Chapter Text
***
“So, you’re not coming?”
Jeonghan lazily drawls out, slumping gracefully on Jisoo’s bed. Gracefully, because that’s how Jeonghan functions, that’s how he was programmed by the gods. He’s grace and beauty and power and vigor as opposed to Jisoo’s uneasy and fiddly.
He’s not even supposed to be here, in Jisoo’s apartment. He just moved out and it’s as if he’s still one with Jisoo’s bed.
He finds it surprising they’re still friends.
“No,” Jisoo sighs. “I really don’t want to get drunk tonight.”
“Well, that’s new.”
There it is again. The smile—Jeonghan’s smile. That smile that speaks too much about Jisoo himself. The smile that knows he’s holding back, and he’s doing a bad job trying to hide it. The smile that makes him want to either beg the older to touch him or hide in embarrassment.
He chooses the latter, opting to shake his head and bury his face in his hands.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m exhausted.”
Jeonghan stands, with a groan that suggest he’s standing from his very comfortable supine position so Jisoo must feel honored as it is an act done for his deliverance, and he makes his way to Jisoo’s pathetic figure seated on the chair of his study. He brings a hand to the younger’s nape, stroking him like one would to a cat.
It’s supposed to be a comforting gesture; and it would be, if this was ages ago when Jisoo only ever saw Jeonghan as a buddy and not as the irresistible man that he is today.
If this was a time way before their breakup.
As always, Jisoo restrains himself, wills himself not to purr or even lean to the warmth like he used to.
He doesn’t want to make Jeonghan feel uncomfortable.
They’re friends.
“You sure, baby?” Jeonghan says, sounding worried. “It won’t be fun without you there.”
Jisoo gives him a tight-lipped smile. “I’m sure it will be fun with all the boys there. Mingyu promised the group chat that he’ll get Chan super wasted tonight. It’ll be fine.”
Jeonghan only raises a brow at how ridiculous that sounded.
“Okay,” he exhales stubbornly, finally hearing himself. “Maybe not exactly fine. But it will be fun.”
“I don’t know,” Jeonghan says after a thought. “I don’t really want to be there if you aren’t.”
“Oh, c’mon. You love drinking more than anything.”
“Never more than you.”
His heart stops at that and his ears swelter. Lucky for him, he mastered the art of hiding feelings, so, on-the-spot, he can camouflage his discompose as something sheer.
“Liar.” Jisoo clears his throat in an attempt to lower his pitch. “I’ve seen you make-out with a bottle of vodka.”
Jeonghan snickers with a satisfied look on his face.
“I’ll stay here,” the older declares. “Wouldn’t want you to be lonely without me.”
Jisoo gasps, crossing his arms on his chest and raising a brow at that ridiculous statement. “Excuse me. I’m completely fine without you. Competent. Unremarkable.”
“Unremarkable?”
“D-Did I stutter?”
Jeonghan chuckles lightly, thumb rubbing Jisoo’s cheek, leaving a trail of fire on the path of skin. “You don’t mean that. You need me.”
Jisoo pauses for a second, thinking of a witty come-back, but the word unremarkable is the current extent of his wits. He’s just really exhausted and he could use a nap.
He settles for yielding just this moment.
“Okay, fine,” Jisoo sighs. “I’m so lost without you, thou great redeemer.”
Jeonghan takes him by the hand and guides him to the bed, settling them so they’re lying comfortably together. Jeonghan tucks an arm under his head, face buried in Jisoo’s nape. Jisoo tries to stiffen, to at least feel alarmed at the obvious occurrence that he’s cuddling with his ex-boyfriend, tries to accept that in some people’s books, he’s probably a whore now.
But it doesn’t really matter if he’s a whore or not (yes, it does—it concerns his mother) since all that rushes through his veins are comfort and peace and care and longing.
A shit load of longing.
With his overthinking, his heartbeat quickens but he quickly shuts it up by internally screaming: Delusional! He’s never gonna do anything with you.
Well… At least not anymore.
But that’s not entirely true, if he’s being honest, because as much as Jisoo is an airhead at times, and he has had trouble reading hints and signs, he’s not that much of a dense being to not feel anything. Especially if it’s from the only man he ever tried to settle down with.
Sure, he notices.
The tender brush of his fingertips on the short hairs of his nape.
The lingering gazes that melt him when he’s across the room.
The hand that never seem to leave its grip on his thigh for as long as it can help.
Have he mentioned they’ve broken up? A few months ago. But he hopes Jeonghan will do something.
Touch me, goddammit!
