Archive of Our Own

Minho was restocking the “Staff Picks” shelf when the music kicked in next door - again . Bass thumped through the wall like a sledgehammer to his temples, rattling the delicate little bell above the bookstore's front door. He paused, fingers curled around a copy of Norwegian Wood , and let out a long, precise exhale.

It was exactly 10:03 p.m.

Across the street, Jisung was holding court on his front porch like some kind of low-rent Dionysus. Nineteen and twenty-somethings spilled across the lawn. Someone was doing a cartwheel. Someone else was lighting something that absolutely wasn’t a citronella candle. And of course, Jisung - cargo joggers, oversized hoodie, Red Bull in one hand, phone in the other-was beaming like he'd just discovered fire.

Minho considered calling the HOA. Again.

Instead, he adjusted his glasses, smoothed his cardigan, and returned Norwegian Wood to its rightful place - fictional introspection far preferred over real-world chaos.

It had become something of a neighborhood tradition, if not a sanctioned one: 10:00 p.m. sharp, Jisung’s stereo would crank to volume thirty, the drinks would flow like a busted faucet, and chaos would blossom across his lawn until well past one in the morning.

Minho never slept on Fridays or Saturdays anymore. He just endured - bleary-eyed and simmering - through his morning shifts, clutching his tea like a lifeline and scowling at the steam as though it, too, were in on the racket.

He thanked every benevolent deity still listening that his twenty-year-old daughter had no interest in that sort of life. Parties, boys, shots with questionable names? Not her style. Minji preferred cataloging poetry anthologies and adjusting shelf displays to some curated vinyl. She was quiet, bright, and impossibly kind. The only good thing to come out of his bitter, slow-motion car crash of a divorce.

Minji, his pride and joy. The kind of girl whose smile looked like it could patch holes in drywall - and no, he wasn’t just being smug because she happened to inherit his bone structure.

A shriek split the night outside the bookstore’s windows, followed by a chorus of laughter that made Minho’s eye twitch. He ground his molars and muttered something unprintable under his breath.

How any functioning adult could enable that level of chaos was utterly beyond him.

Jisung - technically the same age, though Minho suspected the man had sold his maturity to fund his speaker system - seemed perfectly content to play ringleader to a parade of adolescents. It was one thing to be lenient. It was another to build a reputation on midnight keggers and lax boundaries.

Minho wouldn’t let Minji within a hundred yards of that house, let alone any other half-raised teenager. And yet, somehow, a few of the neighborhood parents - the very ones who sent their kids straight into the chaos - adored him. They said things like, “He’s just so understanding,” and “At least the kids are safe over there,” as if that excused the mayhem.

Safe, sure. If you ignored the smell of smoke and the faint but ever-present risk of someone cartwheeling off the roof.

A fresh bass drop sent Pride and Prejudice tumbling off its display stand. Minho didn’t flinch. He just exhaled through his nose and made a mental note to check new real estate listings - again - first thing in the morning.

To hell with the lease, Minho grumbled inwardly, climbing the twelve narrow steps from the bookstore to the small apartment above. The smell of roasted beans and lemon cleaner lingered in the air, but the place felt unusually still - quiet in a way it rarely was anymore.

Minji was out with friends, something about a musical downtown, and for once, the apartment was entirely his.

Not for much longer, though.

College loomed, just weeks away. Ivy-draped quads, smoky café corners, and centuries-old libraries called to her - Duke had called to her. Minho had sworn he wouldn’t be the kind of father who clung. And yet.

He missed her already. Missed the sound of her door creaking open when she padded out for a second cup of chamomile. Missed leaning into her doorway just to ask, “Want to try the new jasmine I picked up?” even though she always said yes, always rolled her eyes, always smiled.

He remembered the day she was born like it was laminated behind his eyes. Those big brown eyes had blinked up at him, unfocused and curious, before her tiny hand curled around his finger - like she knew exactly who she was looking for.

His ex-wife used to joke about it. She picked you first. Back then, it was a fond laugh. Now, it was a quiet, satisfying truth he carried like a blade tucked into his belt.

She wanted me first .

Minho paced the apartment in silence, his socked feet making soft sounds against the hardwood. There was no point in trying to sleep - not when the bass across the street was still building, not cresting. The night was only just stretching its limbs.

He’d lived through worse. One memorable Saturday, he’d been jolted awake at 2:13 a.m. by shrieking laughter and the snap of what he’d hoped were firecrackers. The walls might’ve muffled the chaos, but only barely. He could still feel the echo of that night - the dry fury, the way his voice had cracked when he rang the HOA for the fifth time, sleep stubbornly clinging to his tongue like molasses. He didn’t even remember what he’d said. Something about bylaws and noise ordinances. Something about decency. It didn’t matter. The music kept going. It always did.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

If Minho’s night was defined by clenched jaws and sleepless pacing, Jisung’s was built on laughter loud enough to crack porcelain.

Across the street, Jisung tossed his head back mid-laugh, nearly losing his balance as he tried to demonstrate some dance move two decades younger than he was. The porch groaned beneath the shuffle of too many feet, the scent of cheap beer mixing with barbecue smoke and faint cinnamon from the candles someone had lit hours ago. His hoodie was misbuttoned, his hair a mess of curls that hadn’t seen a comb since noon, and he was absolutely in his element.

He hadn’t meant for the party to get this big - he never meant for it. It just happened. Like gravity, or Tuesday.

Somewhere behind him, someone shouted his name. Jisung turned, raised his Red Bull in salute, then leaned against the porch rail and let out a long breath. The music thudded in his chest, the kind of beat that kept your body swaying even when your soul was tired.

And okay, maybe the guy across the street with the glasses and the permanent judgment-face hated him, but the kids didn’t. The kids needed this. Somewhere safe to blow off steam and not feel like the world was all rules and consequences.

Besides, Minho could use a little loosening up himself. Jisung had seen him - tight sweater, eyes like flint, the way he watered his potted lavender like it had wronged him. He grinned to himself. Maybe tomorrow, he’d bring him a cup of tea. No explanation. Just vibes.

“Mr. Han!” The voice cut through the music, high-pitched and slightly slurred. Jisung turned just in time to catch a girl stumbling toward him-glasses crooked on her face, a flush blooming high on her cheeks in the way only cheap vodka could manage. He didn’t recognize her. Probably someone’s friend-of-a-friend. That happened a lot.

“Yeah, what’s up, kiddo?” he asked, taking a sip of his Red Bull and tipping his head toward her. She stopped beside him, eyes locked on the bookstore across the street. There was a tension in her jaw, something brittle in the way she stared - like just looking at the building made her chest ache.

“Can you… do me a favor?” Her voice barely cut through the bass, small and threadbare. She tightened her grip on the red Solo cup until the plastic warped beneath her fingers, and then just… stood there.

Jisung angled toward her, brow knitting in concern. “Yeah…? What’s going on?”

She didn’t answer right away. She stared across the street - at the dark windows of the bookstore - lips pressed into a thin, uncertain line. Her shoulders drew in slightly, like whatever she was about to say was too big to fit inside her body. Then she let out a slow, uneven breath.

“Can you not tell my dad I’m here?”

And it hit him - hard . The shape of her nose. The set of her mouth. Those eyes.

Minho’s eyes.

Shit .

Minji.

Jisung felt the buzz drain out of him like someone had flipped a switch. He ran a hand through his hair and groaned, “Your dad is going to murder us both,” he muttered. “Minji, I get it, I really do - spread those rebellious wings - but did it have to be on the same block where your dad’s probably watching us through his blinds like a crime procedural?”

“I know, I know...” Minji groaned, letting out a long, heavy sigh as she leaned her weight against the porch railing. Her fingers toyed with the chipped paint, eyes fixed on the dark horizon. “I didn’t even want to come tonight. Taehyun and Jeongin sort of ambushed me. We were supposed to see Hamilton downtown, but then it turned into ‘there’s this huge party’ and... I don’t know. Next thing I knew, people were handing me shots like they were breath mints.” She paused, brows pinched in quiet frustration, voice barely above a whisper, “I’ve never been drunk before. And... I don’t think I like it.”

Jisung moved to stand beside her, resting his forearms on the railing. His eyes tracked the chaos unraveling across the lawn. “Well, good news? You’re allowed to not like it,” he said, voice low and steady. “There’s no universal rule that says getting buzzed is a requirement for fun. There’s plenty in this world that doesn’t need a chaser.”

“Yeah, but...” Minji hesitated, glancing down at her cup. “Taehyun said this is how you’re supposed to have fun. Said this is... how you get the stick out of your ass.” Her voice thinned into something almost embarrassed.

Jisung let out a sharp scoff. “What a poetic philosopher, that one.” He shook his head and nudged her gently with his shoulder. “Listen, kiddo. Fun doesn’t come with prerequisites. If your idea of a good time is staying in, binge-watching trash TV with a bucket of popcorn, then that’s valid. Hell, that’s noble. You don’t owe anyone a wild night just to prove you’re alive.”

“This is what I’m supposed to get used to, right?” Minji murmured, gaze still fixed somewhere beyond the streetlamps. “College parties. Late nights. Getting tipsy on someone else’s dime.” She hesitated, then looked up at Jisung. “I figured I should… practice.”

Jisung sighed, the kind that sagged through his shoulders. He set his Red Bull down on the porch rail and rested a hand lightly on hers, grounding her.

“Yes and no,” he said. “You don’t have to do a single thing you don’t want to. Not here, not in college, not even when you’re old and jaded like me and your dad. There’s a difference between choosing fun because it lights you up… and feeling like you’re supposed to because everyone else is screaming that it’s the only way to live.”

Minji let herself lean into him then, just a little. The house behind them buzzed with loud music and laughter, but here, in this odd pocket of quiet, both of them stared at the dim outline of the bookstore across the street. Silent. Watching. Heavy with the truth of who they were hiding from.

After a beat, Jisung exhaled. “Alright. Here’s the deal.” He reached for his Red Bull again, his voice gentler than before. “I won’t tell your dad. If he finds out, we’re both toast, so your secret’s safe with me.”

Minji perked up, already halfway to a relieved laugh-

“ But ,” Jisung cut in, raising a finger, “you stay inside. Do not so much as breathe on this porch. Your dad’s probably counting footsteps like a CIA agent right now.” He gave her a crooked smile. “If I go down for this, you better name your firstborn after me.”

“Thanks, Mr. Han,” Minji murmured, giving him a one-armed hug before disappearing into the hum of the house.

“Yeah, yeah.” Jisung took a long sip of his Red Bull, watching as she slipped back into the crowd. “And don’t forget - there’s soda in there for a reason. You don’t have to wreck yourself to fit in.” The door closed behind her. The music pulsed on.

People talked about him - of course they did. Whispered things with raised eyebrows and plastic smiles. Why did a thirty-something single dad open his doors every weekend to half the college-bound zip code? Some said it was inappropriate. Others got more creative. Said he was chasing his youth, clinging to nostalgia, trying too hard to be the "cool parent, since his own kid didn’t talk to him anymore.”

Let them. Let them twist it up however they needed to. Jisung knew exactly what he was doing.

He threw these parties because no one ever had for him. No soft landings. No safety nets. His first drink was handed off in a stranger’s basement, with warm gin and colder stares. His first blackout ended with bruised ribs and a phone call no one picked up. That kind of silence? It never left you.

So now, he kept the lights on. Kept the cabinet stocked - not just booze, but water, Gatorade, snacks for the ones who forgot to eat. He took keys without making it a big deal. Had Advil on hand before the hangover hit. Built playlists that wound down by midnight. Made sure someone was always watching the door.

He filled the space the way he wished someone had filled it for him. And maybe that’s why he didn’t talk much about his own kid.

There were no photos on the fridge. No offhand stories about awkward school plays or soccer goals. And if anyone noticed the way Jisung's gaze sometimes drifted to the empty hallway, or the way his smile faltered when someone called their dad just to check in - they didn’t mention it. No one asked. And Jisung never offered.

There were whispers, of course, that Jihyun, his own son, had packed a bag one day and never looked back. Some said it was the drinking. Others claimed he couldn’t handle being second place to a rotating cast of strangers passed out on the couch. The version that stuck hardest was the one spoken in low voices at grocery store checkouts and PTA meetings: “You know, his own son doesn’t even talk to him anymore.”  

No one knew if it was true. But it was passed around like gospel by people who’d never once stepped inside Jisung’s house, let alone asked what it had cost him to keep the lights on for everyone else’s children.

He just kept doing what he did - laughing too loudly, swearing too casually, playing the fool so the kids didn’t have to. A walking contradiction wrapped in a worn hoodie and a Red Bull can, cracking jokes while quietly teaching these kids what mercy looked like in a world quick to punish the young.

Let the neighborhood call him reckless. Let the parents side-eye his porch lights. He’d be the one picking up the pieces when someone’s kid needed grace more than a lecture. Even if it wasn’t his.

Especially because it wasn’t his.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Morning arrived with its usual lack of grace - sunlight spilling through the bedroom window at exactly the wrong angle. It crept across the floor like it had an agenda and landed squarely on Minho’s face.

He groaned, flung an arm over his eyes, and resigned himself to the betrayal of dawn. Sleep had finally come, but like most things lately, it hadn’t stayed long.

To be fair, the party hadn’t technically gone late. At 12:30 a.m. sharp, the music had dialed back and the porch crowd had thinned to a manageable murmur. Still, it was late enough to curl under Minho’s skin. Too late for his tastes. Too loud for his sensibilities. Too close.

But none of that held a candle to what was actually clawing at the back of his mind: Minji had come home at 1:25 a.m.

Not that he’d been waiting. Not that he’d checked the clock. Twice.

She was supposed to be at a musical. There shouldn’t have been any midnight creaks on the stairs, no soft footsteps trying too hard not to wake the floorboards.

Minho had promised himself he wouldn’t hover. Wouldn’t pry. He’d hated that kind of parenting growing up. But as he lay there in the hush of morning, a tightness curled low in his stomach. Maybe, just this once, he’d make an exception.

The thought struck him like a needle to the temple: God, am I turning into him?

That same tone, the one loaded with accusation before the question even formed. He could hear it echoing - And where have you been? - curled at the edge of memory like smoke in a closed room. Minho’s father had always asked it from the recliner, back turned just enough to be dramatic. Sometimes with a cat stretched across his lap like a prop from a bad noir film. Ah, Minho. You’ve fallen into my trap. The lasers will activate once you cross the rug. Now explain why you’re ten minutes late.

It would’ve been funny if it hadn’t always felt like the floor was actually going to open up beneath him.

Honestly, Minho would’ve preferred the piranha pit. At least those bites healed eventually.

Minho exhaled, dragging himself upright with the kind of slow, weighted movement that already felt like penance. He pressed his fingers to his temples, trying to massage the tension out before it became a full-blown migraine.

Be calm. Be thoughtful. Don’t lead with suspicion. Let her talk.

He’d always prided himself on the honesty he shared with Minji - the quiet trust that let her tell him things most kids avoided. Like when she lost her virginity at seventeen. He’d nearly swallowed his own tongue, but nodded through it, reminded himself he’d been worse at her age. Still. Some truths sat in his chest like wet stones.

The steady hiss of water into the kettle grounded him, a small mercy in the cacophony of his nerves. Panic scratched at the back of his mind, whispering possibilities, each more colorful than the last. It wasn’t even 8 a.m. and the day had already overstayed its welcome.

Then came the familiar sound of footsteps - light, bare, unmistakably hers.

Minji shuffled into the kitchen like it was any other morning: yawning, hair wild with sleep, glasses slightly askew. Comfortably disheveled in the way only someone deeply loved could get away with.

“‘Morning, Dad,” she mumbled, reaching for her favorite mug - the one he’d brought back from some kitschy novelty shop in D.C. years ago. Bold letters wrapped around it like a quiet battle cry: No Uterus, No Opinion.

Minho managed a small smile. Right. Normal. Just a normal morning. If he ignored the roiling pit in his stomach, it almost worked.

“Morning, kiddo.” Minho’s voice was too soft, too careful - the kind of careful that already felt like it might betray him. He forced a swallow, worked up a neutral smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Did you enjoy Hamilton last night?”

There it was. Five innocent words that already tasted like regret.

The silence that followed landed like a dropped plate. Not loud, exactly - but final. Minji didn’t look at him. Just set her mug down with too much precision, her back a little too straight.

A sigh slipped from her lips. “I… didn’t go to Hamilton last night.” Her words were fragile, but clear. She sounded guilty. Or worse, like she expected judgment. Like she’d already rehearsed his worst possible reaction.

Minho’s stomach twisted.

Had he sounded like him ?

His father’s voice rose unbidden in the back of his mind - sharp-edged and cold, every question a trap. Where have you been? What the hell were you thinking? The kind of questions that didn’t want answers, just confession. Minho gripped the kettle handle a little too tightly.

“Oh…” he said, barely trusting his mouth to shape words around the molasses in his throat. He forced a breath. Held onto it like a lifeline. Then, calmly - almost gently - “I see.” It wasn’t anger pooling in his chest. It was panic. And the white-knuckled effort to stay gentle despite it. “Well then… What did you do last night?”

Minji was silent for a beat too long, and Minho’s stomach lurched. She was scared. Minho had just destroyed the twenty years of trust and open communication that he had worked so hard to build with his daughter, HIS baby girl.

“I…” Minji hesitated, turning toward him. Her eyes didn’t quite meet his. “I went to a party. With… Taehyun and Jeongin.”

Minho blinked. That was it?

He felt the tension in his spine begin to slip. His jaw unclenched. A party. That was what she’d been so scared to say? He released a shaky breath and nodded, turning the stove’s burner on beneath the kettle.

“Sweetheart, you’re twenty. You don’t have to feel ashamed about going out once in a while. Did you have fun?”

Minji let out a puff of air - less a laugh than a tired surrender. “Honestly? Not really. Tae and Innie got wasted. Kept handing me shots like it was a competition, but…” She rubbed her temple, reaching into the drawer for their tea. “I don’t think I like being drunk.” She dropped a jasmine bag into each mug with muscle memory alone. Her voice was soft. Familiar. And the gesture - the quiet ritual of tea before the world fully woke up - was enough to make something warm bloom behind Minho’s ribs.

God, he loved her.

Soon, there’d only be one cup left to fill. The thought barely brushed his mind before he shoved it away.

“Well, nothing wrong with that,” he said lightly, pouring the boiling water with steady hands. “I didn’t care for it either when I was your age.”

He leaned against the counter, letting the steam curl into the morning silence. And for a second, he let himself believe it was over. That whatever had been gnawing at the edges of his gut all morning had just been nerves.

But then-

The timeline.

Minji had come home at 1:25 a.m. He remembered the click of the lock. The creak of the third stair. The party across the street had died down around 12:30.

He didn’t want to do the math. Didn’t want to look.

Don’t.

But his eyes flicked to her anyway.

There. On her cheek. A faint streak of purple shimmer, half-smudged, like she’d tried to scrub it away and given up. Minho’s breath caught.

Glitter.

Not just any glitter - the exact same shade that always clung to Jisung’s porch gremlins like they’d been birthed from craft store hell. His stomach dropped. Mug clenched so tightly in his hands the ceramic threatened to splinter.

No.

No no no no no-

She wouldn’t.

Would she?

Minho tried to reason with himself. Glitter was common. It wasn’t a smoking gun. Maybe she'd walked through a Sephora. Maybe she’d hugged a friend who bedazzled their eyelids. Maybe she went to a rave.

That last thought made him physically ill.

He didn’t need to ask. He wanted to. For once in his life, Minho desperately wanted to be wrong.

He took a slow breath, voice steady in that terrifyingly careful way he reserved for things that could break him. “You’ve, uh… got a little something on your face. Just there - on your cheek.” He gestured vaguely, hoping it didn’t come across too sharp.

Minji raised her hand, fingers brushing her skin. When she pulled away, her brows drew together. Purple glitter. Bright. Defiant. “Oh,” she said softly.

Oh. That was all?

Minho felt heat slam up the back of his neck. His heart was beating like it had slipped into survival mode, every nerve bracing for impact. He clung to the counter with both hands, knuckles bone-white. “Minji,” he said, carefully - so carefully it hurt. “I need you to be completely honest with me right now.” His voice trembled like a bridge under pressure. “Did you go to the party across the street last night?”

The words burned on the way out. Not just because he didn’t want to know, but because he hated the person they belonged to. The tone. The suspicion. The way it sounded like something he’d heard growing up - cold and hollow and waiting for failure.

But this wasn’t about his father. This was about Jisung. Jisung, who encouraged recklessness like it was enlightenment. Jisung, whose porch was a revolving door of mistakes waiting to happen. Jisung, who was loud and smug and infuriating and - if she said yes -

If she said yes , Minho wasn’t going to knock. He was going to tear that man’s door off the hinges.

Minji’s breath caught like it had snagged on barbed wire. Her fingers tightened around the mug, jaw flickering with the effort not to flinch. She stared down at the glitter on her hand like it might still offer her a way out - some half-plausible excuse, some throwaway lie that could smooth this over and leave them intact. 

But nothing came.

Every path she tried to fabricate crumbled halfway through. Her dad wasn’t the kind you could bluff with vague stories or half-truths - he saw too much, remembered everything. And worse, this wasn't just about any party.

It was his party. Across the street. On that porch. The one place she’d known - knew - would cut the deepest.

Minho waited, silent, eyes dark with something almost wounded beneath the calm. She could practically hear the second hand ticking in the silence between them.

“I…” she croaked, then stopped. Tried again.

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered, like that somehow counted for something. “I didn’t know it was his party until I was already inside. I just followed Tae and Innie and then - then I saw him - and I panicked. I didn’t even drink after that, not really.”

The silence that followed was worse than yelling. Worse than anything.

She dared a glance up, her father’s expression unreadable. Not angry. Not disappointed. Just… tense. Tight. Like a wire pulled too far and waiting to snap.

“I’m sorry,” she said, so quietly it barely made it out of her throat. “Please don’t hate me.”

Minho’s breath stalled in his chest. His daughter - his quiet, poetry-loving, cardigan-stealing daughter - had stood under Jisung’s roof. Surrounded by Red Bull and recklessness and whatever other chaos that man passed off as “community.”

He felt the ground tilt. Like reality itself had been knocked slightly off-center. He was hanging by a thread - frayed, unraveling fast - and the worst part was pretending he wasn’t.

Minji’s voice broke through the ringing in his ears. “D-Dad?”

He looked at her, finally. Really looked. Her eyes were glossy with tears, jaw trembling like she expected him to yell. As if she thought she might have lost him over this. And something deep in Minho cracked wide open.

Without a word, he crossed the kitchen and wrapped her in his arms - tight, fierce, trying not to shake. The hug said everything he couldn’t through the fear and fury storming behind his ribs.

You’re not in trouble. You’re never in trouble with me.

You didn’t disappoint me. Not even close.

But also: I may commit a felony today.

Because Minho understood the pull. The glittering promise of freedom, of bad decisions made in safe places. He even admired it, in theory.

