Archive of Our Own

“I’m telling you; you don’t have to be here. In fact, please do not be here.”

“Bin—”

“You just have to, you know, keep your little mouths shut.” Changbin grins, making pinchy hands in front of his face. “That’s all.”

Jisung huffs. Though, it is still to be decided whether he’s genuinely annoyed or vaguely entertained by the sheer groveling. “Right.”

“And you won’t even be in trouble!”

“Right.” He nods, at last deciding the conversation warrants his presence outside of the curtains of his plush, feathery, bewitching bed. Really, Changbin should be honored Jisung’s taking this so seriously as to leave the sacred sanction of his temple to make an exceedingly obvious point.

“Have you considered,” He begins, the duvet untangling from him as he brazenly fights his way out, still bleary eyed and lethargic, “that maybe, the prefects will have all of our asses if they catch you sneaking a Slytherin into our dorm, hm?”

Changbin clasps his hands together, just like he usually does whenever he thinks himself to be making an exceedingly grand point when, really, he’s making a exceedingly grand fool of himself. “Except that, they won’t.”

“Have our asses?” Jisung reiterates, reluctant as he digs in his bedside drawers for a clean pair of socks, the morning chill stealthily sneaking its way into his bones. “Because I assure you—”

“Get caught!”

The abrupt burst of volume coincides with a pair of socks materializing out of thin air to hit him square on the cheek, and Jisung jolts hard enough for his legs to give out from under him. “Merlin — hyung!”

“Fresh out of socks, Hannie.” Chan grunts, absently. He’s not even looking up from whatever essay he’s probably yet to finish before his first class. “And I thought we talked about volume control before noon, Bin.”

“Sorry.” Changbin is muttering, just as Jisung finally manages to rub his spine straight and locate the socked socks under his bed. Hah. He looks up at Chan. “These yours?”

“Yep.”

“Thanks, man.”

Chan just nods, where Changbin simultaneously decides to compensate for his inability to yell by pacing about their unaccommodating dorm. “Just hear me out. Seungmin is, like, scarily good at disillusionment charms, and we’ll skip class until lunch tomorrow. No one will even be here when we leave.”

Silence falls upon the room for a few blissful moments — which Jisung utilizes to acquire and put on the excessive number of garments he’ll need for the day, with Chan penning out the final strokes of his essay in tandem.

Then, he sighs out the breath of a truly tested man. “Make sure you use the disillusionment when you’re leaving, too.”

“Duh.” Changbin is moving at once, his crowding ineviatble and instantaneous. He slings two arms around Chan's hunched shoulders, singing, “Oh, I love you Channie—”

“And I want zero noise complaints.” Chan quips, squirming in the hold, batting away the fluttering, grateful hands. “You hear me? Zero.”

Changbin just nods vigorously. “Understood.”

Jisung, having just been estranged from the prospect of his own bed at the end of another grueling, draining day, does not like the way this conversation has suddenly panned out. “But. What about me?”

Chan spares him a glance over the rim of his idiot glasses, diligently repacking his set of idiot quills. “Stay with Raven and Claw. I’ll probably head over to Felix’s.”

Now, he’s aware that the whine he lets drag on is a tad more petulant than his age allows, but Hyunjin has repeatedly proven to be too grabby in the night, and Jeongin is far too accustomed to his own solidarity to share his bed — he goes as stiff as a stick, and it makes Jisung genuinely feel bad about inconveniencing him.

He doubles down. “What if I want to stay in my own bed, huh? What if I don’t want to go through the trouble of sneaking around other people’s dorms? Do you guys even care about me?”

“Just stay here. We’ll use Muffliato.” Changbin shrugs. The nerve, like it’s that simple.

“No.” He grits, pulling grimly at his own hair, “Just the idea of you two banging in there — ugh!”

To that, Changbin goes as red as a Snargaluff, and at this rate, Jisung should really just find himself new lifelong best friends or something. Because these ones just make him feel sick. “Don’t even deny it.”

“I think Seungmin would suckerpunch me if I even tried to touch his hand.” Changbin muses, hand at his nape and blushing and everything. “I mean — I won’t deny the possibility ‘cause I don’t want to jinx anything, but we’ll probably just hang out.”

“Solely within the bounds your bed, alone, for eighteen hours.” Jisung points out.

His insufferable roommate lets out a happy sigh. “That’s the dream.”

On second thought, he’s so done with this topic. “Whatever, man. I’ll just crash in the library or something.”

Here’s the thing. Seungmin, whose name has not ceased echoing in their dorm for several weeks now, may allegedly be good at disillusionment spells, but so is Jisung. It won’t be his first time spending the night tucked into a corner of the Library Annex, snoring right under Madam Pince’s nose. His expertise did rise from a rather sloppy amateurishness, where he’s had to simply learn better after being threatened with enough disciplinary premonitions to warrant expulsion.

He is, unfortunately, yet to be expelled. Courtesy of a sharp tongue and a tendency to wriggle out of every inconvenience with an amicable enough smile.

Alas, he always goes back, even though the marble flooring makes his spine creaky. It’s still better than ending up with a shot neck from the tabletop. He bundles up accordingly, and he fares — it’s not his dearest bed and the silken pool of his covers, it’s not even the next best thing, yet the scent of bound parchment and a warming spell does him in all the same.

“I suggest you find a bed, Hannie. We have a Potions demonstration tomorrow.”

Well. There goes his dream.

Jisung rewards his hair one last comb for being cooperative today. Shoots Chan’s reflection behind him an impressive glare for good measure. “I’ll deal.”

Chan gets him back with a look of his own. “No, you’ll zone out and forget to stir and our project will go to shit. Sleep in a proper bed.”

“Sleep in a proper bed.” He mocks, shuffling towards the door. It seems that Changbin has already vacated the premises. “I didn’t move out of my parents’ house to be oppressed by my own peers.”

“I’m older than you.” Chan holds the door open for him.

“Yet, we take the same potions class.” He grins, right over his shoulder as he passes through. “I would gloat, but I honestly think that says more about you.”

There’s no bite to the glare sent his way. As always, Chan is so much more pleasant than their third party. “Let’s just go, Jisung.”

“After me.”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The events of the day, needless to say, are grating: countless hours in the library between painstakingly paced classes, followed by an intense, unnecessarily long Transfiguration practice that extricates every ounce of goodwill from his body. By the time he's rational enough to make sense of his surroundings and spot Hyunjin in the hall — alone, thank Merlin, he would not be able to tolerate Jeongin at that rate — his patience has worn despondently thin.

“What happened to you?” Are the first words that his friend directs him.

Just the physical manifestations of the subtle tortures of an ordinary day. “What?”

“You look like someone.” Hyunjin hums. Rakes unhurried eyes over his person. “Not Jisung. A duller counterpart. Has someone shrunk you?”

“Does an asshole transfiguring me into a squirrel count?" He bites, gaze catching on the culprit just as he turns a corner out into the hallway. "Name starts with idiot, ends with Changbin.”

At that, an ear-scratching replica of Changbin's cackle rings innocuously through the hallway. Hyunjin quirks a brow, smiles slightly. “You do seem twitchy.”

Jisung groans, runs a hand through his hair. He’s still getting used to being in his own body again, after being resized to and fro. “Tell me something nice, Jin, so I don’t fling myself off the nearest tower.”

Hyunjin takes his arm, humming. “I grew a perfectly healthy Jacaranda inside the Room of Requirement today.”

The smile plasters itself involuntarily onto his face. That sounds like Hyunjin, alright. “You just happened to need a Jacaranda?”

“It needed me, I presume.” His shoulders catch a few pillars, and Jisung realizes his friend is merely watching the ceiling as he walks. “We soothed each other’s nerves.”

“Looking for your Raven?”

Hyunjin smiles at him. It’s always sort of given him whiplash — he is one of those beautiful creatures whose attentions feel like a shock to the system. Jisung suspects some Siren ancestry may be afoot.

“I sense him lingering.”

“Any news?”

He leads them to the Great Hall, where the clinking of metal, porcelain and the hum of chatter has already begun infiltrating the unnecessarily thickened gates. They entirely fail to keep noise at bay, instead have become a mere hassle to push open.

“Oh, yes.” Hyunjin brightens immensely. “Grand party hosted in our common room today. All houses are welcome. I intend to get very drunk, if you would like to join.”

Jisung would like it if this godforsaken day didn’t get more inconvenient by the hour. “I don’t know, Jinnie. Rough day. I was actually going to ask you if I could crash in your bed.”

“Oh.” Hyunjin offers, but it's half-hearted; he’s perusing the hall in search of a place for them to sit. “You know I would love to, but I don’t think any silencing charm can muffle those dreadful vibrations.”

Yeah. Maybe Jisung will just show up to get as drunk as humanly possible. Maybe this circumstance suggests that he needs to splurge on firewhisky until he loses enough lucidity to pass out as soon as his head hits the pillow and not have enough brainpower to conjure images of his best friend in any sexual context — there. Precisely the answer adequate for his current predicament.

He sighs, letting himself be led towards one of the tables. “I’ll stop by, then, and I’ll hold you to that getting very drunk part.”

“There he is.”

Chan is already sat next to Jeongin, hunched over his plate rather inelegantly.

“Hey, Claws.” Jisung offers in his general direction. He’s rather preoccupied eyeing a piece of meat that looks questionably intact. “How’s the day, hyung?”

Chan barely looks up from his agitated stabbing of a curious arrangement of vegetables. “Awful.”

Yeah. Sounds about right.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

He doesn’t bother dressing up for the party. Doesn’t care for any Ravenclaw's except for the one pair, anyway. No one to impress.

The common room hums with chatter, the clink of glasses, and the occasional burst of laughter that echoes through the stone walls. Flickering candlelight throws a certain glow over the room — oh, that’s definitely a safety hazard. Jisung barely dodges an alight chandelier, his fumbling maneuver casting a shifting shadow across the shelf of books and the intricate blue-and-bronze tapestry that line the entrance. He wonders, briefly, if it was a wise decision to come.

In the far corner, near the windows, students gather in clusters — boisterous now that drinks have evidently started flowing, buzzing over the music played by an enchanted gramophone. Jisung can almost smell their words, air thick with the scent of butterbeer and firewhisky. Densely, at that.

He’s not quite in the mood for mingling, today. In fact, the last thing he wants is to engage in awkward small talk with fellow students whose names he barely remembers. Still, a few Ravenclaws wave at him as he passes, and those, he recognizes as Hyunjin’s friends, but that’s about the extent of his recollection. He merely offers them a tight smile, wishing he had a drink in hand — more as an anchor than a beverage.

He makes a beeline for the farthest corner of the room, where there are less candles stacked haphazardly, waiting to burn the room down, and plush-looking armchairs that will hopefully provide refuge and blend him right into the shadows. And — would you look at that — an elongated table lined with drinks is coveniently on his way.

"Sung! There you are." Hyunjin’s voice, melodious yet sharp, slices through the commotion. Jisung flinches, very nearly spilling the contents of the cup he's pouring. “I was starting to think you bailed.”

An exaggerated sigh claws out of him as he bails on the table, wishing he had bailed on the whole thing instead. Fortunately, the armchair he’d originally been targeting proves to be quite plush when he sinks down to it. One small blessing. “I’d honestly rather be in my bed right now.”

“I don’t recall forcing you to come.” Hyunjin grins, teeth and eyes glinting with the candlelight. “You need to loosen up. A day shouldn't defeat you so easily.”

“I’m already loosening up,” Jisung mutters, swirling the firewhisky in his cup. The golden liquid catches the light, glimmering briefly before he takes another gulp, savoring the burn as it slides down his throat. “I’ll be gone in an hour. Just need to kill some time so my idiot roommate can hit.”

Hyunjin’s lips curl into a coy smile, an inhale serving as the release of a thought, but before he can say anything more, a loud voice jams its way into their orbit. He would recognize that pitched yell anywhere.

“Jisung!”

He freezes, a frown knitting his brows as the broad outline of Changbin emerges from the crowd, cutting through the sea of people with remarkable ease. As it so happens, he’s impossible not to take notice of both in presence and in volume, a force of nature. Another blessing that often proves to be veritable curse. Jisung, who has no chance to flee before his roommate arrives, stares in thinly veiled discontent as Changbin drops into the seat next to him with an exaggerated puff of air.

“Look at you,” He goads, smiling so wide that his eyes crinkle with it. He then pulls out a bottle of a half-drained firewhisky that he’s apparently been carrying around and just — tops off Jisung’s cup. “You look like you’ve been dragged through a dungeon. Everything alright?”

Jisung rubs a hand over his face, feeling the sharp edges of his impending frustration. “Long day. Longer ‘cause of you.”

“Well, you’re in luck, Hannie.” Changbin chuckles, raising his own glass in a mock salute. “I’ve got news. Big news.”

Jisung takes a sip from his glass, eyeing him skeptically. “Did you break into the kitchens and steal the entire stock of chocolate frogs?”

“Close,” Changbin holds out the word, teasing. “But, no. I’ve decided I’m not bringing Seungmin over tonight.”

Jisung blinks, mind racing to digest the statement. “What?”

“Yeah,” Changbin grins wider. “I’m staying at his. You don’t have to crash anywhere else.”

Jisung’s heart skips a beat. Images of a good night’s sleep pulse eagerly in his mind’s eye. The sweet, sweet threat of a good time.

“You — you’re not bringing Seungmin over?” He repeats, trying to process the relief flooding his chest. “For real?”

Changbin nods, leaning back in the armchair as he sips his own drink, entirely too smug for his own good. “Yep.”

“Why?” Jisung forgets himself, has the gall to ask. “No, nope. Don’t answer that. Just — thank Merlin.”

“No need to thank me, Jisungie.” Changbin grumbles, inspecting a fingernail. “I mean, I could’ve made you sleep in the common room, but whatever.”

“I would not sleep in the common room.” Jisung shivers, raising his glass to his lips again. He has no intention of leaving anytime soon, now. “But still. Thanks.”

“No problem, mate.” Changbin softens only momentarily before it gives way to a smirk, leaning in closer. That can’t be good. For either of them. “How about we have a drink to celebrate, then — or, like, five?”

Jisung isn’t exactly convinced. “You’ll fall asleep the moment you touch Seungmin’s bed.”

“I think I’m fine with that, actually.” Changbin smiles. There’s something different to it. An edge that he’s never seen. Something he's not telling him.

On second thought, he doesn’t think he wants to know.

“Deal,” Jisung grins back, no longer feeling quite so vengeful for their stint earlier in the day. Maybe, he also sort of liked being a squirrel for a short while, too — the discomfort has been remedied by the prospect of a healing rest. And Changbin looks happy, a great deal more than his customarily permanent state of jovial. Good for him. Jisung just hopes he’ll be spared the details tomorrow.

They clink their cups together. For a moment, it’s just the two of them, comfortable in their little corner of the world. No plans, no pressure. There are rare moments like these, very far in between, that Jisung remembers why he allows Changbin to wreak havoc in his life in the first place, no matter how perilous. Although, he does need to remind himself of the fact that he loves him. Frequently.

Hyunjin, having resorted to observing from a distance, arches a prim, doubting brow. “Don’t you two start causing trouble, now.”

“We’ll be good,” Jisung calls back, raising his glass in a half-wave. “But no promises after this one.”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

True to his predictions, Jisung falls asleep the moment his head hits the pillow. The dorm is blissfully empty. No rustling of the sheets, no snoring, not even Chan scribbling hastily into the ungodly hours of dawn. They all have their respective schedules, and it has a tendency to cram — yet, there comes a point. It’s like the guy never runs out of assignments to do.

That is, until, there is rustling. And shuffling. The sound of the door creaking open, the drag of the curtains, and a distinct huff of displeasure.

Jisung considers the situation, mind still half-embedded in a half-formed dream sequence. One, there might be an intruder in their dorm — though he cannot figure out why. He doesn’t believe any of his roommates, nor himself, own any artifacts or essays worth stealing, especially with such stealth.

Two, one of his roommates have decided to return. Which is fine. He’ll deal, like he deals every single night he spends in this dreaded school.

Three… He’s already falling back asleep, anyway.

A moment of reprieve, then — another thud. A muttered curse.

Jisung shoots up in bed. No matter how sleepy or inebriated, he still has enough self-preservation to recognize when a voice in his room definitely does not belong to either of his roommates.

He pulls his wand out from beneath his pillow. Holds his breath. The moment he hears footsteps scrape by the side of his own bed, he emerges from the curtains, aiming his wand blindly at the throat of whoever is infiltrating their space.

Well. There may have been some errors in this grandiose defense tactic. His legs are wobbling rather incompetently, for one. And considering the undignified yelp that just echoed through the room, he’s pretty sure he almost took someone’s eye out.

His own haven’t adjusted to the dark yet. In hindsight, he recognizes that it’s completely defeating the purpose of threatening someone with a wand when he’s using the sleeve of his other hand to rub the sleep from his eyes.

“Jisung?”

He freezes. That’s — that’s Lee Minho.

“I’m dreaming.” He mumbles, mostly to himself. Yes. There cannot be any other viable explanation as to why, Lee Minho of all people, has snuck into a Gryffindor dorm in the middle of the night. Least of all his.

He gets no response. Fair enough. He didn’t think he would, anyhow.

He feels it might be a logical step to lower his wand and start aiming questions instead. Unless Minho has come to murder him in his sleep. Perhaps then, it wouldn’t be wise to lower his wand.

Is he being rude? Unlikely. Considering this — highly improbable, might he add — situation, it’s Minho who should be deemed rude.

“Are you going to do something with that wand, or just keep staring at me instead?”

Oh, Merlin. He is being rude.

“Sorry, uh.” He drops his hand to his side, absolutely fumbling for some base to stand on. His voice comes out squeaky. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Fuck. Yeah, that was definitely rude.

The thing is, he has never in his life been casual about Lee Minho. He’s the man of his dreams, alright. Though they’ve maybe had about, like, three conversations, total, throughout the years. Unfortunately, this does not change the fact that Jisung almost immediately takes notice of him whenever Minho happens to be in his vicinity. That he subconsciously tracks his every move. That he cannot stop fucking staring.

It’s kind of a thing. That he’s told no one about.

Because Minho, who is unfairly gorgeous, and happens to be Seungmin’s roommate, at that, sort of looks like the proud embodiment of his house. Evil, if you will. Stoic and made of marble and entirely too unapproachable, if Jisung says so himself.

So, it is quite understandable that he feels himself become some degree of insane in this blazing mess of a predicament.

“That is none of your business.” Minho replies, cold and casual and sharp.

And, of course, this had to happen while Jisung is catastrophically sleep-deprived and still kind of tipsy and has not one remaining shred of a brain-to-mouth filter whatsoever. “It is kind of my business, actually, since you’re standing in my room.”

Minho does not look abashed, exactly, but reserved. Pensive. He takes a full moment to ponder over his response.

“Seungmin has kicked me out of our dorm. Without a previous notice.”

Ah. Well. That explains nothing at all.

Jisung blinks at him. “And?”

“Him and Seo Changbin have been… mingling. So to say.”

Jisung sways on his feet. The direction of the conversation does not please him, and his knees twinge with an insistent anticipation he can only translate as a cry for the horizontal state of his bed. He needs to lay down, pronto, or he’ll fall — and so he does, tentatively.

Minho seems confused and unsure for all of a second before his posture inexplicably fixes itself, and that air of haughtiness returns to him like a fired-up engine. “I was intending to avenge my banishment by claiming Seo Changbin’s bed for the night, which I now realize was futile. There are… chocolate crumblings all over his bedding.”

So he did get to the frogs, after all. Jisung wants to laugh, but the looming exhaustion limits him to a meager smile. This is all starting to feel like a ridiculous dream, and his eyelids are growing heavier by the second.

He decides he no longer wishes to waste any more sleep on the whole ordeal of Lee Minho Inexplicably Standing Before His Bed. A proper freak-out about this will most probably be present tomorrow morning, yet — he just feels like he can whirl into a dreamland any moment. “Mhm. You can take Chan’s bed, then.”

Minho seems to consider this. Jisung watches him from where he’s left his curtains ajar, barely makes out the shake of Minho’s head from his own drooping eyelids.

“I have heard of Bahng.” He declares. So proper. It’s probably close to four in the morning. “He appears to be considerable competition. And I have no reason to punish nor make an enemy of him.”

“I assure you, crashing in his bed won’t end in a feud.” Jisung yawns. “Gosh, do you Slytherins even have the concept of sharing and generosity?”

“As much as you Gryffindors have the concept of personal boundaries.” Minho retorts immediately.

Jisung huffs. “That’s rich, seeing as you’re currently trespassing into someone’s dorm.”

Minho appears to be mulling over his words, again. Then shakes his head once more, humming noncommittally. “Hm. I will…” He hesitates, weight shifting momentarily from right leg to left leg. “I’ll go.”

Jisung suddenly feels an inexplicable pang of guilt. “Do you have anywhere to go?”

Minho seems conflicted by this. “I don’t believe so.”

“Share my bed.” Jisung does not know how any of this is actually leaving his mouth. He’s deluded. So, so bleary with fatigue. Fuck, maybe he’s drunker than he thought.

When Minho doesn’t say anything for several seconds, he decides to tuck his tail and accept that this is happening. Has happened — the words unfortunately did leave his mouth, so. He gently scoots over to the edge of the bed, gesturing at the objectively spacious sea of blankets he’s left behind. “See? Big enough for us both.”

“I can see that.”

“I’m offering, so I won’t be out for your blood or anything, if that’ll relieve your conscience.”

Minho tilts his head, as though sizing him up. Jisung wonders just how much pondering this guy does on a daily basis. Can’t be healthy for the mind, to consider every angle so thoroughly. He feels exhausted just looking at the brooding focus.

“Are you quite certain?”

“Yes.” He finds the will to roll his eyes. He may appear rash and unpredictable, but inconsistent will never be among his traits.

“Very well, then — just the once.” Minho grumbles, approaching the emptied side of Jisung’s bed. “I do not appreciate being indebted to people, but this appears to be necessary.”

“Not every act of kindness needs to be returned, you know.” Jisung mumbles back, feeling the bed dip. “Have you ever heard of a favor?”

“Favors can be reclaimed.” Minho quips. He’s settling, tugging the duvet up to his chin.

“Hm. Mine can’t.”

Minho leaves it at that, so Jisung takes that as an invitation to essentially shut the fuck up and go back to sleep.

He tries. Truly. But he’s never had anyone, really, alongside him in his bed, with the exception of his roommates on occasion — and it doesn’t help that Minho lays as stiff as a board, effectively ruining Jisung’s mood with his incessant glowering at the ceiling.

“You might give yourself a brain bleed with that much thinking, you know.”

Minho exhales, slow and measured. The ceiling shouldn’t be so compelling that it deserves such a glare, and yet Minho remains locked on it, jaw tight, hands folded primly on top of the duvet as though the mere act of lying down beside him requires rigidity.

“I don’t think that’s a medical possibility,” He grits, at last.

“Everything is possible if you glower hard enough.” Jisung informs him, rolls onto his side, peers at him from beneath his drooping lids.

That earns him a brief flicker of a glance, unimpressed, before Minho returns to pretending he’s a marble statue.

Despite himself, Jisung grins. “Beds are generally more comfortable when one lets themselves relax, I’ll have you know.”

Minho’s mouth twitches — not enough to be deemed a smile, but enough that Jisung can make out the shape of its purse in the dark.

“Noted.”