Jisoo pays attention more than he should. He does so because everything—the playful smile playing on Jeonghan’s lips, the sly winks whenever the older is warning him of another mischievous act, the obscene way his tongue wets his lips as he looks at Jisoo with hunger in his eyes—makes him burn, insides engulfed in blue, blood-curdling fire that eats his sanity.
And if not for the littlest ounce of self-restraint that he has, he will succumb again to the lust that is Yoon Jeonghan.
Hell, he will beg for it. Over and over, given another chance.
Oh, don’t be absurd, a voice in his head startles him. A voice that sounds awfully identical to Morgan Freeman’s. It was you who broke up with him.
As much as it hurts to admit, Morgan Freeman is right.
In his defense, the break up was called for. One moment they were together, the next they were gone.
Before he knows it, he’s in bed with his ex-boyfriend spooning him, the warmth of the older’s chest against his back channeling a whopping load of unresolved desire in Jisoo.
“Let’s get breakfast tomorrow,” Jeonghan murmurs against his skin, slotting Jisoo’s body against him tighter. “You know, as friends.”
“Y-Yeah,” Jisoo nods as best he could. “Of course. Friendly breakfast.”
A laugh escapes Jeonghan’s increasingly sleepy being. “When did we get this awkward?”
“I don’t know—we broke up months ago and instead of moving on, we’re canoodling on my bed. I’m just as confused as you are.”
“Canoodling?”
“Really?” Jisoo scoffs. “Really, Jeonghan?”
“What?”
“I point out our dysfunctional fellowship, and all you heard was my use of the word canoodling?”
“Wha—Fellowship? Since when is this a scholarship program?”
“Stop,” Jisoo groans in frustration, hand swatting Jeonghan’s arm snaked around his waist. “Fellowship because when we broke up, we agreed this isn’t a relationship anymore, so fellowship—like… friendly companionship.”
“Relax,” Jeonghan says, and maybe Jisoo imagined it but he felt someone sniff the back of his head, and Jeonghan sure is, conveniently, the only one attached to his back right now. “I’m just kidding. And yes—fellowship, canoodling… you’re so hot when you use your big boy words.”
Huffy and short-tempered, Jisoo tries to elbow Jeonghan on the ribs, but the man hugs incredibly tight, so he decides to look back instead to maybe shoot him a glare of warning… of some sort.
That action turns out to be a stupid one, unsurprisingly enough. He’s met face to face with an angel. How is he going to not want to jump him now?
He’s being fucking cheesy, but screw that. Yoon Jeonghan is a man carved from alabaster. Does he even have pores?
“You’re staring,” Jeonghan whispers, with that boyish smile of his and hot breath tickling Jisoo’s nose. His breath smells like mint and… Jeonghan. “What, you wanna get back together?”
Jisoo sneers with a cringe and turns back around because his heart is starting to try to escape his thoracic cavity and his cheeks feel like hot coals under the grill.
“You wish,” Jisoo says, grabbing the arm on his waist and pulling it tighter around him—a gesture that can only be blamed on the fact that Jeonghan caught him off guard with that question and he’s now desperate to express all the feelings he has.
So he tightens the hug and snuggles his back closer to Jeonghan’s front because he wants to be closer and leech off more warmth.
(When you’re annoyed with someone you find devilishly attractive, you just have this urge to cuddle with them to death.)
But as he tries to get closer, his ass practically (and unintentionally, gosh—get off his back) dry humps what seems to be…a trouser python.
An action that can only be derived as an attempt to grind against the latter.
Oh, boy.
Hong Jisoo, you never do anything right, do you?
Yes, Morgan Freeman. I never do anything right.
“Since we’re already cuddling, let’s try something else,” Jeonghan says in his ear and it tickles. It makes the hairs on his nape and arms rise and his erection call dibs on the blood supply of his body. If the stiffy nestled in between his butt cheeks is anything to go by, it’s not just him who’s feeling… the naughty.
It makes him feel a tad guilty, but hey, Santa has long before hated his guts, anyway, what difference does it make if he’s feeling the naughty?
When he doesn’t respond quick enough, Jeonghan grazes his teeth on his ear lobe, sending Jisoo in a frenzy of What the fuck? and Fuck me! in less than a second.
“What do you say? Sex… as friends?”
***
“You weren’t there last night,” Minghao sighs exaggeratedly, chin propped by a hand. “Mingyu concocted a sinner mixture of toxic substances, and Chan threw up on Jihoon. They’ve declared war on the group chat.”