But Jisung? Jisung didn’t offer freedom. He offered temptation with a wink and no follow-through. And now he’d made Minho’s daughter part of it.

Minho kept holding her - because if he didn’t, he’d be across the street with his hands around that man’s smug, infuriating neck. And only one of them would walk away.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

The house smelled like sweat, spilled soda, and at least two kinds of regret.

Jisung stepped around a collapsed bean bag chair, treading carefully over a sea of plastic cups and discarded hoodies. His hair was in full rebellion, he’d lost a sock somewhere between the kitchen and the hallway, and his Red Bull had gone lukewarm in his hand - but the stereo was off, the kids were safe, and no one had vomited on anything with sentimental value.

Yet.

From the living room, he heard the unmistakable sound of someone dry heaving into a trash can. Jisung veered left. There, half-draped over his recycling bin like a remorseful Grecian statue, was Kai, Chan’s twenty year old son. One hand clutched the rim. The other dangled like it had given up somewhere around 4 a.m.

Jisung crouched next to him, voice soft. “Yeah... it sucks, doesn’t it?”

Kai groaned something that may have been a curse or possibly just the word "jalapeño."

Jisung patted him on the back. “Sip some water. Breathe through your nose. I’ve got Gatorade in the fridge - red or blue, your destiny.” He stood with a wince, bones cracking like pop rocks, and shuffled toward the kitchen. There were already two girls passed out under the table in a blanket fort built of couch cushions and jackets. Someone had lovingly constructed a snack tower out of Cheez-Its and Oreos on the coffee table.

It was chaos. But it was quiet chaos now. Safe.

This was his favorite part. The aftermath. The breath between storm and sunrise where he could see every face and know they made it through. Not always pretty. Not always proud. But intact.

He opened the fridge. Rows of bottled water, Gatorade, juice boxes, and the last three cold beers stared back at him like unlikely roommates. He grabbed two electrolyte drinks and whispered to himself, “You’re doing God’s work, Jisung.” Then added under his breath, “Even if God would probably call the cops on you.”

Jisung crouched beside the couch where Hani - Changbin’s daughter - was passed out face-down, one arm dangling over the side like a marionette with its strings cut. He gently lifted her wrist and slid a hair tie around it - her curls always tangled when she slept like that. He made a mental note to text Changbin later, just to say everything was fine. He liked those texts, even if he never replied.

In the kitchen, Sunoo - Seungmin’s twenty four year old son -  was curled into a ball under the table, his hoodie pulled up past his ears. Jisung placed a bottle of water next to him and nudged a folded blanket under his head with the tip of his socked foot. The kid murmured something unintelligible and clutched the blanket like it was sacred.

In the hallway, someone had gotten creative with Sharpie and drawn a mustache on Jisung’s framed concert poster. He didn’t even blink. Just smiled, wiped at it with a damp cloth, and whispered, “You little shit. I hope it was worth it.”

But he wasn’t mad. Not even close.

Someone knocked over the little succulent by the windowsill. He righted it carefully, brushing soil back into the pot with his hands, then checked to see if any of the leaves were bruised.

In the bathroom, he paused outside the door when he heard someone sniffling quietly from the tub. The door was cracked. He tapped once, voice low and warm. “You alright in there?”

A voice answered - shaky, embarrassed, maybe crying. “Just… needed a minute.”

“No rush. Take all the time you need. Want some tea?”

There was silence. Then a very small, “Yeah… maybe.”

He nodded, unseen, and headed toward the kettle.

In the middle of the disaster zone that was his living room, Jisung picked up a stranger’s phone off the floor and placed it gently on the coffee table, like it was made of glass.

People said a lot about him. That he was immature. Irresponsible. That he enabled kids to be reckless. But none of them were here at 8 a.m. with two Advils in one hand and a granola bar in the other, checking pulses and handing out breakfast like it was a sacred rite.

They didn’t see the way he wiped vomit off his welcome mat without flinching. Or the way he sat on the porch beside someone crying into their hoodie and said nothing - because sometimes silence was the only kind of safety that counted.

He didn’t care if people misunderstood him. They could keep misunderstanding him. Because the kids here? The ones passed out under tables and burrowed into blankets and blinking blearily toward the kitchen? They were his .

At least for the night.

The bookstore door across the street slammed shut hard enough to rattle the windows, but Jisung didn’t flinch. He stayed crouched beside the girl on the porch steps, offering her a steadying presence as she wiped her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve.

“Tell you what,” he murmured gently, his voice soft and unhurried. “Go upstairs - second door on the left. If the bathroom hasn’t exploded, there’s a purple basket by the sink. Bath bombs, clean towels. Door locks from the inside. Take a shower, a nap... whatever you need to feel human again.”

She sniffled, nodded, and rose on shaky legs. Jisung gave her shoulder a reassuring pat, then straightened - just in time to come face to face with a human thundercloud.

Minho stood a few feet away, jaw clenched, barely restrained fury radiating from every pore.

“You-”

Jisung shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket and tilted his head, the picture of calm. Exhausted calm, granted, with a side of dull headache and too many empty energy drinks - but calm. “Can’t call the HOA on me today, Mr. Lee,” he said lightly. “Music was off before one a.m. I checked.” He knew the drill. Minho would shout about noise, teenage recklessness, moral decay. Jisung would deflect. And then they’d go back to ignoring each other until the next Friday rolled around.

But this wasn’t that.

“-are a good-for-nothing son of a bitch! ” Minho roared, the words ripping from his throat like shrapnel. “You knew my daughter was at your damn party last night?! You’re lucky I don’t have the fucking cops here right now!”

Jisung blinked.

Wait. Wait.

The flash of glitter. The soft hug. The “thank you, Mr. Han.” Minji. The deal they’d made.

His stomach twisted - but he kept his face blank, blinked once, then raised a brow.

“Think you’ve got your stories mixed up, Mr. Lee,” Jisung said, voice steady and low, like a man defusing a bomb with bare hands.

Minho didn’t hesitate. “Oh, so now you’re calling my daughter a liar?” he spat, voice edged with something sharper than rage. “At least I know where my child is. At least my kid still talks to me.”

It hit with surgical precision. Jisung flinched like he’d taken a hit to the ribs - barely visible, just a flicker behind the eyes. But something inside him twisted hard, bracing against the old ache he never let anyone name.

Not here. Not now. But the words were already lodged under his skin.

At least my kid still talks to me.

That was the thing about people like Minho - they knew exactly where to swing.

Jisung’s hand curled slowly into a fist in his hoodie pocket, nails biting into the soft fabric. He drew in a breath through his nose, slow and even, like he was trying to steady a ship mid-storm. 

“Really?” he said, voice still quiet - but the calm was gone now, replaced by something taut and cold, coiled just under the surface. “That where we’re going, Lee?”

Because if Minho wanted to crack ribs, Jisung could break spines. But God help him, he didn’t want to - not in front of a house full of sleeping kids. Not with Minji’s trust still hanging between them like threadbare glass.

Not unless Minho gave him no choice.

“You think throwing glitter at teenagers and handing out Gatorade makes up for the fact your own kid won’t even return your calls? You’re not a safe space, Jisung. You’re just a pathetic stand-in. A cautionary tale in a zip hoodie.” Minho spat at Jisung, a sneer on his lips, “You’re ruining these fucking kids, and you don’t even feel bad about it.”

Jisung didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But something behind his eyes shuttered.

Minho’s words hung in the air like smoke - cautionary tale in a zip hoodie - and before Jisung could stop himself, the fuse caught fire.

His voice sliced through the porch like a gunshot. “You sanctimonious asshole.”

The words came like bullets, sharp and fast, years of buried bruises rising all at once. “You want to talk about failure? Go ahead. Throw my son in my face. Twist the knife. That’s clearly what this is about for you - getting to stand there with your perfect tea ritual and Ivy League-bound daughter and pretend you’re not suffocating her with your high horse and paranoia.” Jisung stepped forward, the mask gone, the exhaustion gone - nothing but raw, scorched nerve. “You stand there waving your perfect-parent report card like a damn trophy, but your daughter was terrified to tell you where she was last night. Terrified , Minho.”

His words were ice on the outside, but shaking with heat just beneath the surface.

“She came to me .” He jabbed a finger toward his own chest. “ Begged me not to tell you. Said she didn’t want to see your face if you found out. So maybe I am a screw-up in a hoodie. Maybe my kid won’t speak to me and I’ve got nothing left to brag about. Fine. But don’t stand on my porch and act like you’re some beacon of parental virtue when your own daughter would rather lie than be honest with you.”

Silence snapped down around them.

Jisung’s chest heaved, hands clenched, body buzzing like he’d just sprinted through traffic. The quiet was deafening. He didn’t want to say another word.

And yet, in a voice hoarse and hollow, he added, “You think I don’t feel bad about what I’ve lost? You think I don’t feel it every single day ? But let’s get one thing straight. I know I’ve failed. I live with it every single day. You think that makes me reckless? That it makes me dangerous? No. That guilt’s why I do what I do. Why I open this house up and feed the kids who’ve got nowhere to go. Why I let them be stupid safely , under a roof that doesn’t scream at them for messing up.”

“And maybe I’m the fuck-up in the hoodie, but at least I didn’t teach my kid to be afraid of telling me the truth.” The porch went silent. Every molecule of air seemed to still, too afraid to move.

Jisung’s throat burned. His pulse thundered. And despite everything - every insult, every low blow - his voice cracked at the end:

“You don’t get to call me worthless and pretend you’re not bleeding all over your kid.”

The silence between them wasn’t just silence - it was aftermath.

Jisung stood there, chest heaving, rage already spent and replaced by something rougher, thinner. His hands trembled slightly where they hung at his sides, not from fear, but from how hard he'd worked to not fall apart.

Minho didn’t speak at first. He was staring down at the porch wood, something behind his eyes warping. When he finally lifted his gaze, it was with a kind of disbelief that looked nothing like defense.

“She…” His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard before trying again. “Minji was scared to tell me?”

Jisung let out a quiet, broken laugh. Not cruel. Just tired. Deep-bone tired.

“She looked like she’d rather walk across broken glass barefoot than tell you the truth,” he said, sinking down onto the steps, elbows on his knees. “She begged me. Almost crying. Said she didn’t mean to end up there, didn’t even drink much once she realized where she was. Told me about that little gremlin Taehyun feeding her shots like it was some kind of hazing ritual.” He shook his head slowly, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Said she didn’t like it. Said it made her feel wrong. Then asked me not to tell you because… because she didn’t want to see your face if you knew. Like she already knew what that disappointment might look like. Or thought she did.”

Minho sat down heavily on the porch railing like the weight of those words had knocked the wind out of him. His mouth moved, but no sound came out at first. Finally -

“I swore I’d never become him.”

Jisung didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. It was already written across both their faces - raw and quiet and trembling like the air between them couldn’t quite settle. The storm was over. But the wreckage was still finding places to land.

“Jesus…” Minho pressed a hand over his mouth, the other wrapped around his ribs like he was physically trying to hold himself together. His shoulders curled inward, bracing against a grief that didn’t have a name yet. “The moment she was born,” he said softly, eyes locked on the porch floor like it might offer him mercy, “I swore I’d never become him .” His voice cracked - low, thin, hollow around the edges.

“I promised myself I’d talk to her. Let her feel safe. Seen. I spent years undoing the silence I grew up in, gutting myself to make space for something better. Something kinder.” His breath hitched. “And now… to find out she was scared to tell me something? Anything? ” He shook his head, barely. “It feels like it was all for nothing.”

Across from him, Jisung sighed, dragging a weary hand down his face. “It wasn’t nothing.” Minho didn’t look up, but Jisung kept talking anyway.

“You’ve got a good kid. A damn good one. But she knows how much you hate me. Shit, you don’t exactly keep it subtle.” That earned a flicker of something in Minho’s jaw, but he didn’t interrupt.

“So yeah - she looked around, realized where she was, realized who she was with, and panicked. Not because you’re some monster, Minho. But because she thought this would confirm all your worst expectations. And maybe you wouldn’t be mad at her, but you’d be mad because of her.” Jisung exhaled, tired and quiet. “She didn’t want to be the thing that made you hate the world more than you already do.”

“Don’t talk like you know my daughter better than I do.” Minho’s words snapped out sharp, bitter around the edges - less anger, more desperation in a brittle shell. Like even imagining someone else understanding Minji in ways he didn’t was too much to bear.

Jisung didn’t flinch. “I’m not,” he said quietly, shaking his head. His voice was calm, unobtrusive. “I’m just telling you what she told me.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty - it was heavy, delicate, taut between them like wire. Both men standing on opposite ends, not quite enemies, not quite ready to reach for the same line. Just suspended there, wounded and wordless, waiting to see who would move first.

“I know you don’t care,” Jisung said, voice flat and thinned out like a thread pulled too tight. He didn’t look at Minho - just kept his eyes glued to the pavement like it might split open and give him somewhere to hide. “But there’s a reason Jihyun doesn’t call. Doesn’t come around.”

Minho barked out a laugh. It was ugly. Hollow. More venom than humor. “Yeah?” he snapped. “What - he finally got sick of the Red Bull and pop psychology? Realized his dad was too busy being everyone else’s savior to be his own?”

The words hung in the air like ash. Jisung flinched - but only slightly. His lips moved, just barely. Some twitch of disbelief, or restraint, or bone-deep hurt.

Then, after a beat too long:

“He’s dead.”

He said it like dropping a glass.

Like he’d said it before, too many times, and it still never hit any softer.

The air snapped still. Minho’s whole posture shifted - shock carving through his expression like a blade.

“I-I didn’t-”

“Overdose,” Jisung said quietly, cutting off whatever apology was about to surface. His voice wasn’t angry. Just… hollow. “Party in L.A. He’d taken ecstasy - just a little. Enough to ride the wave and make it through the night.” He dragged a hand over his mouth, breath shaking.

“But someone spiked his water. Slipped more into his bottle without telling him. It’s colorless, you know. Odorless. And ecstasy makes you thirsty . That’s the cruelest part. He thought he was staying safe. Hydrating. But every sip was another dose. His body didn’t even know how to stop.” A long pause. Then, softer: “He cooked his brain from the inside out.”

Minho couldn’t look away. Couldn’t look at him either.

“We got the call at two in the morning,” Jisung went on. “Bought the first ticket I could. Thirteen hours on a flight is long when you know your kid is waiting for you in a hospital bed. Longer when you’re begging whatever god still listens to make time move faster.”

He blinked hard, eyes glassy. “But by the time we got there... he was gone. Not legally, not technically. His chest still moved. Machines still hummed. But he wasn’t there .”

His voice dropped to barely a whisper. “And that was it. That’s what broke us, by the way. Me and Kyung-mi. We made it through a lot. But not that. Not him. We buried our son and filed the divorce papers in the same month.”

He finally looked up, face tight with grief he hadn't spoken aloud since the day it happened. 

“So yeah. Maybe I throw parties. Maybe I watch kids get drunk in my living room and make sure they don’t choke on their own regret. Because if just one of them wakes up and goes, ‘That wasn’t for me,’ and lives to decide that again, then I did one thing right.”

“Did… did they ever catch who did it?” Minho asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Jisung exhaled sharply, a breath that was almost a laugh - except there was nothing left in him that remembered how to laugh at all.

“No.” He didn’t look at Minho, just stared at the sidewalk like it might split open and drag him under. “They couldn’t. All the bottles he drank from that night just… vanished. Not in the trash. Not in the alley. Not in the goddamn dumpster behind the club. They even dug through the landfill. Nothing. Not one fingerprint. Not one fiber. Like he drank from thin air.”

His hand came up, trembling as he pressed it to his forehead, thumb dragging hard over his temple.

“They treated it like he just… overdid it. Wrote it off as some reckless kid who didn’t know his limit. Party animal. ” His voice cracked, and when he spoke again, it was frayed and bitter. “Like it made sense. Like that was all the explanation they needed.”

A pause. Then, quieter:

“Everyone else moved on. His friends. The cops. Even the doctors - they unhooked the machines with all the finality of clocking out for lunch.” He looked up, eyes glassy and haunted.

“But I can’t. Because I know someone did this. Someone spiked his bottle, watched him fall apart, and walked away.”

Jisung’s throat worked around the next words like they weighed too much. “His friend - Haesoo - told me there was a guy. Someone hanging too close at the club that night. Kim Jonghyun. That name has been rattling around in my skull like a loaded gun ever since.”

Minho froze.

“They never found him. No cameras. No ID. No digital trail. I’ve searched - God, I’ve searched. Every social, every street name, even hired someone. It’s like he never existed. But Haesoo remembers his face. And I remember my son foaming at the mouth.”

He laughed again, hollow this time. “I don’t even want revenge, Minho. I just want to know . I just want to stop feeling like I’m screaming underwater in a room no one else can hear.”

Jisung dropped like a man shot in the gut, all the wind and will sucked out of him in an instant - folding in on himself like grief could hollow him from the inside out. The heels of his palms dug into his eyes, like maybe if he pressed hard enough, he could shut out the images that still haunted him.

“I got twenty-three years,” he rasped, voice barely audible beneath the weight of it. “That’s all. Twenty-three birthdays. Twenty-three winters where I bought him gloves he always forgot to wear. Twenty-three years of ‘ I love you, Dad ,’ and I didn’t know the last one was the last one. ”

His breath hitched, sharp and wet.

“I watched him come into this world, screaming and perfect - and I had to stand there, helpless, while they covered him with dirt like he was nothing more than another mistake in the ground. Do you know what that does to you? Watching the same hands you held when he learned to walk become still, cold, empty ? Lowering a box with his name on it while the world keeps spinning like it didn’t just lose something irreplaceable?”

His shoulders shook violently, sobs barely held in check by force of will alone. Tears streamed down his cheeks, unchecked, carving rivers through years of silence.

“I close my eyes and I still see him. Still hear him. And I’d give every last piece of myself to trade places. I’d beg for it.”

He let out a broken breath that wasn’t quite a sound - just devastation made audible.

A low groan echoed from somewhere inside the house.

Jisung sighed. Not irritated - just drained. He wiped at his face with the back of his sleeve, his eyes swollen and rimmed with red, grief still clinging to his skin like sweat. Slowly, deliberately, he pushed himself upright, piecing himself back together with trembling hands and sheer will.

“Minji’s a good kid,” he murmured, voice thick. “One of the good ones. You should be proud.”

He sniffled, dragging a sleeve across his nose, then glanced back at Minho. And in that look - just for a moment - was everything he’d been holding in: the aching weight of a parent who had buried their child and never stopped hearing the silence that followed.

His voice cracked as he added, almost too quietly, “And… hug her a little tighter. While you still can.”

Then he turned without another word, disappearing into the house. No hesitation. No fanfare. Just a man going to check on whoever needed him next. Like he always did.

Minho stood there, unmoving. And all at once, it clicked into place.

The parties. The precautions. The soft-spoken care behind every Red Bull and Advil packet.

Jisung wasn’t some reckless burnout clinging to his youth. He was a man grieving in real-time, repurposing the wreckage of his own loss into something redemptive. Those kids weren’t just guests - they were stand-ins , yes. But more than that, they were chances. Second ones. Third ones. A way to make sure no one else’s parent would ever have to fly thirteen hours too late.

And Jisung - broken, stubborn, exhausted Jisung - carried all of them, as gently as if they were his own. Because in his heart, they were.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Friday arrived the way they all did - quiet, unremarkable. But Minho noticed things now.

He watched the way Jisung moved across the street, a little slower than most, always half-listening even when he was laughing. The kind of man who still turned on the porch light before sundown. Who looked over his shoulder more than he looked ahead. The grief hung on him like an old coat - worn-in, familiar, impossible to fully shed.

That day, Minho went home and held Minji a little longer than usual. She blinked up at him in confusion, mouth full of cereal, but didn’t protest. He couldn’t quite explain it. Only knew that knowing what Jisung had lost made everything feel more fragile.

At eight o’clock, like clockwork, the neighborhood twenty somethings started filtering into Jisung’s house - laughter echoing, footsteps light. Minho stood by the window longer than he meant to, watching them. Recognizing faces. Kids whose parents he knew from PTA meetings, from backyard barbecues. All people he liked. All people who, if the world tilted just wrong, could be forced to bury a child too.

Later, when the house had gone still again, Minho sat at his laptop and - against his better judgment - looked him up.

Jisung’s old social media was a snapshot of another life. Beaches, birthday candles, tangled arms around a grinning boy with his father’s smile. A family frozen in time, all sunlit joy and goofy captions. And then… nothing.

Minho followed the thread, hesitantly, until it led to Jisung’s ex-wife - now tan, remarried, glass of wine in hand somewhere in Boca Raton. Not a single photo of Jihyun. Not a single mention. Like the boy had been rewritten out of her narrative entirely.

Minho stared at her feed far too long, an unfamiliar ache working its way into his chest. It was staggering, really - how quickly a person could be erased. And somehow, Jisung had survived it. The kind of pain that should’ve taken him out completely. But instead, he stayed.

No wonder he left the porch light on.

Minho closed the laptop and sat in the dark for a while, hands folded, feeling something like guilt twist low in his ribs. He didn’t know what exactly had shifted. Only that it had.

Minho didn’t even flinch when the bass shook the picture frames. He didn’t sigh at the bursts of laughter that cracked across the street - sharp and bright and so very alive. That particular high-pitched squeal, he was sure, belonged to Chan’s kid. A sound like childhood, chaotic and unfiltered.

It didn’t bother him. Not anymore.

Laughter meant breathing. Noise meant existence. And if there was one thing Minho had come to understand, it was how unbearably quiet absence could be.

The months that followed unfolded slowly, almost imperceptibly - like winter thawing into spring. A wave across the driveway. A mug of hot tea left at Jisung’s door without a note. A pack of Gatorade leaning against the porch railing like an offering.

No declarations. No apologies. Just a quiet conversation between two men who had seen too much and were learning, haltingly, how to hold what remained. Minho didn’t have the words. He wasn’t sure he ever would. But he showed up - in the smallest of ways. And Jisung, in his own quiet grief and grit, accepted it.

It wasn’t much. But it was something.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Friday arrived muted. No bass thrumming through the floorboards, no laughter spilling recklessly into the street. The porch light was dark, the windows still. Jisung’s house sat in a hush all its own, like a storm cloud that hadn’t quite learned how to break. Outside, the wind pressed onward, tugging gently at the trees. Their leaves were just beginning to soften at the edges, the green giving way - slowly, inevitably - to the first hints of amber, as August leaned toward September.

A few months ago, Minho would’ve welcomed it - might’ve even cracked a beer to celebrate the silence. But now, it sat wrong. Off-kilter. The kind of quiet that meant something was missing.

His body moved before his thoughts caught up, and suddenly he was on Jisung’s porch, hand raised to knock. It felt intrusive. It felt necessary. The door opened after a long moment.

“No party tonight, guys - ” Jisung’s voice was hoarse as he rubbed his sleeve against reddened eyes, only to freeze when he registered who was standing there. “M-Minho?”