He would spew another retort, in a better world. Here, he just falls into a hearty sleep.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Jisung wakes alone. For a blissful, plain moment, he thinks the entirety of last night had been a ludicrous stress-dream. Something his mind has undoubtedly conjured up to balance the pressure of his coming exams. A deluded image he can cling to.

He listens for commotion, reluctant — and promptly smiles to himself. The blessed quiet of his roommates having yet to return. Unsullied solitude.

Sighing happily, he rolls over, burying his face in the other pillow.

Oh. Oh.

His pillow positively reeks of someone else. Someone distinctively Lee Minho. Vanilla shampoo, hints of apple, tampered with something murkier, like the scent of skin. The glaring proof that he, indeed, did not dream anything at all.

Jisung feels a certain unraveling of a pool of threads within his mind. Reaches a wholly novel level of confusion, fluster, panic. He notes, distantly, that he’s freaking out — true to his premonitions. Yet, he’s frozen on the spot, his body torn between pushing away from the remnants of a person whose current absence is telling in itself, and burrowing further into the scent.

Someone bursts into the room. Jisung scrambles away from the offending pillow as though burned, swiftly tumbles right off the side of his bed.

“Oh! Oh, this is golden.” Changbin is hunched over his knees, almost entirely folded over in laughter — cackling, really. Shrill, insufferable cackling.

“What the fuck, hyung?” Jisung whines. Fuck, if his head isn’t pounding.

“Oh, Merlin.” Changbin is still chortling, which is not helpful to the state of his poor head. “Don’t tell me you’ve been asleep this whole time.”

“What? What time is it?"

He’s regarded strangely. “It’s, like, way past noon, bro. You missed three classes.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Chan sent me to look for you for that Potions thing you guys have, in about…” He trails off, suddenly moving to dig through his armoire, “fifteen minutes?”

"What?”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

So. Jisung overslept — it’s been a while since he’s slept this long, or well, but that’s a train of thought he refuses to go down — it’s fine. Totally fine. Him and Chan breezed through their Potions presentation like master potioneers — if master potioneers operate solely on adrenaline and a slice of toast nicked from the kitchens, that is. They got away with a remarkable absence of singed brows or haphazardly exploding cauldrons. In fact, Jisung did not forget to stir for a moment. Miracles do still happen at Hogwarts, it seems.

Naturally, their first order of business proves to be expeditiously sniffing out Changbin’s whereabouts. Jisung does not want to think of all the homework festering in his bag. Celebratory butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks wait for no one.

Quite surprisingly, Changbin is stashed in the library — it is the first time Jisung has ever seen his friend even remotely near the Library Annex. Unsurprisingly, he’s hunched across from none other than Kim Seungmin, and needs to practically be dragged off the table, during which Seungmin looks up once, unimpressed, and swiftly returns to his scribbling.

“Man, I’ve been busting my balls for that hangout for weeks!” Changbin whines, his bag strap caught on the library doorframe. He wrestles it free with an unnecessarily petulant scoff.

“Gross,” Jisung says instantly, nose wrinkling.

“What’s the occasion, then, hm?” Changbin demands, narrows his eyes like they’re trying to con him into something illicit. “Because I’m trying to be good this week.”

“We passed Potions.” Chan deadpans, refusing to spare either of them a glance. Jisung knows him well enough to see the relief he’s tensing in, practically scrambling to buzz out of his body. Chan has never been able to just let his emotions pass through him. Even the good ones.

Still, it is his sworn duty as the youngest to be an absolute lshit and make every situation worse than need be. “You mean, Channie has passed sixth year potions on his third try. I just delivered my grade.”

Changbin barks out a laugh, clapping Chan’s shoulder so hard the poor guy nearly stumbles off the cobblestone path. “Good on you, mate.”

Chan visibly irks. “Thanks, Bin.”

“Now,” Jisung declares, “we need to get collectively drunk so that Channie can finally cry without feeling all guilty about it.”

A scoff. “Thanks, Sung.”

“Always."

They walk through the beaten path in companionable silence. Jisung tilts his head back, inhaling the crisp March air. It’s still cold enough that it stings his nose, but warmer now than it has been, with spring elbowing its way through the harsh winter. His hair whips into his eyes with the breeze, Hogsmeade looms in the distance, and — he just loves days like this.

“Seungmin kissed me.” Changbin bursts out. Effectively ruining their little bubble of tranquility.

“Ew, mate.” He makes a face. Chan, on the other hand, lets out a whoop so loud it startles a passing third year into dropping her bag with a shriek. Before Jisung can scramble to apologize, Chan has flung himself sideways to tackle Changbin to the ground. Merlin help him.

He observes the mess of limbs, sighing, and quietly succumbs to the inescapability of this public humiliation. “Hanging out in your bed, huh? Didn’t want to say I told you so, but…”

“Get off me, you dimwit!” Changbin wheezes, shoving at him. He scarcely manages to tug himself free, grass stains on his robes. Chan only flops back into the dirt, grin wider than he usually allows itself to be.

“Thank Merlin,” He sighs, thumping his shoulder into Changbin’s once they’re both sat upright again. “I was so tired of being the only one remotely sane about, like, relationship stuff.”

“Oh, you would be nothing if Felix hadn’t sought you out himself.” Jisung points an accusing finger at him. “And Changbin possibly just got even less sane. The jury’s still out.”

Another passing student casts them a look of deep disconcert, clearly uncertain as to what they’re currently witnessing. Jisung clears his throat, reaches out with both hands to tug his socially incompetent friends to their feet like he’s corralling a pair of rowdy toddlers.

“How the hell did it happen, anyway?” He asks begrudgingly, once they have brushed most of the grass off. He’s especially uninterested in Changbin’s love life, yet the promise of gossip calls to him more fervently than any disinclination.

Changbin shakes his head, still grinning eerily — like a man freshly hexed. “He just told me to come to his dorm instead. I didn’t want to hope, man. We were just talking — more like, I was talking — and then he just grabbed my shirt. And kissed me.”

“He probably wanted to shut you up.” Jisung quips. “For your information.”

“I don’t even care.” Changbin sighs. There’s a disgusting, glazed-over look on his face; eyes going unfocused like he‘s already replaying the scene in his head. Jisung wants to throw up.

Chan does end up crying into his fifth butterbeer. Changbin buys him a bunch of shots because he feels bad, then shoves another beer into Jisung’s hands as a peace offering for spending the entire evening waxing poetic about Kim Seungmin’s devastating hands, devastating jawline, devastating everything.

Jisung just nods along halfheartedly, pretending to listen. All the while, his mind wanders somewhere dangerously close to the soft outline of Minho, asleep, the curtains of his four-poster as the backdrop. All sharp angles blunted by the quiet.

He smiles into his drink. All is right in the world.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Jisung sees Minho around.

He sees Minho when Changbin practically gets on his knees and proceeds to beg him and Chan to sit at Seungmin’s table with him during dinner — just this once, please, I’ll do your laundry for a week. Two weeks.

Jisung abhors doing laundry, so that seems to be a no-brainer. Though, he does realize why Changbin felt like he had to resort to begging as he approaches the table Seungmin usually sits at — that he hadn’t considered a very crucial angle. That he always sits, has sat for the last six years, with his roommate and possibly his singular friend, Lee Minho.

It feels weird. That Minho was in his bed the night before. They nod at each other, spend the painstaking dinner in relative silence. It’s fortunate, that Changbin talks enough for the five of them, embarrassing himself with an unending amount of blubbering small talk that even Seungmin barely responds to.

Nothing happened between them. Jisung is well aware of the fact. And other facts — that they are to remain polite acquaintances. Yet, that does not change the other fact that him and Minho slept side by side the previous night. Does not dim the fluttering in his abdomen, nor the way he suddenly feels exceedingly on edge.

He sees Minho on the courtyard, sparsely, across the following days. Watching from afar, it is easy to imagine that pivotal moment between them to be a fading haze, a wishful dream. The memory ceases to remain tangible, or even plausible to have occurred in the first place.

Two weeks pass, slightly relieved by the sole factor that he does not do his own laundry at all. Instead, he sits at the window, watches Minho rush to a class, then another, with that sensical, pristine stride of his — leans further into the window as he glides out of frame. Changbin grumbles out various strings of unflattering remarks, saying how Jisung has finally devolved into a maiden in distress, stuck to the windowsill like a flickering moth.

They do not know what he’s watching for, let alone who. Jisung himself hasn’t yet figured out why his low-intensity crush has suddenly shifted into a full-fledged fixation, and yet he hasn’t the will to snuff it out just yet.

In the meantime, things go well for his friends, at the very least. Chan and Felix have already been going strong for several years now, and Chan sets out to stay with the Lee’s over the Easter holidays. Changbin remains in the school with Jisung, and so does Seungmin, and so does Minho.

So, it happens again.

Jisung is busy sorting through the papers he no longer needs with his exams officially over — though his mind still suffers from a strange murkiness settled over the usual hum, likely due to incessant exhaustion and overexertion. He’s been so busy delivering grades and sitting exams that he didn’t have much time to think about anything other than how much sleep deprivation his body would be able to juggle before it crashed, or how to get the quill stains out of his hands in between essay exams.

It’s been relatively easier not to think about a certain Lee Minho.

He’s categorizing the papers that have outdated their use, shoving each one into the bin with much more strain and disdain than is probably necessary — he almost misses the way the door clicks open.

There shouldn’t be anybody here.

Chan has been away for days, and Changbin has mostly been spending whatever free time he has holed up in various places around the castle with Seungmin — who, strangely, appears less and less inconvenienced every day. He no longer glares daggers at Jisung, like it’s somehow his fault, when Changbin, unwarranted and unannounced, crashes into him from behind to sling an arm around his shoulders, or chases after him in the hallways, shrill cackling reverberating, no doubt making a fool of them both. 

Jisung startles at the sudden prickling of a presence behind him, and, of course — Minho in all of his exceedingly good-looking glory. Even though he appears distraught and thoroughly distressed for having to stand in this room again.

He can't be blamed — Jisung hadn’t been a sight, either, whenever he had to resort to barging into Hyunjin and Jeongin’s dorm in times of need. Perhaps more often than all of them were comfortable with. There is a certain desperation that compels one to show up even when uncertain of his welcome.

“Hey.” He breathes into the silence.

Minho is just standing there, unmoving, unblinking. He appears to swallow bile from his throat. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here?” Jisung thinks he has a pretty good idea why, but it never hurts to play dumb, alright.

“I didn’t know what to do.” Minho croaks, panic palpable — yet not one inch of him is moving. The man really could pose as an accurate statue if he so pleased.

“Our respective roommates fooling around again?”

He just nods, staring right through Jisung as though the mention of the matter haunts him.

“Man, and I thought they were finally done being disgusting…” Jisung cannot hope to contain the laugh that bubbles out of him. “Turns out they’re just doing that elsewhere.”

“I’ve never had a roommate with an active sexual life before.” Minho grits. The words look like they scrape his tongue on the way out. “Remaining in the room is incomprehensible. This is quite disconcerting.”

Jisung smiles, despite himself. “Well, you can have your pick of the beds, then. All sheets freshly washed.”

Minho nods once more, shuffling towards one of the beds. Jisung observes, nailed to the desk, as he toys with the curtains of Changbin’s four-poster, musing thoughts he couldn’t possibly ascertain, then casts a skeptical look towards Chan’s.

“Is something else the matter?” He finds himself asking. Merlin, the man’s air of speech is imposing itself upon him, too.

“I just,” Minho’s brow twitches. Jisung tracks the gesture helplessly. “Could I stay with you? Again?”

He swiftly loses track of what his own face is doing. “What?”

It must be a horribly bewildered thing, enough to have Minho scrambling for a clarification. “I just — don’t feel comfortable taking someone’s bed without their consent."

“I see.” Jisung nods, even though he does not see. There are two perfectly made and clean and fresh beds all Minho’s for the taking, and the only thing between them and an uninterrupted, solitary sleep is his sense of morality and — and poise.

An expectant brow. So haughty, even in request. “So, may I?”

Jisung is willingly and purposefully falling for whatever trap this is. “Uh, yeah, sure.”

He stands, aware of every minute move of his body as he walks to the side of his bed he’d reclaimed last time. He shuffles beneath the blankets with a considerable lack of finesse. Minho is beside him when he does, already tucked in.

He splays himself on his back, watches the ceiling, tries to come to terms with his currently discombobulating reality. Lee Minho, in his bed, obviously very handsome and eerily still, but in his bed, for the second time.

His mouth attempts to pull into a smile, which he is quick to tamper. This is not in any way meaningful to Minho, except for the fact that it’s keeping his goody conscious clean.

So why is he dreadfully insistent on remaining so fucking taut?

“Will you quit that?” Jisung shoots up with a huff, covers pooling around his waist.

His outburst startles Minho enough for the angle of his neck to shift. Generous of him, really. “What?”

“You’re so, like, stiff.” He tries to articulate this concern with a series of gesticulations, to which Minho reacts with an expression of pure bemusement. “It makes me fucking anxious.”

“I — apologize?”

“Don’t apologize, God.” Jisung whispers-shouts, more to himself as he searches the ceiling in the hopes of figuring out whatever is so interesting that Minho’s positively adhered to it.

“I just don’t know what you mean.” Minho informs him. Politely. As though speaking to an unreasonable child amidst a nonsensical tantrum.

“Fuck. Fine. Suit yourself.” Jisung flops back onto his pillow, arms flung dramatically. He will not persist if Minho remains so keen on playing the fool.

Thus, begrudging, he lets the silence settle for a while. Listens to the faint howl of the wind, the whispers of life outside the window.

Just. He’s generally fine with long stretches of silence; thrives on it, even. But this one feels precarious, balanced on the edge of something that clenches into a heap in his chest.

Eventually, he murmurs, softer, “You don’t always have to be so on guard, is the thing.”

He doesn’t know why that bothers him, the fact that Minho cannot find it within himself to let down his guard, even in rest. Whether it be caused by Jisung's very presence or just a principal Minho is driven by — it simply irks him. Enough for him to crave a form of confrontation he has never willingly partaken in his entire life.

The words hang there, heavier than he intends. He doesn’t regret them, but the newfound silence stings — vulnerability isn’t his strong suit either, damn him, but at least he tried.

Minho, to his surprise, doesn’t bite back. He doesn’t shift, doesn’t scoff. For a long time, he does nothing at all.

Then, so quiet that Jisung almost misses it: “That’s not something I can just switch off.”

A genuine response was not among the awaited, but it has certainly arrived. Jisung allows himself to turn his head, to study the faint outline of Minho’s profile in the dim light. The sharp lines of him, the stubborn tilt of his chin, the way he’s frowning even harder at the ceiling.

“Maybe not. But you could try,” he says, letting the smile take shape this time. “For the sake of humoring me.”

Minho’s stillness, this time, feels different. Less defensive… more considering. At last, he shifts, loosening the immovable posture of his body, allowing one arm to fall naturally to his side.

It’s a small concession, yet Jisung appreciates it all the same.

“Better,” he whispers, attempting at smug, though the yawn that accompanies it surely dampens the sentiment. The warmth beside him, slightly more familiar and exceedingly welcome, is lulling him toward sleep faster than he’d expected.

It’s only as he’s teetering on the edge that he feels it — the quiet rustle of fabric, the subtle dip as Minho turns slightly, now angled not toward the ceiling, but toward him. Jisung doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t dare breathe too deep.

Instead, he lets a lazy smile curve his lips and murmurs, “Told you so.”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

This time around, Jisung is the one who wakes first. In fact, he wakes up so damn early that the first light has scarcely peeked over the horizon yet, the dorm blanketed in a soft darkness, the air still crisp with an overnight dew.

He comes to two conclusions.

One. Minho isn’t peaceful in sleep. His jaw is still tight, and his hands are two fists upon his abdomen; the only thing that separates him from his wakeful self is the distinct lack of that perpetual frown on his face.

Two. He’s so, so immeasurably pretty — it hurts to look at him. To watch the rise of his chest, the pouted purse of his lips. To witness this unearthly thing be so troubled as to be unable to soften with rest.

He comes to an additional conclusion right after that: that he might be way too over his head. Floating in a seamless, deep body of water where his feet cannot ever hope to meet sand at the bottom.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Jisung tries not to think about Lee Minho on the way to the Quidditch pitch. The effort is thwarted, but the principle of it makes him chew on his lips as he stares at the cobbled path stretched before them.

“Last match of the season, and you’re sulking.” Changbin nudges him, smile something soft as he dives to catch his eye. “Usually, I have to hold you back from sprinting into a banner. Something up?”

“Nah.” Jisung shakes his head, attempting a grin. It settles slowly over his face, off-kilter. “Still loopy from exams."

More precisely, still loopy from the events of the morning, where he witnessed Lee Minho cutely blink his eyes open to the world, only to flinch violently and shoot up from the bed as though the bedding singed him. He’d muttered something about “practice” under his breath, then speed-walked out of the room, leaving behind a rumpled Jisung with his jaw unhinged.

Safe to say, he’s still reeling from the whiplash, and sort of hurt. In a way he quite certainly doesn’t deserve to be — because he and Minho are nothing. Sleep-fellows in times of need. Nothing more.

“Man, don’t I know it.” Changbin groans. “How about this, then? I make you the deadliest alcohol concoction you’ve ever consumed at the after party.”

He scoffs. “Will I be at risk of going blind?”

“I’m afraid so.” Changbin nods solemnly.

“You’re on, mate.”

The air is still crisp, morning light serving the sole purpose of illumination and not warmth. The kind of mid-April chill that always seems to sharpen Quidditch matches into something both deadly serious and ridiculously theatrical. Jisung tugs his robe tighter around himself as he follows his friends inside.

From up high, the stands thrum with chants, scarves and banners fluttering in house colors. And then, unmistakable — a booming voice, already warming up like the narrator team has been rehearsing jokes since the start of the season.

“Ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your pumpkin juice, because this one’s going to be good. Hufflepuff versus Slytherin! We would say, don’t blink, you’ll miss it, but knowing these two Seekers, you might need to blink — very, very quickly. So no grass blades get in your eyes!”

Jisung huddles deeper into his scarf, half-buried in it, while Jeongin jumps to his feet beside him to shriek something unintelligible. Hyunjin shakes his head, silky strands that escape from his updo whipping elegantly in the wind. Changbin joins in with a whistle loud enough to make the entire stand wince in apparent pain.

“Honestly,” Seungmin grumbles, gloved hands covering his ears, “you’d think they were the ones playing.”

“Given a broom and a Quaffle, we would, statistically, dominate.” Hyunjin hums.

“Dominate the snack table, maybe,” Seungmin deadpans, earning a snort from Jisung.

“Don’t underestimate Jeongin’s ambition.” Hyunjin drawls on. “I would include myself, as well, if the art of the broom wasn’t so hard on my back—”

Down below, Jisung catches sight of Minho, and — his eyes nearly bulge out of his head.

He’s not in any of the stands, like one would expect, no — he’s on the field, mounting his broom with the kind of poise that gives away nothing. Not nerves, not determination, not even a flicker of doubt. For someone whose first appearance on the field happens to be during the final match, he looks… not that much different from his usual self. Carved out of stone. Concentrated.

“I didn’t know he was in the line-up.” He mutters to Seungmin, whose only response is an impassive shrug.

“Poor Slytherin,” the narrator goes on, “their usual Seeker’s out with a sprained wrist, and who do they send in as a replacement? None other than Lee Minho! That’s right, the boy with a glare sharp enough to lure the snitch out of pure fear. The Hufflepuff seeker might need a Petrification antidote on the ready…”

“Oh, Merlin,” Changbin wheezes. “Is he even allowed to commentate like that?”

“Let him live,” Jisung finds himself saying, unable to help his grin. “It’s not inaccurate.”

And then Felix shoots onto the field — all happy-go-lucky and shining teeth, blonde braids whipping over his jaundiced scarf, waving like he’s on a damn parade. The Hufflepuff side of the stands erupt, and Jisung swears he sees Chan straighten in his seat with the unmistakable glow of a man whose boyfriend has just lit up an entire stadium.

“That’s our Lix,” Hyunjin observes, mindlessly reaching out to push Jeongin’s jaw back shut.

“And that’s his boyfriend,” Jisung quips, nodding at Chan. “Watch him short-circuit.”

Chan’s ears are already going pink at the sound of their group hollering.

The whistle blows.

What follows is pure chaos trapped within the boundless rules of an ancient game — brooms darting, Bludgers screaming, Quaffles snatched and hurled through hoops. He watches keenly, but none of it really matters once the snitch appears, glimmering high above the game.

His eyes, like everyone else in the crowd, keep flickering to and fro between the two Seekers: Minho, steadfast and ruthless, against Felix, all instinct and quicksilver laughter.

“Good Godric, Felix! Look at him go, like a golden retriever who’s spotted a very fast tennis ball!” The narrator crows, voice echoing jovially. “But wait — Minho’s not letting him out of his sights. For the ones that don't know him: this is not a boy you want breathing down your neck.”

“He doesn’t breathe,” Seungmin grumbles.

Changbin, wrapped around him, snorts. “You’ve been very attentive for someone who doesn’t enjoy the sodding game.”

“I am not attentive,” He snaps, flushing. “I am observant for lack of a better alternative.”

“I could fix you a better alternative.” Changbin hums, innocuously leaning closer.

Seungmin shoves a hand in his face. “Get hexed.”

Meanwhile, Hyunjin has half-climbed over the railing with Jeongin somehow half-climbed onto his back, screaming, “Yeah, Lix! Beat his ass!”

“Language,” He tuts, then hoists Jeongin up higher with a fond smile. “You’re too young for such profanities.”

“Bollocks!” Jeongin bellows, just as a Bludger hits a Slytherin square on the chest. Hyunjin simply rolls his eyes.

On the field, Minho has Felix in a deadlock, brooms nearly parallel and an inch away from colliding horribly. He mirrors every little swerve, answers every feint. Felix plows on, gaze pinched up and trained straight on the fluttering snitch, while Minho has his glare dead-set on him, entertaining nothing else.

The snitch darts through the air — taunting, flickering — and both Seekers dive at the same moment.

“Down, down, down — Merlin’s beard, they’re going to kill themselves!” The narrator shrieks.

Felix’s hand is outstretched. Minho’s follow a heartbeat later. The crowd has gone wild. Even Jisung is holding his breath. It’s the kind of moment that feels stretched into eternity: one breath, one second is what the fate of the game depends on.

Felix closes his fingers first.

The ensuing roar is deafening. Hufflepuff colors stream, spilling from a charmed sky, and Felix flies up, up, up — arm high with the captured, twitching Snitch, positively radiating glee as his teammates all flock around him, their celebration jostling enough to knock a few of them off their brooms. Chan is on his feet instantaneously, hollering, clapping until his hands turn red.

Felix emerges from the hoard of Hufflepuff players, catches his eye, and flies barreling over. He jumps out of his broom before it can even slow to a stop, much to the horror of every student in immediate vicinity, and lands unceremoniously in Chan’s arms.

Jisung might seriously gag, and so he seeks refuge in gauging Minho’s whereabouts.

And Minho — Minho is sat back on his broom, composed as ever. Too composed. His team has already touched down in varying states of frustration, and he’s leisurely peeling away, eyes locked on the grass, lips pressed thin.

“By a second!" The narrator bellows. “One single second! That’s the closest finish I’ve seen in years, folks. Incredible flying from both Seekers, though if I had to guess, the Lee’s might have some bitterness between them for a few weeks.”

“Can’t blame him,” Jisung hears someone murmur. There is, as he’s becoming accustomed to, something in his chest he can’t quite name — the prickly pang of seeing Minho so still, so careful about what he lets anyone see.