“That sounds fun, but I was too tired from all the… stuff.”
Minghao stares at him with an unreadable expression that says the way Jisoo waves his hand dismissively is utterly suspicious. “Mhm. Jeonghan-hyung, too. Missing in action.”
Jisoo feels small under the gaze. “Oh, yeah? Wonder why.”
“Wonder why indeed,” the younger says after a knowing click of his tongue, drawling his words as if they’re to emphasize a certain phenomenon.
It’s one of the times when he’d prefer hanging out with Mingyu or Seungcheol, friends that aren’t keen enough to notice when something is out of proportion. Maybe Jihoon and Vernon, too, those who simply don’t care enough to be bothered.
Alas, Minghao is the only free person from their circle who’s kind enough to have tea with him. It’s also worth noting that Minghao is the only person from their group of friends that is actually willing to accompany him on his daily scheduled afternoon tea and scones. He’s really not in the position to complain.
The other guys think tea is lame.
Jisoo thinks they’re all buffoons.
He brings the rim of his teacup to his lips, sipping slowly and savoring the calming chamomile with his pinky raised for all the tea-haters to see.
“So, how was sex with Jeonghan-hyung last night?”
He chokes on his beverage, feeling the scalding tea water invade all the fragile stuff down the back of his throat, creeping up his breathing holes.
If you’ve ever had milk or cola come out of your nose, and it hurt your sinuses more than Satan spearing your nostrils with his pitchfork of hell repeatedly, imagine the scene with piping hot tea.
“Qwhaft—” Jisoo sputters, nose dripping and tea dribbling on his chin. Dear gods, it burns.
So much for pinky raising.
“Hat aw you fasking!?”
Minghao leers at him with disgust written all over his face, but he hands him a napkin anyway because Minghao is well-mannered.
Now that he’s on his death bed and he has a split second of his life flashing before his eyes, he can deduce that if he’s really with Mingyu or Seungcheol during this time, they won’t let him live. They’ll will be merciless with photos and nicknames.
And they won’t offer napkins, those Neanderthals.
“Damn,” Minghao says, looking grossed out by Jisoo’s tea face and not by the fact that it was caused by an inquiry about the latter’s sex life with his ex-boyfriend. “It was a harmless question. You’re so dramatic.”
“What are you even—“ Jisoo sucks in a raucous breath, trying to get his breathing back on the right track. “How do you even come to that?”
“Well, you were both not there last night. And Jeonghan-hyung never misses out on getting wasted even when you two were together. And although you’re not radiating the after-sex glow, that could just be because you had sex with your ex; that’s never a glow-y moment. And you look too guilty.”
Jisoo thinks he’s unbelievable. “I do not look guilty.”
“Jisoo-hyung, I can tell when you’re annoyed, sleepy, guilty, or when you want me to praise you for taking out my trash when I never even asked you to. You’re like an open book.”
“We didn’t do it, okay?” Jisoo says as he lightly flicks the balled napkin onto the table. “We broke up, so that means anything like that is off the table. I don’t get to have benefits after breaking up with him.”
Minghao hums. “You’re right. You shouldn’t be an asshole, but too bad for if you aren’t getting it. I heard sex with exes are amazing.”
Jisoo just shoots him a glare, and Minghao smiles all goofy, taunting him with a look that says: Did I lie?
So what if they didn’t have sex?
(Not even as friends, to Jisoo’s disappointment.)
“It’s bad enough that we’re not together anymore. Don’t make it awkward.”
“Come to think of it,” Minghao scrunches his nose. “You never told anyone why you broke up.”
Here it is. The question he had been trying to avoid.
And Minghao asked it so casually while the other boys are going around and about just to not touch the topic.
“It’s not a big deal,” Jisoo says, rehearsed and on the script. Just the way Jeonghan and him talked about. “Things were just going too fast.”
“For?”
“Huh?”
Minghao crosses his legs, as if bracing himself for a long talk. Jisoo hopes it ends soon.
“Going too fast for who? Him? You?”
That takes him by surprise.
“O-Oh…” Jisoo trails off.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
The knowing smile on Minghao’s face feels restricting, suffocating. Jisoo doesn’t like being reminded of his stupidity.
“Yes. It was all too fast for me.”
But he’s not anything if not honest.