Minho didn’t flinch. He just looked at him - really looked. “Don’t hide,” he said gently. “Is today…”

Jisung nodded once. That was all it took.

“How many years?”

A pause. Then, barely above a breath: “Four.” Four years since a doctor had looked him in the eye and confirmed the machines were doing all the breathing. Four years since Jisung lost his son and his wife in a single breath. Four years since something cracked deep in Jisung and never truly healed.

Minho nodded, tilting his head ever so slightly. Jisung blinked, then stepped back and opened the door wider.

The house, somehow, was immaculate. For a place that shook weekly with music and teenage chaos, not a single frame was out of place. Guitars on wall mounts. Posters signed and centered. And photos - so many photos. Jihyun in every stage of becoming. Chubby cheeks and scraped knees. Graduation caps and cake-stained smiles. Minho’s chest tightened.

He had similar frames in his own home. Ones with room still to fill - college, weddings, future grandbabies not yet born. But Jisung’s frames were full. And they would never change again. Only memory added new weight to them now. Pictures were all he had left.

“Forgive the mess,” Jisung muttered, voice distant, like it had taken too long to return to his own mouth. Minho’s eyes drifted past him, landing on the quiet wreckage in the living room: photo albums left open mid-page, spine-worn and heavy. A half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table. One glass. Whiskey still clinging to the sides of the glass. It wasn’t disarray. It was mourning in motion.

“What mess?” Minho asked gently, softer than Jisung had ever heard him. “Your place is cleaner than mine. I’ve got cat hair on every surface like it's part of the décor.” He meant it as a joke. A little levity to catch them both, maybe. But the silence that followed pressed too hard - thick and unrelenting. The kind that made every breath feel too loud.

Jisung sniffled, rubbing at his swollen eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie. “Why are you here, Minho? I figured you’d be popping champagne now that it’s quiet for once.”

Minho swallowed, gaze steady. “No noise isn’t worth celebrating.” He glanced around the still room - so full of pictures, so painfully full of absence, “Noise is... life,” he said, his voice barely audible. “This kind of silence just - asks not to be alone.”

Jisung blinked at him, stunned silent for a beat. Then, through a watery chuckle: “You’ve got to be drunker than I am. Because I know for a fact you didn’t just come over to keep me company - when a couple months ago, you were ready to fly my skin from your front porch like a warning flag.” He laughed again, just once, brittle and wet, wiping at his face like the sound had surprised him.

“I did,” Minho said quietly, the words catching a little in his throat. He looked up at Jisung, unsure what he expected in return. Maybe nothing. Maybe just not the door slammed in his face. Truth was, something had cracked open in him the day he found out about Jihyun. And he hadn’t been able to close it since.

Jisung’s jaw tensed. “I don’t want your pity, Minho,” he snapped. The words landed like barbed wire. “I didn’t unload all that about Jihyun just so you’d show up with a consolation prize. I don’t need your guilt tea and neighborly pats on the back.”

Minho flinched - just barely - but didn’t back off.

“It’s not pity,” he said, his voice rougher now, like he was feeling every word before he let it go. He tilted his head, eyes tracing the sharp edges of the man in front of him - the grief, the resistance, the way he seemed to brace for impact even in a quiet moment. “It’s not pity,” he repeated. “It’s friendship. Or something that might become that. If you let it.”

Jisung didn’t speak. But the silence felt different this time. Less like a door slammed shut - and more like one left ajar, unsure whether to open the rest of the way.

That night was uncharted for both of them - Minho, inside the walls he used to swear made his skin crawl, and Jisung, letting someone see him without the armor. No party, no music. Just two men, and the pieces of a boy frozen in photographs.

The albums were spread across the coffee table, pages worn from too many pass-throughs. Jihyun grew up in front of Minho’s eyes, frame by frame - chubby cheeks morphing into teenage grins, dark eyes full of wonder. He looked so much like Jisung it made Minho’s chest tighten.

“And this one - ” Jisung’s voice broke the stillness, cracked around the edges. He was pointing at a sun-bleached photo, all arms and tangled smiles. A boat, the ocean behind them, and a shark fin just barely visible in the distance. “We took a trip to Florida. He was eight. First time seeing a shark.” There was a short laugh, damp with memory.

“He nearly dove off the boat trying to follow it. Grabbed my wrist and everything - almost pulled me in after him.” He smiled down at the image, fingers brushing over the grain of it. “It was just a nurse shark, totally harmless. But to him? Might as well have been a great white made of gold.”

He flipped to another photo - graduation day. Jihyun stood in a cap and gown, purple and gold draped over narrow shoulders. And there, nestled just above his collar, was a weathered shark tooth hanging from a beaded necklace.

“I bought it for him that day in Florida,” Jisung murmured. “He wore it for years. Even here. Even then.” Minho leaned in, studying the necklace. He could picture the boy clutching it, fiddling with it while he studied or talked or danced at some party. 

Minho’s gaze drifted - just for a second - drawn to the necklace that rested against the collar of Jisung’s worn hoodie. Beaded chain, shark tooth pendant. A piece he’d once dismissed without thought - frat boy relic, overgrown teenager clinging to old glory days.

Now, every detail of it sank in like cold iron. It was Jihyun’s . Worn every day, even through graduation, even in that last photo. And now it hung from Jisung’s neck - not as style, but as memory. As weight. 

Something shifted in Minho’s chest. Not new guilt, not sudden revelation. Just another piece of evidence added to the quiet indictment he’d been collecting against himself for months.

“Everyone teased him for it,” Jisung continued. “Called him ‘surfer boy’ even though we lived nowhere near an ocean. And maybe he kind of liked that. But I overheard him once. Told someone his ‘best friend’ gave it to him.” He paused, eyes glossy as they lingered on his son’s smiling face. “Maybe he didn’t want to say it was his dad. Maybe he thought that made it sound childish. But for a second... I wasn’t just his father. I was the person he trusted the most.”

And then the photos stopped.

The last one was at a mini golf course - faded slightly at the corners, but bright where it counted. Jihyun stood between Jisung and his ex-wife, one arm slung around each of them, flashing a cocky grin. He was nearly as tall as Jisung by then, all lanky limbs and confidence. And Jisung - he looked so proud it hurt to see.

Jisung huffed a soft, damp laugh, brushing his fingers across the glossy surface. “Little punk called himself the Mini Golf King all night. Wore the title like a crown, even at dinner. Wouldn’t shut up about it.” His smile quirked but faltered just as quickly, slipping into something smaller. Sadder. “He earned it, though. Kicked my ass in every round.”

He went quiet for a beat, thumb stalling over the curve of his son's smile. “That was the last day we had him,” he murmured. “He flew to L.A. the morning after.”

Jisung’s voice thinned, distant now - like he was watching it unfold through a window he couldn’t open. “I hugged him at the terminal. Told him I loved him, told him to call when he landed. He said ‘I will,’ and I let him go. Just like that.”

His eyes didn’t move from the photo. “If I’d known that was it… I’d have held on longer. Maybe said something different. Maybe told him to stay. Just one more day.” His fingers tightened slightly against the edge of the page, but he didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to.

“Do…” Minho’s voice caught in his throat before he could swallow it back. “Do you blame yourself?”

Jisung didn’t answer at first.

He just stared at the photo in his lap, thumb brushing absently over the curve of Jihyun’s smile - like maybe if he touched it gently enough, it’d give something back.

Then, softly - flat and broken: “Every damn day.” The words hung there, stripped of all pretense. Just bone-deep honesty.

“Every morning I wake up and I wonder what I could’ve done differently. What if I hadn’t let him go to L.A.? What if I’d pushed him to stay home? Done the overprotective dad thing and kept him close, got him into online classes, watched his back for a little longer?” His voice cracked as he went on, each word a weight dropped from his chest. “What if I’d just known something was going to happen? Just felt it? Said something? Anything.”

He dragged both hands down his face, and when they dropped, his eyes were glassy, mouth trembling.

“And now I’m standing in a six-bedroom house with silence bleeding through the drywall, where my son should still be sleeping until noon. I should be yelling at him to clean up the bathroom, or hearing him come down the hall in those god-awful socks, hair a fucking disaster, calling out ‘Morning, Dad’ like it was nothing.” He huffed out a breath that wasn’t quite a sob, wasn’t quite a laugh. “But I don’t. I just get this. This emptiness. These pictures. These - fucking echoes.”

Minho didn’t offer comfort. Not the kind that wrapped things in ribbon. Instead, he shifted a little closer, resting his elbows on his knees beside him. 

“You’re not alone in this,” he said, quiet but solid. “I’m still here. You don’t have to carry it all by yourself.” And he didn’t add anything else. He just stayed.

“At the risk of sounding like an ass - ” Jisung paused, swirling the last inch of whiskey in his glass. The ice clinked softly, breaking the hush in the room. “I know you’re trying to help. And I get it, I do. But you don’t really know what this feels like.” His voice cracked - not from anger, but exhaustion. Grief slurred at the edges of his words, not cruel, just worn thin.

“You miss Minji already, with her heading off to college. And yeah, that ache is real. I’m not saying it isn’t. But you’ll still get the late-night calls. The blurry photos. The dumb memes. ‘Look what I found today, Dad.’ Stuff like that.” He blinked hard, mouth tightening, and took another sip - small this time. Careful.

“I would give anything for that. A phone call. A text. Just to hear his voice again, even if it was just him asking for gas money.” His hand trembled slightly as he set the glass down. “I’d give every part of myself for one more second.”

Minho didn’t rush to respond. He let the silence settle between them for a beat - just long enough to feel respectful, not suffocating. Then, voice low and steady:

“I know I can’t understand what you’re carrying,” he said. “Not really. I haven’t walked through what you have. I still get to send dumb memes to my daughter and hear her roll her eyes over the phone.” He rubbed his palm over his knee, grounding himself. “But just because I haven’t felt that kind of loss… doesn’t mean I can’t sit here with you while you feel it.”

He glanced over, not pressing - just present. “You don’t have to go through the rest of this with no one in your corner.”

Then he leaned back slightly, letting the words hang. No grand promises. No attempts to fill the ache. Just offering what he could: a solid, steady presence in a world that had taken too much.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Minho never came around on the parties - not entirely. They still weren’t his scene. But the complaints stopped. No more late-night calls to the HOA, no more muttered threats about noise ordinances. Instead, he just started showing up.

Saturday mornings, usually with a quiet grunt and two coffees. He’d roll up his sleeves without a word and help herd half-conscious twenty somethings toward hydration and sunlight. More than once, he was the one holding someone steady while they dry-heaved into a trash can, muttering half-hearted encouragement like it was a battlefield medic rotation.

Jisung never asked for the help. But Minho never waited for the invitation. 

By mid-morning, the kids would trickle out - picked up by tired parents who accepted hangover kits with muttered thanks. And still, Minho stayed. He passed Jisung a fresh trash bag without ceremony. He swept glitter into neat little piles. He set the jazz station low on the Bluetooth speaker while Jisung cursed out a sticky spill in the kitchen.

They didn’t talk much. But they moved in sync - quiet, efficient, slowly building something solid from the mess. Somewhere between the broom and the shared silence, something unspoken settled in.

Friendship.

Not declared. Just... understood.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

The shift didn’t happen all at once. It was slow. Tentative. Like two people testing the edges of something unfamiliar. 

It went beyond the Saturdays - after the last cup was washed, the porch swept, the kids gone. Jisung showed up at the bookstore one morning with a pack of tea bags, sheepish but casual.

“Thought of you,” he said, placing them on the counter. “You’re an Earl Grey guy, right?”

Minho didn’t say much - just nodded. But the next week, he knocked on Jisung’s door holding a bulk pack of paper towels like it was a peace offering.

“Found this at Costco,” he muttered. “Figured… might help after party cleanup.”

And just like that, something settled between them. Something almost gentle.

Jisung began to laugh more. Not the hollow kind he put on for other people’s kids - but the quiet, surprised kind that curled at the corners of his mouth before he could stop it. Sometimes it bubbled out when Minho deadpanned something under his breath, barely audible. Jisung would nudge him with his shoulder, and Minho would grunt something incoherent, but stay standing a little closer. There was no big turning point. No grand declaration.

Just two men who’d lost more than they’d expected to. Two men who knew what it meant to come home to silence and still find a way to show up for someone else. And without even realizing it, they’d started showing up for each other.

The storm hit hard. Heavy sheets of rain clawed down the windows, the kind that made the streets shine like oil and turned the world mute.

Minho felt it before he understood it - something off-kilter in his chest, tugging at him like a string pulled too tight. He was halfway down the stairs of the bookstore, keys still in hand, when he saw the figure on the front stoop.

Jisung.

Soaked through. Shoulders hunched, hoodie clinging to his frame like a second skin. Rain traced slow lines down his cheeks, making it hard to tell what were tears and what weren’t. He looked like he was about to turn back - retreat across the street and pretend he hadn’t come at all.

But Minho opened the door.

Said nothing. Just stepped aside, towel already in one hand, dry clothes tossed into the other. Jisung took them like he didn’t remember how to speak.

Now they sat upstairs, the storm tapping soft fingers against the windows. Jisung clutched a mug of tea with both hands, his rings clicking quietly against the ceramic. He hadn’t stopped shaking.

“She’s pregnant again,” he said, voice thin and trembling. Minho blinked, unsure what to say. Jisung laughed - but there was nothing soft in it. Just air and wreckage.

“Texted me. Like it was nothing. No context. Just - ‘hopefully I don’t lose this one.’” His hands tightened around the mug, knuckles pale. “Like my son was a miscarriage. A mistake. Like he wasn’t real.” His voice cracked. “Like I didn’t bury him. Like I didn’t hold his hand when the machines stopped.” The mug clinked faintly on the table as he set it down with shaking fingers.

“I’ve been trying so hard to hold it together. For the kids, for the house, for something. And she just - just twists the knife because she can.” He wiped his face on his sleeve, a futile gesture - the tears just kept coming, full and guttural, like a dam torn wide.

“I didn’t know who else to go to,” he whispered. “And that scared the hell out of me. Because I don’t do this. I don’t ask. But I thought - if I knocked, you might open the door.”

Minho, for once, didn’t try to fix it. He didn’t say “it’s going to be okay,” or offer a brittle silver lining. He just reached across the space between them, rested a steady hand over Jisung’s trembling one, and said: “You’re not alone.”

“What the hell did I do to deserve this?” Jisung’s voice cracked out of the quiet, more a cry to the ceiling than to Minho. “I grew up in pews. I bowed my head, I memorized verses, I said thank you when I was fucking miserable.” His laugh was hollow - ugly around the edges. “I kissed girls I didn’t see in that way, smiled through sermons that made me hate myself, and I still believed . I still begged some invisible god to make it all worth it.” His eyes burned, jaw tight.

“And for what? For this?” His hand gestured vaguely - to the tea mug, the storm outside, the shark tooth necklace around his neck that used to adorn his son’s. “A kid in the ground and a grief that eats my ribs from the inside out? That’s what I get? That’s the reward?”

The silence afterward was cold and merciless, like even the air had nothing to offer him in return. Minho didn’t say anything at first. Just stared at his hands, folded in his lap. Then he let out a slow, shaky breath - one that felt like it’d been waiting years to leave.

“I used to pray every night growing up,” he said quietly. “Not because I believed someone was listening. But because I was afraid of what would happen if I stopped.” He glanced over, voice low but steady. “I kissed girls too. Practiced my smile in the mirror. Told myself I was lucky God gave me parents who wanted me to be ‘normal.’” He laughed once - a quiet, bitter sound. “Turns out shame doesn’t burn clean. It just lingers. Like smoke. You never stop smelling it on your clothes.”

He looked at Jisung fully then. Not pitying. Just present . “I don’t know why this happened to you. To him. But I know what it’s like to feel betrayed by the thing you were taught to trust the most.” He reached over, gave Jisung’s hand a firmer squeeze this time. “You’re not broken. And you’re not alone in this - not anymore.”

The silence stretched, soft and swollen with everything that hadn’t been said. Grief still lingered, thick in the air, but Jisung’s quiet laugh slipped out like sunlight through a crack in the clouds - half broken, half relief.

“They tried to ‘pray the gay’ out of you too?” he asked, voice still hoarse, but threaded with something lighter.

Minho huffed, a crooked smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Tried,” he said dryly. “Didn’t take. But I’ve got a daughter, so someone out there thinks I passed the test.”

Jisung blinked at him, then let out a wet snort, “Honestly? With how much Minji looks like you, I figured you spawned her asexually. Like a starfish. One day you sneezed and - bam - tiny judgmental clone.”

Minho shook his head with a quiet laugh, eyes crinkling just enough to mean it, “She’s too judgmental. If she were my clone, I’d be way more scared of her.”

“I’ve always meant to ask,” Jisung said gently, eyes lifted toward Minho with hesitant curiosity. “You know how things went down with Kyung-Mi. But… how did it end with your wife?”

Minho exhaled, low and tired, his gaze drifting sideways like the weight of memory pulled it there. He stared into his mug for a beat too long before speaking.

“Eunwoo and I… it goes back. Our parents were tight. Family-friend level tight. She was the girl who shoved me off my bike, then kissed my scraped knees before anyone noticed. Claimed she was protecting me even as she bruised me first.” His voice was quiet, knotted with something old and frayed. He stirred his tea but didn’t drink.

“It was arranged. A merger in the shape of a marriage. Her family had money, status - wanted a golden boy to tie it all together. I was the son of the family that owed just enough favors to be useful.” Minho huffed out something that might’ve been a laugh, if it didn’t sound so hollow. “Our wedding felt like a boardroom. Her parents stood behind mine like investors eyeing their prize. I didn’t feel like a groom - I felt like a signed contract. Dressed up. Smiling on cue.” Jisung didn’t speak. He just waited - still as stone - while Minho stared through the steam curling from his mug.

“She didn’t love me,” Minho said at last. “Not really. She loved control. The image. The narrative that said she’d tamed the boy from the ‘lesser’ family.” He blinked slowly, the memory flickering across his eyes like film reel burns.

“She used to call me her project,” he muttered, and Jisung flinched as if he had been slapped. “Said it like a joke. But she meant it. Every time I tried to breathe outside her blueprint, she reminded me where I came from. Who I owed.” Minho’s hands curled slightly around the mug, knuckles white. “I wasn’t a husband to her. I was a resume builder. A clean-shaven, well-dressed checkbox.”

He finally looked up then, meeting Jisung’s gaze, something raw and bristling in his eyes. “She cheated. Not just physically - though that happened too. But she… paraded it. Took me to events knowing her lover would be there, introduced him as her colleague while his hand grazed her back in plain view. Told me to ‘act normal’ for the company’s sake.”

Minho was quiet for a long moment. The kind of pause that let the room breathe. Then he smiled. Just a little. He set his tea mug down.

“But then… we had Minji,” he said, voice softer now - warmer around the edges like a candle catching flame. “And suddenly, all the bullshit - the strings, the lies, the being paraded around like some accessory to her life - it didn’t matter anymore.” He looked down at his hands like he could still feel that tiny weight in them.

“She was so small,” he murmured, a laugh bubbling up- quiet, awed. “But when I held her for the first time, it was like… like my soul finally recognized something. Like I’d been waiting my whole damn life just to meet her.” He glanced up, eyes a little glossy now, but steady.

“She’s the only part of that life that ever felt real. And for her? I’d do it all again. Every cold dinner, every empty night, every goddamn time her mother looked through me like I was furniture- if it meant getting her out of it.” Minho exhaled through his nose, one hand raking through his hair. “I don’t regret the pain. Not if she’s what it built.” Jisung didn’t breathe. Just waited.

Minho thumbed the pendant hanging around his neck - a locket that was wrapped in gold and roses - and leaned back against the couch like his bones were suddenly too heavy. “But I did regret… staying.”

There it was.

He swallowed, jaw working through the silence. “Eunwoo told Minji once - when she thought I wasn’t listening - that she never wanted kids. That Minji was the price of securing her father’s trust. A calculated move. Like... like she was a business expense.” Jisung’s expression cracked, but Minho’s stayed unreadable. Hollow.

“She said it with a smile,” Minho continued. “Like she was proud of herself. Like my daughter was a number on a ledger.” He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t say anything that night. But I packed my things two weeks later. Filed papers. Took Minji with me when I walked out the door. Told Eunwoo if she wanted to contest it, she’d have to look her daughter in the eyes and say she was just a pawn.”

He blinked, and the light caught a glint of something damp in his lashes. “She didn’t.”

Jisung didn’t speak right away. He didn’t reach out or rush in with comfort that might land too hard. He just watched Minho, like he was memorizing the spaces between each breath. 

“I don’t know what it’s worth,” he said eventually, voice steady, low, “but I can see it.” Minho looked up, a question blooming in his tired eyes.

“That she means everything to you. Every time you talk about her, it’s like your chest gets lighter. You smile like it’s muscle memory.” Jisung gave a soft huff of a laugh. “Even when it hurts, it’s like you’d carry the whole world again if it meant she got to stand a little taller.” Minho looked away, blinking hard.

“And I think...” Jisung’s voice faltered for half a second, but he pressed on, more quietly now. “I think she’s lucky to have someone who sees her that clearly. Loves her that fiercely.” The air shifted. Minho exhaled - a sound that felt like surrender more than relief - and didn’t speak. He just leaned back against the couch, shoulder brushing against Jisung’s like a nod he didn’t know how to put into words.

For the first time in what felt like hours, the silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It just settled between them, warm and worn, like an old blanket passed back and forth.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Another Friday night came and went. This one louder than most - bass pulsing like it was trying to shake something loose from the walls, or drown something out entirely. The music would dip, then surge again like a wave refusing to break. Minho thought he heard Jisung’s voice outside once - strained, sharp with worry - but when he peeked through the blinds, nothing seemed out of place. Just twenty somethings being messy and alive.

Saturday morning arrived like clockwork. Six a.m., and Minho was already up.

He didn’t question it anymore.

His hands moved on instinct - two mugs pulled from the cabinet. One was his. The other, once an afterthought, now sat permanently between his and Minji’s. Just a part of the lineup. The grinder buzzed to life, filling the kitchen with the low hum of familiarity. The rich scent of coffee bloomed into the quiet, wrapping around him like a well-worn sweater. He poured until the mugs were full, added a bit of cream to one without thinking, then stepped into his boots.

Down the twelve stairs to the bookstore. Out the door. Across the street. Like always.

The house still smelled faintly of fruit punch and regret.

Minho swept glitter into a pile beneath the coffee table while Jisung crouched beside the couch, trying to coax a half-melted candle off the floor with a butter knife. The Bluetooth speaker murmured soft jazz in the background, notes floating through the wreckage like they didn’t mind the mess.

Jisung huffed under his breath, crouched low by the couch. “This wax is practically part of the floor now. I swear one of them lit a shrine to a breakup. Right here. Candlelight vigil and everything.”

Minho, sweeping nearby, smirked faintly. “Bold of you to assume it wasn’t for Taylor Swift’s birthday.” That earned a weak chuckle. Jisung glanced over his shoulder, lips quirking - then froze for the briefest moment when he caught Minho already watching him.