The crowd pours out of the stands in waves, Hyunjin and Jeongin still shrieking, this time with a wincing Felix clasped between them. Changbin is still pestering Seungmin about the game, Chan walking close behind with his head down.

Jisung lingers, scarf pulled high over his face, and watches Minho disappear into the tunnel.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Wang’s dorm has apparently been transfigured into a tasteless nightclub — or that’s the least interesting way to put it. The floor quite literally shifts along with the bass; Jisung must hold onto the wall to keep balance, only to realize that is swirling with the music, too, with deformed hands pushing out of the wallpaper in hideous gestures.

He’s dizzied with the enchanted banners swapping colors every few seconds, it’s too crowded, and the need to discover an untouched corner becomes imminent fairly quick. He follows the makeshift path of candles hovering close to the ceiling, swapping from room to room — the entire place is a godforsaken maze, is what it is.

“Ah, my people!” Jackson bellows, once Jisung has successfully tugged their group into a room with a much lower probability to shred their eardrums. “Welcome, winners,” he runs an unnaturally glowing palm down Felix’s arm, “losers, and the tragically mediocre.”

“Which category are we?” Jeongin asks, glance flickering about the room, giddy, eager.

“The tragically mediocre.” Seungmin quips, flat.

“I’ll take it,” Jeongin chirps, wastes no time to pull Hyunjin toward a doorless threshold, evidently an adjacent dance floor where students mindlessly spin under glittering starlight charms. Within seconds, they’re swallowed by the crowd, their laughter drowning among others.

Jackson presses butterbeer bottles into everyone’s hands like he’s officiating a ceremony. “Drink, mingle, and for Merlin’s sake, do not hex the furniture. It’s imported.”

Just like that, he apparates off.

Sighing, Jisung sips at his beer, gaze and mind drifting instinctively. He knows Minho must’ve followed them in at some point, he just cannot figure where he might’ve run off to.

A game plan abruptly constructs itself in his head — man, this butterbeer has something in it that’s definitely not butter. He’ll look Changbin instead, is what he’ll do. For, surely, Changbin would not let Seungmin out of his sight, and if there’s anything he’s come to learn in these past few weeks, it’s that Seungmin doesn’t let Minho out of his sight, either.

His dear friend, predictable as he is, and not so interested in subtlety whatsoever, has already cornered Seungmin against a couch, gesturing wildly as he reenacts some play from the match, voice carrying across the room.

“You must’ve seen it — Minho dove like —” He throws himself sideways, nearly spilling his beer on his way. “Like that! Deadly precision. You’d think he was born with wings.”

“Mhm,” Seungmin hums, either unimpressed or playing it up. Jisung has yet to decipher him. Still, he reaps what he’s sown: Seungmin’s eyes betray him — they keep flicking toward a distant corner, softening in ways his tone refuses to.

Triumphant, Jisung follows his line of sight, and sure enough. There he is. Lingering against the wall, arms folded, expression schooled into something neutral even as he’s locked into a discussion with a teammate. Too neutral.

“Don’t pretend you weren’t impressed,” Changbin is teasing, leaning closer as he always does near Seungmin, as though beckoned by a gravitational pull. “I saw you enjoying yourself.”

Seungmin’s scowl could bring a weaker man to his knees. “I was merely paying attention. There’s a difference.”

“Sure,” Changbin says, grin wicked, “paying attention to—”

“Seo Changbin.” Seungmin warns, jagged as a curse.

Jisung seizes the opportunity to attack. He’s such a good friend, really, saving Changbin from whatever sentence he was definitely about to finish. Merlin knows what he would’ve said, and how Seungmin would see fit to punish him. Ugh.

He shudders, then yanks Changbin back by the shoulder. “Excuse me, sir,” smiling something sickly sweet, “I believe you owe me a fatal elixir.”

“A what?” Seungmin frowns even harder, while Changbin’s grin only widens.

“Don’t worry about it, Min.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Oh-kay.” He nods solemnly, reaching in his pocket to pull out a few vials, along with a flask.

To Seungmin’s utterly befuddled expression, he just shrugs, offering, “Party trick,” and gets busy conducting a hazardous experiment in Jisung’s beer glass.

After a minute of his dropping various foreign liquids in his drink with precise measurements he’s undoubtedly just made up on the spot, he tucks the vials back into his pocket, gesturing bizarrely at Jisung’s person. “Go on, taste it.”

Jisung takes a sip. Grins so wide his cheeks hurt — this will do him in, for sure. “You’re the best, Bin.”

“Now run along, peasant.”

He clasps a hand atop his chest. “Ahoy.”

“That conversation wasn’t even coherent.” He hears Seungmin grumble as he walks away.

On his way across the opposite couch, he finds Felix half-draped over Chan, laughing so hard his nose scrunches up. “You were screaming louder than half the Hufflepuff stands,” he accuses, poking one finger into Chan’s dimple.

“Sue me,” Chan grits, though his cheeks redden, his arm firms around Felix’s waist. “You were brilliant. Quickest catch I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re biased.” Jisung informs over his shoulder as he walks by.

“Yeah,” Chan says without hesitation, nor without taking his eyes off his boyfriend, at all.

Jisung nearly gags into his custom-made poison. “Gross, man.”

The music thuds on in distant rooms, the room continues to buzz with chatter and movement as he tramples around, unable to shake the sight of Minho pressed into the periphery, jaw set, eyes fixed somewhere distant. His companion is long gone.

Jisung sidles up to him with the practiced ease of someone having arduously taught himself how to socialize in parties. “Going to sulk all night?”

Minho’s focus flicks to him, unreadable. “I’m not sulking.”

“Right. And Hyunjin and Jeongin aren’t currently inventing a new dance called ‘the Banshee.’” Jisung jerks his head toward the opening into the conjoined room, where the two have, in fact, visibly climbed onto a table, shrieking in unison as they flail to the beat.

A muscle in Minho’s cheek twitches. Almost a smile. Almost.

Jisung has this thing down to a pat. How to behave in a party. How to make people laugh, make himself amiable. “You flew well.”

“Not well enough.” It seems that Minho refuses to bite. Figures.

He huffs, imploring. “By a second.”

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” The tone is clipped, but he can recognize the weight behind it — that Minho’s carrying that split second around like a wound.

The urge to comfort is potent, though he’s sure the sentiment cannot possibly be welcome. So, Jisung leans against the wall, far enough that Minho’s arm brushes his. “Then, perhaps you should stop acting like you’ve been sentenced to life in Azkaban and have a drink with me.”

For a moment, it looks like Minho might refuse. His gaze lingers, steady and cool, before an exhale surrenders his relent. Wordlessly, he takes the beer from Jisung’s hand, tips it back, and consequently begins sputtering.

“What the hell is in this?”

Progress.

Jisung points across the room, where Seungmin seems to have finally caved, or perhaps been worn down enough, to let Changbin tug him onto a loveseat, though his face screams martyrdom. Changbin practically glows bright red as Seungmin settles, perched halfway on his lap.

“That little guy over there made it for me.” He informs Minho, then cups a hand over his mouth to call out, “Do you two need a room?”

Seungmin shoots him a look that promises death. Changbin just winks.

“Well, he’s earned himself a ban. That is a health hazard.” Minho coughs.

“It gets the job done.” Jisung offers.

“Do you always resort to horrible ways to get drunk at parties?”

It dawns on Jisung, abruptly, that it is the first time the two of them are engaging in any form of conversation outside the bounds of his own four-poster.

He swallows. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“It loosens me up.” He shrugs, taking another sip for that very reason. “Makes me less awkward.”

Minho tilts his head, expression still infuriatingly blank. “I don’t find you awkward.”

“That’s because you’ve only ever seen me drunk or asleep.”

It strikes him as too intimate as soon as the words leave his mouth. You’ve seen me asleep. You’ve slept in the same bed as me, beside me, twice now. And yet, this is their very first appropriate encounter by societal standards. 

“Hm.” For once, Minho’s expression shifts — a strange flicker, gone too quickly to name. He looks away. “I suppose that’s fair.”

Jisung watches the way Seungmin casually lets his arm rest around Changbin’s shoulders, who is now invested in what appears to be an engaging card game. He watches him lean back, subtly, to peek at Changbin’s deck. “What do you think is up with them?”

Minho follows his line of sight. His cheeks puff out with the hearty sigh let out. “Seungmin insists on it being a strictly physical relationship, but he appears to be fooling himself only.”

Jisung gapes. “Merlin. I hope you’re right, because Binnie’s way too emotionally invested, now.”

He catches the minute wince that bleeds through. “Believe me, so is Seungmin.”

“You think it’ll work out?”

An arched brow. “I don’t make a habit of speculating about the private lives of my friends.”

Jisung huffs to himself. “‘Course you don’t.”

“But I doubt it.”

He swivels, quick enough to give himself whiplash. The drink seems to be seeping into his blood faster than anticipated. “What?”

Minho shrugs, gazing off into the far walls. A plastic cup that contains an ominous, swirling liquid seems to have materialized in his grip. “Seungmin is far too high-maintenance for anyone to bear for long.”

“You underestimate Changbin’s penchant for blind devotion.” Jisung declares, gulping down a quarter of his glass — now that he has started, and all. “And why must you be so skeptical, huh?”

Another shrug. “I simply don’t prefer hoping for things to work out.”

Jisung studies him with a sidelong glance. “Have some things not worked out for you?”

“Let’s just say that I don’t like surprises.” Minho coughs, pushing away from the wall. “I should go.”

Jisung watches him diffuse into the crowd like sand pulled from the bottom of the sea, and downs his drink in one big gulp.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

By the time the clock chimes past midnight, Wang’s dorm looks like it’s survived, or perhaps barely survived, an attempted coup. The music has only gotten louder, the butterbeer has been flowing far too freely to be responsible, and somehow — Jisung notes as he sways from one room into another — Hyunjin and Jeongin have turned the entire dance floor into their personal performance stage.

They’re standing on the table again — except that the table is floating pretty high above ground, and no one seems to remember how they got up there when Jisung asks. Fuck, they’re leading a mob through what looks suspiciously like a choreographed routine.

“Left, right, spin, scream!” Jeongin hollers.

And the crowd… obeys, screaming in unison.

Bewildered and off his wit, Jisung grabs onto the edge of a pool table to keep his balance. Glances back to check if he’s interrupting anybody playing — promptly lets out a blood-curdling scream.

Seungmin sits, cross-legged, at the very center of the table, two empty glasses balanced on both his knees, a half-filled one clasped in his hands. He looks thoroughly unimpressed.

“Didn’t see you there.” Jisung mumbles, pretty sure that he’s way past slurring, and heaves himself up to slither his way next to the man. “Hi.”

“Snap, clap, jump, scream!” Hyunjin’s voice, shrill with overuse, looms over the music, followed by a bout of collective shrieking that could virtually kill an adult Hippogriff.

“Hello.” Seungmin croaks. “I think we’re going to get expelled."

“Worth it!” Hyunjin shouts from the table, tossing his head to and fro as though he’s hellbent on breaking his own neck. Jisung has no idea how he heard that.

Jackson himself is standing in the front-row, looking delighted. “Leadership qualities, mate! Good on you!”

“Don’t call me mate!” Hyunjin screams back, not even missing a beat.

Laughter that cannot wholly push itself out of his body vibrates within him. Scanning the crowd to see what his other friends are up to, he — a lie, actually. He’s been doing that a lot, scanning the crowd, but not to check up on his friends. He hasn’t had his sights on Minho since he quite literally dropped out in the middle of their conversation. Such is his luck.

His eyes land on Felix, curled comfortably against Chan’s chest, his laughter softened into quiet breaths where his head is tucked under Chan’s chin. They look infuriatingly serene in the middle of all the gloriously overstimulating commotion. Chan smooths a hand through the blonde frizzy hair absentmindedly, and Felix tilts his face up just to grin at him.

Jisung tries not to stare. Truly does, even if his stomach roils. Connection like that, he thinks, is what he’s been seeking for a long time — perhaps even why mere crushes often blow out of proportion in his head. The thought rattles in his skull, unsteady and flickering, swiftly drowned out by the rest of the commotion.

As if on cue, he catches the shift of a shadow behind them. Minho. He dwells half in shadow near the wall. Always watching, always apart — but now, he’s watching the same scene Jisung is.

Good Godric, the flutters that enslave him. Jisung is, for the most part, sane enough to know better than to pursue something with Lee Minho. Both because the latter has been diligently removing himself from any romantic endeavors for years, and because even if he did entertain the thought of letting his guard down with someone, it most definitely would not be with Jisung.

See, he knows this. Yet, the knowledge does not compel his feet to stay put, does not seal his lips shut, does not trap the words to reverberate inside the bounds of his cheeks, instead of the opposite.

“Do you ever stop glaring, or do you just have holes bored into every furniture in your dorm?”

He’s very proud to have pronounced all the words correctly, but Minho directs his glare at him, instead. Undeserved. “I’m not glaring.”

He sways on his spot. “You are glaring. At me, in fact.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Same difference with you, I suppose.”

Minho grunts out something noncommittal. His mood seems all the more soured since his arrival at the party. 

“You know, you’re really bad at losing,” Jisung blurts, trying for teasing but landing somewhere embarrassingly softer.

Something in Minho’s jaw shifts. It’s sort of exhilarating.

“I mean, it’s kind of funny,” he continues, when Minho doesn’t bite. “Like, you lost by a second. You should be proud—”

“Proud?” The word comes out sharp, snapping through the air like a whip. Minho turns to him, eyes flashing. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to push yourself that hard just to fall short? Have you ever amounted to anything that comes remotely close?”

Okay. That stings.

Jisung blinks, swallows, throat tight, the dull edge of a knife slipping under his ribs. He’s way too drunk to thump out the remnants of hurt from his face, and his head is swimming uncomfortably. The party continues to rage around them, oblivious.

Fuck, that’s why. That’s why he doesn’t fucking do this.

Minho’s eyes flicker, a complicated shadow before he looks away, back to the floor he’d been glaring at. His shoulders tense, as if he’s realizing too late the weight of what he’s said. “Jisung, I—”

“Forget it.” A forced smile climbs his way out of his esophagus, though he cannot make it reach the rest of his face. Instead, he tips his drink back, pretending the fizz is enough to wash the embarrassment down, and walks away.

Changbin’s creaking voice cuts through the entire room. “Seungmin, did you just smile at me? I saw it. Don’t lie. It was a smile.”

“I twitched.”

“It was a smile.”

“Merlin, help me.” Seungmin mutters, irate. Only to yank him into a kiss. Hah. Jisung told that man he only does that to shut him up.

Jeongin screeches from the table, pointing at the scene, Hyunjin collapsing into moaning laughter beside him as half the room starts cheering them on.

Despite his better judgment, he glances back to Minho. Still standing rigid, arms folded tight across his chest, eyes fixed on anywhere but on them.

An hour later, the party reaches the point where the floor is sticky with residues of magic, the air too stifling and frankly, a lot sweaty. Half the attendees have given up trying to follow Hyunjin and Jeongin’s increasingly complicated instructions. The table they’d claimed earlier did collapse under them, so that may be why.

Jisung is perched alone at the edge of the room, pretending to watch Hyunjin’s antics, picking at the label of his drink and wanting to go back to his dorm already.

So, he does.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The dorm is blissfully empty when he arrives, and by the looks of it, it’ll stay that way.

His robes and garments are shed in quick succession, not without a healthy amount of tumbling and jumping on one foot. He’s drank way too much to engage in any form of self-care other than brushing his teeth in the shower and remembering to put some boxers on afterwards.

He slinks under the covers, and the nights exhaustion washes over him in a quick, paralyzing wave. The music still thuds faintly through the walls, but here, at least, it’s not suffocating.

He spends an immeasurable amount of time, just, blinking at the ceiling. Processing unfamiliar emotions at his own leisure, patient as he waits for sleep to overtake him.

Minutes, or maybe hours later, a shadow slips through the doorway.

Jisung knows without even looking. Of course, he does. Minho.

For a second, neither of them says anything. Minho hovers at the threshold like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed inside.

The silence. It itches. Jisung breaks it first. “If you’re here to hate on the wallpaper, I’m not sure it can handle it.”

Minho’s huff is quiet, the attempt at comedic relief doesn’t land the way it usually does. His steps echo, so does the door closing behind him, the noise of the party dulling even further.

“I shouldn’t have said that to you,” he says finally, voice low.

Jisung tears his eyes away from the ceiling, surprised by the bluntness. From what he’s gathered so far, an apology from Minho must be like pulling teeth.

“You were upset,” he says after a pause, tentatively emerging from the sanction of the curtains. “I get it.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

The words sit between them, heavy but genuine.

Jisung shrugs, but it’s half-hearted. “It’s fine, Minho.”

“You do amount to things,” Minho cuts in, hurried, stripped of the bite. He walks further into the room to stand before him, finally meeting his eyes. Jisung suddenly becomes very aware of how scantly he is clothed. “In my opinion, that is.”

“What?”

“You’re a brilliant potioneer, for one, from what I’ve seen of you in classes. I’ve also heard you sing, as well. You have a — a beautiful voice.”

Jisung has never seen Minho string together a sentence that long, that fast. “I — thank you.”

Minho nods, frenetic, like he’s not done. “You’re disproportionately talented at the Patronus, too.”

He can merely gape, sat on the edge of his mattress, staring up at an increasingly reddening Lee Minho. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you practice, once, while I was looking for an empty classroom.” He deflates, the fight leaving him, all at once. “It was very powerful, Jisung. You must have truly happy memories.”

For a moment, Jisung despairs. He doesn’t know how to respond. To think — all the years he spent helplessly drawn to Minho’s presence — he’d never considered the possibility that perhaps, Minho noticed him, too.

“I have said all of these to convince you — that I didn’t mean, what I said.”

“It’s okay.” He croaks. Nothing else seems to want to claw out of his throat. He’s staring, he knows — rude, his mind provides — but Minho’s staring back, and somehow, it doesn’t feel half as bad.

He should pick a rumpled shirt off the floor to put on, probably. Instead, he says, “You coming in?”

Minho hesitates.

“Or would you prefer the trek back down to the dungeons?” He doubles down, as always. “Out on curfew, too.”

And — just like that. The tension dissipates.

Minho, the twat, rolls his eyes at him. “If you insist.”

His mouth betrays his coyness, twitching as he rolls himself onto his side of the bed. A familiar act, now. “Sure, if you insist that I insist.”

“Careful, Jisung.”

“Or what?” He taunts, watching him settle under his covers for the third time. “You’ll yell at me?”

Minho makes a great show of yanking the blankets up to his nose. “You know, I found you more tolerable when you were afraid of me.”

Jisung pouts at him. “You know, feeling bad for hurting my feelings kind of overrules the whole brooding, mysterious Slytherin vibe.”

“I am still mysterious, I’ll have you know.” Minho grumbles, burrowing further into the pillow.

He sighs. “That, you are.”

Minho looks at him, and for a moment, Jisung thinks he’s about to say something. He doesn’t. Simply assumes his usual position of an open casket corpse.

Jisung almost giggles at the analogy in his head. “Hey, Minho.”

“Hm?”

It appears to him with unfortunate tardiness, that you sleep like an open-casket corpse would palpably be a morbid thing to say in the moment. “Are you drunk?”

“Hm. Yeah. A little.”

Jisung hums, preparing to succumb to a fitful sleep. He can never achieve uninterrupted sleep with alcohol in his system. “Alright.”

“Why?”

It’s funny, how often Minho merely blurts the word out, apparent that he expects nothing short of a full-blown explanation. Why? Jisung doesn’t know why, most of the time. It’s jarring to be demanded answers to things he fails to think through.

“Don’t know.” He mumbles, mostly to stall. “Thought maybe you only found the balls to apologize ‘cause you were drunk.”

There it is, then. The truth that he hadn’t even admitted to himself, out in the moonlight, purely because Minho asked him why.

A pause. The rustle of the sheets alerts him, and he finds Minho curled on his side, facing each other. His hair, scattered in soft-looking tufts, frames his face, one cheek smushed against the pillow. He looks like he just pranced out of one of Jisung’s dreams.

“I’m not… good at this,” He admits, barely audible.

“Good at what?”

“Letting people see.” He gestures vaguely between them. “I don’t know how to handle it, when someone tries to make me feel better. It just—” He breaks off, shaking his head. “It feels weak.”

Jisung stares at him, his lungs tightening. “It’s not,” he says, firm. “It’s only a witness, Minho. It’s more important than you think, to be witnessed.”

Minho blinks, and blinks, at the duvet. The silence stretches, charged, not hostile. When he finally looked up, his eyes aren’t walls. They’re raw, unguarded, something indecipherable flickering behind them.

Jisung moves without thinking, closing the space between their hands until their pinkies brush. “Next time,” he says, softly, “just yell at the snitch instead of me, yeah?”

That earns him a huff of laughter, quiet, but real.

Progress.

“Good night, Jisung.”

“Night, Minho.”

Neither of them retracts their hands.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

When Jisung wakes up that morning, he’s already expecting the nearest Minho-scented presence to be the pillow left in his wake. Pun intended. So, when he blindly follows the scent and burrows into it, still half-asleep, he’s hardly expecting his cheekbone to crash right into something solid.

“Wha—” He freezes. Slowly, carefully, he lifts his head.

The shriek he lets out cannot be helped, nor prevented. Minho is already staring back at him, and Jisung feels his snort vibrate in his chest before he actually hears it.

“Good morning,” Minho chirps, something illicit twinkling in his eyes. He’s got his cheek propped up on a fist, like he’s been awake for hours. “You snore.”

Jisung gasps, bodily hurtling himself away and tugging a blanket over himself, as though it will help his definite nakedness and the definite fact that he just rolled right into Minho’s chest and tried to bury his face in it. “No, I don’t.”

“Are you implying that I’m a liar?” Minho grins — oh. Jisung realizes he’s never seen him smile with teeth before. This is — certainly — eventful. An eventful sight. That completely evaporates any sense of composure from his brain. Fuck, his hair must be a mess. And he’s not wearing a fucking shirt.

“Um. Yes?”

The vigilant eyes narrow, cat-like, grin intact. “That sounded uncertain.”

“Yes.”

Minho dares to tilt his head at him. “Did you affirm my statement, or affirm that I’m a liar?”

Jisung groans, rubbing at his face, the heel of his palm dragging across his cheek. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Why would I do that?” Minho feigns a caliber of innocence so unconvincing that it’s insulting.

“Why are you,” He shoves at his chest as he struggles upright, “so intelligent in the morning? Give me a few business minutes to regroup.”

“It’s the weekend.”

“Even better. How about we pick this conversation back up on Monday?” Jisung gestures vaguely, staring at the frills of his curtains as his brain recovers from the unseemly sights he’s been projected to. He attempts to smooth his hair down in the process.

“What makes you think we’ll be seeing each other on Monday?” Minho’s voice dips, gaze far too steady.

So, that’s another way he utilizes that infuriating self-discipline of his to further drive Jisung mad. He gets it. It’s not a talent most can wield, only fair that Minho gets to be a stuck-up asshole about it.

“Uh. Changbin.” He provides, intelligently.

“Changbin, hm? Has he made specific plans for Monday?” Minho leans closer, an evil rupture.

“I’m sorry, why the hell am I being interrogated right now?”

One of his shoulders lifts with a shrug. “I like your confused face.”

“I’m not confused.” Jisung yanks the blanket tighter around himself, on the defense.

“You are.” Minho reaches out. Nudges him in the forehead with his thumb. “You’re terribly confused.”

