cheeks 

They look so red 

bug 

it’s pink!!!!!

Minho 

Sorry sorry 

bug

it’s okay because it’s you

i didn’t think you’d notice 

it’s blushhhhhhh

eomma lent me her makeup i’m taking it with me 

do u like it? 

Minho goes back to the selfie and zooms in, this time with the knowledge that Jisung’s wearing makeup. 

It isn’t just Jisung’s cheeks, too. There’s a light shine coated over his lips and his eyes look more pronounced, somehow. Minho doesn’t know enough—hasn’t been allowed to know enough—about what exactly is working to make Jisung’s eyes look that way, but all he knows is that he likes it. 

Jisung looks really fucking good. 

If Minho didn’t already know about his raging crush on his best friend, this selfie would be enough to send him over the edge. 

Minho

Jagi looks very cute 

bug

ahhhHHhh

i’m sure hyung looks very good too 

i like it, btw 

keep calling me jagi 

Minho 

Ok i’ll consider it

bug 

YAH

Minho’s smiling like a fool by the time he puts his phone back down and zips up his bag. He schools his expression back into something less incriminating and makes his way down. 

“You’re leaving?” 

Minho wraps a hand around the backpack strap digging into his chest. “Yes, mama.” 

The sounds coming from the TV reduce. “I noticed Jisung hasn’t been coming to church.” 

“Uh, yes,” Minho says cautiously. 

“It doesn’t make a good impression, you know. I know Hyejeong doesn’t care for church, but Jisung is still young.”

“I…he still comes, sometimes.” 

Minho elects not to add that Jisung only comes on days Minho says he doesn’t want to go. He comes when Minho needs company. He doesn’t come for God.

“Yes,” she says, nodding slowly. “Don’t let him influence you.” 

Minho grits his teeth. “Okay, mama.” 

“You both should make time for worship on Sunday. Okay?”

“Have fun, kid,” Minho’s father says from the kitchen. The microwave dings in the background. Minho slips his shoes on. 

And that’s the only goodbye Minho gets. 

It’s okay, he tells himself. He gets to have this, and that’s more than he ever thought he would. There’s no point dwelling on the things he wishes were different. 

As he steps out of his house, he sheds the version of him that lives with his parents, the version that never misses a Sunday of prayer, and lets the giddiness overtake. 

Just for the weekend, Minho tells himself. For the weekend, I’m going to become someone else.   

♪

The drive to St. Louis isn’t long, but Minho should have seen Jisung’s restlessness coming from a mile away. 

“Jagi,” Jisung says. It’s coming up on his 15th time calling Minho jagi after Minho’s text slip up. If Minho were to barter a guess, it would be that Jisung really likes it. 

Minho likes it, too. It’s sweet. It feels right to have this thing that they can call each other; private in the best way. Their mother tongue sneaking into their conversation. Something just for them that no one except the handful of people who speak Korean this side of Missouri can understand. 

“Hm, Jisung,” Minho says in acknowledgement, merging onto the right lane and letting the car behind them speed past. 

“Why is the road so long,” he whines. Minho catches him throwing his hands up in exasperation through his peripheral vision and bites back an amused giggle.  

“My bad,” Minho says, “I’ve been trying to make teleportation real for 5 years now, but the car lobbyists keep coming for my life.” 

Jisung gasps. “Oh my god…they’re onto you?”

“Mmm. I live on the edge.”

“So selfless,” Jisung says, and the sound of plastic crinkling makes Minho flick his eyes over to his left. 

“Ah, you know me. I do it all for impatient boys in passenger seats.” 

“I’ll feed you to show my gratitude,” Jisung says as places a potato chip against Minho’s mouth. 

Minho lets Jisung feed him. 

This isn’t that different from eating together at school, sharing each other's packed lunches without a second thought. Of course Jisung’s never fed him so directly, but Minho tries to be normal about the barest brush of a warm fingertip against his lower lip. 

“Oh,” Jisung says, his hand leaving the vicinity of Minho’s mouth. Minho feels his core unclench. 

“You’re going to have to be patient—” Minho begins, but then loses his train of thought when Jisung’s knuckles arrive to trap his earlobe in between them. 

“Your ears are so red,” Jisung murmurs. 

Minho’s brain goes blank. “Um.” 

The knuckles turn into a thumb teasing the skin of Minho’s ear. 

“Because the chips were spicy,” Minho says quickly. He can feel how much he’s heating up now, turning redder with every second Jisung keeps touching him. 

Jisung’s hand withdraws. “It’s salt and vinegar, jagi,” he says with a laugh. 

Oh. “I think they spiked their vinegar.” 

“Yeah, yeah. I see right through you, Mr. High Spice Tolerance,” Jisung says. The chip bag crinkles again. “Want another one?” 

“I’m good,” Minho says. “Keep enjoying those for the next—” he checks the navigation to confirm, “2 hours and 40 minutes.” 

“Oh my god,” Jisung groans, and Minho snickers in response. 

About 30 minutes after Jisung puts the chips away, Minho starts humming along with the song playing on the radio. 

“Hyung.” 

“Hm?” 

“I like your voice.” 

If his hands weren’t on the wheel, Minho would be slapping them on top of his ears. 

Jisung chuckles. He leaves Minho alone again, tapping around on his phone. Minho recognises the in-game sound as that one piano playing app that Jisung’s obsessed with. 

He puts his phone away after the closing notes of Call Me Maybe ring through the car.

“Nice,” Minho says. 

“Level 200, baby,” Jisung lilts, and then pokes Minho’s shoulder with his finger. 

“What's up?” Minho asks. 

“Hyung.” 

“Yes.” 

“Hyunggggggg.” 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m bored. Should we play a game?” 

“Okay, jagi.”

“Okay! I spy something yellow,” Jisung says. 

“The sign we just passed by.” 

Jisung clicks his teeth. “Too obvious,” he mutters to himself. “Your turn.”

“I spy something…pink,” he says, noticing the new addition to Jisung’s phone charm collection. 

“Me?” Jisung asks excitedly. 

