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Mingi is missing.
Yunho isn’t sure how long he’s been gone for. When he’d started talking to Jongho about video games a couple of minutes ago, Mingi had been right beside him, chatting with Changbin. But now that his conversation with Jongho has ground to a halt (thanks to Yeosang saying something to make Jongho stare at him like he’s going to split him open and devour him, and Yunho gives it five minutes before Jongho tosses Yeosang over his shoulder and carries him out of the party), he realizes that the person brushing against his side is too short to be Mingi. When he turns away from his friends, he discovers that it’s Jisung beside him, swaying a little on his feet.
“Where’s Mingi?” Yunho asks, peering around the room. Mingi’s usually pretty easy to pick out of a crowd, what with the towering height and the pastel pink hair that he’s currently sporting, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
“Said he needed to get some air,” Jisung shrugs, taking a sip from the plastic cup in his hand. Before Yunho can extract any further information from him, someone across the room shouts Jisung’s name, and he wanders off, head bobbing to the music pouring from the nearby speakers.
“Helpful,” Yunho mutters under his breath. When he glances back over his shoulder, he’s met with the sight of Jongho and Yeosang still staring at each other. As he watches, Yeosang tips his chin up and meticulously tucks a stray piece of hair behind his ear. Jongho’s nostrils flare in reply, and his throat bobs.
Yunho sighs.
“Get a room, you two. I’m going to find Mingi.” With that, he starts sidling through the crowd as best as he can. Eventually, after countless excuse me’s and some gentle pushing when someone refuses to move, he makes it to the other side of the room, where he exits through the door leading into the kitchen.
Mingi isn’t one of the handful of people clustered around the kitchen island, grabbing a drink. However, the balcony door leading off the kitchen is open a couple of inches, letting in a blessedly cool breeze, and while it’s possible that the door has been open this whole time, it’s just as possible that when Mingi told Jisung that he needed some air, he meant it literally.
Yunho decides to check. Even if Mingi isn’t out there, he can grab some fresh air for himself before he dives back into the search.
Sliding the door open a couple more inches, he pokes his head outside. On his right, there’s a small, unoccupied patio set and two bicycles leaning against the balcony railing. On his left-
On his left is Mingi.
He’s sitting on the ground beside a potted fern that’s seen better days, legs drawn up towards his chest. His forehead is braced against his knees, and Yunho can see his shoulders shaking unsteadily, almost like he’s shivering.
But while it’s certainly cooler outside, Yunho knows in an instant that Mingi isn’t shaking from the cold.
“Mingi,” he says quietly, stepping outside. “It’s me.”
Mingi sniffles and raises his head. Underneath the silver frames of his glasses, his cheeks are glistening in the light leaking from inside the apartment. Yunho’s first instinct is to rush over and pull Mingi into his arms, but doing that without any preamble will likely just make Mingi feel cornered, so he pauses a few steps away.
“Yunho?” Mingi sniffles again and wipes at his nose with the sleeve of his orange sweater. “What are you doing out here?”
“Looking for you.” Now that Mingi is aware of his presence, Yunho slides to the ground a couple of inches away from Mingi, back braced against the abrasive brick wall. “Did something happen?”
Mingi shakes his head and shuffles over, erasing the space between them. Despite the cool night, he’s as hot as a campfire against Yunho’s side, and Yunho slides one arm around Mingi’s broad shoulders, tugging him in closer, until he’s perfectly fitted against Yunho, like a key clicking into a lock.
“Just… the whole thing,” Mingi says. His voice is wavering and thick, like he’s about to choke on his tears. “Too many people, too much noise. I couldn’t breathe. And now it’s like… it’s like the air isn’t reaching my lungs.” Another shudder goes through his body, and he fists one hand into the front of Yunho’s shirt, like it’s the only thing keeping him from drifting off into the dark.
Yunho has seen him like this before, but it always breaks his heart to watch Mingi fight so hard against his own mind. He knows he can’t fix it, can’t just wave a wand and make it go away, but what he can do is try to help Mingi through it, one step at a time.
“Breathe with me,” he says, rubbing his thumb against Mingi’s shoulder. “Can you do that for me?”
Mingi nods, and Yunho takes a deep breath in, holds it for four beats, exhales and holds that for four beats as well. It’s something he learned from an app he’d downloaded during a fit of insomnia, and usually, even though it might take ten or fifteen minutes, following the pattern helps Mingi’s breathing fall back into a regular rhythm.
Thankfully, today is no exception. As Yunho continues breathing, he feels Mingi’s muscles incrementally uncoiling. Eventually, Mingi’s fingers loosen in Yunho’s shirt and splay against his chest, and it takes a tremendous amount of effort for Yunho’s breath to not hitch at the sensation of Mingi’s large palm pressing against his sternum.