Jisung swats at his hand, truly starting to panic now. “Well, I’m sorry that I didn’t expect you to still be here. This is an ambush. I’m being ambushed.”

“Why?”

“Why am I being ambushed?” He sputters, head swiveling as though the curtains will lend him some serenity. “I should be asking you that, actually.”

“Why didn’t you think I would be here?” Minho’s voice has gone softer — deceptively casual.

“‘Cause you never are?”

“This has merely happened twice before.”

“Yes.” Jisung fixes him a befuddled look. “And you ran out, both times.”

Something passes over Minho’s face, unreadable. “Fair enough.”

Unwillingly cornered in an impromptu mental swordfight, Jisung lurches at the opening. “Why did you run out, then, hm?”

“Now who’s interrogating who?”

“Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it."

Minho gets that ridiculously charming smile on his face, and Jisung hates it, actually. This whole morning is an electroshock to his entire nervous system.

“Smartass.” Minho grunts under his breath.

Jisung’s whole body locks, eyes blowing wide. “Did I just hear you swear?”

Minho blinks owlishly. “Pardon?”

“You just called me a smartass.” Jisung points a finger at him, like a child. “You did.”

He shakes his head with a pout, lips pressed together. “Did not.”

“Oh my god.” Jisung sort of feels like yanking out his hair, now. “You’re not edgy at all. Your entire reputation is bullshit. You’re actually a moron.”

“I’m a what, now?” Minho taunts, pushing himself upright — only to launch at Jisung’s person, fingers finding his sides.

“Wait—don’t—” Jisung squeals, twisting away, tangling himself in the blankets and laughing helplessly as Minho genuinely starts tickling him.

And then —

The curtains are yanked open, flooding the room with pale light. Jeongin stands there, victorious, grinning like he’s caught them in the act. Jisung and Minho freeze mid-tickle, hair tousled, breathing uneven.

“Hey, Claws.” Jisung blurts, scrambling for anything to say as he flails for dignity. “What time is it?”

“It’s Saturday, freaks.” Jeongin declares, arms spread as though delivering a prophecy. “Time is but a mere concept today.”

The door creaks then, and Hyunjin stumbles in, dragging Felix behind him. Both are breathless with laughter, cheeks flushed, eyes too bright for the ungodly hour of the morning.

“Caught them.” Jeongin crows, pointing at Jisung and Minho like he’s stumbled upon a pot of moonstones.

Hyunjin chortles. “Handsy in the dark. Scandalous.”

Jeongin peers at them, grinning like a fiend. “We should give them privacy.”

“Or we should heckle them.” Felix chimes in.

Hyunjin nods solemnly. “Definitely heckle.”

“Out.” Minho snips. Flat. There’s no venom in his voice, just pure authority.

Hot.

The gremlins cackle as they retreat, muttering amongst themselves, no doubt conspiring of ways to ruin many more mornings. He wonders if they’ve already gotten to Changbin and Seungmin.

Jisung rolls his eyes at the mental image, but when he glances sideways at Minho, there’s a small, reluctant smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Yeah. He doesn’t really care what the gremlins are up to, anymore. He never did. His cares have been succesfully focused elsewhere.

He's losing his mind.

“You’re brutal in the morning.” He accuses, hauling himself out of the bed.

“I would much prefer efficient.”

“Efficient?” His eyes fall upon the figure of Minho still laid out, and Merlin help him, he has to look elsewhere, lest he jumps this man’s bones. “Is that what you call torturing someone before breakfast?”

“I call that ensuring you’re awake.” Minho informs him. “I was concerned you would never wake up. It’s way past noon.”

“I sleep my hangovers away.” He ducks under the bed to search for a forlorn pair of socks. He can never keep track of where they end up. “And you’re lucky I’m not filing an official complaint against you. My brain almost shut down.”

“Yeah? And what would it entail, this complaint?”

“Mockery.” He deadpans, glaring at Minho from where he’s kneeled beside the bed. “That’s the main charge.”

“So, you admit to snoring?”

“Get out of my bed, Minho.”

Minho does, with genuine laughter bubbling up from the depths of his chest. The sound curls around the ridges of his bones like twining vines, pulls them taut, and ebbs freely. It’s a sight to witness, Minho’s laugh.

Progress. 

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

As far as days in a busy semester go, this one starts off on a pretty good note. In fact, it’s the best half-day Jisung has had in what feels like months.

The courtyard is buzzing with the customary mid-Saturday shenanigans. Sunlight stretches across the grass in warm patches, tacky and glimmering like spilled honey, and Jisung is sprawled in the middle of it all, arms tucked behind his head. Chan reclines with more restraint, knees bent, fingers fiddling absently with stray blades of grass as he stares out at the yard.

“You’re in a suspiciously good mood.” He says, squinting at him from the corner of his eye.

Jisung hums, not even bothering to deny it. “No homework due, no professors breathing fire, no crisis’ before dinner.” He pauses, eyes fluttering shut, basking. “You should pinch me or something.”

Chan chuckles, shaking his head. “Seems like you woke up on the right side of the bed, for once.”

Jisung turns his face toward the sun so Chan won’t see just how conspiratorial his smile is. In fact, he did wake up on exactly the right side of the bed, technically speaking, for the left was quite conveniently occupied. The phantom image still has him riding a high.

“Don’t overanalyze it, hyung.” He says breezily. “Just enjoy the phenomenon. Happy Jisung, unbothered by the cruelty of academia.”

Chan snorts. “I’ll mark it on the calendar. Rare sighting.”

Before Jisung can even react, the ground itself practically shakes with the impact of someone barreling toward them. A shout cuts across the courtyard: “Yo!”

Changbin. Of course.

He comes charging across the grass like a human Bludger, waving one arm and clutching something unidentifiable in the other. Students lounging nearby instinctively lean out of his trajectory, accustomed to a human hurricane sweeping through the grounds every once in a while.

Chan groans, flopping backward onto the grass. “Peace was nice while it lasted.”

Jisung bursts into laughter, sitting up just in time for Changbin to come skidding to a stop in front of them, breathless, grinning — like he always is.

“You won’t believe what happened this morning.”

“Bin, I love you.” Chan holds out a hand, placating. “But I don’t want to hear about your morning head, no matter how life-changing it was.”

“Hah. No.” He chuckles, flopping right onto Jisung’s side, raising dust in his wake. “Something else happened during that, actually.”

Jisung tips his head back, squints his eyes at the sun baring down on the lawn. “What, you accidentally told him you loved him, and he slapped you across the face, and you kind of liked it?”

“No, again.” Changbin grimaces, then pauses, processing what was just said. “Man, what the fuck?”

“Sorry.” He sniffs. Pollen. “Do tell.”

He settles, wriggling in place, as though about to confess to some insidious act. “Some people just burst into the dorm in the ass crack of dawn.”

Oh, yeah. Jisung knows this dance. “The gremlins? They got to us — me.” Fuck. He coughs. “They got to me, too.”

Changbin’s face scrunches up. “They were around?”

“Yeah. Raven and Claws practically dragged Felix out of bed.” Chan sighs.

“I didn’t see them.” He shrugs. “Whatever. Seungmin said they were Minho’s parents.”

Suddenly, Jisung is much more interested. His spine snaps straight, sunglasses sliding off his nose and falling into his lap with a dull thud. “What?”

“Yeah, they were looking for him. I told them he’d probably be at the Astronomy Tower or something.” He chuckles, chucking the torn blades away. “Gazing down upon mortals, and all. He didn’t seem to take well to that loss yesterday. Figured he’d be moping.”

“What did his parents want with him?” Jisung asks. “Did they find him?”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Chan regard him strangely. Suddenly, he couldn’t give less of a fuck.

“Hell, if I know.” Changbin mutters, continuing to yank grass straight off the dirt. “But they didn’t look too happy.”

“Do you know where he is, now?”

“I don’t know, man.” It’s his turn to fix him with a calculating look. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t.” Jisung quickly retreats. Too quickly. Fuck, he cannot pinpoint why, but something beneath his ribs is screaming at him to go after Minho. “I have a class, actually. I’ll see you guys later.”

He doesn’t have a class. They both know that.

He spends what feels like an hour sprinting through corridors, barging into ongoing classes, finding himself on the receiving end of so many weird looks he’s begun developing an immunity to it. He scourges nearly every inch of the castle. The sun starts to set. Minho is nowhere to be found.

It dawns, a waning flicker of a thought. His feet plant on the cobblestone of an archway, halting so abruptly that the plastic of his shoes scrape against the jagged surface. Changbin’s words flash in his head. The Astronomy Tower. He hasn’t searched the Astronomy Tower.

It always feels like another world, up in the tower — the wind unforgiving, the setting sun stretching its hues so wide the world appears made of oranges and pinkish clouds. Jisung stumbles into it breathless, sweat dampening the back of his neck, lungs still burning from the ten straight minutes he’s spent climbing up the godforsaken stairs.

And — there he is.

Minho, framed by darkened stone and darkened sky alike, leant against the balustrade. He looks, as he often does, like the marble statue Jisung often compares him to — still, severe, beautiful.

Relief hits Jisung first. “There you are.”

Confusion hits second. Minho greets him with silence. Rewards him not a sliver of acknowledgment.

Jisung forces a grin as he steps closer, chest still heaving. “What are you doing up here? Rehearsing Salazar’s monologues?”

Nothing. Minho doesn’t so much as blink in his direction.

The grin falters. “Hey, I’ve been looking everywhere. Thought maybe—”

“Why?”

There it is, that fucking question — that Minho directs whenever it pleases him. So presumptuous in the act itself, that the off chance that it remains unanswered possibly doesn’t cross his mind in the slightest.

Jisung envies him the confidence, and despises the tendency for it to be asked in precisely the rightest moments.

Instead of articulating his whirling thoughts, he blinks. “Why… what?”

“Why are you looking for me?” Minho finally turns. His face is entirely obscured in a mask Jisung has seen countless times before. He’d just… hoped he’d never have to stand on the pointy edge of it, again.

A weakened laugh escapes him, trying to jostle off the weight pressing into his sternum. “I was just—” Making sure you’re okay, goes unsaid. He’s not sure the man before him, whatever version of Minho he’s supposed to be, will appreciate the candor as much as the Minho from this morning would have.

He clears his throat. “I thought something happened.”

“You thought wrong.” Minho quips, grating.

“I just—”

“We’re not friends, Jisung. Stop acting like we are.”

Just like that, the air knocks out of him. “What?”

Minho straightens, stepping forward, each of his words clipped and deliberate. “You’re a fool to think otherwise. This,” he gestures between them, sharp and dismissive, “is nothing.”

He stares, stunned into stillness, mouth hanging open. His skin trickles an embarrassment that burns hot, chest hollowing out like he’s been punched clean through. “You don’t—” his voice catches, “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t.” His words tumble out faster now, desperate. “You—this morning—”

“That was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing!” He blurts, loud enough to echo tauntingly off the stone. “You laughed. You stayed. You—” He cuts himself off, chest heaving. “You don’t do that if it’s nothing.”

Minho’s splintering gaze catches the railing. “Don’t be so desperate as to mistake my boredom and tolerance for friendship.”

“Tolerance?” Jisung spits, unable to believe this is happening. “The time you’ve spent with me has been barely tolerable for you, is that it?”

“I would have worded it kinder for your sake.” He replies, flat.

The floor feels as though it sweeps from right under him, quicksand. His mind conjures up the memory of the Quidditch afterparty, of the enchanted roiling floorings. It appears awfully too similar.

Through and above it all, an undiluted rage sparks amidst the tide of befuddlement, sudden and fierce. “Don’t you dare do that.” He steps forward, fists clenched at his sides. “Don’t you dare stand there and tell me I made it all up.”

Minho doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Infuriating.

His voice shakes now, loud and raw. “If you don’t want to be friends, fine. If I pissed you off somehow, fine. But don’t you dare feed me this bullshit and expect me to just accept it when you won’t even explain what changed.”

Silence. Just the wind screaming through the open arches.

“Minho.” Jisung’s throat burns, his eyes sting. “Say something real. For once.”

But Minho only stares at him, jaw tight, hands flexing at his sides like he’s fighting inward beasts Jisung cannot see. When he finally speaks, it’s quieter.

“There’s nothing to say."

“I don’t believe that.”

He watches in real time as Minho’s patience wears thin, as the thread of his composure dismantles. “How hard is it to understand that I don’t want you, Jisung?” He snaps, eyes blowing wide. “I don’t want you here!”

Jisung reels back, eyes brimming almost instantly.

Those words — Minho might as well have punched him in the face. Jisung would prefer that, even; it would hurt less than whatever this cruel rejection is supposed to be.

“Fine.” He chokes, void now to his own ears. “I’m sorry for giving a shit.”

And then he’s moving — spinning on his heel, feet pounding stone as he runs. The tower spins around him as he crashes down the steps two, three at a time, nearly blinded by the blur of unshed tears. 

He barrels down hallways like the castle itself is chasing him. He runs, and runs — until his lungs burn, until the soles of his feet ache from landing against stone, then dirt, then stone again.

He doesn’t see Chan rounding the corner to their dorm until it’s too late.

They collide horribly. His chin lands on a collarbone, hard enough to clamp it out of shape and back — it might truly warrant a joint check. His breath knocks out of him, a sharp ache stabs through his right eye.

Simultaneously, strong hands land at and hold onto his arms to keep him from crumpling to the floor.

“Hey, hey, careful.” Chan steadies him easily, his gentle eyes finding Jisung’s face. The lax concern vanishes, hardens in an instant. “Sungie — what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” The word feels flimsy, already broken by a sniff. He tries to shrug his friend off, turn away, keep moving before the flood of his tears reach a point of no return and swallow him whole. “I’m fine, I just — class—”

Chan doesn’t let go. His grip isn’t harsh, just immovable. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m not.” Jisung tries, but he is. His hands won’t stop trembling, his chest won’t stop heaving.

Chan leans down to catch his gaze, eyes are steady, searching, patient in a way that is presently unbearable. Jisung doesn’t want his patience, nor his counsel. He wants to tear his hair out and cry until his body gives out — but he can’t. Not here.

“What happened?”

He clamps his jaw shut to hinder the sob that threatens to break through, teeth grinding. If he breaks, he won’t be able to stop.

“What’s wrong, Jisung?” Chan pushes.

“Nothing — just. Leave me alone.” He grits. Fuck — Chan doesn’t deserve this flippancy when all he ever does is help, all he harbors is concern for Jisung’s wellbeing. “Please.” He adds. It’s all he can do.

Chan studies him a moment longer. “All right.” He says, softly.

Jisung nods, already meaning to slip away, when he adds: “But we’ll talk in the morning, okay?”

“Okay.”

He trudges through the halls, hurried steps tangling together, soundless tears riveting down his cheeks all the while. Minho’s words ring an awful echo in the void of his skull, clashing at every edge and splintering upon contact.

He intends to go back to their dorm to cry and claw at the wooden pillars and hide beneath his blankets, to sleep it all out, but his feet won’t cooperate, not when — not when the sheets are exactly as Minho left them in the morning. Not when his scent probably still lingers, on the left side of the bed, etched into the pillow casings like a mockery.

He finds himself at the door of the library, a disguising charm blurring his careful steps in. He doesn’t have a blanket, nor a sweater, nothing but the robes on his back and his wand.

As is custom, he makes do.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Chan finds him there, in the morning.

Jisung has his cheek pressed into the hardwood of a sprawling table, neck stiff and spine aching as he’s gently shaken awake. The floor had been too cold, too hard, plus a type of stirring in his chest no spell could subdue… he’d ended up on a cushioned chair, legs folded beneath him as he slouched onto the tabletop.

“Hey, Sung.” Chan whispers, gently scraping a chair out to lower himself on. “How are you doing?”

“Fine.” He attempts, but that’s all it is: an attempt. His eyes are swollen shut, crusted with sleep and salt, and his voice crackles a horrible tune, comes out raw enough to make his friend wince.

Chan sighs, palm leaving his shoulder to sit primly upon his own lap. Practically a trouble signal for an incoming lecture. “Look, I don’t want to pretend to overlook the fact that you’re obviously having a serious breakdown. So, don’t make me. And while you’re at it, do consider the impossible notion of letting me help you.”

What sort of help could possibly lessen the blow of perhaps the most anticlimactic fallout between two — fuck, what even are they — bedmates? Friends? Acquaintances with unnecessarily charged tension?

“I’m sorry, hyung.” He sniffs. “But I don’t think there’s much to help.”

Because whatever did exist between them at a fleeting point in time — dust. Minho made sure to slide the knife where it would slice the smoothest, hurt the most. He made sure Jisung had no remaining convoluted concepts of any form of relationship blooming, sprouting right there, right before his own eyes.

How to tell Chan, that a Slytherin has not only attempted but succeeded to sneak into their dorm with shocking ease, and that Jisung has, on multiple occasions, kept him in his bed and opportunely forgot to breathe a word of it to his closest friends?

“This is about Minho, isn’t it?”

The name cuts through him like glass. He snaps up, grappling for a coherent reply, denial, anything — Chan simply looks chagrined.

“Please, Sung. I’ve known you for too long not to catch on when something’s wrong.”

“How?”

“You weren’t at the dorm this morning.” He explains, hand finding Jisung’s once more. “I checked the astronomy tower, since you ran out of there a mess, last night. Minho was there. Well, still there, I suppose.”

“He was sleeping there?”

“I don’t think he slept at all, Sung.”

Jisung refuses to feel bad. So he just huffs, curling into himself despite the valiant protests of his creaking spine, and takes a firmer hold of Chan’s hand. Ever a lifeline.

Chan sighs, as though the prospect of Jisung’s woe weighs him down in equal measure. “Look, I don’t know what happened between you two, or what he did to leave you this shaken. Believe me, he’s at the top of my shitlist right now.”

That earns him a reluctant huff of laughter.

He smiles back, and Jisung could never fault him for his efforts, not ever. Chan is nothing but pure benevolence, a touch of comfort. “But I also care about you,” he continues, “and you obviously care about him, and he’s actually a pretty decent fucking guy, according to Changbin and Seungmin. Unfortunately for me, this means I have at least try to play the broker of peace.”

Jisung swallows hard, blinks too fast. He doesn’t want this. Doesn’t want to talk. Doesn’t want solutions or excuses thrown at him by someone who wasn’t even there. Who didn’t watch him let the sanguine ropes of vine wrap him over, only for them to be cut down with a particularly sharpened axe.

But it’s Chan, who is actively showing up, trying to set things right, even if it’s not his blazing mess in the first place.

“Hyung—”

Chan soldiers on, low and careful, as if speaking too loudly might shatter him: “I know it’s no excuse, but… do you think this has something to do with his parents?”

Jisung stiffens. His voice comes out broken. “His—parents?”

Chan nods, a grim set to his jaw. “I’ve heard things. That they’re… harsh. Demanding. Brutal. I don’t know the full story, but I know enough to worry. I know you’ve been the happiest I’ve seen you in a while, until you found out his parents were here and went looking for him.”

Something caves in Jisung’s chest, breath catching painfully. He hadn’t thought of that. He hadn’t thought of anything beyond what did I do wrong?

“His parents.” He echoes, hollow.

Chan’s face softens. “Sungie—”

It’s over. The dam breaks.

The first sob tears out of him without warning, violent and ugly. Chan is there instantly, one arm firm around his shoulders, guiding him into his chest before he collapses entirely.

Jisung doesn’t know where this is coming from. Only that, that maybe, it wasn’t something he did, it wasn’t how he is, it wasn’t about him.

“I don’t—” He chokes, clutching fistfuls of Chan’s robes. “He was—he was fine that morning, he was smiling, and then he—” His voice cracks so pitifully that it aches in his throat. “He hates me, hyung.”

“Hey, no.” Chan pulls him closer, voice still a calming presence, even as Jisung’s whole body shakes. “I’m sure he doesn’t hate you.”

“You didn’t hear him.” Jisung gasps, tears spilling hot and fast. “He said—we were never friends. That I’m stupid for thinking we were. And it felt like he meant it—”

Chan doesn’t argue. He doesn’t dismiss. He just holds him tighter, one hand steady against the back of Jisung’s head, the other rubbing his back in slow, grounding sweeps.

“I know it feels that way,” he says quietly, “but people don’t say things like that unless something’s eating them alive. And if his parents really are a factor in this… Sungie, I’m not saying it’s fair, but it’s not about you. It’s about him.”

That undoes him completely. He sobs into Chan’s robes, body wracked with tremors, every ounce of preservation flown out the stained-glass windows. And Chan doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, doesn’t rush him — just holds him through it.

Eventually, the storm begins to settle. Jisung breathes a little easier, a little more even, hiccupping and shaky as it is. His mind slows to a gentle hum, no longer oppressive. He slumps sideways into Chan’s shoulder, utterly wrung out.

Chan waits. Then, softly: “You don’t have to figure it out right now. Let yourself breathe. It’s not your fault.”

Jisung squeezes his eyes shut, exhausted. He doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he nods instead.

Chan gives his shoulder a squeeze. “Good. That’s enough for now.”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The weeks slow to a gentle, skittering pace. The kind that feels like being dragged across gravel barefoot.

Days blur together, mirror against mirror, merely unending stretches of night and day. Classes where the words blur together and fade into background noise, meals Chan drags his sorry ass to because otherwise he wouldn’t go at all.

Changbin has stopped sitting at the Slytherin table. Instead, he wedges himself beside Jisung at the Gryffindor benches, pressed into him from shoulder to knee. He stacks meat onto his plate, tells him to eat well, and after every dinner, without fail, disappears into the night. Jisung never asks. He just chews, swallows, and breathes.

Notwithstanding the hours his friends spend glued to his side, it’s as though he’s stepped into a fugue state where a cradling apathy has taken over his comportment. He glides through the days, detached, dazed. He lazes, sprawled on the courtyard whenever the sun seems the day worthy enough to show itself — which seems to be more often than not. He scribbles through homework until his hand cramps; takes long, aimless walks to Hogsmeade and back. Spends a considerable while stuffing his face in Honeydukes, buying fistfuls of fudge at large, until the cloying scent clings to his clothes.

Once, on a particularly sunny day where his chest feels a little less like a half-closed wound scraped raw, he buys Frog Spawn Soap from Zonko’s, and sneaks it into Changbin’s shower. It’s glorious — for a single hour, they laugh so hard that their bellies are sore from the effort. Even Seungmin stops by their dorm to witness the absolute tragedy that is the sight of Changbin howling in outrage as he runs around in nothing but his half-tied bathrobes, chasing tiny amphibians that keep escaping his grip.

And then the frogs vanish, Changbin leaves after Seungmin with promises of vengeance muttered under his breath, and the silence comes. Because Seungmin hadn’t looked his way once — Jisung is fine with it. Truly, he is. He pretends not to think about the way Minho’s mouth would curve up, pointed and unwilling, into that tapered delight of his, if Seungmin ever ends up relaying the story to him. He thinks about the way he’s not thinking about it until his head hurts.

At night, his bed is wrong. He curls into himself on the left side of the bed, inhaling a scent that no longer clings to the fabric. The side he’d formerly adopted to accommodate two where it had always been one, remains untouched.

He slowly adapts back to the life he had, before Minho began haunting his every other thought. He tells himself he’s fine. He’s so good at telling himself things that he almost believes it.

But then, one day, they cross paths on a corridor. Just a swift glimpse of green robes, a sharp profile, the unmistakable stance of superiority. Jisung freezes as though hexed. Minho doesn’t glance his way — maybe he does, he can’t be sure, because in mere moments he is despairing, and ducks into the first empty classroom before he can even attempt to decipher Minho’s minute body language. He slams the door so hard that it reverberates in the room.