“You’re pink?” Minho asks, looking at Jisung as he does. 

Jisung beams at Minho, fluttering his eyelashes as Minho notices the glitter on his eyelids. “Am I not?” 

Minho has to force his eyes to return to the road. “Point taken,” he says. “But also—wrong.”

“What! What else is pink?” 

“It’s your job to guess, bug.”

“But…”

“Look around,” Minho says after Jisung makes several long, loud thinking sounds. 

“That is such a bad hint, hyung-ah.” 

“Then try again, Jisung-ah,” Minho singsongs. 

“Hyunnggggggggggg—”

“Look down,” Minho says with an amused huff, only giving in after several uninterrupted seconds of Jisung dragging the sound. 

“Oh. My phone charm?” 

“Ding ding ding.” 

“I didn’t realise you noticed it,” Jisung says, almost quiet enough for Minho to miss it. 

“Of course I did. It’s new. And very cute.” 

“Cute like me?” 

“Ummmmmmmm,” Minho says, laughing at the offended gasp he gets in response before he admits the truth. “No. You’re cuter.” 

“Oh,” Jisung says, and then laughs nervously. “Okay, okay. I spy something handsome.” 

“You’re allowed to spy yourself?” Minho asks. 

“You little—” 

“Ah ah ah. Where’s the respect for your elders?” 

“You are one year older than me,” Jisung says with a hmph. “Is that your final answer?” 

Jisung has been a flirt since the day he grew comfortable with Minho, which was day 5 into their friendship, so Minho knows exactly where he’s going with this. 

Still, there’s comfort in their back and forth. The more they do it, the more Minho can convince himself that having this, just this, is enough. 

Minho quickly takes that thought back, shoving all the church bells and whistles to the back of his mind. He’s supposed to shed the guilty version of himself for this trip. So, in the spirit of saying fuck you to hometown Minho, it’s time to change it up. Reframe the thought. 

Minho wants Jisung to keep flirting with him not because it’s a fun substitute for the real thing, but because he wants it. 

“Yes,” Minho says, his voice rising with so much conviction that it sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of their game. 

Minho doesn’t bother softening the sentiment. He doesn’t want to push it down. He wants to commit, even if it’s just for the weekend. 

Naturally, then, he doubles down. “100%. No doubt. It’s my final answer.” 

“Hm. You seem really sure,” Jisung says, sounding suspicious. “But you’re wrong, hyung,” Jisung responds, and Minho can practically hear his shit-eating grin. 

“You’re the handsome thing I spied,” Jisung goes on to say, not letting Minho get a word out. 

Minho chuckles. “Careful, or I’ll think you’re flirting with me, jagi.”

Jisung sputters. “Huh? I mean—I…what. Where do you even…”

Minho hears him take a deep breath.

“I am,” Jisung says simply, matching Minho’s earlier conviction. It’s like they’re taking turns on the gay chicken wheel. “I thought we established this when I was 14.”

Jisung’s ringtone interrupts whatever Minho’s brave and slightly stupid alter ego was on the brink of confessing in return.

“Eomma!” Jisung says, shooting Minho an apologetic look as he puts his phone on speaker. 

“Hi, babies.” 

“Hi, Hyejeong,” Minho says. 

She cheers on the other end of the call. “That’s what I like to hear! Thank you, Minho. Okay, I don’t want to take too long because this is your time, but I’m calling because I got off the phone with Chan to confirm that his place is still free. He’s out of the country so you both probably won’t see him, but…” she pauses. 

“Okay, yes. I was just checking Chan’s message. Jisung, I gave you a set of keys. The biggest one is for his apartment. It’s on the 10th floor. I sent Minho the address.” 

“Hey,” Jisung says. “How come you didn’t send it to me?” 

“He’s the driver, honey,” she says. “And I know he’s going to take care of you. Aren’t you, Minho-yah?” 

“Yes ma’am,” Minho answers. 

“Good. Jisung, you take care of Minho too, okay?”

“Of course, eomma,” Jisung lilts. “And you take care of yourself.” 

Her laugh crackles, moving through static and distance. “I’ll be fine. The girls from book club are excited they get to come over without worrying about little kids overhearing us.” 

“Hey,” Jisung says, this time more indignant. It’s so cute. Minho wants to reach over and pinch his cheek for it, so he does. 

Jisung doesn’t swat Minho’s hand away like Minho expects him to.

He just sends Minho a slightly confused look that melts into a shy smile, and Minho feels his crush on Jisung grow 10 sizes bigger. 

Any more and his heart might be too little to contain it, but gaining a second heart is barely any trouble if it means he’ll be able to love Jisung that much harder. 

Minho tunes back into the real world when Jisung’s mother’s voice filters through the steady loop of JisungJisungJisung in his head.

“I want you both to have fun,” she says, and Jisung laughs. Yes, yes, he says, infectious in his agreement. We’ll have all the fun in the world.  

And for whatever it’s worth, Minho is inclined to agree. 

♪

Finding Chan’s condo ends up being so much easier than Minho thought it’d be. 

Minho whistles slowly as the gates to the parking entrance open, weaving the car through the maze of visitor spots before finding the number assigned to them through Jisung’s texts with his mother. 

“You never told me Chan was this loaded, Jisungie.” 

Jisung exhales. “Honestly, I didn’t even know. He’s been living here for a while. You know he’s only like 5 years older than us?” 

Minho clears his throat. 

“Ah, did I hurt your old man feelings? Fine, 5 years older than me. But he started working when he was super young and now he’s a bigshot music guy. He travels so much that eomma and I barely see him.” 

“Oh, so he’s traveling right now, then?” Minho asks as he looks over his shoulder and takes extra care in parking the car, leaving enough space for Jisung to get out. He knows how precious this car is to the Han family, and he’s prepared to protect it—and its occupant—with his life. 

“Yes, LA, I think? I don’t really know the specifics but he said something about closing an album deal.” 

“Impressive,” Minho says, putting the car in park. “No wonder he can afford this place.” 

Jisung starts gathering the mess of snack wrappers they made on their way here. “I know. I was so surprised when eomma said we can stay here, but apparently Channie-hyung likes me,” he says through a bright smile. 