Not staring. Just seeing.

The air shifted. Subtle. Sharp. Like something held its breath.

Jisung blinked, looked down again. His voice, when it came, was quieter than the clutter around them. “Thanks… for sticking around.” Minho didn’t answer right away. He just set the broom aside, moved beside Jisung without a sound, and reached out. His fingers brushed a smear of wax clinging to Jisung’s sleeve - soft, slow, delicate in the way someone might reach for something already halfway gone. His touch lingered longer than necessary. Barely a second. Just enough to register.

And it made something shudder inside Jisung - quick, involuntary. A breath hitch, barely audible. It was nothing. And it was everything.

He didn’t pull back. Just tilted his head a little, eyes flicking down to Minho’s hand as if it were something that might anchor him, or undo him. Maybe both. Minho's hand hovered for a moment more before retreating a fraction. Not far. Just enough to give space without letting go of what had shifted.

“I don’t mind staying,” he said, voice softer now. Rough around the edges. Honest. “You never have to ask.”

Jisung didn’t smile. But his eyes stayed locked on Minho’s, chest rising once in a breath that shook.

The wax was still on the floor. Neither of them moved to finish cleaning it. The broom sat against the couch leg, forgotten. The dustpan had tipped sideways, resting crooked in the corner. The house - usually loud, usually full of footsteps and bass - was still for the first time all morning, like it too had paused to see what would happen next.

Minho’s hand hovered, just barely pulled back from where it had brushed Jisung’s sleeve. He could still feel the heat of that touch in the pads of his fingers, as if something in Jisung’s skin had remembered him. Jisung exhaled - quiet, shaky - and it wasn’t the sound of someone startled. It was the sound of someone unraveling and trying not to. He didn’t look away.

For a moment, the storm of noise that usually lived behind his eyes was gone. There was just this - Minho, kneeling beside him, watching with too much care, not nearly enough distance. Neither of them said it, not out loud, but they both felt it - the shift. The way the room had changed shape. 

Minho’s throat worked, once. “I didn’t - ” he started, but the words caught halfway through. Too close to something real, too early to name it.

Jisung blinked, slow and deliberate, his eyes stinging - not from grief this time, but from panic. Soft panic. The kind that whispered: What if this is safe. What if this is real. The kind he hadn’t let himself feel in years.

“I don’t know how to do this again,” he murmured. It wasn’t accusatory. It wasn’t even directed at Minho. It was just truth - laid bare on the tile between them. Minho didn’t reply right away. He sat back slightly, still close enough to reach, but just far enough that Jisung could breathe.

“I don’t either,” he said, his voice rough and steady. “But I know what fake felt like. And this… doesn’t.” That word - this - hovered between them like a live wire.

Jisung looked down at his hands, at the rings he still wore like armor, and let out something between a breath and a broken laugh. “We’re a hell of a mess,” he said.

Minho smiled. Not wide. But genuine, and a little sad around the edges. “We’ve seen worse messes.” And still - they didn’t move. Because moving might tip the balance. And neither of them was ready to fall just yet.

Jisung stared down at the smear of candle wax clinging to the floor, willing it - absurdly - to speak. To crack open and offer clarity, a sign, something . It just sat there. A melted mess of nothing. Like him.

His hands twitched where they rested on his knees, fingertips cold despite the warmth of the house. Minho’s presence behind him was a weight he could feel without looking - steady, patient, impossibly close. And real .

That was the problem.

Because something was happening. That much Jisung knew. Had known for a while now, in the way Minho lingered in doorways a little too long, in the soft bruises of their silences, in the way his touch stayed past its purpose. And worse - Jisung had started to want it. The quiet of it. The safety .

But want was dangerous. Want could ruin everything.

He’d been here before - standing on the edge of something gentle, something good . And all it had ever done was strip him bare, leave him bleeding and ashamed in a room full of polite smiles and someone else's broken vows.

He couldn’t do that again. He couldn’t let someone see the soft parts. Not when he’d spent years sanding them down to survive.

So he kept his gaze locked on the wax, like if he just stared long enough, it might harden into something he could hold. Something solid. Something safer than Minho . Because even now, with everything softened between them, Jisung would’ve rather swallowed broken glass than admit he wanted Minho to stay.

Not just for the cleanup. Not just for the comfort. But because, somehow, this had started to feel like the only thing in his life that wasn’t temporary. And he didn’t know if he was ready for what that meant.

Minho shifted beside him, slow and careful, as if he might spook the quiet if he moved too fast. He opened his mouth, hesitating - not because he didn’t know what he wanted to say, but because he wasn’t sure he had the right to say it.

“Jisung,” he began, voice low. Measured. “I know I’m not the person who’s always gotten it right. I didn’t see you before. Not like this. But if you let me -”

“No.” Jisung’s voice was sharp. Not raised, not angry - just carved from stone. Cold. Final.

He didn’t look at Minho. Kept his eyes trained on the floor like the wax had become something sacred. His shoulders tensed, spine rigid like he was preparing for impact, even though nothing had been thrown.

“Don’t do that,” he added, quieter this time. “Don’t make this more than it is. Don’t say something that’s going to make me think you -” He stopped himself, jaw clenched tight.

Minho went still.

And something in the air shifted again, but this time the silence wasn’t warm. It wasn’t charged. It was barricaded. Shut down behind a voice that had learned the hard way what hope can cost.

Jisung finally turned his head - not all the way, not enough to meet Minho’s eyes - but just enough to say, with quiet conviction, “Please don’t try to fix me. I’m not something you can fix.”

Minho didn’t argue. He just sat with it. Sat with him . Not leaving. Not pushing. Because maybe what mattered right now wasn’t the words. It was that when Jisung shut every door, Minho stayed on the other side anyway. And waited.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Minho didn’t speak. He didn’t trust his voice enough. Didn’t trust himself to not try to crack a joke and burst into tears - the kind that would have Minji shoving his shoulder and rolling her eyes in embarrassment.

He didn’t speak when they passed through security. Not when they sat shoulder-to-shoulder at Gate 23, pretending the coffee between them was hot enough to hide the nerves. Not when Minji bounced her knee like she was excited, like she wasn’t about to crack his chest clean in half.

She stood now, backpack slung over one shoulder, ticket in hand. The final boarding call rang out over the intercom - cheerful and hollow. Minho rose to his feet, heart stuck somewhere behind his ribs. He opened his arms before she could say anything.

And Minji, strong-willed and fiercely independent Minji, stepped into them like she was five again - like all her armor melted off the second his arms wrapped around her. Minho held on. Longer than he should’ve. Tighter than was probably cool. One hand cradled the back of her head, the other pressed flat to her spine like it might stop time if he just willed it hard enough .

Please, he thought. Just one more minute. Just one more hour. But time didn’t stop. 

And Minji pulled back - just a bit - to look at him, “Dad?” she asked gently. His eyes were glassy. His throat refused to work. He gave a smile that didn’t quite land.

“I keep thinking,” he rasped, “if I hold you long enough, maybe you’ll turn back into that newborn who fit in the crook of my arm.”

Minji huffed a laugh, blinking fast. “I’m a little taller now, Dad.”

“Barely,” he managed. “Still got that squeaky voice when you cry.”

She rolled her eyes, sniffled, then leaned in again - tighter this time. Neither of them said goodbye. And maybe that’s what made it easier. Or harder.

Minho didn’t move. Not when she vanished down the jetway with her too-big backpack and her too-bright smile. Not when the gate agent closed the door. Not when the plane taxied down the runway like it wasn’t carrying his whole damn world in seat 17A. 

He just stood there - frozen, brittle, breath caught in his throat - as he stared out the window like maybe, just maybe , he could memorize the plane’s tail number. As if love could somehow be enough to reroute jet engines and bring her back.

She’d promised to call when she landed in North Carolina. Sixteen hours. She’d be exhausted. She’d probably forget. Minho’s stomach twisted.

And then Jisung’s voice echoed in his memory - too vivid, too recent, too real. “He got on the plane, and that was the last time I saw him.”

The thought hit like a gunshot. Minho’s knees nearly buckled. Suddenly the window wasn’t just glass - it was a wall between him and the chance to undo everything he hadn’t said. His hands trembled. His breath sped up. He hadn’t told her he loved her. Not clearly. Not the way he should have. He hadn’t said goodbye. She’d left with a wave and a smile and the promise to text. And what if that was all he ever got?

Panic bloomed behind his ribs, full and sour.

Then - quiet, steady - a presence beside him. A shadow that didn’t crowd. A warmth that didn’t press. 

Jisung. 

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t try to fix it. Just stood beside Minho with the kind of quiet understanding that only came from knowing exactly how this could end.

Minho didn’t look. Just reached out blindly, grabbed onto Jisung’s sleeve like a man slipping under water and finally finding something solid. Gripped it tight. Because they both knew what it felt like to watch your heart board a plane. Jisung just happened to know what it was like when that plane never brought it home.

Minho wanted to be sick. He wanted to scream. He wanted to hold his daughter again and rewind time to when she still crawled into his bed after nightmares.

“Breathe,” Jisung said softly, his hand pressing gently between Minho’s shoulder blades. “Just breathe.”

Minho squeezed his eyes shut. How someone who had lost everything in this exact way could be the one offering comfort made Minho’s head spin. But the words landed anyway.

“She knows you love her,” Jisung whispered. “She knows , Minho.” And even if it didn’t make the ache go away, it gave Minho something to cling to - something more than the silence she left behind.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Minho never claimed to be brilliant. He couldn’t recite string theory or wax philosophical about the meaning of life. Half the time he still had to count on his fingers, and the other half he just trusted his gut. But if there was one thing Minho was - if there was one truth he’d never waver on - it was that he didn’t quit.

Especially not on people.

So he didn’t back away from Jisung. Not when the walls came back up, not when the old habits resurfaced like bruises that never really healed. Not when Jisung flinched from good things or folded back into silence. Not even when it would’ve been easier. Because when Minji’s plane disappeared into the clouds and Minho stood at the window, suffocating on the words he didn’t say - I love you, come home safe, please don’t be the last thing I lose - Jisung had been there. Quiet as breath. Steady as gravity.

He hadn’t spoken until Minho needed the words. Hadn’t touched until Minho reached first. And then he stayed. Right there, beside him, letting Minho hold on like he was the only thing keeping him from disappearing too. And that moment cracked something wide open.

It wasn’t grand. It wasn’t loud. But it became the clearest thing in Minho’s life. He wasn’t going to let go of Jisung. Not just because he couldn’t , but because that kind of love - steady, unspoken, fiercely human - deserved someone who wouldn’t run when the ground shook.

So Minho didn’t leave. Not when Jisung shut down, or snapped, or tried to disappear beneath the weight of a grief that still shaped the air between them. Because Jisung had already proven he wouldn’t walk away when Minho shattered. And that kind of faith? Minho would spend the rest of his life choosing it back.

He kept showing up anyway.

Still there on Saturdays with coffee and Advil, still crossing the street in the mornings like it was just part of his orbit now. Even came over one Tuesday night when the phone rang at 1:24 a.m. and Minho barely made it out of bed before grabbing his keys. Now, he stood in Jisung’s living room, rain still soaking through the hem of his jeans, trying to pull a deadweight man off the couch.

“Ji, you’ve gotta work with me here,” Minho grunted, arms locked beneath Jisung’s shoulders.

Jisung was face down, cheek pressed into the cushions, the photo albums cracked open in front of him like a grave he wouldn’t stop visiting. The pages glistened faintly in the lamplight, edges wrinkled from tears. “I don’t need you,” Jisung slurred, voice thick with whiskey and grief. He half-heartedly pushed Minho’s chest. “I’m grown. I can - take care of - myself.”

“Grown or not, you’re ragdolling on me,” Minho snapped, breath huffing out as he heaved again. “Knock it off.”

Jisung resisted, limbs heavy but strong - too strong. Minho hadn’t realized it before, under all those baggy hoodies and worn t-shirts, but there was muscle buried in there. Real strength. The kind born of tension and control, of someone who needed to hold himself together physically because everything else kept falling apart.

Minho felt it now - in the taut line of Jisung’s waist, the unexpected firmness under his palm as he braced for leverage. He felt the sharp flare of embarrassment cut through him just as fast.

Minho had let himself go. Too many skipped gym days. Too many late dinners with no one to impress. And now here he was, panting like an old man, flushed not just from exertion but from the sudden, stupid awareness of the man in his arms.

He grit his teeth. This wasn’t about that.

It was about getting Jisung into bed without him cracking his head open on the coffee table. It was about still showing up. Even when it hurt a little. Even when it confused him more than anything else.

Minho was sweating. Not just from the effort of wrestling a half-conscious man off the couch, but from the sheer stubbornness of it all - of Jisung’s limbs refusing to cooperate, of the deadweight slackness that shifted without warning, threatening to take them both down in a tangle of limbs and regrets.

“You’re - ngh , you’re not helping,” Minho grunted, muscles straining as he finally managed to haul Jisung upright.

Jisung swayed, his legs jelly beneath him. One arm flopped around Minho’s shoulders like it belonged to someone else entirely. The other hung useless at his side until he mumbled, “M’tryin’. I’m tryin’ t’be helpful,” and then promptly let his head thunk against Minho’s temple with a groan.

“You… are a stubborn fuckin’ tank, ” he slurred thickly, dragging each word like it weighed something. “I build walls - like - fortress walls, okay? Brick. Mortar. Moats. And you -” he hiccuped, the sound sharp and pitiful “- y’just keep showin’ up with a wrecking ball and friendship juice.”

Minho huffed, nearly losing balance as Jisung sagged harder into him. “Okay. We’re cutting you off from the friendship juice.”

“Y’don’t listen,” Jisung mumbled, half-laughing, half-crying. “Tried t’make you hate me. ’S’a whole system. Y’just - ignored it.”

“What are friends for?” Minho muttered, breathless, adjusting his grip around Jisung’s waist as they staggered down the hallway. His arm ached. His thighs burned. His heart did something complicated behind his ribs.

And still - he didn’t let go. Not now. Not ever.

“You… You wanna be more than friends, don’t you?” Jisung slurred, his voice dragging over the words like they hurt to say. His eyes were glassy, his lashes clumped from tears that hadn’t even dried before the next ones came. “Y’used t’hate me. Now look at you. You… you love me.”

Minho stiffened. Just for a moment. Just long enough for the words to land the way they weren’t supposed to.

“Let’s not get cocky, Ji. Come on,” he muttered, adjusting his grip under Jisung’s ribs. “Left foot, right foot. That’s how walking works, remember?” He could feel the sweat sliding down his temple, his back straining as Jisung sagged further into him.

“I mean it,” Jisung mumbled. His head lolled against Minho’s shoulder, breath warm and thick with whiskey. “Y’know… I love you too.” The words tumbled out like stones from his mouth. “I do. Somewhere… real deep down. S’hard t’get to, buried under all the crap, but it’s there.”

Minho’s chest clenched, slow and sharp. He didn’t want to hear this now. Not like this. Not as a drunken confession from a man too broken to mean it.

“But I’m… I’m a goddamn mess ,” Jisung went on, tears slipping freely now. “Dead kid. Empty house. All I do is push people away. M’just… a wreck in a hoodie. Why would anyone love that ?”

Minho gritted his teeth, muscles aching as he dragged them both down the hallway. “Ji-”

Jisung stumbled again, forcing Minho to curse under his breath and half-carry him the last few steps. He pushed open the nearest door, guided them toward a bed that could’ve belonged to anyone - Jisung, a guest, a ghost - it didn’t matter.

He eased Jisung down onto the mattress with a sigh. Breathless. Quietly gutted. Because he had wanted to hear those words. Just not like this. Not soaked in tears and liquor, clinging to nothing. He pulled the blanket halfway up, then sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall as Jisung’s breathing started to even out.

“Not like this,” Minho whispered. He smoothed his hand over Jisung’s unruly curls, the man in the bed long gone by now. “You don’t get to love me like this.” 

The bedroom was quiet now - only the rain ticking softly at the windows and the low rasp of Jisung’s breathing from the bed. He’d gone under fast, lulled by exhaustion and liquor, curled into the sheets like something trying to disappear.

Minho moved carefully, toes brushing past discarded clothes and the ghosts of Friday night. The living room was a hushed wreck, and beneath the coffee table, the bottles waited.

Four. Lined in a neat, tragic row - each empty, their labels catching the lamplight like they wanted to be noticed. Four years. One for every year Jihyun had been gone. Minho didn’t need to ask if it was intentional.

He felt it in his chest - how grief had turned ritual, how memory had become a rhythm Jisung couldn’t escape. Usually, it was Minho helping clean up glitter and Solo cups on a Saturday morning. Today, he was collecting the pieces of a man too tired to do it himself.

He knelt on the carpet, fingers hesitating just a beat before they touched the photo album that had been left open on the floor. His hand hovered like the pages might bite.

The photo stared up at him - Jihyun with his diploma, grinning like the world hadn’t figured out how to touch him yet. Jisung beside him, mirroring the same smile, the same cheeks, the same spark behind the eyes. If the backdrop didn’t give it away, they could’ve been mistaken for brothers.

Minho’s fingers traced the edge of the image - not the faces, just the border. He wasn’t sure he’d earned the right to touch that yet. “Jihyun,” he whispered, the name sitting heavy on his tongue like a confession. “I wish I’d known you.”

His throat tightened as he turned the page. The next photo was of Jihyun at twenty-one, holding up a bottle of beer with the exaggerated pride of someone trying to be cooler than they felt. Below it - a follow-up photo, mid-grimace, clearly seconds later, his expression twisted in comic regret. The picture was slightly blurry. Whoever had taken it had been laughing.

Without Jisung beside him, without the steady voice guiding him from one memory to the next, the silence pressed in heavier than usual. Each photo felt sharper now. Lonelier. The stories that once filled the room with warmth echoed in his head, fragile and full.

There was Jihyun on the boat, eight years old, his face alight with wonder at the shark that might as well have been made of gold. Jisung always laughed through that story, grinning as he clutched Minho’s arm. Another page turned - Goofy and Winnie the Pooh, caught mid-hug by a bright-eyed five-year-old who genuinely believed they were real. And in that moment, they were .

Minho swallowed hard, breath catching behind his ribs. He hadn’t met this boy. Would never meet this boy. But in this quiet - without Jisung there to filter the grief, to hold the space - Minho could feel the ghost of him in every smile.

Then his eyes landed on a photo he’d never looked at long enough before: Jihyun pointing at the camera, his face locked in mock-serious mimicry of an Uncle Sam statue behind him. One chubby finger outstretched. Mouth parted in what had likely been a shout or a giggle. It broke something open in Minho’s chest.

“I’m trying, Jihyun,” he whispered, his voice rasping around the words. “I’m trying to help put him back together. But you…” His thumb brushed the edge of the page, gentle like it might shatter. “You were the glue. And now I’m trying with hands that don’t know how.”

The photo didn’t answer. It didn’t need to. Minho leaned back, eyes glassy, and let the silence wrap around him.

He didn’t even realize it at first. Not until a warm drop landed on the back of his hand, cutting a fragile line through the dust of the album’s cover. Minho blinked, confused, glancing down as if the ceiling might be leaking - but no, it wasn’t the rain. Just him. He touched his cheek, fingertips brushing wetness he hadn’t meant to let fall.

Oh.

The realization settled in his chest with a dull thud, heavy and unwelcome. He sniffed sharply, scrubbing at his face like he could undo it, like he could erase the evidence before it stained too deep. He shouldn’t be crying. This wasn’t his boy. Wasn’t his loss. The memories in these pages didn’t belong to him, not really. They were Jisung’s - their joy, their ruin, their aftermath.

And yet, the tears kept coming.

Because somewhere between the shark tooth necklace and the soft, crinkled corners of a life cut short, Minho had crossed a line. Without noticing. Without meaning to. Now he was here. Grieving a child he never got to meet. And falling harder than he ever meant to for the man who’d loved him first.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

The morning hit like punishment. Jisung snorted awake, throat dry, skull splitting like someone had left a jackhammer drilling behind his eyes. A groan tore out of him as he rolled onto his back, one arm flung over his face in a feeble attempt to mute the brutal daylight bleeding in through the blinds.

Something felt off. 

It wasn’t his bed. Too firm. Too unfamiliar. No comforting dip on the left side of the mattress where he usually curled in on himself. The sheets didn’t smell like his detergent. There was no hoodie discarded on the floor, no stack of crumpled tissues balancing precariously on the nightstand. He blinked hard, forcing his brain to piece things together, and then - it landed.

Minho. Minho had come over.

Fragments flickered behind his eyes: the feel of arms dragging him upright, the steady voice coaxing him down the hall, warmth and sweat and someone not letting go. Jisung couldn’t remember what he’d said - if he’d sobbed or screamed or ruined everything - but Minho had wrestled him into this bed. Somehow.

With a groan, he pushed himself upright, ignoring the churning lurch of his stomach as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. The house was still, save for the low tick of the wall clock and the ache in his bones. He shuffled barefoot down the hall, past the stairwell, each step jostling something tender inside him. 

And then he saw him.

Minho, fast asleep on the living room couch. One leg tucked awkwardly beneath him, the other kicked out like it had given up mid-shift. His cardigan was bunched under his head as a makeshift pillow, and his face was soft with exhaustion - brow unknotted, lips parted faintly in sleep. His glasses sat on the coffee table, folded perfectly and catching the rays of sunlight that filtered in through the curtains.

Jisung stood in the doorway for a moment longer than he meant to. Hungover. Haunted. And quietly, deeply wrecked by the fact that someone had shown up - and stayed.

His ex wife haunted his memories - not with warmth, not with heartbreak - but with the bone-deep chill of someone who was supposed to care and never did.

Jisung remembered those nights after they’d unplugged the machines. After his son's breathing fell silent and the world never quite sounded the same. He drank himself into oblivion, chased whiskey like it might bring Jihyun back, like the burn might feel closer to living than the numb. And she’d step over him. Literally . Nudge him with her foot the next morning like he was an inconvenience on her pristine kitchen floor.

“Get up,” she’d mutter, bored, like grief had a clock-in time and his shift was over.

There hadn’t been love between them in years. Maybe there never was. Maybe it had just been compatibility dressed in ceremony and obligation. But after Jihyun, even the illusion shattered.

A week. That’s how long it took. Seven days after they’d shoveled dirt over their son’s grave - when Jisung could still taste the metallic grit of loss - she slid the divorce papers across the table like she was handing him a receipt.

No conversation. No effort. Just ink, lines, and a blank expression that didn’t crack once. He didn’t fight. Didn’t cry. Just signed. Because whatever pieces of himself he’d once had? She hadn’t just stepped over them. She buried them.

Jisung shook off the remnants of the memories with a groan and padded barefoot into the kitchen, each step echoing softly in the empty hallway. His head throbbed, stomach sour, but his hands moved on instinct. Two mugs. The chipped one with the faded squirrel design for himself, the dark navy one with the clean rim and cat paw at the bottom for Minho.