It takes him fifteen minutes to breathe again. Fifteen minutes, and a hefty bout of hyperventilating, back pressed into cool stone, fists clenched at his sides.

But the time he can emerge, he’s late to Charms. Stumbling in, he doesn’t even bother with an explanation.

He’s doing well, considering. Getting over things that never actually happened is a sport he’s proven to be excellent at.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Jisung bursts into the Potions classroom, frantic and heaving breaths that narrowly escape his lungs. His eyes dart around in search of danger, blinking and blinking, looking for sparks, flames, waiting for commotion to overtake the quiet and for screaming to curdle through the room.

Changbin has sent him a flurry of disconcerting Screechers about an emergency potions personal experiment awry need help — Jisung had been in the middle of an Historical Creatures essay, and his expulsion from the library grounds had been imminent. He’s practically run through the entire West Wing in his haste to get to his friend, expecting the absolute worst: mayhem. Heads on fire. Perhaps a lost limb or two.

Except, none of those seem to be happening. His eyes land on Changbin, standing pin-straight next to Seungmin, both innocuously nailed to the middle of the room. There are desks pushed back against walls, cauldrons piled in a corner.

“What?” He breathes, addled.

And then he sees. Minho. Leaned into the far-left wall, frowning with the force of an entire fleet of goblins. Looking thoroughly like he’s being kept hostage, untied and able to walk out freely as he is.

“This is an intervention.” Seungmin states.

It all happens very fast. Hyunjin and Jeongin slip in through the professor’s lair. The door slams shut behind him. It’s instinct, to flinch around and gawk as the lock slides into place. Distraught, he follows the tip of the wand to an arm, to immaculately braided wisps of blonde hair. And Chan, beside him, looking seconds from beseeching Jisung for forgiveness.

Strangely, Jisung feels betrayed. Despite having no inclinations as to what this supposed intervention entails, he’s wholly certain the look on both Chan and Changbin’s faces are not omens of an evening well-spent.

“I’m sorry, Sung.” Changbin implores, though his stance makes no give. “It’s been awful, watching you two be so…”

“Dramatic.” Jeongin provides.

Hyunjin turns to him, leisure woven into his look of warning, and curls a hand around his wrist in conveyed admonishment. “Unaware the other is suffering to the same extent.” He corrects, softly.

Jisung swivels towards Minho without thinking. Suffering to the same extent. Minho refuses to look back.

“You have two options.” Seungmin speaks, methodical in a detached tone. “One, you will duel until one party is incapacitated. The incapacitated party will thus be forced to consume Veritaserum and answer any question directed to them by the other party, under the strict supervision of a jury so as to prevent any overstepping of boundaries.”

“We are the jury.” Felix smiles, which he probably hopes to be soothing, or perhaps encouraging. Instead, it falls flat.

Jisung stares at him like he’s a stranger, caught in a trap, in the middle of it all, panic starting to creep in — he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“Option two,” Seungmin continues, “you talk it out like normal people. Save us the theatrics of the whole ordeal and the disciplinary measures for unauthorized use of Veritaserum.”

“We’ll talk.” Jisung rushes, turning to Minho once more, pleading. “We’ll talk, okay? There’s no need for — for dueling. Merlin, what?”

Minho keeps staring at the floor, unresponsive.

“Guys.” Jisung heaves in a breath, hands shaking with the implications of that silence. “What if someone gets hurt?”

Out of the corner of his eye, with unmistakable precision and with a sinking dread pulling at the pit of his stomach, he sees Minho assume the duel stance.

His friends begin moving out of the way, one by one, clearing the emptied stretch of the room.

Well. Fuck.

With a breath that feels like helpless defeat, he draws his wand, clammy in his hand — no alternate action presents itself. His heart is hammering with such fervor it’s as though his bones rattle along with it.

“This is insane.” He hisses, voice breaking on the edges. “You can’t just—just throw people in a room and make them hex each other!”

“Technically, we can.” Jeongin muses, leant against the professor’s desk, fingers tapping a fitful rhythm upon the sides.

“Don’t antagonize,” Hyunjin warns him again, but the wistful glint in his eye betrays his concealed exhilaration.

Jisung swallows, forces his eyes back to Minho. The sight twists his stomach into a billion knots, threatening to heave: his shoulders are squared, wand lifted with the resolution of someone who’s been trained to fight, not flinch.

“Minho,” He pleads, voice cracking. “We don’t have to—this isn’t. Just say something, for Merlin’s sake!”

Minho doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

Seungmin’s voice cuts through the silence. “On the count of three. One.”

His vision tunnels. “No, wait—”

“Two.”

“I don’t want to do this!”

“Three.”

Minho moves first, faster than Jisung can blink. A streak of bright-red light whips past his shoulder, hot enough to singe the top of the fabric. He yelps, stumbles back, instinct jerking his wand up before his mind can rush to catch up. A shield flares around him, shaky but intact.

“You’re actually—Merlin, you’re actually trying to kill me—”

Another hex surfaces, sharp and clean, shattering through his half-hearted shield. Jisung dives between a desk and a wall, breath tearing through his throat in scrapes. His fingers shake so hard that it’s a struggle to keep his wand pointed.

The others are a blur of voices slithering at the edges. Jeongin whoops. Felix shouts various encouragements for Jisung that seem comically in vain. Chan’s voice cuts through their commotion, a sliver of hope, but it is only to utter a terse, “keep it clean.”

Jisung swallows a sob, forcing his hand steady. Lunges out from behind the desk and fires a disarming charm, almost blind. Minho deflects it with a flick of his wand, expression unchanging. His silence is unbearable.

“Say something!” Jisung screams, ragged and steadily falling apart. His deflected spell flies wide and away, colliding with a pile of cauldrons behind Hyunjin’s head, making him duck with an eager grin. “Anything—talk to me—”

A stunner streaks toward him. He barely manages to block it in time, shield cracking into sprawling webs under the impact. He’s sweating, breathing rapid, his chest aches briskly with terror.

Minho pivots, sends another hex that detonates against the stone floor in a plume of sparks. Jisung attempts to keep his shield as steady as he can, yet the backlash still rattles his teeth.

He stumbles back, catches himself on another desk, and realizing the art of defense will not save him from Minho’s unrelenting offense, begins firing back at random: a hex, then another, neither landing anywhere near where he intends them to. Minho tramples them all as though nothing more than sparks from a fireplace.

“You don’t have to fight me!” His voice is getting hoarser, fraying. His legs are already aching from all the dodging, and when his shield shatters again, he lets himself fall to one knee, lets his head hang. “Please, Minho.”

He hears another spell zip toward him—slower this time, measured, controlled. Jisung blocks it too late. It burns through his robes, singes the inside of his wrist.

And still Minho doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t flinch.

It’s maddening, incomprehensibly cruel, the silence that presses against Jisung’s ears, louder still than the magic crackling through the air. He can’t read him. Can’t see if Minho’s angry, tired, resigned, if this is nothing more than a joke. Every hex that he aims at Jisung feels like a door slammed in his face.

He lets out a breath, a blink, and something inside him gives. Something ugly, desperate. Something that aches to return the damage done to him tenfold. With a surge of adrenaline, he flinches his wand upward, piles every ounce of magic left he has into a single disarming spell. It tears across the room, bright, hotter than anything he’s ever conjured.

Minho doesn’t dodge.

The force of the spell knocks him off his feet, and his wand clean off his hand, completing a full arc in the air before skittering across the floor. For a breathless moment, the only thing he registers is the sound of it clanging against stone.

Jisung lowers his wand, chest heaving, vision blurry from dripping sweat and tears. His mind races through the realization, sinking into the base of his skull — Minho hadn’t even tried to stop it.

The only reason he’s standing here, as what appears to be the winner of this absurd duel, is because Minho let him.

And Minho, barehanded, stripped of his weapon — he just sits against the stone, stares at the floor like none of it matters at all. He doesn’t move to retrieve it. Doesn’t move. His arms hang loose at his sides, jaw tight.

Jisung is so shaken that his knees jerk with the promise to buckle. This doesn’t feel right. He wants to hurl his wand across the room, wants to scream that none of this meant anything — that it isn’t a victory if Minho hadn’t even tried.

Before he can force words through the gravely concrete his throat has turned into, Seungmin’s voice slices in, collected as ever.

“By the rules we’ve established,” he says, hands clasped behind his back, “the incapacitated party has lost. Therefore—”

“No,” Jisung blurts, the word ripped from him before he can think. “No, we’re not doing this. He’s fine! He’s not even incapacitated!”

“You disarmed him.” Jeongin shrugs. “That counts.”

“It does not!” Jisung whirls on them, wild-eyed. “He’s sitting right there!”

“Without a wand,” Felix adds gently, as though that will help. It doesn’t. “You’re within your rights, Jisung.”

“What rights?” He bellows, bewildered beyond mend. “I didn’t ask for this!” His voice echoes too loudly in the room, breathless and lilting. “I didn’t want to duel him, I didn’t want your goddamned rules—”

“Yet here we are,” Seungmin interrupts, stepping forward. From his robes, he produces a small vial, silver liquid gleaming in the dimming afternoon light. Veritaserum. “The conditions were made clear.”

“Seungmin.” Chan’s voice is low in warning, but Seungmin doesn’t waver.

Minho finally moves, and it’s only to hold out his hand. Silent. Accepting.

The vial drops onto his palm.

Jisung’s blood runs cold. He stumbles forward, tripping over himself in his frenzy. “Minho, don’t. You don’t have to—”

Yet, Minho tips it back without a second of hesitation, swallows, lets the empty glass dangle loosely, taunting, between his fingers. He finally, finally looks at Jisung.

Something in there, something. That stops him in his tracks. A request. A wordless demand to let him do it, to stop trying to interfere.

His friends gather closer, as Jisung watches, stuck between the particles of magic lingering in the air. Stuck in space. Changbin extends an arm to Minho, hauls him up. Felix draws him a chair.

Once Minho sits, he lets out an infinitesimal nod. Their friends retreat on command, surrounding them with half-moons on either side. Jury assembled.

Jisung feels sick. His wand hand is still trembling, his wrist still singed, aching, the only thing anchoring him through the confusion. That this is real. They’ve dueled, and it will continue on to some twisted version of an interrogation, and the door is locked, and somehow, all of his friends have collectively agreed that is the appropriate path to be taken to mend whatever broke between them. That this is an obligation Jisung must suffer through, for a reward he isn’t even sure is a willing participant.

And now they’re all staring at him, expectant, as though this is what they wanted from the start—for him to cut Minho open with questions and watch the truth bleed out.

And perhaps, the worst of all is that Minho lets them.

A beat passes, where Jisung stares at the circle like he’s seeing them for the first time. Perhaps, he is. His lifelong friends, all complicit in a scheme that has but torn him inside out with terrifying ease. None of them have batted an eye in the face of his pleading screams, his shaking frame, his tears. They have all observed.

He cannot place why.

It’s Changbin, that speaks into the silence first. “Wait, I have to make sure he’s calibrated.”

He comes to crouch before Minho, hands on his knees as he stares dead in his eyes. “Did you or did you not eat my last chocolate frog, even though you hate them, just to spite me?”

“I did.”

“You bastard—” He hisses, then promptly straightens himself. Coughs once, eyes flitting about the room like a caught deer. “It works.”

Jisung lets out a sigh that fails to convey just how much duress he’s suffered under in the last hour alone. Minho looks so pitiful, so far from his usual splendor; hair disheveled, expression guarded, hands clasped in his lap. He looks young.

Jisung takes a few tentative steps forward, taking a stand right before him. Here it goes.

“Are you okay?”

Minho looks up, startled. “Yes.” He lets out, without thinking.

It feels too imposing to loom, to stand over him like some prosecutor, so Jisung lets himself fall to his knees — more familiar to be on lower ground before Minho. Better the devil you know.

“I don’t want to do this to you, Minho.” His hands hover, under the illusion that they can seek when it’s no longer viable. They fall back down to his sides, but his eyes never leave Minho’s. “You don’t have to go through with this if you don’t want to.”

“He chose the first option himself, hyung.” Jeongin whispers.

Jisung pays him no mind. “Just say stop, and I’ll stop. You don’t want to answer, tell me to ask something else.”

Minho nods, looking aghast.

Beside them, Felix subtly leans in toward Hyunjin. “I still think we should’ve tied him up.”

“I fear poor Jisung would be too distracted by his concern for the boy. He wouldn’t have it.” Hyunjin whispers back.

“Are you guys going to chatter all day?” Jisung snips, unmindful of his lack of composure. He’s uninformed on the level of involvement they have in the situation, but he’s not feeling particularly kind nor charitable.

“Are you sure?” He asks to Minho, one last time.

“I want to go through with it.” He croaks.

Jisung is shocked into stillness for all of two seconds. “Why?”

“Because—” He cuts himself off, already fighting the serum, straining against its invisible force, the veins in his neck bulging under the strain. “Because it’s the only way I can do this.”

“Do what?”

“Say something real.” Minho looks him in the eye. “For once.”

Jisung sucks in a feathered gasp, nods. “Did you purposefully lose so you would have to drink the serum?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s a caress to my ego.” He mumbles.

“Bold of you to think I would lose in anything if I can help it.”

It’s such a violent shock to the system, the realization of how much he’s missed Minho’s casual sarcasm. He swallows, taking everything he wants to say with it.

“What am I to you?”

Minho, for all his eagerness for candor, displays a valiant effort to resist the serum for a solid minute.

At last, he chokes, “Someone who — who matters, despite my efforts. I don’t know why I care so much about your opinion of me.”

Jisung nods, unable to hinder the scant smile that admission forms. “You evaded that question.”

“I did.”

He hums. “Are you uncomfortable with your answer, or did you refrain to spare my feelings?”

“First.” A reluctant grunt.

“I see.” Jisung thinks back to where it started, instead of diving headfirst into what went wrong in the end. “Why did you run out of my bed the first two times?”

He’s expected the low murmur that follows. That’s a fraction of their interactions the others aren’t privy to. Jisung physically feels the weight of the confused looks exchanged over his head.

“You’ve asked me this once before.”

“You refused to answer then, too.”

There’s a moment there, apprehensive. Jisung’s hair stands on end, knowing that whatever the answer will be, it’ll matter.

“You scared me.”

Jisung blinks. That’s not what he’d anticipated. “How?”

“You looked… in your sleep, you looked—” He groans, low in his throat, knuckles white against the sides of the chair as his neck twists about, as though the truth scrapes at his esophagus and he’s trying to jostle it back down. “Jisung, ask me something else—"

“Why did you push me away?”

He gasps in a mouthful of air. The vein in his neck softens, blends back into the soft strip of his skin. “Because you still scared me.”

“Stop saying that if you don’t want to explain why.” He hears his voice shake; he hadn’t meant to sound so desperate, for the reproach to slip out so raw. But he can’t help it, can’t stand the way the words skim the surface, circling the truth, but never land.

Minho swallows, blinking rapidly. “I’m sorry.”

It’s not soothing, no matter how genuine Minho’s select apologies are. This apology is not an answer. It’s just another wall.

“Was it something I did?”

“No.” Minho chokes. “You were perfect.”

“Was it because of your parents?”

“Yes.” The affirmation is startled out of him, and Minho regards him with a wide-eyed surprise that unsettles Jisung. “How?”

The affirmation travels straight through his body, catching at stray bones. He’s taken aback; for that hadn’t been a real question, not really. Just a whisper of suspicion Chan had planted in his head. To hear it confirmed—

“Did you mean those things you said to me?”

“Not a word of it, Jisung.” Minho sounds… almost pained, with the admission. His sternum feels too fragile for all the emotions that slam through him.

“So, you never pretended with me?”

“I did.” Minho shakes his head, jaw clenching and unclenching. “I pretended to be indifferent when I wasn’t. I haven’t been.”

Jisung wants to laugh, or cry, probably run through a crazed combination of both. All the walls Minho had built, all the hardened edges, and underneath — this.

“What did your parents say?”

“Jisung.” Chan warns, arms folded.

But he can’t stop. Heart pounding in his ears, every answer drags him deeper into a fruitless despair. He needs to know. He needs to.

Minho’s jaw is clenched, so are his eyes, breathing quicker, heavier. He grunts with an exhale, spine curling, and slumps forward onto his knees. Sweat dampens the nape of his neck.

“Jisung.” Chan says, again. “He doesn’t want to answer that.”

Minho groans, softer. Dangerously resembling enough of a whimper to set panic aflame in Jisung’s chest. He’s pushing.

Unthinking, he grabs the shaking hand that hangs between Minho’s knees. Hot shame cracks his voice in half. The serum only grapples harder at the question at hand – he scrambles to find another one for it to lunge at.

“Are you still okay?”

Tension releases with a breath, and Minho’s fingers twitch around his. “Yes.”

“Was that too far?”

“My parents have very high expectations of me,” is what Minho chooses to respond with. “Of my grades, my… manners, my accomplishments. Who I forge friendships with. They had some — some unkind words to say to me that the serum wanted me to repeat. I didn’t.”

Jisung swallows, hard, driving on pure instinct and chagrin as he squeezes his hand. He can feel the pulse, speeding in his grip — it terrifies him. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Minho whispers.

Just like that. The force poured in his chest collapses. Gives way to something softer, pliant.

“Minho.” He breathes, heart racing.

“Hm?”

“Would it be okay if I hugged you?”

The question hangs in the air, hefty and dragged down with every breath that it goes unanswered. Minho is still; mouth opening to curve around the words that seem to escape him, the furrow in his brows already a telltale for his inevitable refusal.

He shakes his head. Writhes atop a chair that doesn’t trap him. He fights, and fights, but a moment later, what finally spills out of him is: “Yes.”

One syllable, strangled, as though wrung straight out of him; Minho reels back in horror at the betrayal of his tongue, jaw clamping shut a second too late.

Jisung holds his breath, searching him — the rigid spine, the flickering breaths. He wants to resist. He is resisting, but the serum has scraped the word out of him all the same.

Yes.

He pushes up on his knees before he can think himself out of it, arms coming up around Minho and waiting, suspended in the air, for him to flinch away.

He doesn’t. His hands curl into frigid fists at his sides, breaths quickening, yet he remains idle, wrapped in that same waiting Jisung is ailed with.

His arms wrap around Minho’s shoulders, a blink and a breath. He’s too stiff, too ungiving. But his heart thunders against Jisung’s chest, and he understands.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

“So, on a scale of one to ten, how mad are you?”

Jisung sits, cross-legged, on the floor of their dorm, his back to his embroidered chest. A futile attempt to process all the improbable events that took place during the day. Alas, silence and solidarity have never been among the perks of their shared space.

“I’m not mad.” He says, eyes still closed, but his hands remain tightly clasped on his lap. “I’m confused on why you would do that to me.”

“He’s mad.” Changbin whispers, as though Jisung’s closed eyes somehow eradicate his hearing along with it.

Something heavy and malleable drops into his lap. Startled, his eyes fly open, only to land on a packet brimming with chocolate fudge, tied neatly with a pink ribbon.

He raises a brow. “Bribery.”

“A peace offering.” Changbin corrects, flopping onto the carpet across from him. Chan follows close behind, lowers himself down with a sigh. “Let us explain?”

He briskly tears off the ribbon that ties the mouth of his bribe and pops a piece in his mouth. It melts on his tongue, thick and rich. Damn good fudge. He’s got to give it to them. “Fine.”

“Seungmin threatened to hex all of us—”

“I wouldn’t say threaten.”

“No, he specifically told me he would make sure I would end up at Madame Poffrey’s—”

“He didn’t say that to me, Chan—”

“Well, you guys are romantically involved.”

“So, what?”

“So, he’s biased—”

“Maybe, but I don’t want to blame all this on him, it was half Minho’s idea—”

“It was Minho’s idea?” Jisung blurts, mouth stuffed full of fudge, jaw hanging open.

Both boys startle at the interruption of their bicker-off. Changbin scratches the back of his neck, sheepish. “Well, yes.”

“Seungmin and Minho came up with the idea together.” Chan quips, pointed as he glares at Changbin from the corner of his eye.

Jisung chews slowly, his full cheeks muffling the words as he states, pointing between them both, “And then Seungmin threatened you guys to stay back if I cried.”

Chan nods grimly. “Pretty much.”

“He had good intentions.” Changbin huffs. “I think Minho wanted to talk to you, but he’s so…”

“Emotionally constipated.” Jisung provides, nodding once. “I know.”

Chan studies him curiously, for a knowing beat. It makes his stomach clench. “Are you okay?”

“No. I think I’ve lost my mind a little.” He shrugs. The chance to digest, to let the pother of emotions burn through him, hasn’t yet appeared. He usually does that while sleeping. “But I’ll be fine.”

His hands fumble for another piece, and he chews quickly, almost angrily. Changbin leans over to nick a piece right off his lap. “You’ll figure things out.”

“It’s just — I don’t know where we stand, now.” He stares down at the bag like it’s a prophet. “I get that the whole spectacle was some form of apology.”

“Mhm.” Changbin hums through a mouthful. “I still think a letter would’ve sufficed.”

“Slytherin folk.” Chan snorts. “It had to be cryptic and frightening.”

Jisung lets out a cackle, shaking his head. It grates on his throat, sharp. “There’s still — I don’t know. What does he expect me to do, after all that?”

“You’ll… hang out?”

His eyes blow wide, indignant. “Does he hang out with anyone?”

“He exists as a gloomy spirit within someone’s vicinity.” Changbin deadpans. “That should count.”

“He’s not always gloomy.” He mutters, turning a piece in his palm until it starts to melt on his skin.

Changbin reaches into the bag once more. “I find that hard to visualize.”

Jisung nails him with a look. “You’re also eating all of my bribe.”

A sly, chocolate-covered grin is sent his way. “Peace offerings are merrier when shared.”

“Whatever.” Jisung grumbles. “I suppose I forgive you.”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

That night, he lays on the left side of the bed, curled into a thoughtful ball, his mind splayed out onto the ceiling. He watches the trains of thought pass by, flutter about, sink into place, dissipate and swiftly declutter itself, like one would watch a silent film. Blinks and blinks, hoping for sleep to put him out of his misery.

He cannot believe Minho went through all the trouble just to force himself to be honest with him. He cannot believe he is worth the trouble, let alone the implication that whatever he is to Minho means more than he’s let on.

His wrist throbs with the memory, as though reminded that the suffered injury is a veritable extension of reality. It’s wrapped in gauze and slathered in burn-cream beneath it – Chan’s unmistakable handiwork – yet he still cradles it to his chest like the sting is brand-new.

Slowly, he dozes off.

Wakes anew, with the image of his hex landing on Minho’s throat sharpening and blurring out of focus, a distant nightmare that feels freakishly real in the middle of the night. He flies up, the blanket pooled around him, wrist still pressed into himself from muscle memory alone.

There’s – huh. He blinks against the darkness like it’s a fog that could be dispersed. There is a back, next to him. The back of a man, curled into the right side of the bed. A back he could recognize blind.

“Minho?”

The figure doesn’t move. Jisung lets tentative fingertips graze the jutting bone of his shoulder. “Hey.”

A flinch, and Minho’s face appears over his shoulder, perplexed. “Huh?”

A disbelieving smile takes over his entire face, impossible to subdue. “What are you doing here?”

Minho sucks in a breath, rolls over with grave effort. His face is soft, swollen with interrupted sleep, hair sticking up horribly on one side. What a sight to behold.  