Minho flicks away the irrational jealousy that flashes through him at the sound of Jisung calling someone else hyung and pops open the car door, stretching his legs out as soon as off the seat.

“Who wouldn’t like m—our Jisungie,” Minho says. 

In an effort to shove that slip up under the rug, Minho quickly opens up the trunk and pulls both of their backpacks out, slinging the heavier of the two (Jisung’s) over his shoulder and hanging the other, lighter one (Minho’s) off his forearm. 

The trunk closes with a slam, and Minho dutifully ignores Jisung’s protests about Minho carrying his bag as they make their way to the visitor’s entrance. 

An elevator and 10 floors later, Jisung breaks the comfortable, anticipatory silence. “Holy shit.” 

Minho enters behind Jisung, takes a look around, and has no other option but to echo Jisung. “Holy shit,” Minho says appreciatively, putting their backpacks to the side and venturing into the apartment. 

The shining countertop of the kitchen grabs his attention right away. Minho smooths a hand over the surface as Jisung appears on the other side of the kitchen island. 

“Channie-hyung is rich rich,” Jisung says, awed. 

Minho can’t say he feels any less amazed. “This kitchen is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Minho says, and Jisung promptly breaks into a fit of giggles. 

Minho turns his attention away from the fully-stocked fridge and to the laughing boy opposite from him. “What’s so funny?” he says, unable to stop himself from cracking a smile. Jisung’s laugher always rubbed off on him so, so easily. 

It’s hard not to respond to Jisung’s gummy smile. It’s hard not to love it, so Minho loves it. He commits the shape of Jisung’s teeth, exposed with laughter, into the depths of his memory, because this is a sight he’ll never want to forget. He’s sure of it. 

“You’re so weird,” Jisung says, his laughter dying down. “It’s my favourite thing about you.” 

Minho makes a thinking sound, putting his weight on his elbows as he leans against the island’s countertop, cold against the back of his arm. “Huh. So you like weird? You weren’t lying. You really are a strange little alien.” 

“Yah,” Jisung says, no bite to his tone. He looks like he’s about to say something when his face lights up with some kind of memory. 

“Okay, okay. Time out. You can’t distract me with your teasing because we have so much to do.” 

Minho redirects his gaze from the blue strand falling over Jisung’s forehead to the rest of his face. “We do?” 

“Yes,” Jisung confirms, nodding very seriously. “First up. Minho dance audition.” 

Minho groans. “Do we have to?” 

♪

Minho is quickly learning that filming yourself alone and filming yourself with another person (who you also have a crush on) (and also who knows you better than you know yourself, sometimes) is a whole new beast. 

The outfit is the easy part. Minho’s auditioning with a hip hop routine, so he chose his comfiest clothes. He never really liked overly elaborate costuming, and he’s in no mood to deal with a fancy outfit while trying to balance out the explosiveness of his movement with his texture. 

Courtesy of Jisung, Minho’s sleeve is pulled up on one side and he has a snapback on, pulling his hair away from his eyes. 

“You look good, hyung,” Jisung had said when Minho changed into his assigned dance sweats. Minho had tried not to blush when he got into position. 

That was then. 

Now, with 10 or more takes behind them, Minho feels frustration creep up on him. 

“Let’s just stop,” Minho says, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, trying to catch his breath. 

Jisung takes a moment longer than usual to reply. 

When Minho looks at him to make sure he’s still in the room, he finds Jisung staring at him, eyes slightly widened and unfocused. Minho recognises the look as inattention—it’s the same look he wore when he zoned out in class. 

What Minho doesn’t know is why Jisung has suddenly zoned out here, now. 

Is this boring? God, this is probably really boring. Jisung is too nice to say anything about it. He’s always too giving, especially when it comes to Minho. 

“Seriously,” Minho insists. “I think I’ll just submit the last take we filmed,” he says half-heartedly. He’s holding up their weekend of fun by fucking his choreography up. Not dragging this out is the least he can do. 

Jisung’s mouth snaps shut as his eyes regain their clarity. 

“No,” he says. “No, no, no. Jagi. One more time. It’s okay to be nervous. An audition clip isn’t a small thing, of course you’re going to want to do it as many times as possible.”

Minho runs a hand through his hair and shakes the sweat-separated strands out of his eyes. Jisung follows the movement a little too eagerly. 

“I keep messing up,” Minho says. “What if we never get it right?”

Jisung abandons the camera on the sofa and approaches Minho where he’s standing, alone in the centre of the cleared out living; a makeshift dance studio. 

Minho’s so used to dancing alone, in his room, with a mirror. It’s his comfort zone. 

Sure, he’s danced in front of Jisung a couple of times. And sure, the world didn’t end after. But today, the stakes are higher, and they keep making Minho second-guess himself. 

“You’re nervous,” Jisung says, taking Minho’s hand. “Which is funny, because you’re the best dancer I know.” 

“I’m the only dancer you kn—”

Jisung shushes him. “But you’re nervous because you care. Isn’t it scary, loving something enough that you’re scared to mess it up?” he asks, so sincere that it hurts. 

“Yes,” Minho says. The words come out truthfully, guided by Jisung’s fingers clasped around his own. “It’s the scariest thing in the world.” 

“And still—” Jisung says, stepping closer. His nose brushes against Minho’s cheek, so light that Minho could convince himself he imagined it. That all of this is another world, a vision, a dream. “Still, you keep loving it.” 

Minho nods. He exhales, and his eyes fall closed on their own, guided by the same instinct that tells him what move comes next when he freestyles. That same weightless feeling of knowing what’s coming even when he doesn't know what shape it’ll take.  

Jisung plants a soft kiss over the swell of Minho’s cheek, and Minho submerges. 

The world whites out, reducing to the breath that hits his cheek. 

Their hands remain clasped together, and Minho wonders if Jisung can feel it, too. The jackrabbiting rhythm of Minho’s heart. The love.  Should he open his eyes, make it real? Or should he pretend, beneath the darkness of his eyelids, that this all it can be? This, or nothing. 