Black. No sugar, no cream. He didn’t even think about it anymore. It used to be a courtesy. Now it was muscle memory.

The coffee wasn’t anything special - store brand, probably a little burnt from the cheap drip pot - but it was hot, and it was all he had. He carried both mugs back into the living room, careful not to spill, the bitter scent curling around him like a reminder that someone had stayed.

Minho was still sprawled on the couch, face half-curled into his cardigan. He had shifted onto his back, one arm tucked behind his head and the other sprawled over his stomach. One leg tucked beneath him, the other draped off the side, sock barely hanging on. His face, usually set into quiet judgment or dry amusement, was softened in sleep - no tension, no furrowed brow. Just peace.

Jisung crouched beside him, setting one mug on the coffee table, then reached out - just a hand to Minho’s side, just enough pressure to wake him gently.

But his hand stilled halfway there.

Minho looked… different like this. Not guarded. Not wearing all the weight he carried around like armor. His cheek was smooshed into the cardigan, his lips parted slightly, breath moving in and out with a quiet rhythm that felt achingly domestic.

And just like that, something gave way. The feeling came fast - rising up in Jisung’s throat like a held breath finally escaping. Familiar, terrifying, inevitable.

He loved him.

Not in the way he’d loved anyone before. Not the performative affection he’d faked in a wedding suit, not the desperate need he mistook for devotion after Jihyun. No - this was quieter. Deeper. Built from Saturdays and coffee and the way Minho never left when things got hard.

And there Jisung was - hair a mess, headache pounding, shirt wrinkled and clinging with sweat. Hungover, hollowed out, completely undeserving. His fingertips brushed the hem of Minho’s shirt instead of shaking him.

“Jesus Christ,” Jisung whispered under his breath, more to himself than anyone. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?”

The coffee sat untouched on the table, wisps of steam curling lazily into the air, forgotten. Jisung hadn’t moved. He stayed crouched beside the couch, his hand hovering inches from Minho’s side, fingertips curling and uncurling like they couldn’t decide whether to wake him or run. He was still drinking Minho in - how peaceful he looked like this, how the harshness melted off his face when sleep smoothed all the sharp edges.

Minho looked… safe . And it broke something in Jisung. Because it was everything he hadn’t let himself want. Not in years. Not since - 

A soft grunt broke through the silence. Minho stirred, brow twitching, lips parting on a breath as his eyes fluttered open. Slow. Unhurried. Still tangled in sleep. 

For a moment, he just blinked. Then his gaze found Jisung - still crouched there, knees aching, eyes wide like he’d been caught stealing something too delicate to hold. Minho squinted a little, the corners of his mouth twitching upward, voice rough from sleep and using his cardigan as a pillow.

“Hey,” he whispered, the barest smile forming. “Mornin’, Ji.” No panic. No surprise. Just soft affection, handed over like it was nothing. Like it belonged there.

Jisung’s throat bobbed. “You - uh. Coffee’s… ready.” 

Minho’s eyes drifted to the two mugs on the table, then back to Jisung, his smile deepening just enough to matter, “You remembered how I like it?”

Jisung forced out a laugh, brittle and breathless. “You’re impossible to forget.”

Minho stretched a little, one hand brushing the sleep from his eyes before patting the space beside him on the couch.

“You sittin’,” he murmured, “or just planning to admire me like museum glass all morning?”

Jisung blinked. Then, slowly - cautiously - he stood from his crouched position on the floor. His knees cracked, but neither commented on it. And he sat.

The space between them didn’t shrink. But it started to warm.

Minho passed over the mug without a word - just reached for Jisung’s and placed it carefully in his hands, like this had always been the routine. No comment on the burnt aroma, no grimace at the taste. He sipped his own coffee in silence, letting the early morning stillness stretch between them.

It felt quieter today. Softer. And Jisung felt like he didn’t deserve a second of it.

“Thanks,” he murmured, eyes fixed on the pale swirl of his coffee. “For last night. For… everything.”

Minho hummed, barely glancing his way. “You’re heavier than you look, y’know. When were you gonna tell me you were still low-key jacked?”

Jisung snorted, lifting the mug for a sip. “Guess I never really stopped lifting. I needed something - anything - to keep me from crawling out of my skin.” He held the cup with both hands, warming his fingers against the ceramic. His tone shifted - quieter. More deliberate.

“That’s actually how the party thing started,” he admitted. “I was going stir-crazy. So Changbin dragged me to the gym - said it would help. He’s the only one, besides you, who knows the truth. About Jihyun. About what really happened.” Minho’s expression softened, the dry amusement in his eyes fading as he listened.

“We were halfway through curls,” Jisung continued, “and he told me Hani had gone to a party the night before - said someone brought pills, and she left as soon as things got sketchy.” Jisung’s gaze dropped to the rim of his mug. He traced it with his thumb as he spoke. “Bin just shook his head and said, ‘Wish there was a place where kids could figure this stuff out - like, get drunk, do stupid shit, safely . Without worrying that someone’s gonna slip them something in their drink.’” He huffed a bitter laugh. “Next thing I knew, we were printing flyers.”

He didn’t look at Minho. Just let the words hang there - messy, vulnerable, real. The parties had never been about chaos. They were about control. About creating a space where no other parent would have to feel what he felt. What he still felt.

Minho didn’t interrupt. Didn’t fill the silence with anything. And somehow, that was the exact right thing to do.

“I’m… sorry.” Minho’s voice barely made it above the rim of his coffee cup, but the words landed heavy between them. Jisung looked up, startled by the shift in tone. Minho wasn’t looking at him. He was staring into his mug like he could drown in it. Like maybe he should. “I had you so wrong,” he said, voice raw. “From the start.”

Jisung gave a faint, crooked smile - reflex more than anything. “Don’t beat yourself up. I know how I come off. Loud music, too many kids, bad first impressions.”

But Minho kept going. He wasn’t looking for comfort. He was breaking open. “I thought you were the rot in the floorboards,” he murmured. “The guy wrecking the neighborhood. Some washed-up frat burnout teaching kids how to disappear into vodka bottles. I thought you were reckless. Dangerous.” He finally lifted his gaze - slowly. Carefully. As if meeting Jisung’s eyes might splinter what was left of him. “And the whole time… all you were trying to do was stop another parent from burying their child.”

Jisung didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. Because Minho’s eyes didn’t just hold regret.

They held something warmer, deeper - something that twisted in his chest the longer he tried not to look at it. Minho looked at him like he was finally seeing all of him. And it broke Jisung a little more. Because in that moment, Minho wasn’t just sorry. He was in love. And it was written across his face like a wound still bleeding.

Jisung didn’t speak. For a long moment, the air between them buzzed with something neither of them could name. His eyes searched Minho’s like he was trying to spot the lie, the catch, the trap he couldn’t see but had learned to expect.

All that history - so much pain, so much pretending - rose in his throat like bile. His voice broke around the question. “You… why?” he whispered. “Why me ?”

Minho didn’t flinch. He swallowed, eyes flicking downward for a moment as if he needed to borrow strength from somewhere inside his chest. Then he looked up - and when he spoke, it wasn’t with certainty. It was with the quiet ache of someone who’d been scared for longer than he’d realized.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said softly. The words came like a confession. “I didn’t want to feel this way. Not again. Not with someone who made my blood boil for months. Not with someone who blasted music and left Red Bull cans in his recycling like trophies.”

He let out a breath, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “But then I saw you.” His voice cracked, just a little. “Not the guy everyone else saw. Not the frat boy or the troublemaker or the cautionary tale. I saw the man cleaning up shattered glass before anyone noticed. The man holding his grief so tightly, he didn’t realize it was bleeding into everything he touched.”

Jisung didn’t move. Barely breathed.

“I saw the way you looked at those kids - like saving even one of them might undo the hole Jihyun left behind. I watched you build something out of your wreckage, Ji. And I think maybe I fell in love with you the first time you told a kid to go home if they weren’t safe.”

Minho smiled - heartbroken. “And I’ve been terrified every damn second since.”

Jisung knew the fear intimately - the kind that lived in your ribs, that pulsed behind your teeth when something good crept too close. Terror not of violence, but of being seen . Of being held up in someone’s hands without breaking apart. He didn’t speak. Just breathed - shallow, uneven.

Then, slowly, like his body moved before his brain could stop it, his pinky brushed against Minho’s. Just that. A ghost of contact. Testing the air between them like it might burn. When Minho didn’t pull away, Jisung let the rest of his fingers follow. A slow curl. A hesitant tangle. Their palms met, flesh to flesh, the friction low and trembling. 

It felt like something irreversibly crossed. Like a prayer half-whispered in a language neither of them had used in years. Minho’s thumb traced along the side of Jisung’s knuckle - subtle, grounding. And that was when Jisung broke.

His voice cracked the silence like a match held too long. “I’m scared,” he whispered, barely audible. Minho didn’t flinch.

“I’m so scared,” Jisung breathed again, as if saying it might rip him apart, but keeping it in would rot him from the inside out. “You see me like - like I’m worth loving. Like I’m not… broken.” His throat bobbed. “No one’s ever looked at me like that. Not really. Not like you do. And I don’t know what to do with it.”

His grip tightened like a reflex - like he already feared being let go. And all that weight - the years of grief, of silence, of pretending not to need anyone - settled in the space between their hands.

Minho’s grip didn’t falter on Jisung’s hand. Just stayed. His thumb still traced the outline of Jisung’s knuckle, his thumb trembling just slightly, like he was saying I hear you with every small gesture. He didn’t speak right away.

Jisung’s eyes were glassy, throat bobbing around the words he hadn’t said yet.

Minho leaned in - not close enough to crowd him, just enough that their knees brushed. Just enough that Jisung would know he wasn’t leaving. “Hey,” Minho said quietly, voice rasped from emotion and morning. “I don’t want perfect.”

His other hand reached out slowly, giving Jisung every chance to flinch away - but Jisung didn’t. So Minho brushed a strand of hair from his face, fingers lingering just a breath too long at his temple.

“I want you ,” he murmured. “I want every sharp edge and broken piece. Not so I can fix them. But so you don’t have to hold them alone.”

Jisung’s breath caught. Visibly. Like the words had filled a space he’d tried for years to keep hollow.

“I’m not here to glue you back together,” Minho said, softer now. “But I’m not going anywhere when it all falls apart again. Not if you still want me there.” He didn’t press for a response. Didn’t lean in for more. He just kept holding Jisung’s hand. Steady. Sure. Choosing him in the silence, long before either of them knew how to say the rest out loud.

Jisung’s eyes slipped shut, not for rest, but retreat. Just for a second. Just long enough to shield himself from the look on Minho’s face - too soft, too kind, too much . But it didn’t matter. The tears still came. Not the chest-heaving sobs of grief. Not the ones that came in waves loud enough to drown him. This one was quiet.

Just a single tear, tracing a line down his skin like it had been waiting for permission. It slid along his cheekbone, leaving no noise in its wake - just weight.

When he opened his eyes again, Minho was still looking at him. There was no judgment in that gaze. No careful distance. Just warmth. Steady and terrifying. Hope. Love. It made Jisung’s voice splinter when he finally spoke.

“Don’t…” he tried to make it sharp, a warning, something that could push Minho away just enough to keep them both safe. “Don’t make promises you don’t mean to keep.”

But it didn’t come out sharp. It came out hollow. Worn. His voice cracked mid-sentence, the words catching in his throat like glass. Because what he really meant was: I’ve heard it before. And every time, it nearly killed me. Because all he’d ever been given were empty hands and broken promises. Doors that slammed shut. People who said forever but meant until it got hard. He couldn’t take another vow he didn’t believe.

Minho didn’t flinch. He just reached out, thumb catching the tear before it could fall any farther.

“I’m not,” he whispered, his voice low and steady. Like he already knew the damage. Like he didn’t need Jisung to be anything other than this. His hand drifted to the curve of Jisung’s jaw, settling there gently, holding him with the kind of reverence that made Jisung’s chest ache. “I want to keep this one,” Minho said. And he said it like a promise that wasn’t afraid of being kept.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

It didn’t happen all at once.

Jisung had built his walls carefully - fortified them with grief and sharp humor, with distance and carefully timed deflection. He pushed Minho away in the little ways that counted: a sharp comment when things got too warm, silence when words threatened to mean something, slammed doors that weren’t quite locked.

But Minho never flinched. He didn’t force his way through. He didn’t prod, or pry, or press. He just stayed . There was a language beneath the resistance - one Minho seemed to understand without being taught. A quiet plea buried in every shove: Don’t lie to me. Don’t make me trust you if you’re going to leave. Minho never spoke over it. He moved with it. Around it. Waited until the walls stopped looking like armor and started to look like exhaustion. And then, he carved out space in the silence.

Not just on Saturdays, where he’d show up with trash bags and tired jokes, sweeping up glitter and grief like it was part of the routine.

He was there on Tuesdays too - when the couch sagged from the weight of two bodies and the TV played comfort movies neither of them admitted they needed. He was there with a brand-new coffee machine, silver and sleek, already programmed to start brewing at 7:00 a.m., because Minho claimed the old pot was an act of violence.

He never asked for a drawer, but one appeared for his toothbrush. He didn’t announce when he started doing the dishes after dinner - just rolled up his sleeves and hummed along to the playlist Jisung swore wasn’t curated specifically for him. 

He left behind the kind of love that didn’t need declarations. He poured it into two mugs in the morning. He folded it into extra napkins at takeout dinners. He stitched it into the throw blanket he always draped over Jisung when he dozed off halfway through a movie.

And when Jisung finally caught himself reaching for Minho’s hand out of reflex, when he caught Minho already reaching back, neither of them said I love you. They didn’t need to. It was already everywhere.

For once, Jisung wasn’t drowning. There was no panic clawing up his ribs, no urge to run before the ground gave out beneath him. Minho had promised things - not loudly, not in dramatic declarations - but in all the small ways that counted. And unlike everyone else, he followed through. He always showed up.

It was a quiet Tuesday. The kind of night that didn’t ask for anything. A movie played on the TV, half-muted and long forgotten. Jisung didn’t even remember what it was. All he could focus on was Minho’s hand in his - fingers laced, his thumb tracing lazy circles over Minho’s knuckles. They were tangled up on the couch, legs a mess, shoulders pressed together, gravity pulling them into the same shape.

Jisung looked up, “Min…”

Minho hummed in reply, low and familiar, glancing down at him with eyes that had stopped judging him a long time ago. Eyes that saw everything - every crack, every scar - and somehow still looked gentle. The words surged up again. The same ones that had clawed at the back of Jisung’s throat for weeks. He’d swallowed them every time before. Bit them down like glass.

But not now. Not with Minho here. Not when his heartbeat felt like an answer.

“I love you.”

The silence after wasn’t heavy. Wasn’t hollow. It just was - a breath of air folded neatly between them. Sacred and still. Minho’s lips quirked into the smallest smile.

“I know, bug,” he said, voice barely more than a breath. “And I love you.”

It cracked something open in Jisung’s chest, but for once, it didn’t hurt. It felt like relief. Like home. Like everything had been waiting for this moment to unfold - and now that it had, the world could finally exhale. Jisung let his head rest against Minho’s shoulder, eyes slipping shut like the weight of the world had finally been allowed to soften. The hush between them wasn’t heavy anymore. It just was - familiar, lived in, worn like an old hoodie that still smelled like comfort. The words hovered, warm on his tongue.

I love you.

Not sharp. Not shattering. Just… quiet. Honest. As effortless as breathing. They didn’t feel like a grand revelation anymore. Just a truth he carried in his bones - the same way he remembered Minho’s coffee order, or which side of the bed he never claimed. It didn’t feel like a leap. It felt like a routine. Because when you’ve been loving someone in silence for months, whispering it through movie nights and hand-holding and all the things you never say, the words stop being scary.

They just start being true.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

The months slipped by, quiet and unhurried. A new year arrived, blanketing the city in snow that came and went like breath - soft, impermanent, inevitable. And with each thaw, the warmth between them deepened.

Clothes began drifting across the street, first as accidents, then with intention. A hoodie here. A drawer claimed there. The line between two homes blurred. The parties didn’t stop - Jisung still needed the noise sometimes - but now Minho stayed for some of them. Leaning against doorframes, arms crossed, fond smile tugging at his mouth when Jisung got roped into dancing by a gaggle of twenty-somethings. His presence, once tense and wary, softened by a kind of affection only Jisung could pull from him.

And when the sun rose the next day, Minho was still there. Handing out water bottles, whispering gentle reassurance to someone curled on the bathroom floor, brushing bangs from clammy foreheads as he held back hair. The quiet force that made chaos feel cared for.

Bit by bit, the crowds grew smaller. The music turned down. The laughter didn’t vanish - it just settled. Quieter. Warmer. Like they'd all learned how to breathe again.

It started when the familiar faces began to fade. Chan’s boy left for college, and suddenly the hallways felt quieter. Hani - sparkplug, chaos-bringer, soft-hearted troublemaker just like her dad - no longer curled up beneath Jisung’s kitchen table with tear-streaked cheeks and half-eaten bagels. The twenty somethings grew up. They moved on.

The porch light still burned each weekend, but now it lit up nothing but still air and old echoes. Jisung and Minho kept it on anyway. For memory. For ritual. For the rare, worn-out soul still brave enough to knock.

One night, curled together on the couch, the silence pressed in a little closer than usual. Popcorn between them. Ankles tangled. Comfort soft enough to forget the ache just for a while.

“Empty nester in every sense of the word,” Jisung joked, his voice light - too light.

Minho chuckled, breath ruffling through Jisung’s hair. “Don’t get me started. Minji texted me today.” Jisung turned, curiosity slipping past his quiet. “She met someone,” Minho said, and the smile on his face tried hard to be convincing. “Some theater major. Ivy-League. Probably owns turtlenecks.”

Jisung laughed, because he was supposed to. “Does he pass the ‘you hurt her, I hurt you’ test?”

Minho nodded, the smile dimming just slightly. “Apparently, she already warned him. Told him about the time I marched across the street to chew you out.”

“Ah yes,” Jisung said with a faint grin. “You scared the crap out of me that day. God, it’s been… what, a year?”

Minho tried to laugh, but it caught somewhere behind his ribs. “Yeah,” he said slowly, the word thinning out like smoke. “A year and... some change.” Time. More of it than he’d realized. More distance between then and now - between the man who once stood in Jisung’s driveway with his fists clenched and the one standing here now, heart in his hands. His chest tightened. The weight of something unspoken pressed down all at once.

“I -” he started, faltered, then let out a quiet, breathless sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “God. I don’t think I ever actually said it.” Jisung tilted his head. “I’m sorry,” Minho said, voice low and hoarse and thirteen months too late. “Not just for what I said, or didn’t say. For all of it. For waiting this long.”

The air stilled like it was listening. Even Jisung’s hand - half-reaching for the remote on the arm of the couch - froze mid-motion. Minho’s throat bobbed. His eyes dropped. “You deserved to hear it. Back then. And every day after.”

“I said some awful things. Looked at you like you were the poison in their veins, when you were the one keeping them breathing. You were trying to keep them safe , and I treated you like the threat.” The words bled out slow. Raw. “I should’ve known better,” Minho said, quieter still. “And I hated myself for it long before I ever started falling for you.”

Jisung didn’t answer right away. Just shifted closer - just enough that Minho could feel the shape of him. Could feel where they used to be fractured, fitting now like a bruise finally meeting its bandage.

“You didn’t know,” Jisung murmured, voice thin but warm. “You do now.” And somehow, that was all it took. Not forgiveness, but understanding. A hurt that had rooted itself deep finally brushing against something soft enough to heal.

Minho looked down at their hands - fingers intertwined like they’d always known how. And for once, he didn’t feel like a father left behind, or a man trying to make amends for everything he couldn’t fix. He just felt held. Loved.

“Ji?” Minho’s voice was barely more than a murmur, like he was afraid the moment might shatter if he made it too real. Jisung looked up, eyes impossibly soft, lashes catching the flicker from the TV screen. Those eyes - they’d been through hell and still managed to hold hope. It cracked something deep in Minho’s chest.

Jisung tilted his head, the smallest smile playing at his lips. “Yeah?”

Minho didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Because something had been clawing at him for weeks now, maybe months. Every time Jisung laughed half a second too late. Every time he reached for Minho’s hand without realizing. Every time he looked at Minho like he was afraid, and wanted, and already his all at once.

Minho reached out - slow, reverent - and let his hand slide along Jisung’s jaw, fingers curling beneath his ear, like he was learning the shape of something sacred. Jisung stilled, breath catching. Minho leaned in, forehead brushing against Jisung’s for a second - a pause, a plea, a this doesn’t have to happen unless you want it to.

Jisung tilted his chin up, eyes fluttering shut. And that was enough.

Minho kissed him. Soft. Certain. Like the world had been rearranged just to make room for this. And everything else fell away.

The movie, the lights, the cars outside - none of it mattered. There was only the warmth of Jisung’s mouth and the ache in Minho’s chest that said finally. Their first kiss didn’t feel like fireworks. It felt like relief . Like coming home to something they hadn’t realized they’d been building together all along.

Neither of them moved. Even as air became scarce, even as lungs begged for reprieve, neither one dared to pull away first. But eventually - reluctantly - Jisung broke the kiss, chest rising in sharp, staggered breaths. His eyes were wide, like he’d just seen something too beautiful to touch. His cheeks burned, color blooming across his skin like dawn.

He looked stunned. Undone. And Minho’s heart cracked open at the seams. 

Shame flooded in like a tide - swift and merciless. Idiot. Stupid, reckless, selfish. The words lined up like dominoes. Apologies crowded his throat, frantic and raw. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry. Tell me I didn’t just ruin this - 

But before any of it could spill out - 

Jisung leaned in again. No hesitation. No second-guessing. Just a soft, certain press of lips that said don’t say a word. Minho stilled, startled by the gentleness of it. There was no fire behind it - just warmth. Intention. A quiet yes.

His hands slid instinctively to Jisung’s waist, fingers curling against the familiar strength beneath sweatshirt fabric. Jisung’s breath hitched at the contact, but he didn’t pull away. Just melted closer, like this was something he hadn’t realized he needed until now. And Minho held him. Anchored himself in that kiss like it was the first thing in weeks that made the world make sense. All the noise - the ache of old wounds, the weight of broken vows, the long stretch of lonely years - melted like mist around a flame.

Because this… this was where he was meant to be.

If they’d been entangled before, now they were fused - chest to chest, mouth to mouth, no room for air or second thoughts. Minho wasn’t sure where he ended and Jisung began, and for once, he didn’t care. There was nothing timid about it now. Just heat and heart and the kind of closeness that felt like worship.

Jisung tasted like late nights and second chances. Like something cracked and healing all at once - bittersweet and burning and undeniably him . There was grief in the kiss, but there was also joy. The bite of broken. The balm of being wanted anyway . And, unmistakably, the tang of Red Bull clinging to his lips like a punchline Minho hadn’t asked for - but couldn’t live without now.