“Okay,” he says as they finish another full breath cycle. “Now, what’s something you can hear?”
Mingi drops his head to rest against Yunho’s shoulder. “Music coming from inside.”
“And something you can smell?”
“Beer and fried food.” Yunho hopes that the latter scent isn’t coming from the apartment at their back - there are a couple of sober people hanging around tonight, but he still wouldn’t trust any of them with boiling oil.
“Now that you say that, I’m hungry,” Yunho says. It’s not untrue - he had a couple handfuls of chips inside, but it’s been hours since he had a full meal, and his stomach is gnawing around the edges - but mostly, he says it to try and get a laugh out of Mingi. It works - it’s a tiny sound, more of a huff than anything, but it still makes Yunho want to dance in triumph.
“Me too. What’s next?”
“Something you can taste.”
“Salt. Think I got some tears in my mouth.” Mingi says it with another one of those quiet laughs, but it makes Yunho’s heart ache, and he tightens his arm around Mingi’s shoulders.
“Something you can see,” Yunho says. He wants to turn and press his face into Mingi’s hair, wants to inhale the tropical scent of his shampoo, but he settles for dropping his ear against the top of Mingi’s head, even as his neck twinges from the uncomfortable angle.
“A flickering streetlight that really needs to be fixed.”
“It really does,” Yunho agrees, watching the light a couple of doors down strobe rapidly. “Last one. Something you can touch.”
Mingi doesn’t reply immediately. Instead, he lowers his hand from Yunho’s chest and reaches for his free hand, which is resting in his lap. Slowly, he twines their fingers together, and it doesn’t matter that they’ve held hands hundreds, maybe thousands of times before - a wave of heat rushes up the back of Yunho’s neck.
“You,” Mingi belatedly answers, squeezing Yunho’s hand tightly. His voice is low and soft, almost like he’s about to fall asleep.
“Always,” Yunho says. “Whenever you need someone to hold onto.” It feels a little like cracking his chest open and exposing his vulnerable insides, but he means it with everything he has.
“Yunho,” Mingi murmurs. He sits up, pulls his head away from Yunho’s shoulder and releases their entwined hands. Yunho’s stomach plummets, but before he can spiral too far, Mingi does something wholly unexpected.
Namely, he clumsily slides into Yunho’s lap, curls his big hands around Yunho’s face and, as Yunho’s heart stops, leans down and kisses him.
This can’t be real. It’s not possible that Mingi, the man he’s been in love with from pretty well the first time he set eyes on him, is kissing him. This has to be some kind of fever dream. Maybe he drank more than he thought and he’s passed out on the floor, having a very vivid hallucination.
But when he gasps, he feels the tip of Mingi’s tongue drag against his bottom lip, wet and firm and tasting faintly of salt, and while Yunho may have a fairly active imagination, he doesn’t think he could conjure up that particular detail with such impressive clarity.
It kills him to pull back when everything in him is screaming to wrap his arms around Mingi’s back and pull him in closer, but if they’re going down this path, he wants to make sure that it’s a decision they’re making together. He wants it to be something Mingi truly wants, not something he’s doing out of some misplaced sense of obligation.
If they’re doing this, Yunho wants it to be the first of many kisses. He wants it to be nothing less than totally and completely real.
“Mingi,” he says, swallowing heavily and brushing his thumb along the line of Mingi’s bottom lip. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. You don’t owe me-”
Before he can finish the sentence, Mingi shakes his head vehemently and wraps his fingers gently around Yunho’s wrist, bringing Yunho’s palm up to his cheek.
“I want to,” Mingi replies. Even in the dim light, Yunho can see the pretty flush spreading across Mingi’s face. “I’ve wanted to for so long, Yunho.”
“What?” It’s hardly the most eloquent answer in the world, but to be fair, it feels like the very foundation of Yunho’s whole world has been abruptly shaken. “Really?”
Mingi nods, and before he can stop himself, Yunho finds himself laughing. He tilts his head up so that he can pepper kisses over every inch of Mingi’s face that he can reach - his plush lips, his strong jaw, the mole on his cheek, the tip of his nose. Mingi dissolves into giggles, hands clutching Yunho’s shoulders tightly, occasionally seizing Yunho’s mouth with his own whenever Yunho drifts close enough.
By the time Yunho has to pull away to properly breathe, he can no longer taste salt on Mingi’s lips.
“Why are you telling me now?” he asks, gently pushing Mingi’s glasses back up his nose.
Mingi buries his face into the top of Yunho’s head. His next words are spoken into Yunho’s hair, so muffled that Yunho can barely hear them.