Flitting around in confusion, his eyes land on the gauze covering the worst of the singe, and stick. “I couldn’t sleep.” He croaks offhandedly, gaze glued to his wrist. He reaches for it. “Did I do that?”

“You didn’t mean to.” Jisung whispers, letting him cradle the gauze in his hands. Fingers trace over the shape of it, prod at the wound that peeks behind a loosened stretch of fabric.

“I meant to duel you.” Minho croaks, voice heavy, crackling from disuse. “I didn’t mean for this.”

“You didn’t have to drink the serum, Minho.” Jisung lets out, before he can think better of it. The words would eat him alive otherwise. “I would’ve listened, without the fight, without it all.”

Minho’s fingers circle around his wrist, hold him there. “Yes. But I wouldn’t have been able to speak.”

“You can say anything to me.” Jisung murmurs. Lays himself back down to face him, careful not to jostle their point of contact. “You’ve said a lot of things to me already. I don’t mind.”

Minho looks a sort of pained that’s merciless, hot as it clogs the throat. His voice is muddy, as though dipped in molasses. “You don’t deserve that.”

He shrugs, sporting a dimmed half-smile. “Then don’t do it again.”

“You’ve said that before. Told me to yell at the snitch.” Minho breathes out a humorless laugh. “I should’ve yelled at my parents, and again, I yelled at you.”

Jisung is loath to ask, but he’s never been known for holding his tongue. “What did they say, Minho?”

He sucks in a deep breath, blinking a few times in rapid succession. “That I’m distracting myself with the likes of you. Tainting the family legacy by neglecting my duties and affiliating with other houses. Mostly, your house.”

Jisung thinks about it, but it makes little sense. They have rarely conversed outside the bounds of this very bed, and he’s doubtful that Minho’s ever sauntered into the Gryffindor common room without any precautions in place. “How do they even know?”

“I’m supposed to take over my father’s seat.” He shrugs with one shoulder, a narrow twitch. “That’s no small duty. They have eyes. On me.”

Oh, well. That sends a cold shudder down his spine. He couldn’t even imagine… “Do they know you’re here, right now?”

Minho smiles, like one would to a child foreign to the innerworkings of the world. In a way, he is – not from an ancient, royal bloodline; no weight of responsibility on his shoulders except to perform slightly above average in classes. His father is a humble, muggle man. His mother is beyond compassionate. Far flung from the nuances that make up the entirety of Minho’s world.

“I don’t think so.” He says, smile intact. “One must adapt, under such circumstances. I have tools.”

“Tools?” Jisung mutters. His wrist is still trapped in Minho’s hand. The warmth where their skins are joined is distracting.

“Mhm. Perhaps, I might show you.” He whispers. “Later.”

In fact, that warmth, where Minho’s fingers skim the pale skin that stretches across the inside of his wrist, is notably potent. His wound burns. Minho tightens his grip and – fuck, the sting amplifies by the second, relentless and curdling—

“What are you…” Jisung hisses, arm tensing between them, his other hand rushing to cradle the hurt. “Minho—”

“It’s okay.” Minho shushes. “Just another second.”

The pain is blinding, for all of a moment. Jisung hears himself making a sound that is raw and embarrassing, right when it peaks and – that’s all. It recedes, quick as a breath, only the pulse that thrums from the exertion serving to insinuate it was ever there.

“That’s it.” Minho whispers, fingers loosening, instead working gently around the gauze to loosen it, then remove it entirely.

Jisung gasps. The wound – it’s – it’s gone. Not a blemish, not even a translucent scar remains. Just the empty surface of his skin, somehow restored to perfect health in the span of seconds.

“You…” He doesn’t even know which of the questions that summersault about his head to ask first. “Wandless magic?”

Minho looks him in the eye; at once, it feels monumental. “No one knows. No one can.”

Jisung fears he’ll break his neck with the force of his nod. “Of course.”

“There are few left in our bloodline who practice it.” He murmurs, one thumb sliding across the expanse he just healed. “They want me to be… more. More than extraordinary. Each mistake is an intolerable sin.”

“Minho…” He knows – he knows how hard it must be for Minho to give up a bucketload of personal information like it’s nothing. How precious his trust is, how heady Minho can get about the things he cares for. How fast he decides to run away at the first notice of his own vulnerability. “You’re not obligated to tell me everything right now. You’re allowed to pace yourself.”

“I know.” Minho grins, but it sits wrong. “I know, Jisung. But I wanted you to know.”

“Thank you.” He whispers. Anything else feels too loud, too much. “For trusting me.”

Minho nods, swallowing. Jisung is trained enough by now to recognize the signs of Minho bracing himself to let out yet another phrase from the depths of his forsaken mind. There is naught to do but wait for him to be present again.

“You are the sin.” Minho says, at last. “That makes me want to defy them. I thought I was happy – taking what is given to me. You make me want to refuse.”

Jisung exhales, sharp, face pinching up. “I can never ask you to do that.”

“You don’t have to.” Minho sighs, and it’s a hefty gesture, a regretful afterthought. “I don’t deserve you in my life.”

Jisung blanches. “What?”

“You’re so – forgiving. Eager to trust. Joyful. Like nothing could tamper it.” His gaze flits away, irked, to the ceiling he loves dearly to study. “Yet again, I’ve managed the impossible. I’ve dimmed that joy of yours.”

“No. No—"

“Seeing you like that today – hurt, crying.” He swallows around a breath, eyes welling up with – with tears. “Jisung. I can’t.”

It’s not happening. Whatever Minho’s about to say – that he can’t be in his life, that he can’t risk putting him through that again. He’s aware, that they’ve had a mere number of interactions, that what they have could very easily be fleeting, if given the chance to fade into the void. It’s just that he doesn’t want it to. It’s just that whatever threatens to bloom through the cracks of their reluctant concrete, whatever threatens to merge; it can’t be lost. 

“Can’t what?” He hisses, too loud for the quiet comfort of their conversation. He sits up, glaring down at Minho, and meaning it. “Can’t hurt me again?”

Minho grimaces, weary as he pushes himself up, as well, “Yes—”

“Well, guess what? You’ll hurt me more if you finish what you were just about to say.”

“Jisung—”

“No.” He snaps. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to decide what I deserve.”

Minho stares at him. Just – looks, like he’s already decided, like he’s committing the dips and planes of his face to memory. “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck, Minho, you don’t get to do this to me!” Jisung cries, tears of his own sprinting forth alarmingly fast. “You don’t get to pull off the stunt you did today, then show up here like you want to fix things, only to cast me aside saying you just can’t.”

Minho gulps, a lone tear slipping past his cheek. He looks so disheveled that it hurts to look at. “I never meant for this to happen.”

“It did fucking happen, Minho!” Jisung doesn’t even attempt to muffle the sob that rips out of him. “You can’t – you can’t do this to me.”

“That’s why I can’t stay.” Minho inhales a shuddering thing, hand coming up to cradle his cheek. His thumb catches a stray tear, then two. “Look at you. I’m already hurting you.”

Jisung sobs, unable to help the way he pushes his face into the warm palm, despite it all. His voice cracks desperately. “You’re choosing to.”

“I know.” Minho whispers. “Just the once.”

“Please—”

“You’ll be alright.” His fingers slip, catching on his jaw, then his chin. Jisung scrambles to get a hold before they leave his face entirely.

“Minho.” He chokes. Breathing is a foe, so is coherent sentences. There is just the name, uttered through the tears like a prayer, like a plea. “Minho—”

“You are wonderful, Jisung.” Minho heaves. “You are – you were a breath of fresh air. Thank you for that.”

“No,” He’s hyperventilating. No matter how hard he holds on, Minho’s hand slips free from his grip. “Fuck, you idiot! You can’t – please, you can’t—”

It’s… a feverish dream, the way Minho walks out of his life. One second, he’s sat on his bed, cradling his face, shedding tear after tear; another, and he’s gone. Slithered into the shadows.

Jisung scrambles out of his bed so frantically that he drags the covers out with him. It’s been mere seconds.

And yet, he’s gone.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Months. April to May is a jarring blur – by the end of April, Minho has already boarded the first train out of the grounds. When he asks, Seungmin is a bumbling mess, saying that a family emergency has forced him to take his final exams from home.

June comes bearing disaster.

The day Chan graduates, Jisung claps until his hands turn red and angry. He watches his hyung bow at the podium, diploma held proud to his chest, dimples deep and happy as the hall roars with the force of a million cheers. He is loved by many – satisfied teachers, pleasant acquaintances, well-built friendships – a gem, the deafening commotion a testimony to his character.

It is joy, and it is pride, that clenches in Jisung’s chest like a coil meant to strangle, and it is grief. He grins through the ceremony, even poses for many photos in front of the fountain afterwards. He wraps his arms around Chan’s broad frame and squeezes until the boy begs him for mercy.

He helps him clear out his things from their dorm. Changbin and him have a grandiose sleepover for the last time in Chan’s bed, talking about everything and nothing until the ass crack of dawn and eating enough snacks to feed a family for a fortnight. He sneaks a ribboned bag of chocolate fudge in his bag for the journey home – and the moment the train carries Chan away, something in him collapses.

Home is supposed to help. Yet, no matter how adamantly he stuffs himself full of his mum’s cooking, no matter how many roadtrips he embarks on with his sister, that emptiness runs him clean over, every single night that he cries himself to sleep.

He engrosses himself in video games, the vast repetition of it, until his eyes sting and the world blurs between an animated realm and the real thing. Him and his sister dance through the kitchen in the afternoons, flipping pancakes for dinner and listening to the crackling tune of a muggle radio. It feels as though she can recognize the gaunt shape of his sternum, the blood that still trickles – they all do. No one mentions the chunk taken out of his very being. No one dares to prod an infected wound.

You’ll be alright. The words echo through him at the worst of times. Jisung curses him in his head: curses his absence, curses that they’d gotten to know one another in the first place. Thinks of those hands, smaller than his own, yet stronger. Thinks of his eyes, sharp, diluted; his nose, his mouth. Soft. Unkissed. Thinks, sometimes, in the middle of the night, that he should’ve pressed a frenzied kiss to his mouth, just because. Just to have known what it’s like, sacred in its singularity.

Thinks of Chan, too – a sweeter ache. Chan is an approachable point of hurt. He writes him letters, gets a few in return, even visits his family home for a few joyous nights. He can recognize that not all is lost, on better days – that even though his physical presence will remain less frequent, Chan will never stop being an integral part of his life.

On a particularly rainy night, he thinks of that morning. Where Minho had just been his unadulterated self, no inhibitions, too excited for destructive self-preservation. The way he’d grinned, bouts of pealing laughter spilling from his lips. The way he’d touched his cheek, his waist, a map of places that have known the feel of his hand. Lost in thought, he doesn’t notice the Patronus he’s conjured up until the sniffling creature chews at the sleeve of his sweater, glowing a devastatingly pure white. A miniature squirrel, flickering in and out of life. It runs out the window before Jisung even realizes what’s happened – but he has an inkling as to where it may have run off to.

From that day on, he writes Minho letters, too. Short strips of paper that carry the feelings he cannot put anywhere else, that have to be let out lest they drown him. It starts off simple. I miss you. Another day, it’s more concise. Idiot. On a particularly rainy day, he scribbles unto a napkin during dinner: Why come back at all, if you wanted to run away? Why tell me all those things?

He sticks them between the pages of the notebook he scrawls his lyrics into. A few renditions of his name scatter across the pages, all in different handwriting. They are not lyrics, but they are compelled onto paper all the same.

By the time July crawls to an end, Changbin has taken to a recurring habit that involves kidnapping Jisung and bringing him various places: first, the Three Broomsticks, then an adventure park a few hours outside of their hometown, butterbeer ice-cream, broom shopping, even a national Quidditch game. He whines endlessly about how he just can’t see a movie alone, how much he needs someone to brainstorm with, until Jisung caves with a scoff and a roll of his eyes. 

Chan and Felix tag along to some of their fruitless pursuits. Seungmin does, too. Each time, he gets over his unconscious inclination to give Jisung a wide berth after a few hours of exposure, but it never stings any less. Especially when he’s a few drinks too deep and forgets to forgo the presence of Minho in whatever story he’s drunkenly retelling. Just the glimpses – snippets of a summer that’re uttered carelessly. It’s enough to twist a knife that’s long been pulled out of its nest.

September falls upon him like a particularly unpleasant prophecy. He packs his trunk, unpacks it, packs it again – unsure whether he should leave behind the silver-and-green scarf that’s tucked into the bottom of it, or try to return it to its owner at some point. Huffing, he pulls it out from beneath layers of clothing. Presses his nose to it – apple, vanilla, Minho.

He cries harder than he means to.

The scarf is shoved back to the bottom of the trunk the next morning. Jisung begins counting the days, dreading the approach of his return. He cannot decide which is worse: seeing Minho going about his day after months of silence, or seeing that he’s chosen not to return at all.

Despite his diffidence, the days are snuffed out with haste. A sense of routine tames him to quiet content. After all, the night before his return to Hogwarts always unfurls the exact same way. There is comfort in lax ritual.

Jisung places his trunk beside the front door, then piles all his outerwear on top of it; otherwise, he’ll forget, and his mum will have to go through the trouble of shipping it to him because God forbid Jisung goes without his scarf for a day. Although, he does tend to get the worst case of sniffles known to man, if left unattended.

Alas. His mum cooks them a hearty dinner, serves strawberry cheesecake for dessert. Him and his sister stuff themselves full of the thing until their bellies ache and they become a heap of collapsed bones on the couch. His mum then makes them chamomile tea, settles coyly between them until both their heads gravitate onto her lap, and lulls them to sleep with the magical recipe that is a good deal of Head Scratches.

He lets himself drift away, and for the first time in months, doesn’t let himself think about Lee Minho.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

On the first week of his seventh year, Jisung catches the worst case of the flu that he’s experienced in his life.

Him and Changbin have been assigned conjoined chambers, gracious to their various letters of pleading sent to their House Prefect over the summer. It’s a mercy, the little bathroom that joins their space, and a curse – Changbin is spending his weekend sprawled on patches of grass with Seungmin in his lap, which – freedom of choice. He’s learning to deal with it.

But it doesn’t help that Jisung wakes up Sunday morning with his throat scratched raw and a nasty fever melting him into the mattress, and when he manages to locate his vocal cords to shout out the emergency to his pseudo-roommate, he’s only met with ringing silence.

Changbin is probably halfway to Hogsmeade by now, sat on a coverlet deep within the forest and dropping strawberries into his boyfriend’s mouth. How convenient and achingly sweet.

He spends the day delirious with the blistering heat that has accursed him, utilizing what little energy he has to toss and turn and cast a few hydration spells. He’s slipped into a patchy slumber by the time his roommate returns, unaware of his predicament.

The castle air is damp, their windows drafty. He doesn’t stand a chance – by the time the sun has risen and fallen again, he’s missed a whole day of classes, completely unable to gauge time. His nose is congested, the fever steady and cruel, a heinous headache has begun assaulting the left side of his skull, and he can barely strain his neck enough to lift his head an inch off the pillow.

It must be night, for there is no light. A vague movement in his periphery startles him out of an open-eyed slumber – then a cloth, damp and cool, pressed onto his forehead. Thank Merlin, his mind provides, then retreats into the cocoon it’s been hibernating in.

Gentle hands tuck the covers tight around him, then glide into his hair. A low voice, a familiar cadence, an unintelligible charm muttered, then relief.

“Changbin?” He croaks, coughing with the abrupt use of his voice, lips dry.

The hand on his hair stills.

Jisung is too weak to force his eyes back open, but suddenly, suddenly, he knows. Despite the desolate state of his nose, he would know the faint trickle of that scent anywhere. “Minho?”

A beat. Silent.

Then, almost with distaste: “It’s Changbin.”

“Huh.” Jisung chokes out, confused. Whoever it is, it claims to be Changbin, but sounds and smells like Minho – who hasn’t yet returned to Hogwarts. Who is far away, distant and unreachable. Impossible. Merlin, the fever is making him imagine things.

“Oh.” He breathes out, lucidity beginning to glide away with every exhale. His voice feels far-out, drowned. “Sorry, mate.”

He thinks he sleeps, after that. Perhaps dreams of a pitch-black sky that shifts with the rushing of his blood. Perhaps, he passes out. It’s hard to tell for sure.

He only knows that – minutes, or possibly hours later – he’s awakened quite rudely for someone unfortunate enough to have landed in his state.

“Jisung, oh my God.”

“Hm?”

There are hands on his shoulders. Light pours through the gap in the thickened curtains, sharp and needling. Jisung groans, shielding his eyes with a fist. “What… day is it?”

“Monday. Merlin, you’re out of it.” Changbin grits, slipping deft hands beneath his shoulder blades to haul him upright. Presses a rough, cold palm to the side of his neck. “Burning up, too. You dimwit. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Eyes squeezed shut, Jisung sways, leaning into the hold. “Monday’s over, silly.” He mumbles, head lulling to the side. “’S morning now.”

“That’s the lamp.” Changbin replies, flat, nudging his head back up. “How long have you been like this?”

The lids of his eyes flutter until they feel ready enough to be peeled open. “Sunday morning?”

Changbin sucks in a gasp. “I’m calling Madame Pomfrey.” He mutters, face pinching in what appears to be concern. He trudges over to the fireplace, fist already plunged in a sack of floo powder. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, you know?”

Unanchored now by Changbin’s – strong, muscly – arms, Jisung flops back onto the mattress like a ragdoll. “Why?”

“’Cause you disappeared, Sung!” Changbin tosses a palmful into the opening, and proceeds to send the upper half of his body through the greenish fire that ensues. Jisung cannot hear what is being said, so he lets his eyes slip shut once more.

Changbin emerges a moment later, dusting excess powder off his hair. “Turns out, you’ve been in the one place I assumed you wouldn’t be hiding. Buried in your bed. Obviously.”

“You found me, though.” Jisung mumbles, one elbow coming up to shield his face from the blinding lamplight. “Last night… no. Few hours ago?”

“No.” Changbin stands, approaches the bed carefully. “I found you just now.”

Jisung blindly paws beneath his pillow until his fingers skim the cloth previously placed on his forehead. He holds it out without sparing it a glance, arm spasming with the effort. “Liar. You put this on my head.”

“No, I didn’t.”

His arm flops back down inelegantly, bouncing with the force. He whines, low in his throat. “No messing around when I’m sick, hyung.”

“I didn’t put this water here, either.” Changbin mutters, likely to himself, closer now. The mattress dips beside him. “Jisung, was someone here?”

“Yes. You.” Jisung huffs. Curls onto his side, forcing his head into the man’s lap. “Didn’t smell like you, though.”

“Didn’t smell like me?”

“Pats.” Jisung grunts, wiggling his head until he hears Changbin sigh out an exasperated breath, until one of his hands come up to graze his scalp. He sighs then, settles. “Hm. Smelt like Minho.”

He doesn’t know what he expects – but it’s not complete, chilling silence. Changbin’s wrist stutters through a comb, body locking up.

Before he can harness enough brainpower the question the odd reaction, Madame Pomfrey comes barging through the door, frantic and maternal in her endless concern. Jisung forgets of the matter almost immediately.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

He’s convinced that he’s dreamt the whole thing, that it was a fever-and-desperation induced fantasy his mind willfully conjured up — at first.

He gets better in the coming week, though the cold is slow to extract fully from its hive. Questionable things happen, during this time.

Firstly, after a particularly rough evening with coughing fits scattered over all hours of the night, he wakes up to an extra blanket draped over him, and a sweating glass of water on his nightstand. Bleary, he presumes it to be Changbin’s doing, momentarily feels bad for disturbing his friend’s rest with this cursed sickness, but eventually thinks no more of it.

Then, a candy bar. Materialized on his desk, seemingly out of nowhere. He unwraps it carefully, chews on it thoughtfully, staring at a page full of strenuous coursework and registering nothing.

After that, a dried daisy under his pillow that he definitely did not put there. It zaps him upon touch. Bewildered, he runs a quick set of diagnostics on it — charmed to ward off sporadic night terrors. Strange, for he’s only had a couple, at best, since his arrival. Changbin knows nothing of them, and even Jisung often forgets of their existence come morning.

A particularly strong silencing charm around the borders of his bed, muffling even the howl of wind. Bizarre plants showing up in drawers; twigs of wolfsbane, a sprout of dittany. Sweet treats he finds in his bag, or the pockets of his clothes. The list goes on.

The thought of entertaining the idea strikes him as... shameful. He knows Minho is back — he’s seen him at the Great Hall, at the back rows of the Potions classroom. For the most part, he appears unchanged: perpetually displeased with his surroundings, glowering at nothing in particular. Even during meals, he seems subdued, preserved.

But it cannot be him. These senseless gestures are not amongst Minho’s diligent catalogue of pre-approved actions — for he needs one. Jisung has scarcely seen him react in a way he hasn’t planned meticulously beforehand. Even during his own interactions with him. In fact, especially then.

He doubts Minho would go through the trouble of sneaking his way into the Gryffindor dorms just to leave him little trinkets of tact. He cannot place why he would want to.

Safe to say, mind sprinting miles into unproductive thoughts and his lingering coughs creating elongated series of sleepless nights, Jisung finds himself dozing off in class, harshly awakened by the professor’s disappointed remarks, more often than not.

“Han Jisung, for the third time…” Madame Kliman muses, tutting as she passes by his table. Jisung comes to with a startle. “See me after class.”

Wonderful. Not only is he exponentially behind on coursework, but his professors have begun retracting points from his participation as well.

“Is something the matter, darling?” She asks, when Jisung lingers by her table on his way out. “I’ve never seen you like this, before.”

“I’ve a terrible cold, Madame.” He replies, mouth pursed, swaying on the balls of his feet. “I apologize. I can’t sleep very well.”

She nods with sympathy, pats gently at his back. “That’s quite alright, Jisung. I hope you get well, soon.”

“Thank you, Madame.” He bows.

She hums, moving behind her desk. “If you need, I can ask Lee Minho to help you catch up with your work. He’s one of my top students.”

It’s as though a glass of ice-water has just been splashed on his face. “Oh, no, that’s not necessary. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Are you certain? He’s very clever – you might benefit from it.”

“Yes, yes.” He rushes, hands tingling with the surge of fright. “I’d rather do it myself.”

“Very well then.” She surmises, turning back to the papers on her desk.

Jisung bows once more for good measure, then flees the scene.

When he manages to get back to his room, a pulsing creature of a headache has already tackled him midway, shredded the front of his skull as though thinly produced lemon zest. It’s heinous and it’s awful, is what it is. He shuts every curtain, lays flat on his back atop the wool carpeting, and starts counting every blink, waiting for the worst of the pain to recede.

He doesn’t realize he’s dozed off until Changbin’s return flinches him awake, mindlessly slamming cupboards in their bathroom. He pokes his head into Jisung’s room, takes one look at the state of him on the carpet, then walks in with a heaved sigh.

“You okay, Sung?”

“Killer headache.” Jisung groans, then pauses. Touches a palm to his forehead. Said headache is, somehow, completely evaporated. “Huh. That was fast.”

“It’s better?”

“Yeah.” Pushing himself up, he takes the hand Changbin extends him. He’s surprisingly springy, all of a sudden. “Perfect timing, too. I’ve a shit ton of homework.”

“Oh, Merlin.” Changbin grins, though the subject at hand does not warrant it. “Same. Want to study in the yard?”

Jisung shrugs – he could use some fresh air. “Sure.”