He was already hooked.

Minho was the one who finally pulled back, lungs aching - but Jisung chased after him, lips ghosting up in protest like separation wasn’t part of the plan. Their breaths tangled in the air between them, hot and trembling, and Minho couldn’t help the breathless laugh that bubbled up.

“Bug,” he whispered, forehead tipping against Jisung’s, their skin still flushed, still humming.

“What?” Jisung asked, breath shaky, eyes fluttering closed. “What, jagi ?”

God. That word. That voice. Minho could feel the heat crawl up his neck, could feel it settle behind his ribs and take root. He’d change his name. Tattoo it across his collarbone. Anything, if it meant hearing Jisung say that again - in that exact tone, so teasing and so sweet it ached.

But then he pulled in a shaky breath, and his fingers swept along Jisung’s jaw, cradling him like glass. “Not like this, baby,” he murmured, voice barely holding together. “Not here. Not when I want everything. ”

He could’ve devoured him - right there, right then. But Minho didn’t want to taste urgency. He wanted the slow kind of surrender. The kind built over months of hands held under porch lights and forehead kisses during the credits. He wanted Jisung to know - he wasn’t a secret. He wasn’t a slip.

Jisung leaned back in - like gravity wasn’t pulling him down anymore, it was pulling him toward . His mouth met Minho’s with a quiet desperation, a need that spoke louder than any words could manage.

“ Jagi… ” he whispered against Minho’s lips, the syllables drawn out like a confession and a promise all in one. (And Minho could’ve sworn his heart stuttered at the sound - could’ve lived off it, willingly .) “I want this,” Jisung breathed. “I want you. ”

And he kissed him again - slow, aching, threaded with all the things he still didn’t know how to say. Love. Grief. Hope. The fear that wanting too much might break something, and the reckless choosing to want anyway.

Minho didn’t hesitate. He responded like he’d been waiting his whole life just to be asked. Their hands moved instinctively - skimming, tracing, searching - like they were learning each other for the first time, or maybe finally allowing themselves to remember.

And the space between them? It didn’t hum. It ached. With need, with tenderness, with a longing so full it pressed at the edges of their skin like heat. Like a warmth pulled fresh from the dryer and wrapped around their hearts. It wasn’t about possession. It wasn’t even about heat.

It was about knowing. Knowing that after everything - the silence, the grief, the burn of memory - they had still found their way here. And neither one of them wanted to let go.

Jisung's hands dipped lower, trailing from Minho's ribs to the hem of his shirt, fingertips brushing the soft cotton with a kind of reverence. But Minho’s breath hitched - not from desire. From dread. His stomach twisted.

Years of wear clung to him like armor he couldn’t peel off. Minji leaving for college meant frozen dinners, guiltless takeout, late-night stress eating and no one there to remind him about protein or "a little kale never killed anyone, Dad." And he hadn’t really thought about it - not until now. Not until Jisung, carved from warmth and muscle and months of quiet pining, ran his fingers just a little too close.

Minho's hands reflexively slid down from Jisung’s waist, gently catching his wrists - stopping him. “Please… wait,” he mumbled, lips barely moving.

Jisung pulled back, confused, eyes soft with concern. Minho swallowed hard. His voice cracked in that small way it did when emotions rose before he could tether them.

“I... I don’t look like I used to,” he admitted, shame burning through every word. “Not when I was younger.” He looked away. But Jisung didn’t move. Didn’t let go.

Instead, he shifted forward slowly, until their foreheads brushed. He cupped Minho’s cheek like it was something worthy of wonder, not critique.

“Good,” Jisung whispered, voice thick but certain. “Because I’m not in love with the guy you used to be.” He kissed Minho’s temple. Then his nose. Gentle, grounding places.

“I love this version. The one under me right now. The one who leaves the light on for kids who don’t call anymore. The one who drinks burnt coffee and still swears it’s fine. The one who held me when I was scared to be held.” Minho blinked, mouth parting - but Jisung wasn’t done. His hands moved back to the hem of the shirt, this time slower. Patient.

“I don’t care about abs. I care about the man who taught me what staying looks like.” One hand slipped beneath the fabric, not to rush - just to rest, palm flat over Minho’s heartbeat. Palm to skin. Steady. Real. Loved.

“This body?” Jisung murmured. “It’s yours. And I want all of it. Not despite the years - but because of them.” And somehow, Minho felt something deep inside unclench for the first time in a long, long while. 

Jisung’s hand rested against Minho’s chest, warm and steady, like it belonged there. He didn’t push. Didn’t try to undress him all at once. He just stayed , thumb stroking absently over Minho’s skin like he was memorizing something important.

Minho couldn’t move. Not because he didn’t want it - God, he did - but because for the first time in forever, someone was touching him without expectation. Without trying to fix or shame or reshape him into someone more desirable. And that scared him more than anything.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, old words slithered through like smoke—familiar, caustic. “Maybe you’d still turn my head if you hadn’t let yourself go.”

His ex-wife’s voice. Offhand. Clipped. Said during an argument that wasn’t even about his body, but she’d weaponized it anyway. 

Minho swallowed hard, breath stuttering. But Jisung’s hands never wavered. He must’ve seen it - the flicker behind Minho’s eyes, the way his shoulders pulled taut under the touch. Because Jisung leaned in then, pressing a kiss just beneath his collarbone. Still over the fabric of Minho’s shirt. Slow. Intentional. Then another, just beside it. And another.

“Don’t go there,” Jisung whispered, mouth brushing against the fabric with every word. “She was wrong. She never saw you. I see you.” Minho’s eyes burned.

“You’re beautiful,” Jisung continued, voice hoarse with truth. “You’ve always been beautiful. And I want every part of you, not because you’re perfect - because you’re you. This version. This body. This heart. Right now.” His hand moved, fingers tracing over the curve of Minho’s stomach - so gently it could’ve been mistaken for worship.

“I want this. ” Jisung leaned in again, lips brushing against Minho’s jaw, then his throat. “You don’t have to hide from me. Not ever.” 

And something inside Minho - some quiet part he thought had long since withered - began to unfurl. Shaky and tender. Because maybe this was what love was. Not the fireworks. Not the chase. But being seen fully and held even tighter because of it.

So he let Jisung touch him. Let him learn every stretch mark and scar like they were treasure maps. Let him speak without words, with lips and hands and reverence. 

Jisung’s fingers brushed along the scar beneath Minho’s chest - a rough line, grown jagged with time. He didn’t flinch from it. Didn’t ask. Just let the pads of his fingers rest there for a heartbeat longer, as if honoring it instead of recoiling from it.

Then he looked up. Not to ask for permission - he already had it. But to see . To be sure. His eyes were soft, reverent, and impossibly grounded, like Minho was something sacred instead of shameful.

Minho swallowed hard and gave the smallest nod. A yes that hurt to give and hurt more to hold.

Jisung moved with care, tugging the hem of Minho’s sweater up and over his head, inch by inch, like unwrapping something treasured. And when the fabric fell away and Minho sat bare beneath the flicker of the lamp light - he braced. Not for admiration. But for impact.

Time had not been kind. Not since the bookstore job dulled his edges. Not since grief dimmed the urgency to care. Softness had settled across his belly, under his arms, across the curve of his chest. A dusting of hair ran down from sternum to waistband - wild, unkempt. Faint stretch marks painted soft stripes along his sides. And at the center of it all, that damn scar - twisted, sunken, angry. A permanent reminder of surgeries and survival and how little control he’d ever had over his own body.

He waited for the recoil. For the polite nod. For the silent judgment followed by slow retreat. He waited for disappointment. But Jisung shattered every cruel expectation with one breath.

He leaned in and kissed the space above Minho’s heart - gentle, steady, certain. Not a tease. Not pity. Just worship. Pure and clear. Minho’s breath caught as Jisung kissed him again, lower this time. Then again. And again.

“You’re beautiful,” Jisung whispered against his chest, each word punctuated by the brush of lips, the sweep of his hand over bare skin. “Do you even know what you do to me? “God - Fuck, jagi…” Another kiss, over one stretch mark. Then the scar.

“This is mine ,” Jisung breathed. “Every inch. I want all of it - you - and if you think any part of you could make me leave, you haven’t been watching me closely enough.” 

And Minho - Minho didn’t cry. But something inside him broke in the most gentle way possible. Because for once, he wasn’t trying to hide.

Jisung crawled back up, pressing his lips to Minho’s in a way that healed everything broken inside of him. In a way that wasn’t hurried, just pure want . And Minho felt himself melting into it, the fear melting slowly like ice.

Jisung’s hands were rough against the softness of Minho’s skin, causing goosebumps to prick at Minho’s skin, and they mapped Minho’s body like they were always meant to.

“I love you, I love you so fucking much, jagi.” Jisung whispered into Minho’s mouth, and Minho clutched tightly at Jisung, fingers threading into his hair. Jisung’s hoodie and worn shirt were thrown unceremoniously to the floor, and Jisung pulled back from Minho’s lips only briefly so the fabric could pass over his head. 

Jisung was carved from marble - at least in Minho’s eyes. Tattoos etched into the honey toned skin - faded with time, the black ink spilling into other parts of Jisung’s skin. A compass, the word Blessed , and Resplendent Life all drawn into Jisung’s skin - like he was a temple with history written on the walls. Minho could feel the softness at Jisung’s stomach, like time had softened him as well. Hair that trailed from Jisung’s belly button down to below his sweats.

By now, Minho was rock hard in his sweats, his dick smashed between his underwear and Jisung. But it was at the back of his mind. The only thing in his head was Jisung, Jisung, Bug, Love, Jisung on repeat like a broken record. He bucked his hips up, almost instinctively, the tip of his cock catching on Jisung’s. The broken sound that left him should have been embarrassing, but Minho was entirely too far gone at that point.

“Hey. Hey…” Jisung’s voice, so soft, grounded Minho for the briefest of seconds, “Need you back in that beautiful head, jagi.” He murmured, his fingers brushing through Minho’s hair lovingly. 

“Y-Yeah?” Minho asked, opening his eyes and forcing himself to focus on Jisung.

“I think I already know the answer but - You’re a bottom?” Jisung asked softly, the softest chuckle leaving his lips. And Minho felt like he had been doused in cold water. Oh… Yeah, this wasn’t… like his last sexual experience. The one that made Minji. Where she’d laid there, bone dry, and left Minho to do all of the work.

“A-ah… a bit of both,” Minho managed, breath catching, chest stuttering around the words. “I… think the word is switch? I - ” he huffed out something shaped like a laugh, weak at the edges. “It’s been a long time.”

“Vers,” Jisung whispered, the gentle correction woven into his breath as he smiled into Minho’s kiss - light as air, steady as gravity.“Right. Got it. And I’m not doing anything you’re not ready for.”

“I didn’t say I’m not ready, bug,” Minho snapped, too quickly, the words sharper than he meant. His cheeks burned. “I’m just… out of practice.” His voice cracked, went quieter. “Since anything.”

Jisung’s gaze softened instantly, like he felt the shame before Minho could even hide it. He hummed low in his throat, easing forward, his mouth brushing against Minho’s with something reverent. “I’ve got you.” And God, how easily Minho melted when Jisung said it like that - like it was a promise he’d already started keeping.

“Slow,” Jisung whispered, like the word itself could soothe every nervous edge. “Your pace.” Minho nodded once, his eyes falling shut as Jisung’s hands found their way to the waistband of his sweats - just resting there. Not tugging, not asking. Just being there. Still. Steady. Like they had all the time in the world. And maybe, in this little pocket of warmth between them, they did.

The kisses were slow, unhurried - but not indifferent. Not even close. They carried the weight of I see you , the certainty of I choose you . Jisung kissed like Minho was something to savor, not conquer. And God, Minho felt it in every cell - drifting like he’d been plucked off the earth and set adrift somewhere warmer, somewhere safe.

And Jisung hadn’t even really touched him yet.

The comfort of it wrapped around Minho’s ribs like a second heartbeat… until Jisung pulled back, eyes creased with a smile so soft it left fingerprints.

Minho blinked up, momentarily dazed. Lost in that glow.

“Don’t give me that look,” Jisung murmured, brushing their noses together before pressing a kiss to Minho’s temple. “I just gotta grab a couple things from my room.” He grinned. “Unless, of course, you wanna tackle sixteen steps and one long-ass hallway for me.”

Minho huffed a breathless laugh, eyes crinkling in that way that only ever showed up when he was genuinely, fully happy.

“I think I can survive the stairs, bug,” he teased. “But that hallway? Might need a map. Possibly rations.” Jisung’s laugh - that bright, full-bodied thing - burst out of him, and it hit Minho right in the chest. Clean and sharp. He wanted that laugh forever. On loop. On vinyl. On every morning radio station. He just wanted him .

They barely made it past the first stair.

Minho had tried to move - honestly - but Jisung tugged him back by the hand, grinning like he was fifteen and sneaking someone into his parents’ house past curfew. Lips met lips again, breathless and clumsy, laughter stuttering between them like an inside joke only their hearts understood.

“Bug,” Minho whispered, chuckling against Jisung’s mouth, “we are not going to survive sixteen steps at this rate.”

“Then we better pace ourselves,” Jisung murmured, eyes shining like mischief personified, tugging Minho up one more step and promptly pulling him into another kiss. “Fifteen to go.”

Minho laughed - a real, full laugh that made his nose crinkle and his heart ache in the best way. He bumped their foreheads together before dragging Jisung forward, their hands locked, bodies practically fused.

They climbed like that - step, kiss, whisper, giggle. Jisung almost tripped over his own feet halfway up because Minho kissed his cheek out of nowhere. Minho got shushed - very seriously - at the creaky seventh stair, only for Jisung to immediately burst into laughter loud enough to wake ghosts. By the time they reached the top, they were breathless from nothing but being near each other.

“This is ridiculous,” Minho whispered as Jisung backed into the hallway like a slow-moving magnet. Holding Minho’s hands in his like they were always meant to.

“So are we,” Jisung grinned. “You love it.”

Minho didn’t answer. Just grabbed Jisung’s bare shoulders, pulled him closer, and kissed him like a man fully undone.

They stumbled into the bedroom like their bodies hadn’t figured out how to be apart since the living room. The door clicked shut behind them, and the whole world exhaled. And for a moment, everything was just quiet. Two hearts. One room. And every light still on.

Minho hit the mattress with a soft oof and a breathless giggle, the kind that bubbled up from somewhere deep and weightless. His chest ached in the best way - like happiness had flooded into all the cracked places Jisung had so carefully mended, stitch by stitch.

Jisung stood just a breath away, his smile wide and full of things he both had and hadn’t said yet - but didn’t have to. I love you. I’ve got you. I’d follow you anywhere.

Minho reached up, fingers curling around Jisung’s waist, tugging him forward with a grin that said now, please.

Jisung let out a startled sound, laughing as he tumbled onto the bed, catching himself with a forearm planted beside Minho’s head, the other hand braced against the sheets. They landed nose-to-nose, breath mingling, hearts thundering like kids who snuck out past curfew and got away with it.

Minho was about to say something - tease him maybe - but Jisung was already leaning in, lips finding his again with a kind of urgency that felt like everything they’d been holding back had finally caught up to them. It was soft and hungry. Deep and gentle. A kiss that said this should’ve happened sooner , and I’m here now, and you don’t have to hold back anymore. And Minho kissed back like he believed it.

Minho’s tongue swiped against Jisung’s bottom lip, asking for entry. And Jisung was all too happy to oblige, opening his mouth and letting the tip of Minho’s tongue swirl around his own. Not too much, not shoving tongues down throats, just tasting each other in the purest and truest forms. 

Minho’s soft groans echoed into Jisung’s mouth, worming their way up to Jisung’s brain and making a home between the folds. Jisung grunted into Minho’s mouth, the forearm that was bracing himself sliding to cradle Minho’s neck, fingers threading into the black locks and keeping him braced there.

Jisung pulled back just enough to breathe, lips slick with warmth and curved in the kind of smile that only comes from falling fast and hard. His eyes were still half-lidded with want, but the love - God, the love - was unmistakable. He ran his thumb across his bottom lip, tongue flicking out to taste the kiss still lingering there.

“Already had no plans of letting you go,” he murmured, grinning like a secret, “but that just sealed the deal. You’re unreal.” Before Minho could even think of a reply, Jisung dipped down again, brushing a kiss along his jaw - soft as a sigh. Then lower, to the graceful line of Minho’s neck, where his lips pressed reverent, lingering kisses against the hammering pulse beneath his skin. Each one whispered mine, without needing to say a word. His lips kept tracing lower and lower, down to Minho’s collarbone. Softness clung to the bone, but none of it mattered. Not now, not ever.

Jisung’s fingers drifted along Minho’s ribcage like he was tracing a map only he could read, touch reverent, featherlight. His mouth hovered just above the warmth of Minho’s skin, breath catching on each whispered word like it needed permission to land.

“Beautiful,” Jisung murmured, lips brushing the hollow in Minho’s collarbone. “Not just here.” A kiss. “Not just now.” Another. Minho’s breath hitched, but he didn’t move - he let it happen, let Jisung speak the things he’d forgotten how to believe.

“You have a soul that makes people stay, even when they swear they won’t,” Jisung said, voice low and sure, like he wasn’t afraid of being wrong. “You carry light in you, Minho. Real light. Even when you don’t see it.” Each word was pressed into skin like ink - intentional, permanent, tender. Tattooing Minho’s perfect skin with love, marking him like Jisung’s torso was.

“You’re not broken,” Jisung whispered against the curve of Minho’s shoulder, more kisses with each and every single word spoken into the air, “you’re proof that healing is messy and still worth chasing.” Minho’s eyes burned. He didn’t speak. Jisung didn’t ask him to.

He just kept going - devotion etched into each syllable, branding love like scripture onto the only altar he’d ever truly believed in. Each inch of skin Jisung could reach in this position had a gentle kiss pressed to it, painting the words into Minho’s skin, soul.

Jisung’s hands came to the waistband of Minho’s sweatpants again, but this time, Minho didn’t stop him. Just lifted his hips up slightly, enough so the waistband could slide over his ass and down his legs. They fell somewhere in the room - thrown by Jisung - before his hands were on Minho’s hips. Despite the softness that clung to them, there was muscle under the skin.

“Dancer in a past life, yeah?” Jisung murmured against Minho’s neck, his lips curved up in a grin against the skin. Minho huffed out a chuckle, his head tipping back against the bed.

“Something like that.” Minho breathed out, closing his eyes as Jisung’s fingers mapped out the slope from Minho’s waist down into his hips. Unhurried, the pads of Jisung’s fingers warm against Minho’s skin through his briefs. Jisung groaned against Minho’s throat, the faint graze of his teeth brushed the nape of Minho’s neck, more reverent than rough - like a secret being whispered into skin.

“I trust you.” Minho exhaled into the air, his hands coming up to cover Jisung’s, cold hands against burning ones, “Ji… Fuck.” He mumbled into the air, guiding Jisung’s hands to the dips in his hipbones. Right at his front. He guided Jisung’s thumbs right into the divots, and pressed down hard . 

Minho’s reaction was immediate, the sharp intake of breath melting into a shaky whine. Jisung blinked for a moment, the sound immediately flooding through his brain and sending shivers down his spine. He pressed his thumbs again, the same amount of pressure, and Minho responded immediately.

“Sensitive.” Jisung murmured, more of an observation than an actual comment, “Adorable.” He smiled, pressing another kiss to Minho’s pulse. Hearts thundered against chests, and Minho felt like he was draped on a cloud, the floating feeling hitting him from head to toe.

It was slow, unhurried - as was anything when it came to Minho and Jisung. They had all the time in the world, why rush into things? Jisung’s sweats hit the floor and were kicked off with a single leg, pushed off gently by Minho’s trembling hands. Minho glanced down - and blinked, eyes widening just a touch.

“Are those... Twinkies?” he asked, voice wobbling between awe and barely restrained laughter. Jisung’s head snapped down like a cartoon character catching a wardrobe malfunction in real-time. 

His face went from smug to scandalized in a second flat. “Oh my God - I forgot I was wearing these,” he groaned, already laughing as he tried to cover the bright yellow waistband doing absolutely nothing to help his case. That was it. The dam broke.

They collapsed into each other in a heap of giggles - laughter bubbling up and spilling over like kids sharing a secret. The kind of laughter that made your cheeks ache, where embarrassment didn’t sting because it was wrapped in something too sweet to hurt. Minho buried his face in Jisung’s shoulder, shaking with it. Jisung pretended to be mortified but couldn’t stop grinning. Because sure, maybe his underwear had snack cakes on them. But Minho was still looking at him like he was the best thing he'd ever unwrapped.

Minho and Jisung lost each other in the movements, in the effortless ebb and flow of their souls together. But when Jisung’s hands came to the waistband of Minho’s briefs, the stuttering was back behind Minho’s ribs. His throat bobbed, but Jisung just pressed a kiss to his throat, murmuring a soft I got you , before his hands moved away. Minho felt like a thread pulled too tight, about to snap.

“Ji…” He muttered, pushing through the embarrassment and insecurities, pulling Jisung’s hands back to the waistband. Helping him pull them down. The sound of the cloth hitting the floor echoed like a gunshot in the room, but Jisung soothed the anxiety bubbling up in Minho’s chest with soft kisses to his cheeks.

“Don’t hide, jagi…” He murmured against Minho’s cheekbone, letting fingers wander before his hands did. Waited for a hitch of breath, a stiffening of shoulders to tell him to stop. But one never came. 

Jisung’s fingers drug up the underside of Minho’s cock, earning a stifled whine from the man underneath him. Jisung smiled against Minho’s cheek, his hand moving slowly and carefully. Fingers wrapped around, palm rested gently. Unhurried, just resting there.

Minho felt like he was going to combust - right there and then. It had been long since anyone - himself included - had touched his cock, and the feeling of Jisung’s hand, gently wrapped around it, was enough to have Minho teetering.

“Wait… H-Hold on, bug -” Minho stuttered, his eyes screwing shut tightly as he shoved down the feeling. For as much as the two of them had been giggling and kissing like they were teenagers, Minho really didn’t want to burst in two seconds like he was fifteen again, “J-Just - Please - Fuck! Give me… Give me a second.”

Jisung smiled against Minho’s cheek, resting there like he had all the time in the world. And maybe he did. Soft, steady, impossibly patient - he was everything Minho didn’t know he needed until right now.

“We’ve got time,” he murmured, his voice so gentle it tugged something tight in Minho’s throat. “Just breathe.”

Minho huffed, the laugh half-caught between awe and disbelief. “Why do you have to be so - so perfect ?” he muttered, barely able to look at him. “You can’t be real.”

Jisung snorted. “You got me,” he said, pressing another kiss to Minho’s cheek, then another and another. “I’m a lizard person. Here to seduce emotionally constipated men and eat their leftovers.”

“And I look like a snack?” Minho teased, already blushing, already undone.

“More like a five-course meal with dessert,” Jisung purred dramatically against his cheek, the line so ridiculous and oddly sincere it made Minho laugh until his shoulders shook.