Jisung’s body heat withdraws before Minho can make the decision. 

Resurfacing, Minho opens his eyes and saves the hard questions for later. 

“Good?” Jisung asks, still standing so close that Minho can smell his perfume—sweet with an edge that he can’t put a finger on. 

Minho feels his shoulders relax. He nods jerkily once, twice. “Good.” 

“Okay,” Jisung puts more distance in between them, grabs the camera. “Break a leg, baby.” 

♪

A fully filmed audition tape and a shower later, Minho’s putting the finishing touches on two bowls of ramen when Jisung reappears in the living room with his phone held up against his ear. 

“Channie-hyung,” Jisung lilts, and Minho tries to ignore that stupid, jealous creature in his heart. “I promise we won’t get into any trouble.”

Jisung ventures close enough for Minho to be able to make out what’s being said on the other end of the call. Hahahahah okay, okay. Can’t blame me for worrying, you’re just a baby.

“Yah,” Jisung cuts in.

You won’t get it now, but you really are. I just need you guys to make sure that you won’t drink.

Jisung nods, and Minho smiles at his eagerness. “We won’t! We don’t even want to drink.”

Okay, Chan says, sounding, in Minho’s opinion, entirely too indulgent. (Who wouldn’t be when it comes to Jisung?) I’ll text Binnie to let you guys in. But he won’t allow anyone to serve you drinks, so don’t even try—

“Hyung,” Jisung whines, and Minho almost responds as if Jisung is speaking to him. “We won’t drink. Pinky promise.” 

Okay, I trust you. Have fun— he starts to say, but Jisung interrupts him with a shriek and a thankyouthankyouthankyou. 

Jisung hangs up soon after and gasps when he spots the two bowls on the table. “Hyung,” he calls, “you made food for us.” 

“Of course,” Minho says, handing Jisung his pair of chopsticks and joining him at the table. They sit on the same side, shoulder to shoulder. “I wasn’t going to let y—let us go hungry.” 

“Thank you,” he says, looking at Minho with a sparkle in his eyes. 

Minho looks away as Jisung blows on his food, trying to speed up its cooling. 

“It’s nothing,” he says.

“No,” Jisung interjects, “thank you for the food, really. It’s everyth— fuck —hot, hot, hot—”

Minho almost surges forward to fix whatever the problem is before he notices Jisung fanning his open mouth. 

He lets out a quiet laugh. “You’re too impatient, Jisungie.”

“You can’t blame me,” Jisung says, his eyebrows pinching together when he swallows. “Food so good I’d burn my tongue for it.”

Minho waves his hand in dismissal. “Eat your food, Hannie.” 

“Woah. I’m Hannie now?” 

Minho pauses mid-bite. Huh. He didn’t even realise he said that. “Yes, it sounds cute. But if you hate it, then…”

“No! No. I like it.” Jisung gulps his food down. “I always thought Han would be the perfect stage name. It’s like you gave an another-universe version of me a nickname,” Jisung says, shoving another mouthful in between his cheeks. 

Minho hums. “Uh huh. Not another universe. I can see you being a popstar in this one.” 

Jisung flits his eyes away. “You really think that?” he asks, and his voice is quieter than it usually is. 

“Of course. You’re an all-rounder, Hannie. I’d be your biggest fan. I’d wear your face on my t-shirt,” Minho says. He knows he can’t overdo it. To Jisung, too much praise is insincerity. 

“I…” Jisung exhales. “Thank you, Minho. Really.” 

Minho tuts. “What’re you thanking me for? It’s just the truth.” 

“No, like. I’ve been nervous to tell you, but—” he looks back at Minho and worries his lip in between his teeth. 

Minho waits. He knows he just has to wait. No pushing, no prompting. Jisung moves to his own time signature. 

“Chan-hyung wants to take me on. Like, as part of his team.” 

Minho stops chewing. “Huh?”

“Like he wants me to come out to his studio and—work. Which is…I can’t even believe I’m saying it out loud. But he said he checked my Soundcloud out and he liked my stuff. And—”

Minho blinks as he processes Jisung’s words. 

“He wants you to—?” 

The words settle, and Minho’s face brightens. “This is amazing news, jagi.” He grabs Jisung’s shoulder and shakes him lightly. “This is so fucking good! Ah, Jisungie, I’m so proud of you. It’s what you deserve.”

Jisung’s responding smile looks strained. 

Minho tucks a strand of Jisung’s hair behind his ear, caught up in his excitement, and forgets to withdraw his hand. “What’s wrong?” he asks, fingertips sitting on the swell of Jisung’s cheek. “This is good, right?” 

“Hyung…” Jisung says, and then looks down. “I’d have to go, then.” 

Minho’s eyebrow furrow. 

“Like, out west. The studio’s in LA. That’s—away from here. Away from…” 

Away from me, Minho’s mind finishes the sentence. “Oh.” 

Jisung’s face shifts, lips lifting with a wry smile. Minho feels it happen under his fingertips.

“Hey, hey. No getting sad allowed,” Minho says softly. “That’s not a bad thing at all. That’s good. You belong out there, Hannie.” 

Jisung exhales. “But—” 

“But nothing. You do.”

“But hyung. What about us?” 

Minho shakes his head. “Don’t worry about us. Okay? I’m serious. This is a really good thing. You can’t even think about letting it pass you by.” 

Jisung’s eyes are shinier than they were a few minutes ago when Minho looks into them, and Minho breaks. He slides off the stool and wraps Jisung into a hug, holding him closer than he’s ever allowed himself to. 

Just this once. Just for the weekend. Summer’s too slippery for anything else. 

“Baby,” Minho says, and their closeness means that he can tell the exact moment Jisung’s breath hitches. “LA isn’t ready for you.” 

Jisung’s shoulders shake, and it takes Minho a moment to realise that it isn’t a laugh. It's a quiet, broken sob. 

“Jisung,” Minho says, urgent now, hugging him tighter. There’s the ghost of a tear threatening to fall from his waterline, too, but it’s held back by the need to comfort the boy in his arms. “Ah, Jisungie. Cry if you want, but I promise. Hyung isn’t going anywhere.” 