They carry a bucketload of textbooks and papers out onto the yard. It’s not easy work, and Jisung half-expects his headache return with a vengeance – fortunately, it never comes. They settle on a conjured blanket, lay out a few packets of work snacks. A comfortable silence ensues as they both engross themselves in their respective reading assignments. It’s during that dear silence, as his fingers skim the pages in search of where he should start, that he sees.

All of his previously missed assignments have been marked with a blood-red quill. Questions circled; relevant paragraphs underlined. Even some pages that he’s scribbled nonsensical answers into have been revised – a slanted, twirling handwriting that corrects the accuracy of his sentences and proposes new perspectives.

It’s like he’s stuck in a haunting. He knows this cannot be Changbin, nor anyone else – that is unless he doesn’t have a particularly benevolent stalker. It has to be… it has to. There’s no other explanation as to why his heart is jackrabbiting beneath its constraints, why all of it is so tender beyond anything he’s ever known.

He knows it’s Minho. It’s just that the merciful side of the truth is kept from him – the certainty. He’s denied proof. Even if he pretends to grasp the concept of why, he cannot ascertain how. How Minho manages to enter his room so many times without his knowing. How he chooses the exact moment to strike without being seen.

“Have you seen Minho around?” He blurts, abruptly.

Frozen, his friend lifts his gaze slowly off his book. “Um. Not really, no.”

“I don’t suppose it was you who did this to my work, then.” He quips, turning the textbook over to reveal the red ink ornamenting the pages.

Changbin’s eyes widen, then dim exasperatedly. He grumbles under his breath, “Dimwit.”

Jisung cannot find it within himself to be surprised, at this rate. He’s just so tired. “So, you know.”

“I truly haven’t seen him around.” Changbin rushes to clarify, “It’s just – Seungmin told me. What he’s been up to.”

Jisung sags. Of course, his renowned best friend and roommate knows about the whole scheme and has chosen to conspire, yet again. “And you never thought to mention it to me?”

“Honestly, Sung,” He says, letting his book fall closed and sweeping it aside, “I thought it’d be better if you didn’t know. You’re messed up already. And he’s confusing things even more.”

Huh. He doesn’t know which is worse, Changbin not wanting him to know, or Changbin thinking he wouldn’t notice. “Do you truly think I’m stupid?”

“No!” He denies, arms flailing about in his haste. “You’re far too clever for this, actually. That’s why I told Seungmin to tell Minho to keep it as downlow as possible.”

Jisung scoffs, pointedly staring down at the marked pages.

Changbin does, too. “But the twat has apparently decided to do your coursework for you, so. Guess he didn’t even try.”

Jisung shrugs, quieter now. “I don’t understand.”

“Sung.” Changbin begins, catching his eye, adjusting to face him fully. “I don’t pretend to understand why Minho does the things he did, but – he cares. He certainly doesn’t know how to show it, but he cares.”

“Wish he cared enough to talk to me.”

“He cares enough to be terrified of talking to you.”

“I don’t think I’m that terrifying, Changbin.” He deadpans, gesturing at his slouched state. Pitiful, would be a more accurate adjective.

“Well, not to me.” Changbin grins, that endearing, wretched grin that always takes over his entire face and refuses to let Jisung stay mad at him for more than five minutes. Hands come up to pinch at his cheeks. “Personally, I think you’re very cute when you’re mad.”

He swats at the prodding hands, and despite his best efforts, a reluctant smile fights a brave battle to curve his mouth up. “Don’t touch me. I’m mad at you.”

Changbin shrugs, pats at his arm instead. “That’s okay. I’ll buy you a butterbeer after we finish here. And cheesy fries.”

Jisung points an accusing finger, laughing in earnest, now. “You can’t just buy me food whenever you go behind my back.”

“Can’t I?” His eyes blow wide, coltishly innocent. “I don’t see you complaining?”

“I want that fudge again, too.” Jisung informs him, picking his textbook back up.

“Done.”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

It happens two weeks later.

Jisung has been patient. So has Minho. Changbin must have skipped over the part where Jisung figures out the whole thing, for the eerie appearings do not falter, but remain a steady pattern Jisung slowly gets accustomed to.

In the meantime, he lets himself breathe. Think. Study. He writes at least three separate letters to Chan, furious scribblings of his innermost doubts, but sends only one. Tries to keep it jovial, less like he’s completely spiraling without the gentle guidance and reassurance of a graduated best friend. It wouldn’t do to make Chan feel guilty for something as mundane as life passing by.

He decides to socialize his woes away. It’s mostly a success. When the library table has enough of bony elbows digging violently onto its surface, he spares it the torture and spends his evenings huddled in Hyunjin’s bed, along with Jeongin and Felix, drinking wine and gossiping late into the night.

“A peculiar man.” Hyunjin comments, idly twirling the emptied wine glass. “Oddly romantic, don’t you think?”

“Just odd.” Jeongin snorts. He’s got his head in Felix’s lap, legs propped up against the wall. “Bet he’s sulking ‘cause he couldn’t watch you sleep tonight.”

“Oh my God.” Jisung chokes on his sip, more than a little drunk by now. “You can’t just say that!”

Jeongin makes a face. “If he can do it, I think I’m allowed to voice it.”

“I still think it’s sweet that he’s willing to lose so much sleep for such little reward.” Hyunjin muses, then promptly flops his face down onto Jeongin’s belly.

“Oof.”

Felix yawns, one hand absentmindedly carding through the mop of hair nestled in his lap. “It’s, like, four. You think he’s stopped by?”

For some reason, the thought alone – of Minho’s puzzled frown upon finding his bed vacant – makes him giggle into his palm. “I don’t know!”

“You should catch him in the act!” Jeongin springs up, jostling both Hyunjin’s neck and Felix’s arm as he goes. “Stay up all night, and just jump out of bed when he comes.”

Felix chortles. “You make him sound like a sleep paralysis demon.”

He gets an impish grin in return. “Semantics.”

Meanwhile, Jisung physically feels the idea take root in his brain. It wouldn’t even look deliberate – he can always claim that whatever Minho intended to do had been loud enough to wake him. Most importantly, it would work.

“And then you can tell us exactly what his face does when you catch him.” Jeongin adds, clapping his hands together in a way that feels more devilish than excited. “In vivid detail.”

Well. Hopefully.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

The following night, he lies in wait, breathing in the scent of dust and shadows. It’s so late, and he’s so sleepy – but the prospect of seeing Minho, of looking him in the eye… He perseveres.

It takes so long that by the time it hits right past three, he considers giving up altogether. Sleep beckons like a familiar respite, looming right beneath the sockets of his eyes.

Just then — at last. The small creak of a door cracking open. Then closed.

At once, Jisung feels an animalistic sort of stillness wash over him, like prey playing dead. He wants Minho to get as far away from the door as possible before he makes a move.

The sound of glass tapping against wood travels across the room. The faint scrape of his drawer opening, then sliding back in.

He flings himself out through the curtains before his mind can catch up with the rashness of his body.

And — there’s no one there. Just the vast shadows of furniture laid on the walls.

For a moment, he reels – could he have imagined the noise? No. No, he didn’t. His door hasn’t creaked again, either, so the intruder must still be somewhere inside the room. After all, Minho does have fast reflexes – he’s a Seeker, for Merlin’s sake.

He means to call out, to say, Minho, you can come out now – but the words catch in his throat. In the deadly silence that has befallen upon the room, he dares not breathe.

Only then. Only when he holds his breath, does he register that someone else is breathing, as well. Not in hiding. Not coveted in a corner, or under the bed. Breathing in the middle of his room, sound reaching high enough for him to be standing on full height.

Invisible.

Many things start making sense, all at once.

“Minho.” He breathes, stepping forward. His hand reaches out to where he thinks Minho could be standing, and sure enough, it lands on… fabric. Harsher than clothing, thicker. A cloak.

He yanks without thinking. As the cloak slips, parts of Minho appear, gradually, sharpening like an image. Like a knife.

He’s blanched. It’s hard to tell, in the dark, but the moonlight catches on the whites of his eyes, blown wide. His mouth, that mouth, is parted around words that have not yet formed.

Jisung holds the cloak out, watching the way it ripples, skims the floor. “Tools, huh?”

“Jisung—”

“Only you would possess an invisibility cloak and use it for something this irrelevant.” He arches a brow. “Hello.”

Minho gapes at him, hands twitching at his sides.

“And, he won’t speak. Riveting.” He huffs, shoving the cloak back into his chest. Minho’s hands come up to cradle it, instinct. His befuddled gaze never leaves Jisung’s face. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Jisung…” Minho manages to croak. Nothing else seems to make it out.

“Alright. I’ll guess. You’re – surprised? That’s understandable; I was, too.” He quips, then frowns, tilting his head. “Ashamed? Why, Minho, for bringing me a glass of water? I would dare say it’s a very noble pursuit, what you’re doing here.”

Minho’s jaw clamps shut. Slackens. Clenches once more.

Jisung levels him with a narrow of his eyes, folds his arms across his chest. Sizes him up. “I can see that you’re disinclined towards conversation. Understandable, again, for it is the middle of the night.”

When no retaliation rises, he grits his teeth, growing more agitated by the second. “You must be tired. I am, too. I’m so tired of you constructing these elaborate schemes instead of talking to me like a normal person.”

That seems to wake Minho up. “I – I didn’t think you would want to.”

“What, talk?” He smiles, but it twists at odd angles. Sits wrong. “You’re right, actually. I would sort of prefer screaming.”

A gulp, interwoven with a hasty nod. “You can.”

Jisung stares him down for a few moments. It’s hard to hold onto his anger, when faced with the devastating sight before him. “I won’t.” He states, flat. “Because it’s late, and I’m tired.”

This time, the nod dims in fervor. Minho’s gaze flits to the ground, defeated. “I understand.”

Jisung hasn’t even chewed him out to his full potential, yet. But the way he’s already turning to leave, not wanting to keep Jisung up, to inconvenience him further, tugs at his heartstrings harsher than any degree of fury could.

“Wait.” He breathes.

Minho stops dead in his tracks.

“Stay.”

For a second, none of them move. Minho looks as though he’s caught in a beartrap, utterly still, breath stuttering as though one exhale too loud will jostle his body apart. He stands, half-turned away, cloak cradled to his chest like a lifeline, and he says nothing.

It peeves Jisung more than any taunt, any refusal would. The obvious state of his wanting, and the relentless effort to thwart that want into silence.

“I’m not going to ask you twice.” He grits, frowning. Vexed. “One-time offer, if you dare.”

Minho gulps in a large sum of air. Finally, finally moves. He crosses the room in stiff, curt strides, and perches himself on the foot of the bed, cloak bundled in his lap. He looks like he’s waiting for Jisung to revoke the offer, to laugh at him – a grimace brewing just beneath the surface.

Jisung watches him, the decadent beauty of him – stiff-backed, uncertain, placid, breathtaking.

He sighs. Just – the mere presence of this man is enough to give him the most staggering whiplash. “Hey. You don’t sit on a bed; you lie in it.”

He crawls under the covers, sharp and deliberate. Lifts one side of the duvet, holds it up, raises an unimpressed brow.

Minho returns to his side of the bed hesitantly, heavily, unhurriedly. He stretches out under the covers, a reluctant reintroduction. The way he lays flat on his back, rigid, unblinking as he frowns at the stained ceiling, reminds him too much of the first ever time they did this.

“Gosh, you’re impossible.” Jisung sighs, turning to him. “Relax.”

In a blink, Minho is sitting up, swiveling to him with breakneck speed. Eyes too wide, too dark.  “Why don’t you hate me?”

Dumbfounded, Jisung blinks up at him. “Why would I hate you?”

“I was so cruel to you.” He chokes, crackling, louder than intended. An agitated hand runs through his mussed hair. “I – I hurt you.”

Jisung studies him, for a leisurely moment.

“You were hurt, too.” He lifts himself with difficulty, staring straight at him. He has no patience left to hum and haw, anymore. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m pissed. And we’ll have a conversation in the morning. I’m going to drag you through several layers of hell.”

Minho nods, as though that’s what he’s been waiting to hear. For a moment Jisung thinks he almost laughs, but all that comes out is a quivering, “Okay.”

“Glad we’re on the same page, then.” He hums, wraps a hand around the curve of Minho’s shoulder, then promptly pushes him right back down onto the bed.

“What are—” Minho cuts himself off with a sharp exhale, mouth parting in surprise, when Jisung wordlessly maneuvers him so that he can settle his head on his bicep.

He curls into Minho’s side, cheek resting on his shoulder, hand laid haphazardly on his sternum. It moves along with every staccato breath that Minho releases.

“I’m tired,” He mumbles, once more, lower. “I’ll be angry again in the morning.”

For one night. Just the one – he doesn’t want to be strong. Doesn’t want to pick fights, or hold grudges, or process big emotions over and over, when he would just rather do this. He wants to let himself have this, now, and banish the oncoming battles into a different day. When there is more light to coax him awake, when his limbs don’t ache with impertinence, with exhaustion, with the need to be wrapped around Minho.

Minho lies frozen beneath him, wary from whichever plethora of thoughts that must flutter about in his head. Tonight, Jisung doesn’t care to know. He only knows the way Minho’s hand hovers, hesitant, then falls. Rests, featherlight, on the dip of his back.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

He wakes with the fleeing caress of filtered light through curtains that have been propped open.

He squirms the remnants of sleep away, nose pressed into a wool shirt, the muted rise and fall of a chest still beneath his cheek. For a blessed, drowsy moment, everything is alright. It’s just Jisung, molded into Minho’s side without an inch of space left vacant, and Minho’s hand that must’ve gotten lost in the night, for it rests, heavy and warm, at the crook of his waist.

It’s blissful. Calm. Drenched with a syrupy desire to remain entangled for as long as the morning will allow.

Wishful thinking. Jisung made a promise, after all, pertaining to the morning itself. That he’d be angry. That a conversation – one that he’s been dreading for a considerable while – would take place at last.

He shifts away – only a few inches, but enough to convey the deliberation of the distance. Minho’s palm slides off his waist, a cold chill rushing in its wake, and retreats into itself.

“Morning.” Minho says, hoarse with disuse. He remains impossibly still, merely watches Jisung’s movements from beneath a monster of a bedhead, bleary and careful.

Jisung runs a palm down his face, lets out a dry laugh. “Morning? Is that what we’re starting with?”

Minho blinks at him once. Twice. “Would you prefer I sneak out before you wake?”

“No.” He bites out, deciding to take the rhetorical at face value. “No more running.”

The air between them tightens like a metal cord. Sensing the shift in tension, Minho props himself up on his elbows, bracing for impact. “Okay.”

He would rather do anything but this, in all honesty. As it so happens, his waning self-preservation serves only to propel him forth with the fervor of a dying flame. “I meant what I said last night.”

“I know.”

“I’m pissed.” He truly sits up, now, cross-legged and facing the man before him. “You can’t just crawl into my room at night, tuck me in like – like I’m some child, pretend like it’s nothing when the sun comes up, and expect me to be okay with that.”

Minho twitches at that. “I wasn’t pretending.”

“What did you think it was, then? Favors?”

“I simply,” Minho begins, hesitates, gives in with a sigh, “I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“So, you played the role of a considerate poltergeist.” Jisung deadpans. “You have been pretending, Minho. For months. Pretending you don’t care, that you weren’t here when you were.”

A muscle ticks in Minho’s jaw. “Would you like me to leave?”

Jisung throws his hands up, temper flaring. “My God, Minho, stop trying to make this about what I want, what I deserve. What do you want? Why are you even here?”

Absolute, ear-shattering silence. Minho’s knuckles have gone white where they’re clutching his poor blanket into oblivion.

Jisung’s voice cracks wetly as the fight begins draining out of him. “It can’t go on like this – this hot and cold. Choosing to be here when it’s convenient, disappearing when it’s not. I’m not a practice dummy for emotions you don’t want to deal with.”

That hits somewhere Jisung has most definitely intended to hit. Minho’s finally finds his voice, scrapes it out, low and brittle. “You think this is convenient for me?”

“Isn’t it?” Jisung stares, palms laid out on his sides. “The serum, the cloak – you always get to control when and how I see you.”

For the first time, Minho raises his voice.

“You think I like controlling it? You think I don’t lie awake at night wishing that I hadn’t shut you out?” His chest is heaving, eyes wild. “I lost that duel deliberately, Jisung. I wanted you to force me to say it, because I couldn’t get myself to – I can’t – I’ve tried to let you in against my better judgement, and it scared me half to death.”

“Against your better judgement, huh?” Jisung repeats, mouth stretching into a self-depreciating thing.

“Yes, but not because you don’t deserve every ounce of my trust.” Minho leans forward, grapples at the pursed hands in his lap, speaking faster than Jisung has ever heard him. “Because – I lash out. You happened to be the nearest. You didn’t deserve it, but you stayed. You – you still stay, and I don’t know why.”

Jisung tugs his hands free from his strangling grip, throat clogged tight. “My staying is not forgiveness.”

“It’s not.” Minho whispers, stunned by the denial of touch. He folds his knees up to his chest, looking so thoroughly dejected, so compact – so much like a young boy who’s never been given the chance to know true connection. Despite it all, he sucks in a breath, and soldiers on. “You said you would drag me through hell. I’ll go. I’ll take everything you choose to throw at me, Jisung.”

That. That does him in.

“You were selfish.” Jisung chokes out, scarcely audible.

The answer is immediate, slicing in its readiness, spoken like a prayer. “Yes.”

“You didn’t even bother to take my opinion into account before deciding something that affects the both of us.”

“Yes.”

“You—” He gasps, tears forming faster than he can finish a thought. “Fuck—”

Minho sways forward, an afterthought, as though a man lured. One of his hands come up to press into Jisung’s cheek a tear that has brazenly escaped. His thumb smears it across the skin, revering.

“Minho.” Jisung breathes, wet as it tumbles out like a sacred admission. “I have to know you won’t run out again.”

“I won’t.” Minho whispers, eyes glimmering. “If you’ll have me.”

Jisung shakes his head, many more soundless tears dripping loose. In a second of doubt prone to one who has been tricked by these same hands before, resolves to throw Minho’s question right back at him. A taste of his own medicine. “Why?”

Minho tilts his head in questioning, brows upturned. Eager. Six months ago, he had decided no amount of Jisung’s distraught begging could persuade him to stay. Today, he sits on his bed again, reaches for his hands again, reveals again. Jisung has to know why this grace is now promised not be ripped from his hands in such an assured manner.

He sniffles. “Why did you change your mind?”

Minho takes a moment to formulate his answer, Jisung’s face still cradled in his palms. He wracks pensive thumbs over his cheekbones, catching on stray tears as they go.

“I’ve pondered a while on my misery, during the summer.” He says, at last. “On why I could not have something I dearly wished to have. It all circled back to my parents, and the way I was raised: to feel nothing, and even if I did, to show it to no one.”

He sucks in a breath, lets his hands fall from Jisung’s face. “I realized two things. One, my family doesn’t have another heir. No siblings, no cousins, just me. I realized that no matter what I do, no matter how gravely I disappoint them, the seat cannot be given to anyone but me.”

Jisung stares, trying to make sense of it all. His head is swimming with simultaneous needs for many things, the need to have Minho’s hands on him again, the need to let him finish what he has to say, for he rarely strings so many sentences together with this much tranquility.

“Second.” Minho continues, “That it is all – futile. The terror of making my feelings known, the prospect of my father’s fury upon finding out that I prefer men, the prospect of losing a seat that would give me nothing but a larger weight to carry… none of it compared to the look on your face that night. When I left you.”

Jisung’s breath hitches, eyes welling with more fervent ardor. “You—”

“I told them.”  Minho confirms, smiling a sickly thing. “I told them about how I felt about you, I told them I did not care for their goddamned seat. Well, it’s still mine. But they’ve refused to talk to me since.”

Reeling, he lets out a sob, or a laugh. It’s hard to tell which he’s leaning more into. “Why didn’t you – you idiot, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought the damage I did was irreversible.” Minho says, a minute shake of his head. “I thought you wouldn’t want to see my face again.”

Jisung is still trembling, just a little, not from anger or frustration or exhaustion – from relief. His head drops forward onto Minho’s shoulder. “You’re an idiot.”

A hand comes up to rest lightly against the back of his neck. “I know.”

“You made me wait all summer.” If Jisung is whining, that’s only for him to know.

Minho sucks in a breath. “You waited?”

“Merlin—” He grumbles, pulls back to glare at that infuriatingly gorgeous face. “Of course, I did, you twat! I wrote you so many letters.”

There’s something akin to wonder shining in Minho’s crinkling eyes. “You never sent them.”

“They weren’t the kind you’d want to read.” Jisung shrugs. “I accidentally sent you a Patronus, though.”

The hand at his nape shifts, first to the side of his neck, then to his jaw. Minho looks at him, searching, positively awestruck. “I thought I was imagining things.”

“Hm. I tend to have that effect on people.” He grins, leaning into the warmth of the palm. “So…”

“Hm?” Minho tilts his head.

“You have a crush on me."

“Godric, Jisung—” Minho huffs, giggling, smile so radiant that it’s difficult to look at. “I more than have a crush on you, if you must know.”

He feels heat rush to his face with the admission, gravitating closer, grinning, vibrating. “Then why aren’t you kissing me already?”

That has him stilling, hesitation bleeding through in an infinitesimal moment, and Jisung worries that it’s too soon to ask, too sudden, and that Minho might crawl right back into his head, and that he’s gone and ruined everything –

He feels the softest of lips pressed to his forehead, and somehow, his whole body aches with it.

“I want to show you something first.” Minho whispers, pulling back. “And you have class in ten minutes.”

“So do you.” Jisung mumbles, heat rising north from his neck.

An arched brow pins him straight. “Yes, but I’m not weeks behind because I forgot to wear a scarf that one time.”

Jisung’s mouth drops open, arms folding in affront. “At least I’m not a stalker.”

Minho hums, pointedly looking away as he begins sliding out of bed, brows raised, “At least I don’t snore.”

“You—” Jisung shouts, cackling, and scrambles to rush out from underneath the covers after Minho. “At least I’m not emotionally constipated!”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

At the end of his very educational – read: boring – class, he doesn’t expect Minho to be waiting right outside of his lecture hall.

He stands, shirt and vest and robes and dress pants as pristine as is custom, standing right before the door – in everyone’s way – but doesn’t seem to have any qualms with the weird looks thrown his way.

Hyunjin eyes him, then Jisung, with a seamless smirk. “Good luck, Han.”

“Don’t start.” Jisung waves him off, trudges over to Minho with an easy smile. “Hey.”

“Ready to get kidnapped?” Minho asks, flat. If Jisung hadn’t seen the way he was giggling this morning, he would be more than a little intimidated.

As it stands, he has acquired the privilege of witnessing Lee Minho not be a complete brood. “Yep.” He extends a hand, signaling for him to take it. “All yours.”

Something flickers beneath Minho’s demeanor at the deliberate choice of wording. He accepts the offer, and the hand. “Good.”

He leads them through shifting corridors, courtyards full of blooms and fruiting trees, towards what appears to be the wing where the Astronomy Tower, and its endless set of stairs, stand.

“Merlin. No.” He whines, when, sure enough, Minho begins tugging him up the stairs. “I swear, if this is an elaborate invitation to stargaze with you, we can just save the stairs and go back to my room. I know how to climb out of the windows.”

Minho laughs, small and genuine, but doesn’t relinquish his hold. “No. Too dangerous.”

“This is dangerous for my health.” Jisung pants.

“Exercise is dangerous for your health?” Minho quips, sending a disbelieving grin over his shoulder. “That complicates a lot of things.”