“Shut up,” Minho managed, eyes shining as he pulled him closer. “I love you.”

And Jisung didn’t answer. He just tucked his face in Minho’s neck, kissed the skin there like it was all he’d ever need, and held him a little tighter than before.

The heat simmering low in Minho’s stomach that was about to tip him over calmed until it was back to an acceptable burn, and all Minho could do was nod. Jisung, all knowing Jisung, just smiled against Minho’s neck, and his hand wrapped around Minho’s cock moved finally.

It was slow, but the kind of delicious friction that had Minho falling apart underneath Jisung’s fingerprints. Rough skin against heated flesh, and Minho just held on for dear life. The blunt ends of his fingernails - long bitten down into the quick - tried to dig into Jisung’s shoulders. Something, anything , to tether him and prevent him from floating up to the ceiling.

“You don’t owe me anything tonight,” Jisung whispered, his voice low and steady as he pressed a gentle kiss to Minho’s neck. Like it was punctuation after the sentence. “Not a single moment. Not a single piece of yourself you’re not ready to give.” Another kiss followed—softer this time, almost reverent. “I don’t need perfect. I need you. As you are. Whenever you’re ready.”

Minho let the words settle over him like warm water. For a moment, he just breathed. Then he gripped onto Jisung’s shoulders tighter, meeting his gaze with something soft and unshakable behind it.

“I want this,” he said, voice quiet but sure. “Not just tonight. Not just the easy parts.” He reached up, threading his fingers through Jisung’s hair, grounding himself there. And his voice trembled a little - but his heart didn’t. “I’m not scared of wanting anymore. Not with you. Please, bug…” He whispered.

The look that crossed Jisung’s face when he pulled back, just to look at Minho to confirm, was equal parts pure love and a kid who was let loose in a candy store. 

“I just… haven’t bottomed in a really long time…” Minho admitted quietly, “Like… Thirty years.” He chuckled awkwardly, the embarrassment creeping up the back of his neck. But Jisung’s smile, so gentle, made the shame melt off as soon as it came in. “But… I trust you.”

In between the kisses and hushed whispers of love and devotion, Minho felt his muscles relax. The tension melting from his nerves and the floating feeling was back. So when Jisung’s fingers dipped lower, brushing down Minho’s cock and sack, Minho didn’t startle. Even when Jisung glanced up at him, to make sure this was still okay.

Jisung’s finger pressed ever so lightly against Minho’s hole - not intruding. Exploring, “This okay?” He asked, voice soft, almost hesitant. Minho nodded, not trusting his words, “Ah, no. Words, jagi. Please.” He nipped at Minho’s collarbone, looking up at him through long eyelashes.

“Y-Yes. It’s… Fuck, it’s perfect.” Minho breathed out, his breath catching in his throat. Jisung nodded against his collarbone, and Minho felt the smile that crossed Jisung’s lips against his clavicle.

“I gotta… Shit, I gotta grab the lube.” Jisung murmured under his breath, his breath ghosted along Minho’s throat, voice low and reluctant. “I… Fuck. Two seconds, okay?”

Minho didn’t open his eyes - just smiled, the corners of his mouth twitching with lazy contentment. “Ji… it’s okay,” he murmured, giggling softly.

But when Jisung peeled himself away, the cold snapped against Minho’s skin like a slap - too sudden, too harsh after all that warmth. The whine that slipped from his lips wasn’t planned, but it felt honest.

“Don’t do that,” came Jisung’s strangled laugh, somewhere between a plea and a groan. “You’re gonna kill me.” There was rustling. A drawer opening, something clattering to the floor, and Jisung cursing under his breath like he was personally offended by gravity. And then - barely a heartbeat later - he was back. Landing back on top of Minho like he'd returned from exile. Warm arms. Familiar breath. A kiss pressed behind his ear, like an apology wrapped in affection.

“God, I was gone for ten seconds,” he whispered, voice half-scolding but already sinking back into Minho like he’d missed him every moment. “Why did that feel like a year?” Minho chuckled, but the snap of the lid made the laugh stutter in his chest. He opened his eyes, seeing Jisung slathering so much lube on his finger that it rolled down the back of his hand in thick globs.

“Jesus, you’re gonna use the… entire fucking bottle on just one finger.” Minho chuckled, glancing up at Jisung’s eyes with the teasing softness that wrapped itself deep in Jisung’s lungs.

“Rather safe than sorry.” Jisung chuckled, snapping the lid shut on the lube and tossing it onto the bed. His hand came back down, pressing against Minho’s hole again. The cold feeling of the lube made Minho wrinkle his nose in displeasure. But the slow, circular motions around his rim felt soothing, like a balm.

“‘s cold.” He mumbled, and Jisung pressed kisses into his cheeks, murmuring acknowledgement, “You’re… good. I’ll let you know if… something doesn’t feel right.” And that was all Jisung needed. The finger slowly pressed in, breaching the ring of tight muscle. It wasn’t much, just to the second knuckle, but almost instantaneously, Minho’s breath was stolen from his chest. It was all too much, not enough all at once.

“Hey, breathe…” Jisung murmured against Minho’s cheek, “Just breathe… Not moving ‘till you tell me to.” He reassured Minho, his voice barely above a whisper. And there they sat for a few moments, before Minho’s brain quieted down.

“Y-You’re… You’re good.” Minho swallowed thickly, nodding, “Go… Go ahead ‘nd move…” Jisung just nodded against his cheek, gently pushing his finger in farther until it was completely inside Minho. He pulled back with the same speed - back and forth. Every noise out of Minho’s lips was his guide, if something felt good or not. 

It was a few moments before Minho’s little whines turned deeper, the relaxation flowing through his veins. A second finger prodded at Minho’s rim, and he nodded eagerly, “Please…” He mumbled, letting out a higher pitched noise as the stretch ebbed in again. Two fingers - Jisung’s middle and ring finger. The slow process started again - the patient waiting, the small noises from Minho before the fingers ever thought about moving again. Then the slow, adoration filled movement of Jisung’s fingers.

“Doin’ so fuckin’ good for me…” Jisung pressed kiss after kiss to anywhere his lips could easily reach - lips, cheeks, jawline, “Fuck, jagi… So, so good…” He mumbled, the smile on his lips evident not just in the praise tumbling out of his lips. The words lit something deep up in Minho, the whimpers and whines growing needier, “Yeah? Like being told you’re doin’ good? Bein’ such a good boy?” Jisung asked softly, the fire and gravel in his voice making Minho’s stomach do odd flips on itself.

“Ye-Yeah… Like it a lot…” Minho mumbled into the heated air of the room, letting out a shuddering breath as the two fingers suddenly felt a lot easier than they did minutes ago, “Ji, bug… Fuck - More, please.” He exhaled shakily, and Jisung nodded. There was the snapping of the lid again - more lube - before a third finger was pressing into Minho, stretching him out farther.

The third finger slid in much easier than the two before it. Minho barely even registered the stretch this time, more concerned with the bundle of nerves that Jisung was managing to hit with each press of his fingers. The bundle Minho had hit once before in his life, on his hairbrush when he was sixteen. Curious little Minho, who had wanted to know what it felt like. 

“Haaaaah~  Jisungie-!” Minho cried, his back arching up as Jisung’s fingers pressed just right. Behind his eyelids, the world erupted - blinding flares of color, pinks bleeding into purples like constellations breaking apart, as if the sky itself had come undone just for him.,“P-Please, slow down..!” He cried out, his face screwing tight as the coil inside of him just wound tighter and tighter.

Jisung froze the second the word left Minho’s lips, like someone had yanked the ground out from under him. The shift was instant - fingers still, breath caught, eyes wide and searching. “Jagi, I-I’m sorry, did I-” The words stumbled out of him, panicked and halfway broken, like he’d crossed a line he didn’t see coming. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” But Minho was already speaking, tumbling over Jisung’s worry.

“Wanna… Wanna cum with you inside of me, please !” Need colored every word he spoke, sticky and unfiltered - but the embarrassment never came. That usual sting of shame sat this one out, leaving only want. Bare and honest and burning through him like it had a right to, “Jisungie - please .” The relief on Jisung’s face was almost instantaneous.

“Oh - Fuck. Gave me a heart attack.” Jisung’s voice was equal parts relief and humored, “I got you, baby. Do you wanna stay like this… or do you wanna lay on that perfect stomach for me?” He asked gently, using his clean hand to brush Minho’s mussed hair out of his face.

“What…” Minho started, the word catching as he swallowed thickly, voice rough with something sticky. He paused, searched, then tried again - softer this time. “What’s gonna be easiest for you?” The question landed clumsy and earnest, and Jisung felt it hit him square in the chest. That was his Minho - all nerves, all heart - trying to put someone else first even with Jisung’s fingers in his ass. Jisung nodded, brushing another kiss to Minho’s forehead, before pulling his three fingers out of Minho. The whine was instantaneous, but soothed with a sweet kiss from Jisung.

“Get on all fours for me, baby… Let me see that perfect ass.” He kissed Minho’s forehead again, pulling back enough to let him shift. Jisung gently guided Minho properly, pressing kisses to his shoulders and spine the entire time, “So, so perfect for me.” Jisung murmured into the space where Minho’s shoulder blades curved into his spine. 

“You keep praising me, I might cum from that alone.” Minho muttered, which earned a delighted chuckle from Jisung, another kiss pressed tattooed into Minho’s skin.

“I don’t see a problem with that.” Jisung nipped at Minho’s shoulder, soothing the bite with another kiss, “Let me grab a condom, okay?” He asked gently, and Minho turned his head over his shoulder, giving Jisung a look.

“I’m clean… Unless you really want to use one. Clearly I haven’t been with anyone in a while.” He swallowed the embarrassment down - Yeah, that’s a turn on. The guy you’re about to get fucked by really needs to know you’re basically a virgin again . But Jisung just blinked at Minho with big, wide eyes.

“No - God, I fucking hate condoms.” Jisung admitted, laughing slightly, “I… just figured you’d want to… Cause… you know - reasons…”

“Jisungie.” Minho’s voice was flat, unimpressed - the kind of deadpan that had Jisung grinning every single time. That familiar frown pulled at his features, the one Jisung always said made him look like an indignant bunny who’d just been told No. “For the love of God,” He huffed, “just get over here already.”

Jisung chuckled, holding his hands up in surrender as he stepped back just slightly from where Minho was on all fours on the bed. “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming, bossy.” His voice was fond, pushing his briefs down to the floor. His cock bobbed out, hitting right below his belly button. Minho’s eyes widened impossibly, taking in the sheer size of Jisung. 

“You-!” Minho’s face went blank for half a second before sheer disbelief crept in, eyebrows up and mouth twitching, “You’re fucking kidding me. There’s no way that’s fitting in me!” His voice went sharp, blinking a couple of times.

Jisung wasn’t huge , like the pornstars Minho had cast a half glance at before turning off the video in disgust and embarrassment. But he was thick . Flushed a shade of red against the honey tone, a bead of precum dripping from the tip. The metal caught his eye after everything else, a piercing right at the base of his cock - barbell resting right against his scrotum.

“Well, clearly the ink wasn’t the final frontier,” Minho murmured, his voice dipped in mischief, eyes flicking down with barely disguised amusement.

Jisung huffed out a laugh, running a hand through his hair as his cheeks flushed. “I was twenty-five and very drunk,” he said, grinning despite himself. “Honestly forget it’s there until my loofah gets ideas.” He chuckled, his hand sliding down to grip his cock at the base. The thought popped in Minho’s head before he could stop it: Red Bull can . Minho wanted to crawl into the ground, burying his face in the pillows.

“Breathe…” Jisung murmured, his hand moving in slow, steady passes down Minho’s back - anchor and balm in one. “We can-”

“If you’re about to suggest stopping,” Minho growled into the pillow, voice low and feral, “I swear to God, I’ll lose my mind.” His fingers fisted in the pillowcase like it was personally responsible for his desperation, breath coming short and sharp. Jisung’s small chuckle rang out in the room.

“Bossy…” He murmured, his voice filled with so much fondness that Minho felt like he was going to burst at the seams, “Just keep breathing for me, baby…” He whispered, pressing another kiss to Minho’s shoulder. The unmistakable snap of the cap to the lube bottle rang out in the room, then the slick sounds. Minho swallowed nervously when Jisung stepped back to him, the hard press of his cock right against Minho’s tight ring of muscle. The lube was frigid, and it sent a full blown shiver up Minho’s spine.

The head started to press into Minho, and all of his muscles locked up at once. It was such a foreign, unfamiliar feeling. But Jisung was there to catch Minho when he fell - shushing him, running a hand down his spine, and reminding him to breathe. All the while murmuring the sweet praises that lit Minho up from the inside out. Minho wanted Jisung’s voice on repeat in his ears for the rest of his life - Such a good boy… My perfect little angel… Atta boy, just breathe…

Jisung worked inch by inch agonizingly slow into Minho, always checking on him. He stopped when the burn got to be too much, and just waited there patiently, hands rubbing soothing circles on Minho’s hips. 

When Jisung fully bottomed out, a full blown shiver broke out through Minho. Full, so fucking full. It was a feeling completely foreign and comforting all at once. Molten metal ran through Minho’s veins, dredging through his veins and lighting every nerve all at once. 

“Jagiya?” Jisung’s voice broke Minho out of his head, the pad of Jisung’s thumb brushing against his cheek. Minho hadn’t even realized tears had started bubbling up and over his lower lashes until Jisung’s thumb came back wet, “Baby, breathe. Are… Are you okay?” Jisung’s voice was so soft that it made Minho’s tears come harder and faster. God, he was so fucking in love with Jisung.

“Yeah… ‘m okay. So fucking good, Jisungie…” Minho sniffled, a needy noise leaving his lips as Jisung leaned forward - presumably to check on him. But it only drove Jisung’s cock further inside Minho, filling him up more, “S’fuckin’ big…”

“Yeah?” Jisung chuckled, pressing a kiss to Minho’s wet cheek, his tongue darting out to lick the tear that was rolling down his face. Oh, fuck, that was hot … Minho’s stomach did flips on itself.

“Y’can… move…” Minho mumbled, pressing his hips back slightly, the shudder ripping through his body instantly. Jisung bit back a groan, his hands resting on Minho’s hips, “Feels… s’good, Jisungie…”

“I got you, baby…” Jisung grit through his teeth, slowly pulling his hips back before easing them back in. It was a gentle pace, Minho’s whimpers and whines accentuating every gentle roll of Jisung’s hips into Minho’s, “Doing so… Fuck… So good for me, jagi.”

The thrusts slowly started becoming more sure of themselves when Minho relaxed more, his body accepting more and more of Jisung with each second that passed. It wasn’t long before Minho was putty in his hands, face half pressed into the pillow and knuckles white with how hard he was grasping the sheets.

“Jisungieeee-!” Minho gasped when Jisung rolled his hips just right, hitting the bundle of nerves again, “Oh - fuck !” He pressed back against Jisung with every thrust, keeping the tip of Jisung’s cock hitting that spot with every thrust.

“Yeah?” Jisung chuckled shakily, the tremble in his voice giving away the confidence he was oozing in his words. A light smack against Minho’s ass punctuated the sentence, and at Minho’s loud cry of pleasure, Jisung’s eyebrows raised and a smirk tugged at his lips, “Sweet baby liked that, hmm?” When Minho tried to mumble, another smack was landed, “Ah - Words, pretty boy.”

“Y-Yes!” Minho sobbed into the pillow, wanton moans leaving his mouth with every snap of Jisung’s hips against his. The tight-lipped, sarcasm laced man was gone by now, replaced with something more whiny and needy, “Yes, hyung - Fuck!”

Jisung was stunned in silence when the honorific slipped from Minho’s lips. Minho was a few years older than him, but in this moment - Jisung’s cock buried inside Minho, the faintest marks of handprints blooming on Minho’s perfect asscheeks, and Minho face down in the pillow? Jisung’s head fell back on his shoulders before he could help it.

“Say it again.” He groaned, his hands gripping Minho’s hips tighter, pulling him back farther, “Call me hyung again, baby, please .”

“H-Hyung!” Minho cried when Jisung’s cock hit the bundle of nerves again, sending electric shocks through every nerve in his body. Jisung chuckled shakily above him, another smack against Minho’s asscheek.

“Yeah - You like Hyung’s cock in you, baby? Fuck, you look so pretty like this -” Jisung grit his teeth together hard enough that they felt like they were about to crack. His brain was like a broken record on repeat - Minho. Hyung. Minho. Hyung. Love. What ring size is Minho? 

The sound of skin slapping, heavy breathing, and Minho’s cries into the pillow echoed through the room, the air molten and dripping with two souls melding together. Minho had long gone nonverbal - nothing more than Hyung!, Jisungieeee~!, and whimpers and broken moans escaping his kiss swollen lips. Drool soaked the pillow beneath his mouth, his tongue half lolled out.

“Hyuuuuung~!” Minho’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, his eyes screwing shut, “Fuck- ‘m gonna-” He whined, and he didn’t have to say anymore. Jisung’s hand slid down from Minho’s hip, wrapping around his neglected cock. The reaction was immediate, Minho’s hole tightening around Jisung’s cock immediately.

“Been so good for - Fuck - Hyung, baby boy…” Jisung snapped his hips harder, pushing both of them closer to that edge, his lips beside Minho’s ear, “Cum for me, princess - Be Hyung’s good boy.” He purred in Minho’s ear, his teeth finding the earlobe and tugging on it.

With a final cry, Minho shattered, eyes rolling back into his head. Every muscle in his body went rigid, his hole clamping down on Jisung, as his cock throbbed. Hot, white ropes painted Jisung’s fingers and the sheets beneath them, and he went still under Jisung’s hands. Watching Minho shatter into a million beautiful pieces was what sent Jisung tipping over the edge.

With a grunt of his own, he stilled, his cock pulsing thick, hot cum into Minho, and neither of them felt like they could breathe. Jisung collapsed on top of Minho, his forehead against Minho’s shoulder as the two of them remembered how to breathe again. 

It was Jisung who came back into the land of the living first, shifting his weight to not press so much onto Minho, “You still with me, baby boy?” Jisung asked softly, which earned a hollow grunt from Minho. Jisung chuckled, “Did I go too rough?” He asked, voice twinging with worry. Another grunt from Minho - this one more clearly sounding like a no.

“N…No. Perfect…” Minho got out after a few moments, clearly coming back down to Earth slower than Jisung did. Minho’s hand twitched as he reached up, his hand finding Jisung’s to give it a reassuring squeeze - more of a halfassed grab than anything. But Jisung knew.

“Gotta pull out, baby. Gotta get us cleaned up.” Jisung spoke softly, and Minho whined loudly, “I know, I know. But I’m pretty sure you don’t want to sleep in your cum tonight, baby.” He chuckled fondly, pressing a tender kiss to Minho’s temple.

“Fine… Two seconds.” Minho mumbled, turning his head to the side to attempt to look at Jisung. Minho was simply wrecked, his hair mussed and falling into his eyes, the shine of his saliva clinging to his chin and cheek, and a beautiful flush covered him from head to toe. Jisung was in love.

“Two seconds.” Jisung promised, easing out of Minho. Despite the fact that he knew it was coming, the feeling of being empty caused Minho to whine in displeasure. If it weren’t for the fact that Jisung had just cum, the sight of Minho’s hole - puffy, leaking cum that trickled down to his balls - would have had him rock hard again. Jisung padded into the bathroom, flipping on the tap with practiced fingers, adjusting it until the water was just right - warm, not scalding, like a hug waiting to happen. He dropped in one of the lavender bath bombs from the stash he bought during his weekly party-hosting days. Minho had mentioned once, half-asleep and covered in glitter, that it reminded him of spring mornings. That memory alone made the choice obvious.

When he returned to the bedroom, Minho had barely shifted. He was a puddle now - melted across the blankets, face buried in the pillow, legs stretched out like gravity had finally won. Jisung let out the quietest little laugh, the kind that echoed behind fondness, and ran his hand in slow, lazy circles along Minho’s back.

“C’mon, jagi,” he cooed, brushing the damp hair from Minho’s forehead to see the heavy-lidded eyes blinking up at him. “Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?”

“Mmmph,” Minho mumbled, voice soft and sticky with sleep. “I’m too heavy... can’t lift me... 'm like a boulder.”

Jisung grinned, maneuvering Minho onto his back, and slipped one arm beneath Minho’s knees, the other across his back, lifting him with surprising ease “Guess I’ll just have to be strong enough for both of us, huh?”

Minho cracked one sleepy eye open and puffed his cheeks in a pout. “Show-off,” he muttered, even as he tucked himself closer, nuzzling into the crook of Jisung’s neck with a hum of complete and utter trust.

The steam had fogged the mirror by the time Jisung carried Minho into the bathroom, the syrupy smell of lavender curling around them. Minho hummed in response - a silent You remembered behind the hum. Jisung stood by the tub with Minho snug in his arms, holding him like he was something he never wanted to put down.

“You still rocking the jello legs?” he teased, his voice rich with the kind of softness that only came from being helplessly, completely in love.

Minho exhaled a breath that was half-sigh, half-smile. “Maybe a little,” he murmured, lids heavy with sleep. “But I can make it in… if you think you can let go.”

The corners of Jisung’s mouth curled as he rolled his eyes affectionately. “Let go of my favorite armful? Tragic.” He leaned in and nuzzled Minho’s nose with his own - gentle, silly, impossible not to love. Minho groaned, but the way he bumped his nose right back betrayed him entirely.

“Alright,” Jisung chuckled, adjusting his grip, “setting you down. Hold on to me, baby - just in case those noodles you call legs aren’t bluffing.” Jisung lowered Minho to the bathroom floor with careful hands, one arm snug around his waist like he might float away without it. Minho’s fingers curled instinctively against Jisung’s shoulders, clinging with quiet trust. They didn’t need words - their bodies spoke in softened breath and instinctive touch.

“Steady?” Jisung murmured, his forehead nearly brushing Minho’s. Minho nodded, just barely, and took a slow step into the tub. The warmth lapped at his ankles like the water was greeting him personally. He let out a soft sigh, the kind that came from muscles remembering how to let go.

The water had barely reached Minho’s chest before he tipped back against Jisung, boneless with exhaustion and trust. Jisung had slipped in behind him, legs folded around Minho’s, arms caged loosely around his waist like he was holding onto something rare. Minho’s head nestled beneath Jisung’s chin, hair damp and curling at the edges, his breaths shallow and slow, edging toward sleep.

Jisung reached for the cup beside them again, scooping warm water and tipping it gently over Minho’s head. Again. And again. Each pour a lullaby. “You’re perfect, you know that?” he whispered, his voice brushing the shell of Minho’s ear. “Even when you’re grumpy. Even when you think you’re too much.” Minho didn’t answer, but he tilted his head a little, letting Jisung’s fingers comb through his hair, gentle and rhythmic.