“But—” Jisung sniffles. “But you’re staying here.” 

Minho smooths a hand down Jisung’s back. “Doesn’t matter where I am. You’re meant to go, okay?” 

Jisung untucks his face from where it’s been pressed up against the curve of Minho’s neck. Minho misses the closeness as soon as it leaves, but he resists. This is only the beginning of the distance, he tells his heart. Get used to it. 

“Hyung, if you send that audition tape…you could also—?” 

Minho’s heart squeezes. Now that the video’s filmed, the chance that it could actually lead to something away from home, away from everything known, is real—and really fucking scary. 

“Yes,” Minho says, hating himself for lying. “I’ll send it and see if they respond. But that doesn’t change that you’re going. Okay?” 

Jisung takes a deep breath, and Minho watches his chest cave with it. “Okay,” he says. 

“Good,” Minho replies, his nose brushing against Jisung’s hair. It’s soft, despite what they say about dyeing your hair. Smells like peaches. 

Minho untangles himself from Jisung before his selfishness takes over. A minute more and he might have never let go—and he can’t have that. 

He has to let go. 

“I ruined the mood,” Jisung says, “I was going to tell you what our plans for tonight were, but—”

“Nothing is ruined,” Minho says, sitting back down on the tool and trapping one of Jisung’s dangling feet in between his ankles. “Tell me. We have a future rockstar to celebrate!” 

“I thought you said popstar?” Jisung asks, tilting his head. 

Minho hums, thinking through it. “I think rockstar suits you more.” 

Minho blinks, and Jisung’s wearing the prettiest blush Minho has ever seen on him. “Okay,” he says softly, and then sits up straight. 

“Okay,” Jisung says, clapping his hands together. “Are you ready for tonight?” 

“Lead the way,” Minho says, ready to do pretty much anything but face the thought that Jisung’s leaving.

It’s this, or nothing. So Minho chooses this.

♪

This turns out to be a gay club. 

Minho quickly takes his phone out of his pocket and makes sure he isn’t accidentally sharing his location with his mother before he follows Jisung, walking towards the rainbow flag above the club’s entrance. 

In retrospect, maybe Minho should have expected this before he was here. Maybe he should’ve put two and two together when Jisung insisted that Minho wear his ‘Sunday best’ (Funny. Minho finally gets the joke.) and some of the glitter on Jisung’s eyelid was applied to Minho’s own. 

You should wear gloss too, hyung, Jisung had said, and Minho’s heart is too weak for Jisung, especially right now, so he didn’t protest. 

Minho opens his front camera and sneaks a glance at his face one more time. 

“You sure they’ll let us in, Sung?” Minho asks, putting his phone away. 

Jisung nods, and the glitter on his cheek catches the pink light framing the club entrance. He looks so beautiful. Minho could run a lap about it. He could shout it from the rooftops. He could kiss him.

He really wants to kiss him. 

“Chan-hyung handled it,” Jisung says. “His friend owns the club!” 

Minho nods, impressed. “Gay cousins incorporated.” 

A surprised laugh falls out of Jisung’s lips. They’re shiny, too. So pretty. Minho is going to get distracted talking to Jisung if this is the rate he keeps going at. He should look at the floor some more, maybe. 

They’re at the front of the line quicker than Minho expects. 

“Ummm,” Jisung says to the bouncer, and Minho puts a hand over the small of his back to comfort him. “Sorry, yes. We should be on the list. Minho and Jisung for Changbin?” 

Minho keeps his hand on Jisung’s back when they’re let into the club. 

As soon as they’re inside, Minho doesn’t know where to look. It’s like another world in here. He tries not to let his inexperience show on his face, but the people on the dance floor are…everything he envies. Everything he wishes he could have. 

Bodies together, intimate, sharing inhales and exhales. Men dancing with men, unashamed. Minho feels the unmistakable urge to look over his shoulder, make sure he isn’t being watched. He tries to pass it off as flicking a piece of invisible dust off his shoulder.  

The muted, thumping bass that Minho heard outside turns into something loud, bass-boosted enough to make him wince. He’s on the verge of complaining about it before Jisung crowds his space and cups a hand over his ear to speak directly into it. 

“Is it too much?” he asks, and his lips brush against the shell of Minho’s ear when he does. 

“No,” Minho says, stepping closer to Jisung, suddenly so grateful for the loud music. Any excuse to be close to Jisung is one that he’ll readily take. 

Minho thinks about what they must look like—Jisung and Minho, from the outside. They probably look like they’re hugging. The lights are dim. Maybe someone thinks they’re kissing. It wouldn’t be that out of place here, in this low lit place. 

The thought shoots straight to Minho’s lovesick heart. Before he can let it guide him, though, fear takes over—a reflex. Minho steps back. 

“Jisung,” someone yells, and Minho watches the brief confusion in Jisung’s face turn into recognition. 

“Changbinnie!” Jisung squeals, loud even over the music as he looks over Minho’s shoulder. 

Minho turns around, but all he sees is a flurry of movement before a body barrels in between them and Jisung is wrapped up in a hug that nearly lifts him off his feet. 

“Jisung, wow, this is crazy! Look at you. Blue hair and everything,” says the stranger—Changbin—squeezing Jisung so tight that Minho’s worried he’ll pop. 

Jisung laughs, burrowing his face into the hug. Minho, watching from his place opposite Jisung, finds a small smile playing on his own face at the joy on Jisung’s. 

Jisung steps back from the hug and reaches to wrap his fingers around Minho’s wrist to pull him closer. “This is Minho!” Jisung says. 

Changbin’s eyebrows go up. “Ah, so this is Minho—” 

Jisung smacks Changbin’s chest lightly. “Don’t you da—”

“Okay, okay,” Changbin says, dissolving into giggles that stand in surprising contrast to how big of a man he is—the muscles are unmissable, really. Minho would be blind to not notice them, and not gay to not appreciate them. 

More than that, though, Changbin takes up space like he knows exactly who he is. “Are you both fine so far? No drinks for either of you, okay?” 