“Say,” Minghao pries, unable to stop himself since he’s in the middle of a giant scoop which will be announced in a separate group chat where Jisoo and Jeonghan’s presence are not welcome because they are the subject of eleven grown ass men’s thirst for gossip. “What was too fast? I mean, I don’t think the sex was too fast because I clearly remember the day you lost your virginity to him. You were all pink like a peach and limping like the man I ran over with my car. And after that, you fucked like rabbits. I remember you once blew him in Seungcheol-hyung’s closet. The walls are thin, you know, or should I say the closet wood was thin—”
“Shush! All right, I get it! And no, it wasn’t that,” Jisoo frantically tries to silence him by shoving a scone in his mouth.
It’s a yummy scone anyway, so Jisoo isn’t being too mean.
Minghao chews the scone before talking because he’s that well-mannered. “Well if not sex—”
“Stop broadcasting it! It’s not about the frickle frackle!”
He’s met with disbelief in Minghao’s face. “Excuse me—the what?”
“It’s not about the frickle frackle. Gods, why do you only ever think about that?”
“Frickle fra—okay. Whatever,” Minghao says. “If not about the You-Know-What, then what was too fast?”
Maybe Jisoo’s red face could be attributed to the way Minghao makes everything about sex and not the fact that the mere thought of doing it again with Jeonghan makes him feel hot.
“I don’t know!” Jisoo rubs a palm on his face. “We were cuddling after frackling, and he just said the L word out of nowhere.”
The look on Minghao’s friend is priceless. He looks shocked for a moment, but then an emotion crosses his face and it looks like it’s bordering distress.
Jisoo hopes he’s not upset.
“That’s it!?”
Okay, fuck. He’s upset.
“Don’t yell at me! That’s what happened, what can I do about it?”
“Jisoo-hyung,” Minghao starts, voice dripping with disappointment. “I can’t even stress enough now dumb you look to me right now.”
Jisoo gasps, offended. “That’s not nice!”
“You’re not nice! The poor man dropped the L word, and you, of all people, should know that he doesn’t just tell anyone that.”
“Well, what could I have done differently?” Jisoo’s stress levels are rising equal with Minghao’s increasing voice. “We’ve only been dating for three months. Like you said, he doesn’t throw the word around, so I figured that meant a lot for him. And I’m not… I wasn’t ready.”
He feels as small as his voice suddenly. Like everything is too big and too much for him. He’s going to be crushed.
“I’ve never had anyone to drop the L word for as well. I couldn’t comprehend the situation then. I don’t know what the L word stands for. And even ‘til now, I’m lost.”
The best thing about Minghao aside from (Jisoo’s not going to lie) his amazing looks and abundance in talent, is that he actually tries to help. You don’t even have to ask him. He just helps when he can… and maybe mock you on his free time.
If friends can be auctioned, this fella would get the highest bidder.
Likewise if sarcastic monkeys can be auctioned off.
Minghao clicks his tongue after a bit of thought. “Jisoo-hyung, I’m gonna ask you a question and you’re going to answer as quick as you can. Don’t even think.”
“Like fast talk?”
“Exactly.”
He feels suspicious, but he wants to hear the question. “Alright,” Jisoo says, slapping the table with his palm as if he’s in a pub with outlaws as friends and not the fancy, opulent Xu Minghao. “Go on.”
The younger leans in. Between the two of them are the eyes of the amused employee of the tea shop, watching them converse. “Do you love him?”
It takes Jisoo a second.
And another.
And another.
And anoth—
“That’s cheating! You’re thinking!”
Jisoo rolls his eyes with a grunt. “I don’t know., okay!?"
“Ugh. You’re the worst.”
“I know. I’m shit,” Jisoo admits. “You have no idea how scared I am right now.”
“Scared of what?” If Minghao notices the vulnerability in his voice, he’s ignoring it and not treating Jisoo like an incapable person. Jisoo is grateful for that. “He loves you, doesn’t he? A great man like Yoon Jeonghan loves you. He’s all yours.”
Jisoo averts his eyes to the table. “Just—I’m scared I’ll lead him on for nothing. I mean I felt something close to the L word, but I’ve never said that to anyone in my life, so what do I know?”
“Well, you better move quick,” Minghao says, leaning back on his chair and shaking his head. “Someone else might see the greatness in him. Someone who could say the L word and actually mean it. It’s not gonna be long before Jeonghan-hyung finds someone who can L word him more than he thinks you can.”
Jisoo remains silent as he lets the younger’s words sink in.
“Stop fooling around with your ex, Jisoo-hyung. You're smarter than that." Minghao's eyes tell him the younger is genuinely concerned. Jisoo doesn't know why, but he suddenly feels nervous. Minghao reaches across the table for his hand and continues, "Start letting him know where you stand in each other’s lives before it’s too late.”