“You give everything,” Jisung murmured. “Every look, every touch - you love like it’s the last time every time. And I see it. I feel it.” Minho’s fingers twitched beneath the water. “You don’t have to hold yourself together with me. You never did,” Jisung said, and kissed the top of Minho’s head like a promise.

He worked shampoo into Minho’s hair, soft circles against his scalp, and smiled when the older man melted further against him- less person now, more puddle. “I’ve got you,” Jisung whispered. “Always. You don’t have to ask.”

And as Minho drifted in Jisung’s arms - the sweet half awake, half asleep state - surrounded by warmth and love and hands that never forgot how to be kind, Jisung kept whispering all the quiet things Minho had never been told - until it became part of the air between them.

“Mmm,” Minho mumbled, barely audible, lips barely moving.

“Hm? You okay, baby?” Jisung asked, glancing down.

Minho’s face scrunched like he had to summon all his strength just to string the syllables together. “’M jus’... so in love with you,” he slurred out, words thick with sleep and honesty. “Like. Stupid. Heart-does-backflips love. You ruin me, Sungie.”

Jisung froze. Then melted. “Oh, baby...” he whispered, a grin blooming so wide it reached his ears.

Minho blinked slowly, barely conscious. “Don’t laugh. S’true. Love you so much. Hurts a little. Not bad hurt. Like - like good sore. Like... gym... but emotions.”

That broke Jisung. He buried his face in Minho’s hair to muffle the laugh that escaped, holding him a little tighter. “You’re impossible,” he said into Minho’s crown, voice thick with affection. “And I love you, too. Backflipping-heart, sore-from-caring, wreck-me-in-the-best-way kind of love.” Minho let out a tiny noise - somewhere between a hum and a purr - and tucked in closer, already halfway back to sleep.

The water had long since gone warm and soft around them, laced with lavender and the kind of silence that made Minho feel safe.

Jisung kissed the top of his damp curls, murmured a barely-there, “Let’s get you cozy, yeah?”

Minho hummed, eyes too heavy to open, his body pliant and warm where it rested against Jisung’s chest. He didn’t move when arms wrapped around him again - just trusted.

Jisung rose with him in his arms, careful not to jostle, and padded across the bathroom. With practiced ease, he settled Minho down on the edge of the sink basin, one hand steadying his waist as the other reached for a towel. Minho blinked sleepily, the steam clinging to his lashes.

“Look at you,” Jisung whispered with a smile as he patted him dry. “All soft and quiet. Think you broke my heart a little.”

Minho let out a vague noise - somewhere between a grumble and a purr - as Jisung dabbed gently at his shoulders, his neck, the dip of his back. Like Minho might shatter if handled any less reverently.

Once the towel had done its job, Jisung wrapped it around him loosely and scooped him up again, bridal style. Minho didn’t protest. Just looped his arms around Jisung’s neck and tucked his nose into his shoulder like it was home. By the time they reached the bedroom, Minho was barely holding onto awake, almost completely asleep in Jisung.

Jisung lowered him to the bed with all the delicacy in the world, pulled the blankets over him, and climbed in after - slotting himself behind Minho like puzzle pieces that were always meant to fit. His arms found their familiar home around Minho’s middle.

There was a soft exhale. A tightening of fingers. A kiss pressed just beneath Minho’s ear. And together, wrapped in cotton and warmth and too many feelings to name, they drifted off. The scent of lavender still lingered. So did the love.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Morning unfolded gently, sunlight stretching its golden fingers across the room, slipping through the edges of the curtains like it didn’t want to wake them just yet. In the quiet stillness of the bedroom, Minho lay curled against Jisung’s chest, the top of his head tucked under Jisung’s chin, their breathing slow, steady - perfectly in sync. The world outside stirred with the faint sound of birdsong, but inside, wrapped in shared warmth and tangled limbs, time seemed to pause. 

Minho stirred first, sunlight slipping through the curtains to brush across his cheek, golden and gentle. He groaned softly and tucked himself closer to Jisung’s chest, trying to chase sleep for a little longer - but the light wouldn’t be ignored.

With a sleepy blink, he lifted his head. The first thing he saw was Jisung - face slack with rest, lips slightly parted, that faint dusting of five o’clock shadow catching the morning light. He looked impossibly peaceful. Beautiful, even in sleep.

Minho smiled, small and unguarded. “Good morning, handsome,” he whispered, like a secret too sweet to keep, and leaned in to press a kiss to Jisung’s cheek.

It earned him a drowsy whine as Jisung stirred, burying his face into the pillow with a sleepy grumble. “Five more minutes,” he muttered, barely coherent. Minho chuckled softly and nuzzled in closer, more than happy to give him all the minutes he wanted.

Minho had meant to fall back asleep. That had been the plan. A lazy day, spent cuddling with each other and snoozing off and on all day. But with Jisung’s arm draped lazily across his waist, and the rise and fall of that warm chest beneath his cheek, it was hard to remember why sleep ever mattered when this - this - existed. He hummed softly, shifting just enough to glance up at Jisung’s half-lidded eyes and lopsided morning smile.

“You’re staring,” Jisung mumbled, voice still deep and sleep-warm.

“You’re warm,” Minho countered, lips quirking. “And annoyingly pretty.”

Jisung chuckled, eyes fluttering closed again. “Guess I’ll take that as a win.” A comfortable silence stretched between them, broken only by the slow tick of the clock and the occasional chirp of birds outside the window. Minho let it settle in his chest for a long moment before whispering, “I didn’t think I’d ever get something like this again.”

Jisung opened his eyes, softer now. “Like what?”

Minho’s fingers traced lazy shapes against Jisung’s side. “Waking up with someone. Without panic. Without the ache of pretending it feels right.” He paused, just long enough. “But with you? It does. Completely.”

Jisung’s breath caught slightly, but he didn’t speak at first. He just wrapped his arm tighter around Minho and pulled him in, pressing their foreheads together. “It’s funny,” Jisung murmured. “I used to think love was supposed to feel like fire. Exciting, dangerous. Burned through you.”

Minho huffed a laugh against his mouth. “And now?”

“Now it feels like this. Like waking up and realizing I don’t have to light myself on fire just to feel held.”

Minho closed his eyes, heart full and aching in the best way. “You ruin me,” he whispered.

Jisung smiled. “Good. I want to ruin you gently. Every morning. For the rest of forever.”

And when Minho kissed him - slow, soft, and sure - it tasted like lavender and sunlight and home. 

“Mmm, don’t wanna move,” Jisung mumbled, lips brushing the crown of Minho’s head. “Too perfect.”

Minho chuckled, eyes still shut. “Then let’s not. Let’s just—”

His phone exploded to life on the nightstand, a burst of bubblegum pop slicing through the morning calm like a fire alarm. Minji’s ringtone.

Minho jolted, rolling toward it with the reflex of a man who knew only two speeds: calm or crisis. He snatched the phone and answered, still tangled in sheets. “Yeah, sweetheart?” His voice was rough, still thick with sleep. “Everything okay?”

“Hey Dad! Are you home?” Minji chirped through the speaker, her voice just fuzzy enough to be ominous.

Minho blinked. Blinked again. The room swam into focus. Jisung. Scattered clothes. His daughter’s voice. His daughter .

He sat up so fast he nearly launched himself off the bed. “Uh - sort of? Why?” Jisung lifted his head groggily. Minho shot him a wild-eyed look. Jisung blinked. Shrugged. Still blissfully unaware.

“Hellooo? Earth to Dad?” Minji called, her voice lilting with a warm laugh. “I flew in this morning, remember? I'm literally on the porch. And... I may or may not have forgotten my house key.” She let out an adorably sheepish giggle. “Can you come let me in?” For a beat, the words just hovered - Minho still not connecting the dots.

But like the crack of a bullet, Minho’s heart flatlined. “Oh my God, you’re home today? For the summer? That was today ?!” His voice climbed an octave as he scrambled from the bed, the phone tucked between his cheek and shoulder, tugging his shirt on backward in his haste. 

Jisung sat up just as quick behind Minho, his expression flickering from sleepy to pale in seconds. He knew Minji had seen the change - how Jisung went from loud neighbor to unlikely friend, how the edges between them blurred over time. But friendship was easy to explain. Comfort was easy to pass off.

Love? That was different.

It wasn’t that Minho thought she’d disapprove. It was that this - the romance that had blossomed between him and Jisung - felt fragile and precious in a way he hadn’t experienced in years. He didn’t want to say it too soon and jinx it. He didn’t want to risk reducing something sacred to a rushed conversation over dinner. He wanted to be sure it was real before he offered it up to the world.

And more than anything, he wanted to tell her in a way that honored what it meant. What it truly meant to be loved by someone, and not seen as a means to an end.

Minji laughed, clearly oblivious. “We literally talked about this three days ago, Dad! I sent you my ticket information.” Minho heard the sound of her rolling her eyes playfully, “Has the bookstore been that busy that you forgot that quickly?”

“Yeah, I - no, I remember, I just - hang on, I’ll be right down,” Minho said, tripping over a sock that absolutely wasn’t his, “I… slept in,” Minho said, a little too fast. The silence on the other end was brief, suspicious.

“You? Sleeping in?” Minji scoffed, laughing. “Dad, come on. That’s literally not you. Not even a little.” Minho winced just as he heard the creak of patio furniture through the phone - Minji settling in on the porch outside the bookstore. “Oh man,” she chuckled, “you should see across the street. Someone is going wild in Jisung’s house. Just full-on chaos. I think I saw a lamp fly by.”

Minho’s blood ran cold.

“Wait—nope, movement stopped. Weird,” she added, with mild curiosity. “Anyway…”

“Oh! Wow! That is… yeah, super weird!” Minho blurted out, already lunging for his underwear and hopping into one leg like it owed him an explanation. “Okay! I’ll be down in just a sec - love you, sweetheart, see you in a minute!” He didn’t even wait for her reply before hitting END. The phone flopped onto the mattress as he turned to Jisung with the panic of a man watching his own life implode in slow motion. “What the hell do I do?!” he hissed. “She’s gonna see me walking out of your house!”

“Breathe - breathe!” Jisung whisper-yelled, as if Minji could somehow hear them through walls and down the street. “We could… I don’t know, sneak you out the back?”

Minho stared at him. “Sneak me out the - Bug, how am I supposed to casually appear from behind my own house?! What am I, a wizard?” Jisung, bless his soul, handed him a pair of sweats without missing a beat. They weren’t Minho’s, though, and when Minho yanked them up, he realized immediately. They fit , technically. In the way sausage casings fit. Tight.

“Okay, first of all - your ass in those? Criminal,” Jisung said, jaw slack, admiration blatant. “Second, I’ve got nothing. I mean, what if - what if we just tell her? Like, straight up? ‘Hey, we’re together now. We figured out how to love each other like a romantic drama! Surprise!’”

“I - don’t know how she’d react!” Minho snapped, chewing his thumbnail until Jisung gently tugged his hand away with a quiet, “ Don’t .” Minho looked up at him then, wide-eyed and wrecked with nerves. “I don’t want this to blow up before I even get the chance to tell her properly,” he admitted, softer now. “Not like this. Not when it feels this good.”

The next few minutes were tense, Minho entirely all in his own head. He paced across the length of the bedroom for the sixth time in under two minutes, fingers tapping a restless rhythm against his thigh. His hoodie sleeves were bunched in his fists, and every so often, his bottom lip disappeared beneath his teeth.

Jisung leaned in the doorway, arms folded, watching him with something soft in his eyes. The same softness he always saved for Minho when the world started spinning too fast. Minho stopped in the middle of the room, peeked just slightly out of the window to see Minji still sitting across the street, rocking back and forth in the rocking chair on the front porch to the bookstore, on her phone.

“She’s not gonna freak out,” Minho muttered, his eyes locked on his daughter through the window.

“No?” Jisung asked lightly.

Minho exhaled. “I just... She’s been through so many versions of me. And now I’m happy, but I don’t know if she’ll think it’s too fast or weird or - God, that it’s you. ” He turned away from the window, looking at Jisung with the kind of worry in his eyes that ate him up from the inside out.

Jisung crossed the room, calm and deliberate, like he was walking toward a fire he had no fear of. He reached out, cupping Minho’s face with both hands, thumbs brushing just beneath his eyes. “Minji,” he said, voice like a promise, “ adores you.” Minho’s eyes flicked up, wary. “She doesn’t just love you,” Jisung continued, “she sees you. All the ways you stretch yourself thin trying to be everything for everyone. All the ways you care without asking for anything back. She knows you. And she wants you to be okay.” Minho’s throat bobbed. “I don’t think she’d be upset if you told her you were happy, baby. I think she’d be relieved. Maybe even proud.”

Minho blinked fast. Then slower. Then not at all. Jisung smiled and leaned in, their foreheads touching gently. “And if she’s shocked at first? We’ll give her time. But we’ll be honest. And we’ll do it together.” Minho let out a breath like he’d been holding it since sunrise.

“God, you’re annoyingly perfect sometimes,” he whispered, eyes finally crinkling into a smile.

Jisung grinned, eyes sparkling. “It’s part of the package. You already signed the boyfriend contract - nonrefundable, sorry.” 

Minho’s breath caught in his throat. His gaze flicked up, wide and stunned, like the word had reached some buried place in him he didn’t realize was waiting to be touched. “B-Boyfriend?” he echoed, voice cracking just slightly.

Jisung let out a soft laugh, then leaned in and pressed the gentlest kiss to Minho’s lips - one that lingered more like a promise than a question. “If you’ll have me,” he whispered, the tiniest thread of uncertainty wound through his voice, like he couldn’t quite believe this moment was real.

Minho didn’t hesitate. He smiled - bright, real, maybe a little watery - and kissed him again, deeper this time. “Obviously, you idiot,” he murmured, his voice full of something that shook beneath the surface. “I want you. Forever.” A pause, and then, grinning like it meant everything in the world - because it did: “Boyfriend.”

“All right,” Jisung said, hands on his hips, a confident smile on his lips. “How do you want to handle this? Do we plan a covert operation? Throw on some black clothes and Ocean’s Eleven your way across the street, or—”

“Let’s just tell her,” Minho interrupted, voice firm but soft around the edges. His eyes flicked to Jisung’s, steady despite the nerves swimming beneath. “You’re not a secret. You’re not some mistake I need to cover up. If she’s surprised, that’s fine. She’ll come around.” He swallowed, a breath hitching in his throat. “Because this... being with you? This is the happiest I’ve been in years.”

Jisung’s expression melted, a quiet smile tugging at his lips. “Lead the way, boyfriend.” Minho started for the door - but Jisung grabbed his wrist, eyes widening.

“Wait - change first. I mean, love the confidence, but your... everything is showing through my sweats,” he said, gesturing to the very clingy fabric, which was clinging to Minho’s soft cock like a second skin. “Not exactly the outfit choice for a heart-to-heart with your daughter.” Minho groaned and smacked his arm, but his ears were definitely pink. Jisung grinned, dodging the hit with a laugh that bloomed into something full and joyous, filling the room between them with light.

Minho stood at the top of the stairs, dressed now in his own sweatpants - the soft, loose-fitting pair with the frayed drawstring he always reached for when he needed comfort. Jisung hovered beside him, one step behind, like steady gravity in human form. Minho’s fingers curled around the banister as if it might stop his heart from climbing any higher into his throat.

“You’ve got this,” Jisung whispered, close enough for Minho to feel the warmth of the words against his shoulder. He nodded once. It didn’t feel convincing.

They descended slowly, the creak of each wooden step loud in the silence between their breaths. Minho focused on the motion - left, right, left, just keep moving - while his mind spun with questions he couldn’t answer. Would she be surprised? Hurt? Would she smile?

At the bottom of the stairs, Minho paused at the door, staring at the brass handle like it might bite him. Jisung reached for his hand - not to pull, just to be there - and the quiet squeeze grounded him.

Then Minho opened the door. And there she was. Minji sat across the street on the patio of the bookstore, one leg folded beneath her, a to-go cup in her hands. At the sound of the door, her head lifted - and her eyes locked on them immediately.

Jisung standing just behind Minho. Close. Familiar. Her brows lifted slightly. Minho’s breath caught. His fingers twitched at his side. And in that single still second, the quiet world held its breath right alongside him. 

The walk across the street felt like wading through molasses laced with dread. Every step Minho took made his heart thud louder, like it was trying to escape through his ribs. His palms were clammy. Jisung was right behind him - close enough to feel like a shield, but not close enough to hide behind. On the patio, Minji set her drink down and stood slowly. Her face was unreadable - calm, blank, the kind of mask Minho knew all too well. He’d worn it himself for years. By the time he reached her, he could barely breathe. He forced a grin, wide and blinding in the worst way.

“Minji... hey, babygirl,” he said, voice pitched a little too high, a little too cheerful. “How’s - uh - college? Everything good?”

Minji blinked. “I’m… on summer break, Dad.” Her lips twitched, the tiniest smile trying to climb up the side of her face. Then she squinted at him, at Jisung hovering just behind, and tilted her head. “Are you seriously freaking out right now?”

Minho laughed, too loud, too sudden. “What? No - what? Freaking out? Who’s freaking out?”

Minji stared at him for another beat. Then shook her head with a tiny huff of a laugh. “You are so stupid,” she said, but her voice was warm now - glowing, even. “God, I love you so much.” Minho blinked. Minji stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. No drama, no fanfare - just one of those solid hugs that knew exactly where it was needed.

“You’re allowed to be happy, you know,” she added, her words muffled into his chest. “It’s not a crime. You dating someone? Even if it’s, like... Jisung?” She peeked at the younger man with a teasing grin. “Kind of iconic, actually.” 

Minho exhaled - more of a collapse than a breath - and hugged her back like she was his anchor. Jisung, standing nearby, mouthed the word "iconic" with a stunned, delighted expression that didn’t quite match the tears pricking at his eyes.

“Okay,” Minji said, pulling back with one last squeeze of the hug. “Can we go inside now? It’s already way too hot, and I need to drop off my luggage before I melt.”

Minho chuckled, fumbling his keys from his pocket. “Yeah, yeah - come on in, princess.” He pushed the door open, and warmth followed them inside - not from the heat, but from the unmistakable imprint of three people making a home. 

Three sets of shoes lined up by the door. Three half-full mugs of tea on the coffee table. The lingering echo of laughter that still seemed to hum in the walls.  Minji took in the scene- her dad, relaxed in a way she hadn’t seen in years, and Jisung standing just a little too close not to mean something. She raised an eyebrow, expression caught somewhere between amused and baffled.

“So let me get this straight,” she said, Her fingers curled around the tea mug in that same instinctive way Minho's always did - a quiet echo of her father, down to the smallest gesture. “I leave for school and come back to find you two making goo-goo eyes over coffee? I mean, sure, I knew you stopped hating each other, but… Dad, you used to look at him like you were planning a murder.”

Minho opened his mouth, but it was Jisung who spoke. “I earned that,” he said with a sheepish grin, hands in his pockets. “Back then I was…a much different person. I was covering up grief with anything and everything. The parties had purpose - I’ll get into that later. That story is long, but he had every right to hate me.” Minho didn’t argue. He just watched Jisung with a softness Minji hadn’t seen in years.

“But then,” Jisung continued, quieter now, “When I needed him the most - when the grief from my son’s death ate away at me… your dad showed up. I didn’t ask him to. I barely looked at him. But he came anyway. Sat with me. Checked in. Every single day, even when I had nothing to say. Just… stayed.” Minho looked away, jaw working.

“And somewhere in all that grief,” Jisung went on, his voice warm and sure, “he gave me a reason to breathe again. To laugh. He never asked anything from me - just gave. And I think I started loving him the same way I started breathing again.” He looked at Minji, not pleading - just honest. “It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t easy. But it was… inevitable.”

Minji blinked hard, her expression unreadable for a beat. Then she exhaled - one of those sighs that sounded like it had been held in for months - and grinned. “You’re so in love with my dad,” she said, smile spreading like the sun. “It’s gross.”

Jisung laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah. Can’t even pretend I’m not.”

Minji turned to Minho, eyes glassy but bright. “You found someone who sat with you in the dark? Dad… you really are so stupid sometimes.”

Minho arched a brow. “That supposed to be a compliment?”

She pulled him into another hug. this one from the side, her arm around his waist. “Yeah. I love you so much. Both of you. This is… really good.”

The day moved slowly, the way the best ones do - sun-drenched and humming with an easy kind of joy.

Minji had taken over the living room with her suitcases and her stories, flopping dramatically onto the couch between Minho and Jisung, regaling them with dorm gossip and weird professors and a new obsession with indie horror films. Minho just laughed and shook his head like he couldn’t believe how grown she was. Jisung chimed in occasionally, letting her tease him without putting up much of a fight, like she’d been in his life forever.

At some point, Jisung disappeared across the street and returned with old photo albums, worn at the edges, the spine peeling gently. Minho recognized it instantly.

“This okay?” Jisung asked softly, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to crack the spine open in front of someone new. Minho just nodded. Minji scooted closer.

The three of them sat cross-legged on the floor, flipping through page after page of a boy who looked too much like Jisung - same sleepy smile, same wide eyes. Jisung told stories in a quiet, reverent voice, not brittle like it used to be. There was weight in the words, but no longer sharp edges. The stories came with a kind of soft, weathered laughter - the sound of someone who had loved deeply and lost immensely, but no longer bled every time he remembered. The grief was still there, tucked between the pages, but gentler now. 

Minji listened with the kind of attention that felt like respect. “He had your nose,” she said, and Jisung blinked fast but smiled wide.

The day unfolded in warm layers - takeout containers on the porch, shared inside jokes already forming, the easy rhythm of people choosing one another. Not because they had to. Because they wanted to.

When night came, Minji yawned her way upstairs, muttering something about unpacking in the morning. Minho kissed her hair and tucked a blanket under her arms. By the time he came back down, the house was quiet.

Except for Jisung.

He was curled on the armchair, one leg folded beneath him, the soft lamplight making a halo of his curls. In his lap was the book Minji had handed him earlier - some coming-of-age novel she said “might make him cry a little.” He was halfway through, a finger tucked along the spine. Minho stood in the doorway for a moment, just watching.

“You look like a painting,” he said finally.

Jisung glanced up, smiled. “You look like someone who’s been crying into takeout noodles.”

“Yeah, well,” Minho muttered, padding across the room. “It’s been a long day.” He settled beside Jisung, who immediately pulled him close, tucking Minho under his arm like he belonged there. And he did. “She really likes you, you know,” Minho said after a minute. “Not just tolerates you for my sake likes you. She... gets it.”

Jisung’s voice was quiet. “I like her, too. It’s easy to love someone raised by you.” 

Minho exhaled, heavy and full of something he couldn’t name but didn’t want to let go of. He tilted his head to kiss Jisung’s shoulder. “I didn’t think I’d get to have this.” Jisung didn’t say, You deserve it. He just wrapped both arms around him and held on.

They stayed like that, hearts breathing in time, as the book slid shut and the night wrapped gently around them. Not every story ends with fireworks. Some end right there - in a warm house, with full hearts, and a future sleeping quietly upstairs.