Jisung nods, and Minho shoots Changbin a thumbs up. “Good!” Changbin bellows. “I can’t stay for long but call me if you need anything.” 

“Yeah, we will,” Jisung says. “Go do your job.” Changbin sticks his tongue out while Jisung ushers him away and invites himself back into Minho’s personal space. 

Minho holds his breath. “Hi,” he says, searching Jisung’s face. All the intimacy around them suddenly feels like a weight too heavy to bear, but Minho resists the urge to step back and break the thread connecting him to Jisung. 

“Let’s dance?” Jisung asks in Minho’s ear. 

Minho’s helpless to say anything but yes. 

It’s different from the kind of dance he did earlier today. Then, it was practised moves, intentional and sharp. The lines that Minho’s body made were premeditated. 

Now, there’s nothing but this. The feeling of Jisung’s body, warm when it’s this close. Minho can’t think, he can’t plan ahead. The music fades away to the background. Nothing guides him except Jisung, swaying side to side. 

It’s perfect. 

Minho tries to steady the rhythm of his heart, quell the staccato in his nerves. This is perfect. It’s them. No one’s watching. No one cares. 

No one except everyone around them. God, there’s so many people here. 

Minho tries to push the thoughts away. This is perfect. 

What if, though? What if this is the calm before the storm? What if this is too good to be true? 

It should be perfect. 

Minho gets jostled by a pair of men making their way to the centre of the dance floor and stumbles back. Jisung get swallowed by the crowd, and—

Nothing is perfect. 

That heavy-weighted feeling of being watched returns like a tide pulled to shore, washing over Minho with a force powerful enough to make him turn around. He doesn’t think before he’s escaping the crowd, escaping the people—his people, his Jisung. 

He doesn’t hesitate before leaving everything behind. 

The world only begins to unblur when Minho pushes the door leading outside open. 

Outside, the world is quiet. 

Minho looks around, catalogs the cars parked on the street, makes sure he doesn’t recognise their number plates. It’s hard to blink through the tears springing up in his eyes, but he manages. 

He manages, he always does. 

A car zooms by, and Minho’s heart nearly jumps out of his chest before his attention gets stolen by something else. 

“Hyung,” Jisung says, his voice cutting through the quieter outdoors. The sounds from the club slip out as the door closes behind Jisung. “What happened?” 

Minho tries to respond, but he can’t even bring himself to turn around and face Jisung’s pretty, shiny face. He belongs in there, not out here with Minho. 

Minho’s holding him back. 

Jisung doesn’t wait. He walks around Minho until they’re face to face.

“Hyung,” he repeats, reaching out to hold Minho’s face in his hand. “You’re crying,” he says, his thumb swiping under Minho’s eyes. 

Minho pushes his face into Jisung’s hand, closing his eyes and trying to collect himself. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—” 

“Don’t be sorry,” Jisung says, equally as quiet. 

When Minho’s eyes open again, he nearly starts bawling at the way Jisung’s eyes have softened. How is Minho ever going to handle losing this? 

“I understand,” Jisung says. “Let’s go somewhere quieter? Just us.” 

♪

They drive about 30 minutes out, until buildings give way to a sea of green. 

“Turn here,” Jisung says, hitting the button next to the rearview mirror to push the sunroof open. He took over the navigation as soon as they got in the car, and Minho couldn’t be more grateful. He didn’t really have the presence of mind to know where to go. He just knew they needed to get out of the city.  

Minho hasn’t talked much so far, and he knows Jisung’s waiting until his breathing levels out again to bring up anything about his sudden escape. 

“I think there should be parking…” Jisung hums. “Ah! There?” 

“Near the tree?” 

“Yup,” Jisung confirms, popping the p. “Park in between those two.” 

Minho gets so caught up in listening to Jisung that he doesn’t notice their surroundings until the ignition switches off. 

Then, he catches sight of the water, reflecting moonlight through the clearing in the space between the trees. 

“It’s a lake,” Jisung says, smiling when Minho turns to look at him. “I thought you’d want to come somewhere without people.” 

Minho almost starts crying again. “How…” he gulps. Jisung pops his seatbelt off and turns to look at Minho. The earlier softening of his eyes has transformed into focus, sharp enough to cut glass. “How did you know?” 

“I’ve known you for years now, Minho.” 

Minho huffs. “But still. You knew I needed to be somewhere quiet.” 

“I just knew,” Jisung says, shrugging. “It isn’t wrong to want to be alone.” 

“Not alone,” Minho says. “I just—wanted to be with you.” 

Jisung smiles. It’s a little wry, but Minho doesn’t have to wonder why for long. “So no one else can see the way you want me, yeah?” 

Minho sucks in a sharp breath. The lake shines at the corner of his eye. His mouth opens around a protest, something that soothes, but Minho knows it isn’t fair to deny this. 

At Minho’s silence, Jisung sighs. “That was unfair.”

“No, it—”

“Hyung, it’s okay. Genuinely. I know it’s difficult, but the fact that you pushed yourself to come out with me today…it means a lot, you know?” 

“I’d do anything,” Minho says. “For you. I care about you so much.” He reaches out and takes Jisung’s face in his hand. 

Even now, when Minho’s done everything to hide Jisung away, to keep his love a secret, Jisung is kind. “I know you do,” Jisung says, pushing his face into Minho’s hand. The glitter on Jisung’s face is even prettier in the near-darkness of night. 

It’s okay, Minho tells his heart. You’re not you, just for now. Let it happen. Let it happen. Let it—

“I love you,” Minho says, quicker than he can stop it. 

Jisung’s eyes widen as soon as the words leave Minho, but he doesn’t hesitate, not even for a second. 

“I love you,” he responds, as easy as breathing. 

Here, under the moonlight, everything seems easy. Minho could do what he always wanted. He could touch Jisung with the tenderness he deserves, with the reverence he has to hold back. He could love, and be loved in return. 

Love wasn’t ever the hard part, after all. 

“Jisung,” Minho says. It’s a question, a plea, a confession. 