Fuck. If the stairs don’t do him in, this new side of Minho certainly will.

“I don’t appreciate you making sexual innuendos when my heartrate is already elevated.” He informs, now fully pulling Minho’s arm to be able to continue his climb. “Also dangerous.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

Alas, they reach the top in one piece. Mostly. Jisung’s pulse is pounding too loud in his ears to check for any internal injuries just yet.

Tired, he lets the weight of his body propel him forward, lets his chin hook on the curved point where Minho’s neck meets his shoulder. Arms come up around him – strong, heavy on his waist. Jisung is sort of completely inebriated by the rush of emotion alone.

“Are you okay?” Minho chuckles, swaying them lightly from side to side.

“No.” Jisung grunts, muffled by the frilly fabric of the robes. “Won’t be okay for the foreseeable future. You’ll just have to keep holding me.”

“Mhm. That can be arranged.”

A few moments pass, in a comfortable sort of quietude.

“What did you want to show me, then?” Jisung murmurs, pulling back ever so slightly to catch his eye. “Should I be scared? Considering the last time we were here together.”

“That’s precisely why.” Minho squeezes him harder, for a moment. Sighs, eyes darting away. “This is where I broke your trust in me. Seemed fitting to ask for it back, here.”

Jisung nods, waiting.

Minho drops his arms, retreats a few, measured steps. Abruptly, the room feels colder. “I’ve never been very good at conjuring a Patronus.” He starts, pulling his wand out of its holster. It’s made from dark oak, smooth, shining like a particularly elegant dagger. Jisung has only ever seen it once, before – during the duel. He hadn’t the wits to appreciate it then, but he does, now. It seems to be a perfect counterpart for Minho.

“It’s always been fragile, and short-lived. Never a fully realized one.” He turns the wand over in his hand, studying it as though it holds the blame. “My family was very disappointed when they found out it was a small, unassuming creature. I suppose they expected something more imposing.”

He sighs, once more; extends the wand. Whispers, almost a breath: “Expecto Patronum.”

A glimmering thread wisps through the room, bundles itself into an orb. Slowly, carefully, grows shape.

Jisung almost chokes with the way a disgruntled laugh shoots up his throat, barely tampering it. Minho’s Patronus is a – it’s a rabbit.

“And I thought mine was the oddest.” He mumbles, mostly to himself.

Minho cracks a smile, watching the little rabbit skitter around the room. It’s not faint, or dulled – a full-bodied shape of light, graceful, sure-footed, alive. It bounds across the stones, jovial and pure, before jumping curiously to Jisung, circling about his feet.

“Hey there.” Jisung crouches, smiling at the sniffling creature. It sidles up to his hand, asking for a scratch; but the moment his hand grazes the ephemeral fur, it dissolves into a silver mist, vanishes.

Smile almost permanently etched on his face, he chances a look up at Minho, who is merely watching him. “She was beautiful.”

“She was you.” Minho breathes, just standing there with his arms loose by his sides, head bowed, expression unguarded. “Rather, what you give me. I think of you, and she appears.”

Jisung’s jaw slackens. He stands up, unsure of what to do, what to say. “Minho…”

“I just needed you to know. What you mean to me.” Minho says, unaware of just how devastating he sounds, how carelessly he turns Jisung’s world upside down. “So that when I kiss you, you’ll know it’s so much more than just that.”

There is no word, no concept adequate to make sense of everything that roars in his chest, ravaging from within, to be let out. To be felt. To be felt with disastrous clarity.

“Oh my God.” Jisung laughs, more air than sound. His eyes sting. “You – pretentious, arrogant git. You could’ve just fucking kissed me, and I would’ve already known.”

“Perhaps.” Minho beams, his own eyes suspiciously glazed over. “But I wanted you to see.”

“I saw.” He blurts, nodding fervently. He needs to be touching, needs Minho close, and he needs it now. “I saw. You can kiss me now.”

“Really?” Minho grins. Steps painstakingly closer. Jisung feels as though he’ll vibrate out of his body with all the damned anticipation. “I can, now?”

“Yes, you can.” He mocks, impatient. “And you should get on with it.”

Minho tilts his head, cat-like in its predatorial edge. “Can’t I savor the moment?”

“You’re genuinely evil.” Jisung points a finger at him. “You want what’s worst for me.”

Minho approaches until the tip of his finger collides delicately with his sternum. Unashamedly laughs in his face. “Cute.”

“Not cute. About to be pissed.” He swats at his chest, then decides to hold onto the lapels of his dress shirt. Always so prim and proper.

“Can’t have that.” Minho nods with a furrowed brow and a pursed smile.

He leans in, barreling through the mere inches that separate their mouths, but doesn’t land. Stops a breath from his mouth, gauging, waiting. Infuriatingly considerate.

Jisung’s breath punches out of him in small increments, fast and heady. He sees the action as it is: a silent request for equal ground. For him to trust as much as Minho has trusted. To not let himself be taken, but to give it over willingly.

With a sigh, he presses his mouth to Minho’s.

It’s a mere peck, at first. Jisung draws back, curious, only to find Minho with his eyes open, watching him. His hands tremble where they hold onto his shirt, and so he skims them up, until he feels the soft tufts of hair at the nape of Minho’s neck.

Minho’s hands at his waist tighten, coiled like a barbwire about to snap. His stare has purpose, rapt and captured by each movement that ticks in his face.

Jisung’s patience snaps.

He dives in for everything he’s been promised, and more. He makes sure to wring every bit of his due out of him, every moment that they could’ve been doing this, but didn’t. He kisses Minho as though castigating him for every instance that he withheld this from Jisung, for every instance that he held himself back.

Minho groans, low and long, grappling at the clothing on his shoulders. He steps forward, knees knocking into one another, until Jisung’s back hits a wall – he cannot tell which, and doesn’t care to find out. A palm is cupped to the back of his head a moment before impact, and kept delved into his hair, clawing at the roots.

“Okay?” Minho checks in, barely managing to escape his ministrations to utter the word.

Jisung simply hums, sinking his teeth into that plush bottom lip. It feels exactly as he’s pictured it: tangy, soft, intoxicating. He’s intoxicated, and delirious, and he has to press closer, so he does. Wraps his arms tight around Minho’s neck and tugs until not an inch of space remains between them.

Minho moans, open-mouthed, onto his tongue. Breathy. Strangled. Jisung wonders how he’s been doing anything but this, all this time.

Within minutes, they learn how to work their angles. Minho yanks at the root of his hair, and Jisung’s jaw drops open. Minho takes advantage of the fact to lick into his mouth with replenished ferocity, tasting everything, taking more with every breath that quivers loose, with every choked moan that reverberates in the silence.

Jisung loses himself in the heat of it. He no longer thinks so much as he reacts. Every touch, every taut muscle, is a reaction – with Minho reacting in retaliation, in tandem, they spiral uncontrollably into a calamity that intensifies by the second.

Without warning, Minho shoves a thigh between his legs. Jisung keens, high in his throat, knuckles white where they’ve abated to merely holding on to the harsh line of shoulders under his palms. He rocks forward onto the coiled muscle, once, experimental – then blacks out immediately.

He’s no longer responsible for the degenerate noises that tumble freely from his mouth. He barely hears them himself, just a whisper of the high-pitched whimpers that manage to travel through the staccato of grunts Minho presses to the shell of his ear.

His head hits the wall, at some point, or rather he slams Minho’s knuckles onto the surface. Minho – gone as he is, if not more – doesn’t seem to care; just pounces at the bare stretch of his neck the act reveals. It’s messy, unfortunately so. Minho figures out impressively quick which buttons to push, which parts of soft flesh to dig into, where to bite, nibble, where to turn tender with his kisses.

“Minho—” Jisung gasps, too worked up to get ahold of his frenzied hips. “Stop. I’m gonna—”

“Do you want to?” Minho growls into his collarbone, seeming disinclined to stray from the particularly sensitive spot he’s discovered.

Jisung whines, attempts to squirm away – futile, for there is no angle to seek refuge where Minho cannot easily reach. “Yes – God, yes, but not here.”

“Where?” Minho grits, face still buried in his neck, hand still palming at his waist.

A cackle has Jisung jolting, abdomen clenching with both laughter and snaking tension. He shoves Minho off by his shoulders to stave his advances, only to snicker in his face some more.

“What?” Minho blinks rapidly, disgruntled. His hair is a true mess, face flushed, agitated by the forced separation.

“Where?” Jisung laughs, doubling over with the force of it. “Did you – completely stop thinking?”

Minho frowns with effort. “Can you blame me?”

“I meant my room.” He wheezes, holds onto his knees to keep upright. “Where else would we go?"

“Okay.” Minho snips, then dives in to gather Jisung’s already folded frame and sling it over his shoulder. “We’re going to your room, then.”

A shrill yelp shoots out of him, loud in the otherwise quiet. He trashes in Minho’s hold to be let free – huh. Doesn’t seem to be happening. “Let me down!”

“Nope.” Minho already has them a quarter way down the stairs.

Jisung must accept that being subject to these sudden whims is in his fate, at some point. Lee Minho is just a stubborn asshole like that.

He sighs, goes lax in the hold. “You can’t just carry me through the entire school.”

“We’ll apparate.”

“Minho!” He screeches, slaps fruitlessly at his back. “That’s forbidden for students.”

“I don’t have a lot to lose.” Minho shrugs, one shoulder digging into his abdomen with the gesture.

Next thing Jisung remembers – a nauseating blur.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

That night, Jisung watches him sleep. He’s never done that, he thinks – he’s seen him asleep, but never truly stopped to cherish it. Such wasted opportunity. Minho, unlike other moments in time Jisung’s witnessed his slumber in short intervals, looks peaceful in his heavy slumber. Young. Decidedly not evil – although, that has long since been proven.

He’s curled into Jisung’s shoulder, arms slung across his waist, feet entangled. Pale planes of skin glimmer, shadows shifting over, where the duvet has slipped. Smooth, little scars here and there, muscled but lenient. Perfect.

He’s been perfect. All night. It’s nearing dawn, now, and Jisung’s exhausted. Minho’s been inventing many new ways to extricate his energy int something tangible, something magnificent and real, the ebb and flow of their bodies enough to render him lethargic enough to sleep throughout the oncoming day.

It’s just that – he wants to watch him sleep, just for a little while more.

Minho shifts, a quiet huff, a fluttering eyelid. Tilts his head, so that Jisung’s shoulder pokes into his cheek, eyes barely opened. “Jisung?”

“Hm?” Jisung runs delicate fingertips across his cheek, down his nose, across his pouty cupid’s bow.

It stretches sweetly with his smile. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“I’m watching you.”

“Creep.” Minho mumbles, absentminded. Afterthought. He’s so pliant, so cloying.

“Do you know,” Jisung whispers, fingers still on a mission to map every inch of that marble face. “How pretty you are?”

Minho groans, conceals that achingly beautiful smile in his neck. “Not as pretty as you.”

He shakes his head, more like a quiver than the full thing. Even his neck is sore. “Way prettier than me.”

“You’re very sleep-deprived.” Minho quips. His hand twitches on the side of his ribs, press on skin that has already been pressed a million times over. Jisung wouldn’t mind a million more.

“Maybe. But I feel quite rejuvenized."

A snort. Quiet. Proud. “That good?”

“I’m not going to answer that.”

Minho hums, lifts himself on a haphazardly propped elbow. Watches Jisung’s face, the way he’d been doing mere minutes ago. “Jisung.”

An amused roll of his eyes precedes the weary, “Yes?”

“You know, right?”

Know what, Jisung means to say, mouth shaping around the words – but then it dawns. Breath catching, teetering on a full-blown gasp, he can only stare back, eyes rushing to dampen in a flash.

You know, right? That I love you.

He has no inkling as to what his face is doing, but it must be something akin to pure astonishment. Pure, unadulterated incredulity – for Minho’s face morphs along, dreading but open. Finally, finally unafraid to let every aspect of his feelings wash over him, one by one.

Doubt, fear, resolution… then something smaller. Tender. Something that can only translate as – as love.

Jisung nods. It’s fast, exhilarated, eager.

“I know.” He breathes, cups Minho’s face in a trembling palm, drags him down for a kiss. Seals their mouths in nothing more than the warmest peck. It continues to baffle him, how he can just do that, now. Whenever he wants. Which might be all the time.

He draws back, but Minho chases after it. Another peck, one that turns into three, then four, then a tongue tracing the seam of his mouth.

“Me, too.” He lets into the split seconds of air between kisses. Minho outright moans into his mouth, pushes him harder into the mattress.

He might not be able to voice it just yet – too soon, too heavy in this fragile thing they’ve got cradled between their chests, but Jisung knows. He knows, he has known for some time himself, and the way his heart sings with the sentiment is more devastatingly raw than any two-syllabled word can convey.

But, it’s a great start. Love.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Wintertime descends upon Hogwarts in what feels like a single evening.

A blink, and the snow-fallen rooftop is no longer eligible for Minho and Jisung to sprawl on, hand in hand, stargazing. Because Jisung absolutely refuses to climb up to the Astronomy Tower – he’s been getting plenty exercise lately, thank you very much – and refuses with equal vigor to let Minho try and apparate them again.

Another blink, and the Great Hall is exceedingly ornamented to the point of blinding those who dare to stare directly at whichever wall. There are mistletoes hanging at every entrance, which – actually, that might be the only thing Jisung cannot complain about. Minho is nothing but traditional, after all.

They have begun an increasingly obnoxious tradition of getting their hands on a fearsome amount of hot chocolate powder and hanging out in Changbin’s room. Seungmin and Minho often show up unannounced, stashed under the Invisibility Cloak, bearing many mugs and many promises to study whilst they are together. Often times, they do not.

After a few hours of chatting, all the while spiking their beverages with no small amounts of firewhisky, things move along. Card game nights are dangerous: Seungmin and Minho get so passionate and competitive that it ignites genuine fear within their respective boyfriends, and Changbin and Jisung are too prone to cheat to let said boyfriends win before any murderous threats ensue. Movie nights are much calmer – except that half the movie is usually tainted with the undercurrent of Changbin’s ambitious snoring.

In the end, they all retire to their rooms, cast a strengthened Muffliato, and refuse to acknowledge each other in the morning. It’s the most fun Jisung has ever had in his life.

The gremlins are a constable in their lives – though Jisung fears the sight of them more than he expects. With Chan gone to occupy Felix with his mediating, tranquil influence, he’s basically been thrown amongst the wolves in his absence. The wolves being Raven and Claws – except, no one refers to them as such anymore, since they’ve unleashed a beast within Felix and initiated him to complete a trio of pure mischief and misfortune. Now, they are the gremlins.

One time, they had all been enjoying a delectable, serene butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks, when they insisted they had come bearing gifts, only to hand them all Hiccough Sweets. Safe to say, they got kicked out of the damned bar. And Jisung, understandably shocked by the severity of his bodily reaction, ended up choking on one… then having to publicly be escorted to the infirmary wing. From a jokester candy. Minho had hiccoughed out deafening, tinkling laughter the whole way there and back. Sometimes, it rings in his ears still.

Alas, the first four months of his seventh year have been… eventful. Busy and messy and filled with surging laughter, filled with their friends, assignments, classes, and between them all, Minho.

It’s better than he could’ve ever imagined.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

They decide to spend the night of Christmas Eve all huddled in Changbin’s dorm. It’s a hassle: the cloak has to be brought to and fro for the entire group, which takes a considerable while to accomplish. Nonetheless, it works, and it’s an evening to behold.

Movies are watched. Various brands of festivity-themed candy consumed. Not the mention the copious amounts of Special Brew concocted by none other than Changbin himself – never a good omen. Which is why Minho refuses to touch his own glass, having opted to bring his own bottle of wine that he pretends not to notice Jisung take coveted sips from.

All is well. Hyunjin has been smoking out of the window, last time he checked, one eye on Jeongin and Felix, who were producing a suspicious bout of muffled giggling while going through Changbin’s desk drawers.

Well, he doesn’t know for sure. It’s been quite some time since he, dizzy and sleepy from the alcohol circulating in his system, took one look at Minho – sat on the floor with his back to a velvet sofa, a dusted book propped open on one hand – and decided he would make a nice pillow for his spinning head. A comfortable lucidity graced him for about five blissful seconds, but then a hand began scratching at his scalp, just the way he liked, and he couldn’t help the way he promptly checked out of reality.

That is, until a shriek slices through his dreamscape, effectively jolting him awake.

He scrambles upright, afraid for his life, jamming his head up into Minho’s book in the process. Minho steadies him with little effort, stashes his book, tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear.

Naturally, Jisung loses track of every thought he’s ever had, including the reason for his abrupt wakefulness. It’s baffling, how easily Minho can make him forget of all else but the two of them, with a simple look and a fleeting touch.

But then the shrill screeching continues, and Jisung has to look away, no doubt about to witness another seamless prank that –

Chan.

Standing by the door, mostly obscured by Felix’s hands and legs wrapped around his entire torso, but – Chan. Here.

“What the hell?” He screams, flying to his feet, practically hurtling himself at the man. His arms flail around the broadened shoulders automatically; he does not care if Felix gets squeezed half to death in the middle of it all.

Chan laughs, puts Felix down as gently as he can with one of his arms wrapped around a vibrating Jisung. His hair is a little longer than the last time he’s seen him, eyes a bit brighter, frame filled out even more.

Jisung cannot contain his laughter, his glee. “What are you doing here?”

Chan still grins the same. Still that warmth pouring out of his very being. It’s only been a few months, but it feels as though it’s been years since Jisung’s been at the receiving end of it. “Surprise?”

“Hi, hyung!” Jeongin calls, waving enthusiastically.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Jisung punches his shoulder, still reeling from the shock. “I would’ve gotten you a present or something!”

“Don’t need a present, Sung.” Chan nods down at himself, at the way he has Felix tucked under one arm, Jisung under another. “Just wanted to surprise you.”

“Idiot.” He mumbles, then relinquishes his death-grip to give him and Felix some room to catch up. His eyes land on Changbin, as though drawn to a blaring light, perched on the sofa with Seungmin’s legs draped over his lap and a conspiratorial grin plastered on his face.

“You—” He approaches, accusing finger at the ready, “You knew about this.”

Minho wraps a protective arm around his knees before he can get any further, still sat where Jisung left him. He seems mostly entertained by the whole scene.

Changbin nods at somewhere over Jisung’s shoulder, eyes twinkling with mirth. “What’s up, Channie?”

Jisung doesn’t wait for a response to come. He advances at the sofa, springy with adrenaline, but Minho’s arm holds him firmly in place. “This is getting ridiculous!” He calls, instead, “You’re on strike three, hyung! This is the third time this year you’ve kept things from me!”

Changbin cackles, rewards him a pointing finger of his own. “Like you wouldn’t have blabbered to Minho the second I told you.”

“So, what?” His arms flail up. “Who’s Minho going to tell? Seungmin? He already knows because you blabber to him the second his hand touches your dick!”

“Jisung.” Minho warns, but his lips are twitching around held-back laughter.

“What?” He snaps down at him, no real bite to it. “Are you not going to defend my honor?”

“You make it sound like he staged a coup.” Seungmin jabs, snickering.

“Who staged a coup?” Chan comes up from behind him, slinging an arm around his shoulders. Gaze traveling down to where Jisung is held in place by his knees, his eyes meet Minho’s.

They exchange a mutual nod that Jisung does not want to know the context behind.

“I see you’ve fared well without me.” Chan chooses to muse, squeezing him tighter. “You’re all grown up, huh?”

“Well, it had to get worse before it got better.” Jisung mumbles, still glaring forward. “Since Changbin wasn’t much help. Busy staging coups.”

“I see.” Chan nods, twitching from what can only be contained amusement. Everyone is against him, these days. “And how have you been, Binnie? Besides staging coups?”

“Annoying.” Jisung answers for him.

Chan sighs, mocking enervation. “I can’t decide if I should visit more often, or less.”

“More.” Jisung rushes, at the same time as Changbin snips, “Less.”

Chan’s whole face lights up with the force of his smile. “Glad to see nothing has changed.”

So much has changed, Jisung thinks, but truly, nothing has. Changbin is still obnoxious about Seungmin, only now, it’s reciprocated. Hyunjin still talks in enigmas and ominous statements. Jeongin is still a child, no matter that he’s halfway through his sixth year and no longer the timid second-year they’ve adopted. Minho is… well, he’s still relatively quiet, opting to observe the ruin rather than add fuel to fire.

Jisung is, for the most part, severely inebriated and more than a little clingy. That’s not much of a change, either.

Afterward, they spend the evening tucked into a small circle on the carpet, drinking impossibly more, proposing aimless games that get them nowhere but drunker by the hour.

Felix actually manages to coerce Seungmin into a dance-off – everyone is pleasantly surprised to find out that none of them aren’t half-bad dancers. Jeongin is discovered to be the only person amongst them who’s able to hold a handstand. That is a grave discovery, for most of Changbin’s furniture end up obtaining increasingly hazardous damages on the way to it.

At one point, Chan cries – it proves to be surprising only to Minho, who has not yet been subjected long enough to Chan’s antics. He ranges from mildly uncomfortable to severely distressed the longer Chan cries, uncertain how to react, especially considering how everybody chooses to laugh at him instead of offering placates. He figures that it’s a common occurrence, eventually.

They pick out a movie. Notwithstanding that the process of selection takes longer than any discussion has any right to be, it is also interrupted halfway through by the borderline-indecent making out Changbin and Seungmin decide to partake in. The rest of them resort to merciless heckling until they give up.

By the end of it, everyone is exhausted, and sprawled on various states of unconsciousness all across the room. Jeongin is asleep on Changbin’s bed, who is curled on the couch, body completely blanketing Seungmin. Hyunjin is quietly nursing a cigarette, once again perched on his spot by the windowsill. Chan and Felix are leant against the bed, whispering, drooping eyes and slurred words bleeding together.

Glancing around, drunk on wine and a damn good time, he realizes: this is everything he’s ever hoped to get. And he’s got it.

A family.

Smiling to himself, he lifts his head from Minho’s shoulder, waits for him to stray his attention from his hands. Minho’s been fiddling with them absentmindedly for a good quarter of the last hour.

“Hm?” Minho turns, intertwines their fingers instead.

“Wanna go to sleep?”

“Merlin. Yes.” He slurs, letting his own head drop against Jisung’s throat. He plants a featherlight kiss right under his jaw.

“Not here.” Jisung giggles, barely able to crack his eyes back open after each blink. “My bed is right through that door.”

“Too far.” Minho declares, sheer bodyweight enough to tilt Jisung sideways.

He slams a palm on the floor before he does something unfortunate like topple over and hauls himself up on two unsteady feet. “Come on, you big baby.” He grits, attempting to pull Minho up just by the one arm socket within his immediate reach.

Minho gets himself up eventually. Together, they trudge over to the next room, tripping over each other’s feet, giggling up a storm. Smitten. Comfortable.

Jisung tugs Minho’s shirt off, because he knows Minho runs hot during the night, and he’s too drunk to maneuver it off himself. In retaliation, Minho instantly curls up behind him, bodies molding into one another, because he knows Jisung runs cold.

There are many things, that they know. About, and despite. Jisung fears Minho has come to know everything there is to know about him, courtesy to his inability to keep his mouth shut – and he has learned just as much about Minho, despite his steady aversion to revealing anything about himself.

Still, there are many things that they can say, now.

“I love you.” Minho presses into his nape, lips snug against the skin.

It’s not progress, not anymore. It’s a promise.

Habit.

“I love you.” Jisung murmurs, right before sleep overtakes him.