“Because you came to look for me. You always come to look for me, Yunho. And I figured that if I took my shot and you weren’t interested, it still wouldn’t be the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to me tonight.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Yunho replies, smoothing his hand down Mingi’s back. His sweater has rucked up at the base of his spine, and Yunho carefully tugs it back down. “Besides, if anyone asks where you were, you can truthfully say you were making out with me.”
Mingi giggles again and shifts so that his forehead is resting against Yunho’s. Yunho can feel Mingi’s breath brushing against his lips, and even though he aches to kiss him again, he closes his eyes and stays still, basking in the feeling of Mingi being in his lap, warm and safe.
“I am interested, by the way,” Yunho continues, bumping his nose gently against Mingi’s. “Very interested.”
“Yeah?” When Yunho opens his eyes, Mingi is looking down at him and chewing on his bottom lip. “You’re not just saying that to… I don’t know, humor me, or whatever?”
Yunho suddenly wishes that they were in a bed. Not for any kind of nefarious purposes (although he’d be lying if he said he didn’t hope for that, one day), but because he wishes he could flip their positions, wishes he could stare down in Mingi’s eyes and impress upon him just how much he means it. But since there’s no way to do that on the balcony without someone getting injured, he settles for nodding.
“Mingi, I’ve been into you for… well, kind of a stupidly long time, to be honest,” he says, using his thumb to gently pull Mingi’s lip away from his teeth. “I promise I’m not just humoring you.”
Mingi’s smile lights up his entire face. His eyes crinkle up and nearly disappear, and he’s so unbelievably cute that Yunho wants to pinch himself, just to make sure this is still real.
“God,” Mingi breathes, sliding his fingers up into Yunho’s hair. “We’re idiots.”
“Yes, we are,” Yunho agrees before he tilts his chin up and catches Mingi’s mouth with his own again.
Yunho would be happy to stay on the balcony until the sun broke over the horizon. He would be content to kiss Mingi lazily, going no further than twisting their tongues together, until he fell asleep in the middle of doing so. Unfortunately, long before he’s ready to move, his ass goes numb from sitting on the concrete so, with one last kiss to the corner of Mingi’s swollen lips, he reluctantly pulls away and asks, “You still hungry?”
“Starving,” Mingi groans. “Think there’s some pizza left in there?”
“I was thinking we could actually go somewhere else, maybe,” Yunho says. “Somewhere quieter. There’s a place a couple blocks away that does really good dakgalbi.”
“That sounds great. Can…” From where his palm is pressed against the side of Mingi’s neck, Yunho feels him swallow heavily. “Can that count as our first date?”
“Our first of many,” Yunho promises, taking a second to play with the longer hairs at the base of Mingi’s neck before he lowers his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
As soon as they’re both on their feet, Yunho takes Mingi’s hand again, and he holds onto it tightly as they retrace their steps back through the empty kitchen and into the living room, which is marginally less crowded now. He takes a quick glance around to see if he can spot the rest of the group that they came with, to let whoever is left know that they’re heading out, and his eyes land on a nearby armchair that San is sitting in. He’s inexplicably shirtless, with what look like a pair of fox ears perched jauntily on his head, and his lap is occupied by both Wooyoung and Seonghwa, who are mouthing at opposite sides of San’s neck.
“What the hell,” Mingi says as San lifts his hand from around Seonghwa’s back and waves lazily at them, mouth curled into a lazy, pleased grin.
“I have no idea, and I don’t want to know,” Yunho replies, gently tugging Mingi towards the hallway. There isn’t enough money in the world for him to want to get involved in a) whatever is going on in that armchair and b) dealing with the inevitable fallout of Hongjoong having a jealous meltdown (despite continually denying that he’s comically in love with Seonghwa).
As they pause in the entryway of the apartment to put their shoes back on, Jisung pops his head out from the bedroom nearest the front door.
“You two leaving?” When Yunho nods, Jisung says, “Cool. Get home safe. Also, you missed Jongho literally carrying Yeosang out of here with one arm, it was insane. And kind of hot. Fuck, I’m hungry.” With that, he stumbles past them towards the living room, leaving the smell of weed behind.
“Called it,” Yunho says, patting his pockets to make sure he has everything he arrived with.
“Called what?” Mingi asks. He looks bewildered, mouth creased in a small frown, eyes crinkled again, and if Yunho wasn’t so hungry, if Jisung’s room didn’t reek so potently of pot, he would drag Mingi in there and kiss him senseless.
Instead, he kisses Mingi on the temple and lingers there as he speaks, lips skimming Mingi’s skin with each word.
“I’ll tell you on our date.”