Jisung nods, and Minho knows that it’s the only sign he needs to close the gap. 

Minho kisses Jisung. 

Minho isn’t brave enough to let it be something more than a peck, but Jisung meets him halfway, picks up where Minho left off. There goes my first kiss, Minho thinks, committing the shape of Jisung’s mouth to memory. And my second, and my third, and my fourth, and my fifth. 

After the fifth, they breathe, foreheads pressed against one another. 

After the fifth, Minho feels it creep up on him. That terrible, damning thought. The one bound to end it all. 

What happens next? 

♪

Falling in love comes easy, much like everything with Jisung. Being loved in return, though? 

Yeah, that’s where this story starts to fall apart. 

Minho and Jisung love each other, but Minho goes to church every Sunday and asks God if he’s still allowed in here. 

Minho and Jisung love each other, but Minho can’t get Jisung the flowers he wants to get him because the ladies at the grocery store would report everything back to his mother. 

Minho and Jisung love each other, but Minho cannot love Jisung the way he deserves. 

It eats at Minho, and yet. 

And yet, Minho’s selfish.

And yet, Minho loves Jisung. 

Every time Jisung kisses him, Minho reasons with himself. I can’t give him that, but I can give him this. It’s a balancing game, but Minho wonders what happens when Jisung leaves, and the world out west promises him so much more than Minho could ever offer. 

The only way Minho can love Jisung is when they’re alone, in hiding. 

Jisung rarely comes over to Minho’s house, but today is an exception. For some reason, Jisung texts Minho first thing in the morning and lets him know that he’s coming over. 

“Good morning, Mrs. Lee,” Jisung says in the distance. Minho’s ears catch the sound and he goes downstairs as quickly as his legs will take him. 

“Minho, hi,” Jisung says, his voice way softer. 

“Nice to see you, Jisung,” Minho’s mother says. “You’ve changed your hair.” 

Jisung’s hand runs over faded blue strands on instinct. They look nearly silver now.  

“Is it permanent?” she asks, not bothering to hide the judgment in her tone. 

Minho sighs. “Mama, I don’t think that matters,” he says, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible. It comes out sounding aggressive, but Minho thinks the situation calls for it. 

Minho will bear with it, but she can’t just say whatever she wants to Jisung. 

She simply looks in between them and lets Minho guide Jisung upstairs. 

“Sorry,” Minho begins to say as soon as he pushes the door open, “I promise that I won’t let her say anything about y—mmph—” 

Minho’s voice cuts out to a pleased sigh as Jisung plants a soft kiss over his lips. 

“So?” Jisung asks, his voice light with excitement. 

Minho blinks back into focus from the kiss. “Huh?” 

“Did you hear back from the dance school?” 

Oh. Minho flits his eyes away. “They…uh. They didn’t get back to me,” he lies. The audition tape is still untouched on Minho’s hard drive. He should send it. He will. He might. 

Jisung exhales. “That’s okay,” he says, brushing his knuckles against Minho’s cheek before he gives him another kiss. Still soft, still sweet, this one lingers. 

Minho kisses back for one blissful second before remembering where he is. He pulls back. He looks over his shoulder to make sure the door is closed. It is. 

Jisung has so much written on his face when Minho looks back at him.

“I closed the door when we got in.” he says. “I…know your mother isn’t like mine. You can trust me.” 

Minho gulps. Tears prick at his eyes, because it’s true, and Jisung doesn’t deserve it. 

God, he’s holding Jisung back. 

“Okay,” Minho says softly. “I know…I’m sorry. It’s just that—I can’t keep the door closed or she’ll—”

Jisung nods and removes himself from Minho’s space. 

Minho wants to pull him back close. He wishes they could just lie down, cuddle for a while the way they do on Jisung’s bed, in Jisung’s room, where the door can be closed whenever Jisung wants. 

In Jisung’s world, where there isn’t even a reason to close the door, because Jisung’s mother congratulated Minho and Jisung for finally getting together the day they got back from their trip. 

“Okay, hyung,” Jisung says, going to open the door to Minho’s room. He lowers his voice when he speaks, making sure he isn’t heard over the sound of the drama playing on the TV downstairs. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”

“No, no,” Minho says. “Baby, you’ve never done anything wrong. Don’t apologise to me.” 

Jisung bites the skin of his cheek, his mouth twisting in consideration before he speaks. “I know, but—” 

Minho motions Jisung to come sit down next to him. 

Jisung listens, but he doesn’t sit as close as Minho would like him to. It’s probably for the best. 

“But?” Minho prompts.

“Sometimes, you look like you’re fighting something after you kiss me.” 

Minho’s shoulders slump.

“Who?” Jisung asks, his eyes searching. “What is—”

It’s her. It’s Sunday. It’s me. “It’s God.”

Jisung breathes out. “Oh.” 

Minho’s in love. And yet, when Jisung’s face falls every time Minho has to hide him away, he can’t help but regret it all. What a terrible life it makes, to disappoint Jisung, his mother, and God—all at once. 

♪

The week before Jisung has to leave and Minho has to move into his dorm, Minho loses a round of if roulette. 

“What if we ran away right now?” Jisung asks. 

Minho’s response dies in his throat. 

“We could,” Jisung continues. “You have most of your bags packed and eomma would back us up. And you’d get to leave this place. We would—” 

Minho exhales. “Jisungie—I…” I’m not that brave.  

“I know it’s a lot. But I’d make sure you have a place to stay. We could be roommates! And your door could be closed whenever you want.”

Minho drops his head on Jisung’s shoulder, closing his eyes and allowing himself to pretend that he lives in a world where he says yes. 

Meanwhile, Jisung doesn’t stop weaving fantasy. “You could be a dancer. I know you think you don’t have it in you, but I’ve never stopped believing in you, hyung. You’re so talented that it breaks my brain. Did I ever tell you that watching you dance is the reason I figured out I’m gay?” 

Minho giggles. “What? Don’t lie, jagi,” he murmurs, pressing a laugh onto the soft fabric of Jisung’s t-shirt. 

“I’m serious! I even have an entry in my journal that goes like dear diary, Minho hyung is so sexy. I might be gay.” 

Minho breaks into laughter. “Shut up—”

“Hyung, I’m not even joking,” Jisung says as his voice brightens up around a laugh. “It’s true,” he says. “It’s really true.” 

“Okay, I believe you,” Minho says as a residual giggle escapes him.

Jisung narrows his eyes playfully. “You think I’m joking. Remember when we filmed your audition? That was the first time I knew what love really felt like.” 

Minho’s breath catches in his throat. 

Jisung continues, sincere as ever. “You’re so good. I know you’d be selling out classes with your choreography if you tried. We could get our own apartment, move out of Chan-hyung’s LA house basement. You’d cook, I’d clean. Maybe we’d even get the kitties you always wanted to have.”

Minho wants to scream. How did the world’s most perfect boy end up here, in love with Minho? “I’ll clean,” Minho says softly. 

“Hm?” 

“I’ll clean, too. You should focus on your music. You’ll probably be in the studio for long hours, yeah?” 

“Hmm, but I still wanna contribute. You can’t be doing everything, hyung.” 

“You’ll contribute by being pretty,” Minho says, teasing a laugh out of Jisung. 

“Sure, Minho,” he says, eyes shining indulgently. “So should we?” 

“Hm?”

“Should we run away?” 

Minho notices, then, the depth of the question. The truth of it. Jisung would, as long as Minho says the word. 

Minho’s mouth opens around a silent sound. Despite everything in his heart begging him to agree, Minho thinks of his parents, of this town, of everything he knows. He tries to uproot himself, and feels the pull around his ankle, tethering him tightly. 

The light in Jisung’s eyes dims. “Forget I asked,” he says quickly. 

“Jisungie—”

“No, no. It’s fine. You lose this round, though.” 

Minho won’t argue with that. He loses either way. 

♪

Ironically enough, Jisung leaves on a Sunday. Minho has to excuse himself mid-sermon to be able to see him off. His mother strongly disapproves, but there are some things he’s willing to disappoint her about. Today falls on the top of that list. 

“Jisung!” Minho yells, running up to his house, ignoring the slight pain in his stomach from how fast he ran. He stops to catch his breath and opens his arms for Jisung, who’s sitting on the porch. Jisung’s body barrels into him. 

“Hyung,” Jisung says into Minho’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around Minho so tightly that Minho’s half-sure he’s trying to leave a mark that reads Jisung was here.  

Minho wraps his arms around Jisung’s waist and pulls him closer with matched intensity. 

“Baby,” Minho murmurs, right into Jisung’s ear. “I can’t believe my baby’s going out on his own.” 

Jisung’s face is still hidden in Minho’s shoulder when Minho feels something wet seep through the fabric of his t-shirt. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Minho whispers. “Hey, jagi. No crying. This is a good thing, little bug. You’re going to do amazing things.” 

The words only have the effect of making Jisung cry harder into Minho’s shoulder. 

And Minho tries, he really does. He tries to be the strong one. But one look at Jisung’s red nose and tear-stained face when he lifts his head is enough to push him over the edge. 

Jisung’s eyes widen. “Hyung, you’re crying.” 

Minho blinks through another failed attempt to force the tears back into his eye sockets. It doesn’t work for shit. “Yeah,” he says, laughing while tears stream down his face. His lip wobbles when he says the next bit. “My Jisungie is leaving. Of c-course I’m crying,” he says. 

Jisung’s face crumbles, and the arm that Minho has around his waist squeezes even tighter. 

“I’ll miss you,” Jisung says through a sniffle. 

“Ah,” Minho clears his throat, blinks through his blurry vision. “I’ll miss you more.” 

“I’ll miss you most.” 

“I’ll miss you—” 

Jisung’s mother clears her throat from the porch. Minho nearly jumps, but Jisung’s hand arrives to rest above his heart, and all of Minho’s worries melt into urgency. 

“Hi, Hyejeong,” Minho says. “I was just—” 

“Of course. And I don’t want to rush you both, but Jisung has to catch a flight,” she says, looking regretful as she does. 

“Oh,” Minho says, and fuck, it’s really happening. He’s going to have to let go. It’s this, or nothing. It’s this, or Jisung sacrificing his dreams. 

The worst part of it all is that Minho knows Jisung would. He’d give it up, if Minho asked. 

Minho would never ask, even though he’s going to lose his first listening privileges over all of Jisung’s music. 

His little rockstar’s going to sell out arenas. How could Minho ever rob the world of the sound of Jisung’s voice? 

“Hyung,” Jisung says. “I know you might say no because we’re out here, but before I go—I’d like…can I get one—”

Minho brings a hand to Jisung’s cheek and leans in, closing his eyes to press a slow kiss against soft, shiny lips. 

When Minho pulls back, he knows some of Jisung’s gloss transferred over to his mouth. 

Jisung’s eyes flutter open, and he looks in between Minho’s eyes, his lips, and his eyes again, before leaving another kiss—this one quicker—over Minho’s gloss-stained lips. 

“I’ll miss you,” Jisung says. “I love you.” 

“I love you,” Minho says without hesitation. “Call me when you can, yeah?” 

“Pick up when I call, okay?” Jisung responds as Minho loads his suitcase into the trunk of the car. 

“And Minho-hyung,” Jisung says, “every love song I write is going to be about you.” 

Minho’s ears are red before Jisung even gets the full sentence out. 

Minho tastes salt when he swallows, leaning forward to plant a peck on Jisung’s cheek. “Thank you, bug.” 

“Honey,” Jisung’s mother says. “We have to go.” 

“Alright, alright. Get going, Jisungie,” Minho says. His heart breaks with every word, but he still gets all of them out. 

Jisung’s eyes search Minho’s face, and Minho knows he’s trying to find a reason to stay. 

“Go,” Minho repeats, determined.

Don’t forget me, Minho thinks. Don’t go. Take me with you. 

“I’ll see you,” Jisung says, squeezing Minho’s hand before he lets him go. 

And then, Minho lets Jisung go.